Absence
Chapter Twelve
There was an uncomfortable bite in the air, and Inuyasha hunched his shoulders unconsciously against the chill as he stuck his hands in the icy flow of the river. Dirt ran off the collection of roots and tubers he had unearthed that afternoon, and he tossed the cleaned foodstuffs into the woven basket at his side. He had accompanied Rin, yet again, on her endless foraging, gathering enough supplies to last another week.
He had lost count of how many times he had taken to the woods and fields with Rin, finding nuts and fruits, digging up edible plants. It horrified and sickened her to see him killing game for her meal, though she would eat its meat if he killed out of her sight. Birds, rabbits, the occasional deer. Inuyasha didn't think she ate enough to feed her growing body.
Movement behind him had one ear flicking back. Ascertaining the approaching figure as no threat, he focused on washing off the last of the tubers.
Small hands came around to cover his eyes; Inuyasha closed the left one rapidly in defense as small fingers came dangerously close to rending permanent damage. "Guess who, Inuyasha-sama!"
As if he could mistake the identity of the little girl, her voice breathless with giggles and wonder, her sweet, soft scent unmistakable as any other than her own. And who else would call him "Inuyasha-sama"?
He feigned irritation. "I told you, if you touched me one more time, Jaken, I'll…"
The threat trailed off as small feet stamped in an angry dance behind him. The voice rose on a plaintive wail. "Rin is not Jaken-sama!"
Inuyasha didn't even bother to try to hide the grin. "No? But I could swear your hands are cold and clammy…Like a toad's."
"Rin is not a toad!"
The laughter escaped, and Inuyasha swung around to grab Rin and toss her gently into the air. She squealed with delight as she flew up, feet kicking; Inuyasha caught her when she came back down, easing her back to earth. He grinned down at her. "Definitely not a toad," he agreed, and stooped to pick up the basket. "Let's make Rin some soup tonight. It's getting cold."
Rin tucked her hand in his free one, squeaking at the coldness of his fingers. She wore her hair pulled back today in two little pigtails. Rin could have never accomplished the feat so neatly on her own, and Inuyasha had to block the mental image of Sesshoumaru helping the little girl comb her hair. There was something inherently wrong about the idea of his half-brother engaging in such a harmless, fatherly chore.
Inuyasha shuddered at the mere thought. Sesshoumaru? Fatherly? It was too weird for contemplation.
Rin noticed Inuyasha shiver and, mistaking the cause, asked, "Is Inuyasha-sama cold? Inuyasha-sama isn't wearing his usual red clothes, either. Did it get lost before Rin first found Inuyasha-sama?"
She never had to explain to what instance of 'finding' she referred. The few times it had come up in conversation, it was painfully clear what she meant.
Mildly surprised by Rin's statement, Inuyasha glanced down, frowning. He'd known, as if on the fringe of his awareness, that he wasn't wearing the fire-rat haori; glancing down confirmed that he wore only the white kosode undershirt. That would explain why he was cold all the time now.
"Sango has it." He remembered that. There was a clutch in his heart, in his throat. "She was fixing it for me."
Rin swung their joined hands lightly, the movement distracting. "Then it will be perfect when Inuyasha is ready to pick it up!" There was such childlike faith in her voice. It touched Inuyasha somewhere, deep inside. He'd never had that, that innate trust in others. He wasn't sure what he'd have done if he had. "Rin wishes she had an older sister like Sango-sama."
There was an unusual sadness tingeing the words, but they had reached the small clearing at the edge of the forest where Ah-Un and Jaken waited. Rin slipped her hand out of Inuyasha's to run to greet the two-headed youkai. Bemused, Inuyasha dropped the basket beside the small toad. Like she hasn't seen the thing in years, he thought.
Sesshoumaru and Jaken were nowhere to be seen, but Inuyasha ignored their absence as he poked up the fire and set a small pot of water to heat. Rin was cleaning Ah-Un's hide, brushing off bits of debris from its scaly back from its afternoon forays into the woods. She sang while she worked, some improvised little ditty she made up as she went. Inuyasha listened with half an ear as he sliced roots and vegetables with his claws, smiling to himself as Rin sang about being a ladybug on its travels.
Had he ever known anyone so bright, so cheery?
A momentary cloud darkened his memory, and Inuyasha faltered as his heart squeezed painfully. Kagome. She'd been that bright, that cheerful. That pure, somehow, despite the taint of evil in the world around her.
She was safe. That's all that mattered.
"Inuyasha. Do not bleed on the vegetables."
The cold command issued from the trees behind him, and Inuyasha started—not so much at the unexpected order, but at the fact that he was, indeed, bleeding from the palm. Lost in thought, he must have cut himself with his claws.
Rin glanced over and immediately let out a loud, long "Ewwww!" at the thought of his blood contaminating her dinner.
Inuyasha turned to hide the wound from her sight, shaking his head a little. This little girl, who hadn't flinched in front of him when he'd threatened to kill her, who unsqueamishly tended his wounds, could shriek with the best of them at the thought of him bleeding on her food. What a bundle of confounding contradictions.
"Rin. Be quiet."
The scream cut off as if sheared in two, and Inuyasha once again marveled at the obedience Rin showed Sesshoumaru. The taller demon stepped fully out of the shadows; Inuyasha had no idea how long he had been standing there, watching, with Jaken at his side.
He stood, exchanging a glance with Sesshoumaru as he left the clearing, holding his wrist to help staunch the flow of blood. The superficial wound would close quickly enough, and it didn't even hurt that much, but he would go rinse it in the river nonetheless.
Inuyasha was only mildly surprised when he didn't hear Jaken move to follow him. Sesshoumaru hadn't let him out of sight once since he had come to join their little group…Inuyasha frowned. He had no idea of how much time had actually passed, and the lack of his awareness was only mildly annoying.
But this was the first time he had been left alone, and it was…disconcerting. Inuyasha crouched at the edge of the water for the second time that day, sucking in a sharp breath as he immersed his hand in the flow of water. His fingers rapidly went numb, and long after he knew his wound was clean and healed, Inuyasha sat, head tipped back to stare at the stars above.
He no longer thought about killing himself. It had been an idea borne of desperation, he understood that. It hadn't been a final solution but a final act of cowardice, and only the blind faith of one small human girl had saved him. Her blind faith in him.
He'd lived so long thinking only of the Shikon no Tama—first to capture it for his own, then to rebuild it—he didn't know what to do now that it was gone.
He had had Kagome for so long, he was lost without her.
When he finally returned to the campsite, the scent of stew—freshly slaughtered rabbit meat, no doubt the results of Sesshoumaru's most recent disappearance, heady on the air in addition to the simmering vegetables already in the broth—called to him. Rin was already eating, spooning soup directly out of the little pot and blowing on each mouthful to cool it before slurping it down.
Sesshoumaru was seated against a fallen tree trunk, watching Rin through inscrutable golden eyes. Inuyasha skirted the other demon, sitting down next to Rin and taking the spoon she offered for a couple quick bites—burning his mouth in the process—before handing it back to her.
"Rin knows where we are," she announced suddenly. Inuyasha glanced at her in surprise at the unexpected comment, but Sesshoumaru barely acknowledged her statement. Undaunted, she continued, "Rin has a request of Inuyasha-sama and Sesshoumaru-sama."
Sometimes Inuyasha couldn't follow Rin's thinking process. Because Sesshoumaru didn't seem inclined to respond, Inuyasha said, "What is it?"
She turned her head so she could look at both demons. The firelight cast strange shadows in her wide eyes. "Tomorrow, Rin would like to visit the graves of her family."
It dawned wet and blustery, gloomy gray skies and an uncomfortable dampness in the air. Rin had spent the night cuddled in Inuyasha's lap, as was her habit, his arms wrapped around her against the cold. They made a meal out of the leftover soup before stamping out the fire and following Rin to the outskirts of a small, quiet village a short ways up the river.
Jaken and Ah-Un stayed behind in the fringe of the forest, the former out of respect for the moment of privacy, the latter out of a dislike of the wet. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha followed Rin out into the open where the raindrops splattered against the ground intermittently and a damp wind swept across the earth.
Rin stopped so suddenly Inuyasha nearly ran into her. "Here?" He glanced around. There were none of the markers, wooden or otherwise, to indicate the location of the graves. They were standing far enough away from the edgemost hut of the village that, due to the poor visibility, they were completely hidden from view.
Rin nodded. "They're here." Her voice was soft, a verbal caress, and filled with such sadness Inuyasha could feel his heart break. She knelt to the ground, heedless of the wet and mud, and touched gentle fingers to what looked like a minor bump.
Inuyasha looked around. There was nothing else around them, no indication of other graves. "Your parents aren't buried in the village cemetery?" He'd raided more than one human graveyard, and he knew all the proper signs—headstones, wooden markers, incense and flowers. This barren plot of land was nothing like what he'd expected.
Water fell on Rin's unprotected head. "They wouldn't let Rin bury her family in the cemetery. But some of the villagers came out to help Rin dig the graves for her parents and her older brother."
Inuyasha shifted on his feet, uneasy somehow. Beside him, Sesshoumaru was impassive as ever. "They have no names." He couldn't pinpoint why it bothered him, but it seemed so…wrong…that they had been left with nothing to mark their passing.
Unconcerned, Rin pressed her fingers against the earth, as if she could transfer her warmth to those who lay in eternal sleep beneath her touch. "Rin remembers where they are. Rin can't read, anyway."
"You can't?" Even Inuyasha had received a basic education in his earliest years; he could remember, even now, sitting at his mother's side and stumbling through his hiragana charts. Tracing the characters that spelled out his name.
Rin shook her head, and Inuyasha frowned. "Unnamed graves are…" He couldn't think of the words, couldn't identify why it bothered him so much. "Everybody deserves at least their names after they die," he finally said when Rin turned curious dark eyes on him. "I'll write their names for you."
It took a bit of scouting, but Inuyasha found three pieces of wood—probably old fence slats—that would do. He had no writing utensils, but his claws would etch the characters into the surface well enough. He felt Rin come stand beside him. "What were they called?"
It was more heartbreaking than amusing when Rin slowly recited to him, "Okaasan…Otousan…Oniisan."
Inuyasha stumbled through the first two, but he was stuck on the second character of "Oniisan". He drew figures in the air, squinting, trying to remember what it looked like. It had been so long…
He didn't realize Sesshoumaru had stepped up behind him, shading both him and Rin from the worst of the rain—perhaps inadvertently—until the older demon spoke. "Your lines are inverted."
"Oh. Right." He didn't feel chastised so much as strangely exhilarated that, prompted by Sesshoumaru, he did remember. Reading and writing were two of the precious few memories he had left of his mother; he'd been terrified of failing her memory by failing at this task.
The names etched, roughly perhaps, into the wood, Inuyasha set them in the corresponding graves. Then the three of them shared a moment of silence, heads bowed, before turning, as one, towards the shelter of the trees where Jaken and Ah-Un waited.
Inuyasha let Rin braid his hair as they whiled away the long, dreary afternoon around their new campsite, one not so close to the human habitation that had seen Rin through her earliest years. Ah-Un slumbered near the fire, and Jaken dozed against the scaled body. Sesshoumaru sat, aloof as ever, looking out into the nearby forest.
"Rin didn't know Inuyasha-sama knew how to write." She tickled the tip of one ear idly as she spoke, giggling when it flicked in response to her touch.
Inuyasha didn't want to look back at her. "My mom taught me. A long time ago." He felt uncomfortable talking about his mother, as he always did. Almost as if he felt guilty for talking about her, as if he were somehow betraying her memory.
Or maybe he was guilty for not talking about her. As if his silence were the true betrayal.
"Inuyasha-sama has a mom?" Rin was plainly surprised, and she craned her head around until she could meet Inuyasha's gaze. "Rin didn't know that! But then, Rin didn't know Sesshoumaru-sama had a mom, too. Rin met Sesshoumaru-sama's mom. She was a very…" She wrinkled her nose, looking for the right word. "Far-away lady."
Inuyasha had the impression that anything that spawned his older brother was likely as cold and aloof as Sesshoumaru himself appeared to be. He looked away from Rin's earnest face. "Mine died. A long time ago."
Undeterred by the abruptness of his voice and his words, Rin continued blithely, "What was she like? Was she like Sesshoumaru-sama's mom? Rin doesn't know if she'd like Sesshoumaru-sama's mom to be Rin's mom. Rin's mom was always smiling and singing. She loved Rin lots. Did Inuyasha-sama's mom love Inuyasha-sama, too?"
The uneasy feeling inside him made him short-tempered. "What does it matter? She's dead." The words echoed in his mind.
Rin's fingers in his hair were as gentle as her words. "It would matter to Rin." It was almost reproach. Inuyasha closed his eyes as her words evoked in his memory an echo of his earlier conversation with Sesshoumaru. It matters to you.
"Rin wants always to remember," she was saying as she twirled his hair through her fingers. "Rin loves her parents and her brother even though they're gone, and Rin's family loved her when they were alive. How could Rin want to forget something like that?"
Later, as Rin slept peacefully in his lap, Inuyasha stared into the dying embers of the fire. How indeed, he wondered, feeling the clutch in his heart.
As long as it mattered, he would remember. And as long as he remembered, he would hurt.
Author's Notes: I think the end is coming for this fic, in a bittersweet good way. Thanks always to my reviewers for your supportive comments and, especially, your critical feedback. Reviewers like you make writing worth the effort.