InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tear Drops ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

Tear Drops
By: DarkCrystalis

XxXx

Chapter Eight

 

Later on that week, Sango and the rest of the band had managed to get one practice in per day. Things were seemingly much smoother, and immense progress was being made. They only had about two weeks left until the big meeting with the other bands, so they had to be well prepared for their big day.

 

Sango still hadn't mentioned anything of her knowledge about Miroku being in her high school to him. The last thing she wanted to do was have him remember her, and then have him use some of her old character traits against her. She used to be nerdy and withdrawn, instead of straightforward and powerful like she was now, despite the fact that she took special karate lessons, and was well educated.

 

Besides, after their huge argument a few days back, she didn't want anything to do with him, romantically or friendship-wise.

 

Sighing, Sango walked into the band's practice room, and sat down by the keyboard. Sure, she loved playing the electric guitar, but sometimes the melodic tones of the keyboard resounding in her head made her crave to play the instrument. She'd been feeling rather melancholy ever since the argument, and perhaps having some alone time would be the best way to release some frustrated energy.

 

As she got herself seated, Miroku stealthily watched her from the doorway, not daring to make a sound.

 

Before she decided on a song, a sudden pang in her chest made her frown. She didn't want to sing or listen to dark, demonic songs with depressing lyrics and soul-chilling guitar rifts. Although she was still upset over the argument from about a week ago, the last thing she wanted to do was drown in her unhappiness.

 

Instead, strangely enough, she wanted to listen to a techno song—which was completely out of character for her. Sure, she'd downloaded some dance songs once in a while, but to go and sing one out of no where was a once in a lifetime occurrence.

 

Finding the CD with the burned songs on them, Sango threw it in the player. She put the music volume to the max, blasting the music and instrumentals as she pressed play. Then, she relaxed as “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada flowed through the speakers behind her.

 

She felt her eyes water slightly as the song continued, but she roughly wiped them, getting rid of the minor wetness in the corners of her eyes. It was her fault they got into the argument…even if it was for good reason…

 

…Or was it?

 

Miroku stood in a stunned silence, knowing that if he spoke just one word or made a single sound, she'd probably kill him. For him to be spying on her as she listened to something completely out of character was bad enough; it would be even worse if he caught her singing something like this, though. Instead, he chose to enjoy the repetitive notes which sounded almost lilting with each lyric that was sung.

 

As the song faded away, Miroku made his soundless exit, knowing that he'd better get out of there before he was found.

 

Sango, however, turned her head towards the door seconds after his departure, having the sudden feeling as if she were being watched. When no one was there, she sighed and shook her head.

 

Before she was able to play another song from the CD, Kagome and Rin bounded into the room, sitting on the chairs nearby her.

 

“What are you doing, Sango? If you wanted a practice, you could have called us!” Rin was smiling as she said this, almost eager looking.

 

“Oh, I was just listening to some songs…” as soon as the words left her mouth, the girls went and inspected the player. Instead of acting bashful and embarrassed, Sango let the girls inspect the dance/trance CD.

 

“Wow, Sango! Some of these songs are pretty good, you know. I didn't know you liked this kind of music—I always took you for the dark-rock-screaming-music type.”

 

“It's been a while since I've listened to music like this,” she amended, smiling briefly. “I'm not too fond of it now; but I get that sudden urge to listen to it once in a while. Just don't tell Miroku, or else he'll tease me about it until the end of time.”

 

The girls swore their secrecy, as if they were eight year old little girls once more, and then girlish giggles emitted from them, sealing the deal.

 

“While we're all here, let's practice!”

 

XxXx

Later on that night after practice, the five of them seated themselves at the table, readying for dinner. Kagome was cooking once again, and they were almost worried about what food she might set in front of them.

 

“Once, she brought home the leftovers from our meal after we'd finished eating at the five star restaurant-hotel from a few kilometers away. When she re-cooked the food, I swear to god I'd rather eat dog shit, and the food was mouth-wateringly delicious originally,” Inuyasha whispered to the group, but they giggled, giving away his quiet conversation.

 

“Well, when she re-cooked it, it really was mouth watering; it made me puke,” he added, which made the group—excluding Sesshoumaru—burst into fits of laughter. “Luckily, I didn't throw up until I excused myself to go to the bathroom, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten any sex that night.” Everyone made faces, and one of them commented “Too much information” before Kagome cleared her throat, an announcement that dinner was ready.

 

However, after hearing Inuyasha's tragic tale of Kagome's cooking abilities, most everyone—aside from Miroku who could probably eat a live octopus if hungry enough,—had lost their appetite.

 

Luckily for them, they were all pleasantly surprised when Kagome produced a roast chicken from on top of the stove, which had been cooked in the oven. She was currently making gravy from the juice of the chicken, and boiling white rice in a pot. In the other boiling pot were mixed vegetables to go with the rice and chicken.

 

In fact, the food smelled pretty damn good, but no one was going to get their hopes up.

 

“I've finally baked some stomach-worthy food—it's one of my mom's recipes! She's such a good cook!”

 

They collectively sighed something akin to a sound of relief, and prepared themselves for a good meal.

 

As she set the food on the table, Inuyasha and Miroku offered to help her lift the boiling hot pots and pans to the table, already having set up the plates, knives, and forks.

 

“I wanted all of us to spend some time together—I hate it when we never hang out as a group, and unless there's good food, I doubt that'd happen,” Kagome said, finally content that the six of them were in the same room, more or less doing the same thing: eating.

 

Sango gave Miroku a death glare as Kagome spoke, but he was too busy staring down the food to be noticing her look.

 

“So, after dinner, we're all going to go to the movies together! Doesn't that sound awesome?”

 

Sango couldn't help but roll her eyes in exasperation—she wasn't thrilled at all with the idea of being stuck next to Miroku for at least an hour and a half.

 

Miroku, on the other hand, seemed to like this idea, and began pondering over it. “Do you know which movie you had in mind?” he asked.

 

“Nope, no idea—I don't even know what's playing; all I know is that I'm tired of our group being split apart, and that we're finally going to do something everyone can enjoy.”

 

“Except me,” Sango muttered, then coughed half a second later, making her previous statement almost unnoticed. The only one that heard it was Miroku, and he shot her a look of hurt, but it was ignored.

 

“Great! Now that everything's settled, let's eat!”

 

XxXx

 

Once they'd gotten to the theatre, arguments ensued as to which movie should be seen. Inuyasha and Kagome wanted an action movie, while Rin and Sesshoumaru were indifferent. Miroku and Sango didn't voice their opinion; neither of them seemed interested in watching a movie at all.

 

“Fine,” Kagome announced dejectedly, hating where this was going. Her original idea of all of them watching something together was about to be torn to shreds. “If none of us can decide, we'll all go to a different movie. Me and Inuyasha are interested in that action/adventure movie. Which video will you see, Rin?”

 

After a moment of conversing with her loving husband, Rin turned to face Kagome. “We've decided on that foreign subtitled movie—the one based on a war. It sounds good.”

 

Then, the two couples faced Sango and Miroku, whom were currently several feet apart from one another, each ignoring the other.

 

Rin giggled. “It seems that, in my opinion, they should watch a romance movie.” Sango pulled a face while Miroku shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

 

“See you later!” Kagome called as she took Inuyasha's hand, rambling over how exciting the action movie would be. Rin and Sesshoumaru didn't say anything at all; they merely bought their required tickets and walked over to the concession stand, buying a huge bucket of popcorn and large soda.

 

Once the others had gone, Sango defiantly bought a ticket for the humourous-romance movie, not waiting on Miroku.

 

“Hey, wait a minute!” he called behind her, buying the same ticket and running in her direction to catch up.

 

“What am I supposed to be `waiting' for? I thought I made it very clear to you a few days ago that I'm not speaking with a pervert.”

 

Grabbing a gentle hold of her hands, Miroku pleaded. “Look, Sango; I can't help it sometimes. Whenever I've liked women in the past, I've always wanted to put my hands on them—but perhaps not in the smartest of places. I'm not trying to be serious whenever I do these things—it's a joke, and yet it's my subconscious way of saying that I like you and want you to be with me.”

 

Silently, Sango couldn't help but remember his “special way” of claiming women in high school; it was exactly like him. This was how he'd managed to get himself beat up half the time—by groping innocent girls with pretty faces and substantial figures.

 

“Look, Miroku. Your way of trying to show your affection for me is obviously not working; I've grown up since high school, haven't you?”

 

It was then that Sango noticed her slip of her tongue…

 

“What did you say?” Miroku's eyebrows shot up, but he was intensely interested on hearing a follow-up from her previous rhetorical statement.

 

“N-Nothing,” Sango stuttered, attempting to pull her hands out of his grasp.

 

“You said something about me in high school—how did you know about that?”

 

“I didn't—I took a random guess.” Even to her own ears the lie sounded weak.

 

“How did you know me in high school—and how have you managed to remember me over all these years?”

 

As she gave the woman her movie ticket, she kept walking, ignoring Miroku's questions. If she answered everything for him, he'd remember her and then all hell would break loose…

 

Tugging on her arm, Miroku stopped her from walking. “Tell me,” he said, a deep intensity in his eyes as he stared at her face. Sango bit her lower lip, not wanting to say another word more. She'd already said far too much; it'd be seconds before he finally remembered who she was back in high school…

 

It was then that it dawned on Miroku; her shining brown eyes and shy demeanor, her loud outbursts of anger when he'd tried to grope her on that one occasion so many years ago, the melodic voice whenever she spoke which had a hard depth to it that no one could place…his high school crush.

 

“Y-You…” He said, backing away in disbelief that he hadn't noticed sooner. “S-Sango? B-But how? You look so…so…”

 

“More grown up, I imagine,” Sango mumbled, feeling red stain her cheekbones.

 

“Your glasses—where did they go?”

 

“Laser-eye surgery after my graduating year; they'd been bugging me for ages, and didn't suit me at all,” she retorted.

 

“Really? I thought you looked sort of sexy in them, especially since you had to wear the school's uniform…”

 

Sango rolled her eyes, placing her arms over her chest.

 

“You've grown taller…even though you're still pretty short…”

 

“Nothing I could do about that.”

 

“Your skin is clearer now…”

 

“It's called growing out of the puberty stage.”

 

“You look so much less…erm…”

 

“Nerdy?” Sango supplied, grinning slightly.

 

“You just look…different,” he answered, still in disbelief.

 

“Come on, we're going to miss the movie, at this rate,” Sango said quickly, not really wanting to re-live her bad high school experiences.

 

Miroku shook his head, pulling out a bill from inside his pocket, handing it to her. “If you're so worried about paying for a movie and not seeing it, I'll give you the money for the ticket. I'd rather we went out for a coffee and talked, instead.”

 

She nearly groaned, but shoved the money back towards him. “I don't want your money—the money doesn't really matter to me, anyway. I just don't really feel like talking about high school at the moment; there were too many bad memories for me, unlike some people,” Sango said, an unknown emotion spread across her face.

 

Miroku frowned, not liking the fact that Sango's past experience in school wasn't a very positive one. He knew how much of a blast he had back in those days; he'd been such a player, groping girls' asses, having several “girlfriends” at one time—although all the girls knew what his tendencies were like with women and only allowed themselves to be playful, but not seriously interested in a relationship with him. He'd always hung in a huge crowd of friends and fit in with almost anyone.

 

Now that he remembered it, Sango was very much alone in high school with hardly any friends at all; she'd been withdrawn, alone and not outspoken. She rarely talked with any of the classmates and whenever given a group assignment, she was the one that would end up doing all the work, simply because she didn't work well with everyone else. She also wore black clothing with dark eye makeup whenever she got the chance, listening to the angry “hate” music, never fitting in with the “normal” girls at school—that was one reason why he'd liked her; she'd dared to be different.

 

As more memories flooded him, he recalled her being in a band at the time, although the name of the band was forgotten to him until now. Everything seemed to fit together, after having finally being given the majority of the facts.

 

“Miroku? Mirokuuuuu?” His name being called brought him back to the present.

 

“Uhm, yeah?” He answered absentmindedly, knowing he hadn't heard a word she'd said.

 

“I asked where we would be going for coffee, but then you dazed out on me. Were you thinking about me in my high school uniform again?”

 

Although that type of thought hadn't been remotely close to what he had been thinking, he began to remember her in the short, dark grey pleated skirt with the pristine white uniform shirt and white knee-high socks with black shoes. Her hair was never swept-up; the long, raven black strands were always down, framing her face. The long, creamy legs were bare for him to see, and in all of his fantasies he'd had his tongue running up her legs to her…

 

“…MIROKU!”

 

“Ah, sorry, sorry! Um, we'll just go over to the coffee shop near our place—the one around the corner.” Gathering his thoughts, Miroku couldn't help but lick his lips as he followed behind Sango, admiring her curves, although not overly so.

 

“Stop staring at my ass,” Sango called over her shoulder as she walked, and Miroku snapped out of his thoughts for the third time in only a few minutes.

 

“Yes `mam!”

 

XxXx

 

When they arrived, each ordered a coffee and sat in a booth near the back of the shop. Hardly anyone else was around, which, more or less, could be interpreted as a good thing.

 

However, the conversation that Miroku had originally planned wasn't happening; silence reigned over them, neither speaking nor acknowledging one another. Instead, Sango sipped her coffee, staring into the deep brown depths of the hot liquid while Miroku sat with his head against the booth's cushion, eyes closed as he swirled a plastic spoon in the full foam cup of coffee.

 

“Sango, I…”

 

She looked up at him, her cup clutched in both of her hands as she sipped and waited for him to speak.

 

“I liked you in high school, you know?”

 

Sango almost spat out her coffee.

 

“It was weird, though; whenever I liked a girl in school, it was never a problem telling her, but with you…” He trailed off, as if expecting her to know what he meant to say.

 

“What about me, Miroku?” Now it was her turn to be interested.

 

“I just couldn't tell you…”

 

Her eyebrows drew together in slight confusion, remembering him for being the brash, bold, arrogant, popular school boy that all the girls liked. Why wasn't he able to tell her of his feelings?

 

“I felt like we were on two different scales—I was popular, loud, outspoken and you were…”

 

Sango waited with baited breath, not daring to say another word.

 

“…It was like we were in two different worlds. Even though I liked you, I felt as though I could never be with you, just because we were so far apart—such different people. But that's not even the funniest part of it…”

 

He bitterly laughed after taking a gulp of the caffeinated liquid, staring into her eyes.

 

“You were the only girl I'd ever really liked, Sango—and a part of me never forgot about you, even after I thought my crush had ended in grade nine. Even when I graduated, I still thought of you afterwards on occasion, wondering what the infamous girl, who was my perfect match, was doing.”

 

Still confused, Sango didn't see how he could've ever thought the two of them to be a “perfect match”. It didn't make sense…

 

“None of the other girls had your fire, or your determination. All of them were out for the same thing—to be popular, pretty and unreal. You told people things as they were, did everything yourself without assistance, worked hard, but despite that, you were you, through everything…the `you' never changed, unlike everyone else. Even today, I still see the younger part of you from high school; you're still the same, which is, I'm sure, the main reason why I've never stopped liking you, Sango.”

 

“Miroku, I'm…” Sango stopped her thoughts, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks again.

 

“Sango, I know I've fucked up really badly with you—but I want there to be a chance with us. Yeah, I haven't known you long and maybe I'm rushing things a little, but the last thing I need right now is for you to go and…”

 

Leaning over the table, Sango placed each of her hands on the sides of his face and kissed him, silencing his speech. This was what she'd needed to hear from him; these were the words she'd always wanted to hear from someone she cared about.

 

When she eventually pulled away, Miroku was panting for breath, doing his damn best to understand what had just happened between them. It was as if sparks had flown; heat radiated throughout his entire body, making him feel warm and cared for—it was the first time he'd ever felt something like this and a huge part of him wanted to feel it again.

 

After yawning, Sango grinned across the table from her newly established boyfriend while drinking the remainder of her coffee. He smiled back, still a little dazed from what had just happened.

 

“So, my lovely Sango, how about we go home and…” Miroku purred, a familiar twinkle in his eye.

 

“Don't even think about it, you pervert.”

 

He sighed, but smiled seconds later. Things were starting to look up—and not just the thing in his pants.

 

XxXx

 

Author's Note

 

An extra long chapter! Sorry about the late update, everyone! (Heh, really late…) Although, I happen to have liked this chapter a lot! One of the best yet, in my opinion—and Sango and Miroku are finally going somewhere romantically! Yay!

 

Anyway, I won't ramble; I hope I still have some reviewers left, even though it's been a while since I last updated…

 

Until the next chapter!

 

Sincerely,

DarkCrystalis