AN: I know I shouldn't be starting a new story without finishing Far From Home, but I've drawn a bit of a blank of that one and the idea for this one has been kicking around for a while. I'm hoping that starting something new will get the creativity flowing again :)
Anyhoo, I'm hoping my writing hasn't gotten too bad since the last time I wrote something. The chapter didn't turn out quite as I'd planned, but hopefully it's not too bad!
xMxAx i
Rin's high school shared a campus with the only university in the town and as she was a senior, she had a lot of free time between her classes which she spent watching the univesity students from the library windows. She envied them. They were old enough to decide their own paths in life and had enough freedom within the campus to do more or less what they liked as long as they met their tutor's expectations. She had seen the very studious students spend hours in the library beneath the balcony she always sat on and they never seemed to tire of thumbing through book after book searching for that one piece of information that would complete their work. There were the students who took the more active subjects and Rin had spent a long time watching them happily spend their days out in the lush green sports fields. Then there was a whole different group altogether, a group that Rin never knew quite what to make of. She had never seen them attend any of the sporting classes and they never set foot in the library, but she still envied their freedom.
She heaved a sigh and turned away from the window, looking down at the books that were scattered across her table with an expression of disgust. Rin worked hard to always have the best grades she could so her parents would be proud of her, but those grades came with a price. Her social life was virtually non-existant for a girl of eighteen and other students resented the fact that she always scored the highest in her year group after every exam. In the year since she had started attending the school, Rin had yet to make a single friend and discovered that she had made enemies instead. Most of the students seemed to somehow know that her family was not anywhere near as wealthy as theirs and therefore considered her beneath them but they were infuriated by being beaten in exams by a "commoner" such as her. The few students who were kind to her were reluctant to befriend the girl that nearly everyone else picked on lest they become targets too. All in all, life at school was pretty dismal for Rin.
Reaching forward, Rin began closing her books and piling them neatly on top of each other before reaching for the blazer that hung carelessly over the back of her chair. She shrugged it on and stood still for a moment, surprised when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the tall windows. Most of the other students in her year group took great care of their blazers, knowing that it represented them being the eldest students in the school and therefore able to do things that other students could not, but Rin wrinkled her nose as turned away from the image of her wearing the smart black blazer with silver buttons glinting in the sunlight.
As she headed back to the main school building where her locker was located, Rin let her mind wander as she dodged a few groups of students walking past her. Her parents spent very little time at home and were usually in the capital city or away in a disant country for extended periods of time. As it was, Rin hadn't seen her parents in hearly six months since they had gone abroad to work on a project that required their expertise. She didn't know quite what they did to earn the amounts of money that they did since their career choices had never particularly interested her, but she did wonder from time to time. Every now and then she would get a phone call from one or both of her parents, but they rarely came to visit her in person.
The large house that her parents had bought just before leaving the country was still largely unfurnished and although Rin's mother had suggested that she decorate the house for them, Rin wasn't interested in the decor of the overly large house in which she lived. Only three of the six bedrooms were in use and the reception room had been converted into Rin's living room, study and dining room much to the displeasure of her housekeeper. Suzume had worked for Rin's family since Rin was a child and had become a mother figure for the teenager. The older woman always tried to make sure the house was in order, but she could do little to try and organise the house when Rin showed little interest in anything that lay beyond the walls of her bedroom and living toom.
Suzume occupied one of the bedrooms on the same floor as Rin and the other was occupied by a young man Rin's father had employed initially to keep an eye on Rin and to make sure nothing happened to her without her parents knowledge. The young man, Kazuki, was in his late twenties and had taken an instant liking to Rin and she to him. He had a carefree attitude that always set her at ease, but she knew that behind his happy-go-lucky exterior was a man who had a strong sense of duty when it came to looking after her. More than once he had berated her for acting foolishly before reverting to the elder brother persona he adopted when they were together. Rin knew she was blessed to have to such caring people in her life and she always tried not to trouble them wherever possible.
The final bell of the school day rang shrilly and echoed down the corridors, startling Rin out of her thoughts as she hastily shouldered her bag and tucked her books under her arm as she made her way towards the gates. The university students mingled with the high school students as everyone made their way towards the freedom of the outside world. Rin felt a small smile tug her lips as she watched people she had seen earlier that day wander past, all engrossed in a conversation or laughing happily as they walked. She felt a momentary pag of loneliness as a large group walked past her. One of the men brushed past her and accidentally knocked her bag off her shoulder. Hastily, he turned and picked it up to hand to her, a sheepish smile on his face.
"Sorry, kid. Didn't see you there," he grinned, rubbing the back of his neck as though embarrassed by the whole incident.
He was gone before Rin could reply and she shrugged the incident away. Unlike the people from the high school, the university students didn't treat her differently. To them she was just another person, a kid as the man had just pointed out. Sighing, she started to walk forwards again when she tripped over something on the ground. Heaving yet another sigh, she pushed herself to her knees and looked up to find two smug girls she didn't recognise standing over her. They gave her sinister smiles before walking away, their shrill laughter seemingly louder than all the other sounds. Rin gave their retreating figures a half hearted glare before standing up to assess the damage to her person. She felt a little bit of blood ooze down her knee and resisted the urge to sigh again. Ignoring the curious looks she was getting from the unversity students and the malicious looks being directed at her by the other students, Rin held her head high and walked towards the gate.
Outside the gate were long lines of cars of varying colours and beside each one stood an impeccably dressed man or woman, their faces a mask of apathy as they waited patiently for the student they were collecting. Halfway down the long line was a black car with a tall man leaning casually against it. He looked very out of place, but he surveyed his surroundings with a look of disdain. Rin felt a wave of relief wash over her and hastened her steps as she grew closer and closer to the car. The man noticed her and grinned, flicking his red hair over his shoulder as he straightened.
"Had an accident, Miss Rin?" he asked, eyeing her bleeding knee with a raised eyebrow.
"It's just a graze, Kazuki," Rin replied with a smile as she gratefully accepted his help with her small pile of books.
"Best let Suzume have a look at that when we get home," Kazuki advised her seriously before closing the car door behind her.
"Suzume will just fuss. It's not serious," Rin protested and pouted at her friend as he slipped into the driver's seat.
"Serious or not, you should have it looked at."
"You worry too much, Kazuki."
"It is my job to worry about you, Miss Rin," he replied with a grin, knowing that statement annoyed her.
"Well I suppose I should be grateful that it is your job to worry about me since you obviously wouldn't otherwise," Rin replied, her tone cold as she glared out the window.
Kazuki didn't reply as he pulled into the driveway of their home. He picked up Rin's books and hurried to catch up with her as she stalked up the steps to the front door. Making her angry was not the best thing to do and it was quite a difficult thing to achieve, but she would quickly recover from her bout of anger and also forget the matter they had been discussing before. Rin was very shy and patient so making her angry was something very few people could do, but Kazuki had learnt quickly what to say to get her riled up. It was amusing for him even though he knew Suzume would probably berate him for it if she ever found out.
"Suzume is out doing the grocery shopping this afternoon," Kazuki said when Rin peered into the kitchen with a puzzled expression. Putting her books down, he pointed at the sofa and looked at her seriously. "Sit down."
Sighing dramatically, Rin sat down heavily on the sofa and watched the tall male disappear and return with a first aid kit in hand. He pulled up a stool and sat down before devoting his attention to Rin's bleeding knee. This sort of thing happened quite often. Kazuki would tend to the minor scrapes and bruises she got at school and Suzume would pretend that she hadn't seen them. Much later in the afternoon, Suzume returned from her shopping trip and walked into the sitting room once everything was in its rightful place. She sighed as she took in the sight before her. Kazuki was sitting comfortably on the sofa idly flicking through the pages of one of the many magazines that lay on the table while Rin dozed peacefully beside him, her head resting against his thigh and a tranquil look on her face.
"Her parents would skin you alive if they walked in on a scene like this," Suzume said quietly, sitting down in a nearby chair and frowning at the younger man.
"They hired me to be her companion. I'm not doing anything they could find fault with and in any case, she's old enough to make her own decisions," Kazuki said with a shrug as he replaced the magazine on the table and looked down at Rin.
"She is old enough to make her own decisions," she agreed. "She should leave that school. I don't like the way she's changed because of it."
Kazuki was silent for a moment and gently brushed Rin's hair away from her face as he tried to think how to phrase his response. "Rin is not selfish. She knows her parents sent her there for a reason and she intends to do the best she can there. We should respect that and simply help her as much as we can."
"You can help her," Suzume said with a frown. "She doesn't confide in me. Why she confides in a vagabond like you is beyond me."
"She just can't resist me," he replied with a grin.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Very little of any interest happened in the days that followed. There were the usual trips and falls where Rin would go home with minor injuries but she refused to let it get to her although she knew she was fooling herself if it didn't worry her. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she continued to ignore her bullies. Would they go to greater lengths to bully her? All of this simply over the fact that she scored near perfect scores in her exams through hard work alone.
After a morning of observing people in the classroom and the library, Rin chose to seek solitude in the extensive school gardens. Not long ago she had discovered a small bench that overlooked a large pond in the gardens. It was hidden by tall shrubs and large flowers plants and it was a place where Rin knew she wouldn't be found. The pond always set her on edge on account of her hydrophobia, but she steered clear of it at all times. When she was younger she had fallen into a pond in her grandmother's garden and her feet had become entangled in whatever flora grew beneath the surface of the water. She distinctly remembered the awful feeling of not knowing if she would survive, but she had been pulled out of the water by her father who had obviously been keeping a close eye on his inquisitive daughter. Despite her father's timely rescue, Rin was still uncomfortable around large bodies of water.
She sighed as she sat down on the bench and looked out across the pond, smiling slightly at the sight of the sunlight glinting off its surface. It was the kind of thing you saw in paintings or photographs. There was complete silence and Rin relished it. School was always busy and noisy so finding a place as quiet as this helped her think clearly.
She had just been looking at a particularly difficult mathetmatical problem in her text book when a rustling caught her attention. Getting to her feet, Rin walked towards the source of the noise slowly. The thought that it might be a small animal crossed her mind before she discarded it since she had never seen any kind of wildlife in the gardens. Just as she stopped in front of one of the large shrubs, a hand shot out of the bushes and grabbed her wrist in a bruising grip. Wincing in pain, Rin tried unsuccessfully to free herself and mentally made a mental note of how the bullying tactics seemed to have changed. A tall body was attached to the hand that gripped her wrist and Rin could only stare in amazement at the girl who stood before her.
The girl's long blonde hair fell to her waist and her piercing blue eyes looked as cold as ice as she glared at the shorter girl before her. Rin had seen her before but she didn't know her name. The girl took a step towards Rin who promptly stumbled backwards.
"What makes you think you're so special?" the girl hissed angrily. "What makes you think you can waltz into the school and become teacher's pet overnight?"
"I-I'm not a teacher's pet!" Rin tried to say bravely, but the words seemed to lack conviction.
The girl rolled her eyes. "I spent two years working hard to make sure my teachers all gave me perfect grades but you just had to appear and ruin it! I don't see what's so special about you. You're just a commoner! You should thank your parents for their hard work that you into this school. Normally commoners like you are turned away immediately."
While Rin stood in shocked silence, staring at the girl as though she'd taken leave of her senses, two more girls appeared beside their friend with disconcerting smiles on their faces. She knew that the situation didn't bode well and as she cast a fearful glance towards the pond, she hoped that it wouldn't involve the water. Unfortunately, the girl seemed to have noticed the fearful look that crossed Rin's face briefly and smirked to herself.
"Throw her in the pond," she said simply before turning to walk away.
Rin struggling violently as the other two girls grabbed her hands and dragged her towards the pond. A cry of frustration and fear left her lips as she continued to struggle against her captors but to no avail. There was thick dark mud on the edges of the pond and Rin recoiled at the sight of it. What would happen if she was submerged in the water? Would she be so paralysed by fear that she wouldn't be able to do anything? With those thoughts in mind, tears began to run down her cheeks as the girls struggled to push her into the water.
Just as she thought she had lost her battle with gravity and would soon be meeting the cold surface of the pond, Rin felt the girls let go of her abruptly. Much to her surprise, she didn't fall but instead felt arms wrap around her waist. Glancing over her shoulder, Rin was surprised to find a dark haired girl standing behind her with her arms wrapped around her waist. Her eyes widened as she saw that two other girls stood on either side of her while three men had trapped the two girls who had tried to throw her in the pond, a fourth man was approaching with the tall blonde girl trailing along behind him.
"Are you alright?" the girl who held Rin's waist asked, concern evident in her eyes when she saw the tears running down her face.
Rin nodded dumbly and stared at the sight before her. The three girls beside her guided her away from the pond to sit down on the bench beside her books again. A red haired girl sat beside her and offered her a tissue to wipe away her tears while the girl who had spoken to her moments ago simply wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders.
"For someone of such high standing in social circles, your manners are appalling," a tall dark haired man told the blonde girl who stood nearby, red in the face with anger.
A silver haired man nodded vehemently before giving the girl a sly grin. "Wouldn't it be a shame if your parents heard about this?"
"They can't know!" the girl exclaimed in a sudden panic.
"It would cause such a scandal if this lady's parents made a complaint about this!" the man continued, turning away from the girl to look at his friends as though it was a private conversation.
"No," Rin said in a shaky voice as she pushed herself to her feet. "Her parents won't find out and neither will mine. Just let her go."
The group stared at her in surprise before the men reluctantly let the trio of girls go on their way. The blonde scowled at Rin before she left and Rin knew that she would do well to steer clear of her. There would be no one to save her next time. Sighing, she realised how much of an effect the whole experience had had on her and she sat down heavily on the bench, burying her face in her hands as she tried to regulate her breathing.
"So you're just going to let it go? After what they tried to do to you?" the silver haired man asked, a frown on his face as he looked down at her.
"It doesn't matter," Rin said, her voice muffled by her hands. "If they'd succeeded they'd have proceeded on to worse things and they'll still do that even though they haven't succeeded."
"Where are your friends?" the red haired girl asked. "Why would they leave you alone if they knew you were being bullied?"
"I don't have any friends."
Moments later, Rin was assaulted by a small body launching itself towards her and arms wrapping around her shoulders tightly. Gasping for breath, Rin raised her head and looked around in bewilderment.
"I'll be your friend!" the red head exclaimed passionately while the other two girls nodded their agreement. "I'm Ayame, by the way. The other two are Kagome and Sango."
Rin stared at her for a moment before remembering her manners. "Rin Nakamura."
"So you wanna tell us what you did to piss off the police chief's daughter, Rin?" the silver haired man asked, sitting down heavily on the grass nearby.
"Being alive probably," she mumbled, looking down at her hands
"Never mind her!" Ayame said and glared at her friend. "We'll be your friends! She wouldn't dare come near you again. What subject are you doing? Maybe we're studying towards the same degree. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"D-Degree?" Rin asked in confusion before realisation settled in. She'd been rescued by university students who apparently had realised she was only a high school senior. "I'm a high school senior."
"That should've been obvious from her uniform, Ayame," one of the two dark haired men said with a grin that earned him a punch from the red head.
"The fact that she's in the high school doesn't change a thing. We are on the same campus, just different buildings," Kagome said with a shrug. "By the way, the boys are rude so they haven't introduced themselves. That's Sango's boyfriend, Miroku. The other guy is Kouga, he has a major thing for Ayame but won't admit it."
"I don't have anything for her! I don't date women who're the same height as people half their age," Kouga said, crossing his arms and frowning at Kagome.
"Well I don't date people with the intelligence of people less than half their age," Ayame replied, glaring at Kouga.
"The one on the ground is my boyfriend, Inuyasha," Kagome continued as though the pair hadn't just interrupted her. "And the guy at the back there is Inuyasha's brother, Sesshoumaru. He's the one who saw you were having a few problems with those girls."
Rin watched in amazement as a full blown argument seemed to erupt before her eyes. Everyone was talking all at once and it stunned her. Kouga and Ayame were arguing and calling each other every name under the sun and insulting each other in ways that made Rin blush. Inuyasha was repeatedly reminding Kagome that Sesshoumaru was only his half brother and that under no circumstances did he want her to introduce them as full siblings. While all this was taking place, a sharp slap rang out that caused everyone to be silent for a moment before the talk continued. Kagome seemed to notice Rin's alarmed expression and smiled kindly at her.
"Don't worry about this too much," she said as she returned to her seat beside her. "Miroku is a bit of a pervert so Sango keeps him in line."
Sighing deeply, Rin rubbed her eyes as the group continued to argue and assault each other. The only person who hadn't said anything was Sesshoumaru and she assumed that he was the introvert of the group. Glancing down at her watch, she saw that the bell for the end of the day had rung half an hour ago and she would be late getting to the gate. The group fell silent when she shot to her feet and began hastily putting her books away in her bag.
"Going somewhere?" Miroku asked with a grin while he rubbed the red patch on his cheek.
"I'm late," Rin mumbled, trying to pack away faster.
"We'll come to the gate with you," Sango said, shoving Miroku away from her and giving Rin a smile. "Those girls might be lurking around somewhere."
"No need!" Rin said hastily, clutching her bag to her chest and turning to face them all. "Thank you so much for your help, but I really need to go."
Without another word, Rin bolted away and left the group staring after her in amazement. After a moment of stunned silence, they too started walking towards the gate with Rin only a few strides ahead of them.
"Not the most sociable of people, is she?" Inuyasha asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked.
"She's probably scared," Kagome said. "If she doesn't have any friends she probably thinks we're up to something."
"Any of you hear what those girls said to her?" Kouga asked.
"Nope," Inuyasha replied.
"We'll just have to keep an eye on her," Kagome said quietly. "She'll come around eventually when she realises we won't hurt her."
Rin lengthened her strides as she thought she heard Inuyasha's voice behind her. She was truly grateful to them for helping her, but she couldn't trust them just yet. They could just be another group trying a different method to bully her or they could be genuinely seeking her friendship, it seemed impossible to tell. She had a suspicion that they wouldn't leave her alone, but she supposed it would be a good way to judge what their true intentions were.
The rest walked behind her and watched as she walked faster as the gates appeared in the distance before breaking out into a run. She raced towards the gates and paused briefly to look around which was just enough time for them to catch up with her. Sensing their presence, Rin glanced over her shoulder and flashed them a brief, tentative smile before running down the sidewalk to one of the few cars that was still waiting. They watched as she stopped in front of it and a tall man unfolded himself from the driver's seat. He grinned at her and flicked away his cigarette before reaching for her bag and ruffling her hair as he opened the door for her. The group felt slightly relieved that there was at least one other person who seemed to have her best interests at heart so perhaps they could eventually win her around.