Inuyasha didn’t return home that day, or even that night. Exhausted with waiting up for him— exhausted with being angry waiting up for him—Kagome at last collapsed into a sleep so fitful even Taiyoutori’s egg (cocoa-flavored, that morning) couldn’t soothe her. There were dark circles under her eyes when she woke up the next day—to find herself still alone in her hut, of course. 

Kagome scowled into her reflection in the side mirror. Between her overactive libido and her mounting anxiety, she was twisted up in more knots than even her tousled hair was. After fixing herself a hasty, mediocre breakfast, she collapsed back into bed. Languishing there in her light sleeping robe, she felt her peaked nipples chafe and her clit sullenly throb. She wished she could masturbate at least, to relieve some of the awful tension, but so far, the logistics of that hadn’t panned out. Her belly was just too big now to reach around. 

As she was mulling over the possibility of humping her pillow like a horny dog, she felt a stirring against her senses that made her bolt upright and start smoothing frantically over her rumpled hair and robe. A few seconds later, Sesshoumaru was pushing the curtain aside in a perfectly normal, non-threatening way—though Kagome sat with her jaw set and her spine pin-straight, staring him down as if he were an encountered foe.

“You’re still in bed?” he said, his golden eyes flicking over her where she sat.

“Sure,” she said stiffly, “it’s early.”

“It’s midafternoon.”

“Oh.” Kagome’s stony expression cracked. “Well, I just felt like lying in a bit. In fact, I was having a good rest before you showed up.”

Sesshoumaru didn’t say anything to this pointed hint for him to leave her in peace. Somehow, the tension in Kagome’s spine ratched up another notch as he resumed his soundless approach. She wanted to scream at him to get out, but that would only make him think she was in distress—which she was, of course, but she couldn’t very well go broaching the subject of being pent-up with him, of all people.

“Um, listen,” she said, shifting uneasily when he ascended the tatami platform beside her. “It’s really not a good time. Not to overshare, but I’m having some pretty nasty womanly issues. Very messy and gross. Maybe you can come back later, like in a few days…”

This would have sent any other guy she knew running for the hills. But Sesshoumaru just knelt beside her and asked, “Where is Inuyasha?”

Kagome pursed her lips. Hell if I know, she wanted to retort.

But what she said instead was, “I’m not sure, exactly. He left yesterday.”

“When will he return?”

Kagome backed up against the wall, eyeing Sesshoumaru nervously, though he hadn’t moved a muscle toward her. “Um…any minute now, I’m sure.”

Sesshoumaru’s uncanny, unblinking stare snagged hers. “Any minute,” he said dryly, “though you have no inkling where he is.”

Kagome swallowed, racking her mind for some sort of plausible excuse. But to her relief, Sesshoumaru released her from her turmoil. Glancing to the sliver of afternoon sun gleaming through the crack in the curtain, he looked as though he was about as interested in the time of day as he was in continuing this line of interrogation.

Glancing back to her, he said with perfect dispassion, “Well, lay out your hand.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 5/3/23