Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and its respective owners.
Title: Perfect Ten
Universe: AU
Warnings: Implied adultery, sexual situtations, and mental abuse in later chapters. Please do not proceed if such themes make you uncomfortable.
This story will progress to darker chapters. Also, if you are unable to breach the topics of cheating and adultery with an open mind (this is after all a work of fiction) I suggest you do not read further. Sermons for reviews are no fun.
Summary: Kagome loves her husband, the ever indolent and reclusive novelist Sesshoumaru Taisho. But when an old flame returns to re-ignite old memories, she starts to question her role as the perfect wife.
Otsuya: A Japanese wake ceremony. It is later followed with Ososhiki, the actual funeral ceremony.
Perfect Ten
"Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don't hang yourself, you'll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy." -Søren Kierkegaard
Chapter One: Wake
The Otsuya ceremony was slated to commence at 6pm. A 45-minute drive from Azabu was in order towards the Kanuchi house.
It was almost 5pm, or 04:52pm to be precise, at the Taisho household. Kagome and Sesshoumaru had yet to change.
"We are… We are going to be late," Kagome was gasping. Her right hand held a knife over the cutting board. The other was fingers-deep in a broken tomato.
The aproned housewife had just turned 25 two weeks ago. She married young, straight after college. Her husband was a novelist renowned for his bizarre crime thrillers, and equally bizarre reclusiveness. His pseudonym Tengu was therefore an apt name.
As of the moment Kagome was having difficulty to produce words. Not when her back was bent over the kitchen counter, Sesshoumaru tightly lodged inside her.
"Just a moment," he grunted, further relinquishing her with long, lazy strokes. He carelessly trailed his hand down her bare hip. Her womb clenched tighter around his appendage.
"I'm—I'm near!" she cried out, the tomato now a pulpy mess in her hand. "Come with me, now! Come together with me!"
Sesshoumaru clutched her waist as his loins churned towards her impending climax. His final thrusts intensified into a fervid stage, before he completely released himself into her. Kagome came with a mewling cry. Her womb was still wracking with post-coital spasms when he removed himself.
Sesshoumaru wiped the light sweat from his forehead.
* * *
"I swear, it's as if you're purposely trying to delay going to the wake!"
Sesshoumaru stood before the dresser. He slipped into his black coat, the one he reserved for formal occasions like this. Seeing he rarely attended such events in the first place, the coat was practically brand-new. He placed a knot in his tie, half-wondering. Should he go for a Windsor or a Pratt?
"I thought there would be time to prepare a quick meal before going out," Kagome continued, as she briskly tied the obi belt around her black kimono. "Now we gotta go out hungry." She flashed him a glare at the dressers. "Are you even listening?"
Sesshoumaru walked towards her. "My tie is crooked," he said.
Kagome sighed as she undid his tie, and re-knotted it firmly. She dusted his shoulders and met his eyes. "Tell me the truth. You don't want to go, don't you?"
Kagome's hair was done up in a strict, matron-style bun. Sesshoumaru tucked a stray tendril of dark hair behind her ear.
"You would make a great Misao Honma," he said to her. Misao was a character in the latest novel he was drafting. The working title, Perfect Ten. Misao too was a housewife. Although Kagome didn't know what laid in store for her. Sesshoumaru hadn't revealed as much.
"Oh, darling."
"It's a family event," he then replied with a hint of disdain. He fingered the improved knot on his tie. What a pity; Kagome's domestic precision wasted for such an occasion. After all this Sesshoumaru detested family events with a hatred that baffled even his wife.
"I can't believe he left us already," his wife was saying beside him as their black Lexus speeded towards the highway exit. "He was close to your family, wasn't he? How old was he again?"
"Old Totosai?" Sesshoumaru went. "He was almost 100, I gather. One would presume a shorter lifespan. What with all the fumes from his sword-smithing that he's been inhaling for decades."
"Goodness, that's a horrible thing to say for a relative who's just passed on."
Sesshoumaru merely shrugged, indifferent. "I simply find it cumbersome," he said. "This blood bond of familial relations. I have never understood its significance."
The Buddhist monk was already in the middle of chanting a sutra. They were fashionably late, as to be expected from a renowned novelist and his wife. Sesshoumaru refused to enter the house premises, not until the monk was done. Kagome had no choice but to go in on her own. She ducked her head as she joined the seated crowd, sitting at the back.
She opened her handbag, spying for the envelope containing the consolation money. Then she assessed the crowd. There were no familiar faces. Sesshoumaru wasn't the kind to lug her around to meet his extended family after all. She couldn't remember going to New Year reunion dinners from his side either. In fact, and this was slightly uncomfortable to admit—even his mother's face was forgettable. But ah, maybe she could somehow remember if she were to spot her right now.
Kagome's eyes frantically ran through each and every one. Everyone was a stranger, clad in black, their hushed faces solemn.
And then her eyes landed on him. Her chest almost collapsed. She thought she had seen a ghost.
Inuyasha. He was seated two rows before her, seamless among the sea of heads, almost invisible.
What was he—what was he doing here? Was he somehow related to Old Totosai? How?
He had left Japan straight after graduation to pursue an art career. The last time she met him was at Nishimura Park. She briefly remembered a story he had told about being an orphan. A story back when they were still in high school, and giddy in love.
The Nishimura Park near their school. Where she had bawled her eyes out. "Do you have to go?" she pleaded. And he had draped his red leather jacket over her heaving shoulders, wordlessly.
Why did these old memories have to resurface back to her mind? Memories she thought had long died and carried away in the currents of time. And at a wake no less.
She shook her head vehemently. She didn't realize the prayer ceremony had ended. People were standing up to pay their last respects to the coffin. Someone touched her shoulder, and Kagome jolted.
It was Sesshoumaru. "Have you paid your respects?" he asked her.
She shook her head, her eyes wide. She hoped he couldn't hear her thundering heartbeat. "No. Have you?"
"Neither. Let's go."
She stood beside her husband before the coffin as their hands clasped together in prayer. Incense was offered into the urn.
And even when Kagome was handing the money envelope, her mind could not stop whirling. Her eyes was darting secretly at the corner of her eyes as the crowd shifted. Inuyasha, Inuyasha, was that you? But he was nowhere to be seen. As though he had been nothing, but a shadow of her imagination.
An old man intercepted Sesshoumaru as they were walking out from the premises.
"Aha! If it isn't the mysterious Tengu, finally out from his cave!" He patted the latter's shoulder good-naturedly. Kagome glanced at the man. He was round as a ball, and an orange nose pointed out from his face. "Hope to see you at the funeral tomorrow, Sesshoumaru-sensei! We have so many things to catch up!"
Her husband immediately put on a glum face. "Bloodsucker," he muttered.
As per tradition after visiting the dead, they did not return home immediately. Kagome and Sesshoumaru stopped at a nearby Denny's.
Sesshoumaru cut a piece of his sandwich, and placed it on his wife's plate. Kagome stabbed it with a fork before sending it into her mouth.
She stirred her banana milkshake casually. "So…are we going to the funeral tomorrow?" she asked.
Sesshoumaru lifted his chin and swallowed his food. "Can we afford not to?"
"We should go," she said. Then she quickly sipped her drink. She hoped it would erase the anxious edge from her voice.
Anxious, from anticipation.
To be continued…
A/N: That fat old man (who's obviously Myoga, lol) called Sesshoumaru with a "sensei" honorific. That's because Sesshoumaru's a novelist, and they're called as such. It doesn't refer to teachers only.
And a tengu is a mythical bird-like creature in Japanese folklore, well-known for their combat powers and devout asceticism. They're also apparently unsociable as heck. Hope this story interests you so far!