A light yet chilling breeze caressed the valley's varying foliage, the grasses waving happily against each other and the birds twittering as they rode the gusts. These winds were even so careless as to brush against a certain inu-youkai's sensitive ears as they stood erect and seemed intensely focused on the wooden well before him. He had been standing in this same position for several minutes, more than he cared to count, as he expected a young woman to climb the vines out of the well. Alas, he heard no whine of the time strip separating them bend and allow her passage nor did he hear the familiar grunt of a girl as she attempted to lift her massive yellow bag out of the Bone Eater's Well.
The hanyou began to grow intensely impatient and planted a single clawed foot at the edge of the well, peering over the side and into the dark abyss that led to the future. That damned girl should have arrived by now, what in the seven hells was taking her so fucking long? She promised to come back as soon as she was done with her school for the day and she was several minutes late, and yet he knew she always was. He lifted his foot off the well and stuffed his clawed hands in the sleeves of his haori before he began to pace back and forth in front of the familiar wooden well, glaring at the ground and cursing that damnable woman for always being late. Then suddenly he paused and glanced down the well, hoping against hope that he would see her tired yet joyous face staring up at him. His mind was soon clustered with various thoughts of this same scenario and his skin wavered with a tingling feeling; the feeling of her soft hand clasped in his as he helped her out of the well, the tight yet warm sensation that blossomed through his chest as she greeted him. He shook away these daydreamed thoughts as another soft wind blew strands of his long white hair to brush his cheeks then continued to pace before he finally decided that enough was enough.
The half demon took a gander around the field, scouting out any unnatural colored clothes of spying companions against the greenery before he pushed off the soft grass and leaped above the opening of the well, soon at the mercy of gravity as it tugged him in. He did not hit the ground however, he was instead engulfed by the luminous blue light of the time strip that would bring him five-hundred years into the future.
The soles of his feet made no noise as he landed softly on the other side of time, the feeling of the cool dirt floor of the well brought his heart into a slight spring and he made a leap toward the roof of the well house but only made it toward the foot of the stairway that led up toward the door of the building. His trademark scowl nearly fell away as the hanyou's sensitive nose picked up the scent of the Higurashi Shrine as well as the woman he seemed to now be pursuing, but was firmly placed over his facial features soon after. His pace quickened and he took on the stair two at a time before roughly opening the wooden door of the well house and making a single leap toward an open bedroom window, not even bothering to shut the door of the building behind him, before landing on the roofing of the mainhouse and climbing through the blatant invitation of the open window.
The room was very obviously identified as a female's, courtesy of the purple walls of her bedroom and the pink sheets so neatly tucked against a soft mattress. The scent of the woman decorating every corner of the room lightened his heart with the rays of the afternoon sun brightening the bedroom's contents, but there was no room for dallying around his traveling companion's room, he had to go find her. The silent house brought him no clues but instead his nose sifted past the scents of women's bathing products and the girl's personal fragrance, only to find an unfamiliar aroma wafting from beneath the door of the bedroom, most likely originating from deeper within the house. This soft scent of futuristic sweets also brought along the troublesome woman's familiar perfume and the inu-youkai hurriedly opened her closed bedroom door, rushing into the hallway and down the stairs, again carelessly leaving her bedroom wide open.
He soon approached the kitchen, the obvious origin of the sweet aroma and the direction of her. A tiny smile curved the edge of his hardened face but was placed back into an annoyed glare as he reached the doorway into the woman's strange kitchen, peering in past the wooden frame and inside the room, only to find a woman, rather short compared to him, moving frantically around the room with only her back facing him.
"Kagome?" He mumbled. Said girl seemed to have a spasm wrack her body before sliding 360 degrees and staring at the man before her, completely startled. He hadn't even tried to be stealthy, why was she so startled.
"Oh, Inuyasha. Don't sneak up on me like that!" The young woman chastised, placing a slender hand over her steadily racing heart. The white-haired man snorted indignantly, crossing his lean arms over his chest.
"Keh! You were late, so I came to get you." He stated, giving her an annoyed glare as she returned a confused look before glancing over at the white face of a contraption hanging on the wall. Understanding dawned upon her features before a hissing sound coming from behind her drew her attention away from the hanyou, her movements became quick and constant once more as she worked.
Inuyasha crossed the linoleum floor separating the two of them and looked curiously over her shoulder, the ears atop his head twitching as if they were two tiny furry radars.
"What are you doing, exactly?" He questioned rather gruffly as he watched her fret over curiously tiny brown squares that smelled suspiciously like cocoa beans. She threw him a quick glance, a tinge of pink dusting her cheeks at his rather close proximity before she came back to focus on her task.
"They're chocolates." She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, squeezing a plastic tube of decorative frosting carefully over the brown pigmented sweets.
"You know how to make chocolate?" He asked with a disbelieving touch to his voice despite the soft warm evidence wafting that sweet scent wafting directly into his nose.
"Mama taught me when I was younger." She answered, a slightly annoyed shine growing in her cocoa eyes that he could not see from his position.
"What for?" Inuyasha watched as she set down the tube of frosting and wiped her hands on the bright yellow apron tied firmly around her waist, the decoration of a cat's face plastered across her chest, before whipping around to face the hanyou only to look down and away as she mumbled in a small voice.
"They're...um...for you." Kagome mumbled, her hands coming to clasp behind her back as she stood there, feeling rather awkward and mentally berating herself for admitting that to him. She continued on with her explanation, stumbling over her words and tugging absentmindedly at the bottom of her apron.
"I-It's Valentine's Day...and...and I just thought...maybe...hmm." The girl sputtered, beginning to wring her hands halfway through her explanation before growing silent and looking up into the confused yet warm golden eyes of the man that was looking down at his intensely growing-timid friend. After a long stillness in the air the hanyou finally spoke.
"For me?" He asked in that disbelieving tone of his, a shine of confusion still glazed in those honey eyes, with the wandering question of what Valentine's Day was in the back of his mind. The time traveling girl clasped her hands in front of her again, wishing desperately they had something to do, before another tinge of pink brushed over her sweet face like an artist painting his canvas.
"Yes. For you, Inuyasha." Kagome confirmed, growing more timid by the second until her feet began to shift against the kitchen floor without her will. Another stillness in the air between them before the hanyou reached over to the tray of sweets, plucking the cooled brown square closest to him before sniffing the substance and popping it into his mouth. She watched nervously as he let it rest against his tongue before he began to chew on it, a bewildered set to his face before his eyes broke out into a delighted shine.
"You like them?" She questioned sheepishly, her tinge of pink fading into a small smile as her back straightened and she looked up into his face.
"These are great, Kagome." He affirmed, not usually one to compliment the girl's cooking, or baking rather, this brought a delighted shine to the young woman's cheeks and she gave him a genuinely joyous smile, but her face broke out in shock as she was tugged to his chest. As his lean arms wrapped around her small frame her spine stiffened at the completely unexpected gesture, her face breaking out with another full flush of pink. It took several moments for her frantic mind to discover what was happening before she relaxed and amended her shocked behavior by wrapping her slim arms under his shoulders and pressed her hands to his back, her head only able to reach his muscular chest.
The embrace was only enjoyed for a few moments before they awkwardly pulled away from each other, the unavoidable silence between them only broken when Inuyasha returned to his gruff tone.
"Get your stuff then, Kagome. We're going back." The inu-youkai stated, looking everywhere but the embarrassed woman's face. A small smile curved the edge of her soft lips, almost glad for a change in motion.
"Right." She affirmed with a nod of her head and reached behind her back to loosen the apron's strings, revealing her seifuku beneath it, before pulling it over her head and tossing it almost carelessly on a clear space on the counter, reaching beside her to open a flimsy wood cupboard and pull out a simple bag made of plastic. With hurried movements she dumped the chocolate into the odd plastic container, quickly shoving it into the hands of the hanyou before rushing upstairs to grab her things. Inuyasha thanked whatever Kami that was listening that nobody else was in the house with her stomping before taking out another sweet piece of chocolate and sliding it into his mouth as he awaited his companion's return. He did not have to wait long as she soon very suddenly burst back into the kitchen, her fingers wrapped tightly around the straps of her familiar massive yellow bag. Inuyasha was about to hand her back the bag of sweets but she refused them, pushing them back into his hands.
"They're for you." She stated and for once, he did not argue. Instead he carefully stuffed the sweets into his haori and they strode side by side through her front door and to the almost welcome opening of the well house, both feeling rather content.
A/N: Apparently, In Japan, it is actually the woman that gives the man chocolate on Valentine's Day, instead of America's traditional vice versa.