Summary: With the well sealed, Kagome prioritizes her school career. Rindou always had a soft spot for her, and her alone. She's soft, gentle, and too kind, and Rindou refuses to let her get too involved with certain aspects of his life, just to play it safe. To underestimate her wasn't smart. Either way, she'd get involved, especially since that kid was messing with time, too.

Pairing: Rindou/Kagome

Disclaimer: I do not own either series. Each belongs to their rightful owners.

Chapter One

The occasional shuffle of paper was the background noise in her room. The floor was covered with different note sheets and textbooks opened to seemingly random pages, along with a few notebooks. All of this was way more complicated than it needed to be, if you were to ask her…

Bright blue eyes focused on the paper she held, narrowing her eyes as she scanned over the contents with a sharp gaze. "Wait, this isn't even the one I need…" With a huff, she tossed it to the side, instantly snatching up the pile and shuffling through it in search of the one she needed at that moment. After a few minutes of searching and coming up empty-handed, she sighed, her shoulders slumping as a realization seemed in.

Oh, right…

She'd left that one at Eri's house by accident when all four of them got together for a review session for the upcoming finals. A pair of arms around her hips grew a bit tighter, chin resting on her shoulder.

"What's up?"

Kagome paused, almost as if she was only just now remembering that she wasn't on her own on her bedroom floor. Keyword, almost. Really, it was hard to overlook his presence, even if she wanted to, but he'd been quiet, doing so as if not to intervene in her studies when it seemed to matter so much to her.

"Ah… the paper I needed, I just remembered I left it at Eri's house," she stated, brushing a hand through her bangs as she sighed. "I'll just call her and ask her to bring it to class Monday," she added as an afterthought. Really, there wasn't much she could do about it now, but still… it was an inconvenience.

"Don't worry about it," Rindou responded, his grip tightening a bit more as he got comfortable like that, chin still pressed against her shoulder. "You already know this stuff anyway. Don't know why you're so bent out of shape studying like this."

Kagome was silent for a few minutes. After a while she sighed again and leaned her head back. "I just want to make sure I do well…" she eventually said.

"Like you're not gonna?" he responded. "Baby, how many times have you made me go through those damn flashcards with you?" he asked. Kagome had to refrain from giggling at that comment, recalling very easily his agitation each time she gave him her best puppy-dog eyes, knowing he would crumble to them every time.

"Oh, that reminds me… Can we run through them again?" she asked. She wasn't really looking to do so, but she just intended to rile him up.

"Fuck that. Not again," he scoffed, tugging her closer so she was seated on his lap. She had to stifle a laugh at his response. "Just… stop stressing about it." She was starting to drive him up the wall with how much she was getting in her own head over it.

As much as she wanted to take his advice, no matter how unhelpful it might've sounded to literally one else who overheard it, it didn't fully let her calm down. She'd fought so hard to revive her grades after her trips down the well came to their end. It'd taken a long time- longer than she was proud to admit. She just wanted to make sure she wasn't at risk of slipping up so badly again. Which, she knew she wasn't, but still…

"You're right," she said after a long pause, sighing and glancing up at the ceiling. "I should at least take a break before I go insane," she added. Or, more importantly, before she ended up driving him insane.

"'Bout time," he grumbled. In the same breath, he took the paper she was holding and tossed it aside to join the rest, just to really enforce her mandatory break from studying. She sighed, dropping her hands so they rested against his own at her stomach. A moment later, he grasped her hands with his own, taking them captive just to make sure she didn't try to grab at her notebooks again.

He understood perfectly fine just how much it mattered to her, he really, truly did, but, in the same vein, there was only so much he could put up with.

Kagome sat there, basking in the silence that built up comfortably between them. It didn't feel all that long since the well had sealed up, but in a few weeks, that would mark three years since her last time ever going through it. At first, the idea of submerging herself back into an ordinary life came off as such a daunting task, but as she focused on reviving and maintaining her grades, surely enough she found herself grounded in some way.

It wasn't like she missed it, because, on some level she did. She could feel it in the pit of her chest when she was on her own, or when she had to fetch something from the creaky old well house. She'd be struck with a faint sense of nostalgia, and with it came familiar memories. Like a bad wound, it took time to heal. Not for any bad reason, but just for the mere impact it all had on her life and for how long it had impacted her.

She was limited in who she could tell about this, as it was, so sharing these memories so freely wasn't possible.

She knew that due to her past, she had a precarious relationship with time and its entire balance. She tried to blame her own intuitiveness, but she knew that wasn't always the case, no matter how badly she wanted it all to be.

A piercing edge of unease ran down her spine as she sat there. Despite actively fighting against it, she still tensed up. Rindou noticed and he perked up only a slight bit, just enough to show she had his attention.

"Hey, baby, what's up?"

Kagome held her silence for a few seconds before she eventually shook her head. Her hands would've tightened into fists, if not for his own holding onto them. Either way, he must've felt her initial reaction.

"... It's nothing," she said after taking a moment to think over a response. A moment later, she braced her feet on the ground and pushed her weight up off his lap. His grip on her relented easily enough, but he still glared up at her when she moved. She caught his stare, and she forced herself to smile, lifting a hand as if to wave it all off. "We haven't done anything but sit in my room while I studied," she said, eventually coming up with some sort of cover for her actions. "I wanna head out for a while before sundown."

"Ah, if you want, then sure," Rindou responded. He got up from the floor, rubbing at his face with one hand before fixing his glasses back. At least he was getting her away from the damned notes and books… He'd chalk that up to a win on its own. Frankly, he wasn't about to argue against it, not now. "I wanted to smoke anyway."

Kagome pursed her lips and sighed. "Rin, that's not a good habit to have, you know…" Of course, he knew. She mentioned it every time. He caught her stare and sent her a grin, one arm curling around her shoulders and tugging her into his side.

"Yeah, but c'mon," he said, kissing the side of her head. "I could have worse habits, baby."

He did. Her very much in fact did have worse habits, and they both knew it. She arched a brow, and he snickered when he saw. She sighed and shook her head, swatting harmlessly at his arm. He at least always made sure the smoke was away from her, but still… She brushed it from her mind, leaning her head against his chest. "Fine, let's just go."

As they walked out of the shrine, she let her thoughts wander back to that feeling that'd raced down her spine.

It wasn't the first time she'd felt it. This was the fourth occurrence, each and everyone of them always came at random, seemingly entirely unprompted. It made her feel on edge. After all, how else was she supposed to take it? She could tell, deep in her soul, that it was some form of time manipulation. She didn't know how she knew. Maybe it was due to her strange ties to time, maybe it was the jewel, she truly had no understanding of what or why, but she knew enough to know exactly what was happening. If she was around her family, then she didn't have to pretend as hard, but around friends or Rindou, who had no clue about that part of her life, it became harder.

Her silence was easily noticed by the man at her side. His grip roamed a bit lower as if to pull her attention to him. When it worked, he sent her a look she knew well. "Spill," Rindou stated. "What's got you quiet?" Usually, she was the one to talk nonstop, easily able to fill the silence with nothing and everything all at once.

She shook her head, this time trying to pull a more convincing smile onto her face. "Guess I'm still a little stressed about my final exams," she said. While true, it wasn't her primary concern. Not that he needed to know that right now, though. He looked at her, seeming to search for any fault in her expression, any dead giveaway that she wasn't being honest with him. She could tell that he knew that there was more to it, but he also didn't know enough to blatantly call her on it. If he did, then she knew he would've by now.

"That so?" he asked. Kagome nodded, and he sighed. "You could always drop out," he stated. She smacked his chest and glared at him. "You'd stop wastin' your time, then."

"Not helpful!" she huffed, and he laughed. "Rin!"

"I'm kidding," he said. Well, he was only halfway kidding, but he wasn't going to push it. As sweet as she was, she had a temper on the opposite side of the spectrum, and he didn't like it when it was unleashed against him. "Look, if it'll make you feel better, I'll study with you when we get back to your place," he offered. He didn't have to, but he still offered. That alone made a faint smile lift to paint her lips.

"That's a nice thought, really, but I think if I look at any more math formulas, I'm going to go insane," she stated, conceding to her own lack of willpower to keep at it for the remainder of the night. He glanced at her with a smirk. "It won't do any good if I don't take a break, anyway."

Anyway, she doubted she'd be able to reclaim her prior focus after feeling that sense of uncanniness once more. Just like every other time before, her focus on anything was shattered into smithereens the moment she felt it. She could feel a trial reaching out to her, something akin to a visible path or a scent trail, only this was visible to just her eyes. Deep down, she wanted to follow it.

"Where you wanting to go, baby?"

Kagome paused for a moment, seeming to consider her options. It didn't take her long to give in to that temptation. After all, it wouldn't be a bad thing if she were to take a peek and try to piece together what was causing this feeling…

"Actually," she said, glancing up at him. "I was sorta just wanting to walk around for a while. It's nice today."

Rindou looked at her, shrugging a second later. "Fine by me," he responded. Really, he was down for whatever when it came to her.

Auroua-chan: Ending this one here.

How exactly Kagome and Rindou met will be visited in an upcoming chapter.

Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you all for reading and I hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully I caught all the errors before posting, but if not sorry.

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Bye for now~