Chapter 3

"Yeah…. I would try your best not to say S-I-T around your Shikon casually. It's mentioned several times throughout the manual. It's a necessary disciplinary mechanism in the event a Shikon misbehaves or malfunctions."

Kagome stared out in disbelief with her ear still on the phone. It was just a little bit after ten in the morning now. Immediately following the literally shocking event that occurred the night prior, Kagome panicked and double tapped her Shikon's ears to make him shut down. Luckily, he didn't freeze in his pained expression and he went back to looking peacefully asleep, although in a slightly strange position.

Kagome looked over at the Shikon in a knee-chest position beside the couch. That couldn't have been a comfortable sleeping position.

"Oh and another thing-" Kagome began.

"I'm so sorry to be rude Kagome, but I must get going. I'll meet with you a week from now. I know you'll do great."

The other line died.

The average person might think that avoiding such a mundane word would be easy. But having to be careful just made Kagome want to say it ten times in a row like a child.

She breathed in the quiet atmosphere of her apartment. She contemplated going back to bed, as she would often do in lonely times like this. But hey, that's what Shikons were all about, right?

Kagome tiptoed lightly over to InuYasha and folded her arms across her chest.

"InuYasha." She stated. She watched in fascination as his ears twitched and his head turned to look up at her in a rickety manner. It was something she was going to have to get used to.

She went and grabbed a can of chips from her cupboard and held out a single chip to the Shikon after helping herself to a few.

"Sorry about last night. You didn't do anything wrong." She ate her offered chip after he didn't have much of a reaction to the food. Kagome had sworn she had read somewhere in the manual that Shikons could enjoy meals with their owners in small proportions. She wasn't sure how that mechanism worked, but it was cool feature nonetheless. "I guess it's a good thing you don't talk. You're already pretty freaky for my tastes." Kagome licked the salt from her pointer finger and reached over to InuYasha's mouth to lift his lip. What revealed was a single fang. "I wonder why they sent me such an ethereal model. I'm actually jealous."

She observed as he unraveled from the knee-chest position Kagome had left him in the previous night.

"I'm gonna go to the store now and pick up some t-shirts. Make yourself at home, I guess, InuYasha." Kagome shrugged with an innocent smile. Half the time she wasn't sure if anything she said was processed by him. She was trying to get used to conversing with him—it. He looked so real that she felt bad calling him 'it'. She felt like she was conversing with her family's children when she talked to him—awkward as all hell. Kagome was socially challenged when it came to interacting with children, much less understanding why people talked to their pets. This was a new concept to her all around.

She grabbed her keys from the counter, double checking on InuYasha's position in the living room. She opted out of turning him off.

The Shikon focused on the locking of the door and rose from his seated position. He glanced down at the purple beads around his neck and attempted to lift them but with no such luck. With careful steps he found his way into the guest bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror. He jerked his neck to the side and scratched at the tiny tattoo on his neck.

Kagome was jamming out to one of her favorite songs at a red light, not caring that an older man in the car next to her gave a disapproving shake of his head. Her ultimate goal was to get the entire car to shake, and by the grumpy guy's expression, she was doing just that. She picked out three plain T's for her companion; not having much of a fashion sense when it came to guys. She saw a flash of light at the corner of her eye as she began to drive forward. She turned her head and met eye to eye with golden orbs.

"You got to be fucking kidding me." Kagome put on her hazard lights and pulled over. InuYasha just kept on walking down the street, slightly wobbly in nothing but the basket ball shorts. She hopped out of her car and yelled towards him, hoping it wouldn't be completely drowned out from the traffic. "Um hello! Yoohoo!" That didn't elicit any reaction. " Oh for Christ's sake, SIT!"

Kagome jogged over to InuYasha, who was back on his knees riding out the shock wave of his collar.

"InuYasha, what are you doing!" Kagome tried catching her breath. She wasn't even sure if she was allowed to let him outside since the product had yet to be launched. The look on his face nearly broke her heart. She didn't understand it. "Were you looking for me? I'm right here. Let's go home." She held out a hand to him. She breathed a sigh a relief when he turned on his heel and followed her lead back to her car. She held the door open and he sat down submissively.

"I don't get it, why do you keep trying to go outside?" Kagome whispered to herself, drumming her fingers over the owner's manual at a loss. "And this one supposedly already has a buyer lined up? Why this one? Why him? He's nowhere near ready."

She shifted her eyes over to his figure, now more modest with a shirt covering his sculpted skin. She noticed his hair was slightly tousled from dressing himself and got an idea.

Moments later she came back to the living room with a brush and a comb. She stepped up to him very closely yet his facial expression remained unaltered. She brushed the comb down through his bangs and motioned for him to turn around with a twirl of her finger. Surprisingly, he did.

As she ran the bristles through his silk hair in long strides, she wondered if her hair was even capable of reaching such a length. Memories began to resurface of Kagome's childhood and her years of experience of brushing through her dolls' hair.

In the midst of her brushing, InuYasha looked over his shoulder and stared curiously at the brush. She stopped her actions and presented the brush to him.

"You wanna try?" She smiled with interested brows. He turned to face her as he grabbed the brush and combed down her bangs, catching her off guard. She began to laugh at the gesture. "Not what I had in mind but sure, my hair could use some attention."

Kagome turned for him and stood as straight as she could. She couldn't help the chill that traveled up her spine as he brushed her hair. The act was so simple, but it was an experience she wasn't used to. Nobody aside from her mother had brushed her hair and a handsome humanoid-thing-whatever he was, was treating her like a princess.

Okay, that's a little dramatic. But a girl could dream. She never actually got to that level of comfort of asking the guy from her previous relationship to brush her hair.

"I'm gonna make something to eat. Um, you do what you do best… Which is clearly staring the shit out of my soul." Kagome mumbled the last bit as she awkwardly shuffled to the kitchen, doing her best to avoid eye contact with the Shikon. As much as Urasue gushed about her company's product, so far Kagome didn't see the appeal in it. She had almost clearly remember Urasue staring that Shikons were able to converse with their owner's so why was this model mute? She was slightly disappointed he didn't come with cellphone chargers attached or a GPS unit. So far he was nothing more than a pet she didn't have to feed or clean up after.

Kagome shuffled through the music on her phone and connected it to a portable speaker. She already had the water in the pot getting acquainted with the flame for her meal.

Meanwhile, InuYasha began to scan his surroundings again. Music began to blare from the kitchen like a nightclub. He trailed past the guest bathroom and peaked into Kagome's bedroom. There were clothes scattered throughout the room and the blanket on the bed was scrambled. What caught his interest were a few school notebooks laying beside a small desk. He grabbed a pencil with haste from the desk and flipped to a random page in one of the notebooks. With steady hands he attempted to write something. He grabbed at his hair, seemingly in frustration and discarded the pencil back onto the desk. He retraced his steps back to the living room and followed the sound of vegetables being chopped.

Kagome shamelessly swayed her hips to the beat of the music, paying no mind to the pair of eyes on her now. The water was boiling and awaited the company of the vegetables. Kagome danced the chopping board over to the pot and began to scrape the slices into the water. The microscopic hairs on the back of her neck began to stand and she turned slightly.

There he was.

Kagome jumped, losing the knife from her grip. InuYasha dived down with haste and caught the knife on the bladed end.

"InuYasha—you scared…"Her voice trailed off and they were both looking at his hand clasped over the knife. She took his hand in hers and flipped it over. His facial expression almost matched her own. Seeped in the tiny details of his hand was crimson. "You're bleeding?"

She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Next Update: 10/19/18