InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Little Acts Of Kindness ❯ Chatper Four ( Chapter 4 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: damson rhee 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.16.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 247 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.16.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 247 | Status: Completed
A/N: This story has a moral that I hope gives a positive message to those who are reading. Rating just to be safe. This deals with some issues that may not be for young readers (like those under, say, 10 years old) but I'm sure that it's nothing you haven't heard before.
QUICK WARNING: There is a little more offensive language in this chapter than in any of the rest. If you have a problem with that kind of stuff, then maybe skip the later part of this chapter. It’s nothing you’ve never encountered before, I’m sure. If you think I should change the rating, tell me in a review and I will.
And on to the story...
x
The bell rang to signal the end of the school day. Kagome sighed and grabbed her bag, not wanting to have to walk in the rain. Ever since her encounter with Kikyo a day ago, she had been thinking more and more about Inuyasha. 'I have to talk to him, have to see him, have to make sure he's okay, have to...'
The halls were crowded, and the students were joking noisily, slamming lockers, and laughing. Kagome tried to ignore the chaos as she opened her locker. Shivering involuntarily, she reached for her jacket. She had forgotten her umbrella, so she would have to get wet when she left. 'I have to go see Inuyasha.'
As she stepped outside, she wasn't surprised to see that it was still raining. The clouds looked impossibly bleak. The sky was dark. The wind whispered of death.
Instead of turning around the next corner like she usually did, she kept on going straight - to Inuyasha's house. Miroku had told her the address that day. She assumed he would be home; where else would he go? But beyond knocking on the door and hoping he would answer and let her in, she really had no idea what to do after that. She just knew she had to see him, to touch him. He was so fragile, as if he could break or disappear at any moment.
'It feels as if I've known him for forever. We have this bond, a bond that I've never felt with anyone before. I think he needs someone to hold on to. He needs a friend. He needs someone to care.'
In the blink of an eye she found herself in front of the door of 24 Kawamori Crescent - the house of Inuyasha Daichi. Taking a deep breath, she summoned all her courage and knocked.
She waited uncomfortably on the doorstep for a few moments, listening to the pounding rain while enjoying the brief respite from the merciless elements. She took this chance to look at the house. It was small, with only one window in the front - which was closed off with beige blinds so she couldn't see inside. The house itself was painted a dull blue, which had faded to a dull grey over the years. The paint was chipped. The doorbell was broken. The roof looked so bad that Kagome was sure it must leak.
She was brought back to reality by the sound of the door opening - no, creaking open. He was standing in the doorway, and made no effort to hide his surprise at finding her at his doorstep. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but nevertheless felt the need to at least give some sort of explanation.
"Hi," she began awkwardly, not quite knowing what to say, "I'm Kagome...remember? I'm the one from the other day... who helped you pick up your books..."
Inuyasha's sad, golden eyes flickered briefly with recognition. He glanced towards the sky, seemingly noticing the rain for the first time, then looked back down at her soaking figure. "Come in," he said simply.
He opened the door slightly to allow her room to pass through. Still unsure of herself, Kagome stepped in hesitantly. Inuyasha followed silently – something he had become quite good at – and shut the door behind them.
She had been expecting the inside of the house to match the outside – old and deteriorating and rusty – so she was quite astonished to find that the interior was neat and clean. The floors sparkled as if brand new, and it looked as if the whole place had been meticulously scrubbed from top to bottom. Yet there was something amiss; something nagging at her; something still looming in the back of her mind. Somehow the perfection only added to the horror of the house. This was not a normal place.
She suddenly realized that while she had been staring at the house, Inuyasha had been staring at her. She hastily removed her shoes and jacket; hanging up the latter in the immaculately clean closet.
“Sit down,” Inuyasha offered, and did so himself without waiting for a response. Kagome could tell he was offering merely out of habit. He never spoke invitingly or caringly or even politely. He was always so cold, so distant…
She sat down, and the silence took over for a minute. Just as she was thinking that Inuyasha couldn’t manage more than two word sentences, he surprised her once again.
“My older brother, Sesshomaru, is away on a business trip. He’ll be back tomorrow at noon. My parents won’t be home – not ever. They died a long time ago.”
Kagome nodded, mostly to hide her confusion. Not confusion about to the information he was sharing, but why he was sharing it in the first place. Inuyasha Daichi never shared. Anything.
Which was why she was even more perplexed when he continued.
“I was always alone… Even if I was in a room with a thousand people, I was always alone. It’s just the way I am. It’s just the way I’ll always be. Unless I can…”
He trailed off, and Kagome looked up at him sitting on the couch across the room. She realized that he hadn’t made eye contact with her from the very moment she had walked in the door. He was always looking down at the floor, or up to the ceiling, or to the side; at anything else but her. She thought she knew the reason why.
Kagome stood up so suddenly that Inuyasha stood up too, but in surprise. She walked over to him slowly, this time neither afraid nor uncertain. He still wouldn’t look at her, but somehow he was aware of her every movement. She came close and enveloped him in a comforting embrace. He stood there, unmoving, not knowing what to do. She pulled away, and they were just two inches apart, though he was still looking away. She reached out and gently touched his cheek, turning his face to look down on her. They made eye contact for a single moment, but a single moment was all that was needed.
It surprised her how strongly she wanted to bridge the two inch gap between her lips and his in that brief moment where anything seemed possible and all rational thoughts could be pushed aside. But reason prevailed as she simply wrapped her arms around him again. Inuyasha uneasily put his arms around her.
She realized how strange they must look to someone looking through the window from the outside. Him in all black, with his silver hair contrasting like night and day, with her in her light pink and blue pastel colors. They were such an unlikely pair that she could hardly believe it herself.
“I care, Inuyasha,” she whispered against his black shoulder. “I really, really care. You’re… you’re not alone.”
She felt rather than saw that he was shaking his head – as if to convince himself more than to convince her. “No,” he said. “No. You can’t care.”
Suddenly he pulled away, shoving her to the side as he jumped back himself, and with that one reaction, the whole world came crashing down on her.
“I am alone. I’m always alone. I don’t even know who the hell you are!” he shouted. She wanted to scream. This was not how it was supposed to be.
“I’m Kagome Higurashi. I just want to be your friend.” She spoke calmly; a façade that hid her true feelings.
“Damnit, don’t you get it yet? I don’t have any friends. I don’t need any friends.” He was livid now. “Why the hell are you in my house? Get out!”
His breathing was ragged; his shoulders moved up and down and his chest went in and out. He took a step forward menacingly, although his face showed another emotion entirely. Though he would never admit it, he was more afraid of her than she could ever be of him. She took a step back automatically, but did not flee as most would have done. Somehow she was sure he would not actually hurt her. The two stood there, each staring the other down, their stubborn personalities and strong wills colliding head to head.
After a moment, she advanced again towards him. He made no move to stop her, watching warily. She reached out to touch his cheek again and his eyes softened – something he didn’t understand. He couldn’t seem to control the emotions she invoked in him; emotions he had never felt before... even with her. But she stopped suddenly. For on the lower part of his cheek there was a bruise that she had somehow missed before. The bruise was a deep purple, and was in the shape of a fist as if someone was aiming for his eye but had missed the target.
Inuyasha bristled visibly as he noticed what she had seen. “Inu…Inuyasha…”she whimpered. Tears formed in her eyes. She asked the inevitable question. She already knew the answer, but she had to hear it from his mouth. “Who did this to you?”
It was then that he realized something important; something he had somehow failed to see before. For the first time in his life, someone actually cared. It mattered to someone what happened to him. He recognized how afraid it made him feel. His pain was her pain and that, that was what scared him more than anything in the world.
He realized that he couldn’t tell her – not now, after he was finally so close. He couldn’t ruin his chance for one girl; a girl he didn’t even know. He told himself that he didn’t care. He told himself that she could go to hell, he didn’t need her. He couldn’t afford to get close to anybody. And while his head told him this, his heart was screaming something else entirely.
Inuyasha pushed her away for the second time that day. It hurt him to do so, but he did nevertheless because he thought it would be best for them both. The rest seemed to go by in a blur, as if a dark haze was clouding his vision. He heard her talking, telling him that he was making a mistake, but he blocked it out. He heard himself yelling at her to go away, hoping that she would just leave and get it over with rather than making it more painful for the both of them. She got up and walked towards the door, gathering her coat around her in anticipation of the cold and wet weather. Then, as she spoke for the last time, it was as if the haze was gone again and he could concentrate on what she said.
Kagome spoke slowly and evenly, her voice just above a whisper. “Inuyasha, I thought I was coming to save you from him. But I was wrong. Now I know I need to save you from yourself.”
For some reason the words made him angry, although they had not sunk in entirely and it was not until much later he would realize exactly what she meant. He growled instinctively. “Get out of my house, bitch!”
Kagome nodded in acceptance, and it was beyond him how she could remain so calm. He watched as she put on her shoes – compliantly, if such a thing was possible – and he found himself trembling. He was trembling partly because of anger, he knew, but a greater part of it was something else, something that he wasn’t yet ready to understand but he felt nonetheless. As she walked out, he ran up to slam the door behind her.
“Good riddance,” his mind said, but he was not so sure. He crumpled up beside the door, leaning against it as his breaths became shallow and his shoulders began to shake and the full weight of what had happened was only just beginning to dawn on him.
“I can’t believe I almost told her…”
x
Unbeknownst to Inuyasha, Kagome was on the other side of that door, sitting on the doorstep and leaning back against its cold, hard wood. Tears were streaming down her face, although the rain washed it all away so that it was impossible to tell that she was crying.
‘I failed him. I failed him…’ It was all she could think of; that she had failed Inuyasha in a time when he needed her most. She rested her head against the door and closed her eyes, feeling her breaths going in and out, in and out…
Then, through the door she heard Inuyasha’s voice. It was faint, but she could still make out what he was saying.
“I can’t believe I almost told her…”
x
Inuyasha got up, not quite knowing what to do with himself, but knowing that something must be done. The scene kept on replaying in his mind, over and over. He clenched his fists in desperation.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and made his way to the bathroom. He needed a good, hot shower to help him forget.
He looked down at his hand, and to his utter amazement, saw something in it that he knew he had not put there. He blinked and wiped his eyes, but he was not imagining things. In his hand it lay…
…a feather?
x
Well, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and personally I think it’s my best yet! I hope you do too! Also, it’s my longest chapter yet…
Have you figured out what’s going to happen yet? I’ve left LOTS of clues, especially in this chapter, so feel free to take a guess in your review!
QUICK WARNING: There is a little more offensive language in this chapter than in any of the rest. If you have a problem with that kind of stuff, then maybe skip the later part of this chapter. It’s nothing you’ve never encountered before, I’m sure. If you think I should change the rating, tell me in a review and I will.
And on to the story...
x
The bell rang to signal the end of the school day. Kagome sighed and grabbed her bag, not wanting to have to walk in the rain. Ever since her encounter with Kikyo a day ago, she had been thinking more and more about Inuyasha. 'I have to talk to him, have to see him, have to make sure he's okay, have to...'
The halls were crowded, and the students were joking noisily, slamming lockers, and laughing. Kagome tried to ignore the chaos as she opened her locker. Shivering involuntarily, she reached for her jacket. She had forgotten her umbrella, so she would have to get wet when she left. 'I have to go see Inuyasha.'
As she stepped outside, she wasn't surprised to see that it was still raining. The clouds looked impossibly bleak. The sky was dark. The wind whispered of death.
Instead of turning around the next corner like she usually did, she kept on going straight - to Inuyasha's house. Miroku had told her the address that day. She assumed he would be home; where else would he go? But beyond knocking on the door and hoping he would answer and let her in, she really had no idea what to do after that. She just knew she had to see him, to touch him. He was so fragile, as if he could break or disappear at any moment.
'It feels as if I've known him for forever. We have this bond, a bond that I've never felt with anyone before. I think he needs someone to hold on to. He needs a friend. He needs someone to care.'
In the blink of an eye she found herself in front of the door of 24 Kawamori Crescent - the house of Inuyasha Daichi. Taking a deep breath, she summoned all her courage and knocked.
She waited uncomfortably on the doorstep for a few moments, listening to the pounding rain while enjoying the brief respite from the merciless elements. She took this chance to look at the house. It was small, with only one window in the front - which was closed off with beige blinds so she couldn't see inside. The house itself was painted a dull blue, which had faded to a dull grey over the years. The paint was chipped. The doorbell was broken. The roof looked so bad that Kagome was sure it must leak.
She was brought back to reality by the sound of the door opening - no, creaking open. He was standing in the doorway, and made no effort to hide his surprise at finding her at his doorstep. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but nevertheless felt the need to at least give some sort of explanation.
"Hi," she began awkwardly, not quite knowing what to say, "I'm Kagome...remember? I'm the one from the other day... who helped you pick up your books..."
Inuyasha's sad, golden eyes flickered briefly with recognition. He glanced towards the sky, seemingly noticing the rain for the first time, then looked back down at her soaking figure. "Come in," he said simply.
He opened the door slightly to allow her room to pass through. Still unsure of herself, Kagome stepped in hesitantly. Inuyasha followed silently – something he had become quite good at – and shut the door behind them.
She had been expecting the inside of the house to match the outside – old and deteriorating and rusty – so she was quite astonished to find that the interior was neat and clean. The floors sparkled as if brand new, and it looked as if the whole place had been meticulously scrubbed from top to bottom. Yet there was something amiss; something nagging at her; something still looming in the back of her mind. Somehow the perfection only added to the horror of the house. This was not a normal place.
She suddenly realized that while she had been staring at the house, Inuyasha had been staring at her. She hastily removed her shoes and jacket; hanging up the latter in the immaculately clean closet.
“Sit down,” Inuyasha offered, and did so himself without waiting for a response. Kagome could tell he was offering merely out of habit. He never spoke invitingly or caringly or even politely. He was always so cold, so distant…
She sat down, and the silence took over for a minute. Just as she was thinking that Inuyasha couldn’t manage more than two word sentences, he surprised her once again.
“My older brother, Sesshomaru, is away on a business trip. He’ll be back tomorrow at noon. My parents won’t be home – not ever. They died a long time ago.”
Kagome nodded, mostly to hide her confusion. Not confusion about to the information he was sharing, but why he was sharing it in the first place. Inuyasha Daichi never shared. Anything.
Which was why she was even more perplexed when he continued.
“I was always alone… Even if I was in a room with a thousand people, I was always alone. It’s just the way I am. It’s just the way I’ll always be. Unless I can…”
He trailed off, and Kagome looked up at him sitting on the couch across the room. She realized that he hadn’t made eye contact with her from the very moment she had walked in the door. He was always looking down at the floor, or up to the ceiling, or to the side; at anything else but her. She thought she knew the reason why.
Kagome stood up so suddenly that Inuyasha stood up too, but in surprise. She walked over to him slowly, this time neither afraid nor uncertain. He still wouldn’t look at her, but somehow he was aware of her every movement. She came close and enveloped him in a comforting embrace. He stood there, unmoving, not knowing what to do. She pulled away, and they were just two inches apart, though he was still looking away. She reached out and gently touched his cheek, turning his face to look down on her. They made eye contact for a single moment, but a single moment was all that was needed.
It surprised her how strongly she wanted to bridge the two inch gap between her lips and his in that brief moment where anything seemed possible and all rational thoughts could be pushed aside. But reason prevailed as she simply wrapped her arms around him again. Inuyasha uneasily put his arms around her.
She realized how strange they must look to someone looking through the window from the outside. Him in all black, with his silver hair contrasting like night and day, with her in her light pink and blue pastel colors. They were such an unlikely pair that she could hardly believe it herself.
“I care, Inuyasha,” she whispered against his black shoulder. “I really, really care. You’re… you’re not alone.”
She felt rather than saw that he was shaking his head – as if to convince himself more than to convince her. “No,” he said. “No. You can’t care.”
Suddenly he pulled away, shoving her to the side as he jumped back himself, and with that one reaction, the whole world came crashing down on her.
“I am alone. I’m always alone. I don’t even know who the hell you are!” he shouted. She wanted to scream. This was not how it was supposed to be.
“I’m Kagome Higurashi. I just want to be your friend.” She spoke calmly; a façade that hid her true feelings.
“Damnit, don’t you get it yet? I don’t have any friends. I don’t need any friends.” He was livid now. “Why the hell are you in my house? Get out!”
His breathing was ragged; his shoulders moved up and down and his chest went in and out. He took a step forward menacingly, although his face showed another emotion entirely. Though he would never admit it, he was more afraid of her than she could ever be of him. She took a step back automatically, but did not flee as most would have done. Somehow she was sure he would not actually hurt her. The two stood there, each staring the other down, their stubborn personalities and strong wills colliding head to head.
After a moment, she advanced again towards him. He made no move to stop her, watching warily. She reached out to touch his cheek again and his eyes softened – something he didn’t understand. He couldn’t seem to control the emotions she invoked in him; emotions he had never felt before... even with her. But she stopped suddenly. For on the lower part of his cheek there was a bruise that she had somehow missed before. The bruise was a deep purple, and was in the shape of a fist as if someone was aiming for his eye but had missed the target.
Inuyasha bristled visibly as he noticed what she had seen. “Inu…Inuyasha…”she whimpered. Tears formed in her eyes. She asked the inevitable question. She already knew the answer, but she had to hear it from his mouth. “Who did this to you?”
It was then that he realized something important; something he had somehow failed to see before. For the first time in his life, someone actually cared. It mattered to someone what happened to him. He recognized how afraid it made him feel. His pain was her pain and that, that was what scared him more than anything in the world.
He realized that he couldn’t tell her – not now, after he was finally so close. He couldn’t ruin his chance for one girl; a girl he didn’t even know. He told himself that he didn’t care. He told himself that she could go to hell, he didn’t need her. He couldn’t afford to get close to anybody. And while his head told him this, his heart was screaming something else entirely.
Inuyasha pushed her away for the second time that day. It hurt him to do so, but he did nevertheless because he thought it would be best for them both. The rest seemed to go by in a blur, as if a dark haze was clouding his vision. He heard her talking, telling him that he was making a mistake, but he blocked it out. He heard himself yelling at her to go away, hoping that she would just leave and get it over with rather than making it more painful for the both of them. She got up and walked towards the door, gathering her coat around her in anticipation of the cold and wet weather. Then, as she spoke for the last time, it was as if the haze was gone again and he could concentrate on what she said.
Kagome spoke slowly and evenly, her voice just above a whisper. “Inuyasha, I thought I was coming to save you from him. But I was wrong. Now I know I need to save you from yourself.”
For some reason the words made him angry, although they had not sunk in entirely and it was not until much later he would realize exactly what she meant. He growled instinctively. “Get out of my house, bitch!”
Kagome nodded in acceptance, and it was beyond him how she could remain so calm. He watched as she put on her shoes – compliantly, if such a thing was possible – and he found himself trembling. He was trembling partly because of anger, he knew, but a greater part of it was something else, something that he wasn’t yet ready to understand but he felt nonetheless. As she walked out, he ran up to slam the door behind her.
“Good riddance,” his mind said, but he was not so sure. He crumpled up beside the door, leaning against it as his breaths became shallow and his shoulders began to shake and the full weight of what had happened was only just beginning to dawn on him.
“I can’t believe I almost told her…”
x
Unbeknownst to Inuyasha, Kagome was on the other side of that door, sitting on the doorstep and leaning back against its cold, hard wood. Tears were streaming down her face, although the rain washed it all away so that it was impossible to tell that she was crying.
‘I failed him. I failed him…’ It was all she could think of; that she had failed Inuyasha in a time when he needed her most. She rested her head against the door and closed her eyes, feeling her breaths going in and out, in and out…
Then, through the door she heard Inuyasha’s voice. It was faint, but she could still make out what he was saying.
“I can’t believe I almost told her…”
x
Inuyasha got up, not quite knowing what to do with himself, but knowing that something must be done. The scene kept on replaying in his mind, over and over. He clenched his fists in desperation.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and made his way to the bathroom. He needed a good, hot shower to help him forget.
He looked down at his hand, and to his utter amazement, saw something in it that he knew he had not put there. He blinked and wiped his eyes, but he was not imagining things. In his hand it lay…
…a feather?
x
Well, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and personally I think it’s my best yet! I hope you do too! Also, it’s my longest chapter yet…
Have you figured out what’s going to happen yet? I’ve left LOTS of clues, especially in this chapter, so feel free to take a guess in your review!