“You are leaving.”
Kagome was brushing her tears away with a knuckle when she heard the familiar, sombre voice behind her. He would have smelled the salt of her tears, but she rubbed her eyes, hoping he would not notice anyway.
“Yeah,” she muttered. Shoulders shaking, she strived to keep her voice level. “I’m done trying. With him.”
As usual, he said nothing. Still, Sesshōmaru was the most surprising part of her return to Sengoku Jidai. Somehow, during the three years she spent trying to build her life in the feudal era, a friendship had formed between her and the taciturn daiyōkai.
They’d met in the meadows underneath the stars, beneath trees during hot days, or in caves while rain poured over the Plains of Musashi. He did not talk much — he never did, but he was good company even in silence. Those days, she was almost always in tears, fresh from a quarrel with Inuyasha.
Even though Sesshōmaru must have seen the red-rimmed eyes and the tear-stained cheeks on many occasions, he never questioned them. And though he was the epitome of perfection, he never judged.
“Nē, promise me, Sesshōmaru,” Kagome said, forcing a smile on her face as she looked at him over her shoulder. “When you reach the modern era, look me up, and we’ll go for coffee. Or something. Okay?”
Then, without another word, she jumped into the well and disappeared.
But then, when she emerged on the other side, she did not find her inside the storage house at her family shrine, but the gymnasium shed of a school. Furthermore, her family was not the long generations of the guardians of Higurashi Shrine but the school’s caretakers, and their surname was no longer Higurashi but Shinonome.
And thus, her name had somehow changed from Higurashi Kagome to Shinonome Kikkō.
Her mother and grandfather still looked the same, only they were now the school principal and a teacher, and her brother — not Sōta but Kyōta — was a student at their school who helped out in the administration office after hours. It was strange, and Kagome did not know what she had done to invoke these changes, only that something must have happened that caused everything to be similar yet not the same.
She tried to find her old home, the Higurashi Shrine, yet she could not find her way back no matter what she did. She tried to explain to her new family, yet they did not understand and thought she was just waking up from a nightmare. Every day since she returned, she knelt inside the well in the gym storage shed many times, begging for the magic to return and take her back. She had poured gallons of tears into evoking the unexplainable power to open up the time-travelling well and take her back to his time.
Nothing happened.
A shaft of pain and despair tore through her when she realized she might never be able to return. Her fingers clawed the earth desperately. She knew she should have taken the time to say a proper goodbye, or better yet, not say goodbye at all.
As her tears continued to fall and wet the earth beneath her, Kagome repeated her one wish: Please. Please. Let me see Sesshōmaru again.
--------------------
'Nē, promise me, Sesshōmaru. When you reach the modern era, look me up. Then, we’ll go for coffee. Or something. Okay?’
It took Sesshōmaru years to figure out what coffee was, then even more years to understand what ‘look me up’ meant. Time passed slowly, disasters took place, and he lost everyone he ever cared about in the interim. And when he finally crawled his way to the modern era, he searched for Higurashi Kagome and the Higurashi Shrine, yet could find no such person or such place in Tokyo. So he began to look in Yokohama, Chiba, and the surrounding Kanto region, until eventually, he had searched the entire Japan, only to hit one dead end after another.
His heart sank as he failed in his mission yet again. Despair and loneliness overwhelmed him, knowing that the woman he had been searching for was nowhere to be found. Yet, even though he was resigned to her being gone forever, he still couldn't help but hope that he would see her again someday.
Sesshōmaru paused, remembering the old days when Inuyasha, Shippō, and the others were still alive. He had no one to turn to now. He felt isolated, surrounded by humans and unable to find a single other yōkai in all of Japan.
When he realized he was beginning to lose his eyesight, fueled by his inextinguishable desire to find her, he started to draw her face. He sat at the desk, fingers trembling as he sketched lines and curves that formed her face. Focused on his task, his vision continually blurring and refocusing, he tried to create a portrait that would remain in the minds of those who saw it. Because if he could no longer see, perhaps others would, and they would help him find her.
He began to paint, and soon, it became his only solace. He painted only her, using his memory, his imagination. His eyesight gradually worsened until his world was finally engulfed by complete darkness. When he could no longer see, he distinguished colours only by their scents. Red had the distinct metallic smell from the iron oxide they used to create it, while blue — his favourite, for her eyes — had copper compounds, which starkly differed from the red.
Every night since then, he laboured in the darkness, painting until his fingers cramped. He knew he had to come up with a plan — a long-term one — to get his work out in the world for her to see. It may have been a long shot, but he had to give it his best effort.
And he hoped… hoped, that one day she would find him.
--------------------
Five years had passed since she returned to the modern era and adopted the name Shinonome Kikkō. Every fibre of her revolted at having to answer to another name that, after five years, never felt like truly hers but she suppressed her feelings. She was getting really good at it nowadays.
She moved like an automaton, living her day-to-day life. Rising and going to work, eating and drinking, smiling and laughing, but with no true purpose.
No purpose other than wandering around Tokyo aimlessly, searching for any trace of yōki that would bring her closer to him. But no matter how many hours she spent roaming the city, she could not find a trail of demonic energy. Five years of fruitless searching had taken its toll, and Kagome was beginning to accept the possibility that yōkai had gone extinct and Sesshōmaru had gone with them.
The thoughts of giving up sickened her, no matter how bleak her situation looked. But she knew, she could not continue to do this forever. The constant fluctuations of soaring hope and crashing disappointment frayed the edges of her sanity. It was too painful.
Today, her day should have ended like any other. She had planned to walk around the city one more time, but one of her colleagues talked her into joining a few people from the office to visit a new gallery that had just opened up on the ground floor of a building. Her first inclination had been to refuse, but deep down, she knew: she needed to find a way to move on. To find a new purpose in this new life. She did not know how, only that she must.
And so, she went with them.
She strolled around the gallery, listlessly glancing over one painting or another. She had not been to one in years, and now she felt silly for wasting her time. Her coworkers gathered before a massive oil painting and stared at it with hushed reverence. A pair of bright cerulean blue eyes, staring at her from the white surface of the canvas, stopped Kagome dead in her track.
She pushed through the crowd to get a better look. The eyes stared back at her, following her wherever she went. They were deeper than the ocean and as clear as spring water. She knew those eyes. She knew them well.
She also knew those lips. That hair. That face
“She looks a little like you, doesn’t she, Kikkō?” her colleague asked when she came to a stop beside them.
Another colleague commented: "A little?" He paused to chuckle. "She looks exactly like her."
Kagome felt her voice catch in her throat as her gaze fell upon the painting. An intense wave of emotion rolled over her, and tears filled her eyes as she spotted a small stamp of six-petalled plum blossom hidden in the bottom right corner of the painting, cleverly disguised among the cascading black locks. Her heart cinched with tenderness as she realized the painting's hidden significance.
“Who painted this?” Kagome asked when the gallery curator walked by.
“A recluse painter,” the curator replied. “He lives on the outskirts of the city but has a studio nearby. He goes by Inumura, though I doubt it is his real name.”
“What is the name of the piece?” Kagome’s voice had turned hoarse from her efforts to stop herself from crying.
The curator checked the clipboard she held before looking up and smiling. “He named it ‘Kagome.’” Then, she chuckled. “Quite a few of his pieces are titled ‘Kagome.’ He must like that name very much.”
Kagome's heart thumped wildly against her ribs, air caught in her throat, and the pressure of joy washed over her, making her feel like she was about to take flight. She couldn't help the tears that sprang to her eyes, blurring her vision of the painting. With great effort, she tore her gaze from it and looked at the curator, her eyes filled with so much bittersweet joy.
“I’d like to meet him,” Kagome said.
--------------------
The curator gave her the name and number of Inumura’s agent, who tried to contact the artist to no avail. Resolved to not walk away before she obtained a phone number and some addresses, Kagome revealed she was an old friend and had been searching for him for a long time. After much persuasion, she finally convinced the agent to give her the information she wanted.
Kagome set out right away.
First, she headed to the studio in the city because it was closer. She took a deep breath and released it slowly as she rapped her knuckles noisily against the heavy wooden door of the city studio. Then, after moments of silence, she turned away in defeat and headed to the local train station to the workshop in Yokohama. As the hour-long journey flew by, she watched the world around her pass, going further and further away from the city until, finally, it was time to disembark just outside of Yokohama.
The address took her to a walled complex that looked quiet yet meticulously cared for. She tried the gate and was surprised to find it unlocked. As soon as she pushed it, the heavy wooden gate opened silently; the hinges were well-oiled and kept in perfect condition.
Walking around, she found the workshop easily. The room was large, with the outer wall painted white to reflect the sun. Inside, there were huge windows on one side to let in light, and the other had shelves containing a multitude of paints, brushes, and canvases in all shapes and sizes. As she stepped into the bright space, her eyes scanned the walls, where numerous paintings were propped up, all bearing her likeness.
Just then, a tall, familiar figure stepped into view, wearing a paint-spattered smock and holding a brush in midair. She recognized him instantly, and the air in her lungs suddenly vanished as she froze in shock.
He seemed to have sensed her presence because he suddenly stopped and hesitantly turned around. As his eyes met hers, his frame quivered with excitement and apprehension. She had thought he would look the same, yet something about him seemed so profoundly different. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of... something in his gaze?
“It is you,” Sesshōmaru whispered. “It really is you.”
He took a step forward and paused for a moment as if scared she existed only in his imagination. Then, slowly, he reached out his hand. His eyes were glassy and lacked the usual sparkle she remembered, his movements stiff and slightly awkward. A heartbreaking understanding washed over her, like a wave she hadn’t expected—with each subtle gesture and expression, she could tell just how much had changed since they'd last seen each other.
The signs were so minuscule that no one else would have noticed. But she had paid so much attention to him back then, without even realizing it, that she could detect the slightest difference in his gaze and gait.
She sprinted to him, their hearts pounding in sync as if their bodies were connected by an unseen force. She hurled herself into his arms when she reached him, crushing her body against his as if her life depended on it. His arms tightened around her with a ferocity that made her weak, her name a prayer on his lips that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. Her arms clinging fiercely to his broad shoulders. She closed her eyes, feeling the intensity of his love like a burning fire within her chest. He buried his face into the crook of her neck as if his only escape from the world was in the safe haven of her embrace.
“Sesshōmaru. Your eyes—“ Kagome teared up again when she saw that he was blind. “Who did this? And… How?”
“The second World War,” he said. “At the end of the feudal era, we began working towards equal rights for the demons. It was a tumultuous time, with many groups trying to eliminate us and stop our alliances with humans. In exchange for our place in society, the government asked us to fight alongside them, which we accepted. That day in Hiroshima, the nuclear bomb landed near our base. It decimated everyone. I was lucky to be alive, but I did not come out of it unscathed.”
She wept when she listened to his story. His eyes had been bright gold, lucent and luminous, glittering like amber in both sunlight and darkness. Now, it had lost some of its light, its glimmer. As he spoke, his voice cracked with emotions.
“When I began to lose my eyesight, my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to find you,” he told her. “I started to draw you so that I could ask others if they had seen your likeness. Then, I wanted to give life to your blue eyes, so I began to paint. And when I started, I never stopped.”
Kagome's mouth dropped open as she slowly spun in a circle, her gaze sweeping the room in disbelief. Everywhere she looked, a different version of her face stared back at her, some subtly different than others, but all unmistakably her. She ran her fingers over her cheeks and nose, tracing her face's contours on the canvases surrounding her. The sheer number of them was overwhelming, and she was filled with wonder at a depth of expression in each one. The frames were all white, yet the colour in the portraits was intense – vibrant blues and greens glinting in the light, illuminated against the stark canvas like stars in the night sky.
“You painted only… me?” she murmured breathlessly.
“You were always on my mind.” His solemn confession made her chest cinch in tenderness again.
She pressed her body against his and wound her arms around his neck, refusing to release him. Their lips were hot and hungry as they reunited, and their tears mingled. His tongue thrust against hers, and she wanted to feel him everywhere at once. Her heartbeat had never been louder in her ears, and her skin was on fire. His body pressed against hers, the form she had so missed. Clothes were carelessly abandoned on the ground as their passion ignited, and his mokomoko lay beneath her like a cloud, cradling her body against its softness.
Swiftly, he moved down her body, impatient to taste her. He moved with purpose, fingers tracing the curves of her body until they reached her hips. Then, he probed her; his tongue found her center, lips sealing around the protruded nub. His tongue lapped eagerly at her core, tasting her desire and sending shivers through her body. She gasped, and her hands plunged into his long silver hair as he teased and caressed her. He increased the intensity and pressure of his movements at her urgings until she was trembling with pleasure and panting for him to take her.
--------------------
Though he could not see her, he felt the heat emanating from her core. Then, as he climbed back up, her fingers found him, wrapped around his girth to guide him inside her. The feel of her walls clasping him had his hips stuttering. His mouth fell open, and a long, tortured moan was wrenched from the deepest part of him. He started to move, trying to keep a rhythm, trying to make this last.
He tried to steady his breath, to stem the tide of pleasure. He thought he could draw out the moment and make it last, but her muscles were tight around him, and his body was on fire with need. His jaws clenched as he revelled in the waves of lust that crashed over him. He would not last much longer.
Her cries in his ears were the music he had been missing. The sting from her blunt nails as she clawed his back was the pain he did not even know he craved. His mouth sought the juncture of her neck where her neck met her shoulder. His tongue laved at the tender spot, and she turned her head slightly to give him access, as though she knew.
When her hand cupped the back of his head and pushed him down, he did not hesitate. He sank his fangs into her flesh, initiating their blood bond to seal their mating. His yōki and her reiki clashed, entangling, intertwining, melding together as surely as their bodies became one.
She clenched around him and cried out as her body was wracked with pleasure. His ecstatic response soon followed, and his eyes flew open, expecting to see the familiar darkness he’d experienced for what felt like an eternity. What he saw took his breath away.
Around her, there was light.
--------------------
Kagome moved into Sesshōmaru’s home the following day. Though his sight never fully returned, he said he could see her, though not in a traditional sense but in light, vague forms and energy. Despite his blindness, he seemed completely unbothered by it. He travelled around the house easily; his acute hearing and a heightened sense of smell meant that his other senses filled in the gaps in his awareness. He moved with confidence and surefootedness, never bumping into furniture or tripping over rugs. As she watched him, it was as though she could feel his inner strength radiating from him.
One morning, as she enjoyed her tea while watching him work in his studio, Kagome said: “A really big fan asked if they could commission a piece from you.”
The brush twitched between his fingers as he added a drop of cobalt to her eyes on the canvas. He twisted his mouth into a dismissive smirk and dabbed the paint, adding a touch of navy to her darkening irises.
“They can’t afford me,” he simply said. “And I am busy.”
Kagome’s lips spread into a wide, knowing grin. She could see the evidence of the day’s activities on his body — a faint pink flush across his cheeks, errant paint stains on his hands, a halo of humidity surrounding him. He had been busy indeed — making love, talking, painting, and then making love again.
The change in Sesshōmaru’s works had been noticeable since she returned to his life. His brush strokes across the canvas were fluid, electric and alive. His works had new layers of depth, the colours vibrant and surreal. His agent had received word from renowned galleries across the globe. He was currently hard at work preparing for a big show in Paris, a highly anticipated event.
“Just listen first,” Kagome admonished gently. “Perhaps you’d be interested once you hear about it.”
“Hn. I doubt it, but go on.”
“The commission is for a family portrait,” she said slowly. “A father, a mother, and… well, a baby boy. Or— she thinks it will be a boy.”
Sesshōmaru's hand froze in the middle of a brushstroke, his eyes widening as he slowly turned to face her. He carefully placed his brush atop the wooden palette and set it on the worktable. All was silent but for the ticking of a nearby clock as she waited for him to speak.
“How much time,” he asked, his voice low and hoarse. Utterly heartfelt. “How much time do I have to finish the painting?”
“Hmmm,” Kagome hummed thoughtfully. “The doctor will know better, but she thinks… about seven and a half months?”
He moved with a speed that took her breath away, his broad hands whisking her up off the ground before he pulled her close. The speed of his movement left her breathless, and she gasped in surprise. His hug was fierce yet tender, as though he was trying to communicate the intensity of his emotion without overwhelming her.
“Kagome,” he murmured against her hair. “Kagome. Is this true? You are with child?”
“It’s very early,” Kagome told him, clasping him to her. “But, yes, I am.”
They both laughed, and they both cried. The laughter and tears intertwined, and Kagome felt her heart constrict with the bittersweetness of their emotion. She brushed the remnants of moisture from beneath his lower lashes, her chest aching with tenderness. He might have lost his sight, but together, they had a deep love that could never be stolen away. And as his hand caressed her belly gently, she felt something stir inside her. She was filled with joy, knowing they would soon have more to share than ever before.
Much later, they sat outside together on the porch. The night was dark and quiet, and early autumn chill hung in the air. She looked at him, his face illuminated by the faint light of the moon. When she asked him if he would ever miss his sense of sight, he paused for a moment before smiling softly and whispering:
“Kagome. With you, I see the light.”