This somewhat short and fluffy chapter is meant to be light-hearted and not taken too seriously.

Edited: 7/18/2011

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.


Dashed Hopes

Chapter Sixteen: Kisses and Teasing


In the middle of the night, Inuyasha and Kagome were sitting on her bed, talking. Or they had been. Now, both drifted off into a thoughtful silence, looking around her bedroom in the dark. He was sitting cross-legged while she was perched on her knees, picking at a loose thread with her fingers. The house was quiet around them.

After several seconds, Kagome licked her dry lips nervously. "Inuyasha?" she whispered quietly to the young man in front of her, avoiding meeting his eyes.

"Yeah, Kagome?"

"What are we?" she asked as her eyes, still averted from his, landed on his lips instead. He was only a few inches away from her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his body.

"Yes?" Inuyasha urged her since she sounded like she hadn't completed her thought. He leaned forward a little to better catch her diminishing words. The man watched as Kagome nibbled on her bottom lip, drawing his attention to her mouth, and her blue eyes glazed over as if she were in a trance.

"I…" she started vaguely, trailing off again, unable to say more than that single word.

It felt like some unknown force was tugging her toward the man across from her, and Kagome slowly began to lean forward. Inuyasha inched towards her, too, rapidly closing the distance between them.

"Kagome?" he whispered, his warm breath brushing against her cheeks.

She ignored his questioning tone and leaned forward to capture his lips, relishing in the thought of kissing him. And just as they touched…

Kagome woke up.


Kagome ran a hand through her damp hair while fighting off a yawn. Making her way slowly towards the kitchen, she wondered how she was still so chilly even with sweatpants and a sweatshirt on; she decided that she needed to talk to Inuyasha about getting a more efficient heater for his giant house.

Kagome suddenly blushed at even the idea of his name, feeling silly because she'd only thought it in her mind. The dream that had startled her awake early that morning was a nice change from her usual nightmares, but it still left her feeling restless, confused, and—yes—worried.

In the kitchen, she found the room mostly empty except for Sesshoumaru. Kagome sat on a stool next to her older boss, bringing her legs up to her chest and wrapping a trembling arm around them. She laid her cheek on top of her knees. "Why are up s-so early on a S-Sunday, Sesshoumaru?" she stuttered around her chattering teeth.

The elder Youkai brother spared the freezing girl a glance before turning his full attention back on the business section of the newspaper. "This Sesshoumaru needs to go into work to finish up a project." Kagome chuckled openly at his imitation of Rin's speech, speaking of himself in the third person.

"No offense, but I'm surprised I don't see my breath in here," Kagome muttered, feeling only a little ashamed of hinting that she was disappointed in how they were running their household. On one hand, she was a guest and should be grateful to have a home at all. On the other hand, she was freezing.

"It's not that cold, but I'll turn the thermostat up," Inuyasha told her as he walked into the room, reaching for the coffee pot with one hand and a mug with the other. "Hand me the comics."

Kagome glanced at him quickly before blushing furiously, averting her eyes. Inuyasha looked up in time to notice the pink warming her cheeks, confusing her embarrassment with shame over how she'd acted in the middle of the night, apologizing to him like she had. He sat down on her other side and snatched the funnies from the pile in front of Sesshoumaru, just as the older man stood up to leave.

"Bye, Sesshoumaru," Kagome called after his quickly retreating back. The house was silent again as soon as they heard the front door slam shut; it was nice that the rest of the household was sleeping in. She reached for the coffee pot, hoping a nice steaming cup would warm her up some.

"I'll get that; you're shaking too much to pour steady," Inuyasha muttered, trying hard to be polite and put her at ease after their somewhat awkward yet largely touching moment the night before. His hand brushed hers, and Kagome immediately pulled it back to her chest as though she had been burned by the contact. She bit her bottom lip, struggling against the blush heating her cheeks.

Inuyasha looked up, startled, and frowned at her blush.

Kagome smiled weakly at his attempt to be nice and gratefully began to sip from her mug as though nothing weird was going on.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, his voice soft and questioning.

Reminded of her inappropriate dream, Kagome jerked in surprise and spilled hot coffee all over her hand. "Ohhh, ouch!" she hissed, blowing softly on the pink, puckered skin.

Quickly, Inuyasha jumped up and grabbed a washcloth; he ran it under the tap and handed it off to her to cool down her burned flesh. "Sorry," he muttered.

In response to his concern, Kagome blushed fiercer and wrapped her hand in the cloth; her skin felt noticeably better. "Thanks."

"Yeah, uh, sure. Kagome?" he said again, wanting to ask about her apology the night before now that they had some privacy.

Pretending she didn't hear him, Kagome set the mug on the counter with a clatter and got to her feet, aiming to walk right out the kitchen door. The dream was still heavy on her mind, making her extra jumpy. As she walked past, however, Inuyasha grabbed the wrist of her uninjured hand.

Kagome paused and glanced at the hand before raising her gaze up to his chin; she refused to look him in the eyes. Inuyasha just sat there watching with a perplexed expression.

And then, she made one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made in her entire life: she looked a little higher. Her eyes went from his chin to his lips, and then her insides turned to a quivering mess. A ridiculous idea nudged its way to the front of her mind: What would it be like to kiss him? The idea seemed even wilder now than it had immediately after waking from her dream. She just wanted to know; it couldn't do any harm to be curious, right?

Wondering just what was running through his guest's head, Inuyasha scrutinized her. The way she looked at him reminded him of the way a cat looked at bird sitting just within reach. He stood up, not realizing he still gripped her wrist. Kagome followed him with her eyes, the question still plaguing her.

Inuyasha had no idea what happened next, and by the time he did realize it, it was already over.

Kagome took a step forward to close the gap between them and reached up her hand, the one he still held onto, to cup his jaw. Bringing his face down to hers, she pressed her lips to his, her eyes falling closed. Unthinking, he kissed her back just as tenderly; the moment last several moments, and just as things started to get heated…

Kagome pulled back.

She stood there for half a minute, her eyes level with his mouth, unfocused. It hit her just how much taller he was than her, since she was standing on her tip-toes to reach him, yet he was still forced to stood down. Her curiosity satisfied, Kagome licked her lip, patted him distractedly on the cheek, and walked from the room.

Long after she'd left, Inuyasha stood stunned in the kitchen, lightly touching his lips with the pads of several of his fingers as if he could still feel her there.


Kagome was out in the garden with Rin, helping her pull up the dead plants to prepare for the quick onset of winter. Both were bundled up tight against the chill air, but Kagome found that she was still shivering. She ripped out a dying weed with unnecessary force. "Why?" she accidentally asked herself out loud.

"Why what?" Rin questioned innocently and peered up at the grown-up with wide, inquisitive eyes.

Kagome glanced down at her apologetically, knowing that her cheeks were pink not just from the biting wind. "I just wanted to know why I did something; sorry Rin."

Rin went back to the dirt and mud, getting more on her than she managed to keep off. "…So why didAunt Kagome do it?" Rin asked after a few more minutes of silence, not understanding what 'it' was, yet not really caring that she didn't.

Kagome sighed heavily, letting her hands go slack in her lap. "I guess I was curious."

Rin's smile grew wider. "Curiosity killed the cat!" she responded with a giggle.

"And satisfaction brought it back," Kagome added, laughing. They went back to work, but the question came back to haunt her again. Why? Kagome brushed her worries aside as the answer came to her. I was curious, just like I told Rin. Plus, I felt like I needed to, she thought.

Sitting back on her haunches and peering up at the cloudless sky, Kagome followed that train of thought, wanting to fully understand it. She needed to kiss him, because she hadn't been kissed properly in a long time. Naraku was always too cold or too rough with her, and he'd hadn't exactly been affectionate for the past few months. The dream from the early hours of the morning had planted the idea in Kagome's head, and she hadn't been able to shake it. She wouldn't have been able to, either, until she followed through on the thought, sucked it up, and kissed Inuyasha.

"And I was afraid I'd forget what it felt like," she muttered quietly.

"What?"

"Nothing, Rin," Kagome said dismissively and went back to the gardening.


Inuyasha collapsed, scowling, into his leather chair in his office. Mostly, it went unused. Unlike Sesshoumaru, he was able to keep his personal and work life pretty separate. Well, except for his secretary who currently lived under his roof and apparently occasionally made out with him in the kitchen. What exactly had that been about? She'd kissed him and then wandered off without explanation!

It wasn't a question of whether or not Inuyasha attracted to her—he remembered the first time he laid eyes on her back in his office the night of the parade all those weeks before. It was as obvious then as it was now that Kagome was a beautiful woman.

The problem lay in the fact that they were friends. They were also housemates who worked together. It just made things… complicated.

Having Kagome in the house was nice. It was great. They shared amusing arguments, she was a good cook, and they got along for the most part. Rin loved her. Sesshoumaru even seemed to like her. Plus, the idea that they were friends; it just sort of put a hold on the whole relationship thing. Kagome needed a friend at the moment.

It had only been a kiss. One, single kiss and absolutely no mention of feelings whatsoever. There was a very good chance that he was reading way too much into everything. For all he knew, Kagome didn't feel any attraction towards him.

After some more deep thinking on the subject, Inuyasha finally came to the conclusion that she had been merely teasing him. They were good as friends; there was no way Kagome would risk that, especially after all the time he had been there for her in the past couple of weeks.

And if she was teasing him, he would just have to tease her back. Still, memories of holding her, of kissing her lingered in his mind.

Of course, he hadn't ever really minded holding her. Not only was she attractive and he enjoyed helping her out, but there was another reason that no one would have guessed.

He had a confession.

"I, Inuyasha, have a problem," he muttered sarcastically to the empty room. "I like to cuddle."

With that, he decided to write off the kitchen incident as Not a Big Deal and move on.


That night, everyone came together for dinner at the Youkai household, including Miroku, Sango, and her brother. The entire night, Sango peered curiously at both Kagome and Inuyasha; the duo managed to look like absolutely nothing was weird at the same time they sent off waves of something happened.

Once dinner was complete, Sesshoumaru rounded up the children and shepherded them from the room, leaving the four friends to their own devices.

"Um, did anything happen this weekend?" Sango finally asked, her curiosity reaching its peak.

Kagome and Inuyasha looked up from their empty plates and shrugged. "Nope," they told her at the same time.

"Right," Sango stated before starting to collect the dishes, still confused.

Miroku followed her into the kitchen, and he rinsed off his own plate while his other hand wandered casually to Sango's backside.

"Anyone want to play Twister?" Miroku suggested nonchalantly.

Sango, having finally noticed that she was being touched, cuffed the man about the ear. "Pervert!" the brunette shouted, forcibly removing his hand.

As the group left the kitchen for one of the three living rooms in the house, Kagome tried to ignore the way Inuyasha was playfully wrapping his arm around her waist and guiding her after the others. He had the oddest look on his face—not like he was being serious, but at least like he was concentrating on some dasteredly plan.

He was, in fact, mapping out how exactly he was going to get Kagome back for the way she'd "teasingly" kissed him that morning.

Several games, and slaps, later the group sat around the coffee table, attempting to figure out a more appropriate game to play after Twister had failed so miserably.

"Truth or dare?" Kagome suggested.

"Too tacky," Miroku commented and wrinkled his nose. "What are we, a bunch of school girls?" Of course then his mind strayed to the idea of high school girls which caused his hand to stray to Sango's thigh. She immediately slapped him with the usual cry of:

"You pervert!"

The adults were interrupted when Souta wandered in, eyeing his sister and the others with a shrewd look on his face. Kagome knew that expression; her brother was planning on being trouble.

"You guys want to know a secret?" he asked the other three, resolutely ignoring his older sister.

"About what?" Inuyasha asked.

"About Kagome." When everyone nodded (even Kagome kept her mouth shut, trying to figure out where Souta was going with this), he said, "Did you know that I think that Kagome has a cr—?"

"SOUTA!"

Honestly, Souta enjoyed being a pest. He watched his sister's eyes widen in realization of what he'd been about to admit to all her new friends. Lately, he'd been happy to see Kagome smiling and joking like she had back in high school. Today, although she had been acting weird around Inuyasha, she seemed almost like her old self. As though she'd gotten rid of a huge weight on her shoulders, Kagome's mood had evened out, and she seemed far less angry and paranoid that she had while with Naraku.

The way Inuyasha had been eyeing Kagome all day, Souta had a feeling the man had something to do with it.

"Hey, Souta?" Kagome asked sweetly, her face deceptively cheerful.

"Yeah?" Souta responded, trying to decide whether or not he should be worried.

"RUN!"

The other three adults watched in amusement as the woman chased her brother around the room for several minutes, laughing the entire time. Kagome ended up tackling him back in the living room. Once Souta was pinned down, she began to tickle him mercilessly.

"Kagome!" Shippou squealed as he joined the fray, siding with Souta. The boys turned the tide against Kagome, tickling her sides until she was giggling so hard, she cried.

"Hey, we'll see you guys tomorrow," Sango called, grabbing her purse.

"I'll walk you out," Miroku suggested, following the brunette from the room. "Bye, guys!"

Left alone with the three immature Higurashis, Inuyasha walked over and pulled the boys off the young woman. On her back, Kagome eyed him warily and almost jerked in surprise when he suddenly straddled her stomach and pinned her arms to her sides with his knees. Inuyasha leaned down until they were nose-to-nose.

"Now," he whispered and the other two boys tickled her.

In under a minute, they had Kagome yelling for mercy.

Kagome shoved the man off of her and sent the boys to bed. Inuyasha was laughing from his seat on the floor. "That was fun," he commented with a smirk.

Kagome rolled her eyes, but refused to respond to that. "Good night Inuyasha, I'm heading in. I'm pretty tired."

"Yeah, okay; me, too."

When Kagome walked past him towards the entryway, she leaned down so that her lips brushed his ear. "Thanks for this morning," she whispered, and he could feel her grinning against his skin.

Inuyasha closed his eyes as he waited for her to leave. It surprised him when he felt the soft press of her lips against his cheek.

By the time he opened his eyes again, she was already gone.


In the middle of the night, Inuyasha and Kagome were sitting on her bed, talking. Or they had been. Now, both drifted off into a thoughtful silence, looking around her bedroom in the dark. He was sitting cross-legged while she was perched on her knees, picking at a loose thread with her fingers. The house was quiet around them.

After several seconds, Kagome licked her dry lips nervously. "Inuyasha?" she whispered quietly to the young man in front of her, avoiding meeting his eyes.

"Yeah, Kagome?"

"What are we?" she asked as her eyes, still averted from his, landed on his lips instead. He was only a few inches away from her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his body.

"Yes?" Inuyasha urged her since she sounded like she hadn't completed her thought. He leaned forward a little to better catch her diminishing words. The man watched as Kagome nibbled on her bottom lip, drawing his attention to her mouth, and her blue eyes glazed over as if she were in a trance.

"I…" she started vaguely, trailing off again, unable to say more than that single word.

It felt like some unknown force was tugging her toward the man across from her, and Kagome slowly began to lean forward. Inuyasha inched towards her, too, rapidly closing the distance between them.

"Kagome?" he whispered, his warm breath brushing against her cheeks.

She ignored his questioning tone and leaned forward to capture his lips, relishing in the thought of kissing him. Soon, his hands were tangled in her hair while hers were pressed tight against his chest.

And then Kagome woke up to Inuyasha shaking her shoulder.

"What?" she asked groggily, rolling over onto her back to peer up at him, the feel of him from her dream making her hands tingle.

"I had a nightmare; can I sleep with you?" Inuyasha pleaded in a pathetic imitation of a little boy.

"Shut up and quit making fun of Shippou!" Kagome grumbled, closing her eyes tightly against the sight of him laughing.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"Oh, I'm sure you are."

Since she hadn't exactly turned him down, Inuyasha crawled onto the bed and stretched out next to her, sharing her pillow. "Why'd you kiss me?" he asked. The nighttime made it feel like it was safe to ask anything. It was during the night that they had shared all those other intimate moments, when Kagome had been so vulnerable.

Kagome yawned, turning her head away from him, away from his prying eyes. "Because I felt like it."

Inuyasha grunted dismissively. "That's what I thought." He felt Kagome nod next to his head. "Good night, Kagome."

"Good ni—wait, you're not actually going to sleep in here, are you?" Kagome whispered fiercely. Inuyasha just smirked before rolling on his side and wrapping his arms around Kagome's waist, pulling her close. It was, he decided, good revenge for that morning. Icing on the cake was that he was actually enjoying his little act of revenge.

Kagome mentally threw her hands up. "Ass," she snapped, allowing herself to start to fall back asleep.

Inuyasha smiled. "Bitch."

Soon, they were both sleeping.

At some point during the night, Inuyasha moved closer to his heat source, finally realizing just how cold the house really was. Kagome cracked an eye open. "Would you stop squirming, Naraku?" she hissed, her voice heavy with sleep.

The arms stiffened around her at the name.

It dawned on her that Naraku had never been much of a snuggler, and Kagome's mind immediately jumped to who could possibly be in her bed, holding her. Panicking, she started to open her mouth to scream, but she was cut off when something clamped down hard on her lips. She could barely see the outline of a hand in the dark.

Fiercely, Inuyasha whispered, "Shut up! Do you wantto wake up the whole house?"

His hand removed itself, and Kagome's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha. But the last man who—"

"I know." Inuyasha pulled her closer, still half asleep, burying his face in her hair.

Kagome stiffened. Since when was Inuyasha so understanding? Forcing herself to relax and try to go back to sleep, she remembered that he was her friend and not the enemy. "I'm sorry for kissing you," she mumbled uncertainly.

"S'okay; I didn't mind," Inuyasha whispered. She smiled vaguely and curled in tighter against his side. "Night, Kagome."

"Night, Inuyasha."

"Hey Kagome?"

"Yeah?"

"I forgive you."

"Thank you."


"It's time," Naraku told Kagura emotionlessly. She had no other choice than to nod and begin the plan.

Next Chapter: The Phone Call