CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Terrors that are Rin and Koga
Saturday morning, Kagome woke up late and stretched. Sunlight was already streaming in her bedroom windows, and she just wanted to stay in bed and think all day.
Her plans were immediately thwarted when the telephone rang. She leaned over and picked up, sleepily answering, "H'llo?" She accidentally yawned after that. "Excuse me," she said. "Higurashi residence, Kagome speaking."
"Kagome, this is Inuyasha," he said. "Rin is feeling better today, her fever's all gone, and Sess is off to work. I need to get to work, too, so can you please come babysit Rin? I know it's short notice, but—"
"I thought you went to work later," Kagome said, stifling a yawn.
"I did last time, and boy was I in trouble. Which is why it's imperative that I leave very soon; I don't want to be fired."
"Okay. I'll be there in fifteen minutes, if that's all right," Kagome said.
"Great," Inuyasha said, and hung up without saying goodbye. But Kagome just figured he was in a hurry and got up.
She had given herself only fifteen minutes, she soon realized, and showering and everything else usually took longer than that. She thought for a moment, then realized her hair would look presentable if she just twisted it up into the usual bun without washing it first. She threw on some clothes, did her makeup and hair, hopped on her bike, and headed to the Okomes' house.
--
Inuyasha was in the car when she got there. "Sorry, but I have to get going now. Rin is inside watching TV. She's already had breakfast. You can make her some macaroni for lunch. She knows where everything in the kitchen is. And there's a phone number on the counter… I think." He paused a minute to try to remember whether or not he had put the phone number there. "…Well, if there isn't—" he glanced down at his watch and mumbled a curse. "I have to go! Thanks Kagome!"
She watched him leave and went into the house through the front door.
The Okomes' house seemed, to Kagome, a mess, yet dignified. When she walked in she noticed the wood floors were dirty and unpolished, scuffed by Inuyasha probably, and there were muddy boots by the door. The living room was small and consisted of a TV, a VCR, a little coffee table, and a huge comfortable couch that was an awful purple color. Rin was in the exact middle of this couch, dangling her toes off of the edge and watching Saturday morning cartoons.
"Good morning, Rin!" Kagome said.
"Hi Eggy," Rin said blankly, not looking up from the TV.
"I'm babysitting you again today," Kagome said.
Rin did not respond.
"Inuyasha said you'd better be good."
Rin was glued to the television.
"I'm not really your babysitter—I'm an alien from Mars and I'm here to steal gummi fruits," Kagome tried.
Rin finally said something, though it still sounded blank and emotionless. "Okay."
Kagome laughed and went in what she hoped was the direction of the kitchen. She was correct. There was no phone number on the counter, but there wouldn't be any trouble. She wouldn't need it.
"Kagome!" Rin called from the living room. Kagome went in to see what she wanted. "Can I have more orange juice?" Rin asked, holding up a blue plastic cup.
"Are you allowed to drink juice in the living room?" Kagome asked.
"Yes," Rin said.
"Really?" Kagome double-checked.
"Look, Sessho-maru left his coffee cup," Rin said, pointing to the coffee table. Kagome looked and did indeed see the cup on the table. She sighed and admitted defeat, then went to the refrigerator and got Rin some more orange juice.
--
An hour later, Rin finally tired of the TV and asked Kagome if she wanted to see her room. "Sure," Kagome said, and allowed the little girl to lead her down a hall off of the living room. First they encountered a closed door on the left.
"That's Sessho-maru's room. He locked it so I wouldn't snoop," Rin explained. She led Kagome down the hall a little more and pointed to another locked door. "That's the boys' bathroom. It's gross. And there's toothpaste on the mirror." Kagome almost laughed at the little girl's blunt explanations but stopped herself, because that would just be mean.
They continued down the hall and stopped at a door that was half-closed. Kagome casually peered inside. She saw a bed that was low to the ground, the edge of a desk, and the corner of something that seemed the right size to be a dresser. There was a sock on the floor under the bed and two chipped white marching sticks on the bed. "That's Inuyasha's room," Rin said. "He makes a mess." They continued until they reached the end of the hallway. "And this," Rin said proudly, "is my room."
Kagome entered the room. It had pink walls, and one of them was spray-painted with chalkboard paint. Rin had a little bowl of chalk on the tiny dresser beside her pink bed and had evidently been busy drawing on the board recently. There were two other doors in the room. Rin opened the closest one immediately. "This is my closet," she said, "but Inuyasha calls it my pigsty. And this," she moved to the other door and flung it open, "is my bathroom. I have my own tub and everything." She looked very proud of this.
Kagome smiled. "That's great." Then she went over to the chalkboard wall. "Can I draw something?"
"Sure. But erase my drawings. They're just scribblies," Rin said. "The eraser's under the bed."
"Under the bed?" Kagome repeated, finding the eraser. "Why there?"
"I don't know," Rin answered.
"What should I draw?" Kagome asked when she was ready.
"Um… you. And me. And Inuyasha. And Sessho-maru. And me when I was the gablooie robot," Rin giggled.
"Okay, I'll try," Kagome said. She sketched cartoony doodles of everyone. Sessho-maru held a baton. Inuyasha was holding a pair of sticks but staring at one of them as it broke, half of it flying off in the other direction. Underneath the two brothers Kagome drew Rin with the laundry basket on her head and herself, frantically chasing the little girl. Rin had a speech bubble coming from her mouth, saying, "BEEP EGGY BEEP GABLOOIE!" After a little consideration, Kagome drew Inuyasha's speech bubble to be, "What the #?!" Sessho-maru's read, "Shall I go fetch the junior high band?" It was a threat he frequently used against the band when they weren't playing as well as they could. Then Kagome thought a second and made her own speech bubble. It read, "I'm NOT Eggy!"
Rin giggled at the drawings. "Wow, you draw good," she complimented.
"You think so?" Kagome said thoughtfully.
--
At 11:56 on Sunday afternoon Kagome had barely just changed out of her church clothes when Koga arrived to pick her up. She and her mother had already had the riding-with-strange-boys discussion, but once her mother discovered it was Koga she was relieved. Koga was an honor student, two years older than Kagome, and respected by all the teachers. He was "a very obedient, law-abiding young gentleman," as her mother so complimentarily put it.
Kagome sighed as she grabbed her stick bag and ran to meet Koga at the door. Sota had gotten a hold of him. "Are you my sister's boyfriend?" he was saying.
"Why, I—"
"No," Kagome said flatly as she entered the room. "He's a friend on the drumline who is giving me a ride to the drumming thing. Goodbye, Sota."
"Nyah nyah nyah," Sota said, doing an exaggerated, whiny imitation of Kagome. Then he got bored with taunting her and left to go play his Gameboy Advance.
Kagome sighed as she closed the door. Koga walked her to the car, telling her how funny her little brother was. "Oh, he's a hoot," Kagome said sarcastically.
--
Koga tried his best to make pleasant, nice conversation with Kagome, even throwing in compliments every now and then. Kagome tried to respond, but she had Inuyasha on her mind, and she couldn't pay much attention to Koga's advances when she believed she was falling for another boy. The car ride was slow torture, for Kagome soon found that Koga was a rather boring person.
She wondered if he knew she had been kicked off of the drumline and decided she had better not tell him today. He might come to her defense, but it would be best for him to take it out on the right people—their own band directors—Instead of everybody at the percussion clinic.
Eventually they reached the University and made their way to the band building. "Have you ever been to one of these percussion clinics?" Koga asked.
"Yeah, last year. It was like a drumline clinic. It was really cool. We did lots of warm-ups and exercises on snares or tenors or whatever, and we worked on a little piece, kind of like a showcase. And then, at the end, we all gathered in one big room and got to play African drums. That was the part I enjoyed most. You play congas or a djembe or whatever, and they do rhythm games and contests and stuff. That part is cool," Kagome said. She had just finished explaining when they arrived.
They walked in the door, and sitting there at the registration table was the mirror image of Kagome.
