InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Only Yesterday ❯ Only Yesterday ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

It had been a fine day until the rain began to fall, and he felt so chilled to the bone there may have been a chill to his heart. Or maybe he simply imagined it as he climbed with a shiver off his motorcycle and made his way inside WacDonald’s, his shelter from the storm. If one could call it a storm, that is, as he found it but a pathetic drizzle if anything. But his clothes were still soaking wet, and few people of sane mind would let themselves be willingly caught out in the cold.

He froze in the middle of taking off his helmet, instantly perking up, eyes wide, senses afire. He made a discreet sniff. Beneath the overpowering smells of greasy fast food and the constant stench of motor oil and grease that clung to him like an invisible mist, a bane he suffered from how he chose to while away his days now, beneath all of that was a scent from the past. Something he once thought long lost, never to be found again, but enough to make his tired old heart surge with childish anticipation.

And it was here. She was here.

He found her quickly, behind the counter and taking orders from customers, looking older than he remembered but he’d recognise her anywhere anyway. His thoughts raced as much as his heart, though as he quickly slinked into line, beneath the joy he felt at her ‘return’ to him there lingered something dark and coiling, a constriction to his hope, a viper that if provoked may choose to strike his confidence. Fate could very well spit in his face. He wasn’t naïve enough to overlook the possibilities that awaited him. Seven centuries of life had taught him that much. Second chance or not, the circumstances weren’t the same as they had been in the past.

His worries and inner dialogues were put on hold for the moment as she asked for the next customer, for him; he stepped forward and set his helmet on the counter. The smile she gave him warmed him to the core, sealing away some of the inner chill. “Welcome to WacDonald’s. May I take your ord-?”

He instantly had her hands clasped in his own. It was an action denied to him for centuries, and which he greatly welcomed back. “It’s good to see you again, Kagome,” he began in a flirtatious purr, fanged grin almost matching hers, eliciting a nervous laugh from her. The strange mixture of congeniality and surprised shock on her face amused him. “How have you been far-” But he cut himself off in mid-sentence when he saw the way she was lightly tugging at her hands, as if to get away from him; the coil around his heart tightened considerably. “Um, Kagome?”

She tugged at her hands once more, and this time he let go. A customer behind him grumbled aloud, and Kagome let out another nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, sir, but do I know you from somewhere?” She paused before starting again, a sheepish, apologetic look on her face. “It’s, well, it’s a little embarrassing to have you hold my hands like that when I don’t even know who you are.”

Kouga’s jaw dropped, and the viper struck gold.

Kazuma paused in mid-chew, hearing the rumble of a motorcycle approaching, then reached his hand back into his bag of potato chips. Moments later, just as he predicted, Kouga came storming, quite literally, into the home they’d been sharing for quite some time. Water dripped everywhere. Speechless at his elder’s drenched appearance and noticeable bad mood, the younger wolf youkai couldn’t help but stare.

“You look like shit, man,” Kazuma finally said as Kouga, who seemed to be staring off into space, passed him by.

Stopping in his tracks, Kouga backtracked a few steps until it brought him face to face with Kazuma. “So?” he challenged, gaze directed more at the wall behind Kazuma than Kazuma himself. Somehow Kazuma found that more intimidating than being directly stared at. It gave him the creeps. He hadn’t seen Kouga this put out in decades.

Kazuma reached a hand back into his bag of chips, stuffed a few in his mouth, chewed, and then swallowed hard. “Did work suck or something?”

Kouga’s eyes drifted to the bag of chips, and the atmosphere grew considerably tense as he stared at it for a long time, his eyebrow twitching minutely.

Kazuma tried again: “Yo, Earth to Kouga.”

Kouga responded by balling up his right fist. Then, a lightning-fast blur and the next thing Kazuma knew, the bag of chips was in Kouga’s hands, which were in the process of crushing it, and its half-full contents, into a tight, crunchy ball. Before Kazuma could protest, a blank-faced Kouga had pitched it back at his chest and walked off in the direction of his bedroom, tracking water everywhere.

It took Kazuma a moment for him to find his voice again, he was so surprised at Kouga’s sullenness. To think it was this bad… “H-hey, fine, but just remember, this is your mess to clean up,” he said, pointing to the dirtied floor.

Just before he got to the door of his room Kouga turned around and narrowed his icy blue eyes at Kazuma, the only other remaining member of his once powerful tribe of wolf youkai. Kazuma, who was also Hakkaku’s grandson, had known Kouga his entire life of some two hundred-odd years. But Kazuma knew nothing of the past. No one else did but Kouga.

“Kazuma,” he growled, eyes flashing, and as he took in Kazuma’s stunned reaction, part of him wanted to yell out, ‘you don’t know what happened, you don’t know what’s going on, you couldn‘t possibly know a damn thing about back then.’ But instead he simply turned, opened the door to his room, went in and tossed a low “Not right now,” over his shoulder just before slamming the door shut with enough power to make the pictures on the wall rattle and knock in place.

The crushed bag of chips rested by Kazuma’s feet, having long since fallen to the ground. Kazuma himself, though, stared at Kouga’s door, wondering what the blazes had put him into such a funk.

Meanwhile, in his room, Kouga set to work at licking his emotional wounds as only Kouga did these days. He sat at his desk and thought, reflecting on the day’s unexpected turn of events and what to do about it. At the top of the list: was she still worth pursuing? How was he to reclaim ‘his woman’ when she hadn’t a clue who he was in the first place?

Something, anything to counteract against the viper’s poison.

Weeks passed before he bothered stopping by that particular WacDonald’s again. She was working then, too, and this time she recognised him - as the weird guy from a few weeks before. But he quickly apologised, nudging the talk quickly into a more opportune direction: “I must have mistook you for an old friend of mine,” he said with a wolfish grin, leaning on the counter. “Except you’re a bit too pretty to be her. Definitely my mistake.”

Kagome blushed instantly, eyes darting from him to what he presumed was the customer behind him. “Th-thank you. Are you going to order this time, sir?”

Without batting an eye he replied, “Gimme a number three combo with a Coke and- what time do you get off work today?” A slight raise of his eyebrow at the last moment gave him just the effect he’d wanted to have on her:

“At six, and that’ll be four hundred and thirty-nine yen, please, sir-”

“Please,” he interrupted. “None of that ‘Sir’ crap with me.” As he dug around in his wallet for a thousand yen bank note he made certain to pull out something else as well, keeping his intense eyes trained on her surprised ones, blue meeting blue. “Call me Kouga,” he clarified, handing her his business card.

The first step in regaining his woman, Kouga had decided, was to let her get to know him. Again. He could take the pain.

She met up with him after work, but only for a moment. Her friend, she said, was coming to pick her up, and Kouga figured it was better than nothing. He made an attempt at small talk with her, but it didn’t last long. Behind her he noticed a smiling young man approaching them, waving his arm up high as he called out, “Higurashi!”

Bringing their conversation to a quick halt, Kagome turned and waved back, which puzzled Kouga to the point of asking, “Kagome, who’s that?”

Hojo, she said his name was. Then Kouga put two and two together. He hadn’t figured that her friend might be a male. Out of curiosity he gave the human male a once-over, sizing him up. At first it seemed this Hojo guy was paying him little heed, gracing him with a “Hello, sir,” smiling almost defensively before turning all his attentions toward Kagome, but Kouga didn’t fail to notice how Hojo seemed to intentionally make no further attempt to involve him in conversation. Kouga couldn’t seem to get his own lost conversation started back up again - Hojo gave him no chance to talk to her! But Hojo seemed oblivious toward him more than anything else. He was probably harmless. Harmless and just a friend, judging by how he’d called her by what Kouga figured might be Kagome’s last name.

Kouga was going to dismiss him as little threat, but then he saw the cow eyes Hojo seemed to have for Kagome when she wasn’t looking. The young man was grandly polite to both her and ‘her new friend’, if not too polite, but no, he thought to himself sternly. A rival was a rival.

The waters still had to be tested, though. Who knew, maybe Dog-Turd was around somewhere as well. She didn’t stink of him, but that only told so much.

Kouga was older, wiser than in his more youthful days, and even his brashness had disappeared over time. He had to admit that once she’d disappeared long ago, after the final battle, even he hadn’t held much hope of ever catching her again, and it had soon died a hard death. Its recent revival still left it a fledgling invalid, and in a way, he felt he had to learn how to fly again.

While he’d never had wings, his shard-powered cyclone had been enough of flight to count. With the shards long gone (gone with the jewel, gone with Naraku, gone with Kagome the first time around, gone gone gone gone gone), he’d been done for. What was left, then? What?

Kouga was shaken from his thoughts with the resting of a hand on his shoulder. He turned; it was Kagome. She was looking at him earnestly. “Hey, Mr. Kouga,” she began.

He stiffened his shoulders. “No Mr., just Kouga,” he corrected, eyeing Hojo behind her instead. Kagome didn’t seem to notice. Hojo did; his smile seemed a bit more forced.

“Kouga, then.” She smiled, then pointed at Hojo. “We’re going now, but it was nice chatting with you.” He waved them off then.

“Call me sometime, would you?” he called out as they were walking off. Hojo quickly clasped her hand in his, almost too quickly, and Kouga smiled with rejuvenated mischief. Things had been properly communicated between the two of them.

“So this is where you live, huh?” said Kouga with a slur to his words, taking in the scenery of the shrine. He hadn’t expected to see her home anytime soon; she’d barely revealed anything about herself so far. Her invitation had been a pleasant surprise.

“Lived,” she corrected, seating herself at the top of the shrine steps. “I have an apartment now. A small one. But I lived here during my high school years.” She sighed and kicked her legs lightly, heels tapping against the steps below.

Kouga nodded and joined her on the steps. It had been simple enough connecting the green and white uniform she’d always worn back then with modern high school these days - he'd figured it out long ago - but up until their chance meeting he’d been in eternal darkness about when in time she lived.

An odd silence spread between the two, punctuated only by the sound of Kagome’s heels connecting quietly with the steps. Kouga quickly lost himself in his thoughts. Things were progressing better than they ever had before she’d disappeared before everyone’s eyes - she’d vanished like smoke, really, dissipating in the air, fading away to nothingness and leaving only a faint afterimage of her figure as she stood: head lowered, eyes squeezed shut, hands clasped around the completed jewel. Complete because he gave up his shards for her. He’d have done anything for her.

Lurking beneath it all, though, was an underlying feeling of unease. The fact that she still didn’t remember him was a harder blow than getting punched in the stomach, but she seemed to know absolutely nothing about Naraku or the shards; he’d brought the topic up a couple times, always careful with his wording, but it always drew a blank from her.

What had she wished for, anyway?

And this absence of himself in her memory - who cared about the others, anyway? - made him wonder if he was still pursuing the same Kagome from back then. Only upon hearing her familiar laugh, nearly tasting her scent - same as in the past - in the air, or other such things did he feel confident they were the same person. If Dog-Turd’s poor excuse for canine senses could tell the difference between Kagome and Kikyou, no doubt he himself could distinguish Kagome from not-Kagome. Kouga snorted at the thought. Where was the stinky hanyou, anyway? The last he saw of him, they were beating the snot out of each other, several centuries ago. The fight had come to a draw; a draw that left them exhausted and covered in bruises and a handful of non-vital flesh wounds, but a draw nonetheless. And after that, they never crossed paths again.

“What?”

Perking up, Kouga turned to face Kagome. “Huh?” She was looking at him inquisitively.

“What was that noise you made?” she asked, blinking with surprise.

He sighed. “Oh nothing, just thinking.” He’d been getting lost in his thoughts a lot these days, he added silently. This was the third time she’d met up with him somewhere, and he kept wanting to smack himself for not being able to focus on the here and now when in her presence. He was getting what he wanted, a second chance with her, and he couldn’t even devote all his attention to her when they were together. It made him inwardly frustrated. It took him a lot not to let it show.

She pondered his answer for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before standing up and smoothing her skirt down her legs as she made to start crossing the shrine grounds. “Come with me, I have something to show you.” He immediately rose, following her as she led him pretty much to the other side of the shrine. As they walked by a large holy tree Kouga’s gaze immediately zeroed in on a large bare patch that covered more trunk area than he found normal. In the middle was what looked like a puncture wound, as if someone had rammed a narrow stake into the trunk. He slowed to a stop so he could stare. A stake, or… an arrow?

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed her stop and turn around, at which point he met her gaze. “Just looking.”

“That’s the Goshinboku. A holy tree.” Her words seemed to hang in the air, and she looked as if she weren’t even certain why she had spoken in the first place. Kouga watched her carefully as she began to speak again. “There’s a legend that about five hundred years ago a miko and a hanyou fell in love with each other, but a being of great evil turned them against each other for the sake of obtaining a powerful, mythical jewel in the miko’s possession and protection. It was called the Shikon no Tama, the Shikon Jewel.”

A strange prickling sensation ran over Kouga’s skin, causing him to shiver automatically. It took his entire willpower not to stop her from continuing. She knew about the jewel after all. So why, when he’d asked her about the shards, had she acted like she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about?

Unmindful of his reaction despite looking at him straight on as she spoke, Kagome continued to ramble in a half-mindless manner about the legend: “They were tricked into betraying each other, and with the last of her strength, the dying miko sealed the hanyou to this very tree with an arrow.” She walked up to the tree and pointed at the wound in the bare patch. “Right here, as you can see. And the jewel was burned with the miko’s body in her funeral pyre, and it hasn’t been seen since.”

Kouga was shocked speechless, but before he could gather his thoughts, an exceptionally powerful breeze swept through. Despite the hot summer day it sent a chill through his very being as Kagome took his hand and took off again.

This time they didn’t stop until they came to a small wooden building. “This is the well house. We usually don’t let shrine visitors inside,” she said as she slid the doors open, her back to his, “but I think I can make an exception for you.” She glanced over her shoulder and gave him a wide smile before letting out just a snippet of a girlish giggle. “Careful, it’s dark and a bit dusty, and who knows how many cobwebs and spiders infest this place,” she warned, visibly suppressing a shudder.

“Hate spiders?” he dared to ask, finally able to get his mouth to work properly. His throat felt a little dry.

Kagome winced. “Hate ‘em like you wouldn’t believe, actually.”

“You don’t say.” And while Kouga didn’t shudder, the mention of spiders certainly did put him on edge.

Inside the shadowed space she sat demurely on the lip of the well, crossed her legs, and then leaned back carefully, hands at her sides and clamped to the rim. She stared at the rafters in the ceiling for a bit before noticing Kouga, just in front of her, was watching her intently. “It’s not often I meet another Japanese person with blue eyes,” she said quietly.

And now she’s gonna ask why my ears are pointy instead of rounded, he grumbled to himself. “What’s it to you?” he said in just a quiet tone.

“It-it’s just a rarity, that’s all.” An awkward silence stretched between them. “Tomorrow’s my birthday.” Kouga raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be twenty, a legal adult.” Another uncomfortable pause. “You know, about five years ago I, I-”

She stopped in her tracks, a look of painful reminiscence etching itself onto her face. “The morning of my fifteenth birthday my cat Buyo wandered in here, and I went in to find him. When I wasn’t expecting it, he suddenly rubbed himself up against my leg and meowed. It startled me so much I jumped back, lost my balance, and ended up falling backwards into the well and I… had an accident. I broke my hip.”

At this point she leaned forward and her hands went for the bottom hem of her blouse, lifting up the material on her left side. Even in the poor lighting conditions he could make out what looked like a particularly unsightly scar covering the area just above her waist. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. Had the Kagome he’d known had such a scar? He’d never seen her body even remotely unclothed.

But then he noticed that the scar looked far too poorly healed to be something from a surgical procedure. It looked more like something sharp-fanged had gotten to her. He knew far too well what his own wolves’ bite marks looked like on victims, be they human or otherwise. Something had torn through her flesh and it hadn’t been any doctor’s scalpel. It was also far too high up on her body for it to possibly be related to a fractured hip. Something wasn’t right here, and his instincts were usually to be trusted.

“-and so for the next couple years I was in and out of the hospital with all sorts of ailments, almost like I was-”

And she broke off here to look him fully in the eyes; by this time she’d already released her blouse hem, and the spot of twisted scar tissue was obscured once again. All her earlier glee and the carefree air that had been swimming about her had vanished. “-like I was cursed.”

Kouga’s shoulders tensed considerably, and he made to comment but Kagome beat him to the punch. “If it wasn’t that, it was the nightmares. I never remembered any of them, but I’d often wake up screaming, covered in a cold sweat, lost and tangled in my bed sheets. But it mostly stopped a few years ago,” she said with a breath of relief. “I still get sick a lot, but nowhere near as often, and while I do have nightmares, they’re not as severe. It’s been about two months since the last one.”

Then she smiled, and the calm and almost cheery look on her face was the eeriest thing he’d seen in a long time. “I guess it’s like panic attacks, but when you’re sleeping.”

When she didn’t comment further and only looked at him in what seemed an almost expectant manner, Kouga took a deep breath. He was itching with discomfort at the direction their conversation had gone. “So why did you tell me all this?”

“When I’m near you I get the feeling I know you from somewhere else.” At this statement Kouga felt a flush of relief wash over him, but then Kagome’s expression changed. “That, and the last time I had those nightmares was the day I met you.”

Her revelation stunned him to the point of disturbance. Not being remembered was bad enough; to be the cause of unnecessary trauma was too low a blow for him to handle at the moment. Unnerved beyond belief, heart in his throat, he quickly made to leave. He didn’t get far. Almost immediately Kagome’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the arm, holding on tightly. “Please, don’t go.”

The sliding doors were only partly closed, so while some daylight spilled into the well house, when Kouga looked back and landed his gaze on her, his view of Kagome had her enshrouded mostly in darkness. It was late afternoon, and the sun was at his back; he blocked most of the light from reaching her face. Even his exceptional vision could do little more than differentiate between the dull, almost dusty black of shadows and wood and the more lustrous, almost wet black of her hair. He blinked a couple times, a faint expression of pain settling upon his face, for which he thanked the gods that Kagome was only a human. No doubt she wouldn’t be capable of noticing if he was having that much trouble seeing detail.

What happened to the Kagome he once knew, and how responsible was he for any of it? Was he at all? If he had never given her the shards from his legs so she could purify the jewel into oblivion… would this have still happened? Or would the shards have somehow found their way to the rest of the jewel eventually, thus only prolonging the inevitable? No matter how he reasoned with himself, reinforcing the belief that nothing he could have done might have prevented this- this freak alternate destiny for her, even Kouga couldn’t find it in him to self-declare innocence in this case. There were too many ambiguous factors, and Kouga had always been a man of action rather than thought. His recent turn to contemplation these last couple centuries was borne more out of boredom than anything else. What was there to do anymore when the forests were disappearing, his tribe began dying out, and the need for survival inevitably involved living among the humans? Such necessary camouflage took brainpower to be successful long-term, especially when it came to the age-old problem of, well, not aging.

What perturbed him the most, though, was the feeling of helplessness that was slowly overcoming him, as if there existed no antivenin to counteract what fate had done. To him, to her, and everyone else dragged along for the ride.

Kagome was talking. “Please, I didn’t mean to freak you out like that or anything-” she started, but Kouga broke her off.

“Kagome.” It was only her name, he knew, but somehow it was the most powerful thing he could say, and it instantly silenced her. Somehow, somehow it held much more weight than any explanation of the insanity running through his head, and the way he said it, firm but drawn out, with a sense of finality without accusation, spoke much more than anything else could.

There was once a time when he would believe anything he saw with his own eyes. It had resulted in what could have been his death. Death by poison. Perhaps when Kagome had purified the fake shard in his arm, she wasn’t just nullifying some poison that had been in the process of shutting down his system. Perhaps she had nullified fate’s claim on him then.

But had he any valid claim on her now? Kouga didn’t know. The best he could come up with was that in the past he’d never had any claim on her to begin with; he didn’t want to admit it, but that muttface had been much closer to her back then. But perhaps, with this clean slate, he could start again. Kagome seemed to need him, that much was evident. Why, if she had forgotten everything, would she feel such a connection to him, a less than perfect stranger?

Brimming with a new resolve, Kouga pulled himself together. “That doesn’t matter.”

Kagome nodded silently, eyes wide as she tugged at his arm, motioning for him to sit beside her. “Sit.” He sat on the narrow beam of wood, trying not to laugh as for the briefest of moments a long lost visual of Dog-Turd being subdued by her ‘sit’ command popped into his mind.

“Kouga,” she began, then paused for a moment. He looked at her, and she seemed to be thinking, slightly shadowed creases crossing her face. “I feel like I should know you. But I don’t.” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “This, this familiarity, it’s like a wall is in my mind. When I try to remember where I knew you from before, I always crash into it. And it makes me frustrated!”

At that moment he gave her a low, almost imperceptible smile. His tongue darted out to lick his lips; they were a bit dry. He leaned close, bringing his mouth over to her ear and whispering, “Would you like to get to know me a little better, then? Get to know me all over again?” Her breath caught in her throat, and what he wouldn’t give to have seen the look on her face at his words. The way she was clenching his arm tightly, never having let go from before, was clue enough.

Lightly breathing upon the spot of her neck just below her ear, he added, “It’s up to you.”

Kagome didn’t answer in words, but with her free hand, fingers lightly patting his cheeks before smoothing their way up, feeling their way around, and exploring past his hairline until they reached toward the binder of his ponytail. She let go of his arm and turning him to face her, brought her other hand up, undoing the binder quickly. As she gently tugged the binder free from his hair, Kouga quickly shut his eyes and brought his hands up to cup her face.

Kagome kissed him first, threading her fingers through the length of his hair as she pressed her lips against his, almost feather light. Kouga deepened it, sliding his tongue against the roof of her mouth to elicit a whimper from her. She was the one to bring the biting into play, lightly nibbling upon his lip in between the deeper kisses. He was the one to pull her closer; thigh against thigh, hand upon her waist, just itching to make every part of her his. But it was the loud slamming of the sliding doors to their widest possible open position, and the almost frantic “Sis? What are you doing in here?” that brought both of them breathlessly, startledly, to a stop. Kagome almost fell backwards; Kouga caught her and pulled her to him easily, then craned his head with shock to see who had walked in on them.

A boy in his teen years was standing in the doorway. With the sun behind him Kouga couldn’t see him in as much detail as he would have liked, but Kagome obviously had enough light to identify the tall boy.

“Souta!” she cried in annoyance, still a bit breathless from the heat of the moment. “How did you know I was home?”

Kouga’s eyes drifted to hers. “Little brother?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

The little brother in question confirmed Kouga’s statement. “Yeah. And I didn’t know you were home, Sis, until I walked by the well house and saw the doors open. You know we don’t let-”

“-shrine visitors in here, yeah, yeah. I know that, you little brat,” she finished for him, her tone still annoyed but exuding familial complacency. Even in the shadows of the well house, Kouga could see a blush forming on her cheeks.

“But Sis,” Souta countered, his face grim, “you know you’re not allowed in the well house either. Not after what happened-”

“Kagome won’t be falling down any wells as long as I’m around,” Kouga interjected austerely, nodding firmly at her concerned little brother. “You can trust her life with me.” He gave a salute with his words. Kagome blushed even harder.

Souta scrutinized the two for a moment, as if in thought, before replying, “Well, Mom will be starting dinner in an hour, so she’ll be glad to hear you’re home. If you want you can bring your boyfriend-”

Kagome pouted shyly. “He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Yet,” Kouga added with a hint of hope in his tone, a sly grin showing off his fangs.

Kagome’s family took to Kouga quite easily, and after the dinner Kagome saw him off. She’d decided to spend the night at home since her birthday was the next day. As he climbed onto his motorcycle and grabbed his helmet, Kagome came up behind him and handed him his hair binder. She offered to put his hair back up in it, but he declined. It had been a long time since he’d worn his hair down; a change of pace couldn’t hurt.

He revved up the engine, then wished her a happy early twentieth and rode off with the promise of coming to see her at work a few days later.

On that specified day he came into WacDonald’s around the time when she would be getting off soon, but Kagome wasn’t at work. The manager told him she had called in sick. Disappointed and planning to call her about it, Kouga was just about to leave when in walked Hojo. He didn’t give the man much notice until he saw him stare at the fast food cashier.

“Her manager said she called in sick.”

Hojo turned to him. “Is that so? Did he say what her ailment was? I better go visit her apartment with-”

“Kagome will be just fine. You don’t need to coddle her,” Kouga challenged strongly, allowing one of his fangs to show.

“I apologise if this sounds a bit impolite,” Hojo said, a slight waver in his voice, “but just how close to Higurashi are you? I’ve known her since middle school, and she has always accepted-”

“Listen, Hojo. Kagome is my woman, and-”

Hojo’s eyes widened. “I’ve been asking her out for years. How could you all of a sudden- she met you only a couple months ago! How can you be so familiar with her?”

Kouga knew that the young man was having a difficult time staying calm. He didn’t seem like the type to blow up at someone, but even the most politest of people have a breaking point. It was best to go gentle on him. It took him a moment to determine the best way to verbally crush him.

“Because she lets me.”

Hojo didn’t seem satisfied with that answer; in a dignified manner he proposed some sort of finality between them, which Kouga found utterly ridiculous. What was this, a duel between gun-toting sharpshooters?

He snorted at the thought. And then, suddenly, an idea came to him. He held back a chuckle. “Okay, we settle this at the arcade. Winner dates Kagome, loser has to back off.”

And of course, Hojo took it as seriously as he figured he would.

They found an arcade, and Kouga quickly chose a DDR machine. Hojo blanched.

Five songs later, a barely winded Kouga thrust his fists into the air and gave a silent cheer, while his exhausted opponent, almost doubled over from lack of strength, wiped a slough of sweat from his brow and tried to catch his breath. Kouga’s ears were ringing from the loudness of the catchy techno music to the point of giving him a minor headache. The others in the arcade were staring at them. But he didn’t care. Amidst the murmurs and flashing lights, Kouga flashed a madman’s grin.

He’d won. Hojo had lost.

Kagome was officially his.

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I had to call in sick.” Kagome pressed a light kiss to his jaw.

Kouga told her not to worry. “Come on, let’s get going. Our reservation is for 7 o’clock.” Kagome nodded and the two left her apartment, locking the door behind her. As they climbed into her car and drove off toward the restaurant, Kouga couldn’t help but feel superior.

He’d not only won against Hojo, he’d won against Inuyasha. Their last scuffle when Kagome had vanished before their eyes may have been a draw, but there was a clear winner now.

Kagome never regained her memories, and Kouga never encouraged her to. Whatever it was she wished for that made the jewel disappear, he figured it was directly responsible. And he wasn’t going to go against her wishes. Sometimes starting with a new slate, whether or not it was clean, was the best way to go.

Some things lasted forever. Others, like memories, would always be subject to fading. Some could be restored, some not. For now, Kouga had decided that he would simply make new memories with her. The past was in the past, and the present was ever renewing itself as older bits became no longer the present but the past.

And when it came to fate, Kouga figured that sometimes it was best not to tempt it. It may have its own agenda that could work out in your favor after all.