Absconding Sorrow

Part One – "The Mistake"

Author: profiler120

Email: profiler120@hotmail.com

Rating: PG-13 (language)

Genre: Romance/General (Maybe angst later I'm not sure.)

Pairing: - Naraku/Kagome, Kagome/Sesshoumaru

Important note: There's a story by Anne-Twilight called "Promise Me Love" (which you should read). The similarities between this chapter and her beginning bothered me even though I've revised it a hundred times. ^_^

Kagome stared into her bag dispassionately. Her final class was over, and here she was staring into her book packed bag looking for her chap stick because her lips were dry and bothering her. She silently cheered as she found the troublesome item pulling it from her bag triumphantly. She stopped cold however realizing her Professor was watching her silent little victory dance, and blushed, smiling awkwardly.

"Eh... hi."

He nodded in greeting, still watching.

"I'm sorry Senaka-sensei, am I disturbing you?"

She looked around. It was only her and him in the abandoned classroom.

"No," his smooth, melodic voice reached her ears. He was a bit odd, somewhat reclusive in that he never liked to stray from his classroom, but he was gorgeous. A beautiful flow of dark wavy hair tumbled down his back, with ruby red eyes and a sexy smile.

She responded with a small smile and forced her eyes away as she popped off the cap and grabbed a small mirror to apply her tinted lip-gloss. More of an effort than she really needed, but... he was watching her and she was nervous. Plus it gave her something to do with her eyes, otherwise they'd be staring right back at him, and she hated staring at him. It made her quiver uncomfortably.

She slid the cap back on and foolishly tossed the small container back into the abyss of her bag. It would be another hassle finding it later, but she didn't want to think about it right now. Right now she wanted to get away from her Professor's intense gaze and start thinking about what she was going to do about this Inuyasha and Kikyo mess. She collected her things and pulled herself to her feet.

"See you later Senaka-sensei!"

She flashed him a smile and walked out, but his eyes were on her the entire way. Sometimes it made her uneasy, the way he stared. Other times it was more than flattering because of her little crush on him. Today however she needed to concentrate.

"Until then, Higurashi." His deep voiced followed her to the doorway, and seemed to resonate within her even when she had long gone down the hall.

She had plans to meet up with Inuyasha later on in the afternoon but she'd canceled them so she could spy on him. She'd heard from her friend Sango, on numerous occasions that Inuyasha was seeing his old girlfriend Kikyo behind her back. She knew Sango wouldn't lie to her but she was pushing herself to see it with her own eyes. She sighed heavily. Let the drama begin, she thought.

She would always be the first to tell you life was beautiful. She would smile and laugh and comfort you when you felt bad. But now, as she sat staring across the coffee bar she felt her hopes dashed. She felt as though she'd been shoved over a rocky ledge and was falling hard to the ground below. Her beloved.

The man she believed to be her beloved was here with another woman. Yet she couldn't be surprised, or even shocked because she'd known. She suspected it all along but hadn't wanted to think about it, she sighed heavily dropping her head. That meant then that it was over. She would have to leave Inuyasha and he would be free to date the other woman, Yamada Kikyo. She laughed bitterly at herself. She even knew her name. Wasn't she pathetic? Spending all these months with him knowing the reason behind every canceled date and late appearance was because of her.

Here she was, Higurashi Kagome, the perpetual optimist feeling sorry for herself. She, the perfect college student, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend, and the perfect sister. Everything, apparently, but the perfect girlfriend.

She looked up when someone approached her table, and without acknowledgement or permission sat down across from her. She looked up meeting beautiful gold eyes. Eyes she'd peered into and seen in her dreams again and again. The eyes of her beloved's older brother, the man she'd secretly adored from the moment she'd set eyes upon him. She stuttered nervously. "S-Sesshoumaru..."

Why was he sitting with her? Her silly crush on him was not returned, of that she was painfully aware. He did not care for her company and often went out of his way to avoid her.

"Good evening, Kagome."

She glanced around. "Are you lost?"

A ridiculous question, Masaharu Sesshoumaru would never get lost and even if he did he wouldn't admit it. Least of all to her.

He turned his eyes across the cafe toward his younger brother and the woman across from him.

"Finally wised up, did you?"

"Go away," she growled. "I don't need you, of all people, hanging over me right now." Her mood took a sharp swing down a dark alley at the comment. "I can see, I don't need you in my face telling me how stupid I am. Don't you think I know that?"

He scoffed. "You waited all these months just to see this? Just to confirm your little suspicions and tiny fears, and now it's just too much for you? I am surprised, not even you usually fall so low."

She shook her head. "It's none of your business... "

He turned his head to the windows. "But what can you expect a mutt to know of quality when it is before him?"

She looked up, but his eyes were to the windows, not on her. They remained there for some time, even after Inuyasha and Kikyo had gone. Sesshoumaru took it upon himself to order one for her of everything he'd ordered for himself. They were mostly silent, enjoying the stillness of each other's company. Occasionally he spoke, usually something degrading of Inuyasha, and she suspected it was done for her benefit.

"I don't know what you're doing, but thank you."

He barely spared her a glance, keeping his eyes turned to the windows.

Kagome groaned, she could hear birds chirping. She opened her eyes, it was dim, almost dark, it must be just before dawn, she reasoned. Beside her she could hear the soft breathing of another figure and as she moved she felt the heat of a bare body beside her own and her memory returned completely.

His firm body pressed up against hers, his lips on her lips, the feel of his body over hers. He had not asked her if she wanted to stop, but she realized sullenly she had never given him reason to. She had simply gone along with his advances, strange as they were to her and this is where it had gotten her.

She felt her eyes well up with tears and then spill over. First thing in the morning and she was crying. Beside her he shifted.

"Really... if you were going to cry wouldn't last night have been more appropriate?"

He sat up and she slapped him. "How dare you?!"

His eyes hardened. "How dare I? I did not force you to do anything. I will not be blamed because you made a decision you now regard as a mistake." He growled.

More tears fell.

'How could she' she asked herself. Her first lover, was... him? She hadn't even the excuse of being drunk. The strongest thing to pass her lips last night had been green tea.

How could this man who had been so gentle with her the night before be such a fiend? Daylight usually proved monsters to be figments of the imagination, but this time it was showing her what had been there all the time.

A depthless well of tears bubbled over and her eyes fell closed. How could she have done this? Why, of all people, had she ended up in Sesshoumaru's bed? The one person who had never in her experience been nice to her?

She heard the sheets rustle and the weight of the bed shift as he stood. She brought the material up to cover her face; she didn't want to see him.

She could hear the definite sounds of dressing, but didn't dare to raise her head even as they stopped. She didn't even want to see him looking at her.

"The day is young, I'm sure even you have things to be doing Higurashi. Do not linger long in my room."

He, thankfully, left moments later. She wanted to sink into the ground and die. This was so humiliating. Not only had she lowered his opinion of her, she'd lowered it for herself too.

She was just barely able to stave off hysterical sobs. She almost threw herself from the bed searching for her clothes, pulling them on. There was no way she could walk downstairs. They would know she'd been here. Sesshoumaru's father, his wife... and of course, Inuyasha.

She eyed the window. She was on the second story, but there was a roof just below her. Desperate and out of her mind with embarrassment and regret she threw open the window and before she could change her mind... jumped.

She was many things, but she had never considered herself stupid. Now as she sat, staring across the restaurant she wondered why she hadn't done anything about this before today. She'd had her suspicions, she'd even confronted him, but in the end she'd accepted the lies knowingly.

She'd even known who the woman was, Yamada Kikyo, his infamous ex-girlfriend. She'd known and ignored it, but she couldn't do that anymore. Not with people beginning to talk about her. She couldn't stomach being the subject of rumors, and piteous stares. Today would be the hardest day or her life, because today she was going to leave the one she loved.

Nothing had ever been so difficult. Waiting, and dreading the three o'clock hour. Waiting for him to show up and flash her a smile that no longer was for her. She could never be convinced it was, and now she doubted it ever had been. Her heart broke a little further as each minute ticked by, and Inuyasha didn't show up.

Wouldn't that be funny, she thought bitterly. Inuyasha canceling on her break-up meeting because of Kikyo.

Her legs still hurt from jumping out of Sesshoumaru's window this morning. She'd landed on the roof just below and then from there to the ground but she'd been extremely lucky she didn't break something. That would've been even worse. First sleeping with her boyfriend's brother, then trying to sneak out only to break her ankle and get caught trying to sneak away. She sighed heavily. She didn't even want to think about that.

Finally, ten agonizing minutes past three, the doors chimed open and his familiar figure came into view. He sauntered over, smiling in his usual way and sat down across from her. He didn't have a clue, she thought. He sat across from her content with his deception, probably congratulating himself on fooling her so long and so well.

His little charade ceased to matter today. Today she would no longer be his fool. Him and Kikyo probably had a good time joking about her stupidity, how she ever thought he could love her, and yet her heart whispered 'he still comes back to you'.

She ruthlessly turned on her traitorous heart, wanting to slash at the offending voice that was her own. She forced herself to smile and quietly ordered another cup of tea. She'd had so many already trying to calm her nerves. She had just been about to switch over to coffee when he arrived.

"What's up?"

"Nothing," she replied, tearing her gaze away and out the window. He would notice her strange quietness.

"Anything wrong?"

"We can't see each other anymore."

She didn't know what she was doing; her mouth was getting ahead of her brain.

"I've been lying to you."

'You're lying to someone', her heart whispered again.

"What?" He looked surprised. "What about?"

"I've been seeing someone else."

Another lie. Why couldn't she just tell him the truth? He was a liar and deserved to be slow roasted in hell for hurting her. But she couldn't say that.

"Who?" He immediately straightened up, looking jealous.

"Your brother, Sesshoumaru. I-I couldn't come out with you last night because I was with him."

She had cancelled on him last night so that she could spy on him. That was how she'd ended up with stupid Sesshoumaru in the first place. So it wasn't a total lie.

She could see it, the fury in his eyes. It almost made her happy he was jealous, but she squelched it. "He told me he was going to a meeting!"

Sesshoumaru was Inuyasha's older half brother, apparently they had different mothers. Sesshoumaru had lived with his mother most of his life but had recently moved in with his father after taking a job at his company. That's how she'd met him. Recently as in two years past.

Unfortunately, he didn't seem to like her, which was why last night was all the more confusing. Nor did he seem to like anyone else related to Inuyasha. She guessed it was some kind of resentment over his parent's divorce and Inuyasha's mother or something like that. She'd never dare to ask.

If she could just pull this off ...

Fate however decided to lend a hand, as someone unwanted strode up behind her and into Inuyasha's view.

"You bastard!"

She turned and immediately paled seeing the stoic older brother. He merely raised a brow at his younger brother's antics.

"What's your problem, now?" He asked, his tone disinterested.

His gaze drifted to her, momentarily before flitting back to his brother. Apparently she was not worth the effort. That hurt more than it should have, she told herself. She wanted nothing to do with him, she really didn't. But no one else could cut you open so painfully like he could.

"You lying bastard, I knew you couldn't be trusted! Going to a meeting, yeah right! You've been screwing around with Kagome the whole time haven't you?"

The look on Sesshoumaru's face almost bespoke of innocence. "Excuse me?"

"She told me all about it!" He pointed accusingly at me. "I should've known."

Sesshoumaru glanced back at Kagome who was being strangely silent.

"What business is it of yours who I spend my nights with?"

Inuyasha seemed to go red with anger, turning toward her. "You slept with him!?"

"Don't try changing this into something it isn't, I regret what happened between me and him. I made a mistake, I'm admitting it, but you've done the same thing to me for months, and lied to my face about it. Well you don't have to anymore. Kikyo can have you, we're done."

She began walking away, somewhat proud of herself when she stopped.

"Come by the shrine and pick up the stuff you left there, if you don't come this afternoon, it goes in the trash."

The two brothers simply watched in silence as she walked off.

She'd done it, she thought. It hurt, it was humiliating with Sesshoumaru showing up, but it was over. She was free. Free to wallow through her pain alone. She'd find someone else; she wasn't worried about being alone forever. For now, it was painful and would be for a long while.

[End chapter one.]

Author's Notes: I could've posted this sooner but chapter 6 is a real killer. I seem to have lost the idea I had for this and that's not good at all.

I've momentarily stopped writing it because Naraku was going OOC overboard and drowning.