Okay, I re-did this, so hopefully it's better the second time around.
… Never Assume Anything …
Kagome eyed the orange folder carefully. In her hand she clutched the long awaited manila envelope that was addressed to her adoptive parents from the adoption agency. In that treasured envelope was the information of everything that she had been searching for since she was ten; her birth family.
She waited to open it, unsure as to whether or not she would want to find out what was inside of it. She loved her life, she loved her adoptive parents and their families. She loved her friends and her school and her town, but it felt like something had always been missing. Kagome yearned for that part of her that she could never quite remember.
Kagome was an amnesiac. Found burned, dirty, and emaciated, wandering the streets when she was nine, she'd been picked up and treated by a hospital and then put up for adoption when no one had claimed to be her family.
It had taken all of two months for the Hamlins to fall in love with her, despite her haggard and abused looks. They had been vacationing in Japan on an Asian-Exploration trip, attempting to do some soul searching, historical research, and learning the cultures of various countries.
Carmen and Zane Hamlin had tried for years to have a baby. They were verging on mid forties and still trying when they'd seen Kagome playing on the playground at the orphanage while walking by. It had been love at first sight as they liked to say, and they came back everyday to see her. They'd even extended their trip to get to know her better and after she'd agreed to live with them, they'd promptly adopted her.
But now, the envelope. The wonderfully scary envelope that she held in her shaking hands. She could know who she was, where she came from. What her mother's name was, her father's name. Kagome knew that she'd had a brother, she remembered him and how he always wore a big smile. He loved to carry around a white teddy bear with a blue ribbon. Maybe he was here in America. Maybe he knew who she was and just waiting for her to come and find him!
Excited, she tore the surprisingly thin package open and reverently emptied it into her hands. There were six pictures, two birth certificates, two death certificates, a wedding certificate, a will, a title deed to something, a couple bank accounts in Kagome and her brother's name, and a shiny purple necklace.
That was it?
She shuffled through the photos and tears sprung to her eyes. That was her mom, the woman with curly brown-black hair, up in pins. She liked to wear pink, Kagome saw.
Her father was a happy man, his smile always reached his eyes. He held his wife lovingly in every picture except for one. He and Kagome we looking at each other, face to face and grinning like mad dogs. Chocolate smeared over the grinning lips of both of them. Taro, her father's name was Taro.
Her brother looked just as she'd remembered him, happy and in love with the stuffed animal. He had a bowl cut for a hairstyle that made her giggle at the photos. Souta, she remembered fondly. Her little brother was Souta.
Her last name had been Higurashi, it rolled off her tongue when she said it, like it belonged there. It was a small comfort in all of this confusion and mystery. She was a Higurashi. Did she have more family out there?
She checked the death certificates, thankful that there were only two in the pile. Her mother and her father, dated nine years ago. The number made her pause. Nine years ago?
Kagome was sixteen, that would have meant that her parents would have died when she would have been seven. She was found on the streets at age nine. Was she younger than the hospital had thought? Where did two years of Kagome's life go?
Kagome checked the birth certificates, belonging to her brother and her mother. Well, that certainly did not answer any questions. Souta was three years, 8 months and 12 days younger than Kagome thought she was. If she was two years younger, that would have meant that Souta would have been only 20 months younger.
She checked the pictures again. No, she certainly looked three years older than Souta. So what was this mix up in dates? Could she have wandered the streets for two years all by herself? Had Souta been with her?
Souta! She could search for him, the internet probably had all the answers. She just had to search him up… right?
Kagome stopped herself and drummed her fingers on the desk. She wouldn't know the first place to even begin looking. If Kagome had ended up on another continent, then what were the chances of Souta ending up somewhere else too? She shuffled through the papers, was there anything that could help Kagome in finding him?
A small scrap of paper that she had missed before caught her eyes. Her heart thudding wildly as she reached for it. Could this be his name? Was this the answer to all of her prayers?
It was a business card. Onigumo-Tomori Industries. It came with a phone number but it was written in Japanese, as was the title. Kagome could barely read Japanese anymore, though she could make out a few characters, it was hard, very hard.
What the hell? She thought, typing it all into the search bar. "Souta Onigumo-Tomori Indsustries and search!" Half an hour later she stumbled upon a two paragraph article on prominent businessmen living in Japan and a picture. As I looked closely, I saw him. He was there!
The little boy in blue, sitting in the front. He looked about ten, maybe twelve. Her heart raced.
He was alive. And not just alive, but living in Japan! With a hot shot company owner and his wife. Slowly Kagome's eye's widened as she clicked on a small image regarding her biological brother's parents; there standing in the picture, before two taller figures, was her Souta, her baby brother who was no longer a baby. Kagome shifted her eyes to the other two figures. A woman with a heart shaped face and soft looking demeanor and a man who held a warm rounded face and wise old eyes.
Turning her attention to the background what Kagome saw was like nothing she had seen before; a massive mansion that stretched beyond the pictures borders. It was a light grey and had the American styled stones lining the edges from the front view. Moving her eyes back to the little boy Kagome made comparisons between her face and the boy's. They had the same nose, and jaw structure. Their faces looked much alike, Kagome could see it immediately.
Finally realizing the fact that she had just done in minutes what she had been aiming to do for six years, Kagome did a victory dance from her chair, spinning around laughing until she got up and started jumping around and dancing some more. Getting her feet crossed, Kagome suddenly found herself sprawled upon the floor.
"Kagome, what was that? Are you alright?" Her mother's worried voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs in her two floor house.
"Yeah, Mom! Just fine, you know me, I tripped." Kagome raised her body into a sitting position and grinned madly.
The easy part of this was over, now came the difficult portion. She had to get to Japan, she had to meet him. And she had to figure out what happened for two years of her life that she couldn't remember and much more.
"Father?" Kagome asked sheepishly at dinner one night, as a tall and lean man with rounded glasses and a slicked back hairstyle looked to her. Kagome was about to make a huge request, and it was never easy asking for something like this.
"Yes, Kagome?" He continued eating his food, though he suspected what this was all about. He and his wife had known for a very long time that Kagome held much interest in her origins. She had mentioned, on more than one occasion, the emptiness she often felt as a result of her adoption. So when Kagome's case had finally opened, her parents had discussed the possibility of Kagome wanting to know more.
It was no secret that the story of Kagome was a cloudy one, shrouded in many unanswered questions and answers that only made more questions. It was only natural for Kagome to want to know more.
"I… I was thinking that because I am much older than I was when I came here with you all those years ago, and I don't know very much about where I came from, that I would like go back to Japan." In the end Kagome rushed her words quickly so that she could get it over with. If she phrased it like that she knew her father would consider it. She had been good in school, she'd only gotten one B in the seventh grade and she had not asked for anything for a very long time, not even for her recent sixteenth birthday.
Refusing to look him in the eyes, Kagome could tell that he was thinking about it deeply. Glancing to her mother she saw surprise, hesitance, sadness, and happiness all together, freely flowing on her face. Turning her ocean colored orbs to her father, he looked deep in thought. Time to bring out motivation. Kagome unfolded her hands and produced a folder from under the table and pushed it across the large mahogany surface.
He picked it up and looked at Kagome with uncertainty, clear on his facial expressions. She nodded and gave a small smile as an okay for him to open it. Flipping through the yellow packet he read through the first page of information and a smile formed upon his face.
"I see you have really thought this over Kagome; so much so that you have even found a school, a place to stay, and a job." He then turned to Carmen and smiled warmly, handing her the packet of information. "We knew you would want to go back someday, we were not expecting it to be so soon, but we trust that you know what you need when it comes to knowing who you are." He sighed and her mother gave an encouraging, agreeing smile to his statement. "We have talked it over and we are okay with this. You are old enough to do this and we trust you, we only want what's best for you, Peanut." He turned his attention away from his daughter to his wife who had become suddenly very emotional over this whole thing.
"Oh, I don't know Zane. She'll be so far away. Kagome I really… it's just… Oh my, baby! You're getting so big!" the older woman stood and rushed to the teen quickly. Hugging Kagome tightly, Carmen started to cry. "I'll miss you so much! You must write and call as often as you can! And don't you worry about a thing, we'll pay for tuition and send lunch money and we'll bring you home if you ever need to come home an –"
Kagome stood and smiled brilliantly with eyes holding disbelief. "So that's it? I can go?" Kagome turned in disbelief to her father and watched as he broke into a grin. Turning back to her mother she wrapped her arms around her. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you!" And they began to schedule her classes, Kagome assured them that she would arrange everything with the school, she told them she'd wanted to be responsible and do it herself.
She felt bad lying to them, they'd been good to her, but she needed to find her family. She needed, desperately, to know who she was.
"Are you sure you have everything?"
"Yes Dad, I have everything, my closet is nearly empty and shoved into my bags, I have my bank account information. And my ticket, passport, and papers are right here." Kagome waved her large handful of papers and smiled at her parents. "Alright. So can I get going now? I'm going to miss my plane if you keep suffocating my with hugs. I still have to find my gate."
Both smiled and nodded, Kagome's mother sniffled some and her father looked like he may cry if she didn't get going. "Love you guys. I'll call when I land." They nodded again and Kagome headed off and into her plane.
Kagome opened her palm and revealed a crushed ball of paper. As she unwrinkled the third page to her packet of information that she gave her father, Kagome sighed. Thanking god for her abilities to sneak around easily and the fact that her parents were quite oblivious when it came to details.
Smoothing it out she reread the page. At Kajiwara Academy – Kagome skipped through the introduction, sports information, extra curricular information and scholarship notes, straight to the ending and the last sentence. Welcome, to another great school year and learning opportunity at Kajiwara Academy for Young Men. We look forward to seeing you at our school.
"Souta, here I come."