"Due to heavy snow, the train will be halted momentarily. We apologize for the inconvenience."
"I'm never going to get home!" Kagome pouted and looked out of the window she sat next to. The snow was heavy, and she knew there were going to be delays, but she didn't let that bother her. She only wanted to get home. Two weeks visiting Souta in the north and she was ready to get back to Tokyo to her own apartment. The little bugger thought that he wouldn't clean for at least a month before she arrived, knowing that she would clean the place for him. Her nice, clean apartment. Home had never been so welcoming.
The waiting pissed her off, more so because they had just stopped not even ten minutes before at another station. "Deep breath, Kagome," she said, using the breathing exercises she had read about in a magazine. Calmer, Kagome pulled a book from her purse. May as well make the time useful.
Two paragraphs in, Kagome felt a presence next to her. Familiar. Demonic. Her nerves were immediately on end.
"Is this seat taken?"
She looked up at the familiar voice, understanding now why the aura felt as it did. "It is not, Sesshoumaru."
He hadn't changed much over the years. Of course she had last seen him ten years previous, instead of the five hundred years give or take that it had been for him. His hair was no longer down his back and so shiny he could be a walking promotion for Pantene; it had been cropped and fashionably spiked, with some portions colored black. His black turtleneck and black jeans didn't even hint at the royal status he held. One thing that hadn't changed was the grace he moved with. He sat down next to her and put his laptop bag in his lap. "Miko?" he asked, surprised.
Kagome laughed. "The one and only."
In a very Sesshoumaru like move, his facial expression remained the same and only his eyes showed any surprise. "Five hundred years later, and you are still alive? I always knew there was something weird about you."
Her eyebrows furrowed in irritation. "I am not weird! And since when did you start using words like weird?"
"When in Rome, as they say." He fished through his bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a fancy silver lighter. "You have changed."
"So have you!"
"That is of no consequence. I am still not clear on how you are here." He lit the cigarette and took a drag.
"Inuyasha never told you about the well?" Kagome scrunched her nose. "Could you put that thing out?"
Even though it was clear that he didn't wish to, Sesshoumaru did as she asked and put out the cigarette in the small ash tray next to her in the arm rest. "No, the half breed never told me. I witnessed."
"Then why are you confused?"
"Isn't confusion a natural human trait?"
"Did you forget that you aren't human?" She raised her eyebrow at him.
Sesshoumaru sighed, rolling his eyes. "As far as they are concerned," he waved his hand about, gesturing at the people that surrounded them, "I am just as human as they are."
Kagome let out a riotous laugh. "You have really taken blending in seriously, haven't you?"
"I am on this train, aren't I? I do not want to be the next Hibagon after someone spots me traipsing about in my demon form." He leaned back in his seat and faced forward, even though he kept his gaze on her from the corner of his eye. "Or risk being spotted on the military's air traffic radar. Besides, I rather like some of your people and their odd creations. Such as ice cream."
Rather than elaborate on a thing he clearly wanted to keep hidden, she smiled widely at him. "What's your favorite flavor?"
"Coffee. Yours?" He finally turned to look at her, as if he was comfortable looking at her like just another person instead of the miko he knew five hundred years ago.
"Strawberry." She giggled. "Cliche, I know. Almost everyone likes strawberry."
He took a deep breath. "I have a proposition for you, Kagome."
Kagome wasn't sure what shocked her more: the idea that the demon that had tried to kill her more times that she could count had a proposition for her, or that he had called her by her given name rather than 'miko'. "What sort of proposition?"
"You. Me. Ice cream."
"Are you asking me out?"
"Yes, for ice cream. Nothing more, nothing less. Possibly more, but we will take that as we go."
She smiled at the demon that had changed so much over the years. "I think I can pencil something in."
"Are you flirting with me, miko?"
"I believe I am, demon."
Then he did something that Kagome thought she would never see in a million years: he smiled.