InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Phony Digits ❯ Flying By the Seat of Your Pants ( Chapter 24 )

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

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

Chapter Twenty-four: Flying By the Seat of Your Pants

"All I'm saying is, if time travel is possible, then wouldn't someone have seen a time traveler by now?"

Kagome gave an annoyed sigh in response to her friends rambling. "I already told you I agree with you, Shippo. Why are we still talking about this?" she said as she dropped her face into her hands, rubbing her fingers over her temples.

The fox youkai furrowed his brow and looked her over with concern. "I'm sorry Kagome, are you feeling under the weather?"

"Just a headache."

"Oh…" he nodded knowingly. "is it because it's your...girl's time." he whispered.

She lifted her head and rolled her eyes. "Shippo. Is nothing sacred?" she huffed. She had come to accept the fact that working and being friends with youkai left her with very little personal privacy. Still, it was annoying as hell.

"I'm sorry, Kagome. I forgot you don't like me to talk about that."

"It's just personal Shippo. If I wanted to talk about it, then I would bring it up myself."

He nodded in understanding. "So, what do you think about this." he said, pointing towards a weathered skull that sat on his examination table. It was the reason he had called her down to the lab in the first place, before he became lost on a tangent about the probability of time travel.

Kagome patted down her lab coat pockets, and finding nothing asked, "Can I borrow a caliper?"

Shippo nodded and bounced over to the cabinets that lined the wall of the lab, retrieving the measuring tool and handing it off to Kagome. She pulled on a latex glove and set to examining the obvious entry and exit gunshot wounds on the skull. "It was at least a forty-four...probably a forty-five. That's really the best I can tell you without any shell casings. They were on their knees and the shooter was standing."

"Point-blank, then." Shippo commented.

"Definitely. In fact, it looks like it was probably a contact shot." She placed the skull back on the table and looked at I thoughtfully, trying to recall if there was anything familiar about the case, but coming up with nothing. Her impeccable memory had solved a couple of tough cases in the past, and had become something like a claim to fame there at the precinct. The first time it had happened, most of the detectives had brushed it off as a stroke of luck, but after a repeat performance, they'd hailed it as a stroke of genius. But solving cold cases was Kagome's passion, and if that meant spending most of her free time studying and memorizing case file details, then so be it.

Shippo thanked her and removed a small spiral notepad from his pocket and jotted down notes. He looked up at her and noticed her pensive look. "Any connections?" he asked her, his tone hopeful.

"Hm...no. Sorry." she said with a shake of her head.

"I'm gonna be doing my first official reconstruction on this one." he added excitedly.

"That's great!" Kagome encouraged him with a pat on the back. While her tone was sincere, her current state of malaise was impeding her usual enthusiasm.

Shippo raised his wrist and looked at his watch. "You should go home and get some rest. It's almost quittin' time anyways."

She sighed. "Yeah, I might do that. I don't have anything to work on right now anyway."

"In our line of work I'd say that's a good thing." he said with a chuckle.

Kagome smiled. "I guess that's true...not very good job security though." she said as she made her way towards the door. "I'll see you in the morning."

"See ya!" he called to her back as she made her exit, nearly running into Sango and Kouga as she stepped out the door into the hallway.

"Oh! Hey, Kagome!" Sango said enthusiastically.

"Hey guys." Kagome greeted them as she fell into step beside them. "Sorry I missed coffee." she told Sango. "I just really needed that extra twenty minutes of sleep this morning."

Sango waved her off. "Don't worry about it. I completely understand."

"I was up half the night cramping." she elaborated. "I thought my insides were going to fall out."

"Been there." Sango commiserated.

Meanwhile, Kouga walked alongside the two women silently. Not entirely sure whether or not either of them remembered he was still there.

"So I haven't seen you since your date this weekend. How did it go?" Kagome asked Sango.

"Oh, it was great," Sango answered, and in her tone there was both something sincere and something sarcastic that made Kagome narrow her eyes in silent question. "We went out to dinner and he was a perfect gentleman the whole time. No suggestive comments or cheesy pick up lines or anything. So when he brought me home I invited him in to hang out or whatever." she accentuated with a waggle of her eyebrows that made Kagome giggle. "Anyway, he comes up to my apartment, we start watching a movie, all the pieces were set, the game was in motion…"

"And…?" Kagome prodded.

Sango sighed. "and next thing I know I'm waking up on the couch alone…"

"You feel asleep?" Kagome asked, trying to stifle a laugh.

"Yeah. When I woke up it was morning, he was gone, and there was a note from him apologizing for not waking me up to say goodbye...the poor bastard never even knew that the gettin' was good…" she added dejectedly.

Kagome snorted a laugh. "So do you think this has the potential to turn into something serious?"

Finally Kouga decided to chime in. "I've had to listen to her whine about this for the last seven hours. She's totally infatuated with this guy."

Kagome raised her eyebrows and turned to Sango. "Totally infatuated?"

"I think it has the potential for something serious." Sango admitted. "But it's probably just as likely that I only need to get him out of my system, if you know what I mean."

Kagome chuckled. "I wish I knew what you meant, but I've yet to even find a guy with relationship potential, much less had him 'in my system'." She punctuated with air quotes.

Sango raised a skeptical brow in her friends direction. "Oh, right. Yeah, Kagome. Sure. Of course not. No. Never..."

"Why do I get the feeling you're being facetious?" Kagome asked.

"Because I am. Big time." Sango said, straight faced.

"Well," Kouga interjected. "you never know Kagome. Mr. Right might come along when you least expect it. In fact, he might have been standing right in front of you all along…"

Kagome fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Umm...yeah...thanks for the...optimistic outlook Kouga." she said appeasingly as they came to the door of her office. "I'm heading home early guys. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Oh, but I wanted to ask about your date!" Sango pouted.

"Your date?" Kouga added.

"It wasn't a date!" Kagome corrected. "And we can talk about it another time. Tonight I have a date with my heating pad."

Sango frowned but otherwise conceded as the three of them said their goodbyes and parted ways for another day.

<<>>

What do friends do together

InuYasha typed the phrase into Google and hit enter.

God, I'm so pathetic… He thought to himself as he let out a dramatic sigh.

He sifted through the results, finding that most of the suggestions he came across were either super girly, or obviously directed at children—and as tantalizing as a water balloon fight with Kagome sounded, he was relatively certain she wouldn't be down for it.

He clicked another link and began reading the suggestions. "Spa day?" he muttered to himself. "Keh! Like hell!"

Since Kagome had made it clear that she was presently only interested in his friendship, InuYasha had resolved to be the best damn friend she'd ever had. There was just this one teeny, tiny little problem—he really had no earthly idea how to go about it. He'd spent the last couple of days trying to formulate the next move in his master plan to win her heart. A plan that, so far, involved doing fruitless internet searches while eating two whole party-size bags of jelly beans.

InuYasha popped the last remaining handful of candy into his mouth and let out a disappointed sigh. Why was this so damn difficult? Being friends with Miroku had always been easy. All InuYasha had ever had to do was find out what Miroku was doing, then casually insert himself into the activity. Well, that is, if the activity was something he wanted to insert himself into. Maybe that was how all friendships worked…? He wasn't sure. He didn't have quite enough real-life experience to compare. Either way, it was all he had to go on, so he figured it was worth a try.

Removing his phone from his breast pocket, he opened his text app and typed a message to Kagome. 'What are you doing?'

He returned to his web browsing as he awaited her reply.

It wasn't too long before the chiming tone of a received message met his ears. He eagerly opened the message to find the simple, one-word answer: 'Cramping.'

"What the fuck?" InuYasha cursed and shuddered. 'GOD WHY' was his dramatic response.

'Why do you think?'

'I meant why did you tell me that?'

'because you asked.'

'Well lie next time.'

'You are such a drama queen.'

Inuyasha stared down at the message on his screen, feeling the urge to send a petty insult and further exacerbate the bickering, but then he thought better of it. What the hell was he trying to accomplish? Their relationship was basically in a trial period, and so far he was doing a piss-poor job of being a friend, much less anything more. It was going to be a struggle for him, but he was determined to makes amends for his less than exemplary first impression.

'Do you need anything?' he asked, mentally saying a prayer that she wouldn't ask him to buy tampons, but reluctantly admitting, if only to himself, that he was willing to do whatever needed to be done to get himself in good standing with her.

'Not unless you have any ice cream.' she responded, and he let out a relieved sigh.

'Sorry fresh out. Food doesn't last too long around here.'

'Bummer'

InuYasha leaned back in his chair, tapping his claws against the arm as he contemplated his next move. He may not have ice cream at his apartment, but he was sure he could find some place that sold ice cream between here and Kagome's apartment.

<<>>

Kagome was relaxing on her bed, watching funny cat videos on YouTube when she heard a knock on her window. Her second story window. Immediately she tossed her laptop to her bed and dove over to her nightstand, grabbing her handgun out of the small drawer.

As she tiptoed over to the window, she heard another knock. Using her thumb, she clicked the safety down on her pistol before slowly reaching forward and pulling down on the window shade. When she released it, it quickly shot up to reveal InuYasha standing on her fire escape holding an ice cream cone in each hand. On his face was a look of slight surprise, quickly followed by a look of amusement. Certainly not a typical reaction of one being held at gunpoint. It was the reaction of someone either incomparably stupid, or extraordinarily brave. Kagome had a feeling that stupidly brave was probably the most fitting description of the man standing before her.

She placed her gun on her desk, and slid open her window and InuYasha immediately hopped into her bedroom. "InuYasha!" she said in a scolding tone. "What are you doing here?!"

"I was just walking by and saw your light was on…" he said as he casually strolled over to her, trying not to focus too intently on her manner of dress, which consisted of a thermal pajama set that somehow managed to cover every inch of skin, yet leave very little to the imagination.

"You were just walking in my neighborhood," her gaze dropped down to his hands. "carrying two ice cream cones...?" she said disbelieving.

He nodded, shooting her a sly grin. "Chocolate or vanilla?" He held out both cones in her direction.

"Chocolate." she answered, snatching the swirled, soft-serve ice cream and immediately bringing it to her lips. He may be a creepy stalker, but she wasn't going to turn down free ice cream. "You weren't hoping for the chocolate one were you?" she asked as she made her way over to her closet and stepped inside.

"Nope. I knew you'd pick the chocolate one because you're a girl." InuYasha answered.

"Hey!" Kagome squeaked, poking her head out of the door to give him a withering glare. "And just what is that supposed to mean?!"

He shrugged. "All women love chocolate."

"That's masochistic!" she called out.

InuYasha furrowed his brow in confusion. "Umm...are you sure you don't mean misogynistic."

"Oh...yeah," she said as she emerged from her closet now wearing a fluffy blue robe over her pajamas. "that's what I meant...what did I say?"

"You said masochistic."

"Oh, right. Sorry. I've just had that on my mind a lot lately I guess."

InuYasha gave her an incredulous look. "You've had masochism on your mind a lot lately...do I even wanna ask?" he said as he plopped down in Kagome's desk chair and proceeded to eat his ice cream in a way that made her face feel hot.

"Just work stuff…" she waved him off, taking a seat on her bed. "You know." she gripped her free hand around her throat and made an exaggerated choking sound to make her point. "Some people are into that sort of thing, you know. Unfortunately, sometimes they like it a little too much and end up in the morgue."

InuYasha gave her a look of surprise. It never ceased to amaze him how someone so seemingly shy and innocent could suddenly become so blunt and morbid at the drop of a hat.

"I'm sorry." Kagome said, noticing the lull in the conversation. "I did that thing again where I say something inappropriate and make everything awkward...Sango tells me I have a split personality that I transform into when I talk about work stuff. She's not totally wrong though. I do like to separate my personal life from work. You kinda have to, when you do the type of job I do. If I got too emotionally invested I'd probably end up becoming callous like most of my colleagues. Either that, or I'd become a hermit and never leave the house for fear of getting murdered." she gave a mirthless chuckle.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you, honestly." InuYasha said as he continued to make her shamefully jealous of an ice cream cone.

"Is that a good thing?" she asked.

"When you're not trying to shoot me, it is." he said, nodding towards the handgun that rested on her nightstand.

"So, from now on you want me to just open up my window to whatever weirdo decides to crawl up my fire escape?!"

"Keh! No! But I'm not a weirdo, and I didn't crawl up the fire escape...I just jumped up."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Still, you have to admit, it's a pretty weird thing to do. Not to mention totally illegal."

InuYasha sighed. "Well, I was gonna come to the door, but then I realized that Rin might be here, and I didn't bring her any ice cream."

"Couldn't you have just given her yours?"

"Not a chance." he said as he bit into the cone. "Besides, if she wanted ice cream she could probably just call Alfred and have him bring her a cone."

Kagome furrowed her brow and asked, "Who's Alfred?"

InuYasha shrugged. "I don't know, Kagome. It was just a joke."

"How is that a joke? It doesn't make any sense."

"I meant like rich people have their servants bring them whatever they want, whenever they want."

"Oh...well why did you choose the name Alfred?" she continued to pry into the failed joke.

"I don't know. Wasn't that the name of Batman's slave?"

Kagome snorted. "He wasn't his slave, he was his butler."

"What's the difference?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well, a butler is an employee. They can quit if they want to. Their employer doesn't own them."

"Keh!" he scoffed. "I still don't see the difference. An employer just owns you until you decide you'd rather be owned by somebody else."

Kagome smiled and shook her head. "You could turn diamonds into coal with that attitude of yours. Are you always so negative and cynical?"

"Yes." InuYasha answered quickly and seriously.

Kagome looked towards him, finding him focused intently on the ice cream in his hand, which he ate with unmatched enthusiasm. "I don't know how you can even taste your food when you eat it so fast." she remarked, absentmindedly wondering whether his unbridled passion for food might reflect in other facets of his life. Clearly it didn't reflect on his work life, of that much she was certain.

He shrugged and answered, "I don't know either, but I can taste it just fine."

Kagome's text alert chimed on her phone and she checked the message. It was from Rin, saying 'Is someone in your room?'

'It's Inuyasha.' Kagome responded.

"Who was that?" InuYasha asked, obviously trying—and failing—to sound nonchalant.

"That was just my boyfriend. He's on his way over now." she said with an expert poker face.

InuYasha's mouth fell open as if he were going to speak, but no words were forthcoming. It took everything within Kagome's being to maintain a straight face.

"I-I can't tell if you're being serious or not." he finally spoke, and Kagome laughed at his dismay.

"I'm joking, InuYasha." she said as he text alert sounded again. "It's Rin. She was just asking if I had company. She must have heard us talking through the walls."

Kagome opened the new message from Rin and rolled her eyes as she read. 'Are you two getting it on?'

"What did she say?" InuYasha asked.

Kagome narrowed her eyes at him. "You sure are nosey."

"Keh!" he scoffed, turning up his nose at her in a pouty sort of way. "Like I care what the message said."

"Hey, let me ask you something," Kagome said, tossing her phone aside and turning the conversation in a different direction. "how did your brother end up with a human daughter anyway? I've been dying to know."

"Hmm...who's the nosey one now, eh?" InuYasha teased and Kagome merely gave him an unamused look in response as she awaited his answer. "He's not her real dad."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Obviously, InuYasha. I'm not stupid. What I'm asking is, why? Why would a single youkai want to adopt a human child?"

"Well, it's a long story, but I'll give you the condensed version."

Kagome scooted to the edge of the bed, preparing to listen intently.

"Sesshomaru is really rich and has household employees that live with him, like a maid, a chef, a personal shopper, that sort of thing." he counted off on his fingers. "In other words, he's a major tool who thinks he's too important to wipe his own ass. Anyway, Rin was the daughter of his maid, and she had lived her whole life there in Sesshomaru's house. When Rin was in elementary school her mother was killed in a car accident. No one but her mom knew who her biological father was, and she took that secret with her to the grave. So that basically made Rin an orphan. Her mom's family had cut them off years ago, and refused to have anything to do with her, so Sesshomaru decided to adopt her rather than leave her to...whatever fate an eight year old orphan would have."

"And they just handed a little girl off to a single man who was no relation to her."

"No." InuYasha shook his head. "They wouldn't. My parents actually ended up adopting her. So legally she's my sister and his half-sister. But he raised her...well, a nanny that he hired raised her anyway...and she thinks of him sort of like a dad I guess." he said as he lifted the final bite of his ice cream cone. "Best part of the ice cream." he said as he popped the cylindrical bite into his mouth with an obscenely loud crunch.

"You like the butt of the cone best?" Kagome said with a grin.

"Well, I prefer not to think of it as a butt, but yeah." he said as he stood from the chair. "Well, I guess you probably want me to get out of your hair and let you get back to…" He scanned her room and noticed the heating pad lying on her bed. "cooking yourself or whatever it was you were doing before I got here."

"Bleeding internally." Kagome supplied.

InuYasha cringed at her comment. "Yep. That is definitely my cue to leave." he said as he turned back toward the window.

"You don't have to go right now." Kagome quickly interjected. "I'm not even finished with my ice cream yet." she held up half eaten cone in confirmation. "And talking helps take my mind off of the pain...I mean...unless you have somewhere you need to be."

"I'm not in any hurry." InuYasha said, returning to the desk chair and plopping down. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Kagome furrowed her brow. "Help?"

"Yeah, you know...with your...situation, or whatever." he said, shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

"Oh. No. Not unless you can go inside me and make the pain go away." Kagome whined and wrapped her arms around her torso, completely oblivious to the suggestive nature of her words.

"Uh…I just meant like get you some Tylenol or something." he clarified.

"Oh, I know." She giggled and waved a hand at him dismissively. "I was just being silly. Obviously you can't literally go inside my body."

He just stared at her in disbelief. Was it possible that the innuendo went over her head...twice? Could her mind really be so fucking pure? The very same woman who was talking so casually about death by erotic asphyxiation not ten minutes ago? Or was he just a pervert? He didn't know which it was, but he'd prefer to think it was the former. Although he supposed it was also possible he'd just spent way too much time around Miroku...

He was blanking on things to say at this point—as he was most definitely not going to share his debased thoughts with her—and the two of them fell into a somewhat awkward silence for several seconds as Kagome continued to eat her ice cream. Then, he noticed as suddenly she drew in a sharp breath through her nose and her eyes grew wide. She stopped eating her ice cream and slowly her eyes rose to meet his, a look of utter mortification on her face. "Oh my god! I didn't mean it like that!" she said, slapping a hand over her eyes and falling back onto her mattress. "Kill me now!"

InuYasha barked out a laugh, both at her embarrassment, and at her delayed reaction.

Even as embarrassed as she was Kagome couldn't help but relish in the sound of his laughter. Hearing it was such a rare occurrence, it almost made ther complete mortification worthwhile. She decided to make it her personal challenge to try and hear it as often as she possibly could.

"I know you didn't mean it like that." InuYasha assured her.

"I was just thinking like, a Fantastic Voyage kind of thing." she explained.

"I know, Kagome. Stop fretting. It's fine." he said as he noticed a box sitting on the floor near his feet. Through the open flaps he could see a framed picture of what he assumed was Kagome's family. "Do you care if I look?" he asked, pointing to the box.

She peeked through the hair covering her face. "No, go ahead." she said as she sat back up. "Some of them are going to need new frames...they got broken during the move…" she paused a moment before pointedly adding "it was one of the boxes you and Sango moved after I left."

He picked up the photo and peeked up at her sheepishly, saying: "Sango must have dropped the box or something."

"You sure about that?" she asked skeptically.

"Well...I might have sat on it...I don't really remember." he mumbled.

Kagome smiled as she watched him look down at the photo in his hand. It was an eight-by-ten portrait of her family, taken when she was about ten years old, and her brother was just a toddler.

InuYasha looked at the photo, the diagonal crack running in across the full length of glass—right across Kagome's face—making him feel a sudden surge of guilt. "I'm sorry."

"What for?" She crinkled her brow.

InuYasha held up the picture to show her the damage he'd caused. "I'll replace all the broken ones."

"Oh, don't worry about it." Kagome said with a wave of her hand. "It's really no big deal. I've been thinking about getting some new frames for those anyway. Besides, you helped move all my furniture. Consider the debt repaid."

InuYasha didn't argue with her further, but he still planned to replace the frames. He continued snooping through the box, finding a few more photos with broken glass and making a mental note of the sizes. Under the framed pictures he discovered a large, D-ring binder photo album. He lifted it into his lap and opened it up to the first page.

"Is this your brother?"

Kagome glanced over to see the picture he was referring to and let out an indignant gasp when she saw which one it was. Her first grade picture. The one that was taken shortly after she and her friends had decided to give each other haircuts…

"That's ME you jerk!" she said, grabbing a pillow off of her bed and chucking it at his face.

"Well how was I supposed to know?" he defended. "Your hair was so short."

"And can't a girl have short hair?"

"Well sure but…" he looked down at the picture again. "It's so short."

Kagome sighed. "My mom had to cut it that short to even it out after me and my friends cut each other's hair." she further explained.

InuYasha chuckled. "Now that is what you should have gotten a picture of."

Kagome gave a defeated sigh. "Turn the page."

He did as she said and found a picture of a red-face, pouting, eight-year-old Kagome with a very chaotically asymmetrical haircut. He let a snort as he tried to stifle a laugh. "Edgy." he commented facetiously.

"Shut up." she grumped.

He chuckled as he turned back in the album to the school photo. "It's not so bad. I've been thinking about getting mine cut short actually. I think I'm getting a little too old to still have long hair."

"Oh, don't do that!" Kagome discouraged him.

"Why not?"

"Because it's so pretty!"

InuYasha looked at her as if he'd been physically assaulted by her comment. "Pretty?! Well, I'm definitely gonna fucking cut it now!"

Kagome only laughed at his apparent distress.

"Keh." he scoffed as he stood the chair yet again, placing the photo album onto the desk. "I'm definitely going home now before you try and put pink bows in my hair or something."

She giggled. "Stop giving me ideas."

InuYasha stomped towards the window, grumbling incoherently and wearing an exaggerated frown all the way.

"You can use the door, you know." Kagome commented as he slid open the window and slipped outside.

"Well, I'm already out here now."

Kagome smiled and held out the last bite of her ice cream cone toward him. "Your favorite."

Instead of taking it with his hand, InuYasha leaned in and took it from her fingers with his mouth and gave her a very full-mouthed smirk as he crunched the heel of the cone between his teeth.

Kagome smiled and shook her head. "Goodnight, InuYasha. Thanks for the ice cream."

"Don't mention it." he said as he stepped up onto the railing of the fire escape.

"Don't land on anyone's head!" she said as he bent his knees to jump.

"I ain't goin' down, I'm goin' up." And before she could blink he was off, sailing through the air and landing onto the roof of a neighboring building before hopping his way from rooftop to rooftop until he was out of sight.

As she watched him, Kagome couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be up there with him. She imagined it would probably be a lot like flying, and she couldn't wait to find out.