I know what is going to happen in the story in the near future, so I will be adding new chapters more often.

Enjoy!

"Crap, I'm so late!" I yelled, running as fast as I could through the streets of Tokyo.

I finished talking to Sango ten minutes after the time that I should have left for school, AND I still hadn't gotten dressed by then. It was warm outside, so I quickly put on a white spider tank top, short jean shorts, my light-blue all star shoes and, to somewhat avoid looking like I had gotten dressed in five minutes, I put on my favorite light blue, silk handkerchief as a headband. Then, I grabbed my bag pack and ran downstairs. By the time I finally left the house, school had started about fifteen minutes ago, and it was going to take me at least another five minutes to get there.

"I haven't been late in the last three years. Even when I was feeling sick I was there 1o minutes before class. And now, I'll be twenty minutes late because of a boy—ahh!"

All of a sudden I crashed against something relatively hard, and immediately after found myself on the ground.

"Ouch…"

"Are you ok?"

"What?" I looked up at the cause of my fall.

It was a boy. He looked a bit older than me, and I figured that he was most likely nineteen. He had short, light brown hair, and brown eyes. He was wearing a PE uniform that included a pair of dark blue shorts and a white wife beater with a logo over the right pectoral. The outfit allowed me to appreciate that his figure was quite similar to Inuyasha's (though Inuyasha was a bit more fit), which suggested that he probably played some type of sport. Unfortunately, I could not make out which school he went to from the logo. The only thing I could tell was that, due to his age, it was probably a university logo. He was a college boy… a handsome college boy.

"Are you ok? Did you get hurt?" He asked again.

"I'm fine." I lied. My butt was in pain and I had scratched my left knee because I was wearing short shorts. The only thing to be thankful for was that I wasn't wearing a skirt today.

"No, you're not. Your knee is bleeding a little." Damn, he noticed.

"As you just said it is only bleeding a little." I got up and he tried to help. "Don't worry about it, I'm ok." I smiled at him.

"Here, I have a band aid." He got a band aid out of his shorts pocket and then bent down to place it on my knee.

"That won't be necessary." I said as I backed away.

"It's the least I can do after crashing against you. C'mon, it will be a minute."

He moved towards me and I flushed as I felt his left hand lightly touch the back of my knee to hold it in place while he put the band aid on.

"There, all better." He looked up at me and smiled. However, he seemed to have forgotten that his hand was still touching my leg.

"You know… I usually go out with a guy at least three times before I let him rest his hand on my leg."

Now it was his turn to flush. He looked down at his hand and immediately removed it. Then he stood up and looked at me apologetically as he fidgeted.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to do that. I just needed to hold your leg still, and then I kept my hand there to raise the leg so that you would be able to see whether you were fine with what I had done." He flushed harder.

I had to admit that, even though his personality did not fit his physical appearance at all, he was cute enough in both senses so that this oddity didn't matter.

"It's ok." I smiled once again. "Thanks for the band aid."

"You are very welcome."

I got my bag pack from the ground and started walking away, but he grabbed my hand and stopped me in my tracks. I turned toward him. 'He really does not care for other people's personal space.'

"I'm sorry to stop you, again, but… I would really like to know your name."

"W-why?" I took my hand away from his. I was crept out. I mean, we had just met!

"Well, I... I would love to see you again."

"Why?" I asked again, even more crept out than before.

"Don't take this the wrong way but… I think you are the prettiest girl I have ever seen." He was now blushing even harder than he had before. I was too. "I'm also quite good at reading people, you know? And I strongly believe that you are a good and intelligent person as well."

I was deeply flattered by this. I mean, how many guys say this kind of thing anyway? It also wasn't creepy at all. He looked so nervous and sincere—and cute. Therefore, in the end, I couldn't help but telling him my name. Of course he was still a stranger, so I wouldn't just let him know who I was. I wanted to let him know first that I would be in charge.

"I will tell you my name if you tell me yours first."

"Of course! I'm Hojo, nice to meet you." He smiled.

"Kagome" I smiled too.

"So, what school do you go to?" He pointed at my bag and at the math book which was sticking out of it because I had packed everything in a hurry. Then, it hit me. 'School!'

"I'm late!" I had completely forgotten about it when he insisted on curing me. I turned around and started running once again.

"Kagome, wait!"

"Bye!" I said without turning back. I felt bad about leaving like that but I was going to be another ten minutes late.

I finally arrived to school more than half an hour after class had started. 'I hate being late. Everyone will be looking at me, and then someone will come up with some obnoxious gossip about me being late because I was having sex with a married man or something.' These weren't just my inventive thoughts. This is actually what happened to a girl in my class who happened to be an hour late, and her ex-bffs took the chance to mortify her for a month. There was actually an investigation that went on. Big drama. Anyway…

I ran through the school yard and up the stairs as fast as I could. Once I reached the classroom I stopped and regained my breath.

"Ok, here we go." I mumbled to myself.

I knocked twice and opened the door. As I had expected, everyone was looking at me. They seemed to be working on something individually, so at least I hadn't interrupted a lesson.

"Excuse me…"

"Ah, Kagome there you are. Come get this work sheet and begin working on it. It is due by the end of the class, so you better do it fast."

"Yes sir." I immediately did as I was told. Thankfully, I was one of his best students, so he did not feel the need to ask me why I was late.

Once I arrived at my desk I looked right at where Sango was sitting, and saw that she had a questioning look on her face. At the same time, I could feel Inuyasha's eyes on me as he sat to my left.

I instantly began working on the worksheet that we had been given, since it was extremely long, but soon after a crumpled piece of paper fell on my desk. I opened it.

"What happened to you? I figured we would run into each other on the way to school, but then you were ten minutes later than you should have."

I wrote back.

"I was delayed on my way here. I will tell you about it later."

I passed it and started doing my work again. However, Sango wasn't yet satisfied, thus another piece of paper soon arrived.

"You know he will let us finish it at home. He always does. C'mon I'm bored! Tell me something!"

I sighed; she was right. Furthermore, even if I worked my ass off there wasn't nearly enough time for me to finish everything before the end of class anyway.

"Fine. What do you want?" I replied.

"What delayed you?"

"I crashed against a guy on my way here. Then he insisted on curing my knee." She looked at my leg when she read this part.

"Ouch."

"I've had worse."

"So, who's the guy? Did you talk to him much?"

"Not really. We just apologized and such formalities."

"Do you even know his name?"

I sighed again.

"Hojo. He's a college student."

"I thought you didn't chat."

"I just think that he's a college student. And I found out the name because he asked for mine when I was leaving."

"You are driving everyone crazy lately, huh?"

"I blame male hormones."

" By the way, the hormones to your left haven't taken their eyes of off you this whole time..."

I made an attempt to look at him, but half way there I stopped and looked down once again.

"I don't think I can look at him. I'm too embarrassed. I'm afraid he will figure out what I'm thinking."

"He would be happy to know that you like him back."

"It's still embarrassing."

"I'm sure. But, you know, he's probably going to ask you why you were late when class is over. You will have to face him."

"Yes. But I still need to talk to Ayumi before I tell him, and hopefully before he figures out my feelings or tries to ask me out (if you are right and he's interested)."

"You should do it today (and I thought we had already agreed on that issue), because I don't think he'll wait much longer to make another move, considering how he's been looking at you (all of you!)."

"He's still looking at me? And what do you mean by 'all of me'?"

"He looks every three or four seconds on average. And I meant that he checked you out just before you sat down at your desk. It was pretty obvious. You look good today, sweetie, especially the sexy hair. :-P"

I touched my hair after I read this, and noticed that my handkerchief was gone. Because of that, plus the running I did, my hair was a bit on the wild side, which is what I had tried to avoid when I put on the handkerchief in the first place.

"Darn it!" I whispered.

"What's wrong?" I heard coming from my left.

I looked toward him. He looked cuter than ever, wearing a pair of light brown cotton pants, a white t-shirt, and a pair of brown leather sandals.

"I… lost my handkerchief on the way here." I whispered. I tried very hard to control my blushing as he looked at my eyes directly, with a somewhat worried expression on his face.

"That's not good." He whispered back, a smile now on his face.

"Yeah…" I smiled back.

I don't know how long we were smiling at each other, but I quickly looked away and toward the teacher when he startled me by shouting, "Ok everyone! Those who are not done should take the worksheet home and finish it by tomorrow morning. Have a good day!"

As I looked forward, and once the teacher was done speaking, I was able to see Ayumi leave the classroom abnormally fast. In fact, Yuka and Eri were staring after her, looking confused.

"Oh no..." I got up. "Sango, tell the teacher I'm not feeling well if I'm not back by the beginning of next period." Then I quickly followed Ayumi out of the classroom. We had free period, but it was still supervised and our presence accounted for.

From the door I was able to see Ayumi turn left into a room at the end of the hall, which I knew well to be the girls' restroom. I followed and, once I got there, I went inside with a slight knot in my stomach.

"Ayumi?" I could hear sniffles coming from within one of the stalls.

"Great…" I thought. I followed the sniffles and knocked on the door of the one I figured she was in.

"Ayumi? Are you ok?"

"What the hell do you think?" She shouted.

"Why… are you crying?" I knew the answer, but I didn't know what else to say.

I heard her get up and then she roughly opened the door. Her face was puffy and red, and her eyes teary.

"Don't you dare act all innocent! You were flirting with him, right in front of everyone! Right in front of me! We just broke up yesterday and you didn't wait even one day to make a move on him!"

"I wasn't flirti—"

"I knew you liked him from the beginning! It was so obvious! You always wanted him! And I told myself that you wouldn't do that because you were my friend! How could I have been so STUPID!"

"Ayumi, I—"

"You just couldn't let me shine for once!"

"What?"

"You always take everything away from me! Attention, recognition, Koga, Inuyasha, respe—"

"Wait. Koga?"

"Yes Koga. I liked him, but you still went out with him!"

"I didn't know! And, how would I? You, Yuka and Eri were the ones who pushed me to go out with him! I didn't even want to!"

"Of course you didn't know. You have never really been a true friend! If you had been, you would have noticed!"

"Well, even though I'm one, I have always found it stupid how often girls just ASSUME that someone should just know something. And I especially find it stupid how they keep doing it and don't realize that these assumptions only lead to trouble!"

"Slut!"

"Explain, please, how I'm a slut. Because I don't think I have done anything to be labeled one."

"Bitch!"

"This damn conversation is going nowhere, do you realize? Ugh, you can be such a child…" I covered my face with my hands in frustration.

I had planned on being nice and understanding. I had even thought of letting her call me idiot once or twice if necessary, but this conversation had gone beyond awry. I completely hated meaningless conversations with no rational goal whatsoever. And it made it even worse that I was being cruelly insulted when I had done nothing to deserve it.

"I love him, you know."

I looked up. Her hands were forming fists and she was looking down. Her face was still red and I could see tears rolling down her face.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am!" She snapped. "But he likes you. I could tell…" The last two sentences she said in a barely audible whisper. "And you like him too. Don't you dare deny it."

She then looked up at me.

"You can do whatever you want with him. But don't expect me to be your friend or to talk to you ever again."

After she said this she got her bag pack and left the restroom, leaving me standing there, a tear rolling down my own face.

"I knew it couldn't be…"

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