Author's Note: This chapter goes out to Sissi – she is studying in Brazil and translating "Tales from the House of the Moon" into Portuguese! Wow! Plus, the fact that Sissi told me this, it means that she read my "author's note" in chapter 34. Goodness. Who reads these?

A Distant Promise – Mini-Chapter # 37

Back to school.

The words had such a somber ring to them. Simply the idea of going to class on Monday was disappointing. Ironically, when Kagome had traveled in the feudal era, she had always been eager to attend school – if only because she missed it so often. In high school, also, she had worked very hard to earn excellent grades. It made no difference, since her family had very little money – naturally, she attended a low-cost university. Still, she knew that her grades in high-school had been quite good, and it made her proud.

This week, however, she was not sick, tired, or trapped into doing death-defying stunts in the past. Yet for the first time, attending lectures seemed like a punishment rather than a privilege. Saturday had been entertaining, and Sunday… Sunday had soaked up the rest of her attention span for the week.

Her host had allowed her to sleep-late, then nursed the mild hangover that she developed by bringing her lots of water and ordering room-service. When she finally recovered, in mid-afternoon, Sesshoumaru had allowed her to pick her favorite activities, from the list they had developed together. Of course, she wanted to see Kyoto's Imperial Palace, but sadly, there were no tours on Sunday. Instead, they had decided to visit the Golden Pavilion and the Pure Water Temple, if there was enough time.

Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion, was a Zen temple, dating from around the year 1400. Unfortunately, a monk had burned it down in 1950, so the current building was a remake. But in some ways, that made it better! Covered in gold leaf, the material had not faded too much in only half a century, and the temple shone brightly in the afternoon sun. Privately, she wondered who maintained the gold.

There had been no time to visit her second choice, before it closed. However, Kyoto contained many tourist attractions, so Kagome had insisted that Sesshoumaru find something else to do with her. Surely, certain places in the city did not close at five or six o'clock!

So, he had begrudgingly complied. And that was how she found herself at Fushimi Inari Shrine. When she saw thousands of torii gates, all painted bright orange and covered in kanji, Kagome had turned to face Sesshoumaru, delight written across her features. The torii gates covered miles of hiking trails, and she could actually feel holy power emanating from some of them. Strangely enough, however, there were torii gates inscribed with youki as well. It appeared that both demon and human had touched this shrine, and the surrounding mountain.

"I'll make sure to tell Shippo that you visited a fox-shrine," she had teased him brightly.

At this, Sesshoumaru's calm expression had fractured slightly. "Please don't," he had countered testily.

Afterward, there had been a lovely dinner, and… and… they had returned to the hotel, and… well, then he had kissed her again. It was distinctly unfair that Sesshoumaru gave such good kisses. Kagome felt overwhelmed.

She had thought that she liked him. Maybe. Okay, probably. And then, she had hit on him, like some adolescent, drunken fan-girl. That was embarrassing! But Sesshoumaru had behaved himself the night before, and he had not pressured her into doing anything the next night either…

And now she felt confused and awful.

Inuyasha had followed her into the future, expecting to live the rest of his life with her. For all intents and purposes, they were practically married! Even thinking about dating Sesshoumaru was a transgression against Inuyasha…

Except that she wasn't married to the ex-hanyou. He had left the shrine, in order to get a job in the countryside. Did she really want to spend the rest of her existence as the wife of a… towel-boy? No, no. A towel-boy who ran away when the situation became difficult!

Honestly, she was not angry at Inuyasha anymore. But how could she make a decision like this? It was impossible.