A Lyrical Love by Tal

Hello

1. Hello

Sesshoumaru scowled, sending discreet angry glances at the woman sitting next to him.  How dare she?

For close to 300 years, he had built a wall around his heart.  After all, ruthless taiyoukai didn’t need hearts, but couldn’t live without them, so he decided it’d be better off to close it off.  That was that, he decided, and for three centuries, he thought it would never fall.

And then, she came along.  Maybe, just maybe, he had known somewhere instinctively that she would be trouble.  He wasn’t proud of it now, but he had tried to kill her.  In all fairness, so had pretty much every one of the group that were now her best friends, but it still bugged him.

It took a while for him to get over his attitude of human inferiority, but when it went away, it went with a bang.  First, Sesshoumaru allowed Rin to follow him.  Now, he didn’t like children at that point either, but a human female child?  Perish the thought.  But yet… he tolerated, and would even go as far as to say he liked her.

Another glance at the female sitting by his side, chatting with her other friends, and Sesshoumaru inwardly sighed.  And then there was her.  Chatty, energetic, and prone to almost fatal moments of klutziness.  How in the world did he ever look at her without contempt?

For a while, he thought of her as Inuyasha’s miko.  That kept his unruly thoughts at bay.  She was his half-brother's, and therefore he could not have any claim on her.  She was pack, but not.  His heart was safe.

Until that fateful day.  There had been a rough battle, and it hadn’t ended until Sesshoumaru returned from his hunting trip to find the camp in chaos.  So, with a displeased inu-youkai, the camp was soon free of enemies in minutes.  He had gotten injured very slightly, only because his eyes had disobeyed him when the miko had screamed, and a youkai had taken advantage of the distraction.  That youkai had suffered a far more painful death than the others, but the damage had been done.

While the weary group straightened up the camp, she had come over, and bowed politely to Sesshoumaru.  “Hello, Sesshoumaru-sama.  If I may attend to your injury?”

He had to look away, darn it, because she looked so tempting fresh out of battle, with sweat-soaked hair and heavy breathing… and she took the lack of resistance as acquiescence.

One touch.  Just one.  That was all it took to both heal his injury and completely shatter the three-hundred year-old wall around his heart.  Her healing miko energy swept through him, energizing him and giving him such a warm feeling that he knew his wall had been completely shattered.

That had been three months ago.  He had refrained from showing any emotions, because his reputation as a cold youkai had been at stake, but damn it if she didn’t make it hard.  She had seemed to at least figure out he wasn’t as cold to her, and started sitting by him when they camped, or talking to him as they travelled.

“Hello? Sesshoumaru-sama?  Are you okay?”

Sesshoumaru snapped.  Those words, so close to the words said just moments before Kagome had totally shattered the wall around his heart, were the last straw of three months of holding himself back.

Therefore, everyone, including Sesshoumaru himself, was totally surprised when he abruptly placed his lips on Kagome’s.

The bigger surprise was when Kagome started to kiss back.

Song lyrics that are imbedded in are from "You Had me From Hello", by Kenny Chesney.