InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Strictly Taboo ❯ Lasting Treasure ( Chapter 10 )

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

Kikyo was back more and more and Inuyasha was quickly losing his patience. Kagome never wanted to be intimate with him when her mother was in the house, which was completely understandable, but it was torture for him to see her and not be able to touch her. He didn’t want to go to her school either, not after what he had to do last time, but it had been so long since he had tasted her and he was seriously considering it, damn the consequences.

“…And so now I only have the flowers left to worry about. Are you listening, Inuyasha?” Kikyo said irritably.

He nodded absently and once again tried to pay attention to what Kikyo was saying about their wedding. Christmas was only a few days away and that meant their wedding was in almost a week. They would be getting married at the shrine Kikyo’s family owned but no longer inhabited and the honeymoon would be at Inuyasha’s old beach house, something he had bought on a whim in the seventies and hardly bothered with since. He and Kikyo had spent an enjoyable weekend there once, right before they broke up. He supposed that was why she wanted to go back. He was less than thrilled about it, considering how their relationship ended.

In fact, he was less than thrilled about the whole thing. He tried his hardest to get at least a little excited for the wedding, but he just couldn’t. Trying to recapture his old feelings for the frigid woman just left him feeling sick and longing for Kagome even more. Lately, she hadn’t even been speaking to him or her mother. She just stayed up in her room, doing homework or whatever, and when he dropped her off and picked her up it was the same. She claimed she was tired, so they couldn’t fool around in the car either, also she was worried about her mother noticing even a hair out of place. He shook his head angrily. When had he gone from thinking of Kikyo as Kikyo and instead started thinking of her as Kagome’s mom? It was impossible for him to think of her as anything else, even when he brought to mind their history. It was like another lifetime, and he felt like a completely different person. All he felt towards her now was a faint fondness and a desire to make her last days happy ones. And fuck, he was marrying his kind-of-sort-of girlfriend’s mother and it was kind-of-sort-of freaking him out.

“Hey Kikyo,” he said abruptly, cutting her off in the middle of whatever she had been saying.

“Yes, Inuyasha?” she hissed, obviously upset.

“Let’s bring Suikotsu on the honeymoon.”

She stared at him, shocked into silence. “You want to—“

“No, not that,” he said quickly, understanding what she had been thinking. “I just meant, like, at least one of us should have fun on our honeymoon,” he muttered.

“That’s nice of you, Inuyasha. I will consider it.”

“And we could let Kagome come too,” he said, trying to make it seem like an afterthought when really it was the only thing he wanted. “She’s gonna be out of school anyway, we might as well take a family vacation.”

Kikyo frowned. “I had planned on letting Urasue watch her. She’s known Kagome since birth and the girl probably misses her.”

He almost laughed out loud, thinking of all the horror stories Kagome had told her about the drunken old woman he had met only once. “I think a change of scenery would be nice for her.”

“I suppose you’re right. The two of you have been spending a lot of time together, after all.”

Inuyasha chuckled nervously. “Yeah, we’re pretty good pals. It’s important for me to study the younger generation and observe trends and things like that.” And study he did.

Kikyo nodded reluctantly. “The two of you could keep each other company while Suikotsu and I catch up. We haven’t had much contact these last few months.”

His brow furrowed. “Haven’t you been spending the weekends at his place, at least?” He had assumed she’d been living there. She had only spent a handful of nights in his house.

“I’ve been planning our wedding, Inuyasha,” she spat out. “I did not have much time to spend with a man who does not want it to even occur.”

“I-I’m sorry, Kikyo.” He had given very little thought to what her life was like, even going so far as to forget about her for hours at a time. Guilt flooded through him and he watched as she held back tears, something he had never even associated with her.

“Good,” she grumbled. “One of us should be.”

Christmas came and he wrote Kikyo a check for five thousand dollars, certain her tastes had changed and not knowing what she’d like. She wasn’t there to receive it as she was spending the holiday with her boyfriend, making Inuyasha swear again that he would not tell Kagome about it. He was puzzled as it seemed she only really cared about Kagome when it came to secrets or accomplishments. Inside, he was glad they had not married all those years ago and had children, as it would be them he’d see suffering now. Seeing Kagome quietly accept that her mother would not be there to celebrate her favorite holiday tore at his heart, too, but still, he was glad he had dodged a bullet. A bullet which was more like a boomerang, when he thought about it.

Since Kagome was very much into Christmas and she had reminded him of a Christmas angel the first time he had seen her and now thought of it as her day, he decorated the house in an over the top fashion. It was covered in lights even though they were in the middle of the woods and nobody else could see them, but to him and Kagome that just added to the beauty of it. It was theirs. They had a pine tree inside the house, which he and Kagome had decorated extensively with lights and newly purchased mismatched ornaments and candy canes and even strings of popcorn which he had never seen anyone actually do outside of old cartoons. The pile of gifts he placed under it towered to nearly its middle, and he worried he had overdone it and that it would scare her off, so he took away half and saved them in his closet for her birthday, painstakingly rewrapping them in different paper since originally they had been covered in little pine trees and snow men.

Kagome was off from school for a long while, until the second week of January, and he was so happy he sometimes forgot to breathe. She was still somewhat standoffish even after Kikyo left again, although she did allow him to kiss her and touch her over her clothes under the tree a few times. On Christmas Eve, she had agreed to once again sleep in his bed beside him and he thought their activities would extend beyond a simple goodnight kiss, but no such luck. Still, he was happy to hold her and smell her and love her.

The morning of the holiday, Kagome woke him up with a deep kiss, completely taking him by surprise as he always woke up before her when they slept together. She straddled his stomach and her hands were tracing the edges of his ears lovingly.

“Come on, Papa Yasha,” she whispered. “Presents!”

He groaned and dragged her back down to his lips, kissing her slow and sweet, just enjoying the dull minty taste of her mouth and the feel of it. “What time is it?”

“Almost six!” she chirped happily, kissing him along his brows.

“Ugh, fine,” he mumbled grumpily and sat up, inwardly eagerly anticipating the look on her face when she opened his gifts.

Suddenly, she flung her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder. “I didn’t get you anything,” she whispered regretfully, giving him light kisses along his collar bone.

“That’s alright, Kagome,” he soothed, embracing her. “I didn’t expect you to, anyway. It’s not like you have a job or anything, and I’m pretty much your only mode of transportation. Besides, you can be my present,” he finished with a grin that could be heard in his voice. He was enjoying all the kisses she was giving him after so much time with hardly anything.

She laughed and playfully bit the side of his neck. “I am, then.”

They ran down the stairs hand in hand, laughing like young children did, until Kagome nearly tripped and he decided to carry her, tossing her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and ignoring her happy shrieks, bouncing her a few times and squeezing her bottom as she laughed until she was gasping for breath.

He plopped down in front of the tree and settled her in his lap, not even bothering to hide his erection. Kagome, of course, noticed and sent him a heated look before grabbing the box closest to her and opening it. She shook it and her brow furrowed when it didn’t make a sound.

“What is it?” she asked.

Inuyasha laughed. “It’s right in front of you, Kagome, just open it. And hurry up, there’s a ton of these things.”

She looked at him, confused. “You want me to open all of them?”

“Well, yeah. They’re all for you.”

She gasped and her eyes widened. “All these?” she squeaked.

He nodded. “We’re pretty much the only people here. Who else would they be for?”

“I-I thought maybe for Mother, or your work friends, or maybe even decoration, but not all for me…”

“Everybody else has their gift, now hurry up and open yours,” he muttered, kissing her directly behind her ear and inhaling her scent.

“Alright,” she said, still unsure. Carefully, she slowly opened the package, being sure not to tear the paper. Amused, but quickly becoming impatient, he grabbed her hands and brought them up to his face, placing a kiss on the back of each of them.

“I like that you’re sweet and gentle, but it’s just paper. Rip it apart!”

“But, the memories—“

“You’re not going to save pieces of paper, Kagome. I don’t want us to end up on Hoarders,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Fine,” she said sharply, ripping into the box. Stunned, she pulled out her gift. “Is this—“

She held up the nearly completely transparent pair of panties, her mouth open and gaping. “There’s a hole in it…” she muttered.

“They’re supposed to be that way. These’re crotchless panties,” he whispered into her ear, running his claws up and down her arms until she shuddered.

“But…why?”

He shrugged. “I always thought they were hot.”

“Are all my gifts lingerie?” she asked, her voice rising. He flinched.

“Not all of them. I got you other stuff. I just thought it would be nice if—“

“You don’t think I’m pretty enough already?” she said, her voice trembling. Crap.

“Fuck, no—You’re beautiful! I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he said sincerely. “I think about you all the time, and sometimes I think about what things like this would look like on you, not what you would look like in them.” She stared at him, confused, so he continued. “What I mean is that you make them look good, not the other way around.”

“It’s... a little much right now. But thank you for thinking of me.”

Inuyasha felt worse with each present Kagome opened. True, not all of them were sex-oriented but a good deal were. He had also bought her some stuffed animals, since she had once mentioned she always dreamed of having a big bed full of them. There were some earrings and bracelets and other girly stuff, too. But it seemed as though every other box contained something she’d rather not be touching. There were cupless bras, dirty dice, a copy of the Kama Sutra, a sex bingo game he had found online, hand cuffs, corsets, garter belts with lacy garters, and a door jamb sex swing. So okay, maybe he had gone a little overboard. Her face turned redder with each gift she opened and by the time she was done, he felt like a complete asshole. He didn’t want to rush her or anything. In fact, it was mostly his hesitation that prevented them from going “all the way”.

They sat in front of the fading fire, surrounded by mountains of cheery printed paper and enough items to stock their own sex shop. Cautiously, Inuyasha took Kagome’s hand, pulling her up without a word. Ignoring her questions of where he was taking her, he led her outside, directly in front of the Goshinboku.

“I can’t see a thing out here in the dark,” Kagome huffed irritably. The sun had only just risen and the thick foliage all around them prevented the little light there was from filtering through.

“Let me fix that for you,” he murmured, letting go of her hand and reaching down to plug an extension cord into a power strip. The ancient tree lit up, and Kagome gasped in awe and delight, seeking out his hand and gripping it tightly.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful!”

“Yeah,” he whispered, bending down to kiss her cheek. “Kagome… The wedding is on the first. That’s coming up really quickly.”

She glared at him, as if upset he had ruined the moment. “I know! You don’t have to remind me all the time.”

“Well, do you know that I don’t really want to do this?” he said roughly. “I wish I could live every day alone with you and not have to care about anything else.”

“You don’t have to!” she yelled, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. “We could be together! Let’s just run away. I’m tired of all this.”

He was stunned. He had not even considered that thought, and it was quite an appealing one. But if they ran away tonight, would she still feel as passionately for him in the morning? Or would she grow resentful and put all the blame on him, pushing him away until there was nothing left to save? And what about Kikyo?

“I want to be with you,” he said softly, placing his hands on hers on his chest. “But you and I both care about your mother too much to do that to her.”

There were tears in her eyes and although she made a valiant effort at holding them back, they spilled over onto her face. “So you’ll sneak around with her daughter behind her back and that’s alright, but you can’t have a legitimate relationship with me because that would hurt her? Doesn’t that just make everyone miserable but you?”

Inuyasha flinched. “It’s not like that. I just don’t want you to end up hating me.”

She scoffed and turned to leave, but he caught her by the hand, not letting go even when she tried to wrench away from him so hard he thought her wrist would break. Ceasing her struggles, she allowed him to pull her into his chest and wrap his arms around her.

“Are you serious about me?” He almost didn’t hear, what with how quietly she spoke and the fact that her words were muffled by his chest.

“You’re the most important person in my life,” he whispered back.

“How can I believe that? We only met a couple of months ago, for one. And then there’s everything else…” she trailed off, not wanting to list the many details that made their being together so very inappropriate.

“Things go faster with demons. I don’t need to know every detail about someone to know whether or not I like them. I just know.”

“When did you know that you…liked me?”

“Within the first ten seconds of meeting you,” he said truthfully. “It was never that fast with anyone before. Not with me, at least. When did… When did you start to like me?”

He felt her smile into his chest and that made him smile as well. “Right away. I was pretty obvious about it. But I didn’t like you like you until you kissed me. It was such a short moment, but I started to feel all these things and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest…”

She brought her head up and looked into his eyes dreamily. Her gaze was so tender that he couldn’t not kiss her, slow and soft and sweet.

“I have one more gift for you, angel.”

Kagome smiled and narrowed her eyes at him playfully. “Another weird sex thing?”

“No,” he said seriously, suddenly nervous. He reached inside his pocket and felt around for the small object he had not bothered to put in a box. “This was my mother’s ring, one that my father gave to her. It’s one of the only things I have left that belonged to her.”

Inuyasha slipped it on her left ring finger quickly, not giving her time to refuse it, although the look on her face didn’t seem to be one of rejection.

“Oh god, Inuyasha, it’s beautiful,” she said, her voice full of emotion. She examined it on her finger, admiring the gold band studded with jade and tiny pearls. “So delicate. Are… Are you sure you want me to have this?”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m sure. My mother told me to give it to the woman I cherished above all others. Who else would I give it to?” She gave him a pointed look and he flinched. “Not her. I never even showed this to her.”

“Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious.

He shrugged. Honestly, it had never occurred to him to give it to anyone before now. He was very careful with the few possessions he had that belonged to his parents and just giving them away, even to someone he cared deeply for, seemed almost sacrilegious. But with Kagome, it just felt right. It was a way for his mother to watch over the woman her son had chosen, to guide her and tell the world she belonged to someone.

“Accepting this ring comes with a promise, Kagome,” he said, staring into her eyes. “You’re promising not to leave me and I’m promising not to leave you, okay?”

She nodded. “I promise. But how? You’re getting married in just a few days!”

“I’m committing myself to Kikyo in order to commit myself to you. Think about it, Kagome. What happens if I turn her down? She’ll leave and take you with her and we won’t be able to see each other. If there was another way, I’d do it.”

“Don’t you feel guilty?”

“Do you?” He avoided the question, since he had a feeling that there was no right answer.

A few more tears fell and she laid her head on his chest again. “Only when I see her. But she’s never around anymore.”

“This is going to work, Kagome. We’re going to make it work.” Inuyasha kissed her and they looked at the lit up Goshinboku one more time before heading back to the house, hand in hand.