InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Pretending to Pretend ❯ Chapter 7

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

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

The next two weeks seemed to go by in a blur. After discussing it with Sango and Miroku, they both agreed to Kagome’s plan to stage a ‘setup’ lunch date between herself and Inuyasha, supposedly without either hanyou or miko being aware of it until they ‘realized’ that it was just the two of them at the noodle shop.

 

“Sango told me she couldn’t make it,” Kagome said. “But Miroku was supposed to be here.”

 

“Really? That’s funny, Miroku told me the same thing,” Inuyasha replied. “Except he told me Sango was still going to be here.”

 

With several eavesdropping witnesses Inuyasha and Kagome put their acting skills to the test as they each took turns confessing to ‘kinda sorta liking’ each other. Taking it up a notch, Inuyasha specifically made it a point to assure her that he was completely over Kikyou, and that it did not bother him that she was also a miko. He hadn’t been turned off to all miko just because of what Kikyou had done, and beyond that, because he was over his ex, he also wasn’t trying to secretly replace her. He ‘assured’ Kagome that he was not trying to use her as any kind of a possible copy of Kikyou just because they had a few superficial similarities.

 

“You’ve been my best friend for years,” he stated honestly, since hell, that part was definitely true. “Even when Kikyou and I were still together, and I guess looking back on it, she should’ve been my best friend, I always kinda felt closer to you, in a friend kind of way, opening up to you about things I never told her.” That part was also true, and Kagome already knew it, too, but he didn’t care who else heard it now because it was definitely nothing he was ashamed of admitting publicly.

 

He then asked her out to dinner that night. “Nothing fancy. How about we just grab a burger at Tsubaki’s Hideout?”

 

Kagome agreed, obviously, and that night at Tsubaki’s Hideout she had the Old West burger, like she’d originally wanted before switching to the Big Dog to spite Yura.

 

After that, it was like a race to the finish line. Inuyasha, Kagome, Sango and Miroku went to Shikon Arcade one day after school, with Inuyasha and Kagome disappearing upstairs when the others were busy because Kagome claimed she wanted to take pictures together in some of the various photo booths. Fortunately, for Inuyasha’s sake, Kagome wasn’t really that into the girlie photo booths so they only took a few pictures while they both pretended to have a good time doing it. Kagome covertly explained via whisper only he could hear that she wanted to be able to whip out the pictures at school to show Sango, using them as a prop to gush about her growing feelings for him.

 

After the photo session, Inuyasha put his hanyou skills to the test to win Kagome a cute stuffed teddy bear from one of the prize machines before the two of them headed back downstairs and played a few rounds of Battle Birds of Paradise. He’d also planned ahead, having told Miroku and Sango that ‘they’ would meet them there when Miroku had asked after school about whether or not everyone wanted to hit the arcade, so Inuyasha had taken Kagome separately in his car, which had been an uneventful drive, but which also meant that afterwards, once it was time to go, he was able to be the one to take her home.

 

This time, he did not just sit in his car, keeping an eye on her as she walked to her visible apartment door from the parking lot. True, if anything had happened to Kagome the previous times he’d taken her home he could’ve been there in an instant, because he had watched until she’d safely gotten inside before leaving, but now that they were ‘dating’ Inuyasha did the honorable thing by personally escorting Kagome up to her apartment door. He’d stealthily warned her in the car not to invite him in, just on the off chance of a neighbor overhearing, because he didn’t want them quite at that stage yet. The proper thing would be to decline so he’d rather she just didn’t ask, shyly clutching her teddy bear while thanking him for driving her home before ducking inside, and he’d smile like an idiot before walking back to his car. That was what he wanted so that was how Kagome played it, and as he walked back to his car with that stupid fake smile on his face he had to admit that Kagome was a damn good actress.

 

Showing Sango the pictures from the arcade went according to plan, too, as both girls gushed about how cute and funny the pictures were, thanks to the various cartoon backgrounds and even hats Kagome had programmed the machine to add to their pictures. That night, Inuyasha took Kagome out to dinner again, at a slightly more upscale ramen place than Hungry Ninja Noodles.

 

When the night of the new moon came back around, Kagome asked Inuyasha if he wanted her, or them, to come over, like they had last time, but he told her he was fine, that he wasn’t as much of a wreck as he’d been a month ago, promising her he’d eat something as he told her he was sure she’d appreciate having a night off. Of course, in reality there was nowhere else Kagome would’ve rather been than with Inuyasha during his most vulnerable time, the miko sure that it would’ve been better for him to have company than be alone with his thoughts, but after trying to hint at that on the phone and him only telling her once again that he was fine and wanted to be alone, she let it go, respecting his wishes. For the first time, even though they didn’t know it, they both cried themselves to sleep that night.

 

The following day at school everything was fine, of course. Neither hanyou nor miko knew how truly upsetting the night before had been for the other person. All four friends had lunch at the ramen shop and then after class, even though Miroku didn’t have to work, Inuyasha decided to let Miroku and Sango have a reprieve so that the monk and slayer could spend some alone time actually enjoying their very real relationship while Inuyasha took Kagome for a walk through the mall. He would’ve happily bought her whatever she wanted but she politely said there was nothing she wanted, nothing she needed. Keeping in character she added cheesily that all she wanted and needed was his company.

 

When the weekend came back around Inuyasha actually drove Kagome to her family shrine on Saturday morning, saying he had nothing else to do so he might as well, and just on the off chance that one of her neighbors saw them it would look good. He didn’t hang around, knowing she had work to do, but having seen her that morning was all he needed to get him through the rest of the day on his own. Sango worked Saturday mornings and Miroku worked Saturday evenings so the two usually had lunch together at Miroku’s apartment and he allowed them their alone time on that day, as well. He’d never butted in when he’d been with Kikyou and he didn’t want to become a burden to his friends now, the lonely dumped guy they always needed to keep company because he didn’t like being alone. He could be alone just fine, so long as it wasn’t his human night and he had seeing Kagome do her archery the next day to look forward to.

 

When Sunday arrived he drove out earlier than he should have, but he stayed out of the way while Kagome worked her usual hours in the shrine’s gift shop, which wasn’t hard to do because Souta ended up asking him if he wanted to play video games. He also figured, since the boy would find out eventually anyway and would probably even be mad if he thought they’d been trying to keep it a ‘secret’ from him, that he might as well go ahead and tell Kagome’s little brother that they were dating, to get Souta’s reaction to the news.

 

As predicted, Souta was definitely pleased, even saying that back when he’d been dating Kikyou he’d wished he would dump Kikyou and get with Kagome instead. Inuyasha just laughed it off, and distracted the boy easily enough since they were still playing a game at the time, but in his head he found himself wondering just what was wrong with Souta to be so happy over the notion of his sister dating a hanyou. He chalked it up to youthful ignorance, because Souta came from a good home and so he probably wasn’t aware of the true extent of hatred that existed in their world.

 

At least Kagome was aware, and she was also prepared to tough it out for his sake, which baffled him slightly less when the time came for Kagome to demonstrate her archery skills. Holy shit but was that girl a killer with her arrows, literally, should a war actually break out although that would hopefully never happen. But he understood a little more where her toughness came from, now. She turned fierce when she was shooting. This was a girl who’d take no crap from anyone. She wasn’t shoot first, ask questions later, but if you wronged her and hers she would make damn sure you felt her wrath.

 

As Inuyasha watched Kagome go through a prearranged routine, running and jumping, holding extra arrows in her shooting hand to fire as many as quickly as possible, as she hit various targets that were all scattered around in the part of the shrine that had been roped off years ago for her archery practice, Inuyasha was transported back in time. Currently dressed in traditional miko robes as she was, he could easily see her protecting a village back in Feudal times, her arrows striking either attacking youkai or even raiding human bandits. And she was using her powers. Her arrows glowed a bright pale blue as they soared through the air, the feeling tingling against his skin like mild static electricity as he watched from a safe distance.

 

While he might be slightly less amazed, now, as to why it was that Kagome was willing to face down a world full of prejudice just to be his friend in his time of need, he was no less amazed by her, as a person. In fact, his amazement had just about tripled. Quadrupled! He told her so during the drive home that evening. Miroku’s stories hadn’t done her justice.

 

He told Miroku the same thing the next day at school, too, not just with the hope of it getting back to Kikyou but also just because, just generally speaking, he should be bragging about how awesome he thought Kagome was since they were ‘dating’ now. Besides, when it came to the bow, she was freakin’ awesome and he didn’t care who knew he felt that way. If they didn’t believe him, they could go watch her do her routine, themselves.

 

“I have done the occasional show at the shrine,” she told him later, the miko not humble when it came to her archery skills because yeah, she knew she was bad ass.

 

“As well you should. You should sell tickets,” he complemented with a chuckle as they sat together on a random bench on campus, just killing time until her last class of the day.

 

“Who’d want to go see some freak show?” some random bitch asked sarcastically as she walked by just then, glaring disdainfully at the two of them. She didn’t stick around for any kind of a response.

 

Inuyasha sighed, his ears lowering a tad as he glanced down at his feet.

 

“It starts.”

 

Reaching over, Kagome grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go, smiling when he looked up at her in surprise.

 

“I used to get that all the time from kids at school when I was a kid. For all we know, she really just thinks miko are freaks, and it didn’t even have anything to do with me dating you,” she told him reassuringly.

 

He raised an eyebrow at her.

 

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

 

She giggled.

 

“Maybe not feel better, to know that I get my own fair share of prejudiced reactions, but at least you know that I understand what you go through, at least to a certain degree, and you can better understand why I don’t care who might have something negative to say about our relationship.”

 

He smiled at her.

 

“I was right, you’re amazing.”

 

Feeling her heart start to beat just a little bit faster as he looked at her like that, Kagome quickly had to remind herself that he, at least, was only acting and didn’t really feel that way.

 

Fortunately, since it really was nearly time for her last class of the day, she was able to play off her sudden increase in heart rate as she suddenly said, “Oh crap, what time is it?” while pulling out her cell phone. “Phew, five more minutes.”

 

He chuckled, but then rose to his feet before helping her to stand as well.

 

“Better get going. I don’t want you to be late,” he stated honestly. “I’ll see you this evening.”

 

Even though she wanted to groan, she beamed at him, instead, a bright fake smile that he knew was fake that made him laugh even harder as he watched her walk away.

 

He’d asked her out to dinner earlier, to a nice restaurant, a French style restaurant, and while she’d acted appropriately surprised she had secretly been grateful he’d at least warned her it was coming. When she’d publicly tried to wriggle out of it, telling him that she didn’t have anything nearly nice enough to wear to a place like that, he’d stuck to the script by assuring her that she needn’t worry, he’d buy her whatever she needed.

 

Just to make a point, since they’d both known she would obviously say yes, Kagome had first added that she was not dating him for his money, that he didn’t have to buy her nice clothes or take her to fancy restaurants to make her like him, and he’d appreciated that she’d added that last part well within earshot of some of Kikyou’s underlings, but then he’d ‘insisted’ as she’d known he would, telling her that he was happy to spend the money on her, that he wanted to buy her nice clothes and take her out to fancy restaurants, and knowing it was time, Kagome had ‘happily’ accepted.

 

It wasn’t like she actually hated shopping. She was girlie enough to go gaga over the nice dress, and nice jewelry, and nice hair and makeup they did for her at the nice salon. Inuyasha had spared no expense and she felt like a pampered princess.

 

When they actually got to the nice restaurant she still felt like a princess from a fairy tale, with Prince Charming by her side, dressed as she was in a rich dark blue sequin gown with him in a matching black and dark blue suit. Everything was so perfectly picturesque that even the distasteful looks sent their way by a couple of the other patrons did nothing to sour her mood, especially when the wait staff greeted Inuyasha seemingly sincerely, calling him Mr. Taisho before leading the two of them to their quiet, exclusive table in the back.

 

“In a place like this, they don’t care if your blood is human or youkai just so long as it’s blue,” he told her quietly.

 

Of course, the very first time he’d brought Kikyou there there had almost been an incident, when the maître d’ had acted as if he’d thought they were posers, but thanks to his father Inuyasha had known how to act and what to say, and instead of losing his cool and causing a scene when the headwaiter had asked “May I help you?” in a clipped tone, he had merely informed him of their reservation. The surname Taisho had been enough to do it because, even though they were in a human district, his family’s various companies were just about always in the news, in good ways. There were no scandals involving the Taisho name. Unless, of course, that restaurant had wanted to cause a racial incident by discriminating against Toga Taisho’s youngest and mixed blood son.

 

Some had tried to make Inuyasha’s very existence a scandal, back when he’d been born, but there was really nothing there since Sesshoumaru’s mother had been a business mating to produce an heir and they had been happily separated for many decades prior to Toga meeting Izayoi. The only scandal was that his second mate was a human, but other people had applauded the move, for someone as powerful as Toga Taisho to not care about image, to marry for love and not reject his hanyou son, instead expecting Inuyasha to take his rightful place in the company alongside his older half-brother. He was a beacon of hope to mixed families everywhere, who were slowly but surely becoming more and more commonplace.

 

So upon immediately realizing just who Inuyasha Taisho was, the maître d’ had bowed in apology for his initial rudeness before quickly showing them to their table, and he’d undoubtedly explained to the rest of the staff who he was because their entire meal had gone off without a hitch.

 

Now, as Inuyasha brought Kagome to the same restaurant, nobody dared comment on the fact that he was with a different girl, and Kagome had just about the best time of her life. She’d been nervous, at first, that the place would be too stuffy, that she’d be afraid of embarrassing herself by the simplest thing, like accidentally clanking her western style silverware against the plate, but even though she was sure they were probably just faking their hospitality for propriety’s sake the wait staff was fabulous and made the entire experience seem laid back and relaxing.

 

It also helped that Kagome didn’t feel like she had to be in character for the time being, doing the layer upon layer of deception. There were no fellow students from Tama University there, nobody possibly listening in who might also then possibly inform Kikyou of what they’d heard. She could just be herself, but since it was an intimate setting, she also didn’t have to worry about toning it down to keep it in the realm of ‘just friends’ like she usually did. They were on a date, after all, or at least the staff in the restaurant certainly thought so, so in Kagome’s mind that meant she could act accordingly, which was no act at all.

 

After dinner, which had been topped off with an unbelievable dessert, it took Kagome until they were a couple of minutes into the car ride home to fully remind herself that as far as Inuyasha was concerned, they’d just been on a fake date.

 

“That. Food. Was. Amazing.” Punctuating every word, Kagome met Inuyasha’s eyes when he glanced her way for a second, offering him a grateful smile and nod.

 

“I knew you’d like it,” he told her smugly, as he then proceeded to tell her about all of the other various restaurants he planned on taking her to over the next few weeks.

 

This time, she did groan, which only made him laugh of course.

 

“I’m going to spend some money on you and you’re going to love it,” he joked.

 

“Only if we also get to do what I want to do,” she countered then. “Fair’s fair, and if we were really dating you’d ask my opinion, and want to do what I wanted,” she emphasized.

 

He couldn’t deny she had a valid point. While he didn’t say it out loud in that moment, he was sure Kagome knew that, originally, it had been Kikyou who’d wanted to go to all those fancy restaurants. He’d been happy to oblige, of course, foolishly believing his girl deserved whatever she wanted, but originally, back in the beginning, the restaurants definitely hadn’t been his idea.

 

He’d actually been afraid, at first, that they wouldn’t even be welcome, until his father had told him not to be afraid to tactfully throw his name around. Toga had definitely been right on that count, and he also hadn’t seen anything wrong with Inuyasha wanting to treat Kikyou to such things since he felt the same way, always treating Izayoi like his queen, but the difference there was that Izayoi would’ve fallen in love with him even if he were broke. In fact, she hadn’t even known he was rich, at first, just like Inuyasha knew Kagome had befriended him before finding out about his own money, and he also knew she wasn’t even into fancy restaurants.

 

“Well, to be honest, I’m kinda doing the restaurant thing on purpose,” he admitted then, earning a snort from the woman sitting to his left.

 

“Duh,” she said simply, which had him laughing again.

 

She grinned despite herself, shaking her head a little.

 

“Okay, I get it,” she added then. “You wanna pay me back for helping you out. You feel indebted to me, and okay, I admit it, dinner was fun, and I’m sure I’ll have a good time at the other restaurants, too, and it does make sense for you to want to drag me...I mean take me to such nice places.”

 

He laughed again.

 

“But if you want realism then it can’t look too much like you’re trying to change me into something I’m not,” she finished pointedly.

 

He clicked his tongue, nodding in agreement as her words rolled around in his head.

 

“So what’d you have in mind?” he asked her then. “If we were really dating, what, as my new girlfriend, would you want to do?”

 

“Maybe less expensive lunches or dinners to balance out all the fancy dinners?” she suggested. “Like at western chain places, like KFC or Pizza Hut?”

 

He nodded.

 

“Definitely doable,” he said. “You know I’ll eat anything,” he added with a laugh.

 

“Oh, and karaoke!”

 

He balked at that one.

 

“Karaoke?”

 

She grinned rather evilly.

 

“Yup, karaoke. If you still insist on taking me out to expensive restaurants, then I’m gonna to make you sing for my supper.”

 

He sighed over dramatically but then said, “Deal.”

 

When they got to her apartment Kagome thought she might actually be able to get Inuyasha to come inside this time, just to chat in real life because obviously they wouldn’t be doing anything else, but there was no need, he said, since they had their game plan pretty well figured out. Now that the game was over for the night, Inuyasha jokingly stated that he was ready to crawl back into bed with his solitude until the light of day forced him to drag himself back out into the world of the living again. The fact that he could at least joke about his own misery, now, was a good sign to Kagome, which at least gave her some hope. Inuyasha also told her to go ahead and tell Sango during their ‘girl talk’ routine that he’d kissed her goodnight, before he promptly turned around to head back to his car without actually kissing her goodnight.

 

Kagome waited until after she was behind closed doors to sigh. Then very carefully stepping out of her black high heel shoes, she made her way into her bedroom and watched in her free standing oval full length mirror as she pulled down the discreet side zipper until the dress whooshed to the floor, leaving her standing in nothing but lacy black bra and panties.

 

She understood Inuyasha’s lingering feeling of loneliness more than she figured he realized. In fact, she understood it all: feeling unloved and unlovable, craving that closeness but fearing it would never happen. Maybe, one day, she’d know what it was like to have a man standing behind her, tenderly unzipping her dress for her, but she doubted it.

 

The next day at school there was nothing to indicate that Kagome wasn’t her usual, cheerful self, of course, and she did indeed tell Sango, during their usual meeting time for girl talk those days, of Inuyasha kissing her goodnight when he dropped her off after dinner. When the guys had their version of the same conversation Miroku asked Inuyasha ‘how far’ he’d managed to get, enabling the seemingly appalled hanyou to explain that he’d only kissed her goodnight at the door, and that he had not gone inside her apartment, nor had he even tried to. He wasn’t that kind of a guy, and Kagome wasn’t that kind of a girl, and they were friends first, and he didn’t want to rush into anything and ruin their friendship and to Miroku it was a lot of blah blah blah insert scripted lines here but he did appreciate that Inuyasha was trying his hardest to spare Kagome’s reputation.

 

For the next few days it was much of the same, with the four of them again enjoying their routine lunch date at the noodle shop across from campus although now they tried to make it seem more like double dating, and then when the weekend came back around, while Inuyasha let Kagome take herself out to her family shrine on Saturday morning, when he came to pick her up late Sunday afternoon he took them out to a nice, normal dinner at Pizza Hut on the way home.

 

The next day, after school, Inuyasha even took Kagome to a karaoke place, where she proceeded to own him with her absolutely flawless singing voice. Damn that girl had a set of pipes on her. The next day, during lunch at Hungry Ninja Noodles, hanyou and miko decided to officially ‘announce’ to their friends that they’d both mutually figured they were past the supposedly experimental dating stage. They were now officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

 

“Well it’s about time, if you ask me,” Miroku said with a grin as he took a sip of his soda.

 

“We’ve only been dating for a couple of weeks, Miroku, sheesh,” Kagome playfully complained before slurping a bite of her ramen.

 

“Yeah, but you’ve known each other how long?”

 

Inuyasha gave the houshi a funny look, wondering just what he was trying to get at.

 

“You know, I wasn’t exactly available until only about two months ago,” he pointed out.

 

“And even if I’d already felt this way about him,” Kagome added carefully, “it wouldn’t have been right to say anything while he was hurting.”

 

Sango nodded thoughtfully to that, suspecting Kagome had put much more truth into that last statement than Inuyasha realized, although she too wondered what her boyfriend was trying to pull with his comment.

 

“I’m definitely glad you two didn’t hook up on the rebound,” she decided to say, in support of the ruse.

 

“Yeah,” Inuyasha agreed. “Getting dumped kinda hurts, so I had to get over that pain, first, before my heart was ready to even start thinking about getting back out there.”

 

“I’m just glad that you finally realized that, sometimes, what you think you’re missing has been right in front of you all along,” Miroku stated wisely, making Kagome blush despite herself.

 

She had no idea what Miroku was trying to pull, either, but if he actually suspected her real feelings on the subject she supposed it didn’t really matter too much in that moment since what he’d said still worked just fine for their game, too.

 

“That’s true,” she decided to agree, as she turned and met Inuyasha’s eyes, the hanyou sitting beside her on her left with Sango across from her and Miroku across from Inuyasha. “I don’t know what it was that first made me realize I was falling.”

 

Meeting and holding her gaze, Inuyasha fully believed Kagome was faking it, and he seamlessly played along as he responded with, “Me too. I don’t know what it was, but just suddenly, I realized I was no longer feeling that void in my life, because you’d so expertly filled it without even trying.”

 

“Would you two like to be alone?” Miroku teased then, which would have shattered the ‘moment’ happening between hanyou and miko had it been real. As it was, Inuyasha only pretended to act flustered, and then Kagome expertly changed the subject.

 

Just when she’d gotten good at the arm throwing technique they’d helped her learn, their martial arts circle just had to go and start studying other moves she was also having trouble with, she playfully lamented, earning vows from both Inuyasha as well as Sango that they would help her with anything else she was having trouble getting the hang of.

 

“Maybe I should ask you to help me with my math, too, while we’re at it,” Kagome said to Inuyasha then, with a laugh of course, because she wasn’t really intending for him to take her seriously. But he nodded all the same.

 

“If you need the help, absolutely,” he promised.

 

“Uh-huh...” Miroku chimed back in then. “He’s going to come over to your place to help you with your ‘math,’” he said with air quotes.

 

“Sheesh, Miroku. Who do you think I am, you?” Inuyasha shot back, earning a snorted laugh from Sango, who nearly choked on her soda.

 

“Besides, we can totally use the public library,” Kagome added after her amusement over Sango’s reaction died back down a little, her statement earning a nod of agreement from Inuyasha.

 

It wasn’t that either of them didn’t trust themselves to be alone in one of their apartments just the two of them. If it was to help Kagome with her math then that’s all they would be doing, end of discussion. But why waste a perfectly good opportunity to be lovey-dovey in plain view of other students?

 

Fortunately, the beeping of Miroku’s alarm on his cellphone prevented any of them from needing to come up with yet another topic of conversation, as it was time to finish up their lunch and head back across the street to school before the houshi was late for his next class. That afternoon after school they went to the arcade again, for a couple of hours, where Kagome thankfully did not torture Inuyasha with more pictures in any of the photo booths. He was happy to win her another stuffed animal, though. Then later that evening it was time to meet up with their circle at, of all places, a karaoke hangout, but Inuyasha kept his smile on like a trouper, and after a few people jokingly pressured him into it he even sang a cheesy duet with Kagome, after they made their second relationship announcement, letting everyone from their martial arts circle know they were officially together. Everyone accept Kikyou, of course, who was thankfully a no-show to that event as well, but Inuyasha knew she’d find out soon enough.

 

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

As the days got colder and shorter, our friends hung out at the arcade after class less often, but they still always tried to go to their circle’s after school outings, even when Miroku couldn’t make it because he had to work. Sometimes Sango still went with them, and sometimes, when she felt like making a special dinner for when Miroku got home, since they each had a key to the other’s apartment, Inuyasha and Kagome would go on their circle’s outings alone, just the two of them. Of course, not all of those get-togethers were blessedly Kikyou-free, but the hanyou and his ‘new girlfriend’ played it off like champs, everyone buying their happy couple routine, which really got under Kikyou’s skin, even though she refrained from saying anything nasty while the lot of them were out in public together. She even wore her own fake smile most of the time, but Inuyasha could smell the anger coming off of her in waves. That, of course, only made him smile all the more.

 

As predicted, as Halloween neared Kagome was deep into her plans for what she and Inuyasha would be wearing as a couple. He’d never really cared much for Halloween, truth be told. It was a human holiday; the youkai of the world had always found it silly that one night out of the year humans would dress up as them and it was somehow considered ‘fun,’ yet on a day-to-day basis most humans would rather not associate with youkai in their daily lives. Growing up in a human district, he’d also had the ‘pleasure’ (insert sarcasm here) of being teased by his fellow classmates every single year that he was already in costume, or that he was ‘born ready for Halloween’ or any other such variation thereof. For Kagome, though, and for the sake of their ruse, he would go along with it. Knowing how he felt, she’d promised to come up with the perfect costume idea. One that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was half youkai, but yet also one that would make use of his claws and fangs rather than them spoiling the illusion.

 

He was just glad that Kikyou hadn’t been into Halloween. Stupid bitch would’ve probably had him wearing a collar and leash otherwise. His stupid ass would have probably agreed to it, too. Anything to make her happy.

 

Looking back on his time with Kikyou filled him with disgust those days, but Inuyasha supposed that was a vast improvement over crippling depression and loneliness. He’d since come to the conclusion that he didn’t need love and he no longer cared. Or at least, as Miroku would say, all things happened for a reason, as they’re meant to, or some other such Buddhist nonsense along those lines. The point was, he had decided to just take life one day at a time, and any life that had Kagome in it as his best friend, no matter how lonely he was in the love department, was definitely better than life before Kagome, so he would take whatever he could get.