InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Ramblings of a Troubled Mind ❯ In Which the Plot Thickens, Buahahahaha ( Chapter 4 )

Things were finally beginning to look up. At least, for Hojo they were. Sango was currently relating some of her exploits to him as he leaned back in his chair to let the drunken haze take over his brain. “…And then he pushed me into a fishpond, without realizing that the fish could recognize the person who fed them and wouldn't bite me.” She swallowed another mouthful of the gin and Coke in front of her. “Of course, they'd bite him, especially after I hit him with one.” Hojo burst out laughing and she smiled, the smug smile of someone who always wins her battles and can hit people with live fish.

 

“This is fun,” he said finally, still smiling. “We should do stuff like this more often. Or even at all. Once a year, or something, on the anniversary of Kagome's almost-wedding.”

 

“Oh, more often than that,” she protested. “This is pretty much my only excuse to get drunk, and I'd like to do it more often…that is, if you don't mind having a crazy woman smashed out of her mind on your hands.”

 

Hojo looked at her face for awhile and then smiled to himself and looked away out the window. “Better my hands than somebody else's,” he answered, glancing back at her. She flushed faintly and attempted to change the subject: “So what do you do?”

 

“Not much, really.” He went back to watching the way the dimmed lights fell on her skin; she made everything look better, somehow, like the light was the blessing of God and this dingy bar was some kind of temple. Which was odd. He'd come here for the sole reason that it was about as far from a temple as you could get without building a bar on the place a temple used to be. I'm falling in love, he thought. Oh, shit. “My family has a tradition of playing the stock market and winning. We're all very lucky.”

 

Sango snorted. “Wish I were lucky.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Oh, nothing,” she said evasively, watching her finger trace around the rim of her glass like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “Just that I've been having problems lately with some things—nothing really serious, mind you, just—annoyances, I guess—and if I, or rather my family, had just a little extra luck, I wouldn't have had any problems whatsoever.” She flashed him a smile as shiny as it was fake. “But enough about me, let's talk about you.”

 

“Me is boring,” Hojo protested. “What kind of problems?”

 

Sango sighed. “Like I said, nothing particularly bad, just…lots of little things. My mom lost her job due to downsizing, and then the article my father was supposed to be getting published in this huge big-deal journal was taken out because someone else was willing to pay the publishers to include his article instead. Then my little brother's fiancée decided she was actually a lesbian and ran off with the maid, who as it turns out had been stealing my mother's jewelry and selling it on the black market…” She rested her decidedly intoxicated head on the counter. “He's now on antidepressants—Kohaku is, my little brother—so I'm pretty much supporting my entire family on a job that doesn't pay all that well.”

 

He took another sip of his beer. “That really sucks,” Hojo finally stated, because it did and there wasn't that much else you could say about it.

 

She snorted a little. “Yeah, doesn't it?”

 

Her hand lay on the counter beside her head. She didn't pull away when he wrapped his fingers around hers, and he took that as a good sign. Later, when he was dropping her off, he'd kiss her, and she'd kiss back; but for now, they just sat there, holding hands.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Sesshomaru paced the hardwood floor of his bedroom angrily. “How could he do this?” the taiyoukai growled darkly. “How could he disgrace our family like this? After everything we went through, how could he just throw away all my years of ceaseless care for some stupid human?”

 

“He's in love,” his wife protested. “And in case you don't remember, I'm a human. Are you honestly going to tell your wife that she means less to you just because of genetics?”

 

He kept pacing, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “I'm sorry,” he said abruptly. “I meant no offense.”

 

She smiled, and slid off the bed to wrap her arms around his neck and stop him from pacing. “I took none,” she assured. “I meant only to point out that love doesn't choose who we want it to. It chooses who will be best for us.”

 

He placed his clawed hands on her waist and pulled her closer. “Midoriko,” he let out softly just before he kissed her, “what would I do without you?”

 

“Blow up the entire country of Japan, most likely,” she laughed under his lips.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kagome was on her fourth round of shots and feeling decidedly light-headed.

 

“You're sure good at this, for a woman,” Hiten slurred, watching the now-standing woman with darkening eyes. ((AN: Have never been drunk or heard people slur from being drunk except on TV. Ergo, don't know what it sounds like. Ergo, can't write it.)) “Are you sure you don't want to take it easy?”

 

She cut her eyes at him and slammed her hand on the bar for another round. “Oh, you have no idea what I want,” she stated, her voice perfectly clear.

 

Hiten's hand snuck around her hips. “I think I can make some…educated guesses,” he said, his voice quickly losing its drunken slur. “My first guess is that you're drinking to get over a man.” His voice was right in her ear and his body pressed to the back of hers. She shivered involuntarily against him. “My second guess is that this man does not need to forget you.” She attempted to turn her head and glare at him and failed; Hiten already held her chin in his long, tan, oh-so-warm fingers, which now slid up to caress her cheek.

 

“And your third?” she asked breathlessly. Good Kagome had never felt like this before. She'd been Good Kagome for so long that she'd forgotten what it was like to feel attracted to someone without feeling incredibly guilty about it. Hell, given that Inuyasha was…well…what he was, she'd forgotten what it was like to have a man attracted to her.

 

“We'll be seeing a lot more of each other in the very near future,” he whispered sensually, kissing the shell of her ear and sucking on the lobe.

 

She spun to kiss him and found his lips already there.

 

It looked like Inuyasha was quickly being replaced. Kagome knew she should feel bad about this, or at least a little sad. But the truth was that what with this new man kissing her in a way Inuyasha had never even tried to get close to she couldn't feel anything but his lips. And she didn't even care.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Miroku looked up from what he was doing at the sound of loud banging on the hotel room door. “Why'd you stop?” Inuyasha gasped breathlessly, pulling one hand up from where it had been twisted in the sheets to attempt to drag his lover's head back to its former position.

 

“We have a visitor, love,” Miroku pointed out obviously as the banging sounded again. He picked up his pants from the floor and put them on as he walked to the door. It vibrated and looked about to buckle as whoever was on the other side banged a third time. “All right, all right, keep your shirt on,” he yelled, “I'm almost—K-Kouga? My God, what happened to you?”

 

Inuyasha walked up behind him, looking annoyed at the interruption. “Kouga, you bastard, what do you want at this time of night?”

 

“Your shit-head of a brother beat me to a pulp just because I mentioned you and Miroku,” Kouga growled. “I expect some kind of payback.”

 

Miroku snorted. “Kouga, knowing you, I'd suspect something more along the lines of you showing up and rubbing it in his face that his technical heir so far is a queer.” Kouga looked shocked at Miroku's use of the politically incorrect word. “Kouga, I'm gay, I'm allowed to say whatever I want about homosexuals,” he sighed. “Just…go away, okay?”

 

Kouga looked smug. “Can't. I was staying at your place, but that's out, at least for a week or so. I need somewhere to crash at least until tomorrow night.”

 

Inuyasha pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to avoid the headache that was coming on just at the sight of the wolf demon. “At the risk of being told something I really, really, really don't want to know, what happens tomorrow night?”

 

Kouga grinned lasciviously. “Got a hot date. I figure, the odds of her turning down someone like me are, what, next to—“

 

Inuyasha turned around to go back to bed and Miroku said firmly, “Goodbye, Kouga.” He gently slammed the door in the other male's face and turned to follow Inuyasha, carefully ignoring the spluttering protests coming from behind the door. That should hold him for at least a day. You never knew, maybe he'd sleep on a park bench somewhere and wake up a changed man.

 

…Or not.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Rin and Shippo had moved to the couch and had the TV tuned to some channel that neither of them would remember in the morning. He had one arm around her waist and one supporting her head as they kissed in just about every way possible. It didn't get much farther than that. They were just kissing.

 

“What are we going to do when your dad gets home?” Rin asked, a smirk crossing her face. He laughed and bent down to kiss her again.

 

“The mall?” he asked, dipping down to kiss her. “McDonald's?” Kiss. “Bus stops?” Long kiss. “Park benches?” Kiss. “Anywhere—does it really matter?” Very, very long kiss that became several kisses that didn't actually stop for five minutes, though they occasionally had to pause to breathe.

 

She smiled as he brushed her lips with a finger. “You're beautiful,” he said casually, as if mentioning a formula in math or a fact in history: something that was too obvious to be disputed by anyone. “Especially now.”

 

Rin couldn't help but laugh at that one. “Why? Because my hair is all messy where it's coming out of the bun? Because my clothes are all wrinkled where you've been squishing them? Because I've probably got lip gloss on my forehead at this point?”

 

“Because of all of that,” Shippo said without shame. “Because as far as I know, this is the first time you've been like this, and because I made you like this.

 

Rin laughed again. “Gosh, you demons are all the same,” she said, still chuckling.

 

“No, all guys are like this,” he protested, kissing her again.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Some miles away, lording it over his extreme network of security cameras, a force of evil lurked in the shadows. Okay, not shadows, as such, because monitors give off a slightly unbelievable amount of light. Let us just say that were there no monitors, there would be shadows.

 

“Now it is time,” he hissed. “I will finally get my revenge…”

 

One of his minions leaned against the wall, looking at her nails. “And this is, what, the fifth time you've tried to get your revenge in the past ten years? How many times has it worked, exactly?”

 

The as-yet-unnamed owner of the revenge-craving voice in the would-be existent shadows hesitated. “I…can't remember,” he admitted finally. “Ever since that last one where I got thrown against the wall everything's been rather fuzzy.”

 

“Hm, yes,” said Kagura. “And it doesn't much help that you're getting senile, does it.”

 

“No—I AM NOT GETTING SENILE!” he roared, grabbing his walker and turning to face her. “I am merely losing control of my body!”

 

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Sure you are,” she said kindly. “Admittedly I don't really care, but…whatever you say, Dad.”

 

“I told you not to call me that!” he hissed. “Company could arrive at any minute! Do you know what it would do to my reputation if any of the other supervillains were to find out that my best henchmen are my children?”

 

Kagura gave him a Look. She didn't really care. She just wanted to go out clubbing or something, maybe meet a nice guy, hook up with him, get married, have kids, lead a nice, normal, well-paying life…But no, of course not. Her father had to go psychotic every time someone even attempted to mention the Taishos and then it was all revenge plans and get-even-quick schemes and she was stuck in the lair for weeks at a time… “Now go get your sister! I need to see if any of them know about my plan!”

 

She winced. “Not the demon child again, Dad, you used her once this week, can't you just let her stay in her room like she wants to?” Kanna was probably a perfectly nice girl, but then, it was buried under so much shit that honestly, who wanted to find out? She'd knock you out sooner than look at you, and then when you woke up she'd be sitting just by your head staring at you like some kind of bird of prey, explaining that she was doing experiments.

 

“GO!”

 

She sighed and trudged out of the room, down the dark and actually quite shadowy stairs. Sometimes her father made her entirely too nervous.

 

Author's Note: Meh, well, sorry this took so long. As far as I know no one's reading it anyway. I wonder if I could make people read it by posting another chapter…hm…Review if you want me to stay alive. On second thought, review if you like, hate, love, or loathe the story.