#made kagome a tengu bc of her name meaning!

[doginabirdcage]

The Boy Who Overcame Time

Inuyasha was digging through his backpack looking for his textbooks, to no avail. "Shit," he whispered. "Ma's going to kill me if she has to buy these again."

His first set of textbooks worked as kindling on one of Kagome's first human nights alone with him. There was a snowstorm, he found shelter in an abandoned hut and they’d be approaching hypothermia if he hadn’t acted quickly. The second set of textbooks eventually reeked so badly of miasma after a run-in with Naraku that grandpa Totosai said a prayer over them, his bugging eyes watering before he burned those too.

He could not afford to lose these. 

He dumped the entire bag onto the grass unceremoniously, as if it would make 3 heavy books materialize. 

"Now you're just making a mess." Sango crossed her arms somewhere behind him, and he turned his head to see the miko looking down at him with a disgusted expression. 

"Leave the kid alone," Miroku called from where he was sprawled out on the ground. "This homework thing sounds scarier than an entire horde of demons."

"Oh? Not too keen on being held accountable for your choices?" She cocked a hip and didn't wait for the slayer's response, "Inuyasha, your textbooks have to be somewhere, nobody is going to steal books they probably can't even read. Have you asked Kaede?"

"Maybe she's using them in place of rocks to weigh down her stew. Wouldn't put it past her." Miroku sat up in the grass. "Do you think Futaba has them?"

"Stop using anything you possibly can to harass poor, unsuspecting women—" Sango stomped over to him, which made Miroku smirk, as if he'd been aiming for that the entire time—

"Shut up!" Inuyasha grouched. "Your theories mean nothing to me. Where's Kagome?"

The half-tengu girl couldn't be harder to keep track of. She stuck her nose in everything and helped people who didn't even want her to because they were bigoted fucks. It gave 15 year old Inuyasha the vapors. He was way too young to be getting the vapors. 

Inuyasha left the miko and the demon slayer to hash out their unresolved sexual tension by themselves and went off to find Kagome.

He ran deeper into the very forest for which she was the namesake, looking for a set of raven wings hidden in the treetops. 

"Kagome?" 

In return, the wind blew, rustling the tree leaves around in a gentle caress. Sunlight dappled down through the gaps in the foliage, the image before him so serene he could almost forget why he was hanging out in Feudal Japan in the first place. People paid good money for this kind of scenery in his time.

Deeper within, he found Shippo napping in a patch of sunshine, which meant that Kagome wasn't far away. She looked after the runt like he was her own. The fox kit smelled him approaching, nose wrinkling as he roused.

"Hey, stinkbutt," the 2 foot tall entity of pure irritation groused. "Got any lollipops to give me?"

"Not with that fuckin' attitude, shrimp. You seen Kagome?"

Shippo huffed. "She's off readin' somewhere. Beats me." 

She's reading, he thought to himself, that tells me everything I need to know.

"Back at camp there's ninja snacks," Inuyasha nodded behind him as he began to jog away from the fox. "Thanks for the intel, shitbird!"

Behind him, Shippo brightened with excitement and made to scurry off to where Inuyasha left Miroku and Sango before he stopped abruptly. "Hey, wait! I'm going to tell Kagome you said that!"

"I dare you! Hope you don't walk in on our friends making out!" Inuyasha yelled without turning back.

"Yuck!"

-

Once Inuyasha made it to the well clearing, he skidded to a halt. He looked down to the hem of his uniform trousers and winced at the dirt trailing up his pant leg. He'd started wearing normal sneakers in Kagome's time, but maybe it's time to start coming in sweats or something. 

Either way, he's going to get an earful from Izayoi ("I'm not mad sweetheart, just disappointed"), and then Toga's going to nod half-heartedly behind her like the loyal puppy he is. 

Gods, his parents were so embarrassing.

Inuyasha looked up, and sure enough, he could see Kagome's large wings hanging over one of the higher boughs. He sighed and walked right under the tree's impressive branches.

He whistled for her attention. When she didn't respond, he did it again, saying "Hey, pretty bird!"

Inuyasha continued to call her as if she were an actual pet until a burst of black feathers flooded his vision. He was scooped up and firmly planted on that same branch he saw Kagome sitting on in a matter of seconds.

"I resent that!"

She had a veritable nest building on the expanse of corrugated bark, a little nook being created by an adjoining section of sturdy wood where, bingo: his textbooks were piled next to an open bag of chips, one of them open to a page about the Heian period.

"Only birds steal things to make nests, y'know. I'm just callin' it like I see it." 

Kagome's wings flapped irritably as she scoffed, waving his comments away with a flick of her taloned fingers. 

"You can't just take my books without mentioning it. Ma'll wring my neck, and you'll be out one shard detector."

She loved his mother. Every time Kagome got even a flicker of praise from Izayoi, she'd brighten. 

"I'd never let you go home without them," she said defensively. "You just weren't using them and there were things I wanted to see."

"I carry them to use them."

"Why don't you ever take them out?"

"Uh, does the constant threat of power hungry demons ring a bell to you?"

Her brow crinkled at that. Inuyasha reined in that blooming affection he felt at the sight, it was creeping up far too often for his liking. 

"Fine," she replied softly. "Not like I can decipher it all anyway."

At her sullen mien, Inuyasha gestured to her pile. "Hand it over. We'll look at it together. That cool?"

Kagome plucked the heavy textbook one-handed and with lots of enthusiasm. He set the book between them on their legs.

"Tell me what you don't understand and we can go through it together."

She blinked at him in awe, a gentle smile curling on the side of her mouth. 

-

"Oh, the sun's starting to set."

"I was supposed to be studying math this whole time."

"Ew, math!"

"Tell me about it."

-

Midterms came and went. 

He had to retake his math exams.

#inukag week 2022 #inukag #inuyasha #kagome #inuyasha x kagome #inuyasha fanfiction #prompt: role reversal #another quick one #made kagome a tengu bc of her name meaning! #this was super fun to do #maybe i'll do more drabbles in this universe