InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Susan ❯ Susan ( Chapter 1 )

Susan

 

 

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

 

 

She just didn't get it. Why did they avoid her? Why, whenever she walked into a room, did they all stop talking and look at her like she was interrupting something? Susan dropped her textbooks onto the cafeteria table and sat down at their usual table. She could just make out Inuyasha as he and Peter dumped their trays and left through the back entrance. They had to have seen her coming. It made her so mad!

 

“Hey, Susan,” said Fenn pleasantly enough as he slid into the empty seat next to her with a tray full of lunch. “Aren't you eating?” He wasn't really a student, more like a visiting instructor, but he hung out with Inuyasha's crowd and sometimes that included Susan. At least he didn't seem to mind talking to her. And he was cute, too.

 

“Hi, Fenn,” she answered him, lighting up as she realized she wouldn't have to sit by herself after all. “I guess I was a little late today.” She nodded her head towards the exit. “Most of the group already left.” Something was different about Fenn, but she couldn't place it. At first, she had liked him but the others made it clear that Fenn was with Jennifer, so she had backed off. For a long time he was just a friend. But right before school ended last semester, Fenn had changed. He scared her a little with his intensity, and she could have sworn he looked at her that way once or twice, even though he was supposed to be Jenn's boyfriend.

 

“Slide over.” Jenn sat down with her tray, too. Oh well. Susan moved one seat over to make room. She was vaguely disappointed that it wasn't just Fenn at lunch today. She left the two of them at the table and went over to get herself something to eat.

 

“Is Inuyasha taking the car or going the overhead route?”

 

Susan heard Jenn as she returned with her tray. “What's the overhead route?” she asked. Jenn just looked at her blankly and didn't reply.

 

“What's the overhead route?” she asked Fenn this time. He would talk to her at least. Fenn smiled broadly and shrugged his shoulders. Susan gritted her teeth. This is what happened every time she tried to have a conversation with these people. They were so secretive! But she wasn't going to let it bother her. “So,” she changed the subject. “I got my hair cut yesterday. How do you like it?”

 

After lunch, Fenn and Jenn had a rehearsal, so Susan made her way to her next class by herself. She got it, Inuyasha was with Kagome, and Jennifer was with Fenn, and Peter was with Noriko. She was the odd one out, but still, they could try to include her a little bit more. Whatever happened to that other Japanese guy, Miroku? She'd only seen him around once or twice, always in the company of one of their little clique, so she could never get him all to herself. You'd think they'd at least let her have Miroku.

 

It really irritated her that they ignored her like that. There was something going on with them and she was determined to be let in on the secret, one way or another. Ever since Inuyasha and Kagome had come back from Japan, they seemed different. She couldn't put her finger on it, but weird stuff seemed to happen around them. She swung by their old apartment, but somebody else lived there now. And, try as she might, she hadn't been able to follow any of them to Inuyasha's new place.

 

Susan remembered the day Inuyasha drove up to campus in a brand new car. He hurried around to the passenger door and helped Kagome out, as if the girl weren't perfectly capable of opening a car door on her own.

 

“Inuyasha! When did you get a car?” she asked him, running over to his parking space when she saw his distinctive long white hair.

 

“I—uh—my brother gave it to me,” said Inuyasha, after glancing warily at Kagome.

 

His brother. Susan remembered him. Tall, same silvery white hair, quiet. She wondered if he was married. “Wow, that's nice. Maybe you could take me for a ride later?”

 

Again Inuyasha glanced at Kagome, and his cap wiggled on the top of his head. He saw Susan staring, and clamped a hand down over it to hold it in place. “Damn wind,” he muttered, although it had been a calm day. “Yeah, sure, maybe,” he said about the car ride, before he went off, one hand around Kagome's waist, leaving Susan standing by herself next to his car.

 

“What wind?” she thought to herself.

 

Then there was the time he'd forgotten his engineering textbook and they were having an open-book test that afternoon. “I'll have to go home and get it,” he told the lunch table in general. Susan watched him through the cafeteria window as he bypassed the parking lot and headed in the other direction. She blinked, and he was gone. One minute he was on the path leading to the classroom buildings, and the next minute, he was gone. Later, after class, she cornered him and asked him about it.

 

“I went home,” he replied, hefting the book in question to show her he had, indeed, gone to retrieve it.

 

“Without your car?” asked Susan skeptically. She didn't think he lived that close, or she would have found his place by now.

 

Inuyasha reddened. “I got a ride,” he explained.

 

Susan let it go. Maybe his brother was in town again.

 

Once, when she caught them all hanging around the library making plans for some activity or other, she attempted to invite herself along. “Where are we going?” she asked cheerily. She had no idea what it was all about, but it must be fun if they were all going to do it.

 

Fenn made room for her in their little circle, but Jenn absolutely bristled with hostility. What was her problem, anyway? Susan knew Jenn was going out with Fenn. It wasn't her fault if Fenn was being nice to her. He draped a friendly arm around her shoulders despite the disapproving looks the rest of the group shot him. Surprisingly, Kagome was glaring at Fenn, not her. She didn't think Kagome liked her very much either, although she was a little more polite about it. So she was surprised that Kagome seemed mad at Fenn. Couldn't he even stand next to her? Susan suddenly felt tired of all of it. “Never mind,” she said. “I've got to go.”

 

Susan turned to leave, stumbling a bit as her foot caught on the carpet, when Kagome gasped. “Fenn! Stop it!”

 

Susan swore she heard Inuyasha growl. When she turned back, Fenn was grinning sheepishly and Inuyasha was being restrained by Kagome's hands on his chest as he surged forward, intent, by the look of things, on tearing out Fenn's throat. Wait! Were those his teeth? Susan tried to get a better look but suddenly Peter, Noriko and Jenn were in front of her, blocking her view. They did that a lot, come to think of it.

 

No matter. Susan felt like she'd gotten her second wind. “Peter,” she gushed, as she took his arm, noting with satisfaction the outraged look Noriko gave her. “I have those notes you asked me for the other day.” Susan pretended to dig in her oversized bag for the missing notes. She waited until Peter relaxed his vigilance before darting around him to see what was going on with Inuyasha and Fenn.

 

Apparently, she had missed the whole thing. Inuyasha's eyes looked a little red but Fenn was smiling and had his hands raised in the air. Kagome stood between them still, but the earlier tension was gone. The group broke up shortly afterward. Susan never did find out where they were going.

 

She saw quite a bit of Peter and Inuyasha since they were all in the same engineering program. And wherever Inuyasha was, Kagome was never far behind. He waited for her outside her classes, and she waited for him outside his. Inuyasha had become, if possible, even more protective of Kagome since they had come back from Japan. Susan still didn't see what the attraction was between them. Kagome looked like she was putting on weight, too. It wasn't as if Susan had anything against Kagome, really, except that Susan liked Inuyasha, too. But she accepted the fact that Inuyasha only liked Kagome, and she was fine with it now. In fact, she and Kagome had even met a few times for some girl talk. That was a little awkward.

 

“I know we must seem strange to you sometimes,” Kagome said to her, as they sat outside the cafeteria at the same small table where she'd sat that day last semester with Inuyasha and Fenn. The three of them had gone out to Fenn's cottage that day, too, hadn't they? She'd almost forgotten about that. Funny they never went back.

 

“Strange? You mean because you're Japanese?”

 

“Kagome smiled. “Yes. Because we're Japanese. I know a lot of our customs must seem unusual to you, but I don't want you to be upset if you see something you don't understand. Come and ask me about it, if you're not sure, ok?”

 

Susan didn't know what Kagome was leading up to. Was she talking about some weird dating customs, because she hadn't noticed anything like that. Granted, Kagome and sometimes Noriko wore kind of unusual clothes, things she would think twice before putting on, but even those weren't overtly revealing—just some sort of Japanese fashion statement. Kagome should watch it, especially now that she had gained a few pounds. But Susan nodded, “Yeah, ok,” she agreed.

 

Actually, she was glad she'd had that little talk with Kagome a few days later when something unusual did happen.

 

It had started innocently enough. She overheard Peter ask Inuyasha if his brother was staying with them, so she interjected her own thoughts on the matter. “Your brother is in town, Inuyasha? Why didn't you tell me?”

 

Inuyasha looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would I tell you?” he asked bluntly, but she was used to his ways of speaking and chalked it up to his unfamiliarity with the English language. She smiled up at him anyway, and invited herself over to his house.

 

“Of course, you'll have to pick me up, since I don't know where your new place is,” Susan said pointedly, still a little miffed that she hadn't been able to figure it out yet. Inuyasha looked lost, and turned to Peter to help him out, but Peter made some excuse and left class early. After class, Susan latched onto Inuyasha's arm.

 

They were still walking arm in arm when Kagome met them a few minutes later. Kagome frowned, but didn't say anything. Inuyasha tried to extract his arm from Susan's to put it around Kagome, but she shrugged it off, leaving Inuyasha looking even more lost. Susan took pity on him, and stepped slightly off to the side. “So I'll meet you in the rear parking lot at—say, five o'clock?” She waved, and went off to her next class, leaving Inuyasha to explain to Kagome what had just taken place.

 

Later, only Kagome was waiting by the car in the parking lot.

 

“Where's Inuyasha?” asked Susan.

 

“He went home a different way. He told me you were coming over and asked me to give you a lift. It's pretty far.”

 

Susan didn't care how far it was. She was finally going to see where Inuyasha lived. “Will his brother be there?” she asked.

 

It took forever to get to Inuyasha's house. It was way out in the boondocks. She glanced around the garage when they pulled in. There were no other cars in here or in the driveway. How did Inuyasha and his brother get here? That was the first mystery.

 

They had a gorgeous house. She realized right off it must belong to Inuyasha's brother, not them, since they were only college students. How rich was he, she wondered. There was a girl inside the house, maybe around twelve or thirteen or so. Susan had to look at her twice, because the girl had honest-to-goodness pointed ears. Kagome noticed her looking, and took her arm to show her the deck. Meanwhile, the girl shook her hair in front of her face and literally ran out the front door. “Kagome?” asked Susan. “Did I just see--?”

 

Kagome pulled her along towards the deck where Inuyasha and Sesshomaru were waiting. “She's just a neighbor who helps us look after the house,” she explained.

 

Neighbor? There wasn't another house within miles! “But what about her ears?”

 

“What about them?” Inuyasha looked up over his glass and he didn't look very happy to see her. “Something wrong with her ears?”

 

Susan opened her mouth, thought better of it, and shook her head. Instead, she stuck her hand out towards the other man in the deck chair. “Hi, I'm Susan,” she introduced herself. “I don't know if you remember me, but I saw you last December when you came up to visit Inuyasha at school.”

 

Sesshomaru gazed coolly at her. “Susan,” he repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue as if he were tasting it. Then he turned to Inuyasha and began speaking rapidly in Japanese. Inuyasha answered him, and he seemed to get more and more agitated. Then Kagome came over and she started speaking in Japanese, too. Susan felt very much out of place and excused herself to use the bathroom. She took the opportunity to give herself a quick tour of the house.

 

There was a glassed-in sitting room towards the front of the house which looked out over the surrounding woods. Except for the small cleared space in front of the house, and the driveway off to the side, the woods came up almost right to the house itself. It made it pretty isolated. Susan didn't know if she would like being up here at night. There might be wild animals in those woods. She started as she detected movement among the trees. Shadows flitted from one spot to another. She worried about the little girl who had apparently gone home by herself.

 

One of the shadows detached itself from the others and solidified in front of the window. Susan couldn't help it—she screamed.

 

Inuyasha was the first to reach her. The part of her brain that was still functioning registered that he had appeared almost instantaneously. His hands were curled and his lips were pulled back. He did have long teeth! “What?” he asked, his eyes darting back and forth as he scanned for danger. She saw him sniff the air around her and was about to comment on it when Kagome ran up to her.

 

“I saw something out there!” Susan pointed out the full-length glass windows. Whatever it was, it was gone now. Kagome and Inuyasha exchanged glances, and Inuyasha visibly relaxed.

 

“It was probably a raccoon,” said Kagome. “We get lots of wild creatures out here.”

 

Inuyasha started to laugh, then cut himself off and strode towards the front door. “I'll check it out,” he said, and then he muttered something in Japanese that sounded like `yo ki' or something like that. Kagome tried to coax Susan away from the window, but she stubbornly turned back, wanting to see what Inuyasha was going to do. He was out there now, waving his arms wildly above his head and yelling something in Japanese. After a moment, he came stomping back inside. “All taken care of,” he said, and he returned to the deck out back where Sesshomaru still sat, not having bothered to check out the commotion.

 

Peter and the others drove up just then in Peter's old SUV. It hadn't started out to be a party, but Susan overheard Kagome tell Jenn that Inuyasha sort of invited Susan to come over, and it snowballed from there. Susan smiled to herself.

 

Kagome's cell phone rang, and she said to the person on the other end, “Ok, just a minute.” Her eyes closed briefly, then she added, “It should be ok now.” Susan didn't think anything of it until Fenn showed up a few minutes later. He glanced over at her as she sat next to Inuyasha's brother, Sesshomaru. Kagome was talking quietly to Fenn now, and pointing towards Susan every now and then. Did Kagome think she was stupid? She knew they were talking about her.

 

Inuyasha's brother was hot, even though he didn't say much. He gazed out over the forest below the deck and let the conversations flow around him. Susan thought that perhaps his English wasn't all that good, and that's why he tended to be so quiet.

 

Dinner wasn't as much fun as she'd thought it would be. Sesshomaru didn't talk at all, and the others started and stopped so many conversations that after a while she stopped paying attention.

 

“. . . due in February . . .” Noriko was saying. “Will you go home?”

 

Susan snapped back to attention. What was due in February? Who was going home? She glanced curiously around the table, which had suddenly grown quiet. Kagome smiled kindly at her and offered her more coffee. Slowly, conversation started up again, mostly boring stuff about school and friends. Susan wandered back outside to sit on the deck with Sesshomaru, who had come back out as soon as dinner was over. She could still see inside, and the others at the table suddenly laughed.

 

Sesshomaru glanced over at her once, then went back to staring out at the blackness beyond the deck.

 

“How can you see anything?” she asked him. The darkness was like a blanket over the entire forest.

 

“Are you ready to go home?” he asked instead in flawless English.

 

She wasn't upset or anything. It had been fun, hanging out with her friends. But maybe she was getting tired. Susan looked inside again. They were still talking, still laughing. “I need a ride,” she said.

 

Sesshomaru stood. “I'll take you,” he said. He came closer and closer. The last thing Susan remembered was seeing Inuyasha, Fenn and the others all crowded around the sliding glass door trying to get out to the deck. Were they coming to say good-bye to her, she wondered as she fell asleep.

 

Susan woke up in her own bed the next morning with no recollection of how she had gotten there. Had she invited Sesshomaru in? She jumped out of bed and ran to the living room of the apartment, half hoping to see him there. But she was alone.

 

She showered, wondering if Sesshomaru had possibly taken advantage of her. If he hadn't, she wondered if he would, if she asked him. The doorbell rang as Susan was getting ready for class. It was Sesshomaru with two cups of coffee. Susan smiled delightedly and invited him in.

 

An hour later, his coffee still untouched, Sesshomaru rose to go. He had explained to her that he had taken her home when she fell asleep out on the deck.

 

“Of course I drove you,” he replied gently after she admitted she didn't remember the car ride. “How else would I have brought you home?”

 

Impulsively, Susan hugged him. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.” He had been nice to her, really nice. It was a good feeling. “'Bye.”

 

Sesshomaru stopped in the doorway. “Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?”

 

“Just me? Not Inuyasha and Kagome and the others?”

 

“Just you.”

 

“I'd like that,” Susan replied. She shut the door and leaned against it. Finally, something was turning out right.

 

She noted with satisfaction the way Inuyasha's mouth dropped open when Sesshomaru came for her after class. He attempted to talk Japanese to his brother, but Sesshomaru replied in English, for Susan's benefit, she was sure. He was such a nice guy.

 

“I asked Susan to have dinner with me,” he said shortly. “I will not harm her.”

 

Susan thought that was a strange way of putting things. Sesshomaru's English was much better than she had originally thought, but perhaps it wasn't all that perfect, after all. He must have meant he would take care of her. Inuyasha seemed mollified, however. He watched them, frowning slightly, until they turned the corner.

 

Sesshomaru brought her to a nice restaurant and insisted she order the most expensive thing on the menu. He ordered a bottle of wine, too. This was definitely going in the right direction. He was so handsome, so mysterious, so rich. And he was nice to her. Too bad he wasn't Inuyasha or even Fenn or Peter. She sighed.

 

“They have their reasons for keeping their distance,” said Sesshomaru, correctly interpreting her mood. “It's not you.”

 

Yeah, that was so cliché it was almost funny. It was her. She knew it was. She didn't mean to come on so strong, but it was just the way she was. Why couldn't just one of her so-called friends accept her the way she was? She found herself pouring her frustrations out to Sesshomaru, who turned out to be a very good listener. “I must seem so desperate,” she confessed with a small laugh. “I mean, they obviously try to avoid me, but still I follow them around. I just don't get what's so wrong with me.” To her dismay, tears filled her eyes. She never cried. Not about things like this. It hadn't been easy for her. At first, she commuted to school from home so she hadn't made the same connections as the other kids. Then later, maybe she tried too hard. “I don't know,” she said.

 

“It's not you,” Sesshomaru repeated, putting his hand over hers. She noticed how slender his fingers were as they curled around her own. “My—brother's—friends, they have seen some things that they shouldn't, and it could be dangerous for them if the information got out.”

 

Susan's eyes widened. She had heard about things like this. People who had witnessed something terrible and had to move far away in order to be safe. “What about Inuyasha? And you?”

 

“It's even more important nobody gets too close to either Inuyasha or myself, for their own protection,” said Sesshomaru enigmatically. “Do you understand now?”

 

Susan thought she did. Inuyasha and the others were under orders to keep their distance from anybody who wasn't `in the know.' That's why they didn't open up in front of her. It explained so much. She was curious, though, about just what terrible secret they were all carrying. Was it a murder? Drugs? “How did the others find out?” she wanted to know.

 

Sesshomaru tightened his lips and his eyes took on a faraway look that scared Susan just a little. “I was not pleased when I found out that Inuyasha had revealed his secret to them,” he admitted. “But—what was done is done. They are targets now, Susan.” He let go of her hand, much to disappointment. “I do not want you to become a target too.”

 

Susan nodded earnestly. “But I can still talk to them, can't I?” she asked. “I understand now why they can't hang out with me so openly, and it makes so much more sense now why they are always hanging out together. They can't let the wrong people know they're here, especially Inuyasha, right?” She glanced up at Sesshomaru. “He didn't break the law, did he?”

 

Sesshomaru smiled slightly. “No, not as far as I know,” he replied. “He cannot let his true self be seen,” he went on. “That would be dangerous for a lot of people.”

 

“I get it,” said Susan. Witness Protection. “I won't say anything,” she promised.

 

Sesshomaru leaned back. “Good. Dessert?”

 

It was hard backing off from her friends without letting them know that's what she was doing. Fenn gave her a few hard stares after the first couple of times she brushed him off. After all, he had been the friendliest of the group towards her. He finally came up to her one day while she was eating lunch with some of the girls from her history class. She'd been making an effort to make new friends.

 

“Can we talk?” he asked her. Susan looked around, but she didn't see any suspicious strangers lurking around, so she nodded, gathering up her lunch things and following him outside.

 

“I know what you're doing,” he said, when they were alone. “Are you sure you're Ok with it?”

 

“What do you mean?” Susan asked, pretending to be confused. “I'm not doing anything.”

 

“Yes, you are. Did Sesshomaru tell you to keep away from us? Did he tell you why?”

 

“He told me what was going on. I understand everything now. I won't tell anybody, don't worry. Fenn, don't make this harder on me. I'll always love you guys, but I want you to be safe, and I don't want you to have to suddenly move away. So, I'm your friend, but just a friend, ok?”

 

“Move away? Just what did Sesshomaru tell you?” Fenn stared intently into her eyes for a few seconds until she actually felt a little dizzy. Then he grinned. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Susan, you're a very good friend.” He patted her on the back. “See you around.”

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Inuyasha stared after Sesshomaru, wondering if he should go after him. What was his brother thinking? Inuyasha had looked up from the table just as he felt the surge in Sesshomaru's youki, and he saw Sesshomaru rise up into the night air with Susan slumped in his arms. “Sesshomaru!” he shouted, when he finally got the sliding glass door open.

 

Fenn touched his shoulder. “Let them go,” he said softly. “She's just sleeping.”

 

The next day, he was astonished all over again when Sesshomaru took Susan out to dinner. She was human! She was Susan! What was Sesshomaru up to?

 

“What are you up to?” he demanded later that night, when Sesshomaru had returned, alone, to his hotel room.

 

Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow. “You wanted that girl to pay less close attention to you. I made sure that she would.”

 

“What did you do?” asked Inuyasha, suspicious. Fenn had tried that once, and Kagome made him take his illusion off Susan, saying that it interfered with her free will. Of course, that just made everything else harder. Susan was beginning to notice things about them again.

 

“I? Nothing. I just told her the truth. She will choose to distance herself from all of you now.”

 

“The truth? I thought the whole point was not to tell her the truth.”

 

“There is truth, and there is truth. I did not mention youkai at all.”

 

Inuyasha was confused, but if Sesshomaru said he had solved the problem of Susan, then he was glad to take him at his word. It wasn't that Susan wasn't a nice kid, she was. But some humans weren't ready to find out about youkai yet. They all agreed that Susan was one of those humans, at least right now.

 

“I'm relieved,” said Kagome later when Inuyasha told her about it. “I thought for sure that day at the library Susan was going to see you and Fenn as youkai. That Fenn! Did he think I wouldn't notice what he was doing to her? And you didn't help matters any by attacking him right in front of her! I'm just glad the others were there to shield you from her sight long enough for you both to get your youki under control.”

 

“Yeah,” said Inuyasha. “And I'm relieved she didn't find out we were all going to Japan for the wedding in December. It's bad enough the others all want to come!”

 

“Inuyasha!”

 

 

The End