InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Phony Digits ❯ The Peanut Gallery ( Chapter 12 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I have nothing.

Chapter Twelve: The Peanut Gallery

"...then I looked him right in the eyes and said, 'Thanks for nothing.' and turned around and walked out."

"You're kidding?! Kagome, that's amazing." Sango said, giving her friend a congratulatory slap on the back. "I'm so damn proud of you, Grasshopper!"

Rather than going home and wallowing in self-pity, Kagome had opted to go to Sango's apartment to wallow in self-pity instead.

"I don't feel amazing, though." the jilted girl said. "I feel...what's the opposite of amazing?"

"Shitty?" Sango provided.

"Yeah...that's it, shitty." Kagome said dejectedly. "That's what I feel…"

"Well, you shouldn't." Sango tried to encourage her. "The guy is obviously an asshole. I haven't even seen him, but I can tell you there is no way he could do better than you, Kagome. You're the cream of the crop."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do Sango, but I don't need you to try and cheer me up...besides, he totally could do better...he's completely gorgeous..." Kagome said with a sigh as she fell back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.

"Didn't you say he has dog ears, though?" Sango said, crinkling her nose.

Kagome's head shot up to glare daggers at her friend. "And just what the hell is wrong with that?" she asked defensively.

Sango shrugged. "I didn't say there was anything wrong with it."

"Yeah, but you were implying it." Kagome scolded.

Sango raised her hands in surrender. "Geez...okay...to each his own…" she placated. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."

"If I end up marrying a guy with dog ears one day, you are going to feel really bad that you said that."

Sango raised her brows and gave her friend a somewhat incredulous look. "Is that your thing now?"

Kagome slowly lowered her head back down and closed her eyes. "No...it's just...you don't understand Sango...I...the way I felt about him...You know me. You know I'm not just some boy crazy girl who falls head over heels for every guy I meet, in fact, I've never been in love before…" she gave another sigh. "I knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up...it's just...after I talked to him on the phone I really thought we hit it off… I thought this could really turn out to be...I don't know...something… Then the second he saw me it was like…" she shook her head. "I don't know. It was just like I was the biggest disappointment he'd ever seen...I'm pretty sure he almost called me another girl's name, too."

Sango hissed through her teeth. "Ouch...really?" she asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah...really…"

"God, what an ass…"

"Yeah...and he had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to be his friend after that."

Sango let out a snort. She couldn't wait to ask Miroku about this. ...Shit...maybe I'm as much of a gossip whore as he is...

"You know what you need?" Sango said, slapping her hand on Kagome's shins where they lay draped across her lap.

"Ice cream?" Kagome supplied.

"Well, that wasn't what I was going to say, but now that you mention it, that does sound pretty good…"

"What were you going to say."

"I was going to suggest we go out to some dive bar and hand InuYasha's phone number out to every guy in the place."

At that, Kagome let out a giggle. "As appealing as that sounds right now, I think maybe I'd better just stick to the ice cream...I'm less likely to regret that in the morning."

"If you don't regret it in the morning, then you didn't eat enough of it." Sango said as she stood from the sofa and headed for the freezer.

<<>>

She was just some random girl. There were billions of them. Millions in this one city alone. There was nothing different about her. Nothing special. Just another girl...

InuYasha checked his phone again. Nothing. He sighed.

In the several days that had passed since meeting Kagome, InuYasha had been able to think of nothing but her. At first it was only guilt and regret that filled his mind, but the more time passed the more intense his feelings became. Feelings of longing, loneliness, self-loathing...just to name a few.

Why did he always do this? It was a question he'd been asking himself for as long as he could remember. In elementary school it was Becky Drexler. She put gum in his hair and his mother had to cut it out. That was the only interaction he had with that particular girl, yet it didn't prevent him from becoming completely and utterly infatuated with her from grades three to five.

In middle school it was 'Cross-country Girl'. That's what he called her, anyway. She went to a rival school, and he never actually knew her real name; although he imagined it was something like Nike, or Artemis, or Aphrodite because she was a goddess. Well, at least in thirteen-year-old InuYasha's eyes she was. "Your shoelace is untied." Her voice rang like a sweet melody in his ears. She was so concerned about his safety and well-being…

In highschool it was Whitney Fitzpatrick. She wasn't very pretty, but she was smart. His biology teacher had paired them up as lab partners. At first he was excited about being paired with someone so brainy, and biology was his worst subject; but the more he got to know her, the more he found himself getting excited for other reasons entirely. Looking back, she probably had a crush on him too, but he never told her he liked her and she ended up going to a college out of state and they never spoke again.

In college it was Maria Souza. He actually dated her for a while near the end of his sophomore year. She was his first kiss. They broke up when she left to study abroad her junior year. When she returned, she had a new haircut and a new boyfriend.

Then he met Kikyo, and he really liked her, and then he loved her, and then she loved him, and for a while he thought she was the perfect woman. She wasn't though. Not for him. Maybe for someone, but not him, and his feelings for her eventually ebbed too.

And then he met Kagome…

He sighed again.

Miroku used to tell him that he 'fell in love too easily'.

Well, he knew that wasn't true. He was never in love with most of these women. He liked them, and he thought about them every waking moment, and he wanted nothing more than to see their faces and hear their voices and make them smile...but he wasn't in love with them…no way...

He knew the second he caught Kagome's scent and saw her smile that she was probably going to be another Becky, or Whitney, or Maria. Those feelings that he hadn't felt in so long had hit him like a ton of bricks and he fought them; he fought them because he couldn't bear the thought of reliving the situation with Kikyo. Another woman strung along and ultimately left disappointed. He thought maybe he should just take a vow of celibacy; become a priest or something… His mother would probably love that...at least that would be one less woman that was disappointed in him. He knew it wasn't healthy for him to fall for every girl that paid any attention to him, but he had never been particularly popular or outgoing. He wasn't like Miroku. Speaking of Miroku...

"So, I can't help but notice your phone has been uncharacteristically silent lately." Miroku said as he entered the room, breaking InuYasha from his musings. "Everything okay in the strictly-flirting-text-based-relationship department?"

InuYasha shook his head in the negative. "It's over." he said flatly. "We met, and...we just didn't hit it off..."

Miroku's eyebrows practically shot up off of his head. "Wait...hold on a second...you say you met her?! You met her and you didn't tell me?"

"If you'd have known you'd have made a big deal out of it, and I didn't feel like dealing with you."

"Oh...well, fair enough I guess…" he said with a shrug. "so, what did you do?"

"We had coffee."

"No, what I meant was, what did you do? As in, what, specifically, did your ass do to screw it up?"

"Why do you always assume that I'm the one who screws things up?"

"Because you always screw things up InuYasha, you're an idiot."

Several seconds of silence passed as InuYasha tried to think of a clever comeback.

"You're the idiot, and for your information, I didn't do anything. She looked exactly like Kikyo. I mean, they could almost be identical twins."

"Oh, the nerve of her! How dare she?!" Miroku said facetiously.

"It's fucked up, Miroku! You wouldn't understand what it's like because you've never dated the same girl for longer than a month... It's a bad omen..."

"So, pretty much what you're telling me here is, the two of you get along great, you like her, she likes you, she has a great personality, and she's a solid ten;" he counted off each point on his fingers. "but she looks like your ex so you blew her off because you think it's a bad omen…?"

"You're just saying it like that to make me look stupid." InuYasha grumped.

"Trust me, you need no assistance looking stupid."

"Keh!" he scoffed. "Well, it's for the best anyway. When I told her I just wanted to be friends she flipped out on me. Told me she 'had enough friends already'. Probably would have turned out to be a drama queen..."

Miroku let out an exasperated sigh as he took a seat on the sofa next to his roommate. "So, let me get this straight, you make it clear you are interested in her, then, when you meet her in person you tell her you just want to be friends? Isn't it obvious? InuYasha, she thought you were rejecting her based on her looks. She thought you found her unattractive."

"No way." InuYasha said shaking his head. "There is no way a girl that looks like that could be so insecure."

"What else could she have thought? You can't possibly think that she assumed the truth. It's too far-fetched. Wouldn't you have thought the same if the tables were turned?"

InuYasha let out a long and loud sigh, leaning his elbows on his knees and dropping his face into his hands. "Yes...okay? Yes. I know I messed up. Are you happy now?" he mumbled against his palms.

"Not especially."

"I just didn't want to deal with another Kikyo situation."

"And did this girl…"

"Kagome." InuYasha supplied, interrupting his roommate.

"And did Kagome do or say something that led you to the conclusion that this would be another 'Kikyo' situation? Or did you judge her based solely on her appearance?"

"She didn't do anything." InuYasha said dejectedly. "I told you, I know I fucked up. Can you just drop it?"

"No, I can't drop it. I want to know what you are going to do to fix it."

"I ain't gonna do anything to fix it."

"Oh, that's right. I almost forgot, your technique is to pine over a girl for years without saying anything until they eventually find someone else." Miroku said sarcastically.

"That's not my technique, it's my curse."

"Don't kid yourself, InuYasha. It's a choice, not a curse. You're just making excuses."

"Well, excuses or not, it's done."

"So...that makes her fair game, then?" Miroku asked.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" InuYasha snapped.

"I mean, you obviously don't have any claim on her...so…"

InuYasha was actually growling at this point and Miroku was finding it painfully difficult to keep a straight face. It was so easy to tease him. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe it wasn't very sporting of him to keep going but...

"...she is free to date whoever she wants; be it a mysterious stranger...or one of the police officers she works with everyday...or perhaps she will meet a devilishly handsome contractor with a heart of gold…"

"Keh!" InuYasha scoffed. "Do you think I don't know what you're trying to do?"

Miroku just gave a slight shrug. "Be that as it may, you know she's a catch. Just think about how many guys you've blown off for her over the years. It makes you wonder, if she rejects that many, how many does she actually go out with...she could be with one of them right now."

InuYasha's scowl softened to a look of defeat. "Well, what she's doing is no business of mine." he said as he stood abruptly and stomped off to his room.

"It could be." Miroku called back, but was answered only by the slamming of the door.

<<>>

"What's this?" Sango asked as she and Renji entered their office and she eyed a small box sitting on her desk surrounded by shredded gift wrap.

"Someone dropped it off for you yesterday afternoon after you'd left for the day." Renji said.

"Why is it open?"

"For your own personal safety. I had to check to be sure it wasn't a bomb or anything."

"Right...because of all the assassination attempts…" she said wryly. "And you had to open the card too?" she asked as she lifted a torn envelope from the box.

Renji shrugged. "Anthrax?"

"Couldn't you have just sniffed it?"

"I'm not a dog, Miyahara!" he said, feining offense.

"Right." Sango drawled as she rolled her eyes. "Just a nosey bastard." she mumbled under her breath as she pulled the card from the envelope and began to read.

Lovely Sango,

A token of gratitude for allowing me the great honor of being graced with your presence.

Yours truly,

Miroku

Sango couldn't help but chuckle as she slipped the cheesy note back into the envelope. "And you say he dropped this off in person?" she asked.

"Yeah, he came in to give that statement on the Reyes case. He asked for you but, since you weren't here I took it. I've been doing some research and so far everything he told me has checked out." Renji said as he plopped down in his desk chair and spun around to face her. "Well, aren't you going to see what his 'token of gratitude' is?" he asked, nodding toward the box with a smirk on his face.

"Oh, right." Sango said as she lifted the lid, removed the bubble wrap and retrieved another, tinier box, which, if the picture on the top was any indication, contained a very shiny and expensive new phone.

"What?" Sango gasped as she looked at the box. "I...I can't accept this...can I?"

Renji shrugged. "Depends...what did he mean by 'gracing him with your presence'?"

Sango picked up an ink pen and launched it at his head, hitting him directly in the center of his forehead. "Oh shut it, Renji! The only time I've seen him was that day at the diner."

"Well, then it's not illegal or anything..."

"I know that, stupid. I wasn't asking if it was legal, I was just asking if it was okay to accept a gift like this from a stranger...I mean, this is like, an eight hundred dollar phone."

"Yeah, but didn't he ruin yours?"

"No, I ruined mine...it was his fault though…" she said as she eyed the box, her fingers practically itching to break the shrink wrap seal. "but a man who gives gifts like this expects something, right? Yes…that's right..." she reasoned with herself. "I can't accept it...but…" She turned the box over in her hands and ran her thumbnail along the seam. "I do need a new phone…" she said as she sat down in her chair and placed the box on her desk in front of her. "I mean, I could just buy this one off of him…"

Renji watched silently as she stewed in her inner turmoil.

"I hadn't really planned on spending this much on a phone…" She lifted the box again, inspecting the image. "but, it was kinda his fault that I ruined mine…maybe we can go halfsies…"

"Now you're getting somewhere." Renji said chuckling.

"What would you do if you were me?"

"Me? I'd probably blow him and see if I could get a new laptop." he answered, barely containing his mirth.

Sango rolled her eyes. "I don't know why I even asked you."

"What?" he said, smiling smugly as he crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "I could use a new laptop."

"You know what...I'm keeping this!" she said finally, tearing into the plastic as she spoke. "I'll just pay him back and regret it later."

"Atta girl." Renji said.

"You are such a bad influence, Renj." she said as she powered up the device.