A/N: I am still decently new at writing fan fiction, please be helpful, but no flames.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Inuyasha.
Chapter 1: First Day Jitters
Kagome Higurashi shuddered involuntarily as she approached her new high school. Her grandfather had died and left the family shrine to her mother's care, so they had moved once again, though hopefully for the last time. And now she was in the one region of Japan where demons openly lived among humans. New humans scared her enough without adding some of the frightful beings she could see wandering around the campus.
At the top of the stairs, perched on a rail, a young half demon suddenly looked up and almost fell off the rail. His friend searched to see what had so shocked his friend, violet eyes scanning the crowds. He finally spotted an anxious looking girl standing on the sidewalk as she surveyed the school with wide, nervous eyes.
"A nice spy, Inuyasha," he said jokingly as he appreciatively examined her short, slender frame and long black hair.
"Shut up, Miroku. I'm sure that your girlfriend would just love to overhear this conversation," he said before leaping off of the stairs and walking over to the girl. "Hi, I'm Inuyasha. You must be new here." She shyly nodded, averting her eyes while he spoke to her. "Do you need help finding anything?" he tried again.
"Uh…AP Calculus with Mr. Toshiro," she whispered, checking a schedule. Inuyasha whistled, impressed in spite of himself.
"This way. So are you a senior?" She shook her head. "Junior?" She nodded. "In AP Calculus? You are smart. You know, you never did tell me your name."
"Kagome Higurashi," she said, still whispering.
What's with her? He wondered. "What else do you have?'
She once again consulted her schedule. "AP Literature, Economics, AP Physics, Health, and Studio Art," she answered He whistled again.
"That's an impressive selection. Are you graduating early or something?" She shook her head again. "So what are you going to do senior year? Take a thousand electives?" She only shrugged, keeping her eyes averted from him as they walked. "Here it is. I'll see you later." He waved and left her in front of the door.
Kagome sharply inhaled and opened the door as the warning hell rang. The teacher assigned her a desk and she say quietly as other students began filing into the room. She kept her eyes on her desk as people sat around her, never looking up who see who say beside her.
"So are you new?" someone to her right asked. She nodded without looking up. I'm Sesshomaru Taisho." Kagome barely used her peripheral vision to glance at eh silver-haired demon.
"Kagome Higurashi," she whispered. She was thankful when the class began and she could go back to ignoring her classmates. She didn't see the boy's smirk at her shyness.
"What do you have next?" he asked the moment the bell rang.
"AP Literature," she answered.
Does she ever use more than a whisper? He wondered. "Me too. It's this way." She followed him back down the hall and up another. He entered a room and said, "Kaede, we have a new student," to the teacher. A kindly looking old woman stood to greet her.
"You must be Kagome. I am Kaede." Kagome nodded. "You're desk will be beside Sesshomaru." The teacher looked at her guide and nodded. Kagome followed him to the back of the room and sat in the desk he indicated.
"Hello. Who's this?" someone asked above her. To her left Kagome heard Sesshomaru growl. "Hi, sweetheart, I'm Koga. Who are you?" the voice asked. Kagome mumbled something—she wasn't sure what. "You gotta talk louder than that doll face. Even my hearing can't get that." Kagome could feel the stranger's eyes boring into her and she began to blush furiously under his scrutiny.
"Koga, please take your seat. I would like to begin my class," Kaede barked. He settled into the seat on her right. Kagome looked up to listen to the teacher talk. She jumped and almost fell out of her desk in surprise when a note landed on her lap. Kagome refused to even touch it.
Class ended and she to quickly leave, but Koga stepped in her way. "Now that wasn't very nice, was it? You could really break a gut's heart if you were trying," he said.
"I have to go," she mumbled, trying to step past him, but he headed her off again.
"Can I get a name, little darling?" he asked sweetly.
"Kagome Higurashi. Please let me pass," she said, feeling tears gather in her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Koga, why don't you stop harassing the poor girl and go find something better to do, like jump off the school," Sesshomaru's cool voice said from behind them. Kagome felt Koga tense before stepping away and vanishing into the crowd. "Do you need help finding anything else?" he asked kindly, walking slightly ahead of her to part the torrents of people.
"Economics?" she asked hopefully, somewhat losing her shyness with this boy.
"What's your schedule anyway?"
"AP Calculus, AP Literature, Economics, AP Physics, Health, and Studio Art," she answered. "I have fifth period lunch."
"Well, what do you know? You're with me until after lunch," he said amusedly. "You look a little young to be a senior," he remarked, looking at her round face and wide eyes.
"I'm a junior, and I skipped a grade a few years ago," she answered.
"Wow. You really are smart," he told her. "Here's Economics. It's not too bad once you get used to the teacher, Mr. Taisho." Her head jerked up and she looked at him questioningly. "Yes, it's my father." She nodded and went to the front desk.
"Higurashi? That's right," the teacher said, examining the memo that told him she was arriving. "Uh, pick an empty desk, I don't really hold to seating charts in here," he said before consulting his lesson plans. Kagome turned to face the room and find a desk. Sesshomaru waved at her from a back corner and she walked over to the desk beside him, looking at the floor the entire time.
"So are you always this quiet or is it just first-day jitters?" he asked good-naturedly. She shrugged and sat, placing her books in front of her. "Where did you come from?"
"The countryside outside of Tokyo," she mumbled, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes but refusing to make direct eye contact.
"That's a long way to come. Why did you move here, if you don't mind my asking?"
"My mother inherited the family shrine from my grandfather so we moved here so she could start managing it," she answered. Sesshomaru nodded and opened his notes as the bell rang.
His questioning continued after Economics and on to AP Physics. With each passing class period her voice became a little louder and once she looked up to meet Sesshomaru's eyes before hastily dropping them again. Her sentences became longer and she even asked a few questions of her own in return.
"So, would I be out of line to ask you to eat lunch with me?" he asked when Physics ended. Kagome barely shook her head and he smiled. "Very well then. Did you bring one or are you buying?"
"I have a lunch in my locker," she said quietly, but at least it wasn't a whisper.
"Then let's stop by your locker," he said cheerily, thrusting his hands into his pockets and walking with her to her locker. She quickly grabbed the brown bag and he escorted her to the cafeteria where a large number of students had already gathered. The noise blew Kagome away and she wanted to turn and run as what felt like everyone in the room turned to look at her. "Sit here and I'll be back in a second," he said, guiding her to a table that was on the less occupied side of the room and going to stand in the line.
For the first time Kagome looked up and truly examined her guide. He was very tall and slender with lean, wiry muscles. His silver hair framed his face in a messy, shaggy style with bangs that fell onto his cheeks. He was wearing a tight band T-shirt and jeans with a wallet chain on his back pocket and a pair of black and blue Converse.
"Hey, sweetheart," a familiar voice said. Kagome inwardly cringed as Koga slid into the space across from her. She stared resolutely at the table, not touching her lunch. "How has your day been?"
"Fine," she whispered, feeling very uncomfortable.
"Aw, come on. You can do better than that, gorgeous. How about a smile?" She didn't answer him. He reached across the table to try and tilt her face up to look at him. She jerked away from his hand and fell off of her seat. Several people turned to laugh as she disentangled her feet from the seat and pulled herself upright. She could feel a blush building in her cheeks as tears of embarrassment stung her eyes.
Before she could stand up on her own a strong hand had gently wrapped around her arm and lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. She looked up into the smiling gold eyes of Sesshomaru.
"Koga, I thought I told you not to harass my new friend here," he spat. "And I believe that you are in my seat."
"We were just having a conversation," Koga said angrily.
"Well it looks to me like she doesn't want you here, so I suggest that you beat it." Several of Sesshomaru's friends had arrived and they all now surrounded the demon, who, defeated, stood and went to another table, casting an angry glance over his shoulder at them. "Kagome, I would like you to meet some of my friends. This is Kanna, her sister Kagura, her brother Naraku, and Jaken." They all smiled politely, but Kagome did not miss the slight disdain in their expressions as they eyed the plain human.
Kagome just listened to their conversations, only saying a few words when Sesshomaru spoke to her.
She was left to find her own way to Health and she clutched her books even more tightly as she was left alone for the first time that day. Even in that short a period of time she had become accustomed to the handsome demon's presence and felt even more vulnerable without him there than she had that morning when she had first arrived.
"Hey. Kagome, right?" Kagome looked up into Inuyasha's gold eyes. She nodded and wondered if he was related to Sesshomaru as she noted the striking resemblance between the two. "This is Sango and this is Miroku," he said, gesturing to the two people standing behind him.
Sango pushed past Inuyasha and happily wound her arm with Kagome's. "I know we'll be friends," she said happily, pulling her to a desk in the back of the room. "So your name was Kagome?"
That night Kagome lay in her new room at the shrine thinking. At least I survived, she thought.