InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Demon's Night ❯ Kagome's Crush ( Chapter 1 )

Demon's Night - Chapter One

He was…naked.

Kagome was so embarrassed she could've died, but she just couldn't look away.

Her gaze wandered over his lean, muscular arms, narrow hips, flat, taut belly…finally moving down to his…his…

Kagome's eyes went so wide she was afraid that for a second they might just fall out. H-he…his…it was huge, jutting upward amidst a swirl of dense, fur-like silver down.

In shock, she looked up at his face.

Before, in all her past dreams, she'd never been able to make out his features…

Now she could see him…all of him, and she wished she hadn't been so curious. He was so viciously handsome, so cold and elegant, that he made her feel even more unnerved than she already was.

His was a cruelly beautiful countenance, cool, expressionless, untainted by the savage hunger brightly burning in his eyes, It was such a contrast that she had to look twice to make sure she really was the focus of his attention.

Despite her anxiety, she couldn't help but find his fixed regard exciting. Nothing - absolutely nothing - about him was ordinary. Not his piercing amber-gold eyes, sculpted lips, nor impossibly long, pure silver hair tinged with smoky blue highlights from the light of the full moon. His looks were…unusual, but not unpleasantly so - so far removed from disagreeable as to be on the opposite side of the world, in fact.

He moved, the moonlight catching the foreign markings slashing dagger-like down either side of his cheekbones, and he looked so lethally dangerous in that moment that she actually caught herself cringing away from him. She knew what it was that he wanted. The same thing he wanted every night he'd disturbed her sleep…

"No. No, you can't." Something about this particular dream seemed terribly wrong. It felt far more real than it had previously.

"Yes, I can," the vision responded emotionlessly, and the deep tone of his voice, somehow lyrical even as it was flat, startled her.

That was another thing that was oddly different. He'd never spoken to her before…

Suddenly she remembered why this dream was so very, very wrong.

Kagome gasped.

"Sesshomaru!?"

She shook her head violently in denial.

"No, no, no! No way! I-I can't love you! I love…Inu…Yasha."

"I do not ask for love."

The demon lord lowered himself to the bag where she lay, bringing their bodies close together.

The heat of his gaze was incredibly intense. His eyes seemed to be telling her something, something important that lay bare for her to see if only she cared to look more closely…Kagome felt herself swaying towards him, felt herself being pulled away from everything she was familiar with, from her comfort into a something new and altogether terrifying, and she flinched away from him, but he was merciless. His arms gathered her close, pulling her chest against his, and she whimpered helplessly as the heat from his burning heart scorched the tender skin which lay over hers…

Kagome splayed her hands against his smooth chest, attempting to shove him away even as she began to crave the fire of his embrace…and then her fingertips were touching nothing.

Sesshomaru was gone.

Nothing remained but his wild, male scent, and the memory of him imprinted upon her body and mind, his name burned into her heart, marking her as his forever…

"NO!"

"Kagome! Wake up! You're dreaming!"

Kagome was more than happy to wake up from her dre - nightmare! Though the odd dream had invaded her sleep for several weeks, now, this time it had been different.

She had seen her demon lover's face, and heard his voice.

'Sesshomaru..? InuYasha's…brother?!'

Weak from the strength of the myriad of emotions rushing through her, Kagome buried her face in the down of her sleeping-bad and just…trembled.

"Oh, no. Not him. Please not him!"

"Kagome?" Sango was watching her curiously.

She made an effort to pull herself together.

"I'm awake, Sango," she whispered, fighting to keep the breathlessness she felt out of her voice.

"Was it the dream again, Kagome?"

The familiarity of Sango's voice was comforting, and Kagome sighed as the worst of the shudders finally stopped.

"Y-yes. But this time…I…I saw his face."

"And did you recognize him?" Sango asked curiously. Her concerned tone turned slightly teasing as it dropped to the merest whisper. "Was it InuYasha?" She winked.

InuYasha.

'I wish,' she thought to herself fervently, though her cheeks fired with heat at the idea.

For a bare second she replaced him with InuYasha in her dream, and silently gasped at the wave of heat that swept through her abdomen. She had to take a deep breath and shake her head to dispel both the feeling and the wicked image.

If it had been InuYasha, at least she would have known how better to deal with it.

Kagome swallowed in embarrassment, and then rolled over, suddenly. Her eyes darted to the dying embers of the campfire, and then to the dark shadows of the trees…but she couldn't see InuYasha.

Her heart skipped a beat in extreme dismay. There was no need to wonder at where he'd gone to. Still, she couldn't sense her near, but why else would the hanyou have left the campsite?

Kikyo.

After all this time it still hurt, his 'visits' with her. It should have gotten easier in time, shouldn't it? She should be used to it by now, shouldn't take it so personally…besides, Kikyo had been here first, as she was so fond of pointing out, though maybe not in-so-many words.

But wasn't Kikyo a part of her? A very small part?

Ugh, it was always too confusing to think about!

"Kagome?"

No matter how much she tried to explain things to herself, it still hurt, and she still couldn't make herself understand. It was hopeless…or rather, she was…and Sango was still waiting for an answer about that creepy dream.

"I…it was no one I knew," she partially fibbed, feeling rotten.

It was true in a way. She knew what InuYasha's older brother looked like, and how he sounded when he spoke - but she didn't 'know' him.

Yet.

Kagome felt herself sinking again.

How could she have been dreaming about Sesshomaru like that!? It was too weird! He was…well, attractive, an' all, but for one, he'd tried to kill her - her mind conveniently didn't listen to the flaw in her deductive reasoning, that InuYasha himself had once tried to kill her, too - and if that wasn't reason enough, he also hated InuYasha!

Besides that, his ears were weird - they were way too pointy, and they…er…stuck out funny.

Of course, so did InuYasha's, but his were cute…

Kagome sat up, lifting a hand to push her hair behind one shoulder. As she turned her face to the treetops and took a deep breath of the crisp, early morning air, and opened her eyes to the sky as dawn approached. She was so glad that the sun would be up soon, because the slate gray of the sky and the coolness of the air, on top of the grimness of her dream, was really depressing to her.

"Something is going to happen, soon," she suddenly told her friend in a worried voice. "I can feel it."

"A bad premonition? As if your dreams haven't been bad enough for you, now this! What is it, Kagome?" Sango sat up from her resting place against a slumbering Kirara and cast a glance around the forest.

"Could it be something to do with Naraku?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Oi! Pipe down, will ya'? The 'sane' people are tryin' to sleep around here!"

"Gyah!" Kagome flinched at the sudden, grumbling shout from close overhead. She caught her breath and beat back the ridiculous urge to cry, and then blew the breath out in a huff. She dropped back onto her sleeping bag, the long black thickness of her hair pillowing the back of her head as she stared up into the tree branches directly above her.

She didn't see anything at first, but she heard a slight creaking of branches and swishing of leaves. The tree swayed.

She blinked, waiting patiently, and heard a low grunt right before a flash of red and silver dropped from overhead nearly into her lap.

"Sorry, InuYasha," Kagome said, stifling a yawn.

"We didn't mean to wake you up."

The hanyou scowled down on her, his large golden eyes catching and reflecting the firelight, glinting with the mirror-like sheen of a predator's in the near darkness.

Kagome would have been unnerved if she didn't know InuYasha couldn't hurt her.

"Yeah, well, ya' did," he said harshly.

"What the hell were you two blabbin' on about so early, anyway?" His narrowed gaze caught on Kagome, especially, and she gulped as she watched the velvety ears atop his head swivel towards her, and his nose twitch as if he could smell something.

He always made her feel like she was hiding something when he did that…of course, she kinda' was, this time…

Feeling a hot flush envelope her entire body, Kagome was helpless to respond. After all, what could she say?

'Sorry I woke you up, InuYasha, I was just freaked out about having naughty hentai dreams about your brother?!'

"Oh, we were just talking about you, InuYasha," she heard Sango say calmly.

Kagome felt her jaw drop.

InuYasha, who had been studying Kagome intently, and with no little suspicion, jerked his head toward the other woman. His ears perked straight upward in interest. "Yeah? What were you talkin' about me, for?"

Sango was biting her lip as she tried not to laugh.

"Oh, Kagome was just saying how much she - "

" - hates it when you eavesdrop on our conversations!" Kagome blurted, trying to sound annoyed.

InuYasha's dark eyebrows drew together in a fierce frown. He glared at Kagome, making her cringe inwardly, and then shocked her by closing his eyes, tucking his hands into his sleeves, and stomping off into the surrounding forest without uttering a single curse word.

Kagome watched until he was out of sight, and then turned on her friend, who was sitting on the ground with a curious-looking Kirara, shaking her head.

"Sango! What were you thinking?" she hissed.

"Kagome, you're never going to be with InuYasha if you don't take some initiative - and yelling at each other is never going to work."

"Well, I could tell you the same about a certain monk we both know!" Kagome whispered angrily back, jerking her head toward the still-sleeping man on the other side of the campfire.

Sango turned beet-red and stood up. "He doesn't yell at me," she quietly retorted, flinging her long bangs out of her eyes.

"No, but you hit him!" Although where Miroku was concerned, he was likely to take that as getting to first base…

Sango sighed and gathered her things. "I'm going to clean my teeth and re-dress in my armor. I have the feeling I'm going to need it today." She gave Kagome a quick look that reeked faintly of 'back-stabber', and went the opposite way of InuYasha, towards the hot spring they'd found the night before. Kirara stood up, gave herself a shake, stretched and then pounced off after her mistress.

"Hey, keep it down. I'm still tired…" Shippo moaned from his spot curled up against Miroku's back.

Ready to scream in frustration, Kagome flopped back down onto her sleeping bag and zipped it all the way up over her head.

Later, after they'd all gathered for breakfast of a variety of instant noodles, Kagome still couldn't meet InuYasha's eyes, although she and Sango had, thankfully, mutually agreed to forget about their snippiness of earlier.

Meanwhile, Kagome was blaming her dreams on stress - that, and the fact that she'd only just seen Sesshomaru a matter of days before, when all that mess concerning the poor Lady Soluo had come to a head. She'd been really angry with him for being so cruel to the poor, lovesick girl, and then she'd felt just the opposite when she'd watched him free the girl from the demon's possession, and then linger at her side at her 'death'. As usual, his face had shown no emotion, but the fact that he'd stayed by her had totally ruined Kagome's perceptions of him. He'd gone and confused her, and it was bugging the heck out of her subconscious - that was why she was dreaming about him.

"Yeah, right.' Kagome thought hopelessly, recalling the way he placed Lady Soluo's beloved flute near her dissolving form before he'd risen and quite simply walked away. He'd never even shown a sign that he'd noticed, or cared, that she, and InuYasha and the others were running up to assess the scene behind him.

InuYasha had still been furious that the Lady Soluo had managed to nab Tetsusaiga and had handed the sacred sword over to 'the bastard', as he'd put it. He hadn't known exactly why the Lady had stolen it until Kagome had explained to him that Soluo had been trying to impress Sesshomaru.

'Maybe I do have a little crush on Sesshomaru,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe, just because he showed that poor girl a kindness when she was dying, and he knew she was so deeply in love with him.'

After all, it was so romantic…

Kagome sighed, a starry-eyed smile crossing her lips as she put down her chopsticks and turned her head - to see InuYasha practically sitting in her lap again, his golden eyes narrowed only inches away from her own.

"Eep! Geez, what is it, InuYasha?" she asked, reflexively drawing back even when all she wanted to do was grab his ears and cover his face in major smoochies.

"What's wrong with you?" InuYasha asked, still examining her with his eyes.

"Heh…what do you mean, InuYasha?"

"Shippo and I have been sayin' your name for the last three minutes, and you haven't even blinked an eyelash! What's in your head, Kagome?"

Kagome gave a nervous little laugh, looking away. "Er…sorry about that! No enough sleep last night, I guess! What were you saying?"

Miroku entered the campsite just then, from the trees, and Kagome flushed - she hadn't even noticed him get up!

"I agree with Kagome and Sango," the handsome monk said as he walked over to settle down beside Sango again. "There is an ominous aura, just…here, perhaps?"

"Aiiieee! You pervert!"

WHACK!

"OW!"

"Damn it, houshi-sama! Why do you have to be so grabby?!"

Miroku flashed a wincing smile at the thoroughly unnerved demon-slayer. "Forgive me, dearest Sango. I would rather cut off my cursed hand than offend you with it."

"Fie! Your entire arm would be hacked off to your shoulder by now if that were true!"

"Mm. As you say, Sango." Miroku merely bowed his apology to her, and said no more on the subject.

Shippo was rolling his eyes at the scene over the lid of his ramen.

Kagome could see Sango's face go bright red with frustration and moved to make a suggestion before the demon-slayer began broadening her hunting options to include arbitrarily-groping monks.

"We don't have time to worry about some half-assed premonition, Kagome," InuYasha immediately complained. "Finding the last of the jewel shards is more important right now."

"Oh!" Kagome stood up, fisting her hands and stomping her feet. "        It's always the jewel with you, InuYasha! This is your forest, isn't it? Don't you feel the restlessness in the trees? You know Kaede says that's an evil portent! Something horrible could be coming, and you just don't care! You're such an insensitive jerk sometimes, I swear!"

Instead of yelling back at her, InuYasha responded oddly again, just as he had earlier.

"Let's get going, Kagome. You can finish telling me how much you hate my guts on the way," InuYasha gritted out between clenched teeth as he rose to his feet and sheathed Tetsusaiga.

It made Kagome pause, and most of her anger drained away.

"Huh? I don't hate you, InuYasha," she said in a soft, confused voice.

"Keh!"

"InuYasha - "

"Then what the hell are you yellin' at me for?" he snarled back, his fangs flashing.

"Oh! Grr. Nothing!" she shouted deafeningly. "You really don't have a clue, do you? Just forget it! You probably wouldn't understand what I'm trying to tell you, anyway!"

"Wha -? Are you -? Did you just - ? Now you're callin' me stupid?!" The hanyou's ears gave a violent twitch that matched his eyes.

"I don't hate you, BAKA!" Kagome yelled, and then stomped off.

InuYasha snarled something unintelligible and then yelled after her.

"I give up! Tryin' to understand you is like tryin' to swallow a futon mattress!"

At his feet, Shippo tugged on one leg of his hakama to get his attention, and then blinked up at him in wide-eyed bewilderment when he finally glared his way.

"Wha'd'uwant?!" Inuyasha snapped, trying not to slaver around his bared fangs.

"Wow, InuYasha. Did you really try to swallow a futon mattress?"

To be continued in Chapter Two…

Disclaimer: I do NOT own InuYasha, or any related characters.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Still working on revisions and editing, so please let me know what you think! - D.V.