InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Without Words ❯ Friendship ( Chapter 6 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Without Words: Friendship

The hum of the waves breaking against the shore called to her like a soothing lullaby. But, as Kagome stood at the head of the stone steps that would take her to the cool caress of her home, her legs stuttered to a halt.

She gazed over the dark ocean and felt her heart quail. She had abandoned the world that floated far beneath the glittering bands of sea foam that winked in and out of existence under the light of the dying moon.

It wasn't really the prince she was disappointed in. Who was she to expect him to endure her presence when she was both unexpected and unwanted? She was disappointed in herself, for unconsciously clinging to his presence as one of her touchstones in this dry, alien world. If she worried too much about rejection, she wouldn't be able to focus on her goal; on what made giving up her life worthwhile.

Besides, she was no stranger to rejection. This was just another obstacle in her path that she had no other choice but to overcome. And it wasn't like she didn't have other people who accepted her. Sango and Miroku had made no secret of their immediate liking of her.

She didn't need the prince's regard. Hadn't she already decided that her daydreams about him as she supported his vulnerable body through the stormy night had been nothing more than fancy? She couldn't keep holding him to some misguided, idealized image that she'd secretly treasured in her heart for a few short hours. Those dreams were childishly romantic ideas at best and foolish sentimentality in truth.

And, she knew deep down, so was the tiny hope that she would somehow fall in love with someone who could save her borrowed life on land. In a country full of demons, one mute human was of little regard. It was best to accept that dismal truth now, before she let her deluded fancies get too out of hand.

Those kinds of dreary thoughts floated through her mind as she stared over the murmuring ocean. As she watched, she thought she could make out the willowy forms of mermaids in the bubbly froth. They stared at her with reproachful eyes and outstretched arms.

This is your fate, they whispered on the sea breeze that tugged at the ends of her long hair.

I know, she mouthed back through trembling lips.

Her legs folded beneath her and she watched their bodies form and dissolve with each breaking wave.

The next morning she dutifully pulled herself out of bed and was already halfway through her stretches when she remembered that she didn't have anything to do for the day. Not now that her plan to pester the prince into paying attention to her had blown apart so spectacularly in her face.

She found herself sitting listlessly in the middle of the room watching dust motes drift through beams of early morning light. The hours of the day stretched before her, long and lonely. Familiar melancholy settled onto her shoulders and she lost the motivation to finish her exercises.

After nibbling on a piece of bread from her breakfast tray, she wandered into the library to look for something interesting to read. When nothing managed to catch her eye, she moped through the halls and eventually made her way outside and back to the cliff overlooking her beach.

The ocean was no more cheerful to her eyes under the light of the sun. With each salty gust of breeze she thought she could hear the faded spirits of the mermaids sighing and weeping at her. It only pulled her into a darker mood, but she still couldn't muster the will to tear herself away.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, numbly watching the surface of her lost home, when suddenly a shadow fell over her. It took her a moment to realize that it wasn't just a cloud passing over the sun, but as she blinked at the ground before her, she noted the shadow had pointy ears.

Kagome tipped her head up to find the prince scowling down at her, his arms folded securely across his chest.

“How long are you going to mope for?” he demanded, “Because it's really starting to piss me off.”

A spark of anger drew her hunched form ramrod straight and she glared up at him for a moment before the weight of her dark feelings pulled her eyes back to the sea with a careless shrug.

“Well snap out of it!” he barked, circling so his legs blocked her view of the ocean. This time the spark was more like an ember, and, as she stared at the red material of his slacks, it burned sullenly within her chest.

`What do you care?' she mouthed sharply with a sour twist to her mouth. Really, couldn't he make up his mind? She'd left him alone, hadn't she? Who was he to dictate how she felt? He was a prince, but certainly not her prince, and she still had enough noble's pride within her to be deeply offended by his arrogance.

His ear twitched and his scowl deepened as he stared at her lips. He opened his mouth and then shut it again with a click of his fangs. Then, with a muttered curse, he dug into his right sleeve and pulled out what looked like a thin, wide book.

“Here,” he snapped, dropping the book into her lap. Kagome stared at it, her anger momentarily overshadowed by confusion. She tentatively opened the cover and discovered that the page was blank. A quick thumb through the rest of the pages showed that they all were.

She tipped her face back up, displaying her puzzlement for him, only to find him holding out a rectangular, leather satchel, his face studiously turned away. Examination of this new offering revealed five finely sharpened pencils, an eraser, and a small sharpening knife nestled underneath the flap. It even had a little loop to hook onto a belt or sash.

Kagome stared at the apparent gifts now lying in her lap in bemused amazement. His snarling face as he snapped her slate in half flashed before her mind's eye and she had to look up at him again to confirm it was the same prince standing before her.

“Well, what were you trying to say?” he barked, still not looking at her.

Her eyebrows shot up, disappearing beneath her fringe of bangs. Still not quite believing she was awake, she pulled out one of the pencils and set it to the first page of clean paper with near reverence.

She immediately grasped that this new gift was far more valuable than her slate. Not only for the cost of the materials, but for their sublime superiority. With so much space and such a fine instrument, she would have no trouble expressing herself in more than just clipped, broken phrases.

`I thought you hated me.' She held the page up to him with a gentle tug on his pant leg to get his attention.

He read her vulnerable words with a casual rake of his golden eyes, but didn't offer more than a “keh” in response.

`I know I was being annoying,' she continued, `but really, all I wanted was a little company.' And, with the shadow of her feelings since last night coloring her recent actions, she realized wryly just how truthful her words were. She wanted to be around him, she admitted, and not just because she needed to find the jewel. That early impression of kinship that she'd felt toward him still remained. They were both lonely people cast from the kind graces of the people who were supposed to respect and honor them. He had found her and taken her into his home without question, even if it was with a lot of cursing and grumbling. And, she had held his life in her arms at the risk of her own for what had felt like an eternity at the time.

Kagome realized with slowly growing conviction that she felt herself tied to this surly man. And, even if she wasn't sure that she liked him, she knew she couldn't resist wanting to be near him all the same.

Of course, that nearly indescribable feeling would be hard to bear since she felt that he probably didn't look on her in any similar way. And how could he? To him, she was still just a stranger while she knew more about him than he could begin to suspect.

“Don't know why you'd want to hang around me, anyway,” he grumbled and stepped around her to trudge back toward the palace.

She stared at his back thoughtfully and then down at the notebook in her hands. Her fingers curled possessively over the pencil and soft satchel. She was beginning to realize that he wasn't a man of words.

Her feet screamed as she scrambled quickly to her feet to follow him. A breath hissed from her throat and she stumbled a bit before limping into a steady gait to catch up. When she blinked the tears out of her eyes, she realized he'd paused to wait for her.

She raised her eyebrows at him in question.

Inu-Yasha flattened his mouth for a moment as he studied her face. “You're really not faking that, are you?” When she only blinked at him he jerked a finger at her feet. “They hurt when you walk.”

A helpless smile tugged at her lips and she shrugged. She hadn't been able to think up a likely explanation for the phantom pain and was fleetingly glad that her muteness gave her an excuse for not having to say anything about it.

He sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “Well, I'm bored, and you won't be able to keep up if I patrol the forest.”

So that was his excuse, she thought dryly. Personally, she would have called it “fleeing” or “running away to the last sanctuary of sanity.”

It seemed like a rhetorical sort of statement, so she didn't offer any encouraging expressions. If she waited long enough, he would either solve the problem on his own or blow her off. Either way, she wasn't in any position to demand anything from him yet.

An ear twitched and he brought up a hand to scratch, business-like, at the back of his head. Then, he did a quick about-face and squatted in front of her.

“Get on,” he ordered shortly, holding his arms away from his sides and cupping his hands.

His face was pointedly turned away, so he missed the look of complete confusion she could feel twisting her face. Get on his back? She was familiar with the concept, having hung onto the shoulders of her older sisters and the fins of dolphins when she was younger, but she couldn't figure out how it would translate to dryland.

He huffed, “Look, are you coming, or not? You're wearing pants, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?” Still, he wouldn't look at her.

Kagome chewed on the inside of her lip and approached his back until her knees brushed against the fabric of his jacket. She placed her hands tentatively on his shoulders and then wondered what to do next.

It seemed that her small initiative was all he needed, because in the next moment the prince was in motion. His hands reached around to grip the undersides of her knees and he pulled her legs around his waist as he stood. Kagome gripped desperately at his shoulders in surprise and to keep from toppling backward.

“You've never done this before, huh?” he asked as he hitched her higher on his back as if she were nothing more than a traveling pack. Kagome scowled at the hint of amusement she could hear in his voice.

“Just grip with your knees and keep a good hold on my shoulders. You really aren't that heavy, so I can do the rest,” he went on in a more brusque tone. Kagome did as instructed and then gave one of his forelocks a sharp tug in retaliation.

“Oi, wench!” he snapped, stretching his head away from the offending hand. “Watch it, or I'll drop you when we're above the tree tops.”

Kagome didn't have time to offer any gestured comeback, because in the next instant he had leapt into the air and was bounding toward the forest. Her heart lurched into her throat for a moment before a wave of familiarity almost swamped her. It was almost identical to swimming the fast currents with the dolphins. As the prince gained speed, the air seemed to thicken until it was streaming across her face and through her hair like water.

She tipped her face back and her lips bloomed into a genuine smile. It was even better once they entered the trees. The air became cool and dark to the point where, when she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was racing through the ocean depths.

She wasn't sure how long she basked in the nostalgic sensations before she was rudely drawn back to reality by a growing problem. Her legs were still new and, despite her morning workouts with Sango, they weren't used to this new form of exercise. Her legs trembled as she fought to keep her grip on Inu-Yasha's waist, but more and more of her weight was beginning to settle on his hands.

She tugged on his forelock again, this time gently, to get his attention.

He glanced back at her and she put on her best pleading face. He didn't nod, just turned his face forward again and alighted onto a nearby tree branch.

She slipped from his back and felt her legs turn into jellyfish. He gripped her upper arms and helped her lower herself onto the end of the branch closest to the trunk. She latched onto the rough surface gratefully and let her legs dangle from the branch.

When she felt steady, she granted the prince a thankful smile. He just snorted and leapt from the tree onto the ground below.

“Wait up there for a minute. There's something nearby,” he was already walking deeper into the forest and not looking back to get her reaction, “I'm going to go make sure it isn't going to be trouble.”

It took Kagome a moment to fully appreciate what he was about to do, but when she did she wasted no time in getting severely annoyed. She whistled air between her teeth, something Sango had been teaching her to do. Did he think he could just plunk her in a tree and saunter off? Her few experiences with gravity on dryland hadn't been pleasant, and those falls had only been from her relative height. She eyed the distance between her dangling feet and the ground and felt her face flush in anger.

Her first few tries were pitiful, but the fourth emitted a sufficiently ear-piercing shriek.

Inu-Yasha's ears flattened and his shoulders hunched in defense. “Hey!” he spun around and pointed a menacing finger up at her, “quit that!”

She pointed at herself and then emphatically at the forest floor. He scoffed, “Afraid of heights?”

Her hand clenched and she shook it at him in inarticulate fury. If only she had her voice. Naoko had taught her a few choice phrases she'd learned from some of the Guards and a week or so of eavesdropping on the maid's chatter had let her pickup a few land terms.

He rolled his eyes and folded his hands into his sleeves. “I'll only be gone for a minute. Whatever it is, it's weak. You'll be safer up there than on the ground, anyway.”

Not if I fall! She shrieked in her head. Her hand groped at the tree trunk until it came away with a sizeable chunk of tree skin. She hurled it at him, her aim and distance alarmingly good. Air had much less resistance than water, after all.

He ducked his head away from the projectile, but she didn't miss the momentary flash of surprise on his face.

“Just wait for minute, would you? You're the one who was so eager to hang out with me in the first place, right? Well, this is what I do, so get used to it,” he growled and turned on his heel away from her. She whistled again, but he just flattened his ears protectively against his skull and kept walking, muttering about killing Sango when she returned.

Kagome huffed a disgruntled sigh, which was about as expressive her anger could be these days, and leaned against the trunk of her tree. Somehow, she didn't think having a voice would have made any difference in that argument. His skull was just too thick.

The sounds of a distant scuffle reached her ears a handful of minutes later and she perked up in interest. She tried stretching her hearing as far as it would reach to try and determine what was going on. She assumed it was probably Inu-Yasha, but recognized the possibility that it could be something different, something that could be a threat to her.

She remained tense in her tree, one arm gripping the trunk tightly and the other hand holding the branch by her thigh, until the prince came strolling out of the underbrush a few minutes later.

He grinned up at her, “Weasel youkai. He wasn't doing much, but he decided to have an attitude, so I had to knock him around a bit.”

Her answer was to scowl at him and squirm on her branch impatiently. Her legs were starting to go a little numb from so much dangling. At least when she'd followed him around at the palace she'd been able to get a little exercise. But she could understand his want to get outside. Wherever he went indoors, murmurs and whispers trailed in his wake, and most of them weren't flattering.

She wondered if the maids realized that his large, hanyou ears were more than just decorative. If they paid attention, they would realize that the furry triangles quivered a little whenever they picked up something particularly vicious. Kagome had concluded that based only on the few snippets loud enough for her to hear.

She sighed in relief when he wasted no time in leaping up onto her branch to get her down. She let go of the trunk and carefully twisted her body to face him so she could get a good grip on his shoulders. So, she was surprised when he promptly ducked under her outstretched arms, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hoisted her over his shoulder.

They were already on the ground and making swift progress through the forest before her mind could fully comprehend the indignity. She'd seen sacks of food down at the docks handled with more courtesy.

“Oi!” the prince spluttered as the girl draped over his shoulder began to flop violently against him with fists and knees. He hastily dropped her to her feet, not bothering to catch her when she let out a pained gasp and ended up flat on her back amid the leaf litter.

“What are you, a fish?” he demanded, folding his arms defensively. Kagome glared at him as she hoisted herself up on her elbows. Standing was painful enough, but did he have to drop her onto her sensitive feet? Of course, she had managed to land a few choice blows. He might have just been reacting to the elbow slamming into the back of his skull.

He waited for her to push herself upright again before continuing a swift stride through the trees. Kagome limped to keep up with him. She was sure all of the nerves she seemed to have lost in her legs had found a new home in her throbbing feet.

They'd only been walking for a handful of minutes before he got impatient with her quickly lagging pace. Again, she was presented the back of his hair-draped back. She had a brief, but fierce, war with her pride before admitting to herself that there was no other way she'd be able to get back to the palace before nightfall. So, with a stoic mask thinning the line of her lips, she latched onto him like a leech.

They made a few more stops, where she fumingly made brief acquaintances with new tree branches, before turning back toward the palace.

He didn't bother finding a door, but bounced up the outer walls and slipped through one of the impossibly high windows that lined his wing of the castle. Once they'd alighted back onto the plush carpet of the hall, he paused only to let her go before grumbling away toward his room without a backward glance.

Kagome sat huddled on the floor, waiting for her legs to firm up again, and watched him go. The phrases “never again” and “stupid wench” liberally speckled his grouching.

A maid wandered by a few moments later, new candles in hand to distribute among the rooms, and stuttered to a halt when she saw Kagome slumped on the floor.

“Oh, you poor thing!” she murmured sympathetically and tucked her basket under one arm so she could offer the free hand. “Did you get turned around, or is your limp acting up again?”

Kagome took the offered hand and let a vacant smile touch her lips. She'd given up trying to convince them that she wasn't addled in the head. Besides, she found that when she played along, they were much more likely to let something interesting slip. After all, who would a mute girl gossip with?

“There, now, let's get you back to your room.” She couldn't have been more than three years older than Kagome, but she spoke like she was talking to a child. “Ms. Sango will be getting back in a few days with that letch, and you won't be so lonely. I don't see what it would hurt His Grumpiness to show a little compassion for someone as sweet-faced as you.”

She tucked Kagome's hand in the crook of her arm and led her down the hall toward the room she shared with Sango. Kagome let the woman's words flow over her while keeping an innocent half-smile plastered on her face.

“Now there's a sourpuss,” she prattled on. “He's been so busy skulking around avoiding everything lately that he hasn't even taken the time to arrange for an entertainment at the ball next week. The prince is supposed to have found some wind demon who can make bones dance.” She shivered theatrically, “Gods bless that I'm not assigned any ballroom duties that night. I don't think I could stand it. Still, it would be nice to see Lord Nasty shown up by the prince. Though, he'll probably just sulk and sneak out early, like he usually does. Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't just leave and find some other court to bother. He must know what the court, and the king, thinks of him.”

Kagome gritted her teeth. Oh, yes, he knew exactly what they thought of him. Just as she had always been hyperaware of what her own court had thought of her. Except when she'd sang. If she still had her voice, she might have thought about marching straight into the ballroom, in the middle of everything, and singing something devastatingly haunting in honor of the scorned prince.

She smiled grimly to herself. Oh, if she had her voice, she'd do a lot of things. And higher on her list than defending the prince with it was giving him a long and thorough verbal thrashing. Still, even with her irritation at his crassness grumbling in the back of her head, the very first thing she would do was correct this thoughtless woman's impudence. However fitting, and humorous, his various titles were, Inu-Yasha was still a prince. He should be called so.

The maid left her at her door with a pat on the shoulder and Kagome closed it behind her with the intention of it not opening again until the next morning. Her mood had turned from irritated-happy to just plain irritated. Despite his crassness, and her volatile reactions to the rudeness, the prince had been surprisingly good company. Now, three minutes with a maid had spoiled her evening.

She sank into the window seat and back into depression as she watched the sun droop low into the sky.

“You're a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Inu-Yasha groused absently as he hitched Kagome a little higher on his back. Kagome responded with an absentminded tug on his forelock, not taking her eyes from the scenery.

Today, the prince had taken them as far as the kingdom's Western border. The forest had thinned in the last few miles and now they looked over open plains that stretched like a green-tinted seafloor until they fell into the shadow of dark, snow-dusted mountains. The mountains rolled away to the northwest, which, as Inu-Yasha had told her, divided the two countries that shared the Shihai no Inu western border.

She gazed over the open expanse of grasses with longing, wishing for her tail and the quiet pressure of the ocean.

The prince jerked his chin toward the country east of the mountains. “That's where the monk and Sango escaped to.”

Kagome nodded and leaned back to reach for her notepad. `Are we here to look for them?' she wrote, balancing carefully as she used his shoulder for a desk.

He scanned the paper as she held it out for him and snorted. “They're only a day late. Probably got run out of whatever village they were staying in `cause that damn monk groped the wrong girl.”

Then why are we here? Kagome thought to herself dryly. The prince had sauntered into her room through the connecting door at least an hour earlier than usual that morning. She'd been in the middle of rummaging through her borrowed wardrobe, testing fabrics. He hadn't even glanced at the pile of robes, pants, scarves, and short tunics strewn across the bed, just swiped the apple from her breakfast tray and grabbed her upper arm.

`What if they're hurt?' She paused, scratched out `they're' and above it scribbled `Miroku's.'

“Heh, if something happened, Sango would've sent a messenger. Don't worry about them. Your nursemaids'll be back, probably tonight or tomorrow, and then you'll be out of my hair.”

Kagome gave him a deadpanned look and primly didn't point out that it was he and not she who had made a habit of their outings. In the past four days, since that first morning when he'd apologized without apologizing, he'd spent more time with her than she ever would have anticipated. She usually had just enough time to eat breakfast, go through her exercises, and read for an hour before he came and found her. They didn't do anything exciting, just more patrolling and wandering about the kingdom. He brought her back in time for dinner, which they had shared except for the one evening his father had insisted he sup at the royal table. Then, he wandered in and out of her presence in the evenings as she practiced reading, writing, and a bit of experimental sewing.

`Hungry?'

“Sure.”

He let her slide off his back and flopped onto his side on the ground. The small rise they were on was shaded by a cluster of young trees and overlooked the plains.

Kagome liked picking picturesque places for their lunches.

She shrugged off the rather ugly, but serviceable, backpack she'd found stuffed in Sango's trunk and began pulling out the day's picnic. The cook was more than happy to have Kagome around. Since she'd begun hanging around the prince, she had fallen into the habit of going to the kitchen to pick up their meals. The cook was used to the prince stamping into his domain and swiping anything handy during odd hours of the day and was delighted by the change.

He was also sharper than most of the other human staff. When Kagome had pulled out her notebook a few mornings ago and requested a picnic lunch that could handle traveling in a backpack, he'd winked at her and said it was no problem. He hadn't balked at her ability to write, or wondered aloud, loudly, about how she could stand to be around the prince. Kagome was grateful. Playing simple had its advantages, but it was making her feel itchy to do something shockingly brilliant just to put some of the ninnies she'd encountered back in their place.

Kagome happily munched on an apple and leaned back against the trunk of the tree Inu-Yasha had claimed for his perch. Any moment he would begin to talk. She didn't know why he did, but it was something that she'd come to look forward to every afternoon.

“I don't know why my brother doesn't like me. I mean, I guess it's because I'm a half-breed, but I don't really get that, either. I can kick the asses of every youkai I know. I'm not wimpy or stupid like most humans.”

Kagome didn't think to be offended at first. Though she had the body of one, she didn't feel human. But, because she had an image to maintain, she chucked her apple core so it bounced off his foot. He spared her a brief glare before losing himself back in his thoughts.

“And who does he think he's kidding, anyway?” he continued a few minutes later. “He says he despises humans, but the first waif that he runs into he goes and adopts. And not even like a pet! She goes to most court functions and he assigned a tutor to teach her and shit. He treats her better than he does me! And I'm his own blood!”

Kagome shrugged, though she didn't think he was watching for her reactions. He seemed to consider her a sounding board. Maybe because he felt comfortable around her or because he felt the same kindred connection to her as she did for him. Or, maybe it was simply because she was mute. Whatever the reason, she'd learned a lot about him from what he'd said, but mostly from what he didn't say.

He'd lost his mother when he was a toddler. She'd been the promise bride who was supposed to unite the Shihai no Inu kingdom with its western, and human-ruled, neighbor. When she'd died, the alliance had faded back into the uneasy policy of `ignore for now' that had existed for hundreds of years previously. The death of the queen had also spelled the death of the relationship between the prince and his father. Most of Inu-Yasha's youth had been spent under the hard rule of a youkai tutor. She'd been harsh, prejudiced, and stupid. Kagome silently thanked her for warping the young prince into the emotionally and socially retarded, snarly man he'd become.

And, oh, he was hopeless.

Growing up rejected by family, court, and guardians for trivial and abstract reasons meant he had trouble understanding relationships between himself and others. And, because he wasn't a stupid person, this frustrated him. Consequently, he shut others out to avoid both the rejection and the frustration of not knowing why he was being rejected.

Kagome thought Kaede would have a grand time picking at his brain if she ever had the chance to meet him. Knowing someone like Kaede would probably do him some good. But, since that wasn't going to happen, Kagome contented herself with the knowledge that she could at least be someone he could vent to without inhibition.

She tilted her head back so she could see his leg dangling over the edge of the branch a good ways above her. A moment later, he shifted so that he was staring back down at her.

“And I still don't know why you want to hang around me so much,” he added peevishly. She smiled so her eyes crinkled shut and shrugged lightly. Honestly, she couldn't have told him. When she listened to him and mulled over his problems, it wasn't because she was interested in how the information would lead her to the jewel. In fact, except for the mild bouts of depression she couldn't quite shake, she wouldn't have minded if these lazy, carefree days went on endlessly.

“Weirdo girl,” he continued to himself as he leapt to the ground beside her. “Come on, let's get going.”

`No!' she mouthed with a pout and tugged on his pant leg. The fields reminded her of home in a way that wasn't too painful.

He shook his leg free and scowled at her. “I want to keep following the border down to the coast, and we can't get that done before dusk unless we go now.”

Now there was a good way to bring all of her fears and anxieties screaming to the surface: a nice trip to the ocean.

`SIT!' she commanded, thrusting her finger at the ground beside her.

His ears flattened and he sat down cross-legged so quickly that he looked surprised with himself. He recovered in a moment, spat out a `keh,' and resumed looking moodily toward the mountains.

Kagome felt her former smile inch its way back onto her lips. Maybe she could be of more help than just an unreproachful ear. He seemed like he could use a little genial head-butting in his life.

Inu-Yasha watched the shadows of the trees stretch across the ground and fought the urge to start tapping his fingers. Just how long did the damned girl want to sit here doing nothing, anyway?

She was more trouble than she was worth. He'd started letting her follow him around because he'd felt guilty for the way he'd overreacted a few days ago. He remembered the days when he'd followed his brother around, just like the little human girl Rin did now. Only, his brother had ignored him in public and usually backhanded him in private. The little girl he let follow to her heart's content. And if there was one person he considered an example of what he didn't want to be, it was Sesshoumaru.

He'd meant to gradually discourage Kagome from seeking him out. But, as the days had rolled into each other, as they tended to do for him, he found that he actually didn't mind her presence.

There was something calming about her, and something really damned familiar. That weirded him out, but he could mostly write it off as being because she looked so much like the priestess who'd spared him at the beach. She didn't smell half bad, either. Her scent reminded him of a light, early morning sea breeze after a long night of squalls.

Or something.

He also didn't know why he found it so easy to talk to her about stuff. It wasn't like she ever said anything back. Of course, he usually made sure he was in a tree or on a tall rock or someplace where she couldn't easily use her notebook.

And… she looked at him sometimes. Like when he'd been talking about how the court would bow to his face and then start snickering the moment he walked past. He'd glanced down at her and she'd been looking up at him with the strangest expression. It wasn't pity, because that would have just pissed him off. Sango pitied him.

It was almost like she understood what he was talking about. Like she knew what that kind of two-faced rejection felt like.

She probably wasn't really paying attention and was thinking about something completely different.

Still, he didn't mind talking, and she didn't seem to mind listening. Or pretending to listen, at least. Probably better if she didn't, anyway.