Summary: Kagome's absence isn't the worst part of those three years for Inuyasha
Word count: 1,167
Memories
Her absence wasn't the worst part. Her absence hurt, ached, felt like a hole in his chest, crushed him like nothing ever had, but it wasn't the worst part. Her absence made him feel like he would never be whole again, like half of him would always be missing, like he would never really be living. But her absence wasn't the worst part.
The lack of her smell, of her presence right by his side sometimes became almost physically painful, like a ghost limb that never stopped hurting. He knew that everyone around him watched him carefully, half expecting him to break down at some point. He knew that he wasn't really fooling them, even though he kept his head up high. He knew that Sango and Miroku sometimes talked about it, and that even Shippo worried for him — even though the runt wasn't doing much better than he was.
He missed the color of her eyes, too, because the sky didn't match it exactly, and he seemed to never find something that would look exactly like it. He missed the things he had never done with her, the life he wanted them to share, the kisses they had never exchanged.
He missed her so much there were moments when he wondered how he could still be alive despite the pain, how the world could still be working without her in it — in his, at least. He got some comfort from knowing that she was alive out there, somewhere, just out of his reach, and that she would still be long after his death, although, technically, she wouldn't even be born. He told himself that it was probably better like that, for her, that he wouldn't want her to have the life he could give her, but he knew that was an insult to her, to his Kagome, to their feelings.
He would take being with her over anything else, and he thought that she did too. Sometimes he doubted that, but he guessed he could only trust her. Trust everything she had done for him during their journey together, trust the way she had slowly healed him back to life, trust what her smile and her smell told him.
He hoped she knew she could trust him in the same way, hoped she could hang on to what he felt for her like he did with her feelings. He thought bitterly back to the days when he hadn't been able to make her believe him behind the shadow of a doubt. He wished he could have done better, wished he hadn't been blinded by guilt. She had done so much for him, and saving his life multiple times was the least of it. He hadn't been able to see through the one thing she actually needed him for.
And as much as it hurt, that he wasn't able to make things right, to let her know how much he loved her, in every possible way, not to be able to touch her, or to smell her, it wasn't the worst part.
It wasn't even how small sentences got to him, how small realizations hit him with a strength he wasn't prepared for.
"How long has it been since Kagome was last here?" Sango had asked nostalgically one evening.
"Six months, my dear," Miroku had answered from behind her.
Sango had sighed sadly, Shippo had sniffed but hold his tears back, and all of them, for one moment, had thought about how they missed her. Best friend, savior, adoptive mom — they all cared deeply for her.
Inuyasha was frozen in place.
He knew, technically, that it had been six months since he had last seen her. He kept going to the well — every day at first, and then every two days —, and he had quite a good sense of time.
But it had been six months. He had never thought of it with numbers, but he had never expected it to make things worse. He had never even thought there was a way of making things worse. Now, he couldn't stop hearing it.
Six months six months six months six months…
It hit him then that these six months would turn into more. One day, they would be able to say "It's been a year since we last saw Kagome." And if things stayed like that, that number would only keep growing.
This was probably permanent.
There was a chance he would never see her again.
No no no no no no no.
It was the first night he cried over her absence.
But none of this was the worst part.
There were days when it felt better. She never really left his mind, but there were days when it was almost fine.
And this was the worst part.
He didn't want it to stop. He'd take the pain forever if it meant that she was still there, whole, in his mind, that his feelings didn't fade.
The pain meant that he loved her. It was normal to be in pain — hell, it was normal to cry — when someone you loved so much was taken away from you. If it stopped hurting, if it got better…
He couldn't finish the thought. He was never able to. He couldn't imagine a world where he didn't love Kagome.
He couldn't imagine a world where she never existed either.
There were moments when he felt like he couldn't recall her face correctly, where her smile became blurry in his memories. He wasn't even sure he knew her laugh exactly — he'd give anything to hear it again, just once —, although sometimes the tone of her voice came back to him vividly. No, not the 'sit', although that did too, when he did some shit that would have gotten on her nerve.
It was other stuff that came back to him. "I want to be together with you, Inuyasha," by the well. "I love Inuyasha!" when his thoughts drifted towards Naraku's creepy baby, even though this was a stolen confession, one she hadn't meant for him.
And "I'm glad I could be by your side" in his tree.
He didn't want to forget her, to forget anything about her. They had had so little time. Couldn't he at least get that? Remember precisely everything about her?
Apparently no. It wouldn't be given to him.
He was terrified of waking up one day and that no one would remember her. Of finding out that she had been a cruel invention of his mind, that she had never been there to begin with.
That was the worst part.
The worst part wasn't her absence, it wasn't the possibility that she would never be a part of his world ever again.
The worst part was forgetting about her.
And on the day she reappeared… He realized he would never have to worry about that again.
Because even if he did forget small parts of their time together, they would keep on creating new ones.
Together.