54Sorry for the lateness of this chapter but I was having some major computer problems. I would like to thank you all for your wonderful reviews, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I did. A big thanks to Liana for being the beta for this story This is for L J.
Disclaimer : Anything you recognize from the Inuyasha series belongs to Rumiko Takahashi Happy Readings. Sesshysfavhuman and BlueEyedWolfDemon
The Cave of Delight
Chapter 5
Kagome sat at her desk in the room and watched the hanyou she loved sleep the night away. She was glad that for the next three weeks as the house would be empty. Her family was off visiting friends and that gave her the perfect opportunity to come and go as she pleased with Inuyasha. She thought she would also be able to keep him away from that annoying wolf Kouga.
Kagome slid her journal out of the small drawer of her desk. She knew with the pills she gave Inuyasha, that he wouldn't wake up till morning. She started writing in Japanese but thought about what would happen if he ever found the damn thing. She knew he could read so she didn't want to chance him finding out her secrets. She began to write in English.
She only wrote in the journal because she didn't have anyone else that she could trust to tell all the things that were eating her up to. She wrote about her feelings for Inuyasha and what had happened to him in the cave and about how he and Kouga got together in her point of view. She wrote about Inuyasha losing the babies and how she was the one who brought him to her time for help. Then she wrote about the lies she had told him and Kouga. The door bell rang and she froze.
'Who could that be?'
She got up closed the door to her room and went down stairs to answer the door. The sight of the person on the other side made her gasp.
"Houjo? What are you doing here?"
Houjo smiled at her and walked inside, "Ayumi said you were back and I wanted to come and see you."
"Well you gotta leave," she said, sounding as if she were afraid she would be caught by someone and she quietly closed the door. She wasn't too far from the truth, either, and she thanked Kami that Inuyasha would be out of it.
"Why? I know your family's out of town." He moved close to her and grabbed her around the waist. "Since we're alone, I thought we would make up for lost time."
"We can't be together anymore. I've found someone else."She tried to move out of his grasp but he tightened his arms around her.
"Are you talking about that same guy you had a crush on since you were fifteen?"
"Ayumi told you about him?" she asked
"Why wouldn't she? She's my wife and a wife does share everything with her husband, doesn't she?" He let his hands roam up and down her back as he spoke.
Kagome wiggled. "That's another reason we can't be together anymore. Ayumi's my friend . . . if she finds out we've been sleeping together for almost a year now, she'll be hurt."
"Don't pretend that you care about how she feels now." He swooped down and kissed her on the mouth. "You know I only married her because you were always gone." He began to kiss her again.
At first she struggled and kept telling him she didn't think it would be a good idea for them to sleep together. Then, when he started to undress her and feel her up, she started to kiss him back. She was only with Houjo because Inuyasha had never made any sexual advances to her. So she'd started an affair with Houjo thinking it wouldn't matter because he was her friend and he wouldn't mean anything to either of them because he was married. That night Houjo managed to convince her that he just wanted to be with her one last time and she agreed, telling herself that it had been a long time and it wasn't like she would be getting any from Inuyasha anytime soon. Plus, a woman has her needs. She let Houjo take her over the back of the couch and told him once again they couldn't be together anymore. He answered her by laughing hard and kissing her firmly on the mouth then left.
When she went back upstairs, she peered in her room to make sure Inuyasha was alright. She could hear him quietly talking in his sleep so she walked over to him to see what he was saying. Once she made it to the bed, he quieted down. Kagome noticed that he did have a small smile on his face. She waited to see if he would speak again. He didn't say anything so she decided to bend down and kiss him on the cheek then told him how much she loved him. He stirred a little then called out , "Kouga."
Kagome stood straight up and glared down at him and said in the most hateful voice she could muster up, "Kouga doesn't want you." When he didn't say anything else or move anymore, she stormed out of the room with tears in her eyes, feeling betrayed, and went into the bathroom to take a shower.
During his stay in Kagome's time, Inuyasha dreamed of Kouga almost every night. He dreamed he was back in the cave with Lilly but this time Lilly turned into Kouga, not Kikyou or Kagome. They would make love time and time again and then Kouga would ask him why he left. He would always answer "Because you can't love me like this." As he pointed at his male body, Kouga would say to him, "I love you in any form. Please come back to me." Those words and dreams made him think maybe he was wrong for leaving and maybe he should go back.
Ayumi came by to check on Inuyasha a few times and gave him things to read. She was surprised how much he opened up to her now. But Kagome was not happy at all about their little chats because, every time Ayumi came over, Inuyasha would talk to her alone in Kagome's bedroom with the door closed. Kagome hated the fact he would talk to someone he hardly knew and leave her out so she kept inviting Houjo over night after night when Inuyasha was sound asleep and she would let Houjo fuck her. In her mind, she was getting even with Inuyasha and Ayumi for leaving her out of their private little chats.
Kagome constantly wrote in her journal, thinking that no one understood her. She would write so much that her hand hurt. When she would go over what she had written, she'd notice every page had a lie on it. A lie she had told to Inuyasha. She felt a little guilty but for the most part she thought if lying got her the man she wanted then it was worth it.
After four days of dreaming about the wolf, Inuyasha told Kagome he was ready to go back. She made a big fuss and told him that they were suppose to stay an entire week. She tried and tried to make him stay in her time but in the end they ended up going back to the feudal era.
When they first returned, Inuyasha was gathered in the arms of his friends then asked over and over again how he was doing, how he was feeling, and they said how sorry they were about what had happened to him. Miroku held on to him a little longer than Sango and Shippou did, and he told Inuyasha how sorry he was for what happened to him. Inuyasha couldn't stay mad at his old friend so he hugged him back and told him that things would be alright.
They decided not to leave the village for a little while so that they could make sure Inuyasha was all right. Kagome would often watch him leave and wondered where he would wander off to. One day, she followed him and when she found him he was sitting at the entrance of the den he and Kouga had stayed in when he was a female. Rage filled her. First she had to listen to him call out Kouga's name when they were in her time now she had to watch him go to the very place he shared intimate moments with the ookami.
She walked up to him and tried to hide her anger and jealousy. "Inuyasha, what are you doing coming back here?"
Inuyasha didn't even look at her but he said in a low heartbroken voice, "I was inside the den earlier. It still smells just like him."
Kagome had to stop herself from yelling, "Why do you care? He left you and said those awful things about you."
"I know . . . but it doesn't stop me from missing him. We were going to have a family together," he said as an after thought.
"You can have more babies with someone else, someone female . . . Someone like . . ." She didn't get to finish her sentence when he yelled, "I wanted those pups! I wanted his pups!"
Kagome sighed heavily and backed down. Now wasn't the time to get into it with him about things no one could change, "We should go back to the village. Maybe you shouldn't come to this den if it's going to bring back painful memories for you."
Inuyasha nodded, "I didn't mean to yell at you. I know you're only trying to help."
He turned away from the small den he had shared with Kouga and walked away. Kagome made a sour face at the small hole then she, too, walked away.
Inuyasha stayed away from the den for a few days. One day, when Kagome couldn't find him, she assumed that he was there. She ran out into the forest and, when she got to the den, she stopped. Kouga was standing next to it .
She move her way over to him. "Hi. What are you doing out here?"
Kouga smiled at her, "Hi, Kagome. I always come here. It smells like Inuyasha and it reminds me of him, of what we shared together." He bent down and placed a small bouquet of flowers next to the den. "I also come to pay respect to my unborn pups," he said sadly as he stood up.
She looked around and saw all the flowers that were laid about. 'Why hadn't I noticed them before?' She watched every move Kouga made and by the depressed look on his face, she would have felt a little sorry for him if she didn't hate him so much for taking Inuyasha away from her. She then started to panic. 'What if Inuyasha comes here and sees Kouga? They are going to want to talk to each other, then they will find out that I lied. What am I going to do? Think, think , think.'
"Why are you out here?" Kouga asked her.
"I was looking for Inuyasha," she answered honestly. Then she gave him a serious look. "He came here the other day and said how much the place reeks of you. He said he hated knowing this den is still in his forest. I thought he would do something stupid so I came to stop him."
Kouga's face fell. This place meant so much... how could Inuyasha say he hated it?
"How is he doing?" he asked trying to hide his hurt.
"He's the same as he was before. He acts like nothing happened. He acts like he doesn't even care," Kagome said, hoping Kouga would just leave and never come back.
"Maybe he's hiding how he really feels. You know how he is," Kouga said, hoping that's what was happening.
"No. He isn't hiding anything. We went to my home and he slept in my bed and told me how much he loved me. When we talked about the babies, he said he never wanted them." She gave a small smile an added, "It got a little annoying when I kept hearing him call out my name in his sleep."
Kouga's heart broke and, for the first time in his life, he let tears fall from his eyes in front of a human.
"Are you two going to become mates?"
"Yes. That's what he wants and I want him to be happy."
Kouga hung his head as pain and sorrow filled his entire being.
"I want him to be happy, too."
He turned away from her and the den.
"I gotta go."
Then he ran off as fast as he could.
Kagome paced in front of the den, thinking about what she could do to it so that neither of them would come back there and have the chance to met up with the other. She paused her pacing and started to laugh out loud. She knew what she was going to do to make sure Inuyasha and Kouga never got the chance to see each other at their den.
It took her less than five minuted to set the inside of the den on fire. She knew it would burn quickly so she hurried and ran to the lake, undressed, and acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Anyone who came from the village would have to pass the lake to get to the fire and she could pretend she was taking a bath at the time. She used a lot of soap to cover the smell of burning bushes.
Inuyasha was the first to run past followed by Miroku, Sango, Shippou, and Kirara. They didn't even see her in the lake till she yelled out, "What's going on? Where are you guys going?"
The group paused and Inuyasha was the first to speak.
"We've been looking for you. The forest is on fire. Get dressed and met me there," he pointed in the direction of the den, "so we can put it out."
Sango, Shippou and Kirara waited on her as she got dressed. They quickly made it to where Inuyasha and Miroku were. Together they worked quickly and put out the fire. Luckily, it had only spread a few feet but the entire den and the flowers and trees around it were destroyed.
"This fire was started by someone," Inuyasha said angrily as he sniffed around. He couldn't smell any traces of anyone due to the burnt bushes and trees. Kagome moved next to him.
"I came here earlier to look for you and Kouga was here, staring at the den you two shared."
Inuyasha's face lit up at the sound of Kouga's name.
"Did he say why he was here?"
Kagome nodded and said "He said he came here to see me but then he past by this place and noticed how much it reeks of you. He then said he hated knowing this den is still in his forest. He sounded like he may do something to it but I never thought he would burn it down."
Inuyashas's face fell and he grabbed Kagome by the arms, not wanting to believe her. "Are you sure that's what he said?"
"Yes," she replied and he let her go.
"Fire burns away everything. Smells and memories alike," Miroku chimed in. "Maybe he is trying to forget about you."
Kagome made a face at Miroku.
"You don't burn things down if you just want to forget. He did this to hurt Inuyasha because he hates him." She was not going to let anyone think Kouga had any good intentions toward her beloved Inuyasha.
Inuyasha stared at the black ruined forest and the collapsed den then said, "This was the place I came to . . . to remember him. To remember our pups..." He voice cracked then, with a heavy heart, he added "Miroku's right . . . Fire does burn everything away."
They all watched with worried and sad faces as he turned and ran away.
Kagome made sure she kept an eye out for Kouga to return to the den. She told everyone that she was going to take a bath and to not worry about her. No one suspected anything because they were used to Kagome taking lots of baths.
It took Kouga two days to return and, when he got there, she was waiting for him.
He gasped as he looked at the burned trees and flowers. Then he growled in anger when he saw the collapsed den and asked, "What happened?"
Kagome stood, there staring at her work, and stated, "I told you that Inuyasha wanted this place gone." She couldn't have planned for things to go more better than they were going at this very moment. "I'm just here to let you know he smelled that your scent was fresh two days ago so he burned it down."
Kouga eyes began to cloud over with tears and, if he wasn't as hurt as he was at the moment, he would have sensed that Kagome was lying to him. But the pain in his heart was far too great. He felt like he had nothing now. No mate, no pups, no memories . . . nothing. He fell to the ground and hung his head. "Why didn't you stop him?"
"I tried," she lied. "He was just so angry at the time." Kagome spoke with no emotion, she could care less if Kouga was hurt or not. "I hate to ask you this, but could you stay away from this forest? I don't know what Inuyasha will do if he smells that you're still nearby."
Kouga stayed on his knees with his head hung low.
"I would have loved him in any form. I would have taken him as my mate again and again. Why does he hate me so much?"
Kagome smirked, "Because he doesn't love you. He only loves me." She straightened out her face when Kouga's head snapped up to glare at her. "I'm just being honest and telling you what he said. Please, if you love him the way you say you do and you want him to be happy then don't come back." This time she was the one to turn on her heels and leave him alone in the forest, unaware of the set of eyes that had been watching her.
TBC: