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]

"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."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Why not when people are around to hear?" Dante asked. "I should take you to meet a friend of mine, he sells records and stuff. Bet he'd like to hear you sing."

He opened up the front door.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh no!" Katherine said, shaking her head hard enough that her hair went flying. "Nobody wants to hear me kittywalling."

She might not be able to remember the word 'caterwaul' but she definitely knew the definition.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Who told you that?" Dante asked, stepping out towards the stairs.

[spin_kick_snap]

"My dad," Katherine said simply, letting go of his hand again to grip the banister and take each step carefully, one at a time.

Honestly, Dante, had you expected to hear any different?

[rebelseekspizza]

"Well, your dad is wrong," Dante said, making sure to slow his steps so she could keep up. "I'd fuckin' love to hear your kittywalling."

He kinda loved the word, even if he hated the way it'd been used.

[spin_kick_snap]

New band name?

"But why?" Katherine asked, quietly appreciating his patience. "Nobody wants to hear bad singing."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Because I don't know if it's bad," Dante said. "You might be pretty good. Maybe your dad's just bad at appreciating singing."

[spin_kick_snap]

If he turned to look, he'd notice that Katherine was blushing. She'd gotten into the habit pretty early.

"Well, maybe you could," she said in a quiet voice. "But you gotta promise not to look at me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Okay, I promise," Dante said easily.

[spin_kick_snap]

"And if I'm bad, you can tell me," she added. "Just cause I'm a kid doesn't mean I need to get stuff sugarcoated. I don't need a participation trophy just for showing up."

There was a particular cadence to her voice whenever she repeating one of her parents.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sure," Dante said again, though he privately wondered who the fuck had gotten on her case about that.

[spin_kick_snap]

Oh, that was pure Papa Li at his finest, complaining about how kids these days were too cossetted, too spoiled, too prone to being told they were perfect when all anybody meant was that they were little. He wasn't like that. He prided himself on being a man who said the hard truths, even to his tiny daughters.

"Okay," Katherine said, "where's your - what's that?" She pointed at the portal.

[rebelseekspizza]

"That's the portal back to my house," Dante said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Don't worry, it's gonna bring you back when the weekend's over."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine's dubious face was both epic and getting a workout.

"Remember, you pinky promised," she said, looking up at him as she took his hand.