The following morning, Kagome could only stare into her coffee mug in a daze as she mentally recounted what happened the night before. What had come over her to say those things? To admit to Inuyasha that she touched herself, and not only that, but also admitting to him that he was who she fantasized about?

And what about Inuyasha for that matter? In all the years that she had known him, she had never heard him speak like that before. It was shocking. It should have disgusted her. It…was a turn on she never realized she had. The feminist in her would be appalled at being called a "good girl" in such a way, but the horny part of her had all but quivered in delight. It had to be because it was Inuyasha that had said it, because she couldn't envision having that same reaction if any other man had told her.

She wasn't sure what had started that string of events anyway, but…she wouldn't be against doing that again with him. Provided that Inuyasha would want to, of course. Despite what he told her, she still felt like she was to blame for his excuses. She still thought that her attempts to get him to engage more was what was pushing him away. Although, if what happened last night was what it would take to bridge that gap, then she'd happily agree to it.

Whatever it took, she was willing to try. She couldn't lose him.

"What the fuck was I thinking last night?!"

You were thinking like any red blooded hanyou –

"I've had it up to here with you!" Inuyasha snarled as he yanked the bed linens so hard that the mattress lifted up with the force. The youkai had been incessant about wanting to call Kagome again ever since he had woken up. It was early in the morning! She had things she needed to do and was probably doing. It was not the time to call her up with the suggestion of each of them beating it at eight in the morning! The youkai did not see it that way, and sought to remind him of each little detail he said to her last night as some kind of sick incentive to pick the phone up.

You were not complaining last night –

"That's cause I was clearly out of my damn mind last night!" Inuyasha's face felt hot to the touch, and he just knew that if he looked in the mirror he'd be bright red. He didn't need a reminder from the youkai about the things he said to Kagome the night before. Oh no, that all came crashing back as he had his morning pee, slamming to the forefront of his mind so quickly it made him dizzy.

It didn't help that the youkai was practically crowing about it either.

Inuyasha wanted to disappear. Crawl under a rock, let the ground consume him, and be free of ever having to face Kagome again and having to explain what came over him last night.

You could thank me. After all, who was it that gave you that nudge to explore your fantasies?

He had made it to the clothes hamper with the balled up linens when he froze. "You?" he whispered. "You did this? You made me tell Kagome those things?" His voice was steadily getting higher and he was seconds away from yelling.

I did no such thing, the youkai countered. I simply gave you the confidence to act on your desires last night. If I had not stepped in and given you that push, you would still be writing to her on that device of yours, moaning about how you want to see her –

"Yeah, and look at what your meddling probably did! I could have just as easily lost my girlfriend, you bastard!" Inuyasha threw the linens in the hamper and tried to hold in his anger, lest he throw the hamper against the opposite wall. He was furious with the youkai. What right did this – this conscious thought – have to dictate how he functioned? What right did he –

The phone buzzing from the bedroom filled him with dread, killing any previous thoughts. There were only two people who had the gumption to call or message him so early in the morning, and he wasn't sure how he could approach either right then. He wasn't in the frame of mind to speak to his mother, because he couldn't trust that he wouldn't blurt out that he had phone sex with Kagome last night if she were to ask how they were doing. And Kagome…he didn't know how to approach her because of last night. Whoever it was that was trying to reach him wasn't giving up easily, and Inuyasha knew he had to answer it. His feet felt like lead with each step, thoughts trying to come up with a viable response to either woman, but once he held the phone in his hands he discovered it wasn't either.

It was a text message from a number he didn't recognize that read: "Son, we need to talk."

Meeting his father again after decades of not seeing him was surreal. Inuyasha checked the rearview mirror in his car again before stepping out. It was a struggle to make sure that the hat concealed his ears without making it obvious. He had given up trying to tuck the silver hair underneath entirely and foregone the gloves. He'd just keep his hands in his pockets as much as he could.

Touga had requested that they meet in person for dinner at a family-focused restaurant across town. It meant more of a drive for Inuyasha, but for once he didn't give a damn. The old man was finally going to give him answers, whether he wanted to or not. The one thing that puzzled him was that Touga had said it was a family place. Nothing about Inuyasha's appearance screamed family-friendly to him, and he felt like the moment he stepped in the restaurant he'd be singled out.

"Hi there!" The waitress greeted him as he stepped through the doors. "My name is Emily and I'll be serving you this evening! How many in your party, sugar?"

"Uh…I'm actually here to meet someone." Inuyasha felt like a deer in headlights with the chaotic energy this woman was giving off. There was such a thing as too bubbly, and she was oozing it. "Last name is Taisho, I think."

"Oh yes! You must be Touga's first born!" Emily gushed, motioning for him to follow her. "He's already here. Total delight to speak with, let me tell you. He speaks fondly of you, though I don't know… he says that you take after your mother more, but I see a lot of him in you. Must be one of those lucky ones that get the best of both parents. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate that I have my father's shins! Total bird legs from the knees down…"

Emily continued to ramble on as they walked and Inuyasha couldn't tell if she ever stopped to take a breath once. It all felt like one long run-on sentence to him and he was thankful that the knit hat was muffling some of the sound. She didn't give him a chance to comment outside of short grunts to appear that he was listening. It was just as well, because by the time she paused long enough to let him speak, they had reached the designated booth.

Touga slid out of his seat and stood as they approached, or at least it was who Inuyasha thought was his father. The pictures that Izayoi had in her house were of a man with an olive complexion and black hair that fell in waves. Hazel eyes that were captured on film, gazing at his mother tenderly. The man that was holding his hand out to Inuyasha looked nothing like that. Silvery white hair that was pulled back out of his face was much longer than in the pictures. Golden eyes watched him carefully as he accepted the handshake. Dark blue jagged marks across his cheekbones shifted as the man smiled warmly.

"Inuyasha."

The man looked nothing like the man he remembered as a kid that would come to visit, but the scent was unmistakable. This was his father. "Touga."

It was a tense moment, and Inuyasha vaguely heard Emily ask about drinks or entrees, but he ignored her. Touga was sending her off anyway with some sort of request, but all he cared about was answers. Now that he knew for certain that this was his father, he didn't want to piss about. The older man looked back at Inuyasha, and immediately his expression dropped from the jovial manner to concerned. "You could have addressed me as Father."

"Maybe if you had given me a reason decades ago for walking out of my life I might have."

"That's fair," he conceded, motioning to the booth. "Please sit with me? I've requested some appetizers in the meantime. I feel like there is a lot that I need to make up for."

Inuyasha didn't respond, sliding into the unoccupied side of the booth and crossed his arms over his chest. Touga seated himself once more across the table from him, resting his elbows on the table.

"I want to ask where I should start but I feel like that will create a whole other mess of problems," Touga began. "But before I delve into why things happened the way that they did, I want you to understand one thing. I have always loved and will continue to love your mother, just as I do you, Inuyasha."

"That's what Mother says, but it still doesn't explain why you stopped coming around."

Touga frowned, and for a split second Inuyasha could see the guilt in his eyes. "That was my greatest mistake, and every day I hate myself for doing things that way. I was young and stupid, Inuyasha."

The hanyou snorted. "You know how many times I sat up at night as a kid, wondering why my old man stopped giving a damn? How many times I tried to figure out what it was that I had done that made you go away? Parents don't think about what that can do to a kid."

"I'm sorry."

"Keh."

"I mean it, Inuyasha. Your mother bears no ill will toward me, and I was hoping that you could find it in your heart to forgive me." The conversation paused as Emily returned with the drinks and appetizers. Touga read off the menu and ordered for both of them when Inuyasha continued to sit in silence. It wasn't until she was out of earshot that he spoke again. "Do you want me to explain the changes you're going through or do you wish for me to tell you why I had to do what I did?"

Inuyasha was hesitant to answer. He wanted to know both, but… "Explain why you bailed, old man."

Touga's eyebrow raised. It wasn't "father" but it was better than being called by his first name so snidely. "Very well. I've been in love with your mother for a very, very long time. Izayoi has always been my best friend, and to have her love meant everything, until we were blessed with you. Then it became so much more." He smiled fondly, recalling the memories of Izayoi telling him she was pregnant, the birth of his first son, among other tender moments. The smile dropped as the memories shifted to more unpleasant events. "As you got older, it was not my intention to step away as I did. I wanted to be in your life as much as your mother has been."

"Still could've been, but you didn't," Inuyasha pointed out. "I'd get cards with notes written about how you'd like to stop by sometime, but that sometime never came. Then the cards got fewer and far between, if not weeks late."

"Timing has not been a companion of mine," Touga looked down at the plate of appetizers. "It's not enough to apologize with you, is it?"

"Not when you say that you supposedly love my mother so much that you run off and marry another woman – have another kid –"

"There were extenuating circumstances –"

"Bullshit."

"The numbers of our kind is falling," Touga bit out, getting more and more frustrated. Of course both of his sons would inherit his ability to not back down from a challenge, but Inuyasha got it in spades from his mother as well. When he was certain that his son wouldn't cut in again, he continued. "Youkai aren't as common as the world believes, or at least…there aren't as many full blooded youkai anymore. With inu youkai, for example, the numbers are incredibly low. Most have chosen to reproduce with humans, and over generations the youkai blood in the family lines have dwindled to almost nothing.

When your mother was pregnant with you, towards the end, I got a call from Kimi. She was distraught. Down on her luck, had been for a long time, and the social circle that she was running in was shunning her because she had not produced an heir. Your mother…told me to help her. Izayoi knew the circumstances, knew what this would mean for Kimi and us…and she still insisted that I do this."

Inuyasha wasn't sure how to react to that. He knew that his mother had been part of the choice, but still…hearing his old man say it was still hard to believe. "So why didn't you just do a donation or whatever. Why did you run off and marry her instead of Mother?"

"Because Izayoi told me to." Touga smiled bitterly. "Kimi needed help, and not just needing an heir. She needed to build her reputation again, and the biggest way of doing that was to marry and have a child. If she had given birth out of wedlock, it would have done more harm than good. She needed the support that Izayoi had been blessed with from the get go. That is why Izayoi told me to help her. She knew that she could manage on her own…said that if she were in Kimi's situation and she reached out for help, that she hoped there would be someone as understanding. Your mother is a saint, Inuyasha."

"That she is."

Touga nodded once more, dropping a breaded tender on his plate and pulling it apart. "To make a long story short, I married Kimi. Helped her mend her social standing, built her finances up, gave her Sesshomaru. He's about two or three years younger than you, now that I think about it. But despite being the "happy" family that we appeared to be, there was no deep-seated love between us. Don't get me wrong I care for Kimi, but nothing like what I feel for Izayoi. She knows this, before you start."

"What prompted the divorce then?"

"You know about that?" For a second his father looked surprised, but then shook his head. "Of course you know. Your mother wouldn't keep that from you… Those seeds were planted by other people in the circle that Kimi ran with that didn't appreciate her rise or good fortune. Found out about you and your mother through some digging, started a rumor mill that tried to deface all of us. Kimi and I fought to keep you and Izayoi from being drug through the mud, and in the end it was a mutual decision to separate for good. I've been keeping tabs on Kimi to make sure that she's not fallen to ruin by these people, and in doing so I distanced myself from you."

Inuyasha leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. This was…a lot to process. It didn't contradict what his mother had told him, and it definitely filled in a lot of the gaps. The more he thought about it the more irritated he got, especially with Touga sitting across from him waiting for a reply. "Keh! What do you want me to say? That I forgive you?"

Touga snorted. "On the contrary I would settle for understanding, and judging from your tone I think I have it." Before he could continue, there was Emily again, this time with their orders and a pitcher to refill their drinks. As soon as she was gone again he said, "Now that that's out of the way I think we need to talk about the changes in your body."

"Fucking hell old man! I don't need the birds and the bees talk!"

"Considering you're going through it a second time I feel like we do need to cover the new content you weren't told in health class."

The hanyou tucked into his meal, forcing the food down his throat. Maybe if he could get his food down quick enough he could get out of this awkward ass talk. There was something about the grin that Touga was sporting that made him think that his father knew he was a virgin.