Kagome could feel Sesshoumaru’s heartbeat deep inside her, thumping in languid tandem with her own. He lowered them both to the root-riven ground—slowly, as though some invisible weight were bearing down on him. They were so tightly adhered, it was almost like pain when she started to peel herself from him. Her sordid high was fading. The pangs of withdrawal were setting in.

All her dormant regrets and misgivings resurfaced, redoubling. It was like gouging into an old wound—agonizing, but the worst damage had already been dealt with the first blow that’d been laid. It was just adding insult to injury, at this point.

If anything gave Kagome fresh despair, it was this, her own jadedness to it all. She couldn’t even muster the wherewithal to berate herself, let alone question what she’d done. She was worn out with questioning.

When her breathing evened, she clambered off him. He didn’t try to hold on to her. When she rose shakily to her feet, he stood after her, after a moment. Kagome turned her back to him as he did. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to risk looking at him by searching for her sash, which was gods-know-where and defiled besides.

Kagome purified herself of Sesshoumaru in a flash, but it didn’t make her feel any cleaner. Holding the grimy folds of her yukata shut, she tramped back through the woods toward her son. In his nest of dense, snowy fur, Shin was still sleeping soundly. Too soundly, Kagome thought with suspicion. He didn’t even stir as she approached, which normally he did, no matter how quiet she tried to be.

Irked at the very real possibility that Sesshoumaru had ensorcelled her infant son, she snatched him up from the mounds of fur, which seemed to shrink from her prickly aura in a ‘bad dog’ sort of way. Wrested from his enchanted cocoon, Shin woke at once and began to squirm. Kagome cooed to him, tried to calm him. His little brow furrowed irritably as he fussed against her, refusing to latch.

She was still trying unsuccessfully to soothe him when she felt the chafe of Sesshoumaru’s youki against her senses. Kagome’s eyes cut to him. His silver hair was slightly dark, slightly heavy where it spilled down his broad shoulders. So too were his pale clothes, which clung to him in some places, showing the sculpted muscle beneath. His haori was loose at the collar, unkempt like his damp hair was. He hadn’t bothered to arrange his appearance, just like he hadn’t bothered to collect his swords or armor. Like the world at large was his to lounge around in, and leave his prized possessions scattered about without a care.

Resplendent in the golden light of the wood, he was carelessly handsome, and that grated on her most of all.

“Shin won’t nurse,” she said tersely, glancing from Sesshoumaru to her bitten breast in dull accusation. “He must be starving by now, but he just won’t settle down. It’s so unlike him.”

Sesshoumaru circled around to face her. “Give him to me.”

Kagome looked up at him warily from where she knelt. One clawed hand was outstretched toward her. She drew back, shaking her head. Crushed to her chest, Shin whined.

“Your agitation is upsetting him,” Sesshoumaru said, undeterred. “There’s a creek not far from here, back through the woods where we came. I’ll watch him while you bathe.”

Kagome bristled. Whether he meant ‘the woods where we came’ as an innuendo or not, he was still telling her quite literally to go cool off. Seeing as how he was the one who’d gotten her so hot and bothered in the first place, she couldn’t help but resent this. 

In her arms, Shin continued to fuss. Her concern for her baby broke her stubborn defiance. Defeated, she gave him over to Sesshoumaru, who scooped Shin up one-handed and tucked him to his side like he was a sack of rice. But Shin didn’t seem to mind this rough handling. Against Sesshoumaru, he quieted and stilled. Kagome scowled, but she knew the only spell that had fallen over her son this time was Sesshoumaru’s preternatural calm.

She turned on her heel and trudged away. Sesshoumaru’s discarded armor glinted mockingly at her in the spare light seeping through the trees. She spied her traitorous sash not far from there. She pinched it up between her nails like a sloughed snakeskin. Finding the creek easily, she waded into it, washing off her clothes and herself. The water was icy cold. She felt quite cooled off indeed as she sloshed back to shore, giving her wet dress a wring. With nothing else to change into, she dragged the still-damp yukata back over her shoulders and returned to the sunlit clearing, retrieving the carrier sling as she went.

At the perimeter of the clearing, she halted abruptly. Ahead of her Sesshoumaru was reclining in the grass, one striped wrist behind his head with Shin curled to his half-naked chest. Snowdrifts of fur wreathed them. Silvery ribbons of hair fanned over them. Maybe it was some trick of the light, reflecting Sesshoumaru’s ethereal shimmer, but for a moment Shin’s dark hair had seemed silvered, too.

As Kagome drew closer, the illusion dispelled. Shin’s tousled hair was raven as ever. His half-lidded eyes were a stormy, ocean-blue. She sank down by Sesshoumaru’s side, folding her legs beneath her. When she lifted her baby and fit him to her, he latched at once to her offered breast. His tiny lids drooped shut in contentment.

Sesshoumaru sat up, watching him. The expression in his eyes was unfathomable.

“What do you think of him?” Kagome asked, shifting from a discomfort that had nothing to do with the act of nursing.

“He favors you.”

A corner of Kagome’s mouth rose dryly. “That’s what Inuyasha said.”

Shin stopped nursing. As Kagome replaced her lapel, she saw that Sesshoumaru was watching her, intently.

“What I think of Shin,” he said, holding her eye, “is that he is perfect.”

Heat rose to Kagome’s cheeks. Muttering something about her clothes still needing to dry, she lingered on by Sesshoumaru’s side, tending to Shin. As the afternoon waned, they passed him back and forth between them. As Sesshoumaru held him aloft in his claws, Kagome gasped.

“He—he smiled just now! Did you see?”

“I saw.”

“It’s early for him to be smiling. But then,” she added quietly, “he’s not exactly human, is he?”

Sesshoumaru said nothing to this. There was no need. Lowering Shin, he handed him back to her. When Sesshoumaru spoke again, his voice was cold.

“If you’re going to leave, you should go.”

Kagome frowned. Her eyes skimmed over him where he sat, but it was like searching for feeling in a hunk of stone. She didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t stay here either.

And so gathering up her baby, she went.

Inuyasha wasn’t at home when she arrived there. Kagome milled about in no small amount of trepidation. Just when her anxiety was reaching a fever pitch, he swept past the curtain, a clutch of goods slung over his shoulder.

“Saw to some jobs that’ve been piling up,” he said, seeming quite refreshed as he crossed the threshold. Catching her grim eye, he sobered slightly. “Listen, about what I said—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, her own upsurge of guilt making her feel sick to her stomach.

Inuyasha looked relieved. “You’re a good woman, Kagome.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi\

Revised 8/11/23

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