Originally written- May 2006
Word count- 2145
A/n – This oneshot was written for Numisma, at the iy-flashfic community on Livejournal. She asked for a platonic Souta and Buyo fic.
Only A Boy
When Kagome first disappeared down the well, Souta thought that he would never be able to set foot in the well house again. The visions of gangly, ghastly arms and his sister's wide, frightened eyes diving through the well should have repelled him away. Souta wanted them to at least. He would have been perfectly content covering his eyes with the nightmarish images and overshadowing the worry and responsibilities that come with sibling duties. But they weren't doing the job. If anything, Souta couldn't keep himself away.
The day after his older sister's fifteenth birthday, Souta leaned on the well house door. At the moment, he thought nothing of homework or household chores. Only the centipede woman's grotesque, disproportionate fingers ran down the surface of his mind and drew him toward the well house, away from the safety and normalcy of his front door.
But Souta was only a boy after all.
He couldn't touch the doorknob. No degree of tantalizing fingers or pale, sibling faces could force him to even touch it.
A bird flew across the sky, casting his face in a drop of shadow for the briefest moment. Souta wondered if, wherever she was, Kagome could see that very bird as well. She had only gone down the well after all.
Something furry bumped into his shoe and gurgled. Souta instinctively slid down and sat on the ground, his back on the door. Buyo burped and he picked up the cat, grunting at the weight. He didn't move from the spot until Mama called him in.
o
The pull changed when Kagome returned and brought Inuyasha with her. Souta was unable to associate the well with distorted women any longer. Instead, there were only claws, yellow backpacks, and adventure, a grand quest that could never exist on this side of the well.
"Thanks for coming to see us off," Kagome said to him, propping her oversized backpack on the lip of the well.
Souta replied, "Take care." He hoped that Inuyasha would turn his head around and nod to him, just a sign of notice. But Inuyasha merely grunted and swept Kagome down the well mouth.
He stood there, leaning against the door for a moment after they disappeared, and regarded the well with a long, sweeping look.
Souta considered himself no longer in that state of fear and fascination, but then again, Souta's idea of being in any state of mind was to be consumed entirely, to stand within the circle. But now, Souta had ventured out of the circle, so he was technically not in it anymore, even if he had only a toe out.
So Souta didn't think himself pathetic for not moving closer to the well. It was enough to be on the inside of the well house. He had made progress after all.
Besides, Souta told himself, adventure wasn't for modern boys anyway.
o
Buyo batted at the string with a long, lazy yowl. Souta envied his pet very much. It must be pleasant to live the life of Buyo Higurashi. Somebody always provided food in a neat dish, there was a roof over his head, and plenty of knickknacks and odd ends to bat around the house. Buyo could even get a decent workout if he were so inclined.
Souta wondered if Buyo ever went through periods of unhappiness. The cat had everything he could want, so what was there to moan over?
It wasn't necessarily jealousy that Souta felt. There were little pleasures that Souta had that Buyo would never experience, like kicking a soccer ball into the goal and getting a good grade on a test. Souta, too, had ready access to sustenance and shelter, as well as plenty of opportunities for recreational excursions. And, unlike his obese pet, Souta made an effort to stay active.
As he swept the area around the well house, Souta decided he should scold himself for envying Buyo. He had so much more after all. His envy was that of a child, and having seen monsters spring from holes in the ground and people swallowed up by wells, Souta didn't consider himself a proper child anymore.
Perhaps that was the problem. After so many years of bearing the "little kid brother" title of the family, Souta didn't know what to do with his new found maturity. He was in such confusion that he had nothing better to do than envy his cat.
The broom clacked to the ground and Souta kicked at the well house door in a brief fit. Souta rather enjoyed it actually, because only a child would express his anger in that way.
o
"I don't think that rat likes your game very much," Souta commented, crouching next to the well house.
Buyo yowled, but he did not stop his actions. The poor rat could only shiver and twitch. Each time it scrambled to its feet, preparing to run away, Buyo swatted it to the dirt on the ground, pinning it for a moment before magnanimously releasing the rodent, who struggled to rise yet again. The cycle had repeated for the past few minutes before Souta found it necessary to speak up.
The rat probably agreed with his remark, but Buyo didn't appear to care. It wasn't as though Buyo was actually hurting it (not physically at least. Souta didn't want to think of all the mental damage inflicted on the rat), so Souta was unfazed by the cat's nonchalance.
He stood up and dusted himself off, unintentionally prompting Buyo to quit his game and look up at the boy. Dazed, Souta reached for the doorknob and stepped into the coolness of the well house, with Buyo's fur tickling his ankles.
There was no real reason for going inside. If there was a pull, a charged line of attraction between him and the well, he probably wouldn't have allowed himself to recognize it. All Souta knew was that on this warm, sunny day, he had to enter the well house at that exact moment, not a second later. If he didn't, well, it didn't matter, because he was already inside and bending over the lip of the well to peer within the darkness.
At the sight, Souta's eyes widened, fingers fluttered until they found a handhold on the well. Trying to breathe, he turned to look at Buyo, who couched at the well edge, tail twitching, nose pointed downward. He looked back down.
"I'll get a ladder, Nee-chan," Souta promised. "Don't hurt yourself." He paused. "Are you all right?" he asked, hating the redundancy of the question, but knowing that it had to be asked anyway.
There was a short intake of breath.
"It doesn't matter," Kagome replied, voice dull and soft. "It doesn't matter anymore."
o
None of the Higurashi family members dared breathe Inuyasha's name now, not even when Kagome was away. Souta wouldn't say that the name was a taboo, exactly. It wasn't as though they were incapable of forming each syllable of the name in their lips. In fact, Souta didn't feel any particular restriction whenever he thought the name. He just didn't say it out loud because he decided not to. A conscious decision was completely different from taboo, wasn't it?
Sticking his head into Kagome's bedroom, Souta regarded the blanket-covered lump and wondered if a sigh would be insulting.
"It's time to go to school, Nee-chan," Souta reminded his sister. He made sure his voice was bright and cheery, as though he had never been unhappy in his life, because Kagome would probably appreciate the effort. He hoped so very much.
The lump turned over and a tuft of black appeared at the top.
"I think," Kagome said softly, "I won't be able to make it today."
Souta frowned. "But Nee-chan, yesterday you promised Houjou-senpai that you would go to school today." This time, a sigh did escape. "What will I tell him when he comes to meet you this morning?"
A white face peeked out beneath the black tufts now. If Souta made an effort, he could remember the time when those cheeks of a deadly pallor were once warm and rosy, when those dark, empty eyes looked like there was a living mind behind them.
"I'm sorry," Kagome whispered. "But… I can't. Not today."
Eyes downcast, Souta said, "I guess I'll pick up the assignments you missed then."
"Thank you."
Souta looked up, but there was only the lump again.
o
He found himself inside the well house more often than ever before after that. Inside the well too, and that was certainly wasn't a pleasant experience. Souta couldn't understand how Kagome had done it so often before. Who would enjoy jumping into a hole covered with moss and smelling of strong mold?
But it wasn't his decision anyway.
"Nee-chan," Souta called down. He didn't mean for the whine to come out, but this was the fourth time today that he had found his sister sitting at the well bottom. There were only so many times a kid could pull out the ladder in a day. "How long have you been sitting there?" He hesitated, but decided to go for it anyway. "Mama's already set out dinner. You don't want to eat it cold, do you?"
There was a chuckle from below.
"Does it matter?" his sister drawled, peering up at him.
Souta considered. "It does."
"Why?"
He thought again. "Because you'll be hungry if you don't…"
And Souta hated himself all over again. What a childish thing to say. And he wasn't exactly a child was he? Well, was he? Hadn't he grown out of the kid stage?
"Hunger is nothing, really," Kagome replied. "Well, not the kind of hunger you're talking about anyway."
Maybe if he were a child enough, Souta would have walked away from that one, but instead, he pressed. "What do you mean?"
He could see her face now, angling up and smiling vaguely over his ear.
"Hunger. Hunger for the past, for love, for adventure, for that stupid, stupid jewel… That's the kind of hunger that really matters."
She looked down and stared at the palm of her hands. For some reason, it made Souta more comfortable not to look at her face.
"And if I can handle those hungers, then I can do with your hunger," Kagome finished, wiggling her fingers.
"My hunger?"
But Kagome had no idea what his hunger was. How could she make assumptions about him? How could she dismiss his so called hunger with a flick of her words, as though his were a weak, insignificant thing?
Then again, Souta himself didn't even know what his hunger was. He didn't know if he wanted to grow up or to stay a child. He didn't know if whom he envied more— Kagome and her adventures with furry-eared people, or Buyo and his life of contentment. So how did he know if Kagome was right in saying that her hungers mattered more than his?
Maybe, he thought, that was the difference between a child and an adult, knowing exactly what their hungers were.
He turned around and retrieved a ladder. Whether or not Kagome actually needed it, Souta didn't know, and he didn't stay to see.
It was still hard to leave after he positioned the ladder into the well, careful not to touch her sister's crumbled body. He didn't bother pretending it didn't matter that Kagome had lost her contentment, that she suddenly hungered for things she considered unattainable. She had dragged back threads of whatever happened on the other side of the well back with her and wrapped herself around with them, choking at her throat.
There was a gurgle, and a tail curled itself around his calf. Souta automatically bent down to scratch the back of Buyo's ear.
"I don't know anymore," he murmured. "I don't…"
Buyo nosed at his fingers and flicked his tale before scampering away, surprisingly quick for his bulk.
Souta spun around in surprise, and caught sight of fur disappearing through the well house door. Dashing in, he gaped at the emptiness and scrambled to look into the well.
Buyo yowled peacefully, settled in Kagome's arms, his head cuddled just beneath her neck. He nudged at her chin, eyes pinched close in a feline smile. The look on her face had not changed since Souta had dropped the ladder in, but this time, he could see clearly in the darkness tat her face was not quite so pale, warmed by the cat's body heat.
She glanced up at him, and they stared at each other for a moment.
This time, Souta thought about his next words before he actually said them. They were childish yet again, but somehow it didn't matter anymore.
"Dinner?" Souta asked.
Buyo purred with a rumble, and Kagome reached up and caught hold of a ladder rung.