Miroku sighed as he walked away from the group.
Inuyasha and Kagome were fighting, and Shippou was doing his utmost to defend Kagome in the squabble. Sango wasn't speaking to him for some reason or the other, and Kirara would not dream of leaving her mistress' side. As such, Miroku found that the only way he could find peace amidst the arguing and the negative energy was to simply escape.
He listened to the familiar melody his shakujo made as he walked. It brought to mind how very quiet the recent days have been—quiet in regards to demonic activity, at any rate. The azure sky was absolutely cloudless, and the sun was warm and kind. What else could he ask for on a day like this?
A splash from the nearby lake signaled towards a very obvious answer. Curiously peering towards the sparkling blue water, he just managed to make out a pale feminine form with long dark hair slip behind a boulder for modesty's sake. Before he knew what he was doing, Miroku changed his course and headed towards the water.
Strange, he thought as he tried to make his amble seem innocent. For a moment there, I thought the girl was Kagome-san. The thought of his young friend make him remember the incessant yelling between her and the hanyou, which is what had brought him out here in the first place. Shaking his head and ridding himself of those thoughts, Miroku looked down and saw that he had come across the neatly-folded clothing of the female bather.
He blinked when he realized that they were the clothes of a miko. As the red and white garments coupled with the similarity to Kagome in his mind's eye, Miroku realized whose afternoon bath he had stumbled across.
"Stray from your friends, did you, Houshi-sama?"
Against his better judgment, Miroku spun around at the sound of Kikyou's voice. The young priestess' solemn face was peering at him from behind the boulder from which she had sought refuge. It was all Miroku could do for a moment to clear his throat. He had often run into the undead miko unexpectedly, but this was the first time that she was sans clothing. "Yes," he replied at long last. "I am sorry to have disturbed you." With that, he respectfully bowed and turned to go on his way.
"How is Inuyasha?"
Miroku stopped. Hesitantly looking at Kikyou over his shoulder, he responded, "He is well. As well as Inuyasha can be, at any rate." Kikyou lowered her eyes and seemed to consider this. Miroku wondered if the conversation was over.
"He is in the midst of an argument, is he not?"
Miroku laughed in spite of himself. "Of course!" He turned around to face her once again. She did not seem uncomfortable with his presence, and so he continued, "I am sure that the only way Inuyasha would be able to maintain a few moments of silence is if he were-" He stopped himself, not willing to say the word "dead" in front of Kikyou for a variety of reasons.
Instead, she finished the sentence for him. "-if he were shot by an arrow and bound to a tree for fifty years?" Miroku was about to protest that that wasn't what he meant at all, but Kikyou changed the subject. "The way you walked reminded me of how I used to walk away from him when his yelling became too much to bear."
Intrigued, Miroku inquired, "Did you fight often? Forgive me, but by all accounts, I had assumed that your relationship with Inuyasha had been a happy one." Realizing what he was saying and what memories he may be drudging up, he quickly said, "I apologize. That question was unfair."
"What makes you say that, Miroku-sama?" Kikyou's dark eyes regarded him with the faintest touch of bemusement. "What could be unfair about desiring knowledge? You put your life in Inuyasha's hands nearly every day; it is only 'fair' that you know the sort of man in whom you place your trust."
She moved a little closer to him. Miroku found himself stepping towards the edge of the shore, his eyes fastened on… her eyes, miracle upon miracles. "Inuyasha and I never fought," she explained. "He only yelled, and I would walk away, as you were currently doing." She paused for a moment before adding, "I suppose that is the main thing separating myself from your Kagome."
"I am sure that is not true," Miroku quickly interjected. "But then, I would not know. There is so little I do know about you, Kikyou-sama. I had always considered that a tragedy." She nodded her head slightly as though in acknowledgement of his words, but offered nothing else. In the quiet that followed, Miroku pondered what she had said. "What did you mean by 'your Kagome?'"
Kikyou surprised him with a small laugh. "I only meant that she is a member of your company. If I meant 'your' in any possessive sense, I would have used another girl's name." Miroku looked at her oddly before she conceded, "I refer to, of course, the taijya. Or, am I mistaken in believing that she is indeed yours?"
"Sango?" Miroku furrowed his brow, his thoughts returning to the woman who was currently avoiding him. "She is what you may call an independent spirit. Try as one might, she will never truly belong to anyone."
"Would you have it any other way?" Miroku looked back down at the miko in the water. It seemed that, for whatever the reason may be, he was finally able to see what Inuyasha had seen in her all those years back. Oh, he knew right away that she was a beautiful woman—more beautiful, in his opinion, even than Kagome. However, her beauty had always been marred by a certain distance and standoffishness in her demeanor. Now, wading in the water only a few feet away from him, there was something positively child-like in her face as she asked after Miroku's feelings for Sango.
"Some days I wouldn't," he admitted. "And then others… I do not know." He slowly sat on the ground as Kikyou moved over to him, noticing a contemplative side to the monk that she had never seen before. "I have been a traveler for the better part of my life. My world has constantly been in flux, in a state of uncertainty. Once my journey is complete, I mean to marry Sango and live a life of unfaltering custom. A rather boring and anticlimactic end, but I do not think that I will be able to make it that far anyway.
"Still… the woman I chose to live that boring piece of my life with deserves more than that, does she not? And it certainly would not be long before she realizes that this is so. As much as I care for Sango, she will never abide being a quiet housewife, and it would be monstrous of me to event think of making such a request. Even now, her strength and autonomy make that perfectly clear." He paused for a moment, looking down at the ground, before adding, "And I have no idea what I seem to be rambling on about."
He looked up to see Kikyou gazing at him rather sympathetically. "You are expressing doubts about your choices for the future, Miroku-sama," she replied. "That is good. Very good." Confused, Miroku asked how such a thing could be good. With a gentle smile, she answered, "Because that is proof that you believe in a future."
As Miroku continued to dwell on this, Kikyou went on. "Every single day that I was with Inuyasha, I doubted. I find that I had never faltered in my belief that he would use the shikon no tama to turn into a human. Instead, I worried what our life would be like after his transformation. Would we continue to love one another? Would he want to have a child? How would his youkai ancestry affect our children? I came to realize that each of these questions meant that the previous question had some sort of answer, and it was a positive one. Even if I was only hoping for the best and fearing the worst, I still had faith that the best was not impossible and that the worst shall pass."
She looked down. She was very close to the shore now, crouching down to avoid exposing herself. "I suppose I have lost some of that since death. I have grown somewhat rigid. And that, I believe, is where Kagome comes in. You see, everything I felt, everything I was, that young girl feels and is. And it shines so brightly that it can hurt. But it does not. Because this is the way things are. We each have our part to play in the world we inhabit. We each have choices that we must make. But we must never stop believing that we make these choices with the assurance that the sun will set tonight, and it will rise tomorrow, and it will continue to do so forever."
She paused for a moment, then looked up at the sky. Though her posture made it very easy for the average lecher to attempt a peek, Miroku found that he was fixated instead on her face. Her small smile appeared to become one of gratitude as she basked in the sunlight. "Because that is what a lifespan is, Miroku-sama," she concluded. "Whether it lasts for fifteen years or fifty, it really is forever."
Miroku tilted his head to the sky and closed his eyes. He allowed the sun to bathe him in its warmth in the same way the water bathed Kikyou's skin. He remembered thinking that the sun was warm and kind, and he suddenly found himself thinking, Kikyou is like the sun.
"Miroku-sama?" Miroku opened his eyes and looked back to the girl in the water. He saw that she had taken a few steps back and had tilted her head as she looked behind him. "It would appear that your friends have not strayed far from you."
Surprised, Miroku turned around. He was horrified to discover a certain shocked taijya standing but a few yards above the embankment. He could almost feel the flames she cast with her eyes. As he felt a drop of sweat slip down his brow, he wondered how he could have gone from a warm sun to hot water so very quickly.
He quickly rose to his feet, but Sango would have none of it. He couldn't even bring himself to say anything as he watched her storm away. With a sigh, he sunk back to the ground. "I am not so sure that I can make it through forever," he murmured.
He heard a sloshing of water from behind him and began to turn his head. He stopped cold when he realized that Kikyou was emerging from the water. "My towel, Miroku-sama," she said quietly. "It is underneath my clothing. Will you hand it to me?"
Thankful that he could reach the towel without getting up and thus being tempted beyond all measure to turn around, Miroku obliged. "Why not? I shall have a difficult enough time explaining to Sango that this was all innocent."
A small laughed sounded behind him. "I think your bigger worry," she told him as she dried herself off, "is how you will explain this to Inuyasha should Sango get to him first."
Miroku almost choked. "Sango would not do such a thing," he said, mostly to himself. "She is more likely to keep it to herself and let it bubble over, perhaps during a youkai extermination or… or…. She would not. Would she?"
"Perhaps it would be best for you to explain yourself now."
Standing, he replied, "Yes, that would be best. After all, our conversation was mostly about her and Inuyasha. There is nothing for her to be angry about. Entirely innocent, yes?" At this, he turned around to face her, not remembering that she was not decent.
It brought only a small measure of relief when he saw that she had wrapped the towel around her body and was standing just behind him with that same gracious expression. "Innocent, Houshi-sama." Her tone of voice made it ambiguous of whether she was affirming what he said or questioning it.
Miroku offered a hasty bow and turned away. He found that he couldn't just let that be the end of what had become a rather enlightening conversation, and so looked at her once more. "You are a rather remarkable woman, Kikyou-sama. If you should ever change your mind about journeying in solitude-"
"Thank you," she interrupted, "but I am sure that you see why that shall never happen. This is simply the way things are."
Miroku gazed at her before quietly stating, "We each have our parts to play." She offered him a single nod. "Then my hope for the future," he continued, "is that this will one day be referred to as the way things were."
He bowed again, and she returned it with one of her own. Miroku turned to follow after Sango, and this time, he did not look back. A rather boring and anticlimactic end, he remarked to himself.
Still, I suppose that does not make the journey any less appealing.