This was hanging on my hard drive and I thought, hey, why not post it? It's meant as a first chapter, but I doubt I will ever continue it...actually, I can't say that. Maybe I'll get in the mood and I will. Eh. Happy reading.
Standard Disclaimer on my profile.
The air hung heavily, summer could still easily be felt through the warm winds that carried through September. The school year had started about a week ago, and yet still it felt like the middle of summer. Kagome sighed, looking over the grounds with a sleepy eye. She had a couple of assignments due tomorrow, and she knew she was not looking forward to starting. As a result, she floundered slightly on her way inside, taking as much time taking in the light air and sights of the Higurashi shrine; her home.
She smiled slightly, yet the smile was heavy.
Why did she feel so…nostalgic?
Her heart jumped when she heard a cry behind her. A rather high-pitched voice was yelling out her name, and it sounded quite tired.
"Higurashi-chan! Higurashi-chan!"
She turned around, her raven hair blowing slightly in the mild wind, and she focused her pale blue eyes on the skinny boy running after her.
He had climbed up the hundred-or-so steps to give her…a small piece of paper.
He was panting, and smiled difficultly when he reached her.
"Hojo…what is this?" she asked, slight annoyance in her voice, not even remotely well-hidden. She was not overjoyed at seeing her class mate here, no matter how nice (she preferred the word spineless) he was. However, he seemed to be the undisputable male idol at her school, so according to her friends, deserved some molecule of respect.
"You dropped this… when you got off the bus…I ran…all the way here…to give it to you…" the boy replied with a smile, still gasping for breath.
"You…" Kagome looked at the boy with masked pity. "That's very kind of you Hojo." Why is he so persuaded that if he acts like a lost puppy I'll start acting interested?
Kagome realized she wasn't being very nice, despite that she didn't even try to put on her sweet, sugary smile and make him feel like all that work was worth it.
"I'm sorry Hojo, I appreciate this, but I need to go inside and start my homework…" she hesitated, feeling rather uncomfortable. Hojo nodded, a weak look on his face as he realized she wasn't going to do anything more for him.
"I'm sorry to impose, Higurashi." He said stoically, and bowed. Kagome smiled, relief painted over her face. He walked away, feeling rather stupid and angry, and Kagome let out a deep sigh.
That had been awkward beyond belief.
She walked towards the main building where her family lived, and opened the front door. Taking off her shoes and putting on the fuzzy, soft pink slippers that always stood faithfully at the entrance, awaiting her return, she walked into the kitchen. "Hello?" she called out.
"Oh," her mother appeared, "Hello dear." She smiled.
"Hey." Kagome answered, "How's your day been?"
Her mother smiled, looking happy, "Oh, it's been a regular day." She said. Kagome went to the fridge and took out some apple juice. "But your doctor called."
Kagome looked up. "Anything wrong?"
"No, dear. They just called to say that your last check-up tests went just fine, and that though the laboratory test are still inconclusive on what exactly you had for three years, its probably never coming back." She said cheerfully. "I bought some pie to celebrate!" she smiled.
Kagome nodded. "That's nice. Thank you, Mama."
Her mother and her exchanged some more pleasantries, but they were rather empty. Once Kagome finished her apple juice, she grabbed her backpack from the table where she had left it and went to her room upstairs. Her mother left to pick up Souta from school.
Kagome sighed when she entered her room. Why does this room have so much pink? Despite that it was her favorite color, Kagome was starting to find it rather irritating. What is it with me today? First, she had been downright cruel with Hojo, who had run quite a way to give her back a scrap of paper… What was that paper anyways? She reached in her light summer sweater's pocket and pulled in out, unfolding it. It was simply a sheet with a few notes from her Literature class she'd had that day. She'd taken out the book to read on the bus, and that's when it had probably fallen out.
She spaced out, her mind traveling to that day, to her friends, to her frustration. She couldn't understand how restless she was. Ever since school started, something inside her seemed…
She couldn't describe it, or put it into words. But something was missing, and in the stagnant, lingering heat she could barely stand waiting for something more interesting to interrupt her routine.
She founds her friends boring; shallow even. She couldn't stand her classes, and even less her teachers. Most of them looked at her very condescendingly, the others had eyes full of pity. When she'd returned to school full-time after her recovery last January, she'd had to face that a lot. Half the teachers couldn't believe her sickness, and the other half spoke to her with such fragileness that she wanted to scream at them. She wasn't some doll! She could barely remember most of the pain from her sickness, and she didn't want to linger on something that had eaten up about three years of her life. The better part of her high school years were gone, and now that she was graduating this year, she just wanted to forget about it.
Yet the sickness had imprinted quite a bit on her personality, apparently. Her friends Yuka and Eri and Ayumi all knew a Kagome before the sinkness that she had actually been very sweet and quiet. Now she was openly sarcastic and rather cynical. Not quite an optimist, but not really a pessimist either. She had a very, very pronounced sense of justice and wasn't afraid to speak her thoughts. Just yesterday, she'd gotten into a very heated debate with her history teacher about some war lord from the 14th century and the way he had treated his people.
Most of her friends couldn't understand her anymore, either. Kagome never really lingered on this, preferring not to alienate them: they were her friends. Still…they would never understand some facets about her personality. Such as this one: she wasn't completely head-over-heals in love with Hojo.
She bit her lip. Yes, Hojo was a nice guy, if nice was also a synonym for spineless cheesecake. She just wasn't interested, and she wanted her friends to realize this, and to stop pestering her about it.
It wasn't even Hojo that bothered her, mostly. It was the prospect of a relationship that put Kagome…in a rather bad mood.
"You need to calm down, girl." She told herself as she flopped down on her bed. She grimaced as her skirt fell in a rather revealing way. What if Grandpa barged in? Stupid uniform: she couldn't stand wearing the short skirt she'd outgrown a while ago. But rather than asking her mother to waste money on buying a new one, she just clenched her teeth and tried to ignore how slutty the skirt made her feel.
She got up and went to her closet abruptly, changing into a pair of jeans.
There. Take that, you stupid skirt.
Rolling her eyes at her own childishness, she went to her desk and took out her textbooks, and got ready for a few hours of tiring homework.
It was eleven at night when she heard the unfamiliar rustle outside her open window. A light sleeper, she got up and crept to her window, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Without a noise, she looked outside. It might be Buyo, the silly cat loved to lock himself outside during the warm weather, and when the tabby remembered the food was inside and he would then mew all night until someone let him in.
She caught sight of something running somewhere behind the shed where they kept the temple supplies and some of the stock for the souvenir shop. Biting her lip, she wondered if this was worth waking up Mama.
It then occurred to Kagome that she was being overly paranoid. She kept watch for about another fifteen minutes, and when she didn't see anything, resolved to go back to sleep.
The calm was short-lived. Another noise, louder this time, pierced through her open window and she sat up abruptly.
Grabbing a flashlight she kept in her desk's drawers, she crept down the old wooden stairs as quietly as possible and opened the back door, going outside, well aware that she was in her pajamas and was probably no real threat to whatever had made that noise.
Hopefully its just Buyo.
And her cat did appear out of the shadows. Buyo mewed and the disappeared again. Groaning, yet also relieved, Kagome lit up the flashlight and lit up the shadows made by the old well-house.
"Where are you, kitty?" she said in a soothing voice, her apprehension totally gone.
She discovered a small hole in the wood paneling behind the shed and sighed. He'd gone inside the well house. Rolling her eyes and muttering, she went back around and towards the house for the keys. She quickly returned, and unlocking the rusty old lock, pushed the door open and went inside.
"Buyo?" she called out again, biting her lip as she faced total darkness.
She lit the flashlight again, and let it slip over the small interior of the shed. When the light flashed over the boarded well in the center, she let out a strangled noise.
Dressed entirely in red, with silvery white hair, stood a man, and he was scratching Buyo's ears.
"Who…who are you?" she asked loudly, her eyes wide with confused fear.
The man got up from his sitting position, and there she realized how young his face was. And how his eyes shined oddly in the dim light of the small flashlight she held in her hands.
"You don't remember me, Kagome?"
"How do you know my name?" she retorted, but it was answer enough. She studied him carefully, backing towards the door. "How'd you get in here?" she then looked at the old, sacred well behind him…instead of being boarded up, like her grandfather had done that summer, it was open, the pieces of wood had been ripped away…
"You…you don't remember? What happened…these past three years?" he asked again, his voice barely above a gruff whisper, he sounded generally shocked, hurt even.
"Who are you?" Kagome asked again, "Answer, or I'll call the police!"
The threat had no effect on him.
"We need to talk." He said simply, walking towards her.
"Who are you?" Kagome screeched as she ran out of the well house, panicked. She dropped the flashlight and ran towards the house. I have to reach mama, or a phone. This guy is completely mad!!!
But before she got very far, a strong grip pulled her abruptly back. She whirled around to see he'd appeared behind her, and her wrist was currently locked in his fist. "Let go!" Kagome demanded, panicked.
"Just listen. I won't hurt you."
Kagome ignored him as she looked at the hand closely, trying to get out of his vice-grip. Where those…claws? Or just really long, sharp-looking nails?… Her eyes widened in fear as she looked at his face. He had glowing, golden eyes that were staring at her intently, a look she couldn't place. But it scared her.
Sensing that she was going to scream, the man put his other hand over her mouth gently. "Please don't." he said. "I just need your help."
Who are you? Her eyes asked as she nodded and his hand left her face, and he let go of her arm, which she hastily clutched to her chest, afraid he'd change his mind and try to grab her again.
"We need to talk," he repeated.
"What do you want?" She hissed in response.
"You don't remember me at all?" This time, his voice held something different, less threatening, less business-like. He sounded…like he was sad. But he was hard to read. His face did not change, and all she could see was his tense apprehension. He didn't want her to scream, she concluded.
"You'd think," she sneered, "that I'd remember someone who dressed up as a kabuki actor in the middle of the night to wake innocent sleeping girls and kidnap their cats."
He just stared at her.
"Never mind." She rolled her eyes, slightly annoyed.
"I get it." The man growled, crossing his arms, "I'm not stupid, Kagome. And you're definitely not innocent. And I'm definitely not here for Buyo."
"How do you know my cat's name?"
"What are you playing at? Are you angry at me or something? Still?" the man said, exasperated.
"I'm angry at you because I still don't know who you are, and I found you in my locked well house petting my cat in the middle of the night! State your business, Kabuki-fangirl! Or leave before I call the police!"
"My name is InuYasha, idiot. And I'm not a Kabuki-fangirl."
They both stayed silent.
"That's it? 'InuYasha'?" Kagome questioned, confused.
The man nodded.
"Ooookay…" Kagome muttered sarcastically.
The pause continued for a while as InuYasha's eyes traveled all over the girl, taking her in. She hadn't grown in size, but her eyes seemed wary, though that may just have been from lack of sleep. His gaze unnerved Kagome. "Are…"
"What?"
"Why are you here, 'InuYasha'?" the name rolled off her tongue. It wasn't a difficult name, but…it seemed odd to her. Like it rang a bell she couldn't hear very well.
He snapped into focus. "Now, we're talking. I need your help. The Shikon-no-tama was destroyed but we think a piece may exist still, and the carrier brought it-"
Kagome's face grew more and more weary. "Listen, you go inside, and I'll make you some tea or something, and we'll talk about this properly, okay, 'InuYasha'?"
InuYasha looked at her, his eyes questioning.
"Do you have any ramen?"
"Ramen?"
He shifted from foot to foot. "I haven't had any since you left and-"
"Wait a second, since I left?"
He blinked. "Right, apparently, you don't 'remember' anything." He growled. "Fuck."
She stared at him. "Ramen, right? Might have some. Wanna come in the house and I'll check?"
He nodded, and she gulped silently. He had breathtaking eyes. Despite his general weirdness, his eyes were actually quite beautiful.
She bit her lip and turned around, stopping only to pick up Buyo who had come out to be brought back in, and went inside the house. InuYasha, or whoever he was, followed noiselessly. She gulped silently.
She went to the kitchen and flicked the lights on.
"I'll be right back, I need to check the basement if we have any left…"
He nodded, his arms crossed as he stood in the middle of her mother's kitchen, looking incredibly out of place with his silver hair, long nails, red traditional clothing and…were those dog ears?
Her eyes widened and she stared, mouth-dangling open as she watched them twitch. He frowned at her, and his stern gaze brought her back to reality.
"I'm…downstairs…be right back."
Trying not to trip over her own feet, she went down the hall, making sure he wasn't watching her (having decided to examine the toaster instead) and picked up the cordless phone. She then opened a small door by the stairs, and went downstairs, locking the door behind her, wincing as she heard the lock click far too loudly than she would have liked.
She hastily went down the stairs and turned the lights on, and saw the quiet washing machines, and some shelves where they held a few reserves.
Sitting on the floor behind the clothes dryer, she dialed the emergency number.
"Operator? Operator? Thank you god… There's a crazy guy dressed in Kabuki clothes and a wig upstairs in my kitchen. He's not dangerous, I don't think, but you have to get someone over here and take him away…My mama and grandpa and brother are sleeping…I heard him outside…Please, get someone over here as fast as possible I live at the Higurashi shrine and my name is Higurashi Kagome…"