Christmas in Japan

It was Christmas Eve, and Kagome and InuYasha sat on the couch as their two young children, Jinenji and Kaede, played with each other on the floor. Jinenji had just turned five on the first of the month, and Kaede was three and a half, having been born on the seventeenth of June. Jinenji was a frisky little boy, and Kagome watched as he playfully tweaked Kaede's ears, causing the little girl to let out a bawling noise and yell "Mama!" Kagome looked down at her daughter and smiled. "Kaede-chan, what's the matter?"

"Jinenji hurt me, Mama!!!"

"Oh, he can't have hurt you that much, I was watching!" Kagome said, but she nevertheless gave Jinenji a stern look, causing him to pout.

"I was only playing, Mommy!"

Kaede reached her short little arms up at Kagome. "Pickme, mama," she whined in her small, high voice.

InuYasha smiled as he watched his wife pick up their little daughter and kiss her forehead. Catching Kagome's eye, he gave her a caring, loving look that conveyed all of his deepest feelings for her. Then he picked up Jinenji, not wanting one child to seem favored over the other.

This pleased Jinenji greatly, and his little face beamed into a smile. Just to be fair, InuYasha tweaked his ears. When Jinenji squealed, InuYasha said, "Well, you did it to your sister! If you don't like it, don't do it!"

Jinenji pouted until his father gave him a little kiss on the top of his head and started bouncing him on his knees. The child was always full of energy...even on Christmas Eve (well, especially on Christmas Eve), when InuYasha wanted to give Kagome an early gift. Suddenly he caught Kagome staring at her. He began gazing into her eyes, getting as lost in hers as she ended up getting in his big amber ones.

I love you.

And I love you, Kagome.

It is amazing how when two people love each other, they can communicate merely by looking into each others' eyes.

She's so beautiful...I could just stare at her forever...

I love him so much...

Eventually breaking the staring and looking at the clock, InuYasha realized that they had been focused on each other for almost an hour, and, looking down, he saw that both little children had fallen asleep.

"We should put them to bed, Kagome," he said in a whisper so as not to disturb his little ones.

She nodded her head in agreement, stood up, holding Kaede, and walked to the little girl's bright pink room, laying her in her bed and kissing her goodnight. InuYasha put Jinenji to bed as well, and then they switched rooms to kiss whichever child they hadn't put to bed goodnight.

Walking back to the living room, InuYasha sat down on the plush couch and looked to the Christmas tree. He could smell the pine very strongly from here, and the sharp smell of the cinnamon from some of the ornaments, as well as the scent of the cookies that Kagome had baked still lingering in the air. He stood up and turned on their stereo, setting the track to a guitar arrangement of "What Child is This?", he and Kagome's favorite Christmas song. When she came back in, she sat on the back of the sofa, playfully ruffling InuYasha's hair and ruffling his ears.

"InuYasha," she said, yawning, "Let's go to bed."

"Kagome, wait," he said, gulping and blushing slightly out of nervousness, "I- I have something to give to you first."

She was puzzled and cocked her head. "An early present?"

He smirked, trying to cover up his anxiety over whether or not she'd like his gift, and from his pocket he pulled a black velvet jewelry box. "I could hardly even wait until tonight to give you this, so yes, you're getting an early present," he said in a gentle voice.

Kagome's hands trembled as she took the box. What could it be? She opened it slowly and gasped. Inside was a pair of the most beautiful diamond earrings that she had ever seen. Square cut, large stones, set in rose gold (her favorite type), sparkling like- well, like diamonds, but more spectacularly than any that she'd seen in her life. The light reflected off of them, inside of them, and passed through them, casting splendid little rays all about the room.

"I-InuYasha! You shouldn't have..."

"Don't tell me that I shouldn't have. I love you, and I will love you forever. You deserve something even more special than this, but I couldn't think of what exactly..."

"You are enough. You are all that I need, InuYasha."

He thought of all of the times that they'd saved each other in the past, of how much she'd grown since then...how much they'd both grown. It had been almost ten years since they first met, and she had changed, but the parts of her that he loved so much were still the same. Leaning down, he kissed her softly, his heart racing when their lips met, as it always did and always would. As they kissed, Kagome put down the gift on the coffee table, never breaking the kiss, so that she could wrap her arms about his neck, under his silver hair. He really was her angel...as contradictory as that might seem (him being a half-demon and all). He was the reason that she lived, the person who she cared about the most in the world. He was her entire life, and she loved him with every inch of her heart that was not taken up by her children.

His hands strayed to her back, and he began kissing her more deeply, softly letting his tongue enter her mouth and caress hers. The song on the stereo changed to "All I Want for Christmas is You", and they both began to laugh, so breaking their almost never-ending kiss.

"Oh, look, love," said Kagome, "it's snowing!"

He looked out the window to see peaceful snowflakes fluttering down to earth like millions of little faeries. Putting his arm around Kagome's waist as he turned to face the window, he pulled her closer to him so that they were snuggling in front of the window, staring at the serene snow. There was no wind to blow it around, just the soft snow floating beautifully down to the ground in front of their home. As the song turned to "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)", he turned to kiss her. When he broke the kiss, he stared deep into her eyes.

My beautiful wife, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, InuYasha-sama.

She kissed him again, and he picked her up and softly carried her to their room, softly kicking the door shut behind him.

Creatures did stir that night, and it certainly was not silent. And yet, it was still a very merry Christmas.

A/N: Well, that was my attempt at a not-dirty, feel-good holiday fanfiction. Please tell me what you think, and Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah/Happy Kwanzaa/Happy Holidays, very sincerely, from KagomeUndomiel.