"It is an act of rebellion to remain present, to go against society's desire for you to numb yourself, to look away. But we must not look away."
—Florence Welch
When does one decide to be in love?
Rin had always assumed that it was a choice made logically and with great consideration, especially after seeing the way the people around her had felt and lived in their own loves. It was hard for her to watch her friends build their lives and families and think that love was something you didn't have complete and total control over. Yet, to hear them speak of it, she would have thought it was a wild, untamable possession, almost painful for them. To them, the adage falling in love was a little too close to the truth and they always spoke of their loves with a sort of soft reverence reserved for dangerous and beautiful creatures.
Rin would hear this and feel a quickening of her heart and a knot in her gut and think to herself; perhaps it is best if I never fall in love if it's truly this scary. So, she didn't; every village boy who expressed even a passing interest in her was always treated kindly but kept at an arms-length. Every not-so-subtle, well-intentioned, hint from Kaede about how it might be a good idea for Rin to start looking around for someone a little more… human was answered with kind but disinterested smiles. She danced through her adolescence holding her heart safe and protected only to be let free when her Lord came to visit.
On this particular summer day, he had come bearing his usual fare which she had accepted gratefully and with a gentle reminder that he needn't bring gifts if he didn't want to, which he ignored. Jaken spoke loudly, telling Rin that she should feel honored that their Lord was going through all the trouble to get her something in the first place, before turning to cluck at Kaede's home and the sorry state of it. Rin smiled, unable to stop her giggles in the face of Jaken's impossible standards. Tucking her hair behind her ear gently and tossing a wave over her shoulder to Kaede and Jaken, she exited the hut and joined Lord Sesshomaru on the walk into the forest.
It was beyond routine at this point after so many years of doing the same thing, and it had been her idea at first. Back when she had first been left in the village, it felt more natural and calming for her to be in the forest, especially when she was with him. Eventually, as she got older, she realized that it had felt more calming because he was more at ease away from the bustle of the village and so she had just kept going to the forest. It offered them more privacy, anyhow, and she loved having an excuse to be with her Lord and him alone.
They walked and she talked, chatting idly to fill the space with information about absolutely nothing. She bent over at one point to pluck a wildflower from the side of the road and spin it in her fingers happily, telling him about her most recent babysitting adventures. He looked ahead of them, walking calmly, somehow both setting the pace and keeping pace with her, looking for all the world like he had a specific destination in mind when she knew for a fact he did not. Though he did not answer her, she knew that he was listening to everything she was saying. The familiarity of it all was comforting.
They came upon a small outcropping of trees, too few to truly be a part of the forest, but enough to offer some cover from the warm sun and any nosy eyes. One particular tree who must have suffered an injury when it was young was bent over in the middle and offered a perfect seat for the daiyoukai who walked over and gracefully lowered himself onto it. Rin brushed the petals of the wildflower she still carried across her chin as she watched him move with that incredible, inhuman smoothness.
Not for the first time, she found herself looking at him differently. She had always thought he was beautiful, but one day he had a more forbidden flavor to his beauty. Now that she was old enough to understand the ethereal, dangerous undertones to it, she noticed him in new ways. It had been an odd change that she wasn't sure she was particularly happy with, yet here she was. She studied him and wondered things she had not been bothered to wonder before; who was he? What was his life beyond her? Was there even any room for her in it, is that why she had been at the village for so long? Who was he before she met him? Who will he be once she is gone?
His amber eyes fell onto her, and she realized that she had just been standing there staring at him in silence for a few seconds. With a self-conscious laugh, she blushed and turned away to gaze out over the hills and fields, heart thudding oddly and it hurt in such a way that she pressed a hand against it. In the distance, she could see farmers working, people walking past with baskets calling out and chatting to each other kindly and she pretended to be fascinated by them so that she wouldn't need to see him watching her. Yet, as she looked at these people go about their day, a thought appeared and she turned to Sesshomaru who, she found, was still watching her, face relaxed and unbothered.
"My Lord," she began, absentmindedly brushing the flower along her chin as she walked over to him. His eyes followed her, his head turning as she lowered herself onto the tree trunk next to him, a respectful distance away but still close enough than any other would dare. She hesitated for a moment, opening her mouth before her voice died away and she closed her mouth again, thoughtfully tapping the petals along her lips as she carefully considered how to frame the question she wanted to ask him. He waited impassively, hands resting on his knees. "Are...are you happy?" It came out in a mumbled, hushed way, though she wasn't sure why. He kept staring at her, but she noticed the way his hand twitched against his hakama.
She wondered, with a sudden realization, if he even knew what he felt. Though she would never profess to knowing his innermost thoughts and desires as Jaken did, she felt that years of studying him had given her a little more insight than most. She had watched him march up and down the entirety of this land in search of power and prestige, which she felt he had gotten. Did he ? She doubted that he felt satisfied, after all, how could a being spend hundreds of years looking for something and then be satisfied with one sword and defeating Naraku? Regardless of how impressive these things really were.
She came out of her reverie as the silence stretched on, smiling sheepishly and once again tucking away a stray piece of hair caught in the wind. "Ah, it's a silly question," Rin laughed and waved her free hand in front of her face as if to smack her very words from the air. Embarrassed, she plowed on, talking more to smother her well-intentioned faux pas. "I just wonder about you, is all, and how you and Master Jaken are doing without me." She smiled at him, purposefully being a little sillier, "Making sure that Master Jaken hasn't replaced me yet, and all that."
His eyebrow arched at the insinuation that she could be replaced, but she saw the warmth in his gaze and for that, she felt relief that her probing hadn't soured the mood. She smiled, feeling proud of herself, heart thudding happily and she scooted just a bit closer to him. He made her so giddy when he would give her little bits of himself like this. They had flowed more freely from him, she felt, in recent months and she was positively salivating for more. Every lightening of his eyes, every relaxed, unbothered expression, and every nearly silent indicator from him that she had never noticed before was committed to memory and stored away. In the dead of night, lying awake, she would remember them all and imagine a day where they weren't such a treasured rarity and that was just… their normal.
"You make me so happy, My Lord." She confessed, the words slipping out of her before she even really noticed them. His head tilted to the side a touch as he seemed to wait for her to continue, though she wasn't sure what to say. Frowning thoughtfully as she gathered her thoughts to try and express what she meant, she looked behind them at the forest and pushed on, "I...just want to make sure you know that your time here isn't wasted. I appreciate seeing you and...and I hope that you also feel that the time you give to visit me is well spent."
When she finished speaking, a silence rushed in to fill the air around them. Nervous, she gathered all of the courage in her body to look back up at his face. In a flash, she caught him looking down at her mouth where she was dragging the slowly wilting flower before he turned his head to look over the horizon. Studying him, she thought that his posture seemed more rigid, his back tauter, his hands on his knees seeming to grip more than just rest. Mm, maybe I did sour the mood , she winced to herself and scrambled to change the topic away from feelings , which apparently was the one great enemy of her Lord.
Rin forced a big smile and stood, spinning happily and tipping her head up to the sky. She twisted her hands above her like she could snatch a cloud with her fingers, stretching tall, before dropping her arms back down to her side and letting them flop in an exaggerated parody of herself. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and noticed that he was still not really looking at her, his gaze just a little to the side of her, mouth a tight, straight line, and she decided to give him a moment to recover. Hands on her hips, she turned to look into the field in front of her, the tall grass swaying in the light breeze, small colorful heads of the flowers poking out around them and waving along. Determined to enjoy herself, she took her first step towards the field when a sound behind her had her hesitating and a presence rendered her completely still.
Rin remained facing the field, eyes widening when she realized that he had approached and was standing right behind her, so close that she thought she could feel his body heat against her back. The shadow that she cast in front of her had become an unrecognizable blob as his silhouette merged with hers. She stared at it eagerly, too worried that if she turned around and looked at him it would put a stop to whatever was about to happen. She felt hyper-aware of him, her neck and face warm, almost as if she had an electrical current around her. He was not touching her, but he was much, much , closer than he had ever been to her in many years. As if a glass case had been lowered around the two of them, sounds became muffled until all she could hear was her own heart and the sliding sound of his silk across his skin as he moved. Wh-what is he doing?
"I would not come to visit if I did not think you were worth my time." He told her and she gulped, focusing every iota of her brain on his words, trying to imagine what he looked like and what he was doing. She felt her breath hitch, vision going fuzzy as his low voice reverberated through her. Oh, lord, her thoughts stuttered out as she struggled to continue functioning in the face of everything she was feeling. While she had felt warm before, now she felt ablaze, and she was honestly afraid that if she took a step her legs would be as shaky as a colt. He's too close, I can't think straight , was the thought that shot into her mind, but she didn't move away. She wanted to turn to him, she wanted to see his face and try to parse together what few clues he gave her, but her head was frozen.
"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru," she whispered, lips barely moving, voice so quiet that it would have been lost in the wind if his hearing wasn't so sharp. Just when she wondered if she could take any more of this, he backed away from her and it was like he pulled the plug on a tub, the sound rising into her ears again, her lungs filling up with a gasp, spell broken. Without looking back, too afraid that he would see her tomato-red face, she walked woodenly to the field and collapsed onto her butt in the flowers, pretending that not a thing had happened out of the ordinary.
As the sun began to set, and she was sure that now her face was red from being in the sun and not from whatever that had been, Lord Sesshomaru stood back to his full height and said simply, "Rin, we're leaving." Before walking with her back to Kaede's home. She did her best to laugh and chat like normal, but every time she looked up at him she found herself wondering what he had looked like when he had been so close to her, head bent down to speak to the top of her head, kicking herself for not turning around. Then she wondered why she cared so much, why this affected her as it did, and why he was so unbelievably stunning in the golden light of the setting sun. So, her laughter and her chatting was forced and stunted in between her intense staring, and, while she could count on him for almost everything on this green earth, a conversationalist he was not.
Needless to say, it was a bit of a...pensive walk back.
Later that night, long after he and Jaken had left, after the quiet dinner with Kaede, after she had folded up and stored away the kimono he had brought, she laid in bed staring at the ceiling. She replayed the moment in the forest over and over again in her mind, wondering if she even remembered it correctly any more. She wondered if she was putting too much meaning behind it that wasn't there. She wondered if she had imagined the way he had seemed different with her. She wondered if it would be so bad if things were different. She wondered what different would even mean, what that would even look like.
With her hair spread around her in a halo, hands resting on top of the blanket over her heart, Rin wondered if she had fallen in love.
Thank you for reading!