InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 11

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi


Chapter 11



“Welcome to your new world, Kagome,” Kagome said to herself as she got dressed.

She knelt down by an open chest, dressed only in a white under kosode as she pulled out the clothes she was going to wear for the day. Laying at the bottom of the chest were her sweater and short skirt, carefully folded. Her blouse and modern underclothes rested in a basket, waiting to be laundered until they too could be put away. She gave a fond touch to her sweater, laid her spare garments on top of it and then closed the wooden box.  The clothes she was going to wear this day made a simple outfit, an outer kosode of light blue fabric, and a long wraparound skirt in beige with blue flowers printed on it. The clothes of a housewife.

She stood up to slip on the kosode. “I'm glad it's so much easier to wear these things than kimono back home. No pads, less to tie,” she said as she smoothed the front of the kosode closed. It only came to mid-calf. The cloth, made of hemp linen, wasn't quite as soft as the cotton and modern fabrics she was used to wearing, and it felt strange in some ways after years of short skirts to be wearing a dress that brushed against her legs. Next, she picked up the wrap skirt and draped the garment around her waist.  She liked the concept of the wrap skirt, even if it wasn’t used much in her time. It kept her kosode closed, helped her avoid accidently exposing herself, and even functioned as an apron.  Almost all the housewives she’d ever seen wore them, as did most of the farm wives not actively working in the fields. Even Sango usually wore one when she was traveling in women’s clothes and not her fighting armor. As Kagome struggled to tie the knot behind her, the cords were taken out of her hands.

“Let me,” InuYasha said, finishing the bow.  Letting go of it, he in turn wrapped his arms around her.

“I didn't hear you come in,” Kagome said, leaning back into his chest.  She rested her hands on his arms.

“I was quiet,” he replied.  “Doesn’t take long to hang out a futon, you know.” His breath was warm against her neck, and she shivered, not in a bad way. His arms pulled her in closer. “You about ready?”

She nodded, grabbed a large square of darker blue cloth and tied it so it covered her head and kept the hair out of her eyes.  Spinning around, she stepped back and held out her arms. “So, how do I look?”

InuYasha watched her, saw how she chewed on her bottom lip, waiting for his approval. For some reason, that made him smile. She could have passed for almost any young woman in the village. “Just right,” he replied. “Like you really belong here. I like those colors on you.”

It was the correct answer, and her face lit up. “You think?” she said.

He stepped forward, pulled her back into his arms. “I know.” He kissed her chastely on the lips.  “My little village woman who is so much more.”

Laughing, Kagome reached up, and kissed him back. “I always want to belong here with you. Now I just hope my cooking doesn't chase you away.”

Unexpectedly, his eyes grew intense and serious. “Never,” he replied. His arms tightened around her. “That’s the last thing I could think of that would ever get me to leave.”

Kagome took a deep breath looking at the smolder in his amber eyes, and their honest sincerity, and felt something stirring inside that she needed to get under control.  Reaching up, she brushed his cheek.

He gave her yet another chaste kiss. “Now can we go to Miroku's? You're supposed to help Sango fix breakfast, remember?  I'm hungry.  And Sango makes good morning soup.”

“Sango make good soup? I remember when you used to hate her cooking,” Kagome said.

“Well, she's had a lot of practice in three years. I think Kaede and some of the other women felt sorry for Miroku and taught her some stuff. Be nice if you learn how she does it.”

Laughing, she nodded.  He moved to the door as she slipped on her shoes, and held the door mat open as she walked out of the house.

Not long after that, Kagome and InuYasha sat in Sango's house.

InuYasha leaned against the wall, well away from Sango’s kitchen area.  Both women stood in front of a shelf and wash basin opposite the front door, washing greens and slicing vegetables. Right after he settled down there, Sango had handed him her son, and now he found himself playing with the boy while keeping half an eye on the two women. Little Naoya, even as young as he was, found the hanyou's silver hair and ears as fascinating as his sisters did.  He gurgled as he chewed his fist and watched the hanyou wiggle his ears at him. Luckily for the two of them, the twins still rested in the sleeping room, and the baby seemed to enjoy having InuYasha all to himself.

The door slid open and Miroku walked in, fresh from his morning devotions at the nearby chapel he liked to call a temple.  InuYasha wrinkled his nose, smelling the incense.  It wasn’t enough to make him sneeze, but it wasn’t one of his favorite smells either.  

“Good thing you don’t have my nose, kid,” he said to the baby.  “I don’t know how you’d make it growing up here, your dad coming in every morning smelling like that.”

Miroku snorted at that, then sat down on the raised wooden floor to take off his sandals.  He looked at the two women hovering over their work. “Ah, what a lovely sight,” he said as he tucked his sandals into their place.

Kagome started to turn around, but Sango shook her head. “Don’t encourage him,” she said.

Shrugging, Miroku walked over to his seat by the fire pit. Looking at InuYasha, the monk said, “We must be very lucky, friend, to have two such beautiful women cooking for us this morning.”

InuYasha looked over at Kagome. A smile touched his face.  “Keh.”  He watched the women work until Naoya tugged on a strand of his hair and he bent over to rescue it. “You raising this brat of yours to be a fighter?”

Miroku laughed. “I thought he'd follow in his father's footsteps and be a monk. Maybe he's destined to be a warrior monk.”

Kagome, turning around, held a length of early spring greens in her hand. “Maybe you only think you're lucky, Miroku-sama,” she said and grinned sheepishly. “After you taste how I fix it, maybe you won't think you're so lucky after all. My mother taught me to cook, but the kitchen at her home was so much different. I'm not sure if I really know how to cook here.”

“Ah,” Miroku said. “But I'm sure my friend here will be happy to eat any ohitashi you make, even if I don't. Right, InuYasha?”

InuYasha looked up, smiled at Kagome, but glared at his friend after she turned around.

“Don't be such a tease, Miroku,” Sango said as she fished a piece of pickled radish out of the pickle barrel. She quickly rinsed it off and began slicing it.

“Who, me?” he asked, with his best innocent face. He got up and walked over to where Sango was working. “Whatever gave you the idea I was a tease?”

She slapped at his fingers as he reached over to take a slice of the pickle she was preparing, but he was too quick for her and closed his hand over his prize even as her hand hit his.

“I don't think you really want me to give you an answer,” she said, shooing him away.

Munching on his trophy, Miroku walked across the room and sat down next to InuYasha. Naoya, seeing his father, began to fuss, and an uncertain InuYasha was happy to hand him over to the monk.

“You need to go find something to do, husband,” Sango said. “We'll call you when breakfast is ready.”

“What do you want me to do?” the monk asked his wife. Naoya grabbed one of his father's fingers as he waved them in front of the small boy.

Sango frowned and thought for a moment. “You and InuYasha can take Naoya outside. The girls are still sleeping, and I don't want him waking them up until they’ve had enough sleep.”

He nodded, and stood up. InuYasha looked inquiringly at Kagome, and she smiled to reassure him and nodded.

With a last silly grin, Miroku said, “Come, men. Let's leave the women to their mysteries before they bring the wrath of the kitchen kami upon our heads. Then what would we do for breakfast? Enjoy yourselves, beautiful women.”

InuYasha snorted and headed out of the house. Sango scowled at her husband as he slid the door closed, and then both she and Kagome broke out with the giggles.

“I don't know why I'm so nervous,” Kagome said.

Brushing a stray lock of hair off of her face and out of the way, she turned around and looked at the fire pit, from where the wood was burning down into coals, and then looked up at the ceiling above the fire pit to where the heavy wooden support for the pot hook was attached. There was a wicker basket stuffed with straw hanging up there with skewers of fish stuck in it to catch the smoke from the fire. Thinking about her mother's house and how the kitchen was laid out, she sighed. She knew all the people of this village and everywhere she had gone in Japan cooked over open fires like this, but thinking about how she and her mother cooked at home, she felt very uncertain.

“I never really paid much attention to how Kaede cooked on the fire pit when I was here before,” she said finally. “I know how to cook trail food over a campfire, but cooking in a house like this just feels . . . so different.”

Sango smiled at her friend, and patted her hand. “I'm sure you'll do fine. Is it really that much different where you come from, Kagome-chan?” Sango asked.

“Yes,” Kagome said, putting the last of the greens into a bowl. “More than you can imagine.”

“Well, you've already done the hardest parts. You came across five hundred years of time, found InuYasha and started your new life. Learning to cook in my kitchen has to be the easiest part of it all,” Sango said.

Kagome turned to face her friend. “You know, you're right,” she said with a smile. “So teach me how you make your soup, and once I learn what I need to know, I'll teach you some things my mother taught me.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Sango said, and together, they carried bowls of food to the fire pit to begin cooking the meal.

Outside, the two men looked for a place to sit down and wait.

“So,” Miroku said, carrying his son in the crook of his arm, “Five days from today is Market Day.  Have you started putting together a list of things you’re going to get yet?”

He settled himself in a warm spot of sunshine in front of his house.  The air, although springlike, was still fairly cool, and he made sure Naoya was well bundled in his blanket.

InuYasha shook his head, sitting down near his friend.  “We barely know what we have, much less what we need yet.  I never used the house for much more than a place to duck out of the rain.” He picked up a blade of grass. “Kagome’s already talking about gardens and storage rooms and clotheslines and all this other stuff.”

“Women are like that.  Funny, when we were traveling, I needed so little. Now it’s cloth and salt and needles and bowls and sweets and who knows what else.”

“Keh,”  InuYasha said, “I know.  Carried it home enough times for you.”

“And now you’ll have to carry your own load home.  Talk it over with Sango and Kagome together.  She’ll help.  I suspect Kagome might not have much experience running a house.”

“Yeah,” the hanyou said, twirling the grass stem.  “Yeah, everything’s way different where she comes from. We both have a lot to learn.”

“It’s good to learn together,” the monk said.

InuYasha smiled, a peaceful look Miroku hadn’t seen on his friend’s face very often.  “Yeah.”

They sat there quietly for a while, playing with the baby until he fell asleep.  Not long after, the door to the house slid open and two small bundles of energy ran down the verandah to where the two men sat.

“Chi-chi!”

“Inu-oji!”

Miroku caught Yusuko as she slammed into his lap.  Noriko, two steps behind, almost bumped into her sleeping brother. InuYasha grabbed her to put her in his lap.

“Inu-oji?” she asked.

“Don’t want to wake up Naoya, right?” he asked.

She shook her head no.

“Well, girls,” Miroku said, “You finally got up?”

Both girls looked like they just woke up, each still in her sleeping robe, but there was not a trace of sleepiness left in either of them.

Noriko nodded. “Ha-ha say come!”

“Time to eat?” the monk asked.

“Eat breakfast,” Yusuko said.  She looked around her. “Where’s Shippou-chan?”

“He said he was going to Kaede-obaasan’s,” Miroku replied.

“Not eat?” she said, frowning.

“Not this time, little girl.  Maybe next time,” the monk said, standing up.

“You ready to go see what Kagome and your mama cooked?”  InuYasha asked Noriko.

“Go eat,” she said, tugging on his sleeve.

He put her on his shoulder.  “No ears this time, all right?”

“No ears,” she agreed as he stood, and they all went back to the house.