The Blooming Bush
"Sesshoumaru-san, here is the fax you were waiting on." The small bat hanyou handed her boss the packet of papers.
Glancing briefly at his watch with the movement, he scanned the document with half an eye. "Shiori, call Kagome and let her know I won't be home this night." The investigation into a potential rebel uprising in the South could not be put aside for sleep.
The rabble had been threatening to bomb the companies they claimed took advantage of child labor. The truth was that his factories did employ children, but it was in clean and healthy conditions. Part of an effort to help the economy recover from the devastating loss of crops due to years of drought, he would rather put the children to work for three hours a day to earn their keep and schooling than see them starve on the streets, neglected or abandoned by landless farm families.
He would work through the night this night and many more if it meant his properties and those who called them home would be safeguarded.
She said nothing, but Shiori felt a pang of regret at his words. She hated being the bearer of bad news. This would be the third time this week Sesshoumaru had not bothered to go home. It was a pattern, one he had kept for over ten years now. Work, go home for a few hours, return. More often than not, like now, a disaster would loom and he would not even go home, leaving Shiori to contact his mate and let her in on his whereabouts.
As a male, she knew he saw nothing wrong with his habits. Evidently, his mate must not complain, either, because Shiori was never called upon to field calls from an irate Kagome as she had been forced in the past for others. Having met Kagome a few times, she knew the woman cared deeply for her boss but assumed she was happy enough in the arrangement. How else could she abide such careless handling by her mate?
She didn't have to like it, but Shiori made the phone call.
@-)
Glancing at the canvas, Kagome cocked her head to the side to consider the painting from another angle. She sighed. Something was off, but right now, she just couldn't see it. The paintbrush clattered against the metal, paint-splattered table that sat next to her chair.
A shock of orange hair surrounding an impish face with a sprinkling of freckles peeked over the edge of the canvas. "Kagome?"
She smiled warmly at the youkai kit. He was a constant visitor to her stall when his mother was working. "Yes, Shippo?"
He scrambled around the worktable and climbed into her lap. Cocking his head to the side, he stared at the revealed work. He bit his lip, narrowed his eyes and squinted. "What is that supposed to be?"
She chuckled. From the mouth of babes, honesty could always be found. At least when they weren't in trouble, she amended. "I'm supposed to be working on the ad for a diamond commercial."
"Why does that woman look sad? Mama said all females are happy when they get jewelry."
Surprised by his assessment of the figure's facial expression, Kagome's gaze grew troubled when she noted he was right. She ruffled his hair. "I guess she does look a bit sad, doesn't she?"
That was what had been wrong, but she had been unable to see it. Why hadn't she noted how melancholy the woman appeared? Holding out a platinum chain, tipped with the pendant made from the palest-pink diamond cut into the shape of a blooming rose, the man had a large grin on his face in the first panel. The second panel revealed her hand raised to claim the necklace, while the woman's eyes were not on it but the man. Eyes wistful, the corners of her lips drooping slightly, she stood beside her man in the next and final panel.
I know how you feel.
"Well?" Shippo prodded, unwilling to let his question go unanswered.
Startled out of her thoughts at the reminder of her audience, Kagome shook away the moment of sadness to ruffle his hair. "It was a mistake on my part. I'll fix it right up, and she'll be happy as a clam. Okay?"
He hopped off her lap. "'kay! See you later!" He ran off to find his mom.
Kagome stared after him. Once he turned the corner of her office, her smile turned once more into a thoughtful frown. She glanced back to the painting, and with a sigh, began setting her work to rights.
@-
Glass of wine in hand, Kagome walked through the empty apartment until she stopped at the bookcase that housed her photo albums. Her hand rose to stroke the spine of her most beloved memories. On a whim, she pulled it out.
Claiming a seat on the cushioned arm-chair, she opened the leather album to a picture of her mating day. Sesshoumaru had worn a traditional kimono rather than the more elaborate outfit most called for on such a day. Resplendent in white, he had shone as bright as the first star in the sky on that, their most special day. Beside him, robed in the stiff ceremonial outfit of pale yellow silks, she looked washed out. Almost plain. But for the smile on her face ...
She traced the tiny image of herself, a grin upturning her lips. No one could ever hope to compare to Sesshoumaru in beauty, but she had never tried to. She was just happy to love him and be loved in turn.
Flipping the pages, she went over their memories of that day, recalling the fluttering in her stomach, the almost painful anticipation for the night to come, and most of all, the overwhelming sensation of being wrapped in his arms and knowing he would never let go.
A drop of water landed on the glossy plastic cover that protected the pictures, and she blinked back more tears.
She was crying?
Why was she crying?
Sniffing, she wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand before closing the album. Taking a sip of wine, she watched the shadows lengthen on the wall, lost in thought, as small droplets continued to trace her cheeks unheeded.
@-
Sesshoumaru stared out the window of the apartment, book in hand. For the past few weeks, ever since the disaster with the rebels had been solved, Kagome had been quiet. Too quiet. He had gone weeks before without seeing her, some trip or another being responsible for taking him away for so long. Then there were the late nights at the office. Rushed breakfasts. The silence that he greeted her with when bone-tired from dealing with the hassle of such large holdings.
But she never complained. Just smiled that smile that spoke of devotion, the upturning of lips and the lighting of her eyes that always greeted him his beacon of peace. Rest. Adoration and love.
Her smile had dimmed just a bit over the years. It had never left. Never deserted him. So he had never lost faith that it would always be there. Perhaps aged with wisdom, shortened with time, but it would always be there as surely as the sun would rise and the moon would light the heavens at night.
Yesterday, after four days at the office with no reprieve, he had been gifted with a look as sunny as any he had ever received. Funny, how he had not noted the difference in her until shown just how happy she could be. Until he noted just how very melancholy she had been. In the face of her cheer, her genuine disposition of joy and gaiety to have him home, if only for an hour, he saw the tears she had held back just weeks ago. The words she had kept inside, buried deeply lest he see them.
And only in their absence could he feel her pain, the pain he had caused her.
And he could not countenance it. Could not understand her renewed elation. How? How could she turn from the misery he had caused her with nary a bit of effort on his part? He had not lost her, her arms went about him willingly and without hesitation. Her eyes followed him as eagerly as always, and her words, formed upon loving lips, still fell upon his ears with the eager need to please him. To take him from his troubled mind.
Feeling every century, he sat down beside the window. The book, nothing more than a children's book, something his mate had laughingly called her little hobby, clasped in his hand. "Nothing of interest to you, I'm sure," she had said.
She had finally finished it. The book that should mean nothing to him but did. Gingerly holding the fine leather that she had painstakingly pressed with the shape of a rose the simple title "The Blooming Bush" he cracked it open to the first page. He had already read it so many times the words came to his mind before they reached his eyes, but he had to know. It was there, somewhere in the pages. The cure, the answer, the reason behind her smile.
Once upon a time, there was a farmer. A hard-working man, he toiled from the time the sun rose from the earth and did not return to his bed until the moon was his only company.
He had no wife. No children to depend on him. Only the land he loved so much, and the villagers who needed the crops for their cook pots. It was a life that suited him, he of the calloused hands and a simple heart.
One day, while coming home from the fields, he noticed a small patch of thorns. He had passed that patch every day for years, but had never noticed anything special about it. But that day ... That day was special. It had rained and rained and rained for weeks.
He had bemoaned the rain, toiled in it to save his crops, until finally it stopped. But the rain, that had been so bad for his fields, had yielded a small surprise. Within the thorns a single bloom opened its face to the moon.
Thinking it very curious that the rain, which had been so bad for his crops, would create something so beautiful, the farmer considered digging up the blooming bush to take home with him. But it was late. He was tired and had no time to be playing with flowers. He left it for another day.
Many days he would pass the blooming bush on his way to work the fields. On his way home every night he would contemplate claiming the bush as companion for his empty house, but always, always, his muscles would ache and his legs would carry him passed the little splash of red wrapped in thorns.
One day, he was walking passed the rose bloom in a hurry. The wind had been bad the night before, and he was worried for his crops. Unheeding of his footing, he was tripped by a large clump of weeds that had blown across the small dirt path. About to rise from the ground, mind on the crops and anger at his clumsiness filling his heart, he saw the bloom.
Flattened by the winds, the petals had snagged on the thorns. Faded from the unmerciful sun that had beat upon it for days, it was dying.
Such a little thing, it was. If only he had taken it home with him, he could have provided shade, he thought. In a pot on his sill, it would have been protected from the winds, the thorns protection from careless fingers rather than turning on the bloom itself.
As his gentle fingers moved over the wilted rose, they brushed against another bud that had begun to grow among the thorns. The storm that had killed the bloom had provided the water to nurture a new one.
His fields in the back of his mind, he let his fingers sink into the moist soil. Digging up the root with utmost care, he soon cradled the thorny bush, wilted bloom and still-green bud nestled in the center, to his chest.
That night, when he came home from the fields, a new bloom waved at him from the gentle breeze of the cracked window. His muscles ached, but his heart smiled.
"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome called to him from the doorway. He had been sitting there, so still, for almost an hour. She noticed her book in his lap, and felt a smile tug upon her lips to answer the happiness blooming in her heart.
Snapped out of the reverie he had fallen into, Sesshoumaru glanced up. Framed within the moonlight falling in through the wide windows, the light within her deep blue eyes welcomed him, warmed him and washed away the confusion.
"Kagome," he stated softly, finally understanding where her joy had come from. Carefully depositing the book on the chair after he stood, Sesshoumaru crossed the distance between them and as delicately as the farmer must had claimed his blooming bush, he wrapped her in his arms.
As tears fell once more from her eyes, Kagome sighed into his embrace, her heart full of those things that would sustain her through the times when he could not be there. He would tend his fields, but she would always be there to give his weary heart rest and joy when he returned.
Never, he vowed. Never would he leave her out in the storm again. It was time she came home, time for him to see her bloom again, safe under his protection and care.
@-
The End