Once again, I'm updating almost a month later. Sigh, I have got to stop doing that. Well, it's better than not updating at all... right?
Anyways, as usual, I'm going to have to warn you about this chapter. It's sort of soap opera-y. Very much so. Miroku's past is (dun dun dun) REVEALED! rolls eyes I can stand it, but I've had practice, so, be sure you're ready when you read it and try to fight that gag reflex.
For some reason, I'm beginning to feel like Lemony Snicket...
Quick note: If anyone read chapter two before June 24, 2005, it's best that you reread it, because it's a new version. Anyone that has read chapter two after the above date, please proceed on reading chapter three.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my fanfics and a few knickknacks I picked up from Italy.
Last time:
She knew that this was the end. And whether it was for the better or the worse, there was nothing she could do to wipe away the incident.
After all, life didn't come with erasers.
Cursing silently under his breath, Miroku couldn't believe he had been so stupid to forget that Sango lived a good eight miles away from him. That wouldn't have been a factor except the fact that he didn't own a car. Not to mention, it had started raining ten minutes ago and it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon.
What he'd do for love.
No wonder he tried so hard in the past to avoid it. What a pain.
Barely avoiding a speeding car and getting splashed by a wave of gutter water, Miroku briskly crossed the crosswalk, although not before giving the one finger salute to the driver.
It was a wonder that he even knew the way to Sango's place. He was usually terrible at directions and regularly ended up getting lost. But it sort of made sense. After all, if Sango could make him just drop the system that he'd followed diligently for three years, she could probably have instilled in him, some sort of sense of direction.
It was amazing really, now that he looked back on it. She wasn't even the type of girl that he was attracted to. In other words, she wasn't easy or particularly busty. In fact, the first time they'd met, she had slapped him. Hard too.
He remembered how shocked he was when she finally agreed to go on a date with him. How nervous he had been that day. So scared that something would go wrong and that he would completely blow his chance. That'd never happened before. Being around her had just opened the floodgates that had held in his emotions.
He remembered the day he finally told her about his past. How happy, ecstatic even, he felt when she didn't run away from him or pull away, and instead threw her arms around him and gave him the tightest embrace he'd ever experienced.
Miroku hadn't been born here originally. He wasn't really quite sure where he had lived until he was sixteen. Some city or other.
He was born motherless and with a heart defect that had almost killed him. His mother had died during childbirth and he lived in a single bedroom apartment with his father. When he was nine, his heart finally gave out. Alive only with the help of the many machines and tubes connected to him, he was meant to die. There was almost no chance of an implant arriving in time to save him.
In a last act of desperation, his father had committed suicide to save him. It worked, and Miroku was given his father's heart. But because of this, he was left without parents and was shipped off to an orphanage.
Isolated and alone because of his sickness, even though he had been pronounced "cured", he had runaway when he was twelve. However, roaming the streets of the city proved to be dangerous, for just a week after he left the orphanage, he was attacked and mugged of what little money he had on him. Left with only a picture of his mother and father and a sizeable stab wound on the palm of his right hand, he made due with the small amount of money he managed to acquire from searching the alleys for lost change. When that wasn't enough, he had to resort to pick-pocketing.
Unable to receive help from a hospital, the wound on his palm remained unhealed and was only wrapped with a piece of cloth he had found dangling on a laundry line. Finally, Miroku was forced to join a religious cult which clothed and fed him. His injury was treated, but by then, a hole had formed that refused to go away. He decided to keep the cloth wrapped around his hand in order to hide it.
It was from the cult that Miroku learned about sex. It was believed there, that by having sex with many others, they were expressing God's love. That there was nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it was practiced in love, whatever it was, or whoever it was with, no matter who, or what age or what relative or what manner.
Of course, even then, Miroku knew that that was a bunch of bullshit, but he needed them to survive and so he followed their way of life. He ignored the pained screams that were heard as he passed by closed doors. He accepted whatever the members handed him, whether it was within a glass bottle or rolled up and set on fire. He even agreed to "sharing", in which children as young as 5 were offered up by other members as sexual partners to adult followers.
Miroku considered himself luckier than a lot of the girls, but he still lost his virginity when he was thirteen to a forty year old woman. Slowly, his sense of morality deteriorated. By the time he was fourteen he had bedded over a hundred women, not all of them within the cult that he had slowly accepted as his family.
Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, the group was disbanded when they were reported to the police. The majority of the members were charged on counts of rape, sexual abuse of minors, and distributing drugs and alcohol to children.
Shipped off to various foster families, Miroku kept on living the lifestyle that he had been taught. Each time the people that he lived with wised up to his actions, off he went to yet another family that was (as he considered them) stupid enough to let him into their life.
Finally, a month before his sixteenth birthday, an old monk took him in. For reasons that he couldn't explain, he felt a connection with him that he hadn't expected. The monk became his father and he became the son. He still liked to sleep around, but he practiced less frequently. Two months later he stopped completely. That was when Sango came.
Sure, he tried to keep having sex, but it just wasn't possible. It disinterested him to a point that the idea just bored him, really. He knew this wasn't normal, after all, he was a testosterone filled male. Finding sex boring wasn't right. At the age of 16, it was supposed to be what his life rotated around.
When he turned eighteen, he received a letter that he had inherited a few thousand dollars from his mother's will, something that he had never expected or even heard about. With the money, he was able to go to college, something he'd never really thought possible along with the checks he received from all the odd jobs he worked. By then, of course, he had begun dating Sango, which made him feel like he was walking through a mine field. One wrong step…
Miroku really didn't know what attracted him to Sango. Maybe it was the thrill of the chase, a challenge. Maybe there was just something in her eyes that had sparked his interest before she had hit him in that diner. Or maybe five hundred years ago, Sango had buried his dead body and now it was his turn to thank her for the favor. But whatever the reason, he found himself digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole. A hole which may soon become his grave.
Shivering, Miroku was forced to take refuge in a convenience store. Rummaging through his pockets, he wisely bought an umbrella before stepping back into the rain, which was mercifully starting to let up.
As he passed the diner where he had first met Sango, he stopped for a moment to reminisce. The memory was painful, both in a metaphorical and a literal sense. He had groped her, and in return, received a hard slap to the face. Maybe that was what drew her to him.
Luckily for him, passing the diner meant that Sango's apartment was only a few blocks away. Breaking into a run, he found himself climbing up the squeaky stairs leading to the door of the woman he hoped to win back.
Pounding on the door and panting heavily, Miroku didn't even bother to fold up his umbrella.
When the door finally did open, Miroku was surprised to be staring into the tear-stained face of Sango. After three weeks of no contact, he had expected that she wasn't exactly grieving over their fight. He was even more surprised when she slammed the door in his face.
Blinking rapidly and staring blankly at the door, it took a few moments for the realization of what just happened to sink in.
At the sight of him, Sango, who he loved with all his heart, had slammed the door in his face without an explanation or a reason.
And that hurt him. He'd walked eight miles to get to her place IN THE RAIN, only to be rejected without so much as a chance to speak.
But that just made him more determined. Practically breaking her door, he pounded with all his strength. When that didn't work, he slid down and sat on the ground, his back against the door. He didn't care how long it would take; he wasn't leaving from that place until Sango let him in.
Unbeknownst to him, Sango was in the same exact position as him on the other side of the door. Together, they stayed there, each not knowing if the other had gone or not.
Finally, after an hour or so, Sango thought it was safe to open the door.
Cautiously twisting the door knob and pulling it towards her, she was shocked to feel something fall against her legs. Looking down, she found Miroku, unconscious, clearly feverish and soaking wet, his open umbrella a few feet away.
Tears quickly filled her eyes as guilt slowly overwhelmed her. Roughly brushing away her tears, Sango hauled Miroku into her apartment, shutting the door after them.
Stripping him of his water-laden clothes, Sango couldn't help but blush when she got to his pants. Even after three years of dating, she'd never gotten so far as seeing him naked and vice versa.
Trying her best not to look, she promptly dressed her in some of her father's clothing that she hadn't had the heart to throw away. Wrapping him in a blanket and laying him in her bed (after throwing away all the used up tissue littering it), she quickly called the doctor. There was no point in taking any risks.
Luckily, the doctor told her that it was only a fever, although a bit high. Some Tylenol and lots of rest and fluids would get rid of it in a few days. However, if his temperature went any higher, it was probably wise to get him to a hospital.
After the doctor left, Sango sat next to Miroku on the bed. He still hadn't woken up, but it didn't look like he was getting any worse.
But very soon, a rather large problem came up.
As a student still in college, Sango was limited to either a crowded dorm room, or a small, rundown, but solitary apartment. She, like any privacy seeking human-being chose the apartment.
Too bad the apartment didn't turn on the heat until deep into February, and it was only the middle of November.
Realizing this too late Sango was given two options. Send Miroku to the hospital, or provide that warmth he needed…
By sleeping very, very close to him.
It was a good thing a fever wasn't contagious.
What did I tell you? SO SOAP OPERA-Y! ARGH IT BURNS!
But I couldn't really find another reason why Miroku was having sex prior to 16 and I wasn't about to completely change all of my chapters (too lazy for that), so there you have it. I got most of my facts from an article I read in People magazine.
Also, I didn't know what city Miroku and Sango should be living in, or what continent for that matter (although Japan isn't really a continent...)
And, I don't know if a fever is an illness, or a symptom, but I couldn't come up with any other sickness that wasn't very contagious.
So, I hope this chapter wasn't too blechy. I'm not one for angst, especially angst in third-person. Oh well.
Anyways, before I forget, it's time to...
THANK THE REVIEWERS-
Lily Thorne: Hehehe, half-baked, one of my favorite adjectives. And I decided to re-do the second chapter because it wasn't making much sense that Sango would just say no to Miroku's proposal for no known reason, so I added a reason. Anyways, thanks for reviewing and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Death Boo: Thanks for catching that. Because of your review, I had something to explain in this chapter, but let me tell you, it took a while to think of a fairly reasonable explanation. Hope that clears up your questions, although a religious cult based on sex is a bit iffy...
lilykt7: Thanks! I was a bit worried that Naraku was out of character, as well as Sango, so I'm glad you think they're realistic!
Inuyashasgirl4eva333: Thank you very much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well.
HorridlyTruthful25: You've got to be kidding! Me? Write good angst? I'm shocked, but good shocked (if that makes any sense). I'm really glad you think this is a good story and I hope this chapter didn't change your feelings for it.
deathskeeper27: Hehe, well, Naraku is a hot piece of ass, no matter how twisted or evil. He's a bishie in a baboon suit! And I needed SOMEONE evil, so I thought, why not?
SanMirLover: , if I get my way, Miroku will beat Naraku up and sweep Sango off her feet, but that's for my fingers to decide. They're the ones typing the chapters and they tend to have a mind of their own.
Marissa: Are you being sarcastic? Or at least joking? I've never been able to write a tear-jerker. I mean, gun to my head, I probably couldn't be able to. Hmmm... well, thank you very much. pats fingers Good fingers, you've done well.
Chocobo Obsessed: Wait... are you the Iris who reminds me to update The Hormonal Ups and Downs, or another one? But anyways, I completely agree. DIE NARAKU YOU EVIL BISHIE! MUHAHAHAHA!
Dark Ashley20: Thanks very much! I'm glad you liked it. I've never been one to be able to handle very angsty stories, so I'll trust your judgement! Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
CybrIdolMink: . Thanks! I'll try my best. I don't like it when stories start out great then start sucking, so I'll be sure not to let that happen, but who knows, after all, it's my finger's job, not mine.
Well, that's all of them. Do tell me if I should continue or just drop dead (although not using those exact words of course). Hoped you enjoyed this chapter!