InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Last Thing I Need ❯ Act I Scene 5 ( Chapter 5 )

A/N

Warnings: none

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha (who belings to VIZ and Takahashi Rumiko) or “Indelible Sin” (by Nana Kitade). I just love them both.

Notices:

Haha, I love the idea of Kouga as a drama geek. I don't even know why, but I guess that melodrama fits him somehow. It also fits the split-personality idea explored earlier. And, if you hate it, too bad `cuz it's a fairly important part of the plot.

Also, please let me know what you think of my portrayal of Miroku's character. Of them all, he's the one I have the most trouble with. I usually get him too perverted, so now I'm writing him a little OOC. Sigh. Please tell me what you think!!

 

Last Think I Need

Act I Scene 5

Rukawaii Eri ran around her small office in the theater. She was the student director of the school's play, a position that she had lucked into by accident. If she had known what it entailed beforehand, she never would have agreed to it.

She had quickly learned from her predecessor that while being in charge was fun, it was never all that rewarding. If a play was a success, praise the actors; if it was a failure, blame the director. She was up against her toughest challenge: cast and direct the major play of the year, for the annual Shakespearean Festival. Eri had to choose the cast, the crew, the scenery, and even the date. Worst of all, she had to pick the play.

It was currently ten at night on a Friday. Most people had lives and were going out. Not her. Eri was cooped up in the small office researching possible plays. A lot went into the choosing of a play, and she was swamped with work. She had to consider what plays had been done recently- no repeats within five years. She also had to look at length, prospective actors, a whole bunch of junk. Eri's favorite play, `A Midsummer Night's Dream' had been done two years ago. Last year they had done `Macbeth' because the prospective cast was amazing and full of talent. Four years ago had been `King Lear'. Not that Eri liked that play anyway. Three years before the director had decided to branch out and try something not-Shakespeare. The play had been something about the Tanabata, and had been a major flop. The play itself was good, but it broke with tradition and was met with scorn.

Eri sifted through all these records.

What else was there?

All of Tokyo U's greatest actors had graduated the previous year. The only one who hadn't was starring in a TV show this year, and another girl had become a voice actor and was just too busy for anything else not-academic. Eri thought a minute. The only good new talent they were supposedly getting was some boy named `Onaku'. He had supposedly starred in a bunch of High School plays and Children's theatre performances.

She realized that all she needed to do was find a play that only needed a couple of its actors to be exceptional. She thought for a few more minutes.

“I've got it!” Eri called out to the empty room, “I'll try `Romeo and Juliet'. That should do it.” It made sense. Already Eri was formulating a plan. She could cast Onaku in the lead as Romeo, then she just had to find a Juliet. Of course there'd be tryouts, but it was good to have a fallback plan.

Eri recalled that her friend Kagome had starred in her share of plays back in High School. Rather, Kagome had been the townsperson who shouted out how rude the lead characters were, but Kagome still had acting experience. . . Eri decided to ask the next time she saw Kagome.

Eri sat down and leaned back with her feet on her desk. “I love it when a good plan comes together. Kagome, Onaku, you'll never know what hit you.”

 

ATCHOOO!!! Kouga sneezed violently and rubbed his finger under his nose. “Hmph. Somebody must be talking about me. I hate it when people do that. Jerks.”

Miroku, who was sitting on the floor nearby, chuckled at this statement.

The noise from the room's other occupant reminded Kouga that he was not alone. “So, moron, why are you here? InuYasha asked you to visit, sure, but does it look like InuYasha is here? No. I have a bunch of important things to do.”

“Oh,” Miroku replied with a deadpan expression. “You mean important things like talking to yourself. Okay. That is much more important then the life threatening reason InuYasha called me here for.”

Kouga peered at Miroku over the frames of his glasses. Miroku was the only person besides his roommate that had ever seen Kouga with his glasses on. He needed them to read, but he usually wore contacts. Miroku had come in too suddenly for Kouga to hide the glasses and still be able to study. “And what, pray tell, is this fatal reason. It can't be that important, because InuYasha is not even here.”

“Well,” Miroku looked down at the magazine he had picked up on the way over, “He didn't say.”

Kouga snorted. It figured. The mutt that he called a roommate had probably forgotten that he had asked someone over. Still, Kouga didn't have it too bad. InuYasha never had invited any distracting girls over, or thrown any wild parties. Kouga had it easy compared to almost anyone else that he knew.

The magazine crinkled as Miroku turned a page. “Could you stop that,” Kouga groused. “All of your magazine rustling is distracting me.”

“Oh forgive me, oh mighty Kouga. I'm so sorry that my presence is so disturbing. Should I leave?”

“Would you?” Kouga pasted a half hopeful look on his face. He had a test the next day on the first ten chapters of his Chemistry book. He hadn't left all the reading until the last minute, but there was a lot of stuff he needed to review.

Miroku just pulled a face at Kouga and continued thumbing through his magazine on winter sports. He filed a few ideas away for things to try, even though he'd probably never get around to it.

The door suddenly banged open as InuYasha made his noisy, hurried entrance. “Miroku! You're here already,” InuYasha exclaimed as he shed his light jacket.

“Yes InuYasha. I actually got here late, it seems that you are mis-“

“Yeah, yeah,” InuYasha interrupted, “Anyway, I need help.”

Miroku sighed but nodded. “So you said. Whose life is so threatened that you needed to call me?”

“Huh? What do you mean `whose life is threatened?'”

“You baka,” Kouga cut in, “It's a figure of speech. It means that whatever is urgent. Now will you two please work this out and shut up?”

“Why don't you go down to the study room or computer lab? This is my room same as yours,” InuYasha countered smugly.

“InuYasha,” Miroku sighed again. When it came to dealing with his best friend, he sighed a lot. “Just tell me what you need to. I'm tired, and I want to get to bed.”

“Oh. Right. Um, did you do Sasake-san's take-home test?”

“Yeah,” Miroku remembered that particular test very well. It had been a beast, because the book and the internet were both fair game. That meant it would be easier to find answers, so the questions were made harder. He was suspicious as to what InuYasha's answer would be. “Why?”

“I, well, didn't do it yet. I was wondering if you could help me.”

Miroku gave his friend a deadpanned look. “By `help you' you mean that I let you copy. You didn't ask before now? It's due tomorrow.”

“Keh.” InuYasha disguised his sheepish look by sticking his nose up in the air. “So you gonna help me or not?”

Miroku contemplated this. Sasake-san was notorious for checking everything, and if any teacher ever caught any cheating, it was Professor Tomoe Sasake. “I'll compromise, InuYasha. I don't want to see you fail, but you do need to put some effort in. I will give you the list of books, websites, and text pages that I used. You have to look it all up on your own. Deal?”

“Feh. Why can't you just give me the answers?”

“InuYasha, I worked hard on this. You either take my sources or you get nothing. End of story.”

Silence reigned as InuYasha seriously contemplated this. “Do you have marked which source goes to which question?”

“A few of them, yes, but not all. The rest are organized by category.” Miroku smirked to himself. Actually, over half the sources were labeled and the rest were just randomly thrown together.

“Fine. Hand `em over.” InuYasha stuck out his hand in expectation.

Miroku gaped at his friend. “You think I carry that around with me? It was five pages! You have to come back to my room with me.”

InuYasha made a growl-like noise and stalked out. Once he was halfway down the hallway, he turned back and shouted, “Oi! You coming, baka? I don't have all night!”

Miroku heaved a sigh and followed InuYasha. All this trekking after the hot-headed idiot in front of him was going to kill him.

 

Kouga sighed at the peace that existed after the other two left. Finally, he could study in peace. He glanced over at the doorway. The idiot human, Miroku, had left the door open. Again.

Getting up, Kouga also happened to spy InuYasha's backpack laying near the door. Ignoring the fact that the baka hadn't put his stuff away again, Kouga noticed a glint of silver. InuYasha had run off without his key.

He smirked as he shut the door and locked it, effectively keeping every other person in the building out. Life was good.

Kouga settled back down on his bed and smiled, though his smile turned into a frown pretty quick. He had remembered the one thing that was not good in his life.

His father had been a famous actor, and wanted his son to follow in the `family business'. While they were demons, wolf demons had incredible memories, making them able to memorize a script faster then any other species. His mother had also been a famous actress, so everyone had thought Kouga would be a rising child star. Not so. Kouga shunned the business like the plague.

Still, his parents had pushed him into every kind of drama club and play group that they could. The deal had been that he could major in anything he wanted, as long as he participated in the plays. Kouga didn't mind the acting too much, but he hated the grueling expectations.

Kouga was happy in his art major at the moment, and he didn't plan on changing. He wanted to be a graphic designer, not some pretty-boy actor. The rest of the world didn't understand this. He had already gotten three e-mails from the newest college play director, begging him to come try-out. He, in retaliation, was ignoring the letters and making her sweat, even if he had no choice in the end.

He sighed as he rolled over and got back to his homework.

 

InuYasha punched the computer in frustration. That idiot, Miroku, had lied. Now InuYasha had a full sleepless night's worth of work ahead of him to complete the test.

Of course, there was no reason to take his frustration out on the computer, but there was nothing else to vent his frustration on. He couldn't even yell at other people, because the room was completely void of other human presence.

So far, he had about ten out of three hundred questions answered. This was not going well.

He hit the computer as it brought up another `internet page not found' message.

 

Miroku smirked as he rolled over in his bed. He was fortunate enough to have very wealthy parents who happened to live nearby, so he spent almost every night in his own bed in his own room.

He was also fortunate to have a gullible friend like InuYasha, who was unable to reach and maul him at this time of night. Life was good.

 

­­­­­­­­­­­ ;­­­­­­­­­­­­&# 173;­­­­­The sound of an electric guitar echoed throughout the small hotel room at 6:00 the next morning. Soon followed by a buzzing that indicated a phone vibrating, lyrics began accompanying the guitar.

Mayowazuni kono aiwo shinji ikiteyuku, fusagaranu kizuguchimo gyutto dakishimete. . .

Kagome rolled over and hit her alarm clock automatically. When the intrusive noise didn't stop, she whacked the clock again.

Mayowazuni kono sadame ikiru ikiteyuku. . .

The phone vibrated itself off the table and hit the floor with a dull thud. The music skipped a beat and continued.

“Kagome!” An irate Sango called from across the room, “shut your music off! It's too early for that.”

At the worry about Sango's rage, Kagome got up and picked up the offending phone.

Kimitonara eienmo kitto tsunagatte-

“What?” Kagome snapped at the person stupid enough to call this early in the morning.

“Good morning Kagome!” The person on the other end of the line chirped.

“Hello Eri,” Kagome ground out, “what did I do to deserve this rude awakening?”

“What did you do? What the hell did I do?!” Sango yelled in the background.

“Anyway, Kagome, will you meet me for breakfast? I have a question for you that I can't ask over the phone.” Kagome could hear the smirk in Eri's voice. The girl obviously enjoyed tormenting her friend.

“Fine, Eri, but I have a condition. You need to wait until I've woken up and had a shower. And you will never call me this early ever again unless blood and death are involved.”

“Woken up?” Came Eri's confused reply.

“Yes,” Kagome admitted, “because I'm convinced this is all a dream and I'm still asleep. I'll see you at the Painappuru at seven.” The line went dead as Kagome hung up.

 

Exactly an hour and ten minutes later, Kagome stood at the door of the Painappuru restaurant. She was a little late, but she figured that Eri could live with the wait.

Upon entering, Kagome found Eri sitting at a normal, boring table in the center of the room. This table had a small candle shaped like a pineapple on it, but the candle wasn't lit. It was too early in the day for the darkened candle-lit atmosphere, so the drapes were wide open and the overhead lights glowed.

Kagome picked up a vanilla coffee and slid into the chair opposite her friend. Eri took no notice, so Kagome coughed and poked her friend. Eri jolted at the touch, looking around as if she had no idea where she was.

“Oh, Kagome. Good morning! Would you like something to eat before I weigh you down with business propositions?”

Kagome considered the idea of delaying the demands, but she realized that it would be best to just get it over with. “No, Eri, I'm fine. What do you want to discuss? I have a class in less then an hour.”

Eri sighed. Her friend was being particularly hostile this morning. “Were you going to try out for the drama club play this year? I think you'd be good if you tried.”

“Eri,” Kagome started, paused, and sighed. “I told you the first three times you asked me. I have no interest in being another extra in a play. So, no, I do not want to be in the play this year. And you know I'm not a big fan of Shakespeare.”

Eri gaped at her friend. “Why do you think it's a Shakespearean play?” She laughed nervously. “I never mentioned anything about Shakespeare.”

Kagome rolled her eyes. “Eri, I know that the only reason you would want me to be in a play is because you're the director, or you would benefit somehow. You just so happen to be directing the Shakespearean Festival play this year. Am I wrong?”

Eri remained silent.

“That's what I thought.” Kagome smirked. She had spent too many years of her life trying out for parts only to be brushed aside for somebody who was prettier, could sing better, or had a better stage presence. She wouldn't stand and shout in the background anymore if she could help it. Having had enough of Eri's pleading, Kagome stood up and picked up what was left of her coffee.

“At least come to try-outs,” Eri continued pleading. “If you don't get anything, then you don't have to stay in the play. I swear.”

Kagome pretended to ignore her friend while she pushed her chair in and turned around to leave. After taking three small steps away, Kagome turned around. “Fine. I'll come. But I probably won't stay with it, so don't you even try to make me after this, okay?”

Eri just smiled and nodded. Once Kagome was there, Eri wasn't going to let her go. But Kagome didn't need to know that yet.

 

Thanks for reading!