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"I…need you to get away from me," his eyes where tightly shut, his teeth and fists where clenched. He started walking away again, this time using his ample demon strength. Kagome gave a yelp as she was dragged behind him, but refused to release his hand.

"What…is…your…PROBLEM?" Kagome tugged his hand back towards her for the third time, her powers sparking from her hand with a light pink crackle. Sesshoumaru's hand suddenly felt like it was burning. He yanked it from her clutches.

"I don't hate you. You're in heat! Stay away from me!" he snarled quietly through clenched teeth. For a moment a fraction of his emotional control broke and his impassive mask slipped from his face. He turned around abruptly, his purple and yellow silk sash and his luminous white-silver hair flicking with his movement.

Kagome stayed put, rooted to the spot, watching the taiyoukai's back at he strode rigidly back to his castle.

'Heat? What the hell is that?'

oOo

Sesshoumaru was sitting, bored, at his desk, finishing off a mountainous stack of paper work when he heard the light footsteps of someone approaching his office door. Instead of the jasmine scent he was expecting to detect, he got the aroma of citrus blossoms. His door cracked open and Akina stuck her head into his room, followed by her luminous pale golden hair cascading in behind her.

"How are you Sesshy-kun?" She asked in her usual bubbly voice.

"Fine," Sesshoumaru replied curtly, knowing that she came for other matters. Why she insisted on calling him 'Sesshy-kun' was beyond him. What was worse was that she did it in front of other youkai as well. Was it her job to humiliate him?

"So…" Akina began, edging the rest of her body through the door and sitting herself down in one of the armchairs in front of his desk, "So, why did you let Kagome stay here?" she asked innocently, picking imaginary lint from her kimono.

"Rin likes her," he answered, not looking up from his work.

"That's all?" Akina pried, her violet eyes bored holes into the top of his head.

"Hai," he answered bluntly, still not looking up.

"hmm…are you sure?" she asked vaguely, her eyes taking on an accusing look.

Sesshoumaru looked up with his eyes, "Are you through?" He asked impatiently.

Akina's face instantly went hard.

"I don't like that tone, Sesshoumaru," she said sternly, using his full name to show she was serious.

A smile almost touched his lips. Almost. But then he stopped it, just before it happened.

"Oh, Sesshy-kun, you should smile more often, you look soooo much better when you smile!" She declared, crossing her arms, when a look swept over her face that Sesshoumaru knew only too well: she just got an idea.

'uh oh' Sesshoumaru thought warily.

Akina walked slowly and languidly around Sesshoumaru's desk, humming innocently, until she was behind his chair. Sesshoumaru listened to her movements to gauge where she was going, his elfish-appearing ears twitched and moved, listening intently.

Suddenly, with as much speed as himself, Akina latched tightly onto his silver head, her small hands on either side of his face, forcing her fingers into the corners of his mouth. Pulling with all her might (because Sesshoumaru was now trying to resist) on the crooks of his mouth, she coaxed it wider into a forcefully achieved smile.

Right at that moment the door opened and Kagome followed by Rin entered Sesshoumaru's 'private' study. His eyes snapped in their direction. His mouth was still painfully stretched into a smile, and one clawed hand was digging into his darkly stained and polished desk while the other one was grasping one of Akina's wrists, trying to pry them away from his face.

Akina let go suddenly and held her arms wide out before dropping them to her side, then pointed one triumphant finger at Sesshoumaru who was massaging his cheeks and growling.

"HA! I got you to smile!" Akina cried in a victorious loud shout and now a pain in his ears was added to his jaw. Kagome was visibly struggling to hold back laughter and Rin was giggling behind her hand.

"What do you want, miko? Didn't I tell you to stay away from me earlier?" he demanded icily, trying not to breathe and to gain back at least some remnants of his dignity.

"Hm? Why would you want that, Sesshy-kun?" Akina asked, nonplussed until he took a deep breath.

"Ohhh!" Akina exclaimed, "That's why!" she said, realization donned on her. Kagome blushed.

"C'mon, Kagome!" Akina said in a sing-song voice. "We need to get you away from Sesshoumaru…before he poun-ces," she added the last part with a smirk back at Sesshoumaru. He growled at her so Akina stuck out her tongue with a childish 'nyah', put an arm around Kagome's shoulders and led her out of the large room.

"Come, Rin let's get you in bed. Time to get to sleep, dear," Akina called back, half way out of the door.

"Hai, Akina-neesan!" Rin said, running around her foster father's desk to kiss him goodnight on one of his sore cheeks. After, she skipped out of his study, humming a song.

oOo

Once Rin was soundly asleep in her rooms, Akina turned to Kagome.

"You don't know what your mating scent is doing to Sesshy-kun, do you?" Akina asked with a laugh.

"N-no, not really. What is it? I thought he just hated me," Kagome admitted.

"Well, it really shouldn't be affecting him since he's a demon and you're a human, but since he is technically in his teenage years in a demonic lifespan, this is what you would call a fluke of puberty of sorts. Since he's reached an age where he should be fifnding a mate, he is overly sensitive to the mating scents of females." Akina explained while walking the dazed miko to her room. "This kind of thing may or may not happen to a growing demon, but rest assured, if it does, it will be the only time. You won't have to worry about this anytime in the future." She patted Kagome's shoulder, "It'll pass in a day or two and then everything will be perfectly normal again."

"Oh, so that's why he didn't want me near him…" Kagome said pensively, "Good thing, too. I don't think I'd like having Sesshoumaru as a mate!" she laughed a little at the thought.

"Oh well, it's late, I'd better get to…" Kagome yawned deeply in mid-sentence, "…bed. Good night, Akina" she said.

"Check your closet!" Akina called after her, "Sesshoumaru bought you a bunch of clothes!" the demoness informed her, "See you tomorrow!"

"alright," Kagome said warily, and continued her long trek through the castle to her beautiful bedroom.

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A/N: Woooow so…Hi. I'm not dead. :\ Sorry for the major fanfic neglect. It kinda blows my mind I started this in 9th grade and now I'm in college…randomly I got the strong compulsion to read some of my story today and totally forgot I hadn't finished putting it up. I read the reviews and I just feel like an awful person. Especially the huge cliffy left on the last chapter. So! I decided to stop pretending to write my paper in the University library and finish posting this! Major procrastination? Well, maybe. But I feel a lot better doing this than researching Gibson's ecological theory of perception in cognitive development

If anyone's still out there who was reading this, please forgive me!

JA NE!