Convivial
By: The hatter Theory
Book Lover's Day
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha
AN: Wow, okay, so two things. One, the response to the last few chapters has been massive, and amazing. And I promise this is a happy ending story.
The second. Holy Crap. First place three times in the Dokuga Awards. It means a lot, and thank you to those that nommed and voted.
Packing clothing had been simple. Fall in Hokkaido would be as chilly as Tokyo in Winter, and she decided to work on the assumption that she would be coming back after the semester was over. By then everything would be, she hoped, squared neatly away.
The idea that it wouldn't be did cross her mind only to be discarded. Whatever was happening, whatever would happen, was going to the way it did, and she was still numb to the realization that in a few days she would be gone. Everything had occurred with such speed that she hadn't had much time to think, getting paperwork and records ready. Though she hadn't spoken to Sesshoumaru, her tuition had been taken care of, which meant that he knew. Perhaps he was grateful, although that was something she tried not to think on either.
Shippou and Souten only knew that she was going to Hokkaido for a program, and that she had been busy. If either of them knew that she had moved out, neither of them acknowledged it, although they had both left for another showing a few days before, this one a joint one, in America, and would be spending more time with Inu Yasha and his family. She was thankful that she would be avoiding those questions at least.
Sighing, she looked at the bookshelf again. It wouldn't be practical to take them all, and she didn't particularly want to take all of them. But there were a few that her hand automatically reached for, only to pause halfway, eyes on the spines.
The first gift, Miroku's poetry, should have been a given, except that it wasn't. Ever since moving into Inu Yasha's apartment, she hadn't touched any of her poetry books, and had, in effect, pushed them entirely from her mind until that very moment. Almost all of them were filled with memories, attached to moments that she would be trying to forget.
Ashamed of her own fear, she reached forward again and pulled the slim white volume from the shelf, admitting to herself that it felt more like an obligation to take it, and resolving not to read it. Maybe by the time she came back, Miroku's poems would remind her of what they were supposed to, of a time she had left behind, of people she had loved, and not of moments shared with Sesshoumaru.
The two books of Rumi's poetry were carefully considered and almost discarded, but she couldn't make herself leave them behind, although she wasn't sure if it was a sense of obligation or a need for the poet's words. A volume of myths, heavy and obviously well read joined it. She tried not to think about the argument they'd had the day she'd purchased it.
That was four, and she had told herself before looking at the shelf itself that she would only pack six, which is what would fit in her suitcase.
Perusing through her shelves she pulled out her battered copy of selected poems from the Manyoshu, remembering the silly idea she'd had on new year's eve and almost putting it back. But she would need it for school, as a reference, so she put it on the small stack growing on the floor. Kneeling to look at the bottom two shelves, nothing jumped out at her at first.
She was getting ready to pull one at random when she saw the thick, short paperback. It was not hers, in fact, it was the one she had made fun of weeks before. In a childish prank, she had hidden it from him. When she'd packed her things to move from the apartment, it must have gotten thrown into the box in her carelessness.
Without any doubt, she knew that her other books would remind her of him, which was the opposite of what she wanted. There would be no escaping it, at least not at first. But eventually, maybe. But the pointless thriller with it's awful dialogue and contrived plot, it would be entirely Sesshoumaru, because it was one of his favorites. With it's slightly spread spine and ruffled pages and the bent corner at the front from where they had both tried to grab for it, it would always be his, and it had no place in her bags or her pseudo sabbatical.
It did not stop her from putting it on top of the others and picking up the stack, tucking each one safely into the confines of her suitcase.
