It was almost too easy to convince Rin’s parents to let her come over for the weekend. Of course, he was hardly just anyone , but last he’d heard, Sesshomaru was being a real hard ass about the kids studying adequately for their end of year exams.
He nor Sango had qualms about returning the gifts that Miroku helped them choose should those report cards return with anything less than A’s lining the columns.
“You are my savior.” Rin huffed. She fell into his arms, giving him a sideways hug before heading, almost immediately, into his kitchen to ransack his cupboards. “Dad hasn’t given us a break since…” he heard the cabinet close and the plastic seal of the cookie container come squeaking open. “Since summer break, probably. If I have to face one more equation I’m gonna put my head in the toilet.”
“Your parents have always been hardcore.” He knew that his cookies were not long for that world, so he snagged one from the pack and picked a seat. “When Sango and I were in highschool she used to beat me during study sessions. Just–.” He grabbed the paper towel roll and made an example out of his counter. “Thwack, thwack, thwack.”
“If you think I’m going to say that she’s not like that anymore.” Around the cookie she shoved into her mouth hole, Rin continued, “I’m not. And, on top of that, they’ve been making us eat especially healthy food for the past few weeks.” She ranted for a few minutes about the way her parents had fashioned themselves into drill sergeants. When they were young they would order slices of cake from the cafe, sharing off of the plate while Sesshomaru went through cigarettes like they were going out of style.
“Get enough sleep. Eat healthy. No caffeine. No sugar–.” Rin bit into another, her tongue darting out to collect the crumbs that escaped her violent chewing. “It’s like they’ve never been young before. Dad especially.”
“Your dad was a menace before he adopted you.” Miroku assured her. “He threw away so many things for your sake. If he’s a little…utilitarian, it’s because he loves you.” And because he was a bit of a control freak.
“Loving me doesn’t give him the right to act insane.”
Miroku managed to snag a second cookie. The process of eating it would help him avoid saying too much or revealing secrets that he had no sole claim over. “Act? Now Rin, surely you know it isn’t an act. He popped out of a crazy mother, was raised by a crazy father, and still managed to feign sanity. At this point it wouldn’t be right to blame him for what he can’t help.” It was a joke, or, at least Miroku thought it was, but the way her eyes dipped and her appetite suddenly died was startling.
“He does plenty of judging.” She assured him. “If things aren’t the way ‘nature intended them’ then boom. In the trash. I don’t think I’m wrong to judge a little in return.”
“No! Because he threw away that decaf coffee you brought him back from Kyoto all because it wasn’t ‘right’.”
This was very clearly not about coffee, that much didn’t need to be acknowledged, but he sat quietly, waiting for her to explode. Though, he would be making Sesshomaru pay for that coffee. Miroku had chosen those beans especially for him. According to Sango, the rotten old bastard hadn’t been sleeping–too busy pacing the length of their bedroom muttering to himself until well into the night.
“Just imagine what he’ll do to me.”
“Over a cookie binge?” Miroku shrugged his shoulders, feigning ignorance. “He might make you go on a run with him, but I don’t think he’s taking you back to the orphanage over that one.”
“It’s not just the cookies.” She groaned. Her head hit the counter with a dull thump. “I'm failing English, they want me to bring my nonexistent boyfriend to christmas dinner, and all the while my girlfriend is introducing me to her parents on new years.”
“Aren’t you a little young for a girlfriend?”
“I’m fifteen, Miroku! I’m not a baby anymore.”
“When you were a baby you banged your head on the counter, ate all my food, and cried when your papa didn’t cuddle you enough.”
“If anyone understands–.”
“It’s me.” Miroku stood, collecting her how he did when she was still so small he only needed the one arm. “But I’ve been saying it since you sat down. Your father loves you. So much. You’re his daughter, his family. Nothing could get in the way of that.”
“He hates uncle InuYasha,” she murmured into his chest. For someone who was very much not a baby, she still seemed to be soothed by the sound of his heart thudding against her ear.
“And that has nothing to do with the fact that he was born aunty InuYumi.”
Rin pulled back. Most of her tears had already fallen by then, but she still brushed at her cheeks to be sure. In moments like those, when she was such a stunning combination of the people who had been ready to raise her, Miroku knew he’d done the right thing stepping away from the two people he’d loved the most. He hadn’t been ready. He’d resented Rin. Raising Kohaku after Sango’s parents’ passing had been too much, but to add on an infant? They held nothing against him when he took that massive step backwards, and he eventually found his own happiness, but there were days when they were reminiscing over their youth, that he’d wished they’d chosen him.
Today was not one of those days. She was a product of their connection, and calling him uncle instead of papa somehow made that connection burn brighter.
“You say that your father hates when things aren’t as they’re intended to be, but you have not been altered. So, don’t you think that would mean that this inauthentic version of yourself is the one he’d actually hate?”
She considered that for so long he worried she’d shut down on him. Then, finally, she sat back down and rested along the cradle she made of her arms.
“I have a spare room.” He assured her, and then, as an afterthought, “and an old sutra with your old man’s name on it.”
