Chapter Text
“Miroku, let’s just pull off at the next side road." Kagome leaned back in the passenger seat of the rental Ford Escape, peering up through the moonroof. "I’ve already seen at least five shooting stars...we’re going to end up missing the peak if we don’t stop soon.”
“You got it, boss,” her assistant replied from the driver's seat, narrowing his eyes in search of any opportunities to turn off the main road.
Kagome kept her gaze fixed on the gradually darkening night sky as they drove on, the hypnotic twinkling of the stars causing her eyelids to grow heavier with each passing minute. The last sixteen hours had been an exhausting blur full of airports, hotels, and rental cars as she and Miroku had traveled from their home in New York City to Fairbanks, Alaska. But even with jet lag weighing her down, she still was itching to get out of the car and start photographing the once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower occurring overhead.
Kagome was proud to be the youngest staff photographer for Yugen Magazine, an internationally-beloved publication dedicated to showcasing extraordinary phenomena and inspiring awe in its readers.
Known especially for the eye-catching photographs that graced its pages, Yugen's full-time photographer positions were some of the most coveted and competitive jobs available in the world of photography. Kagome had held the envious title for the last two years, after rising above her competition by proving that she had not only a natural talent for capturing beauty, but also a deep understanding of the technical skills necessary for her chosen specialties: wildlife and night photography.
But perhaps most important of all was her unwavering passion. She genuinely loved her job, and that was what kept her going on days like today when she found herself completely drained.
Yawning a little, she wondered whose bright idea it was to start shooting the same night they arrived.
Probably hers.
“Oh, there’s a road up ahead on the right!” Miroku suddenly exclaimed from the driver’s seat, pointing at a little dirt road that branched off from the highway on the passenger side.
“Finally! Let’s take it,” Kagome replied with relief. She had insisted they skip over the last one, reasoning that it was just close enough to town to potentially pick up some amount of light pollution, but after forty-five minutes of driving north on Elliot Highway she had started to second-guess that decision. Although it had been her idea to get deep into the wilderness before setting up, not wanting to chance any passing headlights messing up her shots, she had apparently overestimated the number of turn-off points they would encounter.
As Miroku turned down the narrow, snow-coated road, she studied the navigation screen on the dashboard, noting what looked like a large clearing in the woods a little ways past where the road ended. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she recorded their current latitude and longitude in case they decided to return to the same spot before powering it down, considering it wasn’t useful for much else at the moment.
Between exorbitant roaming costs, and the complete lack of cell service anywhere outside of town, Kagome had pretty much resigned herself to keeping her phone in Airplane Mode for the entire trip, having given the number of the hotel to anyone who might possibly need to reach her in an emergency. It was nothing new to her, since many of her assignments brought her to remote places with no service. The only difference was that most of her jobs didn't last an entire month.
Beginning that day (March fourteenth) and lasting through April thirteenth, the longer-than-usual assignment was bookended by two celestial events: a highly-concentrated meteor shower caused by the passing Comet Izumo, and a predicted major solar storm that promised to deliver never-before-seen spikes of activity in the aurora borealis.
Kagome and her boss, Caitlin, had obsessively researched locations over the last several weeks, ultimately landing on Alaska as the ideal location to photograph both events. When she had questioned what she and Miroku were supposed to do in between, her boss had replied, “I’m sure you can find plenty of material to shoot in Alaska to fill up your time, Higurashi. We have enough to work with for our next issue, so you can consider this a vacation of sorts.”
Kagome had almost laughed in her face.
A vacation? Yeah, right.
Her job pretty much consumed her entire life, spending most of her time on the road or in the air while getting more than one consecutive week at her apartment in New York City was a rarity. It had been years since she'd seen her family back in Japan, and maintaining friendships or having a love life was damn near impossible.
She would never be caught complaining, however. Soon after she bought her first copy of Yugen Magazine at fifteen years old, she began dreaming of the job she had now, the beautiful photographs and the allure of traveling the world calling to her as she obsessed over every issue. The walls of her bedroom became covered with photos from the magazine over time, and with every new one she added, she would repeat to herself over and over that one day someone would be pinning up her photographs.
Although her goal seemed like just a pipe dream to most others, she never allowed herself to falter or give up on it, letting her ambition and passion drive her through endless studying and practice. After years of portfolio building, shitty freelance jobs, unpaid internships, and assisting, she finally achieved what she worked so hard for; now that she had it, she wasn’t going to let anything jeopardize her career.
Even if she did feel terribly lonely sometimes.
Finally reaching the end of the dirt road, Kagome directed Miroku to park the car off to the side. Glancing at the outside temperature on the dashboard, she braced herself for a frigid thirteen degrees Fahrenheit before cracking open the passenger side door. Immediately hit with the sting of wintry air, her breath formed a cloud in front of her as she exited the car and shut the door behind her. She flipped the hood of her jacket over her hat and pulled the drawstring tight, already missing the cozy interior of the Ford.
Walking around to the trunk where Miroku was gathering all of their equipment, she grabbed a large flashlight and slung her main camera bag over her shoulder while filling him in on the clearing she had noted on the map. After double-checking to make sure they had everything, Miroku slammed the trunk shut before clicking the key fob to lock the car. The high-pitched beeps echoed eerily in the silence as they began their trek through the snowy woods, Kagome clicking the flashlight on to illuminate their path with a narrow beam of light.
It was essentially pitch dark since yesterday had been a new moon, making the conditions perfect for photographing a meteor shower. She had managed to capture a couple of decent shots during the first couple nights of it by driving outside the city to upstate New York, but it simply couldn't compare to being so close to the arctic circle with little to no light pollution. Not to mention the northern lights that were sure to be on display.
Sure enough, as they finally reached the huge clearing in the woods, Kagome looked up to see faint waves of green dancing across the sky. Smiling to herself, a familiar excitement bubbled up inside her as she did a quick scan of their surroundings, pleased to see a varied landscape with ample visual interest.
The clearing was huge, Kagome guessed at least half a mile wide, and covered in a thick blanket of snow. Several large boulders sat towards the opposite edge of the clearing, with a small mountain range visible behind them in the distance. To their left were more trees, and to their right it looked like there might be a small body of water behind a couple more boulders.
Clicking off the flashlight, she knew she had found the perfect location for the next several days of the meteor shower.
“This is as good a place as any, I think. I’d like to try and get those mountains in the shot, and the edge of those trees — you see them, over there?” Kagome pointed across the clearing, directing Miroku on how she wanted the shot set up.
He gave her a thumbs up, now able to see each other somewhat after letting their eyes adjust to the dark.
“Thanks, Miroku,” Kagome said as he began setting up her equipment like a well-oiled machine.
Miroku and his wife Sango were not only her fellow Yugen employees, but her closest friends. In fact, they were the only friendships she was able to maintain, since they traveled with her on many of her assignments and understood the pressures of the job.
Sango's assistant position differed from Miroku's in that it focused more on physical protection, essentially acting as a bodyguard during more dangerous jobs. Kagome had gotten paired up with her early on, and they had become fast friends. Miroku had an interest in photography like Kagome, but she always teased him that he really only joined her team to be close to Sango. Over the years, he stopped denying it.
The pair hadn’t quite hit it off right away, Miroku being “a little too much of a womanizer” for Sango, as she had put it. But he persisted, showing her that he was willing to change his ways just for her, until about a year after they met when she finally agreed to date him. They were married just two years later, Miroku saying he had known from the moment he first met her that Sango would one day be his wife. Now, a little less than a year after their wedding, Sango was seven months pregnant with twin girls.
Although she was bummed she couldn’t join them on their trip to Alaska, she understood the job, having been part of Kagome’s travel team herself until recently. Miroku had worried about the trip being so late in her pregnancy, but her due date wasn’t for another month after they were to return home to New York. He had offered to submit a request to stay home, but Sango insisted he go so that she could live vicariously through him.
“Oh I meant to ask, did you get a chance to talk to Sango at the hotel before we left?” Kagome asked Miroku as he attached her camera to a tripod, knowing he had opted to pay the extra roaming costs for his phone so that he would be available in case his wife needed to reach him for anything.
“Yeah, I checked in with her to let her know we got here safely.”
“How is she doing?”
Miroku used the light from his phone to plug a cord into the side of the camera, setting up a lawn chair next to it and pulling out a laptop from one of their bags.
“She’s already bored, but her mom should be arriving sometime tomorrow so she’ll have plenty to do once she gets there.”
“How are you going to feel having your mother-in-law around all the time once we get back?” Kagome smiled at him.
“Honestly, I think we’re going to need all the help we can get once the babies arrive. Plus, it makes me feel a hell of a lot better knowing Sango will have some help while I’m gone. I don’t know if I would have been able to leave her if Itsumi wasn’t moving in temporarily. It’s been so long since we got the chance to go home and see her, so it will be nice to have her around.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Kagome sighed sadly as she double-checked her camera settings. It had been close to two years since she had seen her mother, grandfather, and brother back in Japan. Miroku and Sango understood, since they had all decided to leave Japan and move to New York after Kagome’s promotion. Their little team worked perfectly together, and none of them wanted to give that dynamic up. Plus, the New York office had become the hub of the magazine, offering more opportunities than the original Tokyo office.
“Ready when you are, boss,” Miroku said from his seated position next to Kagome’s camera, peering through a small opening in the black cover that surrounded the laptop, designed to prevent light pollution.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Kagome said, looking through the viewfinder of her camera to finalize the composition before joining Miroku at the laptop so she could direct him when to press the remote shutter.
They took a few test shots, and Kagome felt the familiar thrill she associated with doing what she loved. She smiled as an image materialized on the screen, the dark silhouette of the trees and mountaintops cast against the brilliant colors of the aurora.
Now all they had to do was wait for the meteor shower to pick up.
Inuyasha trudged through the snow between his storage shed and cabin, his arms full of firewood. As he walked, he glanced upwards, noting the green light of the aurora dancing in the sky. Nothing new. He was used to seeing it most nights, except for during the summer months or when it was cloudy. The shooting star that suddenly shot across the sky was not as common, however, prompting him to pause in surprise for just a moment before drawing his gaze back to the ground in front of him and continuing on.
He didn’t make it a habit to spend time looking at the stars. They were just stars. His cabin was just a cabin, the forest just a forest, and he was just Inuyasha, a half-demon living on his own in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, far away from everyone else. Far away from the humans who still hated anyone resembling a demon, despite The Great Human-Demon War having been over for almost sixty years.
He hadn’t even been fucking born yet at the time of the war, yet some people (mostly from the older generations) still looked at him as if he had personally murdered their entire family. It pissed him off to no end, especially since humans were the ones who had won the war and gotten the global domination they wanted. Demons had become scarce after that, retreating to the outskirts of society or else trying to blend in with humans if their forms resembled them closely enough. They remained mostly isolated to this day, generally only interacting with each other, and had become somewhat of a novelty to the newer generations of humans.
It was difficult for Inuyasha to blend in to a human world with his dog ears, long silver hair, and golden eyes. Everywhere he went, his demonic features set him apart, leading to scrutiny and judgement. Still, he rarely made any efforts to hide them.
Why should he have to change himself to fit into a society that rejected him for being different?
It was easier to live completely on his own, carving out his own place where he was allowed to just be. Far away from both humans and demons, neither side willing to fully accept him since he wasn’t truly one or the other.
Reaching the door of his cabin, where the warm light from inside spilled out the windows onto the snowy ground, he had just stretched out his hand to turn the doorknob when a slight breeze blew around him and he caught a new scent that instantly put him on edge.
Humans.
What the hell are humans doing all the way out here?
He always worried that people would stumble onto his cabin while out wandering, despite the fact that he had purposefully built it well outside of town to avoid just that. Luckily, there had only been one other time during the last two years that any human ventured this close to his home, and they had left before he had needed to confront them.
Inuyasha growled as the scent got a little stronger, trying to decide what to do. Should he just ignore it and hope they didn’t get any closer? Or should he scare them off, forcing them to leave the area completely? They had to be at least a mile or two away, but it was still a little too close for comfort.
Deciding to go check out the disturbance and at least see what these humans were up to, he opened his front door and dropped the firewood off just inside before setting off at a run through the trees.
As he got closer, he began to distinguish two separate scents. One smelled faintly of Axe Body Spray, Inuyasha assumed a man, but the other scent was distinctly feminine and actually kind of...pleasant? Almost like vanilla mixed with some sort of fruit...
Peaches, maybe?
His interest piqued, he decided to get a little closer to see who they belonged to. Slowing down, he focused on remaining undetected as he approached a large clearing with two people in the middle who looked like they had a tripod set up and were taking photos.
Great, Inuyasha thought, probably some stupid tourists who are trying to get shitty photos of the northern lights.
Why the hell did they have to do it so close to his cabin? Could he trust that they would stay in one spot, or would they want to roam around and explore, potentially stumbling upon a picture-worthy cabin amongst the endless forest?
Silently weaving through the trees until he hovered at the edge of the clearing, he was finally close enough to see them clearly. One of the people was sitting in a lawn chair with a laptop on their lap, while the other fiddled with the camera on the tripod. Snippets of their conversation carried through the silence, something boring about someone’s mother-in-law.
At least it didn’t seem like they were going to be moving anytime soon.
Breathing a small sigh of relief, Inuyasha came to the conclusion that it was safe enough for him to return home. While he didn’t necessarily mind confrontation, it was still preferable to avoid it whenever possible.
He turned around to leave, only to stop dead a moment later when a loud crack reverberated throughout the clearing.
Shit.
Wincing, he looked down and realized that he had accidentally snapped a large branch with his foot. Before he could make any further moves, a woman's piercing shriek caused his ears to pin back against his head.
“EEEK!! It’s a yeti!”
Inuyasha had been about to get the hell out of there, despite alerting the humans to his presence, but the panicked exclamation had him seeing red.
Is this woman fucking serious?
People like this were the reason he had isolated himself from society in the first place. Not in the mood to take any shit, he decided to give them a piece of his mind; maybe he'd be able to scare them away from the area completely, while he was at it.
Turning around, he closed the distance between them in a few large bounds, purposefully showing off his superhuman speed.
He skidded to a halt right in front of them, finally able to see their faces clearly in the darkness thanks to his demonically-enhanced eyesight. The woman who had screamed was mostly covered up in winter attire, revealing only wide, ice-blue eyes and a few locks of ebony hair that had escaped through her drawn hood. One hand rested on her heaving chest, but she hadn't backed away as he approached, surprisingly. The man sitting on the lawn chair, who appeared to have black hair and blue eyes as well, gaped up at him in shock.
“Yeti, huh? You think that shit’s funny? I could rip you apart with my bare hands if you wanna keep making jokes,” he said menacingly, cracking his knuckles and flashing his claws before balling his hand into a fist at his side.
Eliciting fear was his go-to tactic when dealing with humans who tried to take any kind of shot at him. After he intimidated them with his powerful demonic features, they would almost always leave him alone right away. To his utter bewilderment, this woman didn’t seem afraid of him in the slightest, ignoring his threat as her gaze moved up to rest on his ears. Feeling them flatten slightly, he was just about to kick his scare tactics up a notch when she finally spoke.
“I’m sorry, I — " she said, squinting a little at him. "It’s really dark and all I saw was a flash of silver hair and your ears. It was the first thing that popped into my head, but now it's obvious that you look nothing like a yeti.”
“Keh. Great observation skills, stupid,” Inuyasha mocked her. “Ya know yetis ain’t real, right?”
“Yes, I know they aren’t real,” she said, an edge forming in her voice as well. “I’m running on three hours of sleep and wasn’t thinking clearly. And watch who you’re calling stupid. I’m trying to apologize here, you don’t need to be an ass!”
Crossing her arms, she narrowed her eyes at him when he let out a growl in response.
“I can be whatever I want, I’m not the one who —”
“Now, now, there's no need to argue,” the man with her suddenly cut in, placing the laptop on his seat and stepping between the two.
“Please excuse my friend’s mistake," he said, holding up his hands in a placating manner. "We’ve been traveling for the last sixteen hours and may be a little delirious at this point. I promise you she meant no offense.”
Inuyasha matched the woman’s guarded stance as they stared each other down for a few silent moments, weirdly finding it difficult to look away from her eyes.
Had he ever seen that particular shade of blue before?
“Whatever," he finally grumbled, relaxing a bit as he began to turn away. "Guess I’ll leave you to take your stupid tourist photos.”
“Now who's the one making snap judgements?" she muttered snarkily under her breath, prompting him to halt in his tracks.
"What?" he asked, turning back towards them.
"We aren’t just some tourists," she explained with an eye roll. "We work for Yugen. You know...the Yugen magazine? I'm trying to do my job.” Her hands were balled into fists at her sides, her voice dripping with ire.
Inuyasha wracked his brain for a response, somewhat taken aback. Usually, a well-placed threat and a glimpse of his claws was more than enough to send humans running in the other direction. He wasn’t used to anyone, especially women, meeting him head on in the way that this woman was.
Before he could come up with a witty comeback, she looked up as a shooting star streaked across the sky right above them, letting out a small huff of frustration.
“And now you just made me miss a great shot. Thanks a lot!” Her voice had gotten even louder and higher pitched, shooting Inuyasha another glare before looking at the man with her, who nodded and said, “I’m on it, boss.”
After the man returned to his seat, bringing the laptop back to his eyes, the woman thanked him before turning back to continue scowling at Inuyasha.
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold, and everything to do with her piercing gaze, ran through his body, making him feel something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
What the hell?
“You’re the ones trespassing, so I don’t wanna hear it!” he doubled down, although even he could hear that his voice had lost some of its edge.
“Trespassing?" Her hands uncurled as she tilted her head slightly, a crease forming between her brows. "Wait a minute...you live all the way out here?”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to let that slip.
“What difference does it make to you?” Inuyasha spat.
The venom in his voice did nothing to deter her. Her eyebrows only furrowed a bit more before she pressed on.
“Do you live with anyone, or are you all by yourself?”
Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at her, wondering why the fuck she was asking him so many personal questions. Although his protective instincts told him not to answer, her inquisitive gaze was unrelenting, almost seeming to see right through him as if she already knew the answer anyways.
After another couple moments of silence she raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, and he found himself blurting out, “It’s just me.”
Groaning internally, he wished there was a wall close by for him to smack his head against for stupidly revealing that kind of information to a stranger.
“Don’t see why the fuck that matters,” he grumbled partially under his breath, glancing away.
The woman’s face softened then, for whatever reason. She seemed to deflate, losing the edge of her anger.
“That must be so lonely,” she said, her voice quiet and her eyes full of sympathy.
Ugh.
If there was one thing he really hated, it was being pitied by humans. They were the reason he lived the way he did. They were the ones who forced demons into hiding.
“Lonely? Keh, as if! The whole reason I came out here is to be alone." He glowered at her. "No human has ever seen where I live. And I plan to keep it that way...so don't go gettin' any ideas.”
“So…you pretty much just hate all humans, then?” she asked slowly, her brow furrowing as she looked at him as if he were the most interesting subject in the world. His heart rate picked up ever so slightly, unsure when the last time was that someone had looked at him that way...like they genuinely cared what he had to say.
“No...but they usually hate me, so it’s just easier to keep to myself.”
“Why do they hate you?” Her brows knit even closer together.
Inuyasha scoffed, looking at her incredulously.
“Isn’t it kinda obvious? Humans aren’t usually overly welcoming of demons, especially when they’re only half...like me.”
He wasn’t sure why he was even still talking to her, let alone spilling one of his biggest insecurities. Although he didn’t exactly try to hide the fact that he’s half-demon, he also usually didn’t go out of his way to tell people. Most humans assumed he was a full demon, and he was fine with that.
This woman seemed to have some strange influence over him that made him tell her things without thinking. Or maybe he really had been alone for too long.
“Oh...right. I can see how my yeti comment would have really rubbed you the wrong way, then.” Her voice had become even softer, now tinged with regret. “I really am sorry about that.”
“Whatever. It’s fine, I guess.” Inuyasha averted his gaze, unable to stand looking into those damn eyes any longer. He hardly even felt angry anymore, and it was throwing him for a loop.
“My name is Kagome. Kagome Higurashi, staff photographer for Yugen magazine.” She held out a gloved hand towards him, but he didn’t take it. Letting it fall with a sigh, she gestured behind her to the seated man. “And this is my assistant and good friend, Miroku.”
Miroku nodded in his direction.
Kagome looked back at him. “And you are?”
“Inuyasha,” he muttered after sizing them up, still unsure how he had gone from a typical night alone in his cabin to having a full-on conversation with two humans in the middle of the wilderness. Not to mention that the longer he spent in the presence of this Kagome woman, with her delightfully peachy scent and her penetrative sapphire eyes, the more flustered he felt.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, even if you don’t feel the same," Kagome said with only the slightest touch of offense. "If you want to go back to your home, I promise we won’t try to follow you or anything. I would never invade someone’s privacy like that.”
A pang of guilt shot through Inuyasha's chest, something he wasn’t used to feeling very often. Forcing his irritation down a notch, he ran a hand over his face and sighed.
“Look...you just caught me in a bad mood, okay?” he half-lied in an attempt to swallow his pride. “It’s, uh...it's nice to meet you guys too.”
Kagome’s eyes brightened, the relief evident even in the small part of her face that he could see.
“Seems like neither of us are at our best tonight,” she said kindly, the small crinkles that formed around her eyes indicating a smile. “How about this, Inuyasha?”
Inuyasha's eyes widened just a little at the sound of his name. Why did it sound so nice in her voice? And why did it feel like the air had gotten slightly warmer when she smiled?
Seriously...what the hell was going on with him? Maybe he should make a trip into town soon...apparently the total lack of human contact had made him a bit stir crazy.
“Tomorrow night, we'll be back here to photograph the peak of the meteor shower. We’ll be much more rested, so I promise I won’t mistake you for a yeti again.” The hint of her smile appeared again, and he felt his pulse increase a little more. “Why don’t you join us, and as a peace offering, I’ll even bring you whatever your favorite treat is from town. What would you like?”
Maybe it was her use of the word "treat," making him feel like some kind of stray dog.
Maybe it was the fact that he had never felt so flustered around anyone before.
Whatever the reason, his irritation returned quickly enough to give him whiplash.
“I don’t need any of your stupid pity,” he snapped, perhaps a little more aggressively than he meant to.
Kagome's face fell before she narrowed her eyes at him.
“It’s not —” Making a noise of frustration, she crossed her arms and shook her head as if he were a lost cause. “I just thought it might be nice to watch the peak of the meteor shower together, since you were already going to be in the area. But if you’re going to be a jerk, then never mind.”
Now she was calling him a jerk? The rapidly shrinking rational part of his mind knew he deserved it, but the prideful part of him had already taken over.
“Hey! Listen here, you.” He jabbed a finger towards her, leaning closer. “This is my territory. You’re lucky I’m even letting you come back.”
“Oh, am I? ” Kagome retorted sarcastically, leaning in closer to him as well. “First of all, my name isn’t ‘you,’ it’s Kagome. And second of all, I’m pretty sure you don’t own any of this...” She gestured around them at the huge clearing. “So you can just —”
“Kagome!” Miroku called, cutting her off. “Not to interrupt...but things are really starting to pick up overhead.”
“Right...coming.”
Kagome turned back to Inuyasha, the edge of her anger seeming to have faded with the interruption.
“Alright, here's the deal." She uncrossed her arms and sighed. "We’ll be back here for the next two nights, around this same time, and then you won’t ever have to deal with us again. If you end up changing your mind...and more importantly your attitude, then you're still welcome to come hang out with us while we photograph the meteor shower.”
Inuyasha felt like he was on a damn roller coaster as his anger ebbed again. Was she some kind of sorceress with the power to make his thoughts and emotions run haywire?
Or was it due to her sweet scent that had slowly been infiltrating his senses as they talked, unconsciously soothing him and making him feel borderline intoxicated?
Kagome looked directly in his eyes then, her piercing blue gaze sending another subtle chill down his spine that simultaneously increased his guilt.
“And for the record...I don’t pity you." Her voice was soft now, and sincere. "I just know what it's like to be on your own...and how lonely that can be." The furrow of Inuyasha's brow deepened. "Sometimes, it’s nice to have a little company. Or at least, I think it is.”
She looked at him for a long moment, like she was searching for something in his eyes, and he felt an odd sensation in his gut. Similar to a magnet subtly pulling him in her direction, part of him didn't want to leave anymore.
“Goodnight, Inuyasha,” she finished tiredly, finally breaking eye contact.
That annoying remorse tugged at him again as he realized how exhausted she really seemed. Fuck...he really shouldn't have let his temper get the better of him again.
Taking a couple of steps backwards, he forced out, "Sorry for, uh...ya know, being an asshole." There went his ears flattening again. "'Night.”
Nodding slightly at the duo, he took one last look at Kagome’s brilliant blue eyes before turning away and bounding into the trees.