InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 9 ( Chapter 9 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 9:

 

 

I went back to the past soon after my talk with Dai. I still thought of him as Dai, to differentiate him from Daichi. Even though they were one and the same, in my mind I thought of them as two separate beings.

 

“Daichi!” I cried, as I flung my arms around him. He was startled by my exuberance but he hugged me back just as fiercely. I drank in his scent, the scent that was so familiar to me, and his lips met mine in a kiss that reminded me too much of Dai. I didn't want to think about Dai right now.

 

“Make love to me,” I said to him, but I didn't say it so nicely. I was desperate. I needed this. Daichi was happy to comply, and our first time was hurried and urgent and wonderful. I wasn't quite sixteen.

 

We bathed in each other's tastes and scents and I didn't want to leave, but I knew Papa would come looking for me if I didn't return soon.

 

“I'll come back as soon as I can,” I whispered to Daichi. Vacation was in a few weeks, and I planned to spend it in the Sengoku Jidai. Daichi's eyes expressed his puzzlement and hurt. I knew he wondered where I disappeared to all the time. I wished I could tell him.

 

I didn't want to wash off Daichi's scent but I was afraid my father would be able to tell what we had done. I came downstairs fresh and rosy from the shower, and both my brothers and my father looked up from the breakfast table and stared at me. Great. Just great.

 

“What?” I asked defensively. Mama hadn't noticed their glances; she did notice my comment. Having lived in a household of youkai for all these years, she realized something was up.

 

“She stinks,” said my father flatly in answer to my mother's unspoken question before going back to his breakfast. Kazuki wisely kept his mouth shut.

 

My face went red, as I imagined what else my father was going to say, and worse, how my mother would react. But Papa didn't say anything more and my mother, used to my father's rough ways, passed it off as nothing serious. I had used a lot of shampoo. Even a human could smell it. I smelled like a flower shop—on the surface.

 

I should have known I wouldn't get away that easily. After breakfast, Papa steered me towards his car, and we drove in silence down the mountain. He was meeting some clients later, and needed the car to pick them up. The boys went the usual way to school, down the mountain on foot. I wondered which of my relatives had gone with them today. I yawned.

 

“Late night?” My father glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he guided the car around a rut in the road.

 

“Um,” I replied, hoping he wouldn't pry any further. A vain hope.

 

“You know about Dai.”

 

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

I shrugged. I was surprised he even asked instead of just telling me what to do. “I don't know,” I admitted.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No.”

 

“All right.”

 

We rode the rest of the way to my school in silence, and I wondered if I had disappointed him, his only daughter, to have done—that. When I got out of the car, he patted my hand. “You should talk to your mother,” he said. “She's better at this stuff than I am.” He didn't say `stuff.'

 

“Maybe,” I temporized. Not likely. It was bad enough Papa knew. I realized I had gotten off lightly, and maybe he wasn't talking just about my, er, transgression with Daichi after all. “You mean about Dai?”

 

“I mean about all of it,” my father said as he closed the car door. He drove away and I went to school. It felt so unreal, attending class in the 21st century, when my heart was in the past.

 

Dai was waiting for me when I got out of school. I cringed, thinking he would know, too, but if he did, he never said. We took the long way home, as we usually did, but he stopped me before we got there. It was a spot we'd stopped at before, tangled and wild, both dark and dappled with late afternoon sunlight. The hill seemed to fold in on itself and we sat in its shadow, side by side, not quite touching.

 

“Mayumi,” he began. Then he stopped, and turned to look at me, really look at me. “You're so young.” He smiled a little sadly. “I remember when we were both that young. I've missed you, Mayumi. I know you don't want to hear it--” He raised his hand at my sudden protest. “—but I hope we can have a little time to get to know each other again. I don't know how long this is going to last.”

 

My eyes widened at that statement. Time is a tricky thing, even for someone like me who takes it for granted. “You mean you don't know?”

 

“I do and I don't,” he replied evasively. “Your father told me I'd better not say too much, and honestly, I don't know exactly. We may have a few years together yet.”

 

I frowned. Papa had no right to keep my own life secret from me. “You can tell me anything, Dai,” I said. He kissed me softly, on the cheek this time, and I murmured, “No more secrets.”

 

He laughed then, and I knew he knew.

 

We went home, and for the next week Dai wooed me like the teenage girl I was. We went out for ice cream, to the movies, and for runs in the woods. My parents, even my father, looked on indulgently. How do you say `no' to your daughter's future—and past—husband? All the time I was with Dai, I thought of Daichi. At every turn, Dai reminded me of Daichi, in his quick grin, his unruly hair, his lightning speed. Even his scent became fused in my mind with Daichi's sweet scent, until I caught myself longing to kiss him, to find out just how much they were the same.

 

The week after that was spring vacation, and I told Dai I was going back to see Daichi. There had been no chance to go to him earlier, and honestly I hadn't wanted to do that to Dai. I'm sure Daichi must have been wondering what happened to me, since I left him so abruptly after our lovemaking.

 

“Stay with me a little longer?” Dai asked. We sat on the deck and watched the sun rise.

 

“Dai, I can't.” I could feel my father stir inside the house and knew it was a matter of time before we had company. I missed Daichi; I missed the clean crisp air of five hundred years ago. But Dai's body was radiating his distress, and at the same time as I wanted to go back to my other life, I wanted to comfort Dai, too. “I'll come back in a week,” I said.

 

He twisted away from me and paced down the length of the deck. “What if you don't?” he cried out. “Or worse, what if you do and you don't want me?” He knelt in front of me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Don't go. Not yet.” He stood and pulled me upright with him so he could kiss me. This kiss was neither tender nor soft. It was desperate and possessive, yet still I could recognize Daichi in it.

 

I pushed him away. “Stop it, Dai.”

 

He held me tighter and buried his face in my hair. “I love you, Mayumi,” he mumbled into the top of my head.

 

It was too much. “But I don't love you!” I blurted out, and to my horror Dai's face crumpled and he turned away. He released me as if I burned him, and in one fluid movement he dove over the railing and into the coming dawn.

 

I hadn't meant it. I did love Dai—I just loved him as Daichi more. I brushed past Papa as he pushed open the sliding glass door. I had no doubt he had heard everything, and I couldn't face him right now. I felt awful. I hadn't meant for it to come out like that. I knew Dai was Daichi. I never meant to hurt him.

 

Papa didn't stop me. His eyes were wide and wary. He had a hard time dealing with stuff like this, I knew. For once, I was glad.

 

In my room, I threw some last minute things into my bag, then I lay on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Perhaps what had happened was for the best. Now I was free to leave. After vacation, I'd come back and smooth things over with Dai. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the rest of the school year, though. It was becoming harder and harder to split myself in two, and I didn't want to be here. If I were honest with myself, it was guilt that held me here—now that I knew about Dai. I wish I had never found out.

 

I rested my eyes for a few minutes. Dai and I had stayed up all night talking, since I would be leaving in the morning. I still needed to put the dark rinse in my hair and change my clothes. I woke up to a knock on my door and late morning sun streaming through my window. When had I fallen asleep?

 

“Come in, Mama,” I sighed, heaving myself up on my bed so that I was sitting against the pillows. My eyes felt gritty.

 

She sat next to me and held out her arms, and I went into them willingly. The tears that had eluded me before found me now, and I cried into Mama's shoulder. I could still sense Papa hovering just beyond the doorway, uneasy with our turbulent emotions. I smiled through my tears.

 

“I'm sure he knows you didn't mean it,” my mother said, as I wiped at my eyes. “You should go find him. Explain.”

 

I stiffened and drew back from my mother's warm embrace. “Mama, I can't,” I tried to explain. “I—he's—I need to get away, to think.”

 

“You're not going back there now! After this? Mayumi, don't do this to Dai. Why don't you take a few days to think about things right here? Postpone your vacation until later in the week, after you and Dai have had a chance to talk.”

 

I knew she meant well. She knew Dai, she didn't know my Daichi, so of course her sympathies lay with the one in this time.

 

“No, Mama,” I replied. “I'm going. I belong there, Mama.”

 

My mother's eyes widened as she realized what I had said. “You can't mean that.”

 

“I do,” I said, and it suddenly made sense. Why was I trying so hard to fit in here, going to high school every day, when I now knew I was fated to return to the past? Why wait? Dai had said he didn't know exactly when I had married him, back then. He was hoping to have a few more years with me here before the inevitable. But what if it was inevitable now? “Maybe I'll just stay there,” I said. “It's only a matter of time, anyway, right, Mama?”

 

“It's too soon!” Mama said quickly. “What about high school? What about college—at least finish college.” It was Mama's dream that we, especially me, because I was the girl, get a good, well-rounded education. She often told us it would stand us in good stead no matter what the future brought.

 

Since I was hurting, I struck out. “No, mom. That's you. That's not me.” I ignored the wounded look my mother gave me and turned my sight inward, to that place in my mind which would take me away from here and back to Daichi. I didn't expect her to do what she did next, and so I was completely unprepared.

 

My mother clapped her two hands together and closed her own eyes in concentration as a pearlescent pink glow surrounded first her hands, then her body, then my whole room. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. She swiftly stood and walked to my open door, stepping through before releasing her joined hands. My concentration faltered and I grasped for it again but it was as if a physical hand slapped me away, and I couldn't go.

 

“Mama, what did you do!” I followed her to the doorway, and bounced back, repelled by her barrier. It was a hundred times stronger than the barriers she usually erected to keep out youkai. This one was made to keep a youkai in, and this youkai didn't like it one bit! “Let me go!” I yelled, as I threw my body again and again against the open, unyielding doorway.

 

My mother bit her fist and watched me, from the other side. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, but still she didn't release her barrier. I felt my anger surge. “Aaah!” I screamed in fury, and I let my claws rip through my bedroom, reducing my beautiful comforter and the mattress underneath to cotton snowflakes, and smashing the wood furniture into firewood. Nothing escaped my wrath. I would get out of here, I would, and then they would never see me again!

 

“Mayumi, stop!” I heard her but I ignored her, even when she begged, “It's only until you calm down. Please stop, I hate this.”

 

“Then let me go!” I screamed, throwing myself against the doorway once more. I couldn't use my time traveling power; I was trapped.

 

She flinched, and I saw my father put his arms around her and turn her from the sight of me. He stared at me over her head with steely eyes, but he didn't speak, not to me. He murmured softly to my mother instead, but of course I heard every word. “Let her go, Kagome,” he said. “We can't keep her here if she doesn't want to be here. Let her go.”

 

“But—but?” My mother was torn. I waited, feeling like the demon I must surely resemble right now, to see what she would do. “Mayumi!” She pleaded with me with her eyes, but I stared back angrily.

 

Finally, with a slump of her shoulders, she brought her hands briefly together again and then released them. The tingling in the air abruptly ceased, and I once more seized the power to travel through time before Mama could change her mind, and I was gone.

 

I didn't go to Daichi, not right away. Instead, I showed up on Auntie Sango's doorstep, literally. She took one look at me, disheveled silver hair, dog ears and all, wearing clothes that most certainly did not come from her era, and she ushered me into her home before anyone else could catch a glimpse of me.

 

I must have been white as a ghost, because she asked me what was wrong. That opened up the floodgates. “Mama,” I sobbed, as she held me and stroked my hair.

 

“What about your mama?” she asked, continuing to stroke my hair and my ears. “Is she all right?”

 

“Yes,” I managed to gasp out, in between sobs. “Oh, Auntie Sango, we had a fight, and I can't ever go back. She must hate me.”

 

“Shh,” Auntie Sango soothed. Her face was no longer as smooth as it had been when I was little, but she was still the same Auntie Sango, my second mother, and how I needed her now. “Your mother could never hate you,” she told me. “Now, tell me what happened.”

 

I poured out the whole story and she rocked me like I was a baby, then put me to bed in her own bed. “I expect your father will be on his way soon,” she said. “I'll send Uncle Miroku to head him off and tell him you're all right. You can stay here as long as you like.”

 

I nodded, and fell asleep, glad that I was back in the feudal era, and glad that not everybody was mad at me.