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Love is Blind	By : SplendentGoddess Category: InuYasha > General Views: 3003 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- 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
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Chapter Three

Looking over his reflection one last time, his deep blue suit with white dress shirt pressed to perfection, his midnight tresses tied back in a low ponytail, Inuyasha sighed, and was grateful not for the first time that with the sun setting so much earlier in mid-November he was able to take Kagome out at 6pm in his human form. He was also glad the new moon happened to fall on a Saturday that month; it made picking that particular night for their first date so much easier.

It wasn't cowardice, it was self-preservation. He had every intention of telling Kagome what he was, tonight, but what if he were in his hanyou form and some random person said something to them or even just muttered to themselves loud enough for her to hear? He'd much rather not take that chance. It was no small miracle his secret hadn't already been outed at some point. So since right after he'd finally braved asking Kagome out he'd realized that that upcoming Saturday was the new moon, it had been too perfect to an opportunity pass up.

He wished he could take credit for having planned it all that way from the beginning, but honestly, when he'd first decided to ask her out he had made the decision right then and there. He'd only been thinking about forcing himself to finally have to tell her what he was, and using the cover of the new moon to ensure the big night wasn't spoiled at the last moment somehow or another hadn't originally been a part of the equation; he just hadn't thought that far ahead. It hadn't been until after she'd said yes, and he'd suddenly realized he needed to pick a date for the date, as it were, that he'd also realized when the rapidly approaching new moon was.

Miroku liked to say that all things happened for a reason, so deciding to believe for the moment that everything really had worked out so perfectly because it was destiny at work, Inuyasha headed down the hall in socked feet into the living room and then into the genkan, where he begrudgingly put on his shiny black lace-up dress shoes. Grabbing his keys, wallet and phone, then, he tapped a button on his phone that dimmed all the lights in his apartment and then headed out the door towards the elevator he never used in his hanyou form.

Fortunately, in another stroke of luck, he managed to ride the elevator all the way down into the underground residential parking garage from his top floor apartment without it stopping anywhere along the way for anyone else to get on. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd been in that awkward situation, most of the other residents not even realizing it was him in human form; he was grateful to have avoided it this time around.

Draping his jacket over the driver's seat before getting into his car, an overpriced bright red two-seater that Sango had said she would believe any other man had purchased to 'compensate' for something – in actuality he had, but he'd been compensating for his lack of humanity – Inuyasha maneuvered himself out of the underground parking garage and, turning on to the main road, headed towards Kagome's house.

AKA, the Higurashi Shrine.

Once he'd learned that little tidbit he'd internally sighed in relief that they'd already set the day and time for him to pick her up. Yet one more piece of evidence to support the theory that destiny was doing him a solid. Even though he could theoretically get a black wig, brown contacts, file his claws down, and avoid smiling to conceal his fangs, if Kagome came from a shrine family then at least one person in her immediate family had to be a reiki user, and considering the strength of his youki even a relatively weak reiki user would be strong enough to sense what he was through such a disguise.

He wasn't relieved that Kagome herself seemed to have been born without the gift, though. If she'd been a reiki user herself then she would've sensed what he was on day one, back on that first day when she'd come in on her lunch break with Hojo. Well, they hadn't actually interacted on those first couple of days, so she would've only known that there was a youkai in the small restaurant, but the cat – or dog, rather – would have definitely been out of the bag her first time there alone, the day he'd opened the door for her.

Well, she would find out tonight, he swore to himself, as he turned down the street that headed up into the foothills where her family shrine was located.

They actually didn't live that far away from each other, he'd discovered. He'd never had reason to come down this way before, but the shrine was only about a fifteen minute drive from his apartment. As the towering shrine gates came into view at the end of the street, however, the reason why he'd never been down this way before suddenly became abundantly clear. The shrine seemed so imposing, the hum of holy energy so strong that he could even feel it in his human form. As a hanyou he would've instinctively avoided going towards this place, even if he didn't realize he was avoiding anything. He probably wouldn't even be able to set foot on the property in his hanyou form. Not without purifying himself, at least.

One worry at a time, he told himself then.

First, the girl had to decide she wanted to keep seeing him after learning what he was, and if he could pass that hurdle, then dealing with the local kami of her shrine, not to mention the rest of her family, would be worth it.

Parking his car along the curb near the base of the stairs, he took a deep breath and got out, and then after putting his jacket back on for appearance's sake, since he knew he would probably be meeting Kagome's family, he then began a climb he could normally clear in a single leap.

Assuming a barrier didn't knock me on my ass...

It was weird, feeling the holiness of the land beneath his feet without feeling any sort of rejection accompanied by that sensation. It actually almost felt as if the land was welcoming him, and he momentarily wished he were barefoot, to better connect with the earth, despite the stairs actually being concrete.

He absolutely hated wearing shoes, and normally only wore straw zori sandals, without tabi socks, but he was no slob and had known he needed to dress nice for dinner tonight. The restaurant they were going to had a very strict dress code, after all. While a necktie was thankfully not required – he didn't like having anything tied around his neck if he could avoid it – a suit jacket was. Kagome deserved only the best. It didn't matter that she herself wouldn't be able to see his outfit; he wasn't trying to impress her but protect her, most importantly her image, because everyone else would see her dining with a well dressed human man.

And at least his human-self didn't instinctively protest his feet being bound within laced up black dress shoes and socks the way his hanyou-self would have. It was still annoying, but easy enough to deal with without actively having to fight himself about it every literal step of the way. Especially with his dominant desire already being to protect Kagome. He couldn't help it. It was an instinctual thing. He was inu, and his inner youkai had decided a few months ago that she was his human. At that point, his desire to both please and protect her was strong enough to have him willing to endure whatever it took to achieve both those goals, even in his hanyou form.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Inuyasha glanced around the impressive shrine grounds for a moment, hanging lanterns scattered about providing more than enough light for any wayward visitor to see by. At first he felt lost, lacking his usual sense of smell which meant he couldn't just track Kagome's scent to the home he didn't immediately see, but then remembering that Kagome had said their house was towards the back left of the property, behind the main shrine building, he glanced around until spotting the small path to follow that led him around the various shrine enclosures and towards the residence of the shrine keepers. According to Kagome, her family had not only been the keepers of this shrine for the last five centuries, but the founders of it, as well, hence the shrine being named after them, or even more likely, they being named after it.

Spotting the house, he fidgeted with his suit a moment, brushing away some imaginary lint before smoothing out some nonexistent wrinkles, but he maintained his approach all the while, never pausing in his nervousness. At 6:02pm he came to a stop in front of the door.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Inuyasha raised his hand to knock, and pausing only briefly to stare with a blank face at his clawless fingers in the low light of their front porch sconce, he made a fist and knocked.

He couldn't hear anything going on inside the house thanks to his weakened human hearing, but soon enough the front door opened, and a middle-aged woman with a radiant smile that easily reached her eyes was standing there to greet him.

“You must be Yasha,” she said right away, her tone of voice welcoming.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Higurashi-san,” he replied with a formal bow.

“It's Atsuko, please, I insist,” she replied after bowing a little herself, her smile not wavering in the slightest.

“As you insist, Atsuko-san,” he answered with a shy smile of his own.

Mrs. Higurashi nodded her head in satisfaction, then stepping aside to bid him entry, she said, “Kagome's told me a lot about you, while also lamenting the fact that she doesn't actually know that much about you.” She finished with a motherly chuckle as she added, “Please, come in.”

“That's about to change,” Inuyasha replied as he passed through the doorway, in regard to Kagome not knowing much about him. “It is my hope that we will both get to know much more about each other, both tonight, and going forward into the future.”

He figured he might as well make his position known with her mother up front, let the older Higurashi woman know that he was quite serious in his pursuit of her daughter. This wasn't just some passing fancy.

Opting to wait in the genkan so that he didn't have to fiddle with removing his shoes when he'd then need to put them back on again in only a moment, since Atsuko had told him that Kagome would be right down, he stood there, feeling both nervous as hell about tonight and paranoid that Kagome's mother was going to somehow sense what he was, when suddenly, a young man who looked around nineteen or twenty years old emerged from the living room.

Stupid human senses… he mentally grumbled. If he'd been his hanyou self he would've known that guy was in the other room.

“Yasha,” the man greeted with a nod of his head, his eyes looking like he was sizing him up.

Must be Souta, Inuyasha realized quickly, Kagome having told him that her younger brother also still lived at home, and would actually be remaining indefinitely to take over care of the shrine as its priest since their grandfather was getting on in years and wouldn't be around forever.

The way he'd said his name, without a suffix, could have been considered very rude, especially since it was his given name and not his family name, but since he knew Kagome's family didn't yet know his family name, and he didn't personally care for suffixes and he and Kagome never used any with each other, Inuyasha was actually glad for the familiarity.

That didn't mean he'd fall for the trick and fail the test, though. He was in their home, and it was a shrine.

“Higurashi-san,” he replied respectfully, bowing to the younger man, and Souta grinned before dropping the facade.

“Souta, please, and you can drop the san bit too,” he insisted then. “Kagome's been looking forward to tonight. Been bending my ear about it all week,” he teased. “Since Jii-chan's not home, I guess I'm supposed to give you the fifth degree in his place, and ask things like...So what are your plans with my sister for after dinner tonight?”

Blushing at the unexpected question, Inuyasha knew he was being teased but he still couldn't help feeling defensive. This was her little brother, not her father, but the single eyebrow her mother raised as she also looked at him at Souta's question had the hanyou-turned-human knowing he had better answer the 'playful' question correctly.

“I-I'm going to bring her right back home after dinner,” he answered, mentally kicking himself for stuttering like the nervous fool that he was.

All his nervousness was promptly forgotten, though, when suddenly, Kagome appeared from the other room, and time momentarily stopped.

She was absolutely stunning.

Her passing description of her dress the other day didn't do it justice. Her dress was a rich, royal blue, and it was knee length with long sleeves, but for some reason he'd been visualizing a straight skirt. The skirt of her dress was pleated and A-framed, like the separate skirts she usually wore to work with button-up blouses, and it made the dress look much more playful rather than being too serious, which he greatly preferred. It also had a heart shaped bodice that showcased her rather large breasts, but without an obscene amount of cleavage. A dainty drop pearl necklace on a silver chain hung with the charm resting right at the top of her cleavage, inviting his eyes to linger there a second longer than they otherwise would have, but then before her mother or brother noticed, he quickly took in the rest of her.

She wasn't wearing stockings, her bare legs from the knees down smooth and creamy. She was also currently barefoot, and glancing down where he was standing in the entryway, he was sure the black dress flats sitting on the floor next to the family's shoe cubby that was filled with everyday shoes had been selected to match the wide black belt around her waist that expertly broke up the blue of her dress while showcasing her curves. Her hair was full of extra body this evening, rich and full and dancing in loose, cascading waves around her shoulders. Earrings that matched her necklace dangled from each dainty earlobe, and her face, or what he could see of it, had been perfectly painted with makeup, not that she needed any.

Or those sunglasses, as far as he was concerned, although she was wearing ones that were much smaller than usual, wire frames with dark round lenses that barely hid her eyes and let some of the surrounding scar tissue be visible, although with concealer blending her skin tone the scars were somewhat less visible than usual. It was a good compromise, he supposed, and he knew he definitely had no right to criticize her for being self-conscious about an aspect of her physical appearance.

The moment was shattered, the passage of time returning to normal, when Kagome broke the sudden silence by addressing her younger brother.

“Souta, you better not have been giving him a hard time,” she said, her tone and the smile on her lips both indicating she was just teasing.

Realizing that she had undoubtedly heard what her brother had asked him had him blushing even more, but her reaction suggested she was used to Souta's sense of humor. She was a grown woman, after all, and if they wanted to stay out after dinner, it would be nobody else's business...except for the fact that she still lived at home and that whole 'so long as you live under my roof' parental policy probably applied, he realized.

Besides, he wanted to do right by Kagome, and so even if he hypothetically hadn't had any major, potentially disastrous confessions to make tonight, he still wouldn't have had any plans beyond returning her home after dinner. He probably wasn't even going to try to kiss her, unless she blatantly gave him a signal that it was okay, like leaning in for a kiss, herself, after he told her what he was. If that was hypothetically her way of assuring him she still wanted to see him then he most certainly wouldn't stop her. But he was getting way ahead of himself, he knew, and in that moment he couldn't afford to let his mind wander for too long.

Fortunately, at her initial comment to her brother, Souta had chimed in with some kind of self-defense, joking around in a 'who me?' kind of fashion. It allowed his own extended silence to go unnoticed, he hoped, and at any rate it was a silence he broke when he suddenly blurted out, “You look beautiful.”

Kagome immediately blushed at his words, turning his way while fiddling with a lock of her hair, which made him smile.

“Thank you,” she answered shyly. “I'm sure you look quite handsome as well.”

“Oh he does,” her mother chimed in then. “He's quite dapper in a dark blue suit that matches your dress perfectly, a white dress shirt on underneath the jacket, black dress shoes with matching belt, and his long black hair is tied back in a low ponytail,” Mrs. Higurashi described for her daughter. “He's got a real cute face, too. One I would pinch the cheeks of if they weren't already turning red,” she added with a merry laugh at Inuyasha's expense, his rising blush burning something fierce.

But at the sound of Kagome's gentle laughter it was instantly worth it, and the wink her mother sent his way had him grinning and nodding at the elder Higurashi woman despite his lingering blush.

It's definitely worth putting up with her teasing if it makes Kagome happy...

Mrs. Higurashi guided her daughter towards the genkan, then, even though Kagome knew the way. The younger Higurashi woman leaned on her mother for support, both physical and otherwise, as she slipped on her black dress shoes, before then also grabbing the small black clutch purse that Inuyasha hadn't noticed was sitting on top of the getabako.

Beside where her purse had been sitting was her white and red folding cane, which she picked up next and was just about to unfold when his familiar and yet somehow softer voice quietly spoke back up with a hesitant, “Here.”

Feeling his hand take her own, Kagome felt her cheeks heat up again against her will, but smiling despite her renewed blush, she squeezed his hand to let him know without words that she approved of the intimate gesture.

“Shall we go?” he asked her softly.

She nodded.

“Let's.”

Inuyasha was just about to open the front door when an instantly recognizable click sound caught their attention. Inuyasha also noticed an accompanying flash of light, and even his human hearing picked up Souta's poorly suppressed laughter.

“Mama...” Kagome stressed, earning Inuyasha's attention next, and he turned his head just in time to see Kagome's mother wearing a 'Who me?' kind of faux innocent expression, her hands held suspiciously behind her back.

“Your mother just took our picture, didn't she?” he asked his date.

“Afraid so,” Kagome admitted with another laugh, and grinning triumphantly, Mrs. Higurashi revealed her small camera.

“Can I help it if I want to capture this moment in time?” she asked, sounding as innocent as possible.

Just wish I could enjoy the pictures… Kagome thought, though she didn't say or do anything to dampen the mood.

“Well go ahead,” she said instead. “Get it over with.”

With that said, she turned to pose next to Yasha, and murmured quietly and only somewhat playfully for him to forgive her for this torture. Atsuko ignored the jab and, squealing in delight, merrily clicked away, while Inuyasha leaned down to whisper in Kagome's ear, with an obvious teasing edge to his voice, that she was going to owe him one for this.

Letting them go after a moment, Kagome's mother told them with a laugh to go have a good time. Inuyasha didn't need to be told twice. Opening the door, he escorted Kagome out, his date holding on to her folded cane and small clutch purse together in her right hand while his right hand held on to her left. He led her then, around the shrine grounds and down the steps to the car waiting below. Opening her door for her, he waited until Kagome was settled then closed her door for her as well before walking around the car and getting in the driver's seat.

“I hope you're hungry,” he said conversationally as they started down the road.

“Starving,” she joked. “I skipped lunch. Since you said you were taking me to a French restaurant and that I could order whatever I wanted, I decided to make sure I could really take you up on that!”

He laughed at that, which had Kagome giggling as well. She didn't know, now, why she had been so nervous before. Sure, this was their first date, and her first date since high school, but she knew Yasha, at least casually enough to feel comfortable joking around with him like that, and besides that she also reminded herself again in that moment that this was his first date ever. If anyone had a right to be nervous, it was him. She didn't need the ability to know what people were feeling to understand that much.

She would do her best to put his mind at ease.

“Thank you so much for asking me out,” she said then. “I really like you, but I probably wouldn't have ever been brave enough to ask you out myself. I'm looking forward to tonight.”

“Me too,” he replied without hesitation. “Actually, I've been wanting to ask you out for months now,” he admitted, coming to a stop at a red light.

He took advantage of the moment to turn his head and look at her. Really look at her. Sitting in his car, looking as gorgeous as ever. How had this moment in time truly come to pass? Perhaps the kami did not hate him, after all.

“I'm glad I finally worked up the courage,” he added then.

“Me too,” she replied, mirroring his words from a moment ago.

Arriving at Rêve D'or a few short minutes later, Inuyasha pulled into the valet parking area, while nonchalantly informing Kagome where they were so that she wouldn't be startled when somebody else opened her door for her when she knew he hadn't exited the car yet.

It was the little considerations like that that really had Kagome smitten with her date so far. Yasha not only took her blindness into consideration without making her feel uncomfortable about it, but doing so seemed to be second nature to him, like he didn't even have to think about what he said or did around her in order to make sure it wasn't offensive.

When the valet attendant opened her door she smiled up at him as she made to get out, or at least in his general direction, and catching on in an instant the attendant offered her his arm to grip as she stood, in a professional manner of course, and she thanked him accordingly. Yasha was there the next moment, after receiving his claim slip for the car, and instantly noticing that Kagome had left her cane in the car, he acknowledged this fact by politely replacing the attendant's arm with is own.

“Shall we?” was all he said, and Kagome reached across a moment to pat his arm with her free hand while maintaining her grip.

“Let's.”
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Love is Blind