The Hunt for the Perfect Man: Chapter 9 - Shippou
This is still a tag-team performance brought to you by CharmedReality and BelleDayNight.
Disclaimer: We didn't create the characters. We just put them in compromising situations for our amusement.
-ooo-oooooo-ooo-
Inuyasha spun a perfectly balanced plate on the end of his finger. "Try not to be too impressed. I know I'm amazing."
"You'd be more amazing if you practiced that with your own plates instead of risking mine," Kagome countered.
"No risk, no rewards."
"What kind of reward do you expect me to give you for taking up room in my apartment, endangering my dishes, and generally being a nuisance while I try to get ready for my date?" She tried on a jacket over her top and looked at herself in the mirror before taking it off again and trying a different one.
"Ugh, aren't those over yet?" He asked while trying his best to look disinterested at the spinning plate. "I thought you would have proven you were completely un-dateable by now."
The next sound was the shattering of a plate after Kagome tossed her shoe at Inuyasha's head. "Great, look what you did!" she shouted at him.
"What I did?!" Inuyasha scoffed. "You're the violent one!"
"You are the completely unreasonable, heartless one! If you didn't constantly mess up my dates then I'd probably be happily dating the same person more than once!" She accused.
"I haven't messed up your dates! Not most of them anyway… Besides, who do you think you'd be with? Kouga? Miroku? Sesshoumaru?" He spat out the last name with a little extra venom.
"Maybe. Sesshoumaru was a real gentleman."
"You just liked him because he was rich."
"That's not true! And if you think I'm so shallow then why are you hanging out here all the time?" The look she shot him could bore holes through solid metal.
He deflected her glare effortlessly. "Someone has to stop you from messing up your life. You aren't doing a very good job of it."
"Maybe you should go SIT in your own apartment!"
"Maybe I should. At least then I wouldn't have to watch you go from bad date to bad date!"
"I think maybe you are just jealous because no one wants to date you. And I'm going to keep on going on dates until I find Mr. Right."
Just then there was a knock on the door, which stopped the yelling for the moment. Kagome was still boiling as she stomped over to answer it, hesitating a moment to take a deep breath. She didn't want to frighten off the potential Mr. Right especially not in front of Inuyasha. She'd never hear the end of that.
Kagome was smiling as she pulled back the door to reveal a very, very short potential Mr. Right.
"Hey! I'm Shippou. You're hot!"
The man…boy had red hair, freckles and a carnation corsage ready for his date. He didn't even look old enough to be in high school yet. Maybe junior high.
Kagome could already hear Inuyasha laughing behind her, so she kept her head held high, well, not too high. She wanted to be able to see her "date."
"Thank you. We should be going." She reached down to take his hand, eager to lead him away from the ridicule that was sure to follow when her neighbor managed to catch his breath. "You know how to let yourself out, Inuyasha."
"Is that guy your Dad or something?" asked Shippou as the door shut behind them. "He's kind of ugly."
"No relation," Kagome assured him, giving his hand a quick squeeze. "So where are you parked?"
Shippou gave a nervous laugh, pulled his hand out of hers, and scratched the back of his head. "Actually, I hope you don't mind public transportation."
"You don't have a car?"
Shippou's hands went to his hips and his legs braced in a defensive stance. "Now, just because I want to do my part to save the environment by utilizing public transportation doesn't mean I can't drive a car if I wanted to."
'Right,' Kagome thought to herself. 'He probably isn't old enough to drive yet.' "I don't mind public transport. I actually have a free pass for it because I'm a student."
"Me too!" Shippou said with a big grin. He took her hand again and began to drag her off toward the bus stop a few blocks away. "I was thinking we could go to this stellar pool hall. They've got great booze and I hear there's a hot tub in the back." He nudged her ribs. "Could be fun!"
Kagome looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously? How old are you really?"
"My license says I'm 21."
"And if I called my cop friend to check you out…" She let the threat remain open ended.
"Okay, fine," Shippou conceded. "I'm seventeen."
They reached the bus stop and Kagome just continued to look at him with disbelief.
Shippou dropped her hand and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "Fine, I'm fourteen. But I'll be fifteen in three months. And, well, the dating service obviously thought we'd get along so I think you should give me a chance."
"Sure, if it wasn't illegal in all fifty states!"
Shippou's bottom lip quivered and it was then that the bus turned the corner. "Fine. You don't have to come. I understand. I'm just some stupid kid who doesn't know anything about anything."
Kagome placed her hand on his shoulder. "You seem like a sweet, young man, Shippou. You even thoughtfully brought a corsage."
"Oh yeah," Shippou said holding it out to her. "I guess you can still have it, if you don't think it's stupid."
"It is a thoughtful gesture," Kagome said slipping the flower over her wrist. "And while I don't see a romantic future for us, I can't let the ugly man back at my place know that things didn't go well. So, let's take the bus to the rail station and then ride uptown to Main Event. We can play laser tag and arcade games and bowl. I just need to warn you though. I'm awesome at DDR."
"Seriously?" Shippou broke out into a big, toothy grin. "Deal. It sounds fun, and besides, if I can do anything to upset that stick-in-the-mud that was nosing about your place it will be my pleasure."
Kagome and Shippou stepped onto the bus, showed their student IDs—Shippou's true ID from the local high school—and took a pair of seats. "I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship," Kagome foretold.
"Ha! You won't be saying that when I cream you at DDR! I rule the dance floor!"
-ooo-oooooo-ooo-
Kagome couldn't stop laughing as she and Shippou walked back up the stairs to her apartment. Her young "date" was colorfully reenacting a scene that had taken place at the pizza restaurant inside the arcade.
After they had nearly worn themselves out on Dance, Dance Revolution, Kagome had asked if she could invite a friend of hers to join them. Shippou had no objections, so Kagome sent a quick text to Sango who arrived just fifteen minutes later since she lived nearby and had the evening off.
The strange part was the way Miroku just happened to stop by not long after that. Apparently, he just couldn't get enough Ms. Pac-man. That led to a debate about whether Ms. Pac-man was single as her title suggests or actually in a committed relationship with Pac-man himself, which might be considered a common-law marriage after so long.
Miroku was so amused with himself that he managed to snort soda out of his nose. That was funny enough on its own, but the best part was when he tried to act smooth about it. He leaned back in his chair and smiled right as he tipped over onto his back.
Ever since then Shippou had been mimicking the sound of Miroku falling and the squeal he made on impact. It made Kagome laugh more each time she heard it, especially now that she didn't have to worry about hurting Miroku's feelings.
Sango had needed to get to bed since she had an early shift tomorrow and Miroku offered to walk her home. The last thing Kagome heard from the two of them was Sango skeptically saying, "You're going to protect me?"
Back home, Kagome opened the door, pleased to see that her apartment seemed to be Inuyasha-free. She had been sure she would find him having a picnic on her nice area rug with all of the food from her fridge. Instead, the place looked just like she'd left it except the broken plate was missing. She stared for a moment at the place where the splintered shards should have been in shock that Inuyasha had actually cleaned. She had been positive she'd have to run after him with a broom tomorrow just to get him to do a half-assed job of picking up after himself…even if she had been the one to throw the shoe in the first place.
Shippou wasn't paying any attention to Kagome as he ran right past her and jumped on the couch. "Awesome! You have the Wii and the nunchaku controller and the sword! I'm going to wail on some zombies!"
Kagome smiled and turned back to her guest, picking up the crossbow attachment for her wii remote. It had always been her weapon of choice. "Let's un-undead them."
There was a knock on the door and with a deep breath to keep her cool Kagome went to see what Inuyasha wanted now. Because there was no doubt in her mind that the forceful rap upon her door was her ever-persistent neighbor. She looked through the peephole, and sure enough, one Inuyasha stood on the other side.
She opened the door a crack, leaving the chain in place. "What do you want now?"
"Can I come in?" Inuyasha asked with a friendly smile that looked extremely odd upon his normally annoyed features.
"I'm sure you can. I mean, you do have that ability after all."
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly before he quickly smoothed them out and smiled a bit wider. "Ha ha, Kagome. May I come in?"
"Is that the nosy neighbor?" Shippou called from the living room. "Let him in, I'd love to watch him lose. No one beats me at Resident Evil."
Inuyasha's eyebrow quirked at the sound of Shippou's voice, but otherwise he remained cool.
"Fine," Kagome said in a huff, sliding back the chain and opening the door. At least he knocked this time. That was better than usual. And there was the plate to consider…
"Did you guys have fun?" Inuyasha asked—no trace of the pesky neighbor from before.
"Yeah, until I got schooled in DDR," Kagome said with a laugh.
Inuyasha's eyes landed on the crossbow and sword attachments. "You don't use those for Resident Evil." He looked over at Kagome. "You have played haven't you?"
"Sure, zombies come after you with chainsaws and try to chop you to pieces and you shoot at them and hope to kill them…again…since they're technically already dead."
"Right, well the crossbow and sword are from Zelda." He scanned the list of Wii games on the shelf next to the television. "These are your brother's games aren't they?"
"What? You don't think I'd have my own system?"
"Hey man, that's cool. We can play Resident Evil with just the normal controllers. I'm easy," Shippou said, starting the game and shooting some zombies in the head onscreen with the bar-shaped controller.
Inuyasha cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter, the reason I came over here was---"
"Why do you keep coming over here, man?" Shippou interrupted. "You'd think you were Kagome's guard dog or something. Yesh, get a life."
Inuyasha's lips tightened and his cheeks began to turn a bit red—a sure sign of his temper. Kagome placed her hand gently on his shoulder and the tension in his muscles seemed to melt away. He turned toward her and attempted his smile again—it looked a bit forced.
"I just got Rockband for my PS3 and wanted to know if you'd like to play." He looked over at Shippou. "We could all play actually. It's for multiple players. Though it's better if there are four."
Shippou dropped the controller and gave Inuyasha his full attention. "You have Rockband?! No way!" He turned to Kagome. "We've got to play. It's the most fun game ever! Even better than zombies. You can be the singer since you're obviously pretty uncoordinated given your suckiness at DDR," he jokingly taunted with a cheeky grin.
"What?" Kagome shouted. "I am awesome at DDR. Let's go play then. What's the hardest part to play in the band?" she asked Inuyasha.
"The drums for sure," he said.
"That's true. The drums are wicked hard," Shippou agreed.
"Then I'll be playing the drums," Kagome proclaimed determinedly. How dare someone say she couldn't do something? She'd show them!
"We really need a fourth though." Shippou sent Inuyasha a suspicious look. "What would you have done if I'd not been here? Then it would have only been you and Kagome. You can't play Rockband right with only two people."
"I wouldn't have been suggesting videogames if that'd been the case," Inuyasha mumbled under his breath.
"Well, I don't know where we are going to get a fourth unless…maybe Sesshoumaru is free," she suggested, trying to hide a smirk. "He does have the distinctive features and good looks of a rock star. He'd probably be a natural."
Inuyasha's eyebrow twitched and if Kagome didn't know better she would have sworn she saw the beginnings of a snarl. "Three people are plenty! I'll get some sodas," he growled out as he stomped back to his apartment.
Kagome wasn't sure whether she should feel triumphant or regretful as she and Shippou hesitantly followed him.
"I want orange soda!" Shippou called out.
Inuyasha was banging things around in his kitchen much more loudly than one might expect for just grabbing a couple of drinks. "You'll both drink cola and like it!"
"Actually, it's getting late," Kagome said, watching her annoyed neighbor with concern. "Shippou, you should get home before your parents get worried."
"Awww, Kagome!" The boy whined, "I was going to teach this guy a lesson about being mean to girls."
"It'll have to wait, but thank you for the lovely time," she smiled sweetly at him as he puckered up for what seemed to be an exaggerated kiss. Holding back a giggle, she bent down slightly and kissed his cheek instead. "Be careful getting home. Text me to let me know you got there safely."
Shippou's face broke out into a wide smile. It was only a kiss on the cheek, but he was putting it down in the win column. He looked past the girl to the guy who was glaring in their direction and gave him a toothy grin of victory.
Inuyasha just rolled his eyes in return.
"Sure, sure, whatever, Kagome. Are you sure you are going to be okay with this meathead around?" Shippou asked.
"HEY!" Inuyasha barked.
Kagome smiled at both of them, hoping to make peace or at least keep things status quo until Shippou was on his way out. "I can take care of myself. Thank you, Shippou. Good night."
"Good night. Give me a call when you want me to school you on zombies!" And with that her young date took off toward the nearby bus stop.
Kagome watched him until he fell out of sight and then turned around to face Inuyasha. She gasped in surprise as she realized her neighbor had silently made his way next to her already. "You scared me," she scolded, as she lifted a hand to hit him in the shoulder, but he caught it before it made contact. Her eyes opened wider, but she didn't pull away as he held her wrist firmly, but not painfully, tight.
"What are—?" But he spoke over her before she could finish her question.
"It wasn't funny, Kagome. I don't want you seeing him again." His tone was calm and serious—two rarities for Inuyasha.
Confusion washed across her features. "Shippou? It isn't like—"
"You know who I mean," he interrupted again. "Sesshoumaru."
There was something like awe in her voice as she replied, "What business is it of yours?"
The dark-haired man moved closer and Kagome's breath caught in her throat. She could feel his warmth against her side and his hip brushed against hers. Her heart sounded louder than normal or maybe just more noticeably in the odd silence that was stretching out between them.
And then just as she could feel his breath fan against her cheek, he released her wrist and stepped back. "It's none of my business. Lock up when you leave, okay?"
"…Inuyasha?"
And for the second time that night, a man left Kagome's side. Only this time he left a very confused girl starring after him.
It wasn't until her cell phone beeped alerting her to a text about getting home safely from Shippou that she remembered to return to her apartment.
TBC
