Fire and Rain
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InuYasha AU/AR › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
13
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3,171
Reviews:
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Category:
InuYasha AU/AR › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
13
Views:
3,171
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Inuyasha, nor do I own the characters from the series. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Growing Up in a Hurry
Four: Growing Up in a Hurry
(Magic Man by Heart)
“Eggs or, um, nothing?” Sango asked, looking through her fridge.
“Nothing,” Kagome muttered, slinking onto the chair and burying her head in her arms, still depressed from the night before.
Sango snapped up straight at her friend’s tone. “Hey!” she said with faux anger. “The only Kagome that I want to see is a chipper Kagome. A chipper Kagome who eats eggs and doesn’t care about stupid old whatshisface.” When Kagome didn’t even budge, Sango sighed. “At least let me kick his ass if you’re going to act all mopey.”
“I just want to act like I never met him again,” she droned.
“That’s the spirit!” Silence filled the room and Sango began to fidget nervously. “Let’s go shopping!” she blurted.
That got Kagome to look up. She did need new clothes, after all. “I thought you couldn’t take off work again?”
“Pfft. Fuck my boss, dude. One of these days I’m going to find a man who will pay me to stay home and do nothing.”
Kagome nodded, wondering how someone with so much energy could actually want to be a housewife as badly as her friend did. To each their own, however. Isn’t that what feminism was all about? Options?
“Will you help show me what’s trendy?”
A wide grin split her friend’s face and Kagome wondered if she had awakened a monster within her.
“Oh, you are going to be the trendiest girl on the block. I finally have my own life-sized Barbie! Woohoo!”
Kagome couldn’t help but laugh.
“Here, wear this,” Sango said, shoving clothing at her. When she had grabbed it and from where, Kagome didn’t know.
Shrugging, she turned around, loosening her robe and tugging on the loose shirt. She had no shame in front of Sango. They had been forced to change in front of each other often enough in middle school when they had the same period for gym. To her dismay, the top was cropped. Cute, but it revealed more stomach than she was willing to show, even though it was only about an inch. Grumbling, she pulled on the pair of red jean shorts, wedging them on and feeling like a sausage version of Mickey Mouse.
“Damn it, Sango, I look ridiculous!”
“Don’t take it off! You look so pretty!” Sango squealed, her hands clasped together as she drew out the last syllable in a high-pitched voice. “My own little doll. If you even try and change, I will seriously shank you. Here, you can borrow my sandals.”
Sango’s feet were a whole size and a half bigger than hers, but the black sandals fit well enough, even though they did make a weird, almost silent squelching noise when she walked.
“Can we just go?! I look like ghetto trash.”
“Fine! I’ll just go in sweats. Hot guys don’t go to malls anyway unless they’re taken or gay or both.”
Oo/O
Even the mall had changed. The fashions weren’t drastically different, but she did notice girls displaying much more skin and at much younger ages than before. It disturbed her, and she kept her eyes on her feet, not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings by staring at them in distaste. Sango had always been one to stop in every store, and they had been there for an hour and a half before Kagome decided that the day would be more productive for her if she wandered off. She had not been separated from her friend for more than fifteen minutes when she was bending over, looking at a shoe display through a store window, and heard a loud gasp behind her.
“Wow,” came the awed, hushed voice. “That’s the most—I mean—you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen!”
Confused, Kagome turned around. Was that man talking to her? Standing a few feet away, with his hands in his pockets, heedless of the mall traffic, was a man at most five years older than she was, with black hair pulled back in a short ponytail that somehow managed not to be immediately off-putting. His eyes were an interesting shade of blue, so she decided to smile back.
“Gosh, um, thanks.”
“And what is your name, goddess before me?”
She laughed. “Kagome. Yours?”
“Miroku,” he said eagerly, seemingly surprised she had actually answered him. “Miroku Houshi. I was just about to head to lunch. Would you care to join me?”
She didn’t know what to do. Sango had told her she needed life experience, and Kagome agreed, but were a few points of life experience worth traipsing off with some random man she had only just met? Thinking of last night’s incident, Inuyasha’s claim that she was still mentally a teenager, made her angry, and she decided that free food and maybe an interesting story to laugh about with Sango later were reasons more than sufficient enough to go on a lunch date.
“Alrighty!” she said, smiling at him like a debuting actress at a camera.
“Woah. Okay. Um, alright,” he muttered to himself, before quickly recovering his confidence. “Right this way, Miss Kagome!”
He held out his elbow and she took it, a smirk on her face. He was more nervous than she could ever be, and if that wasn’t an ego booster, she didn’t know what was.
Miroku led her to the food court and straight up to Sbarro, oblivious to her confused gaze. She had thought he’d at least take her to one of the cheap actual restaurants in the mall, like El Torito or something, but a freaking pizza joint? She rolled her eyes.
“Hey, uh, I actually have a coupon,” he said loudly, waving the piece of paper at the already occupied cashier. “Two pizza slices for the price of one.”
Once she had finished with her current customer, the cashier put her game face on and walked over to the couple. “Sir, we stopped this promotion five months ago,” she told him politely after having visually scanned the small, crumpled rectangle.
“But I can finally use it!” he whined. “Do you have any current specials?”
She nodded, her ponytail bouncing along. “Yes, we do. Any pasta comes with a free side of breadsticks.”
“We’ll take that,” he said, motioning Kagome over to the end of the line, making it clear that they would be sharing. “Just plain spaghetti, please. And can I have two water cups?”
Kagome grimaced at how stingy the man was, blushing in embarrassment. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have such a loud voice that notified people even all the way across the food court of his thriftiness. It was like he was proud or something. Snatching the tray and water cups from the possibly suicidal cashier, he slid their tray of sub-par food onto the closest table and walked over to the soda machine, unabashedly filling the small plastic cup up with Dr. Pepper.
She sat down without getting a drink, knowing without a doubt that she had just made a huge mistake. Miroku dug into the lukewarm spaghetti without even offering her any, not that she would have accepted it.
“So, what do you do?” he asked, a splatter of red tomato sauce on his cheek.
“Uh, I’m a student,” she said, trying to avoid looking at the stain.
“College, eh? Those were the days.” He sipped loudly from his soda. “I sell cars. Used cars. Been pulling in the big bucks ever since I made Executive Assistant Supervisor of Lower Sales last month,” he bragged, audibly swallowing a small belch. “I’m making enough to start a family now.”
Kagome laughed uneasily, her eyes darting around, looking for help, an excuse, an escape. “Congratulations…”
His hands shot across the table and gripped her own which had been folded on top of a set of napkins. She let out a small squeak of surprise.
“I know we don’t know each other very well,” he said steadily, his eyes gazing deep into her own. “But I’ve got a feel for you, Kagome. It’s gonna take a special, high quality woman to tame this mustang, and I can tell you’re the type. So, what do you say? Will you be the mother of my children?”
“U-uh, I, well, I-I-I,” she stuttered, now convinced an absolute psycho knew her name and was touching her.
Suddenly, her chair was yanked back, and she would have fallen to the floor had the person holding her seat not been so strong.
“Fuck off, you goddamn loser,” Inuyasha hissed, his dark eyes glinting with rage. “Leave or I’ll rip your fucking balls off!”
Kagome stumbled out of her chair and stood beside him, grateful but not wanting to be in his presence any more than she wanted to continue the date from hell.
“Thanks, Inuyasha, but I’ve got this.” Turning back to Miroku, she lowered her voice the slightest bit and said, “Well, I’m glad to see the hormone shots are working. Still gotta get rid of General Thruster and the Bojangles, but as long as you don’t mind adopting…”
Miroku looked confused, and then horrified. Abruptly, he flipped over the round table and ran out of the mall, his patent leather shoes squeaking loudly all the way.
Inuyasha laughed and Kagome smiled slightly at him.
“You remember our first date?” he said quietly, reaching out to touch her hand.
She had been thirteen and he was fourteen, both of them in eighth grade. It was a week after his father had died, a week after she had made the first move and kissed him on the cheek. He had walked the few blocks over to her house in secret, and she had told her mother that she was going to the library. More nervous than she could ever remember being, she had tentatively taken his hand a few minutes into their walk. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She had had a crush on Inuyasha for two years and hadn’t ever believed they’d get to this point.
“So, uh, you like movies?” he asked.
She laughed and nodded. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“You know what I mean.” There was a scowl on his face, but he was sweating and kept staring at her. “How’s your sister?”
Kagome frowned. Inuyasha had originally only become her friend because he thought Kikyo was pretty. They had attended the same school and been in the same grade all throughout elementary school but had never interacted, and then the one day Kikyo had deigned to walk with her to their junior high when she was in sixth grade, he had decided to talk to her. She had known his reasons and ignored him at first, but now that she noticed him, she couldn’t not think about him. All the time. So they started hanging out together, and eventually he stopped coming over only when Kikyo was home and they became real friends. Kagome was still insecure, however.
“She’s okay,” she grunted, wanting to make it obvious that she wanted tonight to be about them.
Inuyasha squeezed her hand and she glanced up at him to see him smiling down at her. Their height difference hadn’t been so vast back then.
“Sorry. Habit, I guess.”
She squeezed back, telling him without words that it was okay.
The movie was some comedy that she probably would have enjoyed had she not been so nervous. Would he put his arm around her, like they did on TV? Would he try to—gasp—kiss her? She hoped so. She had brushed her teeth five times in preparation.
Inuyasha ended up doing nothing, his hands clenching the arm rests and staying stiff as a board. All in all, it was disappointing.
Then came dinner. He too had taken her for pizza, but she had been so excited that he’d paid for everything like a real man would that she didn’t even care it wasn’t fancy. It was good, they were finally talking like normal, and her heart wasn’t beating like crazy anymore.
Inuyasha paid for ice cream, which they ate on the walk home. She made him trade her after discovering that butterscotch certainly sounded nice but was not to her tastes. He grumblingly switched and handed her his rocky road cone, which she munched on happily, exaggerating her delight and making him glare at her. She could tell he didn’t mind, and she wouldn’t have done it if it would have seriously bothered him. She knew what the limits were, and they were few.
“Thanks. For everything,” she said once they had gotten within two houses from her own home. Kagome desperately tried not to sound disappointed. It had still been a date, after all, her first one. Her and Inuyasha. Not Kikyo.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice cracking the way it sometimes did when he was nervous. “I, uh…”
Through with restraint, Kagome tossed the cone aside and threw her arms around his neck, her lips aiming for his and missing by the slightest bit, which she quickly rectified. He tasted like chocolate and butterscotch, same as her, and she suddenly realized that if she was tasting the inside of his mouth then she was inside his mouth. Her tongue withdrew back to where it had come from and she pulled away with wide eyes, cheeks on fire.
Inuyasha’s eyes were still closed and his lips still slightly parted. Dazed, he opened his eyes. “Why’d you stop?”
“I-I, uh—“ she whispered. What had she done?!
The tips of his fingers brushed her brow bone and she locked eyes with him. “You’re so pretty, even when you blush,” he whispered back.
It seemed like they were magnets, and they couldn’t stop themselves from kissing again. They didn’t touch tongues that time, but it was soft and sweet and her heart swelled up in her chest and she felt like crying. They pulled apart to breathe and just stared at each other.
“I love you!” she blurted, her voice sounding thick.
“I love you, too,” he smiled.
“You don’t mind?” she questioned anxiously.
Inuyasha laughed and pecked her on the lips again. “Fuck no. Say it again. Say it all the time.”
She laughed and it sounded so real, so guttural that it made her laugh some more. “I LOVE INUYASHA!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
He covered his ears, still grinning widely. “Maybe not that loud.”
Shaking her head, Kagome forced herself back to the present and tugged her hand away from her ex-boyfriend’s.
“Yup. This date was almost as bad.”
His face fell and she almost felt guilty, then remembered that he was married to her sister and still thought it was okay to stalk his ex. Mustering up all the disgust she could, she turned and stomped away, trying to remember where she had last left Sango.
“Can we still be friends?” he asked, catching up with her.
Friends? She stopped in her tracks. Truly, he was the best friend she had ever had. And she needed friends now. Plus, he was her brother-in-law. Kagome wanted to reconcile with Kikyo, and if she made up with Inuyasha, it would be much less awkward.
“Fine,” she said shortly. “But no funny stuff. I’m here with Sango right now, so I’ve got to find her.”
“Can I come?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Inuyasha grinned and she looked away. His smile was just the same as it had been before, boyishly mischievous and so nice it twisted her insides in a delicious way.
“I saw Sango wandering around Victoria’s Secret before I found you,” he said helpfully.
“That’s where I left her,” Kagome said with a glare. How long had he been following her? Did he even go home last night? “Where’s Kikyo, anyway?”
“Home.”
“Doesn’t she have work?” She wanted to ask about him, but forced herself to stay quiet.
Inuyasha snorted. “No.”
Knowing he didn’t want to talk about it, she kept walking, finding Sango still in Victoria’s Secret, apparently not having noticed her friend had even left.
“You!” she hissed when she saw Inuyasha. “You bastard! You totally cockblocked Kagome!”
“Sango!” Kagome cried, embarrassed that everyone was watching. Maybe telling her about last night during the ride to the mall had been a mistake.
“Excuse me for saving her from being date raped,” Inuyasha said sarcastically. “That jerkwad was probably just going to liquor her up and take her out in the parking lot.”
“Inuyasha!” she cried in the same tone.
“You owe Kagome now,” Sango said with a glare. “At least a new set of lingerie.”
“Sango!”
“Deal,” he smirked.
“Inuyasha!”
“I am totally the best friend ever,” Sango said, smiling at Kagome. “I scored you free clothes. You can thank me when you’ve had time to process it.”
“Come on and pick something out, Kagome.”
Realizing that she did, in fact, need new things and that she was broke and Sango was broke and that Inuyasha did kind of owe her for everything, Kagome sighed and trudged toward the back, looking for something serviceable as well as pretty.
“I want to see you in this,” Inuyasha breathed into her ear.
Kagome pushed him away and looked at what he was holding. A completely transparent red mesh panty and bra set. She slapped it out of his hands and onto the floor, too annoyed to feel bad about her lack of respect for the store and its merchandise.
“I thought I said no funny business,” she hissed, glancing to look at Sango who was digging through the bargain bin.
He shrugged. “Just trying to be helpful.”
She ran her hand over a simple white set, admiring the texture. It was a bit expensive, but hey, it wasn’t like she was paying.
“Do you need to be measured?” Inuyasha asked from behind her, his hands sliding up her waist and creeping toward her breasts.
Kagome elbowed him in the gut and pranced off toward the fitting rooms, stopping only to glare at him over her shoulder. Inuyasha just smiled, a hand on his stomach.
It wasn’t right that she didn’t hate him, she thought as she entered the cramped little fitting room. It wasn’t right that he still made her feel like a giddy eighth-grader. It just wasn’t right.
The bra fit well. She had gained weight during her rehabilitation time at the hospital and was now a whole two cup sizes bigger than she had been before the accident. When she had first discovered that detail, she had nearly shouted aloud for joy. Her breasts had always been small and she had developed later than most. Now they were her perfect dream size. That was enough to make all the suffering worth it. The underwear set was plain but emphasized everything nicely. She admired herself for a few seconds before deciding it would do.
“I know I never told you enough, but you’re beautiful.”
Kagome swallowed a scream and covered herself with her discarded clothes. Inuyasha was peering down at her from above, standing on the bench of the fitting room next to hers with the oddest smile on his face.
“Get out before I call for someone,” she stage whispered.
Instead, he lifted himself and swung over the wall, like he was freaking Douglas Fairbanks in his prime. He landed soundlessly next to her.
“I always loved to watch you,” he said, sounding far away. “I used to just go to your house at night and stare through your window. Even before we were together.”
They were so close. Too close. Kagome’s breathing sped up and so did his.
“Why?”
“You thought you loved me first, but that’s not true. I loved you before I even knew it, and I knew it before you did,” was all he said before he took her lips in a fierce kiss.
Her knees went weak almost immediately, but his strong arms held her to him. There was so much feeling, emotion, intensity in him that he transferred to her. Kagome heard herself making small sounds she had never made before, not even that time in the park in ninth grade when she had let him touch her underneath her clothes but not look, and she could have sworn she almost had an orgasm then.
“Please let me love you,” he begged, torture in his voice. “Don’t make me go back to being your friend.”
“I—“ she breathed, feeling like she was floating. “I… God, Inuyasha, if you ever really loved me, you wouldn’t have married her!” she said, her anger coming back to support her.
“I didn’t want to!” he hissed, shaking her by the upper arms, where he held her. “I was young and she told me that if I married her I would have a say in your care. You were still on life support back then and they were going to take you off!”
“But Mother—“
“Your mother went completely fucking nuts the moment that car touched you,” he explained angrily. “As the adult, she was technically in charge, but she left everything up to Kikyo, and she thought it was cruel to keep you alive.”
She began to cry. Did her own sister really hate her so much?
“She could have had anyone,” Kagome sobbed. “Everyone loved her. Why did she have to take you?”
Inuyasha said nothing and just clasped her to him, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“If I had known…” he whispered. “Everything would have been so different.”
Drying her eyes and forcing herself not to give in to weakness again, Kagome pushed lightly away from him, not wanting to come off as hostile but not wanting to be welcoming either.
“How do you even know you love me anymore, huh? What if you’re just tired of being married?” she said spitefully.
“I like being married,” he said with venom, obviously offended. “I like having someone to go places with, to do things with, to sleep next to. Someone to share my life with. And I like Kikyo,” he said, looking away from her. “I love her. But she’s not you. We don’t fit together.”
Her heart felt like it was going to drop to the floor. Inuyasha had told her last night that he loved Kikyo, but it hadn’t hit her like this. She was still angry then. Now she was just sad.
“Would you leave her? Would you leave her for me?”
The look on his face was both excited and hesitant. “I want to let her down easy, Kagome. It would be too much right now, I think, but eventually—“
“Then you don’t love me,” she stated simply.
“I do! More than anything!”
His eyes pleaded with her to understand, and she wanted him, all of him, his very soul so much in that moment that she was almost willing to ignore the circumstances and location and do what she had been about to do the night of her accident.
“I waited for you,” he whispered, sensing her conflicting emotions. Running a hand through her hair, he continued, “So can you please wait for me? Just a fraction of the time I spent?”
Kagome pulled away and leaned back against the wall. “But you didn’t really wait. And I’m done with the past.” She looked back up at him and forced herself to maintain eye contact. “I want to be happy. I need to be happy. Now turn around.”
Silently, he obeyed, and she changed back into her old outfit, saying as she did so, “I like that you love Kikyo, Inuyasha. In a way, I really do. It makes me love you more, to know that you’re capable of loving someone enough to marry them and you’re considerate enough to ‘let her down easy’. But leaving her for me right off the bat, without even bothering to think it over or get to know me again, takes away from my respect for you. And you can’t be in love with someone you don’t respect.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t!” she said sharply, facing him again, and he turned around. “Kikyo’s the only family that I have left. I want to make up with her and I want us to be like real sisters, no petty arguments, no deep resentment. How can I do that if her husband’s all over me every chance he gets?”
“She’s changed,” he responded, taking one of her hands in one of his. “She used to not be so bad. You don’t know her like I know her now. She—she’s suffered a lot. And now she’s bitter. I thought I could make it better, but I can’t. I don’t think anyone can fix her but her.”
“I don’t care.”
“But I do! Listen to me, she doesn’t like you, Kagome!” he burst out. “She didn’t even visit you in the hospital. She feels the same way you do about the past, but she doesn’t want to make things better in the present. All she cares about is shopping and book clubs and goddamn fucking stupid origami!”
Kagome just stared at him. “So you’re bored? That’s it. You’re just bored. And I’m all exciting because I’m practically a time traveler, wandering around aimlessly from the far off era of six years ago.”
“No!” he cried, vehemently shaking his head from side to side. “Not at all. Look, I meant everything I said. I love you and I’m going to leave Kikyo to be with you. Someday. Someday soon. And even if you don’t take me back right away, I’ll keep trying to win you over. You’re all I want.”
Sighing wearily, she left the fitting room. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “You’ve gotta pay for this.”
Oo/O
“Can I take you to lunch?” Inuyasha asked, somewhat out of breath, weighed down under bags and bags of clothes.
“Sure!” Sango chirped happily. Inuyasha had bought her a few things as well, and now she didn’t remember she had ever disliked him.
Sango insisted that Kagome ride with Inuyasha since her car couldn’t fit all the bags. Kagome glared at her friend, knowing that was all bull shit. She had just lost her one ally, her only support. Now what was going to stop her from just going along with whatever he said?
“So, what are you hungry for?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “I was going to take you to that little stand we went to on our first date, you remember Ray’s, but you already had pizza today.”
“Whatever’s fine with me,” she mumbled.
“You really liked that steak place,” he said as he started the car. “Too bad they shut down a couple years back. I was going to take you there after the dance, you know.”
“We never would have made the reservations,” she said quietly. “I was planning on having sex with you in your car after spending like ten minutes seeing and being seen.”
“Really?!” he nearly shouted, looking away from the road and at her, which made her greatly uncomfortable. “Are you fucking serious? Please be serious.”
“I don’t see why it matters now. Just felt like telling you.”
“That means everything,” he said softly. “After all those times you told me to stop, I kind of almost thought you weren’t attracted to me.”
Kagome snorted. “Oh please, you know I was. I instigated make-out sessions half the time. It took you forever to man up and touch me first.”
Inuyasha grinned. “But once I did, I was all over you,” he laughed.
“At least that hasn’t changed.” Quickly, she covered her mouth, eyes going wide at her slip.
He pulled into a parking space near the front of some bustling Mexican restaurant.
“You like it when I touch you,” he said with satisfaction. “I knew it. You always went crazy whenever I just touched your hand, or your arm, or your knee. I’m surprised you held out for so long.”
Kagome left the car with a huff, nearly sprinting into the crowded, amazing-smelling establishment, Inuyasha’s laugh following her all the way.
Oo/O
When all three of them were finally seated at the table, with Inuyasha next to her despite her protests, the talk immediately turned to her, which was as unsurprising as it was unwelcome.
“What do you want to do now that you’re better, Kagome?” Sango asked, sipping her margarita.
She shrugged. “Go get my GED, I guess. Start taking some classes at a community college. Get a job. Normal stuff.”
Inuyasha snorted. “No fucking way,” he said, sounding almost angry. “You’re still recovering, Kagome. Just relax. I’ll take care of everything.”
His hand stroked her bare thigh as he spoke and she found herself getting goose bumps and shivering even in the warm building.
“You were just complaining about Kikyo not having a job,” she pointed out.
“That’s different. You’re fragile, and you shouldn’t do anything yet.”
Kagome stomped on his foot under the table, satisfied when she heard his muffled sound of pain.
“I’m just a delicate little porcelain rose,” she crooned in a high-pitched little girl voice, for some reason including an exaggerated British accent, rolling her r’s and dragging out the vowels, annunciating each word. “I mustn’t go outside! No, for that would sully my ivory complexion.” She placed a cloth napkin on her head and clasped her hands near her chin. “A lady stays indoors and on her knees in her husband’s bedchamber, yes she does, unless it’s the maid’s turn.”
Sango giggled quietly and Inuyasha glared at her.
“I just don’t want you getting hurt, Kagome. I’m not being sexist or some shit like that. Is it so wrong that I like having you safe?”
“I’ve spent the last six years of my life in the same room,” she said, sliding the napkin off her head and into her lap, suddenly serious. “I want to go out there and do things, not hide.”
The touch on her leg turned soothing instead of sexual, but was quickly back to its old tricks, edging higher and toying with the hem of her shorts. She rolled her eyes and shifted her position.
“What would you like to order, amigos?” asked the dead-eyed Asian waitress in a fake Mexican accent, complete with borderline racist Mexican folk dress.
“She and I will have two Queso Loco Moco platters,” Inuyasha said, gesturing to himself and Kagome.
“And I’ll have the, erm, Cammyroons a la Diana,” Sango said.
“Two Queso Loco Moco platters and the Camarones a la Diabla,” muttered the waitress.
“You can’t order for me!” Kagome protested in indignation.
“But you’ll like it!” he said. “Trust me, I get it here all the time.”
“I’ll have the enchiladas suizas,” Kagome said to the server.
“Alright. Gracias, amigos,” she mumbled as she collected their menus.
Inuyasha withdrew his hand from her leg and crossed his arms. “You’d like the nachos. The enchiladas here are gross.”
“How can enchiladas suizas be gross? They’re just tortillas with green sauce and cheese,” she scoffed. “How badly can someone goof that up?”
Inuyasha snorted, and eventually his hand migrated back to her leg, which calmed her for some reason. At least he wasn’t actually mad.
“I’ve never been here before!” Sango said, waving at a different waitress for another margarita.
“I come here a lot after work,” Inuyasha said, the tips of his fingers inching under one leg of Kagome’s shorts.
“You work?” Kagome asked. She didn’t know why she was surprised.
“Yeah. Dad’s company. It’s not as big as it used to be and I’m not totally in charge, but we’ll get there someday.”
“What’s your business?” Sango asked.
“Finance,” Kagome and Inuyasha said at the same time.
“You remember!” Inuyasha grinned at her.
“Duh. Not brain-damaged, or did you forget?” she said, knocking on her head. “I remember how freaking vague that sounded.”
“Some days, not even I’m sure what we do.”
“So are you two back together now or what?” Sango asked, sipping obliviously on her new margarita.
“No!” Kagome said at the same time Inuyasha said, “Yes.”
The tall brunette nodded sagely. “That pretty much tells me all I need to know.”
Kagome wiggled away from Inuyasha’s hand at the same time their food arrived, the hot oval platters topped with foods Americanized beyond recognition and garnished with a block of cheese each set in front of their respective owners. Kagome stared in dismay down at her goopy, gray-tinted enchiladas.
“Have mine,” Inuyasha said softly, close to her ear as he traded their plates.
She looked up at him gratefully. “We’ll split.”
The nachos were awesome, and Kagome told herself to stop being so stiff with Inuyasha. No matter what, they were friends and cared for each other. Maybe in time things wouldn’t be so confusing and they could laugh together about their weird feelings. In thanks, she let him keep his hand on her leg and didn’t even try to move.
“What the heck? Cammyroons are just shrimp!” Sango said, sounding severely disappointed.
“It’s in Spanish,” Inuyasha muttered.
“Doesn’t sound Spanish.”
He stared at Kagome, and she knew he was wondering why they were friends. She felt she had to explain.
“Sango and I met in fifth grade—“
“Yeah! Our teacher was this total lezzie pedo and had it out for me and Kagome ‘cause we were bad at math.”
Kagome sighed in frustration. “Our teacher was an elderly woman who was frustrated at our lack of willingness to learn.”
“Dyke,” muttered Sango, chomping down on a shrimp.
“Anyway,” Kagome said sharply, “we were always together because no one else would talk to us. I was really, really shy back then and Sango was, well, Sango. But different.”
“I was a bit of a bully,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Had a lot of unresolved anger issues. My parents promised us a pool the summer before and then totally backtracked. I felt completely betrayed.”
Inuyasha’s mouth dropped open. “Fuck. You’re ChainSawngo?! Holy shit. You used to kick my ass up and down the blacktop every fucking day.”
Sango narrowed her eyes and took a good look at him. “Wait a minute! Are you the weird kid who used to act like a dog and growl at people and crawl around and stuff?”
Kagome nodded.
They both turned to her. “You knew all this time?!” Inuyasha shrieked.
“Why the heck did you go out with him then if you knew that?” Sango asked in disgusted confusion.
She just shrugged. “I always kind of liked him, even before we really met. He did his own thing.”
“And you just let her beat me up?!”
She shrugged again. “You’d probably still be acting like a dog if she hadn’t beat it out of you. Bullies exist for a reason.”
He gaped at her. “That’s not fair. I don’t even remember you!”
“I didn’t do anything to make myself memorable,” she murmured as she brought the last chip to her mouth.
“I wish I could,” he said quietly, his fingers reaching up higher than before, massaging the skin and making her shiver yet again.
“Freaking margaritas make me need to whizz like crazy,” Sango said, getting up with a soft burp. “Be right back.”
“So you liked it when I acted like a dog, huh, Kagome?” Inuyasha whispered into her ear, his fingers coming out of the leg of her shorts and resting on top.
“Stop it, Inuyasha,” she hissed, concentrating on looking normal as his hand traveled over to the front of her shorts, right over her mound, hardly even brushing against the fabric but still making her bite her lip.
“I don’t want to stop. You don’t want me to stop.” His jedi mind tricks were working somehow and she felt herself becoming wet.
He drew his fingers down over the seam on the front of the shorts, caressing her through the thin, tight denim that stretched lewdly over her most private place. His other hand came down from where it had rested lightly behind her shoulders to underneath her shirt, creeping back and around until he was cupping her breast through her bra.
“Don’t, mmmph!” she squeaked, losing her focus when he began to move his fingers in both locations. If they hadn’t been in such a dark corner, she would have stopped him, but it felt too good. Knowing that he belonged to someone else and knowing that that someone else was Kikyo, yet he still came to her, gave her a secret thrill she hardly even acknowledged. Her sister was probably waiting for him at home, impatiently glancing at the clock while sitting at the same kitchen table they’d grown up with, wondering what was keeping him so late.
His fingers dug into her through the cloth and she moaned, leaning against his side. His eyes were dark and hard with lust, and she breathed hard against his shoulder, forcing herself to keep her mouth closed. His other hand was on her breast; his fingers had by this time slipped under her bra and were caressing her aching nipple, sweetly torturing her and tugging at intervals.
“Oh god,” she said with a shudder. They had never gone this far before. She had never allowed him this far.
The digits teasing her pussy sped up, going in circles and then from side to side. She clung to him. It had never felt this good when she touched herself, which was rarely and always without result. And then she felt it. It was happening. Finally, that bliss she had only ever read about but had been too shy, even by herself, to experience. Inuyasha was giving it to her. She was about to come.
“Can I take your plates, amigos?”
She came, screaming onto his shoulder and grinding herself against his fingers.
“Sure,” he smiled at the waitress, who was giving her an odd look. “Dessert, Kagome?”
Still experiencing aftershocks, she shook her head, her nails digging into his arm.
“We’ll have the bill then, thanks.”
Once the waitress was gone and she was calmed down, which took longer than she had ever thought, she bit into his shoulder. He yelped and jumped, and then she pulled away.
“What the heck were you thinking?!” she whispered, her teary gray eyes clashing with his proud dark ones.
“I was thinking that you’re soft and I like to touch you and maybe you could use some stress relief,” he said casually, taking his hand away from her breast, smirking when she visibly shuddered.
“That bitch took my food away!” Sango complained loudly.
“Where the heck were you?!” Kagome cried, glaring at her friend.
“The bathroom. Duh.”
“We’re leaving,” she said bitterly as she jumped to her feet, her hands turning into fists in an effort to hold in her tears. She was a terrible person. She loved it when he touched her, and she loved that he was doing that to her and not her sister.
Inuyasha grabbed her wrist and tried to yank her back down. “I paid for everything today, the least you can do is give me some of your time.”
“You bought me clothes and dinner, but you did not buy me,” she said shakily. “I'll give you back everything, just let me leave.”
“Keep it,” he muttered, letting go of her wrist and looking down at the table. “I’ll have a moving company send all your old stuff from the storage along with the new stuff in my car to Sango’s apartment by tomorrow.”
Without a reply, Kagome left, hearing Sango thank Inuyasha for dinner and scuttle after her.
“What happened? Why were you so upset with him?” she asked, concerned. “You guys were getting along great for a while, and it seems like he really does care about you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Let’s just leave.”
(Magic Man by Heart)
“Eggs or, um, nothing?” Sango asked, looking through her fridge.
“Nothing,” Kagome muttered, slinking onto the chair and burying her head in her arms, still depressed from the night before.
Sango snapped up straight at her friend’s tone. “Hey!” she said with faux anger. “The only Kagome that I want to see is a chipper Kagome. A chipper Kagome who eats eggs and doesn’t care about stupid old whatshisface.” When Kagome didn’t even budge, Sango sighed. “At least let me kick his ass if you’re going to act all mopey.”
“I just want to act like I never met him again,” she droned.
“That’s the spirit!” Silence filled the room and Sango began to fidget nervously. “Let’s go shopping!” she blurted.
That got Kagome to look up. She did need new clothes, after all. “I thought you couldn’t take off work again?”
“Pfft. Fuck my boss, dude. One of these days I’m going to find a man who will pay me to stay home and do nothing.”
Kagome nodded, wondering how someone with so much energy could actually want to be a housewife as badly as her friend did. To each their own, however. Isn’t that what feminism was all about? Options?
“Will you help show me what’s trendy?”
A wide grin split her friend’s face and Kagome wondered if she had awakened a monster within her.
“Oh, you are going to be the trendiest girl on the block. I finally have my own life-sized Barbie! Woohoo!”
Kagome couldn’t help but laugh.
“Here, wear this,” Sango said, shoving clothing at her. When she had grabbed it and from where, Kagome didn’t know.
Shrugging, she turned around, loosening her robe and tugging on the loose shirt. She had no shame in front of Sango. They had been forced to change in front of each other often enough in middle school when they had the same period for gym. To her dismay, the top was cropped. Cute, but it revealed more stomach than she was willing to show, even though it was only about an inch. Grumbling, she pulled on the pair of red jean shorts, wedging them on and feeling like a sausage version of Mickey Mouse.
“Damn it, Sango, I look ridiculous!”
“Don’t take it off! You look so pretty!” Sango squealed, her hands clasped together as she drew out the last syllable in a high-pitched voice. “My own little doll. If you even try and change, I will seriously shank you. Here, you can borrow my sandals.”
Sango’s feet were a whole size and a half bigger than hers, but the black sandals fit well enough, even though they did make a weird, almost silent squelching noise when she walked.
“Can we just go?! I look like ghetto trash.”
“Fine! I’ll just go in sweats. Hot guys don’t go to malls anyway unless they’re taken or gay or both.”
Oo/O
Even the mall had changed. The fashions weren’t drastically different, but she did notice girls displaying much more skin and at much younger ages than before. It disturbed her, and she kept her eyes on her feet, not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings by staring at them in distaste. Sango had always been one to stop in every store, and they had been there for an hour and a half before Kagome decided that the day would be more productive for her if she wandered off. She had not been separated from her friend for more than fifteen minutes when she was bending over, looking at a shoe display through a store window, and heard a loud gasp behind her.
“Wow,” came the awed, hushed voice. “That’s the most—I mean—you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen!”
Confused, Kagome turned around. Was that man talking to her? Standing a few feet away, with his hands in his pockets, heedless of the mall traffic, was a man at most five years older than she was, with black hair pulled back in a short ponytail that somehow managed not to be immediately off-putting. His eyes were an interesting shade of blue, so she decided to smile back.
“Gosh, um, thanks.”
“And what is your name, goddess before me?”
She laughed. “Kagome. Yours?”
“Miroku,” he said eagerly, seemingly surprised she had actually answered him. “Miroku Houshi. I was just about to head to lunch. Would you care to join me?”
She didn’t know what to do. Sango had told her she needed life experience, and Kagome agreed, but were a few points of life experience worth traipsing off with some random man she had only just met? Thinking of last night’s incident, Inuyasha’s claim that she was still mentally a teenager, made her angry, and she decided that free food and maybe an interesting story to laugh about with Sango later were reasons more than sufficient enough to go on a lunch date.
“Alrighty!” she said, smiling at him like a debuting actress at a camera.
“Woah. Okay. Um, alright,” he muttered to himself, before quickly recovering his confidence. “Right this way, Miss Kagome!”
He held out his elbow and she took it, a smirk on her face. He was more nervous than she could ever be, and if that wasn’t an ego booster, she didn’t know what was.
Miroku led her to the food court and straight up to Sbarro, oblivious to her confused gaze. She had thought he’d at least take her to one of the cheap actual restaurants in the mall, like El Torito or something, but a freaking pizza joint? She rolled her eyes.
“Hey, uh, I actually have a coupon,” he said loudly, waving the piece of paper at the already occupied cashier. “Two pizza slices for the price of one.”
Once she had finished with her current customer, the cashier put her game face on and walked over to the couple. “Sir, we stopped this promotion five months ago,” she told him politely after having visually scanned the small, crumpled rectangle.
“But I can finally use it!” he whined. “Do you have any current specials?”
She nodded, her ponytail bouncing along. “Yes, we do. Any pasta comes with a free side of breadsticks.”
“We’ll take that,” he said, motioning Kagome over to the end of the line, making it clear that they would be sharing. “Just plain spaghetti, please. And can I have two water cups?”
Kagome grimaced at how stingy the man was, blushing in embarrassment. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have such a loud voice that notified people even all the way across the food court of his thriftiness. It was like he was proud or something. Snatching the tray and water cups from the possibly suicidal cashier, he slid their tray of sub-par food onto the closest table and walked over to the soda machine, unabashedly filling the small plastic cup up with Dr. Pepper.
She sat down without getting a drink, knowing without a doubt that she had just made a huge mistake. Miroku dug into the lukewarm spaghetti without even offering her any, not that she would have accepted it.
“So, what do you do?” he asked, a splatter of red tomato sauce on his cheek.
“Uh, I’m a student,” she said, trying to avoid looking at the stain.
“College, eh? Those were the days.” He sipped loudly from his soda. “I sell cars. Used cars. Been pulling in the big bucks ever since I made Executive Assistant Supervisor of Lower Sales last month,” he bragged, audibly swallowing a small belch. “I’m making enough to start a family now.”
Kagome laughed uneasily, her eyes darting around, looking for help, an excuse, an escape. “Congratulations…”
His hands shot across the table and gripped her own which had been folded on top of a set of napkins. She let out a small squeak of surprise.
“I know we don’t know each other very well,” he said steadily, his eyes gazing deep into her own. “But I’ve got a feel for you, Kagome. It’s gonna take a special, high quality woman to tame this mustang, and I can tell you’re the type. So, what do you say? Will you be the mother of my children?”
“U-uh, I, well, I-I-I,” she stuttered, now convinced an absolute psycho knew her name and was touching her.
Suddenly, her chair was yanked back, and she would have fallen to the floor had the person holding her seat not been so strong.
“Fuck off, you goddamn loser,” Inuyasha hissed, his dark eyes glinting with rage. “Leave or I’ll rip your fucking balls off!”
Kagome stumbled out of her chair and stood beside him, grateful but not wanting to be in his presence any more than she wanted to continue the date from hell.
“Thanks, Inuyasha, but I’ve got this.” Turning back to Miroku, she lowered her voice the slightest bit and said, “Well, I’m glad to see the hormone shots are working. Still gotta get rid of General Thruster and the Bojangles, but as long as you don’t mind adopting…”
Miroku looked confused, and then horrified. Abruptly, he flipped over the round table and ran out of the mall, his patent leather shoes squeaking loudly all the way.
Inuyasha laughed and Kagome smiled slightly at him.
“You remember our first date?” he said quietly, reaching out to touch her hand.
She had been thirteen and he was fourteen, both of them in eighth grade. It was a week after his father had died, a week after she had made the first move and kissed him on the cheek. He had walked the few blocks over to her house in secret, and she had told her mother that she was going to the library. More nervous than she could ever remember being, she had tentatively taken his hand a few minutes into their walk. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She had had a crush on Inuyasha for two years and hadn’t ever believed they’d get to this point.
“So, uh, you like movies?” he asked.
She laughed and nodded. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“You know what I mean.” There was a scowl on his face, but he was sweating and kept staring at her. “How’s your sister?”
Kagome frowned. Inuyasha had originally only become her friend because he thought Kikyo was pretty. They had attended the same school and been in the same grade all throughout elementary school but had never interacted, and then the one day Kikyo had deigned to walk with her to their junior high when she was in sixth grade, he had decided to talk to her. She had known his reasons and ignored him at first, but now that she noticed him, she couldn’t not think about him. All the time. So they started hanging out together, and eventually he stopped coming over only when Kikyo was home and they became real friends. Kagome was still insecure, however.
“She’s okay,” she grunted, wanting to make it obvious that she wanted tonight to be about them.
Inuyasha squeezed her hand and she glanced up at him to see him smiling down at her. Their height difference hadn’t been so vast back then.
“Sorry. Habit, I guess.”
She squeezed back, telling him without words that it was okay.
The movie was some comedy that she probably would have enjoyed had she not been so nervous. Would he put his arm around her, like they did on TV? Would he try to—gasp—kiss her? She hoped so. She had brushed her teeth five times in preparation.
Inuyasha ended up doing nothing, his hands clenching the arm rests and staying stiff as a board. All in all, it was disappointing.
Then came dinner. He too had taken her for pizza, but she had been so excited that he’d paid for everything like a real man would that she didn’t even care it wasn’t fancy. It was good, they were finally talking like normal, and her heart wasn’t beating like crazy anymore.
Inuyasha paid for ice cream, which they ate on the walk home. She made him trade her after discovering that butterscotch certainly sounded nice but was not to her tastes. He grumblingly switched and handed her his rocky road cone, which she munched on happily, exaggerating her delight and making him glare at her. She could tell he didn’t mind, and she wouldn’t have done it if it would have seriously bothered him. She knew what the limits were, and they were few.
“Thanks. For everything,” she said once they had gotten within two houses from her own home. Kagome desperately tried not to sound disappointed. It had still been a date, after all, her first one. Her and Inuyasha. Not Kikyo.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice cracking the way it sometimes did when he was nervous. “I, uh…”
Through with restraint, Kagome tossed the cone aside and threw her arms around his neck, her lips aiming for his and missing by the slightest bit, which she quickly rectified. He tasted like chocolate and butterscotch, same as her, and she suddenly realized that if she was tasting the inside of his mouth then she was inside his mouth. Her tongue withdrew back to where it had come from and she pulled away with wide eyes, cheeks on fire.
Inuyasha’s eyes were still closed and his lips still slightly parted. Dazed, he opened his eyes. “Why’d you stop?”
“I-I, uh—“ she whispered. What had she done?!
The tips of his fingers brushed her brow bone and she locked eyes with him. “You’re so pretty, even when you blush,” he whispered back.
It seemed like they were magnets, and they couldn’t stop themselves from kissing again. They didn’t touch tongues that time, but it was soft and sweet and her heart swelled up in her chest and she felt like crying. They pulled apart to breathe and just stared at each other.
“I love you!” she blurted, her voice sounding thick.
“I love you, too,” he smiled.
“You don’t mind?” she questioned anxiously.
Inuyasha laughed and pecked her on the lips again. “Fuck no. Say it again. Say it all the time.”
She laughed and it sounded so real, so guttural that it made her laugh some more. “I LOVE INUYASHA!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
He covered his ears, still grinning widely. “Maybe not that loud.”
Shaking her head, Kagome forced herself back to the present and tugged her hand away from her ex-boyfriend’s.
“Yup. This date was almost as bad.”
His face fell and she almost felt guilty, then remembered that he was married to her sister and still thought it was okay to stalk his ex. Mustering up all the disgust she could, she turned and stomped away, trying to remember where she had last left Sango.
“Can we still be friends?” he asked, catching up with her.
Friends? She stopped in her tracks. Truly, he was the best friend she had ever had. And she needed friends now. Plus, he was her brother-in-law. Kagome wanted to reconcile with Kikyo, and if she made up with Inuyasha, it would be much less awkward.
“Fine,” she said shortly. “But no funny stuff. I’m here with Sango right now, so I’ve got to find her.”
“Can I come?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Inuyasha grinned and she looked away. His smile was just the same as it had been before, boyishly mischievous and so nice it twisted her insides in a delicious way.
“I saw Sango wandering around Victoria’s Secret before I found you,” he said helpfully.
“That’s where I left her,” Kagome said with a glare. How long had he been following her? Did he even go home last night? “Where’s Kikyo, anyway?”
“Home.”
“Doesn’t she have work?” She wanted to ask about him, but forced herself to stay quiet.
Inuyasha snorted. “No.”
Knowing he didn’t want to talk about it, she kept walking, finding Sango still in Victoria’s Secret, apparently not having noticed her friend had even left.
“You!” she hissed when she saw Inuyasha. “You bastard! You totally cockblocked Kagome!”
“Sango!” Kagome cried, embarrassed that everyone was watching. Maybe telling her about last night during the ride to the mall had been a mistake.
“Excuse me for saving her from being date raped,” Inuyasha said sarcastically. “That jerkwad was probably just going to liquor her up and take her out in the parking lot.”
“Inuyasha!” she cried in the same tone.
“You owe Kagome now,” Sango said with a glare. “At least a new set of lingerie.”
“Sango!”
“Deal,” he smirked.
“Inuyasha!”
“I am totally the best friend ever,” Sango said, smiling at Kagome. “I scored you free clothes. You can thank me when you’ve had time to process it.”
“Come on and pick something out, Kagome.”
Realizing that she did, in fact, need new things and that she was broke and Sango was broke and that Inuyasha did kind of owe her for everything, Kagome sighed and trudged toward the back, looking for something serviceable as well as pretty.
“I want to see you in this,” Inuyasha breathed into her ear.
Kagome pushed him away and looked at what he was holding. A completely transparent red mesh panty and bra set. She slapped it out of his hands and onto the floor, too annoyed to feel bad about her lack of respect for the store and its merchandise.
“I thought I said no funny business,” she hissed, glancing to look at Sango who was digging through the bargain bin.
He shrugged. “Just trying to be helpful.”
She ran her hand over a simple white set, admiring the texture. It was a bit expensive, but hey, it wasn’t like she was paying.
“Do you need to be measured?” Inuyasha asked from behind her, his hands sliding up her waist and creeping toward her breasts.
Kagome elbowed him in the gut and pranced off toward the fitting rooms, stopping only to glare at him over her shoulder. Inuyasha just smiled, a hand on his stomach.
It wasn’t right that she didn’t hate him, she thought as she entered the cramped little fitting room. It wasn’t right that he still made her feel like a giddy eighth-grader. It just wasn’t right.
The bra fit well. She had gained weight during her rehabilitation time at the hospital and was now a whole two cup sizes bigger than she had been before the accident. When she had first discovered that detail, she had nearly shouted aloud for joy. Her breasts had always been small and she had developed later than most. Now they were her perfect dream size. That was enough to make all the suffering worth it. The underwear set was plain but emphasized everything nicely. She admired herself for a few seconds before deciding it would do.
“I know I never told you enough, but you’re beautiful.”
Kagome swallowed a scream and covered herself with her discarded clothes. Inuyasha was peering down at her from above, standing on the bench of the fitting room next to hers with the oddest smile on his face.
“Get out before I call for someone,” she stage whispered.
Instead, he lifted himself and swung over the wall, like he was freaking Douglas Fairbanks in his prime. He landed soundlessly next to her.
“I always loved to watch you,” he said, sounding far away. “I used to just go to your house at night and stare through your window. Even before we were together.”
They were so close. Too close. Kagome’s breathing sped up and so did his.
“Why?”
“You thought you loved me first, but that’s not true. I loved you before I even knew it, and I knew it before you did,” was all he said before he took her lips in a fierce kiss.
Her knees went weak almost immediately, but his strong arms held her to him. There was so much feeling, emotion, intensity in him that he transferred to her. Kagome heard herself making small sounds she had never made before, not even that time in the park in ninth grade when she had let him touch her underneath her clothes but not look, and she could have sworn she almost had an orgasm then.
“Please let me love you,” he begged, torture in his voice. “Don’t make me go back to being your friend.”
“I—“ she breathed, feeling like she was floating. “I… God, Inuyasha, if you ever really loved me, you wouldn’t have married her!” she said, her anger coming back to support her.
“I didn’t want to!” he hissed, shaking her by the upper arms, where he held her. “I was young and she told me that if I married her I would have a say in your care. You were still on life support back then and they were going to take you off!”
“But Mother—“
“Your mother went completely fucking nuts the moment that car touched you,” he explained angrily. “As the adult, she was technically in charge, but she left everything up to Kikyo, and she thought it was cruel to keep you alive.”
She began to cry. Did her own sister really hate her so much?
“She could have had anyone,” Kagome sobbed. “Everyone loved her. Why did she have to take you?”
Inuyasha said nothing and just clasped her to him, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“If I had known…” he whispered. “Everything would have been so different.”
Drying her eyes and forcing herself not to give in to weakness again, Kagome pushed lightly away from him, not wanting to come off as hostile but not wanting to be welcoming either.
“How do you even know you love me anymore, huh? What if you’re just tired of being married?” she said spitefully.
“I like being married,” he said with venom, obviously offended. “I like having someone to go places with, to do things with, to sleep next to. Someone to share my life with. And I like Kikyo,” he said, looking away from her. “I love her. But she’s not you. We don’t fit together.”
Her heart felt like it was going to drop to the floor. Inuyasha had told her last night that he loved Kikyo, but it hadn’t hit her like this. She was still angry then. Now she was just sad.
“Would you leave her? Would you leave her for me?”
The look on his face was both excited and hesitant. “I want to let her down easy, Kagome. It would be too much right now, I think, but eventually—“
“Then you don’t love me,” she stated simply.
“I do! More than anything!”
His eyes pleaded with her to understand, and she wanted him, all of him, his very soul so much in that moment that she was almost willing to ignore the circumstances and location and do what she had been about to do the night of her accident.
“I waited for you,” he whispered, sensing her conflicting emotions. Running a hand through her hair, he continued, “So can you please wait for me? Just a fraction of the time I spent?”
Kagome pulled away and leaned back against the wall. “But you didn’t really wait. And I’m done with the past.” She looked back up at him and forced herself to maintain eye contact. “I want to be happy. I need to be happy. Now turn around.”
Silently, he obeyed, and she changed back into her old outfit, saying as she did so, “I like that you love Kikyo, Inuyasha. In a way, I really do. It makes me love you more, to know that you’re capable of loving someone enough to marry them and you’re considerate enough to ‘let her down easy’. But leaving her for me right off the bat, without even bothering to think it over or get to know me again, takes away from my respect for you. And you can’t be in love with someone you don’t respect.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t!” she said sharply, facing him again, and he turned around. “Kikyo’s the only family that I have left. I want to make up with her and I want us to be like real sisters, no petty arguments, no deep resentment. How can I do that if her husband’s all over me every chance he gets?”
“She’s changed,” he responded, taking one of her hands in one of his. “She used to not be so bad. You don’t know her like I know her now. She—she’s suffered a lot. And now she’s bitter. I thought I could make it better, but I can’t. I don’t think anyone can fix her but her.”
“I don’t care.”
“But I do! Listen to me, she doesn’t like you, Kagome!” he burst out. “She didn’t even visit you in the hospital. She feels the same way you do about the past, but she doesn’t want to make things better in the present. All she cares about is shopping and book clubs and goddamn fucking stupid origami!”
Kagome just stared at him. “So you’re bored? That’s it. You’re just bored. And I’m all exciting because I’m practically a time traveler, wandering around aimlessly from the far off era of six years ago.”
“No!” he cried, vehemently shaking his head from side to side. “Not at all. Look, I meant everything I said. I love you and I’m going to leave Kikyo to be with you. Someday. Someday soon. And even if you don’t take me back right away, I’ll keep trying to win you over. You’re all I want.”
Sighing wearily, she left the fitting room. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “You’ve gotta pay for this.”
Oo/O
“Can I take you to lunch?” Inuyasha asked, somewhat out of breath, weighed down under bags and bags of clothes.
“Sure!” Sango chirped happily. Inuyasha had bought her a few things as well, and now she didn’t remember she had ever disliked him.
Sango insisted that Kagome ride with Inuyasha since her car couldn’t fit all the bags. Kagome glared at her friend, knowing that was all bull shit. She had just lost her one ally, her only support. Now what was going to stop her from just going along with whatever he said?
“So, what are you hungry for?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “I was going to take you to that little stand we went to on our first date, you remember Ray’s, but you already had pizza today.”
“Whatever’s fine with me,” she mumbled.
“You really liked that steak place,” he said as he started the car. “Too bad they shut down a couple years back. I was going to take you there after the dance, you know.”
“We never would have made the reservations,” she said quietly. “I was planning on having sex with you in your car after spending like ten minutes seeing and being seen.”
“Really?!” he nearly shouted, looking away from the road and at her, which made her greatly uncomfortable. “Are you fucking serious? Please be serious.”
“I don’t see why it matters now. Just felt like telling you.”
“That means everything,” he said softly. “After all those times you told me to stop, I kind of almost thought you weren’t attracted to me.”
Kagome snorted. “Oh please, you know I was. I instigated make-out sessions half the time. It took you forever to man up and touch me first.”
Inuyasha grinned. “But once I did, I was all over you,” he laughed.
“At least that hasn’t changed.” Quickly, she covered her mouth, eyes going wide at her slip.
He pulled into a parking space near the front of some bustling Mexican restaurant.
“You like it when I touch you,” he said with satisfaction. “I knew it. You always went crazy whenever I just touched your hand, or your arm, or your knee. I’m surprised you held out for so long.”
Kagome left the car with a huff, nearly sprinting into the crowded, amazing-smelling establishment, Inuyasha’s laugh following her all the way.
Oo/O
When all three of them were finally seated at the table, with Inuyasha next to her despite her protests, the talk immediately turned to her, which was as unsurprising as it was unwelcome.
“What do you want to do now that you’re better, Kagome?” Sango asked, sipping her margarita.
She shrugged. “Go get my GED, I guess. Start taking some classes at a community college. Get a job. Normal stuff.”
Inuyasha snorted. “No fucking way,” he said, sounding almost angry. “You’re still recovering, Kagome. Just relax. I’ll take care of everything.”
His hand stroked her bare thigh as he spoke and she found herself getting goose bumps and shivering even in the warm building.
“You were just complaining about Kikyo not having a job,” she pointed out.
“That’s different. You’re fragile, and you shouldn’t do anything yet.”
Kagome stomped on his foot under the table, satisfied when she heard his muffled sound of pain.
“I’m just a delicate little porcelain rose,” she crooned in a high-pitched little girl voice, for some reason including an exaggerated British accent, rolling her r’s and dragging out the vowels, annunciating each word. “I mustn’t go outside! No, for that would sully my ivory complexion.” She placed a cloth napkin on her head and clasped her hands near her chin. “A lady stays indoors and on her knees in her husband’s bedchamber, yes she does, unless it’s the maid’s turn.”
Sango giggled quietly and Inuyasha glared at her.
“I just don’t want you getting hurt, Kagome. I’m not being sexist or some shit like that. Is it so wrong that I like having you safe?”
“I’ve spent the last six years of my life in the same room,” she said, sliding the napkin off her head and into her lap, suddenly serious. “I want to go out there and do things, not hide.”
The touch on her leg turned soothing instead of sexual, but was quickly back to its old tricks, edging higher and toying with the hem of her shorts. She rolled her eyes and shifted her position.
“What would you like to order, amigos?” asked the dead-eyed Asian waitress in a fake Mexican accent, complete with borderline racist Mexican folk dress.
“She and I will have two Queso Loco Moco platters,” Inuyasha said, gesturing to himself and Kagome.
“And I’ll have the, erm, Cammyroons a la Diana,” Sango said.
“Two Queso Loco Moco platters and the Camarones a la Diabla,” muttered the waitress.
“You can’t order for me!” Kagome protested in indignation.
“But you’ll like it!” he said. “Trust me, I get it here all the time.”
“I’ll have the enchiladas suizas,” Kagome said to the server.
“Alright. Gracias, amigos,” she mumbled as she collected their menus.
Inuyasha withdrew his hand from her leg and crossed his arms. “You’d like the nachos. The enchiladas here are gross.”
“How can enchiladas suizas be gross? They’re just tortillas with green sauce and cheese,” she scoffed. “How badly can someone goof that up?”
Inuyasha snorted, and eventually his hand migrated back to her leg, which calmed her for some reason. At least he wasn’t actually mad.
“I’ve never been here before!” Sango said, waving at a different waitress for another margarita.
“I come here a lot after work,” Inuyasha said, the tips of his fingers inching under one leg of Kagome’s shorts.
“You work?” Kagome asked. She didn’t know why she was surprised.
“Yeah. Dad’s company. It’s not as big as it used to be and I’m not totally in charge, but we’ll get there someday.”
“What’s your business?” Sango asked.
“Finance,” Kagome and Inuyasha said at the same time.
“You remember!” Inuyasha grinned at her.
“Duh. Not brain-damaged, or did you forget?” she said, knocking on her head. “I remember how freaking vague that sounded.”
“Some days, not even I’m sure what we do.”
“So are you two back together now or what?” Sango asked, sipping obliviously on her new margarita.
“No!” Kagome said at the same time Inuyasha said, “Yes.”
The tall brunette nodded sagely. “That pretty much tells me all I need to know.”
Kagome wiggled away from Inuyasha’s hand at the same time their food arrived, the hot oval platters topped with foods Americanized beyond recognition and garnished with a block of cheese each set in front of their respective owners. Kagome stared in dismay down at her goopy, gray-tinted enchiladas.
“Have mine,” Inuyasha said softly, close to her ear as he traded their plates.
She looked up at him gratefully. “We’ll split.”
The nachos were awesome, and Kagome told herself to stop being so stiff with Inuyasha. No matter what, they were friends and cared for each other. Maybe in time things wouldn’t be so confusing and they could laugh together about their weird feelings. In thanks, she let him keep his hand on her leg and didn’t even try to move.
“What the heck? Cammyroons are just shrimp!” Sango said, sounding severely disappointed.
“It’s in Spanish,” Inuyasha muttered.
“Doesn’t sound Spanish.”
He stared at Kagome, and she knew he was wondering why they were friends. She felt she had to explain.
“Sango and I met in fifth grade—“
“Yeah! Our teacher was this total lezzie pedo and had it out for me and Kagome ‘cause we were bad at math.”
Kagome sighed in frustration. “Our teacher was an elderly woman who was frustrated at our lack of willingness to learn.”
“Dyke,” muttered Sango, chomping down on a shrimp.
“Anyway,” Kagome said sharply, “we were always together because no one else would talk to us. I was really, really shy back then and Sango was, well, Sango. But different.”
“I was a bit of a bully,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Had a lot of unresolved anger issues. My parents promised us a pool the summer before and then totally backtracked. I felt completely betrayed.”
Inuyasha’s mouth dropped open. “Fuck. You’re ChainSawngo?! Holy shit. You used to kick my ass up and down the blacktop every fucking day.”
Sango narrowed her eyes and took a good look at him. “Wait a minute! Are you the weird kid who used to act like a dog and growl at people and crawl around and stuff?”
Kagome nodded.
They both turned to her. “You knew all this time?!” Inuyasha shrieked.
“Why the heck did you go out with him then if you knew that?” Sango asked in disgusted confusion.
She just shrugged. “I always kind of liked him, even before we really met. He did his own thing.”
“And you just let her beat me up?!”
She shrugged again. “You’d probably still be acting like a dog if she hadn’t beat it out of you. Bullies exist for a reason.”
He gaped at her. “That’s not fair. I don’t even remember you!”
“I didn’t do anything to make myself memorable,” she murmured as she brought the last chip to her mouth.
“I wish I could,” he said quietly, his fingers reaching up higher than before, massaging the skin and making her shiver yet again.
“Freaking margaritas make me need to whizz like crazy,” Sango said, getting up with a soft burp. “Be right back.”
“So you liked it when I acted like a dog, huh, Kagome?” Inuyasha whispered into her ear, his fingers coming out of the leg of her shorts and resting on top.
“Stop it, Inuyasha,” she hissed, concentrating on looking normal as his hand traveled over to the front of her shorts, right over her mound, hardly even brushing against the fabric but still making her bite her lip.
“I don’t want to stop. You don’t want me to stop.” His jedi mind tricks were working somehow and she felt herself becoming wet.
He drew his fingers down over the seam on the front of the shorts, caressing her through the thin, tight denim that stretched lewdly over her most private place. His other hand came down from where it had rested lightly behind her shoulders to underneath her shirt, creeping back and around until he was cupping her breast through her bra.
“Don’t, mmmph!” she squeaked, losing her focus when he began to move his fingers in both locations. If they hadn’t been in such a dark corner, she would have stopped him, but it felt too good. Knowing that he belonged to someone else and knowing that that someone else was Kikyo, yet he still came to her, gave her a secret thrill she hardly even acknowledged. Her sister was probably waiting for him at home, impatiently glancing at the clock while sitting at the same kitchen table they’d grown up with, wondering what was keeping him so late.
His fingers dug into her through the cloth and she moaned, leaning against his side. His eyes were dark and hard with lust, and she breathed hard against his shoulder, forcing herself to keep her mouth closed. His other hand was on her breast; his fingers had by this time slipped under her bra and were caressing her aching nipple, sweetly torturing her and tugging at intervals.
“Oh god,” she said with a shudder. They had never gone this far before. She had never allowed him this far.
The digits teasing her pussy sped up, going in circles and then from side to side. She clung to him. It had never felt this good when she touched herself, which was rarely and always without result. And then she felt it. It was happening. Finally, that bliss she had only ever read about but had been too shy, even by herself, to experience. Inuyasha was giving it to her. She was about to come.
“Can I take your plates, amigos?”
She came, screaming onto his shoulder and grinding herself against his fingers.
“Sure,” he smiled at the waitress, who was giving her an odd look. “Dessert, Kagome?”
Still experiencing aftershocks, she shook her head, her nails digging into his arm.
“We’ll have the bill then, thanks.”
Once the waitress was gone and she was calmed down, which took longer than she had ever thought, she bit into his shoulder. He yelped and jumped, and then she pulled away.
“What the heck were you thinking?!” she whispered, her teary gray eyes clashing with his proud dark ones.
“I was thinking that you’re soft and I like to touch you and maybe you could use some stress relief,” he said casually, taking his hand away from her breast, smirking when she visibly shuddered.
“That bitch took my food away!” Sango complained loudly.
“Where the heck were you?!” Kagome cried, glaring at her friend.
“The bathroom. Duh.”
“We’re leaving,” she said bitterly as she jumped to her feet, her hands turning into fists in an effort to hold in her tears. She was a terrible person. She loved it when he touched her, and she loved that he was doing that to her and not her sister.
Inuyasha grabbed her wrist and tried to yank her back down. “I paid for everything today, the least you can do is give me some of your time.”
“You bought me clothes and dinner, but you did not buy me,” she said shakily. “I'll give you back everything, just let me leave.”
“Keep it,” he muttered, letting go of her wrist and looking down at the table. “I’ll have a moving company send all your old stuff from the storage along with the new stuff in my car to Sango’s apartment by tomorrow.”
Without a reply, Kagome left, hearing Sango thank Inuyasha for dinner and scuttle after her.
“What happened? Why were you so upset with him?” she asked, concerned. “You guys were getting along great for a while, and it seems like he really does care about you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Let’s just leave.”