Disclaimer: 'Summer of 69' lyrics written by Bryan Adams, James Douglas Vallance
Standing on your mama's porch
You said that it'd last forever
Oh, and when you held my hand
I knew it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life
- Summer of '69, Bryan Adams
"It's not similar," Kagome countered beside him.
His eyebrows furrowed at the cloudy, summer sky.
"What? What's not similar?"
"That cloud. You said it looks similar to a dolphin. Well, it doesn't."
He crossed his arms underneath his head, the tall grass prickling against his arms. He sneered.
"Keh. You're speaking as if you've seen a dolphin in real life."
"Excuse me. I've seen plenty of those in the Tokyo Aqua Park. How about you—have you even seen an actual dolphin before?"
His nose scrunched in annoyance. The scent of her sweat lightly graced his nostrils, and for a moment Inuyasha was suddenly aware of just how close Kagome was, lying beside him on the grass.
"I'm telling you, it looks like a goddamned dolphin."
Kagome twisted her mouth. The large slow-moving formation, cottony and wispy at the edges belied no characteristics whatsoever of said animal. There was no dorsal fin that the eyes could shape, or a snout maybe, or a tail. Which part of the cloud exactly screamed "dolphin" to Inuyasha was beyond her. As usual, there was always something to disagree with, even during a lazy, relaxing activity of lying in a meadow.
"Idiot," she said.
"Know-it-all."
A cicada hopped near his ear on the grass, chirping. He immediately sat up to swat it away. Kagome watched as he tossed his head to shake off the offending insect, a string of vehement curses trailing from his mouth.
She could do it if she really wanted to. She could just reach out and touch his back. He was that close to her. She wondered in a year's time, as of now, would things remain the same way they were? A year from now, could she still manage to find time to lay beside him on the grass, arguing about dolphins, a cicada in his ear…
"Ne, Inuyasha."
"What?" he went, his voice exasperated.
Kagome smiled to herself. She could finally see the dolphin, although subtly so, its head springing out from the left edge.
"Nothing."
Kagome woke up with a start. Her eyes automatically darted to her alarm clock, and she shot out a curse.
Minutes later she was whizzing past the kitchen (where Sesshoumaru was carefully stirring a pot of dashi stock) and ran straight to the door where she squeezed frantically into her shoes. By the time Sesshoumaru peeked out from the kitchen, his head slipping through the noren curtain, Kagome had already disappeared.
"I wish I could be as enthusiastic as you," Kagome grumbled in the shrine hall as she wiped the windows with a rag, "doing spring-cleaning on a Monday morning."
Amari managed a sheepish smile as she wrung her rag over a bucket. Kagome-sama must have woken from the wrong side of the bed.
"If the head priest wishes it, then it will be done so!"
"Do you know that man is impossible to please?" Kagome threw her rag and proceeded to sit down, hands folded tight in indignance. "Trust me, I've been working in this shrine for three years. There is always something to nit-pick."
"That's what you say, but the both of you are closer than I'll ever be. Even Atsushi says he treats you differently. Oh, I really miss Atsushi. He left us so abruptly."
"Sometimes I wish his late father was still here," Kagome continued with her grousing. "Now that would be an actual priest I'd be honoured to serve. Not this ridiculous offspring of his."
"Eh?" Amari paused her vigorous wiping. "Didn't he pass on before Jyohaku-sama took over? How did you know him?"
A strange look overcame Kagome's face. She almost appeared as if she had spoken too much and then regretted it.
She carefully strung her words. "It was many years ago. But back when his father was still the shrine head, he cured me of an ailment I had. It was because of that gratitude that I decided to serve here. But alas, I found out later that he had already passed on."
Amari looked at Kagome, speechless. An ailment that required a priest to fix? She would never have thought that her cheerful, down-to-earth friend was one with an uneasy past. Her reason to join the shrine was worlds apart from her own. It made her feel a bit silly, and she decided not to probe further.
Suddenly something stole her attention and Amari peered outside the window, towards the torii gate of the shrine. "Oh, looks like we have a guest!"
She ran out to welcome him, but returned mere minutes later, wearing a distraught look on her face.
"The visitor…" Amari murmured to herself. "He looks like a really odd fellow. I think he is one of those guys that likes to dress up in costumes. Cosplay, is it what it's called?"
Immediately Kagome grabbed her by the shoulders, her eyes wide as plates. "Amari-chan, tell me. Does this guy happen to look like one of those elf creatures from Lord of the Rings?"
"Ah yes, you described him perfectly! But he's wearing a Hello Kitty apron though…" Amari looked on in wonderment as her friend dashed out from the hall as if it were a matter of life and death.
It really was Sesshoumaru at the entrance, looking like he had just stepped out from the kitchen. But it was too late. She saw that the head priest had intercepted him first. Her jaw dropped.
Kagome swore there was an electric charge in the air, buzzing between the two equally intimidating figures. They were evidently appraising each other in a face-off. Sesshoumaru and Jyohaku. Their names should never be in the same sentence. Kagome wanted to faint. The latter especially, was stock-still in surprise.
Sesshoumaru finally removed his hard stare from the baffled priest. He strode to the pillar Kagome was cowering behind.
"You skipped your breakfast today," he chastised, pushing a warm bento into the miko's withering hands. "I will not have you do the same for lunch."
That said, he then turned heel without another word, his shoes clacking self-importantly down the cobbled stone steps.
Kagome stared incredulously at the lunch box in her hand.
"Who on earth was that?" Amari called, joining everyone as she watched the mysterious stranger leave. A deep frown sullied Jyohaku's face. The strange man had a peculiar pair of eyes, familiar but in an unsettling way.
"Housemate?" Amari said later during the day, as she bit into a fishball. The two ladies were having lunch at the garden benches. "You're telling me that all your recent amazing bento sets were prepared by him? But if he's a guy, and he's living with you, wouldn't that make him your boy—"
Kagome nearly choked. "Where did you get that? He cooks and cleans after me in exchange for shelter, that's all!"
"So…he's a butler?" Amari suggested innocently.
Kagome scratched her head sheepishly. "Well I guess you could say that."
Amari sighed in relief, smiling. "Wow, a butler. You must be really lucky, Kagome-sama. I was worried about you living on your own, especially when your family is so far away. Well as long as he's a good guy, it should be alright."
Immediately old memories of Sesshoumaru trying to melt her in green acid during a tussle for his father's sword swarmed Kagome's mind. Where did that come from? She shook the images away, and they were replaced with heartwarming, domestic scenes of him vacuuming the carpet with a blasé expression. Yes, that's more like it.
"Yup, he's a really good guy. The best you can think of. In housework, I mean."
"So he really isn't your boyfriend, huh?"
"Not in a million years." Kagome crammed a deep-fried unagi into her mouth. By golly, the lunches just kept getting better. Trust Sesshoumaru to know she loved eel.
Suddenly Amari beamed with a suspicious brightness. "Well, in that case, let's go out for dinner one day, shall we? It's high time I introduce you to my brother!"
"Amari-chan…"
Kagome changed into her pajamas after her warm bath. Once again an array of dishes was waiting for her on the table for dinner. She sat down and grabbed her chopsticks and was about to chow down her food, when she stopped.
"Ne, Sesshoumaru," she called out to him from the dining area. He was in the living room watching television as usual. "Would you like to join me for dinner?"
He dragged his response. "This is a very informative documentary being aired right now. The internal structure of the Giza Pyramids—"
"Fine. You don't have to if you don't want to."
Awhile later he appeared, sitting docilely at the low table. "The grilled saba fish tastes nice," Kagome commented, picking on its flesh with her chopsticks. "Thank you."
Sesshoumaru said nothing. Kagome swallowed her food slowly.
"Hey, Sesshoumaru. Have you… Have you seen a dolphin before?"
Her housemate turned to give her his most dumbfounded expression yet, his eyebrows raised so high it nearly touched his hairline. And she thought his face had been chiselled in ivory.
"A…dolphin?"
She nodded, giggling. "Yes. I'll bring you to the Tokyo Aqua Park to see the fishes one day. You'll enjoy that, won't you?"
Sesshoumaru blinked, registering her words slowly. He studied his lap for a long time, so long in fact that she thought he had shut himself up like he always did, and the conversation was over.
"I will go wherever you go," he whispered at last.
To be continued...
A/N: Why a dolphin? I don't know, it just kinda appeared in my head. Anyway do take note that Kagome does not actually remember her dreams containing her memories (with Inuyasha for example, at the start of the chapter). It stayed repressed in her subconscious mind, until she was eating fish for dinner, and she sorta went, "Let's talk about dolphins." Kinda sad, huh.