Chapter Text
“What’s that?”
Shouta’s blurry eyes rolled downwards, struggling to decipher the image under the chubby fingers atop it. With a gentle grip, Shouta pulled Koharu’s wrist away from the book.
“It’s a cat,” he declared, taking in the water-colours of the blue cat on the page. “You know cats. They just aren’t normally blue.”
Koharu tilted her head backwards until the crown of her head pressed against Shouta’s sternum. Her eyes, already too large for her face, were especially wide as she stared up at her brother in wonder. “Why?”
“Uh— there just aren’t a lot of blue animals,” Shouta tried to explain to the toddler in his lap. He scratched idly at his cheek. “Except fish. The water is blue, so that would make sense, I guess.”
“Wow,” gasped Koharu. Her attention returned to the book in her lap, her sloppy fingers flipping through the pages without a hint of grace. “I wanna be blue, too! Show me!”
Shouta chuckled. “You can’t be blue, Haru.”
Koharu instantly burst into tears at his words, her throat opening in a loud wail and reminding Shouta of why he never wanted kids. Shouta turned the crying child around in his lap, hands and eyes frantic.
“Please don’t cry,” Shouta begged. “I’m sorry!”
He could already hear their father’s footsteps coming down the hall, no doubt intending to investigate the disturbance in their otherwise peaceful home. Shouta's panic deepened as he imagined his father’s disappointed face coming around the corner and finding his wailing child in Shouta’s lap, a lecture on child-care undoubtedly to follow.
“Hey! Hey, Haru! I’m sorry, okay? We can be blue,” he hurriedly told Koharu as he tried to rub the tears off her cheeks with the palms of his hands. “But you have to be good, okay? You have to stop crying!”
Koharu sniffled loudly and focused her watery eyes on her brother. “I wanna be blue!”
“Great!” he exclaimed. He swept Koharu against his chest as he stood, easily balancing her on his hip. “We can be blue! But only if you don’t tell dad that I made you cry again, okay?”
At Koharu’s vigorous nod, Shouta darted across to his own room, hollering a quick “everything is fine” down the hallway in hopes that their father would make his retreat. Koharu was tossed onto his unmade bed with a loud, squealing giggle, while Shouta aimed for his dresser.
Various shirts were taken out and discarded as Shouta dug through his drawers for something, anything blue to give to Koharu. “Aha!” he cried victoriously as he pulled out an old sleep shirt with blue and white stripes. “Here we go!”
Seeing his prize, Koharu began to jump up and down atop Shouta’s bed, the old bed-springs squeaking loudly beneath her feet as she chanted, “Blue! Blue! Blue!”
“Blue! Blue!” Shouta joined in with a grin as he approached, and he stopped his sister’s bouncing with a palm atop her head. “You ready?”
“Gimme!” cried Koharu.
Shouta fixed her with an unimpressed look. “I don’t think that’s the right word. Want to try again?”
“Gimme, please!”
“Good enough,” he approved with a nod, before placing the shirt in his hands over Koharu’s head. She helped him to wiggle her arms through the sleeves with extreme gusto, her unruly curls poofing as she tugged her head through the neckline. It fit her like a circus-tent might fit an adult man.
With a pleased grin, Koharu announced, “I’m a cat!”
“Uh—” Shouta furrowed his brows. “I thought that we landed on fish being blue?”
“Fish are dumb!” she disagreed with a drastic shake of her head. “I’m a cat!”
Eager to avoid further tears, Shouta relented to her point with a nod of his head. “Okay, fine. You’re a cat.”
“Ruff, ruff!”
Shouta raised an eyebrow and placed his hands against his hips as Koharu barked at him. “I know you know that’s not what cats sound like, kid.”
Koharu giggled as she bounced in place. “Blue cats are special!”
“Oh, are they?” Shouta responded with feigned surprise. “I should have known. You're so smart. What else do blue cats do?”
Bouncing a little higher, Koharu announced, “Blue cats fly!”
With a smile, and to the sound of Koharu’s delighted squealing, Shouta swept Koharu off the bed and held her upside-down in the air. “Alright, Catharu. Where are we flying to?”
Through unrelenting giggles, she responded, “I wanna fly to daddy!”
Shouta didn’t bother to hide his smug smile. It was like she wanted to show off what a good babysitter he was being— Shouta might even get an extended curfew that weekend, if he played his cards right. He lifted Koharu higher into the air with a renewed enthusiasm.
"Okay, to dad it is. You ready, kitty cat?"
"Ruff!"
"I'm just going to take that as a 'yes'. And away we go!"