The journey to the former slayer village that afternoon was uneventful, something that both Inuyasha and Kagome were thankful for. Once they had collected the scattered arrows from the mucky remains of the demon, Kagome had knelt down for Inuyasha to hop on her back again, and they resumed their journey. She dared to test her balance with wider strides, eventually sprinting short distances. Inuyasha held on with his unbandaged hand, assuring her that she was doing fine.

Kagome was skeptical. She wasn't sure if she was ever going to be used to the height difference, and having to account for him on her back was making her more anxious. She didn't want to risk dropping him when she ran, since he was already dealing with a sore hand. So she'd sprint, and then she'd hear him tell her to go faster. The problem was, it was her voice saying it, and being in his body with its autonomous reactions to her voice was making it sound too suggestive. Kagome knew that wasn't what Inuyasha meant, of course. 'I swear Inuyasha's body is one big hormone that's stuck on vibrate,' she thought wearily. 'Don't wiggle down there!'

"Why did you always insist on bringing that iron cart back when we first started traveling together?" Inuyasha asked, breaking Kagome from her thoughts. "You complained about how it hurt your butt a few times –"

She nearly tripped over her feet. Kagome gripped the backs of Inuyasha's thighs a little tighter as she corrected herself and shifted back to a brisk pace instead of running. If he wanted to talk, he needed to not throw curveballs like that at her when she was running! "It…it wasn't my butt that was getting sore…"

Inuyasha went silent, and she thought that was it. Then she heard an "Oh" followed by, "You mean that can hurt?!"

"W-what do you mean 'that can hurt'?! Inuyasha, you do know where babies come out, right…?" 'Please don't make me explain that one or we'll both be traumatized…'

"Of course I know!" He sputtered indignantly. Inuyasha's tone turned soft moments later. "I guess I never thought about it being in pain any other time...? I didn't really have any girls I could ask things like that to growing up, even if it were appropriate. Do you really think I could ask Sango or the old woman these kinds of things, Kagome?"

"You ask me."

"Yeah well, you're you. You come from a time where it's easier to talk about this stuff, where it's not labeled as something to hide away from like it's a big secret. You know the answers to these things I ask, Kagome. I don't know that the others would, or if they could explain it to where I'd understand it, you know?"

"Inuyasha…" Kagome came to a complete stop on the dirt road, too stunned by his words to keep walking. That was something she'd never considered before, and she felt ashamed at the reminder. 'Of course he wouldn't have had anyone. Inuyasha always talked about being alone until I released him. And he wouldn't have opened up to anyone else if I hadn't been around.' It felt conceited to think in those terms, but it was the truth. She hadn't intended to become a bridge between Inuyasha and people they would come to consider friends, but simply being herself had made it happen. She couldn't agree with his view of the modern era; there were too many that would abhor the thought of such topics. And she likely didn't explain things the proper way, but she spoke from experience.

"It's why I'm glad that if I had to switch bodies with anyone, it was you," he added. "You get me." Inuyasha didn't need technical terms. He needed practical explanations, and he'd just told her that in his own way.

Kagome felt her chest tighten, and she was sure her pulse picked up, but she chose to ignore the feeling of being complimented. She hoisted Inuyasha up a little higher on her back and started walking again. "You get me, too," she replied with a smile.

She could feel him wiggling against her back. "I guess in more ways than one, huh?" The way his breath tickled her ear nearly made her drop him with the full body shudder.

"Are you trying to be funny or do you really want me to drop you?!" Kagome shrieked, tightening her hold. 'Or are you trying to get me excited?!' She'd felt a familiar tingle of delight zip through her body that she'd experienced in her own body, so it wasn't hard to figure out what did it.

"I wasn't trying to be nothing!"

"You know what you did!"

Inuyasha laughed at her. "And now you know what happens when the ears get touched like that, Ka-go-me."

She might have laughed if she hadn't thought about every time she'd touched his ears in the years they've been together. 'Oh my god I may as well have stuck my hand in his pants!'

Kagome was mortified.

It was late in the afternoon when they reached the village. Luckily for Kagome's sanity, conversations after the ear tickling incident were kept in safer waters. Inuyasha hadn't prodded for more information about how or why parts of her body might ache. He did bring up some comments about the variety of panty colors she carried in with her clothes, wondering what other patterns she had back in her time. It had been an innocent question that could have gone terribly wrong, but he'd said it with such curiosity that it'd made her smile. 'It's like he's figured out that there's some things that aren't so bad about modern clothes.'

Kagome stopped just inside the gates of the village and let Inuyasha slide off her back. "What do we do about...?"

"They're gonna figure out something's wrong," he shrugged, holding up the bandaged hand. "You don't hurt yourself nearly as much, especially if I'm around."

"Well we can't just go up to them and blurt out that you're wearing my panties, can we?! I bet Miroku would lose his mind –"

"I think we need to find them first before we worry about what we're gonna say." Inuyasha stepped ahead of her, looking around the open area. It had been some time since they'd buried the villagers, and nature had reclaimed the overturned soil, creating a tranquil memorial of a once-thriving community.

But as Kagome followed Inuyasha's gaze, it was a little too quiet for their peace of mind. She gripped the sword's hilt out of reflex as she followed him, trying to put her half-demon senses to use. "Do you think that something happened?" The too-recent memory of the demon they'd fought together had her conjuring up worst-case scenarios. Miroku no longer had his wind tunnel, and Sango was pregnant…

The reflex to yell out their names beat out her common sense as Kagome tore across the open space. Inuyasha ran after her, yelling for her to stop yelling in case there actually was a demon nearby. All that did was make Kagome yell even more, justifying that if she yelled loud enough and it was about to harm their friends, then it would draw the demon to her. By the time she'd stopped running ahead, Inuyasha had caught up to her, and they continued to yell at each other about whether it was a good idea or not to yell in the first place. They couldn't risk getting rushed by another demon. Their friends couldn't afford to get caught unawares by a demon either. It wouldn't do any good to their friends if they were dead.

In the course of screaming at each other, neither Inuyasha or Kagome noticed that they had in fact drawn the attention of an audience. The jingling of metal rings against a rod was enough noise to alert them to the new presence. Miroku and Sango were standing a short distance away, loaded up with their belongings.

"What is the matter?" Miroku asked. "We had barely made it out of the village when we heard the screaming. Has something happened?"

Inuyasha and Kagome looked at each other, feeling foolish for their actions, but also at a loss of where to begin with an explanation. They both spoke simultaneously, "You have no idea."

Instead of leaving the village like they'd originally intended, Miroku and Sango unpacked their things for the night. Since they were all back together, they could simply start their return to Kaede's village in the morning. And then they'd been given the story about what all had transpired since they split off.

Not everything, of course. Neither Kagome nor Inuyasha felt that their personal interactions needed to be talked about. It was bad enough trying to explain how they wound up in their current situation. They weren't even certain about what triggered the body swap.

"You said this Akuma had tainted the jewel?" Miroku asked. "Could that have placed this spell on you both when you tried to purify it?"

"It's possible. Inuyasha was holding the jewel for me, and he noticed that something was off, but I was sure I could handle it…"

Inuyasha scoffed. "You used so much of your spiritual energy that you were nearly at empty!"

"We couldn't have left it as it was until I was back to normal!" Kagome growled at him. "There's no telling what that jewel in its state would have done to you!"

"It couldn't be any worse than having to wear those wired boob traps –"

"It's called a bra, and you weren't complaining when you were twirling around in my skirt yesterday!"

Inuyasha gasped, and Miroku nearly choked on a laugh as he heard "How dare you –!"

Sango rapped her knuckles against the floor to break up the argument that was getting ready to explode. "So we're all understanding this," she kept her tone even as she looked around at everyone, "Inuyasha and Kagome went back to the monastery to find the jewel shard we've been tracking. A dragon demon named Akuma had eaten the jewel, and this somehow made it tainted. Akuma was destroyed and the piece of jewel was retrieved, but when Kagome went to purify it, something happened that knocked you both unconscious. When you both woke up, you found out you were in the other's body. Is that right?"

Both Inuyasha and Kagome nodded.

The slayer looked pleased with herself for keeping the story straight. "This makes me being pregnant not seem like a shock at all, doesn't it?"

"I was shocked!" Miroku looked wounded.

"You should be the last one to be shocked," Inuyasha pointed out. "You've been sniffing around Sango for years and when you two finally –"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome hissed.

"What? I was gonna say 'got together'! Damn, Kagome…get off my back already."

"I'm pretty sure you'd be on her back right now," Miroku joked. Then his thoughts must have really been going places because his expression changed to a sense of curiosity that Kagome hoped Inuyasha never got. "Although… Kagome might be willing to try either way…"

SMACK.

Sango quickly apologized for her husband's remarks as he nursed the new lump forming on the back of his head. Then she turned her scolding onto him. "Just because our friends are going through something right now doesn't give you the excuse to be such a pervert!"

"I wasn't trying…"

"You make it come easy," Sango countered.

A snort came from a place none of them expected. Inuyasha wasn't even trying to hide that he was the one that made the noise. "Oh come on! You can't expect me to not laugh at that!"

"I'm more horrified that my body snorted," Kagome mumbled. She was used to Inuyasha not having a filter, but it was like he was making himself at home in her body. 'Oh god that didn't sound any better than what Sango had said!'

"Is that what happened to your hand, Kago…er…Inuyasha?" Miroku asked, pointing at the bandage. It was clear that identifying them was going to take some getting used to. "When you purified the piece of the jewel?"

"Ah…not exactly."

Kagome saw the telltale flush of embarrassment rise up in Inuyasha's cheeks. "On our way here we came across a demon that we couldn't get away from," she explained. "Inuyasha used my bow and managed to pull up my spiritual power, but it backfired and he got hurt. He did make some good hits to the demon even without it!"

"That's so you could finish it off," he told her, looking at her with pride. "Kagome here got Tetsusaiga to transform and cleaved it in two pieces!"

Miroku and Sango were looking between them with increasing interest. "It wasn't anything –"

"It was fucking amazing!" Inuyasha continued. "We didn't know if either of us could use the other's abilities and it wouldn't have been an issue if things were normal but this fucker wasn't gonna give us a chance to run…"

Inuyasha continued to talk about the things they had done since leaving the monastery, so Kagome let him go. 'He looks so happy,' she thought, watching him recount the battle with the demon and how it compared to Akuma. 'I know he won't talk about "us" or anything private that happened.' She found herself reclining on her side, scooting down until she could rest her head on her arm comfortably next to Inuyasha. 'It's weird…I didn't realize how comforting my scent was to him…'

After three days on a long road with no sign of civilization in either direction, Sango found herself feeling anxious to talk to Kagome alone. In the past when they wanted to speak without men's ears hovering, they would go take a bath. But therein lay a problem – Kagome wasn't exactly Kagome right now.

Her female friend and confidante was sporting a penis.

It was obvious that they would need to stop and make camp for the evening, but more than that, Sango wanted to take off with Kagome for a bit. Everyone was recognizing the signs, but no one knew how to address it. Once they finally got their campsite secured, Sango took the plunge and asked.

"I want to go take a bath with Kagome." To make it even stranger, Sango was addressing Inuyasha in Kagome's body.

"So…go?" He didn't know why she was asking in the first place.

"Kagome's in your body, Inuyasha."

"And?"

Miroku was quick to intervene. "My wife wants to take a bath with Kagome but she's in your – an unwed man's, I should add – body." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked truly bothered by the situation. "I don't know how to feel about another man bathing with you, Sango. Even if it's Kagome speaking to you –"

"Then if you want my body to bathe with Sango, you're gonna have to take Inuyasha." Kagome wasn't thrilled about taking a bath later with Miroku, but if he was going to act this way…

"And have a man still bathe with my wife?!"

"What the hell are we supposed to do, then?!" Inuyasha groaned. "It's not like I've ever gone around groping women –"

"Oh you have so, Inuyasha! You were groping me all over when we stopped to bathe that first time!" Kagome knew she'd fucked up the moment she'd started to speak, but the words wouldn't stop falling out. Inuyasha looked at her in horror. Miroku still appeared to be processing this new bit of gossip, but Sango was the one that looked intrigued.

"Wait, wait, wait…" The slayer walked up and looped an arm through hers, linking them at the elbows as she started to lead Kagome to the water. Behind them, she could hear the rustling of their stuff being collected and hidden. "I need you to tell me all about this…"

Kagome wasn't sure she'd ever experienced a more awkward bath in her life, and that included the time when she was still a kid and Souta was barely a year old. Him farting in the bath water with a surprise that followed had now been replaced by her current situation.

All four of them were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, naked in the water.

Miroku sat on one end, followed by Sango, Inuyasha, and Kagome at the other end. The monk made a point of staring Inuyasha in the eye each time any of them moved. What made it stranger was that he'd half-glare at the half-demon in her body, as if Inuyasha wasn't currently sporting a pair of breasts himself. If Inuyasha had to scratch his nose, Miroku would be suspicious. Kagome had finally had enough and slapped the water hard. "You do know that Inuyasha has breasts! He's not going to be staring at Sango's!"

Inuyasha chose that moment to sink further in the water, hiding all evidence of said breasts.

Sango sighed. "Miroku, you need to relax –"

"Relax?! Sango, how am I supposed to relax?! You're sitting next to an unmarried man in a woman's body! How are you not beating him unconscious with a rock?!"

"Kagome isn't married either and you're in the same water, so you can't use that argument," she pointed out. "I'm not worried about Inuyasha seeing me naked because I trust him. And I also know that he's been too preoccupied with Kagome's body to care about any other woman's!"

"That's not helping, Sango!" Kagome let out a squeak. Neither did it help when Inuyasha leaned into her and whispered that the slayer wasn't wrong. Kagome knew Sango wasn't wrong; she'd seen it happen right in front of her, but Inuyasha admitting it only made it worse. The visuals that went with his statement weren't appropriate. She really didn't need to deal with her penis rising to attention at that moment!

"I'm sorry!" Her friend grimaced. "I mean you said it yourself earlier –"

"I know…" Kagome covered her face with her hands and groaned.

Things went silent after that. Miroku did better to restrain himself from glaring at Inuyasha whenever anyone moved. Inuyasha eventually sat up straighter again; he'd already been covered to his shoulders, but when he sunk down, his head was barely above the water. Kagome had to be careful where she put her hands so she wouldn't grab Inuyasha by the thigh – or herself for that matter. Sango looked put out because it was clear that any chance of girl talk wasn't happening. She'd tried to ask Kagome about what she might know about pregnancies, but on reflex she kept looking at Inuyasha first. In the end, it would be easier to speak with Kaede. She wouldn't have the modern knowledge, but she'd delivered many children in the village over the years, so she'd have some insight about what to expect.

Finally she had to ask, "So what's it like having a penis?", not caring that she made the two men in the water uncomfortable.

"It's really weird," Kagome replied, which sounded so strange with Inuyasha's gruff voice. "It's kind of like breasts, I suppose? There's a weight to it all down there, and they sway back and forth when you walk. Did you know it floats a little bit in the water?"

"Wait, really?"

Miroku reached out and grabbed Sango's arm before she could move from her spot. "We agreed to not move once we got in here, unless we were all getting out. And how come you never asked me these things? I'm your husband, Sango!"

"But Kagome's my best friend! We share all kinds of things with each other. This isn't any different –"

"Alright then, by that logic, Inuyasha!" Miroku leaned around Sango. "What's it like being a woman?"

"You're shorter, and you have what feels like two bags of rice hanging from your chest. End of story."

Kagome covered her mouth so she wouldn't laugh. It was clear that Inuyasha wasn't going to deep dive into any of his discoveries with Miroku, despite the monk pleading for more information under the pursuit of educating himself to be a better husband. Inuyasha told him he could ask Sango if he wanted to know all the gritty details.

"You come from a time where it's easier to talk about this stuff, where it's not labeled as something to hide away from like it's a big secret. You know the answers to these things I ask, Kagome. I don't know that the others would, or if they could explain it to where I'd understand it, you know?"

She leaned back against the rocks behind them, remembering what he'd told her earlier that day. 'He wasn't joking,' she thought. 'Maybe he feels like the things he learns from me are only meant for his ears? Is that why he doesn't want to tell Miroku? Or is he embarrassed that he had to ask me at all?' Kagome decided to tune out the growing argument between Inuyasha and Miroku. If he didn't want to speak about anything he'd learned since they switched bodies, it was his choice. She wasn't going to make him spill the beans about anything he wasn't comfortable talking about. Being his confidante in this matter was a high honor that she wasn't about to ruin.