A/N: This is my first time answering a fic writing challenge and, conveniently, my first songfic. When I was assigned this song, I had never heard it. I read the translation and, later in the day, was reading manga volume 18 when, BOOM! It hit me. This takes place in volume 18 after Kagome saw Inu Yasha and Kikyou together and has returned to her own time. It's not the same as in the manga, but the overall ending and plot should at least be similar. I just wanted to make it my own for this songfic. If I hadn't, it wouldn't be a fic now, would it?
Warnings: Spoilers for part of manga volume 18.
Wataru
'Things will never be the same again. I can never go back. I can't face him...'
"Why.....why did I have to meet him? If it was going to end like this, why did I find him at all?" In her misery, Kagome had made her way slowly to the Goshinboku. She gasped.
Here....Here is where I met him...
Inu Yasha faded in and out of her mind, memories past coming to play in the present. "Why?! He is rude and unkind to me! Why do I love him?!" She pounded the trunk of the sacred tree and slid to her knees. "He's terrible! He's done nothing but shout at me since I met him!!"
Kagome panted furiously as tears flowed freely down her now red face. "He's a monster! He kills and he doesn't care! He's nothing but a monster!!!!!!!" 'If only I could believe that...'
"Inu Yasha.....when did I come to love you so much?"
I couldn't leave at all, because
there's scenery I've gotten so used to seeing.
Kagome sat on the rim of the well and stared out into space. Her hair billowed in the wind as the birds around her sang softly and sadly, as if aware of her melancholy. Her mind drifted to the past, to before she had met Inu Yasha. Her life had always been busy - tests, cram school, everything a normal teen living in Japan had to worry about. That is...Modern day Japan.
When she was dragged through the well by the centipede youkai, she thought she had died. There she was, being beaten and bruised by a giant insect when, out of nowhere, a beautiful forest appeared all around her.
At the time, she thought it was Heaven. There was no place this beautiful in Tokyo. Nothing this natural. Everything was as it should be.
'Maybe this is Heaven...or maybe it's Hell.'
...I loved...
I'll see the same sky in the same way
Maybe I thought too much
about whether or not you could call it beautiful.
After a little sleep let's hurry again tomorrow.
'Hell. That one word carries so much pain for me now. That's the one place where Kikyou wants Inu Yasha.'
Kagome glanced around the clearing by the well. "I never imagined it would look like this..."
She stood slowly and took a few heavy steps away from the well. Picking a small flower, she brought it to her nose. "Or smell like this..."
Kagome walked around a bit more before returning to the well. "It's beautiful. This isn't Hell. This isn't Heaven, either... No matter what happens, this is my haven. Despite the fact that others come here, this is mine. My home..." Tears welled up in her eyes once more, only, this time, they weren't tears of sorrow, they were tears of a bitter happiness. A happiness found in the most blinding of pain.
'Kikyou may have been the miko from 50 years ago, but this is my time. She can't replace me here. She could exist along side of me, but she would rather....kill...him....'
...I -love-...
I'm afraid. The steps I can't take
pile up, and turn into a long, long
path untraveled; I'm too late.
Kagome sat again upon the rim of the well. Her portal into the future. To what had once been her home. After she met Inu Yasha, this place, the Sengoku Jidai, became a place of work and suffering for her. 'But it was my duty. I shattered the Shikon no Tama, I had to restore it. That's what I was told by him...and I believed it. I had to stay. There were brief intervals where I could go home, but I was really living here.'
She sighed and crossed her legs. Her arms reached behind her and grasped the ancient wood of the well to support while she leaned back. Her head slowly turned toward the sky. 'I liked him. I understood that there was something that made him cruel. There was a reason.
...Inu Yasha...
'He didn't want to be hurt. That's why he pushed me away. Sure, I got angry with him. But that was just when I couldn't stand it anymore. But...when did my heart accept him as something more? I was always jealous of Kikyou. She had his love. She wanted his body. He was going to give it to her. But I had to stay. We were friends. I had to fix the jewel. I reminded myself of my duty over and over...especially when it hurt the most...'
During that time, I started thinking that
somehow maybe even this place isn't so bad.
I kept giving myself reasons.
'I never got why he wanted to go to Hell with her. Yes, I understand that he feels it's his duty to go with her, but that doesn't mean that he has to want to go with her!'
...You stole my heart...
'Why? She's not even Kikyou! She's a body made of grave soil and bone! Her soul, her essence, is hate! The woman he loved 50 years ago is dead!!! I don't get him! I want, to, but I can't! Everyone thinks I'm so smart and special. Well, if I'm so great, why don't I understand the man I love?!'
In reality, since as long as I haven't understood even once,
I've been pretending to understand everything.
'Inu Yasha…I love you and you don't care. Do you even know?' Kagome curled her hands tightly around the wood.
'There's no way I'm leaving. Not until you know. I think you do. But…do you really?' She let go of her malicious grip before she carved holes on the sides of the well.
'How will I ever know unless I tell you?'
...And walked all over it...
I couldn't leave at all, because
there's scenery I've gotten used to seeing.
Somehow everything seems small, and
what I thought was a small lump was
the sky I look up at that has no end.
Maybe because it's too wide.
Maybe because I was next to you.
Kagome sighed as she realized that nothing could be as it was if she stayed with her family from modern day Tokyo. She would miss her friends and Inu Yasha too much. Why would she miss him so? Did she love him enough to forsake her family?
Was that why he was so intent on dying with Kikyou?
...But you didn't mean to...
I wanted to understand it with my head, but
I envy looking back at
someone, somewhere that I missed.
Kagome looked up from her thoughts to find Inu Yasha looking toward her. His face betrayed his emotions as she noticed surprise, relief, and...maybe a little love?
No. That wasn't possible. Inu Yasha loved Kikyou. He had always loved Kikyou. The only reason he tolerated Kagome was because she looked like Kikyou.
'STOP! That's not true. Even if we could - no, can never be anything more, we are still friends. I do not look like Kikyou. To one who had just awoken from sleep, I could appear to be her because of our resemblance, but that is all.'
'But still....is that why he was always there for me? Was I a fool to think he cared at all?' Kagome retreated to her mind again as a wave of depression hit her in such force that Inu Yasha could almost taste it in the air.
He looked at her in concern. He was worried about her.
'He does care. Just not how I really want him to.'
...And that is why...
I'll forever be demanding something that isn't there.
I've been thinking like that since I met you.
'I can't expect him to suddenly take me away and confess his love for me. I know that!'
...I will stay by his side...
Kagome's eyes focused once again on Inu Yasha. He looked so confused and she could tell that he was struggling for something to say.
"Kagome....." Inu Yasha broke the silence with one word. A word with so much meaning, yet so much pain. Kagome. A girl who had swallowed her heart and decided.
It's all in this hand for sure.
I mustn't leave my dreams here.
It's all in this hand for sure.
I don't need a predetermined future.
'Inu Yasha...'
She stood up as he took a few steps closer to her. "I spent a lot of time thinking, Inu Yasha. When I went back, I was..."
'I was hurt. I thought about many things, none of which you would approve.'
"I was confused. About everything. I've been coming here for a while, now. It really seems more like home than Tokyo."
Inu Yasha was startled at this.
...Kikyou may have his body, but...
It's all in this hand for sure.
If it doesn't move, I can't move it, but
It's all in this hand for sure.
If I don't start it, it never will.
"Inu Yasha? May I request something of you?" Kagome walked up to face him.
Inu Yasha gazed deeply into her eyes. He didn't know how to act around her now. But those eyes....Kagome's eyes enraptured him.
"Yes..."
"I want to be by your side, Inu Yasha. I know I cannot replace Kikyou, and I won't try to. I can't replace her in your heart. She will always be there. I just hope I have a small place there, too."
"Ka....gome.....I...." Kagome hushed him by gently pressing her lips to his.
Before he could react, she pulled away from him, making it seem almost as if the kiss had never happened.
"It wasn't an accident that we met. Whatever led me here knew exactly what it was doing. And I'm glad, Inu Yasha. I'm glad I came to know you. You are one of the best things that have ever happened to me.
"I won't lie to you, Inu Yasha. It makes me sad that you want to die with Kikyou. You have a full life ahead of you. If you truly wish it of me, I won't stop you."
'But that doesn't mean I won't try to change your mind. I will do all I can to stop Kikyou from succeeding. I know he doesn't want to die. He feels obliged to go with Kikyou. Does she really want him dead? Or does she know that, when this is all over, she will die? Does she honestly want to be with Inu Yasha, even if she knows it would have to be in Hell? I think I could understand that.
'Kikyou and I aren't all that different in some ways. Yet, in others...'
Inu Yasha took a moment to take in everything she had said. She was...sad. That was one of the last things he wanted. But she also considered him one of the best things in her life. He didn't know how to react so, instead of replying to her, he turned away and looked over the horizon. 'Kagome...' "We should get going."
"Yes. Yes, we should." She walked over to him and slipped her small hand into the warmth of his and squeezed lightly. Her happiness and joy could not have been expressed in words when she felt him squeeze back.
...I know I have his heart.