"Hadn't it really been perfect in the beginning, their butterfly contact, the long walks and days in the burning sunlight, under that sky?"
– H. D., Nights
"Men are frustrating." Rin said aloud, a declaration that came on the tail-end of her mental gymnastics that she had been involved in for the better part of the day.
"Yes," agreed Kagome, sending a pointed look at Inuyasha lounging nearby, picking his teeth with his pinky nail.
"Mmm-hm," was Sango's emphatic humming, eyebrows up.
In the last few days, there had been an unexplained change in her Lord. He had gone from seeming to always be at ease when he was around her to stiffening up the closer she got to him until he was practically made of rock. Rin had been wracking her brains for an instance or a situation that would warrant the sudden change she was getting from her Lord and was coming up blank. All she could think of was that he was upset at the way their more recent interactions had played out but even that felt silly. He had more than enough ability to end many of the moments where they were more intimate with each other, so it wasn't as if he was avoiding her for that. He hadn't seemed embarrassed, though she wouldn't know what that looked like and honestly, she didn't think that he had the ability to be embarrassed.
The only thing that she could think of was that he had a sudden change of heart. God, I hope he isn't getting cold feet, she thought to herself as she slowed her practiced wrapping of a bundle of twigs. The way he had treated her yesterday was not cruel by any means, it was their normal. She had built up these things in her mind so much that she was forgetting who he was, perhaps. Seemed very much like something that she would do. Looking at things from this perspective explained his most recent behavior, but it did not explain all of the other heated looks and familiar touching that had been going on for the better part of a month. Because, no matter who he was, things had changed. It was very hard to go back to normal after she had had her lips on his. Back around went her thought process, up ratcheted her exasperation.
"Things would be so much easier if everyone would just say what's on their mind," She mumbled, sighing heavily. Unfortunately for her, unless she turned into a sword with legs the chances of her getting the attention she wanted from her Lord was slim. Getting him to clearly spell out his emotions was a dream that even she found laughable.
"Mm, you're not wrong," Kagome murmured and Rin looked at her sharply before she realized that she had been mumbling under her breath. With a blush, she set aside her finished work and leaned back a bit.
"Say, Kagome," Rin began slowly and the young woman across from her hummed to let her know she was listening. "How do you know if you…if you've done something to make someone else upset?" Kagome's hands slowed on her work as she processed what Rin had asked.
"Have you made someone upset?" She asked, tone carefully light. Rin sighed.
"I'm honestly not sure," she confessed, chewing on the inside of her lip thoughtfully. "That's the problem, you see."
"Oh, yes, of course," Kagome laughed under her breath and then sat up with a distant expression on her face. "I suppose most of the time I know that I've made someone mad because I can see it on their face. Or, suddenly, they won't behave with me like they normally would," at this last sentence she once again sent a pointed, squinted stare at the hanyou lounging behind her. Rin nodded slowly, thinking back.
Lord Sesshomaru hadn't seemed angry, and while he kept his feelings locked up pretty tight there was still a lot he couldn't hide from her. She had seen his anger, she knew his anger, that had not been the face he had made. It had been tight jawed and closed eyed but it was not angry. Though, he had very quickly called an end to their meeting so she didn't get a chance to really study the situation in front of her.
"I don't think I saw anything…" she said absently, still thinking. "And I guess it's kind of a normal thing for him to be a bit distant," Kagome nodded, very politely not pointing out how this hypothetical mystery person suddenly had a 'him' attached. Rin slumped over and put her hand on her chin, pouting. "But it just doesn't feel the same. Something's different."
"Well, if something is different," Sango interjected kindly, "Think back on what the last thing that happened was before things changed. Try to narrow it down to something a little more specific."
Rin cocked her head to the side and thought back. It had been a pretty normal day, all things considered, and she had trudged her cold butt through the snow to meet him. Their meeting spot had changed due to necessity and the fact that Rin was susceptible to freezing to death when outside in the elements for too long. On one of the days, early in winter, he had led her over to a cave just big enough to fit a handful of people inside. It was cold and uncomfortable on a good day, but it did its job of blocking the wind and getting her out of the snow. A far cry from the beautiful, idyllic fields of flowers they normally would lounge in but if she got to spend time with him she would happily do it wherever she could.
Finding him was easy, partially because she had taken this same route so many times that her footprints had packed down a road in the snow and it worked to both lead her there and to speed her travel. She had come upon him, standing in wait outside the cave and looking off into the distance, turning towards her when she got close enough. That same soaring feeling flew through her at the sight of him and she grinned brightly, unable to stop herself from hugging him. He let her do so, his hand lightly brushing down her back, before she pulled away and the two ducked into the cave.
Their meetings had changed over the weeks, another new development that Rin couldn't say she was mad about. Where before they would basically just take the opportunity to be together but not really actively engaged with each other (at least on his part), now she talked to him. She would sit next to him, look up at him, pull him into conversation if she could. And that in and of itself was a treat, for she had found that while getting him to talk about mundane things was a task only she was fit to take on. In doing this, she had discovered he had a wit about him. She would almost go so far as to label it humor, but it was drier than a cracked riverbed and his quips were few and far between. But it was there, and it always left her sputtering a laugh when it made its appearance.
On this particular meeting in question, she had found that he had a romantic streak to him as well. Though, she wasn't sure that was particularly intentional. He didn't seem to understand the weight and effect of the words he would say, often seeming surprised if his absentminded comment about her left her blushing and flustered. This time around had been no different. She had been absentmindedly lamenting about how she wished she was as effortlessly beautiful as some of the other women that she was around, pointing out how her hair rarely cooperated and she was so clumsy that she had a hard time moving gracefully.
"Why compare yourself to them?" He had said in that slow way of his, looking down at her, "This Sesshomaru would change nothing about you."
It was really the bare minimum of things that a fiance should say to someone, but for him Rin counted it with just the same weight as if he had dropped to his knees and began singing a sonnet to her beauty. She flushed, feeling happy and grinning, brushing her hair out of her face for an excuse to hide herself from him. She felt the, now familiar, buzzing in her head as she bit her lip and glanced over at him. She could see the intensity of his eyes, the way they lingered on her in a way that wasn't platonic, and she realized that he must've noticed her heart pounding in her chest.
Rin felt she had made some strides with him, but they weren't necessarily in the correct order. She had been able to hug him, a few times, and usually in greeting without getting too big of a response out of him. She had successfully kissed him; quick pecks on the cheek and slightly slower but still just as chaste brushes across his mouth, but those were usually the last thing she did and she left so fast that she didn't get to really see the result of those. She had laid on him in a snowstorm, but even though she thought of it often, she wasn't quite sure that counted because he either could have held her or she would have frozen. It was hard to find a segue into just casually touching him without it seeming forced. She knew enough about romance that something needed to set the mood, so to speak.
While she wasn't exactly an expert, she felt that the mood had just changed in this little cave of theirs. It was as good of a time as any to try something. But what? As always, her brain bounced around to a million different possibilities, but it landed on "something simple". She just…wanted to touch him.
Rin reached her hand out towards him, moving slowly with her eyes on him to gauge his response. He watched her but did not say anything to stop her, and she noticed with a small thrill that he was holding his breath. Feeling emboldened, she looked back down at his hand and gently brushed her fingers across the two magenta stripes along his wrist. His hand twitched but he still did not stop her so, with a small smile, she slowly slid her fingers from his knuckles back to his wrist and then back up again.
She wasn't sure what her end goal was, and truth be told she didn't really have one, all she wanted to do was to touch him and she was going for the place where she was sure he would let her get away with it for the longest. She continued her lazy brushes and sneakily peeked at him, her heart pounding when she noticed that his eyes had closed. With a cat-like smile, she decided to see if he would let her go a little further. She gently closed her fingers around his wrist and picked up his hand. His eyes cracked open as she started to move him, flicking from their hands to her face. She twisted it around so that his palm was up and laid her free hand against his.
The two of them looked down at where they were connected and there was a moment of stillness. There were a lot of things that she noticed; how much more tan her skin looked right up next to his, how big his hand was compared to hers, the long, delicate fingers that he had and the dangerous claws that tipped them, but what struck her the most was how good they looked together. She let a low stream of air out of her mouth as a wave of feeling flushed through her. Feeling dizzy with how much she had gotten she smiled and looked up at her Lord, overjoyed with this gift that he had let her have.
He was still looking at their hands, his expression lax, almost stunned. His fingers twitched against her skin before they slowly closed around her. Rin could have laughed at her reaction; they were holding hands and she felt like screaming for joy. It was silly but honestly, it was huge. He had never touched her this casually before, and she wasn't sure she remembered anyone ever getting this honor. He seemed to be having an internal struggle of some kind because while she beamed at him, he remained fixated on what he had done.
Biting her lower lip, she tipped her head to the side and leaned a little closer, slowly moving her hand inside of his. He gave the smallest of twitches, like she had startled him, and glanced at her. She smiled at him and continued to move until their hands were pressed together, palm to palm finger to finger, and she threaded her fingers between his. He hesitated, fingers still outstretched before they folded down one by one from pinky to thumb until they were holding hands in true.
She looked at their entwined hands, feeling satisfied, before she glanced back up at him. He looked at her too, face tipped down a bit because he was much taller than her, even while they were sitting. His lips were relaxed and his eyes were heavy-lidded and he was beautiful. Rin smiled at him gently and whispered, "Isn't that better?"
He didn't answer but she felt his hand squeeze against hers gently as if he was afraid she was going to pull away. Rin's heart beat like a drum in her ears and she wanted very, very much to kiss him. The part of her that had convinced her to grab for his hand cheered her on, drunk with the success that she already had. He was already so close, anyway, their faces were practically already touching. She hesitated, wondering if that would be pushing it too far, or if she should wait to see if he would take initiative on that particular front. The brave part of her scoffed and reminded her that he had practically had a conniption when their hands had accidentally touched; he was not going to take initiative.
Feeling very similarly to when she had first jumped into deep water, she took a quick breath and then began to lean in and close the gap between them. She moved with purpose but slowly enough that a daiyoukai like him could absolutely move away if this was something he didn't want to do. Much to her joyful surprise, he didn't.
He didn't move at all, actually, just remained as he was with his head tipped down towards her, watching her like an outside observer as she came closer and closer to him. Where their hands were still joined, she felt him squeeze her when she was close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. If she spoke their lips would brush across each other but she hesitated in that last millimeter realizing that this kiss already felt distinctly different than the other quickly stolen ones and they hadn't even touched yet. She wondered if it was going to be as good as her imagination had led her to believe it would be, and with a shaky breath, she gently pressed her lips to his.
The first thing she noticed, in a very typical fashion, was that his lips were impossibly soft and hers were chapped. It figured the first time she finally got to kiss someone—the object of her deepest desires no less—she would have dry lips. The second, much nicer thing, was that he smelled fantastic and his lips were warm against hers. They were relaxed, probably from shock, but he recovered and she felt him gently, ever so gently, meet her kiss. When she realized that he wasn't going to push her off of him in disgust, and was in fact reciprocating, she felt faint with happiness. A gentle sound escaped her throat and she knew he heard it. She pulled back very quickly, blushing furiously, all of her bravery leaving her in a whoosh now that she had finally taken the plunge.
The two of them remained where they were, frozen and sitting with this new development in their own ways. Rin noticed, even in her haze of red, that he still had not let go of her hand. He had still not pulled away. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he leaned back down to her and kissed her again. She shivered, feeling beyond delighted that he was going to continue this and tried to behave herself as best as she could until she couldn't any more. The careful, testing way his lips pulled at hers left her practically melting into a puddle and, squeezing his hand tighter, she slipped her other hand up to hold onto the back of his neck, pressing against him harder.
Urgency was the new thing she felt, but she wasn't sure what for or what to do with it. It drove her to push herself up onto her knee to get even that much closer to him, it drove her to gasp into his mouth and rub her hand down his neck and over his shoulder. It made her bold in a way that she knew she would think back on and be a bit embarrassed about but in the moment she didn't care. He didn't seem to mind, either, his own free hand coming around to push against her back and pull her into him, the two of them tipping their heads like they had rehearsed this dance to get better angles on each other. Rin's head was singing, positively full of nothing but him and the way he smelled and how he felt and the way he made her feel, and that urgency prompted her to slip her tongue into his mouth.
He froze for a moment, a stiffening of muscles against her hand, and she wondered if she had just grossed him out. But, like the astute learner he was, she felt his own tongue slide along hers and it left her shivering, balling his kimono up in her fist as she grasped desperately for something to anchor herself to. This was…a lot. It was a lot of new sensations hitting her all at once and she found that she couldn't decide if she needed a breather or if she wanted more. She felt tingly, almost drunk, and she was breathing like she had just run up the world's steepest hill. What is this? She thought to herself, and just when she thought that perhaps she was getting a handle on herself, her tongue gently brushed over his sharp fang and the sensation had her jerking against him with a soft moan, warmth beginning in her belly, her heart thrumming through her.
He pulled away fast. So fast that she was left blinking dazed, breathing hard and staring at him dumbly. He untangled his hand from hers and covered his tight mouth with it, his eyes closing as his brows furrowed. Did...did I hurt him? She wondered to herself, still feeling somehow heavy and light at the same time. "My Lord?" She asked, surprising herself at the way her voice sounded. At her voice, he opened his eyes and looked at her and she shuddered at the wild edge she saw in them. The way they branded her as he looked at her, and then he closed them again. He took a few deep breaths, his hand lowering down, and then after a moment he was back to his normal, carefully curated mask of indifference.
"You should go home," he told her, his own voice a little rougher than it normally was. Rin bit her lip and looked at him, feeling bad.
"My Lord, I'm sorry if I—" she began, standing up and gathering her winter clothes.
"You should leave." He repeated, not snapping at her but her trained ears heard the tension in his voice.
So she had.
And it had been weird even all these days later.
"I…guess things had been a bit different," Rin answered Sango after her long silence, blushing a bit at the memory. "But I had thought…it hadn't seemed like he was—" she stopped herself, blushing again. It was quiet for a moment in the little hut before Inuyasha let out a loud sigh.
"He's not mad at you, Rin," the hanyou said, in that matter-of-fact way he did. Rin jumped, looking over at him as he rolled up into a sitting position next to Kagome. "You're fine. He just isn't good at things that don't involve murder."
"He's good at plenty of things," Rin murmured in his defense and Inuyasha snorted, earning himself a hard elbow from Kagome.
"Sure," Inuyasha conceded with a wince, his ear swiveling back guiltily. "He isn't as good with new things as the rest of us are. Just…talk to him, is all I'm saying." Rin nodded slowly, and, right at that moment, she stood up and walked outside. "Hey—wait! I didn't mean right now!"
But she was already off, walking to the cave quickly in the dark of winter, deciding that she wanted to fix this now. She followed her path and saw him standing there, exactly where he always was. Did he know I was looking for him? She wondered to herself as he turned to her and she smiled, waving her hand. He inclined his head at her and ducked into the cave as she got closer. Rin hesitated a moment and then followed him in.
"My Lord," she began immediately, deciding to do this quickly while she still had the bravery to do it. "I think I might have upset you a few days ago and I really just wanted to tell you that I am sorry for doing that. I hadn't meant to be quite so, uh," she racked her brain for what the proper way of saying 'I'm sorry for sticking my tongue in your mouth, you didn't seem super happy with me about that', could be. "Aggressive with you. I won't do it again, I promise."
She hesitated for a moment, mouth open, before she closed it and crossed her arms and waited for what he was going to say. He stood there, looking at her blankly, and she cleared her throat awkwardly in the silence. Just when she wondered if he even remembered what she was talking about, he let out a sigh and turned his head away.
"You needn't apologize," he told her and she perked up a bit. He opened his mouth like he was going to add something but then he closed it again and Rin realized that he was embarrassed. She just hadn't seen it on him before and so she hadn't been able to recognize it, but she couldn't think of another reason as to why he wouldn't look at her right now, why the very tips of his pointed ears were the lightest shade of pink.
The realization of this changed everything. Suddenly, they were on equal footing, and Rin's guilt faded away. She let out a small sound of understanding as she approached him. He glanced over at her as she got closer, watching her reach over and hook her finger with his, smiling up at him. "Then I'm not sorry," she whispered and she watched the very edges of his lips quirk up. His finger twitched in hers and then she felt him move, holding her hand properly as she had shown him how.
And, really, it was better this way.
Thank you for reading! Just a fair warning, next chapter is when the rating changes. If you're not interested in that, you are more than welcome to stop here and I hope you enjoyed this story!