Note: This fic is loosely based on the film Igby Goes Down, but not as good, and with less drugs. (Straight-edge for life! Yes, I am a dork. How could you tell?)
"Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that's pretty clever don't you boy.
Flying on your motorcycle, watching all the ground beneath you drop.
You'd kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop.
You broke another mirror, you're turning into something you are not."
– "High and Dry," Radiohead
Lie Down With the Dogs
The hall stretched out for a long way on either side of the door to the head warden's office, and in the walls the doors and windows of the staff offices made an unflinching pattern until the stairway interrupted at both ends.
Inuyasha had always wondered what the windows were for. It seemed stupid to have windows inside, but he had been to enough different schools to know that most staff offices had them. And that the blinds were most always drawn shut, making the windows moot anyway.
They could probably save some money in construction, he thought, if they just eliminated the damn indoor windows.
The door to the right of him, which was the warden's door, opened suddenly, and the click and slam of it bounced around the plaster and linoleum. Natsumi's heels tapped sharply on the floor as she moved to stand in front of him, staring down her thin, pointed nose. She seemed to tower over him, slumped low as he was in the office chair.
"Get up," she sighed, disgusted, exasperated, rolling her eyes.
Inuyasha slung his book bag over his shoulder and followed his step-mother down the hall. She kept glancing back at him, with her red, pouting mouth twisted as if she'd tasted something sour.
"What?" he asked, a little irritated. "Afraid you'll lose me?"
"Oh, please. Don't even start." Natsumi paused, looked around for eavesdroppers, then hissed, "Do you know how bad this makes me look?"
Inuyasha pushed air through his lips. "Pff. Not my problem."
"Oh-ho!" Natsumi stopped and turned around, hands on slender hips. Beneath her rouge, her face flushed angrily. "Not your problem? Not your problem!?" She stopped and seemed to collect herself, again searching for listeners. Her eyes tried to cut into him. "We're leaving."
They left the building, now in the grassy quad area where the cherry blossom trees grew unrestrained, fenced in only by the ancient brick buildings of the school. Their feet squashed the grass as they made their way to the driveway, and the breeze played with Inuyasha's long tail of black hair.
"This is the last school that would accept you," Natsumi said briskly, looking over her shoulder at him. "Do you know what that means? Do you?"
Inuyasha said nothing.
"I warned you, I don't know how many times. It's military school for you, this time. As soon as we reach the car, I'm going to make the call."
She was still looking back, maybe hoping to catch him flinch. Yeah, well, he wasn't going to bite.
"Yeah, right," he said, pulling his bag higher on his shoulder. She wasn't serious.
''''
Two minutes to night-check.
Inuyasha looked from the red glow of his digital clock to the door, watching, waiting for the echoing glow of the major's flashlight in the fogged window-glass.
One minute to night-check.
He stared hard at the door, trying to block out the snores of his roommate in the other bunk and concentrate on the approaching footfalls of heavy, military-issue boots.
Zero minutes to night-check.
He saw a flicker suddenly, dulled at the door's window, creeping in beneath the crack. He closed his eyes and turned away, pulling the sheets up to his chin. The light passed over him, then away, and the door thudded softly in its frame. The boots clapped away down the hall.
Inuyasha waited, not moving, breathing shallowly through his mouth. When the dorms were still and silent again, he threw off the sheets, fully dressed, and bent down over the edge of the bed to lace his boots. His fingers flew over the bindings like moths at a bulb, close and then away again.
Once that was done he jammed clothing and pillows beneath his blankets to simulate the form of a body. Inuyasha checked the room once more and left, bolting quickly and silently into the corridor like a rabbit. Not that he was afraid, or anything.
He hurried down the shadowed hall until he found the door to the showers and slipped inside. Relief allowed him to breathe normally again for a moment, before his gut tightened in anticipation.
He moved past the rows of lockers into the more open shower area, feeling alone with only the sound of his own breathing, even though he knew he was not. From the windows high in the walls moonlight was drawn into the room and made the white tiles eerie and luminescent.
"Almost thought you weren't gonna show, dog turd."
Koga stepped out from a row of lockers. He cracked his knuckles loudly, and his watery blue eyes glinted with the light from the tiles.
"Oh, sorry." Inuyasha pretended to be studying the far wall. Fleabags like Koga were easy to set off. "I know it's not polite to keep a lady waiting..."
And just like that, Koga charged him. Inuyasha skittered away from the first fist, and caught the second one well enough to nail Koga under the ribs, but afterwards his arm felt unnaturally loose from the pressure.
"You'll pay for what you did," Koga growled, backing off a little.
"You mean for making you look foolish?" said Inuyasha, relishing the memory of Koga's face as his rifle mysteriously backfired during practice. "Because you don't really need any help for –"
"Shut up!"
Koga swiped at him. For a while the only noises were grunts and winded breath and the occasional smack of a fist connecting. Their arms locked, and they tussled briefly before pushing away as if by tacit agreement. The two watched each other, wary as predators because it seemed to be an even contest.
Koga smirked.
"Ginta! Hakkaku!"
Koga's two hangers-on were behind Inuyasha suddenly, clamping onto his arms with grips that stubbornly refused to yield to his struggling.
"What the hell is this, Koga!?"
Koga didn't answer, just smiled, wound up, and swung away at him. They let him go when he was half conscious and delirious with bruising.
"Careful putting him down," said Koga. So they laid him on his back, and Koga leaned over and patted his cheek mockingly. "Wouldn't want to mark up that face."
Of course, there would be no bruising where it was visible.
"Later, dog turd." Koga walked right over him, and his followers went after.
Inuyasha lied like a dead thing on the concrete floor. The pain was pleasantly fuzzy and far off as he stared at the ceiling and felt his muscles jumping at their sudden respite.
He could feel the film of dirt on the floor and the coolness of it through the thin, buzzed remains of his hair. If there was one thing he hated about the military academy it was what they had done to his hair. His only consolation was that he'd heard Koga had once had long hair, too.
His long, wheezing sigh went out bravely into the emptiness.
Gripping the locker room bench with his blunt fingers, Inuyasha dragged himself off the floor and staggered back to his room, rubbing the black stubble on his scalp and missing the long, long tail of it.
''''
The family sat around the dinner table, looking stiff and polished in their formal wear. The thrum of conversation studded with the tinkling sounds of silverware seemed to pass around their table and leave them isolated in a stilted, enveloping silence. Natsumi chattered to fill the silence, but the void was a reaction of nature to the four of them together, and so, indomitable.
Inuyasha speared a yellow string-bean with his fork, looked up, and saw his half-brother Sesshomaru do the same across from him. Lord Almighty, this was boring.
To Inuyasha's right his father conversed politely with Natsumi, who was seated at Inuyasha's left and smiling. But she was doing it wrong, he thought. Normal people didn't smile that much when they had no emptiness to make up for.
"Inuyasha," said Touga, his father, suddenly. "I hear your doing well in school."
Yeah, sure, as long as 'well' was a relative term.
"Yes, he hasn't caused any trouble. So far." And there was an edge to Natsumi's voice that said he had better not cause any in the future.
Inuyasha wondered why she didn't seem to remember that he had illicitly spent a day and a night in the Waldorf on Park Avenue before the major had tracked him down. Probably she hadn't wanted to aggravate Touga by mentioning it to him.
"Hm. I didn't think he had it in him," Sesshomaru drawled with irony, fully aware of his younger brother's brief bid for freedom. He had the smooth, lacquered voice of an aristocrat.
At that, Touga gave a deep-throated laugh. It seemed to catch somewhere inside of him, and rip open and spill out of his mouth as a gritty cough. He held up a hand to ward off the assistance of his wife and first-born son while he bent over to the side, hacking wetly over the floor.
The fit soon sputtered, slowed, stopped.
Touga sat up and shook himself, smiling as if to say to the table 'see? Everything is fine.' His hand was at his breast pocket, fondling the carton of cigarettes inside, but never taking one.
No one said anything, and the strangers in the restaurant who had stopped to watch in horrified fascination returned to their meals as if nothing had happened.
Yeah, dad was sick. Dad was dying. Dad had been dying for so long that Inuyasha didn't think he cared anymore. Let him do it, he thought, just let him get it over with.
"Well..." said Touga, "Well. Inuyasha. How would you like to go down to California with me over the break?"
Why, yes, he would, thank you very much. He could definitely find somewhere to crash in California. Somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't the academy. His father would probably be too busy working to care. But he didn't want to seem too eager.
"Where would we be staying?" Inuyasha asked.
"I have a condo near Carmel where we'll be celebrating the opening of the new gallery. How does that sound?"
He pretended to think about it. "Acceptable."
"Okay then. Excellent. We'll leave on Monday."
Inuyasha allowed himself a tiny smile of triumph. It looked like his secret plan would be easier to fulfill than he'd thought. He was getting paid fare to California. He could hide out there and with any luck escape spring semester at the academy. He was leaving on Monday.
And that was that.
''
A/N: Bwahaha!! I cut off Inuyasha's hair! On a side note, this is about as close to the film as this story is going to get. The rest of it will be more divergent, I swear. So... love it? Hate it? Want to take it out for dinner, then make love to it? Feel free to tell me. nudge-nudge
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable within this story, including Inu-Yasha, Igby Goes Down, and the songs at the top of each chapter where I plug my favorite bands. This is applicable to all chapters, so I'm not going to repeat it over and over again.