CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE: Chapter Four

        Kagome’s first breakfast at the Green Mermaid brought rumors with an alarmingly familiar ring to them. As she sat on the big porch that wrapped around the back side of the hotel overlooking the beach, Kagome ate chilled fruit, sipped tea and eavesdropped on the conversation at a nearby table.
        "I heard he was gorgeous!"
        "And brave!"
        "He totally kicked Tachi’s butt!" The girl sighed dreamily. "He was dressed like a punk but he rescued Karami and Keiichi—she almost got raped by Tachi’s gang! But then this gorgeous guy with long, white hair charged in with all these cool martial arts moves! Like Jackie Chan, or something!"
        Long, white hair? Kagome thought with a cold lump in her throat. No…it couldn’t be him…
        The girl continued to gush to her friend about the brave, Jackie Chan-like hero who’d rescued Karami and Keiichi (whoever they were) the night before. Kagome turned and asked: "Did he have, um, golden eyes?"
        The girl blinked at her. "Um, no…he was wearing sunglasses. Why?"
        "Dog ears?" Kagome made a motion on top of her head as if she was rubbing the tips of Inu Yasha furry ears.
        The girl and her friend gave her a strange look. "He had a bandanna on his head, I think."
        "But, he had long, white hair, right?"
        They nodded.
        Kagome stood up and held her hand about a head over her own. "About so tall?"
        Nods.
        "Kind of lean, but really strong?"
        More nods.
        "Kimono?"
        They shook their head. Gushy girl sighed again and got a really dreamy look in her eyes. "No way! He was too cool! He had this great leather jacket and boots and a Harley shirt."
        Kagome smiled and nodded and went back to her breakfast. "Who’s this Tachi guy?" She asked them over a mouthful of fruit. They sidled up to her table, eager to share the gossip. Hm, Kagome thought, Junior High school, but younger than she was. Easily impressed. Of course, Inu Yasha in bad guy butt kicking mode could be pretty impressive to anybody, even her—used to his violent nature as she was.
        One of the girls (not the gushy one) explained in a hushed voice, as if Tachi had ears everywhere. "He’s the leader of the meanest motorcycle gang on the beach! Anybody gets in his way—" she made a cutting motion across her neck, and Kagome gulped.
        "I heard he even killed a boy once!" Gushy girl added in a trembling voice.
        "So," Kagome asked in the same low voice they were using and leaned in closer to the other girls, "does anybody know who the hero guy is?"
        They shook their heads. "Nobody’s ever seen him around here before!" Gushy girl said. "He wouldn’t even give his real name!"
        Kagome’s stomach clenched as she had a nasty premonition. "What name did he give?"
        "Something about a demon—"
        "A demon dog!" Gushy girl nodded. "Inu—"
        "—Yasha." Kagome suddenly lost her appetite. Inu Yasha was here, at the beach, going about his usual business of kicking bad guy butt. Well, that last part wasn’t so bad, especially if what these girls said about that Karami girl almost getting raped was true. But where’d he get those clothes? And the sunglasses and bandanna to hide his attributes? No one in her family would’ve done it—and nobody from the past would have the right kind of money or know-how to do it.
        Gushy girl grabbed Kagome’s hand to get her attention. "You know him?!"
        "Uh…well, I’ve, um, heard the name before," Kagome stammered, "I think. Ha-ha! Well, you did say ‘dog demon’, right?" Geez, if these girls thought she knew Inu Yasha, she’d never be rid of them!
        The girl let go with a disappointed sigh. "Oh yeah," then she went back into hero-worshipping mode. "He was so gorgeous…"
        "Gorgeous?" Kagome thought skeptically. Inu Yasha was cute…sometimes…but gorgeous? Yeesh! Well, these girls were pretty young, after all. "Wait. You actually witnessed this fight?!"
        Gushy girl nodded, still off in la-la land. "I was on the beach, kind of far away, but close enough to see the action! He moved like…*sigh* And he has a great butt!"
        "And he was so brave!" Gushy girl’s friend added in an equally far away voice. "Rescuing a damsel in distress from an evil gang of rapists!"
        "Great butt’? Does your mother know you’re looking at boys’ butts?" Kagome frowned. Both girls blushed and giggled. "Any idea where he’s staying?"
        "Well, I heard he’s staying with Yuki Asano," Gushy girl replied in a defeated tone.
        "Which means," the other girl sighed, "he’s probably her new boyfriend, or something."
        "Which means," Gushy girl said, "hands off."
        Kagome smacked her forehead. Yuki Asano. Of course! Her little brother Kei was friends with Sota. Inu Yasha probably came to the shrine to look for her, and Sota volunteered to help him out by hooking him up with Yuki, whose family had their own condominium right down the beach from the Green Mermaid. But if it was Inu Yasha and he was staying that close by, why hadn’t he come to find her yet? A twinge of jealously pinched Kagome’s heart: Yuki was the most popular girl in her school, especially with the boys, who fell all over themselves like a bunch of morons every time she so much as looked at them. And she was an older girl, in high school, whereas Kagome was still in Junior High. Yuki had money, brains, looks, popularity, everything. "Hm!" Kagome thought sourly, "I’ll bet she bought him those clothes and brought him down here for fun!" Yuki Asano wasn’t in the habit of spending her daddy’s money out of the goodness of her heart—there was always payback, and if Yuki found Inu Yasha as "gorgeous" (oh, brother) as these girls did, Kagome’s imagination didn’t have to wander far to figure out what Yuki would want as payment for her generosity. Hmph! That girl was a regular Nabiki Tendo! Well, if she made those kinds of demands on Inu Yasha and thought she could get away with it, boy was she in for a surprise! "Ha! I can just see it now…She’ll get all dressed up in something sexy and think he’ll just fall all over himself for her, like all those human boys do!"

        Tug, tug. "Um, hello?"
        "Eh?" Kagome turned around to find her informants tugging at her sleeve, apparently having been trying to get her attention for some time. "Oh, uh, what did you say?"
        "Well, you sort of acted like you know this Inu Yasha," the tamest of the pair replied, "so maybe you should go to Yuki’s and see if it’s really him!"
        Gushy girl shook Kagome’s arm and, well, gushed: "Then you could introduce us!"
        Her friend bonked her on the head to bring her back down to earth. "Get real."
        Undeterred (or still in outer space), gushy girl nibbled her fingernail and mused: "Maybe he’ll come to the Mermaid Ball Friday night. *sigh* I’ll bet he’s just fabulous in a tuxedo…"
        Her friend sighed with her. "All men look fabulous in tuxedos!"
        "Oh, gimme a break!" Kagome chugged the rest of her tea and munched down the last of her fruit before bidding the starry-eyed girls adieu and heading back to her room. "If it is him," she growled, "he is so dead for following me here! But…" Hmm…a tuxedo…

        "What did they put in that fruit, anyway?" She got into the elevator and hit the button for the fifth floor, trying very hard not to enjoy her latest daydream. Was Inu Yasha "gorgeous"? Kagome closed her eyes and remembered him the way she’d seen him last: Faced off with her across the well, trying once again to keep her from going back to her time. He was so mad, too, that she wanted to spend her summer vacation with her 20^th century friends and not with him. She saw his eyes looking into hers again. "He was really hurt," Kagome whispered to herself guiltily. "I wonder if he wanted me to stay because he had plans for us…something fun or—" Kagome caught her breath, her thoughts unable to handle the concepts of Inu Yasha and romantic at the same time. But what if he had planned something nice? Maybe with Kaede’s help, or Myouga’s. A picnic, perhaps, or a nice walk by a pretty pond.

        "Gah!" Kagome shook that image out of her mind. "Oh, like Inu Yasha would ever give a girl flowers! Wake up, Higurashi!"
        The elevator doors opened, and Kagome went to her room to change into her bathing suit. She checked her watch. "Oh no! I’m late!" She was supposed to meet Rei on the beach ten minutes ago. Oh well, it was their summer holiday, after all—no schedules, no tests, no teachers breathing down their necks, no demons trying to steal the Shikon Jewel shards from her! So there was a biker gang in these parts…and Inu Yasha was here… Big deal! Inu Yasha was keeping the biker gang in check, so everybody could have a nice vacation without worrying about a bunch of rapists running loose. "I knew he was good for something!"

        Meanwhile back at Yuki’s condo, Keiichi was hiding out from Tachi and his gang after spending most of the night in the hospital. Yuki put him and Karami in her room and would’ve slept on the couch, but Shippo would hear nothing of it and insisted she have his and Inu Yasha’s bed, since they were used to sleeping on the ground—er, floor. Actually, Inu Yasha took the couch and Shippo curled up in one of the chairs, hidden under a blanket, so he wouldn’t have to keep up his human disguise while he slept. "Hey! Inu Yasha!"
        "Hey, what?" Inu Yasha grumbled. He’d spent most of the night guarding Yuki’s place until she returned, just in case Tachi had seen where he’d taken Keiichi and Karami after the fight and came back for revenge. Fortunately: No Tachi, unfortunately: No sleep, either. He pulled the blanket down and got a sunbeam right in the eye. With an angry snarl, he threw the blanket off and sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What do you want, fox?"
        Shippo changed into his human disguise, just in case Karami decided to wander in, and regarded his friend thoughtfully across the coffee table. "That was a good thing you did last night, Inu Yasha," he told the other demon in a voice that headed off any snide remark Inu Yasha had planned. "Kagome would be really proud of you for saving those people."
        Groan. Inu Yasha yawned, showing his mouthful of sharp canines and his long fangs, stretched his arms across the back of the couch and leaned his head back. "I feel like shit."
        "You look like shit," Shippo quipped.
        Inu Yasha didn’t even have the energy to hit him for it, so he just closed his eyes and started to doze again. "My ears hurt, Shippo. Is anybody around?"
        "No, but—"
        Inu Yasha hauled himself up and staggered off in the direction of the bath. Shippo slunk after him, but was stopped at the door. "I bathe alone, Shippo."
        The kitsune grinned. "Or with Kagome—EEK! Ow!" He was so busy rubbing his head that he didn’t remember to step back before Inu Yasha shut the door, so he took the wood right in the face. "Thad wuz uncalled for, Inu Yazza!"
        Inu Yasha ignored him and ran the bath water just like Yuki has showed him the day before, even remembering to put the cork in the drain before starting the water. A sudden dreadful vision of Yuki barging in on him sent him on a frantic search for a lock on any of the doors between the bath and the rest of the house. Finding none, he resigned himself to remain alert for any noise of intrusion. While the tub filled, Inu Yasha decided to try out that tooth brushing concept that Yuki insisted was such an important part of good hygiene. Well, he cleaned his teeth in his time, too, but he did it with a newly stripped branch, not a brush with minty goo on it. Oh well, live and learn. He put a little of the paste on the brush and went to work. Nauseating stuff! But it explained why Kagome’s breath always smelled like mint. He rinsed his mouth, then ran his tongue over his teeth, wondering if that was how Kagome’s mouth tasted, too. And now for the toilet. Assuming the position had the unfortunate effect of causing an image of Yuki imitating it to spring into his mind. Inu Yasha made a sour face and tried to think of something else.
        What was Kagome doing now, he wondered as he took care of business? Probably having a nice breakfast with her friends, or maybe having an early morning stroll on the beach where all those cute guys could see her wearing that tight, little outfit she bathed in. The one that was like a second skin. He went into the little room outside the bath and pulled off his shorts and loincl—er, underwear (that’s what Yuki had called it, right?) and tossed them into the basket by the wall, which was where Yuki had told him to put his dirty clothes. His efforts to get the blood out of his clothes had failed, but Yuki was sure she could get them out in something called "the laundry". Probably another machine, he thought. Inu Yasha took off his bandanna, too, then realized with dismay that he didn’t have another one handy. Well…he could always wrap a towel around his head and say he was drying his hair. It was a sissy way out, but Keiichi and Karami absolutely could not know the truth. Fix ‘em up and send ‘em back to their own residence as soon as possible, none the wiser.
        Inu Yasha grunted his pleasure as he rubbed the kinks out of his ears. He pulled one of the stools over by the tub, selected a wash rag and a bar of soap that smelled manly to him, wet both and started scrubbing. He still smelled like blood and sweat and-- "How’d I get sand in my ass?" (Or, more importantly, how would he get the sand out of his ass?) Inu Yasha rinsed off the soap, rubbed a bar through his hair until it worked up a really good lather, then rinsed that, too, only belatedly remembering he was supposed to use a different kind of soap for that. He debated washing his hair over again with the proper soap, fearful that the all-knowing, all-seeing Yuki would know just by looking at his hair that he’d used body soap on it, then decided he’d better bloody do it over. No wonder it took Kagome forever to get going in the morning!
        At last, he slipped into the nice, hot bath with a well-earned sigh of euphoria, closed his eyes and thought about Kagome.

        BAM! BAM! BAM! "Hey, other people gotta use the bathroom, too, Inu Yasha!"
        "Shut up, Shippo!"
        BAM! BAM! BAM! "Don’t tell him to shut up! Either get out of the tub now, or we're coming in!"
        Inu Yasha jumped out of the bath, wrapped a towel around his hips, draped another over his head and hurried to open the bathroom door. Damn that woman! So much for privacy. Beyond the door wasn't just Shippo and Yuki, but Karami and Keiichi lined up to use the bathroom, as well. Inu Yasha ducked his head. "Um, I must’ve fallen asleep in the bath tub. *ahem*" He pushed past the others and retreated to his room, feeling Yuki’s appraising eyes burning into his back until he could get the bedroom door between him and them. He jumped when a quiet knock came at his door, and Yuki’s mocking voice said:
        "Inu Yasha, may I be the first to tell you: You have a totally killer ass."
        "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Oh, never mind, considering the source, he had a really good idea what that was supposed to mean.
        She giggled. "You’re so naïve, it’s cute!"
        "I AM NOT NAÏVE!"
        Giggle.
        Inu Yasha took the towel from around his hips and dried himself with it, perhaps a little more vigorously than was necessary. He caught a glimpse of his backside in the mirror and paused to check it out in spite of himself. "So it’s a butt. What’s the big deal?" And yet, he continued to examine his physique in the full length mirror, since this was the first time he’d ever seen all of himself at once. "Huh. Not bad." He flexed his back muscles, then his biceps, then his pects, then did a few lunges to check out the tone of his legs. All in all, Inu Yasha decided with no little amount of conceit, he was one fine hunk of half-demon. No wonder Yuki was all over him.
        Suddenly his shoulders drooped. But not Kagome. Feeling sheepish after his moment of narcissism, Inu Yasha got dressed in his swim trunks and a T-shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed to brush out his hair. He wrapped a black bandanna around his skull and tied his hair about midway down his back with a leather thong (a nice, butchy touch, he thought), then put on his shades so he could face the human world. He headed for the kitchen before remembering that Yuki hadn't done that grocery shopping she’d promised to do last night. Well, it wasn’t like she’d had the chance with everything that had happened. But he peeked into the fridge anyway, proving that this behavior is universal, even when one doesn’t have refrigerators in one’s time. Nothing. So he settled for a glass of ice water until Yuki solved the food problem. He pushed open the sliding glass doors and stepped out onto the porch to enjoy the ocean breezes and the sunshine (and ignore the rumbling in his tummy). He could see the ocean sparkling between the trees, and through a larger clear space to his right, a good stretch of beach on which frolicked many scantily clad females and what must be the "cute guys" Yuki was so sure would sweep Kagome off her feet. Huh. They weren’t so great. None of them had his muscle (Inu Yasha flexed his forearm to prove it to himself), and he was willing to bet they’d all run screaming from a guy like Tachi and his thugs.
        Ah, speaking of which, there was the cowardly little bully now, walking around the scene of his ass-kicking. Inu Yasha ducked back into the house before the guy could look up and see him (had he already?). Shit. "Yuki!" He called as he shut the doors and locked them. "Yuki!"
        The tone of his voice, brought her and Shippo running. "What is it?" She demanded. By way of response, Inu Yasha brought her to the doors and pointed at Tachi. Yuki pulled him back with a curse. "Did he see you?"
        "I don’t know," Inu Yasha told her, still watching his enemy. "I wasn’t standing out there very long, though." What was he doing? Inu Yasha watched Tachi for a few more seconds, then got it. "He’s following our tracks from last night. Look."
        Yuki and Shippo looked. He was right: Tachi was following some kind of trail that led from the beach toward her house. "This is bad," Yuki muttered and ran for the phone. "I’m calling the police!"
        "Don’t!"
        She paused, then put the phone down on its cradle. Keiichi leaned against the wall outside his bedroom. Karami appeared and helped him onto the sofa. "Don’t involve the cops, Asano. I don’t think your friend, here, wants too many questions."
        Inu Yasha’s heart thumped and he narrowed his eyes at Keiichi. "What do you mean?" He exchanged a quick, worried look with Shippo, then Yuki. "Why wouldn’t I want questions?"
        Keiichi held up a hand and smiled. "Don’t worry. I’m on your side, remember? You saved our lives," he pointed to himself then Karami, "so we owe you."
        "Your point, Hitachi?" Yuki prodded suspiciously.
        Keiichi shrugged, then winced at the pain that caused. "I saw your eyes as you came out of the bathroom. And," he patted the top of his head, "something was propping up that towel—and I don’t think it was your hair."
        Inu Yasha clenched his fists and divided his attention between Keiichi who might not be a threat in spite of his clever powers of deduction and Tachi who definitely was a threat and was getting closer to the house. At least he was alone. "Ok, what are you gonna do about it?"
        Keiichi looked puzzled. "I’m not sure I understand you. If you think I’ll tell the world you really are an inu-yasha, think again, friend. You saved my life, but even if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t give you away to the likes of Tachimora." He gave Inu Yasha a lopsided smile and added: "Or the likes of anybody else, for that matter. May I assume Yuki and your friend, here, already know?"
        Inu Yasha hesitated a moment more, then nodded. "Shippo," he said, "show him."
        "Uh…"
        "If I can’t hide, neither can you!" Inu Yasha shouted back. "Now drop the disguise!"
        Shippo obeyed. Where before there had been a perfectly ordinary looking teenage boy there now stood a small kitsune boy in kimono, fur wrap and big, bushy tail. He got the usual reaction from Karami, who squealed and begged to hold him. Shippo rolled his eyes and hopped into her lap to have his tail played with.

        "So how do a couple of youkai get hooked up with Asano?" Keiichi wondered. "Is this some new deal you’ve got going, my dear?"
        Yuki shrugged and started to reply, but Inu Yasha cut her off with a hasty wave of his hand. "He’s headed for the door," he hissed, jabbing a thumb in that direction. "We gotta get Keiichi out of here!" Inu Yasha put action to words and scooped Keiichi into his arms and carried him to his room as if he was no heavier than a sack of rice. Karami followed, and Inu Yasha closed the door on them.
        "Shippo," he commanded, "put on a tough guy disguise. Now."
        The kitsune put a leaf on his head, closed his eyes and spoke a brief incantation. When it was through, he stood about a head taller than Inu Yasha, was twice as broad at the shoulder and had a nice assortment of battle scars and missing teeth. He was also wearing lots of leather and chains. "How’s this?" He asked in the ballsiest voice either Inu Yasha or Yuki had ever heard.
        They blinked at him. "That’s perfect, Shippo," Yuki stammered. Oh to have kitsune powers so she could transform herself into anything she wished. Not that she’d transform herself into the power-thug she saw before her…
        "Maybe he’s just sniffing around…" Shippo thunder-whispered. Yuki fought down a giggle. He was so over-the-top it was funny.
        Inu Yasha waved them to silence. "Yuki, get back in the bedroom with the others. Shippo and I are gonna teach Tachi a lesson about coming around where he’s not wanted. C’mon, Shippo." He waited until Yuki was out of site, then opened the door and he and Shippo stepped out onto the landing just in time to meet Tachi coming up the stairs from the beach.
        He saw Inu Yasha and froze. Just for effect, Shippo asked Inu Yasha: "We gonna kick some ass today, Brother? ‘Cause I’m real pissed that you left me out of the fun last night."
        Inu Yasha cracked his knuckles. "I said I’m sorry about that, Brother, but it just sort of happened." He gave Tachi a tight-lipped grin. The man was already backing down the stairs. "Anyway, he’s all alone this time—"
        "Yeah," Shippo interrupted with a snort, "that ain’t no fun. But he came all this way, didn’t he? Must want something."
        Inu Yasha continued to crack his knuckles as he matched Tachi step for step. "I think we should give him something, Brother," he sneered, "since he came all this way to see us."
        Shippo chuckled and cracked his knuckles, since Inu Yasha doing that always had such a great effect on bad guys. "He looks hungry, Brother. Why don’t we give him a knuckle sandwich?"
        "Heh. What a thoughtful idea, Brother! Allow me." Inu Yasha closed the distance between himself and Tachi with a single leap and planted his fist right in the bully’s mouth. "Yummy?" Inu Yasha nodded; Tachi shook his head with terror in his eyes. "Want another?" Tachi shook his head even more vehemently. "But you don’t look full, Tachi-kun." Inu Yasha withdrew his fist, pulled back, and planted it in the other boy’s stomach, sending him sailing end over end down the stairs to land head first in the sand. He got up, shook the sand out of his hair, made an obscene gesture, then threatened to return with lots of guys, and ran like his life depended upon it (which it probably did).
        Shippo clapped a meathook of a hand onto Inu Yasha’s shoulder and beamed: "I thought that went pretty well, didn’t you, Brother?"
        "Yeah," Inu Yasha agreed, "but it’s gonna get real old, real fast."

        "Omigosh!" Rei elbowed Kagome, who took off her sunglasses to look where her friend was pointing. "That’s him! That’s that Tachi guy!"
        "He looks scared," Kagome observed as the man in question shot past their beach blankets like a rocket. The girls spat and wiped sand off their faces. "What a jerk!"
        Rei put her shades back on. "I can’t believe everybody’s so afraid of that guy."
        "Well, he’s supposed to have a gang, isn’t he?" Kagome asked as she put her sunglasses back on, too, and resumed tanning her back. "Maybe they’re scary."
        Her friend grinned. "Not to Inu Yasha," she sighed in that same dreamy voice the younger girls had used earlier. "I wonder if we’ll see him, or if he was just passing through, saw what was happening and came to Karami’s rescue."
        Oh, he’s not just passing through, Kagome thought dryly, not if it was her Inu Yasha and not just someone who matched his description and went by his name. Who was she kidding? It had to be him. He was the only person she knew who enjoyed a fist fight that much. She tilted her shades down her nose and looked over the top of them at Yuki Asano’s condo, which she could just see through the trees down the beach. At least, those girls had said that was the Asano condominium. Could he see her from there with his superior youkai vision? And if he could, why didn’t he come to her? Surely she was the whole reason he was doing this! Hmph! And there was no way Inu Yasha was hiding from that stupid Tachi weasel. Inu Yasha didn’t hide from anybody!
        "Did you see the fight, Rei?" Kagome asked after a while.
        "Some of it. He was awesome, Kagome!" Rei proceeded to go on and on about Inu Yasha’s looks ("he’s so hot"), his style ("he could kick Jackie Chan’s ass"), and his butt ("like a rock").
        "Are you saying you touched his rock-like butt?" Kagome joked, then told her friend what the other girls had told her. She left out the butt part, however, since Rei was already sold on that part of Inu Yasha’s anatomy, and Kagome really didn’t want to go there again. The worst part about it was Kagome knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from checking out his butt the next time she saw him. The girls said he’d been wearing leather. Hm. Leather. That Yuki Asano was one kinky chick to dress Inu Yasha up in leather! Ooh! That tramp was gonna pay big time! How was he supposed to know what was fashionable. Oh, wait a minute: Since when did Inu Yasha care about fashion? Oy. What if he’d picked out the leather all by himself?

        Kagome gave her Coke-a-Cola™ a suspicious look, then returned to her regularly scheduled sunbathing. Cute butt. Yeah, right.