The Man at the Bus Stop
By Doughnut of Ericks
A/N: Here is the much awaited chapter five! Okay, I know that no one gave a damn. Even, I didn't give a damn for some period of time before finishing this chapter. It's longer than chapter four. Disclaimers? Yadda, yadda, yadda. Inuyasha doesn't belong to me. Yadda. Listening to myself talk about disclaimers remind me of the parents in the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special. You really don't want to listen to them, and sooner or later, their voices become mindless psycho-babble which turns your brain into tapioca pudding. Pudding, good. You eating tapioca pudding, formerly known as your brain, not so good.
"Your touch is cold and damp, the Devil's in your eyes. I wonder why I always let you lead me on this way 'cause you see only what you want to see. You feel only what you want to, and I am on the outside of your strange world."
- "Touch" by Sarah McLachlan
Chapter Five: Touch
One . . .
Two . . .
Three . . .
Four . . .
Five . . .
I have five fingers.
I can count.
"ARGH!" I growled as I threw a down pillow at the door. I was imprisoned in Inuyasha's house like a little, twittering bird in a bird cage. I had nothing to do because that dumbass left me to entertain myself for the entire day.
He should have at least left me a board game.
Maybe Candyland . . .
Or Monopoly.
I liked Monopoly.
Here I was lying on this oddly comfortable mattress, counting my fingers like a chimp. While distracted by my thoughts, my mind wandered to the moment I had with Inuyasha yesterday.
He was a dangerous man.
Dangerous in the sense of "terminally sensual" and "the end of my virginity."
That is my definition of Inuyasha's "dangerous."
Yet, it seems like I couldn't look away from him. I couldn't keep my distance from him. My fingers keep reaching for the unattainable.
He should be home soon. I reached for my pocket, finding the desired lip gloss. I didn't know why I had any reason to look my best, but I was suspecting it had something to do with Inuyasha.
I was parched, so I walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. Leaning against a wall, I watched the sun through the water; sunshine blurred into something softer.
This was Inuyasha.
He was the mid-noon sun, burning underneath your clothes, making every inch of your skin heat until you flush and sweat. If you stare directly at him, you'll only see a haze, translucent dots scatter in every corner. You'd think you'd go blind, but that one vivid glimpse of him before the chaos makes everything settle in a state of reverie. However, when you see him through a glass of water, he's softer, planting unnoticeable kisses that feel like the first snowfall in November. Then, you know that he's going to be fine, even if you leave him for a little while.
Then you know you will love him, you love him, you have loved him.
I left the glass of water on the counter to go to his bedroom.
I fell into his bed which I comment is nicer than mine. His pillows, his comforter- - they all had his scent, and foolish me, buried myself in them, as far as I could go without smothering myself. It felt nice like actually being embraced by him, and I found myself drifting into sleep, lulled by the imprint of him on his bed sheets.
I overheard the angry sound of a door being slammed shut, followed by the clicks of metal locks. I leaped out of his bed, tried my best to straighten everything, and hid underneath it. From close range, his footsteps were heavy; my breath shallow. He flung an article of red clothing to a corner and stripped off his shoes and socks. His clothing was piled everywhere in disarray. I could see naked feet walking to the bathroom. I heard a whispered curse.
Apparently, the tiles in his bathroom were cold against his skin.
The pungent smell of blood hovered over everything. I can taste the metallic scent in my mouth. I've been biting my lip.
Damn.
Once he was in the shower, I slipped from underneath the bed and gathered his scattered clothing. His red haori jacket was even a darker red with the blood stains splattered on the material. I held his bloodied clothes in my arms, not carrying whether my dress would be soiled or my skin would have caked blood spots. I just watched Inuyasha in the shower.
As he cried, fisting his hands against the wall, slouched.
As he cried, his soaked curtain of silver hair sticking to his cold skin.
As he cried, as the blood in his hair trailed to his face, crying tears of a watery red.
As he cried, until the steam made him impossible to see.
I clutched his clothes closer to me; my knuckles were stalk white. I bowed my head and cried as well. I cried out my miseries and wished that our tears were atonement enough for God to forgive him.
"Let Inuyasha live." I prayed.
I whimpered, and Inuyasha heard. His shower door slowly opened to find a wide-eyed Inuyasha staring at me.
Silly, teary me.
He tore out from his bathroom, managing to grab an indecently small towel and wrapping it around his waist. Once Inuyasha was in close distance, he fisted his bloodied garments and flung them elsewhere. The dog demon was in fit of rage that I had never seen before. His pupils dilated into pencil-point amber circles.
He was too close.
I attempted to push him off with my soiled hands. Then I looked at my own dirty fingers against his skin. His own fingers wrapped around my wrist, twisting it around so that my palms could be seen.
I didn't want to see my own hands. They were soiled, caked with blood stains. They were ugly.
"Never touch my clothes. The blood I shed is my responsibility alone. I never want to see you with this much blood in your hands. Never. Do you understand?"
Vigorously, he shook my shoulders as he said this. Then, his shaking gradually slowed, until there were no more. I was flung into the shower, clothes and all. I watched how the blood slipped through my fingers and fell. What used to be red water was now a fainter, less-menacing pink. Inuyasha still had a grip on my shoulders, but it was lighter. I reached for him, drawing the demon in an embrace.
He buried his head in the juncture of my shoulder and neck. His whispered words caused my skin to prickle.
"I don't want your opinion of me to change. I have nothing to offer you but this cold lifestyle and a trail of blood. I have nothing to give you but misery. Soon, I will be replaced by an average man who will cherish you and give you children. You will die with him as you age. I don't even believe I'll live enough to age."
I wrapped my arm around his neck; my fingers settling near his cheek as I absentmindedly stroked him. I reassured him that it's okay.
His breath settled into my skin.
"I'm not a holy man, Kagome. I lead the syndicate of Tokyo. I kill for my comrades."
We embraced, letting the water wash away all our sins, insecurities, our spilt blood.
"I don't want a holy man. I want what we share, and that is enough for me."
"What do we share?" he spat out bitterly, refusing to meet eyes, instead staring at a blank wall beyond me. I could feel his body stiffen beneath my arms.
I kissed him.
There, I knew that I could never love that "average man" he spoke of because any other man wasn't . . .
. . . him.
He reached for me; both hands cradling the sides of my face, gently, but firmly. Inuyasha had his face downwards, ashamed once again. He shook his head, back and forth, back and forth.
"No. No, no, and no. This is wrong. Everything we are is wrong."
"I want this."
"Want what? This?" He pressed something hard against the juncture of my legs, and in response, I blushed in all my virginal glory. I turned my eyes to his, and I could only find a wry grin on his face, twisted and cruel, and that gleam of lust.
"You little whore. I'm not your sex toy, but you could be mine. I know you wouldn't mind aimless fucking." He lifted my right leg and wrapped it against his waist. Inuyasha dragged his finger across my skin, and despite my dignity, I shivered. Toes curled. He caught my chin in his grasp and left deep, rough kisses on my lips. Like a doll, I allowed his careless mistreatment of me.
His lips hovered slightly from my neck, not close enough for contact, but enough to stimulate me. His face was in an angle, and I could feel his eyes watching me watch him.
"What do you want? Tell me and leave. Tell me, so I can continue on my life without you."
"Your love. I want nothing more than to have you for myself. I'm selfish with you, and it's because I love too much."
He was angry. I could tell from the way his face hardened and the low growl emitting from his throat. He wrapped both of my legs around his waist, and now his hardness pressed firmly against the intense heat I felt.
"Is this what you want, you fucking slut?!" Inuyasha slammed me against the wall, and much to my dismay, I found myself aroused. He halted briefly, sensing something in the air. His nose traveled throughout some indecent places in my body, finally stopping above my abdomen. I could hear him take a strong whiff and then sigh.
Did I smell awkward, strange?
He glanced up to me, and I stared back, curious. The look on his face made me drive myself against the wall even more, if that was possible. He wanted to devour me. Inuyasha was hungry for something, for blood, for sex, for something, and that carnal look kept my gaze.
"Leave now, bitch. Leave before you can't take back your words."
"But, Inuyasha---"
"Fucking bitch, leave!"
He yanked me from the shower, through his bedroom, leaving a wet trail everywhere. My eyes caught a blur of colors, the brief glimpse of furniture, the smoothness of his skin, until we stopped. After unlocking his umpteenth lock, he threw me out his house. I thought I saw a glimpse of regret and hurt, but I must have seen nothing except the door as it closed.
Once again, he shut me from his life.
Somehow, I didn't have the will to get back in.
I fingered the red welts around my wrist, and on his doorstep, I cried for all it's worth.
Me, my tears, my love -- it was worth nothing to Inuyasha.
December 25, 2004
"Left uninspired by the crust of railroad earth
That touched the lead to the pages of your manuscript.
I took my thumb off the concrete
And saved up all my strength to hammer pillars for a picket fence."
I could hear the radio strumming from the background of silence. I leaned against the doorway and could smell the salt from her tears. It was a bitter, acute scent that I despised because I had been the one to cause them to fall. Kagome deserved better than the existence I could give her; she was meant to be the wife of an ordinary man and bear children that will never be mine. The apartment seemed colder without the presence of a woman.
The barriers surrounding my heart have become impenetrable, even to the point of closing off the only piece of humanity I have these days. She was willing to sacrifice her goodness for my selfish, impossible needs, and I almost allowed her to do that.
When did I become so weak against her?
When did she become part of my routine?
I lay my head against my doorway, listening to her erratic heartbeat fade into her absence as she alas left my doorstep. I whimpered at the finality of this twisted goodbye. I recalled her lips as it crashed down upon mine, moist from the shower, as sweet as a woman's lips could ever be. Her acceptance of my identity was astounding, time-defying even.
I blindly touched the pages of my letters, my letter to Kikyou I haven't sent, the pages of my journal. Imagine, a man of my age, of my kind, writing like a ten-year-old girl in her little pink diary. I laughed, sounding bitter in my ears. What was the use of letters that meant nothing to anyone, even me? Kikyou was dead, and I hardly read my own manuscripts. Yet, as I stroked the grainy texture of the papers, I felt a sense of serenity overcome me. This was my passion, besides spilling blood and deluding saint-worthy virgins to fall for me.
"It wasn't quite what it seemed:
A lack of pleasantries (my able body isn't what it used to be).
I must admit I was charmed
By your advances: your advantage left me helplessly
Into you."
Yet, I was attached to her. She evaded my thoughts throughout the day, and I wish she didn't because my heart bleeds when those tears fall. I never felt unconditional love before Kagome. I can't hide the man I am; however, even great men fall when they starve, when they see their grandest desire falling in ruins. The beauty of tragic attraction—that was my illness. In the process of writing this, I drifted to my bedroom, into my bed, only to be reminded of Kagome as the sheets emitted her scent. I found myself weak, lonelier.
Damn woman.
She smells good.
I could see the mid-day sun playing games with my windowpane. I shielded my eyes with my hands, but the sunlight bled through the fingers. I shut my eyes, laid my hand across them, and for once in my life, I felt defeated, even more so than when Kikyou denied my love, or when I first knew she would never be mine. I could hear the pounding of my heart in my head, throughout my body, even reaching my toes, and I knew that this illness could be the end of me.
"I tried my best to keep my distance from your dress
But call-response overturns conviction every time.
My memory cannot recall:
A wave of alcohol
We shared a cigarette
And shaved the hours off.
Talking how the group
Had begun to splinter
And I could taste your lipstick on the filter..."
I don't know how long I laid there, so still for something so alive. I don't know how many days and nights passed before I got up from bed. She was here, in my doorway, looking at me with an endearing expression. I reached for her, tumbling out of bed, awkward, coltish. My knees collapsed, and I wound my arms around her waist. How I missed her. How it pained me to make her cry, and I sincerely hope that Kagome wouldn't leave me despite how I drive her away. I buried my face against her soft, rounded belly, and it charmed me to know that she still had baby fat. His fingers wove throughout my hair, and I mumbled my apologies.
Then, I felt nothing.
No warm, rounded body. No feeling of reassurance and second chances. No beauty. No life. No nothing.
There was no one there, but me. That is the saddest truth about my life.
I was going hysterical when I started to laugh at my own insanity.
Hollow. A sound so hollow. The wrong kind of laughter.
I ran to the kitchen. Maybe, dehydration allowed welcomed hallucinations. I reached for a mug, a cup, anything, and I found a used cup with lips stick on the rim.
I looked at it, and I pressed my lips against the pinkish mark.
My last kiss with that beautiful woman.
I broke down, and the glass met with the floor, scattering shattered pieces. I bled from some of the broken glass, and soon enough, the blood and the tears became a dull red color.
There was no greater pain than this. This feeling of lost hope, of loneliness, of heartbreak, and I knew then that I was human after all.
The radio strummed something that caught my interest before the song ended.
"I rushed this.
We moved too fast, and
Tripped into the guestroom.
I rushed this.
We moved too fast, and
Tripped into the guestroom."
I had rushed this, became selfish, and this was how God punished sinners.
I was a sinner, and this is how I atone.
- Inuyasha
The man stared at himself in the mirror, and his heart bled even more.
A/N: Ugh . . . man. I was feeling depressed because I have to start high school soon, so this is for all the bullshit in my life. Poor Inuyasha and Kagome have to pay for my depression. Oh yah, the song that was I used for that segment was Death Cab for Cutie's "We Know the Facts and We're Voting Yes" title track. It's good, addictive, even.