InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Comprehension ( Chapter 34 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

By: Sueric

~~Chapter 34~~
~Comprehension~

~o< /b>~

Saori tapped on the office door and waited until Fai invited her inside before turning the knob and crossing the threshold. Leveling a no-nonsense frown at him, she crossed her arms over her chest and slowly shook her head.

Fai blinked and arched an eyebrow at her, setting aside the missive in his hand to give her his full attention. “Something on your mind?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I just wondered if you’d seen Yerik today.”

He shook his head. “No. He was still sleeping when I got up. Why?”

Her frown deepened. “He’s acting strange.”

“Strange? How so?”

She wrinkled her nose, letting her arms drop to her sides as she sank down in a chair opposite him. “Like he’s . . . hurting . . . or something, but when I asked him, he said he was fine.” She leaned forward, her hands slapping down on the top of the desk. “He’s not fine, Fai-sama . . . He’s shuffling around like . . . like an old man!”

Fai shook his head. “Well, as much as I’d love to go check up on him, I can’t.”

She stared at him. “You . . .? Why can’t you?”

Fai settled back in his chair. “Because you called me, ‘-sama’.”

Snapping her mouth closed, Saori shot to her feet, scowled at the stubborn and incomprehensible man. “Because . . .? Have you lost your mind? He’s your brother! Don’t you care?”

“If he were having that much trouble, he’d have told me,” Fai insisted. “Even then, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s youkai, just like us, remember? Anyway, if you’re that worried about him, I could go find him, see what’s wrong, but . . .”

She rolled her eyes since she had a feeling that she knew where he was heading with this. “Oh, for the love of kami . . . Fai, will you please go see if he’ll tell you what’s wrong?” she forced herself to ask in as nice of a tone as she could muster.

He chuckled, which just figured, but he did push himself to his feet and stride around the desk. “Okay,” he told her. “Stay here, and I’ll be right back.”

Stepping into the hallway, heading for the foyer and the stairs, he located Vasili and motioned him over. “Do you know where Yerik is?” he asked without preamble.

The old butler gave a curt nod. “I believe he retired to his room, Your Grace.”

Fai nodded and headed up the stairs.

He really wasn’t sure what he was expecting as he pushed Yerik’s door open and stepped inside. Maybe Yerik, grasping furniture to propel himself around his room, if what Saori had said was to be believed.

Sucking in a sharp breath as his eyes lit on his brother—or, more to the point, his brother’s back—Fai uttered a harsh invective as he stomped over to yank the shirt that Yerik was trying to pull over his head, out of his hands. “What the hell happened to you?” he demanded, glowering at the angry bruise that traversed the whole of Yerik’s back from shoulder blades to his waist and below. He couldn’t see past Yerik’s waistline, but he didn’t have to. The mottled flesh he could see was more than enough.

Grimacing as he turned at the waist to snatch his shirt back, Yerik grunted. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just . . . fell down. No big thing.”

Fai crossed his arms over his chest and snorted. “Fell down? If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable, Yerik. Truth. Now.”

Yerik rolled his eyes, leveling a flat kind of look at his older brother, his “I told you, Fai. It’s fine. Well, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Maybe, except Saori’s concerned. Do you think she’ll buy the, ‘I fell down,’ defense?”

Yanking his shirt down, Yerik sighed. “Just tell her I’m fine,” he said, “because I am. Anyway, don’t the two of you have better things to talk about than me?”

“Maybe, but she likes you, and since she likes you, she worries about you. It’s perfectly natural, you know. Anyway, you’re going to tell me what really happened.”

Digging at his scalp with both hands, Yerik tried to stomp over to the window, but his movements were hindered by the huge bruise on his back. ‘Yep, definitely a little old man . . .’ Fai mused as he watched his amended gait.

“If you must know, I was sparring with someone, and I wasn’t fast enough in getting out of the way. That’s all.”

“You weren’t?” Fai blurted before he could stop himself. Yerik, on a whole, tended to be a little faster on his feet than he was, so it was surprising to him.

“Yes. I told you, it’s no big thing.”

Fai grunted since he didn’t really buy into that, either. “What did he hit you with? A house?”

“It looks worse than it is.”

Fai shook his head. “Who were you sparring with?”

“No one you know. Anyway, I’m going to run into the village—buy some Epsom salts and stuff. You need anything?”

Fai shook his head, frown deepening as he watched Yerik march past him.

‘Well, that was weird.’

‘What? That he took a hit or that he’s not interested in telling you about his mysterious sparring partner?’

‘. . . Both.’

His youkai-voice sighed. ‘Yeah, but you also know well enough that if Yerik doesn’t want to tell you something, he won’t.’

Pivoting on his heel, Fai headed for the door, too. He wasn’t done interrogating Yerik by any means, but he supposed it could wait until after he got back from the village . . .

-==========-

Tapping her pen against the tablet in her lap, Saori flipped through the website tabs that she’d opened to compare a few dresses that she’d found. She’d almost chosen one of them, but then, her mother had called, and she’d suggested that Saori look up the holiday to make sure that whatever she chose fit the occasion. Given that the holiday seemed to have overtones of religion, at least, in some regions, as well as the base sense of summer celebration and aquatic themes, she’d decided that the gown she’d originally favored—a black chiffon and silk creation—wasn’t really right for it.

‘Many of the rites related to this holiday are rooted within Slavic religious beliefs—the ancient Ivan Kupala rites—and are connected deeply to the role of water in fertility and ritual purification,’ she read before clicking on the next tab: a lovely light aqua blue gown that was floor length in the back, should just hit her legs above the knees in the front, with cascades of sheer organza over a closer fitting satin sheathe dress. The bodice was a sweetheart neckline that would hug her upper body to just below the breasts in a modified empire waistline with spaghetti straps that attached to organza sleeves that belled out around the upper arms in a flowery kind of flow, and she’d found it on a website for a store less than an hour away. There were a couple other gowns she liked, too, but this was the one she liked best, and she’d already called them to ask that they hold the dress in her size until she made it there to try it on . . .

Writing down the address and phone number of the store, she bit her lip and smiled to herself. She’d tried to find a dress where the model looked roughly like her shape, so she was reasonably certain that the dress would look fine on her. Even so, seeing a dress in an ad was one thing. Seeing it in person and trying it on was oftentimes something entirely different.

The trill of her cell phone interrupted her musings, and she quickly set the laptop computer on the table before reaching for the device. The number that appeared on her caller ID didn’t have a name listed, and she frowned as she connected the call. “Senkuro,” she said, catching it between her ear and shoulder with her head tilted to the side so she could set aside the pad and pen before catching the phone in her hand as she rose to her feet.

“Ah, is this Senhorita Saori with the Russian orphans?”

“Oh, um, yes . . .”

He chuckled. “This is Eduardo St. George . . . I wished to speak with you regarding the children. It is a good time, no?”

“St. George-sama! Yes, it’s an excellent time!” she blurted, dropping back into the chair and scrambling to grab her abandoned tablet off the table. “I wasn’t expecting to hear back from you so soon . . .”

Again, that chuckle that seemed to glide right over her like a silk sheet against bare skin. “Please, Saori—may I call you by your first name?”

“What? Oh, y-y-y-yes . . .”

“Very good. Saori, please, do me the honor of calling me simply, ‘Ed’ . . . ‘Eduardo’, if you must, but you need not stand upon formality with me.”

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. Fanning her face with the tablet of paper, she could only be glad that the man couldn’t see her face. “Did you get a chance to ask around?”

“I did,” he replied. “I talked to my generals, and I’ve talked with four families who are very interested. I took the liberty of sending them information on children that met their descriptions of what they would like to have . . . I hope that I wasn’t too presumptuous . . .”

“Four?” she repeated. “Wow, that’s wonderful!”

“I took the liberty of emailing you the files on the families, along with notes about the children they’re interested in opening their homes to.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ll go over them with Fai-sama, and then I’ll get back to you.”

“Very good,” he said. “I look forward to hearing from you again.”

“M-Me, too,” she managed. Then she hung up the phone with a high-pitched squeal of happiness.

It only took a few minutes to send the documents from her computer to a slim-file that she grabbed as soon as the files transferred. With another giddy laugh, she scurried out of the door and down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time and grabbing the newel post to swing herself around, catapulting herself down the short hallway to Fai’s office.

“Fai-sama! Oh, it’s fabulous news!” she blurted as she burst through the doors, not stopping till she caught herself against Fai’s desk.

He looked up at her rather slowly, arching an articulate eyebrow in silent question as he set aside the paperwork he was looking over. “It’d better be,” he warned dryly, leaning back in his chair.

She giggled and hurried around the desk to slip the slim-file into his hands. “Eduardo-sama called. He has four potential families who are interested in our children!”

“Eduardo-sama?” he echoed, ignoring the file as he narrowed his eyes on her. Certainly, he called most everyone by their given names, but that was standard for Russians, on a whole. It was actually considered rude to use one’s surname, but he also realized that Saori, having been raised in Japan, was used to using surnames as a show of respect. “You call him by his first name?”

“Yes, he insisted.”

Fai snorted, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Is that right?”

She blinked when he dropped the file on the desk and leaned forward to grab his phone. “What are you doing?”

He spared her a rather dark look. “What does it look like? I’m calling, ‘Eduardo-sama’. I think he needs to be reminded that he’s very, very married.”

She shook her head. “What? But—But he didn’t—”

“And you . . .” He snorted. Loudly. “You don’t need to be so happy, just because he called you back. Unless you’d rather go . . . appropriate him . . .”

A strange suspicion occurred to her, and she sat down on the edge of his desk, only to reach over and neatly pluck the phone out of his hand. “Fai-sama?”

“What?”

Pressin g her lips together to keep from laughing outright at the very surly tone in his voice, she cleared her throat. “Are you . . .? You’re not . . . That is to say, you almost sound . . . but that would be silly . . . If you were . . . jealous . . . Are you?”

He blushed. He actually blushed. As he opened his mouth and snapped it closed a few times, he blushed. “What? No! No! Jealous? Ha! Why the hell would I be jealous? For starters, he’s married, which means he has a mate, which means that there’s nothing to be jealous of, and even if I were, which I’m not, then why on earth would I—?”

She giggled. “You’re really, really cute when you’re blustering,” she told him.

He snapped his mouth closed once more, nostrils flaring slightly, pushing her hip until she slipped off the desk. Then he stood up and stomped over to the wet bar to slosh vodka into a clean glass. “I was not blustering,” he growled, his voice muffled slightly by the glass he’d tilted to his lips.

“Okay, you’re not,” she agreed.

He snorted again. “I’m not.”

She nodded quickly and way too exuberantly. “I know . . . Anyway, I thought you and I could go over the files he sent of the families that want to be evaluated for consideration.”

He grunted and dumped more vodka into the glass. “Why not call him back and let him go over their applications with you?” he grumbled.

She sighed despite the amusement still evident on her face. “You know, I don’t even know what he looks like—you wouldn’t let me google him. Even then, I . . . I might like . . . someone else . . . a little more than him . . .”

“Anyone I know?” he half-growled. “Let me guess: Yerik.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the slim-file before stalking over to grab Fai’s hand and drag him over to the sofa. “Yerik-kun’s very cute in a little puppy kind of way,” she mused, tugging on his hand until he finally sat down with her. Then she let go and opened the file. “Oh, this is the couple who are interested in adopting the seven-month-old moray-eel-youkai, Viktor . . .”

“His parents died in a . . . a house fire, right?”

She nodded, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes . . . The Santiago family wants him—they’re eel-youkai, too, so that would be a great fit . . . Mari is a medical researcher, and Luca works in the office of the tai-youkai—one of his generals, it seems. According to this, they’re looking to adopt a child because Mari had some issues during her last pregnancy, so they don’t want to put her through that again . . .”

“A general? I guess that would be suitable,” Fai muttered almost grudgingly. “I thought I told you not to take Eduardo’s calls and to refer him to me.”

She wrinkled her nose, only paying a little attention to him since she was still skimming the dossier. “His name didn’t show up on my caller ID, and it’s fine. I enjoyed talking to him.”

Fai snorted. “I know.”

Flipping the file page, she blinked, then smiled. “This couple is interested in adopting Galinia! They’re a lesbian couple—one of them is from Ukraine . . . A lawyer and a social worker . . . It says here that they were sent Galinia’s profile, and it was love at first sight . . .”

“A social worker and a lawyer? Good, good . . . Saori, if possible, I’d like for these families who are interested to come here, to meet the children before any real decision is made.”

She nodded. “I think that could be arranged. I mean, the happiness of the children should be taken into account, and just because they look good on paper doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the right fit . . . Now, the next woman—Oh . . . She isn’t mated. She just wants a child . . . Interesting . . .”

Fai sighed. “Saori?”

“Do you think that’ll be an issue? I mean, a two-parent family might be more stable, but—”

“Saori . . .”

“—Then again, maybe not. I mean, on paper, maybe, but in reality, who’s to say that a child needs to have two parents to thrive? If you think about it—”

“Saori.”

“— ;Maybe it’s not . . . Yes, Your Grace?” she asked, cutting herself off abruptly, as though she had just heard him speaking.

Letting out a long, deep breath, Fai reached over and plucked the slim-file out of her hand, dropping it on the table with a dull clatter. Then he caught her chin with a crooked finger and turned her to face him. Her breath caught, somewhere between her lips and her lungs, and, while she couldn’t rightfully read his expression, something about the spark in his gaze was enough to make her forget that she needed to draw air . . .

There was just something about the way in which the light hit his eyes, brushed the angles of his face with the gentlest shadows . . . Jaws bulging slight as he gritted his teeth, just for a moment, his lips parted slightly. Unruly hair, falling into his face, he continued to stare at her, as though he were willing her to hear him, though he hadn’t spoken a word . . .

Her temple fell against the back of the sofa as his knuckles brushed over her cheek, setting off a delicious trill as every single bone in her body liquified, leaving behind a languor wrapped in a tension that she had never felt before—and interesting paradox—one she couldn’t quite grasp. Caught up in a trance, in a bemusement so complete, she could only blink, could only stare back at him helplessly. Every single thought failed her, leaving her in a suspended kind of reality, and the only thing that mattered was the surge of electricity that coursed from him into her.

It came without fanfare, without a tumultuous moment of indecision, of the teetering imbalance between the two extremes as he leaned in, his eyes fluttering closed, long and thick eyelashes, trembling almost nervously as his lips closed over hers. As though she’d known—understood—that this was the inevitable conclusion, she welcomed his kiss, allowed him to lead her . . . His fingers stretched out, his palm gliding over her cheek as he slipped his hand into her hair, the pad of his thumb gently, idly, tracing the outline of her ear. A violent shiver raced up and down her spine as his free hand slipped between her body and the back of the sofa, drawing her closer.

It was a sweet kiss, a tender kiss, a gentle affectation that did not possess the heady sense of desperation of their first one—didn’t contain the same sort of wanton abandon as the second one, either. No, the softness of his lips brought on a slow sort of exploration as one kiss faded into the next and the next and the next . . . In those moments, she could feel it, couldn’t she? The recollection of a time and a place when she had truly felt as though she were home, and, though the newness of discovery was there, beckoning her, that sense that she belonged . . . She clung to it.

He let out a deep breath as he leaned back just enough to break the kiss, but he let his forehead rest against hers, barking out a very terse laugh that was somehow more than just a sound. “You . . . You belong here, don’t you?” he mused, but the question did not sound like a question, and the quiet wonder in his tone made her smile, even as the hot prickle of tears behind her still-closed eyelids made her nostrils burn. “With me . . .”

“I . . . I want to,” she admitted, not trusting her voice as she whispered to him. Leaning against him, letting her head fall against his shoulder, her smile trembled when his arms closed around her, not tightly, no, but most certainly unwilling to let her go just yet. She didn’t mind.

He cleared his throat. “Good . . . I—”

A tap on the door all but shattered the moment, and he sat up a little straighter, uttering a longsuffering sigh as Vasili stepped into the office. Saori glanced up, only to do a double take as the butler held up a sealed scroll of paper. If Vasili noticed the rather close proximity they shared, she didn’t know, although there really wasn’t any way he could miss it. Even so, Vasili said nothing about it as he approached in his usual no-nonsense gait.

A strange sense of foreboding crept up her spine as Fai frowned at the document for a long moment, staring at the wax seal that held it closed.

He stood abruptly, turning his back on her as he broke the seal and unrolled the paper. Then he sighed. “Vasili, fetch Yerik for me,” he commanded, striding out of the office with the scroll crushed in his fist.

Saori stumbled to her feet. “Vasili? Was that . . .?”

The butler spared a moment to offer her a very perfunctory-looking smile. “I’m not at liberty to say, my lady.”

She bit her lip as she frowned at the open doorway. Whatever it was on that paper . . .

‘You don’t think . . .?’

‘But . . .’

‘He said it himself: it happens a lot . . . We’re not going to let him go alone, are we?’

Wincing inwardly at her youkai-voice’s words, Saori followed the butler from the room, intent on finding Fai before he could slip out of the castle without her.

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~ =~
A/N:
Brazil’s main language is Portuguese. Senhorita means “miss”.
== == == == == == == == == ==
Final Thought from Saori:
A challenge …
==========
Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vivication): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

~Sue~