It was late.

She couldn't sleep.

Not for any particular reason, it was just One of Those Nights where her mind wouldn't shut up, and her room was too hot despite the central AC going on full blast (because Inuyasha was always saying that it was "too damn hot in this house"). So she threw a blanket over her shoulders and tiptoed down the stairs, slowly making her way through the dark hallways, until she reached the living room.

Only to find that Inuyasha couldn't sleep as well, and was sitting on the couch. His eyes glued to the large television screen in front of him. His nose twitched and he turned his head in her direction. "Oh," He started, "you're um...you're awake."

"Yeah." Kagome muttered, frozen in her spot. "You couldn't sleep?"

"Yeah." Inuyasha nodded his head slowly, turning his attention back toward the television.

"Anything interesting?" Kagome asked, motioning toward the screen. "What movie is that?" One of the actors looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on who he was, or where she'd seen him.

"10 Things I Hate About You." He replied, biting back the smile that was forming on his face. "Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?"

"Oh, ya think so?" Kagome joked, her body leaning against the doorway. Arms crossed over her chest as she held the blanket close.

"Oh yeah." Inuyasha threw over his shoulder. "You're definitely Kat, that's for sure."

"And who are you? Patrick?" Kagome snapped back, her voice held a playful tone as she pulled the blanket closer to her body, shuffling forward and taking a seat on the couch, pulling her legs up under herself.

Inuyasha glanced in her direction, golden eyes staring at her for just a few moments before he spoke again. He scoffed. "Keh, yeah right. Patrick gets hired to date Kat, not the other way around."

"Personality still fits though." Kagome mumbled, shrugging her shoulders. "Patrick's a 'bad boy' isn't he? And according to all the tabloids, you are too."

"And Kat isn't exactly likeable." Inuyasha shot back, earning a glare from Kagome.

"So what? Patrick still falls for her."

"True." Inuyasha replied, nodding his head. "And Kat does too."

"As all romantic comedies go." Kagome uttered, watching the movie with him. And after a few moments of silently watching the movie, she talks again. "Any reason in particular on why you're up so late?" He was usually the last person to go to sleep every night. She always heard shuffling in the kitchen late at night, sometimes he would be on the phone with Miroku, or Rin. The walls were thin so she could hear parts of their conversation sometimes. Not like she listened on purpose. But when you're loudly arguing with someone, or have them on speaker it can be kind of tough to ignore the conversation. "Got a lot on your mind?"

A lot is an understatement, Inuyasha thought to himself. "Nothing in particular." He replied, "just...can't sleep."

"Me either."

"Why can't you sleep?" A lot on your mind, Kagome?

"It's just one of those nights." Kagome replied as she settled into a spot on the other side of the couch. "It was too hot in my room like it wasn't actually, but it felt like it was, I couldn't really get comfortable...I wasn't sleepy." She detailed, glancing in his direction. "Decided to come down to the living room to watch a movie or something, but you beat me to it."

"Hm."

"You okay?" Kagome asked, and took a quick moment to glance at the coffee table in front of them. Good, I don't see any alcohol. She made a mental note to check the kitchen sink and the garbage bin before going back upstairs.

He didn't want to tell her the truth, because the truth was ugly. Seeing her right now was the most dreadful thing, because he knew she was going to ask him if he was okay. He knew she was going to try and pick him apart. Poke him until he gave her an answer she was okay with. But that was only part of the reason he wasn't okay. There was, of course, the guilt that came with the realization that he single handedly ruined his brother's relationship.

Which, again, was one of the few good things in his life.

He didn't want to tell her any of that. So instead he shrugged his shoulders, gave her a small smile and said "I'm fine, Kagome."

Kagome stared at him for a bit, not fully convinced of his answer. But she nodded slowly at his answer. "Alright...just making sure."

"You don't have to babysit me." Inuyasha said. "You don't have to ask me if I'm okay all the time, Kagome. That's not your responsibility."

"I know that." Kagome responded, deciding to respond in Japanese. It caught Inuyasha off guard. "I'm just making sure you are, for my own sake. What, you expect me to learn what I did yesterday and not want to follow up? See how you are?"

"It's not your problem." Inuyasha responded in his native tongue.

"It is now." Kagome said sternly, glaring at him. "It's my problem now, I'm stuck with you for a year, remember?" It felt like she signed the contract so long ago, she barely even remembered it. It hadn't been brought up in a while. "This is my problem now, too."

There was a sort of incredulous look on his face, from what Kagome could make out in the dark. "It is." Kagome said, shrugging, a small laugh escaping her lips.

"It is not your problem." Inuyasha stood his ground against her, silently wishing that she would just go back upstairs and go to sleep and stop bothering him. He knew that wouldn't happen however, she was just as stubborn if not more stubborn than he was. "It's something you know about me, something very, very personal about me that you know." Inuyasha added. He sighed, and turned his body in her direction to face her, crossing his legs on the couch. "Do you understand?"

He still didn't fully trust her, of course he wouldn't, it'd only been twenty-four hours.

Kagome could see that he was scared. Scared of what she might do with this new information she has of him, scared of what might happen if word gets out. She realized in that moment, something that she hadn't the day before.

She had all the power in this situation.

She had some of his money, she had his secrets, she had access to parts of his life that the public didn't see. Kagome could run off with all of it if she wanted to. She could take the money, and his secret and go to the media.

"You're scared," she breathed, their conversation switching back to english.

Their dynamic had changed. She had to tread lightly if she wanted to earn his trust now, that much she knew.

"You could ruin me." He choked.

"I could," Kagome sighed, "But I won't do that. I'm not that type of person, I don't find happiness in ruining the lives of others. Especially not the lives of people I consider a friend." Kagome reassured him, watching as he seemed to fill with anxiety. "I'm sorry."

"Stop fucking apologizing."

They fell quiet again.

Kagome realized that he probably felt at a sort of... disadvantage. In the sense that, she knew something deeply personal about him, and he knew nothing about her at all. That had to feel sort of...violating. "Do you feel...unequal?" Kagome asked hesitantly, trying to find the right words. Inuyasha gave her an ugly look. "What I mean is...do you feel vulnerable? Exposed?"

"Yes."

The answer was straightforward and came much quicker than Kagome anticipated. "I can understand that." She said quietly. "It's hard having someone you barely know, know something so personal and raw about you. Addiction—"

"It's not an addiction." Inuyasha interjected, giving her a stern look. Of course he knew it was an addiction. He just hated hearing it said out loud. Especially by her. Someone who had absolutely no business knowing.

"Personal struggles," Kagome corrected, waiting a few short moments for a reaction. When she got none, she continued. "Personal struggles are deeply personal and secret, oftentimes. It can feel violating when someone finds something out about you without your telling them, or intending for them to know. I know what you feel like, and I'm sorry you feel that way."

He was quiet, simply staring at her as if she was speaking a foreign language, one he didn't understand.

"Are you following?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Kagome continued. "I'm sorry I had to find out your personal struggle in the way I did. Would it make you feel better to know something personal about me? A secret for a secret?"

Inuyasha blinked at her, because truly truly whatever she was about to say had nothing on what she had just discovered about him. Nothing. But to comply with her little "game", he shrugged and crossed his arms across his chest. "Sure." He said coolly. "What is it?"

"I don't talk to my mother." Kagome said, "She cut off contact with me when I graduated Harvard. I was set to go to medical school, and become a psychiatrist. I was going to go to Harvard Medical School, and...I dropped out right before the semester began. I gave up that opportunity because it wasn't what I wanted anymore. I didn't want to spend the next seven years in school."

"Sango moved from Seattle to New York, and we started Cafeium. My mom...she..didn't like that. So we stopped talking."

Inuyasha was silent. Kagome continued.

"In college, I smoked cigarettes. Sometimes I would smoke two packs a day. I stopped in junior year, but it was hard cutting it off. I went through a nasty nicotine withdrawal period for a bit…" Her eyes glazed over slightly. "I...wasn't doing the best in college. I struggled a lot, mentally. I never had many friends, ever. And that place was so...competitive. Toxically competitive, everyone wanted to be the best of the best...of the best." She laughed a little bit. "It was easy for me to feel inadequate. It felt like everyone had found their friend group, and gotten their footing and I was still trying to do that up until the very end."

"It was weird...seeing myself on tv for the first time with you. Because I was definitely the least likely to be famous, like...definitely. I couldn't even imagine myself dating a celebrity." Kagome put the word 'dating' in air quotes, making Inuyasha smile at her weakly. "So it's been a little weird, ya know? I have people from college finding me on instagram and sending me messages on Facebook, telling me that they want to catch up with me, asking me how I am, asking for favors. It's weird because these people wouldn't have so much as bat an eye in my direction in college." Kagome sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"...Are you okay now?" Inuyasha asked after she was done.

"I'm much better." Kagome said, smiling. "I don't smoke anymore, I don't even feel the need to, the smell kind of disgusts me now. It was mainly just...the culture at Harvard that affected me badly, and I was too scared to transfer."

He hadn't realized, or even thought about the fact, that Kagome might have had any idea what being dependent on something felt like. He realized that it was a bit foolish of him to assume that just because she grew up—what he would argue as—privileged, that she didn't have her own battles and her own troubles.

"Are we equal now, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked, staring at him with watery eyes. "You know something deeply, deeply personal about me now. I know something deeply, deeply, personal about you."

"I never wanted you to be 'equal' in that respect." Inuyasha responded, furrowing his eyebrows. "You didn't need to tell me that, you know. I...I'm not entitled to know that about you."

"I wasn't entitled to know that about you." Kagome responded, "but now I do."

"Thank you." Inuyasha said, after a few moments of silence. "For telling me that, about you."

"You don't have to thank me." Kagome said. "It's common courtesy."

Was it really though? Inuyasha had a point, she didn't need to share anything about herself just because of what she knew about him. That wasn't an obligation. But she felt like she had to.

She knew what that felt like, to feel exposed, have your dirty laundry out in the open air and be judged by others. It fucking sucked, especially when the people who knew weren't exactly close to you.

"I've got a question." Inuyasha announced after a few minutes of watching the movie. "Don't gotta answer me if you don't want to tell me."

"That depends," Kagome responded, narrowing her eyes slightly. Now it was her turn to be guarded and skeptical. Inuyasha rarely, if ever, asked her questions. He was generally disinterested in her life, or what she had to say and she was perfectly content with that. So long as he wasn't a dick about it, that was. "What's the question?"

"What are you gonna do with the money, once I cut you the check?"

Kagome knew that question was going to come sooner or later, that didn't mean she was necessarily prepared for it to come. She especially wasn't prepared for it to come from him. She expected Miroku to ask, or Sesshomaru. Truthfully, Kagome hadn't quite given it thought. She had some ideas bouncing around in her head. Like, using some of it to put down a down payment on a house or apartment and using the other part to invest in Cafeium. Or investing all of it in Cafeium. For a brief moment she thought of using it to pay off her debts; student loans, credit cards, small business loans.

There was so much that she could do with that amount of money.

"I'm not exactly sure." Kagome responded, shrugging. "There's a lot I can do."

"Like?" Inuyasha was genuinely curious to see where her head was at. He knew that one million, although (thankfully) not much to him, had to be an absurd amount of money to her.

"I guess...pay off my student loans, for one? Invest in Cafeium. There's...plenty to do with that money." Kagome said.

"How much are your loans?"

"Do you really want to know?" Kagome asked, grimacing. It was an embarrassingly high amount, and she didn't typically talk about her debt with anyone, except Sango but it was because it was sort of mandatory.

"I mean...you don't need to say it if you don't want to." Inuyasha said, shrugging his shoulders.

"No-no, it's fine..um. I have one hundred fifty thousand dollars in student debt."

"What?!"

"I..yeah." Kagome muttered. "Harvard was expensive."

"For something you don't even use." Inuyasha scoffed, and Kagome flinched at his words.

"It's not like I planned to not use my degree when I graduated." Kagome shot back, slightly defensively. "I..know it's a crazy number for a piece of paper."

"You think?" Inuyasha sounded like he was scolding her. "Kagome, that's fucking crazy."

"Can you not yell at me about that?" Kagome shot back.

"And you wanted to go to medical school with that debt? To get more debt?" Inuyasha continued. "That's...Kagome." He couldn't comprehend that number. Well, he could, he definitely could, but...not in the negatives.

"Inuyasha. Stop."

"I'm not yelling at you." Inuyasha snapped, glaring in her direction. "It just….fuck that's a big number." Oh my god. Oh. My. God.

He was stressed out for her, and he wasn't even the one with the student loan problem.

"I feel like you're yelling at me." Kagome responded, sighing. "Can we just...change the subject or something, I'm done talking about it."

"I wasn't yelling," Inuyasha took a deep breath as he pulled his hair up into a bun, "but okay, Kagome."

"I thought you had scholarships." Inuyasha said after a few seconds because holy fuck that was a lot of money. "I thought you were super smart or gifted, some shit like that."

"I.." That was rude. "I...I am smart…" her voice trailed off. "I did get some help...but…" Inuyasha looked over to her, slightly annoyed that she hadn't finished her sentence, and frowned.

She seemed to have retreated into herself, hugging a pillow close to her body as if it would protect her from him. There was sadness in her eyes, he couldn't quite see it. But he could sense it. Her fingernails dug into the sides of the pillow, and her eyebrows were furrowed at him.

"What?" Inuyasha asked, shaking his head slightly. "Fuck is wrong with you?"

"That was fucking mean Inuyasha, oh my god." Kagome said, trying to fight back tears. "You think I'm stupid?"

"I…" his shoulders dropped, and his ears laid flat against his head. Damn it. "Kagome, I didn't mean it like that." He pulled himself closer to her, amber eyes darkening with concern. "I don't mean that you...aren't intelligent."

"Well it sounded like that." Kagome muttered, trying to fight back tears. Why am I so sensitive tonight? She thought back and figured that it might have to do with the fact that she had just bared her whole soul to him.

"I'm sorry." Inuyasha whispered, "I didn't mean to insult you like that."

"It was rude." Kagome whispered back, sniffling. "And uncalled for."

"Sorry."

"Mhm." Kagome replied, scratching at her head. "Yeah, no..it's..alright." She glanced down for a split second, noticing how close he had gotten. When she looked up, he was still staring down at her, and she muttered again. "I told you your eyes are intense."

"Really?" Inuyasha replied, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I feel…" How was it that she described his gaze once? Like a predator. She felt like his prey sometimes. "Small."

"Good."

For some reason her stomach did a somersault. Her face began to flush red and her ears were burning. A hand flew up to tug at her earlobe nervously, as she felt her heartbeat against her chest.

"You're so easy to get all flustered." Inuyasha said lowly, giving her a lopsided grin. She's cute when she's all flustered.

"N-no I'm not." Kagome stammered, and she mentally cursed at herself. You're so fucking stupid, control yourself!

"Yeah you are." Inuyasha breathed, and Kagome had to stop herself from letting out a shaky breath. Her hand shaked as it reached forward, pressing gently into his chest. Inuyasha didn't move, but he watched as her hand traveled up to his shoulder, her arm snaking around his neck. "Oh?"

Kagome looked up at him, at those gorgeous fucking eyes and those gorgeous fucking cheekbones and the perfect, full lips. Her fingernail dragged across his jaw, she felt his hands grab onto her waist, her breath hitched in her throat. She gulped.

Kagome didn't remember being this nervous when she fucked him.

Then again, she'd had a few drinks that night. She'd never done anything with him sober.

Well, she had.

That one night he was human, but he started it. She was fighting against every instinct she had in the moment. Every fiber in her being was telling her run, to get away from him. But she couldn't stop staring into his eyes, she couldn't help but bring her body closer to him.

She couldn't help but pull him forward, his body hovering over hers, their lips mere centimeters apart. Kagome could feel his breath against her skin. She giggled slightly at the feel of it against her neck, and a small whimper escaped her lips when his mouth traveled up from her neck to her jawline, pressing soft kisses along the way. She couldn't help it.

She couldn't pull away from him, her body wanted this.

She wanted this.

Everything that had happened, she forgot it at that moment.

He stopped, and Kagome turned her head ever so slightly to look at him. Their lips brushed against each other, tentatively. Kagome's eyes fluttered open for a brief moment, and she realized that she'd never seen that amount of lust in a man's eyes before. She closed the distance between them, tasting their shared breath, feeling his heartbeat against his chest. The kiss was slow, as if the both of them had decided to savor the moment, like it was their last.

His lips were soft and pillowy against her own, she could feel the soft tickle of his breath under her nose, his hands squeezed her waist gently. The kiss grew hungrier, her fingernails pressed into his shoulders, making their way slowly down his back.

The moan he let out against her lips sent a shiver down her spine. He pulled away from her lips for a few seconds, before she felt his lips connect with the skin on her neck. Her hand cupped the back of his neck, tangling itself into his hair. Her nails dug more into his back, she let out a shaky sigh, feeling desire pool in her inner thighs.

Her hands scrambled to tug at the hem of his shirt, and Inuyasha broke away from her neck, gasping for air. His voice sounded hoarse as he asked.

"You want to?"

"Yes."

"Positive?" He asked again, furrowing his eyebrows. Kagome responded by guiding his hand down to the area between her thighs.

"Yes."