Week #271 - Mastery "Smile"

Title: Smile
Authoress: Rickashay
Word Count: 250
Rating: T
Genre: Hurt and Comfort/Romance

Prompt: Week #271 Mastery from iyfic_contest at LJ

Warning(s): none
Character(s): Hojo and Kagome.
Summary: He was doomed with unrequited love. And so, he would smile.

Everyday it was the same…

As they were about to leave, he would stop them. Smile politely and give her a gift for all those medical problems she had. She would blush and accept the gift.

Hojo at first thought it was shyness that kept her away, embarrassment over her frequent illnesses. Later, he realized what a fool he'd been. There were no illnesses, nothing that had made her skip school but a reckless hooligan that she had eventually married.

For a moment, he could feel a hand clench his heart and he couldn't help the raw disappointment that rose up in him. Hojo had known that it wasn't supposed to be this way. The first time he had laid eyes on her, even when they were barely middle school students, he loved her. At first it was just a crush, but then he saw her determination and her…beauty. He loved her.

And so, each moment he smiled at her. He knew that Kagome didn't love him as he loved her, but hopefully those gifts would eventually change her mind and she'd see him as the caring and gifted young man that he was.

He hated her…

She had run off after she had finished high school to be with the man that kept her out of school. It still made him furious that she was so dismissive of him, but as time went on, he became better at hiding the raw anger in his eyes when she was mentioned.

A/N Thank you for reading!