"God, there's so much to do, I barely know where to start." Kouhaku sighed, as he and Kagome sat on the banister of the back porch. Sango was gone, figuring she should beat a hasty retreat before Kagome's hearing returned.
"What does your mom do, anyway?"
"She's a nurse at a hospital in Miyazaki. That's why she comes back so late at night, 'cause of the long drive. During the summer her shifts start at nine, and she works till six."
"Yeah?" Kagome considered this a for a few moments. "She make good money?"
"Thousand yen an hour." Kouhaku shrugged. "It's good enough, I guess. We don't have to pay much in the way of the house, but as for inside, it's kinda different. Plus, there's the car...but it all evens out. We make a good profit farming."
"Oh, yeah?" Kagome looked uneasily at the large field.
"Yep. Lemme think...gotta give the cattle water and food, shovel the crap into the trough...then we gotta make fertilizer out of it...then we fertilize the other side of the field and start planting the tea, tobacco, sweet potatoes, and soy...the rice comes later, when it's hotter."
"That sounds like absolute hell." Kagome droned. "There is no way in the world I'm touching cow crap. You'll have to kill me first." Kouhaku shrugged again, looking out at the field.
"That's not even all. That's only the first few hours. There are three cattle to be slaughtered and sold to the butcher." Kagome's insides churned.
"Slaughtered?! Isn't that the butcher's job?!"
"Technically, no. For steak, we have to cut out the choice parts and separate them from the limbs and the head and all that stuff. After we skin it, the rest goes to the butcher." Kouhaku recited, and Kagome turned green.
"I don't think I'll ever eat steak again."
"Ah, you get used to it. But hamburger...that's the only thing I've never been able to eat. You do all the stuff for steak, except after you skin it, you have to put it through the meat grinder and package it. The community shares one; it's about two miles that way." He jerked his thumb south, the direction leading away from town.
"I don't think I'll ever eat beef again." She mumbled.
"It's really not for the faint of heart." Kouhaku chuckled.
"My heart's already fainted, thanks."
"But like I said, you get used to it. But Sango's a complete vegetarian. I don't know how she's so strong—I guess it's from cutting grass with the pushmower for a good five years."
"She probably eats it too." Kouhaku snickered at this.
"What the hell is this?" The stern voice of his older sister startled him so badly, he fell off the banister, but Kagome remained where she was, not even bothering to look at Sango.
"Ding, dong, the witch is here."
"And sitting on my freshly painted banister, no less." Sango snorted, shoving Kagome, and glaring at Kouhaku, who looked nervous. "Why aren't you doing your work? I could have sworn I specifically told you to start working the cattle part of the field."
"Uh..." Kouhaku scratched his head uneasily, and Kagome jumped off the banister, moving in front of Kouhaku in a protective stance. Sango quirked an unfazed eyebrow.
"Hey, get off the kid's case! He probably works hard, shoveling cattle crap all over the place, and now he has to come and take yours?"
"Oh, nice. How long have you been waiting to use that witty retort?" Sango drawled. "Move out of my way. I'll talk to my brother however I see fit, do you understand? In fact...if I'm not mistaken...your mother called. She gave me free reign to order you around as well."
"LIAR!" Kagome roared, panicking, but even with her horrendous dislike of Sango, she had to admit that the girl was not lying. That sounded exactly like something her mother would say.
"I don't have any reason to lie. Do you think I want you screwing up the work we do here? Hell no. But you have to do work, so I suggest you go down the path and feed the pigs. Their food's in that big garbage bag sitting on the side of the house..." Kagome's eyes strayed painfully to the slop bag and she almost upchucked right on Sango.
"Fuck that!" She gagged, and Sango shrugged.
"Suit yourself. But in this town, we abide by the truest word in the Christian Bible: He who does not work does not eat, and to put it nicely, if you ain't working, you ain't eating." Sango pushed past Kagome and Kouhaku mumbled an apology before heading into the field with his big sister. Kagome snorted.
"Must be crazy." She went to the door and tried to go back into the house, but it was locked.
"Looking for these, city bitch?" Sango called to her sweetly, dangling a keychain. Kagome's eyes widened as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The sun was going to start beaming soon...and that pig slop was seriously stenching. "There is no absolute way in hell that I am going to tote that fucking disgusting bag all the way down that long-ass path to feed some fucking disgusting pigs! NO WAY IN HELL!" Kagome screamed at her.
"Like I said, suit yourself, princess!"
"Well...I will suit myself, thank you!" Kagome wanted to cry. Here she was, hundreds of miles away from civilization—or in other words, the "city"--and she was locked out of the closest thing to comfortable. Was God conspiring against her or what?
"Aw, just do it, Kagome..." Kouhaku grunted, shoveling the manure into a large wheelbarrow that Sango had retrieved, and was currently holding steady. "She won't shut up until you do, and besides, it's cooler in the pig pen."
"Cooler as in more fashionable, or cooler as in less sunny?"
"The second one. It stinks something fierce, though."
"Can't be much worse than the so-called food..." Kagome looked with a despairing grimace. "Can I at least get some gloves or something? My God!"
"The gloves are right there on the porch, idiot." Sango shook her head with a smirk, and Kagome narrowed her eyes at her.
"Then where's the fucking wheelbarrow I'm supposed to carry this slop in, smartass?"
"Now, see, that's where you demonstrate your shining idiocy, cousin. There is no wheelbarrow. You carry manually. As in with your manuses." Kagome stared flatly at her and she sighed. "Your hands, stupid."
"I still refuse!"
"Then stay in the damn sun!" Sango snapped, getting annoyed.
"Better yet, why don't I trek over to Inuyasha's house? I'm sure it's very cool in there." Kagome smirked, crossing her as of yet untainted arms.
"I'm sure it is, too, because he's not there, genius." Sango pointed to the empty dirt driveway down at Inuyasha's house, indicating his absence. "Because it's Monday, which is slaughterhouse day for him, and he's guaranteed to be busy all day."
"Damn." Kagome mumbled, snapping her fingers, and her shoulders heaved in revulsion when the sun got hotter, magnifying the stench of the slop. "How in the world am I gonna...?" She looked around, desperately seeking something that would help her...
Kagome brightened considerably when she spotted a piece of knotted twine on the other side of the house. She skipped down the stairs and went to get it, but she frowned when she picked it up and saw that it was all bunched up.
"Well, shit." She huffed, working on unraveling it. "Nothing is ever easy around this place." It took quite a while of impatient movement, but in five more minutes, she had a crinkled puller, and she smiled triumphantly. When Kagome went back to the large bag, her stomach only roiled a little, her disgust pushed into the shadows by her self-satisfaction. She put on her gloves, gathered up the loose ends of the bag, and tightly tied the twine around it. Now she could pull the bag along without actually touching it!
"Now who's the genius, bitch?!" Kagome cackled, but Sango couldn't hear her; she had gone too far out into the field. Kagome rolled her eyes and set to pulling the heavy bag the distance to the pig pen.
Kagome was exhausted, hot, and humiliated. After the long trek to the pig pen—a whole six yards! It was inhumane!--she was so tired, she couldn't even dump the food into the troughs for the pigs. The smell of the pen combined with that of the slop made for one very excruciating stench. It was enough to make Kagome pass out, and that's just what she did. It was all too lucky for her and her indomitable pride that Kouhaku had come along at just the right moment to check on her, or she would have fainted into the pig feces, and that would have just been too much.
When she came to, she was propped up in a lawn chair on the front porch, a glass of water beside her and Sango smirking down at her. Foregoing her every moral, she actually begged for Sango to have mercy on her and allow her into the house.
"I can't take anymore of this backbreaking exertion!" Kagome had practically cried, to which Sango just shook her head.
"You are plain pathetic." She had said, then her smirk widened. "But I guess city children like yourself aren't used to this kind of thing. It wasn't much, what you did, but it could be misconstrued as a start. For your sake—and you're lucky, because I don't take pity on anyone, much less a dunce like you—I'll let you off the hook today. Being that it's your first day and all." Kagome almost kissed her cousin's feet, but that would be a bit much.
Now here she was, sitting on the couch in the living room, and she was bored. Bored! Before retreating back into the killer sun, Sango had warned, "And you better not come back outside, because if you do, you're not coming back in the house until we do." Fearing for her well-being, Kagome had nodded shakily. But now that she was bored, she was also torn. She didn't want to go outside and watch her cousins toil, for Sango would no doubt catch her and make her do work again. She had barely managed to scrub her skin raw to a satisfactory enough extent from the stink of swine sticking to her; she wasn't feeling up to another three hot baths.
She picked up her cell phone from the counter beside the couch and dialed up Kikyou, her faithful friend. She would chase away the boredom.
"Hello?" Kikyou finally picked up with a yawn, after about fifteen rings.
"Damn, Kik, what are you doing?!"
"Kagome?"
"Are you high or something?"
"No, I don't get high till six, you know that..." Kikyou's voice was pretty groggy.
"How come you're so...yawny, then?"
"You woke me up."
"Oh, I get it. You were having sex, you nasty whore!" Kagome grinned mischievously.
"No...not this time...I was just sleeping."
"Kik, it's, like, one in the afternoon." Kagome droned.
"I know...it's still early. Why are you up at this time of day?"
"The bumpkins woke me up...they made me do work, Kik!"
"What?" Kikyou sounded a little more alert now. "What kind of work? Oh, my God—did you slaughter a calf?! Because I'm anti-veal now!"
"No, no, nothing like that...I had to drag a bag of slop all the way to this horrible pig pen..."
"My God. It's even worse that killing a baby cow!" Kikyou groaned, feeling Kagome's pain entirely. "Is your mother on antidepressants or something?! Because she's got to be insane for making you go there!"
"Nah...Ma was crazy before the antidepressants."
"That is so suckful, Kagome. Honestly it is."
"And I was so bored when they let me come in the house, I just--"
"Wait. Let you?"
"Yeah...that fucking bitch cousin of mine intentionally locked me out of the house so I would be forced to do work! I passed out from the smell of the pig pen!"
"Kagome..." Kikyou's tone became urgent. "Please tell me you didn't faint in the pig crap. Please, just tell me that."
"No, I didn't; Kouhaku caught me before I could, thank God. But if I had...I would've had to take way more than three baths. I swear, Kik, I just...I don't know how much longer I can stay here without yanking all of my hair out."
"Oh, don't do that, sweetheart. You just got a perm."
"Yeah, which I've already sweated out." Kagome grumbled, flipping her limp hair out of her face. "And if the sweat weren't enough, I'm sure the many showers I took did it."
"Oh...Kagome, I am so...and there's no conditioner around there?"
"Kik, my cousin's hair is as dry as these fields they're plowing. Obviously, there is not a drop of conditioner to be found."
"If I could, baby sister, I would bring you mine...but I dare not step foot into that place, not now."
"It's like hell, Kikyou, trust me." Kagome sighed miserably. Her torment only worsened into straight-laced depression when her signal faded.
Black Ice: (grins) Kag's having such a miserable time, isn't she? Ah, well. I realize I may have exaggerated country duties a bit—I live in the country myself, you see, and I imagine it's similar enough to living in the city. But then again, this is an actual farm, so yeah.
Blood Rain: (yawns) I am so ready for school to be over, aren't y'all? High school boys are so damn immature, it's hardly funny...but I digress...
WARNING! People who are easily offended shouldn't read the next portion. It's talking about teen sex and, partially, teen pregnancy. So...yeah. If you're a mother or a mother-to-be and you're under eighteen and over twelve, you might not wanna read. It gets brutal.
Rant of the Day: Please, Ladies, Can We Keep Those Legs Closed? Please?!
Blood Rain: This needs to be said. I am so tired of walking around school and seeing at least five protruding stomachs a day. That is extremely unhealthy! What in the hell is it about sex that entices girls so much they completely forego all consequence and just do it?!
Hold on. Let me just...let me say really quickly, because I want no flames. If you've done it with your boyfriend or whatever, that's fine, I don't care, but if you're doing it with your boyfriend and your boyfriend's friends and your boyfriend's friends' brothers...that's what I mean. What I mean by "keeping your legs closed" does not include girls who have been raped or something. It only includes the fast chicks who fuck all kinds of boys—the whore kind. I mean fast-ass little children who just want to fuck any and every boy because they think it makes them what we down south call "grown".
NEWS FLASH! YOU ARE NOT GROWN!
Close your damn legs, damn it! What the hell is wrong with you?! I mean, my God, you must want STDs to come breaking down your door! Because they will, sweetheart—and not only that, but pregnancy's gonna come knocking as well. When that big-ass baby comes slamming out of your "glory hole", you'll know.
Black Ice: (looks around nervously) Er...maybe you shouldn't have said those things...this story's got few reviews as is...you wanna diminish that number?
Blood Rain: Hey, the truth needs to be told, yeah? Besides, it's not like people can come and kill me. (looks menacingly into the audience) I dare you to try it...if you've got the balls.
Black Ice: Cojones!
Blood Rain: ...(blinks) Uh...yeah. Okay. Whatever.