Disclaimer: Alright! I confess! I don't own Inuyasha! ...Do you think Rumiko Takahashi would agree to a time share?
A/N Alrighty, the results of the guessing game and who all the snowboarders really are! eX Driver Liz, you guessed Jakotsu as the fanboy and you were...correct!
Sleepwalking chicken and HAP, despite your professed inability to play guessing games, you guessed Nazuna as one of the girls and you were correct! (It was the first girl with the low brown ponytail.)
Although, as you say, Calum the Angel, she is highly unimportant, yes, the chick with Hiten was the girl Hiten charred to death the first time you see him. She was never given a name, so I'll give one to her. (I know that one was a little obscure, guys; way to go, Calum!)
And, again, Calum, you guessed correct about Manten being the one with Nazuna!
Finally, the last snowboarder, who nobody even attempted at guessing (^_~), and who was ridiculously obscure, was Bankotsu! He's associated with Jakotsu in future episodes so many of you probably haven't seen them before (heck, I haven't even seen them; I only know about them from spoilers! ^_~). Apparently, Jakotsu's gay and in love with Inuyasha, or something on the show; he won't be in this, but I will make him an obsessed fan.
Many of you guessed either Kagura and Kanna, but remember, they're two of the top female ski racers (not that skiers can't snowboard too, but Inu, Kouga and Miroku probably would have known who they were.).
Badminton, eh, Fiery Love? Hmmm...could be kinda cool. Go for it!
And, for an explanation on poutine, liLgAnGsTAKiKyO44, refer to my first A/N in chapter eight.
Okey, Dokey, I think that's everything... On with the fic!
"Okay, where to now?" Sango whispered to Miroku as they hid behind some trees and watched their pursuers board the chairlift.
"Oh, I really don't think we need to go anywhere, my dear lady," Miroku said in a low voice. "I mean, it's nice and cozy right here." That said, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer towards him.
Sango eyebrows lowered and she pursed her lips. "Miroku..." she said in a warning tone.
"Yes, lovely Sango?" Miroku asked innocently.
"Mind telling me what you're doing?" Sango said in slow, deliberate tones.
"Um... keeping warm?" he asked hopefully.
"Really? Being perverted wouldn't have anything do with it also, would it?" she said, turning slightly to glare at him.
"What a thing to cross your mind!" Miroku said in a shocked voice. "How could you ever suspect me of such a thing? My intentions are purely honourable."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Sango muttered, pushing herself out of his reach and towards the chairlift. She was thoroughly surprised he hadn't tried anything more, but was sure it was just a matter of time. If she had stayed in his embrace for just one second longer...
She shook her head and set her sights upon the chairlift ahead. The guy was a total pervert and didn't have an honourable bone in his body. Heck if she was going to be the one to test out his resilience!
"Wait for me, Sango!" Miroku called as he hastened to catch up with her.
"Hurry up, Miroku," Sango said, waiting impatiently for him in the chairlift line.
"Don't worry, don't fear, Miroku is here!" he said, sliding up beside her.
She rolled her eyes. "Since I wasn't worrying or fearing, does that mean you still have to be here?" she asked dryly.
"Again, Sango, you do me an injustice," Miroku said. "I'm only looking out for your well-being."
"You might try looking elsewhere. I think it ran away as soon as you came up beside me," Sango said jokingly.
"Really?" Miroku said, as if taking her seriously. "What a dastardly thing for it to have done. Do you think we might find it on the chairlift?" he said, indicating the chair which they were about to board.
"Perhaps," Sango said thoughtfully. "But maybe I should go alone; I wouldn't want it to be scared off again, or anything."
"Nonsense," Miroku said, completely serious. "I must right the great wrong I have committed. Onwards, my dear lady; we shall find your missing well-being."
Sango couldn't help but let out a small giggle before sitting down beside Miroku on the chairlift.
"Oooookay... I spy something that is white," Kouga said in a bored voice.
Ayame gave him a flat look. "Gee... let me think about it... oh, this is a tough one. Could it possibly be, oh, I dunno, snow?!"
Kouga shot her a feigned surprised look. "How'd you know?"
Ayame shrugged. "Wild guess."
They were stuck in an incredibly long chairlift line that moved about a centimetre a minute, and that they just so happened to be at the back of. After ten minutes of waiting, they had finally resorted to playing I Spy out of sheer boredom.
"I spy something that is brown," Ayame continued on with the game.
"The trees," Kouga replied automatically.
"Oh, you're good," Ayame said in mock awe. "Only professional I Spy players can advance to a level this high."
Kouga took a small bow. "What can I say? It takes talent."
"Mr. Kouga, sir," Ayame said, pushing invisible glasses up the bridge of her nose and holding out an imaginary microphone. "How do you feel about your most recent accomplishment?"
Instead of playing along, Kouga shuddered and moved as far away from Ayame as the cramped chairlift line would let him. "Gah! Reporter!"
Ayame straightened, dropping the reporter façade and giving him a questioning look. "You got a phobia or something?"
"N-no," Kouga responded, moving back towards her. "Just a very, very great fear."
Ayame gave him a funny look. "Right... I see the difference..."
"Oooo, the line's speeding up!" Kouga said excitedly. Their branch of the line had merged with another one, pairing them up with an old couple, and hastening their route to the chairlift. Kouga looked speculatively at the couple they'd be sharing their chairlift for a moment before whispering to Ayame, "When we get on, just follow my lead, okay?"
In the dark as to what was going on inside Kouga's head, Ayame just nodded, trusting it wouldn't be too bad.
When they were finally able to hop on the chairlift, Kouga winked at Ayame before resting his head on her shoulder. Ayame blushed a bright red which was indiscernible through her windblown cheeks, but reminded herself this was an act.
"Oh, Ayame!" Kouga moaned. "What am I going to do?!"
The old couple looked at each other before looking over critically at the young pair.
"Shhhh," Ayame hushed, taking off her glove. She wrapped her arm around his head and started stroking his glossy hair soothingly. "What have the voices been telling you this time?"
The old man and woman beside them adopted alarmed expressions, but continued watching in silence.
"They won't go away, Ayame! They keep pestering me and telling me I shouldn't let all those bullies at school get away with saying those means things to me. They say they're devils from the underworld and that I should exterminate them before they turn on me! Every time I see a knife, I can't help but yearn for it, and every time I see a drop of blood, I wish it had been split by my hand!" Kouga finished his rant dramatically.
By this time, the old couple were edging as far away from the 'disturbed' teenager as they could get.
Wow, Ayame thought. Kouga can think up some pretty morbid things when he puts his mind to it... but it's worth it to look at the expressions on that couples faces; even if it is a bit immoral...
"It'll be alright, Kouga," Ayame cooed, trying to ignore the softness of his hair. "But just tell me this; it's very important. Did you take your medication this morning?"
"N-no..." Kouga said slowly. "Is that a bad thing? I mean, Jimmy told me not to, and you know Jimmy's the smartest of all the quintuplets."
Ayame shook her head. "Kouga, what have I told you? There are no quintuplets; they're only some of the voices you hear in your head. You shouldn't listen to them," she chided gently. "But do you think you can make it through the day without giving in to your homicidal tendencies? If you do, I'll make you a nice big mug of hot chocolate!"
"Really?!" Kouga asked excitedly. "Okay, I promise I'll try to not go demon hunting until tomorrow!"
The man and woman beside them were now visibly shaking and glancing nervously at one another.
"Tomorrow, you'll have taken your medication and won't need to go demon hunting," Ayame reminded him sternly, all the while wondering how much longer she'd be able to keep a straight face.
"But I don't want to hurt Jimmy's feelings..."
And so it continued, all the way up the chairlift, as Kouga kept ranting about voices, demons and killing, and the aging couple beside them became paler and paler, and closer and closer to having heart attacks.
When they finally disembarked, the old man and woman shot out of the chair and skied away from so fast it seemed they had regained the vitality of youth.
"Wonder what appointment they missed?" Ayame muttered before turning back to Kouga.
One look at each other was all it took for them both to burst out laughing. "That was classic!" Kouga gasped, clapping Ayame on the back and knocking the wind out of her.
"Totally!" Ayame said when she recovered her breath. "Beautifully executed with such rare excellence, it deserves no less than a ten across the board!"
Kouga grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Undoubtably. Now, let's go see what other fun we can conjure up on this mountain..."
"Okay, I think you've pretty much got it now," Inuyasha said. "Time to test it out on a true hill," he added as he gave Kagome a strong push to start her off down the run they had been standing at the top of.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome screamed as she flew off down the hill.
"Roll your ankles!" Inuyasha shouted down after her.
"Easy for you to say!" Kagome yelled back as she flew down the hill.
Despite her protest, however, she rolled her ankles as she had been practising all afternoon. Almost immediately, her skis bit into the hill and carried her around a turn. Not prepared for the unexpected action, Kagome's skis flew out from under her and she fell and slid partway down the hill for the second time that day.
Picking herself up, she found Inuyasha already stopped a little below her and looking at her thoughtfully. "You're sitting back on your skis. You've got to get forward more so your skis don't shoot off without you, like they did just now."
"Rrgh, it's so hard to try and think of all these technical things as I go down!" Kagome whined. "There's too many!"
"I can easily give you some more to think about," Inuyasha responded. "Trust me, what I'm giving you now are just the basics. You can try and use them to improve or give up now."
Kagome glared at him. "Of course I'm not giving up! I'm just protesting at the injustice of it all. You got a problem with that?"
"When you start to get all moody, yeah," Inuyasha shot back.
"Does it look like I'm moody to you?!" Kagome practically screeched in his face. Realising what see had just done, she stepped back and flushed with embarrassment. "Heh, heh... sorry... um, what were you saying again?"
Inuyasha shook his head, clearly having no clue as to what was going on inside her head. "Stay forward, keep your hands up and forward, and roll your ankles. Go."
Kagome started down again, this time keeping all of Inuyasha's instructions in mind. When she rolled her ankles, she made sure she could feel her shins at the front of her ski boots and therefore, was prepared for when her skis swung her around a turn. Advancing further down the hill that way, she felt more relaxed and began to recognize the exhilarating feeling she got at every turn. Reaching the bottom, she waited eagerly near the chairlift for Inuyasha to descend.
When he did and they had boarded the chairlift together, Kagome turned to him. "Did you see me? Did ya? Huh? Huh?!" she asked excitedly like a six- year old.
Inuyasha grinned at her antics. "Sorry, I missed it."
"You what?!"
"Joking! I'm just joking!" Inuyasha said, still grinning as he held up his hands in defence. As Kagome began to cool down, he went on, "You're really starting to get the hang of it now. I can see you carving and that you're feeling it now instead of forcing it."
Kagome smiled widely at him.
"'Course you never could've come this far so quickly if you didn't have such a great instructor," Inuyasha added.
Kagome's smile wavered.
"Well, it's true," Inuyasha said.
"Darn you," Kagome muttered, not able to come up with any witty comeback. Looking back at the mountain and watching skiers go down for a few minutes, she spoke up again, "Inuyasha, when did you start racing?"
Inuyasha shrugged beside her. "Ever since I could. I joined some rookie team when I was just a little kid and then moved up the ranks from there."
Kagome giggled.
"What are you laughing at now? There another 'fanboy' behind me or something?" Inuyasha asked in slight irritation.
Kagome giggled some more at the memory, but shook her head. "I just think you'd make a cute little kid, that's all."
Inuyasha blushed slightly. "R-really? And what makes you say that?"
It was Kagome's turn to blush. "Oh, uh, I dunno. Just a gut feeling, I guess." Then, she smirked. "Yup, a cute little kid... But look how you turned out... I mean, what went wrong?"
"And, what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, we'll start out with what you thought it was supposed to mean, and then we'll go from there. I mean, we wouldn't want to overwork this poor thing, now, would we?" Kagome asked innocently while knocking on Inuyasha's head.
"Do you mind?!" Inuyasha asked slowly, staring straight ahead with his arms crossed.
"Not at all," Kagome said cheerfully, continuing to knock on his head. "It's my pleasure."
"Oi, I can't believe I've had to put up with you for the whole afternoon..."
~*~
"What about this hill?" Sango asked Miroku as she indicated a blue square.
Miroku shrugged. "Fine by me."
"I'm going down first!" Sango warned as she pushed off and flew down the hill. She smiled and sighed in contentment as she felt the wind blow through her hair and the sun kiss her cheeks.
Halfway down, when the hill merged with another, Sango saw only a blur before she collided with someone and went tumbling down the hill, all tangled up with them.
Behind her, Miroku sped up to make sure the two were alright and had almost reached them when he, too, saw a blur and collided with it. Him and the other individual slid down the hill until they both hit Sango and her falling partner, creating a large people pile. Silence overtook the group for an instant, and then...
"Ow..."
"What happened?"
"Is everyone alright?"
"Sango?!"
"Ayame?!"
"Kouga?!"
"Pervert!"
"Miroku!!"
"Sorry, couldn't help it!"
"Save it, lech!"
"I can't get up!"
"I'm stuck too!"
"What a wipe out..."
"Sango, I've got a boo-boo. Will you kiss it better?"
"Get off of me!"
"My head..."
"You ok?"
"What about me? I'm hurt too!"
"Sorry... you ok, too?"
"I think so..."
"This is insane..."
"Why haven't you gotten off of me yet?!"
"Hurry it up, up there! I'm squished on the bottom!"
"Trying!"
"Well, well, what have we got here?"
Everyone trapped in the people pile twisted and strained to see Inuyasha and Kagome above them on the hill, desperately trying not to burst out laughing.
"HELP!" screamed four voices at once.
"Oh, I don't know," Inuyasha said thoughtfully. "You seem to be doing such a fine job by yourselves. What do you think, Kagome?"
Kagome nodded her head vigorously. "Oh, definitely. I mean, if we tried to help now, I think we might mess up their master plan to escape unscathed. We'd better let them figure it out for themselves because I doubt we'd be of any help."
"Just what I was thinking," Inuyasha agreed. "Ready to call it a day?"
"I think so."
"Perfect. Let's go in, then."
And with that, Inuyasha and Kagome skied slowly around the mass consisting of their friends and down the hill towards the boys' condo.
"You guys better get back here this instant! Inuyasha?! Kagome?! Get back heeeeeere!"
~*~
"We're so dead."
"Best not to dwell on it. Popcorn?" Inuyasha asked, holding out the popcorn bowl to Kagome.
"Sure," she said, grabbing a handful.
After deserting their friends, they had skied down to the boys' condo. There they had popped some popcorn they could eat as they waited patiently for their ticked off companions.
The loud banging of a door announced the entrance of snowy friends.
"Kagome...!"
"Inuyasha...!"
"Eep!" Kagome squeaked as she jumped up and ran around to hide behind Inuyasha.
"Oh, thanks," he said sarcastically, turning his head to glare at her from the corner of his eye. "Let me take all the blame."
"Heh, heh..." Kagome smiled weakly at him.
"You guys are so dead!"
"Told you so!" Kagome said, poking Inuyasha in the ribs.
"Hey, stop that! How can I defend myself against them if I'm getting assaulted by you at the same time?" Inuyasha asked, irritated.
"Get them!"
A few minutes and bruises later, everyone was once again piled in a tangled heap, Inuyasha and Kagome included.
"Ow..."
"Everyone alright?"
"Not this again."
"Mind moving?!"
"Too tired. Can't."
"This is not fun."
"Now you know what it feels like."
"How would you feel if one of your best friends brushed you off and left you like this?"
"Point taken."
"Pain! Get off me!"
"Too comfy. Can't I stay?"
"Miroku..."
"Fine..."
"Stupid pervert..."
"You guys aren't light, you know!"
"If we could move, we would!"
"Try harder!"
"How ironic is this? You guys come to beat us up for leaving you in a people pile, and then you end up in another one. I'd say it backfired."
"At least you're trapped in it, too, this time."
"Move!"
"Fine. One, two, three, heave!"
"Ahhh!"
"Owww!"
"Uhhhnnnn..."
"You dead?"
"More so."
"Oi..."
A/N Boy, that was fun to write! I simply love Inuyasha as a little kid, don't you? So adorable! ^-^ Well, that's all for now, talk to ya later! (The shortest A/N I've ever written) ^_~