InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ All But One ❯ In Which We Consider Group Outings and Sesshoumaru ( Chapter 5 )

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.

Very Late Disclaimer: The Inuyasha characters do not belong to me. Neither do any other characters that you might recognize from other anime that I'm borrowing temporarily because I needed more names. Fuji, however, is mine, and I'll kick your ass if you try to take her from me.

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Chapter Five: In Which We Consider Group Outings and Sesshoumaru

Fuji stopped by the open door, staring absently inside.

"Hi," Sango said. Kagome looked up.

"Hi," Fuji said. "Kaoru is going to be back."

"Great," Kagome said. "Why?"

"Remember that bikini I tried to get you to wear, and that you wouldn't because you said it was too tiny to be decent? He saw me in that at the pool."

"I remember that," Sango said. "It was too small for me. How do you fit into it?"

"I have to be poured into it."

"I repeat: how?"

"I could show you, but I don't think you want to see me that naked."

"I would," Miroku said from where he was sprawled on Sango's bed.

"Yes, but that's because you're a pervert."

"I just want to know if that lovely red hair is natural."

"My eyebrows are red, aren't they? And my lashes, when I don't wear mascara."

"Yes, but still…"

"Sango, hit him for me."

Sango reached over and hit Miroku twice; once on the chest and once upside the head. "Idiot."

"Actually, my hair is naturally a bit darker than this, and little more brown. I usually have to dye my hair every three months or so to keep it this bright."

"Do you dye other areas as well?"

Sango hit him again.

"Ow!"

Fuji smirked. "What other areas?"

Kagome gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh, that's right! That bathing suit doesn't allow for--"

"That's right, sugar. By the way, since he seems to have accepted the fact that I like girls, Karou may be attacking you randomly to make you `release your sorcerous hold on me' or something."

"Bleah."

"I bet Econ's worse!" Inuyasha called from his room.

Fuji backed up so she could look into both rooms. "Trade and commerce expressed through fancy names and graphs is not worse than a poetic idiot chasing you around waving a stick - or rather, a cardboard tube that he thinks is a sword."

"Do you have tests in it?"

"Every time he's around is a severe trial to avoid murder."

"My Lady Fuji!"

"Gah, he's coming!" She dashed into her room and slammed the door.

"Let me handle him," Kagome heard Kikyo say. She must have been in Inuyasha's room. Kagome moved to the doorway to watch.

"My Lady Fuji!" Kaoru cried again, crashing down the steps, only to come to a halt as he saw Kikyo, who really did look a lot like Kagome, once you got past the fact that she dyed her hair dark blue and wore a completely different style of clothing. "Hark! It is the dread sorceress Kagome who has stolen my Lady's heart!"

Kagome barely suppressed a groan.

"Get it right," Kikyo said, picking up the bow and quiver that had been resting against the wall, and aiming at him. "I'm a priestess, not a sorceress, and my name is Kikyo - Kaede's protégée."

"Truly, a priestess would let me pass."

"Well, you see, the thing is…" Kikyo was grinning coldly, Kagome knew, although she couldn't see it. It was an expression reserved for those idiots who underestimated her and her bow. "I think you've been possessed, so I can't do that."

"Possessed? I?"

"By one Tatewaki Kuno, a bakamono."[1]

"Tatewaki Kuno is a character in Ranma 1/2," Karou said, confused.

"You're acting just like him."

"I am?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear. Excuse me." He left.

Kikyo knocked on Fuji's door. "He's gone."

The door opened a little and Fuji peered out. "He is? How'd you manage it?"

"I accused him of being possessed and threatened to shoot him."

`That works." She opened the door the rest of the way, revealing her in the previously mentioned bikini, a pair of very small shorts, and her version of sandals, which meant that they had sizable heels and were black. "Well, since the whole I'm-really-a-guy thing doesn't work any more and it's Saturday, anyone feel like going sunbathing?"

Well… She didn't have anything to do, really, so… "Sure," Kagome said, shrugging. "Can I borrow your closet to change?"

"Sure."

"That doesn't make sense," Miroku complained.

"Fuji has a walk-in closet," Sango told him. "It comes in handy around perverts like you."

"Hey!"

"Speaking of which, why didn't you volunteer?" Fuji asked.

"I don't like the way my hand's reacting to this unnatural heat, and I'm due for a check-up in about half an hour anyway."

"Gotcha. How about you Sango? Oh, Kuronue!" He had just come from the other end of the hall. "I'm going sunbathing with Tomo and Jakotsu and Kagome. Wanna come?"

"Unlike you, I tan," he said dryly. "Sorry."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'll come," Sango and Kikyo said at the same time.

"Me too," Inuyasha said. "I'm sure Hiten and Mayu would like to as well. They're in her room."

"I'll go ask," Fuji said, letting Kagome into her room and closing the door after her. She moved off down the hall, towards the end that Kuronue had come from.

When Kagome got out, Miroku was gone and almost everyone else was dressed and waiting, though Hiten and Sango were still changing. Jakotsu, the pretty person that Kagome had seen Fuji talking to the first day, and who turned out to be a guy, showed up with Tomo, a girl who was stubbornly wearing a pair of swimming trunks and breast bindings.

Jak and Tomo, Fuji explained to people who didn't know, were friends of hers from the informal `queer' group - more politely known as LGBT in English, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered. Tomo was a man in a woman's body, and the opposite was true for Jak, although he - she, she was blessed with androgynous features. Apparently, Fuji was one of the few girls she could stand because of something to do with not being competition or the like. It was a bit confusing.

As they waited for Sango (Hiten had already emerged), Kagome found herself liking Jak a lot. She, for all her masculine voice and body, was an funny person, who had spent a lot of time watching people and thinking about tough philosophical questions like what defines a person and whether it's the physical, mental, or emotional self that is most important and whether the Buddha would have been accepted if he'd been a woman instead (to which her definite answer was No, because men at that time were pigs who didn't respect women at all).

Tomo, on the other hand, was dark and broody and was caught between the girl he had to act around his family and employers and the general public and the man he knew he really was. A second-generation Chinese immigrant, he knew he would eventually have to choose between his family (who refused to believe that he could be anything other than female) and his identity, and it made him sour. But Fuji said he was a great actor and had a wicked sense of humor, and Kikyo said that he was one of the few people Naraku was actually a little afraid of.

To which Tomo said that Naraku wouldn't need to be scared of him if he hadn't tried to steal his laugh. And then laughed: Kukuku, deep and booming and really scary.

Sango, who had been opening the door, shrieked and slammed it closed.

Instantly, Tomo slipped back into his feminine persona, telling Sango in a suddenly soprano voice that he was sorry and begging her to come out.

"No, I'm sorry," Sango said, and opened the door. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. You just startled me."

"I'm half-tempted to yell `dinner!' to get everyone's attention," Fuji said.

Everyone else but Jak and Tomo groaned.

Jak and Tomo looked confused.

"Fuji is our signal to go eat," Kagome explained.

"Ah, I see," Jak said.

Tomo snorted. "Let's just go already."

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[1] bakamono - this is a deliberate mispronunciation of bakemono, yet another word that can be translated to demon, phantom, apparition, etc, just like youkai. The implication is that he is a baka, an idiot, jerk, or imbecile.

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"Ohhh…" Kagome moaned, poking at her shoulder. "I knew I should have gotten a stronger sun block." She was lightly tanned all over, especially on her stomach, shoulders, and upper chest - which meant that she would have to wear extremely revealing clothing for a while or find some way of soothing it through most of a day. "Do we have any aloe?"

"Nope, we're all out," Sango said, the last bits stuck to her fingers as she rubbed at the back of her neck, which was irritated by the ends of her hair. "Damn my shorter haircut."

"How about you, Fuji?"

"I don't use aloe."

"Don't you get burned?"

"Sure I do. It's the only way I tan. But when that happens, I just ignore the pain."

Kagome stuck her tongue out at her.

"I have some aloe," Mayu said. "Let me go get it."

"So how come you're not burned, huh?" Hiten asked, trying not to move too much so the skin on the back of his shoulders wouldn't rub against itself. "I didn't see you put on any sunscreen."

Fuji v-signed him. "50 SPF, waterproof, before I went to the pool earlier today."

"50 SPF?"

She nodded. "Fifty."

"Why? And how?"

"You forget that I lived in a desert before I came here. Right, Inuyasha?"

"Yeah. How many times did it rain last year?" He snickered.

"Real rain? We got a couple inches once or twice. The other times I counted - not including those piddly little drops that don't even get the pavement wet - maybe ten or so. And then there was the fire the year before that."

"Fire?" Kagome asked.

"Yes. See, most of the rain is around winter, so everything's really dry in summer, especially towards the end of it, and people do stupid things like trying to burn trash. We got at least three straight days of ash falling out of the sky and giving us lung cancer."

"We thought the world was ending for a while there, though that's an exaggeration," Inuyasha added.

"Yet another reason to prefer England," Sesshoumaru said coolly. He looked like he'd been waiting for a while. "No earthquakes, no tornados, no hurricanes, no extreme flooding or fire."

"Yeah, just access to the North Sea," Fuji said.

"Isn't that one of the world's most polluted bodies of water?" Kikyo said.

"Yes. Also an excellent source of protection, since the common storms and turbulent waters have a knack of diverting or destroying potentially invading navies."[2]

"England's kamikaze, huh?" Hiten smirked.

"In a way. Fuji, we were supposed to have met fifteen minutes ago, and since I, too, have aloe, perhaps Kagome would like to come with you?"

"Of course she would." Fuji got up and grabbed Kagome's wrist, dragging her up as well. "Come on, you'll get to meet the other fluff!"

Sesshoumaru turned and walked away, the others following him. "Will you give up on that nickname?"

"But it is fluff!"

"Silence yourself before your fluff becomes one with your mouth."

"You have fluff?" Kagome asked, as she was dragged along.

"My fluff are the cotton balls I keep handy in case Sess and I hurt each other too much."

"Sess?"

"Well, technically it would be Setsu, wouldn't it? The first two characters of his name in katakana."

"But that sounds off. I like Sess better."

"Me too."

Sesshoumaru stopped abruptly and grabbed Kagome's other hand, pulling her close to him.

"Yeek!"

"You are not yet intimate enough with me to call me that." He let go and continued walking, out of Mashima and down to Wagamama-Newborg, the foreign language dorm. So that was where he lived. Kagome supposed it made sense.

"Whee, up close and personal, Sesshoumaru-niichan!" Fuji cheered.

"Don't call me that either."

"But your name is so long…"

"That is everybody else's problem, not mine. I do not refer to myself in the third person."

"Are you sure about that?"

"What do you mean?" They were going upstairs now, through several confusing twists and turns.

"Well, I always imagine you thinking `I, Sesshoumaru' this and `I, Sesshoumaru' that."

"Very well. This Sesshoumaru finds you--" He looked back at her. "I can't call you human, can I? You are also a foreigner."

"Duh."

"This Sesshoumaru finds you lesser beings annoying. Cease your prattle and your degrading name-calling."

"Actually, I bet some people would get turned on if you talked like that," Kagome put in.

"Would you?" Sesshoumaru asked, looking back at her and stopping at the same time before a door. He reached for his keys and unlocked it.

"No."

"Then I don't care." He pushed the door open. "Enter."

"Wow," Kagome said as she saw the bed, which was covered with a giant white pelt of some sort. "I see what you mean, Fuji."

"Isn't it great?" she said. "It's even better than his hair!"

"That is because I don't let you sit on my hair. Or stick your feet in it." He reached into one of the drawers in the computer-cabinet that the school provided in each room and pulled out a large tube of gel. "Here."

"Thanks," Kagome said. She immediately began rubbing it onto the worst sunburns, ignoring the initial stick. "Oh, much better. Thank you so much."

"You're welcome. Fuji." Sesshoumaru took her chin in hand gently, and, just as gently, kissed her briefly.

Kagome gaped.

"Better?" he asked.

"A little," Fuji said. "I don't feel immediately violated. Of course, the fact that you don't look anything like Naraku and aren't interested in me could have something to do with it."

"I doubt you will ever be able to bear kissing Naraku."

"Well, I don't want to kiss him. So there!"

"Good for you." Sesshoumaru looked at Kagome. "Do you need help?"

"No, not really, I--" But he had already taken the tube from her and was working on her back.

"Can we move to the bed?" Fuji asked.

Sesshoumaru picked Kagome up by the hips - careful not to catch her at the waist, which was a little burned - and deposited her on the bed, then went back to smoothing the gel on her.

"I guess that counts as yes." Fuji climbed onto the bed as well. "Go ahead and feel it. I love this fur."

"Mmm, me too. Sesshoumaru, why do you have a feather boa?"

"Because it matches the décor," he said. "Or so Rin and Hojo tell me."

"You know Hojo?"

"I was his sponsor."

"But Kirara was in Hojo's sponsor group. So you're our grandsponsor?"

Sesshoumaru paused, then moved to another area, working on her shoulder and upper arms. "That is one way of putting it."

"Wow, that's so weird, I never thought of it like that before," Fuji said. "Hey, that means no matter what it's at least distant sponcest!"

"Fuji," Sesshoumaru said calmly. "You are disturbing."

"Thanks!"

"Sponcest?"

"Combination of `sponsor' and `incest'. It means dating within a sponsor group, like Kuronue and Hiei, on the idea that a sponsor group is a sort of family." Fuji grinned, bouncing a little. "To get silly about it, we're spistors. See, look at all your possibilities. With me or Inuyasha, it would be sponcest because we're like siblings. And then Hojo and Naraku are spuncles, Sesshoumaru is a grandsponsor, and Kouga's a spousin."

"Spuncle, spousin… Oh, I see. Naraku's on Shippo's side, isn't he?"

"Yep."

"I agree with Sesshoumaru: you're disturbing. And gross."

"Hey!" she said, pretending offense and hurt. "Disturbing I like, gross I am not."

"If you think like that you are. Eep!" Sesshoumaru had turned Kagome around so her back was to Fuji and was now working on her stomach.

"It's what you get for failing to protect your skin," he said.

"Umm," Kagome said, trying to get her mind onto safer tracks. "Do you know what your name means?"

"It has a variety of possible meanings in Japanese, most of which have something to do with killing something. Hold still!"

"It tickles," she complained. "Why did your parents decide to name you that?"

"My father's best friend won a bet and earned the right to name me. He happened to be a fan of both Japanese and of role-playing."

"Like D&D?" Fuji asked.

"More towards the Warhammer end," he said. "He liked the way it sounded and what it meant, I guess. I can't ask him because his ex-wife got him committed for insanity."

"Too much LARPing[3] and not enough time for her?"

"Something like that."

"Okaaay…" Kagome said. He had finished the lower half of her abdomen and was now working his way up, which was making her nervous. "What about you, Fuji?"

"My mother really liked the mountain," Fuji said simply.

"That's it?"

"Yep. Mom's a statistician for money, but she's also a professional quilter and an amateur at pretty much every other craft. And she draws and paints - mostly fabric, but still - and so something as pretty and popular as Mt. Fuji caught her attention. Plus it was one of her choices that Dad liked. My middle name was his choice."

"What's that?"

"A middle name?"

"No, I know what that is - a secondary given name, right?"

"Yes. In my case, it's so I have a second option in case I get tired of Fuji."

"What is it?"

"I'm not telling."

"Why not?"

"It's another name that is really a place name." Kagome could guess that Fuji was grimacing. "Tolkein's Elvish, though, rather than Japanese."

"So what is it?"

"I'm not telling you!"

"Why not?"

"Didn't we just go over this?"

"Give me another reason."

"Fine, fine!" A sigh. "If Sesshoumaru knows what it is, he'll have a counter for my nicknames, and I like teasing him too much to give them up."

"Would you stop calling me Fluffy if I found out your middle name?" he asked.

"No, I'd probably try to find something worse."

"Ah. In which case, you are safe from me."

"I'm still not telling."

"As you will." Finished with her stomach, Kagome thought he would stop. Instead, he moved to the last area that needed to be covered - her upper chest and a good deal of cleavage.

Her collarbone was okay… if a little disturbing. And the outsides of her breasts she could also accept, although it was harder. But once his finger dipped between her breasts, she said, "Sess, I really don't think--"

He froze and met her eyes. "I told you about that name," he said huskily, and before she could react, he knocked her back into Fuji and was kissing her.

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Fuji: Whoops, did I forget to mention that he finds that name a turn-on?

Sesshoumaru: I do not.

Fuji: Well, just from girls you find attractive anyway.

[2] Woah, what a mouthful! That's almost a tongue twister.

[3] LARP = Live Action Role Play(ing) - role-playing games where you dress up and run around instead of sitting at a table

Whee! A cliffhanger! I don't usually indulge in these, but since I'm over-length anyway, I figured I might as well. What will Kagome's reaction be? Hint-hint: you can help me decide.

Please note everyone who has alternate pairings for Fuji: she is a lesbian, and on top of that she's been sexually assaulted, so she's still pretty androphobic (fear of men). While pairing her with Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru in a threesome is an interesting idea, it's probably not going to happen unless I'm inundated with votes for it.

Things as they stand:
Inu/Kag: 2
Sess/Kag: 8
Fuji/Kag: 2+
Nar/Kag: 1
Kou/Kag: 0
Hojo/Kag: 0
Sess/Kag/Inu: 2
Inu/Fuji/Kag: 1
Inu/Kik: 2
Nar/Kik: 1
Inu chasing Kag: 1
Nar chasing Kag: 1
All/Kag (?): 1
Ship/Kag (?): 1

NOT Sess/Kag: 1

paige89 - is that a vote for Nar/Kag?
lovin_sesshoumaru_isnteasy - I'm trying to fit in with all of your ideas, so technically you've got four votes here. The two with question marks are yours. Am I understanding you right?
zaxian - lots of les/gay? No. 1 lesbian, 2 gay, 2 transgendered. That's 1/15 of the total number of people I might use - or, if you like, about 6%. Not a lot. Sorry, but I'm a little touchy on the subject: I don't really like it when the characters are either all gay or all straight. There aren't a lot of us, but we're there.