Prologue: Through the Rabbit Hole.
(Or Doors. Whatever.)
A/N: I am back with an AU, apparently. I mean I have like two other fanfics I've been writing and this the one that came out first. ;;;
As much as I love to write fanfics, just a warning: I'm currently in senior year so I have no idea when I will update next because right now I have a lot of things to take care of. Too much future.
So expect this to be erratic for a little while. But either way thanks for reading! : )
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Note: Do you think Alice ever thought about what she might be getting into when she followed the white rabbit? I sure didn't.
Then again, if you never get yourself into anything, you don't become anything at all.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
"This isn't a surprise. It's a terrible nightmare."
"Oh, come on, Kagome," Ayumi begged, "I bet it won't be as bad as you're making it out to be." Oh yes, yes it is.
"Why. Why did you three think it was a good idea to take me to a chain bookstore?"
"Well, we all know how much you loved Ink in the Rye before it, uh...you know." Eri took a quick side glance at me and shifted her weight to her right foot, dodging the still-sensitive topic.
"You mean before it closed?" Yuka shushed Ayumi promptly after she had let the words slip. It's not like it would have made a difference.
"You took me. To the same monstrosity of a chain bookstore. That caused my favorite place to go out of business due to its dominance in competition?" I pivoted on my heel to face the three of them directly behind me, eyes widened in anticipation for the rant that was barely curled behind my tongue.
"Like this concrete-and-cinderblock attention whore needs anymore membershipped prisoners! Sure, they sell hundreds of books in their physical form, their wonderfully stale vanilla scented pages and uncracked spines 'n all, but god forbid if they didn't sell eBooks and dumb knick-knacks! They'd keel over and choke on their missing change!" I hate digital books. I really do. I know it's extremely biased of me, but I need to feel the weight of the words cradled in my hands, the spine cracking as the story unfolds itself with each page I turn. One may argue that it's silly and carrying multiple books is an inconvenience, but I don't do convenience. I want things that are real. Tangible. Like my old bookstore. Sango- the daughter of the owners of the bookstore, and a long-term close friend- had told me that her mom didn't believe in digital books, and that their bookstore only sells real books. Besides bookmarks and booklights, of course, but those are pretty much bookstore staples.
"No one cares about what's in the middle these days! They just want everything served to them cheap on a plastic platter- where's the value?! What makes it stan…"
I suddenly realized I was yelling rather loudly, and that it also sounded like a bunch of nonsense to anyone who heard me. Besides the perplexed eyes of a few strangers in the mall parking lot, my friends were also quietly staring at me, looking a little freaked out. I sighed, straightened my posture and turned back around to face the automatic doors, sucking in a steady breath through my teeth, or it would have been steady if something hadn't caught my eye. It was a split-second blur, like watching glass crack before it actually breaks. The cup tip over before it spills. The crest of a wave foam moon white before it crashes and floods you- then before you know it, the water is gone, as if it had been no more than an illusion. A daydream.
And I thought, who in the world has white hair? And were those...dog ears?
I couldn't pinpoint exactly why I thought they were canine and not cat ears or something, except that something about it (or them) felt oddly familiar.
"K-Kagome, are you alright…?" It wasn't until I heard Yuka's voice that I realized I'd been holding my breath, so I cleared my throat to make it seem like I had been preparing to say something this whole time. As much as I didn't want to so much as blink in the direction of this stupid bookstore one more time, my curiosity had gotten the better of me.
"Fine. Because you took the time to drag me all the way here at ten in the morning on a Sunday, I guess we'll go inside." With the least amount of hesitation I could manage so as not to contradict the certainty in my voice, I allowed the automatic doors to welcome me in, the faint smell of books and coffee in the air no longer concealed. The last barrier standing between me and the white rabbi- uh, I mean, the bookstore- were these two heavy, glass-paned and bronze-metal barred doors that I'm guessing are the push kind, I think. Who the heck puts real doors in after the automatic ones? That has to be one of the dumbest design ideas for a building ever. I pushed open the door on the right and entered the bland, colorblocked white-and-green eyesore that is Barnes & Noble, save for most of the unfortunate books shelved there, begging any browsing customer to take them to a better place.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't being bitter.
Eri walked up beside me, the others following behind her. "Where do you want to go first? Your favorite genre section or something? Graphic novels?"
"Um," I quickly scanned around the area, but it all felt hopelessly foreign. And vegetable green. And dirty-dinner-plate white. "I guess we can just walk around, you guys know this place better than I do." Eri nodded and motioned me to follow her, passing the bestseller table in the front of the store.
"Ooh, The Maze Runner," Ayumi noted, picking it up as she passed it, "You read it right, Kagome? Was it any good?"
"Better than good. You like sci-fi a lot, don't you? I think you'd like it," I said, looking up and down the shelves, trying to to see if any titles caught my eye, that is until I realized we had suddenly stopped in front of a few celebrity magazines- and while nothing is attractive about those concerning substance, they are admittedly eye-catching.
"Ooh, they have the details on that new scandal of that AKB48 idol-" Eri began before I curtly cut her off with the monotone, blunt knife of my voice.
"I thought we were here to look at actual books, or at least magazines that don't try to convince me how the world-shattering impact of inflated celebrity gossip conjured by editors expert on the subject of conspiracy theories should remain the center of my existence." Eri sighed and placed the issue back on its rack, the obnoxious glare of its cover unfaltering, re-assuming her position as the lead tour guide instantly as she took a few strides ahead of me.
"Alright, but they are undoubtedly screaming to be read- I mean, she secretly had a boyfriend whom she was having relations with on a regular basis, and she smokes! How is that not tempting to you?"
"The stories of individuals of any age cracking under the pressure of society and social media are both banal and depressing. Not to mention over-reproduced," I muttered as if I had never been more bored in my entire seventeen years of life.
"Well, geez Kagome," Yuka's voice began with a biting dose of sarcasm, and I could almost hear the taunt before she actually spoke it, "Perhaps you don't find it so tempting since you've never had a boyfriend yourself."
That's when my balance faltered as I stumbled to a stop and whipped my head around at about 45 degrees, shooting her an incredulous look. One would think that was a low blow for a friend to pull, but under my circumstances, this was no more than my signature punchline. Everyone has at least one behavioral pattern that causes them to be the occasional brunt of a joke among friends, right? Well, this is mine. One of them, anyway.
"I-I…don't know what you're talking about," I muttered. Wrong. Wrong thing to say; I practically fueled the conversation to continue.
Yuka took a step closer to me, all raised eyebrows and a provoking smile. "Oh? You mean to tell me that you forgot that your highschool reputation includes rejecting every single confession and date offer from a boy for the past two years?"
"You make it sound as if I've rejected dozens of times!"
Eri had turned to me now, with an expression similar to Yuka's, perhaps a bit milder. "We beg pardon, it's only been two dozen."
"Twenty-three," I spat back, and the three of them just stared blankly back at me, as if it didn't make much of a difference. "And if you cared enough to be exact, a few of them have asked more than once."
Yuka poked at my shoulder playfully as another taunt breezed through her airy voice. "Yet you've refused every single time- are you sure you're not just an androphobe?"
Ugh, not this again, I thought as I squinted an irritated glare in her direction, though she remained unphased. In case you're wondering, androphobia is the fear of men, the equivalent opposite of gynophobia. This rumor had started sometime around the eleventh time I had rejected someone over a year ago, and it is one of the dumbest lies I've ever heard about myself. While I can't say even now that the origins of it are baseless, the "evidence" is so sleazy I'm surprised it's still managed to hold itself up. It doesn't stop my friends from using it whenever they want to provoke me, either, I inwardly groaned.
"No," I shook my head much more calmly than I actually was, and took a step back to give myself some personal space, almost knocking my backside into a bunch of cute little crafting magazines. "No. Jus...just because I barely speak to the opposite sex and lack any real friends that aren't female doesn't mean I'm afraid of them! That's not even close to the real reason!"
"Then what is the real reason? You're smart and pretty, so why don't you loosen up once in a while?" Ayumi piped up from the corner of my eye, with the always chipper and spoonful-of-sugar kind of attitude that never failed to reflect in her voice. Not you, too. I sighed and mustered the energy to give them the explanation that they wouldn't understand.
"Um. The thing is that, I can't just accept some random offer like that from a guy, no matter how handsome he is! It's such a…," I gulped and wrung my hands as I forced out the next part, "intimate request, at least I think it is. It's not that they don't seem nice, but I barely know any of them! If I don't know who they are, what they like, if I'd even much get along with them, well… you can't really call it a date, can you? It's just- or it would be- awkward? Yeah. That's mostly it." It had sounded way less pathetic in my head, I swear. Heroic, even. Yet again for the third time today (and in less than an hour), all three gave me that same blank stare. Why did I even bother?
Yuka blinked. "Well, I get it, Kagome," No you don't, "but these days, you date to get to know the person. First dates are supposed to be weird, you're trying to see if the person is date material. If you keep rejecting guys for something like that, well...you're sort of missing opportunities."
"I don't consider guys as opportunities until I know something about them that isn't already on their social media bio."
Eri shook her head. "But you can't just-"
"You two," Ayumi butted in, "so what if Kagome's a little old-fashioned? If she dates differently, it's not like we can make her think the way we do. It's better she has slightly higher standards than ones that are too low, right?" Bless your sugar-coated soul, Ayumi.
Eri cocked her head to the side. "Well, I guess you're ri-" Her sentence broke cleanly, as if someone had dropped a teapot and it had split in half. The other half belonged to Eri, who exchanged glances with her, and it could only mean the hellbirth of a new plan. A sly, slippery idea that they let suspend in the air between each other, gripped tight between breaths of newfound simultaneity. Oh god, this can't be good.
"If it's such an issue, we can help you," Eri just smiled and strided past me, then suddenly disappeared around the corner of an aisle. By the look on Yuka's face, I had no choice but to follow her.
"This," I heard her say as I turned at the same corner she had with Ayumi and Yuka following behind me, the devilish grin on her face looking ominous as ever. "Is going to be your new best friend."
She curled her fingers around the spine of an unnamed book in the bestsellers for this genre shelf, and shoved it in my face. Literally. I had to take a step back just so I could read the cover. It was an amethyst purple, with patches of pastel and dark purples as if it had been painted straight from the palette and mixed straight on the canvas, probably to make it resemble the colors of an actual amethyst. There were two yellow stars on opposite sides of the front cover, connected by a straight red line with a heart in the middle. It wasn't the cover that was bad (though it was definitely among the cheesiest I'd ever seen) as much as it was the title of the book and the genre it was that we happened to be standing in the aisle of.
It was the relationship advice aisle. With two words separated by that red line. Stars Uncrossed. Pushing Eri's outstretched arms away, I swallowed and raised an eyebrow, looking very displeased. And I was.
"What is this?"
Yuka was now leaning against the bookshelves, a nonchalant expression on her face. "A bet. Well, a challenge, more like. If you're up for it."
My face twisted in confusion. "Pardon? I don't remember you two mentioning that you would propose me a bet."
Ayumi nodded. "Yeah, I'm not following you two either."
Yuka continued. "If what you're telling us is the truth, you want to know someone well before you start dating, right? Which is why you've rejected so many times."
She glanced at me for an affirmation, to which I looked down and reluctantly muttered, "More or less…"
Eri's voice didn't falter as she explained the details of my impending untimely fate. "Here's the deal: we're going to pick someone in this store who's around our age and male, and you're going to get to know him. If you don't like him, we'll pick someone else. If you become good friends with him, then that's fine. But," the tone of Eri's next sentence became cold and calculating in a devious way, like when she answered a difficult math problem with pride in class, "if you fall in love with him, you will confess to him. You have to."
I blinked a few times, processing the information. "Then what's the book for?"
"That's the current bestselling dating book exclusively for young women about our age demographic, Stars Uncrossed by Ai Saoki," Yuka said matter-of-factly, "And that's also the only guide you will have for the next… sixty days, because we won't help you. At all. The closest you'll get to it is when we occasionally ask you questions about the guy, which may or may not include any hints or indirect advice. But if you don't think you're game for it, I guess you'll just have to admit-"
"I get it. I accept your proposal." I had spoken it so quickly, so certainly, I'm not even sure if I knew exactly what I was signing myself up for. I probably would have accepted either way though; I'm too stubborn to back down like that.
"Okay, then, here's the deal," if you haven't noticed yet, Eri says 'here's the deal' a lot, "You only have sixty days, which will act as a time cushion if you get too busy or sick or something. You have twenty to tell us whether you like him or not. You must answer our questions honestly- your ability to tell white lies is one thing, but frankly, you're not good at actually lying, Kagome."
"Yeah, if you try to lie to us about something like, oh, if you say that you're not in love with the guy when you actually are, we can tell," Yuka added.
"It would be pretty easy," Ayumi noted, "your emotions read like an open book. Remember that one time-"
"Okay, I get it," I cut her off before she could say something that would further provoke me, "just tell me who this guy is."
All three of them exchanged glances, then walked out from the bookshelves into the open part of the store. I watched as Yuka pointed, then both of them would shake heads, then Eri pointed, to which both of them would shrug their shoulders with a doubtful look on their face. I prayed silently for three minutes while they took their sweet time deciding on who my challenge would be, and I'm not too religious; I just live at a shrine. I prayed that they wouldn't find anyone, that they'd just give up and say 'forget about it,' and I could keep both my pride and my sanity without actually having to do anything. But it was not to be so. I looked back at them just in time to see Ayumi point in the opposite direction they had been looking. Eri and Yuka's first reactions were to frantically push down her outstretched pointing arm, nervously whispering as loud as they could without yelling, "no, 'Yumi! We're too close to be pointing like that, he'll see us!" After settling down, they all looked in the same direction, looked at each other, and began to giggle or snicker. I am so done.
I watched with helpless dread as they nearly skipped over to me, silly smiles plastered on their faces. Before I could say anything, Eri's hands covered my eyes and my right hand was grasped by Ayumi, who guided me to the same spot they had just been standing in.
Yuka began talking as I walked blindly. "When you open your eyes, look at the register lanes. There are two young men that go to our public school and work here leaning against the counter next to each other since their shift probably hasn't started yet. The one you should be looking at is the guy who's reading."
I hadn't realized how clammy my palms had gotten until I had suddenly stopped. I am not nervous. I shouldn't be. This was no big deal. They're probably just playing a trick on me. It'll probably be Hojo or something, they never stop whining about why I'd even considered rejecting him…
"You can open your eyes now, Kagome," Ayumi chimed. Damn. I blinked my eyes open and searched for two people standing outside the register lanes. One was probably playing an app on his phone or texting, his dark hair tied back in a short ponytail. The guy next to him was the one that was reading. I couldn't exactly see what the cover was besides its colors from this distance, so I decided to recognize the features of the guy holding it. Let's see, loose white hair, dog ears- oh, no.
Now I know why he looked familiar. He does attend the same high school as I do; the same grade, in fact. The person standing next to him is Miroku, who's one of the most extroverted people you'd ever meet. They'd been friends for a little while now, I think. But him- I forget his name- he's known to be the complete opposite of Miroku: closed off, rude, a complete introvert. My friends knew this, of course; I'd be naive if I'd expected them to give me an easy challenge.
Goodness, what was his name again? I...Inu-?
"Congratulations," Yuka said as she placed the dreaded book in my hands, which felt sticky and unpleasant, "your selected victim is the guy who rejects people at least just as much as you do- Inuyasha Takahashi. Good luck."
For a moment I felt as if the floor had collapsed on itself under my feet only. There was that fleeting moment of weightlessness before I realized I was falling. And there was a long, long way to go if I wanted to reach the end of the hole. Escape the sensation of falling.
I repeated his name to myself in my mind so that I could remember it.
Inuyasha… he's the white rabbit!?
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Expect the book puns and references to be a recurring thing because I am shameful.