The Glass Wall by Ruriame

The Glass Wall

So I kept changing this idea. A LOT. I started another (short) story that I was planning on using with this prompt, but in the end, I decided it didn’t match quite as well. So I’m back to this idea, which is probably best because this is the real idea I got from listening to the song.

As I thought about it more, this is something pretty similar concept-wise to a one-shot I wrote for a different fandom a few years ago, but they’re not exactly the same, so I think it’s alright. Besides, I didn’t want to sacrifice the feeling just so I could write something completely different when this is pretty much the image the song gave me on first impression. Simple yet deep. I dearly hope it came out that way.

Mysticangeldust's Non Song fic Song Challenge

Song 1: "At the beginning"

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He would not come. Kagome knew this already and yet she sat there, waiting anyway. If it was for him, she could wait as long as eternity. She smiled bitterly to no one in particular, only the air as her witness. Yes, she would wait. It wasn’t nearly enough, but that’s what she would do.

She told herself every year would be the last, but it never was. Kagome should have stopped this nonsense after the first time he didn’t show up. She had justified it every time. It was the fourth year already and she should have been moving on with her life. And yet she sat there, doing nothing but waiting, like she had all the time in the world.

No, he wouldn’t come. But she would wait for him anyway.

***

It had started on a rainy day. Kagome had always disliked rainy days as a child because it meant that she had to stay indoors instead of going out to play. When she got older, she had disliked them because she was always caught unawares without her umbrella and would get soaked, usually resulting in some type of sickness that wouldn’t go away for weeks. Now, as she was older, she was more complacent about it. Rain was a natural phenomenon. It wouldn’t be going away any time soon so she might as well get used to it.

Besides, the rain made a perfect time for staying indoors and cuddling up on the sofa with a nice book. Stereotypical, but perfect. The light pitter patter that could be heard all around was almost relaxing. She might have enjoyed it more had she been at home. As it was, Kagome was on the subway. It was crowded, as usual, but not unbearably so. Today she actually had the luxury of breathing.

Suddenly, the train stopped and Kagome cursed her lack of balance as she braced herself while she fell, only to come in contact with something more solid and warm than the cold floor. She looked up into striking golden eyes. She might have even gasped out loud at their beautiful color.

“Are you alright?” he asked. The deep tone of his voice was soothing, almost like a forgotten lullaby.

“I’m fine,” she answered without thought.

“Good.” was his only reply as he helped her stand upright again.

And then Kagome was alone again. It didn’t seem possible to miss the warmth she had felt as she had leaned on him for a few seconds, but she did. Kagome didn’t often talk on trains, but she felt like she wanted to say something to him, if only to hear his voice again. She stifled the impulse when she realized what she was thinking. Kagome internally shook her head at her silliness. Had she really just thought that?

She didn’t know how many minutes had passed as she berated herself when Kagome heard her stop coming up. She prepared by slowly edging her way to the exit but maybe her center of gravity had still been off from earlier. When the predictable flood of people started to push out, she was caught in the stream and was shoved every which way, inevitably, leading her to fall down gracelessly to the ground.

Prepared to push herself up, Kagome looked to see a hand held out. Her gaze moved upward to the source of the hand and found the same golden eyes staring back at her.

“You seem to have a knack for clumsiness,” he said in amusement.

Kagome would have been insulted, but she could see that he was teasing her. She grabbed his offered hand as he pulled her up.

“And absent-mindedness. Thank you for helping me up.” Kagome graciously thanked.

“It was no trouble. But do be more careful next time. Next time there may not be someone around to catch you.” The man said charmingly, gave a little smile and turned to leave.

Her day had just gotten a little lighter, somehow. Like rays of sunshine peaking through the rain, she felt a little warmer.

***

It was a hot day. Kagome decided that she wanted some ice cream so she got out of her apartment and walked down to the nearest ice cream parlor a couple of blocks away. The walk would be worth the wait if only to escape the heat a little later with the treat.

By the time she had gotten in line and had almost been rung up, Kagome realized her stupid and embarrassing mistake. She had left her wallet at home. She groaned. There would be no easy way to say this to the people working there, but she didn’t have the means to buy the ice cream at that moment. She tried to figure out what she would do. Ask them to wait while she ran back home to get it? No, there was a long line. They had too many people to deal with. Tell them she couldn’t buy it and apologize profusely for the trouble? She wouldn’t be able to show her face around that store for months.

“Well, you see...” Kagome had stated off hesitantly when she had gotten to the register, dreading the next few words she would utter in her undecided state.

“Let me get that for her.”

Kagome turned around to see the man from the train station behind her. She felt a smile creeping up the edges of her mouth even as her situation came back to her and a frown replaced the half-formed smile.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said apologetically as he handed her the ice cream.

“Watching you squirm was uncomfortable even from a far distance. I thought I’d save you the agony.”

She blushed in embarrassment. It would be rude for her to keep pressing him about his decision, so she changed tactics.

“Looks like you saved me again. Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.” he replied genuinely.

She didn’t know what to say for a while. They were standing outside an ice cream parlor with her holding an ice cream cone and him with nothing.

“Would you like some?” Kagome offered after a while. It was all she had with her.

“No, you enjoy it.” he declined politely.

“Are you leaving now?” she asked.

“Yes,” the man answered. She tried to hide her disappointment and flashed a big smile.

“I suppose I’ll have to pay you back one day,” Kagome said, although she was sure she would never see him again. He smiled back at her and she knew that he felt the same way too.

“You do that,” he stated and turned to leave.

After he left, Kagome felt something gooey and cold fall on her arm and realized her ice cream was melting. She gently licked it, looking to where he had disappeared in the crowd. Ice cream had never tasted so bitter.

***

On a particularly windy and overcast day that threatened early snow, Kagome found herself going into a bookstore for shelter from the possible storm. The store was filled but not as much as she would have thought for that type of weather. There was a coat rack where people could put their heavy winter coats because inside the store was much warmer, too warm to keep such clothing on. Kagome shrugged out of hers and hung it on one of the hangings.

Not really knowing what she was looking for, she meandered around. The store had an olden feel to it, fueled even more so by the darkness and screaming wind outside. The lights were made to look like dim candlelight, antique designed furniture all over. It was a comforting warm place. The door had a bell on it and Kagome found that the sound made her look to the door every time even if she knew it was just someone entering.

As the door jingled again, she saw him enter. Of course, she should have expected it to be him. The man from the subway was appearing everywhere. Kagome’s eyes didn’t connect with his, but she could see them with clarity. It was unmistakably him, and he looked rushed. Maybe even stressed. He took off his coat and began his mission; Kagome assumed it was a search for some type of book. But the man was there with a purpose, she could tell. As he perused through different shelves, she found herself following him.

He seemed to find what he was looking for pretty quickly. Realizing how stupid she was acting, Kagome questioned herself over what she was doing. She wasn’t the stealthiest person in the world; he had probably known she was there the whole time and she put her face in her palm over her idiocy, moaning softly in annoyance at herself.

When she decided this had to stop, she saw the man had made a purchase and swiftly headed straight for the door. That would have been enough reason for her to leave him alone when she noticed that he had forgotten something important: his coat. The weather outside was terrible. Kagome went for the coat that she saw him put on the rack and ran out the door.

“Wait,” she called out, hoping he would hear her and that he hadn’t gotten too far.

He turned back and saw her standing there. Like her earlier reaction, he somehow didn’t look surprised to see her.

“Your coat,” she said, holding it out to him. He walked slowly over to her and took the coat from her hands. Now that it was gone, Kagome realized just how cold it was and her immediate reaction was to try to conserve body heat by rubbing her arms from the numbing cold.

“I guess I saved you this time.” Kagome said lightly.

“Hn,” he acknowledged.

He had made no move to put on the coat and the both of them just stood there in the freezing wind. She felt like he was waiting for her to do something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. But Kagome thought maybe she was reading too much into it. Their interactions had always been short with no strings attached. So she did the only thing she could think of.

Kagome smiled warmly, backing away slowly before turning around completely. Then she waved at him, without bothering to look back.

She had paid him back in a sense, something she had never expected would happen. And somehow, the feeling wasn’t as satisfying as she originally thought it would have been. When she got back inside the store, she wondered how it was possible for her to feel colder in there than it had outside. And Kagome thought perhaps she was numb.

***

When real life became too much, Kagome would seek out places that would bring her comfort. One day she gotten on a train and let it take her as far as it would go. It ended at a location that she couldn’t recognize at all. How far had she gone?

The setting was simple. There were no complex architecture, everything was functional, but that was all it was. She stood on the wooden platform and looked around. There was actually quite a lot of greenery around, the feeling in the air almost peaceful. Stops were never like this in the city. And Kagome loved it. She sat there simply to enjoy the quiet offered by the secluded location. A train would certainly come every so often, but it wouldn’t mar the beauty of the place.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice jolted her from her reverie.

She found she wasn’t that surprised to see him yet again, but that didn’t make her any less pleased that he was there. Kagome shook her head and he sat down on the bench next to her. Then they conversed about anything and everything. When they ran out of things to say, he stood up and she asked if he was leaving already. He replied that he had things to do, but he would come back, if she would be there again. It was an invitation she hadn’t refused.

Next week, the same time, they would meet at the same location.

And so they did.

She had come early, but so had he.

They would go there just to sit and talk together. They had different thoughts, different lives. And yet when they came there together, it would all be forgotten. It was always the same, never revealing too much, but not too littler either. They smiled at one another. What were they searching for? Kagome thought that maybe it was the same thing. And that was why they sat there together. To simply be.

Taking time out of their everyday lives, they would come every so often to meet. It started off as every week. Then every month, every few months, until it suddenly became only once a year. One day, he stopped coming completely. They had never exchanged information, always assuming the other would just be there. And that had seemed to work at the time.

The first time he hadn’t come, Kagome hadn’t been too shocked. Disappointed, but not surprised. If he hadn’t been the one to skip out first, she was sure she would have at some point. Life had a way of catching up on you when you least expected it.

But then he didn’t come the next year either. And she faithfully went again.

The third year, he hadn’t showed up again. But Kagome still went and waited.

Now, as she waited on the fourth year, she couldn’t help but wonder if he would really come. In the past, the reason she had stayed so long was she had actually expected him to come. But this time, something was different, and she wondered if it really would be her last time coming. This place was the only connection she had to him. Kagome didn’t expect Fate to make them meet again. If she left and never came back, that would really be it and she would sever any ties left to him. The decision weighed heavily upon her, but she thought again that maybe the choice hadn’t been in her hands in the first place. Perhaps he had already made that decision.

She thought about the last few years before he’d disappeared. It had been fun, but she found it had been surprisingly one other thing, something that she could deeply feel the impact of now.

It was lonely. He was always right next to her and they would talk about each other’s lives, but there was a distance there. An invisible glass wall. Kagome could see through it to him, but she couldn’t get past it. If she hadn’t tried to reach towards him, she would never have known it was there in the first place. Kagome was blocked from having any real connection from him. And to her surprise, she found that it was painful. Close but not close. Knowing but not knowing. The fact that he was within seeing distance was what made it harder. If she hadn’t been able to see him, it might have been easier because she wouldn’t have craved his presence.

Steps pounding gently on the old but sturdy wood of the platform caught her attention and she turned her head to the side. Kagome was sure for a while that she had been hallucinating, that her thoughts were overlapping her sanity. But as the figure got closer, she felt like it was impossible that she was yet still couldn’t bring herself to believe it that he was actually there.

It was hard to break the minutes of silence that ensued after he finished his approach to the bench. It was even hard just to hold his gaze, so Kagome looked away. Somehow looking at him made her self-conscious, but looking away from him hadn’t helped either.

After all the waiting, Kagome didn’t really know what to do. As much as she had waited, she thought that maybe her earlier assessment had been false. The past few years, she had never expected him to come. And that was maybe why she had waited. She was merely holding on to the memory, because she had been afraid of letting it go. Kagome knew she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she had just forgotten, so she had come to remember. It wasn’t moving on, but it was something.

Now that he was actually there, she had nothing to hide behind. And she felt a little exposed and somewhat embarrassed. She felt like he somehow could see through her, like he knew that she had never ceased coming every single year. Everything that had been suppressed in his absence was coming back to her. Every feeling, every thought. Kagome hadn’t noticed how much she had forgotten.

“Hello,” she said simply when she could bring herself to look at him again.

“Hello,” he returned, his eyes focused on hers.

“Would you like to sit down?” Kagome asked, gesturing lightly to the seat next to her. He didn’t answer, but walked over to the seat and sat.

She was truly nervous. There were so many questions she could have asked. But she actually didn’t want to say anything. Sometimes, in the past, the two of them would stop talking just to sit there comfortably. Although it wasn’t the same at that moment, the atmosphere was similar. It was filled with a little bit of nervousness and a little uncertainty, but the gist of it was still the same. And then Kagome was struck by a realization. She found that it didn’t really matter where he had been or why he hadn’t come until that moment. Just that he was there was enough. She wouldn’t demand explanations. If he wanted to tell her, he would. All that went through her mind was that she wasn’t alone anymore. He had come.

The whole time she contemplated things, Kagome had been looking away from him and him from her, as if they were afraid they would break the tentative peace of the situation. She turned her head to really look at him. He was staring straight ahead as if he didn’t want to be caught looking her way. Kagome saw that his expression was very much like how she’d been feeling.

And she thought that maybe he had been just as lonely as she. That instead of a glass wall separating them, as she had originally thought, it might have been more of a mirror, reflecting what they felt but not realizing the other person felt the same.

When he had first come, he had walked over almost like there had been no time in between, like nothing had changed. And maybe it hadn’t, not that much. Time had been on a standstill, and perhaps that was why waiting for him had seemed so easy, so automatic.

After a while, the man turned his face to look at her.

“I never asked your name,” he finally said, breaking the too-long silence.

Although it was customary to introduce yourself with your family name and then your given name after, he introduced himself with one name. “Sesshoumaru.” And she knew it was his given name. But they weren’t strangers. They had known each other for many years, hadn’t they? It was okay to bend the rules little bit.

“Kagome,” she supplied, smiling a little. And he smiled back, that same half smile that had graced his lips in the past. A smile she was familiar with.

He stood abruptly and Kagome was a little confused at his action until he held out his hand to her.

She stared at it for a few seconds. Kagome wasn’t completely certain she knew what he was offering, but even as she contemplated what to do, she realized that she had already made her choice. By being there, she had already sealed her fate. Kagome didn’t care where they went as long as they went together.

She slowly but surely slipped her hand into his, and he pulled her across the glass wall to the other side, where he was.

 The End

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I never really tried writing in this light and lofty tone before. What do you guys think? The parallels were originally not intentional but I like how they turned out. There was a lot in this one-shot that hadn’t been planned. It almost wrote itself, in my opinion. But I’m satisfied with the result. I hope none of it was too confusing.

I need to get out of this one-shot mind-frame and start developing longer storylines, but for now, as long as I’m writing, I think it’s okay. I just realized I write a lot of implied romance. So when am I going to write actual romance? No idea. Your guess is as good as mine. Please let me know what you think if you have time or any inclination to drop a review. If not, thanks for reading! That alone is appreciated enough.