Stand By
Chapter Four
It took me a while to regain my breath. You wouldn't believe how easy it was for me to just stop breathing; I had no real motivation to once again come back to the world of the living. Sure there was Sango's child, sure there was Shippou, sure there was the demon to exterminate… Maybe there was a bit of self-destructive tendencies to see how things played out as well, but what was the point? You wouldn't believe how easy it is to just stop breathing.
I need to move. My hands are numb and they shake violently as I try to open the car door, the key slipping and scratching the blue paint. Normally I would have sworn, but everything isn't exactly "normal" at the moment. I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm my frayed nerves. Hearing the clink of the lock in my car door, my mind takes over and I do the rest of the things mechanically, my thoughts suspended as the autopilot is engaged.
The streets of Tokyo are crowded as they normally are. This is no different; but I don't feel the urge to go any faster than the snail-paced traffic like I usually do. It will give me time to collect my nerves.
I take another rib cracking breath and wipe the last of my tears away. I know I probably look horrible. Screw all the premonitions that women look cute when they shed a few tears or sob their freakin heart out. They, in fact, do not. Whoever thinks that snot dribbling down the upper lip and red, puffy eyes are cute is seriously whacked up.
Inuyasha hates when girls cry; I always thought maybe it was because he couldn't understand what the heck was going on and what was happening; or maybe he just couldn't take the racket. Maybe all along it was because girls look down right monstrous when they decided to work out their tear ducts.
The cars in front of me move and I barely notice. There my mind goes again, drifting to Inuyasha. It's always Inuyasha this and Inuyasha that; he's more than a friend to me. I think it borders on obsession. I wonder if that wasn't good for your health…
My cell-phone rings, it's annoying little jingle grating particularly on my nerves. My eyebrow twitches. I'm so going to kill Eri for putting that tune on, and then damn myself for forgetting to change it. There's pressure building behind my eyes as I pick up the phone. "Hello?"
"Kagome? Kagome, you sound awful! Are you in bed? You sound like you have a cold!" The little electronic voice spews out at me, raving on about good health. Ah, it must be Ayumi. Nobody I know can quite master that perky and totally irritating voice that makes you want to go kill a small animal.
"Ayumi, quite, please!" I groan loudly, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I have a killer headache, I'm in a hurry, and you're just making it worse."
The woman immediately drops her voice down as few notches, getting more towards her umpire like indoor voice. It really is a wonder that she works as a nurse in the ER. "Sorry Kagome… It's just that I've tried calling you several times already and you haven't picked up…"
She sounds worried. "Didn't I tell everybody that I was leaving for a week or two?" I try to recall. "I've been… out for the past few hours. I'm only back because I need to call my editor and pack my bag; Inuya- I mean, the trip I'm going on is longer than I expected."
I imagine Ayumi's eyebrow, raised in the usual smirking way. "Inuyasha Kagome?" She chuckles, her voice sounding strange on my cell phone. I think it's starting to break up. Oh well. "You're mystery boyfriend? Tell me Kagome, have you secretly eloped and meet him in a mountain cottage where you hide away from his past lover?"
Oh the irony.
I suddenly want to spill out everything; why the reason my nose is clogged, what I'm really doing, and jut about everything else. But I don't. I hold back. Why?
Well, probably because if I did tell her, she'd want to know all about everything, and when the story came up about falling down the Bone-Gobbler's Well... I'd probably be sent to the loony bin. There have been many times when I questioned myself in that department; I didn't any help.
"Yes Ayumi, you've found me out." My phone beeps and I feel my headache pulse. "Listen, I'll call you back, probably not for another half hour or three weeks. Tell the others where I've gone, okay?"
"Three weeks? Gods Kagome, what are you doing up in those mountains? Having an orgy se-" Thankfully, her ranting voice is cut off by the final beep of my dying cell phone. I settle back into the somewhat comforting hum of the cars engine.
Ayumi had really calmed me down, I'll give her that much. My nose is starting to operate again and see, after a quick glance in my rear-view window, that my eyes are no longer red and scratchy. My frayed nerves are beginning to pull together and reweave.
If there is something I've mastered over the years, it's my fast recovery from stressing, emotional experiences.
Not to mention I'm slightly surprised that Ayumi didn't remember Inuyasha from middle school. Then again, I'm the one hopelessly in love with him and she can forget a pretty face.
Suddenly I laugh. Inuyasha isn't pretty; he's barely attractive by most regards. He has a long, thin nose that is upturned at the end. His eyes are large and framed by long, straight lashes, and his arms and legs are nearly the same length. When he was hanyou his claws were curved downwards when they grew. His hair is coarse and his teeth are off-white.
But he's the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on. I can almost feel his hand underneath mine, the rolling gait of his running as I cling onto his back, the tree branches holding us high. Those were the days.
A loud honk knocks me out of my reverie and my unknown attempts at jean-creaming. I look up and realize that my autopilot decided to fantasize with me and made me miss my turn.
I let out a string of curses that would have made Inuyasha proud.
I run around my apartment, making a mental checklist of things that I'll need while struggling to push down my still increasing headache. This always happens after I cry; I'm surprised that after nine years of not crying hadn't left me with more of a sensitive migraine.
The phone rings and I wince. Maybe I spoke too soon. It keeps on ringing and I will for it to just stop. Maybe whatever gods were up there would take pity on me and sic a lightening blot on my sky-colored, plastic telephone, not complete with thunder.
Another ring lets me know that there is no freakin way.
Rolls of gauze and a pack of Band-Aids in my arms are thrown into the sunny yellow bag (which has several patches of denim here and there to keep the wear and tear down to a minimum) before I stomp over to the phone, picking the receiver up with a tug. A big tug. The holder falls to the floor.
"What?" I growl, closing my eyes and counting to ten, ignoring the holder on my left foot. A dull pain reminds me of my bad day going worse.
"Kagome, where are you?! I called you this morning but you wouldn't pick up. I've had to cancel several meetings and the like so that you could drag your lazy ass to who knows where! You're a writer Higurashi and you need to accept the responsibility tha-"
I inwardly groan. I knew I shouldn't have answered the phone; editors are like stubborn jackasses. "Shut up Yamato! I get the picture!" I pause and take a deep breath, ready to calmly explain that I need to go away for three weeks because of an emergency. Not a lie; that demon could kill people! I think that's enough to blow Yamato off. Hell, anything in my book is good enough to blow Yamato off.
"Higurashi, we're going to cut your contract."
Or maybe in this situation I can just forget a little thing called tact. "WHAT?! You're cutting my contract for what?!" I'm yelling into the phone, imagining Yamato's big, ugly purple face turning red with anger. "I know I'm constantly gone but you've been putting up with this for years! Why is the fucking company deciding to cut now of all times?"
"Higurashi, I wouldn't talk to me like that! You're being cut and that's final! Good luck finding a job somewhere else."
"FINE! I WILL!" I throw the phone against the wall, stomping down onto the holder. My phone begins to beep incessantly. Sure I was hardly ever there, but so what? All the other writers don't are just gone as much as I am! The beauty of being a writer is you can do it anytime and anywhere. Gods be damned! First the whole Inuyasha Kikyou thing, now this! I'm ready to kill.
I pack the rest of my bag in a rage. Everything is thrown into the yellow bag and I kick the phone one more time, managing to unplug it, sending it across the room and clattering into the island of my kitchen. I pity the demon that's going to get the brunt of my rage.
Slamming my door and hardly being able to lock the door I'm so furious, I don't notice that I'm being louder than a bull and I tromp down the steps. Several doors open to see me, the famous writer who is there and then isn't, muttering under my breath, in a rotten mood.
Nobody tells me to be quiet. Nobody tells me to calm down and think things through. Nobody tells me to stop. So, naturally, I don't. Many a people get the finger and loud curses on the highway. I barely notice many of the mothers covering their children's ears and the shocked looks of elderly people.
The steps of the shrine, neat and perfectly swept thanks to the helpers mom has around every Saturday and Wednesday, most of whom are teenage girls, are so strong and solid that my rage makes hardly a sound upon them. I yell at them when I stub my toe, reaching the top, my anger festering within me. I stomp over and hide underneath the shadow of the Goshinboku, burying myself between the great roots that rise up from the ground.
I hear footsteps and it registers somewhere in the back of my mind, but I'm too busy cursing underneath my breath and imagining if Yamato would prefer being boiled in oil or being castrated. A hand touches my shoulder as I imagine what he would do to avoid both; offer me my job and double my income. That would be nice.
Startled, I look up into familiar violet eyes and my anger starts to slip away. The deep, aching feeling returns to my gut, the same sorrow that Ayumi had managed to get rid of. Then Inuyasha smirks, his normal, arrogant twist of the mouth touched with a hint of concern. "I always knew I'd wear off on you." His hand slips from my shoulder and he plops down next to me, rubbing his thumb over the palm of my hand. "You always cuss like a goddamned sailor when someone pisses you off."
I'm concentrating on his words, trying hard not to tighten my loose hand over his. "So, are ya gonna tell me what's buggin' you?"
Sighing, I look away from his hard gaze and suddenly find a patch of bright, emerald green grass incredibly interesting. After a few minutes of quiet, I whisper softly, "It's Yamato."
I can almost feel his expression turn sour. I don't know if I've ever said anything good about my editor; all that ever came out of my mouth when he was mentioned was a stream of curses and enough bad memories to put even the bad image of an undead Kikyou to shame. So why would Inuyasha ever think kindly of the man? I know I wouldn't.
Yamato isn't a bad man, don't get me wrong. He's slightly impatient, ugly, and sometimes a rude critic, but he's the best damn editor in the business. That's why he's my editor. Or was my editor. I never really thought about it until now, but in ways I was the one being the jackass, not him. They had cut my contract for good reasons.
That didn't make me any less pissed off.
"So, what happened? Do I need to go kick his ass to the fuckin' moon or what?" Turning back to Inuyasha, I find myself suppressing a grin. That's the way it is in the hanyou-now-human's world; if a good ass whooping can't fix it, then it can't be fixed at all. His eyes are glittering with a wild look he had always possessed, the untamed side that even turning into a human couldn't fix. I absentmindedly push the unruly bangs from his high forehead, looking into his eyes and letting my grin go.
"Naw. I'll be better off finding someone who can understand that I need to go off every once and a while…" I drop my hand from his head, then reaching over to pick up the bag that I threw to the ground earlier on. I hope that I didn't knock something loose in my laptop, the one that I always write on. Getting the laptop from Souta three years ago was a blessing; it was his old one and relatively slow when it came to the Internet, but it suited my purposes perfectly and besides, I couldn't use the Internet five hundred years in the past, now could I?
"So you lost your job?" Inuyasha asks, pulling me up to my feet and not bothering to let go of my hand as we walk over to the mini shrine. "Because you keep coming to the past?"
"Yeah." I give him a one-armed shrug and hand him my backpack. It's easier for him to carry and he would have taken it anyway. "But it's good; now I won't have to worry about him breathing down my neck or anything. Besides," I add, seeing the dark look that's crossing his face. "it's my duty to stay in the past and I enjoy it. I get to see you… and everyone else that we've met along our travels. It's almost fun, leading this double life."
He looks up at me, violet eyes dark and unreadable as we swing our legs over the edge of the well, teetering on the edge before falling down into the stream of endless blue. His grip tightens on my hand.
I've always been fascinated by the fall through time. The walls of gray stone and wood around me turn into shimmering blue light with the stars of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, glittering pinpricks of light in the washes of blue. My fall slows, like I'm being pulled back and pushed forward at the same time, and my body feels like it has been plunged into water, my movements thick and slow.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Inuyasha, his long black hair floating softly behind him, the red clothes that he's had forever and a day rippling slowly, like it were made of some heavy material instead of fire rat hair. The pale, cornflower blue lights up the angles of his face and I grin lightly. The tug of return to the real time flow feels strange, as it always had, when my sneakers hit the dirt.
Inuyasha gives me a sideways glance before I grab the ladder that we put into the well (why didn't we think of it earlier?) and hurry up. He follows close behind and I notice that he pulls a small satchel from the well's side, handing it to me. It's made of fine leather and the buckle on the top is polished iron. "Miroku made it for us." As I open the top, he continues on. "I got us a map and some money in there, so we can sleep in beds instead of on the ground sometimes. You usually bring the rest, so…"
He trails off. My hands find a roll of parchment, which I can only guess is the map, and a bag of coins that jingle as my hand hits them. There's nothing else. I close the bag once again and slip it over my shoulder. "Ready to go? Have you said your goodbyes?" Of course he's said his goodbyes. I heard them all to clearly…
"Yeah. Michiko, Shippou, and Souta were colorin' so they didn't really pay much attention. Kikyou was a little less than happy to see me wander off again." He flashes me his boyish grin. "She's always like that, ya know. All that worrin' over something like this; hell, we've been doing this for most of our lives. She should stop thinkin' about it so much. It's givin' her wrinkles." We both laugh.
An hour later, as the sun rises to noon (has it only been four hours since I was still clueless and not ready to burst out into tears every time I look at Inuyasha?), we pick small, sour apples from the trees and take a drink from the stream we have been following, a stream that winds up towards the north.
We talk about small, mundane things. Souta is learning all the herbs from Kikyou and Michiko is taking to her studies very well. She loves to play around with the characters of the Japanese writing system, and is already writing hiragana with practiced ease. She's trying to figure out the words in used coloring books.
I will really have to get her those Harry Potter books and teach her katakana so she'll be able to read them. Hayashi will love his bicycle as well; he loves anything to do with the outdoors and exercise. He truly is a demon exterminator, inside and out. Not to mention he'll probably steal a few hearts when he's older.
I talk about Souta, who has a girlfriend that he's musing about proposing to. She's a quiet, shy thing, with blazing red hair. She's pure Japanese and her hair is authentic; sometimes I wonder if she's part demon. Her attitude certainly says otherwise.
We walk on, until mid-afternoon, when Inuyasha stops me and pulls out the map, readjusting the straps of my backpack. "If we turn a little to the west we'll hit a village where we can stay for the night and get horses. They'll make out trip easier, don't you think?" Inuyasha grins as he stuffs the map back into the satchel.
"How much longer?" I feel his fingertips graze the back of my neck and try to suppress a shudder. His answer makes his warm breath ripple in waves across my neck, since I long ago pulled my hair up into a ponytail. His voice seems a little too husky for my poor imagination, which immediately goes into overdrive.
"We'll probably get there a little after sunset."
Sorry for the long wait, but I had a minor case of writer's block. Yeah, minor, that's it…
A strange thing with me is, I haven't written more than three chapters for any of my other stories. Never. It's like I drop them as soon as things get good.