†: Diagnosis: Terminal & Needing Him :†
x Prologue x

-•°•°•-

The great Taiko Inuyasha, a man of strength, a man she had known all her life. Well, not all of it but long enough that she was certain he was flawless. Untouchable. The strongest man alive. The bravest. The boy that when they were children he would jump down from a tree as if it were nothing, even though he could break some bones. And once did yet never whimpered about it. The boy that could pick up spiders and worms, things that made her squirm, as if they were just grass.

He was invincible.

The boy that she'd get to check and see if there were monsters under her bed whenever he spent the night over, always to hang out with her brother or cousin Shimizu Miroku. She was certain he wouldn't have a problem fighting off the horrors he might find in her closest-she was particularly scared that a vampire was hidden in there to drink her blood when she was six.

He could do anything.

The eleven year old boy who was her hero when she was just ten. She thought all of that and more of him, so when his head was in her lap while she sat on her pink frilly bed in her princess themed room bawling his eyes out she knew that the world was surely about to end. Yet, at the same time, she felt honored that out of all the people he could have gone to he chose her.

He wasn't her best-friend.

The truth was she wished they were, she always admired him, but he always wanted to do boyish things and she liked to play with dolls. He was tight with her cousin, with her brother, but not really with her. They had a lot of tiffs, fussing over this and that with each other, but she didn't realize he thought they were so close that when he needed to cry-something she didn't think he was capable of-he'd come to her. Apparently he did.

He somehow just knew she'd never let him down.

The moment when he gasped for air she swore to herself she'd never disappoint him. Her fingers delicately stroked through his jet black hair, trying to keep the strands from sticking to his tear covered face. When he had come over that night-very late, she had already been in bed-he did the usual thing, he climbed in through the window from the tree in the yard.

He probably just wanted to hang out with her brother.

The fact that he had streaks of tears down his face already made it hard for her to yell at him as she had originally intended for waking her up. Then he just collapsed on her bed to cry all over again. She had crawled into bed and placed his head in her lap so he'd be more comfortable. It all seemed so impossible, that he could cry… but even he was just mortal, not the superman she had imagined.

He was eleven and discovered the pain of loss.

The reality was simple, it wasn't that the world was crashing down around all of them, but that the disease Furei that had been haunting his family had finally taken his mother from him. She had been fighting the illness for a while now but… as soon as she was diagnosed, almost a year ago, everyone knew what it meant. She was terminal. It was incurable.

He had no way of knowing that it would just be the first taste of such damning sorrow.

Ж

Genetics played some sort of rule in Furei, though it wasn't a disease that was fully understand much at all. But it was more likely that someone would get it if someone in the family was already diagnosed. That was why when a couple of years later when they were in high school Kagome got another knock on her window in the midst of night to a horror struck Inuyasha she knew something was horribly wrong.

Over the years they had grown closer, she had proven she wouldn't let him down, she never spoke of the night he came to cry in her lap to anyone. It was their little secret, one she treasured, one he'd be ashamed of if it ever got out. In high school they both had a reputation, she was the goody-goody that wouldn't do anything that could get her in trouble and a straight A student. He was the school delinquent that rebelled against the rules and got just good enough grades that he'd be able to get into college. No one got why they were friends, sometimes neither of them really understood it either.

He had two siblings, one an older half-brother who he did not get along with, another a full blooded younger sister. A sister three years their junior but someone Kagome knew well... had been diagnosed with Furei two years ago. When she came to her window she knew what it meant, if she wasn't gone she'd be gone soon.

It wasn't fair that he had to lose two people that he loved, two women of importance in his life, to one illness. Watching him in such anguish… standing by him at the funeral that came, when they were but teens, hand-in-hand made her realize something. Somehow, in that moment, she knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him until she, too, was placed into her grave.

The only problem was at the time his other hand was connected with his girlfriend for three years. Her cousin, somehow she got along with splendidly and admired greatly… Higurashi Kikyou.

For him, though, she'd do anything. Even go against blood.

A/N: I've had an idea for this story for a long while and know for a fact it'll be ten chapters long. I have each planned out. This story will be updated once a week, so it'll take ten weeks to finish.

I hope you enjoy the story and review. Thank you.