InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Silver Hair ❯ Chapter 1

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Silver Hair

By Light-Eco-Sage

Rated: Teen for language and romance (InuKag)

Summary: Kagome is obsessed with touching Inuyasha's… hair?? When he finally gives into her, Kagome comes a step closer to understanding him. ONESHOT!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha… Unfortunately…

LES: Just a few notices… I haven't finished watching the entire anime yet. I'm up through Episode 156. I'm not aware of any details that are revealed after that point. Also, I'm somewhat of a Kikyo hater. I won't bash her in this fic, but I still wish that (bash warning) she would die again and leave Inuyasha and Kagome alone. Three chances at life are MORE than enough! Also, I know little to no Japanese, so this is English through-and-through. I've never been good with languages anyway… And lastly, this is my very first Inuyasha fic, so (bows) forgive me for any huge mistakes I might make with character and things like that. I promise that I can improve with practice… Anyway, on with the story!

Whatever it took, Kagome knew that she could never let go of her longing obsession. Yet, she could do nothing but stare at the unattainable prize, wishing she could touch it… just once.

On her trips around Japan these days, she would constantly hang back so she could stare at the back of Inuyasha's head… or, more precisely, his flowing silver hair.

Maybe it had something to do with his father's demonic blood, but the half-demon's hair seemed to stay absolutely perfect even without the modern conveniences of shampoo, conditioner, and styling products.

She gloried every time the silver strands glowed in the sun and moonlight. She loved how the wind carelessly made his hair flutter like a flag in the breeze. She even loved in on the night of the new moon when it lost its silver color and became mortal midnight black.

Just once… Kagome wanted to touch it… play with it… run her fingers through it. The problem was the hair's owner.

Inuyasha had shown over and over that he typically shied away from physical contact. He grew nervous and fidgety when people got too close to him. Even at times when she was close enough to get her chance, when he piggy-backed her, she didn't dare let go of Inuyasha's shoulders for fear of falling off.

So, she could do little more than stare at the silver prize and wallow in her own cowardice at being unable to tell Inuyasha straight out: `I want to play with your hair.'

She couldn't come out and tell Inuyasha, so she cooked up schemes to get it by force. At the moment, she was leaning towards `sitting' him, and jumping him while he was down.

At the moment when she opened her mouth to yell the dreaded `s-word', Inuyasha glanced around at her. “Hurry up, wench! If you fall behind, I don't wanna have to turn around and get ya!”

Kagome bit back a `sit', this one for him calling her a wench yet again, and picked up her pace. “Actually…” She began when she caught up to the group. “I am a little tired. Can't we stop for the night?”

“Kagome, the next village is only a little further on.” Miroku pointed out.

“Damn lecher.” Inuyasha snorted.

“I was not merely talking of women, Inuyasha.” Miroku said with the infuriating patience of someone talking to an unreasonable three-year old. “I was merely pointing out that it has been quite some time since we've enjoyed homely comforts.”

“Yeah. Like free food, board, and a village full of women to `bare your children'.” Sango said, emitting such a dark aura that even the most vicious of demons would be hard-pressed to stand their ground. Miroku quickly backed away from her, flashing a totally fake `Who? Me?' smile.

“It is getting kind of dark.” Shippo pointed out.

“Exactly my point.” Kagome said, mainly to Inuyasha to get his permission to stop. “Can't we stop?”

“Feh.” Inuyasha snorted, tossing his glorious hair in an annoyed way. “Like I care. Do what you want.”

Kagome sighed as she helped the others set up their simple camp. I should have touched his hair while he was pinned to the Sacred Tree. But no! You had to touch his ears instead!

“Good news.” Shippo said, sniffing the air. “I smell a hot spring around here!”

“It's that way.” Inuyasha pointed vaguely into the woods, like he was just about as not interested as it was possible to be.

“That is good news!” Sango said with a sigh of relief, which quickly turned into a cold glare in Miroku's direction. “Unless a certain lecherous monk feels the urge to spy…”

“Sango… I would never intentionally spy on you…” Miroku said innocently. No one was fooled.

“Hey, Kagome, want to come?” Sango asked. “You can't fight demons with cramped muscles, you know.”

“Maybe later.” Kagome said, as she had a feeling that Miroku would not be able to keep away from the hot springs. And the inevitable commotion would no doubt draw Inuyasha to the scene. Hadn't both Miroku and Inuyasha seen enough of her nude body to last them both a lifetime?! “You go ahead.”

“Oh… all right. Come on, Kirara.” She took off into the woods in the direction that Inuyasha had indicated, followed by her pet cat demon.

Very predictably, several minutes later, Miroku got up and followed Sango with a lecherous grin on his face.

“Pervert.” Kagome sighed, at once glad that she hadn't joined Sango.

Suddenly, Shippo also got up and began to follow Sango and Miroku into the woods. “You got a death wish too, huh?” Inuyasha asked, settling himself at the base of a tree.

“No. I just wanna see Miroku get what's coming to him!” Shippo giggled as he disappeared into the woods.

After several seconds, Inuyasha spoke up. “So, why aren't ya making some of that ninja food yet, wench?” He spat.

“SIT!” Kagome yelled.

A resounding crash filled the woods as Inuyasha was pulled forcibly to the ground by the rosary beads around his neck. As soon as the spell wore off enough for him to life his head, he glared at Kagome. “What was that for?!”

“I'm not a wench, you jerk!” Kagome yelled, planting her feet in preparation for yet another shouting match with the half-demon. “And why don't you make your own food for once?”

Inuyasha pushed himself off the ground. “Geez. What's your problem?”

Kagome rounded on the half-demon yet again. “SIT!” Inuyasha, who hadn't even had time to stand up yet, promptly crashed into the ground again. “You are my problem, you heartless, egotistical bastard!” She rounded off her point with an impressive round of sits that probably would have killed Inuyasha had he been mortal.

Kagome sniffed in annoyance and turned away from him while he tried to recover from his extended abuse, which would probably take a while to wear off. So, for the moment, she resigned herself to cooking some instant ramen. She grudgingly gave Inuyasha's bowl the largest helping because his appetite was NEVER sated when it came to ramen.

“Your food's done, if you can move.” Kagome said emotionlessly.

Inuyasha groaned as he pulled himself off the ground. Then he glared at Kagome, bared his fangs and growled. Kagome wasn't in the least bit worried. One wrong move, and she'd make him eat dirt instead of the ramen. Without following through on his threat, he grabbed the bowl, turned away, and began to eat like a starved dog.

As usual, once her anger began to dissipate, she caught herself staring at his beautiful, long, silver hair. He's only two feet away! Reach out and touch it! Her mind screamed at her. Funny that when facing a demon, she felt no hesitation in notching an arrow in her bow and sending it flying with lethal accuracy; but she could not gather the courage to reach her hand two feet and touch a half-demon's hair.

Just as she had finally gathered the courage to at least raise her hand, Inuyasha seemed to sense her eyes on him. “What're you gawping at?”

Kagome quickly blushed and adverted her eyes. “Oh! Nothing at all!”

Inuyasha turned away and muttered something about `stupid humans' before going back to his ramen.

Several minutes of silence pasted while Kagome battled with herself. Just ask him! The worst that could happen is that he'd say no! Then you could always just sit him!

Kagome sighed. “Um… Inuyasha?”

Inuyasha glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Can I… um… can I play with your hair?” Kagome asked, blushing.

Inuyasha blinked, looking completely and utterly bewildered. “Play with my what?”

“Your hair.” Kagome repeated, blushing even deeper.

For almost a minute, they stared at each other. And then Inuyasha snorted. “Feh. Whatever.” He turned his back to her, presenting her with the prize she long sought: his beautiful, silver hair!

Kagome had to compel herself to stop from squealing for joy. Inuyasha would probably think she had some sort of hair fetish if she did anything of the sort. So, instead of leaping at him, she moved forward slowly and softly began to comb her fingers through his hair.

It was everything she thought it would be! His hair was silky and soft, and she was strongly reminded of petting a long-haired breed of dog. Well… he ispart dog-demon. It was also warm and seemed, somehow, to give off its own heat. The warmth made her want to press her face against it, but she doubted that Inuyasha would appreciate that.

After several minutes where she groomed him in silence, she noticed that his dog ears had drooped slightly. And, if there was one thing Kagome knew about dogs was that they express their emotions more through body language than vocally. (Which explained why Inuyasha himself had such a great deal of trouble talking about his emotions.) She took it for sadness.

“Inuyasha?” She asked quietly, almost afraid to break the silence. “What's wrong?”

“My mother…” Inuyasha said softly. “My mother used to do this to me.”

Kagome instantly stopped combing through Inuyasha's hair. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to remind you of your mother.” After all this time travelling with him, she still hadn't pin-pointed how he felt about his mother.

Kagome knew that Inuyasha was a half-demon whose father had been the Phantom-Dog Lord of the West, and whose mother had been a mortal woman of great beauty. Except for the time when Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha's older half-brother, got a demon to cruelly impersonate Inuyasha's dead mother, he had not said a word about her.

“Don't stop.” Inuyasha said suddenly, bowing his head. After a slight hesitation, Kagome continued to groom his hair. “I don't hate my mother, ya know.”

“I never said…”

“I can tell these things, Kagome. My senses are much stronger than a human's.” Inuyasha said. “It's true. I could hate her for a lot of things… the human blood that she gave me… dying when I was young and leaving me alone… but I love my mother… if only for one reason…”

“What reason?” Kagome asked curiously.

“Because she loved me… unconditionally.” Inuyasha said. “It didn't matter to her if I was the half-demon son of a Dog Lord. I was nothing more or less than her beloved little Inuyasha.”

“Every half-demon that we've met on our journey seems to be loved unconditionally by their human parent.” Kagome pointed out. “A mother who loves her son is the most natural thing in the world.”

“Yes, my mother loved me, but everyone else in my village hated me.” Inuyasha said. “It was all she could do to prevent the bullying and harassment. I learned the word `half-breed' from those villagers… a word that has haunted me forever.”

“How old were you when… it happened?”

“When my mother died?” He clarified, and Kagome nodded reluctantly. “Too young. She protected me from the villagers, so I clung to her… perhaps more than I should have. When she died, I was left with no means of protection. The villagers chased me out and threatened to kill me if I should ever return. Ya know… I never have gone back…”

“Inuyasha… you were too young to suffer so much.” Kagome breathed, never ceasing her gentle grooming.

“That was just the start.” Inuyasha said. “My mother died and I lost what little acceptance I had in the human world. And my father was also dead, so I found no acceptance by the demons of my father's clan. I belonged to neither race and found myself chased and hunted by humans and demons alike.”

“So… you became a rogue, like so many other half-demons.” Kagome said.

“There is little other choice for my kind. Either we learn to fend for ourselves or we die.” Inuyasha paused. “During my travels, I ran into a Priestess on accident. She was badly injured from a fight and warned me to stay away. She assumed I wanted the jewel she carried. That Priestess' name was Kikyo. And I learned of the Sacred Jewel's existence from her. I wanted that jewel with all my heart, for I knew that if I used its power to become a full-blooded demon, I would finally find acceptance. So I tracked Kikyo back to her village to try and steal it.”

Kagome would be lying to herself if she said that she wasn't dreading this part of Inuyasha's story. Now he would talk about his romance with Kikyo, a romance that he had refused to let go of, even with fifty years and her death. And, in the light of her growing feelings for the half-demon, it was a painful reminder of how far away Inuyasha's heart was from her own.

“I attempted to steal the jewel several times, but she always thwarted me. But she never seemed able to kill me, and she had me at her mercy many times. But every time she would walk away and say something like `I don't want to waste any more arrows.' Or `I'll kill you next time.'” He sighed. “It confused me, having been hunted all my life. So I followed her again, but this time at a distance, until the day she called me out and we spoke face-to-face.”

“And… and you two fell in love. I know.” Kagome summed it up, having no wish to listen to Inuyasha say it.

“Feh. Love.” Inuyasha sniffed. “Looking back now, I'm not so sure it was love at all.” Kagome glanced at the back of his head in surprise. “She talked to me, listened to me, and we understood each other better than anyone else. But… that alone is not love. I was so eager to believe it love, since I had been deprived of it since my mother died. But… what really happened was that I developed a strong loyalty to Kikyo… nothing more or less.”

“But… then what about Kikyo? Didn't she love you?”

“In a small way, I guess.” Inuyasha said. “She fell in love with my humanity. She refused to let me say the words `I love you'. I didn't think much on it then. Back then, I just thought that she believed that it didn't need to be said. Now I know better. She couldn't love me for what I was… a half-demon. She both loved and hated me. She hated the demon, and loved the human. She probably wouldn't have let me utter those words until…”

The story suddenly fell into place. “Until you were a human. So… she asked you to forever reject the demon in you and become a human!”

“Yeah.” Inuyasha nodded. “We agreed, the day she told me about the possibility of becoming human, that once I was a human, she would become my wife. And… well… you know what happened then.”

Kagome did know. An evil half-demon named Naraku, jealous of Kikyo's relationship to Inuyasha, impersonated Inuyasha and attacked Kikyo. Then he took on Kikyo's form and attacked Inuyasha. This led to a clash between lovers that ended with Inuyasha pinned to a God Tree for fifty years and Kikyo's death.

“Life was too hard on you.” Kagome said.

Inuyasha sighed. “You are not Kikyo.”

Kagome sighed heavily. “I know I'm not. I may be her reincarnation, but my heart is mine!”

“I didn't mean it as a bad thing. I just meant… you are more like my mother than Kikyo.”

Kagome didn't know what to think about being compared to his mother. “What do you mean?”

“You've befriended me… not as a human… but as a half-demon… something that only my mother has been able to do. And you helped Miroku, Sango, and Shippo down the same path. Without you, they would never trust me in a million years.” Inuyasha said.

“That's because I know that underneath your cold exterior, you really can be a nice guy when you put your mind to it.” Kagome said.

Inuyasha pulled his head out from under her combing fingers and turned to face her. “But… you are the one who got close enough to see it.”

Shocked, Kagome stared into his eyes. Had she been so preoccupied with his hair that she had forgotten that the rest of him was handsome too? Because of how close they had been when Kagome groomed him, they were really close.

“Inuyasha… I…” Kagome gasped.

“Kagome… I care about you… in a way that I've never cared for anyone in my life… not even Kikyo.” Inuyasha said, pulling her into a warm embrace.

Kagome could do nothing except freeze in shock. Here she was, being hugged by the man who she cherished a secret passion for. And then the best moment of the night happened. Inuyasha took her face delicately in his hands, being careful of his deadly claws, and pressed his lips to hers.

Oh my God! Oh my God! Inuyasha's kissing me! Not Kikyo! Me!! Kagome's mind screamed. Oh God! Stop talking to yourself! Kiss him back, idiot!

Her body finally managed to over-ride her shocked mind and she responded to him. She wrapped her arms around his body and allowed herself to be pulled in closer. (And she got to bury her hands in his hair again!) They pulled apart slightly, and Kagome stared lovingly into his amber eyes. “Inu…” But she didn't have time to finish saying his name before he pulled her back into another kiss, more passionate than the one before.

“Well, you've finally got around to it.” A voice spoke from the darkness. It was Miroku.

Kagome instantly froze in embarrassment, while Inuyasha leapt away from her, his hair bristling with anger. “Miroku! What the hell?!”

Miroku had clearly gotten caught spying by Sango judging by the large red mark on his face. “It's about time.”

To the pair's horror, Sango and Shippo also stepped out of the darkness. “I agree.” Sango said.

“Why the hell did you spy on Kagome and me?!” Inuyasha demanded angrily. “And… how did you get so close in the first place? I never smelled any of you!”

“We spied on you two because it was much more interesting that staying back for the sake of your `private talk'. And, as for our smell, it is at least within my power to create a barrier that you can't smell through.” Miroku said, grinning.

“Damn lecher!” Inuyasha growled, leaping at Miroku and brandishing his claws.

“Inuyasha, SIT!” Kagome yelled, having recovered her wits just in time.

And so, for that last time that night, the enchanted rosary beads drove Inuyasha head-first into the ground. “Ow…” The half-demon moaned. “Kagome… why?”

Sango laughed. “Some things never change.”

“You said it!” Shippo giggled.

LES: This was a weird story to write, since I have nil interest in playing with hair myself. But even I wouldn't want to pass up the chance of touching Inuyasha's hair. (Because it might feel like a little puppy dog!)

Inuyasha: What?! My hair does NOT feel like a puppy!

LES: Then maybe I should focus on your ears instead! Let me touch `em!

Inuyasha: GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, YA FREAK!