Diagnosis and Prognosis by naqaashi
Diagnosis and Prognosis
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, and I certainly don't own a store.
The prompts are from the October 17 DDN.
This little "Let's torture Sesshoumaru" bit of fun is dedicated to Priestess Skye, for being a danged awesome mod even when real life gets in the way.
Many thanks to the wonderful Itsy, for being my beta! And for supplying the world with M-21 fics! That boy needs more lauve!
Prompt – Screen
Kagome Higurashi cast a baleful eye through the pile of resumes waiting on her desk. ‘Leave it to Kagura to get sacked for cooking the books,’ she thought in derision, wondering at the intellect of whomever it was that had promoted the ditzy aspiring model to the position of store manager.
Which left her, a mere part-time salesgirl, to screen the candidates applying for the position. She hit pay-dirt at number sixteen, and in a fit of rebellious irresponsibility, fired off an email asking the man to show up first thing on Monday to take up his duties…
…and regretted it first thing on Monday, when she puffed into the store five minutes late and Manager Sesshoumaru Taisho ran her down at the door, frigid eye-brow raised and salary cut noted in his little black book of employee doom.
Prompt – Squeeze
He was squeezing the sales out of the girl.
At the door, marking every tardy entrance and hasty departure.
At the counter, smirking as she tried to explain to a pompous customer that yes, her brat had broken the goddamn vase, so would she please pay for it?
At the lunch table, refusing to offer her even a bite from his scrumptious-looking bento when she dropped hers all over the linoleum.
At the water fountain, eavesdropping on her date plans with that cute boy from electronics, and telling her she needed to stay late to complete an inventory, and no, it could not wait.
And at that last, the girl decided to juice the ager out of the man.
Prompt – March
Kagome Higurashi was not an ambitious girl. So like the average sensible person, she decided to start small.
Therefore, next Monday, she hurtled into the store three minutes late, used Sesshoumaru to brake and his shirt as a dustbin for her Starbucks.
On Tuesday, she slipped on the same linoleum that had made short work of her lunch the week before, and Sesshoumaru wet his pants – by getting between her Coke and the floor.
On Wednesday, she invited the cute boy from electronics to have a bite of her chocolate mousse, and when Sesshoumaru popped up two inches to the left, she shrieked and dumped the creamy dessert all over his shiny, expensive shoes.
Prompt – Garbage
The garbage bin was happy. It was the star of the day.
There was a man, tall and sculpted and silver haired and amber eyed, glaring in vicious remorse at its contents.
There was a girl, pretty and blue-eyed and barely dimpled, peeking in contrived befuddlement at its contents.
The contents – four state-of-the-art cellphones, now smoking, dribbling, splintering and vibrating, respectively.
'That’d teach him to gripe about taking personal calls during work!' Kagome cheered, barely maintaining sobriety as a furious gaze raked her face for any sign of the perverse glee he was certain was coursing through her inside.
But the garbage bin was happy.
Prompt – Aware
Sesshoumaru tooled out of the lot and was almost round the corner before his car farted – loudly, and then dropped to the road like a couch potato in his favourite couch. Stepping out of the car, he stared in disbelief at the squishy doughnuts that only this morning had been a functional set of tires. On a day when the tow trucks, the taxis and the buses were on collective strike.
He. Was. Most. Un-amused.
Five hours later he sank onto his driveway and surveyed the damage – panting, sweaty, smelly, sticky and in desperate need of a chiropractor-cum-masseuse.
And his car was scratched.
He knew he should have stayed in bed that day…
Prompt – Touch
Sesshoumaru stiffened as he felt a hesitant touch on his shoulders, but before he could manage to twist in his chair to fire the silly girl – lack of proof of her wrongdoing notwithstanding – those slim feminine fingers pounced on just that knot that was begging to be loosened.
He supposed it was an admission of guilt and an apology of sorts rolled into one rather skilled back-rub. He wasn’t surprised; after all, unless one is a sociopath or something similarly off-putting, one tends to have developed a decent conscience by the time one has reached the advanced age of twenty as well as final year of college.
He supposed he would forgive her…after he cut her pay. Again.
Prompt – Pink
Kagome sighed morosely at the slim wad of cash clutched in her fist – the remains of her paycheque after her spitting mad – understandably, she grudgingly allowed – manager was done with it.
But she couldn’t feel victimised enough to work up a good tantrum over this last salary demotion. In fact, she was still feeling so much the victimizer that she was positively itching to spend the meagre money on doing something nice for her beleaguered boss.
Oh, the pains of being a nice person...
Which was why, go weekend and come Hellday, Sesshoumaru found himself blinking at his makeover-ed office – shiny new walls, fluffy cushions on the chair, warm rug on the floor – in pretty nauseating pink.
Prompt – Care
Sesshoumaru peered suspiciously at the carefully wrapped bento box his errant salesgirl placed before him with a cheerful smile. Not knowing what else to do, he thanked her, intending to trash the thing as soon as she had left the room – the girl had turned his office into a Breast Cancer Awareness Advertisement; who knew if she’d accidentally sprinkled cyanide in the sushi?
But her expectant face and silent refusal to budge until he had tasted it left him with no choice but to take his fate like a man, and so he chewed his way through the surprisingly tasty lunch.
“See, I didn’t poison it!” she chirped, going on to boast, “And my grandfather says that I make the best shrimp croquettes…though I added some prawns in, this time, as I ran out of shr…Mr Taisho…? Are you……”
For his eyes grew round.
His jaw flopped open.
His tongue rolled out.
His tongue grew spines.
“…allergic to prawns?”
Prompt – Survive
By the time the porcupine had slowly transformed back into his tongue, Sesshoumaru had run through his options and found them wanting.
Resigning? He’d fire her first!
Firing? His reasons didn’t have a leg to stand on; she knew nothing about his allergy – ignorance was bliss, Q.E.D..
Murdering? The police wouldn’t even bother investigating before they threw him into jail – the whole store knew of Kagome’s and his chemical imbalance.
Neutralizing? She wasn’t a rabid dog.
But speaking of dogs…
Training?
Kagome started as her boss suddenly snapped his gaze to her, speculatively resting on each body part as if he was cataloguing it for future reference, much like a scientist catalogues a lab rat dosed with cancer-curing drugs.
Later, she would wish sHe had heeded that subtle sense of dread which had spread through her soul as the speculative look in his eyes was replaced by a self-righteous – and vaguely vindictive one, followed by: “Special training this Saturday – and if you are late, Higurashi, you won’t have enough of a paycheque left to satisfy a beggar.”
Prompt – Diagnosis
“Clumsy, careless and childish.”
Kagome stared at her boss. “What?”
“Hn.”
“Is…that…a description of me?”
“I prefer to call it a diagnosis, my dear child. Now, don’t stamp your foot.”
“Childish? I’m childish!? Yes, I’m childish, you stingy twerp! Anyone whose paycheque looks like their candy-money did fifteen years ago can be expected to act just that age!”
“I stand corrected. You are a well-meaning catastrophe waiting to be unleashed on unsuspecting mortals.”
“I try to be nice to you, and you…”
“Appreciate the effort. Hence, I am deigning to give you the help you so desperately require until you are able to function as a normal, non-lethal adult does.”
“So now I’m a retard?”
“Yes.”
“……and you’re Freud reincarnated?”
“Yes.”
Prompt – Ribbon
“Very well, then, Doctor dear, I’ll prove I’m not mentally under grown! Ask, and you shall receive. And if it is appropriate, I will be acknowledged,” she snorted derisively, “as an adult.”
Sesshoumaru contemplated the challenge, wondering why she had set herself up to lose so badly. He sifted through a mental list, before alighting on the perfect item.
“Anything?” he smirked.
“Any damn thing!”
“A hair-ribbon.”
“And he calls me childish.”
“……”
“….just visit the salon, why don’t you, you barber’s joy.”
“A hair-ribbon, Higurashi, and one suitable for this Sesshoumaru’s needs.”
“On condition that you must wear whatever I get.”
“Hn.”
.
.
.
The next day, Sesshoumaru stood in mingled horror and triumph as she proudly presented him with a slim length of pale pink satin, reminding him that he had to wear it the entire day…and that he couldn’t cut her pay, and that she had proved she was a grown up, so would he please chill out and act like a responsible adult manager of a store should?
She had the foresight to skip away to her counter before he could strangle her with the shimmering cord of doom…his hair was never going to recover from the trauma.
Prompt – Treatment
Sesshoumaru Taisho was planning a change of career. From manager to murderer. He trudged up the driveway to the front door for his house, mentally mutilating a certain blue-eyed salesgirl, in an attempt to discover which method would bring him maximum satisfaction when he finally committed the act.
He placed his keys and wallet on the hall table and stalked towards the bedroom, so intent in his nefarious designs on Kagome Higurashi that he failed to notice the tiny fingers that gently tugged at the ends of his be-ribboned ponytail.
Until they tugged hard.
Wheeling, he was about to issue a stern reprimand, but the fascinated gleam of desire in his adopted daughter’s eyes was impossible to resist, and he found himself handing over the cursed ribbon to the little girl.
His eyes softened as she giggled with the girlish glee that overcomes every female when encountered by something pretty and pink, all violence chased from his mind, leaving it clear enough to snap back to the time Higurashi had sneaked into his office to leave it slathered in the colour.
There had been a photograph of Rin on the desk.
Slim brows puckering into a frown, he recalled his condition – “suitable for this Sesshoumaru’s needs.”
Eyes studying his daughter’s form, practically bouncing in front of the mirror as she tried to do up her hair, he found himself re-thinking his treatment of his unusually perceptive employee.
Childish…but perceptive.
Prompt – Symptoms
Sesshoumaru couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. She must have sensed a steady stare boring a hole in the back of her head every time she came near him, because she took great pains to avoid him that day.
All for naught, of course, as he made an equal effort to lurk around her all day.
Finally, unable to take the silent stalking, she rounded on him as he followed her into the break room.
“What is with you today?! You’ve been acting like a Rottweiler on the prowl…or a stalker with the desire to fire!”
He studied her face in silence, watching in amusement as her irritation grew, before deigning to reply.
“I have diagonised your problem, I believe.”
“From a hair-ribbon?”
“Perceptive, soft-hearted, kind, nauseatingly nice.”
“…and that’s a problem?”
“Yes.”
“Explain yourself, Sir.”
“They are the symptoms of your unfortunate habit of unleashing havoc on whomever you try to…ah…favour with your attention.”
“Last time I checked, niceness was not a threat to world peace.”
“Coupled with your other problem, it may well be.”
“God help me, at this rate, I will lock myself into a straitjacket!”
“It is not the asylum you need, woman, it’s the kindergarten.”
“…?”
“So childish.”
Prompt – Inflamed
Kagome had never been so incensed in her life. Immersed in a silent rant in which she called him everything from a fraud to a delusional psychopath to an over-evolved monkey, she almost failed to notice the crowd of excited rugrats near the Nintendo station.
Almost, but not quite.
And then she decided to prove that the old cliché actually worked.
Hell
Sesshoumaru looked in confusion as a salesman from the toy section came banging on his office door, begging him to come save the store.
hath
He raised an eyebrow before striding out of the room and onto the main floor.
no
And came to a complete halt.
fury
His eyebrows forgot to arch up and his eyes forgot to blink and his ears wished they knew how to plug themselves because his arms refused to move from his sides.
like
Fifty screaming, excited, shrieking, inflamed, screeching, tantrum-throwing children, looking suspiciously like they were clamouring for his blood.
a
And they were – in their devilishly obsessed little heads, someone had planted the idea that he had refused the sale of any copies of Nintendo’s latest game, of which the store had an exclusive supply, till next week.
woman
He had a feeling he knew the culprit, even as he tried to repair the damage…because now, heaven help him, the irate mothers of the uncontrollable mob of little brats were looking like they wanted to claw out his manhood with very blunt nails.
scorned.
And even worse….he had a feeling he deserved to be taught a little lesson on childhood and its associated tropes.
Prompt – Support
Kagome snickered as she spied on her usually immaculate boss as he tried to repair some of the damage done to his clothing – the once pristine suit was covered in mud, paint, food, drink and snot stains.
Growling as he caught her eye in the bathroom mirror, he shut his mouth with a snap as she merely raised an eyebrow…in perfect imitation of him, no less…as if challenging him to even try and direct her to the nearest psychiatrist.
He had to admire her spunk, he supposed, but he’d roast on a skewer before he admitted it to her.
After all, what male with half an ego admits to having been bested? And his ego was certainly in many multiples of a half.
And that same ego supported his somewhat chastened eyebrow enough to raise it to half-mast, as he moved towards the door, only to have her block it.
“So?” she challenged. “I believe you owe me a declaration of your defeat and my maturity.”
He gave a curt nod. “You are not childish.”
Her sudden smile of glee was a little dazzling, and he desperately cast round for something with which to ward off this new insanity.
“Juvenile.”
He really should have been expecting the pile of dirty wet tissues that was slung his way. But he was still a little dazzled and just a trifle dazed, as he watched her stiff back storming out of his bathroom and office.
“……why…me…?”
He could just hear her calling him a paedophile when he would ask her out to dinner that Friday…
Review, please, peeps - they are luffed and their writers are luffed on too! Pweesey! ::makes the puppy eyes::