InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Chronicles ❯ Schoolin' the Hanyou ( Chapter 56 )

~~Chapter 56~~

~Schoolin' theHanyou~

 

InuYasha pushed open Kagome's window with a sigh. She wasn't in the shrine. He'd known that almost the moment he'd jumped out of the well. He considered tracking her down but she always seemed a little irritated whenever he did that. Ears drooping, he stared around her room instead, wishing he hadn't been so stupid, wishing that he had been able to tell her the things he thought instead of sticking his foot in it, like he always did.

 

Staring at his mother's diary on the nightstand, InuYasha frowned. Reading that book always led to more questions. He had enough of those swimming around his head. He wasn't so sure he needed to add to that. Next to it was another book. He picked it up slowly, turning it over in his hands as Kagome's words came back to him, `It's a journal. You don't have to write it in, if you don't want to. I just thought maybe . . . if you wanted to . . . you could put your painful memories in that. Then you'd never have to think about them again . . . .'

 

Or maybe he could write down the things that he'd never be able to tell Kagome . . . . `It worked for her, didn't it? Maybe she didn't know that you'd read it, but it still worked . . . .' He stared at it for a few more minutes, wondering if he wasn't hoping for more than he dared.

 

InuYasha grabbed a pen off her desk and hopped back out the window. `At this point,' he figured, `anything is worth a shot . . . .'

 

 

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Kagome sighed as she flopped onto her bed. Freshly bathed and pleasantly sleepy from the warmth of the scented bathwater, she wanted nothing more than to sleep. `I ought to get up and get my pajamas on,' she thought as her eyes drifted closed. But she was too warm, too comfortable, too content to do it. `Maybe a quick nap,' she thought idly. `Just a few minutes . . . then I'll get dressed and go back . . . .'

 

 

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The window opened with a whisper. InuYasha climbed inside, eyes immediately coming to rest on the sleeping woman. `What the—? Why isn't she dressed?' A low growl escaped as he stared in confusion. Wrapped in one of her fluffy pink towels, she was definitely sleeping. But why . . . ? `Is she . . . did she think . . . she couldn't have . . . . No . . . .'

 

Two things became instantly apparent to him as he smashed himself against the wall and stared in shocked silence at her. Firstly, she hadn't realized that he would follow her, and that was probably the real reason that she didn't bother dressing right away. Secondly, even if his mind kept telling him to climb back out that window and seek refuge in Goshinboku until she woke up and did something about the oversight, his body wouldn't move. Lying on her stomach with her knee hitched up and her arms tucked under her pillow, he couldn't see much of her face, hidden as it was in both the pillow and under the towel she had wrapped her hair into.

 

The creaminess of her pale flesh glowed in the gentleness of the filtered moonlight trickling through her window, the warmth of her miko aura filled the room with waves of light. She called out to him, even in sleep, and he whined softly as he tried to fight the threads of her soul that reached out to snare him. Her pulse was a drumbeat to his ears, a constant pounding, a discerning music. He leaned back further, willing himself to move, to retreat. Letting himself be lost in Kagome was something that would be much too easy, something that he'd never be able to escape from again . . . .

 

The intangible beauty that was Kagome spoke to his heart, beckoned him closer. With a shift of her body, her scent wafted stronger, damning him and saving him in one rending wave. She sighed as she buried her face deeper into her pillow. InuYasha growled again, unreasonable jealousy over the inanimate object that she clung to in sleep welling up like an ugly thing, a bitter pain, and he had to restrain his desire to lash out against the unsympathetic rival. `She ought to be holding me like that, not some stupid pillow,' he fumed then made a disgusted face at his own thoughts.

 

The youkai part of him growled viciously in his head. There was something unsettling about her scent, something different, something he'd caught before but that normally eluded him. What was it?

 

He still held back, unwilling or unable to close the distance to the bed, the few sparse feet that separated him and her. Her lure was too great, too strong, too hard to resist. He'd always thought he was strong. He'd fought some of the most powerful youkai and had come out victorious. Yet here he stood, feet away from the woman that his heart had told him long ago was meant to be his, and he couldn't move. Her scent distracted him . . . .

 

`It's that towel, baka! That's what it is, because you know that's the only thing she's wearing—the only thing. Don't be stupid . . . she wants to be with you as badly as you need to be with her . . . .'

 

`Shuddup.'

 

Deliberately ignoring the desire to knock his head against the wall in frustration, InuYasha grabbed the windowsill. `Keh! I'll sit in Goshinboku till she's ready to put something other than that on . . . .' He shot one more look over at her.

 

“Inu . . . Yasha . . .” she mumbled.

 

Closing his eyes with a heavy sigh, InuYasha let go of the window and hesitantly stepped over to the bed. He sat down, careful not to disturb her. Tugging the towel that held her hair, InuYasha gently untangled the length of it with his claws. She sighed almost happily as he worked. By the time he had combed all the snarls out of her hair, he had assimilated a measure of her calm.

 

With a soft whimpering moan, Kagome came awake. Burying her face in her pillow once again just for a moment before she rolled over and sat up. Eyelids heavy and gaze glazed with the vacancy of true sleep, she blinked a few times then yawned before focusing on him. “You came after me?”

 

“Keh. I told you I would.”

 

She idly scratched her knee and frowned. “I only meant to lie down for a few minutes. Let me grab a few things, and—”

 

“And clothes,” he muttered.

 

“Hmm?” He didn't answer as he got up and stomped over to the window. “InuYasha?”

 

“Get dressed, Kagome! What are you thinking? Anyone can smell you like that, and—”

 

She gasped softly, obviously having forgotten what it was she was—or wasn't—wearing. Before she could throw anything at him, he ducked out the window and shot over to Goshinboku.

 

Kagome stared down at her towel with a mortified flush and wide, gaping eyes. She dressed in record time, mumbling invectives under her breath at her own stupidity, that she hadn't realized InuYasha would come after her. She ought to have known. He didn't leave her to her own devices often, and whether she was upset with him or not when she'd left, she really should have known then.

 

With a deep breath, Kagome stalked over to the window and leaned out into the night. “InuYasha?” she called softly. “Do you want to come back inside?”

 

She waited for a moment, watching the Sacred Tree, trying to discern movement. Either he didn't hear her or he was deliberately ignoring her. She sighed. `He probably thinks you did that on purpose, that you were trying to make a move on him.' She made a face as she turned her back to the window and sank down on the side of her bed. They were obviously not going to go back tonight. It was well after midnight now. The trouble was, after such a long nap, Kagome was anything but tired.

 

InuYasha cautiously stuck his head inside the window, sniffing the air and looking around with a wary stare. Apparently satisfied that she was adequately dressed, he dropped to the floor and slumped down against the wall. “When did you come after me?” she asked into the stilted silence.

 

He shrugged. “About ten minutes after you left.”

 

She frowned. “I didn't see you.”

 

“You were already gone. I just sat in Goshinboku.”

 

Kagome scooted back on the bed and patted the space beside her.

 

He stared at her as though he thought she might be up to something sneaky before he got up and sank down beside her. As soon as he was settled, she snuggled against him, and he grinned despite himself. “I should have known you had ulterior motives,” he grumbled but squeezed her shoulders.

 

“I'm an open book,” she argued. “Nothing `ulterior' about my motives.”

 

“Keh. I suppose you're not tired at all now, are you?”

 

She shook her head. “Nope. I could read your mother's diary to you.”

 

He sighed but finally handed over the book without further comment. Kagome wiggled around until she was comfortable. InuYasha rolled his eyes. “Can't you be still, wench?”

 

“I am,” she argued.

 

“Uh huh.”

 

She shot him a look before cracking open the book.

 

“ `I suppose I have come to the part of this letter where I should tell you some truths about your actual heritage, things that you need to know before you decide to start a family of your own. Though I wish your father had been able to explain these things to you, because they're things that humans don't really understand, I shall seek to explain to you what was explained to me, and in the telling, perhaps some things about your own circumstances should become clearer.

 

“ `You were born from a union of your father, a youkai, and me, a human. As such, you are a hanyou, and as such, I'm sure you've struggled with the idea that you are both and yet neither. Let me explain a few things to you. No hanyou is ever accidental. There isn't such a thing as an accidental child coming from a pairing such as this. Your father explained to me that most youkai mate for life, or at least until death, as was the case with him and Sesshoumaru's mother. She died soon after Sesshoumaru's birth. In actuality, I doubt that your brother remembers a thing about the woman, even her scent. Even then, it took many years—over a century, before your father and I met, and I think, in his own way, your father did care for Sesshoumaru's mother, even until the end.

 

“ `Youkai choose, InuYasha. They choose when to produce a child, and it is a complete accordance between both male and female for this to occur. It is a bit more complicated for a youkai and a mortal. Your father chose to have a child with me. He gave you to me, entrusted me with the task of seeing you grow. Know, InuYasha, that you were chosen. You were wanted. You were loved.' ”

 

Kagome sighed and smiled, tilting her head back to look up at InuYasha. “I always thought you were,” she said softly.

 

“Keh,” he snorted as he twisted a lock of her hair around his index finger. “You gonna read or you gonna tease me?”

 

She giggled and turned her attention back to the diary.

 

“ `When a hanyou chooses a youkai, the youkai would ultimately make the decision to have children. The youkai, being the dominant party, would govern this choice. I doubt this would apply to you, however, I think it must be explained—' ”

 

Blushing, Kagome handed the diary to InuYasha. “I think you should read this,” she blurted. “It doesn't really have anything to do with me, after all . . . .”

 

InuYasha felt his own face warming with the thoughts being discussed in his mother's handwriting. “I don't need to read it,” he argued. “I wasn't planning on—I mean, we weren't going to—It doesn't mean anything, and—Damn it, give me that.”

 

He snatched the diary away as Kagome scooted off the end of the bed, mumbling something about needing water before she hurried out of the room.

 

InuYasha scowled at the retreating girl then stared at the diary with a dubious frown.

 

Why did he just know that the rest of this diary entry was going to be the worst of them that he'd heard or read so far? With a slow shake of his head, InuYasha opened the book and haltingly began to read.

 

`I think it must be explained so that, when the time comes for you and whomever you choose as your mate, you know everything you need to know. Should you choose a human girl, you need to know this: Every month there are two times you can create a child. On the night of the new moon, your child would be completely human, completely mortal. On the night of the full moon, your child would be full hanyou, like you. Because on this night your youkai blood is at its strongest, take greater care that you do not lose control of your emotions. Humans are tougher than many youkai like to believe. But we are still mortal, after all, and you don't wish to hurt your mate should you lose control of yourself. These are the only two times that it is possible, regardless of your mate's fertile cycle. Your father says that, given time, her body should start mirroring your own, as far as her cycles. But you must choose, InuYasha. You may feel that having a mortal child might be best, but understand this, too. Mortals die all too easily, and while a hanyou's life might not be easy, the best men are the ones who must overcome greater obstacles to become better people.'

 

InuYasha snapped the book closed and dropped it onto the nightstand. `Yep, worst one so far . . . .'

 

 

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