InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ You Found Me. ❯ Chapter Two. ( Chapter 2 )

You Found Me.

 

Chapter Two:

 

“Gome, wake up.”

 

I opened my eyes and gave myself a couple of moments to let them adjust to the darkness some. Eri sat on my bed, by my side, her hands on my shoulders. She looked concerned… and tired. “You look like hell,” I told her in a raspy, early-morning voice. `She must've just gotten in,' I thought as I took in her appearance, sitting up a little. She was still scantily clad in whatever formfitting, revealing outfit she had worn to work tonight. Her hair was still teased and curly and big, and she was even still wearing her makeup, bright blue eyeshadow included.

 

“You were yelling for him in your sleep as I was coming in the front door,” she let me know, standing. I twisted in the bed and looked down at her feet - bare. She'd already ditched the stilettos, probably close to the front door.

 

I couldn't blame her; those things were torture devices that were more than likely made my men. Selfish, selfish men.

 

Eri held her face in her hands, sighing in exhaustion, as I sat up. The dream was so vivid; I know it's probably very clichéd to say this, but even three years later, I still remember that morning… like it was yesterday.

 

When I was twenty years old and came upon Inuyasha, dead, in that meadow, I had just about lost my mind with grief. Kouga had no idea what to do with me after he ripped me away from Inuyasha's lifeless body. I sobbed and screamed and fought against him. I nearly purified poor Kouga, but he got me back to the village, back to Kaede, who just held me until I quieted. I didn't stick around to see my friends buried. Somehow, the well allowed Shippo through with me, into the modern world. I held onto the poor, little kitsune boy fiercely after that day; I'd lost so much already - a sister, a brother… a lover. Shippo was like a son to me, and I was like a mother to him. It was right, us being together.

 

Once Shippo and I had gotten settled in with Mom, Souta, and Gramps, I waited one night until my little kitsune was fast asleep before recombining my little Jewel shards with the nearly completed portion. Kohaku had been among the various casualties of the final battle, so I had made sure to purify his shard and reconnect it with Naraku's part of the Jewel. Before Shippo and I left, Kouga had made sure to give me his pieces.

 

I laid in my bed, my small body curled almost helplessly around Shippo's sleeping form, and I cried - again. Clutching the completed and purified Jewel in my small hand, I sobbed as I thought of my fallen friends, making silent wishes to trade the damned Jewel in my hand for their lives back. Shippo woke and laid one tiny, clawed hand on my cheek. His bright, normally mischievous green eyes watched me with undue sympathy, and I'll never forget what he whispered to me right then:

 

“Don't cry anymore, Mama. Papa wouldn't want you to cry anymore.”

 

I sobbed harder at that, hugging Shippo tighter. That's who me and Inuyasha had become to him: Mama and Papa.

 

Now he was missing his papa… again.

 

As I held my boy in my arms, crying myself to sleep, I murmured, “I wish I could have you back, Inuyasha. I wish you could come back to us.”

 

When Shippo and I woke in the morning, the Jewel was gone.

 

I sighed, rubbing my eyes, and Eri left the room. I got up, readjusting myself to the present day and shaking the dark memories and vivid nightmares from my head. Making my way down the hall to the bathroom for a little midnight call of nature, I stopped in Shippo's doorway. He was snoring soundly. I smirked and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

 

Shippo and I had only stayed at the shrine a couple of months before moving to a Tokyo apartment with Eri. She had gotten pregnant and the father left; she'd told her parents, and, dishonored, they'd kicked her out. She dropped out of college and found a job at a small strip club. I couldn't go to college at all; we just didn't have the money to send me and Souta, and I had spent so much of my time traveling back and forth through the well that my grades had been ruined anyway. I told Mom to save up and just send Souta; I could support myself and Shippo on my own. It was nice to have Eri there to help, though.

 

Eri lost her baby when she was just four months along; the father had come around for some reason or another, and they argued, as always. Eri “fell” down the stairs. The result was obvious.

 

Now it was just the three of us, living in a small, two-bedroom, one-bath place smack in the middle of Tokyo. Eri and I shared one of the bedrooms so that Shippo could have his own room. I told Eri what had happened in the shrine and in the Warring States era when we were eighteen. She helped me and Shippo out a lot after Inuyasha died.

 

After my trip to the bathroom, I shuffled back to my room in the dark. Eri was exiting the bedroom wrapped in a gnarly yellow towel, and she was carrying a giant, hot pink night shirt in the crook of her right arm. She flashed me a tired smile before I disappeared into the bedroom. I practically dove into the bed, hiding myself under the covers and relishing the warmth. I fell back asleep quickly; I didn't even hear Eri come back into the bedroom after her shower.

 

The alarm woke me around dawn, and I trudged into Shippo's room to get him up for school. He had grown somewhat in the last three years; he looked much like a human eight-year-old would these day. He grumbled as I urged him gently out of the bed; three years spent in the lazy modern time had made him forget his and Inuyasha's habit of getting up every morning with the sun. Running my thin fingers through his shaggy, thick, fire-red hair, I mused in my head about when to schedule him an appointment to get his hair cut; it was getting way too long again. `And we just got it cute…' I sat there, thinking.

 

He batted my hand away with his small fist, growling at me a little. “K'gome! Let me get dressed, Mama!” I smiled down at him and walked out his bedroom to give him a little privacy. Eri was still snoring away in her twin bed, which was positioned directly across the small bedroom from mine. Still smiling, I snuck back into the bedroom and grabbed a clean, bright blue towel from the pile in the laundry basket. I popped my head into Shippo's room just to check on him; he was pulling on a pair of blue jeans. I decided to jump in the shower for a quickie before walking Shippo to school.

 

Once I was out, smelling like strawberries and creams, grapefruit, oranges, and mangoes, I checked up on my son before I went to my own bedroom to get dressed. He looked so adorable, pulling a green and white striped polo shirt on over his head, his fluffy, reddish hair sticking right up through the neckhole.

 

Stifling a giggle that I knew would surely offend him, I dashed into the other bedroom, shutting the door quietly and ignoring Eri's loud, constant snoring. I yanked on a pair of tall, black bootcut jeans and a white tanktop with pink sakura blossoms painted falling across the front of it. I brushed my curly black hair and gathered it into a high, bouncy ponytail. Padding quietly around the small bedroom, it took me just a minute to find my favorite pair of black boots. I put them on over a pair of white socks before making my way down the hall to Shippo's closed bedroom door. I knocked before entering this time, and I walked in on my boy sitting on the side of his twin storage bed, putting on socks and white and navy blue Nike sneakers.

 

“You ready for school?” I asked him, plopping down on the small bed beside him; the springs creaked beneath my added weight. I smiled at him, brushing his thick mane out of his face.

 

“Mama, why are you always touching my hair?” he asked, pushing my hand away once more. I sighed, putting my arm around his shoulders, pulling him flush against me and hugging him close. He settled very nicely into the fold of my arms, and I crushed him to me, suddenly very afraid of losing him as well.

 

Shippo shifted somewhat in my arms, and I could tell that he was a little uncomfortable. I released him quickly; I didn't want to smother my boy.

 

He turned his head and looked up at me. Shippo smiled gently as he said in a small voice, “We're all right, Kagome.” Then he looked at the clock behind me and jumped to his feet. “Mama! It's time for school!”

 

I turned and saw that he was right. Together, we hurried out of the rundown apartment, Shippo nearly forgetting his bookbag and me nearly forgetting to lock the front door.

 

Eri and I couldn't afford to send him to a nice private school like we'd gone to, but we lived near a very good public school, in a very good, clean neighborhood. It wasn't the best education in Japan, but it wasn't bad either. Besides, Shippo'd already made friends there, a couple of boys named Ryouka and Ken'ichi. They were good boys and good friends for my boy. As we walked side by side down the sidewalk, we talked about what we were going to go do the next weekend. Shippo wanted to invite Ken'ichi over to stay the night; I told him that I'd have to call up Ken'ichi's mom before I left for work that night.

 

The school was about two blocks from our apartment; it was a fairly long walk. We talked about what Eri and I were going to make for dinner that evening. We were both heading to work that night, so we would need to call the babysitter to confirm. She was a very nice young girl named Sachi, and Shippo absolutely adored her. He looked eight years old, but he was, in fact, ten; he was reaching adolescence, and I just knew that he would start to look at girls in that certain way very soon.

 

I sighed silently when that thought crossed my mind. Shippo was still going on about what he wanted to eat tonight. I shoved my hands into my pockets and weaved a little on the sidewalk. Shippo watched my with his bright, inquisitive eyes, smiling faintly at my antics as he joined in. As I watched my son follow in my deranged footsteps, I knew, with absolutely no uncertainty, that the birds and the bees talk was fastly approaching.

 

A few minutes later, we entered the school; I left Shippo in the very capable hands of his teacher, Yamasaki-sensei, and headed back to the apartment alone.