Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to me only in the form of my volumes 1 and 2 manga and a couple of fanarts.
Blank
By Suki
He thought nothing of her.
And that's what was so enticing.
Of all the men that looked at her and thought of her, she couldn't shake off and shudder out from underneath their expectations they'd pinned painfully (and didn't try too hard, anyway) to the ghost of her identity. She knew they were in love with their graven images, each fabricating an intricate tapestry threaded from truths, suppositions, glimmerings, and fantasies: whether a hard-working schoolgirl, pristine priestess, jewel-detector, chosen mate, doll, goddess, girl . . ..
He was the only one who looked at her, and blinked.
His blank was her solace.
After a while, she started to wonder at him because he didn't wonder at her; and that made all the difference.
In a sick sort of way, she would hum and imagine; and she would perk up when he appeared, and she'd pay attention, and watch, and observe, because she wanted to absorb him because she had no assumptions. On the contrary, he had proved, thus far, everything short of admirable.
Except for the way he held himself. Utterly independently of her.
His absence of her seemed a black hole absorbing her more with every waking day.
If she could have made him aware of her existence, she mightn't have done it. Though perhaps she would have liked him to consider her, as she was, standing before him, empty-handed, no jewel, no powers, no strings of fate or connection of persons, not even to his mongrel brother. Perhaps then, he could have perceived her, real and raw. Eager and chipper but delicate, hurt, hopeful.
Kagome.
And after a while, she stumbled after him, half-blindly, and he knew because he was a-demon-and-he-was-like-that, and he stopped and slowed and let her catch him, and she thought (her heart was soaked like a sponge with tears and hope) that that was kind of him, and when she finally met him, he was annoyed but disinterested, and said:
"What do you want?"
Because he didn't want anything, and it was lovely, and she sighed,
"I guess . . . I just wanted to talk."
And he laughed, a snort-short laugh, a haughty why-should-I-care? laugh. Because he didn't care, and he didn't have time (no, he had eternity but he didn't have time for her).
So she looked about her, blushingly, and shuffled her feet, while the deep purple dusk sifted in the trees, and thought as he waited. And as the minutes fell, deep amber drops of syrup, and he shifted, first from one foot, then the other, robes swishing around him like opaque and silky mists, he didn't think she was special, and he didn't know anything of her and didn't care.
Didn't care at all, not for anything in the world . . . so –
He started to walk – but slowly, with his hair trailing behind him, cloud-like, and tossed over his shoulder, indifferently, not even knowing how much it could mean to her,
"All right."