InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 3: Forever ❯ My Best Friend ( Chapter 16 )

~~Chapter 16~~

~My Best Friend~

 

Ryomaru shook his head vigorously, sending sparkling droplets of water flying before stepping out of the shower onto the cream colored bathmat. Drying himself off briskly, he sighed as he stared in disgust at the black sweatpants he'd taken to wearing to sleep in since he'd moved in with Nezumi. `Admit it, Ryo. It just pisses you off because you're used to sleeping naked.'

 

He sighed. Nezumi would kill him, if he tried it now. At least he was able to get away with sleeping shirtless. If he had to wear one of those at night, he'd be much worse off . . .

 

He was really getting tired of cold showers, too.

 

It really wasn't fair. He could remember what Nezumi looked like in that towel. He could remember what she looked like in that dress. He couldn't remember more than a vague vision of her eyes, and he wasn't sure if he had dreamed that up or if she really had looked like that. `I wish I remembered all that . . . Then again . . . Damn, I would be going crazy if I remembered all of that night . . .'

 

And waking up with her lying on him? With her fingers tracing his cheeks, stroking his hair? With that sad frown marring her features as she wondered about things she wouldn't share with him? That had been torture. How he'd managed to keep from kissing her, he would never know.

 

After lying awake on the sofa for the last three hours, his body aching so fiercely that he had to wonder if death would be less painful, he'd given up, albeit with ill-grace, and had ended up standing under the frigid flow of the shower for the better part of half an hour.

 

Something had to give. `She's coming around. It's just taking longer than you're used to.'

 

He sighed again. It wasn't just the strain on his body that bothered him. He'd gotten more than one little glimpse into the future, into what he instinctively knew. His mother and old man had this special relationship. He'd always known it. They were the reason Toga had gone looking for more, wasn't it? Kagome and InuYasha had been friends first, right?

 

`Why didn't I notice her sooner? We've been friends for years. Why did it take so long?'

 

`Did it take `so long'? Maybe you just weren't listening.'

 

Ryomaru tugged his sweatpants into place and scowled at the floor. `What? What does that mean? Listening to what?'

 

The voice in his mind sighed. `Don't be stupid, Ryo. If you can't figure out what you should have known long ago, then there really ain't much hope for you.'

 

`Great . . . now the voice in my head is telling me off, too? What ever happened to shutting up if you ain't got nothing nice to say?'

 

`Baka.'

 

`Keh! This `baka' is going back to bed, thanks.'

 

And he had every intention of going right back to the couch. Stepping out of the bathroom, a soft noise drew his attention. Somewhere between a whimper and a half-sob, Ryomaru didn't think as he closed the distance to Nezumi's door, didn't knock as he pushed the door open.

 

She was still asleep, curled on her side, face half-buried in the fluffy pillow. Hair pooled around her in the light of the full moon spilling through the window, she looked so lost, so alone, and Ryomaru flinched as he edged closer to the bed.

 

Her face contorted in a grimace, and though she was obviously still sleeping, she uttered another low sound, one word: “Mama.”

 

The desire to comfort her rose up, collided with the need to dispel her nightmares, to rend whatever it was that frightened her. The necessity to protect her was both foreign and familiar, savage and calm. Ryomaru dropped to his knees beside the bed, a soft whine escaping as he struggled to figure out what he should do, what he could do. Unable to come to grips with the unsettling feeling that he was completely helpless, he reached out, his hand stopping as hesitation warred with the need to comfort, and he bit his lip as he slowly shook his head.

 

`Nez? Damn it . . . I don't know what to do . . .'

 

`Do what should come naturally, baka! Comfort her any way you can.'

 

Ryomaru grimaced, stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles. She calmed slightly from his touch but not nearly enough to assuage the rioting need to protect her.

 

“Nezumi,” he mumbled, his voice as loud as gunfire in the stillness. “Wake up, Nez . . . it's all right. I promise it's all right . . .”

 

 

-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-

 

 

Nezumi was crying.

 

The sun beat down on her in the late July sky. Summer in Texas was insanely dry, oppressively hot. Despite the arid climate, the little girl's black hair stuck to her neck as she clutched the cordless telephone receiver to her ear, as she mumbled broken answers in reply to the faceless voice of the concerned man on the other end.

 

“Is she breathing, Deirdre? Can you see her chest moving?”

 

“N-n-no,” Nezumi choked out. At seven years old, she knew something was very, very wrong. Mama was covered in blood. Her body lay in a strangely twisted position, her legs tucked under in such a way that didn't seem right. Her eyes were open but didn't focus on Nezumi; her skin was a strange sort of grayish color. The broken ladder lay harmlessly in the grass beside her. `Blood . . . blood . . .'

 

In the distance, she could hear the shrill cry of the ambulance—or were they police cars?

 

“Talk to me, Deirdre. It's very important that you talk to me, okay? Until help gets there . . . What grade are you in?”

 

Nezumi shook her head, unable to understand just why this man would ask her such a stupid question. There was no school in the summertime. “I'm not in school,” she rasped out, her throat parched, her lips dry. “Mama said—” she broke off, voice rising into a painfully high octave, “—Mama said—no strangers.”

 

“That's okay. That's a good girl, Deirdre. That's a very good girl. How old are you?”

 

“S-seven . . . almost eight.”

 

The man inhaled sharply. “I've got a little girl,” he finally commented, but his voice sounded thin. “She's about your age, too. Do you like dolls, Deirdre? Kelly likes dolls . . .”

 

At the mention of the dolls, Nezumi's face crumbled again, and she choked back a sob. High overhead, dangling from the roof of the two-story ranch-style house, the afternoon sun glinted off the golden curls of the doll.

 

The doll . . .

 

“I . . . I hate dolls!” she wailed, unable to better express her feelings, unable to think beyond the horrible idea that the doll had somehow hurt her mother.

 

But suddenly there was a woman beside her; a kind woman in a khaki colored uniform. The woman gently took the phone from her as more people came. The woman said a few things into the phone and hung up, dropping the receiver in the scarlet stained grass as she took Nezumi's hand and tried to lead her away. “Come on, Deirdre. These people want to . . . help your mom.”

 

“They'll fix her, right? They can fix her?”

 

She didn't understand why the woman's eyes filled with tears then, didn't understand anything as the strange woman suddenly knelt down and pulled Nezumi into her arms. She didn't understand why she felt the woman's tears on her shoulder, didn't know why the woman's body shook.

 

Faces swirled past in the landscape of her dream: the police who tried to play tic-tac-toe with her at the station while someone mumbled that they were trying to reach her father on the telephone; the nice woman stayed with her, bought her candy and soda, even washed her face with a damp cloth and helped her take off the blood soaked sundress though the smallest clothes they could find hung like sacks on Nezumi's tiny frame. The woman was really gentle when she brushed out Nezumi's hair and wrapped the cloth-covered rubber band around it to secure it.

 

By the time Yoshi had arrived to pick up his daughter, she looked perfectly normal, completely fine. Only the peculiar dullness in her gaze gave her away. He hadn't taken her hand as they left the police station. He hadn't answered her when she asked him where Mama was. He hadn't taken her back home, either. She never saw that house again. It wasn't until they were on the plane, heading to a place called Tokyo—a place her father called `home' that he had finally told her. “Your mother is gone, Deirdre. She can't come with us anymore.”

 

“Nezumi!”

 

Jerking awake with a strangled cry, Nezumi smashed her hand against her mouth in the darkened room. Ryomaru gripped her shoulders, eyes glowing as he stared at her. “Kami, Nez . . . what was that about?”

 

`It was just a dream. It was just a dream, and dreams can't hurt you.'

 

She winced, choking down the bile that rose in her throat. “It was nothing,” she forced herself to say, her voice oddly steady, even—empty.

 

“Don't give me that bullshit, Nez. You . . . you said . . . You said you killed her.”

 

The laugh that escaped her was devoid of humor, tinged with hysteria. “I didn't . . . kill anyone,” she said as she tried to wave away Ryomaru's concern.

 

“Then tell me what you were dreaming.”

 

“It's not important,” she insisted as she tried to stand up. He held her down. “I don't want to talk about it.”

 

He let go, and Nezumi tossed back the blankets to roll out of bed.

 

“It's not really fair,” he commented as he sat back, letting his hands dangle between his knees. “I mean, I think you know everything there is to know about me.”

 

“Drop it, okay?” she grumbled.

 

“It can't be that bad.”

 

Pinning him with a glower as he purposefully shifted to block her from standing, she shook her head, balled her hands into fists. “I told you, it isn't a big deal.”

 

“What do you think? That this secret or whatever will make me think less of you? That I'll leave because you may or may not have done something that you're not proud of? Fuck, Nez! My life is full of those moments, and you know about every one of them!”

 

She snapped her mouth closed as her cheeks erupted in flames. “It's not that simple, Ryo.”

 

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I trust you, Nez. I've always trusted you.”

 

“It's not about trust.”

 

“Sure, it is. You're my best friend, right?”

 

Nezumi nodded slowly, jerkily.

 

He nodded, too. “Good. Now let me be yours, will you? Tell me why you called for your mother.”

 

That stopped her, and she sat back as she pulled her legs up against her chest, wrapping her arms around her raised knees. “I was dreaming about it.”

 

He sat on the edge of the bed, shaking his head slowly. “What's `it'?”

 

“The day Mama died.”

 

“You've never talked about that,” he said quietly.

 

She shook her head, wincing as the barrage of memories inundated her. Still fighting to put them in some sort of chronological order after all those years, she cleared her throat and sighed. “I was playing outside under the pear tree in the front yard. I just got a new doll.”

 

“A doll?” he echoed incredulously.

 

She shot him a quelling glance. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

 

“Sorry,” he apologized though he didn't really look very contrite.

 

“Forget it.”

 

Ryomaru caught her shoulders as she started to get up, and despite the tenseness in her body, he pulled her over to lean against him. “I'm sorry. I'm just used to see you with wrenches and screwdrivers—power tools and stuff. Tell me about your doll.”

 

Satisfied that he would listen and not make fun of her, Nezumi shrugged and drew a deep breath. “I got her for my eighth birthday—well, an early present. It was about a week before my actual birthday. But the doll . . . She wasn't fancy. She didn't cry or talk . . . her eyes opened when you held her up and closed when you laid her down, but I loved her. Anyway, I was playing with her under the pear tree when Billy and his gang rode by on their bikes. They were the neighborhood bullies. They were older—maybe twelve—but most of the time, they left me alone.”

 

Ryomaru pulled her more securely against his chest, wrapping his arms around her as he rested his cheek against her hair. “I'd have kicked their asses.”

 

She smiled sadly. “I lived in Texas then, and you were pretty scrawny as a kid.”

 

“Pup,” he corrected.

 

“Fine, pup,” she amended, rolling her eyes then bit her bottom lip as the memory unfurled in front of her on a screen he couldn't see, in a place he'd never been. “I don't know why they decided to pick on me that day. Mama told me before to ignore them; that they'd leave me alone if I minded my own business. So I was playing with the doll—I think I was singing her a lullaby— something stupid like that, and when I looked up, they were surrounding me. Billy grabbed my doll, and when I told him to give her back, he threw her . . . onto the roof.”

 

Nezumi drew another deep breath as Ryomaru's arms tightened instinctively.

 

“I ran in the house and found Mama. She was starting dinner . . . fried chicken. Tell me why I remember something as insignificant and dumb as that?”

 

Ryomaru sighed and shook his head but didn't interrupt.

 

“I told Mama what happened. She said Papa would get it and talk to those boys' parents when he got home from the office. I think . . . I think I started crying them, and Mama . . .” Nezumi shook her head, wrapping her hands around Ryomaru's arms as though she suddenly needed the reassurance of his touch. She swallowed hard before she could continue. “Mama turned down the stove—why do I remember these ridiculous details?” She shook her head. “Then she went to the garage and got the old ladder. I followed her outside and held the ladder as she climbed it. My doll was stuck in the rain gutter. Mama almost had her . . .”

 

Ryomaru filled in the rest of it for himself as Nezumi's voice cracked and faltered. She could hear him muttering nonsense as something broke inside her, as a wave of vicious tears rolled down her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes closed to block the vision of her mother yelling at her to move, as she waved her arms wildly moments before she fell.

 

Again and again, Nezumi saw her mother hit the sidewalk. Her body twisted in mid-air, and she landed flat on her back, her head creating a deafening crack that echoed through Nezumi's ears as she squeezed her eyes closed to blot out the noise.

 

Cringing at the impact as it replayed in her head, Nezumi tried to bury her face against Ryomaru's chest, trying to block out the horrible memory, trying to escape a fate that she knew all too well. She could feel his hands stroking her hair, could hear his words whispered from so far away. In her mind, she saw her mother's body smack into the pavement only to ricochet upward. Tossed like a boat on the ocean, she came to rest in the soft grass beside the cement as Nezumi shrieked her name over and over.

 

She didn't remember running inside, grabbing the phone. She didn't remember dialing 911, either. The next thing she remembered was the man's calm voice, the sound of the sirens, and the blood that stained her little blue sundress.

 

“Blood,” Nezumi gasped as she pushed her face into Ryomaru's chest. “So much blood . . .”

 

“Nez . . . Kami . . .”

 

He didn't try to say anything else as Nezumi sobbed.

 

She didn't remember really crying after she was taken to the police station. She didn't go to the funeral. She didn't even really know where her mother was buried. With the tears came the pent-up anger, the frustration of never understanding, of never being able to really say goodbye. She could have cried for minutes or hours. Ryomaru held her, unable to do anything more than stroke her hair, to murmur things that she didn't comprehend.

 

In the end, the emptiness won. The hopeless feeling that the world was a lonely place sneaked up on her. She'd go on tomorrow as she had yesterday, and the only difference would be the date on the calendar.

 

“I'm sorry, Nez . . . I never knew . . .”

 

Eyes snapping open as she gasped, Nezumi tried to pull away. She'd forgotten that Ryomaru was even there, let alone that he was holding her. Acute embarrassment that she would break down so completely warred with the slight glimmer of hope, the cautious optimism that maybe she really wasn't as alone as she sometimes felt she was. “I'm okay,” she heard herself saying even as another part of her screamed at the lie. “It's nothing. Ryo, let go.”

 

He shook his head and held on tighter. “I can't, Nez.”

 

It was too easy to let him have his way, and maybe she'd counted on him to insist. Did it make it easier for her? Did it make it all right to accept the comfort the offered when he was so adamant to give it?

 

Nezumi didn't think about it. Closing her eyes against the questions she didn't want to answer, she slumped against him, completely exhausted. “You know what I keep wondering?” she finally asked, voice hoarse from her spent emotion.

 

“What's that?”

 

She felt more tears prick her eyes at the softness of his tone. “I . . . I keep thinking . . . I keep wondering . . . Do you think someone turned off the chicken? I remember . . . she cried once when she burned it.”

 

Ryomaru swallowed hard, let his breath out in a sharp hiss. “I don't think the chicken burned, Nez. I'm sure someone turned it off.”

 

Nezumi's trembling lips turned up at the corners in a wavering smile. Maybe . . .

 

Maybe Ryomaru really did understand.

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~ *~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

Have a happy and blessed Easter!!

== == == == == == == == == ==

Reviewers

==========

Shinzen (FFnet):

Oh and to that "mystery guy" who ran into your beta: I am a guy and I read romance fanfiction. I am not gay or sissy but I am an incurable romantic.

 

LOL… I just found it interesting… Diana the beta is a very interesting person with very unique friends. LOL!

==========

MMorg

WiccanMethuselah ::: AkuPhoenix ::: Hopeful_dreamer ::: tduke1999 ::: Deep Serenity ::: OROsan7706 ::: Firetrixs ::: inuyashasluverforever ::: blzzrd53 ::: RadiosNmyHead (Roflmao!!!) ::: foamyfan15010 ::: peckerwood ::: Suze ::: akdreamer ::: Odoriko -chan ::: cjflutterbye ::: Anoki ::: devildice708 ::: ErinBerin ::: IKMS ::: firelyskies ::: littleolme ::: Jaxomruth ::: Kestral-tudorica ::: trinigirl524 ::: Shiga ::: adamile ::: Maril ::: rachainu

eave

 

==========

FFnet

Akashadair ::: katie janeway ::: Drake Clawfang ::: ILOVEINUS589 ::: SilverStarWing ::: sessinu girl ::: Flames101 ::: inu-kaze ::: Sideris ::: nadeshiko-10 ::: Ryguy5387 ::: Aishiteru148 ::: xSilverShadowsx ::: Lady-Sttar ::: Kalara ::: Bucket Eyed Pikachu ::: Catie-san ::: breezy99 ::: kestral-tudorica ::: Shye6686 ::: agent-doo ::: Phoenix of the Dawn

==========

Final Thought from Ryomaru:

So … That's what happened …

==========

Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Forever): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~