InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Beautiful Stranger ❯ Chapter 2

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

 Chapter 2 – Birthday Boy

 

 

“Remind me again why I'm here,” Inuyasha grumbled over the thumping dance music, his ears plastered to his head.

 

“Because you love me?” Miroku answered, a twinkle in his eyes as he took a sip of his latest drink.

 

Inuyasha snorted. “Try again.”

 

“Because I'm your only family member besides our mothers willing to be seen with you in public?”

 

Inuyasha snorted again, but didn't argue. It was true, after all.

 

“That doesn't explain why I'm here,” the hanyou emphasized instead, giving his cousin a critical glare as he gestured to the nightclub around them. “Why are we here?”

 

“Why not?” Miroku answered, bobbing his head a bit to the rhythm. “I thought maybe I could find you a date for the night. Consider it a belated birthday present.”

 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at that one, although he didn't protest. He would still be a virgin if it weren't for Miroku kicking his ass into gear a few years back. Some people didn't care if your blood was mixed so long as your cash was green. That had been an easy lesson to learn. And everyone knew Club Taboo was regularly frequented by escorts. So long as you weren't stupid enough to discuss the money end of the arrangement in public then the club didn't care. The cops had more important things to do than harass a couple who could easily claim they'd just been about to have a consensual one-night-stand. A lot of the regular clientele made 'charitable donations' to law enforcement, too, and those donations would stop if anyone were ever stupid enough to pull an undercover op. Taboo was safe.

 

Miroku grinned as Inuyasha silently conceded to their plans for the night. Honestly, Miroku loved his hanyou cousin, even though save for his mother the rest of the family had disowned his aunt Izayoi for having an affair with a married inu-youkai.

 

Inuyasha's birth had been a horrible scandal for everyone involved, on both sides, destroying Toga Taisho's marriage and alienating the elder Taisho son Sesshoumaru from his father. Toga and Izayoi were truly in love, though, and so tough as nails they'd survived all the ridicule, raising Inuyasha together whenever possible although Toga had always made sure that Izayoi and their son were taken care of financially whenever he couldn't be there. They never married, and Izayoi and Inuyasha had lived alone, but Toga had been, and still was, a steady fixture in their lives.

 

Despite the way the rich daiyoukai doted on Izayoi, the affair had been too much for nearly all the members of her family to bear. Her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and older brother and sister had all turned against her, but her baby sister, Miroku's mother, had secretly already known about the affair for quite some time and had not turned her back on her sister after the secret was outed. Izayoi had just had to tell somebody, and for years Miroku's mother had tried to help her sister keep the secret…until she'd gotten pregnant and had decided to tell the rest of her family, knowing they would find out soon enough since she'd had no intention of ending her pregnancy.

 

Nor had Toga wanted her to. She had not selfishly ruined his marriage while he'd wished to continue keeping things a secret. They both should have been more careful but Toga had looked at it as the kami making the decision for him, when he'd been hesitant to leave his wife.

 

On Izayoi's side of things, shortly after the birth, her little sister, Miroku's mother, had discovered that she and her husband were expecting a baby as well, which had been a blessing for the rest of the family as they had focused all of their attention on them and had tried their best to pretend that Izayoi no longer existed. But Miroku's mother never severed all ties with her big sister, staying in touch at least over the phone no matter how much everyone else disapproved. Behind her husband's back she'd let Miroku and Inuyasha meet and play together when Miroku had been around five, Inuyasha six, and Izayoi had never been as thankful for her baby sister as she had been in that moment, gifting Inuyasha with his one and only friend in all the world.

 

Miroku was a very powerful houshi, as were nearly all of the men from his father's side, but nothing and no one had ever been able to tarnish his view of Inuyasha, and growing up the two had remained close, despite his father's protests once he'd eventually found out.

 

They were adults now, though, Miroku twenty six years old and Inuyasha twenty seven, and so they could do whatever the hell they wanted, screw what the rest of the family thought. Miroku personally felt that the rest of the family, and society itself for that matter, could go blow itself. Inuyasha was family too and that was all there was to it.

 

Even Sesshoumaru begrudgingly acknowledged the hanyou as his half-brother, since there was no real point in denying the truth of the matter. Sesshoumaru had no love for Inuyasha, but even openly hating him was better than pretending he didn't even exist, as most of their human family tried to do. Mentioning either Izayoi or Inuyasha's names around the dinner table would often cause a wave of silence followed by one of the elder family members grumbling out something like “We do not speak of such things,” and then the moment would pass without any further discussion on the matter.

 

It was because Inuyasha had gotten the short end of the stick in life, at least socially, that Miroku always tried his best to be there for his cousin, and tonight was no exception, the hanyou's birthday having honestly been just a few days prior. He hadn't been kidding about tonight being a belated birthday present, even though he knew that ultimately it would be Inuyasha who picked up the tab. Lonely and ostracized though he might be, Inuyasha was still very well off financially.

 

Toga Taisho was insanely rich, to put it mildly, and even though the scandal of siring a hanyou son had hurt his image in the public eye a little bit, the fact that he had managed to not crumble afterwards had ultimately earned the daiyoukai more respect among his peers. People had tried to bring him down, and they had failed, so now, over two decades later, Taisho Enterprises was just as successful as ever, if not more so, and even though Inuyasha had no direct ties to his father's multi-billion dollar corporation he was still his father's son, and as such, he could reap at least some of what his father sowed. He was nowhere near as wealthy as Sesshoumaru, of course, but he and his mother were by far the richest members of her human family. She unfortunately couldn't use it to buy their love, because apparently their sense of honor was more important than greed, but screw them anyway. Her baby sister still loved her, even without being paid to.

 

But even if he and his mother weren't rich, no lower youkai would dare to look down upon Inuyasha for his hanyou status; his youki just screamed of power because of the daiyoukai blood flowing through his veins, and the fact of the matter was that even though he was half human, he was still more powerful than most pureblooded youkai. That put him above them, strictly speaking, and they knew it, since youkai based status on the strength of one's youki above all else.

 

That being said, it wasn't the youkai world that really interested Inuyasha. Having grown up with Miroku as his only real friend, and Izayoi as his primary caretaker since Toga had never actually lived with them, Inuyasha related much more closely to humans, despite the fact that, generally speaking, it had been humans who'd been the cruelest to him over the years. But even though he couldn't even buy the love he deserved from the rest of his mother's family, Miroku had made it clear that he wasn't being friendly with him for his money, which Inuyasha greatly appreciated. He didn't mind buying himself some forms of companionship, but his life would have been horribly lonely without at least one genuine person in it, besides his mother, who loved him for him.

 

But even though Miroku would've loved him like a brother even if he were broke, money certainly talked where strangers were concerned, and so as soon as they'd stepped foot in Club Taboo Inuyasha had slapped his black, limitless credit card down on the bar, ordering a bottle of top shelf vodka and a private table for he and Miroku while leaving the tab open for the time being, and the bartender's reply had been an enthusiastic “Yes, sir!”

 

It was funny how nearly every time Miroku 'took him out' he was the one who ended up paying, but shaking his head in amusement, Inuyasha knew he had no intention of letting his cousin spend a single dime. What the hell else did he need all his money for? Letting Miroku drag him out to different places at least kept his life interesting, and he didn't mind paying because he knew Miroku wasn't just using him as a free ride to have his own fun. The holy man really did have his cousin's back and want what was best for him; he just didn't have the budget Inuyasha did, and so the more extravagant outings had to be on Inuyasha's dime or they simply wouldn't happen. Because Miroku's heart was in the right place, Inuyasha didn't mind paying the tab. He didn't mind it in the slightest.

 

So now here they were, sitting at a private table in the back of the club, Miroku sipping on his latest pour of vodka. Inuyasha had already polished off over half of the bottle himself; being half youkai it took a lot more alcohol to affect him than it did a full-blooded human, but that was all right because he could easily order another bottle if he ended up drinking more than what Miroku had wanted to share. Or if they managed to find a couple of ladies willing to join them at their table. It was certainly possible in a place like this, he knew.

 

As Inuyasha glanced around the club he noticed more than one human and youkai couple dancing together; the place was named Taboo for a reason. But dancing together and leaving together were two very different things. No, he would undoubtedly need an escort, he knew, but glancing around the room again, it unfortunately appeared as if the couple of women who screamed professional to him were already chatting with potential Johns.

 

“Hey, check it out,” Miroku said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts, as Miroku directed his attention towards the entrance to the club, and the two breathtakingly striking young ladies who had just entered. “Looks like our young escorts are in need of someone to escort,” the houshi added, setting his sights on the taller one dressed in purple.

 

Inuyasha looked their way, cursing the loud music that prevented him from hearing what the women were saying to each other, although it did appear they were openly scanning the male occupants of the room.

 

The shorter girl in the red dress' eyes met his for the briefest of moments before she grinned at him and then turned back to say something to her friend, and that just about sealed the deal for him right there because nobody who wasn't thinking about how much money a bottle service table cost would have looked at him that way. If she wasn't a prostitute then she was at least a gold digger, but either way, she'd most likely seen dollar signs in place of the ears on his head when she'd muscled up the willpower to shoot him such an alluring smile.

 

“Dude, the one in red totally just made eyes at you, which is good because I want the one in purple anyway,” Miroku chimed in then.

 

“Okay okay,” Inuyasha conceded, adding, “but I don't want to come off as desperate, so we should probably leave them alone for a little while before approaching.”

 

“Good idea,” Miroku agreed. “I'll keep an eye on the competition just to make sure nobody else plans on stealing them away.”

 

o o o o o o o o o o

 

“Okay, this was officially not a bad idea,” Kagome told Sango as they made their way over to the relatively quiet back corner of the bar.

 

“What did I tell you?” Sango smirked in triumph as she proceeded to order a Cosmo for her friend and a plain cranberry juice for herself.

 

“Oh come on, Sango, you gotta drink with me!” Kagome protested lightly.

 

“I will, a little bit, but I want to pace myself,” the martial artist responded.

 

Huffing playfully, Kagome took a sip of her alcoholic drink all the same, her eyes going back over the room's occupants a second time. There were a lot of handsome men in the club, though a good number of them looked like they were probably already with a date, and the last thing she wanted to do was have some random woman get all up in her face telling her to stay the hell away from her man. Sighing, and taking another sip of her drink, Kagome knew she needed to limit her choices to the men who were more obviously single; the ones who had actually come out looking to hook up, the same as she had.

 

Weighing her apparent choices, not to mention the various pros and cons of the whole damn situation, Kagome took a third sip of her drink and allowed her eyes to wander back over towards the silver-haired Adonis hiding at the back table with his houshi companion. Kagome could feel the human man's spiritual powers from where she stood, he was that powerful, and the hanyou's demonic aura also screamed of brute strength. His father must have been a very powerful daiyoukai, no doubt about it.

 

Kagome blushed a little as he caught her looking his way a second time with surprised but also appreciative eyes, the way he looked back clearly telling her that he didn't mind her looking at him in the slightest, and sending him a playful wink despite her embarrassment at getting caught staring, Kagome then turned back around to face the bar before her cheeks burst into flame.

 

Decision made then, I guess… She smiled, and took another, larger sip of her drink.

 

Kagome personally had no problem with the fact that he was a hanyou; he was a total hottie and she thought the whole lingering disdain for mixing the races was archaic and absurd. Still, she supposed with the way the world at large looked at the whole thing she did feel a little sorry for the guy on top of her raw physical attraction. She knew he had to do fairly well for himself for he and his friend to be occupying a bottle service table at a club this nice, which wasn't surprising considering most daiyoukai were fairly wealthy, but money aside, she'd bet he'd had a lonely childhood.

 

Even so, the way he'd smiled at her told her that he wasn't that much of a recluse in his adult years. It didn't appear to her as if he'd come out with his human buddy merely as a wing-man.

 

Hell, even if he was the wing-man, that would change, she thought with a wicked little smirk. She would reverse the game on them, and get her wing-woman to keep the houshi entertained so that she and the silver-haired Adonis could get to know each other better.

 

Truth be told, a naughty little part of her in the back of her mind actually had a bit of a thing for youkai, although she had never in a million years considered actually sleeping with one, before now. Demonic features aside he was still hands down the most attractive man in the room, but she personally thought his youkai traits made him that much more exotic; she found the idea of fangs and claws exciting, and thought his canine (or feline?) ears were cute, rather than repulsive.

 

Mind made up, she was going to live out one of her forbidden fantasies tonight. She could hardly wait! He was perfect. A pure youkai would be too risky, but with him being a hanyou there was the added bonus of not having to worry about an accidental pregnancy, in addition to no STDs, meaning the condoms she'd brought could stay tucked away in her cocktail purse.

 

“Okay, I've made eyes at a guy who's made eyes with me back…so now what do I do?” Kagome half laughed, half asked seriously of Sango as she finished her Cosmo and ordered another one, refusing to let Sango pay again as she handed the bartender her own credit card to keep on file for the rest of the night.

 

“Which one?” Sango asked with eager excitement as she ordered on her own tab her first alcoholic drink of the evening.

 

Kagome pointed out the men to her, and this time the houshi also made googly eyes in their direction, more specifically at the martial artist dressed in spaghetti strapped purple. Smiling demurely, Sango then quickly turned back around so that they would not see her real reaction as she bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. Meeting a man herself hadn't really been a part of the plan, but what the hell? She was willing if he was!

 

“Let me guess, you're interested in the hanyou,” she stated to Kagome rather than asked, no trace of hostility or repulsion in her voice with the way she'd said it, her tone casual as if she'd said 'the blond' or 'the redhead' or something else equally harmless.

 

“Yup,” Kagome acknowledged without a speck of hesitation or shame. In fact, she almost seemed proud of herself for the declaration.

 

Sango merely nodded; she knew her friend and client thought it was immature of the rest of the world to still be holding on to so much hate in this day and age, and for no real reason at all. Humans and youkai could work together, live next door to one another, and could even be best friends, but if two of them actually fell in love and had a baby, watch out.

 

At least the miko wouldn't have to worry about an accidental pregnancy as she would were she planning on going to bed with a true youkai. Condoms could break, especially with the workout a youkai could give one, and true there was the morning after pill, but demonic sperm had a reputation for being rather…persistent.

 

That was one of the reasons why human/youkai couples were so looked down upon, even if it was just for fun and they had no intention of becoming parents. Plans could change; at least when the human was the woman. It was slightly more acceptable for a human man to have female youkai 'companions' because when the union went that way around the odds of an accidental pregnancy were slim to none. There were demonic methods of birth control that human females could not take without it killing them that most youkai females who played with human men used on a regular basis. As a result, nearly all hanyou were born to human mothers, and well over two thirds were unplanned accidents that had shamed both their human and youkai families with their birth.

 

If the child were truly unwanted, by the parents, it would just be aborted, but most of the time, if the couple was genuinely in love and hadn't just been fooling around sexually for fun, then they just didn't have the heart to terminate the pregnancy, the human mother deciding to keep her baby, consequences be damned. But it was always the child that paid the biggest price, socially. As if it were really their fault they'd been born.

 

Personally, Sango thought Kagome was right, it wasn't fair, although that was the way the world was and so if this were going to be anything more than just a one-night-stand she would probably advise her friend to fully consider the consequences before perusing such a relationship. She would support Kagome 100%, but that didn't mean the miko's father would, and she would just hate for her friend to have to choose between family and love. But Mr. Higurashi shouldn't find out about tonight, because this club had a reputation of its own to uphold, which was pretty much 'What happens at Taboo stays at Taboo' and so she would encourage Kagome to follow her heart, and least for tonight.