Note: Light only illuminates what's really there, but it never actually gives you the answers you need.
It wasn't so much as what had actually happened, but the way she reacted to it. He had only prevented her from stupidly falling backwards and hitting the back of her head. It was a perfectly "okay" thing for a friend to do, and she had acted like she just witnessed genetically mutated fourth dimension cows implode into an atomic phenomenon that created the milky way, which if the reader dwells on it, sounds extremely ridiculous and makes them wonder what silly teenage girl writes these preposterous exaggerations, but of course answering that would break the fourth wall. Inuyasha shook his head, he had to stop reading Kagome's weird textbooks, they were making him think weird things. Not only that, but was he actually still considered just a friend? Even he couldn't doubt that they had been in a relationship for actually a few months by now, which wasn't even the point. How does one even make something "official" or whatever? Do you paint the words "WE'RE IN A RELATIONSHIP" in all capitals with glaring red paint on some fancy fucking legal paper and and glue it on ten foot sticks, waving it around like fools while simultaneously making overt physical gestures at each other? They seemed to have gotten along just fine without that crap, but the both of them still couldn't stop getting all stiff and embarrassed when even just looking at each other in general. But focusing on just this particular instance, maybe she was just embarrassed of her own carelessness combined with being tired from working all day and was just perhaps a little stunned? Ugh, or maybe he's just overthinking this as always. He could bring up the issue to her, but he'd probably just make himself look stupid by asking about something she would probably deem entirely insignificant and pathetic to fret over. See, this was the problem. The fact that half the time he has trouble bringing up this kind of stuff to her is absolutely stupid. This is stupid and you're stupid. In fact, you're even worrying about something that's stupid to be worried about! Inuyasha sighed rather heavily and got up from the bed, knowing that she would probably sit there when she came back, pulling the previously sat on chair up next to the still-open squeaky window, which was next to the nightstand. Of course, instead of sitting on the chair he crouched on the seat and stared out the window, but this time his mind was too preoccupied with hypothetical relationship issues to be trying to pick out the colors in a grayscale window view so late in the evening. And as much as he tried not to, he found himself full out sulking, and it hadn't even been five minutes yet.
The lights flickered briefly as a switch was pushed upwards, as if the light was reluctant to elicit its energy from its circuits and manifest in florescent light bulbs. But they always do that, Kagome thought as she looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was a tired pale color, her hair was plagued by too many fugitive strands that dared to stray from her loose wavy locks, her lips were a duller pink than usual and her eyes, although still a saturated sky blue, seemed almost jaded. But jaded to what? Being tired? Almost dying at least twice a month? Either way, she needed to take better care of herself, she only got six hours of sleep on average, and usually had difficulty sleeping well in the feudal era. She wet her purple toothbrush under the faucet and squeezed a nearly finished tube of Ora 2 toothpaste and began to brush the back of her molars. How could one sleep so soundly in that time period, anyway? The chance of getting attacked by ugly supernatural creatures or smelly bandits there is much higher than in the cozy safety of a warm, securely locked home under a modern constitutional monarchy. She had Sunday all to herself tomorrow, at least- no school, no traveling, electricity, the internet, she was even practically done with her homework! Just the concept of such a day nearly brought tears pooling at the brims of her bottom eyelids… unless, of course, Inuyasha decided to stay and do what he usually does when he stays in her home, which is being a gigantic pain in the neck. She grimaced at this thought and the taste of toothpaste, which was a sign that she had been brushing for too long. After rinsing out her toothbrush and her mouth, she grabbed a hair brush and began to pull the divergent strands back into place. He isn't so bad when he's home, or at least he doesn't mean to be, and from the looks of it, he doesn't really talk to anyone else much while he's there. It's funny, one would think he'd be the type of person to value not being around everyone with his anti-social antics, giving just about everyone the cold shoulder most of the time, and not to mention his inability to trust others. Yet, even among his few close friends besides her that he's come to trust well, even open up to, it didn't stop him from waltzing into her house whenever he liked. But why? Why her? There's nothing special about her, aside from her purifying abilities, but that's nothing new. She shook her head at her reflection. You can't tell yourself that, you are Kagome, no one else. The only Kagome here is you...
Kagome realized just how long she'd been standing in the bathroom, spacing out while staring at the reflection in her mirror that resembled her. She usually doesn't do this, it must be the mental fatigue getting to her… right? She gently shook her head again in dismay at her momentary ditziness. What was she trying to do, figure out the psychology behind the behavior of another individual, fifty percent not-even-her-species or even within her time frame, with her somewhat adequate ability to empathize? Why does she even care? Ugh, you need sleep, she thought as flicked the switch down, and the lights hesitated, but only for a brief moment, as if it was wondering if the lack of light would further shroud her uncertainty, with a blinding darkness. But that's a rather silly thought, since light never really gives you any answers.
Finally having some free time to herself, Kagome could finally start watching that show her friends wanted her to see that was apparently so great or as they had said, "enchanting". She grabbed her laptop from the desk and turned the switch on her lamp, which clicked twice before allowing the room to be illuminated in a quiet darkness. One of Inuyasha's ears twitched at this sound, interrupting his daydreaming. Kagome sat down on her bed, leaning against the headboard and bringing the blanket cover up to her waist, and suddenly realized that Inuyasha must have moved from her bed while she was gone. Before she could take a glance around her room she heard someone say her name, and bent over beside her bed to turn on her "book lamp," which was really a dim night light plugged into her wall that she used when reading, met his eyes, and smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry, I nearly forgot you were even here, I'm just going to watch something…" Kagome trailed off as she realized he never had television explained to him, much less the internet, and wasn't surprised when his eyebrows furrowed and a twinge of curiosity appeared in his eyes, although his reply didn't reflect this.
"Whatever, flighty." She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't last long.
She visibly rolled her eyes at the teasing nickname and opened up her laptop, and started the first episode, and by the time she was eight minutes in, he had already glanced over several times. She paused the video and smirked at him, making a beckoning motion with her hand.
"Why don't you pull that chair up next to me and watch the show with me? I promise you, it's interesting. And for god's sake, use your butt and actually use the chair by si-um, seating yourself on it!" After sighing in relief, he did so, as the seat of the chair happened to reach the same height of her bed, and sat down with his legs crossed as always. Kagome proceeded to tell him that modern society had found a way to create a system that transmits visual images and sound that can reproduce itself on practically any television set that is allowed to receive its signal, and can be used to tell stories, inform people of things like tomorrow's weather, and even teach history or whatever, and you can even use a computer to watch it, like her laptop. It was pretty simple enough explanation for him to understand, though still mind-boggling. She continued to tell him that the show her friends want her to watch is about fairytale characters being real, living in a different realm that has magic, and the're pretty okay until an evil queen casts a curse that erases their memories and fills them with false personas, ruining their "happy endings," and it's up to the main character to break it. This sounds relatively interesting to Inuyasha, and even though he was genuinely paying attention to the show, mirroring her reactions to each event, he kept getting himself distracted, watching her giggle, occasionally catching himself staring at her face in general, her eyes fixated on the screen… he was really bad at keeping his mind off things in the first place, but this is practically embarrassing, seeing as the problem in nature was silly enough to be stemming from his own insecurities! Or could it be hers, also…?
"Inuyasha?"
"Huh? What?" Kagome cocked an eyebrow at this. This was the second time she had caught him off guard, and she wasn't going to let this slip twice.
"What's on your mind? You've been very spacey today, more than I."
"So what? I have a cerebral cortex, you know. Am not allowed to think now?" Kagome's face nearly resigned to a look of indifference, shocked that he had used such a word.
"How much of my schoolwork have you been stealing?" Inuyasha said nothing and kept a straight face.
"...Never mind. Don't dodge the question, I know when you're acting funny, and I don't mean your constant deliberate attempts to bust my chops." He cleared his throat briefly, and quickly fabricated the latter part of his reply.
"The first time I was just looking out the window, that's nothing significant. Just now... I was wondering why you don't watch television in the feudal era." Her eyes ever so slightly narrowed.
"Well, that's because there's a lot of things people in the feudal era don't know how to use or create yet that is necessary to make television broadcasting possible, like electricity, television signals, cameras, animation, computer technology, not to mention no internet to use computers, and you can forget about wi-fi," she sighed and turned her gaze to the side as a faraway look seemed to glaze over her eyes, "People born during this time are so accustomed to these benefits, they become almost a vital part of our society, our lives. And then if all of the sudden you don't have it, and no matter how hard you try, you just don't know what's going on, and you can't do anything about it."
Well, he definitely wasn't expecting something like that to come out. Anyone could easily see the polar differences between his time frame and hers, but anxiety it must cause, the fact that when it comes down to it, you're probably the one that's the most blind, that you don't belong there, must be unnerving. And because he certainly knows how it feels to not belong, it must genuinely suck.
Kagome must have realized the empathetic look in his eyes, due to the sudden displeasure that appeared on her face. How could she just let that slip out ? Ugh, how could she be so stupid?! She shook her head and looked at him with sharper, almost diamond-cut eyes.
"This isn't about me, though, You may be telling the truth about the first one, but I know when there's something on your mind, and it's not about television signals. Actually, it is about me, isn't it?"
Inuyasha was taken aback. How was she able to figure him out? She must have noticed his antics while they were watching TV. Ugh, why is he always so obvious? What could he possibly say that wouldn't make him sound ridiculous like he always did in front of her? Oh yeah, there wasn't.
"Well?"
In his last attempt to avoid making a fool of himself, he tried dismissing the value of his own issues.
"It's rather insignificant. It'll just waste time." He knew she wasn't going to accept that, though. Of course she wouldn't.
Kagome's expression became soft again as she tugged one of the front locks of his hair, forcing him to face her.
"Hey, listen to me. Avoiding your problems, no matter how big or small, isn't going to make them go away- you know that already, don't you? And I won't allow them to become stagnant if it has to do with me, most especially if it's about me. Because I can at least help you with something like that." Inuyasha definitely heard her, but all he can really think about in response is the fact that Kagome is less than six inches away from his face, and her bright blue eyes almost glowing with sincerity staring straight into his gave him a strange fluttering feeling really wasn't helping.
Yet, as much as he wanted to say something, he could not manage to elicit any words. The closeness of her face, her eyes which were locked onto his practically piercing a hole in the back of his retina, it made something inside him churn. Maybe it was just his stomach, or his mind that was overwhelmed with a paralyzing mental nausea, a wave of numbness flooding his lungs denying him the air to speak. If it definitely wasn't the same numbness he felt during a fight, mild pain from writhing injuries stifled with adrenaline, then he was at a loss of what he was even feeling for such a sensation to exist. In fact, he shouldn't even be feeling like this; he's seen her face so many times before whilst consumed by every single emotion possible, including the occasional close-up. Yet this very instant, he had nothing to say, no biting sarcasm, no sharp comments, no way to avoid this at all. It could possibly be the fact that there would be absolutely no way his pride would allow him to admit he had been getting himself worked up on his own insecurities as it would contradict his normally arrogant facade, not to mention that the way he was reacting to it right now in itself is already sufficiently embarrassing, but was that really all it took to make him such a mess? There has to be more to it than that, but hell, even he couldn't figure himself out, he was so confused. It's just that she's staring at him so intently and her eyes are so blue and he can't look away and it's so quiet and why can't he say anything and damn it he must look like such a fool right now.
And he sort of did, as his face was stuck in an unreadable expression Kagome couldn't recall having seen before. It almost seemed like he was very confused, his face uncovered by his usual facade, and she thought that maybe she shouldn't have said anything at all, put him on the spot like this. Here comes the passive guilt again.
Trying to once again catch his attention so that she may waive her pseudo-interrogation that he still had yet to even mumble a response, she lightly tugged on the lock of hair she still had in her grasp.
"Inuyasha?"
It almost looked like he hadn't been fazed, but he did hear her. For a moment, he kept his eyes fixated on hers with the same expression, this time almost looking as if he was about to say something. Then all of a sudden, something bubbled over like fizzling, lingering seafoam, something that he couldn't quite explain, but it settled like a rock at the bottom of his gut, and it consumed whatever hesitation that had previously chained him to numbness.
Strangely, Kagome's face remained unchanged as a moderately decreasing three inches were left between them, as if she didn't realize what was happening. She only partially did.
Then two, then one.
A mid October breeze casually rustled the bruised and dying leaves still clinging to the bark, that one tiny twiggy branch, as if holding on for dear life. None of them seem to want to join the others on the ground, although it is a most beautiful fate to be bound to.
Then nearly zero.
The tree is all the leaves have ever known as home, after all.
But the tree changes, too.
Then absolute zero occurred.
Coincidentally, the cold air from the Autumn breeze whispered past the open window, and so did a single red leaf.
.