A/N: Ok so everybody has been telling me how much they love the story. Thanks so much! Unfortunately this chapter sucks. :( sorry. I can't help it. It just won't come out right. But the next one will be better and not as hard to write. Get ready for the Inu/Kag meeting. Anyway The problem is, I won't be able to keep it so "deep" all the time, otherwise it will get pretty heavy and I might not be able to handle it. So this will be one of the lighter chapters(which is probably while its so bad).But don't worry, the whole "depth" thing will be a recurring theme in chapters to come. Thanks again so much for the positive/helpful/encouraging feedback! That's what keeps me going! Oh and by the way, a lot of people asked me if the last chapter was a personal belief about drawing. Believe it or not, I'm not really an artist… strangely enough… that stuff just kind of tends to drop into my head when I write. If anything I'm a writer, not an artist. I do draw sometimes, but they're mostly anime fanart and I usually need something to look at for it to be decent. So basically, no, the last chapter is not based on a personal belief of mine, its justsomething for Kagome and Kagome alone. Thanks for all the compliments though! It's nice to know you guys care!
Disclaimer: The story plot is mine. The characters are not… yeah I know… it sucks for me too…:(
"Kagome! What were you doing?" Mrs. Higurashi asked her daughter as the sixteen year old girl flew down the stairs, brushing her dark storm-cloud colored hair out of her pale blue eyes, only to have it fall back into place. Her mother didn't notice that her daughter's fingertips were gray and smudged with pencil lead.
Kagome smiled secretively at her mother, not bothering to hide that she was hiding something. "Nothing."
Her mother rolled her eyes, "Not the 'nothing' phase again…" she muttered to herself before turning around to fetch a scrunchie for her daughter.
"I think I'll just leave it down, today." Kagome said hastily as she checked her reflection in the mirror, brushing off a bit of dust on her low-rise jeans and tugging on the "belt" hanging around her hips, which was really a string of silvery beads that draped in an uneven shape over her right hip and glimmered when she walked. She gave her mother a quick kiss on the cheek before lunging for the door, pulling on a black corduroy jacket with bellbottom sleeves over her strawberry-pink cami as she went. "Alright I'm off!" She hollered over her shoulder as she threw open the sliding door and started down the stairs, a key chain of various car keys hanging jingled from around her thumb as she waved.
"Kagome!" Her mother called after her daughter, her voice exasperated. "Your shoes!"
The girl's figure halted jerkily on the second to last step and in an instant had whipped around and scrambled back up the stairs. Gracefully she leapt through the doorframe and grabbed a pair of sandals resting up against the wall. She didn't even bother to put them on as she raced back out, her raven hair flying. Instead she held them out with her left hand, her right supporting the messenger bag she had slung sloppily over her shoulder. "Thanks mom!" She yelled quickly. "Wish me luck!"
"Good luck…" her mother said tiredly, wiping her flour-coated hands on her apron. Her soft brown eyes watched with worry as Kagome's dark green car pull out of the driveway and disappeared around the bend, a cloud of earthy red dust billowing up behind the back tires.
"No, Rin… yeah I know. No, I know, I – whoa!" Kagome cut the wheel sharply to the right, narrowly missing a bright red eighteen-wheeler that had somehow managed to get in her way. The driver honked angrily at her as he passed, screaming something along the lines of "Watch it!" But she didn't hear. She was too busy talking to Rin.
"Kagome?" Her friend's garbled voice could barely be heard in the sea of static. Kagome sighed, damn Sprint's crappy service. "What was that? Was that a truck honking at you?" She demanded, sounding somewhat like a worried mother or aunt.
"Yeah, it was, but it's ok. He didn't hit me or anything." Kagome said hurriedly, reaching for a falling pack of cinnamon Altoids as they threatened to wriggle their way off of the dashboard. Why was the ride so bouncy?
"Oh… that's… um… a … relief… Kagome, what's that noise?"
"What noise?" Kagome asked absently as she popped a cinnamon mint into her mouth, tilting her head onto her shoulder in order to hold the phone in place. Her dark hair fell into her blue eyes again, making it hard of her to see… maybe she should get another haircut soon…
"Kagome are you driving on the rumble sheet!" Rin demanded once again, the static doing nothing to drown out the panic in her voice.
"Oh!" Kagome pulled hard to the left, realizing that Rin was right. "Oops." She giggled into the phone. So that was why the road seemed so choppy.
"Kagome!" Rin yelled through the speaker. "Are you sure you can talk and drive at the same time?"
"I'm fine, Rin. So where are you?"
"I'm… I'm at 45th Cherry Tree Avenue…" The younger girl responded hesitantly, Kagome could hear the apprehension in her friends' voice. "But Kagome if you don't want to go out of your way then you don't have to-"
"Don't you need a ride to school, Rin?" Kagome asked, a small smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. "I mean how do you plan on getting there without me?"
On the other side of the phone Rin frowned and bit her lip, tucking back a piece of hair nervously. "Yeah but Kagome, you're going to-"
"I'll be fine, Rin." Kagome assured her friend through the speaker, totally blowing past a stop sign without even realizing it. Luckily there was no one else on the intersection to smash into her tiny green car.
Kagome Higurashi wasn't usually clueless. In fact most of the time she was extremely sensitive and observant to everything around her. But there were certain things in the world that seemed to render her completely clueless to everything around her. One of them was artistry. Painting, drawing, molding, you name it, Kagome Higurashi did it. But as soon as the brush or pencil or whatever it was that she was using hit the canvas or the paper or the clay, she was lost, gone in her own world. Nothing else seemed to exist but her and her art. Unfortunately, the other thing which rendered her perfectly clueless to the rest of the world was driving. And the worst part was that she hadn't even realized it yet.
The distracted girl continued to listen to Rin, all the while watching the butterfly glimmer on the hood of her car. She had painted it on the hood a little over a year ago, using Celtic designs for patterns on the wings. She could still remember the day she painted it as she traced over the glittering blue and purple lines… traces of silver reflected off the morning sun… Oh yeah… she was talking. "Look, Rin, I'll be there in about five minutes to pick you and Sango up, Ok?"
There was an extremely long pause on the other end of the phone. So long, in fact, that for a moment Kagome thought she had lost the connection. "Rin?"
Finally the younger girl's voice came back through the speaker. "Ok…" Her friend's sweet voice replied reluctantly, clearly unsure.
Kagome smiled, shaking her head softly as she pressed the "off" button on her phone and dropped it on the dashboard. Rin and Sango, Kagome's two best friends in the world, had lived together in Tokyo, Japan for their entire lives, and had been happy there. And up until around the seventh grade, so had Kagome. But when her father received a job offer in Okaska, the Higurashi family had left Tokyo behind to go settle out with him for about two years. Kagome had struggled through the eighth grade and freshman year at the local schools in Osaka. And while she had been able to get by on her own, Osaka had never really felt like home to her.
Now that her father would be spending a couple years traveling abroad, her mother, Ms. Higurashi, felt it was right to bring Souta, Kagome, Grandpa and herself back to where they had come from in the first place. Tokyo would always be home to the Higurashi family.
Kagome, for one, was glad to be back. She was comfortable in Tokyo, with her old friends and childhood memories. Sango, Rin and Kagome had practically been inseparable since the third grade. Upon her return, the three friends had spent the entire summer together, their bond quickly reforming as if she had never been away at all. And now that it was time for the new school year to start again, Kagome was more than grateful that she had Rin and Sango to help her through the all too familiar experience of "being the new kid". She knew she could count on them to help her out…
However, despite how much she cared for both her friends, they both seemed to share an inexplicable fear of driving in cars. Usually when they were traveling with her they urged Kagome to take the bus or the subway, or even just walk, as if they were afraid that riding in a car might kill them. Kagome had never been able to come up with an explanation for it, and she probably would never understand it.
"Oops!" Kagome was suddenly cut out of her thoughts as she realized that she had just passed exit seven, which read in big white letters: "45th Cherry Tree Avenue." Instinctively, Kagome pulled a huge U-turn in the middle of a four-way highway, and rocketed up the exit she had missed as she dovetailed out of the U-turn. "Made it," She sighed, resting her head on the steering wheel, only to have to pull violently to the right once she lifted her head to look up at the road again. As it was, when she finally did get to Cherry Tree Avenue, she barely managed to skid to a stop without running over her two best friends who were waiting for her on the sidewalk.
Rin and Sango, who each had grabbed onto each other in a tight embrace for what they had thought were the last moments of their precious lives, hesitantly lifted their heads up to peer at Kagome. Both sighed in relief to find that she had somehow managed to park without squashing, smashing or otherwise permanently damaging any living being or public property… unlike the last time. Kagome herself was sitting with her bright blue eyes pressed tightly shut. Her hands were clenching the steering wheel for all she was worth, her knuckles pressed to painful white-color. When she finally opened them again they watched her expression turn to a cheery grin and a wave, as if nothing had ever happened. The continued to watch, slack-jawed as she got out of the car to hug them both.
"Alright, we're late so let's get going," Kagome said, after they had spent a few seconds talking. Her two friends watched uneasily as she hopped back into the driver's seat, oblivious to the worried looks they were giving her.
"S-Sango? Do you… smell that?" Rin asked her taller friend as they approached the car slowly.
"Yeah," Sango made a face and glanced at Kagome's lightly smoking tires. "It's burnt rubber."
"Maybe you should drive." Rin whispered as she slid into the back seat, Sango taking the front.
"If only I could."
Kagome remained oblivious to her friends' conversation as she began to turn the keys in the ignition. The engine started with a soft roar, the car coming to life gently from beneath her. Then she pressed her foot hard on the gas petal, the dial for the engine power rose to a dangerous level, and the engine roared angrily from beneath the butterfly hood. But nothing happened. Kagome stared, puzzled as she lightly lifted her foot of the accelerator. "Huh…" She said lightly to herself before trying again.
"Ummm, Kagome?"
"Hmm?" Kagome glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rin who had leaned forwards in her seat, her head coming up between Sango's and her own. "You're… you're still in park…"
Kagome blinked and looked at the gear. Sure enough, her brake was still on. "Oh, thanks Rin." She smiled gratefully as she reached forwards and shifted the gear with a slight clicking noise that made Rin's stomach twist in fear.
"Kagome," Sango said, trying to sound casual. "Maybe I should dri-IVE!" Her sentence suddenly escalated to a shout as the car lunched forwards, escalating to 75 MPH in a matter of fifteen seconds.
"Kagome!" Sango shrieked, her hand flying to the window to brace herself. Rin, on the other hand, was now cowering in the back seat, locked into a fetal position, her bag dangling over the edge of the leather upholstery. "The speed limit here is 55!" Sango shrieked as she blindly clutched at the handle above her head.
"Well we're a little late so I figured I'd speed a little just this once." Kagome said happily as she bumped up over the curve, the result of her taking her eyes off the road to look at Sango.
"Eyes on the road!" Sango yelled, frantically. "Stop sign!" Sango shouted. "Blinker!"
"Don't worry, no one's coming anyway." Kagome said, carefree and oblivious to the amount of danger she was putting herself and her friends in.
"No!" Sango screamed, frantic. "You're going to hit the stop sign!"
"Oh? What?" Kagome said, pulling to the left. The car jolted as it lurched off the curb, making everybody bounce in their seats, with the exception of Rin, who was still curled up in the back.
'Oh man…' Rin thought quietly to herself as she curled her body tighter into the fetal position. 'If we ever get out of this alive' she started her common ritual of praying whenever she was in the car with Kagome behind the wheel. 'I'll never yell at mom again… I'll always clean my room… I'll be more careful with my money… I won't pick on Jaken anymore…'
"Kagome!"
Screech!
"What? I saw it coming."
"You could have killed it! You could have killed us!"
And so progressed the ride to school that morning.
"Alright!" Kagome said with a small sigh, taking the keys of the ignition as the engine puttered slowly to a stop before abruptly dying, a little stream of steam floating up from under the hood. "So, are you guys impressed or what?"
"Wh-what?" Sango managed to mutter, her face a sickly colored white, her body shoved back into the seat, and hands still clutching at the handle above her head.
"I got us here in no time, flat." Kagome said, as if it should be obvious. "We're not even late!"
"Oh… thanks." Sango said quietly as she pried her fingers from the handle, she winced as they were numb and aching.
"Ok," Kagome said, as she slung her bag over her shoulder. "Let's get going, I don't want to be late on my first… Rin?"
Sango stood shakily on the pavement, grateful to be alive, but barely able to stand. Her legs felt like jell-o and her entire body was weak and shaky.
"Rin?" Kagome opened the door to the back seat and poked her head inside, dark black hair falling over her shoulder. "Rin? What are you doing?"
'I'll never yell again… I'll do community service… I'll give away all my old cloths to the needy… I'll grow my hair and cut it off for 'Locks of Love'… I'll try not to get PMS anymore… I'll stop stealing food from "Feed the Needy" on Christmas… I'll never-'
"Rin!"
Rin opened one of her hazel-colored eyes carefully, as if dreading to see what it was that was calling to her. Visions of twisted steel and little green cars engulfed in flame rocketing over a cliff… But it was only Kagome. Rin sat up slowly, looking around her to check for any signs of danger or disaster. But there were none. They were merely sitting in the car parking lot, where the only danger was being flicked by a cigarette butt, which she could deal with, considering what she had been imagining. She let out a sigh of relief and collapsed against the seat, feeling the life start returning to her.
"Rin what were you doing?"
She turned her head to see Kagome bent over in the doorway staring at her, a single eyebrow raised.
"Oh… you know… just… praying." Rin answered weakly, smiling as best she could.
"Praying?" Kagome echoed before shaking her head and offering her a hand. "C'mon silly, you're going to make us late."