Chapter XVIII: Novels

Once Sesshomaru returned to their lair late due to settling unfortunate circumstances, and was greeted by an expression he was vaguely familiar with.

He saw his mother give it to his father when, as a pup, he 'borrowed' (with absolutely no intentions of returning) a green ribbon and made sure the scent it had stayed. He saw it again from his step mother when Inuyasha started digging holes in their home garden. He never thought he would see it Naraku's face. It was a look that clearly screamed 'It's starting', but what was—

And then he saw it.

There, in Kagome's hands, was a little book. He's seen the cover enough times to instinctively know what she was reading and was praying she did not get infected.

His father had said it was a disease. Women would read them and would then look at their poor partners and somehow find real, living, breathing men lacking in comparison to their fictional men with their fictional sexual prowess. His mother and step mother would occasionally succumb and his father would be left inconsolable (and unbearable) for months.

He hoped, for the library's sake, that Kagome does not adapt the same habit.