I wanna do a redraw but I only have the time and mental energy for one, but also...I can't choose. So. If someone could choose for me that'd be great.

@chessxcat what are the odds that we are each other’s secret Santa ? 🤣🤣

I hope you like ittttt, tumblr was ONCE AGAIN, being a “fucker” so I’m uploading this from my phone.

Izayoi woke to InuYasha standing over her, wide eyes almost brown in the darkness of her bedroom.

“Mama, can you heat the oven?”

She rose slowly, used to the hyperactive bundle that danced on either side of her form as if he would explode if she took so much as a moment to stretch.

“Heat the oven for what?”

Her questions came too slowly for his liking and groaned, long and low, no realizing that he was holding up the operation with his dramatics.

“You said we could make cookies in the morning.” If she had any plans of objecting he pointed adamantly at the clock. 12:01 am. “It’s morning.”

She decided to spare herself the agony of forcing him into bed for a few more hours.

Besides, it was practically Christmas. She’d impose bedtimes and boundaries another night.

@inuyashapridemonth Part 4. Tomorrow is the last bit.

“This is why she doesn’t trust you.”

No one asked Miroku Houshii his opinion, and yet there it lay, wriggling and ugly.

Sesshomaru slapped a sticker on the English books he’d wrapped for Rin. Her real christmas presents were upstairs hidden at the very back of an attic so unsteady no human dared step foot up there. And it wasn’t as if he planned to keep them from her forever–just until her grades improved. 

“Because, instead of talking to her, you’re going to embarrass her in front of everyone with musty, outdated copies of the books she was issued at the start of the year.” When Sesshomaru continued to ignore him, more and more unsure of why he opened the door in the first place, Miroku continued to speak. “I assure you, she knows she’s failing.”

“Instead of coming to me, she hid it. That is why she is being gifted books.”

“Humiliation is not a gift.”

Sesshomaru bit the inside of his cheek. “Books are not humiliation.”

“They are when her peer is unwrapping a PS5.”

“Her peer has perfect grades.” 

Miroku scrubbed his face. “Sango called me over here to talk some sense into you–.” The fact that she thought he’d listen to Miroku before he listened to her was further proof that they were all insane. “And you’re making it impossible.” 

“If she had spoken to me–.”

“Do you not hear yourself? You’re her father.” Sesshomaru watched Miroku chew on a secret, knowing he would not share it for all the world. “When do you acknowledge that you’re making a mistake? She’s a teenager and they’re dramatic, but how you handle this is how she will remember you. No matter how much you apologize, and no matter how much you love her–how you treat her is what she’s going to think back.” 

Sesshomaru let his fingers dance along the gift.

“She’s hiding something from me.”

“And she will not tell you what it is if you humiliate her.” Even still, Sesshomaru would maintain that books were not humiliation. And he had not been so heartless as to not get her anything at all, but there came a time when he had to acknowledge that he was not the authority on emotion or perception or anything else really.  

“Fine.” Sesshomaru ripped the paper off and launched it directly at Miroku’s head. “No books.”

@inuyashapridemonth

It was almost too easy to convince Rin’s parents to let her come over for the weekend. Of course, he was hardly just anyone , but last he’d heard, Sesshomaru was being a real hard ass about the kids studying adequately for their end of year exams.

He nor Sango had qualms about returning the gifts that Miroku helped them choose should those report cards return with anything less than A’s lining the columns.

“You are my savior.” Rin huffed. She fell into his arms, giving him a sideways hug before heading, almost immediately, into his kitchen to ransack his cupboards. “Dad hasn’t given us a break since…” he heard the cabinet close and the plastic seal of the cookie container come squeaking open. “Since summer break, probably. If I have to face one more equation I’m gonna put my head in the toilet.”

Miroku chuckled.

“Your parents have always been hardcore.” He knew that his cookies were not long for that world, so he snagged one from the pack and picked a seat. “When Sango and I were in highschool she used to beat me during study sessions. Just–.” He grabbed the paper towel roll and made an example out of his counter. “Thwack, thwack, thwack.”

“If you think I’m going to say that she’s not like that anymore.” Around the cookie she shoved into her mouth hole, Rin continued, “I’m not. And, on top of that, they’ve been making us eat especially healthy food for the past few weeks.” She ranted for a few minutes about the way her parents had fashioned themselves into drill sergeants. When they were young they would order slices of cake from the cafe, sharing off of the plate while Sesshomaru went through cigarettes like they were going out of style.

“Get enough sleep. Eat healthy. No caffeine. No sugar–.” Rin bit into another, her tongue darting out to collect the crumbs that escaped her violent chewing. “It’s like they’ve never been young before. Dad especially.”

“Your dad was a menace before he adopted you.” Miroku assured her. “He threw away so many things for your sake. If he’s a little…utilitarian, it’s because he loves you.” And because he was a bit of a control freak.

“Loving me doesn’t give him the right to act insane.”

Miroku managed to snag a second cookie. The process of eating it would help him avoid saying too much or revealing secrets that he had no sole claim over. “Act? Now Rin, surely you know it isn’t an act. He popped out of a crazy mother, was raised by a crazy father, and still managed to feign sanity. At this point it wouldn’t be right to blame him for what he can’t help.” It was a joke, or, at least Miroku thought it was, but the way her eyes dipped and her appetite suddenly died was startling.

“He does plenty of judging.” She assured him. “If things aren’t the way ‘nature intended them’ then boom. In the trash. I don’t think I’m wrong to judge a little in return.”

“Rin–.”

“No! Because he threw away that decaf coffee you brought him back from Kyoto all because it wasn’t ‘right’.”

This was very clearly not about coffee, that much didn’t need to be acknowledged, but he sat quietly, waiting for her to explode. Though, he would be making Sesshomaru pay for that coffee. Miroku had chosen those beans especially for him. According to Sango, the rotten old bastard hadn’t been sleeping–too busy pacing the length of their bedroom muttering to himself until well into the night.

“Just imagine what he’ll do to me.”

“Over a cookie binge?” Miroku shrugged his shoulders, feigning ignorance. “He might make you go on a run with him, but I don’t think he’s taking you back to the orphanage over that one.”

“It’s not just the cookies.” She groaned. Her head hit the counter with a dull thump. “I'm failing English, they want me to bring my nonexistent boyfriend to christmas dinner, and all the while my girlfriend is introducing me to her parents on new years.”

“Aren’t you a little young for a girlfriend?”

“I’m fifteen, Miroku! I’m not a baby anymore.”

“When you were a baby you banged your head on the counter, ate all my food, and cried when your papa didn’t cuddle you enough.”

“If anyone understands–.”

“It’s me.” Miroku stood, collecting her how he did when she was still so small he only needed the one arm. “But I’ve been saying it since you sat down. Your father loves you. So much. You’re his daughter, his family. Nothing could get in the way of that.”

“He hates uncle InuYasha,” she murmured into his chest. For someone who was very much not a baby, she still seemed to be soothed by the sound of his heart thudding against her ear.

“And that has nothing to do with the fact that he was born aunty InuYumi.”

“Then–.”

“Not my story to tell.”

Rin pulled back. Most of her tears had already fallen by then, but she still brushed at her cheeks to be sure. In moments like those, when she was such a stunning combination of the people who had been ready to raise her, Miroku knew he’d done the right thing stepping away from the two people he’d loved the most. He hadn’t been ready. He’d resented Rin. Raising Kohaku after Sango’s parents’ passing had been too much, but to add on an infant? They held nothing against him when he took that massive step backwards, and he eventually found his own happiness, but there were days when they were reminiscing over their youth, that he’d wished they’d chosen him.

Today was not one of those days. She was a product of their connection, and calling him uncle instead of papa somehow made that connection burn brighter.

“You say that your father hates when things aren’t as they’re intended to be, but you have not been altered. So, don’t you think that would mean that this inauthentic version of yourself is the one he’d actually hate?”

She considered that for so long he worried she’d shut down on him. Then, finally, she sat back down and rested along the cradle she made of her arms.

“If they disown me…”

“I have a spare room.” He assured her, and then, as an afterthought, “and an old sutra with your old man’s name on it.”

Pt 3 outta 🤷🏾‍♀️