Paper Flowers
By ReverberatingSilence
Chapter One Shot

Disclaimer I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters used.

Paper Flowers

The smiled caused her eyes to burn, her face to ache, her body to go numb. It was a lie, this smile of hers. It was fake, something that should never be. But, yet there it was. It was a smile that she hadn't felt on her face in years. It was a smile of pain, of suffering, of hidden secrets longing to be let out. It was her smile.

There were very few times that she would smile anymore. She never felt the need to smile. Never felt excepted or loved. If neither of those existed, what point was there to smile? She had forgotten the feeling of love. She had been betrayed, and her heart had grown cold.

There was no need to smile.

The numbness inside herself was not welcoming, but she had grasped it. She had held onto it in a fleeting hope that someone else would see it and save her. But as time went on, she was left there. There was nothing but snow and darkness. She could see the tainted red corners in her mind and idly wondered when it would all be black.

All the pain and anguish, she had begun to doubt it once. Was she really feeling this? Was she really in pain? Or did she just make that up as an excuse for rejection? Did she not truly feel the torment inside of her? She laughed at that thought.

There was real pain.

For so long she doubted all that she felt. She doubted her mind, her eyes, her heart, her thoughts…everything. Nothing was real. Her family was dead, her friends were dead, it was just her and the snow. Her and the blood. Her and the edging blackness ready to take over.

She loved the black. She waited for it. Once she was off square one, once she had accepted her sorrow she waiting for the darkness. But it wouldn't come. This pain she felt continued to haunt her as the red grew deeper and richer. It looked like beautiful roses. Beautiful black and red roses in a field of glass and paper.

She was drawn to this field, drawn by the aching in her heart just to be accepted. She had told everyone what she felt. Her eyes spoke it. Her mind spoke it. Her heart spoke it. Even her body spoke it! But no one had once taken the time to actually see if she was OK. No one noticed the pain and the hurt, no one said sorry, no one tried to help.

No one.

She felt the tears now. The ice cold tears that caused her to shiver. She brushed them away angrily and looked down at her scissors, cutting away at her beautifully colored paper. This was her outlet, the only person who talked to her, who listened to her. Her lovely paper.

Night after night she would cut with her paper, she would fold it, she would rip it. No matter what she did to her paper, it would always be there to help. Her paper loved her. And she loved her paper. But paper was growing tiresome and she wanted someone to talk back. She wanted arms around her. She wanted someone to whisper into her ear that everything was going to be alright. She wanted someone to talk of sky blues and yellows, of pinks and greens. But all she got was her red and black paper. Her paper didn't help her, it just accepted her and helped her stay sorrowed.

All she wanted was to feel loved.

So out of place, that's how she always felt. There was no where for her to go. No one was like her, and no one accepted her as she came. She had two homes, but no real place of belonging. She had no where, no one…she was all alone. She was hurt. She was hateful. She was sad, she was longing. Just to hear someone say she was beautiful, just to hear someone say she was accepted and true. That's all she wanted. She wanted to have a normal life, she wanted to be like her friends.

But she never would be. She would always be alone. Always be in the darkness, always be trapped. Her little corner in the life she had lived was growing smaller, but that's the only place she belonged. None of her friends had ever tried to save her, so why would they care if she never got up again?

The sound of silence echoed around her, and suddenly she was afraid. Why was it so quite? It echoed around her, bouncing off the walls, screaming into her ear like chalkboards against nails. She whimpered and began to cut faster, listening as the blades hit the paper, crunching through the silence. But it wasn't enough.

Scared. Panicked. She ran to her lamp and picked it up, ripping the cored out of the wall. She let out a wail and threw it against the ground, listening as the shards hit the floor and made the silence run away. She smiled, as she walked across the glass, listening to it crunch beneath her feet.

Silence was not a friend, silence meant you were alone, silence meant death. But it was not silent anymore, it was loud, it was cracking. There was noise around her, and she was alive. She smiled. When the silence was gone, she was not alone. She was ok.

She looked down at the glass beneath her red tainted feet. She looked as her blood slid down the glass shards and she thought of lovely red roses in a field of flowers. They were beautiful, and she fell into them, breathing in their lovely scent.

She never knew roses smelled like blood.

She looked at the abandoned scissors and the beautiful flowers she had created. Lovely black and red flowers spewed across her bed. There had to be so many of the flowers. She smiled again. Why did her friends matter? They never loved her! They didn't like her! But her flowers loved her, and she loved them. Quietly. Too quietly. She stood up and walked to the flowers, gathering them in her arms.

They cut into her skin, the rough ends of the paper and the corners digging into her flesh. She didn't feel the pain. She just pressed the large bouquet to her nose and inhaled, savoring the scent that wasn't there.

Blood dripped from her arm and back onto the glass, sending shivers down her spine. She loved her roses. Her beautiful glass roses and paper flowers. She dropped the flowers in and mixed them around with her roses, cutting herself in the process.

Her hands bled out red, her hands made the roses come to life. She smiled at her work. She smiled at the lovely flower garden she had arranged.

She loved flowers.

Suddenly a knock came at her window and she knew exactly who it was. Smiling triumphantly, she went to open the window and impress him with her lovely flowers. She knew he wouldn't care, he hated her. But that didn't matter, for her flowers were beautiful and that was all that matter. Her flowers were everything she wanted to be.

Suddenly, she felt like she should hate her flowers. They were what she longed to be. Everyone loved flowers! But no one loved her. She wanted to be loved, but could never be. She tried to be loved, did things that would make people love her. Yet no one loved her, everyone hated her. Yet all flowers did was sit there, sit there and look pretty. And everyone loved them. Everyone loved flowers. Everyone hated her.

There was a knock again and she opened the window with her false, dark, lying smile. He was there, and he had an angry look. He always had an angry look. Suddenly, the angry look was gone when she smiled at him. She smiled wider, and his eyes grew wider with the smile.

He jumped into her room and carefully took her hands, looking at them in worry. He looked back up at her and found her still smiling. She led him over to the center of her room and pointed. "Isn't my garden beautiful, Inuyasha?"

He looked at her and then the flowers, and then back at her. She figured he thought they were pretty too. After all, everyone loved flowers.

Everyone hated her.

Her smiled dropped. He loved the flowers! But she wanted him to love her. Why did everyone hate her, and not the flowers? Even she loved the flowers! She looked at her roses again, her dripping red roses. She loved them with all her heart, they were her only friends. Yet they had hundreds of millions of friends all over the world. She hated them, yet she loved them.

He looked back at her and studied where she was bleeding. Her face, her arms, her feet, her knees, her hands. What had she been doing? "Kagome…what's wrong?"

She smiled again and looked back at him. Quietly. Too quietly. Deafeningly silent. That's all she heard as she approached him, looked at him, placed her hand on his cheek. "Nothing is wrong anymore. Everything is beautiful, just like my flowers."

He drew back from her, eyes wide and scared. She had scared him? Was she that repulsive? So repulsive that he didn't even dare to be touched by her? She balled her hands into fists, causing more blood to flow between her fingers and drip onto the rich carpet below her.

She looked down, closing her eyes, forcing the tears away. He would not make her cry. She would never cry for him. She looked back up at him and walked over to her garden. She stood in the middle of it, trying to find peace. And she almost did. But he was still there. Tiredly, she looked at him, digging her feet into the roses below her.

"You know I love you right?" she mumbled, and he looked at her oddly. "Yup, I love you with all I ever was. But, I'm nothing now. You think that. You hate me, like everyone else. I don't know why I bothered with love. Why love when you're not loved back?"

"Kagome…" he took a few steps towards her, and she backed farther into her field.

"No! Don't tell me all those lies. I know you love flowers, just like everyone else. I love flowers too! I loved you more. I loved you so much! But you hated me, you hate me. Hate me…" She smiled when a few tears did leak out. "But you love flowers, and so do I. That's the closest I'll ever get of your love right?"

"No, Kagome…listen to me." He took a few steps into the field, trying not to wince as his feet brushed against flowers and sunk into roses. She stepped back. "Kagome, listen to me. Don't think like that. You are loved!"

"By who?" was her response. "Who loved me other than roses and flowers?"

All she wanted was love.

Inuyasha finally got to her, and wrapped his arms around her. "Kagome, I love you."

"No you don't. You love flowers. You hate me." Kagome mumbled against his chest, crying openly. Inuyasha shook his head and made her look up at him.

"I do love you, with all of my heart. Why do you think I'm here?" still she didn't believe him. "Kagome, every flower on this earth can burn and never grow back, just as long as I can still see you."

Kagome whimpered and kept crying. She cried into his chest and wrapped her arms around his back. He was just saying that to make her come back with him. He loved flowers. She loved flowers. If all the flowers in the world burned she would die too.

She would die too.

He wanted her to die! When the flowers withered away, she would go with them. He knew that. And life would be better for him if she died. Quickly, she pulled away from him and stared up in fear and hurt. He looked bewildered, like he knew nothing. But she was not that stupid, she knew he hated her.

Quietly, too quietly, deafeningly silent. The room was too quiet, she wanted to scream. She wanted sound. So, she made sound. She fell down to her knees onto her beautiful roses. The flowers and roses cut into her flesh and she giggled. They were welcoming her. The flowers loved her.

She picked up some of the roses, making them redder and more lifelike. She loved how she could do this. And the roses would help her one last time. She lifted them to her neck and buried her nose in them. They cut into her ears. Into her nose. Her lips. Her eyes. Her neck. She looked back up with a smile. He looked down in horror.

"Aren't they beautiful, Inuyasha?"

So uh…I decided to write this after writing the chapter "Paper Flowers" for Music in the Night. Heh, defiantly darker than that story. It was just an idea that was half in my head and half…well, in some song I wrote. So I made it. Let me know what you think, I would love reviews.

Obediently Yours,
R.S.