A/N: Inuvember Day 2: Mirsan is over by two hours in my time, but... it's still Day 2 somewhere in the world, right?

Here is my scant contribution, a little poorly named oneshot I started and finished after the sun went down. It's (surprise!) an AU, and I think it's awfully cute. The timeline is a little vague and I'd love to know how you imagine it to go, because I have a rough idea in my head that I don't want to make a commitment too.

For the readers who are unfamiliar with school periods, in the majority (if not all?) of the United States, classes are divided into sections called periods. They are divided by times (each period has a specific time with a few minutes in between so students can get to their class), and by class subject (first period could be History, second English, etc). I hope that clears it up for you! If not, feel free to ask at my Tumblr ( princessango).

Happy Inuvember!

Fifth Period

The first thing he sees in her is anger. The deep brown of her eyes looks suspiciously scarlet if you are at just the right angle, and the sharp lines of her jaw reminds him of a knife — the knife that butchers use, the knife that chops things up and glints maliciously in the kitchen light. It's in everything she does, the way she moves, the hard gaze she judges everyone with.

It's… sort of hot. But that's not what a teacher's assistant is supposed to notice, and moreso, that's not what a nurse's assistance is supposed to be concerned with.

"Child, what happened to you?" The nurse clucks her tongue at the sight of her, bruised and battered and beautiful, and she scrambles to begin typing and clicking arbitrarily at her computer.

So she's a regular visitor, Miroku notes with mild curiosity. He also notes that she doesn't say a word in response, and that she refuses to even direct her eyes towards the nurse sitting at her desk or at himself, sitting a few feet behind.

"Go ahead and sit down, I'll…" The nurse trails off when she sees two students sheepishly trailing into the room behind her. "Let me just take care of these boys first. Miroku, go tend to her for a few minutes."

It is the first time she tells him to help someone to a cot, but one glance at the girl tells Miroku why it's allowed this once; she looks awful.

"Here we go, follow me," he says. She does as he says and lies down where he leads her to, all without saying a word. Her eyes, once furious, look more hollow now than enraged, and there is something about her that is… sad.

Miroku doesn't do sad. He stays away from the baggage and the drama, and he floats as superficially as possible amongst women who are pretty and carefree.

"What?" is her first word, spoken directly at him.

"You should probably take a nap," he says politely, already beginning to leave. "You're probably going to be here for awhile. Nurse Kaede isn't going to let you leave until she's confident you're okay to go."

"Fine with me." She ends the conversation by looking up to the ceiling, eyes open and blank.

Miroku knows he should leave, but there is something about her emptiness that calls out to him, that makes him linger. "Can I ask what your name is?"

"Sango. I'm a regular."

"Nice to meet you, Sango. I'm Miroku."

"Yeah."

The second time, she doesn't look too bad. The same amount of bruises, but less bleeding, at the very least.

"Sango, right?" Miroku says pleasantly when Nurse Kaede is out looking for more bandages. "You sure get in a lot of trouble."

"It's fine. It happens," she mumbles. She never quite looks at him, and it bothers him deeply. It shouldn't; he's never seen her outside of fifth period, and he knows nothing about her besides her name. Even so, her marked disinterest in him is unsettling. It makes him feel less like himself, like he cannot ever feel balanced until he earns some recognition from Sango herself.

But he has nothing to say, so instead, he asks, "Would you like some water?"

"Sure, it's not like I have anything else to do, right?"

Miroku rises and returns with cup of water in hand. She takes it from him and devours it all with one sip before placing it back into his palm. Each movement is firm and assured without being arrogant or abrasive; she is collected without being confrontational, as if she is years beyond the rest of her peers. As if she has looked life in the face and seen the secrets of the world.

She surprises him by speaking after he has already risen to leave.

"Thanks."

Miroku looks over his shoulder and nods at her wordlessly. The moment passes. She looks away. He smiles to himself, feeling only a small prick of pleasure. So she is human. So she is not invulnerable.

Perhaps the next time, he would receive from her a smile.

He feels brave enough to call out to her jovially the next time she comes in. Plus, he's is in a particularly good mood since Shima agreed to go on a date with him the next night. "Sango, you've returned!" he greets her.

It takes her aback, and for once, Sango's guarded expression loosens and she blinks at him. "Well… yes. Hello, Miroku."

"And you don't have a single spot of blood on you," he says with pride.

Her eyes narrow slightly when she realizes he's been studying her, marking her, taking notes on her behavior and her appearances throughout the weeks. "Yes."

"Now, don't give him such a hard time, Sango," Nurse Kaede interjected. "You do make quite an entrance into the infirmary."

"Would you like your usual cot?" Miroku asks with a flourish, a bright grin on his face.

He's not usually like this, Sango thinks, wondering at the pointed change in his behavior. She is an analyst, she is a strategist, she is a fighter and she notices these small details that can change the entire worldview.

"Yes, sure," she says cautiously as she begins to follow him down the path she already knows quite well.

Miroku doesn't leave when she's lying down, and because she senses that he is going to speak, Sango respectfully waits. Because although he's done nothing but show her which cot is hers, there is something about him that is difficult not to trust after he's seen her so roughed up.

Or maybe she's just gotten hit on the skull one too many times.

"You know, I checked the records; you're in here more than I thought. At least once a week," he says slowly. He's met with only a soft grunt of acknowledgement, not quite an encouragement but at least a sign that he wouldn't get beaten up if he continued with his train of thought. "I'm just wondering why you're always getting into fights."

"How do you know they're fights?" Sango asks dryly.

"Because you always have at least one person following."

I really must have gotten hit on the skull one too many times if that wasn't obvious to me from the beginning. Sango is quiet as she collects her response and Miroku is, thankfully, patient with her. He isn't emotional at all, a fact that she oddly finds comforting. There is no pity, no admiration, no feeling whatsoever; he is only listening.

"I don't think there's a clear answer to that," Sango finally says. "I get into fights. There's no conscious reason. A therapist might give you psychobabble about my subconscious or childhood, but I'm no therapist."

"It's fine if you just like to see me, you know. I'm always here during fifth period, if that helps." He's offering this ridiculous attempt at humor to distract her, Sango knows, and she is grateful for this small act of kindness he has given her.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, turning away from him so he can't see her small smile. But he does, and with a swelling chest (and perhaps a swelling head), Miroku leaves her alone to wonder who he thinks he is — and who he thinks she is.

With each visit, his questions become more and more intrusive, until he learns all there is to know about her: the death of her mother with her little brother's birth, his brother running away, the absence of her father as he works himself to the bone. The misery, the grief, the rotten luck of it all.

It feels like the two have known each other for years. He knows everything that she defines herself by, and when she admits this to him, Miroku ponders.

"You define yourself by all the bad things that have happened to you, Sango."

"Those are the only major events of my life." She is almost offended by his words, as if he is putting her down with the thoughtful wisdom she has come to expect from him. He is observant in ways that still surprise her, and he is constantly reminding her of the big picture that Sango would otherwise have missed.

"No good things? Your little brother being born?"

"Celebrations are temporary, and so are the good things. My little brother was born… and then he left. You could argue that bad things are temporary too… but they seem to last longer, don't they?"

The two of them frequently fall into conversations just like this: almost philosophical, challenging each other's thoughts and beliefs and opinions. It is a battle of the minds and not of the fists, as Sango has become used to.

"That's something to think about," Miroku eventually concedes after a silence between them. It's a sign of victory, and she has always liked to win.

"We've become friends, haven't we, Miroku?" Sango says in wonder, more of an afterthought than a real question.

"Yes, I guess we have." And he is the most surprised of them all. He remembers the time he dismissed Sango, brushed her off his shoulder as if even thinking of her was tiresome. And sometimes, it still seems that way; her soul is heavy and her emotions are weighted, and she is guarded and tough and awfully intimidating.

He had thought there was nothing easy about her, but as coincidence would have it, befriending her has been the most natural thing in the world.

She smiles, directly at him, and it catches him off guard and Miroku feels himself falling before he can reach out his arms to catch himself, break the fall, brace himself for impact. He crashes against it like he's been pushed into the water, and it floods him and surrounds him and there is nothing he can do but sink into it — this new light that surrounds Sango in his mind's eye.

Sango has always been attractive. He's never denied that, although Miroku would rather flirt with Nurse Kaede than admit his first impression of her. Her allure has always been an objective fact that he would recognize, and then move on.

But now he feels it, it strikes him like a brick wall, it shouts in his face and shakes him by the shoulders until he will look it in the eye.

This all takes place in a moment. A very specific moment, the moment that he sees the warmth in her eyes.

There's no going back, after that.

He starts looking for her in the hallways, in the courtyard, in the cafeteria. She is nowhere to be found, and you would think that a girl who got into fights so often would do them publicly, but Sango is as invisible as she is strong.

It is frustrating. He wants to give up. He doesn't.

His friends notice the way his eyes flitter past them even in the middle of conversation, darting back and forth, searching for long hair so brown it is almost black and matching eyes.

"What are you doing, Miroku? I'm here, right in front of you. Don't be so rude," Kagome scolds him after her patience is worn thin.

"Are you so stupid you don't know where to look right now?" Inuyasha asks arrogantly.

He doesn't tell them that he's just looking for her. She is his secret, his hidden gem.

Logic tells him that she will find him eventually; Sango is bound to appear again in the beginning of fifth period with new bruises and her usual flippancy whenever he or Nurse Kaede tries to actually tend to her wounds.

But that is not the point. The point is that Miroku wants to find her, and he wants to find her first. It's harder than it looks, though, and much harder than he thought it would be, but he keeps trying.

Sometimes she sees him walking to class, and a part of her wants to reach out and say Hey, how are you, nice to see you outside of the school's excuse for a hospital, I got into a fight in second period and the person there has no idea who you are and wouldn't send out a note for you because apparently a specific assistant isn't necessary to find the right bandages.

But she doesn't. Instead, she watches, and eventually, she recognizes a pattern and she begins to wait for him to approach a girl and flirt, almost shamelessly at times. It shouldn't bother her, but it does in a way that's different than what she's used to. The fire that burns in her chest is best extinguished with a fist, in Sango's experience, but this smolder is slower, it's smoother, it's warm and not white hot.

The thought comes before she can banish it from her mind: He never talks to me like that.

That's a good thing! If he talked to me like that, I would gouge out his eyes. He knows better, that's why he hasn't asked me out to some ridiculous concert with some cheesy line about music being the food of love. I would murder him if he even tried.

But… well, on second thought, maybe she wouldn't murder him if she tried. Maybe she'd even think about it.

But probably not. Definitely not.

Eh. Maybe.

It is the first time they have ever been quiet together, and it's nice.

Miroku is reading a book for his English class and Sango is studying for an exam as she balances an ice pack on her shoulder. The two are focused, and they pretend to ignore the peeks they sneak at each other every few minutes. They pretend that the stolen glances are purely to make sure the other is still studying, that it has nothing to do with the slight thickness in the air.

Fifth period is almost over when Miroku chuckles to himself, and Sango looks at him with innocently raised brows. "What is it?" she asks.

"You know." Miroku chuckles again, sheepishly this time.

"What? I don't know. What's so funny?"

"You know..." He struggles to get the words out of his mouth and gives up, decides to speak vaguely instead. "This."

"This?"

"Us."

"Oh." A light shade of red spreads across Sango's cheeks and she looks down to her exam materials so quickly, she feels slightly dizzy. "I see."

He laughs again, nervously and with embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Not that funny, huh?"

Her blush deepens and she flips her study guide over. "A little funny."

"Only a little?" Miroku asks, feeling slightly bolder at the sight of her flushed face.

"A little."

He opens his mouth to press further but the bell rushes to stop him, blaring an alarm that mimics the one ringing in Sango's head. She gathers her things in astonishing speed, jumping to her feet and rushing out the door without looking behind her. "Feeling better, gotta run!" she calls as she marches on forward.

Nurse Kaede appears after Sango is gone, perplexed. "What was that about?"

Miroku sighs and shakes his head. "Nothing, I guess."

"Sango, what are you doing here? You're not even injured." Nurse Kaede speaks with surprise and a mild amount of awe at the sight of the student without a single fresh wound.

"I got a note," she says with the same surprise, holding up a piece of paper that has her name written out in scrawled handwriting.

"That's from me. Sorry, Nurse Kaede, but she forgot something important here.." Miroku rises from his seat and begins heading towards their usual spot.

Sango shrugs her shoulders at Nurse Kaede, whose confusion has not yet faded, and goes after Miroku without a word. "What did I leave?" she asks once out of her earshot.

He turns and grins at her. "It's more like what you forgot."

"Okay then," Sango says with rising suspicion, "what did I forget?"

"You forgot to give me your number."

"You're kidding. That's the pick up line you chose?" she asks, her voice incredulous with the ring of stifled laughter.

It gives him confidence, and it gives him hope. "Yeah. I thought it was sort of charming."

"I don't know if charming is the word I'd use for it."

Miroku takes a step towards her. "Well, did it work or not?"

"I'll let you know the next time I'm here because I beat someone senseless."

"So, tomorrow. See you then."

"See you then."

She begins to leave but he wants her to stay, so he says the first thing he can think of. "By the way, Sango. I'm not in any way condoning violence."

He realizes that it was a stupid thing to say the moment the words are out of his mouth, but the smile she gives him gives him reason to rethink his instant regret. "Take it or leave it."

He grins boyishly at her. "I'll take it… for now."

"Goodbye, Miroku."

"See you soon, Sango."