Chapter Nine

As Inuyasha was off struggling with what to do with this newfound information, Sango was dealing with some major confusion herself.

"What on Earth made him run out of here so quickly?" She said quietly to herself as she stared out the door he had just bolted through. The warm feeling in her stomach soon faded, but she could not get rid of the blush that still stained her cheeks. Sango fanned herself as she thought of the position they had been in. Longingly, she wished that she had been bold enough to make her move. Looking up at him, sitting on his lap, with their…"

Sango gulped as she thought of how only a few layers of clothing had separated them. The urge to kiss his lips had been so overwhelming. "You fool, that was your chance!" She berated herself for her cowardice. Over the years, she had laughed in the face of death and slain countless demons without ever feeling a hint of fear. But throw her into a compromising situation with the person she loved? Forget about it!

She sighed and began to drink her tea and eat the stew that someone had so kindly brought them while they were sleeping. Wait… while they were sleeping?

"Oh no!" Sango wailed mentally. "That must mean… they saw us cuddling!" Sango groaned aloud this time and prayed that it had not been the monk or Shippo that had brought them their food. Both of those two idiots had a bigger mouth than even Inuyasha did and could never be trusted to keep such a thing to themselves. She could feel the humiliation burning into her already rosy cheeks until they turned a dark magenta.

"Please, Kami-sama, let it have gone unnoticed" Sango pleaded in silent prayer to the gods.

She soon decided that there was no use avoiding the rest of the group. The longer she waited, the more concerned they would become. Besides, if whoever had brought them food HAD seen Inuyasha and her together, there was no doubt in Sango's mind that everyone else had already heard about it. Sango was a very private and reserved person by nature, so it irked her to have her love life be the subject of fireside gossip.

"Not that Inuyasha and I even had a love life!" Sango grumbled to herself (though whether it was out of annoyance or longing, she could not be sure). And so, Sango gathered up her used dishes and Inuyasha's uneaten Ramen (something that was unheard of, and would have bothered her more if she had not been too distracted to think on the matter) and trudged back to see what fate had in store for her with the rest of the group.

When she got there, Sango was surprised at how… quiet everything was. Almost too quiet. Shippo was playing with a book of coloring and those crah-yons that Kagome had brought him from her time. Kagome was studying out of one of her various tects-books. The monk was off somewhere else (no doubt flirting with one of the pretty village girls), and Kaede was cutting and drying herbs by the fire to restock the village stores. Inuyasha was sitting up in a tree, acting for all the world as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred in that hut only a few minutes ago.

Sango allowed herself a small smile as she stared up at him. His hair was swaying in the breeze and his arms were crossed in typical Inuyasha fashion. He gave off the impression that he was merely taking a nap, but Sango could see his adorable little ears swiveling in all directions and his nose was twitching ever-so-slightly. To Sango's well-trained eyes, she could tell that the hanyou was merely feigning sleep. Whether he was pretending to avoid talking to the group or to her, Sango did not know.

She shrugged, and thought to herself "well two can play at that game." She grinned evilly and walked over to where Shippo was playing. She said (a bit more loudly than she needed to) "hey Shippo! Are you hungry?"

The kitsune bounced up immediately with large green eyes staring at her ever-so-cutely. "Oh boy am I ever! Breakfast was almost a whole hour ago! I'm STARVING!" His tiny, clawed hands stretched up in a silent acceptance of whatever food she was offering.

"Well since Inuyasha apparently was not hungry this morning, you can have his bowl of Rah-men," Sango placed an extra emphasis on the word Ramen and watched in delight as Inuyasha's ears began flicking furiously back and forth at the sound of his favorite dish being given away. She handed over the funny, brightly-colored bowl to Shippo, and he immediately began scarfing down the now-cold noodles.

"Hey!" Inuyahsa butted in. "That's MY breakfast wench! You can't just be giving it away. What the hell am I supposed to eat now?!" Inuyasha bolted out of the tree and snatched the bowl right out of Shippo's hands.

Shippo began crying, "Kagomeeee! Inuyasha stole my second breakfast. I'm sooooo hungry!" Sango could see that his sniffling and tears were mostly exaggerated (truly, the boy was probably not THAT hungry), but Kagome had a soft spot for the little kit, and was often blind to his trickster ways.

"Inuyasha how could you? He's just a kid!" Kagome paused from her studying long enough to glare at him. "Come here Shippo, I think I still have a lollipop you can eat. Don't worry," she shot a meaningful look at Inuyasha, "that big bully will get what he deserves when I'm done studying."

"Dassh naht fair," Inuyasha tried to plead with her while simultaneously stuffing his face full of noodles. "I didn't get to eat brekfass."

"And whose fault is that?" Kagome shot back. "Why were you so late to breakfast huh?" At Inuyasha's guilty look, she snickered triumphantly. Kagome knew EXACTLY what had kept the stubborn brat from coming to breakfast on time, and she knew he would rather die than admit to accidentally canoodling with Sango.

"I was… busy," Inuyasha replied as he slurped down the last of the delicious noodles and brother. He purposefully kept his answer vague because he still didn't know what the hell had happened back in the hut, and he damn sure wasn't about to share with the whole damn group until he figured out just what the hell was going on with him and Sango. Just thinking about her was already making that warm and fuzzy feeling come back into his stomach.

"Well that's too bad," Kagome interrupted his thoughts on a certain demon slayer. "Maybe you should 'SIT' down and think about it until your memory comes back." Shippo cackled as Inuyasha came crashing down to the ground. "When it does, maybe we can 'SIT,'" the crunch of bones and Inuyasha's cry of pain rang out through the clearing," and have a talk about it."

With an evil, yet satisfied smile, Kagome gathered Shippo and her tects-books up in her arms and proceeded to mutter to Shippo under her breath about "that'll teach him" and "serves him right for messing with you."

Kaede had been watching the whole incident with a small, knowing smile on her face. In a fit of loneliness, Kagome had confided in her about the budding feelings growing between her two friends, so she knew exactly the reason for Inuyasha's reticence about breakfast.

"Ah children," she thought to herself. "When will ye learn that time is a precious thing to waste, especially when it comes to matters of the heart?" Kaede herself had never been in love. She had always been married to her duty to the village. Watching her sister fall in love with Inuyasha and then fall prey to those feelings had at first embittered Kaede, for in her childish mind, she believed Kikyo's love for Inuyasha to have been her downfall. She had refused any suitors and thrown herself into miko training with a vengeance, and by the time she had realized that love was not a curse but a blessing, it had been too late for her. But although Kaede had no regrets about the life she had lived, that did not mean that she wished for others to make the same mistakes as her.

As Inuyasha lay writhing in pain in his shallow ditch, Kaede called Sango over under the guise of needing help with her herbs.

"I trust ye are feeling better today Sango?" Kaede asked.

"Yes Lady Kaede," Sango replied sweetly. "Neh, Lady Kaede, could I trouble you for some help?" The girl's face had uncertainty written all over it, and Kaede knew that it must have something to do with her newfound feelings for Inuyasha.

"But of course child," Kaede responded. "Tell me, what is it that ails ye? Back problems? A boil?" Kaede feigned ignorance of Sango's dilemma. "Perhaps some… herbs to prevent pregnancy?" Kaede stifled a giggle as she maintained a face of utmost seriousness.

"Lady Kaede!" Sango practically screamed before lowering her voice so that Inuyasha could not hear her. "No, I do not need any herbs for that." Sango wished the ground would swallow her whole. "I wanted to ask you about a dream that I had two nights ago."

"Ahhh," Kaede said. "Tell me of your dream then child."

"Well," Sango said carefully, "it was more of a nightmare than a dream." She proceeded to tell Kaede of how her dream normally went. Then she told Kaede of the additional part of her nightmare (skipping over the part where she confessed her love for Inuyasha of course).

"So that is it. What do you think it means Lady Kaede?"

Kaede paused thoughtfully. "Well, child, if it makes ye feel better, I do not believe this dream to be a premonition or anything of the sort. We have long known that it was a possibility Inuyasha might choose to follow my sister down into the pits of hell. If ye combine that with the impending threat of Naraku and the pressure that all of ye are under to find the shards, it is only natural that ye find yourself having strange dreams." Kaede looked meaningfully at her and spoke softly. "Perhaps your dream is an indication of how ye feel about a certain someone?"

Sango's whole body tensed as she realized what Kaede was implying. She said nothing in reply, but her eyes gave her away as they drifted over to the base of the tree where Inuyasha was currently shaking out all of the twigs and dirt that had gotten stuck on him from Kagome's subjugation.

"Child," Kaede began slowly. "I am going to give ye a piece of advice. Ye should not let your fear keep ye from pursuing this. Life be too short to waste it on pondering the 'what-ifs.' Ye will never know how he feels unless ye ask him."

Sango remained silent out of shock that Kaede had correctly guessed the object of her affections. Instead, she merely nodded her head almost imperceptibly and wondered again just how she had gotten herself into this situation.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha was wondering just what he had done to deserve those 'sits.'

"Stupid Kaede and her stupid beads. Can't believe Kagome is still using these stupid things," Inuyasha grumbled to himself as he angrily plucked twigs out of his hair. "And what the hell is Sango's problem? What are her and the old hag talking about? I bet they're laughing about me. Why is everyone always laughing at me? Stupid jerks."

His muttering continued, but even as he grumbled about the unpredictability of women, his eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the one woman that had been the cause of many sleepless nights as of late.

Sango's bangs were blocking her face as she bowed her head to speak quietly with Kaede. Inuyasha's silvery puppy ears strained furiously to hear the conversation, but it was no use. Instead, he continued his inspection of the demon slayer as if he was seeing her for the first time.

Truth be told, she was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Her eyes were an ordinary brown, her hair was an odd shade of neither brown nor true black, and though she was not without some womanly curves, she also did not have the exaggerated curves of a demoness or of some of the well-endowed village girls. Where most of the girls he knew loved to slather themselves with perfumed oils and over-the-top makeup, she preferred not to concern herself with such time-consuming and impractical things.

In fact, she usually went out of her way to appear as plain as possible. When not in her skin-tight slayer's uniform, her simple kimono and green overskirt were made of the most common cloth and her hair was tied back in a serviceable and decidedly not fashionable hairstyle. Her only touch of girlishness was the streak of pink above her eyes. Yet despite all of this, there was a quiet allure about her that drew men to her.

She was loyal to a fault especially where family was concerned. It was she who had believed in Kohaku's innocence and had still protected him almost at the cost of her life after his apparent betrayal when possessed by one of Naraku's henchmen. Even to this day, Inuyasha could still see the burning hatred in her eyes whenever they faced one of Naraku's puppets. Anyone who knew her knew that she would fight until her dying breath to save her baby brother from Naraku's clutches.

She was incredibly strong. Even though she was just a human girl, Sango was constantly defying everyone's expectations of her. She used her extensive knowledge of demon types, strengths, and weaknesses to aid her in battle. Plus, there was the hours upon hours that she spent training herself physically and mentally every day that they weren't traveling. Sango was never one to complain, no matter how much he pushed the group or how much pain she was in.

She was one of the smartest people he knew when it came to battle tactics and strategies for attack. Hell, Inuyasha would rather go to war with her than with twenty men any day of the year. If there was anyone you could depend on, it was Sango, and that was just an undeniable fact.

Just as Inuyasha finished picking the last of the twigs out of his hair, Sango looked up at him. As their eyes locked, all of Inuyasha's thoughts went flying out of his brain. She looked so… vulnerable and shy and captivatingly beautiful in that moment. His mind drifted back to earlier that day when she had been so so close to him and to the desire that he had smelled rolling off of her.

"Could it be? Does she really want me?" Inuyasha thought to himself in a panic. "But, but why? What the hell could she possibly see in a half-breed like me?"

Sango broke the staring contest first, turning back to Kaede with a blush spreading on her cheeks as she hastily muttered an excuse for getting up to leave.

As she practically bolted away from Inuyasha and Kaede, she found herself thinking "why was he staring at me? What could he possibly see when he looks at a girl like me?"

Right after she left, Inuyasha took off in the opposite direction not even bothering to give an explanation to the old woman. Kaede simply shook her head and gathered up the herbs that she had been working on and muttered to herself about hanyou stubbornness and clueless demon slayers.

She shook her head sadly at the folly of youth. For now, the two had the luxury of time, but Kaede knew that time was something in limited supply, especially in such dangerous times. Before they knew it, danger would be upon the pair, and by the time they realized the extent of the other's feelings, it might just be too late.

End of Chapter