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Fuck them. Inuyasha didn’t need this. It was a mistake to show up here, to think that he could handle seeing his best friend with Kagome to…
To not clock the old man out when he touched Kagome like that.
To not storm into their room when he saw them kissing, so that he could—he didn’t know—tell Miroku what kind of huge mistake he was making because… because Miroku was not right for Kagome! At all!
Better to pack up his stuff and go. They didn’t need him anyway. Miroku got Kagome away from Mushin fast enough. It wasn’t like Inuyasha sprinting in and threatening anyone would do any good at all.
No, Miroku was the one who would protect Kagome.
Even if he was totally completely not right for her.
Kagome didn’t need someone like that. She needed someone who would challenge her, who would tell her when she had spinach in her teeth (Inuyasha told her stuff like that all the time.) She needed someone who stood up to her. Who…
“Inuyasha?”
Of all the voices that Inuyasha didn’t need to hear at this moment, it was… wait. Why was Kagome here instead of making out with her boyfriend? Why did her voice sound so soft?
Inuyasha rounded on her, fully prepared to unleash a tirade… but… it died in his mouth when he looked at her. She didn’t have the usual sneer on her face, replaced with pursed lips and wide eyes. And her posture didn’t look like she was winding up to punch him, instead it was a little slumped, and although her hands were balled up in fists, they were worrying her skirt.
“Need something?” Inuyasha settled for terseness instead of hostility. She’d had a rough evening, after all. Even if she did reek of Miroku.
“Wait, are you packing to leave?” Kagome took a step toward Inuyasha’s SUV.
“Not like you want me here, anyway.” The words streamed out of him before he could catch himself. It made him feel vulnerable. He hated feeling vulnerable. “You can go tell your boyfriend that.”
This was usually the point where Kagome would crinkle her nose and let him have it. Inuyasha even braced for it; she looked oh so satisfied that afternoon rubbing her happiness into his nose as was. It was coming, he could feel it, he was prepared for the string if insul—
“Can we go somewhere different, where we can talk?”
Inuyasha needed a moment.
Miroku was dating Kagome.
They showered together that afternoon.
He defended Kagome against Mushin’s jackassery.
And Inuyasha had… accidentally seen them kissing (he was just looking for them, okay?!).
But Kagome was here, with him, asking to talk. Not with Miroku.
“Why are you here?” He couldn’t help himself.
“Trust me, this is a conversation for someplace else. Off the Hōshi family compound,” Kagome implored. Her tone and her eyes intense, begging him to comply.
“Won’t Miroku get mad?” Inuyasha wasn’t being petulant, he wasn’t. That was a valid question, given that Miroku’s girlfriend was currently out at Inuyasha’s car asking to be alone. With him.
Inuyasha also wasn’t nervous, he wasn’t.
Kagome’s soft smile did not have any sort of effect on him.
“Miroku suggested it,” Kagome shrugged. “Now are you going to let me into your car, or not?”
They were already driving away by the time Inuyasha figured out he must’ve let Kagome in.
Inuyasha kept his eyes on the road, because twisty mountain roads were really bad to take concentration off of. And… Kagome Higurashi’s scent was in his car, and even without looking he could feel her gaze on him. In the periphery, Kagome was looking at Inuyasha with an expression he was certain he had never seen before. He wanted to look, but he didn’t dare.
“Mushin’s a dick.” Inuyasha broke the silence in the car. “You didn’t deserve that bullshit, Kagome.” There was a wince from his words. Damn. He was actually trying right now. “Glad Miroku did the right thing and stood up for you.” For some reason the kiss flashed through Inuyasha’s mind. Then the laughter. Then… “What the hell are you doin’ in my car anyway? And where the fuck is your boyfriend?”
“Don’t have one,” Kagome answered, then shrieked; Inuyasha accidentally took that turn a little faster than he needed to. Okay, so… eyes on the road. Very very important.
“How fucking fast did you go from kissing to dumping?!” Inuyasha gawped. He was going to need to pull over before he actually did take a corner too fast. Cliff faces and SUVs did not mix so well.
“W—wait, you saw us kiss?” Kagome yelped. “And watch the damn road!”
This had been a mistake. A huge mistake. Letting Kagome in his car. Somehow thinking some goddamned thing was different because she looked at him and came to him to talk. Inuyasha needed to turn around and take her back and do what he planned on doing anyway: getting the fuck away from Kagome, away from Tahoe, away from…
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” Away from Kagome’s mockery.
There. A turnout. So at least he didn’t get both of them killed while she made fun of him. Maybe he could just give her his car and run back to the Bay area. Half-demons had plenty of stamina. And that level of exertion would probably help him work through the humiliation of it all.
“Inuyasha…” Kagome’s voice was gentle, tender. It wasn’t the voice of rage he always expected from her. Inuyasha dared to look at her face. He was not prepared for the smile that seemed to infuse every part of her when she looked back at him. “I can say with confidence that that will be the first and last kiss Miroku and I ever exchange.”
Last kiss? First kiss?
His thoughts must have been showing on his face, because Kagome’s smile got even brighter.
“We’re friends. No more. Not even this weekend,” she continued; her voice though had changed. It wasn’t mocking, it wasn’t even gentle anymore, it was… godFUCK, it was hopeful. “Miroku traded me his chemistry notes and first dibs on a bedroom when we get a new apartment, oh and use of his car, for me to pretend to be dating him this weekend to—to… trick his uncle.”
“What?” Inuyasha needed to breathe. He was in a car that was now infused with Kagome’s scent, alone, in the middle of the night overlooking a moonlit mountain, and she was telling him that her relationship with his best friend was… fake. To fuck with his groping uncle. “What?” It had been so convincing. Seeing the way they smiled and joked. Seeing the way Kagome draped over him to—to— “But you took a shower with him.” He concentrated his gaze on Kagome. He needed to watch every minutiae of her movements, every shift in her scent; she was lying, she had to be lying. “Why did you take a shower with him?”
Kagome’s pupils contracted the minutest amount, and her scent shifted. Her face flashed with amusement, then… then… something else entirely. Something Inuyasha couldn’t quite identify.
“Someone told me I smelled bad,” she rasped. When her eyes darted up to his ears, Inuyasha knew the damn things had pinned back. Then, they were looking into each other’s eyes, and Inuyasha saw it: hurt. This time, not the flash from his words quickly covered by a mask of hostility. Just sitting in Kagome’s eyes, and in the space between them. “Why do you always say that about me?”
He was trapped. In his fucking car with Kagome’s scent and her hurt and her eyes and… and… and apparently she was not even dating Miroku. She was tricking Miroku’s prick-of-an-uncle for chemistry notes, a car, and a bedroom.
And Inuyasha had rushed up to Tahoe to try to make them miserable. Or… something.
He wanted to lie again, to repeat the lie he had been telling her for the years they knew each other. The one that would get her to storm out of his car and really truly end any chance they had of being anything other than enemies.
Not even an hour after an old man groped Kagome.
Not even a minute before Inuyasha found out that Kagome was the type of person who would endure that treatment to support her friend.
They were alone. Together. Something in the air had shifted in that SUV, something that told Inuyasha that the Kagome sitting there with him was, maybe for the first time since they met, open. Waiting for him to—god he was beginning to believe—make a move.
“Your smell is distracting.” It came out in a rush, before he could talk himself out of being honest. “Was from the first time. I just—I… well, what the fuck was I supposed to say? That I like it? Like a fucking dog? That oh look at that idiot half-demon snuffling a girl. Is he gonna pee on her to mark his territory?” Uh oh. This… the words… they were unstoppable. He couldn’t shove them back in. “No fucking way was I gonna let one more fucking person say that shit to me because—because I liked someone because of their smell. Okay? You can go fuck yourself if you think that I would go through that again. And—and it’s not like I even like you that much, okay? You just smell good.” Stop stop stop stop stop. (He couldn’t). “So what if I sometimes feel so shitty that I ruined it and then you always wore all that shitty perfume like you knew and were taunting me for being a fucking dog and I just—I just…”
“I like you too.”
Kagome’s hands were on his face. He could feel the calluses of her thumbs stroke his cheeks. Had her hands always been this warm? Was this seriously the first time they’d ever actually… touched? Why did it feel so good? God, he was leaning into her hands before he could stop himself. They were soft and small and… and he needed to touch them back. When his hands covered hers, Kagome shuddered.
“We’re huge idiots, aren’t we?” Her voice sang, like a gentle breeze tickling a windchime. “All because—”
Okay so Inuyasha probably should have thought through lunging forward and kissing Kagome. Unfortunately, it was too late, because her hand was settling on his chest and her lips were already crushing against his. And—and now Kagome was parting those lips slightly—so slightly—and Inuyasha let his tongue…
Artwork by valuvi
“Gahhhh!” Inuyasha shoved back, wiping the aftertaste away from his mouth, before his instincts flared and he started attempting to mark Kagome with his scent. Because… shit he did it again, didn’t he? Kagome was going to be hurt and he was—he needed to explain. Unlike last time. He needed to explain. “You—you taste like Miroku.”
He wasn’t expecting Kagome’s laughter. Not the light and jubilant timbre that was coming from the full of her, filling up his car.
“Oh my god!” Kagome wiped away tears from her eyes, tears that were not from hurt but from… mockery? No. No, the look on her face was not mocking at all. It was—it was—fond. As if his throwing her away on their first kiss because Inuyasha never wanted to know what his best friend tasted like—and now he knew—was the funniest thing in the world. “I take back what I said, you are the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. I swear Inuyasha, if you force me to tell anyone that our first kiss involved you shoving me away because I taste like Miroku, I am going to murder you.”
Holy shit. First kiss… did that mean that there might be more kisses? That even though he was an idiot who seemed utterly incapable of suppressing his half-demon instincts around Kagome, that she might still be willing to… kiss him again?
“Uh. I—I won’t say anything,” Inuyasha blurted. “You—you really might want to… kiss me again?”
“Apparently only after I brush my teeth,” Kagome deadpanned. “Miroku really tastes that bad?”
“N—no.” Inuyasha knew his ears were so droopy they were hiding in his hair. He was really going to have to get used to this if he had even half a chance with Kagome. He needed to talk about the doglike things he did. The things that embarrassed him, that made his school years a nightmare, the things that sometimes made him question whether he deserved to be around humans. He had to trust her. He had to. “Just… just um. Kissing you was…” He could do this! “Kinda-sorta-maybe triggered my territorial side like-a-little-bit and… and I didn’t think you’d appreciate me… um.” Maybe if he said it really quietly, she wouldn’t hear him. “Scent marking you.”
He couldn’t face her. Not with a pregnant admission like that sitting in the air between them. Why had he even told her, anyway? He could have just said something stupid about having a keen sense of taste, and that Miroku probably ate something spicy; it would have been better.
But no, apparently when Inuyasha committed to honesty, he committed to the whole damn thing, to admitting all the fun little instinctual dog demon quirks that made everyone run the other direction as fast as they could. Now he just needed to wait for Kagome to let him down eas—
“Dammit,” Kagome breathed; her cheeks had started to redden. “You’ve been telling me you hate the way I smell for years because you—you want to mark me?”
What the hell was going on? Why was the intoxicating Kagome scent that filled the car already becoming—becoming more? Why was she biting her lip like that? Her pupils were dilating too… as if… as if…
As if Kagome Higurashi was currently very much the opposite of repulsed by the idea.
As if Kagome Higurashi was fantasizing about getting marked.
“Yeah.” He was going to eat her whole at this rate. If she kept looking at him and smelling like that. And it seemed poor taste to pull Kagome into the backseat of his car when she was supposedly Miroku’s girlfriend and do all the possessive dog demon things he could think of to her because he was the king of the idiots, a right idiot sandwich, for assuming that this goddess sent from heaven with her divine scent and her flaring nostrils and her pink cheeks and full lips deserved anything less than him being her damn puppy. He would get on all fours and bark for her if she kept looking at him like that. “Um. After the weekend though.”
Miroku was waiting for his girlfriend. Sort of, but only not.
“Why after the weekend?” Kagome asked, tucking her wavy starlit black hair behind her ear. She looked quizzical but not hostile. Inuyasha really liked the way she looked at him when she didn’t hate him. A lot.
“Because…” Inuyasha cast around for reasons. Ones he could say out loud. Ones that did not involve him admitting if this became real right now, he would drown in it. That at least for the moment he wanted to get used to the new normal. To thank Miroku for the wake-up call that got him over the self-protective hostility toward the girl he liked. To thank Miroku. “Because you still have to get Miroku his inheritance.”
It sounded so good in his brain. Helping a friend swindle that fuckface of an uncle who touched Kagome. But when he said it out loud, Inuyasha realized that it also meant having to watch Miroku touch Kagome, maybe even kiss Kagome… He, a possessive dog demon, whose crush liked him back, was going to look on as Kagome paraded around with his best friend and god, he really did open his mouth before his brain processed everything didn’t it.
“Hmm.” Kagome tapped her chin; there was a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I think this calls for a renegotiation. After all, terms have changed.” And her lips had curled into a grin. “We’re holding back now! It’s going to be so difficult, stopping these feelings! It’s Miroku’s fault really, pushing us toward each other…” Inuyasha had no idea what was happening in her brain, but he could not look away. “That’s worth at least a cut of what Uncle Creepo gives him, right?”
It was official. Inuyasha’s soon-to-be-girlfriend was fucking brilliant.
“So what do you say?”
Miroku looked from Inuyasha, whose arm was lightly roped around Kagome’s waist, back to Kagome, who was holding his hand; whatever had happened between his and Kagome’s kiss and now was, well, it was a good thing, except…
“That my friends are sneak-thiefs,” Miroku glowered.
“Dog demons are very possessive,” Inuyasha lectured. “I will be holding back evolution and instinct to keep from attacking, after all. 10% is a pittance, really.”
“And honestly, Mushin deserves this,” Kagome added; Miroku did not miss the barbs in her voice. “Tahoe is beautiful and all that, but I didn’t agree to come here and swindle your uncle out of inheritance just to half-ass this.”
Miroku was going to need a drink. Maybe a dozen drinks. This was his fault. Absolutely completely his fault. And a mistake. Asking Kagome for this favor. A terrible mistake.
But Inuyasha was smiling. His ears were wiggling and he kept shooting Kagome these simpering little glances that were melting Miroku’s heart. Kagome too was leaning into Inuyasha, and letting out these little dreamy sighs as she did so. They were absurdly cute: cuter than they had any right to be, given the grief they caused him.
Maybe it wasn’t a mistake. And just like Kagome, Miroku could drive a hard bargain.
“I have one condition of my own,” Miroku finally said. “When we get back, I get to meet that friend in your self-defense class, Kagome.” When she made to retort, Miroku shushed her with a single finger. “Twenty four hours for one little introduction is quite reasonable, after all.”
“Shrewd move, Hōshi,” Kagome drawled, but as always her smile gave her away. “Fine, it’s a deal.”
Mushin never did touch Kagome again that weekend. Perhaps because he learned his lesson after his nephew came close to decking him, perhaps because Inuyasha never seemed to leave her side (and had perfected the murderous glare), but their ruse was good enough, it seemed, for Miroku to earn a clap on the back and a “the Hōshi blood is strong in this one! But don’t expect me to die anytime soon though, m’boy! Not when there is still so much beauty in the world!”
The chemistry notes and the car had been worth it, so had the first dibs on a bedroom. Not because of the inheritance (though that was nice, even at 90% due to sneak-thief fees). It was worth it because finally Miroku could invite Kagome and Inuyasha to hang out together without enduring screaming matches.
He didn’t even mind the new noises the two made when they were together now.
Miroku had always been a romantic at heart, after all.
Now if only he could get ‘self-defense Sango’ to agree to go on a date with him.