Disclaimer: Still don't own Inuyasha.
--------------------------------
Chapter 18: What is love?
Night was day and day was night; they thrived equally balanced just as life could coexist in a constant, blessed death. The evil and the holy interwove in a harmonious unification, bound by the spell of the temptress' hearty enchantment. There was no past or present— just a floating fragment of the land he sat upon that drifted along the flow of timeless existence. The many became one same thing in a spectacular rebirth, and it made incredible, illogical sense.
Just like his deformed and detached reasoning, the world became this sacred, eternal iniquity, once the melody of her fantastic voice began.
First the magnanimous room had melted willfully into the wide walls, now hanging dryly by them. The floors curled to tighten him into place, unable to move, the ceiling dripping with butterscotch paint. It splashed and ruined the view before him, though the winding and spirals of the lilac and blood red colors that used to dress objects once discernable of the room had already spilled together to create one enormous pool of bliss. Forms of humans became lost in it, their bodies drowning into mixed textures of matter that no longer were. That pool of color came to existence only to serve as the ground she stepped on and overcame, the phenomenon becoming greater the more times she took to the stage.
If little words could capture what her art made his powerful being feel, it was that nothing else, living or breathing, would subsist when she was up there, amongst the clouds of the mortal gods.
"Don't turn your back on me!" sobbed Rin's delicate body. The hair that was thrown across her shoulder was a mess of tangles that needed to be combed; the small hands that held in her fragile, saddened face with fury and hurt trembled. One of them was missing a white glove that had fallen to the floor earlier when she had bit on it in anger. Her teeth sparkled just as white.
And her tongue…
There was something about her voice that, although scorned in devastation and hatred, it ringed with the softest melody in its depths, never letting her fully become this other woman she was portraying.
"I am doing this for you, Scarlet! For the both of us!" The suited man that turned his back to her begging could have been anyone, any performer at all, and yet she would still shine brightest from the two. Everyone said so. Everyone thought so. He knew so.
It was her voice that drew his eyes shut; nothing more could achieve this welcoming ease.
"There are plenty of men to go to war. Let them be the ones to die an honorable death."
He could feel the tendrils of it rising from inside her sweet neck and up into the timeless air—they lingered and wavered there until stretching out and feeling him over, starting at the skin at the foot of his earlobe, trailing upward on its curl, and whirling in the arches before flowing through the opening. The tendrils were like fingers, playing with his effeminate stripes, tracing over and over again his moon like two gracious lips were to close in afterward to press against it. Perhaps somewhere lower.
The human finally looked down to her, his eyes cold and far, though his legs seemed to quiver. "Then what would you have me do? Who am I supposed to be if— "
"My husband!" Rin's body rose from the ground as if a weight had been pressed against it the hold time and still was, the waves of her torn and battered dress flailing and scrunching where her hands gripped tight the threaded gown. The russet-haired man that stood before her now saw himself in a knot of arms and heartfelt tears, careful not to let the young woman fall when she threw herself against his chest. His partner squirmed with sentiment in their embrace as his mouth fell and gawked, disbelief and wonder rising to the sparkling, dark spheres just above his nose.
"I…I," Rin's beautiful words found it hard to speak, spilling outwards at her shivering and exasperated gasps of breath. "I love you too much to let you go!"
"But my dearest…" She would not let him win the argument, let alone leave without dragging her along with him into battle. She was too bold of a woman, daring to cling to his leg like a child soon to be without her father in a hanging. "What am I to do with you?" Her hair was brushed once, and then a hand lay upon her soft head, until the lights in the room began to die, a last bulb shining on her milky skin.
"What am I to do with you?" that man asked her again, and this time he was answered with her cheek sliding down his thigh, her arms loosing their iron grasp to hang before holding up her failing weight. The bangs that combed her forehead fell to hide any expression she would make.
A youkai's neck began to lean to the side with an indiscernible push at his chest, gold hues disappearing behind closed lids.
"Don't talk like that." The hoarseness of the utter made the Daiyoukai cringe and feel as if she had whispered it to him from a close distance, though he sat tens of seats away from the stage.
"I would rather dishonor myself if only…if only not to see your lifeless eyes." The young woman hiccupped some more, pulling on the man's collar. He complied with an upturned lip, bending over to cup her chin into his hold, his mouth parting to lean toward her face. Rin desperately awaited his touch; but before they could, the vision of them blurred; then, there was nothing but black.
It was when Sesshoumaru cleared his throat to escape the daze he had fallen into.
There was loud cheering and whistles and claps coming from all over the auditorium as the lights came back on. The room seemed to come to life only then, and the melting of the lilac floors and blood red chairs stilled to form back into lilac floors and rows of blood red chairs.
"Bravo! Well done my little chickadees!" The director was standing from his seat and clapping along with the rest of the cast and technical crew. He had his large glasses off, which usually gave him an insect-like expression.
"Now that's what I want! Passion! Love! Heat! Heat!" He emphasized the last word by howling and curling his thin digits into the palm of his hands as they shook in satisfaction.
He continued to say more but by then Sesshoumaru had gone back to juggling between composing the case he would use for his next appearance in court, and managing his and his brother's investments. Being the super beings that they were, they landed many occupations with high salary (most times because they filled in numerous positions at once without sweat); and currently, a fragment of the earnings of one of them alone could suffice all four of the housemate's needs for that month. The siblings had no use for splurging and the girls were too humble to ever ask for much, so they had much saved in their bank accounts. Administering the two's wealth was a hobby the Daiyoukai liked to take on the side, although none of it was ever used in the end.
All those documents had barely been analyzed once in that evening; it was hard to concentrate on such things when he came as a listener for one of Rin's rehearsals.
After the director appointed the date for their next meeting, a multitude of people gathered around the romantic characters on stage, exclaiming how wonderful they had executed their job and how much they were being admired for it. The Daiyoukai stood and gathered his belongings, and strode leisurely over to join them—or rather break them apart before they suffocated that poor girl of his.
"I mean, totally! You should definitely try out for Beauty's part in that remake of—"
"Oh, you'll surely make the part, Rin!" Neither colleague let the other finish their speech before interrupting and adding in their own bits of praise into the mix.
"Damn, girl! You nail it every time!" chimed another female. She placed a big hand to Rin's back and addressed the male actor. "Nobunaga, you're awesome too!"
"Yeah—too bad you've got a girlfriend. 'Cause if you didn't," this particular girl made a clicking sound of approval with her mouth, "well, you know." There was mild chuckling from the crowd.
"Good thing we're guys," said one of the crew members, his headphones making his head seem twice in size; "because Rin's available like the pasty sauce that sweetens my noodles." Said girl smiled uneasily as the man smirked broadly to her and broke their distance.
"Get in line, Manten," spoke another, hugging Rin by her shoulder. "She'll love no other man after our first date, right sugah?" The affectionate male audience around her began to grow, and the inu-youkai reminded himself to stay firm, that he disliked sharpening his nails on such vermin when they could be silenced and drawn away by other means—mainly his unspoken snarl at a closer range.
A sudden, high-pitched scream punctured his hearing before he could get close, though, and any murderous thoughts he had conjured went directed toward the opposite gender.
"Gah! It's Sesshoumaru! Aya!" Now it was him being raised many thin, medium-sized and thick pointer fingers. He braced himself for a good trampling.
First that girl jumped off the stage, stumbling to the floor before darting at his direction with hearts in her eyes and some circling above her crown with wings; then the rest of the hungry pack of twenty to thirty followed. The stampede—with raging dust cloud included—resembled that of nature shows when a horde of gazelle raced toward an oasis in competition. There were clamors of admiration, requestsof love, marriage and "Can I have your son or daughter or we'll adopt if that's what you want but please, please make me the happiest woman on earth and bed me for kami's sake or I'll die!" (Of course they used more graphic and purely vulgar vocabulary, but their assumptions of mating would have not been heeded either way).
Sesshoumaru towered over all the females in an obvious manner, turning all ways at the center to try and find an escape route. Most importantly, he watched out for touchy hands, only experiencing at times like these how it was to be at the other end of Miroku's hazardous presence. He tried not to show it, but the yells, pushing and shoving and oh dear kami who dared grab me there! were driving him over the edge. His eyes were like fists on his face, the least amount of discomfort he could show when his ears were about to drain blood from their sockets. It was a miracle he still even had a brain at all.
Then the animalistic attacks began to cease one by one. As the youkai started to come to, he noticed the decreasing volume of the chatter and the falling of the arms, which amounted to the diminishing smell of armpit sweat and excited female.
A path had begun to open for the imposing actress as she came to his side, her face plastered with the thickest of creams and powder. The redness of her lips made them bigger, not plush, and her eyes were not their graceful, almond shape when boarded with black tint. The ministrations done to Rin's face made the youkai want to hold her in his claw and wipe it all off with his thumb, not relenting until it were washed away from her skin. He could imagine beginning with the white of her cheeks. They made her look like a broken, porcelain doll.
"Look Sesshoumaru. Satoshi gave me a rose." He blinked first, and then recognized that Rin had been playing with a flower the whole time, often putting it to her nose to smell. He did not need to do such a thing to perceive its scent from such a close range; but she went and smelled it again, this time closing her eyes, enjoying its aroma as if nothing else smelled as sweet, and as if she already knew he would not do the same and she had to enjoy it for the both of them. The smile about her made the ruby petals shrink in glamour.
At the corner of his mind the youkai unconsciously asked himself who would dare give her a simple, single rose. It stood for such as a meager token. The male odor it also gave off was not pleasing to whiff.
The women around them started to back away almost in a ghostly manner, pulling apart from the two who now shared the center with themselves. The gesture reminded the lord of the paying of respects to someone of greater status; but this was not of the kind of the theatre universe; it felt more like that of a mysterious, female world.
"What do you think of Rin's acting today, Sesshoumaru?" Suddenly he noticed the room around him turned more silent and inquisitive, the leaning in of the bodies of the admiring party making the air less accessible for breathing. He turned to Rin, who looked half interested in what he would say.
"It was…nice." It came out sounding unnatural and awkward. The youkai was not sure how the girl would take the compliment (or at least what he saw to be a compliment, there not being any other word he could use—say, "brilliant" or "majestic") as she took to smelling the rose again. Some girls awe'd disappointingly.
Up on the stage he could hear the men talking about them.
"Did you see that? He totally doesn't get art."
"Why she hangs out with such a dork in the first place is beyond me."
"She's clearly on a whole other level."
"Tell me about it. You'd think the dude would say something other than 'nice'. No one says 'nice', man."
"Nobody knows why Rin's always hanging around him, or where he came from, for that matter; she should have blown him off centuries ago. The guy doesn't even act human, let alone show her the attention a girl like her needs."
At the instant flash of the demon's eyes toward their direction, the entire group froze in terror, turning into papered drawings with a blank surface, outlined in black on the edges. When the man who was talking last noticed their transformation, he followed their gaze and dropped his mouth when he met with Sesshoumaru's far glare, turning to stone instead.
Then he slowly started to crumble.
The youkai made sure he still had his suitcase with him before telling Rin that they should be leaving. It made her stop enjoying the rose and nod, returning to her dressing room to clean up. While she took her time his mobile phone ringed, and he answered it with little importance.
--------------------------
Sesshoumaru looked down through the corner of his eye at the small frame of the student as they walked on the sidewalk; Rin usually kept to herself whenever doing work related with theater, or when her mind was still occupied with the thought of it. It was discomforting to see her in that character; stuck inside a zone that he could never accustom himself to, no matter how many times she did it. It did not seem fitting for someone so lively. It should be reserved for someone more like…well, him. It hid her particular charm, at times making him believe she was not herself that day. Sometimes it meant she was sick. He hated when she smelled of sickness.
At the continuous chattering on the other line of the phone the youkai cursed inwardly. He was still on that last call, which was stealing the time he was supposed to be occupying with something more meaningful. He wished the human on the other side would learn how to fill him in on the more vital data instead of going into meaningless detail. Before it could go on any further he finally told the man he was going to hang up, which he did in the middle of the other's objection to reconsider.
"Lawyers," he said dully. Rin made no sign that she had heard him. Perhaps her mind was still preoccupied with the evening's play. She still had that rose, he noted; more likely to put it in a vase with water back home, along with the other prized foliage that had survived for days on a bed stand in her room. Yellow; purple; blue and orange; he dreaded flowered gifts that never wilted. They lasted longer while she paid too much attention to things that held no ability to talk back.
His thread of thought suddenly made a pause to register the last idea; and the youkai inaudibly harrumphed.
Good, he reflected sarcastically, enter into the realm of oxymoron, son of Ino-no-Taisho. He thought it best to stop thinking.
Through the rest of their long trudge home neither began a conversation. Rin occasionally hummed; but humming was not filling the empty gap between them like it usually could. It made Sesshoumaru narrow his eyes.
Rin was being too quiet. The girl was never quiet for so long with him. The less he made for conversation, the more she would tell him how her day went, how wonderful her practice had gone, and how pretty and beautiful the roses she'd received were. Given, he never answered back, but he was used to having her prattle away without trepidation. Keeping silent was not fitting for her. That was his job.
"You really think the play was 'nice', Lord Sesshoumaru?" Beside him, she caressed the petals of the rose with her cheek, not showing him any real attention. He saw in amazement how the gift almost bloomed at the brush; maybe it was just him. Some things were just impossible. He centered his sight to the front.
Certainly jealousy over a plant was unheard of, his inner self thought.
The couple kept going as the question hung in the air; and then…
Was it really envy what he felt?
The youkai certainly had no such sentiment present itself previously. Though what was this, this inexplicable knot in his stomach, which felt like someone had grabbed his organs and twisted them to the point where it had him confused of their location? It failed to have a name. Still, he knew it couldn't be something as dark as envy.
This, he managed to identify, was the recurring reaction to inner doubt. But even that explanation was dubious. One thing he was positive about was that it was never pleasant to have, and it occurred more often than not. It always came up on the most frustrating of moments…
He unconsciously stopped in his tracks, looking to the cracks of the pavement. Abstract and subconscious matter became more palpable, he reflected, when one focused on something as firm as concrete.
When the girl noticed he had stayed behind, she did the same, asking him if something was wrong.
Indeed, there was.
Normally he would leave pointless uncertainties alone; but this one had been bothering him too much. To understand why it was Rin pretended to be some soldier's wife, and why it was said that she played the part so well, he needed to know the meaning behind that character; her performance; and, most importantly, that loathed, single rose.
He needed to grasp what this phenomenon was.
"What is love?"
The girl arched her eyebrows and blinked a few times; there was no doubt she was completely confused by his sudden query. The youkai himself wondered just how the subject had come to form as a predicament in his purely demonic reasoning.
Sesshoumaru followed the indescribable appearance of the girl's face and read the posture of her tensing body, as Rin either stepped out of her stupor or reasoned with what to say next. He was relieved when he noticed her loosening up. Her hair visually gained a softer texture, her complexion relaxed and full of color. He found himself staring.
She thought on it long enough. Then, as if it was a question too difficult to answer, or to simple to enrich, she replied to him with one of those grins that could only be associated with her divine innocence.
"It's a smile," she said, like it were indeed that true. "It's a smile because you're happy." Her head was to the side, and she looked to him with those clear, russet hues in all sincerity, as if she knew the secret to the pinnacle of happiness, and was consciously withholding valuable information from him.
What she had said was pretty easy to understand, although most of the translation of human emotion was still lost in the midst. Perhaps that was why Rin took her time in her response. Maybe she knew he would never understand it, could never understand it, and chose to explain to him with the simplest of replies.
So, if it was not a complete explanation, could he take it as a good definition?
Well, she believed in it, Sesshoumaru reasoned, so he thought it was true enough—though it did leave a sour taste in his mouth.
He could think of no moment alive in which he had smiled; and so he wondered if there was a time in his life that he had ever been truly content. Most likely not. It must be why it was so hard to comprehend "happiness". That and he had yet to find the use of sentiments, so he made no effort in trying to identify them. Why the girl he was with could have them and be this lively was mystifying. He heard one could die from too much or too little emotion.
"Holy Buda! The end is near!"
The pair turned to their right at the exclamation, noticing they had inadvertentlyended up at the front yard of an immense temple, which was holding an occidental, religious service. More howls followed.
"God forbid this disgrace! I can feel the most devilish aura surrounding our sacred palace!"A powerful tenor preached fulfilled prophecies into the loudspeakers, apparently the leader of the flock. "May the Lord have mercy on His poor servants!" Frantic cries erupted from the building, worshipers repenting their sins and pleading for forgiveness in chorus.
"Time has come for us to pay for leading such pagan lives! The devil has descended on our grounds, come to take away our souls! Pray, pray, pray that our spirits shall be saved from condemnation to an eternal hell!"
"The devil has come! Oh the horrible aura! The air is filled with his evil!"
"Mother of Buda!" Thefirst set of participants began screaming and running out the front doors of the location, their arms flapping about with traumatic, cawing cries. Rin and Sesshoumaru met each other's gaze in suspicion. Something about their timing was very peculiar.
"Redeem yourselves! Redeem your souls, you pagan fiends!" A man came running out of the sacred structure and began hollering to the streets that all would meet a gruesome afterlife, his face almost whiter than a corpse's. "I feel him coming! He's here, I tell you! The devil! The horrible son of hell!"
The pair continued to watch the man until he disappeared into another block, a larger group of people swarming out of the building after, some launching themselves onto open traffic. "The headmaster felt so himself! The demon has come to take us away!"
Rin winced at the shriek of car horns and the numerous wheels that screeched to a halt on the asphalt road. Vehicles began mounting one atop another once they couldn't stop soon enough, and a broken pipe blew up gushes of water at a bus's impact as it swirled out of the way of a bicyclist who had lost control over his pedaling.
"Be merciful! Be merciful!"
The girl yelped and grabbed the lord's sleeve with a yank, preparing for a sprint. Then a familiar voice called to them, and the two saw Miroku in purple robes at the front steps of the building, sighing at the commotion.
"You tell them you feel a demonic presence and you get this," he shook his head as he witnessed the catastrophe in the streets. The youkai wondered what a monk was doing lecturing to anything else but Buddhists.
"I whisper to the headmaster of demonic presence, and here he goes, scaring the life out of all these people by preaching about it. Last time I'll attend an invitation," he added low.
The monk now spoke directly at the couple. "Imagine if I'd told them that months ago when I first witnessed the aura." He took his chin into his hand and looked like he was weighing a thought in his mind. "…Actually, it was right about the time when I met you guys, Sesshoumaru." He blinked. "As a matter of fact…"
The Dai-youkai's claw saw this an opportune moment to grip his suitcase firmly, lest it have to be used as a weapon for knocking someone unconscious to the point of memory loss.
------------------------------
This chapter is meant to correlate with the next chapter, titled, "It is a Gift." Funny how I never manage to write less than fifteen pages; I have to keep separating things. Because this one's edited better than the second (pertaining Inuyasha's character) I cut them up (ouch) and sent this one sooner. It'll come out in less than a week. Didn't mean to leave our favorite hanyou out.
Read and review, please. D