Disclaimer: Inuyasha is by Rumiko Takahashi-sama.
Belonging nowhere
By miyamoto yui
Part 3 - Ienai. Mienai. (Can't say. Can't see.)
Sesshomaru continued to look down at Rin as his hands slipped to the grassy floor. She watched him with her hand still on his cheek with understanding eyes.

"You shouldn't do this," he kept on thinking, but he couldn't pull away from her either.

For the first time in his life, he was looking at Rin. Fully looking at her and analyzing her features.

Not as a child, but as a woman.

Rin's demeanor held no apprehension as to what the next step would lead for her answering this particular question. With a soft look, she gently answered firmly, "I never doubted you, Sesshomaru-sama."

It wasn't the simple 'Yes' or 'No'. This was one question she had asked herself so many times before.
The answer was always the same: Yes.

There was no other way around it. She had never doubted that she would be with him for the rest of her life.

Even...
Even if she wasn't the one meant for her, nor she for him...
She just wanted to be near him. And that's what made her happy more than anything.

Yes, it was a simple answer.
Sesshomaru was even more troubled by this deep response. Intelligent at that. It wasn't a response that wasn't well thought out.
It wasn't carelessly given...
This, he all knew.
His eyes continued to stare at her contently.

Somehow, her answer comforted him...
But it also made him more confused inside though he betrayed no sign of this to Rin.

Sesshomaru told her, "I've spoiled you, Rin."

She let go of his cheek as she placed her hand over his with some blades of grasses tickling her palm. "Why do you say that?"

"You've not experienced too much of life." Sesshomaru's eyes looked away for a moment.

It was something he was unaccustomed to doing. Actually caring for someone...

Slaughtering someone with his bare hands came naturally to youkai...
Falling in love with someone was a custom that caused the ruin of youkai and humankind itself...

Weren't they the same thing?
Didn't they kill all the people that were involved?

"Yes, you are too young..." he continued with a grave voice that seemed concerned yet hurt, "For only a child would answer that so easily."

It was then that Rin knew what he was truly saying and her eyes now looked away as his eyes found themselves looking back at her pretty face.

The face that never ceased to look at him lovingly and smile at him.

Through the journeys...
through slaughtering...
through the passage of times that were frightening and heart-warming...
She had always been there with him. Rin had seen the ugliness and weaknesses that he never wished to reveal to anyone, even Jaken.

But that look that gave him content, the one where she was always smiling at him, whether scared or confident...
It had vanished for the moment.

The only look that remained on her visage was that of being rejected.
This look of disappointment gnawed at him...

She really didn't understand what he was trying to tell her. Nor did he comprehend what and how he would even begin to explain that the way she interpreted it was not the way he was thinking about the whole situation.

As she was pulling her hand away from his, another tear fell down to the ground and glistened in the moonlight. "I understand."

It was then that she turned to him and tried to smile, trying to be the brave child she had always been to him. "I'll always be a kid to you."

"That's not what I meant," he harshly countered as the look between them became more intense.

He didn't know how to tell her and he didn't even know how to show her anything of what he was feeling or thinking.
But the confidence in him that she had was fading.

"Do you understand what this will mean?" he asked as Rin's face was turning towards his at that moment.

"Of course, I do," she said as she just gave him that same melancholic smile that drove him crazy.
The one that she gave whenever she was so pained and/or embarrassed about something that she couldn't express it any other way.

She leaned up to kiss his forehead. Then, feeling stupid, she laughed as she put her hands on his shoulders trying to gesture for him to stop blocking her way.
But she couldn't stop looking at him. She hated the look of pity he was giving her.

Except, she didn't know that he was being torn inside because she didn't understand the true consequences of this situation. Rin didn't mind what would happen to her.

What he wanted her to know was that he did mind...
He had seen it all.

Yet, he couldn't find himself letting her go.

"Sesshomaru-sama..." Her eyes fluttered not really knowing what to do or how to act towards him.

He was saying things that were completely opposite of his actions. It confused her so much that she was trying to brush it off so that they both wouldn't be self-conscious over the situation.

Sesshomaru's eyes looked at the right side of her neck filled with tangled webs of hair. He brushed it away lightly with his hand as his hands pulled on her collar. Then, he started to undo her clothes as he whispered to her ear, "I don't think I can grant you what you truly need. What you seek from me may be impossible to find."

"No, you're wrong." Both of her hands cupped on both of his cheeks. "Everything I need is here."

At that moment, Sesshomaru closed his eyes and began to kiss Rin's neck as he found himself kissing her on the lips while completely undoing the upper half of her kimono.

But could he understand what she was trying to tell him? Rin wasn't sure, but all she could do was close her eyes as one of Sesshomaru's hands was going under her kimono and up on one of her thighs while the other was linking with Rin's fingers.

For the first time in his life, Sesshomaru had doubted himself. Though he was the one to always make strategies and execute them with ease, this was the first time that he may regret what he was doing...
As he unclothed himself, his cloak draped over his back as he undid Rin's sash. But, he paused for a moment while staring at Rin's naked body below him.
"I couldn't understand my father when he fell for a human..." he thought with a lull of annoyance murmuring deep within him. "Why would he sacrifice himself for a human?"

It was then when he looked at Rin did he begin to understand...

"Rin, I look human, but I am a youkai," he said calmly though she could sense the desparation in his voice. "And that could be worse than you really think."

"When have I ever cared about that?" At that moment, she lifted her head and wrapped her arms around his neck.
While pulling him and leaning back on the grass, she kissed him.
The fire crackled and began to extinguish as Sesshomaru's body began to melt into Rin's. She held onto his body tighter and tighter as he kissed her back...

Unable to breathe...
Trying to find one another in the darkness...

She was trying to find out what he tried to say to her...
While Sesshomaru was trying to find the heart of what she saw before her...

"You should," he warned her gently as his voice purred into her ear.

Sesshomaru, who had never cared for anything deeply except for becoming stronger, was inviting his weakness to devour him. He never really cared to hear the opinions of others except to further his plans.

Much less, a human's words...
His pride was slowly crumbling away while touching this girl's body...
"But for this woman alone..." he thought to himself, "I want to see what you see, Rin."
It was only then did he understand that humans may have been the strongest beings of all...

Selfish to achieve their ends through someone else's misery like the race of oni...
Willing to risk everything for that one moment and feeling they had been searching all of their lives...
Humans who were enough to have made great youkai such as his father fall...
As she gripped his hands tighter and tighter, he tried to give her the affection that she seeked from him. The care he thought he could never give to anyone...
While she slept, he put his arm around her waist as his cloak covered their bodies somewhat. He held her as he looked up to the moon that was shining above them.

Sesshomaru's mind, for one moment in time, wasn't constantly thinking. He was at peace, an illusion that he knew would leave as soon as dawn came.

He was saddened as he looked more at Rin's sleeping face, which had a content smile upon it.

Just like the time he told her that she didn't belong to him...
He knew she couldn't stay with him forever.

Someday, she would change and realize how the world really was.
"I may have spoiled and sheltered you like a child, Rin..." he mumbled quietly. "But you belong to me..."
And for that alone, he would keep her while he still could...

While she loved him unconditionally...

Tsuzuku...

--
Author's note: Whoa, I didn't expect this to have so many reviews. O_o I just felt like doing this fanfic, and well, I'm so happy about this predicament. The only thing that I've been thinking about that kind of nagged me was the fact of changing the rating. I'm used to doing yaoi/shounen ai fics, but I didn't know how to handle the 'scene' in this fic. I just hope it's okay. ^^;;; I'm always having trouble with the flow when there's something like that.
And you guys are so encouraging! I was so tickled to find people saying, 'Wow'. * smiles brightly * I was thinking, "why do I like couples with huge age differences?" (Seishirou and Subaru, Ryuichi and Tatsuha, Sesshomaru and Rin...)