InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Last Girlfriend ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

[ 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.

XD Ev-ryone! Please, don't flame me after what you read(that is, about Kuranosuke)! Just accept it like I am, in a very VERY condescending way!

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"Dinner in an hour." Shima announced before leaving the women in their suite to shower and change after their hike.

"Black tie?" asked Sango.

"Hardly." answered Shima, already halfway down the steps.

Sango suspected that there hadn't been a black tie event in Sapporo in this decade--or any. The official Hokkaido dress code could be Casual Everyday, or A Kimono for All Seasons.

Freshly showered and powdered, Sango milked her lighter-than-a-marshmallow mood. She chose her red sundress, acutely aware that in minutes she'd see Kuranosuke Takeda, and he would see her. Red was the only color for the situation. Plus, she wanted to show off her legs. Unlike every other female in the state, Sango's thighs were as smooth and hairless as plastic. Tonight, she would forego her usual three concealers and gloss. After what she'd seen in the mirror on the mountaintop, she decided she didn't need it.

Keiko and Sara, also in sundresses, were in the bathroom, fighting for mirror space. Sango watched them apply copious foundation, blush, lipstick and eye shadow, and said, "You two completely missed the point on the mountaintop."

"I got the point." was Keiko's response. "I'm just not brave enough to take it."

"If I don't wear make-up, I'm transparent." Sara added. "You can see right through me."

The brunette was a paler shade of white.

"Have you met the male Inward Bounders yet?" Sango then asked.

"We have." Keiko answered. "Wine and cheese meet-and-greet yesterday, orientation day. About an hour, but most of it was taken up listening to Shima-chan go over the course schedule. After that, Miroku gave the men a tour of the basement. We hardly got to talk to the guys. Nonetheless," she grinned, lips smacking, "I have one scoped out."

"What's his name?" Sango asked in a nonchalant tone, hoping against hope that it wasn't Kuranosuke.

Sara looked at the chestnut pointedly. "Has to be Karo-san."

Keiko laughed. "Was I that obvious?"

"He has a certain, smoldering appeal."

"What about the others?" Sango asked.

Keiko shrugged. "Kojiro-kun is fortyish. An insurance wonk from Akita. Not the kind of guy who grabs you by the libido. There's a guy named Kuranosuke, also from Akita. He's great-looking--sublime body--but he seems shiftless. I don't trust him."

"We're not here to hit on men." Sara reminded. "I'm not anyway. You two can do what you want."

Sango felt herself relax. Her fellow female In-mates weren't after Kuranosuke. Was he shiftless? She hadn't thought so. He seemed sweet, passionate, searching to answer life's grander questions. Sango leaned on one foot, and then the other. Both bore blisters(she would have to buy a pair of proper hiking boots). But she didn't mind the pain. Not when the prospect of rubbing, bumping and pressing against Kuranosuke loomed. If he was receptive(and why wouldn't he be?), they could arrange a late-night rendezvous. The thought of sneaking around with him in the dark made her nipples hard as cherry pits.

Good, she thought. She hoped they'd stay that way.

Sara was looking at her strangely. "Are you okay, Sango-san? You're smirking."

Shaking her head, Sango replied. "I'm fine."

"Actually, you know who was surprisingly hot?" Keiko snapped her compact closed.

"Who?" Sango hoped she wasn't changing her tune about Kuranosuke.

"The director, Miroku Yoshihiko." Keiko winked. "If you like the perverted intellectual type. And I hate perverted."

"I hate intellectual." Sara said.

"Shall we go?" asked Sango, who didn't want to hear about Miroku Yoshihiko(despite her surprise in hearing he was attractive) when she had her heart(and nipples) trained on Kuranosuke Takeda.

Keiko and Sara appraised their mirror faces one last time, and the three women headed for the stairs. As they walked, Sango felt a degree of camaraderie with them. She probably wouldn't have sought out either woman for friendship in the real world. But, then again, her new reality was under construction. She'd be wise to take all comers. Keiko was affable, if whiney. Sara was fragile and remote, but refreshingly caustic. The two of them had already formed a friendship. Despite their differences in demeanor and background, Keiko and Sara shared elemental problems and desires, and that was enough--more than enough--for a friendship. Sango like the idea of being the odd woman out, the third wheel. She felt more comfortable on the near outside.

The men were standing in a tight circle by the bookcases in the living room. They smiled at the women as they descended the last flight of stairs. Sango spotted Kuranosuke immediately. He looked steamy in jeans and a navy blue shirt, and bare-footed. She watched his eyes travel from one woman to the next, pausing too long on leggy Sara(forgivable--no man could help that), before landing on Sango. He smiled blandly at her, the way a stranger would. And then, the out-of-context recognition clicked in. He let out a gasp, and rushed to her side, taking her hands in his and leaning down for a kiss on the cheek. They were in a roomful of people after all.

"Sango!" he whispered excitedly. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I might get some work done." she said, grinning.

"You know, in some circles, that's a euphemism for plastic surgery." he returned it.

"I'm getting an emotional lift. A bad-pattern tuck."

He laughed, and she relished the sound.

"Have you been thinking about the train?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing else." he answered. "I can't believe you're here! This is so damn fantastic! I have to get you alone. When! Tonight."

"Fraternization between campers is strictly forbidden." she told him in a mockingly serious tone.

"Meet me on the back porch at midnight." he whispered.

"My thoughts exactly."

"Excuse me, Sango Fuyuzuki?"

She turned to the man who'd stepped up. And her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at the sight. If she had wanted, she would have let her jaw drop too, staring at the drop-dead handsome man before her. He was around thirty-six, tall, his sleek, shoulder-length, charcoal-black hair tied back at the nape of his neck, a few unruly bangs standing out on his forehead. His eyes were intensely blue, thickly blue, like anti-freeze. He wore beige elephant leg pants and a violet T-shirt that was a size too big. He was clean-shaven, and had tan cheeks, wearing wooden sandals. Including the string of leather with a single bluish-green bead tied around his right wrist, he looked like a preppy hippie. A very sexy preppy hippie.

"I'm Miroku Yoshihiko." he greeted Sango. "Your host."

His voice, so soft and velvety, jolted her out of her sudden thoughts of him being attractive. What was she thinking? Didn't she decide a while ago that she had herself hung up on Kuranosuke, and not on the director/doctor/host who was organizing the retreat, and was now smiling at her in the most charming way while creasing those tanned cheeks?

Fighting back a blush that was dangerously close to revealing itself in the open, she smiled and shook his hand, which to her surprise, easily engulfed her own small one. Kuranosuke excused himself with a secret wink, and went to chat with the others, leaving her alone with Miroku.

She watched as his eyes hiked up and down her body like a hiker on a mountain trail. Keiko had nailed it when she said he was perverted. On the other hand, there were men in the world who could be worse than him.

"Shima tells me you had a positive experience on top of Mahoko Mountain." he said to her.

"I had a blazing epiphany." she responded. "And I've got the sunburn to prove it."

Miroku's grin never faded. "She also mentioned that you have a bad habit of sarcasm. We're going to have to beat that out of you with a stick. It may hurt, but it'd be worth it."

Sango didn't know how to respond to that, and settled for a carefree shrug and a, "No pain, no gain."

"You're a runner?" he asked.

"Does it show?"

He was one too, she could tell. The runner's equivalent of gaydar. Rundar?

Miroku pointed at her legs. "Your overly developed calf muscles. I noticed them from across the room."

They weren't that big, were they?

Sango sighed. "Now I'll be overly self-conscious about them."

"Be proud of them. I'm sure you are. I run down the logging road to a mountain lake and back every morning. Four miles round-trip. Care to join me?"

"I'm slow." she told him.

"I thought Tokyoists did everything fast."

Was it her imagination, or did he glance at Kuranosuke?

"What time?" she asked.

"Five-thirty."

"In the morning?"

"Sunrise on the lake." he said.

"We run in the dark?"

"Only at first." he assured her. "On the way back, everything is beautifully illuminated."

Did Shima and Miroku talk in metaphors on purpose? Did they realize? Or was this just Sango's Tokyo hangover of searching constantly for hidden meanings? She would take him at face value, as pledged.

"Okay, Miroku." she promised. "I'll plod slowly through the darkness of confusion, until we come to the baptismal purity of the lake, at which point, the light of truth will shine into a new dawn."

He smiled amusedly, cocking a brow. "That's a lot to ask of a morning jog."

"Dinner is served." Shima announced from across the room.

The group filed into the kitchen, and sat around a big farm table. Conversation seemed intentionally steered toward soft subjects, like the weather, the food(vegetarian chili on cracked brown rice), the house(built in 1789 by a Western immigrant, now owned by the island), Miroku's background(earned his Ph.D. in psychology at Tokyo University three years ago), Shima's credentials(she was also in Tokyo University's psychology program currently, had finished her course work, but hadn't completed her dissertation; Miroku had been her mentor/advisor until they hooked up last year).

"I heard about your program from one of your first clients, from two summers ago." Sara told them. "She was my private ski instructor this March. She couldn't have recommended you more highly, Miroku-san."

"Naoko Sakimoto?" he asked.

Sara nodded. "She's married now, to a man she met almost immediately after she left here."

Sango let the others carry the conversation, choosing instead to observe her fellow programmers. She knew first impressions were superficial and probably inaccurate, but one had to start somewhere.

Kojiro Seki, insurance executive from Akita, Honshu, was about 5'8", wearing black socks with Reebok shoes, and in his early forties. He seemed nervous, and self-conscious. He stole glances at Sara as if she were a luscious morsel of some outlandish foreign delicacy--mouthwatering and scary at the same time. Sango sat across from Kojiro, and had once tried to engage him. He'd said, "Yes, insurance is a growth industry. But if you'll excuse me, Sara-chan was just saying something fascinating about river silt."

Karo Hideyoshi, pro golfer from Fukuoka, did smolder mysteriously. But Sango couldn't imagine feeling attracted to him. True, he was fit and neat(too neat: pressed khakis and white shirt, mink brown hair cut short). Around thirty, Sango estimated. But his expression was impenetrable like a rock. He chewed without cracking that stone face. When he smiled(hardly ever), only his lips moved. She theorized that he'd be as exciting in the throws of passion as he was currently in the throes of eating.

Kuranosuke, meanwhile, was even more sparkling and gorgeous than Sango remembered. He sat between Karo and Shima, she between Keiko and Miroku. She enjoyed watching Kuranosuke from across the table, taking in the way he held his fork, the length of his eyelashes, his careful table manners. Kuranosuke's shirt was unbuttoned enough to show a peek of sun-kissed chest. His sleeves were rolled up to show nearly hairless and well-muscled arms with the long, graceful fingers of a pianist. His neck! Ropy, but not too thick, eminently suckable. She'd have to get a grip on herself if she was to make it through the meal without sliding off her chair.

After dessert(fresh fruit and nuts), Miroku finally stood and said, "It'll be an early morning. I suggest we go to our rooms for private meditation and reflection."

"It's eight-thirty." Keiko pointed out.

"Most of us are used to getting by on just six hours of sleep." Shima piped up. "I can show you a dozen studies that reveal the long-term hazards of REM deficiency. Miroku and I recommend nine or ten hours a night."

Sango and Kuranosuke locked eyes, and he agreed, "You are absolutely right, Shima-chan. I can't remember the last time I got a decent night's sleep."

Grumbled acknowledgement--yes, they were all in profound need of unconsciousness--led to tablewide chair scrapping and a chorus of "good nights".

Shima called after Sango and gave her a booklet. On the cover Sango read "The Big Five Personality Test". There was a separate answer sheet with bubbles to be filled in, like the SATs. Sango flipped through the booklet.

"This questionnaire is fifty pages long."

Shima handed her a number 2 pencil. "It's thorough."

Keiko, Sara and Sango wandered back upstairs, the men following in a group behind them. Shima and Miroku remained in the kitchen to clean up.

As soon as they'd reached their suite, Keiko sighed tiredly and said, "I don't know about you, but there is no way I could possibly go to sleep now."

"You can always reflect and meditate." suggested Sango.

Keiko rolled her eyes. "Like that's going to happen."

"I've got pills." Sara offered.

"The drugstore heiress has pills." Keiko spoke, a somewhat amused smile spreaded across her face. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Doing this survey will knock me flat." Sango sighed. "I'll pass."

"Keiko-chan? Are you woman enough?" Sara dared the chestnut with a small smile of her own.

Keiko sighed. "Oh all right. I'll succumb to peer pressure."

Sara went into her room and brought out a bottle of Xanax. "I'd better give you a half. Otherwise, there'll be no hiking tomorrow."

"I'll take a whole." Keiko said. "I'm never hiking again."

She popped her pill and swallowed it with water. Sara, a seasoned prescription-drug abuser, took hers dry.

The three women went to their separate rooms. Sango lay on her bed and listened as the sounds of the house quieted. Then she opened the questionnaire. There were over a thousand questions. She was instructed to weigh each statement on a scale from 1(strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree). Each question started with the phrase, "Do I see myself as someone who..."

1. Sees a project through to the end?
2. Sacrifices her own happiness for others?
3. Is relaxed, handles stress calmly?
4. Is emotionally unstable, easily upset?
5. Is sometimes rude to others?

Six hundred questions and three hours later, Sango rubbed her throbbing forehead. She should have finished an hour ago. She was taking this too seriously, spending five solid minutes trying to determine if she was "easily distracted". After giving herself a 5 for being "spontaneous", she filled in answers for the last four hundred questions with 3, "neither agree nor disagree". With relief, she threw the booklet and answer sheet on the dresser.

She checked the clock. Five minutes before midnight. Should she just go to sleep--she was so tired--or keep her rendezvous with Kuranosuke?

Do I see myself as someone who pursues sexual gratification, even if it means breaking the rules to get it?

"Strongly agree." Sango declared to her floral wallpaper, and crept downstairs.

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I need a love that could give me
the kind of love that will last always
I need somebody uplifting
to take me away
I want a lover who knows me
who understands how I feel inside
Someone to comfort and hold me
through the long lonely nights
till the dawn
Why you don’t take me away

Dreamlover come rescue me
take me up take me down
take me anywhere you want to baby now
I need you so desperately
Won’t you please come around
‘cause I wanna share forever with you baby

I don’t want another pretender
to disillusion me one more time
whispering words of forever
playing with my mind
I need someone to hold on to
the kind of love that won’t fly away
I just want someone to belong to
everyday
of my life
always
So come and take me away

Dreamlover come rescue me
take me up take me down
take me anywhere you want to baby now
I need you so desperately
Won’t you please come around
‘cause I wanna share forever with you baby

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A/N: (nezumi_momo appears)
Hehe. Hi! I'm Xich's best pal! She's not here right now, because she's-
(gets cut off by a loud vomiting noise in the bathroom)
-.- ...not feeling well. Typing about Kuranosuke and his major characteristics made her a LITTLE sick, so she's sort of unavailable at the moment.
X) I know you're all just as sick as she is after reading that chapter.
:D But whaddaya know? Prince Charming finally appears in the story, after for soooooooooooooo long that Xich kept him away from all of you.
;) SanMirLover no exception too! XD Heehee!
She also felt like putting up Mariah Carey's song "Dreamlover" in the following chapters, since it fits the story so nicely!
:) Please read and review to make Xich happy and-
(loud puking sound again)
-.- ...feeling great. Bye bye!