No Such Thing As Free Lunch
Chapter 2:
As he approached the tennis court, Sesshoumaru's steps grew slower and slower.
He had just emerged from kendo practice, and if he did not hurry, he would never make it to cram school on time, but at the moment, a more pressing concern flooded his mind. The woman waiting by the corner of the tennis court looked painfully familiar. She was facing away from him, but he could see her waist-length hair and her slender frame. Then, she turned his direction and he felt his heart shudder to a stop momentarily.
Kikyou is… he thought, finding it difficult to form rational ideas. She likes me?
For a single instant in time, he believed that he understood what it meant to feel happiness.
Most of the time, his emotions seemed sealed. Sesshoumaru not only failed to show his emotional state to others, he failed to feel at all. Ever since his mother had died, the world touched him superficially, sliding along the surface of his skin, but nothing really reached the center. He had recognized this as one of his flaws, and he had worked to fix it by showing proper emotions at suitable moments in time. When people gave him birthday presents, for instance, he smiled. When people told him bad news, he frowned.
Inuyasha was one of the few people able to pull emotions out of Sesshoumaru, but his half-brother usually elicited a negative response like anger or annoyance. And Rin occasionally caused him to feel pride or peaceful calm.
But this was the first time that he could recall feeling gloriously happy. His heart raced and his palms sweated and he could feel his face growing slightly red beneath the afternoon sun, and Sesshoumaru belatedly realized all the textbook symptoms were present. He had a crush on Kikyou, and she returned the feeling, and it made him feel slightly giddy and lightheaded inside. That was love, right?
He had never seriously considered pursuing a relationship with his fellow class-representative. Honestly, he had never contemplated having a girlfriend at all, except in vaguely clinical terms. Father remarried often enough that he had never been very interested in women. To his way of thinking, love only brought heartache. If you weren't going to do it sincerely, then what was the point? He did not want to become like his old man, moving from marriage to marriage like a squatter, eternally getting kicked out of the home his heart had carefully fashioned for itself.
Sesshoumaru had decided that there would be time to worry about girls later – in college perhaps.
Meanwhile, he was content to admire from afar. Kikyou was perfect, but also focused and determined to succeed in school. Like Sesshoumaru, she politely rejected her suitors and moved on with life.
But... if she would be willing to date him, then he would certainly not be opposed to the idea.
He drew closer and closer, shoes crunching softly in the gravel around the tennis courts. She glanced up at his approach, and…
It wasn't her.
Sesshoumaru blinked in confusion. The girl resembled Kikyou greatly. Both of them had the same hairstyle, height and build. But this girl had blue-eyes, and her face was obviously younger than the one he had expected to see. He estimated she could not be any older than her first year in high-school.
He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, trying to fend off a misplaced feeling of rejection. Happiness was overrated. It had a downside too – disappointment. He was an idiot. Of course, Kikyou would not plan a confession of her undying love by the tennis courts. She wasn't interested at all.
Angry with himself for imagining something that could not be true, Sesshoumaru glared at the blue-eyed girl. He had built a castle out of sand in little less than a minute, only to feel dismay when the castle crumbled. How ridiculous!
This was no longer going to be a 'nice' let-down. She was going to bear the brunt of his frustration. "Are you waiting for me?" he stated icily.
In less than a second, the girl managed to knock the ground out from under his feet once more. "Why no," she replied coldly, "I am not. Go away please. I'm very busy right now."
"You don't appear to be doing anything," growled Sesshoumaru. "Is breathing so difficult?"
Narrowing her eyes, the girl turned to face him directly. "Okay, mister. I don't know what your problem is, but I was politely minding my own business over here, before you came. Scram! Shoo! Run along!"
Naturally, this only made the situation worse. No one ordered Sesshoumaru to do anything. Even his father usually asked permission before requesting something of his eldest son.
A belligerent streak, the likes of which he had previously never known, abruptly asserted itself. He stiffened and advanced toward the chicken-wire fence surrounding the tennis courts. Leaning casually against the wires, he declared, "This is a free world. I can stay if I like."
Yes, perhaps it was a bit childish, but then, she had been rude. This girl deserved it, surely.
"Oh my god! Are you trying to annoy me?" she moaned, staring incredulously at the upperclassman who had suddenly decided to make her day worse. Then, taking a deep breath, she forcibly calmed her temper. "Okay, look. We seem to have gotten off to a bad start. I apologize. I am waiting for someone here, and I would really, really appreciate it if I could meet with him alone."
This perked Sesshoumaru's interest. Finally, a rational explanation for what this girl was doing beside the tennis courts at 5:00 PM, which was clearly stated in her note as the place and time for a meeting. Her meeting was with someone else, apparently.
"For whom are you waiting?" he inquired almost idly, watching the clouds.
"I fail to see how that is any of your business," she snapped.
He merely waited. Silence sometimes worked to draw answers out of people where argumentative tactics did not. Her jaw fell open in disbelief, as she realized that he would not politely comply with her wishes.
"Inuyasha Inuhito," the girl groaned eventually, after the suspense became too much to bear. "Not that it should matter to you!"
"In that case," Sesshoumaru sniffed disdainfully, "You should be glad that he never received your note. No one deserves the punishment of dating my half-brother." Removing her love-letter from the inner pocket of his jacket, he returned it to her and walked away, leaving behind a speechless audience.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was three o'clock in the morning, when a shivering figure woke Sesshoumaru out of a sound sleep. Little fingers pried at his pajama top and he realized Rin had crawled into his bed again. "Sesshoumaru-husband," she whimpered softly, and he realized that something was very, very wrong by the quiver in her voice. "When is Mommy coming home?"
Oh God. He had only slept for a few hours – he needed more time to wake-up his brain before having this conversation. Hadn't someone explained this to her already? He held her hand at the funeral, and Father had taken her aside to clarify what it meant to be in a car-accident. People had given their condolences, and his father had remarried in less than one month.
All along, Rin had smiled. Obviously, this should have been his first clue that she did not understand. A little girl did not smile at her mother's funeral unless she completely failed to grasp the significance of the event.
"Rin doesn't like Yura," continued the trembling little girl, speaking as though she was younger than her age. "Rin would rather have Mommy back instead."
His mouth opened and closed uselessly, and he finally settled for pulling his step-sibling closer to his chest, bundling her in the comforter. There was not much he could say. Despite all the hours he spent studying and training and practicing, none of his instructors ever taught him how to comfort a child over the death of parent.
So, he did his best, striking out into uncharted waters with only past experience to guide him.
"Sometimes, when people leave," he stumbled over the words, "They don't come back."
"Why?" A pool of hot tears was collecting on his shoulder, and he rubbed her back absently.
"Because…" Sesshoumaru tried again. "Because…"
The room was dark except for the glow of a nightlight in the hallway creeping over the tan carpeting. A fan switched on somewhere in the house, providing a gentle backdrop of white noise. What would he have wanted to hear at her age? What had he yearned to understand, when his own Mother left?
He had never needed to comfort his half-brother like this. Inuyasha had sobbed after Izayoi died, but the housefire had clearly delineated her death. It was not like the accident that swiftly and unexpectedly plucked Asako out of their home. Plus, Father had actually mourned Izayoi's loss, unlike the first and third wives. It had been years before Touga remarried that time. Sesshoumaru wondered, suddenly, what made one woman more lovable than the others.
Ah, yes. He remembered now. When Mother died, he had wanted someone to tell him everything would be all right. Even a kind lie would have been better than the silence and the sudden transition to a new family. One without his mother in it.
"It's okay," he murmured accordingly, holding his step-sibling close while he lied. "Everything will be all right."
"Don't leave," she mumbled into his shirt.
"I won't."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Morning came in time, and like all good things, it had to end eventually. Sesshoumaru's good morning was ruined the moment he saw his half-brother step into the kitchen. He carefully folded the newspaper he had been reading and laid it on the table in front of him.
"Inuyasha," he began in a tone that tolerated no nonsense. Ironically, he had picked this technique up from Izayoi. It worked like a charm. "Why did you leave a note in my locker?"
The boy froze, shoulders hunched, then he dug through the refrigerator looking for some juice. Finally, with a cup in hand, Inuyasha stood and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, I figured you do such a good job brushing off all those women," he admitted, "You could use that tactless discourtesy and do me a favor. This girl is seriously crazy. She face-planted me into the floor the first time we met."
"I am always courteous," the elder brother replied curtly. "You, on the other hand, have just proven yourself a boorish idiot."
"Oh, really! As if it was difficult for you," whined his half-brother, before adding one last word for good measure. "Bastard." The day was not complete without this standard slur from his sibling.
"Reckless fool."
"Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?" inquired Sesshoumaru, carefully concealing a smirk, "O impudent, inconsiderate one?"
"That!" shrieked Inuyasha, pointing a finger in his eldest sibling's direction, "You put adjectives before your insults. Can't you find a few suitably offensive words and stick with them?"
With a huff, the pale-haired boy threw himself into a chair at the table and slouched. Picking up a fork, he dragged a healthy portion of bacon and eggs onto his plate, ignoring the fact that other members of the household might want to eat breakfast as well. Of course, if Inuyasha consumed all the available food, then that woman (version #3) might not be able to eat anything either. Ultimately, it was a trade-off.
Sesshoumaru waited until the first bite had entered his little brother's mouth. "Remember who has been preparing your food for the last week," he chided his half-brother.
"Hmmpheh?" came the subdued reply.
"In other words, do you really feel safe eating in this house, after insulting me?"
The younger boy looked at his plate full of tempting, fluffy eggs and bacon. Then, he looked back at his sibling. Surely, not. And yet, Sesshoumaru had asked him about the love-letter the moment that he stepped into the kitchen… Clearly, Sesshoumaru had known about this little detail while preparing the food that morning. And really, his elder brother never needed an excuse to torture him. The threat was credible.
Inuyasha grabbed a napkin and spat out the first bite of food he had taken, glaring at his brother all the while. Then, pushing away his chair he went to the sink and prepared a cup of instant ramen. If he had to, Inuyasha decided, he could live off of instant ramen for years.
Sesshoumaru stifled a laugh. It was too easy to rile the boy. Annoying his little brother always made his day better.
"Apologize to the girl," Sesshoumaru ordered, going back to his newspaper now that he knew Inuyasha was eating instant ramen instead of real food.
"Don hav'ta," Inuyasha replied stubbornly. "You're the one who…"
"Just do it," commanded the elder brother.
With a scowl, Inuyasha slammed his chopsticks down on the table. "Just because we're in the same school this year," the pale-haired boy shouted, "That doesn't mean you can boss me around!"
"Be thankful it is only for one year," Sesshoumaru answered calmly. "I know I am." After this year, he would graduate high school and attend the best university he could. He would barely see Inuyasha at all. It was marvelous.
"Fine! I'll do it!" the boy submitted, "But if she gets upset again, I'm blaming the whole situation on you."
Sesshoumaru did not see how it was possible for anyone to avoid being upset by his half-brother's idiocy. On the other hand, he did not particularly care for the abrasive girl with whom he met yesterday. As long as Inuyasha apologized, the elder sibling felt this was enough to maintain the family's honor. Somewhat. Well, as much as possible, in the hands of someone like Inuyasha. If the silly girl bothered him again, because of his half-brother's actions, Sesshoumaru would simply perform damage control later.