InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One Step Forward, Two Steps Back ❯ Step 7: Is that your hand on my CHEST?!? ( Chapter 7 )

Have fun reading, and don't forget to review!

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Disclaimer: Who says that Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha? Do you see a dog collar with a tag stating this fact around his neck? The only collar I see is the one that Kagome put on him, so the only logical conclusion would be that she owns him, right? Of course, logic has no place around people who act like animated characters really exist...

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Chapter Seven

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The next day dawned bright and clear, the weather perfect for traveling. Everyone in the group was awake early, and they were determined to get a head start on a shard rumor that Miroku had gotten from a fairly reliable source. It would take them about a day and a half to reach their intended destination, and that was only if they traveled as quickly as possible and avoided stopping unless strictly necessary.

Obviously, that meant Kagome would have to ride on Inuyasha's back while Sango and Miroku rode Kirara.

The school girl wasn't sure she really wanted to be that close to Inuyasha, though normally she enjoyed getting the chance to travel that way. But he had been acting so odd lately that she was more than a little wary of what he might do. Admittedly, she was also still a little angry with him, so having to depend on Inuyasha to help her wasn't something she particularly relished.

As they moved swiftly through the forest, Kagome couldn't help but note that Inuyasha's palms, which were pressed firmly against the bare skin of her legs, seemed much more sweaty than normal. In fact, it was unusual for the hanyou to sweat much at all, unless he was in the middle of a high exertion battle. His ears were also staying pressed unusually close to his skull, showing that he was less concerned with staying aware of his surrounding than usual. Such things were normally a sure sign that he was worried about something, or extremely preoccupied.

But what in the world could possibly have him so distracted?

Glancing off to her right, Kagome could see Kirara, Sango, Shippo, and Miroku in the air just slightly higher than they were, and it gave the young girl the perfect vantage point to see everyone's faces. Shippo was clinging to the fire cat's head and looking rather silly with a goofy grin on his face, while behind him, Sango had an indiscernible expression on hers. Every now and then she would glance behind her at Miroku before looking back to the front.

As for him, Miroku had a very self-satisfied expression, and he would glance at Inuyasha occasionally with what could only have been amusement.

Kagome shook her head in confusion, unable to figure out why everyone around her seemed to be acting so odd. Well, Shippo was being fairly normal, but as for everyone else...what was their problem?

'I wonder if it would screw up history too much if I introduced the concept of therapy to this era...' She mused.

Heaven knows they all needed it.

Especially her.

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It wasn't even noon yet, and Inuyasha had already discovered that trying to act like Miroku was a lot harder than it had first seemed.

No matter how hard he'd tried, every single idea that came to his mind ended up getting tossed to the side because of the simple fact that Inuyasha didn't have the courage to follow through with them. And for him, admitting that he didn't have the courage to do something was a hard pill to swallow.

He'd spent almost the entire night before staring at Kagome's sleeping form and trying to think of what he could do that would prove himself to Miroku once and for all. At first when he'd gotten started with his all night planning session, the hanyou had been optimistic that it wouldn't be too hard to come up with human courting tactics. After all, he'd witnessed such a thing plenty of times, right?

He had, all right, but it didn't take him long to realize that almost every example he could come up with featured Miroku and a very painful end result to whatever the perverted monk had tried.

Not exactly the best example to be followed by someone who actually wanted things to go well.

Of course, beyond the things he'd picked up from Miroku, Inuyasha knew a few basic ways that did work, like flowers, gifts, etc. But he knew things like that wouldn't go very far in getting the monk convinced that he really was serious no matter how much females liked them. Whatever he did, it had to have much more permanent results...something that would show Miroku that his attraction to Kagome was physical as well.

But how the heck could he accomplish something like that when he had no real idea of how to go about it beyond Miroku's bad example?

It was a tough question, indeed....and one that, until it could be answered, would leave Inuyasha with only one real option available to convince Miroku that he was serious. One that he REALLY didn't like...

He was going to have to sink to Miroku's level and just hope that Kagome wouldn't end up hating him for it. Or worse!

Inuyasha shivered at the thought of the damage she could do to him if she tried.

Even if he was being rather stupid about the whole situation, to Inuyasha's credit, in all of his plotting and planning geared towards proving himself to Miroku, he never once considered showing interest in just any girl to get the other man off his back, even to make things simpler for himself. After all, it would probably be easier for him to hit on a girl with whom no feelings were involved. Then it wouldn't matter if she ended up hating him or not.

But for the hanyou, the only one that had any place in his scheming was Kagome, and he was determined that if he HAD to make a fool of himself, it would be over her and nobody else.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome's quiet voice suddenly spoke right in his ear, startling him out of his thoughts. She was leaning slightly forward against his right shoulder as if speaking in a normal human's ear. He chalked it up to habit and said nothing. "Can we go ahead and stop for lunch? I'm starting to get a cramp in my leg from not moving it."

"Keh! Whatever."

He sounded normal enough, but inside he was cursing himself for letting so much time pass without making any progress. He could feel Miroku's eyes on him again for what had to be the hundredth time that morning, and he was getting really sick of it. Something had to be done, and done SOON.

If not, Inuyasha would not be responsible for his actions towards the other man.

The group all managed to situate themselves in a loose circle before Kagome dug through her bag and handed out some ready to eat foods she had brought through the well. Kagome was seated between Miroku and Inuyasha with Shippo in her lap, while Sango sat opposite between the two men with Kirara. Not exactly a setup Inuyasha liked since he still wasn't quite over his paranoia of Miroku's wondering hands where Kagome was concerned, but it was certainly the lesser of two evils at the moment.

Surprisingly, everything was relatively normal until near the end of the meal when Inuyasha had taken a drink from their supply of water.

"Kagome-sama?" Miroku spoke up right after Inuyasha had replaced the cap and set down the bottle. "Could you please do me a favor and pass the water? These dried potatoes you brought are very good, but they quickly dry out a person's mouth." The whole time he spoke, he kept his eyes on Inuyasha instead of Kagome, the one he was actually speaking to.

"Sure." Kagome passed him the bottle, not noticing anything strange.

"Thank you." Unscrewing the cap, Miroku kept eye contact with Inuyasha as he took a deep, long drink of the lukewarm water. When he was finished, he slowly licked his lips in a very suggestive manner.

Several things then happened at once.

Having seen what passed between the two men, Sango nearly choked on her own food when she caught on to what Miroku was obviously trying to do, and Inuyasha was having much the same problem. Kagome, worried about both of her companions and their sudden choking grabbed the water bottle from Miroku and offered it to Inuyasha, who was the closest to her, only to have him knock the offending item away in a near panic.

Poor Sango ended up getting splashed with most of the bottles contents.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried, upset that he'd done such a thing when she had only been trying to help him. "What did you do that for? You got poor Sango all wet, and now we're going to have to get more water!"

"I-It's okay." Sango gasped out, still coughing a bit. For once, she didn't blame Inuyasha in the least for freaking out. "It was just a little water, Kagome-chan. It's not like I'm going to melt or anything." She smiled weakly at the frowning girl across from her and tried her hardest to ignore the muffled sounds of laughter coming from the soon-to-be-dead monk next to her. Shippo was also laughing, but no one paid any attention to him for once.

"Oi, stop laughing, bouzou!" Inuyasha was growling and looking very much like a cornered animal as he glared at the man across from him. "It was all your fault and you know it!"

Miroku let out one last sound of amusement before managing to return the exaggeratedly pious and innocent expression he usually wore back to his face. It must have taken every ounce of training he'd ever had to do it, too. "I really don't know what you are speaking of, Inuyasha. How could I have been the one to cause that little accident? Did you see me move, Kagome-sama?" He turned questioning eyes towards her.

"I...uh...." Why in the world was Miroku getting blamed by Inuyasha, and why was Sango glaring at the monk as if she agreed? What had started out as a simple accident in Kagome's eyes was beginning to look more and more suspicious. Was something going on that she didn't know about? They were all acting so strange...not that they didn't always act strange. Just worse than usual.

Kagome's eyes scanned the group warily. "Would someone please tell me what is going on here?"

Miroku blinked innocently at her, not at all shaken by her sudden suspicion. "Going on? Whatever do you mean, Kagome-sama?"

"Don't give me that. You guys are all acting really strange!" She gave everyone a hard stare, causing Inuyasha to squirm nervously. "I'll ask one more time. WHAT...IS...GOING...ON?"

Sango bit her lip in indecision as Inuyasha continued to fidget guiltily. Should she go ahead and tell Kagome what she thought was going on? Granted, she really didn't have any hard evidence beyond the things she'd been witnessing since the day before, but what else could be causing Inuyasha to act like he thought Miroku might jump him at any moment?

'But what if I'm wrong? I don't really want to embarrass anyone, and I still don't have a good reason WHY Miroku would be doing something so twisted as to make Inuyasha believe he...wants him.' Sango grimaced, the idea being more than a little disturbing to her. 'Maybe I'd better wait and confront Miroku first before I start making accusations in front of other people.'

Making her decision, Sango opened her mouth to respond when Miroku beat her to it.

"You are right, Kagome-sama. Something IS going on, and it is wrong of us to have kept it from you." He gazed at her, completely solemn and serious as he prepared to enlighten Kagome in some way or another. "You see, Inuyasha and I are-"

Sango caught a momentary flash of panic in Inuyasha's eyes before the hanyou suddenly lunged forward and did the last thing anyone would have ever thought him capable of.

He'd latched one of his clawed hands onto Kagome's chest.

Admittedly, his hand wasn't directly on Kagome's chest. It was actually a little above due to the fact that he just couldn't bring himself to be that brazen. But the fact that he'd even gotten that close to his intended target was shocking enough as it was.

The clearing was completely still and silent for several long moments.

"I-Inu-" Kagome stared at the face only a few inches from her own, acutely aware of where his hand was and unable to form a complete thought. Even saying something as simple as his name was proving to be a difficult task. "Inuyasha?"

"Ewww, get your hands off her, you disgusting pervert!" Shippo was clinging to Kagome's shoulder, opposite to the one closest to Inuyasha's hand. "Kagome, make him let go!"

Sango watched the whole scene with a shocked gaze. Who knew Inuyasha had it in him to do something like that when pressured hard enough? Poor guy must have been terrified that Miroku was about to say something really for him to react like that. Miroku...

Sharp eyes glanced towards the monk just as Kagome's face started to darken with anger at the horrified hanyou, and Sango noticed the self-satisfied smile that was spread across the dark-haired man's face while he thought no one was looking. So this was the result he was after when he almost told Kagome the truth about what was going on. He knew Inuyasha would probably panic and do something stupid without thinking anything through like he normally does.

Sango's faced darkened. 'We can't have him getting away with that...'

"Kagome-chan, stop!" The demon slayer cried out to her friend before she could yell Inuyasha's subduing word. He and Kagome both turned to stare at her, one expectant and the other almost hopeful as they stood comically frozen with his hand still on her chest. "You shouldn't be angry with Inuyasha. He...he..." She stopped for a moment, ransacking her brain for a viable excuse. "There was a spider on you and he was trying to kill it!"

'That was brilliant...' Sango had to refrain from slapping her forehead for her pathetic excuse.

Kagome blinked, her anger suddenly gone. "Is that what happened?"

Sango nodded in relief, thankful for the first time that Kagome could be terribly gullible on occasion. "Yeah, I saw it just before it happened. Ugly spider...really ugly...but small! So I guess that's why you didn't notice it."

"Oh." Kagome turned to look at Inuyasha. "Thank you, then."

As if he'd been burned, Inuyasha quickly removed his hand from her chest and tried to act as normal as he possibly could. "Keh. Whatever."

While all this had occurred, Miroku's smile had fallen momentarily. But as usual, he always managed to look on the bright side of things and realized that he'd made excellent progress. In all his plotting, he hadn't expected Inuyasha to attempt a grope so soon! Making a few mental calculations in his head, he figured that he'd have the hanyou making passes at Kagome like a pro in no time at all.

But one thing that did make him frown once again was Sango's unexpected interference. She was obviously on to him, no doubt about that. It was a very undesirable complication since he WAS doing this just for the chance to see her beautiful body without getting beaten to a pulp for it, but it was one he was almost sure he could deal with. He and Sango would have to have a little talk very soon...

Smiling widely at the group and causing Sango to give him a suspicious glance, Miroku suddenly stood up. "Well, now that our afternoon meal is out of the way, shall we move on?"

Yes, they would have to have a talk.

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Yay, I finally got another one finished! I loved how it turned out. The whole situation is just far too amusing to me, and it is only going to get more entertaining as we go. Especially once Sango and Miroku have their talk. Can you guess how he is going to explain his behavior to her, and actually manage to get her to allow him to continue without her spilling the beans to Kagome? Stay tuned to find out!