Chapter 20: A Certain Change

Ever since Kagome eavesdropped on her parents discussion about her controlling her feelings, she decides to prove them wrong. As she gets ready for bed, a knock on her door make her pay attention. "Who is it?" She asks quietly since it's late into the evening. The door slowly opens to show her little brother, Sota. "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute, sis." He asks her shyly. "Sure." She smiles warmly to let him into her bedroom. "What's on your mind?" Kagome asks him, noticing him dwindling his thumbs. "Would you promise not to tell mom and dad?" Sota begs her. Kagome nods to make her answer affirmative. "What do you when you really someone?" Sota asks her. Kagome smiles. She can tell right off the bat that his little brother has a crush on a girl. "Well, you should admit to her how you feel about her. Be nice. Give compliments once in a while." She gives wise advice on how to take of a problem like this.

"Are you sure that this is going to work? I've never done this before." Sota speaks in self-doubt. Kagome can see how nervous he is. "Sota, you're just a kid and it takes time for certain things to develop until you're ready to take it." Sota looks up to her. "What about you? Did you think you found that Koga was the one for you when you met?" Kagome slightly frowns. "To be honest with you. I had my doubts about as our relationship started. Sure, he was nice to me, but I was naïve to notice that there was a secret that Koga kept from me. And when I found out about it, I felt so betrayed and hurt. I never want to be in that again."

Sota nods. "So basically, he was playing with your feelings. Toying with them." He tells her to make sure he understood the problem. "Yeah. Now you know how it feels to be like that. And I don't want that to happen to you if something like that does happen. You know you can always talk to me if you have anything on your mind." Kagome smiles to him. Sota nods and hugs her good night. Kagome turns off the lamp by her bed and calls it a night.

Monday mornings are not the best times for people. It's the beginning of the week, and apparently no one wants to start at that part. Inuyasha and Miroku are minding their own business by the bus stop. "Any idea what this week will be like this time?" Miroku asks him to break the comfortable silence. "How should I know? It's going to be the same old like any other week." Inuyasha responds back to him not really interested on what else his friend is going to say next. "Morning." Sango comes up to them. "Oh, Morning Sango. I hope you had a great weekend." Miroku grins at her. As such Sango keeps her guard up, knowing fully well what he might do to her. "Hey where's Kagome?" Inuyasha asks her seeing a missing spot. Sango turns around to the direction. "Gee. I didn't know that I was supposed to have Kagome with me. I haven't seen her since the bar-b-que." She answers to them.

Back the Higurashi house, Kagome's alarm chimes to wake her up. "Kagome, wake up you lazy girl." Sota shakes her violently. "Fine, just get out." Kagome screams at him. Sota is so scared he zipped out of the room. Ai sees Sota in a scared expression. "Sota, you okay?" She comes up to him. "Mom, I think there's something wrong with Kagome." He cries into her arms. Hige sees that this is a problem. "I'll go check up on her." He offers to do it. "No, I'll handle this." Ai disagrees and goes up to her daughter's room.

She knocks on the door. "Kagome." She calls to girl. "I'm not going to school." Came Kagome's answer. "What do you mean you're not going to school?" Ai boldly comes into her room to see a complete mess of clothes all over the floor. "Kagome? What's going on here? You're going to be late." Ai gently scolds her. "What's the point? I'm not to wear anything what I have here. I need a new wardrobe." Kagome keeps on complaining. Ai sees her coming out of the closet in something that's not really her daughter's style. She's in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie with a short sleeve shirt under it. "Just go to school. We'll discuss this later." Ai takes her daughter out of her room with her purse and cell phone.

Kagome remains the way she's dressed and heads outside to get to the bus stop. As she is sight from her friends, they are shocked to see Kagome. "What's up?" Kagome asks as she gets close enough to them. "What happened to you, Kagome?" Sango asks her. "What are you talking?" Kagome tilts her head. "First off your outfit doesn't suit you." Sango points to her. Kagome looks down to her get up. "What about it? I thought that if I tried something else on, I could get used to it." She explains to Sango.

Sango digs into her purse to pull out a brush. "And your hair is out of whack. Here." She hands Kagome the brush. Kagome does brush out her long raven black hair. She gives it back to Sango. "Now what's gotten into you, Kagome?" Sango asks as she puts the brush back into her purse. "I'm just not myself at the moment. I don't know what gotten into me to be honest." She holds her head. Inuyasha comes to her this time. "Maybe it was because of what happened at the bar-b-que after what my dad told her." He explains to her.

Miroku and Sango get it now. "So, when it was revealed that your dad kind of messed with Kagome, she didn't like. And therefore, she couldn't get over it." Miroku states out the obvious. "And I kind of made a scene and left the place and he literally had to carry me back to home from where I stormed off." Kagome crossed her arms with a pout. Sango widens her eyes, "What a minute, you stormed off and he literally carried you back?" She asks in disbelief. "Yeah, he had me over his shoulder so that I wouldn't escape." Kagome admits. The bus arrives and transport them to school.

Throughout the day at school, Kagome's unusually outfit has been the talk of the day. Kagome has been through this kind of stuff before, and it doesn't bother her one bit. "have you heard what happened?" One of the kids asks another one. "About Higurashi? I heard that she had a mental breakdown." The other student chuckles. "What a shame. And she seems so nice. What could've happened to her anyway?" The first one asks curiously. "I wish I knew." The other shrugged his shoulders.

Truth was that Kagome has been through a rough time and even though she thinks she's gotten over her problems, it still plagues her deeply. She didn't want anyone, even her new friends to know the full truth about that. Not yet until she feels she can trust them completely. As the day progress, something else has gotten worse for her. A new student has entered the school. It's a girl a bit older that Kagome. She has very long black hair with a cerulean blue eyes with mischief in them. "Oh no." Inuyasha speaks in shivers. "What is it?" Miroku asks him. Before Inuyasha could respond, the new girl passes him. "It's been awhile, Inuyasha." The girl speaks to him in a creepy nice way. "I'll tell you later." That's all Inuyasha could tell him before class started.

As soon as school ended, Inuyasha looks around to make sure that the new girl isn't around. He gets onto the bus and sits at the very back of it. "What is wrong with you?" Miroku comes to him. "I happen to know her." Inuyasha admits to him. "Really? She looks like a keeper to me." Miroku grins to him. Inuyasha shakes his head. "Not likely, Miroku. I've known her from somewhere else." Inuyasha tells him serious. "Where did you know her from?" Miroku asks him. "I only know from a gift shop where I got Kikyo our anniversary gift. But ever since she passed away, I thought that it would be best to take it back. The thing is that Kagome had it in her possession." Inuyasha continues on his story. Miroku would never expect this side of him. "So she used to work at that gift shop that you got the gift? But why were you so skittish when you saw her?" Miroku asks him.

The bus stops at their spot to drop them off. "The moment I saw her, I feel so anxious. Don't get me wrong. I don't know her on a personally. But I know of her. All I can tell the she was Kikyo's rival." Inuyasha digs his clawed hands into his jacket pocket. "Kikyo's rival? What did Kikyo have that her rival didn't?" Miroku asks him. "For what Kikyo told me about her was that she gained a lot of respect despite my relationship with her." Inuyasha and Miroku head to the patio of Inuyasha's house. "But I forgot what her name was though. I wasn't there when she arrived?" Miroku sits down onto one of the lounge chairs. "Her name is Tsubaki Homine. She always hated Kikyo." Inuyasha does the same thing. "And then she must've master witchcraft to place that curse on the locket that Kikyo wasn't aware of, and effected Kagome." Miroku comes to that point. Inuyasha nods. "Exactly. And now that she's here, there's no telling what she's going to do to Kagome. I know Sango can hold her own, but Kagome in unaware about the potential what Tsubaki has upon her." He agrees.