YES! I'm alive. And suddenly inspired….. amazingly enough. Things are crazy and I'm really sorry! I'm going to start writing again though, because I've noticed the LESS I write, the MORE stressed I get, and the LESS time I get to write. It's a vicious cycle. Oooh and I'm listening to Reanimation, Linkin Park CD. Exciting! (And to everyone who wondered, the concert was FANTASTIC, if a little to full of pot smokers)

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Mr. Blue House left her beautiful blue house at exactly three thirty. A half hour later, Mr. Flower Garden got into his green car and drove away. They didn't meet. They never even saw each other.

Kagome could care less.

For years she had lived through her stories, her books. She both despaired and triumphed with the characters as they acted out their roles, giving her insight to the kind of life, type of human interaction, she would never have. Those stories had been her life.

But when she fell asleep the night before, she wasn't daydreaming about the happenchance meeting between two neighbors. She wasn't trying to imagine what would happen to the characters in her latest book. She had shut her eyes tight, trying in vain to shut out images of his face so she could get some sleep. But she couldn't do it.

He hadn't done anything particularly clever. He hadn't swept her off her feet like the lead men in her books. Her heart wasn't even pounding at the thought of him. But she couldn't stop thinking about him. For the first time in her life someone had treated her like a normal teenage girl.

It was exhilarating.

She loved the shock that was on the nurse's face when she announced Inuyasha as her friend. She delighted over the screams from the cook when they added their own special ingredient to the day's main course. She giggled, remembering their 'dramatic' act, and the water fight that followed it. She had never felt so normal. And she had never known that normal could feel so special.

So she stayed up, reliving the day's events, until her body finally shut off. Her sleep was dreamless, and when she woke up, she still had that giddy feeling of normalcy. She slipped out of bed and ran over to her dresser. She brushed her hair slowly, letting the bristles separate her hair gently rather than tearing through it like usual. Even if he didn't come back today, the feeling spreading over her deserved soft hair.

When she was done, she tucked several strands behind each ear. She was no beauty, she'd seen enough book covers and movies to know that, but she wasn't ugly either. She was normal.

The thought warmed her all over.

She finished getting ready for the day, brushing her teeth and slipping on her custom made patient outfit, before slipping back into bed. Grabbing a book from her nightstand, she began to read, not bothering to keep the smile off her face.

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"So?" Miroku punched Inuyasha lightly in the shoulder before draping his arm around him. "How bad was it?"

Inuyasha stared at his friend blankly. "How bad was what?" The look Miroku gave him made him search through his thoughts madly for an answer. "Oh! The 'punishment'." He paused, not sure how to continue.

When he'd gone into Myoga's room, the old man had screamed just like a girl. Inuyasha had lost his patience almost instantly, striding across the room to yell back into his face an order to shut up. Amazingly, it had worked. Apparently all that the old geezer needed was a 'firm hand'. No one had ever out and out screamed at the guy. Unfortunately, after asserting his dominance, Myoga had taken to calling him Lord Inuyasha, and hadn't shown any signs of quitting when Inuyasha was finally able to leave. Between him and the girl, Inuyasha was wondering if it wasn't really a mental hospital designed to look like a medical one.

The girl. Kagome. Inuyasha did not know what to think of her. She was weird. From the moment he met her until she practically forced him onto Myoga, she had surprised him. It wasn't the occasional, 'oh! What do ya know?' kind of scenario. It was more like, she had startled him by talking to him in the first place and kept him in that frame of mind the entire time she was with him. Just being around her was an experience. He still hadn't decided if it was a good experience or not.

She was fun. He'd give her that much. He definitely had enjoyed messing around with her, and torturing the employee's of her home away from home. But he didn't need a girl in his life. Not even one who could only be a friend. Especially not a friend. At least when rumors started about girlfriends they tended to be half true, when a couple is just friends, the rumors are more vicious, claiming that they're hiding the relationship because of dirty secrets. Inuyasha knew rumors would start about him. His father's place in politics was pretty high standing after all. He didn't really care about his father's position though. What worried him most were his friends.

Kouga would probably go all competitive in a heartbeat, either by trying to find a better girl, or insulting Inuyasha's 'girl' until it was too much for her to take. He could never stand Inuyasha besting him at anything. Miroku would get a kick out of it. Even if Inuyasha swore to him on his mother's grave, Miroku wouldn't believe he and a girl were just friends. Or maybe he'd believe, but he'd pretend not to. The teasing would be a temptation impossible to resist. The embarrassment wasn't worth it. There was no way he could tell his friends about Kagome. No way whatsoever.

"That bad, huh?" Miroku's voice cut through his thoughts, startling Inuyasha out of his reverie.

"Yeah." He agreed, pushing away the memories of Kagome that came when her name brushed across his mind. "It was awful." He didn't say anything else. Let Miroku think it was worse than it was. Let him think it was too bad to talk about. Inuyasha had bigger problems. Like how he was going to find a way to see that girl again, and how he was going to keep a secret like that from the two people closest to him.

Because no matter how he worded it, no matter how he tried to ignore it, he didn't want the day before to be the last time her ever saw her. He wanted to talk to her again, maybe find out more about her. She was definitely an enigma. And he wanted to cause more trouble with her. He'd never found anyone more appreciative of his genius. It was confusing. This was why he didn't hang around with girls. But he'd had a good time with her, and if there was anything Inuyasha lived for, it was a good time.

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"I forgot to tell my teacher Takahashi got transferred."

Kagome didn't question his explanation, just opened her door all the way and moved aside so he could come in. "It's Takashi, idiot, not Takahashi."

"Keh." He closed the door behind him and flopped onto her bed. "What do I care? And since I forgot to tell Ishida about Takashi he dragged me over here right after school. So I'm gonna hang out with you."

She dragged his feet off the bed and let them dangle in the air, crossing her arms before she turned to face him. "Are you asking me, or telling me?"

He stuffed his face in her pillow, stubbornly putting his feet back on the bed. "Both." His voice was muffled. As arrogant as Kagome had already found him to be, she figured that was as close as asking for permission as he'd ever get.

"Well," She sighed, flopping onto the bed next to him. "It's not like I have much of a social life anyway."

"Yeah." He twisted his head so that he was facing her, and she could tell from the smirk that his next remark would be insulting. " 'Cause you're a loser."

She stuck her tongue out. "Jerk. Who's the loser? You're the one hanging out at a hospital in your spare time willingly."

He scrunched his face up. "Don't do that! You almost touched my face!"

Giggling, she stuck her tongue out again, being careful not to let it brush against his nose. "Do what? This?"

He pulled the pillow out from under his head and swatted her with it. "Sicko, I almost got your spit germs on me."

She yanked the pillow away from him, ignoring how messy he had just made her hair. "Idiot. I was careful." It was her turn to attack with the pillow. "You're not worthy of my 'spit germs'."

He grabbed the pillow, mid attack, at threw it off the bed. "Bring it on girly." He beckoned her with both hands. He expected her to tackle him, or maybe use some other kind of frontal assault. Instead she got him where he was most vulnerable.

"Hey!" He gasped, grabbing her by the wrists and forcing her hands away from his body. "No tickling!"

"You issued the challenge." She smirked. "So I get to make the rules."

"What are the rules?" He let go of her wrists.

"There are none."

He gleeked on her.

Whatever she had expected, it wasn't that. Reeling backwards, she fell off the bed, muffeling a cry as she hit the floor. "You!" She sputtered. "You gleeked on me!"

If he heard her, he didn't act it. His face was red from laughing and he couldn't seem to stop. "You," He gasped. "You fell off the bed!" He pointed at her as he laughed.

She smacked his hand away. "Yuck! Now I have Inuyasha germs on me." She wiped her face with the inside of her shirt.

"You can thank me later." He grinned.

She leaned forward. "I'd rather do it now." Before he could react, she spat the biggest lugi she could manage right into his face. She clapped both hands over her mouth, but that did little to quiet her giggles.

Inuyasha froze.

"That," He wiped his face with one hand and cleaned it off on the bed sheet. "Was disgusting."

"That," She corrected, yanking the sheet off the bed and tossing it in the corner of the room. "Was pure genius."

Inuyasha retrieved her pillow from the floor and put it behind his back, relaxing comfortably against the wall. He closed his eyes.

Kagome raised an eyebrow. "Comfortable?"

Obviously he hadn't noticed she was by her sink, and that the spray nozzle was mere inches from her hand. "Yeah, actually."

"I'm sorry."

He peeked an eye open. "For what?"

"THIS!"

He jumped up with a yelp as freezing cold water splashed over him, soaking into her bed. "What do you think you're doing, wench!"

She was cracking up. "I'm sorry!" She apologized again, between laughs. "I couldn't help myself. You were just so peaceful!"

In one quick stride, he picked her up, bridal style, and carried her over to her bed. Finding the wettest spot on it, he set her down, pushing her roughly into the bed. "I'm sorry." He said, grinning as she gasped at the cold contact. "I couldn't help myself."

She wrestled away from him and crossed her arms. "Jerk."

"Yup." He grinned. "But you like jerks, don't you?"

"Only for target practice."

And they enjoyed their afternoon.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.

If Kagome had any worries about Inuyasha's deteriorating memory, she wasn't letting on. And he never offered any other explanation for why he appeared at her door every afternoon, at the same time, without fail.

YAY! This chapter is finally finished! That makes me so happy! School is 'almost' out for me. I still have three papers to finish and a final, but then I'm free! And I can promise you, I'll be updating a lot more!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much for your patience you guys, it's the fact that I know some of you are still reading that makes me skip school long enough to type every now and then. Rock on!

Rogue Pryde