Chichibu (秩父市 Chichibu-shi) is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, in the central Kantō region of Japan, where the Chichibu Night Festival takes place once a year during the 2nd and 3rd day of December.
...If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
you can let them touch you.
Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich. A Pulitzer. Another woman.
But their hands found you first. Do not mistake yourself for a guardian.
Or a muse. Or a promise. Or a victim. Or a snack.
You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.
You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.
If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
you can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright-
even after all this evolving, it still feels unnatural, still strains the muscles,
holds firm the arms and spine. Only some men will want to learn
what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,
admit they do not have the answers
they thought they would have by now;
some men will want to hold you like The Answer.
You are not The Answer.
You are not the problem. You are not the poem
or the punchline or the riddle or the joke...
Sarah Kay, 'The Type'.
December the 3rd, Year One
Chapter Ten: 秩父市
(Also known as 'The Fourth Essential: Numbness')
The trick was to not be there at all.
Kagome realized that this very important notion fit perfectly snuggly in her purse. Out of the six things she always carried when meeting a customer, it was probably the most important one. Her apathy was the master survival tool.
She was also very aware that she was using it more often than she should.
Ever since leaving Sesshomaru over two months ago, she had learnt to shelter herself in utter indifference. She went to work, then to work, studied, and simply convinced herself to breathe.
She decided against leaving the internship or her job as an escort. It was enough to stoop as low as she already had. Her pride was destroyed, her ego, crushed; Sesshomaru didn't need to know he had killed her mood forever.
Who am I kidding. The guy didn't do anything wrong to me. I did this all by myself.
So, apathy. It was working… kind of…
A sigh.
On the bright side, she had almost not cried this week, which was massive improvement. The Christmas décor and general atmosphere were contagious, and if there was something Kagome loved, it was the holiday spirit. With the Emperor's upcoming birthday, also, the whole nation was in typical buzz. The air simply wouldn't allow one to get gloomy.
Kagome looked around at the lamps and decorations hanging all around her. Chichibu's night festival was one of her favorites, and for a moment she forgot that a customer had made her travel almost two hours to meet here.
Sounds like a paranoid idiot with a wife.
Under her white and red kitsune mask covering the upper half of her face, Kagome's blue eyes searched the crowd. The lantern-lit floats paraded around the streets, and the skies were about to be ablaze with fireworks. People screaming horyai, drums, music, aromas, and cheerfulness. It was beautiful, and she was alone.
She had gone all the way with the looks. Her mane was up in a complex hairdo, but several straight locks flowed down her half painted nape and back. Her kimono was showing her left shoulder, and she sported an obi tied in the front. Pipe in hand, she was the living image of an oiran; beautiful, seductive, and forbidden. Many pedestrians thought her a part of the show, and it made her proud of her work.
The idiot who hired her and asked to remain anonymous had requested her to dress with typical clothes and display the fox mask. She hated when these men tried to treat her like a doll. She was no actress, no performer, no model. She was a hooker and had learnt to come to terms with it. No pretty names, no metaphors. And she would dress for him as such.
Take that, bastard.
She wondered, for a second, if she wasn't doing this for Sesshomaru, to convince herself that, even to him, she was simply a whore. Maybe this was an elaborated tantrum. She just couldn't stop thinking about him and all the reasons why she wouldn't go back to his side.
Standing in the middle of a crowd, she reminded herself of what he was looking for, what he needed… But she wasn't stupid. Kagome knew he wanted more than a bed warmer when he called her… she knew he cared.
And that made it all the harder.
If she could just blame herself, if she could simply say it was all because of her feeble heart, of her fucking stupid sentimentalism, because she couldn't just not fall in love with the only man she had had actual sex with… even if the sex was incredible.
It would have been so much easier if she could simply admit she was an airheaded teenager with a youkai fetish who had lost her breath over the most attractive, elegant, and interesting male specimen she had laid eyes on.
But, it so happened… that he wanted her back.
Wanting and having were two very different things. She could deal with desiring Sesshomaru… it got messed up when he decided he desired her.
Even while hating him, she couldn't stop thinking of him and all the things that composed that statement of perfection. Oh, he was hideous, but what a beautiful son of a bitch.
The minute they sat down in that restaurant after The Stupid Flowers Incident she couldn't stop wanting him. Pressing her knees together, nails digging in her palms, she willed herself to let it go away.
Of course, it didn't.
If Sesshomaru could just hate her, if he simply would have still acted like an asshole, it would all have been in peace with the world. But no, he had to redeem himself and be a perfect gentleman, sweet, caring…
Fuck.
Even now, in the middle of a festive ocean, she couldn't shake the hope that maybe, just maybe, it was him who had called her here.
All she had to do was locate a Daikijin mask and find out.
Please, just... find me.
A clawed hand wrapped around her waist and magnificent youki pulsated softly at her back.
The world caught in her throat.
Slowly she turned, expecting silver hair and golden eyes, and a forgiving smile, a soft voice rumbling it would be okay, that they would figure it out.
I miss you.
She was greeted by a demon's face, but one of legend. The Daikijin mask was white and fierce and horrifying, but the body beneath was lean and masculine. The snowy mane was wild around his frame, covering almost even his shoulders. He cocked his head, and before she knew it, her vixen façade fell in both the literal and the figurative way.
In his clawed hands was her mask, and then his fingers caressed her face softly, unbelieving, so lovingly she almost cried.
But she didn't.
"It's you."
He nodded and in a moment, took her hand and pulled her across the cheering attendants of the festival, through streets, and night, across voices and shadows.
In front of the white tower of a hotel, surely pestered by tourists, they made a stop. He regarded her, and she saw his pupils flash eerily white-green in an inhuman way under the street lights and behind the lacquered wood. After a second, he tugged her hand again; they entered the momentarily empty reception and quickly made it to the elevator.
She swallowed, reading his more than clear intentions. She didn't care, she wanted this. He had come for her, Sesshomaru had followed…
The words were there again. Those venomous feelings she couldn't allow herself to have, dying to be poured out, to be screamed to the light of day.
She just smiled.
Before a minute had passed, they entered a double room and he locked the door. She launched herself into his arms, and held him in a crushing embrace, that he returned after a moment of shock.
"You came for me…" She murmured, and heard a huffing soft laugh. "I want to see you."
Immediately her hands went behind his head as she undid the straps. Rustle and a second later, a soft, fanged smirk welcomed her, joined by eyes so loving she would have fallen to her knees in another life.
Kagome paled and took a step back.
"Koga…" She whispered.
…Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e,
I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have
given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible
to save something for myself…
Sarah Kay, 'Private Parts'.
Kagome made friends with Koga when she was too young to understand what the death of her father meant.
He had bumped into her at the schoolyard while running like the hyperactive cub he was. She had cried and, to keep her from snitching on him to the teacher, he covered her mouth with his hands and she licked his palm to teach him a lesson.
He had been taught to never hit a girl, less than ever a human girl, but Kagome liked playing dirty. When she kicked him in the shins, he counterattacked and soon they were involved in their very first school fight with a circle of cheerers and all that.
Both Kagome's mother and Kouga's parents were summoned, and both kids were thoroughly grounded. It was hate at first sight.
Every recess they would try to make each other's life impossible. From pranks to actual punches, their favorite hobby was make the other as angry as they could, proving themselves superior.
A tacit truce was reached, however: no snitching. They would fight and confront behind the row of trees at the edge of the patio, where no adults would see them.
And so, they both learnt honor.
One day, a horse youkai several years older, attacked Kagome. He stole her bento box and she fought back, but he punched her in the face and made her nose bleed. Every kid in the vicinity laughed at her.
Koga had also learnt to never give up his prey to any other, and Kagome definitely belonged to him, was his to torment. He beat the bullying out of that idiot, and then the three of them ended up at the principal's office again. Since the wolf cub couldn't admit he was defending his prey to deliver swift termination later, he falsely claimed to be defending her. Kagome had realized this, and so she played along.
That didn't mean the end of trouble, though. They were both grounded and punished. Fighting was the reason, they said. But, deep down, both kids knew it was because of their theoretical albeit false friendship. Their parents throwing nasty glares at each other had been a sign clear enough.
The next day, Koga showed up at the schoolyard with a black eye and Kagome was livid. She had never liked it when adults kept her from doing stuff, and so, out of sheer, morbid curiosity, and a decided dose of defiance, she set herself the goal to befriend Koga.
It was surprisingly easy.
It so happened that he had become an outcast. The ones that used to be his friends turned their backs on him because he stood for a human against his own race, even if Koga had a reason good enough for it.
It all just… happened afterwards.
From recesses to meeting after school, pretending they had friends of their same species who they would meet at the park. And just like that, because with kids it's easy, they became best friends.
One day, Kagome would show him ancient weapons her grandpa used to have locked in the storeroom. Then, Koga would carry her on his back while running full speed, showing her what it felt like to fly.
One day she would help him sneak into the Shrine so he could see one himself. The next he would teach her how to track and hunt.
One day he would let her touch his pointy ears, his tail. The next one, she would cry, understanding death and loss, and he would console her.
Once he told her how much he hated his dad. Once, she showed him her hidden purification powers.
Since wolf youkai aged at a rate similar to humans until fully developing, they saw each other maturing, changing, fitting into their skin. They didn't grow up; they grew in, wrapping and swirling around each other like river and ocean water, clashing and mixing, sharing every moment, every secret, every thought. Black hair and cobalt eyes, golden and milky skin, so perfectly identical and opposite, they emerged into the hurricane of their teen years together.
Kagome was not entirely sure how she fell in love with him. One day, at the door of adulthood, she looked at his tanned skin, his fangs, his long black hair, his sharp blue eyes, and she sighed. Color crept up her neck and her heart pounded in her chest.
As she discovered her awakening body, he suddenly realized she was gorgeous and blooming and female. He was there when her anatomy shifted, leaving behind perfect curves, plump lips, and a spiking scent that called to him in a primitive, instinctual way.
Simultaneously Koga noticed her as a soon-to-be woman, and Kagome saw him as the perfect example of masculinity he was.
They wanted each other. The realization was astounding, but not secret.
There were no such things as secrets between them.
Still, he never saw all of her skin, never roamed her body with his hands, never tasted her lips. Instead, he listened; swallowed every piece of her she would give up when opening her soul to his searching eyes, to his comforting presence, like these bits of Kagome were bites of nectarine, so sweet and delicate, so simple and yet precious. In return, she gave him everything and nothing, except she spoke in his ear and she smelled like promises and future. She adored him; every single bit of him, and she felt like home.
Touches, caresses, and tantalizing closeness, and without even single a kiss he learnt all of her secrets. In a tight embrace against a tree he discovered how she smelled when her soft body was ready to take him. Brushing her lips with his rough thumb he noticed how warm her tongue was. Having her trapped between his now fully developed body and the grass he relished in the sound of the first soft, trembling moan of her life.
She gave him her smiles, the small of her back, her shoulders, her nape, the words 'I love you'. He owned these small portions of her being and guarded them zealously, like hard conquered territory he would exploit at his whim.
In return he gave up his trembling hands, his loving gaze, his howls, his ribs that hid his racing heart from anyone but her. She treasured each part, made sure he knew he was well taken care of. And he loved her back.
From the angriest yell to the most desolated whisper, he learnt her whole and memorized every word. Always so close to kiss her, he took her exhalations, and vice versa. They could have survived underwater just out of the breath they traded. Always so close, so about to happen. Yet it never did.
There was always family and consequences and tomorrow. There was always the knowledge that once that dam broke, they would not stop until they had it all.
And they waited. They waited for the world to change, for the conditions to be favorable. They waited for the time to come when he would sweep her off of her feet and run, and run, and run so fast and so far no one would ever catch them. Yet it never happened.
And then he left, and with his presence he took everything.
There had been times in her life when she had felt lonely, when her small house seemed too big and her family too unfamiliar. Kagome would often wonder if her dad would have understood her love for a youkai, or her inability to hate them, like everyone seemed to expect her to do. She would miss this possibility of a father then, because she couldn't remember the real thing. In times like this, that was almost a blessing, since she could imagine the comforting words of this blank canvas of a parent, always patient, always on her side.
Lonely was redefined without Koga. She would turn to tell him something and he wouldn't be behind her, folded arms, swishing tail, a smug smirk on his chiseled face. She would scream at the darkness in her mind, asking how he could have abandoned her. She would laugh at jokes and smartass comments he never made, would hear words he never said, because she knew him so well it was like his ghost haunted her, like she could repeat his phrases and say jinxed and he hadn't even spoken.
Her childhood started feeling so far away without him, so dull and alien. He was her rock, and now she was crumbling, boneless, hating him and missing him so hard she could barely breathe.
At night she would sometimes wake up, knowing he was tossing around in his bed, the bed he would share with a suitable youkai wife. She would stare at the empty portion of her sheets that had always and never belonged to him, and she knew he would be staring back, trying to find in her missing eyes the peace he had lost, to sleep and dream of her and all the what ifs that would remain unanswered. Then, he would bend on himself, wrapping her absent frame, curling his body around her lost silhouette like a question mark, willing away the stiffness of his spine from so much standing upright with his head held high and the weight of his family's honor on his shoulders.
She would fall asleep with him, feeling the warmth of a lost happy life holding her close. She would wake up alone.
Then, Sesshomaru happened. And she knew two things from the moment he said her purifying energy soothed him; one, she loved him. Two, he too, would leave.
In one way or another she would, eventually, have to learn to live without him. His empire would fall; his name would be stained if anyone knew of her existence. She was a secret, and she never did secrets very well.
Kagome knew there were so many reasons why she couldn't love him. But most of them seemed silly once she put her finger on it. So she settled for this general feeling that they just couldn't happen, or else the world might end.
Now it was she who left.
Now, Koga was standing in front of her, the Daikijin mask slipping from her shaking fingers, and she felt too many things to even begin to analyze them.
After a brief second, shame won.
The lacquered wood sounded against the floor, and her hands shot up to her chest, feeling naked in the most horrible way.
A phrase echoed in her mind.
Don't see me.
But he didn't look disgusted, or angry. He didn't even look like he had noticed her attire. He smiled with tender blue eyes she had missed so much. And there was also guilt so deep and tearing.
She knew he understood.
She knew he had tried to find her, to amend his mistakes. She knew he had blamed himself for her loss of her family. She knew he had married and mated -the golden handcuff around a single finger said enough-, and that he still missed her and the life she represented. She knew he had understood his presence, and ultimately absence, was a decisive factor on who she had become.
This used, abused woman, this ghost of Kagome that would walk away before anyone could decide she was not worth the scars, this mangled girl who could barely even cry anymore. This girl who missed him.
Him. Mated, married, so far away, so not the man she was trying not to be in love with. So much past, so much she thought she had left behind.
Tears streamed down her face and he cleaned them with the rough thumb he had wrestled her with, had caressed her with, had brushed her lips with.
"Koga…" She repeated, and this time it went out in an exhale.
The next thing she knew he was kissing her, tight against his black silken yukata, hugging her by the waist so closely her feet separated from the floor. And she kissed him back, like they couldn't waste another second, like all these years had been tortuous enough. She breathed his exhale again, and felt like a child and remembered him. Like everything in between never happened, that it had all been a dream.
He made love to her, sweetly and softly, and erased all the pain, all the tears. He compensated for the lost time with caresses, disrobing her with loving hands, getting to know her body like he had once known the rest of her.
She whispered his name, a tangle of golden and milky skin and black hair tumbling on a borrowed bed, blue eyes hooded with desire and love staring at a similar pair that was yet so different. He growled his pleasure, feeling her burning miko energies engulfing him so delightfully slowly. He nestled into her and swore to never let go again.
For a blessed night it was like life had not passed at all.
But dawn broke, and time restarted.
A/N:Hello, hello, yes. Just in case you didn't quite hate me after the previous chapter (let me remind you I posted them both almost simultaneously) I bring you this tonight.
This, my beloved readers, is the chapter that has gotten me at least a couple of voodoo dolls out there. No, no amount of broken hearts, KogaKag shippers, death threats, people trying to set Kags on fire, bribes, or letters written in human blood will make me change the course of this part of the story. It's already set in stone xD (But feel free to try the bribes, who knows).
Jk. I know you might think Kagome's being illogical and the truth is: she is. We'll cover all this in chapter 13, I promise. Be patient. Still, keep this in mind: people choose the wrong person all the time (friend complaining about douchey S.O. but not dumping them scenario).
Koga isn't a bad guy either. Remember he's a wolf demon, he would NEVER give up his pack for ANYTHING. When it came down to choosing, instinct spoke.
Kagome grew up listening to the world yelling there was something sick and disgusting about her sexuality, and she has a self esteen the size of an acorn. Add to this the fact that Sesshomaru never offered a commited relationship, that she has no friends to turn to, and what do we get? A girl rebounding into a failed past relationship! :D
But don't worry, people. The illusion can only last for so long. Sesshomaru will be back in the next chapter and he's PISSED.
Don't forget to leave your death threats in the reviews! :3