She stirred her drink with her straw, watching the ice cubes go round and round. She hadn't drunk anything, so the iced tea, which used to be a dark brownish gold colour, had turned a pale brown and the ice cubes were almost gone. In the whole two hours they had been here, Kagome hadn't listened to much that Hojo had said. She had tried to focus, but then her mind would slip to a place and time so far away, and a half demon with long, silver hair and ears like a dog...
"Oh - Huh?" Kagome realized that Hojo had asked her a question.
"Are you okay?" He looked concernedly at her from across the table.
"Yeah. Sorry. I'm a little spaced out right now."
"Kagome, I think there's something you're not telling me."
"Wha- what do you mean? I'm not hiding anything!" She pushed her chair back and stood up.
"You were always running out on me. You can't seem to pay attention. Something's going on. Are you sick again?"
Kagome could have bashed her head against a wall right now, but instead she coolly told Hojo that she wasn't sick, that she just had a lot to think about.
"I'm sorry, Hojo, I promise that it'll be different now. I'm done everything I needed to do, so I can focus on - on life now." She emphasized the 'now', as if trying to remind herself that Inuyasha was back in the feudal era, and this was, well, the now era.
Hojo glanced at his watch, nodding and then leapt to his feet. "I'm sorry, Kagome, but I promised my mother I'd be home by 5:30, and it's twenty after."
He ran out the door, leaving Kagome staring forlornly out the window. Raindrops began to splatter the glass and trailed down, down, down to where they broke on the windowsill. Tears began to roll down Kagome's cheeks as a single name trailed through her head, and thoughts of a time and place beyond the well where she had fallen in love with a half demon named... Inuyasha...
Kagome's mother found her in the well house, trailing her fingers in the water, her hair hanging in wet strings down her back from the rain. Tears rolled down her cheeks, falling into the well, making ripples on the surface.
She looked up as her mother knelt down beside her. Gentle arms slipped around her shoulders and softly rocked her.
"Mom..." Kagome buried her face in her mother's shoulder and sobbed.
"It's okay," it was all Mrs. Higurashi dared to say because she knew that it couldn't be okay, and if it could, she didn't know how to make it thus.
Kagome pulled away from her mother and stood up.
"Yes. It is. And if it is not, I will make it okay," she said it in a strangely calm voice that almost scared her mother.
Kagome smiled a soft, calm smile and stood at the doorway of the well house, staring out into the rain.
"How will you make it alright?" her mother asked her, pushing herself up from the floor.
Kagome only sighed and said, simply, "Everything will go back to the way it was before."
"Before what?"
"Before I met him. Before I fell down that bloody well. I will forget him and move on. I have a life here and now, and that's all that matters." She stepped out into the rain and walked steadily toward the house, holding herself tall and straight. However, her mother sensed that not everything was going to change that easily. Eleven months is a long time to erase...
Kagome finished blow-drying her hair and fell backward into bed, rejoicing at the softness of her mattress. Involuntarily, her mind jumped back to days of sleeping on a mat on the floor of a wooden hut. She shook her head and sat up again. Looking around her room, she saw all the photos she had taken of the group the times she had taken her camera to the feudal era. She got up and began pulling the pictures off her walls. She grabbed an empty box that was lying beside her desk and began stuffing the pictures into it. When her room was bare of reminders of Inuyasha's time, she pushed the box under her bed with a label, 'Not to be opened until necessity indicates is ABSOLUTELY needed'. The walls seemed so bare without the pictures, so Kagome hunted through desk drawers until she came upon an envelope of pictures of her and her school friends, of her and Hojo, of her and her family. She took these and pinned them all over her walls, not stopping until all the pictures were up and covering the spaces where the other photos had been. And that was that.
As she lay in her room that night, she couldn't sleep. All she could think about was the box under her bed that contained all the pictures of everyone. She slipped out of bed and pulled it out. Looking through it one last time, she came across one picture that had always been her favorite. It was of her and Inuyasha. Inuyasha was actually smiling and it seemed to be real. Kagome was behind him, her arms around his neck and had her chin rested on his shoulder. She smiled and slid it into her purse. After all, it's not so bad to keep at least a reminder. The rest of the pictures, she put back in the box.
She crept down the stairs with the box under her arm. It was drizzling out still, so she grabbed her jacket before heading outside. The well house doors were slippery, so it took her awhile to open them.
The water in the well was shiny in the darkness and it beckoned to her. Jump in, just come to me and accept that you can't live like this. She resisted and instead, set the box by the well and walked out again, locking the doors.
I will never go there again. I don't have to. It'll all go back to the way it was before. They're all better off without me anyway. She stood in the yard for a long time, letting the rain drown her depression. A wind began to blow, howling a melancholy tune through the chinks in the well house.
Kagome smiled and began to walk toward the house. Her feet squished in the mud and her hair stuck to her face and shoulders in wet strings. She pulled the door open and stepped inside, dripping on the mat. She pulled off her jacket and shoes and walked up the stairs ponderously.
When she reached her room, she pulled off her wet clothes and wrung out her wet hair. She slipped into a fresh pair of pajamas and lay down on her bed.
It's back to the way it was before, she thought, trying to make the tone happy in her mind, but failing and ending up with a melancholy one. She curled up, encircling her knees with her arms and putting her chin between them. This had been meant to make her feel better, but it didn't seem to have worked. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep, but not before demons and slayers, monks, and hanyou ran through her head.
She awoke feeling refreshed... at ten after eight.
"Damnit! I'm late!" she shrieked, running downstairs, pulling her socks on as she went. "Mom, why didn't you wake me up?"
"Well, considering you were so depressed last night, and were up for most of it, I thought you might need some sleep."
"You know about that, huh."
"I heard you come in and saw you walking up the stairs. I cleaned your other pajamas for you. They had mud on them."
"Thanks, but I have to go now," she grabbed her lunch and raced out the door.
She arrived at school about half way through first period. As she entered, she heard people whispering. Why is she always so late? She's never here. She should just start the year again.
She sighed and walked to her seat, trying not to disrupt the lesson.
"Kagome," the teacher turned around to face her, "I can't tolerate you being late all the time."
"I'm sorry," she stood up and bowed, "It - it won't happen again."
"If I had one yen for every time I heard that..." the teacher turned back to the board and continued teaching.
Kagome opened her books, found she couldn't concentrate, and turned her attention to doodling on her paper. Flowers, leaves, little doggy ears...
I'm sorry it was so short, but I couldn't think of anything else to write, and I thought it was a suitable chapter ending. Please review, and I'll have chapter 5 up in the next few months...