Interest

A/N I want to say something that I think is an important point: this isn't actually me starting a new story, as that would be rather dicked considering the ones I haven't finished yet. This is a challenge fic I started a few years back for an InuMir community. The goal was to write one short a day from Dec. 1- Dec. 24, choosing from a list of themes. Being a moron, I decided to make mine all interconnected, so when I blew the challenge, I had to finish it, didn't I?

Anyway, the story has been finished now, and so I am putting it up outside the community in the hopes that it will tide a few readers over until I can start finishing a few of the OTHER stories I owe! A new chapter will go up every couple of days or so until the entire thing is up.

However, please keep in mind: it's pretty unpolished, and the chapters are almost all fairly short. During the challenge, I set myself a time limit of 1-2 hours for every chapter, editing included, and no more. It didn't always work, and I'm trying to at least add one thin veneer of polish before I put it up here, but for the most part that means that these suckers will be, well...more like Inuyasha rough rather than Miroku slick. :-)

PAIRING: Inuyasha/Miroku
SUMMARY: Miroku, the hot springs, and a hanyou acting strangely
THEME: bathing

All the following warnings MAY apply to all chapters, but WILL apply at sometime in the story: MPREG, anal, oral, humor, N/C, H/C, hand job, blow job, WAFF, M/M, Rim, Spanking (mild)

Chapter 1- bathing


There were many things that Miroku had learned in his young life.

Never come between Mushin and his sake.

Never honestly answer the question: which one of us is prettier.

NEVER touch Sango’s ass after Kagome went back to her time and Kouga decided that the slayer would make the perfect mate instead.

And NEVER, EVER try to spy on bathing village women during an exceptionally windy day when your choice of cover is an old tree that may, with a particularly strong gust, blow over and trap you underneath.

Village women, it turned out, were surprisingly vindictive. They’d heard Miroku calling for help after the tree fell, but once they discovered he was uninjured, they’d left. It had taken him four hours just to claw and dig his way out from underneath. Now, he was soaking in the hot springs to try and wash off the mud and filth that covered him from head to toe. He wished he could mend the damage to his clothes as easily. They were torn nearly to shreds from all the branches and brambles he’d dragged himself over.

He grumbled to himself, scrubbing at his skin. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had something to show for all of this, but the women hadn’t even been that attractive. He’d barely even been titillated. Honestly, Inuyasha had better skin than most of them, and he certainly had better hair.

It might have been nice if he’d had better timing, as well. Then, he would have come when Miroku actually needed help, as opposed to right now, when he was more of an irritation than anything else.

“Still here, huh?”

“So it would seem,” Miroku replied. A little testily, he admitted, but it had been a trying day.

“You sure pissed those women off, houshi. I’m surprised some of them didn’t come back to beat on you when you were still trapped.” Inuyasha crouched by the edge of the pool, a huge grin covering his face.

“I’m certain they would never-“

“You didn’t hear them talking.”

“Well if you heard them talking, why didn’t you come to help me earlier?”

A brief shrug and Inuyasha leaned back against the nearest sapling, breaking off a splinter of a twig to pick his teeth with. “I was eating. And they said you weren’t hurt, so it wasn’t like you were in trouble or anything.” He grinned again.

Miroku wanted to glare at him and turned his back on the frustrating hanyou instead. Did Inuyasha not even think that perhaps, just perhaps, it was very uncomfortable for a human to be trapped under foot thick branches? Not to mention dangerous, if something had come along that might be interested in eating said human. But no, as usual, Inuyasha was viewing things from the only perspective he ever seemed capable of: his own.

Although Miroku could admit to a small feeling of warmth in his stomach over his friend’s behavior, omitting Inuyasha’s leaving him trapped for hours.

Because Inuyasha had smiled.

It was so rare a thing these days that Miroku couldn’t help but enjoy it. Inuyasha was more inclined to mope about rather than enjoy life, ever since Kagome left for the last time and had been unable to return through the well. Once the jewel had been completed, she just hadn’t been able to stay away from her family without letting them know what had happened to her, not even to stay with Inuyasha. The hanyou had claimed to understand, but Miroku suspected that was more of his usual bluster.

Family was important, but in the end, it must have felt that Kagome chose her family over her love.

It had to hurt. Quite a bit more than he’d been hurt when Sango fell for Kouga’s rather overly devoted brand of wooing. And now, both rejected males were passing time here in Kaede’s village, for the last two years. Sango and Kouga came to visit periodically, bringing Shippou along with them, but it wasn’t the same. The group dynamics had changed without Kagome and the quest for the shards holding them together, and he knew Inuyasha was struggling to find a way to cope with it.

Miroku, on the other hand, was rather enjoying staying in one place for a while. Judging by the women’s reaction, however, he might want to rethink that. It might be a good time to go visit the wolf clan for a few months. He could travel, see the sights, swindle a few deserving folk out of a good meal and a bit of shelter, and find some females who weren’t quite so on their guard when he was standing behind them.

Maybe the falling tree had been a sign from Buddha.

Miroku turned back to Inuyasha, his equanimity restored. “You know, my friend. I think this can be looked at as a good thing.”

Inuyasha didn’t respond, staring at him.

“Inuyasha? Did you hear me?”

There was still no response and he took a few steps until he was at the edge of the springs, trying to see into Inuyasha’s eyes in the fading light.

“Are you all right, Inuyasha?” He followed the path of Inuyasha’s gaze and realized that currently, the hanyou seemed to be looking at Miroku’s cock. His friend’s entire body was rigid, almost vibrating. He looked like he was focusing so intently that he wasn’t even aware that Miroku was speaking. Considering what he was focusing so intently on, the situation was making Miroku quite uncomfortable.

It was with a curious sense of foreboding that he brought his hand up from the water to cover his groin. Within a moment or two, Inuyasha blinked. His eyes widened slightly and he cleared his throat. Seeing Miroku’s wary stance, he growled.

“What the hell are you standing there for? If you’re gonna get out, get out. I got better things to do than stand here waiting for a slow-ass monk to get the fuck out of his bath.”

Miroku nodded carefully, raising his body out of the water. He felt extremely self-conscious. It should have been a good thing that Inuyasha had recovered from his momentary distraction. However, if Miroku covering his body was what had snapped him out of his daze, then that had to mean that Inuyasha truly had been looking at his body.

The thought was giving Miroku an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. Not quite panic, but knowing that his best friend had been so enthralled with his penis that he’d lost track of the world around him was a bit much to deal with right now.

Perhaps he’d just never really noticed what Miroku’s manhood had looked like before? Everyone had different bodies, after all. He could have simply been surprised by some difference in their physique…or their sizes.

What were the differences between their cocks? He struggled to recall the last time he’d seen Inuyasha naked and failed miserably. It was a rare thing for the hanyou to remove his clothing in front of anyone, even good friends. And besides, had Miroku ever really looked at Inuyasha’s body to take stock of the differences between them?

Putting on the remnants of his osode and kesa, he glanced covertly over at Inuyasha and stared at his crotch as though he could see through the hakama if he tried hard enough. What was it about Miroku’s body that had so fascinated Inuyasha? Was Miroku quite a bit larger in size? The thought gave him a little, not unexpected, feeling of pride. The pride drifted away when he realized that it could be the opposite. Was he tremendously smaller than the half-demon? Paler?

Did Inuyasha have hair down there?

Miroku shook his head when he realized he was still staring at Inuyasha’s crotch, and not all that covertly anymore. Turning quickly, he began to walk back to the village, hoping that the draft up the back of his legs didn’t mean that he was exposing himself with holes in inconvenient places.

Inuyasha took a few steps to catch up and walk beside them. Neither of them spoke.

What in Buddha’s name had Inuyasha been so fascinated with?!