Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Pretending to Pretend	By : SplendentGoddess Category: InuYasha AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 4817 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi or VIZ Productions, and I do not gain financially from my fanfic in any way.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter Two

*knock knock*

No response.

*knock knock knock*

“Go away,” came the muffled reply.

“No can do!” Miroku replied cheerfully, raising his voice a little to compensate for their hanyou friend's temporary hearing loss.

Some more muffled words sounded from the other side of the closed door, at least half of them curse words, but then after a moment the door cracked open, revealing a black-haired Inuyasha wearing a plain white t-shirt and red sweatpants.

Is he even aware he's wearing traditional miko colors, or did he actually do that on purpose? Miroku wondered, although he knew better than to say anything about it out loud.

“Hope you're hungry!” he said instead, maintaining his exaggeratedly cheerful demeanor as he, Sango and Kagome each held up bags containing to-go containers of food.

Sighing and rolling his eyes, part of Inuyasha felt like slamming the door in their faces, but on the other hand, he'd hardly eaten anything in weeks, and while his hanyou metabolism could take the neglect, now that he was human he was starving. He also felt tremendously grateful in that moment to realize he had friends like them, who knew he was hurting and refused to let him suffer in silence.

Gods damn it all, I'm not gonna fucking start crying in front of them, he chastised himself before begrudgingly stepping aside and letting them enter his dimly lit apartment.

He'd only turned on one small lamp in the corner of the living room to prevent himself from stubbing his toe or any other such idiotic nonsense now that he was both night blind and easily damaged.

Physically. He was now easy to damage physically. Turned out he'd been easy to damage emotionally even as a hanyou. Who'd have thunk it?

“I guess I'll eat the food, 'cause it's not like I actually wanna let myself starve to death,” he told them then, his way of saying thank you, as everyone pulled out their containers of food after having left their shoes in the entryway before making their way over to the kitchen. “While I can say I wish I was dead, you guys know that's not really true,” he admitted then. “And before you worry about it too much, yeah, I'm planning on dragging my ass back to class when school starts, but guys, she really fucked me up, so don't expect me to get over it that quickly.”

Since Miroku had managed to get the details out of him shortly after they'd first found out about the breakup, plus when Kagome had confronted Kikyou about breaking his heart she had gladly enlightened Kagome as to what her real reasons had been, which a spitting mad Kagome had shared with Sango, nobody could really blame Inuyasha for needing time to get over this intense of a heartbreak.

“All we want is for you to eat something, and maybe, just maybe, for five or possibly ten minutes, something else could occupy your thoughts,” Kagome said then, and damn that girl for being so sweet but Inuyasha couldn't help but smile as he looked her way and saw the sincerity in her blue-gray eyes.

While one would expect that he'd become closest to Miroku, and indeed he would tell the houshi certain guy things that he wouldn't discuss with the women, overall if he really had to pick one of them Inuyasha would say that he felt like Kagome was his best friend out of the trio.

Just like Kikyou, it had also been hard for Kagome as a young girl, developing miko powers when her three best school friends Yuka, Eri and Ayumi had not been reiki users. When Kagome's family had registered her with the spiritualists and she'd needed to start taking special training classes, her friends hadn't understood what'd made Kagome so special and had actually accused her of thinking she was special and better than them just because she was from a shrine family, when the truth was she'd just been born a certain way and she couldn't help being who or what she was. On top of that, it had also been hard on Kagome after she'd lost her father, and none of her school friends at that time had understood what it was like losing a parent, either.

Even he couldn't really say he understood that level of pain, but at least he understood feeling isolated because nobody understood the pain of what you were going through. He understood the pain of being alone and misunderstood.

That had been what he and Kikyou had originally had in common, and while maybe it should've bothered him to notice those similarities in Kagome as well, to know she was also a miko, as if all miko were supposed to be bitches in his eyes now thanks to what Kikyou had done to him, Inuyasha in no way held Kagome's similarities to Kikyou against her and indeed he was still grateful that it also meant he and her had those same things in common, as well.

Fortunately, Kagome had met and befriended Sango during junior high. While the taijiya had no measurable reiki she had been trained from early childhood to be youki sensitive, so she could sense demonic auras just like a reiki user, and on top of that she'd lost her mother at a young age, her father raising her and her younger brother alone as opposed to Kagome's mother and grandfather raising her and Souta. Inuyasha was glad to know that Kagome had found such a genuine friend in Sango. He'd also learned that Sango had met Miroku through Kagome, since he had been in her reiki training classes. Kagome had been friendly enough with Miroku but he'd originally only been a school acquaintance until he and Sango had hit it off and then the three of them had started hanging out together. The trio had been inseparable ever since, and that they had so easily welcomed he and Kikyou into their group...

Damn it, trying not to think about her... Inuyasha mentally scolded himself, belatedly realizing he'd slipped up more than once already.

That they had welcomed him into their group, were in fact still friends with him even now that Kikyou was out of the picture, that really meant a lot to him, and he told them so in that moment.

Kagome smiled reassuringly as the more emotional, human Inuyasha told them just how much their friendship really meant to him.

“We will always be here for you, no matter what,” Kagome vowed, nodding her head in conviction, and smiling a little, Inuyasha nodded back.

With that out of the way it was time to eat, but Inuyasha being the informal guy that he was, didn't go for the whole dining table nonsense, not that his apartment was really big enough for one anyway. Sure, he could've afforded a bigger apartment, but why? He was in college and he'd wanted the college experience. Well, aside from juggling his studies alongside a part-time job, at least. He was grateful to have been spared that experience. He'd actually offered to pay everyone's rent in the very beginning, too, before Kikyou had broken up with him, but aside from Kikyou eagerly taking him up on his offer the others had outright refused, telling him that that was just too much to accept and that while they appreciated it, they would take care of their own rent. There was no way Kikyou was ever going to be able to convince him that Miroku, Sango and Kagome were also just using him for his money when they'd each turned down free rent, each of them having to pick up a part-time job of sorts in order to earn their own money.

Fortunately, Miroku's uncle Mushin owned a restaurant. It was one of those creepy ones with young waitresses dressed as school girls that were frequented by dirty old men, but Miroku washed dishes in the back and even though he could appreciate the waitress'...uniforms...he truly only had eyes for Sango. As for Sango, she'd merely gotten hired by her own father to start working at their family's training center for taijiya. Coming from a long line of taijiya, Sango had known all along that her career would involve training the next generation of slayers. Kagome, likewise, had picked up part-time work at her family shrine on the weekends. Her mother had been the one to tell her she shouldn't over work herself, telling her that she could just help out around the shrine rather than stressing over getting some random waitressing job somewhere. She probably didn't really work enough hours to make enough money to pay her rent and other monthly bills, but the Higurashi Shrine did fairly well for itself and Kagome's mother wasn't about to let her baby girl starve, always making sure Kagome had enough of a monthly allowance to get by. Kagome had accepted only because she'd vowed to herself that she'd pay her mother back after she graduated and finally got herself a real job, working as an instructor in a school for reiki users.

Inuyasha, too, would be joining the workforce after college, helping his father run their company just like his older half-brother Sesshoumaru was already doing. He might even move to the youkai district where Sesshoumaru lived to be closer to the Taisho building, although Sesshoumaru didn't much appreciate his existence so perhaps not. But even if he chose to stay in the human city, and he just might in order to be near his mother, he'd definitely be upgrading his living space after graduation. In the meantime, though, a modest college student apartment similar in design to his friends' places was really all he needed to get by, and to their credit none of them had ever even questioned him about it.

They felt right at home in his tiny hole in the wall, as was demonstrated in that moment when everyone grabbed their bento boxes and cups of ramen and headed over into the living room to sit in front of the TV, even though that device remained turned off for the time being. Miroku, Sango and Kagome squeezed together on the couch, in that order, with Inuyasha sitting in his side chair that was closest to Kagome's side of the couch, their soup cups all on the coffee table to cool some while they kept their bento boxes on their laps as they ate, sprinkling in random bits of conversation between bites.

They talked about school, some, while specifically avoiding any mention of the martial arts circle all five of them shared. Joining the same circle had seemed like a good idea back at the beginning of the school year, when they'd all managed to get into the same collage together, as had been everyone's goal. Less serious than a club, where they'd have to study all the time and would do competitions with other teams, their informal circle only practiced a couple of days a week and the rest of the time everyone just got together to socialize. Of course, Inuyasha had never felt particularly comfortable during those outings since not everyone in their circle seemed as eager to befriend a hanyou as Miroku, Sango and Kagome had been, but he had still gone to at least a few of them, so long as his friends were going. Their whole circle was supposed to be partying it up on the beach this summer, but Kagome, Sango and Miroku had definitely not felt like participating without him, so none of them had gone. With the way Kikyou was trying to score herself a new man they were sure their circle had heard about the breakup, and they also knew the four of them went way back, so Kagome and the others suspected that nobody from their circle would really blame them for skipping out on the summer fun, all things considered.

Kagome actually wondered if Kikyou was going to quit their circle when the second semester started. Under normal circumstances, if it had been a civil breakup and Inuyasha and Kikyou were still friends, then it wouldn't be awkward, but since their breakup had been the opposite of civil Kagome really hoped that Kikyou would do the right thing and bow out. To stay would almost be like she was staying on purpose, just to bask in his misery, or maybe to goad him into dropping out himself, losing some quality time with his other friends as a result.

But they were not there to discuss Kikyou, so in that moment Kagome tried to keep her talk of classes completely neutral, centered on the subjects she was studying and her own problems. She was still struggling in math, for starters. She actually might not have passed her college entrance exams if it hadn't been for their help. She tried to joke about how mathematically illiterate she was just to lighten the mood and keep the topic of conversation away from Inuyasha's heartache, but it didn't do any good since Inuyasha's mind couldn't venture too far away from thoughts of his ex for very long, regardless of the subject.

Sighing, Inuyasha sat his bento down on the coffee table next to his ramen before meeting his friends' eyes.

“You know what I really hate?” he said out of nowhere, completely changing the subject away from Kagome's math problems. “I hate the thought of letting her know how badly she's hurt me. I actually saw her a couple of days ago when I braved going to the store,” he revealed, Miroku cringing at the news because he'd been wondering what it was that had made Inuyasha extra cranky that day. “Our eyes locked and I know my pain was easy to read, and the bitch fucking grinned at me. She grinned! Like she was pleased with herself.” He was so upset he was visibly shaking. “What the fuck is that?” he asked, trying to calm back down.

His eyes also started to tear up, but grumbling under his breath about stupid human nights and stupid human emotions made even worse on said nights, he roughly scrubbed at his eyes and kept talking, his friends all politely ignoring his perceived weakness as they put their bento boxes down as well to give him their undivided attention.

“I don't think I'm actually going to be able to get over what she did to me for a long time, but I don't want to let her know that,” he continued, sounding determined. “So if I can't really 'snap out of it' as they say by the time school starts back up then I've decided I'm going to at least pretend I'm over her during the day while we're all together, and I want you guys to help me out with that.”

“Of course. We'll be happy to help,” Sango answered right away, smiling understandingly.

“And who knows?” Miroku chimed in. “While you're pretending to have a good time you just might accidentally really feel happy for a minute or two,” he teased.

Inuyasha cracked a half grin.

“Yeah, maybe.” He didn't sound too convinced.

“I know it seems impossible now,” Kagome said then, “and there's no hurry, if you don't think you're going to feel ready to get back out there for quite a while yet, but eventually, the pain will lessen, and then one day, when you're ready, you'll be able to find a woman who really loves you.”

Inuyasha snorted at that, completely missing the curious look Sango sent Kagome's way.

“That's the thing, though,” the temporarily human hanyou said, sounding utterly defeated. “I'd probably be able to just accept that Kikyou was a stupid bitch and move on more quickly if she'd been full of shit, but she was right.” He sighed. “Nobody will ever really love me.”

Kagome opened her mouth to disagree but his shake of his head had her holding her tongue.

“I'm not stupid,” he argued, knowing Kagome had been about to tell him what a great guy he was and how anyone would be lucky to have him, blah blah blah. “I know it's theoretically possible some woman out there wouldn't mind being with a hanyou. Hell, my best bet would probably be with a female hanyou, actually. But we're few and far between, and most humans and youkai are gonna see me the way Kikyou sees me, as a disgusting freak of nature. So while it might technically be possible someone could love me, the odds are low that I'll ever find her, and you can't tell me that's not true.”

Kagome closed her eyes, silently grateful for his temporary loss of senses because if he'd had his inu-youkai sense of smell in that moment he'd have been able to scent the tears she was trying hard not to let fall.

“It's an unfortunate reality that many people are against the intermixing of humans and youkai, it's true,” Sango relented, sensing that Kagome needed a moment before she'd be able to respond. It was true that a lot of people felt that way about hanyou and it would be stupid to deny it. Inuyasha had a point. “But I'm sure there are more open minded people out there than you realize,” she added then, because she also believed that that was true.

“Oh, sure,” Inuyasha answered sarcastically. “Maybe I can actually find myself a gold digger willing to overlook my flaws.”

“Just stop it,” Kagome finally snapped, earning all eyes on her. Fortunately, the dim lighting helped to conceal her sudden blush. “I just mean...” She cleared her throat. “It...it hurts, hearing you say such things about yourself.”

“Yes,” Miroku immediately agreed. “We're your friends and we don't care about your heritage in the slightest.”

“To me, you're not a hanyou,” Kagome added, blushing a little darker. “You're just Inuyasha.”

Sighing, Inuyasha smiled a little. It was small, but at least it lifted up both sides of his mouth that time.

“Thanks,” he said, meeting Kagome's eyes for a moment before also nodding at Sango and Miroku. “I needed that.”

“We'll always be here for you, no matter what,” Sango reiterated.

“I'm glad,” he answered.

“So we'll definitely do whatever we can to help you carry on during class as if you're no longer hurting,” Miroku stated. “And maybe, if I can prove you wrong by finding a girl who'd be interested in dating you, a rebound would actually do you some good,” he added, waggling his eyebrows in an attempt at using his usual perverted humor to lighten the mood.

“Miroku!” Sango chastised, Kagome also about to let him have it, but then the sound of Inuyasha actually chuckling a little bit earned everyone's attention.

“I can always count on you to be yourself,” Inuyasha said, wiping a tear he wasn't sure was from mirth or grief. “But if Sango can put up with you then maybe you're right, maybe I do have a chance, after all.”

Smiling a little at the sudden optimism in his tone, Kagome was just about to reach for her ramen when Inuyasha spoke back up with, “Actually, you've just given me a great idea.”

“Oh?” Miroku asked, genuinely curious.

Inuyasha nodded.

“While I'm definitely not ready to really date again, I should try to pretend that I am, while on campus I mean, because that'd be an even better fuck you to Kikyou if she thinks I'm not only over our breakup and am happy again in my daily life but I'm really over our breakup, if you know what I mean.”

It was Miroku who chuckled that time.

“The only problem is,” Inuyasha continued, “I can't just fake it but actually go on a real date if the girl doesn't know I'm faking it, you know? I can't do that to anybody. I can't use a woman like that. So I guess what I need maybe really is a gold digger, but someone who'd be willing to go along with a ruse. I could pay her off to just pretend to be my girlfriend. Maybe I could even call up one of those companies where you can pay people to do that sort of thing. It'd be better if she went to our college, though...” he trailed off, as if trying to formulate the details of his master plan to mask his pain from Kikyou.

Kagome listened, enthralled, mostly because a hanyou Inuyasha would've never been this talkative. Don't get her wrong, she loved him as a hanyou, but there was something extra special about seeing this fully human side of him, too. This part of him was always there, even while hanyou, but his gruffer youkai instincts kept it suppressed. She didn't think the human him was the 'real' him in terms of his physical form, and she was quite attracted to his physical form while hanyou, even including what she now knew regarding the part of him she'd never seen, but it was like the human him was his real soul, the barriers all knocked down and his vulnerabilities bared before her. It took her a minute to remember that Sango and Miroku were sitting right on the other side of her as she watched him; they weren't alone.

That didn't prevent her from saying what she had to say, however.

“I'll do it.”

“What?” he asked, surprised.

“Kagome?” Sango questioned at the same time, Miroku remaining silent, contemplating.

“I'll pretend to be your girlfriend,” Kagome elaborated, dutifully ignoring the way she could feel Sango's eyes boring into the back of her head as she sat somewhat twisted on the couch to face Inuyasha more fully. “And you don't have to pay me, either,” she added. “If you feel like that would be the final show of really getting back at her, because she seemed happy to see you miserable, then I agree, letting her see you happy would be the best revenge. Even if she doesn't really care one way or the other, you still don't want to let her know how sad you really are, and I totally get that, so I'll help you in any possible way that I can, including this.”

“You...you really mean that?” he asked her, looking both stunned and as happy as any of them had seen him in the last three weeks.

“Absolutely,” Kagome answered. “It would probably be the most believable scenario, anyway,” she added, wondering if she was about to say too much but hoping she could get away with it. “If you just randomly all of a sudden had some different girlfriend at the start of the semester, especially if she doesn't even go to Tama University, then Kikyou would probably smell the deception. Even if she figured it was just a guess she'd probably try to call your bluff, accuse you of just paying the woman off. Hell, she'll probably accuse you of paying me off, too. She already accused us of just being friends with you for your money. But it'd still be the most believable to everyone else if you and I were to get together, since we already know each other and, as your friend, I'd have been comforting you in your time of need.”

“That's true,” Sango chimed in then, deciding to help her friend out. Help both of her friends out. “In all the sappy romance stories we girls like to read, that's a common theme,” she said, phrasing it that way on purpose to help keep up the illusion that they were just plotting out something fake.

“Indeed,” Miroku agreed, the houshi also quick on the uptake. “You two could build it up slowly,” he said, before locking eyes with Inuyasha for a moment. “When school first starts back up, you should already act over the breakup, just generally speaking, but it's okay to be a little down, because you're lonely now. You just don't want to seem like your heart is still broken in a million pieces, even if it is, so try to act a little sad but mostly over it.”

“Sounds good,” Inuyasha agreed with a nod.

He couldn't be too happy, because then everyone would know he was obviously faking it and that would defeat the purpose of faking it. So a melancholy attitude would be best, Miroku was right. He would act like he was over it for the most part, and definitely over Kikyou, but it still just sucked, just generally speaking.

“Openly wanting to help you get fully back to your old self again, the four of us should immediately all start hanging out after class, either at the arcade or the mall or somewhere, and then you and me can let our 'relationship' develop from there,” Kagome added with a playful wink.

“How...” He wasn't sure how to phrase it. It was rather embarrassing, after all, and especially considering the reason why Kikyou had broken up with him in the first place, but he needed to know. He cleared his throat. “How far are you willing to go? Just so I know,” he asked. He wouldn't complain if Kagome wanted to pretend she was saving herself for marriage or something as a means of avoiding-

“We should build it up slowly so it seems more realistic, and not like you were using me as a one-night-stand or something,” she said unabashedly, interrupting his thoughts. “But eventually, we can pretend that we're intimate, if that's what you want.”

How she'd managed to say all that with a straight face, Kagome had no idea, but the way Inuyasha's face erupted into a deep crimson blush had her giggling behind her hand.

“I...I really appreciate you being willing to...to go along with something like that,” Inuyasha told her shyly. “You don't know how much that means to me.”

You don't know what it means for me, either, Kagome thought, but she didn't dare let her mixed feelings show, lest he mistakenly think she was having any doubts. The only thing she was worried about was whether or not she'd be able to remember they were a pretend couple. She'd hate to accidentally take things a bit too far and freak him out. But the last thing she wanted to do was risk ruining their friendship, so she was fairly confident she'd be able to pull this off, or she wouldn't have offered. She could pretend that she was only pretending to be in love him. He'd never know.

With their plans for getting back at Kikyou figured out, Sango and Miroku confident that while pretending to be happy Inuyasha would inevitably end up actually feeling happy again while Kagome was really looking forward to throwing their 'relationship' in Kikyou's face no matter how fake it secretly was, all four friends got back to their food feeling much more optimistic for the days ahead.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The last few days of summer break were spent perfecting the details of their plan. They didn't go so far as to actually write a script, so everything they said to one another would be improv, in a way, but they knew generally speaking the sort of things they were supposed to say. They knew the direction they wanted to take things in, and what the end game would ultimately be.

When that first day of school was upon them Inuyasha handled his part like a pro, walking into school alone, head held high. He didn't know at first who knew about their breakup or who didn't, or who would even care, but pretty soon his ears clued him in when the whispers started. Some people wondered where Kikyou was, because he'd always driven her to class first semester, while others had already seen her arrive before him, in some other man's car. Well good for her. He was just glad he didn't share his first class of the day with her. In fact, he didn't share any of his classes with Kikyou because she was only enrolled in miko-related courses, but he didn't share his first class of the day with anyone else, either, since he was studying business management, so he was on his own as he headed into the classroom and took a seat.

Another reason to not let Kikyou get him down was his grades. He needed to do well in school order to be able to help with his father's company. Even though they were rich the money certainly didn't grow on trees. It was his responsibility to either join the family business as a whole or create his own successful branch of it, so knowing it was important he tried his absolute best to put thoughts of broken hearts out of his mind, trying to absorb what he could for his education's sake. When class was over he wandered around campus not socializing with anyone while he waited out the hour gap he had between classes, but he tried to make sure he didn't look like too much of a wreck.

His next class, Human/Youkai Relations, he shared with Sango. It was more of a history lesson than a modern social studies class containing any pertinent guidelines one might've found useful in that day and age, but being a hanyou he'd been curious, and coming from a long line of taijiya Sango had felt a familial obligation to take the course. She was fresh from work and smelled of sweat. Her family training center, a dojo of sorts specifically for taijiya related techniques, opened bright and early and she'd just spent the last four hours with her students before changing gears to become the student herself.

Approaching him before their professor arrived, Sango asked him how he was feeling, her concern for him genuine even though she dutifully pretended for the sake of eavesdroppers that their conversation during the new moon never took place. He replied accordingly, that it still hurt, a little, but he was getting over it.

“Some women are just bitches,” he said. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she laughed, since she agreed with him.

He continued then, saying he knew that he needed to just put their breakup behind him and get on with the rest of his life. When she asked him, then, if he'd like to join her, Miroku and Kagome for lunch at Hungry Ninja Noodles, he readily agreed, saying he definitely wasn't going to let a little thing like Kikyou turning out to be a gold digging bitch keep him from hanging out with his real friends.

ooo

Trying to keep her cool and not look like a giddy idiot, Kagome was undeniably eager to see Inuyasha at the local noodle shop across from campus that just about everyone from their university went to for lunch, and sometimes also breakfast and dinner. She'd muddled through her math class the best she could that morning but she knew she'd probably done worse than she otherwise would have since she hadn't been able to keep her thoughts off a certain inu-hanyou. Of course, Kagome knew she had to take things slowly, stick to the plan, and she dutifully kept reminding herself that even after they seemingly became boyfriend and girlfriend it was only going to be for show. They probably wouldn't be spending very much if any time alone together after school. But she was still looking forward to spending more time with him during the day between classes, and she was really looking forward to seeing him smile again. Yes, it would be forced, at first, but just like Miroku believed, Kagome was also confident that in and around pretending to have a good time Inuyasha would actually start having a good time for real. Pretending to laugh was bound to lead to actual laughter eventually. His moments of genuine happiness would be fleeting at first, she was sure, as his painful memories continued to linger right under the surface, reminding him of why he was miserable, but she believed that slowly but surely he'd be able to move on and no longer need to fake his happiness in order to live his daily life.

What that would mean for the two of them and their fake relationship she had no clue, but she logically decided to just not think about it. She had a mission, which was to slowly build up their fake relationship and then maintain that fake relationship for however long he wanted to keep up the facade. If and when he wanted to have a fake breakup she knew it would obviously be a civil one which would allow them to remain friends, and then the ruse would be over and the four of them would continue to be the best of friends, she hoped, for the rest of their lives. If, on the other hand, he wanted to start a real relationship...

That forbidden line of thinking was thankfully brought to an abrupt halt when she sensed the rapid approach of a very strong, very familiar demonic aura, and then looking up, she smiled as Sango, Miroku and Inuyasha entered the noodle shop and, spotting where she was sitting, came over and had a seat at the booth for four she'd been saving for them. Sango sat beside Kagome on her right, Inuyasha sliding in on the opposite side to sit across from Kagome so that Miroku could sit at his left, across from his girlfriend.

“So glad to see you're feeling better,” she said as way of greeting as she met Inuyasha's eyes, making sure to keep her eagerness in check.

“Yeah, well...” He shrugged. “Can't just mope around for the rest of my life,” he said. “That'd be stupid.”

“Time really does heal all wounds,” Kagome agreed with a nod.

“And whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, ne?” he teased, cracking a smile when he noticed a couple of other students from Tama U glancing their way. In fact, he was pretty sure they were in one of Kikyou's miko classes, sensing faint traces of reiki from both girls.

“That's the spirit,” Miroku said with a grin, the houshi also having noticed Momiji and Botan sitting a couple of booths down.

“And what better way to celebrate your new lease on life than with your favorite food?” Sango chimed in then, flagging down their server.

“Welcome back,” the waitress said to Inuyasha as she approached their table.

Even she'd noticed his absence as of late, since most of the student body had continued frequenting their noodle shop even during summer break. A white-haired hanyou was kind of hard to miss, after all.

“Thanks,” he replied, offering her a polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I'll have my usual.”

“Two beef ramen cups,” she acknowledged with her own fake smile, not that she really had anything against the hanyou. She just didn't like her job. “And for you?” she asked Miroku next.

After Miroku, Sango and Kagome also placed their orders and the waitress went to get their drinks, they continued to discuss Inuyasha's desire to put his painful breakup behind him and get on with his life. He was both acting and being completely honest when he said he wanted to move on, because while he sincerely believed what he'd told his friends the night of the new moon, that he wouldn't be able to heal from this pain for quite some time, he did legitimately want to be able to put it behind him. The desire to heal was there, even if the wounds Kikyou had inflicted on him were worse than he was willing to admit publicly.

Or at least, they were worse than he was willing to admit to her.

If it weren't for Kikyou still being around he might've actually been okay with receiving the occasional looks of pity he would have probably received from other students if he'd just dragged himself to class every day, but it was the look Kikyou had given him at the local convenience store, not of pity but of smug satisfaction, that had made him bound and determined to at least pretend he was over her until he finally, actually was.

“And before any of you ask, no, I don't still love her and I wouldn't take her back,” he told his friends then, just as their waitress returned with their sodas.

It was true, too. He hadn't just said it for those eavesdropping bitches to overhear. Kikyou had completely crushed him, but in doing so, she'd shown him her true colors. If she ever hypothetically told him that she'd changed her mind, that she was willing to overlook his flaws and take him back, his response would be a resounding fuck you.

“Well that's good to hear,” Miroku said. “Not that I would've let you two get back together,” he added, giving Inuyasha a friendly elbow to the side. “I wouldn't be much of a friend if I did.”

“It's still hard to believe, sometimes,” he said as their lunch arrived.

“Thank you,” Sango said to their server before glancing back at Inuyasha. “What is?”

“That I have friends,” he answered. “That you guys actually want to be my friends, even after everything Kikyou said.”

“We'll always be your friends,” Kagome emphasized.

Inuyasha met her eyes as he slurped his noodles, and even though their gaze only locked for the briefest of moments before she shyly looked down and resumed eating her own food, something in the look she'd given him in that moment gave him pause. It was similar to the looks Kikyou had given him in the beginning, but somehow...deeper. Shrugging it off after a moment, though, he knew well where their plan was headed, so if Kagome was already working on trying to look at him like that while they were out in public, that just meant she was a really good actress...and a really good friend. He would never forget what she was willing to do for him now, in his time of need. She truly was his best friend, and he would be forever in her debt.
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Pretending to Pretend