Disclaimer: Don't own Inuyasha, though I wish I did.
Author's Note: written for iyficcontest at livejournal. Prompt: red

He can't actually tell what color it is, but he's not dumb. He knows the colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—just not the difference. He says nothing until someone (Shippou) lets it slip--why do you wear all red, Inuyasha? (you look so dumb.) He can make the connection, you know (shut up, I'm not dumb, you are) but it's hard when you're trying to find the secret of an obvious thing. No one wants to talk about it. It's easy, come on Shippou, sing the rainbow for me again.

And so he has the word: red. rrrr-ehh-d. A word, and it is meaningless. He knows it should look different then the others, but it doesn't. They all look the same, just one giant shadow of—of—something. He doesn't even know what color he can see. Is it red? Is it yelloworangeblue or greenvioletindigo?

It's a hanyou thing, he figures. Humans can see color. Demons (Shippou) can. He's not dumb, he's just a half-breed. He can wear a red jacket and bleed red blood, but hanyou is hanyou, rotten, filth, bastard, unworthy of our father's name. And he can stain Tetsusaiga red all he wants, but it isn't worth a damn.

Inuyasha keeps a list of red things in his head: sun, flower, bandana, robe, cat, hair, sheet, bra, pepper, fish, car, book, jewel. One day, he'll ask Kagome to write it all down.

That way, when he's a demon, he'll know what to look for.