InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Feel Like Makin' Love ❯ Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 9

 

Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word

 

The silence in the car was palpable. Although InuYasha just glumly stared out the window, the raging emotions inside him effected the emanations of his youki and could be felt by Shippo and Emiko. The kitsune girl shrunk into her seat, her mouth turned down and disappointment in her green eyes. Soon they would reach the nearest, and biggest of the safe houses the Kitsune Society had built for youkai in this era. But she felt a need to try and break the tension before they got there, even if InuYasha did not want to talk.

 

“Shall we put on some more music?” Emiko quietly suggested.

 

Shippo reached for the radio, but stopped as InuYasha shook his head. He glanced at his daughter and smiled at her as if to say, `nice try.' Emiko gave him a small smile back and shrugged. Suddenly she realized…InuYasha was singing under his breath, but loud enough for her kitsune ears to hear…

 

Come my way, alone in this darkness
Come close to me now I'll shine some light
I'll be with you, I'll be with you
I'll stay beside you
So come my way

I realized that you were the only precious person in this world

I get, I get, I get, get the feeling
I get, I get, I get, get the dreaming
Just like the way it is...

 

As she watched him, she felt guilty when she saw him dash tears out of his eyes. It dawned on her that he really needed privacy right now. Soon enough they would be there, and she would ask her father where InuYasha would feel most comfortable in the sanctuary they provided.

 

The outside of the seven-storey building that housed the Kitsune Society Tokyo Safehouse, looked like any modern, downtown building. Shippo pulled the car into the underground garage, and used his security card to enter. They parked the car, and InuYasha followed them to the elevator, still silent and intense. He would not meet their eyes, or pay much attention to his new surroundings. This made Shippo uneasy - InuYasha was always on his guard, checking out everything for possible threats. Glancing at his daughter, she gave him a sad smile, reading her father's expression and youki clearly.

 

The elevator opened to a large lobby, and an efficient-looking Kitsune secretary sat behind a desk in the back. She looked up and smiled brightly as she saw her boss and his daughter walk in. Curiously, she regarded InuYasha a moment, since it was very rare to get a Inu Taiyouki in this modern age. Most of them tended to keep to themselves in their strongholds in the mountains.

 

“Welcome back,” the secretary said. “Shall I register our new guest?”

 

“InuYasha is a very special guest,” Shippo said. “He is to have free reign here and be able to come and go as he pleases, Maia.”

 

The secretary's eyes opened wide, and she bowed her head respectfully at InuYasha. She typed something quickly in her computer and smiled again. The brooding Inu Taiyouki still did not seem to notice her, or anything else.

 

“May I show you around our Safehouse?” Emiko said to InuYasha.

 

For a moment, InuYasha did not respond, then his eyes snapped over to Emiko, and he nodded, clenching and unclenching his fists.

 

“You two go ahead,” Shippo said. “I have some work to do, I'll catch up with you later. And maybe you can start by showing him the Shrine.”

 

“Keh,” InuYasha scoffed. “I was sealed in a shrine for over four hundred years.”

 

“I think you will like ours,” Shippo replied.

 

InuYasha shrugged. “Whatever.”

 

`I hope he finds what he needs at the shrine grounds,' Shippo thought as he watched the two of them leave. `I can't think of what else to do for him - he's waited all this time to be reunited with Kagome and something went wrong. I have to think of how to help them - I know that they belong together.'

 

Emiko led InuYasha to another elevator. They did not speak as it rose to the top floor of the complex. The kitsune girl hoped her father was right about this, she just did not know what more to do for InuYasha short of trying to get Kagome and him back together. Her whole life this had been what she and her family, and the Keepers of the Shrine of the Mountain Kami had been gearing up towards - the dream of the reunited lovers.

 

The elevator doors opened, and immediately they were enveloped by the sweet smell of trees and flowers. InuYasha blinked a moment in surprise, and then inhaled deeply before giving Emiko a questioning look.

 

“Follow me,” Emiko said with a smile, and beckoned him out of the elevator before it closed.

 

The ceiling of the building above them was glassed in. In fact it was a greenhouse, over a woodland setting, surrounding the Shrine of Inari. Inside the crimson Torii gate hung with shimenawa, were two komainu, the kitsune messenger statues to the kami Inari. Emiko respectfully cleansed her hands and mouth at the purification trough before proceeding to the small honden and haiden of the shrine. InuYasha was drawn by the trees, hung with omikuji, left by countless previous visitors to bring good fortune and avert bad luck. But it was not these small papers with their writings that had his attention. He stopped in front of a large tree and looked up into its strong, leafy green branches. Turning around, Emiko caught him leaping into the tree, and disappearing from sight.

 

`Oh my,' she thought. `Is this what my father was talking about?'

 

Walking quickly to stand under the tree, Emiko called up into its branches.

 

“InuYasha, is there something you are looking for up there?”

 

“Just…give me some time,” he responded. “I need to think…alone.”

 

The finality of InuYasha's words made Emiko blink a moment, and then looking at the ground she shrugged.

 

“Okay, Father or I will back to see if you need anything later,” Emiko said, but got no answer.

 

Gazing back up into the tree, there was no visible sign of any occupant. Only the unmistakable youki of a sad, intense, and brooding Inu Taiyoukai let anyone know InuYasha was up there. Emiko let her eyes search the graceful branches of the tree one more time, as her thoughts slowly turned inward over the situation. The answer was there, somewhere in her mind, she could feel it tickling at the back of her awareness. At moments like this, her father was always able to help her. It was time to go find him.

 

Up in the branches of the tree, InuYasha closed his eyes and bowed his head. His heart ached and his mind spun crazily, going over his reunion with Kagome gone wrong. What had happened? How had things turned out so badly? So long he had waited, so long he had imagined that moment - how happy she would be to see him, and how he would take her in his arms and hold her like he would never let her go. The Kagome he had found…had not been what he expected at all. Yet still he longed for her, he needed her. Only thing was, what was he to do now? Reaching out, InuYasha dug his claws into the tree trunk in front of him, burying them deeply in frustration.

 

In a different part of the building, Shippo looked up from his large, modern desk and his computer at knock on his office door.

 

“Come in,” Shippo said, sitting back in his executive chair.

 

Emiko walked in and right up to the desk, and it did not surprise Shippo that she was alone. He folded his hands and looked up at her face, her brow creased in thought and concern.

 

“Father, InuYasha leapt into a tree at the shrine to think…alone.”

 

“Well, that is what he does when he needs to think, and brood,” Shippo said. “Don't be concerned, he will find us when he is ready.”

 

“Is there nothing more we can do for him?” Emiko said. “Tell me…when InuYasha and Kagome would fight, who usually was the one to initiate their making up?”

 

Old memories flooded Shippo's mind, like opening doors into someone else's life. He could see his two friends and their arguments, the sits, the tears. But always it had been Kagome who would be the one to approach InuYasha first, when their tempers had cooled.

 

“It was Kagome…” Shippo said with a sigh. “Maybe I should have stepped in, and been there for Kagome before InuYasha returned.”

 

Shippo was distracted from his thoughts by the vigorous shaking of Emiko's head in denial. He looked up at her quizzically.

 

“That was not as InuYasha wanted,” Emiko said firmly. “But Kagome does not know where to find InuYasha….Father, we have to go to her.”

 

“Yes, you're right,” Shippo said, standing up. “Let's go - the sooner we get to her the better, and InuYasha will just have to understand that we are not interfering this time, our help is truly needed.”

 

The father and daughter smiled at each other as they left the office. It felt good to both of them to be doing something constructive to help the lovelorn pair.

 

~*~

 

Under Goshinboku, a young woman sat sobbing. Kagome just could not bring herself to face her mother and grandfather right now. She clutched her middle, and her tears bathed her short skirt as they fell.

 

`Where could he have gone?' Kagome thought. `Who would he know in Tokyo now, except for me and my family?'

 

“Oh, InuYasha,” Kagome said in a small, broken voice. “How will I find you to say I am sorry?”