InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Demons, Inc. ❯ Chapter 01: Slumber Parties Seldom Go as Planned ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Stars Came Out 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Adventure | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.11.2005 | Updated On: 05.24.2009 | Pages: 5 | Words: 6.7K | Visits: 721 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Adventure | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.11.2005 | Updated On: 05.24.2009 | Pages: 5 | Words: 6.7K | Visits: 721 | Status: Completed
DEMONS, INC.
Comments: The rating for this fic comes from Inuyasha's atrociously offensive language, Miroku's unstoppable perversion, and incredibly stupid humor. It gets progressively weirder with each chapter. This is based on the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. In my final note, I would like to warn you that everyone is profusely out of character. :) Enjoy!
Chapter 01: Slumber Parties Seldom Go as Planned
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"Hey, Yuka!" Kagome said happily as her friends came through the front door that she was holding open for them. "Hi Eri, hi Ayumi!"
"Alright, Kagome! Down to business! Popcorn?" Yuka began. Ayumi and Eri disappeared behind Kagome and went into the house, where they made themselves comfortable in front of the television with no shame. Ayumi at least had the decency to strike up conversation with Kagome's mother, but Eri simply ran Kagome's younger brother out of the room and turned the channel to something more worthwhile for a teenage girl.
"Check..." Kagome answered warily. This was the checklist they went through every time a slumber party was to be had. This was the checklist from which Kagome purposely "forgot" one item, each time, simply to get Yuka worked up. It was entertaining, up until Yuka chased her out of her own house and made her run to the store for whatever it was she had forgotten.
"Movies?" This was the checklist that Yuka took entirely too seriously.
"Check..."
"Pillows?"
"Check."
"Ice cream?"
"Check."
"Nail polish?"
"Knew I was forgetting something..." Kagome said with a grin as Yuka's fists clenched tightly and her face reddened like a tomato.
Nothing was going on today.
Instead of having a real job, like a hunter or an pro athlete, even, he just had to make his family proud. He just had to go through with an entire education and land himself at the famous Demons, Inc., where he sat in his rolling chair all day and watched monitors, and made sure that no human being ever crossed the line from their world into the demons' world. He did so much paperwork in the evenings that he could swear he would be blind by the time he was three hundred, and blindness did not often happen to a demon for natural causes, and it never happened that early in life.
Some days it was not so bad, like the days when humans did manage to cross over, because he had a great deal of fun traumatizing them before sending them home. And if they refused to go home, he ripped them into pieces, though that did not happen too often---no where near as often as he would have liked. Come to think of it, had it ever happened? He couldn't remember. All he remembered that he'd performed his job as well as he could. Humans were not allowed in the demons' world, and it was Inuyasha's job to keep them from getting there, no matter how boring.
Humans were not allowed because humans were bad. Their touch was toxic and their breath could wilt plants (never mind that a good deal of demons could do that, too). Some even had eight heads and twenty-six arms, and everyone knew that could be very dangerous---a human would be able to see every direction at once and wield twenty-six weapons, not including the ones they held with their feet. Inuyasha had worked at Demons, Inc. for three years and had yet to see a human with more than one head, or even one that came with a weapon as simple as a sharpened stick. He also had yet to be harmed by their toxic skin and odorous breath (although, he had not yet touched or been breathed on by a human personally). Maybe once one of those humans showed up, life would get a little more interesting.
But as it was, he spent eight hours a day staring at a screen and cheating on himself in Solitaire and spinning in his rolling chair while nothing even remotely interesting happened. It used to happen very often, before he came to work at Demons, Inc, but for the past one hundred years humans were getting rarer. Maybe once every few months, an old man toddled into the demon world by mistake thinking he had stumbled upon Florida via his bedroom closet (clearly all the scary demons were actually Disney characters from the theme park). Maybe once a year an airplane would crash in what the humans called the Bermuda Triangle and send the entire group over to the demon world. That was a little more interesting, because humans who traveled in packs had more confidence, meaning that a few of the younger individuals---usually male---would fight back. That was always the best.
But that had last happened three months ago, so it would be a long time before it happened again statistically speaking.
Inuyasha sighed melodramatically. Life sucked.
"I got your memo, boss," Kagome joked. "I'll go get some now...what color do you want?"
"Here," Yuka said, brandishing a new list at her like a weapon. "I expected something like this. I have the colors and brands on here that are needed. Now, go! And bring us back some burgers, will you? No pickles!"
"Yeah, yeah," Kagome said. She waved her friend off and sought around the house for her other sneaker. She had seen it only this morning...
Thirty minutes later, Kagome had managed to find her brother's sneaker, which would just have to do, she decided. So with two different shoes covering her already mismatched socks, and feeling a little agitated, she grabbed her wallet, stuffed it into her jeans pocket along with Yuka's note, and headed out the door.
Halfway down the walkway, she saw a wondrous and horrible sight approaching her, and her treacherous heart sped up dangerously. She let out a mangled, horrified yelp and ran back through the yard, yelling out for her friends as if her very life was on the line---which it might be. You never could tell these days.
Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi all came running out of the house, tripping over each other and making a good deal of noise, which Kagome tried to silence. She tugged her friends along to the walkway in a fluster of clumsy movement, where she pointed to the materializing figure on the horizon.
"Houjou...!" they all breathed at once, as if speaking at a normal volume would scare off the coming visitor.
"One of these days...?" Inuyasha prompted, clearly bored and desperate for something to occupy him, even as Miroku got lost in Catty Cupcake's eyes---or rather, something a little lower---and left his sentence hanging.
"I'm not sure. I just felt it had the need to be said."
"Idiot." Inuyasha leaned back in his chair, craning his neck backward. He swished his hair around until he got dizzy, and then he watched the ceiling shift above him. When it wore off again he repeated the process.
"Kagura was sneaking around late last night again. I think she's up to something," Miroku warned suddenly, snapping his magazine closed with a flourish. He looked very professional. His serious look was made utterly laughable when one realized what he was holding, but Inuyasha straightened up, his legs thrown out in front of himself carelessly.
"That bitch has been sneaking around late at night for the past three years. If she's up to something, she's awfully slow about it," Inuyasha said dryly. Miroku gave him a pointed look.
"I mean, even later than normal." Miroku had lowered his voice conspiratorially.
"And how do you know this? Were you sneaking around, too?" Inuyasha asked him.
"No. As is my duty, I was reviewing security tapes this morning. I'm so dedicated I was reviewing them from home."
"What were the tapes of? The women's bathroom?"
"Ah, well..."
"That's real sick, Miroku." Inuyasha's face perfectly reflected the disgust he felt in his best friend.
"He has a crush on Kagome, right?" Ayumi asked. Yuka and Eri both nodded vigorously, as if this sliver of information was very important and should be viewed only in a critical light. And maybe it was. It's best not to leave those start of issues to chance.
"I've got an idea!" Yuka proclaimed brightly. They had been crouched down around the archway at the top of the staircase at the Higurashis' property, but with her words Yuka stood up suddenly and pulled Kagome back along the yard and stuffed her into the well-house, which was enshrined on Kagome's property. She grumbled to herself while trying to let her eyes adjust to the dimness.
"Stay in there," Yuka murmured to her through the shut door, "we'll get some juicy gossip out of him!"
"Oh, hello, Houjou!" Eri said brightly as the teenage boy came up to where the girls were pretending to loiter innocently. Those girls never did anything innocently. Innocence was not something they were known for. Houjou should have known better.
"Hello, girls. Is Higurashi here?" But, sadly, he did not know better. Some might even be so bold to claim him a simple fool. Others would call him courageous.
"Oh, you just missed her," Yuka lied breezily. "She just went out to run an errand. Stay for a few minutes and she'll be back."
"Are you going to ask her out, Houjou?" Eri asked, heedless of consequences. In the well-house, Kagome smacked her hand to her forehead at her friend's lack of tact. Tact was not something the girls were known for, either.
"You're so sweet, Houjou, coming all the way here to see Kagome!" Ayumi said with a tragic sigh. She was lost in dreamland of hearts, roses, and chocolates as Yuka and Eri bombarded the unfortunate boy with questions.
Kagome allowed her friends to badger their poor classmate as she turned around to look down at the well. She thought she had heard a small sound come from it, but it seemed impossible; the well had been untouched for decades. Truly, she wasn't even permitted to be inside of the mini-shrine. Not like that stopped her from doing anything before.
"Buyo?" Kagome whispered as the sound came again, supposing her lazy cat might have wandered in to escape Souta. She went down to investigate.
"What is it that ails you, lovely lady?" Miroku asked. Like all other women with sense, Ayame brushed the comment away as if it was no more than a irritating pollen on the breeze. Miroku's charms worked on ladies almost as often as humans came into the demon world.
"Someone stuck a sandwich in the air vent. I can't even reach it standing on Kouga's shoulders. Miroku, could you possibly...?"
"Anything for a lovely lady!" Miroku declared passionately. He followed Ayame out the door.
Inuyasha bit his lip to keep from laughing outright and followed the group down to the elevator. When the show was over, he'd claim the sandwich.
Miroku was pulling a glove away from his hand, positioned underneath the air vent. He was prepared to loosen the plate on the vent, just enough to drop the sandwich, using his demon technique Kazaana. He was thwarted, tragically, when the emergency lights and shrill sirens went off.
"Figures that we'd have some human come through now, when we aren't doing our jobs," Inuyasha growled, flattening his ears against his head like an angry cat.
"Go handle him, will you, Inuyasha?" Miroku asked, clasping his hands over his pointed ears to protect them from the shrieking sirens.
"Yeah, yeah. Save that sandwich for me, you hear!" he called as he took off to the television room. Nothing was on any of the television screens and none of the hot spots on the computer charts were glowing with use. No human had come through. With a growl, Inuyasha switched the alarm off manually and trotted back down the stairs to where Miroku was dusting himself off and Ayame was walking away.
"So?" Miroku asked as Inuyasha swooped down and picked up the sandwich.
"False alarm," Inuyasha said and flicked the hairs off of the mayonnaise, sniffing the food once before packing it into his mouth in one bite, somehow managing to lick the mayonnaise from his fingers at the same time. Demons are very good with etiquette.
"Oh. Well. What a bummer," Miroku said as he and Inuyasha went off to the television room again. "I'll go get lunch. Sango's sound good?"
"I would've preferred some pancakes from IHOG, but you seem to really have a thing for Sango's. Or maybe just Sango. So, yeah. Bring me a burger, will you? No pickles."
She had been in the well-house at home, pattering down the steps to investigate a sound that was probably from her cat. Never mind how her cat got in there, because cats are sneaky and sly and crafty, and everyone knows they can do anything when they want to if they really want to do it. However, when she had got down to the well and peaked in, there was no cat. She had heard something strange after that, like a breath of strong wind whistling through a narrow tunnel, and then she was pushed into the well. She had cried out, fully expecting a broken neck when she landed, but nothing like that had happened.
She opened her eyes and was not in her well-house anymore, nor even the well. She was sprawled out on the floor of a very pristine, tiled hallway, with cool florescent lights humming down at her, and she was instantly filled with the lonesome feeling she always felt in office buildings.
Before she could really examine her situation critically, however, a strange, cloaked man started approaching her, gliding like a ghost. She felt as if she was in the makings of a very bad horror film. So, like any good horror film heroine, she screamed piercingly and took off at a dead run for the fun of it. The figure looked a little stunned for a moment, probably at the magnitude of her shrill cry, but he was quick to pursue her.
She had gone through the hallways screaming for help, help, help, with her heart thumping wildly in her chest like a bird's beating wings against a cage. She threw herself down rows of stairs---never into rooms and elevators, because she did not want to be trapped (it was still early on in the horror movie, when the heroine has a teeny tiny bit of sense)---and panted, and whined, and yelled, and made a good deal of noise that should have brought people out to see what was wrong with her, until she finally came to a crowd gathered in a place that might have been a lobby.
Kagome tried to ignore the way the people in the crowd all looked very strange, with things like wings and horns and animal ears and elf ears and tails and a million eyes and legs, and she pushed her way through. When she looked back, the cloaked figure was gone.
She then stopped running, doubled over, and panted like her life depended on it. Everyone was in an absolute hush around her. And then everyone began backing up. And then they began to scream in pure and unadulterated terror, as if she was the one with fifteen-inch long claws, sabretooth tiger fangs, thorn-covered skin, and sharp beaks. Oh, yes, everyone run from the defenseless teenage girl with two mismatching sneakers who had a sharp stitch in her side that caused her to limp.
So she did what any sensible person in her position would do. She joined in the fun. She screamed and ran in crazy circles, limping wildly with the cramp in her side and her voice going deep-high-deep-high-deep-high with every burst of pain, until she came to a room with a door that was slightly ajar. She tumbled into it and closed the door behind her. The room was dim and quiet, and she did not even pause to inspect it as she slid down, panting wildly, against a very cool, refreshing filing cabinet. Kagome never guessed she would have associated filing cabinet with the word refreshing.
"Who the fuck are you?" asked a caustic voice from the other side of the room. Kagome's head flew up to look the speaker in the eyes. He looked rather angry with her. The name stitched on his polo said Inuyasha.
"Ka-Kagome..." she said nervously.
"Well, Ka-Kagome, what the hell do you think you're doing in here?"
"It's just Kagome, and I don't know! How should I know?! What's wrong with all you people?!"
"What do you mean, what's wrong with us people?! Something not to your liking here?! Sorry we didn't roll out the red carpet and bring the fine wine, princess! Scram, go home!"
"Well, so-rry!" Kagome huffed. "It isn't my fault I was transported from home to here for no reason, and it's definitely not my fault that a creepy psycho in a cloak chased me down the halls, and it's most definitely not my fault that everyone here with wings and---and the like is afraid of me!"
There was a stunned silence, wherein Inuyasha stared at her and she panted.
"You're a human, aren't you, Ka-Kagome?" he said. The man seemed a little afraid now---although he was not afraid of Kagome for the moment; he was afraid of what would happen to his job if his boss found out she was here.
"Well, of course I am! What else would I be? A unicorn?"
"Oh, fuck," he said. "How the hell did you get here?!"
"I don't know! One minute I was at home, the next minute I was here! And where is 'here,' exactly?!"
"You're in the demon world, brat," he said with a glower. "Sit right there, if you value your life and want any chance of getting home," he ordered. He turned back to his television and scooted his rolling chair over to a control panel with great flourish, where he pushed several buttons. A security video played and a computer screen lit up. Kagome stood and watched over his shoulder as he clicked through a menu and a list came up, titled Hot Spots. Next to each location name, there was a set of coordinates, and then next to that was a bar showing 'warmth.' The bars' outlines started at green and faded into pink at the other end, like tropical-flavored bubble gum.
"What're those bars for?" Kagome asked.
"They show when someone last used a hot spot to come through," Inuyasha responded mechanically, not really hearing the girl while he scrolled through and looked at the date and meter of each hot spot, alternatingly watching the security video that was still playing on the television. "When someone comes through, it flushes pink. Over time, it 'cools' and fades back into green."
"Comes through?"
"Humans accidentally come in to the demon world using hot spots. Like, oh, you guys call it the Bermuda Triangle."
"So that's where people disappear to!"
"We send 'em back. Or kill 'em," Inuyasha explained matter-of-factly. Kagome's heart thumped a little faster. She did not want to be killed.
"So is my house a hot spot?"
"If it is, it isn't listed," Inuyasha said, twitching his nose. "Damn it, this can wait. Go sit in the corner. Lunch is here!"
Miroku had come in just moments after Inuyasha had attempted to order Kagome to sit in a corner. Upon seeing the human girl, Miroku dropped all the food he had been carrying and spilled the drinks on the floor. Inuyasha vaguely noticed a red handprint on his cheek. Ah, Sango and her burning touches---she could slap with such a flame to leave a burn mark for weeks. And if you really made her mad, she could send you up in a puff of fire, and you'd flame like a bonfire for days.
"I'm not that scary, am I? I brushed my teeth this morning, so not even my breath is potent," Kagome said, breathing into her hand and testing her breath. It still smelled like toothpaste.
"Ahh! She's one with toxic breath, then!" Miroku warned.
"Sheesh. I never realized mint was so offending to demons," Kagome said. "I don't have toxic breath. I don't know anyone who has it, either. Well, my teacher in history class kind of---"
"Miroku. You spilled soda on my cheese burger."
"How can you be worried about food when there is a human in here?! How did she get in here?"
"I'm trying to figure that out now," Inuyasha snapped. "None of the hot spots are active and I've reviewed the tapes. She doesn't come in at any of the borders where she can be pushed back. She just popped into the hallway like nobody's business," Inuyasha explained, picking up his cheese burger and unwrapping the foil as he rewound the tape and showed Miroku.
"Oh, that's the crazy guy that chased me. And that's when I tricked him, made him think I was going straight when I really fell down the stairs. Pretty cool, eh?" Kagome asked as they watched the footage. "I'm not really that fat, am I? Oh, man, look at the crowd scatter! I have some real potential here."
"So, what will we do about this?" Miroku asked, suddenly calmer. He felt rather foolish. He normally kept a cool head, especially at work, but humans were very dangerous things. Even moreso than global warming and rising gas prices.
"I'm not sure. I guess we can always take her to another border and put her back in her world. The humans will think of something to do with her."
"No!" Kagome cried. "If you put me somewhere like---like, next to the Bermuda Triangle, I'll die! Besides, how am I supposed to get back home on my own?" She did not wish to be shoved into the middle of an ocean, miles from home.
"Your people will help you," Miroku assured.
"No they won't! They'd put me in an insane asylum for talking crazy talk, after I go to prison because I don't have a passport! I'll never see home again!"
"...That's pretty complex," Miroku noted with some amazement.
"You can't make me go!"
"Wanna bet?" Inuyasha growled. He cracked his knuckles at her.
"I'll---I'll scream if you touch me! I've had years of voice training, I can scream loud and high and clear and shatter windows and mirrors and ear drums and flower vases and wine glasses!" Kagome warned. Miroku took a step back. He had heard the legends of humans with wails enough to rival a banshee...
"Wanna be killed?" Inuyasha said, showing off his fangs. Kagome frowned, and then reached forward and poked one of the canines.
"I'm not scared of little puppy teeth," she said defiantly.
"Oh, you bitch!" he snarled, licking his tooth fervently. "Do you have any idea of the abilities demons like myself possess?"
"I don't know, but there mustn't be a lot of them if you're all afraid of me."
Inuyasha and Miroku glared at her in perfect unison. Kagome grinned winningly, not at all daunted. If she could take on Geometry in middle school and make a perfect A+, she could make it out of this without breaking a sweat.
"Wait," Miroku said suddenly. "This can't be good at all."
"What? We'll just shove her on one of the borders, or we'll kill her."
"We're going to be fired."
"Oh, wah," Kagome said. "That's not as important as me getting killed."
"Why are we going to be fired?" Inuyasha asked, ignoring Kagome.
"If we kill her, we'll have to dump the body somewhere. No matter where we put it, even if we chop it up to bits---"
"Thank you, chopped up into bits is a new fashion where I come from, but I can't seem to get the right look---"
"---the sweepers will find her, unless we put the bits into---into like a closet somewhere, and that'll start stinking. Maybe we could dump it in the ocean, but that's a long way away. Anyway, if it ever got found, it'd be traced back to us. If we shove her back into her world, the hot spot will activate and be left unchecked, which will make it look like she's still here. Those things aren't one way."
"And if we try to tell Boss what's going on..."
"We'll be fired for interrupting his coffee break, and then we'll be re-fired for not having an updated hot spots list, and then we'll be re-re-fired for being inadequate at our jobs. And, since she popped into the building itself, it'll be our fault that our emergency transporters are acting up and randomly pulling humans into the demon world. The last time that happened, Yura was not only fired but executed as well. They didn't even give her a fair trial."
"So what are we going to do with her?"
"We'll have to wait until some other human comes, and we'll push her through then," Miroku decided.
"But...but I want to go home..." Kagome said suddenly. If Inuyasha and Miroku had just been a little wiser on the ways of humans, they would have detected the oncoming sobs and started talking on a different subject. But if they were wise on anything at all they sure hid it well.
"What'll we do with her 'til then? It'll be another few months before another human stumbles in, and that's if we're lucky."
Kagome could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. That they were willing to keep her away from her home and family and friends and school...well, school wasn't so bad actually...
"We'll have to keep her back at the apartment, keep her hidden."
The tears started to fall.
"Why the hell are you crying, Ka-Kagome?!" Inuyasha asked, suddenly looking nervous. "We're going to put you back on the human world!"
"Y-you're going to put me b-back in several months, with complete s-strangers! I'll never see Mama again! Not Souta, not Grampa, not even fat, fat Buyo! How will I get into college if I can't finish my high school work?! I-I don't want to stay h-here with people who would kill me on the drop of a hat!"
Then Kagome did something that resulted in pure chaos.
Her nose started to run, and she desperately needed to wipe it on something. Inuyasha was standing just over her, flailing his arms as he tried to think of something to do. Miroku was looking on very nervously. Kagome sprung up and clung to Inuyasha and wiped her face against his tee-shirt with no shame. He howled and pushed her away, and then screamed and rolled on the floor, trying to get the tears and snot off of himself in the same fashion of "Stop, Drop, and Roll." Miroku went haywire and leapt around in a frenzy, looking for the emergency hose while shouting for help. Kagome tearfully stood by and watched as Inuyasha dragged himself along the floor like a dying caterpillar. Both men were screaming, and Inuyasha, the great dog demon Inuyasha who was known throughout the land as the toughest human-slayer around and whose face was on demon children's baseball cards, was on the verge of tears.
Kagome sniffled.
The small group paused, peeking around the hallway for any sign of movement.
"Coast is clear," Inuyasha mumbled. They all trotted off across the room like fugitives. They then cleared the front doors and made a mad dash across the parking lot to Inuyasha's car, which was currently sitting in the Employee of the Month's spot. Kagome stuffed herself into the back seat and laid down so that she could not be seen. She had been reminded that they were doing her a favor by keeping her alive at all, and if anyone else found out that she was there, she would be killed on the spot. And then the two men would be fired, if not executed themselves. (And then Inuyasha would lose his good parking spot.)
"Are we going home?" Miroku asked.
"Where else would we go?" Inuyasha said.
"Well, I'd really like to go bowling," Kagome interjected. Inuyasha shot her a glare through the rearview mirror of his car.
"Maybe Sango's..." Miroku suggested hesitantly.
"You think Sango will help us?"
"Is Sango a girl? I don't really fancy staying with two males," Kagome added.
"She probably will."
"She might just toast Ka-Kagome," Inuyasha said, growling at the girl in the back seat. Kagome growled back. Inuyasha just wouldn't get her name right, even after she had corrected him several times. He always insisted on putting the extra Ka in front. She was not sure if he was mocking her or if he was just stupid.
"Sango knew a human once, when she did her observation study," Miroku continued. Observation study was when they kept a human in the demon world for an entire week. It was thought that in this way they would learn new tactics to defend against deadly human attacks. Unfortunately they always seemed to catch duds; no one was ever able to show them a scary attack. "She'll know how to take care of one."
"I'm not an exotic pet or something, I can tell you how to take care of me, myself," Kagome insisted.
"How long have you known Sango, anyway? You seem to know an awful lot about her."
"You wound me, friend. How is it that I have known you for years and yet you know nothing of me? Sango and I have been on a first name basis for the past fifty years."
"Fifty years?! Good grief, you guys are pretty good at keeping the aging to a minimum, you know. If you shared that secret with humans, you might be as famous as celebrities."
"Alright. Are you sure going to Sango is a good idea?" Inuyasha pursued, ignoring Kagome. He tapped his claws against the steering wheel as they stopped at a traffic signal. Kagome wanted to see if the colors of the traffic lights were the same as those in the human world, but Inuyasha made her keep her head down.
"Yes. She wouldn't turn us in, and she's the type to always lend a hand to a friend in need."
"If you say so," Inuyasha agreed and swerved over a few lanes. Kagome hit her head against the door handle and cracked her nose against arm rest.
"That really hurt," Kagome said in a pained voice. "You can't drive." She rubbed her head tenderly and curled up into a ball. Inuyasha watched the mirror in disgust as she wiped a thin trail of blood away from her face against his car's seat.
"Damn it, now I'm going to have to get a whole new set of seats back there," Inuyasha grumbled.
"I'm not that bad," Kagome moaned. "I think someone else should drive."
"Alright, Miroku, run in and get her real quick," Inuyasha ordered, parking the car in a firelane. "I'm not going to risk taking the human in there."
"Very well," Miroku said, hopping out of the sedan and sprinting across the sidewalk. Kagome pushed herself into a sitting position, despite Inuyasha's protesting, and watched Miroku disappear into the restaurant.
"Sit down, someone will see you."
"I am sitting, and it's dark outside. No one can see into these windows in the dark."
"Demons can. I don't know about your puny eyes, but you're no needle in the haystack for a demon to find, now put your head down." Kagome sighed melodramatically and complied, ducking back down onto the seat. Moments later, her door opened and a demon woman carefully sat beside her, careful not to brush against her. Miroku took his place in the front passenger seat.
"A human, eh? You guys really do get yourselves in trouble," the woman said as she eyed Kagome warily.
"We didn't do anything this time," Inuyasha said nonchalantly, starting up the car again and pulling out of the parking lot at top-notch speed. Kagome had to use all of her strength to keep from slamming into Sango with the momentum of the car.
"Yeah, this time it was the mysterious cloaked figure," Kagome told the woman. "He chased me."
"So I see," the woman replied.
"Where are we going now?" Kagome piped up.
"Home," Inuyasha said.
"You mean, home for you. You aren't letting me go home for months."
"Shut up. You're not important enough to lose a job over."
"Hah, hah, you jerk."
"Well, I don't want you touching my furniture!" Inuyasha yelled.
"Our furniture," Miroku corrected.
"That makes us sound gay," Inuyasha complained.
Kagome ignored this and climbed up on the back of the chair in which Sango sat. Sango shifted nervously to watch her, but Kagome only settled on the top and let her legs dangle down off the back. She scowled at Inuyasha as he and Miroku flinched and flailed and whined about the ruined chair.
"Well, I don't want to stay with you at all!" she argued as she jumped off of the chair and wandered deeper into the apartment. She poked her head into the rooms and Inuyasha trailed her like an angry shadow, making certain that she did not touch anything but unable to really stop her because he himself was too afraid to touch her.
To Inuyasha and Miroku, having her here was like having a dangerous pet. Like a panther or a tiger or a spider. That left a trail of poisonous goo anywhere it touched. So really, to them she was comparable to a one hundred pound snail with sharp teeth.
"I'm hungry," she told him. "I haven't eaten anything at all, all day."
"Sango? What do humans eat?" Inuyasha called as they went back into the living room.
"Can't you just ask me?! I can tell you what I eat!"
"I can make a human dish," Sango said and went off to Inuyasha and Miroku's kitchenette. "I learned while I took care of Kohaku." Kagome sighed wearily through her teeth.
"I don't very much like vegetables!" she warned Sango.
After she had eaten, Kagome went on a hunt for a bed. In one room, there was very soft-looking King-size bed. In the other bedroom, there was a Twin-size bed with many pillows. To have the best of both worlds, she crawled up into the Twin-size and seized the pillows, and then went back into the bedroom with the King-size bed. Both men wailed about their ruined beds and retreated into the living room, grumbling angrily. Sango went home for the night.
Kagome sighed contentedly and wove herself into the covers like a caterpillar in a cocoon. This slumber party was actually turning out better than the one she'd planned to have with Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi. At least here she got to sleep in a nice bed.
Comments: The rating for this fic comes from Inuyasha's atrociously offensive language, Miroku's unstoppable perversion, and incredibly stupid humor. It gets progressively weirder with each chapter. This is based on the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. In my final note, I would like to warn you that everyone is profusely out of character. :) Enjoy!
Chapter 01: Slumber Parties Seldom Go as Planned
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"Hey, Yuka!" Kagome said happily as her friends came through the front door that she was holding open for them. "Hi Eri, hi Ayumi!"
"Alright, Kagome! Down to business! Popcorn?" Yuka began. Ayumi and Eri disappeared behind Kagome and went into the house, where they made themselves comfortable in front of the television with no shame. Ayumi at least had the decency to strike up conversation with Kagome's mother, but Eri simply ran Kagome's younger brother out of the room and turned the channel to something more worthwhile for a teenage girl.
"Check..." Kagome answered warily. This was the checklist they went through every time a slumber party was to be had. This was the checklist from which Kagome purposely "forgot" one item, each time, simply to get Yuka worked up. It was entertaining, up until Yuka chased her out of her own house and made her run to the store for whatever it was she had forgotten.
"Movies?" This was the checklist that Yuka took entirely too seriously.
"Check..."
"Pillows?"
"Check."
"Ice cream?"
"Check."
"Nail polish?"
"Knew I was forgetting something..." Kagome said with a grin as Yuka's fists clenched tightly and her face reddened like a tomato.
* * *
Inuyasha watched the tiny televised screen before him with a sort of lethargic glaze to his yellow eyes. He drummed his clawed fingers against the smooth metallic table atop which sat the screen. He started to drool down his other arm, which was being used to prop up his head. When he realized this messy transgression, he hastily jerked out of his doze and wiped his arm on his coworker's jacket, which had been left next to him, and sighed heavily.Nothing was going on today.
Instead of having a real job, like a hunter or an pro athlete, even, he just had to make his family proud. He just had to go through with an entire education and land himself at the famous Demons, Inc., where he sat in his rolling chair all day and watched monitors, and made sure that no human being ever crossed the line from their world into the demons' world. He did so much paperwork in the evenings that he could swear he would be blind by the time he was three hundred, and blindness did not often happen to a demon for natural causes, and it never happened that early in life.
Some days it was not so bad, like the days when humans did manage to cross over, because he had a great deal of fun traumatizing them before sending them home. And if they refused to go home, he ripped them into pieces, though that did not happen too often---no where near as often as he would have liked. Come to think of it, had it ever happened? He couldn't remember. All he remembered that he'd performed his job as well as he could. Humans were not allowed in the demons' world, and it was Inuyasha's job to keep them from getting there, no matter how boring.
Humans were not allowed because humans were bad. Their touch was toxic and their breath could wilt plants (never mind that a good deal of demons could do that, too). Some even had eight heads and twenty-six arms, and everyone knew that could be very dangerous---a human would be able to see every direction at once and wield twenty-six weapons, not including the ones they held with their feet. Inuyasha had worked at Demons, Inc. for three years and had yet to see a human with more than one head, or even one that came with a weapon as simple as a sharpened stick. He also had yet to be harmed by their toxic skin and odorous breath (although, he had not yet touched or been breathed on by a human personally). Maybe once one of those humans showed up, life would get a little more interesting.
But as it was, he spent eight hours a day staring at a screen and cheating on himself in Solitaire and spinning in his rolling chair while nothing even remotely interesting happened. It used to happen very often, before he came to work at Demons, Inc, but for the past one hundred years humans were getting rarer. Maybe once every few months, an old man toddled into the demon world by mistake thinking he had stumbled upon Florida via his bedroom closet (clearly all the scary demons were actually Disney characters from the theme park). Maybe once a year an airplane would crash in what the humans called the Bermuda Triangle and send the entire group over to the demon world. That was a little more interesting, because humans who traveled in packs had more confidence, meaning that a few of the younger individuals---usually male---would fight back. That was always the best.
But that had last happened three months ago, so it would be a long time before it happened again statistically speaking.
Inuyasha sighed melodramatically. Life sucked.
* * *
"Kagome..." Yuka said dangerously. Her angry expression boiled into something like utter heartbreak. "How could you? How could you forget the nail polish?! I even gave you a note during class yesterday. Didn't you get it?""I got your memo, boss," Kagome joked. "I'll go get some now...what color do you want?"
"Here," Yuka said, brandishing a new list at her like a weapon. "I expected something like this. I have the colors and brands on here that are needed. Now, go! And bring us back some burgers, will you? No pickles!"
"Yeah, yeah," Kagome said. She waved her friend off and sought around the house for her other sneaker. She had seen it only this morning...
Thirty minutes later, Kagome had managed to find her brother's sneaker, which would just have to do, she decided. So with two different shoes covering her already mismatched socks, and feeling a little agitated, she grabbed her wallet, stuffed it into her jeans pocket along with Yuka's note, and headed out the door.
Halfway down the walkway, she saw a wondrous and horrible sight approaching her, and her treacherous heart sped up dangerously. She let out a mangled, horrified yelp and ran back through the yard, yelling out for her friends as if her very life was on the line---which it might be. You never could tell these days.
Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi all came running out of the house, tripping over each other and making a good deal of noise, which Kagome tried to silence. She tugged her friends along to the walkway in a fluster of clumsy movement, where she pointed to the materializing figure on the horizon.
"Houjou...!" they all breathed at once, as if speaking at a normal volume would scare off the coming visitor.
* * *
"You know, Inuyasha..." Miroku said as he came into work---late, again---and pulled out a naughty magazine as if from nowhere. "One of these days...""One of these days...?" Inuyasha prompted, clearly bored and desperate for something to occupy him, even as Miroku got lost in Catty Cupcake's eyes---or rather, something a little lower---and left his sentence hanging.
"I'm not sure. I just felt it had the need to be said."
"Idiot." Inuyasha leaned back in his chair, craning his neck backward. He swished his hair around until he got dizzy, and then he watched the ceiling shift above him. When it wore off again he repeated the process.
"Kagura was sneaking around late last night again. I think she's up to something," Miroku warned suddenly, snapping his magazine closed with a flourish. He looked very professional. His serious look was made utterly laughable when one realized what he was holding, but Inuyasha straightened up, his legs thrown out in front of himself carelessly.
"That bitch has been sneaking around late at night for the past three years. If she's up to something, she's awfully slow about it," Inuyasha said dryly. Miroku gave him a pointed look.
"I mean, even later than normal." Miroku had lowered his voice conspiratorially.
"And how do you know this? Were you sneaking around, too?" Inuyasha asked him.
"No. As is my duty, I was reviewing security tapes this morning. I'm so dedicated I was reviewing them from home."
"What were the tapes of? The women's bathroom?"
"Ah, well..."
"That's real sick, Miroku." Inuyasha's face perfectly reflected the disgust he felt in his best friend.
* * *
"Oh-my-gosh, what are we going to do?!" Eri demanded hoarsely of Yuka, who was their unofficial leader. Probably because she was the bossiest and meanest---not that anyone would ever tell her that."He has a crush on Kagome, right?" Ayumi asked. Yuka and Eri both nodded vigorously, as if this sliver of information was very important and should be viewed only in a critical light. And maybe it was. It's best not to leave those start of issues to chance.
"I've got an idea!" Yuka proclaimed brightly. They had been crouched down around the archway at the top of the staircase at the Higurashis' property, but with her words Yuka stood up suddenly and pulled Kagome back along the yard and stuffed her into the well-house, which was enshrined on Kagome's property. She grumbled to herself while trying to let her eyes adjust to the dimness.
"Stay in there," Yuka murmured to her through the shut door, "we'll get some juicy gossip out of him!"
"Oh, hello, Houjou!" Eri said brightly as the teenage boy came up to where the girls were pretending to loiter innocently. Those girls never did anything innocently. Innocence was not something they were known for. Houjou should have known better.
"Hello, girls. Is Higurashi here?" But, sadly, he did not know better. Some might even be so bold to claim him a simple fool. Others would call him courageous.
"Oh, you just missed her," Yuka lied breezily. "She just went out to run an errand. Stay for a few minutes and she'll be back."
"Are you going to ask her out, Houjou?" Eri asked, heedless of consequences. In the well-house, Kagome smacked her hand to her forehead at her friend's lack of tact. Tact was not something the girls were known for, either.
"You're so sweet, Houjou, coming all the way here to see Kagome!" Ayumi said with a tragic sigh. She was lost in dreamland of hearts, roses, and chocolates as Yuka and Eri bombarded the unfortunate boy with questions.
Kagome allowed her friends to badger their poor classmate as she turned around to look down at the well. She thought she had heard a small sound come from it, but it seemed impossible; the well had been untouched for decades. Truly, she wasn't even permitted to be inside of the mini-shrine. Not like that stopped her from doing anything before.
"Buyo?" Kagome whispered as the sound came again, supposing her lazy cat might have wandered in to escape Souta. She went down to investigate.
* * *
"Guys, we're having a problem down on the first floor. I can't get it myself," a pretty red-headed demon said a little forlornly. "Care to help?""What is it that ails you, lovely lady?" Miroku asked. Like all other women with sense, Ayame brushed the comment away as if it was no more than a irritating pollen on the breeze. Miroku's charms worked on ladies almost as often as humans came into the demon world.
"Someone stuck a sandwich in the air vent. I can't even reach it standing on Kouga's shoulders. Miroku, could you possibly...?"
"Anything for a lovely lady!" Miroku declared passionately. He followed Ayame out the door.
Inuyasha bit his lip to keep from laughing outright and followed the group down to the elevator. When the show was over, he'd claim the sandwich.
Miroku was pulling a glove away from his hand, positioned underneath the air vent. He was prepared to loosen the plate on the vent, just enough to drop the sandwich, using his demon technique Kazaana. He was thwarted, tragically, when the emergency lights and shrill sirens went off.
"Figures that we'd have some human come through now, when we aren't doing our jobs," Inuyasha growled, flattening his ears against his head like an angry cat.
"Go handle him, will you, Inuyasha?" Miroku asked, clasping his hands over his pointed ears to protect them from the shrieking sirens.
"Yeah, yeah. Save that sandwich for me, you hear!" he called as he took off to the television room. Nothing was on any of the television screens and none of the hot spots on the computer charts were glowing with use. No human had come through. With a growl, Inuyasha switched the alarm off manually and trotted back down the stairs to where Miroku was dusting himself off and Ayame was walking away.
"So?" Miroku asked as Inuyasha swooped down and picked up the sandwich.
"False alarm," Inuyasha said and flicked the hairs off of the mayonnaise, sniffing the food once before packing it into his mouth in one bite, somehow managing to lick the mayonnaise from his fingers at the same time. Demons are very good with etiquette.
"Oh. Well. What a bummer," Miroku said as he and Inuyasha went off to the television room again. "I'll go get lunch. Sango's sound good?"
"I would've preferred some pancakes from IHOG, but you seem to really have a thing for Sango's. Or maybe just Sango. So, yeah. Bring me a burger, will you? No pickles."
* * *
Kagome was very, very frightened. Not quite as frightened as she had been when she nearly got caught sneaking looks at Christmas presents last year, but it was a close call.She had been in the well-house at home, pattering down the steps to investigate a sound that was probably from her cat. Never mind how her cat got in there, because cats are sneaky and sly and crafty, and everyone knows they can do anything when they want to if they really want to do it. However, when she had got down to the well and peaked in, there was no cat. She had heard something strange after that, like a breath of strong wind whistling through a narrow tunnel, and then she was pushed into the well. She had cried out, fully expecting a broken neck when she landed, but nothing like that had happened.
She opened her eyes and was not in her well-house anymore, nor even the well. She was sprawled out on the floor of a very pristine, tiled hallway, with cool florescent lights humming down at her, and she was instantly filled with the lonesome feeling she always felt in office buildings.
Before she could really examine her situation critically, however, a strange, cloaked man started approaching her, gliding like a ghost. She felt as if she was in the makings of a very bad horror film. So, like any good horror film heroine, she screamed piercingly and took off at a dead run for the fun of it. The figure looked a little stunned for a moment, probably at the magnitude of her shrill cry, but he was quick to pursue her.
She had gone through the hallways screaming for help, help, help, with her heart thumping wildly in her chest like a bird's beating wings against a cage. She threw herself down rows of stairs---never into rooms and elevators, because she did not want to be trapped (it was still early on in the horror movie, when the heroine has a teeny tiny bit of sense)---and panted, and whined, and yelled, and made a good deal of noise that should have brought people out to see what was wrong with her, until she finally came to a crowd gathered in a place that might have been a lobby.
Kagome tried to ignore the way the people in the crowd all looked very strange, with things like wings and horns and animal ears and elf ears and tails and a million eyes and legs, and she pushed her way through. When she looked back, the cloaked figure was gone.
She then stopped running, doubled over, and panted like her life depended on it. Everyone was in an absolute hush around her. And then everyone began backing up. And then they began to scream in pure and unadulterated terror, as if she was the one with fifteen-inch long claws, sabretooth tiger fangs, thorn-covered skin, and sharp beaks. Oh, yes, everyone run from the defenseless teenage girl with two mismatching sneakers who had a sharp stitch in her side that caused her to limp.
So she did what any sensible person in her position would do. She joined in the fun. She screamed and ran in crazy circles, limping wildly with the cramp in her side and her voice going deep-high-deep-high-deep-high with every burst of pain, until she came to a room with a door that was slightly ajar. She tumbled into it and closed the door behind her. The room was dim and quiet, and she did not even pause to inspect it as she slid down, panting wildly, against a very cool, refreshing filing cabinet. Kagome never guessed she would have associated filing cabinet with the word refreshing.
"Who the fuck are you?" asked a caustic voice from the other side of the room. Kagome's head flew up to look the speaker in the eyes. He looked rather angry with her. The name stitched on his polo said Inuyasha.
"Ka-Kagome..." she said nervously.
"Well, Ka-Kagome, what the hell do you think you're doing in here?"
"It's just Kagome, and I don't know! How should I know?! What's wrong with all you people?!"
"What do you mean, what's wrong with us people?! Something not to your liking here?! Sorry we didn't roll out the red carpet and bring the fine wine, princess! Scram, go home!"
"Well, so-rry!" Kagome huffed. "It isn't my fault I was transported from home to here for no reason, and it's definitely not my fault that a creepy psycho in a cloak chased me down the halls, and it's most definitely not my fault that everyone here with wings and---and the like is afraid of me!"
There was a stunned silence, wherein Inuyasha stared at her and she panted.
"You're a human, aren't you, Ka-Kagome?" he said. The man seemed a little afraid now---although he was not afraid of Kagome for the moment; he was afraid of what would happen to his job if his boss found out she was here.
"Well, of course I am! What else would I be? A unicorn?"
"Oh, fuck," he said. "How the hell did you get here?!"
"I don't know! One minute I was at home, the next minute I was here! And where is 'here,' exactly?!"
"You're in the demon world, brat," he said with a glower. "Sit right there, if you value your life and want any chance of getting home," he ordered. He turned back to his television and scooted his rolling chair over to a control panel with great flourish, where he pushed several buttons. A security video played and a computer screen lit up. Kagome stood and watched over his shoulder as he clicked through a menu and a list came up, titled Hot Spots. Next to each location name, there was a set of coordinates, and then next to that was a bar showing 'warmth.' The bars' outlines started at green and faded into pink at the other end, like tropical-flavored bubble gum.
"What're those bars for?" Kagome asked.
"They show when someone last used a hot spot to come through," Inuyasha responded mechanically, not really hearing the girl while he scrolled through and looked at the date and meter of each hot spot, alternatingly watching the security video that was still playing on the television. "When someone comes through, it flushes pink. Over time, it 'cools' and fades back into green."
"Comes through?"
"Humans accidentally come in to the demon world using hot spots. Like, oh, you guys call it the Bermuda Triangle."
"So that's where people disappear to!"
"We send 'em back. Or kill 'em," Inuyasha explained matter-of-factly. Kagome's heart thumped a little faster. She did not want to be killed.
"So is my house a hot spot?"
"If it is, it isn't listed," Inuyasha said, twitching his nose. "Damn it, this can wait. Go sit in the corner. Lunch is here!"
* * *
"Holy---holy---holy something! There's a human in here! There's a human in here! Where I work, eat, sleep, and look at naughty magazines!"Miroku had come in just moments after Inuyasha had attempted to order Kagome to sit in a corner. Upon seeing the human girl, Miroku dropped all the food he had been carrying and spilled the drinks on the floor. Inuyasha vaguely noticed a red handprint on his cheek. Ah, Sango and her burning touches---she could slap with such a flame to leave a burn mark for weeks. And if you really made her mad, she could send you up in a puff of fire, and you'd flame like a bonfire for days.
"I'm not that scary, am I? I brushed my teeth this morning, so not even my breath is potent," Kagome said, breathing into her hand and testing her breath. It still smelled like toothpaste.
"Ahh! She's one with toxic breath, then!" Miroku warned.
"Sheesh. I never realized mint was so offending to demons," Kagome said. "I don't have toxic breath. I don't know anyone who has it, either. Well, my teacher in history class kind of---"
"Miroku. You spilled soda on my cheese burger."
"How can you be worried about food when there is a human in here?! How did she get in here?"
"I'm trying to figure that out now," Inuyasha snapped. "None of the hot spots are active and I've reviewed the tapes. She doesn't come in at any of the borders where she can be pushed back. She just popped into the hallway like nobody's business," Inuyasha explained, picking up his cheese burger and unwrapping the foil as he rewound the tape and showed Miroku.
"Oh, that's the crazy guy that chased me. And that's when I tricked him, made him think I was going straight when I really fell down the stairs. Pretty cool, eh?" Kagome asked as they watched the footage. "I'm not really that fat, am I? Oh, man, look at the crowd scatter! I have some real potential here."
"So, what will we do about this?" Miroku asked, suddenly calmer. He felt rather foolish. He normally kept a cool head, especially at work, but humans were very dangerous things. Even moreso than global warming and rising gas prices.
"I'm not sure. I guess we can always take her to another border and put her back in her world. The humans will think of something to do with her."
"No!" Kagome cried. "If you put me somewhere like---like, next to the Bermuda Triangle, I'll die! Besides, how am I supposed to get back home on my own?" She did not wish to be shoved into the middle of an ocean, miles from home.
"Your people will help you," Miroku assured.
"No they won't! They'd put me in an insane asylum for talking crazy talk, after I go to prison because I don't have a passport! I'll never see home again!"
"...That's pretty complex," Miroku noted with some amazement.
"You can't make me go!"
"Wanna bet?" Inuyasha growled. He cracked his knuckles at her.
"I'll---I'll scream if you touch me! I've had years of voice training, I can scream loud and high and clear and shatter windows and mirrors and ear drums and flower vases and wine glasses!" Kagome warned. Miroku took a step back. He had heard the legends of humans with wails enough to rival a banshee...
"Wanna be killed?" Inuyasha said, showing off his fangs. Kagome frowned, and then reached forward and poked one of the canines.
"I'm not scared of little puppy teeth," she said defiantly.
"Oh, you bitch!" he snarled, licking his tooth fervently. "Do you have any idea of the abilities demons like myself possess?"
"I don't know, but there mustn't be a lot of them if you're all afraid of me."
Inuyasha and Miroku glared at her in perfect unison. Kagome grinned winningly, not at all daunted. If she could take on Geometry in middle school and make a perfect A+, she could make it out of this without breaking a sweat.
"Wait," Miroku said suddenly. "This can't be good at all."
"What? We'll just shove her on one of the borders, or we'll kill her."
"We're going to be fired."
"Oh, wah," Kagome said. "That's not as important as me getting killed."
"Why are we going to be fired?" Inuyasha asked, ignoring Kagome.
"If we kill her, we'll have to dump the body somewhere. No matter where we put it, even if we chop it up to bits---"
"Thank you, chopped up into bits is a new fashion where I come from, but I can't seem to get the right look---"
"---the sweepers will find her, unless we put the bits into---into like a closet somewhere, and that'll start stinking. Maybe we could dump it in the ocean, but that's a long way away. Anyway, if it ever got found, it'd be traced back to us. If we shove her back into her world, the hot spot will activate and be left unchecked, which will make it look like she's still here. Those things aren't one way."
"And if we try to tell Boss what's going on..."
"We'll be fired for interrupting his coffee break, and then we'll be re-fired for not having an updated hot spots list, and then we'll be re-re-fired for being inadequate at our jobs. And, since she popped into the building itself, it'll be our fault that our emergency transporters are acting up and randomly pulling humans into the demon world. The last time that happened, Yura was not only fired but executed as well. They didn't even give her a fair trial."
"So what are we going to do with her?"
"We'll have to wait until some other human comes, and we'll push her through then," Miroku decided.
"But...but I want to go home..." Kagome said suddenly. If Inuyasha and Miroku had just been a little wiser on the ways of humans, they would have detected the oncoming sobs and started talking on a different subject. But if they were wise on anything at all they sure hid it well.
"What'll we do with her 'til then? It'll be another few months before another human stumbles in, and that's if we're lucky."
Kagome could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. That they were willing to keep her away from her home and family and friends and school...well, school wasn't so bad actually...
"We'll have to keep her back at the apartment, keep her hidden."
The tears started to fall.
"Why the hell are you crying, Ka-Kagome?!" Inuyasha asked, suddenly looking nervous. "We're going to put you back on the human world!"
"Y-you're going to put me b-back in several months, with complete s-strangers! I'll never see Mama again! Not Souta, not Grampa, not even fat, fat Buyo! How will I get into college if I can't finish my high school work?! I-I don't want to stay h-here with people who would kill me on the drop of a hat!"
Then Kagome did something that resulted in pure chaos.
Her nose started to run, and she desperately needed to wipe it on something. Inuyasha was standing just over her, flailing his arms as he tried to think of something to do. Miroku was looking on very nervously. Kagome sprung up and clung to Inuyasha and wiped her face against his tee-shirt with no shame. He howled and pushed her away, and then screamed and rolled on the floor, trying to get the tears and snot off of himself in the same fashion of "Stop, Drop, and Roll." Miroku went haywire and leapt around in a frenzy, looking for the emergency hose while shouting for help. Kagome tearfully stood by and watched as Inuyasha dragged himself along the floor like a dying caterpillar. Both men were screaming, and Inuyasha, the great dog demon Inuyasha who was known throughout the land as the toughest human-slayer around and whose face was on demon children's baseball cards, was on the verge of tears.
Kagome sniffled.
* * *
"I told you I'm not very deadly," Kagome said. Inuyasha looked at her menacingly and Miroku laughed nervously. Despite that neither had died from her attack, they were still very wary about her. Inuyasha was angry with her for causing such a panic in him. He was also upset that there was a stain on his "expensive" work polo (he hadn't been able to buy it at a garage sale, so it was considered to cost a fortune to him) and that he was drenched with water from the emergency hose.The small group paused, peeking around the hallway for any sign of movement.
"Coast is clear," Inuyasha mumbled. They all trotted off across the room like fugitives. They then cleared the front doors and made a mad dash across the parking lot to Inuyasha's car, which was currently sitting in the Employee of the Month's spot. Kagome stuffed herself into the back seat and laid down so that she could not be seen. She had been reminded that they were doing her a favor by keeping her alive at all, and if anyone else found out that she was there, she would be killed on the spot. And then the two men would be fired, if not executed themselves. (And then Inuyasha would lose his good parking spot.)
"Are we going home?" Miroku asked.
"Where else would we go?" Inuyasha said.
"Well, I'd really like to go bowling," Kagome interjected. Inuyasha shot her a glare through the rearview mirror of his car.
"Maybe Sango's..." Miroku suggested hesitantly.
"You think Sango will help us?"
"Is Sango a girl? I don't really fancy staying with two males," Kagome added.
"She probably will."
"She might just toast Ka-Kagome," Inuyasha said, growling at the girl in the back seat. Kagome growled back. Inuyasha just wouldn't get her name right, even after she had corrected him several times. He always insisted on putting the extra Ka in front. She was not sure if he was mocking her or if he was just stupid.
"Sango knew a human once, when she did her observation study," Miroku continued. Observation study was when they kept a human in the demon world for an entire week. It was thought that in this way they would learn new tactics to defend against deadly human attacks. Unfortunately they always seemed to catch duds; no one was ever able to show them a scary attack. "She'll know how to take care of one."
"I'm not an exotic pet or something, I can tell you how to take care of me, myself," Kagome insisted.
"How long have you known Sango, anyway? You seem to know an awful lot about her."
"You wound me, friend. How is it that I have known you for years and yet you know nothing of me? Sango and I have been on a first name basis for the past fifty years."
"Fifty years?! Good grief, you guys are pretty good at keeping the aging to a minimum, you know. If you shared that secret with humans, you might be as famous as celebrities."
"Alright. Are you sure going to Sango is a good idea?" Inuyasha pursued, ignoring Kagome. He tapped his claws against the steering wheel as they stopped at a traffic signal. Kagome wanted to see if the colors of the traffic lights were the same as those in the human world, but Inuyasha made her keep her head down.
"Yes. She wouldn't turn us in, and she's the type to always lend a hand to a friend in need."
"If you say so," Inuyasha agreed and swerved over a few lanes. Kagome hit her head against the door handle and cracked her nose against arm rest.
"That really hurt," Kagome said in a pained voice. "You can't drive." She rubbed her head tenderly and curled up into a ball. Inuyasha watched the mirror in disgust as she wiped a thin trail of blood away from her face against his car's seat.
"Damn it, now I'm going to have to get a whole new set of seats back there," Inuyasha grumbled.
"I'm not that bad," Kagome moaned. "I think someone else should drive."
"Alright, Miroku, run in and get her real quick," Inuyasha ordered, parking the car in a firelane. "I'm not going to risk taking the human in there."
"Very well," Miroku said, hopping out of the sedan and sprinting across the sidewalk. Kagome pushed herself into a sitting position, despite Inuyasha's protesting, and watched Miroku disappear into the restaurant.
"Sit down, someone will see you."
"I am sitting, and it's dark outside. No one can see into these windows in the dark."
"Demons can. I don't know about your puny eyes, but you're no needle in the haystack for a demon to find, now put your head down." Kagome sighed melodramatically and complied, ducking back down onto the seat. Moments later, her door opened and a demon woman carefully sat beside her, careful not to brush against her. Miroku took his place in the front passenger seat.
"A human, eh? You guys really do get yourselves in trouble," the woman said as she eyed Kagome warily.
"We didn't do anything this time," Inuyasha said nonchalantly, starting up the car again and pulling out of the parking lot at top-notch speed. Kagome had to use all of her strength to keep from slamming into Sango with the momentum of the car.
"Yeah, this time it was the mysterious cloaked figure," Kagome told the woman. "He chased me."
"So I see," the woman replied.
"Where are we going now?" Kagome piped up.
"Home," Inuyasha said.
"You mean, home for you. You aren't letting me go home for months."
"Shut up. You're not important enough to lose a job over."
"Hah, hah, you jerk."
* * *
"I'm not sleeping on the floor. It'll make my neck stiff," Kagome told Inuyasha very seriously. Sango watched with interest from the chair. Miroku stood slightly behind Inuyasha as he argued with the dangerous human."Well, I don't want you touching my furniture!" Inuyasha yelled.
"Our furniture," Miroku corrected.
"That makes us sound gay," Inuyasha complained.
Kagome ignored this and climbed up on the back of the chair in which Sango sat. Sango shifted nervously to watch her, but Kagome only settled on the top and let her legs dangle down off the back. She scowled at Inuyasha as he and Miroku flinched and flailed and whined about the ruined chair.
"Well, I don't want to stay with you at all!" she argued as she jumped off of the chair and wandered deeper into the apartment. She poked her head into the rooms and Inuyasha trailed her like an angry shadow, making certain that she did not touch anything but unable to really stop her because he himself was too afraid to touch her.
To Inuyasha and Miroku, having her here was like having a dangerous pet. Like a panther or a tiger or a spider. That left a trail of poisonous goo anywhere it touched. So really, to them she was comparable to a one hundred pound snail with sharp teeth.
"I'm hungry," she told him. "I haven't eaten anything at all, all day."
"Sango? What do humans eat?" Inuyasha called as they went back into the living room.
"Can't you just ask me?! I can tell you what I eat!"
"I can make a human dish," Sango said and went off to Inuyasha and Miroku's kitchenette. "I learned while I took care of Kohaku." Kagome sighed wearily through her teeth.
"I don't very much like vegetables!" she warned Sango.
After she had eaten, Kagome went on a hunt for a bed. In one room, there was very soft-looking King-size bed. In the other bedroom, there was a Twin-size bed with many pillows. To have the best of both worlds, she crawled up into the Twin-size and seized the pillows, and then went back into the bedroom with the King-size bed. Both men wailed about their ruined beds and retreated into the living room, grumbling angrily. Sango went home for the night.
Kagome sighed contentedly and wove herself into the covers like a caterpillar in a cocoon. This slumber party was actually turning out better than the one she'd planned to have with Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi. At least here she got to sleep in a nice bed.