We met in kindergarten. He was new, but I instantly knew he would be my friend in the same way every five year old just knows. We first saw each other at morning drop off and it was fate. He had those big gold eyes that I wanted to drown in and fluffy ears that made me squeal - literally, not figuratively, it scared my mother. He was fidgeting and pulling on his mother's sleeve, clearly nervous about his first day in an unfamiliar place.

It took one look. He locked eyes with me accidentally and I smiled, my whole world suddenly enveloping in sparking silver and gold never to return to the prior dreary dullness I had known before. He had frowned at me, but I wasn't going to be deterred. My mother had always told me that I had an innate ability to find good souls. I thought she was crazy until I saw him, because I swear I could see and feel his energy. It was so warm, so brilliant, and it sucked me right in. Icarus to the sun and all that jazz.

I was a bona fide queen on the playground and wanted him on my royal court for a game and, well, for the rest of my life. So, as a queen does, I demanded he kiss the ring - my ring-pop, it was candy - but, get this, the obstinate demon denied my request. He left me, Kagome Higurashi, queen and ruler of the playground and all its adjoining spaces, standing there by my lonesome in the middle of the dirt patch where too many kids' feet ran across for life to grow.

That had never happened before.

And from that moment, henceforth, I would never let him go.

Later that day, I had pulled my pillow and blanket over to him during nap time and demanded an audience. He so graciously allowed me to take up a space next to him and plead my case.

We didn't sleep. It would be the first of many days and nights that he and I would ignore that ache in the back of our eyes begging us to just fucking rest, but there… in Mrs. Nazuna's classroom, surrounded by a dozen of our peers, I learned the name of my king: Inuyasha.

"Is that really your name?" I had asked, braiding his silver hair over his many protests. He eventually acquiesced, letting my tiny nimble fingers run through what I was sure was something smoother than silk that would make even gods jealous. I would later learn, he actually really liked it when I played with his hair, which I was more than happy to do repeatedly.

"Yes," he had responded, a small scowl present even then. He was such a serious kid. It was strange, really, how immature and adorable Inuyasha was while also being overly serious and skeptical. I drank it in, lapping up every moment of his time and essence that I could.

I had no idea what it was at the time, looking back on it now I realize I was doomed from the start, but on that first day, I just basked in that warm fluttery feeling I got in his presence. He made me feel like a real queen, not just some little girl who had a big mouth that everyone seemed to enjoy listening to, but like I mattered in a way I had never experienced before.

I had huffed in response to his prior answer, watching his tender ears swivel as the teacher moved around the classroom. We were safe though, because I was the queen of this room and he was my king. That and we were hidden behind a bookshelf, speaking in something softer than a whisper.

I would not let anyone come between us, not after having just been granted an audience.

"I'm Kagome," I had stated, not that he'd asked but, goddamn it, he would be my friend. I wouldn't budge on that. My heart just reached out for him in the same way that a puppy craves attention. It was the strangest thing. Even the thought of walking away from him, of not reaching a mutual understanding that he and I could be something special, caused my chest to swell in pain. I had to make him mine.

Thankfully, he hadn't objected to my friendship. Not once. From that first day onward we were inseparable. I mean it. The teachers were worried, going on and on to our parents about our "social development" and how being so reliant on each other would "stunt" our growth.

I think our parents always knew though. We were a pair and despite the grave warnings, they never separated us. In fact, they encouraged it like the psychopaths they were. They even gave our friendship a name: Salt and Pepper.

Get it? It's because I have dark, raven hair and he has silver, almost white hair. It was a terrible pun, but… our mother's enjoyed it endlessly.

The thing though, about our… relationship was that… we constantly had to prove, over and over and over, that even though he was a boy and that I was a girl, there was nothing romantic about it. We were just good friends. Are… just good friends.

Let me explain further.

After he began attending the same kindergarten as I, we became quite the spectacle. My valiant king helped me run the playground and, really, just made me laugh. We played together, we ate together, and of course we napped together. He was a great sport, most of the time anyway. Inuyasha would let me tell him the stories I'd made up for my dolls and even - though he will deny it to everyone else - contributed to my world building. I always reciprocated. What kind of queen would I have been if I let my man fend for himself? When he wanted to play with dull trains or have pretend sword fights, I always joined him. Because that's what friends did.

This, as I'm sure you could imagine, was a scandal on the playground. Don't even get me started on the day I showed up in pants because it was his turn to decide what activities we would do and I knew he wanted to engage in some parkour crap that would have my dresses and skirts either ripped or flying over my head. Anyway, that's a tale for a different day. Point being, we were the talk of the town and from then on no one wanted to accept that our connection was something so much more pure and deeper than the other fickle kindergarten relationships.

We were… us. He was my Yash and I was his Kags, a trouble making duo that took the school by storm. We even did that really cliche thing where we carved our names into the tree. No heart or anything, because… well we were just friends and we were five. Still, all the other pairs who carved their names into that same tree fell apart. But us? You'd have a better shot boiling water with ice.

Or, so I had thought.

Still, our classmates had never understood.

Every other day a peer would approach at least one of us, if not both of us, to ask if we were an item. And each time we would have the same response:

"Ew, I don't want cooties… we're just playing." This was also normally accompanied by an eye roll, a scoff, or a piercing glare.

I know, the maturity we had exhibited at that age was staggering.

But here's the thing… it never let up. Ever.

And…

I caught feelings.

Yup.

I know.

Trust me…. I know…

Now, the feelings didn't come until later, but let me explain what we were up against and the trap these… these… plebeians set for me.

He was my first kiss.

It was a dare. Again, not a single soul in our second grade class could comprehend our relationship. How is a boy just friends with a girl?! It's absurd! They must be lying! We'll make them see it's all a lie!

Garbage. Every last one of them. Pure human garbage.

But, so, there we were… during recess in second grade, glued to the hip doing some weird thing kids do before the world ruins their imaginations and sense of wonder with responsibilities and cold hard truths. We were playing when a group of kids got together to play a new game. Truth or dare. Some girl, Sara maybe… I don't know, had an older sister who played truth or dare all the time.

It had seemed so innocent, so cool, at the time to play that game. Little did I realize the true horror on the other side of that ridiculous game that had clearly been designed by Satan himself.

Inuyasha and I sat down, he, true to form, was skeptical. Really though, he was always skeptical of other kids in general. Most other kids didn't treat him well. They didn't… To be frank, the other kids were full on jerks. My king was valiant and unique and amazing, but… they treated him like he was every day trash instead of a gem more precious than the Sacred Jewel. Whatever. I'm not bitter…

While they were busy judging and ostracizing him, it had meant I got to spend more time with him, I guess. Just to be clear, as his queen… I never let those idiots get away with being mean to my king. Ever.

Back to the game though.

I was excited but Inuyasha had needed some convincing. My mother had sent me to school with these candies, they were those sweet but spicy cinnamon heart things? I wasn't a big fan, but Inuyasha loved them. The first time I brought them he sniffed them out of my bag and devoured the whole box. The boy smelled like cinnamon for the rest of the day.

I didn't really care for them personally, but my mother was always buying them. So we created a bartering system.

He would join me to play and see what this super cool new game was like, and I would give him my candies. He had readily agreed and walked by my side collecting his payment and making me as happy as a clam. My valiant king was clearly a shrewd negotiator and I loved him all the more for it.

I didn't even care that as we sat in that circle, my legs bouncing with unconstrained intrigue and excitement, that Inuyasha wasn't paying attention in the slightest. He was happy eating his candies that stained his mouth red, keeping me company.

Not even five minutes in… one of the kids looked directly at me. Again Inuyasha couldn't give less of a shit, but I'll never forget that dirty, devious smirk or the way this kid's right brow raised slowly, eyes dancing in delight as he looked me over, his gaze flitting to Inuyasha at the last possible second.

It sent a chill down my tiny little spine, a breath catching in my naive little throat as I waited. I, like the ignorant little girl I was, had chosen dare. Never choose dare. Always choose truth. Always. I didn't like the look that kid had because in the final milliseconds before he spoke, I knew what he was going to do wasn't going to be… nice. He had picked this particular dare to cause us the most discomfort possible. To really challenge our relationship or… make one of us feel bad.

Either way… that kid is still on my shit list. Naraku.

"I dare you to kiss Inuyasha," he had declared, inciting a round of giggles and hushed whispers. The beady eyes of our other classmates all looking at me, as if this singular act would prove to Inuyasha and I, once and for all, that we were not friends but simply in denial.

I wish I had frozen or laughed nervously, something that wasn't a big deal. Instead, I sputtered like an idiot. Inuyasha paused his munching and glared at the little red-eyed bitch, before rolling his eyes. While I was still trying to speak, he placed a tender kiss on my cheek.

What a guy.

But of course… that wasn't the dare. I had to kiss him. So I extorted the same loop hole Inuyasha had cleverly identified. Naraku had never specified where or how long the kiss needed to be. I leaned over, careful not to get in his personal space too much, and placed a little kiss on his cheek then sat back down triumphantly.

Naraku though… he wouldn't forget that. Like I said, little bitch.

We didn't play truth or dare again. At least… not for a while. We'll come back to that later…

Things only got worse in middle school. As if it wasn't bad enough puberty was hitting and making things overly hormonally charged and awkward in general, people continued to purposefully put us in compromising positions for entertainment.

Ugh.

This may take a hot second… but let me explain…

Inuyasha and I had every class together from kindergarten through fifth grade. Every. Class. We hung out constantly. We were always each other's pair for projects. We played together at recess everyday. After school he would always come over to my place until his mother got out of work and would pick him up. We had sleep overs every Friday. And every Saturday we woke up for cartoons. Sundays were either park days or movie days.

Are you getting the picture now? When I said inseparable I meant it. And this didn't change just because we got taller or more awkward about our bodies.

What did change was that we didn't have all our classes together. Certain electives we didn't share. No amount of melt downs or tears would fix that. Trust me on that… I tried.

This is when we made other friends out of pure necessity. Enter: Sango and Miroku. I met Sango in band and Inuyasha met Miroku… somewhere. I never really heard that story… one day Miroku just showed up with that stupid, broad grin. Inuyasha was still my king and I still his queen, but now we had a duke and duchess to join us and help us maintain the kingdom. Things were different, but running smoothly still.

As we… aged… it was helpful to have Sango and Miroku to rely on. I had once tried to talk to Inuyasha about woman stuff and I am almost positive I scarred him for life.

Whoops.

Inuyasha and I were more than happy to remain isolated in our scheduled worlds full of sleepovers and hangouts, but then the rules changed. Specifically… our parents imposed restrictions on our time together. Suddenly, he was no longer allowed to sleep on the bed with me, so we moved to the living room where we both still fell asleep on top of each other, tangled in the other as if the other would cease to exist if we weren't physically connected. The big difference then being we always had a kink in our neck or someone would complain about sleeping on the bar between the sections. We no longer really cared about the park as much, but instead began going to the arcade or the mall with Sango and Miroku. There were differences, growing pains, as was to be expected. Still, we were indivisible.

In and around eighth grade though, things began to drastically veer off course. People started having parties and parents were beginning to feel less inclined to keep a strict eye on their kids.

Hormones. Hormones were the real problem. You had to be careful where you walked, catching feelings was as common as catching a cold in winter. Crushes… everywhere. It was… gross.

Remember how we played truth or dare in elementary school? Yeah, that came back with a vicious bite and the dares were getting far more… risqué every time we played. Like I said… hormones and disgusting crushes were pushing people to begin exploring their sexuality with other pimple faced awkward teens. Thankfully, I had stuck to my handy strategy: always pick truth. Always.

Still, parties with less and less supervision were becoming more common. I had always loved parties though. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting new people, playing games, experiencing different things. Inuyasha? Fucking hated them. Groaned and complained the entire time. But… I couldn't just go to a party without my king… He objected strenuously every time. In the end though… he always humored his queen.

Why?

Because by then our friendship was unshakeable. That… and I continued to feed his odd obsession with those stupid cinnamon hearts. Every time I was invited to a party, I gave him a package of those silly things in exchange for his time. At that point in our friendship, it was more or less a tradition rather than a requirement. He'd come with me regardless of whether I expressly promised him candies.

He was my king.

So, we'd go to the parties together and while I played games or talked to people, he would always sit nearby, crunching on those ridiculous things. In fact, the sound of him biting on the candies was practically the soundtrack to our friendship. But, if that's what made him happy, who was I to deny him?

As I mentioned a hundred years ago, the constant pressure our peers placed on us to admit that we were more than we were or to use our closeness against us as a weapon for comedy or sport continued.

I'll never forget the first time it happened.

I had been going to parties with Inuyasha for a good bit, most of the people in attendance knew us and knew our relationship. Though they didn't understand it, they knew of it. And of course… our tale would not be complete without little bitch.

Naraku. He was also regularly at events in our grade.

So, there we were. Inuyasha reclined next to me, chewing on the candies and checking his phone, either texting Miroku or playing a game. Me, again, sitting in the group, legs bouncing, giddy smile plastered on my face, waiting to hear more about this new game. It was called Seven Minutes in Heaven.

You probably already know what that game is and what it implies. I didn't. I was a naive idiot who was just so gosh darn excited to play!

The rules were explained and I tried to excuse myself. I did. I tried. I swear. But Sango… she had… she had… a… crush, ick… I know. But she had a crush on this guy in our grade. I was the only one who knew. This, by the way, is how I ended up in that dumb circle to begin with. It was my job… as her friend… to select her and this guy to be paired together. Problem was that that opened me up to being paired as well.

I bet you'll never guess who Naraku paired me with…

Our first time in the closet went a little something like this:

"Okay," Inuyasha stated, shaking his head, gold eyes flitting around the tiny coat closet we were stuck in before he closed them, waiting for my signal.

"One… two… three!" I announced, clapping my hands together at the end for emphasis.

He had looked up instantly, his black brows rising, radiant eyes going cross and mouth hanging open with his little fangs poking out. I instantly burst out into laughter and soon he was laughing with me, my face a mirror of his.

We had a grand fucking time between the coats, looking into each other's eyes and coexisting in our shared world.

What, pray tell, were we doing?

We had decided to pass the time in the closet together by playing a game and we were making funny faces at each other. The goal, initially being to see who would make the craziest face. If you laughed first, you lost. However, the goal had changed because… well… my king and I were in sync. We kept making the same faces as the other. Over and over. It was one of the most fun times I'd ever had in a closet.

Naraku had not been pleased when he flung open the door only to find us both still separate, and gasping for breath because we'd been laughing too hard. He wouldn't be deterred though.

At the next party, Sango had pulled me into the circle again and Naraku saw his chance. He had told us that there was only so long we could enjoy making faces at each other before we'd have to smash faces.

He was real eloquent.

So, there we were… in a tight closet… together… again. This closet, though a little bigger, was more cramped. Large, heavy coats filled it to the brim and this weird, old leather smell permeated the air. Inuyasha and I sat close together, our knees touching, but faces still separated by a foot or more of space.

"Hmm," I had murmured, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. I could feel his gaze on me, watching me in that really intense way that was just so him. It made me smile despite myself and ruined my concentration. "Ugh, I can't remember with you staring at me like that!"

"Oh sure, blame it on me!" He sneered, the corners of his mouth turned upwards in a cocky grin. He had me and he had fucking known it. Inuyasha was just making me suffer for his own pleasure.

"I don't know which episode you're referring to!" I finally exclaimed, rolling my eyes.

Naraku had been right about us getting bored with making faces at each other. Instead of doing that, we decided to grill each other on trivia related to our favorite cartoon that we'd watched a dozen times as kids. His memory for those things was significantly better than mine. Like… by leagues. It wasn't even a real competition.

Inuyasha shook his head.

He shook his head! At me!

"Oh don't give me that!" I laughed, "I'm sorry…"

"This is just… unforgivable." He jested, feigning offense as the closet door opened.

"Seriously?" Naraku hissed, glaring at us. "Trivia?"

Inuyasha and I looked at each other briefly but then nodded as we turned back to him.

The third time we were forced into a closet together as hormonal teens though… that… that was… magical and weird, but so much fun.

There was no space between us that time… because… well… this closet was overflowing with junk. Naraku shoved us in and we were already on top of each other before the door locked us inside, but that closet had had a light. So, small blessings I guess.

"Oh wow," I had gasped lightly, eyes wide as I peered over into his lap, mesmerized by him. "Wait, show me it again?" I murmured, biting my lip nervously and looking at him with big, pleading eyes.

"Kags!" He whined, "pay attention. You act like you've never seen this before."

"Um… I haven't…"

"For fuck's sake," he muttered, pulling it out again and showing me.

"H-how does it fit in there?" I had asked, turning my head and examining it from different angles.

"I swear, you're lucky you're my friend," Inuyasha bemoaned.

"Oh please, I could easily find this on the internet if I really wanted to."

"Great, thanks. Really appreciate the ego boost." He griped, shoving the stuffed rabbit back in the dingy hat.

Magic.

We were practicing magic tricks. Inuyasha's mother was a big fan of silly tricks for a minute and her birthday had been coming up. We were planning a show for her and Inuyasha was significantly better at it all than I was. While we waited to be released from our temporary imprisonment, he was showing me a few of the new tricks he'd learned and was practicing at the party while the rest of our friends and I participated in the feeble acts of debauchery our classmates were attempting.

I wish I could tell you that Naraku and our other classmates had learned their lesson. I wish I could tell you that they realized that my bond with Inuyasha was too good to be dragged down by their petty attempts at match making.

But it wasn't.

Why?

Because high school changed the rules. High school… ruined me.

High school ruined us.

So, you may be wondering, what's this story about anyway? Well, I'll tell you. It's about how this queen, almost lost her crown, her thrown, but worst of all… it's about how this queen almost lost her king…

Hindsight, of course, has perfect vision, but at the time I did not. I was a girl becoming a woman who fought bitterly against change that was inevitable. I didn't want to open my eyes. I didn't want to see what was right in front of me. I didn't want to admit what was right in front of me. I didn't want to confront the truth of the reality before me. Because that was just so overwhelming to process.

And I was scared.

Petrified really… of what it would all mean and how it would all influence my relationship with the only person who really mattered to me. What I wanted more than anything was to keep my king…

To keep Inuyasha.

I loved him before I knew what love was. I had to learn in reverse that what we had, what we have, isn't friendship. It's so much more. He'd spoiled me from that first moment we met and from then on and forever more… I was lost in him.

He had held my little, beating heart in his hand from the start. He was my king, but more importantly, I was his. I was his queen, his best friend, and his to cherish. I was and never would be anyone else's.

But, as a teen I didn't know that. I naively assumed that all best friends were the same. That he and I just operated on the save wave length instead of on an entirely different plane of connection.

I was too naive, too drunk on his presence to see what everyone else saw. I mean… even little bitch knew before I did!

High school forced my eyes open, tested our "unshakable" bond and made me confront my biggest fear.

Worse still… for a moment, high school made my biggest fear real.

All because I caught feelings for my best friend…