Innocent Kisses in the Rain

After school, outside of school, Tokyo, Japan, July 12, 2004

Kagome sighed as she hopped down the steps, clutching onto her book bag despairingly.

She figured it was no longer a safe decision to run away from Inuyasha at every chance she got.

If she was truly dedicated to making him happy, she'd try to be there to make him happy.

She soon heard his approaching footsteps, and couldn't help but sigh again. The thought of 'going out' with Inuyasha was no longer terrifying and miserable, but instead almost… annoying, strange, and not-so-official anymore. She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Was she beginning to think of Inuyasha as a 'friend' again? Would he want her to think of him as a 'boyfriend'? Should she tell him?

Inuyasha was acting strangely as of late too…

… They had math homework tonight.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Kagome cried tearfully, remembering with perfect accuracy the magnitude of her homework that night. She was no good at math…

"Whoa!" Inuyasha skidded to a halt and hopped back a couple of steps at the pitch of her voice. His eyes became questioning and worried when she collapsed in a crumpled, sobbing heap on her knees before him.

He rushed to her side.

"Kagome? Gods, what's wrong?" Inuyasha demanded, trying to drag her up, but she was uncooperative and would not stand. He finally settled with kneeling beside her to try to see what was wrong…

"We have like… a bazillion pages of math homework tonight!" Kagome cried, suddenly lunging for Inuyasha's neck as if to strangle him for his ignorance.

Now he remembered… Kagome math = death. Why had he been so stupid as to get so close to her at this time?

They really needed to 'yellow-tape' her when she got like this…

"Eh - Kagome! Kagome!" He tried to get her attention as he was comically shaken by the neck, silver hair splayed everywhere as he gasped for breath.

She finally seemed to come to her senses and released his neck, upon which movement Inuyasha promptly scooted several feet away from her.

She finally looked up at him and cleared her throat.

"Sorry, Inuyasha… I didn't mean to do that." She said sheepishly, bowing her head and sniffling.

He nodded cautiously and took an assuring step back towards her.

"Umm… I'm not as good as Sesshoumaru at math… but if you want, I can help you?" Inuyasha asked uncertainly, vaguely remembering a bright, thick, red "C" on his last math test.

Then his eyes narrowed at the prospect of Kagome going to Sesshoumaru for help… He had told Kikyou he was busy today anyway, for the sole purpose of keeping Kagome away from Sesshoumaru.

She looked up and stood, dutifully brushing off her crumpled skirt.

"Alright, Inuyasha, that would be nice!" She smiled a smile that was half genuine, and he seethed at the thought that maybe she would rather go to Sesshoumaru… But Kagome wasn't like that…

She only liked Sesshoumaru as a would-be friend. But it would never get that way, Inuyasha would make sure of that.

---------------

Kagome and Inuyasha walked the same way Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru always had to their house, only Sesshoumaru was not there.

Inuyasha glared at the sidewalk when Kagome mentioned this.

"Sesshoumaru's school is farther up. When he doesn't have to turn around and walk to meet up with me, he can get a good ten minutes worth ahead of me when I walk home. Dad was a bit uncomfortable about the arrangement, but we both made it clear that the others company would be absolutely unbearable." Inuyasha said angrily.

"I don't see why you hate your brother so much…" Kagome mused, but it was not a question. She did not ask about family. It would be as if somebody asked about her father… Though he wasn't dead.

Which was worse? A friend asking a friend about a dead family member, or a friend asking a friend about a sibling that the friend would like to have dead? Preferably murdered by their own hands…

Kagome shrugged mentally and kept walking.

Inuyasha did not willingly answer her question.

---------------

Kyo Tsukino married a woman named Sakura and had a son named Naruto (Naru) Tsukino. When Naru was twenty-two, Kyo died at the age of fifty-two in a plane accident. Naru decided to try and get in contact with all of his late father's associates to break the news and settle a few issues, though he was many years younger than most of them. He came upon his father's best friend, who was also an ally, who was fifty-five. He had a daughter named Ai. Naru fell in love with Ai and they got married at twenty-three and twenty. They had a single child named Sesshoumaru before Ai died of cancer when Sesshoumaru was three. Sesshoumaru was affected more than most three year olds, for he would wander the house asking for his mother and cry himself to sleep at night, as well as have lively conversations with inanimate objects as if he was talking to his mother. He swore he saw ghosts and became obsessed with the absence of his mother. He seemed to know, though, that his mother would not come back, so at the age of four, he finally settled down after many concerned therapeutic sessions that left Naru both stressed out and worried. Three months after Ai's death though, Naru began dating another woman named Megumi, and they got married only seven months after Ai's death.

Megumi was a waitress and a would-be singer, had she any noticeable talent. She could play the piano well, and had been playing for two years. She was twenty-four while Naru was twenty-seven. She had no interest in politics, business, and had not finished college. She scarcely read the newspaper. She was a typical beauty but did not have any other real gifts. Later in his life, Sesshoumaru would assume that his mother's memory was abandoned for a false, horrible, half-witted and untalented, yet beautiful whore.

Sesshoumaru grew unexplainably hostile towards the new woman in his life, and would lash out at her and became very temperamental and withdrawn. He soon learned to school his face into a numb, emotionless expression, unconditionally, and did not let anybody get close to him. He showed hatred towards his family, especially when Inuyasha was born when Sesshoumaru was four. Naru considered putting Sesshoumaru back into therapy, because he was concerned that a four year old could feel such extreme emotions, but finally decided against it - supposedly under the influence of Megumi, who was either very protective of where his money went, did not care for Sesshoumaru's mental health, or was just a kind, thoughtful, understanding woman who thought Sesshoumaru 'just needed time'.

When Inuyasha was born, Megumi changed drastically. She acquired a powerful sense of duty and protectiveness, shielding little Inuyasha from the preppy school boys who teased him with 'half breed' (regarding his mother's middle class, uneducated and foundationless lifestyle married to his wealthy, educated, successful father). She also rose to hide Inuyasha from his own elder half brothers glares by locking him in his room with her and whispering accusing words to the older sibling. She went to sleeping in Inuyasha's bedroom and holding him as if Sesshoumaru would murder him any night, and she no longer pretended to like or tolerate Sesshoumaru. She would be cruel to him for a moment, and then smile at Inuyasha and openly tell the little one how terrible Sesshoumaru was for 'stealing her jewelry while she was sleeping' or 'sneaking out to play at the park at night', and other lies and nonsense. She might have even gone partially insane, for perhaps Inuyasha was the only thing she would ever be proud of.

When Inuyasha was five, Sesshoumaru was nine, and Naru was thirty-three, Megumi died in a car accident, and she had apparently been drunk, just kicked out of a bar for overturning a table and trying to beat senseless a man who had made a comment about Inuyasha's worthlessness when it came to inheriting Naru's twin companies. Sesshoumaru would take charge of those companies in due time, and he had laughed drunkenly saying that if Inuyasha thought he could change that, he would have to murder someone.

They had been having a conversation after she had begun bragging about Inuyasha, and it ended with her in an overturned car, four blocks from her house. Naru swore that it was the first time she had ever drank since their wedding, when they had wine, but the man she had been talking too, who was wearing a black eye, interrupted gruffly saying that Megumi and him had been getting together at the bar for almost two months. Naru never even considered that she had been having any form of an affair; he forgot it as he mourned her death.

Sesshoumaru seethed when Naru spent a year in seclusion, coming out with dark circles under his eyes and sometimes tear streaks. He had never done this for his mother, who was of infinite more worth! But Naru retreated back into his shell whenever Sesshoumaru made such an angry remark. Finally, everything seemed to fall back into place and Naru did not remarry. Six years later, Naru was back to earning money and wearing a smile - false or no, Inuyasha had developed a gruff voice and face - for his own protection, and also learned no discipline what with, first, his insane mother, and second, his mourning father, and then having to put up with infuriating preps and soon he grew moody and angry and gruff and hasty. He was always a child, never growing forward.

A year after Inuyasha's mother died and Naru was finally somewhat done mourning, he offered to take Inuyasha to see his mother's grave, which was located on another island of Japan, near where she grew up. Inuyasha refused. Another year later Naru realized the trouble's Inuyasha was having in school and he transferred both brothers to another private school. Inuyasha was 'seeing' a girl by Kikyou by this time, who he had met a year before, after his mom died. She had defended him against the preps. Her family was wealthy and had connections with all the right people. When Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru transferred to another school, she followed. It was short lived, however, when her family had to move up to Sapporo to settle some family business after the death of a key player in their family.

Five years later, Naru deemed it beneficial to move to Tokyo for business purposes, and Inuyasha followed, without knowing what happened to Kikyou. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha transferred into a school where they finally met Kagome Higurashi, and then Kikyou returned…

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"I hate math." Kagome said for the millionth time, doodling on her scrap paper.

"No, see - that's not how you do it Kagome!" Inuyasha exclaimed, exasperated. Kagome was even worse at math than him!

"I don't see why math is so important…" She sighed, dragging her pencil aimlessly across the paper, her head propped up on her hand and her eyes half lidded in boredom.

"Because people get rich when they know math." Inuyasha grumbled, slightly frustrated by now.

"Not necessarily." Kagome mused. "Doctors are paid a lot, and scientists…"

"Science goes hand in hand with math. You can't be a businessman or a salesman or a shop owner or a… stock person - or anything, without knowing math." Inuyasha tried to explain in the words of his third grade math teacher. He failed horribly, but still got his point across.

"I just won't be a salesman - woman, or a… stock person… or whatever." Kagome decided, shifting on her hand.

Inuyasha sighed heavily.

---------------

"Thanks for your help Inuyasha! I can walk home, don't worry!" Kagome cried cheerfully, waving wildly at him over her shoulder.

He said goodbye and waved once before turning back at the sound of the phone. Kagome hurried off as he shut the door.

"Hello?" Inuyasha asked easily after yanking the ringing phone off its cradle before Sesshoumaru got to it first.

"Inuyasha?" A soft feminine voice asked.

"Yeah, this is me." Inuyasha said, leaning back against the wall. He glared at the looming Sesshoumaru even as Sesshoumaru increased his own glare ten fold.

'Another deceiving idiot who bloated up his head and held him back from any form of discipline.' Sesshoumaru stared daggers at the phone, almost as if the dripping venom in his eyes would shatter the phone itself.

The phone didn't shatter.

"Sure we can get together tomorrow -" Inuyasha choked on the words that he was about to say next - 'Kagome has a swimming lesson.'

"Alright… Okay - bye." Inuyasha hung up the phone.

"Deceiving -" Sesshoumaru began…

"Cut it out! Just leave me alone, Sesshoumaru." Inuyasha glared at him before storming off. "Is it too much to ask for you to mind your own business for once?!"

Sesshoumaru continued to silently glare until Inuyasha disappeared up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door with vigor.