Wish Anything
By Psychocynic
Disclaimer: Inuyasya and it's characters do not belong to me, though everything else and in between does.
AN: This was partially inspired by Japanese singer and celebrity Gackt's "Your wish come true" contest/event. Hope you guys like it! This story was on my To-Do Agenda, and now that APOPP is somewhat stable enough, I decided to balance more than one story at once. Readers of Potato Passion (APOPP), sorry, but this is a more serious story; it's not as silly. Still, I hope you like it all the same. One thing you need to know though. I am a Kikyou fan insert cheer and there will be absolutely NO bashing. Respect that! Read and review, or you can email me! I joined fanfiction because writing stories seemed like an enjoyable hobby and a great way to get to know other writers!
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AND AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be using the spelling of "Sessyoumaru" and "Inuyasya", and generally using 'sy' in place of any 'sh' in character names, except for in 'shi'. That's just the rules of the language. There are several ways to romanize Japanese, and the use of 'y' instead of 'h' in Japan IS used, though less. But the names are still pronounced the same, so no worries.
I happen to like this spelling, and I don't want people trying to correct me. I know it can be spelled Sesshoumaru or Inuyasha, etc (in fact, I like this spelling very much too), or Sessho-maru and Inu-yasha, or any other version, but I will do as I please. I do things differently and with my own style, and I believe that a new spelling refreshes the characters' personalities and their connotations, and it gives my work a distinguishable characteristic.
I am making this clear: Do not correct me, or I will ignore you. Anonymous reviews will be deleted, signed reviews blocked, and emails unreturned. And if any of you don't like names my way, go and read something that HAS your favorite spelling.
But I will NOT appreciate you or any other people trying to do the same thing. Go find your own special quirk/trait, do not leech off of me. I had this idea first. And I intend to use this version of romanization for every work I write. You have been warned.
Readers of APOPP and of SSS, which I wrote with SexyBod, those stories will sport the new name change on the next update.
Oh, and something I hadn't mentioned up above; this story takes place through Sessyoumaru's viewpoint.
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Chapter One
Turn Off the Light
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A shadow draped figure lay supine on his bed, said bed which was in turn laying supine on the clean and carpeted floor of a spacious hotel room. Said room was richly furnished, and it's decorator obviously had a taste for interior design, yet, anyone looking into it would not know any of these details, unless they had visited before, for the room was unlit and inkily dark. Well, except for the curtained windows adjacent to the bed, which was letting in a soft dim glow of the boisterous, neon-trimmed city below.
Besides the room's plus features being blotted out by black, the room was not very well cared for.
Stacks of annoying papers sat upon desks, in chairs, and on the floor like birds at dawn, staring and squawking and shrieking at you to get up and go out and eat something and litter the rest for them to freeload. An overstuffed wardrobe sat quietly in the corner, crammed with hangers filed rudely, and all aforementioned hangers dressed in something name-brand, custom made, stylish, fashionable, foreign-imported or the high-end such. All of which were only once-worn. Several professional looking, white buttoned up shirts hung loosely on the fancily embroidered and very squishy looking couch, strewn about like dead fish on a deck.
Though the single occupant of the room, who was afore-described as lying boredly on the bed, did not care at all. No, because obviously, there were more prominent matters to deal with at the moment, something that he knew all along that was coming and could have avoided, but did not. And not to mention that the young man depised the very existence of the place to begin with, and cursed himself profusely for even deciding to visit and perform in this godforsaken desert.
Sessyoumaru sighed, covered his face with his hands, and gritted his teeth in frustration. His fingers seized up and clawed through his snowy white locks in extreme annoyance as his jaw muscles tensed irritatedly. An overflowing river of profanities waterfalled out from his mouth. Then after a few moments, he relaxed a bit and half-opened his reflective, sun shaded eyes, calming down to address the problem here, and besides, it always felt better after a rant.
It was THAT time of the year again. Well, at least it was nearing.
Every rich person's nightmare.
Taxes.
Everything seemed to be against him!
It was absolutely infuriating. He was only a visitor, a foreign celebrity that hadn't even stayed in this ramshackle sin city for more than a few months! He did not think that he was obliged a pay a year's worth to this country which he barely knew and swore no allegiance to. The people here believed themselves to be superior to the rest, and their officials gave him the excuse that he had earned more than enough during his stay here, and should be willing to pay as a sort of "Thank-You" for their hospitality.
Hah, Sessyoumaru mentally snorted bitterly. They had all attended to him with a greedy face behind the mask of willing servitude.
And the bill for a loaded guy such as he totalled to a few million.
Oh no, they weren't gonna fool him. He had their number. There had to be some sort of law that only citizens and residents paid the bill, or at least people who lived in the country, or stayed for the full year. He qualified for none of the above, and he had been friggin' INVITED here in the first place!!!
Plus that they were obviously using the excuse of tax dollars to demand millions from him in order to pay off the enormous electricity bill, a result of all those spangly neon lights and signs and marquee-thingys, and to keep up this damned fake-quality hotel, and to fund the stinkin' casino. And yes, the casino did stink. His hyper-sensitive sense of smell could NOT survive the putrid clouds of burning tobacco products and evaporating alcohol.
His brother was smarter for once, choosing to stay back home to be with the girl he liked. Well, he could see his point now... because besides the fact that the girl was also both his and his brother's close friend, Inuyasya got to escape from the torture of this morally questionable city. The lucky bastard.
Las Vegas... He was leaving from it now. He had spent so little time here, and already wanted to go back...
To his homeland, Japan.
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The next morning was clear and bright.
Golden sunlight filtered through the ceiling-high glass windows all around, making the dust particles dance among the rays, and a spotless blue sky could be seen stretched over the horizon like a never-ending wallpaper. Wind blew in circular patterns, driving the unappealing smells of the open-for-24-hours casino outside to choke the passersby and circulating the crisp air-conditioning air.
Sessyoumaru smirked as he strolled out from the lobby of the hotel, his assistant men in black suits following loyally and pushing carts of his belongings and some of their own as well. He was in high spirits today. The problem had been disposed of. This beautiful morning he'd consulted some of his connections, and with a few of his sidekicks, personally went to bring all those red tape documents and trash up to the head manager, and explained the logic he'd thought out last night, how he'd caught them trying to fraud-tax him, knew that he was not obligated to pay even a cent.
Oh yeah...victory.
Then he'd casually walked out, leaving behind the stuttering, jaw-dropped, eye-popped manager.
"Such a wonderful morning..." Sessyoumaru smugly indulged in over-praising the weather, to the obvious expense of some others who did not quite think the morning was so nice.
It was like a scene in a movie where the triumphant hero walks out on the revealed plans of the regretful villains, leaving the latter pleading for mercy and clinging to the former's sleeves, only to be ignored and made more pathetic in comparison.
"Mr. Yaseishin! Mr Yaseishin!" a few lower managers wailed behind, hands clasped and repenting utterly for their sins.
The head manager himself had recovered somewhat enough to clutch Sessyoumaru's ankle, getting dragged along on the red carpet and snagging his expensive suit, sobbing pitifully. "Pleeeease... Don't go! Wah Haaah... Ohhh, Mr. Yaseishin! No! Please! Ohhh!"
For besides his supposed tax bill being a royally high financial asset to them, the striking young man's very presence at their hotel was staggeringly valuable celebrity advertisement. The hotel had become murderously popular very quickly after Yaseishin Sessyoumaru's arrival there, and profits made from the hotel's restaurants, bars, casinos, and strip clubs had soared skyward. So to them, Mr. Yaseishin was worth his weight in gold.
Clerks had started to harass Sessyoumaru's servants with cash registers. Strip dancers frantically lunged for Sessyoumaru, trying to tackle him with lips and distract the wealthy young star from leaving, but they missed and landed in a half-naked heap. Cleaning maids were clogging up the road to the outside by kneeling on the ground in front of Sessyoumaru and smacking their foreheads to the ground, pleading tragically. Janitors were charging forward to attack with mops.
Though it was all to no avail as Sessyoumaru, with his stunning looks and unbeatable charm, cut through them as effortlessly as an ambulance through a street of cars, and finished the touch by plucking the desperate head manager off and tossing him into the pile of strippers, who thought he was Mr. Yaseishin and immediately began grabbing him and smothering him eagerly with half-exposed cleavage.
And Sessyoumaru walked on, grinning amusedly, still murmuring approval of the weather, off the red carpet and gracefully into a waiting private helicopter.
The men in black suits heaved the suitcases in and quickly scrambled in after, then snapped the door shut. The sunglass-sporting pilot jammed down a red lever and then the fans started to circle rapidly into a blur before the copter started to slowly rise.
And from inside the helicopter, faint sounds could be heard above the roar of the spinning blades, one particularily interesting...
"Janitors! Get yer mops ready... FIRE!!!"
A team of long wooden handles shot their way, wig-like mop hairs jiggling like squid tentacles, soaring in arcs before tangling and falling and bonking the heads of the gathered group of managers below.
One of the lower managers squashed on the ground below, who had gotten a mop's brushy strings stuck on his head, looked like he was wearing a George Washington wig of white curls as he shook a fist at the departing aircraft.
Far up in the stainless sky, inside a racing red helicopter, Yaseishin Sessyoumaru just kept laughing.
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As the helicopter began the long journey across arid, pollution-clogged California and eventually the glittering Pacific expanse, several of the attendants in black suits who had not been down there at the hotel incident, enthusiastically pressed the black suited men who were at the scene for details.
As the men in black in the back seats guffawed loudly in the background, Sessyoumaru himself settled comfortably in the plush-covered high-backed seat and leaned backwards, boredly watching small birds collide lightly with the spacious windows in fat balls of feathers.
As his thoughts started to wander lazily, a familiar gruff voice made itself heard over the fog.
"Yo Sessyoumaru, what was THAT all about?"
The center of attention flicked his eyes towards the source of sound, the black-suited pilot sporting a tomato-red tie and hoop earrings who had turned in his seat to grin at him, pushing up his stylish sunglasses to unveil tawny yellow eyes.
"Hn. Why are you here, Inuyasya?"
"To see you," Inuyasya said simply.
Sessyoumaru snorted and shook his head. He wasn't fooled.
Inuyasya, steering the controls with one hand, laughed offhandedly, "Actually, Miroku told me of your tax troubles this morn, right after you'd called him to send someone to pick you up. So I volunteered to do the job. Considering that it was you, I had an inkling that I'd be able to witness something interesting."
He winked at his brother and grinned knowingly. "And I'm sure glad I came..."
Sessyoumaru cast Inuyasya an annoyed look and opened his mouth to retort, but the latter seemed to know what the former was going to say.
"Wondering why I'm here and not staying home? Well, Kiki's here with me." Inuyasya gestured to his right as Sessyoumaru glanced to the side and saw the person occupying the co-pilot seat shift and turn towards him.
With her right hand still gripped firmly on the control levers, and the left lifting a pair of designer sunglasses to reveal pretty blue eyes, Inuyasya's "girlfriend" (sort of) and Sessyoumaru's best friend since childhood, Kikyou, smiled happily up at Sessyoumaru. Her usually free-flowing locks of raven silk was tied up into a loose, casual knot today and a too-red cap that was obviously Inuyasya's was perched cutesily on her head.
Kiki looked Sessyoumaru up and down, and then clapped her hand to her mouth. "My my..."
Inuyasya's head snapped towards Sessyoumaru, and then, he too started muffling his amusement.
Sessyoumaru frowned in apprehension. What...? He looked down at himself, and groaned in defeat. He had not managed to escape the hotel freaks completely unscathed. Their dreaded legacy marked him in various ways, such as...
His once-fine black slacks, scuffed and fingerprinted at the ankles.
Lengths of mop yarn tangled in his fair hair of heavy silk.
And the worst...
Red hot-lips spattered garishly on the edges of his suit. Ugh. Guess the strippers were able to get a few onto him.
Inuyasya made a few inappropriate remarks and gestures, though all in good humor and fun.
Kiki giggled as she leaned over and playfully kissed Sessyoumaru on the cheek, leaving yet another red lipstick tattoo.
Sessyoumaru grumbled in mock indignation and Kiki laughed and lightly shoved him in pretend hurt.
Inuyasya pointed to his own cheek and said, "Hey, where's mine?"
The three old-time pals and successful superstars joked and teased very un-celebrity-ish throughout the afternoon, until Inuyasya almost cracked the copter into an airplane with his lack of attention, at which his brother promptly removed him and Kiki from the pilot seat and replaced them with solemn-faced men in black suits.
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Evening approached. Clouds had appeared late in the afternoon as the aircraft soared over the silvery blue stretch of the Pacific Ocean. Ruby light stained the horizon, and the natural mirror below reflected it with twice the intensity. The radiant rays of the dying sun gilded the the tops of the clouds, setting them ablaze with fiery color and seeming to bring them to life. They were much less like clouds... they were more like spirits, as if flying majestically to that castle in the sky.
That place of dreams.
Everyone had a dream, did they not? Something they wished for... But not every wish could truly ever be fulfilled.
Then what was the point of wanting something so badly and striving all your life, only to realize at the end... that you had chased a vision among the clouds, but like trying to catch the sun, was neverending? You could not do it. Once you realized this, you fell and lay dying among the disinegrating wisps of that cloud you had rode upon. What was the motivation to start something that could never be finished, never fulfilled the desire to fulfill your purpose in life that every being retained within? What was the point of entering a fantasy that made you suffer so?
But then again, that answer was all too easily obtained.
Weakness.
It is the human condition.
Such is our curse, to love and cherish and attempt things that could never be achieved anyway, depsite romanticism of never giving up and hope would succeed in the end. We make up such idealistic beliefs to comfort ourselves, yet you become wise at the moment you know you wasted your only chance at life. Because humans, strong as they are in terms of intellect and using that to their greatest advantage, of using physical power and the resources given them to attain control over every other creature on the face of the earth, is bitterly, miserably weak at heart. The mind... cannot rest without being assured. It is relatively easy to supply a body, you see... really not too hard to support. Food, shelter, physical comfort. A body could die, easily satisfied. But a mind needs nuturing, needs special care in ensuring a large ego, to be told and to know that they have done something useful in this world. Something momentous, important, or historical. They want to know that they are different, meant for something more than merely a candlelight's span of a life. To have left their mark on mankind for all to remember. Which is, in all reality, too hard to accomplish.
One percent of hope is worse than having none at all, for the blow comes down harder with the rest of that 99 percent of knowing you could fail.
Sessyoumaru's thoughts lingered for a moment in this unventured new land, before falling like the rest of unfinished daydreams, and eventually drifting towards the realm of the forgotten. A realization made, never lost, but set aside for another day. Distantly registering that the lyrics of the song of truth were slipping away like the sands of time, he gave up on trying to hold on to them. Then he raised his fingers to brush his bangs away from his view, feeling a wave of a strange and satisfying drowsiness wash over him, as he lifted his eyes to the the endless blue sky, as if searching among the clouds for the castle of dreams.
"Hey you!! What's the stats?" Inuyasya barked loudly, unintentionally interrupting his elder brother's silent thoughts.
Sessyoumaru's head turned quickly and painfully to the side. His head reeled with the suddenness but he couldn' t quite grasp anything yet... Huh?
"We're still a few hours away!" a black-suited man in the pilot's seat called back. "And going to pass the Date Line soon!"
"That's it?!" Inuyasya yelled incredulously. "If I were piloting, we woulda got there already..."
Sessyoumaru's mind settled a bit as it tried to adjust from it's previous peace to Inuyasya's rude barging in, and the voice of his brother slowly faded into the background as Kiki turned to Sessyoumaru and spoke softly, "Isn't it ironic?"
Sessyoumaru's mind blurred for a moment as he processed her words, still in that foggy world between abstract and reality.
"I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? We're on a hypocritical journey of crossing the International Date Line..."
Nodding his head slowly, still a little unsure of what she was getting at, the obscuring fog finally dissipated from his mind as the meaning gradually came to light.
Kiki laughed gently at the bewildered face of her childhood friend before continuing, "Because you see, we're traveling west to reach the east. And as a result of the world's crazy number of confusing time zones, we're literally flying off towards tomorrow..."
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AN: If you don't get what Kikyou said at the end, you need to think a bit beyond in order to understand. So don't exasperate me and tell me you're shallow by asking me what it means. Think, readers, THINK!!! Anyways. Hope you liked it, and please review.
.
By Psychocynic
Disclaimer: Inuyasya and it's characters do not belong to me, though everything else and in between does.
AN: This was partially inspired by Japanese singer and celebrity Gackt's "Your wish come true" contest/event. Hope you guys like it! This story was on my To-Do Agenda, and now that APOPP is somewhat stable enough, I decided to balance more than one story at once. Readers of Potato Passion (APOPP), sorry, but this is a more serious story; it's not as silly. Still, I hope you like it all the same. One thing you need to know though. I am a Kikyou fan insert cheer and there will be absolutely NO bashing. Respect that! Read and review, or you can email me! I joined fanfiction because writing stories seemed like an enjoyable hobby and a great way to get to know other writers!
---------------------------------------------------
AND AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be using the spelling of "Sessyoumaru" and "Inuyasya", and generally using 'sy' in place of any 'sh' in character names, except for in 'shi'. That's just the rules of the language. There are several ways to romanize Japanese, and the use of 'y' instead of 'h' in Japan IS used, though less. But the names are still pronounced the same, so no worries.
I happen to like this spelling, and I don't want people trying to correct me. I know it can be spelled Sesshoumaru or Inuyasha, etc (in fact, I like this spelling very much too), or Sessho-maru and Inu-yasha, or any other version, but I will do as I please. I do things differently and with my own style, and I believe that a new spelling refreshes the characters' personalities and their connotations, and it gives my work a distinguishable characteristic.
I am making this clear: Do not correct me, or I will ignore you. Anonymous reviews will be deleted, signed reviews blocked, and emails unreturned. And if any of you don't like names my way, go and read something that HAS your favorite spelling.
But I will NOT appreciate you or any other people trying to do the same thing. Go find your own special quirk/trait, do not leech off of me. I had this idea first. And I intend to use this version of romanization for every work I write. You have been warned.
Readers of APOPP and of SSS, which I wrote with SexyBod, those stories will sport the new name change on the next update.
Oh, and something I hadn't mentioned up above; this story takes place through Sessyoumaru's viewpoint.
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Chapter One
Turn Off the Light
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A shadow draped figure lay supine on his bed, said bed which was in turn laying supine on the clean and carpeted floor of a spacious hotel room. Said room was richly furnished, and it's decorator obviously had a taste for interior design, yet, anyone looking into it would not know any of these details, unless they had visited before, for the room was unlit and inkily dark. Well, except for the curtained windows adjacent to the bed, which was letting in a soft dim glow of the boisterous, neon-trimmed city below.
Besides the room's plus features being blotted out by black, the room was not very well cared for.
Stacks of annoying papers sat upon desks, in chairs, and on the floor like birds at dawn, staring and squawking and shrieking at you to get up and go out and eat something and litter the rest for them to freeload. An overstuffed wardrobe sat quietly in the corner, crammed with hangers filed rudely, and all aforementioned hangers dressed in something name-brand, custom made, stylish, fashionable, foreign-imported or the high-end such. All of which were only once-worn. Several professional looking, white buttoned up shirts hung loosely on the fancily embroidered and very squishy looking couch, strewn about like dead fish on a deck.
Though the single occupant of the room, who was afore-described as lying boredly on the bed, did not care at all. No, because obviously, there were more prominent matters to deal with at the moment, something that he knew all along that was coming and could have avoided, but did not. And not to mention that the young man depised the very existence of the place to begin with, and cursed himself profusely for even deciding to visit and perform in this godforsaken desert.
Sessyoumaru sighed, covered his face with his hands, and gritted his teeth in frustration. His fingers seized up and clawed through his snowy white locks in extreme annoyance as his jaw muscles tensed irritatedly. An overflowing river of profanities waterfalled out from his mouth. Then after a few moments, he relaxed a bit and half-opened his reflective, sun shaded eyes, calming down to address the problem here, and besides, it always felt better after a rant.
It was THAT time of the year again. Well, at least it was nearing.
Every rich person's nightmare.
Taxes.
Everything seemed to be against him!
It was absolutely infuriating. He was only a visitor, a foreign celebrity that hadn't even stayed in this ramshackle sin city for more than a few months! He did not think that he was obliged a pay a year's worth to this country which he barely knew and swore no allegiance to. The people here believed themselves to be superior to the rest, and their officials gave him the excuse that he had earned more than enough during his stay here, and should be willing to pay as a sort of "Thank-You" for their hospitality.
Hah, Sessyoumaru mentally snorted bitterly. They had all attended to him with a greedy face behind the mask of willing servitude.
And the bill for a loaded guy such as he totalled to a few million.
Oh no, they weren't gonna fool him. He had their number. There had to be some sort of law that only citizens and residents paid the bill, or at least people who lived in the country, or stayed for the full year. He qualified for none of the above, and he had been friggin' INVITED here in the first place!!!
Plus that they were obviously using the excuse of tax dollars to demand millions from him in order to pay off the enormous electricity bill, a result of all those spangly neon lights and signs and marquee-thingys, and to keep up this damned fake-quality hotel, and to fund the stinkin' casino. And yes, the casino did stink. His hyper-sensitive sense of smell could NOT survive the putrid clouds of burning tobacco products and evaporating alcohol.
His brother was smarter for once, choosing to stay back home to be with the girl he liked. Well, he could see his point now... because besides the fact that the girl was also both his and his brother's close friend, Inuyasya got to escape from the torture of this morally questionable city. The lucky bastard.
Las Vegas... He was leaving from it now. He had spent so little time here, and already wanted to go back...
To his homeland, Japan.
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The next morning was clear and bright.
Golden sunlight filtered through the ceiling-high glass windows all around, making the dust particles dance among the rays, and a spotless blue sky could be seen stretched over the horizon like a never-ending wallpaper. Wind blew in circular patterns, driving the unappealing smells of the open-for-24-hours casino outside to choke the passersby and circulating the crisp air-conditioning air.
Sessyoumaru smirked as he strolled out from the lobby of the hotel, his assistant men in black suits following loyally and pushing carts of his belongings and some of their own as well. He was in high spirits today. The problem had been disposed of. This beautiful morning he'd consulted some of his connections, and with a few of his sidekicks, personally went to bring all those red tape documents and trash up to the head manager, and explained the logic he'd thought out last night, how he'd caught them trying to fraud-tax him, knew that he was not obligated to pay even a cent.
Oh yeah...victory.
Then he'd casually walked out, leaving behind the stuttering, jaw-dropped, eye-popped manager.
"Such a wonderful morning..." Sessyoumaru smugly indulged in over-praising the weather, to the obvious expense of some others who did not quite think the morning was so nice.
It was like a scene in a movie where the triumphant hero walks out on the revealed plans of the regretful villains, leaving the latter pleading for mercy and clinging to the former's sleeves, only to be ignored and made more pathetic in comparison.
"Mr. Yaseishin! Mr Yaseishin!" a few lower managers wailed behind, hands clasped and repenting utterly for their sins.
The head manager himself had recovered somewhat enough to clutch Sessyoumaru's ankle, getting dragged along on the red carpet and snagging his expensive suit, sobbing pitifully. "Pleeeease... Don't go! Wah Haaah... Ohhh, Mr. Yaseishin! No! Please! Ohhh!"
For besides his supposed tax bill being a royally high financial asset to them, the striking young man's very presence at their hotel was staggeringly valuable celebrity advertisement. The hotel had become murderously popular very quickly after Yaseishin Sessyoumaru's arrival there, and profits made from the hotel's restaurants, bars, casinos, and strip clubs had soared skyward. So to them, Mr. Yaseishin was worth his weight in gold.
Clerks had started to harass Sessyoumaru's servants with cash registers. Strip dancers frantically lunged for Sessyoumaru, trying to tackle him with lips and distract the wealthy young star from leaving, but they missed and landed in a half-naked heap. Cleaning maids were clogging up the road to the outside by kneeling on the ground in front of Sessyoumaru and smacking their foreheads to the ground, pleading tragically. Janitors were charging forward to attack with mops.
Though it was all to no avail as Sessyoumaru, with his stunning looks and unbeatable charm, cut through them as effortlessly as an ambulance through a street of cars, and finished the touch by plucking the desperate head manager off and tossing him into the pile of strippers, who thought he was Mr. Yaseishin and immediately began grabbing him and smothering him eagerly with half-exposed cleavage.
And Sessyoumaru walked on, grinning amusedly, still murmuring approval of the weather, off the red carpet and gracefully into a waiting private helicopter.
The men in black suits heaved the suitcases in and quickly scrambled in after, then snapped the door shut. The sunglass-sporting pilot jammed down a red lever and then the fans started to circle rapidly into a blur before the copter started to slowly rise.
And from inside the helicopter, faint sounds could be heard above the roar of the spinning blades, one particularily interesting...
"Janitors! Get yer mops ready... FIRE!!!"
A team of long wooden handles shot their way, wig-like mop hairs jiggling like squid tentacles, soaring in arcs before tangling and falling and bonking the heads of the gathered group of managers below.
One of the lower managers squashed on the ground below, who had gotten a mop's brushy strings stuck on his head, looked like he was wearing a George Washington wig of white curls as he shook a fist at the departing aircraft.
Far up in the stainless sky, inside a racing red helicopter, Yaseishin Sessyoumaru just kept laughing.
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As the helicopter began the long journey across arid, pollution-clogged California and eventually the glittering Pacific expanse, several of the attendants in black suits who had not been down there at the hotel incident, enthusiastically pressed the black suited men who were at the scene for details.
As the men in black in the back seats guffawed loudly in the background, Sessyoumaru himself settled comfortably in the plush-covered high-backed seat and leaned backwards, boredly watching small birds collide lightly with the spacious windows in fat balls of feathers.
As his thoughts started to wander lazily, a familiar gruff voice made itself heard over the fog.
"Yo Sessyoumaru, what was THAT all about?"
The center of attention flicked his eyes towards the source of sound, the black-suited pilot sporting a tomato-red tie and hoop earrings who had turned in his seat to grin at him, pushing up his stylish sunglasses to unveil tawny yellow eyes.
"Hn. Why are you here, Inuyasya?"
"To see you," Inuyasya said simply.
Sessyoumaru snorted and shook his head. He wasn't fooled.
Inuyasya, steering the controls with one hand, laughed offhandedly, "Actually, Miroku told me of your tax troubles this morn, right after you'd called him to send someone to pick you up. So I volunteered to do the job. Considering that it was you, I had an inkling that I'd be able to witness something interesting."
He winked at his brother and grinned knowingly. "And I'm sure glad I came..."
Sessyoumaru cast Inuyasya an annoyed look and opened his mouth to retort, but the latter seemed to know what the former was going to say.
"Wondering why I'm here and not staying home? Well, Kiki's here with me." Inuyasya gestured to his right as Sessyoumaru glanced to the side and saw the person occupying the co-pilot seat shift and turn towards him.
With her right hand still gripped firmly on the control levers, and the left lifting a pair of designer sunglasses to reveal pretty blue eyes, Inuyasya's "girlfriend" (sort of) and Sessyoumaru's best friend since childhood, Kikyou, smiled happily up at Sessyoumaru. Her usually free-flowing locks of raven silk was tied up into a loose, casual knot today and a too-red cap that was obviously Inuyasya's was perched cutesily on her head.
Kiki looked Sessyoumaru up and down, and then clapped her hand to her mouth. "My my..."
Inuyasya's head snapped towards Sessyoumaru, and then, he too started muffling his amusement.
Sessyoumaru frowned in apprehension. What...? He looked down at himself, and groaned in defeat. He had not managed to escape the hotel freaks completely unscathed. Their dreaded legacy marked him in various ways, such as...
His once-fine black slacks, scuffed and fingerprinted at the ankles.
Lengths of mop yarn tangled in his fair hair of heavy silk.
And the worst...
Red hot-lips spattered garishly on the edges of his suit. Ugh. Guess the strippers were able to get a few onto him.
Inuyasya made a few inappropriate remarks and gestures, though all in good humor and fun.
Kiki giggled as she leaned over and playfully kissed Sessyoumaru on the cheek, leaving yet another red lipstick tattoo.
Sessyoumaru grumbled in mock indignation and Kiki laughed and lightly shoved him in pretend hurt.
Inuyasya pointed to his own cheek and said, "Hey, where's mine?"
The three old-time pals and successful superstars joked and teased very un-celebrity-ish throughout the afternoon, until Inuyasya almost cracked the copter into an airplane with his lack of attention, at which his brother promptly removed him and Kiki from the pilot seat and replaced them with solemn-faced men in black suits.
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Evening approached. Clouds had appeared late in the afternoon as the aircraft soared over the silvery blue stretch of the Pacific Ocean. Ruby light stained the horizon, and the natural mirror below reflected it with twice the intensity. The radiant rays of the dying sun gilded the the tops of the clouds, setting them ablaze with fiery color and seeming to bring them to life. They were much less like clouds... they were more like spirits, as if flying majestically to that castle in the sky.
That place of dreams.
Everyone had a dream, did they not? Something they wished for... But not every wish could truly ever be fulfilled.
Then what was the point of wanting something so badly and striving all your life, only to realize at the end... that you had chased a vision among the clouds, but like trying to catch the sun, was neverending? You could not do it. Once you realized this, you fell and lay dying among the disinegrating wisps of that cloud you had rode upon. What was the motivation to start something that could never be finished, never fulfilled the desire to fulfill your purpose in life that every being retained within? What was the point of entering a fantasy that made you suffer so?
But then again, that answer was all too easily obtained.
Weakness.
It is the human condition.
Such is our curse, to love and cherish and attempt things that could never be achieved anyway, depsite romanticism of never giving up and hope would succeed in the end. We make up such idealistic beliefs to comfort ourselves, yet you become wise at the moment you know you wasted your only chance at life. Because humans, strong as they are in terms of intellect and using that to their greatest advantage, of using physical power and the resources given them to attain control over every other creature on the face of the earth, is bitterly, miserably weak at heart. The mind... cannot rest without being assured. It is relatively easy to supply a body, you see... really not too hard to support. Food, shelter, physical comfort. A body could die, easily satisfied. But a mind needs nuturing, needs special care in ensuring a large ego, to be told and to know that they have done something useful in this world. Something momentous, important, or historical. They want to know that they are different, meant for something more than merely a candlelight's span of a life. To have left their mark on mankind for all to remember. Which is, in all reality, too hard to accomplish.
One percent of hope is worse than having none at all, for the blow comes down harder with the rest of that 99 percent of knowing you could fail.
Sessyoumaru's thoughts lingered for a moment in this unventured new land, before falling like the rest of unfinished daydreams, and eventually drifting towards the realm of the forgotten. A realization made, never lost, but set aside for another day. Distantly registering that the lyrics of the song of truth were slipping away like the sands of time, he gave up on trying to hold on to them. Then he raised his fingers to brush his bangs away from his view, feeling a wave of a strange and satisfying drowsiness wash over him, as he lifted his eyes to the the endless blue sky, as if searching among the clouds for the castle of dreams.
"Hey you!! What's the stats?" Inuyasya barked loudly, unintentionally interrupting his elder brother's silent thoughts.
Sessyoumaru's head turned quickly and painfully to the side. His head reeled with the suddenness but he couldn' t quite grasp anything yet... Huh?
"We're still a few hours away!" a black-suited man in the pilot's seat called back. "And going to pass the Date Line soon!"
"That's it?!" Inuyasya yelled incredulously. "If I were piloting, we woulda got there already..."
Sessyoumaru's mind settled a bit as it tried to adjust from it's previous peace to Inuyasya's rude barging in, and the voice of his brother slowly faded into the background as Kiki turned to Sessyoumaru and spoke softly, "Isn't it ironic?"
Sessyoumaru's mind blurred for a moment as he processed her words, still in that foggy world between abstract and reality.
"I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? We're on a hypocritical journey of crossing the International Date Line..."
Nodding his head slowly, still a little unsure of what she was getting at, the obscuring fog finally dissipated from his mind as the meaning gradually came to light.
Kiki laughed gently at the bewildered face of her childhood friend before continuing, "Because you see, we're traveling west to reach the east. And as a result of the world's crazy number of confusing time zones, we're literally flying off towards tomorrow..."
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AN: If you don't get what Kikyou said at the end, you need to think a bit beyond in order to understand. So don't exasperate me and tell me you're shallow by asking me what it means. Think, readers, THINK!!! Anyways. Hope you liked it, and please review.
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