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XVIII.
If there was one word to describe Higurashi Kagome's life, it was "awkward".
Her life was more awkward than that stage of pubescence caught between childhood and adulthood, but less awkward than everyday functioning in the "real world", as her mother had called it.
It seemed that everywhere she went, everything she did and everything she said created more awkwardness to add to the ever-rising water levels that threatened to envelop and drown her. Kissing Sesshoumaru had only been one of the many things to help sink her boat. The proverbial "straws", so to speak, and now that she had been left high and dry, Kagome didn't know what to do.
If they had been in modern-day Tokyo, and if they were both modern-day humans, things might have been different – simpler. Unfortunately for Kagome, they weren't, and as if to mock her very existence, the Fates and God had made sure to make every turn in her life be miserable and curse-worthy. She had to fight tooth and nail for each foot grip that hoisted her farther and farther up the steep incline – the proverbial mountain, so to speak.
Her chances of falling were great.
It was during this mind–altering, body–numbing climb that she found out who she really was, and who she wasn't. It had come as no real shock to finally be understood and acknowledged as Kagome, and not Kikyou, and only the smallest fraction of the happiness she had expected to feel upon the honour of "gaining" herself that she had felt; like air seeping through a cloth. Nothing exciting at all.
It had taken her a long time to realize that her family beyond the well, while in blood and name, wasn't the one she wanted to spend her life with. Modern day Tokyo just wasn't what she wanted it to be anymore, and although electricity, hot baths and her bed were at the top of her list of "to miss", Kagome felt that she was better off in the Feudal Era.
It had always been expected that once the jewel was complete, Naraku dead and peace restored to the world again, that she would go back to the home beyond the well, where she would stay until... well, until she died, to put it bluntly.
Growing up, getting married, having and rearing children... the idea appealed to Kagome, but having it all in the modern world? There was no bigger turn–off for her. It disgusted her that she could be so vain while so... not materialistic.
And her friends, what would she tell them?
Her family might say she had died in some unfortunate accident or other, or maybe her grandfather would have her be killed off by some foreign plague that had fifteen syllables and only three vowels. She was sure her grandpa would get a kick out of that. But no, the most plausible excuse would be to send her to some boarding school overseas, or go to one of the "world–renowned" hospitals in America.
America.
Kagome tossed back a drink, her fingers clenching around the glass.
America was all she was hearing about, these days. Famous football players, cheerleaders, movie stars and action heroes and heroines. Despicable and ostentatious.
She had heard the phrase "Blame Canada" before, but never understood it. Why blame Canada when you could blame America? After all, from what she could gather from the television set her family owned and what her friends were saying, America was the source of most of the world's calamity.
Kagome grinned bitterly, taking another sip of the vulgar liquor.
She'd never been a drinker, and until tonight, had never needed a reason to take up the cup.
The place looked like one of those American bars from the old Western movies Kagome and her friends used to watch on lazy Sunday afternoons. Sleazy middle–aged man behind the polished hardwood alignment, vintage red velvet bar seats, wooden tables in the background and shelf upon shelf stacked with various liquors and bottles, all wafting the same intoxicating breeze. She couldn't wait until the morning.
She was only in this era for two days, the most she had been able to barter with Inuyasha at the price of her hard work, and she'd be damned if she didn't spend those two days doing whatever the hell she wanted to, and at the moment, drowning her sorrows in booze and beverages seemed to fit her just fine. After all, the bartender didn't seem to mind.
"Another one." She called to him, tipping her cup to drain the last of the burgundy–gold rustic liquid, eyeing the cup as it was set down in front of her, filled to the brim with more of the delectable nectar of the gods. "Be it food or drink it matters not, but be merry." The phrase was wrong on her tongue, like liquid silver it rolled from well–oiled hinges in the caverns of her tongue, and Kagome wondered how the phrase could be so... adequate, and yet so fucked up.
But then again, she had fucked it up.
Oh, well. She'd never been very good with English, anyway. And wasn't it a Greek who had said that, anyway?
Kagome sighed and sloshed the liquid around her cup, trying not to think about how similar the spirits' colour was to a very distinct pair of eyes she knew. What surprised her, however, was the fact that it wasn't the pair of eyes that she thought it might be, or the one she wished it might be.
No, the honeyed colour was far more reminiscent of Sesshoumaru than Inuyasha, whose own eyes were more orange of a setting sun than gold of the warmest nugget.
Kagome wondered if their father's eyes leaned more towards Sesshoumaru's or Inuyasha's.
Kagome stopped thinking as she brought the glass up to her lips, her eyes surveying the little bar once more, appreciative of the darker coloured theme, for once. When her father had died, Kagome had surrounded herself in the soft medley of pinks and yellows, happy colours, but sometimes – and she found this the first – she needed dark and depressing.
What was this? She asked herself, throwing back her head as the rest of the alcohol slowly burned its way down her throat. Her fourth, fifth, drink? She had passed 'warm and fuzzy' five drinks ago, anyhow. She and alcohol didn't mix well. Like oil and water, she analogized, giggling quietly at her own realization.
She should drink more – everything seemed so damn funny when she was drunk, although, she was sure everything would look just as ugly and depressing when she woke up in the morning again, if not worse. She'd read about hangovers before, oh boy had she ever! They didn't sound fun at all. And now, for the first time in her twenty-two years of life, she would be experiencing one. She just hoped it went easy on her. Vomiting and looking like shit really didn't appeal to her at the moment.
Tearing up her oesophagus twice in less than twenty-four hours didn't sound very healthy at all, she mused, before bursting into a new round of giggles.
If only Sango were here, she enthused silently, after she had sobered just enough to stop her laughing. At least then she would have some female company to talk about this with. It was damn hard trying to figure everything out on her own, never mind try to devise a plan to get Rin and Inuyasha together, or away from each other, if the need should ever arise.
For someone so clever, Sesshoumaru sure was useless when it came to planning and relationships. Funny, that. He always seemed so coordinated, so organized. To think that he, great and indestructible Killing Machine in the flesh would just wing it wherever he went. Now that, she could bet, not many people knew about.
It amused her how her thoughts kept straying back to the singular Taiyoukai.
She'd felt this feeling before, but... where?
Where? Where? Where? Where? 'Where' was a five letter word, she realized, slowly standing and withdrawing some wrinkled bills. Laying them down on the counter, Kagome got up and left, staggering out the door and into the smog-laced Tokyo air. She inhaled deeply, making her head feel light and airy, and scowled. "Nothing like being home." She murmured under her breath, and stuck her hands into her pockets.
It seemed Tokyo was no warmer in winter than it was in the past.
The past.
Five hundred years.
Paradoxes and foxes and boxes.
Kagome giggled again, grasping one of the street light fixtures for support while she doubled over in her mad laughing fit.
Well, she would have interesting dreams tonight, yes she would. Kind of like that one movie – Alice in Wonderland. Except, she was fairly certain that her well was more dignified than a rabbit hole, because that was just plain weird. She wondered if the producers had been on some kind of drug when they animated it. It wouldn't have surprised her – Americans.
"Blame America!" She slurred drunkenly, trying to dance down the sidewalk and thoroughly embarrassing herself, although she was adamant that she didn't care in the slightest. She would be gone tomorrow, anyway. "I can be free!" She yelled, twirling and pirouetting haphazardly in some direction that she just hoped was home. There was just no use, she realized as she stumbled through a park, slumping down onto a conveniently placed bench and resting her elbows on her knees, her head in her palms.
Her head ached.
Her body ached.
After a few minutes in that position, and when her headache had lessened severely, Kagome sat up, tilting her head back to stare at the would-be stars. She slumped back against the bench and closed her eyes, imagining the silvery-grey sea of stars caught in the tangled indigo-and-black net of velvet that was the night sky. The sparkled brightly, and Kagome could see a shooting star pass over the horizon, streaking towards its unknown destination.
One star in particular caught her attention, and Kagome focused on it, shining more brightly than the rest. She wondered if it was her.
Or maybe it was Shippou, or maybe even Rin.
No, she decided at last, her mind growing fuzzy with sleep. It was definitely Sesshoumaru that shone more brightly than the rest.
And in that split second that she saw him as a sparkling white and silver star, Kagome came to a realization.
She loved him.
And then Kagome turned to the side and vomited.
God, she needed to stop drinking.
(No comment. Oh, wait. I hereby do discredit any mentioning in this oneshot. I also realize that the person who came up with the whole Alice in Wonderland plot and story was on drugs. No comment, no comment, no comment. – Incomprehensible)