Chapter Text
Working at the Fifth & Magnolia flower shop wasn’t exactly Kagome Higurashi’s dream job. Sure, the shop name - aptly telling customers both the shop’s location and it’s wares - had tickled her and held her attention long enough to see the Help Wanted sign on the door. But really, it was the opportunity to leave her sticky, burnt popcorn smelling gig at the movie theater that made her turn in a resume. It looked nicer, certainly smelled nicer, but it was still a retail job at the end of the day. And like every other retail job she’d had, she quickly learned the quirks of the customer base. Kagome was good with people, and prided herself on being easy to talk to, so customers were always more than happy to chat with her while she completed their orders.
It took a few months, but Kagome started getting good at noticing the regulars and being able to make helpful suggestions based on past purchases (even though she honestly knew almost nothing about “the language of flowers” or anything about botany or horticulture for that matter). Other than which displays to water when and why some flowers get tall vases and others short she was entirely guessing.
There was one thing she did know, though: white lilies were for funerals.
So by the fifth time Lily - the nickname she’d given the tall, white haired puppy-eared man because that’s all he even bought from the little shop - her interest was a little more than piqued. The little shop never had more than a dozen customers in a day, but even if she’d been in the middle of Times Square there’s no way she could have kept herself from staring.
Tall, lean, and always dressed in a crisp black suit, Lily was absolutely beautiful. Each transaction was the same short exchange. He came in, nodded at her greeting while she tried not to drool as his hair glistened in the sunlight. Then he’d grab the simple bouquet of white lilies from the “sympathies” display - no card, just the flowers - hand her a $20, and walk out. Kagome desperately wanted to talk to him, but since he never used a card she had no idea what his name was, and he was always in a rush, never stopping to talk or really giving her any indication he knew she was there beyond nodding at her greeting.
Lily was a regular, but not consistent like most of the others. Geranium - the old man who always bought geraniums and other hanging plants for his wife - came once a month, usually the first Monday. Hotel Guy came every other Tuesday to refresh the stuff in his lobby vases. Playboy got a single red rose, and possibly some form of VD, every Friday afternoon. But Lily was erratic. Sometimes she saw him twice in a week, and once she pouted when he didn’t come for a whole month.
It was the first week in September when things took a sharp turn into the unexpected. Lily came in on Wednesday for his usual bouquet, Kagome drooled respectfully, then he left. But on Thursday he came again - It took a moment for Kagome to realize it was the same person. Not only was it well after his normal time, but he wasn’t wearing his usual suit. Instead of the stark, aetherial contrast of pure black and silvery white, the long hair down his back rested against a simple, pale blue t-shirt and grey slacks. The softer color palette made his amber eyes shine and it was wholly distracting.
Kagome was not going to let this change in routine pass without comment- this was her chance to finally talk to him. She was. Really. She just needed her brain to focus less on how much she wanted to touch his ears and more on how words worked. Kagome was more than a little frustrated with herself when she hadn't found her tongue as he came up to the counter with a small bouquet of multicolored daisies.
He placed his usual $20 on the counter and turned to leave, but since this wasn’t his regular order it wasn’t his regular total. She finally shouted out and ran around the little counter.
“Wait! You forgot your change-” she tried not to blush as she held his full attention for the first time in their months of not-quite-interacting. “Nice to see you putting some color into your life,” she said with a small smile as she handed him a few dollars.
She wasn’t expecting him to scowl, or for her stomach to drop along with his usually perky puppy ears.
She ducked her head in embarrassment and quickly backtracking to the safety of the cashwrap. She expected him to storm out but instead he turned back to look at her.
"What do you usually do with the change?" he asked her, one thick eyebrow raised in confusion as he stared at the money in his hand. Kagome blushed worse than ever, realizing for the first time he might not have realized he was owed 8cents after every purchase he'd done so far. She leaned over and slid the little acrylic Change for Charity box where he could see it.
"You always leave so fast, and it's less than a dime, so I put it here. The money goes to the children's hospital."
Lily looked between her, the box, and his hand, then took several quick steps back towards the counter and shoved the bills into the little slot. Kagome didn't even get a chance to thank him before he was gone again.
Kagome assumed she'd scared him off when he didn't come back for two weeks. But eventually he did make his standard appearance; back in business black, purchasing white lilies. She kept her mouth shut this time, but couldn't help but smile as he waited for his change and placed the coins in the charity box himself. He came back twice that month in casual clothes for daisies, and she didn't comment on this new part of the routine.
That is, until they reached October and he seemed to have mixed up his days -- buying daisies while wearing the suit-- and she spoke before she could stop herself.
"You got your days mixed-up, don't you want the lilies?" she asked with a giggle.
“What?” he barked at her.
Kagome faltered, but tried again. “The flowers- you have your work suit but grabbed date flowers instead.”
As his ears pinned back, “You this nosey with everyone or just me?”
Kagome felt herself blush and was about to apologize, but she was struck momentarily dumb as Lily dramatically groaned and dropped his head down onto her work counter with an impressively dramatic sigh.
“Sorry that was rude,” he mumbled into the countertop.
“No, you’re right, it’s none of my business,” said Kagome, entirely unsure what to do about the hanyou melting onto her workspace.
He straightened up suddenly, smooshing his hands around his face, as if rearranging his features would bring him some form of clarity. He groaned loudly, then sighed again and pushed away from the counter, pacing a tight circle as he began monologuing at Kagome.
“I work at Shikon Funeral Home - that’s what the lilies are for. And I like my job. It’s important and it’s meaningful but it's also fucking terrible dinner conversation for all these shit first dates my so called friend keeps setting me up on because he’s convinced I’m going to die alone at work and nobody will find me for days because they won’t smell me with all the other corpses which is stupid because of course they would since all my bodies are cold and I’d be all gross and melty but he keeps fucking doing it anyway.” Lily paused and ran his clawed hands through his hair, though after his rant he did seem a little calmer, “And I just… hate blind dates so much.”
Kagome took a second to process all of this sudden information - and to relax her face so her eyebrows came back down to their normal position. She felt bad for him. Clearly his job was high-stress, and honestly, who did like blind dates? He seemed like a nice guy, buying flowers for these girls he clearly had no interest in and buying them for work… except....
“Wait,” she asked, earning her a twitchy ear as if he’d forgotten she was there for a minute, “If you work at a funeral home why do you need my flowers? Don’t you get them by the van load?”
He pinched his lips together for a second before answering. “Shikon handles a lot of the city’s unclaimed bodies, at cost, but this is a family business. In this case it's my family and means my jackass brother looks at all the receipts with a microscope. So if I want to leave flowers for when we have an unattended service then it’s gotta come out of my own pocket … and you’re the closest shop.”
Kagome nodded once, coming to a decision.
“Well,” said Kagome, untying the back of her acid-green work apron and sliding it off over her head, “I think that has earned you some good karma.”
She took out her phone from her jeans pocket and slid it across the counter to him. “Here, type in your number for me,” she said as she quickly fluffed up her inky hair and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse.
Lily slowly tapped on her screen while watching her somewhat warrily. She took her phone back from him and walked in front of the large display of bright orange dahlias before quickly scooping her hands into the cups of her bra to give herself a little extra pop of cleavage. She snapped a few selfies, sent the best of the bunch to Lily - even though she knew his name was Inuyasha now thanks to the new contact card, she had every intention of changing it back to Lily as soon as he left. She quickly buttoned her top again before sliding her apron back on and joining Inuyasha back at the counter, his eyes wide and his ears at full attention.
“There you go!” Kagome announced as she heard his phone ping from his pocket, “Now you can tell your friend you already have a girlfriend.”
When he continued to look at her dumbfounded she couldn’t help but laugh a little. “What, you don’t watch RomComs? A fake girlfriend is exactly what you need right now, and honestly the universe should pay you back a little for your kindness. Not a lot of other people would shell out $20 in grave flowers for a stranger. Enjoy your stress-free Friday nights, on behalf of the universe.”
She watched as he pulled out his phone, tapped away at the screen, and then slid it across to her.
It was her message to him, but he’d named her contact My Universe. She burst out laughing, clapping her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. He grinned, it was small but genuine, and made Kagome one thousand percent certain she did the right thing helping him out.
“Might as well lean into it, right?” He said, “But, he’s going to want your name.”
She reached her hand across the counter, “I’m Kagome.”
“Inuyasha,” he said, clasping his much larger hand around hers.
“Inuyasha, it is very nice to not date you.”
“It’s very nice to not date you too, and thank you, I owe you, really.” And with that he turned and left, not purchasing anything but far from empty handed.
Kagome didn’t think about her little bit of universe meddling until the next morning when Inuyasha came rushing into the little shop as soon as she turned the sign to Open.