A/N: Finally! I couldn't wait to write out Second Base. Heheh. Now I can finally get into Inuyasha's character a little more... cuz you know, children are really hard to write.

Disclaimer: I am not a fanfiction writer. I am the creator of Inuyasha. I am the one who started Viz. I am not a compulsive liar, either.


Chapter 8: Second Base

Nghi


High school was an enigmatic subject in itself. It could be cruel, it could be mean, and most of all, it could ruin your life. Or the golden years, at least. Other times, it could be tolerable, like a euphoric wave riding high: good grades, good friends, good teachers- all of the above. Few people entered on that side- you either entered your golden ages with luck, or you didn't.

Kagome had good karma. In tenth grade she had entered with a bright, cheery face and a flouncing uniform skirt; her grades had peaked into the top ten for the first and last time, and she was positively brimming with happiness. After five years of living in Osaka with Inuyasha as a next-door neighbor, Mother had been pleased the two had been accepted into the same high school. On the morning of the first day of school, as Kagome was carefully eating her cereal, the older woman took a seat across from her, watching as she chewed her breakfast and scanned the back of the cardboard box simultaneously. If Kagome thought Mother was plotting something, she hadn't shown any sign of suspicion. Good- the girl never reacted well under planned innuendos.

It took a few minutes, but she had finally worked up the courage to open her mouth and ask softly, "You know... wouldn't it be nice if you and Kaoru's son walked to school together?" There was no point in beating around the bushes- the girl was by no means dim-witted, but she wasn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the box, as the cliche goes.

Kagome had spluttered and nearly spat out the milk, and Ayumi watched bemusedly as her daughter's coughings subsided. "Are you kidding me?" she had answered, already having 'disbelief' written across her forehead.

"No, I'm not," her mother answered sincerely.

"Forget it." she said sincerely, too. "That idiot can look out-"

"It's a new school year," Ayumi interrupted, looking into her daughter's eye. If she could just snag Kagome with the look Kaoru had taught her... "Look out for him, you know?"

It was working- the girl hesitated for a moment before crossing her arms. "He can look out for himself," she said, trying to remember their last fight. Oh yes, the idiot had tried to shove her head into the sand during one of their catty moments... (Of course, she had the grace to acknowledge that throwing the baseball bat in a vindictive manner towards the lower half of a boy's waist hadn't been a good idea.)

What had Kaoru told her to do... oh yes! Ayumi looked down, her eyes casting sideways just long enough for Kagome to see how much pain and hurt this was affecting her. (Always contrive to look victimized, Kaoru had taught her. It worked like a charm with Inuyasha all the time.) When she looked up again, Kagome looked like she was positively bending towards her will, and she silently cheered her friend for giving such fantabulous advice on manipulating kids. But there was still some hesitance, and she jumped at the chance to twist that around as well.

"Just a little bit, OK?" It had worked, and the girl more than readily accepted once those words had been uttered. Later that day, Ayumi had called Kaoru, set to ramble about her surefire techniques at getting children to behave unintentionally. The woman would definitely make a bestseller one of these days...

But right then, she watched gleefully as Kagome bounded down the stairs and shuffled up to where Inuyasha was standing as slowly as possible. They exchanged scathing looks for a moment before walking silently towards Furijima High, a more than respectable distance between them. Yes, the tension in the atmosphere was palpable, but you had to start somewhere, right?

Kagome had fit in quickly, easily befriending new girls and the boys that came along with it. But where was Inuyasha? She hadn't a clue, and neither did she care. The jerk had made her life a living hell for the rest of elementary and junior high school, and she'd rather have a pleasant experience during her later years of education than following around and mothering a sulking boy with an equally bad temper. Ayumi had said to look out for him, and she made sure to do that... just not between the times of eight to three.

All of her friends thought she had been dropped on her head when she was a baby when she expressed a less than favorable opinion of him; she had pointed to the skulking idiot near the outskirts of the school's territory, and they all squealed at how "cute and gorgeous" he was. The first time she had heard those words from Yuka's mouth, she had found it so ridiculously funny that she fell off her seat, her face a splotchy red. Cute and gorgeous? Violent and temperamental usually came to mind, more like it.

Her friends hadn't found it so amusing then, and they were slightly miffed at her reaction. He was the epitome of solitude and cool beauty- all of the things that every woman looked for in a man! Kagome had shaken her head sadly, and of course, Yuka had taken it as a challenge, jumping up before anyone could say anything and heading towards Inuyasha with the determination to prove Kagome wrong. She returned a few minutes later, huffing and puffing about how rude and crude he was; after a few days, thanks to the girl's infamous big mouth, the news had spread throughout the entire grade, and everyone began to avoid him by all means. To Kagome's dismay, she had felt a little twinge of sympathy towards his plight, but soon discovered after one lunch with him that it wasn't mutual; he actually liked the solitude.

Despite this, they still ended up walking to school together and 'sharing' the baseball field over the course of the year, and she managed to keep tabs on his life; unremarkably, it wasn't much. When tenth grade had ended, Kagome had only two things to conclude about the boy: 1. his attitude in school should have been classified as clinically anti-social a long time ago, and 2. the only thing his little peanut head could comprehend was baseball. It was the only thing defining him, and he sure wasn't making a big case about disproving it.

That summer Kaoru had decided to drag her family to the Netherlands, where they could spend their 'well-deserved' vacation by observing Dutch paintings and milking cows for a learning experience. It was a good chance to try something new, like a taste of different cultures, she had said to a tearful Ayumi before getting into her minivan. Kagome had a choice of saying goodbye to him or staying in bed, and naturally, she chose the latter, as it would spare the both of them from seeing each other's faces. Because really, if she was the one leaving, she wouldn't want her last view of Osaka to be his face. From what her mother had told her later during lunch, Inuyasha had looked like an anguished puppy in the hands of the devil as his father (Ayumi commented how 'nice' he looked for a 43 year old, by the way.) turned at the corner of the street; Kagome had giggled, but for another different reason- no more annoying neighbor on the field for two, whole months!

The day he had left, she went strolling at her own pace down to the lot, whistling a happy tune and even adding a little bounce to her walk; normally, Kagome would have had to race for a little bit of ground for practice, and even then, he had given her a maximum of one hour before she was given the boot. But with him gone, she had taken full advantage of it, spending an entire day devoted to her swinging, and the next throwing her curveballs, and the next jogging, and so forth; it was nice to spend some time tweaking her abilities without having to worry about an antsy Inuyasha telling her she was five minutes past her limit.

The summer of 1995 had been the last year Grandpa had in him, and although he had become considerably weaker and slightly more useless, he had made sure to spend as much of his free time on the field, teaching her the tricks of the trade. And for every time that Ayumi caught the two trying to sneak out, she made sure to talk their ears off, trying to rope Kagome into being a lady and Grandpa into passing his legacy to someone else.

"But she has so much potential!" he would always begin, and Ayumi would cut him off furiously, telling him that it was no use trying to mold her daughter into something he had been, and that Souta would be happy to learn when he was older. Then she would stomp off to her room, smoldering while Grandpa sat on the couch beside Kagome, smiling and winking until she grinned again and made plans to meet tomorrow.

In the meantime, for the days that the old man couldn't make it past his daughter, Kagome spent the time with her friends, walking to local restaurants, shopping, chatting on phones, just about anything. As the lazy days of cricket chirps and hot nights rolled by, she became more interested and active in her social life, although making sure that baseball would be her top priority. Always.

Then one day, Eri had suggested she try out for the girls' baseball team. The sign-up sheets had been posted since the end of last year, so Kagome had to act quickly. Interested? Eri handed her a piece of paper with names and numbers scrawled across, and she had taken it with great curiosity. "Make sure you talk to the coach!" the girl had instructed as they walked down the street, and Kagome nodded thoughtfully. Later that night, she called to arrange for try-outs, and by the end of the week, she had become a part of the Furijima Tigers and was practicing on the school's baseball field. By the time it was school again, Kagome had earned herself a reputation for being quick on her feet, and she became even more popular than before, wrapped in baseball and boys and parties.

Inuyasha had returned within the second week of eleventh grade, and she lay still underneath her warm covers, half-waiting for her alarm to go off and half-listening as the doors outside slammed shut. There was plenty of clattering, but it was accounted for the excessive amount of luggage they had brought along. Other than that, there had been absolutely no sounds or voices coming from next door.

The next day, Ayumi had slid in front of Kagome before she had finished her cereal and suggested Kagome walk to school with him like last year. She had shrugged neutrally, dropping the spoon into the bowl with a clank. "Whatever," was her reply, and she rose from her seat, grabbing her backpack with her.

The two met in front of his house as usual, and they stayed the normal distance from each other... perhaps a little farther apart than last year. If possible, Inuyasha had grown even more reclusive than before, ambling along with glazed eyes. Kagome had been no better, but instead of spacing off, she was running thoughts through her head, wondering if she should ask how the vacation went, if chocolate cows really did exist, or if a clone had replaced the foul-mouthed boy during the trip to Amsterdam. Just as she had opened her mouth to speak, Yuka had appeared a little more than a few feet away, waving and motioning her to join. The girl trotted forward, all smiles and no thoughts of the boy beside her. Not like he cared, either- he was still staring stupidly into the distance.

Eleventh grade was when Kagome had begun to lose her effervescence. Her grades had fallen from top ten to top thirty, but she readily engaged herself in baseball, throwing her passion into it. She played fierce with every game and contributed spirit to the team, making sure it stayed as a group and not as a clutter of individuals with different tactics. She was, in every sense, a team player through thick and thin.

Coincidentally, Inuyasha had also tried out for the boys' team, and he had, of course, been selected. The boys were a lot rougher and pumped with way more competition, and as much as she hated to admit it, their games were a lot more exciting. In one of the many she and her friends had attended, Kagome had found herself catching her breath along with the audience and watching as he took the bat. Would he make it? Curveballs were his weakness even after all these years, and she looked on as he readied, shifting a little to get comfortable, and then a drab, tense silence blanketed everyone as the pitcher tried to think of a plan. He settled for a fastball, which had been a very sore miscalculation as the bat hit with a crack, and in a blink, Inuyasha was already at second- no, third base, and by the time she could take in what had happened, he had already slid towards home base, earning two points in their favor. Such a quick play...! He had been practicing everyday, no doubt.

In February Grandpa had fallen violently ill and passed away the same month, and Kagome's wide-eyed grin drastically became a small, pathetic smile barely sustaining itself. Her mother's company had granted her two weeks for the funeral procession and to collect herself, and Ayumi bravely rejected. There was no way she could afford to miss the minimal paycheck, or else she'd risk the electric and water bill, so the woman pressed on with work, waking up everyday with a broken heart and moving for the bathroom in a ghostly manner. Some days Kagome found her staring blankly into the mirror, the blush applicator almost brushing her cheeks as her mother's thoughts chanted away like a mantra: I will not break down, I will not break down, I will not break down.

Kagome's grades had fallen from the top thirty to the top one hundred, as she had begun to divide her time between baseball and a seven year old Souta. He had been too young to understand what had happened, but old enough to know that something had happen. She stopped walking to school with Inuyasha, and more often than not, she found herself skipping baseball practice to care for her brother. Her appearance had taken on a sloppy look as dark circles graced her face, and the little, red ribbon hung limply around her neck in a pathetic twist of a bow. The baseball field had been forgotten, Inuyasha the jerk had been forgotten, and her friends had been forgotten, although they had fully accepted her situation and waited patiently for her to return.

She never did.

The summer of 1996 came four months later, and by then Ayumi had become something of a hollow shell slowly learning to let go and move on. Eventually, Souta had expressed an interest in some community activities (mainly soccer), and his afternoons were filled with kicking and scoring and bouncing the ball on his head. Kagome had returned to the school's field for the baseball camp, sorely out of condition, but her teammates all welcomed her back, relieved one of their top players had not given up her favorite sport.

She bounced back in no time, but it hadn't given her the same, relaxing feeling as before; she had remembered sitting in the dugout one day, watching her teammates perform during a practice game when a thought hit her out of nowhere: Mom lied. All her life Ayumi had denied her the chance for Grandpa to pass on what he knew, giving the excuse that Souta could learn later. It was always later this, later that for the woman, she realized, and now he was buried six feet under the ground with nothing to pass on to any of his grandchildren- no, granddaughter. Kagome flinched, a sudden hot, white anger bursting inside her, and she seethed quietly. Well, look what 'later' did to him.

From then on, a slight resentment hung over her and directed itself towards her mother. Guilt struck Kagome every time she found Ayumi slaving over the kitchen or filling out a few forms for work at two in the morning or praying to Buddha for the family's happiness, and she was instantly ashamed to even have any small trace of animosity, be it subconscious or not. Kagome hid those feelings well, putting it through baseball four times a week and meeting up with her old friends nearly everyday and avoiding her mother as much as possible.

By the time she was in twelfth grade, Ayumi had sat down in front of Kagome, and before she could open her mouth, the girl had already gotten up and was running out of the house, late for school. It had happened consecutively for two months, and the woman finally gave up, much to Kaoru's aggravation. Kagome still had the same pep and persistence inside of her, but she had lost her naive optimism along with a few friends and grades- she had slipped out of the top two hundred by now. The only thing that proved stable in her life was baseball, and despite it not giving her same peace of mind like last time, she felt that if the last constant of her old life were to disappear, then she would somehow disappear, too.

A sharp rap on the window jerked Kagome out of sleep one winter night; she had been leaning towards a light sleeper nowadays, but it seemed it wasn't light enough. She had nodded off again when there was another tap, and then another, and so on until she finally realized it couldn't have been a raccoon trying to humor itself at her expense. She had struggled to roll off her bed and crawled towards the window, still lost in the fuzzy haze of her mind. Once she had managed to stumble into a standing position and pried open her eyes, Kagome found herself face to face with brown eyes staring intently at her, at which she promptly reacted by giving a small yell and falling backwards onto her rump. Who was this person, and why was he looking inside her room? If he was a peeper, then he would be in for a rude awakening once she opened the window and pushed--

"It's me," the boy muffled against the window, his breath fogging up the panels; he growled, annoyed when she continued to look up at him vacuously.

"Inuyasha? Your next door neighbor?"

Then it had clicked, and Kagome scrambled to unlock the latch so the boy wouldn't fall backwards and kill himself. Speaking of which, how had he scaled the wall- oh, wait, there was the water pipe, and if she tried, she could have wedged her foot between-- oh, truly impressive. He jumped softly onto the floor and turned to find her still staring at him, her hair mussed and her eyes barely open. "Why are you here?"

"To sleep," Inuyasha had replied as if it were obvious, looking around for something decent to lie on. But if he had any hopes to take advantage of her while she was dead, they had been thrown out the window. Her eyes really snapped open for a moment, and she gawked at such a straightforward answer (or was it a command?).

"Oh, no you don't," Kagome said immediately, struggling to keep her voice hushed. Even in the middle of the night, she had suddenly felt her face prickle in embarrasment, and she was so sure her ears had turned pink- after all, who had ever heard of a boy asking a girl to sleep in her room after nearly seven months of no contact? She had assumed they weren't on speaking level... not that they had been friendly in the first place. "You get out now."

"I can't."

"Why not?" she demanded, her patience already gone. Lack of sleep never did suit her mood well, and he answered truthfully, telling her that there was nowhere else to go. She scoffed at his incredulous answer and shook her head. "Forget it. Go sleep in your own bedroom then!"

This was not a good rejoinder, as Inuyasha suddenly glared down at her. "What makes you think I would go sneak into your house at two o' fuckin' clock in the morning if I could sleep in my own bed?" he snapped, and she opened her mouth to snap right back... before realizing that for the first time in her life, Kagome had no answer, since that had been the first logical thing she had heard him say.

"So why can't you?" she shifted uncomfortably, hoping he hadn't caught her loss for words. Besides, she really didn't want him to bunk here if he had another available option; in a way, she was hoping to be a last resort. A really last resort. Kagome withered as he shot her another blistering glare, realizing too late that this rebuttal wasn't any better than the last one.

"Mind your own business," Inuyasha muttered before directing his glare somewhere else. "Now are you gonna let me--" A muffled noise behind him cut off the rest of the sentence, and Kagome darted her eyes past him, her interest wandering. He gazed at her suspiciously, already seeing the curiosity peak; he hadn't been her neighbor for six years and not learn anything, and it was no exception when it came to the idiot girl sticking her nose where it didn't belong. "Don't-"

Too late. "Move it." She had pushed him out of the way and edged towards the open window- it was her house, and no one was going to tell her what to do in it! Ignoring his sound of surprise, Kagome stuck her head over the windowsill and glanced around; maybe it had been some stray animal? But then again, stray animals didn't really make like a minute ago... unless it was a bear, but she highly doubted that.

"Get the hell back in," a voice hissed behind her, and she felt Inuyasha's warm hands wrap around her elbow, tugging her. Kagome shook him off and shot him an irritated glare before turning back. "It could be a burglar--"

Across from her, inside Inuyasha's house, the same noise echoed dully again, and this time, she could make out very muted voices. Hadn't his father once shown her the inner contour of the house once for an eighth grade science project? And hadn't he said that the materials used to build his home were literally soundproof? She could only guess his parents were yelling very loudly if she was able to hear from outside. There was a good deal of thumpings followed by more voices, and she wondered how loud it actually was inside...

Kagome shut the window and turned around, about to give permission when she saw Inuyasha had already gotten comfortable with one of her pillows on the floor. "Hey...!" There was no answer, and she planted a hand on her hips. "You're only staying here tonight. Just tonight, you got that?" He ignored her, and she had no choice but to let him take the rug; as she climbed into bed, exhaustion still heavy in her eyelids, she murmured a small 'night' to him and threw the top blanket onto the floor. He hadn't bothered, but Kagome was already snoring softly to care.

The next day she woke to find only herself in her room- he had left by means of the window again, and she carried on as if nothing had happened. It had been a one-time thing, and it would stay a one-time thing. Nothing had changed between them- he had gone back to ignoring her and hiding out in the baseball field, and she had done the same, ignoring him and hiding out at baseball practice, running laps and conditioning for the season. And on a very special Friday, one of her close friends, Hojo, had stopped her at a stoplight corner and proposed a steady relationship between the two.

She accepted, of course, along with the hug that went with it, and all weekend Yuka and Eri kept harassing her via phone, pressing for information and all of its juicy tidbits. By the time she was able to pull the receiver from her ear, it had been ringing a lovely, dull tune of her two friends screaming, and she went to bed a tired but very happy girl.

Inuyasha appeared by her window on Sunday, his puffs of breath hitting the clear panels. He rapped once, twice, and thrice before she stirred from her sleep and rose to a sitting position, looking positively drained. He knocked once more to get her attention, and she slowly turned her head to the left to find him balancing quite perilously above the ground.

She took her time getting to where he was, and even as she reached there, Kagome didn't lift the latch up immediately. "You know, I told you it was only going to be for one night," she said, and he looked at her, noncommittal. (And she knew these words were getting to him- the walls were that thin.)

"You should really go back and use your bed once in a while." A blank stare.

"I have a boyfriend now, you know. He wouldn't appreciate this." Blink. He continued to gaze at her, unfazed by any of the things she had just said, and Kagome sighed loudly, suddenly very, very tired.

She unhooked the hinge, letting the window swing open.

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