Happily Ever After by MissTeak

The Arrangement

I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters, and neither do I make profit from my writings.

A/N: Here’s my response to Mysticangeldust’s ‘Songfic’ challenge, and I have to say, this is one of the most interesting challenges I’ve ever come across. It’s a songfic that’s not really a songfic, whereby the story is inspired by the meaning and contents of the song without actual usage of the lyrics. The song for the challenge is “At the beginning”, and I hope it actually makes sense in this story.

On top of that, I actually have a new idea for a new full-length chapter story in my head, and this challenge came by when I needed more inspiration. So I hope you guys enjoy this small side project of mine; I need a break from writing my long stories like Wisteria sometimes, so as to keep the muse active. So I was reading Hapimari by my favorite shoujo manga author, Enjouji Maki, and her amazing plot inspired me greatly to write this. Of course, I changed the setting, so it’s definitely not similar to the manga.

Also, I will use the Japanese word ‘ryokan’ in place of ‘traditional Japanese inn’, since the latter actually takes quite a bit of the charm out of the setting.

Happily Ever After

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“You’ve got to be kidding.”

A sigh was heard, and she swore she saw his eyebrow twitch in annoyance. “I wish I was.”

“No way…this is absurd. You can’t do something so…ridiculous. This is modern Japan. And I don’t even know you.”

“You speak as if you have a choice.”

The nerve of him!!

The last comment from the obnoxious, arrogant creature she was staring at brought Higurashi Kagome back to earth with a resounding mental slap. Prior to that, her overworked brain had been straining to come to terms with the absurdity she had just heard.

“I won’t do it; I can never, ever accept this proposal!” She practically yelled, before continuing. “And no pun intended there!”

Absurdity, ridiculousness, ludicrousness…that was what it was.

She felt faint, and if she had been any weaker, she would have started bleeding from the nose, keeled over and died from confusion.

Simply because she had just been, in the most unimaginable of ways, informed of her arranged marriage to a man whom she was already plotting to maim.

And she hadn’t even interacted with him for more than half an hour.

Flashbacks ricocheted off the interior of her mind as Kagome recalled how she had received a life-changing letter left behind by her late grandfather. The old man had not breathed a word about the contents of the letter while he had been alive, so imagine her shock when Kagome saw how the Higurashi family actually had in their possession almost half a traditional inn. Unable to come to terms with it initially, Kagome finally found enough sanity within herself to accept the fact that they did own forty percent of a eighty year-old ryokan in a place called Tsumago-juku in the Kiso region, which is somewhere between Gifu and Nagano prefecture. She hadn’t even heard of the place prior to reading the letter.

But still, to her, it was a miracle sent to them by her late grandfather from Heaven. The shrine they had been running for generations was not doing so well financially; its maintenance was expensive, especially since it was now falling apart due to age, and there were simply a lot fewer worshippers who contribute monetarily to the shrine as compared to the past.

On top of that, it is now very rare for anyone to request for religious services like praying for blessings, good health, wealth or harvest or whatsoever. Kagome wanted to sigh in exasperation at the thought of this; these days, if people wanted good health, they visit clinics and hospitals. If they wanted wealth, they work their asses off or buy lottery tickets. If they wanted good harvest…well, no one farms in modern Tokyo anymore.

It was tough keeping the shrine going, yet Kagome couldn’t find it within herself to give up on it. She had come close, on a few occasions, to selling the land to the government for development or whatever they wished to do with it, and move into an apartment with her mother and brother, but she always changed her mind upon considering further. True enough, the shrine had become more of a liability than an asset, but it was still something that was so Higurashi. It was part of her heritage and family, and Kagome was not willing to let something passed down for generations get destroyed in her hands. This was the stubborn thought that compelled her to keep the shrine even when she got retrenched by the company she was working at as a administration clerk.

So when the letter revealed how she had the right to forty percent of the profits made from the ryokan, Kagome had been too ecstatic to notice the last part of the letter, which stated that there were conditions to fulfill before she could receive her share of the total profits. The conditions were apparently written in a letter which was left at the ryokan in Tsumago, and that letter would be opened when she presented the one in her possession. There was also an address in Tokyo to write to upon reading the letter. Too caught up in her happiness over the fact that her family shrine could be saved from bankruptcy and the possible fate of demolition, Kagome instantly wrote to the Tokyo address. She soon received a reply written in a very polite and refined manner asking her to make a trip to Tsumago to meet someone by the name of Nishimiya Tatsumaru.

So with a joyous heart, and a mind filled with images of her mother and brother’s smiling faces, she set off for Tsumago, which was approximately three and a half hours away from Tokyo by bullet train, local subway train and bus. It was nothing like modern Tokyo – in fact, she wasn’t even sure that such places still existed within Japan. It was a two hundred year-old village from the Edo period preserved under the law of the Japanese government, and it didn’t take too long for Kagome to feel as if she had been cut off from civilization…

“…and that’s coming from an individual laden with financial issues and struggling to maintain an old shrine.”

Her emotional flashbacks came to a premature death, and Kagome was rudely reminded of the other individual sitting across her on a zabuton in the traditional tatami room she was now sitting in. She rolled her eyes at him. He smirked.

True enough, that…man was a very attractive specimen of a breathing male, but unfortunately, an impossibly annoying one as well. And to Kagome, that negative aspect far outweighed the positive.

The moment she had arrived at the shrine, Kagome had been welcomed warmly by a very kindly old man who introduced himself as Nishimiya Tatsumaru, before she had been led into a rustic, charming ryokan which smelled most nostalgically of cypress wood. But strangely enough, Shiraito ryokan, as it was named, was nowhere as impressive as Kagome had conveniently assumed it to be. For starters, it lacked liveliness. Shiraito ryokan, despite being an inn, was unwelcoming.

That looks familiar…Kagome mused with a mixture of amusement and exasperation as she recalled her old shrine back in Tokyo. Shiraito gave her the same feeling; it did not welcome her, and she kept feeling as if she had to get out of there.

It was then when she saw him, the young man who was also the grandson of Nishimiya Tatsumaru. Handsome was an understatement when it came to him; for a moment, all Kagome could do was gape and feel her cheeks warm up almost instantly.

Politely, she bowed in the typical Japanese form of greeting, before formally introducing herself.. She was, after all, here at the ryokan to claim her family’s share of its profits, and sound manners would definitely help her in her purpose. So she waited for a moment, expecting the same formal self-introduction, until she heard the drop-dead gorgeous man say, “Hn.”

What on earth was ‘Hn’??

So for a good three seconds after she straightened up, Kagome stared incredulously at the man standing in front of her. His features were uniquely, ethereally beautiful for a male, with piercing golden eyes in a chiseled face with a strong jaw line. Long silver hair was tied up in a ponytail at his nape, and she found it oddly distracting in a pleasant manner. But it was the lack of friendliness within those eyes that made Kagome confused; what sort of individual was he? Didn’t he know basic courtesy?

“Have you not seen a male before, or do you fail to understand that it is rude to stare?”

The offensive words left his perfect lips in a smooth, rich baritone voice, and Kagome concluded there and then that perfection only existed on a physical level when it came to this man. How dare he talk to her like that when she had talked to him with nothing but courtesy??

“Excuse me, I do not speak the language of ‘Hn’. Just because you live in this…countryside place, it doesn’t mean you have the right to act and speak like a mountain troll.”

“How shallow, just as I expected from a person from Tokyo, to assume everyone else who doesn’t live there is a country bumpkin.”

Kagome smirked in return and retorted, “Not everyone, just nameless trolls who go ‘Hn’ in reply to polite self introductions.”

“I have a name, and it is Nishimiya Sesshoumaru. Just so you would know, politeness is reserved for those who deserve it.”

Kagome’s eyes had widened in shock, and she was about to hurl words of anger back in his pompous face when old man Nishimiya returned to the living room with a wooden box and a letter in his hands.

Glaring at each other, Kagome and Sesshoumaru settled onto their respective zabutons, waiting for the old man to speak up. So even when he launched into a lengthy and admittedly very boring lecture on Shiraito ryokan’s history, all Kagome could recall was how thinking how she could leave this place as soon as possible upon making arrangements to receive the money.

“Shiraito used to be the ancestral home of our family, the Nishimiya clan, and the great daimyo Nishimiya was the one who first set up Shiraito along the Nakasendo path so he could stay here every time he had to make a trip from Kyoto to Edo and vice versa. This, Miss Higurashi, is the stamp of our family crest.” The older Nishimiya then proceeded to open the box to reveal a round stamp, before removing it and placing it on the tatami in front of him.

Kagome could not believe her ears for a second; this Nishimiya family had a crest? Well, the family name Nishimiya was a prominent one in Tokyo, but weren’t these two men living in the countryside? This was perhaps why they were still so hung up on ancient tradition, to the extent of keeping their family crest, which was something only the aristocrats or feudal lords owned back in the ancient times.

“Our Shiraito ancestral home was then converted into a ryokan eighty years ago, by two young men, who were none other than my father, who is also Sesshoumaru’s great-grandfather, and your great-grandfather Higurashi Ryunosuke.”

“Old Mr. Higurashi used to be one of the caretakers of our ancestral hall, where the Nishimiya’s ancestors are honored and remembered by our descendants. Shiraito came close to being bought over by the government when they started the cultural preservation project; especially most of its inhabitants had left for large cities like Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo.”

“My father had been caught between two options; to give up Shiraito to the government and allow it to be preserved as a museum for everyone to visit, or find an official way for Shiraito to continue being run as the ancestral home by Nishimiya descendants. He could not come up with a satisfactory idea, and that was when old Mr. Higurashi told him about his idea for Shiraito to be converted into a ryokan in which visitors to the town could stay at. To cut a long story short, that was exactly what the two young men set out to do together. In return for his unwavering loyalty to the Nishimiya family, Mr. Higurashi was given forty percent of the ownership of the new Shiraito ryokan. He had always refused it whenever my father mentioned it, but nonetheless, it belongs to the Higurashi family officially in my father’s will.”

“Shiraito used to flourish for a long time even after Mr. Higurashi left for Tokyo to take over his family’s shrine, which is the one in which you’re still living, Miss Higurashi. Generation after generation, it was passed down, but after Sesshoumaru’s parents stopped running the inn and handed it over to him, a young boy of merely fourteen, Shiraito went into decline…”

So the kindly old man went on and on with somewhat wistful smile on his face, and Kagome noticed how Sesshoumaru was suddenly sitting up very straight in his zabuton with an unreadable expression on his face.

As old Mr. Nishimiya continued and told Kagome he was truly apologetic for Shiraito not being what she had most probably imagined, he revealed the condition of how they had to work together to restore Shiraito to its former glory. Kagome chewed on her lower lip, nodding as she started wondering how they could do so together.

That was when the old man dropped the bomb on her.

“…as stated, you are supposed to run Shiraito as its okami, Miss Higurashi, in order for you to inherit your share of the ownership of the ryokan. To be the okami of the ryokan, you would have to hold the family name of Nishimiya. There is no, I repeat, no exception to this traditional rule.”

…HUH?

“…and since Sesshoumaru will only be allowed by his father to keep Shiraito ryokan provided he is settled down and no longer leading the life of, I hereby quote, ‘a social recluse’, the final and most important condition in this arrangement is for Miss Higurashi to marry my grandson Sesshoumaru and become part of the Nishimiya family. This letter in my hands, written by old Mr. Higurashi, who had always been reluctant to accept his share of the ryokan, clearly states that the Higurashi family would only be able to accept the Nishimiya’s generous gift of the forty percent of Shiraito should a female descendent of theirs marry into the Nishimiya family to run the ryokan as its okami.”

Not caring if she resembled a goldfish with a huge gaping mouth, Kagome stammered shakily, “But…but…wait a minute! This is marriage we are talking about. I can’t just…agree simply because my great-grandfather wrote it down in his letter as a form of some…crazy joke! I’d have to become a Nishimiya…?”

The old man nodded, giving her a gentle smile. On the other hand, Sesshoumaru was looking at her with the cool, aloof expression on his face which she had learnt to associate with him.

“I will marry Miss Higurashi, grandfather.” Sesshoumaru said without a hint of emotion, bowing respectfully to the old man.

“Do I not have a say in this?” Kagome cried out in disbelief, staring at the two calm and collected men incredulously. She was just told to marry a man, whom she had already thought of strangling in frustration, and now he was readily agreeing to their marriage…?

In the face of Kagome’s outburst, old Mr. Nishimiya had quietly excused himself from the room to leave the two young people to their own discussion.

So that was the entire chain of events that took place before their heated exchange of words. As Kagome struggled to stand up from her kneeling position on the zabuton, which had given her pins and needles in her feet, she looked at Sesshoumaru and stuck her tongue out at him.

“I don’t care what happens to this place; this is crazy, unbelievable and absurd and I am going back to Tokyo. NOW. Bye, Nishimiya Sesshoumaru! And good luck with this place. I’d rather work part-time at some fast food joint or give out flyers and tissue paper packets at Akihabara in a French maid costume to make ends meet-”

“Are you sure about that?” His cool baritone voice once again sliced through her heated smoothly, and Kagome fought to keep a shudder at bay as his words struck something deep within her heart. “Look, we are in a situation where we both stand to gain if we agree to this arranged marriage. Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in game theory?”

“Umm…not really?” Kagome replied quietly, raising her eyebrows as she calmed down considerably to listen to Sesshoumaru.

He could have sighed, but Sesshoumaru did not want to make it any harder for himself to convince this neurotic, noisy and clearly annoying woman in front of him. “In short, we will both stand to gain the most if we cooperate. In the event where one party refuses to cooperate or both fail to cooperate, we will stand to gain less or even lose more. You need the money, and I have my reasons for agreeing to this arrangement.”

Those words made Kagome look at him quietly and he realized how he had, at the very least, gained her attention. She settled back down onto her zabuton, and he noticed how she was no longer kneeling but instead, folding her legs up by her side.

“But…but…” She said in a small voice, while a flood of faint pink colored her cheeks. “Isn’t marriage supposed to be something done out of…love?”

He smirked, both inwardly and outwardly, before leaning forward such that he was staring into her sparkling, indignant eyes with his own. She was obviously a little shaken by the way he was staring at her, so he smirked wider such that she could see the uplift of the side of his mouth. “Hasn’t it crossed your mind that you might fall for me?”

Her eyes, which he had to admit were a very attractive feature of hers, widened further and she spluttered, “What...what…”

Sesshoumaru wanted to laugh, but he could not bring himself to do so. It was so funny to see this woman get all flustered and-

“What are you…an idiot??” She cried out in exasperation, before turning away to look at the corner of the room, determined to avoid his eyes.

A little taken aback by the spunk she held in her petite frame, Sesshoumaru leaned back on his zabuton, and asked in a cool, collected voice, “So, back to the topic. This marriage, I repeat, will be nothing more than an arrangement. We will just sign the papers, and upon getting what we both want out of this, we will part ways and you will be free to do anything you want to with the money.”

The money…I could do so much with it, Kagome thought. I could save the shrine, and I could help pay for Souta’s school fees. All I have to do is agree to help run this ryokan, and we could both get what we want out of it…

But then again, he is such a jerk! Kagome’s mind cried, recalling the way Sesshoumaru had treated her so coldly. I have to tolerate him and his horrible ways just to get the money??

…but I need it. I need that money, she concluded with a sinking feeling in her heart. It was not even as if she had too much of a choice; he was right in saying that.

Her eyes were clouded over with what he could identify to be a fierce inner conflict, and as she silently gave his proposal serious consideration, Sesshoumaru could see how she was going to be won over.

“Look at it this way. You will have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.” He said slowly, just to push her over the edge.

Kagome drew a deep breath, and with slightly shaky hands, picked the cup in front of her up to take a sip of the clear green tea. His voice was like the devil’s caress; so convincing, so right. The warm, bitter liquid slid down her parched throat, and she sincerely hoped she was not being crazy by coming to this decision.

“I will do it.”

He allowed a smile of slightly smug satisfaction to grace his features, and Kagome noticed how incredibly handsome her…soon-to-be husband was when he was smiling. The warmth on her cheeks was returning, and she hurriedly looked away when she noticed his eyes lingering on her.

“I look forward to a very happy marriage with you,” He drawled. “My wife.”

As she took his hand with a poorly concealed blushing face, she really, really hoped she was not crazy to have agreed to this preposterous idea.

True enough, she was now married to this complete stranger…but would it be happily ever after?

No way.

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To be continued...