Disclaimer: None of the characters mentioned in this story belong to me except the baby Inu Taisho (not the one created my Rumiko Takashi) so please….don't sue me, I don't have much anyways…T_T
This one's for my Dodo.
She Doesn't Know
Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.
- Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"
I've been watching her for a while, standing in the shadows. She's human. But strangely not like the rest of her kind. She has habits of her own and the courage to see beyond my armor. Sometimes, I believe she could be a potential threat. But then, why do I always end up saving her? She is so unaware of her own strengths.
She stumbles. She falls. She's hurt. She bleeds. Then she picks herself back up. And she smiles. How fragile her humanity is, how strong her heart – how can a pair of opposites reside in a single person in complete tranquility? She has always been a mystery to me.
She thinks I don't know. She thinks I'm blind. I don't know what she sees in that fool of a half-brother of mine. He doesn't deserve her. Well, to be honest, neither do I. She is so pure that I'm afraid I will corrupt her with a single touch.
I resolve to stay away.
At the dawn of this war, it is not fair for me to let her lean on me because one day she will wake up and I will be gone. I can not do to her what Inuyasha is doing to her right now. I've lived long. I can smell it in the air. The end is coming. Yet, I cannot let her know.
I look down at these clawed hands of mine - pale, poisonous and bloodstained. Then, as she walks in front of me, I look at her soft pink ones and how they sway to the rhythm that she hums. For a moment, I believe that I could tap my feet.
Almost as if he could hear my thoughts, Inuyasha's ears twitch. He turns around and glares at her. Walking behind her, I glare back at him. It freezes him for a moment. The slayer and the monk see it and I suppose, she too, sees the fear on his face. The slayer and the monk are discreet. They keep walking in silence. Rin and the fox kit are oblivious as they ride Ah-Un. Jaken rants on under his breath. She, however, turns around and tilts her chin to look up at me with a dazed expression. I make no move. Then, disappointed, she turns back.
It breaks me.
We walk all day. We don't stop. The stupid half-breed can't see that she's tired. He doesn't know that without the Miko, without her energy, finding the Spider is useless. I don't understand what makes him good enough for her attentions. Deep inside the pits of my stomach I feel the green monster of jealousy rearing its ugly head. The world around me seems to come alive. The trees, the flowers, the grass, the earth and the Gods, themselves, from their heavenly abode seem to be laughing down at me. "Look at Sesshomaru," I can hear them, "look at how weak he has become."
But I don't care.
Not one of them have them opportunity to walk beside her. Not one of them is fortunate enough to hear her babble in her sleep. I should be the one laughing at them for it is this Sesshomaru she talks to, shares her troubles and fears with, when the slayer and the monk slip away, as they do so often. How I wish I could respond and tell her that she doesn't need to feel the way she does when Inuyasha disappears into the forest on one of his escapades.
Sometimes, the Miko can be rather naïve. I don't understand why she hurts herself by loving the hanyou. But I do know that, when she comes back from the woods that night, it will pass. Maybe not tonight, maybe not this moment but one day it will. And then, she won't even remember his name. The feeling is fleeting, much like the zephyrs that blow amongst the trees. Nothing lasts forever. Not even us youkai.
I don't ask her where she's been or what she's done. I smell the dead woman and that bastard. Along with them, I can also smell the lingering scent of tears. She tries to hide them. She is ashamed. But she doesn't realize that the only person who should be ashamed is him. He doesn't think what he is doing is wrong. He doesn't even stop to consider the feelings of anyone around him.
Now that he is away and I watch over them, they slumber. None hears her walking towards camp. No one hears her mumbling criticism directed at herself. Not one soul sees that she doesn't feel good enough.
Her lips are sealed as she walks up to me. She looks down at me for a moment, as I sit under the tree. Her hair falls forward, covering her face. She looks lost. I have a feeling that she wants to say something. I just don't know what. I look into her eyes for three torturously long seconds. But when she doesn't make the first move, I do.
I pat the ground beside me and she sits down. She seems adamant to keep quite, holding her knees to her chest.
For the first time in over five hundred years, I do not know what to do. I wish to say so many words but the sounds won't rise further than my throat. However, it seems that Miko does not require them. She understands, for her small, warm hand slips into my large, cold one and she looks at me.
My breath stops.
Her eyes shimmer in the light of the stars and her skin glows, reflecting the dying campfire. She pushes her hair back and smiles at me. Then slowly, with all her strength, she whispers, "Thank you, Sesshomaru."
And she doesn't know what it does to me. She is so free. Nothing holds her down. She can be sad for a few moments and then she is herself again. I wish she would always be that way. She doesn't realize that though Inuyasha is blind, the rest of us are not the same. She doesn't understand that though he is unfaithful, I will never be. She has no idea that when she smiles, like she's smiling now, a hundred men would willingly die to see that smile once again. And when she falls asleep against me that night, she doesn't know that she's beautiful.