Out of Space
It was a warm day, hot enough to make anybody sluggish. Miroku, Sango, Shippou and Kirara were helping out in the village fields, while Kagome and Inuyasha went to the Goshinboku.
Kagome had a pad of paper on her lap, and she was holding something she called a 'pen' in her hand. She said that it was like a brush, but there was no need to replenish the ink for a very long time, and it wrote smoothly. She drew an large circle, and then separated it into different parts.
Some parts she colored aquamarine with a 'marker', and others were lavender and cerise. At the bottom of the paper, she wrote a name which immediately caught Inuyasha's attention, although he had been 'asleep' on a tree branch high above her head.
"Inuyasha, would you like to check my work?" Kagome asked, seeing that he was staring at her foolscap pad.
"What are you doing?" he grunted.
"The teacher in Psychology 101 said that we should pick a person and analyze the way her mind works and what she is usually occupied with. I picked Kikyou," she said, underlining the undead miko's name with a thick black marker.
"And?" Inuyasha shut his eyes.
"Well, I think that sixty percent of her mind was occupied with protecting the Shikon jewel before she passed on," Kagome began. Inuyasha nodded, that seemed right enough.
"Another thirty nine percent was taken up with building up her miko powers, traveling to exterminate demons and protecting the people of the village. That's the purple part," Kagome held up the graph for him to see, although his eyes were closed.
"And?" Inuyasha twitched his ears.
"I think that one percent was taken up with caring for Kaede-baachan at that time," Kagome answered calmly.
Inuyasha stared down at her, eyes wide open.
"And then… me?" he asked.
Kagome hesitated.
"I don't know."
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Inuyasha's question was one that no one could answer, not even Kikyou herself.
It was true, there was no space in Kikyou's mind for Inuyasha, or for the pursuit of love and marriage. Hers was the life of a pure miko, and they both knew it, although they fought against it.
But even as her mind was taken up, her heart was, too.
Hidden under layers of ice and shields, there was a space that no one but him occupied. But no one knew that, not even Kikyou.
Least of all Inuyasha.
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A/N: I wonder why I wrote this.
Background info: Kikyou is still hanging around somewhere, although she and Kagome have come to an agreement. Yeah. So. Kikyou is no longer a sore subject.
I feel kinda sorry for those who have me on author alert… this is the third email you've gotten from me today. (For me, that is. I posted two one-shots in the morning, and now I'm posting another, twelve hours later.) So. Thanks for reading.
Remember to review/winks/