InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Diary of a plum blossom ❯ Chapter one: Plum tree ( Chapter 1 )

>>Chapter one<<

~ Plum tree ~

 

 

 

She sat in the bus home after a long school day, staring at the book in her hands for even longer. Why
was this damn picture on this damn book? And why had her teacher picked this book of all the books
on the world for a essay? Oh she would never understand this... probably it just was a way to punish
her for almost falling asleep in class.

 

A Novel, a stupid novel.

 

Probably twice as old as Kagome herself and looking as if two generations of poorly tortured students
went over it again and again. How this ever could happen to her was beyond her. Ichida-sama usually
was a quite normal old woman, probably having a nice man at home and a bunch of grandkids on the
way. 60 something years old - at least she looked like that - and still very fit and intelligent, doing bow
practice in Kagome's shrine every week.

 

Kagome always had liked her.

 

At least till today.

 

Till she gave Kagome this absolutely stupid homework to do. But yet there was no need to give up that
easily. One positive thing was that Kagome would be able to make up for the test she had messed up
and - always given the fact that Ichida-sama had to go by the same rules as all other teachers, or
rather work with the same books as all the others- there had to be students who did this before.

 

One way or another, she would not need to do this all the way. She wouldn't be able to do this, as long
as this stupid picture had to do something with this novel. She could have screamed out in frustration
right there and still swallowed it, instead she opened the book. No matter what she did, she had to
read at least a part of the damn book, why not right here?

 

<i>I can't remember my mothers face, not anymore.

 

Merely her beautiful voice still was there when I thought of her, singing for me with the wind. .

 

Bright and clear like fresh water and brilliant like the stars.

 

She always sung a song as I was little, about a lonely plum blossom which wanted to reach out to the
moon and dance with him ever since the little blossom had seen the first light of day. The little flower
thought that if she would spread out her petals enough for him, he would see her and take her for this
dance of love she was longing for.

 

The other flowers warned her; she would die if she would leave the tree and never turn a plum like the
others But she had not much for the goals of the other blossoms around her so she tried to reach her
own goal.

 

So she stretched and moved and showed off anything she had only to gain the bright moon's
attention... and the moon took her for this dance one night.

 

The flower spent hours and hours of swirling in his glorious light till the moon vanished back beyond
the horizon and the flower fell.

 

So the little flower never saw the moon again but had danced with him for one brief moment.

 

I always believed this to be a more than only strange story. Why should a flower fall in love with the
moon? Why should she want to dance with him?

 

I spent my days sitting in the back of our house under the plum tree and tried to find out why a
blossom from such a tree would like to dance with the moon instead of becoming a fruit of some sort.
Even long after my mother had died, It just was downright strange and I could not figure out why
anyone - flower or human- could act like this. The flower must have known she would die if she would
dance with the moon, probably never even reaching him. And even if she would, it only lasted a
moment before anything would end.

 

I asked my sister about it but she never talked much with me since our mother had died and even less
after we had to move into a different home.

 

“Why would someone do something.. knowing he would kill himself with it..?” I asked.

 

And she always said. “You are a child. Don't bother yourself with such things.”

 

I was a child back there and could not understand the things like they really were, I was too innocent
yet to really see how the world was. And only now, years after anything happened I truly understand
what my mother meant with this song and why my sister never answered to my questions.

 

Oh yes. My sister.

 

Always more to me than only a sister, she had become my mother after my real mother died. Caring
for me, doing anything for me. And for me, she was the most beautiful being in the world; kind and
breathtaking, pale and perfect.

 

I never understood what all this meant for her. </i>

 

She closed the book in annoyance, how should Kagome ever write an essay about something like
this? Well, her only chance was the internet now, that or a dive into the library close to her School.

 

The bus stopped with a hard movement and Kagome looked up, finding herself finally at home. She
stepped out of the bus and on the street, glad the rain had stopped for once, slowly making her way
through the crowd to the long stairs which lead up to her Shrine. She past the well which the visitors
used to clean themselves up with, crossed the place on which the holly tree stood and reached her
house.

 

She entered, stripped of her shoes and went directly into her room. Not caring for much more, she was
anyway alone. Her grandfather worked in the shrine, her mother was probably helping him or selling
charms and her little brother was still in school. She sat in front of her Pc and waited for the thing to
boot, finding herself glancing at the book's cover again.

 

She growled out in annoyance and turned the book with the cover to the desk, logging herself in on
the internet. She typed in the title of the book in the first search engine she encountered and waited for
the results.

 

“Three results? Oh what the...” She wailed out and clicked on the first, ending up in another search
engine which promoted nothing but a cheap way to enhance her breasts and enlarge other things she
not even possessed.

 

So she was down to two results. One seemed to be a site for antiques and old books, offering used
examples of the book. Well, at least she wouldn't be able to sell it for enough money to bribe her
teacher into releasing her of the homework.

 

Which only left the last link, which luckily brought up some information. Even if it only was a list of
historical relevant moments mentioned also in the book, she thanked the kami - whichever was on
duty for search engines- and printed the list.

 

She pondered how much information she held in her hands, figuring out that her teacher somehow
must have thought of something more than a bunch of dates and names. To her surprise she found
one certain name as well, right down on the end of the places, appearing in the book.

 

“Shrine of eternal sunshine...” She mumbled, so the teacher had been right, her shrine played a role
in the book. She eyed the book on the counter, perhaps she would not be forced to spent endless
afternoons in the library if her grandfather would know enough.

 

Her grandfather would be just the source to begin with. She grabbed her notebook and a pencil, the
list in her other hand, together with the book and went down into the court to fetch her grandfather.

 

He was collecting some of the fallen blossoms from the holly tree above them, picking up each to put it
into a small red pouch on his waist. He wailed every time he stood upright again but kept doing this
each day no matter if it was raining or whatever. They sold the petals, packed up in small charms and
such down in the temple shop - a old tradition of the family if you wanted to call it that.

 

“Grandpa do you have a few minutes...” She asked, watching him mumble and go on with his picking.

 

“You see I am busy my child..” He said and raised to his full height to feel the pain of his age return to
his spine. “But I could need a short break.. so what is it that you want to ask me?”

 

“Uhm...I have to write a essay over a book called Dairy of a plum blossom... and found out that our
shrine is mentioned in it...” She came over to him, careful to not step on the blossoms on the ground
as he held up his hand to stop her.

 

“Now, now... I can't say much about that...” He was shaking his head already.

 

“But...” She wasn't understanding anything, normally he would have babbled for hours once he was
asked a question.

 

“Not that I do not know about it... but It's a too dramatic tale to tell such a young girl like you are
Kagome...” He rolled his eyes. “A wonder your teacher gave you this book to begin with.. it's a dirty
tale...”

 

“Dirty tale?” she repeated looking down at the small red book in her hand. “Why that?”

 

“Haven't you read it yet? Oh Kagome that's good.. go back to your teacher and give it back right now!”
He started babbling on again, just like she knew him. “It's a dirty story, told from a child... but telling of
the life of a whore... nothing your should read. Really not...”

 

Whore? Well, perhaps it would turn interesting to do this. “But I have to do it Grandpa... my teacher
won't let me get out of it... so just tell me if you know anything.”

 

He fell silent and narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, looking to the sky as if to pray for some
sense for his suborn grandchild, than he sighed and nodded. “Well, there is not much I can tell you...
just that she's buried on our temple grounds... she committed suicide to get out of her shame.”

 

“Where is her grave?” She watched him sigh some more and than finally turned to point at the way
which lead through the small wood to the selection of graves in the back of the shrine grounds.

 

“There is a lonely single stone back there...that's her...” He turned back and started to collect the
petals and flowers again, leaving her standing there stupidly. She sighed and walked on, across the
court, past the visitors once more to the small well to clean herself up - even she would not have
stepped on the graveyard without doing this. Than she took her stuff again and moved down the little
trail through the small forest to the backside of the shrine grounds where the graves laid; several
hundred of stones covered the soft hillside, standing under trees close to a small pond in which the
obun lamps usually where set in. On the far corner of the pond sat a small wooden shrine, used for the
honour service for the dead on certain festivals through the year. Anything here laid in some kind of
eternal shadow, hid below a colourful collection of trees and bamboo, never really hit from direct sun
light.

 

For a moment she stopped there on the rim of the pond, remembering where the small single stone
was hidden. As a child she had been so afraid of this place that she had always searched for cover
away from the graves whilst the festivals were held, right there on the rim of the water below a couple
of plum trees, where also the stone she searched for laid. A irony of some sort and not a small one at
that; she had always wondered who exactly it was who laid there for there was no real name on the
stone.

 

A breeze hunted a few drops of water out of the trees above her and she shivered, looking up to the
sky only to find movement in the corner of her eye. Someone was moving in the shadow to her right; a
boy with his face down to the ground, passing her without a word or even noticing her. He seemed lost
in his own world, walking up the forest path behind her back to the shrine.

 

She turned around and followed the young man with her eyes in the half shadow of the way, feeling
strangely reminded on something; the dark braid falling over his back, clothed in worn out jeans and a
the red wet shirt, raindrops falling out of the trees whilst he tiredly moved out of her sight.

 

She felt like having been there before.

 

For a moment she had almost forgotten why she had been there, than the picture of the crashed
aircraft returned and she turned back to the graves. She inhaled deeply and walked on, around the
pond and to the lonely little grave and the trees.

 

“Beloved sister.” She read out aloud. “Laying here because she danced with the moon.”

 

Her hand tightened around the book and her notebook, It finally gave sense; she had always
wondered what these words could have meant now she knew it. The sister of the girl who wrote the
book laid here to rest forever, right under Kagome's nose for all the years.

 

Why would she dance with the moon, knowing she would die from it?

 

From there on she knew she had to find out more. Not because what she knew till now was
interesting, no... she just wanted to know it.