Chapter 9
Miroku was avoiding having to tell her, Hideko sat patiently at the table, toeing off her sandal and giving him a hard look. He knew he had to tell her and neither Hideko or Sango was going to leave him alone until he did.
"Alright." He let out a sigh and turned his back to her. "You know when we were reading about Cupid?"
"Yes." Sango replied. "What about it?"
"Well, uhm…I'm…I'm him." He said, then watched her as she slowly broke out into a laugh.
"What? No! I was kidding when I called you Cupid." She said, laughing. "Cupid, and Zeus, and Venus, they're all myths. They're not real."
"No, Sango, really…" He said, trying his best to keep a straight face. "I'm Cupid. And, I wasn't really talking to myself, I was talking to my advisor."
Sango stared at him, her mouth quirked in question and she wondered if she had just lost her virginity to a nutcase. "OK, are you sure you didn't drink anything last night?"
"Positive. Look, I'm telling you the truth, I'm--"
"Oh, he's cupid, trust me. I used to change his diapers." Hideko's voice sounded from behind him, and Miroku watched as Sango's eyes grew wide and her hand slapped over her mouth.
"Do you have to bring up such embarrassing things, Hideko?" Miroku asked, his voice filled with annoyance.
"Who…who are you?" She asked, frightened by her sudden appearance. She was almost like a ghost, but appeared solid. Her hair was a bright, golden, almost like the sun and Sango thought she might have been an angel.
Miroku looked over at her. "Wait a minute, she can see you?"
"Of course she can see me." Hideko said laughing. "I can be seen by mortals if I choose to. Now, Sango, dear, you should trust this man when he tells you something."
Sango held herself up by the wall to prevent from fainting. "You mean…Cupid is real?"
"Yep." Hideko said, nodding. "Isn't he handsome?" She asked, pushing his cheeks together, then stretching out his mouth. "Look at that smile! Only the god of love could be this delicious to look at!"
Miroku tore himself away from her. "Will you stop that?"
"What? It's supposed to be a compliment."
"Yea, well your embarrassing me." He said, trying to get the pain out of his cheeks from being stretched.
"Well, I…I must still be asleep." She said, more to herself then to the two of them. "Yea, that's it. I'm still sleeping and any moment I'm going to wake up and you won't be here." She said, pointing to Hideko. "I'll still in bed, beside Miroku, asleep."
She waited, trying to wake herself up, but nothing happened. Realization finally hit her that she was awake when Hideko pinched her on the arm. "Ow!"
"There, see, you're wide awake." She said with a smile. "Now if someone doesn't eat these pancakes, I think I'm going to take them back home to your mother, Miroku. She always said you couldn't cook, but these look simply divine."
Miroku grabbed the plate from her hands. "No! These are for Sango. Mom hates my cooking anyway. She says I should stick to matchmaking and do what I was born to do." He sat the plate down in front of Sango and watched her. Hideko's words flashed through his mind again.
He was supposed to give her up to Marcus Cooper. It was his destiny, what he was meant to do. From the beginning of time, it all boiled down to this. Out of all the girls in the world, why did he have to fall so deeply, madly in love with the one woman he was supposed to give up? The one woman he was supposed to help find love, and not with him.
It was just his luck and it was breaking his heart.
Sango took a small bite of her strawberry pancake and smiled. "This is delicious."
"I was hoping you'd think so." He said, sitting next to her. "Well, now you know I'm a mythical being. Do you think…I'm weird or anything?"
She looked over at him and smiled slowly. "No, not at all. Last night was--" She stopped and looked over at Hideko as a small blush crawled across her cheeks.
"Oh!" Hideko shouted when realization smacked her in the face. 'You two want to have a private talk, no? Well, then I'll just leave you two alone for now. Sayonara." Then she disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.
"It's….like magic." She said, blinking, trying to figure out how the blond girl had pulled it off.
"Nah, not really. Just some cheap trick she uses all the time." He said laughing. "Now, what were u saying about last night?"
"Last night was amazing." She said, feeling a bit shy around him now. After all, she was talking to a god, literally. "I know I didn't say this last night and it's alright, if…if you don't feel the same way." She stammered and drew in a shaky breath. "But, I think I'm falling in love with you."
Miroku softly parted his lips and captured hers in a chaste kiss. He pulled away a long, scorching minute later. "Sango, I…" He wanted to say it. He wanted to say he loved her, but he knew he couldn't. He knew he couldn't tell her that, then turn around and have to do what he would eventually have to do, no matter how long he put it off, it was inevitable. He knew the rules of his world, and he knew he had to follow them, no matter how bad it hurt him inside.
After all, Hideko did try to warn him didn't she? This was all his fault and now, she was in love with him. The sweet, innocent, beautiful Sango had fallen in love with him, and it was all his fault.
Those three words were caught in his throat and he closed his mouth after a moment. "It's alright, you…you don't have to say it." She said. "I'm uhm…not that hungry anymore. I think I'm going to go lay down…"
"Sango, it's not that I don't love you it's just…" He sighed and grabbed her hands in his. "It's just I need some time to think. The rules and everything from your world and mine are much, much different. So, give me time?"
Time. Yes, she'd give him time, but how much time would he need? He sure as hell didn't need time when he was ready to make love to her last night. "Of course." She said after a moment. She needed to call Misty and talk to her about this whole thing, she was still half expecting to wake up from a dream.
Miroku kissed her goodbye and left the house, watching her bedroom window curtains, remembering what happened behind them the night before. Was it a mistake? Or was true love made last night?
Only time would tell.
A half an hour later, the two girls sat in Sango's bedroom, her sheets still rumpled and messy from the night before and still smelling so deliciously alluring. The lump in her throat was almost too painful and as she began to speak the tears slowly started to spill out of her eyes.
"I told him I loved him and he just…didn't say anything." Sango said, wiping away a tear with her hand. Misty searched through her purse and handed her a tissue.
"Ouch. That must have hurt." The redhead commented. "And you said he told you he was Cupid? The real cupid? Is he insane?"
"I don't know." She said with a shrug. "I think I might be the insane one. I saw a girl appear out of nowhere. I swear on my life this whole thing happened right in front of my eyes. You know, that's why he was playing matchmaker with you and Brock."
Misty leaned back and propped her feet on the dresser. "I thought Cupid wasn't supposed to be tall, dark and handsome. I thought he was supposed to be a chubby baby with arrows."
"Yes, well, apparently, that isn't true." She said, trying her best to calm her tears down.
"You know, it isn't all so farfetched." Misty concluded. "You never know what could be real and what couldn't be. I mean, I never thought I'd ever look at Brock this way, yet here I am. The impossible can happen, and I owe it all to Miroku. He helped us realize some things."
Sango bit her lip and looked out the window, her eyes still shining with tears. "Do you think I should still talk to him? I mean, we slept together and everything, I really don't want to be one of those girls who just has this amazing one-night stand and then never sees the guy again."
Misty pivoted the chair towards Sango and gave her a friendly smile. "I think you should do what you feel. Follow your heart and listen to what it's telling you. It will help you make the right choice."
Monday had been an awkward day at school for Miroku. Sango knew his secret, Misty knew his secret, but he was fine with that. Even Brock knew his secret and, surprisingly, he believed him very easily. However, there was still one thing bothering him and it had been eating him alive all day.
He wanted to tell Sango how he felt, how he really felt. He wanted to talk to Hideko last night, but she seemed to have been ignoring him all day. She always liked to show up at the most inopportune times. Miroku believed she truly got a kick out of it.
Leaning against the brick wall of the school building, he closed his eyes and breathed in the spring air. It was so clean and fresh, the smell of flowers and the hint of summer heat were a mock of happiness. Sighing, he exhaled heavily and opened his eyes only to see Sango standing beside him. He was a bit shocked that even he didn't sense her standing there, and she had been extremely quiet.
"Hey." She said softly.
"Hey." He offered her a smile and she returned it. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine." Sango assured him.
"Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I know it was weird for you." He said.
"Don't worry about it."
Miroku kicked the gravel from the sidewalk with his shoe and cleared his throat. "Well, do you want to come and hang out with me at my house for a little while? It's a hot day, we could go swimming."
She looked up at him, wondering what he was implying, if he was implying anything at all. His thumbs were hooked in his belt loops and she could tell he was nervous. Something was bothering him. Sango thought back to what Misty had said about listening to her heart, and for some reason, it was compelling her to trust him.
"Alright." She finally agreed and he smiled, not being able to resist from kissing her. "I'll meet you at my house, say about an hour?"
"That's fine." She said, enjoying the tingling feeling of her lips. Sango had received a few glaring stares as he walked away. The jealous girls of the cheerleading team had been trying to get Miroku's eye for weeks, but never succeeded. She couldn't help but feel a sense of power and a newfound confidence.
Then again, Miroku didn't love her. He didn't say he didn't love her, but there was a good chance he didn't. She stood on the sidewalk a little while longer, Miroku had disappeared somewhere amongst the cars before she moved towards the parking lot to her own car.
Sango was slightly less skittish in front of him in her bikini, but his eyes were nonetheless admiring her. Miroku floated on his back, his sunglasses pulled over his eyes, concealing them from her.
"So, I still have a hard time believing your Cupid." She said idly as he floating leisurely around on his back. She admired the way the water glistened off his strong chest and she remembered the sweat that slicked his body that night.
He chuckled. "That's understandable. Why do you think I kept it from you for so long?"
"I don't know. I mean I always kind of had the feeling you were keeping something from me." She said, leaning into the corner of the pool. "I just wasn't sure what it was."
"Well," he said, leaning upright on his feet. "that's what it was." He swam over to her and she automatically wrapped her arms around his neck. He was taking her over again, the scent of his cologne mixed in with the clean smell of chlorine.
"I still think you should look like a fat baby with arrows." She joked, as he drew in closer to her.
"Well, I was a fat kid, but I slimmed down in my teen years."
"And just when was that?" She was curiously. "When dinosaurs roamed the earth?"
He laughed and swam behind her, wrapping his arms around her bare waist under the water. "Hey now, I'm not that old, love. I'd say it was right around the time the Great Wall of China was constructed."
Sango turned to look at him. "That was centuries ago."
"Yea, and I'm centuries old."
"Well, you sure as hell don't look like it."
"Of course not." He said with a smile. "We're immortal, we stay youthful forever. We don't age once we hit our prime and apparently, my prime was seventeen."
She turned around in his embrace and pushed herself against him, kissing him forcefully. He was a bit shocked, but welcomed her actions and rubbed his hands over her skimpily covered hips and waist, then finally up to her breasts and to her back where he tugged on the small string.
Someone cleared their throat and Sango all but jumped off of him, but strangely felt relieved when she saw it was just Hideko. Miroku cursed under his breath. "Hideko, what are you doing here?"
"Well, excuse me if I'm imposing while your trying to lay down some game, but I think we need to talk." She said, placing her hands on her hips. However, when she looked Sango's way she wore a sweet expression on her pretty face.
Miroku groaned in annoyance and he knew exactly what Hideko wanted to talk about before he even got out of the water. He turned around, gave Sango a quick kiss before he pulled himself out of the side of the pool. "What?" He asked.
"Come with me…" She said a bit harshly and led him through the front gate, far away until she was certain they were out of earshot from Sango. "Miroku, what are you doing?"
"I'm hanging out with my girlfriend, what does it look like?" He asked, sarcastically. Hideko sighed and tapped her foot.
"Miroku, she's not your girlfriend, she can't be."
Miroku didn't look at her, his face was downwards, his eyes anywhere but on her because he knew it was true. "I know."
Hideko's voice softened. "Listen, I know you want to be with her, but it's just not going to work. No immortal being has ever fallen in love with a mortal before. Our worlds are too different, we are from a completely different dimension then she is and she'd never understand our type of lifestyle."
"I know, but Hideko, I don't even care about going home anymore." He said, burying his face in his hands. "I don't even care about finishing this task. All I want is her." He lowered his voice even lower, to an almost inaudible whisper. "I love her."
"I hope you haven't told her that." Hideko said urgently.
"No, of course I haven't." He said. "I almost did, but I can't hurt her like that. If I told her how I felt it won't only hurt her more when I tell her we can't be together." A tear escaped his eye and he turned away from his mentor, embarrassed that he let his emotions show through so easily.
"Miroku, don't cry…" Hideko said, rubbing his back.
"I'm not. It's allergies." He claimed, feeling the lump in his throat grow bigger and tighter, almost becoming painful.
She bit her lip, knowing that what she was about to say wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear right now, but it had to be said. "Miroku, you have to let her go. It's not fair to her, to keep on loving you, when she can't have you."
The words caused him to lose control, and his shoulders shook with silent sobs. "Life is so cruel. Hideko, why did this have to happen to me? Why did I have to fall in love?"
"I don't know, Miroku." She said sympathetically. He looked up at her, licking away a tear from the corner of his mouth.
"I know what I have to do, just….give me time." He said, finally, trying his best to compose himself.
"Alright, but please, not too much time." She warned him. "You love her, don't you? So, you want her to find happiness, true happiness. The kind of happiness she will find in Marcus Cooper."
Miroku looked at Hideko for a long moment, looking at the sympathy in deep blue eyes. "You're right. I have to do what I have to do."
******************************************************************************** Prom was just weeks away, and instead of the school buzzing with news about Ash Ketchum's party, the halls were now alive with talk about prom. Brock spotted several girls with magazines, featuring prom dresses and he, himself, was busy looking to rent out a tux since Misty had already narrowed her selection for a dress down to five now.
Miroku wasn't worried about prom, which Brock found unusual. Surely, he'd want to take Sango to her senior prom that was merely three weeks away. Sango had mentioned that she had a few dresses in mind and she and Misty had already set aside a Saturday to go pick out a dress. It was the first time in a long time, Brock had seen Sango so excited about a school dance and he knew Miroku was the reason.
"So, are you going to prom, dude?" He asked him and Miroku gave him a shrug.
"Uh, yea but…I haven't really asked anyone yet." Miroku replied, not really wanting to talk about the subject of prom. He couldn't explain why, Brock would never understand and probably write him off as a jerk. He didn't expect him to understand because he wasn't even sure if he understood it himself.
"Well, I'm sure Sango's going to want to go with you." Brock assured him. "That's all she and Misty have been talking about is Prom night."
"Really?" He asked.
His friend nodded and he sighed. He had to do this now, no matter how bad he wanted to put it off, it just couldn't wait any longer. Lucky for him, he didn't have to wait. Sango came bounding up to him a smile on her face. "Hey there, Cupid." She said, standing on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.
His heart melted as he looked at the happy expression on her face.
"I think I picked out my dress!" She said cheerfully, flipping through a magazine. "It's a pale pink. What do you think?" She flipped to a page, and Miroku took a look at the dress, doing his best to make a mental picture of what she would look like in it. Beautiful, feminine, elegant.
"Sango, uhm, can we go outside for a minute and talk?" He asked.
She glanced towards Brock for a moment, who looked equally confused, then back towards Miroku. "Uhm, sure." She said, and he reluctantly led her outside. The parking lot was quiet, almost too quiet. He could hear the spring birds singing and the cars on the main road just down the hilly entranceway and he knew it had to be done. It was unavoidable.
Miroku took a deep breath and looked down at her. She was beautiful, but expectant. Then he prepared to tell her.
"Well, what is it?" Sango asked him curiously. For some reason, she was panicking inside. She could sense that something was wrong, she just wasn't sure what it was.
"Alright, look, this…" Miroku trailed off for a moment, looking down at his feet then back up to her eyes. "what we have between us, it has to stop."
She couldn't speak, she couldn't move, she couldn't even breath. "What? What are you saying?"
He felt the tears threatening his eyes. Break-ups were never easy, but this one was proving to be too much for him. He had never been in love before and letting go of Sango was proving to be one of the hardest things he's ever had to do.
"I'm saying you've touched my heart in a way that no one ever has. You've changed my life and I'll never be the same." His sweet words didn't mask what his eyes conveyed and Sango knew what was coming. A tear escaped her eye and his wiped it away gently with his thumb.
"Please," He said. "don't cry. This is already hard. We can't be together, but I wanted to let you know you have been the one for me. No one will ever take your place."
"Miroku," She cried quietly and he silenced her with a finger against her lips. He longed to kiss her again, but he knew it would only make this harder for the both of them.
"Promise me this, Sango?" He asked her.
"Anything." She said, instinctively gripping onto his shirt.
"Remember me." Miroku finally said, tracing the outline of her lips with his thumb and remembering her sweet taste against his tongue. "Remember me and all we used to be."
She frowned as she peered up at him, the hot sun in her eyes making the glare from her tears even worse. "Miroku, why?"
"I have to go home. My real home. I can't live on earth anymore, I don't belong, and you…" He rubbed the side of her cheek gingerly, admiring the smooth feel of her skin, something he would never feel again for the rest of eternity. No goddess of his world could even hope to compare to her in his eyes. She was perfection. "You don't belong with me. You will find someone to make you happy, I promise."
He kissed the top of her head. "Be happy for me, Sango."
Sango grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. "But…I love you…"
Miroku felt his heart twist inside his chest, it was a pain he had never experienced before and it was painful. "Don't say things like that, Sango. You will find happiness, I promise." He pulled himself away from her to fight the urge to kiss her again. She was even pretty when she cried and he wanted to wrap her in his arms, take her home and make love to her all over again.
But it had to end. It was fate. He saw the end before they had begun, and he should have ended it then. It wouldn't be so hard on them now. He had already been addicted to her, he had tasted her, smelled her, loved her. She was immortalized onto his soul and she would forever be with him.
He knew that much.
"Goodbye, Sango." He finally said, then turned and left.
There was a knock at the door. Pulling herself from her dark bedroom, she stepped out to answer the door. Misty greeted her with a huge trey of brownies and a happy smile. "Hey girl, glad to see your still alive. You haven't been to school in three days."
Sango looked away. She knew she looked like complete hell, she hadn't ate, or bothered to get out of bed for three days, except to occasionally use the bathroom. "Just haven't felt like it, I guess."
"Sango, are you alright?" She asked. "I baked you some brownies."
"Thanks, but I'm not very hungry." Sango confessed, leading the redhead back up to her bedroom. Lazily she plopped down on her bed, dreading the fact that the sheets still held onto the scent of his cologne.
Misty frowned apologetically. "I'm so sorry, Sango."
"I mean, look at me, I finally gave my heart to somebody, finally gave someone a chance…" She turned on her side to face the bare wall. "And what look what happened."
Misty was quiet for a moment, before she sat on the edge of the bed to rub her friend's shoulder comfortingly. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but there are plenty of guys out there that would die for a chance with you."
"I know, but…none of them are Miroku." She said softly, breathing in the scent of her sheets. His scent was all over her bed and the softness under her reminded her of that night. "I wish that could have been real, Misty."
"I know you do." She sympathized, not sure of what else to say.
"I mean, your lucky. You have Brock, and other guys that like you." Sango told her. "I just had Miroku and…he didn't even love me back."
Misty looked down at her and sighed. "Well, it's Friday afternoon, Sango. You shouldn't lay around in this room all weekend, it's not good for you and maybe you should go out and try to meet another guy. That Marcus guy liked you didn't he?"
"Marcus?" Sango asked, looking towards her. "Oh, right, Marcus. Yea, he did."
"Well," She said, offering her a smile. "maybe you should give him a call and see what he's up to."
She sat up and peered over at Misty. "I know I need to move on. He told me to. He said he had to go back home. I'm still not sure where that is, but apparently it's somewhere far, far away from here."
"I guess it's wherever Cupid lives."
Sango looked down, still wondering if Miroku ever existed. She picked up her phone and dialed Marcus Cooper's number.
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