Photograph

"Aye, Kagome-san, why ye talking to the demon?" Kaede's voice sounded once everyone settled into the hut for supper.

Kagome sent a scathing look toward Inuyasha's direction before answering. "I was just taking some pictures and he found me. Nothing happened."

The ten leering eyes on her form said that they did not believe her.

Sighing, Kagome gave them a bit more details. "Ugh, fine. I showed him how to take a picture, too, before he got mad at me." She glared at them. "Happy?"

Inuyasha crossed his arms as well as his legs, Shippou mirroring his actions beside him, while Sango and Miroku sipped quietly on their tea in silent admonishment. Inuyasha said, "I don't know why you're always taking these pictures anyways."

"You know I'm in a photography school! I need to practice so I can get a good job with a professional!" Kagome replied hotly.

"Well what good does taking pictures do for you?"

"I hope you know that photography is big lately, and that I'm quite good at it. I'm even recommended for a special program, and this era just happens to be my ticket to that program!"

"Why can't you just take pictures at home?"

Kaede, however, was not finished her interrogation. "And why, dear Kagome-san, would ye even show the demon how to take those pictures?" Inuyasha wasn't impressed he had been ignored.

Being polite to the elder miko, Kagome answered a little less caustically. "He was curious, and I wanted to live. So I let him take a picture and then he went on his merry way." Okay, she knew that wasn't exactly the case, but it was the truth.

"You let my bastard brother take a picture!" Inuyasha hollered, everyone promptly ignoring his expectant outburst. Angrily, he started rummaging through Kagome's knapsack for the aforementioned camera, and when he couldn't find it, his golden eyes settled on her. "Where is it!?"

"Calm down, Inuyasha," reprimanded the miko, picking up the item sitting beside her. "It's right here."

"Hand it over!"

"Osuwari."

Thump!

The wooden floor gave way to the subjugation beads with a loud crash that no one could have mistaken for anything else other than the miko sitting her hanyou.

Kaede shook her head somberly. "Would ye wait until you two are outside of the hut next time?"

"Sorry, Kaede-jii-san." Kagome apologized. She started to look over the pictures when a whine was heard from underneath the wooden planks.

When Inuyasha pulled himself from the deep crator, he barked out, "Why the hell did you have to sit me!?"

"Because you were being mean and you don't have to be in the middle of my business 24/7." Kagome replied with a huff. Becoming increasingly tired of the hanyou's actions, the miko stood with her night clothes in hand and turned toward the taijiya. "Would you like to take a bath with me, Sango?"

The demon-slayer shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm going to turn in early."

The monk stood up, staff in hands, serious expression on his face. "Then allow me, Kagome-san, to be bestowed the honor of accompanying--" His words were cut short with a cuff from the taijiya, for which he stood immediately down.

"Lecher," both Inuyasha and Shippou muttered under their breaths.

Kagome smiled and left the hut with her camera in hands, starting toward the hill in the back of the hut to where she remembered spotting a small hotspring. As she trekked through the forestry in the dim moonlight, she made sure to be conscious of everything around her, on high alert for demons lurking about. When she sensed virtually nothing, her guard never wavered, as she continued to relocate the hidden hot spring that she eventually came across. The scene was again enough to take her breath away, with the pale moonlight casting the water a dim purple-blue hue while the rocks placed around the pool to glitter white and silver.

Smiling, Kagome started to dig out her camera, but found it missing. Panicking, and knowing she took it with her. 'Dammit, I must've dropped it!' Knowing she wouldn't be able to retrieve it in the dark, and having to wait until morning, she tried to abate her anxiety by telling herself it would be safe and fine until she got to it. 'I'll get just Inuyasha to find it when I come back,' she assured herself.

When she set her clothes on the ground and started removing the ones she had on, a slightly rustling in the trees and the detection of a youkai stopped her actions. 'And, of course, I didn't bring my bow and arrows, either!' Kagome made a mental note to stop being so stupid. Getting ready to call for help at the first sign of disaster, she sucked in her breath, but it blew out when Sesshoumaru came through the thicket, shimmering white and ghostly in the moonlight.

"Se-Sesshoumaru?" Kagome gasped, thankful she had only removed her school uniform shirt and not the tank underneath. "What're you doing here?"

He didn't answer at first, and neither did she expect him to, but she became anxious when he started toward her in slow, long strides. When he was but an arms-length away, he held out his hand to present her with the camera she had lost. It was a black contrast against his pale white hand, and it took her a moment to snap out of her imaginings to take the item from him.

"Thank you." He didn't say anything, just looked at her with his amber eyes, that twinkled and reflected some of the light. He seemed so non-existent, like a ghostly figure that really wasn't there, just an apparition. But she had felt the warmth that seeped from him when she took the camera, thus proving he was anything but. They stood like that for an insurmountable time, her looking straight into his deadly eyes while he looked back at her, only it seemed as though he was looking straight through her.

"Take another picture." Was his command when he spoke for the first time that night.

Automatically, she said, "Of what?"

"The landscape."

Nodding silently, she turned the camera on and readied her position, finding that the lake looked absolutely tranquil and a perfect display of beauty. She snapped the photo, without the flash this time, and viewed the photo. Just as she thought, the moon was enough light to see the whole picture.

"Let me see." He didn't give her a chance to respond when he gently took the photo from her hands, and looked at it himself. He gave it back a minute later, commanded to take another picture.

She didn't ask what to take this time, instead opting for improvising and taking a picture of partly the pool, and a bit of him. When she snapped the photo, and looked at the picture, she was surprised to see that this time he wasn't a dog, but instead his human shell. She was shocked to see how stupendous the photo was.

He didn't have a chance to ask when she handed him the picture shortly after. He scrutinized it. "I am not a dog." Was what he said.

"Yeah, why I don't know, but it's a good picture." She said, almost flippantly.

Sesshoumaru didn't give the camera back, but instructed her to sit near the pool. Doing as bade, she sat on one of the large rocks, and posed, head slightly tilted toward the moon with her hands in her lap, looking surreal. He snapped the photo, brought it down, and viewed it. The picture was barely visible, for the moon's light shadowed half of her body, but the silhouetted presentation of her on the rock was unique and surprisingly intriguing to him.

Kagome walked over to him, and didn't miss the mesmerized look on his normally remote face. "Can I see?" she asked, and then the expression dissolved, and he handed her the camera. She saw the potential it might bring her, hoped that it could possibly win something in the photography school. When she looked up he was retreating again. "Hey, wait!" she called, and though he didn't stop, she knew he heard her.

Sighing, she knew he wouldn't be back again, so stripped down, and enjoyed her bath.