Tomorrow's End

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His fingers trail a path over her skin, gentle, reverent, apologetic.

The shouki that coats her cheek causes his fingers to tingle and burn, and guilt rises to Miroku's throat, choking him.

This is his fault, and he knows it.

Sango's breath is labored and too light against his cheek – her lungs struggle against the poison… the shouki she'd endured to get to him. Even now, more of it fills the air, bringing a haze to his vision. Miroku shifts closer to her, doing his best to protect her body with his from the heavy, creeping miasma. Sango's eyelids flutter softly at the movement, but she doesn't rouse.

He never should have left her.

But then, he never should have done a lot of things. Yet, even so, he can't bring himself to regret any of it, because a life devoid of Sango, the life he'd lived before, pales so utterly in comparison to one by her side. For that, he is selfish; unrepentantly so.

No, if he regrets anything, it is that he will never see Sango's smile again. He will never marry her and call her wife, never hold her and kiss her and caress her in all the ways he has hoped to. Neither will he see her pregnant or hold the children she promised to bear him. Their days and years won't be spent together; never will gray touch their hair or wrinkles their skin. All of his fantasies and yearnings for maybe someday fade away and vanish like a vapor in the wind.

Miroku bows his head and his heart falters. He mourns the death of their future, their tomorrow, and wonders why dreams like these are so easily trampled.

Together, in the depth of despair, they lay and wait for the end to come.

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Written for LJ community mirsan-fics, prompt: path. 2nd place.
Eikyuu Kosai January 2010, Best Drabble: 2nd place.
IYFG 4th Quarter 2009, Best Short-Short: 2nd place.