After forcing him to pull an all nighter watching Friends, Mrs. Higurashi had allowed him to take a nap in Sota's old bed. Inuyasha opened his eyes, the clock on the wall read 2:56 with a little dot in the upper left hand corner. The dot indicated that it was P.M. Inuyasha did not care about this one little bit.
He walked out into the living room, rubbing his eyes. He yawned. Mrs. Higurashi was sitting on the sofa surrounded by phone books. She was holding some scissors in her hand and had cut out around twenty pages. She had them on a stack on the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" He asked her.
She cut out three more pages and set the phone books idly next to her. "I'm just taking some precations."
She put all her pages in a little stack, she handed them to Inuyasha. "Do me a favor, will ya, son?"
"Um... what?"
"Go shread these for me." She pointed to a paper shredder on the other side of the room.
"Um... sure." He walked over to the side of the room that she had indicated. While he was walking, he looked at the stack of papers. Every single one of them contained at least one listing for a nursing home.
Inuyasha tossed them into the air and, using his claws, he shredded them into little pieces of yellow confetti.
"Good enough." She inwardly groaned at how much vacuuming she was going to have to do. "I'm going to drop you off at the library where Kagome works. You find a reason to stay there. I'll pick you up at 7:30 when it closes."
"What am I supposed to do at a library? I can't read all that well..."
"It doesn't matter, read kiddy books if you've got to. Just find a reason, hopefully Kagome will become accustomed to you again."
"Like when that guy stayed at Bloomingdale's buying a whole new wardrobe just to hang out with Rachel?"
"Yes. Exactly like that. You have learned well, grasshopper. Now get in my car."
Inuyasha traveled with Mrs. Higurashi to the library, she let him out and drove away.
He came into the library as stealthily as he possibly could. He got in without being spotted by Kagome. He ducked in between two shelves and sighed with relief.
"I guess I'd better pick out a book so that I don't look suspicious." He told himself. He looked at all of the books. They were all dull and worn, they were thick hard-backs. He picked one out at random. It was full of words that he didn't know.
A young woman walked up next to him carrying a cart of books. She started inserting them into their proper places. She was dressed formally (like Kagome), but only from the neck down. Her hair was curly and flew every which way through her colorful headband. She had many teeny freckles scattered across her face making her seem even more sunny. She wore little necklaces of rainbow beads (obviously made by children) around her neck. She was a very cheerful sort of woman.
She almost didn't notice him. She glanced over at him, smiling brightly. "Hi, there." She said cheerfully, still shelving books.
"Hi..." He said, figeting. He felt rather out of place.
"Are you looking for anything?" She asked him.
"Nothing specific... I want to find a book to read, but... I can't read this."
"Oh?" She gently took the book from him. "This is some rather advanced reading. What kind of books do you normally read?" She asked him.
"I... uh... I dunno... I don't read very much... I'm not good at it."
"Oh I see," she said, not trying to embarrass him. "Then why don't we try the children's section?"
She abandoned the cart and walked away from him. She wanted him to follow her so he did.
She led him to a section of the library where all of the shelves were short and colorful. The books were tiny and looked like fun to read. There were a few little, bright, plastic beanbag chairs. This section of the library seemed much more welcoming to him.
She bent down and picked up a book with a picture of a lady bug on the front. She opened it to a random page and held it up to him. "About how many words on this page can you make out?" She asked him. She was being so motherly to him that he couldn't help but like her.
He smiled at her. Then he quickly looked down at the page. "Um... some of them." He said.
She put it back and selected another one for him. "How about this one?" She asked.
"I can read most of the words." He told her honestly.
"Alright." She sounded very supportive. "Why don't you try it?"
He sat down into a little purple bean bag chair. He was slightly surprised at all of the air that bursted forth from the chair when he did. He stared at the book, kind of wanting her to go away.
"Read it out loud, please." She told him. She leaned over and looked at the book from over his shoulder.
He his cheeks felt hot with a blush. He cleared his throat... three times. Then he started: "Suzy likes to bake .... Suzy likes to bake..."
"Sound it out..."
He could feel that she was smiling at him, but he almost would have felt better if she had been making fun of him. "Suzy likes to bake... c... c-oo cookies... cookies! Suzy likes to bake cookies. She makes cho... chocholaate.. oh chocolate! cookies. She makes peanutbutt..er.. cookies. Suzy likes to bake cookies with her mot.. her.. motter? What's a motter?"
"Nothing, what's a motter with you?" The woman joked, seeing that he wasn't laughing she pretended that the joke didn't happen. "It has a 't-h' it makes a 'thuh' sound." She told him.
"Mo-thuh-er?" he sounded incredulous for a second until it dawned upon him: "Mother." he said proudly.
He looked up at the woman and she smiled at him. She patted his head. "Good job," she told him. I'm going to go back to shelving books, but if you need me just call out "AMMMMMYYYYY!" and I'll come!" She didn't actually shout, she simply whispered it and changed her pitch a bit to simulate shouting. She walked off in her light and happy fashion.
Inuyasha stayed there reading out loud, hoping very much that no-one would hear him. He didn't read every word in the book but he did understand it anyway. The book ended with Suzy selling her cookies at a bake sale and making lots of money.
He closed the book and returned it to the general area that the book had come from. He felt like following Amy. Even he knew better than to shout in a library. Amy was treating him like a little kid, little kids can get away with shouting a name just about anywhere.
He walked through the library. He looked in each little aisle of bookcases individually. He kept an eye out for both Kagome and Amy. He really had no clue why he was following Amy. Something about her was just so sunny and nurturing that one couldn't really help wanting to follow. His reasons weren't sexual. He wasn't in love with Amy, he would never admit to himself that he liked the way that she was treating him.
He found her in the biography section putting a book on the bottom shelf. He stood there waiting for her to look at him.
She finally saw him there. "Hello again." She said very pleasantly. She didn't seem all that surprised.
"Hi," he said, while getting strangely nervous.
She smiled at him. "Do you want to be my friend?" She asked him, overflowing with her lovely attitude.
He nodded. He felt his face turn hot. He had no idea why he was being so bashful. One thing was for sure, he really hoped that she couldn't see him blushing.
"Great! Glad to have you! What's your name?" She stood up on her tiptoes and gleefully messed up his hair.
"I-Inuyasha."
"Inuyasha?" She paused. "Where do I know that name...? Oh I know... you wouldn't happen to be THE Inuyasha?"
"The Inuyasha? Are there others?"
"What I mean is... do you happen to be the Inuyasha that Kagome talks about? Do you know someone named Kagome?" She looked a little worried.
"Kagome talks about me?!"
"Oh dear... oh dear..." she said to herself.
"What does she say?"
"Oh dear me... I don't want to get into the middle of this..." She looked a little pale.
"Did she say what I did to her these past days?"
She looked up at him curiously. "No... I ... didn't know that she'd seen you in years... you seem very different from the way that she described you... oh dear..."
"If she didn't tell you about what happened recently, why are you so afraid of getting involved with me?"
"It's just... I don't want to get Kagome ranting about love... she's... it's just... It can't be healthy for her... or for me."
"She rants?" He was perplexed.
She looked all around herself and then she whispered to him: "Not just that, she treats love like it's some kind of illness. One time I came in here, my boyfriend Ichiro had dropped me off at work. We were smiling and being happy... touching affectionately, just our hands touching, mind you. We weren't being indecent. Then, Kagome saw us. I said, 'this is my new boyfriend Ichiro, isn't he wonderful?' Kagome kind of scowled at me. I got a little nervous, I didn't want to make her upset... you know, with her being my boss and all. So I said goodbye to Ichiro and made my way to my desk. Just then, unexpectedly, Kagome placed her hand on my shoulder in a very loving way and she said this. I'm not kidding, she really said this: 'Don't worry, you're just confused right now. I'm sure that there's still a chance for you to recover your senses. I'll be right here for you the whole time.' She acted like I was sick! I don't want to give her reason to talk about love. She makes you question everything that you've ever believed in!"
"Shit... this is worse than I thought..."
Amy crossed her arms and shook her head disapprovingly. "What did you say?"
"Shit, this is worse than I thought?" He gulped. He had no idea why this woman was making him feel so... insecure.
"We don't say that word around here, it isn't nice."
"Um.. sorry."
Her firm expression melted away to her usual smile. "It's okay, Inuyasha!" She messed up his hair again. "Just don't do it again, k?"
Inuyasha nodded. "Can you help me, Amy?"
"Help you how?" She wondered if he wanted help to stop cursing or help learning how to read or... what?
"I want Kagome to marry me... she isn't even talking to me though."
Amy looked kind of pale now. "I don't... know what I can do for you. You sure picked a tough case."
He sighed, leaning against the half-empty cart of books. "Oh Amy! she didn't used to be such a tough case. What on earth happened to make her this way?"
She looked at her surroundings carefully. "Let's keep moving, we'll talk and shelve at the same time."
"oh...kay.." He said as they slowly edged to the left, pushing the cart. Every few feet she would stop and put another book away.
"Can you put this one on the top shelf for me?" She asked him, holding out a blue, hardback book.
He took it from her. "Okay... where?"
"between that orange book and the green one."
"Okay, I see." he said. Using his superior height, he easily shelved the book.
Looking carefully at her surroundings, she spoke in a whispered tone, still shelving books. "I believe that something must have happened to her while she was still a teenager. One time she brought me her photo album and I was surprised to see that she had no pictures with any boyfriends after about the age of sixteen. There was only one that I saw, it had you and her in it. I think you two were visiting a shrine of some kind."
"Oh yes, I think I remember her mom taking a picture of us once. It was at her home. Kagome lived at a shrine back then. I don't know when she moved out."
"She lived at a shrine... that must have been cool." Amy marveled.
"How come she let you see her photos, but you don't even know that much about her past."
"Photography is my hobby. I asked her to let me see her photo album and she did. Wasn't that nice?"
"I guess..."
"Don't let me forget to get a picture of you before you leave today."
"Um... okay... so, is that all you know?"
"Well, that's most of what I know. I don't know what happened between you two, but... whatever it was, I think it messed her up pretty bad. Most people doubt themselves or blame the other person, or cry or do something like that when a relationship goes sour... not discredit love itself. Maybe it wasn't entirely you. Maybe there's something else that she isn't telling." She looked around again.
"What do you think that could be?"
In her still muted tone she said, "It occurs to me that it's very risky having such a conversation in this place. We'll meet up again at some point and continue this."
"Okay." He said and started walking back to the children's section.
"Wait up..." He looked at her puzzledly. "I want to get a picture of you before I go." She ran off to pull a rather bulky polaroid camera out of her desk.
She ran up to him.
"K, smile!" She said, holding the camera up over her face.
Inuyasha made a weird face which was his attempt at a smile. He made a victory sign.
The camera popped the picture out and Amy shook it.
As the image appeared, Amy held it out for Inuyasha to see. "I positively adore it!" She told him.
I actually look like that? No wonder she keeps turning me down. He was being silly. He didn't really think that he was ugly. He did however think that this was an awful picture. He really hadn't the heart to tell Amy that he thought so.
Any of you would plainly see that he looked like he was trying to blow a wasp off of his nose.
Amy took a pen out of her front pocket and wrote on the back of the photograph. "This is the place where we shall meet." She told him. She placed the photograph in his hand and disappeared into another aisle, pushing the cart.
He walked out into the living room, rubbing his eyes. He yawned. Mrs. Higurashi was sitting on the sofa surrounded by phone books. She was holding some scissors in her hand and had cut out around twenty pages. She had them on a stack on the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" He asked her.
She cut out three more pages and set the phone books idly next to her. "I'm just taking some precations."
She put all her pages in a little stack, she handed them to Inuyasha. "Do me a favor, will ya, son?"
"Um... what?"
"Go shread these for me." She pointed to a paper shredder on the other side of the room.
"Um... sure." He walked over to the side of the room that she had indicated. While he was walking, he looked at the stack of papers. Every single one of them contained at least one listing for a nursing home.
Inuyasha tossed them into the air and, using his claws, he shredded them into little pieces of yellow confetti.
"Good enough." She inwardly groaned at how much vacuuming she was going to have to do. "I'm going to drop you off at the library where Kagome works. You find a reason to stay there. I'll pick you up at 7:30 when it closes."
"What am I supposed to do at a library? I can't read all that well..."
"It doesn't matter, read kiddy books if you've got to. Just find a reason, hopefully Kagome will become accustomed to you again."
"Like when that guy stayed at Bloomingdale's buying a whole new wardrobe just to hang out with Rachel?"
"Yes. Exactly like that. You have learned well, grasshopper. Now get in my car."
Inuyasha traveled with Mrs. Higurashi to the library, she let him out and drove away.
He came into the library as stealthily as he possibly could. He got in without being spotted by Kagome. He ducked in between two shelves and sighed with relief.
"I guess I'd better pick out a book so that I don't look suspicious." He told himself. He looked at all of the books. They were all dull and worn, they were thick hard-backs. He picked one out at random. It was full of words that he didn't know.
A young woman walked up next to him carrying a cart of books. She started inserting them into their proper places. She was dressed formally (like Kagome), but only from the neck down. Her hair was curly and flew every which way through her colorful headband. She had many teeny freckles scattered across her face making her seem even more sunny. She wore little necklaces of rainbow beads (obviously made by children) around her neck. She was a very cheerful sort of woman.
She almost didn't notice him. She glanced over at him, smiling brightly. "Hi, there." She said cheerfully, still shelving books.
"Hi..." He said, figeting. He felt rather out of place.
"Are you looking for anything?" She asked him.
"Nothing specific... I want to find a book to read, but... I can't read this."
"Oh?" She gently took the book from him. "This is some rather advanced reading. What kind of books do you normally read?" She asked him.
"I... uh... I dunno... I don't read very much... I'm not good at it."
"Oh I see," she said, not trying to embarrass him. "Then why don't we try the children's section?"
She abandoned the cart and walked away from him. She wanted him to follow her so he did.
She led him to a section of the library where all of the shelves were short and colorful. The books were tiny and looked like fun to read. There were a few little, bright, plastic beanbag chairs. This section of the library seemed much more welcoming to him.
She bent down and picked up a book with a picture of a lady bug on the front. She opened it to a random page and held it up to him. "About how many words on this page can you make out?" She asked him. She was being so motherly to him that he couldn't help but like her.
He smiled at her. Then he quickly looked down at the page. "Um... some of them." He said.
She put it back and selected another one for him. "How about this one?" She asked.
"I can read most of the words." He told her honestly.
"Alright." She sounded very supportive. "Why don't you try it?"
He sat down into a little purple bean bag chair. He was slightly surprised at all of the air that bursted forth from the chair when he did. He stared at the book, kind of wanting her to go away.
"Read it out loud, please." She told him. She leaned over and looked at the book from over his shoulder.
He his cheeks felt hot with a blush. He cleared his throat... three times. Then he started: "Suzy likes to bake .... Suzy likes to bake..."
"Sound it out..."
He could feel that she was smiling at him, but he almost would have felt better if she had been making fun of him. "Suzy likes to bake... c... c-oo cookies... cookies! Suzy likes to bake cookies. She makes cho... chocholaate.. oh chocolate! cookies. She makes peanutbutt..er.. cookies. Suzy likes to bake cookies with her mot.. her.. motter? What's a motter?"
"Nothing, what's a motter with you?" The woman joked, seeing that he wasn't laughing she pretended that the joke didn't happen. "It has a 't-h' it makes a 'thuh' sound." She told him.
"Mo-thuh-er?" he sounded incredulous for a second until it dawned upon him: "Mother." he said proudly.
He looked up at the woman and she smiled at him. She patted his head. "Good job," she told him. I'm going to go back to shelving books, but if you need me just call out "AMMMMMYYYYY!" and I'll come!" She didn't actually shout, she simply whispered it and changed her pitch a bit to simulate shouting. She walked off in her light and happy fashion.
Inuyasha stayed there reading out loud, hoping very much that no-one would hear him. He didn't read every word in the book but he did understand it anyway. The book ended with Suzy selling her cookies at a bake sale and making lots of money.
He closed the book and returned it to the general area that the book had come from. He felt like following Amy. Even he knew better than to shout in a library. Amy was treating him like a little kid, little kids can get away with shouting a name just about anywhere.
He walked through the library. He looked in each little aisle of bookcases individually. He kept an eye out for both Kagome and Amy. He really had no clue why he was following Amy. Something about her was just so sunny and nurturing that one couldn't really help wanting to follow. His reasons weren't sexual. He wasn't in love with Amy, he would never admit to himself that he liked the way that she was treating him.
He found her in the biography section putting a book on the bottom shelf. He stood there waiting for her to look at him.
She finally saw him there. "Hello again." She said very pleasantly. She didn't seem all that surprised.
"Hi," he said, while getting strangely nervous.
She smiled at him. "Do you want to be my friend?" She asked him, overflowing with her lovely attitude.
He nodded. He felt his face turn hot. He had no idea why he was being so bashful. One thing was for sure, he really hoped that she couldn't see him blushing.
"Great! Glad to have you! What's your name?" She stood up on her tiptoes and gleefully messed up his hair.
"I-Inuyasha."
"Inuyasha?" She paused. "Where do I know that name...? Oh I know... you wouldn't happen to be THE Inuyasha?"
"The Inuyasha? Are there others?"
"What I mean is... do you happen to be the Inuyasha that Kagome talks about? Do you know someone named Kagome?" She looked a little worried.
"Kagome talks about me?!"
"Oh dear... oh dear..." she said to herself.
"What does she say?"
"Oh dear me... I don't want to get into the middle of this..." She looked a little pale.
"Did she say what I did to her these past days?"
She looked up at him curiously. "No... I ... didn't know that she'd seen you in years... you seem very different from the way that she described you... oh dear..."
"If she didn't tell you about what happened recently, why are you so afraid of getting involved with me?"
"It's just... I don't want to get Kagome ranting about love... she's... it's just... It can't be healthy for her... or for me."
"She rants?" He was perplexed.
She looked all around herself and then she whispered to him: "Not just that, she treats love like it's some kind of illness. One time I came in here, my boyfriend Ichiro had dropped me off at work. We were smiling and being happy... touching affectionately, just our hands touching, mind you. We weren't being indecent. Then, Kagome saw us. I said, 'this is my new boyfriend Ichiro, isn't he wonderful?' Kagome kind of scowled at me. I got a little nervous, I didn't want to make her upset... you know, with her being my boss and all. So I said goodbye to Ichiro and made my way to my desk. Just then, unexpectedly, Kagome placed her hand on my shoulder in a very loving way and she said this. I'm not kidding, she really said this: 'Don't worry, you're just confused right now. I'm sure that there's still a chance for you to recover your senses. I'll be right here for you the whole time.' She acted like I was sick! I don't want to give her reason to talk about love. She makes you question everything that you've ever believed in!"
"Shit... this is worse than I thought..."
Amy crossed her arms and shook her head disapprovingly. "What did you say?"
"Shit, this is worse than I thought?" He gulped. He had no idea why this woman was making him feel so... insecure.
"We don't say that word around here, it isn't nice."
"Um.. sorry."
Her firm expression melted away to her usual smile. "It's okay, Inuyasha!" She messed up his hair again. "Just don't do it again, k?"
Inuyasha nodded. "Can you help me, Amy?"
"Help you how?" She wondered if he wanted help to stop cursing or help learning how to read or... what?
"I want Kagome to marry me... she isn't even talking to me though."
Amy looked kind of pale now. "I don't... know what I can do for you. You sure picked a tough case."
He sighed, leaning against the half-empty cart of books. "Oh Amy! she didn't used to be such a tough case. What on earth happened to make her this way?"
She looked at her surroundings carefully. "Let's keep moving, we'll talk and shelve at the same time."
"oh...kay.." He said as they slowly edged to the left, pushing the cart. Every few feet she would stop and put another book away.
"Can you put this one on the top shelf for me?" She asked him, holding out a blue, hardback book.
He took it from her. "Okay... where?"
"between that orange book and the green one."
"Okay, I see." he said. Using his superior height, he easily shelved the book.
Looking carefully at her surroundings, she spoke in a whispered tone, still shelving books. "I believe that something must have happened to her while she was still a teenager. One time she brought me her photo album and I was surprised to see that she had no pictures with any boyfriends after about the age of sixteen. There was only one that I saw, it had you and her in it. I think you two were visiting a shrine of some kind."
"Oh yes, I think I remember her mom taking a picture of us once. It was at her home. Kagome lived at a shrine back then. I don't know when she moved out."
"She lived at a shrine... that must have been cool." Amy marveled.
"How come she let you see her photos, but you don't even know that much about her past."
"Photography is my hobby. I asked her to let me see her photo album and she did. Wasn't that nice?"
"I guess..."
"Don't let me forget to get a picture of you before you leave today."
"Um... okay... so, is that all you know?"
"Well, that's most of what I know. I don't know what happened between you two, but... whatever it was, I think it messed her up pretty bad. Most people doubt themselves or blame the other person, or cry or do something like that when a relationship goes sour... not discredit love itself. Maybe it wasn't entirely you. Maybe there's something else that she isn't telling." She looked around again.
"What do you think that could be?"
In her still muted tone she said, "It occurs to me that it's very risky having such a conversation in this place. We'll meet up again at some point and continue this."
"Okay." He said and started walking back to the children's section.
"Wait up..." He looked at her puzzledly. "I want to get a picture of you before I go." She ran off to pull a rather bulky polaroid camera out of her desk.
She ran up to him.
"K, smile!" She said, holding the camera up over her face.
Inuyasha made a weird face which was his attempt at a smile. He made a victory sign.
The camera popped the picture out and Amy shook it.
As the image appeared, Amy held it out for Inuyasha to see. "I positively adore it!" She told him.
I actually look like that? No wonder she keeps turning me down. He was being silly. He didn't really think that he was ugly. He did however think that this was an awful picture. He really hadn't the heart to tell Amy that he thought so.
Any of you would plainly see that he looked like he was trying to blow a wasp off of his nose.
Amy took a pen out of her front pocket and wrote on the back of the photograph. "This is the place where we shall meet." She told him. She placed the photograph in his hand and disappeared into another aisle, pushing the cart.