InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love is Blind ❯ Chapter 4

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

 

Chapter Four

 

 

 

As they approached the glass doors another attendant opened the door for them, and Inuyasha thanked him as they stepped inside. Because Inuyasha had already told Kagome he was taking her to Rêve D’or, a French restaurant, she knew not to remove her shoes, so avoiding that faux pas she walked smoothly with Inuyasha’s lead up to the maître d’.

 

“Reservations for Taisho,” Inuyasha said, with all the confidence of somebody who could buy the place.

 

He actually could.

 

His father paid him a ridiculous amount of money, especially considering it was just supposed to be hush money, but Inuyasha suspected there was an element of pride involved. Illegitimate son or not, he was still a Taisho – Toga had actually insisted he possess the family name, when one might assume he’d have wanted the opposite – and Inuyasha suspected his monthly deposits were Toga’s way of making sure his second son was well taken care of.

 

If so, he’d achieved that goal. Inuyasha never came close to spending the amount of money he received every month, and as a result his savings was astronomical, even after buying Mushin’s Noodles.

 

“Ah yes. Right this way sir,” the maître d’ said, snapping him out of his musings.

 

As the man found their reservation and escorted them to their table, Kagome did an expert job of not showing her surprise at hearing Yasha’s surname. Taisho was a rare family name, among humans and youkai alike. In fact, she only knew of one youkai family that bore that name, and only because they were so renowned and she was familiar with youkai royalty thanks to her miko training. But all youkai surnames originally came from humans, from back when they’d decided to adopt them, and the human Taisho line was also alive and well. That Yasha was a member...

 

He’d told her he was rich, but she never would have fathomed to what degree. Something as important yet as paradoxically trivial as his family name had simply never come up. Especially since he had implied he and his mother were estranged from his father. In fact, were it not for his wealthy father apparently deciding to provide for Yasha and his mother, Kagome had gotten the distinct impression that Yasha’s life would have been very different. Being a Taisho, even if he were an illegitimate one that stayed out of the limelight, had definitely guaranteed him a better life than most bastard sons could ever dream of. She was so very grateful, for the both of them, that his father was an honorable enough man to take care of his son financially, if nothing else.

 

Not that she was only interested in him for his money and would not have wanted to date him had he been poor, but she knew the chances were good that they never would have even met in the first place had his situation been different, or even if they had still spoken from time to time, if he had still frequented the noodle shop, she certainly never would have approached him to thank him for saving Mushin’s Noodles, because he wouldn’t have. And he probably never would have braved asking her out on a date, either, since even as a rich man he had been hesitant to do so. Then the noodle shop would have closed, and she would’ve probably never heard from him again.

 

She was glad that wasn’t the case.

 

Keeping her random ‘what if’ thoughts to a bare minimum, Kagome wasn’t as sidetracked as she’d been a couple of days ago when she’d nearly missed her bus, and so when they arrived at their table she went with the flow as Yasha helped her to have a seat in the chair the maître d’ had pulled out for her.

 

“Your waiter will be with you shortly.”

 

With that, he left Kagome and Inuyasha alone. Inuyasha picked up his menu.

 

“Do you have a general idea of what you’d like to have, like say beef, chicken or fish, or would you just like me to read the entire menu to you?” he asked quietly and politely.

 

“Do you mind reading it?” she asked in turn. “I could probably bluff my way through and just say I’ll have the chicken, or whatever, but I want to know what they actually have. If possible, I want to try something weird I’ve never eaten before.”

 

He chuckled a little at that.

 

“Oh, it’s very possible,” he said. “I’ve only been here a couple of times with my mom on her birthday, but they serve food here even I’d never had before.”

 

“I’m not surprised,” she quipped. “I didn’t think you ever ate anything other than ramen.”

 

He chuckled again at the dig, and would have replied with a quip of his own but their waiter chose that moment to arrive and take their drink orders, including asking if regular water from the pitcher he was carrying would be all right or if they’d prefer sparkling water. With Kagome answering that regular water was just fine, he filled their water glasses from his pitcher, and then after Inuyasha said they weren’t going to be making a selection from the wine list – they’d already discussed the pros and cons of alcohol during the drive, and his low tolerance (as a human) was definitely a con – the waiter collected their empty wine glasses while making a mental note of their regular drink orders, both of them opting for tea since the restaurant offered a few uniquely French blends.

 

Going over the menu with Kagome after their waiter left to get their drinks, Inuyasha deliberately didn’t tell her any of the prices, and when she asked between two main course options which one was less expensive his reply was not to worry about it. He also explained that each side dish needed to be ordered separately from the main protein, and that she should feel free to order as many separate components as she wanted.

 

“Even if it’s just to taste it,” he insisted. “You certainly don’t have to try to stuff yourself. And anything you love but can’t finish you can take with you.”

 

“Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly. “I would think taking leftovers home from a fancy restaurant like this was frowned upon.”

 

“Not to your face it won’t be,” he answered. “Who gives a damn what anyone actually thinks? They’ll do it. Besides, I doubt the staff even cares. Probably prefer seeing the food go home than get tossed. And if any of the other patrons glare at us leaving with doggy bags I’ll just glare at ‘em right back.”

 

She chuckled a little at that, and smiling to himself, loving the sound of her laugh, he then got back to reading the various food options to her. There was even a separate prix fixe menu, but she ultimately decided to just select items from the standard à la carte menu.

 

After getting her entire meal figured out, starting with an appetizer of a half dozen oysters with caviar Inuyasha had promised to eat if it turned out she didn’t like them, he then began describing the appearance of the room to her. She had, politely, asked him to, and he was more than happy to oblige. While he didn’t know what kind of accident had blinded her – or even if it’d been an ‘accident’ at all, a thought that made him grateful he was human at the moment because otherwise he would have started growling – she had shared with him that it had happened roughly three years ago, so that meant she still remembered, rather vividly, what the world around her looked like. It would be easy for him to describe certain things and for her to envision them perfectly.

 

“It’s a single large, softly lit room,” he began. “No booths, it’s all just tables. The floor is white tile that must be dirt resistant ‘cause there ain’t a speck anywhere. The walls are white and gold wallpaper, mostly white with gold being in some kinda fancy swirly pattern.” He paused a moment then said, “Sorry, that’s not very helpful, is it?”

 

“It’s perfectly fine,” she replied honestly. “I don’t need to know exactly what the gold filigree looks like. It’s good enough that I can now envision that I’m in a soft white and gold room, as opposed to something completely different like if everything had been dark brown woods and rich reds.”

 

“You’re describing Aka Ryu,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll take you there on our second date.”

 

Her heart did a little flutter at how confident he sounded.

 

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied, unable to stop her smile from spreading even if she’d wanted to.

 

Grinning himself, even though she couldn’t see it he was sure she could hear it in his voice when he got back to describing the restaurant they were in for their first date.

 

“The tables and chairs are ornately carved gilt gold, the chair cushions and table cloths all cream. You almost can’t see anything of the tables besides the cloth unless you look down and notice their legs poking out from behind the fabric, which like the chair legs are curved with ball feet.”

 

He paused again, this time because their waiter was back with their teas and to take their orders.

 

With Kagome having already told him what all she wanted to eat, Inuyasha went ahead and placed both their orders, beginning with the gentlemanly “The lady will have...” for Kagome’s selections. The only thing he altered was the number of oysters, ordering a full dozen for the both of them to share. If she really didn’t like them then he could easily eat her half as well, but he was pretty sure she’d love them as much as he did, which was why he’d wanted his own at the thought of her having them.

 

“Very good, sir,” the waiter said when he was done taking their entire order, and as the waiter headed away Inuyasha was actually grateful Kagome couldn’t see his expression as he did his beset to get his wayward emotions back under control.

 

He just wasn’t used to being treated with respect, and while he could never forget even for a moment that he was in human form it still sometimes caught him by surprise to be shown respect that should have been his birthright every day of the month.

 

And he didn’t mean the respect of being a Taisho.

 

He just wanted to be treated like a normal person, no different from anyone else. Was that too much to ask?

 

It didn’t take him long to realize it was probably a stigmatization that Kagome understood all too well, which made him feel even more guilty of originally keeping what he was a secret from her, wanting so desperately for someone to treat him like a regular person, for someone to honestly think he was a normal person, that he’d exploited her disability for his own selfish gain.

 

That would end, tonight, and damn the consequences. But baby steps. He definitely didn’t want to out himself during dinner and put her in the horrible position of needing to not cause a scene and storm out because of the simple fact that she needed his guidance in order to leave. He wanted her to actually enjoy her meal, not become so angry with him for the deception that it would ruin her dining experience.

 

So he would tell her after dinner, during the drive home. If she refused to let him escort her to the front door he’d let her go, because her cane was in his car and he knew she knew the way. She took the bus to and from work by herself five days a week, after all. He was so proud of her, for how independent she truly was. As a canine, he relied more heavily on his hearing and sense of smell than sight, and even so, the thought of going blind was a frightening one.

 

It would need to be very powerful holy energy in order to permanently blind him, though, so he knew it wasn’t anything he really had to worry about. Not with his youkai healing. Which was why he didn’t wish he was human, and didn’t really care for his human nights, although he still took advantage of them for the once-a-month chance to be treated normally, even though what he really wanted was for hanyou to just be treated like decent people by human and youkai society.

 

If hanyou weren’t normally sterile, if more diluted mixes like one-quarter humans or one-quarter youkai were possible, then people would have probably gotten used to the idea of mixed blood, and while both sides would probably still have their purists, most people would consider it no big deal, just like mixing among the different humans and different youkai wasn’t that big of a deal anymore. His half-brother Sesshoumaru was mated to a wind-youkai and nobody cared that his pups wouldn’t be pure inu, yet his mixed blood was still taboo.

 

The argument, by those against it, was that hanyou being sterile was proof that the kami didn’t approve of the pairings.

 

Of course, in reality, hanyou weren’t truly sterile sterile, although everyone had thought so for centuries. In actuality they were only sterile while in their hanyou form, and with modern medical intervention it was possible for hanyou to reproduce while transformed as either a human, or full-youkai for those powerful enough to do it, but even so it was enough for the naysayers to stick to their guns. If medical intervention was required, they claimed, then it was still going against nature.

 

Never mind all the pure blooded humans out there that needed medical intervention in order to reproduce, for whatever reason. That didn’t count, apparently.

 

And what the hell was he doing thinking about children, anyway?! He was getting way too ahead of himself.

 

Fortunately, not too much time had actually passed in real life during his mind’s little wandering off stunt, and Kagome was still happily sipping at her tea, letting the cup warm her hands.

 

“What about the china?” she asked him then, and since he had already pulled himself out of his musings he was right there with her, so she was never aware he had become so lost in thought, as he told her that all of the dishes, including the tea cups and saucers, were simple white porcelain.

 

Then their waiter was back with their dozen oysters, and Inuyasha assisted Kagome only because it was something she had never eaten before. Preparing one of the oysters, making sure the meat was loose, he handed it to her and instructed her on how to slurp it, like doing a shot.

 

“You can’t take little nibbles. You can’t dip a toe in. Just gotta dive on into the deep end head first, so to speak.”

 

He knew it was okay to use that analogy and it wouldn’t hurt her feelings. She’d told him casually during one of their minor conversations a year or so ago that she loved to swim and hadn’t let her blindness keep her away from the public pools. She had even volunteered to be the pursuer during games of Marco Polo more than once, with the little kids who’d been using the pool at the same time. She’d refused to let depression get her down, and while she was disappointed sometimes, with the direction her life had taken, she tried to stay upbeat about it and find happiness in the little things.

 

Like trying new foods. And the oyster smelled good so taking a chance, she said “Here goes nothing,” and slurped it.

 

Inuyasha watched her face like a hawk for any sign that she found it disguising and was trying to force herself to just swallow it to avoid embarrassing herself, but it never came. What did come was a huge grin sprouting across her face after she’d swallowed it.

 

“Told ya you’d like it.”

 

“Yes you did,” she agreed. “Now I want to try one with the caviar.”

 

He assisted her with that as well, scooping a little bit of the caviar onto the next oyster after separating it from the shell for her. Then after handing it to her he began devouring his own half dozen, because even with a human nose they smelled heavenly and he was hungry!

 

After they’d each eaten their last oyster he figured it was time to start the ‘first date’ conversation, as it were, but since he was in no hurry to tell her about himself – and he didn’t want to be one of those guys who only talked about themselves, anyway – Inuyasha started the conversation with, “So, tell me about yourself.”

 

Smiling gently, after taking a sip of her tea, she asked, “What would you like to know?”

 

“Whatever you feel comfortable telling me. I just want to get to know you better.”

 

Her smile grew even larger, and he couldn’t help but grin as well.

 

“Well,” she started then, “you already know I’m from a shrine family.”

 

“Yeah,” he agreed conversationally.

 

“My whole family has reiki,” she continued then, unaware of the momentary flash of shock in her date’s eyes.

 

It was rare for an entire family to possess reiki, save one. Either she should have been born with the gift as well, if both her mother and father had come from reiki families, or it was something only some people in her family possessed as it skipped the occasional generation.

 

“It’s on both sides of the family tree,” Kagome elaborated then, unaware of his surprise. “My mother came from another shrine family before she married my father. She did it for honor’s sake, because her parents wanted her to marry someone with reiki, but fortunately she actually loved my father, so they were very happy together before he died in a car accident when I was ten.”

 

“I’m so sorry...”

 

“That’s all right, it was a long time ago, now.” She’d cried her tears for losing her father, but now, she much preferred to just look back on the time they’d had together with a smile.

 

Inuyasha was hesitant to bring it up, but tentatively, he started to say, “I...I can actually sense reiki in others, but-”

 

Her sightless eyes widened a bit behind her glasses at that revelation, and she knew exactly where he was going with it.

 

“Oh,” she interrupted. “Yeah um...my reiki...my reiki apparently decided to seal itself, after my accident,” she confessed. She’d been planning on telling him that part next, anyway, but had been caught off guard by the revelation that he had the ability to sense it for himself.

 

Reiki users were still somewhat rare. Having barely enough to sense it in others without being able to perform purifications yourself was slightly more common, but even so, ‘normal’ humans vastly outnumbered people with even the slightest drop of reiki. What were the odds that he would be one of them? But she was glad. And hopefully, he was glad to learn that she wasn’t the Higurashi ‘dud,’ since it was possible for reiki users to produce ‘normal’ offspring without the gift.

 

Figuring he deserved to hear the whole story, now, before he could inquire further she went ahead and continued with, “It was during my miko training, in fact.” Gesturing briefly at her eyes with her left hand, she explained, “My first time out in the field.”

 

Pausing, she swallowed hard and took a sip of her water.

 

Watching as she did so, Inuyasha didn’t have to know the details of her accident to understand that this had to be a hard thing for her to talk about. He’d seen the scars. It had obviously been a traumatic experience, and to now know it’d had something to do with fighting an evil spirit of some sort...he wouldn’t make her talk about it if she didn’t want to.

 

“That’s all right,” he began to say as she sat her water glass back down. “You don’t have to-”

 

“It’s not that,” she interrupted again. “It’s just...I panicked. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t-”

 

“Oh no you don’t,” he interrupted that time. “I don’t care how or why it happened but it was not your fault.”

 

At his words, she once again did that eerie thing where she was looking right at him even though she couldn’t she him. Even as a human he could make out her eyes through the tinted lenses of her shades, especially since these glasses weren’t quite as dark as the ones she normally wore. Sometimes he wondered if she could actually still make out shapes, or light vs. shadow, but it was also possible she was just able to pinpoint the precise location of his mouth with her ears and then subconsciously knew where his eyes should then be located based on that. He figured that was a safe enough question to ask to get her to stop ‘looking’ at him like that, at least. Her expression betrayed her desire to argue the point of blame, but even if it was technically her fault, he did not want her beating herself up about it.

 

“And oh hey,” he spoke back up then before she could say anything, his nonchalant tone instantly putting her at ease. “I’m just curious, so if it’s none of my business just say so, but are you completely blind?” Figuring he better explain, he quickly added, “You just seem to have a knack for always looking me right in the eyes.”

 

Said eyes widened again before she lowered her head a bit, but the small smile that tugged at the ends of her lips told him he hadn’t accidentally embarrassed her.

 

“It’s total darkness,” she told him then. “But Mama’s told me before that I look her in the eyes, too.” Bringing her head back up again, she shrugged. “I guess my eyeballs just automatically zero in on the sound of someone’s voice and know where to position themselves when I’m talking to someone; I don’t do it on purpose.”

 

He could understand that, of course, because his ears, or at least his canine ones, actually did the same thing. He actually had to stop himself from just blurting that factoid out, too, but thinking of his canine nature in that moment, and the fact that he now knew she was completely blind, did inspire another innocent question.

 

“Mind if I ask how come you don’t have a guide dog?”

 

She stiffened a little at the question, which he wasn’t expecting, and without his sense of smell he had no way of knowing exactly what she was feeling. He had no clue she’d suddenly had to fight down a jolt of irrational fear. It had looked more like bristling to him, as if she were feeling defensive, and so he plowed forward under that assumption, making sure to be polite, as well as quiet although nobody else in the restaurant seemed to be paying them any attention and the two closest tables to their own were currently empty.

 

“I know they can be really expensive,” he began gently, “so if money’s the problem, you just say the word. And no...” he continued on, grateful for his human emotions making it easier for him to speak so openly about his feelings, “you aren’t some charity case. I really care about you, Kagome, and since I do have the money, I just want to be able to help you out in any way I can. Of course, I totally get it if you feel you don’t need one, and if you don’t want one that’s fine. You certainly seem to be doing all right on your own. But if you do wish you had one but just can’t afford it then I will gladly help you out with that.”

 

She had calmed back down by the time he finished speaking, realizing where he was coming from and knowing he hadn’t meant anything hurtful by the question, but before she could explain, it was right in that moment that their main courses arrived. Letting the matter go for the time being, then, Kagome was all smiles as she listened to their waiter place their dinner plates before them.

 

“Bon appétit,” he said before leaving.

 

Thanking him, Kagome dug right in, and Inuyasha followed her lead. All was quiet for the next few minutes except for utensils clanking and Kagome’s occasional murmur of how good everything tasted.

 

Finally, though, after pausing in her eating to have a sip of tea, Kagome felt she’d left his innocent question unanswered long enough. She truly appreciated that he hadn’t hounded her for an answer, before mentally groaning at her choice of words. The world was just fully of unintentional dog puns. Feeling brave enough to give him the answer he deserved, she blurted it out before going back to her food.

 

“I’m afraid of dogs.”