InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Phony Digits ❯ All Bark and No Bite ( Chapter 13 )

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

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

Chapter Thirteen: All Bark and No Bite

Sango stood on the sidewalk, looking from the GPS map streetview on her phone, up to the red brick apartment building in front of her. This was definitely the place, at least, if the address Miroku gave Kouga was accurate. She climbed the stoop up to the doors and pulled on the handle. Locked. Of course. Turning to the row of buzzers beside the door, she pushed the button labeled '4C'.

"Yeah." a gruff voice answered over the intercom.

"Yes, is this Miroku Ueda's apartment?" Sango asked.

"Yeah."

This was InuYasha, no doubt. How charming...

"Umm...well...can you tell him Sango Miyahara is here to see him?"

"He ain't here."

She rolled her eyes at no one. "Do you know when he'll be back?"

"No."

...what could Kagome possibly see in this guy…?

"Okay well, thanks, I guess…" she grumbled through the speaker. She liked having the element of surprise, but it looked like she was going to have to call Miroku. She didn't come all the way out to his neighborhood just to go home without even getting to speak with him. Removing her phone from her pocket, she dialed his number.

"Hello?" he answered in an all-too-chipper voice.

"Hi, Miroku? This is Sango."

"Ah! And to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Well, actually, I'm standing in front of your apartment building right now. I was coming to talk to you about your little gift…"

"Are you stalking me, Sango?" he teased.

"Ha-Ha, very funny." she said facetiously. "I was just coming to pay you back for the phone, and your jackass roommate is being a jackass."

"Ah yes, I apologize for him. He wasn't properly socialized as a puppy."

Sango let out a snort of laughter. "Well, will you be home any time soon or do you think I should just come back some other time? It's damn cold out here."

"I'll be home very soon, in the meantime, use the code one-seven-six-zero-five to get into the building, and just knock on the door. InuYasha will let you in."

"Okay, great. Thanks. This should be fun." she said facetiously.

"Yes, I'm sorry I'm going to miss it."

"Okay, well, I'm going in."

"Good luck."

"Thanks." she said chuckling, before disconnecting the call and punching the entry code into the keypad. She felt relatively calm as she entered the building, climbed the stairs, and knocked on the door; but the second she saw the smug bastard's face, everything that Kagome had told her flooded her mind and she was suddenly overflowing with righteous indignation.

"You got some nerve, you know that?" she scolded the hanyou as she pushed her way into the apartment.

"Uhh...excuse me?" InuYasha said as he backed away from her, his eyes shifting from side to side.

"You heard me!"

"I have some nerve?" he said, pressing a hand to his chest. "I'm not the one barging into a stranger's apartment and yelling at them."

"No, you're just the one leading on innocent young girls and crushing their hearts!"

"Innocent young girls? Crushing their hearts…?" he repeated, furrowing his brow. "Look lady, I don't know what your fucking problem is, but I strongly recommend you start minding your..."

"My problem is jerks like you!" she cut him off.

"Look, I don't have to take this shit from you. You don't know me, you haven't earned the right to come in here and judge me."

"Earned the right?! HA! Right, because knowing you is such a privilege!" she said, poking a finger into his chest.

"Why don't you try hearing both sides of a story before you assume to know everything."

Miroku heard the yelling long before he reached the door, and when he entered his apartment he was greeted by the sight of his new love interest so far up in his roommate's face that they were literally breathing down each other's throats.

"You're letting me know all I need to know about you right now." Sango yelled.

"Oh, that's right, I almost forgot, you're some know-it-all Sherlock fucking Holmes."

"Ahem!" Miroku strategically cleared his throat to gain their attention.

They both turned their heads to him.

"I hope I haven't interrupted anything here." Miroku said, raising an eyebrow as he pushed the door closed behind him.

"Keh!" InuYasha scoffed. "As if I'd want anything to do with this psycho bitch."

Sango stood silent, sending him an icy glare. It was taking everything in her being not to tackle him and beat him to a pulp. "Defend yourself." she challenged him calmly.

InuYasha furrowed his brow. "What? Are you gonna try and fight me?" he asked incredulously.

She rolled her eyes at his obtuseness. "No stupid ass, I'm giving you a chance to defend your actions here." she said. "You're right, I don't know both sides of the story, so why don't you enlighten me?"

"I don't owe you an explanation for anything." he responded.

Sango sighed exasperatedly. "Forget it. You're too stupid to argue with." she said as she turned to Miroku. InuYasha stomped over to the sofa and plopped down, all the while muttering curses under his breath. He turned on the television and intentionally turned the volume up unnecessarily high.

"So, about this…" Sango said, pointedly ignoring the petulant manchild on the sofa and retrieving the phone from her pocket, holding it in front of Miroku. "How much do I owe you?"

"You owe me nothing. It was a gift." Miroku said sincerely.

"No one buys a gift like this for a stranger. Hell, no one buys a gift like this for a friend...although…" she paused to look around the surprisingly roomy loft. "You don't seem to be hurting for money."

Miroku grinned. "Appearances can be deceiving."

"Oh? And how's that?" she asked. "You aren't into anything...unsavory...are you? Because you know I'm a cop..."

Miroku chuckled. "No, InuYasha's parents own this apartment. Actually, they own this whole building and a couple others like it."

"Ah. So he's the rich one. Figures…"

"Aside from getting a good deal on our rent, InuYasha doesn't accept any aid from his parents at all. He wouldn't even let them pay for his college tuition." Miroku defended his friend, although he wasn't really sure InuYasha deserved defending at the moment.

"That's...surprisingly respectable actually..." Sango admitted.

"Well, it's more an act of defiance, really. He doesn't like feeling obligated to anyone."

"Oi! I'm right here ya know!" InuYasha called out.

"Yeah, I can see he's really working the whole 'act of defiance' aesthetic." Sango said chuckling.

"Would you like to join us for dinner?" Miroku asked Sango.

"Us?" Sango repeated, shooting a look in the direction of the surly hanyou.

"Yes," Miroku said. "InuYasha and I usually get Chinese take-out on Thursdays."

"Keh! We don't share!"

Miroku waved off InuYasha's outburst. "He doesn't share food, but I'd be happy to."

"Well...I…" Sango hedged.

"We would love to have your company." he encouraged.

"Speak for yourself!" InuYasha called out.

"Ignore him."

"Hmm…" Sango crossed her arms and furrowed her brow in thought. She sort of wanted to stay, she didn't have anything better to do; but she also really didn't want to feel like she was obligated because of the extravagant gift. "How about this. You let me pay you back for half the phone, and I'll stay for dinner."

Miroku grinned. "A fourth." he negotiated.

"A third."

"A fourth." he repeated, refusing to budge.

She sighed. "Okay, a fourth." she conceded as she rummaged through her purse and retrieved the cash.

"I'll call and order the food. Do you have any preferences?" he asked as she handed him the money.

She shook her head in the negative. "I'm not picky."

"Great! I promise you won't be disappointed." he assured her, before heading into the kitchen and retrieving a menu from a small, nearly overflowing junk-drawer. She listened as he called and placed the order. From what she could gather of the one side of the conversation she could hear, this particular restaurant not only recognized his voice, but knew his longstanding order by heart. She listened as he added items, and couldn't help but smile when the conversation took an amusing turn. "...Yes, well, we have a guest tonight...yes, a lady friend of mine…" he said, looking over his shoulder and winking at said lady. "...No, no, InuYasha is just my roommate…No, think nothing of it!" he said chuckling. "...oh, well thank you, that's very nice of you to say…Okay, that sounds great, thanks...Yes, you too...Okay, bye." he disconnected the call and looked up at Sango.

"Sounds like you boys have fallen into quite the routine." she said teasingly.

"So, you caught onto that, huh?"

"She thought the two of you were a couple?" Sango said.

Miroku nodded. "And a handsome one, at that."

"Keh!" InuYasha scoffed, turning to look at them over the sofa back. "I could do a whole fucking lot better than him!" he called out.

"I'm not even sure which one of us he's trying to insult now." Sango grumbled.

"Oh, it's both of us, I assure you." Miroku said. "Do you care to go pick that up, InuYasha?"

Without a word, InuYasha stood from the couch, pulled on his jacket and exited the apartment.

They stood silent for a few seconds before Sango finally voiced the question she had been dying to ask all night. "So, why are you friends with him?"

Miroku smiled. "As I told you once before, he doesn't make the best first impression, but he really is a good guy. He was picked on a lot as a kid and I guess he sort of developed this hard outer shell as a result of it."

"Picked on for being hanyou?" she asked.

"Well, that was a part of it." he nodded. "He was also the smallest kid in his class up until high school, and the fact that he had rich parents certainly didn't help either."

"Couldn't they have sent him to private school?"

"They could have…" Miroku said as he began gathering the plates and silverware. "but his father wanted to toughen him up..."

"That seems kind of cruel." she said.

"It worked to his benefit, I believe. Sheltering him wouldn't have done him any favors when it came time to face the real world." Miroku said as he made his way into the living room and sat the plates on the coffee table in front of the television.

"You guys eat in front of the television?" Sango asked with a raised brow.

"No, we usually have candlelit dinners and talk about our day." he said facetiously.

Sango chuckled. "I guess I asked for that."

InuYasha returned with the food, and the three of them seated themselves, Sango in the middle, on the floor at the coffee table.

Throughout dinner, Miroku and Sango carried most of the conversation, with InuYasha only occasionally chiming in to shout profanities at the basketball players on the television screen.

Sango had resolved early on that she would not be leaving without asking InuYasha why he rejected Kagome. After what she deemed to be an adequate amount of time, she carefully broached the subject.

"So, InuYasha, why did you reject Kagome?"

Well...it sounded a lot more subtle in her head...

"Could you just leave it!" he snapped.

"No I can't just leave it. You hurt my friend and I want to know why."

"What does it matter? She could get any guy she wants. She could do a lot better than me."

"I'm not going to argue with you on that." Sango said. "But she didn't deserve to get her feelings hurt."

"I didn't mean to hurt her feelings. And trust me, I did her a favor. I ain't exactly Prince Charming, ya know."

Sango sighed. "Yeah, I've noticed, but...I don't think Prince Charming is who she's looking for. She's been on plenty of first dates with those types of guys and never a second... She really liked you, InuYasha."

"I know that. I like her too, okay? There's just...it's just complicated."

"I can accept that, I just want to understand." she said. "I've known Kagome for a long time and she never…" she stopped mid-sentence, pushing the thought away with a wave of her hand. "Nevermind." she said shaking her head.

"She never what?" InuYasha asked, unable to conceal his interest.

"Nothing." Sango said. "I really shouldn't be talking about this. I don't think she would want me talking about this with you."

"Keh! Fine by me." he pouted, poking at his food with his chopsticks. "So, is she...I guess she's still mad then, huh?" he asked sheepishly.

Sango shook her head in the negative. "She's not really mad...she's more upset, than mad. Well, she was upset anyway. To be perfectly honest, she hasn't brought it up again since Saturday. That could either mean that she's over it, or that it's still too sore of a subject to talk about. Personally, I'd say it's the latter, but…" she shrugged. "don't quote me on it."

He nodded before picking up a dumpling and stuffing it into his mouth.

Sango eyeballed the container of dumplings. "Those look good...I should have gotten some." she said leadingly.

"Yeah, you should have. They're the best in the city." InuYasha said, shoving another into his still-full mouth as if to taunt her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Maybe next time."

"Next time?" Miroku questioned, suddenly joining the conversation with barely-veiled enthusiasm.

Sango turned to him with a grin. "Sure...next time I'm in this neighborhood." she teased.

"Ah, I see. Well, just know, you have a standing invitation to join us." he said, and was surprised to hear no objection from his roommate.

When Sango turned back to her food, she found that a dumpling had mysteriously found its way onto her plate. She turned to thank InuYasha, only to find that he was now focused rather intently on the television screen.

"You know, I just might do that." she said with a smile, before picking up the dumpling with her chopsticks, taking a bite, and offering the other half to Miroku, which he eagerly accepted.

<<>>

A/N:

Ugh. Okay, full disclosure, this chapter was sort of filler-ish, I admit. I'm still stuck on the next chapter so I just wrote this tiny bit of unexpected Inu/San brOTP awakening.-_- I'm just lacking time...and motivation...and inspiration…

MM people, sorry for the huge delay. Last time I tried to upload MM had some tech stuff going on so that's why you got two chapters at once.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading!

Until next time!

StoatsandWeasels