Title: Mom was Right
Chapter 3: Thanks
Rating: T
Status: In progress
Disclaimer: I claim the plot. Nothing more.
Summary: She realized with her mother's advice that the love she deserved could only be found in a man who wasn't ashamed to say "I love you". KagomexKouga
Inspiration: Recently realizing there's a growing trend in the fanfic world to accept and promote that it's ok for significant others to not say "I love you". I find that to be a boatload of malarkey.
… … … …
He showed up at a worse time.
Inuyasha had been harassing her because she had watched Rin for his brother.
Sorry, half- brother.
It was then that the hanyou said everything she expected he would.
"Idiot! How stupid could you be? Why bother to help that bastard? He tired to kill you! And you know you couldn't have done anything right if something had happened anyway!"
Had it been any other day she would have reamed him out. She would have told him how unbelievable he was acting. How ridiculously paranoid he was.
And that was the problem. It wasn't any other day.
Today was the day she had watched Rin.
Today was the deplorable day she realized her assessments of love were completely off.
And being called a moron by another out loud, after she had been thinking the exact same thing all day, was another stab to her deteriorating pride.
Especially because this… verbal lashing was what they did. This was their atrociously hurtful everyday normal.
Putting each other down.
She felt sick to her stomach. Her mother would be ashamed of her. She had raised her better than to be so callous.
When his amber eyes blinked in surprise at her lack of reaction his next move was cut short when out of nowhere Kouga had landed on top of him. And Inuyasha was flattened face first onto the ground. Boisterously Kouga had voiced "Kagome, my love-"but had stopped when the smell of salty water permeated the miko's being.
His blue eyes widened in horror.
She was pale.
Trembling.
And crying.
A panicked " Kagome… are you alri-"was all he got out before the flattened Inuyasha threw the wolf off himself.
And unsurprisingly the two canines broke out into a fight.
The "What have you done to Kagome?" was traded with an "I didn't do anything!" which only brought out the "You made her cry!"
And that was the crux of the problem wasn't it? Inuyasha never did anything. And then she would cry.
But what really drove the nail in so maliciously was the "Arrrgh! She cries all the time! It's no big deal!"
…
It was…
It was devastating to hear that he could care so little about her.
Had she not been so stunned while she walked away she would have seen the look of aghast mirrored in all of the faces of her friends, Kouga included.
… … … …
Some two hours after she had stormed off into the woods and found sanction sitting on a rotting tree log, he sat down next to her.
By that time she had numbed herself over. She had cried. She had yelled. And she had kicked trees, bushes, rocks, and flowers, especially those damnably bright flowers. Her anger had consumed her and left her exhausted, which was good.
She couldn't have dealt with Kouga otherwise. He was like Inuyasha, mostly because he was exasperating and partly because he was blunt. Too blunt. If she hadn't been at the bottom of her barrel she would have ferociously demanded for him to leave her alone.
And yet, because she felt that cold tingle of nothing as he sat next to her, she knew she could at least tolerate whatever he said or did.
So when he rubbed the back of his neck for a few seconds before he told her with an earnest frown that "I wish I could have done more for you than give him two black eyes" she unexpectedly felt her breath huff out in a half sob- half chuckle.
Was it terrible of her to feel avenged?
And happily so at that?
Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes welled. How disturbing was it that she could feel that acidic and forlorn smile on her face?
Then her tension amplified as she folded into herself, cradling her head in both hands while releasing a few more half sobs- half laughs.
What a spiteful person she was. Deriving this sick feeling of pleasure from Inuyasha's pain.
Breathe.
She needed to breathe.
That was a bad train of thought.
She had to focus on her rickety breathes. She had to focus on anything really, to stop her thoughts.
After a few minutes as her breathing became less ragged and she distracted herself further away from her thoughts to regard Kouga. And she saw through her fringe of hair that he seemed to be watching her warily.
That shouldn't be all that surprising though. She did spontaneously burst into tears on him...
Further she watched his blue eyes pinched with unease. His arm tensed as his hand hesitantly moved towards her bent elbow but just as he was nigh an inch away from touching her he stopped himself.
A strange sense of gratitude filled her.
She knew he was a forward guy and seeing him restraining himself for her sake was welcomed.
"Thanks" she garbled out with a muted smile to him.
And she meant it. For Inuyasha's black eyes and for not touching her.
Wide blue eyes blinked thrice.
Then his apprehension towards her visibly dissolved as he smiled slightly and slouched more comfortably in his spot next to her.
He rubbed the back of his neck again in a sign of awkwardness.
"Yea. No problem."
… … … …