InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Movie House Hanyou ❯ Blessings in Disguise ( Chapter 21 )

Of all the things Kagome could have said in that moment, the two words that had come forth from her lips were what Inuyasha had least expected. Needless to say, he had more than his fair share in difficulty trying to break himself off from the temporary barrier of shock and numbness that had formed the moment his ears, those dog ears she had already taken a liking to, registered just what exactly she'd said, and his brain had registered just what exactly they could have meant.

Inuyasha almost choked on his own breath. She couldn't have just proclaimed him to be the reason she'd imbibed enough liquor to embalm her entire body with… could she? Had he heard incorrectly? Had he had one too many lsd trips and was now hallucinating when sober?

Pulling his lips back from her forehead, he stepped back stiffly and removed his shaking arms from about her waist, stopping a few feet from her. Kagome looked back at him again, sensing his withdrawal. Her somber expression told him she was hurting too much to be lying.

Inside his head, he snapped when he saw the pain in her eyes she'd hidden up until now. "Shit, I--"

He cut himself off. His voice was papery and dry. Feeling weak in his legs, he ran a jittery, clawed hand through his hair from the forehead back and tried again to use his voice. "Uh, Kagome--"

"Don't stress yourself so much over it," Kagome interrupted, wiping the moisture from her eyes and smoothing away the drip lines on her cheeks. She inhaled deeply and glanced to the side.

"The hell?! What the fuck do you mean, don't stress myself over it?!" he managed to snap, his ears fiercely flattened back, before feeling a sudden flash of overwhelming fatigue and dizziness hit him, sending him crashing to the floor, a horrified look on his face. He was barely holding himself up on his knees and with one hand. "I don't even know what I did!" he managed to croak out.

"Well," Kagome began before she was abruptly cut off.

"You just told me I'm the fucking reason you got drunk, and you tell me not to stress over it?" he yelled up at her with a heaving chest and labored breathing, feeling a numbing chill in his limbs and running through his blood. "Do you have any idea what kinda shit's been running through my mind since… since the shit that happened last night and this morning happened?! Fuck!"

At his latest outburst, Kagome sighed with guilt and shut her eyes. "I could ask you the same thing, you know," she muttered, bringing her arms around herself to rub at her bare upper forearms; she felt nauseously chilled.

Stunned, Inuyasha slowly forced himself back up onto his feet, stress and obsessive paranoia flowing off of him in waves. He waited silently for her to look at him again.

"Stop looking off to the side like that. Why can't you look at me?" he asked in a low, labored voice after she continued to stare elsewhere, as if he wasn't even in the room.

Kagome fidgeted before turning back to meet his gaze. "I-I wasn't ready to talk to you about…" she trailed off uncertainly. Her tears had dried up by now.

"And I wasn't exactly ready to enlighten you on the fact that I'm a hanyou, but gee, shit doesn't always play out how we want it to, now, does it?" he replied with an abundance of cynicism. Before she could reply back, he continued, "But as fuckin' petrified as I was, and yes, I'm actually admitting to you that I was petrified, I didn't really have a choice. I have known for a while that I would have to tell you sometime, and since you stumbled upon…" he paused for a moment of solemn thought as he coiled up his fingers to his palms, "well, the fact that I don't have ears where humans do, you know, I felt, I might as well get it fuckin' over with."

After a sigh, he grumbled to himself and again felt another wave of whatever had sent him to his knees earlier. In response, he stiffened his frame and held his forehead in one palm, trying to will away the strange influx of weird sensations.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked, worried at his sudden change. Inuyasha doesn't look so hot.

"I'm fine," he muttered as he brought his hand back down and shook his head vigorously, his hair swishing everywhere. "Kagome, I would never knowingly do anything to hurt you," Inuyasha pleadingly tried to explain when he had settled himself, his voice finally stabilizing. "I-- What the hell happened at the party that you--"

"I really don't want to--"

"Tough shit! You're going to answer me," he angrily yet softly muttered. "You say I hurt you. Well, I wanna know just what the fuck I did at Kouga's party that--"

"It wasn't anything you did at the party!" she snapped at him, her hands balled into fists, instantly silencing him, her former concern hidden. "I heard people talking about you, and things you've done, and…" she paused for a moment to catch her breath and rack her brain for something else, because she knew her argument sounded weak, "oh, and I saw you flirting with Kouga's girlfriend, and you were ignoring me for most of the party, and those two things just made it worse!"

Inuyasha stared at her; he had totally not expected the little string she'd thrown at him.

"Um, Yura and I weren't flirting, Kagome," he began, trying to steady his tone in order to keep it from descending into a flurry of harsh words. "I've known her for several years, longer than Kouga's ever dated her. She has a thing for always doing my hair and playing with my ears. And the point of going to a party where you don't know anyone is to get to know people." He crossed his arms and continued, "Just because I'm not in the same room as you at a party doesn't mean I'm ignoring you. What gave you that idea?"

Kagome was at a loss for words. She hadn't really felt like he'd been ignoring her. It was her state of upset that had spat those words out. "Um, well… I-I agreed to go with the hopes that you'd spend most of the time with me at the party, I guess, um." She glanced to the side before meeting his eyes again. He didn't look too convinced.

"And you expected to do what with me? Sit on a couch and snuggle with each other?" He raised his eyebrow. This revelation of hers was actually a bit endearing, he felt. It took much self control not to show some sign of delight and wrongful amusement.

"You certainly seemed a bit snuggly this morning," she accused with a glare.

"Look," he retorted, sidestepping the new topic, "let's not go there. Just be glad I didn't have a single drop of alcohol last night. However, not a word of that to your mom. I told her instead that I had had some drinks and had to walk you to my place cuz you felt sick and wanted to leave, okay?"

"I, um, I'd kinda wondered why I wasn't at home," she began.

"We'll talk about that later," Inuyasha calmly said. "Right now, we need to finish discussing this party shit and your little drinking stunt."

"You make it sound so much worse than it really was," she proclaimed defensively.

"Bull…shit," he countered with an accent on each of the word's two syllables, unintentionally sounding antagonistic; he mentally slapped himself at her facial flinch. "So, I was not trying to ignore you, and you made a silly assumption about me and Yura. That's settled. What did you hear about me?"

Kagome mentally stumbled. The things she'd blurted out had done little to stall the inevitable; his arguments easily negated the so-called concerns she'd voiced, those things that she'd only started feeling after she was plenty drunk.

Her mind kept going back to the conversation she'd over heard between the two men, the shorter man's words repeating over and over in her mind… "He's going to you because of that girl, remember?"

"Ca-can I sit down?" she asked, her voice wavering. "I feel kinda faint."

Inuyasha, his eyes half-lidded in concern, nodded several times as he walked unsteadily over to his bed and sat down near the pillow at the head, patting the spot to his right in a signal for her to sit beside him. After a few moments of silence between the two as they sat together and yet separated on his bed, Kagome sighed.

The hanyou beside her began, "I know I probably sounded like an asshole just earlier, but having all this shit sprung upon me right after I'd opened up to you wasn't exactly something pleasant for me to hear, all right?" He turned to watch her reaction. There was none; she just sat still a good foot away from him and stared at the floorboards. "Kagome?"

Kagome looked up at meet his eyes, her bottom lip between her teeth as she feigned to chew on it. She mindlessly began to fidget with her hands again. "That's partly why I was reluctant to talk to you about it. I was afraid of your reaction."

Her mind continued rambling long after she ended her sentence, repeating the shorter man's revealing and angry words over and over again like a painful lullaby: "You do not fuck around when a guy like Inuyasha takes such a guilt trip over getting involved with a minor again that he asks you to beat the living shit out of him once a week while he's strapped to a rack and to call him names that most people would threaten to strangle you for, especially when he picks her goddamn name for his safeword." She shuddered involuntarily at the thought, trying to ignore the shadowy flashes of disturbing visuals that hounded at her mind.

"The… the things I heard were really… disturbing," she continued, her voice squeaking on the last adjective, "and hurtful, that you'd do th-those things." And that you'd put yourself through torture over me. I can't bear the thought of you hurting yourself over me. Or hurting others. It's like I'm responsible for the pain inflicted upon others.

Inuyasha slid his arm around the back of her waist and held on tightly, scooting himself over to her side. "Kagome, what did you hear about me?" he asked softly, directly into her ear. His warm breath tickled her skin a bit. He playfully drummed his clawed fingers upon the covered plane of her abdomen.

"About what you've done with other people," she answered vaguely, hoping it would be enough of a clue that he'd be able to admit to or dispel what she'd heard.

"I've done a lot with other people, Kagome. Some of the guys like to call me a slut because I've been with so many women," he explained almost tiredly. "Not saying I'm proud of it, but I'm not ashamed either. I'll admit, I've been with more than 200 women, and exactly 11 men, but that's over a time frame of almost four centuries, so when you average it out, it doesn't seem so bad."

More than two hun-- Kagome's eyes bulged in shock as she lost her train of thought.

Sensing some confusion from her, he added, "Listen, if you're concerned about me being the kind of guy who fucks anyone and anything no matter whom he's seeing, you don't need to worry." He balled up his fists for a moment and sighed. "The way I work is this: when I'm with someone, I'm with only that person, no one else." He continued on as if bored, "When I'm not with anyone, I'll fuck whoever the fuck I want to, but there's nothing in it for me other than getting laid."

Kagome turned to look at him longingly.

He couldn't discern her reaction, so he questioned, "Was that what you thought was hurtful? The thought that I might be leading you on?"

She closed her eyes. She really did not want to answer truthfully. She did. "Not really, though one of the guys I overheard did say you need to get laid. Desperately." She barely suppressed a giggle, managing to smile a bit.

Inuyasha blinked in surprise. "Yeah, I do need to get laid, but I'm waiting till you're legal, remember?"

With sad, open eyes again she halfheartedly joked, "Yeah, how could I forget? You won't even let me kiss you," her line ending in a stifled sob.

He took a deep breath and a sigh. "You don't understand."

"Yes, I do understand," she retorted with a glare. "I just don't like it."

"If it weren't for the circumstances, I'd say you look cute when you pout like that," he answered dryly. "Now, what did you hear these guys say about me that you say was so disturbing?"

"Um, what's a safeword?"

"Uh…" he answered intelligently, finding her question totally left-field.

He asked what she knew about BDSM sexuality, and she truthfully answered that she knew only a little. He proceeded to explain, wondering what she was getting at; he felt totally clueless.

"So, the person in the more submissive part of the relationship picks a word to call out that will signal that the person in the more dominant part has to stop--"

Kagome interjected, asking him confusedly why someone would need a word.

"If the dom goes too far, uses too much physical force, goes beyond the submissive's limits--"

Kagome froze. "You keep finding other ways to press his limits - I'm surprised he didn't castrate you for some of the things you've added without his consent." Icicles shot through her veins.

"I get it now," Kagome interrupted him, her voice faltering as she tried to shoo away the thoughts of the things the shorter man had said about what the taller man had done to Inuyasha to make him call out her name.

She fought off more visions of Inuyasha subjecting himself to whippings by that taller man; they wouldn't go away, and she could almost hear the sounds of the whip as they connected with the supple flesh of his back, mimicking the sound she'd first heard after waking from her passed out state the night before only to see Inuyasha using some beating apparatus upon a barely moving form on the floor.

She gulped and whimpered, trying to suppress it all, but couldn't. She was the reason behind their pain.

Inuyasha raised an eyebrow; her reaction made him uneasy. "Kagome, whom did you overhear?" he asked with the truest concern he'd ever held.

"Uh, I forgot their names," she admitted nervously, yet again fidgeting with her fingers, "but there was a short guy with a long black braid of hair, and a taller guy with black bangs and his hair up in a ponytail. I didn't really get a good look at them."

He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "What exactly did they say about me?"

"That-that you were a submissive for the taller guy, and he tied you to a rack and whipped you to a bloody pulp and called you a cradle robber once a week, all because of me, and…" she rambled quickly before losing her nerve to continue repeating the things she'd heard, her chest heaving.

Before Inuyasha could say anything, his eyes frozen wide with horror and realization, Kagome doubled over and began sobbing into her hands. "I-I can't believe you'd do anything like that because of me," she sobbed through her fingers, her voice shaky. "Is it true?"

Inuyasha swallowed nervously; his blood ran freezing.

Jakotsu, the stupid blabbermouth, not only had told Bankotsu, but had openly discussed the whole ordeal where Kagome and others could easily overhear his personal business. He swore under his breath, cursing the stupid dom's idiocy. Of all the things Kagome could have heard, he'd had no expectation that his sessions with Jakotsu could have been a possibility. Kami, no wonder she had felt so shitty she needed to try to drown herself with what she had told him herself she found to be such vile beverages.

He now cursed himself even more for ever bringing her to the party. It was his fault she drank, it was his fault Hiten nearly molested her, and it was his fault she was crying and hurting.

He wished he would have told Miroku off and instead promised his best friend he'd find a better time to integrate Kagome into his little circle of friends than at a house party no better than something on the campus of a college where students did nothing but get plastered each night.

He'd thought she would enjoy being with her classmate's older sister, would enjoy meeting some of his other friends.

Instead, he was the cause of her misery and the catalyst that had set her off on her ridiculously stupid drinking binge. He, and Jakotsu and Bankotsu.

Those two would need a little talking to later, he deduced with fury.

"Oh, FUCK!" he growled out to no one in particular. "Fuckin' bastard! Jakotsu is so, so dead! AND his boyfriend!"

Startled, Kagome sat herself back upright and shakily revealed her face again, tears still glistening upon her cheeks. "So it's true?"

He opened his mouth to answer but silenced himself before he said anything. His shoulders dropped, and his ears drooped. Kagome's eyes widened.

"What's it mean when you do that with your ears?" she asked, perplexed. Was he distraught that she had discovered something horribly true that he'd been doing, or had this Jakotsu guy been spreading lies about Inuyasha and opening spreading them?

"I, Kagome…" Inuyasha trailed off before shutting his eyes and grabbing her with both arms and pulling her onto his lap. As soon as she was settled somewhat comfortably, he continued, speaking directly into the back of her head, "I can't lie to you. I… I had Jakotsu do those things to me, because I couldn't trust myself around you anymore. Not after what happened to me in Seattle, and what happened between us at work. I don't want to endanger myself, or lose control. I just wanted to punish myself for touching you. I wanted…" he paused, unsure if he should continue.

He listened for Kagome's reaction, but she made no sounds except her heavy breathing, her lungs still recovering from her sobs. "I had to protect you from me, you fucking temptress."

"So-so you're seeing this Jakotsu guy to get your mind off me?" she asked in a tiny, bewildered voice.

"I sure as fuck am not," came his heated words directly into her hair. "I hate Jakotsu. The guy pisses me off. He's been hitting on me for years, but I hate flamboyant men. Actually, I'm extremely picky about men. For the most part, I prefer women." He paused in thought. "I only had him do those things to put myself through physical pain, not to get off on it."

"Inuyasha," she mumbled, settling into his grip a bit more easily, "when I saw you at the outdoor concert, shirtless, your back looked just fine. Did you start doing this to yourself after that?" He felt so warm, not just from his body but also from the old fashioned haori he wore over his creamy white kimono top. She felt strangely chilled, even though it was a warm July morning.

"No," he negated, "I started it the same night we kissed. I haven't been able to drink Coke since then," he replied softly.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Then how--"

"I'm a hanyou. I heal extremely fast." Inuyasha stared off at his window. "Hell, I can't even get sick. I've never been sick my entire life. I think I'm immune to everything except stress, and physical injury. Kagome," he paused after saying her name again to catch her attention, "take a good look at my right forearm just above the wrist."

Confused, she glanced down at where it wrapped around her midsection. His other hand pushed the sleeve back, exposing his flesh, before dragging a claw quickly across at a diagonal.

"You-you just cut yourself!"

"Watch, damnit!" he snapped, tightening his grip around her as she writhed in place. "Keep your eyes on the bleeding cut!"

For several tense, droning, head-pounding minutes, Kagome stared at the raw cut he'd inflicted right beneath her gaze, studying and, strangely, marveling the sliced flesh as it gradually healed itself and sealed up completely, leaving no trace of harm other than a thin pink line and dried blood that had stuck to a few of the sparse hairs upon his arm.

"You see?" Inuyasha pulled his sleeve back into place, then let go of her and gently urged her off his lap before standing up. He turned to look at her. Kagome looked back, strange thoughts floating through her mind all the while. "You see? That's why. My back was all healed up by that Sunday afternoon. That's why you saw nothing."

"May I see your back as it is right now?"

Inuyasha stiffened; he hadn't expected her to want to see something like that. Hell, why would she want to, if just the thought of him putting himself through that, for her, was enough to turn her self-destructive? "No." The idea was idiotic and preposterous.

"Why?" she asked, not willing to take 'no' for an answer.

Inuyasha forcefully answered, "Because there's no reason for you to."

"Please. I need to see it," she pleaded, "I feel like I'm the sole reason those wounds, or scars, or whatever, are there, and… and…."

His golden eyes locked on hers before they examined her closely from head to toe, registering her body language. She seemed to shrink into herself.

"And even if you heal fast, you still must feel the pain," she continued, her voice feeling strained. "And it hurts me that you'd do that to yourself, and it also hurt to see you whipping that guy--"

"Hiten," Inuyasha growlingly supplied, his eyes narrowed to slits. She's nuts! She's hurt I was punishing Hiten for touching her?!

"Hiten-- I, what if you had accidentally killed him--"

Inuyasha firmly interrupted her. "I don't kill. I just beat the shit out of people who have it coming to them. Hiten molested you! He touched you!" He snorted in contempt, wincing when she flinched at his intonation. "Miroku told me he saw Hiten straddling you and yanking your shirt up. I'm just glad I had asked him and Sango to keep an eye on you at the party, or who knows what else Hiten might have done to you while you were passed out." His voice cracked as he continued, "Kagome, he touched what was rightfully mine. I only dealt out what he deserved."

Kagome curled up into a ball and lay on her side upon his bed, staring at him, hugging her knees to her chest, silent but for her heavy breathing. He-- he said I'm rightfully his? Since when has he laid a claim on me? I thought he was disgusted by me, because of my age.

His face saddened at her change. Shit. Now I've done it. Umezu, you are one big baka. He was inches away from banging his head upon the wall and slashing the swivel chair to pieces. Great job, man, you're a big fucking moron!

"I don't care what you say he deserved. It… it makes me feel like shit that others are feeling pain because of me." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I hate it. That's why I want to see your back. I want to see the scars left over from the whips Jakotsu used on you," she mumbled, "I want to see them healing, and I want to hope it's the last time your back will be scarred like that."

Kagome felt numb. Is that all he wants? Pain? Painfully aware that he was watching every move, she eased herself back up onto her rear and leaned forward, staring at the floor and wrapping her arms around her knees. "Please?" she asked, one more time, sounding feeble and breathy, like her voice was scarred.

For what seemed like forever but was more likely less than a minute or two, Kagome was locked on her own dreadful, obsessive trains of thought, blocking out all possible distractions.

Achingly wondering what Inuyasha would say next and when, if anything.

What he would do.

If he would still refuse.

Time felt stagnant.

The sounds of a groan and footsteps walking slightly away from her before the rustling of clothes began tore her from her dwellings. She lifted her head to see Inuyasha facing away from her and dropping his haori to the floor.

If he had tried saying anything to her during her self-absorbed musings, she would never know unless he were to tell her.

It looked like he was currently at work on his inner kimono. He turned his head and glanced at her over his shoulder. His eyes seemed sad.

Kagome caught her breath and attempted to stand. He's going to show me after all?

He tore his gaze from hers and soon had his kimono top loosened. It slid like dripping water from his shoulders to the floor atop his deep red haori with a shoomping sound. His long silver hair ran down his back to just below the waistband of his full, billowy hakama, covering up his entire back. All she could see were his arms and shoulders at either side.

She testingly walked forward. His ears flicked back toward her, she saw. She wondered if --no, she knew, she told herself-- he was listening for her approach.

Kagome outstretched a hand as she finally reached him, standing only a couple feet behind him. He surprised her by quickly sitting down cross-legged style upon his shirts. She awkwardly sat down behind him, extending a leg on either side of him.

Her first instinct was to get it over with, to just pull his hair to the side and see what he'd gotten done to himself because of her. However, she became instantly distracted by his strange quietness and the fact that his ears were still turned back and trained on her like miniature satellite dishes searching for radar signals or something.

So, she reached up and started massaging the base of one ear with her fingertips as soothingly and vigorously as she had done earlier when she'd woken up and searched blindly to see if those irresistible ears of his had been real. In response, he said nothing but seemed to relax his shoulders as he sighed. The ear again tried to bat her away, but she came back at it, going quickly to work. She needed to cheer herself up somehow, and she wasn't sure why, but lavishing some attention upon his ears seemed to really do the trick.

"I thought you wanted to examine the whip marks on my back, not play with my ears," he playfully grumbled, startling her for just a moment.

"I, um, I was gonna get to that, but your ears--"

"You really like them?"

"Yeah, I do."

Silence stretched between their little exchanges, magnifying the white noise around them… until Kagome heard a strange, soft growl coming from him.

She pulled her hand away, afraid she had annoyed him by getting too friendly with his ears. The sound stopped. "What was that?"

"My friends call it a brux," he explained quietly without turning his head. "Miroku used to piss me off by saying it sounded like I was purring, like a fuckin' cat or something. It's more of… a content growl." He chuckled. "You got pretty damn talented fingers, gotta tell ya. Wonder what else they'd be good at." Kagome could almost hear him smirking as she blushed. She was thankful he wouldn't be able to see her.

"You didn't do that earlier," she stated, wide-eyed. She licked her lips and inhaled deeply.

"Thought it would be funnier to scare the shit outta you," he replied smugly. She narrowed her eyes at the back of his head, hoping her glare would burn something from its intensity.

Instead of saying anything, she went back to work at his ears, on both of them this time. Inuyasha bruxed and tipped his head back in response, reveling in the exquisite stimulations her finger work produced and giving her better access.

Within moments the two had completely forgotten the real reason he had partially disrobed for her, caught up in the throes of making the ear massage last.

Kagome, at one point, brought one hand down and slid it around his waist to better grab hold of him while set upon giving his right ear what she hoped was the most exuberant and mind numbing ear massage he'd ever received.

Inuyasha wanted to shudder and shiver and uncontrollably shake all over from her meticulous and talented finger work, it felt so good, and peaceful. Almost… orgasmic. Especially with her pressed up against his back like--

He opened his eyes and stared ahead dully, still enjoying the ear tweakage but feeling a bit sad.

When she finally stopped, Inuyasha's content sounding growl stopped rumbling, instead turning into a strangled whimper before he went completely silent and pried her arm from his waist. Strangely, it made Kagome feel rejected, but she had no plan to voice as such.

Before he could say anything, she slid her right hand from his ear downward to pull aside the heavy, thick curtain of hair covering his neck, sweeping everything over his right shoulder.

She looked slightly downward, examining his back from his nape to the waist of his hakama, or as much of it as she could see while this close to him. She stifled a horrified gasp.

Kagome wanted to cry at what she saw.

A disorganized patchwork spider web pattern of raised scars covered nearly everywhere from his shoulderblades to just below his ribcage.

She just about slapped herself for thinking that one spot below his left shoulderblade resembled an empty tic tac toe board; to come up with such a simile was simply cruel, she thought to herself.

The whip marks went in all directions and at all angles, the lacerations now nothing but swollen, almost pinky finger thick raised ridges running everywhere like the convoluted and rampant streets of Tangletown, which made no sense whatsoever in her opinion.

Kagome didn't want to even imagine what his back had looked like when the wounds had still been fresh and raw. More voices returned: "Judging by what you've told me, you really bloody up his back. I would be bedridden for weeks, on my stomach no less, if I suffered the ferocity of such skin breakage you claim you inflict upon him. I'm sure he finds the scent of his blood mixing with sweat to be absolutely revolting."

She anxiously wondered how he had managed to drive home with his back all torn up, if he'd had to put the seat back and simply sit up straight with no back support, all the way home, how he managed not to scream when showering off the dried filth.

The night we'd kissed… was a Thursday. The night he drove me home… was a Thursday too, just a week later. He, he was in clubbing clothes. The connection fizzled with her enlightenment. He drove me home on his way to the club to have this done to himself! Her eyes moistened again, threatening to do more than brim up with volatile, saline beads.

Her lids shut tightly, and she ran a tentative hand along his back, from his left shoulder down to just below his ribcage on the right side, careful not to irritate the raised, welt-like, half-healed scars too much.

His muscles quivered beneath her touch., and he shifted a bit in place. "If he's taken such offense to you suggesting that, even if he ever does fuck her, she'll end up leaving him just like most of the others who found out what he is, then I can definitely assume that he picked her name for a very… good… fucking… reason," the shorter man's heated voice repeated in her mind.

He was afraid I would reject him? Because he's only half human? A hiccupping sob loosed itself from her throat, and tears slowly streamed from her eyes. He'd rather go through… through this than be rejected again?

She brought her other hand up to the whip-scarred skin of his back and rolled her fingers as lightly and delicately as she could, as if trying to read Braille that was written in traditional Japanese style, reading with her fingertips from up to down and then right to left.

Opening her eyes again, she glanced upward to study what he was paying attention to. His ears were trained back, but lowered significantly. She sighed deeply, then scooted forward, until she was close enough to kiss him just below the bony nub of his nape. She smoothed her hands around to the front of his torso and grabbed on tightly, surprising him. His ears perked up and twitched, no longer fully trained on her breathing.

Kagome closed her eyes, leaned forward and pressed her dry lips upon his back. The body within her arms stiffened. She continued leaving light kisses upon the skin, only hugging him tighter. His hands went for hers, no doubt to pry her grip loose, she surmised. He won't even let himself desire me, so of course he won't let me desire him, she told herself sadly, suppressing a whimper. Adrenaline invaded her blood, adrenaline and desire.

"Ka-kagome? What are you doing?" he asked in a soft voice that trailed off into a whisper, uncertainty heavy in his tone. Almost like he was afraid to find out, she thought.

Kagome refused to answer, simply pulling back and wetting her lips before straining herself to reach farther upward. After great effort, she slowly kissed him at the base of his neck on the left side, almost trying to mimic the neck worship he had once lavished upon her. Her entire body felt heavy and weighed down as she clung to him.

If she had been in a better position to, she would have wrapped her legs around his waist.

The apex of her thighs throbbed. She wished she knew what thoughts were running through his head. Would this turn him on? Would it disgust him instead?

"Kagome?" His voice sounded scraped this time, if such a thing was possible, she wondered.

"Kissing away your scars, and your pain," she mumbled in between open-mouthed lavishes, willing back her tears and trying to keep her voice stable. "What else? Are you…" she trained off, desperately careful of how she must word the remainder of her sentence.

His hands, his clawed, hanyou hands fully covered hers, but they did not move to unleash her firm grip. He shivered beneath her touch. "Am I what?" His long hair covered their hands.

"Are you… disgusted that a blue eyed half-Japanese girl wants a golden eyed, silver haired, puppy eared hanyou like you?"

The hanyou in her arms tensed up, and Kagome became afraid of what he might say next. To take her mind off his silence, she strained upward again and licked the side of his neck, trailing the tip of her tongue in a small circle before closing upon the skin in a sucking kiss.

Just like he did to me, that one evening, she thought to herself as the memory of his mind melting, succulent kisses chilled and seared her mind and skin.

The next few moments were such a blaze and practically a blur that she couldn't really register what exactly had happened. All she knew was that one moment she had her arms around him from behind and her lips upon his neck, and the next moment he was out of her grip, turned to face her, and had her sprawled backwards upon her back and raised up only by her elbows, and completely covered by him. It was almost like a repeat on the previous night, how he pinned her down at the waist, his lower legs locking her thighs together, and this time, he held himself up with an arm on either side of her upper torso.

And he was staring into her eyes, breathing heavily, and she had no idea what his expression meant, if he was angry or scared or… something else. He simply looked wild, with his lips parted and the tips of his fangs visible in between. His hair was all a mess, some of it still over his shoulder but most of it all slip-shod across his back, or as far as she could tell from her spot almost upon the floor, the full frocks of his bangs all mussed up.

Had she… said the wrong thing? What was he going to--

"Don't you ever," he began in a slow, low tone, "ever think that!" His eyes lowered, and she followed his gaze to see him… staring at the oval cut-out of her top. With a deep inhale he lowered his head, and almost immediately she felt the wet warmth of his tongue dipping between her breasts, the little metal ball of his barbell gliding upward along the little valley road between her mounds.

His action startled and surprised her enough that her elbows lost strength and she became completely flattened against the hardwood floor, gasping from the sensation of his tongue upon her skin.

It was just a solitary lap between her breasts; when he saw her stunned reaction, his hands went for her wrists and pinned them to the floor by her neck, and he went for her neck this time, licking up the column of her throat several times, his entire figure shaking from exertion and desire before he pressed his form against hers.

Kagome shuddered with anticipation and closed her eyes, licking her lips. Almost immediately she felt warm breathy pressure upon them, and as she parted them slightly, his tongue delved into her mouth. Her pulse throbbing, she tongued his metal barbell, barely able to handle the intense sensations as they kissed slowly and passionately. At her next opportunity she mouthed his lower lip, lightly sucking at and tugging on his lip rings before trailing the underside of his tongue with her own tongue's tip.

The only sounds in the room were heavy staccato breathing and light whimpering, almost mewling moans from the both of them as they kissed as if their lives depended upon it. Kagome's chest heaved with gasps during the short intervals when their mouths were fully parted. She tugged at her immobile wrists, wishing to drag her fingernails along his sides, but he smirked at her as he pulled away for a moment to laugh, knowing she preferred the restraint and being at his mercy.

And his crotch was pressed right against hers, the warm bulge pressing against her thigh telling her all she needed to know if he was enjoying this as much as she was. As she tugged beneath his grip once again, just for the hell of it, she shifted her hips a bit, hoping to send a spike of pleasure to her core from the sensation.

She trembled and closed her eyes, seeing stars.

Inuyasha finally pulled back for good, freeing her wrists and sitting back on his haunches as he looked down at her, the tip of his tongue running over his top lip. "You don't disgust me. I just desire you too much for my own good." And with that he stood up and walked toward the open doorway of his room.

He… was just going to leave the room? After something like that? Kagome watched his footsteps from her spot upon the floor, craning her neck and even watching in an upside-down manner before turning on her side and sitting up.

"Where are you going? Is… do we still have to wait until April for anything else?" she called out as he had just reached the doorway. He stopped and turned but said nothing. She suddenly felt really, really stupid. "I mean, will this be the last time until then that we can even… kiss?"

His eyes went hooded. "I'm going to take a cold shower. As for waiting, I think it's preferable."

Kagome stood up. "But you're not going to… him, anymore, are you?" Would he continue his little weekly ritual of suppression and punishment, or had she managed to change the way his mind and body would work?

He shook his head. "No. This hurt you," he admitted with a sigh. "But this doesn't mean we can be open about each other in public. People talk. I can't be suspected. The fact that I'm a hanyou… that's the real reason I have to steer clear of the cops' suspicions. I don't know what might happen if it's discovered that I'm not human."

She frowned, angry at his choice of words. "You are human… just, only half, and not in a bad way."

The hanyou snorted derisively. "And few people other than the privileged ones, like you and Miroku and Sango and Christonn, and all the others, would understand that and see it that way."

She furrowed her brow. "Christonn knows?" She felt completely out of the loop.

"Yes, he does. Anyway, to most humans here, if I'm not all human, I'm not human at all. I'm the dirt beneath their feet. It's like how all your Japanese classmates called you a gaijin despite the fact that you're half Japanese. They don't see it that way. They saw someone who looks Japanese, but who has blue eyes. They saw something that's not natural." He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his bare chest.

"That… that's just how it felt to me," Kagome softly exclaimed, astonished.

"And that's how humans see me. They see what looks like a human, except for my golden eyes, and these claws where I should have fingernails, and hair of such a silvery color it can't be natural, and…" he bowed his head as he paused, his eyes shut tightly, "and these fangs of mine. And if they saw the ears I was blessed with, they'd have solid proof I wasn't a human. And who knows what they'd do?" His last sentence practically slithered out with a menacing, antagonistic hiss.

Kagome nodded solemnly, firmly clasping her hands together in front of herself.

After meeting her eyes again and shifting his position --she assumed it was to attempt to hide the evidence of his still apparent arousal that she'd felt earlier on the floor-- he continued, "These may just be movies, but I can name three films I refuse to watch a second time simply because of what happened in them." He sighed. "They hit a little too close to home."

"But they're just movies, there for our entertainment, Inuyasha. Movies can't hurt you," she retorted.

"I don't fucking care," was his honest and simple reply. He unfolded his arms and began a drawn out counting gesture with his fingers.

"Number one: E.T. E.T. was an alien from another planet, and as soon as the government got their hands on him, or it, or whatever, all hell broke loose. I'm sure the only reason they tried to keep the alien alive was to do experiments on it."

He snorted and huffed again.

Kagome remained silent; he had a point, she felt.

Another finger was outstretched and counted silently upon.

"Number two, Splash. Madison the mermaid was taken into scientific custody to be studied until she died, as soon as she was exposed in public in her mermaid form.

"Number three, Flight of the Navigator. A twelve year old boy suddenly is whisked eight years into the future without having aged, from 1978 to 1986, and he has to hide out in the alien spaceship that was responsible for the time jump in order to escape the scientists who'd taken him from his family to do experiments on him," he finished explaining and curled his hands into fists.

Kagome did not know what to say.

He stood fully straight and made as if to exit his room, but looked back at her over his shoulder. "I did not ask to be born this way, with claws and fangs and little doggy ears. But that's who and what I am… a golden eyed, silver haired, puppy eared hanyou, someone with mixed blood like you, Kagome. I didn't ask to be shunned by everyone except my parents and the few people I've managed to befriend over the years. I say few because they die off like mayflies. I'm an old man even though I look no older than you."

His voice grew somber as he continued, "If the humans in power in this country knew how old I really was, it'd be illegal for me to fuck anyone except those whose age is in the triple digits."

He laughed dryly, with no humor attached to it.

"I just drift from place to place, finding things and people to fill my time, to steer away the boredom that accumulates over the decades. And I'm not about to give up my freedom under this guise, this human façade, just for the ability to have the entire world accept me for what I am. It would never happen. I'd be stuck in captivity under maximum security. Experimented upon. Studied… like I was a wild animal, a freak of nature. Maybe even executed. I'm not a human to these people, thus I would hold no basic human rights."

Kagome tried to speak before thinking of what words she'd say. "But…." But she knew of nothing to say that would make things better, boost him. Everything he'd said was true. It was obvious, she could tell, that he'd spent long lengths of time pondering his situation and the possible, terrible outcomes if he wasn't careful.

Inuyasha smiled a bit. "That's why when we do anything, until you're old enough, no one can be around to see. No one can suspect anything. No one at work, especially, can know yet."

'When'? He said 'when' instead of 'if'? She widened her eyes in confusion and hope. "You mean--"

Inuyasha finished her sentence, "I mean, I'm loosening up on my previously instated rule about kissing. I may be an asshole and a bastard at times, but I know how to treat my girlfriend in training." And with that he turned his head back to face down the hall and walked away from her, his long hair only partially covering up the mostly healed scars on his back.

Kagome could only silently watch him walk away from her, her thoughts on a runaway train.

He reached the end of the short hall. "By the way, after my shower, you need to take one. You reek of smoke and liquor."

---

Half an hour later, after Inuyasha had come back from his shower, his hair all plastered to his skin in a haphazard manner and a towel around his waist, he'd shown her the way to his bathroom and told her to be downstairs when she was done, for he was going to make lunch.

Kagome was elated.

During her shower she felt some mild stinging and ache on her right shoulder close to where it met with her neck whenever it was beneath the showerhead. Wondering if she had a muscle strain or ache there, she felt the skin there. It didn't feel as smooth as wet, slippery, unbroken and healthy skin should. She decided to ignore it for the time being, telling herself to examine the area in the mirror after she was done with her hair.

Using his shampoo and conditioner was… weird. They were such plain products, sudsy unscented stuff that had no special uplifting features other than being good for preventing split ends, according to the bottles. The split ends part made her laugh.

After turning off the hot water once her hair was washed clean of the hair care products, she stepped out of the shower and wiped herself dry in a big fuzzy towel as best she could. She wrapped another towel around her waist and examined her shoulders in the mirror while topless, trying desperately to refrain from remembering, however distractedly, that less than an hour earlier, Inuyasha's tongue had been right there between her two firm breasts. She failed, miserably, the thoughts sending exciting chills to combat against the warm glow she currently felt from the previous flush from hot shower water jetting upon her skin and steaming around her.

Two fingers spread across the slightly tender area, and as she leaned closer to the mirror, her eyes narrowed.

She knew exactly what the hell it was.

Stupid Inuyasha. What did he take her for, a chew toy?

---

Inuyasha was fully dressed in black jeans and his black PTWF shirt, PTWF being the fake wrestling federation showcased on his friend Bankotsu's cable access show, and currently in the midst of making ramen.

Not the instant junk that he typically boiled for 10 minutes on the stove, or the stuff in a Styrofoam cup he nuked in the microwave with water for half as long.

The good, authentic stuff. The kind of stuff he missed being able to order for several hundred yen at ramen shops.

He took a whiff of the aromatic smells coming from the pot of boiling noodles. It was almost done. He hoped Kagome liked ramen. Granted, it was his favorite food, so of course he was biased, but since she'd lived in Japan herself for several years, he also hoped she knew the difference in quality between the good stuff and that instant junk that was cheap enough to cost maybe a single US dollar for eight single serving packages. Keh, there was a reason the shit was cheap.

"Inuyasha!"

His ears pricked up. As he turned around while reaching into the cupboard for two large bowls, he saw her angrily storm into the kitchen and stand exactly three feet away from him, glaring at him and quite obviously fuming. He wondered if she would be offended if he said she looked like smoke was about ready to start curling from her ears, then decided to stay silent.

It was quite difficult for him not to laugh, though, or even crack a smile or a smirk.

"Yes, Kagome? Did I booby-trap the shower by accident or something?"

Okay, he couldn't resist a slight crack at her expense.

She obviously did not find it amusing, though, so he noticed.

"What the hell is this thing on my neck doing there?" she angrily bitched as she yanked aside the thick black strap of her top, exposing the light bite mark on her right shoulder just near where it met with her neck.

Ah, that. Inuyasha calmly went upon his task of ladling the finished ramen into the two bowls, whistling innocently as he looked everywhere but at her in an extremely obvious manner, before stopping to turn off the stove and then answer her.

"That? Oh, I dunno," he lied with a straight face. "A hickey gone wrong?"

"Not funny." Kagome narrowed her eyes. "For all I know, it's some kind of youkai mating mark or something, proclaiming that I'm yours."

"Well, you are mine, but, please, that's gotta be the stupidest thing I ever heard of," he replied smugly as he shook his head. Do not laugh, do not laugh, do not laugh. "Youkai mating marks. Riiiiiight." He rolled his eyes. "Keh." He couldn't help it; he laughed… giggled, really. "I have the same sexual habits that humans do. Either that, or I've fucked some really weird humans." He raised his eyebrow for a moment. "If I bite someone, it's for erotic purposes… usually. " He smirked.

She pointed an accusatory finger at him and then at the puncture wounds, as mild as they were. She could tell they'd barely broken the skin, but she didn't care. The fact was that he'd bitten her without her knowing. "You are responsible for this. Now, when the hell did you do this, and why?"

It was times like these Inuyasha was thankful for having taken acting classes.

With a still completely straight face, he firmly replied, "Last night. You were having a nightmare and were thrashing about in my arms, crying out about some creepy looking trees that were out to get you, or something. Rather than wake you up, I decided to just scruff you. It calmed you down pretty well, as you know fully well it was light out when you awoke." He smirked.

Kagome felt deeply confused. He scruffed her? What the….

She raised her eyebrow, all anger drifting away and being replaced by bewilderment.

Inuyasha raised one of his eyebrows to mirror and mock her.

With a huff she crossed her arms over her chest and ordered, "Don't do that."

"Do what?" he asked with feigned innocence. "Exterminate your nightmares in the future?"

"N-no, not that. I mean," she paused to find her words, her eyes wanting to glance all over the place and not focus on one thing, "don't do that eyebrow thing right after I do it. It's annoying."

"Someone's cranky. Have some ramen." He smiled as he turned and splayed his hand in presentation of the big steaming bowl of ramen on the counter to his left. "Step Five of the Seven Steps of Service: Present the Order!"

Kagome rolled her eyes but accepted the offering of food. She was desperately hungry; her stomach felt like it was about to cave in on itself if it didn't get any nutrients.

As they sat across from each other at the kitchen table eating their respective bowls, Inuyasha's cell phone went off, and he answered it as soon as he put his eating utensil back down into his bowl.

Kagome found it very hard not to stare. It was so odd seeing him talk on a cell phone when she could plainly see his ears several inches above the phone's earpiece. She had to remind herself that he had extremely keen hearing. She also wondered what other senses of his were just as acute.

"Yeah, Miroku, come over in about two hours, would you?" the hanyou across from her said pleasantly into the receiver. "Yes, she's here right now, in fact. I haven't taken her home yet. We're having lunch first. Ramen." He continued jabbering for another minute until he hung up and put his cell phone away.

"Inuyasha?" she asked, immediately taking another mouthful of food.

"What?"

"What else about you is… dog-like?" she asked, trying to be careful about her wording. "I mean, besides your looks and your hearing, and that… scruffing thingy." She laughed nervously.

Inuyasha's eyes went off somewhere to the side for a moment as he thought. "I'm loyal?"

"No, seriously, I wanna know. I'm curious." She smiled, hoping it would make him open up.

"Well, since you mentioned my hearing, I'll tell you I've got a damn good sense of smell. That's an easy way for me to tell if you're turned on." He smirked, relishing in her subsequent blush. "And eyesight. Very keen eyesight. But seriously, that's about the limit. I'm inu hanyou, not a puppy dog you can buy in a pet store." He snorted and glared off somewhere that didn't have Kagome in his line of sight.

Damnit! Kagome scrounged up an apologetic response. "I didn't mean to imply anything like that. Like I said, I was just curious."

His gaze returned to hers as he retorted in a deadpan voice, "Just don't go making connections like thinking that because I'm inu hanyou I prefer doggy style during sex." Kagome stared at him with wide eyes, obviously not expecting such a comment, then sent her gaze elsewhere and breathed deeply. "It's definitely better than missionary, but I prefer upright, like against a wall, or spooning. Gotta love spooning." Man, making her blush was amusing, he thought. Free entertainment.

Kagome babbled aimlessly while trying to find the right words until she spilled out, "What's spooning?"

"You know how we were when you woke up this morning, with me right behind you and holding onto you tightly?" She nodded dumbly. "That's spooning."

Okay, this time he could not resist a giggle at seeing her flushed face. It was simply too funny.

---

That night at Ground Zero, Jakotsu was extremely wary. Sure, Inuyasha only came in on Thursdays for those sessions, but he was positive that Kagome, that girl, would have told Inuyasha what she'd overheard.

Jakotsu was simply afraid that he would not make it home alive.

Inuyasha, when pissed off, was extremely scary. He already knew that from just two nights ago with the dog bone gag situation.

The other dominant who worked there, a short, light haired switch woman in her early twenties named Tammy, took up her switch-off shift early, so Jakotsu made his way downstairs through the crowd to the bar where a woman about Inuyasha's height was bent over mixing drinks for some customers.

"Janet?" he called to her over the din of the hardcore industrial music currently being spun by the DJ.

Janet smiled and held up a single finger, signaling that she'd be with him in a moment. When she finished with the latest round of drinks, she walked along the counter toward the taller Ground Zero employee.

"How's it going tonight so far, Jacky-boy?"

Jakotsu had barely been able to concentrate on his work all evening, primarily because he was scared shitless that Inuyasha would come storming in and… well, whatever Inuyasha would do, Jakotsu wasn't sure he wanted to imagine it. It would probably hurt. And hurt in not very erotic ways. Besides, Jakotsu was more of a sadist than a masochist.

"Not too great. The crowd could be better," he truthfully admitted. At her coy glance, he asked, "There a chance I can get something on the house?"

She nodded and waited patiently for his usual order.

"The usual. I'm not up for the typical yelling stuff tonight."

Janet raised an eyebrow at him as she began to mix up his usual order. He was such a flamboyant gay man that he usually was more than happy to engage in the 'what did you say?' banter always associated with one who orders a drink called Purple Penis. Something was definitely wrong with Jakotsu if he wasn't up for a chance to yell the name of male genitalia out loud for everyone to hear. But, there wasn't really anything she could do about that.

---

Two days later in the late afternoon, Jakotsu and Bankotsu were playing video games on Bankotsu's Playstation 2 in their living room when in the middle of a tag team match against the 'computer' both young gay men heard some foundation-rattling banging upon one of their windows on the ground level.

Bankotsu quickly put the game on pause and stood up, knowing it was probably Inuyasha howling for their blood. "Get downstairs, quickly," he ordered to his boyfriend and roommate, "before he breaks down the door or something!"

As the two scrambled down the stairs, they heard the shattering and crinkling of glass falling upon the tile floor of the kitchen. Bankotsu cursed under his breath, nearly tripping over his own feet while trying to scurry to the lower level as quickly as he could.

Jakotsu reached the ground level first just in time to see Inuyasha standing in front of the side windows, surrounded by broken glass and looking extremely pissed off. Their hanyou friend, if he still intended to at least refer to Bankotsu as a friend after whatever he'd planned for them, was dressed in his usual dark clothes, his hair all a mess but for the black bandana he sported to hide his canine ears.

"Aw, shit! Ban, he came in through a window!"

Inuyasha turned to look at the two men as Bankotsu entered the room and stopped right beside Jakotsu, the two of them staring back at him. His eyes narrowed, and for a short moment a feral glint shone in them as he sneered and bared his fangs, letting loose a low, dangerous growl. Then he was gone in a motion blur into the next room, Jakotsu and Bankotsu not really sure where he was heading.

Wasn't he there to deal with them for having been responsible for allowing Kagome to find out what he'd been doing each week because of her? Bankotsu was stumped.

The two followed after him, unsure of the hanyou's plans. As they reached the stairs to the basement, they heard a clanging that could only be a guitar stand being tipped over. Actually, a bass guitar stand, seeing as how Bankotsu did not own any guitars, only bass guitars. He freaked.

The clambered down the stairs to the basement just in time to see Inuyasha holding Bankotsu's black and purple Peavey Forum above his head by the neck, its body only inches from the ceiling. Oh shit, Bankotsu thought. Inuyasha was going to smash his bass guitar? The hanyou looked pissed off enough that he would probably do it before he could say anything or explain their position.

"Don't!"

Inuyasha turned around, keeping the bass still held up in the air. "Why shouldn't I?" he sneered, his fangs clearly visible.

"Be-because Jakotsu's the one to be mad at, not me, so if you're going to destroy anything else in addition to our window--"

"Hey!" Jakotsu smacked his boyfriend on the arm.

"I'll pay for replacing the window," Inuyasha growled out, looking like a fierce canine about ready to kill something. "But destroying your bass will hit things home a bit better than anything Jakotsu owns."

Bankotsu extended his arm out, frantic. "Not Velvet! Please, don't smash Velvet!"

Inuyasha did a double take, frozen at what he'd just heard. "D-did you say Velvet? What the fuck?"

"M-my bass, please don't destroy it!" Inuyasha eyed Bankotsu warily.

"Look," Jakotsu began, "we know why you're here, and we know we're at fault."

Stunned, Inuyasha didn't answer for a while. He just stared at the two men pleading for him not to destroy the musical instrument currently in his hands and above his head.

"Bankotsu, did you say you named your bass Velvet?" He could not believe his furry canine ears.

Bankotsu's face drained of color. Inuyasha had always liked him as a guy friend because he said there wasn't anything about him that was of questionable masculinity… except that now Inuyasha knew that he had named his bass guitar something like Velvet. Damnit. "Um, well," he began nervously, glancing back at Jakotsu beside him. Jakotsu had it easy, being such a flamboyant man and all. Damnit.

"Seriously, I don't want to know, Bankotsu," Inuyasha snapped before taking one hand and slicing a single bass string clean through without even scratching the fretboard.

The loud twanging snap that ensued made all three of them give a full facial flinch, Inuyasha primarily from the cringe-worthy sound itself hurting his sensitive hearing and the other two because they worried he would not stop there.

"Please! No more!" Bankotsu yelled out pleadingly, his ears covered with his hands. Jakotsu hugged his boyfriend from the side fiercely and protectively. Inuyasha was definitely serious.

With a derisive snort the hanyou gently set the bass guitar onto the floor, its severed string flailing off to the sides in coiled arcs. "Now we talk, since you both know just how fucking pissed off I am," he crooned out, a cruel smile spreading across his features. "You two hurt Kagome so much that she got piss-poor drunk, passed out on Kouga's bed, and nearly got molested by Hiten. You, Jakotsu, have violated the confidentiality thing concerning your job at the club. Whom the fuck else did you tell about this?"

"Do you promise not to hurt us?" Jakotsu asked, chuckling nervously. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't think--"

"No, you didn't think, did you?" Inuyasha countered. "And I can't promise not to hurt you, but I will promise you two won't need to visit the hospital for your injuries."

"Look, Jakotsu, I think he's gonna go easy on us," Bankotsu simpered with one corner of his upper lip raised in sarcasm.

This was just not their night.

Jakotsu sighed.

---

Kagome excused herself from her register during the first sign of downtime to wash her hands and steal a drink of water from the sink with a courtesy cup.

The crowds coming for the new Tomb Raider movie were overwhelming. Mix into that crowd all the young kids coming to see Spy Kids 3-D and the vast mixture of people that was the crowd for Seabiscuit, and it was no wonder she was already exhausted from serving customer after customer after customer on opening night for all three of those movies. She'd even been called at two in the afternoon to come in early. And, of course, the managers wanted her to still work till close. She had simply shrugged her shoulders and suppressed an exasperated sigh - it was still money, and since it was summer, she had nothing else to do. Might as well get in some extra hours.

"Hey, Kagome!" Inuyasha called out as soon as she had returned to her register from the sink. She lifted her head and saw him walk toward her. "Need you to change the pops. Lemme lock your drawer." He smiled very, very faintly at her.

Kagome nodded. It sounded like a nice break from standing in one spot and assembling orders of food for customers. A wonderful chance to get away to someplace quiet and relaxing, even if those damn pop boxes were heavy as hell.

In the back room Kagome spent the next 45 minutes changing box after box of pop syrup. As she had no helpers, she resorted to hefting single 40lb boxes onto her shoulder in an unwieldy balancing act with her right hand supporting it during the trip from one side of the prep room to the other. As calming and mostly stress-free as it was, mostly quiet with the only sounds coming from the CO2 lines and the freshly frozen ice tumbling down to the bottoms of the ice makers, she started needing short breaks in between box trips. Her right wrist was feeling strangely sore.

During the rest of the night her wrist continued to hurt, and during her break after the 7 o'clock shows, around 8:30pm, she stopped by Snyder's on the first floor for some Ibuprofen at Allen Schultz's recommendation.

The ache continued to bother her even with the painkillers throughout the remainder of the work evening, enough so that any task involving much wrist movement of her dominant hand, even just cleaning out the popcorn warmer by her register, was enough to make her constantly wince at just the thought of cleaning or even touching anything.

She went to sleep that night hoping her wrist would feel better in the morning.

The next day the pain in her wrist, and it was only on the outer side, the same side as her pinky finger, was simply agonizing. Even the Ibuprofen didn't seem to help the ailment much. The ache simply splintered down from the base of her palm all the way to halfway to her elbow.

It was so painful she couldn't even write her name on a piece of paper without whimpering and want to clutch her wrist protectively. It was so painful she had thought she might have strained something, so she spent $20 at Snyder's before her shift for a right wrist splint with Velcro straps.

Right off the bat when arriving on the third floor for her 5pm shift she asked the junior manager on concessions duty, Jamar, if she could do something other than concessions. It took a bit of coercion with him, but Kagome did convince him to have her placed elsewhere for the day, to see if things would ease up for her.

Kagome finally got to spend her first day of work ever working alongside Christonn and learning the basics of being an usher there. She did the rounds with him and the other ushers, listening to their gossip of the goings-on as all of them kept the hallways and the main lobby clean of stray popcorn kernels, tore customers' tickets and directed them to their auditoria, and cleaning up the auditoria after shows had gotten out.

Except, Kagome still was limited to only minor tasks. Tearing tickets was too rough on her wrists. The hallways and main lobby didn't need much maintenance and thus weren't very time consuming, and she did need to keep herself busy with other tasks.

Hell, using a broom and dustpan was aggravating enough on her wrist during hallway and lobby cleanup. Trying to quickly clean up any auditorium that had housed customers seeing any of those new movies was too difficult for her. If she didn't want to start screaming in agony over the pain in her wrist once every two minutes, she'd have to go at maybe a third as fast as the other ushers.

Kagome felt like she was just bogging them all down, creating more work for everyone else instead of being of any clean-up use.

After a couple hours she just couldn't take it anymore. She went to Allen Schultz and explained to him her wrist was still practically useless, and he sent her home for the night.

"You really ought to get that examined at the doctor's office. You're scheduled tomorrow, so just come in with a medical note, okay?" he told her with a concerned nod. "Otherwise it's not going to look good for you to keep coming in with your wrist like that. If it hurts that badly, there's gotta be something wrong with it."

"Understood," she answered, still clutching her splint-encrusted wrist to her abdomen with her other hand. "I really wanna work, but it's so tender. I can't even write with it," she mumbled complainingly. "I hope nothing too severe's wrong with it."

"Yeah," Allen agreed, commiserating with her. "You're one of our best employees, and without a medical note Naraku would be likely to work you to death like a draft horse." He rolled his eyes and shuddered. "We should make it through the evening without you."

After that exchange she went for her stuff in the break room and clocked out, saddened at having to be sent home early for the first time ever. Until then she had never missed a day of work and had always been early.

Upon arriving home Kagome sought for her mother and found her downstairs doing rug braiding at a low table.

"You're home early, dear," her mother commented with slight confusion. "Was it dead tonight?"

"No, my wrist hurts too much for me to work. They sent me home cuz of that. Can you take me to a doctor? The managers want me to bring in a doctor's note tomorrow."

Her mother nodded, finishing up her last roll of wool strips before getting up from her chair and phoning the after hours number for Health Partners. After being on hold for a while, she was able to make an appointment later that evening at the Riverside location's Urgent Care clinic. Only some of the locations were open on weekends, she found out with annoyance.

An hour later Kagome sat in the exam room letting a nurse take her vitals and everything before she would wait for the doctor to see her. When he arrived about 15 minutes after the nurse left, he gently and carefully examined her wrist joint, having her bend it several different ways and tell him when she felt pain.

When done with his examination of her wrist, he told her, "You have acute tendonitis of the wrist. And a very odd case of it."

"What? And what's tendonitis?"

"The tendons in your wrist are inflamed. Most likely they were strained very badly during some really strenuous physical exertion. It's about as bad as a sprain, but not quite the same," he explained, pushing his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. "Usually tendonitis is on the inner part of the wrist, here," he continued, fingering the bone of her thumb all the way down the other side of her wrist from where it hurt.

Kagome chewed her lip. It wasn't as bad as she'd thought, but it still didn't sound too good. She'd sprained her ankles plenty of times as a young kid, and it had always taken what had seemed to her to take forever before she would be able to walk and run and skip and jump as avidly as she'd been able to before.

"So, it's just a really odd case of tendonitis?"

"Yes, Kagome." The physician smiled. "What were you doing in the last few days that may have caused this?"

She thought deeply before remembering that she'd started feeling the pain in her wrist while she had been changing the pop boxes. "Um, lifting really heavy boxes of pop syrup at work."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Just how heavy are these?"

She told him, explaining just how she had transported box after box onto the high metal wire shelves that held all of the pop syrup lines attached to the tubes and everything, including just how she had her wrist.

"Well, that'll definitely do it to you. Also explains why it's on that outer part of your wrist, young lady," he commented in response, sounding a bit exasperated. "It's going to take a few weeks for this to heal. Are you right-handed?"

She nodded solemnly. A few weeks? What would she be able to do at work until her wrist was healed?

"I see. By the way, this is a very nice splint you have there. It's nice that you already had gone out and bought one," he complimented, almost inappropriately. "You'll definitely be needing it. Just only wear it when awake. Take it off for when you sleep at night. It'll need to air out sometimes."

"What about work, for me? I'm scheduled to work tomorrow, and I had to be sent home today because couldn't even do the job of an usher! Usually I work in concessions." Kagome felt downtrodden. "The managers said I need to bring in a doctor's note."

"Don't worry, I'm way ahead of you," the physician consoled her. "If there's anything that's really light work at this… where do you work?"

She answered, "The movie theater in downtown. Pierce Theaters Megaplex 15."

"Hmmm… well, you won't be able to do concessions, what about usher?"

She shook her head. "That's what I'd been trying to do when they sent me home today."

"Well, no concessions, and no usher. If they can't find anything of really light work and that's easy on your right wrist, then you'll have to stay off the schedule for three weeks," he told her firmly, giving her an austere nod. "Ask the managers about anything that you can easily do with primarily your left hand, though I think it's likely you'll just have to have all that time off."

He shrugged his shoulders as he sat down as a desk in the corner and began to write on something. "That's medical advice. Here's your note." He handed her the bottom, yellow copy of what he'd been writing out. "Oh, and take the max recommended dose of Ibuprofen every four to six hours as needed."

Kagome sighed as she took the note from him. At least she already had a bottle of Ibuprofen. But being on doctor's orders to stay out of the concession stand and to refrain from doing usher's work? The only option left was box office, and she had no clue how to do box office. As she left the exam room and made her way to where her mother awaited her in the waiting room, she shook her head and groaned in annoyance.

---

"Kagura, just what in the hell is this?" Naraku sniveled from his swivel chair behind his desk in the GMO, motioning with his head toward the piece of paper she had just placed on his desk. Rather than asking her to her face, he simply stared intensely at the customizable dartboard on the far wall, a plastic-feathered dart in his right hand.

Kagura tapped her foot in annoyance. "A doctor's note that says Kagome can't work in the concession stand or as an usher for the next three weeks. She was sent home yesterday after complaints of pain in her wrist."

Naraku aimed a bit and made his throw. The dart landed in the lower right quadrant with a thunk, close to the border. He'd customized the dartboard to feature a color shot of Britney Spears from an old Crossroads poster he'd found in the poster room. The nice thing about poster paper was that it held up better than normal paper.

"Well, what's she have?"

Kagura narrowed her eyes. Couldn't Naraku just read the damn note himself? She suppressed a sigh and crossed her arms, telling him, "She has tendonitis in her right wrist. She can't do anything except really light work."

"Try usher. She's a good employee. She has to work." Naraku picked up another dart and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth as he aimed again. This time the needle point of the dart ended up piercing Britney's eye. He smirked.

Hoping Naraku wasn't looking, she rolled her eyes. "That's what she'd tried doing before Schultz sent her home, Naraku. She can't do concession or usher. She basically can do nothing unless she uses only her left hand."

"Stick her in box office, then. Have Zara or Mandy train her in down there."

"Do we even need any more box office employees?"

"Don't question me, you insufferable bitch."

He swiveled her way and glared at her. It took all she could not to wince beneath his gaze.

"Put Kagome in the box office. Besides, if she really wants to be a supervisor, then she needs to know how to do everything, and the customers down there will be her true test. If she can handle the idiocy that is the customers at the box office, and if she can make good impressions with them as it's the first contact those customers have with our staff, then I think she'll prove herself quite easily capable." He smirked. "Besides, Kagome and Inuyasha need to be separated. They spend too much time around each other."

"Oh?" Kagura dared to question, her brow hardened in feigned disinterest.

"I get the feeling those two are too friendly. Kagome, if she's as good an employee as all of us think she is, then she can survive working away from him," he further explained. His left hand went for another dart. "Hmm.. Wonder if I can aim with my left hand and even hit the board?"

"Go for it," she said boredly, this time truly disinterested.

Just as Naraku shot the dart left handed for the board on the far wall, Allen Sashka came barging in behind Kagura. "Hey, Kagome's just standing around in front of the concierge desk waiting to hear from you guys about if she can work or not. Where should I put her?" he asked in his thick Russian accent.

"Box office," Kagura and Naraku both said at the same time without even looking at the immigrant manager.

Sashka smirked. "Tight," he crooned in a low, enthusiastic voice. "Booooooooooox offffffffffffice. Right on!" He immediately jumped and turned to leave. "Hey, what'd you do with my Crossroads poster?!" he exclaimed when he saw the image Naraku was aiming for with another dart under handicap.

"Oh, that was yours?" Naraku finally graced his underling with his gaze. "Oopsie."

Sashka merely shook his head in annoyance and cussed under his breath, "Sabaka yibuchiya," as he left.

---

Out by the concierge desk Kagome was chatting with Mandy as she was about to go down for her box office shift when both of them suddenly heard a loud and obnoxious voice calling out, "Kaaaaaaagome's going to the boooooooooox offfffffffffice!" over and over again.

Puzzled, the two female employees turned to see Sashka almost prancing his way from one end of the concession stand to the other right in the middle of the lobby, rolling his shoulders back and happily singing out to anyone who would listen, which was basically anyone who was unable to block out his loud, strangely accented voice.

"Kaaaaaaagome's going to the boooooooooox offfffffffffice!

"Kagome Kagome Kagome Kagome Kagome!

"Kaaaaaaagome's going to the boooooooooox offfffffffffice!"

Kagome and Mandy blinked in embarrassment as they both stared at Sashka's dancing antics.

"You know, I think it's not exactly a good thing that he's so happy about this," Mandy apprehensively commented to her new box office coworker.

Kagome was too stunned to answer, strangely mesmerized by Sashka's unnecessary enthusiasm.

"That's just scary."

Kagome nodded in agreement.

---

A/N: well, I know I took three weeks to do it, but here is chapter 21. Yay! Just a few things to note. First of all, whoever is harassing me via reviews on FF, please stop it. I doubt you'll even read this, but who cares? Leave me the hell alone. For those of you who don't know, someone has been leaving anonymous reviews for me on FF trying to make me look bad because MHH did well in the polls for Second Quarter 2004 at the Inuyasha FanGuild. MHH won Second Place in Best AU, Third Place in Best Continuing, and Second Place in Best Drama. I won those placements fair and square, and my status as a moderator of the Inuyasha FanGuild had no bearing on the poll results. So, whoever it is that's trying to harass me and make the IYFG look bad, please go fuck off and die. You are immature and not welcome here. You are also a coward for not signing the reviews. If you think so unsightly of me, then at least let me know who the hell you are.

Next, Tangletown is a section of Minneapolis whose streets are so convoluted and not grid-like that a lot of us locals consider the area kinda annoying and mysterious. I swear, the way the streets are laid out really make no real sense, damnit!

Lastly, Japanese vocab: gaijin = foreigner, stranger.