Falling for Inu

Ch:1 Disclaimer( I don't own Inuyasha Please R & R Ps: they r more mature.

"Any messages for me?" I asked as I entered the office for 'The Pipeline', our school newspaper.

"None in your box." Replied Ayame, our managing editor. "We already gave the police all the ticking packages and random threat notes."

I smiled and shrugged. "Another day, another unhappy Jock." It wasn't my fault that I wasn't very popular with the guy's lacrosse team---especially their star player Inuyasha, and Inu's many fans.

"Well in my opinion I have trouble imagining Inuyasha wanting to kidnap Kagome," Kathy remarked. "Kidnappers and victims have to spend time together." Then she turned around and daintily touched me on my arm. Kathy was one of Inuyasha's biggest fans and editor of our people's page.

"Just teasing Kagome."

"Yeah, yeah." I said rolling my eyes.

Kouga, our editor in chief laughed.

"Well I'm sure our budget will cover the ransom," he said. "After a few hours of being roasted by Kagome's questions, Inuyasha wouldn't demand much money. In fact he'll probably pay us to take her back."

I scowled, and he laughed. Kouga was a senior, a year older than Ayame and I- a tall American guy whom both Ayame and I had terrible crushes on freshman year.

But Now Ayame had something worse than a crush. She was a best buddy with him and, being second in command at the paper, the girl he was most likely to lean on, but she also wanted to be the girl he kissed. Kouga had more sophisticated tastes, he was dating a college girl now- but 4 how long?

"Just remember," I said, "If it weren't for me, we wouldn't have many letters to the editor."

"I'm grateful," Kouga replied. "Inuyasha's letter ran so long this week, I only had to write one paragraph for an editorial."

"It's just too bad that Inuyasha doesn't spend his time practicing shots in front of a goal instead of on a keyboard," I remarked. "He's got an incredible amount of talent. If he played up to it, I wouldn't get on him."

"I guess I should look at what he has to say."

"You mean you haven't read it yet?" Kathy asked, her green eyes big with surprise. She was always checking the mailbox for letters to the editor to see if people wrote anything about her.

"I didn't want his comments to influence what I had to write this week," I explained naturally.

"And obviously they didn't," Kouga said. "We've got another Kagome Higurashi analysis, calling it like she sees It.?

"So I like to write images! It's how I reach my reader."

"Well, you certainly reached the guy's lacrosse team," Ayame replied grinning.

"Instead of writing a letter, I wish they'd prove me wrong with a solid win," I said, then opened my copy of the paper to the op-ed page. "We'll, lets' see what the Hanyou has to say."

Dear editor,
As captain of the varsity Lacrosse team I am writing to protest the poor coverage we have been receiving from your sports editor, Kagome Higurashi. Each week, instead of writing a clear and unbiased account of our games, she gabs on like a late-night talk-show host.

"Oh, really," I said. '"Like an obnoxious comedian, she oversimplifies the games so she can make jokes at the team's expense."'

"Sounds like he got his feelings hurt," I muttered. "' I don't mind her negative comments about my leadership skills."' I glanced up from my paper for a moment and said, "Like heck you don't." Then I continued to read. "But I resent the constant and unfair criticism of my teammates."

"Okay, tell me how its' unfair," I commented.

"He does," Ayame replied, " For the next 2 and a half columns. To be honest, I had no idea jocks could write that much."

I skimmed the letter. "Well if he wants to convince me, he's going to have to give specific reasons and support them with stats and examples," I said. "All he does here is turn my own statemenents back on me, using things I've said to take clever shots at me--- talk about sounding like a late-night talk-show-host!"

But what really annoyed me were statements like, "knowing the game of girl's lacrosse doesn't prepare a writer for guy's lacrosse." I read it aloud. "What's' he implying by that?"

"' If Higurashi is truly interested in producing fair and informative articles rather than showing off as a writer.' yeah, yeah, yeah." I read on silently.

"I think you and Inuyasha need to get together and talk things through," Kathy said.

I glanced up at her." Why?"

"To make things friendlier between the team and the paper."

"Why would I want to do that?" I asked. Kouga snorted.

"Because we're the school paper," Kathy replied, her face puckering up with earnestness. "We're not real journalists, Kagome. We're only supposed to tell everyone about the good things we're doing at south."

"That would make us a public-relations office." She shrugged," All I know is that there are a lot of people who like my columns."

But the fact was, I knew there were students who loved Kathy's articles. To me the writing was dishonest, but this didn't bother some people-especially when she said something nice about them the following week.

I turned to Kouga. "If you believe we need to smooth things over, you can have Kathy do a feature on Inuyasha in the people's section." I suggested.

"Could I do a piece on him, Kouga?" Kathy asked. "I think a lot of kids would really be interested." Like the girls Kathy hangs around with, I thought.

"He's a terrific player-" Could be, I added silently. "---And he has a great body and a great smile," she went on. "He's interesting-kind of the silent mysterious type who studies a lot."

"Studying makes someone mysterious?" I asked. Ayame laughed.

I knew that Inuyasha was really smart. We'd had one class together- sophomore English. He wouldn't say a word for a week, then we'd discuss a short story and he'd argue his view against anyone-including the teacher- and be totally persuasive.

"I'll think about it, and we can run it by the rest of the staff next meeting." Kouga said. I stuffed an extra copy of the newspaper in my backpack.

"Heading off to for the girl's game?" Ayame asked.

"yup. I told Hojo, Sami and Elaine that I wanted them on the fields and tennis court as soon as the players are. I can't be lagging behind."

Sami and Elaine were sophomores and already solid reporters. Hojo, an eager freshman and my trainee, was another story. He helped me cover the girl's lacrosse team, whose games were usually on Mondays and Thursdays. The guy's who generally played Tuesdays and Fridays. If I could've cloned myself, I would've covered every sport.-reporting on sports was what I lived to do.

I pushed hard against the school door, eager to get out into the sunlight. But the door gave away faster than I expected-someone was pulling at it from the other side. I started to pitch headlong, then caught myself just in front of the person coming in. Inuyasha.

He was wearing a tattered practice shirt and was carrying an empty water bottle. He stared down at me with intense violet eyes that had an almost golden gleam in them, his grip tightening on the water bottle. Maybe he'd thought I'd look away, but I didn't. Then we silently continued on our separate ways, letting the metal door slam between us.

There-I am so sorry. That must have been painful. But the next chapter will get better-I PROMISE! Please R & R.