IZON SHŌ
Chapter XLVIII
Forty eighth session.
.
"I hope that, at the end of the road, a light shows me that my steps were taken just like my soul will them."
.
Kagome awoke in the middle of the night, noticing herself still being held by InuYasha, whose embrace remained as tight as when she got in the bed with him, hours ago. She laid very still, not wanting to move, feeling in the midst of an incredibly pleasant warmth. There, as her gaze found the sleeping features of InuYasha, she began to engrave them in her memory, noting his steady breathing as it made a soft sound every time it passed through his parted lips. It wasn't the first time she observed him sleeping, yet it was the first time she did so with meaning, and so she extended a hand and reached out with her fingers to one of the beads of the necklace she had given him, and that he hadn't taken off since. Next, she went for his jaw and the start of his cheek, registering how he sighed and half-turned towards her, his eyes closed. The gesture allowed her to seek a better posture, feeling relieved of being able to still lay while embracing him, and in the middle of such a feeling, InuYasha left a kiss on the top of her head; caught off-guard, she became aware of how her eyes were filled by tears before the tender gesture, and had to take a deep breath to calm herself before closing her eyes, allowing sleep to catch up to her own frenetic thoughts.
.
Kagome began to stir, feeling a comfortable warmth still enveloping her body and the aromatic scent of coffee permeating the air, and so, she took a lungful of air with the peaceful feeling only a calm awakening can bring, filling her being with the vitality of the first conscious breath. Then, her mind intervened, pushing out of the way her body and mind's sensations, to fill them with questions.
Had morning arrived? Was she still in bed with InuYasha? Who was preparing coffee?
The answer came with just one name in her head, and panic was what came immediately after.
She straightened up slighty, and over InuYasha's embrace, she found the kind gaze of Izayoi.
"You've awakened." She commented what was evident. "I've prepared coffee."
"Oh no, this is so embarrassing…" Kagome expressed, right before seeking refuge between the blankets and InuYasha's sides. He smiled, and hugged her tighter.
"It's nothing, don't worry." He tried to soothe her, his voice still half-asleep. Kagome, however, remained submerged.
"My son is right." Izayoi agreed, as she got closer and Kagome seemed to sink deeper in InuYasha's sides, only to then hear her let out a chuckle clear as water. "It's him who I need to be angry with."
"But you won't." InuYasha muttered, turning around to better shelter Kagome.
"I won't." Izayoi agreed again, then added, "yet."
InuYasha's smile widened.
Even so, Kagome kept feeling weird about the situation, albeit quite at ease amidst the warmth and InuYasha's embrace. It was weird, to feel embarrassed like a teenager, and the stark contrast between that and her companion's calm behaviour.
"How are you today?" InuYasha's voice was like a lullaby to her, as he asked a question with so many possible causes.
"Fine." Was her soft answer, along with a gentle caress on his back.
Both of them allowed themselves to breathe the silent relief the brief, yet deep, exchange of words left them.
"I should put some clothes on." She warned, still caressing his back.
"I think so too." He accepted in a voice darkened by sleep, without moving.
"You should let me go." She insisted.
"I don't think so." He expressed with the same calm as before.
Kagome smiled, then chuckled, suddenly infected by his mood. She hoped it was enough.
"I see that separating you is harder than trying to keep the ivy from sticking to the walls." They heard Izayoi's voice.
InuYasha reached for a corner of the blanket, and covered them both up to their heads.
.
.
Shibuya's train station in Tokyo overwhelmed them when they arrived, despite that the stream of people wasn't that much different from the one in the station they had left a few days back. Maybe, they felt that way because of the calm that had kept them company on their way back, which they spent reading and having trivial conversations, during which InuYasha had only mentioned once that his mother had invited them to spend the Japanese new year with her; before it, Kagome remained silent, only to then talk about how pleasant she had found the city.
When they were right about to reach the station, InuYasha invited her to spend the night in his apartment, offering to be the one to prepare dinner. Kagome, on her part, smiled as her mind sought the best way to refuse, for she needed her own space, albeit not without him.
Once out of the station, they went to Kagome's place, the same place they had walked out three days ago, a time that due to the feelings lived, felt like weeks.
"Want me to add your clothes to the laundry?" Kagome asked by InuYasha's side, who was going through what they had to prepare dinner.
"Don't. I'll do it tomorrow at my place." He replied, now crouching to reach the noodles he was going to use for the dish. "It seems it'll have to be ramen." He mentioned, shaking the package of noodles in his hand, without looking at her.
"Your specialty." She teased.
InuYasha observed her, from there, his eyes into slits, and Kagome seemed to hear in her head the warning in that gaze. There was nothing special about the place, nor about the mundane action they were doing, yet Kagome had the foreboding feeling that night was going to be different in many forms.
And so it was.
That night, there was dinner composed of ramen with vegetables and egg, with a delicious and hot broth that fit quite well with the cold that was starting to settle in. There were laughs, when recalling they were discovered together in bed that same morning. There was sex, enticing, intense and full of emotions.
Kagome followed the flammable golden of InuYasha's eyes as he pushed himself inside her, slowly, deeply, taking her to the boiling point with the austere calm of the missionary. Her hands found place on his cheeks, as her legs enveloped his waist; her wish, to observe his feverish reactions to that soft and enthralling sex. She could hear him panting, almost at her same pace, and she was sure that in that moment their hearts were beating to the same rhythm. Kagome almost closed her eyes in bliss, yet opened them right after, reminding herself that she didn't want to miss a detail.
She felt herself slightly lifted, from her back, as InuYasha surrounded her in an embrace and Kagome moved her caresses from his features to his hair and back, holding tight to the body that was piercing her, and to the emotions wandering, expanding and intertwining around them. The humidity of InuYasha's broken kisses, along with the intensity and strength with which he penetrated her, made her lose control of her voice, of her own shows of pleasure, and so needed to hang on to his arm, vehemently, as she noted with crystal clarity the way she was losing her own sanity amidst the overflowing sensations on her skin, in her insides, and in the huge string of feelings she was discovering. Her body tensed in a sense of rapture that made her moan because of all that was conjugating inside her being. InuYasha held her, and applied more strength to the sway so that she wouldn't miss a feeling.
Kagome lost herself in the long, yet brief moment of climax.
As soon as she was able to catch her first coherent thought, she kissed InuYasha on the shoulder, and heard him sigh out of yearning. His thrusts kept going, and she couldn't but huff before her own latent sensibility, soon noting how InuYasha began to tense as he usually did right before an orgasm, to then leave her insides and tremble in her embrace, amidst spasm of pleasure.
"Kagome." He panted her name. "I… I… " He seemed to want to say something that because of the force of the moment, she guessed right away.
"Feel… just feel." She lulled him, with her legs, with her arms, with her kisses, and with everything that she was and had.
Kagome felt joy and sadness at the same time, which then turned into a deep melancholy; her vision blurred before her own tears, for she then comprehended that only a few times in life, one can clearly see what one wants to do, and what one has to do. She wanted to hold on to that which he was offering her, like someone at death's door hangs onto their last breath; yet, if she were to do so, she would drag to that death that honest spirit of his, she now understood she had come to love.
"Just feel." She repeated, inside his warm embrace with which he also sheltered her.
.
.
"Kagome, hi. I'm just calling to know if you want to come to my apartment, or if you prefer if I go to yours. Call me, or send me a text when you hear this."
InuYasha hung the phone, and put it inside his jacket right before enveloping himself in a scarf as he left the bakery, his morning shift now done.
It had been two days since Kagome and he had returned from their trip to Nakano, and after spending the night in her apartment, he had gone back to his. Today, they were back to the weekly routine, and so he expected to see her later.
He began his journey home, thinking about the lunch he was going to prepare for himself once he arrived, then a shower, guessing Kagome should have answered by then. As he organized his plans inside his mind, a flash came through the corner of his eyes, calling his attention almost out of inertia, and soon finding that the source was a pearl on display, small and pink, and in a delicate silver setting. He stood there, staring at the jewel, leaning to get a better light, wondering if such a jewel would suit Kagome, and as he did so, he caught sight of the myriad of colors that formed in the veins of the marble, with a complexity he had missed before. The answer, hence, came immediately: yes, it would suit her.
.
That afternoon, as the sun was starting to set, InuYasha's gaze was set on the message he received from Kagome.
I've got some pending work to finish, and I'll stay until late. Do you mind if we delay it?
Delay it? He was preparing to make a proposal of his own, and offer to bring her food.
Yes, only a couple of days, until I get this done. The answer came before he had the chance to add anything. It came out as strange to reread the message, andfeel the words as generic ones, so much they could be given to just about anybody, with no defining traces of the kind of relationship Kagome could have with the receptor of such a text.
Alright. Was his own answer, brief out of reciprocity, and there he waited, with more anxiety of what he would have wanted, to her reply, to something that may appease that feeling.
He stared at the screen for a whole minute, and no new message came in.
.
Six days had passed since they returned from Nakano, and through two of them InuYasha had been unable to get in touch with Kagome. First, he tried through the app they used for messages, and when he didn't obtain an answer, he called her only to find the standard voice of the recording asking him to leave a message.
He had barely slept the night before, thinking about going to her apartment and knock on her door without an invitation. However, her previous evasive answers stopped him, for from them he could understand it wasn't some sort of unexpected issue, but rather, she was simply avoiding him.
Throughout the morning he spent the whole time recalling their last moments they shared, from the hours in her apartment, through the dinner, laughs, then the sex. A sense of unrest filled him as he remembered the moment when he tried to confess to her the love that was bubbling inside his chest, never finishing it; because Kagome lead him to think she understood him, and due to his own fear of what could happen, of losing her. He almost laughed at himself when he realized that fear was useless, since despite his caution what he feared was exactly what appeared to be happening.
He turned on the bed, and fell asleep out of exhaustion from today's work, and due to the tension his own thoughts had kept him on, throughout the day.
On his way home, after his morning shift at the bakery, he recalled what happened back at his mother's house, up in his room that night, and the next day, when they went to the hospital, and the pill Kagome had to take; maybe she felt overwhelmed by it. His steps stopped a few meters away from the door that gave to the building he lived in; he had considered it before, and hence he soon turned around, wanting to see her and put an end to his own uncertainty. His first step, however, was slow and heavy, as the decision was made in his head, a resolute sigh showing his idea of even waiting by her door if she wasn't home.
However, the first hurdle showed him a hard truth. Now in front of her building, he realized he had no way to enter it, and sighed before what that detail entailed.
It seemed that they hadn't, actually, stopped being anything else than a mere casual relationship.
Are you coming in? He heard a voice behind him. Turning around, he found an elderly woman of low height who was looking at him through the slit that were her eyes.
"I am." He answered in a hurry, leaving room for the woman to pass.
"What floor do you live in?" The question came out of caution.
"I don't live here. I'm just coming to visit someone, she lives in the seventh." He explained, hoping it was enough.
"Oh. Now I see why I thought you familiar." The sound of the key going into the lock came along with the comment.
InuYasha smiled politely, and didn't explain further. Once inside, the elderly woman walked to her mail box while InuYasha went inside the elevator.
It had been a long time since he last experienced that uncomfortable feeling in his gut when anxiety weights so much, the body can barely carry it. He took a deep breath, as deep as he could and despite the unrest, and let it out through his mouth, hoping the action would calm him down, yet by the time the elevator stopped, he noted how his heart was already pounding against his chest, with a pace that was absurdly fast for the mere effort of being on his feet. There, he ventured inside the corridors he already knew, and crossed the meters between him and the door before knocking in the way he usually did.
And waited.
As the seconds passed, the anxiety began to weight more and more before the unopened door. Another hit of his knuckles on it, and his gaze dropped to the floor and his shoes, as if the pale gray could give him an answer. Another deep breath, then he swallowed his own saliva, hoping it would take the bitterness settling on his throat with it.
Oh, you were coming to this apartment. The elderly woman from before said. He hadn't even heard her approach.
"Yes." Was his simple reply, given while looking at the woman sideways.
"The girl living there left. She finished packing yesterday." She commented, while on her way to her own door.
InuYasha stared in her direction, and had the phantom, distressing feeling of his heart missing something that was far longer than a heartbeat.
"I'm sorry." The elderly woman added. Then, she bowed slightly, giving the impression that she knew what he was going through, before disappearing behind her door.
In that moment, InuYasha seemed to regain his breathing, suddenly, pushing a lungful of air through his mouth as if drowning, drowning in the emotions bursting forth from inside him.
Then, he turned around, and walked away in silence.
.
.
To be continued.
.
A/N
AYYY!
I wanted but didn't want to reach this part.
I have to admit I've written, and rewritten this part in my head, and each time I'd change something of what I thought previously. I'm happy with the result, and I won't say more as not to spoil it.
I hope you've liked it
Anyara.
This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart