A/N: Edited and revised, for the better I think. Parts added to enhance it. Hopefully it worked. xD
Disclaimer: There's no way I own Inuyasha.
romantic harlot
Truthfully, Sango has almost always been jealous of the other girl since she could remember: her silken hair, shining cerulean irises, and optimistic demeanor. Kagome's smile is all pearly-white teeth and bigbig heart and so much brighter than her own. Secretly, awkward and tomboyish and lacking in physical beauty unlike her friend, Sango loathes/hates/abbhors how she feels so utterly unattractive when she stands next to her, feeling out of place next to the doll-like beauty. She's so pretty and so kind and so warm and Sango's so jealous that it makes her want to scream and tear her own stupid, plain brown hair out by its roots until she bleeds because surely it must be asin to think such horriblehorrible thoughts towards theirher precious little Kagome-sama. Her ugly thoughts in her head make her cringe at their outlandish audacity, but truly, that isn't what really gets to her.
It's that silent-suffering look: the way men trail after her like lost puppy dogs when they see how breath-takingly beautiful she truly is on the inside, pure and untouched by grief and suffering, eyes still wide and brimming with childish innocence when she speaks of hope and unwavering faith for tomorrow. She wants to tell Kagome that she knows her secret, but to utter those words would be to shatter a perfect porcelain doll, and Sango isn't really sure if she'd be able to put the miko's broken pieces back together without cutting herself in the process on the jagged, crooked pinkpink remnants of her own shattered, despairing heart.
Besides, Sango knows her words are clumsy and stupid. They are anxious and heavy and block up her throat. Miroku is always encouraging her to have more grace and more confidence in her own skin, telling her that she should just go with the flow and speak her mind. Truthfully though, Sango is afraid of what would happen and what she would say if she allowed herself to let go, knowing that once something is said that you can never really take it back.
That's why Kagome gets to her. The younger girl doesn't really think about what she says. Her words sing like ballads and shine like poetry, pretty and charming to all that hears her song of steadfast hope and innocent courage. Her voice flows easily like a silver river, cutting through any awkward atmosphere with that lilting, almost-womanly tone of hers. Sango wants to tell her to shut up and quit being a hypocrite, but she can't because she likes Kagome and Kagome likes her and she's like the mother she's always wanted, the sister she's never had. Oh, oh. And, that wide-eyed undeniably hurt look that the girl would undoubtedly give her, bottom lip trembling like so would simply just break her. Hurting Kagome, in hindsight Sango thinks, would be like hurting a small and helpless animal: totally innocent and undeserving of any suffering in all its naivety.
Kagome weaves daisy-chains and allows her lustrous, long hair to flow to the swell of her hip, laughing at Shippo's childish antics and Sango's shy blushing ways. She becomes stronger, often going off with Kaede to train in her spare time resolving to become 'less of a burden', and even drops the whole 'Inuyasha going to Kikyo thing' altogether. Often, she pretends to not be paying attention or engaged deeply in conversation when the hanyou slips out of camp in the middle of the night like an elusive shadow, not returning until the earth is baked warm with golden, streaming sunlight. When Inuyasha kisses her everyone wonders and Kagome keeps on smiling all the while. Smiling like he isn't in love with both her and a dead girl. Sango still can't help but wonder what their conversations are like in those rare occasions when it is just the two of them.
So, when Sango falls head-over-heels in love, she's not really sure what to think. Miroku is everything she thought she could never love and often he is either the cause of her biggest, face-splitting smiles or her greatest despair. The only example of love she knows is Inuyasha and Kagome's, and sometimes she wonders if that sort of adoration is healthy. If she can handle wondering about the other love of his life everyday for the rest of her life.
"How do you do it?" Sango asks compulsively one day, before she really has the time to think about it.
Kagome blinks, dumbfounded, and turns to face the older girl with something akin to confusion dancing in her blue eyes. "Excuse me?"
"I . . ." Sango glances back at her and then stares hard at her feet. "Never mind, forget I said anything."
When Kagome laughs the sound is like silver balloons, floating upupup and away.
"You know Sango," Kagomee trills, lightly brushing her wrist ever so lightly, "if you want to do something don't think about it, just do it. You have to take action every once in awhile you know? It's the only way you'll get anything you want, really."
Sango bites at her lips and the blood tastes sour, but it soothes the lump in her throat that holds in all those ugly and awful words.
"You don't have what you want," she says, and she flinches because the words are true and Kagome stiffens in response, eyes widening just ever so slightly
Her eyes focus on the sky and the sun, raising a dainty hand to shade sapphire oculars from pouring sunlight and Sango's eyes trail pathetically along with her gaze; her dazzling smile and the sun blinding.
"I know," she states, and her words still seem so much lighter than Sango's do.
"He loves you," Sango maintains. It's a statement of both truth and necessity.
Ever so charming and sweet, Kagome smiles at her endearingly. Sango sees but decides to say nothing about the small (barely there) spidery-web cracks that are beginning to decorate the edges of the miko's pearly-white grin.
"I know. And Miroku . . . he loves you. You won't be like me." Kagome replies and she stares at her perfect, ivory hands folded in her perfect kimono-clad lap. The way the sun hits her face leaves the hollows of her cheeks in shadow, hiding her lowered gaze from Sango's searching stare.
Slowly, Sango nods.
"He loves you too," she repeats, feeling the need to defend her friend in sickness and in health. "He just misses her."
Kagome laughs again, and the sound is bitter and strikes a chord somewhere deep inside of her, making her head hurt at the uncharacteristic display of not-shining, irrevent confidence.
"I can share," she says, and her voice is quiet and sad and ever so resolute and it makes Sango want to fucking vomit and shake the girl by her shoulders until they are both screaming. But she's dead! And you're alive! How can you settle for being second best?
"But," the older girl interrupts, brow creased with blatant frustration because she wants to strike at the perfectperfect porcelain doll for a lack of self-respect (and perhaps to knock some sense into that pretty head of hers), wasting her good looks and her good heart on someone who doesn't truly appreciate her, "don't you --"
Kagome raises her hand suddenly and blocks up Sango's accusatory words and tames them into the hollow of her neck and out of sight.
"Sometimes," she begins quietly, bottom lip trembling, "you just have to make the best of everything you have."
When Kagome's lips curl into another saccharine-coated smile Sango notices the cracks are bigger now, nearly gaping holes in her perfection; idly, the taijiya thinks she sees tears but then realizes it is just a trick of light and suddenly grabs her, pulling her close to her in a hug, watery brown eyes clenching shut as the lithe, trembling arms of her crumbling friend comes to encircle her waist.
"I'm sorry," Sango whispers against the swanwhite of her neck, the fringe of her downswept lashes sticky with wet tears.
" . . . It –- it's okay," Kagome chokes out, and she stumbles over that one. Sango feels herself cry harder because she's finally got what she's wanted as she feels perfect porcelain finally break, shattering in her arms in a spray of ivory glass as doll-blue eyes meets her gaze softly, sadly. "I –- we'll . . . everything will be okay, alright Sango?"
The older girl says nothing and instead pulls her closer, fingers curling in her flowing, ebony hair as she tries to discern whether Kagome is actually trying to reassure Sango or herself.
Sango fingers each shard of porcelain and tries to push the pieces back together, attempting to restore it to its former faultless splendor.
(all for not.)
Her hands are too big and ugly, and the fine glass shatters beneath the strain of her coarse finger-tips.
The once perfect doll is no more.
--fin.