Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha

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It was raining again, coming down in blasting sheets and drenching everything in sight, everything in her sight, whether she wanted it to or not. It wasn't the first rainstorm that she'd run out into, pumping her legs and arms as she purposefully sought shelter in the forest, her red and white robes clinging to her yet flapping wetly along the way.

It wasn't what others would have called shelter. Shelter was a firmly built home with a roof that only leaked during the really harsh rains. But sometimes she liked to rest beneath a tree, that tree, and think. She'd have imaginary conversations inside her head and out. She'd wonder aloud how he could stand it, stand remaining there, hanging up above her, his form slackened, his ears on false alert, his red clothes as soaked as hers and his eyes shut… like he hadn't a care in the world.

But of course, for that last one he couldn't answer, no matter how much he might have liked. He probably didn't know, she told herself. But, if he did know, would he ever tell her?

She'd probably asked him that many times. Asked him a multitude of things. If those were really his claws that had torn Kikyou-oneesama's shoulder apart. If that arrow through his heart hurt as much as it looked. If water ever ran into his ears, or if he got cold during the winter, or if he was as peaceful inside as how he looked on the outside. It was like he was frozen, half-drowned and waterlogged in time.

Kaede got to her feet and stood before him, peering at his face and the silver-white hair plastered to his forehead.

Or if those rivulets currently running down his face were real tears or just the rain.