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A cold, biting breeze.
Sticky snow flurries.
Icy, slushy streets.
Sesshomaru pulled his scarf tighter around his neck as he stepped out of his apartment building and walked up the street toward the shops he always went to every Thursday evening.
His life followed such patterns now, a reflection of the modern monotony he was lost in.
Sundays were for laundry. He’d carry his small cache of clothing to the building’s washroom and spend the afternoon washing and drying and folding.
After work on Mondays and Tuesdays were for exercise in the secret yokai gym he’d found a few years ago.
Wednesday nights were for cleaning out his fridge and kitchen cabinets. Friday nights were for meal prepping all the food he bought on Thursdays.
And on Saturdays he “rested,” though nowadays “resting” meant sitting and staring at his TV until the sun went down and he could sleep and start his mind numbing routine all over again.
A gust of icy wind bit at his nose, so he yanked his scarf up over it and squinted his eyes against the gale.
150 years with these new fangled, extra powerful concealing charms and he still wasn’t used to how weak and susceptible they made him.
It tamped his yoki down so flat and small he felt as human as he looked, and only those with the strongest spiritual powers would know.
But it was a miserable business being affected by cold and wind and rain.
And heat.
And excessive flights of stairs.
He’d once been endlessly proud of his heritage, a shining prince born of the strongest stock in the Silver Inu clan.
Now he wished at least one of his parents had been a Fox so he could shapeshift without all the added bullshit.
He pulled his hat down further over his hair, now short enough that it didn’t even cover the back of his neck, and crossed the street to the first shop.
Stepping into his apartment after a long day at work pushing paper in a small cube in a gray office building, Sesshomaru pat his cat on the head, kicked off his shoes, and then pulled off the thin, braided cord that held his concealment charm.
His cat hissed as she always did when his yoki pulsed back into being, taking a swipe at his leg.
“Easy, Mio.” He said, grabbing her up by the scruff and then cradling her in his arms. “Or do you not want your treat?”
Luminous blue eyes blinked in answer, and then she scrabbled out of his hold to perch on his shoulder.
He dug around in the bottom of the small pet store shopping bag and pulled out a new cat nip mouse and tossed it to the ground.
Mio hopped from his shoulder and batted it across the floor, rolling over with it trapped between her paws, and Sesshomaru grinned softly as he watched her.
He sighed and unloaded the cans of cat food into their appropriate cabinet, as well as the new grooming brush he’d bought to replace the one Mio had knocked into the trash can.
she hated it, but with as long and fluffy as her shiny black fur was, she had no choice but to endure a regular grooming.
He closed his eyes and pressed the pads of his fingers into his forehead, rubbing at the tension building there as the lingering scents and stench he’d collected from the day overwhelmed his senses before he could reacclimate.
He trudged over to his couch and flopped down, grunting when Mio lept up to curl up on his chest.
He scratched at her ears and under her chin, tried to be soothed by her purring, by the contentment of his only companion in the world.
As she dropped off to sleep, so did he.
“Sesshomaru-sama?”
Wide blue eyes sparkled in the starlight, deep as caverns, bright as the sun.
He’d long since given up his consternation at being so bowled over by the eyes of a mortal.
NO ONE had eyes like this, she was unique above all in so many astonishing ways.
“Yes Miko?”
She stepped out of the cover of the trees, and the moonlight spilled over her hair and skin, illuminating her like a piece of the heavens had taken form to walk amongst them.
He bit back a gasp and schooled his features.
“Just coming to check on you. You’ve seemed… tired.”
He looked off into the shadows, exerting all his discipline and control to keep his brow from furrowing and his shoulders from sagging.
He was tired, but probably not for any reason she would believe.
“It has been 4 years. Are we not all weary of chasing a flighty spider and splintered jewel?”
She tilted her head to the side, her eyes melting in understanding, a touch of disbelief.
“Wow, I didn’t expect you to actually admit it.” She said with a chuckle, and he smiled, a soft and subtle shift of his mouth, barely there, fleeting.
It was enough to send her reeling.
It was times like this that allowed him to hope, when she was staring up at him with all the awe in the universe painted on her face, plain as the sun, wide as the sea.
If she could look at him LIKE THAT, how else could she look at him?
If he revealed just a bit more of himself, would her curiosity push her towards more, as it had done to him when he’d first joined their travel party and been forced to deal with the purity of her warmth and kindness full time?
He’d once only wished to walk the earth and battle for supremacy, conquering all worthy opponents in clashes of blood and blade.
Slowly but surely she became the only thing he wanted to conquer, but coming out on top meant ending up BESIDE her.
He did not want to fight for dominance, he wanted to play for keeps.
“I am certain I am capable of a great many things you would never expect.” He said cryptically, and he watched it bloom, the curiosity that he hoped might draw her to him.
“Well, I hope you’ll show me sometime.” She replied, voice a delicate whisper wobbling with nerves, bursting with excitement.
His eyes tore from hers and looked into the forest behind her, all traces of his good mood vanishing in an instant as his usual mask of indifference fell back into place.
The moment was gone, the bubble was shattered, and the sounds of night bugs exploded back into reality.
“Inuyasha comes.” He said, and she startled.
“Oh! I guess I should have expected. I’ll go meet him half way. And Sesshomaru?” She laid her hand upon his arm and his skin burned under the silk of his sleeve.
“Hn?”
She wavered, a thousand words spinning on the tip of her tongue that he could see but not read falling away to die upon the ground.
She settled for a smile, aggravating in its surface level sympathy, but they were no longer alone.
“Nothing. Just… I’ll always listen… if you ever need someone to listen.”
He covered her hand with one of his own, stroked his thumb across her knuckles and relished in the bright glow of her cheeks.
This was an indulgence he would most certainly never allow himself again if she did not show any more signs of returning his interest.
But the feel of her flesh would be imprinted on his mind for eternity.
“Your generosity is unmatched, Kagome.”
She gasped, she lingered, she stepped closer and his heart soared as victory danced just beyond his fingertips, dashed by the sound of his brother’s voice.
It was always his brother’s voice.
“Oi, Kagome!”
“I gotta go. I mean it Sesshomaru, if you ever need a friend…”
He nodded and watched her turn and rush away, listened to her bicker with her protector, his brother, the one who possessed the sword he’d desired and now the woman he craved.
With a sigh he drifted on and continued his patrol of the camp.
He woke with a start, sitting up abruptly and sending his cat running. His heart hammered and his lungs struggled for breath.
Clutching his chest, Sesshomaru turned to plant his feet on the floor and his elbows on his knees, hanging his head as he fought for stability and willed his mind to stop spinning.
It had been centuries- centuries- since he’d last seen her and still she haunted him.
She would be so real and near in his dreams that he would even wake up with her scent in his nose.
No one had ever had such an affect on him before, and none had after, either.
A lone beacon in centuries of darkness and strife and loneliness, some of it he’d even purposely caused himself, and he couldn’t let go.
He had no idea what had happened to her.
After Naraku had been killed he’d been no closer to determining if he had any chance of swaying her feelings towards him, so he’d left her alone to, he assumed, marry his brother. When he visited Rin he sent Jaken into the village to lead her away so he wouldn’t have to even go near, and when Rin passed on he left it all behind for good.
Word reached him just a century or so later that his brother was gone and that meant that the Miko was certainly gone too, and he’d thought he’d finally get to close that chapter, that his heart would slowly stitch back together and he could forget the whole thing had ever happened.
But try as he might he couldn’t make it happen.
And so as the world changed, as he had changed, he’d carried her with him, the memory of his love for a woman he’d never been meant to have but had wanted so desperately anyway.
He embraced the ways he was like his father.
He worked to keep things as peaceful as he could at least in his own lands.
And he gave up his power and reputation to the ranks of myth and legend and faded into a human persona that gagged and stifled him.
Would she be proud to see what he’d become?
Would she be angry that he’d given up so easily?
Would she offer him some kind of understanding, offer a smile that would disarm him, a soft touch that would bring him to his knees?
He stood and strode into his bathroom, turning on the sink and splashing his face with cold water as if he could wash away the weight of the last 5 centuries, the weight of his entire life and start anew.
Nothing could do that.
He glanced at the alarm clock near his bed and sighed.
He’d slept all the though the night on that couch, his unexpected nap overtaking the time he should have been using to process all of his groceries into meals for the week.
He didn’t have anything else to do for the day, so he rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and got to work.
Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday rolled around once again, yet another day of endless gray and drizzle as unrelenting winter kept the sky shuttered up behind dreary clouds.
He slipped on his charm, bundled up against the cold, grabbed his shopping list, pat Mio on her head, and walked out the door and up the street.
He had three stops to make, once at the meat market, once at a produce stand, and once at a supermarket for toiletries and cleaning products. It took most of the afternoon to get all the things he needed, and without his demon strength to carry it all he always finished his trek home wishing he had three arms.
If only he’d been born part Fox and part squid, wouldn’t that he handy?
“Hello young man, so nice to see you again!”
“Hello.” Sesshomaru greeted the elderly lady who owned the butcher shop. Her son, the resident butcher, had his usual selections already cut and wrapped, and he took them and placed them in his bag with a nod of thanks.
He paid and waved goodbye as the lady bid him to stay safe and dry.
The produce market was a bit more of a walk, a series of fruit and vegetable stands set up by a local park with the best offerings of in season produce of any market he’d tried.
Normally the walk was a pleasant one, but the weather had been so unusually bad that lately he’d just been taking a cab.
Something kept him walking this time, some deep exhaustion that robbed him of the energy to hail any sort of public transportation.
The spray falling from the sky misted over his clothes and hair, but he could barely feel it as he pushed on against the cold wind.
He marched with purpose, determined to get his food and some exercise and get home.
He shivered and picked up his pace, a strange feeling of anticipation biting at his heels and making his blood rush in a way that left him breathless.
He couldn’t identify what it was, if it was good or bad, but it was making his yoki flair against the seal of his charm and his instincts engage.
If he wasn’t careful, his disguise would shatter and he’d be seen by every person here on the street.
He’d be the reason demon kind could no longer live in peace.
He was practically running by the time he made it to the first fruit stand, and he tossed money and bags at merchants, collecting his produce faster than he ever had.
He could feel the cover of his magic disguise crumbling, his yoki spiraling ever higher and slipping past its enchanted box, reaching outside of him for something he couldn’t name. He whipped around to see if he was being followed, if someone was trying to pursue him or attack him or see where he lived, and he could hear his heart hammering in his ears as his dormant predator’s blood heated and rushed.
His fangs were growing in his mouth and he could smell the sizzle of burnt paper as his acid claws ignited against his shopping bag.
He needed to find cover, he needed to run home as fast as he could, he needed-
“Sesshomaru?!” a voice gasped nearby, and he spun all the way around to face the park that the veggie market was parked by.
Standing there, a large white dog on a yellow leash and a hand pressed over mouth, tears pouring from her eyes, was Kagome.
“Oh Sesshomaru,” she sobbed, and shock and disbelief rooted him to the ground.
He stared at her, unblinking, unseeing, and then he sniffed.
Enough of his concealing charm had been blown that he could smell her.
Her.
It was her.
He dropped his bags with all his groceries, heedless of how they scattered and rolled across the street and sidewalk.
She was mouthing something, his name and a string of unintelligible words stifled by sobs, her dog circling her in worry.
A sunbeam broke through the clouds for the first time in weeks.
he felt the warmth, the light, sharply cutting through the cold of the day, the cold of his soul.
And then he ran.