January 17
"Is there anything else you want from the market?" Inuyasha asked this morning. He was sitting at the table after breakfast looking at the list I had made while I was cleaning up our dishes.
"Can you get me some yarn?" I asked.
He smirked. "More knitting?"
I giggled. "It's a lot of fun!"
He scribbled yarn onto the list. "At this rate, we're both going to have a whole new wardrobe."
I sat next to him and placed a kiss on his lips. "There's something exciting coming up."
He raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"It's something really special."
Now he looked even more confused. "Kagome, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Your birthday is next week, honey!"
"So?"
"What do you mean so? It's your special day, Yasha. What do you want? What do you want to do?"
Inuyasha looked past me. "My birthday isn't all that special."
"Sure it is! Why wouldn't it be?"
"I've never done anything special for my birthday before. There's no reason to start now."
"So you've never had a birthday party or anything?"
"Nope," he replied. "My mom and I would do something small together back when she was alive but that's it. I never really had anyone to invite to a birthday party or anything."
I was incredulous but the more I thought about it, it kind of made sense considering the upbringing he'd had. "Well everyone should have something nice for their birthday."
Inuyasha put his hand on mine. "Don't worry about it, Kagome. It's really not that big of a deal." He kissed my lips. "I'm gonna go meet up with Miroku. I'll see you this afternoon."
"Okay," I replied. I gave him another kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too, beautiful." He stood up from the table taking the list with him. I watched him as he put on his scarf and left the house.
Afterward, I thought of how Inuyasha is so sweet and wonderful. He of all people deserves to have a very special birthday, no matter how much he says it doesn't matter.
After doing a bit of cleaning around the house, I went out to bring some herbs to the villagers who had asked for them, and then I went to Sango's house. We were sitting by the fire drinking tea while the children played. I was telling her the story from last night of Shippo's demon and she was highly amused.
"I'm not really surprised," Sango said, laughing. "Shippo has done that to us before."
"No way, really?"
"But Shippo is a little guy. I guess demons look a lot bigger to him."
We both laughed at that.
"So Inuyasha's birthday is next week," I said.
"What does he want to do?"
"Nothing," I said with a sigh.
"What do you mean nothing?"
"Inuyasha's never had a birthday party or anything before so he thinks it doesn't matter."
"Everyone deserves to have a nice birthday though, especially someone who has never had anything done before."
"That's what I said. I think we should have a surprise party for him."
"That would be so fun!" Sango said excitedly.
"Where should we have it?"
"He'll find out about it for sure if we have it at your house. Let's have it here."
"Great idea! We can have Kaede, Rin, Kohaku, and Sesshomaru come. Usually, in my era, we have cake for birthdays but I think Inuyasha would want lots of ramen."
Sango giggled at that. "Typical Inuyasha. So what kind of gift are you going to get him?"
My face fell. "Well...I haven't gotten that far yet. I'll think about it later."
We planned Inuyasha's surprise party until Miroku came home.
"Hey ladies," Miroku said. "Inuyasha went straight home, he thought you were there."
"That's okay," I said. "It's better this way actually. We need to tell you a secret."
"I like secrets." He put down his stuff and sat next to Sango. "What is it?"
"We're going to have a surprise party for Inuyasha on the 25th."
"Oh great! I've been trying to get Inuyasha to let us plan something for this birthday for years."
"Really?" I said in surprise.
"Yeah. I always tell him let's have a party or dinner or something. But he always said he wouldn't do anything until you came home."
I paused for a moment as I thought about that. I was absolutely touched that Inuyasha had felt that way and I also felt determined. "Well in that case, I'm going to make this the best birthday he's ever had."
