White hair, a red flash, racing through the tendrils of my mind, weaving in and out of said tendrils, twisted up into shapes of trees that reach into the fogs of my mind. When I think to look away, there it is, tracking me, waiting for me to slip up. It comes for me…He comes for me…

"Higurashi!"

I look up, into the eyes that stare me down in worry, looking for any ailment, anything amiss, so he could medicate it away with odd knick-knacks that he loves to flaunt. Loves to flaunt them, as if saying he can provide, he can fix me. I scan him over, bite my lip, and open my mouth.

"Huh?"

A chuckle escapes from his mouth, worry dropping from his eyes.

"Higurashi, you've been dozing off, into your dream world." He smiles at me, as if smiling at some unsaid joke, a joke just between us. "Finals are this week. You want to do good to get into a good college, right?" He asks slowly, as if talking to a puppy, or a lost child.

I smirk, narrowing my eyes. "Of course, Hojo, I was just thinking of a joke was all." I say as I turn to my book. He seems to sit up, and lean over the table.

"Oh! Can I hear your joke?"

I glance at him, and slowly, I grin half heartedly.

"A termite walks into a bar and asks, 'Is the bar tender here?'" I say dryly, and watch him for a second. He laughs anyways, as if the joke was truly funny.

He smiles at me, and watches me with those honey eyes of his, sticking to me. "Want to hear a joke Higurashi?"

I sigh at that 'pet name' of his. I gave up correcting him ages ago, after the end of my first year in high school (just turned seventeen then, but that's irrelevant.), but that was two years ago.

As he drawled on about his joke, the bell rang for the end of the day. I snap my book shut, slip it into my angry bunny bag, pulled that on, and stood up, all in one motion. I look at Hojo, who was asking me to stay afterwards, to study. I force a smile at him, and tuck a long lock behind my ear. "I'm sorry Hojo, but I have to help my mother with the shrine. Maybe tomorrow."

I say as I turn to go, but the sudden gentle grip around my wrist protests. "Wait…"

I stop, and turn to him, pressing another smile to my face. "Yes, Hojo?"

"Well…" He looked nervous, as always. "I was wondering, if you would like to go out on Saturday…There's a new movie that I think you would like." He smiled hopefully, and I sigh, getting more comfortable than a brief turn had to offer.

"Look, Hojo, you're a sweet guy, and I thank you for helping me out with my studies, but I told you a long time ago that I don't have the time."

Hojo spoke louder than he intended. "But you always say that! Miss Higurashi, You've been around since beginning of your first term in high school. You've been punctual, and haven't missed a day. It seemed that your sicknesses have been over and done with. You stay late to study with me, but yet you refuse to go on a simple date with me. I haven't said anything of it, because I thought you rejected me for the sake of checking in with your health. But, after hearing that you accepted a date with an underclassman, I cannot push this aside any longer!"

I just watched him, not noticing my surprise until he took a breath. I tightened my lip, biting into it. My anger was starting to rise.

"Miss Higurashi-Miss Kagome, why do you reject me when I know we are good for each other? Are you truly that frightened to go out with me? If you gave me a chance then-"

"No, Hojo, no. I am not frightened to go out with you. I did not accept that date; I rejected that date, flat out. How that turned into accepted, I don't know." He sunk back into himself, losing his spur-of-the-moment confidence. I stared at him, feeling my mood shift. "And for another thing, yes, I study with you late. I study with you because it helps with my schooling. I don't go on dates, I used to, before all the…sicknesses." He raised an eyebrow at the pause. "But not anymore." I sigh, closing my eyes and rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"Why?..." Was his quiet question-I barely heard it through the buzz in my head.

I look at him, and I saw pity in his eyes.

"I…I had a fallout…with someone I hold dear to my heart…I haven't heard from him for years…and I probably never will…" Why I was telling him these things, I'll never know. "My heart is still recovering from him…and I don't wish to get you involved with that. I don't want you to be a replacement. You're too good for that…" I lied. "So please, now that you know, please, don't ask me again…" I turn again, slightly happy that he didn't call out for me.

"Oh." I say, stopping quickly, knowing I caught his attention. "And…if you could…not tell anyone…I don't want anyone knowing…" There was a quiet compliance, but nothing more, as I pushed pass the double glass doors.

Hello, my name is Kagome Higurashi. I am nineteen, since last week, and I work for my family's shrine. Since I was sixteen, eleven months, and 20 days, I have been out of contact with my past. I fell in love, had a second family, and was betrayed out of it all. That's all a different story, one that I'm not quite sure I'm ready to tell, or if I'll ever be ready to tell it. The one thing I can say though, is that, since those days, I keep on seeing him. Him, which has been shoved into the very backs of my mind. He's been shoved so far back that he isn't even my courage, isn't even my strength, anymore. Hasn't been for a long, long time.

I look at the stairs, the towering stairs that always command a good part of my daily exercise. I was spacing out that long?

I sigh as I start my trek up the long stone staircase, turning back to my thoughts. I'm finishing up high school, to fill you in. I'm at the top fifteen of my class, out of the two thousand, which is saying something. I've been trying to get into a United Kingdom school, University of Cambridge. I know that it seems uncharacteristic, but, since the incident, I've been uncharacteristic.

Souta, my little brother, has been at the top of his class too, ten out of five hundred. That's still pretty good. He's just starting in junior high, being twelve and all. Actually ahead of his class, inuya…he would be proud.

I feel something warm against my eyelashes, for a second, before the wind freezes it and dries it. I glare at the stone steps, and look up. Only six steps away.

I thought I kicked that habit…

I finish the steps as I walk across the courtyard, gray and bleak, as my eyes land on a cement block cemented to the ground, with a pink lily sticking out of it. It sticks out of a hole in the block, as a way to switch out flowers, for rituals, like he wanted…

It was grandpa's head stone. He died a summer ago…

I rub my face, and smile warmly at the flower, bowing to it and giving my graces. I continue on my way.

After all the bits from my mother, the welcoming home, and hug from Souta, and the changing into my priestess garb, I go about my chores. I never liked wearing this-It always made me look like her. The woman whom I stole from. Stole her face, stole her looks, and stole her soul.

I never got along with her…

I chuckle to myself. Why was I reminiscing today of all days? Soon I was going to remember others, people who I tried to forget also, people who I was never allowed seeing again.

A crack in the distance.

I stiffen.

That crack was close; the crack came from just outside the rim of trees on my land.

I look around, stopping my chores.

I pause, then go back to doing my business, sweeping the courtyard.

Another crack.

This time, louder, heavier.

A rabbit, or a fox, certainly didn't make that loud of a crack.

I look around again, turning to get my bow and arrows. I go to the storage area, and look, but they aren't there.

Spider webs are freshly broken, and dust is shifted, showing clean edges.

I don't like where this is going…

Another crack.

I grab something hard, like a golf club that my father used to use before he passed on.

I grip it protectively, and call out to my mom, when something grabs me.

Something sharp, something hard, something thick, something red…

I look into golden eyes, framed by white.

"Kagome, long time to see." His words rolled off his tongue, smooth and ragged at the same time.

Oh, that's why I was reminiscing…

I stiffen and the next thing I know, I'm standing freely with a bent nine-iron.

I stare at it, amazed at how well it curved around his head. I then look up and see his anger coming out, and he grabs me by the shoulder, with a hand over my mouth, and bright gold staring deeply into my soul, searching for something.

He…He looked so familiar, yet not. Hard set eyes, and narrowed face, with a permanent scowl on his face, without the crescent moon, the side marks on his face, or the eternal control he had over himself. No, he looked like Sesshoumaru, down to his very core, but he was nothing like his half brother. The half brother with the giant side burns that she would curl around her hands when she could, which was rarely, and the pressed back dog ears at the top of his head.

This was…this was my past…this was my betrayal, this was my first and only love…this was…

"In…Inuyasha…" I choke out, having less control over my voice then I thought. He stiffened, and then loosened his grip, watching as I felt my tears fall freely.

I was crumbling under his fingers, and I couldn't stop. I was my own train wreck; all I had to do was wait until it was over, and allow myself to be toppled over and destroyed from the inside out.

Slowly, he let go, dropping his hands to his side. He sighs, and then sneers, and then lashes out at the wood next to me, on both sides of me. I couldn't hold onto myself, as I sink to the ground. I clasp my hands over my face, and I scream into them, crying into them, and soon I feel his arms around me, cradling me as if it were three years ago, as if he was my best friend, and I was his.

Something in me snaps, and I shove him away, standing up and staring down at him coldly. "You don't get the privilege to be near me. To hold me and to comfort me like we're friends, like we're something more than we both know. You lost those privileges when you sold me out, when you betrayed me…" I sneer, more at myself, than at him, as my eyes involuntarily close, and my face squeezes into pain, to match my heart.

I can feel his eyes, heated against my face, so I turn away, so that he can't see my shame.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" He says sharply, his voice raspy with misunderstandings.

I turn around sharply, and shove him away as he moves closer, as if to hold me.

"Don't touch me! Don't say anything comforting, don't even look at me. You chose Kikyo, you chose her over me, and when you did, so did everyone else! Then you abandoned me, you left me for dead, you ripped my heart out! I hate you! Sit!" I yell out, and then slump forward and curl forward, crying into my arms.

I haven't cried like this in forever.

I look up when there's no reassuring crashing sound, no crater in his shape, no cursing through rock. No, he's just standing there, staring at me expectantly, almost annoyed.

"Are you done yet wench?"

I stare holes into his head.

"What do you want? Do you want the rest of my soul, to complete your little lover's body?" I say bitterly. I don't care, not about the hurt on his face, not about the dagger I shove into my heart further, nothing.

He sighs and sits next to me. These behaviors aren't like him, what happened to him?

"She faded a long time ago, about three hundred years after you left…"

"I'm surprised she lasted that long." I sniff into my clothes and cover my face with the long sleeves of my kimono top.

There's a long silence, before something happens.

He reaches over, and pulls me close, taking a deep breath of my hair. I do nothing…

"You smell better than I remember."

I shove him off and stand up, staring into nothing. "You broke my heart. I won't forgive you for a long time Inuyasha." I say softly, and grab my broom to continue chores.

He follows.

"How's the kid?"

I glance at him.

"Good. Being smart and keeping a girlfriend. Sweet girl she is."

"How old is he?"

"Twelve."

"How old are you?"

I stare at him.

"You were never one for numbers."

"I've changed a lot in the last five hundred years."

I stop at that. He went through time naturally?

"Why didn't you just come through the well?"

"'Cus you hated me…"

I roll my eyes.

"I did not hate you…If anything I hate you more now than ever, for not coming when the coming was good."

I glare at myself. I was actually making conversation with him…well he was…but that was besides the point.

"So, you're age?"

"Look, I know this is just going to be another day, another dream, and wake up to find you aren't there, and never was there. So go find someone else to screw with, because I'm done with this conversation."

I walk away.

"So…nineteen, right?"

I stop at that, and turn to look at him. He's just smirking a toothy smirk at me. Then, suddenly, he doesn't seem so different after all.

I shake that from my head.

"How do you know that?"

I step back as he suddenly appears in front of me, and he steadies me from falling over. He smiles at me softly and leans down. His golden eyes piercing into my soul, watching my every move, my every thought, seeing right through my heartache. "I know a lot of things."

Our noses, and only our noses, touch for a few seconds. He closes his eyes, and then pulls away, standing me up right.

I stare at him in disbelief, until a call from the house pulls me away from him. I look back and he isn't there anymore. It was like he wasn't really there in the first place.

I sigh, and my day goes as it normally does, except my thoughts are on him. The whole day I thought of him, and only him. My heart pounds and races as it did back then, at the almost kiss, and the body heat that felt too real to be a thought.

If it was a hallucination, it was a good one.

I sigh as I go to bed, tucking myself in and falling fast asleep, too tired to study that night.

In the morning, as I woke, there he was, next to me…

Maybe I'm going crazy.