InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bishies Without Shirts ❯ The sounds of silence ( Chapter 21 )

Chapter 21: The sounds of silence

"Baka! I can't believe you nearly missed your stop you fool! Imagine falling asleep like a baby on the subway like that! How embarrassing can you get? Thank goodness I heard the bell before they closed the doors. And it's a good thing too, that it was relatively empty this time of day! I hope Mama won't be mad that I came home so early. Geeze I hope I can make that test up….that's all I needed was Fujikawa-sensei asking me what I meant by 'this answer reeks of wrongness'….gods! Maybe I should come home a week before the next time I have a test and the heck with Inuyasha! I wonder what they've been up to while I was at school this morning. Hopefully they haven't made Mama too crazy!" Kagome thought as she walked up the stairs from the subway and out into the bright late morning sunshine. She also wondered what was up with Inuyasha this morning at breakfast for he was acting really strange. In fact it had reminded her of how he was when he had rescued her from Kouga that first time. "Don't tell me he was jealous of Sesshomaru helping me study this morning? I hope not as I'm sure poor Mama is going to have one big fight on her hands!" she thought as she picked up her pace.

Fortunately the subway stop wasn't too far from her home and she made it home in record time as she practically flew up the long set of stairs leading to the shrine and the area where her house was located. Opening the door she was surprised at the silence that greeted her and she wondered if her mother was lying half dead in a corner somewhere; the result of another battle between the Youkai brothers. Kicking her shoes off as quietly as she could, so as not to draw attention to herself, she tiptoed quietly into the hallway and headed for the living room. Heaving a sigh of relief, she smiled at the sight of her mother napping on the sofa while Inuyasha sat leaning against it, the back of his head inches from her mother's face. He looked so sweet there, sitting in a ray of sunshine while little motes of dust danced in the warm stillness of the room. So she left them there to sleep on in peace while she headed up to her room to do the same. "I can always talk to Mama later about the dance." She thought as she lightly bounded up the stairs, her head filled with images of her nice comfy bed and just how nice it would be to sleep there.

Then it hit her as she paused just outside her room; she couldn't hear Sesshomaru's soft snoring. "Oh crap! Where the hell is he? Just when my lovely bed is calling me he has to go and ruin it for me by turning up missing! Damn him!" she thought as she took the extra steps down the hall to her brother's room. Panic seized her heart as she noticed the door was open and she hoped that he hadn't decided to go do something stupid like wander around trying to find his way back home or something equally as stupid and trouble making. So she was pleasantly surprised to see him lying quietly on the bed, the end of his fur trailing along the floor like something alive, while her cat Buyo was having fun stalking it. Just as Buyo had pounced and 'killed' it for the hundredth time, a voice asked her what she was doing there.

"I errr…I'm home early cause I fell asleep in class. You know thanks to you, I wrote down 'this answer reeks of wrongness' on about half the answers on my test. I think I wrote 'even an idiot like Inuyasha knows the answer to this one' on the others. Then I fell asleep so I decided to come home and take a nap like everyone else. Why aren't you sleeping like everybody else? Don't you believe in sleeping too?" she asked as she knelt down and picked up her cat. She hugged Buyo close as she once again was up and giving Sesshomaru a small wave goodbye; she headed out of the room, stopping as she heard him speak.

Turning to face him, she saw him shake his head. "I can't sleep…I tried to; then my brother came in to remind me of how much I have wronged you….I've been thinking about how I should apologize, like Higarashi-sama suggested…. But I'm sorry, I've just never felt the need to apologize to a woman before, let alone a ningen one…" he looked at her eyes full of uncertainty.

"Well… 'I'm sorry' is a start….wait a minute; just what did you do to 'wrong me'? Anyway I should be apologizing to you for keeping up last night. I know it must have been a real treat hearing me carry on about your brother." She caught the look in his eye as he tried to avoid looking at her. "Wait a minute…..just how did you 'wrong me' again??"

He rolled over and stared at the floor as an uncomfortable silence hung in the air between them. Minutes stretched into an eternity as he pretended she wasn't there and she pretended he was about to tell her something important. So she stood there rooted to the spot and waited while Buyo struggled to escape the confines of her arms. Neither one seemed willing to break the silence especially after Buyo called attention to it as she landed on the floor with a soft thud. Kagome then folded her arms as Sesshomaru flicked his fur and Buyo once again went through the motions of stalking her prey.

"Well Sesshomaru I can wait as long as you can without talking!" She thought as she decided to sit on the floor next to Buyo. "Maybe if I sit here, he'll have no choice of not telling me whatever it was he was going to tell me." So she gave him her best stare; the one she used on Inuyasha, whenever she wanted him to admit he was thinking about Kikyo.

Sesshomaru looked at her and smiled as he laughed to himself. "So she thinks she'd going to get me to talk by staring, hunh? That may work on my stupid brother but it's not going to work on me." He thought as he continued flicking the fur and went back to watching the cat play.

The silence stretched on as if it was a living thing and it slowly filled up the space between them. Both seemed oblivious to it; instead each one concentrated on the silent battle of wills they had going between them. After a while both became aware of the soft ticking of the clock in the room as well as the soft patter of Buyo's feet as she played with the fur. After a while the ticking grew louder as Buyo stopped to groom herself. Sesshomaru watched fascinated as first she licked one paw then she rubbed the paw over the side of her face, then up and over her ear before switching to the other paw and repeating the process. He could sense rather than see Kagome staring at him as he refused to look at her, preferring to watch the cat instead. Minutes ticked on as Buyo started on her hind legs before finally finishing. Then she neatly folded her paws underneath her and closed her eyes and dozed in that special way cats had of dozing. Soon his eyes widened at the sound of her purring; for she was content to share their silence. Kagome meanwhile continued to stare even though her eyes were starting to feel just as heavy as her head, so she shifted around so that she could still stare at him while lying on the floor.

The silence had by now grown to the point of filling the room and both of them were starting to feel sleepy as Buyo purred on, sounding like a huge bumblebee in the quiet of the room. Kagome lay there eyes slowly closing as sleep called to her once more, only to wake with a start as she realized what she was doing. It was then that she would swear that Sesshomaru was watching her just as intently as he watched the cat, and yet there was just a touch of uncertainty for she would never catch him looking directly at him.

Yet Sesshomaru definitely was watching her and he wondered too just what it was about her his brother found so fascinating that he was ready to battle over her. He found she looked pretty much the same as most ningen did to him, male or female and yet there was something different about her. He thought maybe it was her spirit, her fire, the way she would recklessly jump into the middle of battle to save his stupid brother. "Is it possible she loves him?" he wondered and he nearly shattered the silence as he realized it was quite possible his brother loved her as well. So to cover up it up he threw a pillow at her. He gave her a wicked grin too as she frowned at him, but she accepted it in the spirit in she hoped it was given and tucked it under her head.

She gave him a silent 'thanks' and continued her staring. Soon her lids stayed closed longer and longer as sleep over took her and claimed her as its own. Sesshomaru too found it hard to stay awake as he watched the hypnotic twitch of Buyo's tail. They slept that way for an hour or so much like the others in the house slept, a blanket of silence wrapped around each as they slumbered on.

Like all good things that must come to an end, each one eventually woke up. Higarashi-san woke up to the sight of a snow white head crowned in sunlight; Inuyasha to the warm gentleness of a mother sleeping nearby. Upstairs Sesshomaru was awake before Kagome and he broke the silence with a whispered, "I'm sorry." Kagome woke to in time to accept it as the household went through the motions of trying to shake off the last remnants of sleep. Higarashi-san went to make a cup of tea and noticed her daughter's backpack and shoes where she left by the front door. She called out her find to Inuyasha, who decided to creep upstairs in hopes of watching her sleep. He made his way quietly up the stairs and was surprised to find her room empty; that's when he hear the soft murmurings through the wall that divided her room from her brother's. He made his way softly and silently as if stalking some prey, the few short steps that separated the doors. That's when he saw and heard it all.

"Thanks for sleeping with me, Wehgome. You know it was one of the most pleasant I've had in your house and I thank you. I never realized how quiet you can be when you want to." He gave her a half smile as he held out his hand to her and pulled when she took it, gently pulling her to her feet.

"Sesshomaru really! Do you know what trouble we'd be in if Inuyasha heard you talking like that?"

"Oh I'd have to say Kagome was right about this one, Onii-chan…. You both are in quiet a lot of trouble from where I'm standing….." came a voice from the doorway.