Art is Life

Kagome sighed as she sat under Goshinboku, in her own era. Much to her surprise, she had passed the entrance exams into high school.  She had signed up for art class on a whim, not really expecting to be allowed to take it. She had loved the subject when she was younger, but had been bogged down in more serious subjects in junior high - not to mention she was gone half the time with an irritable hanyou to an era five hundred years past.

She had been asked to submit several sketches for placement, and had done so. Somehow, some way, she had ended up in the life art class. She blushed as she thought of their most recent subject, who happened to be very male.

It had started out all right. At first, they had sketched a female or a male in various stages of dress, giving them an opportunity to work on one part of the anatomy or another. Then, came the nude female models, which of course had garnered interesting reactions from the guys taking the course. She couldn't believe they had naked women in a class that half consisted of horny teenage boys. But still, she found it interesting, and did her best to sketch them in various positions: sitting, standing, reclining - whatever they happened to do that week. She found it fascinating, from how the breasts were rounded to show weight, to what the length of the calf was in relation to the thigh. She was also rather envious. She wished her body could be half as beautiful as those of the models.

But those sketches were not what had her blushing. No, that was this week's project. A gorgeous man with long, wavy, dark hair and a flawless, muscular body was what was making her redden. She didn't know how he remained so calm as the girls and even a couple of the boys drooled over him. He was there in all of his glory, standing up straight with his left foot resting on a step, and the other on the floor. His left hand was parked on his hip, while the right hung loosely by his side. His upper torso was slightly turned away from his partially raised leg, his genitals dangling there for everyone to ogle. Kagome giggled as she looked back at her sketch. She had paid particular attention to the area below the waist. So while his upper body had a finally chiseled chest, and you could tell he had a head with waist length black hair, he only had arms to just above his elbows, and his legs made it to his knees. However, what was in-between was filled in pretty well by her pencil. She had to admit she was very curious about that part of the male anatomy. The couple of times she'd had the opportunity to look at InuYasha, she had been too embarrassed to do so.  And though she was shy about it at first, it wasn't as bad looking at a total stranger in class. Deciding that that part of her sketch was coming along nicely, she decided to go ahead and at least add calves and feet to his legs.

Kagome was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't sense the familiar presence that had arrived and was now standing beside her, looking over her shoulder. Hearing a slight intake of breath, startled, she whipped her head around.

"InuYasha, you scared me," she said as she hurriedly closed her sketchbook. "When did you get back?"

However, the hanyou didn't answer. Instead, his eyes were opened wide, and his face was flushed. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Instead, he ran.

"InuYasha!" Kagome shouted, following after him. Tucking her pad under her arm, she jumped into the well.

"InuYasha!" she called again from the bottom of the ancient structure. However, with no response, she started to climb out. It wasn't easy, trying to climb and not loose her precious class work in the process, but she couldn't imagine what he was thinking after what he had seen her working on. Hoping he'd gone to Goshinboku, she headed for the great tree.

"InuYasha, come down from there or I'll say it! I want to talk to you," the miko said, looking at the red spot up in the tree. "It's not what you think."

"Doesn't matter, it ain't like you're mine," she barely heard.

"InuYasha? Please, come down and talk to me," Kagome implored, and then whispered, "I'm yours more than you think."

InuYasha could not believe what she had in her book when he glanced over her shoulder. Some handsome man from her time, and he was wearing nothing. Not only that, she drew him. What was she thinking? She obviously was being very careful, like it was something, or he was someone, very precious to her. The hanyou felt the air leave his body and his heart sink at the sight of the nude man in her book, the one she was running her hand over like she was caressing him. He'd always hoped to feel her hands on his flesh. InuYasha didn't know how many times he'd made Kagome cry, but it was obviously at least one time too many, and she had moved on. Unable to bear the pain, he'd fled.

Now, he was looking down at her as she pleaded for him to get out of the tree. The hanyou thought that if he stayed away she wouldn't be able to tell him - she couldn't say that she was leaving him and going back to her time for good. It had been bad enough that she had started staying home more once high school had begun. They were searching for the shards of the Shikon no Tama all over again, thanks to Naraku shattering the jewel into a thousand pieces in a last ditch effort to save himself. However, without any powerful evil looking for it with the intensity that the dark hanyou had, they were following up leads as they heard about them, and traveling the most when Kagome had breaks. In trying to help make her happy, it looked like InuYasha had lost her instead. He wrapped his arms tightly around his body, wondering if he even came close to the magnificence of the man that had apparently stolen Kagome's heart.

His ear swiveled forward as he caught her last words - the words she apparently did not really intend for him to hear. His heart pounding in his chest, swelling with the thought that maybe there was a small amount of hope, he jumped down without saying a word.

"InuYasha, we need to talk. This isn't what you think," Kagome said as she sat down on the ground, and crossed her legs in front of her. Patting the ground right next to her, she said, "Please, let me show you."

Reluctantly, InuYasha sat next to the miko, and was surprised when she reached over and squeezed his thigh. "Why did you run like that?"

Blushing, InuYasha turned his head away, refusing to answer. What was he going to say? That he was in love with her and couldn't bear the thought of her leaving him for another man?

"InuYasha?" Kagome rubbed his leg at his knee. "It was just for my art class. I don't even know him."

"Keh?" The hanyou finally looked at her, and she could see how flushed his face was. He looked genuinely upset.

Kagome opened her sketch book to the earlier pages, rather than the one she was just working on. "I have an art class in high school. It's called ‘Life Art' and it is mostly about drawing the human figure. See, we started out with these."  Kagome flipped through the sketches in her book, and was amazed herself at how she was progressing. Before she knew it, InuYasha had the edge of the book, and was pulling it over in his lap. Turning it loose, she let him.

"You're pretty good," he said softly, as he turned each page carefully and studied its contents. However, when he reached the first nude woman, he slammed it shut and threw it back in her lap.

"InuYasha, what's wrong?" Kagome opened the book to the page he had stopped on. "It's just a naked lady. It's not anyone you know."

The hanyou was bright red, and looking away. Once again, Kagome gently rubbed his leg at the knee. "InuYasha?"

"She doesn't have any clothes on. I'm not supposed to look."

"InuYasha, I don't understand. Entire families here bathe together and don't think anything of it. What's wrong? Didn't you ever do that?"

He shook his head, still looking away.

"Didn't your mother ever give you a bath?" Kagome sounded both concerned and puzzled.

This time he nodded.

"So you saw your mother, didn't you?" the miko prodded.

"No one since then," he finally said. "And I was just a pup."

"What is it, InuYasha? The human body is a beautiful thing. There's nothing wrong with looking," Kagome said gently.

The hanyou tensed up. "That's just it, ain't it? I ain't a fucking human. I ain't allowed to look."

"InuYasha, please, tell me, why are you so upset? What happened?" she asked quietly.

They sat in silence, neither speaking. Kagome gently continued to rub his thigh just above his knee until he finally said, "They tried to drown me."

"What!" Kagome exclaimed. "When? Who?"

"When I was little. I didn't know any better. All of the kids used to bathe together, boys and girls. My mother told me I needed to take a bath, but she was ill and couldn't go with me. I wanted to go with the others. They always looked like they were having so much fun. They didn't even seem to mind until their parents finally saw me. They started screaming at me to get away and that I was a half-breed abomination. One of the men grabbed me, and forced my head under the water and held me there. Finally, when I thought my lungs would explode, I managed to bite him and he turned me loose. I got out of there before they caught me again. That was when my mother told me that I couldn't go near the others, and that I should never look at a human female naked. I guess it stuck because I never did." InuYasha was looking at the ground in front of him. "I was always afraid to; I never wanted to go through anything like that again."

"InuYasha," Kagome whispered as she continued to gently rub his knee. "I'm so sorry, and you didn't even do anything wrong. It's okay to look, it's even okay to want. What's not okay is to try and take someone who doesn't want to be with you. You've never done anything like that. Now, I want you to go through this with me. I promise, if they didn't mind sitting there naked for a whole art class to draw, they certainly aren't going to mind you looking at their picture."

"Keh?" The hanyou was still trying to work out everything she said.

Kagome turned to the picture of the first naked woman. "Isn't she beautiful? I wish I were as pretty as she is," Kagome said as she ran her hand over the picture. 

InuYasha still wouldn't even turn his head, so she slid the book halfway into his lap. "InuYasha, it's just a drawing. It's okay to look."

Curious, the hanyou finally stared down at the picture that had been pushed into his lap. He turned bright red again as his eyes locked on the model's breasts. Still, his only thought was that she wasn't as beautiful as Kagome.

Now that he was at least looking, Kagome turned the page. "See, we did female nudes at first." She stared down at her own work as she turned to another sketch. "Hey, it does appear that I'm getting better."

InuYasha finally smiled, just a little. "Yeah, you are." He looked at her seriously. "You're not turning into some kind of pervert like the monk, are you?"

Kagome grinned as she flipped back to the page of the male model. "No, if I were going to do that, I'd be drawing more pictures like this."

InuYasha's face fell again as his eyes landed on the naked man. He didn't look anything like that. He didn't even realize the men in Kagome's time looked like that.

"What's wrong now, InuYasha?" the miko asked. "I already told you that I don't even know him. He's a paid model for the class."

The hanyou was gazing off somewhere else again, and shook his head. "I don't look anything like that, do I? I mean, he's all... all... I didn't know men in your era were like that. They're such weak looking boys."

Kagome got a little bolder and slid her hand up the hanyou's thigh. "InuYasha, he's a paid model. He lifts weights, is probably on steroids, and who knows what else to appear like that. I think you're much more attractive than he is. Your muscles are from hard work, fighting, and a lot of running. I'd rather look at you any day of the week." Whoops, that was more than she meant to say.

"Keh?" he was staring at her again, this time with curiosity. "You mean... you don't want someone like this?"

The miko didn't answer, but instead turned back to what she thought was the prettiest of the models. "Would you prefer someone like her?"

InuYasha shook his head. "I don't even know her."

"Exactly," Kagome said. "Just like I don't know him, other than to sketch him while he poses in front of the class."

The hanyou blushed again. "Then why... why... why..." but he couldn't finish what he was trying to say, and pointed instead, to the man's genitalia.

This time it was the miko's turn to blush, and she whispered, "Because I'd never really seen them before, and I was curious."

"So you don't want to..." His voiced trailed away. He wasn't sure how to say it without fucking up.

Kagome answered, somehow understanding what he meant, "With him? No." She paused before she added, "So you never, not even with..." though she couldn't finish her question.

"I've never really looked at a human female since I bathed with my mother, so how could I?" the hanyou answered defensively.

"I'm sorry, InuYasha, I didn't mean... I don't want to fight," she said, tears in her eyes.

"Keh," he answered in a gentler tone, making it apparent that, for once, he didn't want to fight, either.

Kagome slid the book over into his lap, encouraging him to look through it. There was something liberating about him going slowly through the pages, one by one, looking at what he'd always been forbidden to. When he finally reached her last drawing again, he asked, "Did you mean what you said?"

"I'm sure I did, but when?" the miko responded, obviously puzzled.

"When you said you were mine, more than I thought." His eyes were full of hope when they met hers.

Kagome slowly nodded. "I've been yours for a long time. You just never saw, nor wanted me."

"That's not true," he said simply. "It's just that I'm not good enough for you. And you'd be miserable, with a hanyou like me."

"I'd only be miserable without you," she whispered.

Taking a deep breath, InuYasha leaned over and shyly, softly, kissed her. Kagome responded by wrapping her hand his mane and holding him to her. When they pulled apart, they rested their foreheads together as they panted to catch their breath. Neither wanted to lose contact with the other.

The hanyou was gently stroking her cheek with his thumb, wondering how he'd gone from broken hearted to this, when he heard, "Will you let me sketch you sometime?"

"You... you... you mean... like him?" InuYasha asked, surprised that she would want to.

"You're beautiful, InuYasha. I'd much rather draw you than him." Kagome had pulled back and raised her head just enough to look into his eyes.

He leaned forward to kiss her again. "If you want."

"Thank you, I'd like that," she answered.

"Kagome?"

"Yeah?"

"If I can't wear anything, what about you?" he asked, his voice full of hope.

"Okay, that's fair," she answered. "We'll just have to make certain to go someplace where we won't be interrupted.  It should take awhile, you know." 

"The drawing?"

"Yeah, that too."

*finis*