A Time for Changes

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who is reviewing and following the story! I have over 5700 hits! Thank you for the encouragement.

Chapter 14 - The Things We Said and Did Have Left Permanent Scars

“You want to draw me?”

Kagome sighed, “For the third time, Inuyasha, I want to draw you.” There was another iced mocha in her hands, Inuyasha finishing off her previous drink.  She thumbed through the pages of her sketchpad and glanced at him wearily, “Is that really so hard to understand?”

Inuyasha groaned and rubbed the top of his head over the bandana, “But why me?”

“My advisor said that I needed a thread that would connect my pieces together in the gallery exhibition.” She sipped at her drink and opened to a blank page. “Sango and Nana-chan said they would let me…so…could you?”

Inuyasha looked around the room at the customers and Nana at the counter. “Here?”

“No, just when you have some free time. There’s too many things here to keep you from sitting still.”

“Hey! I’m not that easily distracted!”

Kagome shook her head, “It’s not like I thought you had a short attention span, it’s just models have to sit very still.

“Fine. We’ll work out a day for the art thing.” Inuyasha finished off his drink and listened to the loud slurp that filled the room.  “But for now…can we please go home?”

--- ------

The two walked down the street, the road lined with the light beams from the telephone poles. The stars peaked through a few thick clouds that filled the sky. There was a cool to the summer air that was heavy, damp, with a slight breeze of a storm coming.

Kagome tugged at the art bag on her shoulder and sighed. It was hard to keep her spirits up tonight.  Her eyes stayed glued towards the ground, “So…you had a good night?”

Inuyasha was equally preoccupied. There was something about her insinuation nagged at him. It was true, Inuyasha had forgotten about Kagome when Kikyo came over. What if in that time something had happened to her? Her question pulled him from his thoughts, “What? Um yeah. Keh, it’s nice to see her without the phone glued to her side.”

“I could imagine,” Kagome forced a smile and looked ahead. “It was hard to get Koga’s attention when he always came and went too. But at those times I was home a lot anyway…”

Inuyasha turned and looked at her. It was the first time Kagome had said a single thing about Koga since the box and letter in the hospital room. In that moment her eyes seemed so far away as they looked ahead, unfocused, as if she was remembering. “Kagome…”

She continued to walk and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans, “It was hard for me to…do anything. All I could think about was Souta being gone and how entirely alone I was. There will never be another Higuarshi besides me, ya know?  One day I’m going to get married and I will lose that last name too. It all ends with me.”

Inuyasha looked down. “Yeah…” it was all he could muster. What did you say in this sort of moment?

“I felt guilty about his death, about our fights, and how it all ended.” Kagome took in a deep breath and exhaled. “When Koga came home he always managed to wake up the light inside, turn me on.” She laughed weakly, and shook her head and waved her hands up in protest,  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean…”

“He helped you feel alive.”

Kagome stopped walking and looked at Inuyasha. Her eyes read something he could not translate; they shimmered with the night, ever mysterious and insightful. She tilted her head and smiled, “Maybe he did.” With a slight rock on her feet she turned and began to walk again.  “I just can’t believe that it’s over.”

“You mean…”

“That part of my life is over.” She waved her hands in the air, “That whole time of playing house isn’t around anymore. I can’t rely on him to come home and pull me from my depression.” She crossed her arms in front of her, touching her palms to the two scars under her clothes. “I can only carry memories with me now.”

He frowned, feeling a sense of sadness roll off of her. “What happens next then?”

She didn’t answer his question. “I had a friend in high school,” Kagome started, holding her arms out in a t as if she walked a high wire. “She went through a severe case of depression and she almost ended her life. To her, there was no one to talk to, until one day she broke down and cried. I found her standing in the rain one day before homeroom, staring at the sky, crying. She was the kind of girl who did everything…she relied on no one, but everyone needed her.” Kagome hopped up onto a ledge and continued walking with her arms out.

“Needed her?”

“The peppy kind of girl who joined all the clubs in high school. She had a great boyfriend, some best friends, and always someone tailing her with questions.” Kagome slowed her pace and placed one foot in front of the other. “For her to cry as hard as she was when I found her, it was pretty scary. I couldn’t even get her to come inside. It took another strange to pull her in and she saw a councilor and started therapy.”

“Did she get better?”

Kagome nodded slowly, “It took her a while, but I ran into her on graduation day. She ran up to me and…” Kagome laughed, “She said she was grateful I had found her that day, even if I couldn’t say anything at the time.  She said that day had taught her something.”

Inuyasha craned his neck up, watching her walk, careful to catch her if she slipped and went down for a fall.  “And?”

Kagome stood at the edge of the ledge. It was only a foot or so down from Inuyasha. She spread her eyes and bent back, looking straight up to the stars. “She told me that life is the greatest struggle, but living is the greatest reward.” She closed her eyes and jumped from the ledge. “I am going to continue to struggle.” Kagome looked back and smiled at him, “So lets go home now, I’m tired.”

The door opened to the apartment, light poured in from the hallway. The clock read past midnight and it seemed everyone, despite summer, had decided to go to bed a little bit early. There was very little noise in the apartment. The evidence of the earlier gathering was evident, wine glasses and empty beer bottles were strewn across the counter.

Inuyasha rushed ahead to try and clean the mess. He couldn’t help this feeling of embarrassment and guilt bubble in his chest. Kagome stopped at the door and slowly pulled off her shoes. In the doorway she seemed outlined in the bright yellow of the hallway lights, her body shadowed into a silhouette. “Inuyasha, don’t be in such a rush to clean it up. You had a girlfriend over. You didn’t think I expected that when I moved in?”

Inuyasha was pouring a bottle of beer into the sink when he looked at her, “Keh, stop being so reflective and shit. You’re way too deep for me tonight. Plus, you freakin’ ran away! I should send you to your room like a bad kid.”

“You, my dad?” Kagome laughed weakly and picked up her bag by the door. “At least you have the white hair for it.” She crossed the room and jumped face down onto the couch.

“You’ll fall asleep there if you don’t get up.” Inuyasha dropped the bottles into the recycling bin. He walked over the couch and flicked at her toes resting on the armrest of the couch. “Come on, get up.”

She rolled over onto her side and glanced up at him, “Carry me. I’m tired.” She stuck out her lower lip to pout for emphasis.

“You are so incredibly weird, Kagome,” he sighed, hoisting her up and throwing her over his shoulder. She whimpered with protest but slumped against him. “You gonna be okay?”

“I’m just sore and tired,” Kagome groaned against his shoulder. “Just a lot of stuff on my mind.”

“Reminiscing, yeah?” Inuyasha wandered the kitchen turning off the last of the lights and turning on the dishwasher, all while holding Kagome on his shoulder.

Kagome clenched and uncleanched her fingers, unintentionally looking down at Inuyasha’s butt and the floor below. “You ever wonder what you’d do if things turned out differently?”

Inuyasha laughed, “There is tons about my life I wish were done differently. Why? Which part you wanna to rewrite?”

“The nights before Souta died I had strange dreams, dreams with death and violence. I wish I had realized that it was trying to tell me something.”



“Who was trying to tell you that? Don’t you think that’s just hindsight?”

Inuyasha tossed her onto her bed and sat down beside her slumped form. She reached out and let her hand drift, extended in the air, reaching for something or anything. Inuyasha lifted his hand and hesitatingly touched it to hers.  “I don’t know what I would have done differently…so far away from where he was…”

Inuyasha squeezed her hand and then tossed it back to the bed, “Go to bed already. If you keep babbling like this I am going to fall asleep here.” He got to the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at her. Her hands were reaching towards the ceiling but her eyes were closed. He watched her sigh. “We can’t change the past. That’s what makes us human.”

---- ----- ------

Kagome stood at a street corner holding her sketchpad. The people around her walked by, as if she were invisible.  She turned to ask someone for directions, but the man had no face. She jumped back in surprise, hitting the pole of the street sign. Turning to the crosswalk, a ball began to bounce into the street.   The ball was yellow with red stripes.

Kagome looked around but saw no one at first. Suddenly from across the street the crowd parted and a young girl began to run into the street. There were no eyes, but a small smile on the girl’s face. Kagome gasped in shock and then looked left, just in time to see a red car pull ahead into the street.

Kagome reached forward and screamed, “Look out!”

There was a loud screeching noise.

Kagome jumped up in bed, letting out a gasp.  She winced a feeling in her chest. The ceiling fan turned slowly. It was a little past four AM, according to her digital clock.

“What…was that?”

----- ------ -------

 

Inuyasha sat down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He rubbed his palms into his eyes and sighed. It was early in the morning, earlier than he wanted to be awake. “Why do I feel like shit…” he muttered under his breath.

She’s changing. You are unfamiliar with that.

Inuyasha lifted his head and looked off into the darkness. “What do you mean, I’m not used to change?”

She isn’t leaving you, she’s just changing.

“I know she isn’t leaving…but why is she thinking about the past? Why did she mention Koga, tonight, of all nights?”

IF the girl is looking towards her future, she must first recognize the past. 

“But is she going to be happy?”

Let the girl take her journey. She needs to find this out on her own.

“I thought you said I was part of a pack with her?”

The demon groaned, Yes. Pack. Support her, don’t direct her. You have work, wake up and get moving

 

----- ------- ------

Sango sat on a bar stool in the center of the park, trying to hold her shoulders back as she looked straight ahead. “So how is your training with that Lady Kanade going?”

“Hold still, would you?” Kagome chuckled from behind her canvass, waving a piece of charcoal in the air. “It’s going well, I guess.”

“Have you been able to call on the powers?”

Kagome sighed from behind the canvass, “No, okay? We’re three weeks in and I can’t do anything. We’ve been working on my martial arts and archery. She says if I can learn to become more fluid, it might help the powers slide into a weapon.”

Sango blew up on a bang but tried to sit still, “Well, it’s not like you train with her every single night, Kagome. Cut yourself a break.”

“Stop moving!” she whined, her fingers smudging the edges of a thick black line on the canvass. “I understand that. Between training and work I still have to work on these showpieces. “

“And Inuyasha?”

Kagome smeared more of the charcoal onto her fingers, “At work right now. He works and sees Kikyo when he can.”

“Do the two of you ever spend time together? Just…chill time?”

“It fleeting moments. We’re not the kind to plan things. It’s not like he’ll pencil me in for a Friday night movie night,” Kagome chuckled, smearing the left of brow of Sango’s face.  “How is Miroku?”

“He complains you never call him,” she groaned. “You’d think the two of you were married.”

“Shock, you discovered the hidden agenda,” Kagome teased, moving on to the other eye of her drawing. “I mean to, there’s just a lot going on---just hold still another five minutes and the basic outline’s done and we can go home.”

“He’s been busy visiting the different states. He likes New York the best because it reminds him of Tokyo with all the lights and sounds.”

Kagome peaked around her canvass; “You’re supposed to be smiling in the picture, so stop letting your eyes be so sad.” Sango perked, surprised, and opened her mouth to say something. “I know you miss him. You can’t hide that from me. Your eyes tell me everything.”

“Stop being artistic. I’m not sad. Just homesick for him,” Sango grumbled, running a hand through her hair. She stopped midway through moving her hair when Kagome barked some incoherent noise at her that made her stop. “I’m sorry! Why can’t you sketch non-living things?”

“Like rocks and trees?” Kagome laughed. “They don’t tend to say as much as people’s faces can.” She opened up a case and put her charcoal inside. Beside her easel was a damp white clothe she used to wipe clean her dirty hands. “You’re free to move now, Sango.”

Sango let out an overly dramatic sigh and slumped forward. “Gees. No wonder they pay the models in your art classes. Staying still is so hard!”

Kagome sprayed a non-smear chemical onto her easel and closed it slowly. She smiled at Sango and pointed at the chair, “You promised you’d carry that. If you don’t complain I’ll get you the ice cream I promised you.”

Sango hoisted up the barstool and held it on her shoulder, “You think Inuyasha is going to notice this thing is gone?”

“Nah, as long as there is a chair at home for him to sit in, I really doubt it.” Kagome pushed her belongings into her oversized portfolio and turned to Sango and smiled, “Shall we?”

Sango took her time behind her friend, eyeing the changes in Kagome. Kagome was taller now and she had decided to let her short hair slowly grow back. While it’d only been a month or so, her hair had a little bit more shag and wisp to it.  Her best friend stood taller too, a little less meek, a little less sad, all slowly changes that Sango was happy to see.

“You seem happier, Kagome.”

Kagome looked back over her shoulder, “Just trying to move forward, one step at a time. The past is behind me, that is what the past is. You and Inuyasha always seem to think the same way, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

Kagome turned and smiled, holding her bag in front of her. “You both can always tell when I’m changing, even before I can. You two are always watching over me. I bet if I had parents they’d be just like you two.”

“You did not just picture Inuyasha and I married,” Sango groaned, slapping a hand to her forehead. “That is so backwards in so many ways.”

Kagome stuck out her tongue and turned back around, “Oh come on, I know you and Miroku are going to make tons of babies. Inuyasha will marry Kikyo, and I’ll end up somewhere as the fifth wheel.”

“You have Koga, you know.”

Kagome stopped walking and let out a breath, “Wishful thinking, Sango. I’ve been single for months now, maybe it’s time I start dating.” While Sango couldn’t see it, Kagome was bitting her lip, holding back the tears that rimmed her eyes.

“You said in the letter he wrote he’d come back to you,” Sango protested quietly.

“I don’t know that is going to be, if ever, Sango,” Kagome bit back slowly, scrunching her eyes shut as she forced herself to keep walking. “I should be grateful I’m alive, I’m not going to spend it waiting.”

“Do you really think he’d just leave you after you were attacked? He supported you when Souta died and…”

“Sango, come on, cut it out,” Kagome protested weakly, “It’s been months and nothing came our way. So stop trying to give me hope for something that’s entirely hopeless.”

The two of them stopped at a traffic light.  Kagome turned to Sango and smiled, but Sango wasn’t smiling, “I wish you’d believe that you’re worth something, that he’d want to come back to you, Kagome. You’re worth that.” They crossed the walk.

Kagome smiled, “Worth is not what it’s about right now.”

The two were a little farther down the street now, between two busy blocks.

A pang in Kagome’s chest caused her portfolio to slip from her hands. She looked down at her feet then up to the street, noting a ball bouncing into the street in the crosswalk they had just walked past. “Are you okay, Kagome?”

Kagome gasped as she saw the crowd part just slightly, two tiny hands shoved their way forward and a little girl with a mop of brown hair appeared, feet just leaving the curb.

“No!” Kagome took off down the sidewalk towards the crosswalk, ignoring the cries of confusion from Sango.

In the distance Kagome saw the car turn onto the street barreling straight towards the little girl.

“I’m never going to make it in time.” Kagome tried to run faster. “You’re in there, right demon? Help me.”

The demon said nothing.

“Help me, damnit! Help me! I can’t let her die! Help me!”

The demon couldn’t bear the sound of this girl begging for help again and again. Kagome’s eyes bled red as she leapt into the crosswalk running towards the girl.  Kagome’s eye bled red.

Kagome leapt through the air and dived towards the girl, grabbing her straight on. The demon twisted her body quickly so Kagome would take the blunt fall and not the small child. Her back skidded against the pavement, small rocks and debris chafing her back until she stopped at the curb with a smack. The ball rolled about still in the crosswalk until finally coming to a stop.

Kagome sat up and opened up her arms, letting the small girl squirm her way out and stand up. The little girl was young, in a bright orange and yellow kimono, with brown hair tied back with two tiny pigtails. “You…you just saved Rin-chan,” a little voice squeaked out.

Kagome winced and rubbed the back of her head, feeling blood drip slightly onto her fingertips. Just as she opened her mouth to speak a woman let out a loud shriek.

“Her eyes are red! Look at her!”

Kagome looked around at the spectators staring at her. A woman in the front, elderly, with a blue purse, was pointing at Kagome with shock on her face. Kagome struggled to stand up and tried to think of anything to say.

“Are her eyes bleeding?” Someone shouted.

“No! They’re red like blood! Look at them!” Another screamed.

Kagome backed away from the sidewalk slowly, back into the street. Over her shoulder she managed to see Sango who looked just as scared as everyone else.

“She’s a monster! Look at her hands and her teeth; that girl has claws and fangs! She’s a blood thirsty monster!”

Kagome shook her head in protest, not hearing Sango’s faint calls for her in the background. The little girl looked up at her with confusion and opened her mouth to say something, but Kagome didn’t wait to hear. She avoided the blue purse being thrown at her head and took off running down the middle of the street, letting the demon’s speed her far away from the scene she had created.

--- ---- ---- ---- ---

Sango threw open Kagome’s apartment door out of breath, “Kagome?” Her voice was frantic. She threw down Kagome’s belongings, letting the stool tip over and clank against the tiled floor of the kitchen. That was where she first looked, then the bathroom.

No one was there. She was heading down the hall towards Kagome’s room when she saw Inuyasha’s was open. There on the center of the bed was Kagome, sitting in a ball in nothing but a sports bra and some athletic shorts.  With such little clothing on Sango could see the cuts and bruises on her back, head, and neck. There were a few bandages on her back, showing Kagome had tried and struggled, to patch what cuts her arms could reach.

“Oh kami, Kagome,” Sango finally cried, watching her friend’s shoulders shake and quake. Her friend’s face was pressed firmly into her knees; her hands forced her knees to her chest. It was like Kagome wanted to fold into herself and hide.

“Oye! Kagome why the hell did you leave the front door open?”

Sango gasped and turned around, from his doorway she could see Inuyasha throwing his backpack onto his couch heading towards his room, pulling off his work shirt and bandana. “Inuyasha!” she squeaked out. Sango cleared her throat and then ran to the doorway and looked at him, “Inuyasha! Grab the tweezers from your bathroom, some gauze, and a wash cloth.”

“Sango? What the hell are you doing---why are you in my room?”

“Not now! Hurry up and get that stuff! Kagome’s hurt.”

“Hurt?” Inuyasha’s ears flattened, “Is she alright?”

Sango stepped aside and gestured to Kagome’s frame on his bed, “She’ll be fine, but we have to clean her up. Breen a paper plate too.”

Sango eased herself onto the bed behind Kagome, touching her friend’s shoulder. It had been a long time since Sango had seen these scars. They were far more gruesome than Sango had remembered from the hospital. They were jagged, jarring, and so unappealing to the eyes. Was this what Kagome feared? That no one would love her scars?

“Tweezers,” Inuyasha muttered, forcing them into Sango’s hands while setting up the gauze and other materials on the bed beside Sango. “What the hell happened?”

Sango began to pull a piece of pebble from Kagome’s back, listening to Kagome hiss through her cries. “She ran into the street and saved a little girl from being hit by a car! She barely made it too.”

Inuyasha hurried to the other side of the bed to look at the front of Kagome, who refused to lift her head. “What the hell were you thinking? What if you were hurt?”

“Inuyasha…she saved someone…but those people…

“I’m a demon. I won’t die so easily,” Kagome muttered between her knees. “You know a car can’t kill me anymore,” she sobbed. She lifted her head, revealing her face full of tears, “But I’m not even a demon am I, I’m just a monster!”

Inuyasha recoiled hearing her shout that word at him. But looking at her face he noticed her eyes were still a deep red. She had managed to bring forward pupils, but overall, she was still in her demon mode with fangs and claws.

“Kagome, you’re not a monster!” Sango protested, continuing her amateur surgery on her friend’s back. “You know you’re not.”

“Even you’re afraid of me!” Kagome protested, hiding her face again. “I saw you in the crowd. I saw you’re face! You’re just as afraid of me.”

“Kagome….”

Inuyasha reached forward and lifted Kagome’s face to look at his. He wiped at the tears with his thumbs, “Hey, hey, hey, calm down. It’s totally normal for people to be afraid of you, Kagome.”

“They called me a monster!” she screamed, trying to pry her face away from his grasp, only crying harder. “I can’t change back! She won’t let me change back.”

Inuyasha climbed onto the bed and pressed his forehead against hers, “People don’t see demons everyday. People have stereotypes about demons, especially the elderly, they’re just crazy.”

Kagome cried harder and reached out her hands and held onto his shoulders, feeling Sango pull another stone from her back. “She was in my dream, that little girl. I knew she was going to run out there. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to help her. I just had to.”



“You had a dream about her?” Inuyasha repeated slowly.

“Like with Souta! I saw her get hit by the car. I had to try,” Kagome cried, feeling Sango press disinfectant to her back gently, apologizing in a low voice.

“And you did save her!” Sango added, pressing a band-aid onto her friend’s back. “You saved that little girl’s life and she knew that too.  She is the only one who matters, Kagome. You saved her life.”

Kagome sniffled and continued to cry, but her cries were calming slowly. Inuyasha pressed his forehead against hers again and let out a low whimper, his beast telling him to comfort his pack member. “You did something amazing today. Your beast listened to you and you saved someone.”

 

“What if I don’t change back?” Kagome sniffled, her red eyes looking up at him with worry.

It isn’t the easiest thing to control you when your bloody priestess powers are restraining me. Her beast barked, finally breaking through the instinctual barriers Kagome had.  It’s like having two sides of a magnet inside of you. Stupid weak human

Kagome listened to her demon and felt her claws and fangs retract, holding her head with her hands. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know I was a priestess,” Kagome cried.

Inuyasha grabbed her face again, looking over at Sango who was frowning, tears threatening her own eyelids.  Kagome eyes were their normal blue. He reached forward and pulled her to his chest, mindful of her back, letting her cry against her bare shirt.

“Sango and I know you’re not a monster, Kagome.” He ran his hand through her hair gently, “You’re nothing close to a monster.”

Kagome continued to cry in Inuyasha’s chest. Sango continued to place bandages on her friend’s back, whispering reassurance that she was just surprised but not afraid of Kagome. Inuyasha continued to run his hand through her hair and let her cry. Inuyasha and Sango said nothing as the tried to comfort their tormented friend.

She’s not as strong as she tries to make us believe…

 

 

Author’s Notes:

“Just a feeling” , Maroon 5