Inuyasha

Chapter 4: Not Once

"Keep searching," Kagome said into the phone before ending the call.

She was never like this, she was once like any other regular teenager just about to enter into university before things took a down turn for her. Now however, she threads on a very fine line carefully and being even more wary of her surroundings than most everywhere she goes.

Sighing, Kagome felt the dreading feeling from this coming meeting, a bad premonition in fact about it as well. And to prove a point, the first person she met at the entrance of the office being directed to the conference room.

"Miss. Higurashi, how nice to see you again," Naraku greeted with a smile upon his face, his eyes narrowed as he watched her, that amused laughter dancing in his eyes, and that look of anticipation that got her narrowing her eyes at him as well.

"Mr. Kagewaki, shall we begin," she half greeted, motioning her head towards where the conference room is as she held a look of impatience upon her face.

"Of course, but there is but one more person that we're waiting for," Naraku says as he looked at his watch.

"You're slightly early, shall we have a cup of coffee whilst we await for our final member," he directed, showing her the way in an elegant manner as he did a simple sweep of his arm in the directions of the conference room.

Following him and taking a seat at the directed area, Kagome did not bothered looking at him as she took a seat, getting herself comfortable in the chair as she unbuttoned her coat and arranged it to look proper.

"Looks like our last member is here," he says with a smile, turning his head in the direction of the glass door as he raise a hand in a wave at the other.

Kagome turned her head in the direction of which Naraku was looking just as golden eyes met with hers. She had not known that he was coming, but now it explains clearly of why she had that dreading feeling from the beginning.

"Mr. Taisho," Kagome greeted with a curt nod of her head in her direction as she stood up for a short moment before sitting back down.

As he returned that same courtesy, Sesshoumaru took a seat opposite of her as he crossed his legs beneath the table, elegantly adjusting his coat before crisscrossing his fingers together as he looked at her for a moment before looking towards Naraku.

This meeting today though not exactly unexpected, but still it somehow surprises the both of them. Though they may occasionally share the same bed and nights, but never once did they ever let work get between of that relationship, cutting away from it when they do meet up personally.

Though the meeting today, they parted with the same answer for one another, and much to the displeasure of Naraku as his annoyance simmer within his eyes, yet smiling so easily as he send them off amicably in appearance to the lift. Parting ways just as easily, neither Sesshoumaru nor Kagome spoke to one another even when they are in the lift together, or bother to speak more than each of them saying own 'Goodbye'.

Days to come up after their first ever meeting together though, has landed her helplessly sitting opposite of Naraku in Hong Kong of all place as he proposed to her of a partnership, a new venture that made her frown as she scrutinized the crimsoned eyed male opposite of her, a slight hint of a smile upon his lips as he looked at her with mild interest, mixed in with cold silent calculation.

"And if I refuse?" Kagome asked, challenging him as she tried to read his face.

"I see no way you would do something as stupid as that," he told her frankly with a smile upon his face as they eyes spoke of a silent war of dominance.

"You're an impatient one," she finally said, yet their eyes still raged on with an unspoken challenged.

"Usually I am not like this," he told her with a growing smile as he showed pearly white teeth that gave him a colder more sinister like edge.

"So far, I see nothing wrong with it, I will show this proposal to the rest of our board of directors and get back to you on it," Kagome said as she prepared to stand and leave.

"I look forward to hearing it soon, don't make me wait for too long," he told her standing along with Kagome as he watched her hand the file over to her secretary who stood behind of her throughout their meeting, taking minutes and notes of the meeting as he kept up pace easily with their conversation and discussion.

"It looks a early, do join me for dinner," Naraku says as he looked up from his watch, eyeing Kagome with the now polite smile upon his lips as he made his offer, but the tone in which he said it left her with no room to refuse it.

For most people.

"I would have to decline, goodbye Mr. Kagewaki," Kagome returned with her office smile as she turned her back to leave.

Kagome frown when she has her back turned to him, taking her phone out as she looked at it for a moment, recalling back to their meeting as she tried to recall every little detail that she might have missed out about it, or at least the abnormality of it that she might have missed out. Especially after what she had found about Naraku, having looked into him from all aspects, or as much as she could about that guy.

"Make a note to not have any of our meetings with him to be pushed until a month or so later, just tell him the schedule is full at the moment," Kagome told her secretary in the privacy of the elevator as she looked at him from the reflection of the door as she watched him made a note of it.

Admittedly, she was unsettled by Naraku, there is something about him that is familiar, but she could not quite remember, and had since then not bothered to work hard in remembering it at all, deeming it as something unimportant, and of the past. Naraku had a frown upon his face when she had turned him down, not surprised but neither did he welcome that answer as well. It is something helpless when the other refuse to listen, or chose to ignore his tone, but already he was thinking of the many means and ways in which he would easily get to give him the reply that he wants to hear despite of her own wish. Or so he thought.

A/N:

Hello
I hope that you guys enjoy this new update. A bit dull still in the progress...