Legally Insane
The click-click
of fingers flying across the keyboard of a laptop was the only noise that
permeated the room, a rare thing in the hustle-bustle of
A
knock on her bedroom door interrupted the silence, and a second later, that
same door opened with a creak. Sango focused on
maintaining her concentration, lest her ingenuity leave her.
“Hey, Sango,” said the voice of her fellow law student and
housemate, Miroku. She gave him a vague “Mmm…” in response, unwilling to look away from the screen
of her computer. Although it wasn’t the norm for men and women to be ‘roomies’,
they lived together quite comfortably, with no sexual strings attached—much to Miroku’s occasional disappointment. They were friends, and
the only benefits they shared were the slightly-less hefty bills that were the
best part of sharing a home.
“Working on
that essay for Intellectual Property?”
“Mmhmm…”
She could hear
the smile in his voice when he said, “Good luck with that then. I just dropped
in to tell you that I’m on my way out and probably won’t be back until late.”
“Where are you
going?” Sango asked idly, starting a new paragraph
with some satisfaction. At the rate she was going, she was fairly confident
that an A was on her horizon.
“Oh…” Miroku replied. “Just out to dinner with
someone.”
Sango felt her good mood suddenly plummet as an old, familiar jealousy
crept up into her stomach, and her fingertips hesitated over the keys. “With who?” she finally asked in a conversational tone, continuing
onward with her essay. For some reason, the words weren’t flowing as well now…
“Shima. You know, that girl
from our Torts class?”
What had she
been about to type again? She couldn’t quite recall. “The petite brunette that
always sits in the first row?”
“Yeah, her. Anything I should pick up for you before I come home?”
“No, I’m
alright.”
He coughed
lightly before saying, “Okay. See you later then. Ten, at the
earliest.”
“Bye,” Sango sighed, though she couldn’t help the traitorous
thought, ‘And morning at the latest.’ Her door
closed, and less than a minute later, she heard Miroku
leave the apartment through the front door. Shaking her head, she told herself
to get back to work but found that, suddenly, the words didn’t want to come
anymore. Sango let out a groan of frustration and
sunk back into her chair to indulge in a few minutes of wallowing in her
misery.
‘It’s not fair.’
How was it
that a guy could live with a girl (who considered herself at least decently
attractive—Sango knew she wasn’t ugly, for
Heaven’s sake!) and yet not show the slightest bit of romantic interest in her
aside from the occasional grope or innuendo-laden comment? They’d been under
the same roof for the better part of a year, and—nothing! Sure, she had laid
down a long list of no uncertain rules that he was not to attempt certain
things when she had moved in, on threat of various types of bodily harm, but he
hadn’t even tried to test the limits!
Wasn’t
that just her luck… The biggest lecher this side of
the
It was so…unjust.
Her throat
tight and eyesight a tad blurry, Sango quickly saved
what she had written and shut down her computer. It was time to pull out the
serious anti-bad-mood guns: ice cream and a nice, long movie with as little
romance in it as possible.
God, how cliché.
At least she
could pride herself on not owning Titanic.
After
raiding her freezer and collecting her ice cream, Sango
quickly chose a movie from the shelves she herself had organized for crises
related to the romantic side of life; crises such as this one.
…And she
wanted to be a lawyer?
Oy vey.
But the fact
remained that she had a good four or five hours at least to burn before Miroku got back, and she fully intended to use those hours
to push any bitter thought of jealously from the forefront of her mind. As much
as she’d love to push them out of the darker recesses up there, well, that
could be qualified as hoping for too much.
-
Sango was well into the last half-hour of her second movie when there
was a knock on the door. Putting the blatant display of blood and gore on
pause, she slid off of the couch to go answer it. She hoped it wasn’t Miroku, which it could very well be; the man had a
frustrating habit of forgetting his keys at the worst times. Then again, it
probably wasn’t him. The Miroku she knew would be far
too busy with his latest fling to come home this side of midnight.
When
she opened the door, it wasn’t Miroku standing there,
but Sango didn’t know whether to feel relieved or
disappointed. She decided to ignore that bothersome indecision and pay
attention to the person at her doorstep.
“Oh, hello Hojo. What’re you doing
here? Come in.” The sandy haired boy smiled politely, stepping through the
doorway and closing the door behind him. He was a neighbor of theirs who came
around sometimes, usually when Sango’s friend Kagome
was around. She suspected that Hojo had a crush on
her friend, and Miroku agreed with that thought.
“Actually, I
dropped by to ask you a favor. Kagome was sick and missed our anatomy class,
and I was wondering if you could give her these notes. I’m going out of town
for the next week, so...”
Sango nodded, taking the papers and setting them next to her keys where
she wouldn’t forget them. Hojo and Kagome were both
in medical school and shared several classes, much to Kagome’s exasperation.
She had a boyfriend—Inuyasha—but Hojo
never ceased to give her gifts and attention whenever he could. “Sure, Hojo. I’ll do that.”
“Having a bad
day?” he asked. She gave him a questioning look, and he gestured at the paused
movie, the popcorn by the couch, and ice cream that sat on the coffee table.
“Oh, not really. It’s just...” she sighed.
“Miroku?”
Sango blinked at him, surprised. “How’d you know?”
“Uh, well, you
guys are always arguing for some reason or another. What’d he do now?”
“Nothing
really,” Sango said, staring at the couch unhappily.
“He’s just out at dinner with some girl from our Torts class.”
“Oh.” He
smiled awkwardly. “It’s never a good feeling when you know the person you like
is out enjoying themselves with somebody else, is it?”
“No, it’s not
a very good feeling at all...”
It was quiet
for a moment.
“Well,” Hojo said, trying to be positive, “you’re a strong person, Sango. I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually. If not,
then maybe it’ll be for a good reason. You never know.”
She didn’t
know what came over her then, when he leaned over to give her a friendly pat on
the back at that moment, but she didn’t resist it. Instead, reflex took over,
and she found herself kissing Hojo on the lips.
At that very
moment, the front door opened with a ‘click’, but even as quickly as they had
broken apart, Miroku still saw their kiss. He stood,
framed by the doorway, blinking in surprise.
For a long
minute, everyone was frozen.
“Err…” Hojo finally said, looking disturbed. “I think I need to go.
I’ll… see you around, Sango.” The note of shock in
his voiced hinted that he would pointedly avoid doing just that for quite some
time. Sango blushed as the realization of what she’d
just done set in and nodded in embarrassment.
“Yeah. I’ll make sure to drop those notes off to Kagome for you,” she
muttered as he quickly scrambled out of the apartment, only giving Miroku a brief, almost apologetic nod as he exited.
The door shut.
There was
another silence.
“Who was
that?” Miroku asked, a
slight edge to his voice. “You didn’t tell me that you had a date.”
Sango let out a long breath before she answered. “That’s because I
didn’t.”
“Alright.”
When she heard
him say that, with such obvious disbelief lacing the word, something in Sango snapped, and all of the frustration and anger and
jealousy she’d kept locked up just exploded. She stood up, glaring at him
darkly.
“Don’t you dare
talk to me like that!”
He
gave her a cool sort of look. “Like what?”
“Like—like you’re
jealous that I was with someone!” she hissed, hands on her hips.
Miroku frowned at her. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“You have no
right to be,” Sango told him, turning on her heel and
beginning to collect the trash that had accumulated during her earlier ‘wallowing’
session. She needed something to do with her hands lest she was tempted to slap
him in her anger. As an unspoken rule, that was only something she did when he
groped her or was otherwise perverted. However, her hands were shaking so badly
from anger, she dropped the ice cream container she’d
just picked up, splattering melted chocolate cream across the carpet.
Miroku said nothing, but leaned down and picked it up, taking it to the
kitchen to throw away. A moment later, he returned with a wet rag to sop up the
mess. Silently, Sango steadied herself and picked up
the rest of her things, putting everything away. When they were done, the
tension in the room was almost palpable. Miroku
looked at Sango, and she stared determinedly at the
floor, avoiding his gaze.
“So...” he
said at last, drawing out the word thoughtfully. “Do you care to explain just
why I haven’t got a right to be jealous?”
Sango stiffened, feeling her anger and frustration come back in a rush.
She tried to stifle it back down, but the emotions were too strong, so she
stopped trying. “You’re one to talk, seeing as how you’re the one that just
went out on a date.”
“If you had
bothered to ask,” he said coolly, “You would have known that it was a dinner to
talk about the material discussed last class. She asked for some help on her
essay, though she hardly needed it. If it’d been a date, I wouldn’t be here
right now. You know that. And you should also have noticed I haven’t even gone
out with anyone else for the past two months. Why do think that is?”
“How should I
know?” Sango retorted, not willing to let go of her
jealousy quite yet. “One minute you’re doing one thing, being here and sweet to
me and confusing the hell out of me, and the next you’re off flirting around,
acting like I don’t even exist. What I am supposed to think?”
“Well,
maybe if you wouldn’t slap me away every time I get close to you, it’d be a
little bit more obvious,” Miroku returned, his voice
losing its steadiness and sounding more like a growl now as his temper started
to fray—something it rarely did.
“Well, maybe
if you wouldn’t grope me all the time, I wouldn’t have to slap you!” Sango snapped, glaring at him.
His face was
passive as he told her, “It’s not my fault that you’re too beautiful for me to
keep my hands off of you.” She spluttered indignantly, thrown by his way of
sending the gauntlet right back at her.
“No,” she
said, folding her arms, “but it is your fault that you’re such a
lecher!”
“True,”
Miroku admitted. “But you never said anything.”
“But neither
did you!”
“That’s why
I’m saying it now,” he said, his voice suddenly different. He sighed, walking
over to the cough and sitting down. He patted the space beside him, inviting Sango to join him. She gave him a critical look before
settling beside him tensely. A faint smile flickered across Miroku’s
face, and he reached over to take one of her hands into his. “Sango...”
“What?” she
whispered, her trepidation evident as the anger and frustration drained away
again, leaving her feeling a little bit nervous. What was he going to do next?
He sighed
again, his eyes drifting over her face thoughtfully. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t
have gotten upset like that. I think we’ve both had a hand in making this
situation the way it is.” He chuckled when an indignant expression crossed her
features, and he touched her cheek gently. “Let’s face it. By the looks of it,
we’ve both been miserable over each other lately, and we haven’t done anything
to make it better.”
“Are you
saying... that...?” Sango trailed off, not sure how
to phrase it lest her hope get the better of her.
“I’m saying
that I’m fascinated by you, Sango,” he murmured, his
low voice so warm and sweet that Sango thought that
she could live in this moment forever and never tire
of it. “You’re wonderful, beautiful, and one of the most irresistible women I
have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I feel like I’ve been caught under a
spell since you moved in, and it hasn’t faded in the least. I thought it would,
but every day it has gotten stronger. I don’t want to be with anyone else but
you, Sango.”
She took a
shallow breath as he finished. He had moved closer as he spoke, so close that
their faces were almost touching. “There you go again,” she whispered. “Weaving your words together like a web to catch me in.”
Miroku chuckled lightly, his warm breath fanning across her lips as he
wound his fingers through her hair. “I’m not studying to be a lawyer because
I’m bad at making arguments,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. Sango blinked, and their eyelashes brushed, ever so
slightly.
“Is that all
you’re good at?” Sango challenged, a shock of
boldness trilling through her. Miroku smirked, and
then his mouth crashed against hers without another moment’s hesitation. If
there were ever such thing as a perfect kiss, Sango
thought that this might have been it. His mouth caressed hers softly as his
arms tightened around her, sending shivers down her spine. All of the feelings
that had been held at bay for the past months rushed through her veins like
fire, leaving a pleasant tingling in her fingertips, with which she clutched
his shirt.
It was a kiss
that had been waiting for far too long to happen, and it was now fueled to
sharp intensity by that wait to the point where neither wanted it to end.
Eventually, though, they broke apart, breathing deeply.
They drifted
apart slowly, Miroku scattering soft pecks wherever
he could reach—on her lips, her chin, her cheeks, and Sango
returned them when she could. Finally they stilled, just staring at each other
as they realized what had just happened, what had finally happened. Sango laughed breathlessly, and he smiled back.
“If that’s not
a violation of ethics,” she told him after another moment had passed, “I don’t
know what is.”
Miroku cocked an eyebrow upwards. “Oh? And what violation would that
be?”
“Theft,” Sango said. “You stole that kiss, you know.”
“Hardly!” he
laughed, tapping her nose with his forefinger. “Actually, I’m fairly certain
you stole it from me, my dear. And if you don’t mind, I think I’m going
to steal it back now.”
And
that’s just what he did.
-
Author’s Note: Well, this has been sitting, beta’ed,
in my inbox for four months now, so I figured it was high time to edit it out
and post it. It’s not my best oneshot ever, I don’t
think, and it was definitely written for the fluffs at the end, and a little
for the Sango/Hojo Kiss of Awkwardness. XD Anyway. I’d love to hear your opinions, both what you
liked and didn’t, so if you have any inclination to review, I’d adore the
feedback.