InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Flash Point ( Chapter 20 )

A soft knock drew Ben's attention as he tugged a plain white v-neck tee-shirt over his head and flipped his hair free.  "Come in," he called, stepping out of the walk-in closet.  Toga strode into the room and closed the door behind himself while Ben stifled a sigh.  Somehow, he just didn't really think that the tai-youkai wanted to discuss business, and it was far, far too much to hope that maybe, just maybe, Toga hadn’t seen that disastrous kiss in the living room, too . . .

Crossing his arms over his chest, Toga regarded Ben for a few moments, amber eyes swirling in a wash of color that seemed to spill over itself, giving silent testimony to the unsettled thoughts that were running through his head. When he finally spoke, however, his tone was calm, even.  "I know it really isn't any of my business," he began, measuring his words carefully.  "I wanted to know, though, just who that . . . woman was?"

He'd kind of figured it was going to be something like that.  "She's an old friend—the oldest friend I have, actually," he replied.  "I haven't seen her in . . . centuries."

Toga sighed, running a hand through his hair, scratching at the nape of his neck almost nervously.  "I'm going to level with you, Ben, because I've always respected you, and I know damn well that my daughter isn't a pup anymore, but she is still my daughter, and when yours are older, you'll understand my feelings here."

"All right," Ben agreed cautiously.  He had a fairly good idea as to where Toga was going with this, but as a father, even as a new one, he could understand, so he waited.

"I don't know what your relationship is with your, uh, friend, but I know what I've seen since I've been here, and . . ." Toga rubbed his face as though he were tired.  When he finished, he scowled at the floor, draping his hands on his hips.  He'd changed out of his costume and into a pair of flannel pajama pants but still wore the white dress shirt that he'd unbuttoned somewhere along the way.  "Anyway, I'm just asking you not to play games with my daughter.  Charity . . . She's always been just a little more sensitive than any of her sisters, and because of that, I've always worried about her a little more, too."

"I never intended to do any such thing, Toga," Ben allowed.  "I'm not going to try to make excuses for what you saw tonight, but I can honestly say that it wasn't anything that I wanted or that I meant to happen."

Toga nodded; his expression still impassive.  "Okay," he said, finally meeting Ben's gaze, and the unhidden anger that still smoldered in the depths of his eyes was enough to make Ben grind his teeth together, enough to want to look away, though he did not.  He hadn’t even attempted to hide his feelings, and that, in Ben’s opinion, spoke volumes.  "Thank you for your honesty.  Good night, Ben."

"Night," Ben replied, watching in silence as Toga opened the door and stepped out of the room.  Then he sighed.  If he were to be honest, he couldn't help but think that Charity really didn't need her father to confront him, and yet he knew damn well that she really had nothing to do with that, and even so, he couldn't really fault Toga for wanting to protect his child from being hurt, and, on some level, he had to respect that about the man, too.

Glancing at the clock, he frowned.  Almost two in the morning, and Charity had taken the twins upstairs hours ago.  Her door was closed, but somehow, he had the feeling that she wasn't sleeping, either, and before he could talk himself out of it, he headed out of his room and across the hall.

He tapped on the door without really thinking that she'd answer it.  She didn't, and after a minute, he turned the handle to let himself in.

She was sitting on the wide window sill, her feet drawn up, her arms wrapped around her legs with her cheek resting on her raised knees.  He couldn't see her face since she was staring outside, but he did notice when she stiffened slightly under his perusal, though she didn't bother to look at him, either.

"Charity, can we talk?"

"Did your friend go home?  Manami . . . That's what you said her name was, right?"

Scowling at the evenness in her tone, the absolutely unruffled air that she managed in her voice, Ben crossed the floor to stand beside her.  She still refused to look at him.  "Y . . . Yeah, her name is Manami," he replied.  "I've known her for a very long time."

"She's . . . She's very pretty," Charity remarked, the contrived pleasantness in her voice chafing him.  He’d have to be stupid, not to realize that the conversational tone was solely for his benefit, though perhaps with a healthy dose of self-preservation, thrown in.  "Like . . . Like Vogue or Cosmopolitan pretty.  She looks like a model, I think . . ."

"Sure, she, uh . . ." He made a face, flicked a hand as though to dismiss the conversation entirely.  "Listen, what you saw—"

"She seemed really ha-happy to see you," she plunged on, her voice hitching midway through, purposefully cutting him off before he could finish what he was trying to say.  The frenzied feel in her youki made no sense to him.  Did she think she needed to rush?  That she didn't dare to hear him out?

He frowned at her back.  Damn it, all he wanted to do was to explain everything to her, to tell her that it was all just a huge misunderstanding—an excuse that sounded entirely lame, even in the confines of his own mind.  Even so, it didn't seem like she was interested in hearing anything he had to say, and, while he knew deep down that he could understand her on some level, the irritation that rose inside him was a little too thick, a little too cloying, to ignore.  "Will you just listen to me?  It wasn't—"

"It's fine," she insisted in the same calm manner.

"It's not," he argued, struggling to keep his own voice under control.  "Manami . . . We . . . We met when we were just children, really . . . Just teenagers—barely.  We were . . . close . . ."

She glanced at him for the briefest moment before turning her face away once more.  "You don't have to explain anything to me, Ben," she said.  "I mean, it's not like we—You just don't."

Letting out a deep breath, Ben scowled at Charity.  He wanted to talk to her.  He wanted to tell her.  The problem was, she wasn't going to listen, and he knew that, too.  No matter what he said, in her present state of mind, she had managed to entirely close herself off, hidden back in the recesses of her own psyche, in a place where Ben . . . He couldn't touch her.

"I'm . . . I'm tired, Ben," she said, her voice thinning, cracking, wearied.  There were no tears, but there didn't have to be.  So attuned to her that he could feel the stubborn throb of her youki as it pulled in even closer, as it sought to protect her, and the understanding that he was the sole cause of her turmoil . . . It was killing him inside.

He bristled at the blatant dismissal, but there really wasn't a thing he could do about it, either.  He stared at her for a few moments before jerking his head once in a nod and turning on his heel to leave her.  Maybe if he gave her a little bit of space, a little bit of time, maybe she'd listen to him . . .

Maybe . . .

The gentle breeze that cut through the stark and draining heat was a welcome thing, a flickering respite that only lasted the briefest of moments before it sputtered out like a dying flame in the winter, and fifteen-year-old Benjiro lifted his face, closed his eyes, savoring the feel as his hair lifted, floated, then drifted back down once more.

"I want to go swimming."

Cracking an eye open as he turned his head just enough to cast a surreptitious glance at his best friend, Benjiro stifled a sigh when he saw it: the absolute stubbornness in Keijizen's willful expression: the set of his jaw, the heightened brightness in his sapphire blue eyes . . . And the dogged way that he was staring at the picturesque pond, stretched out before them.  "Dogs don't swim," Ben remarked, knowing that Keijizen—Keiji—really hated to be compared with a common mongrel.

"Cats don't, either," Keijizen shot back with a wide grin.

Heaving a sigh since he figured that there wasn't going to be any talking Keijizen out of it, he stared out over the water.  "Don't think I don't realize what you're really trying to do," Benjiro remarked as he shuffled toward the edge of the water, casually discarding clothing along the way.

Keijizen laughed and hurried to catch up as he yanked off his clothing, too.  He was a couple years older than Benjiro and a good foot taller with the mass that came with the height, but all that really meant was that Keijizen made a much bigger splash as he dove into the water off the top of a large rock.

Turning his head to avoid the splash, Ben laughed when Keijizen came up sputtering.  "Ba-a-aka!" he hollered, waving his arm, sending a spray of water, straight into Keijizen's face.

"Oi!" he exclaimed, lunging after Ben in an attempt to dunk him.

Ben was faster, planting his feet on the muddy bottom, propelling him back, out of Keijizen's reach.  The dog-youkai laughed and tried to mimic the move unsuccessfully.

"It would serve you two right if chichiue found you out here and gave you another earful," the sing-song, haughty voice called out from the shore.

Both boys stopped, turning to look as Akinako perched prettily on the rock that Keijizen had just used to launch himself into the water.

"Akinako-chan," Keijizen said, abruptly forgetting that he and Ben were about to launch an all-out water war as he veered to the side to wade over to the base of the rock.  "Care to come swim with us?"

She narrowed her lavender eyes at him.  "Are you naked again, Keiji-kun?" she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, under the folds of the generous layers of the kimono she wore.  “And it’s, ‘Akinako-sama’.”

"How else am I supposed to go swimming, Akinako-sama?" he challenged, adding unnecessary emphasis on the honorific that he ought to have been using, all along.  Behind him, Ben rolled his eyes.  "The water's really nice today . . ."

"Lovely," she said dryly, lifting her chin stubbornly despite the telling blush that dusted her cheeks.

"Skinny-dipping with the lord's daughter?  That'll earn you more than just a simple lecture," Ben pointed out, raising his voice since he was relatively certain that Keijizen had ceased to remember that Ben even existed about the moment that Akinako had appeared.

Keijizen crossed his arms atop the edge of the rock, laying his cheek on his folded forearms as he peered up at her.  "Your father's off on one of his campaigns," he remarked calmly.  "Were you watching for me?"

She wrinkled her nose.  "Don't flatter yourself; I was simply taking some air," she scoffed.  "You're a little insufferable, you realize."

Keijizen chuckled.  "And you're beautiful when you're telling me off."

She heaved a sigh as she got to her feet.  "Get out of my pond," she said as she whipped around to leave.  "You're going to kill off all our fish."

His chuckle escalated into a laugh.  "Hime-sama!" he called after her, bracing himself on the rock to push himself out of the water.  "Wait!"

She did, pivoting to face him once more.  When she realized just what he was doing—and that he really was entirely naked—she stepped forward, raising her foot, planting it in the middle of his forehead, and gave him a good push.

Turning his face in time to avoid the wave created when Keijizen hit the water, Ben slowly shook his head.  "Baka," he muttered under his breath.

Akinako paused long enough to savor her handiwork before her eyes flickered over to Ben and stopped.   Then she nodded as Ben quickly, clumsily bowed.  "Good day, Benjiro-kun," she called as she turned to leave once more.

“Goodbye, Hime-sama,” Ben called after her, and he slowly shook his head as Keijizen resurfaced, choking and laughing and sputtering once more.

"At least she remembered my name today," he said when he intercepted Ben's censuring look.

"Hopeless," Ben muttered as Keijizen waded toward the shore.  "Oi!  Where are you going?"

"It's a lovely day for a walk, don't you think?" he tossed back over his shoulder as he hurriedly scooped up his clothes and ran off in the direction that Akinako had taken.

"Put your clothing on first, baka!" Ben hollered after him.

Keijizen either didn't hear him or didn't care to take his advice . . .

Ben heaved a sigh as Keijizen disappeared into the thicket of trees.  Entirely typical of him to goad Ben into swimming and then to take off and leave him there, too.  Of course, he'd be back soon enough—about the time that Akinako's guard showed up to drive him off, like they did every day.  Hopefully, he’d manage to get his clothes back on before that happened, though, because the upbraiding he’d receive would be so, so much worse if he were caught, pestering Akinako while still being entirely naked, too . . .

"Who . . . are you . . .?"

Shaking off the train of thought as he turned slowly to face the owner of that voice, Ben blinked in surprise at the youkai girl he'd never seen before.  Tall, slender, she stood near the edge of the water, wearing a dark red kimono that only served to emphasize the pale luminance of her alabaster skin, her dark eyes, capturing the light reflected off the water's surface, long platinum blonde hair, falling around her in the softest cloud of barely-there curls as she simply stood, waiting for him to answer.

"I'm Benjiro," he replied, offering her a slight bow.  “Hajimimashite.”  He took a couple steps toward shore, but stopped when he remembered that he was still very naked below the surface of the water.  "Who are you?"

She didn't smile, but she didn't have to.  A sudden flash of amusement lit the depths of her hypnotic gaze as she ducked her chin just enough to peer up at him through the screen of her deep, dark lashes.  "Hahaue told me not to give naked boys my name," she said.

Ben stared at her for a long moment, mesmerized by the sparkle in her eyes, at the way she pursed her blood-red lips.  “Oh, well, I, uh . . . I w-was just going to get dressed,” he insisted but made no move toward the shore just yet.

She regarded him, as though she were trying to make up her mind about something.  After a minute, she gave a barely perceptible nod.  "Goodbye, Benjiro," she said as she turned to go.

"W-Wait!" he called after her, gritting his teeth as he tamped down the desire to run after her, remembering at the last second that he was still, unfortunately, quite naked.

She paused but did not look back at him.

He sighed.  "When can I have your name, then?" he asked.

He didn't think she was going to answer.  Stepping back on the trail that led deep into the forest, she had almost disappeared into the darkness when her voice drifted back to him.

"Meet me tomorrow," she said, "with your clothes on."

Heaving a sigh as he blinked into the darkness, Ben let go of the lingering edges of the memory, still as vivid in his mind as it had been at the time.  That was the day he'd met her: Manami . . .

He'd gone back the next day, bright and early: back to the pond, and sat alone on the rock that overhung the water for hours as he waited to see if she'd return.  She had as the sun was setting on the horizon, above the tree line of the surrounding forest, only this time, she wasn't alone.  She'd had her little sister, Setsuna with her . . .

'She . . . She died . . .?'

Frowning at the question posed by his youkai-voice, Ben sighed.  'Nami said as much, but she didn't say how, but even so . . . Setsuna never was that strong, back then . . .'

Setsuna was sweet, though.  The four-year-old child had splashed and played in the shallows near shore while Ben had talked with Manami.  She'd said that her parents had died when Setsuna was still a baby.  Their mother had been out gathering vegetation for dinner, and she was attacked by a pack of wolf-youkai.  Their father had heard her screams, had gotten there in time to drive off the pack, but it was too late by then, and he'd died shortly after that, leaving Manami, at thirteen years old, to be both mother and father to Setsuna.

So, Ben had introduced her to Keijizen and Akinako, who had taken pity upon Manami and her plight and had befriended her instantly and completely, even going so far as to ask her father to take the orphans in, which he had done for his daughter's sake.  It had helped Setsuna especially.  Since she was still so young, Akinako's mother pretty much adopted the child, and she really had flourished under the careful nurturing.  Even so, she hadn’t ever really been what Ben would have considered ‘robust’.  No, but she had grown slowly to be a very demure, very proper young lady . . .

But for all the acceptance and companionship that she'd received, Ben had known, hadn't he?  There was still a part of Manami that no one could touch, that she guarded with a fierceness that belied the fragility of her outward appearance.  He was the only one who could even approach that part of her, even though he couldn't breech her inner defenses, either, and he had tried.  For a time, he'd thought that he had succeeded.

Until he had realized that he never could.  Even then, he'd known it.  It was the part of her that lay awake at night, that still heard her mother's screams; the part of her that had stared at the baby sister left behind, wondering what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to protect the two of them when she was no more than a child herself . . .?  He'd known it.  He'd sensed it, and yes, he understood it.  But he could not overcome it . . .

Looking back, he realized that he'd tried back then—tried to step into the role that was left in the wake of her parents' passing.  Maybe that was the real reason why he'd asked her to come with him . . .

And maybe that was the real reason why she had declined, too.