InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Questions and (Some) Answers ( Chapter 24 )

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24. Questions and (Some) Answers  

Even though it was nearly three weeks, it seemed like only a few days before the date of Kagome’s going away party rolled around. The pair had been rehearsed to within an inch of their lives in the details of the story they would be telling the girl’s friends. A few small tables with chairs had been set up in the courtyard as well as a longer table that would eventually be covered with an assortment of food. Lights had been strung around all of the buildings of the shrine complex, and large speakers would provide music for the guests.

By midafternoon, things were as ready as they could make them. As Kagome emerged from the shower, she reached under the bed for the large box she had been hiding ever since the day after the plans for the party were made. Getting it had been difficult. Even though Inuyasha didn’t enjoy shopping like she did, he took his role as her protector very seriously. She had finally had to send him off on an invented errand to the other end of the mall so that she could make her purchase.

Leaving the box on the bed, she waited for the hanyou to emerge from his own shower. As she looked at him, wearing a robe and using a huge, fluffy towel to get most of the water from his mass of silvery hair, she realized exactly how far he had come from the day when he had run into her room wearing nothing but bubbles because the bath had been too hot. It would probably have bothered her if she hadn’t realized early on that this was his way of being respectful to her family while they were here--she had no doubt that his essential self remained unchanged.

She looked up at him. “I have something for you,” she said, handing him the box.

His ears twitched in surprise as he took the parcel. Where had this come from? “What is it?”

She laughed. “Open it and find out.”

He looked up in shock at the contents of the box, and she explained. “Everything we bought so far was chosen to suit your normal coloring. I thought that this would look spectacular when you were in your human form. I just hope that none of my friends try to take you home with them.”

“Not a chance,” he murmured.

“We still have a little time, so let’s start by getting you blow-dried.”

He had experienced that process before, but he had no idea how he would be able to stand it now. As she proceeded to brush, dry, and run her hands through the hanyou’s thick hair, he was conscious only of her touch and the enveloping scent that had come to mean life itself to him. When he spoke, his voice was strained. “Kagome,” he said, “I think you should stop now.”

She laughed softly, and he understood that she was fully aware of the effect this was having on him. “I don’t think I can,” she answered, and his sensitive hearing caught the note of desperation in her voice.

“What about your friends? They’ll be here soon.”

She shook her head. “Not until well after dark. I told you that we had time, remember?”

He grinned wickedly as he hooked a single claw into the belt holding her robe closed. “Then maybe we shouldn’t waste any of it.”

This time, Souta did the blow-drying. When the now-human Inuyasha was dressed and ready to face the girl’s friends, she looked at him in surprise. The pale silvery-grey suit fit him as though it had been custom-made for him. As soon as she had seen it in the store window, she had thought that it would be perfect, and it was. The deep garnet-red silk shirt was a perfect match for her own dress.

She looked at him critically, then stepped forward. “There’s still something not quite right,” she said. Almost before he realized what she was doing, she slipped the beads that contained the subduing spell she had used to keep him under control over his head. “I was going to wait until we were in our own home, but I just couldn’t wait any longer.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? I’m still the same jerk I always was, you know.” It was only in recent weeks that he had felt secure enough in her love to tease her so openly.

“I know,” she said, returning the gesture, “But you know it now.” She looked up at him. “I meant what I said before about not wanting to hold you against your will.”

He laughed quietly. “Did you really think that this thing was what kept me around?”

“No, but it did make certain things easier. If you hadn’t had it, we never would have become allies with Kouga, and he would never have given up the shards by himself.” She looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Have you used the jewel yet?”

He pulled the completed Shikon on Tama from his jacket pocket. “Not yet. I had some reservations about that, but I think I’ve resolved them.” Holding the rose-colored stone in his open palms, he focused his will on it, thinking of what he wished to accomplish. The jewel glowed brightly, first rosy, then a brilliant white, before disappearing, leaving only the silver chain on which it had hung. He glanced back at his companion. “It’s done.”

“So exactly what did you do?”

“Mostly, what I told you--I opened the well for our family and friends for all time. And then…” He paused, looking a little uncomfortable. Since she was clearly waiting for an answer, he continued, his voice lowered, “And then, I made a little change in you.”

“NANI?”

He held up a hand in a gesture of self-defense. “It’s nothing bad, I hope. I increased your lifespan to match my own. I couldn’t face the prospect of decades--or even centuries--without you.”

She threw her arms around his neck, sniffing back tears. “I never thought of that! Just give me a few minutes to get myself back together, then we can go downstairs and meet the others when they arrive.”

Raising her chin so that he could look directly into her eyes, he shook his head. “Don’t bother. You’re perfect just as you are.”

All in all, the party was a success. As Kagome had expected, Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka, her three best friends from school, were thoroughly taken with Inuyasha and spent much of the evening questioning him about their relationship. Ayumi, known as much for her tactlessness as for her spectacularly good grades, shook her head in confusion. “Then I guess you can’t be that violent, selfish, jealous, two-timing, badass delinquent that’s been bothering Kagome all this time.”

With a faint smirk directed at his blushing mate, he smiled slowly, shaking his head. “No, that guy’s gone for good. She’s found somebody else--somebody who will give her the kind of life she deserves.”

The only possible wrinkle in the proceedings came when Houjou arrived. He had been informed that Kagome would be going overseas in the morning to live with relatives in the United States, and although he wished her well, he couldn’t quite get over a certain level of depression. She was, after all, his very first love despite the fact that she had never returned his feelings.

Inuyasha watched Kagome and Houjou speaking quietly together in a corner of the courtyard. He fought down a surge of jealousy, finally understanding that she could no more be unfaithful to him than he could leave her. Although his human hearing could not make out the content of the conversation, he could read the boy’s body language perfectly well. The boy’s slumped shoulders and downcast eyes would have given him cause for rejoicing a few months ago. Now, all they elicited was a certain measure of sympathy.

As the guests began to leave, he made a point of searching out Houjou. “I’m kind of sorry it had to work out this way for you.”

Houjou was a little surprised. “You could tell?”

Inuyasha nodded. “For whatever it’s worth, Kagome taught me that there’s somebody right for every person somewhere in the world, even if they have to pass through the gates of hell or conquer time itself to find that person. I think that she’s found hers. Try to be happy for her, for her sake.”

Houjou shook his head. “I want to be happy for her, but I think that she may have been my right person.”

The hanyou looked away briefly. “I know what that’s like. I thought I loved somebody a long time ago. As things turned out, we weren’t right for each other. We ended up being bitter enemies. The thing is, when I did find the one I needed to spend the rest of my life with, I was still so torn up with guilt over the first girl that I almost didn’t see it until it was too late.” He sighed, shaking his head yet again over the enormity of the error he had nearly made. “We can’t choose who we love, but we can choose to close off our hearts. That’s never a good idea.”

Kagome turned away from giving her friends the address where she could be reached in Arizona and noticed Inuyasha and Houjou talking together. With something very like panic, she excused herself from the cluster of girls and went over where the others stood in a relatively dark corner of the courtyard. “I see that you two seem to be getting along.”

Houjou looked up, the hurt in his eyes now tempered by something else. “We seem to have quite a bit in common.”

Kagome looked from one to the other, realizing that there was, after all, no danger of bloodshed in the immediate future. “So, what did you two find to talk about?”

Houjou shook his head. “Nothing important.” He took both her hands in his own. “I really do wish you all the best. You know where to reach me if you want to keep in touch.” Then he turned and walked out of her life.

After the last of the guests had left and the party debris was cleared away, Kagome hung up her party clothes in her closet. “What was all that about with Houjou, anyway?”

“I was watching you talk with him earlier. He looked so miserable I remembered what things were like before we got ourselves sorted out. I didn’t want to see him make the same mistake I did, so I told him about Kikyou.”

She looked at him in shock. “Not everything!”

“Baka,” he growled. “Of course not--I just told him enough to show him that I almost messed up my entire life because I was so stupid to realize that my guilt over what happened was keeping me from seeing the answer when it was right in front of my face.” He reached up and pulled her down next to him in a grip that she probably couldn’t have broken if she had wanted to. “It may take him a while, but I think he’ll be all right--it looks like some of the girls from the party will be only too glad to help him get over you.”

She laughed softly. “Animal.”

He smirked. “That didn’t exactly sound like a complaint.”

Really too tired for anything more than a little talk and a lot of sleep, she changed the subject. “So, are we still going home in the morning?”

He nodded slowly, stifling a yawn--damn, this human body tired easily. “I think so. I’d like to check in and see how things are with the others. Besides,” he added, “We have to get to work if we’re going to have our own place ready before winter sets in.”