He is surprised by her strange aura-- to him it is obvious she has died like he. It is not that she is alive that is strange (far from it, a voice in his mind says, it gets more common every day). It is that she is so innocentlycheerful despite having lost almost as much as him.
"Come on Kohaku," Rin says, happily, pleadingly, "Let's play!"
Quietly, for a reason he cannot understand, a half forgotten memory of sweet, sweet innocence perhaps, he nods.
---
In the clearing and wrapped in the stillness of the night, a figure in crimson robes wraps his arms around the woman with cold eyes that wish more than anything to be whole again, yet knowing that such a feat would end in nothing but a pair of broken hearts.
They have both died from the same betrayal and have been cruelly awakened by fate to complete the destinies that they have been trapped in.
Though he is persecuted by his friends for it, he will always come to her -- though it kills him to see Kagome suffer -- and she will always wait for him.
It is at this moment that they realize that the dead are drawn to each other.
---
Gazing into the embers of a dying fire -- so much like me -- she wants to weep, though her eyes are dry.
She wishes that he, so cruel, had let her die as she lay with her brother, but at the grey place between life and death he pulled her back.
Despite the fact that her heart is breaking every moment she must remember she must keep moving, keep working towards the goal she has set in order to maintain her sanity -- and she knows why her brother chose to forget.
She wishes she could cry and let the tears cleanse her soul, but she can't because outside she is the strong taijiya and taijiya don't cry. She is doomed to carry the aching hollowness within her.
---
Those walking dead -- the resurrected -- are bound to their deaths. It is not natural to live again after death, therefore, they cannot lead natural lives.
They are broken, but they still function, stubbornly, miserably.
Inuyasha and Sango hide behind facades of normality like cracked armor as their hearts shatter, Kikyou wanders in between forever trapped between life and death without being either. Only in the darkness of the faded dreams does Rin ever dream she is anything but happy, and Kohaku tries to ignore the images that flash in his mind as he sinks his blade into the neck of yet another faceless villager.
They will continue, their every breath and movement forced, like marionettes.
Because the dead are drawn to each other.