A/N: Thanks to the one reader who reviewed! Pancakes for you! Anyway, sorry I took a while but school hasn't been very pleasant lately...But, the upside is that there is only 12 more days until the last day of school and trust me, I have been counting down for over a month now.

Oh and I forgot to mention last time that this story takes place in California, USA. I'm a Cali-girl so yeah. It's just easier for me to write a story that happens in somewhere I know and can relate with. Now that that's over with, on with the story.

But first, the Disclaimer: I keep telling people that I own Inuyasha but they just threw me in an insane asylum and locked me up...I think I belong there anyway, but I really do own Inuyasha. Really. What, you don't believe me?

....

Good, then you're not as dense as I thought you were. J/K

No, I don't own Inuyasha, but if they would loosen this freakin' straight jacket, I would be able to write the fanfics for it quicker...Someone? Please?

...

Okay, now that I've scared everyone away with my crazy-person antics, on with the story. Enjoy!

Love Lost, Love Found

Chapter Two: Moving on, Moving out

She listened, took notes, laughed, talked, joked, ate, and went on with her life like normal. After all, colleges didn't care if you had a death in your family or if you got into a fatal accident. It was all the same to them. You show up, take your midterms and finals, graduate, and hopefully the alumni would send some money back to the college. They don't care about your personal life. After all, if they cared, they wouldn't impoverish the students by jacking up the prices on tuition and room and board. (A/N: I'm not even out of high school yet so I really wouldn't know how it is. I just take what my sister tells me about college and run with it.)

As a result, the day after her father's funeral, Karina was back in class and getting on with her life.

But, though not all her friends knew what had happened, they could tell that Karina was out of the loop. At one time, her laughing voice and smiling face could be heard and seen almost all the time she spent awake. She was sharp and witty, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

Now, she was like an empty shell. Smiling when she should smile and replying politely, but without the usual spirit, when spoken to. After class, she would immediately lock herself in her room and no one knew or dared ask what she was doing. Karina was infamous for her unpleasant--to put it mildly--attitude if bothered when not in the right mood. Her roommate was still on vacation and wouldn't be returning until the end of the week. Besides, it wasn't as if they had a very good relationship. They didn't dislike each other--they just didn't especially like each other. Thus, they were content to let silence do the talking for them.

Nobody saw the dry tears that she kept hidden from everyone in the world as she flipped through the old photo albums from when she was a child. Nobody saw her frowns or sad smiles as she remembered the good times with her dad. Everybody was worried, but nobody dared to venture in.

A small smile graced her lips as she recalled all the times of happiness and trials that her father had helped her through.

Her first word, her first steps, her first birthday party...oh look! There's the picture of the car before she got her license...and then there's the picture of it after her first time behind the wheel. She winced at the latter and finally realized why her parents were so mad at her after that little incident. After all, it wasn't every day their teenage daughter drives their SUV into the nearby telephone pole.

And then there was her first crush. Jareb something. She couldn't even remember his last name anymore. Looking through the old photos now, she cringed at the thought of her actually liking the guy at one time. He was a total jerk, wasn't even really that good-looking, and had the IQ of...uh...of a...potato! No...that would be an insult to potatoes. His was lower than that. It wasn't getting him to notice her that was the hard part...it was trying to get rid of him. In all seriousness, if he was any denser, he would never be able to lift his head off the ground.

Hojo once tried to stage a fight between Karina and him to pretend like he didn't approve of her seeing Jareb--which he didn't really approve of anyway. However, that only served to deepen Jareb's "love" and affection for Karina and he became even more relentless than before. They were about ready to move back to Japan had Hojo not had a little talk with the lovesick boy. Karina never found out what her father told him but she didn't particularly care either. As long as the idiot stopped hanging around her, he could go jump off a cliff for all she cared.

Honestly, the only reason she thought she even remotely liked him was because the rest of her friends were beginning to get into boys. Heck, she was only thirteen at the time. What did she know about love? Actually, what did she know now about love? She'd never had a real boyfriend before and it wasn't as if she was any more experienced now in that field than she was five years ago.

She shook her head to rid herself of the unpleasant thoughts and finished flipping through another photo album. She had brought back a whole box-full of memories back to college with her to keep the memories of her dad fresh.

She replaced the photo album she took out earlier and her brows furrowed slightly when she saw an old and slightly tattered book stuck between two albums. A mini-cloud rose from it when she wriggled it loose and wiped off the dusty cover with her hand. The spine was spiral-bound and the cover swirled dizzily in blue and green loops and whorls. She guessed it must have been an old diary or a journal that she accidentally took along when she swiped the photo albums from her parents' attic.

Karina carefully peeled open the cover and coughed as another bout of dust flew up around the book. Her eyebrows raised slightly as she traced her fingers over the name written many times in different ways over the inside of the cover.

Kagome Higurashi...This was Mom's journal/diary?

Her curiosity piqued, she sat back on her bed and flipped through page after page of hand-written diary entries. Every now and then, old pictures of Kagome and her friends and family caught Karina's eye, and her mind boggled at how much she resembled her mother during her youth. Of course, she was always told that she looked a lot like Kagome, but she never quite realized how much. Now that she saw Kagome's senior picture pasted on a page, she could have almost sworn she was looking at a twin she didn't know she had.

Her spirits were beginning to lift at the new discovery and the fun of seeing some of the respected members of the elder generation goof off when they were her age. Kagome must have had a lot of free time during her youth because little cartoon drawings of animals and flowers adorned all the margins and everything was carefully and colorfully decorated. Smiley faces could be spotted throughout her entries.

Then she saw something that made her stop cold. She frowned and did a double-take to make sure she wasn't mistaken. But she wasn't.

In big black underlined letters, the words I HATE MY LIFE!!! were scrawled angrily across one whole page. Karina flipped to the next page to find the words DAMN IT ALL TO HELL written just as darkly and just as angrily.

She was very surprised to find something like that in her mother's diary. After all, the woman she knew was calm although she did have a rather nasty temper at times. That's where Karina had inherited her temper from, after all. Of course, it was possible that she was able to maintain equanimity only because she took it out on her poor diary. Either way, Karina was still shocked.

She turned to the next page and found a half-written suicide note. Suicide note? Wait...that just can't be right...I mean, this is my mom we're talking about here, she thought incredulously.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. She turned to glare at the unknown person on the other side of the door and was about ready to yell something spiteful when she heard a muffled but familiar voice come through.

"Hey Karina! Open up, it's me."

A series of shuffles and stifled cries ensued and another voice--male this time--spoke, "Yeah. Let us in. Don't tell me you forgot all about us already."

Karina was up in a matter of seconds and scrambled to fling open the door. She let out a shriek of happiness when she came face to face with her best friend, Shina Tatsumi, and her not-quite-best-but-close friend and Shina's twin brother, Keiji. She practically knocked the other girl over when she threw her arms around her in a great big bear-hug. After all, Karina hadn't seen Shina in nearly five years since her family moved away from Japan.

With Keiji, Karina was a bit more conservative and only gave him a hard pat on the back.

They were good friends as well, but Keiji had a bad habit of groping girls when given the opportunity. He claimed that he could nothing about it because he had inherited the habit from his father who had in turn inherited it from his father and so on down the line. Shina would just smack him and complain about having a pervert for a brother. Karina had learned long ago not to give him any "opportunities."

"I've missed you guys so much. What are you guys doing here, though?" she asked while ushering them into her room.

"Well...our parents told us what happened," replied Shina slowly, as if gauging how Karina would take it. She must have been quite relieved when Karina responded evenly for she let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"Oh..." Karina paused for a moment before going on. "So, how is Uncle Miroku and Aunt Sango doing anyway? Did they come too?"

"Yeah," responded Keiji, "but they went to see your mom first. You know, to see how she's holding up."

"Hm." Karina averted her eyes and spotted the open diary on her bed. She definitely did not want other people--no matter how close they were to her family--to see what was written inside.

Pretending she was just trying to get off topic, she moved towards her bed and quickly flipped the diary close. Just before the pages fell into place, though, she caught sight of words that made her stop and stare for a brief moment. She didn't know why, but they stuck with her.

It's time for me to move on...

The two hanyous remained planted to the living room floor, staring each other down. Both were as stubborn as mule and neither was willing to back down.

Like father, like son.

Their physical build was similar, although the father was slightly taller and all-around thicker with muscle and Benji technically was only a quarter demon while his father, Inuyasha, was half. They had the same long silver-white hair, the same golden amber eyes, and even down to the same fuzzy white triangles positioned on the top of their head which served as ears.

Even their personalities were similar. Stubborn to a fault, prone to sudden bouts of violence, over-reactive...the list goes on. But perhaps it was because they were so alike in so many aspects that caused them to be forever at odds.

Ever since childhood, Benji had never been able to connect with his father the same way he connected with his mother. The only time he ever even spoke with him was either because he was arguing with him or because his mother was around. Other than that, they had a nice relationship of mutual silence, although it shouldn't really be considered 'nice.'

And here they were. Arguing. Again.

"Don't you dare walk out on me, son. Just because your mother is gone does not give you the right to completely ignore what I say. I am still your father, you hear?" warned the older hanyou with a seriously low voice.

He wasn't yelling like he would have done in his younger days but that didn't mean he was any less dangerous. If anything, there was more reason to be wary of him these days than before.

Benji snorted in response. "You can't tell me what to do. I don't have to listen to this crap and I don't need or want anything from you. I can pay my own way through college. Hell, I can even drop out and still have enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life. I don't need this. I'm moving out and that's that."

"No, you are not. You can't."

"Oh-ho. Just watch me."

"You do realize that I can cut you off from your bank accounts and that your only income is from me. You move out now and you'll be left with nothing except for the cash in your wallet," he threatened.

Benji growled in response and let out an impressive string of curses that Inuyasha would have proud of in his younger days. "Dammit, Dad! What the hell do you want from me? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because, as much as you seem to hate it, you're my son! You can't change that and I don't want to change that either. For better or worse, you're stuck with me, kid." His tone softened as he added the next bit. "Besides, Kikyo wouldn't have wanted us to fight all the time. She would have wanted us to get along."

He scoffed angrily. "The hell do you know? You have no right to bring Mom up in this. You never cared about what she wanted so why bring her up now?"

Inuyasha's patience had run thin and this last bit broke through his carefully constructed composure. "I loved Kikyo. Yeah, she was your mother and I know you're hurting, but she was also my wife. Don't you think I know how you feel? Don't you think that I'm hurting as well?"

"Heh. Sure. If you loved her so much, how come you never gave her your heart? How come you always looked like you have someone else on your mind whenever you looked at her? Yeah, I was still just a kid when Mom died, but even I noticed it. You never saw the hurt looks Mom would hide from you. You never saw the silent tears she cried for you. You never saw it because you never damn well cared enough to see it! You only treated her well because it was your obligation as her husband. So don't go telling me that you loved her."

The older hanyou flinched at his son's reproach and suddenly looked very weary as he slowly settled on the armrest of one of the large sofas. It was as if he had aged twenty years in a second. His voice was hesitant and quiet, almost as if he was talking to himself. "It wasn't like that, son. It wasn't like that."

"Then what was it like?" He stood with his hands clenched at his sides and his foot tapping impatiently.

Inuyasha just shook his head. "You wouldn't understand."

"Pft. You're full of it."

Inuyasha suddenly smiled sardonically as he realized something. That was possibly the longest conversation he had had with his son ever since Kikyo died. How ironically pathetic, he thought.

Benji narrowed his eyes questioningly at him. It was actually quite funny how Inuyasha knew Benji probably better than he knew himself. After all, he had been through the same type of situations when he was younger that Benji was now experiencing. He understood how the nineteen-year-old boy felt, but something in his nature--and probably in his son's nature as well--prevented him from being forward with him.

Inuyasha sighed. This kid is getting to be too much for me. I wonder if it was this hard to raise me? I was probably ten times as bad as he is. Gotta love it that you don't truly appreciate your parents until you have kids of your own.

Aloud, he finally resigned and said, "I won't cut you off from your bank account. But if you really want to move out that badly, you will have to find your own source of income. You find your own place, you figure out how you're gonna pay for it, and you stay in school no matter what. And if you ever, ever think about dropping out, I'll cut you off for good. You understand?"

Benji had only been half-listening and began to respond viciously. "You just can't let me be, now can you?" He paused for a moment and a look of confusion passed over his face. "Wait...you mean you're gonna let me go? Why?"

"Cuz you remind too much of myself, kid. And...I guess I just realized that I've been doing to you what I hated my parents doing to me." His eyes went out of focus and Benji realized that Inuyasha wasn't just talking about him anymore. He also had someone else on his mind. "Sometimes...a lot of the times, we just gotta learn to let go. To move on. In your case, to move out. And I gotta let you. Can't hang to you forever." His last words were whispered as if he was talking to himself.

Benji shuffled uncomfortably. His old man never talked to him like this before. He never explained his actions; he just did it and assumed everyone would understand. But here he was now, showing that he wasn't a stone statue like most people thought of him as.

The younger half-demon was tempted to ask if Inuyasha was feeling okay, but another part of him adamantly opposed it. Better just get the hell out of here before the old man changes his mind.

"Okay...well, uh...I gotta go to class so yeah...I'll swing by later to pick up my stuff. I already have a place picked out so I'll be outta here by the end of this week tops." He turned to leave and was nearly out the door when he turned back his head and quietly mumbled, "Oh, and thanks."

And for the first time in five years, their conversation did not end with a slammed door.