A small drabble written because, while looking at Kouga fanart, I started to think about Inuyasha pairings for the first time in months. I used to be a Kikyou hater, but I now am I hater-of-haters (yes, you heard that right) and felt I needed to give the classic InuKik pairing some love. I think they can be very cute when done well. Maybe I'll have to start doing more nostalgic past-hate pairings, it's rather fun…~
H a p p i n e s s
"Kikyou?"
She turns her head slightly in his direction, continuing to smile blissfully as she hums in acknowledgement of his question. "Hmm?"
"Thanks. For coming out again tonight and… and for everything else." His white hair is cut shorter now, cropped messily and tied into a short braid at the base of his neck. His fingers stroke the bare shoulders of the woman who sits in his lap, his claws gliding lightly across the pale skin.
"It was interesting." She says with a small nod, a compliment if one knew her well enough to recognize it. The hanyou did, and leaned in to nuzzle her neck, bringing out a small gasp of surprise.
"I- I'm so sorry." He finally starts, and they both know where he's going. Every time they meet they go through this, this waltz of apologies and it's-not-your-faults. He kisses her softly on the base of her neck, holding her long black hair aside with a lazy sweep of his hand. "I've tried everything, but nothing works. I even asked Kaede for help, but I can't seem to find a way to help you."
The silence was a tangible thing, weighing down on their shoulders and pushing them into the dirt below their feet. She takes his hands in her own and rubs them softly with her fingers, slowly and calmly as she thinks. "It's not your fault." She says at last, her own voice slightly curious at the way they care. As much as they'd grown to love the other's company, as much as they'd been through, she would never be the same woman she'd been before her death so many years before. "You know I am not truly alive. I died over fifty years ago and there's no way to change that."
"I know I just- I don't want it to be that way!" His voice is agitated, tired, colored with the frustration that has been his existence for the past three years they'd spent together. "I want to get married and make ourselves a family. I want to settle down and have the perfect life we always used to talk about."
Wind flies through the trees quickly, but the air is humid enough that the topless miko doesn't even shiver. She just leans back into his lap, kissing him on the chin as she looks up at him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry we can't do that."
Neither of them move or talk for quite a while, trying to accept the injustice of their existence. Never could anyone let them be; never could they just be happy.
"I'm happy enough." She says slowly, as she always says, before pushing herself off the hanyou. She turns to face him on her knees, kissing him one last time on the lips before getting up to her feet. She looks at him intensely, watching as his golden eyes gaze at her with a mix of sadness and pleasure. "I'm as happy as I can possibly be right now."
"So am I." He says, and he hugs her tightly, not wanting to let her go and accept the fact that they still have so much to do. They still have to find the others. They still have to find all the shards and fix the jewel and kill Naraku. And most of all they have to keep searching for a way to give them happiness, because admitting defeat would completely destroy them. "I am as happy as I could ever be."
And so the two of them fix their clothing and brush their hair with their fingers, picking up their weapons and smiling at each other as they walk away because nothing can ever be perfect, and sometimes real happiness comes with the ability to accept this.