A/N: Sorry I took so long everyone D: My birthday was August 11th so I had a lot going on.. buuuut I'm glad that some people liked it. I got a few alerts and some reviews and that seriously felt amazingly good! I'm really enjoying this story you guys and I hope you are too. ((And yes I did change the summary of the story... I thought this summary gave a bit more information.)) Blah blah blah now onto why you came here, the second chapter!
AR Accepted :).
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inu-Yasha, nor will I ever. : Cries as the government type people lower their weapons:
Remembering What Was Never There
Chapter 2
"Good night Kaede, Sango." I pushed the door open the opposite way leading myself and Inu-Yasha out of the store. I saw them wrapping things up, pausing only to wave good-bye to me. Once I returned a smile, I walked with Inu-Yasha back up the street to where my complex was.
Tonight was certainly eventful. Sango and Kaede were literally on top of Inu-Yasha for everything. Sango thinks he's only a pervert out to get me and Kaede only sees him as a half demon. What am I going to do? If he remembers he has those half demon powers, he might hurt me if I'm with him, and then kidnap me! Oh no, maybe I should seriously rethink this whole situation!
"So, what did your boss call you up to his office for?" Inu-Yasha questioned, taking me out of the deep conversation I was having with my mind.
"O-oh. Um, it was nothing really." I said rubbing my arm. I really didn't need him to know why my boss, Koga, was always asking me up to his office... Inu-Yasha looked at me curiously, but got the hint and dropped the subject.
It was strangely dark out for some odd reason, and it felt colder. The street lights only lit about a 3 foot radius and they were about 10 feet apart. I found myself walking faster and closer to Inu-Yasha when we'd hit those spots, only for him to back away from me more. We finally got to the front of my building and I took my keys out.
"So, I guess I'll see you." Inu-Yasha said almost sadly walking away from me. I could see from the faint lights, snowflakes were beginning to fall. Looking at what he was wearing, a black teeshirt covered by a light red plaid jacket and torn jeans, I figured that was anything but fit for the weather.
"Wait, Inu-Yasha," I seriously must have been out of my right mind. "Why don't you come stay with me in my apartment? At least until you find somewhere else." He slowly turned back to me and looked away at the stairs to my right.
"I don't need your pity."
"I'm not pitying you, I think it would be nice to have a roommate." I said sending a small smile in his direction. He looked around as if he was scared someone would be listening to our conversation but quickly turned back to me.
"I guess I'll stay with you, but only until I find out who I am." He put extra emphasis on the only. My smile bloomed fully as I took his hand and led him up the two flights of stairs to my apartment door. Putting the key in the door, I ushered him inside and quickly followed after him. As he took his shoes off, he looked around the dim apartment and didn't seem too impressed, not that I expected him to be...
"What a dump..." Inu-Yasha jumped onto the couch and put his feet up on the table.
"Well, sorry it isn't a mansion to fit your royal needs, your highness." I said sarcastically while flipping the kitchen light on and putting a pot of hot water on the stove for tea. I slowly took off my coat and scarf shivering slightly at the coldness my apartment held. The heat had been broken for months and only worked certain times. On a snowy night like tonight it would have been great if it was a tad warmer. I went back to get the hot water for our tea and could see Inu-Yasha's eyes following me every step I took. It was making me nervous, it was like I had a big target on my back and he was sharp shooting. Nonetheless, I came out of the kitchen and set two mugs of tea down, while also tapping his legs off the table. I took a seat on the floor directly across from him on the other side of the table.
"Now lets see if we can get you to remember anything," I hardly held any hope in my voice, I mean how would I, a girl who didn't even know him, get him to remember his entire past? "Do you remember anything about your mother? Or father? Did you have any siblings?"
"I don't know!" He said slamming his tea down. "I told you! The only thing that I have left of my life is a stupid card and more than half of it is gone. How am I supposed to know if I had a family?!"
"I told you I'm only trying to help you, so lose the attitude!" Man this guy was a jerk! He looked down at the small crack in the table that formed where the cup had made contact and picked his tea back up. After taking another sip and setting it down, (gently this time I may add) he looked back at me seemingly more defensive than before.
"What year is it even?" Inu-Yasha played with the fraying side of a hole in his jeans.
"It's 2003."
"I don't even know why I asked that," he stopped fidgeting. "I forget my year of birth."
"Maybe you should just have some food and go to sleep. After you sleep a bit it may come back to you, you might just be trying too hard is all." Getting up, I made my way back to the kitchen. Taking a pot out of the cabinet, I also got some rice and some left-overfish from the night before out of the fridge. There wasn't much to offer him, but it was enough. I boiled some water dumping the rice into the pot, stirring it for only a second then slid the fish in and pressed the buttons on the microwave. Finally, when I returned to the living room, Inu-Yasha was playing with his drivers license.
"It'll be okay," I walked over and sat on the couch next to him while plucking the card from his hands. "Most cases of amnesia are temporary." Giving him a hearty smile I turned to him and heard the microwave go off, signifying that the fish was done being re-cooked.
"You know, when you smile like that it makes me... Well, not remember but think about a girl. A girl that I knew from somewhere." Inu-Yasha looked like he was trying so hard to remember who he was thinking of, but after only a second of thinking he gave up and leaned back on the couch. I dropped my smile and noticed the tired looked etched on his face. Slowly getting up, I went back to the kitchen and took the fish out of the microwave, watching the steam dissipate into the air in nothing less than a few seconds. Scooping the rice carefully into two bowls, I juggled it to the table where he was sitting. Looking out the window, he was watching the car headlights go by with a 'whoosh' of sound.
"Here, try to eat something." Pulling chopsticks out of my other hand, I handed them to him and watched him eat his fish and rice as I settled for nothing more than my bowl of rice and tea. As he ate, his ears twitched, bringing more attention to himself. I simply planned out my day, in my mind, for tomorrow. It would be Sunday, meaning I had the entire day to finally rest from school until I went to work.
"Thanks.." Inu-Yasha murmured some time later putting the chopsticks down beside the empty bowls.
"Of course!" Cheerfully I picked up the remainders of our tea and "meal" washing the dishes in the sink. While I dried my hands, I saw Inu-Yasha picking up some of the pictures that were on the table and scratching his head.
"So who are these people?" He showed me the picture and I sat on the couch next to him taking it.
"That's my family. My Mother, Father, and little brother. I was still so young when that was taken and my brother was a new born, and my Father was still alive." Fidgeting I put the picture back on the table. "I miss them. They're back in Tokyo, but I had to leave them to move here to Osaka a while ago. It's like I don't have a family to protect me anymore."
"I know the feeling."
"Inu-Yasha, how about you sleep in my room tonight and I'll sleep on the couch? You'll be more comfortable in there probably." Good move, Kagome, change the subject.
"What about you?" He said for the first time seeming to care about someone other than himself.
"I'll be fine really, I sleep on this couch all the time!" I pulled the blanket that hung over the back of it down to the main part of the sitting area.
"I guess that'll be fine."
"You can take a shower tonight if you'd like also." His hair looked greasy, he must not have been clean for days.
"That's what I was going to ask you." He said rubbing the back of his head.
"All right, the bathroom is the first door on the right and my bedroom is straight across from it." I laughed and pointed to each door. He nodded ducking into the bathroom and shutting the door, the only noise from him was the shower handles being turned.
XxXxXxX
It might have only been maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, but I was sorting things out in my room to make it at least a bit more comfortable for Inu-Yasha. When I put the last of my laundry away, I heard the bathroom door creak open and steam came pouring out. Following after it, Inu-Yasha emerged, with nothing more than a towel covering him. I could feel my face get hot as I scanned over him, he obviously worked out, his muscle tone was amazing. My eyes followed his body up to his face where his wet, shining hair now seemed to cradle and give him a soft glow while he looked so much more peaceful and relaxed.
"Kagome?" My name rang out of his throat hoarsely. He cleared his throat and called once more. "Hey Kagome, where are you?"
"I-I'm in here!" I called out flustered from the only slightly cracked door. He pushed open the door holding his towel in place. Oh yeah, Inu-Yasha needed pajamas didn't he? Walking to my pajama drawer, I slid it open and pulled out the biggest pair of pajama pants the drawer contained and strew them on the bed. "Those may fit you, at least try them. It'll be better than just sleeping in your jeans." I felt a blush come to my face as I stole one last glance of his bare chest before running out, shutting the door behind me. Walking over to the couch, I plopped down putting my heavy head in my hand. The clock screamed the fact that it was 10:30 already, and I still needed to go food shopping the next day before work. My thoughts were interrupted by Inu-Yasha walking down the short hallway wearing my pajama pants that were obviously too short for him. They were all the way up to his ankles but fit perfectly in the hips, he didn't seem too content and folded his arms over his bare torso, the lack of heat now definitely making itself known.
"What're you staring at?"
"Nothing! I was just thinking about how cold you must be.."
"For some reason I'm not that cold." Thinking about it, I realized it must be due to the fact that he was a half demon.
"Well, we should both be getting to bed I think. I need to get some food from the store tomorrow."
"Why do I gotta go?" Inu-Yasha moved his hands to his hips.
"Because I need help carrying the bags inside. Please? Maybe if I have enough money we can get you some clothes." Attempting to make him say yes by bribing him wasn't horrible... Not something to be proud of but not horrible...
"Fine." Inu-Yasha didn't seem up for arguing and agreed with me quickly. Clapping my hands together in contentment I went back to my bedroom to grab a long nightshirt I had laid out perviously. I brought it back out to the living room, Inu-Yasha's eyes following me everywhere I went.
"Thank you." The cheeriness in my voice seemed to make him uncomfortable as he turned to go back to the bedroom. "Well, goodnight!" He stopped only to turn around to see me once more, then continuing to walk to my room, his hair flipping around while he grunted and shut the door. A giggle escaped my throat as I went into the bathroom to change my clothes as well. Shutting the door and flipping on the light, Inu-Yasha's clothes that were thrown carelessly on the sink came into view. I sighed to myself and took the liberty of folding them to find his underwear along with them.
'You're kidding me. He's wearing MY pants with no underwear... What a pig!' I mentally shuddered while putting the folded pile on the corner of the sink and removed my shirt and pants, throwing them in the dirty clothes hamper. Fearing the cold, I scrambled to get the cotton night shirt on, and when successful, walked out barefoot to the couch laying my tired body down reading the clock one final time before I went to sleep.
10:46 PM. That meant there were only 14 more minutes left to the hour, 14 times 60 was 830? No, 840 seconds left in the hour, which really didn't seem like a lot when I thought about it more. I wonder how many seconds that Inu-Yasha was missing... If he was my age that would be around 21 or 22 years of missing months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds but most importantly memories and love. I felt myself turn to face the back of the couch as I tried to calculate how many seconds I had left until my next birthday, until the new year, until I got out of school, until...
XxXxXxX
The sun was bright against my closed eyelids. Opening my eyes, I felt a sense of confusion. I wasn't in my room, wait, I remember, the living room, that's where I was sleeping. Looking over to the clock, a groan escaped my throat when it read 11:57. We needed to get up and going to the store! My legs found their way stiffly over the side of the couch as I walked to the window, the cold hardwood floors merciless on my bare feet. The white powder that covered everything forced my eyes to look away, the snow that we got last night was nothing less than a blizzard! That's when I remembered I still had to wake up Inu-Yasha and get dressed. Slowly making my way to the bedroom, I stretched my stiff body out, breathing in hard and refreshing my lungs. Pushing the door open quietly, I tiptoed to my drawers and pulled out a pair of jeans and a dark blue sweater placing them on top of the dresser. Then I walked quietly over to the bed where Inu-Yasha laid snoring. The sheets were tangled around his feet that hung over the bed, while his hair was plastered every which direction on his face. This was seriously priceless. Despite the objections my mind screamed at me to not wake him, I nudged him slightly while cooing his name shortly after.
"Inu-Yasha. Inu-Yasha it's time to get up." His snoring stopped and his left eye fluttered open to me, then quickly shut as he turned back over still half asleep. Trying a new theory, I pulled open the curtains to the window that was next to the dresser and saw him cower farther below the covers. "Inu-Yasha come on you said you would help me today."
"But... I'm...today...errrrrrrg." Inu-Yasha's sentence made no sense at all as I saw him yet again curl up in the sheets.
"Get up!" Putting my foot on his back, I gave him a push and with it and I heard him growl. Finally, after much persuasion, he unwrapped himself out of the sheets and sat on the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes while groaning with sleepiness. The light oozing into the room from the window reflected off his soft hair, it was almost as bright as the snow outside was. I know it isn't right to say this about a guy, and especially this guy, but he really was beautiful.
"When do we have to leave?" He said straightening his hair out simply by running his hand through it once or twice.
"As soon as we both get dressed! It's already twelve!" Taking my clothes I headed out the door closing it behind me. Quickly I turned around and screamed into the door, "And don't you dare you back to sleep, Inu-Yasha!" I heard another groan and the sound of his feet hitting the floor and smirked as I entered the bathroom, threw his clothes out into the hallway, and closed the door. He was being dramatic and thumped out of the room to pick up his clothes. I was already done dressing by the time he did this and was brushing my hair, deciding to leave it down for today. The door creaked as I pushed it open and headed towards the kitchen, grabbing the list of what I needed to retrieve at the store while I was out. Inu-Yasha came from my room and plopped lazily onto the couch which was still covered in my blanket.
"Are you ready?" I said grabbing my coat and purse from the rack behind the door.
"Will you hold on for a second? Or do I have to go out half asleep? Stupid impatient woman."
"Well, excuse me but half the reason we're going out is for you!" Inu-Yasha's attitude was definitely something that annoyed me. He was still sitting on the couch with his lazy expression so I took it upon myself to grab his hand and pull him towards the door.
"What's the big idea!?" The half demon screamed while I shoved him out the door.
"I told you: We're. Going. Out. End of story!" And with that I pushed him further down the hallway, quickly locking my door behind me just in case Inu-Yasha decided to push his way back in.
The cold air immediately hit us in the hallway, it affecting me more than him. It really shocked me despite the presence of the snow, and I figured I better just go to the small store where I worked, it was far too frigid to walk to the supermarket. Plus, with employee discounts, I would be able to hold up my bargain of new clothes for Inu-Yasha. We approached the store after much bickering and name calling but reached it nonetheless (and much to my relief). I was ready for this day to be over already, however I continued pushing the glass door plastered with advertisements open and heard the bell ring twice as Inu-Yasha and I both stepped into the cramped store.
"Hey Kagome! What're you doing here, it isn't even your shift!" The young man behind the counter called out to me.
"I'm just here to do a little shopping, Miroku." Miroku was the closest guy friend that I had. We rarely saw each other at work, although we worked in the same place, but I would see him on outings with Sango. The two kind of had a thing going, not that Sango would ever admit it. He was a bit on the tall side, his hair was long and brown, held back usually in a ponytail. He was that kind of friend who's there for "comic relief" in an awkward situation. His only downside was his mind was permanently placed in the gutter for reasons only Kami-Sama knew. "Things are busy today."
"Eh, it's Sunday. It's to be expected." I saw Miroku's eyes travel to the man who stood behind me impatiently. His smile turned to a tight frown as he saw Inu-Yasha, making me nervous to the point of almost shaking.
"Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, it's," He never once looked at me. "Everything is fine." Looking back to Inu-Yasha, he was looking at Miroku as well. He looked like he did last night when he was trying to remember someone, and for that I became worried. Wouldn't Miroku have said something right away if he knew who Inu-Yasha was?
Picking out the items I needed off the shelves, I pondered these things. I really had been thinking a lot the past two days, about someone I didn't know no less. I wonder if someone else was thinking about him as much as I was...
"Hey you in there?" A hand waved back and forth in front of my face. "You gonna buy that soap or just stare at it all day?" Once again Inu-Yasha had shook me from my thoughts.
"Sorry, I just thought about something for too long." Grabbing the soap I took the basket that I had filled up to the counter, watching Miroku's blank gaze towards Inu-Yasha continue. Miroku must have noticed that I was watching him and began to act like he was never staring at him in the first place and rang up my groceries. After telling me how much it would be, I handed him the money but was still curious about why he was looking at Inu-Yasha like he was.
"Hey, Miroku?"
"Y-yes?" He said a bit too timidly.
"Do you know anything about Inu-Yasha over there?" I proceeded to point to the one who had walked outside the store.
"O-of course not, Kagome. I've never seen him before in my life."
"Are you sure? Because the poor guy has amnesia and I'm just trying to help him along."
"Is that so? Well, Kagome, you are indeed a sweet person." Miroku handed me my bags as if to say 'you can leave now' as I took them and smiled.
"Well, if you think about it and remember something about him, let me know okay? I really want to help him get his memories back and it'd be great if I had a bit of a lead on how to do that." I winked at him and headed for the door, pushing it open and being greeted by Inu-Yasha's complaints of waiting.
"Who was that guy?" Inu-Yasha said sounding strangely intrigued. Completely ignoring him, we made our way to the closest clothing store around, me thinking way too much again.
'The way Miroku looked at Inu-Yasha ... and the way Inu-Yasha is reacting now, could Miroku have known Inu-Yasha before and just be lying to me? No, that's silly. Miroku would have no reason to lie about something like that.' At least I hoped he wouldn't. Inu-Yasha pulled open the door to the store and I followed in after him waiting at the front of the store to bring me the clothes he needed.
'Maybe Inu-Yasha did something wrong to Miroku before this happened...' My thoughts terrified me.
What on Earth could this boy have done to deserve forgetting his whole past?
XxXxXxX
A/N: Well, this chapter must have been pretty boring.. Not that much happened! Sorry if it was a little boring but I needed to set some stuff up! For this story I'm trying to write long chapters, and I think I'm doing pretty well. Well, that's really all here! However, this chapter is in celebration of my 2 years on today which is the 17th! Here's to two years of improvement! And please press that pretty indigo button down there and review!!! Thanks to everyone for the reviews and alerts to push me to write this next chapter!
'Till Next Time!
A Friend in Words,
--KB
