Chapter 71 - Warm
It's me. She wants to share her thoughts with… me. Sesshomaru could not have been more stunned if Rin had suddenly grown an additional arm out of her forehead. He sat in complete silence, staring at her with a blank expression. Rin was oblivious of his reaction, her eyes on the ground with a bashful shyness, belaying her usually precocious personality.
"Well… I thought that maybe I'd like to share my thoughts with… someone. Would that be, okay?"
Sesshomaru didn't move, he didn't blink, he may not even have been breathing for several moments. He'd heard her memory the day before, of course, when he had witnessed her memories of her own death. But somehow, the gravity of Rin's feelings hadn't dawned on him. It's not infatuation. She loves me. His eyebrows drew together in consternation. So many little things suddenly made sense, little things that Rin had done or said over their time together the last year. Separately, they were innocuous, but cumulatively, now seeing it differently… he understood. It can't be. He tried to convince himself. She can't understand what love is. Yet, something within, told him that Rin probably understood love far better than he did. In that same place, there was a note of concern, that his feelings for her were not so very different. The idea of someone completely and wholly loving him, reached the tiny place in his soul. Dark and cold, it was the place that young Sesshomaru had died that day, when his father had been forced out of his life. All thought of love had left him from that point forward. Sesshomaru had believed in that moment, that he would never feel that sort of warmth, from another being, again. The concept had become strange, foreign. The hazy image of adult Rin rose to his mind again, beautiful… intoxicating… he felt that familiar painful thudding in his chest each time her image danced through his thoughts. Lord Sesshomaru. The voice called, as if a siren to his very soul. It cannot be. He thought sternly to himself, pushing all such thoughts and concerns away. I am her protector - nothing more. I refuse to take away the possibility of a genuine life. A life she cannot have in the world of a demon. Rin will eventually leave and live a human life. Without me.
When Rin didn't hear a reply, she shifted to look at him, her eyes questioning. "Lord Sesshomaru?"
Sesshomaru blinked himself back to the present, gold eyes focusing on Rin's face hovering before him. Concern now filling her dark eyes. For a moment he simply watched her, before he decided to speak. "What you're referring to is… a type of mental bond." He felt suddenly uncomfortable and shifted away, moving to stand to his feet. "Between demons, it would be significant. I don't know that humans can experience such a bond." A lie. Bokuseno had made it clear that demons could bond with humans in such a way, through the kizuna. Was that not the very bond that he struggled against daily? He cleared his throat. "If humans can experience such a bond… It would not be appropriate for you to share such intimate thoughts with anyone but your chosen mate— when you're an adult." He hastened to add.
Thoughtful, Rin remained silent for a moment, her fingers trailing down to her forgotten tidy pile of dried food. "I think that I would have liked to have been a demon, instead of a human." Startled yet again by her sudden shift, and very adult conversation, he turned to look down at her. Her eyes were on the tree above them, and continued speaking without glancing in his direction. "I'd rather be more like you."
Ah. So that's what it is. Sesshomaru felt as if he'd had the air knocked out of his lungs. Rin, a demon? He pressed his lips together. She wouldn't be the same… her shiny brown eyes… the scent of lilac on human skin. "Don't say such silly things." His admonishment was gentle. "You wouldn't be Rin, if you weren't human." Her thoughtful eyes shifted to gaze up at him. The smile was slow, as if she was thinking through what he had said. But it was brighter than the sun, and warmed him to his core.
Rin's warmth was like a slow burning fire, and Sesshomaru was the moth drawn to the flame. The sensation of enjoying that warmth, the warmth of her very presence, disturbed him for many reasons. To that purpose, he clung to his aloof affect even more tightly, and sought to physically distance himself from her. Every part of him was determined to keep Rin distinctly separate from himself. To give her the human life, she should have had, once he could find somewhere safe for her.
Until Naraku was dead, nowhere would be safe for Rin. Sesshomaru's right hand clenched into a fist. I must find and end Naraku. There are reasons why demons and humans don't associate - I need to let her go, before I reach that point, that I am no longer able to.