Let's just say this is sometime before the third movie- or a nice little preview : )
A story dedicated to my family, and all of my AS family too.
Kagome and Inuyasha are very different, but very similar. When Inuyasha says something insensitive, it hits a large nerve in Kagome and she runs off upset. But is this really something they cannot come to an understanding about?
Nothing to Say
"Keh who gives a damn?"
Kagome visibly shrunk. How could he... how could he be so cold-hearted?
"I do." she said in a quiet voice.
His eyes snapped to meet hers. "Why the hell would you?" he bit.
"Cause..." she hid her eyes behind her bangs and stared at the ground. "I just do."
Myoga looked at the girl, somehow having a feeling that the matter was more than Kagome's reverence. It was her empathizing... knowing.
The elderly flea demon stared at the gaping spot again. The place where his master had died.
Inuyasha's father... had so proudly died that day with fire in his eyes, and the place had burned to the ground. So many years later this same spot was flourishing, but the gloom of the cloudy sky brought him back to that time.
It was beautiful, his master's life, and yet so sad that he left his son.
But at times it was doubly sad that the prince just didn't care about his father. There may have been reverence, there may have been respect, but even youkai were capable... prone to love their own kind, their own family.
Kagome set the yellow flowers down on the patch of earth. All the while silent.
Flashes of memories flooded over her. Inuyasha's father died when he was so young... just like her father had in that car crash.
It was a day like this, and she was only a child, around the age of six. She never really felt like remembering.
"He was a great demon." Myoga said with great respect. His large eyes seemed much more serene than usual.
"Like I said, who cares? The old man is gone and I don't even remember him." Why would he remember? He wasn't a day old the time they were together. He knew his mother, and that was all. Even, she died when he was rather young.
"If you did see him though... what would you say Inuyasha?" Kagome voice came, blank and still half distracted.
"Nothing." the hanyou replied bluntly.
The simple answer caught her attention and angered her immensely.
"What?" her voice gathering anger quickly.
"I'd have nothing to say, there's nothing to say."
How about, 'hi' or an 'I love you dad' or even a simple 'goodbye'? Her eyes were reflecting the shock and pain that had shoot through her chest.
She couldn't believe him! Not having ANYTHING to say? That stupid idiot! He didn't even KNOW his father and yet he couldn't think of ONE THING, one SIMPLE THING to SAY?
She looked back at him fiercely. "You mean, you wouldn't have ANYTHING to say?.!" she yelled.
He jumped back slightly at her raged face. "I- I..." he really couldn't think of anything.
"My dad died when I was so young... and I'd give so so much to see him again, or- even say goodbye! There are SO many things I never even got to tell him!"
Hot tears gathered at the brims of her eyes. They burned along with her enraged spirit.
She had never realized this was how she had felt. Seeing Inuyasha served as a sad reminder of how she had been without her father for so many years now. All this time she had always been a bit incomplete, but she had molded into that feeling. Until now, she felt that hole begin to fill her and she suddenly became lost in the feeling.
Kagome let her anger be driven by Inuyasha's ignorance.
"I miss my father... but even so, I knew him for years before he died. I still have so much that I want to say to him, but you..."
There were little words that could quite define how she felt. Anger mixed with rage, and sadness and sorrow, and just emptiness swallowing her. But at the moment, anger seemed to be prevailing as her blood felt like it was boiling, rushing to her face till liquid anger and sadness felt they had to escape from her eyes.
"You wouldn't have ANYTHING TO SAY?!"
With her final thoughts out in the open, and hanging in the air, the girl ran.
He was so cold hearted!
Myoga looked out at Kagome's fleeting figure. "She was always one to empathize rather than sympathize." he commented. Assuming that his master did not know what he meant, he continued. "I didn't know she didn't have a father... I guess this brings back hard memories for her." his voice did not go unheard by the inu hanyou with intense hearing ability.
A bit more clarified now, the flee demon expected some reaction out of the hanyou.
Sure enough, without a word, Inuyasha dashed off to the girl, of course, Myoga hoping onto his shoulder so he wouldn't be left behind.
He found her again at the nearby stream which Kagome had decided not to cross.
"Kagome..." her name slipped out of his mouth without permission.
She turned away from her broken reflection to look at him. Half sorry and half sad, anger had no space in her heart at the moment. But she felt no urge to apologize right away. Her heart spoke words to him. 'Inuyasha, this time it's you... you have so say sorry first.' Not just to her, not just to his father either, but maybe even to himself.
Somewhere, she knew he wondered about his father. There was a special relationship between father and son, that she knew distinctly could not be replaced. Her brother never got to experience what it was like to be his father's son... and neither did Inuyasha.
Sure, she wasn't a son, but even Inuyasha... had to feel somewhat saddened that he had never spoken to his father before.
Myoga sensed that his presence, though probably unnoticed, was also not required nor wanted. Being at least respectful of his young master, he left to go find the others. But not without parting words.
"Prince Inuyasha, she will understand."
Suddenly reminded that he had so much as shown even a bit of his sensitive side, he become embarrassed. "I- I..." he uttered one again. He felt the need to bit his tongue for fear of words clumsily coming from his mouth.
It happened so often around Kagome.
"Inuyasha..." the girl shook her head. "Don't you ever wish you could... talk to him?"
She felt herself answering her question. She missed her father... and with every word that she spoke, she felt like a child again. Every emotion and feeling rising to the surface.
"I don't know." he finally answered as honestly as he could. "I can't exactly miss him, I never knew him."
"But saying that you wouldn't have a single thing to say... is that true?"
Once again, he could not think of a decent answer. "It's not that simple. What can I talk about? I don't expect an answer and-"
"He'll hear it."
"That's just it. The way that Sesshomaru and Myoga talk about him... it's like..."
A thought struck her. Could he have felt belittled? Inuyasha?
'No way...'
But yes. She knew him to be more than what he was judged to be. He was an actor, unbeknownst even to himself. He hid his feelings and kept them bottled inside.
"You feel like you're not as good?" So was this the relationship between father and son? Surely not.
She looked at his eyes for an answer, and got one. "But that's not it... he's proud of you..." Kagome got a good look at him with her simple stare, and knew she was right. Definitely... so proud.
Maybe it annoyed him that she was wrong... because he suddenly turned a bit more distant that moment. "Keh, yeah right!" he said, stuffing his hands into the large sleeves of his haori.
Or maybe, she was right... and that's what annoyed him. Maybe it didn't annoy him that she was right, but that he wanted her to be... that he was happy she was there to talk about such things.
Sensitivity was never his strong point. Sure, he had feelings, but how to express them? As a man, as a demon... as a half demon, royal in decent, left in poverty. He wasn't wise, or educated. So how could he express his feelings?
"It's true." Kagome pushed and then went back to stare at her broken reflection once again.
Moments later Inuyasha came and stood next to her, and they both stood there, staring at their reflections.
He looked down at his reflection, strangely distorted and it seemed confused as he was. It was almost sickening to look at himself, but sensing that kagome was still, he didn't move.
Although, his eyes fixed unto Kagome's reflection. Just as distorted, just as seemingly confused, but he saw things that he didn't see in his reflection. There was sadness, not self hate, there was still a radiating warmth that seemed to make the water feel more at ease.
How was it that he could see so much in her that he could not see in himself, and why couldn't he see this depth in anyone else's water image? Only Kagome...
He found more questions floating in his head and a thought entered his head. Could he possibly be the only one who could see this in her? That made him feel a bit more content. maybe she could see it in him... this understanding.
Myoga's words repeating in his mind. 'She will understand...' and Inuyasha suddenly knew that she did. She understood, and always had, and she did right now, at least she was trying.
He hadn't realized through his meditation, that he was still staring at her reflection and soon Kagome's eyes wandered and met his in the water.
Not after long they looked at each other straight.
'If you don't want to talk about it anymore...' she thought, 'then it's fine...'
But he wanted to now. He wanted to talk to her about almost everything, because he knew he could. He could say anything he wanted to and Kagome'd understand.
Kagome smiled. That was what love was after all, understanding. Maybe like Kikyo had tried to understand, like his mother understood.
His mother understood perfectly... so maybe that might have been why his father fell in love with her.
Then-
"Inuyasha."
maybe...
"Yeah?"
She wasn't sad anymore... and loneliness left her quickly. Inuyasha was not cold-hearted and she knew he never meant to be. She didn't know if he still couldn't find words to speak to his father... and she was still upset that he couldn't, but at least she knew why.
And she knew that if he were to see his father one day, he would say something... maybe not the best words, maybe not even out loud, but he had something to say.
"It's okay... I understand."
Maybe he could have...
'I know...' he meant to say. Instead he said didn't say anything.
"Let's go back to the others now. We've been off for a while." Kagome said and began to walk away from the stream.
"Kagome." he called out.
he could have been-
"Yeah?"
in love with her...
"I know what I want to say... now."
He wanted to say a lot of things. Like, tell his father that he might have been in love, and now he wanted to ask a lot of questions about that.
"I thought you would."
"Yeah." he walked over to her and they began to head back. He had a lot of things he wanted to say now, but around Kagome... it was still, like he had nothing to say...
End.