All's Fair in Love and War
Chapter Thirty Nine
The Morning After
She curled her body around his, wrapping her leg around his waist so that she clung to him. Their bodies together created enough warmth so that they didn't need any blankets, only the other. Hands wove through his hair curiously, noting the softness and the fine quality of the silver locks.
Somehow, when she had kissed him, she had unlocked him. There were no boundaries. Nothing was off limits. No touch, no kiss, no grasp. In the secrecy of this dark room they belonged to no one but the other, and no thought filled their minds but the skin of the other's body against their hands, their arms, their legs. For a moment, he was openly and completely hers. When she pulled herself close to him, he would wrap and arm around her. He would not look away, he would not stare blankly at the cieling, but he would hold her in his arms- his skinny little arms.
Inu Yasha spoke out. "When I was little ... My mom used to put me to bed every night." Kagome smiled and kissed the top of his head affectionately. "She'd spend a really long time too! Almost an hour, every single night. A whole hour, just for me." he said, reminiscent of such times.
"You're lucky." she told him. "My dad thought that it was good to let babies cry until they stop. Something about how pampered children grow up to be pampered adults. When I acted out, he would make me go to bed early and he would only say 'Good night!' and then close the door."
"Did you ever leave your room?" he asked curiously.
She giggled. "Nah, I was too afraid of worse punishment. Plus, I always knew my mom would sneak into my room to sing me a song and kiss my forehead, just lilke this-" And then she tilted his head up and kissed his forehead. "and then she would sneak out and tell me 'Daddy doesn't need to know, right?' as if he didn't know she was in my room." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Of course he knew. I didn't know he did, but whatever ... Sometimes they would fight about it. My mom brushed it off like it was nothing. You do know that she can't hep but do everything for children. She just loves them so much. I swear, if it weren't for the cancer, I'd have a family big enough to make proper use of the shrine. The entire shrine." She snorted a laugh.
"That sounds so mean of him ...my mom was more like your mom." he said
"Yeah, it sounds mean, but he only did it because he thought it was best for me. He loved me, he really did." she said. "Though sometimes I'm not so sure ... my mom convinces me otherwise."
"Oh ..." he said. "Why?" he questioned.
She repositioned herself near him and paused. "I don't ... I don't really want to talk about it now." she murmured through a very hurt tone. He held her tighter, feeling her sadness as if it were his own.
"Okay." he said, and he pushed no further.
She lifted the hand that rested around him and tucked it in towards her. "Do you mind?" she asked softly and gently touched one of his ears.
"Um, it's fine." he said. She was the first person, besides his mother that had felt them. He knew what myths were flying around. That if you touch the ears, you'll be cursed, or you'll have bad fortune, or your fingers will turn black and fall clean off your hand. He had no idea where people thought of these things, only that he heard them when he was little. "I remember once someone looked at me, it was some kid in my third grade class, and he wanted to know how long he could look at me before he turned into stone." he told her.
"That's horrible." she said sympathetically. "And stupid. They had the wrong myth. You're far too beautiful to be Medusa, Inu Yasha." He turned a curious shade of red.
"But because of them," he said, and by them, he meant everyone, "I have to clip my fingernails." He pulled his hands up towards her and let her examine them. "Or else they grow too sharp and pointy and long."
She rubbed his ear with her thumb. "But I like your claws. AndI like your ears too." she said softly. "They're what make you, you. Besides, they make you look ... puppy-ish."
"Puppy-ish?" he squealed. "But I don't want to look puppy-ish!"
"They are dog ears."
"So?"
"SO- I say they make you look like a puppy. Although they do kind of look like cat ears." A few seconds later, she started laughing so hard that she had to start wheezing for air.
"What? What's so funny?" he asked, defensively.
"Inu Yasha," she managed to get out, inserting a couple of laughs in between her words, "you're a ... hehehe ... a ... west highland terrier demon!" A burst of giggles erupted from her and he took her statement as a joke.
"Haha, very funny." he said, and that was just about the closest he would ever come to sarcasm.
Kagome continued laughing for a while more and then kissed him sweetly. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist." She said, and nuzzled against him. "But really, they do have the same ears as you, which is good, because you know what? I like their ears." He grinned and snorted a couple laughs and raised her body so that she was slightly above his head, and she pressed her lips against his ear.
"You kissed my ear." he said and couldnt help but laugh shyly.
"I know." she chirped. "Its so soft. I had to."
"Kagome ..." he said softly and rolled his eyes. They lay together, content, for a while, and then Kagome spoke.
"Hey? Why'd you tell Sango Shippou was your cousin?" she asked him, seeming very interested in what he'd say in response. "I mean, I thought about it and the only thing I could think of was ... that you didn't want Sango or Miroku to judge him but they wouldn't do that. You know they aren't like that, right?" Her voice was at the same time nervous and strangely reassuring.
"No ... It's not that." he said thoughtfully. He put his mind to work at deciding why exactly he did tell her that. He knew why, but he couldn't find the right words to say it. "I guess ..." he started slowly, "I guess because I ... wanted to know if she would notice ... You know, that I was lying?" he said.
"Why would you want to know that?" she asked curiously.
"I don't know." he muttered. But the thing was, he did know. He knew exactly why it was he lied to Sango. Because Sango was just like every other girl in his school, your typical high schooler. And if she noticed, then he knew that everyone else would, but she didn't. Shippou fit right into her world. Her world full of average human activity, her normalness, her basic and simple downright humanity. Shippou was just like her. He fit in, he passed as one of them. At the tender age of one cat year, Shippou had accomplished more than Inu Yasha could ever hope to do. He became human.
Inu Yasha tried to push the thought away and convince himself otherwise, that no, Shippou was a demon deep down inside, and that no, he was far from human, and that he himself was actually more human than his unofficially adopted cat child. But what he realized, and this knowledge fell heavily upon him, was that genetics didn't matter, and the cruel irony that someone who was actually half human could be more demonic looking than a full demon crushed him. Shippou was his, why didn't he want to be like him? -like his role model? -like his Inu Yasha? Like the boy who had fathered him and protected him and loved him more than his own parents? Why did he want to be human? He remembered how proud he was of his new skill and he was devestated.
"Shippou really likes Sango." Kagome said, randomly, driving the knife deeper into his gut and twisting it.
"Yeah..." he murmured. He closed his eyes and pulled himself closer to her, trying to ease this unfulfillable craving he had to have every inch of his skin be touching her. He wanted to pull himself to her and she would wrap around him like a blanket, swallowing him, enveloping him in her arms and holding him safely there. Because in her arms, he could not be sad, he could not be hurt, he could not even feel pain. He yawned and as he did so his ears flattened against his head. Kagome stroked them back again as they came up.
He felt her hand snake its way under his shirt. Her warm fingers crawled up his torso and finally fell, palm first, on to his chest. He smiled sheepishly as he realized what she was doing. He felt his heart beat and his chest pulse against her hands, and he almost wanted it to beat harder, as it always did when she was near him, so that she could feel it too. He put his hand on top of hers, on the other side of the shirt. "Your hands are warm."
Scars? What scars? He couldn't remember pain. Not when she was so close to him. Not when he was within her arm's length. Not when her hands were so warm.
"You're tired." she told him, and he felt tired. "I'll sing you to sleep." she whispered to him, her voice sweet and soft.
So she sang. Her music filled his ears and the pleasant song brought equally pleasant dreams. He saw his mother, sitting down on his bed, holding him, singing to him, singing the exact same song Kagome was humming now. That was where it came from, he remembered, before the overwhelming desire to sleep blew away his thoughts like dust, and with them, his consciousness.
His eyes fluttered open slowly, and clenched shut immediately. It was bright. Through the paper thin curtains, sunshine blasted the white walls with light which stung his eyes. He curled his legs up into a ball, his arms reaching out to pull her nearer, but she wasn't there. Kagome wasn't there.
He panicked for a moment and stayed frozen in a half curled ball, his arms darting around the bed, searching for a trace of her. A graze of his hand on her arms, a whisp of hair against his fingertips was all he needed to reassure him. He just needed to know she was there, beside him. But she wasn't. He tried opening his eyes but was half way blinded by the light. Through the white, he could see another large bed, with messy sheets, and dented pillows. Sango and Miroku. Where ever had they been when he and Kagome were together?
He rolled around on the bed for a while, stretching and yawning his way into consciousness. He eventually sat up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed, and rubbed his eyes. After he had cleared his vision, he noticed that on the table between to two beds was a note made out to him. It read:
-Inu Yasha
Hey Inu Yasha ! All three of us went down to eat breakfast, since we
were REALLY hungry, but we vowed to stay there until you met us, so
hurry hurry hurry! Throw on some clothes and meet us- we miss you!
He smiled sheepishly, and then put the card gingerly into his luggage bag.
'We miss you!'
He did as he was instructed, promptly putting on the only other available clothing he had, which unfortunately involved wearing the shirt he had on yesterday. He then left the room, and dashed down into the lobby, stopping to ask a hotel staffperson where he could find the breakfast room. He was given some vague directions which he didn't really need, because, he realized, he could smell his way to the food. The soup and eggs beckoned to him.
He eventually entered a large dinng room that had tables and tables of different morning food. He searched for his friends and he found Sango and Kagome sitting and laughing, half finished plates of food in front of them. He walked over to them and the nearer he got to Kagome, the more nervous he felt. She looked at him and smiled pleasantly, shyly, and with a light pink color tinting her cheeks. He felt like the entire world could see her kissing him, see him touching her. When she smiled at him, though, none of it mattered. He took the only seat that had no plate in front of it, which happened to be by Kagome, and sat down.
"Inu Yasha, you sure slept!" Sango exclaimed.
"Yeah, he was really tired." said Kagome. She leaned over to him and touched his cheek softly. "Weren't you, dear?" She giggled with Sango as she pulled away and Inu Yasha's cheeks felt hot, even after her hand left.
"Where's Shippou?" he asked.
"Getting food with Miroku." Sango replied.
"Getting food?" he asked, looking honestly confused. "I thought they brought the food to you?"
"This is buffet style dining." Sango told him. He looked at her blankly. "You know, you can just go up to the table and take whatever food you want."
He felt something against his legs and it was Shippou, whose tiny arms hugged his leg. He picked the child up and held him close to him.
"Shippou, you left your food on the floor!" Sango told him, laughing. He looked at her and his eyes widened as he blushed and squirmed out of Inu Yasha's arms, going to pick up the plate he dropped in his rush to hug the thigh of his surrogate father.
"Oh god." said Miroku, humorously as he sat down with a bowl of soup. "Let's hope he's still full from yesterday or we'll have to ask the kitchen staff to work harder!" With that comment, Inu Yasha, feeling a tad more self conscious, decided to force rationing upon himself, taking only one course at a time, instead of shoveling whatever looked good onto his plate. He got some rolls and raw eggs to dip them in. He looked longingly at the sausages, and decided that he would wait until after he finished the eggs and pancakes.
He ate quietly, dipping the rolls into the cool egg, whose broken yolk mixed around the tiny cup, turning everything orange, listening to the table conversation as the rest of them picked at their food. Kagome asked Sango where they had been when she and he were in the hotel room (and she passed a coy smile at Inu Yasha). Sango had explained that after they had done some more swimming, they wanted even more dessert, and when Shippou tasted vanilla ice cream, he fell in love. Sango bought him some in a cup and, curiously, he refused to use a spoon, wanting to lick the ice cream out of the cup. All of the ice cream.
Inu Yasha started to think about what he would have done if Sango and Miroku had walked in and saw him with Kagome. He wondered for a moment, what would they think?
Part of him felt awkward, sitting with Kagome and Miroku and Sango. He knew what had happened. Kagome knew. But everyone seemed so nonchalant. It was like the world continued moving, time continued moving, and no one seemed to care. Did Kagome care? She did, right? She kissed him, she held him, she let him touch her. Why did everything feel so normal? Hadn't something changed?
She looked over to him and that sly smile he had seen so much of this morning tugged the corners of her mouth upwards. "I'm surprised." she said. "I thought you would take much more than that." She rested her chin on her hand and looked down at his plate, as he took the last bite of his food.
He looked away shyly. "Well, I mean, um, I'm probably going to have some more ... later." He looked at his empty plate and felt unnerved. He wanted to pile food onto it. Whether he even ate the food or not didn't matter, he just wanted it to be there.
He picked up his plate and went to the buffet table, shyly, to refill it. Sango called out to him "Inu Yasha, you just leave the plate here! They take it away and you get a new one. Haven't you ever been to a buffet before?" He looked over at her and darted back towards the table to put his plate.
"Oh, sorry." he mumbled.
"Well, it's fine. I guess it woud probably be easier for the kitchen staff if you re-used plates." He started back towards the buffet table with his plate. "But you don't have to!" He turned back around and put the plate on the table. Fine, he was getting soup. You don't use plates to eat soup. He returned to the table with a steaming bowl of miso and sipped it slowly
He listened to his friends' breakfast conversation. Excited talk about the events of the day filled the air. Sea shells, and ocean side shops that sold useless trinkets to fill your shelves, sand and salty blue water drifted through the conversation. He admired Kagome through his bangs, smiling softly and looking away, down at his food.
After being taken away from the all wonderful amazing buffet bar, the group traveled out of the hotel. After a short limo ride they were dropped off on a street that was covered with exactly the shops that Inu Yasha had imagined from their conversation. He could see small shops selling bathing suits and sea shells, he could smell salt and fish like odors not far off, and he could hear the not so distant roar of the ocean colliding with the shore. A light breeze whipped his hair against his back, and he pulled his jacket closer to him to shelter himself from the cold.
The five of them wandered the road, captivated by the small section of city that seemed like it's own little planet, even though the tall sky scrapers that characterized modern Japan outlined their world, framing the fish markets, and the sea shops with points, and smoke towers that bellowed fumes. Kagome walked closely to Inu Yasha's side, tossing a comment his way ever once in a while, but other than that, they spoke little. Inu Yasha wanted to remember every detail of this place, because he hadn't seen anything like it before. He had grown too used to normal every day schools and houses. He heard a ship blow its deep horn, and saw little men in the distance unloading crates filled with fish.
Suddenly, he heard Shippou squeal and he wasn't sure if it was in pleasure or pain so he ran ahead of Miroku and Sango and looked over to Shippou's figure melting into the crowd. He followed after him dutifully, and when he caught up to him, he picked him up and lightly scolded him. "Shppou, don't run away like that!" he said sternly. Shippou squirmed and looked down.
"But there's ..." he looked over in the direction he was running and whimpered. A sign shaped like an ice cream cone, advertising a shop that sold just such food caught his eyes.
"You want ice cream?" he asked, and then squinted one eye. Shippou nodded, and pouted. "You're going to have to ask Sango."
Shippou ran over to Sango and tugged her skirt. They exchanged a few words and suddenly, Inu Yasha found that his group was walking over towards him. "Ice cream it is then!" he heard Sango cheer.
"Yay!" Shippou shouted, gleefully, and clapped his hands.
"What flavor are you getting, Shippou?" she asked him.
"White." he replied. She laughed, and Kagome, who was just to the right of Sango, let loose a chuckle.
"White's not a flavor! You mean to say vanilla." she corrected him.
They went inside the small shop and stood messily at the counter, staring at the freezer full of cold treats. Kagome and Miroku got chocolate, Sango got coffee, Inu Yasha got strawberry, and Shippou, of course, got his vanilla. Inu Yasha watched in amazement as Sango swiped her credit card through the small machine. She looked so old. He could barely tell she was hardly fourteen yet.
Shippou seemed to swallow the ice cream whole, and Inu Yasha wondered if any actually made it to his stomach, because it seemed to make a nice comfy living on the entire area of his face.
Inu Yasha stood to get Shippou, to take him to the restroom and clean his face. He grabbed the boy by the hand, and he felt the sticky palm against his larger one. The tiny fingers wound around him as he concentrated all of his energy on licking every trace of vanilla cream off of the fingers not being held. He took him inside the men's room and Inu Yasha held Shippou's fingers under the water, rubbing them softly to remove all of the stickiness. The boy squirmed and giggled. "That tickles." he squealed. Inu Yasha pressed his thumb into the boys hand. Shippou danced in place and laughed. "Hey!" He pulled his hands away and flicked them at Inu Yasha, spraying water droplettes at him.
"You're getting me all wet!" Inu Yasha said. Shippou stuck his tongue out at him, through a grin. Inu Yasha smirked at him and made a roaring sound. "You won't like me when I'm wet!" he grumbled, playfully. Shippou squealed and clasped his hands over his mouth. Effortlessly, Inu Yasha flung Shippou over her shoulder and carried him out to the table where his friends sat. The boy squirmed and giggled cheerfully as he lay over Inu Yasha's shoulder.
Inu Yasha took a seat and then placed Shippou on his lap. "Are you all clean now Shippou?" Sango asked him, her voice sweet and high pitched. Shippou nodded and smiled, showing her his hands, proudly, fingers wiggling. Clawed fingers wiggling.
Author's Knotes
If you have never seen a west highland terrier, PLEASE, go to google image search and you will see tons of little Inu Yasha ears.
This update is a day or two late. Sorry. Blame Tetris DS.
Also, AFILAW's birthday is on the 24th. Hooray! Everyone bring cake and soda and we can have a party! My baby is turning two, and two is far too old.