Yesterday the yelling was explicitly loud. That is the word Mother gave when I asked her what had happened. Explicit reasons she says. I'm almost sure that it was because Father couldn't pay nearly the full sum he owed. The debtors left angry, in the midst of the furor Rin and I snuck to the staircase, not daring past the seventh step, but we got a good enough look from there.
I sat there for the longest time, gazing in his ultimate beauty. His calm slender eyes were a gorgeous shade, they were 'amber.' I was almost scared of his loud voice, but when you really love someone it doesn't matter how loud they yell, at least you're hearing their voice. I fear Rin's cast her eye on my love, she's a good five years younger than myself. I can't voice that fear lest Mother hears or she tattles on me. We both know Mother chides after me constantly and reveres Rin. I hate her, I hate them both.
I have the oddest of dreams, odd it is because I know it will never come true. I want him to come in the middle of the night and whisk me away, take me to his own home and make me his wife. I cry because I know it'll never happen, I'm a stocky pubescent girl who never gets a second look from the boys in class. My hair is knotty and unwashed, when we have access to water mother makes sure to bathe Rin first. She says it's because Rin is smaller and will take up less water.
I wish I looked like a goddess from the stories Mother told me as a child, then I would become his wife and all of my problems would disappear. I would cook, make the beds, all the things wives would do.
School is fine.
- Kagome
The old man cowered at the trembling fury Sesshomaru spat at him with each passing second. The head of the Higurashi household's knees had finally buckled, he hadn't any money to spare to pay off debt. He yelled and stomped his foot, ranting about how it was always the same. Old crows spending too much, practically asking for their own demise. How pathetic could a people be to fall prey to such a time transcending scheme. Two daughters and a son paying for the wanton desires of an old man who couldn't carry their burdens, it's a pity. Two daughters useless to their father and a son too young to work off any debt. The entire family be damned. He shouted at lengths, his voice must have rang throughout the neighborhood bearing a threat to the houses that were to be visited next.
"Brother, calm down won't you," Inuyasha began while placing a hand on the others shoulder, "Higurashi-san, the best you can do now is sell furniture. We will have men come to claim articles that have any value in a few days."
"Taisho-sama, only a week more! A week more and the money will be here! I'll be able to get money from relatives, I'll gather it I swear," the pitiful old man gravelled. Sesshomaru threw a dirty look at the crumbled visage of a man and Inuyasha backed away from the old man's grasp, compassion wasn't a strong suit of the Taisho brothers.
"A few days is all, if you can repay the sum you owe before my men are here Higurashi-san then I won't have to take your furniture," Inuyasha responded. Yet his tone wasn't consoling at all, he mocked the old man, knowing that he wouldn't have the sum by then. His cynical tone drove the old wife to drop by her husband's side to stroke his shoulder. The elder brother waited by the doorway, the sound of sobbing wasn't escaped as the duo exited the torn down shrine. They had more houses to visit, more debts to collect, more pathetic humans to divide and conquer.
I hate Rin, almost as much as Mother. Actually I don't hate Mother anymore, she doesn't pay much attention to Rin anymore. The men haven't come to take our furniture yet. Mother simply roams aimlessly, she constantly goes begging to the neighbors, preaching of our situation and how rosy life used to be.
A boy at school told Rin she was pretty, his name is Kubota. He's a little pig. All Rin does now is squawk about how beautiful all the boys think she is. A bold one that is, I know she's making fun of me all the while. I think she's catching onto my feelings as well. I told her she's going to end up marrying that fat pig Kubota and having ugly babies with him, she got mad and said she'd steal my writing journal. I hate that girl.
Our teacher has resigned, I've stopped going to school.
- Kagome
"Onee-chan...you rat...where'd you hide that stupid book…" Rin murmured viably as she rummaged through the already ransacked room. The two sisters shared a room so it shouldn't have been this hard to locate one measly journal.
Rin felt under the futon for any lumps, trying to feel the book out. Her intentions weren't too sinister, she'd simply reserve the book for a while until her sister begged for forgiveness. She wondered briefly why her sister began to isolate herself more. It was definitely at the arrival of the tax-collectors, her sister had changed. Before the two would play hide and seek in the flimsy woods near the shrine, Kagome would carry her back to the shrine when Rin got too tired. She missed her loving sister, and in times like these she yearned for her sister even more.
"Not even under the futon!" Rin grumbled. Her temper began to rise, she wouldn't lose to a ripped apart book, she'd find it and seize it if it was the last thing she ever did. She moved to check the little cubby hole once more until she tripped under a loose floorboard. Falling with a resounding thud, she was glad her sister was out seeing off their newly fired teacher. She felt an odd texture rub against her foot, quite soft and almost leathery...the book!
She scrambled to yank the small journal from underneath the floorboard and stood triumphantly by the window. The window, which was actually a rectangular hole surrounding the wood, the glass had fallen out long ago and there was no money to replace it. Rin held it up in the sunlight, making sure it was the one she was searching for. Sure enough, her sister's vicious scribbles marred the yellow pages.
"ONEGAI HAVE MERCY!" a shriek echoed from the first floor, the mere epicenter of it managed to shock Rin completely as the book jumped from her hands and out the gaping window. "RIN! Downstairs now!" her mother's voice wailed once more. She saw men coming up the shrine steps accompanied by one of the tax-collectors. An inward groan signified, there would be no time to collect the book at the moment. She'd have to go back for it later. It wasn't as though her sister would see it there either.
It was a pity, the little girl was more concerned with the book and the revenge she'd take against her sister. Little Rin, so pretty, so pretty as said by Kubota, she didn't know much of money. But she realized her situation once they took the dainty tea pots she played with when her mother made tea. When they took the stove that kept them warm, they ransacked the little girl's rooms, tore the futon from the floor. Her father was nowhere to be found, he said he'd have the money, he just had to ask their relatives. Rin kept telling them that, but the savage men, they took and took and kept on taking, the savages.