InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 4: Justification ❯ Last Chances ( Chapter 51 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

"Not on your life, princess."

Bellaniece rolled her eyes and smiled, tugging on Kichiro's hand as he leaned back, determined not to so much as step into the store.  "Oh, come on!  It won't be that bad," she coaxed, pinning him with her most winning smile.

Kichiro snorted and made a face.  "Keh!  I don't think so."

"All right," she gave up, shrugging as she heaved a long-suffering sigh.  "If you won't go in with me, then I won't make you.  Far be it for me to try to force you to do something you don't want to do, even if it would really make me happy . . ."

"Oh, for the love of . . . All right!" he grumbled, throwing his hands up in the air as Bellaniece grinned happily and grabbed his hand to drag him into the second-hand store in the middle of Greenwich Village.  "I can't believe you're making me go into a second-hand store," he complained.  "I don't do second-hand, wench . . . just so you know . . ."

"There're fabulous things in second-hand stores," Bellaniece argued as they stepped into the dimly lit shop.  The girl behind the counter popped her gum and spared them a glance before turning her attention back to the music magazine in her hands.

"Yeah, just be careful what you touch," he told her.  "You don't know where this stuff's been."

Bellaniece shuffled through the vintage ties and giggled as she pulled a God-awful purple paisley tie off the rack.  "How about this, Dr. Izayoi?"

"Kami, no," he growled, his face registering his distaste.

"It's not that bad," she argued.  "Actually, I kind of like it."

"You can like it all you want, Belle-chan, but it's staying here . . ."

She took her time in the dusty old store.  It reminded her of the trunks at home; the packed up reminders of Isabelle's life.  Though she didn't doubt that Cain wouldn't have cared if Bellaniece had brought out some of her mother's old things, Bellaniece never could bring herself to do that.  Leaving the reminders hidden away in the room down the hall at the opposite end of the mansion, she'd spent hours on end in there, surrounded by her mother's things.  It was the one room in the house that Cain refused to venture.  Bellaniece didn't doubt that the only reason he'd kept the stuff was for her, anyway.

Kichiro stood near the door, hands stuffed into his pockets as he stared out the window at the busy street.  Bellaniece shook her head and bit her lip.  He'd been so kind to her all weekend . . . kinder than she had expected, and last night . . .

She hadn't really thought that anything could top the opera and carriage ride through Central Park.  Last night, however, was really special; something Bellaniece knew she'd never, ever forget.

Dinner was casual but sophisticated at the ultra hip Beinvieue.  Opened in the spring of this year, the restaurant was already making quite a name for itself in the theater district.  After dinner, Kichiro had taken her to see a revival performance of Les Miserables, and she'd loved it.  Brought to tears while watching the actress in the role of Fantine—one of the roles she knew her mother had portrayed in her days on the stage—Bellaniece wasn't able to do much more than sniffle and hang onto Kichiro's arm as they left the theater, heading to a small jazz club near the hotel.

"I'm glad you liked the musical," he said as he held her chair out.

Bellaniece nodded and smiled while he sat down.  "It was beautiful," she told him.  "How did you know I've always wanted to see it?"

He shrugged and blushed at her praise.  "You were reading it, remember?  I just thought that if you liked the book . . ."

"My mother played Fantine once," she admitted quietly.  "The program is in my scrapbook."

"Ah, so that's the reason you like the book."

Bellaniece toyed with the small paper napkin on the table as Kichiro ordered a soda for her and a glass of wine for himself.  "From all the pictures I've seen of her, I can envision her on stage.  I can see her that way in my head.  Why is it that I can't for the life of me imagine her as my mom?"  She shook her head, hesitantly lifted her troubled gaze to meet his.  "Does that make sense?  It sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it?"

Kichiro shook his head.  "It's not stupid.  Maybe the idea of seeing her on stage is easier to imagine because it isn't as close to you."

"You scare me a little," she finally said.

"How so?"

"Sometimes it seems like you . . . know me a little too well."

"Is that bad?"

Bellaniece laughed softly as the waitress set the drinks on the table.  Kichiro handed her a few folded bills.  "It's not bad," Bellaniece replied after the waitress hurried away.  "It's . . . I'm just not used to feeling like that."

He stared at her for a moment, golden eyes glowing in the ambient light of the faux candle.  "Maybe you should get used to it," he told her.

"Should I?"

Kichiro smiled.  "Yeah."

"Come on, wench," Kichiro said in her ear, startling her out of her reverie.  "We have things to do . . . places to go . . ."

"Oh?  Where else would that be?"

"I need to get something for my idiot brother.  I ought to pick up something for the old man, too . . . Aside from that, I thought you wanted to go sightseeing, didn't you?"

Bellaniece nodded and grasped Kichiro's arm.  "Does this mean that you're going to let me have some money?"

Kichiro wrinkled his nose.  "And why would I do a thing like that?  You don't need money."

Bellaniece rolled her eyes and tweaked Kichiro's ear.  He flicked the appendage to evade her fingers.  "I want to buy a souvenir for Daddy," she told him.  "And possibly something for someone . . . else."

"You already coerced me into buying a few things for Kelly," he grumbled, "and 'Daddy' can come here and buy something, himself."

"I wasn't talking about Kelly," she informed him.  "You're buying stuff for your family, right?  I should be allowed to do that, too."

"Fine, fine . . . Just pick out what you want."

"I don't want you to buy the souvenirs.  I want to buy them, myself.  Besides, it'd look pretty stupid if . . ." trailing off with a quick shake of her head, Bellaniece shrugged her shoulders and made a face.

Kichiro grinned.  "Who else were you talking about, if not Kelly?"

Bellaniece leveled a meaningful look at Kichiro.

He snorted and blushed slightly but shook his head.  "I don't need anything, princess."  Sighing as he dug his walled out of his pocket, he pulled out a fifty dollar bill and handed it to her.  "Here, but that's all you're getting."

"I need more than that," she argued, stuffing the bill into her purse and holding out her hand for more.

"I told you: I don't need anything," he told her again.  "Just buy something for your father, if that's what you want to do.  Oh, look . . . There's the perfect shirt for him."

Bellaniece slapped the hanyou's chest when she saw the wrinkled old shirt he was nodding toward.  "That's so not funny," she complained.  "I have a hard enough time, getting Daddy to wear decent clothes.  He'd shop at Wal-Mart, if I'd let him."

"Wal-Mart?" Kichiro echoed, unfamiliar with the nationwide chain of discount stores.

"Yes, Wal-Mart.  They sell everything there, and I do mean everything.  Entirely wonderful place to shop for necessities.  Not the best place if you're looking for quality clothing, especially when you're a world-renowned artist."

"Oh, one of those," Kichiro remarked, expression registering abject disgust.  "Yeah, well, then that shirt should be perfect for him, don't you think?"

"There you go again," she teased, "stooping to even lower forms of asshattery."

"That isn't even a word, Belle-chan."

She giggled then shrugged as her smile faded.  "You've been really great to me this weekend.  I've had a lot of fun.  I only . . . I wanted to buy something special for you; something you could look at later and remember it."

He thought that over as the barest hint of a smile turned up the corners of his lips.  "And what makes you think that just looking at you won't remind me?"

"You just don't want to give me back my money," she said with a shake of her head as she ducked her chin and willed herself not to blush.  "That's fine . . ."

Kichiro rolled his eyes, ignoring Bellaniece's obvious attempt to weasel more money out of him, and grabbed her hand, tugging her out of the shop and back onto the sidewalk once more.

"And what makes you think that just looking at you won't remind me?"

Bellaniece smiled as she stared at her hand caught in his.  Maybe there was something to his claim.  The entire weekend . . . She'd never, ever forget it, either.


Gin teetered on tip-toe as she held onto the cupboard door and leaned as far as she could to scour the high shelf with a hideous green sponge.  Hair held back with a stoutly tied pink bandana, she grimaced as dirty tepid water dripped ran down her arm into her shirt.  The apartment was stifling, muggy.  Rain splattered against the closed windows, and she glanced longingly at the closed structures.  It was bound to be nice, out there.  Storms normally brought a crispness to the air that Gin wished she could feel.  Even with the steady hum of the air conditioning unit, the atmosphere inside the apartment seemed stale, stagnant.  She hated it, but there was little else that could be done.

She'd been cleaning for the better part of the last two days after seeing a bug scuttling across Cain's kitchen floor.  There was a bit of a discrepancy, as far as the insect was concerned.  Gin swore it was a cockroach.  Cain claimed it was a beetle.  Either way, it had to go, as far as she was concerned.  He had started to argue with her, but not even the great and powerful, magnificent, awe-inspiring and ferocious North America tai-youkai, Cain Zelig stood a chance against a hanyou like Gin when she was bent on world cleanliness.

In retaliation, Cain had closeted himself away in his studio to work on Gin's painting.  Though normally not one to insist on absolute secrecy about his work, he did this time.  Gin was certain he was only doing it because she'd had the audacity to shoo him out of the kitchen the day before after he'd unceremoniously barked at her.

Pushing herself onto her tiptoes so she could reach the deepest corners of the shelf, Gin bit her cheek and tightened her grip on the door.

"I thought I told you to knock that off before you hurt yourself," Cain grumbled as he ambled into the kitchen, scowling at the stepstool she'd employed since she had promised to stay off the counters.

"I'm not on the counter," she pointed out.  "I'm not going to fall."

Cain grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and opened it, tossing the cap in the general vicinity of the trash can.  "Find any more beetles, baby girl?"

She shot him a narrow scowl.  "Cockroaches, Cain, and no, but your cupboards are filthy."

He shrugged as he drained half the bottle.  "Yeah, well, I don't normally eat here that often."

Gin shook her head and dropped the sponge in the sink of soapy gray water.  "But you do eat here sometimes."  Bending down to retrieve the sparse stack of plain white ceramic plates, she stared at them for a moment before straightening her back with a dismayed sigh as she opened the next cupboard and started unloading the shelves.

"You're making a mess, you know," he pointed out.

"I have to wash all those before I can put them away," she told him.  "If the cupboards were dirty, then the plates are, too."

"You could do all that," he drawled, pitching the now-empty bottle into the garbage can, "or you could just put the dishes away and do something with me."

"Like what?"

He chuckled at the hint of grudging interest in her tone.  "I don't know . . . We could rent a movie . . ."

She shook her head.  "You could go rent a movie while I wash up the dishes and put them away."

"They're clean," he argued.

"No, they're not!  If I don't wash them, I'll never be able to watch you eat off them without cringing.  Bugs are gross, and cockroaches—"

"Beetles."

"—are the nastiest of them all."

"All right; you forced my hand.  Don't say you weren't warned because you were."

"Warned about what?" Gin demanded, casting Cain a dubious glance.

He pushed himself away from the counter and wandered over to her.  She squealed and tried to jerk away when he wrapped his arms around her, dragging his claws over her stomach.  "Ticklish, baby girl?"

"Stop it!" she giggled, trying to pry his hands away from her.  "How would you like it if I went into your studio and started tickling you?"

"I'd love it.  It'd be great," he assured her.  She laughed at both his dry tone as well as his still-tickling claws.

"That's—not—nice!" Gin giggled.

"Sure it is," he informed her.  "Now come down before you fall."

"Let me finish this."

Cain snorted.  "Pfft!  There's nothing wrong with my cupboards."

"Cain . . ."

He chuckled at the plaintive note in her voice.  "All right, all right . . . Since cleaning out the cupboards is obviously more interesting than me, I'll leave you alone . . ."

More of a compulsion than a conscious decision, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.  What was meant to be a chaste kiss was caught and returned.  Cain sighed softly, fingers stilling as he held onto her.  His kiss slammed through her with the violent force of a thousand youkai, with all the finesse of the summer storm.  Rain beat against the windows in a stunted cadence; the erratic rhythm matching the beat of her heart.

Gin leaned away, breaking the contact as a bashful smile surfaced.  "I'm filthy," she murmured, cheeks pinking when Cain made no move to let her go.

"And I've been painting all day."

"Dirty wash water."

"Oil paints are a bitch."

"Cain . . ."

"Gin . . ."

She swallowed hard at the intensity that lit behind his gaze.  "I . . ."

"Yes?"

"You're really bad . . ."

"I could be good."

"I wouldn't want to take you away from your work."

"I don't think I'd mind."

"Let me finish this."

Cain sighed.  "Fine, fine . . . Jilted for cupboards . . ."

She laughed as she leaned to the side to retrieve the sponge.  "You'll feel so much better in a clean house," she told him.  "You'll see."

"Pfft!  I'd feel so much better if you'd get off that stool.  If you fall—"

"I won't fall!  I've told you, I've got the dexterity of a cat."

Gin shrieked when a soft clunk made the stepstool wobble.  Trying to steady her balance, her arms flailed out.  Cain caught her and chuckled as the stool slipped out from under her.  He cradled her against his chest and shook his head.  "The dexterity of a cat, huh?"

"You kicked the stool!" she grumbled, her face registering her shock and dismay.

"My foot slipped," he protested.

"It didn't slip!  You meant to do that!"

He shuffled out of the kitchen with Gin in his arms.  She kicked her feet and squirmed around.  "Put me down, you bully."

"I don't think I want to.  It's not every day I have beautiful women falling all over themselves to get into my arms."

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked a little breathlessly.

"I don't know . . . What should I do with you?"

"Put me down?"

"Nice try, baby girl.  I've got you at my mercy . . . I don't think I should relinquish you that quickly, do you?"

She linked her arms around his neck and leaned her head on his chest.  "Please put me down?"

"So you can run back to the cupboards again?"

Gin giggled.  "Are you jealous of the cupboards?"

He snorted but his cheeks pinked.  "Pfft!  No!"

"You are!" she gloated.

"Not."

"Are, too!"

"All right," he acknowledged.  "I am, but just a little."

"What are you doing?" Gin asked as Cain kicked the bedroom door open and strode into the room.  

"I'm going to put you down.  Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I don't know.  I don't think I trust you . . ."

"You trust me," he contradicted.

She shook her head, mesmerized by the fire igniting behind his gaze.  "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Stop staring at me like—"

"Like what?"

"Like you're going to—" she gulped, "—eat me."

He chuckled rather nastily.  "That was the plan."

She gasped as her cheeks flooded with hot color.  "Cain!"

"You like it, Gin.  Admit it."

"I don't.  I—"

He tossed her onto the bed.  Her shriek was cut off by his weight bearing down on her, pinning her to the mattress.  "You do," he countered, lips pressing against her collarbone through the thin cotton t-shirt she wore.  "You know you do."

"I don't; I . . ." Her eyes fluttered closed as his fangs grazed over her.  "I do . . ."

He chuckled—a rasping, hoarse sound.  "Thought so."

"But I'm dirty, and you—"

"Are, too . . . give it up, Gin.  Admit it: you want me."

Hands closing over her breasts, she moaned softly.  "I need a shower," she maintained with a stubborn shake of her head.

"So take one later."

"I'm all sticky and . . . sweaty, and . . . and . . . kami," she breathed as he pressed his hips against hers.

"Are you going to say it?"

"S-Say . . . it?"

He chuckled again, leaning up on his elbow to give Gin a moment to gather her scattered wits.  "I want to hear you say," he drawled as he traced her lips with the tip of his claw, "that you want me."

Forcing her eyes open, ignoring the heaviness as she concentrated on his demand, Gin's breath rattled in her ears.  "You know I do," she replied in barely more than a whisper.

"I do," he told her.  "I just wanted to hear you say it."

The drumming rain of rain hitting the window filled the room with a soothing pattern.  "Have you always been this bad or is this a more recent development?" she demanded.

She could have kicked herself for the unintentional reminder.  Cain stared at Gin almost sadly, tracing the contours of her face with his fingertips.  She caught his wrist, nuzzling her face against his palm.  "What's the matter?" she asked him, gently rubbing away the frown that furrowed his brow.

"Nothing . . . everything . . . Gin . . ."

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to remind you . . ."

"It's not you," he told her with a wan smile.  "Never you."

He rolled to the side, flopping onto his back and draping his arm over his face with a heavy sigh.

Gin scooted over, hugging him close as she tried to offer him some measure of comfort.  "Cain . . ."

"It's all right," he assured her.  She winced at the hint of doubt in his tone.  "I'll be okay.  Just give me a minute."

She didn't answer, holding him tighter, kissing his shoulder, struggling to understand the ghosts that haunted him.  She wanted to tell him how she felt.  She wanted to tell him she loved him.  Indecision kept her quiet.  In the end, all she could do was hold him.  If she could find the words to ask him, if she could make him tell her what had happened so long ago . . .

Cain sighed again and turned toward her so quickly that she gasped as he snatched her against him; as he held onto her as though his very life depended on it.  Gin frowned as she tightened her hold on him.  If she wanted to win the war, she needed to know just what sort of memories she was fighting.