Disclaimer: I highly doubt I'm good enough to own Inuyasha. ;;
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Elementary school in our new town was the worst thing ever. I knew it was going to be that way from the onset. How, you ask? Well, he was the first thing I saw when I walked into that classroom. And unfortunately for me, I was the first thing he saw too.
"Inuuuuuuuyaaaaaaaashaaaaaaaa!" he squealed in that annoyingly feminine voice of his, waving madly from the spot on the floor where he sat constructing a building out of blocks with a short boy who had a braid almost as long as himself. When he saw that I wasn't going to respond to this, he rushed up and enveloped me into an overenthusiastic hug. No one will ever know what an embarrassment that is, was, and always will be.
Once my valiant attempt to break free succeeded, I found myself faced with the short, braided kid. He gave a smirk that made shivers want to start running down my spine, and said, "So, you're Jakotsu's boyfriend."
"Am not!" I sputtered, shaking my head and backing away a little. The whole class was looking. This was the last thing I needed to be branded with for the year.
He closed the distance, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and whispered in my ear, "If I hear that you did anything to hurt him, you're going to be one sorry dog turd." He loosened his grasp, allowing me to place myself back on the ground, and walked over to Jakotsu, hands behind his head, as though nothing had happened.
No, I'm not kidding - this happened in first grade. Jakotsu and his lot sweep the competition when it comes to weirdness.
"Aaaaaw, Bankotsu, don't be so mean to him," laughed Jakotsu, who had apparently seen the whole thing.
Feeling my blood boil, and not wanting to a part of this at all, I stormed off to find my desk.
---
As I should've expected, though, that first morning and the many other displays that soon followed burned some invisible mark on me. Kids sang such memorable tunes as 'Inuyasha and Jakotsu, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…' whenever they got the opportunity, and by mid second grade I wasn't Inuyasha anymore, at least not to them. Almost everyone referred to me as 'J.B.'. The trick with 'J.B.' is that it sounds like an innocent enough nickname to adults, but there wasn't anything innocent about it.
It stood for 'Jakotsu's Boyfriend'. For my entire elementary school career, and sometimes still today, I am called 'Jakotsu's Boyfriend'. It's really, really stupid to get called someone's boyfriend for years on end when you haven't done so much as hold their hand (voluntarily). I'm close to heaving the heaviest, deadliest object I can find at the next person who calls me 'J.B.'.
It seemed like every month, every year from first through sixth there was a new rumor about us – ooh, Hiten caught us kissing in a dark classroom with the doors locked. Oh no, that's wrong – what's really true is, we were stripping for each other in the boy's bathroom during recess and Kouga walked in on us. No, no, all lies! It's obvious that the fact is, he was giving me a blowjob in a supply closet outside the library and were found out when the teacher sent Manten and Gatenmaru to get some watercolors from it!
I don't know where they got any of them, especially the last one, from, and I don't want to. Ever.
Even Jakotsu's little brother, Hakudoushi, contributed to all that crap. I still remember him brightly announcing to everyone on the playground one day in sixth grade (though he was in the afternoon kindergarten class at the time) that I went over to his house all the time, and Jakotsu and I touched each other, then went into his room and locked the door.
Hakudoushi has always been a messed up a kid. Extremely, scarily, incurably messed up. Maybe it has to do with Jakotsu's mom dying right after she gave birth, maybe it has to do with being Jakotsu's younger brother, maybe he'd have been like that even if his parents had been prim and proper aristocrats living a in huge mansion in England. I don't know.
There's also the possibility that Musou paid him to say shit like that. Musou is sadistic in that way. I think the day he left for college was the happiest in my life. He just bugs me. Always smiling smugly at me, always laughing, always being…stupid Musou.
I think the only time I didn't see him laughing or smiling was his mom's funeral.
That particular week made me feel like my life had turned upside down.
---
I remember Mrs. Ushitora telling my mom idly one day as they chatted outside that the doctors had said she might have complications delivering. She'd just laughed right afterward, though, and patted her bulging belly, saying she was sure she was going to be fine, though. Amazing technology these days, she said. There wasn't anything some doctor somewhere couldn't take care of.
She was wrong, though.
On the night of October 30th, I was busy preparing my Halloween costume for tomorrow night. Little did I know that thanks to a few certain people, I wouldn't even get to go out. My mom had devised that I was going to a giant dog that year, and I agreed because she told me I could paint the spots on the costume.
It amazes me what simple joys I had back in those days.
So there I was, busily squirting some black paint on, when the doorbell rang. At first, something told me not to open it, but I dismissed it; after all, I'd made up some excuse not to go Trick-or-Treating with Jakotsu and his friends yesterday, so it couldn't have been him.
When I opened the door, I saw a serious-faced man in a white lab coat, with Jakotsu and his older sister Kagura in front of him. He had a hand clapped on each of their shoulders. Kagura looked more shaken than I could ever remember seeing her, and Jakotsu's eyes were wide and overflowing with tears that he wouldn't let fall down. Something was wrong, that much was obvious
"…Hi…" I murmured, not knowing exactly what to do.
"Are your parents at home, son?" asked the man, his voice somehow even more serious than his face.
I didn't have to answer, because my mom came walking through the door at that moment. "Who is it, Inu – oh! Come in!"
Kagura stepped in unsteadily, clenching and unclenching her fists over and over. The doctor came next. Jakotsu just stood there, frozen in what looked like shock, horror, and disbelief, like he'd just seen Hell or something (not that I think Hell could faze him more than this did). I don't know why I did, but I snaked out an arm and pulled him inside by the sleeve of his pink-and-grey shirt.
Sesshoumaru walked in through the door, looking deadpan and boring, as usual. Kagura gave a sharp intake of breath and made a jerking motion. It looked like she'd wanted to run up to him or something, but suddenly decided against it.
The doctor and mom exchanged a significant look, and mom turned to me. "Inuyasha, why don't you take Jakotsu to your room? Sesshoumaru, you take Kagura to yours." Sesshoumaru shrugged indifferently, and motioned for Kagura to follow him.
I threw a frantic looked toward Jakotsu, expecting to see his face suddenly overjoyed at the opportunity of getting to be alone with me in my room, but he was still staring straight ahead with that godawful look that made me worry and feel sorry for him, of all things.
"C'mon, you," I muttered. He didn't make a movement, so I walked over to give him a shove. My hand brushed past his, and before I could react, he had a bone-breaking grip on it. Sighing, I used this to get him into my room.
Once we got in, I tried to wriggle my hand lose, but found no success. I groaned and tramped over to the bed, sitting down. He followed docilely. This was creepy. "What happened to you?" I blurted out.
"Dead," he said lowly, looking down at the floor.
"I don't speak one-word sentences," I snapped, feeling slightly triumphant as I used the phrase that my father said on me when I was younger, threw a fit, and refused to give anything but sulky, one-word answers to his questions about what had happened.
Jakotsu shut his eyes, and made a quiet whimpering noise. I felt the urge to hit something. Finally, though, he sniffled a little and said in a voice that I could barely hear, "Mommy's dead. Kagura said when people are dead, they don't come back, ever. Not even the doctor or daddy or anyone else can help them."
I didn't know what to say. I didn't really understand 'dead' very well at the time either. "Not ever?"
"N – no…" Then, without further warning, he broke his grip on my hand for an equally strong one around my whole upper body, and began sobbing. "I don't want her to be gone forever! Why can't she come back?!"
'This was really, really weird,' was all I could think at the time. In spite of every protest going on in my mind, my body returned the embrace. He cried for a long time there, and I think when I realized that it would just be too mean to tell him to get off, I just let my mind take a brief leave from my body. I don't have any memories of how much time passed, just that it had been a little over an hour when my mom came in and said I needed to get to sleep. Glancing down, I saw that at some point, Jakotsu had fallen asleep on my shoulder.
---
I feel rotten thinking about that funeral, let me tell you. I didn't want to be there (mom had already made me miss Trick-or-Treating because she wanted me to stay at home with Jakotsu, who was hardly in the mood for it), and I made it completely apparent as soon as we stepped through the door. Pouting, sighing loudly during the eulogy, squirming in my seat.
Jakotsu sat a few rows ahead, next to Bankotsu. The rest of his friends were there too. During on particularly noticeable sigh, Bankotsu turned around and gave a me look that I think would've put me in a casket too, if looks could kill. I felt guilty then, but ignored it so I could stick my tongue out at him. My father didn't fail to notice this; it was his look that kept me from doing anything else.
The damage had been done, though. Jakotsu looked slightly hurt every time he saw me for the next few weeks, Bankotsu kept sliding a finger across his throat when I made any motion to come forward and apologize, the rest of Jakotsu's friends gave me looks of disgust, and even the other kids in class who'd been there seemed to agree that it was nasty thing to do. I was excluded from anything and everything for a good while.
But once that while was over, Jakotsu wasted no time in trying to compensate for the weeks he'd left me well enough alone.
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