Chapter V
Rin and Sesshoumaru had been sitting on the stationary train for nearly half an hour before he became impatient. They should already be on their way home by now not still sitting in the station. Excusing himself, he disappeared in search of someone who could tell him why they weren't going anywhere and after searching for a short while, he went back to the ticket desk inside, praying that the train wouldn't leave while he was not on it.
"Excuse me," Sesshoumaru said curtly to the man behind the desk.
"Yes sir?"
"Why is the train that is supposed to be returning to the city still here? We should have left 15 minutes ago."
"I'm sorry, sir, you must not have heard the announcement."
"What announcement?"
"There is a problem on the tracks and the train will not be returning to the city tonight."
Sesshoumaru sighed to himself. "When will it be returning?"
"Normal service should resume tomorrow, but it depends on the severity of the problem. I suggest you find somewhere to stay for the night and come back in the morning."
Nodding, Sesshoumaru returned to the train and told Rin of their predicament. She had nodding understandingly and followed him out of the station where they stood beneath a streetlight, not sure what to do next. The most obvious solution was to either return to the house or to find a hotel, but Sesshoumaru wondered if Rin would want to spend the night at the house. There was nothing there anyway. They would have to find something to keep them warm as there was no heating system as there was in his apartment.
"We'll have to go back to the house then," Rin said quietly as she looked around them.
"There's nothing there."
"Then we'll get what we need before we go."
"Where?"
"I remember vaguely where the shops are and it shouldn't be too far."
Slightly dubious about her memory of where the shops were, Sesshoumaru followed her silently and tried to remember various landmarks in case they got lost. Fortunately, Rin had remembered where the shops were and they only made a few wrong turnings before reaching them. Much to Sesshoumaru's surprise, they managed to by bedding and food for the night and it wasn't as expensive as he was expecting. They had finally settled on each paying half of the money before heading towards an elderly lady at the check out.
"I've not seen you before," she said pleasantly to Sesshoumaru. "Are you new here?"
"I live in the city."
"You're quite far from home, dear. Are the trains not running?"
"No."
"Oh dear. Have you found somewhere to stay?"
"The Nakajima house."
"Ah yes, that house is well known in this town." Her eyes fell on Rin who appeared beside Sesshoumaru. "Is this your wife? She's a pretty thing."
Rin blushed and Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "No, we aren't married."
"You look familiar, dear," the woman said to Rin. "Have we met before?"
"I doubt it. I left here when I was a child."
"Are you staying at the Nakajima house as well?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know it was for sale. Such a tragic story."
"It's not for sale," Rin said calmly, ignoring the questioning look in Sesshoumaru's eyes as she began packing away the groceries into bags.
"Not?" the woman asked in surprise as her eyes widened. "For you to be staying there then it must mean that you're a relative. Could it be that you were the youngest daughter?"
"Thank you for your help."
Rin didn't wait to see if Sesshoumaru was following as she left the store with a bag of groceries in her arms, well aware that the elderly woman's eyes followed her out of the store. It annoyed her that people spoke about her family's home like it was something out of a legend. She frowned and bit her lip as she thought over the woman's prying. The last thing she needed was for the people in the town who still remembered her family to come and ask her questions. It was only when she was half way down the road to the house that she remembered Sesshoumaru and looked up to see him walking quietly beside her. As if sensing her gaze, he looked down at her for a moment before focusing back on the road.
"If you were trying to avoid her questioning, I don't think you succeeded," Sesshoumaru said quietly as he helped her unpack the groceries in the kitchen.
"It doesn't matter," Rin replied with a shrug as she lit a few of the candles they had bought, mentally cursing the fact that the electricity to the house had been cut off.
"She's probably going to gossip about that conversation."
"She would have done anyway. I'll start on dinner if you don't mind sorting out the beds?" she asked, giving him a smile as she changed the subject.
Knowing that she didn't want to discuss the matter, Sesshoumaru left Rin in the kitchen and took a candle into the adjacent room where they would spend the night. It wasn't the biggest room in the house, but it was big enough for them to sleep in without getting too cold. As he laid out the beds, his mind wondered to the conversation with the woman in the shop. This house was well known in the town apparently, although it didn't come as much of a surprise to him as he supposed that any house that had been standing empty for 17 years would become well known in any town or city. It wouldn't even surprise him if some of the local myths were based on the empty house. What did surprise him was the fact that the woman in the shop had seemed taken aback by the fact that the house was not for sale and yet they were staying in it. He didn't understand why that should be so hard to believe since it was Rin's previous home. Another thing Sesshoumaru didn't understand was what the tragic story was and why the woman had seemed shocked when asking if Rin was the youngest daughter. It was a mystery that he knew he wouldn't be able to solve until Rin told him the details, but he suspected that she wouldn't be talking about it very soon if her reaction earlier had been anything to go by.
"I'm afraid we'll just have to have sandwiches," Rin said with an apologetic smile when she came into the room a short while later. "I hadn't really seen much point in having the electricity working again until today."
"Sandwiches are fine."
Rin sighed softly as she sat down on one of the beds Sesshoumaru had laid out in the little room and ate silently as she thought about had happened that day. She was almost certain that Sesshoumaru was now wondering what she had to hide after she all but ran out the shop earlier and she was still unsure whether or not to tell him the story. He had told her his story after all, shouldn't she tell him hers?
"I can't understand why you would leave this town," Sesshoumaru said almost to himself as he looked out the window into the dark garden. "It's so peaceful."
"It is peaceful," Rin agreed with a smile. "But at 7 years of age, you don't really have much say in where you live."
"Was the place in the city you moved to as nice as this?"
Rin paused as she cast her mind back. "No, not really. This place is a lot nicer; I didn't like the place I moved to."
"I suppose the house you spend most of your life in is probably always going to be the one you like best."
"Perhaps."
"How did you end up living in such an awful apartment building?" Sesshoumaru asked, turning to look at her as he remembered the building.
Rin laughed. "It wasn't that bad once you got inside the apartment. I started working when I was 16 and saved up enough money to find my own place by the time I start university. It probably wasn't the best idea, but I would probably have been kicked out if I was still living in the same house by the time I was 18."
"You ended up living in a small apartment and working in a dirty bar?" Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't how you thought life would turn out, was it?"
"No, not really, but it was better than the life I was living before."
"Childhood was that bad?"
"Much worse than I can put into words."
"That's bad," he murmured to himself.
Rin laughed as she heard his words and got to her feet to throw away the paper wrapping from their sandwiches. She was still giggling to herself as she stood in the kitchen looking out into the back garden. Sesshoumaru looked over his shoulder when he heard her laugh and wondered why his words were so funny.
"Is something funny?" he asked, leaning against the wall as she came back into the room.
"I didn't know that you of all people would state the obvious," Rin said, giving him a crooked smile as she sat down beside him.
"I suppose even I do that sometimes."
"You're right though, it was bad."
Neither of them spoke after that and sat in content silence as they looked out into the garden. Sesshoumaru couldn't understand this woman, she was more mysterious than most and for some reason, he was curious about her when normally he didn't acre very about anyone around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lie back on the makeshift bed and stare at the ceiling with a thoughtful look. Wondering what she was thinking about, he turned to her and was about to ask when he stopped and simply looked at her. Her eyes had closed; her eyelashes casting long shadows on her skin and her hands were linked on her stomach. As his gaze fell to her hands, he noticed that they rested just below her very full breasts. Shaking his head, he looked away in case she opened her eyes to find him staring.
"A while ago you said that you went somewhere special before work," Sesshoumaru said suddenly, breaking the silence. "Where did you go?"
"A place where past and present meet," Rin replied cryptically, her eyes still closed. "A place where I won't be judged for my actions and will be accepted as the person I am."
"You're not laying down clues for a treasure hunt," he murmured, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
Rin giggled. "Sorry, did it sound like that?"
"It did."
"I went to visit my parents," she said after a moment, a sad smile crossing her face.
"I see."
It struck Sesshoumaru then that he had never heard her talk about her parents or about anyone in her family. He had told her about his rivalry with his brother and the rocky relationship with his stepmother, but she had not once given any clue as to what kind of family she came from. He looked up when he saw her get to her feet, beckoning him to follow her as she walked silently through the dark house. She stopped at the doorway to the largest bedroom and smiled as she looked into the room.
"This was their bedroom," she said softly. "They had the biggest bed I had ever seen and when my father went away, my mother let me sleep in it with her."
After a moment she moved down the hall to the next room and pushed it opens, wrinkling her nose slightly as though smelling something she didn't like. Sesshoumaru watched as she seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before stepping back into the corridor and heading towards the last bedroom where she stopped in the middle of the room and looked at him with a vague smile.
"The last room was my brother's and it was always filthy. I wrinkle my nose out of habit when I go in there because it was so bad," she giggled and then gestured to the room they stood in. "This was my room."
"It's big for a little girl's room," Sesshoumaru commented as he looked around and tried to imagine what Rin was like as a child.
"I shared it with my older sister," she smiled and stepped over to one side of the room. "So I guess that means that this was my half of the room."
"You don't mind other people using these rooms?"
"It's fine as long as it stays the same way it is now."
"Rin, I don't know why you don't want to live here," Sesshoumaru started deciding to voice his opinion since she had asked for it a while ago. "I don't know anything about the place, but if I were you I wouldn't want strangers living in the place."
Rin smiled at him and Sesshoumaru breathed a silent sigh of relief that she wasn't upset with his words. He watched her place her hand on a nearby wall and look as though she was remembering something before she hastily pulled her hand away.
"I don't want strangers living here," Rin admitted looking at him again. "But this house needs a family living in it, not to stand alone and empty forever. I love this house, but it wouldn't be right for just one person to live here and especially not me. There are too many memories here."
Nodding, Sesshoumaru turned around and led the way back to the room they had occupied and sat down on his bed, watching as Rin made her way into the kitchen only to return moments later with a beer for him and a bottle of water for herself. He was surprised that she had thought to buy him alcohol; it wasn't really the most important thing at the moment after all. It was even his favourite one. Looking up at Rin, she smiled happily as she saw his amazement.
"I'm the barmaid after all," she said. "Of course I remember what you drink."
He smirked at that and nodded his gratitude as he opened the bottle. Looking at his watch, Sesshoumaru realised that it was already 7pm and mused that at this time on just about any other day, he would already be at the bar and Rin would be serving behind it.
"Today has been a total disaster," Rin sighed as she pulled her shoes off.
"How so?"
"You pulled weeds all day and are now stuck in a deserted house in a strange town with the centre of that town's attention, is that not a total disaster?"
"Well, pulling weeds wasn't fun but the deserted house isn't so bad," Sesshoumaru mused before looking at her seriously. "You're not the centre of the town's attention."
"I will be by tomorrow," Rin predicted ominously.
"Just because of one woman in a shop?"
"I guess it's become a pretty famous story around here, although it's probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened in this town."
"Oh?"
Rin paused and looked at Sesshoumaru seriously for a moment before taking a deep breath. There was no point hiding it anymore, it was time to tell him.
"I don't normally tell people this, but since you're here and given what the woman in the store said, it's only fair that I tell you."
"Tell me?" Sesshoumaru stared at her, not sure what to expect.
"When I was 7, I didn't move to the city with my parents, I moved alone because I was moving to an orphanage. My parents, brother and sister were killed in a car accident only a few weeks before I moved. I stayed with a neighbour for a while before I was sent off to an orphanage in the city."
"I see."
Sesshoumaru blinked in surprise at what he had just heard. He hadn't known what to expect, but that was definitely far from what he thought she would say. Maybe a father with a gambling problem or parents that argued and then divorced was something more along the lines what he thought she might say. What he had just heard floored him. How was he supposed to react? What was he supposed to say? No one in his family had died that he had been particularly close to so he could not begin to understand what it felt like being an orphan.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Rin smiled and waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, it was seventeen years ago."
"You're only 24?" Sesshoumaru asked in surprise.
"Yes," Rin said with a smile. "How old did you think I was?"
"Older than that."
"How old are you?"
"29."
"You're only 5 years older than me."
"Indeed. Does it bother you?"
"What?"
"That you're living with someone that much older than you."
She laughed. "Of course not. I don't think age matters that much; it's not something I pay a great deal of attention to."
Somehow, Rin's words put him at ease. Sesshoumaru had not expected to her to be only 24 and it worried him slightly that she might find it awkward to stay in the same apartment as a man who was nearly 30. Fortunately, the woman managed to push his worries aside and he now realised that a 5 year age gap was not all that bad and it wasn't as though they were a couple either. Shrugging the thoughts aside, he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling as he wondered what the next day would have in store for them.