AN: A deleted set of scenes, from when Eri kidnapped Kagome to go shopping. Takes place between chapters eight and nine. Also answers the question of how Mischa found out about Matsuro working for Kino. (Though it never comes out and directly says that.)

Disclaimer: Kagome and Eri courtesy of Rumiko Takahashi. Matsuro, Chame, and Mischa products of a deranged mind and not for sale. (Though borrowing with permission is allowed.)

A Day In The Life

It seemed to Kagome that it had been months since she had managed to relax and simply enjoy the pleasure of being a normal human without a care besides passing organic chemistry and getting attention of the cute soccer player Souta liked to hang out with.

Admittedly, she had gotten over that crush years ago, but the scar made him look decidedly bad, and like all women, Kagome adored the idea of getting attention from a handsome man who walked the borderline between good and evil.

Eri's cooing over a chic fuzzy sweater brought her back to reality.

"It's adorable, Kagome-chan! And look, robin's egg blue. I love that color. Mamoru-san says it's a good contrast to my eyes."

Privately, Kagome thought every color in the rainbow would be a good contrast for her friend's dark eyes.

"It's very stylish, Eri-chan. And yes, it does look good with your eyes. It wouldn't with mine, but I prefer darker blues."

"You really shouldn't wear blue, Kagome-chan, unless it' picked very properly. Otherwise it makes your eyes look wishy-washy."

Kagome grinned back over the rack at her short-haired friend. "That's why I prefer darker shades of blue. They make my eyes look pretty much gray."

"Only you, Kagome-chan, would rather have gray eyes than blue."

"Hey, after having to see Mischa's eyes all the time, I've given up on making my eyes look blue. It always makes me look off, not to mention it accentuates the fact we're practically identical twins," Kagome said.

Eri giggled.

"What's so funny?"

"Well, you like guys, right?"

Kagome was startled by the question and could only nod.

"If you and Meirin-sempai were really identical twins, wouldn't you say that she'd have the same sexual preferences?"

The clothes slipped from her hands to go back to swinging off their hangers on the rack. "You think Mischa's interested in girls?" Kagome wasn't sure whether to start laughing or to double-check and make sure Mischa wasn't anywhere around and take cover when shoes suddenly started being thrown at her friend.

Eri giggled again. "I did for awhile. And I even squirreled up the courage to ask her about it."

Kagome's eyes grew wider. "You didn't."

Eri waved a hand- still laden with hangers of clothes to try on- without concern. "After being glared into a puddle of Eri-mud for being so impertinent as to ask a personal question of Her Royal Silentness, Meirin-sempai, she said she had absolutely no preference either way, as neither appealed to her."

Kagome decided that since her friend had obviously lived through the dangerous encounter, it was safe to joke around about it. "Is that a direct quote?"

"Nah. But it's so hard to remember what she says, I just translated it for you."

Kagome gave up on trying to look through clothes. Eri's story looked to be much more interesting. "Did she ask why you asked?"

Eri gave her a horrible impression of Mischa's 'you are stupid for asking that' glare. Kagome proved her immunity by sticking her tongue out at her friend, who grinned back. "She didn't ask, of course. But I knew she was thinking about it. So I told her it's because the only people she really talks to outside of her work and school seem to be just you and me. Guess what she did."

Kagome had heard it from Mischa upon occasion, whenever Kagome wondered aloud how Mischa could handle being in Kagome's talkative friend's presence. "Snorted and said you talked to her, not she talked to you?"

Eri pretended to look shocked. "And you didn't even need to think about it." She grabbed Kagome's arm with her free hand and dragged her back to the changing room.

Kagome struggled to keep from falling as her friend expertly navigated tiny openings between racks of clothes. After they had made it to their destination, Eri disappeared into one of the dressing stalls and Kagome leaned against the wall on the other side of the door. She raised her voice to let her be heard through the door. "She's not very tactful, but I told her if she wouldn't make friends, she would just be stuck with me."

There was a rustle of fabric from behind the door. "Oooh, I wonder if she whimpered when she heard that? We're not really the quietest bunch, are we?" Eri said in a muffled voice, and Kagome could faintly hear her snicker.

Kagome snickered as well. "No we aren't. She didn't whimper either. She just sighed melodramatically and started ignoring me. But you notice how she does actually talk to you now?"

"Oh, so she talks to me because you told her to. More proof to me that, if she was aware of hormones, they'd be thinking about you."

"I prefer men."

"We already agreed on that. But I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Meirin-sempai. Anyways, when I pointed out that she still hadn't explained why she talked to you and that she really must like you since she did, you know what she said?"

"To be honest? I don't think she answered at all. Just given you that look and walked off."

"Yeah, I was sort of expecting that too. But she spoke! And I think I'll hear those words until the day I die."

Ne, Eri-chan, you're a business major, not theater."

Eri's head poked out of the door, and the rest of her followed close after. "I'm quite serious, Kagome-chan. She said, and I quote, 'Kurosawa-san, everyone loves Kagome.' And then she gave me that look and walked off."

Kagome was silent for awhile, staring at her friend. Suddenly, Eri's story was so much as humorous as it was unsettling. "So why are you going to remember it forever?" she asked as her friend skipped over to the partitioned mirror to see what the faults were in the outfit she had picked out.

Eri made eye contact with her through the mirror. "Because it was such a surprise that it got me thinking. And she's right, Kagome-chan. Everyone loves you. And don't even think about interrupting," she added as Kagome opened her mouth to disagree. "I'm not done. I thought about this a lot. And why, you wonder, do we think everyone loves you? Quite simply, because you love everyone."

"Ne, Eri-chan, I think you're a few columns short of a spreadsheet."

Eri wordlessly replied by turning around and giving her friend a bear hug that left her gasping for breath.

Regaining use of her lungs, Kagome said weakly, "What was that for?"

Eri giggled. "See what I mean? You tailored your insult for me." She grinned at Kagome's half-hearted glare. "But seriously, Kagome-chan, you do. And if you think about it, you'll see it too."

"I think you're making the entire thing up. Including what Mischa said. Because she wouldn't say it."

Eri's eyes lit in malicious humor, and she eyed the returned clothes rack beside Kagome. Kagome turned her head and followed her friend's gaze. A hideous arrangement of colors better found on sherbert ice cream was spread across the bar. Kagome looked back at her friend, half morbidly curious and half terrified.

The girl's grin took on the same malicious look as her eyes. "Let's make a bet then, shall we? If I'm lying, you get to choose something for me to buy. If I'm telling the truth, I get to choose what you buy."

"Bring it on," Kagome said, not one to back away from challenges she walked into.

"Then whip out your trusty cell phone and call your silent cousin then."

-----

The sudden vibrating of her cell phone distracted Mischa from the stammering tiger youkai in front of her, and he took the unexpected chance to run for it.

Still glaring at the phone number, she flipped the chair he had been cowering on into the air. The chair broke against the youkai's legs, and he crumpled to the ground. She further compounded his lack of movement by quickly moving to stand on him- his back making sickening cracks as she sadistically jumped up and down a few times, testing the steadiness of her unfortunate perch. After his scream of pain stopped, she pressed the answer button.

"Yes?" she said in a low, curt voice.

There was a pause for a time, and she unceremoniously took her head away from the phone and ended the conversation. She returned the phone to her pocket as she looked down to take in her captive prey.

The tiger youkai she stood on was already beginning to mend his broken bones, and started struggling. In a quick flurry of movement she had him held up by the neck, her greater height leaving his feet dangling close to a foot off the ground. Asphyxiation was not lethal to youkai, but it still was very discomforting.

"Shinin, you say, works for a great dragon. And this great dragon seeks the power of the taiyoukai and, through them, the gods. I am not inclined to believe you."

"It's true," he managed to croak out, claws scraping her wrists were she held him. She didn't look as though she noticed she was close to having her entire hand cut off.

She released some of the power in her hold to let him breathe more easily. "What proof do you have?"

"Shinin reports to him almost daily."

"There are such things as shapeshifters."

"Like that hentai would be caught dead looking like the great dragon. He wants sex, not people cowering from him because he's taken the form of the greatest youkai ever to live."

She eyed him shrewdly. "You know this shapeshifter then?"

"He isn't around much. Spying on the opposite side, you know."

She was silent as she stared at him impassively.

"Humans seem to want to trust the people they sleep with. Of course, what the great dragon has him watching now is a miko." The malicious grin that spread across his face told him he knew who she was. "Of course, no one knows how your miko mother managed to not kill your traitorous father to get fat with you. There isn't another youkai alive who would risk getting purified just for a bad lay. Maybe it's you he's fucking right now. He doesn't care what he fucks, so long as he gets what he wants out of the deal."

There was a sickening crunch as she lost control of her temper.

The dark-haired tiger's mouth was still twisted in a rictus of a grin in death.

"I hate cats." Her glare narrowed further as she let the body drop, uncaring of who found it.

-----

Matsuro nearly jumped out of his skin when the low beeping noise started.

Mostly because his cell phone didn't make that noise. It was on vibrate. Which led to wonderful comments, but he was too busy trying to figure out who Higurashi Kagome would be calling while she was out with friends.

And if this was someone else's phone, who had his?

And then he knew. In the scuffle, they both had dropped their phones and had carelessly picked them up. He hadn't bothered to check that it was his, and, as she hadn't glared hers back from him, neither had she.

"If it weren't for bad luck," he told the ringing phone, "I'd have no luck at all."

He concentrated on his vocal cords. "Testing, one, two, three," he said in a low-pitched alto.

Perfect as always, he thought with a grin. He hit the answer button. "Yes?"

There was a slight pause and his face shifted into a grin. Hopefully he would be able to keep that smile out of his voice, he thought, rolling his eyes.

"Kags, who wouldn't love you?"

Amazingly enough, the line went dead from her end.

He snickered. Let the wolf try to get out of that ensuing bursts of screaming once her cousin found her.

-----

"Ne, Kagome-chan, I know that look on your face. It says I'm right and you're wrong," her companion said gleefully.

"Gobsmacked," Kagome finally said.

"Ne, you've been reading too much Harry Potter if you can't find a better adjective to express abject horror and traumatizing shock."

"Eri-chan, after I finish killing Mischa-"

"And buying whatever it is I wish of you," Eri interrupted.

Kagome pretended to not notice the interruption. "I am going to tell Yuka-chan about you trying to seduce Hojo-kun away from her back in senior year."

"Kagome-chan!" Her friend shrieked. "I was drunk!"

Kagome gave her friend the same malicious smirk she had been given minutes ago. "Then you sure as hell aren't going to make me waste my money on those monstrosities," she said, pointing at the discarded clothes beside her.

Eri glared. Kagome glared right back. But Eri didn't study the ruthless business world for nothing. "Then why don't we go look for something not too dreadful?"

-----

Mischa twirled the phone in her hands, wondering how best to approach the redhead. Or if ignoring him would be the better option.

She sneezed. There was a giggle from behind her.

"Trouble," she said.

"Hiya, Kage! Sorry about that, I've gotten so used to wearing that suggestion, I'd forgotten to take it down when I came in."

Mischa gave her standard 'you are stupid' look, and returned her attention to the phone.

"That looks like niisan's phone," the kitsune chirped as she hopped onto the back of Mischa's chair to peer over her shoulder. Mischa evaded the hand meant to lean on the side of her head for balance and it dropped to her cloth-covered shoulder without the kitsune ever realizing the movement.

"It was in my pocket," the blue-eyed woman said, before internally wincing as she realized what Chame could do with what she said.

"And what else of niisan's things have been in your pockets, Kage?" the kitsune asked mischievously.

Mischa shifted slightly where she sat, and the kitsune lost her balance and fell forwards, tumbling to the ground at Mischa's feet.

"Unfortunately, it has only been the phone so far," Matsuro said, entering the room.

Chame snickered, but refrained from comment. Mischa tossed the phone at the redhead and gave him an expectant look.

He grinned. "Would you like me to return your phone to where-"

"Just hand it over, pervert," she said, not giving him time to complete the offer.

He sighed dramatically, kicked his sister in an unspoken order to quit laying around on the floor- something she liked to do- and dropped a different cell phone into Mischa's hands.

As Chame scowled and got off the floor, he said with a grin, "Your miko called."

Before letting her eyes ask a question she wouldn't voice, Matsuro moved around the chair and into the kitchen, intent on raiding the Higurashi's refrigerator. Chame skipped merrily after him, after sticking her tongue out at Mischa.

Mischa continued to twirl the cell phone in her hands, still wondering what she would do with the information she had unexpectedly gotten.

-----

Kagome poked her cousin in the arm. The woman was even more taciturn than normal.

"Ne, Mischa, you haven't explained your words from earlier," Kagome said.

The woman paused, chopsticks in mouth, to give her cousin a look, then returned to eating her dinner as fast as was politely and neatly possible.

Kagome sighed. Her cousin always ate like it was either her last meal or she had never had one before in her life. "You know," she said, twirling her chopsticks in the air, "how no one could not love me? Eri tricked me into buying a hideous coat because I was sure you wouldn't say anything like that. No offense," she went on hurriedly, "but saying something like that, especially to Eri-chan, is completely unlike you."

Mischa continued to eat.

Kagome huffed. Definitely much quieter than normal. Rudely so.

"It is true," the woman finally said, after sipping her tea. Kagome looked about to object to the lack of explanation, but Mischa gave her a look that told Kagome if she thought about it long enough, she'd figure it out.

Since Mischa obviously wasn't going to be any more forthcoming on the subject, Kagome decided to change the subject. "So what's gotten you so grumpy?"

Kagome wasn't surprised that Mischa went from quickly eating her food to suddenly having no food to eat. Nor was she surprised when Mischa disappeared in a brown blur from the low table. Disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised. Mischa was usually honest, but the balance for that honesty was her preference to not give answers at all.

"Now what am I supposed to do with that stupid coat?" she asked the empty place setting.

Well, black was close to brown. Maybe Mischa would trade in her gray oversized Tokyo U. sweater for a black fitted pea coat. It wasn't as if her cousin paid attention to fashions and wouldn't care if more fashionable people like her would find it an eyesore.

And it wasn't as if it wasn't Kagome who talked the usually monochromatic veterinary student into the sweater first place.