InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Acting ❯ Chapter 1: The Thing About Foam ( Chapter 1 )

You should thank Catch 22 (the band, not the book or movie), Reel Big Fish and Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Since it's been so long since I thought about this story, I figured anybody reading it deserved a long, funny chapter. Trust me, it's only going to get funnier from here.

And if certain details confuse you, know this: this story explains itself. It may take a while, the story may circle 'round to strange topics, but this story will eventually explain itself.

=====

1: The Thing About Foam

[…]I'm -sticky-[…]

- Bart of Xenogears in Mooncalf's fic Happy New Year ()

1.1

The thing about trees is that they have branches. The thing about branches is that they move. Another thing about branches is that when they move, they make rustling sounds. The thing about rustling sounds is that they give away your location. And the thing about that doesn't even need saying- especially when you hunt something Inuyasha protects.

And that, Kouga decided, explained why he found himself extremely damp and desperately clinging to a tree branch hoping that it wouldn't make too much noise. After yet another bout of very circumspect struggling, Kouga managed to clamber atop the branch again.

Inuyasha and Kagome strolled into the clearing, unaware that Kouga lurked above them, his shoulders hunched and his arms stretched out in a classic threatening gesture.

"So, wench, what did you want to 'talk' about?" Inuyasha drawled as he continued walking to the center of the clearing.

Kouga bristled silently. How dare Inukuro speak to Kagome as though she were some idiot to humor and dismiss on whims? The wolf demon foamed at the mouth and muttered silently to himself about Inuyasha's disrespect of another male's woman, conveniently forgetting that he had taken Kagome on as his mate only because he'd found her useful- and he'd barely known her name.

Some of Kouga's foam dripped onto the tree branch. He wiped it up quickly; using his kilt and hoping none had already dripped to the ground.

"Inuyasha… ever since I let that demon capture me," Kagome paused, apparently thinking on how best to phrase her next sentence. She paused for a long time.

The wolf demon rather wanted her to get on with it. He wondered idly which demon she had in mind.

After her lengthy pause, she spoke. "I've only thought about how weak I was."

Inuyasha made a scoffing sound. "You're not weak." He shrugged. "Everyone makes mistakes, is all."

Kouga's jaw dropped and more foam dripped onto the tree.

Shit.

Hastily, he crammed his lower jaw and upper jaw back together, forming a shape similar to a closed mouth. He again began wiping at the semi-solid saliva with his kilt, only to run out of dry scraps of cloth before he got it all.

Shit! Shit!

He ran a hand through his hair, then started mopping at the froth on the bark with the long silken strands. He made a slight sound when some of his beautiful hair ripped.

"Inuyasha, I want you to teach me to fight."

He felt his eyebrows lift, forming a wrinkled ridge on his forehead, and then his lower jaw dropped, causing his eyes to appear bugged and his eyebrows to shoot straight off his head.

Yet more froth from his mouth dripped onto the branch. This time, Kouga didn't even bother to try to wipe it up.

"Wha-wha-what?" Inuyasha managed to stammer, his face bearing an expression eerily similar to Kouga's.

Kagome watched Inuyasha's startled eyebrows drift to the ground. She eyeballed them and lifted an eyebrow of her own.

Had Kouga been a biophysicist, he would have felt privileged to observe such an interesting phenomenon as what occurred next.

Kagome, through stress, somehow managed to alter the scenery behind her into a dazzling collection of sparkles, bubbles and solid colors. Even more interestingly, she loomed above the scenery and close observation of her face revealed a terrifying expression involving huge (but narrowed) blank eyes, fangs and several cross-shaped veins popping out of her forehead.

She waved her arms. Inuyasha and Kouga cringed.

"WHAT! IS IT SO HARD TO BELIEVE THAT I WANT TO GET STRONGER!"

Kouga recovered quickly. He reattached his jaws, smoothed his somewhat ripped hair, managed to hide the globs of froth on his clothing and schooled his expression into a look of smooth reassurance.

He circled around through the other trees so that he stood just behind Inuyasha. And then, he jumped.

1.2

Kagome gazed on in shock as a brown and black blur zoomed down from the trees. Had she not been spending so much time in the Sengoku Jidai, and spending it with Inuyasha, she would have completely missed what happened next. It all happened in a blur, but she managed to make it out.

Kouga extended his foot to step lightly on Inuyasha's head, and in a tiny movement almost as fast as Kouga, Inuyasha side stepped to the right and hooked his left leg. Unfortunately, the wolf demon had extended his left leg in a position that would now cause his foot to land directly on Inuyasha's left shoulder. The rivals realized this a little too late. Actually, they realized it a lot too late. As in, so "too late" that it was too late to even think on the matter further. With a snap, Kouga's foot connected. Inuyasha, who had been mostly unprepared for the weight, went bowling over.

Kouga's right leg, which I have neglected to mention (sorry, sorry) had been pulled up. His right knee slammed into the backside of Inuyasha's right shoulder at the exact moment Inuyasha began to teeter. Inuyasha made a gasping sound.

The weight on Inuyasha's back, which had been shifting him to the left, now shifted mostly to the right. This weight, added to the force with which Kouga's knee had slammed the muscles controlling his shoulder, sent him bowling over to the right.

Inuyasha tried to go down on his right but to avoid breaking his hooked left leg, Inuyasha turned the action into a pivot. They would have gone down with Inuyasha lying on his back and a majorly squished Kouga pinned beneath Inuyasha, but Kouga wanted to go left and wound up tangling them soon after he went flipping over Inuyasha's shoulders.

The end result (Kagome observed this appreciatively) found Kouga on his back with his legs loosely wrapped around Inuyasha's waist and Inuyasha doing a rather uncomfortable-looking spread-kneed split above the full demon.

"Gonna kill you," Inuyasha growled. Except Kouga's hair was in his mouth, so that Inuyasha's words came out like "grma krf yrf."

"Your fault," Kouga grumbled back. "Now get off of me!"

At this point, the two noticed something other than the positions of their legs and all-important waists. They noticed the positions of their hands.

Inuyasha seemed to be almost straddling Kouga and the position of his hands (spread out by Kouga's head) and knees (spread out along Kouga's waist) made it official. Kouga had somehow managed to tangle his own arms in the slits in Inuyasha's sleeves.

Worse, the foam Kouga's mouth had produced when he'd gotten angry proved sticky. Very sticky. And Inuyasha's fine silver hair had tangled into Kouga's black hair. And the foam that Kouga's hair had absorbed when he was wiping it off the tree acted like a very powerful paste. Like pitch, but white.

"Gohmr hrlf mr," Inuyasha said through the hair in his mouth.

Unfortunately for them both, Kagome couldn't help them, being otherwise occupied. As in, laughing. Very hard. So hard, in fact, that she was crying.

And then Kouga remembered that he'd wiped at the froth with his kilt. Oh no. As he'd expected, Inuyasha's billowy hakama was stuck to his kilt.

Kouga felt a huge glob of sweat form beside his head.

And then things went downhill in a way that would have made Murphy proud that nature upheld his law so wonderfully. In other words, Miroku walked into the clearing.

Kouga stretched his neck -painful for Inuyasha and just as painful for the wolf demon- to see Miroku's eyes bug. The monk's lips pursed, then parted, and finally his jaw dropped and his eyebrows flew right off his head.

Unnoticed by the humans and demon (and half-demon), Miroku's eyebrows joined Inuyasha's and Kouga's eyebrows on the ground and they all began to dance the freed eyebrow dance together.

"Kouga! I thought- I thought- I thought-" and here Miroku gave up for a moment, partly due to the displeased expressions on the warriors' faces. He paused, took a deep breath, and said, "IthoughtyoulovedKagomeifyoudidthenwhyareyouandInuyashalikethat?!"

Then an idea occurred to Miroku. Kouga could see it on the monk's face. He could see it in that sly expression that spread across the entirety of the human's visage.

Kouga and Inuyasha watched helplessly as Miroku sidled up to Kagome. They stared at the evil smirk that had come across the monk's face.

"Well," Miroku drawled, "I guess Kagome made her choice."

Kagome went red with embarrassment. Inuyasha went red with rage. Kouga went red, as well with rage.

Miroku looked innocent. "What? Why would Kagome cry so before the two of you but for the pain of choosing between you, and then to find that she now has no one to choose from?"

"Shrf lrfing yuidjirt," Inuyasha spat. Well, tried to spit.

"Indeed! She is laughing!" Kouga said. "And you are an idiot, monk!"

Miroku ignored this. He bent down to help Kagome up. Except his hands didn't go to her arms or shoulders. He apparently had more interesting curves in mind.

"PERVERT!" Kagome cried at the exact same time Inuyasha cried "drft fujjer" ("don't touch her") and attempted to get up. Kouga, bristling at Miroku's audacity yelped in pain several times when Inuyasha tried to rip them apart. Inuyasha yelped too.

Miroku's eyes bugged again and soon he joined Kagome on the forest floor, tears streaming from his eyes as he laughed. While locked in that epic struggle, Kouga and Inuyasha had resembled dogs fighting and those yelping sounds, so much like the sounds dogs made when injured, hadn't helped matters.

Kouga and Inuyasha gave up on removing themselves from that position. It would be too painful. It would end with them partly or mostly undressed and rip most of their hair out. No, best just to stay like this for a little longer.

"Gohmr, girt gahayday," Inuyasha mumbled.

"Kagome, get Gah-eh-day," Kouga interpreted. "Who- or what- ever Gah-eh-day is."

Kagome's laughter had by this time mostly stopped, but her eyes remained watery and a huge smile lingered on her face. "You mean Kaede. Miroku, go get her."

"Why do I have to go?" Miroku asked smoothly.

Kagome looked at him, returning to the dangerous form that had scared Inuyasha and Kouga.

"Going," Miroku said meekly. "She's scary when she's angry!"

Inuyasha and Kouga agreed.

1.25 (interlude)

Upon seeing the youkai and hanyou, Kaede laughed until she cried. Gasping, she stopped and sighed.

She moved closer and poked the unfortunate warriors. After doing so, she stroked her chin and made thinking sounds.

"I'm afraid there is little I can do. The mouth foam of a wolf or dog demon is a powerful epoxy; I have heard that demons use the foam from wolf demons instead of pitch to hold their boats together."

"So, they're stuck together? Forever?"

"You'll have to ask Miyouga about that."

=====

Kouga: I hate you, Bain.

Bain: Hate is love not return`ed. Except for I love you.

Inuyasha: I hate you too.

Kagome: *laughing*

Miroku: *laughing*

Inuyasha and Kouga: I AM NOT GAY!