KOTODAMA

"The soul that resides within words."

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Chapter XIII

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To see InuYasha there, waiting for her, was like a hit straight to her emotion, making her fully aware of her sudden lack of breath as she took the first step towards the stairs at one side of Master Izumo's house. She managed to link two thoughts together by the time she found him, and between them she questioned the real reason behind her restlessness… something she didn't need to dig deep to find out; She liked InuYasha the way a girl likes a boy. Besides, she also liked him in some ways that were new for her. Usually, when a boy caught her eye, he would do so because his physical attributes were attractive, yet there was something deeper when it came to InuYasha, beyond his obvious beauty. He was able to place an idea inside her mind with but a smile, and not all of those ideas were related to kissing him.

When she finally stood in front of him, she greeted him with a kind gesture, and a simple question she didn't think much about.

"Have you been waiting long?" He would probably say no, and she would smile as they began to walk.

"A long while." There was a lack of annoyance in InuYasha's voice, his words simply stating a fact.

Kagome felt how a sort of uncertainty slipped into her thoughts. What was she supposed to say now?

"Oh."

"But don't worry. I was the one who chose to come early, after being done with my obligations." InuYasha tried to lighten the mood, calming her somewhat. "Shall we walk?"

Kagome nodded, then decided to leave their encounter behind.

"Were you too busy today? You've yet to tell me what your job is about." She asked.

"Would anything happen If I don't answer?" InuYasha seemed cheerful, and willing to joke.

"Not really." She shrugged. "I ask so that we have something to talk about."

"Let's talk about your work, then." His suggestion came by the hand of a kind tone which Kagome, immediately, interpreted as an attempt to control the situation.

"Will you never tell me about your job?" She wasn't willing to just let him decide how the conversation was going to go.

InuYasha remained silent for an instant, his gaze on the ground, just a few steps ahead, with his hands inside the pockets of his red hoodie, a piece of cloth Kagome couldn't help but wonder if it could protect him from the cold of the coming winter.

"There isn't much to tell." He began to say, as Kagome sought to watch his expression from mere glimpses, trying to be subtle. "I work part-time here and there. I think I mentioned it before."

"And… what do you do, part-time, here and there?" She tried to sound soothing; she wanted to know more from that cautious and reserved man who would seek her out despite such characteristics. In a way, he was like the character in her head, albeit seemingly lacking in anger and much more emotive, something that intrigued her greatly.

"Some things." He commented.

Kagome had the feeling that all that, had to do with that club they had met at, and would be the kind of things he wouldn't tell her about. She remained silent, for he seemed to be about to add something.

"I work some hours at the market. I help merchants to restock their stalls." The way he talked sounded neutral. "I do some other things too, at a particular place… "

"The Kyomu?" Kagome interjected.

InuYasha looked at her for a moment, more than anything because of how effusively she seemed to want to show she knew something. In a way, her behavior seemed like the one of a young girl.

"No, although I do have a connection to the place." InuYasha conceded.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you. I have this bad habit of doing it to people, and it's because my mind works too quickly and sometimes I talk without being able to measure if I should or not." InuYasha stared at her, and the way she seemed to shoot words out of her mouth without even breathing.

"Don't worry." He tried to calm her, for she seemed to be talking so fast because of some sort of restlessness he didn't want to even begin analyzing, because that would sink him ever so deep in the world Kagome meant to him. There, he saw her blush, a detail he gleaned to be one of the most beautiful sights he'd ever seen.

"You were telling me about the hours you worked at that particular place." He heard her trying to resume their conversation.

InuYasha sought to focus his mind, for everything with Kagome felt so close, it was overwhelming, and unknown.

"I do. At an escort agency." He let out, her ease for talking spreading to him.

"Oh."

That monosyllabic expression made him understand Kagome's confusion, so he hurriedly tried to explain, "It's nothing weird!" She looked at him through the corner of her eyes, a funny smile playing on her lips, one she was trying hard to hide. "Well, not too weird."

"So, a little weird." Kagome seemed to want to unravel that explanation.

InuYasha found himself in the middle of a normal and rhythmic breathing, and sought a deeper one that may allow him to say what he wanted in one go.

"It's an agency that rents family and friends." It was said. Now, she was probably about to judge him, in the same way any person with an easy life would do, as much as materially, as emotionally.

Kagome remained silent for an instant, her gaze fixed on the path ahead.

"You are someone's family, and they rent you?" She asked with a scarce seen innocence that seemed to soothe his worries.

"No!" He shouted, trying to clarify it as he smiled.

It was then when Kagome laughed loudly, just in front of the train station.

"I'm joking!" She let out, as soon as her laughter allowed her.

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His eyelashes were longer, and more beautiful of what she had imagined, or drawn before. She was now trying to recreate them on her sketch, despite knowing it wouldn't make much sense in an illustrated story, more than anything because of the type of drawing such format allows. Even so, she felt a need of capturing each and every detail, to the best of her ability, and turn them into a drawing she could go back to, and remember.

She took a deep breath, once again, feeling overwhelmed by the tension, and the contrasting feeling of complete familiarity the moment was wrapped by. She had to recognize the light was bad, there was nothing else she could say about it, and she would probably prefer to be in the middle of a park in early morning, or during sundown, both the moment of greatest light contrast, allowing for more detailed shapes. However, she also felt comfortable, in a way, even with the background sounds coming from the nearby rooms.

"I don't know if you'll be able to focus with so much noise." InuYasha commented, seating at one corner of the bed, as Kagome drew traces on her sketchpad from the only chair in the room.

"I'd say I've been in more uncomfortable situations, but I'd be lying." She smiled, her concentration unperturbed, or at least, that what she wanted it to look like.

"I won't doubt your word." He accepted.

Kagome lifted her gaze, briefly, to appreciate the smile that came along with that phrase.

"I thank you for your trust." She was now the one smiling, back to the drawing, as she felt the need of something she wasn't able to recognize yet.

The remained silent for a while, yet the sounds coming through the walls made it hard for them not to chuckle every so often, maybe as a way to escape the awkwardness of the situation.

"Maybe we should look for another place for this." Kagome said, her gaze not leaving the drawing.

"Now?" The question sounded strange, almost eager.

"No, I mean some other day." She clarified.

"There will be more days?" InuYasha seemed confused, and Kagome felt the need of explaining the terms of their agreement.

"I was hoping so." She answered, leaving the drawing aside and looking straight into his eyes. Immediately after, he began to note the strength of her gaze, how it would acquire more and more energy the longer he looked at her. "I know it's not much what I'm paying per hour, but…"

"Why do you want to draw me?" He interrupted her, leaving the topic about the pay behind.

Kagome went mute for an instant, her lips parted in a shy answer, an answer her mind wasn't able to bring forth, not a useful one at least. In the background, the rhythmic sound of a bed's complaint came through her ears, along with low moans slipping through the thin walls.

Yes, say it. Came the voice of the character inside her head, and she could almost picture the challenge in his golden gaze, so much like the InuYasha in front of her.

"I don't think I can explain it." She dared to say the truth, or at least, part of it.

Try. Her character, once again.

"Try. I think you'd be surprised just how much I can understand." He encouraged her, the boy who she was drawing.

That soothed her, almost immediately, a measured smile blossoming on her features. It was a delicate gesture, just strong enough to express her comprehension of something deep, something unnamed still. She took the drawing into her hands again, as a way to focus her thoughts, and as her pen began to graze the paper, she began to explain.

"Since I have memory, I've been able to see a character inside my mind, a being with certain attributes I feel the need to draw." She wanted to say more, to tell him that when she was a child she could see him, just as vivid as him, and that the scenes that her mind would conjure were moment she felt she had lived, dialogues held with that character who also had his same name. However, she felt uneasy, and unable to explain it.

"And he looks like me." He determined. It was logical for him to do so, for he had seen her drawings, ones she made before even meeting him.

"You do, it's uncanny." Kagome accepted while focusing on her sketch.

Silent took place inside the room once again, albeit it hadn't come from the nearby rooms.

"How long do you think they have?" InuYasha asked, with a hint of naughtiness that Kagome took an instant longer to process; he meant the couple. "I say three minutes."

"Just three?" She said, surprised. If she thought about it, however, they had been at it for a while now. "Ten."

"How generous!" He mocked, leaning backwards, arms on the bed. He must be tired of the pose, Kagome thought, and then decided to capture a different angle of his, so she swapped to a blank paper.

"I don't think so. We've been here fifteen minutes, three more feel like too few." She shrugged.

"The average says otherwise." The one to shrug now was he.

"How can there be an average for that?" Kagome retorted, scandalized.

"Don't you know about the existence of statistics?" She felt that the smile on InuYasha's features, there, was worth being captured.

"Can I take a picture of you?" Her question escaped her before she could think about it.

"Picture?" He repeated.

Kagome noted a knot forming in her stomach, and the creeping panic that she often felt when something made her uneasy.

"Yeah, well, you know, some expressions are lost when you don't photograph it in the moment, and now that I watch you more carefully, there are many of them I'd like to draw, but I can't have you seating for hours here, and much less with this background sound, more akin to a crime scene." She shot the words out, almost without breathing.

InuYasha observed her closely, trying to link the words he heard together. The sound coming from the next room became a moan shared by two, which strangely enough, felt even forced.

Kagome's eyes went wide, much more than a few instants before, a hand covering her mouth, trying to keep her laugh in. InuYasha shushed her with a finger on his lips, as he himself struggled against the humor of the moment, giving way to a complicity between them that lasted as much or even more than the "cheerful" expressions of their neighbors.

When Kagome finally found the ability to speak, she brought forth a thought, "We definitely need to find another place for this." She said, pointing at the drawing on the table.

"You can't deny it has its charm." InuYasha seemed unable to stop smiling, and she found that beautiful, in many ways.

"A morbid charm, Indeed." Kagome accepted, surprising herself by how easy it was for her to word her thoughts with him.

"I'm not sure I can find some other place though." Was his simple answer.

She had to be the one to offer a new place, Kagome knew for sure, her mind conjuring again the image of InuYasha in her apartment, and Ayumi by their side, voicing question after question, talking about work and food; literally being herself. That was something she admired, that ability to communicate with others, yet one that she would still find annoying in that hypothetic situation.

She found the noise in that place bearable, in comparison.

"Are you hungry?" She heard InuYasha ask.

"What?" She wasn't sure of what she heard, however.

"I'm asking if you are hungry." He seemed a tad more serious. "Your stomach is grumbling."

She took a hand to her abdomen, and realized it was indeed making noise.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said the first thing that came to her head.

"For what? For being hungry?" InuYasha smiled.

The extend of Kagome's politeness was surprising, he thought, for it went beyond what he knew to the point coming as absurd. He wouldn't say it, however, at least not directly.

"I'm sorry." She repeated, and then InuYasha felt like putting a limit.

He stood up.

"Let's get out of here and eat something. I know a place." He invited her. Kagome stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. "I could escort you to your apartment instead, if you want."

He saw her blink a number of times, a gesture she would make when reasoning an idea. It surprised him, not as much because of the gesture itself, but because of the many details he was know recognizing in her, as if his mind could already subconsciously discern them, or something like that.

"No, let's go to that place you know." He saw her stand up, gently waving a hand to settled a lock of hair behind her ear, another one of her many gestures. Then, she placed her sketches and materials in her bag.

They went out of the room and closed behind them, as InuYasha always did, for that room in particular wasn't open to the normal use of the hotel, something that was told to her that day.

Miroku smiled to them as soon as he saw them appear, and despite it being the second time he was near Kagome, she thought that the naughtiness he seemed to wield was but a shield, protecting a person with a good heart.

"Did you have a good time?" Miroku inquired, trying to mock them.

"Oh, shut up." Was InuYasha's response, a bit too simple, Kagome thought.

Maybe because of that, she felt like entering in that dialogue, even more given that man was assuming something she was related to, even if it was just a joke.

"We'd have a better time if the walls were thicker." She said. "Our neighbors are quite noisy, and bother our focus."

Miroku went mute for an instant, watching the short and lively girl by InuYasha's side. He leaned backwards, briefly, as his blue cobalt gaze shined.

"Understood, my lady." He accepted almost with reverence. It seemed she had earnt his consideration with just a few bold words.

Both, InuYasha and herself, started towards the hidden door that gave to the alleyway, and as they did so, she heard him whispering something to her ear, half-smiling.

"Well done."

Those two words touched her, to the point she had to keep her body from trembling, a reaction she didn't know how to measure, nor the cause of it. She looked back, to InuYasha, and found herself discerning in his golden eyes a long story, deep as the ocean.

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A/N

Here I come with another chapter of this story I find sweet, yet dense at the same time. I hope you are enjoying it, and that you tell me in a comment.

Kisses, and thank you for being here, and for joining me in this adventure that is to create.

Anyara.

This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart