InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bottled Genius ❯ Midnight Disturbances ( Chapter 12 )

Notes: Wow… a lot of people didn't know what the mile high club is. I'm shocked! Well… only a little, but don't worry, that'll be explained later for those poor ignorant people.

And just a little question: Did Rumiko Takahashi change the main pairing in Inuyasha or something? Because I am seeing a lot of Sess/Kag fics around. And I mean a lot a lot. I log onto mediaminer and there's always at least three romances with a Sess/Kag pairing on the top page, and I can't find Inu/Kag anywhere. I must have missed the chapters of the series where Kagome and Inuyasha's brother spoke to each other for more than thirty seconds (I've yet to see them really notice each other). I'm not dissing or anything - in fact I was actually thinking about varying in future fics with other pairings centred on Miroku/Sango and perhaps Kouga/Kag or Sess/Kag… but after seeing so many I can't be bothered anymore.

Where'd all the Inu/Kag writer's go…?

Bottled Genius

Chapter 12

Midnight Disturbances

"And what are you doing on my bed?"

Inuyasha blinked open his eyes and slanted a glance towards the bedroom door. Kagome stood in the doorway complete with sunglasses, sun hat, bikini and sarong. Under one arm she carried at least three bags of shopping - while her other hand was employed in pushing up her sunglasses to eye him suspiciously. "What?" he said defensively.

"You know, maybe we should have wished for a proper road or something - we had to walk all the way to the shops on the other side of the island - my feet are killing me!" Kagome dumped her bags beside the doorway and padded over to the bed. "I have shopped and shopped and I am tired and exhausted - while you laze around the house like a bum!"

She plopped down onto the bed beside him and they both grinned as the whole mattress beneath them swayed and dipped. They lay there like two happily wallowing hippos. Kagome took her hat off and fanned her face. "I really could get used to this…"

"I already am used to this…" Inuyasha sighed, equally contended, wiggling a bit on the bed to make it sway even more. Kagome giggled and joined in.

Mrs Higurashi paused outside her daughter's door as she passed with a bag of her own shopping. They were both giggling again and she was just curious enough to know what it was.

"Inuyasha - if you keep doing that I'll fall off the bed!"

"Can't have that now, can we?"

The sound of bouncing bed springs increased and Mrs Higurashi rolled her eyes as she wandered off again. She entered the large living area where Souta was sitting on the sofa, wrapped up in a large towel (having just been taking a dip in the pool outside) and watching a program about food on the large cinema-like screen on the wall. He looked up when she came in. "So where's Kagome gone?"

"Playing with the water bed again. With Inuyasha." Mrs Higurashi set down her shopping beside the kitchen counter - the kitchen being in the same room as the living room had baffled her at first. "Where's Grandpa?"

"Sunbathing again." Souta replied, returning his gaze to the Tv.

"Make sure he keeps turning over - knowing him he'll fall asleep and get sunburn." Mrs Higurashi informed him as she trotted off to go change.

That's where she met a problem.

^_^

"How much more joy can you two possibly get from doing this?" Inuyasha grumbled as he squinted up at the cloudless sky.

"You'd be surprised." Kagome said as she dumped another bucket of sand over his arm. "And stop twitching your fingers - you're making the sand fall off!"

"Stop twitching your toes too!" Souta chirped in, dumping his own bucket of sand over Inuyasha's feet and patting it down in an effort to completely bury the Hanyou Wishbringer.

"I'm getting sand in my hair." Inuyasha went on complaining.

"You're enjoying it really." Kagome told him as she shovelled more sand over him - it wasn't in short supply seeing as they were in the middle of a beach full of the stuff. Eventually she dusted off her hands and reached into a bowl beside her. "Open wide."

Inuyasha opened his mouth and she popped a grape in, patting his head teasingly as he chewed happily.

"If people came back as animals in the next life - what do you think you would be?" Souta directed a question at Kagome.

"Mm…" she looked into space thoughtfully. "I'd definitely come back as a tiger."

The two boys slanted odd looks at her. Inuyasha rolled his head towards her. "Implying what?"

"Well… top of the food chain. Can't beat that can you?" she patted down the sand on his stomach. "Nice glossy fur… graceful as a feline… better than being some dumb caterpillar I suppose."

"I'd be a Gorilla." Souta said assuredly. "Big, hairy and with a forehead that could keep the rain off my feet."

"And the difference from how you look now?" Kagome quipped and laughed when he flicked sand at her.

"What would I be?" Inuyasha wondered aloud.

"Vulture." Both Souta and Kagome said in unison and blinked innocently at him when he looked at them rather indignantly.

"Well that's not nice…"

"Hey Souta, I think you might be getting a little sunburnt there." Kagome pointed out, eyeing his shoulders.

"Oh yeah…" he noted this as well. "Back in a minute."

The younger sibling hopped to his feet and began trotting off up the beach towards the villa to get more sun cream. Kagome watched him for a moment before looking back at Inuyasha - whose hand had snuck out while her head was turned, heading for the bowl of grapes by her knee. She slapped it away playfully and moved the bowl out of reach. "Are you always that sneaky?" she asked rhetorically.

Inuyasha suddenly stiffened and stared at her. Her smile slid slightly as she saw his reproachful look and sat back slightly. "What?" she asked quietly.

Without a word, he stood, shook the sand out of his clothes and hair and started back towards the villa on the slope. Kagome gaped after him in shock. What on earth had brought around that reaction…?

"Something I said…?" she wondered softly to herself.

^_^

Of all the things she could have said… of all the ways she could have said it. Of all the smiles she could have used to say it! She'd chosen to speak exactly the same way as Kikyo had…

Inuyasha ran two hands over his face as he finally dropped down from the roof of the villa and moved past the veranda and the pool and flopped down on the grassy verge over looking the beach where the sand met the rocky earth above.

Sometimes it was like that… sometimes Kagome would tilt her head a certain way or move a certain way… only tiny subtle things that caught his attention. One time all she'd done was stand out of her chair from her desk and turn as she did so, a tired look creeping over her face… just that simple motion had reminded him so strongly of how Kikyo used to move. Their similarity was spooky in their appearance… and granted, Kikyo held herself a lot different than Kagome did… but when she'd looked down at him with that teasing smile and said those stupid words… he just hadn't been able to ignore it… and he hadn't been able to hide his reaction either.

Now Inuyasha wasn't one to go off and cry like a little boy when he was reminded of painful things… and he wasn't one to explode and shout at Kagome for provoking the memories, it wasn't her fault. So instead he just took himself off to brood quietly… and sulk like a pregnant hamster.

Behind him he could hear the family sitting down to dinner inside the living area of the villa. The clatter of cutlery and plates moving around was just background noise.

"Isn't Inuyasha joining us?" he heard Mrs Higurashi ask her daughter.

Kagome mumbled a response he didn't catch (thanks to double glazing glass doors he hadn't quite mastered yet). But really he didn't care… he was too lost within his own thoughts that he stopped registering their voices and stopped seeing the beach, even though he continued to stare at it blankly.

It had been that one time… to him it only seemed a few months ago… but it must have been fifty years at least to the rest of the world. He hadn't been getting on Kikyo's good side… after having brought her to that ratty old house, taking away her singing voice and wasting one useless wish on the ability to play the piano. It didn't surprise him. He'd never really gotten along with many of his masters. He came, he conquered, he messed up wishes, then he went back to sleep until the next bumbling moron stumbled across him.

But at this particular time, his master had been making him uncomfortable. He knew she should have hated him. Should have been shouting and throwing a wobbly over his incompetence. Most people did. But Kikyo have been different.

Of course, at first she'd been mad at him, but rather quickly she'd settled down and not bothered him. She didn't make anymore wishes, but she didn't seem to hate him. Every time she saw him, at least once a day, she used to watch him with those deep, intelligent but sad eyes. Pity was one thing he couldn't stand… and he knew that she was looking at him with complete pity and that had infuriated him.

So then he'd avoided her.

One evening - when the plumbing had been at its worst and Mr Kikyo's Father was being too lazy to fix it or even call someone to fix it, and when Inuyasha's stomach had also been getting the better of him - he'd gone down to the kitchen to grab something to eat. He was forced to wade through a horrible slick layer of water on the kitchen floor on his way to the cupboard where they kept the food rations…

So when Kikyo had tapped his shoulder, startling the living daylights out of him, he'd slipped on the slick floor and fallen flat on his back. Apparently it had been quite funny, well, to Kikyo at least. He remembered he'd scowled angrily as she'd knelt down beside him with one of her very rare, but beautiful smiles. She'd looked at him teasingly and tilted her head.

"Are you always that sneaky?" she'd asked rhetorically.

Inuyasha's shoulders slumped sadly as he attempted to push thoughts of Kikyo away. That had been the night when her smile had faded and she'd given him that look again. Then he'd realised at last that it wasn't pity. It was understanding.

She'd understood his loneliness, sadness and his pent-up anger perfectly. Because she felt exactly the same way.

Two people who couldn't be more opposite had somehow found something so deeply in common that it had shaken them both a little. There had been no more arguments after that. They rarely talked. More often than not he found he could sit quietly in her company and feel contented.

An attachment was linking him to her… and not soon after he'd found himself dreading her next wishes. He'd prayed that she never made another one… or else he'd have to leave her. He'd get a new master who was oblivious like the rest and he would lose the one person in the world who had understood him… accepted him…

She'd wished to find love…

Onigumo had stepped into the picture, and Inuyasha was very acutely aware that if he didn't back off of Kikyo, it was not going to end prettily for himself. Yes, even at that time he'd been a selfish ass. He still was. He'd known that to get attached would only bring about more pain in the end, so he'd tried to sever their bond. Only it hadn't really worked.

With Onigumo pressing in on Kikyo, demanding her attention, pursuing her like the filthy little pervert he was… she'd been upset. She'd wanted Inuyasha to help. He vividly remembered the morning she'd come to him and said that she'd only wished to find Inuyasha's love… so they could share it.

But he'd turned his back on her, afraid of the pain he would receive. He hadn't been ready.

And… he'd killed her.

His ears perked up to the sound of the screen door sliding open behind him. Kagome's soft footsteps on the veranda approached and he could smell the alcohol and fruit of the pudding she was carrying out with her. He didn't bother looking up as she came to a stop directly beside him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her bare legs.

After a moment she crouched and set a bowl down between them. "I thought you might be hungry." She said awkwardly. It was obvious that she was still upset about his earlier reaction to her… he didn't care.

When she got no reply she tried again. "It's fruit salad… it's nice… it's got bananas and strawberries and kiwi fruit… though I wouldn't touch those things with a barge pole." She told him quietly, no humour lilting her voice, though he could hear her nervous smile in her voice.

"No thanks. I'm not hungry." A bit of a lie, but he really didn't feel like humouring her. God… he really was still a total ass wasn't he?

She seemed to be hesitating to leave. The winds changed direction and he caught the subtle aroma of the girl beside him. No way in hell did he know what she smelt of, all he knew was that she smelt soft and nice. Different from Kikyo. Somehow that gave him the strength and resolve to turn and look her in the eye without flinching. "Why don't you just order me to tell you what's on my mind. I'd have no choice but to tell you then."

Her expression had been open and curious until his last few words… her eyebrows drew downwards and she scowled. "You always have a choice." She said curtly, before standing up in a huff and marching back to the house, leaving the bowl on the ground beside him.

Inuyasha waited till he heard the screen door click shut… or more like slam shut angrily, before picking up the bowl and chucking the contents away with a sweep of his arm. The fruit scattered in the sand below and he scowled at the mess before tossing the bowl behind him. It was plastic, so it bounced happily and rolled to a stop a safe distance away.

He didn't understand his anger towards Kagome. It was in no way her fault… she didn't understand.

It slowly dawned on him and he felt miserable all over again as he flopped sideways and lay sprawled horizontally, picking absently at the itchy bandage covering his burns.

That was just it, wasn't it? After seeing Kagome look down at him with that teasing smile and spoken the words that Kikyo had spoken… he'd realised that if things continued then history would repeat itself. But why? Why would he share a bond with Kagome? She didn't understand him the way Kikyo had done? She didn't know what it was like to suffer unbearable loneliness and regret and sadness…

She wasn't Kikyo. She was just another random master that would pass by. He forced a mental laugh. In a few years he'd be looking back and straining to remember her name, right? She didn't matter…

She didn't understand… but it was best that it just stayed that way…

^_^

Kagome tossed in her bed, trying to escape the unbearable heat and itchy sheets. Normally she'd be counting the ceiling tiles by now, but she could see anything beyond the mosquito net that surrounded her bed.

She was hot, sweaty and oh so very thirsty. She swiped a hand across her brow, pushing back the annoying bangs of hair that clung to her face. Who needed hair… maybe she'd try going bald - at least it wouldn't itch her face and neck so much. She blew out a deep sigh as she pulled at her thin pyjama top, trying to escape some of the heat.

She'd long since kicked the covers off of her body, and not so long ago she had peeled back the sheets that had covered the mattress… the cool water inside said mattress was a welcome relief, but it did little to help her discomfort.

So in the end she had untangled her bare legs from the rumpled blankets and ducked out of the mosquito net to go find something cold to drink… or dump over her head. As she padded quietly out of her room towards the kitchen, she plucked a hair toggle from a chest of drawers and used it to tie her hair back, keeping it out of her face.

She clanged around the kitchen as quietly as possible (despite her temptation she slam drawers and smash glasses just for the sake of creating a racket - just to enjoy her sense of hearing again). She found a tray ice cubes and dumped half of them in her glass of water… the rest she held against her neck until she couldn't take the cold anymore.

Kagome downed the water with three gulps and sighed happily as she wiped her mouth, setting the glass down quietly on the kitchen counter.

Back to bed then.

She turned and was about to head back the way she'd come… only, she just spotted Inuyasha stretched out on the living room sofa, sound asleep. She stopped dead and barely allowed herself to breathe in fear of stirring him.

Was he really asleep? She'd never really known him to catch forty winks… in truth she'd never really thought about. She assumed he always went back into his bottle if he wasn't needed… did Wishbringers really sleep like normal people.

"Inuyasha?" she called ever so softly.

His breathing remained even and steady, deep and quiet… the foot that hung off the sofa twitched every now and then as he dreamed.

Kagome quietly made her way forward, approaching him cautiously. She knew he was upset at her for some reason or another… if she woke him would he still be mad?

"Don't…"

Kagome froze in her tracks, scared he'd woken and seen her coming. But he only shifting in his sleep and rolled his head towards the back of the sofa. "Please don't…" he muttered thickly.

He made some snuffling noises and then began to snore very gently. Kagome waited until she was sure he was sleeping soundly again before inching forward some more until her knees bumped the edge of the sofa near his shoulder. Looking at him this closely… yes… he was asleep wasn't he?

Somehow he didn't look that angelic. She'd been told plenty of times that hard nuts like Inuyasha often slept with baby faces… Nope… Inuyasha slept with a normal face. His brow crinkled as he came across something in a dream… his lips moved slightly as if muttering something silently…

She couldn't resist. He may not have been angelic, but he sure looked more docile and defenceless than he usually did. Kagome knelt down beside the sofa and reached out to trace a feather like touch along the edge of his jaw with a finger. He didn't seem to notice. He kept on scowling at whatever it was he was dreaming about. So perhaps she grew a little bolder as she leaned in closer and ran the same finger up to his ear and traced its outline.

This time she got a reaction. The ear twitched ever so slightly. And then he'd grabbed her hand and yanked it away almost violently.

Kagome nearly yelped in pain and surprise, afraid that she'd just pissed him off even more than before. But when she locked gazes with him, she realised something was not quite right. He was looking at her… but it was like he was looking right through her without seeing the girl kneeling there.

Her mouth worked, trying to fish out some decent kind of apology before he twisted her arm off.

But before she managed to come up with something, she saw him quickly sit up, sliding into a position direction before her, perched on the edge of the seat. She blinked in surprise, wondering what he was about to do, when he suddenly jerked her forward and caught her in a tight, tight embrace.

She was too stunned to even move.

Inuyasha's hands smoothed down her sticky back and over her ponytail at the back of her head. He clenched his arms, crushing her closer, while Kagome found her face pressed right up against the juncture of his neck and shoulder, shoulders hunched in rigid shock.

"Um… Inuyasha…?" she mumbled against his white shirt.

"I'm so sorry…" he whispered into her hair. "How can you ever forgive me?"

Ah! He was apologising for his earlier behaviour. About damn time too. She swallowed past the nervous lump in her throat and tried to calm her erratic heart beat. "It's ok, no harm done." She piped cheerfully.

"But I killed you…"

"You… did… what…?" she blinked rapidly. Now she was losing track of the conversation. Was he even awake here? She tried to wriggle out of his arms, but they were locked around her too tightly, and his thighs on either side of her blocked her escape. "What are you talking about?"

"I pushed you away because I was scared, I was so selfish… I wanted to tell you that… but it was too late… Kikyo… god I killed you… I can't even forgive myself."

Kagome stared at the white material before her eyes… what had he said?

"I wanted to love you back, Kikyo, I really did…" he whispered in what she thought sounded more like fear than anything else. "I turned my back on you because I was a coward… and now I've lost you… please forgive me… please…?"

Kagome didn't move or say a word. She closed her eyes and tried to block out his voice.

"Kikyo…?"

Suddenly her arms were moving of their own accord. They wound around his chest tightly and locked around his back. She buried her face completely and tried not to hate herself for doing it. "I forgive you Inuyasha… it wasn't your fault. It was never your fault."

"But I-"

"I forgive you." She cut him off shortly. "That's all the matters isn't it?" she tried to keep the bitterness out of her tone when she added. "At least I know you felt the same… I love you too."

At some point during her condolences, he'd slumped against her completely, snoring gently once more as his arms loosened. For a moment Kagome was reluctant to let him go. For just a few blessed moments it felt so nice and right to hold a warm, living body in her arms. She inhaled his sweet, dusky smell deeply and toyed with the idea of how warm and pleasant it was to be that close to someone… she wished it happened more often in her life than it actually did.

But she was forced back to the real world when she realised who exactly was in her arms. And that… perhaps… his heart belonged to someone else.

Still… she thought as she let him back down gently on the settee… it would be nice to have a boyfriend to hold like that. Though in no way would her boyfriend look like Inuyasha… or act like Inuyasha…

After all, Inuyasha was a jerk. A horrible, nasty, short-tempered little two year old stuck in the body of a much older and gorgeous young man. He got mad at her for no reason and laughed at her misery (she wasn't going to forget that). But…

Her eyes softened as she looked down at him. He may have been a nasty, conceited person… but he was also in a lot of pain, and even Kagome wasn't so heartless as to step on that.

After a few minutes simply watching him sleep she reached out and shook his shoulder roughly. "Inuyasha - Inuyasha wake up!"

He sucked in a sharp breath and automatically raised an arm to block her shaking his shoulder. He blinked blearily until he found her form and squinted up at her. "Wha… Kagome? What time izzit…?"

"Two o'clock." She answered. "You're going to get bitten to death by bugs if you stay out here."

"Wha…?" he was still trying to catch his bearings. It seemed he'd been in a very deep sleep.

"Come on, sleepy head." She pulled on his arm and coaxed him off he sofa. "You're already covered in bites, let's get you to bed."

"'Kay…" he mumbled sleepily as he automatically followed her lead, eyes closed the whole way. Boy… he was putting a lot of faith in her not to walk him into the wall.

"Oops!" Kagome squeaked as she walked him into a wall. "Didn't see that coming - nevermind." She redirected him through her bedroom door and shut it behind them. "Come on." She caught his limp wrist and pulled him over to the bed. She drew the netting back and directed him to the end. "You can sleep there, no bugs in here."

He muttered something unintelligible as he flopped down on the bunched up blankets and sheets at the end of her bed. Within seconds he was asleep, and Kagome was assured of his safety from the biting insects. Perhaps that wasn't the real reason she wanted him in here… perhaps she just wanted to look out for him… him being so weak and kittenish all of a sudden.

She curled up at the other end of the bed with the pillows, a good metre between the two of them so in no way was it scandalous or daring.

For some reason she got the best night of sleep she'd seen in a while after that ordeal.

^_^

"Morning all!" Kagome greeted the family the next morning as she bounced out of her room.

"Funny…" Souta said as he chewed his toast slowly. "Inuyasha jumped out of that door this morning too." He skewed a suggestive look at Inuyasha across the breakfast table.

The boy just shrugged. "Don't look at me, I don't understand it either."

Kagome swept up to the table and grabbed a slice of toast from Souta's plate, ignoring his indignant squeak of outrage. "Inuyasha, can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure." He crunched on his cereal whilst keep his eyes trained on the kiddie cartoons being shown on the Tv across the room. "Shoot."

Kagome sighed impatiently. "Alone? With privacy?" she raised an eyebrow. He looked at her and raised one right back.

"This hasn't got anything to do with the mile high club has it?" he queried.

"What's the mile high club?" Souta chirped.

Mrs Higurashi looked up from the sink. "Where'd you learn about that?" she asked with a frown.

"Oh - because Inuyasha and Kagome said that they-"

"Watched a documentary on it!" Kagome leapt to the rescue… but boy had that been a lame rescue. "Yes… we uh… yeah…"

Souta was giving her an incredulous look while Inuyasha still looked as clueless as ever. Well… since he couldn't ask Kagome anymore, he turned to Mrs Higurashi. "So what is the mile high club thingy?" he asked the woman.

"Well… uh…" she suddenly got very flustered. "It's when… mummies and daddies who love each other very much… sort of… express that love… one mile above sea level… which is usually in the bathroom of a plane or… something… see?"

Souta blinked. "I don't get it…"

"Neither do I." Inuyasha added.

"Good!" Kagome yanked Inuyasha's sleeve and dragged him from the table. "Now I need to talk to you - come outside."

Outside, Grandpa was sunbathing again, so Kagome dragged Inuyasha off down the beach. "Let's walk and talk." She suggested as she pulled him along. He didn't protest much. Eventually she let go of his sleeve and wrung her hands together. "Ok… ok… there's something I think I should know… I think I need to know something about you and…"

She stopped when she heard a distinct crunching noise behind her. She whipped around and glared so hard that Inuyasha froze mid-chew. In his hand was a packet of digestive biscuits he'd swiped from the kitchen on his way out. "What?" he said defensively.

"Are you listening to me? This is important!" she hissed.

"I'm listening!" he popped another biscuit in his mouth. "Well aren't we going to walk and talk?"

"Right…" she started off walking down the sand towards the water's edge, aware that Inuyasha trailed after her, keeping pace. "I want to know about your relationship to Kikyo."

His footsteps stopped behind her, but she kept going, afraid that if she saw his face she might not have the courage to continue. So instead she carried on walking until she came to a rocky platform that emerged out of the sand, just where the sea tides met the land. She sat down and looked down at the ground… somehow she couldn't face him.

"Why did you want to know that?" he asked quietly.

"I just need to know." She said truthfully. "What it is you felt for her… what she felt for you."

"Is that an order?" he approached and stood a few feet away from where she sat.

"It's a request." She said firmly. "You don't have to tell me… but I hoped you would. Please…"

For a long time he didn't speak, or move for that matter. Kagome wondered that if she looked up she might find he had turned to stone. Her gaze lingered on his bare feet for a moment, but that was as far as she could go, and she had to avert her eyes again.

"You wouldn't understand." He said simply.

Kagome sighed irritably. "Tell me anyway and I'll try to, ok? I'm not just a naïve little girl you know."

"Yes you are." He said sharply.

Kagome managed to shoot him a glare full in the face.

"But…" he added softly. "That's good."

He was right, she didn't understand at all. "How well did you know Kikyo?"

"Better than anyone else knew her." He shrugged and moved to sit down on the rocks beside her. Kagome edged away discreetly. "And vice versa."

Kagome tried to casually run a hand through her hair, but she had a feeling it only conveyed her anxiousness. She didn't understand why she was so nervous… but for some reason she couldn't help it. "Did she love you?" she asked bluntly. Not wanting to beat around the bush. She just wanted to learn his feelings towards the dead woman, and then see if she could put it behind her.

"I think so. She told me once…" he said quietly.

Kagome smiled slightly. "Did you love her?"

"No."

Kagome flinched and looked across at him in surprise. He was watching the moving waves instead though. "What?"

"I wouldn't let myself. The potential was there but I turned my back on her and tried to ignore it all. I was afraid that it would eventually hurt me worse than anything else I've endured, so I shied away. It hurt her more than it hurt me… and when she died…" he took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. "At least it didn't hurt as much as it would have if I'd been in love with her."

Now Kagome really was lost. "But… how can loving someone cause you pain? Love is good - it's good to share yourself with someone."

"Not me." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "I'm special."

Kagome frowned with thought as she tried to figure it out. "I don't… I don't understand why you would refuse to love her… even though you both wanted to…" Was it even possible to avoid falling in love? In Kagome's limited experience, crushes and love interests just happened, you couldn't stop them.

"I told you, you wouldn't understand." He said patronisingly. "Want a biscuit?"

"Because you're not explaining very well." She retorted hotly, taking a biscuit nonetheless and biting off half. "Maybe I have too naïve… so say it slower."

He rolled his eyes and seemed to think about it for a moment before taking a biscuit of his own and breaking it in half. "See this little half here?" he held it up for her to see as he tossed the other half away. "This is me. I used to be whole, maybe, but all this loneliness and regret and anger and hatred and depression and so on has been nibbling away at me."

Kagome stared at him with wide eyes.

"I'm only half a heart… half a person. I have no reason to exist other than to bring misery to other people. This is me." He dangled the biscuit half before her… then took another whole biscuit and broke it in half. Once more he kept one half and threw away the other. "And this is Kikyo."

"I see the resemblance." Kagome said dryly, watching with a sort of grim fascination.

"Well. Kikyo's had a rough life too. She's got all this depression and loneliness eating away at her soul." Inuyasha chortled breezily as he brought the two halves of two different biscuits together. "And see - we find each other and we make one whole biscuit together. Don't we look so happy? But we still have this big crack between us - but if you use a special cookie dough called 'love' you can seal up the crack and make a whole biscuit like this!" he chucked the two halves away and brought out a whole, unmarred biscuit. "We'd be in perfect harmony and balance. Rely on each other like we are two combined souls."

Kagome stared at the biscuit flatly.

"But… oh dear…" he made a tutting noise. "The Inuyasha half of this biscuit will be leaving one day - and he can't take the Kikyo half with him so…" he broke the biscuit in two, rather carelessly and it completely shattered into several different pieces. "That is how love can hurt you more than you realise. It was safe not to make any kind of bond between us that would shatter us both."

He picked up two halves of a biscuit he'd been using before. "So when Inuyasha and Kikyo meet, Inuyasha tries very hard not to fall in love… so that in the end… the only broken cookie will be this one." He crunched up Kikyo's half, and set down his own half down on the rock, unharmed and in tact… though still only half. "Inuyasha's back to being Inuyasha. And that's the way it will stay." He cocked his head. "Do you understand now…?"

Kagome was about to nod… but slowly shook her head instead. "I guess I'm too young and naïve."

"And don't let anyone change that."

Kagome glanced up at him, but he was already up and stalking away. She watched him storm… realising that he must have been using a lot of control not to snap out at her during all that.

She looked back down at all the crumbled biscuit remains around the rock, and in the midst of it - Inuyasha's cookie half remained… alone, and jumbled up in so many crumbs of the other biscuits.

Kagome glanced down to the biscuit half in her half that she had been eating. Slowly… she lowered is down and lay it down next to Inuyasha's. She stared the two halves for a moment, envisioning one whole biscuit there.

With a defeated sigh she swiped her hand out and knocked the crumbled remains of all the cookies away and turned to look out to sea, watching where the horizon met the waters.

This was worse than she'd thought…

^_^

"Inuyasha!"

He turned as he entered the house and spotted Mrs Higurashi beckoning him. "I need some help moving boxes." She told him. "They're too heavy for me."

For a moment he felt like refusing… but he could never really say no to a middle-aged woman that someone called a Mom. Don't ask. "Sure." He shrugged indifferently and headed after her.

"In the pantry." She told him as she walked into the small, dimly lit back room where all the food and equipment was stored for holiday makers. She shut the door as Inuyasha followed her inside and pointed across the small room. "They're over there, against that wall."

He turned and looked to see where she was pointing. He didn't see any boxes. "What did you want moving aga-"

He was abruptly cut off as something was shoved right though his back and out of his chest. He saw it before he felt it. He looked down and gently touched a hand to the rusty metal spike that had run him through. "Oh…" he turned unsteadily to find Mrs Higurashi watching him smugly, hands fisted against her hips in an arrogant pose.

"It's you…" Inuyasha muttered before the lights went out completely.

AN: There you go - extra long chapter to make up for the long gap of time since the last update ^_^