A/N: Yeah. So, here it is. You know what? I forgot my train of thought again. Anyway, let's get to review responses, shall we?
Review Responses
IPT (Irken Pop Tart, perhaps?): Renkotsu's a fag. He does seem like the Freudian kind, though, huh? It's only what I think of it. It's just that as it twists to seriousness it gets bad, too many arguments and shouting and confusion. Maybe I should end it comedically. I don't know. Sigh. Anyway, thanks for the review, and I hope you like this chapter. It's sort of odd. Odd to write, I mean. Oh, and if this isn't Irken Pop Tart, I'm sorry. Also sorry if I wrote your name wrong.
Atrephius: Haha. Oh, that's awful- I'm not going to get that depressed. Just a wee bit. But it'll basically be the same, I hope. Anyway, sex in fanfictions is awfully arealistic, hah. It annoys me, so much- sex isn't like that at all. "Throbbing need" and "core of her passion." Sex is always very quick, and I really don't like the kinky oral stuff. It annoys me, and it seems slutty. But everyone loves it. Oh, ah well. I'm really working on more stories, I swear, but it's just too much for me to be able to put everything in conext- well, you understand, right? Anyway, I guess I need a beta. That sounds jazzy; we could be the Dr. Gonzo/Raoul Duke dynamic,a laFear andLoathing In Las Vegas. Anyway, au revoir! Oh, and- you said you go to a school in New York; which one? I'm not too keen on colleges, but if my awful parents force me to go, oh well. I won't go, anyway. Haha. Pardon me. Ciao.
Twisted Badger: Oh, I'm glad you like it. Haha. It's actually getting sort of hard to write this. That was another horrible lie. It's, in actuality, too easy to write this, but I hate things when I write them out of my moods, you know? If there's no emotion, no feeling, no understanding to back the story, the Hell with it. Just, the Hell with it.
Dragon Pearl1: You know, I feel like I felt at the beginning of writing the story- that there's not many reviewers, and it's nice you still follow it to some degree. I thought everyone said that, the"assume" thing,but it might just be a New York-suburb thing. Hmmm...anyway, that's good for Canada! Now they're speaking. Do you live in Canada? And, there's a new Oliver Twist movie coming out? I might go see it, but I'm not too keen on the story; people are stupid, uptight, and boring because everyone is so concentrated on having a goddamned personality and being "individual" that everyone seems the same to me. Oh well. Anyway, I guess I share the same point of view with Jakotsu (in this story, at least); that sex has absolutely nothing to do with love. When I really think about it, I would rather have sex with someone I don't know, so that it wouldn't be weird later. And then I'd get to know them. Anyway, thank you for the review- thank you, merci, gracias, muchas gracias, oh, this is great.
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Part Two: The Ocean
Chapter Sixteen
"Wake up."
Light.
"Wake up, Little Brother."
Blaring light.
"I am not as patient as you believe me to be, Inuyasha. Get up."
Blazing, artificial light. Holy Shit.
I pulled the sheets tighter over my head and clutched them safely. "Turn off. The fucking. Light."
"You have a call," he answered. Goddammit.
"Go. The. Fuck. Away," I moaned, really not in the mood for this right now. Not right now. Jesus creeping shit, not now. I have a blaring, angry headache. I need sleep. I want sleep. Just two more hours of sleep.
I could tell he'd lost his patience with me. "I have no time for your inanities," he said, and threw a small object right on my leg before sweeping off like his usually filled-with-grace self.
"Come back here you bastard!" I yelled, throwing the sheets off. I sighed. Damn. I shouldn't even be up right now…I grabbed the phone and muttered a tired, "Hell-oh!"
A pause. "Hey."
"Hi," I grumbled.
"Look, I have the feeling there's something wrong. So, let's just skip the awkwardness, and let's start over," he answered. "Like, from the beginning. So." He cleared his throat. "Hi. I'm Jakotsu."
I paused. A handshake. Simple as that. Did I really want to meet him all over again?
He took a breath to start saying something, but I beat him to the chase. "I'm Yasha." I shook my head- shit. I could almost see him smiling that idiot smile that came whenever he thought something I did was sweet or cute. "Well, Inuyasha. Miyazaki. Alright? So don't get any ideas, ya got it?"
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"Don't touch that, I said!" I hissed, smacking his hand away from a little play-dough statue of a rabbit or some kind of deformed rainbow animal I'd made in kindergarten, now hard and crusty. "Jeez, what do you not understand about 'don't touch?' I'll be right back soon, so don't do anything stupid. Alright?" I walked back into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes. I wasn't used to having guests over, not this early in the morning. Somehow he'd convinced me to let him over, like he always convinced me to do shit I didn't want to do. And he hadn't even said anything. It'd happened like this: "Uhm…you wanna come over or something?" Just like that. He hadn't even done anything and still he was talking me into dumb shit. I considered the fact that maybe, just maybe, he had ESP or had put subliminal messages on that CD of his.Maybe I was just too tired to fight it. "You hungry?" I called, uncomfortably and awkwardly, from the kitchen.
He shook his head. "No. Thanks. I already ate. I had-"
"I'm not interested in what you're digesting, thanks," I answered, pouring some milk over my cereal. I brought it back to the living room, where he was sitting on the couch, in his uncomfortable looking Catholic-schoolgirl way, legs crossed and hands on his lap. "What time is it?" I asked. For some reason having him in my house made me uncomfortable. I never really let people in my house, save Miroku, who knew my family well enough for me to be comfortable.
"Uhmm," he answered. He peered at the clock above the other sofa. "Ten-fifteen."
"Alright," I answered. "You gotta go soon. My mom's coming home from Church in half an hour."
"Awww," he answered. "Does your mom mind guests?" He put that vague, oh-so-mysterious expression on, tilting his head down and smiling. "Or is she a horrible, nasty bitch? Like my mother?"
"Can it," I grunted, stuffing more cereal in my mouth. "Besides, your mom isn't that bad."
He paused. "I guess not. But she's so stupid. You can't believe how retarded she is. I could just snap my fingers and have her jump off a bridge." He laughed. "Is that mean?"
I rolled my eyes. "No. I mean, it's just so nice to call your own mother stupid. Why would you even think that's mean. Moron." He laughed again. I ate more of my cereal, disgruntled and only waking up now.
I swallowed the cluster of bran flakes I had in my mouth and went for another spoonful. "So, what? Did you walk here?"
"Yah," he answered.
"You don't have a jacket," I pointed out.
"I don't need one," he returned.
The Emperor of Cool came in from the staircase. Obviously he'd gone back to sleep- he'd wake up and do something and then go back to sleep, most of the time for four or five hours. Lazy bum.
But it was what he was wearing that made me pissed at him. "Oi, Sesshoumaru, put some damn clothes on!" I yelled as he sauntered by.
He walked by in his stately boxers and his stately manner and into the kitchen which would probably start to be stately after he even thought of going in, ignoring me ever so gracefully. I sighed exasperatedly. Id-i-ot.
Jakotsu was smiling ever-so-slightly, waking up an impulse in me to strangle him. "Your brother's kinda cute," he said, "in a businessman way. As in, he looks really arrogant. Sorta like he has no time for you."
"Feh," I grumbled.
"But I'm not sure he's my type," he said, stretching out his arms. "Looks like too many people like him."
I grunted again. "Save it. He has a girlfriend already."
"I thought so," he answered. He sighed and smiled, lying down. "Men are like parking spaces, I guess. All the good ones are taken and the only ones available are handicapped." He laughed.
I stayed silent.
Sesshoumaru returned from the kitchen with a glass of milk and a banana, not noticing Jakotsu sitting on the couch opposite him. Jakotsu stifled laughs and I rolled my eyes, both of us wondering when he'd notice Jakotsu.
He didn't even look our way until the Joy Boy Wonder opened his mouth. "Hiii," he said with a wave.
Sesshoumaru turned in his direction and squinted at him, too tired to make him out otherwise. I wished I had a camera- it was a rare occasion that Sesshoumaru was confused. A Kodak fucking moment. "Who are you?" he asked, voice suspicious and sleepy.
"I'm Jakotsu," he replied.
"Why are you in my house?" Sesshoumaru asked, interrogating like a policeman or a mother. And still in his boxers.
"I'm Yasha's friend," he answered, obviously enjoying all this.
Sesshoumaru paused and glared death at me. "Huh." He continued eating his banana, a sure sign that, yes, he would kill me later.
"Sesshou," I heard someone call down the stairs. Great. What was my house, a fucking circus? Rin came into sight, with her thick black hair messed up, wearing one of Sesshoumaru's shirts loosely, face clean and sleepy. Fifteen years old. That fucking jerk. "'Lo, Inu," she said, yawning and rubbing her eye.
"Hi," I said with a limp wave, my face flushing red. The Miyazaki Family Circus, Bayside, New York, Open All Hours. I looked at Sesshoumaru, with the "ooh-I'm-soooo-telling-on-you" look he was giving me at the very moment. Sibling rivlary just reached a whole new fucking level.
She sat down on Sesshoumaru's lap with her thin arms around his neck. She looked over at Jakotsu and blinked. "Who're you?"
Jakotsu looked at me. "He's Jakotsu," I answered. "A uhm friend."
"Oh," she said. "Hello."
"Yeah," Jakotsu mumbled. Rin's presence is an annoyance to a lot of people, just 'cause she's so damn pretty. Either that, or, in Jakotsu's case, they couldn't stand women. Either/or.
We all sat in awkward silence for a while, Jakotsu sitting up, Rin cradled up on Sesshoumaru, Sesshoumaru glaring daggers and guns at me, and me eating my cereal, sitting at the unnerving center of all of this.
Rin made a low, muffled sound, her head buried in the Ice King's neck. I made a clicking sound with my tongue, unsure of what to do now. Ice King finished his breakfast and pushed Rin off him gently, getting up to clean the mess, and went up the stairs. Rin tailed after him in all her glorified prettiness.
Jakotsu just looked at me weirdly. I looked back and rolled my eyes. "How come your brother lives with you, anyway? Isn't he twenty?"
"Twenty-one," I answered. Fifteen years old- what a jerk. I'd kill him. I'd ruin that motherfucker. Oh well. He could do whatever he wanted. It was none of my business. At least now he couldn't penalize me for having Jakotsu over. "'Sides, what's it matter to you why he lives here?"
"Well, he's twenty," he answered. "It's just funny that he lives there. As soon as I'm seventeen I'm outta here. I don't know why anyone would want to put up with their parents for that long."
I sighed. I had to explain this every time. "He broke up with his old girlfriend two months ago. A month after they broke up she got drunk and stuff and found out about Rin-"
"Who?"
"Rin. That other girl. Anyway she went ballistic on his oh-so-high end apartment in the city and ruined it. They're still doing the renovations on it. So he's stayin' here for the time being, instead of getting off his lazy ass and finding himself an apartment and stop making my life more horrible than it needs to be," I answered.
"Oh. What's he work as?" he asked again.
"Real estate. He's a real fuckin' whiz at it," I answered, rolling my eyes. "Basically he buys buildings and sells them. He works with a partner. Some dude named Naraku or some bullshit like that, and his little annoying gofer Jaken."
He paused. "You really don't like him…I can't see why. He's hawt."
I rolled my eyes again. Around Jakotsu, that was the only thing you could do. "Of course. What was I thinking. It's totally okay for me to like my brother because he's hot. You're a fucking genius."
He paused again. "Is he mean to you?"
I didn't answer at first, taking another bite of my cereal and chewing it loud so I could hear the crunch in my ear, and swallowed. I leaned back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. "Feh. What's it matter, anyhow? He's always gonna be the same, and there's no use tryin' to change 'im. He's always gonna be the same stupid cold bastard."
"Is that why you don't like him?" he asked, running a hand through my hair and tugging a little at the end.
I swatted his hand away and drank the milk from the bowl, now stained with crumbs from the bran flakes and sprinkled with gooey piles of sugar. Bran flakes just weren't the same without sugar. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, saying from behind it, "Didn't I just say why I didn't like him?"
"I dunno. I can't relate to you. You like people who are good and nice and stuff. I like people for their…characters? Is that the word? Anyways I think any loser can pull off nice, but only few people can really be individual." He rolled on his back and faltered as he lost balance. "But. Yeah."
I put the bowl away. "Besides, what's got you so interested in my family life all the sudden?" I called from the kitchen, having decided to wash my bowl and stop making my Mom do all the work.
"I don't have any siblings, remember, Yashie?" he called back. "But I have a Nana. Gawd, I hate her. She's such a man. Yesterday, she was yelling at me for-"
"What's with your family, anyhow?" I interrupted, not wanting to hear anymore sick stories about noises and Catholic boys and…I wiped my hands on a dishrag and went back into the living room.
"Whaddyou mean, Yasha?" he asked, looking up.
"I mean, like, your family speaks fifty million languages, and you can talk all of them," I pointed out, wiping some dust off the glass top coffee table. "That's just one of the things."
"It's not fifty million," he said. "It's four. I think. It's English, Japanese, French, and Catalan-"
"And what the Hell is Catalan?" I asked.
"It's a French-Spanish dialect spoken in the Pyrenees Mountains," he answered. "That's were my Nana's from. 'Cause the Pyrenees is in between Spain and France I think. What nationality are you?"
"The Hell's that mean?" I asked defensively.
He laughed. "You're just a little odd looking, y'know?" I gave him the death stare that was usually directed at Miroku. "Oh, don't look at me like that. It's just that you have weird features and stuffers. Like, you have really, reaaaaaly white-blonde hair. And weird color eyes. And you're not the type who would wear contacts or dye your hair. I'm kind of glad you don't, because it's gay when men do stuff like that-" I would like to insert here a note on how often he called things gay or lesbian or homo, despite being the biggest example of gay, lesbian, and homo rolled into one big fucking tortilla- "I just wanna know where you're from, 'cause you look weird."
I looked weird? I was about to ask him if he'd ever looked in a mirror, but before I could I caught my reflection in the TV. Did I really look that weird? Hell. I knew it. Kids at school knew it. The fucking Prince of Wales knew it. Longish, white-blonde hair, some kind of brown-hazel-weird-tan-I-don't-know-what eye color. Sorta thick eyebrows and a tendency to scowl. And I only became fully conscious of this now?
I sighed, still frowning. "My Dad is some kinda Austrian with some Japanese. My mom's all Japanese from what I know." I scowled deeper. "There. Are you happy?"
He stared at me hard for a while. "Actually, yeah, I can see that. The races in you, and stuff." He ran a hand along my face.
"Knock it off," I said, batting his hand like it was a bad fly.
"You're very insecure," he answered. "About the way you look."
"I am not!" I barked, and threw myself on a couch.
He got up from his couch and plopped himself next to me. "What's your room look like?"
"You pervert," I answered. "Why do you want to know? Don't you have a boyfriend?"
His face fell a bit. "Someone told you about that?"
"Yeah," I said. I remembered Renkotsu, thinking that, after he filled me in, I wouldn't want to get him in trouble. "It doesn't matter who. I didn't know 'em. Besides, I saw you and him all over each other at the party."
"Oh," he answered. "Well, what's your room got to do with him?"
"I was just making a joke," I said.
"A joke?"
"About rooms. Do you get it?"
"No. I don't."
"Jesus, forget it," I said in that annoyed, "whatever" tone people get whenever they don't want to talk about something.
"What's it mean?" he urged.
"My God, can't you just drop it?" I asked again, feeling my stomach clench, my neck getting hot.
He went into a quieter, gentler tone. "You know, whatever whoever said to you, I'm not some stupid slut idiot-"
"You've sure made a reputation on being one," I snapped, too annoyed and nervous to keep my big trap shut.
He gave me this death-stare for a minute, running his tongue across his teeth to keep from strangling me. A stare your girlfriend gives you when you're being a dick in front of her parents. A stare a proud woman gives you when she's been insulted. The stare Kagome gave me when I told her what she really was months ago. This harrowing, offended, vulnerable stare. "Maybe I should go," he said, picking up his bag and walking out of the living room.
"Oh, shit," I said, standing up. I shook my head. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. God, it shouldn't even have been a debate. I shouldn't have fucking said that. He should be alone. He shouldn't even have come over. I sat myself down again. Whatever. He needed to cool off.
I heard the door open, and, I, sure he was gone, lay supine and stared at the ceiling. All the sudden, from the hallway, I heard a crash of cans and paper bags, paper, a conversation:
"Gosh! Could you be any clumsier?"
A pause.
Oh shit.
"And who are you, again?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Izayoi," my mother answered. "And this is my house. Are you one of my sons' friends?"
I could hear hesitation. "Uhm. I uh guess. I mean yeah."
"Hmmm." The pauses were killing me slowly. "Inuyasha! Sesshoumaru!"
I froze. Shit. The one thing I'd been avoiding, my prime concern, dashed with just an argument. Shit. Mother Mary. No- this was worse. Too extreme for just the Virgin Mother. Oh Jesus. Oh God. Holy Trinity. Why did I have to call him a slut…
I sat, tense and frozen still, waiting for my brother to come down first amidst my mother's calling and Jakotsu's silence. Sesshoumaru walked by, having thrown on, in a hurry, some jeans and a shirt, giving me a look before proceeding into the entrance room/hall/whatever. I got up cautiously and walked slowly behind him, biting and releasing my bottom lip, my head tilted down in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry to bother you, sweetie," she said to me. I shrugged and continued to look at my feet. Boys," my mother continued, "is this one of your friends?" She wasn't annoyed, just had a look of concern on her face, the gentle look she put on whenever she wanted us to tell the truth.
"Certainly not one of mine," Sesshoumaru said, looking nonchalantly over at me.
"Yours, then, Inuyasha?"
I looked at my mother, who looked confused, then at Sesshoumaru, who looked pissed, and Jakotsu, who looked more uncomfortable than all of us put together, keeping his arms in a closed wraparound position and constantly shuffling his feet, trying not to look at anyone. Catholic school manners again. "Uhmm, yeah," I said, scratching the back of my neck.
"Alright," she said. "Please just tell me when you have friends over. I'd have liked to clean the house a bit so he wouldn't be bothered by the clutter. And just try to remember that your father will be home in a short while. Alright?"
"Okay," I answered, tugging at my hair. I hated anything familial. If there's one thing that ticks Inuyasha Miyazaki off, it's mixing family with friends. It's just stupid. I don't need my friends to do everything with me.
We stayed silent for a moment, when Jakotsu muttered out of the side of his mouth, quietly and annoyed, "I'm going, anyway."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Mom said, turning to him. "I didn't mean to scare you away, now. You can stay for dinner, if you like-"
"No, Mom, I think he wants to go," I interjected.
"Uhmm," Jakotsu said.
"That's that, then," my mother said, and picked up her groceries and church pamphlet, proceeding to the kitchen.
I looked at Jakotsu, leery-eyed. "I'll kill you," I said, and he smiled, as if nothing we'd said even had a lasting effect.
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"So this is your room," he said, spinning around and falling on my bed. He looked up. "It's very you."
"Don't touch anything," was my answer as I sat down on my computer chair.
He sighed, loudly. "Wanna lie down with me?"
"No."
"I bet you do," he answered, again in the provocative voice.
"You're betting on the wrong side of the roulette table," I mumbled, spinning around once.
He sighed. "Well, that's alright. It's fine with me."
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We didn't really do much in the way of entertaining ourselves (I know what you're thinking, and that you're a fucking pervert). We pretty much sat in silence. I did school stuff on the computer, and he read my books and looked at my pictures and read my second grade journal.
He turned over and read another entry out loud, just fucking enthralled with it. "June Fourth," he said, throwing his voice to me over the beginning twangs of Goodbye Horses, "'I hate school because of Susy Lee. Today she was throwing paper at me so I told her to stop and the teacher yelled at me for talking. I made a face at Susy and then the teacher yelled at me again. I hate Susy Lee!'" He laughed. "You were cute."
"Shut up," I grumbled, and went back to typing my essay on the "Settlement Enterprise" for American Issues class.
He ignored me as Goodbye Horses blared in the background:
"He said, 'All things pass into the night'/ And I said- oh no, Sir, I must say you're wrong/ I must disagree/ oh no, Sir, I must say you're wrong/ Won't you listen to me?"
He went on to the net one. "'June Tenth- Today was weird. I was playing a game near our house. It's the game where you throw the ball against the side of the house and see if you can catch it. It's called handball. But that's not why it was weird.
"I saw my brother and his friends on the porch. My brother was sitting there and they were smoking. I went over to see what they were doing because I saw smoke but I didn't know they were smoking. And then I went over and they were smoking. They told me to go away and they looked scared, but I didn't go away. So they told me to go away again but I didn't. I started playing by them. So they asked me if I'd go away if they gave me a cigarette. I knew my parents told me not to but I did anyway. It tasted chalky. It tasted smoky and gross. So I started coughing and feeling really bad and guilty. And his friends laughed and made jokes, except for a girl with black hair and red eyes. And my brother told me to go away. So I did.'"
I stayed silent.
"Goodbye horses/ I'm flying over you/ Goodbye horses/ I'm flying over you…"
He looked at me. "So that's why you hate him."
"Yeah," I answered, with a shrug. "I guess."
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"Inuyasha! Sweetie! Time for dinner!"
I paused the music and woke up Jakotsu, who'd fallen asleep in the middle of his angry rant about technology and how it's stupid. "C'mon. It's time for dinner."
He opened his eyes slowly. "Wha?"
"Dinner. Time for it," I answered.
"Ohhhm," he said, getting up and stretching his arms over his head. "I'm not hungry," he answered, lying back down with a thud. I rolled my eyes. It really, really takes a lot to be stupider than Jakotsu Himekawa.
"Come on," I said, crossing my arms. "My parents aren't putting up with you for their health, ya know. Get up."
"Oh, do I have to?" he asked as I pulled him up. I started to walk back, as my mother called:
"Inuyasha! Jakotsu! Dinner's ready!"
"Yeah!" I answered, walking down the stairs.
"I don't want to meet your parents, anyway," he said. I wasn't sure if he knew I was ignoring him, or… "They're probably just like everyone else's parents. Only, your mom is sort of pretty and I think your dad would be hot. They probably won't like me, you know? I get that a lot. Oh, Yasha, please don't make me go," he said, in a tone that almost made me feel bad for him. Then he started to laugh. We approached the dining room doorway. He yawned and said, "I'm sleepy. I need coffee-"
I made a dead stop and turned around to him, arms crossed, scowling, causing him to falter back a little. "Look," I snapped, fixing his shirt so that he didn't look like such a wreck, "You do anything stupid and I won't even give second thought to throwing you out. Ya hear me? Make any mistake and you're dead."
He just nodded. I sighed. "Alright," I said, relieved. "Here goes. Hnh."
The dining room isn't really anything special. We just eat dinner there. It's basically between the kitchen and living room and attached to both of them by an open space. My mother came in, wiping her hands on her apron. "I'm sorry, honey, can you set the table for me? I'm a little preoccupied right now."
"Okay," I mumbled, my face turning red. Mothers. Feh. Jakotsu smiled as soon as she left. Even now, I'm pretty sure he's petrified of my mother.
"That's nice," he said as I laid down some white ceramic plates with blue flowers rimming them. "Usually I'd just tell her I was busy. Sometimes I do it, though. When I feel like it, or when I'm not busy with something else."
I got some glasses and utensils from the kitchen cabinet and put them accordingly. Jakotsu was still smiling. I raised an eyebrow. "What's got you all fucking happy?"
"Nothing," he answered. "It's just sweet you do stuff like that. Set tables and clean and everything."
"Save it," I said.
Mom called Dad from the living room, where he had been smoking his cigar and listening to old 45s, which he usually did before dinner, and I called down Sesshoumaru, who was probably admiring all his princely glory in the mirror, which he probably usually did before dinner. Hey, but that's just me.
We sat, for a while, in silence. Sesshoumaru had come down by himself; Rin had either left during the day or was being hid in some creepy nook or cranny I didn't know about. My mother had made a salad to start off with, with some kind of black olives and tangy dressing topping it.
"So, where did you two meet?" my mother asked. I grunted- why did everyone want to know that? That and if I was a fucking virgin Jesus Christ. Oh well.At least I wasn't the one who had to answer, this time.
Apparently not. Jakotsu just said there, quietly eating more of his greens. Was he really that uncomfortable around strangers? I cleared my throat and kicked him under the table. He looked up, somewhat confused. "Oh. Uhmm. The therapists' office."
"Well, that's nice," my mother said with a smile. I didn't know what was different about my mom compared to Jeanne. Maybe it was the voice; Jeanne had a high, feminine, prying voice, like she always wanted to know everything, like a bird. My mother still had a feminine voice, but it was deeper and more subtle. Gentle, maybe.
Whenever my mother smiled, though, Jakotsu had on this terrified, confused look, like he'd just woken up in Mexico. I guess my mom was just not someone he had any reason to hate, and he was puzzled by the thought of a woman actually liking him.
"So, what happened with Kagome?" my father asked, politely eating his tomatoes. "Not to insult your new girl. She's very pretty!" He laughed. My mother smiled and shook her head. I raised an eyebrow, not knowing what the Hell he was talking about.
Before I could stage an argument about how I was still together with Kagome and had no idea what he was talking about, my father staged another question. "So, do you two go to school with each other?"
"No. I go to St. Midoriko's," Jakotsu answered flatly.
"That's a very good school, isn't it?" my father said in his booming, proud voice, "You must be smart to stay in it."
Jakotsu shrugged. "I guess."
"Of course," my mother said warmly.
"Or he could be rich," Sesshoumaru said, "As it is a school in which you pay tuition, and it's not very challenging to send a check every so often."
We paused and looked at him. He looked at us, with his "go ahead defy me I am Sesshoumaru" look on- a slight frown, raised eyebrows, and his head tilted up, as if he were bigger and mightier than all the commoners on the mountain. Jerk. Jakotsu sat, not really offended by his comment, but smiling as if he'd just heard the greatest news in the world.
"Asshole," I muttered, shoveling more salad into my mouth.
"That was quite creative, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru snapped, "What will you think of next?"
"How about, 'jerk off,'" I tried, putting my fork down and scowling. Oh boy. My mother had an uneasy expression on her face, while my father was ignoring it. The big pink elephant in the middle of the room everyone knows is there but no one wants to talk about- that's my relationship with my brother.
"Another creative expression from the mind of Inuyasha," he announced to the table, "Where do your talents end, Little Brother?"
"Screw you!"
"Screw me or jerk off- which is it?"
"Jerk off is easier for you," I barked. "I mean, seeing as someone here has a fucking affinity for underage girls, at least jerking off wouldn't get you arrested."
"Boys!" my father half-yelled. "I won't have any of this at the dinner table, understand? Dinner is not a time to argue. Are we clear on that?"
Sesshoumaru stayed silent and I rolled my eyes and nodded. We stayed silent for a little while longer, until my mother got up to get the main course.
She came back and put down a huge, juicy slab of steak that I couldn't wait to get my fucking hands on. Dad sighed, his usual smile slapped on his face, and lit a cigar. He offered one to me.
"I thought I wasn't allowed," I said.
"It's time you at least try one," he answered. "Want?"
"No thanks."
He turned around to Jakotsu. "You?"
"Sure," Jakotsu said happily. I rolled my eyes. Actually, it was sort of funny, to see my father and Jakotsu sitting there, both with huge cigars in their mouths, looking like they'd won the lottery.
"You've smoked before?" my father asked, shaking the ashes onto his napkin.
"Yea. I guess," Jakotsu said. "When I feel like it. 'Cept I don't really like menthols. They're nigger cigarettes." I glared at him, ready to do him some serious bodily harm. Fucking racist. Did he think my parents, of all people, wanted to know that?
My mother smiled and my father laughed, animatedly clapping his hands. "There's a real observer for you," he said. "But we're not a prejudiced family, now. Everyone just enjoys a joke now and then, hmm?"
"Yeah," Jakotsu said, smiling. Oh Jesus Christ. Jakotsu and my father- the Wonder Twins. I should've seen it coming.
My brother ate his steak faster than lighting and excused himself ever so politely from the table, waltzing on up and saying, "I'm done," and taking his plate to the kitchen.
So we ate without him, thank Jesus Christ and all His Saints and Apostles, me talking to my mom and Jakotsu talking to my Dad. Until my father presented another query:
"So," he said, shaking more ashes onto his napkin, "what do you think of my son?"
I looked at him, a mantra repeated itself in my head: "Don't screw this up you idiot don't you fucking say anything stupid…"
He smiled and blew some smoke out, forming an O with his mouth. He looked at me and then at my father. "I like him. I like the way he looks, because he's handsome in a boyish way. You can't compare Yash to anyone else. He's just Yasha. I like characters. They're better than people who are just typical. I hate typical people." He had that same sad tone he'd had when he said I was good some days ago. "I love him. Who couldn't? He's so cute."
My parents were endeared to him; I just looked at him. Was that what he really thought of me? How could someone take so much shit, some SAT-length description, from me? I finished my steak and looked at all of them, smiling; smiling faces around a rectangular table, waiting for me to respond.
>>>>>>>
"Yasha, I-"
I pushed him out the door hurriedly. "Yeah yeah. Save it."
"I just wanted to-"
I rested my hand firmly on the brass doorknob, tapping my fingers. "You just wanted to?"
He brushed some hair out of his face. "Thank you. For letting me come over. And I wanted to say that I like your Dad," he added with a grin that could only mean one thing.
"Tch. Yeah. The fucking Wonder Twins," I muttered, rolling my eyes.
"What?"
"Forget it."
He shifted his feet. "So. Bye." He waved.
"Yeah. Bye," I answered, closing the door, slowly, while my mind was racked with noises- the clank of dinner utensils, Rin's voice; Goodbye Horses blaring on the radio in my mind, looking for a way out. I'd been doing a lot of that lately, too much depressed, confused thinking. Too much beer and too much smoke, I guess.
>>>>>>>
"Your friend was very nice," my Mom said, washing the dishes.
I let out a "feh" and put the napkins and placemats away. "Tch. Ya think?"
"Don't say that," she said over the running water. "I thought he was a nice boy. Just very shy."
Shy- Jakotsu had been described, so far, as an interesting, sincere conversationalist, and now he was shy? When had this come up?
The living room, as I walked into it, smelled heavy and musky- the thick, sweet scent of cigar smoke. After dinner, my father would do that, sit on the couch in the living room and smoke and read history books while my TV programs blared.
My father spun around in his chair, grinning. "Your new girlfriend-"
"Look, Dad, about that-" I began.
"She was a good girl. She seemed like a real character!" He scratched his chin, blowing smoke ringlets out of his nostrils. "Very, pretty, too."
Suddenly it hit me- he thought…I made a flat face. My God- was that where Sesshoumaru got it from?"He was a guy."
"A what?" my father asked, having honestly not heard me.
I told him it was nothing and went up to my room. My father's thing was that he didn't overlook the differences in people, he just didn't see them at all.
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A/N: Uhmm...I forgot to list the songs from the last million chapters; so here.
1) Every Picture Tells A Story- Rod Stewart;
2) Whole Lotta Love- Led Zeppelin
3) Teacher- Jethro Tull
4) Crazy Train- Black Sabbath
5) It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference- Todd Rundgren
6) Mr. Farmer- The Seeds
7) Feel Flows- The Beach Boys
8) Goodbye Horses- Q-Lazzarus
Goodbye Horses is that song in Silence of the Lambs...I think this chapter sucked. I think it sucked really fucking bad. You know? I'm reading it over and nothing about it sparks my interest in the slightest. I feel awful. What a stupid chapter. Oh well. But the center-alignment of the songs looks cool, sooo...
is that song in ...I think this chapter sucked. I think it sucked really fucking bad. You know? I'm reading it over and nothing about it sparks my interest in the slightest. I feel awful. What a stupid chapter. Oh well. But the center-alignment of the songs looks cool, sooo...