7

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha.

Special Thanks to: To my Beta ReviewerWriter and anyone who reviews.

Recap:

"I kinda still do…pretty dumb of me, huh?" she asked, looking off into space.

"Nah! I guess you'll always love him no matter what. I mean, he was your first love and all, but you shouldn't let him ruin your life…find a new love," he consoled. "I will—I mean, they'll help you through the worst of times," he said happily.

It hurt him to give her advice on this, knowing he had no hope of winning her heart over like that scrawny punk did…but he still wanted to help. Kagome smiled to herself at that great bit of advice InuYasha had given her…maybe, she would give it a try.

Broken Wings

Chapter 5

Someone's Watching

Kagome was unusually tired now. She couldn't place her finger on it; she had gotten enough sleep but she still felt as if she had been up for weeks. What could it be?

Her vision was becoming blurred and very unfocused. The teacher's words in the class were becoming scrambled…the room began to spin…she was starting to feel disoriented and dizzy. The teacher's words were now getting scrambled; the room started to spin uncontrollably, giving her the urge to vomit.

She unwillingly gave into the darkness that quickly overcame her.

InuYasha watched the clouds from the window float by lazily…the teacher could not have gotten more boring…oh wait! Yes, he could! Now the teacher was rambling on about Shakespeare. The hanyou let out a long, exasperated sigh. Kagome had made him stay at school more often now. She had vowed to help him pass and get at least at least a 3.5 Grade Point Average.

'She works too much,' he thought irritably, tapping his clawed nails upon the desk. The sound of Kagome's head falling to her desk snapped his thoughts back to the present time. He whipped his head around to see her knocked out, her pale head pressed firmly against the wooden table. He couldn't tell if she was breathing or not.

InuYasha ran right up to Kagome's desk, interrupting the lecture. He shook her violently, trying to get her to wake up.

"Kagome has to go to the hospital!" InuYasha yelled out continuing, unsuccessfully, to make her lifeless body respond to the shaking.

The teacher ran to her side, pushing InuYasha away to look at Kagome.

"She's passed out…go call the nurse and get her up here," the teacher stated in a panic, not sure of what he could do in this situation. InuYasha growled out at the teacher's lack of actions.

"I'll take her myself!" With that, he picked up Kagome bridal style and rushed out of the room.

InuYasha didn't want Kagome to be hospitalized; he didn't trust those humans. He would undoubtedly get blamed; being a hanyou and all, they would not believe a word he said.

Once he was away from his classroom, InuYasha felt her palm to see if there was a pulse. Faintly, he felt the blood pushing its way throughout her veins. Some of the panic that coursed through him subsided at this subtle sign.

'I hope this is only from working too hard.' He hoped nothing was seriously wrong his friend. Something by her wrist caught his eye; a thin, healed cut. It looked rather long but was concealed by the length of her dark sleeve.

InuYasha rolled up the sleeve; to his shock, those shallow cuts were visible up and down her entire arm. There were many: some were little, long, dried and fresher ones were all on her skin like some kind of sick tapestry of pain.

He instinctively sniffed at it; some of those cuts were fresh…very fresh. The strong stench of blood clashed with his nostrils. Being part demon, he had noticed the smell of blood coming off of her before. He thought better to not mention it. Being a female and all, he figured that Kagome had just gone through that time of the month.

Not knowing much about a woman's cycles though, he still felt it very weird for her to smell like blood for two weeks straight. He lifted her hoody up to see a dark black shirt flowing off her torso. Though the shirt was a very small size, it looked incredibly large compared to her very thin and fragile figure. InuYasha lifted the black shirt up to inspect the stomach region but blushed and quickly put it down when he realized he had lifted it far too high.

He put a gentle hand on her frail stomach; it was far too thin. Even though Kagome was a very skinny girl, it was very unnatural to show this much bone.

'She isn't even eating anymore,' he thought sadly. He brushed his hand over her cheeks. To his relief they were rosier then usual, though that wasn't saying much…she was still as pale as a bleached sheet. She shook a little in his arms.

'They'll send her to a rehab center if they see all this crap…that is something she definitely doesn't need now,' he solemnly thought. He couldn't imagine her in a place like that…Kagome had always seemed so happy; especially around him. Though, this explained the whole awkward paper cut incident a couple weeks ago.

'Maybe I could help her,' he thought happily in hope. 'Yeah! I'll help her to get better!'

With her body still passed out into his arms, he headed to a new destination. Already, he had formulated a plan in his mind of how to help her.

Kagome had woken up and shifted under the sheets. They were warm and soft. Everything had felt like some kind of warped dream. She kept her eyes closed, not really wanting to go to school today. When her mind settled on the memory of what happened at school, her eyes burst open.

To her shock, she was not in her own room.

"Where am I?" she screamed loudly with some fright. Right then, a figure came entering into the room. She turned her head around quickly to see the silver-haired intruder. "InuYasha? Why are you here?" she questioned in a confused tone and not sure of what else to say.

"You know, I ask myself that same question every morning…then I remember, 'oh yeah, I live here,'" he stated with a smirk. Kagome giggled at his little joke. He leaned against the door frame and folded his arms over his chest, examining the beauty of her. His face was contradictory solemn; he would have to confront her about this problem.

"Wait!" she stated. "What am I doing in your bedroom?"

"You had passed out at school and I…" he trailed off, looking away. With a breath, he stated; "Look, we're friends right?"

"We've been hanging around each other endlessly for two weeks now…so yes, I would definitely say we're friends," she said with a smile. She wasn't sure why he would ask something like that, though.

Not daring to look at her directly, he began to speak again. As he did, he dropped his dog ears down to avoid any screaming or threats that she might say next.

"I saw…I mean that," he tried. Taking another breath, he finished; "I know that you've been cutting yourself."

"Y-you saw them?" she asked gently. Even now, while her words sounded soft, they radiated sadness. He forced himself to look back at her messy form. Her hair was chaotic and messy. She wasn't wearing her traditional baggy hoody now, which usually hid her delicate curves.

Her small body collected the rays of sun that sipped through his window. She looked, to his amazement, still stunning even in this wreckage of a form. 'Even in this condition she is still damn sexy! Is there something wrong with me to think that?' He blushed, a little taken aback with his own mind.

"Are…are you mad at me?" he asked quietly. She looked over at him with eyes that held no life. Not even the mighty sun could have filled them with a single ray of light. He inwardly flinched at such an emotionless stare.

"No, I'm not mad at you, InuYasha. I was going to tell you eventually. But how did you find out? I didn't think you would try to look at me that way while I was asleep," she smirked. He was happy that she was still well enough to try and make jokes. His smile faded though.

"I couldn't take you to the doctors or the nurses at the school…I don't know why, but I just don't trust them…I was taking your pulse to make sure that you were still alive and that's when…I saw the cuts. It was an accident," he said sadly.

"You thought they would take me away, didn't you?" she asked, knowing the answer herself. "They would take me away to some rehab center. I'm glad you didn't take me." She was glad that he thought that far ahead. She just couldn't go to a place like that.

"I called your home but nobody was there. So, I made you some dinner." He sat himself down on the bed next to her, wanting to know if she was alright to get up and walk.

"My mom won't be home until one or two in the morning," she said meekly. "You can't really rely on her to be home anymore."

"Well, I guess you'll just have to stay here with me then, won't ya?" he said smugly. She rolled her eyes at his lame pitch.

When Kagome felt up to it, he helped her up. They walked downstairs and sat at the table that had the food trays on them. It was Oden (A/N: various fish cakes, daikon, boiled eggs, konyaku and kombu seaweed, boiled over many hours in a soy sauce based soup).

"I didn't know you could cook," she exclaimed, admiring her favorite dish and helping herself to the generous portions.

"Not many people know that either," he stated with a smile, taking some of the seafood assortments to his own tray. To his delight, Kagome had begun to eat.

"InuYasha, do you have any other friends besides me?" Kagome asked lightly. She knew it was kind of rude to ask but curiosity had come over her. The hanyou had just smiled at her.

"I got another buddy, Miroku…but he's been suspended for a while now. Do you know him?"

She shook her head no.

"What was he suspended for?"

"For harassing the girls; he's a real perv," he said lightheartedly with a laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he had just sat down and talked like this with another person before. "Then there's this other girl named Sango. But she's visiting some relatives of hers on the other side of Japan. So, I'm left all alone," he finished with a forced smile, taking a big bite out of his fish cake.

Kagome glanced around, looking for any sign that might indicate other people living in this house. Perhaps a mother or father? She didn't see any makeup or perfume bottles around and there were no signs of another masculine person living here…she felt unusually inquisitive that evening, so she asked him about it.

"Where's the rest of your family?"

"My mom and dad are…not around anymore. My half-brother lives on the nicer side of town. He drops by every now and then to make sure I haven't died," he chuckled. He could just imagine the look on Sesshomaru's face if he found InuYasha laying dead on the floor…it would probably have been a mix between joy and grief.

Knowing Sesshomaru, it would have been more joyful though.

Kagome was a little confused at the hanyou's expression but went along with it.

'It's sad,' she thought. 'He's an orphan…I'm lucky that I have my mom.'

"So," InuYasha started, ready to try and pry some answers out of her, "tell me about your family. You never talk about them at school. Well, sometimes you hardly ever talk. So let's have a little one-on-one," he stated in a therapeutic voice.

The response was Kagome rolling her eyes at him, amused by his appearing grin.

They talked throughout the entire night; about her mother working three stressful jobs, how she felt so lonely, about her father and brother dieing in a car accident, the breakup with Hojo. Whenever the conversation seemed to sadden, Kagome felt the need for a little 'relief'…

She never got the chance with InuYasha around. Every time she excused herself to use the restroom, the hanyou would ask if she had a knife with her. He felt her to see if she was concealing a piece of broken glass or plastic or something like that in her pockets.

Kagome had tried to lie about it but InuYasha had a keen sense to detect mistruths. He had already confiscated several sharp items from her. Once, he almost had to pin her to the ground to take away the knife she thought she could hide in her sock.

'She's so damn stubborn' he thought irritably. When the latest frisking was over with, Kagome got to the bathroom to actually use it. She admired him, in a way, that she wasn't allowed to hurt herself …nobody had ever been that protective of her before.

Little did they know that their antics weren't unnoticed. Watching from the window, in the safety of a high tree, a man was glaring at them. The stalker watched with hungry eyes as Kagome walked around the house. He licked his lips in sick anticipation, watching her with those hungry red eyes.

It was a real pity that school was about to go out on break; he would miss seeing her almost lifeless body prancing down the hallway next to that nauseating excuse of a demon. The stalker had watched her enough for the moment and jumped out of the branches, running in another direction.

----------------------------------------To Be Continued----------------------------------------

R&R please. The next chapters will get even more exciting! Maybe… maybe.

Oh! And can anybody gess who is in the tree, I can! Tell me in a review!