InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One Step Forward, Two Steps Back ❯ Step 3: He wore WHAT?!? ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, but I own the little voice in his head! That is almost as good, right?

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Chapter Three

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Kagome sighed and turned a page in her math textbook, trying to tune out the feeling of Inuyasha staring intently at her back. Her efforts weren't getting her very far, though, and she had to force herself not to turn around and glare back at him.

'Why can't he just go away and leave me to study in peace?' Kagome thought as she anxiously chewed on the end of her pencil. 'For some weird reason he doesn't want to go back through the well, even though he knows I'm so mad at him that I still want to sit him through the floor! Usually when I'm like this, he makes himself scarce.'

Looking back down at the book in front of her, Kagome worked on the next problem with forced concentration, trying her best to ignore the hanyou behind her.

'If I take this number and divide it by seven, I should get the answer...although the answer I would really like to have is WHY that stupid jerk won't quit staring at me!' The pencil snapping in her clenched fist, Kagome spun around in her chair to glare at Inuyasha.

"I can't take it anymore! What is your problem, Inuyasha?"

Flinching guiltily, the hanyou snapped out of his heavy concentration and moved his eyes away from Kagome's backside and up to meet her accusing gaze. He really had not meant to be staring so intently at it, but he hadn't been able to keep himself from wondering what Miroku found so fascinating about them. And the more he considered the question in his mind, the harder he found himself staring.

'You have to admit, it is a very nice view…' The small voice in the back of his mind taunted him. 'Face it. You've always believed yourself to be better than Miroku, but deep down, you are just as bad as he is. You were staring at her because you wanted to, plain and simple.'

"I was not!" Inuyasha defended himself out loud, blushing furiously.

Kagome blinked, confused. "Um…Inuyasha, are you okay?" She reached out an unsure hand towards him, obviously worried about his odd response. After all, she had only asked him what his problem was and hadn't accused him of anything…yet.

'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' Inuyasha railed at himself furiously after catching the concerned look Kagome was giving him. 'I can't believe I actually answered that stupid little voice out loud! Now she's going to think I've lost my mind or something…' Glancing around furtively, Inuyasha briefly wondered if he had anything left to lose by beating his head on the bedroom wall behind him.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome was practically in his face by this point, and had one hand sitting on his shoulder in what he guessed was supposed to be a comforting gesture. "Why are you so quiet? Please answer me!"

"I…" Inuyasha paused, unsure what he should say. "I'm fine! I just…I was just staring at you and wondering how you could fit into that underwear thing I had earlier. It was so small!"

Open mouth, insert foot.

"You jerk!" Kagome cried, snatching her hand away from his shoulder as if she'd been burned. "And here I was worried about you!"

Inuyasha cringed, knowing that he wouldn't recover from his chronic stupidity any time soon. He'd never been able to stop himself from saying stupid things to Kagome, and he had no idea why! It wasn't as if he WANTED her to be mad at him!

'Or maybe you do…' The evil little voice was back and as obnoxious as ever. 'You feel safer when she's angry with you. Oh, not physically safer…' the voice added before he could muster an argument. 'After all, every time you make her mad, she sits you until you're black and blue. What I mean is, you feel safer because you don't want to let her get too close…'

Inuyasha's eyes widened while his mind frantically tried to deny the accusation.

'Dammit, that's not it!'

'Then why do things to make her so angry?'

'Because-' Inuyasha's brain paused, not sure what he could say to prove to himself that what the voice was saying wasn't true.

While he was busy internally arguing with himself, Kagome had stomped back to her desk and was once again attempting to study. The only thing she was really doing, though, was succeeding at ripping holes in her paper with a new, unbroken pencil.

'Stupid, stupid, stupid Inuyasha!' Her mind chanted over and over as she pulled out her third piece of paper. 'I can't believe he said I have a big butt! Well, he didn't exactly say that, but he implied it!'

Kagome pulled out a fourth piece of paper after crumpling up the third one and tossing it in the trashcan by her desk.

Other than the sounds of Kagome's furious scribbling, the room was eerily quiet. Inuyasha was still lost in his own thoughts, and Kagome was busy planning the demise of the unsuspecting hanyou behind her.

"Kagome!"

The girl whose name had been called looked up.

"Bring your clothes down to be washed, would you, dear?"

Sighing at the new interruption, Kagome obediently stood up from her desk and walked over to her closet. She then slid open one of the doors and pulled a small basket out, obviously full of the clothes her mother had asked her for.

It was then that she got an idea.

Turning to Inuyasha with a cold look, she thrust the basket into his hands so suddenly that he almost dropped it. Thankfully, his reflexes were much better than any human, or he probably would have.

"Inuyasha…" Kagome smiled at him in a sickeningly sweet way that had chills crawling up and down his spine. "Since you seem to have such a strong fascination with my clothes, YOU can take them downstairs to mama!"

He blinked. "But-"

"Just do it!" She commanded him before turning back to her desk and sitting down. "Go downstairs and head towards the kitchen. Mama will tell you what to do with them from there."

Without turning around, Kagome picked up her pencil and began writing once more, a signal that she was obviously finished with what she'd been saying and that she wasn't planning on arguing with him about it.

Grumbling under his breath, Inuyasha stomped out of the room.

When he got downstairs, Kagome's mother called to him from the kitchen without bothering to see who she was talking to. "Just take them to the laundry room downstairs!"

Inuyasha looked around in confusion. Downstairs? But wasn't he already downstairs? And what was a 'laundry room' anyway?

It was then that he spotted a door not far from him that was partially ajar. It was one that he'd never noticed before, but then it was also fairly well hidden behind a large cabinet where Mrs. Higurashi liked to keep Kagome's numerous medical supplies. If the door had been closed, he probably would have never even seen it.

So was that the 'laundry room' Mrs. Higurashi had been talking about?

Shrugging and deciding that the best way to know would be to look, the white-haired hanyou walked over to the door and pulled it open the rest of the way. It revealed a set of stairs leading down into another level of the house that was below the ground. He could also hear rather odd noises.

"Weird future dwellings…" He grumbled to himself as he made his way down the stairs. "Building rooms below the ground and above the ground…why can't they just make them all one level like we do in my time?"

He suddenly stopped.

"What the HELL are those things?" He gaped at the two white objects, one of which was the source of all the noise he'd been hearing.

"We use those to wash clothes with." Mrs. Higurashi suddenly appeared behind him, smiling in amusement at the way he nearly jumped out of his skin. He must have been too distracted to hear her coming down the stairs.

"Wash clothes?" He echoed blankly.

Mrs. Higurashi nodded patiently. "Would you like to see how they work?"

Taking his wide-eyed look as a 'yes' and ignoring the gleam of suspicion in them, Kagome's mother walked over to the two contraptions and glanced at the timer on the one making such a loud racket.

"Oh good, it should be finished any moment now, and then I can show you how to use it!" As if on cue, the object suddenly went quiet.

Not knowing what to think, Inuyasha decided to keep a fair distance away from them, even if Mrs. Higurashi wasn't afraid of them. He'd never been known for his trusting attitude, and that applied to both living and non-living things.

Humming a little tune under her breath, Mrs. Higurashi pulled open the washer and started removing all the wet clothing that was inside of it. "This one that I'm pulling things out of washes the clothes. The other one dries them." She held up a wet shirt. "See how clean clothes can get when you use these? This shirt had a huge mud stain on it from when Souta was playing in the rain the other day."

Inuyasha couldn't help but be impressed. That thing could get mud out of clothes? Perhaps it could even get blood out. He looked down at his fire rat robe mournfully.

Kagome's mother noticed his glance and hid a smile. "I have an idea! Why don't we wash your clothes with the next load? I'm sure they could use a good cleaning, especially if they get as dirty as Kagome's do when she's on the other side of the well."

Hmmm…should he do it? Inuyasha had to admit the idea was certainly tempting. Kagome was always making a big deal about being clean, and the only time his clothes ever saw water was when he accidentally fell in some.

Who knows, maybe she might even like him more if his clothes smelled nice.

'Idiot!' He suddenly caught the direction of his thoughts and mentally called himself every unrepeatable thing that he could think of. 'Why should I care if she likes me or not, anyway? It's not like I like her or anything…'

While Inuyasha was considering Mrs. Higurashi's idea, she was loading some new clothes into the washer while being careful to pick ones that Inuyasha's red outfit wouldn't accidentally ruin. After all, she didn't think her daughter would appreciate her school uniform being green and pink…

"Oh my!" Kagome's mother suddenly jumped and darted her gaze towards the stairs, a dark red T-Shirt hanging from her hand. "I think I hear the phone ringing. Why don't you just put your clothes in with the rest of these while I'm gone, okay? I won't be long!" Dropping the shirt in with the rest, Mrs. Higurashi trotted towards the stairs.

Just before she made it to the top, though, she called back, "Oh, and there are some clothes in the blue basket that you can wear while yours are being cleaned!"

Inuyasha looked around in confusion, and sure enough, there was a blue basket full of clothes that had recently been cleaned and folded. Most of them were lighter colors - white, pale blue, gray…not exactly colors he cared for.

With slow movements and feeling more than a little disgruntled at the situation, Inuyasha hesitantly began to remove his red haori first, and then moved on to his pants. Once he was finished removing everything but his white undershirt, Inuyasha leaned over and stared into the depths of the washing machine with a suspicious expression.

Could that thing REALLY get clothes so clean, or was Kagome's mother up to something? What if his clothes got ruined? What if-

"Awww, hell!" Inuyasha suddenly growled as he heard Kagome's mother finish her phone conversation. He knew she'd be back down any moment, and unless he wanted to be caught half-naked, he'd better hurry up.

Removing his last shirt and tossing all of his clothes into the washer, Inuyasha then scrambled through the pile of clothes Mrs. Higurashi had pointed out to him for something that looked easy enough to put on. Nothing with those damn contraptions called 'buttons' or whatever they were called, and definitely nothing with those metal teeth-like things…

"Inuyasha?" Mrs. Higurashi called down the stairs before entering. "Are you finished yet?"

Listening carefully, she heard a flurry of sounds and muted cursing before everything went suddenly quiet. Was he finished?

"Inuyasha?"

"Yeah, I'm done." The hanyou muttered, just loudly enough for her to hear.

"Well, I hope you were able to find some clothes that fit you fairly well." She spoke conversationally as she descended the stairs into the shadowy basement room. "Most of Grandpa's clothes are probably too big for you, but I'm sure there was something in there you could have-"

Mrs. Higurashi stopped dead on the bottom step, one hand rising to cover her mouth.

"Oh…my…"

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Kagome beat her head against the edge of her desk in a steady rhythm to match the mantra she was chanting. "I didn't want to see that, I didn't want to see that, I didn't want to see that..."

"Would you just shut up already?!?!" Inuyasha snapped at her from his place on her bed. "How the hell was I supposed to know what she meant? She just told me to get something out of the basket, so I got something out of the stupid basket!"

Kagome looked up and behind her with a flat gaze. "But why, out of all those clothes, did you choose to wear THAT?" She pointed to the crumpled up piece of clothing in the corner on her bedroom floor.

He folded his arms with an embarrassed huff and looked away. "It fit, and it didn't have any of those complicated things on them..."

"You mean buttons and zippers?"

"Whatever."

"Oh god..." Kagome laid her head back down on her desk and closed her eyes. They didn't stay shut for long, though, when the image of Inuyasha wearing her mother's favorite white satin nightgown appeared behind her eyelids. That horrific sight was going to be burned into her memory for all time. "After witnessing something as scary as that, I'm never going to be able to get any more studying done!"

"Quit making such a big deal out of it!" He cried, frustrated by her dramatics. "You act like I did it on purpose the way you're carrying on, even though you were laughing your head off earlier!" You AND your mother!" A bright blush stained his cheeks.

Kagome smiled slightly. "Well, it WAS funny, even if I am traumatized for life now. But as for my mother, I don't think I've EVER heard her laugh so loudly. I thought she was going to pass out!"

Inuyasha huffed in irritation at the reminder of everyone's amusement at his expense, and turned his back on the girl sitting at the desk. He had his arms and legs crossed while perched on Kagome's bed, a pose that normally made him look every inch a proud hanyou.

But this time, the blue bathrobe with a silhouette of a naked woman on the back kind of killed the effect.

'Grandpa...' Kagome shook her head in vague amusement at the sight.

"Well, at least Souta didn't see you." She remarked to his back. "He idolizes you so much that he might have tried dressing like you."

No response.

"Oh, Inuyasha! Quit sulking!" She admonished him. "It isn't so bad, really. So you made a mistake. It wasn't your fault since you don't know much about clothes in my time, so we shouldn't have laughed at you." She paused a moment before smiling mischievously. "Did you know that you have really nice legs?"

If Inuyasha had been blushing before, his whole face was on fire now. He nearly fell off the bed in his haste to turn around and splutter incoherent denials, although why he felt like he had to deny it, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that the thought of Kagome checking out his legs was making him think things that he REALLY shouldn't be thinking and that he needed to stop himself before he could do anything stupid!

Feeling bad that she'd teased him again, Kagome took pity on him and threw him the towel that was sitting on her desk, effectively shutting him up. "Here. Why don't you go get a bath, okay? Souta is probably finished with it by now, and my turn can wait. Just be sure that you don't get the soap and shampoo confused, okay?"

Nodding mutely, Inuyasha trudged towards the door, looking dazed.

"Oh, and Inuyasha! Don't forget that Souta needs to show you how to use the shower nozzle again just in case you've forgotten how to use it!" She called after him just as the door shut.

'Keh! As if I need that little brat to show me anything.' Inuyasha shook his head, obviously more in control now that he wasn't in the same room as Kagome. Now his rebellious I-need-help-from-no-one attitude was once again rearing its head. 'He's already shown me once, and even if it's been a long time, it can't be that hard.'

Locating the open bathroom door, Inuyasha entered and slammed it behind him.

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Ohhhhh goodness…I could really get myself in trouble if I were a lemon writer, couldn't I? Inuyasha is already cross-dressing, and it's only the third chapter! LOL, I am having so much fun with this story. Anyway, be sure and review and let me know what you thought! I'd love to know if you found it funny! ^_^