Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
REVISED: format - 10/15/2006
Co-Writer and Beta: Jae

Replaced Bride – Part VI
The Kitchen Scene

Kagome stirred her tea, watching the sugar dissolve. She'd had to go through the ritual of making the hot drink herself, something that never failed to soothe her. Luckily there weren't as many servants in Sesshoumaru's own home. She stifled a yawn and lifted the delicate china cup to her lips, sipping carefully at the scalding liquid. Her brows arched slightly as a young woman stumbled into the kitchen, pushing back a mass of disarrayed tresses from her face.

"Hey, Kagome," Sango mumbled, grabbing a seat and falling into it with a little sigh. "Wasn't sure if my legs would keep my weight the entire way here!"

"Yeah?" The younger woman tilted her head slightly. "What happened?"

"What do you think?" She raised a hand, punctuating her words by ticking the events off her fingers. "Ravished against bathroom door, ravished on bathroom floor, ravished in the shower, ravished drying off from the shower, ravished getting into the room, ravished on the bed, ravished trying to get dressed—have you any idea how hard it is to put clothes on with a hanyou holding impossible stamina grabbing for you at every turn?—ravished trying to get out the door…"

Knowing full well that her best friend could go on—the evidence of her marriage's success in the bedroom had been strewn all over the house, from discarded clothing to tipped-over vases—Kagome raised her hand to interrupt. "Okay, okay, I get the point!"

Sango groaned, but perked up as she saw the little cup. "Ooh, tea? Thank you, darling!" She snagged the drink and sipped with a little moan. "Heaven. God, I miss tea. Hell, I miss food and drink. He never lets me out of his arms, much less into the kitchen." She made a face. "Actually, I refuse to let him in the kitchen, because I know you'd never eat again if we were in it."

She flinched away from that mental image. "Really, I hope you exaggerate…"

The flat look on the newlywed's face nixed that in the bud.

"Oh. Well, you're forbidden from being in the kitchen. So there."

"Mmm…" Sango sighed and propped her chin in her hand. "Kagome?"

"Hmm?"

"Out of you and Sesshoumaru… do any of you have a completely unremarkable friend or maybe a houseplant I could go to dinner with on Saturday night?"

Kagome glared at her friend immediately. "You're married, Sango!" She leaned forward to snatch her tea back with a little pout. "Have you been drinking again?"

"I don't have time to breathe, much less drink," she muttered testily. "No, seriously, do you?"

She frowned a little. "Why?"

"There's one thing our marriage is based on, besides mutual disgust—sex. I want to go out and have a date again, preferably with someone who won't put holes in windows because he throws a temper tantrum. Oh, and if my date were cute, he'd remind me a little too much of the lovely family I was so happily married into…" the sugary sweetness of her last words had Kagome scooting a little farther from the table, just in case. Health hazard staring her right in the face, and its name was Kirishima Sango.

"Well… at least I know where the broken window came from," she muttered, before raising her voice. "Sure. Hojou—"

"NO!" Sango shuddered. "Okay, maybe I should go with the houseplants. The Kirishimas have such wonderful variety, you know—I've spent enough time in various rooms to notice."

"That's true. They don't lack in them at all…" Kagome looked thoughtful. "Then again, they are rich. So of course they would have some. Hi, Sesshoumaru," she continued without missing a beat, as her fiancé headed for the fridge and hunting through it. "Anyway, there's that one that's in the living room…"

"No, no, definitely… feminine. A little too feminine. Pretty sure he's a girl."

Kagome's brow quirked slightly, then she frowned. Yes, the daintiness of it definitely screamed woman… so plants did have genders after all. "Okay then… Oh, the one in the western wing is gorgeous. Perfect lines, and so beautifully color-coordinated!"

"Hmm… oh, the red-and-green? No, too Christmas-y…" She pouted a little. "Hmm, how about the one in your room? Makes it so much more cozy in there, maybe—"

"No. I'm keeping him, he's my company when I get bored at night," Kagome sniffed.

Sesshoumaru's attention wavered from hunting for a bottle of sake to the conversation between the women. Who the hell is keeping her company at night? he wondered with a growl. And how can she be so shameless as to speak of him in front of me?

"This is harder than I thought," his brother's wife muttered. It was then he realized… Is she planning on cheating on Inuyasha?

He slammed the fridge shut and stared flatly at the women, conversing still, oblivious to his presence. "Well, why not just take Bankotsu again?" Kagome asked bluntly.

Sango sighed. "Kagome, you don't understand. It's like… okay, let me put it this way: sex with an ex can be depressing. If it's good, you don't have it anymore; if it's bad, you just had sex with an ex."

"Ohh… That makes sense." She bit her lip thoughtfully. "What about the one in the north room of the western wing? You know, the tall one?"

"I know that one! He's quite exotic, isn't he?" The enthusiasm in her voice hammered at his control.

"I agree. I think I might be jealous," his fiancée was saying.

"Oh wait—how about…"

"Let me guess—tall and lean, rather husky, almost extravagant in its simple lines but with all the—"

"Yes!" Sango crowed. "He has quite the seeds, I must admit!"

He lost it then. "What the devil are you two talking about?" he snarled. They turned to blink up at him innocently, wide smiles gracing their faces.

"Why, plants, of course, darling. Are you hungry?" She stood and opened the fridge, peeking inside. "Well, there's a lot in here, but I'm too afraid to move things around in case your cook gets upset when she comes in tomorrow morning. Can you make an omelette?"

Still a little miffed by their apparently innocent conversation, he crossed his arms and graced her with bored look. "The only thing I've ever successfully made in the kitchen is a mess. And several small fires."

He managed to say that so elegantly, with a coolly precise tone, that both women began to laugh. "Okay then, I guess I need to cook. Sango, think you can cut some onions for me?"

"Ah, a white man," she noted sagely. "Though I didn't realize I was supposed to chop up my dates?"

"It's not for your date. It's for food."

- - -

CJ's Blurb: Short. But I had to get this out, since I'm not sure what else I want to put in this chapter. Jae helped write it She came up with all the Sex and the City quotes, and helped me a lot with the plant conversation…