InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 202

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


Chapter 201


InuYasha lifted the door flap to his house, and walked in, water buckets in hand.

The house was very quiet. The air held traces of the scent of the meal they had eaten together, not yet quite dissipated, even though the dishes had been cleaned and put away. Although it wasn’t fully dark outside yet, the light from the fire pit glowed with an increasing brightness as the room dimmed. Kagome had lit the lamp when she pulled her sewing basket out, and a circle of light fell over her, casting shadows under her chin, but lighting her work.  

The cloth he had bought her, bright blossoms on a dark background, was spread out over her lap. It wasn’t as fine as the length of silk he had bought her, but it promised to make an attractive kosode he decided as he moved further into the beaten earth doma. She didn’t look up as he entered. The pleasure he felt watching her work faded when he noticed she had not yet rolled out their bedding.

His ear flicked and his eyes narrowed for a moment. “Woman, you need to sleep,” he muttered too softly for her to hear.

It wasn’t quite as soft as he thought it was, because she stopped her stitching for a moment and glanced up. “Did you say something?”

“Nothing important,” he replied, setting the buckets down on the edge of the wooden platform before walking over to the well-filled firewood cradle at the back of the domo to pick up an armful to have handy near the fire.  

Kagome nodded, but said nothing else. Instead, she focused on her sewing.

InuYasha didn’t like the silence, so he broke it again. “Looks like Miroku thinks he’s figured out what I do every day,” he said, walking towards the fire pit with his armload of wood. “He was out there waiting for me when I went to get the water.”

“I thought I heard his voice,” Kagome said. She lay the fabric she was working on in her lap and ran a delicate finger over the length she had already sewn, inspecting it carefully. “It was too far away for me to understand what you were talking about, so I wasn’t sure. What was he there for?”

“He said the stream bank where I get the water from was more peaceful than by his house,” he said, dropping the wood into the smaller cradle he kept near the fire. “So he said he came by to steal some of our peacefulness.”

She didn’t react much to the joke. “It probably is When the twins are outside, they take a lot of watching,” she said, running the needle back into the fabric as she started sewing again.  

“And make a lot of noise.” He twitched his ears at that, as if remembering a particularly loud toddler shriek. “Then he started talking about us making that damned trip to Odawara again,” the hanyou said, sitting down on his mat in front of the fire. “He wants to get there and back before the rains start up for real.”

“That makes sense,” Kagome said, nodding. “It’s no fun traveling in the rain.”

“Easier for him,” InuYasha said, picking up the fire poker. “He’s not the one who’s going to be carrying everything back.” He gave the coals a stir. “I hate going near Odawara. Want some bath water?”

The young woman nodded, put down her needlework for a moment, and rotated her shoulders, and then her neck. “That might be nice. Maybe it’ll relax me enough to I can get sleepy.”

“Hot water’s good for that,” InuYasha said agreeably. “And you can use some rest.”

“I know.” Kagome picked her sewing back up with a sigh. “But my mind just won’t settle down.” She looked up at the hanyou, who had gotten up to fetch the pot he heated water in. “Why?”

InuYasha picked up the kettle and moved towards the fire pit. “Why what?” He put a trivet over the hot part of the fire, and added some wood to get it hotter. “I don’t know why you’re having trouble getting ready to sleep.”

This time, a small smile crept across Kagome’s face. “Not that.” She took one more stitch and knotted her thread. “Why you hate going to Odawara. Did something happen there?”

He poured water into the pot, not answering her at first. His ear flicked while he moved the full pot onto the trivet. Kagome waited patiently, actually surprised that she had hit a nerve she didn’t intend to. He lidded the pot and then sat back down, facing the fire pit.

Putting her sewing aside, she moved from the corner by the lamp and went to sit next to her husband, leaning against his shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Feh,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. “It was so long ago, I doubt if anybody alive even remembers hearing about it. I wasn’t that old, myself. Older than Shippou, but not much. Out in the countryside there, there was this temple.  It was out in the countryside, away from the nearest town. There was this monk there...”

“You don’t have to go into if you don’t want to,” Kagome said.  

“Wasn’t really all that much. The stupid monk caught me raiding the monastery’s vegetable patch, and he decided he was going to purify my butt.” His face hardened at the memory, his amber eyes staring into the fire, but seeing the face of a man long dead. “I objected, and knocked him down.”

“Did you...” Kagome said, her eyes sympathetic. Her voice faltered, not really wanting to interrupt him.

The hanyou took a long breath. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean.  I was still pretty small.”  His voice grew distant. “I remember him trying to take the daikon I had pulled out of the garden and how hungry I was, and how bad he smelled. I gave him a big shove, and he fell on his ass. I ran. The other monks there, they started to chase me. I couldn’t run as fast then as I do now, and I knew they were going to catch me before I could get to the trees.”

He paused a moment, lost in the memory.  

“What happened?” Kagome asked.

InuYasha gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “My damned brother stepped in. Why the hell he showed up that morning, I’ll never know. He booted me away.”

“Booted you?” Kagome asked. “Like you do Shippou?”

“I guess.” InuYasha lifted his head. “I’d only seen him a couple of times before, but there was no mistaking him. He stepped in front of me and picked me up by the collar, and lifted me up eye to eye. The monks stopped, I think. I remember them yelling something, but I was too shocked to pay any attention. You know how my brother is. Nobody can look at you as coldly as he can. I can still feel the ice in his stare.” The hanyou’s ears flattened as he relived that moment as he turned to look at Kagome. “The one thing I remember he said was something about stupid humans had no right to defile his otousan’s blood with their dirty hands.” InuYasha shook his head. “And then he tossed me away. The bastard didn’t care if I was just a brat out in the world on my own, and nearly starving to death. But no mere monk was to take my life.”

“InuYasha...” Kagome met her husband’s eyes and did not like the rawness she saw there.

He blew out a noisy breath. “It was a long time ago.” His fingers went into her hair.  “I landed in a thicket, still clutching that stupid daikon. I could hear the fighting. I’m not sure how much fighting there really was, but I remember someone shrieked really loud. I laid low until the cries stopped. I was afraid that either Sesshoumaru or the monks would come and get me, but no one did. I stayed in the thicket and after a while, ate the stupid vegetable. When it got dark, I left.”

Kagome reached up and brushed his cheek with her left hand. He rested his hand over hers, and brought her hand to his lips, where he lightly kissed the palm of her hand. “Later, I heard they built an extension to the monastery on the sight, in honor of the monks who died defending the mountain from the Yama Inu. Not a place I like to go near.”

A light dawned in Kagome’s eyes. “Is that...that where Miroku wants to go?”

“Yeah,” the hanyou said. “It’s not out in the countryside any more. First they built a castle, and that one came down, and then they built another one, bigger and stronger, and the town grew up around it. Stupid temple’s right on the edge of town.” He gave her a small grin, although his eyes were still caught up in old memories. “And Odawara stinks. Too many people. Too many blacksmiths. And the leather works - that’s even worse. All those craftsmen making all that gear for the Hojo so they can go beat up on the Uesugi. I don’t know why leather making has to smell as bad as it does. But they have so many leather workers there, the place reeks.”

“As bad as Toutousai?” Kagome asked, trying to make him laugh.

He looked at her, not laughing, but completely seriously. “Like ten Toutousais. Forges and all.”

“Ugh,” Kagome said. “No wonder you don’t want to go there.”

InuYasha shrugged. “But I will. By the time Miroku’s through organizing things, he’ll probably have a list of things people will ask him to buy a mile long, and there’s no way I’ll be able to let him go alone. It’d be too hard and dangerous for him to try to get it all back here. Too many bandits between here and there. Sango would kill me if something happened to him. So I’ll have to go with him.”

“Would he do that?” she asked. She picked up one of his hands and laced her fingers through his. “Trap you into going like that.”

“Yes.” InuYasha gave her hand a little squeeze.

Kagome sighed, nodding. “You’re right. I guess he would.”

For a few minutes, they sat there, snuggling close. Neither spoke; but this time, it was a more comfortable silence, only broken when the water began to boil, and overflowed the top of the pot.

“I guess it’s time for your bath,” InuYasha said. He unwound himself reluctantly from around his wife. “I’ll go get the tub.”

During the bath, InuYasha played attendant, washing her back and rubbing her shoulders. Kagome finally unwound and began to yawn, and not long afterwards, InuYasha was able to coax her into bed. Kagome, too tired to do any more, let InuYasha snuggle her spoon fashioned, her back firmly against the hanyou’s chest, his arms around her, a safe and warm cocoon. She fell asleep almost immediately. His body wanted her, but he contented himself watching her rest, listening to the sound of her breathing.

His ear flicked as a thought struck him, and he spoke softly into the darkness, not sure if he was going to be heard or not. “Kazuo, you better do what you can to give Chime a good day tomorrow. Everybody’s had enough trouble to last a year these last few days,” he said. Somewhere, not far from the house, an owl called. “And no more babies for a while, all right? Last night and today - that was enough.”

There was a sound, almost like a chuckle, carried in by the wind. “You know,” InuYasha said, smiling. “I think you’re as bad as Daitaro, old man. I wonder if that’s where he gets it from.” He laid his cheek on Kagome’s head, and breathed deeply of his wife’s scent. Not long after, he too drifted off at last.