InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 2

 

 

Papa loved me to pieces, but he loved Mama more. She was his light, and we all knew it. If all of us were to fall off a cliff at once, he'd save Mama first. Of course, then she'd be mad at him for not saving us first. She has quite a temper, my Mama. Maybe I'm wrong; Papa knows we're all hanyou and my mother is only human, so naturally he would save her first.

 

 

“I'm not going.” My mother was calm. She folded clothes as Papa stormed around her. “It's not as if I'm graduating with my class, anyway,” she reasoned. “It's just a piece of paper.”

 

Inuyasha threw up his arms. “That piece of paper took you eight years! You're going to the graduation. So stop working and get dressed.”

 

“No.”

 

I sat quietly on the couch with Koji on my lap. He was nearly as big as I was already, but for once he was quiet, too. We both watched our parents with big eyes, not sure what the fuss was about. Usually it was the other way around: Mama cajoled, and Papa stubbornly refused.

 

“Mayumi, watch your brother,” Papa instructed. I blinked. I was already watching him. Slowly, I nodded. Papa growled under his breath, and stalked Mama determinedly. Her jaw set, but she ignored him and continued to fold her pile of laundry until he lifted her bodily over his head and sprang upstairs to their bedroom. “You're going,” he said.

 

A few minutes later, my mother came out of the room, wearing a dark blue dress and high heels, my father right behind her. She didn't smile during the entire car ride down the mountain. We made a quick stop halfway down, and Papa made us wait while he disappeared into the woods. When he came back, he had Kazuki with him. It was Sunday, and Kazuki had been at Youkai School with Uncle Shippo. Kazuki slipped into the back seat next to me and Koji, and we continued down the mountain. Papa drove like he did everything else, fast and seemingly reckless. But he controlled our mad dash with super-fast reflexes and a well-made car. We made it to the University in half the time it usually took.

 

Mama disappeared, still not talking, and we followed Papa through throngs of humans to find three folding chairs in a row under a big tent. I don't know what people must have thought to see us; every one of us from Papa to the baby had a bandana tied around our heads.

 

It was a long, loud afternoon. Processions of strangely dressed people kept walking by us, up to a platform where they got some sort of rolled-up paper. That must have been what Papa was talking about earlier. I agreed with Mama—why on earth did we have to endure this just to get a stupid piece of paper? Eventually, Mama passed by and she glanced sideways and saw us. Her cheeks were pink, and she smiled, just a little, as she walked forward. I saw my father smile in return, and I knew things were going to be ok.

 

Later, she met us under a tree away from the bulk of the crowd. She had a square paper this time, in a little book, but her eyes were glowing and she couldn't keep the smile off her face. She took Koji from my father's arms, and she showed her diploma to me and Kazuki. A friend of hers then took a picture of all of us, and pointed out the table where they had refreshments for the graduates and their families. While my brothers and I were busy scarfing down cookies and juice, my mother quietly walked over to my father and put her arms around him. “Thank you,” I heard her whisper.

 

 

Those bandanas were our bane in the modern age. They marked us as different, although no one ever knew how very different we were! Kids will be kids, and while their parents might have spoken in hushed whispers about illness or misfortune, the children only teased me and my brothers for having to wear hats on our heads.

 

“Mayumi, Mayumi!” taunted Eddie, my desk partner in first grade. His buddies took up the chant.

 

“Mayumi, Mayumi!” echoed around the playground. I stood still, unsure of what I should do. My parents had both drilled it in to me that I mustn't react as my instincts screamed at me to react. I must seem human. Until that day, I hadn't really understood what they had meant.

 

Suddenly, Eddie rushed at me, oblivious to the fact that my entire body tensed in preparation for his attack. He whipped one arm out, intent on knocking my bandana off my head, and seemed surprised when he missed. I had leaned minutely to the side, avoiding his clumsy attack with an ease that made me smug. I grinned, then fell to my knees as one of his buddies pushed me from behind.

 

I was more shocked than hurt. The second boy would have succeeded in ripping the bandana off my head, except that in the split second between the time I fell and the time he reached for my bandana, a shiny blur streaked behind the boy and he fell, too, right into Eddie who was still standing next to me. The blur streaked away to the edge of the playground where it solidified into my brother Kazuki. He grinned, and saluted me, my big brother. I doubt if any human eyes would have seen what I had seen. Kazuki saved me from revealing myself that day, not just my dog ears which lay flat and angry under my bandana, but me, the hanyou Mayumi, who was more than ready to tear into those first-graders with tooth and claw. I learned two lessons that day: what it meant to act human and what it felt like to be different. I turned up my nose at the two boys sprawled on the playground. Eddie was bleeding from his scraped hands, and his buddy's knees were bloody, too. Mine, by the way, had already healed over. I brushed imaginary dust off my clothes and stomped right past them into the classroom.

 

My father took me for a run in the woods when I came home that day. I thought I was going to get in trouble. We stopped and sat on a fallen log. It was big enough that my feet swung freely as I sat. He stared straight ahead, at the sharp fall of thin trees which ended in a narrow crevice and then rose just as sharply again on the other side. Our woods were full of those. They were fun to jump over. I shook my head, remembering that I needed to be serious.

 

Finally he spoke. “Stupid bandana,” he said.

 

I couldn't have been more surprised. That's exactly what I thought! “Yeah,” I replied softly.

 

He reached over and scratched behind my ears. In our own woods, we didn't need to hide. “Are you ok?” he asked me.

 

“Yeah. Kazuki helped.”

 

Papa nodded. “Yeah, he's been through this before. You know it's not you, right?” he asked. “Those kids, they don't know about youkai or hanyou. They're just stupid kids.”

 

“I know,” I said. Eddie was actually pretty smart in class. I didn't say that, though. I knew what my father meant. “Dad, I could have hurt them by accident. I wanted to,” I confessed.

 

“I know,” replied my father, raising his eyebrows when I called him `Dad.' “But don't. I think it's time you started going to Youkai School with Kazuki. Shippo can teach you a thing or two which might make it easier.”

 

I was excited. Dad—Papa—thought I was old enough for Youkai School. Finally! “And then I can learn Kazuki's trick!” I said enthusiastically. I had sort of seen it when he flashed through the playground today. It was almost clear to me, how he'd done it. If I could learn to do that, then soon I might be able to use it to go back to the past all by myself, too!

 

Papa's brows furrowed. “What trick?” he asked suspiciously. I just giggled. Papa knew very well what trick. I think it bothered him that he couldn't learn it. I patted his face until his frown turned upside down. I had that effect on him.

 

Mama smoothed down my hair as she combed it out before bedtime, careful as always of my ears. She kissed my cheek and suddenly I threw my arms around her. “Mama, am I pretty?” I asked, just to be sure.

 

“You're beautiful,” my mother replied. “And I bet that Eddie thinks you're beautiful, too,” she went on. “That's how little boys are, you know. If they like you, they tease you.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.” She tucked me in and I went to sleep feeling much better. I didn't mind being different so much, as long as I knew someone liked me.