There's something about tragedy that I cannot help but admire. Happiness is bright and tastes like the first ray of light at dawn, but sorrow... sorrow is a warm, bitter tea that leaves its imprint long after it is gone.
He cannot help but remember her.
On rainy days, he sees beautiful chocolate eyes that have hardened into stone and stares, wonders if it is possible to dissolve the rock and restore the innocence; wonders why he cannot look away, when looking causes him so much pain. And wonders—
Will you let me heal you?
But he is broken, has been tossed and thrown from place to place, always further, always away. He thinks back to another life, watches himself as the Inuyasha-that-once-was stares down below from atop the cliff he has been backed into, at the jagged rocks and the waves that crash into them mercilessly with firm, determined eyes, and
(and all he is is a confused little boy, sad and hurt and terribly, terribly lost)
he jumps, seeing hope where there is only destruction.
He watches as she catches him just in time, but not quickly enough to keep him from shedding his own blood. How can she, when she too is still smarting from the fall?
(There they sat in silence, pained and in pain but together as they clung to each other, trying desperately to mend deep wounds with even sharper knives.)
And the Inuyasha-that-still-lives contemplates letting himself slip, asks himself if she will catch him again this time and fears the answer he might find. He curses his own doubts and wonders if he is even worthy of being caught anymore, and curses himself for that, too. Because even though he wants to heal her, to mend her soul and give her happiness, it seems that all he ever brings her is pain.
And still, as always, she is there—with sad eyes and a sad smile and the scent of the forest after it has just rained—ready to patch him up.
And the wounds close, but the scars live on.
(Because though she is a priestess with neither doubts nor fears to the rest of the world, Inuyasha sees Kikyo and he bleeds for her. So all she can do is soothe him with her quiet presence, a palliative that cannot quite save him—not from himself and the wounds he continues to inflict on his own heart, as if he is so accustomed to them that he cannot imagine life without the lingering sense of pain and age-old hurt.)
And then the rain stops, and for a moment Inuyasha feels as though he is drowning in sorrowful, serene purity.
Then comes Kagome, the sweet little bird who refuses to be restrained, her scent washing over him like continuous rays of pure sunlight. An overwhelming warmth fills him, and he basks in her presence as it closes the wounds and smooths the scars over.
He lets her heal him even as the taste of rain lingers on his tongue.
(Theirs was a quiet love, and it lives on somewhere far away, in the silence between worlds.)
What do you guys think? Feedback would be appreciated :)
