Author's Note: I -told- you I'd get another chapter up later on today! But don't expect another one until tomorrow, I'm busy for the rest of the day today. .

Enjoy!

Chapter 7: The Big Night

Sango was pacing her bedroom, every five seconds or so looking up at the analog clock that hung on her wall. Kagome sighed and shook her head, sitting on Sango's beg, swinging her black-shoed feet back and forth as she waited.

"You're still looking at that accursed clock, aren't you?" she asked.

"It's 4:57," Sango replied. "I swear he's doing this just to torment me."

"Calm down, will you?" Kagome said, rubbing her eyes. "You're making my head hurt. He said he'd be here at 5:00. You've still got three minutes, and you're going to burn a hole in that clock if you glare at it one more time."

Sango sighed and shook her head, fiddling with the necklace she was wearing; a silver chain with a spherical polished sapphire hanging down the middle. She smiled; it had taken her forever to find, but it was worth it. She looked up one more time at the clock.

"I -told- you not to glare at it," Kagome said. Sango whirled around and stared at her, shocked.

"How did you know I-" Sango said, but Kagome's laughter cut her off.

"You can't go ten seconds without looking at it," Kagome said, giggling. "I counted ten seconds and then told you not to glare at it." She beamed. "It worked, didn't it?"

Sango grumbled and turned back to the clock. 4:58. Just two more minutes and then she could pound Miroku for being late.

"Sango, dear, there's a car coming," Sango's mother called from downstairs. Sango grabbed Kagome's hand and practically flew down the stairs, arriving in front of the door and looking out of the eyehole to see Miroku just getting out of his car. From what Sango could tell, he was wearing a suit. She related this information to Kagome.

"He's trying to make a good impression," she commented. "Does the tie have stripes, dots, or is it solid colour?"

"Stripes," Sango answered, still watching Miroku approach. "Black and blue stripes." Kagome nodded, smiling. The doorbell rang and Sango nearly jumped out of her skin, forgetting that Miroku didn't know that she was waiting for him right in front of the door. She opened it hastily, looking at Miroku, a blush creeping into her face as Miroku's eyes looked her over, head to toe.

"You look as beautiful as a goddess from the heavens, my dearest Sango," Miroku commented. The blush grew stronger and Sango grabbed Kagome's hand; whether for her own support or Kagome's, Miroku wasn't sure. As soon as Kagome came into sight, he clapped his hands together. "Ah, and I see that the lovely Sango not only has taste in her own outfits, but in other people's as well," he said. "You look lovely, Kagome."

"Thank you," Kagome replied smoothly, not flustered at all. "And Sango thanks you for your compliments in her direction as well." Sango glared at her.

"Yeah...erm...thanks," she said weakly. "You look...nice...too."

Miroku beamed, holding out his arm. "Shall I take you to the car?" he asked. Sango looked up at him, her eyes only shining with nervousness for a moment before her ego took over and she confidently took a hold of Miroku's arm.

"Why not?" she asked, defiantly. Kagome had to bite back a giggle as she held on to Sango's other arm, following her to the car. It was a beautiful evening, she could tell; she could still feel the warmth of the sun on her face, but there was a nice breeze in the air that was absolutely perfect. Kagome smiled to herself as she imagined what the lake would look like later on in the evening, the moon rising above its perfect glass surface, the sound of frogs and crickets in the air.

BeforeKagome had fully comprehended what was going on,Sango was opening the car door for her and helping her into the back seat before taking her own seat in the front, sitting next to Miroku, who was driving. Kagome put on her seatbelt, smoothed down her outfit more out of reflex than anything, and smiled.

"So, who's here and what do they look like?" she asked. Inuyasha, who was sitting beside her, chuckled a bit.

"Well, the whole gang's here," he answered. "Sango is wearing a lovely blue dress; but I'm sure she already described it to you in astounding detail." Kagome nodded in response. "Well, Miroku's wearing a black suit with a pale blue shirt underneath."

"And a blue and black striped tie?" Kagome supplied. Inuyasha stared at her.

"...yeah," he said. "Sango must have told you that."

"Yeah, she did," Kagome replied happily.

"Anyways," Inuyasha said. "I'm wearing...clothes," he said dumbly, not willing to describe the outfit that his foster mother had bought for him.

"Well, that's good to hear," Kagome said, smiling. "I'd be frightened if you weren't." Sango and Miroku laughed and Inuyasha glared at them.

"The oh-so-handsome Inuyasha is wearing a lovely combination of collared shirt and fancy pants," Miroku said, while he was driving, not needing to look back at his friend because he had teased him so much about his outfit. "The collared shirt is grey, complimenting his silver-white hair wonderfully, with black buttons, which go well with his pants, which are plain but not casual. He has a simple gold chain around his neck that goes well with his eyes, if I do say so myself."

"Why do you pay so much attention to what I look like?" Inuyasha grumbled. "Pervert."

"Hey, I don't swing that way," Miroku answered, flashing a grin at Sango.

They continued their chatter throughout the ten minutes that it took them to drive up to the restaurant, which was called "Guillaume's Gourmet". When they got there, Miroku opened the door for Sango, who blushed and said, "Thanks." Inuyasha did the same for Kagome, but more out of necessity than from actually knowing anything about gentlemanly etiquette. Kagome smiled as Inuyasha took her hand and led her up to the restaurant, forming a mental picture of what the four of them must look like.

"Wow, what a nice-looking place," Sango said, somewhat stunned as she looked around. "Kagome, it has booth seats, but they look really comfortable and the tables are polished mahogany. Everything looks so...classy," she said.

"It even -smells- classy," Kagome muttered. "Let me guess; candles in the walls, traditional chandeliers, and we're the only teenagers in the whole building?"

"That pretty much sums it up," Sango agreed. They stood at a lectern of sorts, waiting for someone to come and seat them.

Someone came up to them after they had been waiting there for five seconds or so. The man was wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie, and looked for all the world like someone out of a movie. "Party of four?" he asked them, his voice kind, with a slight French accent.

"Yes," Miroku answered. "Non-smoking."

"Of course, monsieur," the man answered. "Right this way." He swept out his arm and began to walk towards an empty booth table, one that was right underneath a candle bracket. Quite a romantic spot.

"What would you have to drink?" the man asked once they were all settled in the seat, Sango sitting across from Miroku, with Kagome next to her, across from Inuyasha.

"Do you have green tea?" Miroku asked. The man nodded. "I'll have that, then."

"And for you?" the man asked, looking at Sango. She paused, thinking.

"Green tea for me as well, please," she answered, after a few moments of silence.

The man made a few mental notes before turning to look at Inuyasha. "Root beer," he answered, roughly. He had never been in a fancy restaurant before, and was rather unaccustomed to the rules of etiquette. The server scowled at him faintly before turning to Kagome.

"And for you, madame?" he asked. Kagome grinned.

"Just ice water would be fine, thanks," she said. The server nodded and left, but not before handing them the menus. Kagome poked at hers.

"They really should make these things in Braille," she said. Sango chuckled.

"I guess they're just not used to having blind patrons," she said.

The four of them discussed the meals on the menu, alternately telling Kagome the various things that there were so she could choose as well. After a few minutes the server came back with their drinks and left again, seeing that they were not yet ready to order. A few more minutes after that, he came back again, and this time they were ready. Sango had a plate of penne, a kind of pasta. Miroku had crêpes, a traditional French food similar to pancakes, except more fancy. Inuyasha had a large steak, cooked rare, and Kagome had a salad. The server took mental notes for all of their orders and disappeared once again.

"So, my lovely Sango, how are you enjoying this date so far?" Miroku asked, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin on them. "I must say again, you look stunning."

Sango blushed again. "Well, it's not like there's anything not to like about this place," she said, looking around. "You have good taste."

Miroku beamed. "I knew you'd like it."

They chatted happily for five or ten minutes about all kinds of things until their food came,and thenthe topic of discussion shifted to the quality of the meals, the service, and 'oh, this is so good, would you like a bite?'.

After they had been sitting in peace for a while, Sango's face darkened. "I can't believe that idiot Kikyou."

Miroku sighed. "Must we talk about something so dark on such a lovely evening?" he asked. "Really?"

"Well, there's one important thing that I think should be said before we go back to our happy lives," Inuyasha said. He then described Arik's offer.

"That's exactly what we need!" Kagome said. "Look, I always thought it was a bad idea to take our own revenge on Kikyou; she'd know it was us in a second, and then she'd just do something worse to us, and it would be a most vicious cycle. But if we could help Arik get revenge on Kikyou..."

"Then she wouldn't blame us, but we would have our vengeance," Sango finished, musing. "Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I doubt a buffoon like Arik could think of anything good to do, anyways."

Inuyasha grinned evilly. "You know what? I have the perfect plan. And only Arik could pull it off."

"Do tell, do tell," Miroku said, interested now.

"Well, since Arik is officially the coolest guy in all of Cameron Drake, then everybody would do anything he said, right?" Sango, Miroku and Kagome nodded in agreement. "If Arik got everybody in the school to not listen to her for a full day - that is to say, treating her as if she was one of -us-, I think that she would hardly be able to bear it."

"How would Arik get every single person in the school to do that?" Sango asked. "He may be popular, but even if he could get most people to follow him, Kikyou's posse would never agree."

"Actually, you'd be surprised," Inuyasha said. "Really, all those girls are just dying for the day that Kikyou leaves the school and they can take her place. If Arik managed to convince all of them that this would scare Kikyou out of the school, or make a huge mistake and hence lose all her status..."

There was silence as the four of them thought this over. "But would it work?" Kagome asked. Miroku grinned.

"It's worth a try," he said. "And plus, she'd never be able to suspect us; there's no way that we could get the whole school to listen to us."

The whole group agreed with this plan and smiled with happiness. With that settled, the conversation turned back to school; in particular, their Astronomy unit.

"Are we going to have to come to the school at nighttime?" Sango asked. "I mean, when else are we going to be able to use those telescopes?"

"I kind of like the new unit," Miroku said. "I've always found the stars fascinating." His eyes glazed over as he dropped into some kind of inner fantasy that somehow related to stargazing, no doubt involving grabbing some woman's behind. Sango shook her head, rolling her eyes at her 'date'.

Inuyasha and Sango continued to chat while Miroku daydreamed and Kagome sat, quiet. After a minute or so Sango and Inuyasha both noticed her unusual silence. "Something wrong?" Sango asked, looking at her friend with concern in her eyes. Kagome smiled.

"Nothing," she said. "Just thinking about Kikyou." Sango accepted this answer but Inuyasha thought that there was something else in her voice that didn't quite fit. He, however, shrugged it off; he'd get Kagome to talk about it when they were on their own, apart from Sango and Miroku.

Sango looked at her watch. "Holy crap! It's 5:45 already!" she exclaimed, then realized the connotations of that. "Oh, no...Kagome, don't leave me..." she said, hugging her friend. Miroku seemed to wake up, noticing his surroundings.

"Oh, Sango, do you hate me that much?" he asked, putting heavy layers of sadness into his voice so that he sounded more funny than anything else.

"I don't hate you, I just like Kagome too," Sango replied, looking a little ashamed. "Ah, well. Inuyasha, Kagome, we'll see you by the car at 6:30-ish?"

"Of course," Inuyasha replied, sliding out of the booth seat and taking Kagome's hand when she had gotten out of hers. "Later," he said.

"Have fun!" Kagome said, giggling a bit. She then let Inuyasha lead her out of the restaurant and into the open air. It was getting closer to evening; the sky was getting darker, not quite the clear blue that it had been throughout the day. There were now tints of lavender in its vast expanse.

"So, what do you want to do until they're done?" Kagome asked, smiling.

"I don't know," Inuyasha answered. "Want to go to the lake? It'll probably sound nice and peaceful, if anything."

"That sounds great," Kagome answered, smiling widely as Inuyasha leaded her slowly towards the water. As they approached she could hear the soothing sound of waves breaking against the sand, the water rolling in on top of itself and then receding back into the depths that it had come from. She could hear some birds singing from far-off trees, and the breeze against her face felt really good.

Just like I imagined it, she thought to herself, smiling.

There were wooden benches set up along the grass, looking out over the water and the trees that lined each side of it. Inuyasha led her over to one of these and they both sat down in comfortable silence as Inuyasha enjoyed the view and Kagome enjoyed the sounds.

"It's beautiful," Inuyasha said, feeling unusually cheery. "I wish you could see it."

Kagome smiled. "So do I, but after five years of waiting, I'm ready to just enjoy how it sounds."

"Five years?" Inuyasha asked. "What do you mean?"

Kagome looked at him. "What, you thought I was born like this?"

"Yes," Inuyasha answered. Kagome laughed a bit.

"No, not even close," she corrected. "Five years ago. It was an accident. All the doctors that looked at me said that my sight would come back soon, within two years of it happening. They said that my eyes just needed to heal a few things and then I'd be fine."

"Well, they're obviously liars," Inuyasha retorted. Kagome laughed again.

"It's really not that bad," she said. "When you're not all caught up about the way things look, you can focus on more important things. For example, if I had seen you before I got to know you, I might have been scared out of my mind. But you're not scary at all," she teased, absently poking his ears.

"Not scary at all, eh?" Inuyasha asked. "We'll have to see about that." He poked Kagome in the side, careful not to hurt her with his claws. Apparently her bruises had all healed by now, so that wasn't a problem.

"Hey!" she replied, poking Inuyasha in the side as payback. "No fair, I can't see you."

"How did it happen?" Inuyasha asked, poking her in the shoulder this time. She pushed him and he almost fell off the bench, not expecting that at all.

"Not important," she answered, laughing as Inuyasha pushed her back. She held onto his hand so that she wouldn't fall over.

"Yes it is," Inuyasha said. "Hey!" he exclaimed as Kagome tugged on a strand of his hair. "Okay, that's it," he said, picking Kagome up from her seat on the bench and carrying her over to the lake. Kagome was confused for a moment before she realized that the sound of the waves was getting louder; then she began to twist around in Inuyasha's grip, but to no avail. Inuyasha reached the water and set her down on the sand where the waves hit, keeping her still and waiting for the next one to come.

Kagome heard the wave of water approaching and tried to twist out of Inuyasha's grip, but couldn't move; the icy cold water washed over her ankles. She inwardly thanked the store that she had bought the shoes from for having the place of mind to make the shoes waterproof.

"Ack!" she exclaimed as the water washed away. "Let me go!" she commanded happily, laughing as Inuyasha sang the Jaws theme. She heard the next wave coming. "Oh, come on, this isn't fair," she said, squealing as the freezing cold water washed over her feet again.

"Tell me what happened to make you blind!" Inuyasha said again as that wave receded and the next one closed in. This time Kagome simply raised her feet from the ground, knowing that Inuyasha was strong enough to just hold her up in the air. As she hung in midair the wave rolled under her feet and instead soaked Inuyasha's.

"Hey!" he cried, jumping backwards and letting go of Kagome. She ranaway from him, towards the bench, away from the water. He watched her go, smiling as she slowed down upon approaching the bench and began to feel around for it. "Ms. Clever-I-can-avoid-waves is running away, is she?" he called back, but let her sit back down on the bench and fix her wet shoes. He sat next to her.

"That was fun," he said, grinning widely. Kagome poked him again.

"That water was like ice!" she exclaimed. "You're evil."

"And you like keeping secrets from people," Inuyasha retorted. "That's evil too."

Kagome sighed, looking back at the water. "You really want to know what happened?" she asked, her voice suddenly sad. Inuyasha softened.

"Yeah, but if you don't want to tell me, it's okay," he said, feeling a bit of pity for her, even though he had no idea what bothered her so much.

"Five years ago," she began, "I was going to a public school, that was actually a lot like this one. You know, with cool people and outcasts and all that jazz." She took a breath. "I was neither; I was nice to everybody, the popular people, the outcasts, everybody. It made me completely alienated, but I had one friend who stayed with me, and that was good enough for me. I was happy enough; at least I didn't have any enemies, or so I thought.

"One day we had a substitute teacher. Of course, none of the kids were paying attention to her. We were building the telescopes that we would be taking home with us; they had been a gift to the school. You know how, on every page of the instruction manuals, they say 'Do Not Use The Telescope During The Day'?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha said, thinking back to science class. "But they never say why."

"Exactly," Kagome said, looking down. "The popular girls - their leader, her name was Marianne - they wanted to find out. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but one moment I was looking at my finished telescope, feeling proud of my work, and the next there were hands on the back of my head pressing my eyes to the double-eyepiece of the telescope."

Inuyasha winced. "They didn't," he said, shocked. "They couldn't have done that!"

"They did," Kagome said, her voice cracking a bit as the tears rushed to her eyes. "The last thing I saw was the Sun, glaring at me from the other end of the telescope. It took a few days for the sunspots to fade, but when they did, I was surrounded in darkness. And it never went away."

There was a long silence, broken only by some muffled sobs from Kagome. Feeling bad for her, Inuyasha put his arm around her shoulders, trying to offer some comfort. She leaned into him, still crying softly.

"It's okay," he muttered. "I'm sorry."

"No, don't be sorry," Kagome answered. "You had to find out eventually."

"So that's why you don't like popular people?" Inuyasha asked. "That's why you don't care about popularity?"

"I never cared about popularity," Kagome said. "But it's the reason I don't like popular people."

"That's horrible," Inuyasha said, shocked. How could anyone in their right mind do something so utterly stupid? Five years ago Kagome would have been what, eleven, twelve years old? It was old enough to have some degree of common sense. He felt a small twinge of guilt at the knowledge that he had once been a person like that, someone who enjoyed inflicting pain on other people that were "lower-class".

"On a completely different note, your outfit looks really nice," Inuyasha said weakly, trying to make Kagome feel better. She hugged him, which surprised him a lot.

"Thanks," she said,smiling a bit. "I'm sure yours does too." She bit her lip. "I just wish I could see it."

Author's Note: Okay, so that was a sad chapter. Sorry about it, but I'm sure you were all wondering what Kagome's story was? Well, there you go. :D

Thanks for all your suggestions about the revenge they should take on Kikyou! Don't think that I've just pushed them all aside, I'm just keeping them in the back of my mind for later on, maybe . Keep them coming, they're the funniest things I've read in a long time!