Three hours to Teen Titans!  Will I finish the next chapter, or will it be delayed by a half hour break?  We'll see if I'm determined to prove…

Something Is Real

Part 29

"So," Kouga spoke up after they had left Sango and Miroku far behind them.  "You said that we were free for a week?"

"Yes." Kagura nodded.  They could move faster at a run, but they were in no hurry.  It was nice, walking side by side.  "We could get back early, of course."

"Mm, I guess." He sighed lightly before turning to her.  "How about we just take our time getting back?  We could go visit the ocean, if you want.  It's not that far, and we'd get back in time still."

"I've never seen the ocean." She admitted.  "How far is it?"

"If we head there now, I think we could just make it before nightfall." He told her, his eyes alight with excitement.  She giggled at the enthusiasm he was showing and nodded.

"Okay, then." She agreed.  "Which way is it?"

"We can stay on this road." He told her, grabbing her hand in his to walk a bit faster.  "And then about twenty minutes from now, we'll hit a turn off that leads to the ocean.  It'll take longer than flying or running, but…"

"I like this." She finished.  "It's nice, walking with you."

"Yeah." He flushed slightly.  "Yeah." And then, on impulse, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.  Kagura felt red spots bloom on her cheeks as she tried not to smile and failed miserably.  "Kagura?"

"Yeah?" she looked up and realized they were still holding hands.  And it seemed so nice.  So comfortable.

"Have you…um, have you thought about it at all?" he asked, looking away as though the trees were intensely fascinating.  She smiled and looked away as well.  "You know…what I said?"

"Yeah, I have." She answered honestly.  "I just…I really like being with you like this, Kouga.  It feels right.  But you know, I don't know how to tell if I'm in love with you.  I know I like being loved…and if you want, I'll…um…I'll stay with you.  It's not like anyone else would ever…"

"Don't." he stopped her, physically as well as verbally.  "Don't say that.  It's a stupid thing to say, and it makes me mad every time you sell yourself short like that.  It's like you're calling me an idiot for caring about you."

"Oh." Kagura wasn't sure what she could say to that.  "I'm sorry…I just, don't really understand it, you know?"

"So many people care about you, and you still don't see why?" he sighed, shaking his head and smiling ruefully.  "Don't you see it?"

"See what?" she asked, her eyes wide and searching.  "That's what I'm asking!  I don't know what it is."

"Well," Kouga looked around trying to think of what to say.  "I don't know, really.  There's lots of things about you that people like.  You're just a good person, Kagura."

"Me?" she giggled.  "I killed half your tribe, and I'm a good person?"

"Every time someone says something good about you, why do you always have to remind them of everything bad you've ever done?" he demanded, frustrated as he turned to continue walking, dropping her hand and causing her to scramble to catch up.  "Can't you just take it and say thank you?"

"I…just…" she felt suddenly stupid.  She was making Kouga angry, she knew.  That had not been her intention, and the fact that he wasn't meeting her eyes and was walking so fast told her clearly that he was ready for the conversation to end.  "I guess I can't."

"What?" he turned, not expecting that, but he didn't slow down at all.

"I don't understand a lot of things, I guess." She explained to him.  "What love is, why it is, compliments…how to just accept that there's something good about me.  I feel guilty letting people believe that I'm good.  I'm not."

"You are." He insisted, whirling on her.  "Why do you have to fight about things that are stupid?  Everyone knows you're good!  Think about it, Naraku's bad, right?"

"He was, yeah." Kagura could understand that easily enough.

"And you fought against him, right?" he continued.  She nodded and he waved a hand in annoyance.  "Then see, you're good."

"That seems like a pretty strange way to figure." She grumbled.  "I mean, what if there was someone really evil, and he fought against Naraku only because he wanted more power.  Does that make him good?"

"That's because he's selfish, so no." Kouga told her.

"I was selfish, too." She pointed out.  "I wanted to be free, for my own sake.  That's not helping anyone but me."

"You didn't want to protect anyone?" he asked her, sounding like he already knew the answer.  Kagura mulled over the question.

"Well…yeah, but that's because I'm still selfish.  I wanted to keep my friends." She explained.

"Kagura, what you don't see," he told her as they walked.  "Is that sometimes, there are lines between good and bad, selfish and selfless, but those lines blur.  You can do something for yourself that is still selfless."

"How do you figure?" she asked.

"If we got in a fight right now with some random youkai, and one of us had to die, I would let it take me." He told her, his voice solemn and serious.  "Why?  Because I want you to live, because I love you, and I care about you more than anyone else.  But think about it, isn't that selfish of me to die so that I don't have to hurt when you die?  At the same time, I'm giving my life to protect yours, so it's selfless."

"You would really do that?" she asked, her eyes wide, her mouth gaping in awe.

"Would you?" he asked, blinking at her and cocking his head in curiosity.

"I…if it was just us, and one of us had to die?" she mulled over this.  "Well…I'd be worthless if I lived, but the tribe needs you, so of course I'd go."

"That's a stupid way to think, but see?" he asked her.  "You're a good person, too."

"Okay." She shrugged finally.  "If you say so."

"I do."

"Kouga?" she stopped, and he turned to her.  She pecked him on the cheek and smiled, blushing bright red.  "Thanks."

----------

"Come on!  I know you can do it too!" Kouga laughed as he watched Kagura standing doubtfully on the shoreline, her toes barely getting wet in the surf.  "Don't tell me you can't swim!"  Silence greeted him, as Kagura continued to scowl at him, the ocean, or both.  "Kagura!"  stopping his teasing for a moment, he dove down under the surface and swam swiftly back to the shore, popping up when he got to the shallows.  "Come out this far, at least."

"I'll get my kimono wet." She pointed out the obvious.

"Change into a yukata!" he rolled his eyes, face pleading and as excited as it had been when he first asked her if she wanted to visit the beach.  "Come on!  Why would you visit the ocean without even touching the water!?"

"I am touching it." She told him.  "It's cold."

"It feels good!" he insisted, splashing up toward her.  "Change, or I'll drag you in!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going." She nearly bolted up the beach toward the little hut they'd rented for a few days.  "So pushy." She grumbled as she crossed the wide bar of sand, up through the grass and climbed up the grassy hillock to the hut, where she quickly changed into a light cotton sleeping robe.  "Okay, I'm coming!" she called out as she exited the hut.  But when she looked out at the ocean, she couldn't see him.  That was odd.  Shrugging, she started down toward where she'd been before.  He was probably just underwater, swimming around again.  Very funny of him to rub that in her face.  Where was she supposed to learn to swim?  She could wade easily enough, as obviously, she bathed regularly, but she had never had a reason to jump into a large body of water and paddle around.  It was silly.

Still huffing, she stomped her way down to the waterline and looked around.  "Kouga?" she was starting to worry.  Maybe he'd gotten caught in one of those…what did he call them…riptides?  Maybe some sea monster had grabbed him and pulled him under, and he couldn't possibly escape it, or breathe at all, and he was drowning?  "Kouga!?" she was going to panic.  She was panicking.  "Kouga!"

"Right here!" she yelped in surprise as the voice was accompanied by a pair of arms scooping her up and over his shoulder.  He marched her out into the water, laughing as she started screaming and beating at his back.

"Put me down!  Right now!  I'll kill you, I swear it, just put me down!" she was hysterical.  What the hell was he doing?  They were going out far!  He was in up to his waist when he slung her down and dropped her fully in the cold water.  She came up spluttering, soaked, shivering, and enraged.

"Nice, isn't it?" he asked, trying not to laugh and failing miserably.

"You are so dead." Her voice was cold fury as she leapt at him, but the smile on her face belied her anger for amusement.  "I've got you now!" she grabbed his tail and he yelped in surprise as she started laughing at her advantage.  "Gotcha."

"Let go!  That hurts when you pull it like that!" he whined.  "That's cheating, anyway."

"And sneaking around behind the hut wasn't?" she asked, utterly pleased with herself until a wave came up behind her and caught her by surprise, almost pulling her down.  It did force her to let go of Kouga's tail, however, and he splashed a bit away from her, laughing smugly.

"Gotta watch out for the waves." He told her, "If you jump into them, they won't get you like that."

"It's pulling at me from underneath!" she cried out in alarm.  "Is there something down there?"

"The riptide, I told you, that's what it does." He winked at her.  "Gotta watch out for that too."

"The ocean doesn't seem very fun to me.  Mostly just dangerous and cold.  And really salty." She pouted.

"You're no fun." He stuck his tongue out.  "If you could swim, you'd like it better."

"Like I trust you to teach me after what you just did." She stuck her lower lip out and started tramping back toward the waterline.  "I'm sick of this, I'm going back to the hut.  You come in when you wear yourself out."

"You're not gonna make me dinner, are you?" he asked, mock horror on his face.  She scooped up a double-handful of water and tossed it at him in retribution for his teasing.

"I would poison it!" she stuck her tongue out at him before running up to the shore, where she rested to watch him play around for a bit.  Then she crossed the sand and climbed up to the hut, shivering horribly by the time she entered it.  "Stupid cold ocean.  It's freezing." She grumbled as she stripped off the itchy, cold yukata and set it on a shelf before crossing to start the fire while still naked and wet, goose bumps covering her entirely.  "I hate this stupid…dammit." She was shaking so bad that it took her three tries to get the fire started, and by the time she had she was in a high temper.  "I'll cook him some dinner, all right.  He's such a damn kid sometimes."  She stood in front of the fire, drying herself with her hands and trying to wring out her hair.  "Salt in my hair…great." She grumbled.  "I hate the ocean."

"Hey, Kagura, you should see…" Kouga's voice trailed off and Kagura turned around before realizing she was still naked, screaming, and grabbing the closest thing to her, a pot, which she threw at his head before running for her kimono.  "Ow!  Fuck, you didn't need to attack me!"

"You came in here!  I was naked!" she cried out in outrage, wrapping the inner robe close before throwing on the over robe and cinching them both tightly.  "You knew I was changing!"

"I gave you like twenty minutes!  Who takes that long?" he asked, still rubbing his shoulder where the pot had hit when he failed to fully dodge it.

"Obviously I do." She defended, pulling on her obi and wrapping it firmly before tying it on.  "You're such a pervert.  I let you kiss me a couple times and you're trying to just sneak peeks now?  You're…worse than Miroku!"

"No way!  Don't even say that!" Kouga was trying to stay serious, but now he was actually smiling.  "I see you once, and I'm suddenly on a level with him?  That's not fair at all."

"Well…if you want to make it up, dinner better be damn good." She couldn't help smiling at that point.  "Is your…head hurt?"

"You got my shoulder." He told her.  "It's fine." He set about pulling things out and moving them to start making dinner.  "If you want to make it up…"

"What?" Kagura asked, frowning slightly.

"I'm not sleeping on the floor tonight." He told her, his tone serious.  "And neither are you."

"Oh."  Kagura felt her stomach flip over.

"I didn't mean…like that." Kouga immediately defended his integrity.  "It's just…I like sleeping close to you.  Just don't…tease me or anything, or it will be like that."

"Oh, okay then." Kagura felt considerably better.  She moved over to the doorway and did a double take as she saw the sun setting over the ocean.  "Oh…Kouga, look."

"Yeah, the sunset." He was getting up then, moving to stand behind her, his arms around her waist,  "Pretty, isn't it."

"Ew!  You're still all wet!  Don't grab me until you've dried off and don't feel like a fish!" Kagura wriggled away from him, her smile letting him know he was only teasing.

"Way to wreck the mood, Kags." He teased her.

"Yeah, well, I want the dinner to be done sometime this year." She told him matter-of-factly.

"Working, mistress." He gave her a ridiculous bow and returned to his work as she returned to the sunset.

"You're right, though.  It really is pretty."

The End (Of Part 29, That Is)