Bingo: Prompt, Any Song by Brad Paisley "Letter to Me"
Songfic written for inusongfics
Prompt: Any Song by Brad Paisley
Song: Letter to Me by Brad Paisley
Pairing: Inu/Kags
Warnings: Mild cursing
If I could write a letter to me
And send it back in time to myself at 17
First I'd prove it's me by saying look under your bed
There's a Skoal can and a Playboy no one else would know you hid
And then I'd say I know it's tough
When you break up after seven months
And yeah I know you really liked her and it just don't seem fair
All I can say is pain like that is fast and it's rare
“Look, ninety percent of this stuff is yours.” Kagome was standing in the middle of the hallway, hand on her hips with a scowl set firmly in place on her usually happy face and an open closet door behind her spilling out a mountain of boxes, bags, and clothing. “I’ll help you, but I’m not going to do it all.”
“Why not?” Inuyasha whined from where he was poking his head around the corner, not trusting his welfare were he to venture any closer. “You’re the one that wants to use that closet, not me. So you should be the one to clean it out.”
“Fine, then everything’s going straight in the trash.” Kagome stated as she gripped a black, plastic trash bag tighter in her hand. Ignoring the flash of panic on her husband’s face she turned to do just that.
“Wait! I might want to keep some of that stuff!” Inuyasha sprinted down the hall and wrenched the bag away from her, staring at her as though she had lost her mind. “I’ve had some of this stuff since high school. It’s got memories!”
“Inuyasha, it’s junk.” Kagome rolled her eyes and gestured to a wobbling pile of shoe boxes that was threatening to cascade down from the top shelf. “And it’s dangerous junk. I can’t tell you how many times I was reaching in here for a jacket or a raincoat only to almost end up coming out with the pile on my head instead.”
“So I’ll organize the junk.” He straightened up and stared down at her, using his height to his advantage. “You wouldn’t have a problem with it if it was more contained, would you?”
“No…. but I would prefer it if it got thrown away….” Kagome reached out for the trash bag once more. “Okay, you don’t have to help anymore. Go watch the game or something. I’ve got this.”
“No!” Inuyasha clutched the bag to his chest and stared at her in shock. “I haven’t thrown away your five thousand shoes, you can’t throw away my high school memories.”
“Shoes are different!” Kagome shouted back in surprise. “Shoes have a purpose. This junk just sits here and gathers dust and takes up room that we could be using for something more important. Something like, oh, I dunno… Moving the umbrellas out of the hallway so they don’t continuously trip innocent bystanders.”
“Or open up more space so you can get more shoes more likely.” Inuyasha grumbled as he stubbornly held onto the trash bag. “You get to have your extraneous shit, and I get to have mine. Fair’s fair.”
“Ugh, fine!” Kagome sighed and threw her hands up in defeat. “But you have to promise that if it’s too ratty to be truly recognizable, or if it looks like it’s breeding something, we can throw it away.”
Inuyasha hemmed and hawed for a second, but eventually gave in, mainly because she had taken to pinching his ear to make sure that she got the promise in its entirely than anything else. And so they settled down into sorting through and organizing the hall closet, starting with the shoe boxes on the top shelf because neither of them really trusted the way they were leaning over ominously.
They worked in silence for a moment, each one sorting through the mounds of junk they were tasked with going through before Inuyasha came across something he couldn’t believe had stood the tests of time and being shoved under too many mattress to count.
For, right there in front of him, caught between an old text book and underneath a torn, empty box of cigarettes, was a Playboy he had acquired through a series of highly hilarious high jinks twenty years ago when he had been fourteen.
“Oh gross…” He jumped in the way of the guilty as he felt the weight of his wife leaning against his back. “That is going in the trash.”
“No way!” Inuyasha scooted away from her as fast as he could, leaving her kneeling five feet away while sending him one of her better glares. “This is the first porn magazine I ever looked at and it was a bitch and a half to get it! This thing got me through most of high school and the beginnings of college. I can’t throw it away now. That would be like sacrilege!”
“No, it would be sensible, which is why you don’t want to do it.” Kagome rolled her eyes and held out her hand impatiently. “Give it here. That is not something we need floating around the house… No, I changed my mind. Don’t give it here. You throw it away. I don’t want to touch it. I don’t even want to know the kind of action that thing has seen.”
“I’m not throwing it away. I sold my soul for this, and you can’t take that away from me.” Inuyasha stared back at her stubbornly.
“Ugh.” Kagome wrinkled her nose in disgust as she flicked the cigarette carton at him, watching in thinly disguised glee as it bounced off of his forehead. “And throw that away, too, while you’re at it.”
“What? These two are a package deal and I am not getting rid of them. Do you know what I had to do to get these? Do you even know!?” Kagome shook her head in way that said she very clearly didn’t want to know. “After Sesshoumaru bailed me out of jail I had to do his advanced calculus for two months! I have more than paid for these with my blood, sweat, and tears. I’m keeping them.”
“You’re not even good at calculus, and they’re old and gross. Get rid of them!”
“Feh.” Inuyasha scoffed. “He knew that. He just did it all over again when I was done because he liked torturing me with the knowledge that no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t going to get it right. And I’m not throwing them away. Answer me this: Are they torn and beaten beyond all recognition?”
“No….”
“Are they so dirty and disgusting that there is the possibility of them breeding things?”
“Not that I can tell…”
“Ha!” Inuyasha grinned triumphantly and threw his arms in the air in celebration. “Then by your rules they get to stay if I want them to!”
“Oh, fine!” Kagome rolled her eyes once more and turned back to her shoe box full of old school work and letters “Keep the damn things, just put them at the bottom of something and make sure they go up on the top shelf where no one can reach them…. Hey, what are these?”
Inuyasha perked up at Kagome’s question and scooted over to her to get a better look after carefully stowing away the offending items. “What are what?”
“These.” And then she trust a bundle of pale, pink papers under his nose, getting his attention and creating a paper cut on his upper lip at the same time. “They’re all from the same girl and they’ve got little hearts and smiley faces all over them.”
“Oh! I haven’t seen these in forever!” Inuyasha quickly grabbed the small stack of letters and began flipping through them. “These are all from my first girlfriend, Kikyo. Damn, I haven’t seen her since graduation… Granted she still wouldn’t speak to me then, but still… Fuck, these are old.”
“An old girlfriend?” Kagome raised one eyebrow and looked at her husband dangerously. “And you kept them for how long? Almost twenty years? Must have been some girlfriend.”
Inuyasha shrugged. “I was about as in love with her as any seventeen year old boy is capable of being in love with a girl. Not that it mattered, she dumped me after like seven or so months. Broke my heart, too. I thought I was never going to get over it.”
“Uh huh…” Kagome narrowed her eyes and Inuyasha felt a small trickle of fear rise up from the base of his spine. “So you wouldn’t be opposed to throwing these away then, now would you? I mean she broke your heart and all. I would think you wouldn’t want to keep all these bad memories just lying around.”
“Hey! I didn’t throw away your old prom pictures just because your ex-boyfriend was the one holding your hand.” Inuyasha accused as he held the bundle of letters out of her reach seeing as she was now attempting to get them back to throw in the trash by force. “Come on! No fair! If I’m not allowed to get jealous over past boyfriends, then you’re not allowed to get jealous over past girlfriends!”
“Who said life was fair?”
“Ow! My spleen…”
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
She wasn't right for you
And still you feel like there's a knife sticking out of your back
And you're wondering if you'll survive
You'll make it through this and you'll see
You're still around to write this letter to me
“Do you still miss her?”
The pair were now laying out of the floor with papers and books and clothing scattered all around them. After Kagome had finally managed to get the letters out of her husband’s hands, he had decided that, now having free hands, he could use them to grab her and stop her from crawling the few feet to the trash bag. This had then caused a rather involved physical fight which had ended up with no clear winners and an even bigger mess with absolutely nothing resolved.
“Sometimes.” Inuyasha admitted. “But not because of the reason you’re thinking. We just… We didn’t part on good terms. She was told by a friend that I had been seen with another girl and she believed them. I didn’t even get a chance to defend myself. I kind of just want the chance to make things right and to ask her why she would have believed something like that about me without coming to me and asking.”
Kagome sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess that does kind of suck…. Do the letters really mean that much to you?”
Inuyasha propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. “If it’s going to make you mad, then no. I just kept them for sentimental reasons. You kind of don’t forget your first crush, and it didn’t help matters that she left me the way she did.”
“Why’d you never tell me any of this?” Kagome asked as she allowed him to help her into a sitting position.
Inuyasha shrugged easily. “You never asked. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing people tend to go spread around just for shits and giggles. So can I keep the letters?”
Kagome thought about it for second but nodded.
“Yeah, I guess so…”
At the stop sign at Tomlinson and Eighth
Always stop completely don't just tap your breaks
And when you get a date with Bridgett make sure the tank is full
On second thought forget it that one turns out kinda cool
Each and every time you have a fight
Just assume you're wrong and dad is right
And you should really thank Mrs. Brinkman
She spent so much extra time
It's like she sees the diamond underneath
And she's polishin' you 'til you shine
“Oh, wow.” Kagome dropped the yearbook she had been browsing through and quickly scuttled over to Inuyasha’s side. He was holding a set of pictures of a red car with a huge hole in the passenger side door and he was cringing as he looked down at it “I didn’t remember this being that bad…”
“What the hell?” Kagome grabbed the photo on top and stared down at it in mild horror. “Oh, god. That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, the car was totaled, too. Dad rode my ass for months after that.” Inuyasha whistled low between his teeth. “Not that I blame him. I would have been pissed at me, too. That was a sweet ride. Gas gauge was broken, but even that kinda worked out okay in the end for the most part.”
“Wait a minute!” Kagome screech. “Don’t tell me you were in there when it crashed!”
“Sure was. It hurt like a bitch, too. Dad was always telling me to make sure I stopped completely at the stop sign by our house, but I was too cool to listen. Besides, who the hell actually stops at stop signs anymore?” Inuyasha held one of the pictures up to the light so he could see it better. “You know… Looking back, I think I probably should have listened to him on that one.”
“Ya think!?” Kagome pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the beginnings of a headache. “What am I saying, of course you would be the stubborn, pigheaded brat that would get sent to the hospital for not obeying simple traffic laws.”
“Hey! I didn’t go to the hospital for that one!” Inuyasha shot back. “It was a low speed area, I just had a very cheap door.”
Kagome sent him a look that insinuated she didn’t completely believe him, but she let the subject drop anyway, moving a stack of homemade club shirts so that she could get to a letter half hidden underneath. “What’s this? Another love note?”
Inuyasha glanced over at the letter in her hand. “No… I think that’s my letter of recommendation my old English teacher wrote for me. I asked her to make me a copy because I wanted to see what she had to say about me… I wasn’t exactly the quietest, most behaved kid in that class and when she said she’d write one for me I didn’t know what to think.”
“Oh, you couldn’t have been that bad of a kid.” Kagome waved her hand dismissively, then paused. “…Okay, so maybe you could have been, but I don’t think even you could make a teacher hate you.”
“I tried my best.” Inuyasha admitted. “But I always got straights A’s in her class, no matter how outrageous I made my essays and no matter how many times I insulted to books we were supposed to be reading. I called them trash, I called into question the talent of the authors. Every time she said she liked something about what we were reading I went out of my way to point out why it wasn’t as great as she said it was, but she still kept trying.”
“She liked you?” Kagome asked. “Even after all of that, she still liked you enough to write out a letter of recommendation for you?”
“Yeah, I mean back then I didn’t understand why she did it, but I guess now I kinda do.” Inuyasha stared down at the letter in his hand. “She kept pushing me to challenge her on purpose. It was the only way she could keep my attention and make sure I was reading the books and doing the work, and I guess I sort of owe her some thanks because I don’t think I would have made it through college without her being there in the back of my mind making sure that I didn’t slack off.”
“Aw… That’s sweet.” Kagome cooed and she attached herself to her husband’s arm. “You should go look her up and write her a letter to thank her.”
“Naw… She was pretty old back then, the chances of her being alive and still remembering me aren’t exactly high.” Inuyasha turned his head to hide his impromptu blush. “Besides, why would she want to hear from me? For all she knew, I hated her.”
Kagome made a small noise at the back of her throat but didn’t press the issue further. They both knew that somewhere deep, down that long and almost forgotten teacher knew she had made the difference she had been hoping to make…
And that was all the thanks she needed.
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
Tonight's the bonfire rally
But you're staying home instead because if you fail Algebra
Mom and dad will kill you dead
Trust me you'll squeak by and get a C
And you're still around to write this letter to me
“I found a report card!” Kagome squealed happily as she held aloft the recently located card for Inuyasha to see. “And you weren’t kidding, you weren’t exactly an honors student.”
Inuyasha grunted angrily. “So what? You don’t have to be on the honor roll to be smart.”
“Uh huh… says the kid who has six C’s and one A… In PE.” Kagome taunted. “And that’s not saying much since everyone gets an A in PE.”
“If it weren’t for my parents making me miss the big pre-prom bon-fire it would have been one A, five C’s, and an F.” Inuyasha murmured unhappily. “Let’s just say that math has never been my strong point. I thought I was never going to be able to pass, but my teacher took pity on me and gave me a huge extra credit assignment to get those last few points… And I actually did so well on it that I managed to scrape up a low C instead of just a D.”
“Wow, that’s some kind of special.” Kagome placed the report card with a bunch of other and shut up the shoe box she had been going through.
“Don’t laugh. I thought it was the end of the world back then.” Inuyasha shuddered. “Dad would have kicked my ass had I failed and I think mom would have cried. These are not things that bode well for my home life. It was worth missing fun time to pull that grade up to where it needed to be, and I graduated didn’t I? I even got through college and everything.”
“I was just kidding, honey.” Kagome tried and failed to hide her giggles. “I know you’re smart… Just not math smart…”
“You know what… No one asked you.”
“Ah, but I give my opinion freely you see…”
“Fuck you.”
You've got so much up ahead
You'll make new friends
You should see your kids and wife
And I'd end by saying have no fear
These are nowhere near the best years of your life
I guess I'll see you in the mirror
When you're a grown man
P.S. go hug Aunt Rita every chance you can
They were putting the last of the stuff back on the shelf neatly where it belonged when they heard to tell-tale sounds of a bus putting on the brakes. They both turned to share a small smile as Kagome wandered off towards the front of the house, leaving Inuyasha behind to shove the last box neatly in place and to close the door.
Standing still at the back of the house he heard the door slam open and the sounds of two pairs of stomping feet rushing through the open doorway and into their mother’s arms as the twins shouted out greetings of surprise and happiness to find their mother home and not at work. Their young voice raised as each one frantically tried to tell Kagome about their day at the same time, both girls vying to get their story in first. His lips turned upwards involuntarily and he sighed happily.
Yeah, a lot of things had changed since he had been in high school. It was hard to imagine ever being seventeen and thinking that there was nothing more to the world than Friday night football and girls with short skirts, and bribing his brother to buy him porn and cigarettes just so he could fit in. He had come a long way from the borderline juvenile delinquent that was barely passing his classes that he had once been to the responsible and loving father and husband he was now, but he wouldn’t have traded a step in that journey for anything.
He’d had his heart broken, some of his bones broken, and more than a few of his illusions shattered. He’d gotten into fights, he’d said things to his parents, his brother, and his friends that he never would have said if he’d had the chance to do it over again, but he’d survived. He’d lived through his teenage years and managed to mature somewhere along the way, coming out with three wonderful blessings that he got to see every day, and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that.
He stared wistfully at the closed closet door and said a silent goodbye to all his memories. They would still be there, tucked away in a high corner, always waiting for him if he ever wanted to glance through and see what his life had been like, but there was no living in the past.
And why would he ever want to when his future was even brighter than he had ever imagined?
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
I wish you'd study Spanish
I wish you'd take a typing class
I wish you wouldn't worry, let it be
I'd say have a little faith and you'll see
Later that evening the girls took up their customary seat on the floor in his study to do their homework. Usually he would have a stockpile of work from the office that he had to finish, but since he had skipped work all he had to do was watch them and answer their questions from time to time.
Oh, but he did have something to do, and he couldn’t keep the grin off of his face as he filled up the page of loose-leaf paper he had borrowed from one of his little girls.
“Hey, Daddy… What’cha doin’?” The youngest, Yumi, asked as she walked over to lean over his left shoulder.
“Yeah, Daddy, you’ve been working on that for forever. What is it? It doesn’t look like you’re normal work.” Yuki asked curiously as she leaned over his right shoulder.
“Nothing really, just writing something.” He answered nonchalantly as he raised up his arms to draw his children in close to his chest. “Just a little something to pass the time.”
“But what is it?” Yumi asked more forcefully. They were a curious pair and they weren’t the kind to let a subject drop. Their mother said they got it from him… He was of the opinion they got it from them both.
“Oh just a letter…”
“To who!?” Yuki bounced happily in his embrace. “Is it to Grandma? No! I bet it’s to Mommy!”
“No, it’s not to your grandma or Mommy.”
“Then who’s it to?”
“It’s to me…”
If I could write a letter… To me…
Prompt: Any Song by Brad Paisley
Song: Letter to Me by Brad Paisley
Pairing: Inu/Kags
Warnings: Mild cursing
If I could write a letter to me
And send it back in time to myself at 17
First I'd prove it's me by saying look under your bed
There's a Skoal can and a Playboy no one else would know you hid
And then I'd say I know it's tough
When you break up after seven months
And yeah I know you really liked her and it just don't seem fair
All I can say is pain like that is fast and it's rare
“Look, ninety percent of this stuff is yours.” Kagome was standing in the middle of the hallway, hand on her hips with a scowl set firmly in place on her usually happy face and an open closet door behind her spilling out a mountain of boxes, bags, and clothing. “I’ll help you, but I’m not going to do it all.”
“Why not?” Inuyasha whined from where he was poking his head around the corner, not trusting his welfare were he to venture any closer. “You’re the one that wants to use that closet, not me. So you should be the one to clean it out.”
“Fine, then everything’s going straight in the trash.” Kagome stated as she gripped a black, plastic trash bag tighter in her hand. Ignoring the flash of panic on her husband’s face she turned to do just that.
“Wait! I might want to keep some of that stuff!” Inuyasha sprinted down the hall and wrenched the bag away from her, staring at her as though she had lost her mind. “I’ve had some of this stuff since high school. It’s got memories!”
“Inuyasha, it’s junk.” Kagome rolled her eyes and gestured to a wobbling pile of shoe boxes that was threatening to cascade down from the top shelf. “And it’s dangerous junk. I can’t tell you how many times I was reaching in here for a jacket or a raincoat only to almost end up coming out with the pile on my head instead.”
“So I’ll organize the junk.” He straightened up and stared down at her, using his height to his advantage. “You wouldn’t have a problem with it if it was more contained, would you?”
“No…. but I would prefer it if it got thrown away….” Kagome reached out for the trash bag once more. “Okay, you don’t have to help anymore. Go watch the game or something. I’ve got this.”
“No!” Inuyasha clutched the bag to his chest and stared at her in shock. “I haven’t thrown away your five thousand shoes, you can’t throw away my high school memories.”
“Shoes are different!” Kagome shouted back in surprise. “Shoes have a purpose. This junk just sits here and gathers dust and takes up room that we could be using for something more important. Something like, oh, I dunno… Moving the umbrellas out of the hallway so they don’t continuously trip innocent bystanders.”
“Or open up more space so you can get more shoes more likely.” Inuyasha grumbled as he stubbornly held onto the trash bag. “You get to have your extraneous shit, and I get to have mine. Fair’s fair.”
“Ugh, fine!” Kagome sighed and threw her hands up in defeat. “But you have to promise that if it’s too ratty to be truly recognizable, or if it looks like it’s breeding something, we can throw it away.”
Inuyasha hemmed and hawed for a second, but eventually gave in, mainly because she had taken to pinching his ear to make sure that she got the promise in its entirely than anything else. And so they settled down into sorting through and organizing the hall closet, starting with the shoe boxes on the top shelf because neither of them really trusted the way they were leaning over ominously.
They worked in silence for a moment, each one sorting through the mounds of junk they were tasked with going through before Inuyasha came across something he couldn’t believe had stood the tests of time and being shoved under too many mattress to count.
For, right there in front of him, caught between an old text book and underneath a torn, empty box of cigarettes, was a Playboy he had acquired through a series of highly hilarious high jinks twenty years ago when he had been fourteen.
“Oh gross…” He jumped in the way of the guilty as he felt the weight of his wife leaning against his back. “That is going in the trash.”
“No way!” Inuyasha scooted away from her as fast as he could, leaving her kneeling five feet away while sending him one of her better glares. “This is the first porn magazine I ever looked at and it was a bitch and a half to get it! This thing got me through most of high school and the beginnings of college. I can’t throw it away now. That would be like sacrilege!”
“No, it would be sensible, which is why you don’t want to do it.” Kagome rolled her eyes and held out her hand impatiently. “Give it here. That is not something we need floating around the house… No, I changed my mind. Don’t give it here. You throw it away. I don’t want to touch it. I don’t even want to know the kind of action that thing has seen.”
“I’m not throwing it away. I sold my soul for this, and you can’t take that away from me.” Inuyasha stared back at her stubbornly.
“Ugh.” Kagome wrinkled her nose in disgust as she flicked the cigarette carton at him, watching in thinly disguised glee as it bounced off of his forehead. “And throw that away, too, while you’re at it.”
“What? These two are a package deal and I am not getting rid of them. Do you know what I had to do to get these? Do you even know!?” Kagome shook her head in way that said she very clearly didn’t want to know. “After Sesshoumaru bailed me out of jail I had to do his advanced calculus for two months! I have more than paid for these with my blood, sweat, and tears. I’m keeping them.”
“You’re not even good at calculus, and they’re old and gross. Get rid of them!”
“Feh.” Inuyasha scoffed. “He knew that. He just did it all over again when I was done because he liked torturing me with the knowledge that no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t going to get it right. And I’m not throwing them away. Answer me this: Are they torn and beaten beyond all recognition?”
“No….”
“Are they so dirty and disgusting that there is the possibility of them breeding things?”
“Not that I can tell…”
“Ha!” Inuyasha grinned triumphantly and threw his arms in the air in celebration. “Then by your rules they get to stay if I want them to!”
“Oh, fine!” Kagome rolled her eyes once more and turned back to her shoe box full of old school work and letters “Keep the damn things, just put them at the bottom of something and make sure they go up on the top shelf where no one can reach them…. Hey, what are these?”
Inuyasha perked up at Kagome’s question and scooted over to her to get a better look after carefully stowing away the offending items. “What are what?”
“These.” And then she trust a bundle of pale, pink papers under his nose, getting his attention and creating a paper cut on his upper lip at the same time. “They’re all from the same girl and they’ve got little hearts and smiley faces all over them.”
“Oh! I haven’t seen these in forever!” Inuyasha quickly grabbed the small stack of letters and began flipping through them. “These are all from my first girlfriend, Kikyo. Damn, I haven’t seen her since graduation… Granted she still wouldn’t speak to me then, but still… Fuck, these are old.”
“An old girlfriend?” Kagome raised one eyebrow and looked at her husband dangerously. “And you kept them for how long? Almost twenty years? Must have been some girlfriend.”
Inuyasha shrugged. “I was about as in love with her as any seventeen year old boy is capable of being in love with a girl. Not that it mattered, she dumped me after like seven or so months. Broke my heart, too. I thought I was never going to get over it.”
“Uh huh…” Kagome narrowed her eyes and Inuyasha felt a small trickle of fear rise up from the base of his spine. “So you wouldn’t be opposed to throwing these away then, now would you? I mean she broke your heart and all. I would think you wouldn’t want to keep all these bad memories just lying around.”
“Hey! I didn’t throw away your old prom pictures just because your ex-boyfriend was the one holding your hand.” Inuyasha accused as he held the bundle of letters out of her reach seeing as she was now attempting to get them back to throw in the trash by force. “Come on! No fair! If I’m not allowed to get jealous over past boyfriends, then you’re not allowed to get jealous over past girlfriends!”
“Who said life was fair?”
“Ow! My spleen…”
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
She wasn't right for you
And still you feel like there's a knife sticking out of your back
And you're wondering if you'll survive
You'll make it through this and you'll see
You're still around to write this letter to me
“Do you still miss her?”
The pair were now laying out of the floor with papers and books and clothing scattered all around them. After Kagome had finally managed to get the letters out of her husband’s hands, he had decided that, now having free hands, he could use them to grab her and stop her from crawling the few feet to the trash bag. This had then caused a rather involved physical fight which had ended up with no clear winners and an even bigger mess with absolutely nothing resolved.
“Sometimes.” Inuyasha admitted. “But not because of the reason you’re thinking. We just… We didn’t part on good terms. She was told by a friend that I had been seen with another girl and she believed them. I didn’t even get a chance to defend myself. I kind of just want the chance to make things right and to ask her why she would have believed something like that about me without coming to me and asking.”
Kagome sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess that does kind of suck…. Do the letters really mean that much to you?”
Inuyasha propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. “If it’s going to make you mad, then no. I just kept them for sentimental reasons. You kind of don’t forget your first crush, and it didn’t help matters that she left me the way she did.”
“Why’d you never tell me any of this?” Kagome asked as she allowed him to help her into a sitting position.
Inuyasha shrugged easily. “You never asked. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing people tend to go spread around just for shits and giggles. So can I keep the letters?”
Kagome thought about it for second but nodded.
“Yeah, I guess so…”
At the stop sign at Tomlinson and Eighth
Always stop completely don't just tap your breaks
And when you get a date with Bridgett make sure the tank is full
On second thought forget it that one turns out kinda cool
Each and every time you have a fight
Just assume you're wrong and dad is right
And you should really thank Mrs. Brinkman
She spent so much extra time
It's like she sees the diamond underneath
And she's polishin' you 'til you shine
“Oh, wow.” Kagome dropped the yearbook she had been browsing through and quickly scuttled over to Inuyasha’s side. He was holding a set of pictures of a red car with a huge hole in the passenger side door and he was cringing as he looked down at it “I didn’t remember this being that bad…”
“What the hell?” Kagome grabbed the photo on top and stared down at it in mild horror. “Oh, god. That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, the car was totaled, too. Dad rode my ass for months after that.” Inuyasha whistled low between his teeth. “Not that I blame him. I would have been pissed at me, too. That was a sweet ride. Gas gauge was broken, but even that kinda worked out okay in the end for the most part.”
“Wait a minute!” Kagome screech. “Don’t tell me you were in there when it crashed!”
“Sure was. It hurt like a bitch, too. Dad was always telling me to make sure I stopped completely at the stop sign by our house, but I was too cool to listen. Besides, who the hell actually stops at stop signs anymore?” Inuyasha held one of the pictures up to the light so he could see it better. “You know… Looking back, I think I probably should have listened to him on that one.”
“Ya think!?” Kagome pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the beginnings of a headache. “What am I saying, of course you would be the stubborn, pigheaded brat that would get sent to the hospital for not obeying simple traffic laws.”
“Hey! I didn’t go to the hospital for that one!” Inuyasha shot back. “It was a low speed area, I just had a very cheap door.”
Kagome sent him a look that insinuated she didn’t completely believe him, but she let the subject drop anyway, moving a stack of homemade club shirts so that she could get to a letter half hidden underneath. “What’s this? Another love note?”
Inuyasha glanced over at the letter in her hand. “No… I think that’s my letter of recommendation my old English teacher wrote for me. I asked her to make me a copy because I wanted to see what she had to say about me… I wasn’t exactly the quietest, most behaved kid in that class and when she said she’d write one for me I didn’t know what to think.”
“Oh, you couldn’t have been that bad of a kid.” Kagome waved her hand dismissively, then paused. “…Okay, so maybe you could have been, but I don’t think even you could make a teacher hate you.”
“I tried my best.” Inuyasha admitted. “But I always got straights A’s in her class, no matter how outrageous I made my essays and no matter how many times I insulted to books we were supposed to be reading. I called them trash, I called into question the talent of the authors. Every time she said she liked something about what we were reading I went out of my way to point out why it wasn’t as great as she said it was, but she still kept trying.”
“She liked you?” Kagome asked. “Even after all of that, she still liked you enough to write out a letter of recommendation for you?”
“Yeah, I mean back then I didn’t understand why she did it, but I guess now I kinda do.” Inuyasha stared down at the letter in his hand. “She kept pushing me to challenge her on purpose. It was the only way she could keep my attention and make sure I was reading the books and doing the work, and I guess I sort of owe her some thanks because I don’t think I would have made it through college without her being there in the back of my mind making sure that I didn’t slack off.”
“Aw… That’s sweet.” Kagome cooed and she attached herself to her husband’s arm. “You should go look her up and write her a letter to thank her.”
“Naw… She was pretty old back then, the chances of her being alive and still remembering me aren’t exactly high.” Inuyasha turned his head to hide his impromptu blush. “Besides, why would she want to hear from me? For all she knew, I hated her.”
Kagome made a small noise at the back of her throat but didn’t press the issue further. They both knew that somewhere deep, down that long and almost forgotten teacher knew she had made the difference she had been hoping to make…
And that was all the thanks she needed.
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
Tonight's the bonfire rally
But you're staying home instead because if you fail Algebra
Mom and dad will kill you dead
Trust me you'll squeak by and get a C
And you're still around to write this letter to me
“I found a report card!” Kagome squealed happily as she held aloft the recently located card for Inuyasha to see. “And you weren’t kidding, you weren’t exactly an honors student.”
Inuyasha grunted angrily. “So what? You don’t have to be on the honor roll to be smart.”
“Uh huh… says the kid who has six C’s and one A… In PE.” Kagome taunted. “And that’s not saying much since everyone gets an A in PE.”
“If it weren’t for my parents making me miss the big pre-prom bon-fire it would have been one A, five C’s, and an F.” Inuyasha murmured unhappily. “Let’s just say that math has never been my strong point. I thought I was never going to be able to pass, but my teacher took pity on me and gave me a huge extra credit assignment to get those last few points… And I actually did so well on it that I managed to scrape up a low C instead of just a D.”
“Wow, that’s some kind of special.” Kagome placed the report card with a bunch of other and shut up the shoe box she had been going through.
“Don’t laugh. I thought it was the end of the world back then.” Inuyasha shuddered. “Dad would have kicked my ass had I failed and I think mom would have cried. These are not things that bode well for my home life. It was worth missing fun time to pull that grade up to where it needed to be, and I graduated didn’t I? I even got through college and everything.”
“I was just kidding, honey.” Kagome tried and failed to hide her giggles. “I know you’re smart… Just not math smart…”
“You know what… No one asked you.”
“Ah, but I give my opinion freely you see…”
“Fuck you.”
You've got so much up ahead
You'll make new friends
You should see your kids and wife
And I'd end by saying have no fear
These are nowhere near the best years of your life
I guess I'll see you in the mirror
When you're a grown man
P.S. go hug Aunt Rita every chance you can
They were putting the last of the stuff back on the shelf neatly where it belonged when they heard to tell-tale sounds of a bus putting on the brakes. They both turned to share a small smile as Kagome wandered off towards the front of the house, leaving Inuyasha behind to shove the last box neatly in place and to close the door.
Standing still at the back of the house he heard the door slam open and the sounds of two pairs of stomping feet rushing through the open doorway and into their mother’s arms as the twins shouted out greetings of surprise and happiness to find their mother home and not at work. Their young voice raised as each one frantically tried to tell Kagome about their day at the same time, both girls vying to get their story in first. His lips turned upwards involuntarily and he sighed happily.
Yeah, a lot of things had changed since he had been in high school. It was hard to imagine ever being seventeen and thinking that there was nothing more to the world than Friday night football and girls with short skirts, and bribing his brother to buy him porn and cigarettes just so he could fit in. He had come a long way from the borderline juvenile delinquent that was barely passing his classes that he had once been to the responsible and loving father and husband he was now, but he wouldn’t have traded a step in that journey for anything.
He’d had his heart broken, some of his bones broken, and more than a few of his illusions shattered. He’d gotten into fights, he’d said things to his parents, his brother, and his friends that he never would have said if he’d had the chance to do it over again, but he’d survived. He’d lived through his teenage years and managed to mature somewhere along the way, coming out with three wonderful blessings that he got to see every day, and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that.
He stared wistfully at the closed closet door and said a silent goodbye to all his memories. They would still be there, tucked away in a high corner, always waiting for him if he ever wanted to glance through and see what his life had been like, but there was no living in the past.
And why would he ever want to when his future was even brighter than he had ever imagined?
And oh you got so much going for you going right
But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night
I wish you'd study Spanish
I wish you'd take a typing class
I wish you wouldn't worry, let it be
I'd say have a little faith and you'll see
Later that evening the girls took up their customary seat on the floor in his study to do their homework. Usually he would have a stockpile of work from the office that he had to finish, but since he had skipped work all he had to do was watch them and answer their questions from time to time.
Oh, but he did have something to do, and he couldn’t keep the grin off of his face as he filled up the page of loose-leaf paper he had borrowed from one of his little girls.
“Hey, Daddy… What’cha doin’?” The youngest, Yumi, asked as she walked over to lean over his left shoulder.
“Yeah, Daddy, you’ve been working on that for forever. What is it? It doesn’t look like you’re normal work.” Yuki asked curiously as she leaned over his right shoulder.
“Nothing really, just writing something.” He answered nonchalantly as he raised up his arms to draw his children in close to his chest. “Just a little something to pass the time.”
“But what is it?” Yumi asked more forcefully. They were a curious pair and they weren’t the kind to let a subject drop. Their mother said they got it from him… He was of the opinion they got it from them both.
“Oh just a letter…”
“To who!?” Yuki bounced happily in his embrace. “Is it to Grandma? No! I bet it’s to Mommy!”
“No, it’s not to your grandma or Mommy.”
“Then who’s it to?”
“It’s to me…”
If I could write a letter… To me…