“Marry me.”
Kagome’s eyes widened at the box Sesshomaru had pushed across the table towards her, the small blue square looking so out of place on the posh marbled tabletop of this high-end coffeeshop he’d asked to meet her in. It wasn’t a grand gesture of love so he wasn’t down on one knee, but she knew Sesshomaru. And she knew he wouldn’t do something like this unless he cared.
As her world lurched around her and the viewpoints of her life shifted, she looked closer at Sesshomaru, and it was though things fell into place and she was finally able to see him properly for the first time. His long hair still fell over his shoulder, and the easy comfort that was there amongst them still existed. But there, in those warm amber of his there was an emotion she had never paid attention to.
Or maybe she had and ignored it like she’d been ignoring everything else until those rose-tinted glasses of hers had come off a few weeks ago. Now, as she carefully took in Sesshomaru’s face, she could clearly see the longing that was etched on it. And it broke her to think that it was longing for her, longing for a woman who’d been so blind to his feelings all these years.
For so long, she’d been pining after the wrong brother, the wrong man, and she hadn’t realized that there was another person waiting for her on the sidelines all along. How long, she wondered, had Sesshomaru been waiting for her? How long had he been hoping for some form of her affection? How long had she blinded herself to the feelings of her first true friend while falling for the one who broke her heart into pieces?
She felt tears start to gather in her blue eyes and blinked them away. She knew Sesshomaru still saw them though. He was much too astute for his own good.
Smiling wistfully, she pushed the box back toward him. He looked down at it, and her heart ached as she saw the carefully hidden emotions he hid behind his stoic façade start to appear on his face.
“I’m not…” She struggled to find the words, to express to Sesshomaru how she felt.
But how could she properly explain everything?
How could she explain that she was still mending the tattered pieces of her soul together, that the fragile thing that she called love was now just an illusion she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore?
How could she explain to Sesshomaru that she wasn’t ready to fix this part of herself just yet? That she needed time to heal?
“Two years,” she finally said, hand starting to reach across the table before she pulled it away. “Come find me in two years.”
“And then?” He asked, voice raw and tainted with sorrow. She hated to be the cause, but hoped that maybe one day, she’d be forgiven for what she was doing to him today.
“And then,” she told him, smiling wistfully, “I’ll give you an answer to that question.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“You’re still here?” Inukimi asked her son, watching him play with the little girl he’d adopted a year ago as a newborn.
Rin cooed at her, smiling in greeting and making a series of babbling noises at her. She smiled at her grandaughter leaning down and bopping her on the nose before acquiescing to Rin’s demands and picking her up to set her on her hip. She reached for Inukimi’s earrings and the grandmother angled her head out of Rin’s grabby hands, letting her pat her shoulders and grasp her necklace instead.
“I haven’t heard from her for two years, mother.” He told her, sitting back on his haunches. “She might have forgotten the promise.”
“I doubt it.” His mother’s partner Kagura came into the room. Rin squealed upon seeing her, and Kagura grinned, leaning down to kiss Rin hello.
“Kagura,” Sesshomaru greeted.
“Sesshomaru,” she replied back. “Go.” He hesitated, but Kagura moved over and pulled him up off the floor by Rin’s play area where he’d been sitting. “You need closure with her Sesshomaru. So, she says no? That’s not an issue. You can just get back to the good life you’ve been living. She says yes, then the two of you move on together.”
He still seemed reluctant to go, so Kagura sighed and turned to Rin. “Sweetie,” she cooed to the baby, “you father needs to go meet Kagome. What do we say to him?”
Rin perked up at her new favorite word, one of the few she had in her repertoire. “Go!” She yelled, abandoning Inukimi’s necklace to clap her hands excitedly. “Go pa, go!”
Inukimi and Kagura both turned to look at him with raised eyes, an uncanny similarity. He sighed and then stood up, knowing better than to resist when he was outnumbered like this. Perhaps Kagura ws right; it wouldn’t hurt to see Kagome.
“You’ll watch her?” He asked coming closer to brush Rin’s ever messy locks from her face. She scrunched her face and jerked her head away, not liking it when he touched her face.
“Go meet her Sesshomaru,” his mother told him with a smile. “She’ll be fine with us.”
He ended up in the high-end coffee shop from two years ago a half hour later, the one he’d once proposed to Kagome in. She was waiting for him at the table they’d sat at two years ago to the day, hardly unchanged. Her hair was shorter, cut to frame her shoulders instead of hanging down her back in tumbling waves.
She looked more confident now, more sure of herself and happy with her surroundings than he remembered. She was more vibrant, the Kagome he remembered before Inuyasha had stifled her creativity and love.
He approached her carefully, not wanting to startle her. She looked up, meeting his gaze halfway through and smiled at him in greeting. It eased him somewhat, made him less nervous of the conversation to come.
“Sesshomaru!” Her enthusiastic greeting came with a hug which he returned wholeheartedly. He’d missed this, having Kagome near him, head tucked under his chin, the way she perfectly fit into his arms.
“How are you?” She asked, pulling away, her blue eyes bright and happy, full of a vibrancy that he’d missed seeing. “Come on sit, I told them to bring our orders when you arrived. You do drink the same stuff right? Two years is a lot, but I just assumed…”
“It’s fine,” he assured her, daringly placing a hand on hers as he guided them to the table, pleased when she didn’t pull away.
What followed next was a series of conversations about the years that had passed since they’d seen each other last. He told her of Rin and the joy she had brought into his life. She told him of her travels and her new friends: a police officer and her partner training to be a monk. Together, they passed more than an hour or two that way, drinks long forgotten, as they caught up on the happenings in their lives.
“Hey, Sesshomaru.” Kagome smiled, amusement glittering in her blue eyes, once their conversation began to dwindle. “Ask me that question.”
He watched her warily. This was a different Kagome than the one from two years ago, the one who’d left broken and confused.
“Go on,” she encouraged. Ask me.”
He swallowed once, then did as she asked.
“Will you marry me, Kagome?”
She shook her head, smile never fading, even as his heart began to break, the bridges he’d built to repair the tears giving way under the pain.
“No, I won’t now. But I want you to ask me again in two years.”
“Two years?” He asked. He’d already been spurned by her once before. Was she trying to let him off gently again? He couldn’t wait for her this long again only to be spurned a third time.
“Yes, two years.” Kagome told him, amusement never fading from those blue eyes. “But, before that, I have a question for you.”
“What is it?” His fingers tightened around the long forgotten cup of coffee, the liquid cold and congealed inside, not too dissimilar to how his heart felt at the moment.
“Will you go on a date with me?”
He blinked once, then twice, before his eyes widened. “Go on a date with you?” He mouthed the words a few times, repeated them out loud even, until they sank in.
“Yes, I’m asking if you’d like to go on a date with me.” Kagome told him. “You know, before you pop the question again. So, what’s your answer?”
He thought of Kagome, of the vibrant, daring, spontaneous and cheerful Kagome of his youth, the one who sat in front of him now. This was the woman who’d stolen his heart years ago, the woman he wanted to be with.
And if she was giving him a chance…
“Yes.”