InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tainted ❯ Chapter 18 ( Chapter 18 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: TassanaBurrfoot 
The end of an intense tale... or is it?
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Hentai / Horror / Suspense / Thriller | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.16.2012 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 439 | Status: Completed
The end of an intense tale... or is it?
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Hentai / Horror / Suspense / Thriller | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.16.2012 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 439 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or its characters. I make no money from this story.
As Kagome put her son down for a nap, she thought she heard a noise outside. She glanced out the window, but didn’t see anything. Giving her son a final gaze, clipped the baby monitor to her belt loop and she left her bedroom.
As she walked down the stairs, she heard her mom talking to someone. The woman sounded overjoyed and extremely excited. Curious, Kagome decided to investigate. She followed the sound of her mother’s voice to the back door where she saw a white head peeking over the top of her mother’s head and red clothing framing her mother’s figure.
“Inuyasha?” the miko muttered.
Her mother stepped out of the way, her hands clasped together against her chest. She wore the largest smile Kagome had ever seen on her.
To the miko’s surprise, the hanyou stood in the doorway. It had been a year since she had seen him. Her eyes widened as she approached the hanyou to give him a hug. As he wrapped her in his embrace, Kagome bit back her tears.
She looked up into his golden eyes. “How did you get through the well? I thought it had closed,” she inquired.
He nodded. “It did,” he replied, his own eyes a bit watery. “And I think it is again. I don’t know exactly what happened. I’ve been so… I’ve missed you. I went to the well and just leaned against it, wishing you would come through. Suddenly, it glowed a bright blue and I knew that if I jumped in it, I would come here.”
She gazed at the hanyou sadly. “But, if it’s closed again, then that means you can’t go back,” she told him.
He brushed some of her hair out of her eyes. “I know,” he whispered. “I just…” He sighed. “I know you love Bankotsu and there’s… I don’t want to pressure you and I’ll never try to force you into something you don’t want, but… if it’s all right with you, I’d… I can’t live without you in my life, Kagome. And I don’t want to. Even if we never become… I would really like to stay with you. Maybe I could help you raise the baby? He needs a father figure. I know what it’s like to grow up without a father and… No child should have to go through that.”
As Inuyasha spoke, Kagome held a hand over her mouth. Tears fell from her eyes as he spoke of being a father to her son. Before she could say anything, though, he continued, “I’m not asking you to marry me. I know you aren’t ready for that. I just want to be in your life. You’re my best friend, Kagome. You’re the only person who ever truly understood me and the first one to ever accept me for who I am. You don’t know how much that means to me. I’ll do whatever I have to here. I can learn how to live in this place. You could teach me.”
Kagome wanted so badly to say, “Yes.” What he offered was more than she could ever imagine. At the same time, she just did not see him being happy in her world. “This isn’t like the Feudal Era,” she told him. “You can’t whip out Tetsusaiga every time someone says or does something offensive. Nor can you whip out Tetsusaiga when someone smells funny or there’s trouble. Fighting, especially in public, is against the law here and so is killing. You could go to jail and even be sentenced to death. You’d have to wear different clothes, too, and we’d have to figure out what to do about your hair and ears. People might not care so much about your fangs or claws or eyes and they might not even care about your hair, but they’ll notice the ears. And people here are much worse than people in the Feudal Era about such things.
“Also, if you are here, then you’d have to get an education and a job. It’s a lot to do, Inuyasha, and I’m not sure…”
“I can do it,” he told her. “I know how to read and write, so that’s a start. I can also add and subtract, which I know is important.”
“It is, but it’s not enough,” she explained. “You need to know multiplication, division, history, science… Things are a lot more complicated in this age. And what about your sword? Your clothes? You couldn’t have either of them on the street.”
He nodded and glanced down at their clasped hands. “I know it’s a lot,” he agreed. “I know there are things I’ll need to learn and things I’ll need to change, but I can do this. I want to do this. This past year has been a living hell for me. Miroku and Sango are so happy together. They had twins, you know. And Shippo’s almost never around. He’s been learning fox stuff from the fox elders. Rin’s staying in the village now, learning about herbs and medicine from Kaede. I see Kohaku sometimes, but he’s usually with Sango, learning how to be a demon slayer.”
It filled Kagome’s heart to know her friends were doing so well, but she could see the loneliness in Inuyasha’s eyes as he spoke. She glanced at her mother who wore a sad expression on her face. “We could help him,” her mother said, causing the hanyou to gaze up at her. The woman continued, “We could take him shopping and help him get more appropriate clothing. I could get him some textbooks and workbooks to help him learn what he needs to know to get a GED and he could help your grandfather around the shrine in the meantime.”
“But…”
Her mother shook her head. “Even if he wanted to return to the Feudal Era, Kagome, how will he? The well is closed,” she told her daughter. “We can figure this out. We’ll have to, right?”
Kagome nodded and turned her attention back to Inuyasha. She sighed and gave him a smile. “I would love for you to be here, Inuyasha. Like you said, my son needs a father figure and, honestly, I need my friend.”
He smiled as he pulled her into an embrace. As the two friends hugged, Mrs. Higurashi clapped her hands together. “Alright, kids, I think it’s time for some shopping!”
Kagome laughed as she broke away from Inuyasha. “I wish I could go with you,” she told them both.
“Oh, well , that’s easy. Just go get my grandson and we can all go,” her mother commented.
Kagome pinched her lips in a slight frown. “I would, except I just put him down for his nap,” she explained. “You know how he gets if you wake him up.”
Inuyasha’s ears twitched as the sound of crying flooded the baby monitor. His eyes widened as Kagome sighed. “Then again, maybe we won’t have to worry about waking him…” the miko commented as she rushed upstairs to check on her son.
*8*
It took Inuyasha five years to get his GED. Within that time, Kagome finished school and the two of them got a three bedroom apartment. Inuyasha managed to finally get a job at a home improvement store while Kagome worked at a local coffee shop.
Of course, this was Inuyasha’s eighth job in one year. (It was his twentieth job overall.) For the most part, he was a good employee. He just had a slight problem with authority and tended to be a bit insensitive with customers. This job made up for his faults by having him work mostly in the back. He spent most of his time unloading trucks and going through claims.
His latest job loved him and he was promoted to a team leader within three months. They even had hopes to make him a manager some day.
Kagome did pretty well, also. She was currently attending college while working at the coffee shop. She had been at the shop for almost two years before they promoted her to shift manager. In school, she was studying to be a doctor.
Home life wasn’t so bad, either. Though Inuyasha shied away from being called “Dad,” he really loved the little boy. Oftentimes, Kagome would complain about Inuyasha spoiling the child, but the hanyou didn’t really care. He left the discipline to Kagome and settled on teaching the child how to read and write and count.
Even after six years (five years through the GED program, plus the one year before Inuyasha came to the modern era), Inuyasha and Kagome never really got together as a couple. They had their moments, but nothing ever came from it and Inuyasha did not push it.
Neither of them really dated. While they both worried about people learning of Inuyasha’s ears, neither really had time to date. Kagome’s son was the center of both of their worlds.
The boy really took after his father, in more ways than one. He had silky black hair and cobalt blue eyes. His eyebrows were thick and gave him an intense look. He was a happy child who loved to laugh. He got upset when he didn’t get his way, though, and often asked for his father.
Kagome had given him a picture of Bankotsu and the boy had developed the habit of sleeping with it, frame and all. In his play, he would act like his father, taunting his opponents, both imaginary and real. He loved to wrestle, and oftentimes Inuyasha would accuse the child of playing dirty.
The boy would just laugh. “There’s no fightin’ dirty in battle, Uncle Inu,” he would say.
*8*
“Inuyasha, please come to the front desk for customer assistance,” the intercom announced.
The hanyou put down the box he had been holding and made his way to the front. As he made his way to the front, he saw the customer at the desk. Her tanned skin contrasted with her white V-neck blouse. She had long, silver coloured hair, even though she looked to be no older than 15 or 16 years. She was pretty with a petite frame and a pair of jeans that hugged her curves rather deliciously. She wore heeled sandals that gave her an extra two inches to her small height. Her lavender coloured eyes met him and she tilted her head in curiosity.
“I know you,” she said.
Inuyasha hesitated as he caught a whiff of her perfume. It was a sweet smell, but it did not hide her original scent very well. He nodded as he approached the desk. “I remember,” he told her. “You were just a runt the last time I saw you, though.”
Her thin eyebrows furrowed in confusion as the service desk associate asked Inuyasha to help the girl carry the door she had just bought to her car. The hanyou nodded and turned his attention to the door. As always, he amazed the people at the desk by picking up the obviously heavy door with one hand.
“Where did you park your car?” he asked the girl.
“Inuyasha,” she whispered. “You saved my mom and me, didn’t you? When I was a child, you rescued me from these evil b… people who were wanting to use me.”
At his nod, she gasped. A large, white smile was drawn across her face. She glanced at the people at the service desk. “This man is a genuine hero,” she told them. “I owe him both my mother’s life and my own.”
Inuyasha blushed as he said, “I only did it because of Tetsusaiga. That hardly makes me a hero.”
“Oh, Inuyasha,” the girl at the service desk commented, “take a compliment sometimes. It wouldn’t hurt you. You did a good thing for this lady and you should be proud of it.”
The hanyou frowned and turned back to the customer. “Where’s your car?” he asked again.
“This way,” she said as she led him out of the store.
Once the door was safely in the car, the girl turned to the hanyou. Without warning, she gave him a hug. “Thank you, Inuyasha,” she whispered. “For everything.”
He gently patted her back before stepping away from her. She smiled at him. “What are you doing this evening?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Shiori,” he told her. “I’m not really into dating right now. I’ve been helping my friend, you know the miko, Kagome, raise her son.”
The girl gave him a compassionate smile. “That’s very nice of you,” she replied. “But I wasn’t asking you out on a date. I was simply hoping you could come over and help me install this door.”
He froze for a moment when his nose caught another familiar scent. Glancing around, he thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, but they had disappeared when he turned to look. Or maybe they had never been there? “I could do that,” he answered as he looked around for the source of the scent.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
He nodded and slowly turned his attention back to her. “I thought I recognized someone,” he told her.
She nodded and, taking a pen and piece of paper out of her purse, she wrote down her address and handed it to him. “If you’d like, you can see if Kagome wants to come over as well. I’d love to see her again and meet her son.”
“I’ll see if she wants to,” he promised as he pulled out his wallet and stuck the piece of paper inside. “There are no guarantees that she’ll come, but you never know.”
*8*
As Kagome entered the apartment she threw her keys in the key tray and walked into the kitchen where Inuyasha was. “You’ll never guess who I saw today,” she said, her eyes lit up in excitement.
He put together his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glanced up at her. “Who?” he asked.
“Koga!” she exclaimed. “He stopped by the coffee shop today to order some coffee to go when I, literally, bumped into him. He wants to take me to dinner tonight.”
Inuyasha frowned. “Hm. Well, I got some news as well,” he said. “Do you remember little Shiori? The little girl whose father was…”
“The bat demon?” she finished. “Yes, I remember her.”
He nodded. “Well, she ain’t so little anymore. She needed some help getting a door into her car. She asked me if I could stop by later today and help her install it. Asked me if you and the kid would like to come by as well.”
She smiled as she gave the hanyou a hug. “Isn’t this incredible? Koga told me there’s this whole network of demons still living in Japan, many of them right here in Tokyo. He’s really good friends with Shippo and has offered to see if Shippo would like to come tonight. I asked about your brother, too. Apparently, Sesshomaru is the CEO of this huge enterprise and he makes millions of yen every year!”
Inuyasha frowned. He should not have been surprised that his brother was a multi-billionaire; after all, the taiyoukai had always been wealthy. Still, it bothered the hanyou. Inuyasha worked hard every day to earn just enough money to support his small family. And yet, Sesshomaru made millions each year without even trying.
He took a bite of his sandwich as he thought over what Kagome had said. Inuyasha really did like peanut butter. It was smooth and creamy and stuck to the top of his mouth. As he swallowed the bite, he took another. Peanut butter was a good thinking food because, while he ate it, Inuyasha couldn’t really talk.
“Are you takin’ the runt with you?” he asked when he swallowed his food.
She shook her head. “I can’t. Koga wants to take me out to this bar. I was thinking about you taking him, but I can call my mom and see if she’ll keep him for a bit longer.”
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a soda. “I can take him,” he offered. “Shiori wants to see him anyway. And he’ll give me a good excuse to keep things calm between us.”
Kagome tilted her head. “What do you mean?” she asked.
He took a pull from his drink before he answered. “When Shiori hugged me earlier, I could smell the desire coming off of her in waves. She may not wish to admit it, but I think she’s expecting something to come of this evening,” he commented. “She’s pretty, but…”
The miko smirked. “I’ll call my mom and see if she can keep him for the night.”
*8*
Inuyasha and Shiori hit it off well. To his surprise, Shiori had been patient and understanding about Inuyasha and Kagome’s relationship. The female hanyou had adored Kagome’s son.
Kagome hadn’t been so lucky with Koga, however. They had a small fling that resulted in an almost disastrous midnight sex. While they had both enjoyed it, they realized that the feelings just were not mutual. The relationship ended within a week.
Shiori was at the apartment practically every day. She helped Inuyasha find his brother and even helped the miko and hanyou to find the network Koga had spoken of.
Shippo had reentered their lives as well, introducing Kagome to his fox demon mate and his own son. Shippo adored Kagome’s son just as much as Shiori did and always made it a point to bring the child a toy when he came by to visit.
Eventually, Inuyasha talked Kagome into getting an actual house and, soon after, Shiori moved in. As kind as the female hanyou was and as great as Inuyasha was, Kagome couldn’t help but feel as though she and her son no longer belonged. She just didn’t think it was fair to hold Inuyasha back, but when she told the hanyou she was planning on moving, he became angry with her.
“I told you I was going to take care of you,” he had growled. “I can’t do that if you leave. You and the little runt mean everything to me and I’m not gonna just let you leave like that, Kagome. If Shiori is a problem, then I can ask her to move out, but don’t you dare think about leaving me.”
Most nights, Kagome fell asleep crying while holding a picture of Bankotsu. She couldn’t ask for Shiori to leave and she begged Inuyasha not to do it. She wanted her friend to be happy. He had deserved it.
Kagome held the worn picture in her hand while she gently outlined the man’s face with her finger. She stared down at the handsome man. She remembered his laughter. She could almost hear his voice as he whispered soft promises in her ear. When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the softness of his lips as they pressed against her neck.
A single tear trailed down her cheek as she lay down in bed. If it weren’t for her son, she’d think she had conjured up the man in her mind. As it was, the only place he really existed now was in her dreams.
Every night she dreamed about the man with the long, black braid. And every morning she woke up to a tear-stained, but empty bed. Her son had truly become her only reason for living.
As Kagome put her son down for a nap, she thought she heard a noise outside. She glanced out the window, but didn’t see anything. Giving her son a final gaze, clipped the baby monitor to her belt loop and she left her bedroom.
As she walked down the stairs, she heard her mom talking to someone. The woman sounded overjoyed and extremely excited. Curious, Kagome decided to investigate. She followed the sound of her mother’s voice to the back door where she saw a white head peeking over the top of her mother’s head and red clothing framing her mother’s figure.
“Inuyasha?” the miko muttered.
Her mother stepped out of the way, her hands clasped together against her chest. She wore the largest smile Kagome had ever seen on her.
To the miko’s surprise, the hanyou stood in the doorway. It had been a year since she had seen him. Her eyes widened as she approached the hanyou to give him a hug. As he wrapped her in his embrace, Kagome bit back her tears.
She looked up into his golden eyes. “How did you get through the well? I thought it had closed,” she inquired.
He nodded. “It did,” he replied, his own eyes a bit watery. “And I think it is again. I don’t know exactly what happened. I’ve been so… I’ve missed you. I went to the well and just leaned against it, wishing you would come through. Suddenly, it glowed a bright blue and I knew that if I jumped in it, I would come here.”
She gazed at the hanyou sadly. “But, if it’s closed again, then that means you can’t go back,” she told him.
He brushed some of her hair out of her eyes. “I know,” he whispered. “I just…” He sighed. “I know you love Bankotsu and there’s… I don’t want to pressure you and I’ll never try to force you into something you don’t want, but… if it’s all right with you, I’d… I can’t live without you in my life, Kagome. And I don’t want to. Even if we never become… I would really like to stay with you. Maybe I could help you raise the baby? He needs a father figure. I know what it’s like to grow up without a father and… No child should have to go through that.”
As Inuyasha spoke, Kagome held a hand over her mouth. Tears fell from her eyes as he spoke of being a father to her son. Before she could say anything, though, he continued, “I’m not asking you to marry me. I know you aren’t ready for that. I just want to be in your life. You’re my best friend, Kagome. You’re the only person who ever truly understood me and the first one to ever accept me for who I am. You don’t know how much that means to me. I’ll do whatever I have to here. I can learn how to live in this place. You could teach me.”
Kagome wanted so badly to say, “Yes.” What he offered was more than she could ever imagine. At the same time, she just did not see him being happy in her world. “This isn’t like the Feudal Era,” she told him. “You can’t whip out Tetsusaiga every time someone says or does something offensive. Nor can you whip out Tetsusaiga when someone smells funny or there’s trouble. Fighting, especially in public, is against the law here and so is killing. You could go to jail and even be sentenced to death. You’d have to wear different clothes, too, and we’d have to figure out what to do about your hair and ears. People might not care so much about your fangs or claws or eyes and they might not even care about your hair, but they’ll notice the ears. And people here are much worse than people in the Feudal Era about such things.
“Also, if you are here, then you’d have to get an education and a job. It’s a lot to do, Inuyasha, and I’m not sure…”
“I can do it,” he told her. “I know how to read and write, so that’s a start. I can also add and subtract, which I know is important.”
“It is, but it’s not enough,” she explained. “You need to know multiplication, division, history, science… Things are a lot more complicated in this age. And what about your sword? Your clothes? You couldn’t have either of them on the street.”
He nodded and glanced down at their clasped hands. “I know it’s a lot,” he agreed. “I know there are things I’ll need to learn and things I’ll need to change, but I can do this. I want to do this. This past year has been a living hell for me. Miroku and Sango are so happy together. They had twins, you know. And Shippo’s almost never around. He’s been learning fox stuff from the fox elders. Rin’s staying in the village now, learning about herbs and medicine from Kaede. I see Kohaku sometimes, but he’s usually with Sango, learning how to be a demon slayer.”
It filled Kagome’s heart to know her friends were doing so well, but she could see the loneliness in Inuyasha’s eyes as he spoke. She glanced at her mother who wore a sad expression on her face. “We could help him,” her mother said, causing the hanyou to gaze up at her. The woman continued, “We could take him shopping and help him get more appropriate clothing. I could get him some textbooks and workbooks to help him learn what he needs to know to get a GED and he could help your grandfather around the shrine in the meantime.”
“But…”
Her mother shook her head. “Even if he wanted to return to the Feudal Era, Kagome, how will he? The well is closed,” she told her daughter. “We can figure this out. We’ll have to, right?”
Kagome nodded and turned her attention back to Inuyasha. She sighed and gave him a smile. “I would love for you to be here, Inuyasha. Like you said, my son needs a father figure and, honestly, I need my friend.”
He smiled as he pulled her into an embrace. As the two friends hugged, Mrs. Higurashi clapped her hands together. “Alright, kids, I think it’s time for some shopping!”
Kagome laughed as she broke away from Inuyasha. “I wish I could go with you,” she told them both.
“Oh, well , that’s easy. Just go get my grandson and we can all go,” her mother commented.
Kagome pinched her lips in a slight frown. “I would, except I just put him down for his nap,” she explained. “You know how he gets if you wake him up.”
Inuyasha’s ears twitched as the sound of crying flooded the baby monitor. His eyes widened as Kagome sighed. “Then again, maybe we won’t have to worry about waking him…” the miko commented as she rushed upstairs to check on her son.
*8*
It took Inuyasha five years to get his GED. Within that time, Kagome finished school and the two of them got a three bedroom apartment. Inuyasha managed to finally get a job at a home improvement store while Kagome worked at a local coffee shop.
Of course, this was Inuyasha’s eighth job in one year. (It was his twentieth job overall.) For the most part, he was a good employee. He just had a slight problem with authority and tended to be a bit insensitive with customers. This job made up for his faults by having him work mostly in the back. He spent most of his time unloading trucks and going through claims.
His latest job loved him and he was promoted to a team leader within three months. They even had hopes to make him a manager some day.
Kagome did pretty well, also. She was currently attending college while working at the coffee shop. She had been at the shop for almost two years before they promoted her to shift manager. In school, she was studying to be a doctor.
Home life wasn’t so bad, either. Though Inuyasha shied away from being called “Dad,” he really loved the little boy. Oftentimes, Kagome would complain about Inuyasha spoiling the child, but the hanyou didn’t really care. He left the discipline to Kagome and settled on teaching the child how to read and write and count.
Even after six years (five years through the GED program, plus the one year before Inuyasha came to the modern era), Inuyasha and Kagome never really got together as a couple. They had their moments, but nothing ever came from it and Inuyasha did not push it.
Neither of them really dated. While they both worried about people learning of Inuyasha’s ears, neither really had time to date. Kagome’s son was the center of both of their worlds.
The boy really took after his father, in more ways than one. He had silky black hair and cobalt blue eyes. His eyebrows were thick and gave him an intense look. He was a happy child who loved to laugh. He got upset when he didn’t get his way, though, and often asked for his father.
Kagome had given him a picture of Bankotsu and the boy had developed the habit of sleeping with it, frame and all. In his play, he would act like his father, taunting his opponents, both imaginary and real. He loved to wrestle, and oftentimes Inuyasha would accuse the child of playing dirty.
The boy would just laugh. “There’s no fightin’ dirty in battle, Uncle Inu,” he would say.
*8*
“Inuyasha, please come to the front desk for customer assistance,” the intercom announced.
The hanyou put down the box he had been holding and made his way to the front. As he made his way to the front, he saw the customer at the desk. Her tanned skin contrasted with her white V-neck blouse. She had long, silver coloured hair, even though she looked to be no older than 15 or 16 years. She was pretty with a petite frame and a pair of jeans that hugged her curves rather deliciously. She wore heeled sandals that gave her an extra two inches to her small height. Her lavender coloured eyes met him and she tilted her head in curiosity.
“I know you,” she said.
Inuyasha hesitated as he caught a whiff of her perfume. It was a sweet smell, but it did not hide her original scent very well. He nodded as he approached the desk. “I remember,” he told her. “You were just a runt the last time I saw you, though.”
Her thin eyebrows furrowed in confusion as the service desk associate asked Inuyasha to help the girl carry the door she had just bought to her car. The hanyou nodded and turned his attention to the door. As always, he amazed the people at the desk by picking up the obviously heavy door with one hand.
“Where did you park your car?” he asked the girl.
“Inuyasha,” she whispered. “You saved my mom and me, didn’t you? When I was a child, you rescued me from these evil b… people who were wanting to use me.”
At his nod, she gasped. A large, white smile was drawn across her face. She glanced at the people at the service desk. “This man is a genuine hero,” she told them. “I owe him both my mother’s life and my own.”
Inuyasha blushed as he said, “I only did it because of Tetsusaiga. That hardly makes me a hero.”
“Oh, Inuyasha,” the girl at the service desk commented, “take a compliment sometimes. It wouldn’t hurt you. You did a good thing for this lady and you should be proud of it.”
The hanyou frowned and turned back to the customer. “Where’s your car?” he asked again.
“This way,” she said as she led him out of the store.
Once the door was safely in the car, the girl turned to the hanyou. Without warning, she gave him a hug. “Thank you, Inuyasha,” she whispered. “For everything.”
He gently patted her back before stepping away from her. She smiled at him. “What are you doing this evening?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Shiori,” he told her. “I’m not really into dating right now. I’ve been helping my friend, you know the miko, Kagome, raise her son.”
The girl gave him a compassionate smile. “That’s very nice of you,” she replied. “But I wasn’t asking you out on a date. I was simply hoping you could come over and help me install this door.”
He froze for a moment when his nose caught another familiar scent. Glancing around, he thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, but they had disappeared when he turned to look. Or maybe they had never been there? “I could do that,” he answered as he looked around for the source of the scent.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
He nodded and slowly turned his attention back to her. “I thought I recognized someone,” he told her.
She nodded and, taking a pen and piece of paper out of her purse, she wrote down her address and handed it to him. “If you’d like, you can see if Kagome wants to come over as well. I’d love to see her again and meet her son.”
“I’ll see if she wants to,” he promised as he pulled out his wallet and stuck the piece of paper inside. “There are no guarantees that she’ll come, but you never know.”
*8*
As Kagome entered the apartment she threw her keys in the key tray and walked into the kitchen where Inuyasha was. “You’ll never guess who I saw today,” she said, her eyes lit up in excitement.
He put together his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glanced up at her. “Who?” he asked.
“Koga!” she exclaimed. “He stopped by the coffee shop today to order some coffee to go when I, literally, bumped into him. He wants to take me to dinner tonight.”
Inuyasha frowned. “Hm. Well, I got some news as well,” he said. “Do you remember little Shiori? The little girl whose father was…”
“The bat demon?” she finished. “Yes, I remember her.”
He nodded. “Well, she ain’t so little anymore. She needed some help getting a door into her car. She asked me if I could stop by later today and help her install it. Asked me if you and the kid would like to come by as well.”
She smiled as she gave the hanyou a hug. “Isn’t this incredible? Koga told me there’s this whole network of demons still living in Japan, many of them right here in Tokyo. He’s really good friends with Shippo and has offered to see if Shippo would like to come tonight. I asked about your brother, too. Apparently, Sesshomaru is the CEO of this huge enterprise and he makes millions of yen every year!”
Inuyasha frowned. He should not have been surprised that his brother was a multi-billionaire; after all, the taiyoukai had always been wealthy. Still, it bothered the hanyou. Inuyasha worked hard every day to earn just enough money to support his small family. And yet, Sesshomaru made millions each year without even trying.
He took a bite of his sandwich as he thought over what Kagome had said. Inuyasha really did like peanut butter. It was smooth and creamy and stuck to the top of his mouth. As he swallowed the bite, he took another. Peanut butter was a good thinking food because, while he ate it, Inuyasha couldn’t really talk.
“Are you takin’ the runt with you?” he asked when he swallowed his food.
She shook her head. “I can’t. Koga wants to take me out to this bar. I was thinking about you taking him, but I can call my mom and see if she’ll keep him for a bit longer.”
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a soda. “I can take him,” he offered. “Shiori wants to see him anyway. And he’ll give me a good excuse to keep things calm between us.”
Kagome tilted her head. “What do you mean?” she asked.
He took a pull from his drink before he answered. “When Shiori hugged me earlier, I could smell the desire coming off of her in waves. She may not wish to admit it, but I think she’s expecting something to come of this evening,” he commented. “She’s pretty, but…”
The miko smirked. “I’ll call my mom and see if she can keep him for the night.”
*8*
Inuyasha and Shiori hit it off well. To his surprise, Shiori had been patient and understanding about Inuyasha and Kagome’s relationship. The female hanyou had adored Kagome’s son.
Kagome hadn’t been so lucky with Koga, however. They had a small fling that resulted in an almost disastrous midnight sex. While they had both enjoyed it, they realized that the feelings just were not mutual. The relationship ended within a week.
Shiori was at the apartment practically every day. She helped Inuyasha find his brother and even helped the miko and hanyou to find the network Koga had spoken of.
Shippo had reentered their lives as well, introducing Kagome to his fox demon mate and his own son. Shippo adored Kagome’s son just as much as Shiori did and always made it a point to bring the child a toy when he came by to visit.
Eventually, Inuyasha talked Kagome into getting an actual house and, soon after, Shiori moved in. As kind as the female hanyou was and as great as Inuyasha was, Kagome couldn’t help but feel as though she and her son no longer belonged. She just didn’t think it was fair to hold Inuyasha back, but when she told the hanyou she was planning on moving, he became angry with her.
“I told you I was going to take care of you,” he had growled. “I can’t do that if you leave. You and the little runt mean everything to me and I’m not gonna just let you leave like that, Kagome. If Shiori is a problem, then I can ask her to move out, but don’t you dare think about leaving me.”
Most nights, Kagome fell asleep crying while holding a picture of Bankotsu. She couldn’t ask for Shiori to leave and she begged Inuyasha not to do it. She wanted her friend to be happy. He had deserved it.
Kagome held the worn picture in her hand while she gently outlined the man’s face with her finger. She stared down at the handsome man. She remembered his laughter. She could almost hear his voice as he whispered soft promises in her ear. When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the softness of his lips as they pressed against her neck.
A single tear trailed down her cheek as she lay down in bed. If it weren’t for her son, she’d think she had conjured up the man in her mind. As it was, the only place he really existed now was in her dreams.
Every night she dreamed about the man with the long, black braid. And every morning she woke up to a tear-stained, but empty bed. Her son had truly become her only reason for living.