K/S. In order to complete his revenge for Inuyasha, Sesshômaru kidnaps Kagome and does something unforgivable to her. When she is at last returned to her companions, however, Kagome is surprised to find that, rather than feeling hatred towards Sesshômaru, she now can't stop thinking about him…
Disclaimer: I swear I'll stop trying to blackmail Takahashi-sensei into giving me Inuyasha. Really. Truly. :x
Notes: xD Well. I updated, due to one email sent by a reviewer...whom I don't know the name of...but that's ok..._;;; You know who you are. ^_~
Rating: PG-13
BittersweetBy shinsetsu no kokoro
Chapter Five
Sesshômaru was bored.
The feeling had crept up on him slowly, caught him unawares, and was now refusing to leave. And he didn't like that at all.
His claws tapped restlessly at the tabletop, and his golden eyes narrowed slightly in frustration. Nothing was improving his mood of boredom today...not terrorizing the humans, nor winning a new piece of land...nothing.
"Yansen!" he barked out suddenly, causing the old, wizened demon attendant at the doorway to jump up. "Come here."
The ancient yôkai stumbled over to Sesshômaru and bowed deep, his head nearly touching the ground. "Yes, m'lord?"
On a sudden impulse, Sesshômaru reached out for a delicate vase, one of those ridiculous items the female courtiers liked the place everywhere around his castle, and held it before Yansen. "What do you think of this?"
A look of confusion crossed the other's face. "M...m'lord?"
"I asked you what you thought of the vase," Sesshômaru said, with bite more impatience in his tone. "It requires only a simple answer, fool."
The old demon looked panicked now, scared even. Sesshômaru watched as a thin trickle of sweat rolled slowly down his head, and found it only too easy to imagine the thoughts running through his servant's mind. "Sesshômaru-sama...what I think of it..." he licked his dry lips nervously, then stumbled on, "...it's...it's...fine...I suppose...or..."
"You suppose?" Arching a brow, the taiyoukai gazed coolly at Yansen. Of course, this only caused the attendant to become more flustered.
"Sesshômaru-sama, I mean...I think it's...whatever you think!" Relieved at having come upon a solution at last, Yansen threw himself to the ground. "Your opinion is my opinion, my lord!"
A bubble of irritation rose up in Sesshômaru, popped. He snarled, lifting himself from his chair, and kicked at Yansen. "Get up, you worthless fool." The demon scrambled off quickly for one of his years, looking perfectly content to have ended the encounter. Sesshômaru stared after him for a moment longer, and then strode slowly outside to his grounds. "Do not follow me, Jaken," he shot at the shadowy figure beginning to emerge behind him.
Once outside, the demon lord shook himself. He demanded perfect obedience from all his subjects, and they gave him no less. So why had he become so annoyed by that? The answer, Sesshômaru knew, was simple.
He was bored.
The countless bows, the looks of fear on their faces as he entered a room, the silences, the humbled non-opinions...he no longer found them amusing. Sesshômaru was bored of the dull, gray entities, free of free thought or speech, that he met everyday. He needed something different, some other intelligent being.
And as that thought flitted through his mind, he saw just such a thing walking, hesitantly and with nervous glances and frequent stops, toward him.
*****
I shouldn't be here.
Kagome mentally berated herself with those words, and yet her feet kept going, carrying her down an all-too familiar path through the lush woods. She glanced around nervously, starting at every small noise, but still walking ever closer to her destination. She swallowed around the dry lump in her throat and asked herself once more,
Why am I here?! Because I'm curious? But it was more than that; curiosity alone wouldn't have brought her to this place and to an almost certain death. A twig snapped nearby, and Kagome whirled, only to be confronted with the verdant foliage that surrounded her on all sides. It's more than that...it's...everything.She'd had another fight with Inuyasha. It had started the way they always did, with something stupid and pointless. Kagome had wanted to go to the lake, Inuyasha had wanted to accompany her. As simple as that...and as complicated.
They'd ended with shouting, screaming, hurled insults and cursing...but no tears. Never tears, not anymore. How strange that those same things that had caused her to burst out crying so few months ago now caused no reaction at all. Kagome had stood, feeling strangely aloof and unattached to it all, as Inuyasha shouted at her.
"You stupid wench!! Don't be an idiot, Kagome! You can't go out there all alone! Can't you see that Sesshômaru could—"
He'd stopped then, both of them shocked. No one ever mentioned...him...anymore. Not by name, anyway. They would all know what was being spoken of, but no one ever said his name aloud. It was the first time that Kagome had heard it in all those months since the incident. And it still burnt her.
Inuyasha had whirled around, face reddened, and run back quickly to the others.
And Kagome...Kagome had headed toward Sesshômaru's castle.
So here I am. Her feet crunched on with a steady pace on the thick underbrush. Because of that stupid, stupid fight with Inuyasha. And because of the Feeling.
That was how she thought of it. The Feeling, that strange, steady tug that always pointed her towards the west, towards the castle, towards these woods and that yôkai and the memory that invaded her every waking moment. Kagome closed her eyes, willing herself to turn back right now while she still had a chance at life, but her feet did not respond to her command.
She sighed, trying to enjoy the scenery around her, and finding that impossible. The castle grew larger and larger before her eyes, and her gaze was fixed unmovingly upon it—so intent was she, in fact, that she didn't notice the person before her until she bumped right into the tall form.
Kagome stood stone still, heart in her throat as she stared with a mixture of fear and surprise into the calm, aloof eyes and the finely chiseled features of the familiar face before her.
"Hello," Sesshômaru said.