InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mizuko ❯ Mizuko ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Mizuko

Theme: Missed Opportunity (won 1st place at iyfic_contest on livejournal, week 45)

Word Count: 468

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Inu-tachi; that honor belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. I can pretend, though, right?

. M I Z U K O

. The train ride was agonizing. She folded her hands over her mid-section trying in vain to ignore her own upset. If only Kisho had taken time off of work to come with me for this… A comforting squeeze of the hand was all it would take to make this decision seem all the more right.

Of course, she thought, nervously tapping her abdomen before dropping her hand abruptly, can a decision like this ever be right? She trembled slightly but refused to break. This would not break her.

She kept her composure, placing her hands at her side. If Kisho felt that the time was not right, the time was not right. They had only just married. They had years to come for this.

She barely registered when the train arrived at her location. She rose daintily from her seat; to all the riders she appeared to be a young woman out in Tokyo for a day of shopping. They never would expect what her errand really entailed.

She reached for her purse and followed an elderly gentleman off of the train. She focused on the graying of his hair. While her intent had been to forget about her destination the result was that she was reminded of her father’s response to the news.

He had been thrilled to hear that his daughter would honor him by making him a grandfather. It had pleased him greatly that she had had a traditional Shinto wedding; he was even happier that she and Kisho were starting their family so soon.

She hadn’t the heart to tell him that Kisho had already made her the doctor’s appointment.

Get off the train. It’s the building at the end of the block. Kisho’s brief instructions rang in her head. It’s all set. Give the receptionist your name and she’ll bring you to your doctor. It will all be over within an hour. I’ll see you after I get home from work. And, with a quick kiss on the forehead, he was off to work.

She sighed. Shikata ganai, she thought, slumping her shoulders in defeat. She had made it inside of the building without even realizing it.

Slowly she approached the desk and waited. The woman behind the desk smiled warmly at her. “Do you have an appointment, dear?”

She paused and, for a moment, just stared at the receptionist. Finally, she nodded.

The woman nodded with her. The act was meant to be reassuring; she was not the first confused young woman this receptionist had seen, she would not be the last. “What’s your name?”

She took a deep breath and smiled shakily back. “Higurashi.”

And somewhere, in a place five hundred years in the past, a silver-haired hanyou fell deeper into an enchanted sleep.

--

Statistics: according to a 1982 study (circa Kagome’s birth) 60% of women in Japan, 40+, with college degrees & an executive level husband, admitted to having at least 1 abortion.

Translations:
Shikata ganai – there’s nothing to be done; an attitude towards the use of abortion as a means of birth control.

Mizuko – water child; “Whenever a child is born in Japan, a local Shinto shrine adds the child's name to a list kept at the shrine and declares him or her "Ujiko", literally named child… Those children who die before addition to the list are called "Mizuko", literally water child, and believed to cause troubles and plagues. "Mizuko" are often worshipped in a Shinto shrine dedicated to stilling their anger and sadness. These shrines have become more popular with the growth of abortion in modern Japan.”