when we were wallflowers, or the woes of an almost-there sort of love
Summary: A deaf child-mercenary riddled with a catastrophic fate and a time-traveling girl with too much shit on her hands. Somehow, they make it work. /pre-benriya, near the end of IY: the final act
Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. - Fran Lebowitz
...
Kagome thinks she understands.
There's no justice in the world; not here, not now, not ever.
She's lived the better end of the stick, had been given the priceless opportunity of living a normal life as a normal girl in a normal world up until the time she fell down a bottomless well and found out that her fate had already been set in stone for the past five hundred years. The entirety of her existence, already entwined with destiny the moment she came out of her mother's womb, screaming and crying for dear life.
The feeling of silent acceptance amidst the confusion. The near suffocation of constant uncertainties and grudging compliance.
She's lucky. She has experienced loss and love, and sometimes even both at the same time.
Him, on the other hand…
He looks at her, unmoving, and she thinks she understands.
Such a shame. People like him in a place of filth, the way they-
Kikyo would've frowned.
She reaches out and quietly holds his hand, carefully, barely, and he slowly fixes her with a look that she doesn't know what to make of.
She likes to think that he squeezes back.
...
wood splintering on her fingers
.
.
.
She doesn't know where she is.
It's a fact that has always plagued her short, miserable life, a recurring annoyance (Where am I? Why am I here? How did I get here? Where is this place?)-
-so much so that she doesn't even question it anymore, isn't nearly as frightened as she could have been before.
It is with this newfound assurance (half-hearted at best) that she walks with a gait fit for a priestess of her repute (albeit an injured one). Where she was, it wasn't raining before, but now-it's raining heavily, stormy, dark clouds gathering in the sky and gloomy buildings looming over her, as if to swallow her whole. There are only a few people in sight. None of them glance at her.
The air is constricting, tense, holding its breath.
There's nothing familiar. Nothing she recognizes. Not one familiar thing.
The sense of panic hasn't come over, not nearly yet. Instead, there's a numbness engulfing her senses, leaving her feeling empty, shouldering an empty burden on her back. If she's not careful she might even forget her own name.
The rain drenches her clothes and the water rises up to her ankles, and she probably looks silly now, a disgruntled young woman wearing dirty school clothes and damp socks.
Where is she going? She's not sure.
A few people start to look at her now. They don't look familiar. They don't even look Japanese.
There's something building up inside her, increasing, increasing. Tense-she's an arrow, a notch waiting to be released.
The next thing she knows, she's lying down on the ground, water seeping inside her nose.
A nearby shout, and then there's a man staring at her, closer, closer, and despite how much she tries to fight it, something dark consumes her vision. She's fainting, and there's a voice near her ear, and a hint of white amidst the blurriness she sees-
Inuyasha-
Picture this:
You're lying down on the ground, prostate before the great priestess herself. Midoriko, regal and proud, sweeping away the air surrounded with malice with just her presence. Blinding, ethereal.
The stench of Naraku, the taint of men filled with darkness in their hearts and a consuming lust to stain the pure. All of it, gone. The Shikon Jewel glows strong, and pure, and the taste of victory on your tongue has never tasted quite as sweet nor as bitter.
You've won. Evil is no more.
But.
Where is Inuyasha?
You've won, you've won-but there's still something missing.
You've won-but-
Your eyes close.
.
When you open them, you're not in the familiar walls of your family's shrine temple nor in the arms of the person you love.
...
She wakes up to the sound of soft humming.
Kagome wakes up with a strangled gasp, pushing off the covers laid on top of her and struggling for air. The memory of hollow darkness leaves her in a fit of hysteria. She doesn't realize she's near-convulsing when a warm body slowly eases her into a comforting embrace.
Someone strokes her hair, and then the next second she feels water dribbling down her mouth, soothing her dry throat.
Words of calm spoken in an unknown language tries to sooth her, and when she finally leans back, she's face-to-face with an older woman. Foreign features.
She's nowhere home.
After wiping her wet mouth with a small cloth, the unknown woman stares at her with an apprehensive gaze. Kagome remains silent, confusion and rising panic warring inside her.
No, no. She's fought demons before. She will not be afraid anymore, not this time.
"W-Who are you?"
The woman blinks. She's wearing a dark blue dress that looks like something a fancy maid would wear.
"Chinese?" The woman says in English, and at least that much Kagome knows. Reluctantly, she shakes her head.
"Thai? Japanese?" A meek nod, and the woman makes a sound of small confirmation before clearing her throat.
"You are Japanese, yes?" The woman says in perfect albeit heavily-accented Nihongo and Kagome stares at her with wide, surprised eyes.
"Yes, I am. How do you know how to speak like that?" Kagome softly utters.
"My mother lived in Japan before she lived here. I am half-Japanese," the woman says. Kagome says nothing and stares at the woman's clothes, as if staring at it could take her back to where she came from. "I am not completely fluent, but the language, I understand well."
"Oh."
"You should be thankful to Young Master Wallace. He brought you here, that boy."
"Wallace…?" The name sounds odd in her tongue.
"Yes. The second son of the owner of this house. He saw you fainting on the streets and brought you home. And now you're here."
Kagome lowers her eyes, at a loss for words. She's scared and unsure of what to do. Naraku had already been defeated and the Shikon Jewel purged. How could she have possibly ended up in a place so far away from home?
"Thank you." She says instead.
The woman snorts. "Tell that to the Young Master when you meet him. By the way, I did not ask: what is your name?"
"Kagome. Higurashi Kagome."
"Kagome. I am guessing you came here to find a livelihood; no person would for any other reason. Poor family? Or you an orphan? You have strange clothes. A school uniform, so you go to school. Forgive me for asking: you are a runaway?"
"No," Kagome croaks out. "None of those things."
The woman narrows her eyes. "Just make sure to tell the truth when Master Domenico asks."
Before Kagome can ask her more, there's a knock and the woman bunches up her skirt as she hurriedly trudges over to the wooden door on the far side of the bed.
"The mistress must be calling for me." She turns towards Kagome. "My name is Sofie. A maid of the Arcangelo family, if you may ask."
A yank, a step, and a quiet shut of the door and then she's gone.
Kagome stays unmoving, body hunched over and staring at the thin, flimsy covers pooling down her waist.
She's never felt more lost than she did at that moment.
...
A pulse.
Faint, but pulsing, breathing.
It exists in dank places of doom, the unknown, and struggles to find the soul of the woman it has long been forever bound to since its existence.
Wherever she will go, it will follow.
The shattered jewel pulses, glows, the familiar power of sacred energy inside it.
.
.
.
Somewhere in the dark, someone smiles.
He's going to find the reborn soul of the woman he once loved.
Even if it might kill him a second time.
.
.
.
.
.
...
a/n: a concept: real demons running amuck inside the shithole known as Ergastulum.
As if the world of Gangsta couldn't get even more dangerous.
My first attempt at writing a story that's somewhat about romantic love. (I'm not usually fond of reading Kagomex? fics, much less writing about it. But damn if it isn't fun after all.)
Don't know what hit my head and made me decide to write about Kagome in the Final Act ending up in the depressing and crappy world of Gangsta (pre-canon manga/anime, no less). I just decided to run this idea in my brain and write it, and voila.
Also, I may or may not have written this because of watching old Inuyasha clips and Youtube and reading the Gangsta manga. And just being taken with a young pubescent!Nicolas Brown who's a complicated little shit.
Bonus points to those who can guess who's talking in the end.
Last but not the least, please review!