KOTODAMA
"The soul that resides within words."
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Chapter VII
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They had a pleasant time during their meal, talking about the background music and what kind each of them liked; he said whichever, while she voiced she leaned more towards pop-rock. The people around them also became a topic of conversation when Kagome proposed to try and guess the relationship those sitting near them had, while InuYasha found more interesting to try and deduce their job.
They had some fun out of a few cases, and soon the plates between them were empty, or almost, for there still remained one potato croquette.
"Yours." Kagome said, slipping the plate in his direction.
"No, yours." He decided, returning the plate to where it was.
Kagome hummed as if pondering, not interested in starting an absurd and long debate about who should eat it, so she just cut it in half and took one part instead.
"Yours." She insisted, pointed at the other half.
InuYasha looked at her, and for a moment she thought she saw surprise. Why was he surprised?
She watched him take the croquette and put it in his mouth with noted pause, tasting it as if it were the only mouthful he'd eaten, despite having emptied their plates already.
Just like they had agreed, he paid the bill. Kagome said nothing about it.
They took a walk then, not really in a hurry, while still surrounded by a festive ambience coming from the izakayas, for it was still early. InuYasha couldn't help thinking that the more he saw of that place, the more confident he was he didn't belong there; half of the people who could take a stroll, laugh and be at peace like that couldn't, wouldn't understand what was happening in other zones of that same city. The other half, maybe, had an inkling, and with such a thought was that he looked back at Kagome, judging that she was most likely part of the first half.
"Tell me, who do you live with?" The question came, and found him unaware. He became certain it wasn't easy to tell anyone, anything about himself without lying; he wished he didn't have to.
"With a friend." He answered, stark, saving her the explanations about how and why he was living in an abandoned house, and that his friend was a minor.
"The boy with the red hair-string?"
Crap.
He looked at her for an instant, pondering how much could he tell a complete stranger, for if someone were to know about Shippo, they would send him to a juvenile center, and he didn't want to see him stuck in that system.
"I'm sorry. If you don't want to talk about it, I understand." She seemed troubled, and was avoiding his gaze, preferring to focus on a group of people passing them by.
"Yes, I live with him, his name is Shippo and he is a minor. I don't want you telling this to anybody." He voiced, his tone low and unwavering, so that only she could hear him. He didn't know her, and he had always had a better time seeing malice in someone rather than goodness, yet to trust her seemed as natural as breathing.
Kagome understood then, the young man by her side was allowing her into something he wouldn't share with just anyone, and so further strengthened that emotion that had been days already nestling inside her chest: belonging.
She nodded, and opted for ceasing her questioning for the moment. It was then when he became the one inquiring about her.
"And you, do you live only with your friend?" Despite wanting to know more, he still had the thought of not asking what she did for a living, for that may force him to answer that question himself.
"Yes, Ayumi. She and I met during second year of high school, and we've been friends ever since." She explained, eager, seemingly pleased at the prospect of holding a conversation with him.
"What explanation have you given her about me?" He didn't plan it. The doubt surged from his own experience, of learning how to protect himself, how to guard every little detail about him and those around as to not become involved in events that could be more complex, unpleasant, or even dangerous.
"Oh, well. Nothing really. There will be an interrogation once I get back though." She confessed with a shrug, then smiled.
"And what are you going to tell her." He felt in need of inquiring, yet held back; he didn't want to scare her away. He had hopes of seeing her again, and that feeling was now in some unfathomable place inside him. He didn't believe in the supernatural, but he had to admit his lack of an explanation for such restlessness.
"I could avoid telling her anything." She seemed to ponder. "To Ayumi." She added, spurring the conversation.
They had been at a half meter from each other all the way, yet now he reduced that to just a few centimeters. Now in the street where that girl lived, InuYasha pulled a hand out of his pocket, letting it hang by his side, so short a distance from her he could feel her warmth radiating his way. He wanted to touch her, to graze her fingers with his, and maybe, with some luck, intertwine them and so walk like that the few steps they had together, amidst the silence and the knowledge of being near.
Why? Was the question wandering his mind.
"I could just say I met you near my workplace, and not say anything else." Kagome was debating out loud, or so it seemed, her tone barely holding back a stutter. "Ayumi wouldn't need more details, because, after all... I may not see you again." That idea, out of her lips, wasn't to his liking, yet he didn't say anything. Kagome issued a pause then, maybe waiting for his opinion on the matter.
The door to the building she lived at was but two steps away. He heard her breathe in deeply, then release it all in a sigh. He didn't know much about signs, in the world he lived in, such a thing wasn't used with subtlety, yet right there, he thought he saw one.
"Well, thanks a lot for dinner." Kagome began to say her goodbyes, and InuYasha found himself unprepared for that.
Somewhen in between breaths, the tip of his feet had begun drawing a line on the ground.
"I'd like to see you again." He found the courage to say, and lifted his gaze to meet hers, managing to catch a gleam in her chestnut brown eyes, as her cheeks became a shade redder underneath the light of the streetlamp. He himself felt his own cheeks becoming hotter.
"I'd like that too." She answered without much thought. "You could give me your phone number." She looked for a way, as she took her own from the little purse she was carrying.
"Don't bother. I don't have those kind of things." Which was true. Usually, if he needed to stay in touch or reach out to someone, he would go to the library and there send or receive an email.
Kagome stared at his golden eyes, and knew he wasn't lying. She just knew. That, however, didn't spare her from feeling absurd with the phone in her hand. Then, her eyes caught him searching for something in the bag that had once been hers, and he brought up a pen, which he handed her. Once she had it, he showed her the palm of his hand.
"Write down yours. I'll call you." She saw him smiling, and got surprised at the eagerness in his words.
To feel Kagome's warmth as she held his hand, was in part pleasant, and in part unsettling. He observed her as she wrote, and the next instant he concluded she was beautiful in the same way one watches the sunset when the sky has but a few clouds, creating a myriad of harmonic colors. He didn't have many references of beauty, for beauty was something that became distorted, corrupted in the world he'd known. Maybe, he could compare what he was feeling now, with the warmth of a home.
Yes, that was right. She wasn't only beautiful, she was warm.
And was definitely far away from everything that his world was made of.
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Kagome entered the apartment, and she had barely managed to close the door before Ayumi stood in front of her. In her head, the memories of the last few hours were still swirling, and despite not wanting to sound emotive, she would have preferred to be left alone to reproduce, chronologically, each and every event until she was satisfied.
"You've been gone long." Her friend complained, a hint of reproach in her voice; she was still in her angry mother mode.
"So it seems." She had no interest in arguing, feeling particularly on edge.
"So it seems?" She asked. Kagome sighed once she took off her shoes. Ayumi caught that as a sign, and so changed her tone a little. "Were you well?"
"Yes, don't worry. He is a good guy." Or so she believed for now.
"Alright, come. Sit and tell me everything. I prepared some tea." Suddenly, she wasn't the angry mother anymore, but just her curious friend.
"Ok." She accepted. "I'm going to change first though."
A few minutes later they were seating on the tatami of the little main room, sipping tea as Kagome recounted how InuYasha had helped her when Koutatsu had become a bit too pushy, in the middle of the street.
"You met him there?" Ayumi asked, her tone a bit higher out of excitement.
"Not exactly." She tried to circumvent how that had happened. "That was another day. His eyes captivated me." She wasn't lying.
"Will you see each other again?" Suddenly she felt as if back in high school, when Ayumi used to tell her stories about the other girls, and would not stop asking when she was going to accept Hojō's advances.
"Maybe..."
She hoped so.
"What's that about maybe? You like him, don't you?" Her friend insisted.
The question, however, was hard to answer. Yes, She liked him since forever, and couldn't point at a moment in time when it all began. She knew that this young man wasn't the same InuYasha she envisioned, the brave and sensible one beneath the many layers of his roughness, yet something in some kind of depth of his soul, something that had nothing to do with one's physical body, was telling her he wasn't different.
She touched her chest, involuntarily.
"Yes." She accepted. She liked him, although probably not in the same way Ayumi was thinking.
That night, Kagome found herself wondering about the many dimensions that a feeling could have, a feeling so many just simplified.
Love.
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InuYasha didn't know when a placid dream where he simply strolled down a known street, and met a childhood friend of his, suddenly turned into a dark and dangerous endeavor. He saw himself, at night and in the middle of a forest, surrounded by darkness and knowing himself to be no more than eight years old. The top of the trees were tall and thick, cutting his view of the sky, yet even so he was sure the night was without moon. He was walking, barefoot, through the undergrowth between the trunks of those trees that were so wide and strong, they had to be centuries old. He was cold, and hungry and couldn't recall when he'd last eaten. In the distance, he heard a growl of something capable of crushing into splints the trunks of the oldest of trees. His neck hair bristled, and felt his eyes full of tears. Then, he neared one of the trunks and hugged it in an attempt to climb it, knowing himself safer up high, yet his feet and hands were too weak for such a task. Another growl then, through his ears, echoing against the old bark, surrounding a certain zone. His chest hurt, and his heart was pounding with such force, his throat was in a knot.
Think, think. He was repeating in his mind.
He looked at the roots of the same tree he tried to climb, and realized they were so thick and big, they created small spaces where one could hide.
Nail against earth, he began to dig in the space between the two major roots, opening a small hole under one of them, insisting on his task despite the growing, flaring pain. A thought passed him by, seemingly missing his claws, yet he didn't stop to ponder as he finally made a hole big enough for him to crawl into, then put dirt on him as to hide himself from the creature, hoping it may be enough to fool it.
He could remember the fear, the way it had paralyzed him. He could remember the shadow of something passing in front of him, and how it stopped to sniff the air for an instant that seemed eternal. A moment later, the creature left, not noting how he was shivering ceaselessly.
And such was the state in which he woke up, thinking it may be the cold that was beginning to be felt around that hour of the early morning. He believed he'd had a dream, yet he couldn't recall what he had dreamed about; his only hint, a lingering sensation of loneliness.
He looked at Shippo, sleeping soundly inside a sleeping bag he used as bed, seemingly at peace. Then, He looked at the watch he always kept inside his jeans' pockets, and finally, pulled up his sheets and closed his eyes, knowing he still had some time to rest.
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Kagome was looking through the window of the coffee shop she had entered that Saturday's afternoon. She was spooning around the contents of her cup, contents she had yet to taste and that by then were probably already cold. The place at some point in the middle of the way between her apartment and the temple where her family lived at, the latter being her destination... at first. Her plan had been to get there without detours, yet she soon felt she didn't want to arrive yet, and so she ended up in the coffee shop, a place she knew from her time during high school, back when she and her friends would stop to drink something on their way back home. That made her reflect about her life, her good life. It wasn't a life full of luxury, but just a comfortable one, without many worries; she never really got to feel uncertain about how much money they had at home, never had to think if tomorrow they'd have something to eat. Her life had been just so carefree, she had never even stopped to ponder how much.
She wasn't sure of why she was debating such things in that moment. Maybe because she remembered what InuYasha had said about his friend, Shippo, and how he was living with him despite being a minor. That made her wonder, almost immediately, what could possibly happen in the life of a child that could make them leave their family. That same thought took her a step further, and realized the boy in question maybe didn't even have a family to begin with...
And by that point, she found her eyes full of tears.
Maybe that was why she began to reflect on her own life, and the many things she had never thought about, like how others lived theirs. And so, she began to recall the many aspects that composed InuYasha, for it may help her shed some light on the young man.
He was tall, and walked a bit gauche, slightly hunching as if he didn't want to be noticed. Kagome thought it was just an attitude, yet she now understood there was a certain degree of shyness in it, even more as she recalled how when he would try to look her in the eyes, there was a certain failed attempt at first that would then be enhanced by decision and will. He also seemed thin; she hadn't really gotten to touch him, but either he wore clothes two sizes bigger, or he was too skinny, and that made her feel a deep distress, as if everything that InuYasha could go through was because she wasn't taking care of him like she should. That thought, albeit absurd, could still burden her chest, heavily so, which made her reprimand herself for being so empathic with others.
She sighed.
He hadn't called, and she hadn't been able to find him neither outside her workplace, or at the entrance of her building. They had parted on good terms, and that was making his absence all the more unexpected. Kagome was starting to believe she wouldn't know anything else from him, and the very thought filled her with something close to melancholy.
Why?
Not even the character inside her head seemed willing to talk to her lately.
She was carrying with her the folder with her drawings, hoping the environment around the temple may help her to focus on her story, yet she had to admit it had been hard lately; the real InuYasha wasn't giving her any room to explore the fantasy inside her mind.
She lifted the cup of coffee and took her first sip, then wrinkled her nose at how cold, and bitter it was, for she hadn't even added it sugar yet. She rested her back against the chair, and stared daggers at the cup as if it were the cause of her woes, yet she didn't even have time to curse at it before she caught something red through the corner of her eyes, making her turn her head towards the window. She'd been days pursuing anything red that entered her sight, even if it was just a traffic sign.
She felt her heart jumping inside her chest with more energy than usual. There, on the other side of the street, her eyes could clearly discern the red hood and the silvery hair of InuYasha. There was just no mistaking him.
What are you waiting for? The character inside her head felt like taking the stage, at that moment.
She stood up, took her things, and forgot about the bad coffee she just drank.
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To be continued.
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A/N
Every story I create have a part of me, and the way in which they begin, add to my imaginary a light that I just LOVE. I hope I'm being able to transmit it.
A kiss, and thank you for reading and commenting.
Anyara.
This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart