IZON SHŌ
Chapter XLVII
Forty seventh session
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"There is the understandable misconception that happiness is the lack of problems; happiness is the ability to sail between them, while keeping one's harmony."
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Morning had arrived a while ago, yet the colors of the day were still in the process of covering the sky, creating a myriad of gray and blue tones that spoke of rain and snow. That was up to the whim of the temperature, for just one degree would mark the difference.
InuYasha and Kagome had left for the hospital of the Nagano prefecture, which was the place where his mother and Myoga would usually get checked at, and he himself back when he used to live here. Izayoi accepted the early outing, which happened even before she had the time to prepare breakfast, under the premise of wanting to show Kagome a bit more of the city.
Silence was with them, in part due to the few hours of sleep the night allowed them, and in part due to the strange sensation their last moment together had left them. As their breathing became a visible column due to the cold freezing it on contact, Kagome could feel her cheeks being pierced by the low temperature, and so sought, almost unaware, InuYasha's warmth.
"We'll arrive there soon." He commented, his arm pulling her closer by her shoulders, and so allowing his body heat to comfort her.
Kagome nodded.
He could feel her tense body under his embrace, and he wasn't sure if it was because of the cold, or his closeness. He couldn't but reprimand himself for not asking his mother for a coat for Kagome, and so made the decision of stopping by a shop right after they were finished with the reason why they were going to see a doctor.
The routine inside the hospital was what one would expect of the place: people waiting in a room with a screen showing the current turn number, together with the personnel dressed in green, light and dark blue, which helped to differentiate which task they were in charge of. InuYasha had the urge of being the one to explain in information what they needed, yet soon saw himself taking on a position that wasn't his; in this he was but a tag-along, and Kagome's resolve as she took control of everything, only reassured him of that fact.
He heard her ask for an appointment with a specialist, and they were soon directed towards the place they had to go to. Next, she expressed her thanks, and InuYasha fell into step with her right after seeing her invitation, given with a look.
He had to admit something was removing inside him, like something that right now was akin to an undefined morning in his head, and that he needed to tell Kagome before she may take a step. Any step.
Soon he found himself before a small window, where Kagome went through the process of registering her name for an appointment in complete calm, and control, which made InuYasha wonder if she had done this before. The doubt, however, made his stormach turn, something he quickly ceased feeling, intentionally, when he recognized his own anxiety and insecurity, rising in the wake of the sporadic yet inevitable wish of being everything for someone else. He decided that no, that he couldn't let such a caustic feeling wander inside him. In that moment, he surprised himself thinking about when he had achieved that degree of maturity, for the lack of had been one of the reasons none of his attempted relationship had bore fruit; And on the verge he came to let such lack of trust, in himself and his partner, get between them.
"Are you coming?" He heard Kagome, who was looking at him. "I can go in alone." She assured.
When had she risen her walls so high up? Last night? Had it been in the instant they said goodbye to each other?
"I'm coming with you." He assured. "I want to do it." He added.
Kagome had extended her hand, yet as soon as he reached for it, she retracted it with a smile and a nod.
The meters separating them from the doctor's office were made, again, in silence. InuYasha had the feeling he was quieter than usual, and as he followed her figure, walking a step ahead of him, he realized that it is those things that settle in the deepest part of one's being, the ones that don't find an easy way out through words; things like love.
He sighed.
Once seated, and waiting, Kagome looked at a woman diagonally in front of her, who was reading a book, probably to kill time, titled "On Paternity Leave". She found it peculiar, more than anything due to being able to expect something directly related to the growth of the baby or some similar topic. Until she read the title of that book, she had never entertained the thought of how could mothers and fathers balance their work with their life.
"Kagome." She heard InuYasha, his voice low with a certain hint of confidentiality.
She looked at him.
"What's wrong?" For a moment she thought her name had been called, and that she had missed due to being immersed in her own thoughts.
However, she rectified as soon as she caught InuYasha's gaze, observing her in a way she found hard to define; his golden eyes were deeper than usual, allowing her to see reflections of color turquoise, violet and orange-like, so vivid Kagome wondered if those tones had always been there.
"You don't need to do anything you don't want." He began to say, to which she kept her silence, understanding what InuYasha meant. However, he seemed to want to clarify it even more. "If you don't want this, it's alright. I'll be with you no matter what you decide."
Her silence perpetuated before her inability to answer such declaration, so full of meaning she couldn't remain unperturbed. Among all the things Kagome would have wished to tell him, there was how much she yearned to accept the future he seemed to be offering her, and how much she also knew it was impossible for her. Right now, she wasn't able to give her even half of what InuYasha's sincerity was offering her.
She wished she was wrong, but if she was sure of something, was of her own incapacity of being honest. She felt like crying; for him, who seemed to want to leave in her a hope she knew herself unable to fulfill.
"Higurashi Kagome." She heard her name, her gaze quickly finding the woman before the doctor's door.
She stood up, and smiled at InuYasha, trying to convey how grateful she felt before the clarity of what he felt for her. As her steps guided her towards that door, she felt a lucidity she hadn't felt in months. For the first time, she was sure of what InuYasha felt for her, and that certainty turned what she already knew since last night, into something undeniable.
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They covered the way to the pharmacy in silence, close yet out of touch. InuYasha didn't say a word about his previous declaration, and didn't question, not out loud at least, Kagome's decision. Once the process of taking the white pill in front of personnel in the pharmacy, with the added emotive charge of having a stranger witnessing such a personal moment, they went out and began their journey back to his mother's home.
"Are you alright?" He asked, more due to his own restlessness rather than out of noticing something out of place in her. "Want to have some breakfast?"
She looked at him, then nodded a couple of time, smiling with a kindness that was on the verge of politeness.
They went inside the first coffee shop they found. InuYasha asked for a coffee, black, and something sweet to have with it, while Kagome preferred something salty, sharing his taste for black coffee. The woman tending to the customers had everything ready in an instant, and soon both were on their way to a small table by the window. Kagome started to eat then, keeping the same silence that appeared since, practically, the previous night, sharing her thoughts only in short spans, thoughts InuYasha was quite sure were just a part of them.
He didn't stop looking at her, as he lifted his cup and took a sip of the bitter and black liquid, which emanated the scent of recently made coffee.
"You are awfully quiet." He boarded the topic as he settled his cup again on the small platter.
Kagome returned his gaze.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She wasn't quite sure why she was apologizing. Her thoughts were like bars keeping her prisoner inside herself, half the time thinking about the past, the other half looking towards the future, forcing the present to dissolve into nothingness.
"I understand all of this can be stressful." InuYasha guessed, and Kagome could only think about how genuine was his worry.
She rested her hand on his.
"Don't worry, it's nothing. I must just need some sleep." She smiled at him again, in that same way she had been smiling all morning.
He didn't add anything else, so Kagome took the chance of drinking another sip of her coffee, hoping the bitter taste were more to her liking this time. However, the black and hot liquid just seemed to remove her stomach as soon as it crossed her esophagus instead. Her lips grew thin as she took a deep breath through her nose, hoping to be able to hold back the nausea climbing through her throat. Her gaze wandered around the place, and as soon as she located the door to the bathroom, she stood up.
"I'll be right back." She said, practically holding her breath.
InuYasha didn't have time to reply and ask what was wrong before Kagome started away, towards the bathroom, and before it, he could only think how the day seemed to be far from what he had planned when he decided to take this trip.
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The cemetery where the remains of InuYasha's father rested, was a beautiful place, surrounded by tall trees that acted like guardians of the intimacy of the spot, isolating it from the city and its noise. The tombs laid there, in complete harmony, allowing for fluidity between the forest, the long stone stairs and the reminder of the life that had once been, in the shape of small monuments with the name of their families engraved upon them.
InuYasha remained silent, walking in between Kagome and his mother, guiding them as if in a solemn procession since they had crossed the Torii door that gave way to the beginning of the park.
They stopped at some point half-way through the stairs, and in between the funerary steles to the left, Kagome was able to discern the kanji for the last name Taisho. There, she watched how Izayoi walked near it, dressed in a light gray yukata with a pale pink obi, which gave her an elegant and delicate air. InuYasha stepped in next, right behind his mother, wearing his own traditional black and dark grey vestments, over the ivory hitoe one could glimpse right on the edge of the neck.
Kagome limited herself to being a witness of the pure ritual mother and son began to perform; first, cleaning the different implements InuYasha had brought with him, inside a wooden recipient, while pulling aside the fallen leaves which now were on the space occupied by the tomb, and so prepare the place to purify it with water.
"Would you come with me?" He addressed her, leaving his mother alone.
"Of course." Kagome accepted, knowing there was no other possible answer. After all, the whole reason for the trip had been to help InuYasha through this hard moment.
After climbing a short stretch of stairs, there was a landing that gave way to a corridor that ran between the tombs and the forest, and through which one could reach a water current coming from the temple further up. InuYasha cleaned the objects he had just used and filled the wooden recipient with a few centimeters of water, just enough to finish the task of purification of the funerary stone. He did everything while emitting a stern air, lacking the brightness that usually flows so easily from him.
When he was done with that part of the labor, he looked at her and nodded once, signaling it was alright for them to go back. Kagome couldn't imagine what InuYasha was feeling, despite sharing the absence of a father. For a moment, she allowed herself to reflect on the possible differences between their childhoods; she had grown in a place that always had visitors, in a city and with a younger brother who didn't give her time to breathe. InuYasha, however, had been alone with his mother, and only then she realized how little interest she had shown for the life he had lived. Aside from the conversation she held with his friend Jinenji the other night, she knew little of the moments that made him. Her gaze fell on the floor before that discovery, and a huge weight seemed to settled on her chest, a weight that had nothing to do with the dizziness and the nausea she'd been experiencing because of the medication she had taken.
They reached the stairs once again, and Kagome wanted to think that, for today, for that moment, all of her faults didn't matter, and so she extended her hand towards InuYasha's, seeking to intertwine her fingers with his, so that he knew she was by his side. The answer she received wasn't in words, and their gazes didn't meet either; all she felt were his fingers accepting hers, holding her hand.
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The rest of the afternoon proceeded peacefully. Kagome avoided lunch with all her might, and sustained herself through herbal infusions, and during dinner she alleged breakfast had left her with an upset stomach, yet even so she still pushed herself to eat something. Izayoi, on her part, didn't ask any questions and just talked to her about her family, which encouraged Kagome to tell her about the temple she used to live at, about her grandfather and her friend, Sango.
"Three children?" The surprised Izayoi said in disbelief. "I wouldn't be able to take care of three children, I almost went mad with just one." She smiled, then looked at InuYasha, who remained seated on his chair around the table they had dinner on, eating the stew he had prepared.
"How was InuYasha as a child?" Kagome asked, interested and avoiding the look InuYasha was giving her.
His mother smiled, and Kagome could see the way her eyes brightened up. It wasn't hard to read on her features how much she loved her son.
"InuYasha as a child." She repeated, as if searching through her memories. "One day, when he was about four years old, we went to the Obon and Myoga came along with us..."
"Not that story." InuYasha complained, a light smile on his lips, the first time Kagome saw it since the day began.
"As I was saying." Izayoi insisted. "InuYasha asked me for some cotton candy, and before I went to buy it, I left him with Myoga. However, when I turned around, I saw Myoga looking at some masks, with no sign of InuYasha anywhere."
"Oh, by Kami. You got lost?" Kagome said to him.
InuYasha didn't answer; he just smiled wider, and lowered his gaze.
"Something like that." His mother added. "We began to search for him among the people, and we were about to run out of festive places to look for him when I heard through the speakers, that a four years old child by the name of InuYasha was at the security stand of the festival."
Kagome had felt some anxiety throughout the story, despite knowing InuYasha was right there, fine.
"When I arrived, I thanked those who had been taking care of him during those minutes, then I tried to reprimand him and ask him why he had separated from us, after we had warned him not to." Izayoi looked at his son, and send him a smile charged with the complicity only shared experiences can grant. "InuYasha, however, assured me he wasn't actually lost, that he went near the person in charge of security because, and listen well, he wanted to know what it was like to feel lost."
Kagome opened her eyes wide, then sent an accusatory gaze in his direction.
"In my defense, I must say I was four." He lifted his hands in the air as a sign of surrender.
"That was InuYasha as a child." His mother declared.
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Night had fallen, and now InuYasha laid on the futon his mother had assigned him to sleep in, both his arms behind his head, looking at the ceiling of the main room, gray due to the dim light coming through the window. Kagome and he had wished each other good night a while ago, after having dinner and his mother had left them alone to finish tiding up the kitchen. He had asked how she felt after the whole day, and she answered that fine, with that same polite kindness she had been showing since the first hour. For a moment InuYasha allowed himself to think that maybe the distance he was feeling between them wasn't real, that maybe it was his own perception, impaired by the events of the day.
He didn't get to ponder much about it before he heard the naked steps of someone on the stairs, soon seeing Kagome's legs under the red shirt he had lent her the previous night, and that she seemingly was wearing again to sleep.
InuYasha remained silent, and waiting.
He heard her getting closer to the futon, and without saying anything, laid by his side, seeking his warmth under the blanket. InuYasha moved, leaving a bit more room and embraced her with one arm, feeling the softness of her hair against his shoulder. He breathed in the scent of the shampoo Kagome had washed her hair with, and left a kiss on her forehead, taking just about enough time to feel how she kissed him on the chest.
There was nothing more, just two kisses, and the silence with which the curtain fell on what had been a strange day.
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To be continued.
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A/N
Another chapter, that because of their many different emotions it became a bit complex to write. I like the result though.
Thank you for reading and leaving comments!
Anyara.
This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart
