InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ All But One ❯ In Which We Meet Our Players ( Chapter 1 )

All But One (by S'revan - inspired by *Shichan)

Kagome's willing to do almost anything to get Inuyasha's attention. Problem is, he's not interested… but others are.

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Chapter One: In Which We Meet Our Players

"Uff." Sango put the heavy box down and stood up to stretch. "That's the last of them. Good thing neither of us have class until after lunch."

"Yeah…" Kagome stretched as well, wincing when her back popped. "Thanks for giving up your single for me, Sango."

"It's okay. I had to share with my brother before I came here, so I'm used to it."

"Uh huh. Remind me again: your brother is?"

"Kohaku. Yours is Souta, right?"

"Yeah. I never had to share with him, though, so this is my first time with a roommate."

"You'll like it. It's fun." Sango glanced at the clock and immediately cheered. "Lunch!"

"Lunch!" someone said back from down the hall, and an unfamiliar girl appeared in the doorway shortly after. "Hey, Sango. Is this a prospie or your new roommate?"

"Choice b," Sango said. "This is Kagome. Kagome, this is Fuji."

"Nice to meet you," Fuji said, and extended a hand to shake. "Kagome's a nice name, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't remember it immediately. I'm bad with things like that. Oh-- hey, Shippo!"

The young man who had just passed by the doorway came back. "Yeah?"

"If Kagome is Sango's new roommate, does that put her in our sponsor group?"

"I don't think so," he said. "Sponsor groups aren't as important second semester." He waved a little at her. "Hey Kagome. I'm Shippo, one of the sponsors for this hall."

"Hello." They shook hands.

"Lunch?" Fuji asked.

Shippo nodded. "Lunch."

Fuji moved away, further down the hall. "Lunch?" she said again.

"Coming!" two male voices yelled out, overlapping slightly.

Sango grabbed her keys and stuffed them into a pocket, then stepped out into the hall. Kagome, after doing the same, followed her, just in time to see Inuyasha and his roommate close the door to their room.

There he was. Inuyasha was the reason Kagome had decided to live on campus, even though her family lived only a few blocks from the college. They'd been best friends in grade and middle school, and close friends over long distances while he went to boarding high school in the States, but she'd wanted since sixth grade to be more than just friends. He never seemed to notice her even as a girl, though, so she'd decided just before finals last semester to move into a dorm -- hopefully his hall, even -- and to take her mentor's advice. She was doing that now: dressed more provocatively than usual, in a tight black tank top and close-fitting jeans. Kagome was determined that this year she'd make him realize that she was not only a girl but prime girlfriend material.

If only his current girlfriend, Kikyo, wasn't so nice…

She was about to greet Inuyasha when her mentor, Ayumi (who lived just off the hall) called out for them to wait for her.

"We have a habit of congregating and then going to meals all together," Fuji said from where she was leaning against the hall, across from Inuyasha's door. "Hope you don't mind."

"That's fine." She smiled.

Inuyasha looked at her. "Kagome, you--"

"I'm here!" Ayumi said breathlessly, bursting in on them. "Right, let's go!"

There was no real chance to talk to anyone on the way to lunch, although Inuyasha and Shippo seemed to be having no problems discussing some video game that sounded like a shoot-em-up. At lunch itself, the table was boisterous, but Inuyasha had gone off to sit with Kikyo. And then Kagome had to rush off to her first class of the semester -- which she shared, she discovered, with Fuji and Kirara, the hall's other sponsor.

Kagome found the class immensely boring, but Fuji was bouncing as they left the building. "Oh, sure, if you don't take notes you'll fall asleep, but it's such a cool subject. Oi, hey, Jak, wait up! Sorry Kagome, gotta go, see you later!" And she ran off to chatter excitedly at a very pretty person. Kagome couldn't tell if it was a guy or a girl.

She went back to her new room and moped a bit while making an effort at the homework she'd just gotten, then checked her schedule to be sure and was off to archery. There, she was reminded yet again of just how nice Kikyo was -- and then of how much Inuyasha seemed to truly like Kikyo when the class ended. They headed back together.

"So, Kagome," Inuyasha -- holding hands with Kikyo and looking very happy -- said, "you're Sango's new roommate? She was telling us there'd be one, but not that it was you."

"Yeah." She didn't know what to say, so settled for smiling and being silent.

"Any particular reason?"

Now, she couldn't just say To get closer to you, could she? "The social life," she said instead. "It's pretty much nonexistent if you don't live on campus."

"That's true," Kikyo said, as they came to the music building. "See you, Inuyasha. Don't forget about the movie tonight, okay?"

He kissed her cheek. "Of course not. Later."

"Bye." Kikyo went into the building, and Inuyasha and Kagome moved on.

"So, how have you been?" Kagome asked at last. "We really never got the chance to catch up before."

"Pretty good." He played with a lock of black hair, picking out the silvery-white highlight. "The first couple weeks there, I kept on expecting that they'd point at me and yell `foreigner!' or tell me to get out or something -- y'know, like might happen here -- but they never did. It was nice to find out that Fuji had gotten in here as well, and then that we had the same sponsor group."

"You and Fuji went to the same school?"

"For the last year and a half, yeah. Her dad's a great guy."

Kagome lost some of her smile. Inuyasha had never said anything like that about her dad, even when he was alive.

"You'll have to ask her for the story, though. She likes to tell it herself." They came to the entrance to Mashima, their dorm, and Inuyasha swiped his card once, then again when nothing happened. "Stupid thing," he muttered.

~beep~

"There we go," he said, and pulled it open. "It'll be nice to hang out again, yeah?"

"Yeah." She bit her lip. "Hey, I'm going to go read in the lounge. How `bout you?"

"Sure. Gotta work on Econ. Bleah."

"Macro?"

"Micro. Dad wants me to major in it. Bleah, bleah, bleah."

"I'll bet," she said, chuckling. "See you there."

"Yeah, yeah. Hey Hiten, you know any Econ?"

She lost whatever Hiten said to that as she moved further down the hall to her and Sango's room. The door was ajar and Sango was collapsed on her bed asleep, so Kagome just grabbed a book of her favorite poems and did a quick rundown. Tight shirt: check. Jeans: check. Keys: check. Okay, here goes. She left the door as she had found it and made her way, with only one moment of panic, to the lounge.

Inuyasha was already there, as was Fuji, who was talking to an absolutely gorgeous man, and who looked up and waved as she entered the room. What looked to be a sponsor group meeting was breaking up.

Kagome dropped onto the couch opposite both Inuyasha and Fuji and her companion with the incredible coloring -- an image popped into her mind of Inuyasha having the same almost-white hair and amber-gold eyes and she nearly drooled -- and opened her book.

Inuyasha didn't notice her.

Well, alright, fine. He would when he looked up.

All you need to do at first is wear jeans, Yuka, a friend of Ayumi's from when they were freshmen and in the same sponsor group, had said. Just let your legs fall open a little. The inseam will totally draw his attention to between your legs and he'll want to be there too. Last year, when Yuka was a sponsor, her hall had been known as the sex hall, so Kagome supposed she knew what she was talking about.

She let her legs fall apart a bit and leaned back into the couch, pushing out her chest as she read poems she already knew by heart and waited for Inuyasha to look up.

-

Kouga sat in the corner with his girl and his guys and stared at Kagome. She looked really sexy today. That shirt was… tight. And low cut. And it really showed off her…

Ayame seethed. Sure, she knew that Kouga had had something of an obsession with Kagome ever since almost the first day, but he was her boyfriend, dammit! She turned his head back to her and kissed him, but she could tell he really wasn't interested in anything but staring at the other girl's chest.

She would have to find a way to keep him away from Kagome.

-

Kagome looked up from her feigned interest in her book when she felt the couch shift as someone sat beside her. It was Hojo. She'd had a class with him the previous semester. He was fairly cute, in a quite, shy, timid sort of way. The girls seemed to love him for it.

Come to think of it, it was his sponsor group that had been dispersing from a meeting. She smiled at him -- just a little, in case Inuyasha was watching and doing a very good job of hiding it -- and he smiled back.

"Hi." Very, very quiet. She almost couldn't hear what he'd said.

"Hey. How's life?"

"Decent. You?"

"As good as it can get for the first day of classes." She grimaced.

"True. Do you need any help with anything?"

"No, I think I'll be fine."

He nodded and leaned back against the couch, staring off into space. She shifted a little, crossing her ankles, and went back to pretending to read.

-

Hojo, who liked Kagome far too much to call her by her given name without direct permission, settled in for a pleasant hour of Higurashi-watching.

Hmm, Ayame thought. Maybe I should ask Hojo to help. Her sponsor was quiet about it, but she was sure he liked Kagome very much. Maybe he'd be willing to help her think of a way to keep Kouga from being his rival, and Kagome hers.

Naraku glinted from his place in the shadows. Kanna sat by his feet as usual -- really, it had been far too easy to arrange for her to be his fellow sponsor. Kagome, one of the few freshmen to not live on campus, now did -- and in the hall directly beneath the one under his control, no less! She looked like Kikyo, but softer, more innocent, and without that annoying connection to Kaede to keep her closed off from him. The women he usually entertained were beginning to pall as well, and he wouldn't mind a fresh challenge…

Such an innocent, yet sensual, creature. Her profile was exquisite. He certainly wouldn't mind taking her.

"Find more information on this Kagome," he told Kanna.

-

Fuji grinned as Sesshoumaru trailed off yet again, staring at Kagome. She followed his gaze and saw what had caught her eye as well, though apparently she had better self-control than he did.

"Oi," she said quietly.

His eyebrows pulled together for a moment, but then he sighed.

I know just what he's thinking, she thought, amusing herself with making fun of him. `What is wrong with I, Sesshoumaru? She may be beautiful, but she's just a freshman, and not worth my time. She suppressed a snicker. As if she, Fuji, were not a freshman. Or Inuyasha or Ginko, but then, he didn't really seem to like them. Must be my `maturity'.

Still quietly, "Hey, fluffball. Don't make me sit on your lap."

"Don't you dare," he said, finally returning to earth.

"Nice taste, though. She really is beautiful, isn't she?"

"Hm?"

She jerked her head in Kagome's direction. "You've been staring at her on and off ever since you got a glimpse past the insides of her knees."

"I have not."

"Have too. I'd say this meeting's a bust." Sesshoumaru's eyes immediately returned to Kagome's bust, and Fuji sniggered quietly. "So she's cute. Or drop dead gorgeous, depending on your terminology. So she's completely oblivious to the fact that practically everyone is looking down her shirt, or at her boobs, or at her lips, or at her crotch: she's an innocent. So she seems perfect. Go for her. Granted, you'll have to compete with the wonderful me, and I live across the hall from her."

He growled softly at her.

"Oh, knock it off, Sess, you know what I'm like around girls who I don't know are like me. Just proving my point. Nyahahaha!"

Kagome dropped her book. "What the heck was that?"

"That would be my fake evil laugh." Fuji said. "Sorry `bout that -- didn't mean to disturb you."

The beautiful companion stood and left.

"Bye bye, Sesshoumaru!" Fuji called, and looked expectantly at Inuyasha.

He didn't react.

She shrugged at Kagome and left as well.

Finally, Inuyasha was done with what seemed to be the killer problem from Hell and sat back, noticing Kagome at the same time. "Hey."

"Hey." She smiled brilliantly at him. Look at me, notice me, want me, come on…

His eyes glazed over for a moment, staring a little to the left of her head, and he asked, "What time is it?"

"Hm?" She checked her watch. "Um… 4:50."

"Crap, crap, crap! Gonna be late to meet with Kikyo!" And he rushed out of the room.

Kagome was left feeling rather anticlimactic. Sighing, she got up and left too.

-

Naraku caught up with her a few feet from her door. "Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Ah… I'm Naraku, one of the sponsors upstairs…"

"Yes? Pleased to meet you."

"And I was wondering if you'd like" to scream my name as I fuck you against the wall? No, those weren't the right words.

"Dinner!" Fuji bounded from her room, which, since the rooms were slightly offset, meant that she narrowly avoided colliding with Kagome. "Sorry. Dinner! Dinner, dinner!"

"Shut up!" someone said, but then Kirara started yelling about dinner, and soon the hall was filled with people milling around and waiting for everyone to arrive.

Fuji grinned at Naraku, who remembered now why he'd left this hall alone. Fuji, with her protective streak a mile wide, her observational habits, her openness, and her tendency to spontaneously yell extraneous words -- usually having something to do with food, and usually managing to rouse most of the hall in the hopes of either getting some of whatever she was yelling about or making her stop. An annoying, completely incorruptible creature whose brush with unpleasantness had made her stronger rather than weaker.

"I'm sorry," Kagome said. "Would you like to have dinner with us?"

"Perhaps another time," he said, turned, and walked away.

"I think he was trying to ask you out," Sango said, sidling up to her. "He's one of the most popular guys here, you know. Maybe you should accept."

"I'm here for Inuyasha," Kagome reminded her.

"Yeah, but… practice dating, maybe?"

"That wouldn't be fair -- I'd just be leading him on, and that's not right."

Sango nodded, relieved. Kagome was crazy to be chasing after a rude, arrogant, taken guy like Inuyasha so single-mindedly, but her morals were still good. Maybe liking her wasn't such an irrational thing after all. "There's always tomorrow.'

"Yeah… Thanks, Sango."

"You're welcome. Now--"

"Dinner!" Fuji yelled.

"Shut up!" everyone yelled back.

And they were off.

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So that's that! If you have a preference for a particular couple, tell me in a review! Most likely, whoever is most popular will win. ^_^v