Lunch was almost over by the time I cornered Miroku. I had spent almost the
entire period in the library staring into a computer monitor. I still
hadn't eaten, but the truth was, I wasn't hungry at all.
"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him and crossing my legs so that my black skirt hiked up just the littlest bit. "Did you drive to school this morning?"
Adam pounded on his chest. He'd started choking on a Frito the minute I'd sat down. When he finally got it down, he said, proudly, "I sure did. Now that I got my license, I am a driving machine. You should've come out with us last night, Kagome. We had a blast. Man, with last night's moon, the ocean was so beautiful..."
"Would you mind taking me somewhere after school?"
Miroku stood up fast, scaring two fat seagulls that had been sitting near the bench he was sharing with Sango. "Are you kidding me? Where do you want to go? You name it, Kagome; I'll take you there. China? You want to go to China? No problem. I mean, I'm sixteen, you're sixteen. We can get married there easy. You can bear my children too. My parents'll let us live with them, no problem. You don't mind sharing my room do you? I swear I'll pick up after myself from now on..."
"Miroku," Sango said. "Don't be such a spaz. I highly doubt she wants to marry you."
"I don't think it's a good idea to marry anyone until my divorce from my first husband is finalized," I said, gravely. "What I want to do is go to the hospital and see Kouga."
Miroku's shoulders slumped. "Oh," he said. There was no missing the teasing dejection in his voice. "Is that all?"
I realized I'd said the wrong thing. Still, I couldn't unsay it. Fortunately, Sango helped me out by saying, thoughtfully, "you know, a story about Kouga and Mother Kaede bravely battling back from their wounds wouldn't be a bad idea for the paper. Would you mind if I tagged along, Kagome?"
"Not at all." A lie of course. With Sango along, it might be difficult to accomplish what I wanted without a lot of explaining...
But what choice did I have? None.
. Once I'd secured my ride, I started looking for Dumber. I found him dozing with his back to the monkey bars. I nudged him awake with the toe of my boot. When he squinted up at me through his sunglasses, I told him not to wait for me after school, that I'd found my own ride. He grunted, and went back to sleep.
Then I went and found a pay phone. It's weird when you don't know your own mother's phone number. I mean, I still knew our number back home, but I didn't have the slightest idea what my new phone number was. Good thing I'd written it in my date book. I consulted the H's- for Higurashi- and found my new number, and dialed it. I knew no one was home, but I wanted to cover all my bases. I told the answering machine that I might be late getting back from school since I was going out with a couple of new friends. My mother, I knew, would be delighted when she got back from the station and heard it. She'd always worried, back home, that I was anti- social. She'd always go, "Kagome, you're such a pretty girl. I just don't understand why no boys ever call you. Maybe if you didn't look so... well, tough. How about giving the leather jacket a rest?"
She'd probably have died of joy if she could have been in the parking lot after school and heard Miroku as I approached the car.
"Oh, Sango, here she is." Miroku flung open the passenger door of his car- which turned out to be one of the new Volkswagen Bugs; I guess Miroku's parents weren't hurting for money- and shooed Sango into the backseat. "Come on, Kagome, you sit right up front with me."
I peered through my sunglasses- as usual, the morning fog had burned away, and now at three o'clock the sun beat down hard from a perfectly clear blue sky- at Sango squashed in the back seat. "Um, really," I said. "Sango was here first. I'll sit in the back. I don't mind at all."
"I wont hear of it." Miroku stood by the door, holding it open for me. "You're the new girl. The new girl gets to sit in the front."
"Yeah," Sango said from the depths of the backseat, "until you refuse to sleep with him and bear his child. Then he'll regulate you to the backseat too."
Miroku said, in a Wizard of Oz voice, "ignore that man behind the curtain."
I slid into the front seat, and Miroku politely closed the door for me.
"Are you serious?" I turned around to ask Sango as Miroku made his way around the car to the driver's seat.
Sango blinked at me. "Do you really think anybody WOULD sleep with him?"
I digested that. "I take it," I said, "that's a no then."
"Damned straight," Sango said just as Miroku slid behind the wheel.
"Now," the driver said, flexing his fingers experimentally before switching on the ignition. "I'm thinking this whole thing with the statue and Mother Kaede and Kouga has really stressed us all out. My parents have a hot tub, you know, which is really ideal for stress like the kind we've all been through today, and I suggest that we all go to my place first for a soak..."
"Tell you what," I said. "Let's skip the hot tub this time, and just go straight to the hospital. Maybe, if there's time later..."
"Yes." Miroku looked heavenward. "There is a god."
Sango said, from the backseat, "She said MAYBE, numskull. God, try to control yourself."
Miroku glanced at me as he eased out of his parking space. "Am I coming on too strong?"
"Uh," I said. "Maybe..."
"The thing is, it's been so long since even a remotely interesting girl has shown up around here." Miroku, I saw with some relief, was a very careful driver- not like Dumber, who seemed to think stop signs actually said pause. "I mean, I've been surrounded by Ayumi's and Ayame's for sixteen years. It's such a relief to have a Kagome Higurashi around for a change. You decimated Ayumi this morning when you went, 'hmm, do angels leave bloodstains? I don't think so.'"
Miroku went on in this vein for the rest of the trip to the hospital. I wasn't quite sure how Sango could stomach it. Unless I was mistaken, she felt the same way about him that he evidently felt about me. Only I didn't think his crush on me was very serious- if it had been, he wouldn't have been able to joke about it. Sango's crush on him, however, looked to me like the real thing. Oh, she was able to tease him and even insult him, but I'd looked into the rear view mirror a couple times and caught her looking at the back of his head in a manner that could only be called, besotted.
But just when she was sure he wasn't looking.
When Miroku pulled up in front of the hospital, I thought he had stopped at a country club or private house by mistake. Okay, a really big private house, but hey, you should have seen some of the places in the valley.
But then I saw a discreet little sign that said 'Hospital'. We piled out of the car and wandered through an immaculately kept garden, where the flowerbeds were bursting with blossoms.
At the information desk, I asked for Kouga prince's room. I wasn't sure he'd been admitted actually, but I knew from experience- unfortunately firsthand- that any accident in which a head wound might have occurred generally required an overnight stay for observation- and I was right. Kouga was there, and so was Mother Kaede, conveniently situated right across the hall from one another.
We weren't the only people visiting these particular patients—not by a long shot. Kouga's room was packed. There wasn't, apparently, any limit on just how many people could crowd into a patient's room, and Kouga's looked as if it contained most of the senior class. In the middle of the sunny, cheerful room- where on every flat surface rested vases filled with flowers- lay Kouga in a shoulder cast, his right arm hanging from a pulley over his bed. He looked a lot better the he had that morning, mostly, I suppose, because he was pumped full of painkillers. When he saw me in the doorway, this big goofy smile broke out over his face, and he went, "Kagome!"
Only he pronounced it "Kah-ah-go-o-me-e," so it sounded like it had more than three syllables.
"Uh, hi, Kouga," I said, suddenly shy. Everybody in the room had turned around to see whom Kouga was talking to. Most of them were girls. They all did that thing a lot of girls do- they looked me over from the top of my head- I hadn't showered that morning because I'd been running so late, so I was not exactly having a good hair day- to the soles of my feet.
Then they smirked.
Not so Kouga would have noticed. But they did.
And even though I could not have cared less what a bunch of girls I had never met before, and would probably never meet again, thought of me, I blushed.
"Everybody," Kouga said. He sounded drunk, but pleasantly so. "This is Kagome. Kagome, this is everybody."
"Uh," I said. "Hi."
One of the girls, who was sitting on the end of Kouga's bed in a very white, wrinkle-free linen dress, went, "oh, you're that girl who saved his life yesterday."
"Yeah," I said. "That's me." There was no way- no way- I was going to ask Kouga what I needed to ask him with all these people in the room. Sango had steered Miroku off into Mother Kaede's room in order to give me some time alone with Kouga, but it looked as if she'd done so in vain. There was no way I was going to get a minute with this guy alone. Not unless...
Well, not unless I asked for it.
"Hey," I said. "I need to talk to Kouga for a second. Do you guys mind?"
The girl on the end of the bed looked taken aback. "So talk to him. We're not stopping you."
I looked her right in the eye and said, in my firmest miko voice, "I need to talk to him alone."
Somebody whistled low and long. Nobody else moved. At least until Kouga went, "hey, you guys. You heard her. Get out."
Thank God for morphine, that's all I have to say.
Grudgingly, the senior class filed out, everybody casting me dirty looks but Kouga, who lifted a hand connected to what looked like an IV and went, "hey, Kagome. C'mere and look at this."
I approached the bed. Now that we were the only people in it, I was able to see that Kouga had a very large room. It was also very cheerful, painted yellow, with a window that looked out over the garden outside.
"See what I got?" Kouga showed me a palm-sized instrument with a button on top of it. "My own pain killer pump. Anytime I feel pain, I just hit this button, and it release codeine. Right into my blood stream. Cool, huh?"
The guy was gone. That was obvious. Suddenly, I didn't think my mission was going to be so hard, after all.
"That's great, Kouga," I said. "I was real sorry to hear about your accident."
"Yeah." He giggled fatuously. "Too bad you weren't there. You might've been able to save me like you did yesterday."
"Yes," I said, clearing my throat uncomfortably. "You certainly do seem accident-prone these days."
"Yeah." His eyelids drifted closed, and for one panicky minute, I thought he'd gone to sleep. The he opened his eyes and looked at me kind of sadly. "Kagome, I don't think I'm going to make it."
I stared at him. God, what a baby! "Of course you're going to make it. You've got a busted collarbone, is all. You'll be better in no time."
He giggled. "No, no. I mean, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it to our date on Saturday night."
"Oh," I said, blinking. "Oh, no, of course not. I didn't think so. Listen Kouga; I need to ask you a favor. You're going to think this is weird..." actually, doped up as he was, I doubted he'd think it weird at all. "... But I was wondering whether, back when you and Ayame were going out, did she ever, um, give you anything?"
He blinked at me groggily. "Give me anything? You mean like a present?'
"Yes."
"Well, yeah. She got me a cashmere sweater vest for Christmas."
I nodded. A cashmere sweater vest wasn't going to do me any good. "Okay. Anything else? Maybe... a picture of herself?"
"Oh," he said. "Sure, sure. She gave me her school picture."
"She did?" I tried not to look too excited. "Any chance you've got it on you? In your wallet, maybe? It was a gamble, I knew, but most people only clean out their wallets once a year or so....
He screwed up his face. I guess thinking must have been painful for him since I saw him give himself a couple of pumps of painkiller. Then his face relaxed. "Sure," he said. "I still got her picture. My wallet's in that drawer there."
I opened the drawer to the table beside his bed. His wallet was indeed there, a slim black leather deal. I lifted it up and opened it. Ayame's photo was jammed between a gold Japanese Express card and a ski lift ticket. It showed her looking extremely glam, with her long blonde hair flowing over one shoulder, staring coquettishly into the camera. In my school pictures, I always looked like somebody just yelled "fire!" I couldn't believe this guy, who'd been dating a girl who looked like that, would bother asking a girl like me out.
"Can I borrow this picture?' I asked. "I just need it for a little while. I'll give it right back."
This was a lie, but I didn't figure he'd give it to me otherwise.
Sure, sure," he said, waving a hand.
"Thanks." I slipped the photo into my backpack just as a tall woman in her forties came striding in wearing a lot of gold jewelry and carrying a box of pastries.
"Kouga, darling," she said. "Where did all your little friends go? I went all the way to the patisserie to get some snacks."
"Oh, they'll be back in a minute mom," Kouga said, sleepily. "This is Kagome. She saved my life yesterday."
Mrs. Prince held out a smooth, tanned right hand. "Lovely to meet you, Kagome," she said giving my fingers the slightest of squeezes. "Can you believe what happened to poor little Kouga? His father's furious. As if things hadn't been going badly enough, what with that wretched girl- well, you know. And now this. I swear, it's like that academy is cursed, or something."
I said, "yes. Well nice to meet you. I'd better be going."
Nobody protested against my departure- Mrs. Prince because she couldn't have cared less, and Kouga because he'd fallen asleep.
I found Miroku and Sango standing outside a room across the hall. We all walked into Mother Kaede's room.
To say that she looked surprised to see me would have been an understatement. Her mouth dropped open. She seemed perfectly incapable of saying anything.
I sauntered over to Mother Kaede's side. I wasn't exactly excited to see her. I mean, I knew she probably wasn't too happy with me. I was the one whom Ayame had thrown Buddha's head at, and I figured she probably knew it, and probably wasn't feeling too warmly toward me.
That's what I figured, anyway. But of course, I figured wrong. I'm pretty good at figuring out what dead demons are thinking, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of the living yet.
"Kagome," Mother Kaede said in her gently voice. "What are you doing here? Is everything all right? I've been very concerned about you..."
I guess I should have expected it. Mother Kaede wasn't sore at me at all. Just worried, that was ll. But SHE was the one who needed worrying over. Aside from the nasty gash above one eye, her color was off. She looked gray, and much older that she actually was. Only her eyes, blue as the sky outside, looked like thy always did, bright and filled with intelligent good humor.
Still, it made me mad all over again, seeing her like that. Ayame didn't know it, but she was in for it, and how.
"Me?" I stared at her. "What are you worried about ME for? I'm not the one who got clobbered this morning."
Mother Kaede smiled ruefully. "No, but I believe you do have a little explaining to do. Why did you tell me what you had in mind? If I had known you planned on showing up at school, alone, in the middle of the night, I never would have allowed you."
"Exactly why I didn't tell you, "I said. "Look, Mother, I'm sorry about the statue and Mr. Walden's door and all that. But I had to try talking to her myself, don't you see? Woman to woman. I didn't know she was going to go postal on me."
"What did you expect? Kagome, you saw what she tried to do to that young man yesterday..."
"Yeah, but I could understand that. I mean, she loved him. She's really mad at him. I didn't think she'd try to go after me. I mean, I had nothing to do with it. I just tried to let her know her options..."
"Which is what I'd been doing ever since she first showed up at the school."
"Right. But Ayame does not like any of the options we've put before her. I'm telling you, the girl's gone loco. She's quiet now because she thinks she's killed Kouga, and she's probably all tuckered out, but in a little while she's going t perk up again and God only knows what she'll do next now that she knows what she's capable of."
Mother Kaede looked at me curiously, her concern over me forgotten. "What do you mean 'now that she knows what she's capable of'?"
"Well, last night was just a dress rehearsal. We can expect nigger and better things from Ayame now that she knows what she can do."
Mother Kaede shook her head, confused. "Have you seen her today? How do you know all this?"
I couldn't tell Mother Kaede about Inuyasha. I really couldn't. It wasn't any of her business, for one thing. But I also had an idea it might kind of shock him, knowing there was this guy in my bedroom. I mean, Mother Kaede was a priestess and all.
"Look," I said. "I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I don't see any other way. You've tried to reason with her, and so have I. And look where it's gotten us. You're in the hospital, and I have to look over my shoulder everywhere I go. I think it's time to settle the matter once and for all."
Mother Kaede blinked at me. "What do you mean, Kagome? What are you talking about?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm talking about what we mikos do as a last resort."
She still looked confused. "Last resort? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"I'm talking," I said," about an exorcism."
A.N:
I told you I wouldn't have an update until this weekend, so I stayed true to my word...
Anyways, there's about four more chapters... left.... So....yah.
I'll try and update again, by Sunday, and if not, I'm sorry...
PLEASE REVIEW!!!
"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him and crossing my legs so that my black skirt hiked up just the littlest bit. "Did you drive to school this morning?"
Adam pounded on his chest. He'd started choking on a Frito the minute I'd sat down. When he finally got it down, he said, proudly, "I sure did. Now that I got my license, I am a driving machine. You should've come out with us last night, Kagome. We had a blast. Man, with last night's moon, the ocean was so beautiful..."
"Would you mind taking me somewhere after school?"
Miroku stood up fast, scaring two fat seagulls that had been sitting near the bench he was sharing with Sango. "Are you kidding me? Where do you want to go? You name it, Kagome; I'll take you there. China? You want to go to China? No problem. I mean, I'm sixteen, you're sixteen. We can get married there easy. You can bear my children too. My parents'll let us live with them, no problem. You don't mind sharing my room do you? I swear I'll pick up after myself from now on..."
"Miroku," Sango said. "Don't be such a spaz. I highly doubt she wants to marry you."
"I don't think it's a good idea to marry anyone until my divorce from my first husband is finalized," I said, gravely. "What I want to do is go to the hospital and see Kouga."
Miroku's shoulders slumped. "Oh," he said. There was no missing the teasing dejection in his voice. "Is that all?"
I realized I'd said the wrong thing. Still, I couldn't unsay it. Fortunately, Sango helped me out by saying, thoughtfully, "you know, a story about Kouga and Mother Kaede bravely battling back from their wounds wouldn't be a bad idea for the paper. Would you mind if I tagged along, Kagome?"
"Not at all." A lie of course. With Sango along, it might be difficult to accomplish what I wanted without a lot of explaining...
But what choice did I have? None.
. Once I'd secured my ride, I started looking for Dumber. I found him dozing with his back to the monkey bars. I nudged him awake with the toe of my boot. When he squinted up at me through his sunglasses, I told him not to wait for me after school, that I'd found my own ride. He grunted, and went back to sleep.
Then I went and found a pay phone. It's weird when you don't know your own mother's phone number. I mean, I still knew our number back home, but I didn't have the slightest idea what my new phone number was. Good thing I'd written it in my date book. I consulted the H's- for Higurashi- and found my new number, and dialed it. I knew no one was home, but I wanted to cover all my bases. I told the answering machine that I might be late getting back from school since I was going out with a couple of new friends. My mother, I knew, would be delighted when she got back from the station and heard it. She'd always worried, back home, that I was anti- social. She'd always go, "Kagome, you're such a pretty girl. I just don't understand why no boys ever call you. Maybe if you didn't look so... well, tough. How about giving the leather jacket a rest?"
She'd probably have died of joy if she could have been in the parking lot after school and heard Miroku as I approached the car.
"Oh, Sango, here she is." Miroku flung open the passenger door of his car- which turned out to be one of the new Volkswagen Bugs; I guess Miroku's parents weren't hurting for money- and shooed Sango into the backseat. "Come on, Kagome, you sit right up front with me."
I peered through my sunglasses- as usual, the morning fog had burned away, and now at three o'clock the sun beat down hard from a perfectly clear blue sky- at Sango squashed in the back seat. "Um, really," I said. "Sango was here first. I'll sit in the back. I don't mind at all."
"I wont hear of it." Miroku stood by the door, holding it open for me. "You're the new girl. The new girl gets to sit in the front."
"Yeah," Sango said from the depths of the backseat, "until you refuse to sleep with him and bear his child. Then he'll regulate you to the backseat too."
Miroku said, in a Wizard of Oz voice, "ignore that man behind the curtain."
I slid into the front seat, and Miroku politely closed the door for me.
"Are you serious?" I turned around to ask Sango as Miroku made his way around the car to the driver's seat.
Sango blinked at me. "Do you really think anybody WOULD sleep with him?"
I digested that. "I take it," I said, "that's a no then."
"Damned straight," Sango said just as Miroku slid behind the wheel.
"Now," the driver said, flexing his fingers experimentally before switching on the ignition. "I'm thinking this whole thing with the statue and Mother Kaede and Kouga has really stressed us all out. My parents have a hot tub, you know, which is really ideal for stress like the kind we've all been through today, and I suggest that we all go to my place first for a soak..."
"Tell you what," I said. "Let's skip the hot tub this time, and just go straight to the hospital. Maybe, if there's time later..."
"Yes." Miroku looked heavenward. "There is a god."
Sango said, from the backseat, "She said MAYBE, numskull. God, try to control yourself."
Miroku glanced at me as he eased out of his parking space. "Am I coming on too strong?"
"Uh," I said. "Maybe..."
"The thing is, it's been so long since even a remotely interesting girl has shown up around here." Miroku, I saw with some relief, was a very careful driver- not like Dumber, who seemed to think stop signs actually said pause. "I mean, I've been surrounded by Ayumi's and Ayame's for sixteen years. It's such a relief to have a Kagome Higurashi around for a change. You decimated Ayumi this morning when you went, 'hmm, do angels leave bloodstains? I don't think so.'"
Miroku went on in this vein for the rest of the trip to the hospital. I wasn't quite sure how Sango could stomach it. Unless I was mistaken, she felt the same way about him that he evidently felt about me. Only I didn't think his crush on me was very serious- if it had been, he wouldn't have been able to joke about it. Sango's crush on him, however, looked to me like the real thing. Oh, she was able to tease him and even insult him, but I'd looked into the rear view mirror a couple times and caught her looking at the back of his head in a manner that could only be called, besotted.
But just when she was sure he wasn't looking.
When Miroku pulled up in front of the hospital, I thought he had stopped at a country club or private house by mistake. Okay, a really big private house, but hey, you should have seen some of the places in the valley.
But then I saw a discreet little sign that said 'Hospital'. We piled out of the car and wandered through an immaculately kept garden, where the flowerbeds were bursting with blossoms.
At the information desk, I asked for Kouga prince's room. I wasn't sure he'd been admitted actually, but I knew from experience- unfortunately firsthand- that any accident in which a head wound might have occurred generally required an overnight stay for observation- and I was right. Kouga was there, and so was Mother Kaede, conveniently situated right across the hall from one another.
We weren't the only people visiting these particular patients—not by a long shot. Kouga's room was packed. There wasn't, apparently, any limit on just how many people could crowd into a patient's room, and Kouga's looked as if it contained most of the senior class. In the middle of the sunny, cheerful room- where on every flat surface rested vases filled with flowers- lay Kouga in a shoulder cast, his right arm hanging from a pulley over his bed. He looked a lot better the he had that morning, mostly, I suppose, because he was pumped full of painkillers. When he saw me in the doorway, this big goofy smile broke out over his face, and he went, "Kagome!"
Only he pronounced it "Kah-ah-go-o-me-e," so it sounded like it had more than three syllables.
"Uh, hi, Kouga," I said, suddenly shy. Everybody in the room had turned around to see whom Kouga was talking to. Most of them were girls. They all did that thing a lot of girls do- they looked me over from the top of my head- I hadn't showered that morning because I'd been running so late, so I was not exactly having a good hair day- to the soles of my feet.
Then they smirked.
Not so Kouga would have noticed. But they did.
And even though I could not have cared less what a bunch of girls I had never met before, and would probably never meet again, thought of me, I blushed.
"Everybody," Kouga said. He sounded drunk, but pleasantly so. "This is Kagome. Kagome, this is everybody."
"Uh," I said. "Hi."
One of the girls, who was sitting on the end of Kouga's bed in a very white, wrinkle-free linen dress, went, "oh, you're that girl who saved his life yesterday."
"Yeah," I said. "That's me." There was no way- no way- I was going to ask Kouga what I needed to ask him with all these people in the room. Sango had steered Miroku off into Mother Kaede's room in order to give me some time alone with Kouga, but it looked as if she'd done so in vain. There was no way I was going to get a minute with this guy alone. Not unless...
Well, not unless I asked for it.
"Hey," I said. "I need to talk to Kouga for a second. Do you guys mind?"
The girl on the end of the bed looked taken aback. "So talk to him. We're not stopping you."
I looked her right in the eye and said, in my firmest miko voice, "I need to talk to him alone."
Somebody whistled low and long. Nobody else moved. At least until Kouga went, "hey, you guys. You heard her. Get out."
Thank God for morphine, that's all I have to say.
Grudgingly, the senior class filed out, everybody casting me dirty looks but Kouga, who lifted a hand connected to what looked like an IV and went, "hey, Kagome. C'mere and look at this."
I approached the bed. Now that we were the only people in it, I was able to see that Kouga had a very large room. It was also very cheerful, painted yellow, with a window that looked out over the garden outside.
"See what I got?" Kouga showed me a palm-sized instrument with a button on top of it. "My own pain killer pump. Anytime I feel pain, I just hit this button, and it release codeine. Right into my blood stream. Cool, huh?"
The guy was gone. That was obvious. Suddenly, I didn't think my mission was going to be so hard, after all.
"That's great, Kouga," I said. "I was real sorry to hear about your accident."
"Yeah." He giggled fatuously. "Too bad you weren't there. You might've been able to save me like you did yesterday."
"Yes," I said, clearing my throat uncomfortably. "You certainly do seem accident-prone these days."
"Yeah." His eyelids drifted closed, and for one panicky minute, I thought he'd gone to sleep. The he opened his eyes and looked at me kind of sadly. "Kagome, I don't think I'm going to make it."
I stared at him. God, what a baby! "Of course you're going to make it. You've got a busted collarbone, is all. You'll be better in no time."
He giggled. "No, no. I mean, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it to our date on Saturday night."
"Oh," I said, blinking. "Oh, no, of course not. I didn't think so. Listen Kouga; I need to ask you a favor. You're going to think this is weird..." actually, doped up as he was, I doubted he'd think it weird at all. "... But I was wondering whether, back when you and Ayame were going out, did she ever, um, give you anything?"
He blinked at me groggily. "Give me anything? You mean like a present?'
"Yes."
"Well, yeah. She got me a cashmere sweater vest for Christmas."
I nodded. A cashmere sweater vest wasn't going to do me any good. "Okay. Anything else? Maybe... a picture of herself?"
"Oh," he said. "Sure, sure. She gave me her school picture."
"She did?" I tried not to look too excited. "Any chance you've got it on you? In your wallet, maybe? It was a gamble, I knew, but most people only clean out their wallets once a year or so....
He screwed up his face. I guess thinking must have been painful for him since I saw him give himself a couple of pumps of painkiller. Then his face relaxed. "Sure," he said. "I still got her picture. My wallet's in that drawer there."
I opened the drawer to the table beside his bed. His wallet was indeed there, a slim black leather deal. I lifted it up and opened it. Ayame's photo was jammed between a gold Japanese Express card and a ski lift ticket. It showed her looking extremely glam, with her long blonde hair flowing over one shoulder, staring coquettishly into the camera. In my school pictures, I always looked like somebody just yelled "fire!" I couldn't believe this guy, who'd been dating a girl who looked like that, would bother asking a girl like me out.
"Can I borrow this picture?' I asked. "I just need it for a little while. I'll give it right back."
This was a lie, but I didn't figure he'd give it to me otherwise.
Sure, sure," he said, waving a hand.
"Thanks." I slipped the photo into my backpack just as a tall woman in her forties came striding in wearing a lot of gold jewelry and carrying a box of pastries.
"Kouga, darling," she said. "Where did all your little friends go? I went all the way to the patisserie to get some snacks."
"Oh, they'll be back in a minute mom," Kouga said, sleepily. "This is Kagome. She saved my life yesterday."
Mrs. Prince held out a smooth, tanned right hand. "Lovely to meet you, Kagome," she said giving my fingers the slightest of squeezes. "Can you believe what happened to poor little Kouga? His father's furious. As if things hadn't been going badly enough, what with that wretched girl- well, you know. And now this. I swear, it's like that academy is cursed, or something."
I said, "yes. Well nice to meet you. I'd better be going."
Nobody protested against my departure- Mrs. Prince because she couldn't have cared less, and Kouga because he'd fallen asleep.
I found Miroku and Sango standing outside a room across the hall. We all walked into Mother Kaede's room.
To say that she looked surprised to see me would have been an understatement. Her mouth dropped open. She seemed perfectly incapable of saying anything.
I sauntered over to Mother Kaede's side. I wasn't exactly excited to see her. I mean, I knew she probably wasn't too happy with me. I was the one whom Ayame had thrown Buddha's head at, and I figured she probably knew it, and probably wasn't feeling too warmly toward me.
That's what I figured, anyway. But of course, I figured wrong. I'm pretty good at figuring out what dead demons are thinking, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of the living yet.
"Kagome," Mother Kaede said in her gently voice. "What are you doing here? Is everything all right? I've been very concerned about you..."
I guess I should have expected it. Mother Kaede wasn't sore at me at all. Just worried, that was ll. But SHE was the one who needed worrying over. Aside from the nasty gash above one eye, her color was off. She looked gray, and much older that she actually was. Only her eyes, blue as the sky outside, looked like thy always did, bright and filled with intelligent good humor.
Still, it made me mad all over again, seeing her like that. Ayame didn't know it, but she was in for it, and how.
"Me?" I stared at her. "What are you worried about ME for? I'm not the one who got clobbered this morning."
Mother Kaede smiled ruefully. "No, but I believe you do have a little explaining to do. Why did you tell me what you had in mind? If I had known you planned on showing up at school, alone, in the middle of the night, I never would have allowed you."
"Exactly why I didn't tell you, "I said. "Look, Mother, I'm sorry about the statue and Mr. Walden's door and all that. But I had to try talking to her myself, don't you see? Woman to woman. I didn't know she was going to go postal on me."
"What did you expect? Kagome, you saw what she tried to do to that young man yesterday..."
"Yeah, but I could understand that. I mean, she loved him. She's really mad at him. I didn't think she'd try to go after me. I mean, I had nothing to do with it. I just tried to let her know her options..."
"Which is what I'd been doing ever since she first showed up at the school."
"Right. But Ayame does not like any of the options we've put before her. I'm telling you, the girl's gone loco. She's quiet now because she thinks she's killed Kouga, and she's probably all tuckered out, but in a little while she's going t perk up again and God only knows what she'll do next now that she knows what she's capable of."
Mother Kaede looked at me curiously, her concern over me forgotten. "What do you mean 'now that she knows what she's capable of'?"
"Well, last night was just a dress rehearsal. We can expect nigger and better things from Ayame now that she knows what she can do."
Mother Kaede shook her head, confused. "Have you seen her today? How do you know all this?"
I couldn't tell Mother Kaede about Inuyasha. I really couldn't. It wasn't any of her business, for one thing. But I also had an idea it might kind of shock him, knowing there was this guy in my bedroom. I mean, Mother Kaede was a priestess and all.
"Look," I said. "I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I don't see any other way. You've tried to reason with her, and so have I. And look where it's gotten us. You're in the hospital, and I have to look over my shoulder everywhere I go. I think it's time to settle the matter once and for all."
Mother Kaede blinked at me. "What do you mean, Kagome? What are you talking about?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm talking about what we mikos do as a last resort."
She still looked confused. "Last resort? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"I'm talking," I said," about an exorcism."
A.N:
I told you I wouldn't have an update until this weekend, so I stayed true to my word...
Anyways, there's about four more chapters... left.... So....yah.
I'll try and update again, by Sunday, and if not, I'm sorry...
PLEASE REVIEW!!!