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Penny rapped her knuckles against the apartment door, waiting a few seconds as she swayed back and forth before using the spare key she'd been given.
After babysitting for the Gukgak's for so long, Penny has long since learned that the family preferred to keep the ambiance of their apartment low, with the overhead lights off and a few lamps lit around the room. Sometimes she'd find herself bumping into furniture, and it was a bit hard to find her things after she dropped them on the floor, but it was a small price to pay for the family's comfort (and to avoid Riz having to squint whenever he wanted to looked up at her).
Creaking the door open, she peered through the crack, surveying the apartment. Despite her best efforts, she spotted no little goblin hiding away in the shadows.
She took a breath and prepared herself, giving the room one last once-over before pushing the door open. “Hey Riz! It’s—“
“Penny!” A flash of glowing eyes and sharp teeth leaped out from behind the sofa, screeching her name.
Penny laughed, shielding her eyes as if he'd blinded her, his small curls poking out in odd-ends— almost in a star shape, eyes mimicking those burning balls of gas in the sky.
Riz’s hands pushed against the sofa’s armrest, giving himself the momentum to scramble towards her.
As if in slow-motion, Penny noticed that there was something off with the way he leaned. She zeroed in on where his foot had been caught by the peg of the couch, estimating that in two seconds flat, Riz was going to be catapulting face first into the hardwood floor.
She barely had any time to react as she dashed forward, backpack jostling against her as she raised her arms— just to watch his grinning face crack onto the wood.
She swallowed her shriek, hovering over him. "Ohmygods—Are you okay?" Before she could even reach down to help him up and check for any injuries, Riz had pushed himself off the floor, laughing as he flung his arms around Penny’s midsection.
“Did I get you? Were you scared?” His smile was infectious, forcing her to smile back despite the small heart attack she just suffered.
“With that stunt? Terrified.” His grin sharpened. “The sneak attack though? It’s only gonna work the first fifteen times, bud.” She teased, ruffling his curls until the star shape shifted into something more akin to a bird's nest.
His tail swished to a stop, deflating. There was a pang in her chest, and she wondered if she should’ve pretended to be scared for the sixteenth time. But then Riz set his mouth into a straight line, tail regaining its motion. “Next time then.” He said with an odd amount of conviction.
Penny shouldered her backpack as Riz let her go. “Hopefully not, I don’t think my heart could take it.” She maneuvered around him, throwing her schoolbag onto the couch.“I might just faint in front of you, and then you’ll be stuck with a dead weight babysitter.”
Riz trailed behind her. “I’d carry you.”
“Uh huh, I think it’d be easier if you just rolled me around.”
“Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?”
“Nah, not if I’m unconscious, won’t even feel it.”
“What if I kicked you?”
“I’d probably feel that.”
She made her way over to the kitchen counter top, where the usual note laid waiting for her. The Gukgaks, similar to the other families she babysat for, would text her all the rules regarding their little pride and joy. ‘Don’t let him climb on the counter top, don’t let him have sugar after eight pm, make sure he brushes his teeth before bed’—the usual. But Mr. Gukgak always liked to leave a little thank-you note with a small tip in case she left the apartment before the couple was able to return home.
She skimmed over the note, reaching the end and stifling a giggle at the bold—
‘ps. DON'T PLAY HIDE AND SEEK. NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS.
Mr. Gukgak had a running bit where he’d always tack on a little ‘warning’ in his notes, his last note cautioning Penny of Riz’s newfound fixation over sour chips.
She carefully folded the note along with the tip and pocketed it in her denim skirt, returning to Riz, who was already kneeling in front of the coffee table; a little magnifying glass poking out of the back of his khaki shorts. He was supposedly trying to shuffle a deck of playing cards by bending them together and letting them fall in a way she assumed he’d seen his dad do. But with the way his tail whipped around impatiently and his ears folded back, she could assume that he was getting frustrated over the cards not doing what they were supposed to.
Penny kneeled down across from him, noticing his growing canines gnawing at his bottom lip.“Here, let me show you.”
Riz eyed her in a way that told her he wanted to figure this out by himself, but reluctantly handed them over, watching as she demonstrated the steps slowly. She then handed them back to him, his eyes flickering back up at her for approval as he readjusted the way he held the cards. She nodded, watching him shuffle the cards with better precision, “there you go!”
Riz beamed.
Penny folded her legs together in a more comfortable position. “Soooo," she drawled, "what's the plan for today?” Every now and then, Riz would have an idea for what he wanted them to do, other times, he was fully invested in whatever games she’d brought for them. Today looked like a follow-the-kids-lead day.
Riz had to stretch his arms to pass out the cards between them, eyes flickering back and forth before laying a few on the table. “Poker.”
The gears in Penny’s brain stuttered to a halt. “Poker?”
“Mhm.” He nodded, chin lifting high than low to his chest.
“You know how to play poker?”
Riz splayed his hands like stars over the coffee table before springing himself up from his crouched position. “My dad taught me.”
Penny opened her mouth, then closed it. A premonition vision of the couple appeared before her, clad in black slacks and button ups.
Of course they taught him poker.
Riz rushed over to the kitchen, sliding across the floor with his socked feet and almost slamming his chest into the kitchen counter. The minute his clawed hands had a grasp on the surface and a conniving knee was lifted, Penny was off the floor, hands outstretched and snatching him by the armpits. “Nope! You tell me what cha’ need.”
The kid in her hands groaned, kicking his feet aimlessly. They stayed like that for a while before he pointed to the higher cupboards, “chips.”
Penny dropped Riz, who dramatically yelped despite landing perfectly fine on his feet. She reached up and opened the cupboard slowly, last week’s babysitting incident with the sour chips still prevalent in her mind. “Did you have dinner yet? You should probably wait a bit—”
“We’re not eating them now, we’re eating them later. They’re poker chips.”
Penny, still on her tiptoes, looked at the bag and then at Riz, she snorted. “My bad, should have guessed.”
“Uh, yeah, you should’ve.” His tail flitted playfully.
“Don’t sass me.” She flicked his forehead, opening the bag after he swatted her hand away. He immediately dissolved into giggles as she filled up two small bowls and grabbed some empty discard plates so they could exchange the ‘chips’.
Penny returned to the conjoined living room, gently placing the plates onto the coffee table as she spoke. “You’re going to have to teach me by the way, I don’t know much about poker.”
Riz plopped himself down, grabbing his two cards and analyzing them. “That’s alright, I’m practically an expert at this point.” He said without a single hint of irony.
Penny raised a brow at him, eyes slowly scanning her own two cards. His words triggered a part of her brain that she often put on the back burner when babysitting, a part of her that ignored the implications of being a bit too competitive towards a nine-year-old.
His shoulders were set, tongue poking the inside of his cheek, no doubt in his ability to win. If Penny let herself get played by a child… she’s not sure she’d be able to live with herself.
But she guessed she’d have to.
Because she did.
Badly.
Surprisingly enough, the lively kid that shrieked her name whenever she walked through the front door was able to keep a stone-cold face for over an hour, slit eyes piercing into her soul whenever it was her turn. By the end, Riz had won essentially all the sour chips, only allowing himself to bathe in his victory once Penny was absolutely bankrupt. It was almost comical how quickly his slack expression jumped into a blinding smile, pumping his fists as he flung himself backwards and kicked his feet into the air.
Penny reorganized the cards into one deck, scoffing. “Alright alright, no one likes a gloater.” She prepared for another game despite the length of the first one. “You want to play something else? Or… maybe we could make something to eat?” She saw him sneaking a chip or two into his mouth during the game, only the Gods know how many he took before she noticed.
Riz sat up abruptly, mindlessly rocking back and forth. “Hmmm, if I eat, can we play Hide and Seek?”
Time seemed to slow down as she became hyper aware of the gently folded note in her pocket, slowly placing the stacked cards back on the table as she tried to figure out how to approach the situation without giving a distinct and child-heart-shattering no.
After weighing her options, she propped her elbows up on the coffee table, chin placed in her palms. “What do you mean, if you eat, you eat everything.”
Riz giggled, sitting still so his hands could shake out excess energy. “Please? It’ll be so much fun, and it’ll be good rogue practice.”
She remembered the last time she ignored Mr. Gukgak’s warning—Riz’s grubby hands disappearing with the entire bag of sour chips, returning three minutes later with 100% of its contents gone and a tummy ache.
“I don’t think so, bud.” His ears flattened, and she quickly felt the need to explain herself. “Your parents warned me about this.”
“Again!?” He cried in betrayal, throwing his hands in the air before clasping them in front of him. “Please please pleaseee, I promise I won’t go anywhere outside the apartment, or—or under the floorboards!” He paused, racking his brain for any other places he’d been forbidden from hiding in. “Or in the oven. Those are off limits.”
She pursed her lips, stifling a laugh. How many heart attacks has this kid given his parents?
She crouched down and began swiping chip crumbs off the table and into the palm of her hand, making her way to the trash can and disposing of them before collecting the rest of their trash. Once she finished cleaning everything up, she stood in front of Riz, whose eyes had been following her the entire time. She tapped her foot against the ground, face carefully schooled.
“I’ll— I’ll even go to bed when you tell me to!” He desperately added, those kinds of promises you knew a kid wouldn’t keep. He stared up at her with large yellow eyes that — at times, were relatively unnerving, but now seemed to shine with innocence. She had to remind herself that those were the eyes of a kid who tried to kill her with a heart attack every time she walked through the front door.
She inhaled deeply, hoping Mr. Gukgak was trying to be real funny this time with his warning this time, and exhaled.
“Fine.”
“Yes!” He scampered off the floor, tail whirring to life and ears perked to the sky, head twisting around as he scanned the room. “You count to ten and Imma’gohide— good luck!” He dashed into one room before swerving back out and heading towards another, “you’ll need it!” He sang, only for his feet to skid to a stop, hands smacking against one of the door frames.
She blinked as he twisted his head to stare at her owlishly, thrusting a pointed finger at her accusingly. “Close your eyes!”
Penny snapped her eyes shut, distantly wondering how she'd gotten stuck with the most bossy nine-year-old ever.
Wait, no, that was Bradford for sure.
She made a face at the vague memory of fire, hair, and an overflowed sink.
Riz was a lot sweeter, at least. He had some dangerous tendencies, but they were mostly in regards to self-preservation than simply outward violence.
Penny chewed her lip as another memory resurfaced, feeling a little guilty at even comparing Riz to Bradford, remembering that one night where despite her crippling fatigue from the weight of school and her siblings, Penny had agreed to babysit Riz. Of course, that proved to be a terrible idea, since the second she came over, she — to her horror — passed out halfway through. She woke up an hour later covered in her own drool, a blanket draped over her and a pillow under her head from where she lay on the floor. When she caught sight of Riz, she screamed, the kid watching her, legs crossed with a steaming cup of tea in his hands. “Sorry, I uh, didn’t know what you liked so um, I picked the vanilla one ‘cause it had a flower on the packet, and you like flowers, so…”
Penny jolted, realizing that she was supposed to be counting. She speedily reached ten in her head before cupping her hands over her mouth and shouting, “ready or not! Here I come!”
Like Riz had said, this was as good rogue practice as any.
She eyed the apartment space, mindlessly counting how many rooms resided in the complex. One, two, three, four. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, and the conjoined kitchen and living room.
She felt the same confidence that Riz probably felt in their game of poker. How hard could finding a little goblin in a little apartment be?
… Turns out, pretty fucking hard.
At the ten-minute mark, boredom began to creep up on her after she’d searched every obvious hiding nook. Under beds, behind shower curtains, inside closets. At fifteen-minutes, she began calling out riling remarks, either bribing him — “I’ll let you have some more chips after dinner if you tell me where you’re hiding!” — or throwing out mild punishments, “Riiiiz, if you don’t come out I’ll tell your parents you stayed up past your bed time!” Until she felt the need to warn him. “I’ll have you know, I am an older sibling to twenty! And I always find each and every one of them in under thirty minutes!” But then it reached thirty minutes, and Penny was beginning to flip cushions and check behind refrigerators.
Her braid was frayed, coming undone from all her efforts as she blindly shoved her hand behind the fridge and tried to feel for a familiar child-like ear that she could tug out and fuss over. Penny finally retracted her hand and adjusted the flower clip in her hair, biting her inner cheek. It’s fine, she’s fine, Riz said outside the apartment was off limits, and despite everything about the kid, he would never lie to her— of course, there’s a first time for everything. Nope. We’re not going down that rabbit hole. But what if something bad happened to him? What if he got stuck somewhere, hurt? Somewhere she couldn’t hear him?
“Riz! You can come out now!” She called. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Silence answered her.
Her heart stuttered, and Penny’s feet started moving faster. She paced the apartment as she rushed between rooms, feeling lightheaded as she rechecked nooks and crannies she’d already thoroughly checked before.
She’d lost her first kid. Oh Gods—she lost her first kid. Penny Luckstone did not lose kids. She had a perfect track record with a resume that said she was great with making up games and thinking on her feet. Now she was going to be known as Penny Luckstone: the girl who lost a child, in a two-bedroom apartment.
She checked the hands on her watch, choking at the time. Forty minutes? The game almost lasted forty minutes!? That was almost an hour, the kid’s been gone for almost an hour. There was an insistent buzzing in her ear and the skin on her lips was chapped from her anxious chewing. “Cmon’ Riz!” Her voice pitched, “games over! I give up!” She strained her halfling ears to hear something— anything —in response.
The fridge hummed and the loose faucet dripped louder than ever.
A high-pitched heave escaped her as she scrambled for her crystal, fumbling with it out of her skirt pocket. You could only place a missing person's report after twenty-four hours, she’s pretty sure she heard that somewhere. She scanned her contacts, an insistent tugging at her chest urging her to call Mrs. Gukgak and frantically apologize.
She shook her head viscerally, more loose strands of hair slipping from her braid. Maybe she could band a few friends together and they could try searching for him inside Strongtower Luxury Apartments, there was no way he left the entire building, right…?
…Gods, what was she thinking, Riz’s mom was the Chief of Police. Just call the goddamn women and pray for forgiveness.
She groaned through tightly pressed lips, dialing the number and grasping at the loose strands in her hair as she paced the living room.
Each ring felt like a tremor, as if the doomsday drums were pounding just for her.
What if Riz was hurt? Or maybe he really did leave the apartments and someone took him? She squeezed her eyes shut at that prospect, feeling nauseous. The watch on her wrist ticked, reaching the forty-five minute mark of their game—
“Psst— Penny!”
She froze, a shiver crawling up her spine.
The voice had hissed above her, cutting through the thick fog in her brain.
Her crystal rang in her tight grip, buzzing against her palm.
She took a deep breath, slowly craning her neck up…
Only for her crystal to slip from her hand and collide with the floor.
What, the actual, fuck.
Small curls fell past a freckled forehead, sharp teeth glinting down at her from the ceiling as two little green hands held the sides of the air vent, only a head popping out of the opening.
“Did I win?”
Penny lost complete feeling in her jaw, the hinges hanging open. Eventually, the feeling returned, and she could move it again, soundlessly gaping as she tried to form words. Unfortunately, the only words that managed to come out were, “Yo, you— I, uh, bu— RIZ!” She shrieked.
“Hello? Penny?” An older, more mature, woman’s voice crackled from the floor. Penny snapped her jaw shut, teeth grinding as she paled. There was a second where she just stood there, staring at her crystal on the floor, before leaping forwards and snatching it off the ground, almost dropping it again as she pressed it against her ear.
“I uh— Hello Mrs. Gukgak! How areeee… You?” Her voice squeaked, dying out near the end.
Mrs. Gukgak hummed through Penny’s crystal, “I’m… Good? You called me Penny, is everything alright?”
Penny bit down hard on her lower lip, tucking a loose strand behind her pointed ear, “yes! Yeah— everything’s fine, just um—” She heard a rattle and jerked her head upwards, choking on her own tongue.
The kid she was babysitting, who was around the size of a vase, had his feet dangling nine feet above the ground, kicking aimlessly in the air as he tried to climb out of the air vent.
Her eyes bulged out of their sockets and she skid forward, murmuring quiet nononono—’ s, while balancing the crystal between her shoulder and her ear, trying to get a solid hold of Riz.
“Penny?”
“Perfect! Everything’s perfect! Was just about to make dinner and—!” The only thing stopping Riz from going splat, were his stringy arms somehow still holding onto the air vent. She quickly grabbed his midsection and started tugging him down. “—and I know you’re so busy so don’t worry about a thing, just— just trying to find something—but I found it!” For some reason, Riz was making the hard thought-out decision to not let go— “Okay thankyounow byeeee!”
She hung up the crystal and Riz let go of the air vent, their momentum crashing them to the floor.
Riz fell onto her stomach, her yelp cut short by a pained heave.
She laid there, staring at the ceiling and melting into the floor.
A minute passed, Riz rising along with her stomach before his weight gingerly slid off of her. She closed her eyes, body aching as she took a deep inhale through her nose, the air in her lungs finally feeling sufficient.
There was a familiar itch of someone staring at her, her face furrowed as she wearily cracked an eye open.
Riz’s owl eyes stared right back at her, blinking momentarily. “Can we eat now? I’m hungry.”
Penny grasped at the little will she had left and hefted herself up. She stumbled a bit, but once she found her footing, she weakly tugged Riz into a side hug, shaking up his bed of curls. “You’re lucky I love you.”
It was all she could muster, because the only thought that kept relaying itself in her head was: Thank the Gods you weren’t kidnapped.
Riz grinned, cheeks a little flushed, apparently now at that age where he was embarrassed by that sort of sentiment, but despite it, she felt him quietly purr against her side as she scratched his scalp, giving him one last squeeze before freeing him. “So what’s on the menu for tonight?”
The Gukgaks hadn’t texted her in a while.
Squeezed under the bathroom sink, hiding away from her siblings as she did her arcane math homework with a flashlight, she stuck her flashlight in her mouth and checked her phone for any new messages.
Even if Riz's parents didn't text her, the kid himself would usually send a miscellaneous message from Mrs. Gukgak's crystal, asking Penny about her day.
She spit the flashlight back out, turning off her phone. She needed to stop getting paranoid over every little thing, maybe they were just busy, or Riz didn't have to be looked after as often.
But then a week passed, and she decided that sending a confirmation text to Mrs. Gukgak on whether they needed her Wednesday or not wouldn't hurt.
She saw three dots on Mrs. Gukgak's end pop up in her messages and then disappear.
Penny waited, but they didn’t come back.
Mid-semester, school began to get overwhelming, and if it was overwhelming for her, the same could be said for her siblings.
“Penny! Can you help me with this math problem?”
“Penny! My teacher’s an idiot! He doesn’t know how to grade my worksheets!”
“Pennnyyy! Are you done with your project? I need help with—”
Another week passed, and as she was grueling over a trap she was dissembling for a class, she realized it’d been a few months since Riz had texted her, and even longer since his parents called asking if she was available.
Penny felt her throat close up, and despite past reassurances from the Gukgaks that they appreciated her so much and would never replace her. She couldn’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, they found someone better. She slowly placed her tools down, lifting her goggles and reaching for her crystal.
The crystal rang for a while, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Mrs. Gukgak was a busy woman, and she usually answered calls at around the fourth ring.
But then the fourth ring passed, and then the fifth.
And then the call went to voicemail.
So Penny tried Mr. Gukgak, and at the fourth ring, he picked up.
Having recited what she was going to say in her head, she cleared her throat, putting on her best, most casual — please please please don’t replace me I promise I'll do better voice. “Hi Mr. Gukgak! I know it’s been a while but I was wondering if you guys still needed me to babysit?"
There was silence on the other end, the kind of static silence where you knew a person was still there. Despite that, Penny still checked to see if she’d accidentally hung up the call, only to place the crystal back to her ear and catch the soft end of a broken, “oh Penny…”
That wasn’t Mr. Gukgak.
That wasn’t him, who sounded on the verge of tears.
“Mrs…Gukgak…?”
She heard a sniffle, and then the suppressed closed cough of someone trying to collect herself. “I’m sorry, Penny, these past weeks… I just…” Mrs. Gukgak went quiet.
Everything felt unnaturally still.
“Pok…” Mrs. Gukgak started, as if it was a struggle to get through. “He’s not with us anymore… He—” Her voice strained at the end, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself. “He passed.”
Her lips parted, expecting a sound to come out, maybe reassuring words, maybe a recognition of Mrs. Gukgak’s pain. But when her thoughts were no longer running, there was nothing there to reach the end of her tongue, nothing to win the race of what to say.
She sat there dumbly, holding that wide-eyed stare that one held when they knew a person, not well, but knew them enough.
Enough to know that they were good, that they were loved.
She swallowed, throat feeling like sandpaper, eyes burning as she remembered the notes kept in her desk drawers.
When was the last time she’d seen Mr. Gukgak? What was the last note he’d written to her, his last text?
She willed herself to speak. “I…I’m sorry, Mrs. Gukgak.”
“I know, everybody is.” Mrs. Gukgak caught the cynicism in her voice. “Sorry, I just—” Penny heard a muffled exhale, as if Mrs. Gukgak had placed a hand over her mouth. “Just give us a few days, I’ve been taking Riz with me everywhere so he’s not home alone.”
Penny wanted to say something, anything.
“Don’t worry about us. Thank you for checking in.” And Mrs. Gukgak hung up.
It was a week and a half later, and Penny now stood in front of Strongtower luxury Apartments, Mrs. Gukgak once again on the other end of her call. “I can’t thank you enough Penny, I know how hard it is, and he’s such a strong kid, but any kid going through this is going to change a bit. I’m trying my best but I— I can’t promise if he’ll listen.” All Penny could do was hum after every minor pause. “Just, don’t patronize him, okay? I don’t know how else to put it, he seems to hate when people treat him like he’s fragile, he just lashes out and—”
“Mrs. Gukgak,” Penny said as kindly as one could while cutting someone off (she doesn’t think Mrs. Gukgak would’ve stopped otherwise). “I get it. I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”
She heard the familiar clicking of Mrs. Gukgak fidgeting with her pen. Once she spoke again, her voice was lighter. “Okay Penny, thank you.”
“Anytime.”
She hung up, pocketed her crystal, and entered the apartment complex.
All the confidence Penny held over the phone with Mrs. Gukgak dissipated in seconds, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was walking to her execution.
All she was doing was babysitting a kid whose dad just died, that’s all. Nowhere in her resume did it say she held the criteria to care for traumatized adolescents — But this wasn't some random kid, this was Riz, and she’d been taking care of him for over a year. She wasn’t going to abandon him when he needed her most.
Despite her little internal inspirational speech, every step she took held weight to it, and when she entered the elevator, she could swear she heard it creak under the strain.
Once she reached the Gukgak's floor, the elevator dinged, its metallic doors chugging open. It hummed, giving her a certain amount of time to leave. She’s not sure she would’ve moved if it weren’t for the time limit, sticking her foot through the opening just as the doors began to close.
The hallways winded into a maze, one that Penny thought she mastered a long time ago. It must have been the months she spent away, groaning once she realized she took two wrong turns.
The halls were grayer this time, danker.
Usually, Penny would've noticed the fun charms on some of the doorknobs, or a few funny welcome mats, her optimism shining through when it came to her favorite babysitting family’s living conditions. But today, all she could focus on was the grayish yellow grime hiding in the corners, the chipping paint on each door.
She brightened with relief once she caught sight of the Gukgak’s door, the scruffy bronze number hanging above it like a halo shining down on her. She raised her fist to knock and that haloed number dimmed, the earlier sense of doom crawling back inside her chest.
She ignored it, raising her fist back up to do her usual peppy rhythmic knock. She liked to imagine Riz hiding somewhere on the other side, waiting to hear the knock that he knew was hers. Some days, she’d hear a faint giggle, which let her know that Riz really thought he was gonna scare her this time.
Today, she heard nothing.
When she opened the door, it was dark, as usual.
But no lamps were lit.
A morbid air hung over the apartment like a stifling sheet against a flame, suffocating the loving memories that once thrived there. Even if she hadn’t been a part of most of them, the grayed memories rose like smoke, choking her.
She wondered how Riz and Mrs. Gukgak managed it.
She stood at the doorway, waiting. A little part of her still hoped that a nine year goblin would come scrambling out of the dark, shrieking her name.
When the time stretched longer than Riz had ever taken to surprise her, she stepped into the threshold.
Sharp eyes scanned the room, narrowing at anything that vaguely looked like a small dark silhouette perched in a corner. Seeing nothing, she made her way over to the light switch. “I’m turning on the lights now!” She warned.
The conjoined living room-kitchen illuminated, revealing nothing but empty space.
That was strange, Mrs. Gukgak did say Riz knew she was coming.
She swung her backpack off her shoulders and held it in front of her, rifling through its contents, “Guess what!” She pulled out a few puzzle games she'd rented out from the library. “I got a few new puzzles for us to try out!” She placed them on the kitchen countertop, trying to ignore the sickening pit that began to form when she saw no letter accompanying the space.
Before she came, Penny had hoped that she’d be able to make up for all the time she’d been gone, maybe cheer Riz up a bit and get his mind off things. It was the least she could do.
As the seconds ticked by, and she started running out of games to set up, she paused—holding a lock-picking kit and gently placing it down on the table.
Her pointed ears twitched as she strained to hear a pair of small feet padding to the kitchen, or the faint shuffling of clothing, or even the softest hint of breathing, anything to indicate that he was making his way towards her.
There was nothing.
Penny took a deep breath and told herself not to panic. If he was hiding, she knew what to do, she knew how to play his game.
Instead of making a beeline for his room, she grabbed one of the stools and placed it against the wall beneath the air vent, eyeing the loose screws Riz had most definitely loosened with his claws from his last attempt at putting her in an early grave.
With some easy shifting and prying, she yanked the cover, nimbly peeking her head through. She briefly wondered how Riz had even reached the air vent last time without a noticeable way in, she hadn’t noticed a stool or chair when she played seeker. Penny quickly reprimanded herself for not taking into account other vents of entry, or the crazy kid just scaling the wall and scrambling in.
She called out to him, hoping her voice would reach wherever he was in the ventilation system.
Other than a few echoes, she heard nothing.
This time, she needed a different strategy. Riz hadn’t been in any of the obvious hiding spots the last time they’d played this game, so it’d be a waste of time to even consider them. Instead, she scoured through every difficult and unexpected nook and cranny she could think of, the kind that she’d have to climb a coat rack to get to.
After the vents, she tried to find a tail behind the TV, an ear inside the cupboards, yellow eyes peaking past the cracks underneath the floorboards.
‘What would Riz do?’ That’s the mentality she held as she found herself lifting the tank lid of the toilet to see if Riz had snuck in there with a straw to breathe out of.
It came to a point where she probably found crevices that the Gukgak family hadn’t even known of, every inch of the places she found covered in dust, mentally stashing them away for later in case Riz decided that he wanted to be the seeker one day.
Twenty-minutes passed, and Penny now sat on one of the kitchen's counter-top stools, fidgeting with her lock-pick puzzle.
She clicked it shut, disassembled it, reassembled it, and repeated, her hands nimbly weaving around the puzzle in the span of seconds.
Penny had thoroughly checked every inconspicuous nook. All that was left were spots such as—under the bed, behind the sofa, inside the bathtub— hiding spots so obvious Riz would never consider them as an option.
There was that itching paranoia, the same one that begged to resurface from that night she'd almost ruined her chances of ever babysitting for the Gukgak's again. She clicked the puzzle shut with more force than necessary.
Penny trusted Riz. She had to. Panicking had done nothing for her then, and it would do nothing for her now.
Coming to the apartment, she prepared a million different scenarios on how their reunion would go down, each and every one estimating how she’d deal with this emotional hurdle.
All she wanted was to be there for him, how could she expect to do that if she couldn’t even find him.
If he wasn’t in a place that she had to search to find, then where was he…?
The obvious choice was, well, the obvious.
But why would he be somewhere obvious instead of elsewhere?
Penny disassembled the puzzle.
Riz hid in hard-to-find places because he didn’t want anyone to find him. If he was hiding somewhere obvious—
—a small part of him wanted to be found.
The lock in her hand clicked and the puzzle shifted back into place, reassembled.
Penny felt a little dumb at times, but she guessed that was anyone who came to pretty evident realizations.
She placed the puzzle back on the countertop with the rest of the games, hopping off the stool.
It was a little embarrassing how fast she found him, fiddling with the loose thread on her skirt as she stared at the parent's closet door.
A normal babysitter probably wouldn't go snooping in the parent's bedroom, but Penny wasn’t just anyone, she was one of the best rogue’s in her grade, with straight A’s and a GPA to match— with a little voice in her head that pulled her to this room, a sensible voice that said where else do you think a traumatized kid who misses his dad would be?
From where she stood, she could hear the faintest hint of breathing, the kind of sound others would disregard as a fan or air conditioning.
But Penny knew.
She took a step forwards, pressing her hand against the closet door, the texture coarse against her palm.
She made her presence known by her shadow sliding in through the narrow crevice.
“Hey bud.”
…
Nothing.
Taking a deep breath, she slowly slid the closet door open.
Penny had pretty good perception, so she was shocked, to say the least, that she almost didn’t see him.
Back pressed to the paint-chipped wall, head cushioned in between his knees, was her favorite kid to babysit.
At least, she thought it was.
That was Riz’s tail—circled around his ankle, and those were his half-bitten claws, painfully sinking into his knobby knees.
But it wasn’t Riz.
Light from the living room had her shadow blanket over the closet, the darkness curling around his hollow form like barbed wires, sinking him deeper and deeper into his corner.
For the first time since she’d met him, the star in front of her had dimmed, dimmed so low that she was in fear of it dying out.
Her lips moved on their own, somehow figuring out what to say.
“Have room for one more?”
She took his silence as a yes, allowing the weight in her chest to sink her to her knees. She crawled into the cramped space, gently brushing away a few of the hanging button-ups that seemed a bit too big to belong to Mrs. Gukgak. She was glad to see Riz half-heartedly scoot further into the corner to make room for her.
“New hideout? How come I wasn’t invited?” She joked lightly.
Nothing, not even a huff.
If she hadn’t known he was there, she’d think she was sitting in this closet alone. The kid barely inhabited the space, leaving just her and a dead man’s clothes.
Pok, Pok Gukgak.
He was a dad, a husband, a person, who used to leave her tips and letters—jokes at the end of each one, knew his son well enough to warn her of his antics; leave a secure hand on her shoulder whenever they crossed paths, as if he could see the weight she held.
She felt the corners of her eyes burn.
She closed them, there was no way she was going to be the one to cry in this closet, not when the only other one in here was the dead man's son, who somehow hadn’t made a peep.
She wanted to reach out to him, pull him from the darkest part of the closet and closer to her, to the sliver of light that peered through and over her shoulder. Then maybe, just maybe, she could catch a glimpse of him, see the bright yellow lanterns that always welcomed her, the spotted freckles that would scatter across his rounded cheeks. The face she hadn’t seen for months.
But Penny, being a rogue, understood better than anyone that with darkness, came a strange comfort.
So she didn’t reach out, satiating the urge to breach the inch of space between them by mimicking Riz’s seating position, hands curling together over her knees.
They sat like that for a while, two shadows in a closet.
In the most fragile voice she’d ever heard, he spoke.
“He’s not…” his voice broke. “He’s not coming back this time…is he."
She opened her mouth, and then closed it.
She thought she’d been prepared.
“Mom — Mom said he was gonna take a bit longer this time.” The shadow shifted, curling deeper into himself. “Then—then she said he wasn’t coming back, and, and I don’t—” his whisper fell into silence. “He always comes back… He said he’d always come back.”
Whatever reasoning she had that stopped her from reaching out to him crumbled, wordlessly reaching over and gathering the kid in her arms.
He fell into her, arms and legs folded as he curled into her lap.
"He—"
It was muffled against her linen top, so soft she barely heard it. It took everything in her to not let the tears in her eyes wet his hair, laying the left side of her face onto the top of his head.
Penny hadn't noticed her hand had started running through his curls and falling down his pushed-back ears until she heard a soft purring that was choked out by a wet gasp, as if he was forbidding himself from feeling any comfort. Claws dug into her forearm as she felt tears press against her shirt.
She curled around him tighter, and waited.
She didn't know how long they stayed like that, a giant ball of tangled limbs and tears, but soon, the light from outside the room grew dimmer, noon light, the kind that made everything just a tad darker.
Riz was so still, that his rising and falling chest seemed to be the only indicator that he was alive.
She carefully unfurled from him, lifting her face from his bed hair. Her legs ached, and her blood thrummed a bit louder where his claws had dug into her, but none of that mattered. Penny thought he'd been asleep, with how slow his breathing had been, but as she looked down, she saw that his eyes were open, unfocused and staring at his lap.
Penny gently ran her palm up and down his arm, craning her neck a bit to catch his gaze. "Hungry?"
He didn't say anything but she saw the fog that clouded his vision clear a bit.
"Wanna watch a movie?"
Riz still didn't respond, but a bit of the remaining tension left him, an opening for her to gently crawl out from under him and help him lift himself up. She held his hand, half his body weight pressed up against her as they made their way to the living room. Penny eyed the puzzles she'd set out for them on the kitchenette counter, grabbing some leftover sour chips and bringing them back over to the couch as she watched Riz flick through movie options.
He was back in his curled position, knees drawn to his chin.
She sat next to him.
"Sorry."
It came out hoarse, and Penny looked over to see Riz eyeing the tiny indents on her forearms, eyes red and puffy. "I didn't mean to…"
She scooched closer, leaning into him. "I know, it's okay."
Riz head-butted her shoulder, eyes on the box TV after picking an old spy movie. The beginning credits played, and she felt something soft mutter into her shoulder.
"Hm?" She hummed softly, glancing out of the corner of her eye to see Riz gripping the fabric of his shorts.
It took him a bit to repeat what he said. "Please don't leave."
Penny squeezed her eyes shut and then reopened them, reaching around the bag of chips so she could grab Riz's hand with both of hers and squeeze it tightly. "I'm not going to leave — ever, okay?"
Riz looked up at her, too skeptical for a nine-year-old. "Promise?"
She squeezed his hand tighter. "Promise."
He lowered his gaze and laid his head back on her shoulder, which she took to mean he was satisfied.
Riz held her hand throughout the entire movie. When they finally got to his favorite action scenes, he didn't pause to tell her the inaccuracies or a fun fact about how it'd been filmed, but his eyes seemed to glow just a bit brighter, finally reaching over with his other hand to take a sour chip.
One good thing about dying stars, was that they always came back, the little particles left of them materializing into something new.
Even if it was a silly sentiment, she held onto it.