Summary: Inuyasha struggles with feelings he had tried to bury and is able to make a decision that takes them into account.
Word count: 2,190
Choice
"Inuyasha?" Kagome called softly.
The young half-demon didn't move, and she hesitated a few seconds before taking a step towards him. She knew there was no way he could not have noticed her voice. His hearing wasn't nearly as developed as his sense of smell, but it was still better than a human's. Although, considering that, he had probably noticed her approaching as soon as she had gotten out of her sleeping bag. For him not to say anything, not to snarl at her to go back to sleep because otherwise she would complain in the morning, was unusual. And it really worried her.
She sat down next to him, grimacing when she realized that the grass was wet with dew and rubbed her arms to gain some warmth. Inuyasha was looking up at the stars, but when Kagome's gaze became too insistent for him, he turned his head in the other direction, directing his eyes at the ground. The schoolgirl's nails dug a little in the skin of her arms at the rejection, but she refused to take that as her only answer. It had never been like her to give up.
"Inuyasha," she repeated. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he mumbled, his voice gruff. "Go back to sleep, Kagome. You're gonna catch a cold, and then we're going to waste even more time without looking for Naraku."
Kagome smiled despite herself. Oh, Inuyasha was an idiot, but he was her idiot. She wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them against her, resting her cheek on her knee to stare at him. He was still avoiding looking at her, but she could tell by his voice and by how long it had taken him to give that bad excuse that something was off. She had no idea why, though. On the contrary, he had to be happy.
Kikyo was alive, after all.
"I'm sure she's going to be fine," she said. With that, she got Inuyasha's attention, and she ignored the now all too familiar pain that exploded in her chest. "But if you're that worried about her, you should go look for her."
She was — she was so pathetic, she thought, anger replacing pain. What? Advising the man she was in love with to go back to a woman who had only ever made him feel miserable? Who wanted him dead? Who had tried to kill her? What was wrong with her?
That mechanism was well-oiled, though, and as always, the answers fell into place almost immediately, not letting that anger escape her body through her mouth. Because it would reassure him. Because after that, Inuyasha would find peace, at least for a while. There was sand in those gears, though, as a nagging voice reminded her that Kikyo was only ever a temporary solution. That she was dead, and that Inuyasha would need to get better without her at one point or another. That yes, maybe she made him feel better, but in the end she was the cause of the suffering, and you can't fight fire with fire.
But Kagome couldn't fight Kikyo. She wasn't strong enough to free Inuyasha of his guilt, and she didn't know if she should, either. She refused to be the jealous, pathetic girlfriend who only wants to get rid of her boyfriend's ex. However sometimes, she wondered if the fear of becoming that made her do the wrong choice.
"You don't understand anything," Inuyasha pretty much snarled, tearing her away from thoughts that were becoming increasingly dark.
"Oh yeah?" she frowned in response. "Then what's this all about? Why have you been brooding all the time since we left the waterfall?"
"What, think Kikyo's on my mind all the time? I have other shit to care about, y'know!"
Usually, Kagome would have taken the bait. She would have gotten angry, asking him if he was seriously referring to her as 'shit', and the two of them would probably have had fun with that for a while, before one of them, probably Inuyasha, would cross an invisible line and send the other, probably Kagome, back to where they came from, fuming. Tonight, though, it had been too long since Kagome was worried, and instead, she just shook her head with an annoyed sigh.
"Whatever it is, it's not going to magically go away, Inuyasha. So you can tell me about it and we can look for a solution together, or you can take it upon yourself to stop making everyone worry!"
Inuyasha mumbled something she didn't get, but he knew she was right. He had noticed how Miroku and Sango walked on eggshells around him. Shippo himself was behaving better than usual, and Kagome always kept an eye on the kid to make sure he wouldn't bother him, all of them trying to leave him some space. Inuyasha appreciated it, however he knew that it couldn't go on like this for much longer. Just avoiding confrontation was exhausting for everyone.
Truth was, though, that there was no solution to his problem, and he would probably just burden Kagome if he told her about it. Maybe talking would just be selfish. It probably wouldn't do her any good to know, but—
"Inuyasha. Tell me."
He gulped down and blindly reached for her hand, still unable to look at her. She didn't flinch when his claws grazed against her skin, and didn't move back as he intertwined his fingers with hers.
"I… I thought it was over."
Kagome blinked. She couldn't figure what he was talking about just like that, although— Yes, maybe her imagination could travel in some direction, but there was no way this was right.
"I thought I wouldn't have to worry about what Kikyo wants for her and me after this is all over."
Kagome's breath caught in her throat. He was. He was talking about her. She moved next to him so that her head would rest on his shoulder, but he pulled back, and their eyes met. Hers, hurt, his, terrified.
"I can't, Kagome. You— You make me—"
He let his biggest secret and probably what frightened him the most about this whole thing. Something he knew he wouldn't be able to take back, something that would maybe hurt her, something he had known risked happening all along and he hadn't been able to prevent.
"You make me want to live." The words had trouble leaving his mouth, and his sentences felt broken as a result, but Kagome sat there, silent. Listening. "If this had been the end— I wouldn't have tried to follow Kikyo in death. I had no intention to. But if she asks now, I know I'll have to. And I don't want to. It's such a— disgusting, selfish—"
"It's not selfish."
Inuyasha stopped to look at her. There was no pain in her eyes any more, just determination and maybe a hint of anger.
"Inuyasha, wanting to live is not selfish. It doesn't get any less selfish than that. It's literally the basis of existence. It's the least you can ask for. Just because you want it for yourself does not mean it's selfish in any way, because what you want matters." She did her best to hide the bitterness in her voice as she added "Plus you made your decision, didn't you? You chose to do it."
Inuyasha had just stared at her, mouth open while she talked, unable to understand why her words hit him so strongly. All his life, the only thing that had pushed him forwards was his instinct of survival, provided mostly by his demon part. Back then, he hated almost everything that surrounded him — demons, humans, this world that had made him like that. He didn't anymore. He didn't wish for much, just to stay in this world a little longer.
As long as Kagome was in it.
"That's the thing, Kagome," he said. "Wanting to live… Is getting stronger than having to die." Silence. "But I have to."
No you don't! Kagome wanted to scream, to yell at him, to get some sense into him. She wanted to tell him that he had nothing to do with Kikyo's death or that she was just as responsible as him, that even if he did, his debt had long been repaid, that there were people around him, including her, who had nearly died more than once to save him and then what? Should they, so it would convince him to live? You're not supposed to die to follow the dead.
But Kagome was crushed between what her brain was telling her and what she knew of her emotions. They knew. Miroku, Sango, even Kaede. They all knew what Kikyo asked of Inuyasha, and they weren't saying anything. They didn't tell him how stupid it was, they didn't tell him that it was in no way a solution. That going to hell together would only bring more pain when it wasn't needed. So maybe she was the one in the wrong. Maybe, after all, she already was the jealous, pathetic and insecure new girlfriend that she was trying so hard not to become.
"This is not fair," she hissed instead, her voice slightly trembling with the tears of rage she was trying to hold back.
"I'm sorry," Inuyasha said. "You don't deserve that, Kagome. You don't—"
"Stop it!" Inuyasha immediately closed his mouth, and even if Kagome felt a hint of guilt at the way his ears drooped, she couldn't bear listening to him being so defeated one more second. She knew it was important to listen to herself, that she didn't have to subject herself to something she hated just for someone else's sake if it wasn't worth it. "You need to choose it, Inuyasha," she said, her voice low. "You can choose. You can choose to live. As long as you think it's right."
Inuyasha froze. His instinctive reaction was to think that it wasn't, that there was only one right decision in this moment. But then, his thoughts travelled to Kikyo. Not the one who was now walking on this earth, but the one he actually owed something to. And for the first time, he couldn't believe that she would want him to follow her in death.
That's when he realized that this Kikyo was gone. Forever.
He had known it for a long time, but he always rejected the idea, burying it deep inside his mind. Death was too… permanent.
He didn't know why, but this made something finally snap inside of him. Kikyo was dead. There was nothing he could do about it, except trying to save her soul. And accompanying her to hell wouldn't do that. It wouldn't even lessen her burden.
So then, what was the right thing?
There was indeed only one right decision in this moment, and he had no idea why it had taken him so long to realize it.
He looked at Kagome with new eyes. He had always thought she was the most wonderful person he had ever had the chance to meet, but now he was also so thankful.
She was waiting for his answer, and he saw hope in her eyes. He saw that she wanted him to choose to live, for himself. He knew that Kagome wouldn't want him to live just for her, that she just wanted to know that he wanted it.
He started lowering his head, his eyes on her lips, and he could pinpoint the exact moment when realization hit her.
She smiled.
He kissed her.
He didn't really know what to do. Kikyo had kissed him, but she was cold and emotionless, and it was nothing like what he was feeling right now. Probably because he already didn't love her anymore, at that point.
Kagome was warm and soft against him, and she sighed like she had been waiting for that her entire life. Her hand immediately cupped his cheek, and her lips moved slowly against his. Inuyasha was a bit stiff, but he relaxed at her contact. He allowed one of his arms to move around her waist, bringing her closer to him, incapable of making sense of all the feelings that were going through him at the moment and only able to enjoy what was happening as a strange heat he had never experienced before spread through his entire body.
Kagome didn't resist, letting him pull her on his lap, instead passing her other arm around his neck. This prompted him to maybe get overenthusiastic, and their foreheads collided, making them pull away from each other, her with a small 'ouch!', him with fear that his unusually solid forehead would have, you know, cracked her skull open — a normal worry for a demonic lover.
Instead, when their eyes met, Kagome chuckled, and Inuyasha smiled. They would have multiple other occasions to get it right, even though right now he could smell the damn fox getting up to look for Kagome and it wasn't the time.
They would have multiple other occasions, because he had made the decision — the right one.
He was choosing to live.
