Disclaimer~"I don't own InuYasha or its characters; they belong to the amazing person: Rumiko Takahashi! I just like taking them and playing with them sometimes!"

Now this is not the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

- Winston Churchill

What does it mean to be who you really are? Is it the ability to listen to only your soul, stand on your own, or realize that you could finally have your own voice, and be heard after long and painful tear-filled nights? Who knows? Do you always have to start the journey with a proper beginning, or even should you claim your goal without any sadness experienced? I think, not really. The way I imagine it to be who you really are, rather the tale that leads towards it is just a series of emotions. It is feeling after feeling, happiness or depression? My point is everyone will have them.

And with it? Those different moments that come together and give meaning to the thing know as life—maybe not yours, maybe not a person you know, but someone's life.

I like people who show who they really are, don't you? I like the ones who no matter how hard life gets, they keep moving forward, taking no bullshit from anyone and just own up to who they are. Damn, I'd love to be one of them, but teh...I'm still stuck in the beginning of this long tale. Those people put all their worth into that single thread of a dangling moments, of all their happiness. All for the purpose of saying: Fuck everyone else, I'm gonna be me. Because with every person that meet it affects them and makes them become better. It changes people, and it's nothing no one can control.

There's something astonishing about writing, ya know? Well why I do it is this: I get to pick and choose moments that I wanted to tell, forming the tale that is someone's life. It's childish since, I'd rather write about people standing up for the things I only wish I could do myself.

It's so fucking foolish, right?

However, there's something empowering and fascinating about that. Giving your thoughts and made up events in your head a purpose. An entire life that no one else has lived. But countless can relate too. When I think about it, I see the world with a greater purpose though the eyes of others, Never been grown but can tell the troubles of children, never been beaten but can write like that of a victim. Scary, isn't it? Probably not, because not everyone can become who they really are. I'm one of them and damn, it sucks more than anything.

My job is to interpret other people's lives, tell their stories. My role is to tell stories other than my own. Never in my life have I been concerned with doing otherwise—

until now.

I guess that I finally realized to tell their stories; I must finally open up and tell my own, even if it's only from no other person's thoughts or feelings, I'll know what I stayed true too and the trails it too to become me. It's nothing amazing, for the record, nothing surprisingly deep or life changing, which would make you stop and listen to my tale. It's not about the ability to listen to only your soul, stand on your own, or realize that you could finally have your own voice, and be heard after long and painful tear-filled nights?

It's not even about us, or hell, me. It's just a series of emotions, a brief look, into the minds of others. Things just happen, the way both fate and you wanted them too and for once I don't mind sharing these things, because even if you don't find it all that meaningful.

It's how I plan on becoming me.

One, two, and three...I counted in my head as another cut made its home upon my wrists. Four, five, and six...a bloody bliss to make my other wrist match. I was about to move onto my stomach when the noise shook my room:

Crash!

"Dammit." I didn't need this, couldn't she go and be drunk somewhere else?

Making my way down the narrow, cluttered hallway, it was a mixture of hardwood and carpet, both of which were a moldy color and had a horrible smell, almost making it unlivable but with enough air-freshener and scented candles it was alright. Since Grandpa passed away a few years ago, mom had let the place go to waste. The stairs squeaked with each and every step. Annoying - was theonly word that came to mind. I was never sure if it was because of the squeaking or my mom. Overtime I simply accepted it as the lather.

"How can Souta sleep through all this shit? You do this like every night?"

"Souta's learned to deal with it, why can't you?"

Coming past the paper thin wall that separated the upstairs and living room - if it could be called such. Mom was in her usual place. Half naked on the coach with nothing but a sheet that hung off the right arm, she used it to cover her private skins. Though nothing more. It wasn't the best of places to call bed with its holes and many lose springs. The patches that covered some of the tears and stains that had developed over the years of neglected use.

Though after another night of drinking this place was her comfort. Easier to claim than her own bed upstairs I suppose. Currently, she was holding a glass beer bottle and slowly took sips of it, Already drunk she would still drink until she passed out or ran out of that addictive substance, the first of the two options occurred more often than not.

"I'm 16, I don't have to put up with this shit, you know?" I cross my arms and lean on the kitchen counter. I hated the smell of beer. I was the kind of person who enjoyed Grey Goose more than anything.

Tipping the bottle until its contents ran out into her mouth. She gazed at me with sorrow, though I was used to this game we did every night. "Then leave, Kagome."

That name again. Damn, I hated it more than anything else...well almost anything, point was that name was dead. It never existed along with the person she called it too. "Kage. My name is Kage." I spoke out of habit, I had been using this name since year three of Primary school and she always refused to say it.

"Where does that leave Souta? Since his mom is a drunk, as his older sibling I'm the next best thing."

I made my way to the couch. I was still half asleep per my normal. Always thankful that the darkness hid my cut marks, not that it would matter. After-all the skin I sliced was just as nonexistent as the name she called me before. I just stood over her, just looking and seeing the woman that I called mother.

"Why do you always fucking do this to yourself?"

"Your father's eyes were in his." And this look I couldn't place came over her.

"Yeah, he did?" I played this game every night for the past six - almost seven years. I was used to her rambles and I had gotten used to what answers to give. Habit...that's all it was.

My eyes watched intently as she played with the blanket. Her body wanted to escape into sleep, but her mind wanted to remain concuss with me. "He was kind, though he left me outside the club alone. How rude, right baby?"

"Yeah...rude ass. Nothing like dad, so why?"

"Sweetie, I could never say no to those eyes-" she reached her hand up and gently currsed my cheek with her thumb. Something she often did to me when I was a child before dad died. Souta never experienced it to my knowledge. It was only something her and I shared. Never spoke it but I was grateful. "-you have those same eyes, you know?"

"Yeah, ma'ma. You've told me this since I was born. I know."

For that moment I found myself being her baby again. When it was just her, dad, and myself. Souta hadn't been thought of quite yet. And Grandpa came around often enough that he was like a second dad. Life was perfect then, we were all happy. Though we had struggles, it was us - a family. I miss it more than anything. The two men that meant more to me than anything within the first ten years of my life:

Gone.

It was when mom's hand slipped from my face and fell lazily to hang just above the floor. "Fell asleep, eh?" Fixing the sheet so it wrapped around her I lifted her with all the care onto my back and started making my way up the stairs towards the back room, mother in toll. "Sometimes-"

Damn, I hated those damn squeaks...

"-I wonder who the parent and who the child was."

Just something I always thought was all. Though when it came to situations like this? The answer was clear as hell to see. Coming towards the last room on the right, I went inside and flicked on the light. Wasn't surprised to see clothes and shoes littered the floor. See, my mother was your tipical girl and me? Well, that's a story for later. I layed her body on the bed, and scanned the hardwood for one of the many slips she wore to bed. Women never was one for pants, unlike me.

Coming across a shimmering light pink one I made a face at it. Wasn't into things like this, never have and I damn sure never would be. However, I grabbed it, smelling it for cleanliness before slipping it over the women's bare form. "Sleeps like the dead." I threw the cover over mom and left her room.

"Teh, I'm the parent here."

Walking down the hall, I came to my room. Turning on the lights as I went past my door, and left it cracked. In case Souta somehow heard anything that had went on downstairs. He was only eight, but he knew more than most people knew. Mom never saw it, but I sure as hell did.

I flopped on my bed and searched until I found my journel, in its awesome midnight purple, and yes that is a color. I felt like shit so why not write about someone feeling the same? Glancing out the window, which had bars lining it both horizontal, making most people feel that they were trapped in prison, but to those of us who've been here all our lives it was our only home. Though there were other reasons for it to be a prison:

A drunk of a mother.

Looking out towards our apartment complex, it was small. It had maybe fifty to sixty-five people hidden away from the world, out-cast by those who had proper jobs and a "normal" way of living, but everyone here had something in common, they were barely getting by. Last time I checked Souta and myself were the only children who lived here. However, I couldn't really be called a child anymore. I had seen and knew far to much now. Unlike mu innocent younger brother. I always wished for him to stay that way.

There was only a single building that held everyone, a few years ago the other one burned down leaving only the one were we lived today. There was a tiny park with swings, an old slide, a classic merry-go-round, and a titer-totter separated from building A only by a pitiful span of sidewalk, cracked in places from the uprooting of trees and parking lot where a variety of cars huddled together, some more nicer than others, reason being some people here did shady things at night, or even during the day, when they thought no one was looking.

The streets, the lot, the walls—all of it was a dull yellowish and brownish gray, although there was the color of a variety, green, which probably came from the many trees and plants that had made their home in the many cracks of the building. It wasn't so much worn out and tiring as it was depressing. I'd been raised in this one apartment, like so many others had been their entire life, it had become comfortable over the years with it and yet I was sick of it at the same time, same old people every day, same faces coming and going. Souta didn't mind. Since I made sure he didn't go to school around here. It's like I said before I was the parent here.

Here, there was no such thing as variety or change just the reoccurring faces; most I still couldn't place a name too. Even though I didn't know them personally or at all, that didn't keep me from using them in stories of the world around me. The people, events, or even the truly disturbing and the ones no one seemed to care for those are the ones I wrote about.

There was one time when I met a man in the park. It was a couple years ago, and he didn't live here anymore. His home had burned down. He had just come and sat next to me. I remember it had been oddly warm out for a December day and I didn't have school. He asked how was the weather, and I hadn't spoken at first. It was that phase in my life when I spoke to no one. Though you'll hear more about that later. It wasn't until he brought up something so stupid that my interest was peeked:

Stories.

He'd seen me writing in one of my older journals but I guess I'm like my ma'ma. Something in his eyes reminded me of my dad and I had let him peek into one of the few places that I allowed my thoughts to run free. It was at this time were I'll never forget what he asked me: "Sucks not being heard, right?"

He was a kind old man with a smile that had most teeth missing but it was something in that moment that made me stop and think, ya know? About what he said, since I had felt that way plenty of times before. Though I had never acted on them. A couple hours later he'd gotten up much like the way he had sat down. Slow, but with more haste than most. That make sense? He handed me my journal back and said something else that I'll never forget to this day:
"Fuck this world and what it wants you to be."

And without another word he left. It wasn't long after that when the second building had caught fire and I never had the chance to speak to him again. Though I never forgot that moment. I wrote about it a few times not to long after. It changed me, ya know? Made me open my eyes, wake the fuck up and say for myself. "Fuck this world, I'm going to become me."

However, I didn't know it then. But damn, that was something I was going to have to work at just to live.

That was why, every day, you'd find me sitting at the top of the second floor stairway, in that small cut-off corner so nobody could see me. Looking onto the parking-lot with my pencil in hand, ready to catch whatever moment came my way. Like today, I usually came out around six, maybe even as late as eight if I got up later, writing away while waiting for the bus. Souta went to a better school far away from this dump. So his special bus came around six on the dot everyday and dropped him home around four the same way.

It was so I didn't have to worry about him, you know? I had enough with school and all.

The alley cats had come out, meowing their obnoxious songs, but over the years we had made an unspoken agreement, if I feed them, they would allow me to write about their movements or 'meows' to one another. Though sometimes they - just like people - could be picky. Though I could relate. I grabbed the empty bowl and reached into my backpack and pulled out a small half-pint of milk, pouring it into the bowl and watched as the familiar faces came out and drank. I guessed today wasn't the day because just as quick as they had arrived, they vanished like a thief in the night.

I glanced at my phone and sighed, as I realized the time. Eight o' clock. Bus should be here any moment now. Sighing once again, I grabbed my note-book and pencil and headed back to my apartment to grabbed my textbooks, house key, put the bowl in the sink, and lock the door, all the while knowing the bus driver would wait a total of two extra minutes before honking the horn and pulling off. I had a similar set up to Souta except the high school I attended was in another town. About an hour away, yeah I was that kid.

I had never cared that I rode a special Ed bus to school, teh. As many times as I missed the damn thing not a lot of people knew. Besides, I did my best and worst thinking on the damn bus. Lucky for me though it seemed this morning I was on time.

"Morning driver, guess who's on time for once?" I gave the man a fake cheesy grin.

"Damn, maybe you stopped feeding those cats for once-" he looked me up and down for a moment. "You gonna keep standing there or sit down?"

"Alright, alright. Damn can I walk?" It was like this almost every morning with the man. Though we didn't hate each other. It was more of an older brother thing with him, yeah. So I made my way to the very back, as I did on those off days when I was on time. Popped my headphones in and I was on my way to school, great.