Crash Landing

Hey everyone! I know I seem incapable of finishing a story, then starting another, however, this chapter is dedicated to my sister and the advisor for this story. Happy Birthday!

This is basically my take on Hana Kimi, Sesshoumaru/Rin style!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize, including, but probably not limited to, Sesshoumaru, Rin, and the Hana-Kimi plot line/character names.

EDIT 3/31/12 – Fixed a bunch of grammar mistakes and just tried to make the story flow better in general. Wow, can't believe it's been a year…

Rin squeezed her eyes shut, her knuckles white from squeezing her armrest. The flesh underneath her fingernails were pale as her death grip relentlessly carved its way into the plastic. Her stomach was rebelling at the loss of gravity from the freefall by doing a few somersaults along the way.

None too quickly, Rin felt the first reassuring tremors of the metallic bird hitting the runway. She breathed a sigh of relief, only to inhale sharply as the plane made a sudden lurch before stopping at the gate.

The petite brunette held her breath for a few more seconds after that to make sure the plane was truly still. All around her, people were scrambling to get their carry-on luggage.

Rin tried desperately to recall why she'd decided to pay her year's worth of savings to subject herself to this torture. Ah…that's right. Of course.

Rin had grown up in an upper-middle class neighborhood, with the typical neighbors who had two and half children—and a dog. However, her own family was far from the all American dream. She was the only daughter of a single mother. That alone was reason enough for her conservative Japanese grandparents to not want anything to do with the mother and child. In fact, the only time her grandparents had bothered to contact the estranged duo was when Rin had tested into a prestigious prep school on the east coast—you know, the kind where rich kids wore over-priced uniforms and rubbed shoulders with offspring of influential families.

And now, well, Rin was certain that her grandparents would faint if they ever caught wind of what she was planning to do.

But, a blissful smile emerged on Rin's face as she allowed her large, slanted eyes to flutter shut. Slowly, the noise and chaos around her faded. She conjured up the image that had haunted and teased and tempted her mind for the last few months. The figure that gracefully danced on the ice. The arms that moved with such confidence and poise like a pair of wings on a fairy. The body that moved in perfect control, the tiniest movement calculated, expressive, poignant. The legs that were lean yet possessed a feral strength. It was strength to lift that toned body as if weightless into the air, spinning. The footwork that beguiled difficulty, showing only clean precision.

She didn't know his name. Well, not at that time, anyway. All she knew was that he was her ice king. He was her Majesty of figure skating, who, aloof and beautiful, stood at the pinnacle of her mind.

Oh, she found his name out soon enough. Sesshoumaru. Sano Sesshoumaru.

He wasn't exactly world-renowned. In fact, she had only seen him on TV by chance. Her physical education teacher at school, Ryuukotsei Romanov, was an avid fan of figure skating, and also happened to be dorm supervisor in Rin's student housing building. It seemed that the handsome instructor had taken an instant shine to the young girl and he proceeded to look out for her for the entire year she attended the school. Rin would have been creeped out by his fixation on her if she weren't aware that the man had a gigantic crush on her mother. The man had taken one look at a photo of Ashiya Modori and never so much as cast a second glance at another woman all year.

Rin giggled at the memory. Her handsome middle-aged instructor had almost started crying when she announced she was going to transfer from her prep school to a private school in Tokyo. Though, he wasn't the only one who was out of sorts with her decision. Her mother, a dance instructor in a sub-urb outside of San Diego, was chagrined that her one and only child, whose education she'd been saving for for years, had dropped out of one of the finest prep-schools in the country on a seeming whim. The only thing that appeased the thirty-four year-old was that her daughter was going to her own home country to reconnect with the culture there. If only the poor woman knew Rin's true motivations.

With some difficulty, the fifteen year-old hefted her carry-on suitcase out of the overhead storage and rolled it towards the terminal. For the first time in the last few days, she was thankful for her haircut. If she'd still sported her long hazel hair that ran down to the middle of her back, it would surely get caught somewhere between the handles and the wheels.

Any passenger with the misfortune of walking behind her, Rin thought, must be worried. She couldn't stop her body from shaking as she mentally cackled. She imagined the absolute horror that would no doubt adorn her mother's delicate porcelain features if only she knew exactly what kind of school her daughter had transferred to!

Oh, Shikon Gakuen was hardly a bad school. Over eighty percent of its students matriculated to a top tier Japanese university every year. It was the student body that her mother would fret over. Shikon was a boy's only school.

The only reason Rin even managed to enroll was because she had purposefully mistranslated the papers to the gullible Mr. Romanov, who she had talked into signing for her transfer.

Now, why would a girl with perfectly bright prospects in her future want to transfer to a boy's school under an assumed gender? Well, remember that figure skater, Sesshoumaru? Let's just say Rin was a little bit obsessed over him.

Rin had really thought that New York was a busy city. Really. But Tokyo was a whole other ball game. It almost seemed like the damnable traffic was a jealous third wheel trying to prevent her from meeting Sesshoumaru.

Which meant, of course, that trying to get to the first class on time while facing the morning rush hour was downright impossible.

Severely sleep deprived, slightly car sick, Rin crawled out of the cab after handing a small fortune over to the cab driver. Something told her that she had just gotten ripped off, but it wasn't like Rin knew how to argue fluently in Japanese.

However, all grumpiness disappeared as she gazed upon the glass and steel structures of the school. She would spend the next three years of her life here, hopefully. It was vastly different from the gothic architecture of her prep school, but just as imposing and grandiose. In place of the flying archways and intricate sculptures, Shikon was all glass, steel, and modern construction. And, this was where Sesshoumaru was. Just the thought made the school buildings seem brighter.

"You're in the way," an icy tenor intruded into Rin's fanciful imagination.

Before the petite cross-dresser could respond, the boy's long limbs had elegantly side-stepped her luggage infested form, as if its mere presence was even unworthy of disdain, and brusquely stepped into the building, his tapered fingers expertly flashing an ID card at the sensor on the side of the door.

Rin gaped. The rudeness! Didn't that boy know how to treat a lady? Oh. Oh wait. She wasn't exactly a lady no more. That was when she saw the gate closing. Damn. She didn't have an ID card yet—that gate wasn't going to open for her!

Inhaling deeply, Rin pushed off with her legs and sprinted through the closing gate. As she passed the tall boy from earlier, who was now casually and aristocratically proceeding down the hall, she proudly stuck out her tongue at him.

Eventually, Rin came to a stop in front of classroom 3B. She reigned in her giggles at her own antics. Oh, how she had longed to stick out her tongue in her prep school! But it wasn't appropriate there because she was a girl.

Clearing her throat, Rin rapped the door smartly. She checked herself. Shoulders even, back straight, head high. First impressions were important, after all.

The door opened.

A surprisingly handsome young man opened the door. He was wearing a lab coat.

"Oh! You must be the transfer student! Ashiya Ren-kun, no?" the man greeted, "Come in! I'm the school nurse and personal planning adviser Umeda-sensei — "

Before he could finish what he was about to say, a skillfully coordinated unit of paper airplanes flew to Rin's face. Bull's-eye.

Bewildered, Rin's head swirled around the classroom. All the students wore identical looks of absolute stoicism and passing interest on their faces.

Oh, so they were playing this game, huh?

Rin calmed the ticking of her brow and composedly picked up one plane from the ground.

"Thank you for the greeting! Yes, I did just arrive via plane! Only…" she paused, scanning the room for effect, "a regiment is only as strong as the weakest soldier." She inwardly grinned. Oh, she could see them now, the boys in the front row were squirming a little.

"Now, take this plane, for instance," she lectured, "it only hit the collar of my shift, not my nose like the other ones. If you look closely, you can see that the crease in the wing was done twice. Pure sloppiness."

She smiled indulgently at the class. "I hope we all get along from now on! Let's leave the passive aggressive origami attacks to the ladies, shall we?"

Silence. The boys blinked at her owlishly. Rin breathed a sign of relief. Sure, she had just made herself public enemy number one, but at least she asserted herself. Oh, psychology 101, how much it elucidated the fragility of the male ego. Granted, having to resort to misogynist comments made her cringe, but she needed to make herself appear more masculine. She just hoped that no one noticed her trembling under all the bravado.

"Right, then," the sensei announced in the awkward silence, "Ashiya-kun, wonderful introduction. Let's see…that seat in the front row should be unoccupied." He pointed to two of the empty desks in the front, beside the window.

Rin pulled together her most refined boy look, which successfully made her look snooty and pompous, and guided her suitcases to the desk closer to the window. But as she went to lift her school bag up to the desk, her hand was met with empty air.

Her ears flushed red as she heard the chuckles start to sound all around her.

Suddenly, the door slammed open and a tall, lean figure stepped in with all the grace of a giant panther.

It was the boy she had passed, and displayed her tongue to, earlier.

He strolled up to her, dropping her book bag onto the table further from the window. His molten gold eyes glared at her in icy silence.

"That's my seat you're in."

The boys finally burst out laughing. Rin wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and die. The boy—no, the man—she stuck her tongue out at, the one whose seat she just tried to steal, the one who was forced to carry her book bag filled with all the text books for the year—was Sesshoumaru.