I was up and walking around the village in no time. That was one crazy fever. I wonder what caused it… I was walking Kagome to the well. She needed to go back to her time and get some things for the adventure. She had planned on going earlier this morning, but the rain had postponed her plans until now. She was putting her bag over the rim over the rim of the well when I turned around to examine our surroundings. When I heard her scream, I turned to face the well. I went over to the edge of the well to make sure she had gone through and was not just sitting at the bottom. I placed my hand on the rim to support myself as I looked into the well. Unfortunately for me, my hand slipped off the rim and I started to fall in. I caught myself before I could fall, but the well seemed to pull me in, and I started to fall toward the bottom of it. I let out a short squeak and braced myself for impact, but instead felt no gravity.
All around me there was black with pink streaks of light. Was I time traveling? That had to be the answer! I was going to Kagome's time!
When I landed on the ground softy, I looked up. There was a roof over the well. I was right! I had gone to Kagome's time. I changed into a demon and leapt out of the well, careful not to hit my head on the roof. I went to the door and changed back. When I opened the door, the sunlight assaulted my face. I could hear cars zooming down nearby roads, and airplanes in the sky. I looked at the house before me and then started toward it. When I got to what seemed like the front, I rang the doorbell. I could hear were someone's footsteps coming to the door.
Not laughing at Kagome's startled face was impossible.
"Wha- How did you get here?!" she asked with bewilderment written on her eyes.
"I fell through the well." I explained.
"Last time we tried that, it didn't work!"
"Last time, I didn't have a shard of the Sacred Jewel." I replied.
Kagome took that as the perfect reasoning and invited me inside. I took off my shoes at the front, and Kagome basically dragged me to the bathroom. The thought of taking a bath in warm water that's not in a hot spring warmed my soul. I took my sweet time scrubbing off more weeks' worth of dirt and stuff. I washed my hair with shampoo, getting rid of all the oil my scalp had produced and the dirt that didn't come out initially. When I finished, I dried myself off with a towel and put on the clothes Kagome had left me. She has the cutest clothes, but always goes to the feudal era in her school uniform. It kind of made sense, since she didn't want to mess up her nice clothes, she wore the clothes that she didn't care about, A.K.A her school uniform.
When I walked out of the bathroom, Souta ran into me. I looked down at him as he looked up. He seemed confused and called out to Kagome.
"Kagome! Do you have a new friend?" he asked.
Running footsteps could be heard on their way upstairs. I crouched down to Souta's height and gave him a small smile.
"I'm a new friend of Kagome. Sorry to just appear out of the blue, but it kind of happened on accident." I told him.
"Accident? Are you from the other side of the well?" he asked.
"To a certain extent, yes."
"Really? Is it as dangerous as Kagome says?"
"Hah! If anything, it's more dangerous!"
"How dangerous? Have you ever been hurt?"
"Let's see how many I can remember. In the beginning, I almost got eaten by wolves, almost had my head torn off my body, caught a fever. I almost got rapped a couple of times, got put in a choke hold. Umm, I got thrown at a wall. That felt as though I had broken my back! What else… I almost got clawed, but instead had some armor shards shattered into my chest… got possessed, I've been kidnapped a couple of times, had a hole through my chest, almost drowned… I'm pretty sure I missed a couple."
Souta's face had nothing but surprise on it.
"And you lived through it all!"
"Yup."
"You're either a super strong human, or a demon!" he exclaimed
"Option number two!" I told him.
"You're a demon?!"
I smiled and nodded.
"You're amazing!" Souta said with sparkling eyes.
"I do try so very hard."
He was blushing now.
"What's the matter?"
"Will you marry me?" Souta asked.
"Sorry, Sweetie, you've been beaten to that."
"What?! By who?"
"InuYasha's older brother."
"He has an older brother?"
"Yeah, and he's a lot more powerful, and cooler too!"
"Really? Cooler than InuYasha?"
"To me at least. I think you'd be scared of him though."
"I'm not scared of anyone!"
"Did I forget to mention that he was the one that was willing to kill me before?"
"What? How could you be killed? You've survived so much!"
"That just proves how strong he is. He only needs to flick his wrist, and I'd be dead. Of course he won't kill me, but he's done that to a couple of demons that have tried to take me away from him."
"R-really?"
I nodded.
"He's a full demon, so that's to be expected."
"But InuYasha's a half demon."
"They have different mothers."
"Oh…" he said. "Will he come after me since I asked you to marry me?"
"No. You're a different case. Even if he tried to, I'd stop him."
"Thanks." He sighed.
"Kagome, how long are you gonna stand around the corner?" I asked her.
"Well, I thought you two wouldn't get along so well…"
"Kagome, she's awesome!" Souta exclaimed.
"Thanks!" I replied.
"Souta, you should start heading off to school." Kagome told him.
"Aw man! I forgot that I needed to go!"
He rushed out of the house and off toward school. I thanked Kagome for the clothing before she started dragging me to school with her.
"I don't want to go to school!" I fussed as I waved my arms up and down in protest.
"I need to show you to my English teacher!"
"WHY?"
"So you can teach the class!"
"But English is my worst class!"
"Really? What's your grade in America?"
"…93"
"YOU CALL THAT 'your worst class'?! What's your highest?"
"…100 or above."
"OVERACHIEVER!"
"But I really do suck at English!"
"How? You speak it fluently, and have a 93 in the class!"
"It's such a complicated language! There are homophones, and synonyms, then there are participles, and gerunds, and spelling rules, and infinitives, and opening and closing adjective clauses, direct objects, indirect objects, object of the prepositions, comma rules, sentence structure, sentence purposes, different formats, words based off of different languages, so many dialects, opening and closing adverb phrases, relative pronouns, no double negatives, there's just so much!"
"You lost me at participles."
"Don't make me go!"
"Too late! We're already here!"
"No!"
"Don't make a scene! People are already in homeroom!"
Kagome checked me in at the front office, and they seemed ecstatic that I was able to speak fluent English. Kagome took me to her classroom and introduced me to her classmates. When the teacher came in, everyone stood and greeted him. He called roll, and then immediately pointed me out. He was informed that I would be here, and decided to put me on the spot. Kagome had math in the morning, poor soul. The first problem was factoring. I did that with ease. Thank goodness for coordinate algebra and geometry. I could tell that I impressed the teacher because he let me sit back down.
After social studies, Japanese literature, and science, English class rolled around.
"Good morning class." The teacher greeted in English.
"Good morning." The class responded.
"We have a guest today that knows English fluently?" she asked.
"Yes." Kagome answered as she stood up. "This is my friend Kazumi. She's from the United States."
"Really?"
"Yes ma'am." I replied.
"Shall we have a conversation in English then, to show the class the format?" she asked.
"I'm fine with that."
"Has your stay in Japan been fun?"
"It has with Kagome's help."
"Do you two plan on going anywhere after school?"
"No, but I hope we can stop and buy some ice cream, I'm in the mood for something sweet."
"Oh, so you have a sweet tooth?"
"Yes. I tend to have to eat monstrous amounts of chocolate just to satisfy my cravings sometimes. Gummy bears sometimes dull it out too."
"Your vocabulary is well rounded."
"My English teacher makes us learn vocabulary. It's hard remembering so many words."
"Would you care to list some?"
"Let's see…. Assiduous, marionette, diverge, exult, sophomoric, brash, turbulent, voluminous, commodious, and obviate are some."
"Class, did you pick up on any words that you know?"
They listed out many of the words I had said, but missed some of what I said because I spoke too fast.
"Miss Kazumi, would you care to write some of the words on the board?"
"I wouldn't mind."
"Are there any questions you would like to ask?" the teacher asked the class.
Many hands shot up. I started at the right side of the class.
"What are the words you used that were like 'I'm'." the guy asked.
"Those are contractions." I said as I wrote the word on the board. "In English, you use them to shorten certain words. 'I'm' means 'I am'. You take away the 'a' and put an apostrophe in its place, then make it one word."
"When can you use that?" was the next question.
"There are certain pairings that you have to remember, but usually you can use it when the words, are, not, and am are following certain words."
"What do you mean certain words?" the next girl asked.
"You can't use contractions whenever you want. For example, if I'm saying 'you are funny.' I can make the 'you are' a contraction. The sentence then becomes 'you're funny.' Just like now, how I used the word can't. The sentence 'You can't do that.' is the same as 'You cannot do that.'"
It looked as though I confused them.
"Contractions are hard to understand, but you have to use them to understand them. Next question."
"How do you address people that are older than you?"
"It depends on how well you know the person, and where you are. In school, you address all adults as either 'Ms.', if you are talking to an unmarried woman, 'Mrs.', if you are speaking to a married woman. 'Mr.', if you are talking to a man, both married and not married, and then their last name follows. Depending on how well your relationship is with the person, how you address the person changes. If you are talking to an upperclassman, you can still refer to them as their first name as though you know the person well."
"Were you speaking formal English?"
"I was."
"How often will you see someone speaking formal English?"
"Not very. You have the highest chance of speaking to someone in formal English when you are speaking to someone that is learning the language, or to someone with a super high class or standing."
"How do native English speakers speak?"
"Well, that depends on where you are." I started. "You all are learning American English. American English is different from British English, which is different from Australian English. In America alone, your location can determine how English is spoken. In the northeastern part of the U.S, their English is more related to Britain's English than the southeastern English, yet neither are the same as British English or Australian English."
"How many different components make up the American English language?"
"Many, when I say many, I meant many. Kagome, how many parts of American English did I list on the way here?"
"Around ten." She answered.
"There are so many more. The rules are crazy, and the way to pronounce words are astronomical. Then there is the fact that many people in the U.S don't speak correct English, and make up words. For example, someone might say 'You are unliterate.' But in all actuality, 'Unliterate' isn't a word. The word they meant to say was 'illiterate.' Simple mistakes such as using the wrong suffix can make you sound stupid, and with the homophones, people can get a different understanding. Another example, 'I was a bare tree.' If you're saying it, someone might think you mean bear, as in the animal when you actually mean bare as in empty."
Questions kept coming up, and I had to stop when the bell rang. I was worn out. I could never be an English teacher.
