Memory' Moon: Again And Again
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He hadn't meant to give her a place in his heart.
In his thoughts, perhaps, but his heart?
How does someone take up residence in a heart that isn't there?
"Sesshoumaru-sama!"
The sheer cheeriness of the kitsune's eternally youthful voice, thankfully not as high-pitched as it had been in his second century, was nevertheless enough to grate on his already frayed nerves- especially since it was about the seventh evening hour and he had been plagued all day, ever since he returned from the shrine, with thoughts of self-castigation over the odd attachment he now harbored towards the miko. "Whatever it is, I don't want to know," he said in a level voice, inordinately proud of his self-control. "Remove your presence from my sight- at least until the tenth hour. Go!"
Eyes the color of fresh spring grass twinkled at him impiously. "Buuuuut, Sesshoumaru-sama!" Shippou whined loudly, skipping around as if he had too much joy in his veins to not bounce off the walls. If youkai had been susceptible to the lures of human drugs, the lord would have ordered an immediate purging of his household, but the kitsune's eternal enthusiasm was, sadly, a product of his effervescent personality, and could not be 'cold turkey'ed out of him. "You'll never guess who I met today at my shop! Guess!"
He didn't need to guess. The fox reeked of her pure scent as if he had rolled in a field of mint that smelled of her. "Did the miko recognize you?" he inquired distantly, and tried not to hope that she did. Her part in his humdrum existence was over, after all. Except for a shard here and there, sleeping in the farthest reaches of Japan as they had been so far content to do, she had nothing more to do with them, any of them, no matter what that fool ookami might think to presume. The duty that Shinta had entrusted to him- first to the guardianship of his daughter's destiny, and secondly to his estranged mate- well, they would have to wait until he felt like approaching their damnable household again.
Shippou bounced to a halt before his lord and cocked his head, eyes oddly piercing as if he could read his master's mind. Which the little devil probably could, given that he was usually privy to Sesshoumaru's moods and had been tirelessly worrying at the tangled puzzle of the inuyoukai's mentality ever since he was a kit barely fifty years old, over five hundred years past. "Nooooo." But the laughter remained in his eyes. "Of course she wouldn't. It's been so long- and Inuyasha did say she forgot everything anyway… that's fine by me, 'Kaasan's still 'Kaasan. How about you, Sesshoumaru-sama?" he inquired slyly, giving up all pretense of being cute in favor of needling his lord.
'His lord' was not amused. "And why would I want the miko to remember me?"
A finger waggled imprudently in the air, dangerously close to his nose. "Be-cause! You've been waiting for her all this time, haven't you? If not, you wouldn't have stayed here with the rest of us-"
He slapped the offending digit away none too gently, scowling thunderously. "I remained here with the pathetic lot of you," he spat, "because you would have gotten yourselves in trouble otherwise, being the morons you are. There is no other reason."
It didn't sound very convincing even to himself, and Shippou's grin never wavered- if anything, it grew in size until it looked as if someone had slit the corners of his mouth to allow his muscles to stretch so widely. "If you say so, Sesshoumaru-sama," the kitsune said cheekily, stuck the injured finger into his mouth, and bounced out, still grinning.
For some time, there was silence, blessed silence. But Sesshoumaru's tense shoulders did not relax; there was still one other in the room, who never left until her part was done.
"…Kanna thinks so too," the familiar quiet voice spoke up finally, and the abyss youkai walked unhurriedly out, for once not offering to show him images of the Higurashi household as she normally did.
Even the pups were turning on him now.
He smoothed his scowl away with impatient fingers, struggling to regain some semblance of his fabled self-control. Unfortunately, having to carry the miko to her bed and sooth her all the while had shot it all to hell- he would not be asserting any of his self-control anytime soon.
Who knew that a little girl-child, teetering on the cusp of womanhood, could effect so deadly a poison upon his immovable spirit? Her presence spread like sweet sickness through his thoughts, until he was plagued with thoughts of her throughout the day. As it was, he dared not sleep for fear of allowing less dispassionate thoughts to lure him into impropriety.
"Oi, inuyarou!"
The Lord of the Western Lands lowered his hand from his temples, thin lips stretching in a cruel smile.
"Kouga."
What a perfect distraction.
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"You went and mouthed off to Sesshoumaru again? Damn, yaseookami, I thought you learnt your lesson the last time!" Inuyasha greeted his long-time rival less than graciously as he strode into the den-like room with its tribal furnishings, where Kouga had retreated to lick his wounds in peace.
The 'yaseookami' in question growled irritably at the hanyou who had sunk himself into a comfortable seiza position on a stray mound of furs. "I was going to ask him about my woman, kuso inukoro! How was I supposed to know he'd be in such a shitty mood?" Kanna 'accidentally' yanked the bandage she was tying, face blandly innocent as if she hadn't just made the wolf ex-prince yelp like a singed pup. "Yow! Don't do that, wench!"
She 'accidentally' yanked again, making him wince. Those deceptively delicate hands were strong, even for a youkai. "A sufficiently tight bandage is required for optimum effect," she murmured calmly, fixing the knot with practiced ease. "In any case, did Shippou not tell you all you wished to know about Kagome-sama?"
Fangs caught the light in an unhappy snarl that lifted lips from teeth. "He didn't tell me anything worth knowing. But the brat said that the inuyarou would know…" Inuyasha gave him a dubious look as he crouched in a spill of baggy cargo pants and loose shirt, shorn pale hair falling in sharp straight ragged locks around his centuries-aged face. Even for hanyou, who aged slightly faster than full youkai, age was a slow thing, and five hundred years had added depth, not lines, to his eternally youthful countenance. But the sudden bedevilment in his tawny eyes held all the centuries he had experienced, and Kouga's burning azure eyes were quick to take offense. "OI! Stop looking at me like that, ugly mutt," the wolf snarled, baring still-sharp white teeth again, only to twitch sharply as Kanna slathered neutralizing salve onto a large burn on his shoulder.
"Sesshoumaru knowing anything about Kagome? The wimp hasn't been out of this house ever since he took a walk a dozen years ago." The hanyou's nose wrinkled slightly at the memory- or it might have been the pungent scent of the salve reacting loudly with the acid-poison in Kouga's wounds. "That's, like, the only time he's ever been out of here. His only window to the world is Kanna's mirror- like he'd know more than she does!" Inuyasha chuckled darkly. "Shippou was shitting you out, yaseookami. Go and smack him for information."
Lowering his gaze with a suddenly pensive frown, Kouga sighed loudly. "Ehhh. Go and take a sniff at the inuyarou, inukoro. You might be surprised… he's been getting out recently. At night." Inuyasha gave him an unwillingly revolted look. "Not rutting, but definitely at night, and… you gotta go smell him yourself."
When it looked as if no further gossip would be forthcoming, Inuyasha flowed to his feet, the punk chains attached to his cargo pants clinking softly. "Feh, fine," he growled, and stomped out, muttering about stupid wolf youkai and equally stupid older half-brothers.
With a distinctly amused air, though there was no change in her serene expression, Kanna picked up a fresh roll of adhesive bandage and pointed imperiously. He rolled onto his stomach without comment, utterly unselfconscious despite his lack of clothing; she had been tending full-body wounds for a long time, longer than he had known her. If Sesshoumaru trusted her to not read too much into an intimate touch, then he, Kouga, could do the same. "Hey, kazaananoko," he said meditatively into the soft darkness, feeling her small hands paste sticky bandage on the fading slash marks over his back. "Tell me again. How is she now?"
Kanna's small smile, out of sight where he could not see, was more felt than seen.
"She is… happy."
----
There was something she had forgotten.
"Mama," she said plaintively, and watched her mother's shoulders tense. "What aren't you telling me?"
Something important.
"There's nothing that I'm telling you that you need to know," the woman said quietly, almost sadly, not turning around from where she was preparing daikon at the sink for soup. "Trust mama on this, dear."
Someone important.
"How about Daddy?" she pressed, not quite succeeding in quashing the hurt whine in her voice. "Don't I need to know?"
Didn't she need to care when people passed her by and in the crowd there would be a flash of joyous recognition, like the emerald-eyed boy who had given her free chocolates yesterday? She wanted to care. She wanted to know why she wanted to care. She needed to know what they saw in her- what they had known about her, and why her heart screamed for her not to forget, not to forget…
Someone she didn't want to forget.
Her mother almost hunched, the knife sliding lifelessly on the chopping board with a soft rustle of flat blade against heavy wood. "If you know about Daddy," Takako almost whispered, "then you know everything you need to know. I can't tell you what you want to hear."
Someone she had left behind anyway.
"I had a dream," Kagome said, and stood with a rustle of cushion and jeans.
No.
"Kagome-"
They had left her behind, hadn't they?
"I have to go to school."
Hadn't they?
Her side burned as she fled into Tokyo's seething people-filled embrace, and the moisture in her eyes might have been moonshine made real.
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A/N: Writing this felt a little… surreal. The timeline was ok- K comes after S, take it chronologically, I dropped a large hint in there and gave it its own paragraph- but I seem to be jumping writing styles like no one's business. (winces) Maybe I'll improve with time?
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Ok. Translations for the terms I synthed or borrowed from the manga/anime:
Inuyarou- dog bastard (because inukoro was already reserved for Inu, Kouga tagged Sess with a 'step up' from puppy….)
Yaseookami- wimpy wolf
Kuso inukoro- damned puppy
Seiza- (not really a name) The kneeling thing Japanese people do, resting their weight on their lower calves. (FYI, that's what I always see K's family doing; in the first book, there's a picture; their home has a traditional low table, not the high Western style ones.)
Kazaananoko- 'Air Rip Girl' (Or, taken the other way… 'Child of the Wind Hole (ie Abyss)'; in other words, Kouga tagged Kanna with a literal name. )
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Kouga's my man for introducing witty names into the IY Ficverse. Hehehehe. Cower.