Two years later
If there was one thing that Inuyasha didn't enjoy, it was being told the obvious.
When his older half-brother did it, it was a hundred times worse.
"You have lived to see nineteen summers since your birth, little brother. You have been considered an adult by our customs since last summer, and yet you have neglected to look for your mate."
Inuyasha crossed his arms, watching his brother slowly swim circles around him, scrutinizing him. "What of it? Maybe I've had better things to be spending my time doing?"
"Such as visiting that human on the island?" Sesshomaru questioned. "Don't look surprised, little brother. Our mothers do talk about all manner of things, if you will recall. Sometimes the topic features your exploits with the little human you're so fond of-"
"Will you shut up about Kagome!" He made to swing at his brother's head, but Sesshomaru easily evaded him. "Neither Mother nor the old man have said that they're going to force me into an arrangement, so why the hell does this concern your input?" It was the truth. Both Toga and Izayoi recognized that as an adult, it was ultimately his decision, but they did encourage him to "make his intentions known" when the time came.
Their mirroring smiles had made him uneasy, like they knew something he didn't.
It appeared Sesshomaru was the same.
"Not that it is any of my concern, but have you ever considered what your human woman does when you are not around?"
"W-what?"
Sesshomaru stopped in front of Inuyasha, watching him. He knew his brother could be dense, but this was not nearly as entertaining as he'd anticipated. While he was yet to meet this human girl, his confidants that had gone up to the island reported back much of what his own mother had said about Kagome. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, and it was apparent that his little brother had developed a level of infatuation with her without realizing it. Really, Inuyasha should be thanking him for taking time out of his day to remind him that if he wanted to claim the human's hand, he'd have to get a move on or risk having another mortal steal her away.
"That human woman does have a life outside of your friendship," he stated. "If these new developments are really what our parents believe to be true, then you need to accept them and do something about them. It would be all too easy for a human man to pull her attention away from you, leaving you as nothing but a childhood memory."
Inuyasha didn't say anything, but the realization hit and it hit hard. He and Kagome were close friends, of course, but would that still hold true if some guy appeared and started to court her? What if the guy made her choose? Would she still view their friendship as more important than the relationship? As the thoughts proceeded to stack in his mind, a sour feeling built in his gut, and he didn't like it. Sesshomaru may have been trying to take a dig at him – older sibling instinct he said once – but he had also made a good point.
Without a word to his brother, he turned and swam towards the island shore. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got to Kagome's house, but he'd figure it out on the way there.
"Sango! Order up!"
"Excuse me, miss, could we get a refill of the tea?"
Kagome sped past her friend, who had paused to address the customer who had just called on her. "I'll take the order to table four, don't worry about it."
"But-" Sango felt a bit of guilt as her friend took on the task, but tried to remember what she had been told on her first day. If one of them was busy, Daisuke would call for the other to take out an order. If one of them happened to intercept, it wasn't a big deal, so long as the customer got their food. Still, she felt that she should be better at this, have it down to a routine. It had been a year and a half that she had worked at the diner, after all.
As Sango collected the pitcher of tea, she couldn't help but admire Kagome's ability to adapt to the next situation set before her. Sure, she might have helped at the diner for longer, but each day there would always be different customers who responded differently. Each day she'd come in and keep her composure with even the gruffest visitors, whether they tipped or not. Upset child at a table? She'd present coloring pages and a basket of crayons to occupy them. Finicky child that didn't want the crust on their toast? She'd cut it off right there.
After her first month of working at the diner part time, Sango had to ask her how she kept so calm on even the worst days. She had expected to learn that her new friend was doing some kind of meditation or yoga…not being told that there was a guy she spent time with that could brighten those dark moments. Kagome had told her all about Inuyasha, but there were things that Sango still didn't understand. How come he hadn't attended school with them? Was he working on the mainland? Perhaps the most confusing one of all was why they weren't dating. The way Kagome spoke about him, Sango could have sworn that they were an item. When she mentioned this to Eri, the girl had been too happy to share in her disappointment.
Now that she had known Kagome for almost two years, and it was the same story.
"There's a girl he likes," Kagome replied as she wiped the table. The diner was closed, which was the perfect time for Sango to pester her friend with questions.
"Okay, and this concerns you…how?" Sango straightened up with her own wash bin on her hip. "Does this girl know he's interested?"
"No. Inuyasha said so himself."
"Then what's stopping you?"
Kagome stood straight and fought to keep down a blush. She was failing badly. "I don't know what you're talking about, Sango."
"That's crap and you know it. You like Inuyasha, don't you? If this girl isn't giving him the time of day, what's to say that you can't ask him out?"
"It's not that simple," she muttered, picking up the wash bin and moving to wipe the next table down. "He's become my best friend. I don't even know how he'd react if I even told him that I liked him like that. I don't want to lose him, Sango."
"But if this other girl decides she wants him, you'll still lose him."
"Not his friendship." Kagome smiled, even though it didn't meet her eyes. "I don't know if I could bear it if I lost him completely. If Inuyasha does end up with this other girl…then I'm going to be happy for him. He deserves to be happy."
Sango watched as her friend resumed her task, frowning. She couldn't help but think that the happiness of one person shouldn't mean the unhappiness of another, especially if there was a chance that both could be happy. One of these days she was certain that she'd get to meet this Inuyasha, and if Kagome hadn't asked him out by then, then she was going to do something about it.
She was working at the diner more often since she finished high school.
Inuyasha knew that there would be times where her schedule wouldn't have as much opportunity to be with him, but a small part of him was feeling nostalgic about the days when they were both younger. He missed being able to go to her house and she'd be there, waiting for him. Now it was up to chance if she'd be home or filling in at the diner. Kagome enjoyed it, and if it made her happy, he wasn't about to let her know that at times he felt otherwise.
He knew that she'd be at the diner that day. Kagome had long since given him a schedule of what days she'd be there, so instead of stopping to see if she was home first he had just gone down to the diner first. Inuyasha had more or less become a regular in the little town, and aside from the occasional polite conversation, most left him to his business. That's what he expected when he took a seat at the far end of the counter when he arrived at the diner, but it wasn't what he got.
"Good morning, my name is Sango and I'll be you waitress today," a dark haired woman almost his height stood across the counter and looked at him expectantly. Inuyasha's eyes widened slightly when it clicked that this was the girl Kagome spoke of for the last few years. He cleared his throat and gave her his order, hoping that he hadn't appeared as a startled animal when she first spoke.
Sango scribbled his order down on a piece of paper, tore it from the pad and clipped it to the spindle for the cooks to collect. When she returned to him instead of moving on to another customer, he became nervous.
"You're Inuyasha." It wasn't a question, but a statement.
"I…you…know me?"
"Kagome speaks about you a lot," Sango smiled gently. "And I kinda guessed it was you from your expression when I gave you my name." She leaned against the counter, resting her weight on her elbows. "It's nice to finally meet you, Inuyasha. It seems like we've just missed each other these last couple of years."
"Not by intention, I assure you." It really wasn't that he was trying to avoid Kagome's other friends. It's just that their timing was terrible.
Sango waved it off, stepping away to fix his drink and set it before him. "I get it. But as Kagome's friend I do have a couple questions that I wanna ask while she's occupied. First of all, Kagome tells me that there's a girl you like. Does she know you like her?"
Inuyasha tried not to choke as he took a sip. "N-no. She probably doesn't even realize that I like her." His voice cracked. "She doesn't think very highly of herself sometimes."
The young woman across the counter hummed softly as she tidied the area. "It's Kagome, isn't it." She was looking down at the counter and jumped when she heard a strange hacking noise. Inuyasha had swallowed his drink wrong, and was trying desperately to gain control of his breath. Sango slipped around the end of the counter and came to his side, patting him on the back.
"How..?"
Sango shrugged. "It took me only a month to see that Kagome had self-esteem issues when I transferred to her school. From what Yuka told me, she's improved since she was a kid, and that it's you we have to thank for that." When she was sure that he was fine, she returned to the other side of the counter to resume tidying. "How come you haven't told her?"
"She likes some guy."
'Tell me he's joking.' "Does this guy happen to know that she likes him?" Sango's gut instinct knew before he shook his head. 'I can't believe these two…two idiots… like each other and think that the other is talking about someone else entirely.' She swallowed the urge to shake the hell out of him and said instead, "Then why not tell her? If she's unattached, there's nothing stopping you. Unless…you think she won't return your feelings?"
"Are you psychic or something?"
"No, but I think I read a book with this premise," she mumbled. Sango shook her head and smiled again. "You ought to think about telling her, Inuyasha. I know I only just met you, but Kagome's told me a lot about you so I feel like I've known you as long as her. I don't think she would react the way you might think she would." She left it at that, collecting her notepad and pen as more customers came into the diner and sat down at the window seats.
Inuyasha watched her leave, mulling over what she said. 'It's easy for her to say. She's not the one that wants-' His thoughts ground to a halt when he saw Kagome across the diner, and his breath hitched. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and she wore the diner's employee t-shirt with a pair of worn jeans. The shirt, he noticed, was pulled back into a knot at the small of her back, leaving a sliver of her toned stomach exposed. When had she started wearing her work shirt like that?
But then he noticed that he wasn't the only man to have noticed her glimpse of skin. One of the men at the table she was conversing with kept flicking his gaze downwards and back up. Aside from a growl that wanted to come from his throat, Inuyasha had a brief thought that perhaps this was the guy she said she liked, and his stomach turned sour. If that were the case…then he probably didn't have a chance. Not that there was anything spectacular about this guy. He had long black hair that was pulled back and blue eyes. There was also an arrogance that Inuyasha could see from the other side of the diner that he didn't like. 'If that is the guy, then Kagome doesn't deserve the time of day from him. He doesn't look at her like she's a human being.'
Yet Kagome wasn't paying this particular guy the slightest attention. She was too busy speaking with the young woman across from him as she wrote in her notepad. When she did turn her attention to him, she didn't look like she had any sort of feelings for him, and that gave him an ounce of hope. She nodded and turned away from their table, coming to drop off the latest order for the cooks. He turned back in his seat, hoping that it didn't look like he had been openly gawking at her across the diner.
"Inuyasha!"
He jumped slightly, not expecting Kagome to have seen him at the end of the counter, but she had and was coming around to his side. Inuyasha stood up from the stool and caught her in a hug as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. It was all he could do to not show how smug he felt as she pressed herself tightly against him.
"It's so good to see you," she said, pulling back slightly with a smile. Kagome hadn't removed her arms from around his neck, and he wasn't in any hurry to let her go either. "I'll be getting off work early today, and I'm glad you're here cause I have so much I want to tell you!"
"You can't tell me now?"
"Nuh uh," she shook her head, making her ponytail swish side to side. "It'd be easier to talk about when we get back to my house. Nothing bad, I swear," she added with a laugh to reassure him.
Kagome did have to step back from the hug, and it may have just been wishful thinking, but it seemed like she wasn't ready for it to end either. She told him that she'd only be another hour, maybe less if the new person came in early, and then they could leave. It was just as well, since his food was being set down in front of him by Daisuke, who only grinned at the pair. Inuyasha took his seat again and started to eat his meal. If Kagome's father didn't appear upset, then surely it was good news.
He just hoped it didn't have to do with "that guy" Kagome had talked about the last couple of years.
"You met him!?"
Sango held the phone away from her ear as the chorus of girls on the other end shrieked. Like Kagome, Sango was able to cut out of work early and opted to sit at home to relax. She dumped some frozen leftovers into the casserole dish and put it into the oven for dinner, deciding to give Ayumi a call to catch up. As luck would have it, Eri and Yuka had dropped by her house, so Sango was able to tell of her discoveries just once.
From the noise on the other end, she was starting to regret it.
"Yeah, earlier this afternoon he came in. He's a really nice guy-"
"Pictures, Sango!" Eri blurted out. "Did you get pictures?!"
The young woman sighed, biting her lip in thought. There was one picture that she had gotten, when Kagome embraced Inuyasha, but she wasn't sure if she should say anything. Sango had taken the picture for Kagome, simply because their expressions were too sweet to not capture. Her friend had no idea the picture existed, but would it be right to share it with the girls first?
"I…have one, but Kagome doesn't know I have it. I wanted to surprise her with it-"
"We won't tell we promise!" Eri tried not to whine. "We just want to see what Inuyasha looks like!"
"What she said," Yuka added. "We're never around when he comes to see Kagome! I'm beginning to think she's keeping him from us deliberately!"
Sango laughed as she searched for her laptop. "The little I talked to Inuyasha today, I can safely say that that is not the case. Ayumi, I'm emailing the picture to you, but you have to swear on your favorite shoes that you three won't ruin the surprise for Kagome." She could hear murmurs of "sure sure" on the other end as she balanced the phone between her ear and shoulder.
Minutes passed and there was silence. So much so that Sango had begun to wonder if the girl had ended the call to check her email on her phone instead. Then she heard a few gasps, and she knew that Ayumi had opened the attachment.
"That's Inuyasha?!" Eri asked.
"Oh wow," Yuka said.
"Kagome's a lucky girl," Ayumi said. "No wonder she's been so secretive about him. If I knew a guy that looked like that I would want to keep all the details to myself too!"
Sango closed her laptop and went to check the casserole dish in the oven, turning on the speakerphone as she set it on the counter. "Kagome says that they're just friends, guys."
"Yeah, friends don't hug like that." Eri said dryly.
"That's what she keeps telling me," Sango continued, lifting the lid and poking at the leftovers. Still frozen in the middle, so she cut some of it with the knife and covered the lid again. "Says that he's got a girl he fancies that's oblivious to his feelings. Just like Inuyasha says that Kagome has feelings for a guy who doesn't think she exists." She grunted as she pushed the casserole back onto the oven rack. "But you know what? I think these two idiots like each other and are too dense to see it."
Ayumi hummed in agreement. "Knowing Kagome as long as we have, that's entirely possible."
"Should we do something?" Eri asked.
"What can we do?" Sango asked in response, leaning against the counter edge. "If we try to confront them about this, they'll probably deny it all. This may be one of those things where we leave it be and see what happens."
She wasn't surprised by the groans of disappointment on the other end of the call. Sango agreed wholeheartedly.
"You're gonna stay for dinner, right?" Kagome asked as they entered her bedroom.
Inuyasha nodded. The entire time at the diner and on the way back to her house, his mind had been on nothing but whatever news she was so excited to tell him. She hadn't given any clues either, which only made him more anxious to know. Even though her parents never showed any signs of upset, he had to wonder if they were complacent with the news or just really good at hiding it if it were bad. 'But Kagome said it wasn't bad news,' his mind tried to reason.
Kagome moved about her room, kicking off her shoes and tossing them into her closet, not noticing the troubled expression on her friend's face. When she had been given the offer over breakfast that morning, all she could think about was telling Inuyasha. Then he had come into the diner, and she had to stop herself from blurting it out right then. It wasn't meant to be public knowledge – at least not so soon anyway – and she wanted to give him the good news when they weren't surrounded by people. That way she'd know his response was genuine and not a front he tossed up because they had an audience. She turned as she closed her closet door, finally seeing the upset in Inuyasha's eyes. "Inuyasha?"
He blinked, realizing that he hadn't been doing a very good job at pretending to be alright, if her concerned look was anything to go by. He cleared his throat, trying to smile. "You said you had news you wanted to tell me?"
The girl walked up to him, watching him carefully, as if she could pinpoint what was bothering him. She let out a small huff in defeat, and he had to hide a smile at how cute it made her look. "You know how Grandpa moved out and got his own place years ago?"
He nodded. It had been just before Souta became old enough for his own room. Keiichi didn't think it right to make Kagome share her room with her little brother, given that she was a teenager then, so he had saved up and bought a decent home not far away. Inuyasha had helped the older man move boxes and furniture into the new place when Daisuke hadn't been able to take the day off. His old man had even come by to offer a hand when his mother and Inukimi went to visit Michiru.
"Well…Grandpa's arthritis has been getting worse," Kagome frowned, and he could tell that she was trying to avoid thinking about the old man getting older. "Mama and Papa have been talking with him about moving back in with us. He fell once, and we're worried that he might break something going up and downstairs."
"But isn't Souta in your grandpa's old room?"
Kagome's face brightened. "Yeah, but that's where the good news comes in! Grandpa offered me the house this morning!"
"Y-you're moving?"
"Yeah!" She grinned. "Of course there's still all the paperwork we have to do to make it official, and Souta would be taking my room probably, but isn't this amazing! Grandpa said he would rather it go to family than go through the headache of putting it on the market. Inuyasha? What's wrong? I thought you'd be excited about this."
Inuyasha tried to smile, but he was finding it hard to. For twelve years he had been able to come to this house and know that Kagome lived there. But now she was moving? Even if it was just down the street, there was just something…off about it. Was it because of this guy she liked? Was that why Keiichi had offered her the house? So they could have a place to live together…to do things? His stomach turned, and he didn't feel like he had much of an appetite anymore. But Kagome was looking at him and expecting an answer. He had to say something.
"Have you told that guy you like?"
Okay, maybe he shouldn't have said that.
Kagome's brow furrowed in confusion. "What guy?"
"That guy you like? The one you told me about two years ago."
Her eyes widened, surprised he remembered that. "Why would that make a difference?"
"Because you like him." 'And I thought that you'd want to tell him that you'd have privacy.'
She shook her head. "Not that it matters, but I did bring it up. He seemed…indifferent to my news, so I don't think it matters. What I want to know is what you think, Inuyasha!"
He shrugged half heartedly. "If it makes you happy, Kagome, then I'm happy for you. I'll help you move your things whenever you're ready, just let me know."
Kagome's gaze flicked downward, but she smiled again. "Thank you, Inuyasha." She looked back up at him. "You could always come over and visit, of course," she added. "There's multiple bedrooms, so we could fix up a room for you…if you, you know…wanted to stay over?" Was she blushing? She certainly hoped not. There was nothing suggestive about her question, but somehow the idea of Inuyasha spending the night in a house alone with her sent her heart racing.
"You…mean that?" Inuyasha was so preoccupied with the thought that Kagome wasn't writing him out of her life with this news that he missed any implications about staying over. "And that guy…there's nothing going on?"
"No. Oh-!" She gasped, a sudden thought struck her. "What about that girl you like? Have you told her? I don't want her to think that there's something behind you staying over if-"
In a move that was possibly one of his craziest decisions made in a split second, Inuyasha reached up to cradle Kagome's face in his hands, bending to capture her lips with his. The kiss was brief, but it had shut her up as he pulled away. It was probably a mistake, but it was a wonderful mistake.
"You…you… kissed me," she said in a breathless whisper. Kagome had to resist reaching up to touch her own lips, as if that would confirm that she wasn't dreaming. Inuyasha had kissed her. Her.
Inuyasha's hands still cupped her face, and he watched in fascination as she processed what had happened. He'd expected her to pull away, to scream and be angry, but she was stunned. A light blush crept across her cheeks as she watched him, and he sighed. "And I want to do it again," he replied, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "If that's okay?"
Kagome's hands reached up to take fistfuls of his shirt as she took a step closer. "But what about that girl you like?"
"And I'm asking if she wants me to kiss her again." His lips quirked as it dawned on her that he meant her. "Since that guy you like has missed his chance."
Kagome's blush deepened. "Are you sure about that?" she countered, slipping her arms around his neck. "Because he just kissed me and wants to do it again…and I'm not about to stop him."
They both tried not to laugh at the absurdity of their admission. For two years they had harbored feelings for the other, thinking that they were one-sided. As Inuyasha leaned down to kiss Kagome again, he knew that her news earlier was indeed good news. She sighed into the kiss as his arms circled her waist and held her to him.
Better than she realized. It was probably the best news he had heard in a long time.
A/N: There you go! It only took 12 years between these two idiots for something substantial to happen, but it finally did.
