Inuyasha: A New Generation

All These Things Will Come to You

Kohaku grew quickly. It seemed as if Chihiro would blink and -bam- her child would hit another milestone. His teeth finished coming in - tiny dog fangs that made a sure reason to get him weaned. He learned to roll over, to sit up, to eat baby food, to speak in short, stilted sentences (the first time he babbled out haha and chichi were particular sources of joy), to rise up onto all fours.

To crawl.

As Honda predicted, their pup became a little terror upon learning to crawl. Nothing was spared from his tiny claws and little fangs. Table legs were gnawed and scratched, blankets and pillows were slashed, and Chihiro and Honda soon received tiny scratches and bites on their arms.

"Ow! Haku!" Chihiro cried sharply as Kohaku bit into the tender flesh of the ball of her thumb. "No, no, no! We don't bite people, okay!?"

Kohaku looked contrite and began to cry as he saw the blood coming from his mother's thumb.

"Ohh, baby," Chihiro soothed. "I'm okay. Honda? Can you get the bandages out of the cupboard?"

"Did it happen again?" Honda asked. He sighed when he saw the two spots of blood on Chihiro's hand.

"Haku, really, you mustn't bite!" he scolded. He took Kohaku gently from Chihiro's arms.

"This is only going to get worse, you know," he said.

"Are you suggesting we give up?" Chihiro challenged.

"Not at all. Only that it will be hard."

"I'm not arguing that."

Kohaku, most likely because of his dog heritage, learned to walk much later than normal. Instead, he stuck to crawling, scampering like a wild thing around the house (thankfully after a while he wasn't quite so prone to destroying furniture). Every so often, he would cruise, but he preferred all fours.

It was when he was almost two years old that he finally turned and toddled over into Chihiro's arms. When Honda came home, she demonstrated this proudly to him, and Kohaku babbled, "Chichi!" before taking the seven wobbly steps to reach his father.

As long as it took Kohaku to walk, he learned to run alarmingly quickly. On his second birthday, when Reika came with an armful of expensive presents, he pelted toward her as if he'd been practicing for years.

"Haku, sweetie! Your hat!" Chihiro cried. Thankfully, Reika's arms were so loaded down with presents she couldn't see the fluffy white ears, and Honda was there to carefully pull his hat down snugly over them.

"Oh! Kohaku-baby's getting so big!" Reika cooed. "Happy to see your auntie, are we?"

"Yah! Rei-rei! Chiro! Nii-tti!"

Jun'ichi, carrying his own small gift, gave a quiet "Tanjoubi omedetou," as Kohaku ran over to him and embraced him. He froze up and pulled away the moment Kohaku began to tug curiously on his gloves. "Off! Off!" Kohaku said firmly.

Jun'ichi pulled away, retreating behind Souichiro.

Chihiro mentally sighed. While Jun'ichi had started talking and being friendlier than the mute toddler she had met, he still had a long way to go to be considered fully recovered from the traumatic circumstances of his adoption.

"No, no, baby, Nii-tti wants to keep his gloves on," Chihiro whispered.

After singing, cake, and presents, Kohaku insisted on opening some of them, and was laughing and playing with a remote-control car on the floor as the adults talked.

"I forgot to ask, is his hair naturally that light?"

"Oh. Yes, it is. Like his eyes, we got it all checked out, and he's clear. We found it attracts attention, though, hence the hat."