I die inside when I think of you

- School's a drag

I do not own Inuyasha… if I did, I'd sure as hell not be here!

AN: alright, once more I'm going into this without a clear means to the end……… just adding on to it, and seeing which way it will go. I also figured out that fanfiction.net has a problem with showing the three dot sentence ending thingy……… which I use a LOT. Heheh *sweatdrop* ah well, on to the goods!

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   The walk to school was such a short one that many a time Kagome was tempted to just turn around on her heels and sneak back into her room and sleep. It would be so easy to convince her mom that she'd been at school and had just gone immediately to bed. But she steeled her resolve; she missed enough school as it was.

   As the large brick building that was her school came into view over the slope of road before her, Kagome made herself shove down the melancholy feelings that had been plaguing her lately. She felt as if these feelings were her business alone to deal with; she didn't want to bother anyone else with them.

   As soon as she made her way into the squat building, she was swarmed by her group of friends. (AN: I don't know their names and seeing as they have only a bit part in the story, I'm not gonna bother looking them up). Kagome was once again swamped by the feeling that, no matter how nice they were to her, they seemed artificial at best… like little girls playing house. As with every time she saw them so soon after traveling home through the well, she couldn't help but compare them to the second family she had slowly acquired in the warring states era. She laughed, getting an image of Hikari, the girl currently clamping herself onto Kagome's left arm, trying to slay a giant demon with a large boomerang she could barely hold… it just didn't fit. In fact, she couldn't imagine any of these girls risking their lives for each other… and she wondered why that made her so sad.

   "Kagome!" Hikari exclaimed, piping up for all the girls. "You're back!"

   "Yes." Kagome responded softly, with a wane smile. Even if they were a bit artificial, even if she couldn't see them slaying demons, their bubbly personalities and concern every time she needed to explain the next of her grandfather's wild tales was infectious and livening.

   "Did the surgery hurt much afterwards?" Mina asked with awe, clamping onto Kagome's other arm after Sora removed the backpack from her shoulder. A vein began to tick in Kagome's head.

   'What surgery??? Thanks a lot grandpa!'

   "Umm… surgery?" she asked hesitantly – she was now being dragged up the steps and through the building's tall, glass doors.

   "Yeah!" Hikari exclaimed in a loud whisper, her eyes shifting about as if expecting spies at every corner. She stood on tiptoes to whisper loudly in the miko-in-training's ear, "yeah, for your breast cancer!"

   Kagome felt her heart stop and the tick in her forehead became unbearable. It throbbed even worse when Sora reached up to tug at her hair and asked, "Wow, is this really your hair? It's a miracle! Or is it just a really good wig?!"

   Our poor little heroine snapped then. Weeks of frustration, stress, sleepless nights, and multiple injuries, compounded by her current inability to look too long at Inuyasha, bubbled up in the form of exasperated rage that exploded from her in a wave of fury that would even have made Sesshoumaru flinch. Emitting a growl that sounded suspiciously like our favorite half-demon, she threw both Hikari and Mina from her arms and roughly grabbed her backpack from Sora's grasp.

   With fire blazing in her usually soft eyes, she yelled at them, tears threatening to form. She was tired of everyone at home thinking she was weak, thinking she was always sick, thinking that she needed to be coddled. Her side still throbbed where a boar demon had clawed her only days before – if her new family could see her strength, why couldn't these people, her old friends, see as well?

   "Stop it! I'm not sick! I'm never sick! And I don't have breast cancer!" Oblivious to the crowd that had accumulated about the little scene, she cast a quick glance across the girls' astonished faces before turning and running down the hall, her shoes making echoing, rhythmic slaps on the tiled floor.

   "What do you think brought that on?" Hikari asked, no longer miffed. Sora just shook her head sympathetically.

   "Poor Kagome, doesn't want to admit that she needs help if she's gonna be sick so much."

  "Oh well," Mina said, feeling a bit slighted by Kagome's outburst. "She'll just have to get over it. It's not like the rest of us wouldn't like to be sick so much and get so much time off from school. She acts like she has to save the world or something."

  And with that they walked off to their classes, giggling and joking as usual, their friend's burst of emotion already shoved to the back of their minds.

  On the corner, Hojo, who had watched the exchange with some bewilderment and not a little compassion, shook his head. 'Poor Kagome. Her friends just don't understand that sometimes she needs to be left alone.' And with the thought in his head that he knew just what Kagome needed, he left off down the path Kagome had taken.

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Well, that's about it for now… I promise that the gang will be included soon, if not in the next chapter. Thanks all who took the time to read my ill-begotten story! *grin*

--Sylph