Notes: Ah… I'd wanted to refrain, 'cause I always get annoyed when other authors do this, but… I have to talk to my reviewers. Excuse me. You can skip this.
Jurei-chan – Aww, I love you! You rock! You make me feel all warm and tingly inside! (I'm going to make myself puke.) I think… I need… to… glomp you! :: glomp:: Whew, okay. Sorry. Got that out of my system. (Yeah, I'm scary when I'm actually happy. I'm usually morbid in my notes, because I'm sure everyone will hate the chapter I'm posting.) Thank you so much, I'm serious. Now, since, I'm a freak, I have to correct your Japanese: It's ganbatte, not ganbatta. And, by the way: ganbarimasu! Hopefully, your writer's block warding spell will work…
Tinuviel: Whoa, first time anyone's ever tacked that honorific onto my name, even when I was demanding reviews. (:: sweatdrop… ::) True, though… about Fluffy, that is. Ever since I wrote chapter two, I've been wanting a picture of Sessy in black jeans, a white T-shirt, and cuff links. I don't know why, I just like the image. (Not in that way… I'd much rather have Inuyasha. Shut up, you!) And… where am I going with this? I know, but I ain't tellin'!
Victoria Wolf: Hmm… I was sure everyone would guess right away. Anyway… well, just read the chapter. You're right, by the way.
There, I'm done. See a pattern? Those who ask interesting questions/flatter my writing/write long reviews get responded to! Now read.
Disclaimer: You really are dense, aren't you? Ah, well. I do not own Inuyasha. Rumiko Takashi does. All I own is this screwy, sucky plot.
- Watching Over –
- Chapter Four: Vulnerabilities–
Kagome stepped aside to let Inuyasha through. He stood for a moment, breathing deeply with half-lidded eyes.
"Who is it, Kagome?" her mother called from the kitchen.
"No one! It must have been a prank, or something!" Kagome replied, thinking up a spur-of-the-moment excuse.
"Oh… how bizarre! Oh well!"
To Inuyasha, Kagome narrowed her eyes and put a finger to her lips. "Be absolutely silent," she hissed under her breath. They sneaked past the kitchen and up the stairs, just missing Grandfather coming out from his room to 'help' with the cooking. This meant either burnt, charcoal-for-food for dinner, or Grandfather getting thwacked with a spatula.
Inuyasha sat heavily on the foot of Kagome's bed, fists clenched and ears flattened to his skull. "They've never done that before," he murmured to himself. She knew better than to ask. She had blocked her window with a stack of manga, but it didn't feel safe.
"Come on." She tugged at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Let's go to the guest room."
"Good idea," he said quietly, following her almost meekly into the dusty, unused room and sitting, once again, at the foot of the bed. Luckily, the blinds on the window were firmly closed.
What's wrong with him? He's being so quiet, and reserved… Kagome ceased to ponder as she realized something strange was happening to Inuyasha. As he sat, head down, arms at his sides, and eyes downcast, something was different about him.
"Another month, another night of terror," he pronounced, his voice tinged with cool bitterness.
Now she saw what was wrong – his silver hair, his luxurious, waist-length silver hair, was shot through with black. The darker colour ate up the silver, until it was all the colour of pure jet. And her attention shifted again – now to his ears. Or rather, to his lack of ears…
They were shrinking. Only white stubs remained, and – they were gone. Dully, he raised a hand to push his hair behind distinctly human ears. A hand with no claws – just fingernails that were a little longer than normal.
Inuyasha raised flat, impassive eyes to meet hers. They were purple, and shrouded in shadows. "Well?" he asked with a sneer. "What do you think? Repulsive?"
Kagome sat next to him, gaping. "N-no… it looks fine. Different, but fine. What happened?"
"If you dared look outside, you'd see – there's no moon. It's the new moon." He spat the name out, like a curse. "That's the night I turn human. Once a month."
"Is that why you wanted me to be so careful?"
"Yeah," he grunted. "'Cause I can't protect you like this." He looked perfectly dejected.
"…Why'd you come here, of all places? Isn't your little 'demon hideout' place a lot safer?" Kagome tilted her head slightly to the side. "I mean… well. Someone's probably watching right now."
Inuyasha let out a gruff bark of laughter. "I used to stay there, until now. It's gotten worse. Usually Mayane was able to keep the door closed, and sometimes Shippou would go out and distract them with transformations. They're good people, really, even if Mayane acts evil and Shippou's kind of annoying…
"But they weren't entertaining or strong enough tonight. I had to jump out the window before it started and run here… this is the only place I know where it's warm and relatively safe." He seemed to be very interested in his hands as he talked.
It took a moment for Kagome to process this. Mayane had to hold the door closed… because… they wanted to come in and torment Inuyasha in his night of weakness?
"That's… awful," Kagome said softly. "I'm sorry it isn't safer here."
"Ah, whadda you know, anyway?" Inuyasha's voice suddenly turned angry, and he kicked at the wall. "Anyway, I guess they heard about me not being 'able' to kill you. So they were extra mean and there were a bunch more of 'em." This only confirmed Kagome's suspicions.
The two humans sat in the dusky silence for a long moment. Inuyasha's dark eyes were narrowed and full of hatred, and Kagome was almost afraid to look into them. She folded the sheets in her hands, twisting and pulling the flannel absently. It was almost completely dark in the guest room now, with dust motes dancing like wayward fairies in the weak light that managed to filter in beneath the door. The digital clock on the bedside table glowed 7:43, the numbers too-bright and awkward in the shadow-swathed room.
At last, Kagome found the courage to look Inuyasha straight in the eye. He regarded her with curiosity, like the night/morning that they had had their first formal 'meeting.' "Do you want to stay the night here?" she asked, winding the sheets around her hands like bandages.
The deep frown still graced his features, but his clouded eyes brightened a bit. "Sure… I don't really have anywhere else to go… thanks, Kagome." The last two words were more of a whisper, but she detected sincerity in them.
"Um…" She was absolutely certain that her cheeks were the colour of tomatoes. "We'll have to sleep in here…" This, of course, meant sleeping in the king-sized bed together. As in next to each other.
She might have been mistaken in the darkness, but she thought Inuyasha might have blushed, too. "Hey, I'll go through anything if I'm not dead by sunup."
Kagome sighed. "I have to finish my homework… I'll get you some manga or a book if you want. You know, so you don't die of boredom."
Inuyasha shrugged. "Sure…"
Darting into the hall, she squiggled into her bedroom on her stomach. Her shirt rode up, and her stomach was cold from the wooden floor by the time she got there. Surveying her manga collection, she quickly ruled out anything by Clamp – she somehow doubted Inuyasha would appreciate Cardcaptor Sakura or Angelic Layer. Ranma ½ might work… she grabbed the first two volumes.
He accepted them with an appreciative grunt, stretching luxuriously on the full length of the bed and opening the first book.
Kagome sighed and resigned herself to twenty minutes of boredom. At least Inuyasha got to read something entertaining… she threw herself onto the bed next to him, earning a surprised glance from her sullen houseguest, and opened her textbook yet again.
"Dynasty…"
*****
"Gods, woman, aren't you done yet?" Inuyasha muttered to himself. As if on cue, Kagome slammed her hefty textbook shut with a 'thump!' and sighed in what appeared to be pure relief. The numbers on the clock now pulsated 8:06.
"Finally!" they exulted simultaneously. She flashed him a somewhat guilty grin.
"Sorry it took so long, but that textbook is manufactured of pure boredom, I swear." She rolled onto her back and stretched, arching her back and cracking her elbows.
"Ah… at last, I am freeeee!" she laughed. Flopping back onto her stomach, she fell straight off the bed. Inuyasha crawled over to the edge of the bed, peering down at her. For some reason, she kept laughing… he liked it when she laughed. Weird.
Kagome clambered back onto the bed, dragging her fingers through her slightly tangled coal-coloured hair. Pushing her hair back from her face, she took a deep breath as she stared up at the ceiling.
Her stomach rose up and down, and it was simple and quiet for a moment as they lay there next to each other in the dark.
"You're weird," he told her matter-of-factly, pillowing his head in his arms.
Another laugh. "Yeah, I know, you don't have to tell me." All he heard for a few minutes was her quiet breathing.
"You hungry?" she asked at last.
"Yes," he answered, emphatic. Yes, he was hungry! Dammit, he was starving. "Really hungry," he admitted.
"I'll be back." Kagome hopped off the bed. He watched as she crawled into her room, making a positively hilarious sight with her squirming legs and churning arms.
She returned a moment later, clutching two small boxes in her teeth and a book under her arms. Spitting the boxes onto the bed, they were revealed to be filled with rice candy. Inuyasha was at first hesitant to actually eat the inner wrappers, but soon warmed up to the sticky, sweet candies. The manga she carried was some girly thing by Clamp or something. He made a face when she opened it to the middle.
"That's girly stuff," he said.
Kagome resolutely ignored him, but the pace of her page turning picked up a bit. He stuck his nose in the air and resumed reading his Ranma ½ book.
*
"Ack!"
"Huh?" Inuyasha jolted from his deep concentration on the current game of Monopoly. Damn human senses… I should be more alert. He looked down at his teenaged charge. "Whas' wrong?"
Kagome smiled weakly at him. "Nothing, really… it's just that it's ten-thirty… and I'm supposed to be asleep at ten. Don't laugh! It's my mother's fault, and my grandpa's, too. And yes, I know it's not a weeknight. They still want me in bed early."
She disappeared into her room, doing that hilarious army-crawl-squirm-squiggle thing that she used to move around the house. At least he'd scared some sense into her earlier, for her to be so cautious. Soon, she reappeared wearing grey drawstring pants, those purple slippers (which were covered in grime on the bottoms), and a white T-shirt. Buyo trailed behind her, trying and failing to look dignified. In her teeth, she carried a stuffed black puppy by its floppy, misshapen ear.
"Ah," Inuyasha began. "Um." He'd tried hard not to think of the fact that he would be sleeping in the same bed as this sweet, beautiful teenaged girl. Where did those adjectives come from? His ponderings were stopped as she fell onto the bed with the puppy tucked under her arm. Setting the stuffed animal aside and letting Buyo pick his way delicately over her feet to settle at the foot of the bed, she tugged at the covers until they untucked themselves for her to slip under.
The slight blush on her cheeks betrayed that she, too, was at least somewhat as irrationally nervous, scared, and just plain embarrassed as he was. Sure, he'd slept in the same room as Mayane, but she didn't count, and she had her own cramped little bunk. Shippou usually just picked one of them to snuggle up to in the night.
He pulled off his sweatshirt and slipped under the covers next to her, taking care not to actually touch any part of her body. Buyo sniffed at this sudden disturbance of his bed, and decided that Inuyasha's back would be a good new nesting place. He would have protested, had Buyo not belonged to Kagome.
Kagome reached out and flicked off the light, enveloping the room in blackness.
*
Crash!
"Shit!" Inuyasha jolted straight up in bed, cursing as a reflex. His breath rasped at his throat, and he coughed into his hand. The clock read 3:21 a.m in those thrice-cursed green numbers.
"Mm?" Kagome murmured, her hand feeling around the bed. She wriggled into the heated hollow where Inuyasha had lain, curling in on herself with a sleep-fogged, "Whas' go' non?"
Inuyasha frowned, tucking his hair behind his ears. "I'm not sure… don't move. I'll be right back…" He pushed the covers, which had already been only covering the lower halves of their bodies, fully down on his side of the bed. Nudging the unfazed Buyo aside with his bare toe, he pulled the covers back up around Kagome and slunk out of the room. Even in his new moon-induced weakened state, he was stealthier than many humans could ever hope to be.
A chilling breeze swept through him as he stepped into Kagome's room. A sunburst pattern of broken glass lay on the floor, glinting at him in the eerie darkness. Outside, a sneering figure leered at him, blood dripping blackly off its clenched fist and into the soil below the tree. He was going to come in and kill Kagome! He growled as the figure vanished and stalked back to Kagome's room.
Kagome was sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes with her fists. Buyo began stretching; showing a rare moment of cattish grace, then fell over on his side, paws flailing. She smiled faintly and patted the cat's round belly, combing her fingers through her mussed hair.
"What's going on?" she asked, worry plain on her face. She bit her lip, frowning, and began winding the sheets around her hands again. "That was loud…"
"Keh," he replied, sitting next to her.
"Not another note…?" she guessed, her frown deepening. "Is it written in red?"
Inuyasha remained silent, sitting on the bed with a long sigh. "You got a note?" he asked, scowling. He didn't like it when secrets were kept from him – especially important ones.
Kagome looked suddenly stricken. "Um… yeah…" she mumbled. "It said that as soon as you let down your guard, they'd… uh… kill me…"
He growled. "Why didn't you tell me, woman? This is important, you know! It's a matter of life and death!" He heaved another sigh and shook his head. "Whatever. Keh."
"Hey, woman! What's wrong with you? Don't cry! C'mon, this is not a good time to cry! … Now it's an even worse time to cry! Ah, dammit."
Mrs. Higurashi stood in the doorway, blinking at them with clouded eyes. She rubbed her eyes with a fist, blinked hard, and stared. Behind her, clinging to her leg, was a small black-haired boy, clad in blue pajamas with red racecars patterned on them. At least Inuyasha was still human. For now…
"Mama!" Kagome straightened, tucking her hair behind her ears and scrubbing at her eyes with a fury. She sat up, only just missing shoving Buyo off the bed with her feet. "Wha-what's wrong?"
"There was a crash," Mrs. Higurashi spoke as if in a dream. "Of course, I was worried." Now her face darkened and she almost hissed, in a fiercely protective tone, "Who's he?"
Kagome froze for a moment as she thought. Inuyasha looked on, his mind buzzing with apprehension. He tried to look cool and uncaring, but he suspected that he was failing. The child at Mrs. Higurashi's feet, presumably Kagome's brother, watched with wide, rounded eyes.
"This is an upperclassman at my school, Mama! I don't know him very well, but he heard the crash and ran to scare off the burglar!" Kagome nodded at the end of each sentence, as if trying to doubly confirm this excuse. "We should probably be grateful, you know. What if the burglar had gotten in?"
"Well," Mrs. Higurashi said, "I don't see why a burglar would be so careless, with the crash and all, but I'm still grateful!" She smiled at Inuyasha, bowing slightly. Kagome's brother stared at him with awe-filled eyes.
"Thank you for saving our house! We're sorry to have bothered you."
Inuyasha tried to smile back. "Um… you're welcome, madam. I don't mind at all… you should go back to bed." He struggled to remember how to be polite.
Mrs. Higurashi nodded. "Again: thank you very much! You, too, should get some sleep. What were you doing out so late?"
"I couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk… luckily, I was near your house at the time of the crash."
She turned to leave. "Good night, Kagome, and…?"
Inuyasha paused for a moment. "Inuyasha Sazekawa."
"Good night, Kagome and Inuyasha – you can go home, now. The door downstairs will lock again when you close it, don't worry when you leave." With a small wave, she and Kagome's brother disappeared – she down the stairs, he to the right, down the hallway a ways.
Kagome shook her head, hugging her knees to her chest. "That was close… I shudder to think what she would have thought had we not been able to think up an excuse."
"We?" Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. "You thought up… well, everything."
"Perhaps," she conceded, "but you acted it out, and thought up a name, and all. After all, even if I had told her my excuse, if you had just sat there and looked idiotic, it wouldn't have worked, had it?"
He shrugged. "I guess…" Kagome Higurashi had to be the weirdest female he had ever met. Not that he had met very many, exactly… but most of them were jealous, scheming, and violent. Kagome was the opposite of all that.
The clock now read 3:49. Still a few hours until sunrise… Inuyasha sighed and slid back under the covers, avoiding the sleeping lump that was Buyo. "Come on," he muttered. "You should get some sleep, too, you know."
*****
The rain had yet to stop, and Kagome woke to the rhythmic pattering of the droplets upon her roof. Shapeless shadows leered at her in the dark as she felt for the light switch. She was somewhat relieved when a buttery, orange brightness penetrated the shadows, although it revealed that the side of the bed next to her was empty. Wrestling her foot from underneath Buyo's bulk, she extended it into the space where he had been. A faint residue of heat lingered at the edge of the mattress, but that was it.
As she waved to her friends, greeting them with her usual cheer, Kagome saw him out of the corner of her eye. He lurked in the shadowy area at the edge of the yard, a black bandana concealing his ears and sunglasses shading his unusual eyes. His hands were shoved in his sweatshirt pocket, and he appeared to be staring at the sky, but she knew he was watching her.
I hope he's all right…
*****
Notes: It's me again, aren't you thrilled? I'm so special. I'm all proud 'cause I made them sleep in the same bed… and not wake up entwined in each other's arms. He slept at least a foot away from Kagome, actually. Ph34r my l4ck 0f f1uff!
This didn't work last time, so now I'll try guilting you into reviewing. (But what I'm saying is, believe it or not, true.) You have no idea how happy it makes me when I open my e-mail and see a review waiting for me… it makes my heart kind of go 'oh!' and I grin and sometimes do the review dance!
Jaa,
--Peri--
