A/N: ahahahaha...ahahah..jhdeguyf I started a new fic. Only, ONLY, because it has been swimming around in my head for like ever and it's fluffy and not really that sad, like it has more fluff and romance than it does like...rape and killing...well it could go that way but it's not SUPPOSED to. SO hopefully this fic will be a breather from all the drama in LIL and you will all love me and I can sleep without this nagging at me to be written lol.
The Artisan
Chapter 1
It had happened so long ago, Inuyasha wasn't sure if he would ever remember, but a hanyou's memory is true, and when he began to recall the time he had first started to feel the way he did he couldn't stop the movie that played in his head.
He was an artist, not something he was always proud of, but something he couldn't help but do. While there was no money in his line of work most of the time, especially as a younger man, he found himself drawn to the canvas to paint or draw whatever came to his mind. His favourite things to draw were demons, and he would occasionally use ink instead of pencil to recreate the older times of japan. He loved the look of the demons in story books, and with demons being forty-five percent of the population in the world now, it only fed his fascination with drawing them. Sometimes he would paint landscapes, and sometimes he would just sit in public and sketch those who sat nearby or walked passed. It was what he was good at, one of the only things he was good at, and that's how he had begun to feel things for someone he felt he shouldn't.
As he sat as his desk, pencil tapping at the paper in front of him, he remembered his first year in school, when his mother enrolled him in Kindergarden. He remembered sitting at one of the art easels in class, painting on his own as the other children played together around him. It wasn't like he was ever included, and seeing as he was never accepted then as it was, he didn't truly care that he was by himself. In his mind, it was for more entertaining to paint flowers and suns than it was to play dolls and cars with children you wouldn't remember anyway.
But there was one other boy in class who played on his own too. A boy with a horrible white bowl cut and soft yellow eyes. Magenta stripes framed his eyes and stretched across his cheeks, and when he played it was always so quietly, as if he wasn't even there. Like he never existed. Inuyasha recalled being fascinated a little then too, only finding that the child's strangeness to be one of his better qualities. Yet no matter how alone their both were, neither had actually gone over to the other to ask to play or paint. As far as they were concerned at the time, they didn't need anyone else but their paint and their toys. Anyone else would just interfere with their thoughts .
The hanyou shook his head, the smirk he wore through the brief memory fading as he bit his lip and began to sketch the shape of a sharp face. The jaw was slender but strong, and he face was quite thin, yet has a certain roundness to it like his own. His ears flicked and he sighed, his mind throwing him into yet another memory of that awful time.
His parents and the boy's parents had been called into class, if he could remember correctly. He knew it had concerned their choice to not speak or play with one another, and even as the meeting took place they did not once sit near each other and begin to talk and play. The teacher had been kind to the parents, explaining how child interaction was good for a child's brain development, though Inuyasha was sure now that any interaction was the only factor in heart ache and heart break. She had suggested that they be paired together to play and to, as he would put it now, "hang out." Inuyasha never understood how their parents could have agreed, and wondered constantly if they would have agreed if they knew that it would just result in his hearts feelings now. And he remembered so clearly how the boy had looked at him, eyes wide as he studied him and in return, the hanyou studied him with the same wide eyed stare. Their parents smiled and gently pushed them closer, and his mother leaned down, petting his hair and ears back with a big smile.
"Say hello, baby..." His mother had whispered to him and he looked up at her and she nodded in encouragement.
The boy stepped closer and put out his hand, his eyes narrowing with determination, as if making friends with him was only a mission and he had to complete his quest before the time ran out. "My name is Sesshomaru."
Inuyasha had put his hand out and he remembered how soft Sesshomaru's hands were for a child and they shook a little, "I'm Inuyasha."
Looking down at his drawing, the hanyou sighed, wondering why he had let his mother be that kid's friend. It had caused him nothing but trouble for so many years. But as he drew a strong neck to accompany the head and began to flesh out some shoulders and an upper torso, he realized that without Sesshomaru he wouldn't have had any friends now.
It was through the demon that he had learned to let people in, and no matter how much it hurt to be his friend at times, and how badly he wished that they had never met, Inuyasha was glad to call him a friend.
His mind blanking out for the remainder of his sketching, he eventually pulled his pencil away to stare at the line drawing he produced, sighing at the shape before him. Naturally narrowed eyes had placed themselves on the slender face, a small nose just under them with a straight mouth above the chin. Dark lines had appeared under the eyes on the cheeks and on the forehead was a crescent moon. Inuyasha sighed and leaned on his fist as he studied the long hair that flowed off the head of his subject and he grabbed the other pages of the sketchbook, flipping through it quickly, revealing the countless other drawings of the same man.
Over and over, the face of the muse he held stared back at him, multiple different expressions all placed on the face of a single man that Inuyasha wished he knew better. He shut the book, placing it into one of the drawers before leaving the room. He sighed and went over to the kitchen, shaking the coffee pot. Groaning at its emptiness, he placed it back on the coffee maker, fainting feeling a pair of arms circle around his middle.
"Mr. Artiissssttttttt," The voice whined, making the hanyou roll his eyes and grip the counter, "Come back to bed, baby."
"Why are you even still here?" He found himself asking, looking back at the blonde woman who had latched herself onto him sometime last night. Obviously she wasn't getting the point of a one night stand.
"What do you mean? You said you would draw me!" She laughed. God, it was another one of those women. It was obvious that she just wanted free art and to say she knew someone who was famous and ride on his fame by claiming she was his muse. His muse was far away from him now and he did not need her to replace them. In fact, he almost wished he hadn't went drinking last night for the sake of drowning his never ending rotation of emotions. If it meant not meeting her, he'd go back and stop himself, maybe just go to bed alone, but at the same time, the booze were great and they made him feel fuzzy, and it was no wonder he picked her to come home anyway. With the pale blonde hair and bright eyes, even the slender face, it was all just too obvious.
"Look, maybe some other time, but not in this life time. Now just get the hell out of my house, I'm not making you breakfast, and you're a lousy lay." He turned around and pointed towards the other end of the house, "Now please, go before I say something worse."
The blonde frowned and pulled away, "God, who knew artists were such assholes. Well...you are hanyou, I should have guessed that you were just some cruel savage!" She disappeared back to the bedroom and gathered her things. Inuyasha crossed his arms and waited for her to get out of there and he watched her storm pass towards the front door. He stayed in the kitchen, listen as she stopped and stormed back in to the entrance way, "You're such a fucking bastard! Fucking hanyou scum!" And finally the door slammed shut and the hanyou smiled.
"Hanyou scum? If he heard you call me that you'd be dead." He smiled sadly and went back to his bedroom, crawling under the covers. Pulling the sheets and blankets up to his chin, he curled into himself and shut his eyes.
It was all Sesshomaru's fault. All his fault for everything. If he hadn't been so damn perfect, if he hadn't protected him and been his friend, complimented his work and encouraged him, maybe Inuyasha could have lived normally. Maybe he would be living without the exasperation and the insecurity.
Maybe he'd be able to love someone else and have a family.
Instead he was twenty-three years old and absolutely, head-over-heels in love with his best friend, Sesshomaru Suzuki.
