The Hunt for the Perfect Man: Chapter 1 - The Set-up

Disclaimer: We didn't create the characters. We just put them in compromising situations for our amusement.

Authors' Note: What happens when you cross all the crazy that is BelleDayNight with all the insane of CharmedReality (a.k.a. HauntedReality)? A story that is full of fun, romance, and whimsy, of course. Please enjoy and review! (CR)

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Kagome's dark hair swayed sharply back and forth as she stomped up the stairs to her one-bedroom apartment. Her clothes were covered in mud, and she angrily flicked a twig from her once beautiful blue skirt.

She knew the night wasn't going to be good by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing could have prepared her for what actually happened on her arranged blind date.

She didn't want to think about that now. All she wanted to do was slip into a warm bath and forget about everything that happened. Actually, she also wanted to call her grandfather and yell at him for his poor taste in dates, but that seemed a little too disrespectful. However, she made a mental note to remember this day when it came time to choose his birthday gift.

Pulling her keys out of her soiled pocket, she fumbled with the lock. "Come on, I'm not in the mood for this right now," she tried reasoning with the key as it refused to grant her access to the bath that was calling her name.

She had unlocked the door to her apartment a hundred times, so of course, it would choose this day to give her problems. Metal jangled loudly as she tried to shove the keys into the stubborn lock. In her frustration, the ring of keys slipped from her cold fingers and fell to the ground while she simultaneously managed to jam her finger against the hard wood of the door.

"Owwww! Darn you!" she scolded the obstinate lock. In pain, she kicked the fallen keys so that they skidded across the porch only to stop in front of her neighbor's door which was now hanging open.

"Rough night?" asked a very amused man with long black hair and luminous amber eyes and a toothbrush unceremoniously sticking half way out of his mouth. He leaned down to claim the discarded ring of keys and swirled them around his pointer finger while leaning back against his door frame in a dramatic pose.

Kagome glared at her annoying neighbor, too tired to even come up with a witty retort. Inuyasha pushed himself from his casual position on his side of the porch and calmly swept past her to open the door for the flustered woman.

He then tossed the keys back at her and proceeded to enter the apartment as if he owned the place. He continued to brush his teeth as he made his way towards the stainless steel sink in the pale yellow kitchen.

Kagome groaned when he spit out his toothpaste into the sink. He looked up at her, wiping his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve while casting her a smirk and leaning against her counter. "Want to talk about it?" He asked, giving her and the muddy ensemble the once over.

"Not especially," Kagome answered, following him into the small corner of her apartment commonly referred to as a kitchen. His body blocked the sink, and he made no move to rectify that situation, so she leaned around him to turn on the facet and wash his spit down the drain.

Inuyasha frowned at the mud stain on his white t-shirt. "I think you owe me an explanation for why there is now mud all over my shirt."

In frustration, Kagome blew the bangs out of her eyes and leaned on the counter opposite of her nosy neighbor. "If you must know," she began.

"Indeed, I must," Inuyasha interrupted.

"If you must know, I just returned from a blind date," she answered, ignoring his comment.

"Obviously, that explains why you fell into the mud hole. Next time you should try walking with your eyes open," Inuyasha suggested, twirling his toothbrush in his fingers idly.

"You are really going to make me tell you the story while I'm still covered in mud?" she asked incredulously.

Flopping himself comfortably onto a nearby plush chair, he smiled up at her suggestively. "No, you can take your clothes off if you want, but what would the neighbors say?"

Kagome picked up a decorative pillow and sent it flying at his grinning face. He easily blocked the assault, but she felt somewhat better anyway. "You really are incorrigible, you know that?"

"If that means charming with a winning personality, I couldn't agree more. Now back to your mud wrestling blind date story," he encouraged smugly.

Sighing loudly to make her aggravation abundantly clear, she grabbed a large towel from the hall closet and threw it over an opposing chair where she sank down defeated. "Last week, my grandfather decided I was becoming a spinster, and if I wasn't going to do anything about it, then he would."

Inuyasha opened his mouth, but received another face full of pillow. "Not a word," she commanded as her eyebrow twitched slightly.

"Anyway, he told me he knew this wonderful man who was very level-headed and responsible and wealthy and devote. Not wanting to upset dear old grandfather, I said it sounded like...fun."

"I take it that wasn't the case?" Inuyasha interjected as he continued absently balancing and spinning his green toothbrush between nimble fingers.

"You could say that. He picks me up in this old, beat-up truck that looks like it had actually been through a war zone of some kind. He had to open the door for me from the inside because there was no handle on the outside. Then once I was inside the deathtrap, I discovered there were no seatbelts. There was also no radio, but that was okay because there was a rusted out hole in the floor you could watch the road through if you got bored."

"Sounds like a dream date so far," he replied sarcastically.

"It gets better. As old as the truck was, it didn't begin to compare to my date. The man was actually balding!" she covered her head with her hands for emphasis. "When Grandfather said he was an old friend, I didn't think he meant it literally!"

Inuyasha snorted, and buried his nose in the convenient pillow to prevent it from being too obvious. After he gained control of his mirth, he gave her his most somber expression. "Did you fall out of the hole and get covered in mud?"

"No," Kagome snapped, inspected her mud encrusted clothing. Abruptly, she stood up. "Look, I'm taking a bath. If you refuse to leave, we can continue this horror story through the bathroom door."

Inuyasha stood and made his way to the bathroom. "No need to close the door," he gave her a bored look. "You don't have anything I want to see anyway."

Kagome picked up her discarded towel and tossed it at his head before marching into her bedroom to grab her robe. Inuyasha made to follow her into the bathroom only to have the door slammed in his face. He snapped his fingers, "Shucks," he called loud enough to make his neighbor grin despite herself.

He slid down the door and leaned his back against it, legs crossed Indian-style. "So, how are you covered in mud?" He called out when he heard the water start to run. "Apparently, you and the old geezer didn't do any mud wrestling. I imagine his arthritis killed that activity."

He heard a heavy object, probably a shoe, slam against the door behind his head. "So, this Totosai took me to this religious revival in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it was in a tent, and the ground was dirt."

Inuyasha listened as she splashed into the tub and he continued to twirl his toothbrush. "And then what?" He encouraged when she remained silent for a while.

"And then he decided that my soul needed saving, and the only way to prove I was worthy of forgiveness was to withstand the venom of a poisonous snake from the corral reef off of Australia." Inuyasha actually dropped the toothbrush in surprise but was glad she wasn't in a position to notice. Kagome continued to scrub, enjoying the feel of the hot water and the bubbly soap.

"So, the mud comes from where?"

"I sort of tipped over the aquarium the snake was being retained within, and the water turned the dirt floor into a mass of mud. The old man said I wasn't redeemable and brought me back here. And that's it; end of story." Kagome realized a shower would have been a better idea now that the water was the color of English tea. Hurriedly, she climbed out and wrapped herself in her terry cloth robe.

She pulled open the door, sending Inuyasha unexpectedly falling backwards and providing him with an unladylike view under her robe. "Pervert!" Kagome shrieked, jumping away from him and crouching on the closed toilet.

Grabbing anything and everything within reach, she pelted him with toiletries like toothpaste, soap, and toilet paper. But when she snatched up a very large, very heavy looking hair dryer he knew it was time to make his exit.

"Hey, good seeing you. I think I'll turn in for the night," he called out as he dodged another wave of objects while shuffling quickly toward the door. "Let me know if you need me to set you up with any of my grandpa's friends," he said in parting as he shut the front door just in time to save himself from a bottle of herbal essences' shampoo that was now streaking down the wood in a sweet smelling, pink-hued, sticky mess.

"Jerk," she said under her breath once she was alone again.

She had been living next to Inuyasha for the past two years, and their relationship had always been very much like this: witty remarks punctuated by thrown objects. It was actually a nice breather to her hectic, overly structured college lifestyle. Still, maybe her grandfather was right. Maybe she should have a boyfriend. It would certainly keep her family off her back for awhile. She loved them, but their constant nagging concern for her love life was more than she wanted to deal with.

Accessing the damage she had done to her place, she decided all cleaning could wait till morning, so instead, she chose to get online for a little while before heading to bed. Towel drying her hair, she pulled up her e-mail account to see if there was anything new or interesting.

There turned out to be plenty of new messages, but few of them seemed very interesting. Her brother, Souta, sent her several forwards which she deleted without a second thought. Her mother sent her a short message asking how her date had gone. Kagome considered replying, but decided it should wait until she had a chance to cool off, or she was likely to say something Inuyasha-ian to her.

Just as she was about to close the window, a junk mail subject line caught her attention, "On the hunt for the perfect man?"

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A/N: This has been a tag-team performance brought to you by CharmedReality and BelleDayNight. And personally, I'm still holding my side from laughing so hard! (BDN)

Check out BelleDayNight's other fictions at http/ www. fanfiction. net/u/ 453559/ (remove spaces)