He was painfully aware of that. The other children wouldn’t look at him most of the time, and when he was able to gather the courage to speak to them, he was often turned away with a “Why would we want to be near such a filthy half-breed?” As they walked away, he was forced to shrink back in shame.
His ears stood tall, ever present on top of his head, hearing everything that was said about him. Even worse, he heard all that they said about his mother. His mother had ‘tainted’ herself, and should have been rid of him when he was babe and unable to survive on his own. He shouldn’t have been allowed to live.
He was far stronger than anyone else around him. He learned that when he went to push down his grandfather for striking his mother, and tore through his flesh instead. The howls of the older man haunted Inuyasha for years, well into his adulthood.
“I’ll kill you,” he hollered, “I will kill you and your mother and be done with all of this!”
He was different, though he didn’t want to be.
He wasn’t supposed to cry, he learned that young.
His mother told him strong boys didn’t fear the night, didn’t fear the old man down the hall, didn’t fear who they were. So Inuyasha figured that the first step to being a strong boy was to learn to not cry.
His tears caused his mother great distress and often beatings from the man down the hall, so better that they not fall at all, he figured. Unfortunately, he forgot how to smile when he learned not to cry. When his mother left the mortal realm, he forgot what happiness felt like too.
He bottled it up, as he always had, the night his mother died. No tears shed for the woman who had brought him into this world, because she even though he may not be able to touch her anymore, he still knew that crying would hurt her. He couldn’t do that.
“Heartless child,” they whispered as he sat by her bed, looking at the cloth covering her face, silently praying to gods who never once helped him, to bring her back. Just bring her back.
When he was forced to leave, forced to flee his only home and seek refuge in a cruel world, he never looked back.
He wasn’t supposed to cry, but on the inside, it was all he did.
He wasn’t wanted, that was made clear to him.
He sought out his brother, the only family that he had left. It look him a year to find his brother, a tall, strong, unstoppable demon. A full blooded demon, but Inuyasha was half like him. He followed the older boy around for six months before he realized that he wasn’t wanted.
His brother didn’t want him there, didn’t want him to follow him around, didn’t want to help him. Sesshomaru would happily have fed him to demons if Inuyasha wasn’t willing to fight to stay alive. It wasn’t his brother making him stronger, teaching him to fight. It was his brother trying to be rid of him like the humans before.
He tried to make peace with other demons, knowing that humans would never accept him again, he would never belong to a village again. But the demons who were nice for a while had a purpose, normally a nefarious one that intended to leave him dead.
He was better off alone, better off fighting to stay alive just out of spite for everyone else.
He wasn’t wanted, though he longed to be.
He was hard to know, and it made it hard to trust.
Kikyou was the first person to offer him any sort of truce in his life. Everyone else had sought to harm him in some sort of way, but with Kikyou, a gentle understanding of ‘You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone’ came to be. It was the closest thing to an actual relationship he had ever had.
It was a rocky and difficult relationship, but he loved her for showing him compassion, something he had never truly felt. He didn’t open up to her easily, and offered her no details about himself when she offered hers.
It was fragile, but beautiful in it’s own way. It fell apart in blood, mortally wounding not only their bodies but also their souls, to the point it would haunt them in times to come.
“You betrayed me...” filled two hearts who were once so close, and yet so far.
He was hard to know, because he didn’t know himself.
He was many things, all at once, an overly complicated man.
He was stubborn to a fault, and unwilling to meet anyone in the middle. He was fiercely protective over anyone he cared for, and yet so aloof to them at odd times. He craved closeness, but didn’t want to be near.
He was beaten and battered by the world, broken in so many ways that those closest to him couldn’t possibly know everything about his past sufferings. He was reluctant to share his life experiences, because it brought on sympathetic looks or touches that he didn’t - couldn’t - understand.
But when he looked at the people closest to him in his life - the girl from the future, the old priestess, the young fox, the monk, the slayer, the villagers - he saw something he had never seen before. He was a man who had a place, somewhere he belong, and people he belonged with. A place where he was called by name.
“Uncle Inuyasha,” two little girls called out to him as he walked towards their home, “come play!”
