InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Silence the Fairytale ❯ Making Change ( Chapter 32 )

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

A/n: Everyone thank KnittingKnots for being my wonderful beta. She's followed me since I started this ....4 years ago. Wow. Thank you so much, your patience and steadfast following of my writing is humbling.

Werewolfgirl3: Ding! You win the grand prize, after two years of silence my first reviewer. Here's a cookie. Thanks for the compliment!

SplendentGoddess: ^____^ thanks, I felt overly corny writing it in. But meh, sometimes things like that happen irl! Sometimes you need that oh-so-obvious smack in the face.




Right.

Ok.

Inuyasha was convinced.

He was determined, in fact, that something was going to change. Anything.

He was gonna make change.

...staring down at empty claws, he wondered.

How does one make change?

He flexed them closed, as if trying to pluck the answer from midair.

If only it were so simple.

Looking toward one fat lump of fur, and another significantly thinner furball currently chasing a butterfly, he tossed the idea out to them. "Got any suggestions?"

Kirara ignored him, and Buyo cracked open a lazy eye and simply drawled out to him a long, "Brrroooooow." As if the answer were only that plainly obvious.

Now, if only he spoke neko...

"...good idea, I think I might have to pass on it though." Buyo kept that one eye trained on him a moment longer, then closed it as if indifferent to his decision. As if almost put out he'd asked her opinion, in fact, and then blantantly ignore it.

Inuyasha took defense at her quite possibly, probably totally, imaginary offense.

"Well, excuse me, high and mighty little queen of the fatty fat. I don't understand BRRRROW very well, so if you can elaborate in a language I actually speak we might actually be able to fucking do something about it."

He stared glumly at her continued air of indifference and then pushed her onto her back in retaliation. Little stumps of legs flailed in the air at the attack, trying its best to correct itself, and reminding him of a turtle that had been flipped over.

Folding triumphant arms over his chest, he glared at the poor thing that still was trying to manage to right itself.

"Keh, what you get for being a bitch."

Though, he supposed technically she was the farthest thing from being a bitch... since she was a feline and all.

What would she be then?

... a fitch?

Inuyasha crinkled his nose at the thought and scratched his head as he gave into the pinching of his conscience and rolled her back over correctly.

Within seconds, she had yawned as widely as ever and returned to a blissful state of slumber.

...There were times he was downright jealous at her ability to do it. Just, shut out the world like all that mattered was getting fatter and then sleeping it all off. Cause doing it apparently was a great effort. A testament given by the fact she slept for 23 of the 24 hours within the day.

He sighed. If only he had been Kagome's kitty, then perhaps he would have gotten much more out of their nonexistant relationship. Seeing as it didn't exist, and all. At least then he would be able to get away with sleeping inside her kimono...

And that was the thing he was hoping to change. The relationship part, anyway. The kimono thing would have just been an added bonus...

Either way, these were the things that the cat apparently was no help in fixing.

The fitch.

Kirara then as always ever the little ball of fanatic energy, chose that moment to latch onto the side of his head as if to avenge her provoked mother, albeit in a state of delay.

Like, oh wait. Maybe I should do something about it.

Attack.

"Gah!" Inuyasha pinwheeled, trying to peel the furry leech from his face as she gnawed viciously on one of his ears.

"Damnit cat, leggo!"

Peeling claw after painful claw from his embedded flesh, he tossed the cat away roughly. In response, she stuck her tails up in the air at him in what seemed bruised pride and irritation. She walked off to stalk some other thing much more intersting and far easier to aggravate than him, to say the least.

...he seemed to have a talent of driving off women. And it suddenly enlightened him that said talent also crossed species.

Inuyasha fumed.

And this was the state Kagome found him in. Sulking for whatever reason, little claw marks apparently on his face and one ear looking quite pinker than usual.

Hiding a hand behind a billowing sleeve, Kagome stifled a giggle. The only thing in the world that managed to ease up the recent pressure that seemed to hang in her heart was Inuyasha.

...sometimes, he was just so damn funny without even trying.

Ears perked toward her as she let loose an unladylike snort. She couldn't help it. One of those ears, so interested in her and looking oh so offended caused her to break out into a fit of giggles.

She could imagine it, the way she just knew Kirara had attacked him yet again for bothering her mother.

"Oi! What's so funny?"

Lie, lie, don't let him know you're laughing at him...

"Sorry, remembering something the children did today. It was stupid."

Inuyasha looked at her curiously. Clearing her throat to suddenly change the subject, feeling the mark on her chest pulse at his look-which it had been doing more with uncomfortable frequency-she looked down into her arms for the way out of the matter.

Food.

"You hungry?"

Hope blossomed on Inuyasha's face, and it was definitely true the old addage applied to him.

Way to a man's heart, through his stomach.... his giant, enormous, bottomless pit of a stomach.

"Food?"

Leering at him predictively, his one track mind never ceased to amaze her. Especially when it came to food.

What she did not predict however was the enthusiasm with which he helped her.

He unfolded himself like a slowly budded realization, grabbing the things from her arm and making her off balance with the sudden way the weight from her arms vanished.

"I've got it! Why don't you go get comfortable?" he offered, his voice brooking not much room for arguement. Then again... it was almost dusk. And the grime from the day wore her down, making her feel extra jaded and dirty today... and her clothes needed washing...

Lifting flat locks up to her nose, she leaned in and took a tentative sniff.

...apparently, she thought disdainfully... her hair agreed with her clothes.

...she wondered...

Staring at Inuyasha's back, she slowly... slowly... lifted her arm...to smell the area beneath it.

She wanted to fall over when she did, her face turning blue from the sudden exhaled breath that wished to rid itself of the putrid stench.

...man, she was gross today.

Coughing to hide the embarrassment of sniffing one's own pits and finding them all none too pleasant, she pinned her arms to her sides as if the action may hide the offensive odor from quite possibly the most powerful nose in the world.

At the moment, she liked to believe it did.

"Yeaaaah that sounds like a good idea... I'm gonna just go do that."

Turning around, she started to head off.

"Why don't you leave your clothes here? I can wash them and be done with them, drying by the time you're done," he seemed to mutter it absently, as if the thought just occurred to him... as if...

She blinked.

As if... what?

She didn't know.

All she did know was the red hot embarrassment she felt at the idea of being nude in front of him.

The necessity of being as pure and untainted and untouched and un...sexual.... as she had to be as a miko making her more and more modest as the time passed.

Modest to things like... the difference between gender. Modest to things like... her body. Which, before, she never cared.

Leave it to humans to fuck up her life and her perceptions once again.

She wished she could go back to being 13 and not caring if she danced under a sun in a field in the middle of a hundred people in only what Kami gave her.

It was more simple.

And the longer Inuyasha leered at her, the more that damn marked pulsed, the more she tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. Which, also, had been occurring more and more with an annoying increased frequency. There was a lot of increasing stuff in areas she wished none to take place.

She had to shut out the mental image of her jumping him and kissing him breathless.

Cause mikos like her didn't do that.

Mikos just didn't tackle one and kiss one senseless and rip off all of one's clothes and make hot and passionate lo...

She stopped there, her face bursting into flames as she just blankly looked at Inuyasha's expectant face.

No.

No mikos did not do that.

Nope.

...but, I want to, anyway.

She almost choked at the mental admission.

"What are you waiting for, woman? Geeze. Go take a bath already, you stink."

Yeah... that effectively silenced any romantic thoughts she had been thinking about him at the moment.

Stripping off her clothes indignantly, she threw them square into his face and hissed at him like her cats, "Baka!" and stormed off to the river.

Inuyasha looked as lost as one could given the circumstance.

"What did I do...?"

He really was very talented at making women walk away, after all.



Kagome couldn't stand this feeling all the time. This mortified embarrassment she held at bay over the fact it was getting harder and harder to ignore her love for Inuyasha.

Who was so there, and so wonderful, and so great, and made her so happy...

And...

...so obnoxious, and so oblivious and so infuriating.

She dropped her head to her knees with bemoaning sigh.

It was hard, really fucking hard. Standing in the village everyday, watching mothers and fathers who cared for each other and tended their children and living their lives together.

And here Kagome was, unmarried, with a perfectly eligible guy who obviously liked her who was her sun and her moon and her heaven and everything and anything between and kept her from shutting up her heart and blocking out life.

Why did she do it?

Why did she ignore him?

She breathed, repeating the conversation that had become her own desperate prayer within herself.

I remember...

When he kissed her...

That night, months and months ago.

Lifting her fingertips to her lips, she ran them over the place she could still distinctly feel the rugged warmth that had once been there.

She had been too shocked to move.

...her first kiss.

Her only kiss.

The same night she swore never to act on her feelings for Inuyasha.

Because... of the Shikon no Tama. Stupid fucking piece of shit rock.

She lowered her head down into the stream a bit, blowing bubbles under the night sky. She watched as they popped, like each one of her hopes had since she had made the choice to free him that one day. Because she had decided to. Everytime one of her dreams that shattered to pieces it was her own fault.

It was her fault the stupid jewel existed.

It was her fault she couldn't be together with Inuyasha.

It was her fault she was stopping herself.

It was her fault she was starting not to care.

It was her fault that she wanted to leave.

It was her fault she chose to train as a miko, that they came here and stayed her, that they weren't in their den and getting ready for the winter.

It was her fault.

She sniffled.

She couldn't share this with anyone though.

Duty, duty, duty.

She stared down at the water to watch as starlit eyes stared back and she slapped the water, sick of herself, blurring the image.

It wasn't Shinsei-baa-chan (which she called her only in private company, of course) who had made her feel this way. Shinsei-baa-chan had been MORE than encouraging, what with her flat out remarks about how the way the sunlight made Inuyasha look extraordinary in some angles, or how he looked so strong when carrying buckets of water to her hut, or the way his hair looked like the moonlight when he turned around to look at her and curse about some inane thing...or...

She frowned.

The old woman wasn't really helping at all, in fact.

All under a hearty, innocent chuckle and comments about the things she had missed in life.

Like good looking men.

Things that made her blush and stammer in a way that was completely betraying the thoughts that were along the lines of what Shinsei-baa-chan said.

So, the fact remained, Shinsei-baa-chan had not given her this oppressing sense of duty.

It was only every other human being in the village that had her on some false pedestal, making her into some supernatural figure worth hero-worshipping.

Not some girl scared shitless of the stupid bauble that made her chest grow warm.

It had caused nothing but trouble.

And Kagome now...

...now she understood her Obaa-san, Kikyou, very well...

She also couldn't blame her desperate wish to be an ordinary woman. In fact, she understood it quite well.

But there was something very important that separated her from her grandmother.

And that very something was coming toward her, she could tell, by the tingling in her chest.

White hair shone a faint blue in the moonlight, ears twitching toward where she was as she heard him faintly call her name, causing her heart to lurch in her chest just the slightest...

"K'gome? What's taking so long? Your clothes are dry and the food is cold..."

Self-consciously, Kagome crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to hide the way her nipples stood out against the cooling air of late autumn.

Gold eyes gleaming surreally in the dark, shining in inhuman ways, glanced at her with what she knew was perfect vision in the velvety blackness.

She tried to find a good excuse, but she felt herself grasping at thin air. There was nothing solid to hold onto, nothing to hide behind...

So, as all other things, when that failed at lying she merely opted for the truth. She felt too exhausted to lie, anyway...

"...I was thinking, and lost track...sorry. I'm really tired."

He came and sat on the bank of the river, his arms shoved into his crimson sleeves as he sat cross legged before her and looked at her for a lengthy moment.

...she stared right back, unabashed by his searching gaze. She didn't bother hiding her soul from her eyes anymore with him, when he found it so easily and pulled it right back out into the light.

"What about?" he had no idea how much that innocent question stung. It stung her to know she had been so quiet about everything. The depth of her worries.

It made her feel somewhat guilty.

She never wanted to hurt him with anything...

I want... to protect him. To protect him from the fate I have and that he doesn't have to share.

"...just... everything. It's been a long season.... a lot has changed," she felt the words fall from her mouth unthinking, hoping none of the bitterness she felt showed.

If he had seen it, he didn't comment on it.

She heard him sigh.

"It's getting cold. Come on..." he stood, walking the space between them as he shrugged off his haori.

She stood, glistening under the waxing moon, shivering in cold as he wrapped her up in his clothes to warm her.

He was... always taking care of her.

She leaned into his warmth as he wrapped an arm around her.

Eyes half lidden with a drowsy lull that took hold of her aching bones, she relaxed into him completely, feeling safe in his arms.

So safe, in fact, she had stopped thinking.

So safe, so secure, she had stupidly removed the filter from her mouth.

"Inuyasha... I love the way you take care of me... thank you..." she mumbled sleepily before she could stop it, her brain too sluggish to comprehend it, and her feet still moving when he stopped at her words and causing her to stumble in the slightest right flush against his chest.

Two hands laid themselves on her shoulders as if to steady her, and she gazed at his face that was partially hidden by bangs. Uncertain fangs worried his lips, lips that were moistened by a tongue that snaked out to wet them.

"...I always will. You know that, baka..."

One hand reached up to grasp his, and she smiled lazily at him, fatigue and weariness seeping into her muscles.

"...I know. That's why I wanted to just...Thank you."

The hands on her shoulders tightened fractionally, and she peered under those bangs. "Inu... you okay?"

She blinked at the emotion swimming in those orbs so plainly for her to see, a thing she understood and didn't want to. A thing she didn't know what to do about. A thing within herself that she had been trying to talk herself out of.

...This thing she knew all about and didn't know how to answer.

And when he spoke, she assumed neither did he.

Well, for all but an instant she assumed it.

He knew what he wanted, and she wanted, and finally...

He acted on it.

Two hands, strong and supple and safe, so... painfully safe... Cupped her cheeks...

And tilted her head up to him. Her breath hitch in her throat when his eyes closed... flushed, weary, uncertain, unknowing...

All brought down upon her, everything he was holding on to. Her eyes widened as her breath hitched in her throat...

And he pressed his lips against her.

And finally, she knew what to do.

She responded.

It was only a brief deliberation.

It consisted of: Should I...? and quickly replaced by...

...ah fuck it.

It was everything, and more, than what she remembered.

It was soft and hard all at once. Desperate and tender, and full and empty and wanting and hoping and it all poured into her with such a ferocity...

All these things he felt, all these things he was hiding from her, and he gave his heart to her then and there and she wasn't sure what to do with it.

So, she did all she knew how to do, and gave him hers back...

Her trust, her wanting, her compassion, her sincerity, her misery, her very soul. He sealed it with this soft thing, searing her, licking her lips gently and asking her for more when she didn't know what else he could take when he had it all already.

And when she parted her lips nervously, allowing him entrance, she knew. He wanted to bury himself in her heart and live there forever.

...The steady stream of tears that had been nothing but a realization became an obsession, full forced and choking her underneath the weight of him and all he was worth. He wrapped her up in his arms and lifted her to him, as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him to her. They embraced each other so tightly, Kagome absently wondered if they would become one.

And that's when they learned...

That is how you make change.