I Know Who You Are
An InuYasha Christmas Drabble
By A. Stitt ("AmberPalette")
Disclaimer: The characters within this fanficlet are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I use them only because an amusing and touching idea struck me the other day while lying around recovering from surgery, and I had to pen it. Warning: There are spoilers from the final chapters of the InuYasha manga within this holiday snippet. You've been warned. Read and, I hope, smile.
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~December 24, four years after the death of Naraku~
It is considered unlikely that the Western winter holiday of Christmas could reach the collective imagination of Sengoku-Era Japan. Then again, few historians are aware of the fact that the high schooler Kagome Higurashi, in wishing away the existence of the Shikon no Tama, dove through the enchanted well of her family shrine and permanently resided in just such an era, during the early summer of 2008.
Kagome had married the hanyou Inuyasha, the youngest son of the inu daiyoukai of the Western Lands, only a few months prior to her first December 25 in feudal Japan. Though the love of her husband and the camaraderie of her former fighting companions Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kilala, Kohaku, and Kaede brightened her spirits somewhat, Kagome still keenly missed her mother, grandfather, and little brother, separated from her, now, by several impermeable centuries. Chattering about the Higurashi's favorite holiday imported from the Western hemisphere alleviated her nostalgia. None of her friends, cognizant of her melancholy, were willing to silence her.
Nor were they inclined to stop her from carrying out bizarre rituals associated with this so-called Christ-Mass: among them, the decorating of a Japanese pine with various sentimental trinkets found around Kaede's hut, the placing of many candle lights in windows, the hanging of socks and the placing of candies in them, and the exchange of gifts.
As fate would have it, that December 24, while Kagome was hanging her so-called "stockings" and painting names on them, Rin, the 12-year-old human girl taken into the care of Kaede, was being visited by her guardian, the center of her universe, Inuyasha's older half-brother Sesshomaru. Sesshomaru's visits were always special occasions for Rin, sweetened with gifts. The daiyoukai who had resurrected the child with his healing blade Tenseiga kept himself aloof deliberately, but for a handful of times each month, in order to allow Rin to reacclimate herself to human living. The child had become a skilled herbalist in her time with Kaede. But what she missed most was her adoptive father, who had saved her life innumerable times, who looked at her and understood her, who nurtured her and really listened to her. Her favorite person in the world.
Presently the combined "packs" of Inuyasha and Sesshomaru sat in Kaede's hut before a blazing fire, while Kagome prattled away to Rin about the things she missed from her strange and far-away home.
Eventually the topic of Santa Claus came up.
Rin raised her hand as though in class with Kaede and her other herbalist students. "Who is Santa Clause, Kagome-nee-chan?"
Sesshomaru for his part was performing the usual self-isolating masquerade which he alone continued to insist was the necessary decorum of the proud daiyoukai warrior. Regardless, that placid, introspective face was misleading. Sesshomaru was listening to every word out of Kagome's mouth.
"Well, Santa Claus is a very loving figure who gives children gifts for a holiday called Christmas. He's a saint from Czechoslovakia."
Rin's delicate little nose wrinkled. "Ch..checker…ano…"
"Check." Sesshomaru's gentlest baritone, reserved for Rin alone, rumbled across the snowy yard, quietly instructing his ward.
"Check," she obediently parroted—as ever, the two operated on a peculiarly airtight mental wavelength, despite physically being separated by at least fifteen feet. The remarkable nature of their spiritual, psychological connection caused the rest of the company to pause and watch this impromptu vocabulary lesson. It was captivating.
"Oh." Sesshomaru turned slowly, his honey eyes falling on Rin's messy dark head. Was that—faintly—a smile? "Check-oh, Rin." He raised an expectant eyebrow. And yes, it was a smile. The mildest and mellowest smile imaginable, but a smile, for her.
"Check-oh." Rin nodded eagerly for the next syllable of this challenging, foreign word.
Kagome grinned as she watched them. More than anyone in Inuyasha's itinerant group, she found the paternal softness Sesshomaru exhibited toward Rin to be endearing, if inexplicable to anyone else acquainted with the daiyoukai.
"Slove. Ahk. Ee. Uh."
"Slovakeeyyuh." The child beamed. "Czechoslovakia!"
"Very good, Rin." Fluidly he turned back away from the lot, his fathering duties momentarily met.
Rin's toes curled in delight. "Czecho…slovakia!" She chirped the alien land's name once more. "Please continue, Kagome-nee-chan!"
"Hai, Rin." Kagome handed her a cup of hot cocoa, which the child sipped, with wonder in her fawn-like brown gaze. "Santa Claus is a saint, much like ancestors, kami, or Buddhas in our land. A holy and wise person. He travels using a sleigh with reindeer. He is very fond of milk and cookies." She giggled. "Ano, what else…He is the patron saint of children, believers in him and the religion he represents—called Christianity—say."
"What does he look like?" the child chimed.
"Well, he has white hair…" Kagome's lip quirked. She cocked her head pensively. "And he wears red, and white fur…"
Rin gasped, as though she had stumbled upon a great trove full of delectable sweets. The sudden exclamation caused Shippo, who was lying on his stomach slurping on a candy cane, yelp and scurry behind a quizzical Kilala.
"HE IS LIKE SESSHOMARU-SAMA, THEN!" the little girl exclaimed. Her eyes glittered like supernovas. Truly there could be no more miraculous discovery than her father rendered the benevolent, generous patron saint of children. In Rin's experience, there was little to contradict this schema.
Still…
Inuyasha burst into raucous bellows of laughter.
Sesshomaru stiffened, and then turned, truly intrigued at this interval. His red-rimmed eyes narrowed at his little brother's irreverent mirth. It was enough to render him more suspicious than curious. "Nanda?" he demanded rudely, his mokokomo—the fur in question worn—bristling to a greater volume in hidden vexation.
Kagome tried to salvage the situation. "N-no, Rin-chan, Santa has a beard and…and he's quite—"
"Fat," blurted Inuyasha, clearly relishing the whole idea as much as Rin was.
Though for very different reasons.
"This Sesshomaru is no such pathetic, trivial, idiot human saint," the daiyoukai spat in Kagome's direction.
"Sure about that?" Inuyasha brayed. "Getting soft in yer old age, after all!"
Frost seemed to accumulate around the corners of Sesshomaru's eyes. Pure ice. He advanced a step or two on his disrespectful sibling, fingers crackling with the urge to shred flesh. "You, otouto-san, will cease this eagerness to pester your honored older brother every time he visits his charge."
Inuyasha rolled to his feet, wounded and cantankerous as he always was with the big brother that he both resented and grudgingly revered. The big brother that shared a beloved late father with him. "Come closer an' say that again…"
"But Sesshomaru-sama," Rin protested. Her silvery voice effectively shattered the tension of the moment, for Sesshomaru immediately changed course, like an erratic arctic breeze, padding over to her. She swung her head up, glaring at her adoptive father, hands on hips. She was being defiant: a true rarity. "Santa Claus-sama sounds like a very nice person! I would like it if he visited me!"
Sesshomaru grunted, amending his tone; now it oozed firm patience. "No such visit shall occur, Rin."
"Why?" Further back-talking, peppered with disappointment. "Why won't Santa Claus-sama come see Rin? Hasn't Rin been good, Sesshomaru-sama? Rin does everything you say!"
"Oh gosh," Kagome mumbled, guilt twisting her face. She hadn't meant to cause strife between the father and child. She reached a hand toward the two. "Listen, that's not what I—"
"You have done quite enough," Sesshomaru drawled, waving his clawed hand offhandedly in her direction.
Kagome's face darkened at the dismissal, but, at a headshake from Kaede, she refrained from further intercession.
"Rin," Sesshomaru continued, kneeling in front of his ward. "Listen. It has nothing to do with how good or bad you are. It is only that this Santa Claus that the miko has invented for you is a fallacy."
The little girl huffed, leaning on his knee. "A what?" she queried. She was beginning to wilt, face downcast.
"A fake."
Inuyasha gave an angry scoff at the brutal honesty in the remark. Kagome sighed.
The child's lower lip jutted. "How do you know Santa-sama is a fake? Sesshomaru-sama is the smartest person in the world, but Rin is sure he still does not know everything!"
Sesshomaru's eyebrows furled chidingly. The faintest rose hue tinged the tips of his pointed ears, as awareness of the filled room witnessing his failure to discipline his child sank in. His rigid pride stirred. "Rin, that is enough. I will not have you believing lies that will only end up harming you. I will not see you hurt by some far-fetched myth."
"What if it's not a lie?"
"Rin, it is. It is a lie. Do not believe in such foolishness."
At last the child fell silent. She pushed off of Sesshomaru's knee and turned her back to him. She rubbed compulsively at her eyes, and hiccupped. "R-Rin is...hungry. Excuse me." And she fled the room with haste.
Sesshomaru looked slightly bewildered. He was quite unused to Rin backtalking, but even more unused to her not wishing to shadow his every step. "Hnnh," he said, and nothing more. His face was as uninformative as a yard full of snow without the character provided by foot and sled prints. His mokomoko, however, bristled tellingly.
Jaken was, for once prudently mute. He merely fed Ah-Un oats and kept vigil of the unfurling scene. Shippo sat next to him and shrugged, still working on his candy cane.
"…Sesshomaru-sama," Kohaku began warily. And then the boy, who was almost as fond of Rin as Sesshomaru was, exchanged a look with Sango.
"Go to her," she murmured, and Kohaku stood and followed Rin out.
"What are you all gawking at?" Sesshomaru snarled. He floated to his feet and glided the perimeter of the hut's front room, like a patrolling alpha wolf.
Inuyasha's cheeks billowed out as his brother passed him, his face a hue nearing magenta. He looked quite literally ready to explode in Sesshomaru's direction out of pure indignation. Fortunately, in avoidance of a nuclear holocaust in the middle of a small and defenseless village, Kagome had a reminding hand on his Beads of Subjugation, keeping him quelled.
"That was unnecessary, great dog demon," Kaede croaked at last, voicing everyone's criticizing thoughts and searing glares.
"I quite agree," Miroku calmly added. He leaned on his golden staff. The metal rings at its tip jingled. "Some lies are indeed harmless…even helpful. You're never around for her anymore, Sesshomaru. Not more than a few times a month. She is still used to having you around every single day, all day. Kaede is a kindly old obaa-chan, and Rin has many friends in the village, but your absence still hurts her. You are her world. So. Let the girl have some security, even if it's false—especially if you are unwilling to give her security more fastidiously yourself."
Sesshomaru stopped pacing at the door of the hut. He did not appear to acknowledge any of them. Five minutes of tense silence passed before his lips moved. "Miko."
"Hai?" Kagome and Kaede chimed in unison.
"Young miko," he corrected.
"What do you want, Sesshomaru?" Kagome dropped the honorific, and her tone was more than slightly testy.
"Suspend your scorn long enough to assist me," he rumbled, turning languidly her way.
"Why would I do that?"
"It is for Rin." Sesshomaru's mokomoko smoothed. The way he said Rin's name was like the incantation of a healing spell. Soft, yielding, altogether unlike Sesshomaru. Loving.
More silence.
"…Do it, Kagome," Miroku said, dark eyes perceptively surveying Sesshomaru's face.
"Why the hell should she?" Inuyasha snapped. "I mean, what an assho—"
"No, I…want to. I am partially responsible for this." Kagome stood and strode over to Sesshomaru, expression unafraid. "How can I help you?"
"Are you a fair seamstress?"
"…I got a B in Home Economics."
"I have no idea what that means, but very well. I have white fur already. Sew me a costume with…a great deal of red. And give me a way to look…" His eyes slipped warningly in Inuyasha's direction. "…fat."
Inuyasha turned away sharply to hide a snort of mirth.
Kagome's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"
"Do I joke often?"
"…No, you don't." The young miko beamed. "You're…a good father. Kaede…do you have some extra pillows?"
"Hai." The old miko's wrinkled face burst with wryness.
"Good. That's your tummy padding, Sesshomaru."
"…Tummy padding?" The words rolled off Sesshomaru's aristocratic tongue like pieces of rancid meat.
"Oh, it gets better. Hold still a sec…" Kagome was grinning almost maniacally now. She pulled a long wooden object with score marks out of her backpack and began to measure Sesshomaru's various body parts. "Sesshomaru, have I told you lately how awesome you are?"
"HEY!" a territorial Inuyasha protested.
"None of that, human girl!" Jaken squawked simultaneously.
Sesshomaru suppressed a roll of eyes.
It was going to be a long night.
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Rin accepted hugs and dinner from Kohaku, but went to bed quite early that night. She felt awkward with her own anger at Sesshomaru; she couldn't remember ever having felt it this strongly before.
Or perhaps she had. Perhaps she had felt it for a while now. And she knew why. But anger frightened her; anger was what had killed her parents and brothers, and she was terrified of embracing it. Terrified of losing her new father too, her new father who had become the one person that stood for mama, papa, and all her brothers.
The child sighed brokenly, drifting off to sleep…
…When the sound of firm, purposeful footsteps shot her eyes back open.
Who?
Rin shook off a yawn and peered around the moonlit room. The thatched door flapped open and a tall, rotund figure slipped in. That figure, bearded, stared at her with very familiar golden eyes…then placed two beautiful objects, a red kimono and a new polished lyre, on the threshold. And then he retreated back outside.
"WAIT!" Rin burst out, standing and rushing out barefoot into the snow. Her face was as brilliant as a supernova. "WAIT! Rin wishes to meet you!"
She stood on the shiny black booted feet of the Christmas intruder. She gazed up at a costume filled with red satin and chinking bells and a a floppy pointed red hat and a beard, covering a handsome young face adorned with a moon crescent. "Hello," she said, adoringly.
And then the Lord of the Western Lands, the slayer of thousands, the conquerer of all life and nature, the Killing Perfection…
…replied: "Ho, ho…ho."
It was pathetic. It was deadpan. It was silly.
It was motivated by pure, unconditional love.
And Rin giggled, and hugged the fat false tummy of "Santa Claus." The tummy was a peasant's pillow filled with straw, which poked out at various places and itched heinously.
Sesshomaru decided he couldn't be more humiliated if he tried, so, as new snow began to fall on them both, he turned his performance up a notch, and spoke. "Konbonwa, Rin. I am…"
"I know who you are," the child whispered, eyes jeweled with hope and the glint of the ice off the maples and bare sakura. "And Rin will give you back the lyre and the kimono that you have gifted if you give me the one thing that I really want for Christmas. Please."
Sesshomaru scowled; the sternness of it, however, poorly masked his gentle concern for his daughter, and his fear that he had made another mistake. "You shall have both of them regardless. But what is it you want, Rin?"
The child's sweet wind-mussed head nestled into the warm red satin of her adoptive father's chest. Her ear rested against the place where his strong, steadfast heart beat. "Rin wants her papa-sama to stay with her for longer than a few days this time. Rin wants him to stay for a very long visit."
The world, stilled already by the freshly fallen snow, acquired greater silence. Sesshomaru found that there was a stinging in his chest. A hot stinging which made something in his belly, his real belly behind the ridiculous pillow padding it, flutter. It was not the same as satisfaction, or desire, or conquest, or pride. It was something softer yet far more powerful. It was something he felt only toward Rin, and no other. He cradled that small trusting head in one strong hand. He cradled that spirit around which his whole self and purpose pivoted, as a protector, as a guardian, as a father.
"Onegai," the child interrupted his quiet revelation. "Please, Santa Claus-sama, could you tell my papa-sama that this is all I want for Christmas?" She looked up into the glowing topaz eyes of her lord and mentor, straight through the silly, lopped red hat and false beard.
And oh. The stinging, the fluttering, as, through a brave smile, those big brown eyes drained a few quiet tears.
"Santa" looked down at the wet stains on his chest caused by Rin's fervent weeping. He marveled secretly at how he loved nothing more than those blobs of salty moisture and the person who had made them. Externally, only a faint, pensive line marred his blank face.
But his eyes, and his voice, spoke of far more than his face ever could. "Rin," he rumbled, and it was deep but warm, like the glow of an aging campfire.
"Hai, Santa Claus-sama?"
"…You shall have your wish."
"Really?"
"Hai. Sesshomaru-sama will find a way to stay with you longer and more often. You matter…very much…to him."
"Oh! Arigato!" The child broke from him and danced in gleeful, nonsensical, joyful circles around his falsely-padded frame. She seized his sleeve and hopped around clutching it, tugging him inside Kade's hut. "Arigato! Merry Christmas! Oh! Do you want your milk and cookies? Kagome-nee-chan says you like milk and cookies!"
"If you will promise to go to sleep now. This Santa Claus has many stops yet to make this evening."
"Of course, Santa Claus-sama!" And then Rin blinked, plopping down on the floorboards. "Santa Claus-sama…where are your reindeer?" She wiped her eyes, with a content sniffle.
"I ate them."
Rin blinked, paling slightly. A hand flew to her mouth in horror.
…Oops.
Sesshomaru flinched. "Ano…that is, I feel as though I have eaten them, from all the milk and cookies which I have already consumed tonight."
"Oh."
"Hai." Sesshomaru had always been in a position of power for which lying was both disgusting and unnecessary. Therefore the colorful tales he now wove required frantic brainpower. "They are…over the mountains, grazing. I decided to give them a…short rest."
"Oooohhh." The child's feet turned in, pigeon-toed with delight. "Rin understands. Livestock needs to feed often to keep strength for labor!"
"Hai. Rin. Go to bed now."
"Oh! Of course, pap…I mean…Santa Claus-sama."
For a long moment, their eyes locked. Sesshomaru fought a smirk fueled by pride in his child's wit, and fondness for her loyalty, and her awareness that…perhaps…a certain degree of tact was needed to ask him about matters of the heart…but especially, joy at her recognition that he did love her that much, and her confidence that he would grant her that dearest of wishes.
She really DID know who he was, after all. He was the person who would never leave her. Never.
"…Santa Claus…loves Rin." Quiet, gruff, and almost too hasty to be discernible. Clumsily spilled out from his lips. But he said it.
"I love you too." Rin smiled sleepily, yawned, and curled up in the blankets of her futon. She hugged her lyre and new kimono to her chest and smiled even as she dozed off.
Sesshomaru draped his mokomoko over his daughter's small, slumbering body for several moments, watching her sleep. And then he stood, and walked out into the snow where he had performed that precious act for Rin. He discarded the hat, and the beard, and the tummy padding, and the red robe and the bells that dangled from its sleeves. But he was still Santa Claus to the child that belonged to him.
He returned inside and leaned against the wall nearest Rin, and rested his eyes for a moment.
The moment was brief. "Hey," a voice grating even in a whisper roused him.
Inuyasha. Standing there in all his bow legged barefoot "glory." Arms pugnaciously folded. But with a look on his face that Sesshomaru had never seen before: a look of utmost admiration.
Sesshomaru's right eyebrow quirked quizzically. "….Yes?"
Inuyasha sighed, and then grunted. "Humph."
"Articulate as ever, I see," Sesshomaru purred. "I do not feel like fighting right now, Inuyasha. I am tired. Go back to bed."
"Shut up. Listen. Would it be weird if I told ya I respect you now more than I ever have, after watchin' you do what you just did for your kid?"
"Hai, it would be." Sesshomaru stared past his little brother coldly, expressionlessly.
The hanyou's white prick ears flattened against his skull. His cheeks reddened. "Fine," he snapped, turning to go.
"But," Sesshomaru added, "it is good to know."
The younger brother whirled on his heel, gawking.
"… 'Merry Christmas,' otouto-san." A vague smirk surfaced on that blank face.
Enigmatic as ever.
Then Sesshomaru's lip twitched, and, like a gnarled bit of pink string being sewn across a beige surface, pulled straight, the smirk was gone.
Evanescent as ever.
"….Yeah. You too." Inuyasha blinked, and then continued on his path, back to his and Kagome's room.
On December 25 of that year, Sesshomaru-sama, Lord of the Western Lands, announced to the samurai and daimyos under his command that he would be relocating his capital in Kaede's village. He would be commissioning a grand palace there, yard upon yard of Shoin glory and rock gardens and fountains and elegant rice paper doors. Though he would maintain an itinerant lifestyle, he would spend a far greater portion of each year residing in this palace.
A special and particularly large room was to be built for his ward and daughter, Rin. And another for her mentor, the miko Kaede-sama. And a certain number of guest rooms for their friends and acquaintances,
Often Sesshomaru was asked, in the years to follow, why he made such a drastic shift in his methods, in his whole way of living.
Each time, he flashed that fleeing smirk, that knowing and prideful grin, and gazed over the heads of his inquirers.
Because, he would tell them, he wore that ludicrous Santa suit hoping to give Rin her happiness, and instead learned something incredibly valuable from her.
What on earth, they would ask, was a 'Santa'?
Sesshomaru did not answer. Instead, he continued. Because, he elaborated, at a strangely gentle, joyful time called Christmas, Rin said "I know who you are" to Santa Claus, at the same time to the person who loved her more than anything, to the person who would give her peace and innocence and safety, who would give her these things over and over and over again, to the person who would protect these things that belonged and always would belong to children, to the person who protected all these precious, precious things inside her, when she was twelve and on the brink of passing through that age of innocence into a far more complicated realm of existence—because Rin said "I know who you are," and truly did understand all these things that her words meant.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Everyone who gives a child lasting happiness is a Santa. That is what a Santa really is.