Author's Note: Hello! Wow already over 100 reviews! Aww thanks guys I feel so loved! Not really much to say this time just that I'm one of the lead characters in my school's musical! YAY the only freshman in the main cast oh ya! Sorry not trying to brag or anything I just can't believe it! Plays are so much fun to be in! I've had such a good time with this one I've decided to devote my life to trying to become a famous musical theatre artist! If not Hollywood famous that is lol! Anywho, on with the story.

Chapter 12: 86 thousand 4 hundred seconds

Inu Yasha pulled Kagome closer to him; she felt cold and was shaking just a little. "Inu Yasha" she mumbled softly "the snowflakes, do you remember?"

"Of course" he said with a grin, shifting her into a sitting position "how could I forget?"

She smiled at him and reached into her pocket, pulling out two pieces of folded up paper. They looked like they had once been pure white but were now a murky grey colour from their old age. She unfolded them and held them up. They were paper snowflakes, the ones she had pointed out on her window that day.

"When you left, I made these" she said, a rosy hue settling on her cheeks, her breathing had become increasingly shallow "I used the ones on the window as models."

"Wow" was all Inu Yasha could say. This was unbearable, now he felt really bad. He had to tell her about the bet, he just had to. So what if he was down some money…okay a lot of money! Damn it all he hated to lose all that dough. Kagome's more important, Kagome's more important, KAGOME'S MORE IMPORTANT! He thought to himself.

"Listen, Kagome" he said nervously "there's something I have to tell you."

"Yes?" she said, leaning closer to him, her eyes half lidded.

He suddenly felt quite tongue tied. God she was cute. "Um…it's…it's kind of important" he said, his face growing even more red than hers.

"Uh huh" she said, her breathing suddenly became very short and wheezy. Her face grew redder and she put a hand to her heart, coughing red liquid into the snow.

"Kagome?" Inu Yasha said "are you okay?"

"No" Kagome said worriedly, pointing to her chest "my…heart…"

"Hey!" he said as she fell into his arms again "what's wrong with your heart?"

"Beating…too…fast…" she said slowly "getting weak…hospital…"

With that, her eyes closed and she fell against him, all her strength gone. "Stop it! Enough now!" he said "I'm all for going down memory lane but don't re-enact what happened that day with Koga! You had me scared to death! Kagome? Are you listening to me? I said snap out of it!"

He took her by the shoulders and shook her briskly, hoping to knock some sense into her "hello?" he yelled.

But her head just lolled back down to her chest. He grew a little worried and laid her back down in the snow, unsure of what to do. "Okay…I swear to god if you wake up right now so conveniently I didn't do this on purpose!" he said to her in warning, then breathed in deep and laid his hand on her chest slightly above her breast to feel her heartbeat. When that didn't work, he leaned over and put his head to the same spot. Her heart was beating at an uncountable rate. He sat up in shock, why was this happening? He thought she'd gotten over that illness long ago.

"Kag-Chan!" he yelled, he knew she had said not to call her that but he couldn't help it, this was just too much like what had happened that day so many years ago. And in the very same spot no less. He picked her up gently and laid her on his back. He then sprinted off in the direction of the hospital using all the hanyou power he had in him to get there as fast as he possibly could…

Kagome awoke to the loud, constant beeping of the heart monitors and many hospital machines. So familiar to her were all the noises that she barely noticed where she was until she sat up and rubbed her eyes only to find that there was an IV needle stuck right in the major vein of her right hand…and that she was completely naked under the covers. She tried to scream but found that her throat was killing her, what had happened? All she remembered was being at the park, by the cherry blossom tree, Inu Yasha was there too.

Suddenly, the door slammed open and in stormed the very boy "why didn't you tell me!" he yelled, coming right up to her…only to find that she was… "uncovered"

"Oh…uh…" he said, tongue tied again as he pulled the sheets up above her chest, a crimson tone to his face.

Kagome noticed why he had done so and slapped him across the face "pervert!"

"Liar!" he yelled back, rubbing his face where she had hit him "why didn't you tell me about your heart problem? Why didn't you tell me that you could die!"

"Uh hello!" she replied "you stopped talking to me, we weren't friends anymore. Why should I have told you?"

"Yet another lie, you're on a roll Kagome" he retorted "except this time you can't pull the wool over my eyes because the doctors told me everything! Including that you knew about this even before we stopped being friends, you knew right from the beginning!"

"I thought you'd be worried, if I told you" she said with a sigh.

"Damn right I'd be worried" he said "so what? You thought it'd be easier to have some complete stranger tell me that my best friend has a very short time left to live?"

"Best friend?" Kagome repeated quiet.

"Yes" Inu Yasha confirmed "no matter what happens to us Kagome, you are my best friend, always have, and always will be."

Kagome smiled and lay back against her pillow.

"But…why does it have to be like this?" he continued, coming to kneel by her "why is it so confusing, like there's no definite time, it will just come when it comes."

Kagome smiled wider "you're really worried about me aren't you?" she said.

"Obviously" he replied "I don't want you to die."

"Look you really don't have to be that worried" she told him. To which he merely replied with a sarcastic look.

"Let's play a game. It's a great game and it will take your mind off all this. Now, imagine that you've won a contest, and your prize is that every morning a bank will open an account in your name containing 86 400 dollars. And there are only two rules you must follow: the first rule is that everything you fail to spend is taken from you that night. You can't cheat, you can't switch the unspent money to another account: you can only spend it. But when you wake the next morning and every morning after that, the bank opens a new account for you, always 86 400 for the day. Rule number two: the bank can break off the game without warning. It can tell you at any time that it's over, that it's closing the account and there won't be another one. Now, what would you do?"

Inu Yasha was not sure he understood.

"It's very simple, every morning when you wake up, they give you 86 400 dollars, on the sole condition that you spend it in one day. If you don't spend it all by the time you go to bed, you lose the unused balance. But this game can stop at any moment understand? So my question is, what would you do if you were handed this prize?"

He didn't have to think long to answer. He would spend every dollar on pleasure and on gifts for the people he loved. He'd find a way to use up every cent offered by this "magic bank account" to bring happiness into his life and the lives of everyone around him "and even the lives of people I don't know, because I don't think I'd manage to spend so much money on just me and my loved ones in a single day. But what does this game prove?"

She answered "We all have that magic bank account: it's time. A big account, filled with fleeting seconds. Every morning when we wake up, our account for the day is credited with 86 400 seconds, and when we go to sleep every single night, there's no carryover into the next day. What hasn't been lived during the day has been lost; yesterday has vanished. Every morning the magic begins again, with a new line of credit of 86 400 seconds. And don't forget: we're still playing by that rule. The bank can close our account at any time and without any warning. At any moment, life can end. So what do we do with our daily allowance of 86 400 seconds? Sit here and argue and worry? I beg you, Inu Yasha don't be afraid. It's not as though I am lying in my coffin just yet. So while I'm here let's just worry about the time we spend today rather than the time we might lose tomorrow. Okay?"

Inu Yasha merely looked at her in awe before putting his arms around her and saying "each second with you is worth more than any other second."

I believe that's a good place to stop for today. Hope ya liked it! Probably not one of my more creative chapters but pretty good I think. Well send me review. I love the new reply option on reviews so if you have account on fan fiction, send me a signed review, we'll have ourselves a chat lol! See ya next update.

Luv y'all

xXxKaG-cHaNxXx