Chapter 1: My World Turned Upside Down

"Wait! Wait for me!" Kagome yelled, hastily picking up her backpack, a comb, and some lunch money.

She waved her arms wildly, but the school bus continued without her. Her arms dropped to her sides, her mouth open in disbelief, as she watched the back of the yellow bus puttering down the street.

Kagome threw her hands up in the air, sighing in frustration, forgetting she was carrying things in her hand. The comb flew up in the air and landed rather neatly on the sidewalk and her money scattered across the floor.

Great. Just great. What a lovely way to start the day.

Kagome broke into a run, panting and puffing, thankful that she only lived a few minutes away from the school.

Well, a few minutes driving, that is. Pushing the nagging thought in the back of her mind, Kagome concentrated on running as fast as she possibly could.

The building appeared in her sight, and she gave an inward cheer, as she was too tired to say anything aloud.

Kagome burst through entrance door and into the classroom, her legs aching and her face probably disgustingly sweaty and flushed. She should start exercising more often if that was what one single run could do to her.

Her math teacher, Mr. Gnirob, stopped writing an equation on the board to glare at her. "Late, Miss Higurashi?"

Breathlessly, she replied, "I'm sorry, it won't happen again, but Souta, my brother, he took my alarm clock, and I overslept, so I missed the bus and—" She was aware she was blabbing. Unfortunately, so did her teacher.

"That's quite enough," Mr. Gnirob interrupted curtly. "Please sit."

Kagome frowned as she slumped in her chair. She took out her notebook, carefully avoiding her classmates' gazes and pretending it didn't matter to her.

"Now," the teacher continued. "We will go over last night's homework."

Kagome dully opened her notebook and, with a shock, could not seem to find the piece of paper…

Homework! A cold shiver went through her. She hadn't done it! With that sudden realization, Kagome shrunk in her seat, hoping furiously that Mr. Gnirob wouldn't call on her.

After remembering that the teacher seemed to have a talent for picking on the students who had slacked off, Kagome thought of another plan.

She raised her hand. "May I please go to the bathroom?" she asked, feigning a stomachache and wincing slightly for a more authentic effect.

Mr. Gnirob stared, as if analyzing her. Then he smiled. "No, you may not. But you may tell us your answer to number one."

Kagome's heart froze and she stared. Mr. Gnirob looked right back. The class did not dare to move. Dead silence.

"My, my. Late, and no homework. Detention it is, Miss Higurashi, detention."

Kagome gasped. Her mind whirred. Detention? How was that possible? Kagome was a typical goody-two-shoes.

Sango, who seemed to have woken from a stupor, glared angrily at the teacher and gave Kagome a sympathetic look.

"Now, let's continue, class," Mr. Gnirob commanded. "Inuyasha, the answer to number one, please...Inuyasha?" he walked over to Inuyasha's desk briskly.

"What do we have here?" he plucked the notebook out of Inuyasha's unsuspecting hands, and his face clouded with fury.

Inuyasha stared calmly, not intimidated. Then he grinned. "Like it, Gnirob?"

The class watched in horrid fascination as the teacher's face turned purple.

"I will not stand for this!" Mr. Gnirob roared, slamming the notebook back onto the desk. The more brazen students began leaning over to see what was so offensive. Smiling, Inuyasha showed them the notebook.

Scrawled on the paper in big letters was, "No wonder Gnirob backwards is 'boring.'" Under it, he had drawn a cartoon picking his nose and writing '1+13' on the board.

The class laughed, but one look from the teacher silenced them abruptly.

"Inuyasha! Detention!"

Great, Kagome thought. Not only do I have detention, I have it with him.

-

Kagome trudged into the noisy cafeteria, and immediately smelled the stench of gym socks. Groaning, she walked up to the line waiting for hot lunch and casually attempted to stop breathing. When that did not appear to work, she put a hand over her nose. Picking up a tray of food quickly, she paid the grumpy cashier and walked over to the table nearest to the exit and plunked her tray down.

Kagome gazed at her watery yellow rice, noticing that it seemed to glow. The chicken looked like whipped cream…The carrots were mushy, but at least they were orange.

This is what I get for ordering hot lunch.

If only my stupid dad hadn't up and left us—with debts everywhere. Then Mom wouldn't have to work two jobs, from, like, the break of dawn till about midnight. Then I could actually see her. Then I wouldn't have to—

"Kagome?" a voice interrupted her thoughts.

She looked up. "Sango? Oh, hi."

"Are you okay? You looked...bummed," Sango said, concerned.

Kagome hadn't told her about what had happened. She didn't even know why. She knew Sango would be sympathetic; the two of them would probably have come up with a list of adjectives describing her dad. Sango would even have baked her cookies and given her a couple of CDs to angst over.

"Oh, um, it's just, you know, the detention thing," Kagome lied, mentally kicking herself at the same time.

Sango's dark eyes flashed. "Mr. Gnirob is an idiot!"

Kagome peeled a sticker of the lunch table dejectedly. "Yeah."

There was silence at their table for the rest of lunch. But the whirring of both girls' minds were enough. Kagome was thinking of her family; Sango was cursing Mr. Gnirob.

-

Kagome peered inside the classroom from the window on the door. Inuyasha was already there. He was slumped in a back seat, supposedly doing his lines. Somehow, Kagome really doubted it.

Walking stiffly, she entered.

"Gnirob isn't here; he has the directions on the board," Inuyasha told her, smirking.

Kagome noted that he sounded rather sure of himself and concluded that he probably spent half his life over in detention anyway. She glanced at the board. A few quickly scrawled words, "Kagome Higurashi: 50 times, "I will do my homework."

Lines. Kagome sat in a desk on the opposite side of the room and began to pull out a piece of paper before a most unwelcome distraction caught her attention.

Inuyasha laughed. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"

"I am not!" Kagome all but yelled, wishing he would just shut up and leave her alone. He raised an eyebrow, which infuriated her even more.

"Fine, I'll prove it," she snapped. Slamming her notebook shut, she got up and stalked over to the seat next to him...

When he smiled innocently and stuck his foot out...

...and the next thing she knew, she was on the floor. Her knees ached and her head hurt. She dimly realized she was staring at the dusty tiles.

With as much dignity as she could muster, she got up, dusted herself off, and calmly sat in her desk. She was seething inside, but did nothing more than ignoring him.

Silence.

Kagome was busily writing as fast as she could. She assumed that Inuyasha was writing his, too. (He had gotten so on the teacher's nerves that he had to write, a hundred times, "I will not let my bad attitude, terrible handwriting, and bad drawings that an unborn child could draw, disturb the class.")

Kagome sighed, allowing her thoughts to consume her as they often did when no one was talking. She was late, and poor Souta was probably starving.

And they needed to go grocery shopping. Her mother hadn't even gotten her paychecks yet…

Kagome, motivated now, finished her lines and placed them on Mr. Gnirob's desk.

Then, with one last glare at Inuyasha, she flounced out of the room, leaving him to his own work.

-

Inuyasha stared at the door, watching as it slammed shut.

Higurashi was mad? He didn't think she could do mad. She was way too nice...

Whatever.

He'd call Miroku and they'd do what they did best: procrastinate.

-

Kagome sprinted home as fast as she could, despite the face that her legs were aching and that ever fiber in her body was screaming that she was not meant for running. But really, who listens to their body anyway?

She dumped her backpack on the floor.

"Mom?" No answer. Kagome sighed. Why did she even try?

"Souta?" she called.

Souta yelled, as he pounded down the stairs, "Someone called and I told them to leave a message but I didn't listen to it." Then he frowned. "And I'm hungry!"

"Oh, Souta," Kagome said. "I'm so sorry! How about I cook right after I listen to the message?"

Kagome put on a bright and cheery smile. She wanted to hide Souta from the reality, the painful truth. Bills were piling up in her mother's room. They were selling all their old things. The electricity kept going out, not because of blackouts, like she told Souta, but because the bills were not paid.

"Okay!" he said happily, and bounded out the room.

As soon as he was gone, the smile left her face. The cheerful exterior melted. She collapsed on the couch.

Kagome tried, with all her might, not to feel a surging hatred every time she thought of her father. He was, after all, her dad.

But what kind of a dad just leaves?

Poor Mom...She works so hard and we barely see her anymore.

Kagome sighed as she pressed the little green button to play the messages.

"Hello, this is from Miracle Hospital, calling for Miss Kagome Higurashi. Please call us back."

Kagome's heart all but stopped. As imagination usually does, horrible images crowded her mind.

The hospital? Had her mother— ?

No! Her mother wasn't sick! She wasn't! She couldn't be!

Quickly, Kagome's hands dialed the number.

"Hello? This is Kagome Higurashi," her voice shook.

"Oh, hello Miss Higurashi. I'm so sorry, but we called to inform you that your mother needs to be moved to a higher level hospital."

Kagome gasped. Her mother was in the hospital? "Why?" she blurted.

"Your mother is suffering from lung cancer. There is a high chance that she may die."