InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One Last Summer ❯ The Sleep ( Chapter 7 )

 

 

 

 

One Last Summer

 

Chapter Seven

 

2:56 P.M, Friday, May Thirtieth. (Taishou Manor)

 

It had taken a total of three hours in the shower to get the honey out of her hair. A total of seven hours before she finally forgave Souta, Kohaku, and Shippou for rigging up the door to pour honey on the first person who opened it. The three had also fixed the doorbell to ring at exactly eight fifty-five, to which they claimed they had forgotten, and not heard it as it rung. And hour of tickle-torture was all it took for them to confess they had heard it perfectly.

 

Today was a day where they sat and did nothing, waiting for Sesshomaru to get home from work to go out to dinner. The three days spent at the summer 'cottage' had been relaxing and well spent, although the last two days were spent worrying if or not they would be bathed in honey…

 

"Kagome-chan?" A soft, tentative voice whispered.

 

The dark comfort of the blankets was enticing and alluring, and Kagome was tempted to drift off into a soft doze. Everything was peaceful, quiet, as not even a mouse made a sound. Why and how there would be a mouse in Sesshomaru's house, Kagome did not know, since she experienced firsthand that an exterminator came every other Monday to check the house.

 

"Kagome…" The voice whispered, calling out to her again, but she took no notice.

 

After the millions of gifts Rin received, and after the hours of opening them, they had finally had a chance to go home and get back to work. Sesshomaru had left early in the morning, before Kagome had even gotten there. Rin had said that he was eager to get back to work, wanting to get the extra work done that he had missed when they had gone to the summerhouse.

 

She had gotten there bright and early, even before Rin had awoke. Which was a lot to say, with the fact that Rin almost always awoke when Sesshomaru was getting ready for work. With the time to spare, she had helped the kitchen cook make breakfast, helped organize the stack of DVD's in the den, and made Sesshomaru's bed before eight, when the maids usually came.

 

Hearing the voice call out to her once more, Kagome pulled the soft, down covers over her head to block out the invaded noise. She felt the edge of the bed she was lying on sag at the end, indicating that someone else was on it. The soft patter of feet was heard, and the end of the large, fluffy bed sagged down even more as Kagome sensed them coming closer. Just as they were about to rip the covers off of her, she popped out.

 

"Boo!"

 

The ten and eleven year olds screamed, diving for the end of the bed, covering themselves with another blanket. They had thought her asleep, while she had just been waiting for the right moment. Although, she had barely gotten any sleep with the celebration of Sango and Kikyo. Those girls went crazy when their favorite nighttime TV show was on.

 

Yawning, Kagome tugged the rest of the covers off of her body, and reached down to the four lumps on the end of the bed that were giggling. Like a predator, she crawled on her hands and knees towards her prey, silently and gracefully. Spontaneously she lunged between them, careful not to break any small limbs, reaching out and grabbing two of the lumps, while the other two darted out form under the blanket and made a run for it.

 

"Help!" Rin and Kohaku choked out, calling to the other two as they were tickled. Souta and Shippou peeked out from around the doorway, and crept forward on their hands and knees seeing that Kagome was too busy tickling the other two to notice them.

 

Crying out in the best battle cry they could, the two boys pounced on the older girl, Souta opting for attacking his sister while Shippou went to rescue Kohaku and Rin. Kagome dodged Souta's tickling hands, rolling off the bed and hitting the thick-carpeted floor with a resound thump.

 

"You'll never get me!" Kagome cried as she hopped to her feet and ran out of the room, the four children chasing her. Zigzagging through the long hallways of the Taishou Manor, their cries echoed throughout the house. The older girl ran until she reached a dead end, with only one door as an option. Quickly she opened it and crept inside, leaving it ajar behind her. Flipping the light switch, she was almost blinded by the bright lights.

 

"Whoa..." was all she could say before the slam of the door was heard behind her. Whipping around she faced the four children, one with a huge smirk on her face, while the other three were just about as amazed as her.

 

They were inside a huge indoor poolroom, and Kagome was standing just on the edge of the pool. The lights that had temporarily blinded her weren't just artificial lights. No, they weren't artificial at all. It was all-natural lighting, which meant the whole building, besides the wall with the doorway which they had just came through, was windows. Even the ceiling was made of windows. The "light switch" she had flipped was only a switch to flip the blinds. Tentatively walking up and rapping on one of them, Kagome discovered they were normal, bulletproof glass.

 

'Wait… bulletproof? Since when are bullet-proof windows normal?'

 

Scratching her head, she was too absorbed in her thoughts and didn't notice the children as they crept up to her. With one large shove, she was pushed into the pool, her scream brought to an abrupt stop when the water seeped into her lungs. Bubbles arose from the bright blue water where her body had just splashed through.

 

They waited for her to resurface. Slowly the bubbles stopped coming up from under the water and they saw her body begin to unwind. Her hair spiraled out around her, and her lips were parted. The color had seeped out of her face, as she faced towards the ceiling with closed eyes. The four heard a servant enter the room, and look down into the pool where they were looking. The servant - identified as a maid by its feminine voice - screamed.

 

 

 

3:34 P.M, Friday, May Thirtieth. (Taishou Corporation, Tokyo Office)

 

 

 

An annoying ringing was interrupting his afternoon nap… It wasn't often that he, Sesshomaru, the sole most civilized person in the world, took a nap in the middle of the day, but he had had a hard few days lately. With all the piles of work that were stacked up on his desk, and the literally fifty-seven messages for business meetings left on his answering machine, who wouldn't be?

 

"Sesshomaru-sama?" He heard the soft voice of his secretary call from the doorway to his office.

 

"What is it?" He asked coldly.

 

"There's a phone call for you on line two." He didn't answer her, but instead picked up the phone, taking his feet off his desk. It also wasn't usual for someone to catch him off guard as his secretary had just then, in the middle of his nap. He was disorganized, his golden eyes filled with sleep.

 

Overall, his hair was messed up.

 

"Yes?"

 

…

 

"And why, Jaken, would you interrupt me at a precious time like this?" Naptime is a very special time of day, after all…

 

…

 

"What?"

 

…

 

The phone clattered to the floor as he jumped up from his comfortable, spinning chair, leaving a befuddled secretary behind to deal with the stacks of files on his desk.

 

 

 

12:01 P.M, Wednesday, JuneFourth. (Tokyo University Hospital)

 

 

 

She sat by the bedside of her unconscious friend, clutching the younger girl's hand in her own. The steady beep of the machine she was hooked up to, that made sure her heart was still beating and alive, was getting annoying after five days. Each day she had visited her friend, hoping that the day would be the day that she would awaken, but would always be sent home hoping that tomorrow would be the day she woke up.

 

It had been five days since Sango first saw her friend lying in the hospital bed, all tucked in with pristine white sheets, IV's hooked up to her, and a nutrients machine clipped up as well. She broke down into tears at the sight of her friend, her best friend, lying in the bed, oblivious to everything else, as they watched her sleep.

 

At least they liked to call it sleep. In a coma, you never really know if you sleep with dreamless peace, or are tossing in turmoil over the thoughts. It would be an endless dream, where the nightmare would never end. Longer than any nightmare they'd ever had before, this one would go one forever. Or, at least until the plug was pulled, and she would be forced to survive off her own consummation.

 

Which would not be possible, because she was unconscious.

 

Sesshomaru had taken immediate action and sent her to the best doctor there was in all of Japan, even taking time to search for an even better one on the web in China. Kagome was hooked up to the latest machines that kept her alive. It was what she deserved.

 

They had all cried tears of joy when the doctor announced that she was breathing on her own. That meant that there was a chance that she would wake up soon. Each day Sango sat by her bed, holding her friend's limp hand in her own warm one, trying to find just one small twitch that would show that Kagome was conscious.

 

Kikyo could only visit every so often, and when the older girl did, it was always alone, at night, when no one else was around to see her cry. Kikyo hated it when people saw her weaknesses, because she thought that they all saw her as weak. And to show them another weakness, would make her even weaker, so she always hid her feelings deep down inside of her.

 

InuYasha visited as frequently as he could, which wasn't so frequent, because of his demanding job, He tried his hardest to get there, to be the first one in the day to sit there and hold her hand.

 

To him, Kagome was like a younger sister, and he was the older brother, and so he felt it was up to him to protect her. When she first fell under the wrath of addictive video games back in college, he was the one to tell her to get out of the house and into the sun. Of course, back then, he himself was a video game addict, and was a complete hypocrite by telling her what to do.

 

It was the thought that counted, though.

 

Miroku tried to visit whenever Sango visited, for fear that his brown-haired beauty would break down, and no one would be there for her. He was the only one of the group, besides Sesshomaru, that had not cried in public. Even InuYasha had done so. Keade, the older lady that took care of Souta, Shippou, and Kohaku, had visited to see her granddaughter, and took a moment of time to cry.

 

It was just the way that Kagome lay there, so peacefully, so quietly, so unaware to the pain she was causing around her.

 

Everyone tried to get there the earliest in the group, trying to be the first in the day to hold her hand. It was as if that by holding her hands, they felt like they were guiding her through her turmoil of dreams, helping her find the light again.

 

It was also like that holding her hand was the only connection they could have with her now, even though her hands were limp and cold and she didn't know what was happening. The only way they were sure she would awake from her coma. A hard knock to the head had led to a serious concussion, where she blacked out for a moment. But then she never awoke. They labeled her in a coma, as the clipboard at the end of her bed said.

 

"Are you alright?" Sango turned her head around to see the nervous face of a young nurse, who was looking at her oddly.

 

She realized that there were tears dripping down her face, no doubt smearing her eyeliner and other make up. Sango tried wiping it on her sleeve, but it didn't work as well as she had planned, and ended up just smearing it a bit more than it was before. She sniffled.

 

"I'm fine." The older girl replied, wiping her face on her sleeve once again.

 

"Are you sure?" The nurse asked, in a sickeningly sweet voice.

 

"Yes! I'm sure! Just leave me alone, alright?" The nurse quickly left the room in a rapid shuffled, her high-heeled shoes clicking as she walked down the tiled white hallways.

 

Never would they leave her alone. For days the nurses, doctors, and even social workers had come up to her, no matter where she was, and asked her the same question. Sango was positive that she had been asked the same questions by the same person multiple times, and they just never got the message.

 

There was no one that could ever understand what it was like the have your friend in a coma. It wouldn't seem that hard, since all it seems they're doing is sleeping. They're not drifting in and out of critical or uncritical condition, and they're not dangerously losing the breath in their lungs. It's hard… only because you see their body… lying there… but still they're not really there.

 

Their body is there, but their mind is not. Where their mind is, no one but those in a coma know, and half the time they don't even remember that they've been in a coma, or what they'd done to get into a coma. Sango would try to ask Kagome one day, ask her if she felt something while in her endless dreaming state…

 

For now, though, Sango, and all the others, would have to be content that she was breathing, because, according to what the doctors said, Kagome would not be waking up. At least, not for a while.

 

 

 

4:19 P.M, Wednesday, June Fourth. (Tokyo University Hospital)

 

 

 

In all his eleven and a quarter years of life, he had never experienced something like this. And never, in all his eleven and a quarter years of life, did he ever want to again.

 

It wasn't just that it was partway his fault that she was like this, but it was also that she was his sister, and a part of his mind told him that it was all his fault. He felt as if that if he didn't hold her hand whenever she could, he would come back one day, and she wouldn't be where she had been for the past five days of her oblivious life.

 

The older kids took pity on Souta, Rin, Kohaku, and Shippou. Just because they had been there, experienced Kagome almost drowning, and hitting her head and going into a coma, it was automatically worse for them. That wasn't the deal. It was worse for them because they had been the ones that knocked her into the pool.

 

The younger kids didn't understand what it meant when the bubbles stop rising to the top of the water. They didn't understand what it meant when she stopped moving under the water, and stopped trying to reach the surface. They didn't understand what the blood that seeped out of the cut she received when she hit her head on the side of the pool meant, either.

 

Most of all, they didn't understand that there was a chance, a sure chance, that she would never wake up.

 

 

 

1:35 A.M, Thursday, June Fifth. (Tokyo University Hospital)

 

 

 

Unlike all the others, he didn't hold her hand. He didn't sit beside her bed on the chair that had been specially placed for them to sit, and he didn't tuck her back perfectly into the immaculately white blankets when the nurses disregarded to make her as comfortable as she could be. He didn't brush the loose strand of hair away from her face, or watch her chest rise and fall as she breathed.

 

He didn't stare at her like all the others.

 

There was no guilt in his conscious for what had happened. After all, it wasn't his fault she had been in the room, and the children had tripped her, and that she had hit her head on the side of the pool as she went down. He had placed her in the best room, with the best doctors and nurses to take care of her, leaving the visiting hours open to all times so that she would be able to be visited by her friends.

 

Although, there was something tugging at him.

 

It was a bland numbing, tugging at his internal organs, making them toss and turn each time he was around her. He came to check on her every night, around the time when the only people in the hospital were the patients, and the night workers. He liked it now, when there was no one around to see his frozen exterior melting, to show the kind sadness in his eyes as he stared at her.

 

Not that he realized it, of course.

 

But often his eyes portrayed the feelings his words and actions often didn't. The way he looked at Rin, as a daughter, like she was the only thing of importance left in his life. His father was well, and okay by being alone. His brother… well, InuYasha was InuYasha, and rarely did he care about InuYasha. But Rin was his daughter, the one who depended on him to protect her.

 

Then there was Kagome.

 

Brought into his life by the urgent need for a baby-sitter, Kagome was an exception to the rule about no caring about strangers. After all, Rin loved the older girl, who acted more like a child than anything, and so what Rin wanted, Rin got. Since Rin seemed so openly loving and caring with the older girl, he himself had to accept her as well, but not only for Rin's reasons.

 

There was also the reason that deep, deep down, part of him liked Kagome.

 

Not in the way you're thinking, of course.

 

At least, not yet.

 

 

 

7:58 A.M, Tuesday, June Seventeenth. (Taijiya Dojo)

 

 

 

The phone rang, and cautiously she picked it up. Setting it against her ear and holding it with her shoulder, she began to write down the appointments for the day.

 

"Miroku, if this is just another one of your perverted phone stories -"

 

…

 

"Oh! Doctor Takeda! What a pleasure -"

 

…

 

"Are you sure, today?"

 

…

 

"I'll be there soon."

 

…

 

"Have the others been notified?"

 

…

 

"Alright. Thank Doctor."

 

Cancel all appointments for Tuesday, June Seventeenth.

 

 

 

10:27 A.M, Tuesday, June Seventeenth. (Tokyo University Hospital)

 

 

 

Groggy brown eyes slid open with a groan. She blinked as bright lights blared down at her from the ceiling, trying to brush them away with a wave of her hand. Her hand didn't react well to the sudden action. Hissing in pain, she slowly lifted her arm up to her face.

 

It was pale, like it hadn't seen the sun for weeks.

 

Unknowingly, it actually hadn't. She felt someone lift her up, so that she was sitting up, her back against a soft pillow. Blinking to clear her eyes, she tried to get a good look at all the colorful blurs around her. Were they… were they spinning?

 

'No… that's just my eyes… right?'

 

"Kagome?" She heard a soft voice call out. "Are you alright?"

 

Was there someone else in the room that the person was talking to? Surely it couldn't be her, since her name was certainly not Kagome… at least, she didn't think it was… no, it had to be that there was someone else in the room. With all the colorful, spinning blobs, it was possible that even though they were all standing around her own bed, that the question was directed to someone else.

 

Slowly, her vision cam back to her. She recognized the blobs as three men, one with violet eyes and dark hair, the other two with silver hair and golden eyes. The tallest of the men, one with straight silver hair and cold golden eyes, seemed more mature and refined, while the other two openly showed their emotions.

 

There were two women, one with brown hair and watery eyes, while the other had dark brown, almost black hair with a dullish-brown color eyes. There were four children in the room, one girl with brown hair and brown eyes, while two boys had dark hair and brown eyes as well. One, the taller, had freckles. The last boy had bright red hair and seemingly aqua eyes.

 

"Kagome?" The one, now distinguished as the woman with brown hair and brown eyes, wearing pink eye shadow, asked her.

 

Yes, they were talking to her.

 

'Do… do I know them? They don't seem familiar… I can't remember them at all…'

 

"Kagome, are you alright?"

 

"No… no I'm not. I'm not Kagome, and I'm not alright."

 

 

 

 

This chapter is for all you that have been in a coma, or have a loved one in a coma that have or have not woken up.

 

It's just to let you know that others out there, like myself, know how it feels. It's always worse than you think.

 

Thanks for the love and appreciation, sorry for the grammar. I'm looking for a beta.

 

Contact me through E-mail please if you can beta for me. Thanks, lots of love, Cait.