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Chapter Four

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"No Mom, I'm not kidding." Kagome rolled her eyes as she argued over the phone with her mother who was hundreds of miles away at the moment. It was amazing what technology did, although she wasn't necessarily appreciating it at the moment. "Yeah, I got a hired man. What's the big deal?" There was a moment of silence as she listened to her mother's response. "No, I didn't go higher or lower for the price. He accepted it right away." A pause. "Mom! He's my age, and no, I'm not having sex with him. What kind of girl do you think I am?" Another pause. "Well, why don't we keep him for a while, or at least until we sell the cattle next year when September ends?" Pause. "He's fine. There's nothing wrong and besides…I've got Souta and Miroku backing me up on this. We'll all make sure nothing bad happens, so just go back to the conference and we'll manage just fine. Everything's all right, there's nothing to worry about. Have some fun while you're out there." There was one last pause. "Okay, Mom. I love you too. Bye."

The smile that had been on her face as she conversed with her mother slowly dwindled. She sighed and rubbed her eyes in vexation.

"Kagome!" The quiet of her bedroom was shattered as Souta came barging in, his arms flung out wide and one the biggest grins she had ever seen was plastered on his face. Miroku was close behind, but didn't make as grand of an entrance as his cousin and InuYasha was behind him, with a scowl she had come to known in the past day and a half that it was his customary expression. "Guess what?" The young boy asked excitedly. His joy could barely be contained. "We got all of InuYasha's stuff moved in and the place looks great, but that isn't the best part." He didn't even wait, just rambled on in his enthusiasm. "Miroku said he'd spend the night! Isn't that just great?"

She shrugged her shoulders, forcing another smile onto her face. She had never seen her brother so…happy. It was good to see the young boy smiling so much in such a short amount of time. It was normal for a boy his age to be so energetic. It seemed so natural.

Normal.

"Well, Miroku should spend the night outside with the cat," InuYasha snorted. He glared at the young man with the glower that had become a permanent part of his face it seemed. Miroku merely gave a carefree smile. "I do not trust you around Kagome." Miroku only smiled all the wider, lifting his hands up as if to show that he was not a threat, which was true since he did care for Kagome in the least incestuous way possible. For some reason, InuYasha could not seem to get that through his thick skull. "Stop that."

"Stop what?" Miroku looked to be the epitome of innocence.

"You know what."

"Actually," Miroku said, still with his act of innocence, "I have no idea what you speak of, but for some reason, I can't get the thought out of my head that you might be jealous of me."

"I'm not jealous, ya fucking perv!"

"InuYasha!" It came out as an indignant gasp from Kagome. She immediately bent down and covered Souta's ears and he then began to struggle. He was a curious child after all and he'd been meaning to ask a lot of questions lately, ones that would most likely be embarrassing. "There is a kid in this room and the one rule I'd like to start now is no cussing. He tends to copy those he likes and sadly…" She gave InuYasha the look, the one that usually stopped grown men in their tracks and cower in fear, and right now, InuYasha was doing just that. "He seems to think you're really cool, but the last thing I need is a meeting with his teacher because someone can't keep their mouth shut."

"My mouth shut?" he yelled in disbelief. He pointed an accusing finger at Miroku who merely put his hands into his pocket and rocked back and forth on his heels as he whistled a jaunty little tune. "Tell the fucking pervert to keep his hands offa you!" As soon as the words leaked from his mouth, the regret was instantly on his face, followed by a very large, very red blush, and he turned and walked, no, more of ran out of the room.

Miroku could barely keep the grin off his face as he asked, "I wonder what that was all about?"

Kagome could only shake her head and sigh.

Maybe hiring such a guy hadn't been a good idea after all, but seeing Souta's happiness, his enthusiasm, she realized that InuYasha might have been the best thing for the boy in a long time. If it meant her brother not crying anymore, she might just be willing to sacrifice a couple more hours of sleep. After all, her well being wasn't important when it came to her family. She sacrificed everything she could for them, and she always would.

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Sango sat on the steps outside the high school and took a deep breath of the clean night air. Being a cheerleader meant that she had to be social, and being social meant setting the school gym up for one of the most popular dances of the year, the Snowball. That meant she stayed after cheerleading practice, told people where decorations went, and painted until her hand had locked up from grasping a paintbrush so long; needless to say, it was tiring, it meant having to talk to people that were as air-headed as they were platinum blonde, and it was annoying. She hated being a cheerleader, but she knew why she had joined, because playing basketball was out of the question since the scar on her back prevented her from doing any activities that involved so much jostling, and she didn't want to end up on the bottom of the social ladder like a certain perverted horse rancher was. The last choice had been cheerleading, because everybody in the Godforsaken town was a jock, and being involved with sports in any way guaranteed instant popularity.

Wow. That was indeed shallow.

The sounds of people having a good time inside reached her ears and she sighed. She sighed for the fact she wasn't like them. She sighed for the fact that she didn't like them. She sighed for the fact that she was pretending to be like them and like them in the first place when it was far from the truth. The truth was she despised them all because they were a bunch of whores, drama queens, and self-centered pretty people. They pretended their lives were perfect and it always seemed as if nothing could hurt them. They were invincible. They were perfect, and she hated them for being so damn deceiving because more than anything else, she hated a liar.

Still, she hung out with them, acted as if they were best friends, and that was why she also hated herself. She couldn't bear being an outcast, but she could enjoy being miserable within, as long as she was happy and smiling on the outer surface. Maybe she was just as bad as those she hated, and many times she thought of being at the bottom, along with that Miroku and his quiet cousin Kagome who always seemed to be daydreaming, and now…there was that InuYasha kid. At least they didn't pretend to hide who they were. They were comfortable being themselves.

That Miroku…he never did care if anyone caught him staring at him or her, and the girls swooned every time he looked their way because he was regulation mystery "hottie." He would just give a lewd wink and a grin and then he'd be on his way; then the boys that would play football and basketball would ambush him and then proceed to beat the crap out of him. Sure, he'd defend himself and do a really good job at it too, but they'd always give him enough bruises to wipe that smile off his face. She also knew that those jocks did whatever had happened to his right hand, the one with the decorated gloves that had a string of blue opals on it. He had skipped school for a week, came back with a big bandage, and then the glove immediately replaced it and she hadn't seen him without it since.

What could they have done to him to make him wear it all the time?

She didn't have answers to such questions.

Hell, she shouldn't have been thinking of him in the first place, but for some reason, he was always on her mind when she least expected it. Somebody would ask her if a certain skirt looked good on them and she'd be wondering what he was doing at that moment.

What was wrong with her? Why would she think about a perverted man who wore a weird glove and just smiled all the time about nothing? Why would she think about the one guy in school who wasn't worth giving the time of day? Why would she think about him and wonder about what he did, where he was, or how he felt? Why did she think such things and didn't mind thinking those things? Why did it make her heart race and make her stomach do flip-flops whenever she saw him or thought about him?

Yes indeed…what was wrong with her?

She got up and dusted her jeans off before she opened the door and went into the school. It wasn't worth pondering and at the moment, she had to help put up the giant disco ball that everyone was looking forward to. Yes, she just didn't have time to think about Miroku Michaels and his soft looking black hair and his gorgeous, dark violet eyes and his supple but definitely masculine—No! She was not supposed to be thinking about him in any way, shape or form.

She just wouldn't.

She couldn't, and with that last consideration, she entered the gym and went about the task of helping everyone out, keeping as busy as possible so her mind wouldn't wander. Sometimes cheerleading was a good thing and it was at times like these she was a little bit grateful of it.

xxxx

"I made you guys some popcorn." Kagome grinned at the sight before her. The boys had decided to spend the night in the main house, the reason being that InuYasha complained about a little boy and a pervert invading his privacy, so they had camped out in the living room. A movie had been put in, Shrek, if she remembered properly; since it had been late when they started it, Souta hadn't been able to keep awake and was currently curled up next to Miroku who had also fallen asleep. They were both on the floor while InuYasha was dozing on the couch. "You guys." She chuckled and shook her head as she set the bowl of popcorn on the floor and picked up the remote to set the timer so that it would turn the satellite on after the movie was over with. Who knew? Maybe they would wake up for bits at a time and it was always comforting for her when the television didn't have any white noise. "But I tell you what…I can't believe you didn't last, InuYasha." She placed a blanket over Miroku and Souta, kissing the young boy on the top of his head affectionately. He didn't stir. "It's better than fighting, I guess."

She picked up another blanket and draped it over him. Unconsciously, she tucked him in, as she was used to doing with Souta, and then got up to go away. She had reached the doorway when she heard a deep, gruff voice say, "I'm not sleeping." She tried to stop her rapidly beating heart and was thankful that the room was dark so he couldn't see the blush on her face. She could hear him shifting and then getting up, his bare feet slapping softly against the wood flooring. "I can't sleep. Never."

"Never say never," she murmured. Taking a deep breath, she turned around, prepared with a sarcastic remark, but the man before her stole the words right out of her mouth with his devastating good looks. His hair had been tousled by sleep so that it curled around his face, enhancing his sensuous lips and large, violet eyes that seemed to hold a glow. He had also taken his shirt off for the night. Well, all the guys had; they had kicked her out of the living room because Souta requested that it was boy's night only. And now…now she was wishing that it hadn't happened, because this man before her had a gorgeous body, tanned from years on the coast, muscled from all the labor he had done. He was amazing and now she was suddenly aware of her inadequate sleepwear that consisted of a large t-shirt that skimmed just along her thighs. "I'm guessing you suffer from insomnia. Am I right?"

He walked past her, heading into the kitchen. "Sort of." He opened the fridge and winced at the harsh light. She couldn't help but admit how striking he was like that, and that hair! Why didn't he keep it down more often? "It started about three years ago when—" He stopped himself, shaking his head and giving a small, ironical laugh. That laugh sent shivers down her spine and she looked down at her toes, wriggling them on the cold tiles. "It doesn't matter. All that really matters is I can't sleep." He pulled a Mountain Dew out of the fridge, opened the can, and took a large swig from it. He wiped his mouth, eyeing her and she couldn't meet his gaze, not when he was looking so…so…appealing. "What about you? Why are you up now?"

"Well, I thought I'd make you guys a snack, but by the time I got there you were out of it, or at least I thought you were." She shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno. I wake up in the middle of the night and I'll usually watch a movie or play a video game or check my e-mail. Not that there's much to check in the first place," she muttered low enough so that she was pretty sure she was the only one who could hear. She raised her voice again. "Souta is usually knocked out by eight-thirty or nine so I was surprised he stayed up this late and I know Miroku is probably tired from moving the furniture and doing my chores." She bit her bottom lip. "I just can't seem to finish anything lately. I can't understand why. I mean they're the same chores I've been doing since God knows when. Maybe it's cause of everything that's been happening lately." She looked back to him and saw that he had been in the motion of bringing the can to his mouth, but had stopped half way. "InuYasha?"

"Her," he whispered.

"What?"

"I didn't realize it, but you look kind of like her."

"Who's her?"

He took another swig. "No one." He walked until he was standing directly in front of her and InuYasha Kalligan noticed just how short Kagome Michaels was. "She's from a time I'd rather not remember. I'd just like to…to forget it all." His voice sounded bitter, but when he looked down at her, his expression softened she saw something in his eyes, and she didn't know what it was exactly. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what it was. "And now…I have a job, thanks to you. I guess."

The silence was overwhelming, and it was all so much harder because he had to look absolutely breathtaking with the fridge door's light spilling onto him, accenting the curve of his jaw, the ripple of muscle. It just wasn't fair and she had to break it because she found she couldn't trust herself around this boy. "Why don't you want Miroku touching me? He's my cousin. He's not going to do anything bad."

"N-no reason," he stammered, a crimson heat flowing up to his face. "He's just a pervert. I don't trust the bastard around any girl." His eyes were serious now, and he inched closer to her. She backed up a little ways, but he followed her. "It's just…there's something about you. I can't place it, and damn it all if it's not frustrating."

Bodies. Warmth. Breathing. These things were painfully clear to her. She could feel his arm just brushing hers, his warmth barely caressing her skin, and his breath upon her forehead as he looked down at her. It made things lower in her body clench, respond, and she wanted to scream at the agony of it all. This was a man who she had hired to be her ranch hand. She promised her mother that there would be no romancing between them, and now…she acknowledged just how long it had been since she had been kissed, held, looked at like that. Actually, it had been never, and maybe that's why this was all so hard, because she had no experience, nothing to help her through this. "Oh my! Look at the time!" she exclaimed and lifted her wrist to her face as if she might be wearing a watch. Unfortunately, her hand bumped into his, the one holding the can of Mountain Dew, and the sugary drink went up into the air and down, and splattering on them as it fell to the floor. "Crap." She bent down to pick up the can, but he stopped her. "What are you doing? It's going to go everywhere if I don't clean it up."

"It's still a mess. You'll have to clean it up anyways. What difference will a couple of ounces make?" His voice was gruff, and it sent yet another shiver down her spine, this one slightly audible. She felt so embarrassed. "What's the matter? You cold?" She shook her head, and then he was there, horribly close to her ear, so close she wished that he just close that fraction of space instead of breathing on her like that. "Liar." Why was her body doing things she didn't want it to? Why was she reacting so strongly to him, and he wasn't even touching her! "You really are clumsy, aren't you?" His finger played with the edge of her t-shirt. "You should be more careful." The fabric inched up, slowly, so terribly slow. She gave a small gasp at it. Why was this happening? Why was she letting him do this? Why did she not care anymore? Why did she want him to touch her more, in different places and—"Kagome…"

The way he whispered her name was more than she could bear. She turned her head so that their lips were barely touching. She opened her mouth and half-moaned, half-said, "InuYasha." He leaned just a millimeter closer so that his teeth pulled at her lower lip and she heard a strange whimper come from the back of her throat. "InuYasha!" It was sort of a desperate cry and her fingers intertwined in his belt loops of his pants so that she could pull him closer. Their lips met and it felt so wonderful…

"Kagome, where'd you put The Hills Have Eyes? I wanna watch it and…" Miroku trailed off when he saw his cousin and InuYasha in a very compromising position. He pointed back towards the living room, taking a step back. "You know, I think I can find something to watch in there." He disappeared and the stillness that came afterwards was very awkward and very frustrating. She let out a sigh and pulled away, but then a hand of his reached out and gently cupped her face so that she was forced to stare into those indigo eyes. "I know where it's at now!" Miroku came strolling in again, barely hiding the grin that threatened to take over his entire face. InuYasha leapt away from Kagome like he had been burnt. "It's in your bedroom on the shelf." He winked at them. "Now don't get too caught up." He shook his head, still grinning. "Kids these days."

She waited until she could hear that her annoying cousin was out of the room and spoke. "I've got to clean this up." She got up and walked over to the sink and turned the water on. She thrust the sponge underneath and let it soak for a moment, then pulled it out and went back to the spot where that mess had happened. "I hope it doesn't get all sticky now." She gave a small smile as she bent down again and grabbed the fallen can as her other hand used the sponge to wipe the floor spotless. She got up. InuYasha was still sitting on the floor. "There. All better now."

She threw the can away, rinsed out the sponge, and dried her hands. Everything was in order, everything was fine, and now it was time to go to bed. She walked to her bedroom and he stopped her, his large hand gripping her dainty wrist. "Where are you going?"

"To bed," was her reply.

"Why?"

"Because it's a school day tomorrow and I need to rest." She rubbed her eyes. She really was tired. That little…incident had drained her. "InuYasha, I don't know what happened just now, but I'm not the kind of girl that throws herself at anyone."

"I know. I respect you because of that."

"So what happened, it wasn't me." She bit her lip, and it was in the exact same spot where his teeth had grazed upon her flesh. Her breathing stopped for a moment, and that strange feeling in her body was back, where it was all clenched up and it was the equivalent of being on a roller coaster. She hated it and liked it at the same time. "I'm not like this, so I'm sorry for being so forward." She wanted to cry. Oh she felt so humiliated. Never before had she expected this to happen. And what happened…it had been her first kiss. Oh God no. She had kissed a boy she barely knew. "Goodnight, InuYasha." It had felt so good, so right. "See you in the morning." Then she walked as fast as she could to her room. She passed Miroku who had found the DVD and barely acknowledged him when he asked what was wrong. All she could think of was the kiss, the brief but beautiful kiss and she slammed the door shut behind her and sank to the floor, sobbing in anger. "How can you be so stupid?" She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at her school bag that was less than two feet from her. She unzipped it and pulled out the pages that had been printed from the Internet, the ones that talked about InuYasha. "Boy is found in water, unconscious and bleeding from multiple wounds, some to the head and abdomen. He is now being treated…?" The article showed a picture of a battered InuYasha. She picked up the next one and continued to read. "The boy, now identified as InuYasha Kalligan, has told police that the leader of the notorious Bloodhound gang, Naraku Fuwa, and Kalligna's ex-girlfriend, Kikyou Miamoto, ambushed him at the docks where he was working…Suffering from short-term memory loss, Kalligan could only say he remembered Fuwa and Miamoto attacking him with knives and tried to kill him. He cannot recall how he ended up in the water, or where Fuwa and Miamoto might be now…rumors suggest that the two have fled the city…" The papers fell to the floor. "Oh my God," she whispered.

It was all too much. It just wasn't…fair.

Back in the kitchen, InuYasha had moved so that he was now sitting at the dining room table, his cheek resting on his fist. Miroku sat down in the chair kitty corner from him and leaned back. They sat that way for a while, neither speaking, because when it came to males and companionship, it often never needed any words. That was the difference between the sexes.

However, it couldn't stay that way forever, and Miroku broke the companionable peace first. "You probably confuse her, you know." He fingered the blue opals that adorned his right hand and InuYasha sensed the pain and nostalgia from whatever was hidden beneath that glove. He wanted to know what it was, but he wasn't one to ask questions, so either he'd get lucky, or he'd never find out. "She's never been kissed, never held hands, never had a boyfriend. Around here, there's not much to choose from, and what her mother did to her after Gramps died, there wasn't time for one." He stared at the young man that had come from far away, long and hard. "I guess I can't stop you or her from doing anything, but I swear, if you hurt her…"

"So the pervert decides to stand up for his beloved cousin," InuYasha scoffed.

"This isn't a joke!" Miroku hissed angrily, grabbing at InuYasha's hair. InuYasha was too startled by Miroku's wrath to do anything. "I'm being serious here. Kagome doesn't know the first thing about a relationship, and I know for a fact that she's taken a liking to you. I'm telling you that you need to be careful. You need to treat her right." He let go of InuYasha's hair and there was such sadness on the rancher's face that InuYasha sat there, shocked at the sudden displays of emotion from what had seemed to be an easy going guy. "Please don't hurt her. Make something, for once in her life, be a good thing. If you do something, that is"

Without another word, he got up and headed back into the living room, leaving InuYasha with his own thoughts.

"God damn it," he whispered. He looked to Kagome's room and sighed as he closed his eyes. "Kikyou."

He had come to North Dakota with the hopes of getting away from the troubles that had plagued him on along the coast. He had come with the hopes that he wouldn't see a face that looked so much like his ex-girlfriend, had come with the hopes to start and new life and run away from it all. He had so many hopes…and it was all turning out to be a bunch of worthless shit.

He was an idiot to think such things.

Hope was for the naïve, and he was so far from that.

So far away…

"InuYasha," Kagome whispered, "who are you?"

What had started out so innocently was now turning into something complicated and exasperating. It wasn't simple anymore, it wasn't happy. It wasn't normal.

And they'd all have to live with it until next year, when September would end.

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End Chapter

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Author's Notes: So this one isn't as long as the last one, but I hope it got the story moving just a bit more. Hopefully, there weren't any spelling or grammatical errors. I got to read through it once, for the first time! I tried to include Sango in the story, and more characters will come along eventually, but I do hate just having them show up without any reason, so it might be a little while. I ask that you please bear with me until then. As always, I would love to actually receive reviews and kindly ask that questions about the story be sent in the form of a PM. That's it for now. Until next time!