Chapter SixChapter Six

When Kanna needed to hide, there was not a place in her house that she could safely hide herself. Well, maybe there was one. But that one place, that one piece of solitude, was off-limits. It was only when Big Brother came home that she was allowed to be in there. Because he stayed after school, and played big kid games with other big kids, and he never came home until late, and sometimes he didn't come home on the weekends, either, because he was playing different kind of big kid games with a different group of big kids.

Kanna didn't mind waiting for him to get home. Not all the time, anyway. She didn't much like sitting there, outside her brother's dark wooden door, on the floor and pressed against the wall behind her, counting the seconds until he came home and trying to stay as quiet and small as possible, so that way Mommy wouldn't see her or hear her, and Mommy wouldn't think that she was being Bad again.

She had once had her own room. That was a long time ago, she remembered. She had stayed in the small room, with a small bed with light red and green pillows and blankets, with a light rose-colored tint to her walls, and a little red toy chest at the bottom of her bed, and it was always nice and warm in there. She hadn't gotten the best things, because those were for her brother. Her Big Brother was the one who always got everything Nice, but that didn't matter to her, because he took time away from playing with his Big Kid friends so that he could play with his little sister. And she was always happy, and Mommy wasn't the warmest of people, but she got hugs, and she got food, and every so often, Mommy would play with her hair and tell her she was a Good Girl.

Then something happened. She didn't know what it was, but she thinks that Big Brother knows but is keeping it from her. Even if it would let her know why Mommy hated her so much, he didn't tell her. But that was okay. She trusted her Big Brother Kai. He always made sure that she was fed and that things were okay, and he even helped her do chores and other stuff when she was too weak to do it herself. He was her favorite, but she couldn't let Mommy know that, and she couldn't let Mommy know that she was his favorite, either.

She didn't know when Mommy might decide that he wasn't her favorite anymore. And she didn't want Mommy to hurt Big Brother Kai, who made sure that Kanna was safe. Relatively safe, at least.

And being near his bedroom, even if she wasn't allowed to be in there until Big Brother came home and told her that it was fine, that the Good Boy said it was okay for Bad Girl Kanna to go into the Good Boy's room, brought her some sense of comfort.

She managed to quietly sit there, back pressed against the wall and body curled in on itself to make her seem far smaller than she was, and not cry. She managed to keep her mind off of Mommy ripping up her class work—the best grade that she had brought home since forever, and why didn't Mommy like it? I tried really hard and I gave her my sticker, and I said that I loved Mommy the most! —And tried not to remember the good times with Mommy too much, because then she wouldn't be able to keep herself from crying and thinking and wondering, what did I do wrong?

The best that she could do was try to remember her new friend. Starting with her name, what had she said? It was something like You-me. You and Me. Yume! Yes, that's right, her new friend—best friend, she corrected herself—her new best friend's name was Yume. She had been really shy at first, Kanna could tell because of the way Yume hesitated and spoke softly to her, and the way that she decided to play only with her from now on, and nobody had seemed to notice her disappearance. Kanna really liked the way that Yume smiled. It was small, and hidden by so many layers of defenses, but Kanna knew that it was there, just because of the warm look that Yume got when she had helped her up at the playground.

Yume was polite to everybody, but she was warm with Kanna. She didn't know why, but decided that the fluttering feeling in her stomach wasn't too bad, and the facts that Yume had not pressed her to talk, nor had she hit her when she did talk, were all pointing in the direction that she had hoped that she would be in.

Yume must actually like her, at least a little. Or Yume saw something in Kanna that was different from everyone else, and couldn't get it from anybody other than her.

But Kanna didn't want to think that she was being used by anybody; her brother had come home often enough and had told her that he was sick of people using him for everything and nothing, and don't you ever let them do that to you, Kanna, you're not like me. You're too sweet to be used like that. But Kanna didn't get it then, she wanted to be like her Big Brother, and she still did, but she didn't want to come home with strange purple-y marks on her neck, and purpling marks all over her skin, and scratches dug into her flesh, and limping instead of walking, like her brother did more and more often. Sometimes he came home and he had strange smells on him, too, but she knew them ones, sometimes. Some of them were the same smell that was on her mother, the smell that came from drinking too many of the bottles of liquid that Mommy kept hidden in the little brown and white cupboard that was next to the sink, on the wall, high up so she couldn't reach it if she tried.

She looked around and hoped that her brother had made it home, but she hadn't heard the front door open or close, hadn't heard her Mother's unsteady steps go from the couch to the front door to greet her son, she hadn't even heard the loud sounds of him calling goodbye to his friends before he opened the door: that was his way of reassuring her that he would be in to help her in a moment, that he was almost there, that she was almost safe.

Mommy loved Big Brother Kai. He was a Good Boy. For some reason, Mommy hated Bad Girl Kanna, even though everything the girl did was done in the hopes that it would please her Mother. Mommy never punished Big Brother Kai, because he was her favorite, and he never did anything wrong, unlike Kanna, who did everything wrong, somehow, even if Kai assured her that it was done right, but Mom just isn't in a good mood today, Kanna, so why don't you go upstairs and play in my room for a bit? I'll be right up; I'll explain everything to her.

And even though Kai was never hit or yelled at, Kanna noticed, every so often, that Mommy looked at him strangely, with dark eyes and the same look on her face that was directed at Kanna all the time. But it was always gone the next time she blinked, and it always came every time that Kai asked Mommy to be nicer to Kanna. That was the only time that she ever saw Mommy looking like that at Big Brother.

The one time she had asked him about it, Big Brother Kai and her were going to bed, and he had smiled and said that it wasn't the only time that their mother had looked at him like that. The other times just weren't fit for her little-girl ears, and he didn't want to tell her anyway, because he didn't want his precious little sister to hate him.

She'd looked up into his eyes then, and saw that there was sadness in them. She had felt so bad for making him sad, and she vowed to never, ever make anybody sad ever again. And she had tugged on his shirtsleeve and told him that she could never hate him, no matter what, 'cuz you're my Big Brother! and he had smiled and ruffled her hair before tucking her into his big bed with the dark green sheets and pillows and blankets, telling her to snuggle up so she wouldn't get cold, and to go to sleep, honey, and I'll see you when you wake up, okay?

And she had gone to sleep, trusting in the warmth her big brother provided, and the strong feeling of being protected that she had while she was with him, even when she was defenseless and asleep.

Waking up the next morning, she hadn't seen Kai anywhere. There was no sign that he had even slept in the bed with her, not that he had laid down, nor that he had even been in the room recently, other than the fact that Kanna could still smell traces of her brother on the pillow next to her head, and she could still feel that protective aura around her. But he was gone.

He was gone and she didn’t know where he was, but he had to be here. Maybe she was just thinking too much, but he could be hurt—but Mommy never hurt Big Brother, and Big Brother would just tell her to go back to sleep, anyway.

She had tried to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. As much as she tried, she couldn’t fall asleep, and she had gotten this feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t get rid of. Something bad was happening to Big Brother Kai. And the something Bad had to do with her.

Quietly, Kanna had crawled out of the warm blankets that she had fallen asleep in and stepped onto the carpeted floor. Even if it was Bad, she had to go see where her brother was, find out if he was hurt.

The closer that she had gotten to his door, the louder the sounds outside became. She knew the voices—Mommy was yelling again, but she couldn’t make out the words. But this time, Big Brother was yelling too.

She had just huddled there, against the wall on the inside of her brother’s room, listening to the sounds of their voices. She hadn’t wanted to go down there. Big Brother was yelling, and she had only heard him yell once.

The yelling stopped on his part, Mommy was still going, but Big Brother was really quiet. Kanna had shook. This was the scary part. It was okay if Mommy kept yelling, it was okay. It was scary when things got quiet, when Mommy was nice. Quiet was Bad unless you were Kanna.

The quiet meant that there was going to be more pain, more hurt. There was going to be something worse than the yelling, and if Big Brother was being quiet… If Big Brother was quiet after Mommy yelled at him—and probably hit him, too, because Mommy could never stop herself, Kanna knew, but she really hoped that Big Brother wasn’t hurt—there was going to be something big.

And then, Kanna had heard the quiet voice of her Big Brother, soft and muffled. Just a few words, and then there had been a harsh sound. The same sound that Kanna heard, the sound that Kanna knew the most, the sound of Mommy’s skin hitting something, the sound that happened when Mommy was angry, when Kanna was being Bad again, when Mommy hit her.

And then, the yelling was screaming and there was more sounds, sounds like crying, and that night Big Brother didn’t come home and Kanna didn’t eat.

Big Brother had told her, when he came back, that he had been talking to Mommy about something Important. Something that Kanna shouldn’t concern herself with, because it would only make her get hurt more.

But Kanna asked and he said that she should just be a Good Girl, keep being a Good Girl, and it would be alright. He’d take care of it.

And here she was now, waiting for Big Brother to come back. She missed him and she wanted to know… What had she done wrong? But she didn’t hear his footsteps yet.

She shivered. It was cold on the floor, but she was used to it. Maybe… maybe he would come back soon.

And then, she heard a creak of the door as it opened. Then it shut and there were footsteps. One set, not two, and they were steady and even. Big Brother.

And he came up the stairs, his green eyes dark and his face tired and clothes dirty, but he was whole and he smiled at her.

“Hey kiddo. Why’re you hiding out here?” he walked over to her with light footsteps and picked her up carefully, just in case she was hurt.

“Big Brother!!” she breathed, curling her fingers in the shoulder of his green shirt and burying her face into his neck. “I thought… I…”

He laughed softly, brushing back some of her long red hair and pushing his door open. “shh… It's okay. I'm not hurt..." and if he flinched, he hid it from her, and when he set her down on his bed, he bent so he could not feel the pain as much.

"W-welcome h-home... B-Big Brother..." Kanna whispered.

He smiled at her, his lips thin and cracked, looking as if they had bled, and dark stains under his eyes from not sleeping. "I'm home, Kanna."

It would have been nice, if they hadn't been whispering, if they hadn't been hiding, if their mother wasn't downstairs and passed out drunk. It would have been nice if they had been an ordinary family, or a loving family, or a family of any kind that wasn't theirs.

If they were an ordinary, loving family, Kanna's voice wouldn't have trembled when she told her brother that she had done well today, that her paper was still downstairs, that Mommy hadn't liked it, that she had ripped it up. It would have been nice.

He smiled at her, said that he was proud of her, that she did a good job, even if he didn't see it. He knew that she had done a good job, but Mommy wasn't in a good mood today, so she wasn't going to see it that way.

He said that he'd go downstairs and look at it when Kanna was asleep, that way Mommy couldn't hurt her. She knew that he would, too. He always did.

If they were an ordinary family, Kanna would have said that she had made a friend. A best friend. Somebody who would let her talk when she needed to and didn't push her to talk when she wouldn't. And she would have said that she wanted her Big Brother to meet her.

But they weren't an ordinary family, not at all. So Kanna just mentioned the paper and she didn't say anything about Yume when Big Brother asked how her day was.

She said that she wanted to find a bee, though... If she found a bee and brought it to Mommy, then maybe...

But by then, Big Brother wasn't going to ask her about it. He knew that she wanted to do something and she wasn't going to learn until she found out the hard way. That's how she was when it came to getting Mommy to like her. If she couldn't do it one way, she'd try it another. In order to make Mommy happy, she would try to do anything that she could.

So he would do his best to keep her as safe as possible. If he couldn't protect her from their mother, he would protect her from everyone and everything else. Everything that could hurt her. Life, death. Anything.

For his little sister, a little pain was nothing. Getting hurt was worth it, if she didn't have to be hurt. Anything, anything for her.

End Chapter 6

Hmm... Just finished this one. (I'm in school, lol! Sorry, had to make that known.) I've been writing a lot lately, and a lot of oneshots and drabbles, so... going back to this is a change, which I think you can see.

I don't much like it right now. I'm not currently the biggest fan of The Unknown and Perfectly Unperfect, although I absolutely adore writing Drabbles of "Elle" lately. I think that this is too long, much too long, so... I wanted to shorten it, and I also was going to make a little.. umm... change. Well, I did make a change. About... half-way through I stopped writing this. And then, when I picked it up, I carried on like it was in present(?) tense, like how I usually end up writing, anyway (Tenses confuse me. I think I write in present tense..?). But, I was continuing the chapter, not from when she was waiting for Kai!, but from where she woke up and he was gone. (That was where I was going to stop it, too.)

NOTE: None of my stories are Beta'd. The only editing that is done is by me while I'm writing, or shortly after I finish, and before I post it. I'm not quite sure how this beta-thing works, but I'm willing to give it a try. If there are any mistakes, please let me know, and give me details on what I could try to improve, or what is good. It really makes my day when I come home and see that someone left me a review or a comment on my stories, and even more-so when it's a very helpful critique. (Yes, I think I might be begging. And warning about the no-beta-as-of-yet thing, too.)

Slight Revisions: May 19, 2008