Disclaimer: Gamely not mine.

A/N: Written for 'Challenge #005 – Game' over at ygodrabble on LiveJournal (community (dot) livejournal (dot) com (slash) ygodrabble). This is the first community I've ever moderated and everybody who has participated in these challenges so far is lovely. Come and join in too! We're low pressure and it's lots of fun.

Ready or Not

© Scribbler, June 2010.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

Big kids didn't play stupid baby games like Hide and Seek, but Katsuya couldn't deny his sister anything. Shizuka was a baby, so he figured she didn't know any better, and that made it okay. Plus, Mom would skin him alive if she caught him trying to teach her cooler big kid games like Fight to the Death or Alien Invasion. She went ape when she heard him just explaining Red Rover. You needed masses of people to play that, and it got pretty rough. Kids linked hands in long lines, called names from the opposite team, and stood tough against the chosen running pell-mell into them, trying to break the chain with their own momentum. Katsuya wanted Shizuka to grow up cool, but there were limits.

He stalked exaggeratedly through the apartment, asking loudly, "Where could Shizuka be hiding?" As if he didn't know. She always picked the same place. "Under the rug? No, we don't got no lumpy rug. Down the plughole? Nope, the pipes ain't banging. How about –" He pounced. "– behind the… couch? Shizuka?"

She wasn't there.

Katsuya frowned and searched properly. He still didn't – couldn't – find her.

"Shizuka? Where are you? Shizuka!" Worry was like a fist inside his stomach, clenching all the tubes shut. Mom was going to kill him. She was going to pull out his guts and fry them in front of him.

Actually, that was one of Dad's favourite threats, and he usually used it on Mom, but if anything had happened to Shizuka while Katsuya was meant to be watching her, Mom would make good on it anyhow. Dad probably wouldn't say anything. He rarely commented on Shizuka, except to complain how much her doctor-bills cost. The most animated he'd ever been was when she broke her expensive new prescription glasses. It was an accident, and Katsuya had taken the blame, claiming he stood on them while copying the fight scene in Power Rangers. Dad forgave him because he liked it when Katsuya played rough, but Mom sent her son to bed without dinner and refused to give him lunch money that week to help pay the repairs.

"Shizuka! Where are you? This ain't funny no more! Shizu–" Katsuya froze, ears straining. There it was again: the soft sound of crying. He raced to the tiny kitchen cupboard where Mom kept all the cleaning products they weren't supposed to touch because they had little skulls on. He unhooked the latch and wrenched it open. "Shizuka!"

She stared out, face tearstained. "I c-couldn't get the d-door open from the inside," she stuttered. "It was ajar. I thought you'd never find me in here, but then you were calling, and I couldn't get out, a-and it was dark, and I was frightened…" She started crying again, big gulping sobs that rocked her body and made Katsuya's chest feel tight and weird. When she launched herself at him for a hug, he didn't push her away, even though hugs were gross and girly.

"Dad must've left the safety catch open," he said. Mom installed all sorts of anti-child locks and things when Shizuka was born, but Dad rarely remembered, even though Shizuka was four now. He once broke the toilet by kicking it when he couldn't lift the lid, and peed into Mom's favourite pot of geraniums instead.

"I h-hated the dark," Shizuka wept. "It was so scary. I could hear you, Big Brother, but I c-couldn't see you."

The tightness in his chest increased. Katsuya found himself holding his baby sister tighter. "Don't worry," he said fiercely. "Whatever happens, you know I'll always come rescue you, right?"

"Promise?"

He was holding her too close to nod. "Promise."

Fin.

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