InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Remembering You ❯ The Well ( Chapter 1 )

Remembering You

By: InitialA/TuxedoUranus89

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha!

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Author's Note: This is something I've been playing with for a while. Kind of AU, but mostly canon? How does one classify this??

 

Small Mary Jane's tapped rapidly against the stone steps, as one miniature hand grasped the strap of her large pink backpack, and the other grasped her child-sized pith helmet to keep it in place on her bouncy pigtails. She was early, she knew, but Emi's momma had said she'd called everyone and said playgroup was cancelled, so her own Mama should be waiting inside. Mama was getting bigger with her baby brother, but hopefully she could still move to make her cookies like they did every week together. Kagome grew more excited, and practically tripped her way up the rest of the stairs in her eagerness to get into the house. She ran across the big stone courtyard that separated the shrine from the regular house, and flung open the door. “Mama, can we make M&M cookies to—” She stopped, dropping her backpack next to her shoes in the foyer.

The house was too quiet. Nothing seemed wrong, but her mother wasn't home. Grandpa wasn't either, for that matter, which was also puzzling to the six-year old. In her world, Papa came home when Mama was making dinner, and Grandpa stayed in the shrine most of the day, and Mama was inside waiting for her when she got home from school, or from Emi's. Shrugging to herself, she thought maybe her grandfather was in the shrine office, and grabbed her skipping rope before heading outside. “Grandpa?” She called, opening the shouji and poking her head inside.

He wasn't in there either. Kagome tugged at her purple smock, pursing her lips in annoyance. Where was everyone? Sighing, she closed the door, and sat under a nearby tree to untangle her skipping rope, which had become quite knotted the last time she'd practiced and gotten all wrapped up in it. She stiffened as she heard the sounds of worshippers coming up the stairs. Gathering up her rope, she looked for somewhere to hide; usually she stayed away from most shrine functions, except the festivals, because she hated how every guest seemed to like pulling on her pigtails and saying how cute she was. With no one here to make them stop, she really didn't want to be there. The office was out, they'd probably go there first to look for Grandpa. An out-of-the-way building caught her eye. The well house! She scurried as quickly as her short legs would take her, and slipped inside, closing herself into the dusty darkness.

She sat on the stairs, her unfinished pile of knots still in her lap, when she heard the oddest thing: someone was crying very softly. She frowned, and called out, “Hello? Where are you?”

The sound quieted for a moment, and she waited expectantly, before it started again. “Why are you sad? Why are you hiding?”

Mumbling was heard instead, and it sounded like it was coming from the well. This was very odd. She had been raised on her grandfather's old stories about the legends surrounding the shrine, and the story of the well was one of her favorites. It was said to make the bones of slain demons vanish after a few days. `Maybe the sound is a spirit, sad that it was slain,' Kagome thought. She cautiously looked over the edge. “Hello? Is someone down there?”

It was too dark to see properly. She frowned again; she didn't want to jump down, it was too far and she was very likely to break something, if not everything, when she landed. She frowned at the jump rope; that'd be useless, she couldn't get the knots out. She looked around in the dim light, and noticed an emergency ladder. That was weird too, but then again, her afternoon really hadn't been normal by any means in the first place. Maybe her Papa or her Grandpa had put it in here in case someone fell into the well; something like she was about to do, she realized as she set about setting the ladder in place. She had one in her room, by her window in case of a fire, and her mother made sure she knew how to use it every so often, so the work was quick and fairly tidy for a first-grader. She looked back into the well. “If you're down there, I'm putting down the ladder, so I hope I don't hit you!”

She tossed the metal contraption down, wincing at the racket it made, but slowly started down it. “Are you still there?” She called, fumbling slightly with her grip on both the ladder and her skipping rope.

Her foot slipped on the next rung down, and she shrieked when she plummeted into the… blue? This was weird… “OW!” She yelped, her bottom stinging with the impact of being dumped unceremoniously onto hard-packed dirt.

The sniffling she heard stopped, and a head poked itself over the top of the well. She squinted; the well house wasn't there anymore, and all she could see was blue sky. “What are you doing down there?” The head demanded shakily.

“I heard you crying. You didn't answer,” Kagome retorted, standing up and brushing dirt from the back of her smock.

“I'm not crying!” The head exclaimed defensively, and she could see the silhouette of an arm wiping away what she knew to be tears.

“Were too.”

“Were not!”

“Were too! Help me out of here!”

“Why should I, you're just a dumb girl!”

Kagome pouted. “I'm not a dumb girl… Please?”

The head sighed, and a flash of red vaulted into the well next to her. It was a boy, looking not much older than she was. “Come here, I can jump us both out,” he told her with a grumble.

She shrieked as he grabbed her arm and jumped, yanking her up with him. He winced. “You're really loud.”

“You scared me!”

“Keh, you're still loud. Dumb girls…” The boy's arms were crossed, and he had a look on his face that was a mix of confusion and uncertainty.

Kagome got a good look at the boy while she got over her scare. He was a bit taller than her, but that wasn't saying much: she was tiny for six. His hair was white, and fell past his shoulders, and his eyes were the same color as her mother's wedding band. The most peculiar thing about this boy, aside from his red clothes that looked like her grandfather's shrine clothes, his strength and ability to jump, and pretty much everything else she could tell from physical appearances alone, were the two doglike-ears that were slightly strained backwards on top of his head. “I told you already, I'm not a dumb girl. You're just a stupid boy, anyway. Boys are gross. And why do you have puppy ears? Mama won't let us get a puppy, she said Buyo's enough, and my baby brother coming too. Buyo's my big fat cat, but he's really nice.”

The boy's ears twitched, and his guarded expression faded slightly. “You talk a lot.”

Kagome beamed. “I know. So why do you have puppy ears?”

The boy blushed and looked away. “Cuz I'm a hanyou…”

Her eyes lit up. “Really?! That's soooooo cool! Grandpa tells me stories about youkai and hanyou and it's sooooo super-neat that you're one and I get to meet a real live hanyou!”

It was his turn to be surprised, his ears fully pricked in her direction as he stared at her with wide eyes. “You think it's… neat?”

“I know it's a weird, old-person word, but Mama says I need to have a bigger… vo-cabrualy. So she teaches me different words.”

His brow furrowed. “You're the weirdest human I've ever met.”

“Well, you're the weirdest hanyou I've met. But that means your special, cuz you're also the first. I'm Kagome, what's your name?” She stuck out her hand.

He stared at it, unsure of what to do. He cautiously reached out, and grabbed it. “InuYasha.”

“Good, now we know each other and we're friends!” She beamed. “Do you know how to skip rope?”

“Do what?”

Kagome held up her still impossibly-knotted rope. “Well… I'd ask you to play with me, but I can't get this undone… Maybe you can help me, and then we can play?”

InuYasha watched her warily. “Maybe…”

She sat against the old well, and restarted her war against the rope. He stood where he was for a minute longer, and then sat next to her, picking up the other end. “What'd you do to it?” He asked, awed at the mess.

She ducked her head. “I fell and got tangled in it… I'm not very good at skipping rope. Yuka's the best at it, she can double-dutch and everything.”

“Who's Yuka? And what's… that other thing she does?”

Kagome let out a cry of triumph as she loosened a knot. “Yuka's one of my bestest friends ever. And double-dutch is jumping over two ropes at different times, it's so cool and super-hard.”

“Huh…” InuYasha let this sink in, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he carefully worked at the knots.

Between the two of them, the knots were undone in no time. The next problem was figuring out how to do a skipping rope game with two people, but it was solved when Kagome tied one end to a small tree. The first few times were a dud, with InuYasha having no prior concept of how to go about skipping rope, but after watching Kagome do it, he got better. They were laughing and taking turns before long, until she noticed how it was getting dark. “Uh-oh… Mama's gonna be mad… I'd better go.”

InuYasha actually looked sad. “Will you come back?”

She was untying the rope. “I don't know. I'll try. Will you be here?”

He nodded eagerly. “Yeah. That was fun today. Only… can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, what?”

“How'd you come out of the well like that?”

Kagome thought about it. “I dunno. I heard you crying, and it was coming from the well, so I climbed in, and then I was here. Maybe it's a tunnel or something.”

He looked confused again. “Ok… Oh, and… can you bring something to eat next time?”

Kagome beamed. “Mama and I make cookies, I'll bring you some. I'll see you tomorrow!”

She vaulted over the side of the well, and vanished. InuYasha raced over to watch her go, and his eyes widened as the blue light vanished. “Wow…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kagome was still puzzling over why still no one was home when her father opened the door. “Kaogme-chan?”

She squealed and raced for him. “Papa!! I got worried, no one was here!!”

He picked her up and swung her around as she laughed. “Well, Kagome-hime, there was a very good reason for it. You have a new baby brother.”

Kagome giggled. “I knew that, Papa, Mama's belly got big because she has him inside.”

“No, sweetheart, he was born today. Mama started to have him when you were going to Eri's after school. Do you want to go meet him?” He laughed at her enthusiastic nod, and carried her out to the waiting car.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The silver-haired boy had barely left his post by the old well since she'd left the day before. His nose was twitching madly as the strange scent of old magic filled the air, and the blue light filled the well. He jumped down before she had her bearings, and pulled her out with another great leap. “Did you bring something to eat?” He asked eagerly, and she laughed, pulling a bag out of her backpack.

“I hope you like peanut-butter.”

He devoured the cookies like he hadn't eaten in days. She watched him with a smile. He finally noticed, and cocked and eyebrow. “What?”

“Guess what?”

“I asked first.”

“You're funny when you eat. Now guess what?”

He rolled his eyes. `Girls.' “Fine, what?'

“I have a baby brother! Mama had him yesterday!”

She was disappointed when he didn't look all that impressed. “Oh. That's… neat, I guess…”

She watched him eat for a while longer. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

InuYasha frowned, polishing off the last cookie. He took his time wiping the crumbs off of his hakama and hands. “I have an older brother. He's not that nice to me though…”

“Is that why you were crying yesterday? He was mean to you?” Kagome didn't miss the flinch when she mentioned him crying.

“No…” His face was turned away from her, but the sadness lacing his light, boyish voice was apparent. “My mother died not too long ago. I miss her. My brother finds me now and then, throws some food at me, and then leaves after saying some not-nice things… You're really the only one who's been nice to me since she died.”

She felt sad for him. She sat next to him, and put her arms around him. He stiffened, unsure of what to do. “My grandma died almost two years ago. She was nice. She liked puppies and was always baking a cake for something. I was sad too, but it doesn't hurt so much after a long time. I'm sorry your mama died though.”

He reached up and took hold of her arm, leaning his head against hers. “Thanks…”

When she got ready to go, later, she smiled at him. “I can't come tomorrow, I have to go to my friend's house, but I can come the day after.”

He looked sad, his ears drooping slightly. “Ok… You promise you'll come back?”

“I promise.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Several weeks passed, as Kagome visited her new friend. She went as often as she could, liking the boy's company and teaching him her favorite games. He wasn't too keen on skipping rope or the hand-clap games, but he liked the Frisbee and hide and seek. She usually grumbled over that one, he always found her too quickly because he said he could smell where she was, and she didn't hide very quietly. One night was different, as he laughingly chased her to the well. She suddenly turned and tackled him to the ground, tickling him until tears ran down his face. “Stop! Stopstopstop!!” He cried between laughter.

“Say `uncle'!” Kagome taunted with a wicked grin.

“Uncle!” InuYasha gasped, and she stopped, still sitting on his legs.

She giggled as he caught his breath. He frowned at her. “Why was I supposed to say `uncle'?”

She shrugged. “Dunno, it's something the boys tell each other to say when they're being mean to each other.”

He sat up as she freed his legs, going to her backpack. “You weren't being mean though. It was fun, kinda.”

Kagome beamed at him. She swooped down on him and kissed his cheek. InuYasha looked revolted. “What'd you do that for?!” He demanded. “That's so… ugh! Girls are weird!”

“You're nice. I like being here with you, InuYasha,” she told him, shouldering her pack. “I'll be back tomorrow, ok?”

He grumbled, a blush staining his cheeks, but nodded. Kagome vanished down the well.

She happily climbed out of the well, and skipped into the house. Mama was feeding Souta, while Grandpa was being useful and setting the places for dinner. “It smells like curry!” Kagome sang out happily.

“It is curry, dear. Did you have fun with Yuka-chan?” Mama smiled at her.

Kagome grinned, pleased her little white lie was working. “We had lots of fun, thought she beat me in tag again.”

Mama smiled at her, then stood to get the phone as it rang shrilly, giving Souta and his bottle to Grandpa. Kagome paid her no mind as she stashed her bag in the hall closet, until she heard a loud `THUD'. Grandpa cried out, causing Souta to start crying. She hurried back into the kitchen, and saw her mother sprawled out on the floor in a dead faint. “MAMA!!”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kagome lay in her bed, clutching her stuffed puppy tightly. Mama had been awfully quiet after the phone call, and she'd been pale. She'd sent her to bed early. Kagome could hear Grandpa trying to get her to talk downstairs, and her mother's refusals. It was all so confusing, and why wasn't Papa home yet? She heard something break downstairs, and hurriedly got out of bed, running down the hallway to see what had happened this time. Her mother's words came to her as she got closer to the stairs. “—said he never stood a chance… They paid him no mind, and shoved him right in front of the train,” Mama was crying now. “Sachi… my Sachi is dead, because of some impatient fools! Impatient fools and those cursed train stations without barriers! They only identified him by the hand they found and fingerprints, they haven't been able to find anything else! Only… only pieces… Random body parts…”

Kagome stood frozen, horrified. Her father… Papa wasn't dead, was he? He couldn't be! And what did Mama mean by not being able to find anything else? Body parts? She suddenly felt sick to her stomach, and ran as quietly as she could outside. Her body felt numb. She wasn't stupid, or ignorant, as far as her mother knew. Suicide by train was common enough that she knew the basics of what happened…but someone pushed him? Who would do such a thing? She suddenly had the urge to see InuYasha. The overwhelming desire to see her friend, the one who might have some small idea of how to comfort her…

She didn't think as she bolted to the well house, threw open the shouji, and vaulted over the side of the well, the pain from scraping her leg against the worn wood not even registering in her mind. She landed with a light `thump' at the bottom on the other side. She wasn't surprised when his head appeared at the top of the well, and the rest of him as well coming down to retrieve her. “I thought you said you weren't coming back until tomorrow,” he told her as he pulled her out of the well with him.

She didn't say anything for a moment, and he noticed her clothes weren't the same weird kimono she always wore. They looked more like his, only without all the ties, and they had paw prints all over them. She sniffed, and sank to her knees as the tears overwhelmed her. InuYasha immediately panicked. “H-Hey, don't do that! It can't be that bad!”

She looked up at him. “My…my papa died…”

He blinked. “Your…papa?”

She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chest. He sat down next to her. “I'm sorry. I never knew my papa.”

“You didn't?”

“Nope, he died a long time ago.”

They fell silent, with only her sniffling to break it. Fireflies winked in and out in the darkness. InuYasha wasn't really sure what to do. She'd distracted him when he had been missing his mother, maybe it would work if he did the same. He didn't really have any toys though, and she didn't look like she was up to tag or hide and seek…

He stood suddenly, and hurried into the forest, ignoring her cries of protest. He just had to find it…

Kagome hugged her knees closer, the strange nighttime forest seeming more foreboding now without company. An owl hooted somewhere nearby, sounding as lonely as she felt. Minutes crept by, and she sniffled, allowing herself to cry a bit more. She gasped when the bushes rustled suddenly. “Inu…”

She screamed when something jumped out of the brush and landed in front of her. “Ooowwww, stupid girl! Stop screaming, it hurts my ears!”

She stopped and sniffled. “In-InuYasha?”

“'course it's me, dummy. Who else?”

She sniffled again. “You scared me, you big jerk…”

He held out a ball. She looked at it curiously. He dropped it in front of her. “Come on. It's… my mother gave that to me to play with. It's my favorite.”

“…what do you play?” She asked.

His face darkened. “You just toss it around or somethin'…the grownups did a game called Kemari but they didn't want me to play…”

Kagome stood, drying her face on her sleeve. “Do you know how to play soccer?”

He gave her a confused look. She proceeded to teach him, kicking the ball around and explaining what to do. “Just remember one thing: don't touch the ball with your hands.”

InuYasha soon learned that not only was Kagome good at soccer, she was also quite vicious at it. He ducked for the umpteenth time as she slammed her foot into the ball and it rocketed against a tree, only to bounce right back into her possession. He raced after her, trying to steal it away to get a turn, but as she struck the ball again she shrieked something incoherent and fell against the ground in another burst of tears. The ball rolled to a stop some yards away as Kagome screamed and cried and beat the ground with her fists. InuYasha started to panic; he'd never seen anyone in such a fit. Even he hadn't acted as such when his mother had died.

He took a few cautious steps. The screams subsided, the assault on the earth stilled. He knelt, and touched her shaking shoulder. A small hand came up to grab his in return, and he sank to the ground next to her.

~*~*~*~*~

The sun was rising as Kagome wearily climbed out of the well and snuck back into the house. No one was up yet, not even Grandpa. Sometime during the night she'd wound up sleeping on InuYasha's leg. He'd been very kind to her, she recalled as she climbed into bed. It was nice that someone could be so kind to someone he barely knew. Tears threatened to fall again as thoughts of her father drifted into consciousness, and Kagome drifted back to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~

Over the next few weeks, Mama noticed something. There was a significant lack of Kagome. She went to school, and her playgroups, but on days there was no playgroup, she was nowhere to be found. She called Eri and Yuka's mothers, and both claimed they hadn't seen Kagome except on the days they had to watch her. Ayumi's father hadn't seen her either. She called some of the other parents, and even the school, yet no one had any answers. This particular afternoon she was sitting on a bench in the shrine area. Souta was asleep in his carrier next to her, and her father-in-law was puttering around the shrine office.

A clacking noise startled her, and she was astonished to see her daughter coming out of the old well house. “Kagome!?”

The girl was surprised. “Mama…”

“Kagome, sweetheart, what were you doing in there?”

Mama had stood in shock, but at some point during the very strange tale of a world on the other side of the well and a young boy with white hair and dog ears, she sat down again. “And his mama died not so long ago. He's helping me feel better about Papa.” Kagome finished, her hands locked behind her back.

Mama wasn't sure what to say to that. For the time being, she chalked it up to an overly active imagination, and took her children in for supper.

~*~*~*~*~

A few days and several more wild tales later, Mama was there to intercept Kagome as she escaped towards the well house after dinner. Kagome kicked and screamed as her mother dragged her towards the car. “He's the only one who understands! LET ME GO!” She shrieked, and scratched Mama's arm with stubby nails.

On the other side of the well, the boy in red sat staring into the inky depths as the sun set below the horizon. His ears drooped when she didn't show up, and his stomach growled.

Days passed, and the strange girl from the well didn't come back. Days stretched into weeks, and seasons flew, and still she didn't come back. He eventually came to forget her and the small kindness she showed him. That time spent with her was buried in the back of his mind, along with precious memories of his mother; his heart hardened with every blow from strange humans who hated and feared him. He ignored the small piece of his heart longing for a kind word from the odd girl from somewhere else.

 

((This will probably become a two or three parter. I don't know if I can fit everything into the second chapter, and it might flow better in threes. This might not be updated quickly, I'm in a creative writing class this semester and I have to write another part of a continuous story every week for workshopping. As always, please leave a review and I hope you enjoyed it!))