Chapter Five: Coffee Date
Not before her coffee was three-quarters of the way gone did Kagome wonder if her boss had stood her up.
She checked the time on her phone. Sesshomaru was almost 30 minutes late; Kagome decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe his secretary got the time wrong. She brought her beverage to her lips and inhaled before taking another sip.
This shop was small, tucked in between a bistro and an unmarked building, and she had to walked up and down the street once or twice before she realized this was, in fact, the place. Inside, the cafe offered nothing fancy – a simple hand-written menu informed patrons that they could have their coffee in sizes small or large, and with cream or sugar. No cold brews or ice anywhere, and you could order a muffin, but the cashier told Kagome they weren't very good.
The whole place seemed like the type of hipster establishment that forced "coffee, in its purest form" down customers' throats, and begged them to turn off their phones in order to "communicate with the person next to you, god damn it!" In other words, it was the ideal spot for Sesshoumaru to frequent, but then again, he didn't seem like the type of guy to go anywhere more than once.
Kagome sat at a table near the door, and she kept her eyes on the window. After nearly 45 minutes of waiting, she debated leaving, but then a familiar face appeared across the glass.
The door chime clanged, and an out-of-breath man turned beady eyes onto Kagome. She stood out of surprise.
"Ah, Miss Higurashi," Jaken said, looking as if he would collapse. "Take a seat."
"Oh, I thought – " Kagome sunk down into her chair.
"Apologies, but my boss was caught up in a last-minute affair." Jaken turned his head, squinting at the counter-top bar for a few seconds. Kagome looked, too, noticing nothing out of the ordinary.
"Well," he said. "We should get down to business."
Unloading the supply truck was traditionally a two-man job, but Inuyasha liked to be alone, and he found the work easy enough to manage by himself. Eventually, the managers had given him ownership of the position, and every Thursday morning, this was how he spent those early hours.
Normally, this was all finished before the first few customers started lining up around 6 a.m., but an hour passed, and then another hour, and then Inuyasha's normal craving for a cigarette came around, and he realized it was after 8 o'clock. Finally, a familiar beeping sounded, and the awaited load began backing into the narrow street.
"Dude, really?" Inuyasha asked the driver while opening the hatch of the truck.
"Crazy traffic." The man shrugged.
Boxes were stacked, fat, blocky lettering describing the contents inside as "CUPS, SIZE S," or "STRAWS." And Inuyasha wheeled the dolly back and forth as the idling truck engine hummed on, the rhythm steadying him. When working, he felt normal, a sensation he had spent years, decades, chasing.
"Not much today," the driver told Inuyasha.
"'Kay," Inuyasha said. This typical non-banter worked for the two men, who had been meeting week after week for over a year.
Inuyasha went back inside, the job complete.
Koga could be the most stubborn fool when it suited him. Kagome hung up on him, sulking.
Jaken had moved on, but she was too excited and shocked to move, and then a pang of something – fear? – had set in, and she called her boyfriend to tell him the – what she thought was – good news.
He had met her halfway with congratulations, but then a, "What about us, babe?" had Kagome playing damage control as she tried to explain.
"It's such a good opportunity," she said. "I can't pass it up. It's only one semester. We'll be fine."
"You might be." Kagome usually found Koga's whiny voice so cute. "Sometimes I wonder what you actually care about."
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Well, why else would you want to stay there?" Koga said. "There's some fucking guy who's got your ego all worked up. He probably –"
"What 'fucking' guy?" Kagome mimicked Koga's inflection. "You're implying that I –"
A sigh. "No, no, I'm not. I'm saying… why else would you want to stay there? We have plenty of 'opportunities' in Japan. I think you're just using this as an excuse for something."
Kagome looked down at the hand in her lap, which had been clenched into a fist. "OK, I have class in a few minutes," she lied. "I'll call you tomorrow." End call.
Her boyfriend wouldn't understand, she tried telling herself. He had a vision for his future, and she was a part of it, something she felt like she could never change even if she wanted to.
Jaken had left an application in a manila envelope in her care. She took a much-needed deep breath.
"I can't pass this up," she said.
She decided another coffee was in order.
When Inuyasha walked back inside, Sango was smiling at him.
"Can I help you?" he asked, brushing off his shoulders.
"You're so distracted today," she said.
"I am not," he said.
"Sesshoumaru still giving you shit?" she asked.
"No," he said. But she didn't let go. She never could.
"So Kikyo still isn't talking to you?" she turned back to the register, her long arms folding into a criss-cross against the counter. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail under her uniform hat, and she kept her eyes – her only soft feature – on him. Sometimes Inuyasha forgot she was a woman.
He pulled his mouth into a flat line. "She's barely talking to any of us, even my dad."
"Why's she so mad, exactly?" Sango asked.
"Uh, it's a long story." Inuyasha said.
"She must like you," she said. "Which is hilarious."
"Why?"
"Why does she like you? Or why is it hilarious that…," Sango didn't finish as a young woman approached the counter.
She wasn't just any woman; Inuyasha realized that a little too late.
"Hello," the customer said, "uh, I was wondering if I could get a black coffee to-go?"
"Absolutely," Sango said, not sensing anything out of the ordinary, because why would she?
The woman wasn't looking at Inuyasha, but he felt the heat creep into his face, and his hands were shaking. He tried to back away, into the shadows, but his back pressed into a storage shelf, and the woman turned at the sound of crinkling plastic.
Her eyes flickered; she stayed silent.
"Oh, my god," Inuyasha said. "It's you."