Mister Niceguy!

A/N: Ooooo, been a few days since the last chapter, huh? Thanks again to those who've favorited/author alerted/reviewed It "warms the cockles of my heart," as it is said. Anyway, you might've noticed that I've retooled the title a bit, taking out the "Inuyasha" from the title, so now it's just "Mister Niceguy." No big deal, just thought that having "Inuyasha" in the title was unnecessary. shrug

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any affiliated aspects of the series/character/hanyou. I also do not own the title "Mister Niceguy," even though the Jackie Chan movie is "Mr. Niceguy" not "Mister" but I don't think they own it either cause I seem to remember something about you can't own a title or something, but then I guess it could be trademarked or something but I'm not really sure and since I'm trying to get the effect of saying a bunch of stuff in a row without stopping maybe I should've not spaced the words out but I didn't so oh well please enjoy!

Chapter 5:

For the second time that day Inuyasha was crying. Before it had been due to the inexplicable agony brought forth by the vicious postmortem assault of the turtle youkai, but this time the tears were the result of a very different stimulus.

Inuyasha opened his watery eyes to see the concerned and quite baffled faces of his friends. Between sniffs he let his gaze slowly move from of them to the other, then once again Inuyasha shut his eyes. A brief second passed, then out of nowhere the hanyou sprang up and all but tackled Kagome, embracing her in a tight hug, tears still falling the whole time as he shut his eyes once more

Immediately, a blush covered Kagome's face, and the confused thoughts she had been thinking minutes before, and even those that troubled her after Inuyasha's last affectionate outburst, paled in comparison to the befuddlement that besieged her now. It was odd enough for Inuyasha to be nice to her when they were alone, but for him to openly express affection in front of the others was completely unheard of. Kagome tried to fight back her confusion and enjoy the moment, but knowing that the others had their equally shocked eyes locked on them only made her blush burn brighter.

Sango, Miroku and Shippo all sat perfectly still and in absolute silence, completely mesmerized by the events unfolding before them. Just as their expressions were the same, so were their thoughts one…

"Is Inuyasha…"

"…hugging…"

"…Kagome?"

As if sensing the embarrassment of the girl in his arms, or perhaps noticing the attention their friends had directed towards them, Inuyasha slowly broke away from hugging Kagome. His tears had stopped, but only for a second, for when he turned to the three spectators and gazed upon them with newly reopened eyes, they were once again flooded. With the same speed and exuberance he had displayed towards Kagome, Inuyasha lunged towards the trio and gathered them all up in one big group hug.

With her role reversed, Kagome now played the onlooker to the surprising event before her eyes. Inuyasha was hugging the others? It was odd him to hug Kagome whe n they were alone, odder for him to hug her when others were watching, and now it seemed the oddest still was happening: Inuyasha was unquestionably hugging the lecherous monk, the youkai exterminator, and even the little kitsune he had always seemed to despise.

'Inuyasha…what's gotten into you?' passed through Kagome's mind unspoken. But it was not necessary to speak such words, for they were exactly what those caught in the half demon's grasp were thinking as well.

After what seemed like an eternity spent analyzing the situation in an awed silence, Inuyasha broke away from his friends, and settled into a sitting position on his tatami mat. All eyes were still on him, and all eyes caught the bright smile on Inuyasha's face.

Not a sneer, not a smirk, a full-on SMILE. The kind that shows happiness and joy.

Inuyasha's tears had not been of pain or hurt as before; the had been tears of happiness.

Still silenced by witnessing their friend's most unusual change of mood, Inuyasha's friends listened on as Inuyasha opened his mouth to speak.

"Thank you all so much for what you did today…I don't know what I'd've done if it hadn't been for all of you…I'm so lucky to have such great friends." Inuyasha said, his voice betraying his poor attempt to stave off any more emotion than had already overflowed from him.

It seemed that the barrage of surprising behavior on the part of their silver haired comrade was finally beginning to lose its full shocking effect, as Kagome was now able to speak.

"I-Inuyasha….are you…alright?" she asked.

Perceiving her question as an inquiry of his physical condition, Inuyasha again amorously replied, "Yes, Kagome, and I have you to thank for it. And Kaede, too, but especially you Kagome." Again, Inuyasha leaned forward to wrap his arms around the girl, but this time he was much more calm and subdued. It was a friendly hug, but of a much more intimate manner than the hyperactively happy one he had launched before.

Blushing once more, Kagome was able clear her thoughts enough to decide to return the hug. 'Inuyasha…' she thought as her wide eyes closed a bit and she allowed herself to enjoy the embrace.

As he pulled away, Inuyasha warmly and softly muttered, "Thank you, Kagome." With that, he returned to his sitting position with another bright smile on his face.

Miroku had noticed that Inuyasha had not understood the intent of Kagome's question, even though Kagome herself had completely forgotten about it in the midst of Inuyasha's cuddling. Realizing that Kagome wasn't going to press the matter further at the moment, Miroku took it upon himself to explain what he was sure the girl had meant.

"Um, Inuyasha," Miroku paused briefly as Inuyasha's head quickly swung around with that strange grin on his face in a friendly gesture that showed he was devoting his complete attention to the monk. Miroku blinked a couple of times then continued. "What I think Lady Kagome meant was that you're acting a bit…unusual, at the moment." Miroku sighed a bit.

'It seems kind of odd to be asking this…' he was thinking.

It seemed that the "old" Inuyasha's inability to grasp social situations had translated into the "new" Inuyasha's denseness in comprehending what the others were so confused about. He voiced this inability to understand, saying, "I…don't think I quite know what you mean…"

'Is he playing games with us?' Sango silently mused at Inuyasha's response.

"Do you mean that you don't realize that you're acting differently from before?" she asked. Her question was met with the same quick shift of Inuyasha's attention that Miroku had encountered. The smile that had resided upon his face had now contorted a bit into a slight frown. The frown wasn't angry or even frustrated; the softness of Inuyasha's face hadn't changed. Instead, Inuyasha's expression was of lighthearted puzzlement as he pondered on the meaning of Sango's words.

Finally Inuyasha looked back at the youkai exterminator with a resigned look, then apologetically began, "I'm sorry, but I don-"

Shippo had had enough of waiting, and like kids often do, jumped right to the point. Cutting Inuyasha off, Shippo impatiently demanded, "Inuyasha, WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NICE ALL OF A SUDDEN!"

Quiet once again conquered the room, and Inuyasha stared at Shippo with an unreadable expression. Shippo started shifting about uncomfortably, tensely awaiting and expecting a violent response from Inuyasha. When the half demon finally reached out his arm in response, Shippo cowered at what he perceived to be an oncoming punch across the head. But again, Inuyasha did the unexpected, and kindly patted the little kitsune on the head. Once he sensed that Shippo had calmed down, Inuyasha picked Shippo up and placed him on his shoulder, a favorite perching spot for the kitsune, but one Inuyasha rarely tolerated.

While Inuyasha's kind gestures had calmed Shippo and convinced him he need not fear the usual Inuyasha response of violence, it was still a mystery as to why. But Shippo's less than tactful outburst seemed to finally get the question across to the group's resident half demon, and with everyone's eyes fixed on him, including those of the diminutive fox demon on his shoulder, Inuyasha cleared his throat and quietly began to explain.

"I'm sorry for being less than friendly to all of you in the past, but ever since the accident I've realized that I have no reason to try to push you all away. It's thanks to all of you that I made it through this, and I'm truly thankful." Inuyasha flashed another one of those winning smiles at the group. With that, he continued on his decidedly cheesy speech, "I'm so happy that I have such great friends!" Inuyasha began to lose control of his emotions again in a manner that would have utterly sickened him a day ago, and everyone still had their eyes on him.

While she was listening to Inuyasha's little oration, Kagome was still thinking that something was wrong, and that it seemed very odd that Inuyasha's personality had taken a complete 180. But as he finished up, the stare she had held on him, the one that had so eagerly awaited an explanation to his behavior softened, and Kagome's thoughts shifted.

'It's so odd that Inuyasha's acting so differently…But, maybe he's really just taken on a different outlook since his accident. Is it really alright for me to question his behavior?' Kagome came out of her thoughts for a moment to witness Inuyasha failing to maintain control of his emotions after his talk. 'I've always wanted Inuyasha to be more open and friendly with us…Maybe I should just accept it and be happy.'

With that, Kagome decided to stop worrying about why Inuyasha was acting so different and embrace his new demeanor. She put a smile on her face and started moving towards Inuyasha.

It seemed that everyone else had come to a similar conclusion. Shippo was sympathetically patting the emotional Inuyasha on the shoulder he was perched upon, and Sango and Miroku were making their way over to him as well. Kagome got there first, and she locked Inuyasha into a warm hug, for the first time unembarrassed and sure that Inuyasha wouldn't let his rough image force himself to push her away.

Inuyasha was a bit surprised, having noticed the girl's discomfort when their roles had been the reverse a while ago. He looked up to see the girl smiling at him comfortingly, and he gladly smiled back. He turned to smile at Shippo, who returned the favor. Inuyasha then felt an arm on his other shoulder, and turned to find Sango offering her own comforting smile, and looked up to find Miroku sharing the moment, showing his support for the hanyou as well.

Seeing that all of his friends were willing to reciprocate Inuyasha's new personable feelings instead of dwelling on his past rudeness filled him with glee. But for a brief second, Inuyasha's thoughts turned to these past actions, instances in which he didn't show his feelings for friends, memories he only vaguely remembered and didn't quite understand…But another glance at the warm smiles surrounding him pushed thouse thoughts from his mind as he, for the first time, openly and truly enjoyed the company of his friends.

A/N: This chapter is REALLY cheesy. But I guess it needs to be. Okay, I think I'm finally going to get to the fun part of the story that was one of the chief ideas when I came up with this. Hopefully. And I think that I don't have enough dialogue and/or thoughts from the characters themselves, so I've been trying to add more of that, although I don't think I succeeded so much in this chapter. What do you guys think? Anyway, please review if you want!