Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or its characters. They are the sole property of Takahashi Rumiko.

-To Sip of Black Velvet-

Chapter 2: The Chills

I had been working as a waitress at Kaichou for a little over six months on the night he walked into the bar.

The bar was usually filled with regulars. Most made a suitable living but a large handful were living paycheck to paycheck, squandering away much needed cash on booze and fairly decent entertainment. They were my kind of crowd.

I was only working there because I had to. It had been a necessary evil, really. My mother couldn't afford to provide for her 'confused' child anymore while she was putting my younger brother through university and taking care of the bills for my grandfather in the hospital. I had never been able to get into university with my test scores and the only real thing I'd ever wanted to do was sing, so basically I'd been just wasting space at the family shrine while I "figured things out".

Originally I'd tried to be a paid singer at Kaichou but was told that I sounded "too technical" and that my singing was "too forced". Furthermore, Miroku, the bar owner, informed me that my singing "just didn't give him goosebumps". After critiquing me, he offered me a waitress job saying that I could sing whenever his main entertainment couldn't show. I eagerly accepted it since I needed the money to afford the one-bedroom hole-in-the-wall apartment that I'd be moving into anyways.

Kikyo was the main entertainment. Kikyo was a wonderful singer. Kikyo gave people goosebumps before a note even left her throat—I hated Kikyo. Sometimes I found myself wishing she would catch laryngitis or up and get a record deal so that I wouldn't be stuck in her shadow, cleaning tables anymore. But she was too perfect and humble to even try to get a record deal and much to my amazement, in the six months that I'd worked there, Kikyo had always been able to show up for work.

So imagine how shocked and unprepared I was the night I showed up late for work and Miroku informed me that I'd be singing in 5 minutes. It seemed that I had gotten my wish, Kikyo had miraculously caught laryngitis.

I stood on the stage trembling. I was so scared. I knew that when Miroku finished introducing me that my voice would be a shaky mess. I'd surely never get another chance to sing at the bar ever again. And as I stood there, silently cursing Kikyo in my head, he walked into the bar.

He was beautiful—my heart stopped. He was wearing an expensive business suit, expensive shoes, and carrying an expensive briefcase… but I didn't notice any of that. I noticed his delicate pale skin, his strong form, and the graceful dance that was his stride. I noticed the tendrils of long silver tresses that swayed with his motions and the distinct magenta stripes that lined his cheeks. He was a demon and by the looks of it he was a Daiyoukai.

He sat down at a table in the back row. His bangs had been hiding half of his face to me and honestly if I'd never gotten to see the other half perhaps things could have ended up turning out differently. Perhaps I could have moved on, forgotten about him, and my life could have stayed as relatively simple as it had always been. But as it turned out, he looked up. He looked straight at me, baring the last symbol on his face to me, a crescent moon. He stared directly into my eyes with his own impossibly golden-colored ones and I knew immediately that I had to find a way to make him stare at me forever. So I did the only thing I knew how to do and luckily the thing that had also been required of me, I began to sing.

I suppose if I could have heard myself, I'd be able to tell you that it was the most beautiful sound that had ever come out of me. But I can't remember a thing about it. The only thing that mattered to me during those short few minutes was that he never once took his gaze off me.

When the song was over and everyone had finished applauding, Miroku broke my trance.

"Kagome?" he said.

"…yeah?" I replied.

"Your voice, it—it gave me the chills."

And that was how I formally became a singer at Kaichou.

Word Count: 738