As soon as the fuuji walked out of the door, the silver-haired demon lord walked forward towards the stairs. Half of him wanted to check if the kaze youkai was feeling well, but another half wanted to give her time. He hadn't spoken much with her since Rin joined them and he wanted to ask her perspectives on certain council matters regarding the human healer's presence in the estate but it seemed pretty apparent she wasn't in the mood to talk. So he decided to head to his room, one his father used to own, to rest.

The decrepit staircase creaked and groaned in complaint as a pair of feet came thumping down the ageing stairs. The staircase is battered but beautiful. Although it looks tired and worn down, there are signs of a past full of balls and banquets; scuffed bronze handrails, iron swirled balusters and the patches of polished wood that shines in the soft light. He walked briskly with light footsteps, turning down a candle-lit hall as soon as he reached the top of the steps. He could hear the voices not too far up. Yuuta and Rin must have been talking, he thought. He wasn't too worried - Yuuta always had a fascination with humans, he remembered. Like much of the manor's servants, she didn't think of them like insects or subservient beings - his father, after all, had picked his allies and attendants with humanitarian morals in mind.


"Are you alright, Lady Rin?"

The news passed through her like a hurricane. It felt to her like everything she had worked and struggled for lay in ruins. The desolation she felt was all consuming. Her mind became an icy wasteland, the wind howled in her soul and wrapped icy tentacles around her heart so tightly it almost stopped beating. Devastated was an understatement: she felt emotionally bankrupt, like there was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that enveloped her mind in swirling blackness.

Is this what heartbreak feels like?, she wondered.

The sound of the shards of her heart breaking rang loudly in her ears she didn't even hear her companion's question. There was a plethora of shattered bones, burning flesh, and cracked skulls raging in her the depths of her soul and it was pain and painful. Heavy, the air seemed to be as the agonizingly long as minutes drew on. Yuuta hesitantly placed a hand over her should, guiding her forward and breaking her out of whatever trance she had just plunged into, and in that instant, tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down her face. The muscles of her chin trembled like a small child and she looked toward the end of the hallway, as if the darkness that lay beyond could soothe her. There was static in her head and she could hear her own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside.

The ice demon didn't know how to react. She wasn't sure what she could have said that could cause such a massive breakdown. Already, the list of possible punishments from the hone onna seemed lengthy. What would the lord think if he found out? Certainly he would-

"Rin."

The sound of his voice snapped Rin's mind back into reality, but it didn't keep her heart from breaking. The walls that held her up just... collapsed. Moment by moment, they fell as her eyes gazed upon his majestic physique, his long silver-hair she had admired over the years, the golden eyes that she dreamed about even when she slept, remembering the feeling of his hands against her cheeks and the soft, cold touch of his lips on her forehead those times he thought she was asleep right before he parts with her little body hidden under the tall brushes with Jakken back when they still traveled together in search of Naraku. The fond memories shattered to a million pieces as she pictured him now, as he stood in front of her, in the arms of another woman, his head buried in her neck as they shared a passionate embrace that she felt certain she would never experience. She trembled in sheer anxiety of it all, even when she pressed her hand against the wall to her side, her body shook from sheer stress.

And for the first time ever, she ignored him.

Her turmoil though, scalded Sesshomaru greatly. He couldn't remember if he had ever seen her cry before; even when he left her at Kaede's village, she didn't cry even when he knew she wanted to. Perhaps that's why she let him leave that day without saying goodbye. This... new Rin was someone he's never known. It was a side of her he's never met, and while part of him is welcomed the thought of knowing more of her than what he already knew, he realized quickly he couldn't stomach the smell of her tears and the sound of the sobs that escaped her lips. His blood boiled at the sight of her disheartened eyes and for a swift moment, he had the mind to kill Yuuta there and then, but flashbacks of the snow woman's cheerful childhood frame handing his lonesome, younger self an ice flower on his birthday no one had celebrated with him kept the murderous thoughts at bay. His rational mind could tell Rin wasn't hurt, and whatever the yuki onna might have said was likely not spoken in spite.

Yuuta kept her head bowed in his presence - both in reference and apology. She had backed away a few steps keeping her head low but had dared not move since without his command.

"Rin."

It wasn't like him to ever repeat himself, but this was an exception. She wasn't hearing him. He reached a clawed hand to her shoulder in a futile effort to calm her nerves-

SLAP!

His golden eyes widened in a mixture of shock and surprise and the fleeting second in which his gaze met Rin's, he saw an equal amount of surprise in her face. She had slapped his hand away unconsciously and he could see the terror of regret paint itself across her face. But that regret was only momentary - he had only hit the tip of the iceberg.

Rin stayed rooted to the spot, her own heavy breathing moving her hair softly away from the cheekbones that had become so much more prominent over the previous weeks. Her features buckled just slightly in momentum as she opened her lips to speak but held her tongue at the very last second, only highlighting the betrayal of her grief.

What was there for her to say? He was free to do as he wishes! He was a demon, and a lord to top it off! Whatever pent up jealousy she had wasn't his fault, and yet she blamed him for it. She had a perfect, pure image of him in her mind that was broken to pieces at the knowledge of his relationship with Kagura and some parts of her screamed irrationally, demanding his love - for him to pick her. She loved him. But it felt to her like he treated her like a stranger: her thoughts are a strange ocean to him like the churning of her mind were petty words, fluff and never substance. He kept his thought on guard, hardly ever letting an unconsidered word escape his lips. He left her on the outside, rarely granting a glimpse of where his emotions really lie. And at that instant, it was all too much for her to handle.

"Why didn't you tell me about Kagura?"

Each word was thrown out of her mouth without her consent, venom ticked at the corner of her lips. Her voice was hard and cold, the cold ice creeping at the edge of her heart pounding at her very being.

Why didn't her tell her? He wondered too. Was it because he knew, deep inside, that this was how she was going to react? If so, then why did he go ahead and did it anyway? What was his reason? What was the core of it all? As usual, she threw him questions he didn't know how answer, except this time, he knew very well this wasn't something he could just put side and pretend she never asked. Her brown eyes was lit with a fire he's never seen in her before; there lies passion, devastation, destruction.

"I didn't know I had to."

His stoic facade was plastered on like it always was - unbreaking, apathetic, and absolute. For the first time ever, she hated it. His voice was cold and emotionless as if he didn't even empathize with her aching heart. His eyes were calculating and she could see those golden hues analyze her every move, seemingly trying to comprehend her breakdown - all without giving away even the slightest hint of his own feelings about it. It was frustrating trying to break down his walls just to see something remotely genuine in his impassive demeanor.

How come he let Kagura in so easily and not me?

"You didn't have to. But it would have been common courtesy to do so."

Her voice shook, the thwarting resentment boiling her blood spilled on every detail of her actions to the very words that fell out of her lips.

"And why is that?"

Are you stupid?!

Her fingers curled tightly into a fist with blanched knuckles, nails digging deeply into the palms of her hand. He was so close on the uptake it's quite unbelievable, shocking really. As much as she tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from her throat in the form of the truth she never had the courage to say in the last decade since she's known him.

"Because I love you! And I can live with you not feeling the same way about me, but the least you could do was give me closure!"

The beads of water started falling down one after another, without a sign of stopping. She hit the wall and tried to scream, but her voice was melted by the sound of the place. The muffled sobs wracked against her chest.

He stood there in silence, motionless. To be honest, he didn't know what to say or do. At the back of his mind, he knew it all along but he chose to push it back and forget it, to ignore the subtle hints she drops every time they speak. He loved her too but at that moment, he wasn't quite sure what kind of love it was: did he love her like family? Or perhaps something else? And frankly, he knew he was hesitant to find out. What would he even do if he found out? Would he pursue her like his father did Izayoi? What of his rank, his council, his estates? They would oppose a human bride the same way they did his father. There was too much at stake and he wasn't sure he was ready to face it all. He just wanted to keep the normalcy going; to see her smile next to him, hear the sounds of her musical laughter. Ignorance is a bliss, after all.

But the guilt came to haunt his take in a breath. It was ice in his guts and it felt like it could be a hundred degrees out and he'd still be frozen on the inside.

He turned to the yuki onna that still stood on his far right, head bowed.

"Leave."

She bowed slightly lower in acknowledgement before turning her heels and vanishing down the hall.

The silence that came after was heavy. Rin had made her big declaration of love, the grand speech she had been rehearsing for a fortnight wound up unused; her impulsive decision to blurt it all out had now caused the still silence to lay on her skin like poison. It seeped into her blood and paralyzed her brain, her pupils became dilated and there was a tremor in her hands. It gnawed at her insides, like a gaping void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything. The silence was torturous in it's nothingness, cruelly underscoring how vapid their conversation had become. The silence was eerily unnatural, like a dawn devoid of birdsong. Finally, she spoke again, intent on shattering the glass wall slowly building itself up between them.

"Lord Sesshomaru, I'm sorry I-"

Her words were cut short, locked stranded in her throat as he cut her of with his lips brushing against hers. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate and demanding. In that split second, his tall physique was looming over her, muscular arms pressed against the wall behind her, trapping her willowy body against his chest. For a second, she felt like she wanted to pull away before she lost herself but she couldn't seem to… In this minty moment, her senses had been seduced and she felt as if she could no longer think straight.

"Rin...", he whispered slowly as he pulled back just slightly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. His forehead rested against hers, their nose almost touched in the proximity of their faces.

This time, his face was... different. She had never seen him without that indomitable mask but at that moment, it was gone. He had the expression of any normal man, his eyes seemed lonely and his face bore marks of clear confusion. He was vulnerable and for the first time, he was letting her see that - his truest, deepest emotions. Every bit of anger that squeezed like a vice on her heart let go. She couldn't bear watching the silver-hair demon's turmoil paint itself on his perfect face; it didn't belong there.

She leaned forward to kissed him and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. He pulled his hand from the wall behind her, resting it right below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest. Her wet face soaked his white kimono as her tears seeped through the thin garment. His hand drifted to her hip. It settled there and pulled her even closer. She inhaled sharply. She was pressed tightly against his warm chest, chiseled to perfection. Must he be so perfect? She splayed her hand against it, intending to push him away, but instead she left it there. His breathing quickened as did hers. He began nuzzling her neck with delicate kisses so faint, they were whispers.

They stayed like that for what felt like such a long time though it was only mere minutes. No words were exchanged; they've said all they needed with minimal talking and the apologies were accepted. Though there are many questions still left unanswered, they've resigned to save them for another day.

Finally, he pulled back, a clawed hand caressing the side of her face and a longing look in his eyes. He looked straight into her deep, brown eyes with uncertainty. He wiped the remainder of her tears off her cheeks in soft, gentle strokes, so unnatural to a demon like himself.

"Rin."

"Yes, my lord?"

There was silence for a moment, a solemn pause, before he spoke again.

"I can't give you the answer you want just yet. When I find out, you'll be the first to know."

She faked a smile in response. It hurt her and he knew but telling her something he wasn't sure would be true would be far worse. The top row of teeth was showing, and there was a faint curve to the lips, but there was no crease below the eyes, no movement of the cheeks. But he chose to ignore it. He had to.

"Thank you..."

She understood where he was coming from. She knew. When Kohaku told her he loved her, she had felt the same: uncertain and unsure, confused. They spent a great deal of time together after the daiyoukai had left her in the village and to some extent, she felt the feeling of love was mutual: but it just wasn't the same kind of love. She cared for him like a brother - a best friend at best. He knew all her secrets as bland as they were, her little joys and heartbreaks, every little pet peeve and quirks. In some ways, he knew her better than her lord probably did. They didn't interact as openly after all. Knowing he loved her outside a platonic context confused her for days and week after. She loved him too - but it just wasn't the same. And deep inside, Rin feared Sesshomaru's response would be a lot like her's to the demon slayer. And the sheer thought of it shattered her to the core, but that wasn't something up to her to decide. She could only help him realize how he truly feels by showing him she wasn't the same child anymore: she was a woman now - stronger, better, different.

There was understanding in their eyes as they looked at each other, savoring the honest moments for they knew it was about to end. Pulling his hand away from her face, he reached out for her hand, entwining her fingers on his own as he began to walk forward, the stoic mask back on his face. Holding hands, he led her down the long corridors to find her temporary room.


A/N: Next chapter would be out next week. I'll be in Illinois this weekend so I won't be doing much writing on the road, unfortunately. I'll probably have it done by the middle of the week or so. Somewhere around then. Thanks for all the reviews out there! I really do appreciate it!