For Want of a Meal by thetroll

Chapter 1

Kagome hummed happily as InuYasha helped carry her bento boxes in a large canvas bag. She had spent all morning preparing them, taking the time to each item in the boxes for each of her friends. Plenty of meat for strength for Sango, fruit and vegetables cut into cute shapes for Shippo, smoked fish and pickled vegetables for Miroku, and for InuYasha, meat, vegetables, and rice since he never seemed to like it her cooking if she went overboard. He likely would still want ramen, but she still hadn’t wanted to leave him out, just in case.

She'd had a lot of fun preparing the food in cute little shapes. Her mother had recently shown her how to make dog and fox cutouts for her friends and she was sure the boxes were going to be a hit. 

And once the bento boxes were eaten, she had a surprise package of imported French cookies in her backpack that she'd pleaded with her mother to buy. The brand was hard to find in Japan so when she'd spotted them on a shelf, she hadn't been able to resist. She absolutely adored chocolate chip cookies, especially the ones with the peanut butter chips mixed in.

"Fucking bag. Told yah we didn't need all this shit," InuYasha groused as they headed away from the well. Kirara waited at the edge of the clearing and Kagome scrambled on her back, pretending that she hadn't heard InuYasha as Kirara led the way back to camp.

She wanted to do something nice for her friends, especially considering recent events. Sango had once again missed the opportunity to rescue her brother and she was pretty down about the entire situation.

So, bentos! A homemade meal went a long way to turning a bad day around—or so her mother had always claimed.

They arrived at camp an hour or so before sunset—Kagome didn't know for sure; she'd broken the cheap watch her mother had given her during their last brush with Naraku—and Kagome immediately reached for the canvas bag that InuYasha had dropped as soon as they'd reached the camp.

"I brought dinner!" she said cheerfully, doling out the boxes. "I hope you guys like them."

Shippo was the first to open his and he was immediately delighted. "K'gome, this fox looks just like me! He even has foxfire!"

Kagome was secretly proud of the foxfire; it had taken a lot of work to get it to look just right and she'd discarded several failed cut outs in the process. 

Shippo then moved to see what Sango and Miroku had gotten. "You have cats, Sango!" he commented, pointing out the Kirara cut-outs. "They look just like Kirara!" The cats were the ones that Kagome had spent the longest on, mostly because she'd really wanted to see Sango smile again.

And Sango did when she saw her bento, though her smile was a little weak.

Still, it was a start.

"Wow, Miroku. Yours looks like an ofuda. K'gome's really talented." They all stared at Miroku's bento and Kagome tried not to squirm. The decorations on Miroku's box were far beyond Kagome's level, but her mother had a good idea what to make and had been the one to put Miroku's together after Kagome had picked out the food to go in it.

It wasn't surprising that Miroku's had turned out so well; her mother had been making bento boxes for almost twenty years. She'd started when she'd first begun dating Kagome's father and had continued the tradition for her children whenever she could. 

Kagome handed InuYasha his box but wasn't surprised when he asked for ramen instead. "It smells weird," he complained. "Didn't you bring more ramen?"

She sighed but took the bento back and handed him several cups of ramen instead. "Here, InuYasha. I brought the one you liked best."

He happily took them from her and poured the hot water steaming over the campfire into them, slurping with so much gusto that her nose wrinkled. He's going to need a bath to get the smell out, she observed with mild annoyance. He's eating so fast that he's dripping ramen all over himself.

But it wasn't her place to say anything. She'd caught Kikyo and InuYasha embracing a few weeks ago and finally forced herself to accept that InuYasha was never going to leave Kikyo. She'd realized then that he'd loved the elder priestess, dead or not, and even if Kikyo didn't survive the battle with Naraku, Kikyo was always going to be first in his heart. Nothing Kagome did or said would change that so it was time to accept it and move on.

"Oy!" InuYasha suddenly leapt up, knocking his cup of ramen over and spilling half-eaten noodles on the ground. "What're you doing here, bastard?"

They all turned to see Sesshomaru approaching the camp, Rin, Jaken, and the two-headed dragon that often accompanied them plodding along behind him. He eyed the sword InuYasha brandished at him with barely concealed disdain.

Kagome held her breath, expecting a sharp retort from Sesshomaru that would no doubt lead to a battle that would destroy their camp and quite possibly the lunch boxes she'd worked so hard on. She opened her mouth, ready to tell InuYasha to sit before any real damage could be done.

"Ooh! What pretty boxes."

Kagome turned to see Rin eying Shippo's lunch with a delighted expression. She looked over at the remaining two boxes. She really only needed one and there was no harm in giving the other one to Rin to eat. "Would you like one, Rin?" she asked, holding out her own flower themed bento to Rin.

She might as well brighten the girl’s day and she could always eat InuYasha’s.

Rin looked over at Sesshomaru for a moment and then back to Kagome. She nodded, taking the box and scampering over to sit beside Shippo to eat it.

As if that was some sort of signal, the air in the camp relaxed. InuYasha went back to his ramen, though he occasionally glanced up to glare at his half-brother. Miroku and Sango returned to their bento boxes, eating casually as if this sort of thing happened every day. Shippo and Rin ate with more energy, gushing over this cutout or that carved vegetable, and they even shared with each other from their boxes.

"Rin! Our great and mighty lord is too busy to stop now! He's on an important quest!" Jaken stomped his staff against the ground as Rin looked up from her box with a sad expression. "Don't keep our lord waiting, you ungrateful—!"

Jaken promptly keeled over, unconscious.

Sesshomaru sat down by a tree at the edge of camp, evidently willing to wait for Rin to finish her dinner. Kagome looked over at her bento and sighed. It seemed rude not to offer him anything, though she doubted he'd eat it. She could always eat ramen...

She reached to move her canvas bag back from the fire and blinked at the weight of it. It should have been empty, but...

She peered inside and gasped quietly at the sight of another box, this one with a note on it that had clearly been written by her mother. 'Don't work too hard, Kagome. I made you all your favorites, so eat up.'

Kagome hadn't even realized her mother had made an extra bento and she wondered why. She'd put together her own, yet her mother hadn't been willing to waste an opportunity to make a special one for Kagome. Thank you, mom.

Well, now she wouldn't have to eat ramen, at least. Kagome scooped up the two bento boxes and approached Sesshomaru, offering him the one she'd prepared. "Here," she said and then added quickly, "I don't know if you eat human food, but if you do, you should eat, too."

"This one does not eat human food." He looked up at the box with an all-too familiar dismissive look but paused when he saw the contents and his expression became curious instead. He raised a brow in a silent question.

"Where I'm from, we make lunches like these for people we care about," Kagome explained, setting the dog themed box down and reaching for her own to show him. "My mother made this one for me. See? It's covered with food cut to look like my favorite flower and a character from my favorite show when I was a kid." Just thinking about that made her feel nostalgic. "I made this one, though," she added, indicating InuYasha’s rejected bento as she thought of his reaction with a sigh. Some people just didn’t appreciate the time and effort that went into showing care and appreciation. 

He looked down at the bento with an odd expression. "You prepared this box for one you cared for?" he asked her, seeming to choose each word carefully.

She nodded, thinking of how easily InuYasha had rejected his own bento despite him knowing that she'd made it just for him.

To her surprise, Sesshomaru accepted the box, pulling it into his lap as he carefully took in each item in the box. 

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," she told him after watching him stare at the box for several minutes.

He lifted his chin, evidently accepting her words as a silent dare because he speared a piece of meat with a claw and raised it to his lips as she watched. Unlike InuYasha, who always ate as though each meal was his last, Sesshomaru took great care not to make a mess as he chewed on the piece with a thoughtful expression. She could almost see him evaluating each of the spices used to season the chicken in the bento box.

She reached for her own box and chopsticks, reaching for something in the box without paying much attention. Her expression never left his, wondering just what he'd think of what he was eating. She had the feeling it was the first time he'd eaten human food.

"It is acceptable," he said after a moment, catching her by such surprise that she stabbed her cheek with her chopsticks instead of bringing the food to her mouth. The meat fell from her chopsticks back into her bento without Kagome even noticing.

He licked the tip of his claw, removing a tiny bead of sauce that hadn't made it with the piece of chicken into his mouth.

She gaped at him, astonished as he reached for another piece of meat—this one fish—and stabbed it with his claw before bringing it to his mouth to taste. Once again, he chewed it, savoring each moment, and once again, he pronounced it acceptable with a slight nod.

His gaze flickered to hers and suddenly self-conscious, she turned back to her own food. She ate quietly, unsure of what she should say, and she thought it would be ruder still if she left Sesshomaru to eat on his own. 

But she was so distracted that she barely paid any attention at all as she dipped pieces of chicken into the sweet sauce her mother had prepared from scratch. She ate almost mechanically, trying to puzzle out what had made Sesshomaru change his mind about accepting her food.

"You may prepare this again." She blinked as he handed the bento back to her. "However, next time, this one will procure the meat for you to prepare."

This time, she was so surprised that she bit down on her finger instead of the chicken dangling at the end of her chopstick. She hissed in pain, dropping her chopsticks down onto the bento. "What?" she asked, more because she was certain she'd misheard him.

He offered her a small, sardonic smile. "This one consents," he said as if that explained everything, licking the tips of his fingers to clean them with slow, careful gestures that made her suddenly feel rather faint.

She moved her lips but no sound emerged. Consents to what? What did I just do?

"Okay," she finally said with a flush, sensing that he was waiting for some sort of answer. She set his empty bento box down next to her, wondering if he was simply going to leave now that he'd finished the food.

He didn't. He continued to look at her and she wondered what he was doing. Was he waiting for something? 

He leaned in, slight enough that if she hadn't been staring, she wouldn't have noticed, and whispered, "This one looks forward to seeing what else you prepare for the one you care for."

And with that, he rose, leaving her mind fumbling with understanding as he began walking out of camp as Rin followed sedately behind him, sitting atop the dragon with Jaken slumped over its saddle in front of her.

Realization struck.

He thinks that I like him. She stared at her bento without really seeing it. And he just consented to it.

She watched him walk away but all she could think about was what the hell she was supposed to do about it because rejecting Sesshomaru seemed like a very, very stupid thing to do. She whimpered to herself. Like it or not, it seemed like she'd somehow become involved with Sesshomaru.

InuYasha was going to throw a fit when he realized it. She sighed. But it had been nice, having Sesshomaru's undivided attention as he’d eaten the food she'd prepared, even if that food had originally been made for someone else.

And to her surprise, she found that she wanted to see that expression of his again as he ate. And that fact, somehow, told her that nothing would ever be the same again.