Love Chronicles of a Sixteen Year Old HS Student

Chapter 2: Meeting Sango-chan And Sesshomaru

Translation- Fujin: Mrs.
Teishu: master
Chan: An endearment at the end of a name to indicate friends
Kodougu: Prop or Props
Sensei: Master; Teacher

Disclaimer: eee…no.

NOTE- For now on, as a part of my story I will be putting an excerpt from Othello at the beginning of each chapter since it is my favorite of Shakespeare’s works and in my mind fits this story. For any of you who want to look back, I have posted an excerpt from Act 1: Scene 3 in chapter 1! Thanks!


It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened death,
And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus high, and duck again as low
As hell’s from heaven! If it were now to die,
‘Twere now to be most happy, for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
~Othello; Act 2: Scene 1: Lines 199-209

If I had known the impact Theatre would have had on my entire life, I wonder if it would have prevented me from taking it. It taught me many lessons, gave me some of the best memories I to this day have ever had…but at the same time, it brought me to my very knees emotionally and physically. Yes…I wonder if I would have still taken it...?


I think I would have.

*****

I’d wanted to take theatre for some time but because Kikyo was also in it, I hadn’t dared. Now - my third year of high school, I felt brave enough to set foot within the massive auditorium for the program’s orientation night. And as I knew she would be - Kikyo was in the middle row with a couple of her friends.


I wanted to run.


‘No.’ I told myself firmly, obstinately sitting down a few rows behind her. She wouldn’t win this so easily.


But even so, my nearly depleted self-confidence was quickly leaving me.


*****


The two hour orientation went by pretty fast, considering. The director went on about their performances, how she ran everything, ect. By the time we could all leave and mingle with one another I was so sore from sitting in the hard auditorium seat I wanted to cringe. I wandered a little bit, unsure of what to do. Should I talk with someone from the program? One of the seniors or something?


I caught sight of a boy with long black hair talking with a few smaller children. I didn’t know what to do as I stared at them, and as a result, ended up chickening out and leaving a few minutes later after hesitantly scanning the crowd for someone I could recognize.


I saw no one except Kikyo and her friends which didn’t give me any hope.


*****

When our first play practice started a week later, I was put in charge of props. I’d never acted before except for a spoof play in middle school so I didn’t much mind. They called me Kodougu-sensei or “props master” because ultimately I was supposed to oversee everything in that department.


In later months to come I would look back on my experiences doing that…and smile because of how hectic it was.


“Paint this!”


“Wash this!”


“Can you sand this down?”


“Where’s the paper?”


“Did the director say it was break yet?”


“Could you get my costume?”


And what soon clearly became the most important:


“WHERE’S THE FOOD?!”


It was two months of pure bliss. Amongst the flashing lights and colorful costumes of my peers, I somehow felt more alive. I felt I belonged somewhere. But that was not until nearly half way through the play, and there were many obstacles ahead of me before then.


For example, Kikyo had been the last Kodougu-sensei, but now she had a minor role in the play. As a result, I got her job. Yet strangely enough it didn’t bother me too much.


Her dismantling of my props bothered me.


I had made this marvelous fruit bowl with assorted kinds of rubber grapes and oranges one might see amongst the tables of a furniture store. Everything was arranged perfectly in my minds eye. I’m a perfectionist you see, and I have to work very hard to please myself. One day I walked into the room where we kept our past materials and props from other plays (which also served as a storage shed for the props for this play), and found Kikyo there with my assistant – a girl named Kagura who never missed a chance to balk at having to work. Mostly, she just went off with her best friend Kanna (all of us called it their “freshmen social hour” which basically is what it was).


Kanna, was the stage manager for the production. Her job consisted of being the first one there, and the last one to leave, giving cues to the actors when they needed them, and during the three days of the production, making sure everything ran smoothly.


She constantly complained about how boring it was, plus never did her job.


Maybe she should have painted enough pieces of cardboard to use up three gallons of paint. She wouldn’t be bored anymore if she did, that’s for sure! We all never looked forward to seeing her, but she was essential to our roles, whether as actors or techy’s (that was what the actors called us because as props people we were part of the technical staff).


I had entered the room for the above mentioned fruit bowl only to find its contents scattered across the floor. Instead, a different bowl had been plucked from a nearby shelf by Kikyo - and she had proceeded to put some bananas on instead. Banana’s were her thing you see. Considering her recent accountings of sex I will leave it up to you, why.


Needless to say I went to the director to voice my frustration…but the result wasn’t what I had expected.


It all seemed to blow up on me instead. The director took us both aside and chewed me out - right in front of Kikyo, saying how because she was older she knew more and was entitled to do whatever she wanted.


Once again, I was beaten down, and never went to her again for further frustration.


I felt so alone. No friends, no one to talk to, only the bitter wonder of why I was doing this to myself. For the first three weeks of practice I went home detached and without optimism of any of it getting better.


Then, I met two people who changed it all.


Their names were Sango, and Sesshomaru. They were best friends, always hanging out together, always relaxed with one another - and both senior actors to me. She had long dark hair to the middle of her back, and he the same only it was usually tied back.


As I had with everyone else I had ever met since I was twelve years old, I backed away. And the result might have been the same except that even as I did this, they never stopped being welcoming and sincere in their hello’s.


My mistrust soon began to falter after weeks of them greeting me with a smile every time I saw them. Whether inside or outside of school, they showed me that I was in no way, ever an inconvenience. But even so, at first I was afraid to be near them. I figured that their kindness had to be a trick of some kind. Surely, they wanted something from me…after all, everyone I’d ever known had. I didn’t know them, and didn’t have the people skills to bring myself close enough to be around them. Strangely enough however, there became an interest inside myself towards Sesshomaru, and soon, without even realizing it, I found myself hanging out around the areas he did. Sango, however, was the one who would say hi to me in the halls, and walk around with me during school.


While she did theatre and pretty much nothing else, he did sports; Varsity soccer and hockey, as well as Varsity Lacrosse. Yeah…he was pretty active, and his body was obvious proof of it. Both of them were thin and outgoing. A couple people in the group were after Sango - Miroku in particular. He was the best on the stage that we had - and trust me he knew it. Sometimes I didn’t get along with him because he hung out with Kikyo a lot, but in reality he was a nice guy - even if at times a little perverted. But hey, Kikyo did that to people.


I guess the first big step that brought me towards a social life in theatre was distancing myself from the ones I didn’t want to be near. And I did it by way of that, in the school beside the doors to the auditorium, there was another door that led into a room known to everyone as ‘Sono Ao Kutsurogi’, or “The Green Room”. It was only for theater players who had preformed in seven major plays, and those people were what we called Teishu, or Masters. Since this was my first play I wasn’t allowed inside, even though there were a few times when, as I became closer to the other masters, I could occasionally break the rule and sneak a few minutes inside every now and then.


I would sit right around the corner from the entranceway to the room, away from Kikyo and her friends who sat down the hall, and do my homework. It was quiet, and it felt nice to be there, even if it was a win - lose situation. I didn’t care though. Being there beside that room gave me a glimmer of hope that I could get past the darkness Kikyo had washed over me, and let me finally be above her.


Surprisingly, she wasn’t a Master. I didn’t know how many plays she’d done but I knew from this that it wasn’t seven. One thing was certain however, and it was that she made fun of me like she had always done.


“What’s wrong bitch? Not good enough for the Masters? Why don’t you follow after someone who wants you? Like your grandmother?”


I just ducked my head down closer to my homework until they’d leave.


*****


That night when I went home I almost didn’t come back to theatre.


But I did. And I don’t know how or why since it was to a full list of props I had to make for the production in three weeks. Yet at the same time, that list perhaps is what helped me to not think about Kikyo and her cruel words. They helped me get away.


“God, she’s so worthless…” Kagura would whisper to Kanna as they passed me by.


“Yeah…and what a loser!”


And they would laugh.


In reply, I ignored them and went to create a life sized makeshift cannon out of cardboard and hot glue.


Another thing that helped was Sango-chan and Sesshomaru. And it was because they had the same interest in reading material as I did. They read something called manga, a type of comic we Japanese were famous for creating. I had an interest in them but everyone I had told had called me a nerd or a geek because of it. So I had stopped reading them at school. But here, Sango and Sesshomaru were accepted by the other Teishu; and they accepted me just as quickly.


The three of us became solid. No longer did I get nervous when I saw them or feel unsure of my mannerisms. And after that we became closer and closer, until we were lending out everything each of us had to one another. Everyday after classes, they would walk around the corner and see me sitting there by the Ao Kutsurogi, doing my math or History homework. And when I would look up and see them, they would smile and give me something new to read (I’m sure if my English teacher ever found out that was the reason why I never read my homework, she’d kill me).


They knew of some series I knew of, but mostly ones I didn’t, which was wonderful to me. Their names all blurred together in my mind there were so many of them; especially since Sesshomaru had so many of them! He must have had dozens of different ones (actually I know he did because I borrowed them all).


“Sesshomaru, can I borrow these? I’ll be careful with them, I promise...”


“Do what you want.”


And I would grin even as he left to go into the Ao Kutsurogi.


Sometimes he would stay in the hall with me, sit down beside me and read, other times he would creep into the Ao Kutsurogi’ and recline on the couches inside. Either way, I never realized how excited I was when he was around until he was gone because of some sports game every other night.


But then I had Sango-chan, and I realized I was happy again becauseI wasn’t alone.

*****


At times, Sesshomaru’s demeanor was shaded, a little darker then everyone else’s, but for the most part he had a crisp look of I-know-exactly-what-I’m -going-to-do-right-now look on his face.


For the most part I never saw him without that look.


I remember once I thought I had angered him with a political remark I can’t even recall. He’d shrugged and went inside of the Ao Kutsurogi. When I asked him later if he had been upset by it, he replied to me calmly; “No. What you feel is what you feel and that is life.”


And I smiled because I knew he always told me the truth.


As I came to realize, nothing could faze him. Nothing made him angry. Not the directors screams and tirades, or my brief yet sporadic crying sessions, the stress of his schoolwork, his lack of sleep…he was calm and deliberate with every movement, whether it was cheering me up in the beginning stages of my theatre career - or on stage acting out his roles.


It became so easy to talk with him about my frustrations with school.


We hung out a few times alone and I never felt unsafe around him. When others were around and I would ask to stay in the Ao Kutsurogi, he never said no to me, and so no one else would either.


But of all his features, his mannerisms, his habits, his eyes held my thoughts captive on a few occasions during my advanced English class. They held no anger; maybe a feeling of acceptance towards the idiosyncrasies of the world, but never anger. I couldn’t sense any threat in them; they were always still and nonviolent. He spoke with soft, distinct wording, and his emotions when he wanted them to be, were refined and purposeful. He soothed my tarnished soul.


And suddenly, I found myself around him whenever I could.


He was so…wonderful. Thinking of his antics even now makes me laugh! Once when he found me crying because of something Kikyo had said, he sat next to me until I stopped and taught me a card game I’d never played before. As a result, he was almost late for his cue, which in the theatre world is almost like willingly putting your head on the chopping block.


I found myself softening towards him because he was someone who never failed to turn my troubles away. He always was there to mix his voice into the sound of my laughter. Because of him, people began to see me as an all - around happier person then I’d been before. Suddenly, Kagura and Kanna didn’t seem so hard an obstacle to overcome, and the best part was that Sesshomaru always laughed with me when I told him about their antics (like when Kagura hot-glued her favorite blouse to a wooden table and ended up ripping the seam all the way up the back).


*****


In the middle of November, my school was hosting a fundraising dance for one of the classes. No one asked me right up until the day before, and I hadn’t even held a thought of hoping someone would.


That night at theater practice, Sango-chan brought in a black dress to the costume director, Kaede-fujin because she had an issue with some beading that crisscrossed across the back. She asked about a substitute of fabric instead of the scratchy metal things that were on it because she was going to wear it to the dance tomorrow night. We started talking about the dance, and then Sesshomaru walked in. We greeted him, me a little bit more enthusiastically then Sango - for she was more refined that way. As time went on, I discovered that with her. Or maybe it was simply that I was becoming more boisterous. I don’t know.


“I wish I could go…” I said wistfully, fingering a fold of fabric Kaede-fujin was sewing on.


“Why don’t you then?” My friend asked, swearing as she pricked her thumb with the needle.


“I…well no one asked me…”


“So?”


She turned to help the costume director put some pins in a few different places.


I shifted uncomfortably at the question.


“I didn’t want to go alone...”


“You can go with me then.” Sesshomaru said nonchalantly, walking past me to grab a hat for his costume on a nearby clothes rack.


I stared at him.


“I…Really? But-” Flustered and embarrassed, I floundered around for either a yes or a no.


I knew that the short notice of it all wasn’t something my mother would appreciate if he was indeed serious. But on the other hand, I hadn’t gone out to any kind of school function since my middle school eighth grade dance, so maybe she would make an exception.


“I don’t have any money.” I ended up mumbling, looking at my face in the wall-length mirror that was there for multiple people to put their makeup on at once.


Both my eyes had shadows from lack of sleep, and my dark brown hair had small wisps hanging around the sides of my face and behind my neck where they were coming out of my bun.


He shrugged it off.


“I’ll pay. It’s only five dollars.”


And the next thing I knew I was meeting him, Sango-chan, Rin-chan, and Ayame-chan (two more masters who I had become close to as well) at the small one-floor building that served as the dancing hall.


Growing up, my mother and everyone at school had been painful reminders of how I could not dance, and as a result, their words were the first things to hit me as I walked into the crowded building and heard the thrumming of the loud music.


*“Hey look, it’s the elephant!”


“Yeah, go find somewhere else to thump around!”


“We don’t want your fat ass here!”*


I remembered their voices and cringed away from the people grinding in the middle of the floor. How could I have forgotten? What was I doing here, putting myself into a crowded environment of people I didn’t know? I felt my eyesight beginning to blur in panic before I caught sight of Sesshomaru and the other masters walking past me and beginning to dance. Watching them, I felt my panic beginning to loosen up in my body because I’d never seen such an uncoordinated group of individuals in my entire life. They couldn’t dance either and maybe that was why I was able to live through that night. In a few moments, everything began to feel a little bit better; the corrosive voices of my past began to blur into the pulsing waves of rap and hard American/Japanese rock that was playing. Before I had even begun to think of what would happen next, I walked forward and stood next to him. He smiled at me, doing a twirl in the middle of the floor and missing the people behind him by maybe half a foot. I blushed, giggling softly as I began slowly bobbing from side to side on my feet to the music.


“Is that all you can do? Why don’t you dance?” He yelled over the music to me.


“WHAT?” I yelled back, leaning towards him amidst the jumping, writhing bodies.


And he took me by the hand and spun me around instead of answering.


I ended up spiraling into his side and clutching onto him as another out-of-control couple brushed past us. Seeing my distress, Sango-chan and the others made a circle and I gave a sigh of relief, finding myself a little more insulated by my friends.


Friends.


The word hit me out of nowhere, and I paused, staring around the group at the fulsome face of Sesshomaru, Sango in her black dress, Ayame with her shoulder length red hair, and Rin with her skirt and white top. Yes…they were my friends…and as much as it surprised me thinking about it just then, I had always known it. From the moment I stopped crying every other day, to talking with Sango in the dressing room.


They were there….I was there…and it was now. It was the present.


And as it sunk in, I began to realize that my feet were getting out of their sidestepping. They began tapping and twirling and bouncing, until I was so out-of –whack that I just threw my head back, and my hair - free of a hair-tie - flew around my face and shoulders. My legs kicked up into the air, and my red cocktail dress flew around me as I twirled and spun around.


I lost myself that night. I went somewhere where there was no rape; went where there were no lies, no backstabbers, no pessimists. That night I went home. I went where it was safe.


And it felt good.


*****


Outside of Theatre however, my life was falling apart. I had become moderately depressed and suicidal; all of the months of Kikyo’s cruelty and my near - rape finally beginning to take their toll. The trigger had been a C+ in Geometry. I was a perfectionist who had had years of GET ABOVE A ‘C’ AVERAGE OR YOU’RE A FAILURE pounded unrelentingly into my psyche by my mom. She hadn’t meant that though.


In the beginning, it was done by my parents to keep me on track. We both wanted for me to go to college, and have a life, and I needed good marks in school to do that - but soon it became more sinister. In my mind, if I got a C, I really had failed. I had failed myself, and everyone around me, because my perfectionist nature did that to me. It made me beat myself up emotionally over it. In my mind, as soon as I saw that C on my report card, my entire being was useless and I should just die.


My counselor made me take tests for my depression, to see how much so I had it, and found the results dangerously high, as well as the scores on my suicidal tendencies test. I assured her that I was in no danger of harming myself…and for a time it was the truth.


But I learned that all things change, even if that came later. Right then, the years of being alone, of being tormented by other people, of never telling anyone about my near-rape and having to live through it every day while not telling my parents…it all just collided together at the same moment. Then one day I realizing that I was in love with Sesshomaru. The realization came when he hugged me for the very first time on the last night of our production in November. I had never felt anything so good…never felt anything so peaceful…and began having doubts in myself.


*You know I’ve never seen Sesshomaru with a Girlfriend even once?”*


Miroku had said that to me one day in passing, and I wondered how dare I? What made me think I was special enough for me to be different? For me to be the one to finally be the one Sesshomaru wanted?


It all hit me simultaneously and I just cracked.


I began having to see my counselor every day. Everything anyone did to me became personal, I began to avoid Sesshomaru, becoming cold towards him whenever he was around because I no longer knew how to act around him. Every day I had to struggle to understand what was happening in my life, and it took me many hours to realize that things couldn’t ever happen unless put into motion.


So I finally told my mom. It was in early December, and I told her everything, the depression, the anger, the misery, the many words spewed forth from Kikyo, the way I had felt when I had clung to Sesshomaru at the dance - and how I felt for him - it all came pouring out of me. And I no longer had anything hidden from her. After five years I finally was free. I felt cleansed…even if in the long run, I knew it would not help me get up my math grade or take back all of Kikyo’s venomous words, or erase what almost happened that night all those years ago.


I had expected that she would rebuff what I was saying; I could already hear her. “Your not in love, you don’t know what love is!”


I could remember so many things she had said to me: “You’re obsessed! Let it go! You’re not in middle school anymore! Deal with it! Kagome, I cant help you with every little thing…why do you let it bother you so much? So just ignore them then! I’m too busy to listen to you complain! Act your age!” She had said all of those things to me when I had told her in ninth grade about Kikyo. And she hadn’t listened…so I figured she wouldn’t listen now.


But she did.


And we talked about it over dinner at our favorite restaurant.