InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bottled Genius ❯ Tongue Twister ( Chapter 6 )

AN: I seem to have a hit a problem… a bit of writer's block concerning Life Exchange and the other stories. I can still write this one but I'm having difficulty with the others and it may be a while before I update Life Exchange, Rules of Acquisition and Where no man has gone before… yes… I haven't just forgotten about those last two.

Oh, and did anyone see the Eurovision song contest? (if you don't live in Europe then the answer would be no). Man… Britain got hammered. Zero points! I blame Tony Blair (not to mention we had a really crap song). Thanks to the war, no one likes us anymore ^_^;; (though I was one of the people striking out of school in anti-war protests (not just an excuse to get out of school)).

Bottled Genius

Chapter 6

Tongue Twister

"Open wide and say 'ah." The doctor instructed as she lifted Kagome's chin and flicked her pen light on. Kagome obeyed - except for the saying ' ah' part. She sat there, blinking at a poster behind the doctor, checking privately that her own eyes still worked at least.

"Well I can't see anything wrong down there…" the doctor leaned back and looked at Kagome. "And she doesn't have any obstructions or ruptures in her ears… I can't find anything wrong with her."

"But there must be - people don't just turn into deaf mutes overnight!" Mrs Higurashi wrung her hands in the material of her apron… she'd not spared the time to take it off when she'd rushed Kagome to the doctor's office.

"You're right. They don't." the doctor sighed before moving back to her desk and sitting back down. "What was she doing at the time when she lost her hearing and her voice?"

"I don't know… I wasn't with her…" Mrs Higurashi looked at Kagome, as if expecting her to answer the doctor… but Kagome hadn't heard the doctor and returned her mother's look curiously.

"Does she have any allergies at all?" the doctor went on. "Hearing problems? Laryngitis? Anything?"

"No, she's never had problems like this before." Mrs Higurashi chewed her lip nervously. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

"I can send her to a specialist… but the only suitable one I know lives on the other side of the country, and he doesn't often have much spare time. I could arrange an appointment… but it could take up to six months to see him I'm afraid." The woman watched Kagome who stared back at her. The girl obviously hadn't a clue what she's just said. "Until then… you can only hope her senses return as quickly as they left."

"Can't we get a consultation any sooner than six months?" Mrs Higurashi asked, dismayed.

"Not unless you can afford the heavy payments." The doctor shrugged helplessly.

The answer to that was obviously no. Mrs Higurashi fell quiet and gave Kagome's hand a gentle squeeze. The girl glanced at her mother but didn't return the hopeful smile. In fact she looked slightly angry…

Well it was better than being the teary mess she'd found her daughter in about an hour ago.

^_^

Oh yes… it had all been fun and games, but then someone had to go and lose a voice and now everything was all gloomy and boring. Inuyasha sighed loudly and dramatically as he rolled onto his stomach on top of the oil tank. It was getting dark now… Kagome would be back soon with her mother from the doctors.

Would she still be crying?

Undoubtedly when she got over her initial shock she'd want to batter in into paste… maybe he deserved it. He scowled to himself as he tried to push the guilt to the back of his mind… like he'd done so many times before. Usually it worked. After killing the odd nemesis's of masters past, he'd learned not to think about it… it wasn't his fault, why dwell on unnecessary guilt? Trying not to think about how he'd slaughtered armies of Buddhist priests had been slightly more difficult… but the guilt hadn't bothered him much. The only times it really got to him was when it was by accident… when the master didn't realise what they were wishing for…

Like with Kikyo.

She and her father were dead now thanks to the wishes. Not his fault. Kikyo's. He tried to ignore the guilt and repeated to himself again and again that he'd warned her… she just hadn't listened or believed him… He didn't feel guilty, so it must have worked.

Now for making one stupid little madam cry, he felt like a monster.

"Cow…" he longed to all her a bitch… but she'd prevented him from doing so with one of her previous orders of 'Don't call me a bitch!'. He could still call her other things though, like wench… and uh… other stuff. Maybe he'd have to be a little more inventive from now on.

Or he could just use her name and save himself the trouble.

A car pulled into the drive and he was struck by a strong sense of déjà vu. He didn't particularly want to be dragged off into the forest to be screamed at again (despite the fact Kagome couldn't scream anymore). So instead he picked himself up and jumped down off the oil tank - only to land on Kagome's creaky old bed rather than the hard ground beneath the tank.

He flopped down into a sit, elbows resting against his knees as he looked around Kagome's room - also half Souta's room as well. But nobody was in there - or else there would have been various screams about a Wishbringer boy who'd suddenly materialised out of thin air.

Downstairs he heard the front door close, the sound of running footsteps of Kagome's younger brother and the slightly slower footsteps of her Grandpa move into the entrance hall to ask of news. Inuyasha didn't hear Kagome's voice throughout the entire exchange, just Mrs Higurashi explaining the situation. Something about seeing a special person in six months and something more about being able to do nothing until then.

A set of rather angry footsteps could be heard ascending the stairs and he mentally braced himself while deliberately forcing himself to relax physically. Kagome appeared in the doorway of the room, face pale and eyes burning with livid anger he thought he'd only seen in a mirror. He gave her a lop-sided grin. "What's up?"

Her chin rose slightly as she tried to determine what he'd said, but gave up trying to lip-read, seeming to decide it wasn't important anyway. Instead she marched over to her desk and crouched down to pick up a few things she'd knocked off it earlier. She grabbed a pen and a jotter and proceeded to scribble something down swiftly. He stood up to look over her shoulder to see, but she whipped around to quickly and pushed it into his face.

'U S.O.B.'

"What the heck is that supposed to-"

He was cut off as Kagome started beating him around the head with the jotter, mouth set in a grim line as she aimed for his sensitive ears. "Ow - hey - stop that!" he half-heartedly tried to fend her off, though she was too angry and determined to let him get the better of her. After a moment she dropped the jotter and grabbed a forelock of his hair - jerking his head down just enough so she could give him a good hard slap to get across exactly how she felt about him when words failed her.

He staggered back a step or two, a hand raised to his stinging cheek. Out of the corner of his eye he could sight of himself in a mirror and turned to look… he now sported a nice pink mark vaguely shaped like a hand print. When he looked back at Kagome he could see she was trembling with anger, or dismay… actually, both. Tears were beginning to prickle her eyes…

It was strange how she didn't say anything, didn't shout at him… he felt the empty silence rather acutely… even though he knew she couldn't say anything even if she wanted to.

He expected tears to fall, for her to break down crying, but after a moment she surprised him by bending down to pick up the jotter to scribble something down. She held it up after a moment. 'Y?' was all she'd written.

"Because you wished it." He answered. Kagome narrowed her eyes before shoving the jotter towards him, indicating he should write his reply. He complied and passed it back to her. She stared at the answer before turning the page and writing something new.

'I didn't,' was her message.

'U did,' he wrote back.

She snatched the jotter back and wrote down something. 'I didn't.'

"Why didn't you just show me the first message again?" he pointed out, but at her blank stare he gave up. "Whatever…

She then scribbled down exactly how she'd phrased her wish. 'Is it too much to wish for some peace and quiet?' she glared at him and passed the jotter back.

He looked at it a moment before taking the pen and crossing out the 'S' and the 'it too much to'. When he handed it back, it read 'I wish for some peace and quiet'.

'U took it out of context!' she scribbled angrily. 'U can do that?!'

He nodded with a sly smile.

'Y?!' she wrote again.

'Because you deserved it for being a bitch', at least he could write that word, even though he couldn't quite say it anymore.

'So u make me a deaf mute?!' she demanded.

He nodded again, his smile widening even though he didn't feel like smiling.

'I hate u' she slapped the jotter in his chest and went to sit down on her bed. He watched her lie down on her stomach and hug the pillow up to her chin.

"Big deal. I don't care if you hate me." He told he haughtily as he dropped the jotter onto her back. "Keep it, you might need it later."

She watched him like a hawk, even though she couldn't tell what he was saying. He was just about to leave when she suddenly grabbed the jotter and scribbled something new. He waited for her to hold up the new message. 'I wish for a reversal of my last wish.'

He watched her for a moment before shaking his head. He took the jotter and wrote his reply beneath her message. 'Can't. You need to speak your wishes.'

As soon as she read the reply she began to have trouble breathing. She was on the verge of a panic attack, so he quickly wrote something more. 'It's not permanent. You only wished for 'some' not permanent.'

She looked at him, the question obvious in her eyes. How long?

He held up ten fingers.

She took to jotter. '10 Days?' she asked.

He winced, shaking his head.

'Hours?' was her new guess.

He pointed upwards.

'Years?!'

He quickly pointed down.

'Weeks?!'

He gave her the thumbs up and a grin. "Bingo!" he told her.

Her expression clouded over like the sky before a storm. She threw the jotter at him, only to have him dodge it. She pointed to the door with a severe glare. She wanted him gone from her sight. He shrugged with another 'keh' and turned around to walk out, dissolving into the air as he went until he was gone from the bedroom.

When she was sure he was no longer in sight she flopped down onto her bed again and cried silently into her pillow.

^_^

The next few days passed incredibly slowly for Kagome. Her mother just couldn't understand what on earth had happened… one minute Kagome had been talking and the next… she hadn't…

Grandpa was of the opinion that dark forces of evil were to blame (he wasn't far wrong) and so while Kagome struggled to tell her mother how she wanted her eggs cooked, the old man ambled around the house putting up wards and charms against such evil spirits. Kagome reckoned it might have worked… because she didn't see much of Inuyasha after this. Though it could have been that they weren't on the best of terms with each other.

Souta thought it was all just some hilarious joke that Kagome couldn't talk and couldn't hear. Fortunately he wasn't so cruel as to take advantage of her and say things knowing she wouldn't be able to hit him for it. Instead he did his mother proud by being careful to enunciate his words when he was speaking to Kagome, so she could lip read him.

But no matter how much help she received from her family, everything was very slow going. And after a while, even Souta had gotten bored of the joke and began to wonder when Kagome's voice would return.

"Kagome…" Souta looked up from his game of solitaire to where Kagome was reading a book on the living room sofa. "Hey, Kagome!" he waved to get her attention since shouting and snapping his fingers wasn't going to help. She finally noticed him and glanced over with raised eyebrows. He grabbed the worn out jotter they'd all been using and scribbled something down to hold up to her. He spoke the words as she read them. "How did you it happen… I mean what were you doing to lose your voice and hearing?"

She opened her mouth to speak but gave up with a sigh, merely shaking her head and shrugging helplessly. She couldn't explain… it was too complicated.

"Do you think it'll come back?" he asked. She read the words from his lips and smiled.

'Maybe', she mouthed back to him then beckoned him closer. He put down the jotter and moved over to the sofa where she'd put her book down as well and stretched out her arms to receive him. He moved into her embrace with a sigh… the things he endured for the women of this family… When he pulled back she saw his gloomy expression and playfully poked the dimples of his cheeks. He smiled despite himself and watched as she grinned back… he wanted to hear her laugh… but that wasn't going to happen was it?

"Souta!" Mrs Higurashi called from somewhere else in the house. "Come help me move this bookcase will you?!"

"Ok!" he yelled back before looking back at Kagome. "Mom's calling - I better go."

With that he flashed her a grin and ran from the room, leaving a clueless Kagome in his wake. She sat for a moment staring after him before picking up her book and staring at it blankly. She wanted to reassure them that this wasn't permanent… that in a while she'd get her voice and her hearing back… but then they'd ask questions about how she knew that. She didn't want to reveal Inuyasha to them… she didn't want to endanger them to this 'curse' of his.

Nine and a half more weeks… she could handle it. But could her family?

Kagome looked up from her book to the hearth and nearly leapt out of her skin when she saw Inuyasha there. She hadn't heard him arrive… and he was talking to her… but she couldn't care less what he said. She was too concerned with calming her heart again.

"… And so I was thinking since you're such a stupid bimbo with no soul - ok I admit that has nothing to do with it. I was thinking that since you're going to be out of action for a while - you know - unable to make wishes as you are - maybe I should take a holiday… yeah… somewhere nice and warm like… um… I'll read up on foreign countries later but… oh… you want something - I'm talking here!" He snapped as she waved the jotter at him. He snatched it and read what she'd written. "Shut up, Inuyasha… Kagome. Read my lips. Elephant stew."

She stared at him for a moment before snatching the jotter back and writing something new. 'Did you just say 'I love you?'

"No I said elephant stew. Can't you tell the difference?!" he kept a serious expression, though it was hard. Maybe it was a bit too much… taunting her in this condition. Ah… it wasn't permanent, he could do what he liked. He dropped the jotter back in her lap and turned his back to her. "I pity you, you little wombat who smells like a gorilla's armpit. I can't bear to look at you, you're so ugly it makes my stomach turn and my chest seize up. You look like a goat who's been crossbred with an alligator… no wait… that's being offensive to goats and alligators. You'd make a pretty fowl looking oni though, that's for sure…"

He glanced behind him to see her reading her book again, unaware of the long insult that had just rolled off his tongue. Damn… he'd only done it because he knew she wouldn't hear. But where was the satisfaction in seeing her ignore him?

"Excuse me, wench, but I need to go blow up the world after I solve world hunger and bring world peace. That alright with you?" he turned back to her. She just looked up, smiled, and waved.

He sighed deeply… god… life was so dull all of a sudden. Just ten more weeks, then he'd be able to have a decent human conversation again. "Dammit." He cursed under his breath and went to go find something more interesting to do.

He was beginning to regret finding any amusement in this latest wish…

^_^

"Well at least she's still eating healthily." Mrs Higurashi watched Kagome scarf down her second helping of Oden. "I suppose there's nothing lethal wrong with her at least."

"I was thinking of calling a witch doctor," Grandpa started. "There's obviously something mystical going on-"

"No!" Souta and his mother both shot that idea down before it had even taken off the ground. Grandpa just grumbled and went on eating. Kagome was unaware of the exchange, so involved with her food as she was.

"It's getting a little… um… what do you call it…" Souta began.

"Tedious?" His mother suggested.

"You read my mind." He nodded. "All this note writing with Kagome. My hands are cramping up… and it takes so long. Like I wanted to ask her if she'd seen Yuki and-"

"Who's Yuki?" his mother asked suddenly.

"Um… a friend…" More like a field mouse given to him by a friend. "Well anyway - asking her a simple question takes like five minutes. When's she gonna get better?"

Mrs Higurashi sent Kagome a pained look. "I don't know… it's very mysterious this… condition of hers."

Kagome suddenly realised everyone was looking at her and stopped eating. She lifted the little notepad that had been strung around her neck. The top page already had the ever useful question of 'huh?' written on it. They just shook their heads and went back to eating. Kagome shrugged and followed suit.

"There must be some way to help her." Mrs Higurashi sighed. "My poor Kagome…"

"You could always teach her sign language." Grandpa pointed out, still slightly snippy that his idea about the witch doctor had been thrown out the window. "It won't cure her. But at least we could communicate better."

"Grandpa… but that means we'd have to know who to speak sign language too." Souta pointed out.

"I know sign language." Mrs Higurashi perked up. "Back in the old care homes… it was one of the first things us nurses learnt to deal with the very deaf elderly people."

"And I know it too." Grandpa confirmed (being one of those deaf elderly people himself). "Learnt it back thirty years ago when a friend of mine's friend was deaf. The only way to speak to him was with sign language. I taught Ayame." He patted his daughter's shoulder.

"Teach me too, Grandpa?!" Souta pleaded.

"Yes, but first Kagome. She's in more desperate need I think."

Kagome absently looked up at her family and her sticks froze halfway to her mouth. They were all staring and smiling at her again. Why did they always do that?

^_^

There was a limit to how much fun you could poke at a disabled person like Kagome. Inuyasha was already well past such limit by the third week.

"Seven weeks… seven weeks… seven weeks…" he chanted to himself as he stared at the ceiling above Kagome's bed. Kagome herself was sat a metre or so away at her desk, studying literature under the light of her lamp. He discreetly turned his head so he could see her. He frowned when he noticed that her lips were moving ever so slightly, as though echoing the words she was writing down.

It would have been better if she'd still been mad at him. If she still threw things at him and tried to scream at him… but by now she'd just accepted her situation and was back to smiles. He doubted she'd forgiven him… but she didn't seem to be holding a grudge against him. She didn't throw things at him or call him evil or wish that she'd never met him (that had happened sometimes - it usually resulted in time shifts that were annoying as hell, and the master losing all his future wishes and the old ones being revoked).

There was a rustle from the desk and he saw Kagome rummaging her hand into a packet of malteasers. She popped two in her mouth and went back to work.

The silence was beginning to weigh on him… he didn't know how much more he could take.

"Seven weeks… kill me… seven weeks… I'll kill myself… dear god help me…" He was going nuts with boredom. There was very little he could do these days. Usually most of his time was taken up with granting wishes or talking with masters… and when he could do neither it got very dull indeed. There were strict rules that he couldn't be separated from a current master for more than two days. So he couldn't run off and leave her… though how he wished he could… then maybe he'd find something to do.

Kagome's hand suddenly crept out and he jerked his gaze back to her. She was holding out the packet of sweets again. He stared at the packet a moment, frowning in thought before shaking his head and knocking her hand away. "Not hungry."

She simply shrugged and went back to work.

It should have annoyed her… refusing her offer so rudely should have annoyed anyone. But she'd accepted that it was just the way he was now… she didn't lose her temper around him so much these days…

"I can't take this anymore." He suddenly sat up off the bed and fixed a surprised looking Kagome with a grim look. "I need to talk to you! About anything! The weather - marzipan - I don't care! I just need to talk to someone!"

She hadn't caught a word he'd said, and mistook him for something else. She held out the packet of malteasers again and he clenched his fists. "No I don't want sweets I want human conversation! Is it too much to ask?!"

Kagome pursed her lips thoughtfully before taking her notepad from around her neck and scribbling a note. 'Something wrong?' she asked with an almost innocent air about her hand writing.

"Need… words…" he ran his hands over his face in despair, he didn't remove them. "God, if it helps, I'm sorry I granted that wish the way I did. I could have just left it alone. I could have just assumed that it wasn't an actual wish and just left it alone - but I didn't. That was my revenge and I've never regretted anything like this in my life. I thought it was funny… but it's so not funny now… I'm going to die of boredom!"

He dropped his hands from his face to find Kagome pushed away from her desk to move over to her bookshelf to get a new book. She hadn't heard him at all… she'd presumed he'd stopped talking ages ago and was back to her usual business.

"I think I'm actually lonely…" Inuyasha stated flatly whilst her back was turned. "How bad is that…? I'm so lonely, I'm actually feeling a little sad…"

She turned back to him, a frown suddenly lilting her brow. He frowned straight back in confusion as she set her book down and approached the bed to sit down beside him. She took her notepad and writ something. 'Would u do bad things 2 my family if u met them?'. She waited for his reply.

He scowled angrily. He shook his head sulkily and turned away. After a moment she nudged him and passed him a new message. 'If Mom could teach you sign language we could talk then. Me and u.' he looked up at her, noticing how she suddenly avert her gaze. He nudged her suddenly to make her look back, new hope suddenly rising within him.

"How much do you know?" he asked her, before mentally slapping himself for forgetting she couldn't hear. Instead he made the signs. Kagome jumped away from him with a start.

'A little…' she made the small sign with her hand, she shook her head and asked something with her hands. 'How…?'

"Just one of those things…" he said with a shrug. It was too much to explain to her that once a master had wished he teach him how to do signs. Of course that had meant Inuyasha had had to learn signs first in order to pass the knowledge on. It had all been a big complete waste of time… but he'd save that explanation for when she could speak more fluently with her hands as it were…

She wrote something down for him. 'U can help teach me 2? Please?'

The please stunned him for a moment. Not many times over five hundred years had anyone added a please or a thank you. It was always take, take, take. Masters treated him like some delivery boy. Just ask and receive. It was his job so why thank him for what he does?

He gave a short caustic laugh and shook his head. "Whatever… if I have to."

^_^

Home tuition had been put on hold for a while due to the development of Kagome's new 'condition'. Besides the fact communication between Kagome and a tutor would be too difficult, Mrs Higurashi didn't quite think her daughter was emotionally up to dealing with a work load.

But that last point was slowly being re-evaluated over the weeks as Kagome watched her daughter move around the house. She wasn't depressed or unhappy. She still smiled and the speed at which she learnt sign language was impressive to say the least.

"Do you think she's getting outside help?" Mrs Higurashi asked her father as they both washed and dried the pots after dinner one evening. "I mean… at first she kinda stumbled along learning the basics - then all of a sudden she suddenly strung all these sentences together with stuff I know I haven't taught her yet."

"She's a fast learner." Grandpa shrugged.

"Mm." Mrs Higurashi still wasn't convinced. "She spends hours sitting up in her room all alone since she moved out of Souta's room… I assume she reads… but doesn't she get lonely up there?"

"Maybe she has a little male friend keeping her entertained." Grandpa chuckled.

His daughter shot him a startled look. "Kagome doesn't have the time to meet and befriend boys - what are you talking about?!"

"A joke - a joke." He brushed off her startled concern. "Kagome's fine… she's just not the type of girl to let things get her down. Don't worry about her."

"How can I not?" Mrs Higurashi sighed miserably. "She's been this way for two months now… will she ever get better? It was just so sudden…"

"It seems you are the one getting depressed here." Grandpa slapped her arm scoldingly. "Buck up! She's not dying - maybe a miracle will occur. And possibly when I order in some new ofuda charms the evil will disperse and Kagome's voice will be free again."

"Right. I keep forgetting." Mrs Higurashi rolled her eyes. "Well that's this done… I'll go sort out the laundry."

"Mm hm." Her father just hummed in agreement as he carried on drying the dishes that she'd washed.

Mrs Higurashi left him to it and went to go pick up the baskets of clean laundry from the small back room where the washing machine and drier were house. One basket for Souta's clothes and the other for Kagome's She trudged up the stairs with both and went to unload Souta's first.

"Don't you ever get off that machine?" she asked her son as she put his clothes back in his drawers.

"Not now Mom - I'm on the last level and Satan's little devils keep taking bites out of me!" he cried as he tapped away furiously at his playstation handset, eyes fixed on the small tv screen in front of him.

"Of course." She shook her head and went to go unload Kagome's clothes next.

She was just closing in on her daughter's new bedroom door when she stopped dead, her hand half way stretched in reaching for the door handle. A laugh… she'd just heard a laugh coming from inside.

Joy surged within her. Kagome had laughed - her voice was back! Although… it had sounded very masculine - but still!

She wasted no time throwing the door back. "Kagome, you-!" her voice seized up in her throat as her eyes took in the situation in the bedroom and relayed it to her brain. Well… if she'd expected to find anything… this probably wasn't it.

Kagome was on the floor on her hands and knees and kneeling behind her with his hands beside hers, his body hovering over hers… was a rather… interesting looking boy. They both looked up at their visitor, all smiles and giggles wiping from their faces as the two parties traded looks.

"Uh…" Her mother shook her head slightly, as if trying to clear it. "Why are you playing twister with a boy in your room?" she made the signs to accompany it.

Kagome's hands and feet finally slipped on the slippery white mat below them and she fell onto her stomach with a cough. Inuyasha hopped nimbly up. "I win!" he grinned.

Kagome gave her mother a wobbly smile, before freeing her hands up to 'speak' to her mother. 'I can explain…'

AN: And those of you who were wondering about the punishment thing I mentioned last chapter - all will be revealed next time I update!