Author's Note: We did it! 100 reviews! In fact, we got 105 reviews! asterix jumps around, celebrating asterix

You guys are amazing. In just 3 days this story is already a fav of over 40 people.

Thanks so much! Here's the next chapter as thanks for all your comments, praise and suggestions!asterix is very happy asterix

Chapter 6: Preparations

The rest of Wednesday and Thursday passed uneventfully. Inuyasha was taking his own sweet time thinking of a way to get revenge on Kikyou. Kagome had memorized the location of Inuyasha's dog ears and poked them happily whenever she got the chance, knowing that Inuyasha glared at her without needing to see it. Inuyasha noticed that Kagome had taken to holding his hand a little tighter whenever she heard Kikyou and her posse pass her by.

In science class, they had finished their review and were going to be starting their new unit; Astronomy. At the mention of the telescopes they would be using, Inuyasha could detect a small amount of fear rising from Kagome, but it passed quickly.

Miroku, surprisingly, had stopped groping at Sango, as if preparing himself mentally for what he kept referring to as his 'Saturday in heaven'. Sango had also stopped slapping him, saying, "I'm going to give my arm a break so it'll be all good and refreshed for our 'date'." When Kagome had heard this she had laughed so hard that everybody in the vicinity had stared at her. Inuyasha had given them the finger.

Friday's lunchtime had been exceptionally boring for Inuyasha and Miroku; Kagome and Sango did nothing but chat on and on about the shopping they were going to do, the outfits they thought they should wear, with Sango putting in comments about colours and complimenting skin tones. Inuyasha rolled his eyes and looked at Miroku.

"Why are they making such a big fuss about this?" he asked. Miroku shrugged.

"I'm shocked that any human being could talk for so long without their jaw falling off," he said. "Lunchtime is almost over and that's all they've been doing."

Inuyasha shrugged and lay down on his back, watching the clouds go by. He was wondering why the idea of using telescopes had bothered Kagome so much. After that class, she had fallen oddly silent for the rest of the day, leaving quickly. She had seemed really distracted.

Inuyasha shrugged it off. I'll ask her later, he told himself. After the first half of the date, when Sango and Miroku won't be there. He snickered to himself. They said the restaurant was near a lake...

He was knocked out of his reverie when Sango punched him in the chest. "What?" he asked, glaring at her and sitting up. Sango pointed to her watch. It was five minutes to class. "Oh, thanks," Inuyasha said quietly.

"No problem. Try to stay awake," she said. She said a cheery 'goodbye' to Kagome before she and Miroku headed off to their classes. Inuyasha led Kagome back to her locker, leaving her there while he got his stuff, and coming back quickly as always. And, as always, she was waiting for him.

"How can you talk so much?" he asked her, as he led her to their next class. Kagome laughed, poking Inuyasha's dog ears and beaming.

"There's so much to talk about," she said. "Oh, the possibilities..." Her eyes glazed over with happiness as she tried imagined all the sounds and smells of the restaurant, and how nice it would be to stand in front of the lake, maybe with a cool breeze playing with her hair, Inuyasha standing next to her. She shook herself suddenly out of this dream, shocked at herself. How did he end up there? she asked herself, biting her lip. There's no way...

The rest of the day seemed to pass extremely slowly. Kagome found it exceptionally difficult to sit still and pay attention as she thought of a thousand different ways the date could go; good and bad. She liked the good ones better. She thought of how she would soon be walking through the mall with Sango, and smiled widely; it would be -so much fun-.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at her obvious delight at the thought of going clothes shopping. He had no idea why girls liked it so much. To him, clothes shopping consisted of walking into a store, choosing stuff that looked o.k. and seemed to fit, paying for them and walking out. It never took more than fifteen minutes. But girls? They could spend forever in a single store, buy only one shirt, and then go to the store right next door and repeat everything they had done in the first one. It made no sense.

Eventually the day came to a close. Kagome practically bounced all the way to her locker, unconsciously pulling on Inuyasha's hand, making him go faster. He rolled his eyes againas he tuned out her constant babble about how much fun it was going to be, how many shops she and Sango were going to visit, and all the plans she had.

"Okay, I'm just going to go get my stuff, so don't explode with happiness before I get back to watch the spectacle, okay?" he remarked sarcastically. Kagome beamed, poking his dog-ears before waving good-bye and opening her locker. Inuyasha rolled his eyes - he seemed to be doing that a lot lately -and went to get his stuff together.

The hallway where his locker stood was always busy with people. Usually people gave his locker a wide berth, not wanting to come any closer than was necessary to anything that belonged to one of "The Four". But today, Arik was standing in front of it, surrounded by a ring of fawning girls.

"What do you think you're doing?" Inuyasha asked, placing his hands on his hips and glaring at the boy who he used to call his best friend. Arik smiled evilly.

"Just waiting for you to come back," he said. "We need to talk."

Inuyasha bared his fangs. "Get away from my locker, Mr. Cool." Arik laughed.

"Oh, let's not get all angry with each other," he said, waving off the girls that were surrounding him. "Let me alone for a bit," he almost snarled at them, and they slinked away, looking hurt. Arik turned back to Inuyasha. "How are you enjoying life as an outcast?" he asked sarcastically.

"It's actually not that bad," Inuyasha replied, smiling and showing his fangs again. "I would offer for you to try it, but I don't want you coming anywhere near my friends."

"And trust me, I don't want to have anything to do with them," Arik retorted. "Actually, I wanted to make you an offer."

Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. "I don't need any of your help."

"I know, and trust me, even if you did I wouldn't give it to you," Arik answered. "But recently Kikyou did something to me that was not very nice at all, and I was wondering if you could possibly use the services of a popular guy to help get back at her."

Inuyasha tapped a clawed fingernail against his chin, pondering this. "What's the catch?" he asked. Arik laughed.

"No catch. Trust me. I don't want to have anything to do with you, but think of it this way; you're the evil mastermind, and I'm the well-connected tool."

This definitely caught Inuyasha's attention. It was true, with a popular person on their side, there were many more options as to what they could reasonably pull off. Arik could get close to Kikyou without arousing any suspicion. But Inuyasha knew that he couldn't trust Arik, so he decided to be careful about it.

"I'll keep it in mind," Inuyasha answered. "Don't take that as a yes."

"And don't take my offer as one of friendship," Arik replied, smiling sarcastically. "Merely one of joint revenge."

And with that, he walked off, leaving Inuyasha alone with his locker and his thoughts, wondering what Kikyou had done to Arik to make him so desperate as to ask an outcast for help.

When Inuyasha had finally gotten all his stuff together and made his way back to Kagome's locker, he found that she wasn't there anymore. In her place was a note, obviously written by Sango. It read:

Hey, Mr. Ears. Kagome and I got tired of waiting for you. You're too slow. We'll see you tomorrow at the restaurant.

-Sango

P.S. Kagome says bye, and that you should imagine she rubbed your dog-ears because apparently she thinks they're cute. Pathetic, isn't it?

And that was all. Inuyasha smiled, re-reading the note a few times. Leave it to Sango to make such comments. A fly landed on his ear and he scratched at it, making the fly buzz quickly away.

Girls, he thought to himself. No patience whatsoever.

Sango and Kagome walked into the mall, Sango describing everything that she saw with as much detail as she could manage to Kagome.

"Okay, well, the building has only one story; the ceiling's pretty high though, and has these metal beams reaching across it, offering support and looking nice. They have ribbons and stuff hanging from them. Umm...the floor's white tile, and the walls are white paint. The whole mall is arranged in a kind of cross pattern, with the middle place where all the hallways connect being a lounge of sorts. It's really cool, it has a fountain and everything. Umm...well, there's plants everywhere and the whole place looks nice and bright and everything. Oh, here's the first store," Sango said, pulling Kagome off to the left, walking into a brightly lit store with an interesting window display. Sango and Kagome only spent about fifteen minutes in there, and it was more for fun than anything else; the whole place was ridiculously overpriced.

They walked into the store that was right next to the overpriced one, Sango helping Kagome look through the racks of clothing. "That one's nice," she'd say every so often, describing the colour and pattern. After Kagome's arm was getting heavy with at least five different shirts and skirts to go with them, Sango led her to the changerooms.

Kagome changed surprisingly quickly considering the fact that she couldn't see what she was doing. Sango, who had taken up a seat outside of the room that Kagome was in, smiled when Kagome came out wearing a tight, pale-green shirt with a black floral design along the sides and a V-neck, with a plain black skirt that reached down to the girl's knees.

"It looks good, but a little too green for my liking," Sango said. "Though it goes well with your hair."

Kagome rolled her eyes and went back into the changeroom, this time coming out with a baby blue spaghetti strap shirt with a loose denim jacket over it, and a denim skirt.

"Oh, no," Sango said. "Too casual." Kagome shrugged.

They went through three more outfits that way before Kagome ran out of clothes. "That's it for me," she said. "Did you see anything in here that you liked?" she asked, indicating the rest of the store.

"Nah, I'm good," Sango answered. "Come on, let's keep moving." She led Kagome out of that store and into the next one.

They went through three more stores like that, each of them trying on various outfits, Sango telling Kagome what she looked like in each of them so that the girl knew what she was wearing. Finally, in the fifth store, Sango found something that she liked on Kagome.

It was one of those longer, tunic-like shirts. It was black and hip-hugging, bringing out Kagome's figure. The shirt went down to just above her thighs, tightened around the waist by a black loop of fabric with a square buckle the exact same colour as Kagome's eyes. She had a pair of black silk pants that went well with the shirt, and black high heels that complimented the whole outfit very well. Sango clapped her hands together in delight upon seeing Kagome in the outfit, and described it to her.

"It's perfect!" she exclaimed. "Oh, we have to get you that one." Kagome ran her hands over the tight, silky material, smiling at how it felt. "The only thing that we need to do is straighten your hair, and maybe get you a necklace; oh, I have one that would look perfect with that outfit!" Kagome laughed, retreating back into the changeroom.

When she came out, Sango went with her to the cash register and helped her count out the money for the outfit. After all was done and Kagome had the shirt and pants in a bag and the shoes in a box, she turned to Sango.

"Okay, now it's your turn," Kagome said, grinning somewhat evilly. Sango laughed.

"Don't worry, I saw a store with the outfit I want already," Sango said, smiling. Kagome laughed and let Sango pull her over to the store. The blind girl waitedin a soft, cushiony chairwhile Sango pulled the dress she wanted off the rack and disappeared into the changeroom.

"I know you have a crush on him," Kagome called through the door. She smiled when she heard Sango stop moving, and could imagine her best friend glaring at the wooden door separating them.

"I do -not- have a crush on him," Sango replied. "Unlike you and Mr. Ears."

Kagome felt the blood rush to her face and knew she was blushing. "Oh, come on, you know I'm not going on a date with him," she said, "Unlike you and Mr. Hands."

Sango laughed despite herself and walked out of the changeroom. Kagome tilted her head towards Sango. "Well, what does it look like?"

Sango looked at herself in the full-length mirror. "It's a dress with the skirt cut off at a bit of an angle, one side ending just above my knee and the other side ending midway between my knee and the ground," she described, earning herself some odd looks from the other patrons of the store. "It's dark blue, but on the side where the skirt is longer, there's a kind of closed slit thing - you know, where they have the main fabric cut up to the waist but instead of leaving the hole there, they sew in other fabric of a different colour so it's like a triangle...it's kind of difficult to explain," Sango said. "Anyways, that other fabric is a lighter shade of blue. The dress is cut like a tank top, unlike your tunic shirt which had long sleeves. It would probably look good with that sapphire necklace I have kicking around somewhere...and I have shoes for it too..." she mused, before turning away from her reflection and sitting next to Kagome.

"What makes you think I like him?" Sango asked, her face flushing even at the thought of her having a crush on Miroku. Kagome smiled.

"There's just something in your voice when you talk to him, or about him," Kagome explained. "Besides, whenever I ask you about it you get all defensive, and that's a dead giveaway."

Sango gave a slight "humph" and walked back into the changeroom, changing back into her normal clothes and bringing the dress to the cash register. Kagome walked over to her, careful not to walk into any clothing racks.

"I'm sure it looks perfect," Kagome said, smiling. Sango laughed.

"And trust me, yours -does- look perfect," Sango said. "You just need to come over to my house tomorrow morning so I can do your hair and makeup, and find you that necklace."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "You are so much more of a girly-girl than you let on," she said, teasingly. Sango punched her lightly in the shoulder.

"Well, we have to make you look nice for your Inuyasha, now don't we?" she asked, laughing at the blush that immediately returned to Kagome's face. "Come on, let's go."

Inuyasha was at Miroku's house, scowling at him. "You've got to be kidding me," the hanyou muttered.

"No, I'm not kidding you," Miroku said, holding out two different ties. One of them was blue with black stripes, the other one was black with blue dots. "Which one?"

Inuyasha shook his head at Miroku. "I'm really not the kind of guy to turn to for fashion advice," he said, "but if I -had- to choose either one of them I'd go with the stripes." Miroku smiled widely.

"Okay. Great. Now, what are you going to do about clothing? I doubt you have anything...appropriate," Miroku said. Inuyasha rolled his eyes and mumbled something under his breath.

"What's that? I couldn't hear you," Miroku said, cupping his hand over his ear in much the same fashion that Kagome had done a while back. "Could you repeat that a little louder?"

Inuyasha mumbled again.

"Come on, you can do better -"

"My foster mother already picked out something for me to wear!" Inuyasha practically shouted at Miroku. "Jeez, one would think you're deaf or something. And I thought Kagome was the only impaired one in our group."

Miroku gawked at Inuyasha. "You told your -mother- that you were going on a group date?" he asked, his voice full of shock.

"My -foster- mother," Inuyasha corrected. "And no, I didn't. She kind of guessed it on her own."

"Mothers have a way of knowing things," Miroku musingly agreed. "My mother guessed it, too. I think it was when I came into the house singing at the top of my lungs, grabbing some food, giving her a hug and disappearing into my bedroom," he said. Inuyasha rolled his eyes.

"Well, Mr. Sunshine, are you going to go with the stripes or the other one?"

"The stripes. Thank you for your valuable input."

"Yeah, right."

It was Saturday morning, and Inuyasha's alarm clock rudely woke him up at 8:30 in the morning. He groggily opened one eye, glaring at the digital numbers, then picked up the alarm clock and threw it at the wall. It stopped ringing.

"I swear, Inuyasha, you're going to pay for the next alarm clock we have to buy you!" his foster mother shouted up the stairs. "Now come down here and eat some breakfast." Ever since his foster mother had found out about the date (despite his protests that it wasn't -his- date, it was his friend's date) she had been bustling about, trying to make everything perfect. Inuyasha sighed. Ah, well, at least she was a good foster mother.

He walked down the stairs and sat down at the table, giving his 'mother' a weak smile. "But why 8:30?" he complained. His mother clucked her tongue.

"I get the feeling that you care a lot more about this date then you're telling me, so you should be thanking me," she said, waving a spoon at Inuyasha. "And don't ask me how I know. I just know."

Inuyasha stared at her. It was unfair that she knew so much about him!"How do you know?" he asked, ignoring her request.

"Mother's intuition," she said, tapping the side of her head. "We have our ways."

"Sounds like some kind of demon thing," Inuyasha muttered. His mother sighed, going back to her cooking.

"Kagome, sit -still-!" Sango exclaimed. By 9 o'clock Kagome was already over at Sango's house, trying not to move too much while Sango patiently straightened her hair. Finally satisfied with her work, Sango put down her tools-of-the-trade and smiled at the result of her handiwork.

"Another job well done," she complimented herself, and Kagome laughed. "Okay, now we just have to find those necklaces..."

"It's so -early-," Kagome complained. "He's not even picking us up until 5:00!"

"Yeah, well, better safe than sorry," Sango said. Kagome grinned.

"You -are- nervous about this," she said. "Come on, admit it, you like him just a little, teensy-weensy bit."

"I'll never admit it," Sango said, smiling. Kagome gasped.

"You just admitted it!" she screamed, pointing an accusing finger in Sango's direction. "You just admitted that you have something not to admit!"

"That doesn't even make sense!" Sango exclaimed, throwing a pillow at Kagome, who almost fell over laughing.

Miroku paced his bedroom, going over everything in his head. The four of them would be together for the first half of the date, and then for the second half Inuyasha and Kagome would leave the restaurant and he would be alone with Sango. He bit on his fingers, reminding himself that he had to behave. The whole arrangement sounded perfect; Inuyasha would be more than willing to leave, and Miroku had the feeling that he would be happy having Kagome with him.

Yes, it was all perfect.

Now he just had to wait.

Author's Note: Hey everyone! Sorry if that chapter was a little boring, I just felt that the 'big date' needed a little bit of introduction, so here we are. For all you people that have been dying for Inuyasha and Kagome to start falling for each other, be happy:D And if you have any suggestions for the date, do tell me them! In a review! Don't worry, I should have the date chapter up later on today.

Leave reviews! I am review-greedy. . Next up: THE DATE! asterix evil laughter asterix