Chapter Eight: Forty-Five Days Without You
1095.73 Days Without You
Winds that rivaled hurricanes slammed into Kagome while milky ways threaded through her fingers. The Meido Zangetsuha. She missed InuYasha's hand. Her mind was spinning trying to process the past ten seconds but by the eleventh, her brown eyes opened to a Tokyo without time travel. The high-schooler still recalled trading collections of cosmoses for the pleats on her skirt. Her fingers raked against the stiff material, dazed. When her classmates called her name, Kagome forgot why she questioned her hand dropping at all.
Kagome lived as an ordinary girl for weeks, oddly misplaced but playing along nonetheless. She hadn't forgotten the WacDonalds trips or asking her family about the mini-shrine with the dry well. Days kept passing but she was listless; homework, after school clubs, gossiping with her friends–it made sense but the world still felt off center. It was only after realizing that the Sacred Tree was missing its scar that she remembered.
InuYasha.
With the half-demon in her mind, everything had no choice but to fall away. For the first time, Kagome became wholly unreachable. Gone was her life in the modern era, her new school uniform, and the stars that once lit her path. There was only the Sacred Jewel and the prospect of spending an eternity alongside it.
Lately, I've been wondering if my dreams are right and I'm still there, Kagome thought, lifting her gaze from the tree's scar. Would it be that crazy for the jewel to show her a world where she lived normally but knew InuYasha? A place to make her desperate enough to wish. Was InuYasha trapped, too? Was he taken by a pillar of light and frozen in a reality she'd never walked in?
Kagome remained tethered to this ground, staring aimlessly above the place where she met InuYasha five hundred years ago. Branches rolled with the breeze causing the leaves to chatter. His name rustled on their edges.
"Inu–"
"Kagome?"
"Mama!"
"What are you doing out here?" Mama asked, prompting a lump to form in the back of Kagome's throat. Her mother took purposeful steps, causing the lump to feel a lot larger than it probably was. There was so much Kagome hadn't dared to address since she and InuYasha returned. There were fears and nightmares now that were beginning to feel larger than city skyscrapers. But the idea of letting those thoughts walk outside of her mind scared her more. She couldn't answer. "Kagome..." The high-school girl continued to face the Sacred Tree, hesitantly stepping forward in part to continue distancing herself and in part to seek comfort in something familiar.
Mama grasped Kagome's shoulder and automatically Kagome's hand sought the smooth feel of InuYasha's former resting place. "Did I ever tell you that InuYasha was sealed by an arrow right here?"
"No," Mama replied, gently placing several plastic bags off to the side. Kagome's fingers lightly traced the stripped bark while flashes of sturdy roots and wending ivy blew through her mind. Nothing in that forest stood out more than InuYasha and his trademarked gaudy red get-up. When they first met, Kagome never anticipated that such an ethereal boy would wake up and transform into a brash beast. He was quick to anger, sensitive but only for himself, impatient, unreasonable, jealous, and positively unbearable. And yet, InuYasha became her most faithful companion. He showed her his human heart and she would give anything to walk into her home and find him surrounded by their neighbor's koi and way too many pigeons. "I—"
"Oh, Sweetheart, I miss him too."
Kagome spun her head, accidentally making eye contact with what felt like a mirror. Mama always knew what weighed the high-schooler down and to see her worst fear reflecting in her mother–tears Kagome wished would wither flourished. "Mama, he can't... he can't be gone," she stuttered, her hand drifting away from the only remaining part of him.
-X-
A/N: This chapter went through so many iterations and I simply cannot believe it took me this long to write. Lol. It was a bit challenging for me to decide how much of what was in Kagome's heart I thought she'd be ready to share. As it turns out, the answer was not a lot but Kagome didn't need to say anything for Mama to just know. The lyrics that remind me of this chapter the most come from Billie Eillish's song "goodbye" which is on my 1095 Days Without You playlist.
"Please, please don't leave me."