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6:04pm. Inuyasha waited at the bus stop across from the office building where he spent way more time than he ever wanted to, living his life as a working stiff. IT might not have been the most enjoyable job, but it paid the bills, and it kept Inuyasha securely and gainfully employed.
But he always looked forward to 6:04pm, because at exactly that time, a whisper of cherries and vanilla would tickle his nose. It meant that she was on her way to the bus stop, destined for the 247 bus that headed north toward the college, while he waited for the 201, which would take him downtown. Inuyasha didn’t know her name, only that she worked in a bookstore a couple blocks from the stop. On mornings that were hot and muggy, she would trade her usual long billowing skirts for a sundress, which she covered in a long red trenchcoat when it grew cool in the evenings. When it rained, she would wear an emerald green rain jacket and black galoshes with cherries on them; apt, he thought.
She always had a book in her hand, and one could never quite tell what she would be reading next. Today it might be a classic, the next day a feminist fantasy, then the following day a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Inuyasha loved watching her read: her luminous brown eyes focused solely and completely on the prose in front of her, her eyebrows knitted in concentration. He adored the way that she bit her rosy bottom lip while she was turning the page, or how her delicate fingers flicked the pages so quickly he needed his half-demon senses to follow the motion of her hands.
It made him think about things. Like how her lips must taste, how her hand would look entwined with his hand. Other things. Things a half-demon should not be thinking about a stranger.
But today, 6:04pm came and went, and the beautiful bookstore stranger did not arrive. It was raining—no, torrenting—and that sometimes kept her a moment or two longer than usual.
6:10pm, three minutes before her bus usually arrived, Inuyasha started looking around. True, once in a while she stayed home sick, but he swore that when he arrived at the office in the morning, he smelled a waft of her.
Where was she?
Then it hit his nose: cherry and vanilla, intermingled with the petrichor scent of the falling rain. When she came around the corner, her arm was thrown over her head attempting to shield her face from the deluge. She was not paying attention to where she was going, something Inuyasha noticed a moment too late. Because, as he stared at the sodden woman, she landed wrong on a white stripe on the crosswalk and tumbled to the ground.
Inuyasha was on his feet and running before he knew what was happening. The rain that pelted him was of no consequence. He needed to get to her, needed to make sure that she was okay.
“Here,” Inuyasha said, extending his hand out to the now soaked-and-shaky woman: his first words to her. “You—you hurt?”
“Fucking shit,” the girl growled, wiping her eyes, before looking up at Inuyasha. Upon seeing him, she recoiled. “Oh.”
Inuyasha’s ears flattened to his head. He… he didn’t realize that the woman would be so against getting help from a half-demon. But, that sort of bigotry did continue to exist in the world. Still, it was…
A small hand wended its way into his.
“Th-thanks,” the woman said, using Inuyasha’s hand to hoist herself up. “Fuck.”
He wasn’t expecting his hand to tingle when it touched hers, and he wasn’t expecting to feel warmth bloom in his heart as the chocolate opals he only ever saw studying the book looked into his own eyes.
“You okay?” Inuyasha asked, taking a whiff of the air. The rain dulled his sense of smell, but he was satisfied there was no scent of blood.
“Just… embarrassed.” The woman’s eyes darted away from Inuyasha, and a bright pink blush spread across her face. “Oh no!” The woman broke contact with Inuyasha and darted toward the bus stop, calling, “wait, please!”
But it was too late. The 6:13pm 247 bus had come and gone, without her on it. She walked defeatedly the rest of the way to the stop, then slumped down on the bench, her head in her hands, trembling.
On a normal day, Inuyasha would wait the additional 2 minutes to mount the 6:15pm 201 bus. He would close his eyes and think about the delightful scent of the woman, and he would go on his phone to look up the book she was reading on Amazon.
Today though, he crossed to the bus stop, peeled off his navy blue raincoat, and threw it over the woman’s shoulders, ignoring the 201 bus that came and went.
Artwork commission by kalcia
“You’re gonna catch a cold,” Inuyasha stated, sitting down next to the woman as she looked dumbfounded at him. “It’s not super warm, but that is better than nothing.”
“Was that your bus?” the woman asked meekly. “Fuck. That was. You didn’t get on that bus because of me.”
“I’ll catch the next one,” Inuyasha shrugged, relaxing as the woman wrapped his jacket around herself.
“Thanks.” She continued to tremble. “What a day to sleep late and forget an umbrella.” Then her eyes grew wide as she took in Inuyasha, whose soaked hair was sticking to his head and whose water-logged red button-down shirt was clinging to his body. “Shit. You’re all wet. You… You need this back.”
“I ain’t the one shivering,” Inuyasha chuckled. “Besides, I’m already a wet dog.”
The woman let out a laugh. It sounded like wind chimes reacting to a warm breeze.
“My dog in shining armor,” she said, her eyelashes fluttering theatrically. “What’s your name?”
“Inuyasha,” Inuyasha replied, trying to keep the doofy grin off of his face (and failing).
“I’m Kagome,” Kagome said, and she extended her hand out to shake his.
“Nice to meet you,” Inuyasha said, letting the tingle take over as their hands made contact once more. “So… woke up on the wrong side of the bed today?”
Gods he was cheesy. But he’d gotten her name. Finally. After months.
“Something like that,” Kagome sighed. “I started reading and… couldn’t stop. Kept myself up past 3am.”
“What were you reading?” Inuyasha asked; he knew he’d be googling the book the moment he was alone with his phone on the 201 bus.
“The Bloody Chamber,” Kagome answered. “By Angela Carter.”
“Never heard of it.” Inuyasha admitted. He’d never seen Kagome read a murder mystery or any sort of gore fic. He definitely wanted to read it if it kept Kagome up all night.
“It’s really unique. A feminist re-imagining of a ton of fairy tales,” Kagome explained. “I think my favorite is probably ‘The Company of Wolves’.”
“Never cared for wolves,” Inuyasha growled, thinking about that fucking asshole wolf demon he went to school with.
“Dogs and wolves don’t mix?” Kagome teased, and Inuyasha was happy to see that the previous defeated posture had given way to the relaxed and confident stature she usually exhibited. Until he looked more carefully at her.
“You’re still trembling,” Inuyasha frowned. He knew what he wanted to do about that. What he’d been keening to do since the first moment that her cherry and vanilla scent reached his nose, but did he dare?
Well, shit. She could catch a cold if he didn’t do something. Inuyasha opened his arm enough to let Kagome know what he was thinking. But then, before he brought his arm around her, he halted his forward motion.
He was being fucking presumptuous. She was nice, she was teasing him, and she took his jacket without a challenge. But letting a half-demon ‘stranger’ put his arm around you was a fuckton different than a friendly handshake.
“Are—are you offering to help me warm up?” Kagome asked, a pink blush dusting the bridge of her nose again, but also… a shy smile appearing on her face. “Be—because I wouldn’t say no.”
“Keh.” Inuyasha lowered his arm the rest of the distance, draping it around Kagome’s shoulders. He could feel his own face get warm, and given the way Kagome was giggling and looking at the top of his head, he could only surmise that his ears were wiggling. Fucking traitors.
Kagome sighed as she leaned closer into Inuyasha’s side, bringing more of her body into contact with his. It felt so good, so natural to have her there that Inuyasha didn’t want to have the moment end. But… he was frozen, stuck in his head which was screaming at him that half-demons didn’t ask humans on dates. And that right now, Kagome was just grateful for someone to help her get warm again.
“So… where do you work Inuyasha?” Kagome asked, her body still leaning against his, but her trembling also abating.
“Shikon Technologies,” Inuyasha answered, pointing at the drab office building across from the bus stop. “In IT.”
“How many times a day do you have to unironically say ‘have you turned it off and back on again?’” Kagome giggled, snuggling closer into him.
“Uh.” Inuyasha’s brain was shutting down from how at ease she seemed letting him hold her. “A lot, I guess.” He could do this! He could keep the conversation he’d been daydreaming about for months going! “You a fan of the IT Crowd?”
“Hell yes!” Kagome said. “So are you a Roy or a Moss?”
“Wait. Can I be neither of them?” Inuyasha chuckled. Kagome was not making it easy for him to think about taking the bus home, because right now all he wanted to do was follow her around like a puppy and talk to her about everything and anything.
“As long as you’re not a Jen,” Kagome poked, then a sheepish look came over her face. “I… I just watched that show for the first time like a couple weeks ago.”
“No wonder you can quote characters!” Inuyasha smirked. “I… I should watch that show again.”
“Yeah, it’s really good! I’m half-tempted to rewatch it, even though I’ve seen it so recently.” Kagome’s eyes widened and sparkled as she looked over at Inuyasha.
Was she…?
Was she actually suggesting that they spend more time together?
Before Inuyasha could find out for certain, the sound of air puffs from brakes pulled them both from their conversation. The 247 bus had arrived.
“Guess… this is me,” Kagome said—did she sound as disappointed as he felt?
She stood up, breaking from Inuyasha’s contact. He shouldn’t feel empty, missing her touch, should he?
“Thanks for your jacket.” Kagome moved to take the jacket off.
“Keep it,” Inuyasha insisted. “It’s still rainin’ like the apocalypse out there, and I don’t need it.”
“Oh,” Kagome said, clutching the jacket more closely to herself. “Th—thank you, Inuyasha.”
“No problem,” Inuyasha replied , and he waved goodbye as the woman from the bookshop who hijacked all his thoughts got on the 6:28pm 247 bus.
He didn’t need that jacket. Not when it would help protect Kagome from catching a cold.
Kagome. Her name was Kagome.
When the 201 arrived 15 minutes later, Inuyasha boarded the bus, then immediately pulled up Amazon on his phone, and ordered himself a copy of The Bloody Chamber.
It had been a shit day. And it had been a long day. Because of course it had been.
Akitoki Hojo had again opened the goddamned phishing email and let hackers into the fucking system. And finding all the bogeys was a game of whack-a-mole. Inuyasha had barely kept up with the attack.
Demons (and half-demons) didn’t murder humans anymore. But… if the councils met Hojo, Inuyasha was certain that they would make an exception.
Inuyasha was half-tempted to put child locks on Hojo’s fucking computer. Because he was not entirely sure the blank-eyed man would even fucking notice. At least Inuyasha could pass that mess off to Jaken, who simply muttered “Hojo again?” when he arrived that evening.
He did not make it to the fucking bus stop until 6:18pm. Which meant that he would not get to see Kagome, because she would already be on her bus ride home.
He growled as he made his way to the covered shelter, and sat down on the bench to wait for the 201. He… he’d half-hoped that Kagome would be there waiting for him, but… that would be folly. Beautiful well-read girls like her did not go for half-demons like him.
But something nagged at him: a scent. Inuyasha looked around, then he saw it. A brown bag that smelled of cherries and vanilla, stuffed into one of the girders of the stop. When he looked more carefully, he could make out his name written in neat handwriting. Inuyasha darted up and grabbed the package, unable to contain himself from opening it.
Inside he found, neatly folded, his raincoat. As well as a note hastily scribbled and tied to the bag from Musashi Books.
Dear Inuyasha,
Thank you for loaning me your coat and your warmth yesterday. Unfortunately I had to get home on time because my family is visiting today, so I had to resort to desperate measures to return this to you. (Okay, it’s also easier to ask the other in a note instead of in person).
I think you’re really cute. And I wondered, would you be interested in going on a date? My number is below.
XOXO,
Kagome
Inuyasha was lucky that he was alone at the bus stop, because he definitely whooped. And that night, when the 201 came and picked him up, instead of googling the newest book that Kagome was reading, he saved her number into his phone, in the Favorites section.
It’s Inuyasha and I’d LOVE to go on a date with you.
Inuyasha texted the number that Kagome had scrawled on the note.
Never had he been so grateful for a rainstorm, or that the 201 and 247 buses were always on time.