The Apartment Above Luke's, Saturday

[spin_kick_snap]

After a big day outside - playgrounds! puppies! snow! - Katherine had come back to the place where she'd woken up and had promptly fallen asleep, all tuckered out by her adventures. Now she was awake again and hungry. The only cereal in the house was a sugar cereal, which she wasn't supposed to have and she wasn't allowed to use the stove without adult supervision.

But there didn't seem to be an adult in the whole house! Just her. That was funny. Who had a house with nobody in it?

She took a shower in the pretty bathroom and got dressed, figuring maybe she could find somewhere to eat. And another funny thing - she found a twenty dollar bill tucked away in the exact place she hid money back home: hidden in a pencil box in the top drawer of the desk. She painstakingly wrote out an IOU and put it there, and then sat down to plan her day.

First, breakfast. Then...puppies again, maybe?

[Open! Dante's thread chronologically last]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine gaped up at him. Not a postman! Definitely not a postman! He had white hair like Mrs. Park, but he wasn't old and his clothes were all the kind of things that her mommy would sniff and call 'hoodlum wear.'

So Katherine did the smart thing. She shut the door.

[rebelseekspizza]

Fuck. Fuuuck.

Dante nearly knocked again, but thought better about it. Fuck, was she in there by herself? He fumbled in his pocket for the key, found it, and unlocked the door. "Kathy, it's okay, I'm-- the babysitter."

Ow.

[spin_kick_snap]

When he let himself in, Katherine was nowhere in sight. There was an oddly-shaped lump on the couch under a blanket, but that could be anything, right?

Though it did shift to reveal one dark eye at the word 'baby-sitter.'

That did make sense. A little bit. More sense than her being left by herself.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Kathy, are you in here?" Dante asked plaintatively. He shut the door behind himself. "You're not supposed to be here by yourself, I was gonna, uh, look after you for the weekend while your parents are out."

Excellent lying, Son of Sparda.

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine sat up, keeping the blanket tucked around her like a little ghost. "Kathy?" she asked, confused.

Her voice was very small. Much like her.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sorry," Dante said, holding his hands up. "Katherine Hana, right? I just thought you looked like more of a Kathy."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine considered that. "...Nobody's ever called me Kathy before," she said.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Katherine's kinda formal, don't you think?" Dante said, tilting his head. "Like, a Katherine is like 80 years old with long grey hair looking sad all the time. Doesn't sound like you."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine thought about it a little more, expression solemn as she wrestled with that question. "I...I think I like it," she said. "Kathy."

Beat.

"Sorry for closing the door in your face, Mr. Babysitter. Are you gonna tell?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"'Course not," Dante said, grinning easily. "Last thing I want is for you to get in trouble."

He held out a hand. "C'mon."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine - Kathy - gave his outstretched hand a long look before sliding her tiny hand into his. "Where?" she asked.

[rebelseekspizza]

"My house," Dante said easily. He smiled at her, all openness and warmth. "I mean, this apartment's nice, but there's no adults running the place right now. And I bet you're hungry."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's stomach rumbled, answering that question. "You promise you're not a kidnapper?" she asked, extending a pinky. "Pinky promise?"

Even kidnappers wouldn't trespass the sanctity of a pinky promise.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante hooked his pinky around hers with confidence. "Pinky promise," he said. "All I wanna do is get you some pizza and a ton of ice cream, and then we'll watch whatever you wanna watch on the TV."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm not s'posed to have ice cream," Kathy said, blinking up at him. "It'll make me wired, and worse, fat."

Guess who she was parroting, Dante. Just guess.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I think you can have ice cream once without getting fat," Dante said, snorting. "More than once. You could probably have ice cream a hundred times and be fine if you just do enough jumping jacks and shit."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Jumping jacks are noisy," Kathy said, sliding off the couch to swap her house slippers for her boots. "I'm not allowed to do them in the house."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Well, you won't be in your parents' house, right?" Dante said easily. "You wanna jump around a little after the ice cream, I won't stop you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Why not?" Kathy asked. "I could break something. Or hurt myself. Or make a lot of noise and disturb someone."

Those were the three most often given reasons why Katherine wasn't allowed to do stuff at home. Given the number of fragile things from Korea, the giant table in their living room, and her father's general grumpiness, all three were equally risky.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You're not going to get hurt just jumping up and down," Dante told her. "I don't care about any of the other stuff."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But the people who live below you might," Kathy pointed out practically, coming to take his hand again now that her jacket was zippered and her mittens were on.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I have a house," Dante said, taking her hand just as easily. He checked his phone real quick to make sure the portal was still open outside. "Nobody downstairs. And my boyfriend won't mind."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh wait, just one thing!"

Katherine tugged her hand free and walked quickly back to the room she'd been staying in. She was back moments later, carrying a child-sized guitar with her. "You don't think anyone will mind if I borrow this, right? I left a note."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante blinked, then let out a laugh. "Of course not," he said. "I got more guitars at my place, we can jam."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't really know how to play," Katherine said, who would be surprised at how quickly she picked it up this weekend, "but it always looked like fun." She gave him a shy, tentative smile. "I like music. Sometimes I sing to myself when there's no one around to hear."