InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Said the Joker to the Thief ❯ Fox Worship ( Chapter 3 )

 AN: Jumping around the story timeline here. Thank you for your feedback on the previous installments. Enjoy!

Fox Worship

Kurama snuck a look at Kagome who stood beside him ordering dango from one of the many vendors that lined the busy street, and admired the way the warm orange light of the festival lanterns made the blue of her eyes look darker than usual. She smiled and thanked the owner before they turned back to the street. Kagome spotted an empty bench and pulled him by the hand across the street to it, weaving through pedestrians in traditional kimonos and many in either white fox masks or fox face paint and ears. They took a seat and Kagome started on her dango while Kurama surreptitiously kept an eye out for any of their party. He had persuaded the miko to sneak away with him earlier in the evening and was hoping he had a little more time alone with her before her family or his friends found them again.

'Did you see that jackass ogling her as soon as we got here? Pathetic. I'll bet he followed us here,' Youko sniffed disdainfully.

Stop pouting, Youko, she's here with us right now and you're letting your jealousy keep you from enjoying this time with her.

'I'm not jealous! How could I be jealous of a little human boy who never had what I have and can't even fathom the heavenly delights with which my intimate relationship with her has rewarded me?' 

Kurama rolled his eyes. Alright, you're not jealous. But if we don't make a move soon we'll lose our chance before one of them finds us again.

Their attention was drawn back to Kagome as she finished her snack, licking the last bit of sweet syrup off the stick. She was watching the children at the face painting booth across the street with a thoughtful expression. Kurama leaned in and breathed on the side of her neck, not needing to hear the little gasp that escaped her lips to know he had sent goosebumps erupting all down her shoulder under her yukata. He smiled against her jaw as his mouth moved up to whisper in her ear. "What are you thinking about, little lover?"

The miko slanted him a simultaneously irritated and heated look. "Well now I'm thinking about you, and you know it. It's not enough that we're at a festival dedicated to foxes but you are so starved for attention you have to steal me away from my family and make out with me on a bench?" She looked annoyed but there was no real heat behind her words. Truthfully she hadn't minded getting a break from her son and her human family for a little while this evening.

"Darling, if you want to go somewhere more private you know that I am always willing to accommodate," he purred right into her ear. His long hair had fallen forward over his shoulder and covered the quick kisses he laid along her jaw before pulling away to catch the look of desire he knew he'd find in half-hooded blue eyes.

"Why are you so clingy right now?" she laughed, pushing him away half-heartedly with a hand on his chest. "Is this because Hojo tried to give me that stuffed animal? Because you know I would have refused anyway without you stepping in and marking your territory."

"That boy continues to overstep his boundaries when I've told him in no uncertain terms that you are unavailable," Youko said, having managed to push his way to the forefront. "But no, dear, that is not why I'm 'clingy,' as you put it. I am a kitsune," he said, running one finger sensually down his own chest and looking up at her from under his bangs, "and we are very physical creatures, Kagome, you know this."

The miko chuckled and shook her head at him. "You kitsune are very ridiculous creatures. It's all this fox-worship energy floating around in the air tonight, isn't it? Shippo gets the same way every time we come to one of these festivals: rubbing up against everyone, getting all territorial and pumped up. It's like catnip to foxes," she teased him.

Youko shrugged. "You've never complained before when I rub up against you and 'get all territorial,'" he said, subtly poking fun at her phrasing while planting thoughts of a more intimate nature in her mind.

Kagome blushed and averted her eyes from him. "Not like you ever gave me a chance, you old horn-dog, you had your mouth on mine within the first thirty seconds of meeting me," she grumbled, still blushing at just the memory of the heated kiss they'd shared on a Tokyo rooftop almost .

Youko threw back his head and laughed and Kagome couldn't help the way her heart sped up at the sound. It was rare that she ever got the old fox to laugh like that. He was usually so cool and unflappable. Something about his laugh made her want something from him that she hadn't let herself want in a very long time, not since she was a kid following an inu hanyou across feudal Japan.

She's getting that sad look in her eyes again, damnit! Every time we get close! Do something, Youko, bring her back! Kurama said urgently.

The fox, seeing his companion begin to pull away both physically and emotionally, leaned forward and captured her lips with his. Despite her surprise and her misgivings about making out in clear public view on a street bench, Kagome couldn't bring herself to pull away and melted into the kiss, feeling like her body might be glowing with the warm, lazy desire spreading through her limbs as she leaned against him on the bench. He had one arm behind her on the back of the bench ready to pull her back into him if her doubts got the better of her again and the other hand cupped her jaw. As the kiss deepened he moved his hand down to cup the back of her neck, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin just below her ear. When she moaned and moved her hand to lay tentatively on his knee he was absently glad for the dark, loose hakamas he wore that were helping to disguise his obvious arousal.

Kagome was awash in a sea of pleasant, albeit frustrating sensations when the sound of a throat clearing brought her pleasure train to a screeching halt. She jerked out of the kiss, feeling like her face would erupt in flames as she looked up to see Hojo and her three old school friends watching her in various states of shock. "Um, oh!" she stuttered, trying to scoot away from Kurama and come up with some plausible excuse for looking like she was making out in public that didn't involve actually admitting she had just been caught making out in public. The fox shut down any chance she had of that when he tightened his arm around her and pulled her in to lean against his chest again. As she felt her blush reach embarrassing new heights she was just glad he was at least pausing to interact with her old friends instead of using that irresistible kitsune charm to lure her back into continuing the kiss, regardless of their spectators. "Hey, guys!" Kagome managed to stutter awkwardly.

"Higurashi! Um," Hojo averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous gesture, "We just wanted to say goodbye before we left." Eri and Ayumi were giving her disapproving looks while Yuka, who rather preferred her hot, exotic new boyfriend to their old friend Hojo, smiled mischievously at Kagome and winked. "Sorry we interrupted your conversation, Kagome-chan," she teased her.

Kagome glared at her friend and elbowed Kurama in the ribs when she heard him snicker beside her. 'I like that girl. We may allow Kagome to hang out with her again,' Youko said offhandedly, keeping his attention on the young man looking longingly at his miko. Aloud, he said, "Please, Yuka-chan, don't be sorry. We can continue our conversation when we get back home," he said in silken tones, pulling Kagome a little closer to him. The miko slid a suspicious glance over him, not missing the way he made it sound like they lived together. Eri and Ayumi gasped and Hojo looked very put-out all over again.

"Thanks, guys. It was really great to see you again! On your next break from university I'd love to get lunch and catch up or something," she told them, feeling guilty when she realized how hollow those words sounded to her own ears. Five hundred years of hard living separated her from her modern-day school friends and despite all the love and joy she had found on her journey she still felt a pang of grief for the loss. She felt a hand squeeze hers and looked down, realizing her hand was still on Kurama's knee and that his hand now covered hers in an unconscious gesture of comfort.

With one last look over the couple on the bench Kagome's four friends left down the street. Kagome slumped into Kurama, burying her face in his neck and sighing, suddenly tired. With practiced ease she passed some of her ki through her hand into Kurama's in silent thanks. Youko and Kurama both froze in astonishment when they tasted her life energy like they had so many times before when she'd allowed them to partake.

Did she just…? Kurama said, still shocked by the gravity of that one small gesture.

'She did,' Youko said, quietly awed. 'She's never done that before. I've seen her give to the kit, but she's never given to us.' Suddenly moved, he buried his hand in the hair at the back of her head, loving the feeling of the thick, silky strands flowing over his fingers, and kissed her temple, eyes closed to concentrate on the feel of his lips on the fine baby hairs at her hairline. He kept his lips against her skin for several long moments, breathing deeply the smell of her shampoo and beneath that her natural scent of heady hydrangeas.

"You did that on purpose." Kagome's voice and her breath against his collar bone brought him back to the busy residential street. He hummed in question, golden eyes still half-hooded. "You wanted Hojo to see us like that. You were marking your territory," she accused. He could see from the slight tilt of her lips that she was taking it in good humor.

He chuckled and Kagome could feel the vibration of it where her ear rested against his chest. "You give me too much credit, darling. But I won't deny that I enjoyed it."

She took her hand away to swat his knee and straightened back up in time to see Hiei walking toward them holding two dangos in each hand, his typical sour expression somewhat diminished by the syrup he was licking from his lips. "Hello, Hiei!" she greeted the fire apparition warmly. "Enjoying the festival?"

"Hn," he replied, always unsure how to handle her unflappable kindness. "Your kit is about to blow his cover at the ferris wheel. He's been impersonating ride attendants to get himself and your brother to the front of the lines."

"You have got to be kidding me," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation. She got up and stomped down the street toward the ferris wheel in the distance, talking to herself, "When I get hold of him I swear he's going to wish- He never takes anything seriously! Just floats along turning into this person or that one, who cares who sees-"

Kurama glared at Hiei as the apparition devoured his sweet dangos with what passed for him as an expression of innocence. Finally the hybrid asked through their mind link as he took Kagome's vacated seat, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt some sordid public groping between you and the miko?" he asked with a vicious smirk.

Hiei, really bad timing. We were having a moment, Kurama said in irritation.

Youko was irate. He had let Kurama slip back in control while he growled and paced in their mind. He was about to give into the shorter demon's goading but remembered why he had been so angry to be interrupted in the first place and suddenly a calmness came over him. It didn't matter. Kagome had given ki to him in a way she'd only ever done with her own son. It was a gesture that was enormously significant among kitsune, a race of youkai that needed not only food to survive but spiritual sustenance as well in the form of life energy. He suspected she had done it without even thinking. The fox sighed, relaxing finally and beginning to make plans for how to sneak past Kagome's grandpa tonight and into her bedroom. To Hiei he said, 'You don't have to be jealous, young one. You will find a beautiful woman to adore you some day, perhaps, and in the meantime you can continue to fill that hole in your life with regular decapitations and diabetic quantities of ningen sweets.'

In the blink of an eye Hiei shoved the bamboo sticks that had once held his treats into Kurama's hair and then disappeared. When they realized what he had done, they cursed in unison. Kurama began trying to pull the sticky sticks out of his hair, cursing the fire apparition when the hair became tangled in the syrup remnants.

'Vindictive jealous little sawed off bastard…' Youko grumbled. His mood still couldn't be dampened though as he thought back on the interaction they'd just had with their lover.