Orange You Glad I Found You?
By: MangoCandy64
AN: This is a story I wrote for my Writer's Craft ISP back when I was in Gr. 12. I got a pretty good mark on it (94% I believe) and thought I should share it to you guys. So this one shot was inspired by an Inuyasha fic I read years back but I can't remember the name of it or its author so yea if it sounds a bit similar to another Inu one-shot fic you've read you know why. This was also inspired by the novel The Outsiders written by S.E Hinton (not so much on the story itself but of the themes of friendship and the use of repetition). The main characters names had been switched to Mason and Laurie in the copy I submitted in class but the characters were always Inuyasha and Kagome. Anyways hope you enjoy!
ps. Inuyasha is kinda out of character and I apologize for that but I promise it's a good story regardless (I hope).
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha…yet! (I gotta come up with a better disclaimer LOL)
Warning: Explicit language
Life was never easy.
Inuyasha Taisho knew this all too well. At twenty, he lived alone in a third-floor apartment in a dingy neighbourhood located in a cramped, polluted city, bustling with people who'd rather spit in your face then throw you a passing smile. It was a lifestyle he'd grown accustomed to living the last few years alone.
Speaking of smiles, he could barely remember a time when one graced his face. As a child, he'd been the second-born to an alcoholic father and a soft-spoken, fragile mother. His older brother had been his best friend but once he moved out and his visitations became scarce, their estrangement was complete. They had not spoken in over ten years, and Inuyasha preferred it that way.
When his parents had died in a fatal car crash, a result of his father's idiocy and intoxication, his brother had settled their estate and Inuyasha had inherited a measly sum of money, after the payout to the woman his parents had hit in the accident. Taking quick advantage of the guilt-free cash, he sold the house and moved from the suburbs into the city where he found a low-paying job cleaning a factory after hours. His life wasn't exciting but then again it never had been either. He soon became accustomed to working long hours, using the little money he made to pay rent, food, and cans of Fancy Feast for his tabby Buyo.
Life was never easy.
The day she moved in next door, it was raining. She moved stealthy, lugging her few possessions into the room as if she didn't want to be noticed. Inuyasha watched this silently from behind his door, the peephole providing more than enough privacy for him to nosey around without being seen.
His first impression of his new neighbour was that she was a tiny little thing; five foot nothing and maybe a hundred pounds. Never had he seen such a fragile girl. Even his mother was more robust than this small woman attempting to push a dresser through her door. Another woman was there to assist her, but no one else seemed to be around.
Being very curious at this point, he opened his door, and just as he did, she finally pushed the dresser over the threshold far enough to close the door behind her. He stood there, staring, noting a slight saline scent hanging in the air.
Two more weeks passed before he saw her again.
None of the other tenants on their floor knew her name but it was simply because the majority of them didn't know she existed. Not a single sound was heard from within her apartment walls since the day she had mysteriously arrived. No music, no banging, not even a TV. Inuyasha often debated whether he should call the landlord to check if she was still alive in there but quickly put those thoughts aside once he began hearing her cough late at night. He was relieved to hear her first sounds of life.
Life was never easy for anyone it seemed.
After returning from a long days work the following day, Inuyasha struggled to find his keys while juggling bags of groceries he had picked up on his way home. Just as he jammed his key into the lock, one of the plastic bags he'd been carrying managed to slip from his grip sending a bag of oranges and a few other items to roll down the hallway. With an exasperated sigh and a curse under his breath, he placed the rest of his groceries down and began to retrieve the runaway items. When he was finished, he noticed he had missed a tiny orange that remained sitting in the middle of the hall. Walking over to the fruit, he became aware of his sudden distaste for them.
"Stupid fruit!" he said to the empty hallway after picking up the orange.
It was then Inuyasha heard a series of coughs erupt from behind a wall. He instinctively looked up to see where it was coming from but only came to notice he was standing in front of the mystery tenant's apartment.
His curiosity couldn't help but run wild as he stood in front of her door. Why anyone would want to lock themselves in a dump like this baffled him. Why he locked himself up in a dump like this baffled him even more. Perhaps they had the same reasons. There was only one way to find out. With the orange still in hand, he forced himself to work up the nerve to knock on her door.
"Who is it?"
Her voice, muffled from behind the door, was as soft as cotton ball. It was weak, quiet. It was sad.
"Um, it's your neighbour next door."
It took her a moment to open the door. He assumed she was trying to see through the peephole, without much success. Suddenly, the door opened an inch and a pair of doe-brown eyes stared back at him framed by long feathery lashes. He didn't expect to meet such extraordinary eyes.
"Yes?"
He stared. She opened the door a bit further.
It was then he realised that he had nothing prepared to say. Caught of guard, he began frantically thinking of an excuse for his sudden actions.
"The name's Inuyasha. I just wanted to welcome you to the building, I guess."
He mentally sighed a breath of relief. That was a close one. She smiled slightly. Even this small concession was breathtaking on her too-pale, too-thin face.
"Thank you. I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who lived here."
He grinned back, warmed by her response. He was going to take his leave then but decided to be impulsive since he was on a roll.
"Do you like oranges?"
With wide eyes, the pale girl who stood before him only blinked a couple of times before staring at the small orange in his hand with confusion.
"Excuse me?"
Okay, so he wasn't as quick on his feet as he initially thought.
"Uh, what I meant was that oranges could probably help with that nasty cough of yours…"
Whether that was true or not, he prayed that she would buy it.
He watched as a sad look came over her. He noted her thin arm, just visible through the crack of the doorframe, the bones protruding sharply; stretching her white skin till it was almost translucent.
"I'm sorry if my coughing has been disturbing you..." she said, opening the door a tad wider.
"I'll try to keep it down." She tiredly brushed a strand of hair off her forehead.
Her unexpected response left him speechless.
"No, no, no! Fuck! I didn't mean– I just– That's not what I meant at all!" he stuttered several seconds latter.
He then watched in horror as she began to shut the door with pain in her eyes. Instinctively, he wedged his foot between the door and its frame to prevent it from slamming in his face.
"Look, that's really not what I meant, okay! Really! I don't communicate well with people but I'm not a retard or anything…no, uh what I mean is that I don't usually do this– Forget about the orange. I don't even like them. I don't even know how this sucker found its way in my hand. No, wait…shit! Let me make this up too you with a tour of the complex?" he almost pleaded.
He nervously watched as her eyes hesitated a bit before she nodded with a smirk. Was she laughing at him?
"How's tonight sound?" he said in relief.
"Fine, I guess...I'm Kagome by the way."
He grinned gently into her face, holding out his hand to shake hers.
"Kagome, huh. Guess I'll see you later then."
Her grip was weak, and her hands freezing cold. With a trace of a smile, she said her goodbye and shut the door.
Life was never easy but it had its ups…
Over the next few months, Inuyasha began to spend more and more time with Kagome. She was like no one he had ever met. They talked endlessly about everything; their busybody of a landlord, childhood memories, sports, work, the real remedies for a cough, you name it. It was the first time Inuyasha didn't feel that he was utterly alone. It was such a relief for him to confide in someone the true emotions he had been harbouring inside himself for as long as he could remember; like how ecstatic he was when his father died, devastated when his mother did too, and hurt beyond words when his older brother had abandoned him. No matter what he had to say she listened to every word. He didn't know what he had done in the past few months to deserve such a friend but he was thankful. Soon, it wasn't long before Inuyasha learned how to smile again.
…but the downs were never too far behind.
Kagome had been checked into the hospital six months latter. On her first day overnight, Inuyasha sat in the waiting room anxiously waiting to be called by the Triage nurse for his visitation hours. How couldn't he see this coming, he mentally scolded himself. The signs were there from the start. Her fragile figure, pale skin, the coughing, they were all there and he chose to ignore them because despite all that she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever met. Although the past six months had been bliss for him, he failed to recognize the deterioration of his best friend. Why didn't she tell him anything? Why hadn't he notice?
"Inuyasha Taisho? Right this way."
He followed the nurse to her room.
As he entered the room, Inuyasha felt a cold hand wrap around his heart and squeeze. The sight of his favourite little person strapped to an IV and looking as pale as the sheets was almost unbearable. It was a punch to his stomach just seeing her as sick as she was.
"Are you just going to stand there or do I have to come over there and get you?" she weakly whispered with a smile etched on her face.
But before she said another word, she broke off coughing deep and dry – a racking cough. Inuyasha cringed, and felt something grow moist in his eyes as he walked over to her bedside. She was suffering more than he'd thought.
"How're you feeling?" He numbly asked as he took a seat next to her half lifeless form on the bed.
"Better than it looks." She managed to spit out.
He snapped.
"God dammit Kagome, would you stop being full of shit already?" he half yelled, "Why didn't you say anything? Were you planning to die behind my back?"
She seemed to see when realization dawned on him, and she diverted his eyes with a sigh. This was usually how it went. Boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy figures out girl is sick… boy runs. It was all old news to her.
"Inuyasha, believe me when I say you're the best thing that's ever happened to me since morphine and godammit just this once I wanted to be selfish and keep you to myself. I didn't want to cast you away just because I'm dying. I didn't want to spare your feelings just so I could be alone again. I didn't want to lose my fucking best friend like with everything I've had to watch disappear from my life like some sick joke…I just didn't want to loose you too!" she croaked after awhile.
He felt her sink lower into the bed. He sighed. At least now he knew that they were both scared. But despite everything he felt, the last thing he came here to do was to make her feel upset. Several minutes past before he spoke again.
"Kagome, you idiot! If you being sick really mattered to me, I wouldn't have offered you that orange the first time we met, silly." He said softly while ruffling her limp hair.
She giggled a bit closing her eyes in a thank you.
In the next couple of months, Inuyasha visited the hospital every waking moment he could, bringing her a fresh new box of oranges instead of flowers every week until her room permanently smelled of the citrusy fruit. It was their little inside joke. Despite the new environment, things seemed to return to normal. In no time, they were laughing again. But in the back of his mind he knew she only smiled as often as she could for his sake. She smiled through the painful, bloody coughing, the digestion problems, the infections, the headaches, and even when she became too sick to stand, and lay confined in her bed, she kept on smiling. She was the strongest person he knew and for a time he thought that perhaps their love for one another could over come her disease.
But soon a year slowly passed, and so did she. After the funeral, he met one of her nurses at the memorial. She ran up to him and thanked him for making her live as long as she did while still teary eyed.
"You saved her." said the nurse.
But he knew they had it all wrong as the only person who did any saving was Kagome. It was thanks to her that Inuyasha learned that even when the going got tough, life was what you made of it. Moving on with his mundane life, he continued to work long hours and struggled to make ends meet. Before long, he had come full circle and once he returned to his dump of an apartment alone, it finally hit him that she was gone. For the first time in a long time he cried.
Weeks latter, he received an unmarked letter in the mail. Opening the letter with curiosity, he was surprised to see that the paper inside was completely blank. Puzzled, he pulled the letter closer to his face to examine it further. It was then he noticed the strong citrus scent that oozed from the delicate stationary. This was her goodbye. Sniffing it again, Inuyasha couldn't help but laugh aloud. It was definitely the smell of oranges.
Life was never easy…but it was the hard parts that made it worth living.
AN: Yay! The End. Hope you guys enjoyed. Tell me what ya think and review!
Later Days.