And here we go, another chapter uploaded and posted. Thanks as always goes out to my readers (and to you reviewers who spur me on, in both my fanfiction and life in general, frankly) and to my beta, Liz. You may know her on as LDP88. She has several excellent SessRin fanfic in progress, so go check them out after you're finished reading and (hopefully, ahem) reviewing Chapter 10! :) Ooh, it's very long. Have fun!
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bird on a wire
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chapter ten
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"I have not always traveled with Lord Sesshoumaru, so I cannot tell you all the details of his childhood," Jaken began. "As you know, my lord had a half-brother named Inuyasha, and he had a human mother. Inuyasha was weak and unintelligent, yet favored by my lord's father. He and my lord had a… poor relationship. But Inuyasha was, I'll simply say, incapacitated when I first came into my lord's service."
"How did you meet him?" asked Rin.
"Inuyasha?" Jaken scowled. "He was stuck to a tree."
"No, I mean Sesshoumaru-sama."
"Ah." Jaken could not keep the pleased tone from his voice as he eagerly stepped back from regaling Rin with Sesshoumaru's early history in favor of his own.
"We met over five centuries ago. I have been his vassal for just a fraction of my life; the majority of my millennia were lived among a tribe of kappa. I was of some prestige among them, even becoming their ruler. I was adored, you know; I sought to assimilate all of the tribes throughout the western lands. We became vast. We also were unable to defend ourselves, in the end, from the outsider peril. There had been a massive war… and our tribe had lost. Sesshoumaru-sama appeared unasked and unexpected, and rescued me from a youkai woman's claws, when I was merely seconds away from being her next meal. He rescued all of us when we couldn't have deigned to have asked. His nobility, his magnificence brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't even look upon the glaring white linen of his clothes. I had to dedicate my life to him. It was the only way I could redeem my own life."
"Wait, are you serious?" Rin interjected. "Why didn't you just thank Sesshoumaru-sama and pledge the loyalty of you and all the other kappa? Why did you leave your people? "
Jaken couldn't immediately pinpoint the reason, much less who his people had been. Their images only floated in his mind with the duration of a dust mote in the corner of his life. For a moment, Jaken wondered if he had had a brother, with eyes like mud, and a mole on his left cheek. There was a thought of a peaceful stream, the quiet talking of its gathered companions composing the bubbling babble of the water. But that quickly faded into another rhythm, the stomping of marching feet, webbed and scaly, across the dusty plains, beating endlessly into the night. War. Death. His own.
"Oh, the debt of gratitude, Rin; how could you understand it? I had resigned myself to death, and in my mind I was already cut off from my own existence. When the great dog lord of the western lands rescued me on a whim - just as he did for you - Jaken the lord of the kappa remained dead. But I, I was born."
"I never would have guessed that…"
Rin continued the thought, but Jaken heard no more of it. Nothing she said could take importance over even the memory of what Sesshoumaru-sama had one on that bleak but noble night. "Realizing that Sesshoumaru-sama alone deserved to profit from this humble kappa's life, I made it my solemn goal to serve him from that day, no, that moment onward. I ran after him, not sparing a moment to grab any food or possessions. And so I began to follow.
"Our lord has always preferred to be alone, so I had to pursue his favor for some time, but in the end I convinced him to allow me to enter into his service. We have traveled together ever since. For many years, many years. Our lives…
"Youkai's lives used to be very predictable. That is to say, we came to expect unpredictable elements everyday. We were prepared for and engaged in constant rhythms of movement and turmoil. We never slept in buildings, you know; no one decent did in those days. Not even the humans. The few of them we saw moved around just like us for most of my life, chasing creatures and being chased. But eventually they settled down and began to farm. From the time that my lord and I traveled together, we did not immediately see that the growth of villages would lead to the growth of cities, to an upheaval of what being 'human' or 'youkai' even signified, but…"
Jaken shook his head. "…But the change happened all the same. During the latter half of the Edo period, I'd say - that's when the wars ended, and the human world began to shift in its balance, settling into a peace like I had never known could exist. Even the youkai ceased gathering and vying for position. Politics began taking place in words and trade more than in warfare. Before the greater youkai had even become aware of it, humans outnumbered them in size and overpowered most of them in terms of fighting strength. The humans possessed new guns, strong guns, that hit targets faster than a youkai could cross a field to attack. Many youkai fled. More youkai died. The greater ones dropped into the shadows, waiting for the currents of history to shift back to their favor. As it was, food was plenty and peace was abundant. There was little reason to protest the change when life could be continued largely the same as ever, though perhaps, as in Sesshoumaru-sama's case, with less freedom to travel. Forced to become sedentary, my lord grew restless. He never stopped watching the rapid changes of the world around us, of course, but he remained willfully impotent to change. And then one day, my lord stepped onto a train.
"I wasn't there. I couldn't disguise myself among human society with merely a hat and gloves, as Sesshoumaru did when he rarely ventured forth among them, to investigate their growth. And how they had grown within a handful of years! And how my lord changed within the course of a day. He returned to the eastern edge of the Musashino forest that night, appearing as if he had been shot by a purifying arrow, had been forced to disintegrate and yet had been pieced together again. Were he a lesser youkai, he would have seemed afraid. I had never even seen that expression on him when he was close to death in battle. But his were the eyes of a man who had seen death. It was in the air… It was on the train. And it was growing all around us.
"To be fair, from the first time I had seen the trains, among other ugly vehicles that the humans had designed, I was reminded of the lesser youkai of old, of those fast-moving creatures with foul intent… and the ability to harm. Both creature and machine were equally senseless and lacking in empathy. And so it was, on that day, that Sesshoumaru had seen a vision of the future; that humans would soon - if they hadn't already - discover a way to manufacture the greater youkai, in all their power but also in all their cruelty…"
"Go on," Rin interrupted, before Jaken even realized that he'd ceased speaking. He resumed, drawing his padded haori around himself as if it were a cocoon.
"I had come to the conclusion that a change was incumbent, but I was taken more off-guard than my Lord by how rapidly events streamed together and a new world was realized. But Sesshoumaru-sama was wise. He did not waste time after his fears about humanity were confirmed. I say confirmed because he already knew what was coming, beyond the reach of either hope or denial. He had been convinced that the entire youkai race would be lost to genocide, and had spent centuries making plans to ensure his survival."
Jaken stared at Rin's pale and anxious face. "What?" he barked. "What is it? Spit it out."
"You said the word, 'genocide,'" she whispered.
"They killed all of the, umm, youkai like Sesshoumaru-sama? That's terrible. Why would they do that?"
"It's a long story, which I'm trying to tell you."
"I just don't understand how that could have happened. If the youkai were as powerful as you…"
"It didn't happen all at once," said Jaken matter-of-factly. "They never do, as I understand it."
When had it begun? Not as soon as he had come to Sesshoumaru's side, no; not even the first time he had seen black smoke curling in the sky. He narrowed his eyes as images flashed before him. Not depictions of death, not yet, of course, but of all matter of scenes from five centuries before.
Perhaps the world had always been destined to fall apart. He could remember the first time he was confronted with evidence of the youkai's demise. It was the picture of death within a death - the scene of a grave, and a human girl who stood inside of a sun-bleached skeleton, trembling as she struggled to hold up a rusty blade. She was trying to protect herself with a power she didn't know the first thing about. She had looked about the same age as Rin did now, come to think of it.
"Why were the youkai killed, Jaken?"
"Fear. Jealousy, too. But most of all, misunderstanding. The humans forgot their place in the world. They confused themselves with the monsters, declaring that our thirst for blood made us blemishes on a perfect society. But they said this while still fighting wars amongst themselves, and not even for food. They destroyed the land, which youkai protected, and by walking upon, gave life to. Humans are still just as stupid, even now. Destroying. Destroying. Their lives are so short, they don't even value the time that they have. You humans are idiots."
"Not all of us."
Jaken glared at her. "If you interrupt again, I'm not going to finish."
Rin clapped her mouth shut.
Pleased, Jaken returned to his earlier stream of thought, wading into those flowing memories with careful steps. "In spite of the general stupidity of humans, the fact of the matter is that my lord owed much to that strange girl I mentioned before… The one who later became Inuyasha's wife."
"Inuyasha's wife? Don't you mean Kagome Higurashi?" Jaken waited as Rin processed the information, and then stiffened. She had obviously come to the only possible conclusion.
"Jaken! That's impossible! Unless…"
"Unless she was a time traveler," Jaken confirmed, satisfied with the havoc he had wrought upon his listener.
"How could that be?" Rin exclaimed, her eyes boggling. "How did she do it? Does she have a time machine?"
"What? I don't know, I-"
"And is it at the Higurashi shrine? Maybe that's why it's so big. Jaken, are all of the Higurashi's time travelers?!"
"No!" Jaken shouted. "They're not, and I don't know how she did it! For all I know, she fell into a time machine by accident. I never asked! There was always something more important to talk about. Now don't get any ideas into your head, either. That wench is the only human or youkai I've ever heard of time traveling before. And the past wasn't very good to humans."
"I wouldn't go back that far," Rin said, her eyes momentarily focusing on something Jaken couldn't see. "Just a few months or so."
"Snap out of it," Jaken said harshly. "I only think it's possible that she fell through time because she was a miko, and you don't have a trace of spiritual energy in you at all. Just a weak and boring human girl. Now as I was saying before you interrupted, when Inuyasha's wife - widow, by then - lay on her deathbed, she gave my lord her final blessing, and revealed her entire history to him, and warned him about the future."
"So she went back to the past, and stayed there forever?"
Jaken nearly gave up right then. "Why are you still hung up on this?" he wailed. "It's not that shocking. Even when I first encountered her, and realized where she was from, I didn't let it shock me into stupidity!"
"Of course you didn't," Rin's tone was too cool to be sincere. "You were well aware that people could time travel, when as far as you knew, it had never happened before."
"I'll have you know that a single look at her made it obvious that she was out of place! She wore one of those… one of those… school things!"
"A sailor suit?" Rin returned to being incredulous.
"Yes! One of those!" Jaken nearly howled with delight at Rin's validating disbelief in what he still believed to be one of the greatest scandals in history. "The girl wore that ridiculous school uniform in the middle of the warring states period! I couldn't tell if she was a prostitute or an invalid with the way sheran around with her legs uncovered all the time."
"I guess no one else did that, huh?"
In retrospect, some youkai clans had gone topless, but they were oni. True youkai always wore garments that covered themselves respectably. It was a matter of course.
"Kagome didn't wear it all her life, though, did she?" asked Rin.
"No, no. She eventually learned to wear a kimono, I suppose; yes - she was in a summer kimono when she laid dying and spoke to my lord. Sesshoumaru-sama was as convinced of her story as I was, when he heard it.
"His reasoning was, as I remember, that even complete strangers to our land were not foolish enough to ignore youkai or refuse to recognize a demon on sight. During the Warring States era, as I believe it's known today, they were still quite… frequent. And humans were invariably aware of their comparative weakness, and were afraid. All the same, that time-traveling girl never even batted an eyelash at my presence, much less at my lord's, a far more dire offense that almost always leads to death. I had met the girl only a few weeks after she had arrived, apparently, from the future, and even for a human she had been incredibly naive and foolish, speaking back to our Lord and shrieking in constant surprise at his prowess in battle."
Yes, this was definitely how it had happened. He could vividly remember her bursting with nearly-worshipful praise of Sesshoumaru even now, her eyes passionate, her arms waving around in her exuberance, though she claimed loyalty to the weak hanyou for reasons that Jaken could not quite recall.
"In any case, although the miko claimed she did not know the details of the youkai's extinction, my lord and I did not for a second suspect that youkai could die off by mere disease, or even hide themselves from humans without error. There were still too many of them in my time for this to be possible, and too many of them who were weak. My lord concluded thus that the youkai would have to be wiped out by unnatural causes in our future, and from that time on he began to make preparations to ensure he would not be among their number. And, of course, myself."
"When did it happen?"
"I'm getting to that," Jaken flared up for the second time to hear Rin's interjection, "Stop being so impatient and listen! Don't you know how hard this is to discuss? How easy it is to lose my place? I have hundreds of years of memories, where you have but a trickle, a mere drop where my brain holds rivers! Do not allow me to be swept away in the current! Do not allow it! Do not-"
"Jaken, I'm sorry!" the girl pleaded, but Jaken could only see, for a moment, all the trailing thoughts in his mind, swirling around in whirlpools and crashing against banks. "Just keep going, I didn't mean to upset you. Really. Tell me about the preparations."
"Preparations?" Jaken put his hand out, feeling for his recliner. His claws found the sturdy back of the chair, and leaned against it, letting it steady him for a moment. "Oh… Yes… The preparations for our survival."
He took in a deep breath, finding his place. "My lord didn't immediately begin planning until very late. Only once he felt that the emergency was immediate. Keep in mind that change used to be much more gradual, then.
"But time suddenly fell in upon itself, compounding. It was as if the world had always been one way, and then when I awoke the next morning, the Edo period was ending and the greater youkai, once so proud, were rarely willing to show their face in the public arenas of humans. Humans no longer feared them, nor did they understand them, and with their weapons this often offered a certain challenge that most youkai were increasingly unwilling to fight against. Those who went against humans on their own quickly found themselves pursued and overpowered.
"Sesshoumaru knew that being known, and seen as a youkai, was becoming dangerous, and decided that he would have to withdraw his mantle as the youkai Lord of the Western Lands, and go into hiding. But this option seemed inviolable long-term. It is… It was strange that Sesshoumaru-sama's half-human brother came to our aid so long after his death, especially as he had been the spur in my Lord's heel since his birth. But it was his inherited disadvantage that had caused him to make unusual friends who loyally served my Lord for his sake. Don't look at me like that, you dumb girl, I'm speaking of the Higurashi family. The family of his dead wife. They remembered us, through shrine records and legends passed down from generation to generation. And so my Lord was able to reconcile with them, and make an agreement. In exchange for his protection, they invented for him a flawless disguise, using a combination of illusions and pure spiritual energy. Once he possessed his own 'mask,' he began to auction off this service to other youkai. The riches he collected from this venture formed the true foundation of his second empire. The Inutaisho Corporation, naturally, after his father.
"The first business empire, I suppose I should mentioned that one as well, had begun early in the Meiji period. Sesshoumaru-sama had decided to," Jaken shuddered, "begin interacting with the human marketplace, in hopes to secure his position of power should the situation arise that ancient claims to inheritances and property would be void in the new system (and of course, they were; do you see how clever our lord is?). After the first world war, in which Japan did not have a major role, as you know, Lord Sesshoumaru left me with the reigns to the business, took on a new disguise and sought out a formal, human education, if only to give authenticity to his new persona. He deigned to create a false family tree for himself while traveling abroad."
"A family tree? Does that mean Sesshoumaru-san's married?" Rin interjected, her voice approaching horrified.
Jaken gaped. "What? No! What part of false don't you understand?"
"I just…. Well, you said family tree, and it's true that Sesshoumaru-san's been alive for a long time. So it would make sense, wouldn't it, that he'd… at one point…" Rin furrowed her brow, and asked with surprising hesitance, "Is he widowed, then? Or engaged?"
Jaken couldn't even imagine it. "Absolutely not. I refuse to answer another question about it. And you should never ask him about it, either," he tacked on the last bit belatedly.
"I see," Rin replied. She was, judging from her expression, only partially satisfied on the matter. "But tell me more about Europe. I'd heard that Sesshoumaru-san was part english and I wanted to know -"
Jaken guffawed. "Lord Sesshoumaru a harufu(1)? Hardly!"
"But Aya-sensei said…"
"My lord's father, a Japanese youkai named Inutaisho died centuries and centuries ago. His mother passed on more recently, but she never left the mainland once in her lifetime, so it's safe to say that she was Japanese to the core. Though I do believe my lord's father did go to China at one point. But until the first world war, as I was saying before you interrupted me, Sesshoumaru-sama had never been abroad.
"The gap in my lord's knowledge concerning foreign lands never concerned me, nor him. But it was at his mother's urging and manipulation that he embarked on a ship aimed for the European continent. The trip extended itself when his disguise faltered, as he was too far away from the shrine where he regularly received re-installments of spiritual energy into his necklace. He struggled to find ways to keep himself from being revealed as non-human, and in that course, interacted with many creatures of pagan myth and legend in his journeys. Before long, of course, the second war began, and it became impossible for him to return home.
"I hid in the high forests of Musashino, struggling to protect my lord's treasure while his business empire was systematically destroyed in fire bombs and looting along with everything else in Edo. Though I suppose it was already 'Tokyo' by then, wasn't it? Meanwhile, my lord's mother was far away in Kyushu. She had chosen to remain in the lands of her late and unfaithful husband, my father the Lord Inutaisho. She survived the air raids, and was able to - perhaps unscrupulously - keep more well-fed than many humans had done during those scarce times. But there are some attacks from which even youkai cannot heal.
"The humans, as I had always feared, found a way to harness the powers of the greatest youkai, and used them to drop hell upon each other. There was no warning; no way to prepare, I believe… and I had to entreat Sesshoumaru to return home at the end of the war, for his mother's funeral. She had died from radiation poisoning within the year. He did not get to say goodbye. However, I was able to in his stead. She told me with a bitter smile that her death had become a relief. She did not find it as easy to interact with the human world as I did. She had no desire to stay on, and mocked her son to the last for living.
"When my lord Sesshoumaru returned from his sojourn, I had to explain to him that most of whom we had known had passed on. But they had not all died as collateral damage from bombs or flames.
"I have heard that they do not teach much about the second war in text-books. I assume that they do not explain why so many died, to the point that nearly half of the young and middle-aged human men in the country perished. The truth is not what you would think. It is part of the circle. The one that extends around all of us youkai. The circle of death.
"There were many battles being waged during that decade and a half of war, but not all of them took place outside of our country's shores. The last of the youkai had to be extinguished - this was the militant government's chief aim, no matter what propaganda they proposed. As far as the humans were concerned, the idea had logical merit in the great scheme of international power. Equal parlay with other nations could not be achieved by the humans in Japan as long as a stronger species threatened to interfere with their political and economic structures. In other words, youkai had to be subjugated. They were forced to submit or die. But submission also meant death.
"During the rebuilding era, Lord Sesshoumaru, too, fought his own battle to regain his lands and to keep his power, if only ideologically. In the new company he built, he has already once pretended to be his own son in order to 'take over' the company from himself nearly twenty years ago. Being supposedly half-foreign makes it hard to track his family line, and also explains away his appearance, which looks less Japanese than he does without his disguise. Surely you noticed that Sesshoumaru-sama has a striking presence, haven't you? What you are looking at is the land itself. Sesshoumaru-sama is one of the last great youkai. He looks more like this land than the humans who live in it. He is one of the last true people of the land. I, too, am one. Shippou, who resides at the Higurashi residence, is one more."
Jaken finished here, finding he suddenly had nothing left to say. His hand was trembling as it rested on the top of the chair, and seeing this, he snatched it back. It left a damp spot behind on the leather, as if he had sweated out the rivers of his mind and left the scar on the furniture itself.
"Jaken, I'm overwhelmed," said Rin. She was rubbing at her face; massaging it, as far as he could tell. Her skin distorted where her palms stretched the skin of her face, shrinking her eyes, elongating her nose, and so on, again and again. "You told me so much more than I thought there would be to his past. To all of your pasts."
"That wasn't his past, Rin, but nearly a portion of my lord's life," Jaken returned. It was a selective portion, too; not only excluding Rin but the time when Sesshoumaru had hated humans with violent passion. But this was not relevant to Rin understanding Sesshoumaru at present, and was therefore irrelevant. He knew instinctively that his master would not be pleased with him for sharing even this much.
"It's a lot to process. It's an entire history of a world I didn't know was there."
"It's not your fault," Jaken acknowledged grudgingly. "It's not there anymore."
Rin's hands moved to rub at her arms up and down, as if she were fighting off chills. Jaken felt a draft as well, in spite of the extra layer he had put on that morning.
"I don't really understand it all," she said, her voice quieter now. "But I'm glad you told me. I wonder, though, why Sesshoumaru wouldn't just have explained everything to me himself."
"He's very private."
"I know that he's… reserved, but if he was that private, he would be angry at you for telling me all this," Rin reasoned. "Why would he have you do it instead? Does it really bother him to talk about his past?"
Jaken sighed. "I think, Rin, that he does not mind you knowing, but he simply would not say it. Until recently, and perhaps even now, our lord has felt he was alone."
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March 29, 2006
Rin
"How's the essay coming?"
"Slowly," Rin muttered as she reached for her eraser yet again. It had been three days since her lor- guardian Sesshoumaru had revealed his true form to her, and in spite of the fact that she was living with non-human beings, life was starting to feel normal. She was no longer surprised to see a man with white hair appear behind her as if out of thin air (he was so quiet, so subtle). She still found Jaken a little strange, a little moody, and even shorter than she remembered. Being that she was no pillar of height herself, his height had recently become the focus of much fond teasing.
All in all, she had found little dramatic change in her life since the incident, with a single caveat: her heart was lighter, and more confident in Sesshoumaru than it had been before. To see him demonstrating trust in her made it just that much easier to trust him as she longed to. No longer did it seem to her that she was following him because she had no other choice, nor that it was from guilt. She felt in her heart a true devotion to the man; sometimes, distractingly so.
"Is there any way I can help you? Do you have questions?" Aya's voice prodded Rin from her wandering reflections.
"No," Rin answered, her voice distant, "Just gathering my thoughts."
"Learning how to write your own thoughts, and quickly, will be important for doing college-level work," Aya encouraged.
"So? I haven't even entered high school yet." Rin mentally berated herself for speaking without thinking.
"High school is pointless. All you do there is memorize facts for your college entrance examinations, and sleep during class hours," said Aya flatly. "Besides, you shouldn't be afraid of skipping ahead a bit. You've been doing high school level work with me for the past few months."
"I have?" Rin blinked.
"Yes. Keep writing, you only have a few minutes left."
Rin stared at her paper. It seemed like there were a few good ideas holding it together; she certainly had made lists to prove her points, as Aya had suggested. But she had no idea how to close it except to restate her opinion in exactly the same words as she had written them into her introduction.
Rin finally gave up. "This is about all I can do," she said, sliding the paper across the desk. It crinkled a little, as if protesting the slothfulness of the movement, but still reached Aya's glistening fingertips.
Not wasting a moment, she picked it up and scanned the lines. She let out a couple of 'hmms' but refrained commenting until she was finished. She pressed the paper flat against the table-top.
"Yes?" asked Rin, setting her shoulders in preparation for a stark critique.
"What have you been reading lately?"
"I'm sorry?" She was thrown by the question, and it took her a moment to give an answer. "Besides the books you assigned me? Umm, Sunadokei…Nodome Cantabile… Why? "
"No, it can't be any of your manga." Aya shook her head, clearly at a loss. "I don't know why, but your writing style is completely different today, Rin."
"What?"
"To put it simply, you just don't sound like you usually do. Your writing in this essay is childish. I expect a higher standard from you."
Rin grew embarrassed, and yet couldn't think of a decent reply. She had been criticized harshly and praised within the same sentence, and had no idea where her behavior had differed.
"I don't think I wrote anything outside the usual," she defended herself. "Can you show me what's wrong?"
"Here."
Aya passed the now slightly beaten paper back to Rin without having written a single comment or edit between the lines of descending squares.(2) At first glance, the kanji swum before her eyes as if they held no meaning, but a moment's focus returned them to their proper place and she began to read her essay with a faint stirring of foreboding. Unfortunately, she hadn't continued for more than half a minute before her foreboding was realized. She saw clearly what Aya had meant, and felt foolish.
Every sentence where she spoke of herself, she began the sentence with "Rin is"(3) or "To Rin,…" rather than something clever or even normal, such as "I think…" or "I am." It was hard to read her own essay without wincing. It sounded like it had been written by a little girl who didn't know anything at all.
When she finished, she put down the paper with a sigh. "It's not good at all," she said.
"You're right about that point." Aya leaned her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hand. She seemed to have crossed half the distance toward Rin with that single movement, and it made her friendly appraisal all the more effective. Rin felt pinpointed by Aya's observation. "I'm not a psychiatrist, Rin, but I've got to ask. Has something happened to upset you recently? Maybe something to do with your project…?"
"No. No, nothing's happened," Rin defended, "I just didn't realize I was writing anything strange at the time. I must be really tired or something..."
Aya withdrew, nodding. "I believe you. It's very unlike you, though, isn't it? So, I think… that today, I'm going to propose a change in our lesson plan. I want you to practice writing lines with proper grammar for the next hour and a half. Let's beat out this mysterious habit of yours, and make sure it doesn't happen again."
Rin meekly bowed her head, eyes avoiding the paper Aya had returned to her.
"Yes, sensei."
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Mid-day
When they came out from the underground mall extension, the first thing that Rin noticed was the hue of the cloudless sky and the vibrancy of the sunlight, both so intense that they appeared to be fiercely sparring in a quest for dominance.
The second thing she noticed was that Sesshoumaru didn't have to squint his eyes when they walked off of the escalator into the bright light like everyone else. He didn't seem to notice the sky at all. Which was a shame, because the sun felt so good on her shoulders and the back of her neck. It had been too long since she'd gotten to feel it. Spring was starting to come upon the city at last.
Sesshoumaru, it seemed, was only noticing smells, judging from the twitching of his nose.
As they walked past a few stores, many of which Rin had seen and heard of (and others that she never hoped to hear about), her eyes caught on a distant white awning, where a few men had ladders set up against the storefront's facade. They appeared to be putting up a large banner. She craned her neck as they approached, but the street was busy, and the sign was too bunched up for her to pick up any characters. She did see, however, a few pictures of pink flowers, and was able to make a fair guess about the rest of the banner's message.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, can you see what that sign says?" she asked.
He didn't even look at it before he answered. "It's for the cherry blossom festival in two weeks."
"Oh! I thought so. But why are they holding it so late? It will already be mid-April by the time the festival starts."
"The blossoms open when they're ready, and no sooner," Sesshoumaru replied. "It is their way."
"Do you like cherry blossoms, Sesshoumaru-sama?"
"Yes." The set of his eyebrows made it very clear that he brooked no argument about it. Rin laughed.
"I do, too," she said. "I like how everyone can enjoy them, all together, all at once and they don't even have to pay for it. It's pretty wherever you go, too, wherever you look, when there's a cherry blossom tree there. I can't wait until they're in full bloom everywhere. And I want to go to the festival with you here. Can I do that?"
"I don't see why not."
"Good. You'll have to promise to take a lunch break off. The light-up only goes on so late…" Rin came to a halt, surprised to find that her feet had taken her further than she'd been aware. They had arrived at the flower shop. The smell of irises once again permeated her senses, lifting her mood even further.
Sesshoumaru, apparently, saw something of this.
"Do you enjoy learning ikebana here?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," Rin averred. "It's more exciting than when you brought in that lady to give me lessons. The people here are younger. No one's my age, though. But I like all of the people I've met here so far. They seem to be having a lot of fun, and that's the whole point of flowers, isn't it? To spread happiness?"
"Your arrangements are always very engaging."
Rin beamed, feeling as if she had been bestowed a second sun to shine upon her. "I'm glad you think so. I'm going to try and make them actually more pretty, though. I think that's the other point."
"If that is what you want to think, then it is."
"Anyway, I like ikebana a lot in general, now. And I'm really glad I get to leave the apartment and come here a lot."
"Why?" Sesshoumaru's voice held just enough inflection that Rin caught a trace of his discomfort, but she wasn't sure why that would be. "Do you like to travel, Rin?"
"Oh, I've never really thought about it." Rin cocked her head as she considered the idea. "Maybe I would, but I don't know. The furthest I've ever been out of Tokyo was to Yokohama, one time, when Rika was six. It was fun, but I don't think that it counts as travel. But I think I've always liked to talk to all sorts of different people. It's interesting, isn't it?"
Sesshoumaru's expression was placid as he answered. "Interesting."
From his words, Rin couldn't guess whether he was agreeing with her, or making a comment about her, but something told her it was the latter, and she felt a blush seep into her cheeks before she could help it.
"Well, I'm going to go in now so I'm not late for the lesson. Thank you for dropping me off."
Rin moved toward the door, and reached for the handle, only to find that Sesshoumaru had done so as well. She had been closer to it, so she reached it first. The touch of metal on her fingers was cool. It only served to contrast the sudden heat she felt from the hand that was a few inches short of having gripped the door and made a gentlemanly gesture.
His hand hovered over hers for a moment, then pulled away.
"Sesshoumaru-sama…" Rin said, inexorably confused. But he had already turned, with a single hand held up in farewell.
.
Japanese notes
(1) harufu - slang word for a person with mixed Japanese ethnicity, usually implying one 'foreign' parent
(1) Japanese hand-written compositions in schools are done on not lined paper, but in lines of boxes so each kanji/character can be placed in each square. This system has the advantage of keeping formatting and length consistent from page to page, and sentence to sentence, in essays and the like.
(2) In the Japanese language, most references to the self are done indirectly, allowing for the speaker to drop the subject of the sentence. Rin's repeated self-reference would seem unnecessarily clear, if not repetitive. Further, it is correct to write a form of the word "I," not to name oneself in the third person, which is a prominent feature of childish language.