Class Trip Chapter 5: Hitoshii

"So, Inuyasha," Hitoshii began once the bus had pulled away from the school (startling the hanyou until he noticed that no one seemed alarmed), "Are you from Class A, then? I know most of the people in the lower classes, but not everyone in Class A. I'm in Class B."

Inuyasha didn't understand what the hell this kid was talking about, but he wasn't stupid enough to pass up an opportunity to excuse his presence on Kagome's trip.

"Aa. Who's the onna?" he asked, gesturing to the woman who had gathered the mob outside. Hitoshii looked at him quizzically for a moment before the lights went on (so to speak).

"Oh! You were on the bus already, weren't you? That's Miss Nomiso. She's subbing for Mr. Okura. He got sick last night, but they didn't want to cancel our trip. So, we got a sub. Everyone's probably going to be causing a lot of trouble. And those tents aren't going to stay 'single sex' for very long........." he grinned conspiratorially as he trailed off. "Hey!" he exclaimed suddenly, "That just reminded me! You weren't outside, so you didn't hear, but we have to find tent partners. What do you say? Partners? We can defend each other from the crazy girls."

Inuyasha thought about the proposal. He didn't know any guys here (except that Ho-ho baka, but he didn't count as a guy), and Hitoshii didn't seem too annoying. "Yeah." He shrugged, "That sounds okay. But I don't think I need much protection."

Hitoshii looked him over quickly. "You may need more than you think."

"Well, I don't think you'd be able to help much." Inuyasha smirked. 'He's just a human, and he thinks I need protecting!'

"I'll have you know I'm the captain of the Kendo club!" Hitoshii was a bit put out at Inuyasha's slight of his abilities.

"Kendo?" Inuyasha looked puzzled.

"Kendo!" Hitoshii looked shocked. "You know? Sword fighting?"

"You can use a sword?" Inuyasha was beginning to think this trip might not be so bad after all.

"I hope Inuyasha isn't getting into trouble." Kagome fretted, fearing to turn around lest she be confronted with Inuyasha threatening to claw someone to death.

"He's fine, Kagome-chan." Eri said, turning to check on him, then turning back to the girls. "In fact, he may be better off than us!"

"Huh?" Kagome was really thrown by that one. She found herself (in direct disobedience to the part of her brain that was trying to tell her that she didn't care) turning to check on him herself.

Inuyasha seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion/debate (about sword fighting, if she was interpreting the boys' hand signals properly) with Kuno Hitoshii, the captain of the Kendo club.

"Well, that solves the tent problem." Yuka commented from behind them. Kagome and Eri turned back around to face the short-haired girl. Yuka rested her arms on the back of her chair (A/N- she and Ayumi are sitting in the row in front of Kagome and Eri, but Ayumi is asleep).

"What tent problem?" Eri asked, looking slightly confused.

"We have to share tents, remember? Two to a tent. There are four of us."

"But how have we solved it?" Kagome asked, wondering how this all managed to get back to Inuyasha.

"Easy. The boys are going to share a tent, obviously, so you and Eri-chan are going to share a tent." She grinned evilly. "That way it'll be easy for you and the boys to, how shall we say, get some privacy?"

Both the girls blushed to their ears and started babbling random negative statements, including, "But we aren't!" "We wouldn't!" and random other squeaks. Neither had stopped blushing five minutes later.

Yuka, pleased with her work, turned around and sat down.

Once Kagome had recovered somewhat, she decided to change the subject. "Ne, Eri-chan? What's been going on at school lately? I've been out of the loop."

Hitoshii and Inuyasha had surprisingly stopped talking about swords (the debate had gotten to the point where it could only be continued after a duel) and had started talking about one of the other topics they had in common.

"Those girls are crazy. They think I'm 'cute' so they all mob me. Doesn't help that I'm captain of the Kendo club. I get so many 'home-made' cookies in a week......... it's gonna make me fat!" Hitoshii laughed. "But at least I eat pretty well. Every day, at least two girls make me lunch!"

"What's so weird about that? Kagome always makes lunch for us." Inuyasha grinned, thoughts of Kagome's ramen taking over his brain momentarily.

"WHAT!?" Hitoshii gaped at him. "She makes you LUNCH? But how? I mean, she's always sick, and besides, isn't she going out with Hojo?"

Inuyasha stopped grinning. "Keh. That Ho-ho baka? Why would Kagome have anything to do with him? At least he's not as annoying as Kouga though........." He muttered as he trailed off.

Hitoshii was too busy getting over the 'she always makes lunch' shock to comment on the strange name.

"So, is Kagome your girlfriend, then?" Hitoshii questioned, trying to sort out his now hopelessly confused brain, "And if she is, why aren't you sitting next to her? OH! That's why you were glaring at her earlier, wasn't it? Because she sat up there instead of back here?"

Inuyasha thought about how to answer all of that. "Iie. That IS why I was glaring, but she's not my girlfriend."

"So if she's not your girlfriend, why does she make you lunch and why were you mad that she wasn't sitting next to you?"

"She's the only person I really know around here." Inuyasha answered reluctantly.

"Oh. Well, I suppose being in Class A would set you apart a bit. I am wondering though, are you new student here also? No offense, but I think I would have noticed you before."

"Aa. I'm only here for a little while though."

"You must move around a lot, then?"

"Yeah. A LOT." Inuyasha almost grinned at that. 'How true... we do move around a lot, I guess. But we always wind up coming back to the village... but sometimes not for weeks. Maybe that's why Kagome always wants to leave and come here. She gets to stay in one place. But now she's on this trip! Does that girl ever make up her mind!?'

"That must be hard." Hitoshii said sympathetically.

"Huh? What's hard?"

"Well, moving around so much. It must be hard to make friends."

"Yeah, I guess so. Where are we going on this trip, anyway?

"They didn't tell you? Well, we're hiking for a couple of days, then we wind up at this 'mystery location', which we figured out is some archeological site way up in the mountains, then some more hiking, then we're staying at this hot springs village for the last couple of days. Its eight days total, but I'm sure they told you at least that. We're all going to be really tired by the end!"

"Keh. Doesn't sound that bad." Inuyasha was wondering why Kagome wanted to go on some stupid hiking trip when they did that all the time anyway.

FLASHBACK

"I never get to spend any time with my friends!"

END FLASHBACK

'Oh.' Inuyasha glanced forward to where Kagome was sitting with her friends. She was laughing at something one of the girls had said, and smiling so wide it looked almost painful.

"You like her, don't you?" Hitoshii asked, following the hanyou's gaze.

"What? Of course I don't! Why would anyone like HER!?" he "Keh'd" and turned his head to look out the window.

"Right." Hitoshii looked out the window as well. "Hey! We're here!"

"Where else would we be, Hitoshii?" a brown-haired girl in front of them asked, rather sarcastically.

"No, no! I mean we've arrived! No more bus!" As the bus pulled into a small parking lot, the rest of the class cheered. Inuyasha wished for the first time in his life that he didn't have such good hearing.