Chapter 4 - Could it Be Any Worse
"We can skip all the formalities. Say you will be my woman, Kagome," Kouga cajoled with a wide, shit-eating grin. He fluffed his tail and flipped the end of his high pony-tail over his shoulder.
Kagome took a deep breath. Then she took another. "There are two weeks to this process. I am not happy about it and will not be rushed, Kouga." And I will never, ever, be your woman, she finished silently. He always took her refusals as a challenge. Best to keep them to a minimum.
Given she had spent the better part of intermediary school running away from his high-handed claims, she was in no mood to endure a repeat of that experience. Seriously. Who, even amongst Youkai, was that dense?
"Can I play with your cat?" Shippo, the most adorable thing she had ever seen in a tiny blue outfit complete with a sailor hat, asked politely.
Having already seen him eye Buyo with a wicked smirk more suited for a grown male, Kagome was not fooled by his cutesy persona. "Why not let him get used to you first?" she replied. Just in case, she also lifted the fat butterball rubbing against her legs into her arms before the fox kit decided to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
Her grandpa had warned her about fox Youkai. All of them lived for tricks and playing pranks on anything that moved. She was not going to let him bother her geriatric, rotund little sweety. Souta had already managed to give Buyo a bald spot on his hind end from stress.
"Keh," Inuyasha huffed out. He held Shippo's belongings in his arms. "Damn thing looks like he can barely walk as it is."
Kagome sighed. She had been shocked to see her friend accompanying Shippo upstairs where her mother had insisted she show her suitors to their room. Apparently, Inuyasha was friends with Miroku. Surprise, surprise. Then again, Kagome reminded herself, she hadn't known he was dating her cousin, Kikyo, either until she caught them using her wellhouse for activities her mother would have been horrified to discover.
Miffed that neither her only guy friend nor her cousin had told her about their relationship, Kagome had enjoyed holding their illicit liaison over both their heads. Good times. Much ramen was to be had and she has been able to ace her exams with all the free tutoring Kikyo gave her in exchange for her silence.
She was a Miko, not a saint, after all!
"Are you staying here, too, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked, hoping to further deflect Kouga from his single-minded pursuit.
"Hell, no!" the hanyou denied. "Just tell me where to dump the rat's stuff and I am gone. Miroku is talking to your mom downstairs. I have a date."
"Jakotsu finally wear you down?" Kouga jibed Inuyasha. "I heard you've gotten chummy with him."
"Fuck you, wolf shit," Inuyasha shot back. "Just because you only think with your pencil dick doesn't mean the rest of us do. 'Sides," Inuyasha smirked, "Just because you have identity issues doesn't mean I do. Being gay ain't contagious, numb nuts. Jakotsu is helping me train for the District interblooded match. He would kick your weak ass on the dojo mat any day."
"The fuck you say!" Kouga got in Inuyasha's face. "I would fuck you both so hard you'd cry for weeks!"
The dog hanyou's grin fairly cracked his jaw in half. Kagome coughed into her hand. Shippo sniggered.
Kouga's face flamed red when he realized the slip. "That's not what I meant!" he yelled, before whirling around to pace to the room Kagome's prospects had been assigned. The door slammed shut behind him so hard it shook the entire floor.
Kagome whistled then rolled her eyes at Inuyasha. "You just couldn't help it, could you?"
He smirked. "You're welcome, Bitch. He will pout for at least three hours before sniffing around you like Buyo used to chase the damn pussy next door before he got snipped."
"Kagome," Shippo interrupted, "do I have to stay with Kouga and the others? Can I stay with Souta instead?"
Eye twitching, Kagome groaned inwardly but kept her face carefully blank. Souta had been completely nonplussed by the need to host males for the purposes of courting his sister. He was younger, but when he wasn't being a stinker, he did care about her. And the fact that he couldn't run around the shrine house in his underwear while their unwanted guests lingered.
"Um, maybe you could ask him that?" she suggested, sending her brother a silent apology for deferring the decision to him. She had no doubt they would get along just fine provided Shippo didn't touch Souta's games. Or his computer. Or anything that he owned.
Seriously. What was it with guys and their junk? They complained about girls being catty, but girls could share! Sango probably had more of her clothes than she did! And vice versa.
"You figure that shit out. I am leaving his bag in your room until you do," Inuyasha declared. "I'm not sticking around for asshole to show up. Dad said he would arrive late. Probably to make a grand entrance or some shit like that. Jakotsu is right. Sesshomaru would make a good queen."
"I would not expect a hanyou of your deplorable taste to understand this Sesshomaru's ability to present a picture of refinement and discipline," came a cold voice from the stairwell just behind Inuyasha.
The hanyou's ear flattened in annoyance and, Kagome noted, just a hint of panic. Clearly he had been too busy mentally planning his after-date activities to notice the scent of his half-brother.
Kagome swallowed once Sesshomaru stepped into the main hall of the second floor. He was dressed to the nine's, like always, in a coal-black suit with a dapper green vest and white shirt so bright it almost blinded her.
Personally, though she would sooner shove her hand into a blender than ever admit it to anyone except Sango, Kagome did not agree with Jakotsu. Sesshomaru was not queen material. He was beautiful but in a masculine sort of way like a lion or tiger. Sleek. Powerful.
"You may direct my domestic to my lodgings," Sesshomaru commanded with a wave to the small toad Youkai struggling beneath a trunk that entered the hall behind Sesshomaru.
Kagome added arrogant dick to her mental list of Sesshomaru's many attributes while smiling big enough to make her appear demented. He hated that. Once, when she had first beaten him in chess, she had smiled at him like that. He had likened her to a clown at a carnival and asked if she had plans to join a circus, for surely that was her only prospect.
"Right this way," she told the toad. Jaken, or something, was his name. She should feel sympathy for his plight. But after running into him while on her trips to visit Sesshomaru to save Inuyasha from having his intestines parted from his body or some other horrible fate, she had the opportunity to become well acquainted with the bigoted little green stain on Youkai-hood.
He deserved Sesshomaru. Every bit of him.
Kouga growled when Kagome opened the door, but walked into the room's private bathroom without a word. The bathroom was why her mother had given them this particular room. Being a shrine, they occasionally hosted dignitaries who wanted to spend time meditating. To make them more comfortable during their stay, her grandfather had renovated the shrine house two decades ago to enlarge the room by knocking down the wall between it and another room. Now, there was a bathroom and a space large enough to comfortably sleep three.
If one of those three wasn't Sesshomaru, that is, she amended.
"I am going to check on Mama," Kagome told both Inuyasha and Sesshomaru after leaving the room to Jaken's squawking about its unsuitableness for his lord. "Come on Shippo," she invited the kit with jostle of Buyo in her arms. "I'll take you to Souta. You can ask him about staying in his room."
"I require your attendance to my words," Sesshomaru ordered. "I have not come all this way to be left with the wolf." Inuyasha he completely dismissed.
"I'm gone," Inuyasha yelled over his shoulder, already heading down the stairs.
Kagome narrowed her eyes after the sounds of his footsteps thumping down the stairs. Figures he would cut and run. He always left her to deal with his brother!
She cleared her throat. "I will be outside in ten minutes. Let me check on my mother and get Shippo taken care of," she promised as a compromise to his demands for her immediate attention. The trick to handling Sesshomaru was similar to how she dealt with Kouga. Direct confrontation always resulted in more problems than they were worth. Sesshomaru wanted to talk – there would be no getting around it. But she would not bow to his demands for immediacy.
Now, if only she could manage to put him off for the two weeks along with a certain wolf Youkai.
"Kagome?" a soft voice floated to her ears. She swirled around and her mouth dropped open. Shippo and Sesshomaru were both forgotten.
Kami, she hadn't been this evil, had she? Hojo? Hojo was the mysterious suitor? The same boy who had tried to feed her mummified Youkai toes during grade school to cure her of a Youkai possession was standing in her hall.
Hojo had refused to understand that ear infections happened to everyone. Hers had been recurring due to a bad habit of swimming in the lake without ear plugs. Because her voice had thickened and gotten deeper while she struggled with the antibiotics and draining, he had been sure she had been possessed by a water imp or some nonsense like that.
Her. A Miko. Possessed by the very thing they purified on a daily basis in the larger cities?
Kagome did not bother to hide her groan this time. What was the point? She was so totally screwed.