Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, which would be Rumiko Takahashi that you are looking for, not me. I prefer to keep what little material objects I own.
Chapter 1: Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining
No matter how big of a jerk Kagome thought Inuyasha was, she just couldn't help but think what kind of dreams he had when he lay down for sleep every night, after had had shared is one 'stapler' dream with her. She couldn't help but laugh as the thought of the stapler brought voices from one of her favorite movies into her head. "Office Space" and Milton, one of its characters entertained her for another few minutes with musings about staplers.
No…back to the matter at hand, she had articles from foreign countries to translate, possible clients to phone and heckle, and as a routine, browse international organization websites. Particularly, the employment sections, not really looking for a job yet not really averse to jotting down a few that interested her. As she plucked an article off her desk from a French journal, Le Monde, Inuyasha popped back into her head. This time he was wearing a black beret much like the stereotype for the French men went. She didn't even stop herself this time and her wonderings of the beret wearing man in her daydream and that eventually lead back to his dreams, or rather, what other dreams e might be an audience to.
Were they sensual fantasies or adventurous epics? When he dreamed, was he even alone in his bed…wait a minute, no that was not supposed to be part of her though process. But she still could not pull herself from the wonder of what would his dreams be like? Would they be easily discernable, straightforward without any complications like the dream he shared with he? Or would there be subliminal messages that he did not understand.
"God why do I care?" Reprimanding herself, Kagome realized that she was getting nowhere with her work, so she may as well take her lunch break. She had no fear of running into Inuyasha; she never had before, why would she now?
It had been two weeks since their dinner with the Egyptian ambassador, two weeks since Kagome had formed an opinion that constantly contradicted her thoughts. Or should that be vice verse, meaning her thoughts constantly contradicted her firm (well, she wished it was firm) opinion of the "arrogant" Inuyasha Takahashi. Well he wasn't really arrogant, scratch that, he was just unsuspectingly arrogant. As she replayed the evening through her head, she realized that maybe she overreacted. Maybe…but she was not going to be sweet talked by a co-worker. Even if that co-worker was Inuyasha Takahashi, a sex toy in waiting…STOP IT!
Kagome chanted to herself how she never faltered before in her ways of sexual preference, rather if she wanted to fool around she did and if she didn't then she didn't. But while her mind said 'absolutely not', her body was not listening, not even on the same path. She felt her cheeks flush and wondered if she could, or should, have acted differently that night.
Flashback (two weeks prior)
"I suppose a gin and tonic will suffice, Thank you." While waiting for their drinks, they talked about each others duties to GloboTech. Inuyasha, the Vice President of the corporation, was in charge of overseeing meetings such as theirs and searching for new talent, better technology. He had graduated from MIT with a Masters in Computer Engineering and Bachelors in New Media. Impressed, Kagome had given the appropriate reaction, ooohing and aaahing while not trying to seem too interested. She explained that she had graduated from George Washington University with a double Master in International Affairs and Modern Languages and a Major in Political Sciences. It had been Inuyasha's turn to been slightly impressed.
They talked for a brief time about how they had come from Japan and why they stayed when their drinks came and the conversations died down just a little. Kagome asked him if he liked the sports in America, Inuyasha being a man nodded with insignificant enthusiasm. They talked little about the current trades and injuries in the National Hockey League and then Inuyasha started to drift the conversation towards her.
"So what do you do when you aren't at the office?" He looked on with a genuine smile. "Well, I like going to hockey games, visiting the museums each time a new exhibit is introduced, and you may find this odd but…I like to try and interpret peoples dreams." She waited for the criticism, but it did not seem to be coming, Inuyasha just seemed curious.
"Dreams? Like aspirations or the actual nighttime visions?" Maybe this would not be so bad after all, Kagome thought. "The images during REM, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep. I don't know why, but it always seems as if they are premonitions that I can dig through and try to correlate. In college, I made a killing because many girls were begging me to see if their dreams would predict whether or not their boyfriends were cheating or if they would pass their class, the guys would see if they were going to, pardon my language, 'nail' the girl they were infatuated with. It was money to fuel my car pretty much and help pay the rent."
"Would you ever analyze one of my dreams if I asked?" Inuyasha had suddenly seemed just a little closer, true they had been sitting at a round table, nearly across from one another, but now it seemed as though he had just transposed himself next to her and she hadn't even realized it. "S-sure, free of charge, I am past the days of exploiting hearsay and peoples emotions. Just think of a dream that you have had and take the most intriguing part of it that you want to know the most about." Kagome was unsure of how this would play, in her favor or most likely against her. She watched idly as Inuyasha seemed to be staring up at the ceiling in thought. Then he lowered his head, eyes focused on her eyes and pursed his lips lightly.
"Well most of my dreams are rather odd, some are more of an event that had recently occurred; others are purely driven by what I want." He had such a smug look n his face and Kagome couldn't help but swallow slowly as she played with the information in the back of her mind, especially the last part. 'Purely sexual fantasies most likely, I wouldn't mind being part of that…STOP IT!' She hated having arguments with her conscience, it was tiresome and she knew she made faces when it happened. Mostly scrunched up faces that didn't exactly serve to invite people to socialize with her, rather they kept their distance.
"Why don't you give me a synopsis of your least favorite dream? I always find the people's favorite dreams are held to such a high standard that they won't believe what it really ends up meaning, at least through my eyes." She hoped that he wouldn't divulge into any sexually oriented fantasies that he had, which would be insane if those were his least favorite.
"I won't delve into the entire dream, but I had dreamt a week or two ago that I was running through the office with a stapler glued to my back and a paper bag on my foot, well more like my foot was inside the paper bag. I was running and running, it just seemed to never end. That was basically how the dream went and I woke up at 6am like usual, but I felt exhausted." Inuyasha's eyes had narrowed, his head pivoted little by little with each movement of the eyes, and he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead for extra emphasis on the exhaustion he felt after his vision. She was sure that he was a splendid story teller, someone who would never bore a person as they were recounting their day or just talking business.
As he watched her watching him, he called the waiter and ordered two more drinks, remembering that the billing was being taken care of, not by him or Kagome. Why not enjoy one night out and have another drink or two? Kagome was great company so far and she was turning out to be more entertaining and even lovelier in appearance as the night floated on. This night had been one of the best nights out for him in such a long time. He didn't mind long hours at the office or meetings on the fly, but it was nice to form camaraderie with another soul.
"I think that your dream is actually not foreboding or terrible at all. I think the stapler glued to your back just signifies that your paperwork is easily put aside and does not worry you as much." Kagome paused, trying to gauge his expression, which was one of nonchalant listening. She saw no confusion so she had hoped that it was a decent reading so far and continued.
"The paper bag and you running forever seems to symbolize that sometimes, no matter how much work you do, you always have something that keeps you going, not so much holding you back, but you are always busy with menial tasks. You want to escape it, but there is no hatred towards it. If you had elaborated a sense of dread, then I would say that work is stressing you out. Is that how you feel pretty much at work?" She wasn't expecting to hit it on the head, since she really knew nothing about him.
He seemed to be considering her evaluation and the waiter came back and suggested another drink or two. Inuyasha glanced at Kagome and she just gave a little shake of the head, and he shooed the waiter away. As soon as the waiter was out of eyesight, he shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. "That was pretty close to how I feel now at work yes. I am fairly impressed."
The two talked for a few more minutes before Kagome decided that she was feeling tired and was ready to leave. After plucking up her coat for her and holding it behind her so that she could slip into it, they headed for the door.
"So, I suppose I will see you again sometime?" Kagome raised her hand to give him a polite handshake. Inuyasha complied but seemed to hesitate, "Well, why don't you come over to my place and maybe we can see what other dreams I have, or could be having tonight?" He wiggled his eyebrows for effect but then stopped as he saw her expression. Maybe he shouldn't have revolved back into casual Inuyasha so soon.
Kagome's jaw was gaping, quite nearly. How had this man, this very smooth talking and intelligent man gone from professional to, well in her mind, dirty? Sure his words were nothing she hadn't really heard before, but she was tired of it.
Inuyasha lounged back in his chair, waiting for something to happen. It didn't matter if it was lunch time, the phone rang, or his secretary dumped some more stacks on his desk, he just wanted something…anything. He needed to get his mind off of Kagome Higurashi. He didn't want to think about her, seeing how uptight she was. She was the last kind of woman he wanted anything to do with, well maybe not the last, but her personality did not match her figure. The more he thought about her, the more he visualized her curves in the fitted pant-suit or how her white blouse beneath the blazer was unbuttoned just enough that he saw the smallest hint of beautiful cleavage.
He groaned and picked up the phone, needing to talk to someone to get his mind off of her. "You must be really bored if you are calling me at 11:52 am on a workday, Inuyasha Takahashi." A chuckle followed as his friend, Sango Taijiya good naturedly reprimanded him. "I thought that you were always too busy to call your best friend during work."
"Hardee har har Sango, I was just calling to see what you and the perv are doing tonight, I'm thinking about going to that place tonight down on the avenue and taking another look at it." He had been thinking about that restaurant idea for a while since his evening with Kagome. He wasn't sure if he would follow through with it, but it was something that he felt he wanted to do.
Sango sighed and was then silent for a moment; he heard the phone move and could only surmise that Miroku was on the other line now. "Yash, pleasure to talk to you today, I was just about to ask if you would like to go look at that spot again today…" Wait a minute… "You guys had me on speaker phone didn't you, I hate speaker phone." This time two chuckles, well more like a chuckle and a giggle escaped from the earpiece. "Inuyasha, just come by the apartment on your way home after work and we will get some food while we discuss the situation. Bye sweetie pie!" And with that, the conversation was over. Stupid Miroku and his stupid nicknames…
He stood up from his chair and pushed the intercom button on his phone to page his secretary. "Candice, can you look up a Kagome Higurashi for me and give me her extension, I need to discuss something that was not resolved after our dinner meeting a couple of weeks ago." Wait, what was he doing? He did not mean to do this, he was going to take his lunch break, stop it, and tell her no! "Sir, I just emailed you to extension and her cell phone number, why didn't you just email her? Everyone has the same address, just goes by their first initial and last name." The intercom clicked off and he was infused in silence again, well as silent as you can get for Washington D.C.
Email, email, he could do that. But what would he say? Why was he emailing her? He wanted to see her again, let her give him another chance and see that business Inuyasha and play Inuyasha were two different people that she could befriend. It must have been her scent that was driving him to do this, because he had definitely been with women much more enticing than Kagome, but there was still something about her. She was unique, the whole dream thing was oddly amusing and she seemed full of interesting tidbits that he wouldn't mind getting to know.
Cautiously, he sat back down and placed his hands on the mouse and keyboard, opening Outlook so he could email her.
Miss Higurashi,
I suppose that our first meeting did not end as well as hoped for. I apologize if you did not enjoy it. I would like to begin a friendship though, I think we can manage that. Then you can get to know me and I can get to know you, the unprofessional sides of ourselves.
Inuyasha Takahashi
As his hands moved on their own accord and he finished the concise email, he felt better. As if a load of bricks had been lifted that he hadn't even known was there, he sat back in his chair and relaxed, deciding it was now time for lunch. She was the one who over-reacted and hw would be damned if he took the blame for how the night fell into the dumps.
"Sango, he is very attractive yes, but I just don't have time for a relat- wait a minute who said I was even looking for a relationship you goober?" Kagome pulled the phone away from her ear and stuck out her tongue for the desired effect. "Kagome, I don't even know his name, you wont tell me anything about his other than the fact that you ended up having a few drinks with him and the he invited you to his apartment, granted the words you told me were a little on the risqué side." Sango couldn't help but roll her eyes her friend, sure she was more Miroku's friend than anything, but she still enjoyed Kagome and her antics.
"Oh my god…he just emailed me, after TWO WEEKS he emailed!" The franticness of her voice cause Sango to chuckle, at least her conversation with Inuyasha wasn't as bad. One of these days, no…Inuyasha and Kagome would NOT make a good couple. They worked at the same company, but didn't even know each other, from what Sango could surmise. Wait a tic here… "Kagome, how did he get your email?" Kagome huffed, "Because Sango, everyone at GloboTech has the same ending for their email and it's the first initial and last name."
Sango had a perplexed look and her face and Miroku walked by with a can of paint, ready to tackle their back room. Miroku mouthed 'what's wrong' but Sango just waved him off. "Kagome, you didn't tell me you worked with this guy, in fact you really haven't told me anything, or Miroku? Spill it now."
After a few seconds Kagome caved and spilled what she thought was fairly harmless information that would in no way ensue Sango and Miroku's scheming.
"His name is Inuyasha Takahashi, and he is a JERK!"
I would just like to thank Charlotte Smith and Amarioko for their reviews
Hopefully I will have the next chapter up as soon as I got this one out, I have a little time before I go to DC for my internship, so I am trying to get as much written down so I can have a few chapters out before I get really busy.
- cauchemaraku -