Of Bad Days and Unfortune

Prompt: "I like your laugh."

Universe: AU

Genre: Comedy

1,000 Words

When Kagome first met Sesshoumaru, she thought he only had one expression – the impassive, closed-off mask he wore for all the world to see. But as she inspected him from one meeting to another, she began to understand that he had as many expressions as any other person; the shifts of his features just happened to be so slight it took a trained eye to see them.

As far as customers went, Sesshoumaru was almost ideal. Although he had high demands and imposed strict deadlines, Kagome could tell he was the kind of a person who'd expect even more of himself than he did of others, so she gladly rose to the challenge. Besides, she loved how focused and organised he was; he always answered his e-mails promptly and had very clear opinions of what he did and did not want. That made it easy to work with him, even when he was not the kind of a person with whom she'd get easily along.

Usually, Kagome got on well with all kinds of people. She was friendly and understanding and was always ready to help others. Perhaps that was why she had naturally gravitated towards event planning.

She had grown up at a Shinto shrine, and as the eldest child had been expected to pitch in whenever they needed an extra hand – usually around New Year or other annual holidays when the shrine would be hosting an event or a festival. Really, it was like she'd been groomed for this particular job.

And despite her occasional clumsiness, she was good at it.

But not all days were good, and every once in a while when the unlucky stars aligned, things could go terribly wrong.

Sesshoumaru's company had finished a product they had been developing for three years. To celebrate its launch, they were holding a party to the employees at the company as well as their affiliates. That was where Kagome came in.

Kagome had come to rather like Sesshoumaru during the five weeks they had been planning the event, so she had resolved to do her very best.

Yet, in spite of her efforts, things had started to go downhill one Wednesday afternoon.

First, Kagome received a notification e-mail confirming the order she had placed after lunch for the special favours they had agreed on with Sesshoumaru – gifts to the developer team. Only looking at the confirmation now, it seemed Kagome had got the number wrong, mixing it up with the favours meant for the affiliates' representatives.

She hyperventilated for a while and had tried to throw herself into the work but being upset over her previous mistake lead her into making another one. She finally got prints of the posters she had been working on, advertising the new product. Only, she hadn't proofread them before sending them to the print shop and found a typo that had completely slipped under her radar. As a result, the release date the poster proudly boasted was off by a day. Such a small thing, really, and yet at the same time a colossal mishap, given how celebrating the launch of the product was the sole reason they were even throwing the party.

To compensate for her blundering, Kagome stayed at work overtime, but the last straw was when she couldn't find the guest list. Giving up on searching the chaos of papers on her desk, she decided to print the damn thing out again, but couldn't find it on the computer, either. What was going on? Had her computer just eaten the file?

The horrible day weighing on her mind, Kagome admitted defeat and went home.

She knew tomorrow things would get even worse: she had a meeting with Sesshoumaru in the morning.

A client as meticulous as Sesshoumaru was… he would be furious. Enraged. He would think her incompetent and give her the boot.

Accompanied by anxiety and one nightmare scenario after another, Kagome crawled to bed.

She slept fitfully through the night, and didn't feel even remotely rested when she got up with bleary eyes and dread pooling in the pit of her stomach.

The morning and the commute to work was a blur, and before she knew it, Kagome found herself sitting across from Sesshoumaru at the meeting room table.

Panic welling inside of her. She stared at the wooden surface of the table, unable to raise her gaze and meet Sesshoumaru's eyes.

"Do you want tea? Coffee?" he asked politely.

Kagome shook her head.

"No thanks."

"Are you quite well, Miss Higurashi? You look rather pale."

Kagome swallowed. She swore she could hear the frown in his voice and squeezed her hands into fists to stop the trembling of her fingers.

With a shaky breath, she took the plunge.

"I'm really sorry. Yesterday was a very long day with one disaster after another. I mixed up the orders for the developer team's and affiliates' favours so instead of the twenty-five that we wanted we'll now be getting forty-eight. I went to get prints of the posters but didn't proofread them well enough so the release date is wrong and I'll have to redo them. And finally, try as I might, I couldn't find the guest list anywhere."

When she first heard the deep, rumbling sound, for a second she was convinced he was actually growling at her. But then, as she hesitantly glanced up and saw his shaking shoulders, she realised he was laughing.

Kagome blinked. Unconsciously, her fingernails dug into her skin in a sharp pinch, but Sesshoumaru was still bent forward, his hand covering his mouth as he chuckled.

Her heart skipped a beat – though whether that reaction was out of excitement or sheer shock it was impossible to tell. She stared at him helplessly, unable to quite believe her eyes and ears.

Sesshoumaru met her gaze, his laughter finally subsiding at her awe-struck expression.

"I swear, Miss Higurashi," he said, an amused smile tugging at his lips, "only you could be so unfortunate."