Title: an ode to saudade
Pairing: InuKag
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha (the manga, the anime, or any other associated products) etc.
Summary: A story of loving and losing and losing again: years after being spurned by the well, as Kagome turned to watch a waiting train, she caught a momentary glimpse of her past.
AN: So Kagome sees a glimpse of Inuyasha on the Tokyo metro. I'm sure you've heard of this tried-and-tested trope before. I certainly have (e.g. As the Train Goes By by PristinelyUngifted, which is one of my favourite Inuyasha fics). But it's usually Sesshomaru who is seen, not Inuyasha - or at least I haven't seen the latter.
Please excuse me if the Tokyo metro is not like how it was described here; I did some googling to check, but I've never been to Japan so...
Anyway - I've been waiting to use "saudade" for quite a while. It's Portuguese and refers to a feeling of longing for someone/something. How beautiful is this word?
Thanks for reading!
A slight mist dotted the skyline of modern Japan, and the neon lights flashed like jewels through the curtain of condensation on the glass windows of the metro.
Kagome leaned her head against the glass panel and watched the buildings fly past as if they were merely part of an unfolding illusion. She imagined that the buildings would soon disappear, and that the trees and rolling forests of feudal Japan would soon appear in their stead, that the metal body of the train would dissipate into air, that she would be dressed in the traditional garb of the Shinto priestesses, with the wind in her hair and the jubilant songs of birds filling the night air.
But the train continued to move, gliding smoothly on the metal tracks. The neon lights winked in the distance, the city skyline sparkling like a chain of diamonds strung across the bosom of the unsleeping city of Tokyo.
With a small, wistful sigh, Kagome turned her attention to her reflection in the glass panel. A dozen roses in her hands, a large tote bag hanging from her left wrist, and a laptop bag slung across her weary shoulders; Kagome could pass off as any other young office lady going home after a romantic night out.
She sighed again as another commuter's bag hit her leg. The metro was always crowded, even at this hour, and bodies pushed against bodies, perspiration gathering in the nooks and crannies of their clothing in the oven-like carriage.
Kagome tugged at her collar and wished again for the empty lands of old, for the sunlight pooling under leafy canopies, for mud huts and wood houses spread out across large tracts of land, for tall mountains and their cloudy peaks and the hum of twinkling stars beaming undimmed in the clear night sky.
Ten years had passed since she had returned to modern Japan, spiralled through time by the capricious Shikon Jewel, and picked up the warped threads of her life. She had tried the well time and again, tossing herself down the opening, and each time it had remained an old unused well. Her knees were scratched, and her ankles twisted, and still she tried.
She gave up after half a year, and accepted the fact that she would never see Inuyasha again. They left the outhouse locked after that, and Kagome moved on, went to university, found a good job, and even dated other men.
But the past still called to her with the lure of its peacefulness, its otherworldliness, its romance. Its familiarity.
Inuyasha still called to her through the flowing years, and she saw traces of him everywhere.
She felt Inuyasha's embrace in the gentle touch of the spring rain; she heard his voice in the heat of summer at the beach in the mesmerising beat of the rolling waves against the breakwater. She saw his eyes in the faces of unknown men as she walked through the business district in autumn, their leather shoes crunching against the brick-red leaves on the pavement; she thought of his snow-white hair as the wind howled and the snow fell in the throes of winter.
The train pulled into the station. The doors opened, and people thronged in and out. Kagome pushed against these other people in tandem, struggling to get onto the platform. At last, her daily battle was won, and she stood still as the commuters rushed past her to board the escalators and climb the stairs.
She turned, watching the waiting train. Tired commuters stared back at her, their faces weary and postures stooped. A briefcase here and there, a rucksack of books, men in suits, women in pencil skirts with their caked makeup drooping in the humidity.
And last, of all, Kagome saw a head of white hair. Her roses fell with a thud as she brought her hands to her mouth.
The man looked up; their eyes met.
Inuyasha!
How long had it been? Ten years for her, centuries for him, and yet Kagome saw the hope sizzle in his inhuman golden eyes. He made to push past the commuters blocking him from the entrance. She reached out her hand, perhaps in recognition, perhaps in joy, perhaps in desperation –
And the train doors closed, snapping shut like the jaws of a crocodile's mouth. The die was cast, and in that infinite moment Kagome felt that all was lost, that her life was folding in on itself like a dying, burning old star.
The train whizzed away, a monstrous metal caterpillar, leaving behind only empty tracks and a sobbing woman kneeling on the platform.
He was here, still alive, and she had almost reached him – but he had gone again, lost to her not through the erratic workings of a magic well but through the underhand workings of fate itself.
Kagome watched as the train disappeared into the distance, its tail lights fading away, and thought of the old well, thought of the endless pain, thought of bitter tears and sleepless nights and hail on her windowpanes.
To love and to lose and to lose again, Kagome thought, the tears gathering in her eyes again, was the worst of all.