Under the dark surface of the water her pale, slender hands seemed to glow. As Sumire trailed her fingers before her, they appeared spectral to her, not altogether real beneath that rippling plane. How easily one’s clear view might become distorted. As the water stilled, she peered down at her own dim reflection. This silent shade who was herself and not herself. This was the image she presented to the world. To her eyes, it had always been the same. This is me, she knew. This has always been me. But, of course, over the years the image had changed, only so gradually and minutely she did not notice.

It was more than a matter of perception. Between the image and the self there existed an inextricable bond. If her image had changed, then so too had she.

Between the heat of her body and the heat of the room, the bath had grown tepid. Sumire rose from the tub, emerging from the waters as though she’d been born anew, thrust wet and wrinkling out into the open air. Toweling off, she slipped on a fresh robe. She was just tying the silken belt shut when through the large circular window fire blossomed suddenly before her in the night sky.

Sumire stared, her hands frozen at her waist. Rapidly, the strange fires grew. She gasped, staggering back when she saw that those flames wreathed the paws of a great feline beast, which was hurtling toward her red-eyed and white-furred, with fangs protruding like curved daggers from its jaws. An instinctive aversion rocked through her, as it had on the day that rampaging oni had threatened to destroy her only home. Defensively, Sumire crossed her arms before her, for what little good it would do. Gritting her teeth, she willed the demonic beast from her so fiercely that the air seemed to crackle with the force of her intent.

To her amazement, she felt the demon halt in its airborne charge. Warily, she lowered her arms. Just inside her window, the beast hovered, bristling as it regarded her. Sumire regarded it back. There was intelligence in those deep red eyes. No trace of malevolence that she could see. By the slight tilt of its head it seemed to be regarding her in question.

Sumire’s brow furrowed. There was something oddly familiar about this creature. Only belatedly did she notice there was a dark rider upon its back. When he slipped down and she saw him clearly, her breath escaped her in a rush of pure relief.

“…Kohaku,” she said, one hand at her breast where her heart was still pounding away like mad.

“Sumire,” the darkly-clad man replied, moving toward her. “Did I frighten you? I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “Not you,” she said, her eyes straying past him.

To her surprise, however, the beast was gone—or replaced rather, by a red-eyed, twin-tailed kitten of a creature. Sumire blinked. The little creature chirped, hopping up onto Kohaku’s unarmored shoulder.

“This is Kirara,” he said, giving the feline’s downy cheek a scratch. “She’s a nekomata.”

“A youkai,” Sumire said.

He nodded. “Yes, but not an evil one. She’s been my companion since I was very young.”

Sumire struggled to process this. The thought of a benign youkai seemed to her like a contradiction. But atop Kohaku’s shoulder the kitten-sized demon purred, as gently and contentedly as any housecat might. Studying her a shrewd moment more, Sumire nodded, relaxing. Even if she didn’t quite feel at ease in the company of this demon, she did trust him.

“Kohaku,” she asked, “why on earth are you here?”

His dark eyes slid askance as he frowned. “I wanted to see you. I thought you might want to see me too. But if I’m disturbing you—”

“No,” Sumire said quickly, stepping toward him. “No, that’s not it. I’m just surprised is all. It’s been ten years since I saw you last.” Her lashes dipped as she softly said, “I’m very happy to see you, of course.”

Kohaku’s gaze slid back to her. She saw then that his pupils were dilated, his agate eyes slightly glazed. Slowly, they roved over her, from her head to her foot. His mouth curved up at one corner.

“Gods, you look good in that robe.”

Sumire flushed, drawing the sheer lavender folds closer about herself. “Kohaku,” she chided, “I’m nearly forty.”

“So what?” he scoffed, eyeing her again. “You look good to me.”

Sumire wished she had her fan to hide her burning cheeks. Regardless of what he said, she was far too old to be blushing and biting her lip like this. Kohaku’s dark eyes glinted roguishly as he advanced upon her. He was enjoying flustering her, clearly. This close to him now she could smell the sake on his breath. As Kirara hopped down from his shoulder to curl up on the settee, he stopped and drew a long swig from the flask at his hip. Not his first jar of wine that evening, if Sumire were any judge.

Stealing in through her window in the dead of night, drunk and swaggering in his dark, close-fitting clothes, he looked more like a thief than a feudal lord. He looked, to her eyes, like a man on the run. From what, Sumire could only wonder as she frowned. Having drained the flask, Kohaku cast it aside and frowned back.

“I’m not attracted to her,” he muttered darkly, dashing a hand across his lips. “I never have been.”

“Who?” Sumire asked, though she could hazard a guess.

“Rin,” he answered bitterly. “My wife. When I lie with her, it’s like lying with my little sister. It was all I could do to give her the family she wanted. After our second son was born, she said she wanted no more children, and I was so relieved she could sense it.” The dark tail of his bound hair swayed as he gave his head a terse shake. “There’s nothing wrong with her; it’s just me. It’s me that’s all wrong. I’m fucked-up, Sumire. Always have been. Maybe I never should have married her. Maybe she would have been better off if I hadn’t.”

“Why did you?”

“Same reason I would’ve married you, if I’d known.” He looked at her balefully, almost in accusation, before he relented with a sigh. “Shurei…how is she?”

“She is well,” Sumire replied serenely, with a small smile. “Very well. She is to be married soon.”

Kohaku scowled. “Already?”

“I’m afraid so,” Sumire said, laughing lightly. “For her, the day cannot come soon enough.”

“This man she’s marrying,” Kohaku asked narrowly, “you approve of him?”

“Oh yes, he’s a fine young man. As well he should be,” she added wryly, “since her father has given her a princess’s dowry.”

Kohaku’s cheeks reddened as he glanced aside. “You got the gold then, I take it.”

“Yes,” Sumire said solemnly. “Thank you.”

“No need,” Kohaku said curtly, with a wave. “It’s the very least I could do. I wish I could have done more for her, but—”

Shaking her head, Sumire cut him off, “There’s no need for that, either. I never meant for you to feel any obligation to us. You say you would have married me, and that is an honorable thing to say. But, Kohaku—please know that to bind yourself to me in such a way is the last thing I would ever have wished. Not only for you,” she added contritely, “but for myself as well. I have come very much to value my freedom. I am jealous of it.”

“To tell you the truth, Sumire, I am jealous of it too,” Kohaku said with a grimace. “This life of mine is not the one I ever wanted. I wish I were free. I wish I were shed of it all. But it’s too late for that now. I have no choice but to continue on in this way. I know I have no one to blame for it but myself.” His clenched fist rose shaking before him, as he said through gritted teeth, “But I do blame them. Gods help me, but I do…”

What he alluded to, Sumire could only dimly speculate. Much as she wanted to understand, she did not wish to badger him with her questions. If he wished for her to know more, he would tell her.

Crossing over to him, she touched her hand to his white-veined wrist. “Please, Kohaku, won’t you come and sit down? I can send for tea—”

“Send for sake,” he bit out, though he did let her lead him over to the cushions.

Sulkily, he sat down, brooding over his wrongs in gloomy silence. When the sake arrived at the door, Sumire un-stoppered it and poured him a cup. Kohaku downed it with a glare.

“I saw him today,” he seethed, as she took the empty cup from him. “The demon she ran off with.”

Sumire blinked, thinking she had misheard him. “Forgive me, I…”

Tersely, Kohaku elaborated, “Kagome. That priestess I told you about, the one I…” Abruptly, he stood, ripping at his lapels as if they were strangling him. “Fuck,” he snarled. “It’s stifling in here.”

“Let me wet a cloth for you,” Sumire said hastily, rising to fetch one.

“No—that bath,” he said viciously, undoing the black sash at his waist as he strode toward it. “That will do.”

“It’s not very cool…” Sumire hedged, trailing after him.

“It’s fine.” Half-naked from the waist up, Kohaku sat upon the ledge of the tub like a hawk glaring from its perch. “Help me with my boots, will you?”

Sumire helped him tug them off. He stripped off his pants with the same vehemence he’d ripped off his shirts. Fully naked, he stood and stretched. Sumire tried not to stare. In his thirties now, he was a man in his prime, solidly-muscled throughout his tall frame. He was as well-endowed in every other aspect as she remembered. Catching her eye, Kohaku smirked.

“Join me?” he asked her, extending a hand.

Sumire smiled back. “No, Kohaku,” she said to him, gentle yet firm.

Chuckling, he lowered himself into the tub with a slosh. “You’re a good woman, Sumire.” He shivered, his eyes sliding shut. “But you’ll sit with me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

Kneeling by the side of the tub, she wet a cloth and draped it across his flushed, sweating brow. Kohaku’s eyes cracked open. So quick she scarcely saw it, he took hold of her wrist and pressed his lips to her open palm.

“You’re the only soul in this world who understands me,” he murmured against her with reverence. “That’s why I had to see you tonight. I’m calm when I’m with you. If I hadn’t come here, I don’t know what I might have done. When I saw him today, I wanted to kill him. I still want to kill him, but it’s like a dull rage now, compared to before.” He drew her hand down to his chest and held it there, over his beating heart. “I can’t let it go. I’ll never let it go. I don’t care how it sounds. I don’t care what it makes me. I know if I tried to kill him he’d just fend me off, and that enrages me more. Nothing would come of it, because of Rin. There’s no end to it for me, now or ever. But I can’t drag her into this. I can’t hurt her any more than I already have. If I did that to her, I’d never forgive myself.”

Sumire sighed. “Kohaku, please…I don’t understand. Who is he? What does he have to do with your wife?”

Kohaku released a short, contemptuous breath. “His name is Sesshoumaru,” he spat out like a curse. “He’s a demon, a daiyoukai. He’s the most powerful demon alive, that I’m sure. Practically indestructible. A vile fiend, but my wife doesn’t know it. He rescued her when she was a little child; he’s a guardian to her of sorts. It would devastate her to learn the whole truth about him. But Kagome knew it; she knew it all, and she lusted for him anyway.”

If anything, Sumire’s thoughts were more muddled than before. The idea of lusting for a demon seemed mad to her. She supposed, glancing aside at the nekomata dozing on her couch, that not all youkai need be monstrous in form. But something deeper in her, something intangible in the core of her being, reviled at the notion of lying with one. How much more should a holy priestess abhor it?

“Why?” she wondered aloud.

Kohaku laughed, mirthless and short. “Because she’s perverse. Demented.” He closed his eyes, his voice falling darkly. “What does that make me, then, for lusting after her all these years?” His eyes screwed hatefully shut. “Even now, I want her, as much as I despise her. She’s like a disease in my mind. The only cure for me was to contain her, but I failed. Now because of it she’s tainted everything. My whole life. She gave me just enough of her to destroy me. She dangled herself before me at some insidious whim. The taste of her has poisoned me forever.”

To herself Sumire supposed that if this Sesshoumaru were as vile as Kohaku claimed, Kagome had found her just desserts in him. But voicing this would give Kohaku no satisfaction. He still loved her, though he did not say it. It was this thwarted love of his which made him so wretched. Sumire could see just how tortured he was. Through the dark surface of the water, she could see how he throbbed with anguish. Her heart ached to witness it.

No, her words would not help him, but relief she could give. Her hand slid down from his chest. The cool water wicked greedily up the hem of her sleeve. It grew heavier still as her touch descended, as she took his hard fevered flesh into the palm of her hand. He gasped, though his eyes did not open, for Sumire drew the damp cloth down over them like a blind, so that behind it he might see only that which he wished to see. Expertly, she stroked him, a twisting slide of the wrist which had his back arching in a matter of minutes, which had him groaning out the name of his imagined love, releasing to her in effigy all the longing and rancor and festering need for her that he felt.

In the haze of his catharsis, he shoved the blind aside and looked to Sumire as she was wringing out her sodden sleeve. “…You’re too good to me,” he said.

Sumire smiled, slight and wistful. When her sleeve was as dry as it would get, she went and fetched him water, which he drank now tamely from the cup she pressed to his lips. After his misty eyes had cleared a little, she urged him up from the tub, toweled him dry, wrapped him in a cotton robe which was so small on him it made them both laugh, and ushered him into bed. He drew her down beside him where he lay. Into the crook of his arm she settled, as she had so many long years before. Neither of them were very sleepy yet.

“Tell me a story,” she murmured against his chest.

“What sort of story?”

“Oh, any kind. You taijiya must have many good ones.”

“That’s true,” Kohaku said.

“A love story, then.”

“That’s more difficult,” he replied, pausing for a moment. “There was one my father told me, once. But it’s a not a happy tale…”

What love story is, Sumire reflected. “Tell it to me,” she urged him. “I want to hear it.”

“All right,” Kohaku said. After another brief pause, he began, “There was once a half-demon of vicious strength and cunning. A seafaring bandit who could impart his bloodlust to his minions, stirring the lot into a formidable frenzy. With this crew, he’d become a true terror upon the seas, waylaying and pillaging ships without number. No ordinary force could stand against him. For the better part of a century, he’d tyrannized the coasts, stymied trade at a savage whim. Kidnapping the daughter of a local daimyo had been the final straw, an offense too egregious to abide. One could only imagine the torments the maiden had suffered at the hands of such captors. It was her lord father who hired our clan to exterminate this half-demon scourge, and to rescue his stolen daughter, if found.

“My father and kinsmen set out, tailing the demon crew. After weeks of careful tracking, they discovered the demon’s ensorcelled cove of a hideaway. With sleeping gas, they neutralized the bulk of his minions, slaying them unawares while they slept. With his ranks destroyed, there was only the hanyou himself to eliminate. Still, it was a bloody, vicious struggle. Even on his own and caught by surprise, he was no small foe to overcome. Humanlike in form, he was skilled and deadly with a blade, and the fumes of his fell blood produced disorienting miasmas. More than one of my kinsmen, veteran taijiya all, were slain in the fight. But outnumbered and out-matched, the half-demon was overwhelmed at last.

“As he lay bleeding out upon the sands, my father and uncle infiltrated the hanyou’s cavernous lair. When they located the stolen princess, they were shocked to find her seemingly unharmed, confined to luxurious quarters that were far more like a treasure vault than a prison cell. To their further astonishment, the girl refused to go with them; her supposed saviors had to drag her out from her captivity, kicking and screaming. As they passed with her by the hanyou’s bleeding body, a fit of terrible madness overcame her. She shrieked and broke free of them, dashing over to where the felled half-demon lay. She threw herself sobbing over his bloodied, broken corpse. When my kinsmen tried to pry her off, she fought and cursed them until she fainted from exhaustion.

“During the expedition back to her father’s house, the princess awoke, and injured herself so severely in her grief that my kinsmen were forced to restrain her in her cabin. She cursed them, weeping. She cursed the gods themselves. She moaned and sobbed without ceasing for the half-demon they had slain to save her. They didn’t tell her lord father any of this, of course. The truth of it all was too bleak and too shameful. They were silent when they returned the morose, damaged girl to her home. By then she had lost both her voice and her will. Though her half-demon lover was a wretch who deserved to die, my father never felt right about it. The girl’s anguish affected him deeply. For many nights long after, he heard her heartbroken cries rend through his dreams.

“Those who are monsters are not monsters to all. This my father told me. This I have tried to remember, but it is a terrible thing to reckon upon.”

“Yes,” Sumire agreed, her fingers curling tighter into the fabric at his chest.

Tears pricked at her eyes, to imagine such tragedy. The heroes turned villains, the innocent damned to ignominy and despair. Love knew no shame, but those afflicted with it were not so fortunate. Those doomed to love demons seemed the most ill-fated of all.

“I wonder what happened to her, that princess.”

“Who can say.”

“I hope she found some happiness,” Sumire said, the warm summer air lulling her at last into sleep.

“…I hope so, too.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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