Kagome woke up in such a panic that she accidentally rolled over and fell off of her bed. Apparently, nobody was at home as nobody came to see what had happened to the girl – she made a hell of a noise breaking her night lamp. She hit herself pretty hard but that seemed to be her least concern right now. Breathing heavy and wincing in pain from the fall, she managed to climb back up on her bed.
"Oh my God." Kagome squeaked and held her right hand over her mouth. "What have I done?!" she asked herself over and over again, her eyes wide and her voice quiet and shaky. "I kissed Kai!" she almost cried.
While she sat on her bed, her mind raced through her memories of the passed few days. As she thought about Kai, she just couldn't understand what she had found so attracting about him. He sure was handsome but he definitely wasn't her type. He wasn't Inuyasha for God's sake! Everything about him seemed so distant and unreal to her, like the girl from the last few days wasn't her. And what the hell had made her kiss him in the first place?
Suddenly all the feelings she had for Inuyasha and the realization that what she had done was actually sort of betrayal to him, came crashing down on her. She burst out in tears, her whole body shaking from her sobbing and holding her hands on her face. Now she felt ashamed of herself, she felt like the biggest idiot in the whole world. In her point of view, that was really messed up right now, she had cheated on Inuyasha and practically played with Kai's feelings.
"Wh-What a-a mess..." she hiccupped, while whipping her tears away but with no success as more came. After almost an hour of crying her whole face and hands were wet, her eyes were puffy and red and she felt dizzy and lightheaded. "It serves me right." she hiccupped again and stood up to go to the bathroom.
After taking a warm and refreshing bath, Kagome decided to go to Feudal Japan to see how her friends were doing. She felt terribly guilty for not visiting Inuyasha for four days and practically forgetting about him. So, to visit him was the least she could do. She also wanted to talk with Kaede and Miroku about her strange behavior. Now, when she was calmer, she knew perfectly well that something had been wrong with her.
'Was it because of Kai?' she thought, while putting on her school uniform. 'But if that's the case, then why did I snap out of this now?' she asked herself and went downstairs. 'Was it because of the kiss?' thinking about that she immediately felt angry at herself.
As she was putting on her shoes, ready to go out, the door opened and her whole family entered. Hr grandfather and brother seemed busy arguing about an ineffective sealing scroll and passed by her not noticing that she was going out. Only her mother saw her thoughtful and concerned expression and decided that there was something wrong, that she hoped she could help with.
"Kagome, is everything alright?" Mrs. Higurashi asked, walking closer to her daughter.
"Yes, mama." the girl assured her mother and headed toward the door.
"And where do you think you are going, my dear?" the woman asked and Kagome turned to look at her confused.
"To see Inuyasha." she said and frowned. "I told you that he was sick, didn't I?"
"Yes, but you have also told me that many demons walk in the forest on the other side." Mrs. Higurashi explained calmly and with a warm smile.
"But they come out only when it's dark." Kagome tried to reason with her mother to let her go.
"There are so many windows in the house, my dear." the woman said and walked away, toward the kitchen, but not before saying over her shoulder "Look outside."
Kagome immediately ran outside and with disappointment and despair saw that the sun was setting and it would be already dark on the other side when she would get there. She frowned realizing that she had actually slept the whole day. Now this was the last prove that something had really been wrong with her. Deciding that the first thing in the next morning she would do is to go to the past, she walked back inside the house. She also had to think of a way to apologize to Kai and find a suitable explanation for her behavior.
'One thing's for sure.' she thought. 'I won't tell Inuyasha that I kissed him and Kai. Knowing him, he would probably freak out.'
On the other side of the well the night had been worse than Hell for the people in Kaede's hut. No sooner after Miroku and Sango had moved Inuyasha to lie next to the fire, he had woken up. Considering his behavior he had felt really terribly – his whole body had been stiff and he couldn't have made a single motion without groaning in pain. At first, trying to save his pride, he had managed to stay quiet but with the passing hours the pain of his accidental movements seemed to become stronger.
It was close to sunrise and the hanyou had finally quieted down. His friends were finally able to rest, but just for a little while. They knew that he would be feeling better soon, by noon as Miroku had predicted earlier, and would want explanations and most likely he will want to go to Kagome's time to bring her back. But for now he was peacefully sleeping, exhausted from his all night's useless struggles to move himself.
"I've been thinking about something, Sango." Miroku turned to her, as only he and the demon exterminator had woken up after a few hours of sleep.
"What is it?" the young woman asked and yawned.
"There's another possible reason for Inuyasha to wake up so soon." he said and looked at the hanyou. Sango looked at him expectantly and he continued. "The demon could have exited his body before it was killed."
"No, Houshi-sama, that's not possible." Sango said and waved one hand dismissively. "I mean, nobody of us is possessed..." then she realized that one person from their group wasn't there.
"We can't say the same thing for Kagome-sama." Miroku voiced out her concern. "Don't you think it's a little strange that she hasn't come to see Inuyasha?"
"That's true." the demon exterminator said worriedly. "What are we going to do now?"
"We can't go through the well, so we will have to wait for Inuyasha to get better." the monk explained. "And hope that Kagome-sama is alright."
Although he sounded calm and unshaken, Sango knew that he was also worried. After her outburst in the forest, when they were worried about Inuyasha, she had realized just how much he valued his friends. And in situations like this the most important thing was to remain calm. There was nothing good in panicking and losing all sense of clear thought.
As Miroku had assumed, Inuyasha started to wake up around noon. He groaned a few times, while slowly sitting up. The hut was empty and he was alone. With great effort he managed to crawl toward the door, hoping that nobody would see him in that embarrassing position. Fortunately for his extremely shaken dignity, there was nobody outside. He looked around and tried to sniff. Frowning, he realized that his sense of smell was extremely weakened, if not completely gone.
"What the hell..." he mumbled and reached to his hair. Seeing that it was black and that there were no claws on his fingers – just the pathetic human nails, he felt like killing someone. Then he remembered something about an ofuda being thrown at him and his victim became known. "So, that perverted bouzu did something to me..."
"Oh, Inuyasha, you're awake." Miroku's voice startled him and he spun his head in the direction the voice was coming from.
"Why you..." the hanyou tried to growl, although being a human it didn't sound so threatening, and the monk frowned. "What have you done to me?"
Realizing what was making Inuyasha so aggressive and glad that his friend hadn't lost his mind Miroku sighed and walked to him. "Calm down, Inuyasha, and let's get inside. I'll explain you everything." he said calmly and helped the hanyou crawl back in the hut.
When Sango, Shippo and Kirara returned it was late evening. They explained that they had stayed the whole day with Kaede to help her with the villager's sick wife. Miroku had explained everything that happened to Inuyasha, and his friends came back right in time to help him stop the hanyou from going to find Kagome, maybe for a tenth time today.
"Fine." Inuyasha snapped, lying on the floor on his stomach, while Shippo and Kirara were walking on his back – sort of massaging him. "I'll stay here tonight but don't you dare stop me tomorrow."
"Don't worry, we won't." Miroku assured him.
"You are not the only one that's worried about Kagome-chan." Sango added.
"Feh. It doesn't look like tha... Ow!" he yelped as Shippo stepped on a rather painful spot on his waist. "Watch what you're doing, runt!"
"And you watch what you're talking." the small kitsune snapped and Kirara mewed in agreement.
"Keh. Whatever." Inuyasha mumbled and closed his eyes.
The morning came fast for Kagome and she just couldn't wait for the sun to rise up. She wanted to go to see Inuyasha as soon as possible. However, she was going to wait for a little longer as her mother did a pretty good job delaying her leaving by making her have breakfast. As she was going out the phone rang and Mrs. Higurashi called her back inside.
Walking toward her school, Kagome miserably thought that her life couldn't get worse than that. Her math teacher had called and said that she had to go to school if she didn't want to fail on her tests. Hadn't he told her that she didn't have to worry about them? Why was he making her take them now? Maybe because Kai wasn't in that student exchange program anymore?
'Oh, well...' she sighed and entered the school building. 'I hope I won't fail this time too.'
The crazy mathematician, like Kai had once called him, made Kagome stay at school the whole day. Fortunately for her she didn't make any tests, he just took her to the principal to have a talk with her about Kai and if he had been acting properly, whatever that meant. Then she had to go to every one of her other teachers and explain to them what kind of person he was.
This all seemed very stupid to her and she decided to ask the principal. She told her that there was still a way for Kai to stay in Japan, if the other teachers decided that he was not some troublesome boy who had come only for fun. Hearing such an answer, made Kagome want to cry. Right now the last thing that she wanted was to be seeing Kai for another week in school. But then a happy thought crossed her mind.
'I can always pretend to be sick and stay with Inuyasha!' she thought and found herself smiling, but also received an odd look from the principal. 'Well, I'm sure that she already thinks that I'm not alright...'
It was about four o'clock when she finally got home. Although she felt more exhausted than ever before, she wasn't going to waste anymore time and go to the past. She had even decided not to wait for Kai – after all she was sure that he was going to stay in Japan for a little longer and she could talk with him later. Also, more important for her was Inuyasha and she wasn't going to ignore him like that ever again.
As she was climbing up the stairs to the shrine, she saw that someone was standing at the last stair. The sun was shining in her eyes and she couldn't see who that person was. It couldn't be Kai because it was still early and it certainly wasn't somebody from her family. It wasn't Inuyasha either – the man, she was sure of this, wasn't with long hair like that hanyou's. She didn't stop walking and soon the man's face became visible.
"Kai, what are you doing here?" she asked as she recognized him. "It's still early..."
He didn't answer and walked toward her. She was going to continue talking but he grabbed her by the right arm and started dragging her down the stairs again. She struggled to free herself and screamed for him to let her go but he didn't listen. Strangely, the people they passed by when he started dragging her down the street didn't seem to notice them. The complete shock came when crossing the street the cars went through their bodies. It was like they were ghosts.
"What is happening?" Kagome yelled and again tried to pull away from his strong grip. "Let me go!"
TBC