InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ For Souls ❯ Two ( Chapter 2 )

“Kikyo?”

She turned at the sound of her name to see Sango getting off of a bus at the stop across the street.

Oh no, what is she doing here?

“Kikyo, what happened? Did you walk all the way here?” Sango ran across the street and put a comforting hand on Kikyo's back. That was all Kikyo needed before fully giving in to her body-shaking sobs.

“Oh, Kikyo,” Sango said, pulling the girl into a hug. “What are you doing to yourself?”

Kikyo allowed the woman to pull her into a hug, too consumed by her pain and grief to argue and shirk the woman's pity.

“Why, Sango?” Kikyo sobbed. “Why do I have to keep replaying it in my mind? Over and over and over…”

Sango nodded her head and rested her chin in the girl's hair.

“My apartment is a few blocks east. Why don't you come over for some tea?”

“No…I…” Kikyo started to speak but Sango just started to escort her away from the spot where they stood.

“No `buts,' this time, Kikyo. Look at yourself, you can barely hold yourself together.”

Sango wrapped her arm under Kikyo's to help her stand, and headed off towards her apartment. Several minutes later the two walked up two flights and into Sango's apartment. By this time, Kikyo had regained some composure and her face was red and flushed, partly from crying and partly from the shame she felt for appearing so weak in front of another group participant.

Walking into Sango's apartment, the first thing Kikyo noticed was how barren it was. The furniture and walls were minimalistic and there were no decorative touches. The front hall had a runner and that was the only piece of `aesthetic' furniture that caught Kikyo's eye. They entered into a long, narrow hallway with a small closet and rubber mat for shoes. Immediately in front of them was a small galley kitchen. Just past the kitchen, Kikyo could see a small white rounded table, Kikyo suspected could seat four. The kitchen countertops were bare and clean, and only one cup sat in the sink. To the left of the hallway was a sitting room, with one sofa and antique wooden coffee table. Kikyo suspected that the two closed doors on the right of the hallway were Sango's bedroom and the bathroom.

In the living room, there was a small TV—about 27 inches—sitting on top of a three-shelf bookcase; Kikyo observed only the first shelf was filled with books and a couple CDs. The walls were taupe and bare, leaving Kikyo with a cold, empty feeling, despite the apartment itself being very warm. Sango claimed that the temperature was out of her control, and that the apartment always seemed to fare on the humid side. Kikyo didn't mind. She sat on the couch while Sango went to the kitchen to turn on the kettle.

Why am I here? She pondered. Why did I come along so willingly?

“I'm lucky I found you,” Sango called from the kitchen. “I don't think you would have made it home in your condition.”

Kikyo hmph'ed. My condition… she thought.

While alone, Kikyo continued to survey the room. She observed some of the window caulking was black and flaking off. She also noticed that Sango had horizontal aluminum blinds raised three-quarters, despite the fact that it was nighttime and she could see the main road just a few feet away. There was only one lamp in the room, and Sango had reached around the wall to turn on the light switch—without even looking—before heading into the kitchen. This action caused Kikyo wonder how long Sango had indeed been living here seeing as she seemed to have the whole layout memorized in her mind. Kikyo squinted to read the titles of the books and CD artists. Between the varying genres of literature and music, and the few DVDs, there were no telltale signs that a young boy lived here, or had recently. This, too, made Kikyo speculate just how long Sango's brother has been in the hospital.

A few moments later, Sango appeared with two 8oz mugs filled to the top with tea. The one she handed to Kikyo spilled over the edge a bit, scalding Sango's hand. Sango gasped, quickly putting it down on the table, and rubbed her hand furiously against her hip to soothe the burn. Kikyo observed all the rings on the table from Sango's lack of using coasters.

“Sorry, it's a little full,” Sango said referring to the cup.

Kikyo just nodded and reached for the cup, regardless of the warning. She felt so cold inside; she wanted to grasp the immediate heat in her hands to feel something other than her cold.

The hotness of the cup seared into Kikyo's hands and she initially flinched, eventually becoming less tense as her hands numbed to the pain. Her hands dully ached as she took a sip, revelling at her body's ability to process and displace the pain it felt. Whether it was due to adrenaline or not, Kikyo was uncertain. That made her recall the time the arrowhead broke through her skin; initially it had hurt, but afterwards…

“Are you going to tell me what happened out there?”

Kikyo kept her eyes on her cup, watching her shadowy reflection shimmer in the ripples of her tea.

“Kikyo…” Sango pressed.

“What do you want to know?” Kikyo responded lightly, taking a sip from her cup.

“Why were you so upset? What happened?”

“I thought about memories that I would rather forget,” she said calmly.

Sango nodded her understanding.

“Why are you so nice to me, Sango?” Kikyo asked curtly, looking up from her drink to meet Sango's soft brown eyes. “I have been nothing but short with you in our interactions in the group, yet you are always so kind. Why?”

Sango smiled. “Every time we have talked you always strike me as being…so lonely. Tonight you mentioned that you've never talked about your past with your friends, and from you saying your sister found you after…well, you know…I would assume you don't really talk to her either. My brother said I used to bother him for information.” A large smile drew on Sango's face. “He would come home from school and I would ask how his day was. He would always just give me a `fine' or something non-committal, and then I would pry and pry,” Sango said with a laugh. “He would eventually give in and then tell me all about his day. He said he only did it to shut me up.” She sighed. “I haven't done that in a long time,” she said sadly, turning her face away from Kikyo. “I guess old habits die hard.”

Kikyo nodded her understanding.

“So I take it you will not leave me alone about this then?”

Sango smiled, “I can't force you to talk like I could my brother. But Dr. Myoga convinced me today that talking about my pain and the guilt I feel over my brother should make me feel less burdened. He said I carry too much stress on my shoulders. Maybe getting some of it off your shoulders will be good for you too. Have you ever talked about it?”

Kikyo made a non-committal gesture towards Sango. “Somewhat.”

“I mean really talked about, Kikyo. Like, from the beginning, in detail, sharing your feelings? You know, things typically a doctor would ask.”

Kikyo shook her head.

Sango shifted on the couch to turn her body more towards Kikyo. “You've sort of talked about your past in group, but you're always so vague. You hint at things, you've shed some tears—” Kikyo turned her face away with a frown at the comment—“and yet you never really tell us anything. What you share always seems so superficial—no offense,” she added quickly, seeing the look Kikyo gave her. “You don't share like the others at least.”

Sango took a sip of her tea and then continued, “I know you're proud, that you hold yourself in high regard. I see it in your body language, how you compose yourself. Even now I can tell I'm making you uncomfortable by being so informal with you.”

Kikyo blushed at being so transparent in the moment.

“I've seen the way you observe everything and everyone, how you tend to sit back and watch and calculate; that's how I can tell you are in a lot of pain. Please, Kikyo,” Sango said, putting her cup on the table and placing her hands on her knees. “Please let me help you.”

Kikyo sighed and turned back to gaze at the contents in her cup.

“I don't want your pity,” she said calmly and bluntly, keeping her eyes on her cup. “I know my situation is pathetic, and I despise how easy it is to think about killing myself,” she paused, “and for failing to do so twice and contemplating a third attempt. I hate myself for thinking that death is the only way out of this mess.” She took a deep breath, her eyes softening. “But when I think of him…and I think about us…it takes the wind out me, and then I realize there is no other way I can be.”

Kikyo waited for the familiar sting of tears to return to her eyes as it usually would. She was surprised that the creeping darkness within her seemed to have subsided, leaving her stomach with a hollow ache and her eyes dry. She took this to mean that now was as good a time as any, and opened her mouth to speak before her reasoning and doubt put a stop to it.

“His name,” Kikyo stated, placing her cup on the table beside Sango's, “is Inuyasha.”

Kikyo felt her legs tremble and eyes quake at the sound of his name leaving her lips. How many times has she said that name in her lifetime? Memories of the times his name grazed her lips became apparent to her then. How indigenous the phonemes felt, the weight of the word as a whole as it floated across her tongue, how his name flew into the world as easy as a breath. She recalled the countless incantations of his name over the last fourteen years. She traced the lineage of their relationship in her mind: from when she would say his name in the beginnings of their courtship, when they yelled at each other, when she begged for his forgiveness, when they made love, when she said it in her dreams, screamed it in her nightmares, and when she begged him not to leave her for the very last time.

“Kikyo?”

The sound of Sango's voice brought her out of her trance. Kikyo offered Sango her self-defeating smile and let out a heavy sigh.

Like a band-aid, she thought.

“We met when we were fourteen; when we were just children. I was at one of my archery competitions, and there he was, with his older brother, sitting in the crowd with all the others from the opposing school. I do not know if it was his amber eyes or his silver hair that drew my attention and piqued by curiosity, but I had never felt that smitten before. I had never been scrutinized with a gaze like his before.” Kikyo paused and smiled at the memory.

When was the last time she openly talked about their meeting?

“I had won first place, and was standing with my sister and our coach waiting to collect my prize when I heard him clear his throat behind me. I turned and could barely breathe at his proximity to me. I was just a child then, but I knew that I wanted to be near him always. He congratulated me on my victory and then walked off like…a spirit—like it never happened.

“And there he was in the crowd, at every contest and competition following; I don't think he missed one. He was always there, having come to watch me shoot. I felt stronger when he was there, like I wanted to be the strongest person on earth. I no longer wanted to win because I wanted to be the best. I wanted to win because he was there. I wanted to win for him.

“After every tournament, he would approach me and congratulate me on my victory, yet we never spoke more than that. He would disappear with his brother as quickly as he approached me, and I knew I would have to be patient for several months for our next meeting. As time went by, I found myself growing more excited for every upcoming competition. I would train harder knowing how badly I wanted to impress him. Every time swore the next time I would ask him his name, but that time would come and, just like always, I found myself unable to speak above the lump in my throat. It would then be another three to eight months until the next competition, when I would swear it would be this time I got his name.

“About two years later, after the district semi-final championship, I was gathering my things to go home with my sister, and I saw him standing alone, just outside the crowd; I knew this was odd because usually his brother stood in the distance waiting for him, an impatient look on his face. This time, without thinking, I approached him. He told me his name was Inuyasha, and, as always, he congratulated me on qualifying for the finals. This time, though,” Kikyo paused, rubbing her hands on her forearms, “he hugged me.

“It was simple enough, I mean, we were only sixteen at the time, but Sango…I cannot begin to explain how my heart pounded at the nearness of him. I never wanted to let go,” she said with a laugh. “He asked me out then, and I all too willingly accepted.”

Sango smiled at Kikyo, holding onto her cup of tea, too entranced in the story to take a sip. Sango leaned back on the couch with the smile plastered on her lips.

“What a sweet young romance,” she said.

Kikyo smiled, more to herself in memory than in response to Sango.

“We were together for a year and a half after that…before any trouble started. He wanted to…” Kikyo paused, “intensify…the relationship, but I was not ready. He was respectful enough, but I was scared. It wasn't the intimacy I was afraid of, but I wanted to please him more than anything, and I was afraid of disappointing him. I was fearful he would not want me after that. So I held off for as long as possible, never opening up to him, distancing myself away from all intimacy between us. Eventually, he told me that I needed to open up more to him, explain to him why I was so resistant to him, to explain why I did not want him.”

Kikyo paused and took a laboured breath. She closed her eyes as she continued. “He gave me an ultimatum, would you believe that? An eighteen year old girl told she could either give in to him, to take him as her first, or the relationship would end. I was so angry I ran from the room refusing to give him an answer. He took that to mean I did not want him. And so, out of anger, pride, lack of communication, and stupidity, our relationship ended.

“Needless to say, I was distraught. He had been such a focal point of my life for the last four years I could not imagine anything without him. Archery faded from my life, my friends slowly drifted away because I refused to talk to them about it, and even my sister could not stand to be around me. I was depressed, devastated, I would have done anything for him; yet, my fear and inaction sent him away. I was such a stupid girl - despite how much I wanted him my fear made me keep my distance.”

Sango saw the young woman begin to cry in response to her confession. Sango put a comforting hand on top of Kikyo's, and Kikyo rotated her hand so the palm faced upwards, giving Sango's hand an appreciative squeeze.

“A year later we ran into each other; it was some miracle of chance. He was sitting with a friend at a café, and, having missed my bus, I was walking to my sister's school to meet her for lunch, and saw him. He looked exactly like I remembered him. I almost burst into tears on the spot. I do not know if I called his name or stopped dead in traffic, but somehow—as if sensing me—he looked up from his plate and saw me, enveloped me with those territorial eyes. He excused himself from the table and without even seeming to think, question, or rebuke me, he ran over and held me in his arms. I do not remember if my legs gave out or if I soaked his shirt with my tears of joy, but I was washed with relief. I do not remember a time where I felt so thankful.

“We agreed to try again,” Kikyo said as a blush grew across her face. “That night I gave myself to him for the first time. I do not recall a time in my life where I ever felt so whole, and it was because of him. He was stubborn, and sometimes childish, but we understood each other. His half-brother was his only relative, and Kaede was my only family in the city. We both felt alone, and only had each other to console our lonely spirits. It was about a year like this until I learned of Inuyasha's betrayal.”

Kikyo spat the word so heatedly it made Sango jump in her seat. Sango watched as Kikyo's disposition changed, her brow became creased, her eyes steeled, her lips began to quiver, and she clenched her fists. Kikyo's words became venomous, and Sango was preparing herself for Kikyo's ultimate confession.

“While out together one night, Inuyasha was confronted by a female, crying, clawing at his chest, and asking why she never heard from him again. I had never seen Inuyasha act so coldly. He dismissed the female, his face like he had seen a ghost, and immediately told me the two of us had to leave. I kept asking why but he refused to tell me. I remember he grabbed my hand violently and dragged me away. It was not until I pulled myself away from him and demanded to know who she was that I instantly regretted my words. After we had parted the first time, when we were eighteen, Inuyasha had found solace from our ending relationship…in that woman's bed.”

Tears ran down Kikyo's cheeks. “He had lied to me, telling me that night…when I gave myself to him…telling me that I was his first.” She choked out a breath. “Inuyasha lied. This woman, I don't even remember her name,” Kikyo maliciously snorted, “she was the one who took Inuyasha's virginity.

“I was so angry. I was so betrayed. I can barely explain to you the desperation and depression I fell into. Weeks turned into months of his begging my forgiveness. I refused to eat, I barely slept. My sister was terrified I was going to die from malnutrition.” Kikyo laughed in a haunted and self-defeated way. “It was the night when I woke up from that dream that I decided I was going to end my life. In that nightmare, I was sixteen, he was congratulating me for winning the archery championship, and then suddenly everything became dark, and I was in some strange room, unable to move or speak. It was then I realized I was in her room, watching the two of them.”

Kikyo wiped the copious tears from her eyes as she started choking on her sobs. “Oh gods, Sango, when I close my eyes I can still see them. I see him with her but I can feel it all, every treacherous action. I can feel the weight of his hands as if he was touching my own skin, the warmth of his lips as if he was kissing my own flesh. To this day, every memory of him is haunted by how I saw them together, what I saw in that dream. Their naked bodies together, him holding her the way he held me, his lips on hers, telling her he…he…”

Sango took Kikyo into a strong embrace, feeling Kikyo sob into her neck. They continued like that for a few moments until Kikyo's sobs slowly withdrew, and she sat up, flushed, embarrassed, and apologetic.

“Kikyo,” Sango began. “If it's too much…”

“No,” Kikyo stated, shaking her head. “I can continue.”

She took a deep breath and ran her middle fingers under her eyes, feeling the skin become rough, sticky, and pained from frequently rubbing the tears away.

“For the next few months, after I found out about Inuyasha's betrayal, I planned how I would take my own life. I was twenty years old and more childish then than I had been when he and I first met. I always found my solace in my arrows, except this time my mark wasn't yards away…it was my own flesh.”

No more fresh tears stained Kikyo's cheeks yet the red trails they had taken wore into her flesh, tattooing her pain on her face. Kikyo shuffled away from Sango slightly, ashamed and shocked at her confession. The more Kikyo thought about her confession the more embarrassed she felt, and the more embarrassed she felt, the angrier at herself she became. This wasn't how her evening should have gone, she thought to herself. She should have made her way home, interruption-free, interrogation-free, and enjoyed the silence of her apartment. She paused a moment in her thoughts.

No, no more silence, she thought. Kaede decided she would move into Kikyo's second bedroom until she felt Kikyo's life was no longer in danger. Kikyo scoffed at the thought of her little sister becoming the parental figure in Kikyo's apartment no less.

“I have overstayed my welcome,” Kikyo hurriedly and quietly admitted, glancing over at Sango. Kikyo's eyes widened in horror as she saw the woman staring at Kikyo's wrists; Kikyo had, unknowingly, drawn attention to the scars on her right wrist by twisting and massaging the disfigured skin as she spoke. The scar felt convex under the pads of her fingers and she ashamedly dropped her right arm so it fell dead into her lap. Kikyo began to stand. “Thank you for the tea.”

Sango mirrored the gesture and followed Kikyo in the hallway.

“Just like that you're leaving? Are you sure you're okay to go?”

Kikyo stood motionless, the door—her exit—in her sight. She felt so humiliated at having shared her plight with Sango. As if understanding the chaos in Kikyo's mind, Sango brushed past her and stood in front the door, blocking Kikyo's exit.

“Unless you can convince me you are okay to venture out there alone, I won't move.”

“You're being ridiculous,” Kikyo muttered, keeping her eyes low.

“You were just sobbing on my couch!” Sango emphasized rather loudly, her hand gestures becoming more dramatic. “You just told me how you tried to kill yourself, and now that you're trying to run out of my apartment, I'm supposed to just let you go? Kikyo…”

“I told you I didn't want your pity,” Kikyo seethed, feeling several drops of spit tear from her mouth as she spoke. “Your kindness…you…” Kikyo looked up at Sango, “you tricked me.”

“Tricked you?” Sango mimicked, incredulously. “How on earth did I trick you?”

“You made me think I could confide in you, that you would not judge me. You made me think that confiding would make me feel better.” Kikyo's eyes searched the emptiness of Sango's foyer for the words she needed to speak. “I feel nothing but blackness, like my soul has been taken into the pits of Hell, and I am suffocating,” she hissed as she felt the lump return to her throat. “I am suffocating because of that traitorous bastard, Inuyasha, and how he has left me to rot.”

“What else happened?” Sango asked bluntly, the change in her tone taking Kikyo aback.

“What do you mean?”

“Your attempt failed, obviously; otherwise, you wouldn't be here right now. What happened after that? Why did you try again? What happened?”

Kikyo stared at the white speckled ceiling, her eyes circling a water stain directly above Sango's head. How desperately Kikyo wished a flood would rip through that stain, the waters washing away Kikyo's pain and embarrassment.

Kikyo took a deep breath. Why stop now? A spiteful voice spoke from inside.

“Suspecting I was unwell, Kaede was worried about me.” Kikyo laughed a dark, self-effacing cackle and leaned against the wall crossing her arms across her chest. “She had called him out of fear for her big sister. Unbeknownst to me, she had called Inuyasha. Kaede had gone away for the weekend, and I had planned that to be my chance - no one home, no one to stop me, no one to witness my pain and offer their pity. It was perfect.”

Tears began to brim Kikyo's eyes once more. “Except...Kaede had given him keys. My traitorous, backstabbing little sister gave him keys to my fucking apartment.” Kikyo's eyes shot up to look at Sango, who remained steadfast in front of the door.

“The phone had rang a few times; however, I dared not answer it. I was ready to do what I needed to do. I took one of my arrows and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. After that, my memory fails, and the past is pieced together based on what I have been told. He found me, a little too late, apparently, as I was already in the bathtub…blood everywhere—so he told me. He was the one who called the ambulance. I think it was at that point he realized how broken and hollow I was. How much his betrayal ruined me, killed me.

“Several months later, Inuyasha was still around. He was too proud and stubborn to blatantly ask my forgiveness—to ask me to take him back. But I knew him too well and understood why he was still around. He stayed because of guilt, not because of love.” Kikyo crudely banged her head against the wall with a thud and an anguished sigh. Coarsely, she let her body slide to the floor.

Drawing her knees to her chest she continued. “I was twenty-two when he finally had the gall to ask me to give him another chance. Whether it was out of pride, torment, guilt, or obligation, he asked me to be his once more. As a soulless version of who I once was, I accepted him, despite all my inner turmoil.

“Well, the next two years were a despicable and foul nightmare. Every time he kissed me, I thought about where his untrue lips had been. Every time he undressed me, I wondered if he thought of her. Every time he left me, I convinced myself he went to see her. God,” Kikyo laughed, “for hating her so much, you would think I could remember her name…”

She trailed off in a mixture of sighs and mumbling. During Kikyo's dialogue, Sango, too, had taken a seat on the floor, using the wooden door of her apartment as her backrest. As she listened, Sango picked at her nail polish and the scabs on her fingers. How was it possible that Kikyo repeatedly kept spiraling herself into her own vortex of pain and memory? Each admission of Kikyo's past fueled the cyclone, and Kikyo kept falling deeper and deeper into her self-inflicted agony. Sango sat helplessly, not knowing what she could do or say to prevent Kikyo from circling the drain of her misery. Sango sat quietly as she watched Kikyo go around and around, just like she had done during her confession on the couch, just like she had done in her “Tell Time” at group earlier that night. Kikyo's thoughts were her own ignition and enemy.

“He accused me of holding him hostage,” Kikyo said, so faintly Sango almost missed it while she was deep in thought. “He told me that, at times, he was afraid he was only with me for fear I would try to take my life again.

“Oh, the fights we would have…” Kikyo cackled, her nose running, and her eyelids beginning to swell. “…the emotional and physical abuse that would erupt. The pattern of violence and passion that became too familiar to us. We hated to love each other, and I loved to hate him, the man who betrayed me, Inuyasha.”

“Kikyo,” Sango muttered, her voice sounded foreign to her ears after so long a silence.

“It was the last time he had cancelled on me that I lashed out at him, attacked him as soon as he walked through the door, accusing him of visiting her, his whore.” The déjà vu of tears in waves and grief and physical pain like a tsunami hit Kikyo once more. She knew where her story had to turn: attempt #2.

“'Kikyo,' he had told me. `I can't live like this anymore.'”

“It's fair to say you don't trust me, but you steal my phone and go through my messages when I leave the room; you won't let me go out with my friends without checking in with you regularly, and when I don't respond you turn into a psychotic bitch leaving voicemails and accusing me of `running to my whore.' I - I can't do it anymore. I'm done, Kikyo. This time, I mean it.”

The venomous words he had spoken to her permeated through her dark mind. She was lost to the grief; so far gone that only more misery, more pain, more anguish could satiate her need to feel something.

“Inuyasha, no…”

“God fucking dammit, Kikyo!” he screamed, his voice so guttural it cracked. In anger, his fist went flying through the wall to the right of her head, leaving pieces of crumbling drywall on her feet and the faint dusting of white ash on her shoulder.

Kikyo collapsed onto the ground and clutched at her stomach, crying and screaming in pain.

“What are we doing to each other!? Don't you see how this can't continue? Do you not see how fucking messed up we are?!”

“Please, Inuyasha,” her voice and sobs were one now; the inaudible cries were too much for him to bear. He growled as he dug his fingers into his hair and turned away from the sight of her, his chest heavy. “Please, Inuyasha…” she cried again, although to him it sounded like “Pluh, Hey-aah”

With a cry of anguish he clenched his fists and, with both hands, slammed them against the wall to his right, causing Kikyo's pictures and wall décor to crumble to the ground, glass smashing, wood frames snapping, and photographs of the happy couple left ripped and broken on the floor.

As Kikyo curled into herself on the floor, Inuyasha turned from the sight of her, his stomach queasy, and threw himself out of her apartment. He stumbled into the hallway in a mad rush, unable to see, contemplate, or digest anything before him. He leaned onto the wall for support, Kikyo's door open behind him. She gingerly looked towards the door, hungry for the sight of him, eager for their violence to subside into the ravenous passion that always followed. However, the growling, swearing, and howls of rage were gone. Inuyasha was gone.