Innocent Beginnings

Chapter 16

Insights And Goodbyes


“…and you’ll email me…”, Sesshomaru frowned, his fingers tightening on my shoulder.

“Yes, I’ll email you.”, I answered, smiling up at him.

“So why aren’t you asking me if I’ll email YOU?”, he asked after a brief pause, his frown deepening.

“Because I know you’re busy and I don’t want to get my hopes up again, Sesshomaru. I want to be excited when I get your mails but I don’t want to have to COUNT on them. Do you understand?”, I pleaded.

“I guess.”, he muttered before pulling me close.

Two weeks had passed since he’d come back home and now he was leaving me again. I’d cried my share of painful tears but not in front of him. Every ounce had soaked my pillow late at night as I’d lain in bed… worried about him with his mysterious brunette. I’d never asked him about her and I supposed I never would. I just had to trust that he cared for me in a shadow of the same way as I did for him. I knew he couldn’t say it… he didn’t even really want to FEEL it. That much I could discern by the way he’d reacted after he’d kissed me on the porch as we’d waited for our pizza to be delivered.

He’d been more quiet than was normal for him, but more tender as well in the days following that wonderful kiss. It seemed he was always finding some reason to touch me - my hair, my face, or just hog myg my hand and truth be told, I was in heaven. Touching Sesshomaru and having him touch me was a dream come true… yet I ached for what I still could not yet have. And I could not have it because of conventionality because it wasn’t ‘right’. Because he was ‘too old’ for me…

We hadn’t kissed again since that night but I’d held onto the sweet memory of it, reliving it over and over again every time I found myself alone. It had been warm and sweet… with so much promise underneath the simplicity of it. Actions spoke louder than words - I knew that and in this case, it was definitely true. What Sesshomaru could not say aloud to me, he’d fully expressed in his actions.

Yet I found myself worried about the effect all of it would have on him. It didn’t seem we could talk about what we felt… discuss it. It was as if we both KNEW it; we realized the feelings were there but we just couldn’t ‘let go’ and recognize them together, with each other. I didn’t want to put any pressure on him… I didn’t feel I had the ri He He had so much going on in his life and I knew thatas oas one of his ‘touch stones’ - that he relied on me when he needed to feel connected to family and home… when he just needed to simply be, Sesshomaru.

Selfishly, there had been times when all I’d wanted to do was cling to him and beg of him to acknowledge what I knew he felt for me deep in his heart. Yet it was at those times I found mf dof doing just the reverse in order to protect myself. I pulled away from him until at some po I’d I’d find those big golden eyes on me, worry and concern shining in their clear amber depths. And then reluctantly, but because I loved him with all my heart, I’d climb out of the shell that I’d hastily erected around myself and smile at him once again until, at some point, I felt the need to build those tender walls once more in order to guard my heart from the ache he’d unknowingly created. It seemed that in those particular moments, all he really needed from me was the reassurance that everything was good with us, that we were ok. And that I gave to him freely, it was the least I could do.

Pulled back into the present by a persistent tugging on my hands, I looked up and into his eyes once more with a smile.

“Zoning?”, he inquired, sounding just a bit impatient as he lifted a gorgeous brow at what he considered my worst habit.

“Yeah, sorry.”, I grinned, squeezing his hands with my own. “I’m gonna miss your bossiness, your teasing, youryour pouting, you know!”

“Jeez, Rin! Am I really all that bad?”, he asked, pulling me against him as he wrapped an arm about my shoulders to keep me near. He needn’t have worried - I wasn’t planning to leave his side until he told me the time had come for him to go.

“No, Sesshomaru. You’re not that bad.”, I smiled against his chest, closing my eyes as I breathed in the scent of him.

“Well, thanks a whole hell of a lot for THAT!”, he mumbled as his fingers toyed with the ends of my hair. “Say! You never told me! What can I bring you back from America?”

“Well, let‘s see…”, I pretended to think really hard.

“What?”, he asked, excitedly. “You’ve thought of something?”

I never asked him for anything but his time, I guessed, and God knew that was more than enough for me! Yet he was forever questioning me to find out what I liked, wanted or needed and I was sure that if I had done as he wanted and answered his endless queries, he’d have brought my fondest wishes back to me in a gift bag the very next day. He was just too good to me and I knew it.

“Damn it, Rin! WHAT can I bring back for you??”, he frowned, his eyes narrowing as he strove for patience. God knew he had very little of that particular trait!

“Just yourself, Sesshomaru. Safe and sound.”, I said after a slight pause. “I want to see you the very day you return home.”, I said, feeling the lgrowgrow larger in my throat.

“Well, hell! You know I’ll be doing that already, Rin! I meant someTHING!”, he prodded, butting his chin against the tip of my nose.

“Nothing, Sesshomaru. Really. I have so much from you already. You’ve been so sweet and kind to me! I just want you.”, I said softly, my eyes drifting down as I realized that maybe I’d said a little TOO much this time. Yet I couldn’t help myself - I adored him and he WAS all I really wanted in the world.

“Rin.”, his voice warm and soft yet insistent.

“Yeah, Sesshomaru Hara?”, I smiled into his chest, suddenly shy.

“Look up here for a minute.”, he said.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because!”

“Because WHY?”

Because I love you…

“C’mon Rin! I’m up here!”, he pouted, jutting his chest forward in order to get my attention so I’d do as he wished.

I looked up then just as he’d asked, my eyes threatening to spill their as yet unshed tears. I hadn’t wanted to CRY! Especially not He He was leaving and I didn’t want his last memory of me to be of a sobbing, hysterical teenage girl with a runny, red nose and watery eyes.

“Have you not yet realized exactly what you mean to me?”, he asked softly, moving his hands up to tenderly cup my face as his eyes locked with mine.

“Yes, Sesshomaru.”, I answered, for I really did realize it, perhaps more than he would ever know and I found myself wondering did HE really grasp what he felt in his secret heart for ME - did he recognize his true emotions for what they really were?.

“Then you know I feel the same…”, he said, taking a deep breath before he suddenly stopped himself.

Panic and alarm swept through me then for as much as I wanted to hear him say he truly LOVED me the way I’d always dreamt of, I was terrified of what that admission might do to him… to us!

“My parents are gone, Sesshomaru.” I said softly, though my heart thumped out a frantic beat. I had to make him see that he didn’t have to admit to his love for me. The affection and friendship would be enough… for now. We had forever to allow our feelings to grow. I just couldn’t risk losing him in any way and I knew him well enough by then to know that if he so much as admitted to what his mixed up feelings about us were doing to him… then he’d regret it horribly later on. He’d probably begin calling himself perverted or something even worse and that, I just couldn’t bear.

“I know your parents are gone, Rin.”, he said, confusion darkening his eyes as his thumbs swept tiny circles over my jaw line. “What has that got to do with me and you?”

“I don’t… I CAN’T… I won’t lose you as well, Sesshomaru. I need you!”, I said meaningfully. Hoping that some day I’d be able to really tell him just how much and in what way I truly DID need him. But for now, my cryptic message would have to suffice.

“I need you too.”, he whispered, his head lowering an inch at a time until his lips were barely touching my own. Our eyes were still locked, our breath mingling in the air between us.

It was going to happen again…

Soft, sweet, slow and warm. I swear he owned the softest pair of lips I’d ever felt. But I’d never really had another’s mouth against my own, had I? And I knew that I never wanted to. Sesshomaru was my strength and my salvation. He was my life line. And someday he would be my lover.

The kiss was like a whisper - our lips barely parted. I felt the pressure of his fingers against my face as if to bring me even closer but I was already as close as I could possibly be to him. My body was flush against his own and I could feel his heat and strength seeping into me bit by bit.

Slowly, his fingers drifted through my hair and he moved his mouth from mine only to return once again - pressing soft, feathery light kisses against them until at last, he stopped.

“I can’t ask you…”, he murmured, his eyes still closed.

I swallowed, my gaze level with his mouth; so soft, so wet, so warm. I knew in that moment that if I were to PUSH just a fraction of an inch more, I’d get from him what I so ached to have. He was close… so very damned close. Yet I couldn’t… I wouldn’t do it to him. I loved him way too much and I knew that no matter what happened in between this time and the next, WE would be well worth the wait.

“You don’t have to ask anything!”, I said, a smile quirking at the corners of my mouth. I had to somehow find the strength to pull both he and I out of this heat we‘d created… out of this fierce and intense need. Still, even if it was the last thing I wanted to do - for succumbing to him was yanking hard at every cell in my body - I knew it was for the best. THIS time I had to be the one in charge…

“But, Rin, you don’t reali-”, he started before I put my fingers to those magically sweet lips and pressed them there.

“I realize you’re wonderful! I realize you’re going to be so busy in the next few months that you won’t know your ass from your pretty head!”, I smiled.

“Rin!”, he frowned. No matter that HE had a case of extreme potty mouth at times - he never wanted to hear one stray curse word come from my own lips. Amusing as it was to me, I’d found that if I ever unconsciously strayed, he was more than quick to jerk me back onto the path of the straight and narrow with no apologies for his own foul mouth whatsoever! And to make matters worse, I’d called him ‘pretty’, which always pissed him off. Gorgeous, beautiful, handsome and sexy were quite alright but pretty just didn’t sit well with my Sesshomaru.

“Sorry!”, I giggled, clapping a hand over my mouth.

“See that you don’t talk that way whilst I’m gone. I know you’ll be preparing yourself to get back to school during your summer break but promise me you’ll act the lady!”, he frowned.

“Oh, Sesshomaru! Please!”, I huffed, my hands now fisted on my hips. NOTHING made me more angry than having him talk down to me.

“I mean it, Rin! If I come back here to some kind of wild and out of control child, you’ll be sorry! I won’t have it!”, he said.

“Oh really?”, I countered, feeling my temper start to rise. “And what of your own behavior?”, I asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you!”

“Rin. I’m a twenty eight year old man and I behave as one. When you’re twenty eight, you can do as you wish. Well… maybe…”, he faltered just a bit.

“Jeez! THIS is exactly what annoys me to no end, Sesshomaru! Being treated like a child by the likes of you! I know what you do when you go traveling! I’ve seen and heard things!”, I blurted, watching as his eyes grew wide.

“You read those trashy magazines?”, he asked, his cheeks burning with rage or maybe shame, I couldn’t tell.

“No!”, I floundered, backtracking now. I’d allowed my temper to get the best of me, something I always seemed to do whenever Sesshomaru was around to goad me to it.

“Then what in the HELL are you talking of?”, he asked, taking a step nearer me.

I took a step back and tried a smile on him. “Just my assumptions…”, I mumbled.

“And just WHAT do you assume of me?”, he asked, stepping forward once more.

“That you party and drink, curse and smoke, have sex and regret it?”, I asked timidly.

His eyes grew even bigger and then he burst out into full, rich laughter - pulling me toward him as he lifted me off the ground and swung me in a circle.

“Dear God, Rin! Have you been hanging outside the clubs I frequent?”, he grinned as he set me on my feet.

Taking a breath, realizing I’d nearly stepped over the invisible line I’d drawn for myself regarding his private life, I smiled back.

Close one…

“Sesshomaru!!”, we both turned toward the voice and I spotted InuYasha hurrying down the slope toward us, long legs closing the distance quickly. “Hi there, Rin!”, he smiled, leaning over to place a polite kiss on my cheek.

“Hi, InuYasha. How are you?”, I asked.

“Good, I think. And you?”

“I’m good, thanks. Ready to leave again?”, I inquired.

“No and yes. I’ll be fine once we leave. Right now I’m missing my boy and my girls!”, he said, a soft look suffusing his handsome face.

“I’m sure.”, I nodded. He looked so young to be a husband and father, I thought. Bless him!

“You ready to go, Sesshomaru? Dad sent me after you a bit early.”, he laughed. “Said I should be trying to rescue poor little Rin for you’d be telling her just how to live her life whilst you’re gone!”. Slanting his py eyy eyes toward mine, he gave me a wink before quickly turning back to Sesshomaru to punch him playfully in the shoulder. “She’s gotten even more pretty since I saw her the last time, Sesshomaru! Did you tell her not to mess about with guys from the wrong side of the tracks, such as yourself?”, he asked.

I laughed at the remark but squealed when Sesshomaru reached over to pinch my ear.

“What the heck was THAT for?”, I moaned, slapping at his hand.

“You think that’s funny? InuYasha you think it’s funny as well?”, Sesshomaru snarled, his eyes shooting daggers at both of us.

“Yeah, it IS funny, right Rin?”, InuYasha grinned, his dimples flashing handsomely. “C’mon Sesshomaru! Let’s go!” he shouted. “Bye, Rin!”, he waved, turning to make his way back up the hill toward his car.

“Take care, InuYasha!”, I called, returning his wave as I giggled at his antics.

“Rin!”, Sesshomaru warned, his fingers closing over my elbow.

“I’m gonna miss you, Bossy!”, I mumbled, throwing myself into his arms in order to forego any more of his lecturing. Holding me tightly, he pressed a kiss to my temple and whispered into my ear.

“I love you, Rin.”

“You better!”, I whispered tightly, the need to cry tearing at the back of my throat as he gave my hands one last squeeze.

“I gotta go. Email me tonight?”, he asked, stepping away from me to walk backward up the hill InuYasha had just disappeared over.

“I’ll do that. Take care. Good luck.”, I called.

“No guys from the wrong side of the track such as me…”, he called out as he turned and jogged to the crest of the hill. When he reached the top, he turned back toward me and waved one final time, blowing me a kiss that I made a show of intercepting.

“Nobody but you, Sesshomaru…”, I whispered, continuing to wave at him until he too disappeared from my sites. “Love you…”, I silently wept, sinking down to the soft grass to wrap my arms about my knees until I felt like going home.