InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Understand ❯ Understand ( Chapter 1 )

A\N: This one was actually written a while before “Forever Can’t Last” and their set in the same sort of frame. I suppose that could be considered this one’s sequel in some way, but it is not necessary to read the other one. It really has no effect on this one’s plot or ending or anything, just like this one in no way effects that one.

DISCLAIMER - I don’t own Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippo, Miroku, Sango, Kouga, Sesshomaru, Naraku, Kagura, Kanna, Hojo, Souta, Buyo, Hakkaku, Ginta, Myouga, Inu Taisho, Izayoi, Ah Un, Jaken, Rin or any of the other Inuyasha characters. I make no money off of them. This story, though, is mine.   ~*~   Understand

She knows that Miroku and Sango don’t understand.

Shippo is too young to understand anyway, so she doesn’t even really count him. But Miroku and Sango are both old enough to have a basic idea of what’s going on. Yet they’ll never truly get it. Get why she stays with Inuyasha. Or why he lets her.

It’s obvious he doesn’t want to-- he doesn’t want to hurt her anymore, and staying with him always leads to nothing but trouble and pain. Yet neither of them can find it in themselves to say goodbye. At least not permanently.

Everytime she tries, her heart aches, and she is forced to return and see him “one last time”. Only it’s never the last.

Sometimes she sees him with Kikyo, the dead witch who is bent on killing both of them, and she feels bitter and hollow inside. Not because she is worried that Inuyasha will stay with her-- she knows now that he will always return to her in the end, but because she knows that, one day, Kikyo will come and bear him down to hell. And he will let her. He had told her so.

Kikyo gave her life for Inuyasha, and, even though Kagome would do the same in the instant, there is no way she can ever compare to her until she does, and by that time... well, she’ll be dead. Besides, Inuyasha now feels that he owes his own life to Kikyo in return, even though he has failed to let her kill him yet. He doesn’t want to die.

Sometimes, Kagome even thinks he is afraid to die.

It’s strange thinking of Inuyasha being afraid of anything. Except the new moon and her getting hurt. But those are small things that aren’t always big factors in their lives.

So why did she continue to stay with him if, in the end, he would only hurt her and leave her for the one he no longer loved but felt indebted to and tried so desperately to protect?

The answer was simple.

She loved him.

And he loved her, she knew, even though he never exactly admitted it. It was obvious. In the way he looked at her, soft and slightly questioning, as though he wasn’t entirely sure why she was here or when exactly she had arrived, only knowing that he would be missing a big piece of his life if she left. The way he talked-- stubborn and arrogant, but always with a concern hidden just below the surface. They were little things, maybe, that someone wouldn’t know was there unless they searched for them. Maybe that’s why Sango and Miroku were so ignorant to what they felt-- they didn’t understand what they felt toward each other.

And their fights, big explosions over the tiniest things, were their ways of expressing their concern, their longing, their hurt and their frustration for what they could never allow to be. It was all too complex for someone, anyone, outside the relationship to even try and understand, and yet so simple at the same time... far too simple to even be attempted at explaining.

Like Sango’s relationship with her brother-- her desire to protect Kohaku, not fight or hurt him, even if it meant hurting herself. That time she had almost killed her little brother, promising to follow the jewel-possessed boy immediately after, it had opened Kagome’s eyes to exactly how much Kohaku meant to Kagome. And perhaps Inuyasha’s as well.

She knew then that, had Sota been in a similar situation, she too would have acted the way Sango had, and, while she couldn’t swear to it, she had a feeling Inuyasha might for Sesshomaru as well. And even if he didn’t kill himself afterwards, it was enough that he would be willing to kill Sesshomaru to set him free, instead of leaving his brother in the eternal power struggle that occurred just below the surface with the jewel shards.

It was a silent understanding, a bond shared between siblings that could no sooner be described to those who had none than the magnificent beauty of a sunset to a person who had never seen. It was love. Pure and simple.

And while her and Inuyasha’s feelings for one another might not be on the same terms, they would still have the same results-- both willing to die for one another if it meant the other could be free and (hopefully) alive.

It was like Miroku’s continued molestation of Sango’s rear-- something the monk would risk a great deal of pain and (possibly) his life for when other’s thought it was incredibly foolhardy and not worth the time.

And Sango put up with it because... well, who knows why she let the monk off with only a hard slap (Kagome would have had Inuyasha pound him into oblivion-- if the half-demon didn’t do it himself first). It didn’t really matter.

The point was that Sango and Miroku shared some sort of strange, almost hentai understanding about it-- Miroku could feel up her ass if he wanted, but he would earn himself a good hard backhanding for doing so. If he could live with that, then it was okay with Sango.

And the same was... well, almost true for her and Inuyasha.

She would put up (though it broke her in two) with Inuyasha’s bond and promise to Kikyo, so long as he could put up with the pain he knew it caused her (and in return tore him) and still admit they loved one another at the end of the day. They would remain connected by that strange bond that no one else could see or feel, but would always hold them together until they died (and perhaps even after), and it didn’t matter who else understood.

Because they understood.

And only they needed to understand.

Because no one else mattered.

Not to them.

Not like this.

Because they didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend the one simple truth behind it all that held them in it’s tangled web of spun emotions: They loved each other. And that’s all they needed to understand. Because that’s all that mattered.

And to hell with the rest of the world.

END