Chapter 8: The Talk
"Miroku, get your butt off that organ bench and come open the gate!"
Miroku sat bare chested, playing a soft tune from an opera he'd been working on. His cape was long and flowing, hair absolutely perfect, and, not for the first time, the visitor was jealous of this. Oh, the painful irony!
The opera ghost finally noticed the other presence in his cellar, and got up to pull the lever, which opened the gate.
"Inuyasha, my friend! How long it has been, have you faired well?" Miroku replied dryly, partly annoyed to have been interrupted while doing his music. He gave Inuyasha a hand gesture, welcoming him in. Miroku took a chair from the swan room and offered him a seat.
Inuyasha sat, but slowly, as if intimidated.
"Inuyasha, I thank you for making my job far easier. I especially enjoy the effect I have on the ballet. I feel it is my priority to frighten them at least once a day. But lately…" he sighed, "I just haven't found the time."
"Yeah, yeah, the new managers don't know what they're in for, that's for sure! I still don't think it's right to be getting money, just for terrorizing an opera house…"
"Oh, but it is the most entertaining job!" Miroku smirked.
The hanyou narrowed his golden eyes on him. "I hear that isn't the only job you're doing…"
"What do you mean," a heavenly voice of pure sounding innocence swept through the air.
"Cut the crap, Miroku! You know very well what I mean!"
"Inuyasha, your language is quite distasteful" Miroku winced, offering a drink.
He rejected it, and shoved it back into the specter's hand. "There's a new girl in the chorus, a close friend of Kagome's. Ever since arriving here, all she's been mentioning is how the Angel of Music has finally come to her!"
Miroku paled, letting the blood drain from his face. "Who is this girl, Inuyasha?"
Taisho let his voice rise, "Sango," he continued, knowing perfectly well that Miroku was asking questions he already knew answers too "told Kagome how her Angel dropped by last night and left her a note! She has this idea in her head that you're some handsome god who could never love her! She worships you!"
No response.
Inuyasha exhaled deeply, calming down. "You can't go on deceiving Sango; she'll be crushed when she finds out."
Miroku glared at him. "She won't find out."
"Oh?" A snort. "And how would you know?"
He traced a finger around the brim of his wine glass, listening to the tiny squeaks he made by doing so. "Because I will never allow her to see me."
Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? Then how come you were taking her clothes off in her room last night!"
Miroku continued to look down at the glass. "That was different, the girl looked uncomfortable, and it was my right to-"
Inuyasha's eyes widened to the size of milk saucers. "Your right? Miroku, you've become a letch!"
The swig of wine that Miroku had taken just seconds before was spit out. "How dare you think of me as such? How dare you try to deprive me of the only thing I've ever loved?" He stood up suddenly and straightened his cape before slinking off to the art studio, where Inuyasha noticed hundreds of Sango drawings hung over the walls. In the corner, he took note, was a life sized mannequin of the beauty.
"There's a thin line, Miroku…" Inuyasha's voice softened.
"A thin line?"
"There's a thin line between love…and obsession." Inuyasha then turned to make his leave. "Just be careful with it…"
Miroku continued to gaze at the spare mask that lie on his art bunch, "And I'm slowly erasing that line, aren't I?" He tuned to look over his shoulder, but Inuyasha had gone.