In school, Emma struggled through her classes. Did all Japanese teachers talk this fast, or did she think too slowly? Her mind exhausted, she slugged through chemistry lab, almost passed out in Calculus, and had a major headache by the time Japanese History came around.

Thank goodness! she grumbled inwardly. We get a book to read from.

After she got the hang of the reading, she thoroughly enjoyed their lesson in history that day. It was on the Feudal Era in Japan, a time of handsome daimyos and beautiful priestesses, of belief in wicked demons and honorable ones, of monsters and magic. She was instantly entranced by the ruggedness of Old Japan. There was something, however, tugging at the back of her mind.

Grandpa said something about the feudal era this morning, she pondered. Something to do with this Inuyasha dude I keep hearing about.

Her eyes glazed over the symbols as her mind clicked away.

98lp;o

Is he a boyfriend? A relative? Some sort of mentor or something?

Whatever, she shrugged. I'll ask her about him after class.

—-

Much to Emma's relief, the bell rang not too long after her little discovery. Relieved, she snapped the book shut and shoved it into her backpack. She needed a breath of air, and something for this headache. She made her way out of the door in the path of milling students was about to head out to the sidewalk when she remembered that Kagome was her walk home. Kagome was also nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, it was like she hit a brick wall. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the wall of the lobby, slid down from sheer exhaustion, and plopped onto the somehow impeccably clean linoleum floor.

As the chattering students walked by, only one seemed to be concerned about her health. A tall boy with short raven hair squatted down in front of her, and put a hand on her forehead.

She squealed in surprise at the unexpected touch, her eyes snapping open to find this stranger with his hand on her face. "Can I help you?"

He took a closer look at her face and made a face like he had figured out exactly where she was from. "Are you well, miss?" he asked in bad English. "You seem ill."

Emma, startled by the greeting in English, looked up quizzically at the kind boy. She blushed as she replied in equally bad Japanese, "Oh, I'm fine. Just a little tired, that's all."

The boy smiled, a wide, relieved grin plastered across his handsome face. "Welcome to Japan! My name is Hojo." He shook her hand and then offered it to her to help her to her feet. "I believe you are from…" He struggled with the pronunciation, "Mi-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i?"

Emma gave him an encouraging smile, and nodded. "That's right!"

Behind Hojo's head, she spotted Kagome in the faraway hall, standing with a group of three other girls their age. She waved to her roomie until they made eye contact and the group waved back. "I'm sorry, Hojo, I must be going," she said. "Kagome is waiting for me, and we have to fetch Souta from the grade school!"

Hojo lowered his head. It was now his turn to blush. "You're staying with the Higurashis?"

"That's right."

Still blushing, Hojo pulled some odd bundle of roots out of his book satchel. "Then would you give these to Kagome, please? They're the roots of the moily herb. If you brew them into tea, they'll cure that horrible whooping frog's cough of hers."

Then as quick as he had arrived, he handed the roots over, ran off to the busy streets, and disappeared around a corner.

A little confused about that entire interaction, Emma eyed the odd tubers with suspicion as she walked across the hall. When she reached the group, she politely said hello to each of the girls, tapped Kagome on the shoulder and unceremoniously dumped the roots into her arms.

When Kagome opened her mouth to ask, she waved it off. "They're supposedly the roots of the moily herb," she explained. "Something about a whooping frog's cough?"

This statement instantly created a commotion between Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka, and they surrounded both students, pelting them with questions.

"Oooh! Does Hojo like you, Emma?"

"Watch out Kagome, you've got competition!"

"No way, Hojo will always remain faithful to Kagome! Have you seen the guy?"

"I guess this will give you a little less pressure from Mr. Controlling, eh, Kagome?"

Kagome gave them a quick glare, which brought almost instant results of quiet. An eyebrow twitching, she dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. "Ah, Hojo's nice to everybody. C'mon Emma, or Souta will never forgive us for being late!"

After seeing her friend trapped by a mob of curious Japanese students, she grabbed Emma by the wrist and dragged her out of the building and into the streets.

Emma rubbed her temples, the pressure and the noise finally getting to her. "How do you deal with all of this on a daily basis," she groaned. "Between the work and the language and, well, everything?"

But Kagome's mind was already elsewhere as she replied airily, "I don't really…"

"Excuse me?"

Her eyes went wide when she realized what had slipped out, and lowered sheepishly. "Oh you know," she sputtered, "We just have to speak it in English class and I've been sick so much lately that I'm not in school and stressed all the time…"

Emma raised an eyebrow. "You've been sick all the time?"

It was as if steam were coming out of the Japanese girl's ears as she continued to sputter, "Well you know, colds and the flu and the like, my immune system has just been letting me down lately, but you know," Kagome's ears and face continued to morph into a neon shade of pink.

"Don't worry," interrupted Emma with a chuckle. "You're allowed to be sick every now and then, I don't need to know why."

The schoolgirl visibly relaxed, the normal color returning to her formerly flushed face. "Thanks," she sighed.

—-

That night in her bedroom, as Emma poured over her textbooks in hopes that her slow reading would somehow get much better, Kagome's weird behavior kept nagging at the back of her mind.

Why would someone get so defensive about being sick? It's not like it's my business.

After a quick pause to scratch a visiting Buyo behind the ears, she returned to her history textbook. Her fingers brushed over the beautiful paintings printed on the page and she sighed.

Feudal Japan sounds like a nightmare, she concluded. Between the warring states and all the civilian casualties, I'd have to imagine this would be a rough life.

Her fingers continued to browse the pages until suddenly, they halted on an impossibly familiar face. It was an old ink painting of a miko in a short red robe, with a bow and arrow aiming at an ugly and menacing green-faced demon.

That looks, creepily, a lot like Kagome.

And as if the universe could hear her thoughts, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!"

Kagome entered, dressed in a fluffy pink robe and delicately balancing two glass mugs of steaming hot tea. "Courtesy of Mom," she explained. "She thought you might want some tea while you study."

Emma's heart glowed a little at the thought. "Well, that was really nice of her."

Her friend smiled and set the mug next to the history textbook on the desk. "She really enjoys you being here," she said warmly. "I think she always wanted another daughter. Well, that would be if…"

Her head inclined and the smile disappeared slightly, "That would be if my dad hadn't passed. ten or so years ago. "

A tense silence fell in the room for a moment.

Kagome forced a smile and a laugh, waving her hand as if to dismiss the thought. "But that's enough of that," she fake chuckled.

She made her way to the bed and plopped down, settling before she took a long sip of her tea. "What's your family like, Em?" she asked innocently. "I bet they're really nice."

Emma cleared her throat from the sudden lump that appeared there, the dream from last night appearing in her mind almost like an echo. "They, um," she stammered. "My, um, dad passed away last year." Tears began to well in her eyes and she quickly turned away, busying herself with the business of having tea. "It was, uhm, lung cancer. We, uh, we caught it too late."

Kagome clapped her hand over her mouth in embarassment, setting her mug on a nearby side table. "Emma, I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

"It's okay," Emma mumbled. Feeling strangely vulnerable, she fidgeted with her auburn hair, pulling it up into a ponytail just to have something to do with her hands. "My mom died when I was really little, so Dad was kind of all I had."

"Who do you live with now?"

"Well, you," she joked after taking a sip of her tea. It was warm and comforting as it slipped into her stomach, giving her a strange sense of safety. "I was in foster care for a while since they couldn't find any of my next of kin, but when the exchange program came up I hopped on it as quickly as possible."

Kagome sighed and leaned back against the wall, cupping her mug in both hands. "Well," she finally said, "I guess that makes us family, huh?"

Emma swallowed hard and gave a wry smile. "Guess that would."

There was a less awkward silence as they both sipped their tea in contemplation.

Suddenly, Emma's eyes lit up. "Oh!" she exclaimed and turned back towards her book, setting her mug down. "Kagome, come look at this."

Kagome wandered over and looked down before becoming visibly tense.

Emma, however, continued babbling on, blissfully unaware. "I was studying the feudal area, you know, the warring states, and doesn't this drawing look just like you?"

"Yeah! Heh, that's funny," mumbled Kagome, once again with that far-off look in her eyes.

"I thought so too, and on the next page….goddamnit!"

The now mostly-empty mug of tea, bumped by her gesturing hand, fell to the floor and shattered with a loud CRASH.

"You guys okay up there?" called Mrs. Higurashi from downstairs.

"We're fine!" Kagome yelled back. "Just an accident!"

Emma was already on the floor gathering the large shards, apologizing profusely all the while. "I'm so sorry," she emphasized, "I'm not usually this clumsy, but I…OWCH. Goddamn it again…"

She pulled back her hand from the carpet, where a large hidden piece of glass had embedded itself in her palm. "Shit," she cursed. She carefully extracted the glass from the wound and threw it in the trash can. Quickly, cupping the blood pouring into her hand, she gestured to Kagome with the other hand. "Hey! Do you have a paper towel or something?"

"A paper towel?" exclaimed Kagome. "A cut that big is going to need stitches, we need to get to the hospital." Thinking quickly, she pulled a couple tissues out of the box on the bedstead and handed them over.

Emma pressed the tissues to the cut and watched a bright red stain spread across them. "Nah," she insisted, occasionally lifting the tissues to check out the cut underneath. "It hurts, yeah, but it'll be healed in an hour or two, no sweat." She checked the cut again, her eyes narrowing as she peered into it. "Probably wouldn't hurt to have some Neosporin on this sucker, though."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah! See?" She said cheerfully, lifting the bloody tissues away. "It's already getting better like normal."

Kagome cautiously looked over at Emma's palm, and, lo and behold, the cut had already stopped bleeding.

"My dad says I'm like Wolverine," the American joked, oblivious to the incredulous stare of her friend. "Must be some good genes from my mom."

"No kidding."

Emma finished gathering the shards, which were all luckily larger, and tossed the remains of the mug neatly in her desk trash bin. She turned back to her history book and was once again faced with the painting of the familiar-looking miko and the demon. Her memory suddenly tweaked, she swung around to face Kagome, am inquisitive finger quivering in the air.

"Oh! For some reason all this excitement reminds me," she ventured. "Who's Inuyasha?"