Chapter 4 – Where is Home?

She couldn't say that she didn't find the sight of Inuyasha in a high school gym uniform highly amusing. He glared at her, daring her to laugh as she grinned at him. He wore a cotton t-shirt with the school's mascot on it, shorts, socks and shoes. That was another thing he had fought her tooth and nail on: the footwear. He had ripped up at least three pairs of socks after they had apparently violated his feet in monstrous ways. After the sock-wearing fiasco came the tennis shoes. After he had destroyed his first pair of those, Kagome had sat him until he had dug that hole in the garden for her that she had been meaning to plant a row of hedges in. Luckily they were the marginally cheap drugstore kind and she was able to buy him another pair at a relatively economic price. He still wiggled his feet around, as though his toes were devising some kind of Rube-Goldberg escape out of their prison.

They had the same instructor and sat together. Kagome was usually comfortable in her uniform that showed pretty much all of her legs, but in front of Inuyasha, it was kind of embarrassing. Even he, a feral woodsman, had been mildly scandalized by her short skirt when he first saw her. She couldn't imagine what was going through his head after seeing all these girls with no skirt at all.

"Everyone take three laps and then come back here," the gym teacher announced. Everyone got up and began a slow jog on a track around the gym.

"Kagome," said Inuyasha, hunched slightly, waiting for her to jump on his back.

"No, Inuyasha!" hissed Kagome. "I have to run by myself. It's gym class."

"You're slow. It'll go faster if I just run for both of us. Come on."

"I can't," she said. She began to jog with her classmates. She felt herself easily overtaking many people as she jogged at a comfortable pace. Wow, she thought. Running all over Japan in the Feudal Era has really gotten me into shape. The swelling pride of her athletic ability was quickly punctured by the fact that Inuyasha was already on his second lap and overtaking her; he wasn't even breaking a sweat. They sat down again after their laps were over. The whole class was breathing heavily from the effort, except Inuyasha, whose pulse had maybe gone up a few more beats per second.

It was not fun looking into Inuyasha's face and seeing his gloating smile.

"This is how you future people teach your heirs to be strong?" he asked Kagome. "It's a wonder that you're not all worms writhing on the ground."

"Shut up, baka," she whispered.

"It seems we have a candidate for the track team," said the gym teacher, looking on Inuyasha with a sort of respect. "Today we are going to start our football study. Boys to the right, girls to the left. Form teams of seven…"

Kagome watched Inuyasha stalk off to the right side of the gym, wary of the other males. She knew it was his nature to not trust other males, especially around her. She whispered a quiet prayer that he would behave as she joined a group of six others.

"Kagome, you go in goal," said the girl captain. She was a year older. Kagome looked over at Inuyasha. She knew if balls were going to come flying at her, he would do something rash.

"No, you can."

"But you're so good!" whined the girl. Kagome was a fair goalkeeper, and it was the position she usually played.

"I'd rather play a different position. How about midcenter?" She gave an apologetic smile and took the position. Inuyasha's eyes darted towards her a few times.

The whistle blew and the games began. The two girl teams had a match going on while the boy teams played as well. Kagome played passively, only being an assister and never striking or defending more than she had too. Instead she tried to monitor Inuyasha's behavior from the other side of the room.

He had chosen to play a forward striker. He grabbed the ball with his hands and chucked it at the goal with immense speed.

"You can't touch it with your hands!" a few players shouted.

"Why not?" he argued.

"It's the rule of the game!" the goalkeeper shot back at him, riled at loud noise the football ball had made.

"Stupid rule."

"It's called football, baka!" another player shouted.

"Who are you calling baka?" Inuyasha snarled. He started towards the player threateningly.

"Osuwari," Kagome whispered. She said it so quietly Inuyasha didn't even get face-slammed. He fell to the ground. She quickly ran over to him. He had tucked the rosary under his shirt after the instructor had told him not to wear jewelry (it wasn't as though he could just take it off, after all). It was glowing slightly through the cotton. Kagome put her hand over it so no one noticed. "Inuyasha, are you all right? That was a bad trip."

"Kagome," Inuyasha hissed with anger. "Why-"

"It's not nice to threaten others," Kagome interrupted quickly. "And you can't just pick up the football. You have to use your feet to move it around and kick it into the goal. This isn't like…Australian football. The rules are different." Everyone was watching them. Both games had stopped to watch Inuyasha's outburst. Please don't say anything weird, Kagome pleaded with him silently.

"With my feet?" he asked, nudging it curiously.

"Yes. Pass to the other players. It's fun." She ran back to the girls game. The other students whispered to each other.

"He didn't know the rules, it's okay."

"How is Australian football different than regular? Is it like American football?"

"Probably. Sounds like fun, anyway."

Kagome exhaled with relief. Would it be like this all day?

With her non-active playing style, Kagome avoided danger at all costs. While Kagome was used to playing well and aggressively, she toned it back because she knew Inuyasha was watching. After gym she changed back into her school uniform and walked with Inuyasha to their second class. They had taken all of the same classes, but after a few entrance exams, Inuyasha's surprising aptitude at math shone through; Kagome theorized correctly that Inuyasha had not only learned what permeated into her knowledge, but everything the teacher had exposed her to, because it was all in her subconscious memory. Therefore Inuyasha had learned every lesson perfectly and could not falter in solving equations as Kagome did.

The second class of the day was History. Inuyasha sat across the room from Kagome, but she watched him more raptly than the teacher, hoping no one would notice. As usual, they began their lessons with ancient myths and contrasted them with scientific evidence and anthropology.

The teacher handed on the syllabus with their class books and topics of study. Kagome scanned it and saw all of the usual things that they seemed to study every year. Her eyes widened when she saw a particular unit and flinched as the teacher shortly introduced it.

"And after that era, we will study the Sengoku Jidai, the period of warring feudal states-" the teacher read from his paper.

"Hey, Kagome!" Inuyasha called over to her as the teacher was talking. "That's—argh!"

"Osuwari," Kagome whispered so quietly she didn't even hear the words leave her lips, more like she simply mouthed it. He fell once again, but not hard enough that his face was planted onto the floor. It looked like he had somehow tripped while sitting in his desk.

"Mr. Yasha, please do not speak out of turn," said the teacher. Inuyasha was surprised as Kagome nodded vigorously, but he sat back down in his desk and fidgeted slightly until the end of the hour.

"Why can't I talk?" asked Inuyasha with irritation after class. They continued to walk down the hall together. "It's so boring listening to someone talk for a whole hour. I get sick of just listening to Kaede-baba for five minutes."

"Well, you'll have to put up with it," said Kagome. "There's six more hours of school today."

"Six?" he yelped. "Six hours of—of—of that?"

"You knew what it was when you picked my brain, remember?" she shot back at him.

"I never experienced how completely monotonous it was."

"Inuyasha…did you just say 'monotonous'?" she asked with incredulity.

"Yeah, so, wench?"

"It's just…it's such a big word," she said with surprise.

"Are you making fun of the way I talk?" he growled at her.

"Baka, you learned that word from my language class. It was on a vocabulary test."

"So what if it was…" he mumbled.

They sat through an hour of English class. Inuyasha could read and understand spoken English excellently and translate it without a problem, but he couldn't seem to speak it or write it very well. He was held back to an easier class, much to Kagome's chagrin.

"I thought you were from Australia?" asked one of the teachers with a frown. "They speak English there."

"Er, he's from a…an outback tribe! He's an Aborigine." Kagome sputtered. "They live in the woods. They're Jewish, too. That's why he wears the skullcap. They speak Japanese but read and listen to English radio and books."

"I see," said the English teacher with suspicion. "Wood-dwelling Jewish Aborigines that speak Japanese but read and listen to English."

"Something like that, yeah," said Kagome weakly. Inuyasha just sort of stared, bewildered at whatever she had just said about a-bohr-rid-jin-ees. It sounded like one of Naraku's insidious plots—were Aborigines the spawn of Naraku? He would find out more about these Aborigines later.

They escaped to lunch and found the table where Yuka, Eri and Ayami were sitting with some other girls. They greeted each other fondly.

"Kagome! Inuyasha! Over here!" Eri called, waving them over. Ayami moved over so Kagome and Inuyasha could sit down.

"Hey, how are your classes going, Kagome?" asked Ayami, balancing her many text books.

"Pretty good," said Kagome, looking at her schedule. Inuyasha took out his bag lunch and ate the sandwich Mrs. Higurashi had made for him. Kagome couldn't help but notice his ears and nose twitching uncomfortably, taking in all of the noise of a school cafeteria, plus the smell.

"I hear you're living at the Higurashi's, Inuyasha," said Yuka. Her tone was suggestive, and although Kagome picked up on it and blushed, Inuyasha made no gesture.

"Yeah," he said simply, concentrating on his food.

"Is it common to live with your girlfriend where you're from?" asked Yuka innocently. Inuyasha looked up at her from his lunch, trying to understand the compound of 'girl' and 'friend'. It wasn't a word Kagome had learned in her language class and it wasn't a word he had known before that.

"We usually live with our families," said Inuyasha. He stared straight ahead while eating the carrots. "Or by ourselves."

"Oh," said Yuka, looking away at the clock, then back at Kagome, who was looking suspicious at her friend.

"What's your schedule like, Ayami?" asked Kagome, trying to divert her nosy friend.

"Great!" said Ayami enthusiastically. "I have Advanced Statistics next hour, then Year 4 Korean, and at the end of the day I have Advanced Chemistry."

"Wow, that's a load of classes," said Kagome, her eyes wide. "Where do you find the time?"

"Here and there," said Ayami modestly. "What's your hardest class?"

"Umm…Intermediate English, probably. No wait, Geometry. Definitely geometry." Ayami smiled but didn't say anything. Kagome knew Ayami had taken Geometry two years ago and passed with flying colors.

"Can I get ramen in here?" asked Inuyasha, sniffing around. The girls burst into giggles and Kagome blushed with anger.

"You can't just eat nothing but ramen while you're here!" she argued.

"That's a double negative," said Inuyasha. The girls stopped giggling and looked at him curiously. Kagome frowned.

"What?"

" 'You can't just eat nothing but ramen while you're here'. That's a double negative. It would be correct to say 'You can't just eat only ramen while you're here'. Actually, it would be more correct to say 'We can go get ramen now, if you'd like.'"

"Baka!" Kagome shouted at him with fury as she stood up. The entire lunchroom was quiet as they turned to look at her. "Can't you even hold a civil conversation?" She stood up. Her school had an open-campus policy about lunch—she'd just eat outside today. "Excuse me, Ayami, Eri, Yuka." She kicked her legs over the bench and stalked out of the cafeteria into the hallway.

Did I just completely lose it in there? She wondered. I've always known he was rude. Why does it bother me so much now?

She sat under the tree in the schoolyard and watched the cars go by. Although she jumped slightly, deep down she wasn't surprised to feel the rough, burlap-textured feel of the Firerat Robe against her leg as Inuyasha sat down next to her.

"What the hell is up with you?" he asked peering into her face, as if searching for jyaki emitting out of her orifices.

"I—I guess now that I'm not going to run to the Sengoku Jidai, school is my main focus."

"No, protecting the Shikon Jewel is your main focus," said Inuyasha earnestly. "School is a perk."

"It doesn't matter," said Kagome, taking out the jewel. "The Jewel is perfectly safe here; it was in my body for my whole life until the Lady Centipede removed it. It's just…hard to get back to normal. When I came here, I saw school as sort of a vacation from hunting down shards and Naraku. I delayed traveling to take tests because I knew it couldn't last forever and one day I would come back. Now that day is here. I have the rest of my life to think about. But there's one thing I didn't really count on."

"Nande?" he asked, his ears twitching.

"Well, you. I never thought you'd be here. Now…you're part of my life here. And I'm confused."

"Do I bother you that much?" he asked. He had taken his shoes and socks off and was looking down at his bare feet.

"Not at all, Inuyasha!" Kagome said defensively, clenching her fist. "I like you! I like having you here, I mean." She blushed slightly. "Where is home to you, Inuyasha?"

"Where is home?" he asked.

"Yeah. Where do you call home? Kaede's village in the Sengoku Jidai?"

"No way. The villagers haven't forgotten me as the fearsome hanyou who slew their beloved miko." He said this with a bitter tongue.

"Kikyou," said Kagome quietly, but thinking about Kikyou only brought her pain and discomfort, especially in such close proximity to Inuyasha. "Where, then?"

"I don't have a home," Inuyasha said defiantly after a moment or two. "I don't need one. I stay at inns and under the stars. It's the same thing as Kaede's hut and your house. It's just a place to sleep and eat. Plus, if I had a family, I'd just be tied down. I couldn't fight the way I want to or go around as I please."

"Oh," said Kagome sadly.

"Speaking of which," said Inuyasha, looking to the school with a certain amount of dislike. "Your world has so many rules. 'Stay in line'. 'Raise your hand'. 'No swords in school'. I don't see how you can keep from going insane from remembering and obeying them all."

"There are a lot more in my era than in yours," Kagome agreed. "But you could say that without the rules mine would be ten times as dangerous as yours."

"Huh?" asked Inuyasha. "More dangerous?"

"There's so much hurt in my world, too," said Kagome. "It seems perfectly peaceful, but my own father was killed in a car accident."

"You mean you can be killed by those big metal machines? The ones that look like Ginkotsu?" asked Inuyasha with a small growl. "You're never riding in one again, Kagome."

"What are you talking about, baka?" asked Kagome. "I ride the bus everyday to school!"

"Everyday? When you know you could be killed?" he asked. "You'll ride with me to school from now on. No more deadly bus for you."

"I am not riding on your back to school everyday. Somebody would see us."

"You're not riding that bus anymore."

"I am so. And if you want to protect me, you'll just have to wake up early enough to ride with me."

"Fine, wench," said Inuyasha. "I can protect you from a measly machine."

"Inuyasha, that was the bell. We have Chemistry this hour," said Kagome. He was quick to pull her to her feet and they hurried to the class.

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-The Red Snowsled