Finding Daddy

© Salome Wilde, 2008

Finding Daddy

II

When Inuyasha shyly parted Miroku’s lips and offered his tongue, the monk ended the kiss. The fantasy of desire shattered around the reality he faced. Had the embrace continued to feel like shared passion, with Inuyasha’s tongue shoved down his throat in the impulsive and aggressive way Miroku imagined he would, he could have convinced himself that it truly was the Inuyasha he knew that he was kissing. But in that tentative lick, he felt no desire, just the full force of the abused hanyo child’s desperate need to please.

Inuyasha responded to the broken embrace with panic: “Have I done something wrong, Hoshi-sama? Should I satisfy you some other way?” He came to his knees and began to lift Miroku’s robes.

“No!” Miroku snapped, desperate that the child—for child he was—did not find the erection within his garments. Inuyasha winced and pressed his head to the ground again. Miroku exhaled deeply and came to a seated position before the hanyo. “Inuyasha, come walk with me. There are hot springs not far from here. We must do something about that injury.”

“Yes, Hoshi-sama,” Inuyasha replied promptly, sitting up and visibly rallying his courage. He brought his hand up to the back of his head and felt the drying blood. There was a lump there, too. Though he knew the lump would soon go down, the blood would need to be washed away. He imagined his mother’s gentle hands when she bathed him and had to hold back tears again. Perhaps the monk’s hands, too, would be kind. “Thank you, Hoshi-sama.”

Miroku reached out to lift him to his feet. Inuyasha’s posture made it clear he planned to walk behind. “Come beside me,” Miroku said, “and call me Miroku. That is my name. Until you hit your head, Inuyasha, you knew my name.”

“I did? Forgive me, Hoshi-sama—”

“Miroku.”

“Yes, Miroku-sama.” Inuyasha paused, deciding whether it was safe to ask a question. Feeling it important to his relationship with the monk, he took the risk. “Did you like my kisses when I knew your name, Miroku-sama?”

Miroku walked forward, his eyes on the path ahead. “We did not kiss when you knew my name, Inuyasha.”

Once again surprised by something that made his world alien, Inuyasha persevered. Moving forward, he tried to sound strong. “I am certain I will soon remember you, Miroku-sama. As soon as this bump on my head goes down. Please be patient with me, Miroku-sama.”

“I have not always been patient with you, Inuyasha,” Miroku replied, turning his eyes to his companion’s. “But I will be now.” He reached out an arm and wrapped it around Inuyasha’s shoulder. He felt the odd wrongness of reaching across rather than down. The illusion of youthfulness in his friend vacillated, flickered, the mirage impossible either to dispel or to ignore. Whether child or adult, however, the fragile being at his side needed him—as he never had before. It stirred complex and unfamiliar emotions in Miroku, not the least of which was a guilt-inducing physical attraction.

Inuyasha smiled shyly and blushed at Miroku’s words. Miroku had never seen the like on that face. Kagome had embarrassed him a time or two, Kaede had scolded him, Sesshomaru had bested him. But he had never seen a look of such awkward delight in his eyes. It was hard to see, and yet it was beautiful. Miroku was resolved: whether Inuyasha regained his memory or not, he would not leave him floundering in his self-loathing state of exile. “Come,” Miroku beckoned, hastening their pace. If they did not keep walking, the temptation to kiss those softly curled lips might be too great to resist. Talking helped, too. “Does your body feel strange to you, Inuyasha?” Miroku asked, wondering if it sounded as improper as it felt.

“Yes, Miroku-sama!” Inuyasha replied with zeal. He was thrilled that it might not just be his perception. If the monk recognized that something was wrong, then perhaps there was hope that all could be made right again. “Do I look different to you than…than before?”

“No, friend. You don’t. Except for the hurt look in your eyes, you look exactly like the Inuyasha I have come to know over the past year.” The hurt, vulnerable, sweet, lost look in your eyes… Reacting to Inuyasha’s dejected posture, Miroku hastened to add, “But you are right to feel you have changed…little one. Everything must seem so very different to you.”

“Yes, Miroku-sama. It does,” Inuyasha replied, his confidence in talking about himself increasing. He liked being called “little one.” His mother once called him her “little miracle.” She said that the gods had blessed her by allowing her a child with his powerful yokai father. He tried to remember this when the other children threw mud in his hair or when their parents told them that they would be cursed if they looked into his eyes.

He returned his mind to the present, and his uncomfortably adult body. “Is it some magic, Hoshi-sama? A spell cast upon me so I look different to myself but not to you? Don’t you notice how my voice has deepened? How my body has grown?”

Miroku was pleased that he was talking more openly now, with less fear of punishment. He smiled a patient, indulgent smile. “It is a sort of magic, I suppose,” he replied. “I know it must be frightening to suddenly find yourself an adult, but I know you, Inuyasha. You are strong and brave. I am certain you have always been.” He cupped his friend’s soft cheek in his hand and looked deeply into his wide, golden eyes. “There are many things I cannot promise you, Inuyasha. But I can pledge that no one will treat you as they have done when you were a child…I mean…as they have done before.”

Inuyasha nestled his face into Miroku’s hand. He did not understand why the monk would not kiss him. There were few ways he could show his gratitude, and it seemed at first as though the man had enjoyed it. In truth, Inuyasha had as well. But that was just wishful thinking. Letting his eyes drift down, he spoke quietly but clearly: “Nothing can keep humans and yokai from hating hanyo, Miroku-sama. I know that. My mother has told me it is not my fault but….”

Miroku interrupted, trying another tack: “But now you have a man’s body, Inuyasha. It may be strange to you, yet it is strong. You can protect yourself.”

“Will you teach me, Miroku-sama?” Inuyasha said with a smile.

Miroku moved his hand to tousle Inuyasha’s hair. Another pleasure in which he had never been able to indulge before now. This child version of Inuyasha was sad but so resilient. His emotions were a bit like a rollercoaster, but Miroku was beginning to enjoy the ride—and the role he could play in keeping his friend on the upside. “It would be my pleasure to be your teacher, Inuyasha,” Miroku replied, with enthusiastic sincerity.

Reaching the hot springs ended the conversation for the moment. Miroku thought a shared bath and cleansing of Inuyasha’s head wound would provide additional opportunity for bonding and trust. He had not realized he would have to be responsible for helping undress the boy-man, who blushed that fastening and unfastening ties was still difficult for his clumsy young fingers. And he failed to take into account the shock that Inuyasha would face upon seeing certain parts of his suddenly-adult anatomy for the first time. But once they had finally gotten into the warm, soothing waters, it was easier to agree to suspend their cares for a short time.

Miroku leaned against the bank and closed his eyes. He opened them again soon after, as he found he was being stared at by a pair of wide, curious eyes. “What is it, Inuyasha?”

“I was just wondering, Miroku-sama,” began the voice that both did and did not sound like his familiar hanyo companion. “When you said that we were friends…but that we had not kissed…was it because I am hanyo?”

Miroku gave a small, compassionate smile. Still, the child who addressed him turned everything to self-blame. He ached with the need to heal him. “Of course not, Inuyasha. If I ever had tried to kiss you, it was you who would likely have rejected me.”

“And…Miroku-sama…did you never try because you…prefer girls?”

“Actually, Inuyasha, I prefer women.” He laughed. “And what do you think you will prefer, when you grow up?” The absurdity of saying this to the adult-bodied individual facing him was lost in the desire to indulge and lighten the emotional burden of his new ward.

Inuyasha pouted. “You do not like boys at all?” he asked, cocking his head.

Such a puppy, he truly was: the combination of treasured innocence and complex experience was overwhelming to the monk. He had long faced his own struggles. He sought to end them through defeating demon foes that would lead to the eventual destruction of Naraku. And he sought to lighten them with the pleasures of female flesh and the promise of a child, however illusory, to carry on after his death. Now, in the well-known form of his wild and impetuous comrade-in-arms, he had suddenly found something new. This Inuyasha touched his heart in ways his battles could not, his affection for Sango did not, and his flirtations with women would not. Even if it was only a mirage and gone by morning, he welcomed the strange contentment their connection brought. “Come to me, little one,” he said, opening his arms. No, he did not like kissing boys…until now.

Inuyasha splashed through the water to reach him, his smile broad and sincere enough to wipe any lingering trace of doubt from Miroku’s mind. He wrapped his arms around the lithe, muscled frame that threw itself into his embrace and entwined arms around his neck. Their kiss was sweet and deep, full of comfort and of desire—a heady mixture that threatened to overwhelm but never did.

It was Inuyasha who at last broke away, releasing Miroku’s lips to whisper a hesitant request into the monk’s ear. “Miroku-sama, can I call you ‘Daddy’?”

At any other time and place, from any other being, Miroku could not imagine giving the answer he now did: “Yes, little one, you may call me anything you wish. But kiss me again first.”