"So who was that girl?"
Inuyasha looked up from his bowl of ramen, which he had been staring at for the past five minutes in the dimly-lit kitchen of their house. Sesshoumaru had been watching him silently, eating a whole cucumber.
"I... don't know."
"Seriously?"
"I swear I don't know her!" Inuyasha growled, clenching his fists on the table.
"Then what was that reaction for?"
"What reaction?"
Sesshoumaru sunk his teeth into the cucumber and crunched it in his jaws, keeping his cold gaze locked with his brother's angry one.
"Dammit Sess, the first thing I remember at the grocery store is you saying my name! I went from walking around the mall with Kagome to suddenly being in the middle of the fruit section! Now stop being so damn cryptic and tell me what happened!"
Sesshoumaru paused a beat before recalling the event to his brother, who listened raptly.
"I remember the scent," Inuyasha said immediately.
"You've smelled it before?"
"A few times. I'm trying to remember when..." He clutched at his head as if he was in pain, screwing shut his eyes. "I can't..."
"..." Sesshoumaru finished his cucumber and threw the end of it in the trash. "Just eat your ramen and go to bed." He went to the kitchen drawers and started locking them all again.
"Sess?"
The older boy paused.
"Did I... do anything at the mall?"
"...No. Your girl said you'd already seperated from the other two when it happened. Then she called me."
There was a sigh. It wasn't a sad sigh, or a relieved sigh, perhaps a mixture of both.
"I'm sorry."
Sesshoumaru looked over his shoulder at him, a vague question in his eyes. Inuyasha acted like he hadn't said anything and was picking up his chopsticks to eat his dinner, so he left it at that.
He'd changed a lot since Sesshoumaru had first met him, two decades ago. He'd gone from the squealing, crying baby to a silent adolescent, then an even more reserved preteen. After he had started using drugs, he had met Kagome, and had changed abruptly. He had a personality now, when his mind wasn't elsewhere, and a foul mouth to go with it. His high-maintenance aggravated him and it showed on his features. But he was generally good-natured, though always snarky and mouthy when he didn't get his own way, even though he usually bent in the end.
So to have him apologize, even as vague as it was, was unexpected.
He still didn't understand his younger brother, even after two years of living together.
He was starting to wonder... should he attempt to try?