I just want to say, thank you to all of my wonderful reviewers! Please read and review! The next chapter will be up soon! Rated:
Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha. I do, however, own a spanish guitar. His name is Pablo.
Chapter 2: In the Roda
Kagome sat comfortably on the couch at her house with Rin watching TV. The blue eyed girl had traveled home for the weekend and Rin had asked to go with her- it wasn't a rare event that Rin asked to go home with her. Kagome's friend often went home with Kagome due to the fact that Rin's adoptive father lived on the other side of the country.
Yes, Rin was adopted, but she didn't allow that to run her life. She never allowed anything tragic to affect the way she thought and acted. The smaller girl was orphaned at the young age of six or seven and was taken in by a rich bachelor. He took proper care of Rin and helped her erase the images of her parents' death from her memory. The girl loved him and he loved her. He often called to check on her and she did make the long journey back home for the summer and holidays.
"Kags!" the small girl suddenly exclaimed. "I'm sooo excited that my dad is coming to visit for a little bit before I go back home for the summer. You'll finally get to meet him!"
"I can't wait," Kagome replied with a smile on her face. "How do you think he'll like Sesshoumaru?"
"Oh, well I'm sure they'll get along. Sesshy sounded a little nervous when I told him about it; but my dad's a really friendly guy and he already likes Sesshy because he makes me so happy."
Kagome laughed at this- she really wanted to meet the man that could put up with Sesshoumaru's attitude just because the haughty man made his daughter happy.
"You sure he won't worry about the age difference? I mean, that's a pretty large gap," Kagome said as Rin stood up to put a DVD in the player.
"Well, we already talked about it. At first, he was totally against it. He said, 'I can't let my little girl be involved with a man five years older than her!'" Rin mimicked, changing her voice. "But he eventually bent a little after hearing how much Sesshy loved me and I, him. It's not like he's twice my age or anything, anyways."
"True," Kagome agreed distantly. Her mind had once again wandered onto Sango. Sango was older than her. She loved that about her- just that maturity she had and the physical benefits of her age. Not to mention that Sango was more experienced just because of that. But now none of that mattered. Sango's beauty, mind, and love were no longer hers. Nothing about the wonderful woman belonged to her any longer.
Kagome would be telling the lie of the century if she said that she didn't love Sango anymore. She'd be telling the lie of the century if she said she didn't miss her and everything about her. The blue eyed girl had tried to convince herself that she was over Sango, but it just wasn't working. She had tried to give herself time, but even then…
The girl feared that she would never let go of the beautiful musician.
Rin frowned, looking over at Kagome who held that distant, melancholy look on her features. This look had become very familiar to Rin. Her frosty blue eyes had darkened quite the bit within a short moment. Despair had seeped into the air around her and it was tangibly suffocating the smaller girl.
"Kagome?" she called, feeling as if she didn't distract the girl soon that something bad would happen.
The blue eyed girl looked up with wet eyes and momentarily stared blankly at Rin. Suddenly, it was as if she remembered where she was. She blinked a few times and offered a confused smile. Rin, not wanting Kagome's mood to be ruined, jumped up excitedly.
"Hey, dance expert. Help me out with this Capoeira stuff!"
"You aren't seriously going to try to do that stuff?"
"I sure am!" Rin said excitedly as the actual video got past the previews and the movie started.
"You're going to break your arms," Kagome laughed.
So she sat, giggling all the while, watching Rin try to do some of the dance moves. They always watched Capoeira videos together, but she had never seen Rin attempt it. It was hilarious really and Kagome couldn't stop laughing. Rin had given up on following the whole video and continuously paused and tried to do a particular section of the video. Kagome fell off the couch laughing at Rin's pathetic attempts at a handstand.
"Fine then- laugh all you want," Rin pouted after she had fallen flat on her back after her latest attempt. "I don't see you trying."
"Because it's stupid to try," Kagome gasped between laughs. "These guys have been doing this stuff for nearly all of their lives."
Kagome continued to roll on the floor, laughing, and Rin joined in with giggling.
Kohaku had descended the steps and had entered the living room. He lifted an eyebrow and stood over the two laughing college students.
"Do I even want to know?" he chuckled.
"Oh, man, you missed it!" Rin giggled as she attempted to sit up. "I was doing Capoeira," she said with a sneaky smile.
"You were doing what?" Souta asked as he joined Kohaku in looking down at the girls. "Since when did you know Capoeira?"
Kagome had been trying to stifle her laughter this whole- it final came bursting out.
"She doesn't," she laughed her reply.
"Shh, Kags. They don't know that!" Rin laughed lightly.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Kagome stood up feeling quite awkward with her younger brother and his friend looking down at her. Running her hand through her hair, she sighed gently. Her eyes connected with Sango's little brother's eyes. She always found it awkward when she visited home- Kohaku had been living with her family. The boy was quiet and observant, just like his sister. Her heart made it a hard task to look at the young boy. He looked so much like his big sister- his eyes held a ton of brown, however. He was a warm boy, nonetheless.
"Rin, you suck so badly at Capoeira!" Kagome laughed, tearing her eyes away from Kohaku as she tried to push the images of Sango from her head. She felt as if she were going crazy; constantly thinking about Sango the way she was.
"I'd like to see you try," Rin pouted playfully.
"And look like a fool?" Kagome laughed, remembering Rin's attempts.
"Yeah, Kagome. Give it a try," Souta egged.
"You guys can't be serious," Kagome stopped laughing.
"You know you want to," Rin persuaded. She knew Kagome loved to dance and any new style was a challenge to her. She also knew that Kagome hadn't gone dancing in a long while and she could feel the tension pouring off her roommate.
"Yeah, Kagome. Souta tells me you're an amazing dancer," Kohaku smiled.
"I can't believe I'm going to do this," the blue eyed girl muttered as she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail with a hair band on her wrist. Rin started the video and Kagome stood for a second trying to find the rhythm.
Suddenly, she jumped into the swinging movement called a ginga easily mimicking the dancer on the screen. She rolled out of that movement into a broken cartwheel, stopping only to not flip into the couch. Easing her feet down, she stood, feeling a little dizzy from the half tumble.
"Man, Kagome- that was insane," Kohaku said, impressed by her mimicking the first move and a half that had been done simultaneously by the dancer on the television. He had always known Kagome was a great dancer, but he had never seen her use her memory to copy a dance move. He wondered exactly what all she could do.
Kagome sat on the couch suddenly, not liking the spinning that her head was doing.
"Gees, how do those guys not pass out from getting dizzy?" she muttered, shutting her eyes a bit.
"Well, they spot their opponent and never break the stare," Kohaku observed as he watched the man do a handless cartwheel.
Kagome opened her eyes and gave Kohaku a questioning glance. She again tore her eyes away from his face and looked at the TV, instantly recognizing what he was talking about.
"That makes sense." Kagome nodded. "Thanks," she tacked onto the end awkwardly.
"No problem," his smile was brilliant, just like his sister's. "Sango was telling me that you might come along to see one of the shows in the tour. She's really excited about that; are you going to go?"
"I don't know… It really depends on my class schedule; I'm trying to focus on my studies so I can graduate next year," the blue eyed girl explained.
"Well if you do end up going, Sango will be very happy to see you. She's always talking about you nowadays," Kohaku chuckled.
Kagome was once again sucked into her mind. Just hearing that Sango even thought about her made her heart soar. She really wanted to see Sango again as well- but she didn't want to get her hopes up. Sango's intentions were not romantic. Sango had a girlfriend and Kagome knew they were in a serious relationship. Kagome knew that she could be nothing more than a friend to Sango, so why set her heart up for hurt? She loved Sango- but it was too late for Sango to love her back.
Kikyo stood in the doorway, waiting for it to be opened for her. She was becoming quite the impatient one. Sango and Rayne were hours late for the practice and she had been sent to retrieve the two. She heard the door unlock and felt relieved just a bit. When it was not opened, however, she was slightly pissed. She opened up the door and let herself in.
"Hey Kikyo," the retreating form of Sango disappeared down the hallway.
"Hey," the girl replied, irritated that Sango was walking around in her underwear. She must've just finished with a shower- but that meant that the two had completely disregarded the time that they had scheduled.
"Fuck, do you two know what time it is?" Kikyo complained, shutting the door behind her and heading into the kitchen to get a drink.
She stopped in her tracks when she spotted Rayne sitting at the table with a cup of yogurt in hand. She was aimlessly swirling her spoon around in it. Her dark blue eyes, which were downcast and sullen, were circumscribed by dark rings. Her hair wasn't done up crazily, like it usually was and hung limp and wet about her face. Her knuckles were covered in dark, disgusting bruises and a few other spots on her skin were darkening as well. Rayne stopped swirling her spoon around and looked up after realizing someone was watching her.
"What happened to you?" Kikyo finally found her voice after her throat had tightened after seeing the girl's pathetic glance.
Rayne didn't reply but began to shovel yogurt into her mouth. Kikyo took a seat across from her.
"Hey, Rayne… do you want to talk about it?" the bassist asked gently.
The drummer looked up again, her eyebrows furrowing quite the bit.
"Do I have…? Do I have a chance against her?" her lower lip trembled slightly.
"What?" Kikyo was thoroughly confused. What was Rayne talking about? Why was she covered in bruises and what the hell happened to her hands? They looked swollen as well- this couldn't be good for the band. Not at all.
Rayne shook her head and set her jaw- she shouldn't be doing stuff like feeling sorry for herself. That was selfish.
"What happened to your hands, Rayne?" Kikyo asked again. At times, Kikyo found herself looking after the younger girl. Rayne was so reckless that she often did things without realizing she was injured. At a concert, once, she had tripped over an amplifier cord and her drumsticks had shattered in her hands. She was given replacement sticks and played the whole concert, bleeding all over. She hadn't even realized until blood began to splatter on the white faces of her toms.
The blue eyed girl looked down at her knuckles and lifted an eyebrow, obviously surprised.
"Oh… I, um, got upset last night… I punched a wall or two, I think. I don't really remember," she said pushing her chair back and standing.
"What happened last night?" Kikyo asked, tucking errant strands of her long dark hair behind her ears.
"Nothing really- I was just acting stupid like usual. You shouldn't worry about it," Rayne said, pressing a blinding smile.
"Oh… well then- why did you guys not show up to rehearsal?" the pale bassist asked with a calculating look.
"We slept in," Sango replied from behind her old roommate.
Kikyo looked behind her to give Sango a judging look. The green eyed girl didn't look all that great herself. She looked ridiculously tired, but that was all she let be seen.
"Deeper and deeper into this tangled web we struggle," Kikyo sighed.
Rayne gave Kikyo an annoyed look- she always found Kikyo's cryptic language irritating. She didn't understand why Kikyo couldn't just come out and say what she wanted. To make everything she said a mystery was just pointless to her. She supposed that was what made her a good lyricist and she dealt with it.
"Yeah, whatever," Rayne shrugged as she left the kitchen. "Are you guys coming?" she asked as she pulled the door open and exited through it.
Sango started forward, but her hand was caught by Kikyo. Her green eyes traced over the pale girl's face, seeing the aching similarities between her and Kagome, still. Dark brown eyes coldly searched hers before she tore her stare away.
"What do you want, Kikyo?" Sango breathed tiredly. Why did they have to look so much alike? It was paining her inside.
"You will tell me what's going on with Rayne. The health of this band depends on it," she spoke in a clipped manner.
Sango pulled her hand away, annoyed with Kikyo at the moment. Silently, she followed the girl outside and locked the door. The two walked silently to where Kikyo had parked her car. The tall drummer stood behind the white sports car, clenching and unclenching her fists. She winced lightly, regretting the harassment she had induced upon herself. Rehearsal was going to be a bitch.
The ride to the soundproof studio that was donated to the band was short and quick. England had quickly embraced the group and the secondary headquarters of their record label, which was situated there, seemed to be ignoring all of the other signed artists that were currently in the country and giving the new and popular band their undivided attention. Kirara would be leaving the country soon, however, so they supposed that the UK headquarters wanted their stay to be fantastic.
Sango, Kikyo, and Rayne piled out of the car heading towards the entrance of the building. They waved a hasty hello to the people in the lobby and at the front desk and made their way down into the basement to their recording studio. Inside the drum set and mikes stands were set up.
"Where the fuck were you?" their lead guitarist, Hakudoshi complained instantly. He was a pale, cynical young man about the age of twenty-seven. He had this theme about him that was pale- his skin was pale, his hair was pale, his eyes were pale, and all the clothing he wore seemed to be pale and faded. His guitars, however, were always black.
"We slept in- chill. It's just practice," Sango brushed him off.
His mouth fell open at her nonchalance. Everyone's mouth fell open. Sango, who had been practicing as if she were possessed for the past few weeks, just said "It's just practice" as if she hadn't been obsessing over practices the past few weeks. What was wrong with her?
"Uh, Sango?"
She quickly collected her guitar and played the strings a little to see if they were properly tuned.
"Yes, what is it?" she asked absently plucking at her strings. When he didn't reply, Sango looked up to see their bewildered faces.
"Did I do something wrong?"
No one answered her- she was acting strange. Hakudoshi was just confused; he didn't know what was going on. He was even beginning to doubt that this was his band mate standing before him. Kikyo was worried that it had something to do with whatever happened between the two other women of the band. Rayne was simply astonished by Sango's behavior. Certainly this perplexing behavior had nothing to do with the events that had occurred the previous night. This wasn't a reasonable response to something like that.
"Well, let's get started," Sango mumbled taking her amp cord and wireless headset into the room.
Hakudoshi gave the other three questioning glances, with an eyebrow cocked upward. The other two halfheartedly shrugged their shoulders, following the girl inside. They set to tuning the instruments slightly and then began practice. Rayne was playing lightly on her snare as her feet worked the pedals for the bass drum and hi-hat cymbal. Her hands were already killing her halfway into the warm up. Kikyo was watching her from the corner of her eye.
"Alright, you guys. For warm up, we're going to play a little of the new song we were learning," Sango decided. The green eyed musician thought this was a good idea seeing as the song worked her vocals slightly, gave Hakudoshi and Kikyo something fun to play, and warmed Rayne up a bit all in one. "That'll put is in Drop C, Haku," Sango reminded.
Once getting the "ok" from the rest of the group, Rayne adjusted her isolation headphones and started playing the short drum solo at the beginning. Everyone was breezing through the song- it wasn't a difficult song at all. Rayne, however, was having trouble. Her hands were killing her, and she was just wishing with all of her heart that the song would soon come to an end-perhaps Sango would decide that was enough.
As they neared the end of the second chorus, unfortunately for her, the pain was just unbearable. Her hands numbed and she lost control of her drumsticks. They were no longer in her hands, so she stopped playing. Everyone else did as well, and they all looked at her. She was breathing heavily, apprehensive of what was to come.
"Everyone, out," Sango said, shutting her eyes obviously trying to alleviate the frustration that was building in her. When she opened them again, the three of them were still there. "I said out!" she screamed. Kikyo was the first to shed her headphones, practically throwing them from her head.
She stormed from the room and Hakudoshi followed after her silently. Rayne was still sitting at her drum set, looking on with surprise written on her face at her drumsticks sitting in the middle of the room. Her eyes watered lightly. She was frustrated thoroughly. She didn't know why she was acting the way she was. Why she was crying and messing up. She hated messing up.
Sango swung her guitar to her back and quickly made her way to Rayne, kneeling next to the younger woman.
"What happened to your hands, Ray?"
The concern in her voice was evident and Rayne wondered if she had really been angry when she had ordered everyone out earlier. The blue eyed drummer couldn't meet her girlfriend's eyes and stared to her right.
"Please, Ray. Tell me what happened to your hands," Sango pleaded softly. "I don't care that you messed up. I know you're good enough to be in this band. I just want to know what happened to your hands. You're hurt, you can't play like this."
"I can!" she choked on her tears. "I can do it! Please, just give me another chance!"
"Rayne," Sango said firmly, gently taking a swollen hand into hers. Rayne looked down indignantly into Sango's eyes. "You're hands are busted. Look at them."
Rayne looked down at her hands that were held in Sango's. They were simply disgusting looking.
"After I left, last night…. I punched a wall…. I was angry- it was stupid. I'm sorry."
"Yes- it was stupid. What's even more stupid is that you thought you could play with your hands twice their normal size," Sango laughed bitterly. Standing, Sango gently pulled the girl up.
"You need some ice," she said with a gentle smile.
Rayne looked up into Sango's deep green eyes and despite the fact that she couldn't see love, she could see caring and that was all that she wanted from Sango right now. It was amazing to her that after simply a few months, Sango's effect on her hadn't waned the slightest degree. Looking into her eyes still made her heart pound in her ears and her cheeks flush. Sango kissed her briefly on the cheek before they left the room. All was well again.
Kagome sat with a book in her hands as she watched Rin, Kohaku, and Souta take turns on the DDR pads. No matter how good a dancer Kagome was, she could never entirely enjoy DDR. She was ridiculously good at it, of course do to the memorization of the arrow directions for a lot of the songs- but she never got a lot of enjoyment out of playing the game. Perhaps it were the fact that she knew the rush of real dancing was far greater than scoring perfect by stomping her feet.
Leaning back against the chair, she shut her eyes. Her mind wandered off quickly to the decision she knew she would soon have to make. It wasn't a necessarily hard decision; it was just the fact that what would fuel her answer was simply the hollow echo in her heart. She really wanted to see Sango again, just to talk and hang out… Like they used to. But there was more to that, and she knew it. Half of her wanted this reunion to be a romantic meeting of anguished hearts. All of her knew that that was simply stupid of her to think. Sango's hugs would be docile; her words would have no emotional depth.
It angered the young scholar, to know this. She was mostly angry at herself. How stupid could she have been? How fucking stupid was she? Why did she do what she did? What the hell was wrong with her? Did she have no shame- did she not realize what she was doing? When she thought deeply, dug down into the crevices of her mind she simply did not know. She knew that she wasn't thinking at all when she had led her professor into her dorm. Was she drunk that day? High, perhaps? No, she was simply crazy- no one in their right mind would've done that. No one like Kagome at least. And now she had to live with that mistake. Kagome had to live with the shame and regret. Because of her stupidity, she lost the single thing in her life she really loved and cared about.
"Kagome?"
She jumped slightly, surprised to hear her name being called. Tears were on her cheeks. She quickly wiped them from her face and located the source of her beckon. Rin, who was waiting her turn to play, was looking down at her with concern.
"Are you ok?" Rin asked, starting over to her.
"Yeah," Kagome said quickly, to stop Rin's advance. "I'm just, uh."
Kagome quickly stood up. "I'm going to go up to my room and read a little- I'm getting distracted by the music," lies were coming easily to her. She left hurriedly, before Rin had time to further investigate the situation.
In her room, Kagome fell into her bed.
"What's wrong with me?" she thought to herself. She only wanted to just think once about Sango and remember the great times they had spent together- not her fatal mistake. Why couldn't she remember the good times? Why was there this big block in her mind…? Perhaps she should just give up. Continuously doing something and expecting a different outcome was simply insanity. She wasn't insane- she could still think straight…. But why? She wanted to get over Sango and rekindle their friendship, but she couldn't do that while she still loved the musician the way she did. How to make her heart realize that Sango's love could never feed it anymore?
The only thing that kept coming to her mind was to move on as Sango had done, but who would she find to distract herself with. Rin was certainly out of the question, and InuYasha had long since moved on. She was completely halfhearted with the whole idea to begin with. There really was no "learning to love" someone. That was all bullshit. Unless you loved them from the start, there was nothing else out there. There was nothing you could do to give yourself to that person. It would all be a lie- Kagome was sick of living a lie.
She was startled by her cell phone ringing. She reached over and grabbed it off of her bedside table. Flipping it open, she put it to her ear.
"Hello?" she asked tired.
"Hey, it's Reiki," a sweet voice spoke to her.
"Oh, hi," Kagome said with a gentle smile. Reiki was so cute- she hoped the young girl would find success wherever her intellect took her. "How was your test yesterday?"
"It was alright…. I'm still a bit apprehensive about getting the grade back," she said with a soft chuckle.
"I'm sure you did alright. You've been studying very hard," Kagome assured wholeheartedly.
"Yes, and I can't thank you enough. I started that test more confident in passing than I ever have been in my life," Reiki spoke again. It never ceased to amaze Kagome at how shy Reiki was- you'd think after spending so much time with someone nearly every day, you'd open up a little…. But perhaps it wasn't the younger girl's fault… Perhaps it was Kagome's fault for reserving her emotions. The blue eyed girl was afraid of opening up to the younger girl because she knew that the admiration she felt for the younger girl was returned to her sevenfold. She knew the younger girl had a serious case of hero-worship.
Things like that could evolve into much more and that was what kept Kagome from opening up more to her.
But that wasn't fair to the younger girl. For her to stick around Kagome for so long after the older scholar had been so cold to her at times…. It showed loyalty that was deserving of friendship.
"You're so smart, though, Rei," Kagome giggled. When the younger girl didn't reply Kagome continued, "Are you busy tonight?"
"Huh? W-what?" Reiki's heart was pounding relentlessly hard in her chest. She wasn't sure if she had heard right.
"Are you doing anything tonight? Rin and I were going to go to the mall; would you like to come?"
It took a while for the girl to reply because her throat had closed up on her. With a flushed face and her heart beating happily in her chest, she replied, "Yes! I mean, no! I mean, I'm not busy, I'd love to come."
Kagome laughed at the spluttering young girl, only finding that cute as well.
"Ok, well we'll be by your dorm to pick you up around six or so; which of the dorms do you stay in on north campus?" Kagome asked, knowing all of the freshmen dorms were situated there.
The young scholar told Kagome her location and bid the older girl farewell. Kagome was quite satisfied with herself. She was finally going to make a new friend for real. She couldn't feel prouder. She bounded downstairs with a smile and tackled Rin in a hug.
"Hey, want to go to the mall later?" she asked slyly.
"Yeah, sure! Sounds like fun," Rin replied as Kohaku and Souta looked on in surprise.
"We're leaving around five thirty, I invited Reiki," Kagome continued.
"Oh, ok," Rin said, surprised by the details. Kagome had invited Reiki, which was a first. It wasn't like Kagome didn't have other friends than her. There was Eri, Ami, Yumi, and a bunch of others that included Reiki as well; but she had never actually seen Kagome hang out with them like she did with her. It was as if they were merely acquaintances to her. For Kagome to invite someone along… she didn't know what to think of the situation. She didn't know how to read Kagome anymore- not after Sango broke up with her. Kagome had become a master at internalizing and hiding things from her. To try to read her actions would put her at a dead end.
"Oh, can we come please!! There's this new game out that I want to get!" Souta pleaded desperately breaking Rin from her train of thought.
"Sure, whatever," Kagome rolled her eyes. "Just remember not to get in trouble and to call me when you're done doing whatever."
"Yes!" Souta celebrated, giving Kohaku a high five. "When's mom supposed to be getting home?"
"She'll be here in a few minutes, why?" Kagome asked, cocking an eyebrow upward.
Souta's brown eyes widened considerably and he ran a hand through his short black hair.
"SHIT! She'll never let me go if I don't clean my room!"
He bolted upstairs quickly. Kohaku chuckled and followed him at a much safer pace.
Review please!
-Enigmatic Ethereality