InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Class Trip ❯ With Friends Like These... ( Chapter 3 )

A/N- Hi all! Welcome to the third installment of my fic! I hope you all liked the last one! Sorry about any other authors' notes that make no sense. I also have this fic on ff.net, so those notes apply to THAT copy. Gomen ne!

Disclaimer- do you see that word, "disclaimer". "Dis"= "Un". Un-claim. I do not claim this. The show doesn't belong to me. (Sucks, don't it?)

PS- before we start, this chapter has several parts, so they'll be separated with lines of ~*~*~ etc.

Do not be alarmed. ^-^ I also upped the rating last chapter, to PG-13. Cuz there got to being swearing more often, so I had to make sure I wasn't disrupting conservative families.

Ch.3- With Friends Like These~ -OR- Inuyasha, meet Hojo!

Kagome's mother had been surprised, to say the least, to see Inuyasha follow Kagome down the stairs a few minutes later. The fact that he was carrying TWO bulging packs and was wearing modern clothes only added to the surprise. Still, she offered him a place at the breakfast table and a plate of pancakes before asking her daughter, quite pointedly, "So, how long has Inuyasha been here?"

(The boys were paying no attention, as Jii-chan was trying to `exorcise' Inuyasha, and Sota was trying to play with his ears.)

Kagome understood what her mother was _really_ asking, but couldn't voice in front of the guys. She blushed bright red before answering. "He got here early this morning. I'm surprised you didn't hear the yelling!" She laughed nervously, incredibly embarrassed that her mother thought she might be doing _that_. `Of course, it doesn't help that he's wearing totally different clothes than usual.' She mused, her embarrassment fading. At least her mother had been subtle about asking; not that any of the guys would've noticed, with the chaos down at their end of the table. Kagome sweatdropped as she watched Inuyasha try to eat, dodge her Jii-chan's `attacks', and try not to get glomped by Sota, all at the same time. It was rather comical.

`I love Jii-chan, but he has as much `magickal power' as Miroku has restraint~'

Finally, Kagome decided they'd both had enough to eat and that it was time to go. "Come on, Inuyasha. We have to go, or we'll be late."

"Oh!" her mother started at this, "Are you going through the well so soon? I thought you were going to go on that trip with your class. I turned in your money already~"

"I still am, mom! Gotta go! Bye!" She yelped as she grabbed Inuyasha's hand and tugged him out the door, quickly closing it behind her.

She half-ran across the shrine grounds, still dragging Inuyasha behind her. She stopped at the bottom of the steps to catch her breath and let Inuyasha finish his pancake, which he had managed to grab while being dragged out the door.

"Why'd you run out of there so fast?" he asked after he finished the pancake and they had begun walking in the direction of Kagome's school. It was really unlike her to run out on her family so fast.

"I had to! Do you realize what mama would've done if she knew I was bringing you along on a class trip!? She would've grounded me for sure. Yeah, she likes you and all, but taking you on a trip with minimal adult supervision ~ well, a lot of parents were worried, since this is a co-ed trip, but Mr. Tsuyuki (A/N- I made this name up. If it means something bad, gomen.) told them all that he would personally make sure that there was no `funny business' and that all the tents were single-sex, not co-ed. So the parents said it was okay to hold the trip. But mom would still be worried. She already has the wrong idea ~" Kagome trailed off into thought.

Inuyasha was now quite confused. He started trying to sort out what Kagome had said, to see if he could make any sense of it. He had no idea what this "co-ed" thing was, but it must have been important if so many people made a fuss over it. After ten minutes of serious thought he figured out that "co-ed" must mean there were males and females together, because she said the "tents" would be single-sex, which meant there had to be more than one sex there. But what had she said about her mother "having the wrong idea"? And what did it have to do with him, anyway? She said her mother liked him. `Oh, well. Like she ever makes sense anyway.'

"I still don't see why I have to wear these stupid clothes every time I come to your time." He commented a few minutes later, looking down at his clothes.

He was wearing one of the outfits Kagome had bought for him when he had stayed over for a few days last winter; a pair of loose cargo pants, a blue Puma T-shirt, black baseball cap with a logo for something Kagome called a "band" on it, and a pair of Puma sneakers*. He still objected to wearing a shirt with a cat on it, but Kagome told him to get over it.

"And why did I have to put the Tetsusaiga in the bag?" He shrugged the shoulder the bag rested on to demonstrate. "How am I supposed to get to it if something attacks us?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that nothing is going to attack us? You have to wear the clothes because they make you fit in better (And privately Kagome thought they looked pretty darn good on him, anyway.), and the only reason I let you bring the Tetsusaiga at all is to keep you from going youkai on us and killing my whole class."

He continued following her until they reached a large building with a bunch of people Kagome's age milling around in front of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Kagome-chan!" Yuka was the first to spot her as she entered the school grounds. She ran over, with Ayumi and Eri following close behind.

"You're here! We were so worried that you might get sick again and not be able to come!" Eri sounded really relieved that her friend had managed to make it.

Kagome cast a pointed glare at Inuyasha, as if to say "you see what you do to my life!?"

Unfortunately, this had the unpleasant side-effect of directing the girls' attention to Inuyasha. There wasn't much out of the ordinary that they could see, with the hat covering his ears. He had golden eyes and unusually long hair and nails, but that was just quirky. What really attracted attention was that his too-long hair was silver-white. The girls stared for a few moments before determining that, despite the weird hair and eyes, this guy was _hot_.

Kagome was mostly worried about what they would say if they realized that he had fangs. `Good thing he doesn't smile too much around other people.' Too worried, in fact, about what _could_ happen to notice what _was_ happening. What was happening was that the girls were assaulting the poor hanyou with tons of questions.

Yuka: Hey! Who are you!?

Ayumi: Why are you carrying Kagome's pack?

Eri: For that matter, why are you carrying _two_ packs?

Ayumi: Are you coming on the trip?

Eri: Kagome didn't tell us she was bringing anyone.

Yuka: Hey! Are you that two-timing jerk Kagome's always crying over!?

At this, Kagome came to her senses and dragged the girls away from their victim, hoping he hadn't figured out what the girls were talking about.

"Okay," Kagome began once she had the girls' attention, "Yes, he technically is my "two-timing jerk boyfriend", but _he_ has no idea that he is my two-timing jerk boyfriend. He isn't even actually my boyfriend, okay? He's just an annoyance that refuses to go away. So, DON'T SAY ANYTHING!!! Got it!?"

The girls were a bit shocked by their friend's outburst, but determined that if she was so set on it they'd better do what she asked.

"So, you like him, but he has no clue? So what's with all this two-timing stuff if you two aren't even going out?" Ayumi was curious about what was actually going on here.

"Yes, I like him. It's a really long story that I don't feel like telling. Lets just say he has commitment issues." Kagome sighed.

Her friends looked at her, all coming to the same conclusion. `She's got it _bad_!'

"So what are you going to do about Hojo-kun?" Eri asked, trying to clear up another issue.

"Hojo's coming on the trip!?" Kagome looked shocked, and a bit terrified.

"What's wrong with that? There are three classes going you know. Hojo-kun's class is one of them. We thought you knew." Ayumi informed her.

"This could cause problems." Kagome looked intensely worried.

"Why?" Yuka asked excitedly, "Maybe a little competition will make him see the light!"

Kagome blanched. "I sincerely hope Hojo does not try to be competition."

"Why not?" Eri asked, "Its kind of fun to have guys fight over you!"

"Okay, guys," Kagome said in a tone of voice that she hadn't ever used before. "When Inuyasha fights over me, the opponent doesn't just lose _me_. Lets leave it at that."

The girls decided to try to figure this out later.

"So, why is he on our class trip? He doesn't go to our school, does he?" Yuka began questioning Kagome again.

"No. He's on the trip because he refused to stay home."

"So he's LIVING with you!?" the girls all yelped at once, attracting the attention of a few upperclassmen on their way to classes.

"No, No!!! He's not. He just comes over a lot. He refuses to stay at _his_ home, is that better?" She was trying to get them to understand the situation, but not too much. She thought about her own statement. `His home. Does he even have one? I mean, yeah, we all stay with Kaede now, but before that, and before he was pinned to the tree. Sesshomaru kicked him out when his father died, but where did he stay after that? He never said. Hm. I might have to think about that one.'

"Okay, so he's coming on the camping trip. He _is_ the two-timing jerk, but we can't say anything because he doesn't know he's the two-timing jerk. He also doesn't know that you're completely in love with him"

"WHOA! Hold on a sec. I never said that!" Kagome protested, but the girls shut her up.

"As I was saying," Yuka continued, "He doesn't know that you're in love with him, so we can't say anything about that either. Now, what are you going to do about Hojo?"

"I don't really know." Kagome admitted. "I don't want to hurt his feelings, but I don't want him to get himself into a fight with Inuyasha either. I hope he just avoids him."

"Not much chance of that!" Eri quipped.

"What do you mean, Eri-chan?" Kagome looked puzzled.

"Because Hojo's right over there." Ayumi stepped in.

"Where?" Kagome was trying to spot him. The girls turned her around, and Yuka said, "Over there. Talking to your non-boyfriend."

"KUSO!!!" Kagome swore and tore off to stop the impending death of Hojo.

The girls exchanged looks.

"Have you ever heard Kagome swear like that?" Eri asked the others.

"Nope."

"No."

"This is really confusing."

"Yeah, but we can have fun with it." Yuka sounded absolutely evil.

"How?" Ayumi asked her, a bit scared of the look Yuka had in her eye.

"This is how." Yuka began to fill them in on the plan, and they began to laugh at the thought of Kagome's face once she realized what they were planning.

"This is gonna be fun." Yuka grinned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Inuyasha had watched the girls go off with disgust. Kagome and Sango did this all the time. They'd go off and talk about _something_, come back all, well, _giggly_, and refuse to tell the guys what they had been talking about. It really got on his nerves. All they would ever say was that it was "girl stuff" and that he wouldn't be interested. Then they'd giggle again. `Annoying bitches.' He found a tree nearby in the courtyard and leaned up against it, setting down the packs he was carrying.

He was broken out of this reverie by the approach of a young man who looked a few years older than Kagome (A/N- I don't know how old Hojo is, but he looks older than Kagome to me).

"Hello! I don't believe I've met you before. Are you a new student? My name is Hojo by the way. What's yours?"

Inuyasha was already pissed at the guy, "Hojo" he called himself. He was too damn polite, acting like Miroku did around women right before he groped them. "My name is Inuyasha, not that it's any of your business." Inuyasha retorted, closing his eyes.

"Well, Inuyasha, I was wondering why you were carrying Higurashi's pack. Are you one of her friends?"

"I was carrying the damn thing because she made me. Will you go away now?" He was getting even more pissed off.

"Ah! So you are a friend of Higurashi's!"

"You could say that." Inuyasha answered, deadpanned. "Why the hell do you keep calling the bitch `Higurashi' anyway? Just call her Kagome like everyone else."

"That would be extremely rude. As are you, apparently. Who are you to call Higurashi such a thing!" Hojo, being his normal naive self, felt that it was his duty to defend Kagome's honor.

"I can call the wench whatever I want to call her. What's it to you, anyway?"

Hojo puffed up (A/N- you know how guys do that!) and answered, "I happen to be Higurashi's"

"Good friend!!" Kagome managed to interrupt before Hojo said something he didn't know he'd regret. "So, Hojo-kun, I see you've met Inuyasha!"

"Yes, I have. Higurashi, why do you associate with this person? He ~" Hojo continued, regaling Kagome with how rude and uncouth this strange person was.

Meanwhile, Yuka snuck up to Inuyasha and put something in his hand, then whispered in his ear (or where she thought his ear was) for a moment. When she left, he looked down at the object she had handed him, puzzled.

Kagome, however, was still trying to ditch the well-meaning Hojo.

"Well, Higurashi, despite this individual, I am glad to see that you are well. The anemia has gone away, I presume?"

Kagome made a mental note to get her grandfather a medical dictionary so he could come up with some believeable diseases.

"Yes, I'm fine Hojo-kun." She noticed (since she had learned to pick up on such things) that Inuyasha bristled every time she addressed Hojo. `I wonder why.' She thought on this for a moment while Hojo rambled on. `Its because I add the -kun to the end of his name!! I do the same thing to Kouga's name! Is he _jealous_!?' She shot a glance at Inuyasha, but he noticed and turned his head away, disinterested.

`I can't stop calling Hojo Hojo-kun, because he would get insulted, but I don't want to ruffle Inuyasha too much either ~ I'll just tell Inuyasha to chill out later.'

Finally she was able to get rid of Hojo, after telling him about seven thousand times that she was _not_ going to keel over dead on the spot.

"Come on, Inuyasha." She said as soon as Hojo had left. "We have to sneak you on the bus."

"Bus?"