Chapter 1

When Inuyasha got off the plane and out of the port, the air was chilly and snow was covering the ground thickly, unlike in Los Angelos. Breathing deeply in, he smiled out how the air bit at his nose and reveled in familiar Japan weather.

Just at the time expected, his phone rang playing Pogo's "Dayvd". He pressed the touch screen's 'answer' button, not having to look at the ID to know who it was. He put the device to his eye, walking away from the hustle and bustle of the sidewalk.

"Hey, babe." He answered, smiling to himself. He heard some paper's shuffling on the other line, probably from Kouga trying to sort out a place to sit while he was on the phone. Their apartment back home was a mess.

"Hey, did you make it to Japan okay?" Kouga was, as always, straight to the point. It got him into trouble a lot, but that was one of the many reasons why Inuyasha loved him.

"Yeah, I made it okay. The plane was late 'cause of the snow but-"

"Woah, they have snow there?"

"Yeah dumbass, of course they have snow," he laughed, finding the shock in his fiancee's voice extremely amusing. "You see here, we actually have seasons like the other countries. Ya know, the normal ones?"

"Oi, America is a normal country, don't mack on my home nation."

"Whatever man. How are you holding up without me?" He wrapped his thick trench coat tighter around himself, feeling a particularly strong gust of wind. The sky looked like it might snow again.

"I'm absolutely miserable." Inuyasha laughed, thinking him melodramatic.

"No, I'm serious. I have no idea why you chose to vacation in Japan but you know you could turn back around, get back on the plane and come back now, I'll pay for it so please?" It was weird, he actually sounded sad he was away, which made Inuyasha's heart warm. But he wasn't gonna tell him that, least he finds some leaverage to try and convince him to actually go back.

"I told you why I'm here, remember? It'll only be for maybe a couple weeks, tops, until I find what I'm looking for." He heard Kouga sigh on the other side, and he fought of the strong urge to feel bad about it.

"Yeah, I know. But I just don't understand why it's so important to you. But since it is, I'll respect it."

"Thank you, babe, I appreciate that." He honestly did, too.

"Don't worry about, just- just try to be as quick as you can, okay? I really do miss you."

"I know, Kouga. I promise, I'll be home as soon as I'm done, and I'll be home before you know it."

"...Okay, I trust you. Be safe."

"I will be. Bye."

"Bye"

He hung up the phone, and he stared at his phone for a minute or two, feeling bad despite his efforts against it.

He loved Kouga and he didn't want to do anything to make him anything but happiness- it was pretty much his goal in life. But that's why he was here, in Japan. The place his journey started, the journey that led him to his fiancee.

He was in Japan now to end that journey, officially. He'd always feel like he was searching if he didn't, and now that he was settling down in a life with someone, he needed closure. And there was only one way he would find closure.

He had to find out who he was.

It was High School when he found out about Joji Takagawa, the famous Romance novelist. He was eating at lunch when Kagome and Sango literally flew into the seats in front of him.

He waited for them to say something, as it looked like they were dying to, but after a good moment of silence he sighed and spoke first.

"Okay, what is it?"

They giggled, like girls do when they had an interesting secret he guessed, and pulled out a book in Kagome's book bag. The cover was exactly anyone would expect from a romance novel, with an overly beautiful girl and an overly handsome guy embracing in the heat of love and passion. The only thing that was different from this one and the rest was there was no raging ocean beyond steep cliff, or something like that. The Title read, "Touched By Sunlight".

"What the hell is that?" he asked, disappointed that it was only a book and not some huge scandal like they usually had.

"That" Kagome started, emphasizing while pointing at the book. "Is thebest book you will ever read."

"You say that like I'm going to read it."

"And you will," Sango joined in. "You can't possibly not read it. It's just not- well, not possible."

"Are you challenging me?"

"Look, Inuyasha." Kagome butted in, before Sango had a chance to say 'Yeah, maybe it is' and things got that much more hectic. "It's a really good book, and I really mean it! I know you have your issues with romance in love-"

"You see that's were you're wrong, because it's impossible to have problems with something that doesn't exist." Kagome's jaw visibly clenched and he figured he might have gone a little to far with that one. He already knew what Kagome thought about his stance on love, and he really didn't want to get into another one of those arguments. But she left it alone, and instead continued on like he hadn't interrupted in the first place.

"But I think that this book will change your view on that. Maybe you'll be able to see what's so great about it, after you read this book. So, please take it and give it a chance."

He didn't look up to her, hoping eating his food and ignoring the topic would get her to move away from it. She sighed, and for a minute he hoped he had gotten exactly what he hoped for. Instead, Sango spoke up.

"If you read the book, I'll do your Japanese homework for a month."

"Deal."

"What do you mean it's 'rented out'?!"

"I'm sorry sir, but it is what it is." The receptionist man said, not bothering to look up at Inuyasha and flipping through a magazine that looked suspiciously like a Playboy from his angle.

"It is what it is my ass, I want my apartment back!" He was struggling to keep his voice down and stay calm, but that was all rather difficult when someone just told you your apartment was gone. "It was on a four year lease, I was only gone for three!"

Sighing, the man reached over and flipped through a binder of notices and memos, stopping to read one. "Well, it looks here that, since you wee gone so long they sent a notice to your apartment saying that if you didn't respond within the month, they would evict you and open the place back up to rent." he turned back to his magazine. "that was about two years ago."

"Two years ago?" He hissed, gripping his teeth together to keep from yelling. "How was I supposed to get a notice about me being gone, if I was gone?"

"Look, it's not my problem. You're just going to have to find some other place to stay."

He stared, mouth open with nothing to say coming to mind. This guy was just siting there, not able to give two fucks worth a damn to help him at all, and this was Tokyo for god's sake! He always bragged to Kouga about how much nicer everyone in Japan was compared to the city dwellers in Los Angelos, but now he was wondering if he was wrong after all.

"I..." he said, his anger deflating to what felt horrifically like anxiety. "I have no were else to go."

"Once again." the receptionist said again, though this time sounding slighter more irritated. "Not my problem."

Clenching his teeth against the burn in his eye's and the pressure in his gut, He stayed for only a moment more before turning around and walking- very quickly- out of the door, slamming it shut on his way out.

He swallowed in several deep breaths of cold winter air, trying to cool him down. He was panicking, and he needed to calm down. He needed coffee.

He remembered a place just down the block, a coffee shop that had the best coffee and the greatest atmosphere. He walked, and turned down total of two corners to reach it, and it looked exactly the same as it always had with a Victorian styled wood wall and large glass windows. Walking in was like traveling into another time and country, were the weather outside didn't exist. Unfortunately, his problems still did.

Standing in line to order, his mind reeled over how he was going to stay in japan when he had no place to stay.

It the fucking winter, so no to just bumming in the park. The only people he remembered knowing in Japan was Miroku, Sango, and Kagome but he had no idea where they lived. He'd been keeping up with them online, but in all that time he had never bothered to ask any of them where they lived, or even for their phone number. He could admit, that was pretty freaking stupid of him and he was definitely regretting it.

Finally, he was at the front of the line.

"Cinnamon Bun Latte with extra Caramel." he ordered, reaching in his wallet to pull out a ten dollars worth of yen, being about eight-hundred yen.

"1,200 yen, please," The overly perky cashier asked. His eye's shot up in surprise.

"Wha- 1,200 yen? I don't have that much on me." her smile faltered a little bit, but she waited patiently for him to either hurry and find the money or step out of line. His cheeks lit up, feeling embarrassed and wondering how his day could possibly get and worse. But an arm shot forward from the side of himself, dropping the extra money he needed plus even more.

"wha-," he looked up, seeing a very tall man with a hat like a fedora and a black scarf, and purple-like stripes on either cheek. He was hot, and Inuyasha's heart speed up way faster than it should for an engaged man.

"I'll pay for his, and add a Chai latte."

The cashier girl looked just as relieved as Inuyasha felt, and easily accepted the money and the added order. She ushered them to the side to wait for their orders, putting Inuyasha in an awkward place of having to feel like he should say something to the stranger.

"Thank you." He said, earning a confused look from the other. "For you know, paying for my drink."

Instead of simply saying like "no problem, man" like he expected, he earned a searching look. He felt naked with him staring at him like that, and tightened his coat around himself as if to protect from the others eyes. He noticed and lifted his head to meet Inuyasha's eyes.

"You're welcome." He answered, turning away to look at god knows what. They stayed like that, in perpetual silence, Inuyasha feeling awkward and the stranger looking like he couldn't be any more comfortable.

"Cinnamon Bun Latte with extra Caramel and a Chai latte?"

"Oh, yeah." Inuyasha accepted his drink, the man next to him doing the same. Finally released from the inescapable grasp of awkward silence, he went to find his own table when the guy spoke.

"Would you like to join me?" he asked. Looking back at him, Inuyasha had a moment of hesitation but just nodded his head and followed him to a table near the back.

They sat and it was quiet, Inuyasha quietly sipping on his drink, watching the other instead pull out a leather bound journal and start writing in it, not touching his drink at first.

"Inuyasha, by the way." He said, causing the other to stop writing momentarily and look up in mild confusion.

"That's my name, Inuyasha. I figured since you invited me to sit you might as well know it."

"Hm," he said. "That's very American of you."

"What'dya mean by that?"

"Japanese usually greet with their last names. Usually, it's close friends and family who call you by your first name and not many others." He picked up his cup and sipped silently, while keeping eye contact with him. There was that naked feeling again. "Are you American-raised?"

"Actually, no. I grew up here, but uh, I've never been into all the formal 'rules and etiquette'. Probably why I had not too many friends in school."

Nodding, he looked back down to his journal, making Inuyasha think that the conversation was over until he said, "Sesshomaru."

"Sorry, what?"

"My name is Sesshomaru. Seeing as I know yours, you might as well know mine."

"Oh. Sesshomaru, huh? That's pretty unusual. But I like it, it rolls off the tongue." He smiled and surprisingly, Sesshomaru smiled back. Well sort of, it was tiny and he wasn't sure if it was actually a smirk.

Things got quiet again, like they were bound to do, but this time it wasn't that awkward. Inuyasha silently sipped on his drink and watched the somehow soothing motions of Sesshomaru's hand glide across his pages with a pen. All the while he wondered what he was going to do.

He had no apartment, no car and no people. He was stranded in Tokyo with no were to stay or go, and he didn't bring anything with himself. He figured all his old stuff would be at his apartment, but most likely they were thrown out. It looked at this point that he'd have no choice but to call it quits and fly back to L.A., and never finish what he came to do.

"What's wrong?"

He flinched, startled by the sudden question. He hadn't even noticed that Sesshomaru had stopped writing and was staring at him.

"Nothing, why?"

"Because you have the look of someone who's very distressed." Damn. He really needed to work on controlling his expressions. "So what's wrong?"

"Really," he started, not wanting to dump his baggage on someone else. "It's nothing, you don't need to worry about it."

"Inuyasha."

A chill ran up his spine, his name sounding so terrifying and also seductive at the same time. Sesshomaru was staring at him, intense and demanding, not looking like he'd take a 'no' another time. "I like repeating myself."

Really confused why this man he only met almost ten minutes prior, but not really wanting to take the chance of him getting angry, he decided to just tell him.

"Uh, well, I don't even know how to explain. I came here to Japan for closure, because I've been traveling on a journey in a way, but..." God, he didn't even want to say it.

"I got my apartment here on a lease for four years, and that was three years ago so I should still have it right?" He got a nod in response. "But apparently two years ago, they sent a notice to my apartment saying that if I didn't answer in a month they'd evict me." an understanding 'hmmm' came from Sesshomaru, while he nodded.

"So you don't have a place to stay?"

"No, I don't"

"Do you have any friends or family around?"

"I do, but I have no way of contacting them." He sighed and dropped his head into his hands, resting his elbows on the table. Ugh, everything was such a mess.

"Why do you need closure?" Inuyasha looked up from his hands to Sesshomaru, not expecting a question like that to be honest. And to be honest, he wasn't sure how to explain it without seeming strange.

"Well I need closure for, uh... well, about myself." Sesshomaru gave him a look that said 'elaborate, please', so he did.

"Well, it links to why I started my journey. When I was younger I was dead set on the fact that love didn't exist, and it was all just a fanciful make-believe thing, except everyone really did believe in it. But then in High School, my friends made me read a book called "Touched By Sunlight" by Joji Takagawa."

"Joji Takagawa?" Sesshomaru interrupted, looking surprised, which in turn surprised Inuyasha.

"Yeah, Joji, why?"

"No reason." He answered, but there was a flicker of something in his eye's that flashed by too fast to catch. He would have asked, but Sesshomaru raised his eyebrows for the rest of the story and he forgot all about it.

"Anyway, the title was cheesy and the cover was cheesy and I had no desire what so ever to read this book. But I started it, because of my friends and it was..." he paused, remembering how well the book related to him at the time. "Beautiful. It wasn't cheesy, like I thought it was going to be. It really... hit me you know?"

"So I started believing in love. Not only that, but I craved it. That's when I started traveling, and I took pictures and wrote about all the love I found, some familial and some romantic and some platonic, but all so beautiful and I loved it. I went to Great Britain, to France and Germany, Russia, Korea, Africa, you name it. Then I went to America, and I met Kouga, and I uh, I fell in love."

He blushed a bit, still embarrassed by actually feeling something like love. He may believe in it now, but some habits are too hard to crack in just three years.

"So now I'm settling down with him, in L.A. But before I can do that I just need to do one last thing..." He got quiet, and Sesshomaru waited for him to carry on.

When it looked like he wouldn't continue by himself, he asked, "What do you need to do?"

Looking up, it took him a minute to remember what he was talking about, and started with "Oh, right! I need to find out about my father."

"Your father? Why?"

"I never knew him. He left us so much money, but I never knew him. I don't even know about him." He sighed, looking down at his hands. "I just... I need to know if he loved my mom or not. That's all I want to find out, and then I can be sure because... I piece of me still believes that love is a myth and I need to prove it wrong. But now I might not even get to, because I have no place to stay." He didn't look up and honestly partially forgot he was narrating his life story to some he didn't even know. He was deep in thought and frustration, so much so he missed what Sesshomaru said next.

"What?" He asked.

"Stay with me." Sesshomaru offered. Inuyasha sat there, stunned into silence. He knew the guy was nice, him paying for a drink he had no reason to was proof of that, but being this nice. It had to be a joke.

"Are you serious? Like, Seriously serious?"

Looking annoyed at the question, he scoffed and answered, "Of course I am, why would I say something like that and not mean it?"

Jumping straight up and shocking probably the most emotion Sesshomaru had ever showed into his face, as well as all the other residents in the coffee house, he reached across the table and clasped his hands.

"Thank you, oh my god, thank you!" He kissed his knuckles, actually making Sesshomaru flinch.

"Sit down."He demanded, half sounding like a beg.

He sat down, not because he was embarrassed but because was in such a good mood he would've done anything anyone asked of him and more if they wanted. He was that damn happy.

He had a place to stay, and a goal in mind and god damn it, he was happy.

A/N: So, this is the story I will be doing for NaNoWriMo. For the moment, all my other stories will be on hold for November, and I'm really sorry about but I really want to get to the 50,000 word mark. I'll put the word count at the end of every chapter, so can yell at me if I'm lacking ; ).

Word count: 3411