FNC: This chapter is dedicated to BlackParade, whose review was so descriptive that it brought out the songstress in me when I replied to it, using my ingenious rhyming skill(which you are so jealous of, Clouds in the Sky...but I still love ya!).
HAH! I knew I'd get more reviews that way!!!!!!! YEAH! Why didn't I think of that before?! Anyway...keep reviewing! Jeez...I didn't expect to update so fast, but...I mean...
I felt as if something in me had shattered into a million tiny pieces. I tried to shake it away, but only succeeding in making a lot of noise. I hyperventilated uncontrollably, rushing all over the house for a paper bag in which to breathe, hopefully more easily. But with my frayed youkai nerves, all I managed to do was bust the bag. I snatched up the phone, dialing Jakoutsu with shaky fingers. I prayed that he wasn't asleep, though it wasn't likely--it was only eight.
"Hello?" His friendly voice answered after the second ring.
"Jakoutsu..." I trembled, on the verge of tears.
"Kagome? Honey, is this you? Are you okay?" he asked instantly. In a better situation, I'd be touched at his concern, but right now, I couldn't.
"I...I had...another mental breakdown..."
"Oh, Lord...I'll be right over there, sweetheart, just...stay put. Okay?" I nodded, not taking into account that he couldn't see me, but then saying quietly, "Yes..." and hanging up. I felt extremely sick to my stomach, and though I wasn't a dipsomaniac, I wouldn't hesitate to break into the bottle as a substitute for sex when need be. This time was definitely no exception, as I flung open my pantry and pulled out a jug of sake. I snapped off the cork with my bare hands, a feat only accomplishable with my youkai strength, and guzzled the liquid. It burned my throat horribly, but I accepted the physical pain, a welcome change from the mental and emotional pain I still experienced.
If only Inuyasha knew how much pain he caused me...every time I thought about him, my life hung in the balance. The mere image of him triggered an intractable barrage of psychological conundrums within my subconscious. I gave a hard swallow of the rice liquor, hoping that my memories of Inuyasha were among the brain cells being slaughtered by the alcohol I now consumed.
"Seimegami...you were right...I...I'm nothing without you. Please...help me..." It seemed that even the goddess of sex was not without compassion and pity.
Do not belittle yourself, Kagome. If not for...him...you would be quite the woman, even without my presence.
"No, I wouldn't!" I cried, my indigo orbs dripping tears. I hadn't cried in over three years, but now seemed like the perfect time to restart. "I would still be bowlegged, nerdy, flat-chested Kagome! I don't want to be her anymore! I never want to be her again! Hell, I would probably be even worse!"
How so?
"Because...even though he...played me..." I choked in between sobs, "he gave me a semblance of confidence...that maybe I was somebody. I did need him. I've always needed him. I...I love him...and I only wish that he would return my feelings..." My hands gripped the neck of the bottle so tightly that it shattered in my hands, breaking my skin. I bled over the floor, but I didn't care. That pain was nothing compared to what I felt inside. I simply got up and pulled out a jug, this time it being straight moonshine. As the mouth brushed against my lips, Jakoutsu rushed in, the door having had been unlocked. He stomped over to me and snatched the bottle from my hand, throwing it out the open door.
"Girl, are you trying to kill yourself?!"
"It doesn't matter, Jakoutsu. None of it matters." I brooded sullenly, slumping to the floor in a broken heap. Jakoutsu went over to close the door, as I continued, "He doesn't love me. He never did, and never will, no matter how I look, no matter what I do...I might as well just take up celibacy. What's the point of sex if it's not with the one you love?" Jakoutsu chuckled as he held me in his arms, rubbing my shoulder congenially.
"Darling, I'll tell you now--if you were to go celibate, the suicide rate in Japan would double." I gave him a watery smile.
"Jakoutsu?"
"Yeah?"
"You...if you weren't...well, you know...if you weren't your sexuality...would you want me?"
"Of course, no qualms about it, honey!" he grinned. "But while I'm what I am, sorry, but I prefer men."
"That's okay..." I sniffed. "I appreciate your honesty regardless." As he absently wiped a tear from my eye, he mused, "Do you really want to kill yourself, Kagome?"
"...In all honesty? No, not now. Just a moment ago, though, I was feeling pretty fucking suicidal. Good thing you came when you did, or I was gonna down my entire pantry."
"Kagome...I'm not saying that what you do is healthy. But I know you can't help that you're a sukimono, any more than I can help being gay. The fact is, you accept it. You may not like it very much, but it's fulfilling, at least to a physical extent, and partly emotional. It's true; being nymphomaniacal is just like dipsomania, with sex being the substitute for alcohol." It was like he'd read my mind. "But either way, it's self-destructive. If you're a nymphomaniac, the right amount of sex will kill you emotionally, and you'll be an empty, soulless shell that knows how to do nothing but fuck." I understood where he was coming from, very clearly, and knew that what he spoke was true.
"I know, Jakoutsu, but...the only cure that I can think of is..." I cast my eyes downward, unwilling to bring him up specifically. Jakoutsu empathized, though, and nodded.
"That can't be helped. I'm sure that's the only cure, as well, yet there's nothing to be done about it."
"Maybe...maybe if I lowered my sex intake, the nymphomania would diminish, just a little?" Jakoutsu shook his head.
"If anything, that would strengthen the need. Sex is like...an emotional outlet for your internal pains. If you don't do it on a more-than-normal basis, you could end up repressing a lot of emotions that need to be expressed, in any way possible."
"So, basically, what you're saying is that...I can't do anything about this thing?" Jakoutsu had a truly apologetic look upon his womanly features.
"I'm sorry, Kagome."
"Nah...don't be. Would it help me any if I channeled my love into hate?"
"...Er...I'm not so sure that's very wise, considering your occasional tendency to become demon...you may go on a violent rampage and end up killing a bunch of innocents..." I chuckled.
"Jakoutsu, stay the night with me." I said suddenly.
"Hey, whoa, now...didn't I just get through telling you I favored men?" he joked. I giggled, playfully punching him in the shoulder.
"You know what I'm talking about...big hentai." I rolled my eyes with a grin.
"Yeah, I know. Sure, dollface, I'll stay here. You need me for a picker-upper, and, uh...I'm fresh outta ice cream." I laughed, feeling better again.
Jakoutsu's overnight stay quickly grew into two weeks, as I found that I depended on the she-male--and I use the term quite affectionately in his case--even more than I thought. We had heart-to-heart pillow talks every night, and we ate ice cream and watched TV and went out and all kinds of things together. Jakoutsu was the best friend I'd ever wish for. I loved him, that I could honestly say. Suffice it to say, however, that I wasn't in love with him, but this was a friend kind of love, and it was the highest status any male other than Inuyasha and family, of course, had ever achieved in my life. So, the Friday of the third week Jakoutsu was staying at my house, we decided to go out and handle a bit of laundry. The man that I'd encountered during my previous visit to the laundromat, that Yash guy who'd actuated my nervous breakdown, had never fully evacuated my mind, even once I myself became human again, so I actually found myself looking for him when Jakoutsu and I got there.
"Girl, calm down!" he laughed, stilling me with his hand on my shoulder as I frantically looked around for the second time since we'd arrived. "Are you looking for a sniper or something?" I released my tension with a sigh and smiled at him.
"Nah...I was just being a little jumpy." I waved it off. Today, my clothes weren't as...ahem...skimpy as my prior attire. ... I was donning a wide necked medium-sleeved red shirt, snug-fitting, with the word "Princess" written across my breasts in glittering black. I had on a pair of black sweatpants, also close-fitting, and a distich of black, red, and white Jordans. Really, I'd never felt so comfortable in my life, and the great thing about it was that I didn't look sluttish, but I still looked cute in what I called my "laundromat garb." I sat down in a chair, legs crossed, awaiting my clothes' completion. As I hummed a tuneless little ditty, a male voice that I knew rather familiarly said from beside me, "Hey. Hey, aren't you that girl from a few weeks ago?"
"I don't know. You might be anybody from any time ago." I shrugged.
"Heh...the one who kept trying to get me to cheat on my girl."
"Oh, yeah. I remember that. Hmm."
"What, you give up?"
"Eh. If you want to call it that."
"Okay. Well, you'd probably be happy to know that me and her broke up."
"Don't you mean "she and I?"
"…Yeah, whatever. I don't remember you being this articulate last time we met."
"I don't remember being so impassive last time we met. Actually, I seem to recall you calling me a whore. And while I realize that my wardrobe at that time was not the most innocent of wardrobes, you still had no right assuming such offensive things." He smirked.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sorry for that."
"Thank you." I felt the familiar roaming of eyes on my body, and I shivered mentally, feeling strange.
"Well...your current apparel actually looks better on you." I couldn't suppress a smile and a blush.
"Thanks..." Blushing? When was the last time I'd ever done that? "A sweet talker, huh?"
"Not naturally. It just seems that way when I'm around someone so pretty." My blush reddened further.
"Well, look who's just full of compliments..."
"A far cry from the insults, aren't they?"
"Yes, and much more appreciated." I sighed a little. "So...why'd you and your girlfriend break up?" He scoffed, his voice sounding much bitterer.
"Fucking bitch was cheating on me." I was actually surprised. Now wasn't that some old bullshit? While I was pressuring him to cheat on her, she was already busy cheating on him! Talk about fucked-up irony.
"What, really?"
"Yeah. Pissed me off so much, I almost hit her...and I'm not a violent guy, at least, not when it comes to women."
"Damn. Hey, I feel for you, dude."
"Keh. Hell, I feel for my damn self." He shook his head, as if remembering something. "Whoa. Here I am, spilling my guts over here, and I don't even know your name."
"Kagome." I offered.
"Kagome..." he murmured. "It sounds... familiar...really vaguely familiar."
"It's not exactly common."
"True." he nodded. "Well, in any case...my name's Inuyasha." My eyes stretched to the limits of my eyelids, just as my machine stopped. My heart pounded relentlessly in my stomach, chest, and throat.
"...What did you say?" I said hoarsely.
"My name is Inuyasha." My neck slowly rotated to face him and I think that was when my heart stopped. Quizzical and concerned aureate eyes regarded me...the same golden eyes which were once aloof and uncaring...His hair shone the exact same silver as the hanyou I so loved in the poster on my mirror. I stared at him in horror.
"Ja...J-J-J..." I stammered, stumbling over my best friend's name. "Jakoutsu...!" I got to my feet shakily, almost falling, but Inuyasha caught me in the same hands that gripped my hips five years ago...I wrenched out of his grasp, landing on my behind and cowering away from him.
"Kagome, are you okay?!" he asked anxiously. Jakoutsu ran to my side, asking the exact same question Inuyasha had. "I just asked that, idiot!" Jakoutsu didn't even spare him a glance.
"Baby girl, what's wrong?" Jakoutsu cooed, rubbing my back.
"Inu...Inuyasha..." I croaked, pointing with a trembling finger to the man who had caused me to go through so much in the last five years...then I fainted.
(I was considering leaving it here...but...I'm not that mean a person, so I'll go on for about a page or two more, okay?)
I heard voices.
"Boy, this is all your fault! Damn! Why must it always be the fault of the cute ones?"
"Look, you crazy homo, concentrate on the task at hand!"
"My name is Jakoutsu, and I don't care how cute you are, but you won't be talking to me like that. Don't let this talk fool you."
"What the hell ever! Is she coming to?"
"She would if you wasn't here."
"I have to be here!"
"You wasn't here for five years, so why the hell you here now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about--"
"Uhhh...the voices...make the voices stop...Seimegami...make the voices stop, Seimegami..." I moaned out, clutching my forehead.
"Sex Goddess? What the fuck?"
"Kagome...sweetie, wake up, please, now, c'mon..." I heard Jakoutsu say gently.
"Why do you call her that?" This voice I acknowledged as...
I'll call you tomorrow...
I jolted awake and off of what seemed to be my couch and into my kitchen, where I grabbed a bottle of Bordeaux and popped off the cork with adrenaline-driven power. I inhaled the powerful wine, only vaguely aware of Jakoutsu's pitying eyes and Inuyasha's amazed and confused eyes upon me.
"Kagome..." Jakoutsu said sadly. Once the bottle was empty, I smashed it on the floor, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
"Whoa." Inuyasha whistled.
"Okay..." I mumbled, a rather crazed glint in my eye as my hands vibrated. "My mind...does not know what to make of this...it is very disorganized...and I fear I may become neurasthenic if too much information is given to me at one time. So...Jakoutsu, you speak first, because if...that other guy does, I might not live to hear it." Inuyasha looked startled, but kept his mouth closed regardless.
"Kagome...this is Inuyasha." Jakoutsu started gently.
"NO, HE'S NOT!" I screamed, cutting him off immediately. "He's an illusion, isn't he?!" I couldn't, at the time, take in the fact that Inuyasha couldn't possibly be an illusion to my mind if Jakoutsu could see him. Jakoutsu was one of the sanest guys I knew.
"No, Kagome, he's real, he's real..." Jakoutsu soothed, beckoning me with inviting arms. "C'mere, tenshi-chan..." I blinked back tears that I knew would fall regardless and ran into Jakoutsu's arms, sobbing on his shoulder. "Angel, you've transformed again...Seimegami doesn't seem to be very pleased at Inuyasha's presence."
"Yo, who is this Seime--"
"He says nothing to me..." I whispered suddenly, voice overtaken by Seimegami's quiet anger. Jakoutsu threw Inuyasha a warning look.
"Erm...I don't think Seimegami wants you to talk to Kagome right now." Inuyasha was obviously too fearful to say anything, so he laughed nervously, "O-okay, dude, you said you had it, so I'll see you guys...never." Before he could make his way out the door, I growled, "Stay!" He froze in place.
"Well, fuck, you don't want me to talk, you don't want me to leave, what the fuck do you want?!" he yelled, obviously losing patience. I whimpered, his voice bringing back memories even worse than those it normally did.
"She wants you to stop yelling at her." Inuyasha was at a loss. "Um...why don't you sit down on the couch?" He sighed, doing so. "Now, Kagome...yes, Inuyasha is here, and he's real."
"He doesn't remember..." I whimpered squeakily. I knew Inuyasha was dying to know what was going on. Jakoutsu turned stern eyes onto the hanyou.
"Inuyasha, think back to tenth grade. You were seventeen, probably, Kagome was sixteen. She was a bit nerdy..." Realization dawned on his face. "All I'm going to say is...that bet you made? It changed Kagome's life forever."
"Oh...oh, my fucking shit..." he muttered to himself.
"I'm a...a sukimono now." I admitted softly, feeling shameful of this for some reason. "A nymphomaniac. I had a breakdown not too long after...after you did what you did. And...years passed, and...well...this is me now." I couldn't face him yet. It made me feel like I'd done something wrong, when in reality, he had. Seimegami wanted me to kill him. I knew it. But I couldn't do it. My love for Inuyasha was the only thing keeping him alive at this moment, literally, as he sat within clawing distance of me. "She doesn't like you." I chuckled weakly after a moment. He looked to Jakoutsu for confirmation that he could respond to me. When he nodded, Inuyasha urged lightly, "Who?"
"Seimegami. She doesn't like you at all. In fact...there's only one reason she hasn't had me kill you yet." He looked horrified.
"K...kill me? She hates me that much?" I stared down at my claws.
"Y'know...I could slash into you right now...or at least, Seimegami could. I could never kill anyone. But she's a goddess...she'd do it, I'm sure."
"Please don't let her do that..." he whined. "Hey, uh...Jakoutsu. Can I talk to Kagome alone for a little?" Jakoutsu looked worried. "I won't hurt her or anything--"
"Oh, it's not her I'm worried about, so much as it is you. You really shouldn't take Seimegami's threat lightly." He said seriously, but allowed us our privacy for the time being.
Inuyasha sighed, looking at me, and I at him. "I guess both of us have some explaining to do, huh...?"