AN: HOLY CRAP! IT'S ME!

Yes, that is correct. I'm back! I can't write on any of my other stories, so I decided towrite this one! Be worned that it is GUYXGUY(Miroku/InuYasha), and it is my FIRST guyXguy, so bare with me! I've just been sitting around, not doing alot of anything, and I decided to start with my fanfictions after a few failed attempts at writing stories of my own (they're really good but I can't make them work, it's so sad!). So, I got on here and went through my fanfics, then went through some stories that other people had written, and decided that I just HAD to do a Miroku/InuYasha one. This is Part One of a three-part series.

NOTE- No one actually dies, I promise. It just sounded really good:)

So, let the show begin!

And They All Die Young

Part One

kagomes-wanna-be

It was nighttime, as it always seemed to be. InuYasha didn't remember much about what happened during the sunlight hours anymore, because nothing really did happen. They fought their demons, they got their money, they collected their jewel shards - and that was it. That was what their lives had surmounted to. It wasn't bad, but he missed the excitement, the closeness of fighting a single common battle.

Naraku was long gone, almost a year now, and they had attempted to live normal lives for a while. The search for the jewel shards lost its urgency now that they had almost the entire jewel in tact. If some demon happened to stumble across multiples of them, thn they'd just kill it and take them. After Naraku, nothing was indefeatable.

The normalcy they searched for came rather easily, however. Easier than InuYasha would have liked. Sango returned to the village of the demon slayers, and along the way met a young black smith who decided to travel with her. They were now married and living in a hut at the edge of Kaeda's village.

Kagome still came and went as normal, but she also had someone on her side of the well. InuYasha was relieved when she told him that no matter what, this had become her home, and she could never give it up. Even with her new boyfriend, as she had called it, she always felt more connected with this period than with her own and she couldn't give it up now that she had been a part of it.

Shippo lived with Sango and her new husband, waiting 'til Kagome moved into this period permanently and they could have a hut to live in as mother and son. He had barely grown any, but he wasn't expected to since full demon blood ran through his veins.

And Miroku... Miroku never left. He was always there, in Kaeda's hut, on the trail that led them on their next journey, and by his side. Never once had he ever even shown any want to go astray as the others had or to go and discover what was left of the world to discover. He was the only one that InuYasha could trust to always be there when the moon went down at night as well as when the sun rose the next morning.

InuYasha hated it.

He could handle all of them being gone, or all of them being there, but he wasn't sure he could handle them in only bits and peices- not when the one person who stayed behind was the one he could never have the way he wanted. He didn't feel hole anymore, and he showed it. It didn't help that there wasn't a group of friends to buffer his emotions anymore towards certain others.

His eyes left the floor and traveled up to Miroku's peaceful face sitting across the way from him. With a sigh he stood and left Kaeda's small hut, unable to take Miroku being the only thing to look at anymore. The air outside was cool and light, and InuYasha appreciated it.

Anyone who knew InuYasha would think that he loved the night, but it wasn't true. Yes, this was the only time he could think, this was the only time it was quiet, but he was always alone at night. Everyone was asleep, or gone, and he was simply left to his own devices and musings. It wasn't something that he liked.

He thought too much, didn't sleep enough, and in the end it would take a toll on his mental state. Only when the group was somewhere he knew they were safe could he sleep. But now... now they were always safe, and the circumstances had changed. He had more to think about, because he had less to do. He had more to look at and more to take it. More than he would have liked.

In silence he mad made his way down the empty streetways of the village, past Sango's hut at the edge, and out into the forest. He went to the clearing in which the Goshinboku edged, but he did not jump into the old familiar tree, rather he walked to the opposite side of the clearing and stared down at the ground.

"Home sweet home," InuYasha whispered as he stared at a multiple amount of ruts in the ground.

He pulled the Tetsusaiga from the waist of his pants, still inside its sheath, and placed the tip of it into the worn groove on the ground. Slowly he walked along the ruts that he had placed in the ground many times before. The lines he created made a square area, 20 feet between each of the sides, and once he was done he walked into the square and filled in the other marks that lay in the dirt.

InuYasha looked around at the figure he had made, a gleam of anguish in his eyes. What he had just retraced was the ground print of the hut he had once dreamed of building for him and his make-shift family.

The hut had three rooms - one large main one, and two bedrooms at the back. He had even drawn out the fireplace, places of the sleeping mats, and the different peices of furniture at one point, but their lines had been lost long ago. All that was left was the outline of the would-be hut. It was a sad reminder of what had once been, what he hoped would have been, and what he knew would never be.

Originally, the two rooms were set up in the same sleeping arrangements as the group was always set up in - girls in one room (with the exception of Shippo) and boys in the other. Once Sango had come back with a courter in tow, the other room had become for simply Kagome and Shippo while Miroku and InuYasha still had the other to occupy. Then Kagome had her own courter, and Shippo began living with Sango and her now husband. So the larger-than-normal hut went from housing six to housing only one.

There would only be one living in the hut anymore. It could have been InuYasha and Miroku, they could have had their own separate rooms, but InuYasha knew he couldn't do that when he wanted so badly to be in the same room.

He hung his head in near-shame and kicked at the ground, dragging the tip of Tetsusaiga's hilt through the dirt. After the others had gone off on their own, he couldn't subdue his feelings any longer. The feelings had always been there, tickling the back of his mind or tugging at his heartstrings, but only recently had they truely come to light.

He loved Miroku, and there was no denying it.

So Miroku would have had the hut, and InuYasha would have taken his place in the Goshinboku tree. That was the closest he could get without his emotions being overwhelming. It wasn't so bad now because they were in Kaeda's hut, and that would have simply been awkward. But if they were alone...

"InuYasha?"

InuYasha jumped at the voice, spinning and lifting Tetsusaiga halfmindedly thanks to the suddeness of the person. He froze as he saw Miroku standing but a few feet from him, his dark pools of eyes staring into his with concern. InuYasha attempted to speak, but his voice caught. Luckily, Miroku spoke first. "What are you doing?"

"Keh. Nothing," InuYasha sneered, looking away and putting Tetsusaiga back into its holder on his waist.

"Well that I gathered, InuYasha," Miroku replied, his smile sincere and soft. The sound of his name on the monks tounge, with that look on his face and smile across his lips almost made his knees go weak. "I meant more along the lines of what are you doing out here?"

"Oh..." InuYasha said, feeling ridiculous as he felt his cheeks warm up. He was glad that the moon was currently being blocked by the tree line above him, or it would have been noticeable. "I wasn't doing anything really. Just didn't feel like stay in that old, musty hut," he explained, the sneer still evident in his voice.

Miroku sighed and shook his head gently as he looked at InuYasha. His tone of voice was always so pessemistic and indignant, and Miroku knew that he could behave better than that. Sometimes Miroku thought he was still just a kid. "Well, alright. We should probably get back to Kaeda's hut before you get hurt out here."

InuYasha's eyes squinted as he glared at Miroku angrily. He knew what Miroku was thinking; they all thought it. They saw InuYasha as the immature fool they had met him as. They had all grown and developed and moved on, but because InuYasha's outer looks hadn't changed with them, their minds automatically assumed that his inside hadn't changed either.

"Fine."

He walked past Miroku, keeping his eyes straight ahead of him on the way back to the hut. It made him furious that he could love a man who still saw him as a boy. One day, he would show him just what he was, just who he was.

Miroku simply watched as InuYasha started back towards the hut, sighing and shaking his head gently. His head turned back towards where InuYasha had been standing when he came upon him and looked over what InuYasha may have been so engrossed in that he didn't even notice his presence. Their were just a few lines in the dirt, nothing more, and it didn't make sense.

He shrugged gently and turned back to head to Kaeda's hut. As he walked he could see InuYasha's back in the distance, his hair swaying gently in the night breeze and his left hand on the hilt of Tetsusaiga instinctively. He couldn't help but think, as he watched his form in the little remaining moonlight, that if InuYasha could just grow up and understand a little bit more, then he would be perfect.

AN: AHHHH!! I'm so happy with myself:D This story is turning out REALLY good. Alot better than I thought it would, actually. Anyway. This was Part One of a three-part series, and I really hope that you guys come back to look for the other two parts that should be up soon. I'll see you guys soon. Go, be merry, and review.

kagomes-wanna-be