Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
If You Come Softly
.:One:.
Inuyasha was a demon. He could feel it. And in Fort Greene, Brooklyn - where everyone seemed to be some type of demon - he felt good walking through the neighborhood.
But one step outside. Just one step and somehow the weight of his blood seemed to change. It got heavier.
Hanyous-well, yeah-sometimes he caught himself making fun of them. But everybody laughed. Everybody ragged on everybody. Those same brothers-shoot!-they'd be getting on him just as hard. His friend - Miroku-messed-up name - Mama's human and daddy's demon, but he swears he's all demon. Some days they'd be shooting hoops and Miroku'd just start going off on how much of a demon Inuyasha was. Nothing mean in it. It was all just the way they acted around each other. Sometimes they got to laughing so hard, tears would be running down their faces. Laughing and pointing and trying to come up with something else funny to say. It was like that. When Inuyasha and his boys were just hanging out, he just was. The way they all were. Some hanyous, some quarter demons, even a couple quarter humans- just hanging out and laughing. Those times, he felt free - like he was free inside his skin. Like he could celebrate it -throw his arms way out and grin.
Sometimes, he'd remember is grandma, a long time ago before the cancer took her - the way she'd make him sit inside. Don't want you to get anymore demon in you, she'd say. He was little then and going back and forth between down south and Brooklyn. He didn't know anything back then. Back then, it was just his mama and daddy kissing him good-bye at the airport, Mama holding his hand so tight and for so long that he got embarrassed, then some stewardess taking his hand and sitting him right up front where she could keep a good eye on him like his mama had asked her to do. He remembered air-plane wings, a pair of silver ones that a pilot gave him and his first whole meal on a little white plastic dish. There was always cake on the plane, real sweet cake, the kind his mama never let him eat at home. And then he'd fall asleep and be down south, and his grandma would be there waiting, already crying. She always cried when she saw him - cried and laughed all at once. Inuyasha smiled, remembering how he used to sink into her heavy arms and be surrounded by the smell of her rose-petal lotion.
That was a long time ago.
Inuyasha palmed his basketball in his left hand and held it straight out in front of him. He stared at it a moment then dribbled it three quick times against the curb. He wished his grandmother was still alive so he could tell her - that it wasn't a bad thing. That you couldn't get too much demon in you. He remembered the time his father had taken him to see a film about the Demon Panthers - all those demons and their fist raised in the air. Inuyasha smiled. He wished his grandmother had heard them shouting Demons are one. But she hadn't. She had believed what she said - that a person could get too much demon in them. The same way his father believed it when he said, Yash, you're a demon. You're a warrior. But where was the fight? He used to winder. Where was the war. But now he knew, the war was all around him. It was people and commercials trying to make him feel like he didn't even matter, trying to make him think there's something wrong with being a demon.
And now, on the basketball court he always felt how much of a demon he was. It seemed as though he left his body and jogged over to the sidelines to watch himself. He saw the quads flexing under his thighs, saw his arms reaching out for the ball, the way his calves moved as he flew down the court. He hated that he was going to be playing for Shikon Academy. No, it wasn't the game he hated, he loved that, had always loved that, couldn't remember a time when he didn't love the feel of the ball against his palms. But he hated that he would be playing it for Shikon. At pre-season practice, he'd look up sometimes and see all those faces surrounding him. All those humans. Yeah, there was Koga and Shippo, they were demons. Different though. Koga and Shippo came from a different world. Koga lived in the Albany Houses out in Brownsville. Shippo lived in Harlem. Yash frowned. He didn't want to be a snob.
I've been around the world he thought. I've been to India and Mauritius and Mexico. I'm different because if it. Different from them. Different from a lot of people-demons and humans.
And he knew what was coming this winter-his first season on the team. He knew he'd look out and see more humans. Hundreds of them, cheering him and Shikon Academy on. It seemed wrong, cliché somehow. Why couldn't he have loved tennis? Why hadn't someone stuck a racket or a golf club in his hand? Not like there was a golf course or tennis court anywhere near him-well, Fort Greene Park had courts, but you needed a permit and a partner. Basically you needed to know something about the game before you could get it together to go there. And when he was real little, nobody was making a running leap for the tennis courts. But there was always some ball being played somewhere, a group pf guys getting together in the park, someone setting an empty trash can on the curb for free throws, a fire escape ladder hanging down from somewhere with the rungs spaced just far enough apart for a basket ball to fit through.
People were always telling him what beautiful eyes he had. Even strangers. Girls mostly. His eyes were a bright amber, almost gold in color. He thought-had always thought-m they looked strange against his tan skin. Sometimes he'd stare at himself in the mirror and wondered whether or not he was good looking. Yeah, he knew girls checked him out all the time-but the pickin's were slim in Fort Greene, so they were probably just feeling desperate. But sometimes, looking in that mirror, he had no idea who he was or why he was in this world.
And now, on top of everything, he had met a girl.
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