"KAI KAI KAI KAI KAI!" 

Kai jumped so hard at the loud voice that he dropped the journal he'd been doodling in. It clattered away from him, skidding across the hardwood floor. The pencil painfully jabbed his thigh as it dropped, and he flinched, picking it up to set it beside him. He crawled off the air mattress that he had been assigned to and picked up the journal.

Before he could set it down, Abby came pounding into the room with a bright smile on her face. She stopped running halfway through the doorway and slid on her socks straight into Kai's chest. 

He stumbled backward, catching her with his free arm and waving the other to catch his balance. As he set the book on the bed behind him, Abby erupted into joyful giggles, dissolving into the folds of his large sweater. 

"What in the world?" Kai asked in confusion, gladly accepting the strange hug she'd decided to give him. She giggled again, her small shoulders shaking beneath him. 

"I don't know," she replied cheerfully. "I just wanted to do that. I'm in a jolly mood, so I thought I'd share it with you." She broke down into more giggles, burying her face into his chest. 

Jolly?? Kai thought with a small chuckle. The only person he would have thought to hear that word from was his father, who could be such a dork when he used grandpa words like that. 

"Okay, then," Kai said with a small shake of his head. 

"What were you doing?" Abby asked curiously, pulling away from his arms and literally bouncing on her feet around him to peer at the sketch he'd been drawing. "Aw, that's cute! I didn't know you liked to draw." 

The picture was a half finished drawing of a puppy sitting back at gazing up at the person who chose to look at it. It was supposed to be a German Shepherd, but Kai hadn't gotten to the marking yet. It wasn't super realistic - more cartoon-y with large ears and eyes. 

"Th-Thanks," Kai said happily, smiling sheepishly down at his girlfriend. "I don't usually draw, though." 

"It's good," Abby praised again, picking up the journal and smiling at the drawing. "I think you should draw more often. You're good at it. I'm ... not." She burst into giggles and set the journal down again. "I can't even draw a stick figure." 

Kai scrunched up his face in attempt to keep from laughing at her. She wasn't wrong - he had seen even her stick figures that she'd doodled when she was trying to show everyone her point. They were - somehow - hilarious disfigured, which seemed impossible for a stick figure. 

"I see you trying not to laugh," Abby chided, drawing his attention back to her. She waggled her finger at him with a frown, but couldn't keep the stern look on her face and burst into more delighted giggles.

"You're very giggly today," Chase said from the doorway, where he was strolling in casually with a book in his hand. "What's got you in such a good mood?" 

Abby shrugged her shoulders, turning sideways to look at her brother. "I don't know," she said cheerfully. "I'm just happy." She did a little rocking dance with her shoulders, making her loose hair sway behind her. 

Chase raised an eyebrow at her with a small smile. "Um. Okay?" 

Abby suddenly grabbed Kai's hand and lunged toward the doorway, dragging Kai behind her forcefully. He nearly yelped as he struggled to regain his footing and hurry along the hallway with her. 

They flew by the couch, where Linda was sitting and reading. As they rushed by, she raised her head to stare at them in confusion, a look which Kai returned with a small shake of his head. Linda disappeared around the corner as Abby pulled Kai into the kitchen. 

"I'm hungry," she said in a loud whisper, then giggled again. "Are you? Well, even if you aren't, I didn't want to eat alone, so I took you with me." She let go of his hand and bounced on her toes, turning toward the fridge dramatically. 

Kai noticed his father standing in the other doorway of the kitchen, a Ziploc bag with leftover hotdogs stuffed inside. He blinked at Abby with a wide-eyed, confused look, then turned his gaze over to Kai, who shrugged. 

"Alright, who gave her sugar?" Falte asked playfully, walking over to the kitchen counter and setting the bag down by the stove. 

"I didn't have any," Abby retorted from her spot in front of the fridge. "I'm just happy. Why is everybody so shocked about that?" She pulled out a bag of green grapes and shut the fridge, popping a few into her mouth. 

"I'm not shocked," Falte said with a shrug. "I'm just wondering why." 

Abby returned his shrug with one of her own, then her eyes locked on Kai's chest. A joyful smile spread onto her face, and she looked up at Kai's face with a wide grin.

Kai narrowed his eyes at her. "What? What are you thinking right now?" He raised his arms a little, palms out.

"I'm not going to do anything weird," she said through giggles. The threw one last grape into her mouth and put the bag on the counter, then shuffled toward Kai on her socks. When she got to him, she turned around and pressed her back into his chest, facing Falte. 

"Zip the sweater up over me," she said through another round of giggles. "I wanna go around the house like that to get reactions." She did the same swaying shoulder dance, jostling Kai's arms as he reached around her toward the zipper. 

"'Not going to do anything weird'?" Falte repeated with a raise of his eyebrows. "I don't know, that seems a little strange to me." But he laughed as Kai zipped Abby into his sweater, creating a large bulge with Abby's head sticking out. 

"Come on, let's go into the living room!" Abby cheered, starting to walk forward. She pulled Kai with her, accidentally stepping on his toes with her heels a few times, but as they slowly made their way out of the kitchen, they got the hang of walking together. 

Just before they walked around the corner, Abby shrank into Kai's sweater, burying her head under it and disappearing - apart from her moving legs. Kai couldn't hold back the confused and amused smile as he rounded the corner into the living room. 

Linda looked up again, probably expecting to see Abby dragging Kai again. She looked up with raised eyebrows and pursed lips, but her expression contorted to complete confusion as Kai shuffled into the room. 

"Why in the world do you have four legs?" she asked bluntly, looking Kai up and down. 

Abby popped her head out, making a silly "BOOP" noise as she did so. Linda's eyebrows shot up again, and a smile crept onto her face until she was fighting to contain her giggles. She leaned forward, bent in half, her shoulders shaking. 

"I'm sorry..." she muttered through rare giggles. "You have no idea... how freaking hilarious that looked..." 

Abby laughed and stuck her head back into Kai's sweater, disappearing again with another strange sound, this one being "fwoof". Kai lifted his hand and concealed his laughter behind his palm. 

Shintaro walked out of the hallway suddenly, his head dipped sideways so his hair could hang over his shoulder as he dried it with a towel. His eyes were on the floor at first, but he looked up to see where he was going and stopped mid-stride when he noticed Kai.

"What?" was all he said as he straightened and tossed his hair behind his back. 

Abby poked her head out again, making Shintaro start backward a little. He opened his mouth to reply to it, then closed his mouth again and blinked at her in confusion. The dumbfounded look on his face was enough to throw Linda into another round of giggling. 

This made Shintaro look from her to Kai to Abby again, and Kai could almost see the confusion levels rising in his head. "What?" he said again, his voice flustered as he looked at all three of them again. "What the heck?" 

Abby laughed so hard that she bent forward, nearly dragging herself and Kai down to the floor. Kai straightened his back and forced her back up, but she continued laughing merrily. 

"That was the best reaction yet," Abby choked out between laugh-gasps. 

"I'm still very confused," Shintaro said desperately, glancing again over at Linda, who's head was buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking with concealed laughter. 

"Stay that way!" Abby cried maniacally, suddenly rushing forward and dragging Kai behind her. As they shuffled past Shintaro, Kai gave his older friend a sheepish and somewhat confused smile. 

"MWahahHHahahahHAHAHAH-" Abby laughed as she dashed down the hallway, and Kai faintly heard Falte say: "She definitely found sugar." 

Abby stuck her head back into Kai's sweater and kicked the boys' room door open, revealing Chase jumping a mile high, his hands opening around the book he was holding. The book clattered the floor, and he pressed his hands to his chest, looking over at Kai with a look of frightened bewilderment. 

Before Chase could say anything, Abby's head broke through the unzipped part of Kai's sweater, and she made another "boop" sound with her mouth. Chase's eyebrows raised to a point where they looked like they were going to jump off his head, then he bent forward in laughter.

Kai shook his head with a sigh, closing his eyes and resting his chin on Abby's head. He wrapped his arms around her, and he felt her bury herself deeper into his sweater gratefully. 

"You're so weird, you know that?" Kai asked Abby without opening his eyes. "But I love that about you." 

~