InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tightly Strung ❯ Baboons and Bus Tickets, Part Two ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: The only thing I really own is my dignity. Oopps, I forgot. I lost all that when I married my ex-husband.

Well, there you go. I own nothing.

A/N; The following is riddled with flashbacks and other technical things that I am not great at. If it is an awful mess, please let me know. Also, it is full of sad fluff. I am not great at fluff either….but it was all info that the story had to have, so into the pot it went.

I tried to post this earlier, but getting anything on Aff.net, the only place I post, is often a bitch. I refuse to post on fanfiction.net as a matter of principle. So, I am sorry for the delay. >. < Please enjoy!

Tightly Strung: Baboons and Bus Tickets, Part two

"Yes, I'm sure you're correct as usual, my grace."

Inuyasha turned toward his passenger and glared. "Don't patronize me, you ass-clown. I know exactly where I needed to turn off, and I am telling you that exit 45-b has always taken me to Azalea and 52nd in the past." The slight irritation in his voice melted into a worried brand of wonder. "It's like every fucking thing has changed itself around, like the stairs in that goddamned Harry Potter movie or something. Nothing is where it should be." Inuyasha sped forward carelessly, barely managing to avoid striking a pedestrian stepping off of the curb against the light to his right.

"HEY, WATCH IT ASSHOLE!!!!!" the nearly victimized party yelled to the speeding Escalade.

Inuyasha slammed on the brakes and threw the hulking luxury vehicle in reverse, a tight expression stretching his countenance. Cars and trucks behind the enraged driver ran up onto the curb and crunched into one another trying to remove themselves from the path of the large vehicle.

Naraku sighed dramatically and closed his eyes. "Here we go."

The Escalade hitched to an abrupt stop, as the brakes were ground for a second time, and it's driver shifted into park, seemingly uncaring about the swearing drivers halted behind him.

"The lip, Nara. You know that I am not. Fond. Of `lip'. " Momentarily forgetting about the jaywalking moron he had planned to pulverize, Inuyasha refocused himself on the closest offender. " I am a notoriously patient individual, but your mood swings today are really starting to grate, and I would really appreciate I-"

"If you insist on doling out this impromptu lecture, right this very moment, then you should probably pull over, or at LEAST put your flashers on. I mean, I'm not trying to call your parenting methods into question-"

"Naraku, it is unwise and unkind to bait me when I am already frus-"

"Your jay-walker is escaping." Naraku smirked as a slight twitch began to pronounce itself in the muscle beneath Inuyasha's left eyebrow. "Sire." Said jaywalker had begun to speed up his gait when Inuyasha stopped, and had succeeded in making it across the street toward a group of movers hoisting large furniture up to an eighth floor apartment.

Inuyasha clamped his eyes shut and took an enormous breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it. Opening his eyes, he allowed the tension to seep from his frame, muscles noticeably going lax as the serene half-grin that he employed as his usual uniform repasted itself across his full mouth Shifting down into drive again, he began to pull the truck forward at a creep.

Naraku relaxed slightly, only to jump when he heard the shriek of agony and a strange, almost musical crash behind them. A small crowd had already gathered around the poor man crushed beneath the baby grand piano; although he still seemed to be alive, the response from the crowd didn't seem to offer the opinion that he was any the luckier for it. Naraku paled as he slowly turned from the spectacle behind them to face Inuyasha, who was peering into the rear-view mirror with grave interest.

Inuyasha tsked sympathetically. "Now…if he had only just crossed down at the light like a good boy, he would have been on the other side of the street when that happened. Karma's a bitch, isn't it?" He flashed a gleefully feral smile at his passenger and winked. "I believe you were saying something before we were so rudely interrupted yon wayward pedestrian and the flying orchestra?"

Naraku faced forward and shook his head negatively. "Nothing I can remember, sire."

Inu smirked to him. "Well, if you remember it, just feel free to blurt it out any time. And do me a favor, won't you? If you see a Burger King, let me know. I could really use a milkshake; I am just BONE dry."

"I'll just sit here and keep my eyes peeled, then."

Inuyasha smiled. "I'd appreciate that."

Kagome trudged up the never-ending stairwell toward her family's 25th floor apartment wearily. The adrenaline and shock from the earlier events of the morning had worn off and the confusion and sadness that she had pushed momentarily out of the forefront of her mind seemed to come crashing down on her in waves. Great, dark, suffocating waves.

She didn't notice the tears sliding down her pale cheeks…she was just too far gone in her own thoughts to notice anything beyond them. The dark blue book was still clutched to her chest. She hadn't meant to gasp and jump when the child on the train had asked her the name of the novel. `If it had not been today, not this strange uneven day when the whole world seems to be sliding out of focus, then I would have laughed at the thought of myself cowering before a curious little boy...'she thought. `But it is today. And today is all wrong. This is just not how I ever imagined my life turning out.'

The sob choked her, and she almost started up the stairs to the 26th floor of the ancient building before she noticed what she was doing. Swearing quietly under her breath she noticed her Grandfather at the window at the end of the hall, looking out into the street. Hastily wiping her face with her sleeve, she walked toward him as silently as possible, not wanting to scare the unstable man in front of the window. Almost upon him, she noticed that he seemed to be lighting spell scrolls aflame and tossing them out into the sweltering mid-morning air, chanting under his breath all the while.

"Grandpa?" She said softly.

The old man jumped and spun toward her, thrusting the small pieces of paper toward her with a wild look. The wizened face quickly shifted from it's near comical surprise to a look of anger. "Kagome, you shouldn't sneak up on me when I am in the middle of a purification! You could get hurt if I am not careful!" He admonished. Suddenly, his face softened, and he stepped toward her, cupping her cheek. "You look so much like your father. You know, when he was your age, we still lived at the shrine in the Homeland….that was before his scholarship. He trained with me, to be a priest."

Reaching out a gnarled old hand, be cupped her face tenderly. Then, as suddenly as he had made the gesture, he pulled back away from her, turning again to the window. "Now, go back inside, Gome-chan. Jiiji has work to do….there is a powerful evil in this area. But do not worry, I will protect us all." With this final grave proclamation, he returned to his prior task. Kagome edged away from the small spectacle he was creating in the hall, and into the apartment.

The Higurashi residence was remarkably small. It consisted of two bedrooms that were dwarfed by the double beds that inhabited them; a decent sized main room with an odd, almost decorative alcove (now curtained off) that served as her grandfather's sleeping quarters, a puny kitchenette and a bathroom that two people could not stand in at once. She had never had a friend over, besides Axle for Sunday dinner before her Mother got really bad. She had never really felt comfortable bringing anyone here. It seemed impolite to her to subject any creature to the extreme lack of space and privacy that she called her home. Or to the extreme dreariness that made this place its abode. Unlocking the tall wooden door, Kagome shuffled through the almost nonexistent front hall, silently laying off her things.

Slipping off her shoes, she looked up at the front Window and breathed out a long sigh that brought a rusty taste to her mouth. `The tears, I suppose,' she thought wonderingly.

"Mama, I'm home." Her voice sounded deep and heavy in the tomblike silence of the small place. The light from the scores of windows gave the area a deceptively cheery air, and Kagome's gaze wandered upward to the crown molding and tin-covered ceiling. The apartment did have very high ceilings and excellent craftsmanship and detail. She had actually always liked that about it. And the windows. The unique design of the apartments gave every room at least one window, and since they were laid out in a length-wise fashion there was quite a bit of room to pace. Maybe, she thought morosely, it was not really so terribly small as she made it out to be. It just seemed small after her father was no longer in it. The whole world did. Her father had bought their home at the beginning of his career. His manager had argued that they could afford something much nicer, but he said that he had a feeling about this place. And in his way, he had been right. They had been so happy here.

The size had not mattered then. Then, it had been heaven. Her mother had taken her sweet time unpacking…it had taken months, in fact. She had painted murals in every room, flooding the house with rich, Tuscan colors and graceful scenes of fair-skinned women and children in repose. Most of these correlated with the time period of the building's design- the early twenties. However, there was one that did not; the one that she beheld at this very moment.

Asia Higurashi had said that the very first thing she wanted to look at when she came in from the city was her family, whether they were home or not. So she had painted them into their designated place, on display for her hungry gaze the moment she entered her home. It was hard to believe that the mural before her was modern, and not another of the period pieces that clung to every other wall. In it, she and her Father had been chilling out in the `courtyard' like stairwell of their floor. He stood, six even feet of slouchy, feline elegance garbed in carefully tailored classics, leaning against the thick railing of the staircase. Beside him on a small table, a Sobraine black burned away absently in the lid of a mayonnaise jar that had been masquerading momentarily as an astray. The wind from the open floor to ceiling window in front of him teased at the long wild hair that he refused to cut, or even pull back, and dark strands were summoned forward to stream out before his angular face. A dozen feet in front of him, laying propped into the ample molding surrounding the window, was a small child with the same unreasonably long midnight hair. The sleeveless white nightgown appeared to be far to long for her, so it just bunched all around her bottom portion. One chubby arm was folded into the corner of the sill, the other laid wrapped about her waist. She stared out into the night as her father studied her and she seemed more asleep than awake. Moonlight fell everywhere, brightening the black and white of the landscape so that even her Father's white teeth flashed behind his grin.

She loved the mural; it was a favorite thing among favorite things. She loved the easiness of the scene because she recalled all of the time the two of them used to spend almost silently in each other's company. She liked the way she could look at the hazy smoke rising up to her father's left hand side, and recall the odd, eastern smell of the Sobraines, making her think of the crazy little shop where they used to walk to buy them. She admired the pristine quality of the work itself; it was impossible to explain the strange pride that she felt in knowing that she could trust her Mother's hand. If Asia had put it there, it was because it had been there…everything in a portrait she painted was rendered in it's own exacting reality. No flights of fancy, no added frills. She had always told Kagome that the life she sought to capture was beautiful enough without the bells and whistles her imagination could throw in. Thus, she had perfect faith that if she could somehow revisit the time and place they had occupied during this work, she would find everything matched to it's oil counterpart.

But her favorite thing, her very favorite thing about it, was that he had been playing. The ebony colored violin was still braced against his left shoulder. And to his right, lost in the shadows nearly, was the bow. Its crop-like outline was shadowy and almost abstract, but still there. He had played and played that night, played his heart out for her. She remembered. It had been her birthday and she had been downtown earlier. He had bought her the tiniest pair of Mikimoto pearl earrings, which she had never took off. There had been a lengthy discussion about the `classiness' of pearls and how her father thought they were probably the most beautiful thing for a woman to wear, and then there had been coffee at Bolaire's, three blocks down from the little smoke shop where the the wheezing proprietor always pinched Kagome's smiling cheek and gave her pulling taffy that made her teeth itch and often hounded her Father into playing something on the old guitar the hung over the shop's front window. She laughed, thinking of it, he had done it that day, too. As usual, her Father had caught her up in his arms as they stepped out onto the street and laughed as he began to amble toward the apartment.

"What's funny?" she asked.

He looked at her with his dark grey eyes, and tried without much success to tamp down the unrepentant grin he wore, arching a brow. She had sighed dramatically and stated flatly, "It shouldn't surprise you, Papa, since it is always out of tune every time he makes you play it."

Another fit of giggles escaped him as he twirled her, and her laughter joined his, ringing out against the concrete world around them. He kissed her temple and chuckled. "My baby has the Higurashi ear! I knew it!"

"Huh?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter right now. All that matters is that you KNEW it was out of tune." Her father's matter of fact tone caused her to chortle with amusement again.

"Ne. What's funny, imp?"

Kagome took his face in her hands and giggled again. "I don't need any special ears to know that Mr. Sontoro's guitar is out of tune. I just guessed it because every time that you play it, your face messes up like you ate something bad. Like it does when Mommy sings in the shower."

Kai Higurashi had to stop and lean up against a wall until the fit of hilarity that engulfed him subsided. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he gripped his daughter and tried to hold onto his Mocha and their shopping bags. When he calmed, she leaned back in his grip and looked him in the eyes. "Are you okay, Papa?"

Looking her in the eye he smiled in his lazy, happy way. "Deliriously happy, actually. This is my favorite birthday ever!"

She frowned in confusion. "But it's not even your birthday, it's mine…"

"Even a better reason for it to be my favorite. Now what else do you want for your birthday?"

Kagome paused to think, placing one of her delicate little shell-pink nails to her chin. Suddenly, her face lit up, and she burst out loudly, "Papa, I want you to play for me and the moon, except all night this time! I want to still hear it when the sun comes up!"

He smirked dubiously. "I don't know if you can make it all night, imp."

"Nani?! But I can, I know it!" She wailed piteously. "It's not fair if you don't let me try so that we can see! And anyhow, it's my birthday, so you must let me. There's a rule!"

Spinning her again, he gave into her and launched into his former mirth. "Right you are! We'll go home, and Mommy will have our party all ready and we'll open more presents and eat cake with our fingers, and drink ice cream punch and roller-skate in the house--"

She gasped. "You're crazy! Mama will never let us roller-skate in the house!!"

"She will, because we'll both whine together until we get our way! Then, we'll put a cushion down in the hall for you to rest on, and we'll play to the moon until he makes a happy face and goes to sleep!" He nuzzled her happily and sighed. "Do you know what else?"

"What, Papa?"

"I'll write you your very own song, just for you. Just for Kagome."

A squeal of unadulterated delight heralded the air and tiny kisses rained all over Kai's face as the two barreled carelessly down the sidewalk toward the much anticipated celebration that awaited them, laughing and singing all eleven remaining blocks. Finally, as they began to take the first flight of stairs up to the apartment, Kai had tossed Kagome up briefly, catching her small body in a bridal-style hold. She looked up at his upturned face, studying him, and the way that his dark hair that was exactly like hers rested gracefully against his face and shoulder's. She knew she looked just like her father, and the thought made her happy. She reached up to yank gently at his loosened tie, and spoke softly. "Papa? About my song….are you going to really make it tonight, or were you just talking about you'll write me one sometimes." She was small, but even she understood that artists didn't just create upon command. She had lived with two of them ever since she was born, after all.

"No, tonight. I feel like there is something I want to write, I know how I want it to be. We'll do it after the roller-skating, I promise." He paused and looked down at her gravely. "But you have to promise me something, too."

She regarded him solemnly. "What?"

He cracked a grin, but the serious look remained in his bright gray eyes. "You have to promise me that you'll NEVER tell your mother what kind of face I make when she sings in the shower. Promise?"

"I promise, Papa."

Kagome felt the back of her throat burn with the emotion that the memory stirred. They had bounced up the stairs, counting the flights, barking out the number of the flight in as many different languages as they could before they got to the next one. It had been their game for as long as she could remember. The evening had been perfect, and he had written her song…or at least the beginning of it. She had made it until sunrise, but just barely, falling asleep the moment she saw the sky lightening. She had barely registered her father's arms as he lifted her slight form to tow her to her bedroom. But she could remember the contentness she had felt drifting off, every moment of the day until the very last had been full to the brim with happiness. It was almost like the Fates had been trying to compensate for the blow they were about to deal.

For the next twelve weeks, Kai Higarashi was fairly lost in a storm of creation. She was supposed to start school that year, but since her father was so involved with writing `her song' he had protested, saying that he would not be able to work without his Muse. Kagome had been very flattered, once she had been enlightened as to what a Muse was. Kagome's mother had simply smirked; saying that she thought it was the most pathetic excuse ever for a parent not being able tolet go of their child, but not wanting to admit it.

She had ruffled Kai's feathers quite nicely with that one.

"Fine! Cart her off to that miserable sweatbox, so that she can sit around singing her blessed ABC's with twenty-seven drooling, underdeveloped tricycle motors as her only company. She'll hate it there; she can already read. And, Asia, I heard that they feed them really bad things there, like cookies and punch twice a day, and they don't even make them brush afterward. They make them take a nap. A nap without brushing their teeth. Imagine it." He nodded sagely at her mother as if he expected her to cringe in horror at this revelation. When she did not he threw an arm to point toward the window at the bustling city, his face twisted with righteous anger. "These people are monsters, Asia! They might as well smash Kagome's teeth out with a club!! If you feel like they can give her a better education than we can, then I guess there is nothing I can do to dissuade you, but…" he had leveled her Mother with a dark, sardonic glare, "…I want you to remember that I did warn you that nothing good would come of this when her teeth are rotting out of her head."

Her Mother's smirk had only widened. "Yes, Kai. You're right, of course. Cookies and punch, and singing her ACB's with other children her age would be quite detrimental. I don't see any reason why I should bother to send her to them, when I can just leave her here with you all day. That way she can have Mocha, biscotti, and learn the word's to all your favorite Weird Al Yankovic songs." The smirk exploded suddenly into a feral snarl, as her finger shot out to point in Kagome's general direction. " I heard her singing `I'm Fat' in the shower this morning! Word for word, Kai; she's a real pro! Is that what you want her to be, some sort of weirdo, Tenenbaum lounge act with no social skills? "

Kai balked. "How can you say that?! She's not weird. Or, at least, she's not any weirder than us. And anyhow, you've got a lot of brass calling anyone weird! The only time I have ever seen you drink from a glass was at our wedding." He leaned back against the door jamb and crossed his arms, a nasty smirk painted on his face "As it stands, I have never in our eleven years of wedded bliss had to pick up a carton of milk to see which one's been used; I just look to see which one has Burgundy lipstick all over the spout."

"Bastard."

There was a shuffling as Asia gave him her back, refusing to speak again after having her odious habit of drinking from the carton thrown so mercilessly in her face. He sighed, but she didn't turn back. Her foot began to tap. Kagome had heard her father's voice turn pleading then. "Please. I really want to have her here. She is a big help and she never disturbs me or gets into any trouble. And she helps me write. If you take her away, I might choke, and then we'll be destitute!"

She had looked away sadly when her father started to beg…usually that meant there was a good chance she'd say no. But then she heard her Mother sigh, and she knew they were in like Flynn.

She could still see the soft amused smile her Mother had worn as she cupped her father's cheek. "I just landed two huge Commissions; you wouldn't have to work for the next couple of years if you didn't want to, so poverty is hardly looming before us. But I guess you're right. You couldn't do any worse than some group of strangers, and I would feel better about it. We'll keep her here then, with us." Her mother made a sort `oomph' as she was crushed into Kai's embrace and spun, in much the same way he was forever doing with Kagome. "But, I want her to be learning things, Kai. If you want to home school her, that's fine, but she really does have to have an education."

Did Kai take her seriously? The honest answer was yes AND no. During her first twelve weeks of `formal' education, she had learned a multitude of things. He had taught her to Moonwalk; No mean feat, but it helped that Kai was an expert in the field. They began basic music lessons with Miss Kaede down the hall who had taught legions of knee-high novices the fine art of Piano for more years than her father had been alive. Her Father took her all over the city, picking apart the Public Transit system for her to understand (…usually on the way to bring her Mother's lunch to the sea of scaffolding she spent her days swimming through or hit a museum where they would shamelessly sneak into all of the `employees only' sections they could manage to infiltrate. For, he had told her with a wink, the only way to discover things was to wander away from the beaten path. ). He showed her the basic layout of the city, where the best lunch carts were, and the most happening Jazz clubs. Often if Asia worked late, she would get to indulge in the distinct pleasure of going with her father to see one of his many friends play. She loved the smoky, dim interiors of these places and the heavy brash emotion of jazz. She especially loved jazz singers.

They did a lot of work too, cleaning up in the mornings and then she would watch as her father worked for hours straight. Mostly, he sat at his piano, smoking and hammering at the keys. Kagome read, or colored, or indulged in any other quiet activity that she pleased, while Kai was lost in a world of his own. Then, after noon usually, he would rise up and stretch like a cat. He would turn to her, and throw her one of her many floppy, oversized hats, and they would be off to the city.

They were like vagabonds, roving along. They never did sums or chanted vowels, but he taught her things that some people never, ever learned; he taught his daughter to appreciate life, and how to live joyfully and fully. Every morning when she woke up, she was thrilled to see what the day before her would hold. No two days were ever the same. Sometimes Kai sang to strangers at the bus stop, sometimes he swore out anxious drivers who pulled ahead to hurriedly for his taste as they were finishing the crosswalk. He was full of life, and she thought that he was the most fascinating creature in the entire world. She had been so content. The happiness of their small world discouraged any thought of ugliness or injustice or change. But like most happiness, it was short-lived.

Her mother had come home…it was a Friday. The weather had been ruthless. A torrential rain had gushed from the heavens, making Kai and Kagome stay in nearly all day. He had been tying up the end of the piece that he had been working on, her song, and she had never seen him so into it before. She had seen her father work all of her life. She was accustomed to both of her parents and their radical temperaments and bouts of inspiration. Now, she could barely pull her eyes from her father as he pounded the keys to the baby grand that choked most of their living room, his fingers flying over the keys, and then caressing them. Then grabbing for a pencil to put down bar after bar of this new music. He had gone through pack after pack of the strange black cigarettes, until his voice was slightly hoarse and the house reeked with the stale stench of their wasted seven-minute lives. Kai was on a roll. He was almost done.

When Asia wandered in early, Kagome had wondered what she was doing there. But, thrillingly enough, things explained themselves quickly and positively.

Her mother had looked at him, breath rushing out in a gasp. "You're done then?"

He snatched up Kagome and held her fast, pressing her ear against his heart, and came forward to kiss Asia hungrily. "Finished. It is the best thing that I have ever written. The best, Asia. The best." He was crying, actually crying. " I will never write anything better than this. This is the one."

He put Kagome down next to her Mother and reached for the Violin. He gestured to them with the bow. " Go sit. Sit."

Kagome folded herself against her mother on the couch, and fisted her tiny hand into the loose cloth of her Mother's chino covered leg.

He lifted the bow and bore down on the strings of the violin, and what poured forth was sheer and utter genius. The song was a spell. It was heavy and dark, slow, then blindingly fast and light. It was like a life, a being. It held facets of every mood one could entertain. It was like all of the things a person could be, all the things that an existence could mean. She felt her mother's nails dig into the flesh at the back of her small hand, and looked up to see her jaw as slack as someone who had seen a ghost.

It was the most beautiful collection of sounds she had ever heard.

Finally, when the last note had been wrung from the instrument, and they were all crying, Kai gathered up a light coat and tucked the edited sheaths of music that he had copied out a few hours earlier into a folder. Grabbing his violin case, he embraced his family and headed for the door. "If Gerald calls, tell him that I am on my way to his office." He kissed Asia once again, that Fairytale happily ever after kiss, and then snatched up Kagome and spun her, and clasped her into a bone-crushing hug. "What did you think?" he whispered to her.

Kagome straightened and looked at him gravely. "It's too beautiful to be my song."

"Absolutely not." He smiled at her…calm, steady. "One day, you'll understand it. One day you'll know what it means to love someone the way that I love you, the way your Mother loves you, and you'll understand that nothing you can say can ever really do that love justice. There isn't a form of communication that powerful."

And with that he sat her down, and stroked her hair as he looked down at her. The expression on his face, as if it almost hurt him to look at her, scared her and made her feel proud all at the same time. She grabbed a gray felt hat from the table and raised it toward him. "Here, Daddy. It's still raining." He laughed gently and put the hat on, then walked out into the stairwell, closing the door gingerly behind him.

The rain poured down and lightning flashed, followed by cymbal crashes of thunder. The sky was an awful color; creamy, icky grayness coloring a hot sticky landscape. Her father should have taken her along for company, since things were so miserable. She couldn't believe he had put on a coat.

All of a moment, amidst her rambling thoughts, Kagome's mind flashed an image of her father and her small heart gave a terrible twist.

Running out to the stairwell, she jumped on the small, plain bench against the railing and leaned the top half of her body over.

"Daddy!!"

Three flights down, Kai looked up. Almost directly opposite her, he stared into the face of his only child wonderingly and waited for her to speak.

Now that she had flown out here, and captured her Father's complete attention, she felt awkward and silly. He had an appointment, and she was holding him up. People hated when you made them wait.

But, somehow, she looked at him standing there with his hat in his hand and his wild hair and she knew that she had been right. He stood with that peaceful expression that he always wore when he was waiting for someone to tell him something. As if whatever you were about to say would be the most important thing he would ever hear.

"Daddy…"

The corner of his mouth lilted in a lopsided smile, his dark eyes as soft as she had ever seen them. "Yes, my baby?"

Tears chocked her suddenly, making a knot in her throat and causing her vision to blur. She struggled to clear them. She wanted to see him, to tell him what she knew. For some crazy reason, she wanted this moment to have everything it could. This was a memory, building itself. "Daddy, I…I love you. Thank you for my song."

Kagome shook herself furiously, and looked up at the mural. Her eyes narrowed in pain and anger.

There were times when she wondered if it wouldn't be better just to sell the apartment.

She often thought that this place, with all of its shadowy memories, all of the beautiful, sad memories, should be left behind. Sometimes she longed to escape it, just get away from Kai who had managed to stay as perfect in death as in he had in life. To escape Asia, who had never taken a breath in mourning her husband, even dying seemed to be comforted only by the fact that Kagome would be free of them both and that she could be beside Kai again. Her grandfather, who seemed so insane most of the time, but the would lash out with those coherent, heart stopping looks filled with pain where he would hold her face, and she knew that he was thinking of his son. She just wanted to run away sometimes, but to forget him, even the thought of allowing another into his home, seemed like sacrilege. She could not hope to escape, had no real drive when she thought of the consequences.

Some stranger's hands rifling through Kai's collection of scores and sheet music. A roller covered in paint sliding over her mother's murals, hiding them away forever, burying their past underneath a few coats of some trendy designer shade. Her grandfather admitted to a supervised retirement home.

No, she could never allow that. In her heart of hearts, she knew that she didn't really want it. Although her Mother's illness had them living off of Kagome's meager paychecks, and the grimness of the near future felt like it was strangling the life out of her, she knew that she would do anything that she could to keep her family near her as long as she could.

Note: Thanks to everyone who took the time to read, and to all of you who reviewed. I am having a real problem getting this written -it's not the exciting part of the story, so I feel pretty dispassionate about scuttling through this background shit. But, I'll try to be a better human being in the future and wrangle myself into updating responsibly.