A/N - Waddya know, I updated in a relatively reasonable amount of time!… Yeah, the hell it was reasonable. I digress. The Chapter is down. (May all scanners die and burn…)

Daibakuhatsu Daigaku

Chapter 10

Le Fine

(No, not the end)

November 20, Friday, 7:04 PM

Hakodate, Japan.

The air outside the grocery store was icy and cold, the bitter heart of a Hakodate winter setting into full blast. After ushering Inuyasha out from under the cart, the four college students huddled off with their bags towards the waiting street car.

There weren't a good many people on it, considering the weather. Just a Nigerian woman driver, a handful of work commuters, a small group of teens in the back, close together for added warmth… that was about it. They moved towards the center of the car and took their seats.

Sango and Rin sat silently in their seat as the tram began to move forward, Inuyasha and Kagome in the other, scarves over their mouths, hoods hugging their heads. The half demon held his items in discomfort, knowing what it was that he was going to. After all, he promised her. Sure he had broken promises before: who hadn't in this world? But for some reason, breaking promises, twisting words, skipping into loop holes… it was all getting a little old.

Kagome hugged her bag with the milk inside, trying to keep it from freezing. "So…" she began, her scarf moving with her words, breath turning into white smoke through the cotton filter. " I keep trying to figure it out in my head."

"What?" he asked dubiously. He was expecting more of a 'So are you going to tell me about it?' shpeal. Those just got down right annoying after a while.

She swung her gloved fingers around between him and her. "This it. Since day one this relationship, I guess you could call it…" she laughed. "Makes it sound like we're a couple. Anyway… Since day one, this relationship has been like a cold war, crossing boiling point several times, and entering a recession at times, too. And then, after having a fight, my 'arch-nemesis', debatably, comes forth and asks me to hide him and protect him temporarily. And, in spite of what my brain tells me to do, I do shelter him, and even take up buying all of the items he originally came to the store for."

She sighed, letting her tired eyes close shut, welcoming the calm darkness with the snow blowing in through the open air window. "Something is telling me that these two things are related. I guess you could say my heart or soul say so, but that sounds phony, too sentimental. People stopped believing in sentiment a long time ago." She opened her eyes and turned her head to him. "So can you tell me why I feel like they are related? Why it is that I decided to help you instead of harm you. Why it is in the first place that you became a small child?"

He didn't like this. She was asking completely wrong questions. Way too strong questions. She should be acting like the normal, soap opera romantic girl and just be clinging onto him or something by now. Inuyasha inwardly hated using yet another loop hole, but his mind didn't care. "Hey, are you calling me immature! I'm no little kid!" He retorted in a huff.

Sango said something softly to Rin, who responded just as silent.

Kagome sighed. She tilted her head back to a its original position, pulling her legs in toward her chest and nesting the milk on her lap. "What am I to you, Inuyasha?"

Despite the cold, he became a little sweaty. He didn't like this. "H-huh?"

Her eyes almost seemed glazed over, resurrected only with each time she blinked. "I know you don't think I'm nothing because I'm a woman. I have seen the annoyed looks you give at the men who do. I'm not stupid; otherwise I wouldn't be in college. I didn't come from a rich or poor family, I didn't have sheltered childhood, and I know firsthand the ugliness of discrimination. I try not to be arrogant, impudent, ignorant, or apathetic, bur sometimes it happens anyway. No rose is without it's thorns, and vice-a-versa…" She blinked again. "So what am I to you? A soulless doll from the Hakodate club? A chance to add to the gene pool? Nothing?"

She was frightening him. More than anything had before in his life. Her questions, her words, her theory… they were all things that had also been produced by his mind, but negatively. Her words weren't optimistic, but they weren't full of woe.

They're real. Simply real. "You're nothing to me." He lied. It had taken everything in him to do so. He began to search his coat for a pack of cigarettes.

She breathed in deeply, letting the air out of her lungs in a way of disappointment. "Then why did you hide behind me?"

Shit, double crap, damn it, f-

"There was an aisle right across the way that was open. You could have gone in there."

He opened his mouth to talk.

"Stop lying. It gets old after three months." She said in a monotone.

He stared at her , a ghastly look upon his face. Every wall was torn down, every weak spot struck, every lock met with it's matching key. She had him now against his final wall, and he could not run away this time. No mouse holes. No sewer drains. No doors. His mind and soul were naked, unarmed, shivering in the cold of wither, it's shelter torn down. All that was left for him was to face the cold outside the wall. To face the truth

He scrunched up his face in annoyance. "You… y…"

She did not look at him, or look away. She just kept staring forward at her milk.

He sighed. Every war must end, as Miroku would say. "You have warm eyes."

Kagome scrunched her eye brows. Sango and Rin, ever the eaves droppers, got funny looks on their faces. The other eaves droppers in the seats around them were equally confused.

Kagome tuned to face him. For that one moment, he could not breath. "What?"

"You…" he gulped. "You have warm… eyes…"

"I got that part. I just don't get how that is a part of this current conversation."

Neither do we. Rin and Sango thought in unison. They looked at each other with a freaked out eye.

Inuyasha took a ragged breath, trying to gain some self composure. His pride was still fighting the battle. "The… the reason I hid behind you… was because there was… a person… who doesn't have warm eyes."

"Again, no comprendo."

"Kikyo is a woman who looks almost exactly like you in the physical form, but she is cold. Her eyes… they're like ice. They're dead." He said in a low mumble. "I… I figured out, not too long ago… that she had dumped me. She never told me. About any distress in our relationship… about the other guy she was there with, or… anything. She just stopped saying anything… period."

Well Yuka, you were right… Kagome thought to herself. There was a reason behind this all.

"I guess… that makes sense…" She said after an uncanny pause. Boy did she feel awkward now. It most likely hurt him a lot, having to explain all of that, having to go into each detail of the bullet wound. Not to mention that it's Inuyasha whose talking here… his ego must be in a shambles, too.

"I kept my end of the deal." He said.

Kagome looked over at him, but he had already looked away. He had his hand holding his chin, his face gazing out the window at the growing blizzard of ice and snow. He doesn't want to talk anymore…

The street car hit a bump as it turned a corner.

It was over. The war between her and him, the misunderstandings, and unfortunately, the talking.

"When's your birthday?"

That just about scared the living daylights out of her. He talked! It wasn't some amazing spectacle or anything; a total of three words, and all, but still! Kagome didn't think that he would so much as even stand to be in the same country that she was in from now on.

She attempted to read his face for intention, but it was still blank, in contemplation. "Why do you want to know?"

Without moving his head, he looked at her with an annoyed stare. "What other reason is there for asking about someone's birthday than the reason you're thinking about right now?"

Good point. " Um… December twenty-third."

He scoffed at the number. "You must get a hard time about how close it is to Christmas."

She nodded, huddling again around her milk. "You have no idea." she felt the plastic carton on her lap. Gently she tapped on it's surface, then almost pounding on it before sighing. "Aw, crap, I'm going to have to thaw the milk out again."

7:17 PM

Kichinkyo building, Women's Dormitory

Miroku was kind of having a déjà vu feeling, sitting outside of a locked dorm room, a mail carrier case of stuff at his side, and a mental clock going nuts. Except this time, he was waiting outside of Sango's apartment instead, and wasn't planning on moving in.

Well, technically he wasn't planning on it right at this moment.

The various sounds of feminine talking down the hall served as his wake up call. He pushed up with his hands to get a better view of the stairway and its travelers, and sure enough, it was Sango and her little posse. He stood up quickly and leaned against the door frame, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his royal purple shirt, and placed his wrist in a position to mimic the 'checking the time' scheme. Other men would be completely confused about this behavior, and other things that he did in the open. For example, why he might stare, armed with a red and black sharpie, at male fashion magazine that were on top of an average women's 'must drool over' list. Or women's porn, or other things of the like. It made men wonder if he was truly the biggest perv on the campus or not. Inuyasha was the first one to ask about this in their early days of roommate-hood. The answer was simple:

Studying. By observing all of those different poses, reading so many of those different types articles that other men would vomit after reading the first paragraph (which he was tempted to from time to time), and then adding all of his knowledge of previous excursions and from his tactician and psychology classes, he could get the best effect. In short, he could get a woman to either A: be turned on by his presence, B: imagine him naked instantly and begin blushing beyond belief, or C: be drawn to him like dieters to cheesecake.

So he adjusted his smile just a bit when she came into the hall, tensed his bent leg, and all of the rest of his lecherous arts at the walking women.

"Oh, sorry for keeping you waiting Miroku," Sango started, eyes glued to her groceries which were getting close to tearing her hand off. Or at least felt like it.

"Oh, that's okay." he said in response.

She glanced up…

And instantly jumped behind Kagome, hands cradling her blood-pouring nose. Kagome stared at her friend in annoyance. "What is this: National Hide Behind Kagome Day!"

"Shut up…" her friend grumbled in response, taking small glances at the estrogen prompting testosterone mass before her. Sango was certain that an egg would fry on her forehead at this point.

"Honestly! I can understand Inuyasha, but you too?" She looked up, and then looked back her friend. "Ah."

"Yes, ah is right."

Kagome flapped her hand from side to side. "Hey Miroku. You can open the door; it's unlocked. Geez, its hot out here."

He nodded and turned around, gently turning the doorknob and pushing the door open. That's ironic.

Kagome and Sango quickly rushed in, throwing some of their items into the minifrig, others onto the stack of open air goods on the T.V., and a few others into the small microwave perched on top of the cabinets. The other woman was also now in the room, but she was just standing behind Sango's desk staring at him. A total of a meter away.

He smirked on the inside. "Yes?"

She burst out in red blush as she was knocked back into reality. "Huh?"

"Rin!" Kagome called. " Would you mind giving me the frozen dinners? I have to put them in the flower basket outside, you know!"

Rin was back on earth. "Oh, sorry!" she rushed over to the others, "Here, I think…"

Kagome, Sango, and Rin, examples A, B, and C, respectively. Miroku walked into the room , sitting down in one of the desk chairs and leaning back. He liked to call this pose the 'No imagination needed' position. Sango was the first to look back at him, probably to just get another bag of foodstuffs, but then whirled around. "oh… SHIT!" She yelled in frustration.

One of the best things about knowing all of these poses, he discovered, (assuming he stayed in the Pg-13 area. Anything higher could give some interesting repercussions) was that because of their innocent, everyday positions that a person might be in, no one could ask him to change his posture or anything, trying not to be rude. Unless of course he was with a demon hater who knew about his roommate, who would tell him to move anyway.

"Something wrong, Sango?" He asked innocently.

She turned around, her eyes clamped shut. "No, no, I just… I just have something in my eye, that's all." She said, slowly taking steps over his way, her hand outstretched to him. "Can, I, um… look at the culture project information, please?"

"Oh, yeah, hold on. Lemme get it." He said, standing up and then bending down to get the stuff. He stood up again, whipped around and stepped towards her. "Here you-"

This time it was an accident. Her hand was now in a spot that it was not supposed to be. Or feel, for that matter.

"AAAGH! MIROKU!"

"WHAT! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

"OH SURE IT WAS!"

7:38 PM

"Sango, c'mon, it was an accident, let it go." Kagome said, stirring her pot full of noodles on the floors' stove.

Miroku shook his head, moving the ice pack on the side of his face with it. "You guys, I don't think she cares."

Sango sat on the opposite side of the room, sprinkling sacred sand over her hand and mumbling . With a book on exorcism open.

"Or still capable of surviving outside of a mental clinic." Rin added. "Though I can't exactly blame her for that, el senor de commando."

Miroku shrugged. "So sue me. Most guys have gone commando at least once in their life."

Rin, rolling that over a few times in her head, slowly let the drool flow from her lips. "Whoa… Kagome, think of this: Gusega Mokosuma, the modern day Brad Pitt, commando style!"

Sango was suddenly out of her trance, snapping her creepy book shut. "You have my attention."

Rin snickered it. "Hee hee, I know… I'm just thinking of it…"

Miroku scoffed. "Hmph. And they say that guys are perverted?"

"And you're not!" the women of the room shot back.

Awkward silence.

…

…(cricket chirping)…

…

"Um…" Miroku scratched his neckline. "Who is Brad Pitt anyway?"

"All I know is that he's some old, fat guy governing the state of Califorma." Rin said chastising. "Right Kagome?"

No response. It was like talking to a brick wall. With hair.

"Kagome? You there?"

"Hm? What?"

Rin tilted her head to one side. "I was asking if Brad Pitt was the governor of Califorma?"

Kagome sighed. "It's called CaliforNia. South California, in fact: I think it just spit not too long ago…" She touched her chopsticks to her lips. "Anyway, yeah, I suppose he still is, unless he was the one that got assassinated a while back."

Sango snorted. "Um, no… that was the President, President Taylor."

Her roommate smiled. "Oh, that's right. Sorry, I kind of got hypnotized by these noodles…"

Her friends brushed off the odd behavior. Kagome let some of the air stuck in her lungs out in one massive blow, setting her stirring utensils back in the broth and twirling them around endlessly.

For some reason, deep in her mind, something was working wrong, because it seemed that there was just a small little hum of music, playing only to her ears, only for her ears. It was so soft, gentle, delicately beautiful, but so soft it could not be fully deciphered. She felt a little sad by this, standing there, stirring her dinner like a whirlpool of squid water, silver prairies glistening themselves over her eyes.

His shirt had the kana on it that read "Wolf Clan", which was obviously one of the clubs on campus. There were many different clubs here, including nearly a hundred for specific types of demon. Thus meaning that this man was a wolf demon.

And rather... attractive... and kind (from what she had so far seen)... and looked like he would be a great person to be with... and provider... not to mention protector...

And yet..

Perhaps it isn't some mirage… She thought.

She heard a small sigh from the other side of the phone, before some ruffling sounds and movement overwhelmed it. "Kagome, don't be so quick to judge, okay? Maybe he has a reason for being like this, huh? Ever think of that?"

Maybe Yuka was right…

Inuyasha somewhat rolled over, his face turning in towards her stomach. "You smell nice."

Perhaps

"You have warm… eyes…"

He deserves another chance. She said to herself. The mental music grew in volume. "Okay, dinner's done. Le fine."

…

Um…

I'm not sure anyone is reading this anymore…

Maybe tis time to get a new screen name and story.

Whatever. I'm sweeeee-py. Tis 1:32 PM, and I have a mountain load of work for a report due in less than twenty four hours… ugh