InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Beast ❯ Giving/Receiving Explanation ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. That sucks. Ah, well. Life goes on.

A/N: Gotta love having no obligations...by the time I finish and upload this chapter (`bout 3 a.m. now...), it may be time for church, but that's about it. XD I very possibly may be out of town Monday and Tuesday, and I'll be driving, so no staying up all night like usual tomorrow night, i.e. no updates for (dun dun dun) a couple of days. Unless I write one tomorrow during the day because I've gotten so used to spoiling you guys with quick updates...hmmm...nahhh, I'll be asleep. ;D We'll see.

Beast

Chapter 7

Kagome finished her breakfast tea and rapped the piece of paper on the floor with her pen. "Can you think of anything else, Shippou-chan?"

The fox shook his little head, and Kagome re-read it for the 3,298th time:

Stuff to ask today:

The priestess's name

Her relationship to Inuyasha (and vice versa!)

How she died

That time Inuyasha lost control?

Why Inuyasha got cursed

What happens if the curse isn't broken

What happened when Sango and Kohaku attacked Inuyasha

That thing Naraku had (was it important?)

The whole deal about Naraku (who was he, and so on)

Where's Inuyasha's brother?

And what about his parents?

That was all she could think of after last night and a long, careful discussion this morning. Now it was just a matter of sending Shippou to get the monk, and...done!

Humming all the while, Kagome waited for Sango to clean up and then set up the laptop in the middle of the floor, where they could all see it and Sango could pitch in if need be. She booted it up and went through the process of dealing with the fact that she hadn't shut it down properly, thanking whoever was listening that Dad had been naïve once again and bought a slightly used model at a higher price, even for one with a foreign-language keyboard. There was nothing to set up: no wastage of the few precious hours the battery afforded them.

"Good morning, Kagome-sama, Sango-sama," Miroku said behind her, bowing and obediently settling down in her place as she jumped up. Shippou bounded in and curled up on the bed, as per their arrangement last night: if he stayed quiet and didn't interfere while the adults typed (he couldn't read yet anyway), he could have as many suckers as he liked, and they could play outside all the rest of the day.

"Good morning, Miroku-sama," Kagome said politely, nearly jamming the hiragana-letter key into his hand. "Now, let's get started, shall we?"

"All right, but I imagine I know what some of your questions will be." He set the paper on his lap and cleared his throat. Kagome and Sango both looked at him curiously. "I ask only that you do not repeat...certain names. If you discover any names through what I communicate here, please do not say them aloud. I will explain later, but for now, please trust me."

"O...kay," Kagome said slowly. "I'll just refer to new people by who or what they are. Can we start now?"

"I also warn you that I do not know everything. Some key facts are only known to Inuyasha. Also..." Miroku's expression became even more serious. "I know more than most here in the castle, but there are certain things I will not tell you, that it would be wrong for you to hear from anyone but Inuyasha. It may anger you, and perhaps rightfully so, but I stand firm, and ask you not to pressure Sango-sama or anyone else for those answers."

Kagome looked appealingly at Sango, but the slayer was regarding the monk with respectful surprise, and only said, "I agree."

"Aw, you guys suck." Kagome sighed. "Well, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I guess you are doing me a favor...so I promise I won't keep asking stuff you refuse to answer. Can we pleeeeease start now?"

"As you wish." Miroku awkwardly set his staff across his lap and leaned over the keyboard. "The weather is quite pleasant today, as you may have noticed, so please don't injure me at any time. I'd like to go out and enjoy it later."

Kagome nodded impatiently and consulted her list. "Okay, first up. I know I really, really look like a woman who was a priestess here and died. Is that right?"

Both monk and slayer went rigid, but Miroku slowly pecked out "Yes."

"Okay, just checking. So...what was her name?"

"My knowledge of kanji is lacking," Miroku said casually, letting out a breath when the curse apparently let it slide as a neutral statement. Kagome nodded, though the kanji for the woman's name wasn't that important to her anyway: she didn't use one for her own first name, after all. He then turned his attention to the keyboard. "Remember our agreement..."

"Kikyou."

Kagome reflexively shivered a little. Weird. It's not a bad name or anything... "I see. She was the priestess. How long was she here? Did they know each other all their lives?"

"Long story...she was here slightly longer than a year. She was sworn to Inuyasha's mother's service and helped to defend the castle."

"What was she like, as a person?"

Sango grunted something, making a face. Miroku only smiled and shrugged as he typed. "A powerful priestess. Cold and regal, but kind and serene when she chose. A woman we respected greatly, but avoided when possible. Lonely, I think."

"And what was the priestess's relationship to Inuyasha?"

The air seemed to grow heavy, as if whatever force the curse used to monitor the servants' speech was getting irritated by the questions. But Miroku kept his mouth shut and was freely able to answer on the laptop, though it took several minutes. "At first, adversarial. Then formal respect. Then, slowly, love. She hid it, but I saw and overheard things."

"Wow. What about Inuyasha? Was it the same for both of them?"

"I think he loved her first, yes, strongly."

"So they were in love...did they ever tell each other?" That was unnecessary, but her curiosity was in control now.

"I don't know. They were never a couple. The relationship ended" His hands paused, and they watched the cursor blink patiently. "very badly."

"Really? Why?"

Miroku cast her a long, reproachful look, and spoke aloud. "I would not tell you even if I knew. Ask Inuyasha."

"Awwww, damn." Kagome growled, then nodded reluctantly. "Fine, I'll keep my promise. Moving on..." She skipped down the list. "Sango once said Inuyasha lost control. What happened?" Her eyes widened. "He didn't kill her, did he?!"

Miroku sighed, and Sango closed her eyes in a grimace as he began to peck words out again. "I don't believe so. They had a long fight that last day, unusual for them. No one dared get close enough to listen, and the fight was quiet." Despite her tension, Kagome smiled briefly: her own frequent fights with Inuyasha tended to be audible to the whole castle. "She stormed out alone and he refused to follow for many hours. He sneaked out after dark and didn't come back."

There was a long, long pause. Kagome said nothing, shrinking a little in apprehension as she looked up and saw the expressions on both her companions' faces at the memory. Sango swallowed and placed a hand on the monk's shoulder; he squeezed it back, smiling at her gratefully and eliciting a dark flush, but it was still a few seconds before he could begin framing a suitable reply. "Exactly what happened, none save Inuyasha knows. You must ask him. We went out to look next morning, and found Inuyasha clutching her bloody corpse."

Kagome went cold inside and out. Despite the near-pleasant room temperature, the warmest it'd been since she arrived, goosebumps rose all over her body, and she rubbed her arms and folded legs hard. "But you said he didn't-"

"I say I don't believe so. His f" The monk stopped, then tapped Backspace as she'd taught him to delete the last few characters. "He was as you see him now, and he refused to leave her till Sango-sama thought to get his mother out to speak to him."

"His mother?" she repeated. "Where was his dad? And his stupid older brother?"

"Touga-sama, his father, died when Inuyasha was eleven." Kagome clenched her knees so hard that her nails dug right through the fabric and pricked her skin painfully, but neither of the other two noticed. "His half-brother Sesshoumaru-sama had left two years before." "This is safe, I imagine," Miroku said, flexing his hands and turning to address Kagome. "Sesshoumaru- sama objected to living here with his father's human wife still in a position of such power and left, vowing to return some day and reclaim his father's house once she was dead. But we heard he took a mate and set up a residence in the south, so we were never very worried."

"I see...wait, his mom was human?" That was another obvious point she just hadn't thought about. "So Inuyasha's half dog demon, and half human?" Both Sango and Miroku nodded. "Wow. I never thought of that. Silly me."

Kagome mulled it over as she checked her list again: they needed to get going before the computer's battery ran out. These things never went very long without recharging, in her experience, even the nice ones, and Miroku's typing naturally took forever, though he was quite good, all things considered. He'd almost memorized half the key yesterday under Sango's threats.

"Okay, whatever happened with him that ended up with her dead and him getting cursed..." Kagome shuddered despite herself. "I'm assuming they're linked. But wh-" She shook her head. "Sorry. I'll probably just get some of these answered if you tell me the rest of the story. His mom came out and got him, and then what?"

"Iyazoi-sama tried to persuade him to come away or tell her what happened, but he was not rational." Kagome could imagine, and did just that, wincing. "He stayed there till she pointed out that Kikyou-sama must be properly laid to rest, and ordered him to come away. Inuyasha would have murdered anyone else, but he obeyed and ran off into the forest."

"Did he ever tell anyone what happened?" Kagome asked, breathless at the thought of anyone brave enough to speak to Inuyasha like that right then, even his mother.

"The next day, he slipped back in at midnight and asked me to help him sneak a bath. I did, and he said nothing except to thank me."

"Sounds like him," Kagome murmured. "What did everyone say?"

"To this day, most of the servants - almost all - believe he lost his temper and murdered her." Sango touched her on the shoulder, and when Kagome looked over at her, Sango shook her head fiercely. Kagome smiled and nodded sadly: Sango definitely didn't believe it, either. "We are amongst the few, maybe the only ones, who don't think so. Most of the human servants have always thought him an abomination because of his birth, and Kikyou-sama just confirmed it for them. They respect you and pity you, because they hope you break the curse, but pity you for having to stay so near him lest you end up the same."

"If he didn't hurt me the other night, he never will," Kagome said firmly. "There must've been some kind of misunderstanding. I asked him what K-the priestess did to him, and he looked so sad..." The thought that it might be guilt over what he'd done to the other woman came to her, and she vetoed it. Violent jerk or not, Inuyasha definitely had more control than that, especially considering he'd been in love with the priestess.

Kagome was too deep in thought to notice her friends watching her, and exchanging speculative looks. "So," she said finally, consulting her paper and wondering why their heads snapped back to the laptop screen with such alacrity. "What happens if the curse isn't broken?"

"The cruelest fate of all: Inuyasha loses control of himself. His demon blood takes over and forces him to kill all of us, while his human mind remains alert. Then he must kill himself, and the castle fades into nothingness."

"Holy fuck, that's evil!" Kagome yelped. No wonder she wasn't supposed to know!

"Kagome-chan!" Sango gasped, and Miroku had to cough violently to hide a broad smile.

"Well, it is! I can't believe that! Okay, answer me: who was it that thought of that?!"

Miroku didn't look at her, and instead typed, "Rephrase the question."

What the...? "Okay, fine. I'll make it very simple. Who cursed you?"

Sango frowned at Miroku, whose face became impassive as he rapidly tapped out "Naraku."

"Houshi-sama!" Sango protested for some reason.

"What? It's true. Kagome-sama can always ask Inuyasha for the story behind it, though," he said, low and so emphatic that Sango's eyes widened, and she nodded, leaving Kagome completely befuddled.

Weirdos. "Okay, that reminds me. I was gonna ask about him anyway. He seemed like a real bastard." Wait... "But I thought he was dead?"

Miroku turned back to the keys. "Yes, Kikyou-sama and Inuyasha defeated him together. The complete story: Kikyou-sama came here because she had wounded a demon called Naraku and taken a powerful jewel from him, which he had stolen from Sango-sama's village."

"That was what you were after, Sango-chan?" The other woman nodded, and the pieces rapidly fell into place. "So Kikyou took it from him and brought it here for protection, and someone told you that Inuyasha had stolen it instead?"

Sango leaned over and typed herself for the first time. "Yes, someone posed as a trader who frequented the village. We later learned the man had been dead for months."

Miroku gently nudged her hands away so he could respond. "Probably one of Naraku's men. He had plenty of ill-gotten gold. So Sango-sama and Kohaku- kun attacked Inuyasha. He showed them mercy, defeated them with no injury and had Kikyou-sama explain herself. Their father heard and bade them stay to repay the debt of honor.

"Soon Naraku attacked, and though Sango-sama and myself fought well, he was too powerful. It was Kikyou-sama's purifying arrows that weakened him enough for Inuyasha to land the final blow."

"Cool," Kagome remarked, wishing she could've seen that. "But if he was dead when the curse struck, how'd he do it? And how did everyone find out? Did Naraku's ghost pop up and say, `Boo, you're all cursed till Inuyasha finds a chick who likes him'?"

Even Shippou, listening idly from the bed, smiled at that one. "Hardly. I think the curse works because of the Shikon Jewel."

"The jewel Naraku stole?" Kagome frowned. "Didn't they return it to the village?"

Miroku flexed his hands and grimaced, and Sango firmly turned the laptop towards herself. "Let me have a turn, houshi-sama." Almost as quick as Miroku, she typed, "Father said the jewel was tainted from Naraku's possession and needed Kikyou to purify it." Kagome rather approved of Sango's decision to leave the honorifics out: they took a few extra seconds each, and the battery light was getting dimmer. "So the jewel was left here. Kikyou prayed over it every day, and under her care, Naraku's evil was cleansed from it. But its presence attracted demons who wished for its power, and we were attacked daily."

"Wow, that sucks." Kagome glanced around uneasily. "So where is this thing now?"

"We don't know." Kagome started, and Sango shook her head. "No, we know it isn't in the castle anymore, or demons would flock to us. It was discovered missing a day after Kikyou's death. Inuyasha denied knowing where it was and suggested it may have been on her body. Iyazoi-sama ordered her burned right away and her ashes scattered under the tree, which is now a holy place."

"Tree?!" Flashes of Souta's favorite climbing tree came back to her, and she dimly recalled that first strange day and what had happened when she'd touched it. Hell, no wonder...but how did I know and not Souta? Weird... She shook her head as they looked askance at her. "When did you all find out about the curse? And how? From some kind of ghost?"

"You could say that. Five days after the funeral fire died out, Inuyasha woke from a nightmare and ordered everyone in the castle into the first courtyard. I was in bed with a bad cold, though."

Miroku repositioned the laptop towards himself and took the narrative back up. "As we all stood out there, a voice came from nowhere-almost from all directions. Not loud, but commanding. It said we were all to suffer for our lord's mistakes, and spelled out how we were to sleep for the next 250 years, then awake and remain bound to the castle till Inuyasha found a woman who would accept him as he was. We were given three chances total, and we later discovered that Inuyasha had been given private instructions that night, likely including his powers over the castle's environment, his requirement to propose every night once a woman agreed to stay in the castle, and the length of time he'd be permitted to try to win her over. We only just discovered yesterday that once all the servants awoke, the time allotted was three m"

DEEEET DEEEET DEEEET from the laptop made them all jump, and Kagome reacted in a flash, snatching the laptop up, saving the file on the desktop and shutting it down. "There," she sighed, setting it down and closing it. "It was starting to die. We only have maybe a few more minutes left of typing."

"That was very useful to you, though, Kagome-chan," Sango remarked, smiling at her.

"Yes, it was, and I owe both of you so much." Kagome hugged Sango quickly, eyed Miroku and gave him a pat on the shoulder. He pouted. "Don't worry, I won't tell Inuyasha about this."

"About what, precisely?" The half-breed himself jerked open the shoji and glared at them. "Something's been bugging me all morning. Don't tell me you've been nosing around again, wench!"

"Perish the thought," she said airily, shoving awe, pity, and curiosity at the story she'd just read deep down. "We were just discussing what to eat for lunch."

"Lunch was over an hour ago." He folded his arms and tapped each elbow with his claws. "And you, bouzu! You said you'd make up for yesterday. How does staying in here all day qualify, eh?"

Miroku sighed. "Quite right, Inuyasha. Time slipped away. I do apologize."

"It was my fault," Kagome volunteered, discreetly swiping both the key and her questions, folding them with one hand behind her back and sticking them just inside her waistband. If he sees these...!

"What are you doing?" The movement hadn't escaped Inuyasha's notice.

"Just scratching," she said innocently, standing up and plopping down on the bed with her back facing Shippou. Kagome deliberately turned her head as if to flip her hair around, winking at the kit before doing so. He caught on and eased the papers out and under her pillow as Kagome stretched to hide him.

"Whatever. You're all idiots." Inuyasha jerked his head at Miroku, and the monk bowed to the women before following the lord out.

After they grabbed a late lunch, which Sango admitted under Kagome's questioning did produce lots of grumbling at her in the kitchens, they went back outside. Shippou was initially disappointed with how mushy and watery the snow had become, but soon regained his cheer after Kagome remembered a Western game she'd played as a child and figured out how to use it to their advantage.

Once they'd cleared all the snow away from the ground in a rough, five-yard circle, Kagome taught them how to play Marco Polo: whoever was It had his or her eyes bound with one of Kagome's scarves, and tried to locate and tag one of the other two by calling "Marco" and listening to the resultant "Polo." No one could step onto the snow, which the It player could feel easily. Both slayer and kitsune were skeptical at how simple and slightly ridiculous it sounded, but agreed to try so long as Kagome was It first.

Naturally, it was almost dark before they finally tired of the game, and Sango had to agree with Kagome that the servants who'd dawdled to watch them play must surely think both of them were beyond insane. But as Shippou pointed out, they were having fun, and it didn't matter what any mean, smelly old people thought, did it? They heartily agreed and headed inside to bathe, and maybe get in a few minutes on the computer, Kagome hoped.

"Oi, wench." Kagome stopped just inside and turned towards his voice. Inuyasha had his arms folded again, leaning against a polished wooden column and looking sulky.

"What do you want?" she asked, refusing to put Shippou down despite his glare at the kit, who stuck his little tongue out and clutched her shirt tighter.

"Don't you have anything better to do than spoil the runt?" Inuyasha lowered his silvery head and scowled. Shippou gulped and hopped onto her shoulder, peering at him from behind her hair.

"No, I don't," she snapped, patting Shippou reassuringly. "Quit bullying him, `cause it looks like you have nothing better to do, either."

"Keh. Shows how much you know, wench." He pushed off the column and sauntered towards his room. "C'mon, we're eating now. I wanna get to sleep early."

"Now?!" Kagome opened her mouth, shut it and gave Sango an incredulous look. The slayer raised her hands helplessly and shrugged. "At least let me change!"

Inuyasha just kept walking, though she knew he'd heard her.

"You...jerk! Fine! See how you like sitting across from me when I'm all sweaty!"

"Can't be any worse than usual," he called back noncommittally. "Now move your ass. I'm hungry."

Vowing revenge, Kagome paused long enough to put Shippou down and let Sango escort her, moving very slowly, of course, to dinner.

"Saw you making an ass of yourself again today," he said almost congenially, as soon as she sat down.

Couldn't even wait till we started eating, she sighed to herself. Very poor form, pulling out the big guns right off the bat.

"Did you, now?" she said pleasantly, watching him twitch as she refused to rise to his bait.

"Of course I did. The whole damn castle knew you were wandering around like a moron, yelling weird foreign words." Inuyasha tried to sound smug, but the effect was ruined when he reached for his sake and took a massive gulp.

"It was a game. And I thought you were hungry?" Kagome took the chance to snag a piece of fish from his untouched plate.

"Hey! That's mine!" He deftly snatched the piece from between her chopsticks as she raised it to her open mouth, and she squeaked at the near contact.

"Too fast for you." Inuyasha chewed and swallowed with obvious enjoyment, smirking at her. "Teach you to ever steal from me again."

Kagome grinned. "Oh, yeah?" She made a feint for his fish, then suddenly darted a scoop of rice and got it only halfway to her mouth before he lifted it away and popped it into his mouth without spilling a single grain.

"See? Too slow." Inuyasha smirked broader.

"I need to bring my sisters up here," Kagome commented, returning to her own food with a grin. "I'd like to see you handle both of them swiping food at once."

"Wha, those craven b..." He stopped himself at her warning expression. "No way I'd ever let them come up here. `Sides, I can't with the curse up. No one comes in or out without me expending a shitload of energy, and they're not worth it."

"You're no fun." She watched one of his claws come up to nick a tiny bit of fish from between his fangs and frowned as the thought of him using those to rip Sango, Shippou and Miroku to shreds before turning them on himself. That Naraku must've been a monster. Nothing less could have come up with something like that.

"What? It's not that gross," he snapped, and she shook herself.

"Maybe not, but your manners still suck," Kagome said primly, taking a sip of tea.

"And the way you talk is weird and stupid. What's your point?" Inuyasha eyed her as she ignored him and removed her sweater: the castle had been getting steadily warmer.

"My point was that your manners suck," she replied, pinching her old blue Aloha T-shirt and flapping it to cool herself off.

"And you stink."

"And whose fault is it that we had to eat right now instead of letting me take thirty seconds to change?"

"Not my fault you were out there stinking yourself up even worse than usual and spoiling the brat instead of staying inside like a normal woman."

"That reminds me..." Kagome ignored the gender slur and started on her rice. "Shippou-chan said you killed the ones who killed his parents. What happened?"

Inuyasha snorted. "What do you care?"

"I just do." She shrugged and willed herself not to squeal as his ears started flicking slightly again.

For a second, Kagome thought he was going to brush her off; he gave her a long, suspicious stare, then apparently decided she wasn't mocking him and also shrugged. "It wasn't a big deal. I was out near the mountains and saw a couple of assholes running after a kid. They were called the Thunder Brothers. Never liked `em, but I never had anything against `em till they started trying to zap a kid on my land. Fuckers left his parents' bodies right there, too, so it wasn't hard to figure out what happened." He made a broad swipe with one hand to his side. "So I offed `em and the kid followed me home. Sucks to be him, right?"

"He was lucky you were there," Kagome said in some awe. "He would've been killed otherwise."

"Keh! Damn straight he was lucky." Inuyasha turned his head and took a long sip to hide his pink-tinged cheeks. Kagome decided generously not to call him on it: her revenge could wait a bit longer, and she rather liked the way things were going now.

"I wonder how old he is," she mused. "Do demons age the same as humans?"

"W-they do till they hit 20 or so. Then they age at least a hundred or so times slower. Think it's designed to get them old enough to defend themselves before long life really kicks in."

"That makes sense." Kagome twirled her rice in the bowl reflectively. "That means some could be living in this time and just hiding or something."

"Well, yeah." Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "C'mon, wench, don't tell me your weakling race could've eliminated them all just like that."

"Our weapons are a little stronger than you're used to," she pointed out. "Plus, there are about six billion of us all around the world."

"Billion?" His eyebrows drew together. "How much is that?"

"Do you know how much a million is?"

"Of course I do, wench. We used to make almost that much before the damn forests claimed all our lands." That was a gross exaggeration, but she didn't need to know that.

"And you know a thousand, then...so take a million, and then make one thousand sets of them together. That's a billion." She set her rice bowl down and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. "Multiply that by six, and that's how many humans are living all around the world right now."

Inuyasha rapidly calculated, red eyes going huge. "That's not possible! You'd have to screw like fleas to get that many people in just 500 years!"

"I resent that," a tiny voice muttered, and Kagome shrieked and reflexively slapped her right shoulder.

"I was wondering when you'd show up, y'old freak," Inuyasha muttered, reaching out to pluck a tiny, flattened something wafting gently down from the air near her shoulder.

"What the...?" She leaned over to examine his proffered palm. "What's that?"

"Myouga, the most annoying flea demon in existence." Inuyasha squinted closer as the flea popped himself back out to roundness. "What do you want?"

Myouga seemed very old; his tiny round head was bald save for a few locks of grey over his pointed ears, and his tiny yellow kimono and grey hakama had evidently been designed with his multiple sets of limbs in mind, as he crossed them and sat down with a huff. "This was most undignified of you, Inuyasha-sama. Imagine, insulting me in front of your future wife! Why, of all the-"

"She ain't gonna marry me!" Inuyasha flicked his middle finger down and pinned the flea to his palm.

"I'm afraid he's right," Kagome told the squashed demon. "Every night he asks, and every night I say no, and every night I'm gonna say no."

"But Kagome-sama, think of the rest of us!" Myouga wheezed, struggling vainly against the almost nonexistent pressure Inuyasha was exerting on him. "You wouldn't leave us to-" He was promptly reduced to a paper-thin caricature once more; Inuyasha stood up, walked to the nearest railing over the open second floor, and dusted his hands off.

"Well, that was nice of you," Kagome said sarcastically as he flopped back down. "He had a right to be mad at me. I mean, I'd be mad at me if I was a servant or something and I found out no one was going to break the curse."

Inuyasha began growling, turning a deadly look her way. "Tell me no one actually told you anything."

"Okay. No one actually told me anything." Kagome drained her tea. "You know, you're not scary."

"Oh?" Successfully distracted from her careless response, Inuyasha gave her a grin designed to show his fangs off to advantage. "Is that so?"

Kagome studied him for a moment, flapping her shirt again idly, and shook her head. "Nope. Don't scare me at all."

He had to wonder if she knew he could smell fear: her actions were broadcasting her scent towards him, and sure enough, he smelled her, sweat, and not much else. Damn cocky wench. "So I guess you were just trying to fake me out when you reeked of fear the other night?"

"Well, you did kinda have me pinned there and your fist through the wall," she said logically. "I'd have to be an idiot not to be scared when any guy does that."

"I did not have you pinned!" he retorted, unconsciously switching sides. "Not like I was holding you down or anything."

"No, but I sure as hell wasn't going anywhere." Kagome rubbed her neck. "I can still feel where you were breathing on me, y'know."

Shame was not something Inuyasha was used to, but he did feel a tiny prick of it before ruthlessly shoving it away. "Oh, shut up. It couldn't have been that bad. I'm not gonna do it again."

Not without permission, anyway. Kagome mentally slapped herself. Where had that come from?! "Good to hear. And I'll stay out of your room."

Inuyasha's mind came dangerously close to echoing hers (though of course neither suspected as much), and he covered it by snorting and gulping his sake down. "Six billion of you, you said?"

"Yep. About 125 million just in Japan." She smirked as his eyes bulged.

"Th-that's impossible! You people are like bugs!" Inuyasha shook his sake cup for any remaining drops. "Are you sure you don't mean thousands?"

"Nope. Millions. No room for any demons."

"I'll bet. Good gods..." He shook his head. "I'm surprised no one ignored the spells on this place and tried to move in. Space must be crappy beyond belief."

"We live in buildings stacked up over a hundred rooms high, yep." Kagome couldn't hide her smile any more at his expression. "And no one's allowed to build on this land, by the way. It's because there aren't enough squirrels."

"The hell do you mean, squirrels?" he demanded, and it took the better part of ten minutes to explain. Somehow her family's fall from wealth because of them came into the picture, and to Kagome's surprise, he listened for almost 20 minutes straight, expressing disbelief or snorting from time to time but otherwise paying attention.

"You're almost as cursed as we are," he said with awe. "And you didn't even do anything. Just like the servants, or the runt."

Kagome felt her face heat up. Almost sensitive...must be the sake talking again. "Except I never kicked my dad when he was down because of it," she declared, clicking her chopsticks' tips together absently. "The servants are almost all jerks about it. I mean, sure, they didn't do anything, but it's not like you wanted to get stuck with them, either, right?"

Inuyasha snorted scornfully in another attitude about-face. "That's right, wench, pretend like you understand. Remember your own lecture?" He stood up.

"Well, don't I? C'mon." Kagome crossed her eyes playfully at him. "Not knowing what your life is like doesn't mean I can't understand you in some ways."

"And now you're contradicting yourself. Time for bed." Inuyasha folded his hands inside his sleeves, annoyed by her smile. "What're you so happy about?"

"I'm happy `cause I figured something out," Kagome replied. "And I'm not telling you what, either." Time for revenge, starting............now!

"Feh. Petty and childish. Nice combination." He scowled at her, growling as she giggled. "Stop that!"

Kagome immediately stopped and frowned as hard as she could. "Better?"

"Now you just look stupid!"

"Good! We match!" She grinned and started flipping her chopsticks around deftly, spinning them over and around the backs of her fingers. Inuyasha was impressed despite himself. "So, Inuyasha, got anything to ask me?"

"Yeah, moron, and you know it." He grunted and steeled himself as usual. "Would you m-"

"Marry Gackt? Me?! Ohhh, you're kidding!" She squealed and clapped her hands.

"What the hell?" Inuyasha gaped at her. "Did one of the cooks slip something into your tea or something, or has your brain finally stopped completely?"

"I was just testing your knowledge of contemporary Japanese rock." Kagome sighed theatrically. "You're really no fun. You're supposed to want to marry me, and yet you only spend an hour tops with me every night and don't even bother to find out who Gackt is. No wonder I don't get the impression you're interested."

"If I'm not interested, it's because you're the weirdest, dumbest wench I've ever met!"

Kagome sighed again, for real this time. "Okay, I'll quit the fangirl act. Seriously, though, do you even want to break the curse?"

"Maybe not if it would have to be you!" he snarled, and she finally began to get annoyed.

"Look, I admit I've been kind of a pain..." Kagome nobly ignored his emphatic nod and overrode his response. "But can you blame me? You haven't made any effort yourself to make me feel welcome! You're lucky you have Sango-chan, Shippou-chan and Miroku-sama around to talk to me, or I'd have run away my second day here! How d'you even remotely expect me to ever agree to marry you if I never see you except to eat rice and argue and answer the same damn question for a few minutes every night?"

"Hey, it's not like I enjoy having to ask all the time any more than you do!" he snapped.

"That's fine, and your point is taken. But what about the fact that you only see me once, maybe twice a day for an hour at the most? We're never gonna get to know each other like this!"

"Good! I don't want to spend any more time with you than necessary!" he snarled, and Kagome gritted her teeth.

"Do you know what I just figured out a minute ago?" she asked patiently.

"That you seem to enjoy making my life hell?" he asked in identical tones, mocking her.

"That you're one big walking defense mechanism! The more something affects you, the less you want to care about it! You have to have been hitting the sake to even remotely come close to expressing any emotion that you can't snort, spit or bite along to! I know men have problems with that, but you're just pathetic!"

Inuyasha was almost speechless with rage, a rare sight indeed. "Pathetic?! Because I don't like spending time with a brainless shrew who pretends to know every stinkin' corner of my brain and then turns around and insults me next second?!"

"Maybe I insult you because it's the only way of getting through to you!" Kagome had to work very hard to keep her voice down, and was grateful when Inuyasha followed her example, albeit with utmost fury.

"The only way, eh?! What are you trying to imply now, that I'm stupid and the only things I understand are `You're a stupid pig'?" He mimicked her voice, badly, on purpose, then sank back to his knees, realizing that glaring at her from above was not intimidating her as it usually did servants. Actually, just as she said, almost nothing seemed to work that way. It annoyed him to no end.

"That's what you'd love everyone to think!" she snapped. "If I try saying something nice, you `feh' me and turn your back in case you might be tempted to say something nice back! All you have to do to keep us from fighting is at least attempt to be polite for once! And don't tell me to try being polite, `cause I have been sometimes, dammit!" As he opened his mouth, Kagome cut him off. "And if you tell me to just keep my mouth shut and solve both our problems, so help me-!"

"Would you stop putting words in my mouth, bitch?" Inuyasha snarled.

"Deny them! Go ahead! You're a crappy liar!" They glared at each other, but Inuyasha couldn't deny it. How the hell does this stupid bitch know how to piss me off so much?!

"Look..." Kagome spoke very calmly, and his ears twitched violently as she almost read his mind. "I don't mean to piss you off so much. If I am, I apologize, but if what I'm saying does piss you off, you gotta wonder if it's because I'm wrong, or if I'm cutting a little too close!"

Pride screaming at him, Inuyasha growled, glared at her some more, and suddenly gave up. "And what if you're right, bitch? What if your little bullshit philosophy is pissing me off `cause I don't want to hear it? And why the hell do you bother, anyway? You're not gonna marry me, right?" She jerked a nod at him. "See? Then what's your damn point in doing this? Do you get off on seeing me get upset?!"

"No! I hate seeing you upset! And I hate how it gets me upset!" Kagome's control was wearing thin, and she fought her voice back down to Medium Raised. "If I have to spend time with someone as emotionally screwed up as you, and I have any chance at helping you, why the hell wouldn't I take it? I'll be doing both of us a favor!"

"So you just wanna chance to play around and fix the broken dog-freak, is that it?!"

Kagome slammed her hands on the little table and leaned in so close that he jerked back and could still feel her breath on his nose. "Would you quit saying that! That's exactly what I've been talking about! You're so busy keeping yourself in your little emotional cell and telling yourself it'll never be safe outside that you refuse to do anything but snarl when someone knocks! Not everyone who knocks wants to open the door, laugh at you and run away, Inuyasha!"

His ears swiveled at the imploring note she ended his name on. He leaned away, more uncomfortable now with her words than her face three inches away. "More of your bullshit philosoph-"

"And I invite you to look me in the eye and deny it, any time! If I'm wrong, tell me! You don't seem like the kind of guy to lie to protect anyone's feelings, and especially not mine!"

"So now I have no feelings, is that it?!"

"You have too much feeling for you to deal with! So you shove it aside! And it's painful to watch a potentially nice person willfully throw away any chance he might have at making friends and being happy just because he's too scared!"

"Shut up!" The force of his howl sent her hair flying around her head, but she refused to do more than flinch slightly. "Just where do you get off telling me all this, huh? You have no clue what I've been through because I let my fucking emotions tell me what to do! None! I'm never going through that shit again, d'you understand, you stupid bitch?!"

"You're right. I don't have any clue what you went through." Just being told that he'd fallen in love, never made it public and ended up cradling his dead lover's mangled body was nothing compared to the sight and sound of his raw pain. Kagome fought to keep tears out of her eyes: he'd only think she was trying to manipulate him. "And I'm not asking you to go through that again. I never would. All I want is to be your friend. That's all."

"Friend?" He drew slightly closer, so that their foreheads were almost touching. "What the hell do you want to be my friend for, you conniving witch?"

"I'm not conniving, and you're too scared to admit that you know it." She raised her voice to cut him off again. "You do! I'm not trying to turn you into a pansy so I can laugh at you later or make you get hurt again! There's a safe middle ground, Inuyasha, and it's not hard to get to! I swear! All I want is to be able to talk to you like we were earlier without you turning around later and saying you only listened to shut me up or something like that, which by the way makes no sense!"

"It does too! You ramble, you think I listen, it makes you happy and it keeps you from getting bitchy!" he raged back at her.

Kagome stared at him, and he waited for the next explosion. But she lowered her head so that after a few moments, he was looking at the top of her head, and couldn't stop himself from inhaling deeply, noting somewhere in the back of his mind that the scent - her skin, mingled with that hair stuff - was so calming that he barely managed a growl as she began to giggle, finally erupting into laughter and almost pounding the table. "What is it now?"

"You couldn't have proved me more right if you'd tried," she said weakly, raising her head and wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "You see? You're not at all stupid, just a little dense. I just...want...to..."

Now that they were both calmer, they each noticed for the first time that they were in mutual bad-breath distance, but bad breath was not the first thing that came to mind. Kagome was only a second behind him in putting about the entire room's permissible distance between them.

"Right," Inuyasha mumbled, turning his back to hide the fact that his whole face felt the same color as his eyes now, never mind his cheeks. "Uh...question..."

"Right." Kagome was certain she had to be the biggest moron in the world. What was she thinking, getting right in his face? He had to think she was some kind of skank, now, too! She was never going to get through to him!

"Uh..." Inuyasha was having genuine trouble trying to remember what he was supposed to ask. It didn't have anything to do with how red he was...or how she smelled...so what the hell...?! ...Ohhh, yeah!

"Uh...will you marry me?" The question's usual accompanying embarrassment was nothing compared to what he was going through now. He even felt proud of himself for remembering.

Kagome very nearly tossed off a "Sure, why not?!" just to get herself out of here and caught herself as her mouth was forming the first sound. "NO! No, no, no, that's okay, I'd rather not marry you," she babbled, and Inuyasha dashed from the room with a swift "'Kay, g'night!"

All Sango had to say for the incident was, "He had you against the wall before, and neither of you seemed to mind that much. Why was this so bad?"

"Because we weren't trying to kill each other!" Kagome wailed, stuffing her face in her pillow. "Aaaaaaargh!"

"Or was it because you were actually thinking this time?" Sango suggested, hiding a broad smile behind the TV box. "Or is that the same thing?"

"Sangooo-ooo! You have no idea! There I was, talking to him about his feelings, and I think I was getting through, I really was! And then I ruin it by getting close enough to...aaargh!"

Sango sighed and blew the last torch out. This conversation could go nowhere but in drawn-out, angsty circles. "Good night, Kagome-chan."

Shippou also elected to ignore Kagome, and it was only out of consideration for the kit that Kagome kept her agonized muttering internalized, wondering if Inuyasha was even a shred as embarrassed as she was right now.

Kagome would have been gratified to know that Inuyasha was probably even more embarrassed, and not just from their face-to-face moment. Can't believe I said that about my emotions, he fumed for the hundredth time, tossing in his futon. Just watch, tomorrow she's gonna toss all that friendship shit and laugh at me! And I won't be able to say a damn thing! And I can't get that damn smell out of my nose! It's worse than when she grabbed my ears!

This merely set his ears twitching again, an action he was used to, but which now seemed to be mocking him. That does it, I'm never talking to her again. No more arguing, no more having her dig around under my skin, no more...more...aaaaarrrgh!

A/N: Ta-da! Damn, that was fun to write for some reason. :D You would've gotten this half an hour later, but I got called down to breakfast right in the middle. An e-cookie to anyone who can guess at which point.

XD And sure enough, I have exactly an hour before church starts. Gotta love being nocturnal-I'm usually asleep and don't get to enjoy Dad's Sunday breakfasts, which along with not paying bills and buying my own food is one of the benefits of living at home. (The fact that I - GASP - actually like my family has something to do with it, too.) But I need to get cleaned up now...y'all have fun. Later! ;D

(P.S. I took so long rereading that I wound up going to church before I could upload...:') Ah, well, you still get the chapter today, and to make up for the tiny imagined slight, I'll try to get the next one posted tonight or tomorrow morning. How's that for service, eh?)