InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One Step Forward, Two Steps Back ❯ Step 4: It wasn't what it looked like! ( Chapter 4 )

Before we get started, I just want to say that I am basing Inuyasha's bath on how the Japanese take theirs to the best of my knowledge. They wash themselves off first with a 'shower' of sorts, before soaking in the bath.

Eh, I'm sure if you've watched enough anime, you know what I mean...

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Disclaimer: No, I don't own Inuyasha, but for just once in my life, couldn't something I say really be a result of denial, or me being delusional? I wouldn't mind being considered crazy as long as I really owned him…

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Chapter Four

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Maybe he should have gotten some help from Souta, after all...

Not that Inuyasha would ever admit to anyone that he actually needed help with something. That would be too much like admitting a weakness, something the very self-reliant hanyou had learned to despise. But for the life of him, he just couldn't seem to remember how to use that miserable water spraying contraption on the wall!

"Dammit!"

After spraying himself with scalding hot water for the third time, Inuyasha was ready to tear something apart. That 'something' preferably being a certain monk...

"It's his fault that I'm going through all this hell in the first place!" Inuyasha muttered while attempting to adjust the water temperature again and hissing when his efforts failed and he nearly burned himself again. "If I ever get my hands on him, I'm going to make him SUFFER..."

Granted, it would never actually happen since Inuyasha didn't plan on getting within touching distance of Miroku for a long, long time.

But it was nice to dream.

Frowning as he twisted one of the shower handles, Inuyasha couldn't help but focus on the most disturbing result of Miroku's sudden decision to give up women. And believe it or not, it wasn't the possibility that Miroku might be start groping him that was bothering the hanyou the most.

It was the fact that the less and less Miroku acted like a pervert, the more Inuyasha started acting like one instead.

Somehow over the past several days, Inuyasha's brain had taken on a will of its own. It no longer listened to him when he tried to stomp down on those urges to stare when Kagome's outfits were more revealing than usual, or when he tried to stop himself from day dreaming about those few glimpses he'd gotten of Kagome while she was bathing some hot spring or another.

"Well, at least this'll prove that I really am interested in women, if nothing else..." Inuyasha grumbled under his breath, remembering Kagome's comments from several days earlier. He still couldn't believe she'd accused him of never showing interest in her! He was always careful to protect her, right? And even if he DID see Kikyo occasionally, he always came back to Kagome in the end.

His eyes darkened bitterly at the thought of the living, yet dead, miko that used to haunt his every waking thought.

The truth of the matter was, as much as a part of him would always love Kikyo, the greater part of him was beginning to understand and accept that they could never go back to what had been. And he knew that Kikyo was realizing that as well as she gradually dropped her hunt for vengeance against him and started focusing on the real enemy. Things had changed between them to much for them to ever recall it. The small amount of trust they'd had was gone with the events of the past, and she was no longer the same girl he'd once fallen in love with. But then, he had changed as well.

Because of Kagome.

If it weren't for her, he'd still be the same as he'd been fifty years ago. Bitter, angry at the world, completely alone...

And pinned to a tree by a mystical arrow, but he chose not to dwell on that point.

Though the girl obviously didn't see it, he HAD shown Kagome how much he cared about her, just in his own way. Whether through protection, or just by staying close enough to actually let her slam his face into the ground with a word (after all, shikon no tama or no, any other demon/hanyou would have run off long ago rather than let a human have such control over them), he'd given her some proof of his affection, right? So maybe he wasn't good at expressing his feelings like a human would, but that didn't mean they weren't there!

As if to emphasis that last, highly frustrated thought, he gave a sharp tug on the shower nozzle he was holding in his right hand.

Maybe just a little TOO sharp...

"Aaaaaahhhhh, DAMMIT!" He shouted as broken tile rained around him. His inhuman strength had caused him to pull the nozzle right out of the wall, along with one of the pipes hidden behind the tile. As a result the pipe broke, and water starting spraying EVERYWHERE.

Looking around frantically while keeping his ears flattened so water wouldn't get in them, he tried to figure out what he needed to do to stop the water. Desperately, he tried turning the handles.

Nothing.

"Inuyasha?" A knock suddenly sounded on the door, causing Inuyasha's feelings on panic to increase. "What's going on in there? I heard you yelling about something-"

"I'm fine, go away!"

"But-"

"I said I'm fine!" He growled out, trying to talk while blocking the water that was spraying in his face.

Frowning, Kagome listened to the odd sounds coming from the bathroom while she tried to decide if Inuyasha was telling her the truth or not. Something about the sound of the water seemed really, really off...

"Oi, Kagome?!?!"

The girl snapped out of her intense musing to hear Inuyasha rather frantically call her name. "What?"

"How the hell do you stop the water if those handle things don't work?!?"

Kagome felt her blood run cold.

Then without thinking, she flung open the bathroom door.

"Oh...my...God!"

She covered her mouth in horror at the sight that met her eyes, before quickly gathering her wits and running to turn the handles for herself to see if they really weren't working anymore.

Thankfully, the water shut off without a hitch.

"How'd you do that?" Inuyasha questioned Kagome with a sullen glare as she attempted to clear water from her eyes. "It didn't work when I turned 'em!"

"You were probably turning them the wrong way, idiot." She managed to dry her eyes enough to return his glare tenfold. "How in the WORLD did you manage to pull the pipe out of the wall like that, anyway? Mama is going to KILL-"

Her voice came to a sudden halt and her eyes widened in horror once again as she really looked at Inuyasha for the first time since entering the bathroom. And boy, did she get an eye full...

"YOU'RE NAKED!" She shrieked loudly, covering her eyes as a fierce blush stained her cheeks. A matching one covered Inuyasha's face and they both turned away from each other, trying to recover a bit of dignity. Not that either of them had any left at this point, but hey...

"W-well what'd you expect, stupid?" Inuyasha spluttered, trying to come up with one of his usual rude retorts and fill the awkward silence. "I was taking a bath, so of course I was naked! You're the one who just barged in here without asking!"

Kagome moaned. "Why me? First I had to see you wearing my mother's clothes, and then naked!"

Inuyasha whirled around to glare at her back. "Oi, you make it sound like a bad thing that you got to see me naked!"

"But I'm too YOUNG to see a naked guy!" She wailed.

Inuyasha opened his mouth to point out that he'd seen HER naked plenty of times, and it hadn't caused his eyes to rot out or anything like she seemed to think hers would. But for better or for worse (after all, who knew what kind of deadly reaction saying such a thing would have caused), they were interrupted at that very moment by, of all people-

Kagome's mother.

"What is all the noise about?" She called out, heading down the hall and towards the open bathroom door. In her rush to turn off the water, Kagome had left the bathroom door wide open for anyone to walk right in or possibly just get an eye full as they passed.

"Get dressed, quick!" Kagome hissed frantically without turning around to look at the naked hanyou behind her. Instead, she ran to the door, hoping to waylay her mother before she could enter the bathroom.

"Kagome, what in the world is going on in there? I thought I heard yelling..."

For once, Inuyasha actually attempted to do something Kagome told him to without putting up a fight, but the whole world seemed to be against Inuyasha that day, including the borrowed robe he'd been wearing earlier.

He just couldn't seem to find the sleeves!

Kagome laughed nervously while sending a quick prayer for the floor to open up and swallow Inuyasha before her mother could see him. "I'm sorry, mama. I was taking a bath and stubbed my toe..." She cringed at the rather pathetic excuse.

"Oh?" Her mother looked concern. "You must have hurt it very badly for you to yell so loudly. We'd better take a look at it."

Grabbing Kagome by the arm, her mother pushed her back towards the bathroom while trailing behind her.

"No! Mama! It really doesn't hurt anymore, so you don't have to-"

"Nonsense." She frowned when Kagome braced her hands on the doorway of the bathroom so she wouldn't get pushed any farther. "You need to let me look at it. You come home all the time after nearly facing death at the hands of some horrible demon, so it would be very anti-climatic for you to be done in by a stubbed toe that wasn't taken care of properly."

Kagome nearly fell over at that, giving her mother the advantage she needed to herd Kagome all the way into the bathroom.

They were just in time to see Inuyasha hastily tying the robe's belt around his waist.

"Inuyasha!" Mrs. Higurashi stopped pushing her daughter long enough to stare at the furiously blushing and very wet hanyou. "What are you doing in here? I thought Kagome said she was taking a bath-"

The younger girl gulped audibly, not liking the look her mother was getting. She'd stare at Kagome, and then at Inuyasha, before letting her gaze go back to Kagome again. Her eyes took in the fact that Kagome was soaking wet, as well as Inuyasha, the bathroom was a mess, and both looked terribly guilty. Not to mention the loud shouting she'd heard earlier.

What else was a mother supposed to think?

"Kagome, Inuyasha, I think you two need to clean up this mess and then meet me in the kitchen. The three of us need to have a little talk."

She gave them both a pointed look, clearly telling them that if they tried to run away, she'd hunt them down across time if she had to.

The two teens nodded silently, knowing they were trapped.

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The table was silent save the quiet trickling sounds made as Kagome's mother poured them each a hot cup of tea.

She wasn't saying anything to the nervous pair sitting across the table from her, and neither of them could bring themselves to start the conversation. Kagome was too busy figuring out how she could blame the whole thing on Inuyasha without sounding too petty (Well, he was the one that broke the pipe!), and Inuyasha was trying to decide if Kagome's mother really COULD hunt him down on the other side of the well if he decided to make a run for it.

They were both startled when Mrs. Higurashi finally decided to speak.

"I have to say, I am very upset with both of you right now." She told them seriously, making Kagome wince and Inuyasha's ears flatten. "I've trusted both of you more than another mother in my position probably would have, and this in how you repay me?"

Kagome nearly burst into tears right then. She wasn't sure why her mother was making such a huge deal over Inuyasha breaking the water pipe, but she was doing a great job of making her feel guilty.

Inuyasha, on the other hand, could only think about how quickly he might be able to make it to the well if he really pushed himself.

"I've welcomed you into my home, Inuyasha, and I've trusted you completely with my daughter's care. I even allowed you to sleep in her room, though I had reservations about it. But I knew that I could trust the two of you to do the right thing. Or, at least, I thought I could."

Now Kagome was feeling a little lost. What did all this have to do with what happened in the bathroom?

Inuyasha gazed longingly out the window.

Mrs. Higurashi folded her hands in front of her, and it made her look almost as if she were pleading. "Why, Kagome? Why couldn't you have just trusted your mother more? Why did I have to find out about you and Inuyasha like this, instead of telling me formally as you should have?"

The pair across from her stiffened.

"Not to say that I'm not happy to finally have you as a son, Inuyasha." She gave them both a watery smile, on the verge of tears. "But I was hoping for wedding, and a chance to have a talk with Kagome about the birds and the bees. I suppose it's too late for that, though."

Inuyasha blinked. What the hell did birds and bees have to do with anything?

Kagome gasped, her face turning red as she worked really hard to ignore the confused hanyou sitting beside her, least she turn even redder. "NO! Mama, it isn't too late! We weren't doing..." She paused, not quite sure how to word it. "We weren't doing THAT in the bathroom! We were just-"

"Kagome! How do you explain the fact that BOTH of you were in there, soaking wet, being loud, and making such a mess?" She turned to Inuyasha. "The next time the two of you decide to do anything like that, I need to ask you to be more careful. I know it's easy to get caught up in the passion of the moment, but please try a little harder to control your strength, okay dear?"

"Huh?" Inuyasha responded intelligently.

"MOM!" Kagome hissed. "I'm telling you the truth! We did not...have...SEX!" She shouted the last part, slamming both hands on the table at the same time to emphasize her point. She hated being so blunt, but she couldn't figure out any other way to get through to her mother.

When Inuyasha heard the word sex, anyone watching him could have sworn he turned to stone. Every single muscle in his body froze.

His mind, though, never stopped moving.

'Sex...Kagome's mother actually thinks we had sex...she thinks we did THAT together...' He couldn't seem to form any really relevant thoughts, and he seemed to be in a state similar to shock.

Kagome and her mother were arguing, but Inuyasha didn't really hear any of it. All he could do was go over the same thought in his mind again and again. He and Kagome...Kagome and he...they...

What did he really think about her mother making such an assumption? Was he embarrassed? Shocked? Upset? Did he have the urge to frantically deny it like he usually seemed to when someone would make a personal assumption about his and Kagome's relationship?

The answer to these questions shocked him more than anything else could have.

He didn't mind.

He didn't want to deny it.

Even if it wasn't true, the idea of people thinking Kagome belonged to him and that he had a solid claim in her appealed to him.

"Inuyasha? Hey, snap out of it!"

The hanyou was so bowled over by the revelations occurring in his mind that it took several moments of Kagome shaking his shoulder for him to snap out of his daze and look at her.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried in exasperation when she was finally sure that she had his attention. "Did you hear me? I said for you to tell mama that we didn't do anything in the bathroom, and that we haven't done anything period! She won't listen to me!"

Both women then waited expectantly for him to say something, whether it be in support of Kagome's claims, or against them.

Steeling his resolve, he clenched his fists and looked down at the table top in front of him before muttering something in a voice so low that both listeners almost missed it completely.

"We'll be more careful next time."

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LOL, I suppose this is something of a cliffhanger, because now I'm sure you are all wondering if he'll still be alive when the next chapter rolls around! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter! As always, review and let me know what you think. I'm having so much fun writing this story!