Inuyasha grumbled as he sat atop the pink bedspread, fighting the urge to just tear it up with his claws. Here he was, just waiting for her while Sango's little brother was still unconscious back at the village, while Magatsuhi, whatever he was, was floating around without a body somewhere, while they were still waiting for Sesshomaru to return to retrieve Rin and Jaken from Kaede-baba's hut.
He had just gotten back from Kagome's school, where he sat on the roof all day, watching the people walk past and climb into the big metal boxes with wheels when they stopped. His nose still stung from inhaling the smoke that came out of the back of the metal boxes when they moved and the salty scent of too many bodies living close together with only hard black ground around them.
Even his ears hurt from the noise of it all (despite being securely covered by the scarf Kagome's mother had fastened around his head). Her world was just so loud: people shouting at themselves as they pressed little cartons against their ears, the wheeled boxes barking at each other, the high-pitched cry of the trains—the snake-looking youkai that brought people to and from the city—when they let their prey escape through holes that appeared in their sides.
They had walked back together quietly. But even though his ears were glad for it, he couldn't stop himself from wondering why she didn't shout at him for coming back to fetch her, or for leaving her house without covering his ears or changing his clothes. He also wondered why he didn't feel like yelling at her for taking too damn long with her exam.
"I'm going to take a quick bath, okay?" she had said when they reached the shrine.
"Meh." He moved to take a seat at the base of the Goshinboku, to soothe his burning nose with the calming smell of the forest, of his home.
But it wasn't long before he found himself in her room, his back toward the open window as he looked around at her things—her life, he corrected himself. Her room was in complete disorder; books and papers covered the floor around her desk. He picked one up to look at and threw it across the room when he couldn't decipher the strange rounded marks that covered it.
Instead of picking up more paper, he turned his eyes to her desk where he noticed a photo with a little girl that looked like Kagome in it. He stared at it for a few moments, unconsciously trying to memorize the big smile on her face with her missing front tooth and the brown in her eyes that seemed to be glowing.
After a while, he recognized her mother in the picture as well, sitting to Kagome's side with her left arm draped around her daughter's shoulders, pulling them closer together. Without thinking about it, his eyes tried to match the similarities between the mother and daughter. It was a minute longer before he even noticed baby Souta cradled in Higurashi-san's other arm and Kagome's ojii-san glaring toothily at the camera.
It took him a few minutes longer to realize it was his fault; he was the one who tore her away from all of this. He felt a lump in his throat and swallowed quickly before jerking his head from side to side, scanning the room for movement. He heard the water still running in the next room and could make out the voice of Kagome's mother persuading Souta to start studying before dinner.
She missed her classes because of him, and even though he didn't fully understand what they were, he could tell they were something important in her world - something necessary, even.
She probably missed her mother—like he still missed his—and her brother and grandfather and her life. His ears flattened against his head and even though he didn't recognize it consciously, his ears recognized the sound of the knobs on her bath twisting off and the water stopping.
He tore her away from her life.
The twisting of the doorknob caught him off guard and in a split second, he leapt out the window.
He sat in the branches of the Goshinboku underneath her window and listened to the sound of her towel falling to the floor and her clothes being pulled on and the brush running through her hair. He focused on the scent coming off her body, some kind of flower that he had never been able to find in his world.
He watched the tree's leaves move slightly in the wind and thought about how maybe her world wasn't so bad, that maybe part of him even liked it, that maybe someday, after everything, it could be his li—
His ears perked up.
Kagome was walking toward the window to look for him.