Kagome blinked after him. Hirokin…

What a strange guy.

Curling her fingers loosely around the cockle shell, she eased herself down from the slab of rock and waded back to shore. Her head was pounding by the time she had dried, clothed, and dragged herself back home. Still, she upended the near-empty bottle of sake over her mouth for good measure, before tossing it into the twilit woods with a grimace.

Leaning hard against the porch railing, she pulled herself up the steps, exhausted and unhappily drunk. Her tongue felt like a bar of lead, her breath wine-sour in her arid throat. Struggling to keep her vision from swimming, Kagome bit down hard on the numb inside of her cheek and pushed the noren curtain aside.

Bracing herself for the sight of Kanako, Kagome was relieved to find the girl absent for a change. She must be staying the night with Kaede. The elderly priestess had fallen ill a few days back, and with Rin overworked as she was, Kagome had tasked Kanako with seeing to Kaede’s care. With her temperamental back and her stiff aching joints, the nights were hard on the old woman, even when she was well. Frowning at this, Kagome tried not to think of how Kaede seemed to be ailing more often than not these days—and cursed Hachi for only bringing that one measly bottle of sake.

Kagome glared at the cold lifeless hearth. From the dark corners of the room, the shadow of death seemed to press in against her—dark and gloating and insatiable. She hated it with all her heart. She hated it to the depths of her soul. Breathing short and strained, Kagome wrenched off her miko trappings and slipped naked and shivering into bed.

Lying on her back with her eyes screwed shut, she felt a sliver of relief at the cool quiet that descended over her like a shroud of the thinnest silk. More than anything, Kagome was glad to be alone tonight. Kanako was a nuisance at best, and Sesshoumaru was…

But she didn’t want to think about Sesshoumaru. Because he had come to her just the night before, Kagome told herself that for once, she didn’t have to. She could think about whatever she wanted—whatever would make the pounding stop in her weary brain. She felt the echo of that pounding all throughout her body. She felt it between her legs most of all.

With a groan, Kagome flopped over onto her stomach, agitated in every sense. Out of the corner of her sullen gaze, she spied Hirokin’s glittering token. Clapping her fingers over it, she pulled the shell closer for inspection.

It was certainly enchanted—that much she could tell. But there wasn’t anything nefarious in the subtle magic that emanated from it. Rolling over onto her back again, Kagome held the cockle above her. Its lustrous ivory gleam was as fair as Hirokin’s complexion, its polished surface as smooth and cool as the texture of his skin must be.

Kagome’s lashes lowered as she continued to contemplate it. What if she were to go outside in the dark right now, naked as she was, and toss the shell into the stream just behind her house? She imagined the faint wrinkle of annoyance that would cinch Hirokin’s pretty brow at being summoned back so soon—a moment before she pulled him down on top of her.

She imagined him, then, bare-chested above her, blue eyes blazing and youki sizzling as he labored to show her just how useful he could be.

Kagome smiled slightly, her toes curling at the stray filthy thought. Rubbing the glossy shell with the pad of her thumb once more, she cracked open the lid of the chest near her bedside and slipped the river demon’s token into it. Down the shell faintly clattered, to lie among the other remnants of the past.

It was just a harmless fantasy, that image of Hirokin. She would never act upon it. Even married women had them all the time, didn’t they? These kinds of spare, lurid thoughts.

But Kagome was devoted to Inuyasha. She would never betray him by taking another man into her body. Into their bed.

With a sigh, she let her hand stray to the cold side where he used to lay, on the few precious nights they had been able to spend here together. And then, above the dull throbbing ache within her, a stab of realization twisted like a knife in her heart—

For the first time in almost three years, she had forgotten to visit his grave.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi