Chapter 14: Rules of the Neighborhood
When Inuyasha drives back home, he notices that his father car is already in the garage in its sport inside. Inuyasha would be expecting a scolding of a lifetime whenever he drives Izayoi's car. But when he left an hour ago, Izayoi gave him her permission to use it for that time limit. 'Let's just hope that dad understands.' He thinks to himself as he gets out of his mother's back into the garage. As he walks in through the laundry room, he spots his father in his office as he passes by. "Ah, Inuyasha. May I have a word with you?" Inutaishou asks him politely.
Inuyasha walks in obediently as he takes a seat on the leather couch in the office room. "I bet mom told you what happened?" Inuyasha starts off. Inutaishou instead gives him a confused look. "What about you talking about? Izayoi didn't tell me anything when I got home. I came in about 5 minutes ago." Inutaishou responds back to his son. 'Ok I wasn't expecting that.' Inuyasha comments dryly. "What was it that she was supposed to tell me?" Inutaishou gets him out of his thoughts.
"I thought that when you came home, you would've noticed that mom's car was gone even when she was home the entire time." Inuyasha speaks to him a bit annoyed. "Oh, I didn't notice. I was too focus with work that I didn't think I would need to. Why was that her car missing when she was home?" Inutaishou asks him as relaxes back into his chair. "I had to go somewhere to return something back to the store where I bought it from a few weeks ago." Inuyasha calmly explains his reason for taking Izayoi's car in the first place.
Inutaishou nods understandingly. "I see. Well for starters, did Izayoi said it was ok to take her care to take of this errand?" He asks the most obvious question in the book. "She said it was alright. I got to use it for an hour. That gave me more than enough time to take care of the errand." Inuyasha crosses his arms in confidence. Inutaishou looks at the little clock on desk to see how long it's been since Inuyasha left the house for the time limit. "And how long were you gone?" He asks curiously.
Inuyasha has to think this one thoroughly. After a few seconds, "About half an hour. So I'm good." He smiles at his father. "Ok. Well, first of all, you kept your word for taking good care of your mother's car. I know you just turned 16 last month and it's crucial to have a car of your own, but of what's been going on, we're going have to wait till your friends are at that age as well." Inutaishou said wisely. "So have Sango and Miroku turned 16 yet?" He asks him curiously. "Miroku turned 16 last month. His birthday is a few days after mine. Sango on the other hand won't be 16 until another two months thought." Inutaishou nods. "I see. And what about Kagome? Is she 16 years old?"
Ok Inuyasha didn't see that coming. First off, when Inuyasha was a kid Miroku was the first friend he made and then a few years later Sango came into the picture. They may be not related by blood, but they still act like siblings. "What about her? She just moved here. What does that have to do with this topic?" Inutaishou shrugs his shoulders. "I thought that when she moved her, you two would already be friends by now."
Inuyasha shakes his head. "No. She still needs time to get used to the neighbor. When she first came here, she was having a hard getting over her ex-boyfriend." Inutaishou can tell that topic has now turned into a more personal topic. "Ok. Well when she's ready to be your friend then you can have your own car. But you have to get to know her first. So far you told me about her getting over the ex." Inuyasha nods. "Ok, you can leave now." He waves his hand to let his son leave the room. Inuyasha does leave the room with a sigh of relief.
As Inuyasha goes into the kitchen, he spots his mother reading a book in the living room recliner. "Hey, mom. I'm home." Inuyasha comes up to her and gives her the keys. "Hello, sweetie. I take it that my car is back in one piece." She takes the keys from her son's hands. "Not a scratch a mom." Inuyasha replies confidently. Izayoi gives him a suspicious look but it fades into a proud smile. "You're free to go." She nods to him. Inuyasha smiles back and heads upstairs.
Inuyasha sets his backpack onto his bed to pull out any homework that he has to do for the night. As he browses the agenda that he was given at the beginning of the school year so he knows what to take care of for the time being. So far it turns out that only math and science. The science is fine with him. Math? No way. The are a few subtopics of math that was way too complicated for him to understand it. So he decides to get the science taken care of because he'd be doing his math homework much longer.
As soon as he finished the science homework, he puts them back into his backpack. All of a sudden, his phone dings. He opens it to see that it's Kagome. 'Hey how are things with you?' The text shows on the screen. He quickly texts back. 'Not much. Just a hard time finishing my math ;p' The screen shows Kagome texting message to let him know that she texting back. 'Need help?' She asks him. Inuyasha texts back. 'Sure. Come on over.' He smiles. 'Be right there.' Kagome's text dings back.
Inuyasha puts his phone of the charging pad, but then realizes that his room is a bit messy. And since he's expecting company, he quickly tidies up to make it presentable for Kagome. Whenever Miroku comes to his house, he doesn't mind the mess. He gets to the front door and allows the girl in.
As soon as Kagome steps in, the office door opens up to show Kagome Mr. Takahashi coming out. "Who do we have here?" He smiles nicely to the guest. "Um, hello. I'm Kagome Higurashi." Kagome bows to him. Inutaishou aahs. "Oh so you must be Kagome that my wife told me about you. It's nice to meet you officially." He bows back. He then leaves the two alone. Inuyasha sighs in relief. 'And here I though my dad was going to embarrass me in front of her.' He leads Kagome to his bedroom. He opens the door for her to go in first.
Kagome smiles to see how nice and big his room in. "So you have problems with math?" Kagome asks him as she puts her own backpack to get her math homework out. Even though that they have the same grade of math, they're just in different classes. "Yeah. It's algebra." Inuyasha answers as he shows the homework assignment. Kagome looks through the instructions. "I might be able to get you through the steps so it can a bit easy for you to get it." Kagome smiles as she pulls out what she was able to pull out her own math homework. About a half an hour later, Inuyasha manages to get his homework finished in record timing. As such he feels proud.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" He looks to her. "Sure." Kagome looks back to him. "This maybe new to you to know about a certain rule of this neighborhood." Kagome sits down onto his bed. "When is your birthday?" Inuyasha asks her. "My birthday is May 8th. Why?" Kagome gives her answer. So her birthday is about 2 more months as well. "You see my dad came with this rule. The thing is that there has to be four families that each one must have a kid at about the age of sixteen." He explains to her so far. "I'll be sixteen, so I count." Kagome praises herself. Inuyasha stops her with his hand gesture. "However there's only three families with that position. There's me, Miroku, and Sango. Sango will be sixteen in the next two months. Even with the three of us at the age, neither of us can have our own car." Inuyasha explains further details.
Kagome seems to get this. "So I'll be the fourth to complete the set." She smiles, but seeing Inuyasha with a stern look drops her smile. "It can only work if all four are friends. You are aware about me, Miroku and Sango are friends. We're just wondering if you would be our friend to make this work." He asks her. Kagome knew for sure that her and Sango are friends, maybe Miroku as well, but Inuyasha? It's a fifty-fifty chance. "Why not. I'm desperate to get a car as well when I turn sixteen as well." She agrees with his terms.
Inuyasha smiles as he turns to one of the desk drawers to pull out a piece of paper to show Kagome. He hands it to her. Kagome reads it in her head. "What's this? Some kind of contract?" She asks him. "Exactly. You see, I already got one with Miroku and Sango signed. All that's left is yours signature to prove to my dad so that we can have our own cars. All of him, so there's no need for you or anyone in your family to pay for it. Miroku and Sango have already have their eyes on their cars." He explains what will happen if this were to work. Without any hesitation, Kagome grabs her pen and signs it. "All that's left is for you and Sango to turn sixteen so we can do pull this off." Inuyasha gratefully receives the sheet and puts it onto his desk.
"I just want to know why this is so important to your dad? Not that I'm against it to begin with." Kagome asks him curiously. Inuyasha nods back. "You see, my dad came up with this idea so that neither of the parents would have to waste their time to come and pick up their kids despite the location of this area. Let's say if any of us are in trouble, we have to contact one of our friends to help out. Nothing more." Kagome gets it. It's the simple, I've got your back, and you've got mine saying. "I'll be more than happy to help you guys out." Inuyasha doesn't need to say anything else. "Alright, let's just give this to my dad, and you can go home." They head down to the office to see his father working on something important. "Hey dad. I've got something for you." He knocks on the door to get his father's attention.
Inutaishou looks up to see Inuyasha with Kagome behind in. "Come on in." He gestures them to enter the office. Kagome looks around the room with awe. There's a few framed documents with his name along with a few collectables on a few shelves. "So, what's the visit for?" Inutaishou asks Inuyasha. Inuyasha hands over the document with Kagome's signature on it. "I see well Kagome, welcome to the group. I just need to know what kind of car you prefer to have." Inutaishou puts the document into a drawer that already has Miroku and Sango's signatures on separate document that Inuyasha gave them earlier. He opens up another drawer to pull out a catalog of various vehicles for Kagome to choose from. That's when Kagome's eyes widen in surprised for what the catalog is showing her.
