#iypm

Inuyasha Pride Month: Holiday Edition 🌈

Calling all Inuyasha fans! Winter is coming, and we’re bringing Pride Month with us. From December 15th – 24th, we’re hosting Inuyasha Pride Month: Holi-Daze. The idea is simple – show up! Everyone gets a seat at the table, no matter who, what, when, where, why or how they choose to present. If you’re not sure which direction you’re headed in, that’s perfectly fine; we’re just glad to have you as you are. We have a handy list of prompts below the cut to help you get started, but the creative freedom is yours. Because Pride is a state of mind, and we’d like to celebrate you!

One Fandom. Ten Days. Anything goes.

Tag us @inuyashapridemonth and use the hashtag: #IYPMHolidaze when the time comes!

Love, The Mods ♡

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@inuyashapridemonth

Rin specifically told Kohaku to stay out of her business.

He’d pulled her aside after dinner, mouthing the word ‘him?’ so that his brother in law’s keen hearing would not alert him to the conversation that needed to be had long before Christmas Day, but Rin had been less than forthcoming. It ‘wasn’t his business’ and therefore he was meant to stand back and watch it all play out.

Honestly? She should have known better.

“You won’t believe who was seen cornering boys and demanding a date before class this morning.”

Kohaku’s friendship with Mayu was a friendship of convenience. They were the youngest in their class, and their last names began with the same three characters when broken down into hiragana. If there were a time when her desk was not behind his—he didn’t remember it.

Either way, Kohaku pretended not to hear.

Mayu dug her pencil into his spine, snickering when he lurched against the hard wooden border of his desk. “Poor Satoru texted me asking for advice because apparently your precious niece demanded that he accompany her to Christmas dinner this year.”

“Did you do the homework? Mr. Houshii is only gonna let you off easy so many times before he calls your mom.”

Just because Mayu resented her younger brother didn’t mean he resented Rin. Perhaps the girl he grew up with viewed him as someone she couldn’t talk to about love—but he’d never act in a way that made him deserving of that verdict. Even if that meant ticking off his best friend.

“Don’t try to change the subject.”

“Then take a hint.”

She snorted. “Sen. Si. Tiveeee.”

When her nagging finally stopped, her chair squeaked. He imagined that she slumped against the desk, her arms outstretched across the wood.

“Honestly? I thought she was gay.”

Kohaku whipped around, his jaw clenched, because if Rin didn’t want them knowing, then they had no right speculating—and met the sparkling indigo of his math teacher’s eyes. His lips quirked upwards, as if he’d say something too personal and inappropriate, but in the end he seemed to think better of it.

“Ikeda,” tapping his blue pen against the clipboard, Miroku’s eyes scanned her empty desk. “Homework?”

She shrank in her seat.

“As much as I love gossip,” he made a show of marking X on his sheet, “perhaps you’d be better off focusing on your own life for now?”

“Yes, sir.”

Miroku drew in a circle to mark Kohaku’s work as completed before continuing down the line.

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.”