InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Temporal Sequence ❯ Chapter 14

Temporal Sequence

 

Chapter 14:

 

“Since when have you acted so surprised to see me?” he asked, a tone of amusement highlighting his voice.

 

“I-I,” she stumbled, her mouth running dry, not really knowing what to say. “It's just…that…”

 

“That you're in a hurry to get back to Sesshoumaru?” He dropped her hand then as he turned accusing eyes on her, bequeathing a fiery sense of injustice.

 

Her blood ran cold with guilt, despite his heated glare.

 

“Y-you,” she began, fear threading through her spine by way of an icy needle. “You-you know about that?”

 

“I knew that same night you found him,” he said with a hint of exasperation, his eyes softening though he tried to maintain his ire.

 

She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. She was never a very good liar and Inuyasha had an impeccable ability to scent out a lie, however white and inconspicuous it may be.

 

“You reeked of his blood.”

 

She hadn't touched him, had she? No, but the ground had been saturated with his blood and she had approached him. A horrible misstep that she hadn't noticed, not until Inuyasha said something. She could be a real ditz sometimes.

 

“You're angry then?” she said softly, diverting her eyes to the increasingly interesting grass at his feet.

 

He sighed, loud and obnoxious, like he always did when confronted with frustration of this kind—the kind he couldn't control.

 

“I don't want to be mad at you anymore,” he said softly, sincerity and concern weaving through his voice like a beautiful tapestry in the making. Funny, she had never thought him beautiful before.

 

She met his eyes again, thoughts evading her as she focused on his tired face, awaiting his words with excited and dreaded anticipation, like a first-time mother, unsure of what pain and joy were to befall her.

 

“I was mad,” he began as he took a seat on the rim of the well, “like I was when you told me you'd be home more `cause of school.” He took a deep breath as she held onto hers for all it was worth. “But I got over it. You're gonna leave when it's all over. I don't wanna waste our remaining time because I'm pissed off. I guess,” he sighed again with an exaggerated exhale, “I guess this is kinda the same, huh?”

 

He lifted his eyes to meet hers once again and his gaze was so penetrating that she felt bare under its intrusion, unable to fend off his uninvited inquisition and terribly afraid of what he might discover. He lowered his eyes to his hands as a small smile, not genuine in any sense of the word, lifted the corners of his mouth.

 

“I wanted to kill him,” he whispered darkly as he rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of his left hand. “When you went home to get supplies, I was going to kill him.”

 

“What stopped you?” she asked, her voice faint and hoarse, exhaustion slowly creeping to the forefront of her mind. She really didn't want to deal with this, especially not now.

 

“He wouldn't have known that I did it.”

 

She looked at him for a moment, one ear twitching in agitation as he slouched further over the well. She just didn't understand it at all any more. She once thought that Inuyasha had every right to loathe his odious and biased brother, but now…she just wasn't so sure anymore. Another helping of confusion added to her daily life just didn't seem prudent, but that didn't stop those empty calories from accumulating nonetheless.

 

“After he woke up, I figured out pretty quick that he couldn't remember a damned thing. That made a fight pretty meaningless. But then, I got curious,” he said, tearing his hungry eyes from her. “I wanted to know why you were helping what I thought was our enemy.”

 

She inhaled sharply, preparing herself for the worst. If he had known all along, then he must have been watching if he was trying to uncover her intentions. He must have heard everything she had said to the unconscious taiyoukai…

 

“I wonder if your brother will hate me for this—helping his second most hated enemy in all the world.”

 

“I heard you talk to him,” he said, crestfallen, his voice softening as his guilt took hold, “while he was asleep. I felt my heart crack.” He closed his eyes tightly as though he was fending off tears, but she knew better—he wouldn't cry no matter how profound his hurt. “Then you told him why.”

 

“You've saved us all once, some of us twice. So it's only fair I return the favor.”

 

Her eyes widened as her heart stilled, her breath a shallow entity, frozen within her lungs.

 

“I hope he never finds out, but if he does, it'll be okay. You see, it hurts me every time he sees Kikyou. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I can't accept his love for her. What I mean, is when he looks at me and sees her. He called me her once, when he kissed me. But he doesn't need to know that. If he ever finds out, I'll tell him it was for him and your little girl. You stopped his rampage that day—saving his life and my heart. You killed Mukotsu. I owe you, Sesshoumaru.”

 

She felt the undeniable need to justify her actions while she was tending to his wounds because she knew that it was a kind of betrayal to Inuyasha, no matter how illusory. So she talked it out verbally, as unfortunate as that had turned out, but the truth of the matter was that she really did do it for Inuyasha and Rin. The whole Kikyou monologue held a degree of truth as well, a dark musing really, to ebb the sharp edge of betrayal and to perhaps use at a later time had Inuyasha found out and become unjustly enraged—she would counter him through that example. She didn't help Sesshoumaru to even the score with Inuyasha, though. She wouldn't even consider letting him think that was the ultimate truth behind her motives.

 

“It wasn't a game, Inuyasha,” she said evenly, her previous fear melting as their eyes met and her blood warmed with a sense of righteousness. “I stood there and looked at him for a while, not sure what to do. I was so indecisive. But then I clearly remembered a series of events that you could not possibly recall. I remembered him holding his sword back so not to kill you as you repeatedly lunged at him. Blood hung from your claws and you were so out of it that you couldn't even speak. You just kept coming at him, no matter how much you bled. I thought you were going to kill yourself or he was going to kill you—either way, you'd be dead. Then he knocked you out and he told me how to reverse your transformation while I cried over your body, thinking he would kill you. But he didn't and he left without another word. I was grateful and in a way I guess I felt indebted to him. So I helped him.”

 

“I know,” he whispered, his voice seemingly forced from his lungs.

 

“I was afraid of your reaction if you were to find out. I knew you would be hurt. So I justified it to myself. I take no pride in using Kikyou as a justification. But god, Inuyasha, it hurts.”

 

“That was one of the reasons I let you help him. But damn, Kagome, you spoke to him like a friend. Like he'd understand.”

 

“He was unconscious!”

 

“Weren't you even afraid of what he'd do once he woke up?”

 

“I figured he'd still be too injured to hurt me. I was right.”

 

“It was still too risky, Kagome. Not to mention all the hungry youkai wantin' a piece of an injured taiyoukai.”

 

Did he…actually…protect them? She refused to think about it or else she might lose all incentive to finish this conversation. It held the potential to bruise and she needed to be prepared to be angry with him in case he decided to mount his high horse and do something stupid.

 

“But it worked out, so it doesn't matter.”

 

“I just wish you would've talked to me about it, that's all. I thought we were friends.”

 

“We are friends! And you wouldn't have understood.”

 

“I knew you'd say that! That's why I took the time to think it through before I even approached you. Things were so tense as it was; I didn't want to upset you by doing something rash.”

 

How…thoughtful of him. She really wasn't accustomed to such thoughtfulness on Inuyasha's part and it was especially hard to believe that the all-mighty steed was stabled when Sesshoumaru was involved.

 

“Because,” he began slowly, a ghostly shadow skimming across his eyes, “because it could all end at any moment and I've never told you how I feel.”

 

She stilled as all the possibilities ran through her mind. She didn't want to consider any of them, not when she'd been in denial for so long. Ignorance, as frustrating as it could be, also possessed a blissful quality that she was reluctant to forfeit. But Inuyasha had never been more mature, she thought, and spoken with such candidness about his feelings. This was a nice change, but why did it feel so foreboding?

 

“There never was a choice to be made, Kagome. I could never choose between you and

Kikyou. It's never been like that. I've never really mixed you guys up. I know better

than anyone that you two were completely different people. I just can't help it when I see

her in you. The funny thing is that the most similar thing about you two is the fact that I could never have either one of you.”

 

“What do you mean?” she asked, her breath hitching as a shadow fell upon her, darkening her body to accompany her mind as it consumed this upcoming dread. She didn't want to consume it—she didn't think she had the strength to digest it.

 

“I must accept the inevitable changes that will occur around me.”

 

Her eyes fluttered closed as she allowed Sesshoumaru's words to engulf her, like a child's blanket, enveloping her with a warm sense of security. She would live through this—she had been living through this. She had long ago heard this bittersweet truth knocking, but now it was time to open the door and invite it in.

 

“She's dead and you're five-hundred years in the future. I think I was meant to die on

that tree.”

 

Kikyou had once told her that she didn't belong here, in this time, and she had accepted that truth. After all, she had never once questioned the elder miko's wisdom. Perhaps it was better this way. He was practically paving her way to the well and truth be told, she wasn't so adverse to easing her way back to modern-day Tokyo.

 

But that's not exactly what he meant…

 

The dying sun shone red as she realized the truth, like a soon-to-be widow, opening the

door to uniformed officers in the dead of night.

 

He never intended to walk away from this.

 

“You've planned on dying this whole time, haven't you?” she asked softly, the light of day fading, taking with it the last slivers of luminance within her.

 

“I must adapt.”

 

The world was not hers to control, no less the heart of a mystical hanyou five hundred years in the past, his kind long forgotten and near extinction—it was a truth long awaiting acknowledgement in her life. And now that she had finally nodded toward it in recognition, it was time for her to figure out where to go from here. But she had known this outcome was undeniable even if the formula was off—the well led home, did it not?

 

He smiled briefly in appreciation of her remarkable intuition and unspoken understanding, knowing that their bond transcended blood and spirit, but not an old, dry well whose magic was interwoven within the fabric of time. No, their bond was temporary, meant to forge reluctant allies within a fragment of two lives—finite and far from timeless.

 

“I figure Naraku has a pretty good chance of taking me out. But you better believe I'm gonna take that son of a bitch down with me!” he said with a clenched fist. “If he doesn't, then my grave is still marked.”

 

Kikyou… It was a love before her time and beyond her comprehension. Two beings so helplessly in love and so horrifically betrayed that rage permeated the grave and animated a soulless shell, hell-bent on exacting revenge. So in love he was, that he repeatedly sought her after she tried to kill him, ignored the fact that she tried to murder his best friend and openly embraced her when she offered him hell. It was infinitely timeless and tragically encompassing—a love without opposition.

 

Inuyasha was never hers to have.

 

But she already knew this, in that deep, dark place of her mind that she so rarely and begrudgingly visited. The place where that sometimes-damnable intuition stored unwanted truths. She must accept and adapt to these things beyond her control—it was the only way she could move on.

 

“I'd be selfish to ask you to stay. We don't even know what the hell's gonna happen

when the jewel's completed. You might not have a choice. How can I even think of being with you when that possibility is up in the air? I'd be a fool, not to mention the fact I'd be marring my honor.”

 

“I strove to match his control and resolve so I too would not mar my honor.”

 

“How so?” she asked as she shook the remnants of Sesshoumaru's words from her mind. This was perhaps the most important conversation she had ever had with Inuyasha and she was thinking of his damn brother! She felt low, really low.

 

“I promised to go with her to hell. It'd be greedy to undermine my oath to be with you.

And I don't wanna do something dishonorable `cause it's convenient at the time to do it.”

 

“Greed makes one take short cuts. Convenience, he had said, is never worth the price of honor.”

 

Why were his words so reminiscent of Sesshoumaru's?

 

“I've loved you for a long time, Kagome, but the truth is that I'm not even sure how I love you. That's not fair to you. You deserve someone who can love you fully. I can't—my soul is already claimed. Your time is better for humans anyhow. It's best that you go back if you have a choice. I refuse to be an obstacle to your happiness.”

 

“You love her that much?” She knew it was wrong of her to ask, but some deviant part of her mind wanted him to say that he loved her more than Kikyou. But that wasn't true and his soul would never find peace until he fulfilled his vow to her.

 

He froze, but she continued, all the while realizing that it was also a testament of his love for her to think of her happiness over his own.

 

“I understand, Inuyasha, and I admire your selflessness in this situation,” she said, liquid sorrow burning behind her eyes as the reality of the situation finally sunk to a depth more than necessarily sufficient. “I was so upset when you said her name after you kissed me. I should have seen the truth. The love between you two was tragic—it suffered a premature death. You simply acted on instinct, because it should have been her you were kissing. I wish we would have had this conversation a while back.”

 

Kissing her was a betrayal to Kikyou; just like helping Sesshoumaru was a betrayal to Inuyasha

 

“Yeah, well, I didn't exactly have all my thoughts together on the topic. So talking about it wouldn't have had any purpose.”

 

“Talking holds no significance if it has no purpose. You would do well to learn that.”

 

Inuyasha was saying something, but it fell on deaf ears, and her sadness wasn't so permeating anymore as it floated away on the breeze...with Inuyasha's words. Despite her best efforts to pay attention to him, she found herself recalling things that seemed virtually unimportant until now.

 

“It is you—Sesshoumaru!”

 

“Indeed. I've quite missed you as well…little brother.”

 

They had met before, seemingly more than once. Inuyasha never spoke of his brother's presence in his childhood, but Inuyasha rarely spoke of his past. They had known each other, that was for sure, but what was Sesshoumaru's role in the young Inuyasha's life?

 

“These human creatures—I should think you'd had enough of them. Or is it a taste from father?”

 

“You couldn't have come all this way to tell me that!”

 

They hated each other. Sesshoumaru appeared to hate Inuyasha because of his human blood, but why did Inuyasha hate Sesshoumaru? She always assumed it was because Sesshoumaru taunted Inuyasha as a child for being a hanyou and that perhaps he had tried to kill him on several occasions. Had Sesshoumaru tried to kill Inuyasha before she had met him? If so, why wasn't he dead?

 

“Certainly these feelings of mercy of yours are not something I inherited from our great and terrible father. When it comes to humans, I, of course, bear no such weaknesses.”

 

“To Inuyasha, his half human heritage has been a curse.”

 

“For someone like Sesshoumaru, who could only hate humans, wielding the Tetsusaiga was impossible.”

 

But she had seen Sesshoumaru wield the Tetsusaiga, even if it was with a human arm.

 

“Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

 

“Inuyasha, when did you first meet your brother?”

 

“What? Why is that important, especially at a time like this?”

 

“Please, Inuyasha, answer my question.”

 

“I don't really remember. I mean, he came around every now and then to beat me up. I remember this one time he chased me for hours. I was so afraid he was gonna kill me!”

 

“Training begins with conditioning after all.”

 

“Have you ever heard of an inu-youkai named Kazuma?”

 

“No, why?”

 

“Will you tell me about him? Your uncle?”

 

“His name was Kazuma and he raised me… He was so apathetic that I could never tell when he was feeling or if he was feeling at all. But he did…”

 

“Did he love you?”

 

“I'm not sure.”

 

“After he chased you, what did he do on other visits after that?”

 

“I don't see how this is important!”

 

“I promise you, Inuyasha, that it's very important. So tell me, please?”

 

He sighed. “The next time he made me hide from him, saying he'd kill me if he found me. Then he gave me an old bokken and beat the hell outta me with it!”

 

“My father gave me a bokken then. I practiced nonstop hoping to impress him. He didn't seem to notice. But my uncle thought it foolish of him to let me use a practice tool as a plaything. He was quick to take it from my hands.”

 

“Inuyasha, do you think he was trying to train you?”

 

“Feh,” he scoffed. “More like trying to beef me up so he could kill me without staining his honor!”

 

“He taught you other things, though, right? Like the importance of honor?”

 

“Sort of, I guess.”

 

“Tradition stands as it does for a reason—to remind us what has worked in the past...”

 

He was carrying on Kazuma's tradition. It was all he knew.

 

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe he didn't hate you?”

 

“Then why'd he always remind me that I'm a half-breed!”

 

“Perhaps the one who most resembles the father is not Sesshoumaru, but Inuyasha.”

 

“As for my father, I know I look like him and that his presence lingered for days even when he was gone. But that is all.”

 

She was missing something. The pieces were sitting before her; she simply had to find where they all fit together. Sesshoumaru wasn't born hating humans, nor did he hate them as much as he claimed. That meant…something happened. Something that made him want to hate humans. His father was the most powerful being he had ever known and, at one point, he wished to emulate him—a demon that had, for obvious reasons, not hated humans.

 

“He told me that my father didn't hate me. He just didn't know how to deal with me. It is a consequence of his own inadequacies, not your own, he had said. Then he told me that he didn't hate me either, or else he wouldn't be taking care of me as he had been.”

 

“He should have been there, but Kazuma said that I would be past my prime had I waited on him. His position always kept him away.”

 

His father ignored him and Inuyasha was probably similar in some way to their father. Sesshoumaru had eventually grown bitter toward his father, a mystical heirloom furthering his hatred. Combine that sentiment with a developed hatred of humans and the conclusion was that he despised Inuyasha, though his hatred was not nearly as solid as he had wished it.

 

“He taught me many things, but personally, through our interactions, he taught me that the deepest love and most fervent hate are thinner than the width of rice paper.”

 

He wanted to hate Inuyasha—he tried to hate him, but the line was so thin that it hardly constituted existence.

 

“Then I would presume that these concepts are equity-based in theory, but not in practice… Basically, your future relies on illusions of what ought to be…”

 

Sesshoumaru understood illusions—he lived one. He should hate Inuyasha in theory when taking into account his life before Inuyasha, but in practice, he fell far short of his goal. Otherwise, Inuyasha ought to be dead.

 

But when did he start hating humans? Was it his uncle's doing or the fact that his father impregnated one? She figured it would have to be a combination of those two things, since children didn't always take their caretaker's words to heart. And Sesshoumaru had said that Inuyasha inherited an affinity for human females from their father as though he had not.

 

What was she missing?

 

“Kagome, what's goin' on?”

 

“Inuyasha, if you knew from the start that I was lying, why tell me now?” This was definitely a point of curiosity and now she wondered if it had something to do with the current topic of conversation.

 

“Miroku had a little run-in with Sesshoumaru at the village. A man stabbed Sesshoumaru and lived to tell the tale. I think being around you has been good for him. Maybe it'll change him a little. I mean, he is my brother. I don't really know him all that well and if there's a chance to change him for the better, then I won't stand in the way.”

 

He had spoken briefly of that and she had seen his bloodied back. He was changing it would seem, but she wasn't the reason, or at least she didn't think so. A little girl had sparked the beginning of that transformation.

 

Rin… If his bias had been ingrained from youth, then it would be a genuine hatred. So why would he take a little human girl into his care? That had long been a mystery to her.

 

“Or is it a taste from father?”

 

Honor ran in the family, so maybe an attraction to human females did too.…

 

If that was the case, then why did he act like he hated humans?

 

People learn prejudices at a young age or…from experience…

 

“Hitomi was beautiful…”

 

He hadn't spoken of the woman named Hitomi at any length. Was she the key to unraveling this mystery? If she was pivotal in proving that Sesshoumaru had never truly hated Inuyasha, then that could only mean one thing…

 

She was human.

 

“Inuyasha,” she said breathlessly, “I think we've had your brother all wrong.”

 

x x x

 

He secured the towel tightly around his waist, vaguely aware of the droplets of water still clinging to his skin, but he didn't pay it any mind—not when Kagome's scent was nearing. His shoulders suddenly felt less burdensome.

 

“Sesshoumaru?”

 

The moonlight was subtle tonight, he thought as he rounded a patch of trees, all the while wondering what took Kagome so long to return. It had been evening for quite some time now and she had left before noon.

 

He saw her back the moment he rounded the bend, her yellow pack sprawled out on the ground as her fingers twitched at her side. He noticed her clothing was different than what she usually wore, which she had defined as jeans and a t-shirt. Tonight, however, a strange white top clung to her torso, secured from around her neck and dark blue cloth hugged her hips as it traveled the length of her legs to flare out at her calves in wide cuffs. He could see the curve of her hip.

 

And he wished he hadn't.

 

She whispered his name as she turned to him; the syllables so delicately annunciated that he could hardly recognize it as his name. Her face immediately lit afire as her eyes darted to the ground. “I-I was looking for you.”

 

Why was she suddenly acting so shy? She had never acted as such before. The only time she blushed like that was when she was embarrassed and that usually accompanied some sort of bodily consciousness on her part. Was it because he wore only a towel around his waist? Was it possible that she could feel self-conscious for other people? It seemed plausible, but explanatorily lacking.

 

“How was your visit?” he asked conversationally, though what he really wanted to know was what had kept her away. For some reason, the thought of directly asking her that particular question seemed implicit of something he was reluctant to explore.

 

She was surprised by his inquiry. Funny, he was under the impression that they had already crossed the line between acquaintances and friends.

 

“F-fine,” she stuttered. “It was fine.”

 

She mustn't be feeling forthright, he thought as he surveyed her odd attire once more. Curiously, she blushed harder.

 

“Why do you look different today?” It wasn't just her clothes. Her lips were glossy and looked even plumper than before and the bone at her brow was accentuated with an earthy color. A copper ringlet with blue flora painted on its rigid surface hung nonchalantly around her wrist, the trinket spilling over onto the top of her hand. The only thing that remained the same was her hair, and even that ensnared his eyes as soft, dark waves rolled down her shoulder gently and uninhibited.

 

“Oh,” she said, once again taken aback as her fingers subconsciously ran through her hair. “I went out with my mother today and we had a nice meal. I guess I just felt like looking nice today.” She blushed as her fingers fumbled with the hem of the white cloth, discreetly tugging the material downward.

 

“Is it customary in your family to dress well for meals?” he asked curiously. The girl had never before seemed too absorbed with her appearance and so the change was interesting at the very least.

 

“No, not really. Only for special occasions I suppose.”

 

“Had something occurred to warrant a special occasion?”

 

A smile stole her lips then. “Yeah, my mom found her savior in the form of a fat check.”

 

“What does that mean?” he asked while quirking a brow, insinuating his desire for elaboration.

 

“Oh, right,” she said to herself in a chiding voice. “You see, my family owns an ancient shrine and we live on the premises and take care of it. It's costly and time-consuming; not allowing my mother to hold a full-time job, so there's not a lot of money to take care of the family. Since it's so old, the government gives us grants every year to keep up maintenance. There are also a few foundations that give money to sites labeled culturally relevant so that historical buildings never completely fade from existence. A newer one of those foundations added us to their list and sent us a good sum of money. We needed it so much.”

 

“These foundations are philanthropic then?” She nodded, her smile still bright and shining. “Your government provides for you as well to preserve cultural and historic integrity?” She nodded enthusiastically this time. “Interesting.”

 

“Yeah, well, it's not like we're rich or anything, but the shrine would have been sold or torn down if it weren't for the help we receive.”

 

“What does `full-time job' mean?” he asked, despite realizing he was veering off topic. He couldn't help it though; everything she said was just so damn interesting.

 

“Remember that book you read? Well, people like my mom, who don't have much capital, have to trade their labor for capital to people who own lots of capital. That's then called her `job' and the trade-off of labor for capital is called her salary, or, in some people's case, wages. Wages are not as desirable as salaries because your labor is traded for a lesser amount of capital and it's implied that your job is less secure. But mom's job is also part-time. You see, in my era, people have expected amount of hours they work per week. The standard for women is about forty hours per week whereas men usually work more. My mother, however, works half that time since she's taking care of her family and the shrine on her own. She's got a lot of responsibility.”

 

What an interesting way of doing things. At least people seemed to be kept busy and out of trouble. Then again, who watched the children? He supposed women still did because they `worked' fewer hours, but it was still a substantial amount of time since children tended to be such cumbersome creatures. But she did say her mother worked half the time while still managing all those other daunting tasks. How did they live such a strained existence?

 

“You mother works half the expected time so your family must struggle, correct?”

 

“Yes,” she replied with a sigh, her smile finally fading. “That's why these grants are so important. They help us survive.”

 

It was like a social fail-safe—something nonexistent in these times. It seemed the future held many surprises. But why did she suddenly seem so discontent? Was it because her mother was not a thriving capitalist? Or did it remind her of her dead father that had presumably and unintentionally left her family in this uncomfortable predicament? He thought better of asking her.

 

“Does it bother you to be financially disadvantaged? It does seem prestigious in your world to have capital after all.” He wondered how she'd respond to such an open-ended question. How did she feel about her life five hundred years away?

 

“No. My mother is so inspiring. I'd crumble under so much pressure,” she responded flatly while he questioned the truth behind her statement. “It's just…just that again I had to give up something that I wanted.” That piqued his interest to an even higher plane than it had already occupied. He waited patiently for her to continue.

 

“I want to go to Tokyo University so badly, but we can't afford it and my high school grades pretty much disqualify any scholarships, which would pay for it otherwise. My mother offered it to me today and I declined it.”

 

She valued her schooling. How interesting, though not surprising.

 

“What are these schools?”

 

“High school is the last completely government-funded schooling we get. After that, there are universities that you have to pay for that give you an even higher level of education in which you chose a specialized field of concentration. It prepares you for a really good job.”

 

“Were those tests from your high school then?”

 

“No, I finished already. Since my grades weren't so great I had to enroll in community college so that maybe a real university would accept me. Think of community college as a bridge between high school and university that acts as a reconciliation between the two for less than perfect students.”

 

“So I take it these grades are merely marks given by your teachers in order to assess your knowledge in a particular area of study?”

 

She nodded.

 

“You don't strike me as stupid. Why were your marks so poor?”

 

The atmosphere seemed to swirl with confusion then as her head drooped in accordance with her slouching shoulders. Did his question upset her?

 

“I had other obligations,” she said softly, her tongue darting out to taste her lips. Her tongue looked soft, a distinct contrast to his preconceived notion of it being as sharp as a razor. Again, curiosity gripped him as a strange thought crept into his mind.

 

He wondered what her tongue would feel like…

 

He shook his head as his previous thoughts on her education vied for dominance with his new and absurd musings. However, she interrupted him before he had the chance to speak.

 

“I brought some books,” she said off-handily as she squatted down and unfastened the metal buckles of her pack. “I tried to cover as many topics as I could, but I didn't bring any focusing solely on history. I thought that wouldn't be wise. I hope you don't mind.”

 

He approached her as she pulled each book from her bag, stacking them neatly in a vertical pile.

 

“I've got a lot, though,” she said merrily as he read the word `art' from one of the more colorful covers.

 

“What is that?” he asked as she set a thickly bound book in a new pile.

 

“Psychology,” she said excitedly. “It's my area of concentration in school. It's the study of the mind. It's pretty complicated, well, at least the organic part of it is, but it's really interesting.”

 

That was her interest in schooling? Perhaps he would read that one first.

 

He was standing mere inches from her and so he was able to sift through each scent that clung to her body, though he wasn't sure what compelled him to do so—perhaps it was that burning need to know what took her so long to return to him. Her natural scent was dominant of course, but it was laced with other scents as well. He could smell the faint remnants of her last meal, her soap, and something unnaturally fruity. He uncovered a trace amount of another, older, feminine scent, which he figured must be her mother, but the outer most foreign scent, indicating the last thing she truly made contact with, was very male…and part youkai.

 

He tensed, his shoulders once again taking on a rigid countenance.

 

This left him perplexed. Why was he reacting in such a way? It was subtle, yes, but remained indicative of an unnatural attachment to the human female. Or was it natural? When he thought on it a moment, he realized that he had not previously been in female company for any length of time. Perhaps it was an instinct never before tapped because he had never been in a situation such as this before. Either way, he didn't know what to make of it.

 

Nonetheless, he was still bothered by this bewildering tension, and his frustration further mounted upon realizing that somehow, somewhere, he knew this scent gently intertwined with hers. Though he had no mental picture to summon, Sesshoumaru inferred that his brother was a likely candidate seeing as how they were companions.

 

He knelt down to get another, fuller inhale, just to be sure.

 

She moved as he sniffed, her hair brushing across his nose.

 

“Oh! What are you doing?” she exclaimed, her surprise and fright causing her to fall over onto her bottom, her hands finding the earth behind her back as she maintained her upright position. She was facing him with her left knee propped up and her breathing erratic, and just as his mind was about to embark upon all the possibilities, her eyes drifted down his stomach and suddenly he, too, become rather preoccupied with his own breathing.

 

“There're stripes on your hip,” she said softly as his eyes followed hers to where his towel had begun its descent.

 

“And?” he asked as a strange burning erupted in his belly as he waited unabashed for her response. He always seemed to be wondering how she'd react to things.

 

“I think you need to put some clothes on,” she scolded as she scooted away from him and sat up straight with her legs crossed under her.

 

He stood, unable to prevent and ultimately unconcerned about the deviant smirk that took hold of his face as he made his way to a neat little pile of clothes that she had folded that morning. He pulled the blue shirt over his head with ease, marveling at how less cumbersome these clothes were to his old ones. There were no straps for his fingers to fumble over.

 

“You were sniffing me, weren't you?” she asked suddenly as her eyes remained strayed from him.

 

“Yes,” he said flatly as he readjusted the stretchy band of his `sweats.'

 

“May I ask why?”

 

“You smelt different. I wanted to make sure my nose hadn't deceived me.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It just seemed unlikely that a male inu-hanyou had come into direct contact with your body. Apparently, it was not such a far-fetched notion.”

 

He swore he could feel her nervous energy overwhelm even the forest creatures as he sauntered back to her, taking a seat across from her on the grass so that he could aptly see her face. Was this uncomfortable for her as well?

 

“Was it my brother?”

 

“Yes,” she whispered, again looking away from him.

 

Confusion was ripe and her sorrow obvious, making him unable to forsake the topic until he understood why his brother made her feel so much.

 

“Do your obligations that hindered your ability to properly study have to do with him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What are your obligations to my brother?”

 

She still would not look at him.

 

“I promised to stand by his side.”

 

Her face drooped farther, if it was possible.

 

“You belong to him then?”

 

He could hear her heart begin to race.

 

“No.”

 

“Does this concern the reason for your purpose here?”

 

She nodded, her heart skipping a beat this time.

 

“If I,” she began, her tongue finding her lips again. “If I tell you something personal, may I ask you an intimate question as well?”

 

What a strange proposition, he thought as his eyes followed every movement of her mouth in hopes to see her tongue again. He felt very out of himself at the moment and so very curious as to what she was going to say that he responded suddenly, before he even had the chance to ask himself what she could possibly want to ask him.

 

“Yes,” he said automatically, not even dwelling on it in fear of the regret that may ensue.

 

“I was in love once. But he could never make up his mind about how he felt for me. His heart was with another though, and it made me feel terrible. As shameful as it is, I took solace in the fact that he couldn't have her, but that didn't seem to make him want me more. I just kept waiting and wanting, hoping for the day when he'd finally chose me.”

 

Her face was the sublimation of longing to disappointment, happiness vaporizing into a mist of hurt.

 

“That day never came, did it?” He regretted his summation once the first tear fell.

 

“I shouldn't be sad. I've always known how much he loved her and I was there the night he promised to go to hell with her. He's too honorable to renege his vow and truth be told, I wouldn't want him any other way. He's wonderful just the way he is, even if that means I can never have him.”

 

He was no fool. She was speaking of his brother—that much he knew. But why did that knowledge make his chest tighten? This could not be healthy, he thought as he recalled shoulders that refused to relax.

 

“Perhaps it is better this way,” he said as he conjured up images of Kazuma's hand on his shoulder, the smell of fine sake overwhelming him with a sense of finality. “Time is favorable to you, but not to him. Trust me, it's better this way.”

 

“Why is my pain better than my happiness?” she asked, distress coloring her voice.

 

“That's not what I'm saying. He is hanyou and hence it is doubtful he will live to see your time. You were born in a different era and that is where you belong. Time alleviates all hurt and it is favorable to you, for when you go home he will not be there to remind you of what you are missing. In the end, he would have been unable to have you.”

 

A fit of sobs raked through her body then, the scent of loss almost too much for him to bear. That was when he realized that Kagome's feelings were so intense they seemed to materialize into tangible entities, so real they were inescapable to all in their presence.

 

Her pain was so sharp and true he thought he was bleeding.

 

“H-have you ever been in love, Sesshoumaru?” she quipped in broken syllables.

 

“I once thought I was, but…”

 

Her eyes were pleading as she looked to him for some semblance of adjustment and reassurance. He found he couldn't deny her.

 

“But I learned many years thereafter that I had no idea what constituted love.”

 

“What made you change your mind?”

 

“I realized that I shared nothing of myself with her, with the exception of some of my time, during which my thoughts were more consumed with having her than listening to her. My father once told me that one cannot love another they do not know. So how can one love someone that doesn't knows them?”

 

She wanted to know his experiences with love to feel more at ease with her own. That was understandable he supposed, especially considering his age in comparison to hers. But she was about to be sorely disappointed in what he had to say. He had only possessed feelings for one woman, one who could not return his feelings based on her own people's ignorance. He would have thought Hitomi knew better considering she had spent so much time with him, but it would seem her prejudices were planted too deep for even him to uproot. But Kazuma was right as usual and he now felt that it did, in fact, turn out for the best, though his younger self could not see Hitomi's shortcomings as an individual case, but rather as a generalization for humans as a whole. However, in the short time he had known Kagome, he had learned that not all human females were shallow beings incapable of original thought.

 

He had no beautiful stories of romance to share with Kagome, just a hardened truth. He briefly wondered if tales of romance was what she was looking for, or if she simply wanted company in her misery. Either way, he had something to tell her and he hoped that shared unhappiness was what she desired, because that was all he had to offer.

 

However, the fact that he was so eager to tell her about his past made him a bit uneasy when it was a topic he had divulged to none before her, or at least as far as he could recall. But the truth of the matter was that he did indeed hold a rather firm sense of respect for her and so this was something he could always give to her without a second thought.

 

In all actuality, it made him feel slightly warmer knowing there was someone out there he could confide in. He was beginning to think that perhaps she felt the same way or else she would be toting after his brother instead of sitting where she was now.

 

It was comforting on so many levels to have her sitting across from him now.

 

For now, he would share the story of Hitomi with her while carelessly brushing aside the meaning behind his last thought as though it had never even crossed his mind.

 

 

x x x