Saholia's Flower Challenge
Prompt: Flowers
Disclaimer: If I owned Inuyasha, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction about it, now would I? :)
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He loves me, he loves me not.
Kagome had never been a fan of picking flowers to waste away the petals in a silly question as that. If you knew how many petals were on the flower, the answer was evident before you even began. If it’s an odd number, he loves you. An even number, and he doesn’t.
Even before counting the petals, Kagome knew the answer to the question in her heart.
She picked up a delicate pink cherry blossom petal from the ground and then let it go gently and watched it scatter in the wind. One petal. An odd number. She smiled. If only. She was sure he had loved her at some point but she doubted he still loved her now.
Kagome walked over to the swing set that was in a corner of the park she was walking in and sat down. Usually many kids liked to play around the area, but at night, it was always deserted, giving it a completely different feel. She dragged her feet on the ground, not really trying to move much. Just sitting there and enjoying the night air while lightly swaying was enough.
She stared at the keychain of her cellphone and cradled it in the palm of her hand. She did not regret. How many times had she told herself that? Kagome continued to stare at what lay in her hands, gently rocking back and forth, barely moving.
It was a clear plastic casing that had a single flower inside. Kagome had made it a few days ago, picking a golden amber colored flower off a bush. A flower that looked like his eyes. She shook her head. It was almost dry now. The flower had actually been a little too big for the casing she had, so it was no longer full. Some of the petals had separated from the whole and it looked like it would crumble until it no longer resembled a flower.
She didn’t like picking flowers off the plants, but she’d made an exception that one time. After all, flowers were living things too. When you pulled them off, it must hurt a lot. And flowers couldn’t scream. At least not in a language humans could understand.
Maybe the flower she had picked couldn’t scream, but she could. Kagome kept the keychain with her to remind her that even if she could scream and could cry, it didn’t mean she should. Just because she felt pain, it didn’t mean she should show it.
She closed her eyes and sighed. Making the decision hadn’t been easy, but carrying it through had been even harder. Kagome opened her eyes. She hoped it hadn’t been all for a waste.
“You can come out. I know you’re there.” Without even a rustle or any type of noise that would give way to movement, she felt his presence behind her.
“And here I thought I was being sly.”
“Liar. You weren’t even trying.” She didn’t turn her head. If she looked back, she would lose it.
“Perhaps I wasn’t.” he replied.
He wasn’t going to get to the point, was he? Trying to hold her composure, Kagome took a breath.
“I thought you wouldn’t follow me if I left.” she tried to say as casually as possible, gripping the keychain tighter.
“I didn’t.” Damn that man and how easy it was for him to hold the mood she was struggling to maintain.
“Then why are you here?”
“I didn’t think I would be held to the same rules since I actually belong in this time period.”
“Are you? I guess that’s different then.” Kagome believed him. But the implications of what he said were almost worse if this Sesshoumaru was nearly five hundred years older than the one she knew. She smiled a mirthless smile. “So demons do live until my time after all.” Kagome mused.
“Surely that’s not your only observation.”
“I wouldn’t know since I can’t see you.” Kagome answered. He walked slowly in front of her and she realized that might not have been the best thing to say if she was trying to avoid it. She looked down at her feet, seeing black leather shoes appear in her vision. His hand snaked under her chin and softly but firmly lifted it up.
“Then look at me.” he commanded softly.
She didn’t want to obey him, but even as she thought that, Kagome felt her eyes shifting to take in his ageless face. It bore none of his familiar facial markings. No blue moon marking his forehead, no magenta purple stripes adorning his cheeks. His eyes were a light brown instead of the amber gold she was used to and his beautiful silver hair was now gossamer black. But he was still regal in his modern collared shirt and graceful in his stance. He was still Sesshoumaru.
“Does it hurt to have to pretend to be human?” she found herself asking. His hand was no longer holding her chin, but she still couldn’t turn her eyes away from him.
“Hurt may not be the right word, but I’m quite used to it by now. I’ve been shielding myself for centuries.” Kagome inwardly flinched and hoped it didn’t show on her face. But he was Sesshoumaru, so of course it did. She could never hide things from him. Centuries. That was a long time to have to hide the demon lineage he had been so proud of.
“I know I’m not in any position to ask anything of you, but I have a request.” Kagome said. His look gave her permission to continue. “Remove your glamour. Although you resemble him, a human can never be Sesshoumaru. What I have to say can only be said to him.”
He paused, his arrogant expression in place, and she almost thought he would silently decline by ignoring her, but instead, he heeded her request and Kagome saw the youkai lord in front of her. Kagome clenched the keychain tighter, preparing herself. She had to be ready for the confrontation that was to come.
“Why are you here?” she repeated the question she asked earlier. The faster they got to the point, the faster she could leave.
“Trying to run away already?” He smirked. The unspoken accusation was evident in his voice.
“I didn’t run away.” Kagome whispered. Was she going to have to break her heart all over again?
“Oh? So what would you call leaving without telling me where you were going or whether you planning to return?” He hadn’t said the words sharply or with malice, but it felt like he had. Instead of answering his rhetorical question since it was pointless, Kagome asked her own question.
“How did you know how to find me?” Sesshoumaru stepped a little farther away from her.
“The hanyou may not have approved of our relationship, but he at least thought I had the right to know about your time traveling and where you probably disappeared to.”
Kagome didn’t blame InuYasha for that. She laughed bitterly, almost letting her tears slip and clenched her hand around the keychain until her knuckles were white. Kagome knew better than to try to defend herself from that. She was guilty of not telling him that secret. So she responded to something else.
“What’s the point of disappearing if you intend to be found?” Kagome asked.
“Why disappear if you know I’d always be able to find you?” he countered.
“Because I didn’t expect you to want to find me.” she admitted.
“Then you obviously did not properly think your plan through because it should have been a given.”
“Well I’m sorry I didn’t take that into consideration.” Her control was slipping again.
“You should have.” he said quietly.
It really took a lot of wind out of an argument when no one was shouting, a tone that made more sense with the words they were saying. The almost civil conversation was more work than a yelling contest would have been. Kagome already felt exhausted and they’d barely started. He continued speaking.
“If you were so unhappy and wanted to leave, you could have said something instead of using the coward’s way out. I had already told you I wouldn’t go after you if you chose to leave. I would have let you go, if that was what you wished.”
Kagome dropped the keychain. She had been holding onto it so tightly for so long, she had no more energy to hold onto it any longer. The plastic cracked a bit as it fell on the ground. If Kagome wanted to end things cleanly, she would have held her resolve and fought him back, she would have taken his cue and said that she wanted him to let her go. But her heart wasn’t that strong. He was right, she had taken the coward’s way out. Not because she couldn’t face him for wanting to end it but because she couldn’t lie to him. Kagome couldn’t tell him that she didn’t love him, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would break him, because it would break her too.
And the tears flowed freely now.
“The cost of my happiness was too high.” Kagome acknowledged.
“What about my happiness? Did that not matter to you?”
“You could have gotten over it. There are so many better women out there than me. So many that would have been better for your empire, better fit to rule your people alongside you.”
Kagome could hear Sesshoumaru’s harsh breathing and knew now that he hadn’t been calm at all, he’d just been holding it in.
“If that was all this was about, you are truly stupid.” he stated.
“Yes, I am stupid, Sesshoumaru. But you can’t stand there and tell me that taking a human mate wouldn’t have made people think twice about your strength. Not only a human either, but a human miko! How laughable that would have been.”
“I didn’t care about your humanity, Kagome.”
“I know that. But just because you didn’t doesn’t mean other people didn’t. The hate and misunderstandings between youkais and humans were just too strong at that time.”
“And now?” His question threw her off guard.
“What?” she questioned. His blazing gold eyes looked back so intensely at her that Kagome wanted to shy away.
“Those things didn’t matter to me. We would have found a way. But you didn’t give me the chance to prove that to you.”
“Sesshou-” Kagome started to argue.
“No, you listen to me now. It may have only been a few days or even a few weeks for you, but it has been centuries for me. I had to wait that long so you can wait a few minutes for me to finish.”
After she’d gotten to know him better, there had been less and less things that started to scare her about Sesshoumaru. But his tone and the look in his eyes at that moment was something that still did.
“Letting you into my heart was one of the most unexpected, stupidest but wonderful things that I did. As a ruler, I had to think about what was best for my people and I did not fail in doing that. But choosing my mate, my queen; that was for me. There is always controversy. Anyone I chose, even a youkai woman of noble birth would have been up for debate. But if I accepted you, everyone else would have too. Because I chose you.”
Kagome felt the tears continue falling and didn’t attempt to wipe them away. She collapsed into a squatting position and put her face in her hands. Hearing what he said, does that mean that her sacrifice had been for nothing? All her suffering…all of his suffering…hadn’t meant anything?
“I’m so sorry, Sesshoumaru. So sorry,” She could barely talk in coherent sentences. He had to hate her now. There was no excuse for what she’d done.
“I don’t forgive you.” he stated.
Kagome felt herself hurt even more. Before she’d wondered how that could have been possible, but she felt it. Of course he didn’t forgive her.
“Actions are a stronger basis for forgiveness than mere words.” Sesshoumaru said gruffly, looking away. She looked up at him in confusion, not catching what he meant.
“If I were wise, I would send you back in time to make you undo your mistake, but the current me is too selfish and I want to keep you to myself now with what has already been endured.” Could she have heard him right? “Marry me and I’ll forgive you.”
“I don’t understand.” she said hesitantly. Marrying was a human custom. Why…?
“Marry me first. Mate with me second. If other people’s happiness mean so much to you, we’ll be together in the eyes of society first and then we’ll truly be together for ourselves after.”
“But, Sesshoumaru-”
He pulled her up, abruptly cutting off what she’d started to say.
“I don’t want any more of your excuses either. If being married to a human was a disadvantage to me in the past, in this human-dominated time where youkai have to shield their identities, surely I’m getting the better end of the bargain as marrying a youkai would without a doubt inconvenience you.”
If she’d had the energy to, Kagome would have pouted with how he turned all of her good intentions on her. She huffed.
“Who says I want your forgiveness any way?” she bluffed. He quirked an eyebrow.
“Your flower told me.” Kagome blinked.
“Come again?” Sesshoumaru bent down and picked up the plastic keychain. He held it in front of her.
“Tell me, Kagome, since when did you like amber gold flowers? I always thought you liked purple flowers.” he said snidely. She blushed. Stupid her, picking a sentimental color over a more practical one. “Ah, it’s broken. Should I fix it?” Kagome stared at it and smiled when she noticed something.
“No. Give it to me.” He handed it to her without another word.
Kagome took the flower gently out of the broken case and pushed all the petals together in the palm of her hand so it looked like a whole flower again. Then she gently pulled a single petal off and let it fly in the wind.
He loves me.
She plucked another petal.
He loves me not.
And then a third.
He loves me.
A fourth.
He love me not.
And she pulled the last bit of the old crumbled flower and dropped it on the ground.
He loves me.
The End
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A/N: So this is my first challenge and the first thing I’m posting on Dokuga. It took me over four hours to write (yeah, I’m pretty slow) and I only read through it once for editing, so if you see any typos or awkward phrasing, please let me know. I write with a lot of implication, so sometimes things that make sense to me might not make as much sense to you. If you don’t understand something, let me know and I’d be happy to explain. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed the one-shot :)