Chapter Text
Kagome was lying in the first sparse grass of spring with Eri, Yuka, and Ayumi. Their heads were close together, feet sticking out in different directions, and there was a buzz of excitement.
“I really want to get into Elize Academy,” Ayumi was saying. “Their entrance exams are next week and I’ve just been studying my butt off.”
“You’re so studious, Ayumi-chan,” said Eri. “I know it’s a good school, but the stress of applying, plus the stress of going there just seems impossible.”
“Where are you planning on going, then?” said Ayumi. “High school is stressful no matter where you go. I’d love to hear otherwise.”
“You know I don’t have any firm plans,” Eri said. “I’ve been going to recruitment open houses just about everywhere, trying to find a place that feels right. You’d know that if you’d come with me on any of the tours.”
Kagome felt a sort of listless desperation whenever the conversaation turned to high school applications. She had no idea where she was going to go, had gone on absolutely no tours, and her grades were still in the toilet. She had no idea if she’d even pass an entrance exam.
“Be glad you haven’t been going,” said Yuka, to both Ayumi and Kagome. “Eri dragged me to Shirokin of all places last weekend. Total delinquent heap.”
“Shirokin?” said Ayumi. “Isn’t that an all-boys school?”
“They’re going co-ed,” said Yuka, like one might say they’d found a cockroach in their cereal. “How they think any girls are stupid enough to go there, I have no idea.”
“Oh, come on,” said Eri. “I was curious. And you have to admit that one female teacher was super cool.”
“You mean the one that had to beat up an attacker in front of the school? Really cool, Eri. I totally want to go to a high school where teachers regularly have to beat people up.”
Eri gave a rather melodramatic exhale. “You’re right, I guess,” she said. “I just wanted to see what it was like. Those Shirokin boys are total boogeymen, you know?”
Kagome did know. Shirokin had a reputation for taking on just about any boy who wanted to continue their education past junior high, with almost no regard for their grades or their records or anything else. This time last year, Kagome had been a little afraid of Shirokin students.
“Maybe I should start coming on some of these tours,” said Kagome. The other girls sat up, surprised faces entering Kagome’s field of vision and blotting out the brilliant sky.
“Really?” said Eri. “Because I’ve tried to ask you along before.”
“You were never exactly studious, but with how bad this year has been for you I thought you’d probably want to take a year off!” said Yuka. Maybe repeat ninth grade, went unstated.
Ayumi just smiled at her, a bit of the worry that Kagome could see on her face sliding off.
“I fell so far behind this year that I’m just overwhelmed by the idea,” Kagome said. “So I’ve been avoiding it.”
It’s funny — while she had been running back and forth between the past and the present, Kagome had done her best to keep her grades as high as she could. Now that she was back and had no responsibilities at all, school didn’t seem to matter anymore. But it did. She knew it did. She didn’t have the future she’d begun to imagine in the past anymore. The well was closed. The past was gone.
Something in her stomach turned at the thought and she shoved it down ruthlessly, sat up to look the other girls in their faces.
“Maybe I’ll have to take that Shirokin entrance exam,” she said. The other girls laughed, but Kagome wasn’t sure if she was joking.
That night, she booted up the computer in the living room and started reading about Shirokin High — she knew colloquially that the high school had seen its fair share of scandals over the years, but not much of it had made its way to the internet. The school itself did have a website, but even Kagome, who was not particularly tech-savvy could tell that it was laughably put together. One page in particular had been lovingly crafted. Apparently, a student had scored second in the national mock exams and had managed to get into Tokyo University. He was set to start there this Spring.
“He doesn’t look like a top-scorer,” said Souta, ever the pest, peering over Kagome’s shoulder.
“Tell me about it,” said Kagome. “Look at that hair.” It was dyed a lurid red, almost blinding on the computer screen.
“And what kind of school puts a spotlight on a student like this?” Souta gestured at the screen. Kagome looked doubtfully at the roses that had been carefully edited to border the photograph of this Sawada Shin. “Tell me you’re not thinking of applying here, Nee-chan.”
“Look at my math grades and tell me I have better options.”
Souta didn’t say anything, but there was something in his silence that was irksome. Kagome stood from her chair, stretched, then hooked an arm around Souta’s neck and dragged him screaming to his bedroom.
Somewhere en route, it devolved into a tickle fight, and Kagome let herself be carried away by the joy of heckling her brother. She didn’t know what she’d do without him, really.
Before the night got too late, though, she returned to the family computer and put her name down as a prospective student. Shirokin had a reputation for taking anyone, and, well. At this point Kagome was anyone.
She didn’t tell Eri, Yuka, or Ayumi when she went to sit the entrance exam. They knew she was looking more seriously at high schools, and they roped Hojo into helping her study more than once. (That poor boy, Kagome always thought, when he looked at her with hope and soft affection in his eyes. She wasn’t the Kagome he had a crush on anymore. That Kagome died somewhere between the last year and five hundred years ago.)
Shirokin was better than no high school at all, so Kagome wasn’t sure why she was reluctant to tell them. Maybe it was because she thought Yuka would get shrill. Or maybe because she couldn’t bear to look at the expression of motherly pride Ayumi tended to hand out whenever anyone did anything even remotely in their best interest. Or maybe she was a little afraid Eri would laugh, then sign up to take the test too. She could almost hear her: I am curious, and if Kagome-chan’s doing it…
Kagome loved her friends, so she didn’t know why the thought of going to high school with any of them made bile rise in her throat. Part of her thought that it was because she kept comparing them to Sango and Miroku, who they were simply not. If only she could let them be themselves, maybe she wouldn’t be so disappointed.
The test, with her friends pushed firmly out of her mind, was easy. Even for Kagome. Her current junior high teachers did her the favor of pushing her through the year, too. She wasn’t sure she earned her junior high degree, but her story of sickly woe had even the most hard-ass teachers melting in sympathy with one glance at her mother’s pleading eyes. "My poor baby was just so sick this year. Can’t we make an arrangement so she can pass? Now that she’s better, I know that she can push through the work."
She pushed through the work all right, but Kagome didn’t know if she was better.
On graduation day, the girls all in their junior high uniforms for the last time, Eri cornered her. “So what did you end up deciding for high school? You’ve been avoiding the question.”
“Shirokin,” said Kagome, willing to share now that all the decisions were final. “I’ll be starting at Shirokin in two weeks.”
And yes, Yuka got shrill and Ayumi looked maternal. Eri had an adventurous glint of jealousy in her eye. But with everything settled, those things didn’t weigh as heavy as Kagome had thought they might.
“I should have known you’d pull something like this. You’ve gotten mighty comfortable with delinquents before,” said Yuka. Kagome knew that was a dig at Inuyasha, but the girls had quickly understood that he was Not To Be Spoken Of, and Yuka didn’t use his name. So despite the twinge in her chest, Kagome let it go. Shitty or not, she knew that Yuka was worried.
Kagome just wished that Yuka would do a better job at expressing it.
“I’m so glad that you’re going to get to go to high school in sync with the rest of us,” said Ayumi, redirecting the conversation with her usual brand of earnestness. “You never said anything, but I could tell you were worried about it. I was worried about it.”
“And what an exciting school!” said Eri. “To think! One of the first girls at Shirokin! Right in their first co-ed year! That’s fantastic.”
Kagome could admit that part of the draw was the novelty. So she gave all three of them the broadest smile she could muster. “I’m excited,” she said. And it was true, really. When she fought past the numbness that had become her predominant emotion after the well closed, she could touch excitement. It was there.
“This calls for celebration,” said Ayumi. “I know we all have graduation plans with our families today. But tomorrow. Fast food?”
“Fast food!” said Kagome in chorus with Eri and Yuka. Even after everything, fast food was unifying.
With the Shirokin High graduation ceremony all said and done, Yamaguchi Kumiko was preparing her classroom for the coming year when she realized that her next class would be co-ed. She didn’t know why this surprised her, she’d known that girls would be coming for months now, but it bowled her over nearly as thoroughly as Sawada’s ill-advised love confession.
She dropped by Fujiyama’s classroom, already relabeled “1-2” instead of “3-2.” Kumiko hadn’t changed her label yet. She couldn’t quite bear it.
Fujiyama met her at the classroom door, said, “Have you just realized that you’re going to have female students in two weeks?” Kumiko wondered when the hell she’d gotten that transparent.
“How do I teach girls?” she said, a slight quaver in her voice.
Fujiyama’s laugh was booming. “Just like you teach boys, you dumbass.”
“Really?” said Kumiko.
“Really,” said Fujiyama. “Have you written up your lesson plans yet?”
Kumiko had.
“At least one of us is on top of things,” said Fujiyama, dramatically swooning against her desk. “But I’ll figure it out.”
Kumiko wanted to bring the conversation back around to the subject of girls, but Fujiyama apparently thought her flailing was too funny to help her out of it. Fair enough. Kumiko would get her revenge eventually.
“I wonder if I’ll be able to get enough recruits to have a few chorus clubs at once,” Fujiyama said. “I’d love to keep an all-boys chorus going as well as having co-ed and all-girls choruses.”
“I’ll be sure to hand your fliers out to my class,” said Kumiko, then extricated herself before Fujiyama could go off the deep end about choral arrangements for different vocal types.
She stopped outside the sliding door to her classroom, looked up at the sign that still said “3-4.” She needed to change out that insert. She’d miss her first ever class of precious students, but it was time to welcome the second.