InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ When a door closes... ❯ The Guest ( Chapter 13 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Namiyo11 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama / Adventure / Action / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.20.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.6K | Visits: 210 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama / Adventure / Action / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.20.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.6K | Visits: 210 | Status: Completed
Chapter 13- The GuestI don’t own Inuyasha!Recap: Kagome’s broken the news to her mother, and has begun to bond with her new pack. Sesshomaru wants to kill Inuyasha again, and Sango is trying to deal with her loss. What are Miroku and the hanyou up to? Read on!
It took two days of careful tending to get Inuyasha sobered up.
In that time, Miroku had scrubbed down the caverns and gotten him sensible, catching up on what they‘d both been up to while avoiding certain topics.
“Miroku, what are you doing here?” Inuyasha finally asked, looking over from where he sat on the floor by the fire tending their dinner, looking pale and thin, but recognizable. A two week bender took its toll.
“Helping my friend,” the monk answered, sipping tea from one of his friend’s collection of stolen crockery. The hanyou had apparently been getting his lair ready for Kagome in a fit of drunken insanity, and had stolen enough stuff to redecorate the entire place.
“Nah. She sent you, didn’t she?” he asked, almost hopefully.
“No. Sango and I decided to part for a time. She went with Kagome to Kaede’s village and I came here to find you,” Miroku sighed, deciding to change the subject as his beloved tajiya’s name came up.
“This is quite a place, Inuyasha. I have to say I’m impressed,” he noted, looking around.
“It’s alright, I guess,” his host sighed. He leaned over and checked the stew, giving it a frown and a stir. Inuyasha wasn’t used to company here, Myouga was the only other being who even knew about this place.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you ever say you could sew?”
“Drop it, monk,” the hanyou said with his old scowl.
“We could talk about-”
“My mother taught me. It passed the time. Happy now?” Inuyasha cut him off, embarrassed.
“It just didn’t fit the image of you I had and I was curious,” Miroku answered, leaning back on the cushion he sat on as he continued. “You don’t talk much about yourself, you know. You know all about the rest of us, and not once did you let on you even had a territory staked out, much less something like this.”
“What did you think, I lived in a hole or something?” Inuyasha rolled his eyes.
“I wasn’t sure.” Miroku admitted.
“Humans,” Inuyasha muttered, reaching for two bowls and filling them, giving them a puzzled look when he didn’t recognize them right off. He was swearing off sake!
***
It took a while for them to approach the subject of the women they‘d loved and lost, or at least separated from. There were other things to see to first.
“So, what did you tell them?” Inuyasha asked as he sat looking down at the village he’d been tormenting. The monk had just come back from informing them the reign of terror was over. Inuyasha didn’t ever want anyone there to see him again...it was too humiliating.
“Just that they’d inadvertently angered the spirits of the mountain, who sent a powerful guardian youkai to punish them. After an impressive meeting, I managed to turn their anger aside and extracted an agreement that you will keep evil youaki away from them if they stay away from the sacred mountaintops,” Miroku said serenely as his friend swore and jumped up to yell at him in outrage.
“Damn it, Miroku! What the hell did you do that for? You were just supposed to tell them not to bother me and that it wouldn’t happen again!”
“You have to give people something more than that. Besides, you did kill all the other youkai here. You also stole quite a bit from them, they were owed something,” he commented with that old Miroku grin.
“Bastard. Just couldn’t resist your little jokes!” Inuyasha scowled.
“Come now...they’ll probably leave you little offerings and everything now, they were quite happy,” the monk dodged the rock thrown at him as he dashed up the hillside through the leaves of late fall, laughing at the furious hanyou. Inuyasha shook his head, and had to smile, the first real one he’d worn in weeks.
***
The first snowstorm hit two weeks later. The monk was shocked at it’s ferocity, but the hanyou shrugged it off. This high in the mountains winter was hard and struck fast.
“Guess I’m stuck with you for awhile,” Inuyasha informed him after patrolling his territory one morning, shaking off snow that clung to his firerat.
“What? Why?” Miroku asked, he was worried about Sango, it had been almost two months since he’d seen her now with traveling and keeping Inuyasha company. Inuyasha still wouldn’t talk, and he was coming to the end of his patience with him. The monk was just waiting for the storms that had struck to pass to go back to her.
“The passes are full. That last storm closed us off.”
“You mean...”
“Yep. Get comfortable. You aren’t leaving till spring.” The monk winced. Trapped for a season with a possibly still terminally depressed hanyou.
***
Cross out the possibly. But Miroku realized something as days passed. If he wasn’t here...he doubted Inuyasha would’ve lived to see the thaw as the snows came and settled thickly across the land. The old fiery temper, the determination, what made Inuyasha a survivor was gone, leaving a shadow. If Kagome had seen this, it probably would’ve killed her. It was hard enough for him to watch the hanyou slipping away, every day a little less motivated, a little sadder, a little more lost. Youkai lived for mates...killed for them...and died for them too, sometimes.
“Kagome,” Miroku said flatly as he watched the hanyou one evening. He was sick of it.
“What about her? Just leave it!” he said harshly.
“You haven’t. She didn’t betray you, Inuyasha!”
“What the hell would you call it? She sided with Sesshomaru against me! Damn it all, Miroku. She-she was my world! I gave up everything for her with that stupid wish! I’ll be a hanyou forever now, and I can never be with her again!! I even forgave her-” he looked away, knuckling his eyes. Miroku sighed, but he wondered though...what had he forgiven her for if not her clan oath?
“You forgave her?”
“For killing Kikyou when we took Naraku down,” Inuyasha scowled. Might as well say it and then he‘d stop poking at him.
“She-what?” Miroku’s eyes were huge. He’d known all along-and still asked her to be his? Miroku had been groping for a way to break the news, and he knew!
“I saw her. Kikyou...she’d been following us, I thought she was going to help. But she tried to kill Kagome with her powers, so Kagome defended herself and purified Kikyou. I saw it happen, Miroku. I could’ve stopped them, but I chose to protect them both so she could finish it. So-I wouldn’t have to,” his friend said quietly.
“Inuyasha...did Kagome know you knew? Are you sure that’s what happened?” Miroku asked. He’d long known what kind of dangerous undead Kikyou had been, but any attempt to lay her to rest, and Inuyasha would have killed him.
“I saw the power flowing between them. I don’t think she knew I could see hers too, not just youkai. I didn’t leave her for that,” Inuyasha said slowly. It had been a long bout of soul searching when Kagome slew Kikyou. He’d been saddened, but more relieved Kagome had won, so that he could stay with her.
He’d betrayed his promise to Kikyou to fulfill another. The one his heart had made to Kagome over three years ago when he’d said her name the first time. When he’d admitted to himself he’d fallen in love with her, her easy acceptance, her kindness and bravery. She‘d fought by his side, kami, she’d traveled with him openly, ate with him, introduced him to her family-without shame! No one, not even Kikyou, had treated him like that since his mother died. Not until Kagome, who’d looked at him as some sort of hero, and for her, he’d acted like one because she’d believed in him...
“Why then?” Miroku asked. Inuyasha had to work through this. If he didn’t come to terms with it one way or another, it would kill him as surely as a poisoned wound.
“Why?” Inuyasha repeated, and turned to face Miroku at last, who nearly backed away at the horrible clarity in the hanyou’s gaze, the anger, but it was all inward directed. Very bad. “Inu packs are made up of close knit groups. Either members are accepted blood relations, or adopted,” Inuyasha began, speaking very calmly as he repeated an old lesson. If Myouga hadn’t felt it was his duty to teach him the ways of his father‘s kind, he wouldn’t have known it...and that would have been a mercy.
“Oh?”
“Being born Inu doesn’t mean you just can join a pack. If a pup is considered unfit, the pack leader will reject it, deny it packright. They usually die fast afterwards, nobody wants an outcast,” Inuyasha paused there.
“If that’s so, who becomes adopted? Why did you scream he marked her?” the monk asked gently. Inuyasha hardly noticed the question, continuing. He could almost hear old Myouga as he explained...
“Adoption’s simple, you know that? They kneel, bare their throat in total submission and offer themselves to whoever leads the pack. The pack leader grabs them and decides if they‘ll snap their neck or not. If the oath is accepted, they get a mark to wear and get bonded. They’ll protect the pack, do whatever the pack leader orders and run with him. Total loyalty to each other. She’ll do whatever he asks...anything, for the rest of his life. Usually, it’s reserved for mates brought in from another pack, matters of honor, stuff like that,” he said softly, hence his near daily nightmare visions of Kagome and Sesshomaru going at it like rabbits. Who wouldn’t want to lie with her?
“But, Kagome-” Miroku asked, it was coming, but he needed say it-
“He’s using her to get back at me with the one thing no Inu youkai fucks with to do it! If I try to kill him-to get her back-she’d do her best to kill me first. She told me that,” Inuyasha finished, eyes closed and ears down, voice harsh and strained.
“Are you so sure that’s his reason? To use her against you?”
“What else could it be? No way he’d accept Kagome for anything but getting at me. She-she belongs to him, Miroku! Even if I could get him to agree to my claiming her, he‘ll always have a hold on her! She’d never just be mine...I can‘t figure it out...she was safe with me, I would've given her a place. I don’t even know why she agreed to it...” he trailed off as the monk’s eyes narrowed.
“I know why,” Miroku said quietly. In a moment, he was grabbed by the robe and slammed against the wall! He found himself choking as Inuyasha glared not an inch from his face, twisting his robes in one hand, the other poised to strike. Miroku futilely tried to get some air, clutching the hand that grasped him.
“Let me-*cough*go!” he ordered, eyes huge.
“Bastard! Tell me! You knew! And you didn’t tell me!! How do you know? Tell me everything right now!” Inuyasha was outwardly focusing now, alright!
“Let me-go, or I’ll...” the monk tried to get to his sleeve and he was stopped.
“No tricks! No damned ofuda! Tell me!!” Inuyasha punctuated his demands by slamming the monk into the wall.
“Uhn! To save her own life, baka! To be with you! The Hamayami needed Sesshomaru’s fang in it to work and he demanded her submission and silence on the matter to get it! She was terrified of becoming a full youkai and killing us all, you know that!” Miroku gasped. He was released to slide down the wall to sit painfully, feeling his neck.
“What?” Inuyasha asked.
“You heard me. Sango learned about this from Kagome. She said Kagome accepted the deal only if he swore never to harm us or fight you anymore. If he hadn’t agreed to her terms,” he looked up angrily, “her terms, Inuyasha, Sango said she’d have refused. Kagome was willing to give up her only chance to keep her youkai in check for your sake, and all you’ve done is whine about yourself! How you can’t own her! You never did! If you‘d been sane and sober when I showed up, I would‘ve told you sooner, but no, you were too intent on wallowing in your own injured pride. She cried herself to sleep that night, when you broke her heart,” Miroku’s tone was biting.
“She...did?” Inuyasha said softly, stunned. He leaned against the wall, thinking...his Kagome, so strong, she was willing to bargain with her own life just for him. She’d tried to tell him...and he threw it back in her face. Her words came back to haunt him...‘It was the only way...You don’t understand, I did this for us!’
“She did. You’re right, there’s probably an aspect of control, but I doubt even Sesshomaru would warp a packoath if it’s that important. He’s never struck me as the type to do so,” Miroku finished.
Inuyasha looked up and took in a deep breath as he rested an arm on the wall.
“He’s not...the stuck up bastard. Too damned proud to admit he wanted to cut a deal so he grabbed the chance. Probably wanted to rub my nose in it so he made her not tell me. I was just as bad, I didn‘t think about how...how she’d feel,” he admitted slowly, shame in every line of him as he held a hand out to Miroku in apology. The monk ignored it as he sat. “I’m sorry, Miroku. You’re my best friend, hell, probably my only one now, and...I should’ve listened. You put off mating to Sango for me, just to tell me how much of a baka I‘ve been. I owe you for it.” The words were gruff, but sincere.
“So, you’re finally growing up. It’s good to see.” Miroku said, finally taking the hand and letting the hanyou help him up. He dusted off his robes with a sigh, hesitating.
“Sango. Ahhh, my Sango. I’m not innocent myself, Inuyasha. We both admitted we didn’t want to settle down, but, she-she told me she...wasn’t-she’d-and a man-”
“What, that Sango wasn’t a virgin when we met her?” Inuyasha asked with a shrug, making the monk go for his staff. “Hey! You didn’t know?” Inuyasha backed off as the monk brandished it, furious!
“You knew that?” he looked entirely annoyed, and flushed. “She smelled different from a maiden, didn’t she?” Miroku tossed the staff down with an most unmonastic oath.
“Keh,” Inuyasha nodded.
“Did everyone else know? She probably told Kagome too. Did you know it was seven? Seven men! Who knows how many times. She let me almost die without telling me. Without letting me... the least she could have done is let me have her once! She didn’t trust me or think I was honorable enough, she said!” Miroku grumbled, looking around. “Did we toss out all the sake?” he asked sadly as the hanyou sprawled on the floor, blown away by the evening‘s events.
“Yep. Probably for the best,” Inuyasha snorted. “Seven, huh? But it’s you she wants. And she wants to keep traveling like you do. But let me guess...more than you?” Seeing the monk blush, he shrugged.
“That is not the point.”
“Eh...Sango never did that while we traveled together. I’d have known it by her scent.”
“Hm, that’s one way of checking fidelity,” Miroku commented.
“I guess. You know, I didn’t trust Kagome, Sango didn’t trust you, it’s dumb. After everything we’ve all gone through together, we ought to know each other better.”
“It’s never easy between men and women, it‘s true. Most of this could easily have been avoided,” Miroku opined, glancing at the hanyou, who looked like he was dying to ask...“No.”
“Oh, come on! Four? Hm...three?” Inuyasha asked, guessing the number with great interest. Less than seven, that was for damned sure. “You already know more about me than you should and didn‘t tell me about Kagome, so the least you can do is tell me!” he pointed out.
“You just slammed me into a wall! Hard, I might add. I think we’re even, Inuyasha.” Miroku said loftily.
“You threatened me with that damned staff and shit! Come on!” Inuyasha asked again, and the monk deflated.
“Once,” he mumbled, and the hanyou snorted laughter.
“All those asses, and you got one! Just once!” Inuyasha held up a finger and laughed.
“Hah. And I suppose you’re quite experienced,” Miroku replied, making Inuyasha fidget a bit. “Any?” he asked, suspecting...and the hanyou looked up, scratching his head.
“Well...” Inuyasha shrugged and shook his head, it was embarrassing now, but at the time, it had been a trophy of sorts.
“Come on, you can tell me, I’m a monk.”
“A perverted one. Well...once. Uh...I was pretty young then. Just a dumb kid,” he admitted.
“And my experience was funny?”
“I didn’t try all the time!”
“So...with who? I thought Kagome and Kikyou were the only ones you’d cared for. Someone else?” Miroku asked.
“A woman,” Inuyasha answered, making Miroku smirk as he continued. “I am human once a month, Miroku. I- uh, spent some of the night once in a village. With...a woman who did that stuff for...work,” he blushed.
“You went to a whore? And you called me a pervert!!” Miroku pointed at him, and sputtered laughter.
“It happened, alright? And you are a pervert,” Inuyasha commented, throwing up a hand. “It wasn't love, it was-exercise. If she’d seen me as a hanyou, she’d have run screaming, so I just did what I’d gone there for and left right after. It was kinda more exciting pulling it off then having her, nobody’d think to look for a hanyou doing that when they turn mortal. I’d-” he paused, embarrassed as he looked down.
‘I’d have done anything for love,’ he found himself thinking, and grumbled softly. “Baka romantic hero crap, I’m even thinking in it now...damned wench.” It was impossible, there’s no way he’d get her back now. But...damned if he wouldn’t try.
“Hm?” Miroku hadn’t quite caught what Inuyasha had said.
“Miroku, when spring comes...I’m going with you when you go back to marry Sango,” he informed the monk, his posture changing as he spoke. Miroku watched, and could almost pinpoint the instant when he changed. The blustery, unsure boy was gone forever and it was a man, a young one yet, but a man was suddenly sitting there. One who raised his head, straightened up, and said-
“Somehow, I have to win her back.”
Revised Author’s Notes-Inuyasha and Miroku’s friendship has always fascinated me, and this was a great way to explore it a bit. I hope you enjoy following their journey as much as I did writing it. Ahhhh. Long, I know, but the thing kept writing itself, and I really didn’t want to cramp the boys if they felt like talking. I think this my personal favorite chapter so far. Hard to write, but really worth it. Thanks for reading!!-Namiyo
It took two days of careful tending to get Inuyasha sobered up.
In that time, Miroku had scrubbed down the caverns and gotten him sensible, catching up on what they‘d both been up to while avoiding certain topics.
“Miroku, what are you doing here?” Inuyasha finally asked, looking over from where he sat on the floor by the fire tending their dinner, looking pale and thin, but recognizable. A two week bender took its toll.
“Helping my friend,” the monk answered, sipping tea from one of his friend’s collection of stolen crockery. The hanyou had apparently been getting his lair ready for Kagome in a fit of drunken insanity, and had stolen enough stuff to redecorate the entire place.
“Nah. She sent you, didn’t she?” he asked, almost hopefully.
“No. Sango and I decided to part for a time. She went with Kagome to Kaede’s village and I came here to find you,” Miroku sighed, deciding to change the subject as his beloved tajiya’s name came up.
“This is quite a place, Inuyasha. I have to say I’m impressed,” he noted, looking around.
“It’s alright, I guess,” his host sighed. He leaned over and checked the stew, giving it a frown and a stir. Inuyasha wasn’t used to company here, Myouga was the only other being who even knew about this place.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you ever say you could sew?”
“Drop it, monk,” the hanyou said with his old scowl.
“We could talk about-”
“My mother taught me. It passed the time. Happy now?” Inuyasha cut him off, embarrassed.
“It just didn’t fit the image of you I had and I was curious,” Miroku answered, leaning back on the cushion he sat on as he continued. “You don’t talk much about yourself, you know. You know all about the rest of us, and not once did you let on you even had a territory staked out, much less something like this.”
“What did you think, I lived in a hole or something?” Inuyasha rolled his eyes.
“I wasn’t sure.” Miroku admitted.
“Humans,” Inuyasha muttered, reaching for two bowls and filling them, giving them a puzzled look when he didn’t recognize them right off. He was swearing off sake!
***
It took a while for them to approach the subject of the women they‘d loved and lost, or at least separated from. There were other things to see to first.
“So, what did you tell them?” Inuyasha asked as he sat looking down at the village he’d been tormenting. The monk had just come back from informing them the reign of terror was over. Inuyasha didn’t ever want anyone there to see him again...it was too humiliating.
“Just that they’d inadvertently angered the spirits of the mountain, who sent a powerful guardian youkai to punish them. After an impressive meeting, I managed to turn their anger aside and extracted an agreement that you will keep evil youaki away from them if they stay away from the sacred mountaintops,” Miroku said serenely as his friend swore and jumped up to yell at him in outrage.
“Damn it, Miroku! What the hell did you do that for? You were just supposed to tell them not to bother me and that it wouldn’t happen again!”
“You have to give people something more than that. Besides, you did kill all the other youkai here. You also stole quite a bit from them, they were owed something,” he commented with that old Miroku grin.
“Bastard. Just couldn’t resist your little jokes!” Inuyasha scowled.
“Come now...they’ll probably leave you little offerings and everything now, they were quite happy,” the monk dodged the rock thrown at him as he dashed up the hillside through the leaves of late fall, laughing at the furious hanyou. Inuyasha shook his head, and had to smile, the first real one he’d worn in weeks.
***
The first snowstorm hit two weeks later. The monk was shocked at it’s ferocity, but the hanyou shrugged it off. This high in the mountains winter was hard and struck fast.
“Guess I’m stuck with you for awhile,” Inuyasha informed him after patrolling his territory one morning, shaking off snow that clung to his firerat.
“What? Why?” Miroku asked, he was worried about Sango, it had been almost two months since he’d seen her now with traveling and keeping Inuyasha company. Inuyasha still wouldn’t talk, and he was coming to the end of his patience with him. The monk was just waiting for the storms that had struck to pass to go back to her.
“The passes are full. That last storm closed us off.”
“You mean...”
“Yep. Get comfortable. You aren’t leaving till spring.” The monk winced. Trapped for a season with a possibly still terminally depressed hanyou.
***
Cross out the possibly. But Miroku realized something as days passed. If he wasn’t here...he doubted Inuyasha would’ve lived to see the thaw as the snows came and settled thickly across the land. The old fiery temper, the determination, what made Inuyasha a survivor was gone, leaving a shadow. If Kagome had seen this, it probably would’ve killed her. It was hard enough for him to watch the hanyou slipping away, every day a little less motivated, a little sadder, a little more lost. Youkai lived for mates...killed for them...and died for them too, sometimes.
“Kagome,” Miroku said flatly as he watched the hanyou one evening. He was sick of it.
“What about her? Just leave it!” he said harshly.
“You haven’t. She didn’t betray you, Inuyasha!”
“What the hell would you call it? She sided with Sesshomaru against me! Damn it all, Miroku. She-she was my world! I gave up everything for her with that stupid wish! I’ll be a hanyou forever now, and I can never be with her again!! I even forgave her-” he looked away, knuckling his eyes. Miroku sighed, but he wondered though...what had he forgiven her for if not her clan oath?
“You forgave her?”
“For killing Kikyou when we took Naraku down,” Inuyasha scowled. Might as well say it and then he‘d stop poking at him.
“She-what?” Miroku’s eyes were huge. He’d known all along-and still asked her to be his? Miroku had been groping for a way to break the news, and he knew!
“I saw her. Kikyou...she’d been following us, I thought she was going to help. But she tried to kill Kagome with her powers, so Kagome defended herself and purified Kikyou. I saw it happen, Miroku. I could’ve stopped them, but I chose to protect them both so she could finish it. So-I wouldn’t have to,” his friend said quietly.
“Inuyasha...did Kagome know you knew? Are you sure that’s what happened?” Miroku asked. He’d long known what kind of dangerous undead Kikyou had been, but any attempt to lay her to rest, and Inuyasha would have killed him.
“I saw the power flowing between them. I don’t think she knew I could see hers too, not just youkai. I didn’t leave her for that,” Inuyasha said slowly. It had been a long bout of soul searching when Kagome slew Kikyou. He’d been saddened, but more relieved Kagome had won, so that he could stay with her.
He’d betrayed his promise to Kikyou to fulfill another. The one his heart had made to Kagome over three years ago when he’d said her name the first time. When he’d admitted to himself he’d fallen in love with her, her easy acceptance, her kindness and bravery. She‘d fought by his side, kami, she’d traveled with him openly, ate with him, introduced him to her family-without shame! No one, not even Kikyou, had treated him like that since his mother died. Not until Kagome, who’d looked at him as some sort of hero, and for her, he’d acted like one because she’d believed in him...
“Why then?” Miroku asked. Inuyasha had to work through this. If he didn’t come to terms with it one way or another, it would kill him as surely as a poisoned wound.
“Why?” Inuyasha repeated, and turned to face Miroku at last, who nearly backed away at the horrible clarity in the hanyou’s gaze, the anger, but it was all inward directed. Very bad. “Inu packs are made up of close knit groups. Either members are accepted blood relations, or adopted,” Inuyasha began, speaking very calmly as he repeated an old lesson. If Myouga hadn’t felt it was his duty to teach him the ways of his father‘s kind, he wouldn’t have known it...and that would have been a mercy.
“Oh?”
“Being born Inu doesn’t mean you just can join a pack. If a pup is considered unfit, the pack leader will reject it, deny it packright. They usually die fast afterwards, nobody wants an outcast,” Inuyasha paused there.
“If that’s so, who becomes adopted? Why did you scream he marked her?” the monk asked gently. Inuyasha hardly noticed the question, continuing. He could almost hear old Myouga as he explained...
“Adoption’s simple, you know that? They kneel, bare their throat in total submission and offer themselves to whoever leads the pack. The pack leader grabs them and decides if they‘ll snap their neck or not. If the oath is accepted, they get a mark to wear and get bonded. They’ll protect the pack, do whatever the pack leader orders and run with him. Total loyalty to each other. She’ll do whatever he asks...anything, for the rest of his life. Usually, it’s reserved for mates brought in from another pack, matters of honor, stuff like that,” he said softly, hence his near daily nightmare visions of Kagome and Sesshomaru going at it like rabbits. Who wouldn’t want to lie with her?
“But, Kagome-” Miroku asked, it was coming, but he needed say it-
“He’s using her to get back at me with the one thing no Inu youkai fucks with to do it! If I try to kill him-to get her back-she’d do her best to kill me first. She told me that,” Inuyasha finished, eyes closed and ears down, voice harsh and strained.
“Are you so sure that’s his reason? To use her against you?”
“What else could it be? No way he’d accept Kagome for anything but getting at me. She-she belongs to him, Miroku! Even if I could get him to agree to my claiming her, he‘ll always have a hold on her! She’d never just be mine...I can‘t figure it out...she was safe with me, I would've given her a place. I don’t even know why she agreed to it...” he trailed off as the monk’s eyes narrowed.
“I know why,” Miroku said quietly. In a moment, he was grabbed by the robe and slammed against the wall! He found himself choking as Inuyasha glared not an inch from his face, twisting his robes in one hand, the other poised to strike. Miroku futilely tried to get some air, clutching the hand that grasped him.
“Let me-*cough*go!” he ordered, eyes huge.
“Bastard! Tell me! You knew! And you didn’t tell me!! How do you know? Tell me everything right now!” Inuyasha was outwardly focusing now, alright!
“Let me-go, or I’ll...” the monk tried to get to his sleeve and he was stopped.
“No tricks! No damned ofuda! Tell me!!” Inuyasha punctuated his demands by slamming the monk into the wall.
“Uhn! To save her own life, baka! To be with you! The Hamayami needed Sesshomaru’s fang in it to work and he demanded her submission and silence on the matter to get it! She was terrified of becoming a full youkai and killing us all, you know that!” Miroku gasped. He was released to slide down the wall to sit painfully, feeling his neck.
“What?” Inuyasha asked.
“You heard me. Sango learned about this from Kagome. She said Kagome accepted the deal only if he swore never to harm us or fight you anymore. If he hadn’t agreed to her terms,” he looked up angrily, “her terms, Inuyasha, Sango said she’d have refused. Kagome was willing to give up her only chance to keep her youkai in check for your sake, and all you’ve done is whine about yourself! How you can’t own her! You never did! If you‘d been sane and sober when I showed up, I would‘ve told you sooner, but no, you were too intent on wallowing in your own injured pride. She cried herself to sleep that night, when you broke her heart,” Miroku’s tone was biting.
“She...did?” Inuyasha said softly, stunned. He leaned against the wall, thinking...his Kagome, so strong, she was willing to bargain with her own life just for him. She’d tried to tell him...and he threw it back in her face. Her words came back to haunt him...‘It was the only way...You don’t understand, I did this for us!’
“She did. You’re right, there’s probably an aspect of control, but I doubt even Sesshomaru would warp a packoath if it’s that important. He’s never struck me as the type to do so,” Miroku finished.
Inuyasha looked up and took in a deep breath as he rested an arm on the wall.
“He’s not...the stuck up bastard. Too damned proud to admit he wanted to cut a deal so he grabbed the chance. Probably wanted to rub my nose in it so he made her not tell me. I was just as bad, I didn‘t think about how...how she’d feel,” he admitted slowly, shame in every line of him as he held a hand out to Miroku in apology. The monk ignored it as he sat. “I’m sorry, Miroku. You’re my best friend, hell, probably my only one now, and...I should’ve listened. You put off mating to Sango for me, just to tell me how much of a baka I‘ve been. I owe you for it.” The words were gruff, but sincere.
“So, you’re finally growing up. It’s good to see.” Miroku said, finally taking the hand and letting the hanyou help him up. He dusted off his robes with a sigh, hesitating.
“Sango. Ahhh, my Sango. I’m not innocent myself, Inuyasha. We both admitted we didn’t want to settle down, but, she-she told me she...wasn’t-she’d-and a man-”
“What, that Sango wasn’t a virgin when we met her?” Inuyasha asked with a shrug, making the monk go for his staff. “Hey! You didn’t know?” Inuyasha backed off as the monk brandished it, furious!
“You knew that?” he looked entirely annoyed, and flushed. “She smelled different from a maiden, didn’t she?” Miroku tossed the staff down with an most unmonastic oath.
“Keh,” Inuyasha nodded.
“Did everyone else know? She probably told Kagome too. Did you know it was seven? Seven men! Who knows how many times. She let me almost die without telling me. Without letting me... the least she could have done is let me have her once! She didn’t trust me or think I was honorable enough, she said!” Miroku grumbled, looking around. “Did we toss out all the sake?” he asked sadly as the hanyou sprawled on the floor, blown away by the evening‘s events.
“Yep. Probably for the best,” Inuyasha snorted. “Seven, huh? But it’s you she wants. And she wants to keep traveling like you do. But let me guess...more than you?” Seeing the monk blush, he shrugged.
“That is not the point.”
“Eh...Sango never did that while we traveled together. I’d have known it by her scent.”
“Hm, that’s one way of checking fidelity,” Miroku commented.
“I guess. You know, I didn’t trust Kagome, Sango didn’t trust you, it’s dumb. After everything we’ve all gone through together, we ought to know each other better.”
“It’s never easy between men and women, it‘s true. Most of this could easily have been avoided,” Miroku opined, glancing at the hanyou, who looked like he was dying to ask...“No.”
“Oh, come on! Four? Hm...three?” Inuyasha asked, guessing the number with great interest. Less than seven, that was for damned sure. “You already know more about me than you should and didn‘t tell me about Kagome, so the least you can do is tell me!” he pointed out.
“You just slammed me into a wall! Hard, I might add. I think we’re even, Inuyasha.” Miroku said loftily.
“You threatened me with that damned staff and shit! Come on!” Inuyasha asked again, and the monk deflated.
“Once,” he mumbled, and the hanyou snorted laughter.
“All those asses, and you got one! Just once!” Inuyasha held up a finger and laughed.
“Hah. And I suppose you’re quite experienced,” Miroku replied, making Inuyasha fidget a bit. “Any?” he asked, suspecting...and the hanyou looked up, scratching his head.
“Well...” Inuyasha shrugged and shook his head, it was embarrassing now, but at the time, it had been a trophy of sorts.
“Come on, you can tell me, I’m a monk.”
“A perverted one. Well...once. Uh...I was pretty young then. Just a dumb kid,” he admitted.
“And my experience was funny?”
“I didn’t try all the time!”
“So...with who? I thought Kagome and Kikyou were the only ones you’d cared for. Someone else?” Miroku asked.
“A woman,” Inuyasha answered, making Miroku smirk as he continued. “I am human once a month, Miroku. I- uh, spent some of the night once in a village. With...a woman who did that stuff for...work,” he blushed.
“You went to a whore? And you called me a pervert!!” Miroku pointed at him, and sputtered laughter.
“It happened, alright? And you are a pervert,” Inuyasha commented, throwing up a hand. “It wasn't love, it was-exercise. If she’d seen me as a hanyou, she’d have run screaming, so I just did what I’d gone there for and left right after. It was kinda more exciting pulling it off then having her, nobody’d think to look for a hanyou doing that when they turn mortal. I’d-” he paused, embarrassed as he looked down.
‘I’d have done anything for love,’ he found himself thinking, and grumbled softly. “Baka romantic hero crap, I’m even thinking in it now...damned wench.” It was impossible, there’s no way he’d get her back now. But...damned if he wouldn’t try.
“Hm?” Miroku hadn’t quite caught what Inuyasha had said.
“Miroku, when spring comes...I’m going with you when you go back to marry Sango,” he informed the monk, his posture changing as he spoke. Miroku watched, and could almost pinpoint the instant when he changed. The blustery, unsure boy was gone forever and it was a man, a young one yet, but a man was suddenly sitting there. One who raised his head, straightened up, and said-
“Somehow, I have to win her back.”
Revised Author’s Notes-Inuyasha and Miroku’s friendship has always fascinated me, and this was a great way to explore it a bit. I hope you enjoy following their journey as much as I did writing it. Ahhhh. Long, I know, but the thing kept writing itself, and I really didn’t want to cramp the boys if they felt like talking. I think this my personal favorite chapter so far. Hard to write, but really worth it. Thanks for reading!!-Namiyo