InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Suki and Tsukuyomaru: A Love Story ❯ Interacting with the family ( Chapter 4 )

 

 

“Are you sure I can't help you?” Suki asked the youkai woman as she watched her cook their morning meal. “I often made the meals for my parents, I'm not too bad a cook,” she offered once more and Tsukuyomaru's aunt turned to the girl with an amused smile.

 

“No my dear,” the woman said to her gently. “I'm just fine as I am. Why don't you go sit with your mate until I have the food ready?”

 

“Are you sure?” Suki asked once more.

 

“Yes, yes,” the woman assured with a soft laugh. “Now go.”

 

“Alright,” the human girl moved out of the cooking area and into a large sitting room. “If you're sure,” she asked again and the youkai laughed heartily before calling for her nephew.

 

“Yes aunt?” Tsukuyomaru said respectfully.

 

“Take your mate and go sit down. You needn't worry about helping me dear,” she told Suki with an amused grin.

 

 

 

 

“You heard what she said,” Tsuku said to his love as he walked with her into the sitting room where his uncle and cousins sat.

 

“I just feel so useless. I should be doing something,” her eyes turned to her new love's uncle. “Do you know if your wife has any mending that needs done?”

 

“Relax yourself girl,” the youkai said with a laugh. “We don't expect you to do any work. You're to be his mate, not our servant.”

 

“Not used to sitting idle are you?” one of the female children asked.

 

“No, not really,” Suki said with a blush.

 

“Well, if you wouldn't mind, I've got some embroidery that I'd like to get your opinion on,” she said to Suki and watched as the human looked up with a smile lighting her features.

 

“Really?” Suki asked hopefully.

 

“Yes,” the youkai girl giggled. “Come and I'll show you.”

 

Stealing my mate already Aki,” Tsukuyomaru laughed at his cousin. “I see how it's going to be.”

 

The youkai simply turned around and stuck her tongue out at him, making him laugh harder.

 

“She's a sweet girl,” Tsuku's uncle said in approval. “What will you do about your father though?”

 

“I don't know uncle. There's a good chance he might try to kill her.”

 

“There's a very real chance he may try to kill the both of you,” his uncle said with great seriousness.

 

“I know,” Tsukuyomaru sighed and sat back on the large cushion beneath him.

 

“What will you do?” his uncle asked once more.

 

“I wish I knew.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Oh my,” Suki held the silk kimono in her hands as she studied the nearly finished embroidering on the back. “This is…this is beautiful,” she said in an awed whisper as she looked up at the youkai girl before her. “I've never seen anything so exquisite.”

 

“You really think so?” Aki asked with a hopeful smile.

 

“Oh yes,” Suki assured her readily. “I only wish I had half your talent.”

 

“I'm sure you do,” Aki said with a giggle.

 

“No, not nearly,” Suki said as she ran the finger tips of one hand over the threaded picture of a silver bat flying in the light of a red moon. “Most of my skills are relegated to stitching and mending.”

 

“You've never embroidered?” Aki asked in wonder.

 

“Once,” the girl watched as Suki's eyes seemed to take on a haunted look, the golden, hazel and green flecked orbs turning nearly black with the unwanted memory.

 

 

 

“Embroider this for me girl,” Suki's mother demanded as she dropped a kimono in front of her barely awake daughter. “Have it done by noon.”

 

“May I have breakfast first, before I begin?” the young girl no older then eight asked timidly.

 

“No food until the work is completed.”

 

The woman left, slamming the thin shoji door behind her. Try as she might it took the girl four days to complete the complex stitching that her mother wanted done. In that time she was denied food, water and sleep, made to stay awake and hungry until the stitching was completed. Her child hands were clumsy, and no matter how hard she tried, the lines of stitching meant to be straight never were. She did the best she could, and when she was just on the brink of completely collapsing, she finished. Standing on weak, stiff legs that cried out in agony of supporting her depleted weight, the tiny girl carried the finished work to her mother.

 

“I tell you to do a good job and this is what you bring me?” the woman scoffed in disgust. “Try again.” She threw another kimono at the girl before tossing the one with the amateur embroidery into the crackling fire pit. “Suki, I don't want to see you taking any breaks this time.”

 

“Mother I'm hungry and I'm tired. Please may I rest?” the small child begged only to be slapped hard, knocked across the room with the force of it.

 

“You would dare complain? After all your father and I give you? You should feel lucky we give you this much you ungrateful child. I'm grateful everyday that it wasn't I who gave birth to you. It's your fault my sister died. You should be dead not her. You killed her just to be born; your father had already lost his life in battle. You're nothing more than a parasite. Now finish that before I have your father tie you to the tree outside.”

 

The girl knew what that meant. If her mother demanded her bondage to the tree as punishment than she would be tied by her ankle and wrist to the tree for a solid week with no food and only the morning dew for water. The weak and barely conscious girl nodded as she stood shakily and took up the new kimono, retreating to her room to work.

 

 

 

“I didn't mean to upset you,” Aki's soft voice brought Suki out of her thoughts and back to the present.

 

“It's not your fault,” Suki assured her as she wiped away the few tears that had fallen.

 

 

 

 

 

“Girls,” Aki's father stuck his head in the door. “Dinner is ready. Is everything alright?” he asked, as he smelt the salt of Suki's tears.

 

“Yes, nothing to worry about,” both girls answered as they looked at each other and then the man in the door.

 

“Alright then you two. Come eat.”

 

 

 

“The food was wonderful,” Suki complimented Tsuku's aunt enthusiastically. “Please, I insist, let me take care of cleaning up.”

 

“Alright dear,” the youkai woman said with an amused though resigned sigh. “I can see I won't be able to change your mind on this.”

 

Suki smiled and stood, bowing low to all at the table before collecting the empty dishes and moving into the kitchen area. The youkai woman shook her head as she watched the girl disappear and then noticed her daughter's troubled look, when she returned her attention to those around her.

 

“Aki? What is it?” her mother asked.

 

“Suki and I…we were talking, she seemed so - haunted,” the girl said in sad worry.

 

Tsukuyomaru looked up and met the eyes of his uncle and aunt when the pinned him with a concerned, questioning glance.

 

“Her family,” he said slowly, hesitantly. “They don't exactly - care - for her.”

 

“What do you mean by that?” his uncle asked.

 

“How could they not care for her? She's such a darling girl,” his aunt said as his cousins were asked to leave the table for the three to talk in private.

 

“From what I've seen, they see her as nothing more than a piece of property, a burdening one at that. I don't know how to tell her, but when I left her with you Aunt I - I killed her father,” he was pinned with a hard glare from his uncle. “He touched her uncle. He had no right to touch her as he did,” he defended his actions and his love's honor.

 

“Touched her how?” the man asked carefully.

 

“He was angered she'd gone missing, he…he checked for proof of her purity.”

 

The youkai's eyes grew cold and hard, flashing a brilliant red for a moment before the rage faded with the red glow.

 

“If you hadn't killed him, I would have.”

 

“Is everything alright?” Suki asked as she stepped into the dinning area quietly. “I'm sorry to interrupt,” she said as she bowed low and remained so. “But I cannot find the towels to dry the dishes with.”

 

Tsukuyomaru's uncle stood from the low table and moved to stand before the bowing girl. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he lifted her back to stand straight.

 

“There is no need for such formality,” he spoke to her gently as he tipped her face up to him with a clawed finger curled beneath her delicate chin. “You are a part of this family now. You are my niece now.” He took her in a gentle, warm embrace for a moment before releasing her. “Have no worry. I shall dry the dishes.”

 

Suki watched with wide eyes as the youkai moved into the kitchen. Turning her questioning eyes on her love, she asked for an explanation.

 

“Don't worry Suki,” Tsuku said as he tugged her to sit in his lap. “He likes you. They all do.”

 

 

 

A.N.: Sorry, I know this is short for what you're all used to.