AN: My job is rather monotonous, so I do my plotting while I fold laundry. And this story just randomly showed up a couple days ago, and I decided to sit down and save it for when I hit a snag in One Wish's plot. And then I decided not to wait, and just post the whole thing this week, to give me time to yet again rewrite vignette five for Two Mikos. I need someone to be hospitalized or something, because quite honestly, I'm having trouble getting the mood right for it. It's a much deeper story than One Wish, so writing it is harder for me. So as an appeasement for no updates in either of those two stories, I'll be updating every day this week with this short story.

Disclaimer: Whatever.

Three Musketeers

"All for one and one for all."

-Alexander Dumas, The Three Musketeers

Chapter One: Unwelcome Fourth

We were the three musketeers, Sango, Kagome, and I. We had grown up on the same Tokyo block as each other. Saying 'we go way back' doesn't even begin to describe the plethora of memories we share. Kagome was the first girl I ever talked to, even if it was just to ask for my Frisbee back. Sango had been my first- if accidental- kiss, and had given me my first broken arm for it. We were only five, and I still say it only happened because Kagome pushed me. Best friends forever, up until he came along.

Sango and I were wary of the new boy at school- Sango because she was wary of anybody with a Y chromosome who wasn't me, and me because something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. Kagome, however, was nuts about him, along with ninety percent of the other girls in our high school.

"Look at his hair! Look at his eyes! Check out that body! Do you think he'll like me?"

Needless to say, Sango and I were not amused. Sango had sworn off men- mostly because only the perverts asked her out, and her fist was beginning to hurt from all the black eyes she was giving them- and I was too caught up in my studies to worry about female companionship. Sango and Kagome, platonic as the friendship was, were enough for me.

So we didn't understand Kagome's sudden leap into the social world of dating. Weren't we good enough for her? Why bring in an outsider we didn't know anything about, just because he was attractive?

Kagome started dating him anyway. Sango, continuing the trend, decided to give the latest pervert a chance to prove he wasn't thinking only with his pants when he asked her out. He lasted maybe an hour, but the damage was done. My best friends were dating, which meant less time for the three of us to do things.

Kagome and her boyfriend didn't get along well, or so it seemed to Sango and I. They were continuously fighting, running out on each other. The name-calling was rather juvenile, if you ask me.

What I didn't understand was why Kagome suddenly started taking those fights seriously, when she never had before. On her period, maybe?

Whatever it was, she came to me about it.

"I'm not weak, am I? He keeps calling me weak, and stupid, and ugly. Why do I love him? All he does is say mean stuff to me. But then he apologizes, and it's all better. I can't keep doing this on-again, off-again thing with him."

And with her still crying on my shoulder on my front porch, said bastard shows back up, most likely with another empty apology on his lips. But he takes one look at us, and he sees red. Had Kagome not been there, he probably would have beat the shit out of me for touching his girlfriend, never mind I'm her best friend. Of course, had Kagome not been there, neither would he.

And of course his yelling at her about being a two-timing whore starts her crying back up again.

He saved the apology for the next day, and she cheered back up. His threats to me were not so pleasant however. We privately declared a war to keep the other away from Kagome- him because he was stupidly jealous of our friendship, and me because I didn't want Kagome to continue to come crying to me because of him. He was no good for her, but she was too blinded by love to see it.