Title: 28 flavours
Rating: PG-13, T
Summary: Inuyasha thinks girls come in flavours. Kagome ponders which flavour she is, and if she'll ever compare. InuKag.
Bonjour, loves! I thought of this when I was at a Vietnamese restaurant. Weird, huh? Enjoy. Please feel free to point out any mistakes!
Kagome remembers the first time Inuyasha mentioned his girlfriend count.
She was flicking between TV channels on Inuyasha's flat screen, waiting for Miroku's call, when she briefly landed on a talk show about partners and love when Kagome sighed in exasperation and changed to the next channel.
"God, we're going to be late for that party!"
"The average number is three?" Inuyasha scowled, leaning on his fist.
"Huh?"
"That TV show," He jutted his chin towards the TV, which was showing some show about animal behaviour now before Kagome changed it in a millisecond. "It said that the average number of girlfriends a guy will have before…uh, whatever age, was three."
"Yeah, so? Just because you had five or six-"
"Twenty three."
"Sorry?" Kagome set down the remote and quirked up a brow, the TV set on the weather channel, playing easygoing music. Inuyasha briefly glanced at the petite girl beside him before shrugging.
"Twenty three. I've had twenty three girlfriends." He paused, frowning in thought as if he were mentally counting. "Yep, twenty three."
"Twenty…three?" Kagome's blue eyes widened in horror and utter astonishment. "Inuyasha…when you say twenty eight, of course that includes girls you've dated. Not hooked up with."
"Yeah I know. I consider a girl a girlfriend after a day of dating. Not just two hours of hooking up and sex and then thirty minutes spent trying to wrangle my ass out of her house."
The rude comment was easily dismissed by Kagome, who leaned against the leather couch and blinked in complete confusion before huffing. "Jeez, twenty three!"
"You better believe it. They're lining up just to-"
"Oh, shush." Kagome interrupted before chuckling to herself. Inuyasha shrugged (obviously the bewilderedness of Kagome was lost on him; twenty three wasn't that much,) and took the remote, flicking through channels until the damn lecher called.
The subject didn't return until three months later, when Kagome returned from her university classes, her bag heavy with books and her usually sparkling eyes dimmed with tiredness. Inuyasha hesitantly suggested ice cream and Kagome readily agreed, a bounce immediately in her step.
Sitting in a window booth with her strawberry ice cream, Kagome looked out the window and pointed out a girl with short hair tied into a stiff ponytail.
"Hey, it's Nazuna! Who's she, number twenty two?" she teased with a grin before shoving a spoonful of the sweet ice cream into her mouth. Inuyasha scowled, shaking his head.
"Yeah…So, that makes Sara number twenty eight."
"Twenty eight!" Kagome cried. Inuyasha scrambled over the countertop and pressed his left hand over Kagome's rosebud lips, her eyes widened in horror that mimicked her reaction three months ago. "Already? I mean…there was Moegi and Ran and…uh, twenty four, twenty seven…oh. Oh."
"Ran was number twenty six, Moegi was number twenty. You're mixing them up," Inuyasha corrected with an all-knowing smirk. Kagome rolled her eyes.
"Unbelievable. You're a jackass, using numbers to label your past girlfriends." Kagome said. Inuyasha shook his head before pointing the spoon he was using to eat his caramel sundae accusingly at Kagome.
"Excuse me, wench, but you started the whole 'number' situation. Not me."
"Guilty," Kagome grumbled, sinking low in the cushiony booth seating. Inuyasha, his eyes focused on the menu that hovered over the counter of the ice cream shop, frowned thoughtfully.
"What? Hungry still?"
"No, I noticed that girls-"
"Are like chips? Please, Inuyasha, that quote is ridiculous." (Yet it conclusively applied to him, apparently.)
"No, not that. But that works too!" He winked at her, and she felt herself redden. "Anyways, no. They're kind of like flavours. Each and every one of them."
"…Well, that's sweeter. I suppose-?" Kagome laughed nervously, her eyes flickering around. "What about your first girlfriend? When you were fifteen?"
"Cookies and cream," Inuyasha said, sounding very put upon. She laughed and asked why. "Well, she was good but…sickeningly sweet and I got tired of it. You know?"
"Yeah," Kagome nodded absentmindedly before blurting out the question that was buried into her mind. "How about Kikyo? Uh…number eighteen?"
"Kikyo," Inuyasha mused, his lips alternating between a semi-smile and a semi-scowl. "Like…cherry berry fusion. That flavour? Where it's like, really juicy cherries and tons of berries and your mouth basically explodes with all that shit in there? Yeah, Kikyo was all that. But you know, it got overwhelming and um, ah," He drifted off, thinking about Kikyo and all her cherry berry fusion. Kagome sunk lower into her side of the booth, nodding, trying to move on from the eerily similar looking ex-girlfriend that Inuyasha somewhat doted.
"How 'bout…number sixteen?"
"Chocolate peanut butter. Seemed fine but then there was that twist she was a total nymph."
"Oh yeah. Camcorders and alligator print suits in bed. Number twenty four?"
"Mint chocolate chip. Refreshing but simmers into an extremely boring person…uh, flavour."
"Number ten?"
"Citrus frozen yogurt…even though that isn't technically ice cream. Fuck that, but still. Skinny as hell, a talkative bitch overall. Jesus, I bet I was drunk during that four day stint."
"I see." Kagome nodded, taking it all in with a spoonful of her strawberry ice cream. Dejected, she stared down at her ice cream, her mind on a tightrope whether to ask what flavour she was. Probably just plain, bland strawberry, nothing like cherry berry fusion or even citrus frozen yogurt. Something overlooked by a person as head-achingly annoying (yet extremely gorgeous) as her best friend Inuyasha.
"So that's my philosophy now I guess," Inuyasha decided, with a grin on his face. "I'm going to taste every flavour there is,"
Before Kagome could answer, Inuyasha stood up and walked towards the counter, leaning against it. He began talking with the pretty curly-haired girl behind the counter, who began giggling and tucking in strands of her hair. A small pit of fury bubbling in her stomach, with a twinge of sadness, Kagome stared down at her half eaten strawberry ice cream.
He was going to taste flavour. Every flavour except for strawberry, that is.
X
Kagome loved the nights that were warm enough to keep her hair up and wear a light t-shirt and shorts and just sit in the canopy garden swing she set up in the small balcony of her shabby apartment.
She liked sitting down and watching the other apartments, seeing the tiny ants that were actually people, flitting to and fro and forgetting about essays and family and goddamn Inuyasha, on his twenty eighth flavour.
Ironically (or perhaps coincidentally, Kagome tried to let go of muddled thoughts), she had strawberry ice cream in her hand, with a spoon stabbed in the middle. It was the only flavour, and she had an intense craving for something sweet, so she begrudgingly scooped up some.
"None for me?"
Kagome jumped, the bowl of ice cream landing on her bare thighs. She shivered at the coldness of the bowl on bare skin, and at the boy lingering at the sliding down that acted as an entryway to her balcony.
"How'd you-?"
"Your spare key. You're creative, keeping it under the doormat." Inuyasha rolled his eyes began flopping onto the flimsy garden swing, draping his arm over the top and looking at Kagome.
"Why're you here?"
"Aren't I allowed to barge in?" Inuyasha questioned, genuinely perplexed. Kagome laughed lightly before dipping into her ice cream, leaving the two in silence. Inuyasha shifted in his spot, gold eyes blinking curiously.
"How was your date?"
"Date? Hardly a date. Just a poetry reading." Kagome shrugged noncommittally, twirling the spoon between her fingers and avoiding Inuyasha's eyes. She hated those amber-like eyes right now. For a reason she couldn't fathom. Usually, they were inexplicably mesmerizing.
"I don't like that Hobo-"
"Hojo!" Kagome corrected, suppressing a laugh. "It's Hojo."
"Hobo, Hojo. Same shit, different pile. Still has 'ho' in the beginning, so close enough." He turned to her, smirking. Kagome began swirling her ice cream absentmindedly, her mind having difficulty staying in subject with him, on a warm summer night, on a garage-sale garden swing with cars beeping four stories below.
"Don't like him, he's a pussy."
"He gave me that," Kagome pointed at a small money tree that found home at the corner of her balcony.
"Exactly. Plants and medicinal herbs? Pussy alert."
"You like pussy though," Kagome thought dryly; the vulgar word tasted like vinegar coming from her lips.
"I like flavours, remember. Tons and tons of marvellous bitches- Ah, flavours. Flavours." He emphasized the last word, chuckling to himself. Kagome brought her knees to her chest, feeling weird that the conversation seemed so…not fluid. Not Inuyasha-and-Kagome.
"Have you determined what Sara is?" Kagome asked, tilting her head to the side. Inuyasha shrugged, his fingers briefly bristling against Kagome's shoulder. She bit her lip and waited for an answer.
"Sara? Oh, I broke up with her."
"You…did?" Kagome inquired, blinking in confusion and dread forming in her stomach. Perhaps he was already on the move for a new girlfriend.
"Yeah, three days ago. I can't believe I didn't mention it," Inuyasha frowned before continuing. "She was only dating me because I have some sort of resemblance to Sesshomaru. Every time I saw her she'd burst out crying and babbling about how Sesshomaru had eyes of an angel and "Oh! That fluff that flows behind him! How I miss it!" He mimicked her (apparent) voice before scoffing. "A load of shit. She's gone."
"Insensitive prick," Kagome mused aloud with a smile. The hanyou smirked and then, she found his warm lips on hers.
Her heart couldn't handle it, couldn't handle the mix of emotions and thoughts and Sweet-Mother-of-God-He's-Freakin'-Kissing-Mes that ran through her mind. She sighed against his lips as he pressed his palm against her neck and brought her closer before abruptly pulling apart.
"Um, I- What. Huh." Kagome noticed she was still holding the bowl of ice cream, and that Inuyasha was grinning, grinning with a smile so wide it made her want to lunge at him because he seemed so damn happy.
"I like birthday cake, pistachio and caramel…but strawberry's always going to be my favourite."
"But strawberry's so bland and so…undeserving." Kagome murmured despairingly, looking into his eyes. Inuyasha shrugged as he scooped a piece of Kagome's strawberry ice cream and licked it off clean.
"No, strawberry is simple and overlooked and flat out amazing. Not to sound corny," Inuyasha shrugged at the last pair before placing his lips below Kagome's right ear and trailing kisses down her neck. She bit her lip as she threaded his fingers through his long, silver hair.
"But didn't you say you had to try all-"
"Talking kills, you know." Inuyasha mumbled, removing his lips from her face and facing Kagome, nose to nose. She blushed, quickly placing a peck on his cheek before turning away awkwardly. "Bizarre prude."
"Jackass,"
And then she smiled, because numbers and flavours didn't matter with him entwined with her.
Author's Note: lol i dunno.