▪Deadly Thorns and Violent Storms▪

Chapter 40

We thanked her and walked inside, it definitely doesn't look like house Inosuke described. And he never mentioned anything about having siblings, but there seems to be a lot of kids here.

Zenitsu glanced around skeptically, Inosuke's mother went to what I believe is the kitchen, because there were a lot of kids eating in there.

Zenitsu stopped a girl with red hair as she ran past us, "Uh. Sorry, but do you know where Inosuke is?"

She thought about it for a second. "Oh! Pig boy! Yeah, he went upstairs!"

Pig boy? What kind of siblings don't know eachothers names?

As she ran away I said to Zenitsu, "He has a... nice family."

He looked at me with slight disbelief in his eyes, "Uh, Tanj, do you realize what this is?"

"What?" I asked.

"It's a foster home." Zenitsu whispered quickly, "Inosuke's parents must be dead or something!"

"But... he talks about them all the time." I said, "His parents must be the ones running the foster home!"

Zenitsu sighed, "I'm pretty sure that's not it..."

"But he wouldn't lie about something like that." I paused, thinking. "Or maybe he would."

"Maybe we should leave, Tanj, and just talk to him at school." Zenitsu suggested timidly.

"But he just ignores us at school. This is the only chance we'll get!" I said while walking over to the staircase.

"He won't want to be bugged here, he didn't tell us about this for a rea-"

"I'm already going upstairs!"

"Wait for me!" Zenitsu yelped and followed me quickly.

We got up the stairs and I turned to Zenitsu, "How are we supposed tell which is his?"

He looked around nervously, "Probably that one..."

He pointed at a door at the end of the hallway, it was covered in scratches and a had piece of paper, that had three names scrawled carelessly, taped onto it.

"One of the names is Inosuke," Zenitsu said anxiously and held his hand over where Inosuke had hurt him. "He should be in there, I guess."

I nodded and tried to give him a reassuring smile, "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll be friends again after this."

"You're right. Let's go in." Zenitsu reluctantly grabbed the doorknob and twisted it.

"Come on."

He pushed the door open and stepped in. Then he yelped and jumped back, knocking into me.

"Inosuke! What're you doing on the floor?!"

"What?" I looked into the room, Inosuke was leaping off the floor and he stared at us in shock.

"What're you two doing here?" Insouke shouted. "Get out!"

"No, Inosuke, we need to talk!" I replied determinedly.

"Talk about what?!" Inosuke said as he huffed and crossed his arms, then he stared at Zenitsu's chest.

Zenitsu turned pink, "Not about that!"

"We want to be your friend again!" I intervened before things got out of hand.

Inosuke grunted, "Don't we always do something like this? With how many times you've said that we clearly aren't meant to be friends, who needs to say that on a weekly basis?"

"Well, things were fine until you beat up my b- er, Zenitsu!"

"Hey, I thought we weren't going to talk about this!" Zenitsu yelped  franticly, but was cut off by Inosuke.

"Things were fine until you started dating Monichi!"

We both stood there in shock and embarrassment, I hadn't even noticed that my hand found it's way into Zenitsu's hand.

"Just get over it, Inosuke." Zenitsu said.

Inosuke seemed to choose his next words very carefully, "How do I get over it when I have to see it everyday?!"