Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

At the End of Days
By : inumom
Category: InuYasha > General
Views: 1784 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.
Chapter List
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Disclaimer: Unfortunately, they�re not mine. I do, however, like to invite them out to play now and again.

2. Interlude

�What the hell do you mean, you�re not going? We have a job to do, wench--or did you forget about that?� The hanyou�s voice was harsh, his posture belligerent.
The girl sitting at the desk shook her head wearily. �I know that,� she sighed, rubbing at the knot of tension that had begun to form in the center of her forehead. �But I told you about this weeks ago. These are my final exams--the very last tests of the year. If I do well I can graduate. That means that I�ll be done with high school. If I fail, I�ll have to do the whole year over again.�
Even though the young man was brash and rude, he was not by any means stupid. He could recognize a threat when he heard it. �Fine,� he grunted. �How much time do you need?�
Checking the exam schedule lying on the desk, the girl shook her head slowly. �I have five tests over the next two weeks. Graduation is three days after that.�
Her companion considered the matter briefly, weighing a couple weeks of inaction against a whole year of constant trips back here for those �classes� and �tests� the girl was always talking about. It wasn�t really much of a decision, all things considered: he knew how much this school thing meant to her, and he could see that these exams really worried her--the anxiety was almost rolling off her in waves. With a gruff, �Whatever,� he seated himself in the middle of the soft, wonderfully fragrant bed, letting the girl�s soothing scent relax him like nothing else could.
After only a few moments he could feel her watching him. Rousing himself from the half-dreaming state he had unknowingly entered, the hanyou snarled, �Now what?�
She blushed furiously at having been caught staring. �What are you doing?�
�What the hell does it look like, bitch? I�m waiting.� Somehow, the reply was delivered without the usual aggression.
�Why? Aren�t you going back?� She was confused--she knew that he genuinely disliked visiting her world, and for good reason: the constant, unrelenting noise of a twenty-first century city, the pervasive stench of the Tokyo traffic, and the overwhelming presence of so many people in such a small area combined to create pure hell for the hanyou�s acute senses.
He smirked a the sudden concern in her voice. �Keh! How else can I be sure that you�ll come back right away? Besides,� he continued, �It�s not like we can find any shards without you anyway.�
Her eyes flashed in momentary indignation. �You could take my word for it, you know,� she snapped. His ears flattened against his skull briefly, and she relented. �I�m sorry,� she murmured. �That wasn�t really what I meant to say. I mean, I know how much you hate coming here, and I�m going to be really busy with studying for my exams. I just didn�t want you to be bored.�
He nodded slowly, realizing with a shock that she wasn�t trying to get rid of him. �Can I read some of your books?�
She smiled broadly, thinking back to the day when she had discovered that--unlike many of the people in his world--he could read. Granted that he wasn�t a speed reader by any stretch of the imagination, but he could puzzle his way through books that weren�t too technical. She had discovered him one warm afternoon, lounging on a tree branch, paging through a book of old legends she�d been using as source material for a paper on the legends of the feudal age. Since then, she had taken to picking up books that she thought he might like whenever she went shopping. Stretching as she rose from the desk, she went to the shelf that held the books. Thinking about the amount of time remaining until graduation, she brought her guest a thick paperback. �Try this,� she said. �It�s the first part of a much longer story. It�s about a quest to retrieve a great treasure. There�s a dragon, some battles, and a jewel that causes a lot of trouble.� As he eagerly accepted the book, she returned to her notes for the history test in two days. �If there�s anything you don�t understand, just ask me.�
Satisfied that he would be sufficiently entertained by �The Hobbit� to allow her at least a bit of peace, Higurashi Kagome put aside her notes, picking up a pen to begin the essay that would make up a full third of her history grade.
Carefully hiding her smile, she glanced at the scarlet-clad figure sprawled on her bed, lost in the adventures of one hobbit and thirteen dwarves, before setting pen to paper to start her essay on the role of the supernatural in daily life in the Sengoku Jidai.
She smiled as the words seemed to almost flow onto the page: it was going well. She hadn�t entirely expected that her essay topic would be approved--it wasn�t exactly a traditional subject for a history paper. Fortunately, her history teacher possessed a degree in cultural anthropology: that was exactly the kind of subject matter that would appeal to him the most.
After nearly three hours of nonstop work on the essay, she decided that it was a pretty good first draft: time to put it away and do something else for a while. She would work on her notes for a while later on tonight, then finish the essay tomorrow in plenty of time to hand it in on Tuesday. She got up from her chair, stretching to ease the tightness in her shoulders and neck, and sat quietly on the edge of the bed, watching her companion closely.
One of her greatest pleasures was watching him when he wasn�t aware of it. She couldn�t really help herself--he was just so beautiful, especially at times like this, when he was so engrossed in something that he let his guard down and allowed her to see what was underneath the badass image he had so carefully crafted over the long years that he had lived alone, struggling to simply survive. He lay there motionlessly, his incredibly thick silver-white hair draped along his back to well below his waist, amber eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, chin propped up on one clawed hand as the other held the book. She allowed herself to study him closely, a little irritated that his clothing hid his lean body so completely.
She had, she remembered, actually seen him naked on a couple of occasions. Even now, she cursed herself for being too embarrassed to have taken a good look. Of course, there wasn�t really all that much to see either time, she recalled: once he had been bathing in a hot spring, and the other time he had burst into her room wearing nothing but bubbles because the bath had been too hot. Still, she couldn�t help but be curious: she had seen him with his upper half unclothed fairly often, usually because she was bandaging some injury or other, and had very much liked what she had seen. She wondered--not for the first time--if he could possibly be as beautifully proportioned everywhere else.
Without even realizing it, she reached out, running her fingertips up the back of his left ear, from base to tip, reveling in the feel of the velvety fur that covered the outer surface of the triangular appendage. Surprisingly, there was no blistering curse at the uninvited touch. Her curiosity piqued, she leaned forward slightly to see his eyes half closed, the book lying open and disregarded on the bed. She paused in her stroking of his ear and he moved slightly, pushing his head against her hand, silently asking her to resume the caress.
She continued the ear rub, wondering briefly what would happen when he realized exactly what she was doing--he always yelled at her for touching the ears she found so irresistible. Listening carefully, she could hear the faintest beginnings of a soft rumbling sound coming from deep in his chest.
Before things could get out of hand, she whispered, �Hey, Inuyasha.�
His eyes flew open in surprise as he suddenly realized exactly what position they were in. �What is it, wench?�
She gestured at the clock on the desk. �We�ve been at this for quite a while. Would you like to do something else for a while?�
He shook his head as though the past few hours of being cooped up inside were catching up with him all at once. He shuddered slightly. After living almost his entire life outdoors in the forest that bore his name, the hanyou had never been particularly comfortable spending long periods of time inside. Though not exactly the unreasoning terror of claustrophobia, it wasn�t likely that he would ever really enjoy being confined indoors. �What did you have in mind?�
She brightened at his agreeable attitude. �It�s a couple of hours until dinner. Why don�t we go outside for a while? We could just hang out under the Goshinboku and get some fresh air, or maybe take a little walk, if you�re sure you can keep your ears hidden under your hair. After dinner, I need to study for a couple of hours, but maybe we could go out and do something after that.�
He nodded with something like approval. �Good,� he said. �I didn�t think it would be a very good idea to spend every minute studying--it�d probably be pretty hard to remember anything like that.�
Slipping a piece of scrap paper into the book to mark his place, she grabbed him by the hand, leading him down the stairs.

*

That day set the pattern for the rest of their stay in modern Tokyo. They would spend part of each morning studying and reading, respectively. After lunch, they would take a break, often visiting a nearby park or going to the market for the girl�s mother, before returning to their books for a few hours. They would take another short break before dinner, usually spending the time sitting under--or sometimes in the branches of--the Goshinboku. After the final meal of the day, they would spend a little more time with the books before going out for the evening. At least, that was the routine as Kagome understood it: the hanyou�s activities differed from hers slightly in that he spent much of the early morning hours before his charge awakened sprinting across the rooftops of the city to get a bit of exercise, and would spend much of the nights simply watching her as she slept.
Much to Kagome�s delight, the routine was working. She passed all of her exams--even the dreaded math--in the top fifteen percent of her class and was soon preparing for graduation.
The hanyou watched her as she brought home the grade from her last test with undeniable pride: although he didn�t really understand the importance of her schoolwork, he had never doubted that she had the ability to succeed at it. In addition to the pride, however, he couldn�t ignore the surge of anticipation that the news brought. Even though he had come to enjoy the company of the girl�s family, even the old man who still occasionally tried to banish him, he found that he missed not only the mountains and wide forests of his home in the Sengoku Jidai but the small group that he had come to think of as family as well.
Though he didn�t entirely understand what the big deal about this graduation thing was, he quickly realized that it was cause for much celebrating. While he was both pleased and grateful to be included in the planning, he was painfully aware that he was sadly unprepared for such a role. It was this reason that caused him to be sitting in the Higurashi living room the night after Kagome received her grades, ears drooping, sniffing carefully to detect the first hint that the girl had awakened and would be descending the stairs.
Fortunately, the woman sitting with him was a kindly soul, and had known from the beginning that the hanyou would devote every resource at his disposal to making her daughter happy. �Well,� she said, after listening to his halting description of his difficulty, �You do have a problem. The good news is that it�s easily fixed.� At the curiosity visible in his golden eyes, she continued, �I mentioned the party we�re having here after graduation, right? It won�t be a huge thing, but many of her friends will be here--at least briefly--as well as all the family in the area. You�re going to be a part of it.�
He didn�t know what to say. �But I�m just a--�
She cut him off with a rude word he hadn�t even realized that she knew. �You�re not �just� anything, Inuyasha, and the sooner you realize that, the happier you�ll both be. You take care of my daughter. You keep her safe from gods know what, and you put up with her temper--yes, I know that she has a formidable one: it�s just that she feels things so strongly that her reactions are equally strong. Anyway,� she continued, mentally shifting gears in a way that sometimes made him a little dizzy, �She�s going to be busy the next couple of afternoons with practicing for the graduation ceremony, so I�d like you to help me with some things that need to be done, both around the shrine and with the shopping for the party. Naturally, I�ll pay you for your help, so that you can find a suitable gift for her--it�s a custom we have here associated with ending one�s childhood and becoming a responsible member of the community. All of her friends will be bringing gifts to the party, especially,� she said with a small sigh, �Houjou. If I have my way, you�ll do as well--or better--than any of them.�
He sighed in something like relief. He had been afraid that she was going to offer him charity, something that his pride would not have permitted him to accept. If he was going to be working to earn her help, that was a whole other thing�. �Okay, Higurashi-san,� he said. He shook his head slowly for a few seconds before continuing, �But don�t tell her about it, okay?�
The woman smiled broadly: this, she decided, was going to be wonderful!
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At the End of Days	By : inumom Category: InuYasha > General Views: 1784 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

At the End of Days