Summary: When Sango and Kagome came upon Miroku and a local widow together in the woods, most of the changes caused by the incident were predictable. What Kagome did not expect was the way that it changed her.
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha and intend no financial gain from this fiction. Etc.
So, I just discovered and devoured the works of Morbidity, Kei the Incarnadine Goddess, Ayrith, and Eurothrashed all in one sitting. And, um, I was inspired. Consequently highly derivative; consider it tribute-fic.
Forgotten
By Elementary Magpie
Most of the changes caused by the incident were predictable. When Sango and Kagome came upon Miroku fucking the miso-maker's widow in the woods beyond the hot springs, his fiancée reacted with shock, betrayal, and fury. The screams, the blows, the apologies, the tears, the silences, the begging for forgiveness proceeded for days against a backdrop of Shippo's disappointment, Inuyasha's indifference, and Kaede's contempt. When it was clear that Sango's heart has been changed forever, Miroku offered to leave the group for her peace of mind, but she instantly declared that she would be the one to depart. More tears, more shouting, everyone becoming involved, until the fact that the battle against Naraku was best fought together than apart forced them all into a truce. Their little group proceeded intact, but uneasily, with more silences and less kindness. As you might expect.
What Kagome didn't expect was the way that it changed her. Because at the moment of discovery, as Sango's vision was filled by her lover's body in another woman's, Kagome turned embarrassed eyes from that unfamiliar flesh to focus on the monk's face. And saw… an absence. Something missing whose presence she'd never noticed until its lack. At that moment Miroku's face was filled only with the act and the woman beneath him and nothing more, no loss, no death, no inexorable passage of time: no kazaana.
So later, after their hostile journey has resumed, she went to him. Because more than with Inuyasha Kagome was in love with grand selfless rescuing gestures, she went to the disgraced monk and offered herself. He was incredulous at first, but took the gift readily enough. Afterwards, as they lay panting together and she watched how quickly the kazaana bled back into his unburdened eyes, she had to fight back tears.
But she continued to go to him, despite the impermanence. She continues, despite the horrible betrayal to Sango, the inevitable disillusion of the others, and what Inuyasha will do to them when he finds out. She goes to him because she's discovered that she likes it. She likes of course the triumph of watching the guarded monk transform into the incandescent boy he was meant to be. But that's not all. Kagome is astonished to discover that she also likes the smells and the sweat and the unexpected messiness of it. She likes the different ways that pleasure travels her nerves and muscles and his apparent willingness to discover them all. She likes the way that the world narrows down to the feel of his breath on her skin and his cock in her body.
One day, afterwards, she notices that he's watching her with regret, watching how quickly Inuyasha and Kikyo and Sango and her family and Naraku and entrance exams and jewel shards bleed back into her unburdened eyes. And she realizes that he understands: he's not the only one who uses their encounters to forget.
End
