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KURAMA: How did you do that? I thought you just nabbed my boxers while I changed out of that demeaning costume, even though I could have sworn I put them back on, but now with-I mean-I didn't feel a thing!

I stole it from an episode of "The Liam Smith Show."

KURAMA: Oh. ... I think that's my ride. Don't write. Don't call. Just send us the reimbursement check. (Opens cab door and gets in.)

AURA: (Raving from driver's seat) HiyaI'mgonnadriveyatoSPIRITworldheeehaha! (Bites the feet off a nine-inch scale Chocolate Hiei.)
I read that having different-sized pupils is a sign of brain damage. Or terminal sugar rush.

KURAMA: ?

AURA: (Leaping at Kurama) DoesFoxywannachocolatebunny?Does'eDOES'E?!

KURAMA: What?!

I don't think he does.

KURAMA: Not another one!! (Tries to open window) Let me out!

Later!

AURA: HAha!! (Drives off)

KURAMA: (From cab) I must escape!

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"Shippo, fetch me that long stirring spoon."

"Make me."

"Shippo!" Sango warned.

"You're not Kagome," he pouted.

"No," Sango's voice darkened. "I throw harder than she does."

On her right, she heard Hojo extinguish a quick laugh. Shippo heaved a long-suffering sigh and dragged himself over to poke through the priestess' spartan kitchen tools.

"I could have gotten it," the simple whisper carried just a bit of disapproval.

Sango kept her eyes on the rice pot. Should she have asked Hojo to get it after all? He had offered to help her, but then, she wasn't used to that. Oh, Inuyasha or Miroku wasn't above giving or getting help in a battle, but they became extremely reluctant when it came to the little, necessary and thankless things.

Hojo laughed, "Maybe it's for the better," he said sheepishly, "We wouldn't want the food to burst into flames."

She felt a smile tug at the edges of her lips. There he was, making himself into the joke. So different from Inuyasha's or Shippo's sneering taunts.

"I mean, even without this thing," Sango didn't look up, but heard his skin against the cord on his neck, "I'm completely useless in the kitchen. I can't cook at all."

Sango tried to picture the boy - any boy, really - crouched over a hearth fire and stifled a giggle. She supposed some men, the ones with neither servants nor wives, had surely figured out how to fend for themselves, but even in a village that trained some of its daughters as warriors, much more care was taken to see that the girls all knew how to look after a male of the household than the other way around.

"Here," a slim wooden handle was pushed into her hand. Shippo's tail twitched impatiently as he looked toward the door.

"It's alright, Shippo," Sango sighed, "you may as well go and play for a while. It looks like it's taking Kagome longer than usual to get Inuyasha to stop sulking."

The little demon gave a smirk and started toward the door, but then he bit his lip for a moment, and seemed to give Hojo a speculative look. Then with a tiny laugh he was gone.

Sango gave the pot a stir, not that it needed it. She knew that Inuyasha rarely responded to anyone but Kagome when he got to pouting, but she didn't like being left behind. For all that Hojo's presence was agreeable, being alone with him seemed to make Sango's tongue stick to the sides of her mouth. What if she said something silly or boring? ...though, considering how the man with the mule had held his interest, she wasn't sure she had to worry.

Why couldn't she think of something to say? She'd never had this problem with that nobleman Takeda or the hentai monk. Sango's lip twisted. That Miroku! Always trying to slide his hands too low, always flirting with foolish girls, and whenever she called him on it, he'd just make a beatific mask of that smooth face and protest his slandered virtue. The next time Sango saw him she was going to-

"Miss Sango, how long has he been with you?"

She dropped the spoon onto the coals and had to scramble to pick it up again before it charred. "With-?" she asked, "Who?"

"Him," Hojo inclined his head toward the door where, almost an hour earlier, she'd flung the monk headfirst.

"Him?"

"The little guy. With the tail?"

"Oh, Shippo!"

"Yeah. Who'd you think I meant?"

"No one!" she clipped, hoping to the gods that she wasn't blushing. Oooooooh! That infuriating little pervert was making her blush in front of Hojo! And he wasn't even there! "Ah..." she tried to regain her balance. "Shippo was with Inuyasha and the others before I met them," her irritation froze and cracked. ...that was when Naraku had tricked her into attacking them, while he stole her brother's body from its grave.

"And how long ago was that?"

"Several months..." she let her voice grow quiet. That long already? No... Her thoughts stuck to the back of her throat. Longer.

"He..." Hojo sat crouched by her right, eyes turned to the side as he watched her, "he must have been a lot littler then."

Sango shook her head, "Not really. He was about the same size as he is now." Shippo and Kohaku both. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been no taller than the last time she'd seen him alive. At eleven and a half, he should have kept growing and growing...

"So you feed him and feed him," Hojo's hands made a circle motion in the air, "but he doesn't get bigger?"

"Shippo? No," Sango pulled herself back to the present. "Not really."

Hojo looked thoughtful for a moment, smooth brow furrowing. Sango frowned. Was he worried?

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh..." Hojo looked away, a hint of pink showing on his cheeks, "It's silly."

"If it was serious enough to be worth asking..."

"Alright," Hojo looked up at her a bit sheepishly. "But you have to promise not to make fun of me!"

Good thing Inuyasha wasn't here... "I promise," she assured him.

"When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me stories about ...well," his eyes searched the rafters, "I guess you could say it's a kind of a demon that can-"

"Na-tu-ral, say it with me, Inuyasha."

"Give it a rest!" the dog demon snapped at Miroku as the two of them quite satisfactorily barged into Kaede's house.

"I'll give it a rest when you get it right!" said the priest with something that was almost a shudder in his voice, "I do not want that happening again!"

"Hey Sango, is dinner done yet?" Inuyasha asked, "Maybe if we cram something in this loudmouth's trap, he'll shut the hell up."

Beside her, Sango could hear Hojo give a huff, "Now that's not very nice!" Sango blushed even more deeply. She could fight her own battles - and both these jerks had the bumps to prove it - but to have someone who wasn't herself or Kagome stick up for her...

A quiet sound came from near Miroku's throat. Sango gave a confused blink. Was he... Was that his teeth grinding together?

Sango huffed. Ordinarily, she doubted her ears would have been sharp enough to hear something so small, but the sound must have been strengthened by the echoes in his skull.

The monk composed himself as he always did, "Please forgive us," his voice was runny with the cheap kind of sincerity, "my dear Sango. I believe that hunger may have addled the brains of our esteemed companion, and driven his tongue to desecrations of the speech to which he would never otherwise be prone."

"I can see that," she answered dryly. "He told you to shut the hell up instead of shut the f-"

"Leave me alone you fucking monk!" Inuyasha snapped.

"Was Kaede able to figure out why I can't get home?" Hojo interrupted.

Of course... Of course he was simply in a hurry to go back. He wasn't like Kagome, with an obligation to remain until all things were done. Sango compelled those thoughts to stop. Why should it matter to her that some stranger returned home? So what if it was nice having a.... Having a whatever-he-was around?

"She said it might be that chunk of glass on your neck," said Inuyasha.

"Hm..." Hojo's deep brown eyes sunk to the floor as he fingered the clear stone.

"What perplexes me, Hojo-san," Miroku's smooth voice reached her ears, "is why you do not simply remove the amulet and try the well again."

"It's worth a try," Sango added. "When Inuyasha tried to take it from you, you weren't hurt at all."

"Indeed," Miroku's smooth voice turned on the dog demon, "now that I look back on the incident," he looked with seeming idleness at his singed sleeve, "I wonder why you did not simply ask Hojo to do so in the first place."

"Huh?" the dog demon looked up, giving a meaningful tug at the prayer beads around his neck. "Yeah, well sometimes I forget that these things can come off!"

"It's just as well," Hojo interrupted. "I... I couldn't."

Sango suddenly felt the weight of the young priest's eyes on the boy, "Indeed?" he asked with a lightness she knew was false, "and why not?"

"Well... My grandmother told me not to!"

"Hojo-san," Sango said gently before Inuyasha could open his mouth, "It is one thing to be obedient, but do you really think that becoming trapped here would comply with your elders' wishes?"

"But..." his baby-brown eyes brimmed with a wide helplessness that left no space for argument, "I promised!"

"I don't believe this. Sango, will you do this lump of fungus a favor and yank that thing off his head?" Inuyasha smirked, "I think it's cutting off the air to his brain."

Hojo turned to her immediately, "I won't let you!"

"Give it up, twerp," Inuyasha interrupted, "Sango could drop you like a burning-hot dung demon."

"Hm," Miroku's sealed hand moved to his chin as he looked from her to Hojo, "I believe she could at that..."

"And Kagome would let her get away with it," grumbled Inuyasha.

"Guys, I promised my grandmother that I wouldn't take it off, and I'm not going to, no matter what happens!" He folded his arms and looked away.

"Surely, Hojo," Miroku began, "even if your grandmother told you never to remove that talisman because she did not wish to lose it, losing a grandson would be a greater regret. And if she gave it to you because she believed it would protect you, then it could best serve her wishes by being left behind."

"I don't know why she made me promise, but she did. A promise is a promise and that's that!"

Inuyasha gave a snort, "It wouldn't be the last promise you break in your life," he muttered before speaking up, "If that hunk of rock really is what's keeping you here, then you're even more of a moron than I thought. You can either take it off now and go back to Tokyo, or you can wait for some demon to choke on it when he bites off your head!"

"Inuyasha!" Sango protested.

"Well we'll just have to find another way, that's all," Hojo said stiffly. "Please excuse me, Miss Sango," he said as he got to his feet. "I think I'll go find Higurashi if you don't mind."

Sango only nodded. "She should be out on the path from the well," Miroku told him, "she decided to slow down and walk with Kaede."

Hojo looked up, "And you two rushed on without them?" he asked in surprise.

"Well-" Miroku stuttered, "We... What?" but Hojo had already shaken his head and gone.

"I hate him," Inuyasha said darkly.

"Hm," Miroku agreed.

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What are you doing back?

KURAMA: Despite all my expectations, that crazy cab driver did get me to work alive, but when I got there...

Did everyone like the gift I sent?

KURAMA: That's why I'm here. I would like to establish that a strawberry fruitcake with "I'm Very Sorry" stencilled on top does not count as reimbursement.

They ate it all before you got there?