Two months.

Two. Fucking. Months.

Kagome was past being upset for the most part.

Now she was getting pissed.

Inuyasha had yet again brushed her off. All she had wanted to do was come over and sit with him, watch a movie. Maybe they could play cards. She just wanted to spend time with him, to be face to face for once when they talked, maybe get a damn hug at least. She wasn't expecting him to strip and give her what she wanted – that would have been nice but at this point she only wanted his company. Whatever reason he really had for avoiding her this long was making her suspicious in the worst way.

Which is how she found herself dialing a number that she hadn't expected to call one Saturday morning after breakfast. It wasn't that she never called this person, but it didn't feel like it was something that she felt was worth bringing them into. For all she knew the excuses could all have been legitimate and valid, but the longer they kept stacking up the more inclined she was to believe that there was something else going on.

If anyone would know, or at least could assure her fears, it was this person. They knew Inuyasha better than anyone else, so surely they must know what was going on.

Inuyasha rolled over and groaned as his phone rang incessantly on the bedside table. His stomach twisted, knowing that it was probably Kagome calling again. His notebook was already low on blank paper when he started that list and he was running out of excuses quick. He rolled over and squinted at the clock. It was late for him, 8:34. Normally he woke up at 7 but…with the weird way his body has been behaving lately, the bursts of energy were leaving him drained when they burned out, like the night before.

The phone continued to bleat at him, reminding him that he couldn't keep avoiding it. Inuyasha sighed as he reached out and grabbed the phone, dragging his thumb across the device screen to answer the call. Might as well start the day out shitty.

"Hello?"

The voice was female, but it wasn't Kagome.

"You mind telling me why your girlfriend is calling me up in tears, boy? Are you sleeping around on her?"

It was his mother.

Shit.

"What?!" He shrieked, sitting up in bed quickly. "M-Mother! What –"

Izayoi was not a woman to be trifled with. Inuyasha knew this. She was a spitfire of a woman that could swap barbs with the best of them and do it in such a way that came off as a compliment. She could also drop the sweet act entirely and become so lethal that even youkai backed up from her ire. It was that side of his mother he tried to avoid at all costs, but somehow he had stepped into it with both feet.

"Kagome called me," she said. "Asked me if you were over here this weekend because apparently you've been canceling every date and hangout that has been planned for the last two months."

Inuyasha scrambled to his feet and nearly tripped over the blankets he'd tossed to the floor. His bladder had decided that now was the time to remind him that it needed to be emptied, but he also couldn't just…hang up on his own mother. From the tone she had now, that would be three times as bad. Maybe he could…pee quietly? He gripped the phone tighter to his ear as he got his balance, kicking the covers away in irritation at his girlfriend.

Why did Kagome go to his mother?

And why did it sound like his ears were stuffed with cotton? The phone was right next to it…

He tried not to sigh as his mother proceeded to recount the whole spiel that Kagome had told her. How she had sounded so mad at the start of the call, and by the end she was in tears, wondering what it was that she had done to make Inuyasha go out of his way to avoid her. "I'm not avoiding her, Mother!" he blurted out at last. "I told you I've had things going on!"

"Yes, and you also told me that it was Kagome that was canceling plans. Now what is the truth, Inuyasha? Is there another girl that you're seeing on the side?"

"There is no one else!"

"Kagome seems to think differently," Izayoi stated.

"I swear on my grandparent's graves that there is no one else," Inuyasha all but growled. He was getting real tired of his loyalty being challenged. "You and Kagome need to have more faith in me, Mother."

He heard a sigh. Oh fuck. A sigh was never good. This was the kind of sigh that said that he was gonna get it. "I know that, Inuyasha. You should give me more credit. I am your mother after all. It's Kagome that you need to prove your loyalty to, and if that means that you don't come over until you've convinced her then so be it."

Inuyasha had just made it to the bathroom doorway when he said, "But you said you needed that closet refitted in the laundry room this weekend!"

"I'll do without it."

"Mother…"

"Don't 'Mother' me in that tone, boy," she warned. "Kagome is a sweet girl and I think of her as a daughter. I love you dear but you need to fix this. Some shelves and organization for linens can wait in the meantime, and if I'd have known sooner about this maybe things would have been fixed already!"

He winced, feeling his ears fall back at being reprimanded.

What…the fuck…

Izayoi was continuing to ramble about how they should have already been engaged and making wedding plans, but Inuyasha's rush to the bathroom mirror was his sole focus. Something was not right when he could feel his ears move, because he had never been able to wiggle them as a kid. This wasn't forced. It had felt…instinctual.

Oh god.

He swallowed the stomach acid that was trying to come up as he looked at himself. His mother was still talking, but he couldn't hear a word of it.

"M-mother?" he whispered, "I need help."

Getting across town to his mother's house was an experience, even with having his own car. Each time he had to stop at an intersection he was terrified that someone could see. It didn't matter that they were strangers. It didn't matter that he'd probably never cross paths with these people again. He was paranoid.

Fortunately his mother was waiting at the door for him when he pulled into her driveway, holding the door open. She didn't comment on their phone call as he stepped inside, or about how he should really be going to Kagome's place to fix this mess. She did, however, comment on his state of dress. For such warm weather she couldn't fathom why he had all of his hair tucked up under a knitted cap or why he was wearing his sunglasses and work gloves in the house. She led him to the kitchen and had him sit down while she fetched them coffee.

Inuyasha didn't say a word, only pulled off the gloves and set them on the table, trying to conceal the pointed claws for as long as possible. When his mother placed a mug before him and sat down in the chair closest to his, only then did he remove the hat and sunglasses. The gasp he heard did not inspire confidence in that she could help, but he didn't know where else to turn.

"Oh sweetheart…"

"Mother," he whispered, "What's wrong with me?"

The black hair that he had been accustomed to was now silvery white. His ears – as he suspected, there was something off – were now fuzzy and triangle-shaped, perched within the white mane. His eyes, once a chestnut brown were amber. His tongue continued to flick over the overly-pointed canines that had taken shape out of worry. Not unlike how as a kid when he lost a tooth he'd worry the empty space for days on end because he couldn't focus on anything else.

Izayoi reached out and took his larger hand in both of hers, unfolding his fingers to see the clawed tips. She didn't appear to be frightened as she tested their points, and he was thankful for that. What bothered him was the apologetic look that she was giving him. "I'm so sorry Inuyasha," she said softly. "If I had had any idea, I would have told you years ago."

"You know what this is?" he asked with hope. If she could explain, he didn't give a damn that she didn't say anything sooner. He just wanted answers.

She nodded. "You are a hanyou, Inuyasha. Your father is a fully-fledged inu youkai."

He knew of his father. Touga was his name. Could vaguely remember the man coming around from time to time when he was a kid, taking him to get Happy Meals and spending time with him. And it gradually became memories. He had to leave for long periods of time, and as Inuyasha got older he stopped seeing the man altogether. He'd still get messages and cards on his birthday, but from his perspective, Touga had written him out of his life. He wasn't important enough to reach out to. So, he stopped giving a damn. The memories were bittersweet now, and he still wondered what it was that he had done that made his father stop caring.

"I truly didn't think that it was possible," Izayoi explained. "Your father and I… well, you know that story…"

Longtime friends that became friends with benefits which later became an on-and-off couple having a child out of wedlock. And somehow they still loved each other after all these years. Touga had married and divorced another woman, and supposedly he had a half brother somewhere in the world from that.

"We didn't know that the concealment wouldn't prevent…" she waved her hand about as she searched for the right word, "…the…traits, if you will. We were both young and the concealment charms were still new, and we thought that it would keep…"

"This from happening?" Inuyasha asked dryly. "What concealment? You mean to tell me that my father has been disguising himself from you all this time?"

"No! No, of course not! I know what he looks like in his youkai form. It was something he showed me early on when we were getting to know each other – not that way, Inuyasha! I meant as friends! When the concealments became more popular he asked me for my help in choosing his look. In time, as we grew to love each other, we wanted more. Even if we couldn't be together at the time, we still wanted a family. I know that it was pretty selfish on our parts, having you and not giving you the full family you deserved…"

"You and the old man did what you thought was right." He couldn't fault his mother for that. She did her best raising him, made sure he knew he was always loved. It wasn't her fault that the timing sucked. "So is that why he started staying away, the older I got? Did he suspect that this would happen?"

"We…didn't realize it could. When you reached puberty, I was worried, but Touga said that for youkai it wouldn't happen until later. It slipped my mind as you got older, and because he's been traveling and dealing with the divorce to Kimi I didn't want to bother him to ask as a precaution. He never told me when it could happen if it did, and studies around the charms hadn't taken that into account until recently…"

"Okay, but what is it that's happening to me Mother?"

Izayoi sighed. "You're transitioning to a hanyou. It's like a second puberty, in a way. The youkai within you is awakening, and your body is changing to accommodate it."