Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Has anyone ever wondered what would have happened if things hadn't gone the way they were supposed to? Please rate and review and tell me what you think.
O O O
One-shot:
Ionic and Covalent
They lived in the mansion on the hill, a walking distance from the Shrine. From the well. From the tree.
They had a beautiful yard with colorful flowers. Tulips, daisies, pansies. He tended to them himself. For her.
They had pretty, antique furniture, the kind she had a taste for. They had a sparkling pool in the backyard with a fountain. And paintings and statues, artwork specific to her liking.
He worked hard for her.
They had a cat and a dog and a goldfish.
And a black, iron fence. Twisted with black roses and complete with an ominous creak.
He loved her desperately.
He had found his soulmate the first time he laid eyes on her as she turned to smile at him. Her hair caught fire in the sunlight, with veins of gold and red and shining black.
He could never stop staring at her, caring for her.
It was an unrequited. He always knew it would be.
O O O
Kagome never saw it coming. She had planned out her future meticulously. A cabin by a pond, three children…or maybe she'd settle for two, including her little kitsune. She was content with the little things.
He never saw it coming. He had planned out his future so meticulously. His victory was imminent, the taste sour on his tongue, but it tasted so good. He saw her in his mind's eye after the danger passed, happy and unburdened. He was content with being content.
They were fated to be together. The lover and the unloved, the future and the past, the innocent and the tragic. Their lives were what fairytales were made of, the ethereal brought to life. They fit perfectly together, complementary… supplementary. They knew they would grow old together. She smiled at it; he dreamed about it.
And then he died.
A wish granted, a human at last. Dead from a spider bite.
Fairytales can be ironic, too.
O O O
He happened to be there. As she made her way home, dragging and trudging a great, sad weight.
A year passed. And he was still there.
Another year, and another and another and she soon lost track but he was always there. With a broad smile, naïve and ignorant.
His handsome face was plain compared to the one she had lost. He was just there, red hair and freckles and she could read him so easily and please him with a slight smile and hurt him with a dismissal. His face had a softness, a weakness and he was the opposite of everything she had come to want.
His presence pained her, the love she could not return to him was buried centuries ago with another. He could not, and would never, understand. And he somehow knew, though never acknowledged it.
His bright eyes disgusted her. His care turned her away. His love left her feeling dead and empty and craving another in his place.
So she married him.
Because he was there. And because she had no one else.
O O O
He gave her breakfast in bed when she was sick. Cooked dinner every night. Appeased her and gratified her material needs. She was happy with the gilded lamp and the gilded teapots. And then later with the gilded frame and the gilded mirror. The intervals passed the time as she waited for her next life.
He was a doctor, a healer. Strange… she had often thought that she would end up like that, a healer in a village with the one she loved.
She was angry now.
She was young, dammit! Young and youthful and vibrant and she would just sit inside the beautiful house and sometimes sleep the day away and watch the night turn into day until she lost track. Sometimes she sat at the edge of the well next to her memories and watch them with a smile.
O O O
He brings her a bottle of blue pills and she flings them to the floor with a choked cry.
"I hate you!" she screams. She stalks up the stairs to her room and locks it.
His face falls, the blue pills scatter on the floor, good intentions and a desperate hope, finally wilt away. His hands hang to the side, fingers curled and limp.
He still loves her.
But he was not him. He was not roughly handsome, complex, troubled. He did not have golden eyes and callused hands and scars. He was not him. And she did not love him.
O O O
She sleeps on the porch and he is afraid to touch her. His fingers stir the air around her, trembling with helplessness. Her paper-thin eyelids quiver with dreams and he pulls back in the afternoon sun.
O O O
"Just leave me alone," she sighs. She pushes his hand away, the healing hand holding tea and an Aspirin. A quick fix. She rubs her head and shakes it slowly. Her memories have faded with her youth and she is stuck. She has grown old too fast and the sharp throb has settled down to a dull ache at the bottom of her mind, pervasive and persistent.
It lingers and he wonders if it will ever go away.
He can see that it hurts. But he doesn't know. Her family is silent. He will never know.
O O O
She wakes up at night, exiting a dream and a nightmare at the same time. There is a silver sheen to her skin, thin and moist. Her arm reaches to her side. She wants warmth, but the crook of her arm finds a pillow instead.
She shivers. She feels so alone. The empty room and the wooden, hollow walls surround her with black shadows and the reminder of a fleeting happiness. The moonlight is cold and bare and cruel like it has always been. The shadows are motionless around her. She tries to conjure a memory of him, but his face fades in and out, blurring so that she can't see him anymore.
She holds the pillow tightly. She wants warm hands and soft lips, a presence…she just wants something. But the empty air around her is all she has.
She looks at the clock, three hours past midnight.
And she is alone.
Kagome rises and stumbles out of her room, her legs directing her as her hands fumble along the dark, black corridor. She knows where she is going. She doesn't know why, and yet at the same time she does.
She hesitates at his door.
And the solidarity is still there…
As the dead inside of her is suddenly flooded by the sadness reserved for her past. She is young again and the emotions are so strong. Her hands are shaking.
She knocks tentatively. But there is only silence. And she thinks that maybe she is already dead.
The realization of what she has done hits her with the force of the world and her shoulders fall.
A great, shaky sigh escapes her throat and the tears fall. He has been alone all this time with her. She had her memories, but he only had her. And she was never there.
She is angry for at herself for wanting too late, for being a hypocrite and a deceiver.
She takes a step back and turns silently. Her throat closes and she can't breathe.
And she remembers him sitting at the table one day, alone. Staring at the wall, her picture hanging to the side. He was eating cold dinner for two by himself and she could hear the lonely clicks as the fork hit the glass plate. She had left him there by himself.
And here she was now. Wanting him without ever giving before. And now it is too late.
Just as she takes the next step, she slumps to the floor with a silent sob, paralyzed.
And she feels that she has arrived at the end of her life. Her mind is old and decrepit and ravaged by the past. She has no one left, she is sure of it.
The hot tears fall and she weeps as quietly as possible at her selfishness and blindness and at his death and her already broken heart cracks and tears at the corners more and more as her chest heaves.
The door creaks and she hears light footsteps and she can only feel the immense sadness weigh her down even more as she becomes perplexed at him and wonders how he can still love her.
She can feel his body kneeling behind her, a wondrous heat, brushing aside her hair with warm hands, smooth on the back of her neck and the side of her body. He murmurs an apology as she sobs lightly. He's sorry he wasn't the other, the one she lost.
She leans into the solidity of his chest and his arms close around her. I'm so lonely, she cries.
He lifts her up carefully, her body, the one that had carried the fate of the world, and takes her to his room. I've been lonely, too, he barely whispers.
Houjou places her on his bed and settles down beside her. She takes comfort in his warmth and his arms, circled around her as she clings with regret and sadness.
She thinks that he is not him, and he's quite plain, and he just doesn't understand her. And she only feels a sentimental fondness toward him.
But he loves her.
And she realizes that… that is now all she needs.