Amnesia by Rikayu

School Infirmary

Amnesia—Chapter 1: School Infirmary

She sighed wearily and looked out into the night from her spot on the window seat. It was snowing. It wasn’t a blizzard, but it was the kind of snow that one should find during a silent night such as this. She watched as perfectly formed snowflakes drifted to the ground from the inky sky, her breath slightly fogging up the glass of the window.

Usually, wintertime would always comfort her despite the cold temperatures. But this year, everything just seemed off. It was like fate had suddenly meddled in her life once again for its own amusement and it was getting what it wanted.

Sometimes, she wished she could just blame everything that happened to her on someone else, but to tell the truth, no matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t. Perhaps it was because she was just too much of a pure-hearted person to put the burden of blame on someone else, or maybe, she just didn’t know whom to blame. Either way, she knew it wouldn’t do her much good. Whatever happens just happens, right?

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she cared and that was all that mattered to her. It didn’t really matter what her brain was telling her to do, she paid more attention to the things her heart was shouting at her.

But, it was following her heart that got her hurt the first time around, why would this be any different? Yet maybe, just maybe, this time it would change. But, she just hasn’t been sure of what to do lately… ever since he arrived in her life again.

She turned slightly away from the window and almost immediately, her blue eyes landed on the man who lay in a makeshift bed just a few meters away. For who knows how long now, he was locked in this godforsaken room along with her.

~*~*~*~

She wasn’t sure if it was her new school, or the new uniform she sported, but she just knew that she didn’t want to go to school today. Sure, the first day of school could be exciting, but it could also be the most nerve-racking experience that you’ll have for the whole year. After struggling throughout the rest of her last year of junior high just enough to land First Honor, she just didn’t have it in her to survive yet another year of pop quizzes, tests, and final exams.

“Kagome!! Come on!!! You’ll be late on your first day of high school!!”

The sixteen-year-old ex-shard hunter sighed as she stood from her bed to her mom’s voice. Well, it was not like she had any choice… She could no longer go back into the past, which meant that she had to go to school.

She grabbed her bag from her chair and walked her way down the stairs. It was not like she didn’t like her new school uniform, it was just that she had become so accustomed to the green one she wore in junior high that wearing this grayish-black one was so awkward.

“Hey, you all right, Kagome?” asked her younger brother, Souta, as she came down the stairs.

“Yeah… Why? Is there something wrong, Souta?” Kagome answered, walking towards the front door.

Souta scratched the back of his head and just looked at her with his ‘I was just concerned’ expression, “Well… It’s just that you look so… gloomy, that’s all… Um… Are you sure you’re all right?”

Kagome stopped walking and sighed. She turned back to face him and smiled reassuringly, “I’m fine, okay? Now, hurry up or you’ll be late too.”

With that said and done, Kagome closed the door behind her and looked up at the newly forming day. She had to give her brother credit for all the things that he’d done for her. After all, he would go and ask her friends when quizzes and tests were coming up, and he’d go to her school everyday to pick up her homework when she was off looking for the shards before.

She silently made her way to the steps leading down to the street, but paused in front of the old well house beside her family’s shrine. For some reason, it called her, so she dropped her bag and rushed inside. Once she got in, she leaned over to look inside the ancient structure of the Bone-Eater’s well. Then after a moment of realization, she sighed and straightened, berating herself for thinking that the wooden structure had regained its former power to transport her to the Sengoku Jidai. She quietly exited the hut, picked up her bag, and slowly made her way to school.

That day still remained fresh in her mind. She remembered that they had been fighting against Naraku. This time, it was for real. It was really Naraku and not just some demon puppet. Their side was terribly losing even with the Tetsusaiga’s increased strength. Naraku had just gained too many of the jewel shards, making everything seem hopeless until Inuyasha’s half-brother showed up. However, the sibling rivalry between the two half-brothers had gotten in the way. Naraku had taken quick advantage of their fight over who had the right to kill him and soon, the brothers were struggling to get a second wind.

Miroku and Sango had tried to help, but Naraku’s forces kept them busy. Not to mention, they were only human, meaning that their stamina was a great deals smaller that a demon’s. Naraku’s insects were present so Miroku’s wind tunnel was rendered useless. Sango’s brother, Kohaku was among those that they were fighting so Sango was also handicapped in the battle due to her intention of not harming her brother.

Kagome had tried to help, but all she could do was helplessly watch from the sidelines as her friends and Inuyasha’s half-brother get beaten. She had gritted her teeth until she couldn’t take the waiting anymore. Despite the frantic yells of Shippou, she ran into the battlefield and fired her arrows at Naraku. But unfortunately, Naraku’s tentacles darted towards her, everything suddenly going into slow motion before her eyes. She watched as Inuyasha made a desperate run to save her, the sharp, black blades flying at her, and about an inch and a half before impact with her body, she blacked out. When she woke, her mother was crying over her as she lay on the cement of their courtyard.

It’s already been a year since the event happened. The well had stopped working and so she had no way of finding out whether her friends were okay, if they were safe. She’d never know if they had won. For several days after that, she had locked herself in her room and went out in the middle of the night to check if the well had begun working again. But, after about a month had passed, she had given up knowing fully well that there was no way that it would let her through again.

Kagome sighed heavily and wasn’t looking were she was when she crashed into something, or rather, someone. She stepped back and apologized profusely, but immediately silenced herself when she looked up and saw the person’s face. She tried to look away, but her eyes just wouldn’t leave him.

“It’s quite all right… I was the one who wasn’t looking…” he said coolly as he looked down at her. He turned away, however, when he heard someone calling for him to hurry up. He then turned back to Kagome and inclined his head in his version of a bow, “Sorry…”

Kagome watched as the man walk away in the direction her school was in. Her jaw practically dropped, her eyes landing on the long, perfectly straight silver hair the guy had. She wished he would turn around so that she could see what he looked like again for all she looked at before was the golden tone of his eyes. She ran after him, but was stopped when she heard a few familiar voices coming from behind her. She turned around and as obvious as it was, her three friends were running up to her.

“Kagome! There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you!” the one in the center with curly hair waved happily.

“Let’s walk to school together,” the one on the right with short hair and a yellow headband said as she walked next to Kagome. The one on the left with the shortest hair walked on Kagome’s other side.

“Kagome, how come we never saw you during the summer break?” asked the one with the headband.

Kagome was about to say something, but the one with curly hair cut her off with a gasp, “Rheumatism again?”

“What about your diabetes?” the one with short hair asked leaning in a bit forward to look at Kagome.

Kagome sighed. ‘Really people, do I look that sick to you?!’ She quickly entered through the school gates and after a few minutes of maneuvering through the crowd of students, she managed to lose her annoying friends. She hurriedly made her way to the bulletin board just a few ways inside the school’s main building. She looked over the class rosters and immediately ran up the stairs to the second floor, looking for homeroom 204, class 9-B. As she walked down the hall to look for her homeroom, a group of other freshmen girls ran past her, giggling like mad.

She watched dumbfounded as the girls disappeared at a corner, their giggles echoing back to her. But, Kagome just shrugged it off and continued her way down the hall, looking up at the room numbers to check for the right class. Not a minute later, she stood in front of a pair of doors that led to her class. She sighed, ready to get it over with and slid the door open only to find out that the room was practically empty of all students. The teacher’s bag was on the desk in the corner meaning that he or she was there, but other than that, she was the first one there.

“I wonder where everybody else is,” she said to no one in particular as she placed her bag on the one of the empty chairs.

Probably, everybody else was downstairs or by the school gate, catching up on some summer gossip or predicting the new school year’s couples. Kagome shook her head and made her way to the classroom bulletin board to look at some of the things already posted. There wasn’t really much on it since the year had started, but what else was there to do other that just sit and wait in an empty classroom? Only when she heard someone speaking next to her did she realist that someone else had entered after she did.

“There’s not really anything to see on here… After all, the school year has only begun…”

Kagome turned her head to the female voice she heard next to her and the first thing she noticed were her unusually colored eyes. They were black, but if you looked closely, the pupil was outlined with an icy blue hue. The girl was a bit taller that her, perhaps somewhere around Sango’s height and had shoulder-length black hair styled so that the layers in her hair were noticed.

“Oh…” she laughed mildly as she scratched her head. “Sorry if I startled you. My name’s Kira Minamori, what’s yours?” she asked as she extended put her hand for a handshake.

Kagome smiled and shook her hand, “Kagome, Kagome Higurashi. Nice to meet you, Kira.” As she pulled her hand away, Kagome noticed a thing hanging from Kira’s bag resembling a certain fire-cat demon she knew. Kira followed Kagome’s eyes and detached the key chain from her bag, holding it in front of Kagome for her to see.

“My grandfather gave this to me. He said that it was a good luck charm that reminded him of my grandmother,” Kira said as she looked down at it.

“Where’s your grandmother?” Kagome asked curiously, watching Kira put it back where it was before.

Kira sighed and placed her bag on the chair on the left side of the chair Kagome’s bag was on, “She died a long time ago. My grandfather told me that he loved her a lot and he gave me this key chain before he left for Kobe last summer.”

Kagome stood next to her and looked at her apologetically, “Sorry, I didn’t know…”

Then, Kira shook her head and smiled, “No, that’s okay. I’ve never met my grandmother because she died when my dad was little, but I really wish I could have met her…”

Then, they both heard the door slide open and turned to look who was coming in. They heard two voices by the door before the origins of the voices entered the room. At first, Kagome was frozen while Kira went over to them since she seemed to know them. Then, Kagome blacked out just as her homeroom teacher entered the room.

~*~*~*~*~

“Why’d she black out like that?” she heard Kira’s voice in the dark background.

“I don’t know. She took one look at us and she just fainted…” a familiar deep voice came.

“Maybe she fainted because she saw you,” Kira teased.

“Shut up! I didn’t do anything!” a different slightly higher-pitched male voice answered.

Kagome fluttered her eyes open and placed her hand by her temple. She blinked a few times to clear up her blurred vision. When she did, she looked around and found herself lying down on a bed in the school’s infirmary. Then, she looked up and saw a pair of green eyes, a pair of black, blue outlined eyes, and a pair of gold eyes staring down at her. Her eyes fixed on the golden one as soon she passed out again.

“No! She’s fainted again!” Kira said as she shook Kagome’s arm. Then she looked at the two boys who were on the other side of the bed, dressed in the black uniform the boys were required to wear.

“Hey, it’s not like I did anything, okay? She was looking at him!” the redheaded one said as he pointed to the other one, his green eyes yelling that it wasn’t his fault.

The one next to him looked down at Kagome, his white hair popping against the black material of the uniform and his golden eyes observing the fainted girl closely, as if figuring out what just happened.

Kira sighed and sat down on the bed next to Kagome, “I hope she wakes up soon… it’s almost homeroom…” Then, she turned to the boys and said, “Kit, why don’t you go tell Mrs. Narita that we’re going to be down here for homeroom. She already knows we’re down here so just let her know…”

“Sure,” he said, running out the infirmary and heading up the stairs to their homeroom.

“Hopefully, she doesn’t faint again when she wakes up. I don’t want to wait here in the nurse’s office all day,” Kira said as she looked down at Kagome.

“She looks… familiar. But I don’t know where from…” the silver-haired guy noted as he looked down at the unconscious girl quietly, his eyes regarding her nonchalantly.

TBC…

Preview:

.:::. ‘You don’t remember who I am, do you?’ .:::. “He doesn’t remember, Kagome. He doesn’t remember anything. Nothing… Not you, not who he was, not anything about what happened before…” .:::. “It’s not important… Hurry or we’ll be late…” .:::.

Next Chapter: Coffee and Strawberry Cheesecake