InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Phony Digits ❯ Insult to Injury ( Chapter 21 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I have nothing.

Chapter Twenty-one: Insult to Injury

Kagome made her way up the stairs, her tongue protruding from the side of her mouth in concentration. She was having difficulty navigating her way up the steps when she couldn't see around the large box she held in front of her.

About halfway to the second landing, she miscalculated the height of the step, catching her toe on the riser and tripping and falling forward, the underside of her chin coming down hard on the cardboard box, causing her to bite her tongue. The pain, sharp and instant shot through her mouth like an electric shock. She turned and sat down on the steps, the pain in her tongue preventing her from noticing the second wound just below her right knee, where she had sliced it on the loose metal lip of the stair. Her grey yoga pants were torn, revealing the lacerated flesh which released a steady stream of blood that stained the already ruined pants.

Mere seconds after the fall, InuYasha was dropping down on the lower landing in front of her, a slightly panicked look on his face.

"What did you do?" he asked as he grabbed her knee to inspect the cut.

When she tried to speak, nothing but a garbled mumble and a trickle of blood escaped her lips before she threw her hand over her mouth and winced in pain.

"Did you bite your tongue?"

"Mmmhhmm." she nodded, her tough act being betrayed by her watery eyes. She wasn't sure if the tears were a result of the pain or the sheer embarrassment of the situation.

Without another word, InuYasha knelt down in front of her, removing his jacket and the gray t-shirt he was wearing underneath. Kagome sat silently, her blood-filled mouth suddenly feeling suspiciously dry as she watched him work. He tore away the lower portion of the pant leg, letting it fall down and gather around her ankle, and using his claws he sliced a long strip of cloth from his cotton shirt and carefully wound it around her knee, knotting it loosely. "This might need stitches." he said as he worked and she let out a little moan of objection in response.

Where he was leaning forward below her, she could clearly see every individual cord of muscle moving beneath the bronze skin of his sinewy shoulders. She caught herself unconsciously leaning forward to get a better view, her face was just inches from the top of his head, where his furry white canine ears lay almost flat against his hair as he focused on the task at hand. She had to fight the sudden urge to reach down and touch them. If not for the fact that he looked like he'd been swimming in a grease bin, she probably would have. His hair being pulled back didn't manage to cover up that it looked like it hadn't been washed in a week.

But greasy hair or no, she still thought he looked damn sexy...and she hated herself for it.

She was pulled by her musings when his head shot up, their noses almost touching. His eyes locked with hers, like sparkling faceted citrine stones. They were undoubtedly the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. She had to keep reminding herself that they belonged to an asshole.

Why is he still staring at me? Wait a minute...why am I still staring at him?

She tried to speak to break the tension, forgetting about the current condition of her tongue.

"Mmmpfftt Mmmhhmm Mmmfff." She tried to talk, then winced in pain.

It seemed that she was trying to tell him something, InuYasha was just sure of it, and he could tell from the look on her face that it was something of great importance. "Don't try to talk. You'll only make it worse." he said as he picked up his jacket and removed an ink pen from the pocket, shoving it into her hand. "Write it down." he said, standing and tapping the cardboard box that sat next to her.

He watched as she clicked the top of the pen and slowly and carefully wrote across the box:

Your hair smells like old potatoes.

InuYasha's eye began to twitch as he read her very important message. He looked down at her and she smiled and crinkled her nose up at him.

"That's it?!" he barked.

Despite the blinding pain in her mouth, she couldn't help the loud snort and subsequent giggles that escaped her lips and InuYasha cringed at the sight of her teeth and lips stained red with blood.

"Cheeky wench is still a cheeky wench even when she's bleeding to death." he grumbled as he pulled his jacket back over his bare shoulders and zipped it up. Leaving the rest of the ruined shirt lying on the floor, he wrapped one arm around her back and the other under her knees in attempt to carry her up to the apartment.

"Mmmpphfff Mmm!!!" she scolded him incoherently while slapping his arms away and kicking her uninjured leg.

"I'm just trying to get you up to the apartment!" he defended.

"Mmm hhmm mmm!!!" She was almost growling at this point.

"Are you sure?" he asked. Somehow understanding that she was attempting to say 'I can walk.'

"Mn!" she nodded as she rose to her feet.

He turned and grabbed the box he had been carrying. "Put that box on top of this one." he said, nodding toward the one she had dropped.

She did as she was told, and began hobbling her way up the stairs just in front of him. InuYasha silently cursed the stacked boxes in his arms for obscuring the no doubt magnificent view of those yoga pants hugging her ass like a second skin. Dammit cut that out! He internally scolded his brain for it's impure thoughts. She's injured you fuckin' pervert.

He could hear her letting out grunts and hisses of pain as she slowly ascended.

"Kagome…" he said and hopped around her to the next landing and squatted down, boxes still in hand. "Get on."

She mumbled something unintelligible in response.

"Just get on, I'm not gonna bite ya."

Reluctantly she climbed onto his back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and clamping her thighs around his waist since he had no free hands to hold her on. He stood and continued the journey up.

"Kagome! What happened?!" Shippo exclaimed, his canine senses alerting him to her injuries before anyone else as InuYasha carried her into the apartment. Sango and Rin came out of the bedrooms following him at the sound of the commotion.

"She fell walking up the stairs and cut her knee and bit her tongue. I'm going to take her to see a doctor." InuYasha said.

"Mn-mmm!" Kagome protested, shaking her head vigorously.

"You need to have that looked at Kagome." InuYasha argued.

"Mmm!" she pointed at Shippo.

"You want me to take you?" Shippo asked.

"Mmmhmm!" she hummed and nodded her head enthusiastically.

InuYasha let out a sigh as he squatted to place the boxes on the floor and let her off of his back. "Me and Sango will finish moving your stuff then." He didn't even try to hide the disappointment in his voice.

"Yeah." Sango chimed in. "Don't worry about a thing, Kagome. We will finish unloading the truck and you two can take your mom's car."

Kagome nodded before hobbling over to collect her purse from the coat hooks beside the door, and hopping onto Shippo's back. "I'll call you." Shippo called back to Sango. "Oh, and here's these." He pulled his keys from his pocket and tossed them to her. "Just take it back to my place when you're done."

"Okay. Text me later Kagome!" Sango called out to their backs as they exited and saw Kagome shoot her a thumbs-up just before they turned out of sight. Rin returned to her new bedroom, and Sango turned to InuYasha, who was still looking at the door defeatedly. "Bummer." she said, slapping him on the back. "Tough break."

"Maybe this is a sign." InuYasha said, plopping down to sit on the stacked boxes and hearing the distinct sound of glass crunching. He cringed. "Don't mention that to Kagome."

Sango gave an amused snort as she dropped down to sit on the floor beside him. "Don't be so dramatic, InuYasha. You'll get another chance to talk to her."

"Maybe I'm not supposed to... I mean...really, I screw things up every time I try to talk to her...Maybe this is for the best."

"Maybe." Sango said with a shrug. "Or maybe she just fell because she's clumsy and you're reading way too much into things."

He looked at her with raised brows. "Ya think?"

"Yeah, I think." she chuckled and slapped a hand against his knee. "Let's get this moving done so we can eat. I'm starving." she said as she stood.

"Yeah, me too."

"Have you eaten anything since last night's little drunken caper?" she asked and he shook his head in the negative. "Oh, and speaking of that, your little comment about penicillin...that was a joke, right?" she asked hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer.

His brows drew together in confusion. "What did I say? I don't remember."

She sighed. "You said 'Hey! Hope you're not allergic to penicillin!'. Or something like that..."

InuYasha laughed. "Yeah, I was joking." he said, before letting out another chuckle and adding. "That was a good one."

Sango rolled her eyes and slipped her phone from her pocket. "I'm going to a order pizza. What toppings do you like?"

InuYasha opened his mouth to answer, then paused for a few seconds before saying, "Let's just go there and eat when we're done."

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, Kagome isn't going to be able to eat anything solid, and I don't want her to come home to us eating pizza in front of her. She's probably just as hungry as us..."

Sango frowned, feeling somewhat guilty that she didn't make that consideration herself. "Oh...I didn't think about that." she said. "Let's hurry and finish then, I'm about to get cranky hungry."

"About to?" InuYasha teased and Sango swiftly administered a punch to his chest.

Sango and InuYasha made quick work of the few remaining boxes using his previous 'truck to fire escape' method. After moving Shippo's truck to a new parking space they walked down the block to the nearest pizza joint. They invited Rin, but she turned down the offer citing previously made, undisclosed plans that no doubt involved Sango's younger brother, although no one said as much.

"So, you never did tell me what happened between you and Kagome." Sango said casually before taking a swig of her beer. "All I know is what she told me."

"What did she tell you?" he asked with unmistakable curiosity.

"That you seemed disappointed when you saw her, then tried to friendzone her."

InuYasha sighed and leaned back in his seat. "I guess that is how it would have seemed."

"So what was really going on?"

"Well, I guess I did try to friendzone her, that part is the truth. But I wasn't disappointed when I saw her, I was just...shocked." InuYasha admitted and Sango didn't comment as she waited for him to explain further.

InuYasha reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "It would make more sense if I just showed you."

Sango furrowed her brow curiously as she watched him tap at his screen and slide his thumb repeatedly up the surface of the phone.

InuYasha scrolled through his camera roll looking for a picture of Kikyo. Seventeen pictures of the inside of his pocket, forty-seven pictures of his mom's cat, four pictures of his brother wearing a pointy, party hat from Rin's birthday three years ago, a couple of embarrassing selfies that he was just sure he'd deleted, a picture of some ducklings he saw at the park last spring, and precisely ZERO pictures of his ex-girlfriend of five years. Damn, why didn't I notice how shitty our relationship was before?

"Shit…" he cursed under his breath.

"What is it?" Sango asked.

"Hold on." he said as he looked up Kikyo's company's website in a last ditch effort, and there, finally found a portrait of her. He passed his phone across the table to Sango and her brows raised in surprise as she took in the photo. "That's my ex-girlfriend. The one I had just split up with right before I met Kagome."

Sango continued to stare at the picture. "Wow…" was all she said in response.

"I can see why she misinterpreted my reaction...I should have just told her everything right then and there, but...it didn't seem like a good idea at the time." he shook his head. "I just wanted to cut and run. I thought it was something I wouldn't be able to look past."

"But it is, right?" Sango asked, passing his phone back to him and taking a bite of her pizza.

"I was over it later that same damn day...I think the initial shock just took over my brain and made me stupid."

"Boy, you must be shocked a lot then." she teased.

"Keh." he scoffed. "Shut up. I just hope she'll give me another chance."

Sango smiled. "Well, just between you and me, you've got a chance."

InuYasha perked up. "You really think so?"

"Yeah." she nodded. "I know so. I know Kagome better than anyone, and I don't have one damn clue why, but she's totally into you."

InuYasha crossed his arms and pouted. "Well you didn't have to say it like that."

"I know I didn't have to say it like that, it's just fun to mess with you."

"Keh." InuYasha scoffed at her teasing. "Your phone's vibrating."

"What?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"Your phone's going off."

"Oh!" she responded as she pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket that lay draped across the seat next to her.

"Is it Kagome?" InuYasha asked, nonchalantly attempting to peek over at the screen.

"No, it's Miroku."

'How did the moving go?' the message read.

"What does he want?"

"He's just asked how the move went."

"He knew you were helping Kagome move?"

Sango nodded as she replied to the text with a single word. 'Interesting.'

InuYasha was reminded of Miroku's questions that morning regarding Rin's new roommate. "The sneaky bastard knew." he said in realization.

"What's that?" Sango looked up from her phone, her brows drawing together in confusion.

"That sneaky rat knew that Kagome was Rin's new roommate and he didn't say anything."

'Interesting? How so?' Was Miroku's response to Sango.

'I think you know.' Sango wrote back. "Yeah, I think he knows too." she told InuYasha.

'What are you doing now?'

'I'm on a date.' After several seconds passed with no response, she held her phone out in front of her, snapped a picture of InuYasha and sent the photo with the caption 'Isn't he cute?'.

'Ha. Ha.'

Her reply to him was a winking face emoji.

"Well," Sango looked at her watch. "I probably should get home. Do you want me to call you when I hear from Kagome."

"No thanks, I'll just call Rin later tonight."

Sango nodded before sliding out of the booth and putting on her jacket. "Well, guess I'll see you around then."

"Are you coming tomorrow?" InuYasha asked.

"Tomorrow?"

"It's Thursday."

"Thursday?" she questioned, still without any clues as to what he was talking about.

"Chinese take-out." he elaborated.

"Oh, right!" she exclaimed. "I completely forgot. Yeah, I'll be there."

InuYasha nodded. "Guess I'll see ya tomorrow, then."

"See ya!" she returned before making an exit.

As soon as she was out of sight, he removed his phone from his pocket and dialed Rin's number.

<<>>

Rin and Kagome sat side by side on Rin's bed, their backs supported with pillows against the headboard. "Would you rather watch a movie or a show?" Rin asked as she scrolled through categories on Netflix. "Oh! Have you seen this?" she asked as she stopped on a popular series and Kagome shook her head. "What?! You've got to be kidding! I thought everyone had seen it. Oh, Kagome you are going to love it!" She made her selection and began playing the first episode. "Is your tongue feeling any better? Do you need some more medicine?"

Kagome picked up a pen and wrote on the notepad between them. No thanks.

So far Kagome's experience of being Rin's roommate was a lot like being at the dentist, being bombarded with a barrage of questions that she wasn't physically capable of answering.

Just as the show began to play, Rin's phone started a jaunty jingle. She picked up the phone and looked at the display. "Surprise, surprise." she said facetiously, turning the phone toward Kagome so she could see who was calling. Rin gave a little giggle before pausing the television, accepting the call, and putting it on speaker. "Hey, InuYasha." she said into the device.

"Hey, is Kagome back yet?"

"Yes."

"How's she doing?"

Rin turned to her new roommate and winked."She's doing okay. Just had to get a few stitches in her knee, and the doctor said her tongue should heal in a couple days."

"What's she doing now?"

"She's sitting on my bed with me, watching TV and drinking a…" Rin reached out and turned the can in Kagome's hand to read the label. "Ensure...whatever that is."

"Do you girls need anything?" he asked.

Rin gave Kagome a questioning look and Kagome shook her head in the negative. "No thanks. We're fine."

"Okay...umm…Did she-" he paused as if he were contemplating whether or not to ask his pending question.

"Did she what?" Rin urged and she noticed Kagome leaning in to listen intently.

"Nevermind. I'll let you guys get back to your show."

Rin noticed as Kagome visibly deflated in disappointment.

"Okay, talk to you later."

"Hey, and one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Just...don't mention any of this to Grandma or Grandpa, okay?"

She shot a side eye at her roommate. "Any of what?"

"About Kagome. Just don't mention that I already knew her before today."

"Why?"

The girls heard a loud rush a wind come from the phone's speaker that they could only assume was a heavy sigh. Kagome was starting to feel a little guilty about eavesdropping on a conversation that she was sure InuYasha didn't intend for her to hear. "You know how Mom is. I just don't want her getting any big ideas. I'm sure they're both still pissed at me as it is for screwing things up with Kikyo."

"I won't say anything."

"Okay, thanks. Will you call me tomorrow and let me know how Kagome's doing?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye." she said before disconnecting the call and turning to Kagome. "How do you and InuYasha know each other? I never got a chance to ask."

Long story. Kagome wrote on her note pad and tapped her finger against her lips.

"Oh, right right. Yeah, you can tell me about it later when you can speak…" she paused for a moment before continuing. "You know, it's kind of a funny thing, but his ex-girlfriend looks almost exactly like you. I mean, you two could be sisters. It's uncanny. When I first saw you standing in front of this building on Monday, I actually thought you were her until Kohaku told me it was you. " Rin looked back over to Kagome, to find an indiscernible look on her face. "Do you know Kikyo?"

Kagome shook her head.

"Well, just so you know, I fully mean it as a compliment when I say you look like her. She's super beautiful."

Kagome gave a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Normally this was something she would take as a compliment, but under these particular circumstances it made her feel more self-conscious than complimented. This certainly did explain a few things...namely the reason for she and InuYasha's less than ideal first meeting.

"But your personalities are different as night and day." Rin added.

Kagome supposed that was a good thing. InuYasha did seem interested in her before he ever even saw her face, that had to count for something. But while she felt it was more important to be attracted to some based on their personality, she certainly didn't want to be seen as some generic version of someone else. In fact, she didn't even want to be seen as an equal or better version of someone else. She just wanted to be seen as Kagome. She wrote a message to Rin on her notepad. Why did they break up?

Rin shrugged. "I have no idea, but to be honest, I'm not really sure why they were together as long as they were."

They didn't get along?

"It's not that." Rin said shaking her head. "They got along just fine as far as I know. They just didn't have…" she paused and snapped her fingers. "Oh...what's the word...I don't know how to explain it...there was just... no spark, do you know what I mean?"

Kagome nodded. She understood. She had been on enough sparkless first dates to know exactly what Rin was referring to. Her mind was slowly putting the pieces together now. The disappointment she saw on InuYasha's face when they first met wasn't because he found her unattractive, it was because he was seeing someone else when he looked at her face. What if he still sees someone else? The intrusive thought sent a pang of disappointment through her chest. She wanted to know who had broken up with whom, but Rin had already resumed the television show, and Kagome didn't really want to seem too interested in the subject anyway. The more interested she seemed, the more interested she was sure Rin would become and she was done discussing the issue. At least, she was done discussing it with people who weren't involved…

She glanced over at her phone, then lifted it in her hand, unlocking the screen and opening the message app. She wasn't sure if her courage was fueled by the information she'd just received from Rin, or from the painkillers, but she typed and sent the message with ease.

'Thank you for today.'

Kagome smiled as she was met with InuYasha's simple and nearly instant reply: 'Don't mention it.'