What A Girl Wants

Eleven

Nagi fell asleep first. About five minutes into the first movie. Reo followed not long after. And it didn't matter what anyone did around them, the two of them were in their own little world, curled up on a single sleeping mat, sleeping like the dead.

The girls were giggling over it for a reason Sae didn't really understand, because she was equally parts impressed and disgusted. She'd only chosen these futons because she could fit as many as there were girls in the basement, but they were a bit small for even her petite framed liking. She didn't know how the two of them were comfortably sharing one or sleeping that soundly all wrapped up in each other. If anyone touched Sae while she slept, ever, it ruined her entire night.

She waited patiently for the rest of the girls to fall asleep, which took longer than she would have liked, but during the second movie, they really started dropping like flies. Rin ended up being the one who got up to put on some gross slasher flick as the third pick, and those who were still clinging to alertness at this point finally let themselves sink into sleep. Including Rin herself.

When the movie had finished and Sae had effectively counted to five hundred without anyone moving or flinching, she slowly peeled off her covers and started slipping herself out of them.

Ryusei, who she'd long thought asleep, suddenly jerked a hand out and grabbed her wrist. Sae managed to keep herself from screaming, but she did gasp.

"You scared the shit out of me!" she hissed at her.

"Where are you going?" she whispered back, entirely unphased.

Sae was wholly aware that she could have lied. She could have said I'm just going to the bathroom. I'm just getting some water. I won't be long. Go back to sleep. But she decided against it. They were best friends, and best friends didn't lie. Or so she figured.

"I'm going to sleep in my own bed," Sae told her.

"Alright," Ryusei said, releasing her wrist.

Sae thought that was quite the muted reaction from her, until she saw that she too was pulling herself from the futon bed and climbing out of it.

The two of them crept up the stairs like they were spies. They tip toed up the carpet and when Ryusei stepped onto the creaky spot on the stairs that Sae had avoided, she turned around in the dark stairwell and pressed a finger to her lips.

"Shh!" Sae said.

"Go faster then," Ryusei whispered.

So, Sae did. She climbed the rest of the stairs with the quickest grace she was capable of and opened the basement door, letting the two of them slip through it before closing it just as silently.

They didn't say anything once reaching the relative safety of the main level. The entire house was dark and sleeping and empty. The Itoshi parents, like any reasonable human beings, had not particularly wished to be in the house with twenty-something teenage girls and had taken it upon themselves to dish out expectations and warnings before treating themselves to an impromptu date night. Sae looked at Ryusei's face, illuminated only by the faint moonlight snaking in through the windows from the rooms off the hallway, only to find her grinning back. They were the only two solders in an endless night.

She waved her along to follow her. She did.

Sae hadn't really put two and two together. What this climbing of the stairs together, the invitation, the intention behind it, had really meant. She just thought that she was her best friend, so of course she could come with her. It didn't really strike her until they got all the way into Sae's room and Ryusei fell right onto her bed and pulled one of the pillows under her own head.