Her gray eyes shone in the dull moonlight, ebony hair hanging in wet strands. She combed through it with her fingers, bringing the towel tighter around herself. He watched her. Drops slid down her bare shoulders. She looked right past him, looked right through him. He was invisible to the angel standing there before him. 'Why…?'
The alarm clock rang on the bed stand next to him, snapping him form his hazy dream. He cracked open an eye. Same sun-lit room. Same damn alarm clock. Joy; another day.
He sighed half-heartedly, propping himself up on one elbow. The blankets slid off revealing pale, smooth skin. He brushed his hair aside. It was becoming a burden. He would have to cut it. The thought flashed by quickly, without a hint of reality to it; He had been saying this same thing to himself every morning since 9th grade, and would never be able to cut his hair the way men his age did. He could only imagine how alarmingly bizarre it would be to have the weight of his hair gone. It looked and felt a lot more like heavy silk, in truth. But then again…. Have you ever seen silver silk? Neither had he. His mind cleared for a second. 'Perfect opportunity for the memory of her eyes to capture him again. It had been so long… so long, and still, every night, there she was: dust gray eyes, midnight black hair, playful smile. It was an image he couldn't erase. He growled at his own stupidity; a year ago he had known a woman. She was just like any other, he told himself. A trophy meant to be claimed and then relinquished -- It always seemed to him that a medal lost its luster once it was won. But she was different, and he couldn't tell himself otherwise much longer. Fighting a war against oneself was almost as stupid as remembering her at all, he concluded in disgust. Maybe it the fact that he had never entirely made her his own that didn't allow him to forget. Or it could have been her smile… It could have been the way she said his name… Or maybe (though highly unlikely) it could have been 'her'.
He shook his head to clear away the haze that had settled over his thoughts. She always did that; curtained everything else and made it seem completely unimportant. How he, the great Sesshomaru, had come under the bindings of a woman, he would never know. It was a mistake to lay eyes on her in the first place. He said to himself stubbornly. 'And it's a disgrace to still remember her name. So what of it?' There he went again, crossing swords with the little voice inside his head. Such utter stupidity. He made himself apologize to his other self and admit that Kagome meant nothing to him. Nothing at all. The two selves shook hands on it….. 5 minutes later they were back in the heat of the battle. And to think, this whole mess started – the dreams, the damage to his sanity – with just one, little, look.
First day of senior year, and one highly grated Sesshomaru was bound to get caught up in some hustle or another of overly cheery 12th graders. One person – just one person – comes up to him and says "Welcome back!" and there'll be bodies lying everywhere. Sesshomaru was not happy. Sesshomaru did not get what he wanted. It was a rare and scary thing when Sesshomaru did not get what he wanted… And right now, there was nothing he wanted more than to disappear. Leave. Turn, run, and never look back. But then again, that was a simple instinct he had overcome every weekday morning as he left for school… That much, he could put up with. But come first period, and he would be one of the hundreds of people who lived there….that's right, lived there. 6 hours a day was more than enough to test every limit he had ever come within a 100 miles of…. 24/7? Well, for now he was choosing not to consider the possible outcomes. Countless times he had told his father 'no'. Never, Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER would he be willing to board there.
Seems daddy dearest had developed hearing problems.
So, here he was, suitcases and all, standing at his car door…. He leaves for school this morning, and he's not coming back till' June… is it worth it? Hardly. Does he have a choice…? Hardly. Sighing deeply, he opened the trunk and plopped his luggage inside, only smirking evilly as he heard the suitcase topple over and break some glass object or another. Haha, let it break; maybe he'll have to come back home and replace it. Or maybe, just as soon as he got to the front door of school he'd realize that that object was his fathers priceless prized possession, and that now his father would have to send him to some army camp in Wisconsin for 12 years to pay off the damage. He would be across the border in 5 minutes' time, would that been the case. Anything, anything was better than this.
One green light, two green light, three green light, yellow light – shit, red light. He sighed, pushing the break pedal as the yellow flickered to red. And here he thought at least one good fortune was coming his way. The car came to a halt at the one nearly non-existing angle at which the sun hit his eyes. He growled in exasperated irritation, squinting to see the traffic light, and willing it to turn green with all his might.
Be green, be green, be green, be green, green, green, green….
Ah, shade. Much better. He let his eyes adjust to the much-appreciated lack of light. Wait, shade? From what? He turned to his right. A car had pulled up next to his in the intersection; rather old, 3 noticeable dents on the door, scratched bumper. He was about to look away, when what was inside the car caught his attention. She had her chin propped up in the palm of her hand, her elbow on the opened car window. He watched her sit up, brushing her hair behind one ear. She was laughing along with the radio station. Pale skin, full lips. He noticed her navy blue uniform; maybe school wasn't going to be as awful as expected….
And then she turned to him.
He had already begun to consider her attractive…. But her eyes weren't attractive: They were in a classification of their own. They weren't blue, but the exact shade of the sky that day; deep milky gray, dark swirls running through the bottom-less depths. They looked like rain, they looked like midnight mist. They looked…. Strange. But, as is the case for all of the most captivating subjects, there was no time for further examination. She took the steering wheel, and the car suddenly jerked forward, leaving him at the mercy of the sunlight once more.
"Hey ass, I have a job to get to… Today!" came from a few cars back. It took him a minute to think of looking up at the streetlights: green. He rolled his eyes, wondering whether the heavens chose him to laugh at today, and drove on after the Sundance with the scratched bumper.
Chatter filled every air particle for miles. He hauled the pair of suitcases out of the trunk of his car, noting a shattered ceramic vase in the corner. O darn, no army camp…. And to think he even packed hiking boots, just in case. The line to the reception office stretched out down the main hallway, weaved into the Dinning Hall to the left and ended at the very outskirts of elongated wooden tables. Many of the waiting had their luggage stacked on near-by chairs, while others were sitting on the tables themselves and drinking coffee with acquaintances. Sesshomaru concentrated on filtering out the noise produced by the swarm of navy and white jackets, skirts, dress pants.
"Goshness, I never expected there to be this many people boarding this year! 'Should have gotten up earlier today, eh Umi?"
Goshness? That's… new.
The voice came from directly behind him. He didn't bother to turn around; whoever it was, was obviously not addressing him. That's all he needed to know.
"Um, excuse me?"
Silence.
"Khem…. Excuse me?"
Silence.
"Hey, jerk, you planning on answering me?"
Ah, she's talking to me…?
The simple confusion of that realization made him forget to feel insulted.
"No." Came his automatic reply.
That must have sounded smoothly charming…He turned to the Cause of Annoyance. His eyes widened. It was Her. His speech ability shut down entirely.
"Oh, it's you." The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by curiosity.
"Yes." Automatic reply.
"Well, I wanted to ask how long you've been waiting here for. Is the lineup that bad?"
Finally, some of his daily functions were returning to him.
"Yes, treacherous. I've managed to endure it for nearly 3 and a half minutes. In silence. Now please proceed to do the same; I trust in you abilities." He said bluntly, turning back away. She mustn't have realized he could hear her swearing at him under her breath. How deeply amusing.
"Can you believe that guy?!" Another female said in a hushed whisper.
"Yea, what an ass." Came the Cause of Annoyance's reply. She wasn't half as careful to keep her voice down.
"Shhh!!! He can hear you Kagome!"
"Psh, let him, Umi."
What an arrogant woman… unbelievable. He scowled mentally.
20 minutes of girlish gossip about "some rich snob from the Taisho family boarding this year" later, only one person remained between Sesshomaru and the reception desk.
"There you are, honey." The woman said to a black-haired senior as she handed him his key and dorm number. "Lucky you, that's our last male dorm room available." She laughed. "Yes, thank you!" He smiled back, politely rather than meaningfully, as he dragged his luggage along to his assigned room.
Last dorm room available? Thank Kami-sama! I can't possibly stay here now. Soon, I shall be back home.
He let a thin smile pass over his lips as he stepped up to the woman.
"Oh, honey I'm sorry! We just assigned the last available male dorm room." She looked at him in pity.
"No need to be sorry" He almost smirked.
"It seems we have an odd number of boys this year, and you are the only one that didn't get paired off with a roommate already –" He didn't need for her to continue.
"I'll be on my way, then. Thank you."
"Oh don't be silly young man! You have a reservation for a separate room, now don't you….. Mr. Taisho? It's just that you'll have to share the dorm with a female. Do you mind?" Utter disbelief. Utter, shockingly awful disbelief. The hall was spinning.
"S-so I have to….. stay here?" He managed to mumble.
She laughed again "You youngsters are so lively these days! Don't you worry, you'll be staying young man. Don't go getting all upset over it, we'll figure something out!" This wasn't the first time he had to control the urge to kill someone.
"You there," She said to the girl behind him. To Her. "Looks like you will be sharing a dorm room with Mr. Taisho this year." She didn't seem any happier than he was.
"M-me? But why me? I really wanted to share a dorm with my….. my, um, friend Umi!" She smiled sheepishly. "Right Umi…?"
Umi had acquired an ice cap somewhere along the way, and was busily chugging it down. "Wha? I dunremeber yo sain that." She said between huge gulps. The exasperated expression on Her face was something he still laughed at to this day; simply priceless. At the moment though, he was far from in the mood for laughing.
"But, isn't there some kind of restriction on having a roommate of the opposite gender?" He barked at the woman. A little startled, it took her a second to compose herself.
"Young man, act your age!" She chastised him. "Yes, there is a rule against that, but I have a solution! The rule only applies to student dorm rooms…. But I can give you two the staff dorm room – we usually don't have teachers living on campus, so it should be free. It's almost three times the size of a student dorm. It'll be more than enough for the two of you to stay out of each other's way! You'll barely notice one another!" She finished with a chillingly wide grin, clapping her hands together.
The lineup was getting impatient. "What's the hold up?" "I've been waiting for nearly an hour!" "Hurry the hell up!" "Hey, I'll be your roommate, babe!" A visible shudder ran up Her spine. The woman shoved a key into each of their hands; Room 212.
"I-I refuse to accept this arrangement!" Sesshomaru gritted his teeth. The woman didn't even flinch; "You, honey, need to learn some manners. Now hurry up and help the poor girl carry her bags!" She pointed to Her. "Lucky bastard!" Someone shouted from the lineup as he gruffly yanked a suitcase out of Her hands and stalked down the dorm hallways. "Follow, woman." He said to Her without looking back.
What was her name…?Ka- kage…Kago…? Kagome…? Was that it?He almost walked past room 212, consumed in his contemplations.
"Off to see the wizard of Ozz?" She yanked a strand of his hair backwards. He spun around to her….
"Keep your hands off of me." He said sharply.
"I'm sorry, did you wash it today? Why didn't you put it up in pig tails while you were at it?" She wasn't backing down…. This was the first time anyone had not backed down from him…. Truthfully, he almost hugged her right there and then; he surprisingly found it to be an extremely pleasant change. She must have seen the aggravation vanish from his face.
"Not used to that, are ya?" She smiled, fumbling with her keys.
"No…" He muttered.
Indeed, the dorm, was at least 3 times bigger than average, to the point where it could almost be called a coffin-sized apartment. The front door opened to a rather tiny living room; just enough to fit a two-seat couch and a coffee table. To the right led a narrow hallway, about a meter long, to what could be identified as a kitchen only by a refrigerator and an ancient-looking microwave. To the left three closed doors lined a slightly longer, pale green hall. Kagome pushed open one, then another. Each room containing a standard dorm bed, which could be more precisely described as a rock-hard, squeaky, 3 inch thick slab of dust-filled, nightly discomfort on a splintered wooden frame, really, your average 3-drawer dresser, two bed stands, one on each side of the pre-historic slab, and an elongated mirror.
All in all, it was any boarders dream!
Sesshomaru let his eyes wander over the bare, green walls. How…. Cozy. He hauled his two suitcases – and four of Kagome's – into the living space -- He would survive this year on seclusion and caffeine, he decided.
"Oooooo GOODIE! This is so awesome! Sesshomaru, come look at this! This dorm is HUGE!" Kagome seemed to have forgotten every trouble in the world as she ran from room to room.
"We have a kitchen! A kitchen! How cool is that?!" Her eyes, unlike his, seemed to be filled with child-like amazement. Their usually calming gray turned a dazzling pale blue as she skipped over to the ceiling-to-floor window on the far wall of the living room. For a moment he could hear her hold her breath…. He couldn't blame her; the city stretched out before them both in a jigsaw of rooftops, the wide streets reduced to thin, dark ribbons twisting between seemingly never-ending puzzle pieces. Wisps of smoke rose and melted into the hazy sky, patches of sunlight streamed through the many holes in the clouds, and in the far, far distance, one could catch a glimpse of the strip of shimmering indigo, racing towards the horizon; the sea. She leaned against the glass, slowly exhaling as she took in the sight. All of the sudden, the clock seemed painstakingly loud.
Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack.
Or maybe it was just everything else drowning in awe-struck silence….. And then,
"….I'm watching the sunset tonight…." She whispered, and he, too, felt as though anything louder would tear apart the perpetual beauty of sky, the smoke and….
Her eyes.