Prompt: 04 - A snowball fight | Words: 860
Despite Kagome's insistence that she was fine to walk home alone, Inuyasha accompanied her.
He was hyperaware of her body brushing against his as they trudged through the snow, swapping stories, reminiscing about the past, and speculating about the future. Her scent, always so airy and sweet, soured when the topic of her grandfather's declining health came up. Inuyasha hated the way she hunched into herself as if thoughts of the inevitable were a physical burden she bore alone.
Which wasn't true. She had her family, for one thing, and her friends who were as much as.
She had him, who would carry it all if he could. Or however much she'd let him.
They lapsed into silence as they turned a corner onto a secluded street.
Inuyasha watched her stare up into the murky sky from the corner of his eye and clenched his fists. It wasn't right. Kagome—she should be happy, smiling and laughing always. Not this. But there was little he could do to set it to rights.
He looked away.
Humans are such fleeting creatures, he thought, his own mood dampening. He'd always wondered why when really, there were very few differences between them and demons and even less for the halfers like him.
One day Inuyasha was going to lose her. It was a thought he didn't often dwell on simply because doing so served no other purpose than to depress him. Even if Kagome were to accept his mark there'd only be so much power behind it. If he'd been youkai the bond between them could have easily prolonged her life to match his. As hanyou, he'd be lucky if she lived three or four centuries.
It wasn't long enough. Nothing short of forever would be.
Keh, what am I doing? he thought with frustration, kicking a mound of snow so hard it exploded into a cloud of glittering snow crystals. I'm acting like Kagome's about to drop dead any day now.
Whatever happened, he still had now. Kagome was still here, still alive and healthy and whole. But not happy, because they were both too busy losing themselves in what was yet to come to appreciate the now.
An idea struck, and Inuyasha silently fell behind. He bent down and picked up a handful of snow from the ground—checking first to make sure it didn't contain fragments of ice—and molded it into a ball.
"Kagome?" he called.
"Hmm?" She turned around. "Inuyasha? Why are you—," she broke off to gasp as a snowball hit her in the center of her forehead, stuck for all of three seconds, then fell to the floor.
Kagome was gaping, and Inuyasha's face hurt from grinning so hard.
"D-did you just—"
He lobbed another rapidly crafted snowball at her. This time it landed on her chest. The two of them watched as it slowly slid down her coat, and then glanced up at each other.
"Inuyasha," Kagome said slowly, "would you say you lived a fulfilling life?"
"Huh? Why d'ya wanna know?"
"Because I'm about to end it," she said very, very sweetly, and then ducked to scoop up two handfuls of snow and charged.
A bark of laughter erupted from him as he bolted, fast enough to evade the snow being pelted at him but not so fast that Kagome couldn't keep up. They kept at it for nearly a half-hour, until the clouds burst and a soft flurry descended from the sky.
Kagome was rosy-cheeked and breathing hard when Inuyasha finally ducked out from behind the vending machine he'd been using as a barricade and closed the distance between them.
"Do you surrender?" she threatened, one arm raised.
Inuyasha turned away to hide his smile. "Keh. For now."
"Oh, thank god," Kagome breathed, letting her arm drop and the misshaped snowball to fall with it. "I'm beat."
"And yet you were gonna attack me anyway," he pointed out.
She smirked at him. "Obviously."
It was futile, trying to hide his smile from her when everything she did, and said, prompted it to widen. "Crazy girl."
"As if you'd have me any other way," she said confidently as she leaned into his front and closed her eyes. "C'mon, Inuyasha, let's go home. I'm about to turn into a popsicle."
"Can't have that," he murmured, then without thinking lifted his claw to brush a snowflake from her eyelashes. It did not go unnoticed the way she leaned into his touch, or the way Inuyasha's thumb was slow to part with her skin.
"What was that for?" she asked, slowly opening eyes that seemed to steal color from the sky.
He shifted. "Snowflake."
She nodded in understanding, then raised herself to her tiptoes and pressed a fleeting kiss against his face. Heat spread beneath the skin and like a moth sought flame, Inuyasha yearned to touch his branded cheek.
"What was that for?"
"For being you," was Kagome's ambiguous reply before she caught his hand and tugged him forward.
"Hey, Inuyasha? Thanks."
Though Inuyasha pretended not to know what she was thanking him for, when she tightened her hand over his, he squeezed back.
A/N: To be cont'd.
This was supposed to be a fun drabble, but somehow it only ended up that way. Probably because I had Kaoru Wada's Fate of Awakening Love on repeat while writing it. Whoops. Anyway, thanks to everyone who has commented so far—I'm glad to know that you're enjoying it!