A/N: Yay! My first attempt at fanfic in a good while. Reviews are greatly appreciated, as I have no clue how people view my writing and how to improve it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha and make no profit off this story.
Sighing, Miroku gingerly lowered himself into the small wooden bath. Leaning his head back against the planks, he tried to relax his body in the prickling heat and ignore the throbbing in his bruised arms. This week had been rough – more demons around than usual, and more relentless in their attacks on humans. It was simply unpleasant – Kagome had ended up spending far more time than usual on this side, and she wasn't very kind to Inuyasha when she left. Well, when was she ever that kind before she left? They always seemed to fight before parting at any rate. And Sango had been especially cold to him as well this week…of course, there had been that small incident with the remarkably lovely village girl on Tuesday...
He shifted slowly, feeling the warmth seep into his tightened back muscles – ah, that was better. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this sore. Plus, Sango's retribution for his wandering intentions was compounding the aches on his body. Wooing a woman who wields a boomerang taller than you is dangerous for a man's health, he thought to himself, nodding solemnly in the bath. Yes, the tragedies of a flowering youth, and the violent passions of a woman's tender heart.
Unconsciously he clenched his hand, feeling the familiar brush of cloth and metal ring shifting on his finger. He hated bathing with it – other times he hardly noticed. But when the cloth was wet it stuck to his hand, and the tightened portion over his palm felt dangerously loose. Then the beads would slip lower onto his wrist, sometimes resting in his palm. He hated the way they felt in his hand, too. The condensed, unforgiving pressure of the small spheres in his hand - they glowed serenely under the shimmering bath water. He would tear them off, if he could. He hoped that someday he would, but he never allowed himself to hope too strongly. Nor did he allow himself to think on it this long, usually. It must be that the week was so arduous.
And the absolute worst (he stiffens indignantly on the seat thinking of it)! When the beads would loosen and slip at unseemly times, such as when he was attempting to do justice to Sango's divine bounty the only way he knew how! How she would punish him, in such an event; as if it weren't enough that the beads had ruined the effect to begin with. That was when he truly resented them. They might preserve his life, but only for so long – besides, his life was so constrained, so defined by these beads, he didn't know what direction life might take him if they were gone. After all, it was because of the beads he had sought Naraku, and been fortunate enough to meet Kagome, Inuyasha, Shippo, Sango. But then, it was because of the beads he couldn't tell her what he meant.
When imagining a life without them now, he imagined a life where he could romantically clasp her hand in his and declare his everlasting love without the thin shield between his palm and hers. And a life where she could take his arm without feeling the small points of weight pressing urgently against her skin. A life with time on his side. But until then, he couldn't ask any more of Sango and he couldn't ask her to bear a child marked with his curse – it would die with him, or he would live on without it, but he would not let the cycle continue. And that meant discarding the one woman who meant most to him until the fighting was over. Of course, it was a difficult burden to bear, he nodded again with a melancholy sigh. He must cut a tragically noble figure, in retrospect. Someday, they all would appreciate him as a model of self-restraint, in fact! A monk is a man, in all eventuality. But he always has the smallest distance between them to remind himself, every time he touches her – just the breadth of a bead, to keep them apart.