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Most evenings found her at the center of the small stage, slinky dress on and soulfully crooning a sensual ballad to the small crowd that gathered. It was one of her ways to help her family back the shrine.
Kagome hadn’t really found her love of singing until her time in the past, singing her little Shippo or Rin to sleep. Occasionally, even the village kids from time to time, especially when they had colds and would stay with Kaede as she tended to them.
When she came back to her present and finished out her school, she joined the school’s choir and began practicing with them. And when the school was putting on a music festival, featuring a variety of genres, Kagome found her love of Jazz. She loved how performing live was a symbiont relationship between all members of the band. And for someone who planned a lot of her day-to-day life, easy-going improvisation was also a huge draw and energy rush.
And once she discovered the quaint jazz bar a neighbor away from where her family lived, it was essentially game over.
While the changing seasons brought on a variety of audience members, there was one that Kagome always spotted even if he tended to stay in the shadows of the bar. During the first few months of performing there she barely took note of him but then again, she had been overwhelmed by the response of the crowd and her own feelings of performing live. It was so different than during her school days when she was singing with her friends and classmates, people she had grown up with compared to her current bandmates. She loved her band to bits.
But Sesshoumaru… Once she realized that the elusive man was her long-lost friend’s brother, it changed everything.
Every night thereafter led her to scout out the audience for him. He had put on glamours that disguised his most identifying features. His long silver hair was hidden behind a projection, transformed into a short dark crop. Even the markings on his face were hidden, marred by smooth, clear skin.
Perhaps it was her own background of training as a miko but she saw through his youki, the tell-tale sign of those haunting golden eyes, seemingly glowing as they followed her every move.
A few weeks after she came to the realization that Seshoumaru was a usual haunt at her bar, they began a slow dance around each other. At first it began with simple greetings and farewells. A quiet hello or small wave here and there. Once a month he would bring her flowers for the conclusion of her performance. The flowers changed every month, as if he, the former Demon Lord of the West was unsure on what her favorite flower was.
It was difficult because Kagome appreciated every bouquet that she received.
She wasn’t sure if he was following the language of flowers or not, but she interpreted them as such. It didn’t begin that way though. In retrospect, she realized that he was communicating his feelings towards her without speaking them aloud. It was sweet and something she would have expected from him, but at the same time, she expected nothing from him.
On the evening that she received the first one from him, it was a bouquet of white roses. He had timidly come up to her as she had sent off her final fan with a wave and was just about to turn around to help her band take down their equipment for the night.
“Kagome, I want to offer you these as a token of thanks and to something new.” He had begun, the lower timbre of his voice enchanting. Her gaze was upon the beautiful arrangement but felt her eyes pulled up into his own intense gaze.
She barely managed a squeak of a thank you, suddenly finding her mouth dry but attempting to muster enough control of her muscles to give him a bright smile in return.
He nodded his head and said goodbye before leaving for the night. Which was unusual in and of itself, he always stayed behind until she left for the evening. Almost as if… but no, Kagome had later reasoned, there was no reason for Sesshoumaru to care about her wellbeing. Perhaps she was reading too much into his established behavior compared to this evening’s anomaly.
The next few months proceeded much the same way.
_
At the end of summer, he offered her a single buttercup. It was a shock compared to his past trend of large bouquets. But this time he also spoke the most.
As if he had gathered the courage to speak to her in more than a single sentence.
“For tonight’s beautiful performance,” he said proffering the single bloom with reverence.
“You’re just flattering me now, Sesshoumaru,” Kagome replied with a soft smile, taking the blossom with care. She dipped her head to sniff the flower, appreciating the subtle sweet scent. She wasn’t sure if it was normal for buttercups to be as heavily scented as the blossom she was currently holding or not but it was nice.
“Is it flattery when I loved every piece you performed this evening?”
“But you do every week, how is tonight so special?”
He stood there slightly mollified for a moment. “I did want to ask if you wanted to go out to dinner with me.”
Kagome looked up with a gasp, feeling like the air had been sucked out of her. “Dinner? With me?”
It was funny how quickly Sesshoumaru’s face had changed with her string of questions. His shy exterior morphed into resignation, as if he didn’t fully believe that she was going to respond positively. As if she wasn’t also hoping that he was going to make the first move or not.
It was one thing to remember him as her single connection to the past, a tether in the crowd to a life she had thought she had long let go. The well had closed itself to her. She knew this having broken an ankle trying to go back the day after the defeat of Naraku. With help from her family, and the demands of returning to school, she managed to compartmentalize and move on. But did she ever really move on? She wasn’t sure.
Then again, having found Sesshoumaru again after years of thinking it was some weird dream, was strange to say the least.
But as she watched him in the crowd, she had so many questions she wanted to ask but never had the guts to come forth. Perhaps it was a bit of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of returning to those feelings she had for Inuyasha that had gotten way out of control. Especially in the case of Kikyou’s relationship with the hanyou. But most importantly, the fear of knowing her beloved friend’s histories.
If Sesshoumaru had found her in the present day after hundreds of years, he was more than likely to know what had happened after she couldn’t return.
“I… would like that. A lot, really.” She managed to respond, taking a moment to bring air back into her lungs.
And it was a joy to see the color return to the former Demon Lord of the West’s face.
Over their dinner a week later, he took her to a fancy restaurant and regaled to her about his love for flowers and their meanings, noting that each of her bouquets were specifically tailored to mean something. He was sentimental, if nothing else, and that’s what Kagome loved about him.