InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bishies Without Shirts ❯ Putting two and two together ( Chapter 18 )

Chapter 18: Putting two and two together

Sometime around 7:00 in the morning, Higurashi-san rolled out of bed, yawning, and descended the stairs to the kitchen. After the harrowing events of the previous night, she could have benefited from at least three or four more hours of undisturbed sleep, but the agonizing trill of the alarm clock always meant that there were breakfasts to be made and children to be gotten off to school, and today was no different. At least that's what she'd thought, until she reached the kitchen and found that it had already been occupied.

"Ok, check the answers in the back of the book, Sesshoumaru, I'm almost done with this page." Without touching the book, the demon glanced briefly over at the paper that her daughter was furiously scribbling equations onto.

"Hm. Number seven's wrong." he yawned, leaning back in his chair.

"What? How do you know?" She stopped, pencil poised in midair. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes.

"It reeks of wrongness…" he said stupidly, a chuckle actually escaping his lips.

"Sessho-kun, you haven't slept at all, have you?" Higurashi-san said mildly.

"Not really…" he sang, rubbing his eyes.

"I'm amazed you're even functioning…" she sighed, starting another pot of tea.

"I'm not."

"Like hell you're not!" Kagome held up the textbook, an astonished look on her face.

"You were absolutely right!"

"Don't be absurd." he made a sour face. "That problem was so simple any idiot- Inuyasha could have gotten it right."

"I'm any idiot…"

"Yes you are…" he agreed, nodding his head and staring off into space, his eyes becoming two glassy orbs.

"…and I got it wrong." She squinted her eyes at the youkai, leaning in to give him a hard, scrutinizing stare. "How did you know that answer was wrong?"

"My brain is more highly evolved." Somehow he managed to keep a straight face. Kagome rolled her eyes and moaned.

"Spare me! Phhh! I'm never going to pass this test!" Propping her elbows up on the table, she buried her face in her hands and sighed deeply.

"Don't get all…sloppy…" he sighed distastefully. "Wehgome?" He leaned over and shook her after a few minutes when her only response was soft breathing. Her arms collapsed and her dozing head hit the table, hard.

"Aw!" She sat up, rubbing her forehead. "What were we talking about?"

"I don't remember…"

"Forget it then. Mmmm…what smells so good Mama?" Kagome asked as she stretched her arms over her head, exposing her tummy to Sesshoumaru who sighed and turned his head. The tantalizing aroma of food cooking permeated the air, putting Kagome into higher spirits as she hadn't eaten anything the night before, and the prospect of a good meal suddenly seemed infinitely more appealing than her schoolwork.

"Bread, eggs, sausage…" her mother listed as a tiny knock on the back door caught the attention of everyone in the room.

"What's that?" Kagome yawned. Sesshoumaru sniffed, then grumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"It's your mother's cooking." he sighed, "It's attracting vermin…" Higurashi-san opened the back door and was not at all surprised to see Inuyasha standing miserably on the doorstep, a dingy pillow under one arm. Before she could say anything, he bowed low and mumbled "Gomen nasi, Higurashi-sama." The simple apology was quickly followed by a loud growling noise, but this time it was coming from his stomach, and not his throat.

"Alright. Apology accepted." she said softly. "But I want you to understand that we WILL be talking about this later."

"Hai, Higurashi-sama." he said, a bit reluctantly.

"Come in and have some breakfast then, poor boy, you must be starving." She took the pillow from him and was about to run a hand affectionately through his hair, but she drew it back quickly when she felt how stiff it had become during the night. "One more thing, dear." she whispered so as not to embarrass him any further, "After breakfast, I'd like you to take a bath. Which reminds me," she said a little louder so that Sesshoumaru could hear as well, though truthfully he had heard what she had whispered to Inuyasha moments ago as well, and was stifling the urge to chuckle evilly. "Your clothing should be dry by now. It's on the clothesline outside whenever you wish to change." She patted Inuyasha on the back, urging him to take a seat at the table. He walked around Sesshoumaru, giving his brother a wide berth, and dropped into the space between the youkai and Kagome, crossing his legs underneath him. All polite conversation stopped as he sat down to eat, and a thick tension descended upon everyone at the table. The only one who seemed immune to it was Higurashi-san, who just assumed they were all tired.

She placed the food on the table, then left the room.

"Souta! Jii-chan!" she called up the stairs. "Breakfast is ready!" She waited there a moment until she heard the thundering footsteps that announced Souta's approach. Smiling despite her weariness at his endless exuberance, Higurashi-san returned to the kitchen to find that Inuyasha had 'accidentally' knocked over his glass of orange juice, spilling it all over Kagome's study sheets.

"Oops. Sorry about that." he said flatly.

"Oh, that's ok…" she said, straining her words through her gritted teeth like sand through a sieve as she tried to sop the puddle of juice off the study sheets with her napkin.

"Inunii-chan!" Souta cried happily, running into the room and throwing his arms around the hanyou's neck. More shockingly, however, was that Inuyasha cried out "Hey, Souta!" just as happily and bear hugged the little boy. As he held Souta tightly to his chest, he glared angrily over the boy's head at Sesshoumaru. 'See? I belong here!' his eyes said, but unfortunately for Inuyasha, Souta began to squirm away from him after only a few seconds.

"Phew! No offense, Inunii-chan, but you stink!"

"Souta!" Higurashi-san warned.

"And nee-chan," he said, turning to Kagome. "You look awful! Didn't you get any sleep last night?"

"Yeah, Kagome," Inuyasha asked spitefully, "Didn't you get any slee- ow!" he yipped as she kicked him under the table.

"Is something the matter, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked innocently, playing with a strand of her hair. Higurashi-san looked at the hanyou, expectantly. Not wishing to compromise his successful return to the household, he decided that it probably wasn't the best time to announce his suspicions.

"I bit my tongue." he lied, his voice low and angry as he glowered at Kagome. After that, breakfast was pretty uneventful. No one spoke to anyone else, with the exception of Souta who, despite a mouth full of sausage, chattered incessantly about what he wanted for his birthday in three months. At one point, Kagome asked Souta why it was that he was 'so well rested and hadn't he heard all the commotion last night?'

"Who me?" he exclaimed, "If I can sleep through Jii-chan's snoring, I can sleep through anything!"

"Souta!" Jii-chan scolded uncomfortably, "We have guests! I'm sure they don't want to hear-"

"But Jii-chan, they spent the night! How could they not hear?"

"That does it, I'm taking my breakfast to the shrine… Good day everyone!" Jii-chan grabbed up a cup of tea and a sweet loaf and zipped out the door. Seconds later, Souta polished off the last of his eggs and declared, "Well, bye everyone! I'm off to school!", causing Kagome to nearly jump out of her skin and cry out "Oh no! I'm not dressed yet!" and run out of the room like her hair was on fire. "Mama! Can you give me a ride in?" she called over her shoulder as she ran up the stairs to her room.

"Hurry dear, I'll go start the car!" Higurashi-san called back. Rooting through her purse in search of her keys, Higurashi-san looked up at the two young men still sitting at the breakfast table with an apologetic smile. "I'll only be a few minutes dropping her off. You two can occupy yourselves while I'm gone, can't you? Quietly?" she added, with a pointed look in Inuyasha's direction. "I'll guess I'll only work in the afternoon at the shrine today. I'm sure Jii-chan can handle it by himself until Kagome gets home. Ahh, found them!" she exclaimed, holding the keys aloft as she ran out the door. "Behave you two! Jii-chan's not far if you need him!" she called back as the door swung closed behind her. An instant later, Kagome, now dressed in her school uniform, tore down the stairs. As she raced through the kitchen to grab her backpack, Inuyasha caught her by the wrist and pulled her into his lap.

"Kagome, I have to-"

"Not now, baka! I'm late for school!"

"But Kagome,-"

"Let go!" she cried. Wrenching herself free from his grasp, she sprinted out the back door.

When the whirlwind had settled, the two brothers sat at the table, across from one another, listening to the wall clock steadily tick the seconds away. After a minute and a half, the silence had become so deafening and oppressive that Inuyasha couldn't contain himself any longer.

"Oi. Sesshoumaru."

"Nani?"

"Where was Kagome last night?" he asked accusingly.

"Oh yes, that reminds me…" Sesshoumaru said thoughtfully. "Thank you so very much for sending that wench up to my room after your little quarrel. I did so enjoy being kept up until dawn." Not catching the sarcasm in Sesshoumaru's tone, Inuyasha's blood began to boil.

"What?" he snarled in his throat, his eyes burning with animal hatred.

"Don't get angry with me." Sesshoumaru yawned. "You're the one who made her frustrated."

"You did!" Inuyasha growled murderously, his claws digging into the wooden tabletop, leaving four long gouges on either side. "You slept with my woman…" Sesshoumaru raised a bored yet slightly confused eyebrow at the hanyou.

"Didn't you hear me stupid? I said we didn't sleep at all… What are you growling about now?"

"I'm going to kill you," Inuyasha said softly, "and then I'm going to lick your blood off my fingers while I eat your heart...that is if I can even FIND one." Going on twenty four hours with less than two hours of sleep under his belt, Sesshoumaru found himself amused by his little brother's audacity. He even smiled.

"Don't." Inuyasha warned, cracking the knuckles on his right hand. "I'm serious, Sesshoumaru. If you want to live then you'd better start running." Faced with these options, Sesshoumaru began to chuckle. A second later, when it finally occurred to him what he was being accused of, he burst into full-blown laughter.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH! DON'T YOU LAUGH AT THIS!" Inuyasha howled as he felt his heart being squeezed violently. "You said you hated ningen women!"

"Oh, Inuyasha…" Sesshoumaru gasped between peals of laughter. "I do! I just happen to hate you more. By the way, you're right, Oto-chan. She does like to be called by her name…except for when you're bedding her….then she likes to be called something else entirely, but I think you're probably to young to hear about such things."

"You're dead! Say one more word and you're dead!"

"Why unleash your anger at me, Inuyasha?" Seshoumaru said mockingly. "I didn't go after the girl… I merely accepted her when she showed up in my room and threw herself at me. From what I hear, you gave her to me freely. Did you not tell her to go to my bed?"

"You knew…you knew she was mine!" Inuyasha cried, his voice straining under the pressure he felt in his chest.

"You hadn't yet claimed her, brother. She was free for the taking, much like the Tetsusaiga was free when you grabbed it right out from under my nose…"