Chapter Sixteen: War Chest
Dressed in a light coat and scarf, Kagome sprang lightly up the stairs and headed down the hallway. The house was refreshing despite the cold, and she realized that she was more than ready for laundry day. Or at least the first day of airing out the house after a long couple of months. It wasn't that there was a smell that she could name, but with five people and a cat in such a small space, the flood of fresh air was invigorating. In the afternoon, they'd close everything up and turn on the heater again, but in the meantime, she had chores to do.
"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome called out as she knocked on the door to his room. "It's laundry day. Can I come in?"
Through the rice paper, she heard the tinkling of a glass windchime and nothing more.
"Sesshoumaru, I'm coming in."
When she slid the door open, she discovered an empty room. If spartan was an aesthetic, then the daiyoukai was its most devout follower. A tatami mat floor and bare walls defined the space with a simple dresser as the only piece of furniture. Even his futon was gone and if she had to guess based on that and the open window, he had already mastered laundry day.
The temptation to poke around tugged at her, and she opened one of the dresser drawers. Seeing what was inside, she nodded. It was what she expected to find: very neatly folded clothes.
As she looked at them, a strange wave of dissonance washed over her. First, there was a hazy memory of resting her head against her father's chest in a hug. It was a small moment. Not tied to any major life event, but one that had just stuck with her unexpectedly through the years.
She blinked and it was gone. Before her though, lay the shirt that he had worn. Then unbidden, a new memory came to mind. One of Sesshoumaru standing behind Souta in the woodworking shed, teaching him how to cut angles using a miter box. The same shirt shared both memories, overlaying it with different meanings. With different shades of comfort and warmth.
Kagome touched the shirt, its weave thin after so many washings. And she remembered the silk refinement that the old Sesshoumaru wore and wondered if this was enough. If the prince was satisfied with the role of a pauper. If he had found a measure of comfort and warmth in these belongings like she did.
She closed the drawer. Then something dark caught her eye. Conspicuous simply by being present, a large black duffel bag sat on the floor in the corner of the room.
"It's not snooping if it's in plain sight, is it?" she wondered to herself, her question becoming rhetorical when she knelt beside the bag.
The flap over the top was askew to her curiosity's delight.
OOOOOOOOOO
Kagome stepped out into the shrine courtyard, the warmth of the springtime sun blunting the morning chill. As she walked, the great trees that lined the yard reached out above her, their skeletal limbs beginning to bud. She turned the corner and frowned. Ahead, she found a row of poles suspending freshly washed futons and linens, but no daiyoukai. At the end, she spied his tunic.
Drawn to it as she had been to the shirt, she reached out to touch it. It felt nicer. Thicker. But it was nowhere close to the finery he once wore, and her jacket pocket felt heavier. High up on the chest, she spotted a newly mended hole. At the very least, she knew that the armor they had provided could compete with his old gear even if it was more practical than ornate.
From the other side of the yard, she could hear the deep bellow of the shrine bell. Perhaps grandpa had seen him.
But when she approached the bell, she realized that it wasn't her grandfather performing the ritual. Wearing an ill-fitting set of shrine robes, Sesshoumaru stood atop the bell platform, mallet in hand. With a practiced precision that she knew he in no way practiced for, he struck the bell in rhythm.
"I've never had a good grasp of what irony means, but this feels close," she said with her head tilted and a hand on her hip.
An eyebrow raised, he looked down at her as he continued to ring the bell and admitted, "If I have learned anything about the divine, it's that they possess a sense of humor."
She laughed, knowing that to be painfully true.
"Your grandfather had an errand and so he requested my assistance with some shrine duties."
Her gaze gravitated to the dark crack that split the bell on one side.
"You need not worry," he added, "This place and I have an understanding now."
Kagome smiled in reply. And then she lingered, listening to the tolling bell, unsure of how to proceed.
"Do you require something of me, miko?" he asked.
She opened her mouth and then closed it.
"Speak."
"Are you happy?" she blurted out, already regretting her question but she had to start somewhere.
The bell tolling stopped. He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
"Are you happy?" she asked again, more earnestly this time.
"I heard your question," he replied. "I'm still considering my answer. It's not a matter that I've been asked about before."
"No one's ever asked you if you were happy?"
"My emotional state has rarely been of interest. My happiness less so."
Concern knit her brow as she waited. And her pocket grew heavier for every second that passed.
"I'm neither happy nor unhappy," he answered finally. "But I'm also neither sad nor angry nor afraid. I neither hate nor love. If I embody an emotion it would be nothing. I am numb."
Kagome's eyes widened as if seeing him for the first time. The stoicism and inscrutability ran deeper than a guise or reserved aristocratic customs. Had he always been so devoid of feeling? No, she had seen him angry and had been up closer than she would have liked at the time. But to feel nothing? To be numb?
"Why do you ask?" he said, interrupting her thoughts.
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a bundled stack of yen. "It's laundry day, so I went to air out your room and get your futon. But then I saw the bag…"
He continued to look at her, his expression perplexed. "How was that a reason to ask about my happiness?"
"Sesshoumaru, you have a duffel bag filled with millions of yen. I didn't even know where to begin. To be honest, I'm still processing it."
"I set a gambling den on fire," he explained, almost drearily. "It seemed a waste to leave it to burn. Spoils of war."
"This isn't the Sengoku Jidai," she said, purposefully ignoring the admission of arson. "You can't just take all this money and call it the spoils of war. Or tribute. Or whatever. I mean, what are you going to do with it?" Her chest tightened. "Aren't you happy here with us? Don't you feel like you belong? Or do you need something more? Something that money can buy?"
Silence passed between them.
"I'm satisfied here. I don't require more of anything."
"Then why do you have this?" Another possibility came to mind. "You weren't hoping to give it to us, were you?"
His brow furrowed as if he were at a loss. "Perhaps. However, in truth, I was simply unsure about what to do with it. It represents a human source of power that I'm both familiar and unfamiliar with."
"How long have you had it?"
"Two weeks."
Kagome ran her hand through her hair and sighed. "We can only offer to help so many times. Eventually you have to take us up on the offer without us doing it for you."
He chuckled. "I'm even more unfamiliar with that. For most matters, it doesn't occur to me to ask for help."
She laughed under her breath. "You know you're more frustrating than Inuyasha ever was."
"Of course. He was only half a youkai."
She smiled and added thoughtfully, "But you do realize that it's your greatest weakness, right? You might think it's not being as strong as you used to be, but even in your prime, asking for and relying on help from others was never your strong suit."
His eyes fell to the mallet in his hand. "When you are the youkai lord, others rely on you. I'm still compelled to protect. To prove my worth. To justify my existence, especially now."
"It's easy to make the decision to protect. I made it every time I jumped through that well. But I was never going to piece the Shikon-no-Tama back together again without being willing to ask for help. And I'm not sure if it needs to be said again but you're family. You do so much to help, whether you're asked to or not. But you don't have to earn your futon here. You don't owe us anything. Ever. If tomorrow you decided that you were going to lay about and eat ramen for the rest of your life, it wouldn't change that fact. You were family the moment we pulled you off that sword."
The faintest smile graced his lips and it lingered longer than she could have hoped.
"In that case, miko," he said, "I request your assistance. Please explain to this Sesshoumaru how currency works within the context of human power."
She blew out a breath.
He chuckled.
"Don't enjoy this too much."
"Permit me to rephrase," he conceded. "Tora-san explained human poverty as being a lack of power and influence over one's existence, and that hope is the opportunity to exercise some degree of control despite this fact. So, if hope is frequently represented as money and if a human has money, then they have the opportunity to change aspects of their existence."
She nodded. It seemed right. Or at least she knew that she was in too deep to back out now.
"To leave that money to burn in the gambling den would be akin to letting hope be destroyed. So, I retrieved it, however by saving it, I've now assumed responsibility for it. To what purpose do I apply this hope?"
"Is there a youkai equivalent to money? Or hope even?"
"Youkai were born with innate purposes, and they were compelled by their natures to perform them. For example, as an inuyoukai, I was driven to protect. Others were driven to craft. Or to hunt. We were primal. Creatures of the Earth who thrived on instinct. It's not that we lacked hope, but that we did not need to be incentivized to do our duty. A sake-brewing youkai made sake, and I as a daiyoukai would have taken it without needing to compensate its brewer."
"So, could any youkai take that sake?"
He hummed, considering her question. "No, there's a matter of entitlement influenced by intelligence and personal power."
"Personal power?"
"Youki."
She smiled. "I think that's it. Money is like youki. The more you have of it, the more influence and power you wield. It's just that if you're poor, it's not replenished as easily or sometimes not at all. Once it's spent, it's not coming back."
"If it's similar to youki, then they cannot heal without it either," he mused.
"What are you going to do?"
"There is no way to determine to what individuals this money once belonged. I have returned money in the past, but that was immediately following the theft. How do your police manage these situations?"
"I suppose if someone made a claim, the police might return it." She looked at the stack of yen in her hand. "But this they would just confiscate."
"Then that would be no different than allowing it to burn. The wealth would be lost and not reinvested back into the people."
He set the mallet back onto its cradle and leapt down from the platform to land beside Kagome.
"Heroism is more than punishing those who abuse the weak for their own gain," he said sagely, "To be a true guardian, I must also seek ways to empower the people and help them rebuild what they have lost or never had to begin with."
Kagome blinked, her mouth slightly agape. Was this really the same man that she had fought both with and alongside in the Sengoku Jidai? Had she really known him then? Did she even know him now?
"Miko, is there something wrong?"
"Uh, no," she mumbled, and then held out the money for him to take. "It seems you have a direction now even if it's not a plan yet."
He snorted and accepted it. Then pivoting on his foot, he turned to walk away.
"Do you really feel nothing?" she asked.
He paused, the rush of the surrounding city filling the quiet.
"Yes," he admitted. "But there are moments when there's something there. Something warm. Something akin to comfort." He looked back at her over his shoulder. "Something like… belonging."