InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Name up in Lights ❯ Lesson Three: Loving You ( Chapter 3 )

Final Lesson…

 

Loving You

 

She hadn't expected for pain to feel so…painful.

 

It felt like she was being ripped in two and then diced into countless, tiny, jigsaw pieces that were all poured into a small box and then shipped off to some stranger, to some faraway land she'd never even remotely heard of before—like Ljubljana. And, sadly, she was never put back together. Neither did she live happily ever after. And later, she even came to realize that she wasn't thought of with high enough respect to be spared a remorseful (or even pseudo endearing) eulogy.

 

The sun was setting beyond the sherbet-colored horizon, dying into a cascade of star-freckled darkness and letting the moon take over for a short while. But that didn't matter. That couldn't possibly matter, not in the least, because they didn't care. Both the moon and the sun could've cared less that it took Kagome hours to fold up the Twister game mat and put it back into its respective box, and to align the kitchen chairs back in front of the island top all while trying earnestly not to let the dam restraining the torrential river-rapids that were her emotions from drowning her, from suffocating her.

 

It took her two hours to complete those chores. Though so much time wasted was quite unnecessary and uncalled for (and could've been well spent on other things), she couldn't slake the numbness that pervaded her body and made her movements grow weary and sluggish. In fact, her weariness caused her to break down several times in wracking sobs and seek comfort in just sitting still for 15 minutes at a time just to sulk and sniffle and whimper. Relief of her pain seemed so distant then, she recalled.

 

After she finished tidying up both the living and kitchen areas, she spied the marked envelope that she'd slit open, the “puppeteer” of her distress, sitting calmly on the floor. She eyed it blankly at first and stooped down, only to let anger wash over her in a gush of roaring inferno. Frowning darkly, she whipped up the envelope and ripped it to shreds and cried out with rage so true and so strong. Then, when there was nothing else to shred, to cleave, she let the pieces float like wanderlust children to the floor.

 

“Why, Inuyasha?” she asked softly, “Why did you do this to me?”

 

But what could you have possibly expected? the evil half in her cackled maliciously. He's a star. He's not just a “teenage crush” anymore. He's a celebrity who wants nothing more than some big-breasted floozy to give him a good time. He's a dog, a bastard. Just admit it, poor Kagome.

 

“N—no!” Kagome clasped either side of her head between her hands and collapsed to the floor in a roll and tumble of incomprehensible feelings. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back her tears, but just barely succeeding. “He's not a dog…nor a bastard,” she said quietly to herself, “He's…he's the man I…I thought I loved…the man I…I…”

 

She hunched her shoulders and let way to a noticeable shiver. Toppling over onto her stomach in a sprawl of limbs and hair, she started to weep into the early hours.

 

6:13 AM

In the heart of nowhere…

 

The sun, with its plump, bright orange face, was close to rising now. Its head peaked over the distant horizon, shedding a diluted, wide-spreading stream of light through the pre-dawn darkness as Inuyasha drove down the winding roads of New York. But he could've cared less. He could've cared less that he'd spent most of his time driving and pumping gas and letting his mind take him wherever it desired, whether the place was a park, a package store, or even a playground on school grounds. Maybe that was why his joy was always actuated by the warm, untroubled hours of the weekends. It gave him enough time to be careless, to actually be free of thoughts that didn't matter.

 

Today was an exception, however. It was Sunday and he was often still safely tucked away beneath his bedcovers, waiting until 7 AM reared its bubbly head and he would have to drag himself to and from the restroom, priming and preparing himself for church. He'd sometimes even get up much earlier so he could accompany his grandmother to the morning services, yet today proved a different story with an entirely different title, all similarities cast aside.

 

His fingers coiled tightly around the steering wheel when he tossed a look over at the letter huddled in the empty seat next to him. He exhaled heavily through his nostrils before returning his full attention onto the road. He didn't want to admit it, but he tried every remedy from anger to feigning a complacent composure in order to render himself of the many unpromising thoughts endangering the letter sitting beside him. He would've given anything to give Tiffany a piece of his mind, but such a thing wouldn't have been fair because she didn't write the letter and slip it into his coat pocket. Though…he still felt the baleful itch to do along with his unjust intrigue. After all, she was the cause of this unfaithful plight, or so he liked to believe.

 

Inuyasha blew out a silent breath, calmed slightly by the gentle wind tousling his hair like a mother's loving touch. Like his mother's loving touch.

 

“Kagome,” he called out softly to the wind, keeping his steering careful and steady.

 

He could feel her name leave a bitter trace of something on his tongue and frowned subtly. But he realized, straight off the bat, that it was more the consequences that he was exposed to after his sudden reaction to runaway from her than that sweet, helpless name of hers. He should've stayed, forced her to stomach the fact that he didn't harbor any feelings for Tiffany, let alone any latent audacity to…do whatever that devastating note implied.

 

But what about her? Shouldn't she have trusted me? Shouldn't she have seen that I loved her and no one else?

 

4:04 PM

The clinic…

 

Today didn't deserve to be so luminous and cheery. That was the very first thing that the voices inside Kagome's head bellyached unhandsomely about. And she couldn't refuse them, couldn't shake off the feeling of correspondence with their complaints.

 

Earlier that day, she actually put up social barriers against Chris during their session. She didn't utter a single word while Jack scooted transitionally into her position under his own monarchy, shouting and screaming his little head off at the poor boy as if he were a dog.

 

“Don't do that!” she remembered him bellowing and wrenching Chris's sketchpad from his fingertips, tossing it aside against a nearby wall, “How can you actually do something that will have so little promotion in your life, huh?”

 

Though she was stuck in her own tiny, secluded world of stolid grays and insipid whites and fallen dreams, there was only so much that she could truly take. She felt her last thread of sanity snap and immediately her face was wiped away of all emotion when she sprung out of a chair close by and onto her feet. Right then she shrieked, “Don't yell at him like that! He's not a fucking dog! If he wants to draw, let him draw. Don't strip him of his own happiness just because someone already did the same to you!”

 

She was confident that her angry outburst caught the public's eye, made the front-page of that sleazy, fictitious tabloid that was widely distributed to all the employees of the clinic through endless and equally mindless whispers and gossip. And with that confidence—the very confidence that lovingly seized the fire-swathed hand of her deep-seated anger—still in mind, she allowed her rage to dog-walk her past Jack and the clinic doors, fire stabbing at the tender, tear ducts of her eyes, determined to make her cry. Though she put up a good battle against the aching force to do so, it was fruitless to say the least. She felt her protective walls cave in on her and her barriers fall away to a cruel brush of scorching hot air and salty wetness.

 

By the time she got home and took a good look at herself in her bathroom mirror, she found dry, decrepit tearstains running hideously, ridiculously down her flushed cheeks. It was odd, she concluded sadly, how so much effort put into not revealing your feelings to the public could dissolve in just one swipe of something as easy as surrendering. It was like taking a lot when your eyes were bandanna-tied by the fact that you were actually taking a little, maybe even remarkably less than a little.

 

Astoundingly though, no matter how much she realized that, her mind was insistent on continually dwelling on questions that concerned Inuyasha and his whereabouts. Questions fueled by her fathomless affinity for him and her blinding rage.

 

Snatching her head away from the mirror, Kagome bit her bottom lip, desperate to suppress the empty feeling in the pit of her belly. Her heart was racing, but from what she didn't quite know. Her head was spinning and her eyes, she sensed, were closer and closer to growing even more swollen red than they already were.

 

Gnawing shakily on her bottom lip, mind fogged with weighty thoughts, she steadied herself with the flats of her palms pressed tightly against the counter. She clenched the edge hard between her thumbs and fingers until she heard her knuckles pop quietly and turn a ghostly white. Then, loosening her death vice, she shook her head and released her bottom lip to run a hot, bubble bath for herself, which normally would've washed away her pathetic feeling of distress, yet…it didn't. She spent hours in the tub, letting the steam curl around her with whorled fingers, and letting the water flood up to the bottoms of her ears and weave in and out through the black, matted jungle that was her hair.

 

She studied her toes wriggling feebly in the water, which was frothed over by the residue of the foamy bubbles that had long since died. She watched them as they danced and jigged and then furled completely into the water only to never come back up for an encore. Leaning her head back against the cool, slick wall, her eyes barely left her feet as she continued to sit there and soak with intentions of not getting out until her whole entire body turned pruny and proved to be fully marinated.

 

Her plans backfired when her eyes slid shut and she drifted off into a peaceful sleep that left her plainly unaware of the muffled cry of the cordless phone back in her bedroom.

 

5:41 PM

Inuyasha's loft…

 

The early evening felt distraught and laden with bad luck. That Inuyasha could've sensed even with his eyes closed as he pulled his jeep up along the weathered, cement curb, forced the gearshift to park, and wrenched his keys from the ignition.

 

He was no longer half naked, but more so fully dress now and badly ragged. His lengthy locks were pulled back in a horse-tail and his sunglasses were still perched evenly on the bridge of his nose.

 

After he jiggled the key out of the ignition, he cracked open the door and climbed out of the jeep, slamming the door shut and locking it with the tiny, black mechanism dangling from his key ring. He appeared weary, shattered, and worn as he dragged his feet up onto the curb and through the shallow rubble of rocks and filth. When he finally made it through the entrance of the warehouse, which whispered terror in the shadows of dusk, he scrambled back two steps and tugged the sleeve of his coat up and over his nose to fend off an offending odor and to conceal his ugly grimace. Something disgustingly sweet lingered at the base of the stairwell and its smoky tendril-remnants could still be seen dancing in the beam of what little sunlight was left coming through the handful of windows surrounding him.

 

Cigars, he thought nastily, Damn.

 

With a look of pure contempt still plastered on his face, he made his way up the stairwell and to the second floor. When he arrived at his loft, he made sure that he was fully locked in and that the voices that were once wrangling inside his head were left outside because it just wouldn't boil over well to have his safe haven transform suddenly into a panic room.

 

His initial action was a withering glance pitched clear across the room at one of the lanky barstools assembled in the kitchen. Wordlessly, he traipsed over to drape his jacket over the backrest of one of the stools, which he pulled back slightly to take a seat in. Languidly, he began to toy with one of the tiny steeples of wood that helped hold together the stool's broad spine. He allowed his fingers to explore the chipped wood-varnish until they struck the crest of the miniscule mountain. Abruptly, just when a wonderful idea pummeled him with full force, they stopped.

 

Quickly, Inuyasha tossed his left arm back to search the left pocket of his jacket for his cell phone. When he felt the slightest, cooling brush of metal, he impulsively pulled out the miniature device and adeptly flipped it open to sift through his contact list for Kagome's phone number. He was completely successful in his findings and couldn't fight back the grin that lit his lips as he pressed the enter button just as soon as the blue highlight bar fell over her name. Craning the phone up to his right ear, his heart skipped a beat at faint remembrance of their argument from yesterday.

 

Should I even call her? Wouldn't I be contradicting my earlier thoughts if I were to even do so?

 

He sighed, surrendering to the deep-rooted longing to hear Kagome's voice again, even if it might be for the last time. Eyes wilting slightly, he listened as his phone hummed contentedly like a happy cat receiving a back massage that could only be reserved for the gods.

 

“C'mon, Kagome,” he whispered urgently, but his words only hung in the air only to evaporate slowly into the silence.

 

Kagome never did pick up. The only voice that came close to lightening the heavy burden settling in his chest was her answering machine, “Hello, this is Kagome. I've either stepped out for a moment or become too busy with my own life in order to pick up the phone. Please leave a message at the sound of the beep, okay?”

 

Beeeeeeeeeeeep.

 

Inuyasha tugged apart the very first button of his crumpled shirt in order to ease the pressure of his collar pressing against his neck and breathe more freely. He took in a gulping breath before speaking, “Umm…hi, Kagome. It's Inuyasha. If you ever get this message,” and in a low mumble, “or even listen to it at that, it'd be great if you manage to call me back later…”

 

He paused, caught at a hanging and uncertain standstill before abruptly adding on before the machine clicked him off entirely, “B—bye.”

 

Slouching further into his seat and releasing a breath that he didn't even know he was holding, Inuyasha turned off his phone and placed it on the counter spooned under his right elbow.

 

6:05 PM

Kagome's place…

 

Kagome felt a forlorn chill wrap itself unpleasantly around her whole entire body. She tried to move her fingers and found out that they felt numb and paralyzed, their warmth swallowed whole by the monstrous cold. Her entire body, unfortunately, seemed as if it was in the same sinking boat.

 

Darn it…what time is it? She passed a stiff glance up at the soap cubby just above her eyes and realized that it was miracle that she didn't drown during her unexpected snooze.

 

Even though she'd barely fulfilled the task of taking a full bath, she lunged for the Lever 1000 soap to lather and rinse off what little parts she could before she froze her tail off and literally caught a cold. When she was finished, she unplugged the drain and grabbed her fluffy, magenta towel from the rack hoisted on the wall before her spotless toilet.

 

She dried off quickly, hoping somewhere in between that it wasn't that late. She chose not to slather herself with bodily perfumes, excluding deodorant, and tossed her pajamas on before bounding out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. Her eyes drank in the sight of the numbers trapped inside the luminous, alarm clock settled on the bedside table. A sigh of relief tumbled out of her mouth, yet it was cut short when she glimpsed the blinker on her answering machine going off and on with distracting urgency.

 

Kagome's heart hitched slightly. She sauntered over to the machine, secretly thankful for the stream of light emanating from the bathroom. Curiously, she tapped the play button and let the usual lackluster voice of the machine rush over her, “You have 5 messages.”

 

“Wow,” Kagome murmured and smiled weakly, “I'm just so lucky.”

 

She waited out the first message, folding her arms and plopping heavily on the edge of her bed, eyes never tearing away from the machine. She was hardly astonished by the fact that a majority of her messages were from telemarketers, but she eventually froze in half-shock—the other half seeming to have already foresaw his phone call—when she heard Jack's voice drift through the speakers like an ominous snake slithering from beneath the shadows of an upturned rock.

 

“Good evening, Kagome,” he spoke, his voice thick and oozy and syrupy, “Hmmm, I'm not the type to leave smooth, beguiling messages like the great Inuyasha Himes might do,” a laugh sounded roughly over the other line, like a butter knife skiing along sandpaper, “but I get by.”

 

Kagome rolled her eyes and sighed.

 

“However, this afternoon you seemed unusually uptight. In order to get you to unwind, I thought we could go out to a play, preferably dinner. The offer will always be there on the table if instead you choose to plan a little play-date with ahem Mr. Himes.”

 

Kagome's expression shifted slightly. She felt her heart hop to attention inside her chest.

 

“Goodnight…Kagome.”

 

Beep. Clack, clack.

 

“Umm…hi, Kagome. It's Inuyasha. If you ever get this message, or even listen to it at that, it'd be great if you manage to call me back later,” a brief pause, “B—bye.”

 

At that moment, Kagome felt her whole world crumble. She later remembered her former words of wisdom and sighed, listening to the discordant song of the answering device before hauling herself back up onto her feet to cross the short distance to the bathroom. There, she closed the bathroom door, leaving it cracked so that a narrow stream of light fell on the carpet and winded up the side of her bed; she was in need of a nightlight tonight.

 

Routinely, she headed over to her bed and pulled back the sheets to cocoon herself in them and wallow profoundly in her thoughts for most of the night until sleep overcame her.

 

10:05 AM

A brand new day…

 

The birds were chirping to a melodious rhythm that slipped smoothly into Inuyasha's ears and caused him to ponder over his earlier objective of opening his eyes. Instead, he chose to run the palm of his hand along the smooth, cool planes of the unoccupied side of his bed, his movements purely slow and observant. Eyes still shut, his face scrunched up slightly, yet he managed to erase the foul expression with a soundly gulp.

 

Some opaque ghost inside him already understood his passionate craving to have Kagome's delicate frame drawn flushed against him, but then came this other part, which was trapped in a net of denial. It only made its capture even more torturous by writhing with hopes and dreams that undoubtedly brushed the edge of the Earth. It depended on the truth to snap the net in half and set it free, however, the “truth” seemed oddly and extremely distant.

 

With a very low groan that elongated to each and every corner of the room, Inuyasha managed to heft himself up into an upright position to stretch and yawn. That finally taken care of, he closed his mouth and took a deep breath that eventually escaped his chest in a heavy sigh.

 

Kagome hadn't called him back, and the suffocating yearning for her sweet, angelic voice blossomed into a need that was just lashing out for relief.

 

“Damn it all, Kagome…” he mumbled to no one other than himself, “That letter…that letter was—”

 

Out of nowhere, his cell phone began to shrill obnoxiously to an upbeat rhythm from its place on the bedroom dresser in front of his bed, causing his thoughts to fall away in shambles. He lifted his head up with a groan and gave the phone sitting across the room from him an incensed glare. When he couldn't will the phone to stop ringing, he wearily swung his feet over the edge of the bed and started for the dresser with short, yet patient strides.

 

When he got there, he paused briefly, torn crudely by indecision. Still, he picked up the phone and flipped it open, instantly cutting off its ring at mid-cry. Bringing it to his ear, he said softly, “Hello?”

 

He was half-expecting it to be Kagome and half-expecting it to be Fate checking in to see how it could possibly make it up to him for making his life a living nightmare. He was somewhat disappointed when he recognized Rick's voice on the other end.

 

“Inuyasha!” Rick started, his voice frantic and ecstatic, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

 

Inuyasha fell silent for a moment. He stood by the dresser with unstable legs that seemed to gradually melt away into nothingness right underneath him. He looked up at the mirror mounted on the wall just above his dresser, examining his reflection with a light, pensive frown shadowing his face.

 

“Inuyasha,” he heard Rick call out worriedly, “Inuyasha, you still there? Inuyasha?”

 

Inuyasha lifted the cell phone's mouthpiece closer to his mouth. “Yeah,” he said, wholly aware that he sounded lost and distant.

 

“So, which one do you wanna hear first?” Rick inquired, “The good news or the bad news?”

 

Inuyasha's gaze drifted to land on the smooth, polished surface of the dresser. He could almost see his himself in it and pretended to be infatuated with his bleary reflection until Rick asked him if he was still there again.

 

“Give me the good news first,” he said shortly and with dull finality.

 

12:00 PM

Kagome's place…

 

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5…”

 

Pause.

 

“So it's definitely not “to atone” then.”

 

Kagome stared down at the crossword puzzle book sitting in her lap, which was staring lifelessly back up at her. It was taunting her, poking fun at her intelligence with the final row of six, blank squares that separated her from finishing the entire book.

 

I hate you, Kagome thought. I hate you, hate you, and completely and utterly hate you!

 

Moving the hand gripping the pencil down to the group of clues packed tightly together at the bottom of the page, she read the final one again, “Across, 14…to blah, blah, blah and…huh?”

 

Letting the pencil slip out of her grasp, Kagome pitched herself backwards to lie her head down on her pillow. She let her legs straighten, causing the book to trundle over to her left on top of the bed. It fell shut, yet its back flap still hung open in a slight curl.

 

Hardly fretting over the loss of her page, Kagome stared up at the ceiling in wonder, letting her mind run astray. She began to think about Inuyasha for the hundredth time that day, wondering if he hated her for not calling him back, wondering if she hated him for not calling back, and wondering yet still if he was having good time with Tiffany, Wonderwoman of the 21st century.

 

She blushed lightly at the thought and forced the image of them together out of her head. Turning over onto her right side, she began to observe the smooth plains of her bedroom floor, a thoughtful expression creeping onto her face. She could've, would've called him, she thought. Yet, every time she thought about doing such a thing, her plans to announce just how sorry she felt for throwing him out seemed to ooze straight down the drain. She would start thinking about the letter that she found in his coat pocket and what it had said.

 

Simply put, that was all it took.

 

Kagome frowned and began to mimic Tiffany's voice with a squeaky, Smurf-ish sounding accent, “I know you're a man of principles and my actions took a spill for the worst, but I hope you had a great time after the show. Goodness only knows I sure did…” the she gave an irate sigh, “…ugh!”

 

She quieted down some, allowing the silence to overwhelm her, her eyes still glued to the floor. She couldn't stop thinking how nice it was, that floor. It was made entirely out of laminated, wooden plank-tiles that stuck to the ground with the help of a strong adhesive efficiently already anointed on their bottoms. The upside to having those kind of tiles was that when she spilled water, juice or even liquor on them, all she had to do was wipe it up with a mop or towel and everything would be just as it was before. No sticky or grimy spots left over from the incident, only the squeaky-clean shine of wood and the drifting, pungent smell of wood cleaner. If she'd used any at all, that is.

 

Kagome heaved a long, weary sigh and fidgeted around a little bit, switch-swapping hands to cradle her head and crossing and uncrossing her ankles as if it were too impossible to find any comfort in her current position. When she stopped, she began to mentally toy with the idea of having a laminated covering stretched over her heart, a type of Saran wrap that's completely impervious to…pain.

 

It would have worked out well enough. Each time somebody made the slightest attempt to hurt her, to impale her with their cruel, indefinable actions, she would just whip out her trusty roll of Saran wrap and create a barrier that was sure to keep her heart's fragile, fleshy hide from breaking.

 

Yes. It was the perfect plan. However—

 

Without warning, Kagome's expression shifted from dreary to thoughtful as the vibrancy in her eyes dulled to a cheerless, diluted glow. She felt something—a strange, emotional pull—tug lazily at her heart, trying to squeeze it through the bars of her ribcage. She sucked in a silent breath and bit her bottom lip, suddenly expelling strong, stalwart efforts in holding back the salt-water brimming in her lids and burning her eyes like alcohol on an unhealed wound.

 

I won't cry, Kagome willed herself as she sniffled and whimpered on and off like a time bomb ready to detonate, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't—

 

“…cry…” she whispered slowly, quietly to the uncaring floor, to the blankly staring walls, and, of course, to her near fetal-positioned self huddled in mirror-land, “I won't…” Her voice cracked and faded into the intolerably cumbersome silence, which refused to break and crumble under the weight, the force, of the subdued pain stewing in her gut and chest.

 

At long last, a tear crawled down her cheek, glinting brightly in the corner of her left eye, dousing her long lashes and pallid cheek. And then another, which was soon followed by yet another. As seconds passed and merged into minutes, the same thing went on in a seemingly never-ending cycle, plaguing Kagome's heart and weighing down on her thoughts, slowly and severely tormenting her.

 

When the full effect of her sobbing binge caught up with her, her nose was red with stuffiness and running. Her eyes were also red, but from puffiness, lids quickly crusting over with dried up tears only to become wet again by newly shed ones. Lifting up a random, partially soggy hand, Kagome wiped away the salt-water flooding up in the rims of her eyes, smudging the briny brooks running down her cheeks in the process. She sniffled some and reflexively opened her mouth to breathe in the calming air, which cooled the surface of her tongue and the roof of her mouth, leaving her to close her eyes in order to savor the transitory moment of relief and wished-for tranquility.

 

Right then, she almost wished she hadn't closed her eyes at all.

 

Images of Inuyasha began to flee across her mind, images of him dancing, of him smiling, of him laughing, and of him caring…caring for her. She glimpsed images which beautifully captured that special, unforgettable moment of when they first met and that poignant sparkle in his eyes which still resided there to this very day, things of the past echoing through their depths.

 

“Inuyasha why?” Kagome mumbled and drew in another long breath and eased onto her backside to admire the ceiling again, “Just tell me why?”

 

I wonder if he even has an answer, she thought, eyes drooping dolefully, A good one at that…

 

With one more austere sniff, she felt something within her die like a flame caught in the line of a terrible wind. It burned with a seemingly unstoppable passion inside her, lapping at her insides and causing her mind to reel. And soon her eyes began to reflect its maudlin light, waltzing slowly to an age-old tune that always accompanied the sound of a breaking heart.

 

With a gentle intake of breath, Kagome curled upright, balancing herself stiffly on the heels of her sideward hands. Her heart was beating, beating fast, and something in her chest was clench-clenching painfully, twisting this sensitive nub inside her and causing her breaths to become labored and raspy. Without thinking, she feebly reached out for her crossword puzzle book and flipped to the very last page. Plucking her pencil up from beside her, she filled in the last line of blank squares at a leisurely pace without resorting back to the clue and leaned back some to observe her handiwork, her lips parting slightly as if she were ready to say something.

 

The letters occupying the cubical complexes formed a word that triggered a hurricane of emotions to wash over her—Deceit.

 

Kagome felt the beginning of a sad smile tug at her near-chapped lips. And then a whisper…so inaudible and solemn…fell from her lips like silk skimming freely along glass, “Is that what you did, Inuyasha? Did you actually deceive me?”

 

The air fell silent and still around her, and Kagome could've sworn that her entire world had just crumbled right before her tear-weathered eyes.

 

7:30 PM

Inuyasha's place…

 

His suspicions were finally confirmed. Rick was actually full of it.

 

Inuyasha stood tall before the mirror mounted above his dresser, fingers scramble-tying his black bowtie with a practiced skill developed well over time by being raised under the roof of two other males who felt the need to coach him under their watchful, masculine wings.

 

When the tie was finally set in perfect bow formation and he wasn't wrought with unrelenting doubts that something might be wrong with it, Inuyasha let his arms fall down some to straighten the lapel of his dress coat and the silken collar of the white, crisp, button-up dress shirt that shone contrastingly beneath it. Subsequently, his fingers slid down the even edge of the triangular gap in his coat, moving lithely across its buttons to tug at the coat's lower split. He then tried to smooth out the tiny creases in the thighs of his jet-black, polyester pants only to let his hands dart back to the outstretched, heart-shaped limbs of his bowtie and lightly pull both to tighten the knot. Finally, with one, quick, make-sure look directed at his buff-luster shoes, he let his arms fall limply at his sides and looked at his reflection in the mirror and beamed.

 

Everything was just right, just as nature intended. Except for the anger steadily rising in the pit of his belly, bubbling.

 

Suddenly, his smile faded and he whirled to cross the short distance to his nightstand, sensing the faint tingle of glee crawling up his spine at the calming fact that he'd already taken his scheduled dose of Zoloft and was actually near-worry-free for the first time in his adult life. But the glee arrived too soon. It was eventually knocked over like a tower of blocks just as soon as he pilfered the chance to realize that not all was well. He was a jumble of emotions. His heart was hurting and slowly fraying, his thoughts felt heavy and stifling, and, most of all, images of Kagome kept ping-pogging from left to right inside his head, ancient images of the past.

 

He sighed as he picked up the pillcase from alongside the cordless and tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket. Why, of all nights, did Rick pick this one to make his little announcement? He pondered, Why not choose Saturday evening or, better yet, Monday evening? But why, why did he have to choose this one? What's so dog-on special about Friday evenings?

 

He would've liked for everything to freeze around him. No, he would've liked for his own existence to freeze, to own a pause button that he was free to press any time he damn-well felt like it. Because, right now, he most certainly damn-well felt like it.

 

Face twisting as he stared down at the cordless, which was slightly crooked with part of its base protruding over the edge of the table, facing his bed, Inuyasha thought, I wonder…what might've been the results if I'd only asked him for the bad news first instead?

 

Habitually, he stooped over to reposition the phone. After he was finished, its side was perfectly aligned with the edge of the table, causing him to smile gently out of pride in his, albeit miniscule, accomplishment. Yet the pride that swept through and warmed him like an unseasonably cheery, hot summer day occurring during a cold, bitter, wintry season, lessened slowly, bit by tiny bit. He felt it being replaced by a feeling so strong that it hurt, a feeling so weird that it was unidentifiable.

 

Suddenly, the cordless held a beauty that was strangely eye-capturing. Easy-steady, it held his gaze and ignited an urge that refused to let up, an urge that refused to fade away into the background.

 

Inuyasha began to let his mind wander. He began to see images of Kagome waiting by the phone, face keen yet downtrodden, body language easygoing yet stressed. He could see her slender index finger entangling itself within her silky, ebony curls, twisting and turning, listless in its circular movement.

 

I need to call her, he thought, fingers curling into hard-as-steel, white-knuckled fists, I need to tell her that I love her, that I'm here for her, that I would never do anything to hurt her.

 

Inuyasha unclenched one fist and allowed his fingers to inch slowly towards the phone. But, before he had a chance to reel it back in, the urge that once surged freely through his veins and actuated his plans of getting Kagome back with innumerous “I love you”s and “I would never”s, was ripped sharply out of him and caused him to snatch his hand back into a throbbing fist. His dull nails bit into the heel of his hand, almost prodding him with unspoken dares.

 

“I—I can't,” he whispered, each word clawing at his throat, hurting it, hurting him, “I just can't.”

 

There was a part of him, a more or less rational twin, that knew his plans would backfire. Kagome was nowhere near being a blah-de-dah type of woman. She knew how to skillfully psycho-analyze both the inside of people along with the outside. She made sure to walk circumspectly in the world with her many sizing questions ready in mouth and her eyes fixed solely on the prize, i.e. the truth. In a sense, she knew what could be deciphered as a lie and a legitimate fact. And once she saw that letter and spilled her tears, it was obvious that she had made up her mind about what was the lie and what was the legitimate fact in the situation.

 

Dark lashes fluttered discreetly across even darker, diamonique pools of lavender as Inuyasha smiled ruefully at the phone, at the table, at the nothingness beneath it before turning around to walk back towards the dresser. There, he picked up his ring of keys before making a half-turnabout straight for the door. On his way there, he stopped and peered expressionlessly over his shoulder, just barely catching a glimpse of the inert phone sitting on his nightstand.

 

I can't. I just…can't.

 

“After all, who would in their right mind listen to a lie?” he murmured, voice laden with fatigue and sinking with dejection. And with that, he walked out of the bedroom, switching the lights off and closing the door behind him.

 

I sure wouldn't.

 

8:47 PM

Chez Le Moines…

 

Chez Le Moines.

 

It was a restaurant located just outside the perimeters of a high-ranked, gated, prestigious community, a curbside establishment caked in off-white stucco and four-paned windows flanked by red-painted shudders; a smallish balcony fenced in by iron hung over the main entrance to top off its cozy, yet elegant deportment.

 

Chez Le Moines was not a watering hole for the famous and the even more infamous, which pleased Inuyasha some because that meant he wouldn't have to confront the eager and desperate faces of fans as they lunged themselves at him. However, the restaurant did serve as a hotspot for the pretentious, which unnerved him just a bit. His relationship (if it could even be called that) with Tiffany should've been enough to be considered as an example of his low-tolerance skills with snobs, which practically bled like ink through his skin and clothes when he decided to share his company in the midst of her own.

 

Inuyasha double-parked his jeep in front of a tiny, clothes shop called Lucy's Boutique, which was supposedly closed for the night. Chez Le Moines stood right across the street from him, excreting blinding luminescence and just roiling with activity.

 

Twisting his key out of the ignition slot, Inuyasha slouched deeply against the driver's seat and let a sigh spill pass his lips. His tongue passed swiftly over his bottom lip as his eyes slowly drifted shut, exiling him to a world of infinite darkness dappled by hazy spots and streaks of light. Darkness swooped down upon him in unrelenting waves that tumbled, one over the other, merging into something endless, comforting, and virtually unbreakable. They swallowed him whole with flexible, deltoid arms that swept him to and fro as if he were a mere schooner made out of just one small ply of wood and a thin sail held up by a filthy, splintered popsicle stick.

 

Amazingly enough, however, he felt glad to be that schooner in the encompassing darkness. It felt…soothing in a way because it was just him. Just him facing the never-ending, frigid waves of darkness. Just him heavily submerged in silence. And just him on that tiny, ever-swaying schooner.

 

There was, as far as he could see, no one else.

 

Taking a shallow gulp of air, Inuyasha reluctantly parted away from his nonexistent world of solitude and darkness, and reacquainted himself with the luster of reality, though, not with the gentlemanly etiquette he was taught to implement in his behavior. He went about greeting reality with a slight crease between his brows and an irritable twitch in his shoulders. And, as a chucked-in bonus, “Damn it…I almost forgot about Rick.”

 

Wriggling to bury his keys in the hidden pocket of his jacket and to unbuckle his seatbelt, Inuyasha opened the driver's door and stepped out into the muggy, nighttime air, which hung in front of his face like dragon's breath. And, incidentally, he realized that it needed to be satiated with a breath mint. Not one of those tiny, Tic-Tac size ones mind you, but a King-Kong, triple-decker combo-sized mint.

 

With a sigh and a quick inhalation of breath, Inuyasha trudged through the overbearing stink, the inside of his nose burning terribly as if some miniscule thing that could easily elude the regular eye, had decided to sneak in through one of his nostrils and throw a bonfire party without his consent.

 

Wordlessly, he passed the threshold of Chez Le Moines, stood still as the maitredee confirmed him as a customer on his reservation roster, and continued to venerate his secret vow of silence even as he followed the maitredee towards the far end of the restaurant, which was sparsely populated with people and seemed badly-lit when compared to the lighting towards the front.

 

It didn't take long for Inuyasha to find Rick. He was currently “busy” with the menu at a table located near a window that overlooked the valet parking lot for Chez Le Moines, which was inundated by darkness and dancing with blue, random sparks of light coming from streetlights.

 

“Here we are, sir,” came the maitredee's suave voice, which was by a French accent. He handed him a menu, “Enjoy.” And with that, he traipsed off in the direction from whence they came, not an unsteady beat in his step. If there could ever be one, that is.

 

Inuyasha took a seat across from Rick, who just then decided to put his menu away.

 

“The food here is to die for,” he said suddenly to Inuyasha with a humongous grin.

 

Inuyasha looked down at his menu, which was still closed, and placed it on the table in front of him. He smiled nervously and said, “Well…I wouldn't know. French isn't really my cup-of-tea, so to speak; therefore, I avoid it as much as I can.”

 

Rick cast a surprised look upon Inuyasha, who just let it reflect off of him like light on a mirror. “Ahhh…now why is that? Were you actually threatened by the difficulty of learning the language?” he inquired facetiously.

 

Inuyasha smirked slightly, “No, not at all. It just wasn't something I was keen in learning. Back when I attended school, I was more of a Spanish lover than a French one.”

 

Rick chuckled briefly, “Well…to be honest…Spanish didn't exactly win a popularity contest in my eyes either. But French did, and that was the only language I ever stuck with during high school. But they're alike in a way. Both languages share something that fails at dodging the naked eye…”

 

“I know,” interrupted Inuyasha rather abruptly, “They both stand as languages of…love.” Then he looked up at Rick, a question bleeding through the uncanny hue of his eyes, “Am I right?”

 

Rick gave a gentle snort of laughter and took a light breath, “But enough of this. We have business to talk about.”

 

Inuyasha just barely registered his words as he opened the gate that imprisoned his mind and allowed it to wander off into a foggy abyss that made it hard for him to look for it. But Rick's voice found it without a problem and tugged it back behind the gated perimeter with sheer ease.

 

“So…what'll you have?”

 

He peered down at his menu, suddenly feeling—what was the word? Ah…yes—stupid. He gulped and decided on an “Umm…I'll have whatever you're having,” as his presumed “casual” reply.

 

Rick's face split with a broad grin of malicious intent, nearly causing an antsy gulp to ease its way down Inuyasha's throat.

 

For the rest of the night, his bright idea of staying home and enveloping himself in the familiar embrace of his bedding, wracked his mind like Swiss-Alp echoes. And they refused to stop their unrelenting rampage.

 

10:05 PM

Inuyasha's place…

 

When had it started raining?

 

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap…

 

On and on…why wouldn't it stop?

 

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap…

 

Kagome held her waterlogged jacket closer to her quivering body, lifting up a small, pallid hand to brush her wet bangs out of her face. The jacket weighed heavily on her shoulders like a dead and flaccid carcass, consistent in dripping dry the moisture that eventually accrued in its cottony material.

 

The wetness felt like endless, open-mouthed kisses upon her skin, sucking away what little warmth circulated beneath her skin. With each lick of a frostbitten tongue, her skin grew taut with goose bumps and multitudinous shivers staggered down the incline of her spine.

 

But there came a time when she didn't feel a thing, when she'd become so numb that she couldn't even feel her backed-up sinuses singe the canals of her nose. There came a time when she felt her legs begin to steer her into a warehouse sketched roughly against the backdrop of darkness and emanating something foreboding. There even came a time when she arrived at this place, voided of all life and the ruckus of the plummeting raindrops outside, though she caught one sound seeping through the cracks of silence. It was the unsteady, juicy plops of water trickling down the folds of her sleeve to the worn, concrete floor beneath her.

 

The sound resembled the quiet tapping of computer keys…

 

—or the clicking of heels in the far-off distance…

 

Kagome looked down at the sagging sleeve caressing her hand, thinking about something, about someone. Then her eyes veered upwards to land on a door, a blank slab of dark wood that, once upon a time ago, dangled from a solitary bronze hinge.

 

From far away, a person might've thought of it as an endless, abominable cavity burrowed amid a flawless plain of paint-chipped ivory. Or a yawning mouth that led to a complex system of roadways which acted as liaisons between several vast stomachs inside a vicious creature not indigenous to this world, or even this lifetime…

 

…whatever your imagination wanted you to believe…

 

—…yeah…just whatever…

 

Lifting her hand, recoiling slightly at the feel of wet ice stroking her flesh, Kagome walked up to the door and touched it. A link suddenly formed, and through it surged a short burst of memories that intertwined inside her mind and lingered there, refusing to leave.

 

Then a world of hurt crashed over her.

 

She closed her eyes to blot out the pain.

 

—Sadly, it was overwhelming—

 

—causing her to fall forward against the door, bracing herself on the palms of her hands.

 

Her forehead brushed against a tiny crack that webbed along the wood, merging with a network of other little cracks that branched out ubiquitously to touch every edge of the door. Unconsciously, she moved her head some to feel the shallow incision run along her flesh, taking in a languorous breath.

 

“Inuyasha,” she whispered breathlessly, “I'm so sorry.”

 

Her chest suddenly began to ache—

 

—her heart suddenly began to break—

 

—her eyes instantly grew wet with something other than rain, something much more scalding and intimate.

 

Who knew that a breaking heart could taste so salty? Who knew that its rivers appeared so pure and yet still tasted of impurity, of contamination?

 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

Kagome took in a staggering breath, listening as the rainwater, still trapped in the fabric of her jacket, plummeted to the ground at steady intervals.

 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

Why…wouldn't it stop?

 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

“Ka-Kagome?”

 

A quick rush of air filled Kagome's lungs, causing her heart to race. She let her body fall prey to the will of her anxiety, of her fear, doing nothing as it faded away into an unstable mass of shivers. Hesitantly, she pulled away from the door, turning around slowly. Her eyes plunged into molten, violet depths, victims to its alluring tint and tender radiance.

 

Quickly, she snatched her head to the side, shirking his gaze.

 

Don't look, Kagome. Don't look. Just ignore him.

 

And so, she tried her best to ignore his gentle footfalls as he strode towards her.

 

She tried her best to ignore the long, dark, satiny strands pulled back into a neat ponytail, the very same strands which she loved to run her fingers through.

 

But, ignoring his beguiling eyes took more than just effort. It also required an art of concentrating on a single blot of discoloration on the concrete below, which she'd apparently practiced very well.

 

“Kagome,” Inuyasha said, his voice short of breath and volume, “Look at me.”

 

But Kagome refused to look up. She refused to bestow him with even a minor glance, choosing instead to teethe on her lower lip.

 

I can't face him. I just can't do it.

 

“Kagome,” he repeated, this time lifting a sodden hand to caress her cheek.

 

Quickly, almost instinctively, she dodged his impulsive action of genuine sentiment like a person diving out of the way of a dangerous swipe from a rattler. The action, sadly, maybe even fortunately under these circumstances, caused her to come face-to-face with Inuyasha, whose own was construed in an odd and confused way. And her eyes, fulfilling her darkest fears, couldn't tear themselves away from his eyes, portals to another world replete with pain and suffering, clearly reaching out to ask, “What? Don't you like me anymore?”

 

Like?

 

What a juvenile word, Kagome thought, I'm surprised that I even associated that term with our relationship…but…in all honesty…

 

Twisting her head to the side, Kagome felt her heart threaten to shatter. Slowly, she brought a fisted hand to her chest, and, all while cradling it loosely with her other hand, tried to stultify the threat's foreword of promised heartache. Without her knowing, her lips dropped open slightly, bringing notice to themselves as Inuyasha's eyes veered to land on them. Against her conscious mind and will, words soon fell from those very lips, chipped and faint, words she have never said or dared say before:

 

“I'll always like you, Inuyasha.”

 

The sadness and the hurt that once swam through the pools of Inuyasha's eyes, vanished in one successful blink. His shocked expression melted away piecemeal, eventually replaced by the warmth of a beaming smile and unclouded eyes dancing lovingly beneath the diluted light fixtures. Without warning, he shot forward and grabbed Kagome's hand from her chest, pulling her close—nose-to-nose.

 

Kagome blushed, gulping hard. She felt her heart begin to flutter, overwhelmed with the occasional butterflies that consumes the stomach and chest of a woman when the love of her life embraces her, when they are just a solitary, unmovable inch apart, just standing on the edge of the entire world. Carefree, they stood, gazing into one another's eyes with formerly abandoned longing as if there would be no tomorrow, or a tomorrow after that, or even a tomorrow after that.

 

“And I'll always like you, too, Kagome,” Inuyasha murmured, pulling her closer as his lips slipped on a wry though doting smile.

 

Folding her lips in among themselves only to unfold them with obvious reluctance, Kagome leaned forward on her tip-toes to bestow Inuyasha with a feathery kiss, a kiss that involved only a momentary, slick brush of lips. Pulling away, she took Inuyasha's hand in her free one, never once breaking eye contact, “I also want to say that I'm sorry. I didn't mean…to…”

 

Before she could finish, Kagome felt Inuyasha's index finger press itself firmly against her lips, a chilling caress that cut off her word-flow with commendable skill.

 

“Shhh. You've said enough,” he said, his finger sliding away from her lips only to have its cool and lingering presence restored by something warmer and more pliant.

 

Closing her eyes, Kagome fell, fell for miles and miles on end, into the passionate kiss, her guilt and distress, as well as Inuyasha's, washed away by the soothing sound of rainfall.