He didn't have to wait long. In fact, it was right after lunch that she
same after him. Not that he ever knew it, of course. I spotted her
immediately in the crowd as everybody headed toward their lockers. Demons
have a sort of glob about them that sets them apart from humans- than god,
too, or half the time I might never have known the difference.
Anyway, there she was staring daggers at him like one of those blond kids out of Village of the Damned. People, not knowing she was there, kept walking straight through her. I sort of envied them. I wish ghosts were invisible to me like they were to everybody else. I know that would mean I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my dad's company these past few years, but, hey, it also would have meant I wouldn't be standing there knowing Ayame was about to do something horrible.
Not that I knew what it was she planned on doing to him. Demons can get pretty rough sometimes. The trick Inuyasha had done with the mirror was nothing, really. I've had objects thrown at me with enough force that, if I hadn't ducked, I'd certainly be one with the spirit world. I've had concussions and broken bones galore. My mom just thinks I'm accident-prone. Yeah, mom. That's right. I broke my wrist falling down the stairs. Oh, and the reason I fell down the stairs is that a demon conquistador pushed me.
The minute I saw Ayame, though, I knew she was up to no good. I was not basing this assumption on my previous interaction with her. Oh, no. See, I followed the direction of Ayame's gaze, and saw that it wasn't Kouga, exactly, that she was staring at. It was actually one of the rafters in the section of breezeway beneath which Kouga was walking that had attracted her attention. And as I stood there, I saw the timber start to shake. Not the whole breezeway. Oh no. Just one single, heavy piece. The piece directly above Kouga's head.
I acted without thought. I threw myself as hard as I could at Kouga. We both went flying. And good thing too. Because we were still rolling when I heard an enormous explosion. I ducked my head to shield my eyes, so I didn't actually see the piece of timber explode. But I heard it. And I felt it too. Those tiny splinters of wood hurt as they pelted me. Good thing I was wearing wool slacks, too.
Kouga lay so still beneath me that I thought maybe a chunk of wood had got him between the frontal lobes or something. But when I lifted my face from his chest, I saw that he was okay- he was just staring, horrified, at the ten-inch-thick plank of wood, nearly two feet long, that lay a few feet away from us. All around us were scattered shards of wood that had broken off the main piece. I guess Kouga was realizing that if that plank had succeeded in splintering his cranium, there'd have been little pieces of Kouga scattered all around that stone floor, too.
"Excuse me. Excuse me-"I heard Mother Kaede's strained voice, and saw her push through the crowd of stunned onlookers. She froze when she saw the chunk of wood, but when her gaze took in Kouga and me, she sprung into action again.
"Good Buddha," she cried, hurrying toward us. "Are you children all right? Kagome, are you hurt? Kouga?"
I sat up slowly. I frequently have to check for broken bones, and have found, over the years, the slower you get up, the more chance you have at discovering what's broken, and the less chance there is you'll put weight on it.
But in this particular case, nothing seemed broken. I got to my feet.
"Good gracious," Mother Kaede was saying. "Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine," I said, brushing myself off. There were little pieces of wood all over me. And this was my best Donna Karan jacket. I looked around for Ayame- really, if I'd have found her at that particular moment, I'd have killed her, I really would have... except, of course, that she's already dead AND part demon. But she was gone.
"God," Kouga said, coming up to me. He didn't look hurt, just shaken up a little. Actually, it would have been hard to hurt a guy as big as he was. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered, a genuine Baldwin.
And he was talking to me. Me!
"God, are you okay?" he wanted to know. "Thank you. God. I think you must have saved my life."
"Oh," I said. "It was nothing, really." I couldn't resist reaching out and plucking a splinter of wood from his sweater vest. Cashmere. Just as I'd suspected.
"What is going on here?" a tall guy in a lot of robes with a red beanie on his head came pushing through the crowd. When he saw the wood on the ground, then looked up to take in the gaping hole where it was supposed to be, he turned on Mother Kaede and said, "see? See this is what comes of you letting your precious birds nest wherever they want. Mr. Higurashi warned us this might happen, and look! He was right! Somebody might have been killed!"
"I'm so sorry," Mother Kaede said. I can't think how such a good thing could have happened. Thank havens no one was hurt." She turned to Kouga and me. "You two ARE all right? You know, I think Miss Higurashi looks a little pale. I'll just take her off to see the nurse, if that's all right with you, Kagome. The rest of you children get on to class now. Everyone is all right. It was just an accident. Run along now."
Amazingly, people did as he said. Mother Kaede had that kind of way about her. You just sort of had to do what she said. Thank god she used her powers for good instead of evil!
Once we were safely behind the closed door to the principal's office, Mother Kaede went straight across the room to a small cabinet in which there were a number of trophies and plaques- teaching awards, I found out later. Before she'd been reassigned by the diocese to an administrative position, mother Kaede had been a popular and much-loved teacher of biology. She reached behind one of the awards and drew out a packet of cigarettes.
She looked down longingly at the pack for a minute more, then heaved this big sigh, and put them back where she'd found them. "No," she said, more to herself. "I shouldn't."
I thought I'd better change the subject, so I stooped to examine some of the teaching awards.
"1964," I said. "You've been around for awhile."
"I have." Mother Kaede sat down behind her desk. "What in heavens name happened out there, Kagome?"
"Oh," I shrugged. 'That was just Ayame. I guess we know now why she's sticking around. She wants to kill Kouga Prince."
Mother Kaede shook her head. "This is terrible. It really is. I've never seen such... such violence from a spirit. Never, not in all my years as a miko."
"Really?" I looked out the window. The principal's office looked toward the hills where I lived. "Hey," I said. "You can see my house from here!"
"And she was always such a sweet girl too. We never had a disciplinary problem from Ayame, not in all her years here. What could be causing her to feel so much hatred for a young man she professed to love?"
I glanced at her over my shoulder. "Are you kidding me?"
"Yes, well, I know they broke up, but such extreme emotions- this killing rage she's in. surely that's quite unusual-"
I shook my head. "Excuse me, I know you took a vow of celibacy and all, but haven't you ever been in love? Don't you know what its like? That guy hosed her. She thought they were going to get married. I know that was stupid, especially since she's only what, sixteen? Still, he just hosed her. If that's not enough to inspire a killing rage in a girl, I don't know what it."
She studied me thoughtfully. "You're speaking from experience."
"Who me? Not quite. I mean, I've had crushes on guys, and stuff, but I can't say any of them have ever returned the favor." Much to my chagrin. "Still, I can imagine how Ayame must have felt when he broke up with her."
"Like killing herself, I suppose." Mother Kaede said.
"Exactly. But killing herself didn't turn out to be enough. She won't be satisfied until she takes him down with her."
"This is dreadful," mother Kaede said. "Really, really dreadful. I've talked with her until I was blue in the face, and she wont listen. And now, the first day back, this happens. I'm going to have to advise that young man to stay home until we can get this resolved."
I laughed. "How are you going to do that? Tell him his dead- partially demon- girlfriend's trying to kill him? Oh, yeah, that'll go over well."
"Not at all." Mother Kaede opened a drawer, and started rifling through it. "With a little ingenuity, I can see that Mr. Prince is out for a solid week or two."
"Oh, no way!" I felt myself go pale. "You're going to poison him? I thought you were a priestess! Isn't there a rule against that sort of thing?"
"Poison? No, no, Kagome. I was thinking of giving him head lice. The nurse checks for them once a semester. I'll just see that young Mr. Prince comes down with a bad case of them-"
"Oh my god!" I shrieked. "That's disgusting! You can't put lice in that guy's hair!"
Mother Kaede looked up from her drawer. "Why ever not? It will serve our purposes exactly. Keep him out of harm's way long enough for you and I to talk some sense into Miss Ayame and-"
"You can't put lice in that guy's hair." I said again, more vehemently than was, perhaps, necessary. I don't know why I was so against the idea, except that... well, he had such nice hair. I'd gotten a pretty close look at it when we'd been sprawled on the ground together. It was curly, soft-looking hair, the kind of hair I could picture myself running my fingers through. The thought of bugs crawling around in it turned my stomach, how did that kid's rhyme go?
You gazed into my eyes
What could I do but linger?
I ran my hands all through your hair
And a cootie bit my finger
"Aw, jeez," I said, sitting down on top of the desk. "Hold the lice, will you? Let me deal with Ayame. You say you've been talking to her for how long, now? A week?"
"Since the New Year," said Mother Kaede. "Yes. That's when she first showed up here. I can see now she's just been waiting for Kouga."
"Right. Well let me take care of it. Maybe she just needs a little does of girl talk."
"I don't know." Mother Kaede regarded me a little dubiously. "I really feel that you have a bit of a propensity toward... well, toward the physical. The role of a miko is supposed to be a nonviolent one, Kagome. You are supposed to be someone who helps troubled spirits, not hurts them."
"Hello? Were you out there just now? You think I was supposed to stand there and talk that beam into not crushing that guy's skull?"
"Of course not. I'm just saying that if you tried a little compassion- "
"Hey. I have plenty of compassion, Mother. My heart bleeds for this girl, it really does. But this is my school. Got it? Mine. Not hers, not anymore. She made her decision, and now she's got to stick with it. And I'm not letting her take Kouga- or anyone else- down with her."
"Well." Mother Kaede looked skeptical. 'Well, if you're sure..."
"Oh, I'm sure." I hopped off her desk. "Just leave it o me, all right?"
Mother Kaede said, "all right." But she said it kind of faintly, I noticed. I had to get her to write me a hall pass so I could get back to class without getting busted by one of the priestesses. I was waiting for one of them- a pinch-faced novice- to finish scrutinizing this pass before she'd let me go on down the corridor when a side door marked NURSE opened, and out stepped Kouga with a hall pass of his own.
"Hey," I could help blurting out. "What happened? Did she- I mean, did something else happen? Are you hurt?"
He grinned a bit sheepishly. "No. Well, unless you count this wicked splinter I got under my thumbnail. I was trying to brush all those little pieces of wood off my pants, you know, and one of them got under there, and- "He held up his right hand. A large bandage had been wrapped around his thumb. "Yikes," I said.
"I know." He looked mournful. "She used curochrome, too. I hate that stuff."
"Man," I said. "You have had a rotten day."
"Not really," he said, putting his thumb down. "At least not as bad as it would have been if you hadn't been here. If it weren't for you, I'd be dead." He noticed that I'd come through the door marked PRINCIPAL and asked, "did you get in trouble, or something?"
"No." I said. "Mother Kaede just wanted me to fill out some forms. I'm new, you know."
"And as a new student," the novice said severely, "you ought to be made aware that loitering in the halls is not allowed. Both of you had better get to your classes." I apologized and took back my pass. Kouga very chivalrously offered to show me where my next class was, and the novice went away, seemingly satisfied. As soon as she was out of earshot, Kouga said, "you're Kagome right? I've heard about you. You're the one who dissed Ayumi."
"That's me," I said. "And you're Kouga Prince." "Oh, you've heard of me?"
He said "oh," in such a said voice I almost felt sorry for him. "I guess people must be talking about me huh?"
"A little." I took the plunge. "I'm sorry about what happened with your girlfriend."
"So am I, believe me." If he was mad I'd brought the subject up, you couldn't tell. "I didn't even want to come back here after... you know. I tried to transfer but the public schools didn't want me. Its tough to transfer with only one semester to go. I wouldn't have come back at all except that... well you know. Colleges generally want you to have graduated from high school before they'll let you in."
I laughed. "I've heard that."
"Anyway." Kouga noticed I was holding my coat- I'd been dragging it around all day since I couldn't use my locker, the door having been dented permanently shut when I'd knocked Ayame into it- and said, "want me to carry that for you?"
I was so shocked by this civility that without even thinking I said, 'sure," and passed it over to him. He folded it over one arm, and said, "so, I guess everybody must be blaming me for what happened. To Ayame I mean."
"I don't think so," I said. "If anything, people are blaming Ayame for what happened to Ayame."
"Yeah," Kouga said, "but I mean, I drove her to it, you know? That's the thing. If I just hadn't broken up with her-"
"You have a pretty high opinion of yourself, don't you?"
He looked taken aback. "What?"
"Well, your assumption that she killed herself was because you broke up with her. I don't think that's why she killed herself at all. She killed herself because she was sick. You had nothing to do with making her that way. Your breaking up with her may have acted as a sort of catalyst for her final breakdown, but it could just easily have been some other crisis in her life- her parents getting divorced, her not making the cheerleading squad, her cat dying. Anything. So try not to be so hard on yourself." We were at the door to my classroom- geometry, I think it was. I turned to him and took my coat back. "Well, this is my stop. Thanks for the lift."
He held onto one sleeve of my coat. "Hey," he said looking down at me. It was hard to see his eyes- it was pretty much dark beneath the breezeway, shadowed as it was from the sun. But I remembered from when we'd fallen down together that his eyes were blue. A really nice blue. "Hey, listen," he said. "Let me take you out tonight. To thank you for saving my life and everything."
"Thanks," I said, giving my coat a tug. "But I already have plans." I didn't ass that my plans involved him in a most intimate manner.
"Tomorrow night, then," he said, still not relinquishing my coat.
"Look," I said. "I'm not allowed to go out on school nights."
This was patently untrue. Except for the fact that the police have brought me home a few times, my mother trusted me implicitly. If I wanted to go out with a boy on a school night, she'd have let me. The thing is, the subject had never really come up, no boy ever having offered to take me out, on a school night or any other for that matter.
But now I had a chance to start all over, with a new population of boys who had no idea about my past- well, except for Dumber and Dumberer and I doubted they would tell since neither of them are what you'd call... well, verbal.
Neither of them had evidently gotten to Kouga, anyway, since the next words out of his mouth were, "this weekend, then. What are you doing Saturday night?"
I wasn't sure it was such a good idea to get involved with a guy whose dead –partially demon- girlfriend was trying to kill him. I mean, what if she found out and resented me for it? I was sure Mother Kaede would think it was very cool, me going out with Kouga.
Then again, how often did a totally hot guy like Kouga Prince ask a girl like me out?
"Okay," I said. "Saturday is it. Pick me up at seven?"
He grinned. He had very nice teeth, white and even. "Seven," he said, letting go of my coat. "See you then. If not before."
"See you then." I stood with my hand on the door to geometry class. "Oh, and Kouga?"
He had started down the breezeway, toward his own classroom. "Yeah?"
"Watch your back,"
I think he winked at me, but it was kind of hard to tell in the shade.
A/N:
Kouga sounds kind of like Hojo doesn't he??? Oh well, I have plans for an evil Hojo sometime, so I'll save it for later. For now it's just a real nice Kouga that doesn't kidnap Kagome when he first sees her.... Plus the whole Ayame story...
All right, well, Lataz!
Anyway, there she was staring daggers at him like one of those blond kids out of Village of the Damned. People, not knowing she was there, kept walking straight through her. I sort of envied them. I wish ghosts were invisible to me like they were to everybody else. I know that would mean I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my dad's company these past few years, but, hey, it also would have meant I wouldn't be standing there knowing Ayame was about to do something horrible.
Not that I knew what it was she planned on doing to him. Demons can get pretty rough sometimes. The trick Inuyasha had done with the mirror was nothing, really. I've had objects thrown at me with enough force that, if I hadn't ducked, I'd certainly be one with the spirit world. I've had concussions and broken bones galore. My mom just thinks I'm accident-prone. Yeah, mom. That's right. I broke my wrist falling down the stairs. Oh, and the reason I fell down the stairs is that a demon conquistador pushed me.
The minute I saw Ayame, though, I knew she was up to no good. I was not basing this assumption on my previous interaction with her. Oh, no. See, I followed the direction of Ayame's gaze, and saw that it wasn't Kouga, exactly, that she was staring at. It was actually one of the rafters in the section of breezeway beneath which Kouga was walking that had attracted her attention. And as I stood there, I saw the timber start to shake. Not the whole breezeway. Oh no. Just one single, heavy piece. The piece directly above Kouga's head.
I acted without thought. I threw myself as hard as I could at Kouga. We both went flying. And good thing too. Because we were still rolling when I heard an enormous explosion. I ducked my head to shield my eyes, so I didn't actually see the piece of timber explode. But I heard it. And I felt it too. Those tiny splinters of wood hurt as they pelted me. Good thing I was wearing wool slacks, too.
Kouga lay so still beneath me that I thought maybe a chunk of wood had got him between the frontal lobes or something. But when I lifted my face from his chest, I saw that he was okay- he was just staring, horrified, at the ten-inch-thick plank of wood, nearly two feet long, that lay a few feet away from us. All around us were scattered shards of wood that had broken off the main piece. I guess Kouga was realizing that if that plank had succeeded in splintering his cranium, there'd have been little pieces of Kouga scattered all around that stone floor, too.
"Excuse me. Excuse me-"I heard Mother Kaede's strained voice, and saw her push through the crowd of stunned onlookers. She froze when she saw the chunk of wood, but when her gaze took in Kouga and me, she sprung into action again.
"Good Buddha," she cried, hurrying toward us. "Are you children all right? Kagome, are you hurt? Kouga?"
I sat up slowly. I frequently have to check for broken bones, and have found, over the years, the slower you get up, the more chance you have at discovering what's broken, and the less chance there is you'll put weight on it.
But in this particular case, nothing seemed broken. I got to my feet.
"Good gracious," Mother Kaede was saying. "Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine," I said, brushing myself off. There were little pieces of wood all over me. And this was my best Donna Karan jacket. I looked around for Ayame- really, if I'd have found her at that particular moment, I'd have killed her, I really would have... except, of course, that she's already dead AND part demon. But she was gone.
"God," Kouga said, coming up to me. He didn't look hurt, just shaken up a little. Actually, it would have been hard to hurt a guy as big as he was. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered, a genuine Baldwin.
And he was talking to me. Me!
"God, are you okay?" he wanted to know. "Thank you. God. I think you must have saved my life."
"Oh," I said. "It was nothing, really." I couldn't resist reaching out and plucking a splinter of wood from his sweater vest. Cashmere. Just as I'd suspected.
"What is going on here?" a tall guy in a lot of robes with a red beanie on his head came pushing through the crowd. When he saw the wood on the ground, then looked up to take in the gaping hole where it was supposed to be, he turned on Mother Kaede and said, "see? See this is what comes of you letting your precious birds nest wherever they want. Mr. Higurashi warned us this might happen, and look! He was right! Somebody might have been killed!"
"I'm so sorry," Mother Kaede said. I can't think how such a good thing could have happened. Thank havens no one was hurt." She turned to Kouga and me. "You two ARE all right? You know, I think Miss Higurashi looks a little pale. I'll just take her off to see the nurse, if that's all right with you, Kagome. The rest of you children get on to class now. Everyone is all right. It was just an accident. Run along now."
Amazingly, people did as he said. Mother Kaede had that kind of way about her. You just sort of had to do what she said. Thank god she used her powers for good instead of evil!
Once we were safely behind the closed door to the principal's office, Mother Kaede went straight across the room to a small cabinet in which there were a number of trophies and plaques- teaching awards, I found out later. Before she'd been reassigned by the diocese to an administrative position, mother Kaede had been a popular and much-loved teacher of biology. She reached behind one of the awards and drew out a packet of cigarettes.
She looked down longingly at the pack for a minute more, then heaved this big sigh, and put them back where she'd found them. "No," she said, more to herself. "I shouldn't."
I thought I'd better change the subject, so I stooped to examine some of the teaching awards.
"1964," I said. "You've been around for awhile."
"I have." Mother Kaede sat down behind her desk. "What in heavens name happened out there, Kagome?"
"Oh," I shrugged. 'That was just Ayame. I guess we know now why she's sticking around. She wants to kill Kouga Prince."
Mother Kaede shook her head. "This is terrible. It really is. I've never seen such... such violence from a spirit. Never, not in all my years as a miko."
"Really?" I looked out the window. The principal's office looked toward the hills where I lived. "Hey," I said. "You can see my house from here!"
"And she was always such a sweet girl too. We never had a disciplinary problem from Ayame, not in all her years here. What could be causing her to feel so much hatred for a young man she professed to love?"
I glanced at her over my shoulder. "Are you kidding me?"
"Yes, well, I know they broke up, but such extreme emotions- this killing rage she's in. surely that's quite unusual-"
I shook my head. "Excuse me, I know you took a vow of celibacy and all, but haven't you ever been in love? Don't you know what its like? That guy hosed her. She thought they were going to get married. I know that was stupid, especially since she's only what, sixteen? Still, he just hosed her. If that's not enough to inspire a killing rage in a girl, I don't know what it."
She studied me thoughtfully. "You're speaking from experience."
"Who me? Not quite. I mean, I've had crushes on guys, and stuff, but I can't say any of them have ever returned the favor." Much to my chagrin. "Still, I can imagine how Ayame must have felt when he broke up with her."
"Like killing herself, I suppose." Mother Kaede said.
"Exactly. But killing herself didn't turn out to be enough. She won't be satisfied until she takes him down with her."
"This is dreadful," mother Kaede said. "Really, really dreadful. I've talked with her until I was blue in the face, and she wont listen. And now, the first day back, this happens. I'm going to have to advise that young man to stay home until we can get this resolved."
I laughed. "How are you going to do that? Tell him his dead- partially demon- girlfriend's trying to kill him? Oh, yeah, that'll go over well."
"Not at all." Mother Kaede opened a drawer, and started rifling through it. "With a little ingenuity, I can see that Mr. Prince is out for a solid week or two."
"Oh, no way!" I felt myself go pale. "You're going to poison him? I thought you were a priestess! Isn't there a rule against that sort of thing?"
"Poison? No, no, Kagome. I was thinking of giving him head lice. The nurse checks for them once a semester. I'll just see that young Mr. Prince comes down with a bad case of them-"
"Oh my god!" I shrieked. "That's disgusting! You can't put lice in that guy's hair!"
Mother Kaede looked up from her drawer. "Why ever not? It will serve our purposes exactly. Keep him out of harm's way long enough for you and I to talk some sense into Miss Ayame and-"
"You can't put lice in that guy's hair." I said again, more vehemently than was, perhaps, necessary. I don't know why I was so against the idea, except that... well, he had such nice hair. I'd gotten a pretty close look at it when we'd been sprawled on the ground together. It was curly, soft-looking hair, the kind of hair I could picture myself running my fingers through. The thought of bugs crawling around in it turned my stomach, how did that kid's rhyme go?
You gazed into my eyes
What could I do but linger?
I ran my hands all through your hair
And a cootie bit my finger
"Aw, jeez," I said, sitting down on top of the desk. "Hold the lice, will you? Let me deal with Ayame. You say you've been talking to her for how long, now? A week?"
"Since the New Year," said Mother Kaede. "Yes. That's when she first showed up here. I can see now she's just been waiting for Kouga."
"Right. Well let me take care of it. Maybe she just needs a little does of girl talk."
"I don't know." Mother Kaede regarded me a little dubiously. "I really feel that you have a bit of a propensity toward... well, toward the physical. The role of a miko is supposed to be a nonviolent one, Kagome. You are supposed to be someone who helps troubled spirits, not hurts them."
"Hello? Were you out there just now? You think I was supposed to stand there and talk that beam into not crushing that guy's skull?"
"Of course not. I'm just saying that if you tried a little compassion- "
"Hey. I have plenty of compassion, Mother. My heart bleeds for this girl, it really does. But this is my school. Got it? Mine. Not hers, not anymore. She made her decision, and now she's got to stick with it. And I'm not letting her take Kouga- or anyone else- down with her."
"Well." Mother Kaede looked skeptical. 'Well, if you're sure..."
"Oh, I'm sure." I hopped off her desk. "Just leave it o me, all right?"
Mother Kaede said, "all right." But she said it kind of faintly, I noticed. I had to get her to write me a hall pass so I could get back to class without getting busted by one of the priestesses. I was waiting for one of them- a pinch-faced novice- to finish scrutinizing this pass before she'd let me go on down the corridor when a side door marked NURSE opened, and out stepped Kouga with a hall pass of his own.
"Hey," I could help blurting out. "What happened? Did she- I mean, did something else happen? Are you hurt?"
He grinned a bit sheepishly. "No. Well, unless you count this wicked splinter I got under my thumbnail. I was trying to brush all those little pieces of wood off my pants, you know, and one of them got under there, and- "He held up his right hand. A large bandage had been wrapped around his thumb. "Yikes," I said.
"I know." He looked mournful. "She used curochrome, too. I hate that stuff."
"Man," I said. "You have had a rotten day."
"Not really," he said, putting his thumb down. "At least not as bad as it would have been if you hadn't been here. If it weren't for you, I'd be dead." He noticed that I'd come through the door marked PRINCIPAL and asked, "did you get in trouble, or something?"
"No." I said. "Mother Kaede just wanted me to fill out some forms. I'm new, you know."
"And as a new student," the novice said severely, "you ought to be made aware that loitering in the halls is not allowed. Both of you had better get to your classes." I apologized and took back my pass. Kouga very chivalrously offered to show me where my next class was, and the novice went away, seemingly satisfied. As soon as she was out of earshot, Kouga said, "you're Kagome right? I've heard about you. You're the one who dissed Ayumi."
"That's me," I said. "And you're Kouga Prince." "Oh, you've heard of me?"
He said "oh," in such a said voice I almost felt sorry for him. "I guess people must be talking about me huh?"
"A little." I took the plunge. "I'm sorry about what happened with your girlfriend."
"So am I, believe me." If he was mad I'd brought the subject up, you couldn't tell. "I didn't even want to come back here after... you know. I tried to transfer but the public schools didn't want me. Its tough to transfer with only one semester to go. I wouldn't have come back at all except that... well you know. Colleges generally want you to have graduated from high school before they'll let you in."
I laughed. "I've heard that."
"Anyway." Kouga noticed I was holding my coat- I'd been dragging it around all day since I couldn't use my locker, the door having been dented permanently shut when I'd knocked Ayame into it- and said, "want me to carry that for you?"
I was so shocked by this civility that without even thinking I said, 'sure," and passed it over to him. He folded it over one arm, and said, "so, I guess everybody must be blaming me for what happened. To Ayame I mean."
"I don't think so," I said. "If anything, people are blaming Ayame for what happened to Ayame."
"Yeah," Kouga said, "but I mean, I drove her to it, you know? That's the thing. If I just hadn't broken up with her-"
"You have a pretty high opinion of yourself, don't you?"
He looked taken aback. "What?"
"Well, your assumption that she killed herself was because you broke up with her. I don't think that's why she killed herself at all. She killed herself because she was sick. You had nothing to do with making her that way. Your breaking up with her may have acted as a sort of catalyst for her final breakdown, but it could just easily have been some other crisis in her life- her parents getting divorced, her not making the cheerleading squad, her cat dying. Anything. So try not to be so hard on yourself." We were at the door to my classroom- geometry, I think it was. I turned to him and took my coat back. "Well, this is my stop. Thanks for the lift."
He held onto one sleeve of my coat. "Hey," he said looking down at me. It was hard to see his eyes- it was pretty much dark beneath the breezeway, shadowed as it was from the sun. But I remembered from when we'd fallen down together that his eyes were blue. A really nice blue. "Hey, listen," he said. "Let me take you out tonight. To thank you for saving my life and everything."
"Thanks," I said, giving my coat a tug. "But I already have plans." I didn't ass that my plans involved him in a most intimate manner.
"Tomorrow night, then," he said, still not relinquishing my coat.
"Look," I said. "I'm not allowed to go out on school nights."
This was patently untrue. Except for the fact that the police have brought me home a few times, my mother trusted me implicitly. If I wanted to go out with a boy on a school night, she'd have let me. The thing is, the subject had never really come up, no boy ever having offered to take me out, on a school night or any other for that matter.
But now I had a chance to start all over, with a new population of boys who had no idea about my past- well, except for Dumber and Dumberer and I doubted they would tell since neither of them are what you'd call... well, verbal.
Neither of them had evidently gotten to Kouga, anyway, since the next words out of his mouth were, "this weekend, then. What are you doing Saturday night?"
I wasn't sure it was such a good idea to get involved with a guy whose dead –partially demon- girlfriend was trying to kill him. I mean, what if she found out and resented me for it? I was sure Mother Kaede would think it was very cool, me going out with Kouga.
Then again, how often did a totally hot guy like Kouga Prince ask a girl like me out?
"Okay," I said. "Saturday is it. Pick me up at seven?"
He grinned. He had very nice teeth, white and even. "Seven," he said, letting go of my coat. "See you then. If not before."
"See you then." I stood with my hand on the door to geometry class. "Oh, and Kouga?"
He had started down the breezeway, toward his own classroom. "Yeah?"
"Watch your back,"
I think he winked at me, but it was kind of hard to tell in the shade.
A/N:
Kouga sounds kind of like Hojo doesn't he??? Oh well, I have plans for an evil Hojo sometime, so I'll save it for later. For now it's just a real nice Kouga that doesn't kidnap Kagome when he first sees her.... Plus the whole Ayame story...
All right, well, Lataz!