Still Life
By: Vyle Gohana Aris Lucina Giovanni the III...or just Vyle
Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and owned as her rightful property.
Chapter III: The Driest Sorrows
Last chapter:
"Tell me how you got that mark. What is it and why did you hide it from me for nearly six months."A gruff,hard voice filtered out. Kagome froze. "Inuyasha?" She looked back over at him but he was still poised sternly. His arms were crossed, eyes shut close in a faint scowl and each foot tucked under the opposite leg. "I want to finally know Kagome. What is happening to you?"
The intensity of the mode couldn't have fermented more if the facing pair willed it to.
Kagome watched as Inuyasha did not stir but could tell that he waited for her response to his rather blunt, straight-to-the-point inquiry. She bowed her once in clarification before clearing her throat brittlely.
"Well," she spoke soundly, "I...This is my doing first of all--just in the case, you know. Because what I'm gonna say might make you get all assuming." She declared this more firmer at Inuyasha because she knew him too well. What she was about to confirm would more or less knock him of his rocker and he'd start getting all steam-headed about it. Believe her, she knew.
"I'm listening." Geez, what a surrogate father figure he sounded like and possibly could pull off. Then again, he was a father ...just at the wrong person. "Sigh.....I-- "--Kagome, come on. Of all time, why so short of breath and mouth now?" The humor in that comment went unnoticed by the smaller girl as she bowed her head to suddenly take interest in her own fidgetting fingers.
"...You see Inuyasha, this is something I got from Kouga. It's just a bruise now but it'll get better." As soon as those soft words rang out, Inuyasha's face contorted sharply in disgust, disbelief and anger. "What the fuck?! You're telling me that bloody bastard put that weird shit on you?! What the fuck, Kagome!" "You're not listening." her low voiced interjected in cadence and oddity to his louder, harsher one. "What's there to listen to? THAT wimpy shit did something to you, don't you see?!"
The raven haired girl nodded quickly as her eyes saddened some more. "Inuyasha, calm down please. You're blowing things out of proportion just like always! Remember me saying at the very beginning of this conversation that this was my doing?!" By now Kagome's face was raised and almost held a desperate pleading shine to it. Gasping sharply, Inuyasha caught this and immediately shutted up. His lips tightened into a thin line. "Go on."
A little shaken up by the confession she was about to fully spill after so many months, Kagome discarded the swell of nervousness and fear briskly and pushed her thoughts in direct concentration to the matter at hand. "This," she thumbed her infected wrist, "this is the same thing he has. About one year ago, when he last was back of course, I...I discovered Kouga had something." Her voice was uncertain about telling all of this while at the same time wobbily and shifty. As for her counterpart, Kagome could only GUESS how he was taking this in for she did not dare to meet his gaze.
" Sigh...Oh, Kouga had something small and the same color as this on his neck. I...I couldn't get what it was and he told me it was nothing at all." She slightly smiled. "I...I wanted so much to try and find out what the heck it was but..oh, he just persisted me to not worry about it. And so, at his only request...I did." The hut was flooded in a giant hiatus as Kagome's eyes slipped shut. "Kagome..." Inuyasha's voice was tight as he noted the tight squeeze of her eyelids. "Kagome?" his expression turned heartfelt with traces of underlying, nestled hate toward the absent wolf demon. He drew her into his arms without much as a thought after his hand lingered longing into the air at her form. He wanted to comfort her. That's all that mattered. Kagome's comfort.
A light crack in the tiny voice made the black hair boy's own eyes close shut as he hugged her more soothingly, trying to settle the emotions he felt the frame of the girl reverberating around.
"Don't get angry at him," she forced in as if attempting to quell the thought rendering in his mind. "I had decided to go on with this." Inuyasha's face twitched painfully once as she felt hot tears on his right clavicle. "What did you do? I don't undertand? How did you..." Kagome sniffled once. "When Kouga was about to leave again after only ten days...I was so sad. Inuyasha, I didn't want him to leave. I wanted him to be that old stupid, forceful, woman-declaring, cheerfully confident idiot we met five years ago." She laughed a bit at her own remark. "But..he wasn't. Even worse sniffle...even worse...he was so much sadder." Her voice broke at the declaration as she knotted her fists into Inuyasha's haori. He instantly embraced her firmer as she poured his heart out in a hard, quick cry.
"Kouga was sad? What happened?" Inuyasha may have abhorred the old rvial youkai (and still did) but with all false concerns within, he focused only on Kagome's relief from what appeared to be something she was holding in for the longest. "What happened Kagome?" She snook her head. "It...It was the last day that I discovered....that discolored patch of skin on his neck was from a disease. Kouga was infected with a disease."
An eternity would have been a major understatement to the time it felt Inuyasha felt himself sitting there, stiff and agape with impossibly wide eyes. His body and blood drained ice cold as a dizzying rush swarmed over his heated outer flesh. Processing Kagome's words and connecting one plus one only drew more inner fears and incredulousness to the whole matter faster than the poor guy could see. If Kouga had a disease.....and Kagome had the same mark...what...if...
"What the FUCK!" he pulled her swiftly and almost hard out of the hug as Kagome's eyes shot wide open to the sudden action. "Kagome! No, please...no..." his tone dropped low and in disbelief as he tried to make sense of this. If one and one was two and the sky was blue then....she purposely got infected with the same thing?! "Why, dammit?!" Inuyasha's outcry was loud and unbridled as he lightly shook her. "Why Kagome? What the hell were you thinking!" The girl's face slowly turned from surprsie to miserable sadness at the spurted relevation as she clamped her eyes and hunched a bit. "Because Inuyasha!" she cried out the words without exact intent to finish as she broke out with a faint gleam of more tears. Inuyasha grew twisted. He was confused at the situation, angry at Kouga and Kagome both and frustrated with the feeling of helplessness the whole confrontation brought about. It was all unraveling too fast.
"Why?!" "--Because I missed him so much! He..He wasn't the same as before! I could tell! Kouga had become so much more gentle and-and serious but only because he knew if he told me about anything of the bruise, I would react this way. He wasn't the same Inuyasha!" The male figure's expression turned with disgust and pain. It just wasn't right. It just wasn't fucking right!
Kami only knew how much a sense of humor he could have had to place the same hurt onto the caring girl's shoulders. Back in the past, it was himself, Inuyasha, whom would be breaking Kagome's heart and hurting her feelings with his indecisiveness and constant pining after Kikyou. But now...now it was Kouga. Sickening and infuriating as it was enough to see one day the pure-spirited girl of the future slowly start going toward the dense but confident wolf...but when Kagome and he married....it was downright a fucking soul pain. Okay, so what if he was being selfish! Screw it! So what if Inuyasha, the guy who risked his neck every damn day long ago to keep the group and himself alive felt furious as hell when Kagome stated (in her own way) that she had official feelings for that..that SHIT!
It had taken a long time but about two years after Naraku's death, Kagome had finally decided to actually consider looking at that bastard as even a potential suitor. And as shit would have it...while being ironic and teeth-grinding at the same time...she actually GREW feelings for that bastard back! If he was being selfish--oh well! Inuyasha perfectly believed that his still lingering want of having Kagome in ways for himself were legit and perfectly fine to have. It was when the future girl smiled those once warm smiles for only him at that wolf wimp that the overflow of bubbling, scorching hot jealously took over.
Don't get him wrong. Inuyasha loved Kikyou very much but...but....he also still loved Kagome. Only if he hadn't been so cruel to her feelings long ago not only would she not have been in unneeded hurt OR waiting like always for that damn wolf but also...she wouldn't have made such a fucking, stupid, insensitive decision on her part out of her sadness.
If there were problems to state of anyone: Miroku was too damn perverted, Sango was too stubborn with her own feelings for the lech, he was selfish and stubborn (and rude...) and Kagome...
Kagome's only flaw was that she was just too damn loyal. Inuyasha betted the girl went through this all because she...loved that low shit excuse of a husband. Always running off to leave her in sorrow.
But then again...hadn't he done that too?
Inuyasha couldn't take it. It was just too much for one man to take.
"Oh Kagome...you stupid, stupid, stupid...." Kagome cut him off with a bitter, dry laugh as she buried her face deeper into Inuyasha's shoulder. The pair was silent as the hum of the lazy afternoon sailed in the air. "Sniff Well, enough about me. Sniffle, how's life been treating you?" Inuyasha's face pulled back in overflown disbelief at how Kagome tried to lighten up this so-serious situation with one of her common conversation openers. "What is your deal, Kagome? Damn, you just keep trying to be happy all the damn time. For once, stop trying to make everyone else worry-free! You have a disease dammit!" Kagome slowly looked up at him with wide, blank eyes as she smiled softly at his blunt words. "I don't want to make everyone sad over me. Besides, you all have your own problems. Like with you, before you know it, Izuto will be flocked with little young ladies." She giggled softly when Inuyasha's face faintly tinted pink. "Yeah, well..." he mumbled as Kagome manuveured herself out of their friendly hug and smoothed the wrinkle out from her pink kimono. Inuyasha folded his arms as his eyes followed her hands, quiet as his eyes jumped to her face when they stilled.
"Well, don't mind me asking, but are you guys planning on having another little one?" Kagome asked with a soft smile at the quiet Inuyasha. He immediately sputtered and drew a light scowl as he looked away briefly, that familiar warmth in his cheeks flaring up again.
Kagome smothered a laugh with her hand as she patted his knee. "Calm down, hee,hee, I'm just joking. Besides, you and Kikyou both have a lot of thing to do besides raise a houseful of kids." She chuckled again as she made to go and clean up the forgotten spilled tea but Inuyasha's voice, sounding somewhat...hollow?, broke through.
"...Did you want children, Kagome?"
Kagome froze in her tracks and turned to eye him. "Huh? What did you say?" she asked sweetly.
"I said...I asked if you wanted kids."
Kagome looked to the floor with a furrowed expression as she thought on his words. Before making to answer, she took her seat again.
"Uh...well..yeah, yeah I guess I do. I mean...I always dreamed of having some of my own.''
Inuyasha didn't know how to end or further this conversation, so he just said quiet, hoping Kagome would choice. And so, she continued after a small moment.
"I just want one. One, perfect child. Someone to keep me company and someone to love."
Inuyasha swallowed thickly as his face focused solely on the smaller woman. He...Would Kagome ever get that chance? Suddenly his mind went creative with her words. Slowly but surely and without his consent, his mind starting creating this unborn child in his head. It had soft, wavy black hair that was jet-black like Kagome's and crawled in glossy waves about its head to its middle back. Its skin was a perfect very light tan but soft and smooth. It's tiny fingers had smooth, claws and two little wavy haired ears pointed downward on the top of its head....her head. The imaginary child had...his nose....and eye color. A soft, minty blue but soulful from Kagome's. A small toothy grin with....his mouth but Kagome's bright, clean face.
"Someone to love, huh?'' he responded, disturbed mentally by the image. He hated to think that Kagome and that thing would have such a beautiful little girl.
"Yep, preferably a little girl. But a boy would be just as lovely.
At an instant, Inuyasha's mind went to work again, but this time toward creating a male. It had course, unruly black hair--neither Kagome's shade or texture but the glossiness of it. This child was about seven or eight, just like the girl, but had light brown eyes that were...his shape albeit alive and focused as Kagome's. His skin was...his shade but his mouth and nose were Kagome's. His claws were sharp and smooth, well-groomed hair that draped down his back and into a braid and his ears perched perky on top of his head.
"I always did like the name Noriko." Kagome broke in, looking out her hut window but apparently daydreaming.
"Yeah, little Nori. I really think she'd like that."
At his words, Kagome's perfect poised face turned to him and broke out a gentle, warm smile--the only one for the last Kami knows when in which....Kagome was actually smiling. Just like the old her. The smile was open, hiding absolutely nothing and no pain shown through them. She was actually...happy.
Inuyasha's eyes widened a fraction as he caught sight of this nearly forgotten treasure and abruptly, that little girl--Little Nori--became his and Kagome's--not Kouga's and hers.
Shaking his head abruptly, Inuyasha banished and locked away thouse forbidden thoughts--thoughts that involved changing the ways things were. No, he couldn't do that. He didn't want to. ...Did he?
Kagome's smooth breathing filtered and brought him back to reality as she stood up and finished cleaning up the mess. "Maybe...maybe someday, ya know?" he soft response sailed to his human ears as Inuyasha focused back on her. "...Yeah." Kagome nodded and dropped the topic, walking back to the door of her hut as she peered out. Leaning up against the sid of the frame, she lightly kicked her foot as her hands clasped behind her back. "Inuyasha,"
The male figure answered back almost readily. "Yeah, K'gome?"
"Promise me...if anything happens, whether to me or Kouga both, that you'll be happy we are free from this pain. But don't hate him, please, if you care any of me, don't hate Kouga. I chose this too." She didn't motion to it but Inuyasha saw at those words her infected wrist moved a bit. "Please?" her childish voice caught his attwention again as he stared affected in all angles back into her pure, warm depths.
'Stop it, damn you. Why are you so persistant on making me aware of what will inevitably happen, Kagome? Do you secretly want to die? Don't you want to be here with m--us?' "....I....I can't promise that, you know that." Kagome just smiled softly at him as Inuyasha looked dejectly at the floor and gnashed his knuckles on it in distress. "I....It's not right." He whispered in a pain voice before he jumped up unexpectedly and stomped with an all out emotional fury. "IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!!"
Kagome winced as she closed her eyes in sorrow. She had tried to avoid bring that up again but funny how it was that people doomed to die always reminded those around them the most of it just by opening up their mouths....just by trying to be normal. 'Oh Inuyasha...'
She couldn't see it but felt the frustration and rage rolling off his body in crashing tsunamis as she bit her bottom lip. Tears touched the rim of her eyelids as she tried to smother another reign of sorrow. Rage and anguish--together they birthed the driest sorrow.
"I'm sorry." she mouthed in a broken, beady whisper. Kagome's throat was tight with a lump of dread as she shook her head slowly and bit down harder on her lip. Then he spoke again after moments of seething and boiling hurt, anger, rage, frustration, helplessness, distress and whatever other shit he couldn't describe.
"Wht a fucking' unfair ass bullshit turn of events!! How could you, Kagome?!?" She winced but didn't look up at him. "I...I'm sorry! But it all was just so much, okay?! After losing you, I was going to lose him too." She shot out from the door way back into the hut to look at him in despair. "What would you have done, huh?!" She didn't bother wiping the tears from her face as they blurred her vision. Inuyasha stood talll and stern with a hard face as he watched her crumbling emotionally from within in front of him. "I lost everyone. My home, Sango and Miroku are gone too travelling all across Japan it seems, you and Kikyou have each other now and now I find out my husband is dying in two ways and you expect me to be fine?! Well, I'm not! I'm...I'm..." Kagome suddenly froze for two seconds as her eyes widened sharply and her breath hitched before they lowered and she collapsed on the hut floor but instead fell into a pair of warm, firm arms.
"KAGOME!" Inuyasha was listening with struggling emotions as the woman he secretly desired spilled out her heart and soul that is until...until she stiffened up and collapsed into a boneless heap plunging to the ground. Without the need to think on it, Inuyasha shot forward and gathered her up tightly in a hug as he plopped to the ground. He held on tightly before stroking her face and looking at her in shock.
"Kagome?! Kagome, wake up! Please, be okay, dammit, don't you die, bitch! Don't even consider it,wench!" When no answer or motion reaasured the frenzied man, Inuyasha pressed two fingers to the piece of skin under her nose. A very faint, weak puff and intake was his only reaasurace that Kagome still alive.
"....Wheeze...Inuyasha..." He pulled her closer frantically as his uneasy movement cause his uncertain mind to press the girl into the confines of his lap. "What, what--what is it, Kagome? But hurry, you need a doctor!" his breath was erratic and his eyes were wide with fear for her. Kagome's weak eyes trailed up to the top of his head to the bottom of his chin before she smiled so weakly and lolled her head onto his chest.
"....Wheeze I..I just want to say that I had my chance, my time. What's lost to fate is meant to be, please remember that. You cannot change what you must go through but also I just...wheeze..I just want you to know that we had our time together....and I....I wouldn't change it for the worl......."
The girl in his lap jerked and faded into unconsciousness again as Inuyasha sprang up after listening intently in helplessness and frustration toward the door and out into the village toward the nearest doctor.
"You stupid wench! Hold on, damn you! Don't you dare die on me!"
A/N: It's sad, I know. But like all things, the show must go on. Kagome and Inuyasha are both experiencing things that they must accept and as the story will go on, the two will finally come to an understanding. It's the story of the final act of love between Inuyasha and Kagome. This is a Inu/Kag story by the way.
Til' next time, my friends. ;)
R/R
Vyle
By: Vyle Gohana Aris Lucina Giovanni the III...or just Vyle
Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and owned as her rightful property.
Chapter III: The Driest Sorrows
Last chapter:
"Tell me how you got that mark. What is it and why did you hide it from me for nearly six months."A gruff,hard voice filtered out. Kagome froze. "Inuyasha?" She looked back over at him but he was still poised sternly. His arms were crossed, eyes shut close in a faint scowl and each foot tucked under the opposite leg. "I want to finally know Kagome. What is happening to you?"
The intensity of the mode couldn't have fermented more if the facing pair willed it to.
Kagome watched as Inuyasha did not stir but could tell that he waited for her response to his rather blunt, straight-to-the-point inquiry. She bowed her once in clarification before clearing her throat brittlely.
"Well," she spoke soundly, "I...This is my doing first of all--just in the case, you know. Because what I'm gonna say might make you get all assuming." She declared this more firmer at Inuyasha because she knew him too well. What she was about to confirm would more or less knock him of his rocker and he'd start getting all steam-headed about it. Believe her, she knew.
"I'm listening." Geez, what a surrogate father figure he sounded like and possibly could pull off. Then again, he was a father ...just at the wrong person. "Sigh.....I-- "--Kagome, come on. Of all time, why so short of breath and mouth now?" The humor in that comment went unnoticed by the smaller girl as she bowed her head to suddenly take interest in her own fidgetting fingers.
"...You see Inuyasha, this is something I got from Kouga. It's just a bruise now but it'll get better." As soon as those soft words rang out, Inuyasha's face contorted sharply in disgust, disbelief and anger. "What the fuck?! You're telling me that bloody bastard put that weird shit on you?! What the fuck, Kagome!" "You're not listening." her low voiced interjected in cadence and oddity to his louder, harsher one. "What's there to listen to? THAT wimpy shit did something to you, don't you see?!"
The raven haired girl nodded quickly as her eyes saddened some more. "Inuyasha, calm down please. You're blowing things out of proportion just like always! Remember me saying at the very beginning of this conversation that this was my doing?!" By now Kagome's face was raised and almost held a desperate pleading shine to it. Gasping sharply, Inuyasha caught this and immediately shutted up. His lips tightened into a thin line. "Go on."
A little shaken up by the confession she was about to fully spill after so many months, Kagome discarded the swell of nervousness and fear briskly and pushed her thoughts in direct concentration to the matter at hand. "This," she thumbed her infected wrist, "this is the same thing he has. About one year ago, when he last was back of course, I...I discovered Kouga had something." Her voice was uncertain about telling all of this while at the same time wobbily and shifty. As for her counterpart, Kagome could only GUESS how he was taking this in for she did not dare to meet his gaze.
" Sigh...Oh, Kouga had something small and the same color as this on his neck. I...I couldn't get what it was and he told me it was nothing at all." She slightly smiled. "I...I wanted so much to try and find out what the heck it was but..oh, he just persisted me to not worry about it. And so, at his only request...I did." The hut was flooded in a giant hiatus as Kagome's eyes slipped shut. "Kagome..." Inuyasha's voice was tight as he noted the tight squeeze of her eyelids. "Kagome?" his expression turned heartfelt with traces of underlying, nestled hate toward the absent wolf demon. He drew her into his arms without much as a thought after his hand lingered longing into the air at her form. He wanted to comfort her. That's all that mattered. Kagome's comfort.
A light crack in the tiny voice made the black hair boy's own eyes close shut as he hugged her more soothingly, trying to settle the emotions he felt the frame of the girl reverberating around.
"Don't get angry at him," she forced in as if attempting to quell the thought rendering in his mind. "I had decided to go on with this." Inuyasha's face twitched painfully once as she felt hot tears on his right clavicle. "What did you do? I don't undertand? How did you..." Kagome sniffled once. "When Kouga was about to leave again after only ten days...I was so sad. Inuyasha, I didn't want him to leave. I wanted him to be that old stupid, forceful, woman-declaring, cheerfully confident idiot we met five years ago." She laughed a bit at her own remark. "But..he wasn't. Even worse sniffle...even worse...he was so much sadder." Her voice broke at the declaration as she knotted her fists into Inuyasha's haori. He instantly embraced her firmer as she poured his heart out in a hard, quick cry.
"Kouga was sad? What happened?" Inuyasha may have abhorred the old rvial youkai (and still did) but with all false concerns within, he focused only on Kagome's relief from what appeared to be something she was holding in for the longest. "What happened Kagome?" She snook her head. "It...It was the last day that I discovered....that discolored patch of skin on his neck was from a disease. Kouga was infected with a disease."
An eternity would have been a major understatement to the time it felt Inuyasha felt himself sitting there, stiff and agape with impossibly wide eyes. His body and blood drained ice cold as a dizzying rush swarmed over his heated outer flesh. Processing Kagome's words and connecting one plus one only drew more inner fears and incredulousness to the whole matter faster than the poor guy could see. If Kouga had a disease.....and Kagome had the same mark...what...if...
"What the FUCK!" he pulled her swiftly and almost hard out of the hug as Kagome's eyes shot wide open to the sudden action. "Kagome! No, please...no..." his tone dropped low and in disbelief as he tried to make sense of this. If one and one was two and the sky was blue then....she purposely got infected with the same thing?! "Why, dammit?!" Inuyasha's outcry was loud and unbridled as he lightly shook her. "Why Kagome? What the hell were you thinking!" The girl's face slowly turned from surprsie to miserable sadness at the spurted relevation as she clamped her eyes and hunched a bit. "Because Inuyasha!" she cried out the words without exact intent to finish as she broke out with a faint gleam of more tears. Inuyasha grew twisted. He was confused at the situation, angry at Kouga and Kagome both and frustrated with the feeling of helplessness the whole confrontation brought about. It was all unraveling too fast.
"Why?!" "--Because I missed him so much! He..He wasn't the same as before! I could tell! Kouga had become so much more gentle and-and serious but only because he knew if he told me about anything of the bruise, I would react this way. He wasn't the same Inuyasha!" The male figure's expression turned with disgust and pain. It just wasn't right. It just wasn't fucking right!
Kami only knew how much a sense of humor he could have had to place the same hurt onto the caring girl's shoulders. Back in the past, it was himself, Inuyasha, whom would be breaking Kagome's heart and hurting her feelings with his indecisiveness and constant pining after Kikyou. But now...now it was Kouga. Sickening and infuriating as it was enough to see one day the pure-spirited girl of the future slowly start going toward the dense but confident wolf...but when Kagome and he married....it was downright a fucking soul pain. Okay, so what if he was being selfish! Screw it! So what if Inuyasha, the guy who risked his neck every damn day long ago to keep the group and himself alive felt furious as hell when Kagome stated (in her own way) that she had official feelings for that..that SHIT!
It had taken a long time but about two years after Naraku's death, Kagome had finally decided to actually consider looking at that bastard as even a potential suitor. And as shit would have it...while being ironic and teeth-grinding at the same time...she actually GREW feelings for that bastard back! If he was being selfish--oh well! Inuyasha perfectly believed that his still lingering want of having Kagome in ways for himself were legit and perfectly fine to have. It was when the future girl smiled those once warm smiles for only him at that wolf wimp that the overflow of bubbling, scorching hot jealously took over.
Don't get him wrong. Inuyasha loved Kikyou very much but...but....he also still loved Kagome. Only if he hadn't been so cruel to her feelings long ago not only would she not have been in unneeded hurt OR waiting like always for that damn wolf but also...she wouldn't have made such a fucking, stupid, insensitive decision on her part out of her sadness.
If there were problems to state of anyone: Miroku was too damn perverted, Sango was too stubborn with her own feelings for the lech, he was selfish and stubborn (and rude...) and Kagome...
Kagome's only flaw was that she was just too damn loyal. Inuyasha betted the girl went through this all because she...loved that low shit excuse of a husband. Always running off to leave her in sorrow.
But then again...hadn't he done that too?
Inuyasha couldn't take it. It was just too much for one man to take.
"Oh Kagome...you stupid, stupid, stupid...." Kagome cut him off with a bitter, dry laugh as she buried her face deeper into Inuyasha's shoulder. The pair was silent as the hum of the lazy afternoon sailed in the air. "Sniff Well, enough about me. Sniffle, how's life been treating you?" Inuyasha's face pulled back in overflown disbelief at how Kagome tried to lighten up this so-serious situation with one of her common conversation openers. "What is your deal, Kagome? Damn, you just keep trying to be happy all the damn time. For once, stop trying to make everyone else worry-free! You have a disease dammit!" Kagome slowly looked up at him with wide, blank eyes as she smiled softly at his blunt words. "I don't want to make everyone sad over me. Besides, you all have your own problems. Like with you, before you know it, Izuto will be flocked with little young ladies." She giggled softly when Inuyasha's face faintly tinted pink. "Yeah, well..." he mumbled as Kagome manuveured herself out of their friendly hug and smoothed the wrinkle out from her pink kimono. Inuyasha folded his arms as his eyes followed her hands, quiet as his eyes jumped to her face when they stilled.
"Well, don't mind me asking, but are you guys planning on having another little one?" Kagome asked with a soft smile at the quiet Inuyasha. He immediately sputtered and drew a light scowl as he looked away briefly, that familiar warmth in his cheeks flaring up again.
Kagome smothered a laugh with her hand as she patted his knee. "Calm down, hee,hee, I'm just joking. Besides, you and Kikyou both have a lot of thing to do besides raise a houseful of kids." She chuckled again as she made to go and clean up the forgotten spilled tea but Inuyasha's voice, sounding somewhat...hollow?, broke through.
"...Did you want children, Kagome?"
Kagome froze in her tracks and turned to eye him. "Huh? What did you say?" she asked sweetly.
"I said...I asked if you wanted kids."
Kagome looked to the floor with a furrowed expression as she thought on his words. Before making to answer, she took her seat again.
"Uh...well..yeah, yeah I guess I do. I mean...I always dreamed of having some of my own.''
Inuyasha didn't know how to end or further this conversation, so he just said quiet, hoping Kagome would choice. And so, she continued after a small moment.
"I just want one. One, perfect child. Someone to keep me company and someone to love."
Inuyasha swallowed thickly as his face focused solely on the smaller woman. He...Would Kagome ever get that chance? Suddenly his mind went creative with her words. Slowly but surely and without his consent, his mind starting creating this unborn child in his head. It had soft, wavy black hair that was jet-black like Kagome's and crawled in glossy waves about its head to its middle back. Its skin was a perfect very light tan but soft and smooth. It's tiny fingers had smooth, claws and two little wavy haired ears pointed downward on the top of its head....her head. The imaginary child had...his nose....and eye color. A soft, minty blue but soulful from Kagome's. A small toothy grin with....his mouth but Kagome's bright, clean face.
"Someone to love, huh?'' he responded, disturbed mentally by the image. He hated to think that Kagome and that thing would have such a beautiful little girl.
"Yep, preferably a little girl. But a boy would be just as lovely.
At an instant, Inuyasha's mind went to work again, but this time toward creating a male. It had course, unruly black hair--neither Kagome's shade or texture but the glossiness of it. This child was about seven or eight, just like the girl, but had light brown eyes that were...his shape albeit alive and focused as Kagome's. His skin was...his shade but his mouth and nose were Kagome's. His claws were sharp and smooth, well-groomed hair that draped down his back and into a braid and his ears perched perky on top of his head.
"I always did like the name Noriko." Kagome broke in, looking out her hut window but apparently daydreaming.
"Yeah, little Nori. I really think she'd like that."
At his words, Kagome's perfect poised face turned to him and broke out a gentle, warm smile--the only one for the last Kami knows when in which....Kagome was actually smiling. Just like the old her. The smile was open, hiding absolutely nothing and no pain shown through them. She was actually...happy.
Inuyasha's eyes widened a fraction as he caught sight of this nearly forgotten treasure and abruptly, that little girl--Little Nori--became his and Kagome's--not Kouga's and hers.
Shaking his head abruptly, Inuyasha banished and locked away thouse forbidden thoughts--thoughts that involved changing the ways things were. No, he couldn't do that. He didn't want to. ...Did he?
Kagome's smooth breathing filtered and brought him back to reality as she stood up and finished cleaning up the mess. "Maybe...maybe someday, ya know?" he soft response sailed to his human ears as Inuyasha focused back on her. "...Yeah." Kagome nodded and dropped the topic, walking back to the door of her hut as she peered out. Leaning up against the sid of the frame, she lightly kicked her foot as her hands clasped behind her back. "Inuyasha,"
The male figure answered back almost readily. "Yeah, K'gome?"
"Promise me...if anything happens, whether to me or Kouga both, that you'll be happy we are free from this pain. But don't hate him, please, if you care any of me, don't hate Kouga. I chose this too." She didn't motion to it but Inuyasha saw at those words her infected wrist moved a bit. "Please?" her childish voice caught his attwention again as he stared affected in all angles back into her pure, warm depths.
'Stop it, damn you. Why are you so persistant on making me aware of what will inevitably happen, Kagome? Do you secretly want to die? Don't you want to be here with m--us?' "....I....I can't promise that, you know that." Kagome just smiled softly at him as Inuyasha looked dejectly at the floor and gnashed his knuckles on it in distress. "I....It's not right." He whispered in a pain voice before he jumped up unexpectedly and stomped with an all out emotional fury. "IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!!"
Kagome winced as she closed her eyes in sorrow. She had tried to avoid bring that up again but funny how it was that people doomed to die always reminded those around them the most of it just by opening up their mouths....just by trying to be normal. 'Oh Inuyasha...'
She couldn't see it but felt the frustration and rage rolling off his body in crashing tsunamis as she bit her bottom lip. Tears touched the rim of her eyelids as she tried to smother another reign of sorrow. Rage and anguish--together they birthed the driest sorrow.
"I'm sorry." she mouthed in a broken, beady whisper. Kagome's throat was tight with a lump of dread as she shook her head slowly and bit down harder on her lip. Then he spoke again after moments of seething and boiling hurt, anger, rage, frustration, helplessness, distress and whatever other shit he couldn't describe.
"Wht a fucking' unfair ass bullshit turn of events!! How could you, Kagome?!?" She winced but didn't look up at him. "I...I'm sorry! But it all was just so much, okay?! After losing you, I was going to lose him too." She shot out from the door way back into the hut to look at him in despair. "What would you have done, huh?!" She didn't bother wiping the tears from her face as they blurred her vision. Inuyasha stood talll and stern with a hard face as he watched her crumbling emotionally from within in front of him. "I lost everyone. My home, Sango and Miroku are gone too travelling all across Japan it seems, you and Kikyou have each other now and now I find out my husband is dying in two ways and you expect me to be fine?! Well, I'm not! I'm...I'm..." Kagome suddenly froze for two seconds as her eyes widened sharply and her breath hitched before they lowered and she collapsed on the hut floor but instead fell into a pair of warm, firm arms.
"KAGOME!" Inuyasha was listening with struggling emotions as the woman he secretly desired spilled out her heart and soul that is until...until she stiffened up and collapsed into a boneless heap plunging to the ground. Without the need to think on it, Inuyasha shot forward and gathered her up tightly in a hug as he plopped to the ground. He held on tightly before stroking her face and looking at her in shock.
"Kagome?! Kagome, wake up! Please, be okay, dammit, don't you die, bitch! Don't even consider it,wench!" When no answer or motion reaasured the frenzied man, Inuyasha pressed two fingers to the piece of skin under her nose. A very faint, weak puff and intake was his only reaasurace that Kagome still alive.
"....Wheeze...Inuyasha..." He pulled her closer frantically as his uneasy movement cause his uncertain mind to press the girl into the confines of his lap. "What, what--what is it, Kagome? But hurry, you need a doctor!" his breath was erratic and his eyes were wide with fear for her. Kagome's weak eyes trailed up to the top of his head to the bottom of his chin before she smiled so weakly and lolled her head onto his chest.
"....Wheeze I..I just want to say that I had my chance, my time. What's lost to fate is meant to be, please remember that. You cannot change what you must go through but also I just...wheeze..I just want you to know that we had our time together....and I....I wouldn't change it for the worl......."
The girl in his lap jerked and faded into unconsciousness again as Inuyasha sprang up after listening intently in helplessness and frustration toward the door and out into the village toward the nearest doctor.
"You stupid wench! Hold on, damn you! Don't you dare die on me!"
A/N: It's sad, I know. But like all things, the show must go on. Kagome and Inuyasha are both experiencing things that they must accept and as the story will go on, the two will finally come to an understanding. It's the story of the final act of love between Inuyasha and Kagome. This is a Inu/Kag story by the way.
Til' next time, my friends. ;)
R/R
Vyle