InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of Strings and Kevlar ❯ Gameday Storm ( Chapter 17 )

“You should have seen her last night,” Miroku quipped as he and Inuyasha were grabbing their marching snares, perfectly aware that he was within earshot of the top bass drummer just a few yards away by the lockers. “She was all, `Oh, `Roku, you're so good to me! Do me again, Daddy!'” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice, dark eyes darting to the right to catch her reaction.

Before Inuyasha could even warn Miroku, a flash of dark brown hair flew in front of his face, and suddenly Miroku was no longer standing in front of him. With a loud “Oof!” from her shoulder in his gut, he tumbled to the floor. Inuyasha barely caught Miroku's snare harness before it crashed to the ground.

“Dammit, Miroku!” she shrieked, standing over him with knocked fists. “I never fucking said that! Take it back!”

“But you did!” he insisted, wearing an all-too-guilty smile. “I swear to you, my love, you were begging me for it all night!”

“Liar! You were the one who came on to me all night! I remember that much!”

“Your mouth may not have been begging, but your body certainly was,” he conceded, and grinned up at his girlfriend, still on guard. “Admit it: you can't get enough of your Daddy.”

Trembling with barely contained rage, she gritted her teeth and quickly turned on her heel and stomped away.

Inuyasha looked down at the grinning fool, extending a clawed hand to help him up. “Shit, dude, you oughtta be more careful with her. She looked like she was ready to gut you!”

“Nah. I've always teased her like that.” He dusted off his shorts and adjusted his LSU cap. “Besides, she deserves a little grief for getting so wasted on me last night and then making me drive her home. And people know I'm exaggerating. Mostly,” he added with a cheeky grin.

Raising an eyebrow, the hanyou scoffed and harnessed his drum. “If you say so. But don't come crying to me when she chops your balls off.”

“Now that, I'm positive she'll never do. She's too attached to this to hurt it!” he shot back, thrusting his pelvis dramatically for emphasis.

Inuyasha quickly turned away, shielding his eyes. “Dammit! Don't aim that shit at me! That is definitely a side of you I don't want to see!”

“Of course it is!” Miroku laughed as he put on his own drum and followed him outside. “Everybody wants this, baby! Everyone knows it's all about supply and demand, and right now, my stock is up because I'm attached to one woman! Man, when I think about all the ass I could be getting --”

“You get just a little dumber from the drugs you took to have that hallucination,” Kagome finished for him, strolling up between the boys with cymbals in hand as they exited the Percussion Annex together. “Everyone knows you're totally whipped anyway, so you might as well just dump that delusion right now before any more of your brain rots away.”

Inuyasha barked out a laugh, throwing an arm around Kagome's shoulders for a “good morning” squeeze in spite of the already hot, hazy morning air. “Pretty good, Gorgeous. Miroku, I do believe you just got punked out by a chick. How does that make you feel?”

The boy in question pouted, looking upon a laughing Kagome with self-pity in his eyes. “My dearest Kagome, how could you talk about me so? I thought what we had was special?” he cooed, clasping his hands together in pleading as they made their way up the concrete steps toward the Greek Theatre.

More laughter bubbled from the girl under Inuyasha's arm. “Oh, yes, Miroku. God knows how much I really want you, the Achieved HornDog from Sacramento,” she teased, glancing up and winking at Inuyasha, who smiled, but compulsively tightened his hold on her shoulders a little.

“I knew it!” Miroku exclaimed with a wide grin, grabbing her arm and yanking her out of a suddenly stunned Inuyasha's grasp and toward himself. Another fit of laughter erupted from her as Miroku pulled her close. “It really was me all along, wasn't it, my lovely Kagome? You've wanted me for so long, and really, who could blame you?” His arm encircled her waist as he sighed in mock bliss, a huge smile on his upturned face.

Inuyasha's jaw clenched as his girl was forcefully ripped from under his arm, but as her laughter and denials of Miroku's claims continued to fill the air, he willed himself to calm down. After all, Miroku and Kagome were good friends, and he was dating her cousin. No need to get out of control just because Miroku wanted to tease her a little… or perhaps he wanted to tease Inuyasha.

Nonetheless, dampening his baser instincts to rise up to Miroku's unintentional challenge, the hanyou merely smiled again, albeit somewhat tensely, and kept his eyes glued onto Miroku's hand to make sure it didn't stray from the border zone of Kagome's waist and into forbidden territory. He forced a terse laugh. “Heh. You have enough problems with your own woman, pervert, without adding another Higurashi to the mix.” There. Lighthearted and non-confrontational. That ought to keep him out of the fire.

Kagome stiffened at the mentioning of her cousin, just enough for Inuyasha to notice, but recovered quickly and laughed some more, pushing Miroku away with one hand, well out of reach; Inuyasha let out a lungful of air when a respectable distance between her and Miroku had been achieved. “That's right, Miroku,” she ribbed. “I didn't even think of that. You couldn't handle two of us!”

As Inuyasha let loose an inaudible growl at how that statement could be interpreted, Miroku predictably balked in disbelief, confirming the former's suspicion. “Good God! Are you kidding me? That's my one true fantasy!” His arm wrapped back around Kagome's shoulders and he waggled his brows, prompting an eye roll and a few more giggles from the girl. “C'mon, Kags. What do you say? Care to take a roll in the sack with me and your cuz?”

Inuyasha nearly tripped over his own feet after that suggestion was aired. Thankfully nobody seemed to notice his near misstep, and he was able to play it off as if nothing was bothering him. His heart, however, was pounding harder and harder inside his chest with each passing remark, and he'd be damned if his vision wasn't tinting a fair pink. Kagome and Miroku continued their banter, oblivious to the mental ranting of the disgruntled hanyou beside them, and Inuyasha finally forced himself to believe she could deal with the hentai herself, looking away in an effort to calm down as they finally made it to the stage of the outdoor theatre.

With his attention turned away from the mock lovebirds, he walked to the middle of the stage and stopped to face the empty seats, his eyes focusing on a particular pile of leaves and dirt in one of the aisles to keep from looking over at Miroku and Kagome again. Standing there in the already overheated morning sunlight, staring at nothing and fuming about women and their hentai friends, he began to realize he was taking things way out of proportion, and that maybe, just maybe, he was slightly overreacting to harmless playing among friends despite his intention not to. So, sighing heavily, Inuyasha brought his sticks up to start a warmup roll as he sorted through his thoughts. Okay, so they were friends, and they were obviously just fucking with each other a little. So what? Why should it bother him?

Feh. As if that were a huge mystery.

Truth be told, Inuyasha had never been one to not make his claim known on any of the girls he'd ever been attached to, earning him the accusation of being --possessive from time to time�”nothing out of the ordinary for inu youkai--but his reaction to this particular situation was a little excessive, even for him. Why was he getting so nuts over Kagome, and with one of her closest friends nonetheless? He knew, deep down, that Miroku was no threat, so why the dramatics? Was Inuyasha really not going to allow her to be friends with any other males? He scoffed at that thought, unconsciously shaking his head to the pulse of his roll. Even if that were his intention, there was no way she'd allow it. The wench was too damn bull-headed to even think of letting him boss her like that, and though he'd grudgingly admit that was one of the things he actually liked about her, his youkai side was none too pleased with that trait. Not that he'd ever been too heavily influenced by the whims of his youkai before, but he'd be lying if he said its increased presence lately hadn't encouraged him to listen a little more carefully to its demands.

Her scent alone could end him, crippled and broken at her feet if she so desired, and that was a scary thought, that a woman had so much power over him. What had he become? How was he pussywhipped before even getting the pussy? What kind of sense did that make? Never mind that; how about how he was barely able to keep control over himself once he found out she was a virgin? When had he smelled her maidenhood firmly intact while moving his lips down the dip of her collarbone, the roaring inside his body was difficult to suppress. Kagome was pure, untouched by any man, and instead of wanting to protect her innocence like any good, decent, caring man would, it just made him want to fuck her more. His blood had rushed straight into his already swollen dick, demanding a claim be made, and he almost felt nauseous from the barbarity of it. Shit. Was he really the twisted, mindless hanyou fuck that Sesshomaru had accused him of being all his life?

Frowning, Inuyasha thought back to the other girls he'd bedded over the past few years; Kikyou had been the only other virgin, and he'd never reacted to her that way before they did the deed… or afterward, for that matter, but that was another story. And so, as he unconsciously continued his warm-up drum roll with a bewildered slack in his jaw, Inuyasha asked himself for the hundredth time: What was so damn special about Kagome?

Before his daydream could take him any further, the unmistakable hiss of cymbals being set on the ground caught his attention, and he glanced to the right to see Kagome stretching her arms above her head, now free of the too-familiar hands of the second snare drummer. Now that Inuyasha could breathe again without smelling his own jealousy, he increased the intensity of his roll a little and took a moment to admire the cellist's movements as she stretched. Her eyes squeezed shut and she yawned loudly, the hem of her shirt drifting up just high enough to show a ribbon of silky skin above the waistline of those short, short, fucking short running shorts she always wore during rehearsal.

She was trying to be a tease. Yes. That had to be the answer. Nobody was that hot without putting any effort into it.

Suddenly and without any kind of decent warning, her arms dropped to her sides and mocha eyes turned his way. Inuyasha's hands faltered, and his drum roll fell apart as he realized he hadn't looked away in time to keep from getting caught gawking at her. Rosy lips quirked into a coy smile, and he wasn't so sure he liked the amusement in her eyes at his expense. Before she could entertain the thought of bringing any attention to the situation, he quickly coughed into his fist and looked away, noticing most of the drumline had made it to the theatre at this point and were milling around. He waved his hand above his head in a circle. “Let's form it up,” he called, the high crack in his voice proof of his obvious discomfort.

Great. As if he had nothing else to be embarrassed about.

After a few snickers in his direction--and some heated glares thrown at their sources--the musicians took their places. A group of clouds passed overhead, and Inuyasha looked up, sniffing the air. A bad storm was coming, he noticed, assuming it would hit some time before pregame step-off. Well, at least they wouldn't be so hot during the game that night if they were getting rained on.

Inuyasha glanced at his watch as Miroku counted off the warm-up; it was just after eight o'clock. Looking to his right as they began, he noticed Kagome was now watching him over her shoulder as she played, but she quickly looked away with brightly tinted cheeks when he caught her.

Inuyasha smirked. Some of his lost dignity had just returned with the appearance of that blush. But just as he was about to silently claim his victory, the girl shifted her weight, her hip cocking to one side and immediately drawing his gaze to her ass. She glanced over her shoulder again, her eyes flashing with laughter. He scowled, only half playfully.

`Fucking tease.'

***

`Cocky bastard.'

Kagome frowned as she made her way back to the Annex from the parking lot with the rest of the drumline, purposefully keeping her distance from the hanyou that had been entertaining her thoughts throughout the long day's rehearsals. He thought he was so damn hot in just about every way! Where in the hell does one man get that kind of ego? It was bad enough that he had caught her looking at him right before drumline rehearsal earlier, but when she really thought she had him during the full band rehearsal, when she had given him that little smirk while they were facing each other for one of the suspended cymbal parts, he had had the most calm look on his face, admittedly perplexing her at first.

Then, his nostrils had flared, and a knowing smirk had blossomed on his own lips.

“Ugh!” she groaned, stepping though the open door of the Annex, the cool air inside immediately giving her a chill. She forced herself to carefully place the cymbals on the stand, then swiveled on her heels and strode toward her locker, ripping the gauntlets off her hands as she rambled to herself. “He thinks he knows everything about me!”

“I warned you he would be like that.”

Kagome bristled at the sound of her cousin's voice, but kept moving toward her locker, intent on ignoring her. She was still angry over her words from yesterday about going out with Inuyasha, and she wasn't in the mood for any more bullshit at the moment, especially when said bullshit would come in the form of another “I told you so.” So, having reached her locker, Kagome pursed her lips and turned the dial on the lock, hoping Sango would take a hint for once in her life.

No such luck. “Kags,” she said softly from behind Kagome's back, her voice mirroring her regret. “You won't even talk to me? Still?”

The lock clicked open, and in her angry haste, Kagome fumbled with getting it off the bar that held the door shut. Growing frustrated, she jerked it harder, only resulting in it rattling louder against the bars. “Dammit,” she cursed under her breath.

“Come on, Kagome,” Sango implored from behind her, still out of sight. “I really want to talk to you about yesterday. You can't ignore me forever.”

`I can sure as hell try.' The stubborn lock still was not budging from its latch, making Kagome even more angry as she continued to yank on it.

A buzzing from her shorts pocket momentarily distracted her, and with the hand not pulling on her lock, she stuffed her gauntlets under her arm and reached into her pocket to pull out her cell. The words on the screen almost made her teeth crack with intensity that she clenched her jaw.

From: Kouga
Hey babe -- how about dinner after your game tonight? Sorry I can't come to the game, I gotta work late. Call me

Dinner? Fucking dinner?! Was he off his rocker or what?!

Kagome seethed and shoved the phone back into her pocket. Fantastic. Just one more problem she had to deal with today. And this fucking lock still would not get off her locker!

“Kagome, who was that?” Sango asked, her voice sounding a little closer to the nosy, overbearing tone Kagome was accustomed to hearing.

Okay, seriously. She had just about reached her bullshit limit for one day. Someone was going to feel the pain, and it was fairly obvious who that someone was going to be.

Gritting her teeth, Kagome was about to turn around and demand Sango back off when suddenly a familiar clawed hand was covering hers, and she froze mid-turn. Holding her fingers and the lock in his large hand, he calmly pulled it off the latch. Stunned, though unsure as to why, Kagome yanked her hand free from his grasp and whirled around to see the chuckling hanyou leaning up against the adjacent group of lockers.

Inuyasha twirled the lock around his finger, his eyes glittering with amusement. “Easy there, wench. It's only metal.”

His words and demeanor propelled the fire in her chest into a full-blown inferno, snapping the last bit of control she had remaining. Shooting the glare that had given her quite the reputation among her peers, Kagome swung out and swiped the padlock from his fingers, holding back a wince when the skin on her thumb got caught between the joints of metal. “I don't need you to fucking save me, Taisho! Take that shit machismo somewhere else!”

Amber eyes widened in shock and confusion. “What the hell?” he asked, pushing off the lockers and looming over her. “I was just joking around! What's wrong with you?”

Undeterred by his stature, Kagome took a step closer, her fist tightening around the accursed lock. “You want to know what's wrong with me?” she shot off before she could stop herself. “I have fucking dickheads like you and my bitch of a cousin thinking they know what's best for me! Well, you don't! You don't know shit about me!” she screamed, turning away from him and snatching her Camelbak out of her locker. Rather than messing with the lock again, she opted for throwing it into the cage and slamming the door shut, then turned again to make a quick exit, avoiding looking him in the face.

“Kagome!” came the bellow from the hanyou behind her as she stormed away, his voice demanding and angry, but most of all, hurt. She ignored him and kept her pace, though the tightening in her chest had already begun. She was wrong. Dammit, she was way wrong for lashing out at him like that, and she was sure he was pissed, but why did he have to be so cocky right then, when she had already reached her wits' end? No. She just couldn't deal with him right now. She was awful to him, but to face him now would mean issuing an apology, and she was in no state of mind to give something like that and mean it. Right now, she just needed to be alone. No Sango, no Inuyasha, and especially no Kouga. Alone.

Turning the corner outside the Annex, she slammed into a sweaty masculine chest, making the owner of said chest drop the water bottle he was carrying. The bottle hit the ground and splashed water all over the front of her. “Shit!” she cried, shocked by the cold and still a little dazed from the collision. She took a wobbly step back and looked up into concerned eyes.

“Damn, sorry!” Miroku reached out and steadied her by her shoulders, doing a horrible job at holding back his laughter. “Shit, I got you soaking wet! But I know it ain't the first time, right? And you're wearing a white shirt; it's my lucky day!” He paused when she didn't react, apparently sensing her distress as she regained her senses. “Hey, you okay?” He frowned, noticing the moisture shining in her eyes, and lowered his face closer to her level. “Kagome? Kagome, what's wrong?”

She shook her head and gave him a curt, “Nothing,” pushing his hands away. She sidestepped to move around him, but his arms intercepted her escape.

“No way,” he said, pulling her back in front of him and firmly holding her in place with strong hands on her shoulders. “Something went down. What happened?”

Feeling a little cornered, Kagome scowled and looked up into concerned eyes, noticing somewhere in the back of her mind that he wasn't eyeing her exposed chest beneath the now see-through tank top she wore. `Well, that's something.' “Really, Miroku, I just want to go get something to eat before warm-up at six,” she said, pushing his hands away once more, a little less forcefully this time.

“That's what the bag nasties are for,” he said, referring to the bag lunches waiting for them inside in the band hall. “You always eat with the rest of the drumline on gamedays.”

“This is the first home game of the season, Miroku,” she argued impatiently, looking away and wishing he would just let her go.

“You've always done it in the past years,” he pressed, raising an eyebrow. “Why are you running?”

She sighed. “Well, I also have to go change my shirt now, thanks to you. Geez, can I please just go home?”

His eyes lightened suddenly, a clear sign of lechery to come. “You can wear my shirt,” he offered, removing one hand to pull at his collar.

Kagome eyed the hot, sweaty mess that was his t-shirt, and grimaced. “Appealing, but no. Thanks anyway.”

“And just what is wrong with my shirt? Too fashionable for you?”

“Too soaked in your nasty sweat for me,” she countered, rolling her eyes. “Now if you don't mind….”

“Oh, come on,” he said, laughing and throwing his arms around her shoulders in a hot, damp, sticky hug. “You know you love me and my man-sweat!”

“Ack! Gross, Miroku, get off me!” Kagome scrunched her face and wedged her arms between them, pushing as hard as she could to get away from his wet funk, but she was stuck. The smell was damn near suffocating! “Let me go! You're disgusting!”

“Oh, Kagome,” he whined, finally letting her squirm away from him and hitting her with his best puppy dog face. “You wound me! Am I really so unappealing to you?”

“More!” she shot back, laughing a little now at his crestfallen expression, his arms hanging limply at his sides and his lower lip sticking out far enough to trip over it.

Suddenly, he smiled. “Ha! Got you to laugh, though, didn't I?” He bent over and picked up his water bottle, pouring what remained in it over his head before standing up again, water dripping down his face and neck.

Kagome shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, pretty boy,” she conceded, remembering why she had run into him in the first place. She sighed and started walking again, stepping around him. “Now if you'll excuse me, I really do want to go home.”

“Wait!” Miroku jumped back a few steps, staying in front of her as she made her way toward the parking lot. “I want to know what happened to upset you. Come on, I'll go home with you and you can lay it on me.”

She sneered, choosing to ignore the obvious suggestiveness of his words, and reached into the pocket of her Camelbak for her keys. “Won't your nosy-ass girlfriend be wondering where you are?”

His expression sobered completely. “Ah, so it's about that.” Miroku shook his head and fell in step next to her. “I hate that you two are fighting.”

“It's not just her,” she said, not really wanting to sift through that with him at the moment. “Inuyasha pissed me off with his smartass self, and Kouga sent me a bullshit text --”

“Whoa, wait a minute! Kouga texted you?”

Kagome waved it off, shaking her head. “I don't even want to talk about it. All I want is to go home, get something to eat, and get the hell away from everybody for a while.” She looked to her right, noticing he was intent on joining her. “And that includes you. Who said I wanted you to come with me?”

“What did he say?” Miroku asked, ignoring her question. He put out a hand and stopped her just before they reached her car. “Did he say he was coming to the game?”

She sighed to herself, wondering why she always gave in when it came to Miroku. “No, actually he said he wasn't coming, but that he wanted to go to dinner afterward. I didn't answer him.”

“Kagome….”

“It 's fine, all right?” She pulled her sunglasses off her shirt, wiping the water droplets off on the already wet fabric without realizing it was doing no good. “I just… I need to talk to him again, I guess, and set things straight. Like Sango said,” she added quietly.

“Really?” Miroku asked incredulously, watching her curse under her breath at her still-wet sunglasses. “Do you really think you owe him any kind of explanation? Don't you think that's his problem if he doesn't get it?”

Kagome sighed. She really didn't want to sift through this with Miroku, either. “Look, I really don't think --”

“Kagome, I'm not going to make you talk about this if you don't want to,” he assured, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You know I'm not like that. But I just want you to think about this before you do anything, and for God's sake, talk to somebody about it if you need to. Promise me, please?”

She looked into his eyes, seeing the pleading there that he wasn't too proud to hide from her, and her own eyes began to sting with unshed tears. This was a true friend, she knew, and this was his way of saying he would always be there for her. “Yes,” she sniffled. “I will, to both.”

“Good.” He smiled and shook her shoulder a little before pulling away. “So, what happened with Inuyasha?”

Well, there went the control she had over her tears. “Oh, he was just being his normal, dumb self,” she griped, wiping the steadily increasing tears from her cheeks. “But then I yelled at him, and I think… I hurt his feelings.”

Miroku just shook his head, unsuccessfully hiding a terse laugh. “You yelled at somebody? And it was Inuyasha? Nah, I don't believe it.”

“He was just being an ass,” she continued, narrowing her eyes at him in silent warning to halt the sarcasm. “And Sango was breathing down my neck, and Kouga had just messaged me… and I guess I flipped.”

“What did you say to him?”

She frowned. Honestly, she couldn't even remember, but judging by past experience when she'd reached her limit, she knew it couldn't have been good. She did remember the pain in his voice when he'd called to her as she was storming out, and now, as she heard it again in her mind, all it did was open the floodgates in her eyes.

Miroku cringed. “That bad, huh?” He sighed, pulling her into another sweaty hug, though she didn't have it in her to refuse the support this time. “Kagome, you got to learn to control that temper sometimes. And you wonder why some people think you're such a bitch.”

“I don't care what people think about me,” she automatically answered, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Right.” He paused, and she knew he was rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I know you're feeling bad about whatever it is you said to him, and maybe you should, but don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure he'll forgive you.” His hand that was rubbing her back stilled, a little awkwardly. “You do know that he's absolutely fucking crazy about you, don't you?”

Still leaning into her sweaty friend, Kagome opened her eyes and stared at the trees behind him, her vision blurred from tears. A small animal--probably a squirrel--ran down one of the trees and up another, probably chasing after its female. Kagome blushed; she knew Inuyasha liked her, but…. “Define `crazy.'”

“Do you really want to know what I think?”

Her heart fluttered, and suddenly she was embarrassed. “No, forget it,” she replied quickly, pulling away once more and running her fingertips under her eyes. She glanced at her watch: four-thirty. “I really need to get home, at least to get a new shirt.” She knew she was stalling, but she just didn't know if she was up to talking to Inuyasha just yet.

Unfortunately, Miroku was having none of that. “I know for a fact that you have extra clothes in your car, Kagome.” He grinned smugly.

Grr…. “Fine. Since you just don't want to cut me any slack, I'll go talk to him now.” She huffed a little as she turned toward her car, though inwardly was grateful for having such a good, logical friend like Miroku in her corner to keep her straight.

He gave her a nudge in the shoulder. “You'll be glad you did,” he promised, following her the last few feet to her car before she unlocked it and started shuffling through the contents of her back seat.

“Yeah, yeah.” Finding a suitable top, she shut the door and started walking back with Miroku. “You think there's any food left?”

“I'm sure someone saved us a couple of bags.” Miroku threw an arm around her shoulders, giving her a friendly squeeze. “So… when do you think you and Sango are going to patch things up?”

“Please, not this right now, okay?” she pleaded, looking off into the tree line again.

“Fine, fine. But she really does care about you, even if she shows it in a fucked-up way sometimes.”

Tears reappeared, and Kagome sniffled once, but said nothing aloud. `Yeah… I know.'

He squeezed her shoulders again, then quickly let her go. Kagome found it a little odd, actually, how abruptly he released her. She wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that they were almost back to the Annex, and the way Inuyasha had been not-so-secretly fuming at their contact earlier that morning before drumline rehearsal. She shook her head. As if he had to worry about her hooking up with Miroku, of all people! They were friends, for God's sake! Good grief, what he must think about Kouga! She scowled at his jealousy, realizing for not the first time that Sango definitely knew what she was talking about.

The skies had grown overcast during the past twenty minutes, and fat raindrops were already starting to fall. They picked up the pace to make it to the Percussion Annex before getting caught in the downpour. “You know,” Miroku said, his voice a little lower now as if he was afraid of being overheard, “I meant what I said.” He made eye contact with Kagome, his eyes dark and serious as they ran up the three concrete steps directly in front of the Annex. “He really is crazy about you. I mean, really crazy.”

Kagome turned her face away to hide her blush. “Okay, Miroku. I heard you the first time.”

He grinned, swatting a bug out of his face as they reached the doors. “Just making sure.” They stepped inside and scanned the groups of people sitting on the floor in the building, noticing it actually looked rather empty other than a dozen or so students. Most of those who were there were eating their dinner, as expected, and a few of the tenor players were sitting in a circle, tuning their drums, also as expected.

After a few seconds, Miroku gave voice to what Kagome had already noticed. “Huh. I guess he's not here.”

Feeling a pang of guilt burning in her heart, she frowned, knowing he had probably stormed off after she hadn't come back when he called her. Noticing Sango wasn't around either, she wondered if she was with him, and if she was, whether she was consoling him or bitching him out. Kagome sighed and looked down at her old, ratty running shoes she always wore for rehearsals, and half-heartedly kicked the bass drum case next to her. She could only hope Inuyasha would forgive her for letting her anger get the better of her. And Sango… well, she still just wasn't ready to talk to her yet. As for Kouga….

Well, there were a lot of people she needed to deal with, apparently, which only proved that Sango was right the day before about needing to set things straight with him, not that Kagome didn't already know that. But the things she said! Could she have possibly been more of a bitch?

`Heh,' she thought, all too aware of her hypocrisy. `We really are of the same blood.'

Sighing again, Kagome looked up, stepping out of the way for one of the other snare drummers to get through the door. “Well,” she said, facing Miroku again, “I'm going to go up to the bathroom and change really quick. If you happen to see him, do me a favor and just keep him down here until I get back.”

“Sure thing.” Miroku gave her another hug, which Kagome gratefully accepted, even if he did still smell funky. “And I'll grab us a couple of bags of food.”

“Thanks.” She smiled, pulling away and running up the stairs two at a time, eager to get out of the nearly transparent shirt and into a dry one.

In the bathroom, after changing, Kagome stood over the sink and splashed some water onto her face to get the majority of the grime off from the day's rehearsals. She closed her eyes, letting the water simply evaporate off her face for a moment. She could still hear the tenors being banged away on downstairs, and it reminded her that she still needed to polish her cymbals before getting changed into her uniform for the game. Noting that she couldn't hear any snare or bass drums being tuned, she had to wonder if Inuyasha and Sango took their sections somewhere else to do so. It was never a regimented expectancy that the individual lines do it together, but it generally just happened that way. Where was everybody? Over in the band hall, maybe? Or the Greek theatre? No, not there; it was too hot outside. Maybe they were out with the tailgaters eating some real food and would tune their drums later.

Kagome yawned, the routine of gameday already taking a toll on her energy, and grabbed some paper towels and blotted her face before tossing them into the trash can. It didn't really matter, she supposed. In fact, it was probably better that she wait to talk to Inuyasha after the game, after he had had a chance to cool off a little. Of course, that only meant the actual game would be extra awkward….

Pushing the door open, she stepped into the loft and gasped when she saw a lone figure standing at the far end, effectively blocking the doorway to the stairs. Anxiety blossomed in her chest at the pained look in his eyes, though it contrasted the anger in his uncharacteristically low voice, his ears flattening atop his head.

“So. I'm a fucking dickhead now, am I, Ka-Go-Me?”