InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 5

 

 

If I were human, they would have said I was a tomboy, but I am hanyou, and I just did what came naturally.

 

Daichi and I spent most of that summer roving around the hills near the slayer village. I had to sneak out the first few times, but after that, I don't think I was fooling anyone. Except, maybe, my parents. It wasn't as if we were doing anything wrong; we were just kids, and we were both youkai, so we were safe enough. Daichi wouldn't let anything happen to me.

 

“Let me see your ears,” he said suddenly to me one day as we stopped for a meal of rabbits. “You always cover them with that stupid kerchief like some human girl. Are you sure you're hanyou?”

 

He teased me like that a lot. He meant he sometimes thought of me as full youkai because I could keep up with him so easily and because I liked the same things he did.

 

Slowly I drew off the kerchief. It was a relief to have my ears free. I flicked them to get the kinks out. Daichi reached out to touch, and instinctively I laid them back against my head. He touched them anyway, and gradually I relaxed under his hand. “Perfect,” he breathed, and I felt a twinge of something when he said that. Someone else had said almost the same thing to me recently. Who was it? I couldn't remember. Daichi continued speaking. “So you really are hanyou.”

 

He didn't know who my parents were, he couldn't know and I couldn't tell him. We were descended from the Inu no Taisho, the great Dog Youkai, and our blood ran true. Besides, Papa told us over and over that there really was no such thing as hanyou, power-wise. You were youkai or you weren't. But Daichi was from an earlier time when such ideas were not easily accepted. I laughed, and swung my dark head around, wiggling my ears. Daichi had never yet seen my true coloring. “I can still beat you!” I challenged him. His eyes lit up and we were off.

 

Usually I met up with Hiroshi's sisters in the practice field outside the village and we returned together. Today, no one was at the field. I hurried around to the gate, anxious to get inside before anyone noticed that I hadn't been with the others. When I saw who was standing there, I gasped.

 

“Dad—Papa!” He was waiting for me in the courtyard. He didn't say a word as I slowly walked towards him. “Where's Mama?”

 

He jerked his head backward towards the house where we stayed when we came here. “She's in there, talking to Sango.”

 

We stared at each other a while longer, and still he didn't say anything. I was beginning to get nervous. Why didn't he just yell at me and get it over with? “Are we going home?” I asked in a small voice, thinking that's why they had come. The youkai problem they were worried about must have been resolved, and they'd come to take us all home.

 

“Not yet,” my father said absently. “We're staying here a while longer.”

 

My parents were staying too? “Oh,” I replied. I noticed that he had pulled his bright hair into a tight ponytail and stuffed the end into the back of his peasant shirt. He had a bandana tied around his ears, too. For Inuyasha, that was as much of a disguise as he would tolerate. I wondered what had prompted it.

 

My father relented then. “Go say hello to your mother,” he said, catching me by the arm. “Mayumi, be careful out there.”

 

So he knew. I ran off, relieved but also worried that I'd somehow disappointed him.

 

My parents left the village with Miroku and Sango shortly after. Auntie Sango wore her slayer outfit and carried her Hiraikotsu, which meant it was serious. They were gone for almost a month, chasing rumors of strange sightings up in the hills to the west. I had a suspicion it was connected to their youkai problem in our time, but I couldn't be certain.

 

Just because our parents were gone didn't mean we had free reign in the village. All of us kids, including Hiroshi and Kazuki who thought themselves more mature than the rest of us, were monitored by the other grown-ups in the village. The boys were allowed to go out on patrol, but they had to report back every evening. We younger ones still got to practice our slayer skills in the big field just outside the village, but not alone. A grown-up always accompanied us.

 

I sensed Daichi watching just beyond the tree line, but I couldn't go to him and he couldn't reveal himself to the villagers. They were on friendly terms with the the wolf youkai but it would have been hard to explain why a young wolf youkai suddenly showed up at the village all alone and without any advance warning. So Daichi stayed away and we were both miserable.

 

My `sisters' came up with a solution. They knew very well that I had been sneaking off to play with Daichi all summer long; they had covered for me when I ducked out of slayer practice to meet him. In order for it to work, they had to involve our brothers in our plan, and at first I was sure Kazuki would refuse to cooperate. He might be fairly easy-going, but he liked his freedom. But he agreed.

 

I dressed swiftly in Kazuki's slayer clothes. He and Hiroshi usually went out on patrol at daybreak, returning at dusk. Hiroshi waited for me by the village gate. I kept my head down and made sure I didn't stand right next to Hiroshi. From a distance, I could be mistaken for my brother, but Kazuki was taller than I was; if I had stood closer to Hiroshi the height difference would have been obvious. Kazuki would spend the day in our hut, sick with a stomach ache. One of the girls volunteered to stay with him, to take care of him—me, but really to run interference in case a grown-up tried to check up on him—me.

 

Hiroshi took off ahead of me, and I followed a little bit behind until we were out of sight of the village. Daichi was waiting just beyond the village.

 

“Have her back here before sunset,” Hiroshi said, and he prepared to leave. I felt a little bad; since I had taken Kazuki's place, that meant Hiroshi would have to do his patrol by himself.

 

“Do you want us to go with you?” I asked. I didn't mind, as long as I could spend the day with Daichi, too.

 

Hiroshi shook his head. “No, you two have fun.” He grinned. “Now you both owe me.”

 

I nodded, and Daichi and I stayed there in the glade until Hiroshi disappeared.

 

“Are we going to follow him?” Daichi asked me.

 

“Of course.” I smiled.

 

We let him get far enough ahead that it would be more of a challenge, then we started off after Hiroshi. It was fun tracking him through the woods; it was even more fun stalking the slayer who was supposed to be patrolling against youkai. Of course, if a truly hostile youkai had been in the vicinity, Daichi and I would have known about it. Hiroshi didn't patrol alone.

 

Precisely at dusk, `Kazuki' and Hiroshi walked back through the village gate and headed towards their respective houses. None of the grown-ups in the village were any the wiser. I felt much better the next day, thanks to the wonderful care I had received when `I' was sick. We all felt pretty smug about pulling off the switch.

 

Then Koji ratted us out. When our parents got back to the village, he met them at the gate, jumping into Papa's arms a little too fast for a normal human boy. “Koji!” my mother reprimanded him.

 

“What?” my little brother asked, sounding a lot like Papa. He knew what.

 

Mama gave him her look, and Koji finally mumbled, “Sorry.” He was rewarded with a hug and a kiss.

 

“Were you a good boy while I was gone?” Mama asked.

 

We had come up to the gate by then, too, so I was in the perfect position to hear Koji's reply.

 

“Yes, I was, Mama, but Kazuki and Mayumi weren't. They switched places and Mayumi went outside with Hiroshi.” Koji smiled over Papa's shoulder at me as he told on us. I knew it was because we hadn't let him go outside, but he was too little!

 

Not only Mama and Papa, but also Auntie Sango and Uncle Miroku turned to look at me. I blushed.

 

“I suppose my children were all in on it too?” asked Uncle Miroku, arching an eyebrow.

 

“Mayumi, I'm disappointed in you,” my mother said quietly. “I know you like to be out in the woods, but this place isn't the same as our woods at home. It's too dangerous for you. What if something had happened? Your father and I would have been too far away to do anything.”

 

In a way, it was good that my mother had misunderstood. She thought Kazuki and I had traded places so that I could go out for a run in the woods. Well, that part was correct. I was just glad she didn't know all of it. But at the same time, I began to feel annoyed. Why was it dangerous for me but all right for Kazuki to be out in these woods? I was just as much a hanyou as he was, even if I was a girl. I felt myself stiffen in anger.

 

“Kazuki, what gives?” my father asked. “You're supposed to watch out for your brother and sister, not help them be irresponsible.”

 

“You, too, Hiroshi,” added Uncle Miroku.

 

“We'll talk about this later,” Papa said. “Get your stuff. We're going home.”

 

 

He never said what had happened on their trip into the mountains. But from that moment on, we all became very careful with our comings and goings. Mama and Papa no longer came to the slayer village. Papa said it was because the kids were growing older and it was harder to keep their secret. They might not have known who Inuyasha was, but they were bound to have heard the stories. He wanted to protect us, so he and Mama let us kids go on alone to the slayer village.

 

My father must have guessed that I had switched places with Kazuki in order to see Daichi, but he never mentioned it, so I never did, either. Since he hadn't specifically told me I couldn't see Daichi, I continued to meet him whenever we went back there.

 

The mysterious youkai problem continued throughout my childhood years. The only effect it had on me was to cramp my style. As if my parents weren't overprotective enough as it was, they now wouldn't let me go anywhere in the woods on my own. I always had to have somebody else accompany me—my father, my brother, Uncle Shippo, Uncle Dai. . . . it was quite annoying.