Day to Day by naqaashi
Day to Day
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
A/N: This fic is an entry for Tangerine Dream's Annual Fanfiction Tournament. Please vote for me if you feel my fic is good enough to make it to the second round! Synysterstar is my partner for this round, so please read her fic also, and then decide who you will vote for!
Here are the contest rules -
http://www.dokuga.com/forum/29-challenges/64798-second-annual-fanfiction-tournament
Our Prompt was MONDAY.
WARNING: This story plays around with the subject of depression. If you are easily offended, or if this topic is a trigger for you, or if it makes you uncomfortable in a way that you can't deal with, please don't read it.
Many thanks to my beta, Lady Kirara for checking this over at a minute's notice! Also, special thanks to Quoth the Dragon and Dreamcatcher, for being my emergency betas and plunnie tamers! If not for these two girls, this fic wouldn't have seen the light of day and I would have been booted from the tournament!
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The steady honk-honk-honk of sluggish traffic was the only rhythm accompanying the harsh, excited breath of a young woman who knelt before an ancient giant of a tree; the folds of a poofy white dress framing her daydreams.
She waited in vain. Like every frenzied office worker who prayed for the lights to turn green, for the world to move on – and fast – she waited in vain.
A typical Monday in Tokyo. Plus one broken heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the days turned into weeks, she idly wondered if she ought to make some effort to find him. The idea would hold her attention for brief moments, speculation lighting up her blue eyes as she turned and twisted it in her mind, fantasizing on the possible outcomes. Her personal favourite was the one where he ended up with syphilis or AIDS or something, because that one always ended with her planting a shiny boot heel in his face when he came crawling for forgiveness.
She never dreamed she’d have the opportunity presented to her.
Blink. Blink blink.
Pause. Adjust fantasy.
Blink.
The silver-haired, golden-eyed vision refused to go away. Finally, she murmured, “It’s disorienting.”
The man gracing her doorstep – it never occurred to her to invite him in – snapped, “What?”, clearly at the end of his patience.
“You look a lot like...” she clarified, tailing off into uncertain silence at the sudden ill temper flaring in those golden eyes. Golden eyes…silver hair…it was uncanny, how much this man resembled him.
His announcement finally began to hit home. “You say he’s dead?” Now if this were a TV drama, some idle corner of her mind mused, that would have come out as a suitably, dramatically, shocked whisper. The flat cadence it actually was leaned towards apathy, almost, but the girl was rather too tired to care, what with the daily effort of eating, sleeping, not moping, ignoring the world and so on.
“I said they’re both dead.”
She contemplated that and made a few more adjustments to that fantasy. Maybe I’ll plant that heel in her nose first. A startled ahem broke into her thoughts and she realized that the man had probably been waiting for her answer. And apparently, going by the stunned clearing of his throat, she had inadvertently given it.
She shrugged it off, enjoying the novelty of voicing her thoughts to an actual human being. He seemed nicer than the walls of her dingy little flat. More responsive, at any rate. Not as stationary, though.
He cleared his throat again, uncomfortably, and she found herself peering into golden eyes. It was funny, she didn’t particularly want to look at them, but she found herself unable to look away.
They stood there in silence. He cleared his throat a few more times, determinedly not looking at her. She stared at him in morbid fascination, tracing the planes of his face, cataloguing the differences between him and that other guy. The dead one.
“Funeral’s this Saturday,” he suddenly announced.
Were they expecting her to attend? “Hmm.” They probably thought she might want to. He cleared his throat again – she wondered if she should offer him cough drops – he seemed to be waiting for something. Probably a more eloquent response than Hmm, her brain pitched in.
Well, that was unfortunate. She had no idea what she should say. The idea of enacting that heel-grinding fantasy appealed…but not in public, please! That would be very, very rude. Some one – probably the respective mothers – would object.
The man seemed to be growing rather annoyed, if his tapping foot was any indication. It would be polite to put him out of his misery, and if she did decide to be rude at the funeral, surely this act of kindness would make up for any future discourtesy? And she still had nothing to say.
So she shut the door in his face, realized that it was Tuesday, exactly one year since that fateful Monday, got drunk and decided to stay that way for a very long time to come.
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They bumped into each other on a Wednesday, one year after Tuesday. Accurately, their grocery carts did, but then that’s what happens when you put two cravings for canned pineapple and one can in the same aisle.
The woman immediately preoccupied herself with golden eyes and silver hair – it hadn’t looked this shiny on her poorly lit doorstep – while the man snatched disapproving glances between her and her cart. Instant noodles, ramen cups, baked beans, chips, canned fruits, diabetically suicidal rations of KitKat…his lips grew tighter and thinner with each grossly unhealthy item. Or it might have been that he was attempting to work out how someone could live on junk food and look no more substantial than a coat hanger. She felt somewhat proud about the little sunken pits where her cheeks should be…those had taken many sleepless nights to produce, thankyouverymuch.
Still, she supposed that a defense was in order. “I prefer Lindt, you know.”
He gaped at her. Probably, since his eyes only widened a millimetre or so. God, she hated maths.
“Can’t afford it, can you?” He raked her up and down with that flat, disapproving gaze of his, cataloguing the dowdy clothes, the plastic rain shoes in summer, messy hair – though he liked the look, so scratch that – and general air of neglect about her person.
She didn’t bother to say yes. In her dusty little mirror back home, the bags under her eyes, the frailty and humdrum bleakness had a certain romance, a defiance to them. She liked watching her ruin; it came easy and cheap. In the presence of this man and his disturbingly golden eyes, it all grew tawdry.
She decided she didn’t like him. Not one bit.
He decided she looked too awful to ignore, damned the dead, hauled her back home and cooked her dinner.
He cooked her dinner for a month, barring weekends – he was entitled to a holiday – and then he began cooking her lunches too. They always arrived at her desk in the little travel agency she worked at, nutricious and neatly wrapped to preserve the heat. She threw them out for a week, thinking that one healthy meal a day was quite enough and he wasn’t that great a cook either, but eventually hunger won out.
Somewhere along the line, they managed to feel awkward long enough to ask, “What’s your name?”
“Kagome.” She was the sweet young priestess-in-training before Monday.
“Taishou Sesshoumaru.” He was her dead ex-fiancé’s elder brother.
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By the time Thursday rolled around, Sesshoumaru had grown quite proficient in the kitchen and Kagome had grown almost plump. Conversations lingered, savings were almost depleted on pretty new shoes (but that was just once and Sesshoumaru hadn’t the heart to do more than ban her from the Manolo Blahnik showroom till further notice), and merry smiles were more forthcoming.
Sesshoumaru ticked off items on his list, and decided it was time to move in for the kill. “You’re bored at that desk, aren’t you?”
Kagome considered protesting the issue – she knew exactly what he was planning – but the idea of one more day dealing with one more visa application to one more suitably overpriced exotic destination paled in comparision to mom and grandpa and a big fat garden and going back to college to get that art history degree and yes, even bratty little brothers with atrocious tastes in video games. Thank heaven I’ve only got one of those. And in Souta’s defence, he was still an angsting teenager nursing a crush on the girl-of-the-week.
She could live with all that, she decided. Having lived with it for twenty years, before Monday – who invented that stupid day, anyway? – made it rather easy to know that she could live with it again. Consequently, she allowed Sesshoumaru to deposit her in the care of her family and looked forward to resuming her life, plus one friend with endearing golden eyes.
For his part, Sesshoumaru took a step back, surveyed the tearful reunion with a sense of satisfaction and announced his renovation project a success.
“Come again?” Kagome shot him a quizzical look.
He simply shrugged, executed an impressively easy about turn and walked right out of her life, seeing as she obviously didn’t need him anymore.
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Kagome went to work with a vengeance. Hours of meticulous research, judicious practice and daring experiments occupied the next two months. Midway through the third month of her abandonment, she designated herself an expert on depression, and embodied all the traits thereof. She even treated herself to a marathon of tragedies and extra doses of Grave of the Fireflies on Thursdays, as they were her least favourite day of the week. They even trumped Monday. A friend had asked her once, during a particularly vicious whining session, how the two compared. “Every girl can expect to be ditched once, but twice means there’s something to really celebrate there,” Kagome had groused.
What she didn’t admit to anyone – including herself – was that she was desperate. For what…well, if she wasn’t even willing to confess desperation, the whats and whys and wherefores mattered little, didn’t they?
Somehow, that little grain of denial worked even better than all the painstaking research. A practiced monotone gave way to dull, monosyllabic replies. Slouching grew natural. A carefully chosen drab wardrobe grew threadbare and stained with indifference. Pretending to stare out of windows lost its appeal, and staring into a cup of cheap liquor became her favourite hobby.
It was easy to slip into the familiar rhythms of indifference, of numb ignorance of herself and her world. The only time she stopped to wonder about it was a Friday – it was inevitable, really, the date (and it wasn’t poor Friday’s fault for being Monday’s anniversary) – but there it was and there she was. Swaying and blinking before a varnished front door in a quietly affluent neighbourhood, she wondered why she’d bothered to come. Golden eyes weren’t that important. Anytime she wanted some, she could just dig up that dead idiot’s corpse and mount his skull in her room. And stick a couple of yellow marbles in the eye sockets.
Simple.
But try explaining simple to a drunk fool, her inner couch potato grumbled. And so it watched powerlessly as the body it lived in smashed the rest of her bottle against the door – did she think it was the knocker or something? – and found herself slurring a far too cheerful to be real “HEEEEWWWOOOO!!!!!” at the surprised and (a few seconds later) very angry golden-eyed homeowner.
And then – the internal idler groaned and contemplated going invisible at this point – she raised what was left of the cheap, smelly whiskey in the remains of the bottle, informed Sesshoumaru that she actually preferred Hennessey and toasted his health with it.
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To say that Sesshoumaru was furious was to insult the definition of understatement. By the time he was done ranting, neither he nor Kagome remembered much of the subject matter, except that it began with “…lucky you didn’t tear your mouth open, you little twit!” and ended with something along the lines of having cowdung for brains and regurgitated hairballs for willpower.
Then he took a few deep breaths, downed a tall glass of water, took one look at the sad, lost woman lurking in her listless blue eyes – and grew even angrier. At himself. But mostly still at her. The subsequent vomiting and snoozing in his lap and waking up groaning about hammers in the headspace did little to improve his mood. Somewhere around the hangover he decided he’d had enough and tossed Kagome out on her rear, but being a decent, well-brought-up young man, he did deign to give her a final piece of advice.
“Grow up. Get a life. If you can manage it, basic common sense as well.”
He was stepping out for a run early next morning, congratulating himself on doing a marvelous job of avoiding random twinges of guilt, when he nearly stepped on a raven-haired, blue-eyed waif huddled on his porch. He wondered where the lump in his throat had popped up from, but didn’t break his resolve. He was strong, cool, detached and – he told himself firmly – she is not my responsibility. So he ran.
Fifty yards. She is not my responsibility.
A hundred yards. She is not my responsibility.
Halfway round the block. She is not my responsibility.
Eighty yards closer to home. She is not my responsibility.
Sixty yards closer to home. She is not this Sesshoumaru’s responsibility.
Fifty yards closer to home, and forty and thirty five and thirty and please, please let her still be there or I don’t know what I’ll do and twenty and ten and she was there and he stood before her, panting and glaring and wondering if the risk was really worth it and damn you, Inuyasha and thankful all the same.
And they had to begin all over again. Things went swimmingly, for a bit. Kagome was so euphoric at having won her friend back – by fouler means than fair – that she made quick progress. Sesshoumaru watched over her, carefully monitoring and prodding and encouraging and dishing out warm, reluctant hugs and growing satisfied, overall. He must have been unusually adept at masking the nervousness that arose from thoughts of the day when she wouldn’t need him anymore. Bidding goodbye the first time had been distasteful, but necessary. It was equally necessary now, but he understood the heartbreak a little better.
Very well, a lot better.
But he was still very good at hiding it, because all Kagome saw was satisfaction as the days ticked down towards goodbye. Something told her this one would be permanent. Fortunately for her, Sesshoumaru’s overarching weakness appeared to be damsels in distress; naturally, for every step forward she took, she made sure to take a careful step back. You’re being sick, lectured Ms. Inner Potato, prompting some meticulous soul searching and the damning conclusion – the world seemed ten times lonelier without those glorious golden eyes around. And Kagome had had quite enough of being lonely.
So when he inevitably began nagging her about letting herself slide – “This Sesshoumaru does not associate with witless, self-pitying fools,” were his exact words – she let him have it. One long, loud shrieking accusation of daring him to leave because “THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE WAITING FOR, ISN’T IT? ISN’T IT?! HUH? HUH? YOU THINK I’M STUPID? YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN ONCE I’M OKAY? LET ME MAKE IT EASY FOR YOU, THEN, SHALL I? I’M OKAY! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! OKAY OKAY! JUST BLOODY PEACHY! NOW GET THE HELL OUT! HAPPY? GO! GET OUT! GO DIE SOMEWHERE! SEE IF I EVER NEED YOU AGAIN! I’LL NEVER NEED YOU! I’M FINE! THERE! GO – ” and she was crying, bawling pitifully because what else do you do when the man you need and want and adore and don’t even understand has his arms around you, cuddling and apologizing and promising he’ll never leave if you only just do him a favour and cease that infernal howling.
And just like that, at dawn on a Saturday, anniversary to the Monday that had ruptured her life, Kagome began grieving.
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Sometimes Sesshoumaru didn’t understand what she mourned. She explained that it wasn’t the dead she cried for. The dead were thankfully dead and she owed them no allegiance – especially as when they were alive they cheated and lied to and mocked and almost destroyed her. She grieved for the lost years, she said, years that she could have spent on college, on finishing her degree, on building a career instead of hacking away at visa forms day in and day out. And the years before that, when she could have been exploring this man and that man and going shopping with friends and hosting slumber parties and being class valedictorian instead of sneaking around and lying and hiding her relationship with the rich brat of the Taishou family.
“You can still accomplish all that,” Sesshoumaru told her, confidence and affection glimmering in his expression. And gratitude that he wasn’t a mere rebound romance after all.
“Yes…but I should have done them years ago…when the time was right. Now it all feels off-kilter, like I’m trying to turn back the clock.” She didn’t mean to complain, but she couldn’t prevent the wistful note from interjecting her little speech.
He pondered that, unhappy with her assessment yet unable to provide a better answer. Finally, after months of mulling it over, and yet another conversation along the same lines, inspiration struck. “You’re not trying to turn back time, little fool. You are merely recapturing it.”
It worked. The smile bloomed fresh and vibrant in her blue eyes, and he took her out for her favourite ice cream sundae – Belgian chocolate with sliced strawberries – by way of celebration. As they sat back, massaging chilled noses and patting happy bellies, she took his hand in hers and murmured, “It’s Sunday. We met for the first time today, you know.”
He raised an eyebrow, wondering at her serenity in the face of a previously ugly anniversary.
She smiled a little deeper into his eyes and continued, “Sometimes I don’t know if I should curse Inuyasha or bless him. He cost me years and experiences that I’ll never regain – not the original, classic version they’re supposed to be anyway. But…you wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you?”
“……just bless him.”
And Kagome smiled, because she understood the message under the brusque remark. Nestling into his shoulder, she gathered her courage in both hands and whispered – finally getting the tone and drama of the situation right – “I love you, too.”
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Naturally, nature took its course. A fair bit of human perversity must have blended into Nature’s plan’s somewhere, though, because while Sesshoumaru proposed to Kagome on a Wednesday, he married her on a Monday.
Yes, that Monday.
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