Chapter 3: Hidden Messages in the Rain

Kagome's misfortune began with the wrath of the sky. A torrential downpour soaked everyone to the bone, leaving many unlucky Ouran students shivering and soaking wet as they made mad dashes from their rides.

By the front gates, the miko sprinted against the rains. Kagome cursed every spirit and god in existence for making her forget her umbrella at home. Hastening her pace through the courtyard, the miko shielded her book bag to prevent water from damaging the textbooks inside. The prices for these books were positively asinine, even if Shippo kindly paid for them. There was no way she wanted to destroy them because of her forgetfulness.

"I bet Souta's laughing his ass off right now," Kagome muttered angrily as she finally crossed the threshold. Her younger brother's motherly taunting echoed in the back of her mind. Clenching her teeth, Kagome pushed herself to run faster. A few more paces and she was finally inside the dry walls of the school.

With the combination of talking to herself and her bedraggled appearance, she received a lot of strange looks from her peers. As usual, she ignored them and moved on. Kagome sighed, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. The combination of humidity and water were coiling her hair into prominent snarling waves.

"Ugh." Was all Kagome could manage as she made her way to the locker rooms to clean up.

"Lookin' good, Higurashi. Say, if you look me in the eye will I turn to stone?" Hayashi's voice taunted.

Soaking wet, freezing, and out of flying fabulous cares to give, Kagome shot him a venomous look that shut the boy up. The blow dryers in the girl's locker room did the bare minimum of drying her off and left her hair worse for wear. Raking freezing fingers through the raven waves, Kagome did her best to tame it into a braid to avoid any more scrutiny. Tucking the unruly plait under her chin, she moved to sit down. As soon as she sat in her chair a prominent squelch of her dress sounded.

Hayashi piped up again, laughing at her expense and attempted to bring others into it. A few girls snickered derisively behind beautiful manicured hands. Kagome's fingers clenched into fists, the acidic feeling of anger pooling from her stomach up into her throat. Her whole body felt awful. Wet and cold from the rain and fiercely hot from the fury threatening to spew. She could do something, but if she did where would that get her?

"This is what you get for trying to pretend to be an elite. You're a pathetic waste of space, Higurashi." Hayashi delivered his last words with his own venom. He reinforced his spite when Kagome met his eyes.

The classroom suddenly became quiet as the two stared each other down. Angry blue eyes stared unwavering, but the tremble of tears threatened to spill. The miko opened her mouth to respond when something warm wrapped around her shoulders. Behind her, Kyoya stood sans his school jacket and Tamaki glaring down Hayashi. All of the anger swarming within her was momentarily forgotten.

Tamaki's hand wrapped around her wrist then and pulled her out of the classroom without a word.

"That's no way to talk to a lady, Hayashi. It would be best if you apologized now." Tamaki spoke evenly over his shoulder. The smallest hint of a threat was laced into each of his words. Hayashi watched him cooly until his eyes flitted to Kyoya.

Upon meeting his flinty gaze, Hayashi turned a sickly pale color and mumbled a pitiful apology before turning around.

As the trio left the classroom, Kagome was at a loss for words. They had protected her without her even asking for it. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. With her defenses lowered, the water began to stream down her cheeks in earnest.

Tamaki led them to the nurse's office where Kagome was given a spare set of clothes while her dress dried elsewhere. Given the choice to return to class or wait until her uniform was dry, the miko opted to stay. To her surprise, Kyoya stayed alongside her. Tamaki gave the two a meaningful look before declaring he would take care of things in the classroom for them.

Curled into a massive armchair, Kagome tightened Kyoya's jacket around her shoulders. He had refused to take it back, saying it would be ungentlemanly of him to leave her in such a state. If her circumstances were different, the miko would have been flattered. The spicy scent of his cologne tickled her nose pleasantly, she felt comforted by the simple gift of fabric.

But Hayashi's words clung to her mind like barbs, reminding her constantly of her misgivings.

Now, more than ever, she felt out of her element. A stranger to a world she didn't understand. Had she not been dealt these cards before and succeeded? After dealing with youkai and the hardships of feudal wars, she couldn't fathom why the words of some pretentious snot affected her so.

"Higurashi."

Kyoya's voice cut through her self-deprecating train of thought like a hot knife. Looking into his eyes, Kagome was shocked to find them bright and intense.

"Hayashi is a self absorbed fool. Don't take his words to heart," he whispered. His voice was low enough so that nly she could hear him, but its timbre shook with unsaid fury.

Kagome was speechless, unable to process the sheer sincerity in his words. In the past few months that she had known him, he had never shown this much genuine emotion before. Pink dusted her cheeks with happiness at how much he actually cared for her. All of their grievances aside, this was his way of acknowledging her as his friend.

"Thank you, Kyoya," Kagome whispered. A brief look of shock passed over Kyoya's face at her use of his first name, but he quickly passed it off with a smirk.

"I think this means you now owe me two favors, Ka-go-me," Kyoya replied.

Kagome's brow twitched. Rather than take the bait, she playfully slugged his shoulder. They both laughed, the tension between them melting away. Leave it to him to ruin a perfectly wonderful moment.

A/N: Oh Kyoya, you lovable bastard. Thank you to everyone who is favoring and following the story. A very special thank you to Guest and GiggleboxGirlie for reviewing! I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, thank you for reading. :-)