An Unexpected Love Story

Part Four: Chapter Eighteen

Part Five: Rome

Chapter Eighteen:

While I arrange the kitchen, Sesshoumaru unpacks all of our clothes.

The mattress has been delivered and we're almost done setting up, when there's a knock at the door. I hear a box drop from the other room, while I open the door.

"Hello. My name is Italo, I'm your neighbour." A tall dark haired man stands before me and speaks with a heavy beautiful accent.

"I'm Kagome." I say while I look him over.

"Where are you moving from?" He's got his hands in his pockets as he rocks back and forth on his heels.

"England." I feel like I haven't blinked in ages.

"Ahh... umm hello?" I feel Sesshoumaru materialize behind me. He regards the foreign boy from his taller height, standing defensively against me.

"I'm Italo."

"Ichiro" I can feel the look Sesshoumaru gives him.

"Well... I just wanted to introduce myself. If you need anything ask me yes?" I smile and nod as Sesshoumaru closes the door slowly.

"I think you scared him." He just looks at me. He breathes in slowly with an equally slow exhale.

"He smells of hormones." Sesshoumaru spits out, obviously perturbed. His sudden protective nature stirs something in my bones. I can't tell if it's lust or attraction to his abrupt animal like instincts to protect me.

"He was just saying hello!" I shout from the kitchen. He's already returned to his clothes and doesn't answer me.

xxx

I climb into bed at three in the morning, utterly exhausted. The museum is the most unorganized asylum I've ever been in, and I've been in a lot.

Carefully, I contort myself into bed, trying my hardest not to wake him. But I do it anyways, I can see him crack open one golden eye.

"Sorry." He rolls towards me and relinquishes some covers so I can slide closer.

"I wasn't asleep." Wrapping his arm around me, he snakes me tight against his body.

"Oh, well then I'm un-sorry." I smile into his bare chest. Black hair braided neatly behind him, and his demon marks are out in the open for the first time since that Sunday.

"I don't understand why you hide them so much." My finger traces his cheeks, forehead, eyelids and forearms.

He grunts.

"You're like some sort of painting of what everything should look and feel like." I whisper, followed by another grunt.

"Shhh...You're working tomorrow." He chides giving me a squeeze.

"You're much more attractive than Italo by the way." I tell him bluntly.

"I am not threatened by him. He is nothing."

"Ok, whatever you say. Didn't seem like it though."

"He is nothing more than a human. That is all. No threat." I feel like he's trying to convince himself more than me.

"Mmmm. I see then. Just a human." He pulls me close to his chest.

"Shhhh. I'm asleep, you should be too." And with that the silence takes over.

xxx

"Kagome! Hello!" I'm dragging my feet towards the god-awful stairs to our dumb apartment on the stupid fifteenth floor.

All I want is to teleport into my apartment and into Sesshoumaru's arms.

"Italo, hello." I smile and put on my pleasant face.

"How are you?" He's looking at me with wide brown eyes.

The preset conversation of pleasantries lasts until we start our ridiculous climb. Italo stops speaking for a moment and looks at the stairs.

"Does your friend Ichiro...like me?" Italo asks the stairs and I just look at him and wonder what type of like he's talking about. "Umm...as a friend?" I'm trying to read his face.

"Yes, does he uh...have a problem with me being around you?" He looks at me and I decipher the meaning of his words. His broken accented English always sounds so innocent.

"He can be jealous, but he doesn't have a problem with you, I don't think."

"What is your relationship with him?" His questions are prodding now and they're poking deep.

"He's my boyfriend." I answer simply as we round the corner to our neighbouring apartments, lucky us.

"Oh. Well I'm sorry Kagome, I feel..." He stops but I know he's going to finish his sentence.

"I feel like you would be better with me. I would like you to come to dinner." I feel like letting my jaw drop. I think he means what he said just now.

"Look, Italo, I'm sorry but I'm exhausted. I'm going to go inside and go to sleep. I'll see you around." I open the door and make sure to lock it behind me.

Sesshoumaru is cooking when I walk in.

"Smells delicious." Strolling into the kitchen slowly I stay on the outskirts.

"Pasta with chicken and fresh vegetables." He answers my unspoken question.

"Delicious...Italo tried to hit on me again by the way." I hear a snort.

"Was that a sound of jealousy?" I sneak up behind him and bury my face into his neck. He doesn't answer me, but I think it was a jealous sound that escaped his perfect lips.

"Mmm... I've been waiting for this all day." I dig deeper into his neck, pressing my nose to the top of his spine.

"What? Watching me do all the work?" I know he's smiling without peeling myself off of him.

"Exactly." He laughs and I love the sound. His shoulders shake slightly as he turns to face me.

"Then again if you cook the outcome will be questionable." He lifts my chin with his index finger.

"My cooking isn't that bad." Smiling, he kisses me softly. It's always so chaste for someone who can have it all, and yet he doesn't seem to want much.

Sesshoumaru pulls away slowly and continues to make his beautiful food concoction. I sigh, sitting at the kitchen table which is nothing more than two place mats on the floor.

All I want is for him to be wild and break free from those well thought out calculated movements.

Calculations aside, he makes some damn good food.

xxx

End of Chapter Eighteen