The Nobody walked past me today.
I never thought she existed, I thought people were just making up rumors.
But she's real.
She isn't nobody after all.
She's there, real enough to touch...
I always thought it was just a story that was passed on from sophomore to sophomore, 'Stay away from The Nobody. She'll bring you down.', 'Steer clear of The Nobody, she's insane.', 'Ever see the bruises and cuts on The Nobody? She did that to herself...'
All those things that everyone says...they can't be true.
They say she's dead inside.
I won't believe them.
She was beautiful.
I only saw her face once, because she tries so hard to hide it.
Why would she do that?
I want to talk to that girl.
Will she listen?
Or will she ignore it, and flow with the wind, as if she was nobody...

--

"There's The Nobody!" They chant and point as she walks by, laughing at the broken girl.
Why do people have to be so cruel?
She pays no attention, but she hears them.
She always hears them.
And she silently agrees with them.
"There's that maniac! I heard she killed her own mother!"
Someone else yelled, and The Nobody stiffened as she walked by.
She was insane, but she would never go as low as killing her own mother...
"Well, I heard that-"
She tuned them out, and continued to walk on to math class.
The Nobody didn't always like to be disturbed, and right now was one of those moments when she would rather be alone.

-

"Higurashi, Kagome?" The teacher called out, and The Nobody raised her hand.
A name.
That was one thing she could hold dear, something that was hers and only hers.
She had a name.

But she was still a nobody.

The teacher nodded, and called out the next person on her list, "Hakkaku, Miho?"
Miho called 'here'.

How Kagome hated that.
She didn't like the sound of others voices.
Especially, especially if they ever said that word...that vile, disgusting word...

'Here'.

She knew she would never be considered as 'here', or 'there', or anywhere.
She was never anywhere.
She was nobody.
She was nothing.
She was nowhere.
She was unnoticed, and she liked it that way.

How long had she been this way?
She couldn't tell.
This was just how it was.

The only thing that she knew was real, was home...
And that was still nothing in her eyes.
All she wanted out of life was to be alone...
So she was left alone.

But her silence may be disturbed after all...

She would never imagine it.
Who would speak to her?
Not even her mother, or her grandfather, or her brother spoke to her.
The only one who really cared about her, she assumed, were the things that never spoke.
Never ever.
Wind...trees...non-living things...

They were just like her.
They knew she was insane, she spoke to them.
They spoke back.
And she could feel their pain.

She didn't like to sit down.
She was only hurting her friends...placing light, but had pressure on them as she sat upon them...
Why did these humans make her sit?
Couldn't they see she was insane?
Couldn't they see she didn't want to be here?
Couldn't they just let her live...
Couldn't they just let her die!

The teacher looked at her and smiled.
Oh, how she wished she could rip that smile right off of that teacher's face.

Why would she smile?
What's there to smile about?
Her pain and suffering?
Was it that enjoyable!

She didn't get it.
She would never be perfect like the humans around her.
She would never be 'human', to herself, or anyone around her.

No one wanted to talk to her.
And she liked it that way.
No one wanted to consider her as one of their own race.
She liked it that way too.

A pencil fell to the floor.
It's the only thing that preoccupied her mind at the moment.
How could someone be so cruel, what had the pencil done to them?

Nothing.

Just like Kagome.
She was nothing.
She was nobody.
She wasn't noticed.
And she liked it that way.

She could skip a thousand days of school and no one would care.

No one.

--

The Nobody walked by me again today.
I wanted to say hello, but she was gone too fast.

Are people like...her, speed demons?
Can they zoom from place to place?

I don't get it, I never will...

I'll see her tomarrow, I think.
I wonder if she'll walk by me again in the halls, and this time, let me speak to her.
I want to ask her millions of questions.
I want to ask her even more questions then that!

But she's too quick...here and there, too quick for me.

If I become a friend to her, will she change?
Will she become a 'somebody'?

Maybe only time will tell...

--

The Nobody walked up to her house, opened the door, and walked inside.
Although most people would say it 'felt nice to be home', that wasn't exactly the case here.
She had a neutral expression about coming 'home'.
It was the one place she could be alone, yes...
But at home, the silence was deafening...

"Buyou..." She said silently, picking up her fat cat from the ground and carrying him upstairs. "Sit with me."
Buyou replied with a simple meow, and fell asleep on her bed.
Kagome started to cough, that was the first time she had spoken all day.
"Will I ever be 'human'?" She whispered, stroking the cat's fur softly.
He, in his sleep, again replied with a soft 'meow'.

I said hi to The Nobody today when she passed me in the hall again.
She stopped for a moment, as if in shock, but continued to walk on.
Was she afraid?
She's interesting.
More interesting than any other girl at this school.
Was The Nobody always like this?
I want to know...

I want to know everything about her.

--

A boy had said 'hi' to her today.
Why would any human stop to say 'hi' to a nobody like her?
Was he non-human?

Demon...
He must be a demon.

Or was he just trying to scare her?

"If he was, it worked." She silently said, sitting on her windowsil and looking out at the bright harvest moon. "Buyou, someone spoke to me today." She whispered,ad her cat meowed. "Was it my imagination?"

Kagome shook her head and stared harder at the window. "Sick joke..." She trailed off, and squeezed the cat tighter in her arms until it yelped, scratched her, and ran away.
She silently giggled. "He'll have his..."
She stood up and sighed, walking over to her bed, and slowly lying down. "Sick, sick joke..."

--

"Hello?" He tried to call out, but she wouldn't listen.
She wouldn't believe that someone wanted to talk to her, out of all the 400 kids in this school.

She didn't want to believe it, so she continued on her way.

"HELLO?" He said, a little more sterner this time, and she replied by turning around.

She didn't say anything, she never said anything outside of her home.

She didn't even look at his face.

"I'm Inuyasha. The one who said 'hi' to you the other day? Why don't you ever answer me? I mean, I just want to ask you a few things..."

'Inuyasha...' she thought slowly, 'So you're the one with the sick joke...sick...sick joker...'

She turned on her heel and tried to walk away, but he grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.

"Look at me!" He yelled, and she did. "Just talk to me!" She snapped out of his grip and ran in the other direction, fearing him...

--

"He said more than a word to me today." Kagome spoke to Buyou, "Sick, sick jokes...why won't he stop?"

Buyou, once more, replied with his infamous 'meow'. "I don't want him to talk to me. I don't want anyone to talk to me."

She looked out her window at the afternoon sun, and she rubbed her hand over a newly formed, blood oozing cut on her arm.

And then, down on the pavement of her driveway, she saw something that really caught her eye.

He had followed her home.

She stood up with the speed of a bullet, and Buyou fell off of her lap, yelping and hissing, but she didn't care.

She didn't bother to leave the room to tell him to leave.

She just pulled down the blinds and locked her door, ignoring the sound of her front door opening, and her mother greeting this stranger.

"KAGOME!" She heard from downstairs, and replied by hugging her knees to her chest while she rocked back and forth on the floor. "YOU HAVE COMPANY! COME DOWNSTAIRS!"

She knew she couldn't disobey her mother.

So she stood up slowly and walked to the door, mourning any sanity that she had left, and carefully opened it.

She didn't say anything when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Kagome, uhm, Inuyasha, I think he said, is here to see you."

Kagome's breath was short, and she only stared at the ground.

Her mother walked away.

"Hey, so your name's Kagome?" he said, and Kagome still said nothing. "Why don't you just talk to me, already?"

She started to shiver whole-over slightly, not bringing her gaze up from the ground. "Say SOMETHING."

She made a muffled sound, and he raised an eyebrow.

"What?" He asked, and she shook her head, repeating what she had said.

"Why do you talk to me? I'm a nobody. I'm insane."

"You're not insane." He said, but she shook her head harder, looking up at him this time.

"I AM insane! And I AM a nobody! Why do you care so MUCH about talking to me!"

"Because I want to know more about you. I want to hear what you have to say."

"I don't have anything to say. Just leave me alone. Leave me to suffer a terrible, painful death..."

He then noticed the oozing cut on her arm, "I won't leave you alone. Come with me," He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the house, shut the door, and even though with her struggling, got her all the way to the God Tree.

"LET ME GO!" She screamed, and he let go. "WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME!" She dropped to the ground like a little child, and Inuyasha shook his head as she had earlier.

"I want to know more about you. Why won't you let me?"

"I don't exist! I can't let you know anything! I'm not real!"

"Of course you are! So stop acting like this! You aren't insane, you aren't nobody, and you DO exist!"

"I AM insane! I am! So just leave me to die, like everyone else does!"

"No."

"...What?"

"NO. I wanna...help you. Will you just let me know more about you?"

"NO! Leave me to die...sick...sick joker..." She stood up from the ground and ran from the spot.

He could hear her run up the stairs and slam the door, so hard the blinds shook.

So he walked on home.

Maybe he'd have better luck next time.

If there ever was a 'next time'.

--

She lay alone on her bed today.

Not even her cat Buyou lay with her.

She wouldn't go to school today, she refused to.

She couldn't go to see that...demon...

And she couldn't stand to see those humans either.

She would never be considered either one of them, she knew that, and she didn't want to be around them.

She knew she would be forced to go to school tomarrow.

But for today, she would soak in her misery.

5 more oozing bloody cuts to go along with that, this is how she would spend her day.

And she would leave the torture until tomarrow.

--

She heard them laugh as she walked by.

Laughing and snorting and talking...

"There goes The Nobody!" They yelled, continuing after with their giggles of pure evil. "Hey, Nobody, get out of our way!" One shouted, and they pushed her aside, laughing as she fell to the ground.

The group of snooty girls walked by, continuing with their laughter as Kagome tried to gather her books.

She stood up, only to be pushed back down by a group of football players walking by.

"Oops, did we knock you over, Nobody?" One of them asked, and his friends laughed. "Here, let me help you up." He held out is hand, and when she didn't reach for it, got angry, "I'm gonna help you up, you bitch. When I do something for you, be nice about it." He grabbed one of his buddy's waterbottle as they were about to drink it and opened it on top of her, then the football group walked away, laughing as the group of snooty girls had.

She wiped off her face, and went on her knees, trying once more to pick up her now soaked books, when a hand shot down beside her, helping her to pick up the books.

"Hey again." The person said, and Kagome looked over to see that it was Inuyasha again.

She fell back out of fear, and Inuyasha laughed, "What is up with you, Kagome? I just want to talk to you...why don't you ever talk to me?"

She kept the same fearful expression on his face, but lost it as he was pulled to his feet by a girl.

"Inuyasha! What are you DOING talking to her! You're on the football team! AND my boyfriend, I can't have MY boyfriend talking to The Nobody..." The girl said, and Inuyasha looked at her.

"Kikyou, I'm free to do what I want to do. Why don't you just let me talk to this girl?"

"If you talk to her than we're over!"

"That actually might be better for me." Inuyasha said, and shot a look at Kagome.

"Don't tell me you have a crush on this loser!"

Inuyasha looked a little confused, but he looked over at Kagome once more.

She noted that he had a strange look in his eyes, like he was thinking something over...

"I don't know... Maybe I do." he said while smiling, and Kikyou gasped.

"Then goodBYE, Inuyasha!" she stormed away, and Inuyasha looked back at Kagome.

"Here, I'll help you up..." He said, standing up with a few of her books in his arms, and he pulled her up by her hands.

"Why do you like me?" she whispered, and he had a questionable look on his face.

"Huh?"

"I SAID, why do you like me?" She was startled herself, she never spoke outside of her home.

"I don't know. I just do." he replied, and she shook her head.

"You don't like me. I'm Nobody. I'm nothing."

"You're everything. Just talk more to me, please?"

She shook her head once more, took her books from his arms, and ran away. "Why does she ALWAYS do that?" he asked himself, and slapped his hand to his forehead, "Why?"

--

"Buyou, he likes me." Kagome whispered, and her cat yawned. "How could he like me?"

She ran her hands over the tail of the cat, squeezing it tightly as she reached the end of it, and when Buyou yelped and jumped to the ground, she laughed at his pathetic works. "I...can't..."

But she asked herself over and over in her head... 'Can't what?'

--

She walked to school more slowly than ever today.

Making sure to stop and say hello to each and everyone of her tree friends...

They weren't always nice to her, though.

As she stopped to say hello to one, and came from behind and slashed her in the leg, laughing as the wind flowed through it and silent tears ran down her eyes.

But she would forgive him, that tree had never liked her.

Why would today make a difference?

She didn't bother to cover up the wound on her leg or stop the bleeding, she just continued to walk on.

The other trees were nicer to her.

No more pain would be brought upon her on her walk to school.

She reached the school building and walked inside, trying to avoid the snooty girls and jocks, and made it safely to homeroom.

He was there.

The one called Inuyasha.

And he was sitting in the seat right next to hers.

Had he transferred to her homeroom?

Why would he do that?

She slowly, ever so slowly, walked to her seat and sat down, avoiding his eyes.

"Kagome? Are you ready to talk to me now?" He asked, and she started to shiver whole-over, "Say something."

She didn't look at him once.

"Aishii, Aya?"

"Here." said Aya yelled, and Kagome stiffened.

That word again.

Kagome stared at the wall until the teacher finally reached her name, "Higurashi, Kagome?" She only raised her hand, and the teacher went on.

And then, the teacher called his name.

"And our new student, finally, Taisho, Inuyasha?"

"Yeah." He stood up and walked to the front of the room, and the teacher nodded.

"This is Mr. Taisho, class." The teacher said, and he waved. "He's transferred to our class for the rest of the year. Say hello, Mr. Taisho."

He waved again, and said 'hello' like a little child.

Some people laughed, and then he walked back to the seat next to Kagome.

She survived homeroom.

The thing is, he transferred to everyone of her classes, he just wouldn't leave her alone.

He walked with her to every class, which was, in it's own way, an up, for it scared away the jocks and the snooty girls, and most importantly, Kikyou.

He even walked home with her.

She never spoke but a word to him, but instead, took the long way home.

"Talk to me already?" Inuysha asked when they had walked 5 miles and weren't even halfway to her house yet. "Just talk to me!"

"I don't want to talk to you. You...why do you...why do you even care at all about me?"

"Because, I want...to help you. I like you, you're very...interesting. Please, just tell me more about you."

"Why? Why should you care about an insane nobody like me! Why why why! And yes, I am insane! Yes, everything they say about me is true! See this! This was from me!" She yelled, pointing at an old scar on her arm.

"Even that huge slash on your leg?"

Kagome looked at the back of her leg, and shook her head. "That was from...Ed... But why do you even care about me?"

"Because you AREN'T insane. You're perfectly, sane, and have normal insecurities and problems! And- wait, who's Ed?"

"That big white birch tree in front of the school gate, that- Oh nevermind! I AM INSANE! I'm not normal ad never will be! And you shouldn't care at all about me!"

Inuyasha grabbed her by the shoulders and lightly shook her, "STOP that NOW." he said, and looked her straight in the eyes, "You aren't insane. And I care a lot about you."

"Why?"

"I don't know why! Just... Jeez...you..." he stopped talking and continued to look into her chocolate brown eyes, and she found herself being drawn into him...

And then, something strange happened.

He kissed her.

It took her but a few seconds to realize what was going on, and she quickly pulled away from him, "I'm...I'm sorry... I have to go!" She whipped around and ran in another direction, leaving him and his warm golden eyes to himself.

"Damn..."

--

"Buyou!" Kagome called as she ran into her room, jumping onto her bed and crushing the poor cat in her arms, "He kissed me!" She cried, and the cat yelped again. "WHY DOES HE CARE ABOUT AN INSANE NOBODY LIKE ME! Doesn't he know I'm just going to end up killing myself oh too soon?" She said, and looked at the window.

She wasn't aloud to open it.

Not since that day last month when she tried to make her suicidal dreams come true.

Oh, but many a nights she stared out of that window ever so longingly, wishing that she could open that window, and try to fly...

She knew her family wouldn't have it.

They would move her to the basement if they had to.

She truly didn't want that.

The stars were her only true friends.

Yes, she had the trees, and Buyou...

But the stars were the only things she could talk to that would listen wholely and wouldn't speak back, or be able to touch her physically.

Ed was a different story.

She knew Ed never really liked her...but she was always so kind to him...

It confused her as why he woul hate her so.

But on other subjects, why out of the whole, wide, world, that human would choose to like her?

--

"She's more interesting than I thought," Inuyasha said to himself while throwing a hacky-sack up to the ceiling, countless times until it missed his hands and broke the lamp on his bed-side table. "I like her alot. A whole lot."

"Dude, did you forget you weren't alone? Stop talking to yourself, and tell me who 'she' is?" another sophomore, sitting on a beanbag chair in the corner of the golden eyed boy's room.

"Alright, alright, Miroku, just...if I tell you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Tell me and then I'll see."

"Ah...Kagome. Kagome Higurashi."

"Who's 'Kagome Higurashi'?" said Miroku asked, picking the hacky-sack out of the broken pieces of Inuyasha's lamp, starting a passing game with him.

"Kagome Higurashi. Better know as The Nobody of Tokyo High."

Miroku choked on air, then picked a cup of water off of the cabinet, drank the water out of it, and spit it out at Inuyasha for 'dramatic effect'.

"WHAT!"

--

The birds outside the Higurashi shrine flew high into the sky after a certain noise drove them out of their safe trees.
"What was that, Buyou?" Kagome asked slowly, making her grip tighter on the cat as he tried to get away.
"REeoooooooooooooooow..."
Kagome let go of him and he ran out the door, leacing her to stare out of her window once more.
"What was that?"

--

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE NOBODY!"
"I mean, THE...NO...BO...DY. And don't call her that, her name is Kagome." Inuyasha said, holding his ringing ears after his friend's loud outbreak.
"Nice name but, WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE NOBODY! YOU ACTUALLY TALKED TO HER!"
"I kissed her."
"YOU WHAT! You just can't kiss The NOBODY! It's against the teenage rules! You're not even supposed to say ANYTHING at ALL to her! How could you LIKE that chick!"
"If you met her, than maybe you would too."
"NO! I would follow the rules, and leave her to herself! That's just how it goes. We leave her to herself. She lives us to ourselves. Sometimes there's the teasing and pushing and rumors and laughing at her and crap like that, ut otherwise we steer clear of her. Why can't you understand that!"
"You know what, come with me, I'll take you to her house so you can meet her."
"NO WAY, INUYASHA! I'm not one to break the rules..."
"Oh, so you're a goody-goody-follow-the-rules-boy?"
"Yes, I'm proud to say."
"And yet, Mir-Mir," Miroku winced with this childhood nickname, "You seem to find it fine to grope every girl who walks by you."
"I resent that."
"Sure. Now come with me and you can meet her."
"Fine. But NOBODY at school can hear about this!"
"Whatever. We'll see what you say after you meet her.""
"Hey...Will you're cousin be coming with us? You know...Sango?"
"Miroku, I told you to leave her alone. She hatesyour guts."
"PLEASE!"
"Fine. I'll get Sango to come...NOW GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS!"

- KNOCK -
- KNOCK -
- KNOCK -

"Hello?" The woman asked, opening the door to three 'smiling' faces.
"Hey Mrs.Higurashi, we're here to see Kagome?" The boy in the front, Inuyasha said, and Mrs. Higurashi called her daughter down.
"KAGOME! YOU HAVE COMPANY!"
There was a slamming of a door, and hten heavy footsteps walking down the stairs heard, and the image of a girl with her face down so her bangs covered her eyes and holding a sleeping fat cat came into view.

"I'll leave you four to...talk, I guess." Mts. Higurashi said, and she went back into the kitchen.
"Why did you bring them here?" Kagome said under her breath, opening her arms so the fat cat fell to it's now awoken feet.
"What?"
"I SAID, WHY did you BRING them here!"
"I wanted them to meet you...?"
"WHY? WHY don't you just leave me alone? WHY did you bring them here! Can't you see I'm insane, I don't want to meet anyone! I don't want to talk to anyone!"
"Just walk with us, alright?" Inuyasha grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the house, shut the door, and made it to the God Tree. "And you're not insane."
"Well I don't want to meet these two! Or talk to them or anything at all!"
"This is Sango, my couin, and this is Miroku." Inuyasha said while pointing to his friends, ignoring her.
"Well, Sango. You're on the track team... I've seen you running before... You're with that group of vampires who walk by me everyday...laughing, spreading rumors...you're the ones who pushed me to the ground the other day...and you, Miroku, you're on the football team. You're the one who dumped all that water on me the other day. WHY did you bring THEM here! They're humans...I hate humans..."
"Kagome, you are human, too, and, wait, water?"
Miroku backed up with a guilty look on his face, ready to run away incase she attacked, and Sango had her face buried in her hands.
"Why did you bring them here! Don't you know I'm just going to be dead soon! Can't you see that!"
She pulled her hair back away from her face, and Miroku lost all thoughts of running away.
"YES! I'm the one who will be the cause of my death! And I wouldn't have it any other way! I don't talk to anyone and no one talks to me, and I like it that way!"
"STOP THAT ALREADY! You're NOT insane, and you ARE human! We want to help you, we want to be your friends..."

Inuyasha's voice broke the barrier behind her eyes, and the tears freely flowed as she fell to her knees.
By now, Sango was also on the ground crying.
"You don't want to be my friends! That's a LIE!"
"No, it isn't, Kagome! I'm telling you the truth! Just be our friend..."

-5 MINUTES LATER-

"Kagome, put down the phone!"
"Kagome, don't do this!"
"PUT DOWN THE PHONE! Please?"
"Hello, yes, 911? I'd like to call for pest control...I have a stalker on my tail..."
"Hey!" Inuyasha grabbed the phone out of Kagome's hand and talked to the woman on the other line. "Hey, I'm the one she's talking about."
"The stalker?" The woman asked in a nonchalant tone.
"NO! I'm not a stalker, she's just overreacting! No...yes! Yeah, and we have to go now...ok...yeah...I'M NOT A STALKER! GoodBYE already!"
"G-bye, stalker."
"I'M NOT A STALKER! ...Ok, Kagome, just walk with us around town, alright? Then we'll show you we want you to be our friend. Alright? Just let us prove it to you?"
"Fine, but I'm not talking to anyone else..."
"But you're talking to us, so that's a big up! I think you're getting better, Kags."
"Kags?" Kagome asked quietly, and he nodded.
"Yeah. Kags."
Kagome's eyes widened as she stood up, and she hugged herself around the chest.
She had a nickname!
Her OWN nickname!
Were the humans seeing her as one of them now?
'Maybe I'm becoming one of them...' she thought, and then the four left the Higurashi shrine.

'Or maybe I'm more insane than I thought.'

--

"Hit B! B!"
"I'm hitting B, stupid!" Kagome cried at the golden eyed boy, watching as her character on the game died and it turned over to the 'Game Over' screen. "If you hadn't been screaming at me like that, maybe I woulda WON!"
"Or maybe you would have been calling the cops about a stalker and yelling about how you're insane, right?"
Kagome pouted and looked the other way, true, that is what she would be doing...

"I never knew that 5 days straight of arcade madness would make you so much more...normal. I mean, not completely, but we've made progress."
"Not at all, no progress at all."
"Stop trying to protect your lunatic image."
"Nyah."

"See what I mean? That was normal."
"But what about twhen vacation ends and we have to go back to school? What's going to happen then? I'm not going to talk to anyone there, I'll just be the same, everything will be the same when we go back."
"Well then, I think we'll need to get Sango and Miroku to come over and change that."
"What, like an 'attitude makeover'?" Kagome asked sarcastically, she didn't want to admit it, but she was becoming more 'normal'(if you could call it that) by the day, that is, if Inuyasha was with her.

"Huh, yeah, I guess. But we still have a lot of work to do if you're going to be normal."

"Well, if it will make me human...make the other humans like me, then I'm in. I hate my life as it is."
"Uh...that's the spirit! Right...we're going to make you completely normal, and everyone will love you." Inuyasha said, scratching the back of his neck.
"Really? Do you promise?"
"I promise."

Kagome smiled widely, and unexpectedly, threw her arms around Inuyasha's neck in a bone-crushing hug.
"Thank you!"

--

"First, we have to cut these bangs of yours."
"Why my bangs?" Kagome asked silently, backing away as far as she could in the chair from Sango, who had a very sharp looking pair of scissors in her hands.
"Because, Kags, they're too long and they cover your face, which is too pretty to hide, so we gotta cut yer bangs."
"Uh...ok..."
The scissors shinged, and Sango began to cut.
"Now what?" she asked, looking at her work that sat in front of her, "Clothes? Yeah, we could probably work on yer clothes."
"But we wear uniforms at school..."
"Well, yer right about that part, so then...smiling! We have to work on your facial expressions! You always look so sulky and moody and sad, so we have to work on that. Smile!"
"Do I have to, Sango-chan?"
"Yes, smile!"
"Alright..." she smiled, and Sango laughed. "What's so funny?"
"You have a great smile! Why don't you ever use it! That's what's funny!"
"...You're...scaring me..."
"So...you got a good smile, so then what should we do now...got any suggestion, Inuyasha?"
"Clubs. Dancing. Laugh. Stuff like that... I'm a guy, don't ask me to help you."
"Ok...what about you, Miroku?"
"CLOTHES! I VOTE FOR CLOTHES! And make-up! And...definitly clothes! Short skirts, stuff like that!"
"I should've never asked you, you pervert! But make-up is a good idea. At least you're good for some things... And dancing, Inuyasha, school clubs, yes, good, good ideas...laughing...we gotta make her laugh! We gotta hear you laugh, Kags!"
"Ha ha."
"No, I mean a real laugh. I know! Miroku, Inuyasha, do that dance together that you did!"
"And what dance would that be, cousin dear?"

"You know, that slow dance to that really stupid band, the Backstreet Boys, I think?"
"I TOLD YOU SANGO, WE WERE DRUNK!"
"Well, then, act like you're drunk now. DO IT! OR FEEL MY WRATH!"
"Ok, ok! Don't hurt us..."
Miroku and Inuyasha stood up, wrapped their arms around eachother, and started slow-dancing.
"MWA HA HA HA HA!"
"YES! IT WORKED! SHE LAUGHED!"
"And what a laugh it is." Inuyasha said as he kicked Miroku away from him.

"Will the people at school like me?" Kagome asked once she stopped laughing.
"Of course! butwe still have some work to do on you..."
"But I don't need to learn how to dance."
"Heh? But you don't know how to dance, do you?"
"Yes, I do. I used to like dancing alot when I was little...I don't need to learn how to dance."
"Alright, then I guess our next stop is clubs, make-up, and yeah, clothes, I guess."
"But, uniforms-"
"Yeah, but people will see you outside of school, too."
"Hm."

--

"Monday morning came to soon! I can't go to school, Sango-chan! What will people say?"
"I don't know, we'll just have to find out. Come on, walk with me and maybe people will leave you alone." Sango grabbed Kagome by the elbow and pulled her into the school building, Kagome was wearing her hair down, wavy, and had some light make-up on.
People did stare as she walked by, because they did recognize who she was.
And they were pretty stunned by who she was walking with, and how she looked.
"Is that...her?" Kagome heard someone ask, and another person, "It is! That's The Nobody! She's walking with Sango..."
"Look at that loser, trying to be cool! Go back home to your mommy, Nobody! We don't want you hear!"
"How pathetic! Trying to be like one of us. Here's a note, hon, you'll never be normal, so don't try!"
"Ha ha ha! Look at her! The poor thing, I think she got confused! Are you trying to be sane? Because it's not working!"
"Sango, I told you!" Kagome cried in Sango's ear, "Do you hear them? I can't do this!"
"2 4 6 8, who's the girl we love to hate! THE NOBODY! GET OUT OF OUR SCHOOL! How do we know you don't have rabies!"
"Awe, look! She thinks Sango is her friend! Get it through you're head, girl, Sango is one of us, not one of whatever you are."
Kagome turned on her heel and ran back out the door of the school, leaving all of the taunters with their own laughter, and Sango calling after her.
"Kagome! Come back!"

"Stupid Sango! Stupid Inuyasha! Stupid all of them! I told them I couldn't be normal! I told them! But they wouldn't listen! No one ever listens! Not momma, not Souta, not grandpa...I hate them all!" She cried, running through her front door and up the stairs to her room, "Well, I won't have to deal with them anymore. It ends tonight! It all ends tonight!"
She wiped the make-up off of her face, and jumped onto her bed, "They'll all be sorry! All of them!"

--

The school hall was filled with murmuring the next morning, but more than usual.
"Did you hear about what happened last night?"
"Did you see what happened on the news?"
"Ya think we should pay our respects at the Higurashi Shrine?"
"Are you crazy? The girl's not dead, she just landed a spot in the hospital..."
"Yeah, but I can't help but feel bad."
"Oh please, we all knew this would happen one day."
"Yeah..."

It was true, Kagome Higurashi had earned herself a spot in the hospital, she was alive, but not happy.

She didn't want to come out of this alive, she was the one who tried to make it so she wouldn't!

But now, that she had survived the fall from her third-story window, everyone would be watching her even more closely.
She didn't want that, more than anything.
Then she would never reach Nirvana.

- CREAK -

She turned her head towards her hospital door to see who had entered, and scoffed when she saw who it was. "What do you want, Inuyasha?"
"To see you." He said, and she turned her face away from him.
"I don't want to see or talk to you. I don't want to see or talk to anyone. So get out."
"No. No, I won't. I want to stay here and talk to you, so I will."
"GET OUT!"
"NO. You're going to listen to me, like it or not, right NOW. Listen, if you keep this up, you really will end up dying, and are you sure you really want that? I sure don't."
"YES! YES I'M SURE I WANT THAT! I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T WANT IT! BUT I DO! I'm not HAPPY on Earth and I'd rather LEAVE! So get OUT! I hate you!" She said, hatred dripping off of every word, and he walked closer to her.
"Fine, I'll leave. But before I do..." He leaned even closer to her, and they shared a second kiss.
Before she could say anything, he was out the door.
"Good riddance!" She yelled, though she knew she wouldn't be heard.

--

- TAP - TAP - TAP-
She stopped and stared at her home, the Higurashi Shrine.

She got to go home today, so here she was.
Of course now, she had to be watched 24/7.
That was one thing she hated.

She stepped in through the door, up all the stairs, and into her bedroom.

She jumped onto her bed as she had done many a nights before.

"Buyou..." She called, and the familiar fat cat walked as fast as he could over. "What would you do if I were dead?"
His only reply was a soft meow, and purring as she began to rub his head. "You would be fine, wouldn't you?" There was no use talking to him now, he had fallen asleep in her arms. "Yeah... You don't need me. No one needs me. No one cares, and I don't care either."

--

She didn't cry at all as she carried the knife from the kitchen up to her room, up all the stairs until she faced her cat.
She closed the door and stared into his eyes, "Buyou, I'm leaving you tonight. You're going to be ok on your own, right?"
He walked around her legs and rubbed up against them slightly, and she dropped down to her knees, scratching his ears.
She picked up the blade and stared at herself on it's shining surface, having no second thoughts about this.
"I'll be happier if I go...don't you agree?"
He meowed and stop circling her feet, lying down next to her. "But I can't take you with me. You're happy here, so you'll stay here."

She raised her arm in the air, and put her wrist into view.
She stared at the blue vein that ran right there...
"Ah!" She screamed as the knife went into her skin, slicing right through the vein in her wrist, and more so,digging deeper until she imagined she had reached the bone even...

She poured crimson and tears as she pulled the blade out, repeating the process in her other wrist.
"I'm going to leave you all soon..." she whispered, taking one last look out the window of her third story room at the bright, round moon, before she slowly slipped to the ground,"Goodbye..." lying in a fountain of her own blood, sweat, and tears.

-----------

Kagome Higurashi did not wake the next morning.
Or the morning after that.
And the school, this day, was filled with louder, pity-filled murmurs speaking of her death, and whose fault it may be...
"Now we really should pay the family our respects..."
"But..."
"No buts...it's our fault she's dead..."
"Don't pinpoint us!"
"I'm not! It was everyone in this damned school..."

"Can you believe it? She tried to kill herself again..."
"Well she didn't just try, she succeeded."
"Who knew it would go this far?"

"Inuyasha, are you alright?" His cousin asked him, and he wringed his wrists.
"No. I...I'm not alright, Sango."
She wiped her eyes and stared at the floor, "It's all my fault...me and my 'group's fault...we always teased her and pushed her everyday...I'm sorry..."
"Don't apologize to me! Just don't talk to me..."
He walked away from her and her silent sobbing, and he tuned everyone's voices out.
He thought they were doing so well...
He thought they were going to make her normal...
She was counting on him...and he failed on her...
He failed...
How could this have happened?
They had had so much progress, and then there he was, staring her in the eye in a hospital room, and now, staring at the floor, wishing he would see her face with a smile put on, laughing at him that it was all just a joke.

A sick, sick joke...

This would drive him crazy.
Now he realized that maybe this girl he had come to love really was insane.
She was the school's nobody.
And now, it seemed, he would be taking her place as that.

The Nobody.
The insane, tortured Nobody, with golden eyes, walking through the halls as people spoke of the Nobody who came before him, they pitied him...

They pitied him and hated him at the same time.

Would that be what would happen?
Is that what he would become?

--

- KNOCK - KNOCK - KNOCK -

"Hello..." Mrs. Higurashi opened the door, thinking to see one person there and one person only, someone who would cry their eyes out with her.
But no, that's not what she found.
Maybe 400 or so teenagers stared with their cold, leaking eyes, all of which had realized they had all been the cause of the woman's daughter's death.
They were all murderers.
All of them.
Every single one of them had murdered her daughter, every single day.
Every single day they killed her with the stares and teasing and pushing and laughing...
Every single day.
None of them could imagine the torture they may have put this girl through, and they didn't want to bare it.

Now they knew of the pain they had put the girl through, now they had known they were wrong.
But it's too late for that now.
They all figured it out too late, and lost a life the other night.

Now all they could do was stand outside that door, say nothing, do nothing.
Just stand there.
But that wouldn't fix what they had broken, it wouldn't fix the pain and torture...
It wouldn't fix anything.

"She's dead."
-CLICK-
"Kagome Higurashi, age of only 16 has made suicide attempts to 3 the other night, but this time, it wasn't just an attempt, it was a success."
-CLICK-
"Police found her in a pool of her own blood-"
-CLICK-

Inuyasha threw the remote control at the TV, every channel was saying something about that...that girl.

He couldn't even say her name now.

What was it again?
He couldn't even remember that.
Who was she?
Why did it hurt so much everytime he heard the name 'Kagome'?
Or when he thought of a certain tortured girl...
Who was she?
Why did he flinch everytime he heard 'Insane'?

And why was everyone babying him so much?
He's 16.
He can get by on his own.

They say that he's in denial, and he pushed it so far he lost his memory of her.
They say he went crazy one night, thinking of her.
But who is she?
Why do they all speak of him as if he's mentally insane?

He's fine.
He's fine all alone and there was never any girl named Kagome Higurashi.

Never.

But now he remembers her.

"She was real! She killed herself!" He would scream, and people would look at him in a strange way,
"Who killed herself?"
"Kagome! Kagome Higurashi! And she's dead!"
"Inuyasha, there is no such person as 'Kagome Higurashi'." They would tell him, and he would shake his head.
"She's real! She thought she was insane! Maybe she was! And everyone aslways laughed at her and teased her and...she killed herself! Don't you know who she is? Kagome! Come on! You know who she is! The police found her in a pool of her own blood! It was all over the news! She was my friend! Don't you know who she is?"
"Inuyasha, maybe you just had a nightmare...lay down, the doctor will be here soon..."
"NO! She IS real! I didn't have a dream!"
"Inuyasha, there isn't, never was, and maybe never will be a 'Kagome Higurashi', you're just tired... Lay down..."
"LISTEN TO ME! You know who she is! Kagome! Stop acting like you don't know! I'm not insane! And I don't need a doctor! She's real! I KNOW she is!"
"It was just a dream, now lay down..."
They walked away and he stared at his hands.
"It wasn't a dream..." he said, "She is real! It wasn't a dream..."

Maybe he was the one who was insane the whole time.

"I'll prove to all of them she was real. I will." He stood up off of the couch and ran out the door, all the way to where he knewthe Higurashi Shrine was.

Except now, all it was was ashes and ruins...
The only thing that stood tall was the God Tree.

The God Tree knew all.

He ran to it and threw his arms around it's trunk, "You know Kagome was real! Don't you?" It's branches swayed in the wind, andthen there was silence.

Nothing made a sound.

A few nights later, Inuyasha had killed himself, and he and the real Kagome met up in Nirvana.
They would spend their whole life together.

Inuyasha never had a dream about a girl named 'Kagome Higurashi', because she was real.
But after she had died, everyone found it too painful to remember her, everyone in the school, the teachers, the students, everyone made the attempt to 'forget' Kagome.
The Higurashi Shrine was burned down, and the rest of the Higurashi family moved to Osaka.
Everyone in Tokyo would never speak of this girl again.

They all knew who she was, but they agreed to not tell Inuyasha of this 'forgetting movement', let him think it was all just a dream, because if they had told him of this, he would refuse whole-heartedly and ruin everything, so they decided to let him think he was just insane.

You may think this was cruel, but it was something they had to do.

"Kagome..." The boy said, and she looked up.
"What are you...doing here?"
"I told them you were real."
"You...you killed yourself?"
"I told htem you were real!"
"Why do you care so much about me?"
"Because...everyone needs to care for someone..."
Kagome stood up and looked into his golden eyes, "You killed yourself for me?"
"Yeah..."