Love Me Tender

Kagome dashed out from the train just as the doors were closing. She ran through the crowd, heedless. She didn't know where the train for the opposite line was. The French sign boards were confusing, the dingy stairways led to more confusing paths.

A blind panic seized her, her heart in her throat. All around she only saw alien stares, until she realized she was the alien. Kagome had never felt so lost in her life.

What are you doing, Kagome? She knocked into a person in the crowd, and fell hard on her knees. She picked herself from the dirty floor. Are you sure this is the right path you're going?

"This is just crazy. Have you thought about it? Are you sure this is the right path you're going?"

It was two weeks ago. She had made the journey back to her family's house to offer her wedding invitations. Souta her brother was offended beyond words, pulling her alone into the kitchen. Their mother was sitting quietly in the living room after having listened to her piece.

He slapped the invitation card onto the table, not bothering to be discreet. "Mama will naturally just keep it inside her, but she's just as shocked as I am. Sis, your marriage is in two weeks! Why would you leave us in the dark like this?"

Kagome stared at the floor quietly. She was not used to her young brother raising his voice at her, but could she blame his reaction? He was just expressing what everyone had been keeping in their chests.

"So many things happened, Souta," she told him in a calm manner. "I can't tell you. I can only say this is the right thing to do."

"But really, the head priest from your shrine? You don't even like him, do you? Can't you change your mind?"

"Souta!" Mrs Higurashi's voice suddenly burst in. The two siblings stiffened. "How dare you suggest such a thing to your sister."

Her eyes flicked momentarily to Kagome, and her daughter saw a glimpse of empathy. "Their preparations are probably done. What would people say if she were to null the wedding?"

"Who cares what people think!" Souta blew. "She was just fine with her boyfriend! Why would she suddenly marry some guy we never heard of!" His feet stomped on the floor as he strode out. "I object to this. I'm not going to the wedding."

Their mother watched his back, sighing heavily.

"Forgive Souta," she then told Kagome. "He's at that age where he gets fired up over the smallest of things. But unfortunately," she said, shaking her head slowly, "he shares my concerns too. I'm worried about this stranger you're marrying. But since he's a priest, he should be a good person, shouldn't he?"

Her mother turned to leave. "I'm staying with Souta. I'll send my blessings over from here."

Kagome's heart broke, if it wasn't in pieces already. "Y-you're not coming too?'

Her mother appeared conflicted for a second, before pulling her gaze away. "I have things to do on that day. You just do what you need, Kagome. And I hope that this man takes good care of you...whoever he is."

When Kagome blinked, she was back in the underground suburbs of Paris, and the station master was pointing her towards the right direction. Once again she ran for her life, although her legs had long lost their feeling. The moment it came, she rushed into the train heading back towards the Arc of Triomphe.

And when she alighted to the platform, it was another dense crowd facing her. She looked around her. She couldn't remember the exact bench she had been sitting with him.

Dread quickly filled her, and regret. How long had time passed? Was he gone to look for me too? Would I ever find him in this place?

Kagome had spoken before her mother left the kitchen. She didn't realize her fist was gripping on her side, her nose flaring. She took a deep breath to relax herself. "Mama," she said.

"He isn't a stranger. We've worked with each other for five years. Jyohaku-sama has honed me to be the person I am now. But although he's a priest, he's also just a normal person. He's not perfect. He's full of flaws and frustrating to be with. But so am I, because I'm human too. Maybe that's why he'll be good for me. Maybe, just maybe—"

Kagome's eyes widened as she recognized Jyohaku among the throng of bodies. He was standing alone by the back wall, his body hunched over, hugging his walking cane. She fought through the jostling crowd, calling his name. When he lifted his face, she saw how terrified his eyes were.

"—he'll teach me something."

Jyohaku gripped her shoulders so hard, her teeth chattered.

"Where the hell were you! You...you left me behind here..."

"I'm sorry," Kagome whispered, shutting her eyes, "I—I was distracted. "

It felt like an eternity as she stood there, until his grip finally loosened. She felt his arms slip desperately around her, felt his chest heave against hers.

"I'm sorry as well," his voice came broken in her ear," I too was distracted."

They had missed their turn at the Eiffel Tower. Luckily someone had cancelled their advance tickets and freed two slots for 5.00P.M, of which they were kindly granted.

While waiting for the time, Kagome went to buy some ice-cream nearby. She saw the winding queue of people trying to get a ticket up the Eiffel Tower. Insane. It had to be at least two hours worth of waiting.

She thanked the gods she was queuing for ice cream instead. Maybe they weren't that cruel after all.

There was a funfair not far from where they were seated. Jyohaku watched the carousel from a pavilion, his eyes dazed and weary. She gave him his ice-cream cup while she started on her own cone. When he was still silent she slipped a coin into his hand.

Jyohaku looked down at it in confusion.

"A franc for your thoughts," she said simply.

He shook his head glumly. "Too many in my head."

"Surely there must be something worth a coin."

He hesitated for a long while, flipping the coin through his fingers. "Kagome, you know I was married once."

"The one that barely lasted a year?" she replied in surprise. She'd heard about it. He was young at the peak of his wrestling career, and went to marry an up-and-coming actress. It was Amari who told her, of course. "People do stupid things when they get famous, don't they?"

Jyohaku smiled faintly. "She was a vixen. Then again, I was no saint either. That's why…" His words trailed off and his expression turned dour.

"That's why for my second time, I want to be better. I want to be a better man. But take a look at me now. I can't even buy ice-cream for myself, let alone for you."

She rubbed his shoulders. "Gosh, of course you can, Narumi. I just wanted to pamper you a little, that's all. You know, the way your mom does."

He looked up and his eyes suddenly looked lost and forlorn.

"Honestly, I don't even remember. My mom abandoned me when I was still young."

Kagome gripped her ice-cream a little too hard and the cone almost broke. Jyohaku hadn't said much when he presented the house for her lodging on her first day of work, five years ago. She remembered how unnerved she felt by the new head priest, who behaved nothing like his kind, late father. This one spoke in an intimidating voice and only knew to glare at her each time she said something. Maybe she wouldn't even last a week there, she thought.

"My mother used to live here before she got married. She was a miko for Yukino-jingu, but she's not here now." And then he had tossed the keys haphazardly to her, saying, "Well, good luck spring-cleaning."

Despite never having met her, Kagome had read all the books she left behind, and listened to her old musical records. It was impossible that she…

"She was just like you," Jyohaku elaborated in the present. "She was married to the head priest for the sake of convenience. But she already had a lover—an American who liked to frequent the shrine. I was around eight when she left my father and me. Barely a few years later my father told me that she had passed away in the United States."

He knitted his brows as he put aside his ice-cream cup beside him, still untouched. "That phonograph from your old house. It was a gift from her lover. You could tell that she loved it very much." He mulled over his words. "It took me thirty years to accept what she did. That's why I brought the phonograph over to my place. So I could remember her…and forgive her at the same time."

No, Kagome thought, her heart jostling in despair. I thought all along...she was an ordinary miko who fell in love with his father. It must be a shameful secret in his family.

Thirty years. It took him thirty years of his life to forgive his mother.

And I... I'm just like her.

Jyohaku suddenly turned sharply at her. "Kagome."

Her heart skipped. "Y-yes."

"Your ice-cream's melting, can't you see?"

How do you do it?

Kagome questioned in her mind when they were atop the highest observation deck on the Eiffel Tower at last, nine hundred feet from the ground, the magnificent view of Paris captured in their eyes, the world curving just slightly at the horizon.

How do you do it, Sesshoumaru? How do you give yourself completely to me?

This loyalty that you speak of… Swimming across seas of fire… I'm incapable of all of them.

Jyohaku exhaled slowly. Sharp spires from centuries-old monuments poked out like stone ornaments as he gazed below, networks of bridges crossing over the Seine River. He could see the long avenue of Champs-Élysées, stretching towards the Arc of Triomphe at its end. He gripped the railing. The wondrous view stole his breath so simply that his eyes misted over.

He glanced at Kagome beside him as she stood still, absorbed in the mesmerising Parisian scene. And yet she was part of it, like an entrancing figure in an oil painting. For awhile he forgot where he was. He must have been staring rudely too, for she then gently pushed his cheek away.

He waited, before he dared himself to steal another glance. But this time she had unravelled the black scarf around her neck and worn it over her head.

It hid her face like a veil. Jyohaku smiled ruefully to himself.

They trudged back to their hotel, their hands fuller than when they'd left, their hearts brimming as well.

"What is it about this room?" Jyohaku said as they stepped inside, looking around the ceiling. "The moment you step in, a shroud of gloom just surrounds you."

"Room, gloom, schloom," Kagome replied, putting their shopping bags aside.

"Mushroom?" he offered.

She smiled at him and shook her head.

"Why don't you rest and stretch your legs for a while? I'm going to take a shower first," she said.

Jyohaku groaned like an old man as he sank in bed. Kagome switched on the television and flipped through the channels. More news of terrorist attacks, this one by a Neo-Nazist movement in Berlin. Kagome shook her head, skipping further.

She finally settled on a nice channel. It was a documentary on Elvis Presley, highlighting on his visit to Paris in 1959. They showed a black-and-white clip of him shaking hands in a military uniform. At that time he was drafted with the US forces and stationed in Germany. It hadn't stopped him from dropping a visit to the city on his own.

"Look, it's your favourite singer," Kagome pointed to Jyohaku.

"Not mine. My mother's." She looked at him. "Keep it on," he then said.

She left him briefly to take her shower. Jyohaku stretched his back, sighing for the thousandth time, feeling the deep ache in his muscles and the creak in his joints. His hand pawed around his abdomen where his pancreas laid, where his troubles began a few months ago. Just suddenly, out of nowhere. It was as if someone had planted a curse inside him.

The documentary began playing the chorus to one of Presley's enduring songs, 'Love Me Tender'. Jyohaku listened intently, before his face broke into a laugh. And then he closed his eyes and sighed again and he mumbled to himself, "This room is really depressing."

When Kagome exited from her shower, Jyohaku was hobbling around collecting his empty bottles of vodka. She watched perplexedly as he retrieved his cigarette pack from the drawer, then opened his suitcase to reveal more bottles bought from the duty-free shop. He chucked everything into a few paper bags.

"What are you doing?" she questioned at last.

"Starting my new life. From this second…" Jyohaku opened the front door, placing the bags outside, then closed it shut. "...on."

A smile spread across her face. "Should I offer you my congratulations? I can't tell you how happy I am."

He walked to her. "Then smile, like you really mean it."

"Aren't I smiling already?"

He shook his head. "No, the other one. The lopsided one Higurashi used to wear."

Kagome folded her arms and glanced away. "But I'm no longer Higurashi." And she meant it in more ways than one. She wasn't the person she was anymore, and could never be. Her eyes flicked back to him. "Why, do you miss her?"

"Very much." His smile grew. "Why, are you jealous?"

He casually brushed her as he walked past. Kagome stood there, pondering over their exchange of words. Then she realized he had closed the bathroom door behind him and the shower was running.

"Narumi, will you be alright on your own?" she called out, knocking.

"Let me be for once," he called back. "Good god, a man can't even shower in peace here."

Kagome laid in bed, listening to her own quiet breaths. It felt slightly strange to be on her own and not have to worry about anything. The clock showed a six.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

When Jyohaku was done, he discovered Kagome sleeping, still in her white cotton bathrobe. Awhile later she woke up with a startle beside him.

"Oh god, I fell asleep. Why didn't you wake me up?"

"It's alright. You can go back to sleep."

"No, it's time for your medicine."

"I already took it." He stopped her before she could trouble herself to death. "Kagome, I know you're tired. Just rest, alright."

She rested her back against her headboard, sitting beside him. Jyohaku was back studying his French phrasebook.

"Tell me something in French," she said.

"Hmm," he went, flipping the pages. "I found something I liked in the funny section. Here it is. Ah, la vache."

"What does it mean?"

"Oh, my cow."

They looked at each other for awhile before they started laughing.

Kagome took her pillow and hugged it. "Narumi, did you enjoy yourself today?"

Please tell me that you do.

Jyohaku put his book aside. "I did. Tremendously."

Please tell me that you forgive me.

"I'm sorry over what happened at the train station. I… I promised you at the river that I would be by your side no matter what happens..."

He rubbed her shoulder. "It's alright, so stop thinking about. You came back for me, didn't you? We're only human, so we're not immune from mistakes."

"I wish you said that during work. But yes, I came back for you."

"Kagome," he said, pulling her closer beside him. "I stopped caring after today."

She tried to read his face. She could trace no animosity in his tone.

Jyohaku continued. "Your reasons for marrying me. You take such good care of me that my gratitude simply overpowers everything else. I have no more doubts now." He took her hand, held her finger gently from where her simple wedding band glinted. "I'm more grateful than anything else that you're here, accompanying my last phase of life. That's all."

Kagome clasped his hand firmly. "It's not your last phase. You promised me too. Once we're back in Tokyo, we're going to march in right with your appointments. You'll get your surgery and your treatments done, and by gods' grace, you'll recover. Slowly but surely. You'll recover, Narumi."

Jyohaku looked up and smiled. There was a scenery up there that only he could see, and it shone in his eyes.

"Can you imagine it?" he said, sharing it to her. "A few years from now. Every evening you'll close the shrine for the day. I'll wait for you at the nearby park with our child as usual. And we'll go for a little walk. Just the three of us. It won't be long now."

She could only smile. "You've turned into quite the optimist."

"It's your fault, you infected me. But, there's something else that's been bothering me." He looked at her gravely and Kagome waited, not knowing what to expect.

"Don't you think we made the jump from a superior-subordinate relationship to husband-and-wife too drastically?"

Kagome clutched her chest. "Oh, of all the things! Yes, we definitely skipped a few bases, didn't we?"

"Do you want to, you know, go back to the first base and start over?"

Kagome shifted in a shy manner, her cheeks turning pink. "You mean, kiss?"

Jyohaku rapped his fingers on her forehead. "Idiot. I'm talking about knowing each other better."

"Oh," she laughed. "Yes, we could definitely do that."

A rakish grin appeared and he leaned in towards her. "But, if you're already open to kissing, I don't mind..."

She pushed his chest. "Don't ever flirt with me, Narumi."

"Ah, you disappoint me always."

"Kagome?"

"Yes, Sesshoumaru, I'm listening."

"Meet me at the Pont des Arts at six tomorrow. Right in the middle of the bridge. I'll wait for you."

They stayed over the line, without words, just time and distance stretching between them. When she spoke, her voice was tremulous.

"Sesshoumaru, what if…what if something happens and I can't make it?"

He was silent for a full minute.

"Then I take it that you chose the path of duty, over everything else. But Kagome if you do end there, can you do me a favour?"

"Yes, Sesshoumaru. What is it?"

"Don't ever speak to me about love."

Sesshoumaru stood there, leaning over the bridge, watching the dark waters ripple under it. The sun had long set. There were still crowds, traversing through the popular spot in Paris, couples writing their initials on padlocks, chaining them to the bridge.

In a few months time, the government would declare the bridge a safety hazard and would order all the locks to be removed. Collectively, they must have weighed a few tons. And where are these lovers now, those that had pledged their undying love to this bridge? Sesshoumaru was certain most of them were no longer with the same people.

Because that's what humans are. They're fickle. Even his Rin, who left his side as his ward. And Kagome… No, she'll come. He believed in her.

His phone rang. Sesshoumaru answered it quickly.

The voice bustled through his speaker immediately. "Herr Sesshoumaru, where are you? We're all gathered for a celebration party. You must be here—you're a guest-of-honour."

"I won't be able to make it. I have another appointment. Please excuse me."

Sesshoumaru abruptly ended the call. Then he looked over his shoulder, to see among the thinning crowd if he could catch her face.

He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes to ten.

He guessed he would need to wait a little longer.

To be continued…

A/N: Thus concludes the Paris saga. This arc has been nerve-wracking and challenging, but extremely rewarding.

Writing Sesshoumaru as a financial benefactor towards terrorism was cray, no doubt. I made him work behind the scenes because that's what the real-life villains do today. They quietly control banks and make profit from war and destruction. Sesshoumaru was never grounded with a conscience and a set of morals in the first place, so I don't find his transition jarring. He was just a demon serving Kagome, until he found a bigger calling in his life (whilst still serving Kagome in a way).

Alas the most hardest thing about this arc was to keep deleting the good smexy scenes between Kagome and Jyohaku! My hand shivered because I had to focus on their healing process and the evolving dynamics of their marriage. *hugs Jyohaku*

(the other reason is that I didn't want to disrespect Sess and Kag's slow burn romance that took like 20 chaps to write, ugh)