Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own no part of Inuyasha. But I do applaud Ms. Rumiko Takahashi for her creative prowess.
A/N: This idea struck me on a night of utter intoxication, and it would not leave me. So enjoy, and please remember to review.
Summary: Kohaku contemplates his life with Rin as she lay dying. Even after all these years, he only claims but a sliver of her heart.
A Sunset of Regret.
Kohaku watched the sunlight dance about her pale, thin face.
In his rough hands, he held her petit ones not yet wrinkled with old age. Those were the tiny, child hands that held his in blind trust. Those were the not so childish hands that gripped his when he was finally unable to forget his past, his wrongs. Those were small, yet very adult hands that had roamed his body, trying to give him a physical reassurance of a love that was never there.
Her face twitched into a semblance of a smile, and he gripped her hands tighter with increased ferocity. He had loved her since the day he saw her as a child. It was childish love at first, intuitive connection to one so innocently content. Even as her demon protector frowned upon him repeatedly over the years, his love grew, morphed into a quiet devotion.
He knew that he would sacrifice the world for her, and he did. He gave up his hopes of self salvation and settled down with her in the now famous village of Edo.
Of course he had to knowing her condition.
She had looked so forlorn that day, quietly crying in the setting sun. She had asked him whether he believed love to conquer all, and her vehement insistence that there will always be things love could never conquer. She had looked so much like a newborn fawn without its mother, so lost and sad.
And so he offered her comfort and undying love. It was the comfort she was really interested in, and before the night was fully dark, they had found themselves in her bed, clutching at each other, a desperate attempt to drown themselves in emotion.
He had held her that day while they stared at the bright moon, and told her that she would never have to cry anymore. His voice belied his devotion, he wanted her to understand, needed her to understand. He has loved her for so long.
When her demon lord visited her that month, his eyes bled red and his claws circled his neck in a death grip, much like it did years ago.
"Lord Sesshomaru!" She had cried, tears rushing down her face in a steady stream. "Please. Don't hurt him!" She had grabbed at the hand robbing his life and tugged at it fruitlessly. "I... I am sorry. Please, my lord, don't hurt him because of my mistake."
A flash of shock registered in those golden eyes that held his and he was dropped unceremoniously. Presently, he rubbed the wrist he injured during that fall, unaware that he was doing so, eyes still lost in the past.
"Your... mistake?" Sitting on the ground and staring up at the demon lord, he had never once seen so much shock in his eyes. She had nodded meekly, quivering and unable to look at the demon directly.
"Lord Sesshomaru I had... wanted this." She had mumbled to the ground at her feet. He remembered thinking that he had never been so afraid of the stoic demon as he was at that moment. Golden eyes that bled red were regarding him as he lay on the ground, and he had not been able to return the stare.
"Very well." His blood ran cold at the emotionless, yet dangerous voice. The demon lord turned and left, practically throwing the box in his claws down on the ground.
"Wait, please, Lord Sesshomaru." She had finally looked up at her Lord, but his back was to her. He did not stop. He had gathered his youki and took to the skies and she took off too, running after the giant cloud. He had not known how long he kneeled there, but finally he came to with the help of the pain in his left wrist, which had sprained when he was dropped.
She had come back some time later, but she deflected all his questions, not that his heart was particularly in asking her. She had picked up the box her lord had brought her and went back to her cabin. She did not come out for three days.
He had finally had enough worry and forcefully opened her door on the eve of the third day. And he had found her sitting on her bed, unresponsive to the intrusion. She was looking out her window wearing a beautiful white kimono.
Washed in relief, he had stood there for so long, him staring at her, and she not acknowledging him in anyway. Finally she had turned her head slightly, just enough to see him in her peripherals, before turning back to face the window.
"It was a wedding kimono." She had said. "He gave me a wedding kimono." She had then given a chilling laugh devoid of all mirth. "Why would he give me a wedding kimono, Kohaku? He must have known I was pregnant and wanted to marry you... ne?"
He had been as still as a statue.
"But he had not known my condition prior to coming here... so why. Why, Kohaku?"
But he had continued to stand there, his throat unable to form the answer pounding in his skull. She had turned her head fully then, and without another word, slipped off her snow white kimono.
When they made love that evening, he knew she wasn't fully there. He knew when she looked at him, she saw someone else. Even to this day, she never looked him in the eye and has never called his name.
But they were married. She had cried while they exchanged their wedding vows. Everyone else attributed it to happiness, but he knew otherwise. As the months passed, she had begun to use hollow words to reassure him of her love, but her eyes betrayed her despair and regret daily as she watched her belly swell.
She had never spoken another word to her demon lord again.
As the years passed, the vacant and forlorn look in her eyes grew, and she became a shell of her former self. She no longer laughed with her eyes, no longer sang to herself, no longer able to be alive. Only her children and her flowers seem to bring her true joy, and he suffered with her.
A soft moan shook Kohaku out of his reminiscence. He gripped his sick wife's hand tighter as he watched her slowly open her drowsy eyes and stare at his hand which held hers.
"Lord... Sesshomaru?" Even after all these years... Kohaku could've laughed at the irony of this situation, but he managed to choke back a sob.
"It's me. Your husband." He said stiffly and sadly.
She finally looked at his face with those vacant eyes of hers. "Koha...ku." her eyes met his. "I... am sorry." Her eyes brimmed with tears that would not fall. She had not cried in a long time.
"Nonsense. I was – am happy."
"Do not kid yourself, my husband. I had not been an ideal wife. You could have done much better with another." Her brown eyes left his to stare out her window, a sad habit of hers. "And for that I am sorry." She paused as she sneaked him a peak out of the corner of her eyes and sighed softly to herself. "I do not know what my apologies can do except lessen my guilt and ease my own conscience. I am an utterly selfish creature, aren't I?"
Kohaku did not answer. He had never needed to; she seemed to easily read his feeling and thoughts. She faced the window completely and once again, her face was obscured to him.
"I do not regret our children, my husband, I know you think that. Please erase it from your mind. They hold as special place in my heart, as do you. You have been absolutely wonderful to me in these twenty odd years. But this is the end, I feel it."
"Why are you speaking as though you are dying?" He could not keep the anger out of his voice.
"That is because I am." Her voice was wistful, almost hopeful which caused his anger to spike higher and his hands to ball into fists.
"Why, Rin? Why do you give up? After all those years and all I have done for you, tell me why. Why can't I make you happy, Rin? Why have you still held on to those feelings? Why couldn't you live for me?" Tears now flowed free as he punched the floor beside Rin's bed, making a sizeable dent in the wood.
"Why can't you love me?"
But she did not move. She had silently passed as he sat beside her. His anger drained suddenly and he felt himself consumed with sorrow.
He still loved her.
888
It has been five days since Rin's burial, yet Kohaku found himself coming back here to contemplate. He was still not at peace with her leaving, and he did not think he would ever be.
His life wasn't what he would call satisfying, watching the love of his life sink deeper and deeper into depression, as much as she had tried to hide to it. She had tried to be strong, to laugh, but he knew. He knew he wasn't enough to make her happy.
Tears flowed down his cheeks once more as he stared at the mound of earth that was Rin's final resting place. Despite it all, he still loved her. And he would continue to love her.
"Rin." He murmured to her grave as he placed her favourite white lilies on her grave marker, "Rin. Why could you not forget... Why hadn't I been enough?" He wiped the tears forcibly from his eyes. It was useless asking questions now. He stood up, ready to head back to his hut when he spotted a white figure in the distance. The white figure grew increasingly larger as it approached him, and he grabbed at the sword that hung at his side.
He instantly lowered it as he recognised the approaching figure.
"Lord Sesshomaru." He called as the demon lord came near enough for him to recognise. The demon lord did nothing to acknowledge his presence. "You are... too late."
The inu taiyoukai said nothing as he walked gracefully to the grave and raise his left hand from his side. He held sakura blossoms, hidden in his sleeve. Only Rin could induce such gentleness in Lord Sesshomaru, and Kohaku found his tears build up again as he remembered a certain demon lord holding his young ward's face in his claws in relief. He found he couldn't keep his eyes off the impassive face of the demon and he watched, surprised, as a flash of unfamiliar emotion crossed the golden eyes he watched intently and disappear.
The moment was broken when the white figure straightened and prepared to walk away. Kohaku couldn't move, couldn't form the many choice words he had prepared to say to the demon. He watched silently as Lord Sesshomaru walked back into Inuyasha's forest preparing to gather youki and fly away.
Regret. It was regret that flashed in his eyes. Kohaku found himself running towards the figure and finally calling out desperately to him.
"She loved you to the bitter end!"
The Lord of the Western Lands paused in midair and turned his ethereal face to the rapidly dimming skies that hinted stars. Finally, he spoke to human man for the first time since that fateful day.
"I know."
A/N: If attention was paid, I think the reason for the name of this story is evident! Also, you may be objecting to the bitterness of Rin and her OOC-ness, but you must remember that any Rins in stories which involves her being older are just OCs with a common name and childhood, nothing concrete or canon.
Nevertheless, please review.
- Sersee.