Chapter 4: And they traded almost all their secrets under the summer moon.
"We dance around in a ring and suppose,
While the secret sits in the middle and knows."
- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
When he turned her around with a slight nudge, and held her chin in his long, cold fingers, she did not look away.
I can see myself in your eyes, so faraway it seems though.
When he placed his dry mouth over hers and started to suck at her bottom lip gently, she did not refuse him nor move away.
Kiss me, with all your soul if possible.
And when he leisurely pushed her dirtied and dried white haori away from her shoulders, her tearing eyes smiled and she heard the quivering of her well-forged and almost-deadened heart.
Don't leave me, no matter what happens.
As Sesshoumaru left burning red marks all over her body, she trembled and shivered with excitement and fear.
Oh yes, indeed, yes...
"Are you cold?" He looked up from her tingling chest, with his deep brown fringes partially covering his hazy eyes and his hands busy with her bottom.
She shook her head, smiled again and wrapped her legs around a naked him, "No."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
When she rolled over him and started to blow and nip at all the sensitive places, he was surprised. She was no novice, but it did not matter to him.
Nothing really matters, anymore.
When her fingers trailed lightly over the contours of his face, his chest, his stomach and his penis, he stiffened so quick and so hard that he felt a little embarrassed by his human body's reaction.
And this will turn to dust and ashes one day.
Yet she was beyond amused; she was delighted, enthralled and responded with such a fervent, unbridled passion using her lips in a never-before imagined method that he felt as if he was in Heaven.
Don't go, my heart will ache.
And as Kagome slid over him, up and down, slowly and torturously like a soiled, sacred virgin, he could only open his mouth and squeeze his eyes shut in unmentionable pleasures.
No, no don't stop, ever.
"Are you alright?" She asked through half-lidded eyes while she pressed her body down against his; she felt so soft, so good, so yielding and fragile and delicate and shaky-
He opened his eyes and flashed a lazy smile at her blushing face, "No, I'm not alright."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
Under the peering crescent moon, he and she made love to each other, again and again until they lost count and both bled. Until they dozed off from fatigue with their limbs all entwined around each other, until they have memorized every curve, every dip and every unique spot of each other's bodies and until they tire of each other.
And then the cycle repeats itself.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
"Tell me a secret about yourself," Kagome lay on his spread-out kimono with her arms under her damp head.
Sesshoumaru smiled; he never felt this glorious even though perspiration and dirt were all over his body. "What do you want to know?"
She didn't look away from the cold, faraway moon, and asked wispily, "Any secret."
He thought for a while, and told her about Rin; all the things that he wished he could have done for her, the things he could have said to her then, and the things she had taken away from him. How ashamed, regretful and wretched he felt for doing all the things that hurt his little ward.
She silently listened to him with a clouded and leaden heart, and thought of the things that Inuyasha had stolen away from her too. So many promises exchanged, but none of them fulfilled; so many harsh words said, but none of them forgotten.
When he was done, emptied and lighter, she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest, "Ssshh. My turn."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
Under the hot summer moon, they fill up each other's lives with their secrets; old and threadbare stuff hidden so deep and so long that sometimes that they burst out laughing on their own. And sometimes, they silently weep for each other and for themselves. Most of the time, they store each other's treasured secrets secretly in the dark chambers of their own memory-vaults.
And they do not stop, for they no longer could.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
"When I was young, I encountered a bear youkai who wanted to eat me up. So I challenged him because I was taught to do so and I asked him for the reason before I took out its heart. Guess what did he said?"
She pursed her lips as she laid spread-eagled over his naked back, "Hmmm... To take your position?"
He shook his head and replied as solemnly as he could, "He said that I was cute."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
"I once dated a man more than once."
He opened one eye and looked down on her head of black hair, "And?"
She thought of the way Houjou would leave his glasses on the floor before they went to bed, "He committed suicide when I rejected his marriage proposal for the fifth time, and I didn't attend his funeral."
He then subsequently silenced her with his mouth and tasted salt in her kisses. It stung him, badly.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
He leaned against her thin back and looked at the messily-strewn stars in the sky, "I killed my own mother."
Her lips parted, but she made no noise, "Why?"
He absentmindedly fingered the hilt of Tenseiga and replied sadly, "Because she was pregnant with another."
She squeezed his human hand tight, and he squeezed back.
"Don't miss them," she closed her eyes and answered bravely for him.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
"Let me tell you my biggest secret!" She smiled into his warm cheek.
He doubted that it was a big one, "Ah."
She whispered into his ear and giggled, "I'm thirty this year!"
He whispered back into her ear with no smiles, "I'm somewhere near a thousand this year."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
He drew lazy circles on her breast while she squirmed like a little eager child, "Let me tell you another secret."
She arched her back like a well-oiled bridge while he pulled out and slammed into her again, "Hn..."
"I think, being a human is not too bad," if I get to meet you then, and looked into her once-grieving stormy eyes.
She rested her fingers lightly on his chin and looked back into his very-human confused eyes, "Hn," I think so too.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
She covered herself with his kimono and thought that his body was so very warm and firm and strong, "Remember Kikyou?"
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on her head, "The undead one."
She let out a bitter smile and thought of that day when she was in her memories, under the lake while she was pouring the holy soil back into her gaping, widening wound, and seeing Inuyasha in his younger days through her eyes; it hurt her a lot.
"I don't hate her, but in my heart, I secretly wished that she would die, together with that part of my soul that she'd taken."
He ran his fingers through her long, mussed hair and closed his eyes, "I sent her back with my left hand."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
Under the feeling-less and unmerciful july moons, with fireflies swarming around their spent out, worn out and fulfilled bodies, they gave part of their hearts to each other. Silent, unbidden vows were exchanged and a covenant of faith was established between them. However, both kept one secret to themselves, for such was the way of Life.
Humans thrive on secrets, and secrets in turn mushroom on their greediness and selfishness.
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
Kagome looked down on her sandaled feet as she continued to quietly follow in his footsteps. She wondered what his response would be if she told him i that one last /i secret. Shocked? Surprised? Angry? Rejecting? Disgusted?
Or... happy?
She frowned to herself a little, and chewed on her lower lip.
Sesshoumaru could feel the flies of tension hovering behind his back and stopped while he looked back over his shoulder, "Kagome?"
She lifted her head and flashed a genuine, cheerful smile at him, "I just feel a little tired."
And at that sudden exuberant expression, he was half-taken aback at what he had done to her; the other half was rejoicing at its gain.
Clouds of guilt vanished in his clear eyes of mahogany and he decided that he would not tell her his one last secret, for fear that he might lose her and himself in the process. "We are reaching there soon, just behind that small hill. Bear with it for a while more."
She merrily nodded, as if she was drunk on him and followed with an equally heavy heart. She should not have told him all her secrets and left one behind. The burden of it was pulling her down into the dark depths of misery and she might have to wallow in it for as long as-
He held her hand, and continued to walk ahead while his mind switched to the unlit and esoteric side. He would have to undo this change in him; humanity was not something that he really desired, no matter what Kagome may feel or think.
She looked up to his side-profile, and the woeful gloominess vapourized as she saw him settled down into a thinking mode.
Everything will be fine, she told herself.
"Konnichiwa!" Kagome smiled a little and bowed at the monk who happened to past them by, with a weird expression fixed on his face.
Was it because she was wearing a tattered miko attire? Or was it because she was holding a man's hand? Or was it because-
"You."
Both of them looked at the outstretched bony finger that was pointing towards him.
Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, tilted his chin up and slid his fingers under the hilt of Tenseiga; Kagome froze a little at the sudden stillness of air in between the two males.
The aged monk adjusted the straw hat on his head and looked up to the stern, imperceptible Sesshoumaru, "You, are under a curse."
: - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
Their secrets lay in between them, like an unbreakable bridge that bonded the both of them together.
They decided that, their last secrets would probably follow them to their graves.
My Christmas gift to all of you. D
If anyone of you feels kind enough, pls give me my christmas present in the form of reviews. And no, I won't tell you what their last secrets are. But if you guys notice carefully... oh well. P
Many thanks to Parsnip for looking through this.