Eye of the Beholder

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the anime ‘Inuyasha’ nor do I own ‘Ain’t no other man’ by Christina Aguilera

Chapter 8: Ain’t No Other Man

Kagome watched from backstage as Sesshomaru’s band gave their performance. Sesshomaru was a really good dancer in her opinion. Everything about his performance left her dazed. She could see why he is the most desired guy in school. As she stood there watching him, she couldn’t help but notice the way his sweat glistened from the lights paired with his gleaming silver hair, it gave him a glow. Suddenly, her mind was filled with cheesy scenes from movies such as running towards each other in a field of flowers, dancing together across an empty ballroom, those kinds of things. Then for some odd reason Sango’s glaring visage appeared in her mind’s eye and snapped her back to the present. ‘What the hell was I thinking?’

Sesshomaru’s performance ended with loud screams and cheers and as he made his way off stage he was handed a towel and a bottle of water. He was about to take a drink when he caught Kagome staring. A jolt went through her body as his eyes locked onto hers. She jumped in surprise at having been caught and smiled nervously. Sesshomaru smirked and walked away. Suddenly, a voice came from behind.

“Giving Sesshomaru the googly eye, too?”

Kagome spun around, “Excuse me?”, and came face to face with Miroku. “I am not!” Kagome said indignantly.

He gave her a knowing smile and said, “It’s okay. All the girls do that when he perfoms. I suppose it’s only natural.” A shadow crossed his eyes at this. Maybe he was jealous of Sesshomaru. Kagome’s ire of being compared to one of Sesshomaru’s groupies was quelled with the thought.

Miroku sighed, but his voice belayed a chipper, almost excited tone, “The band and I wanted to know if you wanted join us for a night of karaoke. We always end a challenge day with karaoke because we’re already geared up to sing.”

“Yeah that sounds fun. Can my band mates come too?”

“Sure, we’ll be at Inuyasha’s house. I’ll be sure to put you guys on the list.”

“Alright, I’ll see you guys then.” Kagome waved goodbye as she ran over to Sango. “Sango can we go to a karaoke party tonight, please?”

Sango gave her a glare as she began to carry her drums to her car. “You can go, but I’m not.”

Kagome pouted as she bent over to pick up the rest of Sango’s drum set. “Why won’t you come? Miroku’s going to be there.” She hoped that Miroku’s presence would persuade her stubborn friend.

“That’s the problem.” Sango grunted out as she tried to keep hold of her bass drum. Kagome balked at this.

“So, the only reason that you’re not going is because Miroku will be there?”

“No but he’s part of the reason.” They had made it to the parking lot and was walking down an aisle of cars.

“Then what exactly is the reason, Sango?” She watched as Sango pulled a set of keys out of her coat pocket and shut off the alarm to a black SUV five cars down.

“I’m not a social person. Therefore, social situations would only make me uncomfortable.”

“Kagome paused in her step. “Oh. I guess I didn’t think about that. I thought you just couldn’t face Miroku.”

Sango popped the trunk and said, “Of course I can’t face Miroku. He kissed me.”

“You’re kidding, please tell me that you’re kidding?”

“Afraid not.” Sango took the stuff from Kagome’s hands and began to pack all the instruments in the car.

“It was a kiss Sango. It’s not like you two did the nasty in his back seat. Just go to the party tonight and have some fun. A kiss is nothing to worry about. I should know, I got kissed by both Nishizawa brothers.”

Sango, who was in the process of moving Kohaku’s keyboard to the back seat to make more room for her drums, whipped her head around so quickly Kagome could have sworn she got whiplash. “WHAT?”

Kagome walked over to the other side of the car to help Sango with the keyboard. She rolled her eyes as she said, “Oh don’t act like you didn’t hear me.”

Sango glared at her in return, but continued with the conversation. “Both of them?”

“Yep, both of them. On the same day too.”

“The same day?” Shock was the only expression on Sango’s face.

“Within the same hour.” Kagome added looking pretty proud of herself.

“Well Damn, my kiss really was nothing.”

“You see? So about the party, are you coming or not?”

“I guess I’ll come.”

“Good, Now, can you give me a ride home, please?”

Sango sighed, but said, “Get in.”

Kagome stood in front of her bedroom mirror putting the finishing touches to her hair. As soon as she got homeshe just had to change her look. The outfit from the battle was a little too normal for her tastes. She ran to her closet and pulled out her neon green Nike air-force ones, a pair of bright yellow, super baggy jogging pants, a rainbow tie-dye sports bra, and an orange vest. For make-up she went with green eye shadow instead of the smokey black eye shadow from earlier and red lipstick. She decided to do something extra special to her hair. She parted it into three sections and wrapped each section with lime green ribbon so that her hair stuck up four inches and the rest hung loose. The effect was like having three horns coming out of her head. She adorned her wrists with big silver bands and left for the party.

The walk to Inuyasha’s house was a breeze, but upon arriving Kagome was faced with the fact that getting into Inuyasha’s house was going to be very difficult. There was a line of people outside the door begging this big, muscular wall of a man to be let in. Kagome locked eyes with the bouncer and was surprised to be waved up. Stepping out from the back of line she made her way towards the intimidating man… no demon. He slipped his dark shades down the bridge of his nose to reveal sky blue eyes and asked, “Name?”

Kagome was mesmerized by his eyes, but once she heard his voice she jumped back to the present and said with a bit of a squeak, “Oh! I’m Kagome. Kagome Higurashi.”

With a nod he unclipped the black velvet rope that blocked the entrance and allowed Kagome to enter. As she passed she heard a lot of groans and complaints. ‘They act like this is a real club.’

The inside of the house had a decent crowd, but not nearly as crowded as the front lawn. Every room on the ground floor had something going on. Board games in the library, Dance Dance Revolution in the den, movies in the family room, card games in the dining room, and finally karaoke in the living room. Music was thumping from a stairwell that probably led to the basement. The living room was where she found the people she was looking for. Inuyasha sat next to Miroku as they watched a pink-haired girl massacre Fergie’s song “Fergilicious”.

“I thought this was just going to be karaoke, Miroku.” Kagome said as she stood with her hands on her hips in front of the surprised pair.

“My don’t you look stunning.” Miroku said as he eyed her outfit.

Inuyasha choked on his pop and said, “stunning! Like hell! I don’t know whether I should expect her to juggle or admit that she’s color blind.”

“Enough about my clothes. Why didn’t you tell me this place would be crawling with people? I thought this would be a small karaoke party.”

Miroku spoke first , “It’s always like this. I guess that since the bands usually spend their time doing the karaoke I didn’t think to mention the rest.”

“Yeah! Now move out the way you’re blocking the melons!” Inuyasha yelled, pushing her to the side.

Kagome looked puzzled as she asked, “What melons?”

Miroku gave her a weird look and said, “Take a second to think about that.”

Kagome followed their line of sight to the chick on stage and noticed exactly what they referred to as “melons”. A look of disgust and surprise crossed her features and she said, “You guys couldn’t go for a smart girl with nice boobs, could you?”

Inuyasha snorted and replied, “Try finding a smart girl with boobs like those!”

“Or on who bounces around like she does.” Miroku added.

Kagome crossed her arms “I wonder what Sango would do if she knew what you did to entertain yourself Miroku.”

He put up his hands in surrender “Okay, you win. What will it take to keep your mouth shut?”

Kagome put a finger to her chin and thought about a request. “I think that I’ll save this and call you for a favor later.”

Miroku turned his head to the side and mumbled something. Kagome decided to ignore this action and just as she made to sit down a voice called out over the microphone, “Hey you with the rainbow for clothes!” Kagome turned around and pointed at herself. “Yeah you, come up here and take a turn at the mic!” Kagome seemed a bit surprised at being called on.

“Aren’t you going up there?” Inuyasha said while looking up at her from the couch.

“Is this how it works? He just calls people up and they’re just suppose to go?”

“Well yeah,” Inuyasha looked at her as if she had grown another head, “How else would we keep people from hogging the mic? This isn’t some karaoke bar, you know?”

Kagome opened her mouth to speak, but the Dj’s voice rang out from the microphone again, “Hey three horns, get your ass up here!” Kagome jumped and scrambled to the small stage. She took the mic in hand and looked over to the Dj. The music started and she was able to recognize the song immediately.

She began to sing, “I could feel it from the start. Couldn’t stand to be apart. Something about you caught my eye, something moved me deep inside! Don’t know what you did boy, but you had it and I’ve been hooked ever since. I told my mother, my brother, my sister and my friend. I told the others, my lovers, both past and present tense. Every time I see you everything starts making sense.”

As she sang she looked out to the crowd that was starting to form. Miroku was holding a whispered conversation with Shippo and Inuyasha sat perfectly still with his eyes slightly bugged out. Kagome smiled at this and continued with new vigor. “Just do your thang honey! Ain’t no other man, can stand up next to you. Ain’t no other man on the planet does what you do. You’re the kinda guy, a girl finds in a blue moon. You got soul, you got class. You got style with your bad ass – oh yeah! Ain’t no other man its true. Ain’t no other man but you.”

Kagome saw a shadow move out of the corner of her eye, “Never thought I’d be all right. No, no, no! ‘Til you came and changed my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” She turned her head to get a better look and was surprised to see that Sesshomaru had joined the crowd, “What was cloudy now is clear! Yeah, yeah! You’re the light that I needed. You got what I want boy, and I want it! So keep on givin’ it up!”

There was something about his expression that she couldn’t put a finger on. Suddenly a thought came to her and she began singing to the silver-haired guy in the corner. “Tell your mother, your brother, your sister, and your friend. And the others, your lovers, better not be present tense. Cause I want everyone to know that you are mine and no one else’s!”

She locked eyes with Sesshomaru as she stepped off of the stage. The crowd parted for her as she made her way to him. She was laughing on the inside, but kept it from showing. “Ain’t no other man, can stand up next to you. Ain’t no other man on the planet does what you do. You’re the kinda guy, a girl finds in a blue got soul, you got class. You got style your bad ass! Ain’t no other man it’s true. All right! Ain’t no other man but you.”

“Ain’t no other, ain’t, ain’t no other! Ain’t no other, ain’t, ain’t no other LOVER! Ain’t no other, I, I, I need no other! Ain’t no other man but you! Ohhhh!”

When she was a finger length from Sesshomaru she reached up and stroked the side of his face and winked. There was a wave of noise from the crowd which both parties ignored. “You are there when I’m a mess. Talk me down from every ledge. Give me strength, boy you’re the best. You’re the only one who’s ever passed every test.”

She turned around and walked back to the stage. “Ain’t no other man, can stand up next to you. Ain’t no other man on the planet does what you do. You’re the kinda guy, a girl finds in a blue moon. You got soul, you got class. You got style your bad ass – oh yeah! Ain’t no other man it’s true! Ain’t no other man but you… And now I’m tellin’ you, so ain’t no other man but you.”

“Ain’t no other man, can stand up next to you. Ain’t no other man on the planet does what you do. You’re the kinda guy, a girl finds in a blue moon. You got soul, you got class. You got style your bad ass – oh yeah! Ain’t no other man it’s true! All right! Ain’t no other man but you!” Once she had finished the song the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Kagome gave a relieved smile and wal ked back to the couch where Inuyasha and Miroku still sat with a hop in her step.

She was all smiles when she plopped down between the two boys. She glanced towards Sesshomaru’s corner, but he was no longer there. Miroku leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I can’t believe that you had the balls to do that.”

Kagome ust laughed and replied, “What can I say? I have some big ones.”

Miroku gave her a sideways look as he whispered, “Well let’s hope that you don’t get castrated.” His statement went through one ear and out the other as she watched a blue-haired guy destroy Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’.

Chapter 7

Chapter 9