Half and Half
An Inuyasha Fanfic by Elusion
Chapter Seven

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Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Viz Video

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Kagome's eyes were red and puffy as she escorted her friends to the door.

"Won't you come with us for a last trip to the ice cream shop?" they pleaded.

Kagome really wanted to, and considered Inuyasha's reaction to ice cream, but decided against it. It was time she confronted her family.

"No, I'm sorry. I really need to start packing." she said quietly. They all gave her farewell hugs and a few more tears were shed, and she said she would try to visit. She really hated lying to her friends about the circumstances of her departure, but it was necessary. They couldn't know about the truth.

Yuka turned to Inuyasha, who had been silently observing all this.

"You take care of her. If she's unhappy, I'll never forgive you." she said, her eyes serious. Inuyasha wondered at why he should be concerned about not being forgiven by this insignificant human, but he wisely didn't pronounce these thoughts. The more important thing was that he was going to take care of Kagome, or else he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. He nodded, his eyes just as serious as Yuka's, and she smiled.

"I wish we had gotten to know you better," she said, "but I know Kagome loves you, so that's enough. We've just been waiting for you guys to realize it."

Eri and Ayumi agreed, and added their warnings to Inuyasha. He promised that he wouldn't let Kagome get hurt, and unconciously reiforced his statement by wrapping his arm around her. This let forth a series of sighs from the three girls, and a mild blush on Kagome's face.

A few more tears, a few more hugs, a lot more promises, and they were gone. Kagome watched her three best friends exit her life, probably forever, and leaned against Inuyasha. He wrapped his arm tighter around her, as if trying to protect her from the pain inside her own heart. A noise behind them made her ears attempt to perk up, but they were too squashed under the horrid headband. She turned, and saw her mother.

"Mom." she said quietly, her voice husky.

"Kagome." her mother brought her gently into a long embrace. Inuyasha stood awkwardly, feeling out of place. Mrs. Higurashi pulled Kagome away gently, and looked her in the face. She noticibly stiffened, and licked her thumb to rub away the makeup on her cheeks, revealing the blue lines. She stared at them, almost as if hypnotized, and at the slitted eyes. Kagome reached up and pulled off the torturous headband, and her sore ears sprung up in relief. Her mother gasped, and softly touched them, her eyes full of quetions, curiousity, and love. Always love. Kagome had never looked into her mothers eyes without seeing love, even in the occasional temper flare, or even when those eyes contained disappointment Like a bright light, her unconditional love still shined through. Kagome had never met another person as loving as her mother, and only hoped someday she might inherit this quality.

Kagome took her mother by the hand and led her and sat her on the couch, to begin the long tale. Inuyasha had had enough of womanly sentiment, emotion and tears, it upset him to no amount. He slipped out of the room, and began wandering through Kagome's house. He first came to the kitchen. It was a promising place, with no end of interesting appliances and edibles, but last time he had tried to explore the kitchen, Kagome had gotten quite angry at him, and made him promise to only experiment with things with her supervision. He looked to the living room guiltily, tempted to forgo this promise. He was bored. He opened the fridge aand poked around in the contents. He remembered some of this stuff from earlier visits, but a lot of it was unfamiliar to him. He glanced again to the living room. Kagome would never know. He gleefully picked up the first thing he saw. He held it in both hands and examined it carefully. It was some kind of brownish liquid, trapped within a strange see through container. He glanced the label of it, and read it out loud.

"Choc-oh-late milk." Chocolate? He remembered chocolate! Kagome had brought it with her once, and grudgingly given them each a piece. He remembered it, because out of all the things Kagome had brought with her, it was the only thing Inuyasha could remember her being hesitant to share. And with good reason. Chocolate was delicious. He absently swished the jug in his hands as he tried to find a way to get it open. The cap on it didn't want to come loose, no matter how hard he pulled. Frustrated, he gave another tug on it, and his hand slipped around it. He felt the cap move slightly. He eagerly began twisting the cap around until it was free. He raised the jug to drink from, when a memory of Kagome flashed back into his mind. She had admonished him once for not using a cup.

He sighed, but not wanting to get into anymore trouble then he was sure he'd probably get into, he grudgingly put the milk jug on the counter and began searching the cabinets for the cups. He was soon distracted from his quest, though, by a big shiny thing. He crept up to the enormous metal structure, with interesting knobs and buttons that would do who knows what kind of things. There were all sorts of strange objects in Kagome's time, and they fulfilled all sorts of unusual tasks. He wanted to know what this one was for. He looked as one entranced at the knobs, and reached out to one. He hesitated, and then turned in.

Nothing happened.

He frowned, then turned another one, and another. There seemed to be no effect. Puzzled, he inspected some other parts of the shiny thingamajig. They were oddly shaped, like snakes curled up, ready to strike. He tentatively touched the thing, and drew back his hand sharply. It was hot! He hadn't actually burned himself, but the heat had surprised him nontheless. He watched in wonder as the thing slowly turned red with heat. He then notced two of the three other snake things heating up as well. He looked at the fourth, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. He slowly, almost regretfully, put out his hand. It darted to the burner, touched it a moment, and darted back. It wasn't hot! But why not? He contemplated this. Something had to have happened that made these things heat up. He looked back at the stove, and it clicked. The knobs he had turned before, they activated these heating things! So, if he put the knobs back like they had been, these heating things would turn off. He turned two of the knobs back, and sure enough, the heat radiating from the thing lessened. He realized these were probably used to cook things on. He could see the advantages to this. Unlike the wood fire he would have had to use to cook things in his time, these things would go on and off at a touch, and didn't require wood. One would never have to worry about finding dry wood in a thunderstorm, or having a warm meal in the middle of a snowstorm. He marveled at the technology of this thing, that it would rid so many problems and concerns with the turn of a knob. Not to mention the concern of getting something to eat... Suddenly Inuyasha realized he was hungry. He looked back at the stove and grinned. Perhaps he could make use of this metal wonder of Kagome's time.

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Kagome and Mrs. Higurashi hadn't noticed Inuyasha's absence. They had their little mother to daughter talk, catching up on the past couple of weeks. Kagome told her story, and Mrs. Higurashi asked her about her friends, and what kind of story she had fed them. Kagome told her, and the elser woman laughed. She said with Ayumi's sense of romance, Yuka's imagination, and Eri's gullibility, it was exactly the kind of story the three would fall for. She told how they had been dropping by almost every day after school, and she had been hard worked to keep them away from Grandfather, who still insisted creating the most awful diseases, and trying to make up excuses herself. Kagome laughed as her mother rattled off the new list of diseases Kagome hadn't known she had aquired. They talked then about how things were going on both sides of the well, and were so caught up in catching up it was understandable that neither noticed that Inuyasha had left. Finally, Kagome realized it in a rush, and immediately began worrying about where he had wandered off to.

"Inuyasha?" she called, trying to locate him. "Now where did he go?"

"I don't remember when he left," Mrs. Higurashi honestly replied. Kagome stood up, and headed to the kitchen. She hoped he hadn't made another horrible mess like last time. She grimaced as she recalled Inuyasha covered in flour, his sensitive nose sneezing violently and the fridge open with an overturned carton of juice, eggshells, and various vegetables spilled out on the floor. She prepared herself for the worst as she opened up the door, and was surprised to see Inuyasha sitting down quite civilly at the table, with the kitchen completely intact. He turned to her as he heard the door open, and Kagome could see he was perfectly alright, besides having a chocolate milk mustache. She giggled as she made her way towards him. He smiled and held up something proudly. It was a cup of steaming instant ramen.

It took a minute to register.

"Did Souta help you get something to eat?"

He shook his head, a chocolately smile still on his face.

"I did it by myself, boiled the water and everything, on that metal contraption over there." he pointed to the stove. Kagome looked at the stove. It wasn't a flaming ball, and it was even turned off!

"You figured out the stove?" she said, a little unbelievingly. Inuyasha looked at her curiously.

"Is that what it's called?" She nodded, and he proudly explained how he had discovered its purpose and made the ramen all by himself. Kagome was a little more than amazed. For him to reason out the purpose and ways to use the stove required intelligence she hadn't known he had. For some reason, she had always perceived Inuyasha as dense, even ignorant. It didn't bug her, she still loved him, but now she saw she was wrong. She realized that his lack of knowledge had come from spending a life time isolated and away from people and youkai alike, never really communicating. So, when he had appeared stupid and ignorant,it had really just been that he was nieve. She marveled at the new side of Inuyasha she had found, and loved him all the more for it. She reached up and wiped away the milk mustache that still stayed on his face, and followed it up with a kiss. Inuyasha was startled at this spontaneous act of affection, but soon melted into it.

Kagome savored the feel on his lips aginst hers, and even the chocolately taste the kiss had. In fact, from that day onward, whenever she drank chocolate milk, she was reminded of that kiss.

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End Chapter Seven