InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Palm of Your Hand ❯ I Might Be Wrong ( Chapter 8 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, not me. I'm just having fun and making no money doing it.

I Might Be Wrong

Ru and Kagome were talking about him like he wasn't in the room, and InuYasha felt like he was about to fly off the handle. He didn't really know what he wanted to say, but he knew he needed to say something.

"Kagome," he said. He hesitated when both Kagome and Ru turned to look at him expectantly.

"Oi, don't you have something else to do?" he snapped at Ru.

"InuYasha," Kagome said in a somewhat scolding tone. "this is Ru's home."

"It's okay, Kagome." Ru interjected. "You two obviously have some catching up to do. I'll be in my room. Just let me know if you need me."

Kagome smiled and nodded. They watched Ru's back as he disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

"Just so you know, he's got his ear pressed up against that door right now." she joked awkwardly.

"It's fine, I just couldn't think with him staring at me."

InuYasha just stood there, his hands in his pockets. Kagome suddenly found the pattern of the floor tile very interesting. Both of them were searching their minds frantically for the right thing to say. As Kagome calmed herself down, and allowed herself a moment to think about the situation with clarity, only one thought emerged in the forefront of her mind: Why, if he was alive all this time, had he never contacted her. 'Even if he didn't want to be with me, would it have killed him to at least let me know he was alive?' she thought to herself. 'Did I not deserve the common fucking courtesy?!' Her level of rage was steadily climbing.

InuYasha was observing the emotions playing over her face and scent...it wasn't looking too good.

Finally, she gathered up the courage to break the silence.

"Where were you?" she questioned him in a somewhat agitated tone. The way she worded it was significant. She didn't ask him where he had been, she asked him where he was. Insinuating that she was referring to a specific moment in time. He knew precisely the time to which she was referring.

"I couldn't come for you right away, Kagome. You were a kid and I was a grown-ass man." he said somewhat forcefully.

"And so? What? You just decided to never come instead?" she retorted. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.

"No, I did come. I waited until I knew you'd be out of highschool. I talked to your mother and she told me that you'd moved away and you were living 'happily ever after' with some guy!"

Kagome couldn't believe it. Her mother would have never kept this from her. "You're lying." she coldly accused.

"I'm not lying, Kagome. You can fucking call and ask her right now."

"She would have told me." she said, shaking her head in doubt.

"She didn't know it was me." he explained.

"What?! InuYasha, why didn't you tell her who you were?! She would have told you where I was if she'd have known it was you." Her voice rising several octaves.

"She assumed I was one of your teachers. I honestly don't know why I didn't correct her, but she just made it sound like you were so damn happy that I thought you didn't want me to find you."

"Well, you could have let me be the judge of that. Before I spent ten goddamn years miserable thinking you were dead." Kagome spat out, now visibly agitated.

InuYasha sighed. "Obviously I fucked up, okay? I know that now. I know and I'm sorry. If I could take it back I would in a second, but I can't. All I can ask is that you forgive me." he pleaded with her.

Several seconds of silence passed between them as Kagome gathered her thoughts. 'Why am I acting like this?' she mentally questioned herself. She had been dreaming of this moment for ten years, and now that it was actually happening she was ruining it. Not that she expected real life to play out like her dreams. If there was one thing she had learned thus far in her life, it was the fact that life rarely ever works out like you imagine it will.

She nodded solemnly.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know you didn't mean to hurt me." she said flatly. "I've just...it's just been…uh..." Another lump was rising in her throat. Her carefully constructed walls were beginning to crack. She could almost physically feel the mortar pulling away from stone around her heart. She couldn't let the walls fall just yet.

She swallowed thickly before taking in a few slow breaths to rein in her emotions. "Do you want some coffee?" she said as she quickly spun away from him, retrieving another mug from the cabinet.

"Uh...sure. I guess." InuYasha drawled. Clearly he was going to get it whether he wanted it or not.

With her back still turned, Kagome abruptly diverted the conversation to a less sensitive subject. "So…if you're Ru's uncle...then that makes…"

"Sesshoumaru his dad." InuYasha finished for her, nodding as he took the offered mug from her hand.

"Whoa...Whoa!" she exclaimed, bringing a hand to her head. She was reacting as if this information was even more shocking than the fact that InuYasha was standing right in front of her, flesh and bone and alive. In truth, she was just needing a diversion from the intensity of the situation. "I'd never have dreamed in a million years... I can't imagine two more completely opposite people...man, this is so fucking weird..."

"Tell me about it." InuYasha murmured, not really referring to his brother and nephew.

Kagome just stood there, staring at the ground, her smile fading to a more serious expression. InuYasha could almost see the gears turning inside of her head. "So you...you never got married or anything?" she asked him timidly.

"No." he answered simply.

"Oh." She nodded. "Yeah. Me neither. I mean, obviously you can see that though…" she said, shuffling her feet uncomfortably. 'Gods, why am I being so awkward?'

InuYasha was trying to get his thoughts together as quickly as possible. Everything he had ever wanted had just fallen into his lap unexpectedly. His absolute wildest dream was coming true and it was nothing short of a miracle. He'd be damned if he let this opportunity slip through his fingers. He knew if he screwed up this time he would never get another chance.

He wouldn't screw up this time.

"Kagome," she snapped her head up to meet his eyes, his tone was suddenly deadly serious. "do you think…do you think that you might still...ya know...want to be with me? I mean, I know we don't really know each other anymore I guess, but...obviously there's some drunken Kami out there in the universe who wanted us to find each other again and...I just…" He paused for a moment, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I never stopped thinking about you, Kagome. Never. Not even after I thought you were with somebody else. I'll understand if you say no, but...I won't give up so easily this time."

Of course she wanted to be with him. It's all she had wanted since she met him, but a lot had changed since then. They were both different people now. "Yes." The word just sort of leapt out of her mouth of it's own accord. "Umm, what I mean is, we should probably get to know each other again. I think maybe it would be best if we just sort of started over from square one. Ya know?" she offered. Inwardly she was fighting the urge to jump on him and latch on like a spider monkey.

InuYasha agreed. "I think that would be best too." He stepped toward her somewhat hesitantly, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. He smiled when she wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed back in return. "And for what it's worth…" she mumbled against his shoulder, "I never stopped thinking about you either."

InuYasha squeezed her tighter as he leaned his face into her hair. 'Mmm...She smells like vanilla and coconut and... that little mother fucking piece of shit ASS CLOWN that left the apartment this morning!'

"InuYasha?" Kagome said questioningly, backing away and looking up at him, her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah?" he said, trying valiantly to conceal his agitation.

"You were growling."

'Oh. Shit.' he mentally cursed.

They both heard a snort come from behind Ru's bedroom door.

InuYasha relinquished his hold on Kagome and called out to his nephew. "Oi, you can come out now you sneaky little eavesdropping bastard."

Ru's bedroom door slowly opened and he exited nonchalantly. "So, did you two figure out where you knew each other from?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"You know, you're not nearly as cute as you think you are." InuYasha said flatly.

"Yes I am." He looked to Kagome. "Kagome thinks I'm cute."

She rolled her eyes dramatically. "You're getting less cute by the minute." she said in an exasperated tone.

Ru ignored the minor insult and smiled smugly at InuYasha. "So...InuYasha," Ru teased, putting extra emphasis on his antiquated, and rather doggish name, "What are your intentions with my Kagome?"

"Go to hell, Subaru." InuYasha growled. Two could play at this game.

"That's enough." Kagome cut in, grabbing Ru's arm. "InuYasha, what are your plans for today?" she asked.

"I'm going to go check out the office and pick up a copy of the blueprints so I know what I'm working with." he answered. "Then I'll probably come back here tonight if it's not a problem. I want look everything over so I'll be prepared to start work in the morning and I don't get the keys to my apartment until tomorrow. I can get a hotel room if it's going to be an imposition." He really didn't want to stay in a hotel. As bad as this apartment smelled, even the nicest hotel rooms smelled like a sweat lodge orgy to his sensitive nose. He'd take the smell of paint thinner over that any day of the week.

"No, it's not an imposition at all," Kagome quickly interjected, "is it, Ru?" she asked, jabbing her elbow into his side.

"Why, not at all. It would be my pleasure!" Ru said in an exaggeratedly sweet tone. Kagome just rolled her eyes at him.

"Okay, I have to be at work at seven and we usually eat dinner around six if you'd like to join us."

InuYasha simply nodded.

"Great!" Kagome said brightly.

"Alright," InuYasha said. "I'm gonna head out. I should be back sometime early this afternoon."

<<>>

The second InuYasha exited the apartment Ru turned to Kagome, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "So..."

"So what?" Kagome asked.

"So what the fuck?!" Ru said laughing. "You're just going to act like this completely crazy thing didn't just happened? Kagome, how do you know him? You guys clearly have a history, and I know for a fact that he's never been in a relationship in my lifetime, and I'm a hell of a lot older than you. And why did you tell me he was dead?"

Kagome took in a deep breath and released it slowly. "Would you believe me if I told you that I used to be able to travel back in time? To a time before you were born?"

Ru just stood there listening intently, complete trust in his eyes. He would be able to tell if she was lying, and she wasn't.

"On my fifteenth birthday I was pulled into an old well on the property of the shrine where I grew up. The well was like...a time portal that allowed me to travel five hundred years into the past." She was making little nervous hand gestures that didn't seem to have anything to do with what she was talking about. "That's where I met InuYasha." she stated calmly. "Eventually the well closed and left us separated. The reason I told you he was dead was because I believed he was dead. I had no idea he'd be able to live this long. There's a lot more to it, of course, and I promise I'll tell you the whole story, but I think I'd rather wait until he's here to tell it with me."

Ru nodded. "That's fair." He leaned back against the cabinets and let out a long, theatrical sigh. "Damn." he added in a whisper.

"What?" she asked, furrowing her brow. She could tell he was bubbling like a soda pop.

"I'm excited now."

Kagome barked out a laugh. "I knew you would be...I'm excited too." she added quietly as she reached out for a hug which he readily accepted. She was really and truly excited. She hadn't felt like this in so long. "Now I just need to shower and do some laundry so he doesn't have an aneurysm when he gets back."

Ru belted out a loud laugh. "You should probably just burn your sheets." he added and they both chuckled.

<<>>

Kagome was just folding her last load of laundry when InuYasha arrived back at the apartment around two in the afternoon.

"Hey." InuYasha greeted as he entered the front door. Trying hard not to let his disgust with the paint smell deter from his excitement with seeing Kagome.

"Hi." Kagome greeted back with a smile.

InuYasha sat down beside her on the couch and began folding the towels with her. "Where's Ru?" he asked, looking around.

"Not here." she said. "That's all I know. He's kind of like an outside cat. Sometimes he's here, and sometimes he's not, but I rarely ever know where he is when he's not here." she laughed.

"He's always been like that. Even when he was a pup. In fact, he's always been exactly the same. He's the only person I know who never changes no matter how much time goes by" InuYasha said as he reached behind his neck, loosening the slip knot and removing the pendant over his head.

When he lifted the necklace, his visage returned to that of the InuYasha with whom Kagome was most familiar, causing her heart to skip a beat. She silently looked him over for a moment, before reaching out a hand, almost unconsciously, and grabbing one of his ears. She softly stroked it between her fingers and thumb, almost in a trance, before coming to her senses and jerking her hand away quickly.

"Uh, sorry…" she shook her head. "I don't know what came over me." she said sheepishly, looking away from him as she nervously ran her palms over the denim material covering her knees.

"It's fine." InuYasha replied, his voice flat with disappointment. He sort of thought they were about to have a tender moment...

She reached out and picked up the necklace from the table, inspecting it. It was identical to Ru's, a lapis lazuli stone on a black leather cord. "You and Ru have matching pendants." she stated. "Like 'best friends forever'."

InuYasha chuckled. "Yeah, he copied me though. Don't let him tell you otherwise."

"So how does it work?" she asked him, turning the smooth stone over in her hand.

"Do you remember the stone that Naraku's infant used to prevent his youki from being detected?"

"The fuyoheki?"

"Yes, well, it's kind of a synthesized version of that, plus it anchors a spell that alters demon features to appear human."

"Oh, so it's not real lapis lazuli then?"

"No. They can be made to look like any stone."

She nodded. "Cool…why did you pick this one?"

He shrugged. "Just liked the look of it I guess."

She smiled. "So you and Ru must have been pretty close for him to choose the same stone as you."

"We used to be before he moved away. We kept in touch for a while after, but I got tired of being the go between for him and his dad. Ru actually worked at the company for a while, and he was the worst employee, too." He smiled and shook his head. "He didn't take anything seriously. We used to have sort of a game where we would bait Sesshomaru into saying funny things that he wouldn't normally say. We would make bets on them. I once had to pay Ru fifty thousand yen for getting Sess to say 'titty-twisters'."

Kagome laughed. "Wow. Sounds like he really hasn't changed one bit…" she paused. "you sure have though." she added, smiling.

"And is that a bad thing?" he asked hesitantly.

"No, not at all. In fact I think it's probably a good thing." she giggled. "So, you and Sesshomaru are close now?"

"I guess you could say that." He shrugged. "I mean, he's not really close with anyone but his mate. We work together, we're friends I guess... Rin likes to have 'family dinners' at least once a month now that the girls are all grown." He shot her a sideways glance.

"Rin? Is that his wife?" Kagome asked.

"Yeah, you remember Rin. The kid that used to follow him around?"

"That Rin?! Eww...you mean..." Kagome wrinkled her nose and frowned.

"Oh god, no" InuYasha quickly corrected. "He left her to grow up in a human village. Well, my village actually, with Kaede. He would come visit her, bring her gifts, stuff like that… After she came of age, she refused pretty much every potential suitor in the village. One day when Sesshomaru came to visit her, she asked to return with him. So anyway, long story short, she left with him, and the next time I saw her she was his mate. It wasn't all that surprising though. She worshiped him, and he loves being worshiped. In that way they're really kind of a perfect match."

"Weird...I wasn't sure he even knew about the birds and the bees." Kagome half-joked.

InuYasha barked a laugh. "Yeah, I wasn't sure either until I lived with them for a while and was forced to listen to 'Lord Sesshomaru' gettin' his sword polished every night."

Kagome cracked up. "Thin walls, huh?" she said through her laughter.

"No, just really good hearing." he rolled his eyes.

Kagome wasn't sure if she had ever heard InuYasha really laugh before. It almost seemed out of character. Despite being five hundred years older, when he laughed he looked younger than she had ever seen him. It was her new favorite sound.

"So...wait...how is she still alive?" she asked.

"His youki keeps her alive. Prevents her from aging or getting sick. I don't really know how it works exactly, it just does." He shrugged. "When two youkai are mated, their youki will bond and make them stronger. I had no idea a mate bond was even possible between a youkai and a human until Rin..."

"So if they split up would she die?"

"Not right away. She would just start aging again normally. Youkai never split from their mates though. They're completely different from humans. They aren't driven by sex like humans and animals, and they typically only get involved in serious relationships, the only exception being strictly for procreation. You'll almost never meet a slutty youkai, despite how some of them dress." he joked. "And they never cheat on their mates either. My brother could have banged every chick in the Eastern hemisphere if he wanted to, but he only wants Rin. It's kind of hard to explain because there's nothing to compare it to really... I guess it has to do with them living so long. They don't feel the need to indulge themselves like humans do. There's no urgency." he explained.

"That explains a lot actually. Ru has never been on a date since I've known him. In fact I've never even seen him show interest in anyone." Kagome said.

"That's because he's already so deeply in love with himself." InuYasha jibed.

She chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder. "That's mean."

"You can't say it's not true, though." he smiled. "It's the one and only trait he inherited from his old man. Narcissism."

Kagome smiled and shook her head. "I sometimes think he just prefers living vicariously through me." Then she furrowed her brow, another thought coming to her. "So wait, if Rin is Sesshomaru's mate, why isn't Ru a hanyou?"

"Ru was born before Rin and Sesshomaru mated. His mother was a surrogate that Sess contracted to produce an heir. After the whole thing with Naraku, I think it got him to thinking about, ya know...dying or whatever. I guess he wanted to have someone to pass his 'legacy' on to in case he bit the big one."

"And he got Ru." Kagome couldn't help the giggle that escaped her.

"Yep, ironic isn't it?" InuYasha grinned. "Serves him right for being such a pompous ass."

"What was Ru's biological mother like?" Kagome asked.

He shrugged. "Wouldn't know. Never met her. Although, the fact that Sesshomaru picked her as a surrogate tells me she must have been the strongest unmated inu-youkai bitch in existence. At least at the time. I've seen youkai from her family before, with the same mark as Ru, but I don't really know anything about them. "

"You mean the gingko leaf?" she asked.

"Yep." he nodded. "Anyway, Ru was only four years old when Sess took Rin as his mate so she pretty much raised him as her own. All four of Rin's biological children are girls. And of course they're all hanyou, like me. Which is still pretty rare, since humans don't know that youkai exist, there aren't a lot of hanyou being made these days..." he chuckled.

"Do your nieces have ears like yours?" she asked smiling.

"Three of the four do." He nodded. "The one that doesn't is exactly like Sesshomaru in looks and personality. If she didn't have a human night you wouldn't even know she was hanyou."

They sat silent for a few seconds and Kagome gathered the courage to ask the one question she had been dying to ask since she knew she'd be meeting Ru's uncle. "So, it's none of my business, I'm sure, but what is the deal between Ru and Sesshomaru?"

InuYasha hesitated. "Have you asked Ru about it?"

"Well, not really, no. I mean, I haven't come right out and asked, point blank. Not that it matters. He won't tell me anything anyway." she said dejectedly.

"Well, they just don't relate to each other. Ru thinks Sess pushes him, but the truth is, Ru is just lazy and doesn't want anyone to make him feel guilty about it. I don't want to sound like I'm doggin' him...no pun intended, but it's the truth. He's just not an ambitious guy. Sesshomaru has never reprimanded him or put him down or anything, though. At least not that I've seen. In fact, I've never seen him discipline any of his kids...he spoils the hell out of them. I think just being in Sesshomaru's presence makes Ru feel bad about his...I don't know what to call it...perpetual adolescence? Ru wants his dad's approval more than anything, and I honestly think he's always had it. He just got it in his head somewhere along the way that if he didn't become exactly like his dad, then he was a disappointment in his eyes. Sesshomaru and Rin miss him terribly, but he's stubborn. He ain't gonna come back until he decides to on his own."

InuYasha was cut off by the sound of keys in the door.

"I'm home, you can stop talking about me now." Ru said, smiling as he entered the apartment.

"You know you aren't going to get any work done here, right?" Kagome said to InuYasha.

"Keh! Screw work." he replied, smiling. Work was the furthest thing from his mind.

He was still having trouble believing that this wasn't a dream that he would wake up from at any moment. It was almost surreal. Kagome, his Kagome was sitting right there with him, talking to him, touching him… just like the last five hundred years had never happened.

The world was different now, and they were different now, but one thing that had remained the same. The one thing that would always remain the same. He still loved her like crazy.