InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Possession ❯ One-Shot

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Kagome's always been drawn to the abandoned house at the end of the street. Some say it's haunted, but she's a miko and has never felt any evil from it. She thought it'd be admiration from afar until, what's this? She just won the lottery?! Thank you kami!

Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Suspense | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 10.31.2017 | Updated On: 10.16.2023 | Pages: 25 | Words: 19.5K | Visits: 2.4K | Status: Completed

Blanket Disclaimer:

Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.

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This is a modern day world that’s a fake combination of America and Japan (because I wanted western style architecture for the creepy haunted house), youkai are real and everyone knows it (and fears them! No peaceful coexisting here), there are humans with reiki, and hanyou do not have human rights and are considered youkai by the human world. Story is rated for language. Enjoy!

~ Possession ~

The staircase was dark, the window halfway along the stairs having gotten broken out and boarded up at one point. The only light illuminating the way down for Kagome and her Realtor was coming in from the windows in the living room whose dusty red curtains were all pulled aside, exposing the original and dingy single-pane glass. The rough wooden floorboards creaked loudly beneath their feet as they made their way back into the living room from exploring the upstairs bathroom and bedrooms. As Kagome looked around the living room a second time, noting the holes in the walls where some switches and outlets used to be, the missing or disassembled light fixtures and other signs of would-be restoration that had come to a stop almost as soon as it’d started, the Realtor glanced Kagome’s way nervously but the miko was all smiles.

She couldn’t believe her luck!

First, the house she’d admired ever since she could remember, a house that had probably been bought and sold, or bought and abandoned, enough times to break some kind of a record, was once again available for purchase. Second, because it was bank owned, and she’d be paying all cash, she knew she could get one hell of a deal.

Residing at the end of a short cul-de-sac with the local wooded foothills at its back, Kagome had passed this house every weekday while walking to and from the school bus stop as a child. Sometimes, on her way back home after school, she’d even walk down that street and gaze up at the house from the end of the driveway for a moment, though she never trespassed. She would just gaze up at the house, or glance at it as she passed if she didn’t bother getting closer that day, admiring the home that stood so proudly, almost regally overlooking the other houses on its private strip of a road, as though the end house were the family elder sitting at the head of the table.

All of the houses on that particular street, as well as the surrounding few blocks, were nearly a hundred years old, give or take, built at roughly the same time by some developer or another when they’d first started populating what would become Kagome’s hometown. The shrine home she’d lived in as a child was much older, of course, located at a different spot along the forest’s edge, but her family’s home, as well as nearly all the other old houses in their small town, were more or less fully modernized, updated bit by bit throughout the years by her family and the various other homeowners, respectively.

Not this house.

It was still all original, for the most part anyway, which besides its placement on its street was what now made it stand out, looking so much older than the other houses. Plus it was side-gabled when, with only a couple of other exceptions, the other houses in the cul-de-sac were all front-gabled. Being at the head of the table, so to speak, and seeing the slant of the dark roof facing outward, gave it that much more of a presence, like the eboshi hat her grandfather wore whenever he tended to the shrine.

The steep roof was comprised of dark brown wooden shingles that looked like they’d peel clean off in even a mild wind storm. From what Kagome had now seen of the attic space, it was clear there were several small leaks, and while she wanted to keep the house as original as possible, not putting on a brand new roof was out of the question. The home’s horizontal wood siding was white, but flaking and dingy, some of the boards split with age, while the brick trim around the bottom as well as the posts supporting the front porch was all weathered and had a few cracks running through the mortar. She would fix up what needing fixing, but try her best to at least keep the place looking all original.

“And you said the furniture was included?” she asked the Realtor then, glancing at the dining table and six matching chairs that were set up in the adjacent dining room.

They were clearly original, too, as were the living room sofa and chairs, from the look of things, the elegant set in cream upholstery and mahogany finish which had probably originally been arranged to enjoy the comfort of the brick fireplace now sitting facing a TV that was vintage in its own right but had clearly been added decades later. There was also an old style radio off to the side, something the original owner had apparently decided to keep despite the invention of television, and it, along with all of the other furniture, was definitely something the miko planned on keeping if at all possible. She was glad all of the previous owners had apparently felt the same way, or perhaps it was just that they hadn’t gotten around to changing the furniture by the time they were chased off. Either way worked for her.

“What you see is what you get,” the Realtor confirmed.

I never thought I’d get to see the inside of you, Kagome thought to herself, or to the house, really, as she glanced around the room again. It was everything she had imagined, and more.

Including more work than she’d originally thought, and she hadn’t even had an inspector go through it yet, so she only knew about the problems she’d noticed, but thank the gods...literally...she had plenty of money to cover whatever hidden expenses might spring up. She only ever bought a few lottery tickets from time to time, whimsically daydreaming about what she would do with the money if she won. Number one on her list had always been to buy this house. She’d always felt so sorry for it, wanting to give it the love she knew it deserved. It looked like the lucky gods had heard her prayers and decided to answer. She hadn’t won a huge jackpot, but a seven million dollar lump sum after taxes was still pretty damn good. It was as if each of the lucky gods had chipped in a million dollars, and Kagome knew that so long as she was smart with it and stayed on budget, it could easily last her her entire lifetime. That didn’t mean she couldn’t splurge at least a little bit, though.

“I’ll take it!” she said enthusiastically then, her excitement bubbling over.

A few loud creaks came from the ceiling right above them just after she spoke, just the old wood settling, and Kagome hid a smirk when the Realtor noticeably flinched. He’d been jumpy the whole tour, but she knew why, and wouldn’t fault the man for his beliefs.

It wasn’t as if it was foolish to believe in ghosts. They were quite real, after all, and so she couldn’t blame a person without spiritual powers for letting their imagination run away with them when faced with generations of hearsay. But Kagome didn’t care what practically everyone in town thought. No way was this house haunted. She didn’t feel a drop of evil, or suffering like one might feel from a harmless but restless spirit. Granted, it was a little hard to tell specifics being this close to the forest, and feeling the constant buzz of youki she could always feel from the various low level youkai that lived there, but she was quite certain that if the house were evil she would know it.

Besides, it wasn’t like it hadn’t been purified several times throughout the decades, and she fully intended on purifying it again, herself, just in case. Just add that to the massive list of repairs the dilapidated structure needed.

“Are you sure, miss?” the bank’s Realtor questioned then.

It wasn’t like he had a huge commission on the line. If it were up to him they’d have just burned the cursed place down by now.

“Don’t worry,” Kagome said with a smirk, holding out her right hand palm up as a ball of blue light began to glow. She didn’t usually like showing off her reiki, but she could tell how worried the Realtor was for her own well-being and wanted to put his mind at ease. “If there is something here, I can protect myself.”

The Realtor nodded, exhaling a little in relief. He would’ve just hated to see such a sweet little thing get hurt, not that anyone had ever gotten seriously injured in connection to this house, or at least, not that he knew of. His bank had only foreclosed on the place a few years ago. He actually couldn’t believe they’d granted a mortgage in the first place, knowing the house’s reputation by that point. Several people had been chased out over the years, either scared out of their wits or, the more stubborn ones, after a series of ‘accidents’ had continued to get more and more dangerous. As far as the official reports went there had been no deaths or serious injuries, but that was probably only because the people had finally gotten the message and jumped ship.

Kagome knew the house’s history, too, but she wasn’t worried. If she needed to, she could easily defend herself against an evil spirit, but she honestly believed that sometimes, when it came to cursed objects, you made your own luck based upon pre-established beliefs. Everyone thought the house was haunted, and therefore, every time the walls popped it was a ghost. If an outlet arced it had nothing to do with the fact that the wiring was a hundred years old, oh no of course not. She mentally rolled her eyes.

And that 1920s wiring, as well as the plumbing, were definitely among the few things that would need to be updated in order to make the home livable, but that was the only type of restoration work she had in mind if she could help it. She’d update what needed updating, for safety’s sake, but she wouldn’t change the aesthetics. The new roof would be dark brown shingles, the new siding would be bright white wood, and she’d even try to see about reproduction wallpaper in similar designs to finish everything off with once she was done because she just loved everything about this house and had no intention of gutting it and making it only a shell of its former self.

Heading back with the Realtor once she’d convinced him she knew what she was doing, Kagome could hardly sit still as she signed all of the paperwork. The bank accepting her offer and the process of escrow were mere formalities. The place was hers. Going home to the Higurashi shrine that night to have dinner with her family, she told her mother, brother and grandfather the good news.

“I’m so happy for you, dear,” Kagome’s mother said, and she meant it.

The kami truly had blessed her daughter, as far as Mrs. Higurashi was concerned. She knew how much Kagome had always loved that house.

Not that Kagome didn’t still love her family home, but she couldn’t stay at home forever. That was why, four years ago at age eighteen, after saving up enough money at her waitressing job for first and last months’ rent, she had moved out and into a nearby apartment. It was small, but suited her needs well enough. She’d just wanted to get out on her own, to not be a burden on her mother and grandfather.

Okay sure, if she’d stayed at home she could have used her paychecks to pay her way at the shrine, and it would have been less expensive than her monthly rent, but it was a little awkward to bring your date back home to your childhood bedroom. Her days of being whisper quiet so that her mother and grandfather wouldn’t hear her and her boyfriend fooling around were long gone.

So was her relationship with Hojo, now. They’d actually broken up shortly after graduation, because he had gone off to a college far away, but she hadn’t been heartbroken over it. She’d dated a few men since high school and she was sure the right guy would come along when the time was right. One who would love her for her and not for her money, of course.

In the meantime, her job at the diner had been the first thing to go, when she’d realized she held a winning lottery ticket in her hand, and as soon as her new home was livable she’d be ditching her apartment, too. She had more than enough money to live off of for the rest of her life if she lived relatively modestly, which wouldn’t be a problem for her because having grown up in a shrine family, she’d never developed a taste for high end material possessions or extravagant vacations, anyway.

When dinner was over, Kagome’s mother talked her into agreeing to stay the night in her old room, which Mrs. Higurashi had never bothered altering. It was late, and Kagome didn’t like walking in the dark if she could help it, so she readily agreed.

“I guess one thing I can splurge a little bit of money on is a car,” the miko joked.

“And one for me too, sis?” Souta asked, batting his eyelashes. He’d just gotten his driver’s license a few months ago, using their mother’s car, but what sixteen-year-old boy wouldn’t love a car of his own?

Kagome laughed.

“Sure, squirt, but just a normal car,” she stressed. “I’m not getting you anything fancy.”

“That’s fine!” Souta agreed right away, getting up from his seat at the table and hugging his sister before taking both his and her empty plates into the kitchen for their mother.

Still chuckling, Kagome winked at her mom when their eyes met. They had already discussed her getting Souta a car, as well as paying off the shrine’s modest debts and paying for a few repairs the place was in need of. Those types of expenses were already worked into her budget; she wouldn’t have taken no for an answer.

After saying their goodnights, Kagome retired upstairs to her old bedroom, but lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, she found that she couldn’t fall asleep. She was just too excited about actually buying the old Takahashi place. That was what it was called, she had learned; an unofficial nickname given to it by the neighbors, derived from the original owner’s surname. Not much was known about the woman except that she had lived alone her whole life. She’d never married or had any children, but had apparently had an inheritance that had allowed her to buy the home when it was new and then spend the rest of her life there without needing to work. A fate Kagome hoped to mirror although she wouldn’t be such a recluse. She definitely didn’t plan on dying alone.

Miss Takahashi had died in the home, in her sleep, her body eventually discovered by concerned neighbors, and since she’d lived to be eighty years old the place had actually only started its infamous existence as an abandoned and supposedly haunted property about forty years ago. That so much of it had never been updated by Miss Takahashi herself had probably been a matter of budget and necessity. If everything worked, why spend money to change it, right?

Which of course explained why the kitchen was unfortunately one of the few things that had been updated, at least in part, back in the 1950s from the look of the appliances. Actually, the appliances themselves were the only things that had been replaced, and thanks to pictures on the Internet Kagome could easily envision what the room had originally looked like, with an enameled cast iron gas stove up on Chippendale legs, and a home safe sized ice box that had perhaps been replaced a few years later by the newly invented electric refrigerator, which would’ve looked like an ice box with a flying saucer looking motor on top of it. She chuckled at the thought.

While the stove and fridge in there now were definitely from a later decade, and there was even an electric washing machine (complete with electric powered wringer on top, so Miss Takahashi had obviously had some money to spend, when it suited her) Miss Takahashi hadn’t put in a completely new kitchen, with the types of countertops and cupboards that hadn’t been done yet in the 1920s. The kitchen still had its original individual, free standing cabinet furniture pieces, and for Kagome, while modern appliances were definitely on her to-do list, including the addition of a dishwasher and clothes dryer, she wouldn’t be putting in modern cabinets or countertops either, and would only do one small countertop area by the sink in order to install her dishwasher.

She was quite fond of the freestanding cabinet pieces that lined the walls and figured an island in the middle of the relatively large kitchen would give her plenty of counter space. There had actually probably already been an island piece at one point, but it was unfortunately now missing. It would have clearly been freestanding, too, and the new one she planned on getting would be freestanding as well. The tile floor was simply much too gorgeous to cut into for any sort of permanent structure.

Continuing to daydream about how to make her kitchen a functioning blend of old and new, sleep eventually claimed the miko, and she dreamt of ironing her pleated skirts on the retractable ironing board that tucked into the kitchen’s only built-in wall cupboard.

ooo

Standing in the front doorway, key in her hand, Kagome took a moment to truly let the reality of the situation hit home, pun most definitely intended. This house was hers now, officially. The ‘old Takahashi place’ was her home. Oh sure, she couldn’t actually move in just yet, but that didn’t matter. She owned it, and before too much longer she’d be living there.

Grinning like a mad woman, Kagome closed the front door, and was just moving her hand up to lock the deadbolt one of the previous owners had installed at one point when the distinct sound of another door slamming closed upstairs caught her attention. That was no pop of old wood settling. Startled, though not about to fall for the house’s reputation so easily, her first and only thought was that there had to be someone else in the house with her.

“Hello?” she called out, even as she reached for the phone in her pocket, ready to call the police if need be, although she wasn’t going to do so prematurely. What if it was just a child whose friends had dared them into going into the ‘haunted’ house?

Deciding to leave the front door unlocked, just on the off chance some spooked individual would be making a run for the door – although she told herself she wouldn’t be said person – Kagome headed towards the stairs to the right and made her way upstairs. The old wood creaked and groaned beneath her feet as she reached the 90° left turn halfway up, making stealth impossible, although at least the positive side of that was that it worked both ways, she supposed, meaning nobody would be able to sneak up on her, either.

“Hello?” she called out again as she kept ascending.

Making it to the top of the stairs, Kagome immediately noticed that the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall on the left, the largest room which she was going to keep as her master bedroom, was closed.

“Is someone there?” she asked then, nervous that instead of a scared or practical joking child there might be an adult squatter in her house who wouldn’t want to leave.

On the other hand, even if it were a homeless person, they were probably more afraid of her than she was of them, and that realization had the miko calming down significantly. If she did find a homeless person hiding out in her future bedroom she wasn’t going to call the cops on them unless she absolutely had to; she planned on just politely and apologetically asking them to please leave. Checking the other rooms first, just in case, she eliminated them all as possible hiding spots, but then upon opening the door to the master bedroom Kagome discovered that that room was empty as well, although she also immediately noticed that the side window, above the bed, was wide open.

Unlike the front-facing window that was above the front porch’s gabled roof, the window above the bed, which was on the left side of the house when viewed from the street, had nothing below it but a two-story fall, so obviously nobody had jumped out of that window, but the gears in Kagome’s head immediately started turning, and laughing at herself, she felt like an idiot for letting the house get to her so easily. On day one, no less!

Clearly, because of the open window, there had been some kind of a wind tunnel effect thanks to her opening and closing the front door down below that had caused the upstairs bedroom door to slam shut. Why the window had been left open when it was so chilly outside she couldn’t say, but chalked it up to something one of the bank people or the inspector had done.

Approaching and closing the window, then, Kagome jumped when a slamming sound immediately followed from up above her, coming from the attic. Reacting before thinking, she rushed back out into the hallway and pulled on the cord that brought down the rolling attic staircase. Quickly climbing up, she saw that one of the two attic windows, the one directly in front of her and above the master bedroom, was closed, but the other one, that resided on the right side of the house when viewing from the street, was open, indicating that the one on the left had probably been open as well and the sound she’d heard was it falling shut.

Of course, considering the old, original windows all slid up and down, it was easy to conclude that the vibration from her closing the bedroom window down below had inadvertently jiggled this one loose.

“Come on, Kagome,” the miko told herself then, as she made her way back down the narrow ladder-like stairway after going ahead and closing the other attic window. “Don’t start jumping at every random noise this place makes,” she said as she closed the attic hatch.

She would not fall for the superstitious rumors about this place that her instincts told her had to be false. After all, as a precaution, she had just purified the house herself the day before, so even if there had been a specter somehow capable of masking its presence from her, Kagome’s cleansing ritual would have exposed it.

No, it was just an old, rickety house, and old rickety houses made noise.

And have doors and windows slam shut? she questioned herself, but chuckling, she shook it off, knowing her explanation was sound.

Until she reached the top of the stairs, at least, and realized the staircase was much darker than it should have been. Upstairs, with the bathroom and bedroom doors all open and the curtains on the windows open as well, there was more than enough light to see by, but as Kagome cautiously made her way downstairs she felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach to discover that all of the curtains in the living room and dining room had been drawn shut, plunging the first floor of the house into darkness.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Kagome opened the curtain of the window right beside her, illuminating the room enough to see by, but then, instead of immediately opening all the other curtains, she made a beeline for the front door, since it was closer. She recalled that she’d left the front door unlocked, not the smartest move in retrospect, but it was locked now, which plus the thing with the curtains convinced her once again that there was a flesh and blood intruder in her home, though she also still hoped it was just some neighborhood child playing a practical joke on her.

Opening the front door to get some more light in the house, and also to see if there might’ve been some sign of giggling children hiding behind a nearby bush, she glanced around but didn’t go outside. She wasn’t going to be scared out of her own home, and definitely not on the first day.

Instead, she then went ahead and moved from window to window, reopening all of the other curtains, first in the living room and then in the adjacent dining room. From in there, a bright spot of light in the kitchen caught her attention, and heading into the kitchen she discovered the backdoor was wide open, so at least she knew how her intruder had made their escape. The phenomena upstairs must have just been a coincidence, the bedroom door slamming shut and the attic window falling closed both genuine results of an air vacuum and vibration, respectively, but then, because she’d stupidly left the front door unlocked, some juvenile prankster had decided to screw with her by closing the curtains while she’d been upstairs.

How any child, or even adult prankster, could have known she’d just gotten spooked from the bedroom door slamming shut and had gone upstairs to investigate, she didn’t dwell on for long. It could have easily just been a horrible coincidence, good timing on the prankster’s part, and nothing more. Or, she supposed it was theoretically possible somebody had exited out of her bedroom window, if they’d had help, and somebody who’d been hiding behind the house was quick with a ladder. It would actually make more sense in a way, following the theory of them drawing her upstairs, escaping, and then going back in downstairs to close the curtains just to screw with her that much more when they’d discovered the front door was unlocked, but why would someone go to so much trouble?

Kagome would let the matter go, but if any other strange occurrences started happening that couldn’t be chalked up to an old house settling then she was going to be having a friendly chat with the local parents.

Maybe I should buy a security camera.

But she wasn’t without a sense of humor, and the realization that they’d ‘gotten’ her made her chuckle, despite herself. If it was a form of hazing, of welcoming her to her ‘haunted’ house, then it only helped to convince the miko that all of the ghostly activities that were reported to go on there were in fact nothing of the sort.

Nothing else out of the ordinary happened on the rest of her first day there as the home’s new owner, either. Running back out momentarily to pick up some cleaning supplies, a task made much simpler in her brand new Scion, she came right back and spent the rest of her day cleaning, bound and determined to put the ‘curtain incident’ out of her mind.

The place was absolutely covered in dust.

First things first, she swept then mopped the floor, now that she had running water, keeping the front curtains wide open despite a few curious neighbors glancing her way from their front yards since she needed every curtain open, front and back, in order to have enough light to see by. While the electricity was also turned on she had nearly all of the breakers turned off for safety because the inspector had found more than a few wires that had been improperly spliced together at some point in time or another. She’d had the utility company turn the power on because it would need to be on in order for the electricians to do their job, but in the meantime she was more or less pretending the house still had no electricity.

That was fine, though, since there was no carpeting that needed to be vacuumed. Everything was hard wood floors, save for the tile in the kitchen and bathroom. The wood flooring had definitely seen better days, some of the boards faded and splintered, others loose, though the majority of it was probably salvageable, but she planned on just replacing the whole floor when she had the house replumbed, anyway, donating anything worth saving from the original floor to one of those companies that specialized in vintage wood.

In the meantime, she was glad she at least didn’t have to worry about crashing through the floor as she walked around, either on the first or second story. Miraculously, the inspector had told her that there was zero termite damage, so the bones of the house, the structure, was sound, or else the bank would have just auctioned the place off as a tear-down.

Getting out of there once it started to get too dark to see, Kagome came back the next day and tackled dusting all of the downstairs furniture. Some things a simple Swiffer duster took care of, others were so dingy she wiped them down with a damp microfiber cloth. She also made sure to bleach the hell out of the toilet so she could at least use the facilities while she was there. The toilet, which looked like it had last been replaced in the 1980s, was water stained beyond redemption, ran continuously no matter how many times she jiggled the handle – she was not putting her hand in that tank – and definitely needed to be replaced, although it wasn’t as scary as some of the public restrooms she’d used throughout the years on various family road trips. She would replace it soon but for today, it wasn’t a top priority.

The house popped and creaked several times throughout the day, of course, but that was to be expected as the temperature continued to drop the further into autumn they went. Once, she thought she heard what sounded like footsteps upstairs, and actually went to check, just in case, but of course, there was nobody there. Kagome wasn’t worried about ghosts, only the possibility of an actual intruder lurking in her house, especially after what’d happened the day before, and so once she verified that she was in fact alone it put her mind at ease rather than raising her hackles. She didn’t think too long on what could have made the sound of footsteps without another person in the house, sure it had just been her ears playing tricks on her.

Just like she didn’t think about how, when she went back downstairs, the paintings and mirrors were all hanging a bit crookedly. Clearly, with the home being as old as it was, the walls were just a bit uneven, and for all she knew the paintings and mirrors had been hung off center, as well. Instead of fixing them, though, because she would’ve made sure they were all centered and she didn’t want to think about the possibility of them then becoming crooked again when she wasn’t looking, Kagome took them all down and leaned them again the walls below where they’d been hanging, to worry about some other time

For the next few days Kagome continued to focus on the first few things she needed to get done around the house, after it was finally at least relatively free of dust and dirt. It was frustratingly difficult to get an electrician to agree to come out, she found, because apparently every company in town had a horror story to tell regarding her house, but eventually she got somebody to agree after she assured them she was a trained reiki user and had purified the place herself. They were scheduled to start the rewiring process in a couple of days. In the meantime, she would continue to do what she could during daylight hours, glad the home had enough large windows that lit the place up pretty well throughout the day. The only broken and boarded up window was the one halfway up the staircase, which she would replace when she had a window company come replace all of them because they were definitely not energy efficient.

Just because she had plenty of money didn’t mean she wanted to have unnecessarily high heating and cooling bills. Besides, that was a waste of the city’s energy as much as her own. If there was ever an energy crisis during the summer where they needed to conserve to stave off the risk of a blackout, which didn’t happen often but was possible, then the last thing Kagome wanted was for her home to be leaking air conditioning out of every crevice.

Tackling the issue of the toilet a few days in, she bought a brand new but simple one. She wasn’t into the kinds of toilets that also required electricity and had multiple, confusing settings. She’d also discovered the hard way by that point that she wasn’t into arguing with handymen, trying to convince them that her house was perfectly safe, especially when she was going to pay them money to do something simple that she could honestly do herself and save herself both money and headaches. So she installed the new toilet herself, and followed that up by installing a matching brand new, but classically styled, white pedestal sink. Nodding to herself in satisfaction as she tested the sink, she grinned as the water flowed gently, and without leaks, from the fancy, brushed bronze faucet she’d chosen. She’d also put an antique looking, brushed bronze flush handle on the toilet. She’d always believed it was the little finishing touches that could make the biggest impact.

With the water having been on for a few days now and thankfully no leaks springing up – a simple check of the fairly new water meter the utility company had installed out front at one point telling her that – Kagome figured her next order of business should be seeing if she could get the boiler in the basement up and running. Luckily, in the updated-at-one-time breaker box, there was one particular switch marked ‘Boiler’ so that answered that question. The gas had also been turned on, of course, and the gas company, being the professionals that they were, had done a thorough check of all the lines to make sure there were no leaks. They hadn’t shown her how to use the boiler, though. At the time, she hadn’t even thought of asking them, but she was sure it was something she could figure out herself.

It wasn’t a hundred years old, or even from the 1950s like the replacement kitchen appliances Miss Takahashi had bought herself. It was always possible she had replaced the boiler too at some point, if it’d needed to be replaced, but apparently whomever had been the first person to try their hand at taking over the repossessed house after Miss Takahashi’s passing had also thought to replace it, because the label Kagome’s inspector had found on the unit told her it dated from the 1980s. He had recommended she replace it too, of course, because that was still over thirty years old, and she had every intention of getting a new boiler since she needed to have all of the old pipes replaced too, anyway, so she’d just overhaul all the plumbing in its entirety, but in the meantime she wanted to get some heat going in the place so she could stop wearing her coat indoors.

The basement, which was accessible via a door that led downstairs in the kitchen, was very dark and very creepy, but Kagome had her trusty flashlight with her plus the light coming in from the open doorway, and she’d never really been afraid of the dark. At least, not until the door at the top of the stairs, which opened outwardly, suddenly slammed shut, closing her in the basement and leaving her flashlight the only source of light in the enclosed space. Running up the stairs like any sane person would do, she frantically tried the knob and was relieved when it turned, allowing her entry back into the kitchen.

“Okay, house, you and I are going to have to have a little talk,” she said, chuckling quietly.

She didn’t believe anything paranormal had been behind it. The door probably had a natural swing to it because the home was slightly uneven or something. These little quirks were definitely enough to have her understanding, though, how non-reiki using people could have let their fears run away with them. She would definitely make sure the basement door was properly propped open from now on whenever she needed to go down there.

Which was right now, because she still needed to see about getting the boiler up and running, so shaking off her residual chills, which she tried to tell herself were just because of the cold, she grabbed one of the dining room chairs and propped it against the basement door, holding it wide open. It didn’t close on her again, not that it could have unless someone physically moved the chair, and after about twenty minutes of fiddling and Googling instructions on her phone, she got the boiler up and running.

She wasn’t surprised when the pipes starting making all sorts of gods awful noises, but did wonder if maybe that, too, could have been part of what had frightened at least some of the previous owners. Steam radiators, especially old ones – and the radiators themselves did all look to be original to the house – made noise. Steam pipes hissed and banged and made quite a racket when they felt like it. Kagome had already known this, of course, having grown up in a home that also used steam radiators, but some novice flipper from the city might not have been aware of what they were buying.

Especially with the house being so close to the forest, where youkai lived.

The thought of it having possibly been a youkai, rather than a ghost, that had actually occupied this house at one point, had also crossed Kagome’s mind of course, but she was certain her purification would have taken care of anything harmful and besides, she would have sensed jyaki or shouki just as surely as she would have sensed the negative energy produced by a suffering human spirit, and all she could feel was the steady, friendly hum of benign youki coming from the forest out back.

Sure, some of it felt pretty close by, but the forest was literally against her backyard, and having grown up in a shrine house that also backed to a different spot along this same forest, less than a mile away, she was used to the presence of harmless lower youkai, and they didn’t bother her in the slightest. Somebody with latent spiritual powers who’d never actually been around youkai before, on the other hand, could have been completely freaked out by the unfamiliar sensation against their psyche, and without proper training, Kagome supposed that such a person could have easily assumed that feeling that ‘something’ against the back of their mind meant that the house was haunted.

Tucking the dining chair back in its place once she was done in the basement, Kagome started looking through the drawers and cupboards of the various freestanding sideboards and cabinets, more curiosity than anything else, because it was like finding buried treasure in a sense. It wasn’t just the furniture that came with the house, but everything.

Oh, she imagined more than a few items had disappeared throughout the decades, but there was still a full set of dishes, glasses, pots and pans and silverware, etc. She figured all the previous owners had probably gotten a kick out of the vintage accessories and had decided to keep them, just like her, before then giving them up along with the house itself when they got spooked. Thinking a ghost had chased them from the home, it made sense to not want to take anything with them, then, for fear of the ghost attaching itself to the object they’d taken with them. Which meant even through multiple owners most of the home’s little possessions were still here.

Kagome especially liked an antique tea set she found, and jokingly vowed to herself that if she did end up running away from this place, which of course she would never do, then she was taking that tea set with her. But in reality, to her, this whole house was as special as that tea set, and if the spirit of Miss Takahashi was still around then Kagome was sure the woman would be able to sense her admiration for the place and find her worthy.

She had no intention of just fixing the place up to resell it, as had been most of the previous owners’ game plans. She knew because she’d read about it in the local paper, whenever the house had inevitably been abandoned again, and the article would talk about the ‘flippers’ who’d bitten off more than they could chew. Of course, some of the previous owners had intended to make the place their home, but they too had probably only been browsing the home listings looking for something that might work for them. They hadn’t loved this place like she did. They hadn’t passed it, admired it, nearly every single day, year after year, until finally the kami had decided to grant their wish of one day being able to buy it.

Kagome planned on living there, spending the rest of her life there, raising a family there so that when her time finally came the house could stay in the family instead of starting the process of being abandoned all over again. If that last part of her plans ended up not working out then at the very least she would will the place to the Higurashi shrine, which would also be staying in the family. Another reason why she’d wanted to move out of her childhood home was so that she could go ahead and preemptively give the house to Souta, who was the rightful heir anyway being the first born male.

Of course, that was an old fashioned, if not downright archaic ideology, but Kagome didn’t mind it. Souta actually wanted to take over as shrine priest one day, so it wasn’t like he was being roped into a family obligation he wished he could run away from. If he wanted the job, he could have it, and take over the responsibilities of the house one day with a family of his own.

Of course, Kagome would still do her miko duties during holidays and celebrations, just as their mother also currently functioned as a shrine miko for such occasions, and any daughters Kagome eventually had would be raised in the miko tradition as well...unless they didn’t want to do it, of course.

The ceremonies, at least.

If they actually had reiki then they would need to undergo that aspect of their training, as had she and her brother, because while it wasn’t the law that reiki users must be trained – a wayward blast of reiki posed no threat to fellow humans, after all, so it wasn’t as if untrained reiki users were considered dangerous by the human government – Kagome would raise her children up right to know that not all youkai were evil, just as not all humans were good, and her children would need to know how to control their powers properly so as not to accidentally harm a friendly little youkai animal that might wander into the yard some day.

Kagome was just glad that there were enough reiki users in the Spiritual Forces that should some sort of mass youkai attack happen on mankind, unregistered reiki users would not be drafted to fight against their will, not that anything would happen, since reiki wielding humans were nowhere near as rare as they used to be, thousands of years ago. Once humans had learned, thanks to a handful of rebellious miko and houshi, that the gift was actually hereditary, the viewpoint on miko and houshi marrying and having children did a 180°, and there had been peace for the last several hundred years because of the increased balance of power, the youkai retreating to their realm outside of human civilization. In return, humans only encroached so far, allowing the youkai of the world their fair share of it, and as a result, most people lived in massive cities filled with towering sky scrapers. Small border towns such as this one were so much more pleasant, though, in Kagome’s opinion.

Taking off her coat when the house finally started warming up a little, Kagome figured one thing she could start working on was pulling the bedding off the beds upstairs. While she planned on keeping all three rooms as bedrooms – she didn’t have a hobby that would require converting one of the rooms into something else, and the little fantasy in her head hoped that one day she might need all three bedrooms – what she didn’t need were old sheets and blankets. The bedrooms looked virtually untouched, and while the bedspreads themselves obviously weren’t the original ones – if Miss Takahashi had replaced the appliances when they’d needed it then surely she had replaced the bedding on occasion – they were still dingy and old by that point and not something that Kagome planned on sleeping on. No, she would be getting sheets and comforters as well as new mattresses and pillows.

“No time like the present to get started,” she said to herself with a determined clapping of her hands. “Right, let’s do this.”

Heading first into the last room on the left, the largest of the three bedrooms and the one she was going to make her own room, Kagome glanced briefly at the window, remembering how this room, or someone in it, had played a prank on her a few days prior, but then shaking her head at herself as she giggled under her breath, she got to work. Taking a moment to take in the floral patterns on the bedding and curtains, which were so much more delicate than the somewhat generic looking bedspreads in the other two rooms, not to mention the vanity in the corner that was still home to various undoubtedly expired makeups and perfumes, she correctly deduced that this had been Miss Takahashi’s bedroom as well.

“I’m going to have to see if I can find out what your first name was,” she said aloud as though the woman’s spirit were actually present, as she looked at her own reflection in the ornate oval mirror that hung above the vanity. “Whoever you were, you had wonderful taste.”

Tugging the blanket off the bed, followed by the top and bottom sheets, Kagome was relieved to see that the mattress, though old, wasn’t all stained and gross. She would still get a new one, of course, but knowing that Miss Takahashi had died in this bed, and not knowing whether or not any of the subsequent owners before her had replaced the mattress, her imagination had momentarily been running wild.

“Get a grip,” she told herself then, as she headed out towards the stairs with the bedding, along with the two pillows, bundled together in her arms. “It’s not like she was murdered. What’d you expect to see, a big ol’ blood stain?” The miko laughed quietly as she descended the stairs, wondering if perhaps she watched too many crime dramas.

She also wondered at the simple pair of queen sized pillows on each of the three beds, like a run-of-the-mill hotel would do, certain that a woman with such impeccable taste would have had a bunch of fancy, unnecessary pillows on each of the beds, or at least her own. Perhaps the bedding had been replaced by a different home owner at one point, then. Not really surprising, Kagome figured, especially if that person had attempted to live in the place while they were fixing it up. But as Kagome plopped the bundle of bedding she held onto the dining room table and went into the kitchen for a trash bag, she figured it didn’t really matter who had originally bought it or how old it was, it was still going.

Shaking open a big black trash bag, she put the bundle of blankets, sheets and pillows inside, but that didn’t mean they were trash. Kagome figured that just because she didn’t want them, that didn’t mean there was really anything wrong with them, so instead of throwing them out she would donate them. Tossing the bag onto the sofa in the living room for the time being, she headed back up the stairs and into the first room on the left, stripping that bed as well. Adding that bag of bedding to her growing pile on the couch that was earmarked to be donated to a local thrift store – she wouldn’t tell them where the stuff had come from, to avoid any possible apprehension on the workers’ parts – Kagome headed back upstairs again and stripped the bedding from the final bedroom, which was the second door on the right at the end of the hall, the first door on the right at the top of the stairs being the bathroom.

Coming back downstairs again, both trash bags that had been on the couch were on the floor, but they’d obviously just fallen. Bagging up bundle number three, she moved all three bags over by the front door to take with her when she left. If any of the bedroom closets had still had clothes hanging in them she would have bagged that up next, but having checked out the closets when she’d done her original walk through – just out of curiosity because she’d already known she was buying the place no matter what – she knew that the small closets were all empty.

Whether that actually meant that all of Miss Takahashi’s clothes were long gone, however, was another matter, since there were a couple of old trunks and several newer cardboard boxes up in the attic. Kagome was looking forward to going through all of that, too, which would really be like finding buried treasure, but that could definitely wait until after she was settled in, she decided then. If she started going through all of those boxes now she just knew she’d get sucked into it and not get anything else done the rest of the day.

She spent the last couple hours of decent daylight thoroughly cleaning all three wooden bed frames, their ornately carved head and foot rests also caked with years of dust. Once it started to get late, which meant it was starting to get dark, Kagome decided to call it quits for the day. Although the moon was nearly full and would be rising shortly, she wasn’t so desperate to get things done that she needed to work by moonlight. Making sure the heat was turned off, and donning her coat, she grabbed the three bags of bedding and headed out, making sure to lock the front door behind her. The next morning, she dropped her donations off at the nearest thrift store, anonymously, and would have gone straight to the local mattress store to order new mattresses but she belatedly realized she’d neglected to measure the old ones the day before.

“Jeeze, Kagome, you might want to know the size of the beds you’re buying new mattresses for,” she laughed at herself as she first headed back to her apartment to grab a measuring tape before then making her way to over to the house, for what she thought would just be a quick in and out.

Pulling up in the driveway, though, it only took the miko a second to notice that the curtains, which she hadn’t bothered closing when she’d left the day before, were now all drawn shut, again, on both the first and second floors this time.

Hastily making her way to the front door, she discovered that it was indeed locked, but that didn’t really mean anything, she supposed. Nervous, she unlocked the door and went inside. The living room was very dark with the curtains closed but Kagome wasted no time pulling them open one by one, and then glancing around, she gasped in surprise when she realized that every cabinet drawer and door were wide open.

No items were strewn about, and upon inspecting the contents she discovered, with a tentative sigh of relief, that everything she had looked at just the day before appeared to be untouched. Going into the dining room and kitchen it was more of the same, the curtains closed, the cabinets opened, but none of the items in the cabinets, including the fancy tea set she loved, were disturbed.

Kagome, though, was very disturbed. Who would do such a thing, and why? Was someone just trying to scare her?

She barely stopped herself from screaming when very loud footsteps overhead sounded like they were running towards the stairs, and faking a bravery she didn’t really feel, she rushed back into the living room to confront whomever it was instead of running out the back door in the kitchen. Which, incidentally, she’d also noticed was still locked.

Belatedly wishing she’d thought to grab a knife from the kitchen, she quickly realized she didn’t need to worry about that when the footsteps came to an abrupt halt. She figured whoever it was must have heard her run back into the living room and hesitated.

“Whoever you are, this is my house now, so if you come down peacefully I’ll let you leave but if not, I’m calling the cops!” she said, wishing she felt as tough as she sounded.

There wasn’t a peep from upstairs, of course. Taking a quick moment to grab a large steak knife, then, Kagome hesitantly made her way up to the second story, and mentally groaned when she saw that all four doors were closed, though the linen closet at the end of the hall was open, of course, exposing columns of neatly folded towels. It was very dark but there was enough light coming up from downstairs to see that much, and know that there was nobody crouched and waiting behind either opened door to the linen closet, which had two cabinet style doors that each opened outward.

Convinced that there was presently an intruder in her home, in one of the four rooms, although how the person had managed to close themselves up in one of the rooms without making even the slightest noise was beyond her, Kagome hesitated as to what to do next. She didn’t want to call the police and have them just assume she was only the latest person to freak out about the ‘haunted’ house, and what if they actually came out and then for whatever reason didn’t find an intruder? Besides, it seemed fairly obvious to her that whoever this person was, they were playing on that fear, and probably meant her no harm in real life.

Getting a little angry at the thought of somebody fucking with her like that actually helped to quell her fear a little. Squaring her shoulders in resolve, then, she rather forcefully opened the first door on the left, intending for the intruder to hear her even if they were hiding in a different room. Which was apparently the case, since a quick inspection of that room, including under the bed and in the closet, revealed that it was empty. The first thing she’d done was open the curtain real quick, of course, since the room had been virtually pitch black and that definitely added to her anxiety level. Of course, the dresser drawers were all wide open, but she’d been expecting it at that point.

Leaving the curtain and door open as she stepped back out illuminated the hallway a little bit more, and moving on, she checked the bathroom next, including behind the shower curtain of the combination shower and bathtub.

Nothing.

It wasn’t lost on her how yanking the shower curtain aside with a raised steak knife in her hand made her feel a little like the killer in Psycho, but she was too agitated to find any amusement in the situation right in that moment. Especially after checking both of the other bedrooms and discovering that they, too, were both empty, although just like with the first room she’d checked, the drawers and doors of the chests and armories were also all opened, just like downstairs. The windows, though, in all three bedrooms, were latched shut, which she didn’t remember doing, and which also meant that even if someone could escape from a second story window, in this case it was obvious that nobody had, which begged the question, where the hell did the intruder go?

As if summoned by her thoughts, Kagome heard more loud running footsteps in that moment, again coming from up above her, which in this case would mean the attic, even though what she’d heard down in the kitchen had definitely sounded like it’d come from the second floor. Either way, it now definitely sounded like there was someone in the attic, but if they had been on the second floor before then how the hell they had gotten up to the attic without her hearing it she didn’t have a clue since, even though the hatch itself was fairly silent, the rolling ladder staircase thing made a heck of a racket.

Which meant whoever it was definitely heard it when Kagome tugged on the cord for the attic door and the ladder came rolling loudly down towards her.

Climbing slowly, keeping her knife at the ready in her right hand while holding on to the hand rail of the narrow staircase with her left hand as she ascended cautiously, one step at a time, Kagome stretched her senses but for the life of her could still feel nothing out of the ordinary. Not that an ‘ordinary’ human hiding in the attic would fall under that category, obviously, but while she didn’t believe the house was haunted, she also found it hard to believe that a human could have disappeared up into the attic from the second floor without making a sound.

Reaching the top and stepping once again into the full size attic, Kagome didn’t immediately see anyone, although she supposed it was always possible they were hiding in the corner, behind the stack of boxes.

“Whoever you are, you’ve got nothing to fear from me if you mean me no harm, but I’m prepared to defend myself if necessary,” she said, hoping they, whoever they were, wouldn’t call her bluff.

Defending herself against a youkai was one thing, and easy with her gift of reiki, but she was hardly an expert in hand-to-hand combat, or even with using a weapon such as her knife. She only knew what not to do in situations like hers from the various bad horror movies she’d seen in her day, hence why she was armed and would at least attempt to fight, rather than run scared and screaming before hiding downstairs in the basement or something.

She was glad she hadn’t called the cops, though, telling them she knew it wasn’t a ghost and that there was an actual intruder in her house. What intruder? Braving a peak behind the stack of boxes revealed nobody hiding there.

Both windows, which had no curtains at the moment and provided plenty of light to see by, were on either side of the house, flush with the wall, with a straight three-story drop below them for anyone who climbed out, the steep roof too far above to reach if one attempted to go up. The attic windows had definitely not been placed with roof access in mind. The side-gabled roof, which had its slant facing the street, had no dormers. Though Kagome liked the look and didn’t plan on changing it when she eventually had a new roof put on, in that moment she wished there had been dormer windows because, if at least one of them had also been unlocked, then that could have at least provided a possible explanation for where the intruder had gone in that moment.

While Kagome knew it’d be possible to climb out one of the front facing bedroom windows down onto the front-gabled roof of the porch and then carefully climb either up or down from there, that wasn’t a possible method of escape in this situation. Never mind that all of the bedroom windows had been locked; she knew she’d heard footsteps coming from the attic, damn it! But while she’d noticed that both attic windows were unlatched, there was just no way a person could have gotten out that way, unless an accomplice had been waiting with a really tall ladder, but no matter which side they chose they would have been visible to half of the entire cul-de-sac and so she really couldn’t imagine anyone being so bold in broad daylight.

Not a person, anyway.

Kagome was becoming more and more convinced that someone was indeed fucking with her, on purpose, trying to scare her, but she wasn’t all that convinced they were human anymore. Jokes like this, drawers wide open, footsteps coming from an empty attic, would be right up the alley of a kitsune, and since their kind usually just pranked people for fun and ‘points’ in their own kind of game, that would explain why she still couldn’t sense an evil aura, demonic or otherwise. Kitsune weren’t evil, just a bit annoying at times.

Deciding then to fight fire with fire, or rather magic with magic, and see if she could solve all her problems, she pulled an ofuda from her coat pocket – she’d long ago gotten into the habit of always having a few on her at all times – and slapped it to the underside of the roof. It wasn’t a purifying ward but merely a protective one, meant to repel youkai but not harm them. If her practical joker had been a kitsune, which had escaped via one of the attic windows, then it wouldn’t get zapped if it tried to get back in but instead merely come upon an impenetrable barrier.

Heading back out of the attic, then, Kagome did what she’d originally meant to do and measured the mattresses, closing drawers and doors that she hadn’t bothered to close before along her way as she went from bedroom to bedroom. Then, after double checking that everything was peaceful on the first floor, and locked, she headed back out and to the mattress store.

Over the next couple of weeks Kagome was able to make a great deal of progress with the house, that suddenly only made normal ‘old house’ noises but no phantom footsteps, and the doors and windows all stayed the way she’d left them. Convinced then that the ‘haunting’ had probably been a kitsune all along, she held off on having a roofing company come out because she figured to remove her ward, even temporarily, was to risk inviting furry little trouble back inside. While she definitely wanted to address the roof as soon as possible, she also wanted to be able to get the place rewired and replumbed without incident.

Fortunately, all went smoothly, and chatting with the workers who came and went she even learned a few secrets about her place, like how the window halfway up the stairs had gotten broken.

Apparently, a previous owner who’d had plans to completely destroy the home, as far as Kagome was concerned – you do not tear down walls to make an ‘open living space’ in such a beautiful, timeless classic – had been attacked by some red-eyed, white-haired demon or another and pushed down the stairs. He hadn’t gone through the window, but it had broken in the crash. The youkai had disappeared afterwards, of course, and while hearing this tale Kagome felt confident it was because it had actually been a kitsune in disguise, apparently at the time the appearance of this very tangible monster had only spurred on the rumors of more spiritually oriented beings haunting the place.

That was where her hometown’s residents’ agreement on the subject ended, however. Over the years, growing up in that town and secretly admiring this house, she’d heard it all.

Miss Takahashi herself haunted the place, chasing out anyone else who tried to live in her house.

At the moment of her death, her fear, her desire to remain alive, inadvertently summoned a vengeful spirit, a type of youkai but one of energy, born from the emotions of humans.

Her spirit lingered, but was benevolent, however her presence functioned as a conduit of sorts to unintentionally invite other spirits to join the party, and there were now several ghosts just hanging out and generally screwing with the living.

Kagome was happy to add a new theory to the mix.

She could admit that it was still just a theory, but the longer things remained peaceful with her barrier up, the more likely it was that some sort of tangible youkai that had been responsible for the ‘paranormal’ happenings. She had definitely been wrong about the occurrences being nothing more than everyone’s imaginations running away with them, though, and she was big enough to admit that to the workers she chatted with, telling them about the ward she’d put up in the attic that so far seemed to be working.

The only thing her practical joker had still been able to do was screw with her newly installed satellite television. As soon as the rewiring was finished she’d had her TV hooked up, but twice the signal had gone out. The first time, she’d had a technician come back out the next morning to check things out, and apparently the dish had ‘somehow’ gotten moved just enough to lose the signal. Halfway through watching a show during her lunch break later that same day, the signal had been lost again, and not bothering to call them back out a second time she’d mentally kicked herself for not having braved climbing up onto the roof after they’d left to put an ofuda on the dish itself. She’d worry about getting it fixed again some other time.

With the important stuff all taken care of, the wires and pipes all replaced, the wood flooring replaced on the first and second floors, the walls patched back up – although they still needed new wallpaper – Kagome nodded in satisfaction as she flopped down onto the newly made bed in her master bedroom.

In and around the contractors tackling the big stuff she’d also gotten her new mattresses delivered, the old ones hauled away by the same company, and choosing new bedspreads that matched the old-timey look of the home, the bedrooms fully looked like windows to the past. One hint of the 21st century resided in the kitchen, though, with her brand new refrigerator and freestanding range with single oven snuggled in and around the original, freestanding cabinets, a microwave with a built-in hood fan underneath pulling double duty in its spot mounted above the stove. One strip of a new granite countertop with built-in cabinetry underneath sat under the kitchen window and housed both her brand new sink and dishwasher, while a new washer and dryer sat near the backdoor where the old wringer washer used to be. A mobile island in the middle of the room gave her extra countertop space as well as extra storage.

Lying there on the bed in that moment, staring up at the newly installed ceiling fan as she ran everything by in her head, Kagome felt she’d made some good decisions as far as where to maintain the old and where to add the new, buying new that looked old whenever possible.

Case in point, since the home lacked air conditioning and she hadn’t wanted to install ductwork, she’d opted for the simpler addition of ceiling fans in the bedrooms, instead. In her old childhood bedroom she’d used a pedestal floor fan for unbearably hot nights, but as she gazed up at the fan with light overhead, the fan itself presently off but the central light on dim, she knew she’d made the right choice. The fans were antique looking with a brushed bronze finish and so did not look out of place in the slightest.

The electrical had been a complete redo, not just with new wiring but with all brand new switches and outlets, lamps and wall sconces, and even a new doorbell. There was a brand new boiler in the basement, and she’d also replaced the various radiators with new, safer models that wouldn’t get dangerously hot to the touch.

Presently all alone in the house, the last of the workers having left the day before, Kagome ran through a small mental list of things that still needed to be done. The list was small, but the things themselves were pretty major. Besides finding replacement wallpaper she also still needed to have all new windows installed, and put on a brand new roof, plus have the siding panels replaced wherever they needed it, but all that stuff could wait another week or three. At least now, the place was livable, and she could finally move out of her apartment. In fact, she wasn’t even going to spend one more night in that place. She’d done a modest grocery run on her way over to the house that morning, so there were at least a few things to eat in the kitchen, and the bathroom had plenty of toilet paper, along with her quick overnight toiletries bag. While she’d be ‘moving in’ tomorrow, she was spending the night tonight.

Early that morning, before coming over, she’d had a thrift store come by the apartment to pick up the last of her furniture, including her bed, so going back to her apartment for one last night wasn’t even an option, not that she would have wanted to anyway because it was already getting dark out and she didn’t like driving at night. Without a moon in the sky it would be getting really dark outside, so even if there was something she wanted she’d go without it, but knowing that night was going to be her first night in her new home she’d brought all her necessities with her.

She wasn’t looking forward to the task of bringing everything else over, but that was a worry for tomorrow. For that night, she didn’t care about anything else, she just wanted to soak in the still kind of amazing realization that the home she’d always felt drawn to since she was a little kid was hers now, and she was about to spend her first of many nights there. Even a random creak and pop coming from the attic didn’t faze her, as she drifted off to sleep with a huge smile on her face. Old houses did indeed make those kinds of noises on occasion.

ooo

The next morning, after throwing her clothes back on, Kagome gave herself a quick once over in the bathroom mirror, and then hitting the road, she headed back to her soon-to-be former apartment. After a quick shower and change of clothes, she started the fun – note the sarcasm – process of moving.

“Totally worth it,” she said, as she started loading the back of her Scion up with boxes.

All non-essentials she’d already had boxed up and ready to go. For the last few days, all that’d been accessible in her apartment was a few outfits and her toiletries, which she put into luggage in that moment. It took her a total of three trips back and forth to move all of her stuff over to her new house, piling boxes in the living room for the time being as she headed back for another load, but she didn’t have that much stuff to move and hadn’t wanted to hassle with renting a moving van. She especially hadn’t wanted to face the possible hassle of trying to convince movers to go to her new house, even though there hadn’t been any ‘ghostly’ activity for two weeks now. Tackling the moving herself was definitely less of a headache than that old song and dance would have been.

Besides, she didn’t really own that much stuff. She’d given away all of her furniture, most of her dishes and other kitchen things, and even some of her clothes.

“And yet it still somehow took me three trips,” she mumbled under her breath as she loaded up the last of the boxes in preparation for her third and final trip taking stuff to the house.

That was the magic of moving, she supposed. No matter how much of a minimalist you thought you were, it always took at least three times as many boxes as you’d envisioned to move all of your stuff. Nevertheless, she got it done, and with her appliances staying with the apartment, the utilities all shut off and her forwarding address filed with the post office, Kagome walked out of the apartment that had been her home for the last four years for the last time, and never looked back.

ooo

Unloading the last of the boxes from her car, Kagome looked at the somewhat foreboding stack before her, all of them thankfully labeled, and decided the best thing to do would be to organize the boxes by room first so that she could more easily tackle the task of unpacking them all one room at a time. Going through them then one box at a time, she put the ones meant for the kitchen in the kitchen, on her new mobile island, and ones meant for her bedroom upstairs on her bed, while some boxes, like the ones that contained all of her books, stayed in the living room. Those could wait for last, she figured, since she’d first need to figure out whether to get rid of some of the things in the curio cabinets, to make room, or think of where to add a few new bookshelves here and there. There was no room for a large freestanding bookshelf, but a few artistically placed floating shelves mounted to the walls in a few places, if done right, would look really lovely.

Once all of the boxes were sorted by room Kagome decided to tackle unpacking the ones in the kitchen first, mainly because those were the fewest number of boxes to unpack. She’d gotten rid of nearly all of her old things, having gone through the stuff that came with her new home and decided to use most of it, instead. The dishes and utensils were probably too old fashioned for most people, but to her, they felt much more appropriate than the cheap crap she’d originally bought for herself when she’d first moved into her apartment. She did keep some of her pots and pans, only so she had more of a variety, and while Kagome adored all the little teacups, larger coffee cups and fancily cut crystal she’d found, there didn’t seem to be any regular ol’ everyday drinking glasses and so her set of six had made the move, as well.

Finishing up after a couple of hours – she’d taken the time to thoroughly go through each drawer and cabinet as she sorted, boxing up whatever she actually didn’t want to keep – the miko was just about to head upstairs to tackle the bedroom next when her stomach growled, reminding her that she’d only had a light breakfast several hours ago.

“Okay, you win,” she said as she looked down, playfully patting her stomach. “Time for a lunch break.” Though she would keep it simple.

Cooking her first meal in her new home, Kagome didn’t care that boiling water wasn’t really cooking, nor did she care that she no longer had a financial justification for eating instant ramen. It was one of her favorite foods, and that was reason enough.

“Lunch of champions,” she said with a chuckle as she flopped down on the living room couch, steaming cup of noodles in hand, and stared at the dark TV screen in front of her.

She’d get around to calling the dish guy back out to fix it again, but it was just as well that the TV wasn’t working today, so she didn’t have to worry about getting sucked into watching too much television when there were still boxes to unpack. Hopefully that wouldn’t take too long. After unpacking everything other than her collection of books she could-

She was pulled from her musings mid-slurp when a noise from upstairs that sounded suspiciously like a falling box caught her attention. Setting her still half full cup of noodles down on the coffee table, she headed upstairs and confirmed that her box of shoes had fallen off the bed...somehow.

Sighing, and really hoping her trickster hadn’t somehow found a way back inside, she went ahead and put her various pairs of shoes away real quick, arranging them in organized pairs on the floor along the side and back walls of the built-in closet. She didn’t own that many pairs of shoes and didn’t need any kind of a shoe rack.

Heading back downstairs, then, Kagome plopped back down on the couch and reached for her cup of noodles only for her hand to freeze midway at the discovery that the cup was empty.

Someone’s been eating my porridge, she thought somewhat sarcastically, and none too pleased.

Rushing back upstairs, then, she yanked down the attic hatch, the bottom half of the ladder/staircase rolling down with a clatter, and climbing up into the attic she made a beeline for where she knew she’d put her repelling ofuda.

It was gone.

It shouldn’t have been able to be removed, or at least, not by demonic hands, but regardless of what she believed should and shouldn’t be possible, it wasn’t there. Not wanting to think about the possibility that there really had been a human invader in her home at one point, even if it was just someone the youkai had enlisted to remove her ofuda, Kagome didn’t dwell on it long and went back downstairs to the coat she’d discarded hours prior in the kitchen. She hadn’t even turned the heat on yet that day, but moving was hard work.

Putting her coat back on for the time being so she’d have her full arsenal at her disposal, she retrieved another repelling ofuda from her pocket, although she hesitated to use it at first, knowing that if the little bugger was currently still inside the house somewhere she’d just wind up trapping it inside with her. But then thinking that that might not be a bad idea – she was bound to get to the bottom of it that way – she went ahead and slapped the paper against the outer kitchen wall, by the backdoor.

Holding her hand on the paper a moment, she added a fresh jolt of reiki to the spell, ensuring her barrier stretched throughout the entire structure, attic and all. She momentarily thought about infusing the home with purifying reiki as well, just enough to shock without causing serious injury, but she didn’t want to hurt whatever it was, even mildly. Especially since a lot of kitsune that pulled haunting type pranks were only children. Youkai or not, she could never harm a child.

Trying to put it out of her mind for now, not about to let whoever or whatever her potential house guest was diminish the joy she felt at officially living in her new home, this home, the one she’d always wanted and never thought she’d get to have, Kagome made herself a new cup of ramen, and then as an afterthought, she made a third cup, just in case, before sitting down to enjoy lunch 2.0.

Eating her entire second cup of ramen in peace, Kagome took it and the original empty cup and tossed them and the two pairs of disposable chopsticks into the waste basket she’d just set up under the kitchen sink a few hours earlier. Placing a third set of disposable chopsticks beside the full cup of ramen she left sitting on the central island, Kagome headed back upstairs to finish unpacking the rest of her bedroom things.

She had a very modest wardrobe, which worked out well with the limited closet space available, even including the separate armoire. Since she didn’t want to hang some of her sweaters, afraid they’d stretch out, and the left half of the armoire had shelves in it, she put her winter clothes in there and her summer clothes in the regular closet. Socks, underwear and sleepwear all fit nicely in the dresser.

“Or should I call it a chest of drawers?” she asked herself with a snicker.

After she was done putting all of her clothes away she tackled the bathroom items next, not that there were too many of them, either. She only had the basics, like a hair brush and comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, floss and mouth wash, deodorant, her razor and shaving cream, shampoo and conditioner, etc.

“Kami, I had no idea I was so boring.” Laughing at herself, she put everything away in its own new home.

Adding her bottle of body wash to the things that would live in the shower, she realized it was probably a good thing she didn’t own a ton of girly skin care products, considering there would be no real place to put them all.

“I love you, sink, but good for storage you are not,” she said to the sink that had just enough room on the rim for her toothbrush and toothpaste on one side of the faucet and a pump bottle of liquid hand soap on the other. Her hair brush and comb were going to go on the vanity out in the bedroom, which she supposed would also be where she’d keep her makeup and other skin care products if she owned any.

Fortunately, when it came to the usual stuff stored under the sink, such as cleaners and first aid items, she’d thought ahead when she’d decided to stick with a pedestal design, and had also purchased a freestanding cabinet that was designed to go around and above the toilet, which was mounted to the wall of course because it would be way too top heavy otherwise. It was antique looking and matched the original bedroom furniture well enough. It was in the same dark stained wood, veneered though it was, and while the somewhat ornately carved doors didn’t specifically match any of the patterns in the bedroom it still elevated the piece enough for it to seem like it belonged.

Finished in the bedroom and bathroom, Kagome headed back downstairs, figuring she’d get a start on at least some of the living room boxes before it got too late. First, though, she was going to turn on the boiler. Even with her coat back on it was getting a little too chilly in the house as the evening wore on.

Grabbing one of the dining chairs on her way through the dining room to the kitchen, Kagome forgot about checking the cup of ramen she’d left on the island, which was now empty, and headed straight for the basement door. Propping it open with the chair, she flicked on the light and made her way down the stairs. The brand new boiler was much easier to turn on, by turning the ‘on’ switch, and she was just heading back up the stairs when there was a loud scraping sound – which turned out to be the dining chair sliding across the kitchen tiles – and she looked up with horror as the basement door slammed shut.

At least she hadn’t been plunged into darkness this time.

Rushing up the stairs, Kagome hesitantly tried the knob, which didn’t even have a lock in it anymore because she’d put on a new doorknob after her previous experience, but she was just being paranoid. The knob turned of course, but then trying to push the door open afterwards, it didn’t budge.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said softly, with an air of determination, as she placed both of her hands on the door and concentrated.

Youki. Very close by. Nothing malevolent, no shouki or jyaki, but peaceful as it supposedly was, this aura was definitely not coming from the forest.

Trying to push against the door again, it still wouldn’t budge, and it became rather obvious to her that there was a youkai of some sort standing on the other side of the door, physically holding it closed.

“You know I know you’re not a ghost. Come on, let me out, please?”

Nothing.

Knowing what she had to do didn’t mean she felt good about it, but her captor was giving her no other option. Releasing just enough reiki to give the youkai a slightly painful jolt that wouldn’t it do any permanent damage, she couldn’t help cringing in guilt when she heard a faint gasp followed by a distinct set of footsteps running out of the kitchen.

Trying the door a third time, it opened, and she was definitely grateful that whoever had tried to trap her in the basement had just been holding the door closed rather than propping the dining chair up underneath the doorknob. She could’ve ended up in real trouble since she didn’t have her cellphone on her at the moment. As she belatedly noticed the empty cup of ramen on the island, Kagome found herself wondering how many other poor would-be homeowners had wound up locked in the basement for an unknown number of days before maybe the door crept back open on them while they were asleep, and they woke to realize their freedom only to flee completely, abandoning the ‘haunted’ house that had almost killed them before showing them mercy.

She wasn’t going to be next, but she was going to get to the bottom of this.

Right now.

Entering the dining room, Kagome couldn’t help pausing a moment, genuinely impressed by the balancing act she was afraid to disturb, as each of the remaining five dining chairs stood precariously balanced one on top of the other, on the table. It was a house of cards that could come tumbling down, and so fear of possible damage to either the table or any of the chairs was what eventually had her deciding to carefully unstack the whole mess before continuing in her pursuit of the youkai.

It wasn’t like they were going anywhere, trapped in the house with her as they were.

As she brought the last chair down off the table and noticed for the first time that all of the paintings she’d taken down off the walls were also back up, and upside down, the only thing Kagome could figure was that prior to closing her in the basement the youkai had very quickly set the stage for what was supposed to be one hell of a scare-fest. She supposed the youkai had planned on listening for when she would have momentarily given up on trying the door, in the beginning stages of freaking out, and it would have then made its quick escape out of the kitchen, so that when she composed herself with a second wind and tried the door again it would have opened, and she would have then seen all this other extreme stuff that had already been set up for her to see.

She had to give it to her little trickster, whoever they were; they were good.

And missing, but she knew the youkai was somewhere in the house and she would not infuse the structure with another blast of purifying energy unless she absolutely had to, in self-defense.

Thinking back on all the previous weirdness she’d experienced, prior to when she’d apparently temporarily locked the rascal out of the house although how it had gotten back in two weeks later she still didn’t understand, Kagome decided a logical place for her to start her search was in the attic. She’d verify whether or not the space was youkai-free, and if it was, she’d put a localized purifying ofuda on the attic hatch, to prevent her ‘guest’ from escaping to that level. With that last thought in mind, she double checked her remaining ofuda in her pocket and then headed upstairs.

She discovered a hitch in her plan, though, when she pulled on the cord of the attic hatch and it near silently swung downward without the usual clatter of the ladder rolling down with it. It was tied together, one of the rungs from the rolling piece and one from the stationary piece attached to the hatch door having what looked like a piece of twine looping around the both of them, preventing the rolling half from sliding down and effectively preventing Kagome from entering the attic without another ladder.

“So it’s like that, huh?” she said plenty loud enough for whatever was hiding out in the attic to hear her.

Closing the hatch, she quickly retrieved the low chair that belonged to the vanity in her master bedroom, standing on it so that she could reach the hatch door, although she’d never attempt to climb up into the attic that way. Instead, she applied the localized purification ofuda she’d originally planned on using once confirming the youkai was not in the attic. Concentrating, she made sure the purifying energy was fairly weak, and centered only on the hatch door itself, so instead of charging the whole attic and making the poor creature miserable it would simply not be able to touch the hatch. With the rest of the house still under the power of her sealing barrier, whatever it was was now trapped in the attic.

Heading back downstairs, then, she retrieved the A-frame ladder she’d discovered down in the basement. It had probably belonged to one of the many workers who’d run away from the place throughout the years. Going through the last of her ofuda to find the non-lethal sealing one she carried for self-defense, just in case, before then also grabbing a pair of of scissors, Kagome headed back up to the second floor.

Tensing up as she opened the attic hatch a second time, she half expected some kind of creature to come rushing down at her, but when nothing happened she allowed herself to relax, at least a little bit, and got the A-frame ladder into position, off to the side. Climbing up, she just used that ladder for the leverage needed to reach and cut the cord holding the rolling ladder’s rungs together, and upon doing so the lower half of the attic’s built-in ladder/stairs came rolling down.

Climbing up slowly, ofuda at the ready, Kagome was still hoping to call a truce with whoever (or whatever) her visitor was.

“I know you’re up here,” she said, trying to keep her voice sounding as calm as possible. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Gesturing to the ofuda in her hand, she explained, “This ward is sealing, not purifying, and won’t cause you pain, but I still don’t want to use it unless you force me to.”

Turning around in a slow circle once she fully entered the attic, Kagome didn’t see anything, but the youkai could either be invisible, disguised, or more simply, hiding behind those boxes she couldn’t see behind from her present location.

“Can’t we just talk about this?” she asked the seemingly empty room. “I know you’re trying to scare me away, but I’m not going anywhere. If you leave me no choice, I’ll force you out, but if you talk to me, maybe we can be friends.”

She wasn’t so sure about that, truth be told, but then, she wasn’t completely opposed to the idea, either. It’d just have to depend on the circumstances. She had a pretty good idea of what she could offer the youkai to make a truce seem appealing, though.

“Are you still hungry?” she asked. “I’ve got lots more instant ramen and I’d be happy to make you another cup if you wanted.”

That got a reaction.

“You really mean that?” came the hesitant reply from behind the pile of boxes.

The voice was a lot more...mature...than she’d been expecting. She’d honestly thought she was dealing with a kitsune youth. To realize it was a grown man, even if he wasn’t human, made her feel a little more nervous than she wanted to admit, although whoever and whatever he was, he must’ve been able to detect her growing apprehension because he suddenly chimed back in with, “I won’t hurt ya. You don’t gotta fear me.”

Unbidden, Kagome actually snorted a laugh.

“You’ve been deliberately trying to scare me ever since I bought this place,” she said, facing the pile of boxes in case he could see her.

“You scared me, too, locking me outta my house for two weeks,” the disembodied voice replied. “Didn’t realize you were so freakin’ powerful.”

She snorted again, the sound less amused this time.

“I’m obviously not that powerful,” she countered, “since you found a way to break the seal.”

“No I didn’t,” he confessed. “I just had a way around it.”

Raising a skeptical eyebrow, she asked, “And what way was that?”

Suddenly, she heard some shuffling, and then a tall figure with long white hair, clad in traditional red robes, emerged from behind the stack of boxes.

She gasped, and the ears that branded the mostly human looking man as a hanyou twitched upon his head.

“Of course, it all makes sense now.”

As a hanyou, he undoubtedly had a time of the month when he temporarily turned human, which would have enabled him to reenter the house despite her barrier. Although, she’d always made sure the windows on the first floor were closed and locked at night, and of course the front and back doors were always locked…

“Though I’m still not exactly sure how you got back in,” she admitted then.

Adopting a look that could only be described as cocky, the white-haired hanyou strolled over towards a specific section of roof, facing the back of the house.

“Because you didn’t run any purifying energy through the house I could still sit on the roof with your barrier in place,” he explained with a gesture of his hand up at the attic ceiling. “Nobody can see me if I stay on the back side, and while as a hanyou I can use either of the windows, though I risk being spotted by one of the neighbors, this is my preferred method of escape.”

That said, he pushed on one of the plywood sheets that made up the underside of the roof, which doubled as the attic’s unfinished ceiling, and Kagome gasped again when the entire panel lifted up a bit. Approaching where the hanyou stood, staring up at the spot he’d lifted, she couldn’t believe it. That section of roof had been completely loosened, all nails removed, but it still sat back in place so perfectly she never would have noticed it wasn’t attached. She realized almost right away that the separation corresponded with the few missing shingles the inspector had told her about on the outside, and moderate water damage proved the hanyou’s ‘modification’ had caused the roof to spring a major leak, but it was still damn clever.

“You made an escape hatch.” She was actually quite impressed.

“I can also come and go through the chimney,” he admitted then, but shrugging, added, “but I wasn’t about to try that on my human night.”

Having realized she was a trained miko, he’d assumed she’d be aware of such things, and her understanding of how he’d been able to remove her ofuda as soon as he’d revealed himself had been all the confirmation he’d needed.

In response to his comment about not wanting to try playing Santa Claus while human, Kagome merely nodded her understanding.

“So...who are you?” she asked him then. She wanted to add ‘and what are you doing in my house’ but she hadn’t missed the part where he’d called it his house and so something told her she already had her answer. “And this is...your house?” she asked, just for clarification. That could only mean one thing, as far as she knew.

Just because everyone thought Miss Takahashi had never married and had no children…

“My name is Inuyasha,” he began, answering her first question before appearing to get lost in thought for a moment. “And technically, I guess, this is...or was...my mother’s house. Hanyou can’t own property, so when she died I had no legal claim.”

Her heart ached at the obvious pain in his voice. She’d always thought their world’s views regarding hanyou were unfair. Inuyasha was a person, the same as any other, but just because he wasn’t completely human society considered him a youkai, which was barely one step above being a wild animal.

“Oh I don’t know...” she said then, offering him what she hoped he’d recognize as a playful smile. “They say possession is nine tenths of the law, and you’ve obviously been possessing this place for quite some time.”

He snorted.

“Looks like the jig is up,” he replied, both looking and sounding like he was trying to put on a brave face to conceal how scared and broken he truly felt. He wasn’t completely successful. “And you never told me your name,” he pointed out, his attitude clearly portraying he felt she owed him at least that much.

“My name is Kagome,” she replied, “and while this is legally my house, now, I’ve got no intention of kicking you out.” It had been a surprisingly easy decision to make.

Inuyasha’s eyes widened in shock at her words.

“You...you really mean that?”

On the one hand, his mother had taught him it wasn’t safe to trust other humans, and especially not miko or houshi, who might try to purify him, but on the other hand he’d already seen and heard first hand just how kind and understanding this Kagome woman apparently was. Every time she’d talked to herself, or to the house, he’d heard her. Even when he’d been exiled to the nearby trees during the two weeks she’d had all of those workers at the house, he’d heard her talking not just about thinking he was a kitsune, but also about how she knew kitsune were really harmless, and how it didn’t bother her living so close to the forest because she had been raised not to automatically hate or fear all youkai.

“Yes, I do,” she told him then.

Hesitantly exiting the attic with her, after she removed the purifying ofuda on the hatch, of course, Inuyasha followed Kagome into the kitchen and watched in awe as she made him another cup of those unbelievably delicious noodles.

“I didn’t even eat that first bit on purpose to scare you,” he admitted as she handed him the cup and another pair of chopsticks. “It just smelled so good, and I hadn’t had any human food in so long.”

As he ate, Inuyasha told Kagome of how he’d been living by himself in and out of the house for nearly forty years, hunting his meals in the nearby forest and bathing in a stream only a few miles away but always coming back to the house at night. He’d never used to live like that, of course. When his mother had been alive they’d both lived very normal, human lives, but that had all changed the night she’d died, not that her death had come as a surprise. It had been inevitable, after all, and she’d mentally prepared him the best she could. When his mother had finally died in her sleep he hadn’t done anything to disturb her body, and while he’d contemplated attempting to keep up the facade, the money had been nearly all gone by that point, anyway, and so even if he’d been able to keep paying the bills for another few years that would’ve been it.

Besides that, he’d also worried that eventually her disappearance from public view would have been suspicious, because she’d always waved to the neighbors while collecting the mail, and if anyone had suspected that activity had gone on in the house after her death he could have risked being discovered. If someone had eventually found her body, but months or years after the fact...

No, she had told him that when she eventually died he would have to go out into the forest with his youkai brethren, and so he had tried to honor that the best he could, even though he’d known she’d regretted that future for him and so it hadn’t actually been like he was honoring her wishes. Her wish had been that society would accept him, but they’d both known better, and so when she’d died he hadn’t tried to keep the house going, pretending she was still alive. He’d made sure never to have a light on, or smoke in the fireplace, or anything else that could have given himself away, while secretly enjoying his last few days/weeks of running water and cooked human food, though he’d strategically let some of the food in the fridge go bad. He’d known it would only be a matter of time before the neighbors came looking for her, once the mail began piling up, so he’d let nature take its course while keeping his mother’s secret hidden from everyone, namely himself.

The explanation for their situation, he revealed to Kagome then, was that his daiyoukai father had given his mother her ‘inheritance’ in the form of a massive diamond, when he’d found out that his human lover was with-child. She’d been unable to just go live with him in the youkai world because he’d already had a family of his own, but he had done the best he could to at least provide for her before abandoning them. Izayoi, Kagome learned her name was, had sold the diamond for an equally massive amount of money. Enough to buy the house and set herself up on a monthly budget that would get her through the rest of her life. Although it had been very dangerous, she’d delivered him via home birth, by herself, never having let anyone know that she was pregnant. The only people who’d known had been her parents, who’d disowned her.

Inuyasha was well educated, he revealed to Kagome then, his mother having made sure they both kept with the times throughout the years despite the antiquated quality to the house. She’d merely liked the way the house looked, and hadn’t had the mindset or the budget to waste money needlessly – which was why the kitchen had only been updated the once – but Inuyasha told her then that they had in fact had a microwave that somebody had taken at one point over the years, and shortly before his mother’s death she’d even bought him a computer. It too had disappeared, back in the 1980s when it’d still been top of the line equipment.

“I’m no wild animal, though my intimate knowledge of the human world is now a few decades out of date,” he confessed. “There’s only so much I can learn by observing people in secret.”

“Well you seem very intelligent,” Kagome agreed. “I’m sure it won’t be too hard for me to help you get back up to speed.”

Moving to go sit out on the couch in the living room once he was done eating his latest cup of ramen, they ended up talking late into the evening, Kagome revealing to him just how long she’d been admiring his mother’s house. She wondered if he’d ever noticed her there, as a child, staring up at the house from the driveway, but unfortunately the answer was no. He’d never braved staring out any of the front facing windows to watch the activity of passing humans on his street for fear of one of them spotting him, so he’d always done his people watching from within the forest, watching different people in their backyards. To learn just how deeply she loved his mother’s house, though, Inuyasha told her he was glad she had been able to get it. Kagome told him in turn that she was glad he had chased away everyone else prior to her, so that she’d been able to get it. If it wasn’t for that, and her winning the lottery, of course...

Which he definitely agreed had to have been a gift from the gods. Which made him wonder, were they doing her a favor, or him? It looked like he would no longer be alone, at least for the rest of Kagome’s lifetime. Though of course he knew he was jumping the gun a little and didn’t say anything along those lines out loud, but she had told him she wasn’t going to kick him out of his house, so that sure sounded like they were going to be living together for the rest of her life, to him. Which, admittedly, was perfectly all right with him. He’d absolutely hated living alone all those years, and he was tired of it. He was tired of being alone, and of scaring away the only people he ever saw.

Kagome was going to say something else in that moment, but was cut off by a massive yawn that split her face and had Inuyasha hiding a grin.

“Damn, I didn’t realize it was getting so late,” she said instead. “I think it’s time for bed.” Thinking of something else she added, “Sorry I got rid of your old bedding.”

He just shrugged. “Eh, it was old, and already replaced more than once by other buyers, anyway.”

With both of them retiring back upstairs, then, after Kagome made sure everything was locked and turned off down below, it felt more than a little weird for the miko to be retiring for the evening with a stranger in the house, but on the other hand, she didn’t really feel like Inuyasha was a stranger anymore. She knew she still didn’t really know that much about him, yet, but she was an excellent judge of character.

“Which room was yours, anyway?” she asked him once they were standing in the upstairs hallway together.

“The one on the right,” he answered.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken your mother’s room.”

He waved off her concern.

“She was mortal, and she died several years ago. That’s your room now.”

Saying their goodnights, Kagome watched for a moment as Inuyasha went into his bedroom and didn’t even hesitate to crawl into bed, leaving his door wide open. Still having a little trouble wrapping her head around everything that’d happened that day, of going from thinking she was going to find a kitsune child just playing pranks in her house to it turning out to be the adult hanyou son of the original homeowner – who was a very handsome man, she couldn’t help but notice, and whom she’d just invited to live with her...or was she living with him? – Kagome went into her own bedroom and, leaving the door open, crawled into bed, herself.

What the future held for her and her new roommate, she had absolutely no idea, but she definitely did not regret buying this house. Now more than ever, she believed it had been the will of the kami, and she wouldn’t be surprised if it had actually been Inuyasha himself, and his loneliness, that she had somehow sensed all this time and had been what’d drawn her to the house in the first place. She was just going to take things one day at a time, but one thing she did know was that so long as she lived, Inuyasha would no longer be lonely.

~Fin~