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The boys were excitedly talking about this and that while Sango and Kikyo gossiped about that and this. I ignored all of them, busying myself with drinking my chocolate malt. It was too thick for it's own good, and I was having enough problems trying to suck it through the straw without giving myself an aneurysm or something. "Hey," Miroku started, popping a fry in his mouth. "What are we going to do this weekend? My house is off limits�" "Don't look at me," Inuyasha grumbled. Kikyo nodded in her agreement, and I once again began wondering what on earth was going on between them. I had the decency not to ask, though, because I knew what tensions that could arise from the two stiff-backed teenagers. As unbelievable as this might sound, I did once in a while learn my lesson. Eiji paused, looking thoughtfully at, well, me. I continued to ignore him, listening with only half an ear. My delicacy was finally working its way up the straw, due to my persistent ministrations. "Hey," Eiji said, grinning. "I know where we can go, provided that he agrees�" Eiji earned instant attention from everyone but me. I was too busy reveling in my success at finally getting some of my tasty drink. "Where?" "Kagome's!" I spit that tasty drink out. "WHAAAT?!" Chapter Five: Here's lookin' at you, kid. by Clara I couldn't get out of it. No matter how hard I begged, no matter how hard I pleaded, the boys wouldn't let me get out of hosting the group of them at my house. I was stuck, and frankly, I was in a 'rut'. For one thing, at my house I was female. Not male. Therefore, that meant that everything about my house that was related to me was female. Sango and I ended up bumming a ride off our insane friend, since we were both lacking a ride home. When I say 'insane friend', I mean Miroku. As it turns out, Miroku ended up pulling over a couple times before he was even half way to my house, do to my constant death threats and Sango once in a while latching onto his neck like a desperate leech. After the third time pulling over, our dear friend refused to ever drive us around again, starting from there. Since he refused to drive, and Sango and I were running on a time limit, our female friend took over his place at the drivers seat. It turned out that Sango was a great driver, even though she had the tendency to drive a little too slow� I had to wonder why we never thought of having the extremely levelheaded Sango drive us around, instead of the reckless and cut-loose Miroku. Life would feel so much safer if Miroku were to NEVER set foot in the driver's seat of a car... Anyway, to fast forward, let me explain how life became super interesting after I got home. Grandpa and Mom welcomed me back with open arms, then interrogated me for a good half hour about the school and what they were doing to Souta. I answered all their questions truthfully, watching as my mom's eyes widened in terror, and my grandpa's face getting a more blank by the moment. His face was finally starting to show it's age, deep-set wrinkles lining his worry and sorrow. "I'm watching him, though," I assured them, hurriedly. Tears were standing in my mother's eyes, and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it if she cried. There's only one person in the world that could get me bawling by just shedding a few tears, and that was Mom. "They'll have to get through me before they can touch Souta..." Mom's chin trembled, and a solitary tear rolled down her cheek. "Kagome.." She reached over and gave me a tight hug. "You are such a good older brother.." "...." "MOM! I'M A GIRL, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN!" Mom abruptly let go of me, blushing. "Oi, Kagome, I'm sorry. I kind of... well, forgot..." "MOOOMMM!!" * Three hours before the others said they would be arriving at my house, I could be found crawling around in our guest room on my hands and knees, wearing an old sundress that had a couple of holes in the back and a bandanna around my hair to protect it from any deadly dust bunnies. Hey, those dust bunnies could be vicious sometimes, and I really wasn't in the room to take another shower. To explain why I was crawling around in the guest room would be silly, since it's pretty obvious. I couldn't exactly say that my very feminine, very stuffed animal filled room was Kagome's room. That room was 'Kekki's'. So I crawled around the room, dusting around and strategically placing shoes and papers and clothing around the room to make it look like it was actually a boy's room and had been lived in. Up on the once naked walls were posters of random baseball teams and even a picture of a pretty girl that I had found in my grandpa's room. She was fully clothed, thankyouverymuch, but at least it made it look like I might actually be attracted to the female gender. As a boy, I mean. Man, I'm even starting to confuse myself. "Hey, Grandpa!" I shouted from under the bed, after sneezing a couple times. "Why DID you have that picture of some lady standing at the beach?" "I plead the fifth," was Grandpa's chaste comment. I pulled my head out from under the bed and gave him a sarcastic look. "Whatever." I crawled out from my position half way under the bed and stood up, placing my hands on my hips to give the room a once over. It looked almost perfect, except� I reached over and yanked back the sheets and blankets, then nodded in my satisfaction. "There. Perfect." Grandpa rolled his eyes, sipping his iced tea. "You're never going to pull this off, you know. What you need is�" He whipped out a small amulet from, well, out of nowhere. "A lucky charm! Legend has it that�" I snatched the charm from Grandpa before he could get into one of his long-winded 'legends' once again, then looked over the amulet. "Hey! This would make cute hair thing�" Grandpa snatched the amulet back, scowling at me. "Kagome!" I grinned sheepishly. My grandpa was an interesting man, having an extremely complex personality. He was a highly superstitious baseball fan. You can just imagine how interesting his superstition would be during games. If you can't, let me give you an example. Have you ever heard of a 'dried hand of a water sprite' giving you good luck? Let me tell you, neither have I, until the Giants and the Patriots faced off. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me because that meant that I didn't have to go around carrying a dried claw, Buyo, my obese cat, mistook the limb for a kitty treat and munched the poor thing to death. I swear Grandpa had a hernia. If you could have a hernia from freaking out, that is. Anyway, I had just finished running around the room, and was just about to change into a pair of jeans and a sweater, when the doorbell rang. Confused, I walked over to the main room of the house, after shooting my grandpa a departing look. "Remember, I'm Kekki, not Kagome," I reminded him, and he nodded. I pushed open the front door, half expecting it to be a couple of solicitors or something. To my great surprise, Inuyasha blinked back at me. This couldn't be right! They were supposed to be here in THREE BLOODY HOURS! I LOOKED LIKE A GIRL! "Ummm�" Sango peeked around Inuyasha, glanced at me, then smacked both her hands over her mouth. By the muffled sounds she was making, I was positive she was laughing at me. I shot her a threatening look, asking her with my eyes WHY the hell she allowed HIM of all people to come to my house before I was ready for them?! She shrugged innocently, and I added her to the 'I must get revenge on some day' list. Miroku and Hojou were tied for first on that list, by the way. "Uh, you must be Kekki�" Inuyasha said, looking slightly uncomfortable. I swear I could almost see the outline of a blush on his cheeks. My guess was that he didn't approach many girls outside of our little group. Good. "Kekki?" Another voice chimed in. I practiced the Gestalt approach and looked at the entire picture, instead of the details. Then swallowed a cry of unfairness when I realized that no, it wasn't just Inuyasha and Sango there, but in fact everyone Suppressing a groan, I opened the door all the way, as an invitation. I was greeted with six surprised stares. Saying a quick prayer to whatever god would listen to me, I plastered on a fake smile and took a step back. "You must be Kagome's friends." I felt like I was talking to myself in third person. "He isn't here right now, because he had to� uh� visit our grandma who was in the hospital." My grandmother's been dead for seven years now, and my other grandma hated our family's guts. "He didn't expect you to be here until five�" Kouga socked Eiji in the shoulder, though I noticed he kept glancing at me with a look in his eyes that I had a feeling I didn't want to know about. "I TOLD you we should have called before we came!" Eiji shrugged helplessly, then tossed a 'charming' smile in my direction. It was hard for me to see someone who made little spitball darts in the middle of psychology as 'charming', though� "You don't mind if we stay here and wait for him, do you?" He frowned slightly. "You guys don't exactly live like, five miles away, yanno.." I DO mind, damnit! "Sure!" I kept my pleasant smile on, then stepped to the side, allowing access into my house. "Go ahead and si� take a seat," I caught myself before I finished that deadly word, wincing mentally. Wow. I wonder what excuse I would come up with if I had actually said 'sit' and Inuyasha had gone flying. Most likely not a very believable one. How on EARTH was I supposed to pull off bringing 'Kagome' back? "Soooooo..." Miroku said in a smooth voice, sliding over to my side and wrapping a casual arm over my shoulder. Which were bare. "I take it you're Kagome's twin, aren't you? I'm Miroku. I'm sure you've heard all about me.. "Well, Kagome did mention something about his perverted friend.. Mikaka?" Completely nonplused, Miroku smiled down at me. "That's 'Miroku'," he said condescendingly. I elbowed him, rather hard. He, to my dismay, didn't let go, only winced slightly. My bet was that he was used to Sango driving that pointy joint into his ribs, already... You know, to be slightly off topic, I had to wonder how on earth I managed to convince these guys that 'Kagome' actually had a twin sister. This little lie had to be the most unbelievable lie I've ever put out in my life. It was amazing what people would swallow... I glanced discreetly at Sango, who looked ready to bash Miroku's head in. Okay, so how much some people could swallow. "You know, twins come from the same ovary, who come from a woman, who had to have intercourse with the man for that ovary to split... what say you and I try to make our own twins?" About this time was when Miroku received about several different mutilations from various members of the group, the most prominent beatings coming from Sango. How cute. "OI! Miroku, you don't even know the girl!" Kouga smiled at me, but I noticed a hint of a leer to that smile. "Sorry about that, he can be rather.. promiscuous at times. At least he was blunt about it. Miroku, that is. "Excuse me, Sango needs to.. uh.. help me pick out an outfit. Don't want to look.. uhm.. unpleasant around you boys.. heh heh.. I mean, look at these awful rags!" I said, wrenching myself away from Kouga and Miroku, still wearing my fake smile. I grabbed Sango's arm, making sure to apply enough pressure to her arm to let her know that much demise was coming her way. Sango had the audacity to keep laughing quietly. "We'll be riiiight back." "You know each other?" Kikyo asked. Her tone held a bit of suspicion to it. Oh, good. Even as a girl Kikyo still apparently didn't like me. Man, there was no way to please that girl. "I met her when she was shadowing at our school," Sango said calmly, soothingly. "Since we didn't have any classes together last year, you didn't get to see her." I blinked over at Sango, idly wondering if I should have her do all the lying for me. She was a natural. After Sango and I reached my room, I carefully shut my door, making sure to lock it. Then, I drug her to the farthest corner of the room. "Sango!" I whispered harshly. "How could you let them come this early?!" "I didn't mean to!" Sango whispered back, eyes darting around suspiciously. "I was walking to the bus stop, cuz you called me, remember?" "No!" I let go of her arm, starting to pace around my room. I unconsciously pulled at my short hair. "I completely forgot!" Sango gave me a deadpan look. "Whatever, just keep going. How did you manage to get all the way here with THEM?!" "Well, Miroku saw me walking, and decided to pick me up. It turns out that the others were with him, cuz he has that huge landrover or something, yanno? Anyway, they said that they were going to go to your house a little earlier for some unknown reason. I think they were bored." "So why the hell did you LET them come?" "I tried to stall, believe me! But I couldn't exactly flat out tell them that you guys couldn't come over because you weren't a boy right now!" "Couldn't you thought of something?!" "Without making it look like that me and 'Kagome' were going out?" I froze in mid-pace, defeated. This was true. "Damnit.." "I'm sorry Kagome, but we'll just have to make do. I'll help you, okay?" I let out a breath of relief. "Thanks, Sango." I walked into my little walk in closet, grabbing my yellow, and much less bed-raggled, sundress off it's hanger and swung my closet door shut behind me. "I can't believe this is happening," I said to Sango through my closet door as I pulled my outfit over my head. "This is so so SO not supposed to happen." I pulled my yellow dress on, then reached behind to tie the little bow behind. "Why didn't they call?" "Boys will be boys," was Sango's slightly muffled reply. I sighed heavily and pushed the door open, at the same time pulling off my bandanna and shaking out my short hair. Sango raised an eyebrow. "Any reason for the 'cute' look?" I gave her a dark look. "I refuse to answer that..." Sango laughed and pulled herself off my bed, Buyo literally rolling off her lap and on to my bedcovering. The fat cat let out a mix between a meow and a purr, not moving from the position where he had rolled off from. Actually, I don't think he could. I pushed the door open, running my fingers unconsciously through my hair. Thank god I put some make-up on earlier. THAT, if anything, might help distinguish me from my 'twin brother'... * We found the remainder of our group, lounging around my family room. Well, sans Inuyasha. "Hey, where'd 'Yasha go?" Sango asked, somehow gracefully plopping beside Miroku. She put an iron hand on his arm when she noticed the 'look' he was giving me. "Don't even think about it, Miroku, unless you want her to file against you for sexual harassment or something.." Miroku rolled his eyes, but settled back against the couch. "He's looking at Kagome's trophies." My eyes widened. My trophies! Oh, bloody hell, they gave those damn trophies feminine bodies. Which meant, those trophies had boobies. Which meant.. "Hey, Kekki," Inuyasha greeted as he walked into the room. He looked faintly confused. "Why does your brother have a trophy for the 'Woman's National Softball League'?" Oh shitshitshitshitshit.. "Well, uh, you see, my parents weren't expecting twins or anything, so, uh, when they filled out the form for the names, they only put in 'Kagome', and so therefore, we both have the same name!" I said in a rush. Well, shitty. THIS lie was even MORE unbelievable than the twin one was! "Oh!" Inuyasha said, nodding. "That'd explain it then." I blanched. Sango blanched, too. The others looked perfectly normal and believing, going back to what they had originally been doing. I was FAR from being wrong when I said that the others could sure swallow a lot of bull. Either that, or they trusted me a lot. That scared me. If they trusted me so much and they ever found out that I had been lying to them this entire time, then they would hate me. I didn't want them to hate me. I liked them too much, already. Apparently, my mom had discovered this motley bunch meandering around my couch and had gone into what I like to call 'Mom-mode', bustling around the kitchen and the family room, providing the guests with food and drinks, while at the same time chastising me for not telling her that I was having my 'sweet friends over'. At least she hadn't whipped out the baby pictures, or something. I loved that about my mom. She was always too busy when my dad left to ever make baby albums for me and Souta, although she always went on and on about how she WAS going to, one day. Besides the fact that baby pictures were embarrassing, how was I going to explain the lack of 'Kagome-ness'? "Oh, we decided we didn't want him one day, so we sent him off to live with our Aunt Mary Sue until he reached a suitable age." Yeah, the boys would believe that... Huh. With all this bull I've been spouting about and them believing, maybe they would. I started to walk back to the couch, then noticed Miroku and Kouga looking at me with, well, curious eyes. I groaned quietly, did a 180 and shuffled over to the love seat, sinking down into it thoughtfully. I suppose the boys were at a loss of words due to my sudden appearance, because they just silently watched me. I got uncomfortable. "Well, uh, would you like to watch some movies?" * We ended up having a type of... pardon the expression, �girl's night�. Meaning, we all crowded on my large sofa, me somehow getting squished against Inuyasha (I blame this on Sango's strategic planning... I love that girl), and watched old movies, this including The Breakfast Club and every Audrey Hepburn movie I own. How we managed to convince the boys to let us watch chick-flicks, I have no idea. When I asked Sango later, she simply explained that girls had a sort of 'power' over boys. Somehow, though, between Sixteen Candles and Breakfast at Tiffany's, a couple action flicks managed to sneak in. Let me tell you, I HATE Terminator one through a million, but we ended up having to watch all of them. Luckily, by this time, we were too focused on trying to keep our eyes open. Big quilts and full tummies tend to make one sleepy, doncha know. I'd also like to mention here that my mom wasn't very pleased about everyone spending the night without her permission, giving me a hearty lecture in the confines of our kitchen. Being as kind hearted as my mother was, though, she allowed me to have everyone over for the night. But that was hours ago. Fate dealed a tricky hand to me, that night though. She decided that the last ones awake would be him and me, just to see what would happen. I was too wired on soda and Casablanca to get any sleep at that time, and I don't exactly know why Inuyasha was still awake. When I snuck a glance at him, though, his face was slightly thoughtful. "Enjoying the movie?" I whispered, not wanting to wake Miroku and Sango. They just looked so cute, with Sango using Miroku's shoulder as a pillow, and Miroku resting his head on hers. "..I have a lot on my mind." He sipped his drink, and I followed his hands to his lips. He had nice lips. I also noticed that he kept his voice down, too, eyes darting towards Miroku and Sango. Awww... "Care to share?" I quickly glued my eyes back to the screen, not exactly pleased with my line of thoughts. "Well, for starters, do you know why Kagome never returned?" "Yeah." For once, I had been prepared for this question. "Mom told me he called earlier." I dropped my eyes to the quilt's pattern, which had been drawn up to my neck. "Grandma isn't doing so well, so he's going to be staying there for the night. He told me to tell you that he was really sorry, and he'll make it up to you guys the next time you all went to the ice cream shopp�..?" I trailed off to a confused tone, making it appear as if I didn't know what 'Kagome' was talking about when he mentioned the ice cream shopp�. Damn, I was becoming a GREAT liar. Yeah right. Inuyasha nodded in acceptance, but his face still held that thoughtful look. "You're keeping something back from me, I can tell. But that's okay, I don't expect you to tell me everything, since we just met and all.." I reassured hurriedly. Man, I was so nosy, no matter what gender I was. Pretended gender or not. Inuyasha shrugged easily. "Just some family issues." He snuck a glance at me out of the corner of his eye. "I hope you don't mind us imposing here, for the night. We all have our own reasons for not wanting to be home tonight." I nodded, accepting his reason, though, of course, wanting to know more. Instead of prying, however, I just glued my eyes back to the screen. Rick was just telling Sam to play the song he had played for Ilsa. "You must remember this.. a kiss is just a kiss.." "It's nothing big, though. Well, actually, it kind of is, I suppose. I was planning on telling your brother this tonight, but he isn't here, so you're the next best thing." He smirked slightly at those words. "Anyway, my parents are getting a divorce, and everything at my house is kind of.. rocky right now. It's one of those tough divorces, since it was such a close marriage. My mom and dad loved each other so much, you know?" He slumped lower, sighing quietly. "The thought of my parents splitting is hard." "I know." "A sigh is just a sigh.." "How do you know?" "My parents divorced a couple years ago, too. There was this huge legal dispute about who Souta and I should go with, but my father ended up suddenly disappearing on the final court day. I get postcards from him once in awhile, though." We both fell silent after I professed this. "The fundamental things apply as time goes by.." "I'm sorry to hear that, Kekki." "It's okay. I got over it." "You shouldn't have had a reason to have to get over it, though, if you can understand what I just said." "I understand perfectly, don't worry. I just wish you didn't have to go through what I did." "It happens to the best of us. I'll get over it. Maybe they'll get over it." "And when to lovers woo, they still say 'I love you'.." I nodded reassuringly, then reached over and pat his arm comfortingly. "I'm sure everything will be all right, Inuyasha." I smiled at him, and he smiled back. "Thanks. Sorry for keeping you up. You can go to sleep, now.." "On that, you can rely." I continued to smile obliviously at him for a few moments, to caught up in his nice smile to make any coherent response. When I finally came to after a few moments, I understandably turned beet red. "Y-yeah. Thanks." Thankful for the dark, I curled up slightly on my side, letting my eyes drift shut. I could have sworn I heard Inuyasha whisper Humphrey Bogart's famous line. "Here's lookin' at you, kid." "No matter what the future brings as time goes by.." .:end chapter five:. AN: I'm SO sorry this took so long for me to put out! School decided to knock me out, these past couple of weeks. But at least I met my deadline! All previously mentioned movies belong to their respected owners. Explanations: Inuyasha told 'Kekki' about his parents splitting up because, well, you'll see in the next chapter (I'm bad, I know. -.-) The rest of the group DOES know that Inuyasha's parent's are splitting up, which I'll get into more depth with in chapter six. I'm sorry for being misleading. -.- |