She was curious, of course, but still half-afraid to look. They'd seemed sturdy enough, really... Rugged and durable despite their extreme antiquity. Really, they should be fine.
But still, she had her doubts.
They'd haunted her all through the spin cycle.
Preparing herself for the worst, she opened the lid of the washing machine and pulled out the boy's damp clothes. Gingerly shaking them out and inspecting them carefully, she determined that the hakama at least were still in good shape. A minute later she was satisfied that the strange haori-suikan-thing was also unharmed by its first encounter with a major household appliance. There were no loose threads, no snags, the seams were holding sturdily... the cuffs weren't even frayed!
She sighed, deeply relieved. The boy's clothes were good as new --literally!-- and sunshine fresh, to boot. Now, should she dare test them in the dryer, or should she leave the boy to shiver by the heater in the thin yukata while they dried on the line?
She looked at the jacket again, trying to divine from the weave and the feel of the individual yarns and their sheen if the red fabric was silk or linen or cotton or what. They definitely did not look like cotton or linen... If anything, she'd say it was some kind of red wool.
Wait a minute...
She scowled down at the moist fabric in her hands, tilting her head from side to side without detecting any change. It wasn't just a trick of the light, or the effect of water. There was just no mistaking it.
She marched into the living room, demanding, "Am I losing my mind, or were these pink before?"
Souta and Jii-chan frowned up at her, puzzled. Kagome was by her side in an eyeblink, lifting one sleeve and studying it carefully. "It was definitely pink, Mama!" she confirmed.
How odd. Clothes didn't usually come out of the wash redder than when they'd gone in, at least not in the Higurashi household where the colors and whites were vigilantly segregated.
"Inuyasha... ?" she prompted, urging him to explain the strange transformation.
"Can't say I ever noticed, really," the boy muttered, shrugging one shoulder.
"You mean... you... " she stammered. Was he blind? "You never noticed whether your clothes were red or pink? The clothes you were wearing?"
She stared at the boy in disbelief, her question hanging in the air.
The boy stared back at her for a moment, a furious scarlet blush spreading across his cheeks outward to where his ears should have been.
"What do I care, red or pink?" he snapped, jerking his eyes away. "They keep my ass safe enough."