Memories of a Boy Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Fortune-Telling

“This is stupid.”

“Exactly!”

“...and by stupid, I mean foolish.”

Kagome giggled as she shook her head, “No, remember what you said earlier?”

The inu glared at her for all he was worth but remained silent. Grinning devilishly, she prompted, “We were playing tag...?”

Silence.

“...and you kept winning, so I started pouting like you are no--”

“This Sesshomaru is NOT pouting!”

She shot him a disbelieving look. Frowning, Sesshomaru huffed in defeat. “And you said the game was stupid, to which I said 'If by stupid, you mean fun, then you are correct!'”

Kagome couldn't help the smug grin that crossed her face as his shoulders drooped in submission to her whims. In the six months he had been here, she had learned a lot about reading his body language in order to understand what he was thinking. Not that he was closed off by any means, but he certainly wasn't an open book at first either.

When he had first arrived in her time, he had been curious about things, but very guarded about opening up to her beyond what he felt was necessary. And how he was feeling was not something he felt she needed to know. Being an easy-read herself, Kagome had felt a little rejected by his attitude at first. She never knew what he was thinking at times, and it left her feeling frustrated. How could she be a good friend if he didn't tell her if he was having fun, or if he was sad? So, she started paying closer attention to his reactions, and over the weeks had figured out his 'tells', as her mom called them.

His hands, his shoulders, and especially his face told everything that he kept behind sealed lips. If he was confused, his head would tilt slightly, and his fingers twitch a bit. Bored, his shoulders would slump and he'd frown at nothing. When he was happy or amused, his eyes would crinkle at the corners, and his whole body seemed to lean forward toward whatever had caught his interest. And when he was sad, his shoulders would hunch slightly, his eyes always seeming to look away as he tried to fold in on himself, as though he could escape the feeling by disappearing.

The only time she didn't really need to read him to some degree was when he was angry. If something set him off, she knew about it even if she wasn't in the same room, because of the way his youki would flood the area, hot and stinging against her senses. It was rather uncomfortable.

Right now though, he had accepted his fate, and so the young girl wasted no time taking full advantage of her little victory. Holding her hands out between them again, she smiled widely.

“Alright, pick a color,” she prompted.

“Red.” The bored reply didn't deter her as she pinched and pulled at the contraption in her hand.

“R...E...D... okay, pick a number!”

“Sssshix.”

“One, two, three, four...” Kagome counted out loud, resisting the urge to giggle at the whistling that had come from her friend. He had lost one of his fangs the day before, one of his few remaining puppy teeth, and had already made it quite clear he was put out about the whole thing. She thought the little gap in his teeth was cute, but he had already informed her that his adult tooth would be in by the end of the week.

'Lucky...' she thought, remembering how long it took for her adult teeth to come in after she lost a tooth. Pushing her thoughts aside, she returned to the game at hand. She had thought long and hard on how to poke some fun at her friend without making him too mad, and she wasn't going to waste this opportunity, short as it was.

“Alright, pick a number, and I'll tell you your fortune!” she declared grandly, holding the fortune teller in her hand out for his inspection. It was something she had learned at school, and after that humiliating game of tag, she thought she could use it for a little payback.

He pointed towards the flap with a proudly displayed one, and she proceeded to open it and read, “In the future, you will still be friends with a young, dark-haired girl!”

Smiling, Kagome said, “See! It totally works!”

Receiving no response other than a blank stare, she scowled at him before taking her own turn. She tried to remember where she had written her own fortune. Unfortunately, the fates were not on her side.

“...four, five. Okay, and I pick number seven- 'You'd sell your soul for a mud pie.'”

“You're right Kagome-chan, I do believe this piece of paper works,” Sesshomaru smirked at her annoyed expression, continuing, “I've seen what you do to your mother's pie.”

Narrowing her eyes, she responded by holding the fortune teller his way again.

“Purple.”

“P-U-R-P-L-E.”

“Four.”

“One, two, three, four.”

“Three.”

“It says...you'd give you're right arm for a new tooth!”

Youki lashed against the young girl, and she smiled sweetly, showing off her full set of teeth. For a moment, both children sat trying to stare the other down. Unfortunately for Kagome, she didn't notice the hand reaching toward the ground. In a flash, Sesshomaru had scooped up some mud and flung it at her.

As the thick, cold sludge dripped down her face, she heard him snicker. “I guess that fortune teller got it wrong. That mud pie didn't cost you a thing.”

What happened next was a blur.


Mud flying, voices screeching, the children held nothing back. With his demonic speed, the young inu managed to avoid getting any mud on him, but she was not so lucky. The commotion eventually moved into the house, and needless to say, Kagome's mom would not be pleased upon her arrival home only a few hours later.

It had taken a bottle of her mother's best perfume and her grandfather's dentures, but the young girl had exacted her revenge for the mud pie in the form of a small, unconscious demon duct-taped to the floor with a pair of false teeth shoved in his mouth. The young girl herself was covered from head to toe in mud, which she had tracked all over the living-room, her mother's bedroom and the kitchen in her quest for the proper weapons to take down a dog demon.

As she sat next to her friend, covered in slowly drying mud and thinking about all the trouble they would be in for the mess they had made, Kagome couldn't help but giggle. Maybe when it came to fortune-telling, she would have better luck sticking to cookies!