She awoke when it was dark outside, a sliver of a moon offering less than a faint glow for her tired eyes. Her bed, which could not be considered warm despite its heat, was more a prison than a sanctuary. Her house was colder than the mid-winter night blizzard that raged on just on the other side of her window, which seemed calm in comparison to the storm barely concealed beneath her skin.
Kagome's touch was light as she slipped out of her covers, careful not to disturb too much of the room. It was always the times like these when she was the most cautious, an attempt at consideration towards her messy living space, trying to leave the smallest footprint upon the place that looked like it was inhabited by some lively stranger. It hadn't ever felt like her house. It wasn't really her home.
She found her phone, which was charging next to her bed, just where she had left it. The bright light blinded her as she turned it on, disturbing the quiet stillness that she had perfected imitating.
Two hundred and thirty two numbers.
Bunches of old and new colleagues, countless half-friends from college and high school, men she'd met in coffee shops but had never amounted to much. It seemed like so many numbers. So many people, and there were more she knew online whose numbers she didn't have.
So many numbers.
And yet, she was not particularly close to any single person in her contacts.
She checked the clock. Two a.m.
Which was perfectly ironic, in every sense. Her ex-boyfriend had asked her who she would call at two a.m. just a week ago. She hadn't answered, and he'd told her he'd met someone new. After that, she hadn't given it much thought. It simply didn't matter.
…
The hushed silence of the blizzard seemed like a natural wonder. How something so dangerous and harmful, something that affected so much of the scenery by coating it with a white layer of snow and ice could only make a muffled moan, barely above the sound of her hammering heartbeat, seemed like a mystery. But then again, some of the most pivotal things could also be the most quiet.
Her jacket was thin, and she pulled it close to her body, in a frantic yet unhurried motion, as if to draw any and all warmth nearer to her. The bitter air chilled her thoroughly, in that certain way that crept into one's bones and could not be shaken by a mere warm fire. The cold had seeped into her very soul, it seemed, and frozen her in a way that was almost reticent.
There were no trains at two in the morning, so she walked, neither enjoying the road nor begrudging it. Like the weather, her dying friendships, and her job, it plainly existed, nothing more and nothing less. She had no more power over the facts of her life than a flea had on its size. She couldn't change them, and she wasn't even sure anymore if she could change herself.
When she arrived at the 24-hour diner, she didn't bother contemplating whether it looked warm and inviting or not, only walked straight in to get out of the cold. The atmosphere seemed stale, the fluorescent lights glaringly bright, and wallpaper colored far too up beat for the mood of the staff. She could count the only waitress in the diner sitting in a booth texting on her phone, the chef in the back sitting with his back to the door and the bus boy resting by the kitchen doors. There was but one customer in the entire restaurant, sitting at a table alone.
Kagome wrapped her coat tighter around her waist and sucked in a large breath. She could see their pasts etched on their faces, one weary soul calling out to another.
The waitress, fresh out of college and a few years younger than herself, desperate for a job that would pay well, or a job that would just pay, so that she could finally start chipping away at her monstrous debt. She probably shared her apartment with multiple people so that she could afford the rent, but couldn't find a moment of peace there. She worked hard only to achieve the bare minimum, catching scraps from the life she wanted to live.
The man in the back, a single father who was lumped with a baby after a one night stand couldn't have been happier with his new and unexpected life. Until his baby girl grew sicker by the day, and only being a toddler contracted a severe disease. He had hospital bills to tend to, but a little girl to care for, and his life was a constant battle. The love he had been shown by his daughter he hadn't fully understood and hadn't been able to reciprocate as thoroughly as he intended, only to be snuffed out like a candle. The only wrong his little girl had ever done was been born to his faulty genes, and he, a grown man, cried at night wondering if the God he had believed in still believed in him.
And the busboy, the young teen struggling with high school, who would've been better suited to a job of manual labor, was being forced into society's compact idea of a gentleman, someone who spoke eloquently and hadn't ever lifted a hammer. He loved to shape wooden things, something sturdy that would last longer than his memory of geometry or history. Society wouldn't change for him, though, and he needed to find a profession that would satisfy his parent's idea of a proper son. But he, the youth being forced into the very sciences that he didn't understand, had dark bruises on his skin where his father imprinted his prejudices.
And she, Kagome, a kindred spirit without a direction, could not find her way home anymore. No one to call at two a.m, she was friends with many, but close to none. Her spirit ached for comfort from another, someone to tell her that she was not too different than the rest, that she would stop feeling the melancholy deep within her one day soon. She'd had a good childhood, a normal set of teenage years, and a fine debut into the adult world. Yet any connections she made were loose and easily broken, her best friends at the height of her social years easily counted on one hand. So she learned to excel at deception, acting like the other girls yet not able to quite convince herself that she was truly one, her only fallacy that of being born to a people that did not understand her.
…
The seconds shifted to minutes, and the minutes, somewhere upwards from there, and eventually Kagome began to move. Her feet carried her through the diner, moving down one row of booths to the next, looking for the right seat. She wasn't sure where she was needed, but she was certain of her necessity.
Her feet stilled when her eyes rested on the fifth and final person in the diner. The sole customer, who wore a weathered hoodie over unkempt hair, had a down trodden gaze into his coffee, which looked cold in its cup. His hair, whose silver color had attracted her eye, looked dulled and messy, tired out after a long day. The hair had the same nature as makeup: armor to protect oneself against the mayhem of life. She herself hadn't been without makeup in years, because of the ticking, desperate desire inside that urged her to cover up her blemishes so no one would ever know they were there.
Upon further inspection of the customer, she found him to be quite the conundrum. Underneath his thin hoodie that was meant to be a coat, was a suit jacket and tie, and underneath that, a freshly pressed button up shirt. He was a regular closet business man, an idea that seemed entirely too absurd for her to comprehend.
And with her latest discovery, she found a small seed of hope, an inquisitive desire to know his real story, not just a guess she cultivated in her mind.
"May I sit here?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, cracking at the last word from the scarcity of its use.
He glanced up at her, his worn golden eyes meeting her stormy blue, and nodded.
She watched him resume staring at his coffee. The waitress, whose nametag announced she was named Sango, came over and Kagome ordered a hot tea. By the time it was delivered, he still hadn't uttered a word.
And she wouldn't force him to, either. Some men do better thinking on their own, her grandfather had told her. So she supposed that maybe it was best if they sat in silence, offering quiet companionship at two a.m. in the morning, when the rest of the world could be normal but she finally had time to not.
The minutes ticked by and she watched his coffee get colder still, full as it had been when the waitress had brought it to him. She wondered if he wasn't thirsty.
But then, who wasn't thirsty? Thirsty for friendship, like she, desperate a saving grace like the father, or an escape like the busboy? She supposed there was no one in the world who truly wanted to be alone. We all need someone, even if we don't know it yet, her mother had told her.
Kagome leaned forward, her hands gently cupping her mug of tea, and whispered as quiet as the falling snow outside. "What's wrong?"
With burdened eyes searching for a reprieve, he looked at her, really looked, and offered a half smile. "I thought you'd never ask."
It's been said that helping others can be the best way to help yourself.
Can you figure out who the characters were? I'll give you a hint—they're all from the group! ~Gracie
The wonderful Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha. I do not.