A Musty Remembrance
A short one-shot. Reviews are appreciated.
An over abundance of dust filled the air of the old attic, causing a sharp cough to erupt from Kagome's body. She squinted and tried to focus on the cardboard box that was in fact the cause of the explosion of dust. In messy, barely legible handwriting the words 'attic stuff' were written in black permanent marker on the side of said box.
Kagome began peeling off the masking tape that packed away her adolescent memories. The first thing she pulled out was a pair of lime green sneakers. Kagome all but laughed at seeing them for the first time in more than a decade.
She recalled all too clearly the overly bright shoes she had received in 1984, when she was turning sixteen. They were a gift from her kid brother, whom thought the gift as a joke, only to realize with disgust that Kagome liked them immensely.
Those particular sneakers had been through quite a lot; everywhere from her first concert to her first kiss. A lopsided grin consumed Kagome's face when she thought of her first kiss. His name was Sesshomaru, but he allowed Kagome to call him Sess or Sesh. She had, ironically enough, met him at her first concert.
It was a Queen concert on April 9, 1984. Her father had given her the tickets for her sweet sixteen, and it was for a concert in England as well. To say that it was an exciting occasion would be a vast understatement.
However, the real excitement started when she met Sesshomaru standing alone at the before stated concert. The two teens had immediately hit it off, eventually swapping numbers and addresses while Kagome's father wasn't paying attention. A loud, irate beeping noise drug Kagome out of her musings.
The faint smell of smoke drifted through her senses. "The pie!" Kagome screeched. Jumping up, she sprinted down the creaky steps to land on the second floor, to then practically leap down another flight of stairs, leaving her to slide on the hard wood floors in her bright yellow socks, until she found the smoking stove.
Mitts in hand, she pulled out a smoldering blue dish with an apple pie residing in it. Kagome sighed in relief that it didn't look entirely burnt. After turning off a few fire alarms and opening a couple windows, Kagome sat down to catch her breath. "I'm getting too old for this," she thought with a meek chuckle.
While relaxing at her small, oak dining table, the middle aged woman observed. Instead of a tidy, organized kitchen, there was a disaster in its place. Scattered to her right, were papers, a calculator, pens, and bills left from the prior night where she had been managing the bank account. On the other side of her, flour and baking supplies were haphazardly teetering on the edge of the table.
Kagome made a mental note to clean up the kitchen after she finished cleaning out the attic. She glanced at the digital clock above her still cloudy stove, and realized it was time to pick up Jr. Propping her hand on her thigh, she hoisted herself up and made her way for her jacket and shoes. Realizing there was a slight drizzle, Kagome lightly jogged to her garage where she plopped into the drivers seat. She then turned the old keys that started her equally old station wagon, and began driving away into the misty spring day.
Her ten year old son "Jr" was a spitfire to say the least. His extreme amount of energy never ceased to amaze his mother. Jr. hopped into the passenger seat, buckled himself in, and began rambling about his school day. They finally returned home to their fairly large brick house.
"I'm going up stairs to clean some old stuff out, and you're going to work on your homework and get a snack, and no pie," she smiled at him. He wrinkled his nose at her for even thinking he'd try and eat something she made. Kagome seemed to catch on, and stuck her tongue out at him before making her way to the icky attic. Once seeing the box, she couldn't help but let a pearly white smile escape. It also didn't take long for her to slide on the lime green sneakers.
They felt just as comfortable as when she wore them for those two weeks in England. Feeling in a more energetic mood, she picked up a small box that was within the original, dusty cardboard box. It was a magic kit, she realized. Kagome gently lifted the lid to reveal a wand and other childish contents.
She vaguely recalled having a magic kit when she was a small child, and set the box aside to show Jr. later that evening. Shuffling through the box, Kagome also found a transistor radio, leaving her to laugh at how old she felt. Her son probably didn't even know what that was, so she added it to the pile with the magic kit. Stretching her limbs due to stiffness, she leaned back against an attic wall and gazed around. Looking at her shoes again, she couldn't help but return to her previous musings that were interrupted.
After the concert with Sess, Kagome had spent the whole next day with him. The whole reason her family had been in England to begin with was due to her father's business trip, and he didn't pay much attention to her whereabouts when he was busy. Kagome had considered that their first date, and had paid an extreme amount of attention to every word Sess said.
She learned he was seventeen, which at the time gave her goose bumps to be dating an older guy. ( While now she felt pathetic while looking back at her antics.) They had spent an amazing two weeks together. Two weeks were all they had though, and they parted with a kiss and promises to keep in touch; which they did for a while. They wrote letters back and forth between America and England for about a year, until Sesshomaru left for college.
The thought of losing him still tugged at Kagome's heart. Those times in which she tried to get over her first love were extremely difficult. Most nights she stayed awake squeezing the petite white tiger stuffed animal he had mailed to her for Christmas. The reflection alone brought about the same sinking feeling in her stomach as when she was in her late teens.
Kagome heard a squeaky noise and turned to the door. She saw her husband showing off his built body with a formfitting black t-shirt, and sporting a pair of sunglasses atop his head. "What's wrong Kagome?" he asked with an alluring accent. Her brilliant smile caught him off guard, considering not a minute ago she looked completely distraught.
"Just taking a walk through time, and boy do I feel old." He grinned at that. "Those were some terrible hair days for you," he replied with a gentle laugh. "Oh shush Sess, your hair was worse," she playfully added. They sat for a while and talked about when they had reunited in America, when Sesshomaru had come looking for her after he turned twenty. Kagome remembered how nervous he had been that she had moved on without him, but she had informed him that that wasn't possible.
They had married about a year later, and moved to the large brick house in England. About that time, both of them were pulled out of laughing remembrances when Jr peeped in and asked what was going on. The three then spent the rest of the evening going through aged boxes and telling stories, before going down to taste the burnt apple pie. Kagome figured it would be as bittersweet as her day of musty remembrances, and at that thought, she beamed..