Isa looked through the cabinets for a juice box. Little girls liked those, right? Or would she want a carrot or something instead? No, they liked sweet things, didn't they? So should he try to find a cupcake or something? Where did they put those here? Isa tried to find a note or something- there had to be something explaining what to do for their meals, right? The grandmother hadn't left one, though, and Isa had no idea what to get the young girl. He didn't need her throwing it back at him, after all, so it had to be something she didn't hate at least...

Bemused, Isa decided to give up on the issue for now. While he looked for a snack, he spotted his favorite fruit: a banana. Smiling, he figured that he at least should grab something to eat first; maybe it would even help him think.

As he peeled the banana, he silently admitted to himself that Lea might have been right; this job wasn't as easy as Isa had planned. Lea's reluctance to take the job had been due to laziness, but now Lea was handling it better than Isa. How was he going to live this down? Grimacing at the mere thought, he bit into his snack, hoping Lea was too preoccupied to think about ways to hold this over Isa.

Lea leaned against the wall and watched as Kairi dug around under her bed. The energetic child pulled out a story book and proudly showed it to Lea. "Grandma wrote this, and I drew all the pictures inside!" she bragged happily, opening it up and fanning through the pages to show Lea, who was barely paying attention.

"Oh, nice ones, yeah," Lea said, nodding. The pictures were what he'd expect from someone Kairi's age, from what he could see of them. There were bright colors, scribbling outside the lines, a smiling face on the sun, etc.

"Right?" Kairi agreed, paying too much attention to the book itself to notice Lea's lack of interest. "Grandma says my pictures are all so pretty, I could be a artist someday!" Kairi smiled bashfully and put her book back on the floor. "I don't know if I want to be one, though. I don't know what I want to be. Maybe a..." Kairi paused for a moment and glanced back under her bed before turning her full attention to Lea. "Lea, Lea!"

"Hm?" Lea tilted his head, watching as Kairi hopped excitedly once again. Did this girl ever run out of energy?

"What are you going to be when you grow up?" Kairi asked, trying to imagine him as everything she could think of. "A firefighter, a baker, a prince, a ninja, a police officer, a scientist?" Kairi giggled when she imagined Lea in a lab coat. "No, not a scientist..."

"What?" Lea said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow inquisitively, both offended by the implication and curious as to what she meant by that. "Why are you so sure I can't be a scientist? Doesn't seem very hard to me. That windbag Even can do it, so it can't be too hard."

Kairi shook her head, still giggling at him. "No, you'd be a weird scientist," she said bluntly.

"Oh, really?" Lea huffed. "And I'm sure you just want to be a princess, right? That's what all little girls want to be? Well, you'd be a weird one, for sure."

Kairi stopped giggling and glared up at him. "Nu-uh!" she protested, "I'm already a Princess! Grandma says so!"

Lea laughed. "Trust me, if I'm a weird scientist, you're an even weirder princess!"

Kairi crossed her arms and shook her head. "Am not! I'm a very good princess! But you know what I'll be when I grow up?" Kairi knelt down and reached under her bed until she felt her fingers brush against something wooden: the toy sword she'd finally convinced Cloud to let her have.

Lea laughed even harder as he watched Kairi pull out her beat up wooden sword and try to look menacing. "I'm going to be a knight when I grow up!" she proclaimed proudly.

"Stop laughing! I'm really, really strong!" Kairi swung the sword erratically with as much force as she could muster. "Really!" Kairi added for extra emphasis.

"Really?" Lea asked as he finally stopped laughing. "I'm sure you are, Princess. But you want to see some real weapons?" He smirked and pulled out two frisbees from seemingly nowhere, each with a flame design and smiling face with razor sharp teeth in the center of the flame. "Tada! Pretty cool, right?"

"Whoa!" Kairi stared at them in rapt wonder, practically hypnotized by their faces. "They're so cute!"

Lea grinned haughtily, spinning them in his hands."Haha, yeah, they're pretty- cute? No, these are not cute, they're awesome and cool!"

Kairi finally snapped out of her daze and smiled up at Lea. "I-I have something awesome and cute, too!" she cheered. She set down her sword and got on her knees to once again paw under her bed. This last toy had managed to go farther underneath it than she had intended, so it took longer to get than the sword and the book had.

Finally, Kairi pulled out doll from under the bed. It had long, blonde hair made of yarn that went over her left shoulder, a white dress, off-white angel wings, closed eyes, and a gentle smile . She smiled and hugged it close to her. "My grandma made this for me," Kairi said, a little more softly than she usually spoke. She held the doll up to give Lea a better look at her. "It's really pretty and really soft. You can hold her, too. Her name is Nana."

Lea tilted his head as he stared at the doll, wondering if she was really going to make him play with it. Lea really hoped she didn't pull out a tea set, too, any time soon.

"Lea!" Kairi chided, holding Nana higher and pouting in frustration. "Don't you wanna hold her?"

Lea considered saying "no", but it was pretty clear that Kairi didn't want to take that for an answer here; he might as well just play along for now. Lea sighed and took Nana tentatively in his hands, holding it at arms length. "Hi, Nana..." he said, a little awkwardly, dusting some of the dirt from her dress. He was glad Isa wasn't in here, because he would never let Lea live this down.

"No," Kairi scolded, trying to sound mature. "You have to hold her like this." Kairi pretended that she was cradling the doll in her arms. "Because she's a baby. It makes her happy to be rocked, too, just like this." Kairi rocked her arms side to side and hummed a gentle melody, as if she was caring for a baby.

Lea stared from the doll to Kairi a few times before tossing the doll back to Kairi. "Yeah, I think I'll pass," he said with disinterest. He wasn't about to cradle a doll in his arms. "Any other games you have in mind? Actual games?"

Kairi rushed to catch Nana before she hit the ground, and almost dropped the doll as she caught it. "Why would you throw her?" Kairi scolded, still trying to sound grown-up. "You might have hurt her! What kind of mommy are you?"

Lea scoffed and rested his arms behind his head. "It's just a do..." he started, but suddenly he realized exactly what Kairi had accused him of being. "Wait, I'm the mommy?" Either this girl had trouble telling girl's from boys, or... Lea wasn't sure what else it could be, actually. He played with the spikes in his hair, wondering if they were somehow "girly".

Kairi giggled at Lea's reaction. "I know boys are supposed to be the daddies, but I'm always the mommy. I want to be the daddy this time. I never get to be. And you said you want to play a game." Kairi smiled and hugged her doll close again. "The game is pretend. I'm pretending to be the daddy, and you're pretending to be the mommy. And Nana is pretending to be our daughter!" Kairi held the doll up to Lea again and gaily added, "Now apologize to your daughter!"

"She's a doll!" Lea protested adamantly. "I am not saying sorry to a doll!"

Kairi continued to stare daggers at him, but after a minute or two, Kairi relaxed and set Nana on the bed. "Okay, we'll play Princess, instead," she said, still a little upset.

"I am not about to be the Princess!"

"Of course not." Kairi smiled as she explained the terms. "Nana is the pretty princess. You are the dragon that won't let her go. And I," Kairi picked back up her sword and pointed it towards Lea. "am the knight that has to beat you!"

Smirking playfully, Lea held up his frisbees. "This, I can do."

Isa stretched briefly, finally deciding to head back to the others. Juice boxes should work fine after all, he decided. A smile spread across his face. After calming down and having some peace and quiet, he'd tried to look at this a little differently; maybe this wouldn't be so bad. He'd never been very good with children, but maybe that was just a bad first impression on both of their parts. It was a long shot, but it wasn't impossible. And he couldn't survive this if she kept this up, so even if he didn't really care what the brat thought of him, it was better that this end without her complaining to her grandmother.

He took a juice box in each of his hands and headed back towards her bedroom.