Oh, and to avoid the cliche - of course I own Miroku and Sango. And Hiroshima, while we're at it. You just wish you could be me. -satirical snerk-
Iggy: This was probably one of the most ill-setting chapters I've written so far, if not for the quick emotion changes then for something else. I don't know exactly how long it'll drag on, but probably not long enough to ever need a sequel... This should appease your taste for angst, though. :B
Zanisha: Aw, thank you. :D Hopefully the bewilderment of how much goes on in a few words this time won't leave you too disatisfied.
Miroku'sNumber1Fan: Don't worry, it'll start making sense soon enough. I tend to go over-board on descriptions sometimes, but apparently that's not a bad thing. ;D
Lily Thorne: Heee, this story's going to depict every feeling possible, I think. Or that's what I'm shooting for, anyway. ;o
Drake220: Thank you!
On with the DL, kay.)
Chapter three; Sympathy
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Hot water on a frozen layer of skin burned, and Sango learned this painfully. Miroku made a face between horrified and amused at hearing her yelp on the water's contact. After getting used to it, though, she was just short of devastated.
"Man," she spat to herself, reaching for a lufa, "when's the last time I had hot water?" Even resorting to using men's shampoo would suffice for her - luxuries like this died out a long time ago.
Miroku tapped on the bathroom door steadily. "Oi, remember not to stay in there too long, or I'll be without hot water for a while." She smiled to herself and nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her. Already things were going smoothly for Sango, having been found in the middle of nowhere and being treated with food and water. She only wished that it wouldn't end, lest she be forced to return to her ramshackle of a home. 'I should tell him I have no guardian, I know that, but... What would he say? What if he turned me into the authorities? There's no way I'm growing up in a homeless shelter, and besides, I'm old enough to take care of myself! To Hell with the legal age!' On impulse, she began scrubbing harder on her skin, mindful of the peeling and raw flesh.
'Still, though,' averting her attention, 'maybe he's a more forgiving person. Would he trust my ability to take care of myself?' She let go of the fact that even if he let her go, she didn't want to be alone in the first place. 'I like it here. I feel more welcomed with a perfect stranger than I did with the people who brought me into this world.' She asked herself then if she should be ashamed of what she'd just admitted, and by default, the scrubbing did not cease.
"Disappointed..." The word came to mind, and the clothdropped, making the slightest of splashes before heading to and stopping cloggingly at the drain. "Who deserves to be disappointed? Him, I, my dead family?"
"Oh, and one last thing," Miroku chimed and set Sango's thoughts in the back of her mind, "let me know when you're done. I forgot to restock that closet in there with towels."
Her fists balled before she ducked down and retrieved the fallen wash cloth, suddenly plumetting it into the shower curtain. "Why, you dirty little..."
In disarray, Sango trudged behind her temporary guardian figure with reluctance. Surely, the event hadn't rusted her will to stay around him, but she began to worry if she was setting herself up. A man is a man, she agreed to herself, and tending to a woman was more of a pleasure than a chore, but not necessarily accountable of a good thing for the maiden herself.
"Ah, listen..." His hand found the back of his neck as he scratched it tentatively, "the morning incident was just a gag. I never intended you to actually walk out and demand a towel from me, and..."
Sango could admit to that much. In a way, it was her fault. 'But there should have been towels in there in the first place!'
Contrary of whatever she was yelling to herself in her mind, she brushed it off by flicking her wrist continuously at the man in front of her who, once again, couldn't see her gestures. "It's fine. You had to have seen something when you undressed me in the first place, so it's no harm done. Let's just not put me in that sort of position again." He smiled back at her casually, teasing her choice of words. "Again, eh? Well, I didn't expect you to welcome bathing in my home with open arms!"
Her foot covered his in a second and spiked downwards, earning a grunt of pain. "I think you knew what I meant. Say, where are we going?"
Miroku recovered quickly and gave a short laugh. "Just making a quick stop to the office on the way to dropping you off. It shouldn't take very long, so you won't have to wait around." Sango's heart lurched at the avoided action that was inevitable to come, but she tried to forget it for the time being. "Why do I need to come?"
"Well, you see," he began to add in unnecessary gestures with his hands to elaborate his answer, "I was supposed to research a little realty information last night, but since I found a defenseless wanderer, I didn't have any time to do the needed work. Mainly, you're my alibi incase he doesn't buy it." He closed his eyes and smiled at his own clever plan, while Sango already imagined a large, looming, and angry man throttling her rescuer into the nearest wall.
Subconsciously, she fingered the trimmed sleeve of her newly washed t-shirt, gazing at the faded pink spots on miscellaneous places. 'With limited cleaning supplies, he did a pretty good job...' She noted how much warmer it was from having been heat dried, even though it wasn't much clothing itself, and was grateful for that much. No one could expect that days ago her hands were painted red.
Eventually they reached the building, and Sango gave a courteous smile as Miroku opened the door for her. He followed suit, and they made their way to the third floor, where the coffee machine buzzed lazily and secretary after secretary flooded in and out of the designated room.
Her imagination was positively bewildered at the sight of the man Miroku worked for. Rather than a large, powerful-looking person, she found herself mere feet away from a man with tuffed hair on either side of his head, accompanied with the customary baldness in the middle, and a short stature. She rubbed her arms in an attempt to rid herself of the goosbumps that arose from the laughter bubbling up inside of her. 'Tell me he's not supposed to be afraid of this guy...'
"Uzumaki!" An obnoxious voice bellowed, and Miroku, likewise, strode into the office, while Sango snuck in a seat in the corner as a lone spectator. "Dammit all, reports have been coming in all morning about apartments and condos and houses and who the hell knows what! Where have you been?" The commander in Chief, suitably noted as such, rose an eyebrow at the girl sitting in one of his bamboo chairs. "And who's the woman? You put your career in jeopardy for another meaningless girl?"
'Another meaningless girl?' The words echoed through her ears for a brief moment, then subsided.
"Precisely why I was late, sir. You'll have to forgive my empty-handedness, for upon returning to my apartment, she was stranded, and..."
His excuse was cut short by the pounding of fists on a desk. "Don't give me that, Uzumaki! What the hell do you mean by 'empty-handedness'? This is hysterical!" In an instant, his hand swept over his desk, dropping all of the paperwork he had filed to the ground in a haste of anger. Sango saw then, perfectly clear, the gleaming nametag and the name encripted on it. 'Kuranosuke...'
Instinctively, Miroku rose along with his hand in oath. "I had a perfectly liable reason! She was very harshly wounded, sir, or so it seemed from the distance - with all the bloodstains, it was a surprise that she wasn't mauled. I couldn't concentrate on my work with someone's life in my hands! If she'd never been found, the condition she was left in would have resulted in a sure death." The emphasis on the word made her pulse skip. He'd taken care of her, been more than just a source of shelter for her, and this man was supposed to be telling him otherwise? In defense, Sango stood too, keeping one hand to her chest. "Mister, Uzumaki-dono has done nothing but remain compassionate while caring for me! Surely you can give him an extension on whatever job he's been assigned to for such an important reason? He healed me, physically and emotionally."
The young realter was moved by her statement, but Kuranosuke wasn't convinced. "I'll call on you when I want a meal cooked for me, wench. Keep your mouth shut while I deal with an employee." In an instant, she forgot all reason to be kind and unflappable towards this man and lunged forward, only to be held back by Miroku. "Bastard! You stereotypical, egotistical bastard!" Her teeth were clenched and the chief made a snarlingly mocking noise towards her, lounging back in his chair with a dirty pride. "Figures you'd have enough sense to know that a dead woman wouldn't get your job back."
Sango struggled in his grip, but both of them relaxed their muscles and froze up at the same time. Miroku pondered at the choice of words, the deliberate spite and carelessness in them, and the teasing tone... "Then, surely this can't mean... Oh please, sir, no."
"That's right," his nostrils flared, "get your pink slip and get out of my face. You can thank the broad in your arms." Her face dropped in disappointment, and she craned her neck backwards to see Miroku's face, only to have his arms go slack and let her fall to the floor. The shock, the anger, and the hesitance in Miroku's eyes right then made her skin prick in desperation. 'Oh, no...'
He flatly smiled to himself, bowing and closing his own eyes, before pivoting and heading out the door with Sango followed closely behind him. She gave the deadliest glare she could muster to the stout man behind her and rounded the nearest corner before he could respond with one of his own. Once outside, each were cordially aware of the deafening silence that sprang between them, but neither tried to break it. His eyes never left his feet, while hers' were busily streaming over his face, trying to find a trace of emotion from underneath his hovering bangs.
Finally, the girl at his side spoke. "I'm very sorry... He was a cruel man either way, and I think that it was best that you got out of that job while you still could--"
"Heh," Miroku's voice was low and bitter, "I'm stuck here in Hiroshima, now. Do you understand? I don't have the money to pay for a plane trip back to Tokyo; that deal was set, and I would have been sent home in a few days, but it's over now." She cringed at the hostility in his tone. That only meant that he couldn't afford to pay for a second person in his household, clearly, but Sango was too distraught to pay attention to her own needs. "An apartment can't work for just a while? I'm sure you'll find a new job very soon, and besides, you do have your vehicle..."
He stopped in his tracks, looking at her with a frustrated pain etched across his face. "That piece of junk? I can't afford to waste gas on it; why do you think I took the liberty of walking to the office this morning? It's in no shape to be traveling that kind of distance!" They faced eachother a while longer - her fear drained her complexion successfully, and Miroku mauled himself inside for being fierce towards a girl. He turned back forward and walked the remaining steps to his apartment with her in complete distilled quietness. It surprised him, however, that she refused to leave his side, as if she were dependent him right now, even though it should have been the complete opposite in his eyes.
Moments of awkward and uncomfortable soundlessness ensued, with Sango rapidly twitching her leg from being in a nervous situation, and Miroku crossing his arms while he stared down at the floor. It was his voice, however, that began a new conversation.
"Forgive me," he said with soft aggression, "I've been tense since the beginning of the week, and I took it out on the wrong person." A firm apology that, ironically, began the argument of a lifetime.
She was thankful for the sound of his voice penetrating the ringing in her ears. "I'm sorry too, but just know that I was trying to help..." He gave her a short chuckle and replied, with shocking calmness, "I believe you've helped enough, but I get the point."
A string pulled at her heart. He was purposely punishing her for his own unemployment?
"Your boss acted like a sexist, so I shot back! That couldn't have possibly made a difference in his choice of whether to fire you or not, and you very well know it!" Her voice was rising with each syllable, but Miroku was uneffected. "I'm a valued asset, and he wouldn't have let me go unless you interferred, which you did quite well, thanks." She grew increasingly annoyed with the expression plastered on his face - a mix of anger, acceptance, and misfortune, all with a tinge of disrespect. "Are you actually going to blame me for him being completely unreasonable? That's impossible! You're better off working somewhere else, and if you couldn't see how determined I was to make sure that you received justice, then you're a blind man, Miroku." By this time she was standing, though he wasn't impressed with her use of intimidation, and rose along with her.
"The point I'm trying to make is that I didn't need your objection. You were there as a background story, but I never expected you to speak up against him. It only made it look rehearsed, giving him reason to believe that I was a liar." She cut him short after that last sentence with, "Because you are! Saying how I was wounded, and that I needed tending to or else I would have died... I wasn't a victim of rape, damn you, and you used me as an excuse to be late! You played me as a part of your scheme, and you deserve everything that came to you today! That comment, that statement that your boss said about another woman - I bet you're a ladies man, aren't you? You're the kind of person who finds a new girl to grope every week and then breaks her heart! He automatically assumed that I was another one of your toys, because if we had met under different circumstances, I would be, wouldn't I!" Immediately, his hand clasped around her wrist and he gave her a quiet plea to stop the accusations, to stop surfacing everything he already knew into the open - to let him live in denial. "Why was I this generous? You looked like trouble from the start, and I took you in; why, Sango?" His voice was shaking with anger, and she was sure that at that moment, the caring and gentle facade had withered away entirely to let a brute come out.
All the sadness in her heart, and all the sorrow on her face made him draw back, only to meet a deadly siren. "I'm so stupid. How did I think I could get along well enough here? How did I..." Already Sango's voice was choked with a relentless sob, but she tried to push it back for at least a little while longer. "I'd expected myself to stay with you and live a new life, and now that I see who you are - what you're willing to do - what's the use? I should return to the broken house I'd lived in for 17 years of my life, and go back to scrubbing floors and eating rotten vegetables and..." Miroku's eyes grew softer as she poured herself out in front of him.
"I could only hope that you would accept a perfect stranger into your home, and how foolish was I to assume that? Everything I've ever known is dead! I'm a sinner; a murderer, and somehow I still thought you could learn to like me for a person! You could treat me like more than a thing that was barely hanging on in a cold life, and show me how wonderful it was to live with happiness, but instead..." Everything on Sango was trembling, from her lips to her quivering knees.
From her bowed head rose a tear-stained little girl, radiating fury and melancholia. "I wanted to believe you were different, but in reality you were..." What was she to say? With all the hatred she felt in her heart right now, she still wanted to hold on, to think that she was just saying whatever came to mind first; but her head, her neck, her throat, her body was so sore and the ringing in her ears was growing louder and louder.
"Sango, calm down, please!" Miroku soothed, taking hold of her arms again and being thrashed by her unrelenting will to be free of his grip. "Take your hands off of me!" She shrieked, clenching her eyes shut and focusing on every fiber of her being that allowed her to feel malice, to be cruel and unforgiving. "I should have known better! I should have known better than to put my trust in someone else's hands, and I--"
In a rattling moment, her hand flew to her mouth and she gave an agonizing cough, collapsing into him and coughing more and more, forcing out whatever poison her body was circulating. The morning light grew bleak and her form released its tension as she, for the second time in a few days, fell unconscious. Miroku stood there for moments, stunned, and examined his shirt and her hand both covered in a sickly, vile blood.
Somewhere on a mahogany wooden stool, a stray petal drifted away from the lavender iris as panic replaced madness.
Likewise is a heart to meddle;
For in due time the venom intrudes,
And the lavender will cease to unfurl.
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