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Sango held her breath and fidgeted with her hands in her lap as Kaede finished wrapping her sprained ankle.
“Well, the good news is,” Kaede began slowly, gently setting Sango’s foot down on the ground, “it’s only a mild sprain. Now, the swelling has gone down considerably, but even so, ye will need to stay off ye’s foot for a few weeks so ye’s ankle can heal properly.”
Sango had to bite down on her tongue to keep from groaning in frustration. How could she have been so careless during yesterday’s extermination? How could she, who was supposed to be the ideal model of stamina and stealth, have possibly missed that hole in the ground and stepped right into it? She wanted to rip her hair out every time she remembered the awkward step and subsequent fall, but it was more than the blow to her pride and reputation that concerned her.
As Kaede collected and put away her supplies, it was Kohaku, and only Kohaku, that Sango worried about.
He must have been disappointed when she hadn't shown up yesterday morning to see him. That was her promise to him. Every ten days, she and Kirara would make the long trip to the same village outskirts to see Kohaku, alongside Sesshomaru and Rin, to check on him and spend time with him. Until today, she had been good on her promise, showing up every ten days without fail to tell him stories of his past, their past, in the hopes that he would regain his memory.
Sango's heart shattered at the thought of breaking that promise, as well as the one she'd made to herself. No, she couldn’t fail him, not when every time she was so much closer…
Not when she was so much closer to pulling Kohaku from the edge of the dark abyss of forgetting, when she came closer and closer to repairing and healing their bond. She couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t let Naraku win.
At the first opportunity, she would sneak away with Kirara and make a run for it.
Kaede must have seen the wheels turning in Sango’s head and gave her a knowing glance. The old woman moved to the opposite end of the hut and picked up a set of wooden crutches.
“I sense that something besides your injury troubles ye,” she said, offering Sango the crutches. Sango’s stomach sank as she accepted them reluctantly, already feeling the dread of having to use these sticks to walk for the next few weeks.
Nonetheless, Sango forced a smile and bowed her head in gratitude. "Oh, it's nothing, Kaede-sama. Thank you so much for your help. I really–"
A cacophony of hurried footsteps and frantic shouts interrupted Sango from finishing her words.
"What in the heavens?" Kaede moved to the doorway and pushed the curtain aside as the panicked screams of the villagers filled the hut and sent Sango’s heart racing.
Sango used the crutches to get up from the stool on which she'd been sitting, and after a moment of assessing the situation, Kaede turned to Sango with concern all over her face.
“Stay here.” She shot Sango a warning look, leaving no room for interpretation. Those two words were clearly an order for her to not follow.
But as soon as Kaede was gone, Sango was already up and ditching the crutches that had been so kindly procured for her. She wouldn’t hear the end of it from Kaede when this was over, but the adrenaline was already pumping through her veins, her entire body entering battle mode.
Sango emerged from the hut and straight into the chaos. Women and children were racing for the safety of their huts, while the village men ran toward the threat, weapons in hand.
“Youkai! Youkai!” the villagers shouted.
Kirara was already at Sango’s side to take her companion to safety, but Sango could never turn away from a fight. She’d fought with far worse injuries than this and had continued fighting. A sprained ankle would not stop her from protecting her friends and the village.
Sango could see the concern in Kirara’s eyes as she limped over to Hiraikotsu, which she'd leaned against Kaede’s hut earlier and picked it up, careful not to put all the weight on her injury.
"Let's go, Kirara." Sango hobbled toward her, barely able to keep Hiraikotsu from dragging on the ground behind her.
Kirara growled in protest at her stubbornness, but Sango only had to give her battle companion a serious, determined look before Kirara snorted and shook her head in defeat.
There was no time to run back to her hut and change into her uniform. She’d have to fight in her day clothes, which meant getting on Kirara would prove to be another feat in itself, and she was forced to forfeit her usual grace with which she mounted the demon cat. Her limbs were a flailing mess as she relied on only one leg and her upper body strength to climb on, and every movement was met with involuntary tears and gritted teeth as her ankle throbbed.
Once she sat atop Kirara as securely as possible, Kirara got a running start and propelled them into the air. They soared high above the chaos and flew rapidly toward the threat. From a high altitude, Sango would have an advantage over the intruder and be able to fight it from an angle it probably wasn’t expecting.
Down below, the villagers were frantically getting into position, aiming their weapons readily in the direction of the youkai. She quickly scanned the scene below, her eyes sweeping upwards along the crowd until she spotted her friends on the front lines. They stood side by side in battle stances, forming a protective wall between the enemy and the villagers.
Except the entity they were standing face-to-face with wasn’t an enemy.
Not anymore.
At least not to her.
Even if her sharp eyes had failed her - if she had been unable to identify his long, silver hair; his tall build; the curved spikes of his armor; the mokomoko draped over his shoulder - his demonic aura would have tipped her off. She’d spent enough time up to this point with the daiyoukai to commit it to memory and be able to distinguish it from all others.
Sango clenched her jaw, her eyes trained on their clearly unwelcome surprise visitor, wondering what the hell he was doing here. Surely he knew better than to set foot within several ri of the village, especially after he and Inuyasha had accorded to keeping the peace by ensuring to never come into proximity of one another, not even by accident.
For Sesshomaru to break that agreement, his reason had to be serious.
As she studied him from her vantage point, Sango realized that the daiyoukai’s attention wasn’t even focused on the immediate threat of the small army that stood before him ready to strike.
His head was angled upwards; his eyes completely locked on her and Kirara.
What are you doing here, Sesshomaru?
Sango’s heart dropped down into her stomach and her mouth went dry as her worst fear came to mind.
“Kohaku,” she gasped. “Something must have happened to Kohaku!”
“Down, Kirara!” Sango ordered, and they immediately began their rapid descent toward the battlefront where Inuyasha and Sesshomaru stood facing one another. The daiyoukai didn’t seem too concerned with his opponents and the small army behind them. His gaze remained fixed on Sango and Kirara as they descended, and when Kirara’s feet finally touched ground halfway between Inuyasha and his brother, Sango and Sesshomaru instantly locked eyes.
“Sango! What the hell are you doing?” Inuyasha yelled from behind her, but Sango’s priority wasn’t to provide explanations.
“Stay back! I’ll handle this!” she ordered over her shoulder.
“Like hell! He knows damn well he’s not welcome here and the consequences if he shows his face. Clearly he’s trying to pick a fight, and if that’s what he wants, that’s what he gets!”
“My business is not with you,” Sesshomaru responded, completely unfazed by Inuyasha’s threats. “I have come to speak with the taijiya.”
“See? He’s not here to cause trouble. Tell everyone to stand down and instruct the villagers to put down their weapons and go home,” Sango commanded, hanging on the minuscule hope that the daiyoukai’s non-confrontational behavior and his word would be enough to diffuse the situation.
Inuyasha’s jaw nearly hit the ground from shock, and he began to grumble and protest, but Kagome quickly interrupted him, reassuring him that Sango knew what she was doing.
Her friends were well aware of her periodic visits to Kohaku and her inevitable interactions with Sesshomaru. What everyone didn’t know yet, except for Kagome, to whom she told everything, was that she and Sesshomaru had established trust in one another, but Sango still wasn’t quite sure if she could call themselves friends. She had yet to disclose this to Inuyasha because she knew he wasn’t ready to hear it, but she was thankful that she had Kagome to whom she could divulge everything about her meetings with her brother’s protector and who would listen without judgment, even if Sesshomaru wasn’t her favorite person.
Sango felt the heat of everyone’s stares as she ushered Kirara forward, leaving Kagome and Kaede behind to placate the villagers, who were becoming restless and concerned at the events unfolding before their eyes. But that wasn’t her concern. The only thing that mattered was making sure Kohaku was alright, and so she drowned out the villagers’ questions and complaints, focusing solely on closing the distance between her and the daiyoukai.
Kirara stopped just a few feet in front of him and began to growl. Sango may have finally come to trust him, but Kirara remained wary of him and made sure that he was aware of that fact every chance she could.
The last thing on Sango’s mind was to dismount carefully, and she threw her injured leg over Kirara’s back as usual and slid down her companion’s side. Once her feet hit the ground, though, sharp spurts of pain shot up her right leg, knocking the breath out of her. She winced and tears formed at the edges of her eyes. She instinctively gripped Kirara’s fur and hoisted herself upward just enough to relieve some of the weight on her injured ankle.
Kirara turned to look back at her partner, and Sango twisted her body around to bury her face in her fur, comforting herself in its softness and waiting for the intense throbbing in her ankle to subside before making any other movements.
When she had finally succeeded in evening her labored, shaky breaths and the pain was bearable, she turned toward Sesshomaru again, calculating that she only needed to take a few more steps to reach an appropriate distance for them to be able to speak comfortably. Yet, the thought of taking even one small step seemed daunting. She internally cursed the vulnerability and helplessness that flooded her, but she had no choice. She had to move forward.
Sango turned her body to face Sesshomaru, who regarded her with the same stoic expression he always wore, but he had to be wondering what the hell her problem was. Still, he said nothing as Sango braced herself on her good leg and lifted the injured one to take her first step. But even holding onto Kirara and using her as support wasn’t enough to minimize the pain. The second the tip of her right foot touched the ground, another round of excruciating pain pulsed up her leg and caused her to see stars.
Stepping down on her right leg was completely out of the question, no matter how hard she had tried to force herself to make it work and she reactively tucked her leg back, compromising her balance.
Her hold on Kirara's fur had loosened and she missed her opportunity to strengthen it as she began plummeting toward the ground at full speed. She extended her arms outward, hoping she could at least lessen the impact of the fall and maybe even avoid the mouthful of dirt she anticipated.
But her body never collided with the ground.
As the pain subsided and her vision focused, she became aware of a strong pair of hands gripping her forearms and supporting her.
She lifted her gaze to look up at her savior's face, and upon staring into Sesshomaru's bright golden eyes, she suddenly remembered what she was doing here in the first place.
"Kohaku! Did something happen to Kohaku? Is he alright?" she demanded, frantically pulling on the sleeves of his robe and thrashing in his grip.
A panicked, injured Sango in the arms of a daiyoukai must have been quite the sight for the villagers and that alone was enough to induce chaos.
Gasps and battle cries erupted among the villagers.
“The youkai has Lady Sango!”
“We must attack now!”
“Prepare to meet your doom, youkai!”
“Unhand Lady Sango at once, vile creature of hell!”
But at the moment, Sango could not hear the villagers’ screams and threats as they were drowned and blocked out by Sango’s concern over Kohaku.
"Kohaku is safe," Sesshomaru reassured her.
Relief flooded her body and she could finally allow herself to relax, trusting that Sesshomaru would not let her fall as her shoulders sagged.
"Wait," she said, furrowing her brow, "then why are you here?"
Sango was taken aback when he answered at a lower volume than he was accustomed to using as if he were telling her a secret that no one else was to know.
"When you did not come yesterday, I became concerned."
Sango’s eyes widened at his explanation, and she had to blink a couple of times to make sure she was actually conscious.
Concerned? The great Lord Sesshomaru had come all this way and risked his life because he was worried about her?
An intense heat spread across her face at the realization, but now was hardly the time to process the implications of what he’d just said.
“I’m sorry, I had no way of letting you know,” she stuttered, getting the words out of her mouth was posing a challenge.
Sesshomaru’s eyes shifted down to her sprained ankle and then back to hers.
“You’re hurt.”
If she had not been paying close attention, she would have missed the subtle flash of worry in his eyes.
“It’s just a twisted ankle. I’m alright.” She felt her face grow hot again, and his proximity only made it worse.
Although the throbbing ache had subsided substantially now that Sesshomaru supported some of her weight, it was still intense. The pulses of pain caused her to wince synchronously with each heart beat.
Sesshomaru didn’t seem the least bit convinced that she was alright, and in one graceful, sweeping motion, he bent down, pressing one hand on her back and the other behind her knee, scooping her off of the ground.
Sango’s arms automatically clasped his neck. She dangled there in the daiyoukai’s arms too stunned to speak, and not brave enough to turn her burning face upwards to meet his gaze.
Kirara snarled, her fur standing on end and head lowered.
"It's okay, Kirara. I'm okay," Sango reassured her in a low, soothing voice.
She was sure that Kirara wouldn’t have hesitated to rip his head off if he wasn’t currently holding Sango in his arms.
Kirara wasn’t the only one who needed reassurance that Sango was alright. From across the way, the villagers were still demanding to know why her friends were doing nothing to save their beloved taijiya from Sesshomaru’s clutches.
There was only so much Kaede and Kagome could do to keep the villagers calm and under control, so Sango figured that if they heard it from her that she was perfectly safe they’d finally agree to put their weapons down and go home.
Sango finally looked up at Sesshomaru. When he reciprocated her gaze, her heart fluttered and she couldn't understand why.
She swallowed through the sensation.
“Would you carry me just a little closer to everyone?” she asked, and his brow slanted upward in curiosity.
She expected him to ignore her request, but then he began the short walk back toward the same mob that threatened to destroy him just moments ago.
Countless pairs of eyes were trained on them as Sango began to speak.
”As you can see, Sesshomaru has come in peace. Please, put down your weapons and return to your homes and children. There is no danger here!"
Instead of clapping and cheering, Sango was met with dumbfounded stares and mouths agape in shock at the sight of the taijiya comfortably nestled in the arms of a daiyoukai. Sango had worked hard to have a good reputation with the villagers, but after today, she knew they'd never look at her the same way again.
It wasn't until Kaede began shooing everyone away and shouting "Off with ye!" that the villagers finally began to disperse and head to their homes.
"I will take you to Kohaku."
Sango's gaze snapped upward. "Kohaku’s here?"
Sesshomaru nodded and without wasting another second, he turned around and began walking away from the village, which Sango did not question.
"He is nearby. He is with Rin and Jaken."
Sango sighed in relief. Kohaku was safe, and he was here! Thanks to Sesshomaru, she'd get to keep her promise after all.
She was preparing to thank him when Kagome approached and asked if she would be alright. She offered to accompany them, but Sango reassured her they would be fine. Kirara would be coming along of course, and Sesshomaru didn't pose a threat to either of them. She'd be perfectly safe in his company, which was something that would’ve never even crossed her mind a few months ago.
A sulking Inuyasha stood in the background with his arms folded across his chest, his mouth twisted downward in a pout. He'd hold a grudge for days for interfering in his quarrel with his older brother, and Sango made a mental note to fix things with the hanyou as soon as possible.
Sango glanced back at her friends over Sesshomaru's shoulder and watched them grow smaller. The only one missing from that scene was Miroku, who had most likely retired with the villagers since he could hardly stand the sight of her these days.
Asking for a break from their engagement had not been easy for her, and he was only making the ordeal more painful and difficult.
A passing breeze brushed past them, filling her nostrils with Sesshomaru's scent. He smelled of wild lavender and azaleas, as if he'd trekked through fields of them, his kimono becoming completely infused with their sweet, intoxicating scent.
Sango fought the urge to bury her nose in his shoulder and inhale as much of it as she could. All she had to do was turn her head ever so slightly–
She couldn’t believe what she had just imagined. Being in his arms already felt strange, like they were too close. Was it uncomfortable for him to touch her, to hold her like this? How would he have reacted if she had buried her face in his kimono? Sesshomaru certainly didn’t seem like the kind who welcomed physical touch or used it as anything but a weapon, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what he’d do if she reached up to touch his face, if she kissed his cheek–
Sango shut her eyes tightly in shame and tried to erase those thoughts from her brain. She almost wished she’d hit her head on a rock and reset her brain because she was not thinking clearly.
"Is something the matter?" Sesshomaru's voice snapped her out of her embarrassing thoughts, leaving her flustered.
"No! Not at all," she stammered, her cheeks once again sporting that scorching, red blush that always seemed to lie right beneath the surface of her skin, ready to give her away at any moment.
“You don’t have to carry me. I can ride Kirara,” she suggested, not minding that she was still in his arms, but putting distance between them would certainly keep her thoughts from drifting into inappropriate places.
"I do not mind," he answered, his gaze fixed straight ahead. "We have almost arrived."
They had been walking through the dense woods for some time now, and Sesshomaru veered off the path and followed the sound of slow-moving water.
After a few more moments of dodging bushes and branches, they emerged from the woods and onto the open, flat, and grassy banks of a stream.
Sesshomaru stopped at a spot by the stream and set Sango down with minimal unnecessary movement of her ankle.
Sango watched the little wrinkles appear in his brow as he clearly concentrated intensely on setting her down with great care. She'd only ever witnessed him concentrate this hard during battle, never when caring for another human being. Hell, she'd never seen him physically care for another being period until now.
If yesterday anyone had tried telling her that the Lord of the West himself was capable of caring at all for anything, she would have laughed in their face and thought they’d lost their mind.
Now she was the fool, swallowing each and every word making up each of her assumptions that he was presently proving wrong.
Sango sat quietly and fidgeted with her hands, expecting Sesshomaru to turn around and wander off to retrieve her brother. She was confused and surprised as Sesshomaru removed his mokomoko and coiled it into a cushion.
Sango intended to ask him what he was doing, but then he crouched down in front of her and gently lowered her ankle onto his mokomoko. The touch of his hands on her heel sent tingles running up her leg and she almost reactively pulled it back. Her eyes rose from where her ankle lay to his gaze, and she found him doing the same. She wanted to thank him for the gesture, but she was too dumbstruck to speak. She sat there helplessly frozen, the only change happening on her face as it flushed red under the intensity of his stare.
Artwork by classysassy9791
An eternity could have passed in the span of time they spent looking into each other's eyes, as silent and still as statues.
A rustling in some nearby bushes startled Sango out of her trance and her head whipped in the direction of the sound.
"Lord Sesshomaru! We were starting to grow worried!" Jaken's shrill voice pierced the calm of the forest and gentle rushing of the stream.
Sango's eyes lit up as Kohaku emerged from the bushes behind the imp, followed by Rin.
Sesshomaru rose to his feet.
"Come, Rin."
Without another word he retreated back into the forest with Rin and Jaken in tow. As he walked by in front of her, Jaken huffed, looking at her foot, and shot her a look of disgust. Clearly he did not like that Sesshomaru had allowed Sango to use his mokomoko.
Sango and Kohaku visited first, as was their ritual. They'd share what each had been up to, where they'd gone, what they'd seen. Sango kept her portion of the sharing short, allowing Kohaku to do most of the talking. She was much more interested to know if he was well, at peace, happy.
"Lord Sesshomaru takes good care of me, and I enjoy Rin and Master Jaken's company," he assured her. "I feel happy by their side."
Kohaku's comment was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, she was relieved and happy to hear that he was well, but on the other, she wanted nothing more than for him to be by her side, to love and protect him from the world like she used to before Naraku had wiped all his memories.
Kohaku looked down at her ankle with concern.
“Are you alright? What happened to you?”
His worry for her filled her with an indescribable joy. Sometimes she felt like she would never make enough progress with him, but it was those little moments, those tiny gleams of light, that gave her hope and kept her walking through the darkness.
"It’s just a small, silly injury," she explained, flashing him a warm smile, which he reciprocated. "I'll be fine in no time."
Sango sensed their visit gradually coming to an end, but she had to ask before they said their goodbyes.
“Have any–have any more returned?” she asked gently.
Sometimes she thought it best to avoid the question. She didn't want to cause him stress or make him feel pressured to remember, but her need to know always won out, and she would ask, hoping that if any memories had resurfaced, they'd only be happy ones, those preserving small pieces of time that were forever pure, full of joy, and untainted by the tragedy that had suddenly pervaded their lives.
Kohaku shook his head and turned his face away as if in shame.
"Only nightmares," he half-whispered, his shoulders shuddering as he recounted drowning in a dark, thick ocean of faces - faces he felt like he should have remembered but just couldn't. They screamed "why?" at him and grabbed at his limbs, trying to pull him deeper into the abyss.
"Sometimes you're there, too, crying… And when I wake up, I'm crying, too," he continued, his face contorting in a grimace of pain.
Kohaku's pain was Sango's as well, and she reached for his hand, covering it gently with her own. She was overcome with the urge to pull him close and rock him in her arms until she dispelled every last hint of fear and guilt that burdened his heart. But she didn't want to overwhelm him with her touch, and settled instead for giving it a reassuring squeeze.
His gaze rose tentatively, his eyes struggling to meet her own. "Should I–should I know who they are?"
Sometimes Sango considered explaining everything to him, saving them from the excruciatingly slow torture of waiting for those key pieces to fall into place and string the memories together, but there was never an easy way to do it, not without destroying the peace he’d finally regained after all the pain and confusion he’d experienced under Naraku’s control.
Even if she really wanted to shed light on the meaning of his nightmares, she just couldn’t find the right words to begin to explain them. Sango didn’t consider herself a coward, but this task was much too frightening, so much more daunting than fighting the vilest of youkai.
She prepared herself to lie to him for the sake of protecting them both, and prayed that when the truth finally came to light, he would find it in him to forgive her for not having had the strength to tell him the truth.
Before she had a chance to respond, Sesshomaru emerged suddenly from the woods and walked toward them.
“Kohaku, Rin is asking for you. She requires your assistance,” he ordered, his eyes darting back and forth between Kohaku and Sango, the subtle tell making it clear to Sango that he’d interfered on purpose, saving her from having to lie to her brother. Sango’s shoulders sagged in relief, and her eyes shone with silent gratitude to Sesshomaru for saving her yet again today.
With that Kohaku rose, his hand sliding from beneath Sango’s grasp, remaining totally oblivious to the silent exchange that had taken place between the daiyoukai and the taijiya. He smiled and bowed to Sango, wishing her well.
“Take care, Lady Sango. I look forward to our next visit.”
Her brother’s use of the word “lady” stung, and she longed for the days when he’d call her “sister.” She wished that day would come soon where they would talk to each other like they used to, but returning to that place in their relationship would be a long, arduous journey, one that drove her to curse Naraku’s name each and every day of her life. She waited anxiously for the day she would have him in her clutches and annihilate him, just as he had annihilated her family, her peace, her happiness.
“You, too, Kohaku.” Outwardly she smiled, but on the inside she was fighting the urge to cry, a battle that continued as she watched him walk away.
“What if it’s for the best that he never regains his memories?” she asked. She had only meant to think it, but it was out in the open now for the daiyoukai to ponder, too.
Sesshomaru sat cross-legged a few feet away from her, with his gaze on the stream, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment.
“Recovering his memories will be inevitable.” Her body straightened up at the sound of his voice, surprised that he was offering her a response. His sharp, golden eyes remained on the stream, the surface glittering beneath an evening sun that was beginning its descent toward the horizon. She followed his line of sight toward the stream, the gentle, even sound of the water rushing downstream failing to ease the pain in her heart.
“But he will heal. As will you.” Sesshomaru uttered the words with a sincere certainty, a quality she would have never imagined his voice could possess. If he had just lied through his teeth, Sango wouldn’t have known, and she allowed herself the rare luxury of believing in his words, in his faith in her. It was strangely comforting.
They sat together in silence for a while longer. Kirara must have finally deemed it safe to leave Sango alone with Sesshomaru, and she rose to her feet, shooting Sesshomaru a warning look before running off to find Kohaku and Rin in the woods.
When they had first begun these meetings, Sango had struggled to start talking. She had felt silly then, pathetic and vulnerable, but it had been part of the deal they’d made with one another, and if she had wanted to continue seeing Kohaku, she’d have to talk about her past and present, her childhood, her memories: whatever story she would spare, Sesshomaru wanted to hear it.
Sango would never feel as awkward as she had during those first few meetings. Her stories were interjected with long gaps of silence as she racked her brain for details and swallowed her indignation at having to share fragments of her past with a being she had considered an enemy for such a long time. But with every meeting, she grew more comfortable being herself with him, and as her trust in Sesshomaru strengthened, it became easier for her to begin and harder for her to stop.
She would talk and talk until her throat was sore and she couldn’t utter another word. She would recount stories from when she was a child in the taijiya village, her early days as a taijiya in training, stories of her parents, losing her mother, the first time she held baby Kohaku in her arms. The painful memories flowed out just as easily as the happy ones, and she oftentimes found herself digging her nails into her skin to fight back tears.
After the first few instances of oversharing, she would walk away feeling foolish and embarrassed, asking herself how a heartless creature like him could possibly care about a human being as insignificant as her. For all she knew, he could have been gathering information to use against her down the line, but he’d yet to bring up anything she had ever told him.
Sesshomaru just listened. He never interjected or asked questions. Most of the time he sat so still and silent, all of his focus trained on her, that she wondered whether he was even listening to her at all or simply tuning her out.
Sango liked to think that he was, that beneath the battle-hardened muscles of his chest he possessed a heart that cared, even just a little. To her these sessions had grown to mean more than just a deal. They had become her opportunity to open up her heart and purge herself of everything that troubled her. It was healing, liberating.
Tonight she told him of the time the young boys in her village were obsessed with tree-climbing. Sango and her father had warned a seven-year-old Kohaku not to give into the pressure of his peers, that he could be seriously hurt if something went wrong, but Kohaku had not listened. As he was climbing one of the tallest trees on the outskirts of the village, the branch he stood on snapped, but fortunately for him, his fall was broken by a large bush.
“The good news was that the bush had cushioned his fall and prevented him from sustaining any serious injuries. The bad news was that he had landed on a poison ivy bush. He couldn’t stop scratching for weeks!”
Sango had barely gotten through the story without laughing, and the more she thought about it the harder she laughed. Her bright, cheerful laughter only intensified and she would have folded over and kicked her legs as she clutched her abdomen had her ankle not been in the state that it was. She must have looked like a crazy person as her body shook with laughter and tears streamed down her face.
Once she had calmed herself down and wiped the tears from her face, she glanced over at Sesshomaru, who otherwise remained stoic except for the amusement that flashed across his eyes as he stared at her.
The scenery before them hinted at the initial phases of sunset, signaling that it was time for her to leave. She wouldn’t have minded staying longer, but Sesshomaru, Kohaku, and Rin had a long journey home ahead of them, and she wasn’t fond of the idea of them traveling through the forests at night.
“I should be going now, and you all should, too,” she suggested, shifting her body as if to get up, but knowing full well it would lack her usual finesse.
Kirara appeared at her side, but Sesshomaru was faster, and he quickly offered her a hand that she gladly accepted. She balanced all of her weight on her good leg, keeping her balance by gripping Sesshomaru’s forearms like she’d done before when he’d caught her.
Sango inhaled deeply; his proximity and the fact that she was pinned in between the daiyoukai and Kirara caused her heart to flutter. She wished she could explain away what she was feeling as profound gratitude, but the unexpected kind, caring, gentle side of him he’d revealed to her captivated her in a way that she couldn’t use words to describe. She could only let herself feel as she gazed up into his exquisitely beautiful face.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for Kohaku, for me.”
“I will bring Kohaku again in ten days,” he promised.
Sango shook her head.
“I’ll probably be better by then. I’ll come to you. I don’t want you to have any more issues with the villagers and, well, Inuyasha.”
But Sesshomaru wouldn’t budge.
“Their threats are of no concern to me. Your only concern, taijiya, should be to rest and heal. I will deal with all other matters.”
Before she could open her mouth to protest, Sesshomaru grabbed her by the waist, completely catching her off guard, his touch wiping all thoughts from her mind.
He gently placed her atop Kirara’s back and Sango immediately gripped her fur tightly for fear that her racing heart might propel her into the sky.
Sesshomaru accompanied them through the woods until they reached the main path that would take them back to the village.
Sango would have missed him, too. She was certain of it now as she looked back at him one last time. If Sesshomaru hadn’t come looking for her this morning, she would have worried about Kohaku as usual, but she would have been thinking about Sesshomaru, too.
She'd be thinking about him until she saw him again in ten days.
Would he be thinking about her, too?
She gave him one small, final wave before she and Kirara disappeared over a small hill.
The hint of a smile that had graced his lips was enough to make her wish for something selfish. To others, he was the daiyoukai of the west, a demon of renowned strength and reputation that unfurled across the land. He was a cold-hearted monster who cared for no one.
To everyone else, he was all that and more.
But not to her.