InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Last Girlfriend ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

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

Disclaimer:Own Inu-chan I do not.
Own Itokuzu-pi(Sesshoumaru) I do not.
Own Miroku-san and Sango-san?
.......... -.- I don't and I wish I did.

Additional Disclaimer: I don't own author Valerie Frankel's book "The Girlfriend Curse", from which this story I've made a parody of(somewhat). So nobody sue me, or accuse me of plagiarism if you've read the book. I'm just altering some stuff, but the storyline remains indifferent all the same.

X) Oh yeah. The names of the characters, locations and events are plain fictitious.

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"Sango-chan, you haven't changed a bit!"

Sumire Ichigawa, sixty-seven, Rin's assistant at Kinmen Cosmetics greeted the young woman as she entered Rin's office.

"I saw you last Wednesday." Sango told her, leaning a hip on the older woman's desk, eyeing the closed office door. It was Tuesday evening. Sango had just finished work, and had come directly to her friend's Union Square office, as she'd been instructed.

"You need to trim those bangs, dear." said Sumire. The older woman had been with Rin for five years, and an employee at Kinmen since the company was founded. She was a natural for the publicity department. Decades of using Kinmen cosmetics had left Sumire with the complexion of a thirty-five-year old. She was the one who hadn't changed a bit. Not since 1960.

She turned her barely lined mouth into a smile and said, "I've been working with the investigator Rin hired. I must say, you've dated some interesting and successful men. I'm sorry none of them worked out."

Sango arched one of her thin eyebrows. "You must have tracked down the wrong bunch of guys."

"We got the right ones." Sumire assured her. "They all spoke very highly of you. They called you pivotal in their lives."

Pivotal now.

"They weren't pivotal for me." Sango told her. "Just one after the other, a conga line of bad choices."

The older woman threw her a look of sympathy, topped with sugar. "Maybe the next one will be right. You can go in. They're waiting for you."

Sango swallowed hard. She held her breath, and pushed open the door to her friend's office, bracing herself for the wave of stench sure to hit her once she stepped inside.

From behind her ornate mahogany desk with the hand-carved roses and vines, Rin sat in her chair, and she beamed. "Sango-chan, right on time!"

She pointed to a buxom brunette with brown eyes in a plush armchair and introduced her. "This is Kagome Higurashi."

Sango nodded politely to the woman, who returned the gesture just as eagerly. To Rin, she gasped, "Suffocating. Can't breathe. Need air."

Rin sighed and rose to open a nearby window at a crack. Rin was dressed, as usual, in a silk suit, this one the color of pale tangerines. Rin loved silk, and silk adored Rin, clinging to her bust, gliding across the flat landscape of her midsection and streaming down her long legs.

The brunette Kagome was just as striking, a Technicolor wonder in shiny Day-Glo pink knee-high boots, an orange denim jacket, a yellow ruffle skirt and a pomegranate vinyl tote in her lap. Sango, in her usual jeans, T-shirt and chocolate brown suede jacket felt like a drab mouse compared to these two peacocks.

Sango took a seat on the windowsill, and inhaled the city air. "That's better, thanks."

"I'm so used to it, I forget it's there." Rin said, referring to the smell.

So many of the Kinmen products were scented--rose, sandalwood, jasmine, lavender--and Rin had piles of samples in her closet, on the floor, on her desk. In small doses, the scents were calming and uplifting. Cumulatively, it was nauseating. Absolutely nauseating.

"Shall I start?" the woman Kagome asked.

Rin nodded to her. "Kagome-san runs a company called insearchof.com. For a fee, she can find anything."

Kagome agreed with a nod. "Usually things. First-edition books, vintage dresses, estate jewelry. My partner, Inuyasha Kiyasuki, does computer searches. I hunt in stores and I have a nationwide network of antique vendors on retainer."

"And these antique vendors had my ex-boyfriends on a shelf?" Sango asked, looking directly at her.

Perhaps the brunette was easygoing and liked the woman's remark, because then, she smiled humorously and honestly, explaining further in detail for Sango. "People searches are done on the Internet. Inuyasha is highly skilled at information gathering. He can gain access to otherwise secure websites."

"Therefore, he's a hacker?" Sango inquired.

"Intelligence technician." Kagome corrected.

"Seven men on the list." Sango decided to cut to the chase. "How many are married?"

"Six." declared Kagome, consulting her notes on a pink Lucite clipboard. "Kouga Sueyoshi is engaged to be married in June."

"I don't suppose you found out when they got married?" Sango asked her.

"On an average," Kagome lifted her gaze from her clipboard to her, "within six months of breaking up with you."

Sango's lungs stopped functioning for a second. "Six months?!"

"Daisuke-san didn't until nine months later. But Onizuka-san married a woman two months after your breakup. The rest were all five, six, seven months later. Regardless of how long it took, they all married the next woman they slept with."

"I can't believe it...!" Sango gasped, completely aghast.

"I have a flow chart here." Kagome went on, passing sheets of pink paper to Sango and Rin. "I created it based on my interviews. Which, by the way, were endless. Every one of these guys would not shut up. They would say one thing, and then repeat it five times as if English were my second language."

"I agreed to pay a flat fee." Rin told her, frowning. "Not an hourly rate."

Kagome shrugged. "Just doing my job."

Sango read the page:

One week post-breakup
Glad it's over.
Feeling of pressure gone.

Three weeks
Emotions now level,
wonder what went wrong
with Sango.

Six weeks
New course of self-reflection.
Thinks of Sango as catalyst.

Seven weeks
Wants to contact Sango,
but sticks with her policy
of no contact.

Eight weeks
Sees self-sacrifice of
not calling a virtue.
Gets into idea of thinking of
another's feelings.

Ten weeks
Hooked on new
thoughtful nature.
Resolves to be a better
person in all areas of life.

Twelve weeks
Serendipitously meets a new
woman. Grateful for fresh
start.

Fifteen weeks
New relationship going well.
Sees it as a shot at
redemption.

Twenty weeks
Engaged, happy.
Credits Sango for his
changed-man status.

Twenty-five weeks
Married. Content.
Thinks fondly of Sango.

The paper shook in Sango's hand as she stared wide-eyed at it. "This can't be true of all of them!"

"Kisho-san is less grateful to you than the others." Kagome informed her. "But he still owes you money. He says it's in the mail."

"My no-contact policy has been my doom!" realized Sango, finally having found the puncture hole. "If I had just let them call me, I might be married to one of them now!"

Rin's eyes had stopped scanning the chart and were now fixed on the troubled woman with a frown. "Not necessarily. Look at Kouga-kun! You were open to contact with him. And besides, if you got back together with any of them, they'd have been the same jerks who dumped you the first time! Being away from you is what changed them!"

"I guess this makes you the Accident Bridesmaid." Kagome told her.

"I've never been a bridesmaid, not once." Sango replied numbly.

"Then you're the Accidental Catalyst. The Accidental Watershed."

"The Accidental Train Wreck!" Sango all but shouted in frustration at herself, and at her stupidity. "The Perpetual Girlfriend, the Chronic Girlfriend, etc., etc., etc.! I suffer from chronic girlfriend fatigue syndrome!"

"I'll tell you what you are!" Rin tried in an attempt to lessen her friend's anger. "An excellent friend who deserves better! Besides that, you, Sango-chan, are the Ultimate Girlfriend!" she told her in all honesty, offering to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"Ultimate as in "last", Rin-chan. Not ultimate, as in "best"." Sango muttered miserably.

Rin shrugged. "Why not both?"

"The Ultimate Girlfriend." Kagome repeated with a thoughtful gaze to the ceiling. "I like it. But I'm not married to it."

"Don't say married!" Sango moaned.

"It's not all bad." Kagome tried to reassure her. "You've made a huge impact on the lives of seven men, their wives, and their kids. If it weren't for you, ten children wouldn't be alive today."

"Ten children?" asked Sango in disbelief. "Not Onizuka!"

Kagome consulted her notes. "Twin girls, age two. Named Kongou and Shinju."

Sango hopped off the windowsill and paced. If she could have, she'd have been running in circles. "You're right! I'm going to think positively about this! I have a dark gift! I'm a miracle cure for lame men! I should start a business! Date me for a year, dump me, never speak to me again, and within six months, you'll meet the woman of your dreams!"

"You'd make a fortune!" Rin nodded grinning, now wanting a piece of the action. "I'd handle the PR."

"I thought you might want to talk to a few of these men yourself." Kagome handed Sango a bound pile of pink paper. She flipped through the mini dossier of her exes. Names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses complete.

"Excellent idea! You should definitely talk to a few of them. Catharsis. Cleaning." Rin told her. "At the very least, you can ask them if they have single friends to fix you up with!"

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The brunette and Sango walked out of Kinmen together. By the time they got down the elevator and onto the street, it was raining, which wasn't a surprise in April. It fit Sango's mood. She'd get a taxi, go home, crawl under her covers and never come out in broad daylight ever again.

Just then, Kagome turned to her. "Can I have your card? I might be able to throw some business your way."

Sighing, Sango fished in her purse for a Georgia Designs card.

Kagome read it. "I do a lot of wedding searches. Finding antique gowns. Caterers. Florists."

That was the last twig. For the offended woman, it was.

"Look, Kagome-san." Sango confronted the brunette. "I'm not a damn florist, okay? I'm not going to weave roses in someone's chuppah or cut star lilies for her centerpiece. I'm an artist. I paint with organic materials. The day I design a corsage is the day I stick my head in an oven!"

Kagome's brown eyes widened in alarm. Sango stared back at her, defiantly. She'd had enough injury for one day. She didn't need the insult too. Calling her a florist was more than enough.

The brunette continued to look at her for a few more seconds, before her surprised face melted into one of sympathy and understanding. "I understand. This has been a pretty rough day for you, after all."

She offered a generous smile to the woman, who stared into her eyes, the lashes long as spider legs. It was true. Sango was having a rough day, at the end of a rough decade. But Kagome hadn't deserved the attack. Her show of kindness despite Sango's rudeness was rare in Tokyo, rare anywhere. The unexpected sympathy from a stranger knocked something loose in Sango's defenses, and she started to cry. Tears heavy and wide, bullet-shaped as they fell, lost in the river of rain on the sidewalk.

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Two hours later, Kagome and Sango were drinking their fourth refill of coffee at Starbucks on Sakura St. and 18th, sitting at the bar facing the window. Sango continued to snuffle and hiccup, the residual effects of a long, hard sob.

Kagome sighed next to her. "I didn't think I'd ever get married, or want to, but then I met Inuyasha, and he loved my antique purse collection. Funny, coming from a guy like him. How could I resist?"

Sango turned to her with curiosity. "You're married to your business partner?"

The woman smiled. "We live in my apartment and work out of his. We're neighbors. That's how we met."

"It won't happen for me that way." Sango moaned. "I'm beginning to believe it won't happen for me, ever. I may be one of those women who stays single."

They were both silenced by that depressing statement. But only briefly.

"What are you searching for?" Kagome suddenly thought of asking.

Sango sighed deeply. "Love. Happiness. Joy."

"I can't find those on Google." Kagome said. "Give me something I can get online or in a store. I'll run an object search for you. Anything. Maybe a toy from childhood? Something nostalgic?"

Sango considered this. What she missed from childhood was a feeling, not an object. The feeling that she fit--perfectly, if not harmoniously--with her parents and brother in their Higashi 86th apartment. Although she'd lived at the Momoiro Street one-bedroom for ten years. Sango wouldn't call it home. At seven-hundred square feet, the place felt too big for one person, hanging on her like a baggy, itchy sweater. But at the same time, it was suffocating, lacking the sunlight for her to breathe and grow.

"I'm shriveling on the vine here." she finally said. "I have been for years."

"Maybe you're a square." Kagome told her.

"Maybe you're a fashion victim." countered Sango.

"I'm definitely that." Kagome gave a little laugh. "I meant, maybe you're a square peg, Sango. And Tokyo is a round hole."

Signaling the waiter for the check, Sango sighed and dropped her head in her open hand, and watched the rain as it continued to pour outside the window.

"I could never leave."

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