Disclaimer: I own Dark Horizon, bichies, not Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi does. Damn her!

Big Q: Well, actually you can't since she's the one making the manga.

(jumps) When the hell did you get back?

Big Q: (shrugs) Just now. I got off not guilty.

Then what about Psyche?

Big Q: (creepy little smile) Oh…oops, fergot about her.

OoO

Mucho thankies to my forever loyal reviewer KiT and to whomever else that reviewed for the last few chapters and for those that reviewed for the "in-the-future side" story that I've written A Simple Platonic Message. I'm just too lazy to try and remember their names and thank them all one at a time, so I'll just thank them all at once! Thank you all!

Big Q: Wow, I'm impressed. I had no idea that you could actually find it in your brain to work out a few chapters on your own.

…Stfu…

Oh, yeah, a quick apology to all the people that read Chapter Nine. It wasn't until after I posted the new chapter did I realized that I had bunch of spelling mistakes and the whole thing didn't make any sense to me either. Some day I'll edit it.

Chapter 10: Snap

"You went on another date!" A black-haired girl exclaimed sudden surprise that her soda almost came snorting out her nostrils. As she hastily reached for a napkin to clean up the mess, Kagome listened with anticipation to Sango's response.

"It wasn't a date." Sango replied, frowning. When Kagome gave her a skeptical look, Sango blurted out, "No, it really wasn't!" quickly. It really, really wasn't. More like getting to know someone better. That didn't qualify as a date. No, it didn't. Yeah, it didn't. Sango shook her head to get rid of the self-assuring thoughts. No matter which way she putted it, Kagome was right, it was a date.

Kagome smiled at her playfully. "Don't lie, Sango. So, who did you go out with that other day?" She just had to know. Then she could tell Inuyasha and Shippo, and then the three of them would think of a scheme to get Sango and her new boyfriend together. Wait a sec, Kagome's thoughts froze…Were they even boyfriend and girlfriend yet?

Sango kept quiet and was intent on removing a tiny brown coffee stain on the counter next to Kagome's arm.

"C'mon, Sango, you could tell me. Soooooo…who was it? Pleasssseeee….Pretty plea-"

"Itwasthewaiterfromtherestuarantyoutookmeto."

Kagome blinked. "Wha?"

Sango sighed and threw the cleaning towel on the counter and leaned on her arm, her palm ruffling her hair. "It was the waiter from the restaurant that you took me to."

For the second time that day, Kagome was so shocked beyond all recognition that this time; it actually came out her nostrils. "WHAT! That guy!"

Sango nodded slowly.

Kagome gave herself a few minutes to take deep breaths and to wipe her nostrils clean. For four years, Sango blew off every guy that tried to pick her up and now, just out of the blue come two silver-heads that Sango immediately dates while they are still strangers to her. Kagome could definitely sense the change her best friend. Maybe Sango finally decided to let Miroku go after four years of living in her memories of him. "Was it another blind date?"

Sango shook her head. "No, he asked me out-Wait." It was then, that it dawned on her. Who was it that told Hiroshima where she lived?

"I heard from a little feisty birdie that you don't go to work on Fridays. How 'bout you hang around with me for the day?"

Little feisty birdie…Now, now, who could that possibly be. Feisty. Then recognition clicked on Sango's features. "What's up, Sango?" Kagome asked, curious of her friend's silence.

Sango could just picture it, Flarenii's beanie head attached to a bird body that is constantly annoying her. That brat! It just had to be her pulling the strings. First, she set her up on a date with Itachio and now the bastard's brother! Why she could just wring that little bitch's neck… "Nothing, 'cept I just found out how Hiroshima got my address."

Kagome settled back with a little disappointment. "Oh." She was hoping for something a little more climatic. "Well, are you sure that you don't want to come with us to Las Vegas next month? Kikyo's already got her bags packed." Kagome changed the subject.

Sango stayed quiet and her brown eyes stared a hole in the counter. Should she? Or should she not? "I'm sorry, Kagome, but I really don't know yet…"

Kagome smiled at her friend. "It's...all right Sango, but we'll really miss you there." Kagome bent down and sipped her drink before looking up with one last persuasion on her tongue. "You can bring anyone you want. Like that guy you went out with that other day."

Now that's a new idea. Maybe she should consider going, after all, it's been about four and a half years since she's seen Sin City… But if she was going to go, who would she bring? Kohaku for sure, but Mom and Dad probably don't want him to miss a couple days of school. Itachio…Hiroshima…Flarenii…maybe- Sango shook her head roughly. Why the fuck them? They've all just been a huge prick in the ass for her, causing her nothing but trouble. Their troubles just led from one thing to another. Flarenii talked her into going to a blind date with her little 'friend', Itachio was the one to be her blind date (speaking of Itachio, she hadn't seen him since that surprised meeting at that restaurant. She hadn't seen him either at the apartments; it was like he was avoiding her. No, wait, she was the one avoiding him…) and that lead to Hiroshima Jaamaru. Itachio's brother.

"I guess you won't be coming, huh?" Kagome asked, a little more dejected. She had hoped that maybe she could get Sango to really turn around and join in for some fun once in a while even though she may still be mourning the loss of Miroku. But, damn it, how many times did she ask Sango that question?

The sad-eyed girl smiled apologetically at her friend. "No, but let me think about it, I might be able to go."

That cheered Kagome up considerably. "Okay!" Placed into a rather chipper mood, Kagome finished off the rest of her drink, tipped Sango about twenty-five bucks and dashed off, saying that if she left a minute later, Inuyasha would be mad at her for being late for a date. Sango smiled inside, not that he had anything to complain about, Kagome always putted up with him being the one late.

After cleaning up and finishing her shift at five, Sango said goodbye to Momiji and Botan, who had the next shift, and walked down the street to the market for some groceries.

Sango liked her converses, they were light and comfortable and they didn't make her feet stink too much when they sweat. She kept on watching her feet all the way that she didn't even notice she crossed the street into Albertson's. Sango blinked when she heard the sound of the automatic door opening. That was fast…

The first thing that Sango went to look for was the all-you-need-to-do-is-pop-it-into-the-microwave section. She couldn't cook something for shit. Now Kagome's mom was THE chef, one bite of her food and you'd swear that you had just died and gone to heaven. Sango made a note to herself to visit Kagome's place sometime soon. Yes, Kagome is still living with her mom-as lame as that sounds…but she is currently looking for a house for herself and Inuyasha; glad to know that her best friend wasn't going to spend the rest of her life living with her mom.

Pushing around a cart, Sango dumped loads of Campbells and Ragu and other such brands into the cart. Ironically the only thing that Sango could make without horribly burning the food is…a sandwich. It's not like you're cooking anything, just grab some bread, slap some cheese, ham and lettuce and BAM! A sandwich made perfecto.

She was out of Oreos, just as Sango left her cart and walked a little and reached up for the blue Oreo pack, a sudden noise and the pressure of another cart hitting her side brought her down.

"Oh, my fucken Gawd! Lookit what you did!" A young female voice near-shrieked. Pounding footsteps could be heard as Sango tried to gather herself off the floor. Being run over with a cart isn't fun when you land on your ribs. Think she broke her hip…

When Sango looked up, her brown eyes widened in surprise, Flarenii was standing in front of her, trying to gather up the things in the other cart, but more importantly a blob with silver head was coming this way.

What…? Itachio.

Even from her spot on the floor, Sango could see that he was surprised as well to see her by the wall his eyes held shock momentarily. The guy stopped a distance away, one of his hands stuck deep inside his jacket pocket and his other hand dangling at his side. The two brothers weren't all that different. For one, they both preferred wearing light-colored clothes. Their movements, postures and all were almost exactly the same. No wonder she had mistaken Hiroshima for Itachio when she first saw him.

All those thoughts churned in Sango's head as Flarenii scrambled to gather their things. When the girl was done, the Chinese girl noticed the silence between the two older people as Sango got up and dusted her behind off. My prize couple…A deep smirk hidden by a look of annoyance. "Ya know, Itachio, when you run somebody over with a shopping cart, the polite thing to do would be to apologize. After all, it was your fault the cart went flying in the first place."

Itachio glared at the young girl as she tried to spark a conversation between them. Shrugging, the silver-haired man tried to play it cool and muttered a, "Sorry."

Sango seemingly ignored him.

Flarenii sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping. There goes my hopes and dreams being tossed straight out the window by a pair of monotonous robots that can't seem to get along. WTF, dude! They're personalities are both about as interesting as watching toenails grow! So what went wrong?

The three stood silent in the aisle for a moment until a busy mother pushing a shopping car and a strolling chair with about five kids in it at the same time walked by and picked up the couple boxes of Oreos that Sango dropped and walked off leaving the trio once again in silence.

"Dude, that woman just took off with your Oreos." Flarenii pointed out to Sango.

Sango didn't spare her a glance, but inside she was sort of disappointed. Damn that bitch! How dare she run off with her Oreos!

"Uh…Get some ham, will ya."

A monotonous voice that had stayed quiet for a while spoke up and once again shattering the glass of awkward silence among the trio. Sango turned her head a little to spare the other two a glance and saw Itachio scratching the back of his head a little distracted while Flarenii placed a hand on her hip and leaned on her left leg. "What am I, yo fucken mom? Go get it yerself."

"Then what was the whole point of you coming with me to help me with my shopping."

"You made me go out and have some 'fresh air'. How is shopping in a stinky store with wailing quadruplets 'fresh air'?"

"Actually there were five of them."

"I don't give a fuck! Okay, okay, I'll get your damn ham…Jesus; it's on the other fucken side of the fucken store…"

"Can't she ever just talk like everybody else. I swear that she's making it a life-time goal to slip in naughty language in every other word she says."

"Pfft!" Itachio looked at her with shock and mild curiosity. Even she herself was puzzled as to why she was suddenly chuckling softly to herself. I don't know, but for some reason listening to that conversation between Flarenii and Itachio, just really…you know, made her want to laugh it out to show how pathetic it was with their useless arguments. It was almost like a typical brother/sister argument. You'd think that if Flarenii would bitch less about things and if Itachio didn't have to be so damn robotic, the world would be a better place. But what was she to say about this? She didn't know anything about them. She didn't know anything about anyone anymore.

"It…takes time to heal something broken. Don't reject what time has to offer."

Kaede had said that to her once, a few years back, but back then Sango barely paid attention to what the old lady had to say about the tragedy. She was too busy locking herself away in her roomful of angst and tears. (A/N: plays "Here Comes the Bride" theme Here comes the angst-queen, here comes the angst-queen…Don't know why I just said that…) So, don't reject what time has to offer. What did time had to offer though? More pain? More regrets? Cut the crap, you're not fit to preach, old lady.

"THAT WAS MY HAM! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING, BITCH!"

A loud, rude voice broke the strange moment as Itachio turned away from her and looked down the aisle that Flarenii had walked down a couple minutes before to get the ham.

"Trouble again?" Sango asked, pushing her cart alongside Itachio's.

"Bet my butt on it…Oh, um…sorry about before, didn't mean to get you all…" Itachio wracked his brain for any other word besides angry or upset. "…medieval on me that other night and sorry about the cart, I was aiming at Flarenii…"

Sango didn't say anything in reply. Sometimes, it's best to leave things hanging in suspense.

The two walking side-by-side was oddly…comforting. It was just like they were used to being around each other. Like how you and your best friend would always walk together to school talking about unimportant things, it's just, you need that space of air next to you to be your best friend.

They soon came upon a pretty loud scene. There stood Flarenii facing off with a rather large man with fuck-ass hairy arms and BO that could knock out a T-rex. (And t-rexes have breaths that could kill you, literally…, so that's saying something.) The two were arguing and spewing spittle at each other while a crowd of onlookers stood watching in amusement as a little twelve-year-old girl trying to make a dude three times her age and four times her size to back off.

"WTF! YOUR HAM! I DON'T SEE YOUR EFFING NAME WRITTEN ON IT! AND EVER HEARD OF DEODERANT? 'CUZ YOU NEED IT!" The young Chinese girl shouted, her furious braces showing.

The man spat on the ground a dangerously close inch near Flarenii's foot. "THAT WAS MY HAM! I SET IT THERE TO GET SOMETHING ELSE, YOU LITTLE THIEF!"

Flarenii stuck out her tongue and before the man could retort, the stores manager finally managed to get onto the scene and stepped between the two shouting people. "All right, enough. What the hell is goin' on here?"

"IT'S HER! THAT LITTLE BRAT TOOK MY HAM!"

The manager barely managed to get out of spitting range and he urged the guy to calm down. "Please, sir, calm down a bit." He turned his attention to the seething little girl. "Little girl-" That earned a withering glare from Flarenii. However, that had little effect on the near bald manager; he simply gave back the stern glare. "Now, now, didn't your mother ever teach you to not steal from other people? You could be severely punished."

Flarenii stared back in disbelieve. "Oh, so you just believe what he says? I didn't steal the ham; it was just effing sitting there!"

"#$$$..." Flarenii grumbled the whole time that Itachio and Sango stood in line waiting to check out. The girl had obviously lost the argument and had to pay for the ham. (Well, actually she didn't, she made Itachio pay.)

Sango watched with quiet amusement as Flarenii muttered furiously under her breath and make strangling motions with her hands in the air. Itachio walked next to the girl carrying all of the grocery bags (except for Sango's) with a look on his face like nothing happened. Ever since she had first met him, she often wondered what made the guy have a blank look 24/7.

Itachio stopped in front of a silver Silverado and he turned around, awkwardly looking at Sango. Flarenii was captivated by the corpse of a little bird that Itachio had ran over when he was attempting to park the truck.

"Erm…I'll give you a lift home if you want." Silver eyes shifted left and right, forcefully trying to not look directly at her.

Flarenii stood up after staying bent over and snorted, "Of course you're going to take me home, dumbass."

Itachio turned his head and glared at the girl. "I wasn't talking to you."

The twelve-year-old's mouth formed a huge "o" before looking at Sango and Itachio. "Well, I'll be waiting in the car."

Sango followed Flarenii with her eyes as she opened the door, climbed in, and slammed it shut, causing the whole truck to rock slightly.

"I thought I told you not to slam the door so hard." Itachio called, his robotic voice ringing out into the parking lot.

A slim, bony middle finger shone through the back window with Flarenii's childish face in a "Fuck you" expression.

Itachio didn't give much thought to that, instead he turned back to Sango and asked, "How 'bout it?"

Sango followed Flarenii's suit and got into the car, muttering a, "Sure, why not? We live across from each other." As she walked by Itachio.

The car ride was pretty much silent as Itachio drove the car, Sango stared out the window, and Flarenii read a pamphlet about sexual harassment. Sango tore her eyes from the passing streets and concentrated on her green converses. Green meant life. Green meant rebirth. Now where did people come up with that? Green was just a color, just like life was just a hopeless nightmare that humans dream up.

"Nice shoes."

Sango turned to see the girl sitting on her left. (A/N: They're sitting in a row in the front, with Flarenii in the middle.) Flarenii was nodding her approval. "Green and pink are like shitty matches, but they look pretty good you." Flarenii went back to reading her pamphlet, one finger picking idly at her braces.

"Yes, coming from a girl that has absolutely no fashion sense." Itachio's dry voice spoke as he made another right turn.

"Shut the fuck up."

"Careful, you shouldn't read when you're in a car or you might get carsick again."

"…"

Sango turned to the two arguing friends; surprised because of the fact that this time the little girl didn't say anything stupid and pointless back at Itachio. It was hard to read the look on her face, so Flarenii's carsick. That came as a surprise.

Flarenii suddenly stuffed the pamphlet into her side-bag and stared ahead, blinking a couple of times. "I think I'm going to puke…" She faked a gagging motion.

Itachio shook his head. "No, no, not in the car. Lean out the side."

Sango sank back into the comfort of the seat, suddenly wishing that she hadn't sat next to the girl.

"Just kidding."

Flarenii would have dropped dead when both the adults in the car turned to glare at her simultaneously. As Itachio glared down at the girl, he looked up into Sango's eyes and smiled briefly. That caught her off guard and she quickly returned to her window staring. Damn him and his Prince Charming-ness!

As the car pulled up to her apartment complex, Sango opened the door hastily before the car even stopped, with her groceries in hand Sango slammed the door shut and waved before turning around and walking into the building without speaking.

Flarenii scooted over to the passenger seat, still warm from when Sango sat on it and looked out the rolled-down window to see Sango walk down the halls of the building. "Wasn't she awfully quiet?" She didn't expect an answer from her companion and she never got one as Itachio got the truck back onto the road and started for the residential part of town.

Flarenii pulled out her notebook and started scribbling some things in it. Itachio kept his eyes on the road, his finger tapping against the steering wheel impatiently as he waited for the green light. The interior of the truck was in a quiet world apart from the noise of the outside world, the only noise heard were Itachio's impatient finger-tapping, the soft radio tones and Flarenii tapping her foot.

Not being able to bear the silent noises and tapping, a fist suddenly descended on the wheel hard, and the silver-eyed driver slumped down into his seat, his bowed head resting on the steering wheel.

Flarenii didn't need to look up and she instead turned the page. "You shouldn't snap when you're driving. By the way, the light just went green."

Whether or not Itachio had heard her didn't matter because he drove on anyway. Flarenii looked at her friend from the corner of her eye before sighing. "Hey, Ita, isn't it that time of the month? You'd think flowers wilt after a year."

If anybody else had been listening to the conversation, they would have said gotten the wrong idea. No, not talking about periods here. Itachio's finger-tapping ceased immediately, and Flarenii smirked to herself. Got him. The girl continued talking like nothing had happened. "You should just give up it's because of her that you couldn't pay for your old apartment's rent. You're getting your money leeched away, Ita. Give up like Shima, maybe you'll be able to save up more mon-"

A fist shot out and gripped the side of the girl's neck sharply and tightly. As, Flarenii shouted out in surprise, Itachio's eyes took for a wild turn, he was like a totally different person. An insane different person. His grip tightened and his nails dug into her skin, piercing a thin layer of it. When he spoke, his voice was deep, dark and cold like who he used to be; the "real" him. "Don't. Let. Me. Hear. You. Say. That. EVER. Again. You got that, you little bitch?" His breath tickled her ear, as he growled at her. His silver eyes glistened in the dark car.

Flarenii's eyes were trembling. Crap…ah, crap! Though, she hid and covered her fear. With a smirk, she brushed his hand away from her throat roughly. "Hn. Whatever you say, asshole." She slammed the door behind her and tore through her front door, slamming the door behind her. She ignored Laramie's, "What happened to you?" question and headed upstairs to her room, slamming the door shut as well.

The girl sat with her back to the door, gasping for breath. There goes improvement down the drain. Gawd, I'm such a fucken idiot! Flarenii clutched her chest as her breathing calmed down, her other hand grasping for her beanie. With a tug, she tossed the head accessory across the room, her black hair hanging in her face. "You really should give up, Ita. Maybe then the other you would go away." A smile worked its way onto her fear-made pale face.

Outside in his truck, Itachio gripped his head and slammed it onto the steering wheel. The horn honked, as he rested his head on the wheel. Tonight would be a long night…

End Chapter 10

Who else was confused? looks around. I know, so was I. I honestly had no idea what I wrote, but enjoy it anyway. (Or not.) Leave a review on the way out, please. I wanna know your opinion. Am I confusing you? Maybe I should add Inuyasha and Co. more? Or maybe this story is plain going downhill? (Flames welcome. Though I haven't gotten any yet. NOT THAT I WANT THEM OR ANYTHING!)