Chapter Text
Kagome sighed as she walked up the stairs in her home, finally able to break the cheerful smile that she had maintained throughout the entirety of the day.
Graduating high school was a huge milestone, Kagome knew, so she’d made sure to not allow for the absence of any specific people - or person, rather - to affect her friends’ and family’s celebration of the occasion. Anytime that she had celebrated some milestone over the last few years, it was all that she could do to not imagine what it would be like if he were by her side, joining her in celebration. Now though, as Kagome entered her childhood bedroom, changed out of her school uniform, and plopped down on the bed, she felt the return of a sharp pang of sadness that had become achingly familiar over the last three years.
As Kagome stared at the ceiling and felt a tear slide down the side of her face, she let out a shaky sigh and closed her eyes. She imagined Inuyasha there, in her bedroom with her. She imagined him sitting on her bed the way that he often did when she came home during their year-long journey. The hanyou would have his arms and legs crossed as he remained laser-focused on her while she attended to some school-related task. Despite the tears, she smiled at the memory.
You’d be happy, Inuyasha…No more math tests keeping me away.
She must have laid there for an hour replaying old conversations with Inuyasha in her head just so that she wouldn’t lose the memory of him. It was a routine that she had grown accustomed to, imagining the boyish smirks that he would give her, the rugged tenor of his voice when he spoke softly, his amber eyes, the way that his lips felt on hers in their final moments together…
Kagome was knocked out of her daydream by the sound of her mother’s voice calling from downstairs.
“Kagome! Lunch is almost done! I made your favorite today!” her mom called out enthusiastically.
Kagome opened her eyes and sat up, quickly schooling her features and wiping any stray tears from her eyes. She took a deep breath, smoothed out her blue skirt and pink sweater, and rose, ignoring the insistent ache that had taken permanent residence in her heart.
As she opened her bedroom door, though, something compelled her to turn back and look at the familiar room. She felt a very odd sense of finality wash over her. For a minute, she was glued to that spot, her hand still on the doorknob as she took in the familiar contents of her childhood bedroom. When she finally snapped out of the strange trance that she was in, she shook her head, chasing away the compulsion before turning to make her way downstairs.
There, her family waited for her with smiling faces, one of her favorite meals sitting on the kitchen table. She was unsure as to why the sight stirred her in some bittersweet way, but enjoyed the meal and the familiar comfort that her family brought her nonetheless, her heart feeling warmer than it had in a while.
A week from this moment, Kagome would gaze out at the village…her village, standing next to the man who she would spend the rest of her life with, eternally grateful to have had that final memory with her family.
—
For the first time in a while, Inuyasha had nothing to do.
There were no youkai extermination requests to attend to, he’d been chased out of Kaede’s hut after ‘disrupting her work’ with his ‘irritating sighs’, no one around the village seemed to need help with anything today, and Miroku was helping his wife with a laundry list of chores and childcare duties. The pair had a new baby, after all.
So, the restless hanyou simply sat next to the young couple as they did their laundry, trying to ignore their twin girls attempting to turn him into their own personal Mt. Inuyasha. At this moment, he was so on edge that he thought he might go and pick a fight with his brother just to blow off some steam.
Feeling wound up was not necessarily unusual for Inuyasha, especially in the last three years, so he’d taken to combatting his restlessness by filling the days with as many tasks as he could find. Sitting idly only really resulted in one thing: thinking about her. Allowing for those thoughts to be present at the forefront of his mind all day would only result in him torturing himself, so he regularly looked for anything to do to keep the deep longing that he felt at bay.
Today, though, the anxious feeling was more than Inuyasha’s usual restlessness. It was the type of anxiety that came from the expectation that something was about to happen. Not something dangerous, no, but he felt as though he was waiting for something, the anxiety building as the day stretched on further without any changes. He was waiting for something, he supposed, but if the last three years were any indication, sitting there waiting for her would only bring his mind back to the memories of that which was painfully out of reach.
Most nights, though, Inuyasha allowed himself that weakness. He would run somewhere far from the village and find the perfect spot to sit, where he could finally succumb to those precious memories. Her scent, sweet and floral, that cheerful smile, the feeling of her soft lips against his own. He imagined showing her all of the new places that he had found. They would talk and watch the stars, not worried about the future because wherever they ended up, they would be there together.
Eventually, his hopeful daydreams would transform into the sharp sting of loneliness and he would head back to the village, shutting those thoughts out once more.
A week from this particular, anxiety-filled day, though, Inuyasha would return to one of his favorite evening spots: a cliff that overlooked the village. Loneliness would be the last thing on his mind as he took in the view, his fingers intertwined with those of the woman who had changed his life forever.
