Must Love Dogs
When Asami Higurashi and her little brother Setsu think they have been abandoned by the last of their family, Kagome's mother takes them into her home and tries to regain their trust. Setsu's willing to accept the love his surrogate family will give but Asami's looking for something more. Will she find it when she falls down the well? What's more, how does Sesshoumaru know her?
CHAPTER ONE: WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
Setsu Higurashi was crying. And there was nothing his sister, Asami, could do. He had seen the suitcases full of clothes, the distant look in their mother's eye, the boyfriend's car pull up to curb. Little as he was he hardly ever shed tears in front of others. They were always reserved for when he couldn't stand things anymore, when the hurt became unbearable.
For Asami it was expected. Her mother, Sayomi, and her boyfriend, Hakudoshi had been on the phone only an hour ago conversing, arguing that Sayomi wouldn't be able to make it as a singer with a bunch of kids following her like lost puppies. "Come on, Sayomi, the brats'll just hold us back. Just dump them." He had spat 'brat' in to the speaker like it was the dirtiest word in the Japanese language. Then again it was the type of thing Asami expected from a deadbeat like him.
Her mother on the other hand was a well-respected upcoming singer. Although the Asami wasn't entirely sure why, it probably had something to do with way the woman juggled her family and business life and still managed to take care of them. That's why her next words had hit the teenager like a ton of bricks. "Those brats are helping me selling my album in America. For some reason North Americans love a single mother who's faithful to her kids. If I dropped the little burdens I would be signing my career's death warrant. But you already know that, don't you Hakudoshi-kun? So I have to ask what's in it for me?"
The dark grin in the man's voice sent a shiver down the teen's spine. "How about a million-dollar recording contract and the promise you'll never have to lift a finger ever again."
At the moment Sayomi seemed to be mulling it over. Asami had left before the woman answered him, not wanting to hear the possible condemnation of her brother and her lives. Now she knew her mother's answer.
Asami glared after the woman that dared share their blood, abandon them and call herself mother. "Monster." the girl muttered.
Sayomi didn't even spare her daughter a glance. Smacking Setsu's hand from her knee-length skirt she continued out the door leaving the seven-year-old to reach out for what was never coming back. Wrapping an arm around the younger boy was all Asami could do to keep from maiming the heartless woman in front of him, to make her suffer the way she was making Setsu suffer.
"Momma! Momma!" The boy's silent screams wrenched a hole in her heart repeatedly. "Mooomma!"
"Mom! Mom, help! She's out to murder me!" a boy of ten bolted out of the down the Shrine stairs only to cower in kitchen behind his mother.
His mother Kun-Loon shook her head smiling at her son's choice of protection. "Souta, what did you do this time?"
"Nothing, maybe, something? In my defense she totally over reacted!"
"Soutaaa!" the growl of a clearly infuriated Asian female made Kun-Loon's head whip around to the doorway. She barely held back a cough of laughter at the sight of before her. Her daughter, the once ebony haired Kagome, now stood hair as golden as beach sand and eyes burning and alight like the clear morning sky. "Souta, you're dead!"
That said she lunged for him!
"Aaah!"
"Hold it!" Kun-Loon grabbed her daughter's arm as she was an inch away from maiming her brother. "I don't want any bloodshed in the kitchen before breakfast, Kagome."
"I promise, I'll clean up the mess when I'm finished!"
Souta looked ready to faint away dead. He began to inch back towards the door until he was sure he could make a clean get away if need be. "Sorry, Kagome! Just wanted if blonde's were as cute as they say."
Kagome sent him a bone chilling glare.
Her brother chuckled out of unsurity and crawled backwards once more, but this time his back met a red wall. "Inuyasha...?"
"Hey," he nodded in acknowledgement to the younger boy. "Where's Kagome? Some guy in blue dropped a bunch of letters with her name on them, then took off screaming when he saw me."
The younger woman raised a brow. "Guy in blue...? Oh! You mean the mailman. Yeah, it'll be fine." She brushed off the thought of anyone believing a man in his fifties already going senile.
Inuyasha's honeyed eyes widened considerably as if he was looking at Kagome for the first time. "Kagome? Is that you?"
"Yeah... Souta wanted to see how Vanna White would look on me." she said dryly, taking the mail from his hands.
"Who the hell is Vanna White?"
Kagome smiled at the thought of explaining the concept to her best friend. "I'll tell you... later." The girl turned blonde stared at the letter she had just opened with disbelief.
"Kagome, hunny. What is it?" her mom piped up.
"... Asami and Setsu-itoko are moving in with us."