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Curiosity - Chapter 14 - "What Could It Mean?"

Just as Kagome said, she stayed up the entire night due to her thought that maybe the two people claiming to be Inuyasha's parents were just ploys sent by Sesshomaru to kidnap Kagome in another futile attempt at getting Tetsaiga. But then again, if these two were for real, then Inuyasha had the chance of having a family, which in Kagome's opinion was a wonderful thing. She considered it a once in a lifetime opportunity for him if they truly had come back from the dead, one that he should be eternally grateful for.

Morning came all too soon for Kagome, she still hadn't figured out how in the world she was going to handle the situation between her and Kikyo, now add to that the fact that Lord Touga and Lady Izayoi have returned from the great beyond, ugh, she didn't even want to think of what kind of yelling she was in for from Inuyasha for getting herself into this mess. She honestly began to think that there was a giant magnet on her back and it specifically attracted all sorts of trouble wherever she went.

It was then she noticed that Kaede hadn't woken up yet. Usually she was up with the roosters preparing breakfast and getting various herbal remedies ready for the day.

"I guess Kikyo's idea of keeping her occupied all day yesterday out in the village really wore her out. I'll let her sleep in as long as she wants, she deserves it."

Kagome decided that she would cook breakfast for everyone; at least then Kaede would have one less thing to do for the day. She started by adding some more firewood to the pit to get the fire going again and then going to the corner to grab the pot to set over the fire so it could start heating up. Kagome then busied herself with chopping the vegetables that would go into the stew, but she was startled when she heard a voice coming from her left.

"Nnn... Hiro, come back. Hiro, please..." Kaede mumbled in her sleep.

"Hiro? I wonder who that could be." Kagome wondered curiously as she went back to chopping the vegetables.

About ten minutes later the wonderful smell of stew permeated the air, teasing everyone noses with its tantalizing smell, drawing them out of the land of nod.

Touga was of course the first to wake followed by Izayoi, "Mmmm, that smells wonderful Lady Kagome. I can't wait to have a taste." Izayoi complemented as she stretched the kinks out of her back before turning to look at her mate. "Good morning beloved." She said cupping his cheek with her hand.

A clawed hand came to rest on top of Izayoi's dainty one as amber eyes stared lovingly into her own. "And a good morning to you my mate." Touga greeted back while taking hold of her other hand and pulling Izayoi into his chest, wrapping his arms around her tightly before gently kissing her.

Kagome returned her gaze to the stew in front of her, a light blush covering her features because of the scene she just witnessed. "Oh if only someone would love me like that, it would be absolutely wonderful."

She was startled out of her reverie by a voice off to her side, "Thank ye for making breakfast Kagome, and for allowing me the extra sleep. I needed it after yesterday." Kaede said while handing Kagome the bowls for the stew.

Dipping the stew over into the bowls, a small smile made its way onto Kagome's face, "Oh it was nothing Kaede. I was positive that you would need the extra sleep with how late we were up last night."

Kaede was passing each bowl around as Kagome filled them, but when she came to the last bowl she paused, a thought crossing her mind.

"Lord Touga, pardon me if I'm out of line, but do you eat human food?"

He looked up at the young girl curiously, "Yes I do. Why? And please don't call me 'Lord', after all I'm not much of one anyway" Touga said as he winked at her.

Kagome smiled as she filled the last bowl and handed it to him, thinking it was funny that he used her excuse against her, "I just didn't wish to make you eat something that you don't like. Plus I know that Sesshomaru absolutely won't eat any sort of human food."

Touga ate a spoonful of stew before replying. "I thank you for your consideration Kagome. But unlike my eldest son, I have no trepidation against humans. In addition, I find human food more tantalizing than most of the demon food I have eaten in my life."

"My beloved is tired of demon food because of all of my good cooking he has eaten." Izayoi lightly giggled out.

Everyone ate their breakfast in comfortable silence that is until Touga grunted.

"Is there something wrong darling?" Izayoi asked concerned.

Touga grunted again as if in pain before answering. "Yes, that incessant whining noise is hurting my ears. It keeps stopping itself then it starts back up again."

Everyone was quiet then, all of them attempting to hear the mysterious sound that Touga had described. Kagome tilted her head a bit when she finally heard the noise, which for some reason sounded oddly familiar to her.

"Wait a minute, I know what that is! Grrr... Inuyasha when you get back we are going to have a nice talk about this."

Immediately Kagome got up from her place by Kaede, walked towards the back of the hut, and started tapping each floor board lightly with her foot.

"Child what are you doing?"

Kaede's question was ignored due to Kagome concentrating so hard. After tapping for five minutes, she finally heard the hollow sound she was listening for near the back right wall. This coincidentally was where Inuyasha normally slept. She then got down on her knees and began to pry up the board, which was thankfully already loose.

Setting the board aside, she finally took her first look into the hole she had just revealed, eyes widening, she knew the hanyou had taken some of her things, but she had no idea that Inuyasha had taken this many. First thing first though, she could go over all of these things later. Running her eyes through the treasure trove, Kagome finally located the source of the noise and immediately picked it up and removed the battery.

"Is the noise gone now?" Kagome asked looking at Touga.

A curt nod was her answer, "What is that... thing?" He questioned hesitantly, not sure of what to call the small object in the young miko's hands.

Before answering, Kagome made her way back over to the fire, but not until she grabbed a new battery and her earbuds from Inuyasha's "treasure trove" as she called it. "This is called an MP3 player; it plays different kinds of music. The reason it beeped was because the battery died." At the quizzical looks she received, she explained it better in what she called "feudal lingo" so that they could understand. "Its energy source ran out so it made that noise to tell me that I needed to renew its energy. I guess it was accidentally turned on when Inuyasha took it which in turn made it loose its energy since it was on the whole time."

Izayoi was surprised at that last sentence, her little boy knew better than to steal things from others. "Well, he isn't so little anymore." She thought forlornly. Just as she was about to ask what Kagome had meant Kaede spoke up for her.

"What do ye mean? Why would he want to take such a thing?"

"And since no human or demon could fit into such a small object, how does it play music?" The great demon added, tipping his head curiously in a very dog-like way.

Giggling lightly, Kagome replaced the battery and plugged in her ear buds before answering. "Before I answer your questions Kaede, I believe it would be beneficial to answer Touga's first that way you could all know the reason behind him taking it in the first place.

She paused before going into her explanation. "I don't know how to explain the way it plays music in a way you could completely understand, but I'll try. You see, where I am from we have a device that records music so that you can listen to it later without having to have an actual band assemble and such. Then you can take the recorded music and store it in this little thing called an MP3 player that way you can play music whenever you want. You just put these little things in your ears and the music comes out. Here, if I turn the volume up you can hear it without putting in the earbuds."

With that she turned up the volume so they could partially hear some of her current favorite song. After about a minute she turned it off and answered the other question.

"As far as why Inuyasha took it, it was most likely because I was listening to my favorite song so much. See I was back home for a break and I couldn't get this song called 'Hey Soul Sister' out of my head so I kept playing it over and over which apparently annoyed him. I was playing it on another device so I could hear it all through my family's house and I didn't know he was outside basically spying on me and I guess after a while he got tired of it so he came in my house and smashed it." Kagome explained nervously, hoping that she didn't give his parents the wrong impression. "But he didn't know I had this little thing and when I started playing it on this he decided to go wait in the Feudal... I mean back here." Darn Kagome and her almost slip ups!

Touga looked at her strangely for a moment, noticing her slip of the tongue. "I wonder what she is hiding."

When there were no more questions asked, Izayoi and Touga decided to take a long walk, just the two of them, while Kaede had to go and tend to her herb garden as always. This left Kagome alone in the hut since Kikyo hadn't come back since the night before. Trying to figure out what she could do seeing as her textbooks were still hanging from the rafters, Kagome spied the Inuyasha's treasure trove and figured she might as well take inventory of the things her took.

Within the hour that she was alone, she discovered that Inuyasha had taken three alarm clocks, six cans of Red Bull,, her cell phone, some socks, (which she found weird) Sota's Gameboy, her "Algebra For Dummies" book, her laptop, an animated singing dog her great-aunt had gotten her last year, Gramps sutras, one of Buyo's cat toys, and finally a huge stack of her homework. That last thing really made her mad. All those times she thought she didn't get her assignments done which made her scurry to redo it for school and this whole time it was laying under Kaede's floor.

They were definitely going to have a LONG talk about this.

Just as she was about to set the board back in place, another piece of paper caught her eyes. Upon picking it up, she realized it was an envelope, but what really got her thinking was how yellowed it was.

"This shouldn't be that yellowed if it's been down there as long as my homework. I wonder what could be inside."

Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened the envelope and began to slip out the contents; Kaede walked in and sat down her herbs then looked towards Kagome.

"Oh no, she found it!"

Panic struck her as she beheld what Kagome held in her hands. As quickly as her old body would allow, she made her way to Kagome and seized the envelope before Kagome could unveil any of what was held inside.

"Child, why don't you begin cooking lunch, hmm?" Kaede suggested trying to avoid any questioning.

Kagome gave her a quizzical look, "But Kaede, it's no where near lunch time and we just had breakfast."

"Is that paper hers? Why did it have Tokyo, Japan written on it? I've never brought anything from home like that. Is she keeping something from us?"

Before Kaede could spout out something else to distract Kagome, Kikyo finally decided to make her appearance.

Calmly strolling over to stand over Kagome, the same blatant look on her face, she had decided that enough was enough.

"You will tell me everything about your home this minute."

Standing so that she could face Kikyo eye to eye, Kagome replied coldly to her, "I already told you that I wouldn't tell you anything Kikyo so what makes you think that I would tell you now?"

A smirk crossed Kikyo's clay face before she retorted, "Because I will destroy the well if you don't."

At hearing that, Kagome paled and dropped to her knees.

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