Chapter Three: Telephone Tag
Inuyasha had barely put his cell to his ear before a flat voice started with the accusations.
"What did you do?"
Inuyasha tried talk at an even pace but found himself failing. "What are you talking about?" Yes, feign ignorance, like a child. He can't hurt you anymore, dumbass.
"Kikyo. She is here." Sesshomaru was speaking just above a whisper, but Inuyasha still pulled the cell back an inch. "Why is she here?"
"Have you spoken to her?"
His half-brother ignored the question. "Father is unhappy."
"How do you think I feel?" Inuyasha asked, gripping the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.
"Fix this. Or I will." The line was dead.
Inuyasha felt ready to rip a building in half. He settled for a box of matches that had the misfortune of lying on the counter and being within arm's reach.
"Hey, babe. Sorry that it's been a bit." Koga's voice sounded metallic, about as far away as he actually was. Lately, the reception was always poor when he called.
Kagome smiled. "It's no worries." She plucked at a pen that was standing upright in an empty cup at the corner of her desk.
"Your mom said to say hi, too," her boyfriend said.
"You've been to the house?" Kagome asked, eyebrows shooting up.
"Just to pick up some … stuff …" Koga trailed off. "Hang on a sec."
There was the sound of shuffling, a gruff noise that sounded like a farewell, and then more mumbled movements. Kagome started tracing the tip of the pen over her upper lip, a habit she had formed in middle school.
"There we go." Koga returned a couple minutes later.
"If you're busy, we don't have to talk now," she said.
"Are you kidding?" he said. "Babe, I'm going crazy not seeing you. The shop is so boring when I don't have anything to look forward to afterwards."
"I know what you mean," Kagome said.
They caught up on each other's lives. For a moment, Kagome remembered her last trip to South Station, the tip of the pen hovering over her mouth; she had never lied to Koga before, never kept anything from him. She laid the pen flat.
"Say, Koga," she said.
"Hm?"
She couldn't. Somehow she just couldn't get the words to form. They clustered together at the base of her throat. Did he really need to know about something so insignificant? And she didn't want to bother him anyway, get him all riled up over nothing.
"Um, I just miss you a lot."
The semester was ending, along with Kagome's contract, on the 30th, a little more than a month away. She'd already bought the ticket to Tokyo, which she kept in the front pocket of her agenda and every time she saw the reminder, she felt that she could cry in relief.
"We'll make it, babe," Koga said.
She smiled at his promise.
Notes: 488 Words