Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Higurashi	By : WillowCarlisle Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Kagome > Sessh?maru/Kagome Views: 21294 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
She could feel him everywhere, skin to burning skin. His lips never left their place at the curve of her neck, but his hands had begun to roam. Along the arch of her back, and forward to the curve of her ribs, his touch was feather soft. His nimble fingers made quick work of her jacket buttons, warm palms sending a shiver along her spine as they drew yet another layer closer to her pulsating flesh.
"This?" he murmured lowly, head tilting slightly, suggestively, into the arch of her neck. "Was this what you saw, Kagome?"
Her answer was a shaky whimper, barely perceptible to her own ears. "I... I don't..."
She couldn't think. Not with his hands delving at a painstakingly slow pace lower and lower between the folds of her jacket. Not while the echo of his touch resonated in soft ghostly waves across her entire body. The warmth pooled in her cheeks, humiliation at her curiosity refusing to allow it to pool elsewhere. This intimate embrace, made raw and exuberant in such an open place, brought forth vulnerabilities she never knew she had. Squeezing her eyes tighter, she took a quivering breath, and awaited the impending caress.
"Come..." he murmured, his own voice tainted with the breathlessness of anticipation.
Kagome gasped, eyes wide as she stared up at him. "R-right here?"
Sesshoumaru chuckled, his breathing now level as he withdrew and gazed down at her. His meaning finally hit her and she pulled herself upright.
"That's not funny..." Kagome pouted, wrapping the jacket about her tightly and turning away.
Without a word, he slid his arm about her waist, ushering her across the street toward a small white car.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, shaking off her stupor and regaining her earlier irritation.
"Making true to my word," he supplied. "I intend to take you home."
She stared at him as he opened the passenger door, looking back at her expectantly. Breathing a sigh at his steadfast gaze, she unfolded her arms and slid into the seat. The door slammed beside her with a finality that was eerily familiar.
Breathing deeply, Kagome waited until he'd seated himself in the seat beside her. His golden eyes seemed to lighten fractionally as he studied her features. Seemingly finding what he was searching for, he shifted his gaze to the road and turned the key in the ignition.
*~~~
The wind wafted in from the half-open car window, playing havoc with the tendrils of her hair, and tossing them about in a syncopated rhythm. The night flew by outside like a wavering curtain of black and navy blue. Few stars speckled the sky, but a buoyous moon stood high above the strips of wispy clouds, silently fending off the darkness in its lonely vigil.
They hadn't gone very far before curiosity got the better of her, and Kagome had forgone the staunch silence to turn her attention to the man at her side. Amaru had said little outside of a few short answers here or there to her timidly whispered questions. Something inside her had known, she supposed. Somewhere deep inside, she knew he wasn't the type: that the Amaru - the Sesshoumaru - she knew was far too set in his noble ways to play childish games with a young girl's heart. But in that one instant, she admitted, she had doubted him.
One more mistake to make up for... she thought to herself, her eyes searching his emotionless face.
"You're quiet."
She blinked at the sudden movement of his lips, unsure how long she'd been staring at them until just that moment. He glanced in her direction for a second before turning his sharp amber gaze to the road.
"So are you," she whispered, almost scared to break the mood by speaking too loudly into the lull.
He laughed lightly, and her eyes were drawn to his lips again. Or rather, the sharp little fangs that flashed momentarily past the normally closed lips. He was saying something, she realized, watching the eye teeth pass in and out of view.
"Hm?" Kagome asked, trying to find something less strange to focus her attention on. "What did you say? I'm sorry. I'm a little out of it..."
He seemed to debate with himself for a minute, and she almost laughed at the struggle he was putting up just to not have to repeat himself. A tiny line appeared between his perfect eyebrows, and she stifled her laugh.
"How long have you been like this, anyway?" she asked softly, saving him the effort by changing the subject. "You look the same, and you try to act the same sometimes, but I know you're not..."
"Have I changed?" he asked, his slight smile telling her he knew the answer to his own question.
"You were really mean to me once, you know that?" Kagome put in, staring down at her fingers and trying to lighten the blunt statement. "Even when you weren't trying to smash Inuyasha's face in, and ours along with it... you left a lot of scars behind. Not just the ones on my skin..."
Sesshoumaru watched the emotion flicker in her eyes. There was pain etched in her voice, born from both the passing of time, and the lack of enough time passed. Her eyes, for an instant in the surrounding darkness, took on an age more closely resembling his own.
"I... pretend sometimes," she went on, not meeting his gaze even as he chanced another look at her. "I pretend that none of it ever happened. That you were always my friend, and that we just... forgot to keep in touch. That's how I got up the nerve to talk to you. But deep down... I'm scared..."
The last was said on the breath of a sigh, quiet and vulnerable and exposed. He could see the beginnings of regret in her frown, in the tilt of her head as she tried to hide behind the veil of hair cascading over one shoulder. There was something else she wasn't saying. Something deeper she obviously fought not to ask.
The car swayed slightly, and Kagome looked up to see them pull onto the soft grassy shoulder of the desolate country road. His hands remained on the steering wheel, and the keys remained in the ignition, but something in the way his features drew on the shadows around them told her she wouldn't be getting home on time.
"Not long after your... departure... Inuyasha came to me proposing a truce," he breathed, unfolding his hands and leaning back into the seat.
He could feel her confusion begin to surface. This wasn't the way he'd intended to tell her. He'd wanted to simply explain, starting where the changes in himself had begun: with Hayami. But looking over it, now that the words had been said... that wasn't the beginning at all...
Seated in this way, side by side with miles of emptiness in every direction, was not the setting he'd had planned for the unveiling of his very soul. In this way, he couldn't see her face. He couldn't look into her eyes and know what her thoughts of him were; couldn't gauge her reactions and respond to them accordingly.
All for the best, a small voice admitted in the back of his mind. I'll have only the truth... not the fabrication of my own wants and desires...
Taking a silent breath, he pushed on.
"He'd come to me in weakness," Sesshoumaru's voice teetered on the verge of a whisper. "And, against my better judgment, I chose to allow him in my company until he could stand on his own, as our Father had instructed me to teach him. Over time, I suppose the boy... grew on me..."
Her smile was warm enough to present itself to him without his having to turn toward her. "So, Inuyasha started it...?"
"To a certain extent, yes," he murmured, schooling his features back into a semblance of stoicism. "He provided an able body; a second, more human, form to study. And from that, I gained insight."
"You make it sound like a lab experiment..." she murmured lowly, bringing a smile to his lips.
"Time passed," he continued, steeling himself against the emotion that one statement brought forth, "as did those who resided in its wake... The years took from me a... companion... and the decades took from me a friend. Each brought a new lesson to be learned, and forced the two of us closer, I suppose. I'm sure there is much in my past that will turn to regret, once that emotion is fully understood as well. I can't imagine that I was very good company during those times."
His laughed was light, but mocking. No, he hadn't been the best of company to anyone or anything after Rin's passing. Jaken's had been an easier death to overcome, and the retainer had been in his employment for centuries upon centuries without cease to his loyalties. He was a jaded demon, indeed.
"But you did change," Kagome supplied gently, a delicate hand resting against his arm. "There was more, right? More you learned? There were other people after that... to teach you about us... about humans... right?"
He knew what she was hinting at, and looked down at her for a moment, trying to decide how the next portion would go.
"There were others," Sesshoumaru conceded. "We, as brothers, had made an agreement to move with the times, and this meant changing our own habits to conform to a more human standard. The grounds never ceased to echo with the voices of humans; the corridors with the staccato of their heartbeats; the walls with the scent of their mortality... I was forced to accept it. But eventually, that too became a lesson learned."
Another girl... the words pounded in the back of her head as Kagome waited from him to continue. It had to be... It must have been...
"It was," his voice came as a murmured echo of her thoughts.
Their eyes met, and for an instant she wasn't sure what to say or do. His face, that face that haunted her every dream, was open to her now as it had never been before. Deep within his eyes, she could make out the flicker of emotions that had refused to appear there before. The lines of his face remained still and stoic, and yet there it was again: that mild confusion laced with curiosity she'd seen earlier.
The moment extended itself, engulfing her until she felt the heat rise to her cheeks at the thickness of it.
"I guess you read my mind..." she laughed shakily, the words taking new meaning as something akin to ascent flashed in his eyes.
"Some would say that..." he side-stepped the accusation, watching her intently.
"Some..." she paused midway, frowning as he broke the link, turning to gaze through the window once again.
"Her name... was Hayami..." he breathed. "A human girl... She was.."
His hesitance had begun to irritate even him. What had she been, truly? His lover? His friend? He hadn't thought on it in such a long time, that the word now escaped him. Human she was, yes, but... it hadn't mattered then. Just as it didn't matter now.
"She was... my mate," he finished, stricken almost instantly by the involuntary title he'd applied to the girl.
"Mate...?"
She hadn't expected the bright, noxious bubble of jealousy to explode so quickly in the center of her chest. Of course there was a girl. There were probably hundreds of girls in his past, if not thousands. But this one girl... this one girl had gotten the title she once dreamed would be hers. So long ago, when Kaede had taken the time to explain the traditions youkai held amongst themselves, she'd developed an instant liking to the meaning behind the word. A mate... a lover... a companion from one life to the next... She had harbored secret girlish fantasies, in the early years, that the taiyoukai would consider her for that role. And later on, she had turned those fantasies in Inuyasha's direction. But to hear that the name hadn't been hers on either count...
"It troubles you," Sesshoumaru said softly, his hand capturing hers as she slowly drew it away from its position on his arm.
"No," she denied quickly, tugging out of his grasp only to be caught once again. "It's not... I'm not..."
"You should know that I did love her, Kagome," his admission was a surprise to them both. "These things are difficult. Emotions are difficult to understand, even to this very day. A youkai's worth is weighed through his strength alone. These... feelings... are weaknesses that disgrace and humiliate. But I admit this to you. To you alone."
She couldn't stop the resentment that she suddenly felt for this one human girl, but she did need to know. Had to know...
"Why me?" she asked, looking down at the large pale hands that engulfed her own. "Why do I have to be the one you tell all this?"
He loosened one hand to bring it to her chin, lifting it so that he could look directly into her eyes. The shimmer of unshed tears was there. As was an expectancy and urgency that belied the quiet calm she forced to the surface. Sapphire eyes had darkened with anxiety, lips quivering nearly imperceptibly as she waited for his reply.
"You should know," he repeated, staving back the impulse to taste her trembling lips, "that she once held my heart. That from her touch, I found patience and understanding. From her embrace, I found acceptance. From her body, I found satisfaction to my needs."
"That's not exactly what I wanted to hear..." Kagome groaned, halfheartedly tugging at her hand one more time.
"And from her willingness," he hushed her with a gentle finger to her lips, "I found that there was but one mistake this Sesshoumaru had made that he indeed regretted and would suffer eternity trying to rectify..."
She stilled her struggles, breath caught as he leaned closer, his lips mere inches from her own.
"None could bear even the faintest of light to this one human girl," he whispered, drawing her nearer with each word, his body warm against her already heated skin. "Yes, I did love her, Kagome... But it was in gratitude for the change she'd brought forth in me, that I needed, to find my way back to you..."
There. They were finally out. The damnable words confessing more than he had in his entire existence. The very center of his being, brought to the forefront, held aloft by gut-wrenching uncertainty and a deep-seated fear so unlike himself, he was apt to commit jisatsu to rid himself of the disgrace.
Kagome, for her part, was stunned. Not only into silence, but into immobility as well. Had he just said what she thought he did? Forgetting the days already passed; forgetting the caresses, the kisses; forgetting his moods and his actions, his confidence and his grace. It was nearly too much. Nearly, but not quite.
"You..." she choked, barely above a whisper. "You did all this... for me?"
The tiny smile had returned to his lips. "Is it so hard to believe?"
"Yes," she whimpered, fighting the tears.
His laugh held no mocking as he brushed the hair from her cheek. "I would never forget, Kagome. There was always to be a purpose behind it all. Always a reason to learn and to change accordingly."
She wanted to kiss him. Or strangle him for taking so long to say something... But late was better than never. He hadn't forgotten her, even when she had tried to forget him... Instead, he'd kept her right there in the back of his mind, changing himself because of it, and warming her heart toward him now for all the effort it had taken.
"Sesshoumaru..."
"Not yet," he interjected quietly, drawing backward and releasing her with nothing short of reluctance. "It is too much, too soon. Even for one such as myself. It's best that I take you home now. So that you may rest."
She nodded without complaint, happy that the mood hadn't broken despite their redirection of pace.
"Your plans haven't changed, I hope?" he asked, his tone returning nearly to normal now. "The fair. You will allow me to take you?"
Kagome blushed at that particular choice of words. "Yes," she laughed lightly, looking up at him. "I'll still go with you."
He nodded, pressing the gas and pulling back onto the road. "I am... pleased."
She smiled to herself at his answer, shaking her head at the quick transition from this new Sesshoumaru to the abundantly over-confident old one. Of all she'd heard and seen so far, this was still the one thing that took the most getting used to. But... she could learn, too.
"As am I," she retorted playfully, pointing her nose in the air and looking at him from the corner of her eye.
His brow rose slightly at her flip remark, but descended into a knowing look. His Kagome would prove to be quite the handful, as per usual. Smiling to himself, he struck a mark for surpassing the most difficult part of the courtship thus far. A handful, indeed... but she truly was his Kagome now, nonetheless...
- 17
- 18
- 19
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