InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Boyfriend ❯ Homecoming ( Chapter 21 )

Disclaimer: InuYasha, Kagome and anyone else you saw in the manga or anime does not belong to me. Yukio does. If I saw so much as a shiny penny for this story, you think I'd be writing fanfiction still? Okay, I would… Damn other authors and their more interesting universes…

 

Genre: Angst, Romance
Rating: M
Codes: Inu/Kag
Feedback: Keeps my muse talking and the stories coming! Do tell. But if you have a flame, use it for something more productive, like setting your clothes on fire.

 

 

The Boyfriend
Chapter 21

 

Kagome looked at her little girl, lying in her arms, completely free of tubes and wires and couldn't help the tear that traced its way down her cheek. She was so happy, she was finally getting to bring Tama home. She kissed her tiny cheek and smiled when Tama's mouth opened and closed a few times in response. Tama's eyes slid unerringly to InuYasha and Kagome smiled up at him. He was staring intently at the baby and she held her out to him.

 

“No, I'll break her, it's better if you—Kagome!” Kagome ignored his protests and put Tama in his arms. He held her carefully, not moving a muscle. Tama watched him, her own almost-golden eyes meeting his yellow ones, both transfixed on the other. She had the same gold flecks as her father, but it only made her look more like InuYasha, in Kagome's mind. Apparently, it did the same in his, because he lifted her up until his nose bumped hers and they were literally eye-to-eye. Kagome smiled when InuYasha's face broke into a wide grin. He looked over at her with that same smile in place and she nodded encouragingly. His eyes went wide and then he made a cradle with one arm and tried to reach for the carrier without bending forward at all.

 

Kagome finally had mercy for him and picked up the carrier so he could place the tiny bundle inside. He fussed with the blanket inside until she was only a little face peeking out and Kagome resisted the urge to kiss his cheek. He looked like a new father and she felt her heart swelling with happiness watching him with their baby. A pang of sadness swept through her that this couldn't have happened later, with InuYasha's own child in the carrier, but she pushed it away. She refused to be sad today. It was the day that their little family was going to start being a family and she didn't want anything to ruin it.

 

InuYasha picked up the carrier and held it tightly against himself. Kagome almost laughed at how protective he was being, now that he had held her. Before, he would shoot her wary glances and had avoided contact entirely. Now, it was as though that time had never happened. She walked next to him, peeking in at the baby and tugged the diaper bag higher on her shoulder, where it was competing with her school bag.

 

As they walked through the hospital lobby, Kagome heard some of the people whispering around her. She blushed when she heard someone call her a bad name and almost didn't notice that InuYasha had stopped in time to keep from running into him. He glared around the room over the baby carrier and the whispering stopped immediately. Still, Kagome didn't feel better. She had heard similar whispers in the halls at school, although she didn't tell anyone about them. Yuka and Eri had told off the people in her class and while Kagome wasn't sure what they said to the other kids, the comments and whispering had completely stopped and many of them had become friendly to her after the first week.

 

She had known it was going to happen, but she still couldn't be totally prepared for it. Not having a social life wasn't really a bad thing, since she didn't have time for one anyway, but she still felt like she was missing out on something. She was the only girl in her school that had a child, so she didn't even have any other girls around her age who understood to talk to. She never would have chosen to do something this reckless on her own and each day made her hate Yukio even more.

 

Kagome frowned and leaned against InuYasha, trying to banish the dark thoughts. Already, other people misunderstanding her situation had ruined her day. In school, they blamed the fact that she had given birth on her being in the United States during her pregnancy. She couldn't very well argue and say that she had been in feudal Japan where abortions weren't very available. She hadn't even had a chance to consider any options. Who knew what the people in the hospital thought? On the street, on the bus, walking home… everyone stared at them. Not everyone made negative comments and one young couple even smiled at them, but Kagome still felt miserable when she got home and was glad that InuYasha was carrying Tama the whole way.

 

“We're home,” Kagome called as she entered the shrine and took off her shoes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pushing the thoughts of all those other people out of her mind. Souta walked slowly into the room, letting his mother pass him so he could peek out from behind her. Mrs. Higurashi wasted no time in walking over to Tama and taking her from InuYasha who looked very torn about giving up the little bundle.

 

“Hello, Tama,” Mrs. Higurashi said softly, unwrapping the baby and taking her out of the carrier. She cradled her against her chest and looked down into her face and smiled. Tama blinked sleepily up at her and squinted curiously back into her grandmother's face. Souta tried to peek up at her and Mama leaned down so he could see. They both looked rather surprised to see each other and Souta leaned in until his nose was almost touching hers. Tama, her arms no longer bound by the blanket, reached out and grabbed his nose. His eyes crossed looking at her fingers attached to his nose and her hand shot up and grabbed a chunk of his hair.

 

“Hey!” Souta protested, then tried to pry her fingers off. InuYasha reacted immediately and hopped over to protect her tiny fingers from Souta's bigger ones.

 

“Be careful!”

 

“She's got my hair!”

“It's only hair, it'll grow back; you've got her fingers!”

 

“I'm not gonna hurt her!” Souta yelled back, pushing InuYasha's hands away. Tama released his hair and InuYasha growled lightly until he heard Mrs. Higurashi and Kagome chuckle.

 

“Why are you laughing?” InuYasha demanded. Mrs. Higurashi patted her hair and smiled.

 

“Before Kagome was born, I used to have longer hair,” she said. “But Kagome pulled it so often that I cut it short very quickly.”

 

“I was laughing because you're overreacting,” Kagome said, taking her baby back. “Hair's nothing. When Mama and Dad brought Souta home from the hospital, he poked me in the eye and then peed on me.

 

“I did?” Souta asked, letting go of the hair he had been patting back into place.

 

“Yup,” Kagome said. “And I told Mama to take you back and get a better one.”

 

“Then she pouted for a week when we said that we couldn't,” Mrs. Higurashi said, still smiling. Tama made a cooing noise and shoved her fist in her mouth and sucked on it and InuYasha's hat fell off from the force of his ears sticking up.

 

“She's hungry,” he said. “You should go feed her,” he prompted, nudging Kagome towards the stairs.

 

“Okay, fine, but you stay down here,” Kagome told him.

 

“Why? I've watched you feed her before.”

 

“This is different. I'm not going to use a bottle,” Kagome said. Souta scrunched up his nose and turned away.

 

“Ew, nee-chan, I didn't need to know that.”

 

“It's a natural process, Souta,” Mrs. Higurashi said, patting his head.

 

“I don't care, she's my sister!” he grumbled back and then stalked out of the room. Kagome rolled her eyes and then went up the stairs.

 

“Do you want me to come with you?” Mama asked when she was halfway up. Kagome turned and smiled.

 

“Yes, please,” she said, still nervous that she might do something wrong. The nurse had talked about how the baby might not make the seal right on her own or she might get sore because she didn't hold the baby right or a number of other things. She was nervous and the nurse said that could cause problems, too. So she took her mother's help gratefully and found it wasn't as hard as she was afraid of. Tama didn't refuse her—which was something she was terrified of, since she had been bottle fed this whole time—and fed like a pro. Mama stayed with her until she was sure she was doing it okay, and then let Kagome have time with her daughter alone.

 

InuYasha came in about fifteen minutes later and sat on her bed and watched. Kagome didn't mind at that point, as she had become comfortable with Tama. She told InuYasha to look away when Tama fell asleep and she turned away and put herself back in her bra without disturbing the sleeping baby. Then she stood up and walked over to her bed and laid Tama down on it on her back and watched her sleep. InuYasha sat on the other side of the baby and watched and Kagome smiled at him. He looked up at her in confusion.

 

“What are you smiling for?” he asked curiously.

 

“I feel like we're a real family,” she answered. InuYasha turned his head to the side, then looked at the baby between them and smiled.

 

“But we are a real family.”

 

“Not legally,” Kagome muttered. InuYasha looked up.

 

“Does that matter?”

 

“I don't know,” Kagome said. “I don't think Yukio will try to take her… but almost no kids are born with their parents not married.”

 

“So? When you want to get married, we will,” InuYasha responded without thinking. Kagome's eyes went wide and he blushed as he realized what he said.

 

“Are… are you proposing?” Kagome asked quietly.

 

“I thought… I thought I already did,” he said. “I thought you knew I meant that I wanted to marry you. I… I tried to tell you, before you were kidnapped, that I had chosen you and wasn't going to see Kikyo anymore. But…”

 

“But I wasn't talking much then,” Kagome finished.

 

“You… you do want to live with me, right?” InuYasha asked, carefully looking everywhere but at Kagome.

 

“Yes,” Kagome answered, looking down at Tama.

 

“Then… you'll marry me, right?”

 

“Yes,” Kagome answered in a whisper, her heart pounding in her ears.

 

“Okay, then,” InuYasha said. “There's nothing to worry about.”

 

“Well, there is one thing,” Kagome said. “You're not a legal citizen of Japan. Since you don't have a birth certificate or anything. Otherwise, you could adopt Tama as your own daughter and they would take Yukio's name off her birth certificate.”

 

“Well, how do I get one?” InuYasha asked.

 

“Uh… you have to be born in a hospital… I don't know how else,” Kagome said. “I'm sure there's some illegal way to get one. I'll ask Mama and see if she knows.” InuYasha nodded slightly, then looked down at Tama. “Should we take her to meet everyone?” Kagome asked.

 

“It's cold outside,” InuYasha protested.

 

“We'll bundle her up. It will be fine, InuYasha. Besides, I don't think Shippo will be patient anymore. He kept asking how many days before he got to meet her.”

 

“You shouldn't have told him,” InuYasha admonished, but stood up when Kagome did. They worked together to figure out the baby sling and once it was secured to Kagome, they looked at each other and InuYasha took Kagome's hand. “Let's go, then,” he said. Kagome nodded and they set off to go back to the feudal era.

 

 

To be continued…

 

And since I've kept you up on the statistics, the chances that Kagome would have actually given birth to this child in modern Japan are slim to none. America has sixteen times the number of teenage births (ages 14-19) as Japan, which has the fewest in the world. Not because they aren't having sex, although those numbers are much lower, too, but because there isn't a big pro-life/pro-choice debate there. Rather than being looked down upon for having an abortion, they're criticized if they don't (abortion is also done differently there and they don't pretend they're not killing a baby, but name the baby and write a letter to the child explaining why they did it). And adoption is frowned upon, unless it's within the family. But the number of children without families in Japan is incredibly low—only about 25,000. I keep my own personal opinions on these matters out of my stories as much as possible. My position and beliefs aren't important—the characters' are. In the feudal era, it would have been a crime, as well as unsafe to have an abortion. In modern Japan, it's legal and widely used. I wrote another story that dealt with this on a much more extensive level. In this story, it's only going to be this footnote.