InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One More Day ❯ Water ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Well duh I don't own Inuyasha, neither anime nor manga nor characters; if I did there would be a lot more making out and a lot less angst. (Also he'd probably walk around without a shirt on. -drools-) But one does what one can…

 

Thanks to lovely Viv-chan for beta. n_n

 

Spaghetti-strap black tank top. Ratty, semi-faded jeans. The ones with a hole in the left knee from where she had fallen in them while rollerblading a few weeks ago. Mismatched socks. She wouldn't realize that for awhile, and when she did it wouldn't matter so much. Black Converse hightops, pretty much the only well-known brand name of clothing she owned except for Hanes. And Hanes was only underwear, so presumably that didn't count, as no one ever saw her underwear unless they happened to be in the Laundromat at the same time as she was.

 

One of her necklaces had fallen off overnight. She grabbed it off the light blue flannel sheets and put it back on. Its weight was comforting around her neck, the collage of charms clanking together noisily until she stood up and put her glasses on from the nightstand by her bed. One of her bracelets had fallen off, too, but she wouldn't realize that until it was too late, and it hadn't fallen off anywhere she'd be able to find it anyway. Which was sad. She was semi-addicted to all this jewelry. She felt unbalanced when bits of it were missing.

 

The alarm clock was still playing. Straylight Run, “Existentialism on Prom Night”. Another thing that was comforting. It was on the CD she always listened to after bad things happened. And, of course, she always had a stock of chocolate ice cream in the freezer, thanks to Sango, who had a job. Her roommate was kind like that. In theory, Sango was the only reason she was still alive, as she couldn't keep a job for very long before offending the employer by a) swearing, b) refusal to comply to the dress code, c) refusing to bullshit the customers by pretending this was the best place in the world, or d) all of the above at the same time. She was grateful for Sango. Really she was. Even so, she couldn't help wondering what turning to a life of thievery would have been like. It probably would have been more interesting than staying in school was proving to be.

 

She pointed herself in the general direction of the kitchen, where the coffee was located. Coffee was entirely necessary for her continued state of awareness. In fact, she hadn't even opened her eyes yet; her room was set up for this state of disbelief in being awake to continue relatively unhindered, and she could find the clothes she wanted to wear by touch and on automatic pilot.

 

There was coffee. It was good. Especially after she dumped about an inch of creamer and at least five sugar packets (taken from her last job as a waitress) into it to combat the bitter taste.

 

After the third cup, she shook herself a little, taking the fourth one into the hallway. She had been here for nearly four years and still couldn't get used to having a corridor outside the standard bedroom-kitchen-bathroom-living room arrangement. It was strange; she was used to few hallways and cluttered rooms whose positions didn't make much sense in the arrangement of the house. In America, her birth country, her house had almost no hallways, and the only way to get from room to room was through another room. The bathroom was reached through the living room. Her bedroom was reached through the kitchen, which was reached through the music room and also by the front door. She couldn't decide whether or not she liked this better. It was certainly easier to get around.

 

Sango finally stuck her head out of the room. “Your alarm clock woke me up,” she said, her eyes also shut in a pre-caffeine stupor and her voice scratchy with sleep. “It's six o'clock in the morning.” There was a pause as Sango meditated on what punishment this offense deserved. “I think I'm going to kill you.”

 

Kagome smiled. “Aw, you couldn't do that to ickle me. I'm so sweet. Killing me would be like killing a bunny rabbit, or a baby hamster.”

 

“Or a disease. Or Godzilla. Or a python. Or—“

 

“Okay. I get the idea.” Sango kicked her gently and moved the muscles of her face into something quite frightening that was probably supposed to be a smile. “Now go drink some coffee so I can have some decent company.”

 

“You had plenty of decent company last night,” Sango said, leering. There had been a huge party last night. Kagome had gone to rid herself of certain memories, gotten ferociously drunk, and woken up on the kitchen table of someone else's apartment at two in the morning. “You weren't complaining about it at the time, anyway.”

 

Kagome rolled her eyes. “Maybe because I was so drunk I could have mistaken you for my father?”

 

“Maybe. But I doubt it.” Sango walked away in the direction of the kitchen, failing to run into various obstacles in her way out of years of practice. She came back a few minutes later, unembarrassed about her relative state of undress—her pjs consisted of very short shorts and a so-thin-as-to-be-non-existent t-shirt—and sat down next to Kagome with a blue plastic cup of hot black coffee. “Still don't get why you put that shit in perfectly good coffee. Ruins the taste. You're missing out on the full experience, you know.”

 

Kagome clinked glasses with her fake-solemnly. “Yes, but…hm.” Her brow wrinkled slightly as she tried to think of a suitable comeback, something she normally had no problems with. But honestly, what did you say to something like that? Nothing, right? Exactly. “Shut up and drink your damn coffee.”

 

“Such language so early in the morning.” Kagome gave her a Look. “Shutting up and drinking my damn coffee, ma'am.”

 

A comfortable silence fell in the small hallway.

 

“What are you going to do about Inuyasha?”

 

She should've known it couldn't last.

 

Sango had put the coffee cup down and turned to fix Kagome in the crosshairs of her dreaded problem-solving look. It was kind of mystifying, especially to her boyfriend, how someone with such sweet brown eyes could be quite so ruthless. Admittedly she slapped him every time he said this. Ah well. It was too bad Miroku wasn't well-known for his intelligence; perhaps he'd stop losing brain cells at such an alarming rate from being slapped by insulted women.

 

Kagome exhaled angrily and pushed back on the wall, walking around Sango into the apartment. The sound of dishes clanking together angrily reached Sango even from her position in the hall. “Why can't you just drop it?” she exclaimed. “It's over! It's done! We broke up! Why can't you just leave it alone?”

 

“Because you're obviously not over him, and you need closure, and I don't want your last few weeks here to be so depressing that it's all you remember of four years in one of the greatest cities of all time. I mean, come on, Kags. You're in London! And for the past six months you've been too busy with this guy to notice anything,” the petite brunette shot back, stomping after her to properly harangue her from the kitchen doorway. “And because you're so obviously in love with him—“

 

Kagome whirled around, a knife she was watching clutched in her soapy hand and pointed semi-unintentionally at her best friend. “I'm. Not. In. Love. With. Him. I can't be. Don't you get it? If I'm in love with him, then why am I perfectly okay with going after other guys? Why did I spend most of last night making out with Bobo—Hobo—Hogo—whatever his name is?”

 

Sango added “waving a knife around” to her mental list of things that didn't prove the logic of whatever point one was trying to get across. It was just creepy. Especially since she had seen her roommate stab a guy in the hand without batting an eye for making some kind of perverted remark about girls in waitress uniforms being easy. And that was mild, compared to what had happened with the cheese grater. “Except that you're obviously not.”

 

Kagome opened her mouth. “I—“ Sadly, expecting a sentence to come out of your mouth without actually having anything planned does not make it actually appear on your lips. She couldn't think of anything else to say.

 

“And I've seen him around. He looks completely miserable. He's still wearing that…necklace thingy you gave him, or whatever it was. Good luck charm. Thing,” she continued, determined to make headway but not so sure what she was talking about. It seemed to be working through no fault of hers. Interesting.

 

Kagome drooped suddenly. The knife was pointing more reassuringly at the floor now. “It was just a kanji symbol. I heard his parents were Japanese and brought him here when he was little, so…I dunno. I just thought it'd be nice and symbolic.” Her voice cracked on the second syllable of symbolic. “And I suppose it was, if he's still wearing it.”

 

It's weird how little things come up during significant moments. Right in the middle of learning about someone's death, the person being notified is almost bound to remember little things they have to do, like turning off the stove or picking up the kids from school. Human beings have some kind of built-in firewall that keeps them from experiencing everything properly, so they're not overwhelmed by whatever's going on. for example, as Sango tried to convince Kagome that she had in fact found true love—true enough for now, anyway—Kagome remembered about her bracelet.

 

The bracelet had been a present from her mother on the day her father died, arriving in an envelope with a letter. The letter was to be opened on the day she got married. Her mom had told her it was from her father, that he had wanted her to have it when he died; it had been her grandmother's, and her great-grandmother's, and back and back until maybe six hundred years ago. She had been nine. The bracelet hadn't left her wrist since that day.

 

“Oh God,” she said, the knife dropping from her hand. It clanged against the floor almost in slow motion. Or that was the way Kagome would remember it: first the tip, and the almost wind-chime-like noise it made, then the handle, then the tip again. It was kind of like in the Sprint commercial. “It's gone.”

 

Sango switched into concerned sister mode within a few nanoseconds. “What's gone? What's wrong?”

 

“The bracelet! It's gone!” she said, gasping a little. It was the only thing she had left. Thanks to the wonders of airplane restrictions she'd only been able to fit a few pictures, except of course for a trunk full of books. (Damn big trunk, but…still.)

 

In reality, that the bracelet was gone wasn't quite as much of a catastrophe as she was making it out to be. And it wouldn't have been as bad if she knew where it was and it was somewhere else than where she remembered: it was at Inuyasha's. She lost it on the day she broke up with him. But that was another story.

 

Sango wrapped her in a comforting hug for about a second and a half before she was shrugged off. “I'll be okay. I know where it is.”

 

“oh thank god! Do you want me to go get it with you after school or something? We could even go now; we've got time before school, we won't be late.”

 

Kagome couldn't help smiling at her friend's impatience to have all be right with the world. “Sango, it's six ten in the morning. Somehow I don't think h—this person's awake…”

 

“I've got a credit card and nothing but time,” Sango immediately replied, looking positively violent, her face set into a determined expression. Kagome wondered idly if her face muscles hurt; after all, the girl was almost always smiling. “If it's a dorm I can break into it. We'll just get the bracelet and leave. No one will ever know.”

 

Kagome raised an eyebrow. “I left it at someone's house. I'm not sure it's possible to jimmy the lock of a mansion.”

 

The other girl's mouth shaped itself into a soundless “oh” of sudden understanding. “You left it at Inuyasha's!” she practically yelled. “But…wait. When did you actually break up with him? You keep talking like it's been forever.”

 

Kagome closed her eyes and tilted her head so the five inches of hair she had left would hide her vision from the world. She would love to be anywhere but here, doing anything (anyone?...no) than having this conversation, and even having this conversation and talking to someone else. She'd prefer almost anything. She loved Sango like a sister—better than her own sibling Souta, who had stayed at home like the good son to accomplish all of his parent's dreams for him and never ceased to remind her of that, as did her parents—but the girl never let go of anything, and this was something she wanted to be let go of. To decay. To just die away until there was nothing left except for a painful memory that never came up in conversation.

 

Then again, her post-breakup haircut was none too helpful. Maybe because this was a post-breakup haircut from before Inuyasha's name had ever passed her lips. Oh well, she liked this shorter hair better than having three feet that hung down over her butt and was sat on at least once a day. Plus it took at least an hour and a half to wash. But it was good at getting out of conversations. But it made her look too sweet.

 

Why was she having an internal argument over her hair at a time like this?

 

“A week ago,” she said abruptly, turning back to the dishes. “I broke up with him a week ago yesterday.” The uncomfortable silence that fell over a room when someone was washing the dishes promptly fell over a room, as that was what was happening. “And before you say anything, yes, then I went out and partied as hard as I could, for as long as I could. It was something I had to do.”

 

Sango frowned at the blatant lying-through-her-eyeteeth face Kagome was making. When was she going to figure out that she could only lie to guys? Her best friends weren't worth calling her best friends if they couldn't tell when she was lying. For one thing, her face went rock-still, which it only was otherwise did when she was reading or IMing people from home. Especially her brother. When she was talking to Souta, her face froze in a creepily dead expression, like a cliff face or the face of her aunt the day her uncle died. Actually, Kagome had been looking like that a lot lately; just staring out the window at the permanent fog looking like a statue.

 

To be frank, it sucked. Hard. And Sango had enough of things sucking. They sucked all the time, all over the world, and she was damn well going to get her best friend some happiness if it killed her.

 

It might. Inuyasha had claws. This was going to be interesting.

 

“I'll come with you to—“ Kagome gave her a Look. She fell silent.

 

Kagome finished washing the dishes and brushed her hands dry with a blue towel. She gave her friend a one-armed hug and a “don't worry, I'll be fine” look, walking out of the kitchen into her bedroom with the door shut to pack for school. Pack for school and think about the bracelet, and the person who currently had the bracelet. Maybe he would remember it was hers and bring it back to her? Um. What was this, fanfic? He had a girlfriend he'd been waiting for, and she was fine with that; as Sango said, there were only a few weeks left until graduation. And she was going to enjoy them if it broke his heart.

 

Sango went so far as to stare at her friend's closed door and wait for the loud, angry music to play before venturing into her own rat's nest of a dwelling to prepare for class. This mostly involved searching for clothes. Said clothes were mostly in piles, the clean ones folded and the dirty ones piled all over the place like hair after a haircut, except without the vague semblance of organization. After all, at least a hairdresser was trying to keep the hair in one place so as to make for easier removal. Sango was just trying to get the clothes somewhere she didn't have to deal with them until laundry day.

 

She yanked open the door of the small closet to inspect the contents. Two hangers swung there in the backdraft. One was a short black miniskirt, poofy and practically Gothic Lolita. The other was a white button-up shirt with an embroidered dragon design up the right side in black thread. She stared at it hopelessly for awhile. “I need a maid.”

 

When she came back out, she was wearing the remains of what had been the contents of the closet with horizontally black-and-white striped tights and combat boots. A blue backpack was hanging off one shoulder over a black denim jacket. She looked like an advertisement for something, actually. Kagome was still in her room or she would have laughed for the sheer irony of it.

 

The white door into Kagome's room was still firmly shut, slightly childish plastic bead curtain vibrating from the force of the music. Sango listened for a second (it was hard not to). “Oh dear. Jack on Jill. This is bad.” She banged on the door with the nearest object that came to hand. It happened to be a spatula. She was banging on the door of her friend's room with a black plastic spatula. The last time it had been used was to flip hamburgers at a cookout Rin had at her parents' house, a few weekends ago. The grease from said hamburgers was currently smearing all over Kagome's door.

 

Kagome jerked the door open with a “this had better be good” look stamped in every line of her attitude and was almost hit with the spatula. An eyebrow raised involuntarily. “And in this corner, we have Sango, whose weapon of choice is a cooking utensil…” she said wryly. “You'll put your eye out, you'll put your eye out!”

 

“Oh please,” she said after giggling helplessly. “This is not the story of that guy desperate for a rifle. Whatever his name was. With the glasses and the lamp made out of a leg.”

 

“Try A Christmas Story.”

 

“Yeah. That. Whatever. Just thought you should know…you oughta get going.”

 

“Whoa whoa whoa—wait. What's with the single pronouns? Your ass better be in class by seven forty-five, just like everyone else, or said ass is grass.” Sango returned her previous Look. “You know you can't afford to screw up again or you won't graduate. And you know you wanna graduate. Just think of all the shopping you'll get to do when your parents get here, all the stuff they'll buy you for being a good girl for so long. Etcetera. You know the general itinerary.”

 

“What are you, my mother?” Sango inquired, peeved. “Don't worry so much about me. Save your time for worrying about something more interesting, like, oh, your own romantic interest, for a change.”

 

“What are you, my conscience?” Kagome shot back.

 

“Someone has to be.”

 

She cut her eyes at Sango. “And of course you just immediately signed up for the job, being unable to resist donating to lost causes.” Kagome leaned against her doorway. “Just give me a few more minutes of angry hate music and I'll go back to being sweet, nice, good-girl Kagome. Promise on my honor as a person who eats all the ice cream and refuses to confess.” This sentence didn't have the desired effect, for some reason. “Sheesh! I'll be good! I promise!”

 

Sango folded her arms as well and leaned against the wall behind her. “And you'll go to Inuyasha's to get your bracelet back?”

 

Kagome raised a thin black eyebrow. “If you're hoping for miracles go somewhere else.” Sango stared at her compellingly. “Stop it. You look like you want to hook up with me.” Sango slapped her shoulder half-heartedly and said, “Just do it, okay? You're going to mope around until you get the damn thing back, and no matter WHAT you say about the guy, you have to admit you need some kind of closure with him.” Kagome's eyes narrowed as she let her breath out in a frustrated, angry sigh, backed up into her room, slammed the door, turned the volume up on the CD player a little more, and reappeared a few minutes later with her backpack over her shoulder and her rollerblades in hand.

 

“I'm leaving. You better show up or I'm kicking your ass,” she warned. “If I have to stick it out through the last few weeks than so do you. If I have to stand up in front of all those people and have my name mispronounced just to get a fucking piece of paper, than you can be damn straight I'm dragging everyone who will consent to be dragged or bullied up with me—and you owe me. so don't mess with it.”

 

“I'm getting a ride with Miroku. Down, kitty. Play nice with the other kids. Maybe then they'll quit calling home about you,” Sango teased, referring to a few times when the school's lovely collection of airheads had called home to gossip about the newest addition the second week of school only to discover that Sango was quite taken with her and didn't believe in gossiping, anyway. That had been fun. A few of the less mentally sound looked stunned for several days afterwards.

 

“Mmph. I'm gone.”

 

“Go see Inuyasha!” Sango yelled after Kagome's retreating back. Her only response was a half-hearted over-the-shoulder wave. Sighing, she turned off all the lights, reset the door's six locks, and practically skipped the distance to the school-owned apartment building's common room. Miroku was waiting for her there.

 

How a good girl like Sango had managed to catch and partially reform a bad boy like Miroku was unknown to the whole school, including Sango. This hadn't stopped them from asking yet and probably wouldn't anytime in the near future. He had been considered quite desirable, proving that some people will do anything to piss off their parents, for awhile, but once people realized he wasn't actually a druggy and had no tattoos and even less automatic adoration for the rich and glitzy, he went out the door to join people like Bankotsu—all talk and no action—or Kouga, who was bisexual and therefore not good enough for their spectacularly high standards.

 

This being the case, all that was really known about Miroku was that he had been in a gang and drove a motorcycle. It was rumored that he took care of his mother and sister and that he had an abusive father; it was also said that his mother was a crack whore and his father was in jail, leaving him to fend for himself and his younger brother; some people even said that Shippo was his son, born when he was fifteen, and his parents had kicked him out when he was a little kid. One of these rumors is partially true. Of courser, only Sango knew which one; only Sango had seen him after one of the times his father came back to demand money, seen the way his whole body shook with tension; and only Sango knew that when he loved someone he would do anything for them, die, fight, kill, steal, to make sure they were safe. She wouldn't tell his secrets. She could no more betray him than take her own life, or that of her best friend on earth—besides him—Kagome.

 

He wrapped her in a hug, holding her so tight to him she felt like he was trying to absorb her into his body and kissing her with so much pent-up passion it was like they hadn't seen each other in a week as opposed to less than twenty-four hours. He was British and in his first year of college and she didn't know what would happen when she graduated and went back to America. Would he follow her? Would he ask her to stay with him? If he didn't, would they ever see each other again? As his hold on her tightened even more than she had thought possible, she didn't really care. She loved him. She would do what she could. And that was all anyone could ever do, anyway.

 

Meanwhile, Kagome was a short way out of the building and picking up speed. `This is why I love the English, they're so kind when you nearly run them over on the sidewalk,' she thought recklessly. She didn't bother with helmets because, to be honest, she thought they were a load of crap, and anyway, she'd fallen so many other times that one more was sure not to bother her too much. Matching holes in her jeans didn't quite count as pain. Unless the damage it would do to buy new ones for when her mother came to pick her up for graduation and realized that she had no non-holey jeans counted. There was going to be shouting involved, and probably pain to various eardrums, so perhaps it did.

 

She skated across the bench of a picnic table as she cut through the park. There were fountains and things here; it was quite pretty, in a perhaps-a-bit-too-planned sort of way, and absolutely no signs to keep off the grass. Kagome found that heartening. It showed that other human beings actually had hearts and she wasn't the only one.

 

A motorcycle passed her by, the rider honking for a few tenths of a second. Sango unwrapped an arm from around Miroku's waste to wave. Kagome smiled and waved back, happy to see that both her friends were wearing helmets. Her disdain for them extended only to things without motors or possibility of fatalities. Honestly, who ever heard of death by rollerblading?

 

The school was only a short distance away. On arriving, she would make a quick turn through the gates and hold onto a pillar or something to stop, as that was the one skill involving rollerblades she had never learned. (She considered stopping an overrated skill. After all, not being able to stop often ran her into decent-looking guys, like that stranger about a month ago who may have been Daniel Radcliffe. She had barely avoided refusing to let go of him and asking him to be her lover.) If this plan didn't work, she'd think of another one, or more likely end up with another hole in her jeans.

 

Guess what?

 

It didn't work—anyone surprised?

 

Inuyasha was standing there to catch her, though. She had wanted to see him again, but from a distance, so she could look at him without him being able to see her. That seemed to be a situation she could just about handle. If his eyes weren't looking at hers like she was the only thing that mattered—she wondered idly if that was intentional or just the default setting, like on a toaster—she could remember that she was angry with him, or that he had said cruel things about her, or that he hadn't chosen her over some other girl she'd never actually met. But he was there, and she ran into him unintentionally, which gave him an excuse to wrap his arms around her torso like he would never let go.

 

“Let go,” she said flatly as soon as she regained her center of balance. “What are you, stalking me or something?” He looked slightly guilty. “O-kay…forget I asked. Just. Why are you here?”

 

“I came to give you your bracelet back,” he admitted. “I know how much you love it.”

 

He was being nice. Why was he being nice? Ex-boyfriends were supposed to be mean so you could hate them. That was how it went, especially when they were playing you with less care than they would have for a musical instrument. She held out her hand for the bracelet nonetheless. “All right. I'd appreciate it if you'd return it to me and leave.”

 

He jerked a little as if stunned, though he hadn't moved an inch when she crashed into him. “Is that all I was to you, that you can so casually dismiss me?” he questioned, almost so quietly that she couldn't hear him. Kagome frowned a little deeper and said nothing. “It's not a rhetorical question.”

 

“For God's sake, Inuyasha, what do you want me to say? That I was madly, passionately in love with you? That I would have died for you? That I would have lived for you and nothing else, if the world had ended and we were the only people left alive? That every time I see you it feels like my heart stops and may never start again? That sometimes at night I felt like I could survive off the beauty of your smile for a week without food or water?” she hissed. “Freaking news flash, boy—you chose some random girl over me just because you had dated her over a year ago and now she wanted you back. This isn't my fault. It's yours.”

 

Inuyasha blinked like a deer caught in the headlights with overtones of “but please, please don't turn them off”. “You could have told me.”

 

Kagome gave a strangled laugh. “And that would have made a difference?” His face tightening was her answer. She knew him so well that she could tell by the smallest change in expression what he was thinking, but apparently he hadn't bothered to learn that much about her. She couldn't really be surprised. She and whoever else he had dated had just been rebound girls as he waited for the true love of his life to return to him. She should've known; but how could she have guessed when he never even said this other girl's name in six months of dating him?

 

They had six months of walking all over the place holding hands, of making out on park benches in plain sight, of pretending to be married with children in the supermarket as they went shopping for their roommates, of hurried kisses snatched before school started, one or the other of them rushing to get to class on time. He and his “one and only,” as his friend had called her last Sunday when Inuyasha answered the door, had never done any of that; he had told Kagome so in amazement one day, unable to believe that he was lying on top of her on a park bench in view of God and everybody as it began drizzling. She could remember the conversation perfectly, and would always be able to do so, even after much of the other heartache had faded away.

 

The doorbell had buzzed outside his apartment. Inuyasha got up from the couch where they had been watching a movie, any movie, she couldn't remember the name of it now, to let the guy in—it had been Hakkaku. She'd always feel an odd dislike for him after that moment, inexplicable as it was fantastically unjustified.

 

“Hey, Yasha, you coming bowling with us?”

 

“Nah. My girlfriend's over, we're watching a movie. Maybe later?”

 

Hakkaku did a double take. “Girlfriend? Since when do you have a girlfriend? I thought you were still waiting for Kikyo, your “one and only”, to come back.” He failed to notice Inuyasha's warning growl and kept talking, building up steam until the explosion caused burns for everyone around him. “I mean, you haven't done more than fuck `em and leave `em since she dumped you.”

 

“She didn't dump me. she said we should take a break for awhile,” Inuyasha exploded, every word a curse on Hakkaku and every member of his family. “I think you should leave.”

 

“Whatever. I heard a rumor that she was going to be back in town; she's been spreading the word around her old cronies that she re-al-ly wants to see you…” Inuyasha refused to take the bait. He'd just get it out of Miroku when the guy got home. “Call me when you're done with your `girlfriend',” Hakkaku said finally after waiting for a rise that never came. Kagome had been able to hear the air quotes from three rooms away. She walked away from the movie and watched him watching out the window as Hakkaku got into a car with the engine still running and drove away.

 

“So you just...'fuck em and leave em'?” Kagome asked calmly. Her inner voice was already berating the rest of her for allowing things to get this far, allowing herself to think this could be real, and most of all for believing him when he said he was over Kikyo. She should have realized that no one whose room was a fucking shrine was ready for any kind of commitment. “I'm sorry for refusing to sleep with you. It must have ruined your plans.”

 

He looked stricken and confused. “Oh for God's sake, Inuyasha, did you honestly think your walls were thick enough to keep your latest `fuck buddy' from hearing you? Come on! Grow up a little! You need the maturity more than anyone else,” she continued angrily. “Well, after that I'm sure as hell not going to wait for you to leave me. I'm gone. And don't come after me.” He had grabbed her wrist as she left the door to keep her with him, but she just yanked her arm back without even looking at him, leaving him standing there with nothing left to prove this had happened but a movie that was still playing and a bracelet that could've belonged to anyone. Except that her scent was all over it.

 

And now this very Kagome was standing in front of him, looking angrier than he'd ever seen her. He knew she'd loved him. Some nights they spent together—just sleeping, as he refused to take her virginity when he knew he would just go running after Kikyo if she ever took him back—he'd heard her say it when she thought he was asleep. But she'd never said the words out loud during the day, afraid their fragile beauty wouldn't hold up to the harshness of direct sunlight. He hadn't, either. But it had been true all the same.

 

He had gone to see Kikyo, like she asked him to. He'd seen her all right. Inuyasha had found her getting the brains fucked out of her by one of his best friends. He'd been nothing to her but a quick tryst, and that knowledge made him feel dirty somehow, ashamed of himself for giving up what could have been the best thing he'd ever had for a merciless slut. How could he live with that? Answer: he couldn't. He was going to get Kagome back if he had to enlist half of Japan to do so. He needed her. He realized that now. He could only hope it wasn't too late.

 

But Kagome was still standing there, hand held out, raindrops beginning to land on her skin and the ground around her. One landed in exactly the right position on her cheek to look like a fallen tear. She raised an impatient, slender hand to wipe it away and kept her gaze very carefully trained on a point just to the right of Inuyasha's head, as looking into his eyes sent a jolt of something sweeter than but as painful as electricity through her veins and she wanted to hold onto her anger. She refused to cry in front of him. She wouldn't cry in front of him.

 

“Just give me my damn bracelet so I can go back to my damned life in my own damned country,” she said tiredly, sagging against the iron fence. The litany continued in her mind: `Where damned boys don't break my damned heart for no damned reason aside from the fact their twice-damned former girlfriends may want to hook up with them again.' Inuyasha looked like he had been slapped. “You're going back to America?” he gasped, bracing himself on the parking meter by the curb.

 

“It's not really like I can go to college here without a scholarship, and…I don't think I'm all that likely to get a good enough scholarship to go to another country,” Kagome said flatly. “Give me my stupid fucking bracelet.”

 

He reached a large tan hand into his pocket to finger the topic of discussion. `But it's all I have left of you,' he thought. `Without it I won't even have an excuse to come visit you or anything.' “Kikyo and I are nothing,” he said at random. “It turns out she was doing one of my best friends the whole time.”

 

“I'm sorry,” she said tonelessly. Was she? No. There was no room in her to be sorry. She was too busy being sorry for herself, sorry about having to leave this country she had grown to love more than she had ever loved America, sorry about Sango having to leave Miroku after graduation, sorry for all the friends she had made here being scattered to the four winds like so much wheat chaff. How was it fair? How was it just that she could be brought to this place, this beautiful, terrifying, magnificently maddening world, and be forced to leave it just as she felt herself settling in for real? How was it right that the only man she had ever truly loved had left her for some slut who had seen him as just a quick fix? She gave a nearly inaudible, hopeless sigh and dropped her hand against her thigh.

 

Before Inuyasha could stop himself he reached for her hand, trailing his fingers up the fabric of her jeans to hold it palm-up. Kagome shivered a little and had to steady herself on the rollerblades. He stared into her eyes for exactly long enough for the rain to start drenching them properly, finally dropping the bracelet into the palm of her hand and folding her fingers over it. Eventually he let her go with a kiss to her knuckles.

 

When it was all over, when Kagome couldn't feel his skin on hers anymore, she shuddered. The rain was cold and his hands had done more to her than they should have. “I—I have to—to go,” she stuttered. “I have to leave. For school. Sango's already there and she's probably wondering why I'm standing here in the rain.”

 

Inuyasha nodded in the same jerky way as she spoke and seemed to be willing to allow her to leave. She half-turned to skate away and was yanked back against his chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you, oh God, Kagome, don't leave me, I love you,” and his voice cracked on the word “leave”, so that he sounded like his best friend or his father had just died. She let him hold her as tight as he wanted to. It wasn't like she could stop him—his arms were like steel bands around her back, and his chest was warm and solid, and she couldn't help it if she felt safer there than anywhere else, now could she? It was like being hugged by a cliff, or a force of nature.

 

He was crying. She didn't know how she could tell the wetness on her shoulder that was his tears from the tears of the sky, but somehow there was more difference between the two than the difference between a rock and lava. But finally he stopped and held her a little looser, letting her step back so she could look at his face instead of his chest.

 

“Give me one more day,” he whispered. “One more day where you're mine, where we can pretend that nothing else happened, pretend that we've always been together, that we're meant for each other.” Kagome could feel her lips trembling and the burn of tears rising to her eyes, though she hadn't cried since she was nine and they told her that her father was never coming home. She nodded once and held out her hand.

 

“Take me somewhere, then,” she said back, straightening her spine and regaining some of her iron will (`I will not cry in front of him, I will not cry in front of him, I will not—`). “If this is our last day, then make it count.” His only response was to hold her close again, catching her lips in a kiss so sweet it made her cry.

 

“I will.”

 

A/N: Now. Make it worth my time to write another chapter. Yes, that's write, I'm groveling for reviews, as always. -sighs- But the only person who ever DOES review is my beta, so perhaps I'm entitled?