InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love Ain't Forgotten Easily ❯ Naraku the girly man! ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5

Kagome's face hurt. She had been told to not stop smiling by her mother before entering the ballroom, and that had been an hour ago.

“I want to get out of here,” she muttered to Inu-Yasha, who had been at her side the entire time. “It's hot, it's crowded, it's stuffy, and my face hurts from smiling so much!”

He chuckled; so far, no one else had seen him. “Then head out to the veranda for a few minutes, catch your breath, and come back in.”

“But where is the veranda? I can't see anything.” She smiled at a passing man who had looked at her oddly.

Inu-Yasha looked around, floated up a few inches, and looked again. “That direction.” He pointed off to her left, which was, of course, the most crowded.

“How am I supposed to get through?” she hissed.

“Stupid wench.” He descended back down to her eye level. “Follow me.”

Seeing as Inu-Yasha was able to see over the heads of everyone else and Kagome was quite able to see him, she was outside within a matter of moments.

“Air! Precious air!” She gulped down a few breaths, ignoring the looks of several women who walked by. They started whispering behind their hands, but were silenced when a lamp flared up next to them, catching the end of one's robe on fire.

“Inu-Yasha…” Kagome looked towards her companion.

“What? You didn't hear what they were saying about you!”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“Feh. I wanted to make some mayhem one way or another.”

Kagome rolled her eyes. “Yes, dog-boy, that is your trademark, isn't it?”

“Damn straight.” He smirked.

“Hello, Lady Kagome.” A voice directly beside her caused Kagome to jump and whirl around. Miroku was standing there, grinning.

“Hello, Mr. Kishimoto.” She bowed her head slightly, smile back in place.

He shook his head. “No need to be formal with me, Lady Kagome. I am below your station and besides; I don't like being called Mr. Kishimoto. Just call me Miroku.”

“Okay.” The smile toned itself down slightly. “You can call me Kagome. Did you want something?”

“Just the name of your companion.”

“What companion? All I had was Shippo, but he disappeared off with a bunch of children earlier.”

“I meant that one.” He pointed behind her, directly at Inu-Yasha.

Her eyes widened. “You can see him?” she squeaked just as Inu-Yasha cried, “You can see me?”

“I am a monk.” Miroku walked around her to look straight at the boy. “You're an inu-hanyou, correct?”

Kagome froze. “I thought you said you were a youkai!”

“So I lied a little!” Inu-Yasha barked at her before turning back to the monk. “And what do you care?”

“I exorcise youkai and ghosts for a living.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Inu-Yasha dropped down, disappearing into the stones of the veranda. Kagome glared at Miroku.

“You exorcised him!”

“I did no such thing. He is merely hiding from me.”

“No, I'm not!” The voice was muffled, but definitely Inu-Yasha. “I'm just not giving you a chance to send me along!”

Miroku knelt down and began speaking very quietly and very patiently with the bricks, drawing some odd stares from passerby. Kagome shooed them along.

“Ghost, I have no wishes to remove you from this home if I am not hired or if you want me to. I only want to ask you your name, for you look very much like someone I knew a long time ago.”

Inu-Yasha's head poked out of the ground. He was glaring at Miroku. “Inu-Yasha. And I very much doubt I look like someone you knew because A) I'm five hundred years old, B) I never sired any children, and C) my half-brother never had any kids either.”

“How can you be sure that your brother did not have any after your death?”

“Simple. The bastard died four years before I did.”

“Oh.” Miroku slipped into silence. “Are you sure you didn't—”

“You finish that question and I drop a lamp on your head.”

The monk shut up.

***

Sango stormed furiously around the edge of the ballroom. Where had that damn fiancé of hers gone? She had to beat him for groping that woman! Accident, my ass…

She shuddered as she remembered that her ass happened to Miroku's favorite target.

Soon she found herself wandering past the doors that led to the veranda, and there she finally spotted him. He looked to be having a conversation with the ground.

“Are you sure you didn't—” Miroku seemed to be cut off by something.

“Miroku!” she called, stopping a few feet away. She saw his back tense and his head slowly turned to look over his shoulder. He was grinning sheepishly.

“O-oh, h-hello, Sango my s-sweet.”

“Yeah.” She marched up and grabbed his left ear, forcing him to his feet. “Explain to me why you took off in such a hurry after that accident, hm?”

“Sango, my dear, my light, my love—” She yanked the appendage in her hand, causing him to yelp in pain. “I'm sorry! I really didn't mean to grope her!”

“So why did you run away?”

“I-I had to find Lady Kagome!” They were drawing a crowd, but Sango sent them scurrying with a single deathly glare. The only one who remained was Kagome.

“Why?” Sango, being the sadistic girl that she was, pulled his ear again.

“I had to ask her about her ethereal companion!” Miroku was ready to burst into tears from the pain when she let go.

“There's a ghost here?” she asked. Quickly she pulled something out of her purse; it turned out to be an amulet. She held in her hand for a moment and watched as a figure came into sight next to Kagome. “Oh.”

“Wait. Can you see him now, too?” Kagome asked.

“Yes.” Sango was staring at Inu-Yasha with a look that was somewhere between confusion, horror, and surprise.

Inu-Yasha had the same expression.

“How long has your family lived here?” the inu-hanyou managed to ask.

“Five hundred years, Inu-Yasha.” Sango turned to Miroku. “I see why you went after him. Come on, let's go.”

After they had disappeared into the crowd, Kagome said, “I don't remember telling her your name.”

***

Inu-Yasha had to shrug off the sense of déjà vu he had gotten when looking at the monk's fiancée. It had been lingering from when he first saw them, but the Sango girl's amulet had just enforced it.

Poor Kagome looked terribly confused. “Is everything all right, Inu-Yasha?”

“Everything's fine, wench.”

She looked taken aback, but rolled her eyes anyway. “I think I should be heading back in now. Though I really don't want to…”

Taking a deep breath, she plastered a smile on her face and walked back in. Inu-Yasha trailed after, watching as she stayed nearer to the door.

They had been in there for ten minutes, and Kagome was ready to head back out when a hand grabbed hers. She turned to see a brown-haired boy standing there, smiling.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked, and he sounded so sweet and…pathetic…she nodded and let him lead her out onto the dance floor.

“I'm Hojo,” he offered as they started dancing. “I don't think I've ever seen you at one of these parties before.”

“That's because we're a pretty recent addition to the nobles mix. I'm Kagome Higurashi.” This handsome boy wasn't so bad…

“So your parents are the one hosting this!” His smile was huge and made him look—well, it made him look a little dorky.

“Yeah…” She watched him brighten every time she was said a word to him in return. Make that not so little…

He spent the remainder of the dance talking about his parents' medicine shop and his stamp collection. That, and he stepped on her feet about four times.

She caught sight of Inu-Yasha against the wall as the song ended, and quickly dismissed herself.

“Have fun?” the ghost asked, noticing her limp.

“He was a little—actually, he was very dull. And he kept stepping on me!” Kagome leaned against the wall, relieving some of the pressure on her feet.

Inu-Yasha saw this and smirked to himself. Pretending to be examining the ceiling, he caused her to float about an inch off the ground.

She yelped, stifling it with her hand, but glared at the spirit all the same. He wasn't looking at her, caught up in something on the roof. “Inu-Yasha!” she hissed. “Put me down now!”

He looked over. “Why, wench? Afraid of heights?”

“No!” She frowned. “I just don't want someone to see!”

“Like these idiots would ever notice. You're only an inch up.” He smirked. “Unless, of course, you want me to make you float all the way up to the ceiling…”

“Dog-boy, put me down now!” she ordered, and he reluctantly complied.

Kagome can be very scary…

***

Shippo bounced through the legs of the dancing couples, searching for something to do. The noble children he had gone off with were boring, and the kitsune had left their group very quickly.

He now searched for Kagome, but his short height only left him one option: search through the sea of skirts, dress pants, and fine shoes and hope she didn't walk past without him noticing.

After squeezing between two very wide dresses, Shippo was so preoccupied with looking for Kagome he almost didn't see the pair of giant feet heading straight for him until it was too late.

Shippo turned around just as the left crashed down next to him. If he didn't move quick the second one was going to—

Someone snatched him out of harm's way at the last second.

“Are you lost?” Shippo turned to look at the man who'd just saved him, and found himself immediately wishing he had been decapitated by the shoe.

It might have been considered a beautiful man. Either that or a handsome woman. Shippo wasn't really all that sure of the gender even if it was wearing a tux and the voice was relatively…masculine.

It was wearing eye shadow, for crying out loud! How could it be a guy? And the hair was long, black, and wavy. The only guy Shippo had ever seen with long hair was Inu-Yasha, but that was him. This one he wasn't so sure about.

“Are you lost?” it repeated, staring at him.

“Uh…sort of.” Shippo was still a little wary.

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

There was a pause. “I don't suppose you know where Kagome Higurashi is?” Shippo asked. “She's the one taking care of me.”

“I'm sure we can find her. Come on.” Still carrying Shippo, the `it' moved off through the crowd. People seemed to instinctively move away from it, making Shippo wonder why. However, he didn't think on it long; he had just spotted Kagome and Inu-Yasha over by the wall next to the dance floor.

“Over there!” he told it, pointing. He climbed up onto the shoulder as they were steered in that direction.

***

Kagome was in the middle of telling off Inu-Yasha when she was hit with a small body. Looking down, she saw Shippo with his arms around her waist.

“Hello.” A voice caused her to look up, and for a moment she was undecided on its sexual category. Deciding it was male from the voice, she put the fake smile back on.

“Hello.”

He pointed to Shippo. “That child of yours was about to get run over on the other side of the ballroom.”

She looked down for a moment. “Shippo, what happened to the kids you were with?” Her eyes flew back up to the stranger, not trusting him.

“They were dull.”

“Oh.” She removed his arms and set him down on the floor. She then dusted away the orange hairs; she was so glad he had disguised his tail.

“Excuse me, but would you like to dance?” The stranger offered out a hand.

“Um…” She paused, hesitant about dancing with this odd man. She glanced over, finally noticing that Inu-Yasha had frozen with his eyes trained on the newcomer.

She wanted to ask if he was all right, but the man was still waiting for her answer. Never one to be rude, she took the proffered hand and allowed herself to be led out onto the dance floor once again.

***

Inu-Yasha watched as Kagome walked out onto the floor.

Shippo had remained by him, and was now looking up at the ghost. “What's wrong?”

“That…man…” Inu-Yasha croaked. “That's…Naraku…”

***

A/n: Poor Inu…now he's gotta deal with NARAKU?!

Inu: You are an evil wench.

Me: Yes, yes, I know. ^_^ Thank you anyway.