InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Pop Goes the Question ( Chapter 37 )

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, they’re still not mine. Rats.

37. Pop Goes the Question  

Life settled into a pleasant routine that summer. Between her family’s visits and their own return to Tokyo on the new moons, Kagome found that she didn’t really miss her old life very much. Besides, she had plenty going on in her life to keep her busy. In addition to spending part of each day with Kaede and her two apprentices studying the medical scrolls provided by Jinenji and working on refining her miko abilities, she was learning how to mange the extensive household. Typically, she would spend the hottest, stickiest part of the day working on keeping up the household records. More than financial documents, these records chronicled the doings of the whole area. Part accounting ledger, part court records, and part diary, she hoped that the scrolls, which were kept in a cabinet in the library, would one day explain to her family exactly how the lives they would know had come to be.

In addition to her duties within the household, Kagome always joined her mate in arbitrating disagreements involving the human village and the youkai in the surrounding area. In time, the grumbles of dissatisfaction over the second such event over which they had presided had more or less disappeared, although Kagome was still vaguely uncomfortable in the presence of the village headman’s nephew and his closest friends. Of course, now that they were starting to gain a reputation for rendering scrupulously honest and impartial decisions, the overwhelming attitude of the villagers was that the strange household outside of town was an enormous asset to the overall status of the village itself. Her worries that they would lose the acceptance that they had gained from the human population now seemed to have been unnecessary.

The one activity that caused the greatest stir in the village was her insistence on weapons practice every day. Although she often practiced alone with her bow to keep up the skills she had acquired during their search for the fragments of the Shikon no Tama, she was also learning to use a variety of other weapons. Sango had agreed to teach her the basics of sword combat with the aid of the first blade produced by Kohaku’s new workshop, and Miroku had begun to teach her to fight with what would have been called a quarterstaff in medieval Europe. Although she would probably never achieve the expertise of her teachers, she would probably be more than proficient enough with all of the weapons to protect herself from any of the adversaries she would be likely to meet so close to the village.

The hanyou was enormously amused by his mate’s insistence on learning the fighting skills until he actually watched the single-minded intensity with which she practiced. In that moment, he was reminded that the most dangerous creature in either world isn’t a wounded animal, but a female protecting her family.

After that first event, he made a point of watching her practice every day. He loved the way she threw everything she had into her fighting, the same way she did with everything, from learning healing to taking care of her strange extended family to loving him. The very thought made him shiver in the midsummer heat. Although he was at first distressed by the collection of bruises she gained during the practice sessions, she dismissed them as of no consequence. As she explained it, they were a small price to pay for avoiding what she would probably get if she ran into a bad-tempered youkai without learning the lessons they taught.

From that moment on, he made a point of being there at the end of practice to take her to the hot spring and soak away the excess energy and sore muscles that invariably followed that level of activity. Besides, he found that he needed it as badly as she did--watching her practice, even against friends who would be careful to do her no real damage, was making him a nervous wreck.

After one such especially strenuous practice session, he rubbed a thumb lightly over the darkening bruise on her upper arm. “Maybe you should ease up a little. I mean, what the hell do you need to know how to fight for, anyway? That’s what you have me for.”

She leaned against him in the water, feeling the tension caused by the practice giving way to a very different--and much more welcome--kind of tension. “I know,” she said, looking up into the soft amber of his eyes, “But I worry about you. You’ve been hurt so many times-- What if something hurt you and I didn’t have the skills to get you away from it? I don’t think I could continue without you.”

His eyes narrowed briefly until he realized that she wasn’t implying any particular kind of weakness on his part. She just wanted to keep him safe, just like he always did for her. Instead, he gave her the look of supreme self-confidence she had once found so annoying. “Well, you’ll never have to, so stop worrying about it,” he whispered into her hair. As he felt her arms go around his waist to pull him closer, he decided that this might be the time to bring up the subject of their next trip to Tokyo. “You know, I’ve been thinking about going back to your world.”

Without moving her head from its resting place on his chest, she raised her eyes to try to see his face and was rewarded by a perfect view of the underside of his chin. Reluctantly pulling back so that she could see his eyes, she asked, “We’re not going this month?”

The slight smile he wore started to broaden. “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking that you might like to go a day early.”

She was instantly suspicious. She knew that he didn’t particularly enjoy visiting her home world despite his affection for her family--the overwhelming variety of scents, the confusing loud noises that never seemed to stop, the very presence of such unimaginable numbers of people all combined to make these visits pure torture to his acute hanyou senses. Still, he had long ago decided that it was more than worth it if it meant being with his mate. Since she could see no signs of distress in him, she began to seriously consider the suggestion. Although he had never said as much, she realized that the day would come when he decided that leaping in and out of the well would be too dangerous for her, so she thought she should probably take him up on the offer. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “After all, I’ll hardly be able to go see them once I’m roughly the size of a city bus.”

His grin widened further. “Damn right,” he growled. “You most likely won’t fit through the well by then anyway.”

Six months ago that remark would have had her in tears. Now that she realized the ultimate source of his usual rudeness, she was able to hear the affection behind what would otherwise have been insulting. Well, she decided, two can play that game. “Animal,” she said with a bright smile.

“Bitch,” he replied, burying his face in the side of her neck. Though his frequent use of what would be considered an especially rude expletive in her world had once bothered her, she had figured out that the word had an entirely different connotation to an inuyoukai--or an inuhanyou, for that matter. To him, the word simply meant a desirable female. She had decided that she very much liked the word, especially when spoken in that voice combining the soft tone of a lover with the roughness of pure, raw desire.

“That’s right,” she said, turning her head so that she could speak directly into his ear, knowing that her breath would tickle the sensitive organ, “And don’t you ever forget it.”

Some time later, she turned to her mate in the darkness of their bedchamber. “Did you ever find out anything about that youkai I saw the other day?”

Extremely glad for the concealing darkness that his ear twitch completely, he shook his head. “No. He seems to have disappeared. He could have been just passing through--a lot of young youkai tend to wander for a time before they settle into whatever kind of lives they choose.”

She shook her head slowly. “Maybe that’s what it was--maybe we happened to see him while we were traveling. He just seemed so familiar….”

She thought back to the day when she had caught a glimpse of the youkai walking through the forest near their home. He was tall-nearly as tall as Sesshoumaru--and had the typical pointed ears of a youkai in humanlike form. His hair was long, a rusty red-brown, and seemed to reach nearly to the ground behind him. He had it tied back with a piece of blue fabric into a long tail at the back of his head. When she had tried to approach him, he vanished into the forest, leaving her to wonder if she had really seen anything at all, until she reached the spot where she found some almost doglike tracks in the soft earth of the forest floor.

Trying to halt the progress her agile mind was making in identifying the mysterious youkai, he snarled, “And I always thought you’d dump me for a human guy--I never would have expected that you’d pick a youkai instead.”

That earned him the ultimate punishment--a bout of tickling that ended only when they both found themselves on the floor in a tangle of silken sheets.

“Now,” he said, scooping her up and depositing her back on the bed, “Let’s get some sleep. If we’re going back to your world tomorrow I want to have a good night’s rest behind me.”

After leaving specific instructions for the care of the household in their absence with those remaining behind, they headed off to the well. Surprisingly, Kagome’s mother didn’t seem at all shocked when they showed up a day early. Still, the woman had the presence of mind to pass the incident off as a simple miscalculation: she had thought that the new moon was on Friday rather than Saturday. “By the way,” she said, smiling at her daughter, “There was a delivery for you this morning--I put it in your old room.”

The hanyou stopped on his way to the cabinet that held the instant ramen. “Go ahead. I’ll be right up.”

As she disappeared up the stairs, he raced out the door and leaped to the roof outside her window. He very much wanted to see her reaction when she saw the flowers he had arranged for the occasion. The hanyou was not disappointed. When the door opened she stood there in shock. She simply stared around at what had to be more than twelve dozen roses standing all around the room, covering nearly every horizontal surface.

A tentative tap at the window shattered the silence. She moved to the window in a daze, sliding it open to admit her mate. “I need to talk to you about something.”

She sank to the bed silently as he plucked a rose from one of the vases and sat on the floor in front of her. Since she was still staring into the distance, he stood up, taking her face in both hands and forcing her to look up at him. “I want you to marry me. Tomorrow.”

She blinked in surprise, then shook her head. “No.”

“Nani?”

Realizing that he must think she was rejecting him, she tried to explain. “We don’t need a ceremony. What we already have is bigger than that. Besides, it’s too complicated--it would take weeks to set up.”

He sat beside her, resting an arm around her waist. “I know exactly what it takes--we’ve been planning this since the first time your family came to visit.”

She blinked in surprise again. “Exactly who is ‘we?’ And whatever gave you the idea to do this?”

“You gave me the idea when you told me about your mother being bothered because you moved on with your life without any of the rituals your people use. I talked to her about it that night, and she agreed to help me--I thought you could use those rituals as much as she could. We’ve been working on the details ever since.”

“…the details…?” Her voice was faint as she struggled with the idea that her mate and her mother had conspired against her.

He nodded. He was starting to enjoy the fact that he had succeeded in surprising her. “Everything is in place. When she brought you those magazines, she used them to find out what kind of things you would like--I made the final decisions from the choices she narrowed down. We have the clothes all ready, the place to hold the ceremony--right here at the shrine--the official witnesses, somebody to perform the ritual, even the rings and arrangements for food from your favorite restaurant.” Reaching into the front of his haori, he produced the garnet and amber ring he had ordered just for this occasion. “Marry me.”

She turned in his grasp, throwing her arms around his neck. “Of course I will! I never thought that you would ever do something like this.”

She raised her eyes to look at him, and he realized that tears were streaming down her face. “What’s wrong? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

She understood his misconception and laughed. “Sometimes tears are happy ones--like these.” She leaned hard against him, knocking him back against the pillows. “Do we really have to start working on this right now?”

He was as unwilling to leave his position stretched out on the bed as she was to leave hers pinning him there. “No. Your mother is on her way to the airport to pick up your uncle--the one you’re supposed to be living with--and said she won’t be back for a couple of hours. Are you sure you won’t be bored while she’s gone?”

She reached up and brushed the hair from his eyes. When she spoke, her voice was soft, her eyes darkening with her desire. “I don’t think that boredom is going to be a problem.”

Fortunately for both of them, the hanyou’s sensitive hearing gave the two sufficient notice to be sitting down in the kitchen with cups of instant ramen when Kagome’s mother and uncle arrived. When the girl’s gaze met the uncle she hadn’t seen since she was six years old--more than ten years ago--she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around the older man’s neck. “Uncle Nori! You’ll never know how happy you’ve made me!”

The middle-aged man held her by both shoulders at arms’ length, studying her carefully. “Your mother was right--you’re not a child any more. I only have one question: is this what you want, or are you just trying to fulfill a destiny hinted at in the family histories?”

She reached behind her to grab the clawed hand that had found the small of her back. She laughed softly and said, “I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I didn’t even know about that part of the family history until a few months ago--and then I thought it meant something completely different.”

Kagome’s uncle glanced over the girl’s shoulder at the hanyou who stood close behind her. “You don’t like me touching her, do you?” Returning his attention to his niece, he continued, “There’s something you have to know, Kagome. Be very certain that this is the life you want. Once it’s done, there’s no changing it.”

Her expression was determined, almost defiant. “I already know that. Inuyasha told me.”

That answer convinced him that her desire for the strange life that lay ahead of her was genuine. “Then I wish you both all the best.”

The rest of that day was spent in reviewing the arrangements that had been made for the ceremony the following evening. Although Kagome’s mother had warned her that she would probably be surprised by some of the things the hanyou had insisted on, “stunned” would be somewhat closer to the truth. Even though she had expected that he would take her wishes into account when making the plans, she had never thought that he would exhibit the kind of sophisticated taste indicated by some of the choices he had made.

Everything, from the clothing he had chosen to the flowers to the food and even the music all showed a genuine regard for her tastes as well as an intimate knowledge of her likes and dislikes that she had never thought him capable of. Clearly, she had underestimated his powers of observation if not his absolute devotion to her happiness.

He was a little disgruntled when he wasn’t allowed to see her try the dress that he had chosen, but his mate’s mother was adamant--traditionally, he wasn’t supposed to see her at all before the ceremony, and very definitely not in her dress. Of course, he would have to see her tomorrow for the rehearsal in the morning, but wouldn’t be allowed that privilege again until they met at the ceremony itself. Instead of flying into a rage as he would have done some months ago, he spent the brief time it took to be certain that the garment fit his mate speaking to her uncle about some of the more unusual guests who would be arriving tomorrow to attend the ceremony.

Nori shook his head, a broad smile on his face. “You know, most people in the present time don’t really believe that youkai ever really existed. You say that several of them will be coming here tomorrow?”

The hanyou nodded, preoccupied with what was going on between the two women upstairs. “That’s right. One of the witnesses, the…best man?--is a fox youkai. There are a couple of wolf youkai who have accepted the invitation. A hawk youkai, wind youkai, and void youkai--all part of our household in my world--will be coming. Even my youkai half-brother is coming--I think Kagome’s mother bullied him into it. We’ll also have a couple of minor youkai--one of the formal witnesses has a firecat youkai as a sort of pet, and my brother’s servant is a toad youkai.”

“Do you suppose I’ll get the chance to talk to them a little? I’ve been reading about youkai my whole life, but never thought I’d actually get to meet some.”

The hanyou snorted. “I don’t know why you’d want to--most of the youkai I’ve met have been a real pain in the a--”

“Inuyasha?” Kagome, finished with the errand upstairs, came down and took his hand. “Would you excuse us for a while, Uncle Nori? We really need a little time alone right now.” At the older man’s silent nod, she led the startled hanyou outside into the courtyard.

They settled themselves at the base of the Goshinboku. At the hanyou’s expectant look, she smiled and shook her head. “I just had to get out of there for a little while--it’s all pretty overwhelming. I just can’t believe that you did all this for me. Everything you chose was just so perfect, I almost can’t believe it.”

He smiled softly in the dark. “Your mother said almost the same thing. Hell, all I did was try to think of what you would like.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m so sorry about this.” She took his face in both hands and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “We won’t be able to be together tonight.”

He felt like a knife was thrust through his chest. “Why not?”

“It’s part of that tradition Mama was talking about--about not being able to be together until the ceremony. Will you be all right in Souta’s room for tonight? Uncle Nori will be staying with Jiichan, and it’s the only place we have available.” When he didn’t answer right away, she looked up at him, tears gathering in her eyes.

Seeing that she was indeed as upset about the unexpected change in plans as he himself was, he shook his head. “It’s only the one night, right?” When she nodded miserably, he continued, “If it’ll make your family happy, I guess I can spend one night away from you. But,” he said, lifting her chin with a clawed finger so that he could meet her eyes, “I swear that we’ll never spend another night apart if there’s anything I can do about it.”