Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

A Time for Changes	By : Fuafuru46 Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 25527 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Author’s Notes: Please review guys! I would appreciate the feedback. I love that you’re all reading!
Guys, is it “Kikyo” or “Kikyou” ? I see so many variations I’m confused
Chapter 9: Cause It’s Not Helping Anyone
Inuyasha sat across the table from Kikyo at a local restaurant. The lighting was low, walls decorated with antique weapons and shields, and music played quietly in the background. It had been one of his favorite places to bring Kikyo.
She slowly lifted a spoon to her lips and sipped at the miso-soup cooling in a bowl. To fit the upper-scale of the restaurant Inuyasha hid his ears beneath a black beret hat, his white hair tied back in a tight long braid.
“Did your errand go well today?”
Inuyasha put down his fork and swallowed his piece of beef. He nodded slowly. “It’s an uphill battle sometimes. It will be a sort of extended errand.”
She nodded slowly. She had changed from her business attired into a pair of dark jeans and a purple top. The simplicity only emphasized the natural cold beauty she possessed. “May I inquire as to what that errand is?”
Inuyasha gulped at his water, “I volunteer at the hospital now. I sponsor a younger patient and spend time the patient.” She raised an eyebrow slowly. Inuyasha felt the sweat on the back of his neck. He scratched his forehead and nodded slowly, “It would be good for the resume. Even my bastard of a brother thought so.”
Kikyo smiled coolly and nodded, resuming her dining. “It is a pleasure to see you reaching out into your community. Do you enjoy your classes?”
“Piff, yeah right. I hate those damn business courses.”
“Surely you take something other than business courses?”
Inuyasha nodded slowly, “I am in a Japanese history course. Those warriors were badass!” He shook his fist with excitement, “Could you imagine fighting for your life each day, no one to rely on but yourself and your own will?”
“Your project too much of your mistrust of humans, Inuyasha.” Kikyou brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and titled her head. It was a signature mannerism, the tilt of her head, as if she was analyzing the person she spoke to. Inuyasha constantly felt on the spot when she talked to him. “What else are you doing then?”
His fork and knife clanked as he pushed his plate back. “I work at the café to pay the bills. With Miroku studying abroad there’s a little bit more of a tab to pick up for now. Work, class, and the uh, hospital stuff.” There was a pause between the two and he smirked, “You may have told me why you left Japan, but why are you back, really?”
She folded her hands in front of her and sighed. “My work has brought me back to Japan, Inuyasha. I move where the research moves. I’m not sure how long I will be here.”
“You never do say much about what you do.” Inuyasha growled softly, irritated and slightly wounded sounding.
She reached out and touched his hand, “It is the rules of the government, Inuyasha, both Japan’s and America’s. Regardless of this, I am still happy, that I get to see you again.”
Inuyasha looked up and smiled.
- - - - -
Kagome sat in her hospital with her original sketchpad. With the help of a nurse, she was bathed, and put back into civilian clothing. Now, an entire week had passed, and Kagome was still in the hospital. Her bandages were changed daily and the doctor could not help but note how her scars, while still ever large and present, were healing faster than any normal human would.
Her civilian clothes were a pair of black sweatpants and an over-sized black v t-shirt. Sango and Inuyasha each had brought her academic assignments to keep her on task. Of course, the school had accepted her hospital note and sent over a care-basket wishing for her safe recovery. The incident had been written off as an “accident” and the doctor’s note provided all the coverage she needed to stay enrolled.
She turned the pages of her sketchbook slowly, carefully looking over the few sketches of Souta that she had left. In only a few months time Kagome had lost everything…
There was a knock at the door.
Kagome looked up and found to her surprise, her boss, Hojo-sama, standing with a bouquet of flowers. “May I come in, Kagome-chan?”
She scrambled to hide her sketchbook and fix her hair, “Hai, of course, Hojo-sama.”
Hojo smiled and walked in, noting the flowers and packages that had filled her room with time. “You look well, Kagome-chan. Your friend Sango-chan informed me of your accident.”
Kagome nodded slowly and took the flowers into her arms. They were lilies, one of her favorite types of flowers. She took in a deep breath of the flowers and smiled, “They are lovely, Hojo-sama. Thank you very much.”
He folded his arms across his chest and sank into the seat beside her bed, “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged, pulling at the cellophane wrap around her bouquet, “I don’t feel most of the pain while on the heavy medication. They’ve been weaning me slowly, trying to get the potency down.” She ran her fingers over the petals of the flowers.
“Hai, Hai, Kagome-chan, I’m sure the medication helps.” He pulled at the collar of his shirt and smiled. “This place does not seem too bad. Is the food as bad as they say?”
“Oh no, not at all. It’s not a five star restaurant, but when did I ever eat that way anyway?” Kagome chuckled lightly and wheezed slightly, holding the flowers to her chest.
Hojo frowned, “I hate to see you this way, Kagome-chan. In the years I’ve known you, you have been nothing but an amazing pupil at the museum and all around kind hearted young woman. I can’t stand to know someone hurt you this way.”
“Hojo-sama…” she looked away to the window and sighed. “Perhaps in my other life I was a horrible human being and this life is my repentance for it.” Kagome handed the flowers back to him and pressed the nurse button on her bed, “Let me get the nurse and plea for another vase for flowers.”
“Will you come back and work, Kagome-chan? I can understand you might not want to. I think personally you should focus on finishing your academic semester the best you can with these circumstances. Between this and Souta-san’s passing, it must put such a strain…”
“Kagome-chan?” The nurse stood at the doorway. “Did you need something? Is your cough acting up again?”
Kagome-chan pointed to the flowers, “I need another vase, please! I’ve probably wiped all the vases from this floor.”
The nurse laughed and took the flowers from Hojo-sama, “Let me trim the bottoms and bring you them back to you.”
Hojo stood slowly and brushed off his pants, “I’m afraid I can’t stay long, Kagome-chan. I came over on my break at the museum.”
Her smile fell.
“Hey now, that’s not a good look for you Kagome-chan. You need to smile more. It’s not helping anyone to see you down on yourself,” Hojo added firmly. “You are the one who gives hopes to everyone else. Don’t give up on yourself now.”
- - -
Inuyasha was walking down the hallway of the hospital heading towards Kagome’s room. Before he could get to the room a hand grabbed his shoulder. “What the---“
“Inuyasha-san.”
Sango stood in front of Inuyasha with a bundle of papers in her hands. It was the first time Inuyasha had noticed how tired she seemed. The girl’s hair was tied back, but greasy and slightly frizzed. She was in a pair of jeans and a ripped t-shirt and the bags on her eyes indicated she hadn’t slept well in days.
“Oye, are you all right?
Sango nodded slowly, but tears rimmed her eyes, “Yeah, I’m fine, Inuyasha-san.”
“Don’t give me that crap, you’re acting just like Kagome-chan would! What’s eating ya?” Inuyasha pulled on his bandana in aggravation. “Is it her? Is this too much for you?”
“I have no right to complain!” Sango hissed, looking down at the floor. “I have a home. I have Miroku-kun. I still have a fully functioning body…and she…” Sango covered her eyes with her hands. “The money part is so hard…”
Inuyasha clenched his fists and looked at her, “Sango-chan, if money is what you need, you know I can---“
“You know that Koga and his mother paid for everything,” she choked. “But I can’t stand that. All she does is draw and stare out that window, waiting for him.”
“Waiting for him?”
Sango sighed and leaned against the wall, “He asked her to wait, so she is. I’m not sure she has much else.”
“What about school? Her job?” Inuyasha felt his anger growing. “She has more than that dumb wolf.”
“And what are you doing, offering her to stay at your place?”
“Can we just get her out of here?” Inuyasha finally snapped, smacking his hand against the wall. “She’s been here long enough! Just get her out of here, Sango-chan. There’s nothing good about this place.”
Sango nodded slowly and together the two walked to Kagome’s door, which was open. To their surprise Kagome was standing on her bed. Her hands were covered in black charcoal smudge and there was a large piece of paper taped to the wall. The corners were curled and the paper was the kind of brown parchment paper you use to ship packages in. She was smearing the curve of a woman’s cheek when the two noticed something.
“Kagome…chan…your hair…”
Her long black locks of hair had been chopped to her chin, uneven. It was almost like it was cut in chunks. As their eyes wandered the room they found the chunks of her hair on the bed with a pair of dull silver scissors. [Something similar to Kagome’s friends in the manga]
“I cut it,” she announced with a happy chirp. She turned back to her the sketch on the wall, smearing the curve of the face again before returning to using her charcoal.
“Where did she even get scissors from?” Sango muttered under her breath, putting the papers down on the chair. She noted the new flowers in the room, “Who brought these?”
Kagome looked at the flowers, “Hojo-sama did,” Her eyes went back to her drawing while leaning down to pick up a broken piece of red charcoal twirling it in her hands. “Checking on me.”
Inuyasha could not get over the pile of black hair sitting on her bed. Hair was everything to girls; it was like their pride and joy. Kagome looked like she’d chopped it all off on a whim. On top of that she was standing up. She was drawing. It was an entirely different girl than the one who cried with him last night. “What are you drawing?”
She looked over her shoulder and smirked.
Inuyasha was even more surprised at the look on her face. The sides of her lips were tainted with the ever-faint smear of blood. Her eyes had a wild glow to them flickering hints of gold similar to his own eyes. Inuyasha smelt the air quietly, trying not to alert Sango as she scuffled around the room trying to find a phone to call a nurse and complain about Kagome’s irrationally movements.
“It’s a self portrait, obviously.”
“Where is that damn nurse,” Sango-chan muttered, picking up more papers on the floor and trying to organize Kagome’s art supplies.
Kagome hummed lightly, taking the red charcoal and filling in the right eye with it. Inuyasha stood at the edge of the bed and held his hand out for her, “Come on, Kagome-chan. It’s time for us to take you home.”
“You know it’s not time yet, Inu-ya-sha-san,” she sang. “The doctor hasn’t given me approval for discharge yet.” She smeared at the eye slowly, leaning over on occasion to pluck another color. She looked at Sango and frowned, “You don’t have to do that, Sango-chan.”
Sango looked up at Kagome, “What then, do you suggest I do, Kagome!” Inuyasha winced but Kagome remained unfazed. “You were nearly killed and now you’re standing up drawing?”
Kagome looked over her shoulder back at Inuyasha and his hand, and then back at Sango-chan, “What else do you want me to do while I’m waiting here?“ She chuckled lightly and looked over at the flowers on the counter. She picked up the vase with Hojo’s flowers. Very carefully she rested the flowers on the counter, tilted the vase just slightly, and used the water to dampen her hands. She wiped her hands on the sheets of her hospital bed and examined them now clean, “You will get wrinkles if you worry so much!”
Sango’s jaw dropped and she looked to Inuyasha. She’d never seen her friend with such a cold attitude, even when the two feuded. Inuyasha looked between the two ladies and smiled weakly, “The blood. It…has its own personality, she’s being affected a little I think.”
Kagome put the flowers back in the vase, adjusting them slowly. There was a tremble in her hands. She looked back to Inuyasha and he recognized her eyes had returned to blue. Kagome kicked the remains of her hair off the bed onto the floor and looked at Sango, “This isn’t your room to clean. I’ll apologize to the nurse later.” She ruffled her short hair, watching the short strands drift to the ground. There was a silence in the air until she looked back at her sketch whispering, “Why don’t you go home and rest in your own bed for once, Sango.”
“What do you mean for once?”
“I know you come back here late at night, checking up on me,” Kagome explained slowly. “I can sense you in the room. I can hear you breathing.”
“No one else is going to ---“
“That’s right, no one else is going to check up on me all the time,” Kagome bit back. “Koga-kun is gone. He’s gone for now. You can be concerned about me, but you cannot devote your entire life to rescuing me just because Miroku-kun is gone.”
“Kagome-chan, that’s not why I’m worried about you! We are friends!”
Kagome tilted her head slowly and smirked, “So as your friend, I am telling you, that you miss MIroku-kun. He would calm you down about this and because he’s not there, you seek comfort in being near me, like when we lived together. You want to confide in me for comfort, but feel worse, because I am the one who causes you this stress.”
Inuyasha looked back and forth between the two friends. What the hell was with Kagome? Why was she pushing so much for Sango-chan to leave her alone? Was Kagome still being influenced by the demon blood? He found his hand was still outstretched towards her, even as she folded her knees beneath her and sat down on the bed.
“I have no idea what the hell is going on in your head, Kagome-chan. You’re making my brain hurt.”
Kagome smiled and laughed lightly, “I’m sorry, Inuyasha-san.” Leaning back Kagome looked up at her work, upside down. There was something so hauntingly similar and accurate about the portrait. Like looking into a mirror. “I’m a jagged piece that does not fit in a puzzle.”
Sango closed her eyes and sighed, quietly exiting the room.
- - - - - - -
It was late in the evening and Sango sat on her couch, cradling the phone to her ear. Her hair was down, damp, and she wore a pair of sweats.
“”Ah, how are you doing my love, Sango-chan?”
“I miss you, Miroku-kun,” she whispered, rubbing her eyes. “I’m tired, but I can’t sleep worrying about her in the hospital.”
“My dear, you should be thinking about me! Worrying about her? What if I’m wandering the country with tons of beautiful voluptuous women!”
Sango chuckled and wiped a tear from her eye, “You lecherous monk. If I find you’ve even so much as talked to another pretty lady I’ll fly over there myself and beat you up.”
Miroku laughed into the phone, “See, that’s the fiery lady I know and love.”
Sango sighed and slumped farther into the couch, “I’m sorry, Miroku….”
“Sango, Sango, Sango, you don’t have to be sorry. You have known Kagome for a very long time and it’s very normal for you to be protective of her.”
“Just…hasn’t she been through enough?”
His sigh echoed through the phone, “My dear, this is not something we can control. This is fate, beyond mortal control. I know how you feel, it’s hard for me to forget the look on her face when Inuyasha and I found her outside that day. But we can’t take it back. We can’t bring Souta back. Just like you can’t bring Koga back….”
“But you can!” Sango sat up quickly, ignoring his stumbling confusion. “You are in America, Miroku! You can bring him back to Japan with you.”
“But Sango, I have no idea where he could be. You are aware there are 50 states in this country. I’m only in one of them…”
“But Miroku, how many branches of Koga’s father’s company are there? Please?”
He sighed, “You’re asking a lot of me, dear. I’m still at university. I can’t promise anything. What if I do find him? What then? How on earth do you expect me to convince his parents to let him come home? I’m not even involved in this scenario.”
“Please, Miroku…she might waste her entire life waiting for him.” Sango looked around her apartment, noting the lack of her presence in the house,
“That is not the Kagome we know, Sango. I know she loved him, they lived together too, but did you ever ask her what they did as a couple?”

“I’m not going to ask her about her sexual life, you know she’s very pri---“
“No, Sango, no, I mean, how much did they act as a couple versus she took comfort in him. Kagome may not have realized it, Sango, but she might not have loved him at all.”
“Miroku…”
“She was vulnerable, weak, and hurting.”
“And now she’s in the hospital. Please, Miroku, help me find him. She might be happy again if she can see him.”
Miroku chuckled, “I love you very much, my dear. I will do my best, but please, make no promises to our vulnerable friend. Okay?”
Sango smiled and wiped another tear from her eye, “Yes, dear. Thank you, really. I love you.”
- - - -
So many people have come and gone out of this hospital room, it feels more like a hotel. But finally it’s late; even the hospital nurses have stopped checking on me. There are a few hours, between two am and dawn, where I think everyone finally goes to sleep. What was her name…Tomo…my main hospital nurse…she didn’t seem mad that my room was a mess.
Tomo carefully pulled each of my drawings off the wall and left them in a neat pile beside the flowers that Hojo left…oh yeah…those flowers. The lilies glow in the darkness in my room. The portrait though…when she found it…she stared for a real long time. I wasn’t in the bed, I was walking out of the hospital shower in my room. In just a robe, I couldn’t help but watch her examine my portrait.
When she noticed me, she turned to me. I expected a look of pity, sympathy, the normal looks I’ve seen in this hospital for so long now. Instead she smiled. Tomo took my hand and sat me down on the bed and looked back to the sketch.
“It is so real, Higurashi-chan.”
I could only nod. I looked at the red eye, the expression on my face.
“I can feel something inside those eyes, they’re calling out, you know?” Tomo smiled as she turned to start brushing out my hair. “You should really keep going.“ She began a slow trim of my hair, to help style it, as I stared into the hospital room. “These wounds will heal. I know it doesn’t feel that way, but they will with time. Even if you have scars, the pain will go away.”
I let out a slow breath and nodded, “I don’t know where to go from here.” I could feel the divide inside of me. Hojo wanted me to come back to work. I had school to finish. I had sketches to work on. And yet…it all felt so empty. I looked back at her and frowned, “What’s my next move?”
Tomo clipped a barrette into my hair, “Maybe you just need to do something brand new. You already have this new funky hair. Why don’t you just, I don’t know, do something?” Tomo pat Kagome’s shoulder and slid off the bed, “Tomorrow is a brand new day. You’ve survived this accident. So…oh this sounds so preachy, I’m sorry.” She turned back and looked at me with the best smile she could muster, “You survived this accident. I know I’m in no place to tell you anything when I haven’t suffered. But, you’re alive, and tomorrow is never a guarantee, and all those other things I’m supposed to say!”
I smiled, “You’re not preaching…”
Tomo pointed to picture on the wall, “If you can make that while you’re suffering, imagine what can happen if you keep going.”
I stood and held out my hand to her, “You have been very patient with me. You never butted in with my friends and our fighting. Thank you.”
Tomo shook her head, not agreeing, “Thank you, for letting me see that sketch. That is power, Higurashi. More than I can do just supporting those wounded.” She bowed her head, “But now, I need to go get some sleep before my next shift. You get some rest too. There are two pills on the counter if you need the sleeping aid.” She shook my hand with a strength I didn’t know she had. “You can get through it. Just don’t give up on the art.”

Sango didn’t come to visit me last night, and I hope she managed to sleep and rest for once.
I lay down in the bed and stared up at the woman looking down at me. She looked divided, two personalities, two people.
A pulse moved through me, I felt myself gasp.
“What are you?”
The room echoed back in silence until finally ---
“I am you.”
- - - - -
Inuyasha opened the door to his apartment carrying a duffle back over his shoulder.
“Well, this is it. Not too far a commute, right?”
She chuckled weakly and followed after him obediently. Her body was covered in blue jeans and a purple turtleneck, hiding any indication of her large-scale scars. The blue duffle bag she carried contained her sketch materials. Sango had dropped off a few boxes of clothes for her earlier.
“In…Inuyasha-san?”
He turned around after kicking off his shoes, “Keh, what is it?”
She looked at the floor and blushed weakly, “Thank you.”
“Keh, now that the monk’s gone I got a free bed. Don’t thank me yet.” He tossed her duffle bag onto the couch and sauntered to the kitchen, “Oye, you hungry? Lets have lunch.”
She took a look across the hall at Sango’s closed door and took in a deep breath. “Sure, lunch would be great.”
Author’s Note: Song, “Live It Out” by artist, Abandon
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A Time for Changes