OMGOSH this is the longest chapter I have ever written. This chapter took really long to write, but hopefully it was worth it! There is finally some type of real Inuyasha and Kagome heart-to-heart talk here, LOL. This chappie was also exceptionally hard to write, because there is more angst than I am used to writing.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! It was because of you guys that I decided to update! Thanks for all the support.
There are about two chapters more to go for this story.
Anyway, enjoy the story!
Remember Me Always
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Summary: Three little words he spoke to another broke her heart in ways he would never know. It's painful for her to remember him. She wants desperately to forget. And with the completed shikon no tama in her hands... she can. InuKag
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters from the series.
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Last Chapter
Kikyo followed Inuyasha's gaze to the bottom half of the polished wooden flute, lost in the tall grass.
They both looked up simultaneously, locking eyes.
"It does not clip together like it used to," Kikyo whispered sadly, her brown eyes glistening. "It cannot stay attached by itself anymore. Just like us."
Inuyasha looked away, but with one hand, Kikyo turned the hanyou's head back toward her.
"We have broken apart like this small instrument," the woman said sadly. "But with a little help, we can also be brought back together."
Inuyasha didn't look like he fully believed it, but paid intent attention nonetheless.
"Just one question," Kikyo said quietly.
Inuyasha nodded.
Meanwhile, Kagome was undergoing a lot of déjà vu.
What Kikyo said next was almost enough to make Kagome scream in dread.
End
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.:Chapter Eight:.
The feeling of warmth and comfort the radiating sunlight had previously offered had at some point disappeared, and it left behind an aftershock of coldness on her arms and legs, signs of goosebumps already prickling at her skin.
A tense feeling of taut anxiety had frozen Kagome into her present crouched position, concealed in the tall wavering grass. A highly wary observer would have at the most only noticed the two pinpricks of gleaming brown amidst the luscious green stalks of greenery that marked her unblinking eyes.
Her body was tense and rigid, but inside, she was shivering uncontrollably, as the fast beating of her heart vibrated through her whole figure.
In the warmly lit meadow before her, Inuyasha's customarily golden orbs reflected the dusty spring sunlight, condensing with apprehension to make the intense deep shade of amber that they were at present. His eyelevel was parallel to that of Kikyo's, which displayed a coldness that matched with the tragically luminous nature of her dark brown eyes, gleaming with tears.
The gently scorching sun seemed to have no affect on the dead miko's pale, untainted complexion as she placed a slender hand on Inuyasha's idle one.
Kagome, still as a statue on the outside, but desperately trembling on the inside, knew what Kikyo would say next.
It was just like in the terrible dream she had the night before.
And she dreaded it all.
Kikyo broke the intensifying silence with a mild, toneless whisper.
"Just one question, Inuyasha," she said softly, a rare hint of a plea in her emotionless voice. She blinked unexpectedly as warm tears began to sting at her dry eyes.
Encouraged by Inuyasha's stillness, she continued.
"I-if that girl you have spent the last few years with," Kikyo stumbled inelegantly on her words as she refused to speak the name of her much-despised rival. She gathered her courage all over again in a shaky breath. "If she and I were to fall into the ocean at the same time and you could only save one of us," she searched Inuyasha's expressionless golden orbs.
Kagome closed her eyes tightly.
"Whom would you save?"
Screeching voices shrieked inside Kagome's head for her to run right at that moment.
Escape.
Leave before she allowed Inuyasha to break her heart once again.
Her mind was a jumbled mess; she did not recall when she had ever let Inuyasha break her heart in the past. But her heart, painfully pieced together from its last shattering, told her different.
Kagome inhaled a shaky breath and willed herself to move. To run away.
Only to find that she was frozen in place.
Deep curiosity and some of the other pathetic, more scattered and faint voices in her mind urged her to stay.
There was even a small whisper in her head that told her Inuyasha might yet choose her over Kikyo.
And she chose to believe that small, frail murmur because it spoke in the same tone of her heart.
'This is pathetic.'
She mentally scolded herself for feeding the hope she knew so bitterly would cause her much disappointment later.
Inuyasha's mumbled reply woke her unpleasantly from her inner struggles.
"You asked me this before," he muttered quietly.
Kikyo regarded the hanyou before her a little sadly, a bitterness forever tugging at her expression, keeping her from giving a true smile.
It did not take long before her elegantly composed countenance began to shatter.
"J-just this one question," she managed to gasp out, as painfully restrained tears began to brim at her eyes. "Please."
Inuyasha, seeing Kikyo's shattered expression, didn't hesitate to answer.
Before Kikyo had closed her mouth, Inuyasha was already talking.
Kagome should have taken that as a warning. But her steadfast curiosity complied her to stay.
"You," Inuyasha replied impatiently, shaking the miko before him by the shoulders gently. "I'll always be there to save you, Kikyo. You were my first friend and …love," the hanyou admitted quietly. "You're the one I'll never forget."
Kagome let out a shaky laugh of irony when she saw Inuyasha's ears redden briefly in that embarrassed expression she had previously thought was reserved for her alone.
Her shoulders sagged slightly as she saw Kikyo finally allowing Inuyasha's inviting embrace to claim her.
Kagome let out a deep breath, not realizing that she had been holding it in the first place.
She suddenly opened her mouth and laughed a quiet, bitter laugh, muffled almost immediately by the wind.
She held a cold hand up to her face curiously.
Her face was implacably dry.
Where were the tears that had seemed to flow so easily over the smallest things as of recent?
Kagome's self-blaming laugh grew steadily louder as she thought of the irony of it all.
Just that morning she had been pathetically sobbing over a mention of Inuyasha and Kikyo's relationship.
And now, when, just seconds before, Inuyasha had proclaimed that he would dive to Kikyo's rescue and leave Kagome to die without so much as a second thought, she found that she couldn't force a tear out.
Not even out of self-pitying remorse.
She constantly searched her face for any sign of arriving tears as she subconsciously continued her dry, cracked laugh, watching the couple before her embracing under the shade of a cherry blossom tree.
They really were the perfect couple, Kagome had to admit that. She could never imagine herself falling so perfectly into Inuyasha's arms, with her chin lifted at just the right height on the hanyou's steady shoulder.
Before Kagome even knew what she was doing, she had gotten to her feet and made her way with surprising rapidity to approach the couple reminiscing in the meadow.
Inuyasha, facing the direction Kagome was coming from, widened his eyes in shock.
It couldn't be.
Not again.
He watched, transfixed, as Kagome, without so much as a tearstain on her face, decidedly stopped ten feet away from him, and opened her mouth.
Only to find that she didn't know what to say.
For some reason, she felt mortified by this emptiness.
Without a second glance Inuyasha's way, Kagome turned on her heel and ran.
Voices screamed jeeringly inside her head.
Why did this feel so familiar to her?
Like it had happened before?
But it couldn't be.
Couldn't be…
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Inuyasha had watched, unmoving, as Kagome's small form stopped some ten feet before him, her face dominated by a bitter expression of deep disappointment and regret, with not a single tear making its way from her shining brown eyes.
The way she looked at him had made him feel worse than any spoken words could.
Kikyo had disentangled herself from his arms, noticing how his body had suddenly tensed.
Inuyasha looked at her briefly, his eyes glazed over with worry for Kagome, before bounding off into the tall grass.
He couldn't let history repeat itself.
The last time Kagome had run off like this, she had returned as she was now, with barely any memory of him, hanging onto rare wisps of dreams.
Perhaps this time when she was found again, she would be completely unwary of him.
Perhaps she would not even be able to see him, even on this side of the well.
Inuyasha clenched his fists tightly, unconsciously drawing blood.
He couldn't let Kagome get hurt again.
Ever.
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Kagome clasped her head wildly with her arms as she suddenly lost balance and fell face forward into the cold, damp ground.
Soil met with her mouth and sent her into a madly coughing fit.
When she had calmed down significantly enough to focus on her surroundings, Kagome began to feel tears starting to sting at her eyes, which had previously been dry as death.
Through her blurred vision, she found the old, primitive well mouth sitting not too far away from her, where she could almost see her fingers imprinted in the clay.
There was a certain kind of calling that she felt from this strangely misplaced well.
She more saw than felt herself stand up, slowly making her way over to the plainly constructed ornament of clay.
She realized with mild surprise that she remembered this place, as she ran her fingers softly over the clay brim.
The last time Inuyasha had chosen Kikyo over her, she had come running to this very same clearing.
Kagome stopped mid-movement.
The taunting evening breeze whistled gently in the background, as Kagome closed her eyes.
She inhaled a deep breath.
She felt now that she could almost smell Inuyasha's scent and her own intertwined in this small meadow.
And if she concentrated hard enough, she could almost hear their voices, loudly conflicting with each other.
She briefly saw herself, some feet away from the well, walking steadily toward it, with Inuyasha in the background, scowling and yelling.
"Just one week," Kagome whispered, her eyes still tightly closed. "Please, Inuyasha. I have tests I need to make up!"
"A week is too long!" the hanyou grumbled in a whiny tone.
Kagome shrugged with a frown.
"What can I say, Inuyasha," she muttered, glowering. "I have a life, you know."
The hanyou snorted.
"I'd like to see that when it happens," he said, smirking.
Kagome's face reddened briefly, but she suppressed her anger with some difficulty and watched him expectantly.
Inuyasha seemed to struggle a bit with himself before giving into a scowl. "Fine!" he crossed his arms to show how much he disapproved Kagome's actions. "But bring me back some more of that ramen thing you made last time!" he called after the girl as she lifted herself over the brim of the well.
"Don't worry, I will!" Kagome promised, as she smiled once more at the scowling hanyou before disappearing over the brim.
But just as she dropped into the darkness of the well, awaiting the moment it would transfer her back home, she felt a familiar hand wrap firmly and rather roughly around her wrist.
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Inuyasha watched in semi shock as he pried apart the tall grass to find Kagome talking aloud to no one in particular, with her eyes closed so tightly that it must've hurt.
He mentally kicked himself. It was all his fault that Kagome was acting this way. He briefly remembered a time that seemed so far away now, where the girl had laughed so much every day that he had felt like drowning in the soft sound.
Inuyasha was roughly jolted out of his trance when he saw with a terror that made his whole body tighten, Kagome lifting herself over the brim of the well and dropping in.
Something clawed unexpectedly at his heart then.
He knew no harm would come to the girl if she dropped into the well, but he didn't want to see her leave again.
Although unwilling to admit it, he was desperately afraid of losing her.
In a heartbeat, he had bound over to the well's lip and grabbed onto Kagome's wrist, so tightly he was afraid he might just squeeze the life out of her.
In one swift movement, he had hauled the shivering girl over the brim and onto the grassy meadow, setting her on the ground softly.
Kagome fell limply onto a green bed of moss, her head lolling slightly.
Inuyasha sat down quietly next to the unconscious girl, his expressionless face full of expertly hidden relief.
The softly whistling breeze fluttered over Kagome's glossy raven-black hair, shining under the steadily visible moonlight.
The hanyou beside her reached out and brushed away the few wavering ebony strands hovering on her face.
Seeing the girl appearing so lifeless suddenly woke a starting fear from within Inuyasha.
He gently shook her by her shoulders, waiting desperately for her eyes to open. When they didn't, he started to shake her more roughly, his face taut in anxiety.
To his relief, Kagome's eyelashes fluttered briefly before rising slowly to reveal her confused, sleepy brown orbs.
"I-inuyasha," she mumbled, as she sat up slowly, a hand held to her forehead. "Whe-"
"Sh…" the hanyou muttered, deeply calmed that the girl was safe and sound. "You need rest."
Kagome stopped mid-movement as she saw the concerned expression on Inuyasha's customarily indifferent face. Reluctantly, she remembered the events before her brief faint.
"Why aren't you with Kikyo?" Kagome muttered sharply. She knew she sounded dreadfully jealous and child-like, but she couldn't help it. All these bad feelings inside of her seemed to be like a large bubble pressing at her throat, straining her every breath until she spoke of them.
Inuyasha looked slightly uncomfortable and didn't answer.
"Never mind," Kagome sighed, waving him off again.
An awkward silence dawned on the two, both unable to find something worth saying.
"Why'd you come after me, anyway?" Kagome finally managed in a quiet whisper.
Inuyasha turned his gaze to the girl before him, looking at her seriously.
"What do you think?" he muttered. "I was worried about you."
Kagome turned away, unwilling to allow herself a look at the hanyou's face, afraid that with that one glance, she would fall for his lies again.
"Worried? About me?" Kagome snorted bitterly. "You can stop lying now, Inuyasha. I heard the whole conversation you had with Kikyo. You wouldn't even care if I died. So how could you be worried about me?" Kagome's voice rose.
"Of course I would care if you died," Inuyasha frowned. "Stupid girl…" He mentally kicked himself, but he just couldn't resist adding that last comment out of habit from the many insulting conversations he'd had with the girl in the past.
Kagome narrowed her eyes dangerously, her sorrow overwhelmed by bitterness and anger.
"Well, I suppose I am just a stupid little girl anyway," she spat pitifully. "How could I not be, after believing all the lies about 'caring' you fed me all these years?"
"Just what exactly is your version of 'caring?'" she muttered, dreading the watery tingle she felt tugging at the corners of her eyes, unable to conceal the hurt she felt.
Inuyasha shook his head mildly, his face purged of all emotion.
"You don't understand."
"Of course not!" Kagome shrieked. "How could I understand why you would rather save an already dead miko from dying again rather than come for me?"
She didn't mean to be so harsh. Kagome shook herself inwardly. Since when did she become such a selfish person? It was no wonder Inuyasha didn't like her.
The hanyou looked somewhat stunned.
Kagome threw up her arms in ultimate surrender.
"Sorry," she finally mumbled, tears beginning to tumble from her dark brown orbs. "Sorry, it's really not my place to say who you should like and not like."
Inuyasha watched the breaking girl in concern.
Kagome suddenly collapsed from her standing position, ending up in a crumple on the grass, her arms clasped tightly around her knees.
"J-just let me be a-alone for a while," the girl gasped out pitifully, giving in to sobbing in self-pity.
Inuyasha didn't move. He watched silently as Kagome turned away from him and buried her face into her arms, shaking uncontrollably.
"I would never let you or Kikyo fall into the ocean," the hanyou finally mumbled.
This barely had any affect on the crying girl.
Inuyasha released a growl of frustration.
"Look, you can't just ask me to forget about Kikyo, alright?" he muttered, immediately regretting using such a harsh tone of voice.
"She accepted me as a hanyou when no one else did," Inuyasha said on a softer note. "She was my first friend and my first love." If Kagome had looked up, she would've seen a look of great sorrow on the hanyou's face.
"I will never forget everything she has done for me," he continued after a moment of silence. Inuyasha turned around so he wasn't facing the crouching girl anymore.
He gazed up at the brightly cascading moonlight, lighting up the sky almost tragically.
Inuyasha took a deep breath and looked down at the grass.
"If you and Kikyo were to fall into the ocean at the same time," he began. "I would save Kikyo because I owe her too much not to, but then I would jump in after you, because you're the one I want to be with forever, Kagome."
Inuyasha closed his eyes briefly as he felt a cold hand suddenly touch his shoulder lightly.
Turning around, he saw Kagome, tears streaming from her glistening brown eyes, watching him quietly.
"Do you mean that?" she finally asked, her voice a bare whisper of uncertainty.
"Yeah," Inuyasha sighed wearily. "But I guess that doesn't mean anything to you now that you don't believe anything I say."
"What?"
Inuyasha placed his hands as gently as he could on Kagome's shoulders, and looked into her eyes carefully.
"I love you, Kagome," he said sincerely.
The girl froze in place and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she suddenly looked unbelievably small and frail.
"This isn't a dream is it?" she whispered, then laughed bitterly at herself. "I mean, what am I saying. But is this true? But then what about-"
Inuyasha cut off her stumbled words when he claimed her lips with his own.
Kagome's eyes widened briefly before fluttering closed, enjoying the sensation of Inuyasha so close to her.
It wasn't like the kisses she saw in movies, the ones that seemed to last forever.
The first kiss she shared with Inuyasha was short and sweet.
Chaste.
And Kagome liked it that way. It filled the emptiness inside of her with a heart-warming feeling.
When she pulled away gently to look at Inuyasha carefully, all she wanted was to never wake up, if this indeed was a dream.
Because the expression on his face was once she had always wanted to see, the one she had waited for so many years to see.
A look of sincerity and of love.
If Kagome could wish for anything in the world at that moment, she'd want nothing more than to be by Inuyasha's side forever.
A/N: THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY! There are still about two more chapters left, so check back later. Besides, Kikyo won't just let Inuyasha and Kagome get away with this! I'm trying to keep the characters as true to the anime and manga as possible, so I hope there isn't any really noticeable OOC's! Oh yeah, the characters in this fic still need to find out about what happened to the shikon no tama, so this story is definitely not done yet. Maybe I'll make it a sad ending... or a happy one? Suggestions, please!
Please review!