InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale Twice Told ❯ A Man in Turmoil ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of  their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. In other words, I don't own and I make no money from this.

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Inuyasha was almost done with his packing. It was only a day after he had returned from his honeymoon and the whole family was aghast at the idea of him going away so soon – and on an extended tour at that. But he was adamant about it. In fact, he could not wait to get away from his wife as quickly as he could.

The ‘honeymoon’ had turned out to be as bad as it had promised. Throughout the trip he had tried to keep in mind his stepmother’s advice and be considerate towards Kagome, tried to cheer her up and make her laugh. But all of his attempts had fallen flat on their faces. She was perpetually sad and mourned the loss of her former relationship. One night she was crying and calling for Sesshoumaru in her sleep. That was the moment he realized, that no matter how hard he tried, she would never be pleased – because he was not the one she wanted in the first place. That was the moment he had decided to give up trying altogether.

His valet took his luggage away; Inuyasha looked around his room. There was nothing that he had missed. With a satisfied nod, he walked out.

There was a silhouette in the doorway. He looked up to see Kagome’s delicate form gracing the heavy, wooden door. Ignoring every instinct that told him to pass her without a word, he stopped to say goodbye.

“Mother will help you settle in. You won’t have a hard time here.”

She nodded. “I know. You take care…” and then she added, almost in a whisper, “and come back soon.”

Tilting her head up, she looked at him. There was something in her eyes that he couldn’t quite place. It was not love, neither was it indifference. It was, rather, a forlorn and wistful glance, like that of an abandoned waif – like she would be utterly alone in the house without him. His pulse quickened. All of his protective instincts went into overdrive. He wanted to ask her to come away with him, wanted to cancel the trip and stay beside her. Maybe she needed him. His hand almost rose to give her a hug.

“Good luck with the campaign,” her hand briefly rested on his arm.

“The luggage is in the car. Are we ready to go, Sir?” his driver was asking.

“Yes, I’m coming.”

He wondered if going away was a mistake. Maybe he should have stayed and tried to work things out with her. But now it was too late for that. Commitments had been made, venues had been booked. Not going now would cause a tremendous loss of face for his Party. He coaxed his unwilling feet to budge from the spot, and with a final look at his wife, he was on his way to the airport.

Almost a month later he found himself on the east coast of the country. The campaign had gone well so far. His popularity seemed to have increased since his wedding. He wasn’t sure if Jii-chan had something to do with it. Wherever he went people congratulated him on his new marriage and gushed about how good he looked with his wife. He took it all with a wry smile, wincing inwardly at the irony of the situation. By that time both he and Kagome had reverted back to their cold, formal selves with each other. The meeting at the door was history. He had spoken to her a few times on the phone, but each conversation was short and to the point – generally involving him asking after her well-being and her asking after the campaign. Both had assiduously kept away from all personal topics. By that time he knew he had nothing more with her than a few isolated moments. A moment when their hands touched, a moment during their honeymoon, a moment at the door – moments that he wasn’t even sure existed outside of his mind. Trying to work on the marriage was like flogging a dead horse now. Attempting to put the whole fiasco out of his mind, he had plunged into his work. And yet those moments continued to linger in the back of his mind, haunting him whenever he had a spare moment.

That day, as he sat down at the desk to write his speech, Inuyasha suddenly toyed with the idea of bringing Kagome on his next trip. ‘That way I can cash in on our popularity as a couple,’ he silently told himself. Of course there would be nothing personal about it. ‘We can surely travel together,’ he thought, ‘but like the parallel banks of a river. We can meet but never unite, like there is a glass wall separating us.’

A gust of cold wind scattered his papers all over the place. Inuyasha noticed how dark the room had suddenly become. He hurried to the window to pull down the sash, but his hand remained on the panel, his gaze transfixed on the sea. A storm was coming – he could see the light from the fishing boats as they were sailing towards the shore. The trees were swaying in a silent rhythm. The wind was swirling like a mad dervish, raking up fistfuls of golden sand. The sea had taken the steely hue of the sky, foaming and gnashing against the sand bars – as if a long-slumbering beast had awakened from the pages of a dark fantasy. Lightning lanced through the sky, and in a flash her face appeared on his mind. Inuyasha caught his breath. She was looking at him like that again. Again his pulse quickened at the glance. And then the image was gone.

He blinked. Why could she not have ignored him at the doorway altogether? If she would not belong to him, why look at him like that? By now he would have forgotten that the marriage had happened, would have even forgotten her face. But for that glance…

The truth was, he was merely deluding himself. Try as he might, he couldn’t drive her away from his thoughts for a single moment. It was not for mere publicity that he wanted to bring her on the next campaign. It was to cure his loneliness, to have the comfort of her presence around him. He needed her love like he needed the very air to breathe. Contrary to what he wanted to believe, he was becoming obsessed with his wife.

Unknown to him, his gypsy woman of the rainbow spirit had cast her spell; radiant like the fire she was, and yet so distant; when she was close to him she was ephemera, a shadow of a dream. The way her eyes touched him had sparked his infatuation for her; the flame of that touch had ignited his breath, his heart cried out in pain but love had consoled his spirit. She touched him in a whisper, with the silence of her eyes, and he was left praying on the cold floor in half-consciousness. He was enchanted by her ways, longed to be entangled in her arms, and he knew not the way to comb out his sanity that only wished to entwine in her desire. His life and death was a new obsession from which there was no respite.

Inuyasha smiled. What were the seven stages of love that the Sufis believe in? Attraction he felt towards her, infatuation as well, and it was proceeding surreptitiously towards love. What waited for him beyond that? Reverence, worship, obsession and death? Hmm, things were getting quite interesting now. The stakes were higher.

He picked up his phone to call his ladylove. It went to the voicemail. Love faltered at its first obstacle. He tried again – remembering King Bruce and the spider. Again the impersonal tone of a beep welcomed his ardent passion. Subsequent attempts also yielded the same result. Inuyasha frowned. This was weird – Kagome was a light sleeper. There’s no way she would ignore so many calls unless-

Other images started forming in his mind. Horrible, nasty images involving his woman in the arms of another man – his own brother. He was gone from home, it was late at night, and she evidently wasn’t in her room. The conclusion was too obvious to ignore. Not that he had anyone to blame for it. He had offered her this very choice – basically held it out on a platter to her.

The burning, twisting fang of jealousy that lashed and struck at his heart like a cruel serpent surprised Inuyasha with the deadliness of his own venom. What was hiding inside his own heart without his knowledge? Where was this passion for Kagome coming from? This jealousy at her being fondled by another man? This irrational, inconvenient, outrageous feeling of loss as the realization dawned upon him that probably there was no marriage to begin with – just an eyewash, a compromise, a charade meant for the eyes of the public.

The papers that he had been writing his speech on now rolled on the floor, abandoned – the rain pouring through the open window was erasing their contents into mere blue smudges. Suddenly the whole campaign had lost meaning for Inuyasha.

It was with a foul mood and a terrible headache that he woke the following day. He had spent the entire night thrashing around in bed and having crazy nightmares. There was a dull pain in his chest – and for the first time he understood why it was called heartache. He had never felt like this in his whole life – not even when he had broken up with Kikyou. After a shave that caused him to nick his jaw, a cold shower that did nothing to invigorate him, and a breakfast that tasted like ash, he slumped out of the hotel feeling drowned in the blues. He was supposed to meet the children from an orphanage, many of whom were aborigines. It was to connect with the marginalized population – a part of Myouga’s campaign strategy. There was a time when Inuyasha was also looking forward to the task – he loved spending time around children. On any other day, he would have enjoyed himself.

He had only gotten out of his car to greet the tots when a group of protesters marched in, hurling abuses against the Taishous and their elitist mentality. The journalists followed closely for a byte. A man, whom Inuyasha could identify as the aborigine leader Kouga, came to the fore.

“For years we aborigines have been neglected by the government because we are neither consumers nor voters,” there was a smug confidence on the face of the young upstart that immediately riled Inuyasha, “we are like ghosts who don’t even exist. But now our demands will have to be met.”

The protesters raised slogans suggesting that the Taishous retire from politics.

“If you will remember, during the time of Inu no Taishou numerous reforms had been planned for the improvement of the backward classes – plans that were shelved by Ryuukossei’s government without assigning valid reasons for the same,” Inuyasha replied.

There was a moment’s silence. Inuyasha wondered what he might have said wrong – the task was a difficult one owing to the fact that his mind was barely working.

“Backward classes?” Kouga hissed, “In what sense are we backward? And what makes you so forward? Because we don’t live in mansions and have servants to wash our hands? You call our women whores for sleeping around without the bond of ‘holy matrimony’ and what do your women do?”

Inuyasha bristled at the insinuation.

“Care to explain that statement?” In his heart he knew what was coming, yet his mind was too numbed to think of an appropriate response.

“Oh just forget your pretence. It’s an open secret what goes on inside the Taishou mansion. How two brothers are sharing the same woman.”

The seething volcano of Inuyasha’s anger burst forth at these words. The anger he felt at his weakness for agreeing to marry his brother’s fiancée, the anger he felt at the unnecessary suffering that Kagome was going through because of his brother, the anger that he felt at his helplessness that compelled him to see his wife going to the bed of another man – Kagome hadn’t answered his calls…

Before he knew it his hands were upon Kouga’s collars. She might not think of him to be worthy of her affection but he would do his duty as a husband. He would defend her honour against the whole wide world.

Till death us do part…

“That’s my wife you are talking about you bastard! How dare you? How dare you talk crap about my wife?”

“You can’t treat a politician like this,” someone was saying.

“Yes, please answer the question,” someone piped in.

“No I won’t,” Inuyasha growled. “Criticise my capabilities as a politician as much as you desire, I’ll stand and answer you. But my wife is off limits.”

“So you accept the allegation?” somebody asked.

Inuyasha was ready to batter the man into a paste. He was past all limits of endurance. Burning fury had finally found a vent. His aides were restraining him; suddenly, he gave up the struggle. They took him back into the vehicle. He stared vacantly out of the car.

“She is having as difficult a time as you in this situation, if not more so.” Lady Taishou's words echoed in his mind once more.

A sigh escaped him. ‘Not any more, Mother. She has made her choice and it will lead her to happiness.’

It hurt him to think that Kagome could be so blind to his own suffering – that she could just discard him like a rag doll and move on in the pursuit of her own happiness.

But then again, why was he expecting more from her? She might have been his bride but she would never be his wife.