Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. Revised 2-10-17.

words:3,416 ; prompt: A Sprinkling of Stars, Christmas Challenge at Dokuga_contest; rating: T

December 10—Oh Starry Night

(Days until Christmas: 15)

Clothes were strewn haphazardly around her small apartment bedroom as Kagome desperately searched for the perfect outfit for her date with Sesshoumaru. Really, it was ridiculous; she was acting like some teenager who had never been on a date before. Kagome supposed the sentiment was fitting, as she was unearthing clothes from her closet that she hadn't seen since she was a teenager. She even found her old green and white middle school uniform, tucked back into a little-used corner.

She tossed it aside, it obviously being of little use anymore, and assessed the mess she had made. Not only had she discovered she owned nothing she felt was appropriate for this first date, now her bedroom was a pit. She glanced at the clock, wondering if she had enough time for a quick shopping trip.

If she was this anxious over what to wear now, how on earth was she going to get through the actual date?

#

He arrived promptly at 7:00 and Kagome answered the door without preamble. It was as good as it was going to get. She had settled on a little black dress fallback, concluding in the end that she did not have time to buy something new. As compensation, she had spent a good hour curling and fluffing her hair and perfecting her make-up. With luck, Sesshoumaru would be so distracted by her charming good looks that he would fail to notice he had seen her wear this dress at least twice before.

When Kagome answered the door, Sesshoumaru's breath caught in the back of his throat. "Miss Higurashi, you look stunning," he complimented, holding his hand out to accompany her to the car.

"Kagome, Sesshoumaru."

"Of course, Miss Higurashi."

She sighed in exasperation, and Sesshoumaru wondered briefly if one of the reasons he continued to insist on calling her by her surname was simply to annoy her. She reached out to lock her door, but he took the key from her, completing the task and tucking it in his pocket before guiding her down the hallway by the small of her back.

"My, how bold of you," she commented, staring at the pocket where her key had disappeared.

"It is merely chivalry, Miss Higurashi, nothing more," he commented lightly, easing her forward and taking her hand. He felt a thrill when she didn't remove it.

"Bold and humble, I see," she said dryly, walking through the door he held open. It was pitch dark and the night was clear. There wasn't a cloud to be seen and stars shone brightly above them. Their breath puffed out in little clouds of condensation in the cold winter air.

He had left the car running in an effort to stave off the chill, and Kagome rushed forward, opening the passenger-side door without waiting for his chivalrousness to make itself present once more. He scowled at that, but joined her anyway. Kagome had turned the heat up full-blast and had three fans pointing at her exposed knees.

"It's cold out there!" she wailed, rubbing her arms dramatically.

"Really, Miss Higurashi," Sesshoumaru drawled, "you were outside for about twelve seconds."

"A very cold twelve seconds," she rejoined, but turned the heat down all the same.

"So, where are we going?" she asked.

At her question, Sesshoumaru had to fight down a snarl. Initially, he had planned a lovely evening at one of his favorite restaurants, then intended on taking her downtown to the park to look at the lights. They would finish the evening at a café he knew that played live jazz music and served only the best lattés known to man or beast.

Unfortunately, his carefully laid plans had been interrupted and rudely imposed upon by one Inuyasha Saiga. His half-brother was racking up an awful lot of debt, and at some point he would have to pay the piper. Unfortunately for Sesshoumaru, this evening his own karma was biting him in the butt.

"Originally I had in mind dinner and light-viewing in the park, but we'll have to save that for another evening." Kagome thrilled at his words, because the date had really barely started and already he was planning a second. She would have him calling her Kagome before the end of the night.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "a family obligation I cannot escape has come up. On Saturdays, my father, younger brother, and I spend the evening together. Normally a date would be a more than adequate excuse to get out of it, but as my brother so kindly reminded me, I had promised some months ago to be present on this particular evening. We shall have to put in an appearance, however brief."

All this was said with a toneless indifference; the only thing that betrayed his frustration with the situation was his inflection on the word "kindly," which made it sound like he did not think the reminder kind at all.

"Oh? Is something special going on tonight?"

"It is my brother's mother's birthday," he supplied.

"Your brother's mom? Not your mom?" Kagome pried, curious at the distinction

"My parents are… divorced, I suppose would be the human equivalent," he explained. "My mother harbors no love for Izayoi, but personally I have no issue with her. My mother can be a difficult person to get along with, and I do not begrudge my father his dalliance. My father and Izayoi are, of course, married now."

Kagome nodded thoughtfully, a smile spreading over her face. "Well, it may be a bit unorthodox for a first date, but I would love to attend your step-mother's birthday!"

"Hn," Sesshoumaru replied, content that at least she found the plans amusing. "Fortunately, we need not attend the dinner, only dessert and coffee. The restaurant I originally had in mind would be unsuitable for tonight. It is quite a distance from my father's house and an experience there is not one I would recommend rushing. Is there a particular restaurant or cuisine you enjoy?"

"Well," Kagome divulged with a blush, "My favorite food was always oden. But I haven't had it in ages. Usually my mama made it growing up, but I don't have much of a chance to get home when she's making it anymore."

Sesshoumaru thought a moment, pulling from his extensive mental list of restaurants in the area. "I know of a shabu shabu place that probably serves it," he finally suggested. "We're overdressed, but I don't see that being too much of a problem."

Kagome giggled. "I've never been harassed for looking too nice at a restaurant."

#

Dinner had been pleasant. Kagome proved to be a comfortable conversation partner, mainly because she could talk long periods of time without interruption, which suited Sesshoumaru just fine. He could give her a subject and off she would go, leaving him to listen contentedly.

"There is something you must know before we go in," Sesshoumaru explained, pulling up the winding drive to his father's house and shutting off the car engine. Lights shone through the windows and the entire house had been decorated in glittering, multi-colored Christmas lights.

Izayoi had always loved Christmas. Sesshoumaru wondered if it was a peculiarly human preoccupation.

"Hm?" Kagome asked sleepily. She had dozed intermittently for the ride over, fighting off the exhaustion of a week of hard work, the fullness in her belly, and the warmth of the car. Sesshoumaru didn't mind because he had never before had the occasion of seeing her sleeping face, which was really quite endearing, even if she did drool a bit.

"Izayoi is not a demon," he offered, hoping she would catch all the implied meanings.

"Oh, so I won't be the only human here tonight?" she asked, delighted.

"Hn. Among other things," he agreed.

A look of dawning comprehension washed over Kagome's face. "Oh… wait. You said Inuyasha was your half-brother. So, if she's his mom, and you're a full demon, but she's a human, that means…"

"Correct," Sesshoumaru supplied. "Inuyasha is half demon. I simply do not wish you to be startled by his appearance."

"He looks different?"

"Hn."

"Scary different?"

"No."

"Good different?"

"No."

"Okay, bad different?"

"No."

"You are supremely unhelpful with the simplest of questions," she accused.

"Hn," he said again. "Let's go in."

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Kagome opened her car door without waiting for Sesshoumaru and began walking up the path to the door. Rolling his eyes at her stubbornness, Sesshoumaru followed, beeping the car locked behind him.

Kagome was already knocking when he caught up with her, and he shot her a half-hearted glare. She grinned mischievously at him, and it turned into a full-blown smile when Inuyasha answered the door.

"Hello!" she exclaimed eagerly. "I'm Sesshoumaru's boss, Kagome Higurashi."

Sesshoumaru resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, something he found himself doing quite often of late. This woman would stop at nothing to aggravate him.

He loved her for it. He had always been a fan of feistiness.

Inuyasha's startled face fell easily into its customary smirk, a fang peeking out of the corner of his mouth. "Kagome, I've heard so much about you," he gushed. "May I call you Kagome?"

Kagome gave Sesshoumaru a look that he had come to recognize as "see, everyone does it but you!"

"Of course," she simpered, accepting his invitation to come in. Inuyasha helped her pull off her coat and showed her where to store her shoes, grinning at the way Sesshoumaru glowered darkly at their exchange.

"So, however did you find a guy like my brother to be your intern?" he asked, guiding her to the living room by the small of her back, leaving Sesshoumaru to care for his own garments. Sesshoumaru glared at Inuyasha's hand and contemplated running up and ripping it away from her.

"Actually, he found us…" Kagome trailed off suddenly, her eyes drawn to the top of Inuyasha's messy silver head. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "but are those… are those… dog ears?"

Sesshoumaru smirked as Inuyasha abashedly rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah. I'm a half demon, so… I know they're a little weird." Despite his efforts, Inuyasha couldn't keep from flushing at the attention, embarrassed that she had noticed his most distinctive feature.

"Weird?" Kagome squealed, already leaning forward eagerly. "They're not weird, they're adorable! Can I touch them?"

"Well, I…"

Before he could give his permission, Kagome was already reaching up and petting his ears happily. Inuyasha frowned and Sesshoumaru felt his smirk grow wider. Inuyasha was extremely self-conscious about his half-demon heritage and loathed it when anyone touched his ears. Serves him right, Sesshoumaru thought gleefully, enjoying Inuyasha's obvious discomfort. Kagome tweaked his ears several times, finally noticed the frown on his face, and quickly removed her hands, grinning sheepishly.

"Sorry," she apologized again. "I've just… never seen anything like that before." She sighed lustily and looked longingly at the appendages. "I wish I had ears like that!"

Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru balked, though probably for different reasons.

"You'd want something like this?" Inuyasha asked incredulously.

"You cannot possibly mean that," Sesshoumaru remarked simultaneously.

They looked at each other, identical sneers on their faces.

"Oi! What's wrong with my ears?" Inuyasha snapped, eyes narrowing at Sesshoumaru.

"You can't be serious. They're ridiculous," Sesshoumaru stated calmly, intending to get a rise out of his brother. He had already ruined what was turning out to be a perfectly good date, and it put him in a foul mood.

"Oh, but they're not! They're absolutely adorable!" Kagome protested, blushing when she realized she'd blurted out something that was probably not appropriate to express about a grown man two minutes after meeting him.

Shesshoumaru gave Kagome a sidelong glance, raising his eyebrows. "Proving my point."

"Keh," Inuyasha sneered. "Not so ridiculous as being an intern at the ripe old age of—"

Sesshoumaru stomped on Inuyasha's foot, cutting him off with a yelp and effectively ending the entire conversation. Kagome grinned bemusedly.

"I'm sorry to cause so much trouble," she apologized, torn between siding with her date out of principle or helping out Inuyasha because his big brother was picking on him.

"You're never any trouble, Miss Higurashi," Sesshoumaru assured her, offering her his arm and leading her further into the house. "Come along, Inuyasha," he called behind him, as if speaking to a wayward puppy.

"Keh. Damned arrogant asshole," Inuyasha muttered, following reluctantly.

Toshiro and Izayoi were comfortably ensconced on the living room couch, sipping coffee and whispering to each other. When they entered, Toshiro stood to greet Kagome, his wife trailing behind.

"Did I hear you two arguing about something stupid again?" he asked, holding his hand out to Kagome. Without waiting for an answer from the boys, he greeted, "You must be the Kagome Higurashi we've all heard so much about! I'm Toshiro Saiga, and this is my wife, Izayoi."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kagome said demurely, shaking both of their hands.

"Oh yes, we've heard quite a lot about you!" Toshiro exclaimed happily, glancing at Sesshoumaru out of the corner of his eye. "My son has had quite the crush for some time now!"

Kagome flushed a deep red and Sesshoumaru snapped, "Father!" before Izayoi stepped in.

"Before we cause Miss Higurashi any more embarrassment, let's all at least have some cake. Any other night and I'd gladly let you all ridicule yourselves to ribbons, but it's my birthday, and you're all here, and I want to open my presents!"

Toshiro chuckled, happy to indulge his wife, and signaled for the cook to bring in the refreshments. Kagome, who had been about to go into the kitchen to help serve the cake, whispered to Sesshoumaru, "Your parents have a cook?"

"Hn. And a housekeeper."

"What does your father do?"

Sesshoumaru smiled and shook his head. "You won't be getting the answer out of me that easily, Miss Higurashi. You know I used to work with my father."

Snapping her fingers in frustration, Kagome resolved to find out his family's occupation through slightly more talkative and willing members.

"Inuyasha," she began between bites of cake, "what is it that you do for a living?"

"Oh, I work for dad," he supplied, grinning at her attempt to discover what Sesshoumaru most certainly didn't want her to know.

"And what is it that you do, Mr. Saiga?"

"Toshiro, please, Kagome. And I do a little of this and a little of that. Pretty involved in the business world, but it's a lot of technical mumbo jumbo that wouldn't interest a pretty thing like you."

"Oh, but I am interested," Kagome argued, leaning forward eagerly.

"Well, Sesshoumaru can certainly tell you more about it some time when we aren't supposed to be having a party." Toshiro clicked his tongue and smirked devilishly at Kagome. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not nice to mix business and pleasure, Kagome?"

"Certainly, Toshiro, but my business is the art of pleasure, so maybe I never really understood the lesson."

It was quiet for a moment before Toshiro and Inuyasha burst out laughing. Sesshoumaru scowled and Izayoi tried to hide her titters behind her hand. Kagome just looked confused.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Your business is the art of pleasure?" Inuyasha gasped out between chuckles, turning to his brother with humor glinting in his eyes. "Never knew you were into that kind of work, Sessh!"

Kagome's hands flew to her mouth and Sesshoumaru let loose a warning growl.

"Not that kind of pleasure!" Kagome cried.

"Really, Inuyasha!" Izayoi scolded, in control once more. "And Toshiro, come now. Enough childishness, you know what she meant."

"Did we?" Inuyasha grinned, ears flicking playfully.

Sesshoumaru stood suddenly and pulled Kagome to her feet with him.

"I think this has been enough for one night. We'll be going now."

"Oh, but Sesshoumaru!" Izayoi cried. "We only just had cake and I haven't opened my presents yet!"

"I'm sure you can manage without us," he responded dryly.

"It is getting a bit late," Kagome agreed, not wishing to extend Sesshoumaru's discomfort. "And we planned on having an early morning since everyone is coming in to work for an extra day to prepare for a major event we're having next week."

"Oh, yeah, the Takahashi Christmas party!" Inuyasha exclaimed, smirking. "We'll actually see you there."

Sesshoumaru wanted to strangle Inuyasha for holding them up, but he had succeeded in grabbing Kagome's interest.

"You were invited?"

"Sure! We go every year."

"Every year?" Kagome asked incredulously. "What do you people do?"

"Another time, Miss Higurashi," Sesshoumaru said, steering her out the door. "Goodnight everyone, it's been… well, I'll see you again soon. Happy birthday, Izayoi; I hope it was pleasant."

He walked out the door without waiting for their responses, leaving Kagome to shout "happy birthday" as they he led her down the walkway.

The car ride back to her apartment was spent in contemplative silence. Every few minutes, Sesshoumaru could feel Kagome tense as if to ask him something, but whatever her question was, it never came. He was grateful to have escaped the night with relatively few mishaps, though it was becoming more and more difficult to deter Kagome from finding out his past.

It would be detrimental to his plans if she found out now.

Sesshoumaru led Kagome up to her apartment, stopping at the building entrance and digging her key out of his pocket.

"I hope you had a nice evening," he offered, handing her the key.

"Oh, I did!" she assured him, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Though you didn't seem to have much fun."

"On the contrary, up until my father's house, I had a wonderful time. And anything past that has nothing to do with you; I never expected to enjoy that party."

"But your family is so charming! I can't believe you don't get along. Though, I will say, you are all unnervingly tight-lipped when you want to be."

"Please let it go for now, Miss Higurashi," he begged. "I promise I'll let you know someday what I used to do, but let it go for now."

Kagome frowned, but nodded her head in agreement. Her eyes took on a teasing light and she said, "You told me that if this date went well, you would call me Kagome. You're still calling me Miss Higurashi, so does that mean it didn't pass muster?"

Sesshoumaru blinked down at her, wondering for a split-second whether his next move was too risky to pull off before rushing in headlong anyway.

"Actually, I never call a woman by her first name unless we've kissed. On principal, you see."

"Ah," Kagome nodded sagely, eyes twinkling. "How very chivalrous of you."

"It's one of the many burdens of being a gentleman," he explained, smirking.

"Well, then I suppose there's no helping it," Kagome grinned, standing on tip-toes and bracing herself against his forearms. "Goodnight, Mr. Saiga."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek, so quickly he almost didn't have time to register it was happening. She smiled demurely at him, opened the front door, and was gone up the steps before he realized he should react.

He had just had his first kiss with Kagome Higurashi.

It was nothing like he had imaged it would be.

Shaking his head and gathering his wits, Sesshoumaru yanked open the door and raced up the steps with inhuman speed, catching Kagome just as she was turning the key to her apartment.

"Miss Higurashi," he called, halting in front of her. She blinked up at him, startled.

He tried to think of something to say to her and came up blank. Instead, he pulled her to him, settling his hands comfortably on her waist and leaning down to meet her upturned face. He pressed his lips firmly to hers, waiting until he felt her surprise diminish and she sank into the kiss.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer. They stayed tangled with each other for some moments before he had the presence of mind to pull back. She gazed dreamily up at him, her eyes shining like the stars outside. He noted smugly that she looked very satisfied.

He turned her around, keeping his arms around her as he finished with her lock and opened the door for her. Handing her the key again, he gently pushed her inside.

"Goodnight, Kagome," he said, closing the door behind him and leaving her standing dazed in the entrance to her foyer.