InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Clumsy ❯ To Speak Darkly ( Chapter 10 )

Clumsy

You've all seen Kagome and Kikyo. In the anime they both have brown eyes, however I was re-reading my previous chapters and apparently I gave Kagome blue eyes in this story. I just wanted to note that, no particular importance or reason.

I wanted to thank the people who reviewed, chapter nine specifically. It was those reviews and suggestions that inspired this chapter. After I read them I sat down and started thinking and some hours later was motivated to write. Thank you.

The general format of day to day may be subject to change at a later point. It will soon, because it's tedious for me to write, often leading me to dead ends and plot discrepancies and it's a little on the boring side.

Act X: To Speak Darkly

-Saturday

Kagome peered out her window, scanning the tree to see if Kouga was poking around but it appeared empty of any human presence. She sighed and turned away. How did she get roped into this dumb exhibition? When she told her mother and grandfather they had both encouraged her to go ahead. Then her grandfather had launched into a speech about the important history of archery and it's correlation for the path of truth. She groaned just remembering. She'd had to sit there for an hour and then he'd taken her outside and made her practice. All in all her free Friday afternoon had been shot. Now here she was waiting to go meet Kouga.

"Kagome, there's someone to see you,"

She groaned again. Then again, maybe he would simply show up.

She'd never been to a tournament. When she'd seen him again later on in the week he'd told her it was just a small tournament in the local area. It wasn't a huge archery competition like the National Coming-of-Age tournament*. She wasn't sure where it was being held or if she even had to take anything with her.

"Kagome!" her mother called again.

She pulled her door open and managed to haul herself downstairs.

"Yo!"

She immediately smiled, that could be no one but Kouga.

"Hi Kouga."

"Are you ready?"

She nodded.

~X~

"Hey, Kagome!"

She whirled around and found Kouga and a bunch of his friends all-waving at her. She smiled restlessly and proceeded toward them only to be showered in compliments on how well she looked in her archery habiliments.

"That's really nice and all, but… I look just like all the other competitors,"

True enough, they were all dressed the same. The competition was being held indoors as opposed to outdoors. They all walked in together to wait for the opening ceremony. More people were milling about indoors than outdoors. She didn't see anyone she recognized, much to her relief.

At least until a little bundle of energy slammed straight into her, knocking them both to the ground. The little girl stood up and immediately apologized.

"Kaede!"

The people seemed to part and Kikyo came into view, dressed the same as she, scolding the little girl for running so carelessly. Kagome stood up awkwardly. Kagome took the initiative and greeted the other girl.

"Hi,"

"Hello,"

"So you're competing too. Inuyasha mentioned that the other day at the studio. I'm not really all that good at archery, but good luck to you," She half waved as Kouga grabbed her arm by the elbow and led her away from the dark haired girl.

"That wasn't polite," she began then stopped. "But since it was Kikyo…" she just let the matter drop especially since Kouga seemed to have taken no notice of her even speaking.

"If you hang out with her we're bound to end up meeting with dog-face," he scowled.

Kagome looked around. Some of the archers were smiling while others held the most serious looks on their faces. Archery was important to some people; to others it was more of a hobby. To her it was simply something she'd always done with her grandfather.

The sounds drifted away as her mind traveled to places far beyond the indoor range. It had been days and she had not spoken to Sesshoumaru once.

She sighed, drawing Kouga's attention.

"Hey, you're not thinking about dog-face are you?"

She sighed again; it was going to be a very long day.

~X~

He couldn't imagine why on earth anyone was holding an archery exhibition in weather like they were having. He was, at the least, pleased they'd had sense enough to keep it indoors away from the blustery weather.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru!"

He bristled, repressing the scowl that longed for freedom, but managed to turn impassively toward the owner of the rude voice. He wasn't surprised, amused, or pleased to see his brother standing some feet behind him, trudging toward the shrine stairs where he stood. He was even less surprised to see the idiot hadn't worn a coat.

"You here to see the archery?"

They were now standing face to face at the bottom of the stairs. Sesshoumaru didn't reply but it hardly seemed to matter to Inuyasha who continued.

"Kagome's going to be here… with Kouga,"

"Is that so?" He asked, a clear note of disinterest in his voice.

Inuyasha was about to continue when another interrupted their conversation. They both looked up to see a little girl waving down at them. She was smiling and called out again to Inuyasha who sighed and ascended the stairs leaving Sesshoumaru alone.

He looked back up trying to remember why he was here again. Higurashi was probably already here especially given how Inuyasha was typically late for everything. Archery was a time-honored sport, and he had a great deal of respect for it. It was a much more worthy use of time than dancing, which he thought of as a general waste.

After his discovery, or rather her announcement of it to her friend in the hall some afternoons past, he'd been curious about it. The things she did at the shrine had never really been of interest to him and he hadn't thought of it. It was remarkable that she had actually used some of her time for efforts other than academic and extracurricular and on something historically valuable.

Deciding again he made the right decision to make an appearance here, he too climbed the stairs and entered the shrine courtyard and from there to the appropriate building.

The door to the building was open. People were gathered around, here and there. Competitors were gathered together on the opposite side of the large room all dressed the same.

"Go, Kagome!"

He peered left. Sitting there in front with cheering cronies to his right and left was the one he'd identified as 'Kouga'. Across the room the dark haired girl in question turned and looked back sheepishly, clearly embarrassed at his outburst.

He shook his head slightly in disgust. It was no wonder Kagome was here with someone like him. The girl just couldn't say no, and at the moment he felt extremely motivated to teach her. He had no such qualms or problems and often had to say nothing to make known his dissent. He took a seat a distance away from Kouga and his friends. He had apparently missed the opening ceremony.

Kagome was standing off to the side, beside her he recognized Kikyo. From this distance the only means of telling them apart was the length of their hair. Both of them had their hair tied back with white ribbons, and they seemed to be engaging in an amiable conversation. It never ceased to amaze him how easily she could smooth things over and set aside differences to make friendships work. After all, it now appeared she had won over Kikyo, or at least stemmed the hostilities, since the girl didn't look upset.

Rather, they walked outward the starting line together, so perhaps Inuyasha simply wasn't a big enough issue to divide them. Although he could hardly imagine what they had in common outside of archery and family background, as far as he knew Kikyo had also come from a family that owned a shrine although they had since lost possession of it.

The difference between the two girls who looked so much alike was glaring. Kikyo was calm and at ease with her bow while Kagome seemed apprehensive, staring down the range nervously. Despite her agitation, she seemed fairly certain of herself.

He wondered idly to himself if she would look over and see him, but her eyes never wandered from the range targets. Although that was perhaps more out of nervousness than concentration knowing how Kagome handled some things.

Through the progression of the afternoon, he became bored with the affair and decided to take leave of it. He rose from his place and slipped gracefully past the crowd of people blocking the door and outside into the cool air.

The wind ruffled through his bangs, the weather was beginning to even out and in a month, or two the low temperatures would, traditionally, go up again bringing an end to the cold season.

"Sesshoumaru,"

"Kagome," he didn't even need to see, to know who it was addressing him.

"Interesting to see you here. Are you an archer?" she asked, ever the conversationalist.

"No,"

A few moments of stiff silence followed, her facing him- him facing away.

"I've decided." the assurance of the statement made him turn toward her in a silent bid for her to continue. "I've decided that I'm not going to do this anymore."

She smiled thinly.

"This half-on, half-off thing isn't going to work anymore. So either we are friends, or we are not."

It was true enough. It really wasn't working. That was it, the line was drawn, and she was standing on the other side of it. All he had to do was turn and leave and she'd pursue other people and the relationship he'd simultaneously wanted to preserve and to sever, would be over. It would be easier that way. It would make the months following less difficult, if he didn't have to deal with Kagome, but the logic didn't pan out. He was immobile. He couldn't make himself go.

"Yo! Kagome! What are you doing outside? Is that dog-face?"

Of all the things he hated, interruptions were one of them. Especially by any of Kagome's lackluster friends, she herself was acceptable, but her companions were loathsome. Once again due to her inability to choose or rather rid herself of nuisances such as this one.

He particularly hated interruptions where the foolish party had the nerve to insult him. He stepped forward more quickly than she could get in his way, clutching the collar of the interrupting person tightly as he leered down at him.

"Excuse me?" He growled.

Kagome scrambled to assist the sputtering young man in his grasp. She tried, unsuccessfully; to pry his fingers from the boy's shirt while insisting that he had meant someone else. Upon realizing that Kouga had thought he was his brother, Inuyasha, he released him, and he backed up a step or two.

"You are interrupting, go away,"

Kouga took another couple steps back as Kagome promised to meet him inside in a few minutes. Kouga, to his credit, left them alone. She was smiling brightly, although it dimmed considerably when she turned back to Sesshoumaru.

"You don't have to get violent, you know," she half-scolded.

"You shouldn't be associating with people like that,"

"My friends aren't the issue, and you're in no place to criticize."

"I have every right to criticize,"

Apparently she didn't see the point as argumentative or realized she was in fact, wrong and left the subject alone.
"That isn't the topic! We're supposed to be discussing the non-status of our relationship,"

"This is no place for such a discussion,"

She shook her head. "We don't need a discussion, Sesshoumaru. Either you want to be friends with me or you don't. Is it that much of a dilemma?" Her voice was low; threatening if he gave the wrong answer she'd end up hurt and knowing Kagome, probably crying. She had always been giving to crying, why, he could never figure out.

He stepped back, turning his head slightly away. "We both have other things to be doing, we can continue another time, at a more appropriate place,"

He wasted no time in getting away from her. He didn't like the situation or their place of conversation.

~X~

"Ah, it's such a good day!" Sango exclaimed, pushing the changing room door open.

Kagome smiled. "I guess you're happy about the part you got,"

Sango sat down beside her pulling off her ballet slippers. "Aren't you? I thought you wanted a lead role, you got the Sugar Plum Fairy,"

"Oh, I'm happy about that, I just have a few other things on my mind."

"Something serious? Is everything okay?"

It wasn't like Kagome to be so down.

"No, no, nothing like that, just minor stuff."

They pulled on some warmer clothes, and Kagome grabbed her bag and they followed one another out. Inuyasha was out by the front desk while Kaede and Rin ran around him in lazy, laughing circles. Sesshoumaru wasn't at the front desk, to her surprise; rather a new woman was seated there.

"I didn't know Inuyasha was so popular with the younger girls," Sango snickered and Kagome smiled accordingly.

"Yeah," she picked up where her friend left off. "It's really too bad he's not that good with girls his own age,"

The boy, clearly within hearing range, scowled at them and promptly snarled at them to 'shut up'. Sango and Kagome merely laughed.

Sango waved and Kagome stepped out staring up at the late afternoon sky. It was almost evening now. She had hardly gone but a few steps before a hand pressed down upon her shoulder and she jumped in surprise.

She whirled around, slapping the hand off her shoulder angrily, but her anger faded upon sight of her visitor.

"Are you really that surprised to see me?"

She almost groaned. "Not really. Why aren't you inside, get fired?" she quipped.

"No," he responded airily. "My employment isn't of your concern."

She shrugged. "Just asking. Not that it's not nice to see you or anything but I have to go."

"Higurashi-san won't mind,"

"How do you know that?" she snapped, spinning around heatedly. "I could have somewhere important to be right now!"

"You don't,"

"That's the problem, right there! You can't make such grand assumptions and then tell me what I'm going to do! Say 'well we can talk about this later' and then expect me to drop whatever else I have to do to get there!"

"You have nowhere to go but home Higurashi and I asked you to drop nothing!"

"And don't call me 'Higurashi'-"

"It is your name, is it not?" he stepped forward purring softly as he leaned down toward her touching the underside of her chin with his fingertips.

She shook her head, a smile brimming at the corners of her mouth. "That won't work, not today." She stepped back away from his touch and he dropped his hand back to his side, an amused smirk on his face.

"But it would work another day?" he asked, raising one elegant eyebrow.

While she may, ordinarily, have been significantly distracted by his little display, today she was very much focused and continued on.

"All you do is look down on everyone. Is that natural Sesshoumaru? Were you born that much better than me and everyone else or is that something you just picked up?"

The smirk vanished from his face but he didn't say anything.

"I felt bad for a long time that you were always by yourself, you always seemed lonely. But I hope you've gotten used to it, I think you'll be that way for a long time."

With that she turned and walked away forcing herself to put one foot in front of another. Convincing herself that what she'd just done was best for both of them. She regretted it all as she reached the shrine stairs, but she wouldn't turn back.

She padded softly along the stone pathway to the house, and discarded her shoes by the door. Maybe it would be easier tomorrow…

"Kagome, is that you?"

She looked up at the alarmed call of her mother. She knew that tone of voice, something was wrong.

~X~

There were few people who would oppose him, let alone walk away from him. In fact only two people ever fit into that category, one was his father and the other had just half-ran away from him. She was gone now leaving him alone and slightly confused. Leaving yesterday afternoon hadn't seemed that important and he didn't think it would bother her, and if it did, she'd get over it. Apparently he'd miscalculated her reaction and was, for once, at a loss as to how to handle her.

"If I wasn't so sure Kagome was probably crying right now, the whole thing would be funny,"

Sesshoumaru growled. "I'm in no mood for your attitude Inuyasha, take it elsewhere."

"You actually think I'm going to pass up an opportunity to gloat, over you?"

Sesshoumaru turned back to his younger sibling with a sharp-eyed stare.

"She's better off without you," Inuyasha stated, watching him wearily.

"Is that so?"

He nodded confidently. "What do you have in common with Kagome? And besides you're going away to a university in, what? Three months? Does she know that?"

First Kagome cast him off and now his brother was talking down to him, what a day.

"Does Kikyo know that you are interested in her because she is so much like Kagome, and Kagome wouldn't have you?"

Inuyasha scowled. "It's not like that! Besides, you know damned well she was always too hung up over you to pay any attention to me! But this time she told you to get lost, even if it was a long time coming."

Sesshoumaru didn't attempt to stop him as he went back into the building. His day was being ruined at an alarmingly rapid pace. If she had made her decision and decided to give up on their friendship, he'd accept it, but not like this. He wouldn't be denied the opportunity to speak and he didn't want any more interruptions.

It was close to six when he found his way to the shrine. The sky was quickly darkening, but the time of day was irrelevant to his business here. He quickly ascended the stairs and into the courtyard.

The Higurashi Shrine was quite large. He walked ahead and up a few more stairs and followed the stone path to the shrine buildings. The house was located at the farthest point back on the property. He walked past the shrine building and the house came into sight at the far right.

He raised his hand and knocked.

"We don't want any!" A small, male voice called from the other side of the door.

"Souta! What are you doing?"

"Grandpa told me to say it!"

He heard a heavy female sigh before the door slid open. Kagome now stood in the doorway, her brother peeking out from behind her.

~X~

The silence fell like a wide gap between them. Behind them they could hear Souta rooting through the kitchen cabinets searching for something to snack on. The familiar crinkle of a plastic bag reached their ears suggesting he had found something and then the sound floated away and they heard the soft patter of feet as they ascended the staircase.

Kagome sat across from him at the table, staring down at her fidgeting hands hesitantly.

"Surely you haven't run out of steam yet? Is there nothing else you can rail at me?"

"I made the point I wanted," she replied meekly as though she were now ashamed or otherwise uncomfortable in his presence. Understandably so.

"As for my attitude-you Higurashi -have been treated exceptionally well given my exposure to your embarrassing social circle."

"'Embarrassing social circle?'" She slammed her hands down on the table as she shot from her chair, meekness forgotten. "Oh? Are we back to my friends again?"

"You could hardly expect me to ignore it," he stated as though he were being generous.

"Ignore it? Like my friends are- how dare you!?" She swung her hand wildly at him in her fury. She was much angrier now than she had been before and not the simple anger that could easy change to indignation. This was a fierce passion that had to be roused down slowly or released violently.

Passion, he mused. You could do many things with a wild emotion like that, it just depended on what sub-emotion you bonded it to.

"Where is your mother?" He glanced around. He didn't see the woman anywhere.

She visibly hesitated. "S-She had to go to see my aunt."

"Your aunt?"

"She's fallen ill again, relapsed." Her angry tone melted into one of softness and she collapsed back into her chair. The passion, not to his enjoyment, had gone from her.

"Is that so?" he paused and attempted to re-focus her on their conversation. "So we are alone?"

"With the exception of Souta, why?" she was now staring at him suspiciously.

"Just attempting to establish the facts. Let's get back to the topic."

"You're the one who keeps changing it!" she snapped, re-igniting her fury.

He stood casually from his chair and calmly pushed it forward. She followed his example but not half as peacefully.

"I would have thought you'd have had more patience,"

"I've always had a short temper," she replied testily following him as he walked slowly, leisurely from the room. "Look, I don't know what you came over here for. There was no point in doing so. We don't have anything in common. We're not anything alike. So there's no real reason to continue this relationship when I'm the one who always gets hit with the backlash. I'm the one who gets snapped at and promises broken."

His eyes flashed. Broken promises? That was a giant leap backwards. He'd thought perhaps she'd even forgotten that promise; after all it was worthless now, wasn't it?

"There are reasons for everything. Whatever reason you may have imagined I had no malicious intentions when I broke that promise." He replied, feeling the need to turn away from her.

She was bringing up old, painful memories. Memories he didn't want to remember, but that never vanished; memories that left him feeling bare and vulnerable. Suddenly and with new clarity he realized- coming here was a bad idea.

"Going to escape now?" Her small voice stopped him as he turned to the door. The bitterness there was unmistakable. He unclenched his teeth but didn't turn back or even move.

"What point is there in going back?"

"What point did you have in coming over here if you weren't willing to do so? You can't fix something that broke a long time ago without finding out what broke it."

"You are always so keen to snoop in what is not your business."

She paused, and her silence made him turn toward her, worried that she was crying. She wasn't. She stared at him expressionlessly, the distinct look of anger was gone, but there was no other emotion in its place. She stared at him with a grim line across her mouth, and eyes focused sharply on him. She was hiding now. The emotions that she always broadcast openly through her eyes were not revealing anything.

"You're right. I don't want to know. We don't have anything else to talk about, you know where the door is."

She didn't yell, gesture wildly, or even raise her voice from the flat, monotonous tone she'd lowered it to. Rather she turned and walked out of his line of sight leaving him alone in the hall.

It was not only a mistake once, but a mistake twice to come here. The day was now officially trashed.