Oddity
by shannello

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a/n: getting back into the swing of things. hope you enjoy this chapter. it's a bit shorter than the others, but it's seriously intense, and fucking sad. yeah. THIS IS ALMOST OVER.

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Sirens.

Lights, coming in through the windows, dancing on the walls.

Someone was crying… Kagome, or Kikyou, or maybe it was both of them, clinging to each other in fear. In anticipation of what would come next.

Jesus, his head hurt. Jesus. He couldn't feel his arm. Oh, fuck. His arm was numb, fucking numb, it felt like it wasn't there at all. He made an attempt to move it and a shock spread up to his shoulder, and it was the most painful feeling he'd ever felt. Jesus.

Footsteps.

"Stop!"

Black.

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Kaoru's head was throbbing. Thirty or so minutes ago he was pushed up against one of the Music Room's elegantly decorated walls, chipping the border with some part of his body, maybe a knee. He couldn't remember parts of the scuffle, presumably because of the concussion he experienced after Inuyasha socked him in the back of the head. He couldn't remember if he'd won or not.

Kagome was kneeling beside him. Her skin was shiny, sweat-covered, as if she'd had been part of the action when he hadn't been looking. She looked afraid.

"Kaoru," she said, and helped him sit up. They were in the grass, surrounded by trees and in the distance Kaoru could make out the back of the academy. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't truthfully answer that question. He was coherent, yes, but he couldn't remember leaving the school, not to mention the Music Room. He placed a damp hand to his forehead and exhaled. He felt unbalanced and tried to place his other hand on the grass beside him to prop him up and he doubled over in pain.

His shoulder was dislocated.

Fuck.

He'd definitely lost this one.

"Where's—"

"He's gone," said Kagome, quickly. The look on her face made him feel inferior for losing this badly. For losing at all. Kaoru bit the inside of his mouth, feeling incredibly stupid. "Do… can you remember how we got here?"

Kaoru muttered a negative.

Kagome nodded, looking away. "Inuyasha… um, he hurt you pretty bad, and a teacher heard you fighting and came in. Inuyasha wouldn't stop hitting you… The teacher called the police."

Kaoru blinked, slowly. He couldn't remember this.

A feeling of panic came over him. What else did he forget?

How—

"We ran," continued Kagome, as if reading his mind and answering his unasked questions. "Inuyasha and Kikyou left before we could… I think the police are looking for us. For the damage, you know? To the room. We're going to get expelled, aren't we? We're going to get kicked out of school."

Kaoru groaned involuntarily. "Don't think negatively."

"But that's what's going to happen. Unless they throw us in jail. I mean, it's totally destroyed in there. Everything is ruined."

Kaoru touched the back of his head with his good arm, wincing slightly. It hurt like a mother—

"What do you wanna do?" he said, quietly. He didn't want to fight.

No more fighting.

Please.

Kagome chewed on her bottom lip. "I have no idea."

"Well, I don't feel like going to jail," replied Kaoru, after a pause. He placed his hands firmly on his thighs and tried to rise. His knees gave out.

"I—" started Kaoru, on his knees again.

Kagome, witnessing his painful attempt at just standing up, felt an overwhelming wave of sadness, and wrapped her arms around his middle, avoiding his shoulder as much as she possibly could. "I'm so sorry."

His body creaked, and his muscles were sore, but Kagome's arms were warm and he felt a pressure inside of him slowly vanish. He wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her closer. She smelled like grass and tea and Kaoru wanted to drink her in.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she repeated, over and over, her eyes jumping from bruise to bruise on his face, jaw, collarbone. "So sorry…" Everything is my fault.

He kissed her, then.

Sweetly, with a split lip, and it tasted like blood.

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They were scared.

Just scared, little kids, in all honesty, and neither of them had a plan. Neither of them knew what to do in this kind of fucked-up situation. Neither of them wanted to see the consequences.

Kagome wanted to run away, which was her internal response to conflict of any variety, and avoid everything all together, but Kaoru wouldn't be able to do that. He lived here, Ouran was his school, the Music Room was his. Kagome was just a visitor.

She had no relationship with the city, or with the characters, or his beloved school. He could see it in her the moment they met. It radiated out of her.

She didn't want to be here.

She never wanted to be here.

Even after they'd started liking each other, started dating, started this whole mess—Kagome was never fully his. He could tell. There, in her eyes right before exiting his car. There, in the way her hands shook when she talked about her sister, her old house, her mother, her friends. There, in the way she stared into him, through him, after their lips touched.

And she knew.

She knew she was eventually going to leave. Go home. Forget about this city and this school and these people. She belonged in a different city, with different people, not here. She left the important parts of herself back home because she knew she'd be going back for them. Half of her met Kaoru, and even that half wasn't fully here, still longing for Inuyasha's rough hands and chapped lips. She knew she'd be back in her old bedroom, sprawled across her old blankets, on good terms with her estranged sister in no time.

No time at all.

And it felt like, at that time, walking back to the city with one arm around her injured boyfriend, that her time had run out.

"We're going to the hospital," she said, firmly, and Kaoru didn't argue. Hospital. Good. No problem there.

Her steps were short, and Kaoru glanced up at her face. He could see it, there, already, in the lines between her eyebrows, in the blue of her eyes, in her frown. She was ready, just waiting for the moment when she could leave.

Would she do that?

To him?

She stepped on a twig and snapped it in half, muttering under her breath. She was angry, but sympathetic, so sympathetic… he wondered if she would stay for him, because she wanted to, not because she made this mess and had a duty to clean it up.

He didn't want to believe that, but suddenly he had this feeling, this dark, unpromising feeling that everything was falling apart. With each step, everything was just falling apart.

Everything.

He was going to lose her. She was going to pack up and leave and he was going to stay behind because that's where he belonged. It was hard to understand, sure, but he got it. We all have places we have to be. This just wasn't hers.

God. His shoulder hurt, but thinking about Kagome leaving was the most painful thought he'd ever had in his short but well-rounded life.

And it was something he was just going to have to deal with.

"Kagome—" he started, feeling cold.

"We're almost there," she said, cutting him off, and he felt his walls crumbling around him. Pebbles splashed into the moat he had built around himself, the moat that Kagome had bravely sailed across, gaining access into his castle, a place no one had ever entered.

No one.

And now it was over.

The reached the street ten or fifteen minutes later, their legs sore and dew-covered. Kagome hailed down a taxi and they piled in, Kaoru first. The ride was quiet.

Eerily quiet.

"Thank you," was the first word she said in the twelve minutes it took to get to the hospital. Kaoru felt cold all over again. They paid the driver and Kagome wrapped her arms around Kaoru for the third time, helping him into the building.

They signed him in, and a nurse led him to what would be his room for the next few days. Tests, she was saying, would be done on his brain, because of the concussion. His shoulder would have to be relocated. X-rays. Internal bleeding was a possibility.

"Looks like the work of three men," the nurse said, and Kaoru couldn't tell if she was being funny or trying to make him feel like shit. The tone of her voice was hard to read.

Kagome stayed behind in the main office, her eyes on a pay phone, her hands awkwardly placed in her lap. Kaoru watched her sitting there, alone, as he walked down the hall.

His eyes never left hers.

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She felt awful.

She felt like a monster. A monster. A creature that brought pain and destruction and unhappiness to innocent people with innocent lives who didn't deserve pain and destruction and unhappiness. She felt like she had showed up uninvited, tried to fit in in a place that was two steps above her, and ended up feeling small and cornered and reverted back into the Monster.

The Monster. The part of her that didn't think logically, that acted upon instinct, that stomped on buildings and emerged from the sea.

Generally destroyed things.

Jesus. It was all her fault.

All of it was her fault.

She knew this.

The Monster had eaten Inuyasha alive. That was the catalyst. The instant Kagome's mouth touched Inuyasha's was the moment everything turned to shit. Suddenly, Kikyou hated her. Her mother sent her to another city because she couldn't live in the same house as her twin daughters. Her Grandfather didn't know what to think and consequently avoided her.

But all of that seemed insignificant when she met Kaoru.

He was sunny, and warm, and made the dark clouds disappear that that's why this hurt this bad. She had caused everything. Every single thing that had happened, Kikyou's heartbreak, Kaoru's pain, Inuyasha's anger, her mother's sadness—all of it. She had caused Kikyou to hate her, hate Inuyasha, she had caused Kaoru to lower his walls and let a stranger inside. A stranger. She wasn't deserving of his infatuation, his attention, him, because she had lied. She introduced herself as Kagome when her name was anything but.

She was the Monster again.

Maybe it never left.

That's why, as she sat in the main office of the hospital—the hospital, that's where they ended up at the end of it all because of her—she couldn't take her eyes off of the phone. She felt like maybe the only way she could fix things was by removing herself from the equation. Kaoru would heal, forget about the stupid girl who got him beaten up and abandoned him, and eventually find someone better. Someone without a Monster in them.

Kagome bit her lip.

Run away.

Run run run away.

It repeated in her mind like a broken record. Kaoru disappeared into a room somewhere down the hall and her heart pulled at its strings. Follow him, it said.

She felt sick.

Why did everything she touch have to turn to shit? Was there a figurative black cloud above her head, continuously raining an endless supply of shit onto her and everything she came into contract with? That's what it felt like.

That's what it really felt like.

Her head in her hands, Kagome started thinking hard. Either she stayed, possibly messed up Kaoru's life in whatever possible way there was left to mess it up, was kicked out of one of the most prestigious academies in the country, stomped on more buildings and ate more people alive, and had to take the looks, the shit, the penalties she deserved OR she ran.

Just ran.

Just

ran.

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Kaoru woke alone.

Part of him had expected this.

His head was throbbing dully, a sharp ache somewhere at the back of his brain. A moan escaped his throat, involuntarily, as he examined his room. He'd expected this.

He felt exceptionally empty, covered in a cold sweat.

It was a dark, empty room. Not appealing by any means, no, actually he felt more inclined to flee the enclosure than to stay within them and eventually get better. Dull white walls, no television, stiff blankets. Quiet.

Cold.

He'd expected this.

It was bright outside the window. He couldn't guess the time. Either it was early in the morning or sometime during the afternoon, but that would mean he'd slept for over 12 hours. Which was completely possible. His head felt heavy and full of blood.

His hands fumbled for the button attached to his bed. He couldn't pinpoint why he wanted a nurse, but it felt daunting to be so alone and he needed to see another living being. Just to make sure he wasn't waking up during Judgment Day.

His finger rested on the button.

Be it Judgment Day or not, part of him kind of didn't care. Kagome was gone by now. Gone.

"Damn it," he said, closing his eyes. He really messed things up.

How things got this bad this quick still remains a mystery. Everything was going fine, and suddenly—

Suddenly, this.

Hospital.

Various injuries.

His girlfriend missing.

No will, whatsoever, to get out of this bed.

Kaoru groaned and rolled over. Big mistake. Big fucking mistake.

His shoulder still hurt like hell, and he mentally punched himself in the face for not remembering that. He blinked away a couple of tears. God. Remind him never to get in a fight ever again. Not unless he actually had a chance, thanks.

Inuyasha was fucking tough, he'll give him that.

Not the smartest pup in the litter, but probably the biggest, and most aggressive, and was probably kicked around a couple times to rough him up a bit.

Three man job, said the nurse. It felt more like a ten man job.

Light streamed in through the window, settling on his face. Blinded, he started to roll back over but stopped himself, thankfully, before doing so. He'd much rather be temporarily blinded than temporarily unconscious from the pain rolling onto his shoulder would bring him.

Wow.

What a lonely place.

He'd been awake for less than five minutes and he already felt like he'd been alone for centuries. Kinda felt like he'd been here before, this same room, for a long, unbearably long time. No visitors. No explanations. Just. Here.

Maybe he had.

The door clicked, and suddenly swung open, and in walked a clean looking lady with brown hair pulled up into a messy bun. "Good afternoon," she said, holding a clipboard in one hand, a coffee cup in another. She was smiling.

Kaoru's stomach turned at the smell of the coffee. "Hey."

"So," said the woman, apparently his doctor. "I'm glad you woke up from your nap. It was starting to get worryingly long. Didn't want you to slip into a coma." She said this very calmly, and took a seat at the end of his bed, avoiding his legs.

"What time is it?" asked Kaoru, groggily.

"Five o' clock," replied his doctor, taking a drink of her coffee. "That was a big nap, right?"

She was smiling, and it was inviting, and Kaoru felt his mouth twitching at the corners. She was nice. Suddenly the room didn't feel so empty.

"Oh, so, down to business. We've got some of your tests back. Dislocated shoulder was an obvious one, but I'm please to let you know that nothing else is broken or dislocated. You've got a lot of surface injuries, though. Bruises, scratches, a few cuts. But those won't kill you. We stitched the deep ones up, the rest were bandage worthy. The biggest worry was that head of yours."

Kaoru nodded. His head felt a little heavy.

"Your attacker didn't traumatize you permanently. The concussion he caused however was enough to knock you out for half-an-hour, if not longer." She frowned.

"Can you remember everything?"

Kaoru bit his lip.

Lie?

"Um, no…" he admitted, with difficulty. "I think."

The doctor nodded, writing something down.

A moment passed, a very quiet moment. Kaoru squirmed in the awkward atmosphere, trying not to stare at the doctor, avoiding her eyes. She finished writing.

"Well, that's all for now. We're going to keep you again, overnight, just to make sure everything's okay up here." She knocked twice on the side of her head, grinning. "Dinner is in an hour. It's not that bad, so you should try and eat a little."

She rose.

After three steps toward the door she turned back around, suddenly remembering something. Kaoru eyed her, expectantly. "Oh, your sister is out in the lobby. She was here all night." Her face was very sober.

Kaoru blinked. "My sister."

"Yes." The doctor opened the door, suddenly looking like she was very busy. "Want me send her in?"

"Yeah."

She left, shutting the door behind her. Her footsteps echoed down the hall a ways until Kaoru couldn't be bothered to listen for them any longer. His head hurt. It was dull, now, but still, it hurt.

He closed his eyes. Waiting.

Waiting.

Wait—

The door clicked.

Footsteps.

"Kaoru," she started, her voice sounding watery and edgy.

He opened his eyes.

Her face was red, and streaked with tears, and she looked like she hadn't slept at all. He, on the other hand, had slept more than enough, and despite the various injuries to his skinny frame, he was feeling slightly better than before.

Kagome might have contributed to that.

"Hi," he said, grunting. He was trying to sit up, his back against the wall because his bed lacked a back board. His pillow gave no support, whatsoever. Kagome watched him with wet eyes, frowning. Kaoru gestured for her to come closer with his good arm, holding out his hand. "C'mere."

Kagome… broke.

Suddenly, what seemed like an never-ending supply of tears flowed freely from the corners of her eyes, and she ran. To him. She hid her face in his chest, sobbing generously. Kaoru shushed her gently, running a hand through her hair, muttering quietly that it'd be okay, everything was fine, nothing was her fault, he didn't blame her at all.

Kagome didn't understand, how can you still say that? After all of this?

Kaoru kissed the top of her head, despite the position being as uncomfortable as it was. Because, Kagome, right now, at this moment, I don't care about anything but you.

And she stopped crying.

Just to look at him without tears blurring his image.

She kissed him, once, tasting like the ocean. Kissed him again, tasting like the sea.

She pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and said the three words he'd known he'd hear since the very beginning, since the moment he'd met this beautiful, chaotic, innocent girl. The three words he'd been waiting to hear since their first kiss because he'd known, even back then.

Those three words.

He braced himself.

three

two

one.

"I'm going home."

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a/n: well, i'm going to go eat chinese food and wait for feedback. i wanna know what you guys want to happen. SO I CAN MOCK YOU jk. i want different perspectives on how you think this story will end. keep me interested in this so i CAN end it. get what i'm saying. i'm kind of losing interest, if you couldn't tell by the many MONTHS between this update and the last. sorry!