“Kagome-chan?” Sango asked in surprise as she pulled back the door curtain.

“Hi, Sango-chan,” the miko replied hopefully, her arms hugged about her chest. “Sorry to bother you so late. Do you think I could sleep over again tonight?”

Sango smiled, holding open the curtain as she stepped back inside. “Of course—come on in.”

Nodding gratefully, Kagome entered the cozy dwelling. At once the slumbering kids and neko awoke in excitement, and it was a while before the miko and taijiya could calm them down enough to get them back to bed. Releasing a sigh as their features smoothed with sleep once more, Kagome joined Sango in the adjoining room, where her friend was oiling a set of throwing knives by candlelight. As the miko sank down at the opposite side of the table, the taijiya paused in her task, glancing over at Kagome in concern.

“Did something happen, Kagome-chan?” Sango ventured quietly. “You seem upset…”

‘Upset’ was putting it mildly. ‘Devastated’ was closer to the mark—’heartbroken’? Now there was a word that sounded appropriately melodramatic enough to describe Kagome’s feelings of emotional distress.

She sighed again, twiddling a stray bit of twine. “Sesshoumaru came back to the village tonight. We kind of, um, got into it.”

Another understatement, but somehow the idea of telling Sango the daiyoukai had shoved her up against a wall and nearly taken advantage of her in a fit of anger just didn’t seem like it would go over very well with her demon-slayer friend.

“I see,” Sango said neutrally. “What about?”

Kagome fidgeted with the string again. A couple of nights ago, after Sesshoumaru had left, Kagome had finally admitted to Sango that she and Sesshoumaru were ‘involved’, so to speak. This revelation had come as absolutely no surprise to her taijiya friend, but Kagome knew that the sordid details would shock her to say the least. Truth be told, they still shocked Kagome herself to a degree. And so she’d withheld them–out of discretion, she’d told herself.

There was no need to go into similar detail now. How could she tell her friend, who herself was in a healthy respectful relationship, that the guy Kagome was hopelessly in love with only wanted her for sex?

“You know,” the miko said evasively, “the usual guy-girl stuff.”

Sango arched a skeptical brow. “Kagome-chan,” she said, setting aside her work as she met the miko’s gaze, “there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.”

Kagome’s pulse thrummed in dread. “Y-yeah?”

“It was Sesshoumaru-sama who you were fleeing from that night, wasn’t it? The night you returned to your era.”

“Ah,” Kagome realized, her shoulders sinking, “Miroku-san told you about their confrontation, then.”

Sango frowned. “…What confrontation?”

“Er, that’s another story, I guess…” Kagome hedged. “But, yeah, it was Sesshoumaru. I wasn’t in full control of my powers back then, and I was worried he might retaliate after I injured him with my reiki.”

“While you were attempting to restore his arm?” Sango guessed, based on what Kagome had told her of her prior arrangement with Sesshoumaru.

The miko blushed, nodding. Yeah, let’s go with that…

It occurred to Kagome that her altercation with Sesshoumaru tonight was rather reminiscent of the one from that night almost a year ago, when she’d removed her seal from his arm and come face-to-face with the obsessive lust he’d been harboring for her. Had anything really changed, she wondered, since that day?

Looking at the troubled expression on Sango’s face, Kagome could see that her friend seemed to be wondering the same.

“Are you sure that you can trust him, Kagome-chan?” the taijiya asked quietly.

The question struck her. She had harmed Sesshoumaru once—nearly killed him with her unchecked purification—but he had never harmed her. Not even tonight, when she could see how enraged he’d become when she’d refused him.

Sesshoumaru would never love her as she had come to love him, but he would never hurt her, either. The only one hurting Kagome, she realized, was herself.

Smiling softly but resolutely, she held Sango’s gaze. “I’m sure.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi