Eye of the Beholder

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Chapter 9: The Weekenders

Kagome woke up the next morning in a fuzzy haze. She laid in bed staring up at her ceiling as she waited for her eyes to focus. The events of last night floated through her head and she couldn’t help but smile. She had so much fun yesterday. The battle, then the party and then the song that she sang to Sesshomaru. Her smile faded at this thought. What if he didn’t know that she was only teasing? What if he thought that she really felt that way? She had to make sure.

So, she rolled over to grab her cellphone off the night stand and flipped it open only to realize that she did not have Sesshomaru’s phone number, nor did she have Inuyasha’s. Not that he would appreciate her calling him to talk to his brother. So she would have to pay him a little visit. This did not look promising at all. How weird would it look when she showed up at Sesshomaru’s house to see if there was a misunderstanding? On the other hand it could be very entertaining to see his reaction. With that in mind she rolled out of bed and headed for the shower.

After a while she was standing in front of Sesshomaru’s house. For some reason it didn’t seem as welcoming as it did yesterday. As she walked to the door her feet felt heavier with each step. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was Sesshomaru for crying out loud! She talks to this guy everyday at school. She even hung out with him all day last week. This should not be this hard. She’s just being silly. For all she knew he might not have thought anything of it. Kagome adopted a brave stance; she’ll see soon enough.

***

Sesshomaru was sitting in the family room reading the newspaper when he was interrupted by the door bell. He folded up his paper and set it aside with a sigh. Answering the door was such a bother so early on a Saturday morning. Since he was the only one at home, seeing as everyone left to go shopping, it was up to him to deal with this unwanted visitor. As he opened the door he was met with a surprise.

Kagome was standing at his door in the most normal outfit he had ever seen her wear. She was wearing baggy gray sweat pants that were scrunched at her knees, a white tee shirt that showed off just a small bit of midriff, and a pair of black flip-flops adorned her feet. He could see her black painted toes with a silver toe ring on each foot. Her hair was down in a wavy mass and still damp from a recent shower. She had no make-up on her face and he had to admit that he preferred her this way. The biggest surprise, though, were her eyes. Usually lavender in color, they were now a shimmering sapphire. ‘She must wear contacts everyday. Why would she want to hide such beautiful eyes?’ He thought.

***

Kagome’s breath caught in her throat when Sesshomaru opened the door. She was hoping that someone else would open it. ‘Know what? Forget that. This is better. What if Inuyasha answered the door? How would I explain my reason for wanting to speak with his brother? The path of less embarrassment is definitely the right way to go.’ She was brought out of her frozen stupor when a flash of confusion crossed Sesshomaru’s normally stoic face. ‘He must want me to say why I’m here’. “Um, Sesshomaru… about yesterday…” He blinked and had a look of such surprise that it gave her a sneaking suspicion that he did not expect her to talk, but she continued, “about yesterday, I hope that you didn’t think anything of the song. I was only teasing. I’m not sure if you already knew or not so I decided to come over and clear things up just in case.” The different emotions in his eyes were beginning to freak her out. ‘What if he had hoped I was for real? What if I just broke his heart? Is that even possible? What am I thinking? I’m obviously still a little tired because I’m reading way too much into this.’

***

 Sesshomaru was ripped from the inner workings of his mind when Kagome started to speak. He was slightly surprised because, for a second, he had forgotten that she was real. She seemed more like a dream that he had conjured up in his sleep. She was dressed so plainly with such a lack of color that he had a hard time believing that the Kagome at his door was the same one from school. Realizing that she was speaking again Sesshomaru paused his thoughts with the intention of paying attention this time.

“You see, I woke up this morning and realized that I might have come off wrong last night. So I came over to see if there was any misunderstanding about the song?” Sesshomaru stared at the girl. He had no clue as to what she was talking about. What happened last night that she felt the need to come and clear it up? Thinking back he finally remembered the song that she had sang to him and the crowd’s reaction to it. Then an idea came to mind. With a mental smirk he said, “I did indeed want to discuss the song with you. Please, come inside?”

***

Upon being invited inside, Kagome was hit with such nervousness that her body did not want to move. She also had the feeling as though she had done something wrong and was about to be punished for it. There was something about Sesshomaru today that gave her the impression that he was planning something, something that involved her.

He led her to his bedroom and promptly shut the door. Trying to relax was quite the difficult task at the moment so Kagome sat in the closest chair available and waited for him to speak. As the silence continued her posture grew stiffer and her nervousness increased. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and yelled out, “Will you just say what you have to say already?”

Sesshomaru sighed, took a seat in the chair closest to her and after giving her a calculating look, he said, “ I understand your reason for believing that  there would be a misunderstanding, but last night I was not under the impression that you had any feelings for me. I am quite aware of the rules to Inuyasha’s karaoke and I was rather pleased to see someone have fun with it for a change. Although, your performance and the way in which the others reacted got me to thinking. It would be the perfect opportunity to get those girls off my back.”

“How so?” Kagome asked, not realizing that she had leaned closer to him while he spoke.

“You see, everyone already thinks that you have some sort of crush on me. We can take that and make it true.”

“So, you want us to pretend to be a couple?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I want.”

“That means we have to do “couple things” like hold hands and hangout between classes and… I don’t know! Things of that sort.” Kagome looked rather upset when she said this. Sesshomaru gave her a look that screamed “trouble,” but she couldn’t figure out how she knew this since his face hardly changed.

Then he asked, “Would you prefer the whole idea to be scrapped?”

There it was. All kinds of trouble came tumbling down on her head with just one simple question. His mouth said one thing, but his tone said something completely different. He was, in a sense, asking her for help, something she was sure he didn’t do often. Kagome sighed and said. “Tell me your plan.”

***

“Sesshomaru, we’re home!” Rin yelled as she and Mrs. Nishizawa entered the house, leaving Inuyasha and Taisho to deal with the many shopping bags.

“How can two girls buy so much crap?” Inuyasha griped as he dropped his load of bags and headed back to the car for the rest.

Taisho was walking in with his arms full of bags when Rin replied, “It’s not crap! Tell him dad.”

“It’s not crap, Inuyasha. Women just need one kind of sweater in every color available and four pairs of brown shoes.” Mrs. Nishizawa glared at him behind Rin’s back and he shut his mouth immediately. If only Inuyasha had followed his example.

“Well, I think all this stuff is crap,” he dropped the rest of the bags on the kitchen floor and headed to the stairs, “It’s not as if any of these clothes are gonna make Rin look any better.” With that, Rin burst into tears and Mrs. Nishizawa sent Taisho to talk some sense into his son.

“Inuyasha, you really shouldn’t say such mean things to your sister. I hope you don’t do this kind of thing at school.” Taisho said while jogging to catch up with Inuyasha’s furious pace.

“Why would I want to embarrass her at school? I have my own problems if you haven’t noticed.” He slowed his step so his father could walk alongside him.

“I’m only trying to make sure that her first year of high school is going well.”

“As well as it can be. I mean, she’s a total lame. She didn’t even make it into any bands.”

“Did it occur to you that maybe she wanted to be in one of her brothers’ bands?”

“We don’t do favors like that. It’ll be considered favoritism and we’d have a riot on our hands.”

“Maybe you should do your sister a favor and allow her to sing in your band.”

“No way! My band is all my own and I’m not going to share it with my little sister!”

“Just one or two songs won’t hurt, Inuyasha. Think about it?”

“Yeah, sure I’ll think about — Kagome?”

They had turned the corner to find Kagome leaving Sesshomaru’s bedroom. Everything about this situation was suspicious. Taisho was immediately on guard. He had a parental look about him that was unusual. He and Inuyasha watched as Sesshomaru came out the room and they both turned to walk down the hall when they froze. The four stared at each other with shock, disappointment, embarrassment, and boredom. Kagome’s face was steadily turning a nice pink color, while Sesshomaru gave Inuyasha and his father an icy glare and placed his hand on the small of Kagome’s back and led her down the hall, leaving the two men in their own clouds of emotional confusion. Taisho looked over at Inuyasha and asked, “You don’t think they were having sex in there, do you?”

“Inuyasha shook his head but said, “I hope not, that would just be weird.”

They heard the front door close and Sesshomaru’s feet making soft thuds on the stairs. Within seconds he was standing in front of them again. Taisho spoke up before his eldest son could disappear into the cave he called a room. “You weren’t having sex with that girl, were you?”

“Subtle, dad.” Inuyasha quipped.

“I don’t have time for subtlety. Answer the question Sesshomaru.”

The teenager didn’t bother to look at the older man as he said, “I would consider myself more of a gentleman than to have sex with a girl while my family is in the house.”

“Don’t play that with me Sesshomaru! We weren’t here the whole time.”

“Yes, but why would I embarrass the girl by escorting her out of the house in front of my family? I’m sure she wouldn’t want something so private to be flaunted in front of strangers.” With that, he walked into his room and closed the door behind him.

“Well, at least you got your answer, pop.” Inuyasha chuckled before he also disappeared into his room.

***

Kagome’s phone ringing woke her from her afternoon nap. She glanced at the tiny screen and answered. “Hey Sango, What’s up?”

“I need help getting ready for my date with Miroku. Can you come over?” She sounded a little panicked which is totally out of character.

“I’m on my way.” She looked at her clock and rolled her eyes. She really didn’t want to go, but what kind of friend would she be if she didn’t? Sango doesn’t ask for much so why is she having such a hard time fulfilling one small request?

Kagome strolled up sango’s driveway ten minutes later. Kohaku was waiting for her on the front steps. She gave him a friendly greeting and smiled when a light blush graced his cheeks. He led her up to Sango’s room where it looked as though a tornado had blown through it. Clothes were lying everywhere! Kagome looked around for Sango and found her in the back of the closet tossing various articles of clothing over her shoulder saying, “No… no… definitely not… ugh!”

Kagome dodged as much as she could, but she was nailed more than once in the face, as she made her way to the freaked out girl. “Hey Sango, are you going to be this bad every time Miroku asks you out? If so, this is not going to be a healthy relationship.”  She said as she ducked under a flying shoe.

Sango stopped throwing things immediately when she heard Kagome’s voice. “Do you enjoy laughing at me?”

“Actually, yes I do. You probably shouldn’t be so funny, then I would have to find someone else to laugh at.”

“You know what? Fuck you,” Sango tossed a skirt at Kagome, “Now get your ass in here and help me find something to wear.”

Kagome looked around at the clothes strewn all around. “Well, first things first. What look were you going for?”

“I don’t know! Something cute, girly, soft? Just not me, you know?”

Kagome sighed, “I could put you in a little pink number with lots of glitter and turn you into a bubble gum, cookie cut-out bombshell, but that wouldn’t be the girl Miroku likes, otherwise he would be dating that chick from home economics. You have to be yourself. Hey, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green, I suppose.”

“Great! You’ll look good in that color. Now, what are you guys going to be doing on your date?”

“He just asked to hangout. I didn’t ask what we were going to do.”

“You’re a ‘down for anything’ kind of girl, huh?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Alright, so you’ll probably want something nice, but casual. So you’re in luck because that cuts out skirts and dresses.” Kagome clapped her hands together and looked around the room again. “Let’s get started!”

A while Sango stared at herself in the mirror. She was wearing distressed blue skinny jeans with green Reebok high tops, a form fitting camouflage hoodie with a khaki t-shirt peeking over the zipper. Her hair was in its usual high ponytail, but with curls, and her makeup was natural with a bit of shimmer over her eyes and cherry chapstick on her lips to keep them a soft pink color without the shine and stickiness of gloss. Kagome said that nixing the gloss would guarantee her another kiss. Sango wasn’t really sure how she felt about that, but luckily for Kagome she decided not to fight.

“Do you like what you see?” kagome popped her head over Sango’s shoulder to look at the reflection.

“You’ve managed to make me into a girl without turning me into a care bear. So yeah, I guess I’m happy with it.”

“I’m surprised that your whole wardrobe didn’t consist of black, leather, and clunky boots.”

“Yeah my mom always buys me things as a way to get me out of this tough chick phase.”

“Is it working?”

“Well, considering what you did today I just might add a little variety to my personal style.” Just then Sango’s phone went off and after reading the text message she told Kagome that Miroku was on his way. Kagome wished her luck and headed for home expecting to have a nice quiet weekend.

Chapter 8

Chapter 10