InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Snowflakes and Coughdrops: When a Sword Can't Protect Her ❯ Outside the Window ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: if I owned Inuyasha you would be watching this or reading in a manga instead of reading it here.

The last of the medicine cherry flavor faded out of her mouth and Kagome popped her gum back into her mouth. She let the cool wintergreen taste work its way over the cherry flavor and then uttered a body-shaking cough. She turned back to her computer screen. "Now I can work." She closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Still in the darkness behind her eyelids two golden eyes pierced her soul. She quickly opened her eyes again. "I need to stay focused!" Kagome stared at the blank document in front of her. What was it she was supposed to write again? Right! A research paper on the book they just read. Of course Kagome hadn't read it yet since there wasn't much time between hunting shards for schoolwork. "I guess I'm just going to have to wing it!" Kagome looked out of her window searching for inspiration. She must be the only person in Japan doing homework right now. After all, they did have all winter break to do it. Another cough shook her body as her eyes connected with a tree behind the endless stream of snowflakes. In the tree she saw a familiar form resting on a branch with his head down. She started to smile. Kagome blinked and the vision disappeared. Her smile dissolved. "Ah! This is not a good time!" It was hard enough convincing Inuyasha that she had to go back to work on her schoolwork for awhile and now she couldn't get anything done she was so distracted. "It must be my cold." Kagome picked up the thermometer from the table and moved her gum away from it to take her temperature. "I'm seeing things because I have a fever, right?" She took the thermometer out of her mouth and read it. "97.4 degrees? This thing must be broken." She discarded it and turned back to the computer screen. It was so blank and white…white like the snow outside…like his hair…no! "No! I gotta stay focused!" Kagome reminded herself. "Why is everything reminding me of…him?"

Inuyasha stared up into the sky from his perch in a tree. The snow was slowly blanketing him and his kimono was slowly turning white. He ignored the cold but turned his gaze to Kaede's hut where the others sat in warmth and comfort. He could picture that perverted monk slowly creeping closer to the unsuspecting Sango until his hand found a resting spot. As if in response to his wondering he heard a smack shortly followed by a thud and then yelling he couldn't make out. Inuyasha smiled to himself. Yet…still. He then imagined that little fox probably crying about missing her then crawling to Kaede or Sango's lap looking for sympathy. "Feh." Let that kid do what he wants. He's such a baby. "I knew I shouldn't of let her leave!" Inuyasha's eyes wandered back to the sky. From where he was sitting it looked like he could touch its smoothness. He closed his eyes and imagined the feeling. Entwining it between his fingers he could almost feel her silky hair. What was he thinking? "I hate her! She's always running off with some stupid excuse about `school' when we could be out looking for shards!" The knot in the pit of his stomach didn't leave. "Really." He added, this time in almost a whisper. The wind picked up a bit pulling snow off of him and whirling it around his head. Inuyasha looked back at Kaede's hut and through the window saw a content Shippo dozing in Kaede's lap as she rested against a wall. Even that pervert monk, Miroku, was able to cuddle up with Sango to keep warm as they slept silently. Inuyasha's stomach gave another twist. "This is stupid." Yet he still couldn't make that feeling go away. The light in Kaede's hut was starting to die away as the lamp burned out leaving the black night speckled with white. The dark swirls became those familiar eyes that smiled at him and he smiled back. "Maybe I'll just go check on her, ya know, to make sure she's ok. I can't lose my shard detector." With that Inuyasha rose, the rest of the snow pooling on him fell to the ground and he sprung from his perch heading for the well.

Kagome spit out her gum and once again started sucking on a cherry cough drop. She stared at the computer screen trying to add something to the only three sentences she could come up with. Her eyes kept drawing to that tree that she once thought she saw someone in. "No! Stop it! No one's there and if there was what would it matter?" she commanded her eyes. As if they had a mind of their own they turned once again to stare into the darkness outside of her window. This time she saw that not-quite-human figure in the tree. This time he was standing on the branch looking directly at her. Kagome was startled and drew her breath in sharply. Unfortunately she still had the cough drop in her mouth and had to cough violently to free her windpipe. Once the cough drop was dislodged she looked up at the tree again almost hopefully. The tree looked back at her, bare. "I need some sleep." Kagome said weakly to herself. Her family had left to visit a relative since it was winter break and they wouldn't be back for a couple days at least so she was alone. Kagome started getting ready for bed. She was determinedly trying not to think of the almost human form that she kept glimpsing out her bedroom window. `It's not like he's anything special, right?' Kagome thought while brushing her teeth. She was attacked by a sneezing spasm and nearly impaled her eye with her toothbrush. "Geez! Nothing is going right!" She saved her paper on the computer and turned it off aggressively with frustration. She was about to turn out the lights when her eyes again gravitated to the tree. "Fine! I'm going out there and I'm proving to myself once and for all that no one is out there!" Kagome grabbed a house key and habitually turned the lights out in her house as she exited each room and finally the house.

Inuyasha came up on the opposite side of the well. "I'll just peek into her room, I'll see her sitting there, and I'll come back." Inuyasha smiled at his plan. No harm done, right? She won't even know I was here. He trekked through the snow and finally found a tree where when he stood on one of the branches he could see directly into her room. There she was, staring at some stupid box thing talking to herself. Then quickly she turned at looked out at him. As suddenly as she had turned she started coughing. Inuyasha regained his composure and leapt from the tree and hiding behind it. "Damn! She saw me! Now she's going to think that I came to take her back and she'll yell at me and then sit me!" Inuyasha shuddered as the last part rolled through his mind again. He sat behind the tree unmoving. "I guess I'll head back now." Inuyasha continued to sit there. He didn't know how long he had been there, but something was making him want to stay forever. Grudgingly he pulled himself off the ground and looked back into her window. She had just turned the light off. "I better let her sleep." Inuyasha walked back to the well enjoying the snowflakes once more. The wind started to pick up and he jumped into the well.

Kagome closed the door to her house and searched out the tree through the falling snow. Once she found it she started to jog to it. In all her distraction she had forgotten that she was still wearing her school uniform and it was quite cold outside. The heavens opened and the snow poured from it harder than she had ever seen. Kagome ran to it faster. Her hand reached out and she touched the tree before she even stopped running. The feeling of her hand on the tree was almost comforting. Something on the ground caught her eye. Was it…a footprint? It had to be too big to be hers. She glanced down again, but the snow had already filled it in. Kagome shivered. The snow was no longer gentle and caressing. Now each snowflake felt like a tiny dagger ripping through her flesh at contact. She turned around and realized that her footprints had disappeared. She searched franticly for the light of her house. She had turned all the lights off. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid me!" Kagome coughed violently again and ice filled her lungs. She had an idea. She turned around and placed her hand back where she touched the tree earlier. Slowly lowering her hand she turned herself in the opposite direction and started walking. "This should take me right back to where I came from." Kagome smiled at her own genius. She walked until she felt she had gone too far. It was pitch black and all she could see were snowflakes attacking her from every direction. She turned slightly in the direction she thought her house must be. How was it that she could get so lost in her own yard? The minutes seemed to drag by and now Kagome's legs had gone numb. A tear ran down her face making her even colder. "Maybe if I can find that tree again I can start over." Kagome again turned around and started to walk the way she thought she came. "This can't be right! I can't recognize anything around me! Am I even by my house anymore? There are too many trees!" She kept changing direction searching desperately searching for anything that might show her where to go. Her whole body was numbed. Her mind was getting cloudy. Kagome broke into a run trying to keep herself awake. Tears of fear and frustration streamed down her face burning her cheeks. Her lungs felt starved of oxygen and she had to stop every few seconds to cough. "How am I going to get out of this?" She knew that she couldn't keep doing this much longer. "If he were here…he would get me out of this…"

A/N: yeah, so if you haven't guessed it yet, this fanfic is going to be an uber waff! Please R&R! I'll be your friend forever! If ya like it please tell me and I'll put more chapters up!