InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Demons, Inc. ❯ Chapter 06: The Dancing Queen ( Chapter 6 )
[ 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: 03.23.2007 | Updated On: 05.24.2009 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 271 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Adventure | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 03.23.2007 | Updated On: 05.24.2009 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 271 | Status: Completed
DEMONS, INC.
Chapter 06: The Dancing Queen
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Inuyasha and Miroku's answering machine had quickly become a hotline in their absence. A hotline for what, one can never be sure. However, everyone seemed to know that the two were on vacation, and so took it upon themselves to leave greetings, threats, and other sorts of messages. Mostly threats.
"Inuyasha, Miroku, you retards! You're not supposed to tape OVER security tapes, you're supposed to archive them! You're so freaking stupid, I don't know why you were hired in the first place! Stupid Inuyasha! You don't deserve Employee of the Month! You're a jackass, emphasis on the ASS! I hate your stupid guts, you stupid son of a bitch! Poop-head! If I ever---" The tape, gratefully, cut off there. Nazuna was the temp who filled in when Inuyasha and Miroku were unavailable to do their jobs. She was also insanely jealous of Inuyasha's parking spot.
However, Inuyasha and Miroku could not help taping over security tapes. They had run out of blank tapes a long time ago, and for some reason no one ever gave them new ones. So they just taped over the old ones. Which, essentially, made them useless on most points.
The phone rang again. But, as was to be expected, no one answered. "Inuya---DAMNATION!" someone shouted into the answering machine. "Let go of me, you abominable, regurgitated load of cow crap! I'm going to strangle you with a yo-yo string and hang your innards from---"
No one is really sure who that came from, but we suggest anger management.
"Inuyasha," someone breathed into the phone. "Seven days." Someone screamed in the background. A short bark of laughter was cut off when the phone was abruptly hung up on the opposite end of the phone line.
"If you're happy and you know it, bark like a seal! Ark! Ark!" That was Kagome, who had found Inuyasha's number and was calling it from the cabin. "If you're happy and you know it, bark like a seal! Ark ark!" There was a long pause. "I forgot why I called. Bye bye!" Then she proceeded to repeatedly call and leave similar messages seventeen more times, at which point she finally got bored of it and left with Shippou to do some running amok.
"FINALLY! Who the hell was on the phone before? I've been trying all day to call you! Jeez! I just wanted to say, you're really bad at your job! I can't believe there is a human loose!"
For awhile, the phone was still and silent in the plastic cradle, and the neighbors let out a sigh of relief when the noise ceased. Then they cringed when the phone rang again.
"Inuyasha, honey, this is your mother! Shippou has gone missing and we can't seem to find him anywhere! Oh, bambino! I know you're there! We need your help! You wouldn't go away without telling me, would you, sweetie-pie?" Izayoi sighed sadly. "Alright, cutie-pie, call me back when you get home. I love you!"
And so on and so on.
"What do you want now, pibsqueak?"
Shippou suddenly donned a grave look and Inuyasha let out a great moan. Shippou and Kagome were scheming again, undoubtedly, and Inuyasha did not want to know what it was this time. "I overheard Kagome talking and, well, I heard her say---"
"Hold up! You 'overheard her talking?' Who the hell was she talking to?"
"Uhh...now that you mention it...I really don't know. But that's not the point." Inuyasha shook his head, telling himself he would never understand women. Specifically Kagome. Shippou crossed his arms over his chest and set Inuyasha with a deadly glare...the one that scared all his classmates and was enough to rival Sango's look that literally burned people. Not that Shippou could normally back up his glare with anything other than a pitiful squeak and an exceptionally fast escape, but his friends who were just past toddlerhood rarely realized that. Inuyasha, however, went right on constructing fake signatures, but then he never really noticed when he was being glared at until it was far too late.
"Well? What did she say?" he finally asked, annoyed with Shippou just standing there tapping his foot. Children had no respect for adults doing illegal things...and even less respect for those doing perfectly legal things. Not that Inuyasha would know that tidbit.
"Okay, it's Kagome's birthday today!" Shippou declared happily.
"...So?" Inuyasha asked, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he narrowed his eyes at a letter on his paper. "We're taking her across the border for her birthday."
"Can I pleaaaaaaaaseeee get a present for her? Can we pleeaaaaaaaaseee throw a party?"
Inuyasha wasn't paying attention---he had blocked Shippou's whining out promptly after 'ca---.' Dotting an i was very hard work and it required most of his mental power. "Knock yourself out, kid. Please."
"YES!" Shippou cheered. "I'll go get the others."
And that was how Inuyasha found himself driving Ayame, Kouga, Sango, Miroku, Shippou, and himself in his four-seat sedan on the way to Party Village, where he would waste more of his money on cheesy decorations and a bad cake. That girl was costing him a fortune...in plastic cutlery and fire extinguishers.
She tromped outside and stood in the uncut lawn. Kagome narrowed her eyes and stared at the empty driveway. There was no car. The little sedan was gone and hadn't even left behind a single thing to declare its existence. It hadn't even written 'Inuyasha's car wuz here' in the gravel, and we all know how important it is for cars to claim territory. They're practically worse about it than those middle school kids who claim pieces of the cafeteria for their own and fling mashed potatoes at anyone who comes near them.
A lone tumbleweed that looked suspiciously like a shopping bag floated by.
"Where could they go? Shippou! Inuyasha!" she called out. She flopped down to her knees and began poking through the hedges. "Anyone home?" A squirrel-shaped beast bulleted out of the shrubs and raced off into the forest. Kagome looked in the drainpipe near the window. "Kooouga...Ayame? Sango? Miroku? Annnnyone?"
Kagome fell back on her heels. "Wait a minute..." she said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I know what's going on here..." Not even the birds chirped as they waited in anticipation for Kagome's words, which would undoubtedly contain the answers to all life's problems. "I've been ABANDONED!" (The birds were sorely disappointed.) She took a deep breath and screamed out a long, despairing 'no,' just as she had when Inuyasha had cut her hair. And then she went on to exclaim, "My worst nightmare has come true! I have been abducted by demons and left for dead in a quaint demon cottage after those very demons pretended to befriend me! And now I'm all alone until something...happens!"
She paused.
"That leaves only one option for me..." she said, her voice trailing off with a dreamlike quality.
A little bird chirruped, and the squirrel-shaped beast poked out of the forest, cocking its head in curiosity.
"I must take up subsistence farming!" Kagome shouted gleefully. She had always wanted to be a farmer.
She had managed to unearth from Ayame's shed a spade and tin watering can. So she dug holes in the lawn, put acorns inside (she couldn't find any other seeds), and then watered each patch of dirt with water from the lake. She had made an entire row of about fifteen acorns, and had then begun to make a second row. She was running out of acorns, but she figured that was alright since her arms were getting tired. There were lots of rocks in the dirt, which made it especially hard to dig.
"What else do subsistence farmers do?" Kagome asked thoughtfully. Maybe they grew something useful, or went into town to sell cows, or even did a rain dance, she thought to herself. She weighed her options. "I think I'll go watch TV instead." She dusted her hands off and skipped into the cabin, settling down in the chair and turning on the television. She flipped through the channels until she came upon a cartoon. She was about to go check on her acorns for new growth when the front door popped open, admitting a very confused and angry-looking Inuyasha, followed by an assortment of other demons...namely, Kagome's temporary care-takers. Man, she thought suddenly. I sure need a lot of people to care for me. "I must be high-maintainance," she declared. Everyone just sent her a look before going about their individual businesses.
"Come on, Kagome! Follow me!" Shippou said.
"Wait a minute! I smell something distinctly suspicious!"
Everyone waited with baited breath. Miroku, holding a cake box, squeezed his eyes shut and faced the wall like a boy who was about to be caught shop-lifting.
"It smells sort of...sweet..." Shippou pawed at her hand as she tapped her chin. "Hmm...maybe...vanilla-y...I know!"
No one stirred.
"You guys ate ice cream without me! I bet you went to Dairy King, didn't you?"
Everyone let out their breath and relaxed. Kagome didn't seem to notice.
"How could you!" Kagome continued, bringing up some tears for the occasion. "After all I've been through! Oh, the pain is tremendous! I need ice cream like you wouldn't believe! Don't you understand the trauma you've just put me through?"
"What the fuck are you going on about?" Inuyasha snapped, shoving her off the chair in front of the television. She bumped her head on the table but didn't really seem to mind.
"You guys went off without telling me you were leaving...when I couldn't find you, I thought you left me here to die all by myself while you all escaped!"
Kouga, the only other demon left in the room aside from Inuyasha and Shippou, gave her a slightly guilty look as he observed her doe eyes. He wasn't accustomed to her winsome (sort of) ways yet.
"Do you know what I had to do?" Kagome asked in a pained whisper, doing her best to mimick heroines from horror films when they were pleading for their lives. Most of Kagome's wisdom came from really bad movies. "I had to take up subsistence farming!"
"Is that why there's a bunch of crappy mud patches in the lawn?" Inuyasha asked with a yawn.
"Those are my acorns! I need corn of some kind in my diet!"
"You're corny enough as it is..." Inuyasha mumbled, trying to see through the fuzz on the TV screen.
"Okay, that was bad, even for you," Kagome stated. "Come, Shippou, I recall you have something to show me. I'll forgive you for abandoning me if it's something good."
According to a reliable source (perhaps), two out of three demons agree that throwing surprise parties is dangerous. The remaining demon says it's downright hilarious. Especially if that demon is bloodlusty, but that's demonism and is currently politically incorrect so that doesn't go down in the statistics.
It's hard to surprise a demon. They have keen senses, including but not limited to sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and sometimes mind-powers, even though that's not a real sense anyhow, just something fanatics made up to outdo the alien conspiracies people, since it's all a big conspiracy that the alien conspiracies people and the mind-powers conspiracies people are all out to get each other.
Over the years, demons have developed very creative ways to surprise each other. Like dressing up with tree branches and spraying themselves with pine-scented Riceaul. However, surprising a demon is dangerous for a number of reasons. Because they are so hard to surprise, they aren't accustomed to surprises, so they tend to overreact when they are. For another thing, demons rely on their reflexes and reactions over reasoning and logic...which means if something scares the poo out of them, they are likely to beat it up without a second thought.
Many a demon have been slain in bloody feuds over a friendly birthday surprise.
So the demons who are doing the surprising typically take very cautionary measures, like wearing armor, before surprising other demons.
Therefore, what you get from the surprising-demon is a big, bad, scary creature dressed up in costume often covered with things like spikes, hiding in the darkest corner of the room, with the most pre-emptive measures to stay hidden from any sense, and usually some kind of tool to add to the shock factor. Like a fake head on a pike or a set of novelty fangs or one of those doormats that laughs and shrieks when you step on it.
Demons also don't realize that it only takes a tap on the shoulder to scare a human out of his wits.
That's why it took Kagome approximately -1.2 seconds to scream and run from the cabin like a bat out of hell when everyone yelled 'surprise' at her and lunged out of the darkness.
Kouga, Ayame, Inuyasha, Shippou, Miroku, and Sango stared at the empty place in the doorway where Kagome had stood just moments before. They blinked stupidly for a moment before they recovered from their own shock.
"What the hell..." someone mumbled.
"Does this mean I can have the cake?" Inuyasha asked hopefully.
"Hell no," Sango said. "Go find Kagome, Inuyasha."
"What?! Why me?!" Inuyasha snapped. "Why not Shippou or Kouga or Miroku or---or anyone else?!"
"We apparently just scared her pretty badly," Sango answered as everyone perked up to listen to her infallible logic. "Kouga and Ayame freaked her out the other night, so it's best not to send them after her since she might still be timid around them. Miroku is a pervert and attacked her the other night, so it's best not to send him after her, either. If she sees Shippou, she'll probably grab him and make a run for it before he can explain what happened, so it's best not to send him. Furthermore, I have no particular inclination to chase after her myself, added to the fact I'm the one who purchased the cake and, quite frankly, trust just about none of you except Ayame to not eat it while I'm away. And we all have an inkling that she prefers you...right after Shippou, of course. So hop to it."
"I didn't even want to have this stupid party," Inuyasha mumbled as he turned for the door. His life sucked.
"Ka-Kagome!" Inuyasha called out from the distance.
"ZOMBIE!" Kagome yelled out, hurling the stick in the direction of the sound of Inuyasha's voice. She bounced up into a tree and watched as Inuyasha came into view, looking quite annoyed as he stepped over her discarded weapon.
"Hey, I know you're up there, stinky," Inuyasha growled. "And I'm not a zombie."
"Yes you are! You were eaten by monsters, promptly digested, and made anew as a zombie," Kagome explained. She smoothed out the boxer shorts she still wore.
"Don't be retarded. Those were not monsters. They were us. We were throwing you a surprise party. There is cake back at the house," Inuyasha explained in slow, choppy sentences, looking up at where Kagome sat in lofty tree branches.
"A party? For me?" she asked, blinking. "Why?"
"It's your birthday."
"It is? Really?" Kagome asked gleefully. "I had no idea!" She hopped down from the tree and sidled up next to Inuyasha. "It sure doesn't feel like I've been eighteen for a whole year!"
"Wha...? Shippou said it was your birthday! He said he overheard you talking about it!"
"Oh, that?" Kagome asked, brushing her pants off. "There's a perfectly logical reason for it all."
"If you can offer me a perfectly logical reason for anything you do, I'll officially be amazed," Inuyasha declared. "There is nothing logical about you."
"Prepare to be officially amazed!" she said. "I was trying to remember a conversation I was having with my mother the day I came here, because I was trying to figure out how I even got here. I was just saying things out loud to remember them better. That doesn't work so well during math exams..."
Inuyasha was officially amazed.
"So what kind of cake did you get me?"
"Hey! It isn't your fucking cake anymore! It's not your birthday!" Inuyasha looked absolutely scandalized.
"It can be our little secret," Kagome replied with an evil smile.
And that was how the cake ended up being Kagome and Inuyasha's little secret.
Izayoi continued to rant at her son, who was some 500 miles away from his apartment, until the telephone cut her off. Even it was tired of her threats.
"Tomorrow morning," Kouga supplied. "Well, at least you lot will be. Ayame and I will be heading home and covering your asses." Kouga directed this line at Inuyasha with a glare. Inuyasha, fully concentrated on his dinner, neither seemed to mind nor even notice.
"You know, I am the dancing queen," Kagome informed everyone several seconds later. Almost everyone ignored her.
"Really?" Shippou asked hopefully. "Can you show me some of your grooves?"
Everyone would have ignored that, too, but Kagome knocked the table over, which resulted in a long string of angry and hungry demons chasing the delighted girl into one of the bedrooms.
"Miroku, you're so ugly you've scared away all the fish,"
"Miroku, stop using your tiny brain as fish bait, you don't have enough to waste,"
And the ever-popular, "Miroku, I'm going to kick your fat ass into the water." Shippou found this especially delightful.
While all this was taking place, Inuyasha chose to remain at the cabin and watch television with the sound turned down, hoping to alleviate a growing headache. He had lost track of Kagome some time ago, but was growing suspicious of her presence at the onset of a sniffly sound down the hallway.
"If you have a cold, go to bed and quit interrupting my show," he offered in a monotone voice.
"Grrraaa!" Kagome screamed at him, sounding something like a dinosaur in a cartoon. Inuyasha didn't really like this, as dinosaur sounds are often demon mating calls in the demon world.
"What are you DOING in there?" Inuyasha demanded when he heard Kagome turn on the faucet in the bathroom.
"Shut up," Kagome snapped over the sound of the water. "Or I'll put more toothpaste in your pillow."
"Damn it, Ka-Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled, standing up from his chair and racing down the hall to save his pillow. He found Kagome standing in the bathroom with her face bent over into the basin of the sink, water pouring against her cheek. "What the fuck are you doing?!" he demanded quite nicely. He turned off the water and Kagome squeezed her eyes shut.
"I am cleaning my face!" she said in a nasally voice. Inuyasha narrowed his eyes.
"What's wrong with your voice?" he asked. She sniffed.
"You," she answered, logically enough...if by logical, illogical is meant.
"Get your face out of the sink," Inuyasha demanded. "We have to use that." Kagome pulled her face out of the water and spat some at him.
While Inuyasha growled and wiped his face clean of it, he caught sight of her puffy, red eyes and snotty nose. He recognized the face from the first day he had met her, when she wiped her nose on his tee-shirt. He took a step backwards when Kagome sniffed again.
"What's wrong with you?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously. He was never going to understand this woman.
"I want to go home," Kagome told him plainly. "I don't like it here." Inuyasha blinked.
"What?"
"I'm lonely," Kagome said. She squatted down on the bathroom floor and hugged herself. "I miss my family and my friends and my fat cat. I want to go home and watch bad reality television shows, learn the year's wisdom from a series of bad horror movies, and paint my fingernails in accordance with the latest pop sensation." Kagome felt like a little girl. She wanted to act like a little girl. "I want my mommy."
Inuyasha's mouth opened and closed a few times. "How old are you? Are you still a kid?" He could never be sure with Kagome, but he had assumed she was an independent adult by her stage of life. She had mentioned that she was 18 years old earlier---but that number meant nothing to him, because it was in human terms.
"No, I'm an adult," Kagome answered with a sniff and a glare. "I was going to be leaving home this summer, going to University." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "But it's not the same. I could still call my mom, I still know what world I'm in there. I'm scared. I don't want to die. It's hard to accept demons are real. I want to feel secure. I don't want to be by myself."
Inuyasha put a clawed hand on her shoulder. Mentally, he shoved away the resounding memories of her calling him names like Poop-face, jack o'lantern, and Jimmy. He knew that these tears, rolling down her cheeks, were different from the ones she sometimes used to get her way. These were honest.
"Ka-Kagome..." Inuyasha said. "I won't let you die, and you won't ever be by yourself again as long as you're here. I'm going to get you home."
Kagome smiled weakly and wiped her eyes again. "Thanks, Inuyasha. You've been a good friend. Not outstanding as your sportsmanship, etiquette, and language could use some work, but definitely a good friend."
Inuyasha snorted and stood up, crossing his arms over his chest in a final act of manliness. "Let's go watch the television." That was manly enough, he figured. He let Kagome hold onto his arm on the way back into the living room.
Inuyasha and Miroku were going to have quite a lot to keep them busy if they were ever able to return home...that is, if the telephone, tired of stupid messages, didn't adopt some semblance of life and delete the messages itself. But as we all know, telephones leave that to personal computers, Macs, and computer-driven cars.
Chapter 06: The Dancing Queen
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Inuyasha and Miroku's answering machine had quickly become a hotline in their absence. A hotline for what, one can never be sure. However, everyone seemed to know that the two were on vacation, and so took it upon themselves to leave greetings, threats, and other sorts of messages. Mostly threats.
"Inuyasha, Miroku, you retards! You're not supposed to tape OVER security tapes, you're supposed to archive them! You're so freaking stupid, I don't know why you were hired in the first place! Stupid Inuyasha! You don't deserve Employee of the Month! You're a jackass, emphasis on the ASS! I hate your stupid guts, you stupid son of a bitch! Poop-head! If I ever---" The tape, gratefully, cut off there. Nazuna was the temp who filled in when Inuyasha and Miroku were unavailable to do their jobs. She was also insanely jealous of Inuyasha's parking spot.
However, Inuyasha and Miroku could not help taping over security tapes. They had run out of blank tapes a long time ago, and for some reason no one ever gave them new ones. So they just taped over the old ones. Which, essentially, made them useless on most points.
The phone rang again. But, as was to be expected, no one answered. "Inuya---DAMNATION!" someone shouted into the answering machine. "Let go of me, you abominable, regurgitated load of cow crap! I'm going to strangle you with a yo-yo string and hang your innards from---"
No one is really sure who that came from, but we suggest anger management.
"Inuyasha," someone breathed into the phone. "Seven days." Someone screamed in the background. A short bark of laughter was cut off when the phone was abruptly hung up on the opposite end of the phone line.
"If you're happy and you know it, bark like a seal! Ark! Ark!" That was Kagome, who had found Inuyasha's number and was calling it from the cabin. "If you're happy and you know it, bark like a seal! Ark ark!" There was a long pause. "I forgot why I called. Bye bye!" Then she proceeded to repeatedly call and leave similar messages seventeen more times, at which point she finally got bored of it and left with Shippou to do some running amok.
"FINALLY! Who the hell was on the phone before? I've been trying all day to call you! Jeez! I just wanted to say, you're really bad at your job! I can't believe there is a human loose!"
For awhile, the phone was still and silent in the plastic cradle, and the neighbors let out a sigh of relief when the noise ceased. Then they cringed when the phone rang again.
"Inuyasha, honey, this is your mother! Shippou has gone missing and we can't seem to find him anywhere! Oh, bambino! I know you're there! We need your help! You wouldn't go away without telling me, would you, sweetie-pie?" Izayoi sighed sadly. "Alright, cutie-pie, call me back when you get home. I love you!"
And so on and so on.
* * *
"Inuuuuuyasha!" Shippou called as he hopped around by the grill outside. Inuyasha was forging a signature on some legal documents, but Shippou was unconcerned because...well, his other concerns were bigger at the moment. Namely his craving for chocolate ice cream. And the little thing he needed to inform Inuyasha of. That might be important, too, since it could possibly get him some chocolate ice cream. His little mind began to whir on like a computer, mathematically computing the desirable results of having chocolate ice cream."What do you want now, pibsqueak?"
Shippou suddenly donned a grave look and Inuyasha let out a great moan. Shippou and Kagome were scheming again, undoubtedly, and Inuyasha did not want to know what it was this time. "I overheard Kagome talking and, well, I heard her say---"
"Hold up! You 'overheard her talking?' Who the hell was she talking to?"
"Uhh...now that you mention it...I really don't know. But that's not the point." Inuyasha shook his head, telling himself he would never understand women. Specifically Kagome. Shippou crossed his arms over his chest and set Inuyasha with a deadly glare...the one that scared all his classmates and was enough to rival Sango's look that literally burned people. Not that Shippou could normally back up his glare with anything other than a pitiful squeak and an exceptionally fast escape, but his friends who were just past toddlerhood rarely realized that. Inuyasha, however, went right on constructing fake signatures, but then he never really noticed when he was being glared at until it was far too late.
"Well? What did she say?" he finally asked, annoyed with Shippou just standing there tapping his foot. Children had no respect for adults doing illegal things...and even less respect for those doing perfectly legal things. Not that Inuyasha would know that tidbit.
"Okay, it's Kagome's birthday today!" Shippou declared happily.
"...So?" Inuyasha asked, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he narrowed his eyes at a letter on his paper. "We're taking her across the border for her birthday."
"Can I pleaaaaaaaaseeee get a present for her? Can we pleeaaaaaaaaseee throw a party?"
Inuyasha wasn't paying attention---he had blocked Shippou's whining out promptly after 'ca---.' Dotting an i was very hard work and it required most of his mental power. "Knock yourself out, kid. Please."
"YES!" Shippou cheered. "I'll go get the others."
And that was how Inuyasha found himself driving Ayame, Kouga, Sango, Miroku, Shippou, and himself in his four-seat sedan on the way to Party Village, where he would waste more of his money on cheesy decorations and a bad cake. That girl was costing him a fortune...in plastic cutlery and fire extinguishers.
* * *
When Kagome came back from her fishing trip at the lake---which she had managed with her bare hands and feet, although not very successfully---it was to find the cabin completely empty. The suitcases were all gone, never mind she thought she saw the glint of a metallic handle underneath someone's bed at one point, and even the legal documents Inuyasha had been tinkering with earlier in the day were missing...never mind that not even Inuyasha would leave those out in the open where she might get a hold of them. The bathroom products weren't under the sink, never mind that she had used those all up while playing with Shippou the previous day. The furniture about the house was surprisingly neat and put back in place, never mind Ayame was a neat freak from the hours 7 AM to approximately noon each day except on Saturdays. The kitchen did not even smell like charred bologna and burned plastic anymore. Now it smelled like burned lemons instead, but that was because of an accident at breakfast that she was trying to put out of mind.She tromped outside and stood in the uncut lawn. Kagome narrowed her eyes and stared at the empty driveway. There was no car. The little sedan was gone and hadn't even left behind a single thing to declare its existence. It hadn't even written 'Inuyasha's car wuz here' in the gravel, and we all know how important it is for cars to claim territory. They're practically worse about it than those middle school kids who claim pieces of the cafeteria for their own and fling mashed potatoes at anyone who comes near them.
A lone tumbleweed that looked suspiciously like a shopping bag floated by.
"Where could they go? Shippou! Inuyasha!" she called out. She flopped down to her knees and began poking through the hedges. "Anyone home?" A squirrel-shaped beast bulleted out of the shrubs and raced off into the forest. Kagome looked in the drainpipe near the window. "Kooouga...Ayame? Sango? Miroku? Annnnyone?"
Kagome fell back on her heels. "Wait a minute..." she said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I know what's going on here..." Not even the birds chirped as they waited in anticipation for Kagome's words, which would undoubtedly contain the answers to all life's problems. "I've been ABANDONED!" (The birds were sorely disappointed.) She took a deep breath and screamed out a long, despairing 'no,' just as she had when Inuyasha had cut her hair. And then she went on to exclaim, "My worst nightmare has come true! I have been abducted by demons and left for dead in a quaint demon cottage after those very demons pretended to befriend me! And now I'm all alone until something...happens!"
She paused.
"That leaves only one option for me..." she said, her voice trailing off with a dreamlike quality.
A little bird chirruped, and the squirrel-shaped beast poked out of the forest, cocking its head in curiosity.
"I must take up subsistence farming!" Kagome shouted gleefully. She had always wanted to be a farmer.
* * *
"Golly, subsistence farming is harder than it looks," Kagome said as she sighed despairingly. "I wish Shippou was here."She had managed to unearth from Ayame's shed a spade and tin watering can. So she dug holes in the lawn, put acorns inside (she couldn't find any other seeds), and then watered each patch of dirt with water from the lake. She had made an entire row of about fifteen acorns, and had then begun to make a second row. She was running out of acorns, but she figured that was alright since her arms were getting tired. There were lots of rocks in the dirt, which made it especially hard to dig.
"What else do subsistence farmers do?" Kagome asked thoughtfully. Maybe they grew something useful, or went into town to sell cows, or even did a rain dance, she thought to herself. She weighed her options. "I think I'll go watch TV instead." She dusted her hands off and skipped into the cabin, settling down in the chair and turning on the television. She flipped through the channels until she came upon a cartoon. She was about to go check on her acorns for new growth when the front door popped open, admitting a very confused and angry-looking Inuyasha, followed by an assortment of other demons...namely, Kagome's temporary care-takers. Man, she thought suddenly. I sure need a lot of people to care for me. "I must be high-maintainance," she declared. Everyone just sent her a look before going about their individual businesses.
"Come on, Kagome! Follow me!" Shippou said.
"Wait a minute! I smell something distinctly suspicious!"
Everyone waited with baited breath. Miroku, holding a cake box, squeezed his eyes shut and faced the wall like a boy who was about to be caught shop-lifting.
"It smells sort of...sweet..." Shippou pawed at her hand as she tapped her chin. "Hmm...maybe...vanilla-y...I know!"
No one stirred.
"You guys ate ice cream without me! I bet you went to Dairy King, didn't you?"
Everyone let out their breath and relaxed. Kagome didn't seem to notice.
"How could you!" Kagome continued, bringing up some tears for the occasion. "After all I've been through! Oh, the pain is tremendous! I need ice cream like you wouldn't believe! Don't you understand the trauma you've just put me through?"
"What the fuck are you going on about?" Inuyasha snapped, shoving her off the chair in front of the television. She bumped her head on the table but didn't really seem to mind.
"You guys went off without telling me you were leaving...when I couldn't find you, I thought you left me here to die all by myself while you all escaped!"
Kouga, the only other demon left in the room aside from Inuyasha and Shippou, gave her a slightly guilty look as he observed her doe eyes. He wasn't accustomed to her winsome (sort of) ways yet.
"Do you know what I had to do?" Kagome asked in a pained whisper, doing her best to mimick heroines from horror films when they were pleading for their lives. Most of Kagome's wisdom came from really bad movies. "I had to take up subsistence farming!"
"Is that why there's a bunch of crappy mud patches in the lawn?" Inuyasha asked with a yawn.
"Those are my acorns! I need corn of some kind in my diet!"
"You're corny enough as it is..." Inuyasha mumbled, trying to see through the fuzz on the TV screen.
"Okay, that was bad, even for you," Kagome stated. "Come, Shippou, I recall you have something to show me. I'll forgive you for abandoning me if it's something good."
* * *
"SURPRISE!"According to a reliable source (perhaps), two out of three demons agree that throwing surprise parties is dangerous. The remaining demon says it's downright hilarious. Especially if that demon is bloodlusty, but that's demonism and is currently politically incorrect so that doesn't go down in the statistics.
It's hard to surprise a demon. They have keen senses, including but not limited to sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and sometimes mind-powers, even though that's not a real sense anyhow, just something fanatics made up to outdo the alien conspiracies people, since it's all a big conspiracy that the alien conspiracies people and the mind-powers conspiracies people are all out to get each other.
Over the years, demons have developed very creative ways to surprise each other. Like dressing up with tree branches and spraying themselves with pine-scented Riceaul. However, surprising a demon is dangerous for a number of reasons. Because they are so hard to surprise, they aren't accustomed to surprises, so they tend to overreact when they are. For another thing, demons rely on their reflexes and reactions over reasoning and logic...which means if something scares the poo out of them, they are likely to beat it up without a second thought.
Many a demon have been slain in bloody feuds over a friendly birthday surprise.
So the demons who are doing the surprising typically take very cautionary measures, like wearing armor, before surprising other demons.
Therefore, what you get from the surprising-demon is a big, bad, scary creature dressed up in costume often covered with things like spikes, hiding in the darkest corner of the room, with the most pre-emptive measures to stay hidden from any sense, and usually some kind of tool to add to the shock factor. Like a fake head on a pike or a set of novelty fangs or one of those doormats that laughs and shrieks when you step on it.
Demons also don't realize that it only takes a tap on the shoulder to scare a human out of his wits.
That's why it took Kagome approximately -1.2 seconds to scream and run from the cabin like a bat out of hell when everyone yelled 'surprise' at her and lunged out of the darkness.
Kouga, Ayame, Inuyasha, Shippou, Miroku, and Sango stared at the empty place in the doorway where Kagome had stood just moments before. They blinked stupidly for a moment before they recovered from their own shock.
"What the hell..." someone mumbled.
"Does this mean I can have the cake?" Inuyasha asked hopefully.
"Hell no," Sango said. "Go find Kagome, Inuyasha."
"What?! Why me?!" Inuyasha snapped. "Why not Shippou or Kouga or Miroku or---or anyone else?!"
"We apparently just scared her pretty badly," Sango answered as everyone perked up to listen to her infallible logic. "Kouga and Ayame freaked her out the other night, so it's best not to send them after her since she might still be timid around them. Miroku is a pervert and attacked her the other night, so it's best not to send him after her, either. If she sees Shippou, she'll probably grab him and make a run for it before he can explain what happened, so it's best not to send him. Furthermore, I have no particular inclination to chase after her myself, added to the fact I'm the one who purchased the cake and, quite frankly, trust just about none of you except Ayame to not eat it while I'm away. And we all have an inkling that she prefers you...right after Shippou, of course. So hop to it."
"I didn't even want to have this stupid party," Inuyasha mumbled as he turned for the door. His life sucked.
* * *
"There you are!" Kagome exclaimed brightly, struggling to get a rather large stick out of a ditch. "I knew you were around here somewhere. Now you and I have some prime beating-things-up to do." With one final tug, Kagome managed to pull the branch free from the mud and hitched it over her shoulder, at which point she began her slow trek back towards the cottage, where she would beat up the intruders who had killed off her babysitters."Ka-Kagome!" Inuyasha called out from the distance.
"ZOMBIE!" Kagome yelled out, hurling the stick in the direction of the sound of Inuyasha's voice. She bounced up into a tree and watched as Inuyasha came into view, looking quite annoyed as he stepped over her discarded weapon.
"Hey, I know you're up there, stinky," Inuyasha growled. "And I'm not a zombie."
"Yes you are! You were eaten by monsters, promptly digested, and made anew as a zombie," Kagome explained. She smoothed out the boxer shorts she still wore.
"Don't be retarded. Those were not monsters. They were us. We were throwing you a surprise party. There is cake back at the house," Inuyasha explained in slow, choppy sentences, looking up at where Kagome sat in lofty tree branches.
"A party? For me?" she asked, blinking. "Why?"
"It's your birthday."
"It is? Really?" Kagome asked gleefully. "I had no idea!" She hopped down from the tree and sidled up next to Inuyasha. "It sure doesn't feel like I've been eighteen for a whole year!"
"Wha...? Shippou said it was your birthday! He said he overheard you talking about it!"
"Oh, that?" Kagome asked, brushing her pants off. "There's a perfectly logical reason for it all."
"If you can offer me a perfectly logical reason for anything you do, I'll officially be amazed," Inuyasha declared. "There is nothing logical about you."
"Prepare to be officially amazed!" she said. "I was trying to remember a conversation I was having with my mother the day I came here, because I was trying to figure out how I even got here. I was just saying things out loud to remember them better. That doesn't work so well during math exams..."
Inuyasha was officially amazed.
"So what kind of cake did you get me?"
"Hey! It isn't your fucking cake anymore! It's not your birthday!" Inuyasha looked absolutely scandalized.
"It can be our little secret," Kagome replied with an evil smile.
And that was how the cake ended up being Kagome and Inuyasha's little secret.
* * *
"Inuyasha! You are quite possibly the worst son in history!" Izayoi yelled after the beep. She sounded rather weepy. "You never told me you were a fugitive! If I knew, I at least would have packed you a lunch before you left! Now where are you vacationing? Is Shippou with you? You deserve a wallop! Don't forget to put on sun lotion if you go to the beach!"Izayoi continued to rant at her son, who was some 500 miles away from his apartment, until the telephone cut her off. Even it was tired of her threats.
* * *
"When are we leaving the country?" Kagome asked in a rare voice of sincerity later that day at supper."Tomorrow morning," Kouga supplied. "Well, at least you lot will be. Ayame and I will be heading home and covering your asses." Kouga directed this line at Inuyasha with a glare. Inuyasha, fully concentrated on his dinner, neither seemed to mind nor even notice.
"You know, I am the dancing queen," Kagome informed everyone several seconds later. Almost everyone ignored her.
"Really?" Shippou asked hopefully. "Can you show me some of your grooves?"
Everyone would have ignored that, too, but Kagome knocked the table over, which resulted in a long string of angry and hungry demons chasing the delighted girl into one of the bedrooms.
* * *
Inuyasha was watching more television several hours after dinner. Kouga and Ayame had already left them, planning to be in work by the next day to inform everyone that Inuyasha and the others had not been at their cabin. Shippou and Miroku were out at the lake fishing, since the younger of the two expressed an interest in becoming manlier. Sango, who was convinced this was an act on Miroku's half to help Shippou impress Kagome, came along to offer her helpful insight, which included:"Miroku, you're so ugly you've scared away all the fish,"
"Miroku, stop using your tiny brain as fish bait, you don't have enough to waste,"
And the ever-popular, "Miroku, I'm going to kick your fat ass into the water." Shippou found this especially delightful.
While all this was taking place, Inuyasha chose to remain at the cabin and watch television with the sound turned down, hoping to alleviate a growing headache. He had lost track of Kagome some time ago, but was growing suspicious of her presence at the onset of a sniffly sound down the hallway.
"If you have a cold, go to bed and quit interrupting my show," he offered in a monotone voice.
"Grrraaa!" Kagome screamed at him, sounding something like a dinosaur in a cartoon. Inuyasha didn't really like this, as dinosaur sounds are often demon mating calls in the demon world.
"What are you DOING in there?" Inuyasha demanded when he heard Kagome turn on the faucet in the bathroom.
"Shut up," Kagome snapped over the sound of the water. "Or I'll put more toothpaste in your pillow."
"Damn it, Ka-Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled, standing up from his chair and racing down the hall to save his pillow. He found Kagome standing in the bathroom with her face bent over into the basin of the sink, water pouring against her cheek. "What the fuck are you doing?!" he demanded quite nicely. He turned off the water and Kagome squeezed her eyes shut.
"I am cleaning my face!" she said in a nasally voice. Inuyasha narrowed his eyes.
"What's wrong with your voice?" he asked. She sniffed.
"You," she answered, logically enough...if by logical, illogical is meant.
"Get your face out of the sink," Inuyasha demanded. "We have to use that." Kagome pulled her face out of the water and spat some at him.
While Inuyasha growled and wiped his face clean of it, he caught sight of her puffy, red eyes and snotty nose. He recognized the face from the first day he had met her, when she wiped her nose on his tee-shirt. He took a step backwards when Kagome sniffed again.
"What's wrong with you?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously. He was never going to understand this woman.
"I want to go home," Kagome told him plainly. "I don't like it here." Inuyasha blinked.
"What?"
"I'm lonely," Kagome said. She squatted down on the bathroom floor and hugged herself. "I miss my family and my friends and my fat cat. I want to go home and watch bad reality television shows, learn the year's wisdom from a series of bad horror movies, and paint my fingernails in accordance with the latest pop sensation." Kagome felt like a little girl. She wanted to act like a little girl. "I want my mommy."
Inuyasha's mouth opened and closed a few times. "How old are you? Are you still a kid?" He could never be sure with Kagome, but he had assumed she was an independent adult by her stage of life. She had mentioned that she was 18 years old earlier---but that number meant nothing to him, because it was in human terms.
"No, I'm an adult," Kagome answered with a sniff and a glare. "I was going to be leaving home this summer, going to University." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "But it's not the same. I could still call my mom, I still know what world I'm in there. I'm scared. I don't want to die. It's hard to accept demons are real. I want to feel secure. I don't want to be by myself."
Inuyasha put a clawed hand on her shoulder. Mentally, he shoved away the resounding memories of her calling him names like Poop-face, jack o'lantern, and Jimmy. He knew that these tears, rolling down her cheeks, were different from the ones she sometimes used to get her way. These were honest.
"Ka-Kagome..." Inuyasha said. "I won't let you die, and you won't ever be by yourself again as long as you're here. I'm going to get you home."
Kagome smiled weakly and wiped her eyes again. "Thanks, Inuyasha. You've been a good friend. Not outstanding as your sportsmanship, etiquette, and language could use some work, but definitely a good friend."
Inuyasha snorted and stood up, crossing his arms over his chest in a final act of manliness. "Let's go watch the television." That was manly enough, he figured. He let Kagome hold onto his arm on the way back into the living room.
* * *
"Guess what? We have expanded! We no longer enclose ourselves to simply e-mail spam, but now we do answering machine spam as well, returning to the olden ways! We are learning the concept of TOTAL FREEDOM! Inuyasha, how would you like to do some expanding of your own? With our new male-enhancing products..."Inuyasha and Miroku were going to have quite a lot to keep them busy if they were ever able to return home...that is, if the telephone, tired of stupid messages, didn't adopt some semblance of life and delete the messages itself. But as we all know, telephones leave that to personal computers, Macs, and computer-driven cars.