InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Beyond Friendship: Be Who You Are ❯ Roots ( Chapter 9 )

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

Chapter 9 – Roots

"There are two kinds of love...in the safe kind you look for someone who's exactly like you. It's what most folks settle for. But then there's the other kind of love. Everyone's born with a ragged edge, and some folks crave that piece that's a perfect fit. You'll search for it forever, if you have to. And if you're lucky enough to find it, it looks so right, you start to tear at your own seams, thinking, maybe I could look just as perfect. But then, of course, when you try to get close to their other half, you don't fit anymore. That kind of love...you come out of it a different person than you were when you started."

— Jodi Picoult

Inuyasha waited apprehensively outside his apartment building where Sesshoumaru was supposed to pick him up.

He didn’t really know why he was so nervous; he’d been on a plane before. Even though he had never been on a private jet before, he knew Sesshoumaru would not let him feel out of place.

For some reason, going to his hometown with Sesshoumaru was…not right. Sesshoumaru was his life in this city. For some reason, it felt wrong to have him there with him.

But anyhow, this way, he would get to see his mother a couple of days earlier; the train route was at least a day and a half’s journey.

Instead of his usual midnight blue sports car, a sleek black stretch limo came to a smooth halt in front of Inuyasha. The hanyou took a deep breath, clutching the bag in his hand tightly, and walked over to it, as a chauffeur got out and held the door open for him.

Maybe it would get more comfortable as the journey progressed.

___________________________________________________________________________

It didn’t.

Inuyasha sat in the ridiculously luxurious seats opposite his boyfriend, sipping the best champagne and wished the ride would get over as quickly as possible.

They had chatted for some time about random things but soon their usual awkwardness returned. Both Sesshoumaru and he lapsed into silence. Inuyasha stared out the window at clouds that looked like sunlight trapped in balls of cotton.

This journey was not supposed to be like this, though he couldn’t say he hadn’t been afraid something like this would happen. They had talked in pleasantries for a while and then the tension had gotten tighter, trapped thousands of feet above ground, without an escape.

“So,” Inuyasha began, “You’ve been to Shinegawa before?”

Sesshoumaru inclined his head with the champagne flute in his hand and turned to look out the window.

“Yes. Father goes there for business every year.  Sometimes, mother and I need to join him.”

Inuyasha nodded. He didn’t wonder how the two of them had never met before. Sesshoumaru and he were from very different parts of town. The demon prince had probably never even set foot in his neighbourhood.

“How come I’d never heard of you then?”  he asked. “A prince coming into such a small town would definitely be big news, not to mention Taisho-sama.”

“Due to the nature of our work there, it is important that our arrival not be widely publicized,” Sesshoumaru told him.

Inuyasha nodded.

They once more lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

Inuyasha pretended to be interested in the clouds visible outside the window. A few seconds later, he glanced at his boyfriend. Sesshoumaru was quietly sipping his champagne, seemingly lost in thought about something. He turned back to the window, feeling queasy.

A few more moments passed by and Inuyasha could not take it any longer. The silence had become oppressive.

“So, it’ll be good to finally be home,” he began, sounding too cheerful.

Sesshoumaru raised his eyes from the glass of champagne in his hand. “Did you miss home while you were here?”

Inuyasha was startled at the question. He had never thought of himself as very attached to his home; the time he had spent there wasn’t particularly happy, after all. But hearing the question spoken out loud made him realize that he did in fact, look forward to being back.

“I-I guess…” he replied hesitantly, “I mean the school and all’s great but…it’ll be good to be back, at least for Christmas.”

Sesshoumaru seemed not to have heard him. There was an intense look in his eyes, one which Inuyasha had rarely seen before.

“I- I mean we’re used to spending Christmas together, you know?” Inuyasha forced himself to continue, willing the demon to forget whatever it was that had suddenly struck him. “I’ll decorate the tree and ma-“

“Inuyasha,” Sesshoumaru interrupted quietly. Inuyasha stopped, feeling queasy.

“Does Naraku still live close to your home?”

And the bottom dropped out of Inuyasha’s stomach. He knew he had left out a very crucial aspect of his tale – the ending. Many times since, he’d had the urge to tell him, to let him know but every time, his courage failed him. And Sesshoumaru had never asked so Inuyasha didn’t want to be presumptuous enough to think that the demon Lord would be so concerned. His chest hurt a little, every time he thought that his boyfriend didn’t care enough to ask but then, despite everything that had happened, their relationship was still new. He had already fucked up enough by revealing embarrassing things far too early on; it didn’t help that his boyfriend’s piercing eyes made it impossible to hide anything.

“No,” he answered, looking away. “He…about a year back, he suddenly moved away. He had to take care of some ‘business’ apparently. That’s-“

He swallowed nervously, mouth suddenly dry. “That’s how I got out…I applied to the school after he left…because it looks like he’ll be gone for a while.”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes turned cold. “You were able to come to this school merely because he was gone…?”

Inuyasha laughed without humour. “What, you think he would’ve let me go, otherwise?”

The demon Lord said nothing. It rankled that the hanyou continued to design his life around the bastard’s whims though it was small comfort to know that Inuyasha was in no immediate danger. Even if his relationship with the hanyou broke off, he had no intention of letting a monster like Naraku roam free in what would someday be his lands. But if the dark hanyou was away, maybe there was hope yet that he would never return.

“Christmas without Naraku must make a nice change.”

The words came out more bitter than he had meant them to be and Inuyasha’s head jerked up at the uncharacteristically crude comment. Sesshoumaru did not allow regret to show through his impassive features but the look on Inuyasha’s face made him flinch inwardly.

Inuyasha did not answer, preferring to look out the window instead but his face had hardened. Realizing further conversation would most likely be even more painful, Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and leaned back in the plush, comfortable chair. At the back of his mind, there was a sharp, uncomfortable feeling and Sesshoumaru tried his best to turn his thoughts away from it.

Images of flushed cheeks and bloodied wrists danced before his eyes.

___________________________________________________________________________

“Well,” Inuyasha said, hefting his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll…see you around, I guess.”

The plane that had felt like a prison to 2 of its passengers finally landed.

 “Happy holidays.”

Sesshoumaru nodded. “I wish you the same.”

Inuyasha hesitated, debating whether or not to take the initiative and just kiss him. He took half a step forward, but Sesshoumaru was already turning away. He withdrew the hand that he’d half outstretched and stood back on his heels.

In the cold, foggy winter morning, he watched his boyfriend walk away without a backward glance. Something hurt, deep inside his chest.

He ignored it and turned away, facing his usual, very familiar way.

His spirits lifted to see the familiar old road. Everything on this way welcomed him – the low-hanging branches with paper-thin wild flowers,  the stray animals slinking away in the afternoon shadows, the low walls enclosing old-fashioned, rather run-down houses, the peculiar scent of winter noon; smoke mixed with something sharp.

Inuyasha took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the scent. His high school, Sesshoumaru, his heartache, everything seemed far away. Even the dirty darkness inside him that was his constant companion, seemed to recede into some small corner within himself.

Inuyasha looked up with closed eyes and allowed the pure sunlight to burn his ill feelings away. For the first time since many days, a small smile appeared on his face as he stood with his face turned to the sun.

He was going home.

___________________________________________________________________________

Inuyasha’s reunion with his mother went as he’d expected.

Izayoi showed her delight at having her son back in her own unique way; she held her arms wide open with tears brimming in her eyes, even though he was no longer the little boy who could fly into them.

Still, he was not ashamed to step into her embrace and inhale her scent of rose-water and lilacs after so long. He did not realize how much he had missed her till her was in her arms again.

But, great as her joy was, there were no uncouth displays of affection as he had seen amongst the other families of the neighbourhood after being reunited with their children after a long while. Most of the women were loud enough to be heard several doors over. Even years of living on the less influential side of town had not been successful in ridding Izayoi of a princess’s decorum.

And there, in the living room near the fireplace was a plain, undecorated Christmas tree. Beside it, lay some worn-out cardboard boxes that Inuyasha new were full of Christmas ornaments and tinsel. It was their unique Christmas tradition that Inuyasha decorate the tree, while his mother prepared for the Chrismas Eve feast.

After a hot bath, Inuyasha came walked into the kitchen to find his mother beginning to prepare lunch.

There was the pleasant scent of delicious food in the air and Izayoi had a huge, hot pan in her hands, lifted with the help of a cloth. Inuyasha smiled at the sight he did had not known he had missed.

Izayoi glanced back at him and smiled.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Inuyasha?”

The hanyou walked over to her and took the hot pan out of her hands.

“Yeah, way more than I’d expected.”

Izayoi beamed at him, discreetly stepping out of his way as he walked over with the heavy pan and placed it on the table.

“Did you make good friends?”

Inuyasha paused, keeping his back turned to her.

“………sure.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Sesshoumaru’s thoughts were unfocused as he moved leisurely across the winter sky.

He had not confided in Inuyasha what Shinegawa meant to him. His father had been coming here, every single year with unerring regularity, for a long, long time.

Shinegawa was an intrinsic part of his family and his past.

Among the many myriad customs that they picked up over the years from all over the world since the feudal times, Christmas was one. Sesshoumaru knew that when he reached their mansion in Shinegawa, he would find it impeccably decorated for Christmas. The Christmas tree would be there, taller than a grown man, with the traditional presents under the tree. Of course, the wrapped presents on display under the tree were merely nominal; a gift befitting the prince of the Western Lands was not something that could normally be wrapped in a box.

Although he would never admit it, every year Sesshoumaru welcomed this opportunity to spend time with his father, whom he rarely saw otherwise. The dog demon General would be in rare good spirits, along with his mother, who was…less caustic than usual on this cheery holiday.

Of course, even on the holiday, he still had his responsibilities as the prince of the Western Lands, responsibility that his father had been grooming him for since he could remember. His parents would also have their own work to do, usually separately but this was the time of the year when his father would take the time out to evaluate his work and the progress he’d made. It was Inu no Taisho who determined his new responsibilities for the next year.

It was what he looked forward to every year; a larger share in the power that would someday be his. But this year, there was a dampener on the festivities and that dampener was Inuyasha. To find that Inuyasha was somehow connected to Shinegawa…it felt like an invasion of his personal life. For some reason that he could not pin down, it made him uncomfortable.

Mokomoko-sama unfurled slightly and blew gently behind him. To humans down below, he would be more or less invisible. To unusually keen observers, he might appear as a small, silver dot moving rapidly across the sky. There weren’t many youkai who could fly this high and even those who could usually did not prefer to. Flying was an ability reserved for the supremely powerful youkai and these were usually extremely well-off. They preferred the luxury of transportation.

He also could have easily called a convenient, non-descript car to pick him up at the airport; despite there being very different sides very different parts of Shinegawa, it was nevertheless, a small town and even travelling by road would have taken no more than a few minutes. However, Sesshoumaru had always found flying soothing when his mind was troubled.

Inuyasha was a persistent problem, digging insistently at the back of his mind. The boy, so bright and so dark at the same time, intrigued him. Inuyasha made him want to go against all his years of painstakingly keeping himself and his feelings under strict control. Inuyasha made him want to break the boundaries that he had so carefully set around himself. It was dangerous and foolhardy and it was all he could do to not slam the boy against a wall and have his way with him…or stab him in the heart with tokijin and watch him bleed. Both instincts vied for power within him and both were of almost equal strength. If he let even a little of his tightly wound control go, if he let himself slip even a little, he would either fuck Inuyasha, or kill him.

The air was chilly at this height, and the biting cold helped keep his mind from veering on dangerous paths.

One of the reasons why youkai usually did not chose to fly in this whether was because unless one kept a constant watch on the atmosphere and one’s body, it could prove fatal. The moisture in the air sometimes froze unexpectedly and made breathing difficult. There was the bigger problem of the high altitude; the legend about flying too close to the sun was a very real risk taiyoukai, who could ascend very quickly.

Sesshoumaru watched the clouds below him as he skimmed over them. He, however, was the son of Inu no Taisho and so, this small exertion was nothing to him.

A bitter smile graced his lips at the thought.

___________________________________________________________________________

“Sesshoumaru?” Izayoi asked, going very still over the pot of soup she was cooking.

Inuyasha trailed of, alarmed at the way she had reacted. It was no secret that he liked men; it was something common among hanyou and youkai. He had thought his mother would be happy that he had finally found someone he cared for. After all, when he’d been home, she had poked and prodded him mercilessly about each and every miniscule crush he’d ever had.

It had never even occurred to him that his mother would have any kind of reserve with him being in a relationship. And the way she’d said his name…

It’s almost like-

 “Yeah, why? Do you know him?”

Izayoi turned away and began to take the pot off the stove. “He is the prince of the Western Lands.”

Inuyasha walked over to his mother’s other side but Izayoi’s bangs were covering her eyes.

“Ma, what’s the matter?” he asked. “Have you heard anything bad about him?”

Izayoi finally looked up and there was a look in her eyes that made Inuyasha draw back.

“Ma?” He asked, rather frightened.

“Don’t,” she whispered, and Inuyasha felt a cold shadow over his heart at the desperation in her plea.

“M-ma?” he stammered, drawing back a little as she took a shaky step forward.

“Don’t see him anymore,” she said, voice trembling – from fear or pain, he could not tell.

Inuyasha started, looking down to stare at the gentle hands that held his own.

“Inuyasha,” she said, “I want you to promise me you will not be involved with him again.”

Inuyasha swallowed dryly over the lump in his throat. He could not remember the last time his mother had asked something of him.

“But- but why not?” he asked, “Ma, is it because of the rumours? Is it because of what people say? He’s- he’s not as bad as he’s made out to be. All those stories you’ve heard about him-“

“Do not ask me why!” Izayoi exclaimed, and Inuyasha took a step back at the emotion in that statement. Izayoi broke away from him abruptly and turned away, gripping the back of the chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

“Please do not ask why, my son,” she whispered, tears falling from her eyes onto the hard wooden floor. “But you must promise me- promise me that you will never see him again…”

___________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Review, please! ^.^