August

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, the manga or the anime and all the characters inside the genre. I just like writing, and I am nothing more than an artist who enjoys hearing the opinions of others. I do not make a profit off of these stories, and they are writen only for the pleasure for others to read and for me to write. Thank you! ~YourouzokuAlpha

Writen in Ayame's POV


Chapter 1 -- Ayame's Invitation and Kouga's Present

"Here."

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's only an invitation to the hottest party of the entire year."

I raised an eyebrow to the iPod in disbelief. "This is an iPod Hakkaku, it looks nothing like an invitation to me," I said.

"Trust me Ayame," Hakkaku nodded, "It's an invitation. Kouga's dad is going all out for him this year. Something about making up for all the other years that he missed his son's birthday. So this year is going to be exceptionally and wickedly fantabulous!"

I sighed and turned the mp3 player on, half expecting it to open with a message saying, "You have been invited!" Alas, it only turned on, and as it was loading I stole a glance upwards to the boy in front of me with a funky platinum blonde mohawk. "So how to I get this invitation?"

"Simple," Hakkaku answered, in a tone that could only be described as 'duh'. "Put the ear pieces in and scroll down to the mp3 file that says, 'Invitation' open it and listen."

I could not help but pout, but followed his instructions. What I heard coming from the machine nearly melted my composure. See, the guy who is throwing this party, has been my number one crush since I started coming to this high school three years ago. Not many people know that I like him that badly though. I try my hardest to play it cool since his interests are on another girl, and has been since I first heard his name. So instead of bitching up a storm and crying myself to sleep every night, I simply just let me secret crush remain exactly what it is. A secret.

"Yo! This is Kouga Ookami, and if you didn't know already I will be celebrating my eighteenth birthday this Friday. So check it out, the only way you are listening to this right now is because I have deemed you worthy of my company, and I want you to show up to my party on Friday night. It will be held at one of the hottest clubs in town, Rendezvous, which is down town on the corner of Parker street, and Hogan road. Don't worry if you are not eighteen yourself, then it's no big deal. With some aid, I got the club all to myself for the entire night. You can start showing up at seven in the evening, and all the fun starts when I get there at nine. See you there."

I took the ear pieces from my ears and looked up at Hakkaku in disbelief, but I could not help but chuckle, "Kouga wants me to come to his eighteenth birthday party?"

Hakkaku nodded, not really paying much attention to me which slightly ticked me off... but when I took a look down at his carrier style bag, I noticed that it was full of more iPods. I glanced back down at the pastel lavender one in my palm. "Hey Hakkaku, why do you have so many iPods?"

He took his attention off of all of the students getting off the buses from the loading zone and focused back on me. That's better. I like looking into the eyes of the person I am speaking to. He laughed nervously, "Well the iPods are the invitations." He shrugged his shoulders and shifted his weight, "Do you not like the color? I can give you a different one if you would like?"

I shook my head, which sent my red hair waving over my shoulders. "I like the purple one."

"Ok, cool..." he shifted his weight again, and it made me wonder if he had to use the bathroom or something.

"You okay Hakkaku?" I raised one delicately plucked red eyebrow.

"I'm fine. I just gotta give out the rest of these... or at least a lot more of them before Kouga gets here," he answered.

I couldn't hold back the giggle, "Did he threaten to kick your ass if you didn't?"

"Well, not really," he replied as he pulled out a list from his back pocket. It looked as if it was five pages long and stapled together. "See, I got only half of the list. Ginta has the other half. And Kouga told us whoever gives out all of their invitations first, then he will give them three hundred dollars."

I blinked, shock was the only thing that was probably visible on my face. "Three hundred dollars?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "sorry if I am a little antsy. I want that money."

"Well what better way to get your friends to do your dirty work than to bribe them with money," I said with a sarcastic smile.

He wasn't paying attention anymore as he spotted another person on his half of the list. I called out to him, "What I do with the iPod?"

"Keep it!" He called over his shoulder as I saw him jog over to another girl and hand her an iPod.

I sighed and glanced back down at the tiny mp3 player in my hands. Even if he didn't give it to me in person, the fact that Kouga invited me to his birthday made my heart flutter with excitement. My brain told me that Kouga probably got a list of all the girls in the junior and senior class from the online directory on the school's website and just added all the ladies to his invitation list. However, it was my heart that told me that he really wanted to see me at his party. Deep down, I wanted to be the belle of his ball.

That is my only fault, I tend to follow my heart more than my head. Yes, I do think things out logically before I act... but my emotions have always lead me on the right path down life. There is no way that after a life time of instinct going with my heart, I am going to stop now.

I gingerly set the iPod next to me on the wooden bench. My school is one of the newer campuses around the city. The bus loading zone, actually has pretty scenery and this is my favorite spot to watch Kouga has he comes to school. There are wooden benches that go around a fountain, and artfully placed flower bushes behind the benches. I think they are azaleas.

In my bag, I had a note book full of stickers and stamps. One of my favorite hobbies is collecting stickers. Some of the kids I grew up with in elementary school collected things like cards from baseball to Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh and then there was dorky me... who had and still has a giant notebook full of stickers. I flipped through the pages of my stickers, each page of my collectables was behind a plastic sheet cover. I take care of my belongings like any good person who values their precious bounty. Three quarters of the way I found the page I was looking for, my flower stickers. This happened to be the largest amount of a kind of sticker that I owned. It all started when I was given a sheet of rose stickers from my Gramps, and from that day forward I loved collecting flower stickers the most.

A genuine smile spread across my face when I found the flower stickers of my name's sake. An Iris... in Japanese, the Ayame. I pulled the sleeve from it's protective plastic holder and delicately peeled off a nice and medium sized sticker that was around the same diameter of a quarter, and placed it on the back of my new lavender iPod. The purple of the iris, and the lavender of the mp3 player matched beautifully. Although I was not satisfied with just one sticker. No, this small gift from Kouga had to be artfully decorated and made into something very personal. I had positioned the iris sticker on the back in the bottom left hand corner. To go along with the ensemble I placed a full moon, and several silver sparkly star stickers around it in the top right hand corner.

I still think it needed more, but the bell rang for the students to start heading to class. Reluctantly, I put my giant note book back into my black back pack. With a quick zip, I closed my bag and pulled it onto my shoulder. I kept the iPod in my hand as I began walking to the other side of campus to get to my first class of the day. I couldn't help but glance over my shoulder back towards the bus loading zone as I started to walk away. I hadn't seen Kouga pull into the student parking lot, which was in the middle of the loading area. I turned back to watch where I was going, and after a few steps I heard a familiar voice far off... and the sound of footsteps jogging up and into the halls of the school. My heart skipped a beat when I noticed that it was Kouga, and he was heading directly towards me, but I didn't let it break my cool outer expression.

"Yo! Wait up!" he called out through the halls.

I glanced around quickly to make sure he wasn't talking to someone else, and when I didn't see anyone else... I found that my feet were frozen and it was getting harder to breath. He had never really spoken to me before. Sure there were the few occasions when he came up and talked to the group of friends I sat with at lunch time, but he had never singled me out of a crowd and talked to me one on one.

I felt a lump start to grow in my throat as he came closer and closer to me. I cleared my throat and kept my green eyes trained on him. He slowed from a jog to a walk and I really found it hard to believe that he actually stopped right in front of me. His light blue eyes, that held so much strength, like lightening, were focused entirely on me.

I couldn't find my voice, my thoughts were jumbled. What was I going to say to him? I decided to play it safe. He was the one that had called to me through the hallway, so surely he must want to say something first.

He ran his fingers through his long black bangs in frustration. I always thought that guys with long hair were attractive, but Kouga took the cake. He had long ebony tresses that he normally kept locked up in a ponytail. He would be perfect for Renaissance festivals... one day, I will ask him to go with me and play the prince or knight to my princess or maiden costume.

I looked up at him expectantly, he still hadn't said anything yet... but I could see it on his face that he was having a harder time than normal spitting it out. Another thing I admired about Kouga, his audacity to speak his mind whenever he felt like it. He didn't care the repercussions of his words, as long as everyone knew what he thought, that's all that mattered to him. He was bold, blunt, sarcastic, and to the point.

"You are Kagome's friend... right?" he asked me finally.

I felt my heart sink in my chest. Yes, Kagome is my friend... but that is not the reason I suddenly felt so glum. Kagome is the girl that Kouga has had eyes for as far as I can remember.

I sighed, moving my eyes so I wouldn't have to stare into his gorgeous blue depths when I spoke. Even if I kept my cool, he still might have been able to sense my sorrow through my eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul after all.

"Yes, I am Kagome's friend," I nodded slightly, "and my name is Ayame. Thought you would have known that by now, Kouga."

"I know your name," he snapped.

I blinked at him, "Okay..."

"I wanted to know if you were friends with Kagome," he repeated.

"I told you that I am..." I said.

"Good, then you can give her something for me," he said.

I crossed my arms over my chest and not remembering that I was avoiding his gaze, looked back into his eyes, not liking where this was going. "I could."

He narrowed his eyes at me, then sighed, "Look Ayame, you don't have to do it. I'm just not going to be here the rest of the day and I don't really have the time to be wandering all around the school looking for her before classes start and I get caught on campus."

I couldn't help but blink again, this time I was confused. What the hell does he want me to do? "So what do want me to give her?"

"This..." he reached into his bag and handed me a decent sized package. I took into my hands, and stared at the red velvet box. Damn, this thing could hold a numerous amount of things inside it. What did he want to give her so badly? Was it jewelry? Crap I was curious.

"What is it?" I asked without realizing it until it was too late.

He scoffed, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

I pouted up at him, "It's why I asked."

"Well it's none of your business. It's a present for Kagome. Now just do me the favor and give it to her will ya?" He demanded more than asked.

"You aren't really giving me a choice are you?" I asked.

"Just do it." he said, turning his back to me and walking away back towards the student parking and bus loading zone.

As his figure disappeared into the parking lot, which was to far out of my sight, I turned around in time to hear the late bell ring. I rolled my eyes and started the treck to the tardy office. God dammit. Sometimes, I don't remember why I like him so much. But it's that same cocky attitude of his, and his dashingly handsome features that made me fall so hard for him in the first place.

My curiosity was still egging at me. What is in this 'present' to Kagome anyway? It must not be that important to him if he doesn't want to risk the chance of being caught on campus, so he could just give it to her himself. Instead he instilled it in the care of one of Kagome's friends to give to her in his place. To me, that just takes away a lot of the meaning behind the gift.

I heard that voice in the back of my head telling me to hide away in a bathroom and open it, while the other more logical side told me that it was not polite to open someone else's gift and that I should get to class. I smiled, and as I came to a bathroom I stole away inside it. I locked myself in the largest stall and sat on top of the toilet lid staring at the red velvet box. It was large enough to cover my entire lap. I set my iPod on a few paper towels on the sink next to me then closed my eyes.

I found that my hands were resting on the sides of the lid, itching to lift it and see what was inside it. With a nod to myself, I opened my eyes and lifted the lid. I gasped in surprise when I saw what was hiding inside.