Allís Fair in Love and War

Chapter Thirty Eight

Loved

He looked at her uncomfortably for a moment and then stepped in, just as she had instructed him to. He had to do it. He sat down near her, his legs tucked in front of him. He rested his arms on his knees and his head on his arms, facing her, but not looking at her. What was he supposed to make of this? She wanted to bathe with him?

Why?

For a moment, Kagome said nothing, but he could tell she had something to say. He could see the words in her throat. "Why are you avoiding me?" Kagome asked, almost whimpering. His heart cracked inside his chest at her tone. He felt his eyes burn.

A thick and suffocating silence passed between them. It stabbed into every inch of his skin and penetrated him in a way no knife, no shard of glass, no punch, or kick or glare could ever could. He couldn't bring himself to look upon her. She was so beautiful and so perfect. How could he have done something so horrible like avoid her? She knew, he knew, and the guilt crushed him.

"I'm sorry." He choked out and his eyes filled with water. He hardly held back his tears, merely splashing water onto his face to disguise them. "I'm so sorry." He looked over at her and cringed, because he was so disgusted with himself. He's been ignoring her, abusing her, and now she hated him for it. He knew she hated him for it. How could he have done something so stupid? Didn't he know he was worthless? "So sorry..."

Kagome stared at him and her sadness quickly melted into worry for him, for her friend. She pullled her knees into the tub and sat on them, facing him, then reached out and touched his damp shoulder. "Inu Yasha?" she spoke. He didn't look at her. He couldn't. She didn't ask him why he was crying. She didn't tell him to stop. She brought herself closer to him and pulled him to her. His body fell towards her a little and he didn't dare correct it, not if this was what Kagome wanted. This was what she wanted?

She held his head to her chest, so close that her heartbeat was the only thing that he could hear. He sniffled as she cooed to him. "It's okay." She ran her hand across his cheek, wiping away stray hair that clung to his face. "It's okay." He couldn't do anything but stare at the white porcelain rim of the bath tub in front of him.

"I'm sorry." he hissed out, almost as if the words cut the sides of his throat and he forced them out. Her hand held his head closer to her. He could feel her stomach press against him every time she breathed. He had betrayed her and she was holding him? Why so close, Kagome?- he wondered.

"Don't be." she said. "It's okay. It doesn't matter."

He pulled himself away from her and faced the girl. "No, but it does!" he said and wiped his wet eyes. "I treated you so badly. I shouldn't have avoided you!" He looked down and his face scrunched again as he battled his tears. "I'm so sorry..." he murmured again, rubbing his face into his hands.

"Please Inu Yasha, believe me when I say I understand. I know you're my friend. Okay? I guess I just felt ... avoided ... and I kind of ... well, I just wanted to know why. It's nothing, really." she assured him.

"I don't know ... I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to hurt you." he uttered softly. "I didn't want to ..."

"It doesn't hurt." she told him. "But seeing you ... seeing you kill yourself over it ... that does." She paused and looked down, then cleared her throat. "Please, Inu Yasha, don't be sad. I accept your apology." She paused and waited for him to look at her. When he did she continued. "You're important to me ... And really, not that many people are ... not like you are. So please, smile, and don't do it for me, do it for yourself. You don't deserve the punishment you've given yourself." She stated, although seemed the smallest bit detatched from her words. Inu Yasha couldn't help but smile softly. Couldn't she see that that's what he felt about her? No, of course she didn't. Who can see what no one shows them?

She looked away from him and her face contorted into that of one who was about to cry. He could see the pain in her face, the creases in her forehead. "I missed you ... that's all. What came between us?" She knew it as well. She could feel that somehow, for some reason, something had changed. Why was it so wrong to have him near to her? How come everything was dirty now? The bath water rippled as she shifted in her seat.

"I don't know. I didn't want to distance myself ... I felt like ... something was pushing you away..." He felt like he wanted to cry, but other emotions held him strong. He wanted to go closer to her; wanted to press his head against her chest and have her hold him like she did only a moment ago. But he couldn't do that. He could only look over at her and stare longingly, hoping that maybe she would pull him to her- pull him to her because he could not bring himself closer to her. He didn't deserve her. "I missed you too." he murmured, softly. She giggled and grabbed his hand that rested by his side under the water.

"But I'm glad to have you back." she said and smiled sweetly, like she always did.

"Kagome?" She looked at him and widened her eyes slightly, acknowledging him. "Why did you ... why were you always so ... nice ... to me?" he asked, gently.

"Because ..." she said, softly, drawing out the 'ah' sound. "I wanted to be friends with you."

"Why?" he persisted.

"Because ... you reminded me of myself. Because you looked friendly. Because you looked like you needed company. To tell you the truth ... I saw something different in you. You had something Inu Yasha, it was like this honesty and ... and innocence. In your eyes or on your face or ... I can't explain it, but ... I knew I wanted you to be my friend. You looked sad and alone, and I just couldn't let someone like you look like that." She wiggled around in her seat. "And because I thought your ears were cute." She laughed at the last one, quietly. He blushed and noticed the irony of the fact that the same thing that alienated him from every one else, drew the one person he cared about most to him. "Why did you want to know?" she asked him.

"Well, I guess ... I guess since I had been so used to being ignored or laughed at that I couldn't understand why ... why you'd want to be near someone like me." he confessed, nervously.

"Someone like you? You make it sound like a bad thing." she said. "What do you mean, 'someone like me'?"

"You know ... not really one thing or the other. Something inbetween." Then he remembered that Kagome may relate more closely to what he was saying.

"So?" she spoke. It really seemed like she didn't understand what he was saying. "It's never been a problem for me."

"For you?" he said and then paused. "Kagome?"

"Hm?"

"What... what ...?"

"I don't know." she stated, quietly.

"Don't know what?" he asked gently.

"I don't what I ... am!" she spat out, and her face twisted into one of confusion and shock. "I have absolutely no idea."

"But how could you ... One of your parents would have to be ..." He droned on in unfinished questions.

"Yeah but that's the problem." she said and looked away from him. "My mom isn't ... She didn't give birth to me. Did she tell you? She had cancer. Doctors had to remove one of her ovaries and the cancer destroyed the other one. She can't have babies." Kagome's voice was flowing with emotion.

"Then ..."

"I was ... adopted." she told him, unsteadily. "And by adopted," she continued without his prodding, "I mean that I was found by my mom on her doorstep when I was hardly three months old." Inu Yasha was completely shocked. He couldn't even understand what was happening. How could the woman he knew as her mother, the one that looked like her, talked like her, and even smiled like her, not be her mother? What was happening? Kagome looked at him, at his shocked face, his wide eyes, and she smiled. "I know it sounds bad but I've gotten over it. I mean, my birthparents must have done me a favor by giving me away. I'd rather have adoptive parents that wanted me than biological ones that dont."

Inu Yasha felt a little lighter inside knowing this. He was angry, of course, at the birth parents that gave away their daughter, their wonderful Kagome. He didn't know how they could have done that. But on the other hand, she has such a wonderful life now. They made her life better. "They lost out ... " he said, trying to reassure her.

She smiled at him and waved a hand. "No, no , no. Don't try to make me feel better. Please. I don't feel bad anymore." she told him.

"When did you ... find out?" he asked tentatively.

"I was around, um, probably ten. Maybe nine. As I grew up I realized that my father didn't look like me. He was Japanese, see, and my mom was American. I look more like her, even though we aren't related by blood. Obviously, I don't really know what ethnicity I am. But the blue eyes ... aren't Japanese."

"I'm sorry." he said, his voice full of compassion.

"You shouldn't be. You didn't do anything." she told him, already accustomed to the boy's horrible habit of apologizing for everything, and he couldn't find a single sad note. He understood what she was saying.

"What I mean is ... I feel bad for you ... for what happened ... It's sad is all." he sputtered.

"Well, I guess I see where you would think that, but, hey, there are kids out there whose parents treat them worse than mine. Being with your birth parents isn't always necessarily best for you." He couldn't have understood more clearly.

"Yeah." he agreed, quietly, and then turned away from her. He wanted to tell her so badly. To tell her how he was beaten, and broken, and crushed, and destroyed. He wanted to spill his guts out onto the floor and into the tub, with the mere hope she'd gather the broken parts of him into her arms, somehow melting them into what he knew was what he was supposed to be. He couldn't do it. His words were glued to the linings of his throat. They wouldn't budge.

Kagome looked at him coyly from under her wet bangs that stuck to the sides of her fore head. "You know, you're the only one who knows what I've just told you." she said slyly and then giggled. Inu Yasha felt himself swell with pride and joy. She was telling him secrets. Secrets that not Sango, or Miroku, or any of her former friends have ever known. He felt like he was the only member of an exclusive club. For once, he felt like he was different in a good way.

"So, if you don't know your parents, and you don't look any different ... unless ..." He paused and stared at her face. "This is what you really look like isn't it?" he asked, almost afraid of his own answer for the response it might pose.

"Yup. If it weren't what I look like normally, I wouldn't look like I do now. I'm not into pretending." she said, bluntly.

"Then, how'd you know you were ... well, you know, different?" he asked her, curiously.

"Well ... you know my garden?" she asked and he nodded. "Well, it really is my garden. I grew it myself ... When I was about five or so ... I would walk into the garden and stay there for hours. My parents liked that I was so ... down to earth I guess you could say. What didn't make sense, however, was that there was nothing growing in the garden. It was, at that time, just soil. But things were growing in there! Very soon, Inu Yasha, we had flowers and greens everywhere! But no one had planted seeds. I wasn't making them appear out of nowhere though. I was giving life to the foilage that had died in the garden years ago, when the garden had stopped being attended to." She smiled and blushed. "Inu Yasha, I could bring plants back to life."

"How?"

"I can't put it into words really. It's like I'm ... giving myself up a little. I become so deeply intertwined with them, with the flowers, that ... that ... I don't know, it just happens. Only cause I love gardening, really. Flowers are beautiful."

He smiled and looked at her, asking the obvious. "And people, what about them?"

She looked blankly at the tub rim for quite a while and said to him, "I'm ... not quite sure."

He wished she could, though. He wanted her to bring him back to life like she had the flowers in her garden. To be so close to her; It was all he wanted. "It would be cool ... You could be the best doctor ever, Kagome." She snorted a laugh.

"Yeah, right." He sat the way he had when he first got into the tub, with his legs bent in front of him, his arms on his knees and his head on his arms. She smiled softly, as if she were admiring him. "Hey?"

"Huh?"

"You're being really open tonight." she said, as if she were just acknowledging it. He looked puzzled. "Well, what I mean is ... You are being really ... honest. Not that you weren't before but you're just ... Do you mind if I say that I always had this feeling like part of you was hiding from me? It's like over the past two weeks, you've been kind of ... distant. " She looked at him compassionately, trying to speak as gently to him as she could. "I guess it's cause you were so secretive all the time." she said.

"Yeah ..." he agreed.

"Why? What is it you're hiding? I mean, you don't have to tell me, but sometimes ... I worry for you." She looked away from him and faced him again, shyly. "You never have food. Don't you eat?" She paused and looked at him, the slightest bit of fear alit in her calm blue eyes. "Are you okay?" Her voice trembled.

He felt like she was closing in on him on all sides. His defenses were breeched, she held him at gunpoint, each question as threatening to him as the one before. He swallowed what felt like a rock. "I ... I'm ..." He couldn't bring himself to lie to her, but he couldn't tell her the truth, either. He was at a stalemate, a stagnant, silent block that could not be moved or avoided. He had only one option and that was to stay silent. Kagome waited patiently for an answer, and until she realized she wouldn't recieve one, she spoke to him. His silence was enough of an answer.

She crawled nearer to him, inching horribly slowly, facing him, and leaned against him, her arms holding him near as she pressed her lips against his cheek in a sideways kiss. She could feel his shoulders twitch as she did so. He was looking down in front of him, too shocked to smile, but too happy to make any other facial expression. His face was blank, confused.

She didn't know why he felt this way. Why he couldn't understand that someone could care for him, or want to be near him. She pulled away from him slowly, softly, her warm hands staying in place around his shoulders. She did not move too far from his face, not wanting to destroy the closeness, the intimacy. "You'll be okay." She said, and it almost sounded as if she were assuring herself. "I'll protect you." she told him. "You'll be okay. I swear to God, Inu Yasha, you will." Her body stayed that close to him for moment, and then she pulled away.

She stood and Inu Yasha could hear the water running down her back, trickling in webs down her legs and splashing into the bath tub. She stepped out of the bath tub, and he could see her feet shuffling around. She was wrapping a towel around herself. "I'm ... going to change. I'll do it in the living area and you can change in the bedroom. Okay?" He looked up at her so quickly that if she had blinked, she would have missed it. He then nodded slowly. She took a few steps and she was gone. The door she left open and he could hear her drop his things on the bed in the bedroom. After a small while, he stood up from the tub and stumbled to the bedroom, the cold air chilling him instantly. He pulled off his wet white shirt and then went back to the bathroom with new dry clothing. The wet things he left in the sink, and after drying himself with a towel, he pulled on his makeshift pajamas- another shirt which was too big for him, and shorts. He rung out his hair and the water fell to the ground with large irregular 'plunk's.

He flicked off the bathroom light, and then stood in the dark still bed room for a while before crawling under the heavy sheets of the bed. He smiled because it really was as confortable as he thought it would be. He did not lay still for long though because he heard Kagome knock on the door. "Are you dressed?" she asked him.

"Yeah." he called, softer than he should have, but she heard. The door creaked open, the ray of light from the living area growing thicker and larger as the door opened. She stepped in slowly, and he knew she was still adjusting to the darkness. She almost closed the door behind her, but did not do it completely. He heard her inching towards him, her clean bare feet padding across the soft carpet of the room. To his surprise she crawled into the bed, and lay on her side next to him. A silence overcame the room and it stood deathly still.

He turned towards her, laying on his side as well and looked at her curiously. There were so many things he wanted to ask and so many things he wished her could tell her. She drew herself closer to him and wrapped her arms around him, kissing him gently again, but this time on the lips. He tentatively pulled her nearer to him, his arms touching her so gently, holding her the smallest bit closer to him. He pressed his lips against hers unskillfully, not fully understanding what was happening, but not exactly wanting to either. She pulled her lips away slightly and kissed him again. Her lips were so soft and warm and he wanted nothing more than to feel them on his forever. Every inch of his skin was on fire, and every hair on his body was on end. Her hands were pressed against his back and he had couldn't remember ever feeling so vividly alive or well.

She kept her lips against his for a while, every so often pulling away, but not too far away, so that she could kiss him again, at a different angle, in a different way. He felt every ounce of pain and human suffering lift away from him, and off of his shoulders. He felt like he would gladly recieve any number of beatings from his father to kiss her again. She poured herself into every touch, every gentle kiss, and when she pulled away he thirsted for her to be nearer still. He knew that if she left his side he would shrivel away and dy out, leaving only a dead husk of what he was before behind. She filled him totally and completely, and with every kiss she gave him, he felt himself growing yet thirstier and thirstier.

Somehow, he couldn't understand how he had lived so long without her.

His legs and hers intertwined, and he was closer to her still. He pressed her to his chest and she held him tighter. She had taken him in, and in her grasp, nothing could hurt him. Nothing existed, and nothing mattered.

Author's Notes

By the way, this IS NOT and I repeat, IS NOT, a lemon. Yeah, no sex.

Yesh, they kiss, they cuddle, they make my fangirls pant and drool generously.

Hehe, I dont care if you're one of those people who 'duznt rlly review' pleeease tell me how I did with the squish. This is my first kiss in a while, (A BIG while) so needless to say, I'm kinda hyped, but still nervous. I hope I didn't totally screw over my entire story by doing this.

Oh, angst-o-rama.

By the way, the whole scene in the bed in a mirror scene. I dont know if thats already a literary term but if it isnt then what it means is its a distorted reflection of a previous scene, several factors being the same, but something in it differs and thus changes the entire mood and tone. In this case, I was mirroring the scene where they sleep on the roof. I then swapped out the roof for a bed and the sky for a cieling, and the innocent cuddling and blushing with PASSION! (Huzzah.) However, I title this chapter because, well, let's think of chapter six/seven as his ultimate LOW point ... conversely, this is his high and definitely most happy point. Yay, Inu Kun is tying things together.

Toodles. Ta-ta. Tootsie roll.