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

On the seventh day, of the seventh month, exactly seven years after he'd last seen Kagome, Inuyasha visited the Bone-eater's Well. He leaned against the wooden frame, staring down into the darkness until his eyes started to water. It would be ridiculous to say that he was crying, he didn't cry. But an unfamiliar prickling under his eyelids warned him that tears weren't all that far away.

 

He missed her, damn it. He missed her smile, the way she laughed. He missed the way she argued with him when he was being pigheaded. He even missed being sat, but he'd be damned to hell alongside Naraku before he'd admit to that.

 

After that final battle, just seven years ago today, the well had closed to him forever. He guessed that it must have also closed on Kagome's side for she'd never come back to see him. That hurt, really hurt. He'd had a lot of things to say to her that had never been said. So he'd been an idiot and wasted the time they'd had, never saying the words his heart longed to speak.

 

And Kagome's heart had longed to hear them, he was sure of it. Instead they'd celebrated that night by toasting Sango and Miroku's engagement. They'd sat in Kaede's hut, side by side but never touching. And they'd laughed at Shippou's jokes, spoken of past victories, and the moments that had drawn them closer. But he hadn't spoken to Kagome, not about what was important.

 

That was why he came back every year…hoping to see some sign that she'd returned. How he longed to emerge from the forest, see that silly yellow backpack sitting beside the well. He could almost hear her voice, see her long legs kicking slowly as she waited for him.

 

Did you miss me, Inuyasha?

 

“Yes,” he whispered, running his fingers over the edge of the well. “I miss you, Kagome. I miss everything about you. The scent of your skin, the way your hair would fall over your shoulder when you turned to look at me. Most of all, I miss talking with you. Sometimes I think you're the only one who ever really listened.”

 

I miss you, Inuyasha.

 

Inuyasha sighed and rubbed his eyes, sinking down to rest his cheek on the splintered wood of the well. If he'd only known, he wouldn't have been so damn shy or so damn selfish. He would have said those words that Kagome wanted to hear. Hell, he would have shouted them to the heavens!

 

What did you want to say, Inuyasha?

 

That night, they'd stood beside the well together, hand in hand. He'd sensed that she was waiting for him to say something. And he'd wanted to say it; with all of his heart he'd wanted to say it. But when he'd looked into her deep and luminous eyes, his tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth and his throat had gone dry as dust.

 

The moment passed and Kagome smiled, a little sadly, but a real smile nonetheless. Then she'd given his hand a quick squeeze and leaned close to kiss him on the cheek.

 

“I'll see you tomorrow,” she whispered, not wanting to pressure him. “We'll have a long talk, just you and me.”

 

And he'd been grateful, grateful damn it! Happy to have a few hours reprieve, as if a man shouldn't want to tell the woman he loves that he wants her, needs her, desires her in all the ways a man should desire a woman. He'd wanted to tell her that he'd been able to let go of Kikyou's memory, that he could let go of the guilt he used to feel whenever he realized how much he loved Kagome.

 

When she never came back to him, he'd tried to go after her.

 

The well hadn't opened for him. He'd jumped in a hundred times that day, only to give up with sore feet and an aching heart.

 

Then he'd jumped a hundred times the next day…and the next, until his feet were raw and bloody. He'd hammered his fists into the walls of the well until his skin had cracked and bled, but no Kagome had appeared to bandage the cuts. No sweet admonishments to be more careful or exasperated scolding at his injuries, and he'd sat at the bottom of the well for three days before Miroku came to coax him out.

 

“We have to accept that perhaps Kagome-sama isn't able to return to us,” the monk had said quietly. He sat beside the despondent hanyou and patted his arm. “Now that the jewel is gone, it may be possible that…”

 

“That what?” Inuyasha growled, his eyes glinting with anger. “That she can't come back? That we'll never see her again? Forget it, monk! I'm never giving up on Kagome!”

 

And he'd meant it too. For one full year he'd slept beside the well, guarding it until his appearance became as haggard as a wraith's. They started to talk about the ghost of Inuyasha's forest, how a hanyou had lost his true love for a second time and gone quite mad.

 

But he hadn't, not really. He just hated letting go and worst of all, he hated that Kagome would never know how much he'd loved her.

 

But he still hadn't given up. Time moved slowly for him, biding his days, pretending to live without her until that one day a year when he had to come back, stare into the depths and make a wish.

 

“Kagome,” he whispered, feeling a treacherous tear slide down his cheek and fall into darkness. “Kagome, please…if you can hear me, come back to me.”

 

Silence answered him, just as it had answered him each and every time before. Sighing, he slowly got to his feet; his claws digging into the weathered wood as if by grasping at splinters, he could pull back that piece of his heart that was gone forever. It still made him angry, it still made him sad, but he was learning to live with this pain as much as he hated it.

 

“All right,” he said, soft words upon the night wind. “I'll see you next time, Kagome. Don't worry, I'm still waiting…don't think I'll ever give up.”

 

He turned to go, the breeze ruffling his hair and pulling gently as lover on his sleeves. Inuyasha thought this was the only place he'd ever feel close to her, no matter how many years separated them. Hanyou lived a long time; it was possible that he might one day meet her in the future. He simply couldn't accept that this had to be the end…

 

“Inuyasha?”

 

His ears must be playing tricks on him, either that or someone had an awful sense of humor. Even Shippou wouldn't think such a joke was funny, but Inuyasha's heart twisted in his chest. Hoping, waiting, listening to the silence and imagining it…

 

“Inuyasha, are you up there?”

 

He spun around and leaned over the well, almost choking when he saw a face at the bottom. A face that smiled at him, an arm that was waving like a pale blur in the pit of darkness and part of him couldn't believe his eyes. It couldn't be, he'd wished all this time but tonight…

 

“Kagome,” he whispered. “Is it really you?”

 

Her laugh echoed up to him, strangely distorted by the cool walls of the well. “Of course it's me,” she replied, eyes twinkling and a merry lilt in her voice. “Who else would it be?”

 

Relief washed over him and Inuyasha felt his knees go weak. It was her, it was really her and his heart trembled in his chest. Choking on the words a bit, he raised up his head and leaned over the side of the well. “It's been a long time,” he managed to say, “I thought I'd lost you forever.”

 

“There's no such thing as forever.” Her words still seemed faint, as if she were truly speaking to him across a chasm of time. “There is only right now.”

 

Why did her words give him a chill? Inuyasha glanced around him, suddenly struck by the quiet of the small clearing. The breeze had vanished and the night had become edged in stillness. Not a single blade of grass was stirring and only the full, pale face of the moon kept him company in his lonely vigil. He took a deep breath and felt unable to fill his lungs, like the air itself had become turgid, too heavy to move.

 

Kagome voice drifted up to his ears, sweet yet strangely flat. “Aren't you going to come down and get me, Inuyasha? I've been waiting for you all this time.”

 

“I've been waiting for you too,” he muttered, his head feeling stuffed with wool. He felt oddly disconnected, as if the thin red string of his life, woven upon the greater web, had suddenly been cast free.

 

No, not cast free. Cut…with the ragged end still fraying…

 

“Why now?” Inuyasha whispered. “Why did you come back now?”

 

“Jump down and see.”

 

He jerked, his legs and arms compelled to obey. His heart was already in the well, but somehow his mind was resisting. Flush against his hip, Tessaiga pulsed suddenly. His palm drifted towards the hilt, the blade's warning like a single bright light in the darkness.

 

Run away, save yourself. Kagome is no more…

 

Her face was a blur, why couldn't he see her clearly?

 

There was a chill coming from the well now. No, more like an icy fog, obscuring his sight, blotting out his senses. It made him dizzy and Tessaiga's warnings became a throbbing ache in the back of his mind. Slowly, he raised his right foot and stepped up on the edge of the well.

 

Don't!

 

“I have to know,” he whispered. And let himself fall into her dream.

 

oOo

 

Dragged back to consciousness by the miserable aching lump on the back of his head, Inuyasha opened his eyes and wondered if he was going to be sick. He'd jumped into the well and after that…everything had gone black.

 

“Inuyasha? Are you okay?”

 

Kagome!

 

“Jumping into the well like that, were you trying to kill yourself?” Kagome made a scolding sound with her tongue and brushed his hair back from his face. He was sweaty; her hand felt cool and dry. But he didn't remember landing, all he could remember was a terrible compulsion dragging him down…

 

“Is it really you?” he asked, almost afraid to hear her answer.

 

“Of course it's me,” she said, sounding just like herself. “You hit your head pretty hard, did you know that?”

 

He sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to clear his mind. Kagome's sweet scent wrapped around him like a blanket, everything about it so warm and wonderful and so right that he couldn't believe it. Kagome leaned close, her hair falling over her shoulder, her eyes concerned.

 

“Are you sure you're okay?” she asked, biting her lower lip just the way he remembered. “Maybe you should lie still, I can go get Kaede and…”

“No!” The word tore from his lips and he grabbed her, dragging Kagome across his lap and burying his face in her chest. “Don't leave me,” he whispered, shaking so hard it was embarrassing. “Don't ever leave me again.”

 

Her fingers stroked his hair, caressing the tips of his ears and he shuddered again, eyes tightly closed. Her body was real and firm in his arms; her scent filled his nose until he felt drunk on it. Soft hair, smooth cool hands, his Kagome had been returned to him and Inuyasha blessed his luck for the first time in seven years.

 

“I won't leave you,” she said, her voice delicate and soft. “I love you, Inuyasha. Please…say you love me too.”

 

Her small hands slid from his hair, rubbing in slow circles until they rested on his collarbone. There they tightened, the delicate fingers almost like twigs and hard against the sensitive skin of his throat. They moved, coaxing the words as if by their pressure he might cough and gasp what she wanted.

 

“I love you,” he murmured, his palms finding the smooth skin of her upper thighs. “Gods, Kagome, you know I love you.”

 

“Show me,” she whispered.

 

She straddled him, her legs on either side of his hips and slowly ground her body into him. Inuyasha moaned, his pelvis moving to meet hers and Kagome's sigh went through him like a blade. Suddenly he was hard and aching, his erection a painful thing, straining through the fabric that imprisoned his flesh.

 

“That's it,” her voice that dark murmur. “Touch me, Inuyasha. Make me feel alive, make me burn.”

 

He was lost and falling again, slipping from his clothes without thought or embarrassment. She was already naked, her body plunging down on his. She took him inside, devouring him like a hot, wet, and savage animal. Inuyasha cried out, his claws digging into her fleshy buttocks as she rode him harder and faster.

 

Was this his Kagome after all? She was ravaging him like a beast, his cock raw and sore with the need to come. But his thrusts met hers; a low ache in the small of his back pulsing until he suddenly screamed and came hard inside her.

 

But she didn't stop moving. And his cock stayed hard. Inuyasha groaned, falling back and his head hit the ground with a thump.

 

“Is that all you have?” she hissed, crouching over him. Her fingernails raked his chest, left bloody welts and he couldn't do anything. His strength was seeping away into the earth itself, his arms and legs going numb. The only thing he could feel was her sex clamped around his, sticky and smelling of blood. Pleasure like pain, a thousand hot needles stabbed along the length of his cock, draining him.

 

She kissed him and he tasted ashes. She dragged his limp hands up to cup her breasts and the flesh was no longer firm. They were like soft clay in water, squishing between his fingers obscenely while the stench of putrefaction hung heavy in the air.

 

Disgusted, he came again and again, each time howling as he slipped deeper into his grave. Wracked and suffering, the last thing he saw was Kagome's skeletal face, the white bone shining as the moon set over the edge of the well.

 

oOo

 

Souta Higurashi was at work when he got the call that the old well house had caught fire and burned to the ground. The caretaker was very apologetic, and very worried, for it was his responsibility to maintain the grounds. Which included the buildings, especially the old well house.

 

Cursing under his breath, Souta knew he should go and see the damage for himself. That meant a trip to Tokyo by train, that meant time off of work and that meant his wife wasn't going to be at all happy. Sure enough, she wasn't, and told him that she'd have to stay in Kyoto to watch over their children.

 

He would have to go alone.

 

Not that her presence would have been much comfort. He'd married Michiko right out of college, less than a year after his mother had died. That had been the end of his connection to the family shrine. He'd handed over the keys to the new caretakers, hired and paid for by the donations of shrine patrons and various historical preservation grants.

 

Then he'd taken a job in Kyoto, gotten married, started his own family and never looked back. Michiko had never known his grandfather; Jii-chan had died the year Souta had graduated from high school. She'd never even met his mother, although he'd meant to introduce her when they'd started dating.

 

And he never talked about his sister. Michiko knew that Kagome had died of some mysterious accident or illness, that it was painful for him to speak of, and never pressed for details.

 

When he finally got to the shrine, he saw that the caretaker had been busy. He'd already called in workers to cart away the damaged remains of the well house. After reading several estimates on the train ride, Souta had to agree that restoration would be far too expensive. Instead they'd clear out the charred wood, excavate the site, and put in a tiered garden.

 

Souta had no problem with that. In spite of the trouble, he was secretly glad the old shack was gone. The caretaker had been after him for years about opening it up to tourists, having some insane idea about playing up the legend of the Bone-eater's Well for the summer festivals.

 

He was sick to death of legends. He hated ghost stories too, because on a clear summer night he would lie in bed and sometimes dream of her. He would dream that Kagome was still inside the well, stuck at the bottom, and screaming for him to come and pull her out.

 

Shuddering, he looked at the hole in the ground. The caretaker was yammering on about the well, how they would have to fill it in before they could start landscaping. Several contractors had already made bids, and one had even offered to give them a special price on cutting down that eyesore of a dead tree at the center of the shrine…

 

“No,” Souta snarled, suddenly angry with the man. “I already told you, leave that tree alone!”

 

“My apologies, Higurashi-san.”

 

Souta thought he didn't sound all that contrite, instead rather resentful that the shrine owner kept balking at his plans. As the last surviving member of the family, he still had some say over what happened to this property.

 

It was all he had left of his sister, of his family, from the days when they were together and happy.

 

He was about to apologize to the caretaker for his bad manners when there was a sudden exclamation from the men who were clearing out the well. When the well house had burned, debris had fallen into the shaft and the workers had been hauling up charred lumber and gritty black ash since early that morning.

 

Souta found himself in a daze, stumbling as he nearly ran to the side of the well. It was a yawning black hole in the ground, smelling of sulfur and ruin. He tasted acrid smoke on the back of his tongue, bitter and poisonous as his memories.

 

“Down there,” one of the workers said, shining a flashlight into the darkness. “Can you see it, Higurashi-san?”

 

He could see. His eyes were raw wounds, tears bleeding down his face. Souta couldn't even blink, but he stared down into that well as if time itself would open its jaws to swallow him whole. The caretaker leaned in next to him and inhaled with a hiss of surprise.

 

“Call the police,” he said, reaching over to grasp the man's sleeve. “Tell them to send the coroner. I…I want them treated with respect.”

 

At the bottom of a dark and rotten place, long since fallen to dust and time, two skeletons were half buried in the soft earth. Although it would be hard to tell, he was sure they'd been there for a very long time. And they must have only been uncovered just now when the workers cleared the well.

 

“Do you know them?” the caretaker asked, very worried now. Two bodies discovered on the grounds of a historic shrine? Shocking, but not necessarily bad for business. The morbid and the curious would certainly come for the summer festivals.

 

Souta leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “No,” he said his voice thin and strained. “They've probably been down there…forever.”

 

The caretaker thought Higurashi-san looked a little sick. “Maybe you should go inside,” he said kindly. “I'll deal with the authorities.”

 

Higurashi-san nodded and started to make his way towards the house. The caretaker thought it had been a bad shock for him, finding remains at the bottom of the Bone-eater's Well. Somewhat more reserved about such things, even the caretaker thought it was unnerving.

 

The skeletons seemed to be embracing, like a pair of lovers sharing one last kiss. Maybe that was what had upset Higurashi-san. One of the corpses was wearing billowing red clothing and he could see a bony hand sticking out of a sleeve. As if eternally reaching towards his love…

 

A chill went down his back and even the stoic caretaker shivered a bit before climbing up the slope and into warm sunshine.