Kazoku Futarikiri had never placed much value in labels - fat, skinny, loud, quiet, nice, mean. All they were good for was dehumanizing someone, trimming their existence down to a few adjectives.
But she was pretty sure she was a bad person.
Steal...
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Blissful nerves clogged my brain as I approached the foster home. Today was the day I had been hoping for ever since he was taken from my care. I couldn't have been happier. My legs were shaking with the best kind of anxiety.
For the first time in forever, I was looking forward to something.
The building had a few children galavanting around the front, playing a lazy looking game of tag. Other than that, the whole existence of the building appeared dreary. The wood was faded and aged. The lawn, which was small to begin with, housed little to no grass, the remainder of which was being pulled out by the soles of the running children's shoes.
As soon as I reached the door I didn't hesitate to pound my knuckles against the door.
A tired looking woman stood on the other side. She was plump, sporting a motherly figure, paired with thin, brown hair. Her drowsy eyes gazed at me for a moment before blinking rapidly. "Oh, hello there. Who might you be?"
"I'm Kazoku Futarikiri," I introduced, bowing slightly. The action was stiff, my thoughts turning suddenly sour. "I'm here to pick up Nikko."
What if they changed their mind? What if something was wrong with the paperwork? What if this woman never got word that I'd be arriving to get Nikko? What if this was all a trap?
"Of course," she smiled, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "You can follow me up to his room. You know, he hasn't stopping smiling since I told him you'd be coming today."
I didn't respond, the nostalgic grin on my face did all the talking for me.
We passed serval rooms. One was a large dining room with a few kids sitting at the table in the center. Homework was splayed around them and they never even glanced up as we passed. The second room was the kitchen with another woman stirring something in a sauce pan.
All the other doors were shut, but name tags hung on them. I could only see a few, but they all had Miss or Missus in front of the name so I could only assume these were the caretakers' rooms.
A staircase appeared in front of us which I followed her up. Once we reached the top, the name tags became more childlike, each personalized so none of them looked the same. A colorful rug sat in the middle of the hallway, leading all the way to the bathroom at the very end.
