Father's Day
It was boring. Very boring.
Inuyasha, after stalking Kagome for the majority of the day, had jumped down the well barely fifteen minutes earlier and now sat by the side of the well, pretending he had been there all day.
The trees rustled, as if laughing at him. Who were they to judge? He thought angrily to himself.
Just because he happened to sit in them, day in and day out, whenever Kagome was gone...
'Where in the world is she?' Inuyasha asked himself. He had left the God tree in her time as soon as she reached the top of those impossibly tall stairs. It shouldn't take her more than ten minutes to say goodbye to her mom; she had already packed the night before.
'Was she kidnapped? Was she hurt? Did her mom stop her from coming back?' Inuyasha stood up, his mind running faster and faster out of control, the possibilities circling in his head, gaining more credibility each time he thought them.
He was just getting ready to jump down the well and rescue Kagome from a mother-turned-demon when the familiar blue glow lighted Kagome's return. He carefully put away his sword before Kagome noticed.
"Oi! Took you long enough, girl!" She barely glanced up at his greeting. If you could call it that.
"How does he know how long I take?" Kagome asked herself under her breath, pulling her bag further up on her shoulders. Inuyasha almost stuttered a rebuttal along the lines of 'You always take too long' when he noticed Kagome was taking too long to climb up the well. Was she favoring her right foot? Why did her hands look dirty?
It normally took her less than a minute to climb up the well, even with that huge backpack of hers. However, she was struggling with reaching the halfway mark and it had already been half a minute or more.
Inuyasha jumped down to help her, grabbing onto the vines before he hit the bottom, grabbing her around her stomach and climbing, with ease, to the top of the well.
"Thanks, Inuyasha." Kagome said, smiling. She wiped her hands off on her skirt, getting the bits of dirt from under her fingernails on her hem. Inuyasha noticed again that she was leaning, standing on her left foot. She smiled at him again when she was done, and began walking.
She was limping - barely, but still limping.
He caught up with her easily, the difference in their stride exaggerated by her limp. With every step, she would wince. With every wince, his heart would twinge.
He grabbed Kagome's bag and lifted it off her shoulders, keeping his eyes on her ankle. It wasn't swelling, though through the sock it was a bit difficult to tell.
"What happened?" He asked.
"Nothing, Inuyasha." Kagome said. She kept her palms hidden from him, he noticed.
"Show me your hands." His eyes narrowed.
The rejection was implied in the look she shot him. She attempted to stomp off, but between her ankle and Inuyasha, she didn't get very far.
The bag had been not-so-carefully set down on the ground, but luckily, not in one of the numerous mud puddles that sprung up all too often during the spring rains. Inuyasha rushed to Kagome and grabbed one of her wrists, lifting the fist to smell it. He didn't smell much, but the metallic scent had to be blood - barely any, but still enough to make him angry.
"What happened?" This time his voice was more direct, though not enough to scare the girl. He didn't glare at her intentionally. He didn't shout intentionally. He was just worried.
"It's so stupid, Inuyasha. Just let it go." She shook her head.
"No! What happened?"
"I tripped, okay? I fell within three yards of the well house! I-" She stopped herself from continuing her tirade. "There were some people coming, so I was running. They turned out to be some of my Dad's old friends. They didn't recognize me, and it kind of shook me, you know? People who played with me when I was five years old, babysat me until just a few years ago didn't remember who I was."
Inuyasha loosed his grip on her wrist for a moment. He didn't let go, and his eyes barely relaxed, but Kagome went on regardless.
"I just twisted my ankle and scraped my hands and knees. It just made me so sad that I've changed so much that people so close to my family don't know me anymore. Between that and school..." She paused. The smell of tears grew quickly. "I'm fine, it's just that today is a bad day."
Inuyasha released her wrist, and she let it fall back to her side. She looked around them, looking up to the sky and down to the forest that surrounded her. "My dad died four years ago. Today is the anniversary of his death." She smiled that sad smile she got too often when thinking about the past. "I wonder how he would have reacted to this..."
"Keh. Would he have been as bad as Kaede when you first released me?" Inuyasha tossed the backpack over his shoulder. He carefully wiped away the single tear that had escaped before he grabbed Kagome's wrist again.
"Actually, he probably would have been more accepting than mom." She actually laughed. "He was very, very open minded. He actually took my mom's name when they married. It upset his mom and dad, just a bit."
Inuyasha slid his thumb up and down, taking her hand when she released her fist. Kagome smiled at him, her eyes shining brightly with what might have been unshed tears.
"He would have liked you." Kagome said.
"Let's go back." Inuyasha said, surprising her. "Today is important for you."
"What about Shippo and the others?"
"They can wait."
Kagome's mother watched through the kitchen window as her daughter and her friend raced across the grounds toward the few graves that acutally existed on the shrines' grounds. She turned around and set the two coffee mugs on the table, sitting down to her own cup of tea.
"Yes ma'am, Kagome and Sota certainly have grown. Kagome looks more like her father everyday." The dark haired, dark skinned male said. He took a sip from his coffee and looked around him. "Nothing much has changed here, though."
"We almost didn't recognize Kagome when we bumped into her on the way here. She was out by that old well house that Tohru wanted destroyed." The other one, paler, said. "We went back to see her when we realized who she was, but she was already gone. That blasted cat was right next to the door, though."
"Yeah, he got Ryu here across the back of his hand."
They talked amiably for a while before the sun set; with no more sign of Kagome or Inuyasha, Miss Higurashi assumed they had gone back to the past. It was several minutes after the two men left that Kagome came down the stairs, digging in the hall desk.
"Mom, where is the photo album?" Kagome called from the hallway.
"Honey?"
"Yeah?" Kagome poked her head around the doorway.
"It's in here, honey. You remember Ryu and Jiro? They were just here."
"Yeah, I know." Kagome said. "Inuyasha overheard." She smiled at her mom and took the album, going up the stairs to introduce Inuyasha and her father.
The End
A/N: Just something that wouldn't leave me alone; a ditty, if you will. Thank you for reading, now please, review! I absolutely hate seeing the little things out of place, so if you noticed anything, please tell me. No detail is too insignificant. .^ Have a great year!