Chapter 17

"Miroku! Where are-" Sango's call for the monk cut short suddenly as she walked from the dense forest. The sky overhead was dark and threatening rain. The winds made her multicolored kimono billow in the wind.

Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of the perverted monk that was too busy holding a young girl's hands and asking her to bear his children, to notice the taijiya.

Quickly, she jogged to the two and stood behind Miroku, her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed. She was fuming.

"Don't you think it's time to go find some food, Miroku?" she said, her foot tapping wildly.

"Just a minute, Sango. I'm sorry, Hitomi, Where were we?" Miroku said, hardly turning to look her way. His blue eyes were fixed on the small girl's. She looked about only sixteen or seventeen, around Kagome's age, with brown hair and freckles dotting across her face. She looked rather surprised by the whole thing. That was just Miroku to catch some pretty girl off guard and completely shock her by asking that dreaded question that all women probably knew by now.

"Now, Houshi-Sama!" The slayer demanded as she pulled her boomerang type weapon from over her shoulder and swung it around, clocking the perverted monk on the top of the head with it.

"Yes, Sango-Chan…" He said, his eyes swirling. Finally, the sense had been knocked into him for the time being.

Sango angrily dragged him away, her hand tightly clenching his shoulder and pulling him back to the small wooden hut of Kaede's.

"Are ye okay, Sango?" The old woman asked as she watched the fuming slayer enter the hut in a huff and dragging the monk behind her.

"Sango? Oh. She looks mad! Miroku must've been off womanizing again…" Shippo said as he pulled his hands away from the fire that was set in it's usual place in the middle of the hut. He lay his small hands in his lap.

Sango dropped Miroku's shoulder and crossed her arms. She hated it. She always hated it when Miroku womanized. He never seemed to capture the point of her anger.

'Sometimes I really wonder how many children that perv really has….' The slayer thought scornfully. 'I bet he really has gotten that far with some desperate girl…'cause he's desperate just like her.'

"Sango?" His voice echoed through her ears. Why was he talking to her? She surely didn't want to hear his voice right now.

She angrily dropped to the ground, on top of her sleeping bag and scrambled into it. Kagome had loaned it to her. She was always so generous and could almost always make her feel better when Miroku was womanizing. She wished the young miko was here now.

"It's late. I'm going to sleep." the taijiya stated with almost no emotion as she rolled over and closed her eyes.

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Soft breathes left both Kagome and Inuyasha's parted lips as they slept soundly in the field. The birds chirped happily in the trees that surrounded three sides of the large field.

Upon feeling something warm and wet sliding against her body and soft breathes on the back of her neck, Kagome awoke. Her long lashes slightly parted to allow her brown eyes to gaze at the land in front of her. It took her awhile to realize that they were still lying in the field of daisies. The grass and flowers that had once surrounded them as they lay, were now crushed to the ground all around them, allowing them to lay in the flat patch of land with freedom.

Her eyes traveled downward as she began to move. She had felt a wet, warm, mass on her arm. She didn't know what to think when she saw a long, pale arm stretched over her body and lying on top of her arm.

The arm was familiar. She knew that arm. She knew that skin and she knew those shallow breathes. Inuyasha.

Kagome moved once more and felt Inuyasha's lips brushed against the back of her neck. She shuddered and an odd feeling stirred inside her. She wanted to stay there, lay there with the hanyou. She would. For as long as she could, she would stay there and lay with him. But then she remembered…it was Tuesday.

She moved once more, struggling to get up. She had no idea what time it was. How long had they slept there, in the field? Was Mrs. Higurashi awake yet? Had she noticed they were still gone?

Again, she felt Inuyasha against her. She could tell that he was curled against her, his heated body pressed to hers. She…strangely…loved that feeling. She wanted to stay…but school…she had to go.

Gently, she pulled away. The hanyou's pale arm slid from her arm and gently fell to the ground. As he barely stirred, he moved his arm back and set his hand on the curve of Kagome's body. She gasped. How would she get away now? Her whole body began to tingle as cold chills ran up and down her wet body.

Finally, within the next few minutes, she had freed herself from Inuyasha without waking the sleeping half demon.

She sighed a deep breath of relief as she stepped over the hanyou and pushed through the tall daisies, her soaked clothes clinging to her skin.

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"AH….AH….ACHOO!" Kagome sneezed furiously as she trudged down the sidewalk, towards her home.

'Why, oh, WHY, did I have to fall asleep in that stupid field? Now I have a cold, I know it! Ugh!' Kagome thought, almost regretting those moments in that field cursed to be infested with bright yellow daisies. Almost. Not quite. That hug that Inuyasha had given her, just to make her happy and stop crying, and then waking up with him right by her side was the greatest gift anyone could have given her. But she could have at least changed into different cloths, even if she couldn't dress in her school uniform because it was in the dryer.

Sure, Ayumi had let her wear a spare, green, tank top and small blue skirt of hers but she had already been through half the day in soaked clothes.

"NOOO!" She cried, realizing that, last week, her friends had told her that they had school on this weekend because it had snowed all week, letting them miss that entire week of learning and reviewing for their next test coming up.

"Great…just great…" She muttered, her nose clogged and making her voice sound odd and choked.

"Inuyasha is probably ticked at me for leaving him in that field…if I know him like I do…he most definitely is…" She murmured to herself as she tripped up the steps to her yard and house.

" 'bout time!" A deep voice called from behind her. Kagome flinched and even cried out a little. It had startled her pretty badly.

"Inuyasha!" She cried, suddenly recognizing the voice as she whirled around to face the angry looking hanyou.

She gazed at him, his body leaned against the large, familiar from tree. The tree he had been pinned to for 50 years. If Kagome had never released that arrow within his chest, he would still be pinned to that tree to this very day….

"Heh…What's your deal, anyway…" He asked, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and an odd look on his face. It was of anger and slight pleasure of her reaction.

"W-what do you mean?" She asked, her voice strained and still showing signs of mild shock from the entire thing.

"You left me back at the field, Kagome! I had no idea where you were! Do you know how worried I was?" The hanyou cried back to her, pushing himself off the tree and soon sinking back to the ground.

"Oh, thanks, mom. " Kagome retorted, small tears coming to her eyes. She was having such a hard time lately and Inuyasha was only making it worse now. Before she knew it, she was crying like a baby.

"Hey! Why the tears?" Inuyasha asked, rather surprised by the salty liquid that trailed down her cheeks. He knew she cried really easily, but hadn't expected her to choke up over his words just then. Usually, it took a whole lot to get her to cry in front of him.

"Kagome….Kagome, come here…." He offered. He hated to see her cry. Did she even know what it did to him inside? It killed him. With every tear she cried, he lost another piece of himself and felt another urge to kill everything that caused those tears. If he gave into that….he would be dead.

"Y-you're mad at me!" The young miko blubbered, her face red. She slowly inched towards the hanyou who sat on the ground, leaning against the tree.

"No…no, I'm not…" He said in a gentle voice, trying to calm her. Trying to stop her spilling tears that ate him from the inside, out.

Slowly, cautiously, Kagome crept towards Inuyasha, Ayumi's blue skirt blowing and tickling her legs as it swayed in the wind. She kneeled as she reached him and carefully slid into his arms as he pulled his legs to his chest and created a small place for her to lay against him. She choked out a sob as the half-demon's clawed fingers moved over her red cheeks to wipe away her tears.

That's when he realized how beautiful this reincarnation of his ex lover, really was. Too beautiful to be drenched with salty, stinging tears.

Kagome choked out another sob as she felt his arms wrapping around her and pressing her to his body.

Kagome trembled lightly out of coldness and upon feeling the sensation of their bodies so close, return.

Inuyasha felt the vibrating through his thick clothing and press against his flesh. His feelings for this girl were so odd and so hard to determine. He wanted to hold her like this so many times but nearly never did. He controlled himself and his feelings towards her. As if he even knew those feelings.

"Are He asked and soon after, felt Kagome nod shortly. "Here." He said in a soft and soothing voice as his arms slipped away to untie his red kimono top.

Again, he felt Kagome tremble violently. Was this an ordinary cold or was Inuyasha just overreacting?

He shrugged off his red kimono top and tucked it around Kagome. He wasn't satisfied. He then pulled off his under kimono shirt and wrapped the white clothing around the miko.

He could still hear her soft sobs as she moved back and let the kimono shirts fall around her waist. Her shoulders heaved and she placed a pale hand on the bare skin on Inuyasha's arm.

"I…I'm going to fail…" She murmured, knowing fully well that Inuyasha didn't really care about her school or education. Maybe she could talk to him just this once. Or maybe she meant much more with those words.

"It's okay, Kagome. Just rest, you're completely out of it…" He pleaded, hardly able to stand her sobs of sorrow.

He gently spread a hand on her lower back and pulled her back to him so that her nearly bare body lay against his bare chest. The sensation of their unclothed flesh rubbing against each other was hypnotizing to the hanyou and the miko.

'What's he doing? Why is he being so nice…why is he holding me like this?' Kagome wondered as she felt Inuyasha pull his kimono shirts back around her. She could feel the gentle caress of the material that had once shrouded the hanyou's body, move against her bare skin as she slowly began to fall asleep to the gentle rhythm of Inuyasha's fast beating heart.

..:----.-.--.-.-------:...

'Tis also a pretty ending, right?

-cough-

I'm so not used to this.

Hmmmm...

Well, time to submitt the next chapter. Just a few more before I actually have to start TYPING it again...