(no subject)
Incomplete first chapter of an Inuyasha AU that's been sitting in my writing folder for almost a year now. Any feedback welcome; I'm currently trying to decide between continuing work on this or starting something new.
Chapter One
What We Do For Friendship
Some people had life-changing moments. They could look back on a single instant in time and say “That was it. That was when everything changed.” It was more than just a good story, more than just the line that divided their lives into a before and after. It was something that defined who they were, the catalyst between who they'd been and who they were destined to become.
Kagome Higurashi had always wanted such a moment. She wasn't entirely sure why it meant so much to her, but it did. There was simply nothing she craved more than a sign that she was no longer just sister, daughter, and friend but a person in her own right, a person formed by her own decisions and talents. She'd always believed it was something she would accomplish; she'd just had no idea that it would happen so soon or be as big a moment as it turned out to be.
In the end, it was a simple flier that started it all. It was tacked to the cork board wall of the café that she and her friends liked to visit after classes. Nondescript black text on a white background, Kagome never would have given it a second glance had Eri not been running late. Since she'd dropped her books off in her dorm room before coming, Kagome found herself looking for something to occupy her attention while she waited. Her eyes skimmed over notices for lost books, roommates wanted, and campus bands' gigs to land on the stark white square amid a sea of color and scrawled disorder. She was about to dismiss it as an outdated notice from the college when a single line jumped out at her.
Extras Wanted For Local Film Project
She smirked slightly to herself, wondering what concept the film students were working on this time. Their last endeavor had involved farm animals and 80's hair band costumes; they'd explained several times that the concept was supposed to represent poetic irony or something similar that she hadn't really understood. What she did know was that she'd never forget her professor's face when the goat Dee Snyder made a break for freedom right through his lecture hall.
It was obvious that the filmmakers had been thrilled at the student body's reaction. They'd barely blinked at the disciplinary actions taken against them for bringing the animals on campus without permission. She could only imagine what concepts they might be planning on in order to top their last attempt.
Kagome was so lost in visions of the chaos to be that she jumped when Eri plopped down in the seat next to her. In response to her friend's questioning look, she gestured to the notice. “I was pondering the possibilities.” Eri turned and Kagome watched her expression change from confused to understanding as she read, confirming that her friend's thoughts had followed the same path as her own. The devilish grin that appeared afterwards caught her by surprise, however.
“We should go!”
Kagome stared at Eri blankly, sure that she couldn't have heard her correctly. “Excuse me?”
“We should go to the casting thing.” She scooted her chair closer to Kagome's, lowering her voice as though afraid she might be overheard. “Just think about it. We can sneak a peek at the insanity. We, among the masses, can know what crazy is to come. Can you imagine the anticipation of knowing what they're up to and all of the potential ways that it could go wrong?” She bounced a little in her seat. “It could be epic. What do you think?”
Kagome stared at her in disbelief. “I think your drama club is showing, that's what I think. You can't mean you'd be willing to subject yourself to their creativity,” she spat the word like it was a curse, “just for a few weeks of secret superiority and possible laughs. I will not be on YouTube in my underwear holding a ...a G. I. Joe and chanting in Latin. That is a line that even our years of friendship won't make me cross.”
Eri gave a snort of laughter. “We don't have to actually be in it, Kagome. We'll just stay long enough to get the gist of their plot and then make an excuse to bow out. Scheduling conflicts or, if it's anything like last time, allergies. We'll be in and out in a couple of hours at the most.” She fluttered her eyelashes, giving the puppy dog eyes that she'd spent an entire summer perfecting to get a new bike when she was ten. The effect on Kagome, who had never passed a puppy she hadn't wanted to pet, had simply been a happy accident that Eri didn't hesitate to use when the situation called for it.
“You're not going to let this go, are you?” Kagome asked with a sigh that they both knew signaled the first stage of surrender. When her friend shook her head, Kagome turned her eyes toward the ceiling and groaned. This was obviously karmic retribution for mocking her peers. Once Eri got an idea in her head, talking her out of it was like trying to talk a meteor out of going fast. It was usually best to resign yourself to the inevitable and try to do whatever damage control you could manage before the impact.
“Fine, we'll go. But I'm not staying more than an hour so you'll have to use your charm to find out their plan before then. And I'm not going to lie about doing their movie, either, so you'd better hope they don't ask me straight out.” She fixed the sternest look she could manage on Eri. “And if I so much as see a camera, I'm gone. Deal?”
As she listened to Eri's excited squeals, Kagome felt an odd sense of unease growing in the pit of her stomach. Even after they finished their snacks and separated with plans to meet the following day, she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Kagome spent nearly an hour the next morning wondering what the proper dress code was for a fake applicant/spy on her way to a casting call. On the one hand, she didn't want to seem too eager and get pulled into something she didn't really want to be a part of. But on the other, she was slightly curious about what might be going on and even if she weren't, someone needed to watch out for Eri. Even her firmest assurances and best intentions weren't enough to keep Eri's impulsive side from getting her into trouble now and then. The last thing she wanted was to get separated from her friend and find out that she done something in the heat of the moment that might come back to haunt her.
In the end she decided that simple was best and pulled on her favorite jeans and a new, slightly dressy white top. It was casual enough not to stand out but elegant enough to look lightly professional. It also went well with the sneakers that she wasn't going to leave without, just in case they needed to make a run for it. After the livestock fiasco, there wasn't much she wasn't worried about having to face, no matter how temporarily.
If the possibility of needing to leave in a hurry had occurred to Eri, her choice of clothing didn't show it. Kagome took one look at her three inch heels, leather miniskirt, and spangled top and stopped in her tracks. Any hopes that they could remain inconspicuous died a quick death.
Eri grinned at her expression, doing a wobbly turn with her arms spread wide. “What do you think?”
“You look like a 70's B-movie threw up on you.”
“I know; it's perfect, isn't it? I was thinking last night that we can't just go in there looking like we usually do.”
“We can't?”
“No, we can't.” Eri shook her head, obviously choosing to ignore Kagome's dry, slightly sarcastic tone. “We can't go in there like normal people because normal people wouldn't go in there. It would be sure to make them suspicious about our motives and then we'd never get anything out of them. But if we look like we belong, things will go so much smoother, don't you see?”
Kagome wondered if the fact that she did see the point behind her friend's circular logic meant she should also see a doctor. She shrugged it off, choosing instead to focus on what she knew was coming next. “I'm not dressing like that.”
“Come on, Kagome! You'll stick out too much if you keep that on. You look like a history major.”
“I am a history major.”
“Yes, normally. But you're not going to class, you're going to an audition. You need to look like a wannabe actress, like someone,” she clenched her fists and raised them, “desperate to be a star!”
Kagome looked at Eri's pose of pained ambition and shook her head. “Not gonna happen.”
Eri deflated. “You have no respect for the dramatic, do you?”
Kagome laughed and hooked her arm through Eri's. “I respect the dramatic in others; I just know enough not to try to bring it out in myself. I'm a normal girl living a normal life with normal expectations.” She started toward the bus stop. “Which is why I'm depending on you to have a wild, exciting life so that I can live vicariously through you.”
Eri leaned her head against Kagome's shoulder and sighed. “While I am more than happy for an excuse to be crazy enough for two people, you could do something exciting every once and awhile. You're a college student; you're breaking the unwritten law by being this boring.”
“When you're a college student on scholarship with a mother who worries too much for her own good, boring is the only thing to be. Now I hope you can walk faster in those shoes because if we miss the bus, I'm not waiting around for the next one.”
Strange looks from the other passengers aside, the bus trip passed without incident. All too soon, in Kagome's opinion, they were standing in front of a small office building tucked at the end of a mildly busy street. As they headed towards the front door, Kagome felt the odd sense of apprehension she'd suffered in the café return. She only had time to wonder how a bare-bones college film group had rented a space downtown before Eri pulled the door open and stepped inside. Kagome followed, already knowing on some level what they would find.
The room was small and bland, obviously meant to serve any number of purposes for those occupying the space. At that moment it contained little more than a few folding chairs, a battered metal desk, and a dusty rubber plant shoved into one corner. The entire setup spoke of impermanence, right down to the bored looking woman sitting behind the desk doing a crossword puzzle. She didn't even look up as they entered, merely pointed to the chairs and intoned an obviously memorized “Please have a seat; they'll be with you in just a moment.”
Kagome lingered in the doorway, only moving once Eri crossed the room and dropped into one of the chairs with her usual enthusiasm. Sitting next to her, Kagome leaned close to whisper in her ear. “This is not the film club.”
“I know.” Eri grinned. “Isn't this exciting?
Chapter One
What We Do For Friendship
Some people had life-changing moments. They could look back on a single instant in time and say “That was it. That was when everything changed.” It was more than just a good story, more than just the line that divided their lives into a before and after. It was something that defined who they were, the catalyst between who they'd been and who they were destined to become.
Kagome Higurashi had always wanted such a moment. She wasn't entirely sure why it meant so much to her, but it did. There was simply nothing she craved more than a sign that she was no longer just sister, daughter, and friend but a person in her own right, a person formed by her own decisions and talents. She'd always believed it was something she would accomplish; she'd just had no idea that it would happen so soon or be as big a moment as it turned out to be.
In the end, it was a simple flier that started it all. It was tacked to the cork board wall of the café that she and her friends liked to visit after classes. Nondescript black text on a white background, Kagome never would have given it a second glance had Eri not been running late. Since she'd dropped her books off in her dorm room before coming, Kagome found herself looking for something to occupy her attention while she waited. Her eyes skimmed over notices for lost books, roommates wanted, and campus bands' gigs to land on the stark white square amid a sea of color and scrawled disorder. She was about to dismiss it as an outdated notice from the college when a single line jumped out at her.
Extras Wanted For Local Film Project
She smirked slightly to herself, wondering what concept the film students were working on this time. Their last endeavor had involved farm animals and 80's hair band costumes; they'd explained several times that the concept was supposed to represent poetic irony or something similar that she hadn't really understood. What she did know was that she'd never forget her professor's face when the goat Dee Snyder made a break for freedom right through his lecture hall.
It was obvious that the filmmakers had been thrilled at the student body's reaction. They'd barely blinked at the disciplinary actions taken against them for bringing the animals on campus without permission. She could only imagine what concepts they might be planning on in order to top their last attempt.
Kagome was so lost in visions of the chaos to be that she jumped when Eri plopped down in the seat next to her. In response to her friend's questioning look, she gestured to the notice. “I was pondering the possibilities.” Eri turned and Kagome watched her expression change from confused to understanding as she read, confirming that her friend's thoughts had followed the same path as her own. The devilish grin that appeared afterwards caught her by surprise, however.
“We should go!”
Kagome stared at Eri blankly, sure that she couldn't have heard her correctly. “Excuse me?”
“We should go to the casting thing.” She scooted her chair closer to Kagome's, lowering her voice as though afraid she might be overheard. “Just think about it. We can sneak a peek at the insanity. We, among the masses, can know what crazy is to come. Can you imagine the anticipation of knowing what they're up to and all of the potential ways that it could go wrong?” She bounced a little in her seat. “It could be epic. What do you think?”
Kagome stared at her in disbelief. “I think your drama club is showing, that's what I think. You can't mean you'd be willing to subject yourself to their creativity,” she spat the word like it was a curse, “just for a few weeks of secret superiority and possible laughs. I will not be on YouTube in my underwear holding a ...a G. I. Joe and chanting in Latin. That is a line that even our years of friendship won't make me cross.”
Eri gave a snort of laughter. “We don't have to actually be in it, Kagome. We'll just stay long enough to get the gist of their plot and then make an excuse to bow out. Scheduling conflicts or, if it's anything like last time, allergies. We'll be in and out in a couple of hours at the most.” She fluttered her eyelashes, giving the puppy dog eyes that she'd spent an entire summer perfecting to get a new bike when she was ten. The effect on Kagome, who had never passed a puppy she hadn't wanted to pet, had simply been a happy accident that Eri didn't hesitate to use when the situation called for it.
“You're not going to let this go, are you?” Kagome asked with a sigh that they both knew signaled the first stage of surrender. When her friend shook her head, Kagome turned her eyes toward the ceiling and groaned. This was obviously karmic retribution for mocking her peers. Once Eri got an idea in her head, talking her out of it was like trying to talk a meteor out of going fast. It was usually best to resign yourself to the inevitable and try to do whatever damage control you could manage before the impact.
“Fine, we'll go. But I'm not staying more than an hour so you'll have to use your charm to find out their plan before then. And I'm not going to lie about doing their movie, either, so you'd better hope they don't ask me straight out.” She fixed the sternest look she could manage on Eri. “And if I so much as see a camera, I'm gone. Deal?”
As she listened to Eri's excited squeals, Kagome felt an odd sense of unease growing in the pit of her stomach. Even after they finished their snacks and separated with plans to meet the following day, she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Kagome spent nearly an hour the next morning wondering what the proper dress code was for a fake applicant/spy on her way to a casting call. On the one hand, she didn't want to seem too eager and get pulled into something she didn't really want to be a part of. But on the other, she was slightly curious about what might be going on and even if she weren't, someone needed to watch out for Eri. Even her firmest assurances and best intentions weren't enough to keep Eri's impulsive side from getting her into trouble now and then. The last thing she wanted was to get separated from her friend and find out that she done something in the heat of the moment that might come back to haunt her.
In the end she decided that simple was best and pulled on her favorite jeans and a new, slightly dressy white top. It was casual enough not to stand out but elegant enough to look lightly professional. It also went well with the sneakers that she wasn't going to leave without, just in case they needed to make a run for it. After the livestock fiasco, there wasn't much she wasn't worried about having to face, no matter how temporarily.
If the possibility of needing to leave in a hurry had occurred to Eri, her choice of clothing didn't show it. Kagome took one look at her three inch heels, leather miniskirt, and spangled top and stopped in her tracks. Any hopes that they could remain inconspicuous died a quick death.
Eri grinned at her expression, doing a wobbly turn with her arms spread wide. “What do you think?”
“You look like a 70's B-movie threw up on you.”
“I know; it's perfect, isn't it? I was thinking last night that we can't just go in there looking like we usually do.”
“We can't?”
“No, we can't.” Eri shook her head, obviously choosing to ignore Kagome's dry, slightly sarcastic tone. “We can't go in there like normal people because normal people wouldn't go in there. It would be sure to make them suspicious about our motives and then we'd never get anything out of them. But if we look like we belong, things will go so much smoother, don't you see?”
Kagome wondered if the fact that she did see the point behind her friend's circular logic meant she should also see a doctor. She shrugged it off, choosing instead to focus on what she knew was coming next. “I'm not dressing like that.”
“Come on, Kagome! You'll stick out too much if you keep that on. You look like a history major.”
“I am a history major.”
“Yes, normally. But you're not going to class, you're going to an audition. You need to look like a wannabe actress, like someone,” she clenched her fists and raised them, “desperate to be a star!”
Kagome looked at Eri's pose of pained ambition and shook her head. “Not gonna happen.”
Eri deflated. “You have no respect for the dramatic, do you?”
Kagome laughed and hooked her arm through Eri's. “I respect the dramatic in others; I just know enough not to try to bring it out in myself. I'm a normal girl living a normal life with normal expectations.” She started toward the bus stop. “Which is why I'm depending on you to have a wild, exciting life so that I can live vicariously through you.”
Eri leaned her head against Kagome's shoulder and sighed. “While I am more than happy for an excuse to be crazy enough for two people, you could do something exciting every once and awhile. You're a college student; you're breaking the unwritten law by being this boring.”
“When you're a college student on scholarship with a mother who worries too much for her own good, boring is the only thing to be. Now I hope you can walk faster in those shoes because if we miss the bus, I'm not waiting around for the next one.”
Strange looks from the other passengers aside, the bus trip passed without incident. All too soon, in Kagome's opinion, they were standing in front of a small office building tucked at the end of a mildly busy street. As they headed towards the front door, Kagome felt the odd sense of apprehension she'd suffered in the café return. She only had time to wonder how a bare-bones college film group had rented a space downtown before Eri pulled the door open and stepped inside. Kagome followed, already knowing on some level what they would find.
The room was small and bland, obviously meant to serve any number of purposes for those occupying the space. At that moment it contained little more than a few folding chairs, a battered metal desk, and a dusty rubber plant shoved into one corner. The entire setup spoke of impermanence, right down to the bored looking woman sitting behind the desk doing a crossword puzzle. She didn't even look up as they entered, merely pointed to the chairs and intoned an obviously memorized “Please have a seat; they'll be with you in just a moment.”
Kagome lingered in the doorway, only moving once Eri crossed the room and dropped into one of the chairs with her usual enthusiasm. Sitting next to her, Kagome leaned close to whisper in her ear. “This is not the film club.”
“I know.” Eri grinned. “Isn't this exciting?