Little Lies
By Lalieth
Kagome would watch the heartless games her friends played with each other, on each other, once they got to high school; and she would actually smile to herself a sagely little smile. She would imagine to herself that she had been elevated above those things—because she had to be. Kagome did not have time to bat her eyelashes winsomely, or sigh and heave her bosom wistfully. She was too busy slaying demons, patching wounds, and becoming the great miko who would—in the past—kick Naraku's ass, eventually. So, Kagome was above those things.
Kagome was a liar.
Her own heart's disappointment had left her much crueler than she would ever admit, or even recognize. Indeed, she would not have recognized herself at all, if she had really been paying attention. But because she relied on other people's image of herself and because she was such a perfect liar—she was completely in the dark.
So it was that she did not realize the contempt she now felt for Inuyasha and Kouga when they squabbled over her affections; or even for Ginta and Hakkaku when the called her "little sister". I am not from your tribe, she would think, and then without realizing it she would relish in her own small and mean secrets.
When her friends back home asked how she got by without any "romantic entertainment" and inquired if she were seeking comfort from a cold, man-made appliance she would just laugh and wave them off and say: "Don't be silly, you know I don't think of those things." Because she was, after all, above all that.
She was a liar.
But she did not think of any of those things, not her classmates and their schemes or the wolf demons and their idiotic adulation, when she laid perfectly still pretending to be asleep as her little lie snuck out of the hut before dawn.
It should be emphasized at this point that Kagome was not at all a terrible person. When one examines the past few years of her life and uncovers the horrendous mess it had become, it should be clearly understood from where her capacity for duplicity developed. After all, she was leading a double life as though it was perfectly normal, and just about everyone dear to her was wholly aware of the lie and they also accepted it as perfectly normal, for the most part. Hence, it was not long before Kagome would come to blur the line between what is the truth, and what everyone thinks.
And so her purity became the same lie as her school uniform, the chastity the same lie as her excuses, her performance, her future. It was something she tucked under her pillow when the little lie crept into the dark and laid down beside her.
"It's okay that I'm leading this bizarre, secret life," she used to say to herself, "as long as no one knows about it. As long as no one knows I'm his girl."
Kagome rolled over under the covers and tugged at a red string and loosened the opening of a kimono. She mumbled a few phrases along the lines of "I'm glad you came" and "yes, I know, it hurts me too."
Awful, soul-shuddering lies.
"It's okay that I'm leading this bizarre, double life," she said to herself now, "as long as nobody knows I'm her friend. As long as nobody knows I'm her man."
The smell was so similar to her own that it was easily absorbed into her and Inuyasha never noticed it on her hands, in her hair, or between her thighs the next morning. No, only Kagome knew about all those little lies.
One evening however, an incidental event shattered her little delusions once and for all. Shippou was older now but still a child and one evening something somewhere must have frightened him and he bolted into Kagome's hut where she supposedly slept alone. Her companion was able to hide and the kitsune apparently never noticed the other presence. Kagome tried to comfort him sincerely and even gave him a piece of dark chocolate before sending him back to his own bed.
That episode shocked Kagome out of her delirium. She realized that she had gone too far, that she was no longer playing kissing games with a willing companion in the dark, someone who just needed a little attention. She was floundering about in a languid passion, one that was dangerous and had no future. Worse, she had come too close to risking the exposure of the lies she depended on to keep herself together. Not the little lie that laid in her bed, but the other, bigger and more important ones that wrapped her heart in an impenetrable and organdy cloth. So she cut if off with one stroke, literally.
Hours before dawn, she had convinced herself that what she was about to do was for the good of everyone, that it was selfless. She waited until the companion had sought her out and now stood standing very close, peering at her sharply, trying to discern what made her tick but unable to pierce through that cloth. Kagome took a deep breath, and then, drew it in.
The little lie let out a little gasp. "Kagome—wait, why? Kagome! You couldn't!"
"I am sorry, but this really is for the best, for your own good," she lied, "I hate to let you go, but it's time to say goodbye now, and I'm going to need that back."
She watched as the face that had once been hot against her own seemed to lose its color and fade like old paper. She watched ghostly fingers reach out for her in mute supplication and remembered when they had searched across her stomach like cold, anxious little caterpillars, full of fear and little lies, until they dove into the very nest of her own anxiety.
She smiled warmly at the fading apparition with genuine affection. "Poor Kikyou," she said lovingly, "you've walked in this shadowed half-life for too long. It was selfish of me not to do this sooner. Be at peace." With that, she pushed the form that was now nearly transparent with weakness right over the cliff.
Cliffs could be so convenient.
She had done the right thing. She was not cruel or heartless. She was not deceitful and was certainly not the lover of an undead, female, predecessor. She was not alone in this pitiful darkness. She was the miko, Inuyasha's companion and Naraku's enemy. She was a schoolgirl. She was a daughter and a sister. She was a sister of the wolf demon tribes. She was Kagome. She was Kagome. She was Kagome…she was Kagome…she was…