InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages ❯ Bad News, or Good News? ( Chapter 22 )

Before we get started with the chapter, I have to say thank you very much to everyone who voted for me! ^_^ My story was nominated for the 'Fiction Elimination' web site, and managed to survive the first couple of rounds without getting eliminated. It eventually got booted by Keolla's story, but I wasn't surprised.

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Disclaimer: No, I do not own Inuyasha, but come back and ask me again in a few years. If by then I am actually rich enough that I can pay someone else to answer your question, that will mean that I finally managed to get my hands on him.

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Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages

Chapter Twenty-Two

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Sesshoumaru gazed blankly at a potted fern across the room from him, while tapping his claws against the smooth wood of the table in a precise pattern. It was obvious that even when the demon lord did something as pointless as tap his fingers, he allowed himself no room for error. Not a single click was ill-timed, though they were becoming more forceful by the second.

He was obviously waiting for something, and none too patiently at that.

Just when anyone watching would have expected his claws to pierce through the tabletop in front of him, the tapping abruptly stopped along with the sounds of ringing that were drifting from the phone in his other hand.

"Yeah, whaddaya want?" Inuyasha's voice growled.

Despite the rather unorthodox (and completely rude) greeting, Sesshoumaru's cool features never even twitched. 'This conversation should be most interesting.' He thought to himself with some vague amusement as he took in the 'slightly' unfriendly tone of his half-brother's voice.

Out loud, though, he sounded just as serious as always. "Well, hello to you, too, dear brother."

The phone line was silent for a moment, and Sesshoumaru remained quiet as well, waiting to see how Inuyasha would react next. He didn't have very long to wait.

"What the hell do you want this time, Sesshoumaru?!?!"

In response to Inuyasha's yelling, Sesshoumaru had pulled the phone away from his ear, never changing expression or even bothering to wince at the loud sound. Showing pain would be considered a weakness, after all. "You must be in an exceptionally good mood today, brother. You called me by my name, and not 'You Bastard'. Our relationship seems to be improving."

He never could resist baiting his temperamental sibling.

"Would you just get to the damn point? I don't have all day!" Inuyasha muttered sourly. As an after-thought, he added "bastard" under his breath.

When Sesshoumaru heard a small gasp in the background, along with a feminine voice exclaiming 'Inuyasha!' in a shocked manner, he couldn't stop his mouth from curving into a shape that might have been called a smile, had it been on anyone else's face. He found it amusing that even after several years of living on his own without his mother, Inuyasha's foul mouth was still getting him in trouble with women.

Some things never changed, it seemed.

When it looked like Inuyasha's companion had no intention of stopping her lecture on appropriate language any time soon, Sesshoumaru decided that it was time to reclaim Inuyasha's attention. "Forgive me for interrupting you and your 'guest,' little brother, but I thought I ought to warn you that I will be back sometime within the next two or three days to pick up Rin."

"WHAT?"

A sudden silence reigned on the other end of the line, Inuyasha's loud exclamation having successfully stopped Kagome's lecture in its tracks.

'I seem to have shocked him into silence.' Sesshoumaru considered silently as he waited for Inuyasha to speak again. 'Having a human heart, I rather expected him to form at least a small attachment to Rin, but this reaction is unexpected…'

"Oi!" Inuyasha's irate voice broke through Sesshoumaru's musings. "I asked you what the hell you said! I couldn't hear anything over little Miss Manner's ranting…" An irritated huff sounded in the background.

Sesshoumaru sighed softly, the sound as close to 'exasperated' as he would ever come. He should have known that Inuyasha would have a thicker skull than that. "I said that I will be arriving in a few days to pick up Rin." His mouth suddenly twitched before he added "Shall I repeat that once more in case your weak hanyou ears missed it again?"

The phone line was silent again, and Sesshoumaru correctly guessed that Inuyasha was trying to rein in his temper before speaking. 'Despite what he said earlier about her lecturing, he must truly care for that girl if he is making such an effort not to upset her. Any other time and I am sure he would be using language foul enough to make a sailor's ears burn.' Once again, one of his thoughts actually seemed to amuse him. Who knew that his annoying half-brother would prove to be such an excellent source of entertainment?

"I thought you weren't supposed to be back for another week at least!" Inuyasha finally managed to spit out, having once again regained control of his temper.

"As much as I shall hate to cancel the last few days of my trip, it is necessary. Business matters have come to my attention that cannot be put off, so I must go back and deal with them in a timely manner."

The other end of the phone line was quiet once more as Inuyasha digested the information given to him. This time the silence truly seemed contemplative, and Sesshoumaru was having a difficult time telling if Inuyasha was upset that he was coming back early, or just shocked. And if he was upset, was it because he would have to see Sesshoumaru, or because he would be losing Rin? Somehow, Sesshoumaru got the feeling that even Inuyasha himself didn't know for sure how he was feeling at the moment.

"I cannot give you an exact time or date for when I will arrive, but expect me within the next three days." He instructed, finally choosing not to say anything more that could be considered personal. He would let Inuyasha work through things for himself, and then they could talk later. And they WOULD talk. "I still have some things that need to be done here, but nothing that will take me very long. Good day, little brother."

With that, Sesshoumaru flipped his cell phone closed, cutting off the angry splutters coming from the other end. He stood up a moment later and headed for the glass doors that lead out to the beach behind his temporary home.

"Now, to finish up my 'business' here. Where could that woman in the purple bikini be…?"

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Kagome cringed as Inuyasha finally finished off his poor phone, his anger causing him to slam it down so hard that he completely crushed the plastic casing. Any harder and it probably would have gone straight through the table.

"Dammit, that bastard! He has some nerve, hanging up on me like that!"

Not sure if saying anything would cause him to direct his anger at her, Kagome took a hesitant step forward and placed a calming hand on his arm. Their earlier argument had been completely forgotten, and now the only thing on Kagome's mind was trying to sooth Inuyasha before he could destroy anything else around the room. The last thing she wanted to do was take a grumpy, penny-pinching hanyou furniture shopping…

"I doubt that you wanted to be talking to him in the first place, so isn't the fact that he hung up on you so quickly a good thing?"

He glared at her. "Maybe I didn't want to talk to him, but it was rude!"

Kagome raised her eyebrows at him. "And you weren't?"

"That's different!" He stubbornly insisted, obviously using logic that only he could understand.

Finally having had enough of his attitude, Kagome returned his glare ten-fold. "Stop acting like a brat, Inuyasha! Just because your brother hung up on you is no reason for you to pitch a fit and you know it!" When Inuyasha just crossed his arms in a huff and didn't answer, Kagome tried to recall what the phone conversation had been about. Perhaps Sesshoumaru had said something else to make Inuyasha mad, and he just wasn't admitting it?

She suddenly recalled Inuyasha saying something about Sesshoumaru returning. "Hey, is he really coming back sooner than you expected?"

Muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'nosey,' Inuyasha finally answered her. "He's coming back sometime within the next three days."

"Three days?" Kagome's face clearly displayed her confusion. "You mean he wouldn't give you a more specific time than that?"

Inuyasha ignored her question and continued to sulk silently.

'I know that he doesn't like his brother, but this reaction is a bit over the top, even for him.' Kagome bit her lip as she stared at him thoughtfully. He had moved to the couch so that he could stew while sitting down, and didn't seem to be aware of her watching him. 'What could have him so worked up that he's practically forgotten that I'm even standing here?'

It was then that the answer came to her with a sudden clarity that was almost startling, and the realization caused her face to soften as she stared at him. Of course the big jerk would miss Rin and be too stubborn to admit it!

"Inuyasha…"

As if the sound of her voice had snapped him out of some kind of trance, Inuyasha suddenly shot to his feet. He still hadn't looked at her, and his bangs managed to obscure his eyes from her.

"I think I'm gonna go for a walk…or something."

His voice had sounded gruff, as always, and yet this time it was unusually subdued. That fact had taken Kagome by surprise, so in the following moments that it had taken her to gather her wits, Inuyasha had already exited the apartment and left her staring after him.

Now she was torn between worrying and wanting to follow him and beat the life out of him for just leaving her like that.

"I can't believe him!" She huffed, taking a page from his book and sulking with her arms crossed over her chest. "Running off and leaving me here, just like that! He could have at least given me a little more warning or something."

Despite her anger at being left hanging like that, her worry for him was winning out. She knew him well enough to realize that he wouldn't have done that unless he was really upset about something. And she also knew that she shouldn't expect him to hang around and spill his guts, either. He'd been a loner for a long time, so he wasn't used to telling other people what he was feeling.

She could only hope that he'd want to talk to her later, after he'd had some time to think.

Shutting the apartment door behind her and remembering not to lock it (after all, who knew if Inuyasha even had a key for it), Kagome decided that it was time to go hunt down Sango and Rin. Maybe the former could offer her a sympathetic ear, and the latter a distraction. She could really use both…

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He'd been walking around the neighborhood for hours.

Not that Inuyasha noticed, of course. Being a hanyou made such a thing easy for him to do. He could have walked for days without tiring at all, and sore feet would never be a problem for him. You could pretty much say that he had it made, and most humans would have given anything to be like him.

But, at the moment, he probably would have traded in all his amazing abilities for a few painful blisters. Anything, as long as it might distract him from his thoughts for a while.

"Dammit, why does Sesshoumaru keep coming back? I thought he'd had enough of making my life hell while we were kids! Is his cushy, perfect little life so boring that he missed terrorizing me?"

Inuyasha's ranting received no answer from the people he was passing by on the sidewalk, but he wasn't actually expecting one. He'd grown much too used to talking to himself over the years since he'd moved out on his own. Being rude and antisocial, he didn't make friends easily so the only one he usually had to talk to was himself.

One thing Inuyasha couldn't understand about the situation was WHY Sesshoumaru seemed to have taken a sudden interest in him again. He'd been more than happy to see Inuyasha leave their family home, and had made no effort to contact Inuyasha until their father died. And even then, it was just a form letter and a call from a lawyer, informing him of his rights to the estate, along with conditions for inheritance.

Needless to say, Inuyasha hung up on the lawyer and sent Sesshoumaru's letter back to him, along with a crude picture drawn on top of it to show his brother what he thought of him.

Lost in thought and not paying any attention to where he was going, Inuyasha was startled into stopping dead in his tracks when he heard a familiar voice shout something from somewhere ahead of him. That was when he realized that he'd made his way to the small park not far from his apartment building.

Driven by curiosity and the need for a distraction, Inuyasha made his way towards the voice only to find Kagome and Rin playing on the swings, both obviously in a competition to see who could go the highest. Kagome was winning easily with her stronger and much longer legs (not that he was looking at her legs, of course), but Rin was still stubbornly trying to beat the older girl.

'Kagome must have gone to find Rin after I walked out and left her,' He suddenly realized with a flood of guilt that caused his face to flush. He hadn't been thinking very clearly at the time or he probably wouldn't have done such a thing. His temper had just managed to get the better of him, as always. 'She's probably really ticked off with me right now. I'll be lucky if she decides to talk to me again or even bring the runt home.'

The thought gave him a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, which surprised him.

'I wouldn't actually MISS the brat, would I? Kagome I can understand, but…' His forehead creased as a thoughtful frown marred his face. Though it was against his will, he'd always felt a responsibility towards Rin since she was left in his care. But the thought that he might actually have an attachment beyond that was a hard possibility for him to swallow.

But as much as he didn't want to admit it, both Rin and Kagome had become his family. Almost like the family he'd lost…

Shaking his head furiously to rid himself of such unwanted thoughts, he once again focused on Rin and Kagome, now sitting calmly in the swings and talking. Both were still completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched.

'They look so much alike.' He mused silently as his thoughts took a sudden turn. 'Almost like sisters, or even as if they could be a mother and daughter…if Kagome were older, of course.'

Mother and daughter…family…

"Dammit!" He suddenly growled before quickly turning around and stalking away. He was angry with himself for allowing his thoughts to once again stray back into forbidden territory. If he didn't stop doing that, he'd eventually drive himself insane…or drive himself to talking to someone…

Inuyasha couldn't decide which possibility was worse.

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Now you can see why I had so much trouble with that last scene, right? It was SERIOUS! *gasps* LOL, I love my humor, so getting serious is really hard for me to do sometimes…but I try, so hopefully it turned out fairly well in the end. ^_^