"Ayyye!" Kagome's grandfather hollered in surprise at the demon coming across the shrine grounds. "What have you done to Kagome?!"
"She is unconscious," Sesshou tried to be respectful to the old man, but after the events of the evening, he was worn down. "And unharmed." Still walking towards the house, girl in arms, he continued, "I will put her to bed if you would please find her mother."
"A demon in my granddaughter's bedroom!?" Her grandfather grasped his head with both hands, completely overwhelmed by the situation.
"I will locate Miss Higurashi." Sesshou sighed, realizing the old man was going to be of no help as he freaked out over the modesty of Kagome's reputation. How many times had he wandered past her pack and seen her in those silly pajamas? Or worn his own clothing? How many times had he seen too much of her thigh in battle when she wore that short school girls uniform?
He could count on one hand alone the times he's held her like this.
Taking her up the stairs to her room, he could still hear her grandfather sputtering on about all the demons that tarnished their shrine grounds purity. He rolled his eyes.
Once she was down on her bed, he removed her shoes and sat at the edge of the bed to observe her once more. She was fragile. Human.
In more ways than one, she was someone who could be broken. Physically, he could slice through her delicate throat and end her short life. Emotionally, he had seen her despair over events outside of her control. Just like before, under the tree and soaked to the bone, she was that person again.
Five hundred years ago, he pitied Inuyasha's weakness for Kikyo. She was dead and gone, no more than half a vengeful soul and a clay puppet. And he still fell for her tricks time and time again. It was near impossible to escape their wicked love story, and Kagome had failed to bypass it too. When the last war before Kagome's disappearance had come to the West, he had gone to recruit Inuyasha for battle, only to find him pinned to a tree by a dead priestess. With the help of other allies, he had won, but for a long time he held Inuyasha accountable as a deserter for allowing himself to be subdued by a dead woman. He had a responsibility to his family's grounds, and by dying on that tree, he had forsaken his duties.
Now, he almost felt a kinship with Kagome he hadn't felt before. Hearing of the love triangle and witnessing a lovers' reunion were two different things. Kagome loved his brother, this he was certain of. Was it too soon to be planning her courting to other demons? Could she handle it, and let go of Inuyasha?
Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, he continued to mull over all he had planned so far for her life. She certainly knew how to go with the flow of things. She had adapted to time travel well enough at fifteen, and had even paved her way to recovery after all was said and done, returned for good to her time. He knew reeling her back into the world of demons was something that would take time, and require an open mind, but now he feared he was making these choices for her.
Maybe she would have been happier to move on, and always hope in her ignorance that Inuyasha had lived a full life without her?
But he had promised his brother. He swore he would find her, and protect her. It was his dying wish.
He would have to trust Inuyasha in a way he never had in life. By dying, Inuyasha had gifted him his most precious possession: Kagome's friendship. And no one was closer to her than he was. Whatever they were in the end, lovers or friends, he knew her better than anyone else. If Inuyasha said she needed him, then he would be there for her.
However, he would not force upon her the potential mates he had considered. He would not make her train day in and day out. She should live her life as she pleased, and not try so hard to meet his expectations.
He would give her time, he decided.
Rising from her bed, he turned to see her mother just enter the bedroom.
"I heard all the noise," She held her robe tight to her body, "Is Kagome alright?"
"She will explain when she wakes up. Know that she is merely sleeping, Miss Higurashi." Sesshou bowed slightly, preparing to leave. He walked passed her mother and began down the stairs when he heard her approach him, instead of her daughter.
"Are you okay, Sesshou?" She asked, and somehow, this woman had managed to catch him off guard a second time since meeting. She was always so concerned for him, his feelings, even when something more important was happening with Kagome.
"I am fine," He peered over his shoulder and eyed Kagome's bedroom door, "Kagome will need you when she wakes. It's been a long day for her."
She only nodded, and retreated back to her daughter's bedroom.
Three days later, and he was irritable. He could feel his temper shorten with each cackle of Shippou's laughter from the living room.
"Genko, you gotta watch this episode with me." He hollered into his cell phone, lounging on the couch. "Yeah he just showed all the cat videos."
Sesshou didn't fully understand the relationship Shippou had with his mate, but he was sure they were a pair made by the devil himself. They were annoying, and impossibly immature.
"DID YOU SEE THAT?!" The scent of salt hit his senses and Sesshou knew without a doubt that the fox kit was crying he was laughing so hard at whatever was on the television. "Oh man! Classic!"
He wanted to sigh. He wanted to rest his head on his arms and call it a day. Looking out into the forest surrounding his backyard, he felt a yearning. When did he last let his beast free? Stretch his four legs and howl into a crisp night sky?
It was an itching feeling he got sometimes, in his limbs. Not that he needed to change forms, but he wanted to. It was his spiritual state, afterall.
Maybe just this one time, just in the backyard…
No. He sat up straighter, and clenched his jaw. He knew his form was taller than these trees. He would have to travel very far to do what he pleased and there was no time to do so with the gala fast approaching.
The gala. The suitors.
His mother.
"No way!" Shippou howled with laughter again, "We gotta do that sometime!"
"Quiet!" Sesshou finally snapped, just loud enough to catch Shippou's attention. "Some people are working here."
"You have an office for that, you know." Shippou wasn't afraid of the elder demon, "Actually, including this one, you have three offices in Tokyo alone." He quickly said goodbye to his mate with promise to call her back later.
"You are a nuisance." He let his bitterness take over. The kit was carefree and in training was hard to focus, like an absent minded child with an attention deficit disorder.
"And you miss Kagome." Shippou appeared in the doorway then, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his sweater clad chest. The man bun, as Kagome called it, was lop sides from lounging all day.
Sesshou didn't respond.
"It's okay," He shrugged, "I miss her too." Coming into the office and plopping down onto the sofa at the window, he sat in Kagome's spot and even gazed out the window just like her. No blood relation between the two, but there were clearly things that they had picked up from one another. Like mother like son. "Especially when I was little. I missed her hair and how she worried over me."
Still, Sesshou said nothing.
"This is where you're supposed to chime in with what you miss about her." Shippou glowered jokingly, with a deadpan voice.
"Hn." Was all he was willing to say. He turned back to the report in front of him, wondering how much he would have to do before it was considered enough for the day. Resisting the urge to get up and walk away, he turned to Shippou once again, only it wasn't Shippou anymore.
On the sofa sat the woman who wouldn't leave his thoughts. She was in her school uniform, sans the blazer. She often ditched it when she was relaxing in the evenings spent at his house.
Even her scent tickled his nose, with a citrus and tangy hint in the air around her.
But the shadows on the floor of the office didn't lie. With the sun coming in from behind the trees out back, it cast long shadows inside the office, and Sesshou was keenly aware of the phantom tails in the silhouette of Kagome's form.
"When you obtain nine tails, that trick might actually work." Sesshou complimented and chided at the same time.
"You almost fell for it." Shippou blipped back to himself, "Besides, I've been practicing Kagome since I was small. I've almost got her down perfectly."
"Not quite." Sesshou smirked before he could consider it, "She can be loud and expressive."
"You miss her making noise." Shippou teased, smugly proud that he got him to admit it, in his own stubborn way.
"I miss the silence that once occupied this office." Sesshou raised a single eyebrow, signaling he was through with this conversation. Shippou didn't need to be told twice. He'd made his point.
"Fine," Shippou got to his feet and backed out of the office with his palms raised in surrender, "But you know I'm right!"
Within a few moments, Shippou was back in his room, and chatting with his mate again.
Sesshou still found himself with a wandering mind, despite the lack of distractions. It had only been three days, he reminded himself. She'll come around.
That Monday night, Sesshou was as distraught as he could be. Which, for him, especially in modern times, was next to nothing, but it was enough to leave him feeling uneasy. The gala was a pressing concern that slowly occupied more of his day, and still no word from Kagome.
His mother, on the other hand, was nearly ready to come back from Paris and was expecting to meet Kagome very soon after arriving.
He didn't want to admit it, but maybe she was more heartbroken than he anticipated. Maybe she decided this was too much for her pained heart. Maybe she couldn't even stand seeing him, because he resembled Inuyasha too much.
His chest ached at that last thought. He did not want to be compared to him again.
"Sesshou, I'm taking off." Shippou's voice from down the hall startled him from his reverie. "Genko's flight lands in an hour so I'll see you tomorrow at the office."
"We have a meeting at nine." He reminded.
"Yeah, I'll be there! Bye!" Just as the front door closed, he could hear the kit curse himself for leaving his sweater inside.
So scatterbrained, he thought.
Leaving the confines of his bedroom where he was finalizing his approval for gala related issues, he strode down the hall, mildly disheveled. His slacks were wrinkled from sitting cross legged in bed, and his button up had been removed, with a simple white t-shirt left on.
He found himself in his backyard again, eyeing the darkness beyond the treeline. Kagome was right. Sometimes you just miss how things used to be. Sitting at the edge of the patio, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
The air was chilly and his breath clouded in his face, but he allowed the cool air to sap him of his warmth. It didn't bother him the way it bothered humans anyways.
He toyed with the idea of what life would have been like if he and Inuyasha had set aside their sibling rivalry and joined packs. He would have been surrounded by humans. It would never be quiet.
But she would be near, and he wouldn't have to worry so much about her safety. Because he would be worried. She would have been his to protect.
No, wait. She was still his brother's girlfriend, to an extent. She was his to protect, and by leadership ranking, she fell under both of their protection, but he would have made sure that when Inuyasha failed to do so, he would be there.
In a way, though, he had.
When Inuyasha lost control with those bandits, he was the one to take him out and inform Kagome of their father's true purpose of gifting the Tessaiga to Inuyasha.
When he was possessed inside of Naraku's spider body, and Kagome fell a great distance, it was him who caught her with his pseudo tail.
When Rin and Kagome had been kidnapped in the army of undead as Takemaru plotted to murder them, he was the one who came to their rescue.
He had blocked attacks for her on a number of occasions, as well. Without even accepting them as pack, in a way he still respected his duty to them, as allies, and as his brother's own pack.
The winds shifted directions and Sesshou was keenly aware that citrus was in the air. Standing, he inhaled deeply, just to make sure. Shippou had tricked him earlier, and with no visual to test it with, he wasn't about to rush out and make a fool of himself. That kit had tricked him enough over the years.
Heading back inside, he slipped his black sweater back on from earlier and made himself move slowly. Whatever Shippou had planned, Sesshou would not allow himself to blow up. Jaken had certainly tested his patience over the years with his squawking, so a troublesome fox should be nothing to handle.
Assuming Shippou would come right through the front door, he passed the entryway and moved into the living room, but then his senses picked up on something else uniquely Kagome: spiritual energy.
Whatever was troubling her was creating a fight or flight reaction.
Coming back around just as she began pounding on the door, he whipped it open with half his senses tuned to the outside world, searching for disruption and cause for her fear, and the other was tuned to her.
She's beautiful, he thought.
He knew how she looked throughout the day, picture perfect for school and girlishly unkempt after, marked by the absence of her blazer and sometimes a ponytail when she was keeping herself busy around his house. He knew that she wore pajama sets and liked to bathe in the evening. He knew she washed her hair every other day, and on the days she didn't wash her hair, it curled at the ends and she spent more time playing with it absentmindedly.
He was familiar with the jeans she wore and the tennis shoes on her feet, but the royal blue sweater was new to him and he wondered if it was new to her too. Her eyes were deeper in coloring with her sweater complimenting her natural shade.
Even her scent, spicy and tangy with her emotions, felt like he was biting into a fresh orange peel in the middle of a coffee shop. She stood out so boldly in the cool autumn scents of his neighborhood.
"How could you leave me like that?" Kagome seethed, "You can't just disappear on me like that! You don't get to come to me and give me hope and then leave just because you don't think I'm ready for all this!"
She was back.
"Because I am! I want to live as long as you do, buddy! We're a team and I don't want any bull-"
And she wanted to stay.
Sesshou acted before thinking, and reached for her, hugging her small form tightly to his chest, with both arms wrapped around her shoulders. Nuzzling his nose in her hair, he inhaled deeply.
He didn't care to label what filled his chest in a bubbling sensation, nor did he plan to. She was here and she wanted to stay by his side, lifetime after lifetime, immortal as he. He would do whatever it took to make sure she did, because she wanted to, and he would not let her down.
"You came back." Was all he could bring himself to admit, but he was sure she understood him just the same. He missed her.