WORD COUNT: 5,702
NOTE: So, um...yeah. This is an odd little chapter. It was funny to write. I've been in quite a slump since before vacation (February, not April...god, I'm terrible xD!), and so it's really hard to write this right now. I'm also trying to blackmail Kreative into finishing up Dez's birthday so I can get the notebooks and (maybe take more than 7-10 days to put out a chapter) finish the next 5-10 chapters that will be the rest of this story. (Yeah...we foresee the ending.)
SO SORRY IT TOOK THIS LONG! Forgive me? I've been doing lots of get-into-college stuff, so RL has been busy and tiring. Once I'm settled down in RI it'll be easier. (And just because Kreative and I will be separated doesn't mean we won't finish this. The sequel will be easy to do over long distance, so please don't worry.)
Oh! And to reply to a reviewer that didn't have a login, thanks for reviewing, Melody Kross and yeah, we like the rhyming chapter titles too. They look simple huh? They really aren't. -_-'
DISCLAIMER: We (Kreative and I) do not own Kaoru and Hikaru...yet. I'm planning a big heist though, if anyone wants to kidnap them with us?
Beta'd by Gatamigo
Chapter Nine: Hospital Scenes and Vending Machines
The day after they had gotten back, Katie sat in B&N. She was terribly bored already and had hitched a ride with her mom early that morning to meet Dez at the store. She had already been waiting for a good five hours, but there still wasn't any sign of her friend. Katie sighed. She hoped that the small girl would show up, because there was only so many books she could read until her feet got antsy.
The next day was more like the one before. Sitting in the comfy armchairs and waiting for a Dez that hadn't shown the day before, she mused to herself, 'Waiting for Dez: take two.' She pulled out her sketch book and started working on her doodle page which was currently becoming covered with all sorts of little creatures seen on popular children's anime. Her mind occasionally wandered off and she slapped herself back to reality after realizing she was daydreaming about Hikaru, again.
By the third day of no-show Dez, Katie's inner 'Waiting for Dez: take three' sounded more panicky than she would have liked. It wasn't like Dez to not be at work. She desperately needed this money to live on, and her little four-day vacation had probably set her back some, regardless of the cash that the boys had her slip into the older girl's wallet when she wasn't around. She could barely focus on her sketchbook or any reading material she had previously found interesting. Any thoughts of the boys were associated with Dez. Her concern followed her like a drenched and homeless puppy.
As Katie muttered, 'Take four,' her worry nearly tripped her up as she feigned a carefree teen life around her family. She got to B&N as soon as she could, pacing in front of the doors until the store opened. She dashed to the back once let in and hunted through all of the shelves for her methodically. Eventually she started asking the girl's co-workers, but none of them had seen her since the day she had returned from her mini-vacation. One mentioned the manager might know, but he wasn't going to be in until the next day. Katie sighed and called her mom to pick her up. She wouldn't be getting answers until tomorrow it seemed.
Katie ran from her usual seat in the back of the store at nine-thirty, the time when the manager would be coming in. She turned a corner a little sharper than she would have liked since her shoe slipped on the floor. She squeaked and ran into someone. "I'm so so—"
Hikaru Hitachiin smiled down at her, "Hey, long time no see." He looked just as he did the last time she saw him, although probably a little less bruised.
Kaoru wasn't far behind and waved slightly, "Hi Katie-chan." He looked around, a small frown twisting his lips. "Where's Dez-kun?" His gold eyes met hers and he could instantly feel that something was wrong. Katie looked to be on the verge of tears.
"I don't know!" Katie clutched Hikaru's shirt. "She hasn't shown up for the past four days." Katie pulled back from Hikaru and looked at both of the boys in turn, hoping that they'd be calm enough at the moment to help her figure out what to do.
Kaoru's gold eyes filled with worry, "Why don't we go find her manager and ask?"
"That's what I was going to do!" Katie snapped as she turned toward the front of the store and jogged off, hoping to find Dez's employer. She was relieved when she did find him and asked him as many questions as she could think of as to where Dez was. "The hospital?!"
"For what?" Kaoru nearly stumbled over his English as he begged an answer from the small girl's boss.
"She fell and couldn't get up on her own. I don't know the professional diagnosis." The manager cleared his throat uneasily. "She fell off of the ladder in the back room onto the cement floor and I called an ambulance. She kept saying that she was fine, and refused to go to the local hospital. I couldn't really understand her protests. She could barely walk on her own."
Kaoru felt like someone had punched him in the face. Dez had been in serious pain, she had refused to go to the hospital too. If something was that wrong and she didn't want to go to that specific hospital, it must have meant something. 'And they forced her to go too. I wonder why she didn't want to go there?'
"Can you give us something a little more detailed as to where she went?" Katie inquired as she subconsciously put a hand on Kaoru's arm, as if she could sense his outrage or something.
"Sorry," he did sound sincere, "I told you everything I know."
"Thanks," Hikaru didn't sound grateful as he grabbed Katie's hand. "Let's go." He nearly scoffed at the puzzlement in Katie's brownie eyes. "We're going to find her ourselves!" He dragged her out the door to where their bikes waited, knowing full well that Kaoru wasn't far behind. 'Dez is important to Katie, and I hate seeing her sad. Even though that little spitfire hasn't done nearly anything nice for me, I'll still look for her. I'm not a bastard like she says!'
Katie hugged Hikaru tightly as she fought back worried tears, giving him directions to the Augusta General Medical Hospital. It was the best place to start after all. There was a chance that she had actually gone there, or if she had been there before for the same problem.
--
Katie stumbled off of the bike and ran ahead of the twins, nearly loosing them on the first floor as she navigated herself to the front desk. She asked the secretary on duty to look and see if Dez had been admitted in the last five days since she had forgot to ask when the girl had fallen. After a few minutes-that-felt-like-centuries, there was a negative answer.
Katie did her best to control the pitch and volume of her voice, "N-not here?" It still sounded shrill to her. Where was Dez? What happened to her? Katie was on the verge of crying or screaming or something energy consuming and hopefully non-violent. Warm hands rested on her shoulders, and she felt an equally warm body against her back. Hikaru.
"Where is she?" Kaoru asked, surprising himself with how calm he sounded. He glanced over at Katie, who was now half-leaning on his twin and felt a small happiness in his chest. 'They can comfort each other in a time like this.' Happy that his brother subconsciously thought of Katie as something more than a toy, he turned his attention to the woman behind the counter who clicked away on her keyboard.
"She was..." she scrolled down the screen. "Here for about half an hour. She protested to being treated here and transferred to Lisbon Family Practice, where her doctors are. That is all I can tell you."
"Where's that?" Hikaru asked. He had never heard of that place before, but the fact didn't surprise him. He knew Japan, not Maine.
"Lisbon." The secretary deadpanned. Who were these people?
"...Where?"
Katie put a hand on one of his, "Thank you." She nodded to the secretary and turned, expecting the boys to follow her. She gave a weak smile to herself secretly as she left the building and headed back to the bikes. "Let's go get a map and find Dez." She wondered where the closest convenience store was as they leaned against the bikes to talk.
"Why did she get transferred?" Kaoru speculated mostly to himself but waited for an answer from one of the others in case they had any insight on the matter.
Katie looked thoughtful as she hopped onto Hikaru's motorcycle behind him and directed them toward a Rite Aid. "I think she said once that all Augusta doctors were idiots." She tapped her bottom lip with her index finger, doing her best not to laugh.
Hikaru rolled his eyes, knowing that Kaoru would probably have done the same thing if he could hear what Katie said. "That would explain things...so how do we get there?" He glanced back at her, but the helmet got in the way. He wasn't even completely sure that she had heard him. After a minute, he decided he would repeat himself after they had parked at the convenience store/pharmacy.
Kaoru's eyes darkened when he heard Hikaru's question. He leaned against the seat of his bike and almost hesitantly opened his mouth. "Would her parents know?"
"I don't know." Katie shrugged. "I can't even remember where she used to live...so we couldn't go ask." She reached for Hikaru's hand out of instinct and looked up at him with a faint smile when he squeezed her hand in reassurance. They ambled inside to get the map and soon Katie gave the directions.
--
At the Practice, they were once again at a dead end. A middle aged doctor walked by—and upon hearing Dez's name—paused and told them to look at the Central Maine Medical Center, saying: 'That's where she would have been sent for a surgery or something similar.' The words were helpful, but worrisome.
At CMMC they finally got what they wanted to hear. The receptionist looked up from her computer, "Are you a relative?"
"W-well, no." Katie scuffed the floor with her foot. "But I-I'm the closest she's got right now! Please, let me go in and see Dez? I gotta see if she's okay!"
The woman raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you in—I just don't have that kind of clearance." Bright and obviously fake nails clicked irritably on the desk she sat at. "Besides, it's against our policy if you aren't a direct rela—"
"What are you doing here?" Dez interrupted, looking up at an emotional wreck of a Katie and a pair of redheaded twins contemplating murder. Her voice was softer than usual, as if her body had little energy left.
Katie and the twins spun around to see Dez leaning on a pair of wooden crutches, a cheerfully red bandanna holding back her curls and severely contrasting to her once-tan skin. A nurse rested her hands on the small girl's shoulders, when she wavered slightly. Katie rushed over and hugged Dez to her. "Jeez, Dez! Tell me next time!" Tears began to spill down her cheeks as she shook with relief. "I w-was so worried!"
Dez smiled and hugged her back without dropping the crutches, but eventually she tried to pull the girl off, "K-Katie! ...need air!"
Katie let go suddenly, her eyes wide. She pouted slightly when she saw that Dez was—mostly—joking. She reached to put her arm around Dez's shoulders to balance her as she looked around to find out where they should go. They were easily attracting attention, and soon they might be in the way. Dez nodded in the direction of a hallway and they started off once Katie had back away enough that Dez could start gimping along.
"Sorry I didn't tell you guys."
Hikaru sped up when they got to her room and opened the door for everyone. Dez glared at her hospital bed as it came within reach. She treated it as if were a challenge she had to face. Kaoru leaned down and scooped her up effortlessly and sat down on the bed, cradling her in his lap. He laid the crutches against the wall and chuckled at the bright blush that surged across the small girl's face. She looked so surprised that Hikaru started to laugh. She reached out to hit him but suddenly stopped. Her hands flew to near her left hip and she bent over.
"Are you okay?!" Katie jumped to her, panicking.
Dez glared, her eyes a 'healthy' storm gray. Her lips curled back in a growl. "I hurt..." Obviously, she blamed Hikaru for her pain.
Kaoru gently pulled her close and rested his chin on the top of her head, "Are you going to tell us what happened?" He prayed that the question would distract her and keep her from maiming his brother so soon.
Dez sighed, as if she really didn't want to be telling them what had happened, but she told them anyway. "I fell. And bounced. And landed." She paused, hoping that she didn't need to have to go into gory details. "It was about two days ago, my last day at B&N." She waited for her joblessness to sink in. "My pants got caught on a stray nail and I fell, bounced off the rungs and landed on the cement. I strained the triceps in my right arm, got a hairline fracture in my left hip and re-sprained my knee."
"You mean the knee you sprained...in the high school cafeteria...while running to see your boyfriend of one day?" Katie smirked as the brunette colored vibrantly. She could remember the day perfectly as she had bore witness to the entire thing. The very surprised look on Dez's face as her knee gave way was hysterical as soon as all the worry and pain was out of the equation.
"Graceful." Hikaru jibed sarcastically. He didn't bother holding in his laughter.
"Ouch..." Kaoru commented sympathetically. He didn't know how much her injuries hurt, but he knew from slipping money into Dez's wallet that this kind of development wasn't a good one.
Dez sighed and rubbed her temples, nodding slowly, "yeah." She would have to go through what she had left and figure if she'd be able to keep her little apartment or not after paying hospital bills.
"So what are you going to do now?" Kaoru spoke soft, unsure if he wanted Dez to know that he was concerned for her—of how concerned he actually was. Relieved that Hikaru didn't give him a look, he rubbed the small girl's arm as she contemplated her answer.
In the end, Dez shrugged, "I get discharged in a few days only because there wasn't anyone to contact about my condition." She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "Now that you guys are here, I'm hoping to convince them to let me go. Probably tomorrow." She held her hands up slightly in a gesture that spoke of her uncertainty.
"Cool!" Katie bounced, a cheerful grin bisecting her face. Her brownie eyes glittered excitedly as she asked, "Can we go to the cottage again?"
"I don't see why not." Dez smiled. "We seem to find plenty of stuff to do down there." She paused, trying to think of other things that they could do. "I've been reading magazines—since there isn't anything else to do—about touristy spots. Maybe we can go to Funtown sometime soon."
"Dezy..." Katie raised her eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest disapprovingly, "can you even do Funtown with your impediments?"
The happy look on the small girl's face fell, "oh, yeah." She pouted, "damn."
"We can go when you're better." Kaoru shrugged as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.
"But that won't be for a while!" She didn't voice that she was worried that because of her injury they just might leave now and she'd never see them again. She had already assumed that was the case when they had returned to Augusta, and now here was a second chance. It was a second chance that was just about to be taken away.
Hikaru scoffed irately, "Then we'll have to stick around until you're all healed." He couldn't believe why they hadn't thought of that. Weren't they the smart ones? Two pairs of eyes—one brownie, the other sapphire—locked on him in half-surprised disbelief.
"You mean..." Katie's voice failed her and she could only gawk. She turned to one twin, then the other and back again, and again, and again. Sooner or later she'd be giving herself whiplash.
Kaoru smiled at Dez, "You can't get rid of us that easily."
The small brunette's eyes widened impossibly and she threw her arms around Kaoru's neck enthusiastically. "Thank you!" Her arm protested at the sudden movement, but she ignored it. She reminded herself of the painkillers she had just taken. If she could bare it for a good twenty more minutes, she'd soon be in a drugged nirvana.
The redheaded teen blushed faintly, "No problem." He wrapped his arms around her nervously, long arms and large hands curled around the delicate frame. She fit into his arms perfectly, and he couldn't make himself let go.
The older twin smirked smugly at his brother, who glared at him in return, before taking Katie's hand, "I'm hungry. Let's go find a vending machine." He pulled her after him and could barely keep himself from laughing at the sputtering girl behind him and the invisible daggers he could feel Kaoru throwing at him with molten gold eyes.
"Huh? B-but, Hikaru-kun!" Katie pulled back against his hand protestingly, yet half-heartedly. She didn't want to be dragged, but leaving the two alone might be a good thing. She was just getting some sort of odd feeling, watching the two who so obviously only had eyes for each other.
Hikaru hauled her out the door, ignoring her dissent, and shut it behind them. He walked down the hall a ways before Katie finally wrenched her hand away from him. "Hi-Hikaru-kun! What a-are you doing?"
Hikaru raised an eyebrow at Katie and stepped closer to her conspiratorially. "Giving them some alone time," he stressed that one word, a devilish smile crawling over his lips. 'Not really...' He chuckled to himself, 'why would they need that if she's only a toy?'
"A-alone time?" Katie stuttered, as if she was unsure what Hikaru meant. Her mind raced at all the possibilities of what could be happening behind closed doors. Her cheeks lit up briefly, and she was glad that he had turned away.
Hikaru rolled his eyes, unsurprised at how thick Katie was, "You don't live with Kaoru, so you obviously don't know how much he sulked about being away from that little spitfire."
"He sulked?" Katie marveled, hoping that maybe Kaoru wasn't as dense to his feelings as the girls had thought. She couldn't help but think back to their short conversations whenever they left the boys to the own devices during their time in Cushing.
Hikaru offered his hand gentlemanly, waiting for her to accept it. He subconsciously pleaded for her to take it, "Come with me and I'll tell you more."
Katie took his hand without sparing a second and followed him to the waiting room/lobby where there was a vending machine humming its artificial contentment. "So, what is there to tell?"
Golden eyes sparkled mischievously as he grinned at her. He inhaled slowly—as if he were just about to divulge the biggest secret ever—and leaned close. "I think Kaoru might like Dez." He felt some remorse for lying to her, but if he wanted to play both girls into their favor, he'd better stick to the one that hung onto nearly everything he said. Really, he didn't want to have to get another set of toys, not when these two were so entertaining.
"Oh really?" Katie feigned interest. She felt horrible for playing him like that, but she couldn't help it. She knew deep down that Hikaru probably didn't approve of Dez being with his younger brother. 'Duh Hikaru-kun, I already knew that. It's almost plain as day by now.'
"Yeah, so that is why we left." He grinned and leaned back against the wall, accidentally pulling the blushing girl with him, "You know she can be as shy as you when Kaoru's around." He poked her nose in an almost fond way.
Katie scrunched her button nose a few times as if it itched and her mouth curled on one side as she replied sarcastically, "Thanks..."
"You know what I mean." He waved at her, dismissing her half-heart thanks. "I just wanted..." It hit him what his gesture might mean to someone not in his head and he blushed. Since when did he do nice things for people who weren't his brother? He kept himself from shaking his head, "er, you know."
"You were being nice." Katie emphasized the last word as she smiled brightly and dug into her pocket for a couple dollars. She figure that Hikaru's bills would be too much for the poor machine next to them. She knew that he'd end up finding some way to give the money back to her one day. The twins were oddly considerate like that.
"Um...right." His ears reddened.
"So," she pulled back, dragged him from the wall and nodded to the machine, "what do you want?"
Hikaru looked over everything in the machine. All of them were brightly colored (for the most part) and all of them foreign. "What are those?"
Katie spent the next ten minutes explaining various snacks in the machine for Hikaru. She laughed and smiled, shocked with how funny the boy in front of her could be about simple things like chocolate and snack packaging. She watched him shift from one foot to the other as he made a 'hard' decision with a sweet smile on her lips.
Hikaru popped up from where he had been squatted to look at her eagerly. "Can we buy a few things?" He had seen so many that he wanted to try, and he wanted Kaoru to have a chance to try some too so he had narrowed them all down to ones that he could easily share.
"Sure. Which ones do you want to try?" She stood next to him and punched in numbers and put in all sorts of change and a few bills. As one of the snacks fell to the miniature conveyor belt she glanced up at him, "Do you want something to drink too?"
Hikaru leaned down to grab the last thing out of the vending machine and pursed his lips, "You pick."
Katie blushed pleasantly, pleased that he was thinking of others. 'It's almost as if I think of him as a little kid.' She chuckled to herself at the silly little idea and considered the bottles in front of her.
--
Dez pulled back when the door shut behind Hikaru. She blushed at the curious look Kaoru gave her. He almost chuckled at the slight hunching in the brunette's shoulders—a tell-tale sign that she was briefly embarrassed. He smiled after the shock at his correct observation left him and was happy to see a smile to greet him back.
"I wonder if going to the vending machine is all they are doing." She commented, more to herself than Kaoru. She chewed on her bottom lip absently and stared at the door the couple had left through.
A red-gold brow furrowed meditatively. "What else could they be doing?"
The brunette's sapphire eyes were edged with a stormy gray as they narrowed, "Plotting..." She met the shocked golden eyes and nearly laughed at the bewildered look there.
"Katie-chan doesn't look like a plotter to me." Kaoru reasoned. 'She just looks to innocent to be capable of that. Hikaru on the other hand...' Several instances came to mind, including the time his brother and he faked a fight to be able to go to their friend's house.
Dez smirked, a mischievous glint in her eye. "She writes enough stories, and with that brother of yours...I wouldn't put it passed them." She voiced Kaoru's thoughts without knowing.
Kaoru chuckled and rubbed her arm soothingly. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and sighed, "alright, I give. You have a point."
Dez wondered what to talk about now. Whenever they had been at a loss for topics Hikaru or Katie would miraculously pop up and then the problem was solved. This time they were on their own. She was content with the silence. It was far from awkward. Her mind wandered briefly before halting on something she had been wondering since they had shown up. She blushed at how blunt she was going to have to be (not that it had ever stopped her before) and looked down. "I know this is rude, but..."
"But what?" Kaoru pulled back only enough to catch her gaze. Something made him reluctantly to move away any more. "You can tell me."
Dez bit her lip, nearly beating herself up on the inside about what she was going to ask him. "Do you..." She closed her eyes a inhaled slowly, "do you care about me only because I'm hurt, or because you actually care about me?" She should have known better than to ask. What if he said he didn't care...or what if he didn't know how he felt and squashed any sort of feeling at that very moment and ruined any chances she might have had?
Kaoru remained silent for a while. Every second that passed made the girl next to him more antsy and he could tell by the way she fidgeted. He saw her chew on her bottom lip, as if she didn't care if it bled. "W-well...It's hard to say."
"Why?"
Kaoru decided that an indirect answer would be best. He was unsure of what he needed to say, what he really felt and he didn't want to say something that he might end up regretting—or to have something blow up in his face. "When Hikaru and I got back, Mom wasn't home. It wasn't that I expected her to be there...but I did want to tell her about all the stuff we did. I had fun."
Dez stopped biting her lip and looked up at him. Their faces were so close that she turned her gaze back to her lap, but she could still feel the warmth of his body by hers and his breath on her cheek. "Th-that's good."
Kaoru nodded slowly, watching her, "Yeah. Well, anyway. The next day we slept in really late."
"Katie and I wore you two out?" She chuckled.
"Heh, not really. I think we just got used to someone else sleeping nearby. The anticipation would wake us up is you didn't first." He reminisced to those brief four days that seemed long ago already.
Dez ducked her head sheepishly, "sorry."
It was his turn to chuckle, "Don't be. I enjoyed it. I don't think I've seen Hikaru take so much damage in his whole life compared to what you did to him over those four days." He rubbed the back of his neck as he tried not to laugh outright at the antics he could picture so easily.
Her laugh bubbled out of her throat, a sound full of gaiety, "I'm not sorry for that." She would never be, and she knew it. Sure, she had eased up a little bit but as long as Hikaru continued to do stupid or insensitive or perverted things (or a combination of the three), she would be there to smack him.
"I didn't think you would be."
"Becoming predictable, am I?" She arched her eyebrow gracefully and smirked. "I might have to work on that." It would be a challenge, but it would be a fun one at that.
"Oh great." Kaoru rolled his eyes at her before grinning.
"So," she put a hand to her mouth to hold back a laugh, "are you going to finally answer my question?"
"I was getting to it." Kaoru prayed that Dez hadn't heard the pout in his voice. He inched a little closer and waited for her cue.
"Oh." Her face went blank and she gestured for him to go on, "then, please continue." She held back a yawn and silently damned the pain-killers that we just now starting to work in full effect. If she wasn't careful, she might just fall asleep after he told her how he felt.
"I don't know how or why but those four days got me really used to being with besides my brother," he hesitated, getting frustrated for the lack of words to get his point across. "So when Katie and you weren't around...it just...it didn't feel..."
"...what are you trying to say?" She tried her best to keep the smirk out of her voice while those handsome gold eyes were focused elsewhere. They snapped up, locking onto her and she couldn't keep from smiling softly at him. 'I think I know where this is going. It's so cute that he doesn't quite understand.' She fought off a yawn.
"It felt weird, okay?" He sighed, exasperated. He looked down at his hands and mumbled, "I didn't like being away from you...and Katie." He added the small girl's friend as a second thought in a vain attempt to help lessen his blush.
Dez leaned against him, nestling her head on his shoulder. She bit back a yawn semi-successfully, "Kaoru-san?"
"Mm?" Kaoru wrapped an arm around the shoulders of the nearly asleep girl.
"I missed you too." Heavy lids drooped and she rested her forehead against the warm column of his neck. In mere seconds, her breathing had evened out to soft puffs of air brushed over the boy's throat.
Kaoru wrapped his arms around her tightly, pulling her closer to his body, and slowly shook his head. He eased back onto the pillows, "You always get me to say the oddest things."
--
Outside the door, Katie hesitated with her arms full of drinks. Whether she had stopped because she couldn't free a hand to turn the knob or because she thought she would be disturbing the two teens on the other side of the door, no one could tell. Hikaru fixed her with a raised brow and a soft smile.
Katie spoke as soon as her tongue loosened from the butterflies that were currently having a dance party in her stomach, "M-maybe we shouldn't disturb them." She glanced up at the redhead, her eyes hopeful for...something.
Hikaru snorted derisively. "Disturb them doing what?" As if Kaoru would be kissing his toy—unless that's what he wanted to get out of her. Gold eyes slowly traced the girl beside him and he mused to himself whether he might want to do the same thing eventually. He didn't get very far for he noticed a bright blush staining the girl's cheeks. He had been caught staring.
"Th-they could be...well, I don't know!" Katie tried to beat her blush away, but meeting those calculating eyes above her made it worse.
"Then why are you worried?" His hand went for the knob after shifting the snacks around. "Seriously, Katie-kun."
"W-wait! We should knock." Katie scooted in front of him, knocking his hand out of the way. She felt a little foolish with cold drinks clasped tightly to her chest, but her pose was adamant. She didn't want to just walk in on them! What if they were...they were...
Hikaru heaved a stage sigh and held his hand up in surrender. "Fine, we'll knock." He knocked when she stepped to the side but there was no answer. He tapped his foot impatiently and soon just opened the door. Lying in the bed, a small body curled up around a longer one—Dez and Kaoru were both asleep. Hikaru face-palmed himself swiftly."There was nothing to worry about."
"O-oh. I knew th-that."
Hikaru dropped the snacks on the spare bed and rolled his eyes, "So, do you want to wait for them to wake up first?" He sat on the empty bed, careful to not land on the candy they had bought.
"Nah, I think it's okay." She smiled and put the drinks down next him before going over to the sleeping couple. She took off their shoes, moved their legs fully onto the bed and unfolded a blanket to put over them. She paused and brushed a lock of hair back from Dez's cheek before kicking her shoes off and plopping down on the spare bed across from Hikaru.
Hikaru watched her in fascination. "You'd make a good mom." His voice was soft as he confirmed it to himself. He blinked, his pensive moment shattered when he realized what he just said. "N-not that I'd know, since my mom is never home."
Katie smiled at his stumbling words, thinking it cute. "Thank you, Hikaru-kun."
"Right." Hikaru glanced away, his cheeks pink.
Katie leaned back, holding her knees to keep balance and stared at the ceiling for a moment. She adjusted her crossed her legs under her. She rolled back and braced her elbows on her knees. "Let's try the snacks while they take their nap." Her chin rested on a palm as she looked up at him expectantly, waiting for him to pick which one to try first. "After they wake up we can see how soon we can take Dez home."
Hikaru picked up a chocolate bar, turning over the brightly colored packaging,
"And then we can do something that isn't so boring." He grinned at her as he opened it and broke off a piece for her.
"Right!" Katie giggled, popping the bite into her mouth.
A/N: Alright! It's over! (Well, not really) I can work on the next chapter! I think this is like that other chapter that took me forever. I'm not sure if I have a clear shot until the end, but I hope the chapters will be more forthcoming with me. Pray for me?