Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Though I own his books. And DVDs. Somewhere
Author's Note: This was for a challange on an iy comm at livejournal, but the name eludes me at the moment. More Inu/Kag flerf.
Inuyasha stared at her. "…what?"
Kagome groaned. "Look," she said, crossing her legs on her bed as if bracing for the long haul. "I have an important Geometry test coming up for the next two days, and I can't have you running around Tokyo during broad day light looking for me. So I'm giving you directions," she gestured to the hand drawn map before her.
"So," she breathed out heavily, putting her finger to a squiggly line, "this is the street off the Shrine—"
"Can't you just tell me where to go, instead?" Inuyasha interrupted. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
"Because it's too far, and you won't remember it all," Kagome said patiently.
"I would too…" Inuyasha grumbled.
Kagome sighed and picked up the piece of paper. "What is it Inuyasha, can you not read my writing?" The more she looked at the paper the more she seemed to glower. "Sure it's a little sloppy, but—"
Inuyasha shot up from his position. "I can read your writing," he said with such fierceness that Kagome fell silent. "I just—I can remember, okay?" He stared moodily into his lap, picking at the hem of his pants.
Kagome stared at him. She bit her lip, staring at her paper again, then glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "All right," she said at last, "I'll tell you the directions, but at least take the paper anyway. You'll need to read the street signs…"
Inuyasha got up and settled down next to Kagome, peering over her shoulder as she began to name out loud the many streets between her house and the school. His gaze was very attentive, his ears flicking occasional but mostly trained on her voice. Kagome found herself blushing, but blustered on through, determined to not mix up her own directions.
After a couple minutes where she had Inuyasha rehearse the directions back to her, word for word, Kagome lay back on her bed and Inuyasha resettled himself on the floor. They both quietly stared at the ceiling, Kagome throwing occasional glances at Inuyasha. He stared resolutely above.
"So…" she said at last, fiddling with a piece of her hair. "…who taught you how to read?"
Inuyasha visibly stiffened. So much for being smooth. Kagome waited, holding her breath. After a tense moment, where Kagome nearly burst out in apologies, Inuyasha shifted.
"My mother," he grunted out. Kagome couldn't see his eyes.
"Ah," she said, letting go of her hair and staring at the ceiling. "You must have been young."
"Hmm."
How much practice could he have gotten between being hated, persecuted, and hunted by every man and demon he met?
Kagome counted for five seconds and then sat up, peering at Inuyasha from her higher position. His eyes flickered to her briefly, then resumed his vacant stare.
"Inuyasha," she began haltingly.
A dark look flashed across Inuyasha's features. "I have nothing to say, Kagome."
Kagome bit her lip. "I know, I just—"
"Shut up, Kagome," Inuyasha warned, his voice rising than abruptly dropping. Kagome fell silent, staring miserably at the floor.
"I just wanted to say," she forced out, wincing as Inuyasha turned away from her onto his side, "that you don't have to feel embarrassed around me. Honestly." She opened and closed her mouth, thinking and discarding sentences he would find offensive, before finally opting with a sigh. She dropped back onto the bed.
"How was I supposed to know?" she muttered at the ceiling, and then felt immediately ashamed.
Inuyasha sat up slowly. His hair looked messy like he'd been rolling on the floor. It stuck out in a frizzy white ball. His face, however, was unreadable. Unnaturally calm and far from his usual quick temper. Somehow, none of it looked at all funny to Kagome.
"I'll be down stairs," Inuyasha said, then got to his feet and padded silently to the door.
Kagome bolted up. "I—"
"What?" Inuyasha snapped, whirling around. There it was, the edge of iron. Sparks flying off a narrow precipice. Kagome opened her mouth to protest, to yell, to complain, but after a second she clamped her lips shut.
"Nothing," she said, laying down and turning over.
Inuyasha studied her between narrowed eyes. Then, with a rude snort, he flounced out of the room, arms crossed. Kagome bit her lip and didn't call after him. This was different. She couldn't blame him for being upset. She was being insensitive. She'd needed to...mind her own business.
Yeah.
She came downstairs four hours later, around midnight. The stairs creaked at her every step and she winced but braved it forward. When she hit the landing, she looked around the living room: first the couch, then the T.V, then the table. A glimmer of silver caught her vision in one of the room's corners, near the open window. She moved around the table to get a better look. Slivers of moonlight hit Inuyasha's face, casting half of his profile in soft shadows.
A pair of bright, amber eyes were looking straight at her.
Kagome gulped, clutching the paper she had in her hand a bit too tightly. She hesitated, then padded over to him cautiously. His eyes tracked her every movement, and it made her nervous. Reaching him, Kagome dropped to her knees beside Inuyasha and glanced nervously and the floor, lip between her teeth.
"Umm—" she started, then thrust the paper towards Inuyasha's face like a sacred offering, her eyes cast down. "You—ah, forgot the paper," she whispered.
After a deliberate moment, Inuyasha plucked the sheet from her fingers, running his hands over the crumpled edge, and studied it. Kagome tried not looking nervous, but she couldn't help it; her eyes danced everywhere, from the table to the ceiling, to the opposite wall. It was not the same paper from earlier and it was so obvious she might as well have told him so.
She just couldn't—not leave things be.
Kagome leaned forward to look at the paper again. The rough sketch she had drawn earlier had been reinforced with straight ink lines and miniature street-signs drawn precisely to their varied shapes and curving letters. Everything was labeled in slightly larger writing, so that the symbols themselves were less difficult to read. She even had a few of the signs color coded with highlighter.
Yes, Kagome winced. It was very obvious.
She meant to just give Inuyasha a quick glance and then flee to her bedroom, but when she looked up Inuyasha was boring his eyes into her brain. It was like had staked her to the ground. Every cell in her body was alert and trained on Inuyasha's face, which looked so pale and unreadable in the moonlight she might as well have been staring at stone.
She gulped and waited for the imminent explosion.
Sixty three seconds passed before Inuyasha finally made a move. Kagome flinched, but she needn't have; Inuyasha quietly stuffed the piece of paper into his kimono, making lots of grumbling noises and shifting everywhere. To her amazement, his face looked torn for a moment, like he wasn't sure what to say or do, and then his features settled into familiar grumpiness.
"Still don't get why these tests are so important," he grumbled out. Kagome snapped her mouth closed, staring. When it looked like Inuyasha was not going to yell at her, her face split open into a smile. It was little too cheery for the occasion maybe, but she was so relieved he hadn't said anything she might have dragged him up and danced with him across the moonlit floor.
"You'll see," she chirped, getting to her feet. She wanted to run up the stairs, but then that might be a bit too suspicious. She opted for another brilliant smile and ignored the brooding frown that crossed Inuyasha's face.
"Thanks," she said before she realized there really was no reason to say it. "Err, for—for—." Her mood dropped a little as she began to gesture wildly, "—being understanding." Great, Kagome, how lame was that. She dropped her hands, scratched her neck, and then sighed. "Goodnight." Turning on her heel, she made to return to her room.
She was half way up the stairs, when she heard him say something. Hardly more than a whisper. She almost marched right back down stairs to eagerly ask him what, but some part of her resisted. She forced her foot to keep going, to not pause, and it was so much harder than she would have thought.
Maybe he had said, "Goodnight." Maybe he had said, "stupid girl."
Or maybe, "thanks."
No...it was probably "stupid girl."
Kagome smiled shyly.
Because she was. His.