InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Delving Into The Mysteries Of The Past ❯ The Present ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2: The Present

 

Yami 396

 

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha or Kagome, only Mitsu, Samisu, Horeshio, and Anasuteijia.

 

……………………̷ 0;………………………… 230;…………………

 

(Kagome Present Day)

 

Needless to say, I didn't get very much sleep that night. Between my nightmares and sudden dizzy spells, I was awake almost every other hour.

 

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Samisu asked me when I failed to make any kind of comment at breakfast.

 

“I'm fine, just a bit tired, that's all,” I answered, yawning. Tired, and completely confused was more like it. That image of the silver haired boy was driving me insane. I couldn't forget it and any memory I tried to find of him only brought a throbbing headache.

 

“You overwork yourself too much, Kagome,” Mitsu declared. “You take that job of yours too seriously.”

 

“Running a shrine halfway across town is very serious!” I said. “You wouldn't believe how many people want replicas of the Sacred Jewel!” I froze. Something about the Sacred Jewel sparked a memory in my mind, something about it being shattered and having to find the pieces. But that was absurd. The Shikon No Tama was never shattered. It had been destroyed…or so they say…around the time of my seventeenth birthday…

 

“Hello, Earth to Kagome!” Mitsu waved a hand in my face. “Is anybody home?” I fought the urge to slap his hand away and instead answered in a tone I hoped did not show my exasperation.

 

“Yes, Mitsu? I wasn't paying attention,” I said, trying to act like nothing was wrong.

 

“I could see that,” he answered. “I was reminding you that you had an appointment with Dr. Iwata today.” I had forgotten. He had been my therapist since I was seventeen. Being a teenager with a baby had been stressful, and he had helped me out in the years to follow. I still went to see him, though the days of my required therapy had long ago expired. I couldn't help but wonder if he knew anything about Horeshio's father…

 

“You're spacing out again,” Mitsu said, and I could tell he was getting angry with me for not paying attention. “Would you like me to drive you, or would you rather drive yourself?”

 

“You can drive me. I might pass out behind the wheel,” I said, trying to make a feeble joke. Mitsu took it the wrong way.

 

“If you're not feeling well, you shouldn't go out. Do you want me to cancel the appointment?” He asked, concerned.

 

“I was joking,” I said, wearily holding up a hand to make him stop.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, Mitsu.”

 

“Positive?”

 

“Mitsu…”

 

He threw up his hands in defense. “I'm just looking out for your well-being, that's all.”

 

“I'm fine. Don't worry,” I said. I didn't like being short-tempered with him. Mitsu truly did care for me. I remember when we first met. I was twenty years old with a three-year-old Horeshio to look after, working two jobs. I couldn't afford to go to college, so instead I took night classes at the local university. He had been in my physics class and had helped me work out some formulas that had been giving me problems. Before I knew it, we were going out. He took to Horeshio right away, and didn't seem to care that I already had a child. By the time I was twenty-one, he proposed to me, and to the joy of my family, I accepted. My mother liked him from the start, and Kikyo said it was about time I married. Kikyo…she had always been mean to me. Even when we were little, she would find something wrong with me. Having a child at seventeen just added to her list of `Why Kagome Cannot Be Trusted.'

 

“Sami-chan, Ana-chan, Horeshio-chan,” Mitsu suddenly addressed them, looking sober. “Kagome has to take you shopping for dress clothes this weekend. We have your Great-Aunt Kaede's funeral to go to.” I felt pang of sadness as he said this. I loved my Great-Aunt Kaede dearly. She had always been there for me, a support to lean on. When my father died when I was eleven, she was the one who found and sheltered me.

 

“The hag died?” Horeshio asked.

 

“Horeshio!” I scolded him. “She is not a hag! She loved you very much!”

 

“She reminded me of a hag,” he answered back. I shook my head. Horeshio was the freshest of my children; something I knew didn't come from me.

 

“Why should I tell you anything hag?” I inhaled sharply at the sudden voice. It seemed eerily familiar somehow, like I had heard it before. I knew it's sound, but I didn't have a face to match it to. The only person I knew that would ever call Great-Aunt Kaede a hag was Horeshio. I stared at my plate, contemplating.

 

“Daddy, Mommy's spacing out again,” Anasuteijia complained. Mitsu shrugged.

 

“Mommy's losing her mind,” he said, earning him a rightful punch on the shoulder. “Hey! I speak only the truth!”

 

“Yeah, sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. I was being too serious. I had to stop thinking about whatever it was that was bothering me. I was being stupid.

 

“What color dress am I going to wear?” Anasuteijia piped up. She was like me; we both loved to dress up. Samisu took after his father in dress sense, and Horeshio seemed to enjoy his over-sized jeans and shirts more than anything else.

 

“You'll have to wear black sweetie,” I said, enjoying the face she made. “It's the color of mourning.”

 

“The sky is pink when the sun comes up,” she said, obviously confused.

 

“No, no. Mourning and morning are two different things,” I tried to explain.

 

“But they sound the same!”

 

“Stupid. Mourn-ing is when you cry all the time because someone died. Morn-ing is when the sun comes up,” Horeshio said, stressing the slight difference in syllables between the two words. Anasuteijia's mouth made the shape of an O before she went back to her pancakes.

 

“Thank you, Horeshio-chan. And don't call your sister stupid,” I admonished and praised him at the same time. He was a bright child, even though he got into more fights in school than any eight-year-old should. Other children teased him about the silver streaks in his hair, usually causing a small brawl in the playground. I don't know what the other children called him, he wouldn't tell me anything. I shook my head.

 

“He's too much…” I thought. A name floated unbidden into my mind

 

…Kage…

 

……………………̷ 0;………………………… 230;…………………

 

Don't cha just looovve cliffhangers…Okay, so this really isn't too much of a cliffhanger…Anyway. I've decided to leave the chapters that take place in the present shorter than the chapters that take place in the past. That is, until some action starts in the present. R&R!