InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Onigumo House ❯ Chapter 1

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Blanket Disclaimer:

Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.


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Happy Halloween!

Since my previous story was a spooky(ish) themed canon one-shot I figured it was time to go AU again. I've never tried anything quite like this before, so I hope it goes over well. This one is a grusome horror, and was inspired by films like The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, and Ghost Ship, but I'm not actually copying the plot of one specific movie. Everyone is human in this universe, and to make things easier, it's an Americanized world. Enjoy!

Oh and PS, apparently there's a new rule that “individual chapters” have to be under 500,000 bytes? Since when? I know I've posted other one-shots near the 50K-word mark before (or bigger!) but apparently the newly tweaked system won't allow new uploads of that size anymore, so this is supposed to just be a one-shot, and is a one-shot over on FF.net and AO3, but I fortunately had a few natural pauses so I was able to break it up into three chapters for this site so whatever.

Okay now enjoy! (I hope)

Sighing as she glanced at the clock hanging on the back wall of the kitchen, Kagome willed the minute hand to move faster.

 

“Wait, did the freakin’ second hand just go backwards?” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. When was the last time they changed the battery?

 

“Did you say something, Kagome?” Rin asked from her place beside the older girl, the eighteen-year-old making three chicken soft tacos while Kagome watched the French fries.

 

“Just wondering whether or not time’s going backwards,” Kagome answered nonchalantly right before the alarm on the fry bin went off. “Guess not,” she added as she grabbed the wooden handle for the metal basket and lifted it out of the hot oil, dumping the fries into their large tray before putting a new batch down to cook.   

 

“I’ve noticed that it’s taking about an hour for every twenty minutes,” Rin commented as she wrapped the tacos in their designated wrapping paper before putting them in a white paper bag that had ‘On The Go Shinboku’ printed in black and red letters on the side.

 

Kagome nodded her agreement before adding a large carton of fries to the bag along with some napkins and packets of ketchup before heading over to the front counter and handing the bag to the patiently waiting customer.

 

“Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day,” she said as she handed the bag over, smiling at the gentleman who politely said “Thanks,” in return before leaving with his lunch.

 

She dropped her smile as soon as he turned to exit, blowing her bangs out of her face as she sighed at the lack of patrons in their little fast food restaurant. Busy days, as crazy and hectic as they could be, always went by so much faster. Today was dragging, and even though her 6:00am-12:00pm shift was finally almost over, her day was just beginning.

 

As soon as it was finally time to punch out, the first thing Kagome did after keying her ID number into the time clock was grab her trusty backpack out of her locker and head into the bathroom to change her clothes. Off came her black slacks and polo shirt, and in their place she donned her favorite black and blue checkered skirt topped by a white long-sleeved button-up shirt. Her beat up but comfortable enough black leather lace-up shoes and matching black socks were replaced by her favorite pair of black slip-ons without socks, her work clothes getting shoved back into the bag. Washing the grease from her face and trying to make her hair presentable, she was then ready to head across the parking lot to Shikon University.   

 

Juggling college and a part-time job was exhausting, but she needed the money. She was grateful to have qualified for a partial scholarship, but once she was done with pre-med the real fun would begin, and her scholarship only covered up to the first year of medical school. She had plans for working certain programs that would help her with her growing debt once she started her residency at Tama Medical, but in the meantime, she was grateful the local fast food joint was willing to schedule her around her classes.

 

Whatever spare time she had between work and school she usually spent studying. She wasn’t going to become just any doctor, after all, but a specialist in rare and potentially hereditary diseases, especially Fatal Familial Insomnia. She didn’t really care if she’d be in debt for the rest of her life, living on a ramen diet; she wasn’t pursuing this career for the money.

 

Kagome still lived at home with her mother and younger brother, and probably would for years to come, unable to afford her own place. The elder Higurashi woman was widowed and working two jobs of her own to make ends meet, but she was happy to have her daughter at home, not wanting to hinder her future goals in any way. Kagome tried as hard as she could not to burden her already overstressed mother with even the tiniest extra expense, but she was bound and determined to become a specialist. It was her calling.

 

Fatal Familial Insomnia was what took her father’s life and, unfortunately, Souta had also tested positive for the PRNP gene when both she and her brother got tested after his death. She had fortunately lucked out, clean bill of health, but it was a fifty-fifty shot that if one parent had the disease they could pass it on to their children. Souta would most likely develop symptoms at some point in his adult life, and there was no known cure.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

Kagome was running on backup energy reserves her school friends Yuka, Eri and Ayumi envied with a passion, but it was her passion to save her brother’s life that kept her going. Working part-time at On The Go Shinboku didn’t pay very much, but she saved every penny she could for her schooling; Kagome was a pro at living on a budget. She didn’t have her own car so whenever her mom or one of her friends couldn’t give her a ride she either walked or took the bus, and she didn’t have a fancy smartphone for streaming videos online, her cheap pre-paid phone good enough for making calls. If she needed to look up a bunch of stuff on the Internet for her studies, that was what the library was for. It was her home away from home.

 

It was a sacrifice, not having a life outside of work and school, not getting to enjoy even going to the movies unless one of her friends decided to pay her way although such carefree moments were few and far between, but it was well worth it. She knew she was running herself ragged, but she just didn’t feel like she had a choice. She was playing beat the clock, after all.

 

“I don’t know how you do it, Kagome,” Yuka said, glancing up from her phone every few steps as they headed out of class later that evening.

 

“Easy, I just think of my brother, and my future nieces or nephews,” the twenty-year-old answered as she walked with Yuka towards the other student’s brand new Nissan. Yuka’s parents weren’t rich, by any means, but neither were they hurting for money and Yuka was able to devote her full attention to her studies as a result, wanting to become a doctor as well. In her case, a surgeon.   

 

“You’re amazing, you know that?” Yuka stated more than truly asked as she put her phone in her pocket and unlocked her car, the future surgeon more than willing to give Kagome a ride when the girl lived on her own way home.

 

The ride was pleasant. They spent most of the time discussing Ayumi’s pending date with Hojo. Once upon a time the man had been interested in Kagome but the last thing she had time for at this stage in her life was a romantic relationship. It had taken Eri longer to comprehend that fact than Yuka, who’d understood where Kagome was coming from, having a little brother of her own. Yuka had accepted Kagome’s disinterest in dating but Eri had tried to push Kagome and Hojo together a few times, not wanting to take Kagome’s no for an answer, until they’d all three realized that Ayumi had secretly been crushing on the guy from day one. Hojo himself had seen fairly easily that Kagome wasn’t interested, and thanks to Eri’s shift in focus, she was now playing match maker for Ayumi and Hojo.

 

Getting dropped off at home, Kagome greeted her mother in the kitchen, who was just rinsing her and Souta’s dishes from dinner. Kagome wasn’t upset that she’d missed dinner; she’d had a late class today and Souta, who was still in junior high, needed to keep a set dinner and bedtime schedule. At least one of them needed to. Grabbing the plastic wrapped plate of food her mother had put in the fridge for her, Kagome removed the cling wrap, zapped it for a couple of minutes, grabbed a fork and sat at the table.

 

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Mrs. Higurashi murmured as she kissed her daughter on the forehead before disappearing down the hall towards her bedroom. She had to be to work in the morning even earlier than Kagome.

 

“Night,” the younger Higurashi woman replied before wolfing down her dinner and putting her plate and fork in the dishwasher. Heading to her own room, she read the next chapter in the medical textbook she was currently reading and then went to bed.

 

The next day she worked 6am-12pm again but didn’t have a 1pm-7pm class afterwards. She had no school that day so she took the bus back home after work. Having the house all to herself for the next few hours, as Souta was still at school and their mom wouldn’t get home from work until an hour after he did, Kagome took advantage of her alone time to use the computer she shared with her brother.

 

They had unlimited data on their home Internet service so that was fortunately not an issue, since between the two of them they did plenty of browsing, although ‘browsing’ wasn’t really an accurate term where she was concerned when she was hardly perusing the Internet for fun. World’s top ten cutest kittens? How to lose weight with one weird trick? She had no time for such trivial things when there were articles of medical studies and research papers in need of reading. Hypotheses, laboratory experiments, clinical trials...hell, even studies on natural remedies and herbal supplements from various countries used by the locals for thousands of years. Anything and everything that might possibly be a piece to the giant puzzle that was fatal insomnia and other rare degenerative diseases of the brain, she would find and read them. She usually printed them out as well to add to a binder she was in the process of making, although she also bookmarked them on the computer. She just didn’t want to risk losing anything should their five year old desktop decide to take a dump.

 

She spent the afternoon searching, trying multiple search browsers even, to find anything new, or anything old she might’ve missed on previous searches. She found and bookmarked a lot of sites to read more thoroughly later, and then she switched gears and started reading up more on the various ways she could cut her future debts. She was going to be in school for years to come, without really being able to hold any kind of a decent job in and around her studies once she started her residency at the local hospital, so any programs she could join, any scholarships she could qualify for, any other ways to make more money would help her get that much further in her education, and out of debt that much faster.

 

“Hey sis,” Souta greeted as he came in the door, the thirteen-year-old letting himself in with his own key after having walked the couple of blocks to the house from where the school bus dropped him off.

 

“Hey,” Kagome greeted in return. She’d kept an eye on the time and knew her brother was due home any moment. “Okay, your turn,” she added without protest as he dumped his backpack on the couch and made his way over to the corner of the living room that housed their computer.

 

Without bothering to close her web browser – it wasn’t like she’d been looking up naughty pictures or anything – Kagome stood up and away from the computer to let Souta take over while she headed into the kitchen to get started on dinner. She always tried to cook for their mother whenever she could, whenever she didn’t have any late classes or had to work the late shift at the restaurant.

 

Finding some ground hamburger that needed to be cooked soon, and noting that they had plenty of bread and eggs on hand at the moment, Kagome opted to do a meatloaf. The cooler autumn evenings meant that the oven wouldn’t make the house too hot. They tried to avoid using the oven during the summer months whenever possible since they also tried to avoid using the air conditioner if at all possible, and their oven put out an awful lot of heat. It was an older model, but it still worked, which was a good thing since they definitely could not afford any new appliances at the moment.

 

Having washed the barbecue sauce from her fingers, Kagome was just putting her finished product into the oven when Souta calling her name from the living room earned her attention.

 

“What is it?” she asked, coming up behind him to see some kind of fanciful looking flyer up on the computer screen.

 

“This ad popped up and I thought you might be into it,” he said. “The Internet knows you’re looking for ways to make money.”

 

“Stupid cookies,” Kagome grumbled to herself, not really appreciating the way Big Brother always seemed to stick his nose in her business.

 

Search for one stupid pair of shoes…

 

She still remembered the time she’d thought about buying a new pair of sneakers online, and how annoying it’d been afterwards when suddenly every ad banner on every site was featuring them or a similar pair. She never even bought the damn things, deciding not to waste the money, but yet the ads had persisted until finally getting replaced once again with medical related banners thanks to her typical browsing behavior. She actually didn’t mind the banners that were medical related, and sometimes even clicked on them, but whenever she shifted gears to look up scholarships or ways to earn extra cash while in school then the ad banners changed as well. The phenomenons was nothing that clearing the browser history wouldn’t fix, of course, but it was just the principle of the thing. The Internet did indeed know what you searched for.

 

Taking a moment to read what this particular flyer was apparently advertising, Kagome mentally groaned.

 

Speaking of Big Brother…

 

“Looks cool, Souta, but I don’t really think that’s the kind of thing I can be doing right now,” she said.

 

“But you could win a million dollars,” he stressed in a way that had her picturing him doing the Doctor Evil thing with his pinky finger.

 

“Unlikely,” she replied.

 

“But possible!”

 

Snorting, Kagome glanced back at the screen and decided to read the first part of the ad out loud just for the hell of it. “Are you interested in a once in a lifetime experience that’s to die for?” she read with some dramatic flair that had Souta laughing. “If you think you have what it takes to survive what goes bump in the night then come for a stay at Onigumo House.” She gave a sideways glance at her brother. “Hmm, never heard of it.”

 

“It’s a hundred year old haunted house up in the hills here, or at least, it’s supposed to be haunted,” he explained, having Googled it real quick. “But check this out,” he said then, continuing to read the ad where his sister left off. “Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in fear? Will you survive the house or get bumped off?” he read.

 

“Assuming this isn’t a total scam,” Kagome replied, “it sounds like one of those Big Brother type reality show game shows, where so many people go to live in a house and then get eliminated one by one, but with a spooky theme for Halloween. I realize there’s a large cash prize involved, but I just can’t go flutter off for however long this would take when I’ve got classes.”

 

“But look,” he pointed out. “It’s only for one night!”

 

Glancing at the less spectacular fine print at the bottom of the advertisement, Kagome noted that the event in question was for Halloween night only. Since Halloween fell on a Monday that year, she could theoretically go do this, since her 10am class on Tuesday mornings meant she had the day off at On The Go Shinboku. Hopefully, she’d be able to make her class, but even if she couldn’t, she supposed skipping one class wouldn’t be the end of the world. Not like if she had to take several weeks off for a standard reality show production. But still…

 

“I don’t know...” she hesitated. “I mean, I do love all things Halloween, and if I could actually miraculously win? That would be spectacular.” Actually, it would be the complete and total end of her worries, or at least her financial ones. Even after taxes she’d have more than enough money to afford her entire education. “But this just sounds too good to be true.” Which meant it probably was.

 

Looking back over the ad flyer, she read, “The last person to survive will be awarded one million dollars.”

 

Hmm…

 

In her head, she now had visions of those intense ‘face your fear’ type game shows. Competitors for this event were probably going to be faced with beat the clock type challenges, or even simpler ‘what’s behind door number three’ type puzzles where if you make the wrong move, give the wrong answer, you’re out of the game.

 

Still, though, what did she really have to lose by trying?

 

My dignity, provided this thing is televised.

 

She had noticed that there didn’t seem to be any mention of this being for any type of TV show, so she supposed it was possible it was just a game set up by some millionaire for their own jollies, but she wouldn’t put it past him or her to display the end results on the Internet, if nothing else. As far as Kagome was concerned, that just meant that if she did decide to do this, she’d just have to make damn sure not to make an ass of herself.

 

Last thing I need is to be made fun of at school for screaming bloody murder when a feather tickled me in the dark, she thought, chuckling a little despite herself.

 

A large part of her was convinced that chickening out and not doing it was the best course of action, but still, she had to admit, it was tempting.

 

“I’ll think about it,” she answered at last.

 

“Well don’t take too long to think about it,” Souta said, pointing out the part of the fine print that said how they were looking to fill ten spots.

 

“Well then they’ve probably already got enough players,” she said, strangely feeling both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

 

“Maybe, maybe not,” he replied with a shrug. “Depends on when they first put this ad up. I’ve never seen it before today. And it’s gotta be for locals only, since it’s at a local mansion. They probably used the computer’s location, and programmed the ad banner to only pop up for people that’re in the area, so it’s not like the entire Internet has seen it.”

 

They would’ve probably booked all ten spots in only a few seconds if that had been the case.

 

“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

 

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

“No.”

 

“But-”

 

“No, and that’s final.”

 

“You’re being unreasonable!”

 

“I’m being unreasonable?” Inuyasha asked, incredulous. “You want to drag me to some kind of gods forsaken Halloween bullshit when you know I’m not into Halloween.”

 

Kikyou snorted at that.

 

“Could’ve fooled me, what with the ridiculous way you insist upon presenting yourself.”

 

She was referring to the way he kept his naturally raven hair bleached white and wore golden yellow contact lenses over his chocolate brown eyes.

 

It was his turn to snort at the predictable dig. She insulted his looks every chance she got; it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before.

 

Honestly, what upset Inuyasha the most was that his persona had already been well established long before he’d met Kikyou. It wasn’t as if he’d been normal, aka boring, when they’d first met, and then he’d up and changed his appearance one day without warning and just expected her to deal with it. He’d been bleaching his hair for the last two years, and they’d only gotten together six months ago. She hadn’t had a problem with it, or at least, she hadn’t acted like she’d had a problem with it, until she’d seen his high school year book photo and had apparently fallen head over heels in love with the ‘real’ him. She’d asked him to change back, ‘for her’, and when he’d refused she’d decided to make him pay for it by turning into a royal pain in his ass.

 

But that didn’t mean he’d take her abuse lying down.

 

Crossing his arms, he replied, “There’s a big difference between fantasy and horror. You’d know that if you had any kind of imagination, or personality whatsoever.”

 

“You can call it whatever you want,” she said. “It’s still playing dress up. You’re a grown ass man.”

 

“A grown ass man that pays your bills,” he pointed out.

 

Kikyou only huffed at that, not having an immediate comeback. It wasn’t like she could just tell him she didn’t need or want his money and storm out the door. Well, she could, but she wouldn’t.

 

I wish she would…   

 

Why he hadn’t just broken up with her yet was beyond him, but he was this damn close. No matter how good the make-up sex was, it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

 

Perhaps sensing the direction his thoughts were headed, Kikyou changed tactics.

 

“Please, at least think about it,” she requested softly, giving him her best puppy dog eyes.

 

He rolled his own eyes in response.

 

“If you want to go so badly, you can go by yourself, you know,” he pointed out.

 

She batted her eyelashes and tried to look even sweeter. “But I would miss you too much, being away from you for a night.”

 

He snorted.

 

“Okay fine,” she conceded then, throwing her hands up into the air dramatically. “With the two of us, we’ll double our chances of winning the prize money.”

 

Now that sounded more like the Kikyou he knew.

 

“Just think of it,” she continued. “A million dollars. We’d be increasing your wealth by half!”

 

He sighed, rubbing his hand down across his face.

 

“I don’t need any more money, Kikyou.”

 

“You owe me this,” she argued sharply, earning his immediate attention.

 

“I owe you?” he asked, incredulous.

 

“You’re the cheapest millionaire I know,” she said. “You don’t want to dote on me properly, then fine, help me win my own fortune and I’ll get out of your freakishly white hair if that’s what you want.”

 

He sighed again at that, not even upset that she’d basically just tried to strike a deal for the condition of their breakup. He’d known for quite some time that she was only staying with him for his money, had probably only ever hooked up with him in the first place for his money, especially if she was truly so bothered by his exotic looks.

 

Maybe if his coloring and fortune were related in some way, if he were say...a world famous DJ or something, then she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on as far as his looks were concerned. His appearance would then be a part of his brand and something that could not be argued against. But he wasn’t a famous DJ, or a famous anything else for that matter, his two million dollar trust fund having come from daddy dearest.

 

Toga Taisho was a high end real estate broker. Very high end. Inuyasha’s father had clients whose properties regularly sold for at least double his trust fund. Not wanting to force his two boys to follow in his own footsteps if real estate just wasn’t for them, Toga had given both of his sons the means with which to start their own businesses, which Inuyasha fully intended on doing some day, just as soon as he decided what it was he wanted to do with his life. He was only twenty, after all. At that point, all he knew was that he did not want to go into the real estate business. How boring.

 

He was being smart with his money, though, giving himself an annual allowance of a hundred grand. At that rate, he could theoretically live comfortably for the next twenty years without working a single day, but then he’d be broke afterwards, of course. He wasn’t stupid, and he would invest most of his fortune into a long lasting career, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun.

 

Upon gaining access to his trust fund at age eighteen he’d moved out of the house into his own apartment, and wanting to get a little wild but not too wild he’d bleached his hair in lieu of something more permanently rambunctious like getting a tattoo. He might still get some ink one of these days, but only if the perfect image or design spoke to him. At the time, being a pampered eighteen-year-old with money burning a hole in his pocket, he’d still been mature enough thanks to his good upbringing to know he didn’t want to just rush into something foolish he would later regret. Bleaching his hair was definitely not permanent and he could dye it back if he wanted to, but he’d simply found that he liked the look, and his parents hadn’t even objected, so he’d decided to keep it. He’d also grown it out, so it was well past his shoulders now.

 

As for the contacts, he actually needed glasses, which he hated wearing, and had been wearing contacts instead for quite some time. A little while after bleaching his hair he’d decided to see what he’d look like with lighter eyes and had decided to go for something a smidgen on the exotic side. Too yellow to be natural but nothing over the top in his opinion, his contacts were actually quality made, and prescription, not the cheap crap from the swap meet that could give you an eye infection.

 

But he still had to remove them at night, so Kikyou got to see his natural eye color on a fairly regular basis, at least for fleeting moments since putting them in in the morning was among the first things he always did after waking up. It was also obvious to anyone who knew him intimately that his natural hair color was black, so it wasn’t as if Kikyou could have been surprised by the yearbook photo. She’d only thought to manipulate him, to control him, thinking she had him pussy-whipped enough that he’d do whatever she asked, especially if she twisted it to seem as if he owed it to her to make up for not spending as much money on her as she wanted. Living modestly, at least by millionaire standards, meant that his gold digging girlfriend couldn’t run up her monthly credit card bills into the five figure range.

 

Oh poor baby, he thought sarcastically.

 

Inuyasha wasn’t stupid. He knew she really would have walked away months ago had a better opportunity been waiting around the corner. Perhaps she really had loved him, once, or she’d at least genuinely fallen in love with his high school photo, but knowing now that he would never become that person for her, she only stayed because she needed him. Even with as ‘cheap’ as he supposedly was, she was a hell of a lot better off than she had been without him. What fool would be willing to adopt responsibility for her spending habits should she leave him?

 

Then again, he was the fool who kept trying to buy affection where there was none, paying a woman who didn’t even like him to be his girlfriend. For the last five months he could barely afford his own monthly rent and bills after paying off her credit cards, and since she’d moved in with him three months ago her clothes, shoes and purses had taken over 80% of his closet. Enough was enough.

 

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, but he tried to calm back down, not wanting their argument to escalate into one of their full blown yelling matches. He was at the end of his rope, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be civil about it.

 

“Fine,” he relented then. If he helped her win this money he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about sending her on her way. If she blew through the million in a year and wound up broke again waiting tables that wouldn’t be his problem.

 

Sitting down at the computer, he read over the advertisement. It looked to him like some stupid rich kid’s idea of a Halloween prank. Dangle a million dollars in the poor people’s faces and watch them dance like an organ grinder’s monkey. There was probably some disclaimer you’d have to sign that said you couldn’t sue the guy for all the crap he’d end up putting you through, but if at the end of the day, or night as it were, somebody really did walk away the winner of a million dollar cash prize, then he supposed the whole thing was at least legal if not immoral.

 

Then again, perhaps he was just bitter about the notion because he honestly wasn’t into the gory side of Halloween. He loved ‘playing dress up’ as Kikyou put it just fine, but he wasn’t into blood and gore and monsters and ghosts and being scared. Still, how bad could it be?

 

Deciding to concede defeat because he just wasn’t interested in fighting with her over it anymore, planning on breaking up with her after this stunt was over, win or lose, Inuyasha turned his head to meet Kikyou’s eyes, letting his intentions show clearly in his own.

 

“All right, I’ll do it.”

 

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Enjoying dinner as a threesome for once, that night being Mrs. Higurashi’s night off at her second job and Kagome’s class having let out early enough to get home in time to join them, the younger Higurashi woman was just standing up to clear the dishes for her mother when Souta asked her if she’d made a decision yet regarding the contest at the haunted house.

 

“I don’t know, Souta,” she answered as she took the dishes to the sink. “While it’d probably be fun I don’t think-”

 

“If you’re about to say you don’t think you have the time, or the right, to have a night of fun then you better just stop that line of thinking right now, young lady,” Mrs. Higurashi interrupted as she joined her daughter at the counter, putting the dishes Kagome rinsed into the dishwasher.

 

“Mom?”

 

“If anyone deserves a night of fun, it’s you,” Mrs. Higurashi stressed. “Yes, I’m working two jobs, but you’re juggling both a job and college and not just any college.”

 

Sighing, she offered her daughter a warm smile.

 

“Don’t think I don’t understand or appreciate your hard work and sacrifices, but it’s because you work so hard, are planning on sacrificing so much, for years to come, that you deserve this. Besides...” Laughing a little, Mrs. Higurashi gave her daughter a playful wink. “You just might win.”

 

“If anyone can kick a haunted house’s butt, it’s you, sis,” Souta chimed in, earning a chuckle from both his older sister and his mother. “Plus Kohaku just told me at school today that his sister and her husband signed up for it so you wouldn’t even be alone.”

 

“Sango?” Kagome asked, earning a nod in response.

 

While she’d never actually met Kohaku’s sister, Kagome had heard a few stories from the boy the few times he’d been over visiting Souta, although more often than not Souta went to their house instead.

 

Sometimes, if neither Kagome nor their mother would be home for several hours, then Mrs. Higurashi preferred it if Souta went to Kohaku’s house after school so that his parents could look after him. She knew Souta was old enough to be home alone but her motherly instincts still felt better about it if she knew he was being taken care of. Kagome agreed, plus she was just glad her brother had a best friend he actually socialized with outside of school. Kohaku had told her more than once that he suspected she and his sister Sango would hit it off, but she usually didn’t even have the luxury of hanging out with any of her own work or school friends outside of work or school, so trying to make friends with somebody she neither knew from work nor school was, in Kagome’s mind, not necessarily a waste of time but it would take time away from her studies she couldn’t afford to spend.

 

It appeared as if maybe, if she decided to do this game show thing, that she’d finally get the chance to make friends with the woman, since direct acquaintance or not, Kagome definitely felt better about the whole concept after realizing there would be somebody there she could latch on to for moral support. Haunted houses were supposed to be scary, after all.

 

“Okay, okay...” she relented then, deciding to do it although she knew that didn’t necessarily mean she’d actually get to. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to at least call and see if there’s still any openings, although they’re probably booked by now, anyway.”

 

“It doesn’t hurt to try,” Mrs. Higurashi agreed.