Innocent Kisses in the Rain
Written by AiVixen
Foreword: Change of plans, everybody! This is the last chapter. The finale. It. The end. Don't expect anything glamorous, because it's only here as temporary closure. Nothing fabulous. It's not even satisfying, so you might want to just wait for the rewrite. Yeah right, right? Just don't be too disappointed. I'm scrapping this and starting over as soon as it is posted. I'll probably change my user name before then, though. I've sort of grown out of AiVixen, I think. :O
She blinked wide eyes when her mother spoke: "Don't you want a haircut, dearest Kagome?"
She touched long, sweeping black locks - so black, the color stung like cerulean and azure sea. It was unnatural to have blue hair.
"What!" She yelped wildly, pouncing to her feet and feeling the soft fabric of her prospective party dress pool around her ankles. Her grandfather, from the other side of the room, tsk'ed disapprovingly.
"What are you still doing in here?" She sputtered suddenly, turning on him. "I'm hardly wearing any clothes!" Her grandfather tilted his head casually, calmly, before a grin split his face.
"Souta said you were wearing sports bras now." He said mischievously, and Kagome froze, before going into a hysterical fit and readying herself to throw a chair at him.
"Kagome, please respect your elders." Mrs. Higurashi soothed, a tight smile touching her features as she tried to bring tranquility back to the room. It wouldn't be had, and Kagome declared that she certainly didn't want a new haircut as she stalked out of the room to hunt down her innocent little brother.
The smoldering sun pressed down on the forlorn shrine, and the jagged mountains glowed in resignation as their glory was slipped away into yawning oblivion.
His eyes flickered imperceptibly, becoming a thousand shades south of honey, but Inuyasha stood expectantly on the other side of the room, suave with his arms flung across his chest, and waited for him to announce his discovery with the cool certainty he was used to.
Actually, Sesshoumaru had been hoping for rejection. Something in him had, anyway. This outcome was so unexpected, he wondered how he would say it. His father paused where he made pancakes for supper - a gaping informality that was afforded only on the nights he was given leave from work - and watched his son without expression.
"I got in." He finally said, and it was easier than he had expected it to be.
A storm pulsed against the barriers of his heart, and he quietly excused himself as the letter of cruel acceptance slipped to the table. His fingers twitched to replace the letter within its envelope, place it back in the mailbox, and hope to find it gone in the morning, but he supposed that was a child's game.
For now, he would have to think of a way to break it to Kagome.
"It's not a very important party, anyway." Kagome argued stubbornly, struggling to toe off her sneakers and dance into the stationary, school-issued shoes.
"What?" One of her friends gasped, utterly appalled.
"Fourteen -" Another began, carefully folding a bookmark into the darkly colored hardback that she promptly tucked into her book bag.
"Is not an age to be worried about." Kagome interrupted, guiding a stray strand of midnight behind a delicately shelled ear.
"Every age should be worried about." The bookworm argued. "You're three-hundred-sixty-five days closer to dying!"
They were silent.
"Besides," the first chirped uneasily, "Sesshoumaru will be disappointed if it blows."
She could smell the chlorine from the parking lot, and she suddenly wondered why she had chosen this for her birthday party. She always had this smell; it was nothing special.
Not like being three-hundred-sixty-five days closer to a socially acceptable age to be dating Sesshoumaru.
On the bright side, her mother had bought her a new bathing suit - neon blue, high quality, something she'd be able to take to a competition... Her little brother had bought her a wrap around, depicting the weaving structure of the Great Wall of China. Her grandfather had bestowed her with a two-inch piece of ancient kappa fin.
She sighed, and flipped her blackish-blue hair up into an elaborate ponytail.
"Kagome-chan! Happy birthday!" Somebody cried, and Kagome turned her head. With a big grin, she greeted her friends.
"Don't feel too bad." The boy commanded gruffly. In a sharp splash of swirling blue water, Inuyasha was shooting towards her with all the speed one can achieve in a doggy-paddle stroke.
"It was pretty important, you know."
This seemed to upset her more, and she pulled her dangling legs up under her with a soft sniffle. If it wasn't for the echo, Inuyasha might have missed it.
"Come on, Kagome. It was pretty... Important." His eyes turned sad, and he treaded water for a moment before yanking himself up the ladder and approaching the high diving board.
"You already said that." She accused absently as he plopped down beside her. "Do you know where he is, Inuyasha?" She turned to him with big, watery eyes. He cringed, and averted his gaze.
"Why wouldn't he come..." Her fist clenched, and he heard the sorrowful, angry gnash of her teeth as she bowed her head. "Why wouldn't he come to my birthday party, Inuyasha?"
The boy lifted a hand to his long, pale blond tresses and remained silent, troubled.
"I guess it's not that important, anyway." She sounded as if it was the most important event in the history of the world.
She rose abruptly, and made to hop off the elevated board, but Inuyasha clawed for her hand and dragged her back down.
"I'm not supposed to tell you. Sesshoumaru's orders. But I guess it'll be hard either way, right?" His eyes were shadowed by sticky ropes of sunflower. She watched him intently.
"Sesshoumaru -" A pause. Kagome rose again, looking frightened. "My older brother is..."
Coward.
It hissed through his mind so apathetically, he wondered if he really cared. He knew that as soon as he stopped thinking about it, he would feel the guilt. The shame.
Even his father thought he had told Kagome.
His father thought he had gone to bid her goodbye. But he was a coward. Glaring at nobody, he flipped a strand of hair behind his shoulder in a characteristic fashion.
He hated being cowardly. He hated not knowing what to say.
He had kissed her so passionately.
It was beginning to rain.
She ran.
She ran so very quickly, it was as if the gods from the sky were yanking back the earthen carpet and throwing her forward in hopeless vertigo. If only she could reach him.
It was the last train into the heart of Tokyo, and Kagome flung herself into the throng of people as the doors began to close.
Nobody made a sound. Kagome thought, eyes wide.
He was such a coward, he had arrived at the airport four hours early in order to avoid her.
The sun was setting, casting a blushing dusk over the western mountains. Rain continued to spatter listlessly against the enormous windows. The white, metallic birds pushed themselves into the pink-black sky with tired groans, and disappeared into the storm.
The numbers and letters flashed before her face, and she nearly cried in confusion. Somebody told her where the exit was. She ran.
She ran so that the potent taste of salt became as familiar and insignificant to her tongue as wind. Run, run, run.
"Sesshoumaru?" She spoke behind his back, and he almost jumped. Somehow, though, he had been expecting it.
Damn his over-loud little brother. Bless him.
"Kagome." He acknowledged with a weary nod, turning to her. His eyes took in her flushed features, and he remembered the first time he had seen her run.
"What are you doing here!" She exclaimed hopelessly, pushing herself into his arms. He suppressed a smile, because he was thinking the same thing - to her, and to himself.
"I'm afraid... I can't stop time, Kagome."
The rain shrieked loudly outside, and his plane was delayed. He collapsed back in a squishy gray seat with her in his lap, and kissed her.
A year in the future, Sesshoumaru is a student at a prestigious college in the United States of America. His father and younger brother have lived near him since Inuyasha finished that year of high school.
Kagome has turned fifteen one month and six days ago.
Lying on the pale sheets in his apartment bedroom, Sesshoumaru is bored. He has finished his studying, and does not care to study any longer. Remembering that girl, he reaches for the telephone.
He places a long distance call, because he does not wont for money.
After several rings, somebody picks up on the other end:
"Hello?" An old voice. The grandfather.
"Higurashi-san?" Sesshoumaru's voice is soft and fluent in his native tongue. "Is Kagome-san there?"
A pause. "Who is this?" Genuine curiosity? As if he's waiting to play a trick, but wants to make sure it is not upon a friend.
"This is Tsuki Sesshoumaru." He clarified, staring out at the rain. He can imagine the other male's surprise.
"Oh! Sesshoumaru!" A grin. "Ah - Sesshoumaru..."
What?
"... Kagome is sick with... Well, she's sick with a terrible illness. She's hardly been up in the past week. Perhaps you could call back later?"
This is startling. Unsettling. He sounds like he's lying.
"Kagome is sick?" He iterates carefully, but Grandfather is already giving him the gory, fake details. Ten minutes later, he thanks the elder, and hangs up.
He falls back on his mattress with a furrowed brow.
'Kagome...'
He listens to the rain.
---
---
---
---
---
---
Several trillion millenniums in the past, somebody screeches in a darkened tomb:
"You just tried to kill me, didn't you!"