Words: 4,039
Disclaimer: nah m8
Notes: Also this is hilariously overdue but dedicated to Tumblr user sankontesu, who I think helped me with a huge research paper last year? Other than that, she's just, like, super cool. Also shoutout to Tumblr user maekara for giving this a quick edit before I passed out last night.
(chapter 2)
"soundproof"
"I want to kill him."
Miroku resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his roommate, even if she couldn't see him at the moment. He allowed himself a short sigh and raised his eyes towards the ceiling – or perhaps the heavens – in exasperation.
"Is it really so hard to just ignore the guy? He'll stop eventually," Miroku called towards Kagome's open bedroom, where he caught a glimpse of her lifting her head up from her desk only to drop it down in annoyance. Miroku winced despite himself. That girl. Ever the drama queen. Whenever she acted like this, she reminded him a lot of some of the older guys at work, who all had a similar knack for bitching about the littlest things.
But that was besides the point.
Miroku paused in chopping carrots – they were going to have curry for lunch and there was nothing Kagome could do about it – to listen for the incessant noise again. Surely enough, after his ears took a few seconds to adjust to the relative silence of the apartment, he heard it: an annoying muted combination of heavy footsteps, muffled banging, as if someone didn't care enough where they were dropping their things, and – ah, yes. There it was. The guitar. And that whiny voice.
"You know what, I think he's getting better," Miroku commented sardonically, resuming his chopping.
"Don't get funny with me, Miroku," Kagome called back spitefully, finally getting up from her desk chair to approach her room's threshold. She leaned against the frame of the door and massaged the bridge of her nose right between her eyebrows, her face the picture of unfiltered and unadulterated irritation.
"Oh, come on, Kagome," Miroku said cheerfully. "Let the guy have a little fun. He clearly loves this song. He's clearly a dedicated individual. And he clearly–"
"–has no sense of time," Kagome interrupted quickly, one hand rising up in a silencing motion. "Whenever I wake up, he's playing. Whenever I'm getting ready for bed, he's playing. When we're in the middle of lunch, he's playing! He has no life, and no amount of musical appreciation is worth living through this!"
Miroku gave her a tired look and didn't spare her a word, instead beckoning with his chin for her to come help with the cooking. Kagome huffed at the sheer lack of response to her raging but stepped forward, tying up her hair and snapping the hair tie in place as she came to stand next to him.
"You can't tell me it doesn't bother you," she continued, opening the cupboards to retrieve another cutting board and more utensils before grabbing the nearest potato to start peeling.
"Of course it bothers me," Miroku affirmed with a scoff. "It's the same old song with a few of the same tentative covers over and over again for the last couple of months."
"Five months," Kagome confirmed.
"The last five months," Miroku amended. "But I, like any other normal human being, can tune it out."
Kagome pursed her lips while she turned the potato in her hands.
"If you were a normal human being, you'd come with me upstairs to talk some sense into the guy."
"And do what, scold him?" Miroku laughed.
"We're not his parents. You can go ahead but I'm not making the effort," he teased her, knowing fully well that Kagome didn't like confrontations.
"You know I don't like confrontations," Kagome muttered.
"And besides, we wouldn't scold him. We'd…" she broke off momentarily and frowned in thought, the peeler pausing in her hands, potato half-skinless, trying to come up an excuse to go upstairs and yell at the so-called musician living above them.
Miroku just managed to keep a grin from rising to his face.
"Worst case scenario?" he began. "You'll just get used to it. You know, like white noise."
Kagome didn't reply to him directly, instead resuming her work on the mostly-naked potato in her hand, but Miroku could see the slightly defiant look in her eye and heard her petulantly mumble something that vaguely sounded like, "I don't wanna get used to it."
This time he did sigh as loudly as he could, catching her attention, after which he arched an irritated eyebrow at her, and held his hand out for the now-peeled potato. She passed it to him sheepishly but before she could move to grab the next one, Miroku interrupted her.
"Actually could you turn the radio on first? My show's on in a few minutes," he requested, slicing the potato in half.
"Again with this radio show!" Kagome, happy to change the topic, exclaimed with a teasing lilt to her voice even as she walked over to mess with the radio sitting on the bookshelf in their living room.
"Did I tell you that the girls at the clinic call it 'The Pervert's FM Radio'?"
"I resent that," Miroku scoffed. "That show is sophisticated, witty, and offers some of the best relationship advice I've heard since my Uncle Mushin passed away."
Facing away from Miroku, Kagome raised her eyebrows and sucked in a short breath through her teeth, muttering a small wow under her breath.
"That just explains why all the girls you bring home never stay home, right?" Kagome continued patronizingly, finally reaching Miroku's requested station and toggling the volume to a decent level where they could still converse easily but also drown out the fake musician upstairs.
"Now, now," Miroku said with a warning tone as he finished up with his share of the potatoes. "Don't start speaking ill of Uncle Mushin and his wily ways with women, bless his soul."
"Oh, please," Kagome waved off Miroku's dramatics and walked back to the kitchen counter. "I loved your uncle. I'm speaking ill of your gross ways with women, bless your soul."
Miroku couldn't really say much to that, especially since he didn't have a current girlfriend (read: hadn't had a steady one in years). It didn't help that the other side of his bed had been very much empty for the last month or so, but Miroku knew a losing battle when he saw one.
"You win this round, Lady Kagome," he conceded with a gentle roll of his eyes. "Though I'm starting to wonder if you even want me to find my soulmate with all this talk of my 'gross' ways with women - which is totally unfair, by the way."
Kagome threw him a look that said Is it? and moved to start peeling the rest of the potatoes before realizing that there were, in fact, a lot of potatoes.
"We're having curry, right?" Kagome asked, ignoring Miroku's comment about her views on his relationship status.
"Yeah, why?"
"Why did you buy enough potatoes to feed the clinic?" Kagome eyed him suspiciously. Miroku opened his mouth, probably to argue that there were only enough potatoes to feed, say, four people, but Kagome interrupted him before he could breathe a word.
"Miroku," Kagome started, her tone dangerously and deceivingly patient.
"Are we expecting guests?" she asked dryly. "Particularly of the female kind?"
"Kagome, Kagome," Miroku laughed. "You wound me with your lack of faith."
"Then what's with the tuber overload, hm?" Kagome demanded, narrowing her eyes. Miroku gulped and for a second contemplated just putting the extra potatoes away.
"Hear me out, okay?" he began. "You remember our lovely neighbors at 50A?"
Kagome shut her eyes and groaned before he even finished his sentence.
"Do I remember our 50A neighbors?" she repeated. "Don't tell me you've invited them over for lunch."
"Not yet," Miroku admitted, "but I was planning to."
Kagome took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly as she placed her new potato and the peeler back on the counter. She gave Miroku a blank stare, holding his cautious gaze for a good few seconds before turning around swiftly and heading for the front door.
Miroku rolled his eyes.
"Where are you going?" he called to her.
"Out."
"Out where? This is almost ready."
"Then you don't need my help," Kagome said, slipping out of her house slippers and setting them neatly to the side. Miroku sighed and, wiping his hands on his jeans, circled around the kitchen counter and rushed after Kagome, feeling a vague sense of deja vu. Kagome haphazardly stuffed her feet into the nearest pair of outdoor slippers – Miroku's favorite purple ones – and reached out for the door handle.
"What is so wrong about inviting them over for a nice and friendly lunch on this nice and friendly Saturday?" Miroku asked. Kagome glared at him and kept her grip on the door handle but made no move to leave.
"Oh, I don't know, just that the last time we saw them, they met me as the weird, horny girl who didn't know how to prepare for an interview other than to sleep with the first man she saw!"
"Technically not the first man," Miroku corrected her quietly.
"The first decent man," Kagome said through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes. Miroku merely laughed shortly at her retort and stepped in front of her.
"Kagome, come on," he reasoned. "That was weeks ago! They've probably forgotten about it by now."
"Would you have forgotten about it?" she tested him, eyes wide and challenging. Miroku froze for just a brief moment and almost - almost! - allowed himself a small smile before recovering and fixing his features, but Kagome caught the half second when his face betrayed his following words and glared at him.
"Of course I would have!" he cried.
Kagome didn't even bother to deign that with a response, instead making a face at her roommate and reaching out to unlock the door.
"Kagome, Kagome – aren't you always telling me to be the bigger person?" Miroku tried one last time.
Kagome looked at him confusedly. Apparently he really wanted this lunch to happen.
"Well, now's your chance to set an example for me by coming inside, being a good host, and helping me prepare the curry," Miroku said determinedly.
"I don't even like curry," Kagome said in response to his pleading, finally yanking the door open and stepping out into the hallway. She was ready to end the conversation there, ready to shut the door in Miroku's conniving little face and leave him to his scheming ways, but before she even finished speaking, the door to 50A flew open, revealing a snarling, irritated face that Kagome was pretty sure mirrored her own just a few minutes earlier, framed by flyaway strands of silver hair that had come free from a loose ponytail.
Their neighbor – the one with that stupid name, Inuyasha? – stormed by, not even sparing them a glance, and furiously made his way down the hall and around the corner to the stairwell.
From inside 50A came a frantic voice, "Would you relax and come back here!? The landlord still likes us! Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha's lovely roommate with the light eyes and dark hair, piled in a messy bun on top of her head today, rushed out into the middle of the hallway to yell after him, stopping abruptly upon noticing her neighbors from 50B staring after them.
In yet another bout of deja vu, Miroku shook himself out of a brief trance when he realized that he and Kagome were staring at Sango's exposed legs – again. He didn't know why he was surprised; it was a pleasant summer day, not too hot that they needed to keep the AC on, but still warm enough to dress lightly.
Very lightly.
Dragging his eyes half-heartedly from Sango's toned and glowing skin, Miroku nudged Kagome in the side with his elbow sharply, eliciting an annoyed "Ow!" from her before clearing his throat. He could make out the faint thump thump thump of a certain neighbor's angry footsteps heading upstairs.
"He seems to be in a hurry," Miroku commented lightly, not bothering to keep the amusement out of his voice.
Sango sighed in agreement, one hand coming up to brush some baby hairs away from her forehead, the other loosely holding a thin paperback book between slender fingers. She cocked her hip and the hem of today's oversized t-shirt shifted just a little, barely a centimeter, but Kagome and Miroku's eyes followed the movement like two curious hawks. The shirt was a soft lavender color and was just large enough to drape down to Sango's thighs but also fitted her form well enough that Miroku couldn't help but wonder if it was hers or someone else's.
(A boyfriend's? Inuyasha's? Miroku shuddered.)
"He's been working a lot of late nights at the station this month," Sango said as a way of explaining. From above, the three heard a series of sharp thuds of what was likely Inuyasha knocking aggressively on the fake musician's door.
"He's been remarkably patient these past few months," Sango continued conversationally. "For him, at least."
There was some muffled screaming upstairs that the three chose to ignore. Kagome gazed upwards and quirked an curious eyebrow at Inuyasha's behavior.
"Gosh, it's just a little music," she said, shaking her head in amusement, noticing Miroku's eyes flickering over to her. "I just tune it out, like a normal person."
"That's exactly what I tell him to do!" Sango agreed wholeheartedly.
Miroku sent Kagome a dirty look, the dirtiest she'd ever received from him since that one time she'd kicked out one of his girlfriends, an exchange student from England who spoke terrible Japanese and kept trying to steal her clothes.
With a slight shake of his head, Miroku turned his attention to Sango.
"Out of curiosity, have you and Inuyasha had lunch yet?" he asked.
Kagome rolled her eyes next to Miroku and barely covered up a small scoff. There was a pause in the banging upstairs, presumably the tenants coming to the door (bless them) to get Inuyasha to shut up.
"No, not yet," Sango replied. "We were thinking of ordering pizza. Normally one of us cooks but Saturday's our lazy day."
"Oh! Well," Miroku sent a pleased smile in her direction. "We're having curry, and there should be enough for all four of us."
It was Kagome's turn to throw Miroku a dirty look; the patented Higurashi package, complete with the curled lip, arched eyebrow, and unimpressed frown.
To his disappointment, Sango shook her head gently with a strange smile.
"Thank you for your offer, but Inuyasha hates curry," she said in an oddly amused voice, and for some reason, the way she said it almost convinced Miroku that Inuyasha really did hate curry and she wasn't just making excuses.
Before he could ask her if she liked curry, Kagome jumped in.
"Oh, well that's just too bad, isn't it, Miroku?" she said in a tone of one-hundred-percent honest disappointment, the look of dismay on her face a reflection of her truly genuine regret at missing a chance to share beef curry with the neighbors from 50A.
Miroku narrowed his eyes at Kagome's light teasing, especially in front of such a beautiful woman, but Sango seemed to catch on and laughed at her antics.
"It's alright, you'll just have to let us know when you're making something else. He really likes ramen and udon so if you know of some good places near the area, we'd love to know," she said. That seemed to pacify Miroku for the time-being, although his handsome features still drooped sourly with his disappointment.
"Anyway, where are you guys going?" Sango asked abruptly, addressing Kagome's slippers and the pair's general presence outside of their home. "Hopefully not to scream at other neighbors like we're doing apparently."
Kagome blinked, like a deer caught in headlights, or a deer that had just been asked a completely reasonable question by an intimidatingly beautiful woman.
"We were gonna … I was gonna … um–"
Faltering and having completely lost track of what she and Miroku had previously been arguing about before she'd stepped outside, she turned to him with a blank look. He simply looked at her and helpfully blinked in silence.
"I was going to the convenience store?" she finished, with no help at all from Miroku. Sango frowned prettily at the questioning lilt in Kagome's voice as the other girl continued to struggle.
"To get some, uh…"
"Milk!" Miroku offered very helpfully when Kagome left her sentence unfinished. She turned to him slowly, mouthing Milk? behind gritted teeth and incensed eyes.
Sango bit her lip to keep from smiling.
"Milk, again?" she asked, raising her empty hand to cover her growing smile behind a loose fist.
"Yes," Kagome confirmed, still glaring at Miroku. "Again, apparently."
"Actually!" Sango snapped her fingers suddenly, catching their attention. "Which convenient store do you normally go to? The closest one I know of is the MiniStop near the train station but it doesn't always have the best food."
"Oh, if you go the other way, around the back of the complex and through the park, there's a Lawson across the road!" Kagome said, pointing into the air in roughly in the direction of the convenient store.
"Really?" Sango frowned, thinking back to the neighborhood and wondering how she could have missed a bright blue and white Lawson sign during her morning runs.
Kagome nodded.
"It's on a small street, so it's a little hidden away. I can show you sometime, if you want?"
"I can just go with you now," Sango offered, moving towards 50A's front door.
"Oh! Yeah, of course!" Kagome nodded eagerly.
Sango smiled and gestured to her apartment with her thumb.
"Let me just get my wallet and put some shorts on," she said with a slightly bashful smile and disappeared into her apartment, leaving her two neighbors in a sense of awe and with a great view of the back of her legs before the door closed. Miroku let out a low whistle.
"That's some woman."
Kagome was about to snap at Miroku and then probably gloat about her new friend when Inuyasha and his incredible ponytail suddenly appeared from around the corner and started making his way down the hall. Judging by the annoyed and resigned look on his face, Miroku and Kagome guessed that the confrontation didn't go well.
"Any luck with our future Grammy award winner?" Miroku asked cautiously but not unkindly. Inuyasha stopped in his tracks, drawing Kagome's attention to his slipper-less bare feet, and glanced at Miroku before scoffing and rubbing the back of his neck with a slight air of shame.
"It's just a kid," he muttered in response.
"A what?" Kagome asked. He looked at her, still frowning, though she knew it wasn't directed at her in particular. Or she hoped.
"He's a kid," he repeated sharply. "A fifteen year old kid who literally picked up a guitar five months ago to practice for band club auditions."
50B's tenants were silent for a grand total of three seconds before opening their damn mouths.
"He's terrible," Miroku concluded.
"They're not going to accept him," Kagome added.
Inuyasha rolled his eyes, a little taken aback by his neighbors' bluntness.
"You think that matters? I can't do much but ask his parents to tell him to cut it out in the evenings."
Miroku sighed, "We've lived with it for five months now, the best we can do is just hope it'll stop after the auditions."
Kagome turned to Inuyasha and addressed him before she could lose her cool.
"Thank you for trying, anyway," she said. "I was almost ready to go up and confront him myself."
Inuyasha completely missed the hilariously incredulous and disbelieving look Miroku flung in Kagome's general direction.
"Um," Inuyasha mumbled, eyeing Kagome warily, no doubt thinking about the first time he'd officially met her. "Right."
Eloquent, Kagome thought drily just as Sango exited the apartment, still in the same t-shirt, now neatly tucked into a pair of denim shorts. Miroku's sour mood improved ever so slightly at the sight of the shorts, and despite the fact that they covered some of her skin, he quickly came to appreciate how the denim hugged Sango's physical assets and showed off her legs nicely.
Sango, seemingly oblivious to his observations, slipped into a pair of flip flops and looked up at Inuyasha with narrowed eyes.
"You didn't hurt anyone, did you?" she asked suspiciously. Inuyasha shot her an annoyed look and crossed his arms.
"What do you think? I'm off duty," he snapped. "And where the hell are you going?"
"To buy milk," Kagome answered, smiling cheekily at Miroku before turning to Sango. Miroku mocked her after she'd turned away, to which Sango laughed quietly.
"Kagome kindly offered to show me where the Lawson is so we can stop buying shitty rice balls from MiniStop and get real convenience store food," Sango explained, zipping open her wallet quickly to check that she had cash. "You want anything?"
"Keh!" Inuyasha scoffed. Kagome and Miroku frowned. What was his problem?
"…One of those karaage bite-sized things," Inuyasha eventually mumbled. Sango smirked as if she'd known.
"And not–"
"The spicy ones, I know," Sango finished for him, still smirking as she reached out for Kagome's arm and led the two of them down the hall and away from the boys, reaching out to ruffle Inuyasha's head as she passed him, drawing out an annoyed frown from him.
"Don't wait for me, you can eat whenever you want!" she called back.
As they walked away, Inuyasha wasn't sure but he thought he heard Sango ask Kagome, "So, what's the deal with you and your roommate?" before the two disappeared around the corner.
Inuyasha rolled his eyes before realizing said roommate was still standing outside in the hallway with him. Momentarily abandoned by their respective female roommates, they stood awkwardly for a second before Miroku cleared his throat shortly and offered a loose smile.
"So…" he started. Inuyasha braced himself.
"You and Sango," Miroku continued. Inuyasha cocked an eyebrow.
Miroku tilted his head to prompt Inuyasha. "Are you guys … y'know?"
"Sleeping together?" Inuyasha filled in without hesitation, his eyes dangerously protective slits. "What's it to you?"
"Oh, nothing!" Miroku said easily. "Nothing at all."
Scoffing at Miroku's transparency but unable to quell his own curiosity, Inuyasha fires his own question.
"What about you and … Kagome?"
"Hm? Oh, no, no – she's like my sister," Miroku said, laughing. Inuyasha nodded once; so did Miroku.
They stood again in a silence that was more than slightly awkward when Miroku remembered the whole reason he was standing outside in the first place.
"Anyway, you were upstairs when I asked Sango, but we're making curry for lunch. You and Sango are both welcome to join us when the girls get back," Miroku said, pleased to finally make his offer, only to be sorely let down when Inuyasha scoffed out loud in amused disbelief.
"You're – you're kidding right?" Inuyasha squinted, ready to laugh if this was some kind of bad joke.
Miroku also squinted his eyes, but in wary confusion, and replied with a tentative "No?"
Maybe Sango really had been telling the truth about Inuyasha's averseness to curry.
Inuyasha paused, fixed Miroku with a look that could only be translated as What the fuck are you even saying?, and shook his head.
"Pass," he said brusquely, breezing by and entering his apartment, shutting the door with an offended bang, leaving Miroku with an empty hallway, foiled plans, and curry for four.
In the deafening silence of the hallway, Miroku considered his rough luck, quickly analyzed the group's conversation, and decided this was all a good thing. He'd have his curry now, and would have a feast with Kagome and the 50A residents later, in due time.
After all, like Uncle Mushin always taught him: he may lose some battles, but he could still win the—
–An off-tune whine from upstairs signalled the start of a new acoustic piece, interrupting Miroku's musings as the young musician upstairs started a freshly irritating rendition of the same song.
With a resigned sigh, Miroku went back inside, back to his radio show, his unpeeled potatoes, and his restless new thoughts about glowing skin, thin paperbacks, easy laughs, and the color lavender.
- fin -
Glossary
MiniStop and Lawson - very common convenience stores in Japan
karaage ; からあげ ; "ka-RAH-geh" - deep fried chicken, Inuyasha is referring to karaage-kun, Lawson's brand of freaking awesome fried chicken bites, Google it!
Bonus: Chapter Epilogue
inuyasha: you were gone for a while
sango: kagome showed me her fav cafe and we chilled for like 5 hours
inuyasha: clearly
sango: what've u been up to
inuyasha: miroku tried to invite me to have curry can you believe that
sango: lol ikr who even likes curry
inuyasha: u get along well with her?
sango: kagome?
inuyasha: ye
sango: yeah she's pretty
inuyasha: pretty what
sango: just pretty
inuyasha: …
sango: lol she's really nice you'd like her
inuyasha: idk … they feel a little weird to me
sango: not just a little, they're both really odd
inuyasha: yeah i don't need that in my life
sango: lol same, but they're not bad people
inuyasha: right. anyway there's leftover lasagna in the fridge
sango: cool u eat already?
inuyasha: ya
sango: is the kid gonna be loud again tonight
inuyasha: probably
sango: and u won't get mad?
inuyasha: there's nothing i can do anymore
sango: good. u need to chill out
inuyasha: ladies first
[End scene]
(Okay, I'm done lol - see y'all next time!)