Well, you all have earned this chapter. I'm typing up the chapters at a faster rate than you can review to them. Uh-oh. That usually means that I get bored of things quickly... HURRY! REVIEW FASTER WHILE I STILL HAVE INTEREST IN THE STORY! That's hard to type while holding down the shift key. (Yes, I know there's a caps lock button. I just held shift down for some weird reason.)

Summary: Kagome used to be the popular and happy girl in school. Everyone loved her, until summer break. Now, returning to high school, no one regognizes her. Will someone be able to find out why she's vanished? Inuyasha's POV.

Rated M for the following: Cutting, mention of suicide, adult situations (Miroku's fault this had to be put in), and foul language... If these bother you, then suck it up and read, or leave.

Heart of Pain
Chapter Three: Girl in the Halls

Damn. Class is boring as hell today... Funny, this is math. That's the subject that she mastered last year. She had over the 100-percent, since she aced everything and the extra credit. I guess you can say I miss her, but I don't like to put it that way. It makes it sound as if we were friends, and we weren't. I wouldn't mind being her friend, though...

- - -

Finally, freedom. Okay, so lunch isn't freedom, but it sure feels like it. It's an hour of forgetting everything I managed to learn. That's freedom to me!

I walk through the halls, my backpack slung over one shoulder. I probably look like an idiot right now, but I don't mind. Half the school is looking stupid due to the fact that it's time to forget four hours worth of teaching. I look at the book in my hand, shaking my head. Who, in their right mind, would tell students to read this crap at home? They know we won't do it, but they assign it anyway.

Sometimes I wonder if teachers are on a different planet than students. They just visit every school day and spend the holidays at home. I feel sorry for their children, to be honest. If my father was a teacher, then he'd be telling me to do homework all the time. That'd be a pain in the ass...

I guess I should tell you what happened to my mother. Sango and Miroku don't even know that she's dead. I didn't have the heart to tell them last year, when it happened. I'm still recovering from the grief of it. I sound like I'm speaking at a funeral...

Anyway, my mother was a human. My father is a demon. That's why I'm a half-demon. My mother goes shopping for the family's supply of clothes, food, everything. No one minds this, since she's not crazy with dad's money. He's got plenty to spare, but she never threw it away like his wife had done. Sesshoumaru's mom, from what I've heard, was pretty and pricey. She had to have everything.

My mom died last May. She hadn't told anyone of a fever she developed. I noticed that she waited as long as she could to do any shopping, and that wasn't normal for her. She was normally happy to do anything that our family would benefit from. Even Sesshoumaru has to admit that she cared for the entire family like it was her own. Like Sesshoumaru was her son by blood.

Mom had a fever, like I said. She began to come out of the bedroom less and less. One day, my dad asked me to get the things necessary for the family. The things my mom always got for us. When I asked him why mom couldn't do it (I asked rudely), he told me that she wasn't feeling well. So, I did things, and got something for mom.

I got mom a golden necklace with a locket on it. I went into her room and put it around her neck. She looked really weak and pale. I told her I loved her, and that I hoped she'd get better. When she did, I promised her that we'd do something together. As as family.

Two days later, mom died. Turns out that her "fever" wasn't a fever at all. It was some sort of virus that had infected her. Her body would go into long moments of time where she had all the symptoms of being sick, but she was healthy. Turns out, the virus didn't kill her. The lack of medicine did.

She had started throwing up so much, her stomach's rough lining came out. Then, when she ate, it hurt her throat to swallow since she'd been vomitting. She started eating less and less. Taking a bath or shower was soon painful on her skin, since it got really sensitive to everything.

Mom always apologized for getting sick. She felt so bad for not being able to help us three boys. I guess she knew that, without her, we'd slowly give in. Mom ended up dying of starvation. She'd lost a lot of weight and missed two days of eating. That was enough to kill her...

I wipe the pathetic tear from my eye then let out a deep breath. Mom's been gone for a little over a year now and I'm still crying about it. How sad. Well, when hard times come, you have to suck it up and move on. That's what my dad tells me to do, and it's what I've been doing whenever times get rough.

I jerk out of my thoughts violently when something bumps into my shoulder. I stumble forward and my backpack spills open it's contents. I look back, expecting to see Kouga there, grinning. Instead, I see one of those emo kids. She's the one who talked to the teacher when Kagome was supposed to. She looks back at me and then away.

She feels so familiar, and my nose is saying the same thing. I stand up, ignoring my backpack's exposed contents, and offer her a hand.

"Are you okay?" I ask her. She looks down, as if she's ashamed to look at me.

"I'm sorry." She mutters. If I didn't have demon hearing, I wouldn't have known she said anything.

"Don't be sorry... Let me help you up." I offer. She gets up on her own and leaves, her head down the entire way. I watch her go then look at my things. She seemed so scared, but I feel like I know some happy part of her.

Wait a minute. There's no way I can know her. She's one of those emo kids that cuts themselves in the bathroom and pretends she's in emotional pain. I don't hang out with those kids. Therefore, she doesn't know me. I don't know her. End of story.

If only I could convince myself that was true...

Next time on Heart of Pain...
Inuyasha spends his weekend with Sango and miroku, his best friends. Sango mentions something about the girl he claims that he USED to love. Why is she so hesitant on telling him the news?

I need 30 reviews before anyone can get the next chapter...

- Lonely Bird