Warning: If you are one of those "MS or bust" people then I seriously advise not reading this. This is nothing like anything else I've ever written, other than the fact that it is angst. Permanent angst. Sango and Miroku are breaking up, and they are breaking up good. There will be no happy ending. Yes, you read that right. There will be no happy ending. Any flames I receive on the subject of "omg you suck sango and miroku belong togetha!!!1one" will be used to keep myself warm in the freezing Canadian winter. Full explanations will be made at the end of the story. But if you really want one now . . . well, being together is a choice, is it not? Humans make mistakes.
Love to Kat for reading this when she doesn't approve. Love ya.
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"You've been working so much. I miss you. "
He looked up at her, as if this news was completely new to him. "I didn't realize."
Dropping his briefcase beside the door, he moved closer to where she was standing in front of the counter, her hands clasped and fidgeting.
Smiling warmly, he crossed the space between them, pulling her face towards his and kissing her ever so softly, gently enough to make her forget. "I'm sorry," he murmured, reaching down and taking hold of one of her hands.
Pulling it upwards between them, he brought it to his lips and pressed his mouth upon her tingling skin. "Will you ever forgive me?"
And as those words left him in a soft tone, the entire situation became light and lifted from her mind, no longer a burden. She stared at his exaggerated "forgive me" face, his eyes twinkling.
She used to think they shone with vibrancy, life, the magic of their relationship. But somewhere down the path she tripped over an upturned root -- the satisfaction of a lie, believed.
"This weekend I don't have much to do. Why don't we go out? Or stay here? I don't mind, as long as we spend some time together." She offered him an optimistic smile.
Still, the unwavering faith remained. The part of her that trusted him, believed in him -- in them. The part of her captivated by his smile, entranced at his words. The part of her clinging to the way he made her feel.
He held a hand to his forehead, sighing. "You know what, I think I might be busy that day --"
"Miroku!" she exclaimed, frowning. "What about us? We've been so busy these days, but now we have a weekend free!"
He looked genuinely regretful. "I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise anything," he said, touching her cheek.
That part of her was undeterred in knowing that he'd realize the errors of his ways and return, fully, completely to her. For while there was the part that needed him, there was the part that screamed logic and practicality. And the two sides would argue, long into the night, late into the day.
Yet their bickering and bantering solved nothing. It only raised more questions. Questions that always stemmed from one.
"Forgive me," he said again. "We'll do something together soon, just not this weekend in particular. I promise."
"This time, I will," she said sternly, but in the end, it always turned out as a joke. "You'd better remember, you promised."
He drew a hand across his brow as if to wipe away sweat. "Soon, just me and you," he told her -- assured her -- and again, kissed her in that drugging, intoxicating way. "I miss you too."
"Miroku, I --"
He kissed her again, and again.
She had run out of things to say, except questions, accusations. So, she settled for enjoying his attentions, because she couldn't say anything. And she missed this; she really did. She missed what they were.
Sadly, the times that she believed him were the times that would return to destroy what they had.
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L'Espoir Faux
Chapitre Un: Presque
A fanfiction by May
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
For Wendy
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Lipstick.That slight tinge of pigment was a stark contrast against the pale white of his shirt. The colour, such a divine and outrageous hue, a shade so rich, vibrant, yet unsettling. It was one she had never worn.
She was kissing him as he returned from work. Always the same kiss; one that said 'welcome home' and 'I miss you'. Today it was different. It had been different for a long time. The metamorphosis had been so gradual that she could not have noticed until it was too late.
"How are you?" she asked, trailing her fingers down his collar and tracing the hard plastic of the buttons, her fingertips passing over the splashes of red amongst the white.
"A bit tired, otherwise fine." His smile rained down at her, so sincere, so warm, so glaringly deceitful. She caressed the rouged patches of his clothing again, willing him to acknowledge, to address it.
Where did these come from Miroku? Can you please explain?
Instead, he covered her hands with his and moved them away. "You should go to sleep now, it's late."
"I know it's late." She offered him a smile of her own; one that showed the weariness of waiting. "Where were you?"
He was moving further, further away. She reached for him, tried to pull him back, but found herself unable to hold on.
"They had extra work for me again." The truth was so simple spilling from his mouth in pure, unadulterated lies. He turned around and shrugged his coat off, brushing the remnants of fallen snow from his shoulders.
"Again?" she hoped the falter would alert him. This was a signal. A crystal clear, loudly screaming signal. He brushed it away with the snow, melting rapidly under the heat.
"They're paying me overtime. You know we need the money."
Don't try and turn this on me. Whatever happened to your promises? "I understand that, but still, Miroku, I wish you'd come home earlier. I've been saying this for a long time now."
Leaning down, he kissed her again, snaking his hands around her waist. "I'm sorry, I'll get home at a proper hour next time." Next time. He cupped her cheek with one hand. "Don't worry about me. Concentrate on school."
He left her like that, standing in front of the door and touching where he had last been touching, and wondering why her skin was so cold, why were his lips so stiff. He had made a mistake in coming too close. She could smell the perfume.
As with the lipstick on his shirt, it was not hers.
--
Both sides of the equation must be balanced --
An interruption. The pager was vibrating.
It was sitting on the counter, moving along the surface as it received a call.
Looking up from her books, she found her eyes narrowing and something in the pit of her stomach contorting in throes. It did not cease.
Curiousity and a deeply seated dread became her as she snatched up the device, reading the electronic shapes forming numbers alight against a neon green backdrop.
Her gaze moved to the phone, lying innocently nestled in a corner next to the door. It travelled back to the number, reluctantly.
The pager -- his pager -- clattered back to the wooden surface as it abruptly fell from her hands as a rock of smouldering coal.
The formulas swam before her eyes, the numbers refusing to form an equation. Each side refused to balance. Leaning back, she flung her pencil forward, and it bounced off a framed picture of herself and him, from so long ago, she couldn't remember when.
She couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd wanted to take her somewhere.
Just above it was the clock, the hour hand pointed at two and the minute hand at six.
Concentrate on school, he said. Concentrate.
The ticking would soon drive her insane.
For every action, there is an equal, and opposite, reaction.
--
That night he sidled into bed with her, smelling of cheap alcohol, sharp, cold winds, and things she could not pinpoint. Foreign things; new, and different.
She was facing away, awake. Waiting for him to come home.
Rolling over, she gathered her resolve and reached for him. "Sango," he said in groggy surprise. "Why are you still awake?"
Her shaking fingers pulled at his collar, since he had not changed. He shifted. "What are you doing?" he questioned with his eyes half-closed, or were they? She couldn't tell in the dark.
"Miroku, I -- "
"You have class tomorrow." And with that statement, he had drifted away even further.
She rolled away from him again, her ears full of the faint sounds of the world beyond the window, suddenly so loud.
Was it guilt that held him back? No. It was never guilt. It was never him.
Perhaps it burned when she touched him.
--
The phone was ringing. Maybe he was calling in advance to let her know he would be late. After all, there was a first time for everything.
"Hello?" she greeted cheerily, a tinge of nervousness creeping into her voice as she wound the cord around her finger.
"Hi, may I speak to Miroku please?"
The world froze. It froze and turned shades of blue and black, before fading to colourless.
Don't over think this.
"He's not at home right now. He's at work."
The voice on the other end paused, maybe in realization.
"Silly me!" she laughed abruptly. "I thought you were the secretary."
Sango stiffened. "I suppose I am. I'll take a message."
"I am so sorry for disturbing you at home," she apologized. "I thought he had given me his office number. But would you mind asking him to return my call?"
"Of course not," Sango said acidly. She resisted the urge to snap the pen in her hand in half. "Number?"
The girl recited it, and Sango wrote it down obediently, in large numbers, circling them multiple times.
"I really appreciate it," the voice sang from the receiver. "I haven't seen him for a few days."
"No problem," Sango replied with mock sweetness. "I'll be sure to tell him."
For a few days? "A few days" did not add up to the time before Sango and Miroku had gotten together. "A few days" was recent. "A few days" where she had been left dreaming alone.
--
Such a simple phrase. Simple words. A simple meaning.
" 'I am so sorry for disturbing you at home, but would you mind asking him to return my call?' "
A simple phrase, hanging between them in dead air.
"Well," she continued in her biting tone. "Don't you want the number?"
He was grimacing, and she hoped he was in pain as well. She hoped, with all that she had left to feel, that he was in the worst pain possible.
"It was -- "
"Sango, please."
Good. It had better pain him to speak right now.
"Please what? Please give you the number? Please forget women I don't know are calling me and asking for you, asking for you to see them?"
Heaven knew it was pain beyond belief.
"I'm sorry Miroku," she snapped through a throat that was rapidly growing coarse, "I can't do that."
He stood there stunned, staring and trying to formulate some sort of response.
"I don't know what the worst part was, her asking if I was your secretary," her lip curled as though she had eaten something sour. "Or the fact that I said I was."
He moved, and she immediately scanned the room for something to pick up. She hoisted her half-full bag of textbooks into her arms. "Don't come near me."
"Sango, listen to me - "
Her eyes blazed with a fire he had never seen before. Her hands and shoulders trembled, yet her feet were planted and her legs were still with restraint.
"What will you tell me Miroku? What will you use today?" Her voice took on a deeper, mocking and haughty tone. " 'The women practically throw themselves at me, I can't help it.' "
She held her bag with one hand, using the other to emphasize her portrayal of him. " 'Sure she was pretty, but not as pretty as you,' " she gestured wildly, pointing to him and grinning.
How could a smiling Sango be so full of disdain? As she imitated him, somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if the way he had said those things to her hurt like this.
Then she was frowning again, her well drawn caricature forgotten. "Or maybe, you'll say that it was a late night."
The books fell out of her bag as she dropped it with a dull thud. " 'It was a late night, Sango, a fucking late night.' "
She took him in from his feet to his dejected, forlorn face. "I guess you weren't lying, this time. You were fucking something."
"Sango," he lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders. "I can explain."
"Then you don't deny it." Wrenching herself out of his grasp, she held her hands in front of her in a defensive stance. "Touch me again and I'll call the police."
His mouth opened, but that was as far as it got.
A smirk lined her mouth in new found malice, fortified with bitterness. "Explain then, I have all the time in the world. I always had all the time in the world to listen to your excuses."
He recovered. "You always assume the worst of me Sango. Why is that? Why is it that never once in our relationship, you never had enough confidence that I would do something right, that I would do something for you? You acted like I didn't give a shit about you and was out to deliberately hurt you!"
She flinched. "You've done nothing to disprove those statements."
"Neither have you," he said stiffly. "I tried. One can only try so hard. And maybe in the beginning, maybe halfway through, I tried to show you that I was devoted, I cared for you so much, but you insisted to yourself that I didn't." His eyes hardened, becoming brittle.
"If you don't let someone love you then no one can love you."
Her blood began to smoulder, burning her from the inside out. An incendiary glance. "Do you love me?"
He didn't stop to think. "I always did. I loved you even though you refuse to acknowledge it."
"So then," she whispered. "Why?"
Looking away, and at the wall behind her, through the window where snow fell unceasing, he knew what to say, but didn't.
"Miroku," she said incredulously. "Do you even care about what you've done? What you've done to us? If you loved me, you would never --"
"No." His mouth was set in a thin line. "Do you?"
"I wasn't the one who fucked around!" she nearly screamed.
"Then you openly admit that you would refuse me?" he questioned. "That we were living together, that we were getting married one day, but still acted like a pair of teenagers?"
Her expression crumbled. "Shut up. Just shut up!"
"Is this all about my fucking age now Miroku?" Sango demanded in disbelief. "I lived through the deaths of my entire family and then some. I think that would at least age me a bit! You are the same! We are the same in that sense! You -- you understood . . . "
She pressed a hand to her chest, her mind reeling, realizing the errors of her words. If they were so similar, they wouldn't be falling apart at the seams.
"Hit me."
Her tightly bound fists loosened; he had caught her by surprise. "What?"
"Sango, I want you to hit me."
She moved farther away, closer towards the door.
"Hit me, damn it! Now!"
He took a step closer, spreading his arms as if to accentuate his openness to attack. As if to say, I hurt you, now you hurt me.
"Do it, do what you know you want to do!" he continued to challenge her, almost taunt. Then his voice began to sound strained.
"I'm begging you Sango, hit me, choke me, render me unconscious, just -- don't do this to us."
Just give me punishment.
"That's rich, Miroku. That's fucking hilarious. Don't do this to us? You should have told yourself that a few thousand times.
Maybe now he was feeling that pain. Maybe now it was striking him through the heart repeatedly.
"You want to hurt me. I can see it," he said grimly. Yes, he felt that pain. Then there was no need for her to physically attack him. Although, if she did, she could finally give him what he was asking for.
"You think that will make it better?" Sango barely spoke. "I am filled with so much pain, such anger, that if I were able to channel a single sliver of it through one slap, you would die. It is the work of some unworldly power above that I can even speak."
That perturbed him, yet he didn't find it surprising. Her voice began to rise and lower in volume erratically, and she fought to keep it level.
"She is young, naive Sango, three years his junior. A stupid orphan all alone in the world, too stubborn and honourable for her own good. She won't know that I play her for a fool and fuck around behind her back; she won't know that I secretly feel sympathy for her and pity her like no other. She won't know that my feelings are a lie. She doesn't know yet. She is nothing but a whelp, too young to have experienced anything like it."
His head jerked from side to side. "That's not true," he managed roughly, his voice an octave too deep. I have to stop her. "You know how I feel."
"And just like if I hit you; if you say that, it won't make it better, because I don't, I never knew," she whispered. "If I walked into the bedroom and lay there naked for you right now, it wouldn't fix that. It wouldn't make me believe you."
Her bitter laugh returned. "Or would it? What do you want from me Miroku? Would that have fixed everything? Was everything I tried to do not enough?"
Picking up the phone, she cradled it to her ear as she methodically tapped the number keys. He ran up beside her, pulling it away by the cord and crushing her against the wall, kissing her. "No," he said against her lips.
"It wasn't enough then. I would never be enough. You're right, I haven't experienced anything like this before." Her tone was ice. "I was stupid to even think, that this could be bliss in love."
She crossed the space between herself and her coat and threw it on, winding a scarf so tightly around her neck that her breaths came even shorter.
"There is only so much."
She didn't close the door behind her, choosing to let a cold breeze filter past her and onto him.
Her words have been mostly products of conniption, but she did not regret anything. She knew she had taken it too far, and she was glad.
She stopped where the concrete became frosted grass, and watched the snow blow past her in flurries. Her hands numbed from the chill. Maybe her tears would freeze too, because once they spilled, they wouldn't cease.
But if the cold outside was biting, she couldn't tell.
