AN: I've always wanted to write a Kouga Kagome pairing, and finally I have. Kind of sad, but I've never envisioned their relationship as a potentially happy one – too many terrible things seem to need to happen in order for them to be with one another.

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha

Unorthodox

Time is a very elusive thing when it wants to be. He didn't know when he started loving her, when he started hating her, and when he started to simply not care. After all, you couldn't possibly love someone forever when they never loved you back.

But it's funny because when he sees her after 500 years of sitting around and adapting slowly, he realizes there is still a small pang in his chest, not his heart (it's been long since gone). She still looks like she did those many years ago. For a minute he almost forgets she never belonged in their era.

Nothing about her really seemed to have changed, except she doesn't wear that ridiculous outfit anymore. But he saw a lot of girls wore them now apparently. They weren't nearly as pretty as Kagome.

He decides to test out a small theory (how much can he handle of her presence) and approaches her. She gives a broad smile, as if she doesn't know who he is (she doesn't) and it hurts.

The idea of him hurting makes him laugh.

He should've been dead a long time ago.

--

He talks to her everyday but never tells her anything about the well, about the Sengoku Jidai, about a hanyou who couldn't love her enough and a wolf who loved her too much.

It's nice when her eyes zone in on him like he is the one.

--

For the first time in his life, he actually feels good. Sometimes he can even feel the slight beating of something against his chest. And it doesn't even hurt anymore.

But then, suddenly, as if a bad nightmare is plaguing him, he remembers that final fight when he had been left for dead. There she was, like the messiah of all things pure and evil, standing above him. Blood was cradling his body on the coarse grass and he remembered then and there wanting to die as he gazed at the endless sky.

But she didn't grant him this.

She brought him back to life (killed him even more), and he remembered hating her.

She must've thought she was saving him, bringing him back into the world of the living. But he was just being thrust deeper and deeper into an endless quarry of hope. He thought that the love of his life saving him meant something – for them.

But it didn't.

Because she went running back to that hanyou who would think twice before he swung that blade to save her.

--

The pain is coming back as the beating intensifies. He doesn't like as her much as he thought he did. She seems rather empty and unfeeling. Oh, she laughs, she talks, she moves about, but for once he can see why she perhaps disliked (hated) that dead priestess so many centuries ago.

It's as if a pathetic remake has been sent in as substitution for what was once so lively. It sickens him to the core, but then again, he's not really himself either.

So who was he to judge?

--

"They say that if you die facing up, you can see heaven above you, opening its doors." She pauses. "I'd like to die in my sleep peacefully. And I think I'm pretty lucky, because I always sleep on my back," she laughs.

Kouga doesn't really look at her, hating how lightly she talks about death. If this were 500 years ago for him, she wouldn't have even talked about sleeping (wasn't there a hanyou who did that long ago…?)

"That's funny," he mumbles softly. "I've always wanted to die facing the ground."

A curious look is on her face, and it's clear she's begging him to spill all his little insights to her.

"Why would you want that?"

"So I could die without ever knowing what hit me."

--

Long ago his body and soul and mind and heart thrived for her because he loved her.

And maybe they do now too, but only because he hates her.

After all, they're both very obsessive feelings.

--

Time is a very elusive thing when it wants to be. Because quite frankly, he doesn't know when he started to love and hate and hate and love her.

And when she finally wants him, he discovers something strange yet true.

He doesn't want her anymore.