There was a gnawing inside her that just wouldn’t stop. A hunger that had been growing increasingly more voracious over the past few weeks. Now Kagome couldn’t seem to get any reprieve from it, no matter how much she ate nor how often. She felt weak and restless all at once. Even after eating twice as much breakfast as Inuyasha, she still felt starved.

“Maybe I should have another bowl,” she said, eyeing the kettle hopefully.

Ears bent, Inuyasha crammed his arms into his sleeves. “There isn’t anything left in there. You cleaned it out already.”

Kagome slouched. She’d feared as much. Sighing, she lay back on the cold, hard floor, feeling the weight of her growling belly rise and fall with every breath. Her hands rose unbidden to the roundness protruding from her. Every day her body felt a little more alien to her. She kept wondering if this feeling would level out, or if like her ravenous appetite, it would just keep getting worse.

In her nightmares sometimes, her stomach kept growing and growing until it swallowed her up, head to toe. There was nothing left of her but the voice to scream. When her screaming finally stopped was when she woke up.

Kneading her stitched brow, she said, “Guess I’ll just have to make some more.”

“Fucking hell, Kagome,” Inuyasha groused. “We don’t have any more.”

“No rice?”

“No,” he said. “No rice, no fish, no vegetables, even,” he added with a note of distaste. “I’ll have to spend all day scrounging around for more. Just like yesterday, and the day before that.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” she said woundedly. “It’s not like I can help it.”

“I know that.” He let out a breath of exasperation. “But it’s still damn annoying. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t winter, and if it seemed to make any difference to you. That stomach of yours is like a bottomless pit. All you do is stuff your face and gripe about still being hungry after.”

Kagome rolled onto her side, frowning toward the hearth. “Maybe my stomach is trying to tell me something.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Maybe I’m so hungry all the time because I’m eating the wrong things.”

“Well what should you be eating, then?”

Kagome cut him a curt look. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be so miserable, would I?”

Assuming a doggish crouch, Inuyasha peered at her, rubbing his chin in thought. At a loss, he glanced toward Taiyoutori, who sat preening in his nest of straw.

“Any ideas, birdbrain? You haven’t been holding out on her, have you?”

The demonic sunbird glared up at him. Kagome seconded his glare.

“Oh, lay off him, Inuyasha. It’s not his fault.”

“How do you know?”

Kagome opened her mouth, then closed it. She’d been about to say that a supplement wasn’t a substitute for actual nourishment. But she didn’t think he’d have a point of reference for it. He still sniffed at her multivitamins like they were poison.

Then an idea came to mind.

“You know how you eat grass sometimes—”

“I do not eat grass,” Inuyasha snapped, stamping his foot. “I chew straws. So does Miroku—so does everyone!”

That might be true. But most people Kagome had seen chewing straws didn’t end up swallowing the better part of them…

“Easy there,” she said, trying not to let her face crack as she put up her hands. “My point is, you get something out of it, but it’s nowhere close to a meal.”

“No,” he grit out, flattening his ears, “it isn’t.”

“So that’s the deal with Taiyoutori’s eggs.”

Inuyasha relaxed. “And all the rice and stuff you’ve been eating, you’re saying you’re getting nothing out of that?”

Kagome shrugged helplessly. “I’m starting to think maybe not.” She closed her eyes, tried to clear her mind and picture if she could have anything in the world to eat, what it would be. “Barbecue,” she said at last, her mouth watering so much she had to swallow.

“Barbecue,” Inuyasha repeated flatly.

She nodded. “Will you go to my mom’s house and ask her to make some for me? Just barely crisp,” she added, swallowing again. “She’ll know what I mean.”

“Barely crisp—okay,” Inuyasha said as he started for the door.

“Tell her to make a lot!”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her to make a whole fucking pig’s worth.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Going forward, blog chapters for this fic will be shorter like this one, so I can edit/post more quickly.

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