Kagome tried not to.
She really did.
If it was anyone else, literally any other couple sitting before her in her living room, she definitely wouldn't have done it.
But as she looked at Inuyasha and Kikyou, their eyes so sad and sincere as they humbly knelt before her with their question, Kagome just couldn't hold it back.
She laughed.
She laughed hard.
She laughed until there were tears in her eyes.
She laughed until she couldn't breathe.
Of course they were shocked, the hanyou and zombie priestess' mouths slowly hanging open at Kagome's utter cavalierness with the sensitive topic.
But Kagome couldn't bring herself to care.
She couldn't muster the sympathy.
She couldn't summon the pity.
She just laughed.
By the time she had recovered, Inuyasha and Kikyou were looking at each other in confusion, as if they were wondering if Kagome had lost her mind—and perhaps she had, in some way. In a large way.
"I hardly think that reaction is necessary," Kikyou said softly, breaking the tension. Her usually serene expression was contorted into a heated glare, her pale fingers fisted in her red hakama at her bent knees.
Kagome raised her kiseru to her smirking pink lips, the long pipe still lit with an oddly pleasant and slightly minty tobacco. "You do, do you?" she said, almost sweet, before taking a long, deep drag of smoke. It burned her mouth and throat and lungs, a pain she eventually found comforting over time.
"Let me get this straight," she said as she exhaled, silver smoke blowing in the couple's faces, from the spaces in Kagome's bitter smile. "I caught you two fucking one day, months after I decided to permanently reside here in the past with you—" she pointed the mouthpiece of her pipe at Inuyasha, who winced, his ears flicking back against his head, "—after you told me I was born to love you, after all I sacrificed, after all the shit you put me through for years."
"Kagome, I—"
"I'll never see my family again," Kagome went on, ignoring Inuyasha as she mused, taking another drag from the kiseru. She exhaled, another cloud of smoke rushing over to the couple. To their credit, they didn't flinch or attempt to bat it away; they took it. "I'll never see my little brother graduate high school or college. I won't see the person he'll become. My grandfather will die without me beside his bed, holding his hand—and my mother will do the same; my mother who fed you—who loved and trusted you, too."
She shook her head, shrugging, "My cat will forget who I am. That's not as bad, but still noteworthy…" Kagome sighed, her eyes falling on Kikyou, "And then you decide you want a life with him, to live like the last fifty-whatever years didn't happen, in the village he and I lived in, with all of our friends, and their children."
"I wanted—"
"To be close to Kaede, yes," Kagome said, nodding. "And I understand that. I'm a very understanding person, Kikyou. Of course you need to be close to your sister in this stage of her life. I'm not so bitter as to deny you that right. You and I both cared for her once it became clear she couldn't care for herself any longer, until that day I caught you and him in the woods." She glared at Inuyasha.
Kagome shrugged, "At that point, I couldn't stay in the village anymore. I knew I couldn't, so I came here. And I built this." She gestured to the wooden hut around them, the roof over their heads. It was slightly better than makeshift—it didn't leak when it rained, so there was that; and she hadn't burnt it down in the year and a half she'd lived there, another good sign. It had taken her a couple of months to build, affording the cost of wood and supplies from priestess-related jobs in another village.
"I built this by myself, for myself, alone," she said, leaning forward. "It had to be me that built it. It had to be mine." She took another drag of smoke, "I needed to be away from you two, so that I didn't feel like ripping the earth open with my bare hands, so that I didn't feel like screaming until my throat bled, so that I didn't claw my eyes out for being so stupid, for throwing my life away for a boy I hardly knew."
Kagome blew out the lungful of smoke in Inuyasha's glaring eyes. "A boy," she repeated venomously, and she felt a victorious thrill at seeing his eyes narrow further.
"And then," Kagome went on, her bitter smile returning, "one day—today—I get a little visit from you two, and you have something you need to ask me, you say."
She snorted, "Because apparently, after over a year, you two have come to the realization that you cannot conceive." Kagome shrugged once again, leaning back, "Honestly, it doesn't surprise me, knowing what you are—" she gave a pointed glance to Kikyou, who remained stoic, but Kagome could see the slight bristle of her spine.
Laughter found her again, giggles bubbling out of her mouth as she held her forehead, "And now that you're faced with this indisputable truth, you have the gall to come here, to me—without an ounce of shame or remorse—to ask me to be your surrogate." She stopped laughing, snarling the word, beyond disgusted.
"'Oh, let's ask Kagome if she'll have our baby,' you thought," Kagome acted out with a bitter kind of optimism. "'Let's have her carry the baby she thought she'd have with Inuyasha all these years, and then just take it from her after she's given everything she can possibly give!'"
She gave a dry, bitter laugh, "The thing is, years ago? I might have done that for you guys. I would have—I didn't understand then that all people did was take from me, and all I did was give. I was that girl. I used to be her. I was selfless. I was good. I was kind.
"But no more," she said, shaking her head. "No more." She looked at Inuyasha, a lump rising in her throat, "Do you understand, Inuyasha? I gave everything to you. My time, my body… everything—and you threw it away. You threw it away—for her. That's the choice you made, and your choices have consequences, just as mine do. I'm reminded of them every day. I can't escape them, much as I might want to."
Kagome took the last drag of her pipe, the last embers of burning tobacco blackening to ash.
"So, this… this favor you're asking of me…" she said, looking at the miserable couple before her.
"Here is my answer," and it came in a smoky exhale, through bared teeth and a feral whisper:
"Fuck you."
Kagome reached forward slowly, touching the rosary around Inuyasha's neck. She gave it a tug, and the strand of beads snapped, clattering to the floor, "Now get out."
They left without another word, leaving her alone in her quiet hut once again. Setting down her kiseru, Kagome closed her eyes and took a deep breath before glancing out the window, watching storm clouds roll in. Gray shadows cast themselves over her home as she stood and walked outside, into the garden, where she fell to her knees.
She'd been coming from the village doctor that day she saw them together, coming to tell Inuyasha the good news… and then the world came crashing down around her—first with them, and then with the child she would never know, buried beneath the soil of her garden.
"I'm sorry," Kagome sobbed, as droplets of rain began to fall on her back. "I'm so sorry…"