InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ She is Love. ❯ The Foster Mother. ( Chapter 2 )

She is Love.

 

Chapter Two: The Foster Mother.

 

Kasumi Aino's keys jingled as she quietly shut the back door of her house. She tiptoed through the kitchen, silent as a mouse, when an older woman suddenly sat up on the living room sofa and blinked sleepily at Kasumi through the arch between the two rooms. “Kas?” she asked.

 

The young woman sighed. “Hi, Kags. You didn't wait up all night, did you?”

 

The woman watched her with red-rimmed, red eyes. Her long, raven hair was stacked messily on the top of her head, and she wore a pair of grey jogging pants and a dark blue sweater. Her bare feet found the floor after only a moment, and she stood to fully greet her foster daughter. “Where were you?” she asked.

 

Kasumi sighed, tossing her keys onto the kitchen counter. “I was working. Deliveries don't deliver themselves, ya know.”

 

“Don't give me that attitude,” she shot back, giving Kasumi a dirty look. She approached the girl, but Kasumi went right by her, making her way to the stairs. She looked around a bit. “Did Ren already go to bed?” she asked when the high schooler was nowhere to be found.

 

“Yes, she did,” the woman answered, “and don't try to get past my little barrage of questioning, young lady. Were you out with a man?”

 

Kasumi scoffed, grabbing hold of the banister and planting her right foot firmly on the first stair. Barely turning her head to look over her shoulder, she replied, “Kagura, I have a boyfriend.”

 

“But that's not his scent,” her foster mother countered, coming closer. Kasumi closed her eyes and stepped back, turning fully and releasing the stair banister. “You and I both know that that is not Haku's scent, and I just don't think it's a very good idea for you to cheat on the poor boy-”

 

“And you and I both know that he is not just some `poor boy,'” the girl retorted, her hands coming up to grasp her hips. She glared at Kagura, who crossed her arms over her chest and met her foster daughter's glare. “He's nearly as old as you are, and you are both full youkai; neither of you are anything resembling poor or helpless.” She turned back to the stairs. “I wonder when you're going to figure out that I'm not that dumb anymore.”

 

She was about halfway up the stairs when she stopped, surprised, at Kagura's next words: “You ran into Inuyasha Taisho, didn't you?”

 

Slowly, Kasumi turned, her legs still frozen mid-step on the stairs. She stared down at her foster mother, who, somehow, had made it to the bottom of the stairs without being heard or seen. Kagura just stood there, one hand on the banister, watching her daughter with even, calm eyes. “How do you know him?” she asked. “I mean…” For the first time in at least a century, Kagura of the Wind was struck somewhat speechless. “How did he find you?”

 

Three heartbeats passed before Kasumi stuttered, “Am-Am I s'posed to know him?”

 

Cold fear flooded through Kagura as tears suddenly and unexpectedly sprang to her eyes. “N-No,” she lied, stepping back and heading back into the living room. Shutting off the television, she knew that Kasumi was still standing there, in that same spot on the stairs. Walking slowly down the groundfloor hallway, she called, “Goodnight,” and slammed the door shut. Still slightly stunned, Kasumi turned back around and continued up the stairs, more confused now than ever.

 

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Inuyasha sat back in his lounge chair in the Western Palace; the solitude of this place made him feel loads better after the enormous fight he and Kimiko had had that afternoon. He'd gone in, backed up by Shippo, Sesshomaru, and Souta, and announced that the entire thing - the wedding, the relationship, hell, even then friendship - was over, and he wanted all of her shit out of his Asakusa apartment “as soon as fucking possible.” Even now, as he tipped his head back and finished off his glass of whiskey, he chuckled lightly at the way her face had suddenly gone beet-red, and the Kagome-lookalike had just gone off on him in a very Kagome-like way…

 

`But she wasn't Kagome.'

 

Right when those words filled his head, he set the empty glass down harshly on the endtable, suppressing a useless growl. Rubbing his face, Inuyasha attempted to shove himself even further down into the damned cushion, to no avail.

 

It was right then that he began to think about the quirky onna he'd run into on the sidewalk… Or, rather, the quirky little onna who had run into him.

 

She didn't look that much like Kagome… But, then, Kagome hadn't looked much like Kikyo, either. Their personalities had been almost completely different, so why wouldn't Kagome be very different from her own reincarnation?

 

To Inuyasha, it made much more sense now that he sat back and really looked at it.

 

He had to track down this “Kasumi Aino;” Shippo was convinced, and he was pretty sure that once Lord Asshole and the kid brother met her, that they would be also.

 

His feet felt cold right then; he stood and walked around the room for a few minutes, trying to warm them. It didn't work.

 

Inuyasha knew that nothing would until he knew. He had to know.