And yet I did. Make friends I mean.
I didn't try to. I didn't even really want to. I mean, I have enough friends back home. I have Eri, the best friend anybody could have. I didn't need any more friends than that.
And I really didn't think anybody here was going to like me- not after having been assigned a thousand word essay because of what happened when I sat down. And especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period- there was no bell system at this school, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr. Walden dismissed us than the girl obsessed with the feudal era turned around in her seat and asked, her brown eyes glowing furiously. "Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you said to Ayumi?"
"You," I said, standing up, "aren't supposed to be anything, as far as I'm concerned."
She stood up too. "But that's why you did it, right?" defend the freak? Because you felt sorry for me?"
"I did it," I said, folding my coat over my arm, "because Ayumi is a troll."
I saw the corners of her lips twitch. Ayumi had swept up her books and practically run for the door the minute Mr. Walden had dismissed us. She and a bunch of other girls, including the pretty tanned one who'd had the empty seat next to her, were whispering amongst themselves and casting me dirty looks over their Ralph Lauren sweater-draped shoulders.
I could tell the girl obsessed with the feudal era wanted to laugh at my calling Ayumi a troll, but she wouldn't let herself. She said, fiercely, "I can fight my own battles, you know. I don't need your help."
I shrugged. "Fine with me."
She couldn't help smiling then. "It's Sango," she said.
"What's Sango?"
"My name. I'm Sango." She stuck out a small, calloused hand, the nails of which were bitted down the quick. "Welcome to Hell."
At nine o'clock, Mr. Walden had dismissed us. By nine-oh-two, Sango had introduced me to twenty other people, most of whom trotted after me as we moved to our next class, wanting to know what it was like to have lived back home.
"Is it really," one horsey-looking girl asked, wistfully, "as... as..." she struggled to think of the word she was looking for. "As... metropolitan as they all say?"
These girls, I probably don't have to add, were no the class lookers. They were not, I saw at once, on speaking terms with the pretty tanned girl and the one whose fingers I'd threatened to break after school, who were the ones so well-turned out in their sweater set and khaki skirts. Oh, no. The girls who came up to me were a motley bunch, some acned, some overweight, or way, way too skinny. I was horrified to see that one was wearing open-toe shoes with reinforced toe pantyhose. Beige pantyhose, too. And white shoes. In January!
I could see I was going to have my work cut out for me.
Sango appeared to be the leader of their little pack. Editor of the school paper, which she called "more of a literary review than an actual newspaper," Sango had been in earnest when she'd informed me she did not need me to fight her battles for her. She had plenty of ammunition on her own, including a pretty packed arsenal of verbal zingers and an extremely serious work ethic. Practically the first thing she asked me- after she got over bring mad at me- was if I'd be interested in writing a piece for her paper.
"Nothing fancy," she said, airily. "Maybe just an essay comparing the East and the West teen culture. I'm sure you must see a lot of differences between us and your friends there. Whaddaya say? My readers would be plenty interested- especially girls like Yuka and Ayumi. Maybe you could slip in something about how in the east, being a tan is like a faux pas."
Then she laughed, not sounding evil, exactly, but definitely not innocent either. But that, I soon realized, was Sango, all bright smiles- and bouncy good humor. She was as famous, apparently, for her wisecracking as for her big horselaugh, which sometimes bubbled out of her when she couldn't control it, and rang out with unabashed joy, and was inevitably hushed by the prissy novices who acted as hall monitors.
This school was a small one. There were only seventy sophomores. I was thankful that Dumberer and I had conflicting schedules, so that the only period we shared in common was lunch. Lunch, by the way, was conducted in the schoolyard, which was to one side of the parking lot, with seniors on the same benches as second graders.
Anyway, Dumber and Dumb shared my lunch period too. That was the only time I saw any of my stepbrothers at school. It was interesting to observe them in their native environment. I was pleased to see that I had been correct in my estimation of their characters. Dumb hung with a crowd of extremely nerdy-looking kids, most of whom wore glasses and actually balanced their laptops on their laps, something I'd never thought was actually done. Dumberer hung with the jocks, around whom flocked, the pretty tanned girls in our class, including the one I'd eschewed sitting beside. Their conversation seemed to consist of what they'd gotten for Christmas, this being their first day back from winter break, and who'd broken the most limbs skiing in Tahoe.
Dumber was perhaps the most interesting, however. Not that he woke up. Please. But he sat at one of the picnic tables with his eyes closed and his face turned to the sun. Since I can see this as home, this was not what interested me. No, what interested me was what was going on beside Dumber. And that was an incredibly good-looking boy who did nothing but stare straight ahead of him with a look of abject sadness on his face, Occasionally, girls would walk by- as girls will when there is a good- looking boy nearby- and say hi to him, and he's tear his eyes away from wherever he was staring- and say "oh, hi," to them before tuning his gaze again.
It occurred to me that Dumber and his friend might very well be potheads. I would explain a lot about Dumber.
But when I asked Sango if she knew who the guy was, and whether or not he had a drug problem, she said, 'oh, that's Kouga Prince. No, he's not on drugs. He's just sad, you know, 'cause his girlfriend died over break."
"Really?" I chewed on my corn dog. The food service here left a lot to be desired. I could see now why so many kids brought their own. Today's entrée had been hot dogs. I am not kidding. Hot dogs. "How'd she die?"
"Put a bullet in her brain." Miroku, the kid from the principal's office, had joined us. He was eating Cheetos from a giant bag he'd pulled from a leather backpack. A Louis Vuitton backpack, I might add. "Blew the back of her head away."
One of the horsey girls turned around, having overheard, and went, "god, Miroku. How cold can you get?"
Miroku shrugged. "Hey. I didn't like her when she was alive. I'm not gonna say I liked her now just because she's dead. In fact, if anything, I hate her more. I heard we're all going to have to do and hour of prayer for her on Wednesday."
"Right." Sango looked disgusted. "We have to pray for her immortal soul since she committed suicide and is destined to burn in hell for all eternity now."
Miroku looked thoughtful, "really? I thought suicides went to Purgatory."
"No, stupid. Suicide is a mortal sin." Sango rolled her brown eyes.
The other girls tittered nervously. I waited until they were done and then I asked, 'why'd she kill herself?"
Miroku looked bored. "Because of Kouga, of course. He broke up with her."
A pretty black-haired girl named Akira, who towered over the rest of us at six feet, leaned down to whisper, "I heard he did it at the mall. Can you believe it?"
Another girl said, "yeah, on Christmas Eve. They were Christmas shopping with each other, and she pointed to this diamond ring in the window at Bergdorf's, and was like, 'I want that.' And I guess her freaked- you know, it was clearly an engagement ring0 and broke up with her on the spot."
"And so she went home and shot herself?" I found this story extremely far-fetched. When I'd asked Sango where we were supposed to have lunch if, god forbid, it should happen to rain, she told me that everyone had to sit in their homeroom and eat, and the nuns brought out board games like Parcheesi for people to play. I was wondering if this story, like the one about rainy day lunches, was an invention. Sango was exactly the kind of girl who would get a kick out of lying to the new kid- not out of maliciousness, but just to amuse herself.
"Not then," Sango said. "She tried to get back together with him for a while. She called him like every ten minutes, until finally his mother told her not to call anymore. Then she started sending him letters, telling him what she was going to do- you know, kill herself if he didn't respond, she got her dad's forty-four and drove to Kouga's house and rang the bell."
Miroku took up the narrative at this point, so I knew gore was probably going to be involved. "Yeah, he said, standing up so that he could act it, using a Cheeto as the gun. "The Princes' were having a New Year's party- it was New Year's Eve- so they were home and everything. They opened up the door, and there was this crazy girl on their porch, with a gun to her head. She said if they didn't get Kouga, she was going to pull the trigger. But they couldn't get Kouga cause they'd sent him away-"
"- Hoping a little sun and surf would soothe his frazzled nerves," Sango put in, "because, you know, he's got his college apps to worry about right now. He doesn't need to have the added pressure of a stalker."
Miroku glared at her, and went on, holding the cheeto to the side of his head. "Yeah, well, that was a gross error on the part of the Princes'. As soon as she heard Kouga was out of the country, she pulled the trigger, and blew out the back of her skull, and bits of her brain and stuff stuck to the Christmas lights the Princes' had strung up."
Everyone but me groaned at this particular detail. I had other things on my mind however. "The empty chair in homeroom. The one by what's-her- name- Ayumi. That was the dead girl's seat, wasn't it?"
Akira nodded. "Yeah. That's why we thought it was so weird when you walked past it. It was like you knew that that was where Ayame had sat. We all thought maybe you were psychic or something-"
I didn't bother telling them the reason I hadn't sat in Ayame's seat had nothing whatsoever to do with being psychic. I didn't say anything, actually. I was thinking, 'gee mom, nice of you to tell me why there was suddenly this space for me, when before the school had been too crowded to let in another new student.'
I stared at Kouga. He was tanned from his trip. He sat on the picnic table with his feet on the bench, his elbows on his knees, staring out into space. A gentle wind tugged at some of his ebony-colored hair.
He has no idea, I thought. He has no idea at all. He thinks his life was bad now? Just wait.
Just wait.
A/N:
Ok well if this chapter was confusing I'm sorry. Ayame is part demon, ya see. Because if she was a full demon Kouga couldn't have had dated her, cause, well, because he couldn't even see her. And that would kinda make thing hard, you know?
And then just like Kagome's dad, Ayame's dead, but since she's part demon, Kagome can see her...
That's the easiest way I can explain it....
The next chapter- Ayame DOES try to kill Kouga, but Kagome manages to save him. And that's when the classic "Kouga" comes in, and well... we all know how he feels about Kagome.
I didn't try to. I didn't even really want to. I mean, I have enough friends back home. I have Eri, the best friend anybody could have. I didn't need any more friends than that.
And I really didn't think anybody here was going to like me- not after having been assigned a thousand word essay because of what happened when I sat down. And especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period- there was no bell system at this school, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr. Walden dismissed us than the girl obsessed with the feudal era turned around in her seat and asked, her brown eyes glowing furiously. "Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you said to Ayumi?"
"You," I said, standing up, "aren't supposed to be anything, as far as I'm concerned."
She stood up too. "But that's why you did it, right?" defend the freak? Because you felt sorry for me?"
"I did it," I said, folding my coat over my arm, "because Ayumi is a troll."
I saw the corners of her lips twitch. Ayumi had swept up her books and practically run for the door the minute Mr. Walden had dismissed us. She and a bunch of other girls, including the pretty tanned one who'd had the empty seat next to her, were whispering amongst themselves and casting me dirty looks over their Ralph Lauren sweater-draped shoulders.
I could tell the girl obsessed with the feudal era wanted to laugh at my calling Ayumi a troll, but she wouldn't let herself. She said, fiercely, "I can fight my own battles, you know. I don't need your help."
I shrugged. "Fine with me."
She couldn't help smiling then. "It's Sango," she said.
"What's Sango?"
"My name. I'm Sango." She stuck out a small, calloused hand, the nails of which were bitted down the quick. "Welcome to Hell."
At nine o'clock, Mr. Walden had dismissed us. By nine-oh-two, Sango had introduced me to twenty other people, most of whom trotted after me as we moved to our next class, wanting to know what it was like to have lived back home.
"Is it really," one horsey-looking girl asked, wistfully, "as... as..." she struggled to think of the word she was looking for. "As... metropolitan as they all say?"
These girls, I probably don't have to add, were no the class lookers. They were not, I saw at once, on speaking terms with the pretty tanned girl and the one whose fingers I'd threatened to break after school, who were the ones so well-turned out in their sweater set and khaki skirts. Oh, no. The girls who came up to me were a motley bunch, some acned, some overweight, or way, way too skinny. I was horrified to see that one was wearing open-toe shoes with reinforced toe pantyhose. Beige pantyhose, too. And white shoes. In January!
I could see I was going to have my work cut out for me.
Sango appeared to be the leader of their little pack. Editor of the school paper, which she called "more of a literary review than an actual newspaper," Sango had been in earnest when she'd informed me she did not need me to fight her battles for her. She had plenty of ammunition on her own, including a pretty packed arsenal of verbal zingers and an extremely serious work ethic. Practically the first thing she asked me- after she got over bring mad at me- was if I'd be interested in writing a piece for her paper.
"Nothing fancy," she said, airily. "Maybe just an essay comparing the East and the West teen culture. I'm sure you must see a lot of differences between us and your friends there. Whaddaya say? My readers would be plenty interested- especially girls like Yuka and Ayumi. Maybe you could slip in something about how in the east, being a tan is like a faux pas."
Then she laughed, not sounding evil, exactly, but definitely not innocent either. But that, I soon realized, was Sango, all bright smiles- and bouncy good humor. She was as famous, apparently, for her wisecracking as for her big horselaugh, which sometimes bubbled out of her when she couldn't control it, and rang out with unabashed joy, and was inevitably hushed by the prissy novices who acted as hall monitors.
This school was a small one. There were only seventy sophomores. I was thankful that Dumberer and I had conflicting schedules, so that the only period we shared in common was lunch. Lunch, by the way, was conducted in the schoolyard, which was to one side of the parking lot, with seniors on the same benches as second graders.
Anyway, Dumber and Dumb shared my lunch period too. That was the only time I saw any of my stepbrothers at school. It was interesting to observe them in their native environment. I was pleased to see that I had been correct in my estimation of their characters. Dumb hung with a crowd of extremely nerdy-looking kids, most of whom wore glasses and actually balanced their laptops on their laps, something I'd never thought was actually done. Dumberer hung with the jocks, around whom flocked, the pretty tanned girls in our class, including the one I'd eschewed sitting beside. Their conversation seemed to consist of what they'd gotten for Christmas, this being their first day back from winter break, and who'd broken the most limbs skiing in Tahoe.
Dumber was perhaps the most interesting, however. Not that he woke up. Please. But he sat at one of the picnic tables with his eyes closed and his face turned to the sun. Since I can see this as home, this was not what interested me. No, what interested me was what was going on beside Dumber. And that was an incredibly good-looking boy who did nothing but stare straight ahead of him with a look of abject sadness on his face, Occasionally, girls would walk by- as girls will when there is a good- looking boy nearby- and say hi to him, and he's tear his eyes away from wherever he was staring- and say "oh, hi," to them before tuning his gaze again.
It occurred to me that Dumber and his friend might very well be potheads. I would explain a lot about Dumber.
But when I asked Sango if she knew who the guy was, and whether or not he had a drug problem, she said, 'oh, that's Kouga Prince. No, he's not on drugs. He's just sad, you know, 'cause his girlfriend died over break."
"Really?" I chewed on my corn dog. The food service here left a lot to be desired. I could see now why so many kids brought their own. Today's entrée had been hot dogs. I am not kidding. Hot dogs. "How'd she die?"
"Put a bullet in her brain." Miroku, the kid from the principal's office, had joined us. He was eating Cheetos from a giant bag he'd pulled from a leather backpack. A Louis Vuitton backpack, I might add. "Blew the back of her head away."
One of the horsey girls turned around, having overheard, and went, "god, Miroku. How cold can you get?"
Miroku shrugged. "Hey. I didn't like her when she was alive. I'm not gonna say I liked her now just because she's dead. In fact, if anything, I hate her more. I heard we're all going to have to do and hour of prayer for her on Wednesday."
"Right." Sango looked disgusted. "We have to pray for her immortal soul since she committed suicide and is destined to burn in hell for all eternity now."
Miroku looked thoughtful, "really? I thought suicides went to Purgatory."
"No, stupid. Suicide is a mortal sin." Sango rolled her brown eyes.
The other girls tittered nervously. I waited until they were done and then I asked, 'why'd she kill herself?"
Miroku looked bored. "Because of Kouga, of course. He broke up with her."
A pretty black-haired girl named Akira, who towered over the rest of us at six feet, leaned down to whisper, "I heard he did it at the mall. Can you believe it?"
Another girl said, "yeah, on Christmas Eve. They were Christmas shopping with each other, and she pointed to this diamond ring in the window at Bergdorf's, and was like, 'I want that.' And I guess her freaked- you know, it was clearly an engagement ring0 and broke up with her on the spot."
"And so she went home and shot herself?" I found this story extremely far-fetched. When I'd asked Sango where we were supposed to have lunch if, god forbid, it should happen to rain, she told me that everyone had to sit in their homeroom and eat, and the nuns brought out board games like Parcheesi for people to play. I was wondering if this story, like the one about rainy day lunches, was an invention. Sango was exactly the kind of girl who would get a kick out of lying to the new kid- not out of maliciousness, but just to amuse herself.
"Not then," Sango said. "She tried to get back together with him for a while. She called him like every ten minutes, until finally his mother told her not to call anymore. Then she started sending him letters, telling him what she was going to do- you know, kill herself if he didn't respond, she got her dad's forty-four and drove to Kouga's house and rang the bell."
Miroku took up the narrative at this point, so I knew gore was probably going to be involved. "Yeah, he said, standing up so that he could act it, using a Cheeto as the gun. "The Princes' were having a New Year's party- it was New Year's Eve- so they were home and everything. They opened up the door, and there was this crazy girl on their porch, with a gun to her head. She said if they didn't get Kouga, she was going to pull the trigger. But they couldn't get Kouga cause they'd sent him away-"
"- Hoping a little sun and surf would soothe his frazzled nerves," Sango put in, "because, you know, he's got his college apps to worry about right now. He doesn't need to have the added pressure of a stalker."
Miroku glared at her, and went on, holding the cheeto to the side of his head. "Yeah, well, that was a gross error on the part of the Princes'. As soon as she heard Kouga was out of the country, she pulled the trigger, and blew out the back of her skull, and bits of her brain and stuff stuck to the Christmas lights the Princes' had strung up."
Everyone but me groaned at this particular detail. I had other things on my mind however. "The empty chair in homeroom. The one by what's-her- name- Ayumi. That was the dead girl's seat, wasn't it?"
Akira nodded. "Yeah. That's why we thought it was so weird when you walked past it. It was like you knew that that was where Ayame had sat. We all thought maybe you were psychic or something-"
I didn't bother telling them the reason I hadn't sat in Ayame's seat had nothing whatsoever to do with being psychic. I didn't say anything, actually. I was thinking, 'gee mom, nice of you to tell me why there was suddenly this space for me, when before the school had been too crowded to let in another new student.'
I stared at Kouga. He was tanned from his trip. He sat on the picnic table with his feet on the bench, his elbows on his knees, staring out into space. A gentle wind tugged at some of his ebony-colored hair.
He has no idea, I thought. He has no idea at all. He thinks his life was bad now? Just wait.
Just wait.
A/N:
Ok well if this chapter was confusing I'm sorry. Ayame is part demon, ya see. Because if she was a full demon Kouga couldn't have had dated her, cause, well, because he couldn't even see her. And that would kinda make thing hard, you know?
And then just like Kagome's dad, Ayame's dead, but since she's part demon, Kagome can see her...
That's the easiest way I can explain it....
The next chapter- Ayame DOES try to kill Kouga, but Kagome manages to save him. And that's when the classic "Kouga" comes in, and well... we all know how he feels about Kagome.