A couple of weeks after Saki and I skipped school I woke up in the middle of the night to something stirring in my bed. I blinked a few times, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes and squinted at the dark shape laying with its back to me.

What the hell? Saki? Was I dreaming? It certainly wasn't starting off as erotic as they normally did. I blinked a few more times.

"Saki?" I asked groggily.

"Yeah?" she answered with her back still towards me.

I slowly slipped from my half asleep state into full consciousness. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to sleep. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"In my bed?" I asked.

"What are you talking about? You invited me. Remember?"

I tried to think back to the events of the previous day. It wasn't sounding familiar. Had I made a joke of some kind? Then it dawned on me. She meant that day on the mountain.

"I meant I'd get you a futon to sleep on, not for you to come and sleep in my bed," I said, sitting up.

She groaned. "I'm too tired for that. Can't you just go to sleep?"

What planet did she say she was from again? Go to sleep? Did she really not have a grasp on the situation at all?

"You do realize some men might take this as a hint, right?" I ran my hand through my hair and yawned.

"Do you think I'm here to have sex with you?" She glanced over her shoulder at me.

I chuckled. "Unfortunately not."

"Well, there you go." She put her head back on the pillow and shut her eyes.

I stared at her for a minute and sighed. "You also realize that some men might take advantage of this situation?"

"Are you planning to assault me while I'm sleeping?" She asked, her eyes still shut.

"Not on purpose, but I'm not making any promises about what I'll do in my sleep," I said, only half joking.

"I'll take my chances," she said slowly with some annoyance in her voice.

I sighed and lay back down with my back to her, pulling the blanket around me as I went. I let out a deep breath and shut my eyes, trying to empty my head, but it wasn't working. I could feel her there, her warm body only inches away. I could hardly lie still, let alone sleep.

I flipped back over and stared at her. "Just so we're completely on the same page here, sex is a bad idea, but there are no issues with sleeping in the same bed?"

She sighed and started to get up. "Fine. If it's such a bother to you, I'll go."

"Wait." I caught her arm. "I'm sorry. I was just kidding. Don't go. I'll be quiet."

"Good." She lay back down and moved her pillow around until she got comfortable. "Go to sleep."

I sunk back into the bed with my back to her again.

"Goodnight," I mumbled.

"Night," she said.

I shut my eyes and eventually fell asleep somehow, although it felt like it took hours.

In the morning, the alarm on my phone went off, which I had to reach over Saki to get. She moaned as her face squished up in irritation and then rolled towards me, away from the noise. The tip of her nose brushed against my chest. I hung my head and sighed. I must have done something really screwed up in a previous life to anger the karma gods enough to endure this kind of torture.

I turned my alarm off and tried to figure out my next move. I was trapped between her and the wall. I decided to scoot down to the bottom of the bed because I was pretty sure if I tried to maneuver over her, I would just do something stupid, especially that early in the morning.

I grabbed my school uniform and headed to the bathroom to start my morning routine. When I returned, Saki was still cuddled up in bed.

"Come on, Saki." I shook her shoulder gently. "We have to go to school."

She groaned. "Don't want to. Your bed is too comfortable."

"Saki, come on. We're going to be late if you don't get up."

She pulled the covers over her head.

I sighed. "If you get up, I'll make you breakfast."

She moved the blanket down slightly and peered out at me. "What do you have?"

"I can make toast?" I offered.

"No deal." She pulled the blanket back over her head.

I should have known that wasn't going to be good enough. I took a deep breath and tried to brace myself mentally for what I was about to see. Then I quickly grabbed the covers and yanked them off Saki, throwing them to the floor. I'm not sure if I was more relieved or disappointed.

"Did you sleep in your school uniform?" I asked.

She shuttered from the sudden cold and curled up into a ball. "Dick. And yes, I did. I didn't think to bring anything to sleep in."

"You could keep something here for next time," I said.

"I'll keep that in mind. Off to school you go." She waved me off.

I laughed. "Nice try. Get up."

"Pass."

"Saki, I swear if you don't get up, I'll start singing."

She growled. "Alright. Alright. No need to make my ears bleed."

She slowly got out of the bed and made her way to the bathroom. Once I was satisfied she wasn't going to instantly run back into my room, I went downstairs to find something to pack for lunch and to make toast. After a few minutes, I went back up to ask if she wanted butter or jam.

"Hey, Saki." I knocked on the bathroom door. "Do you want..."

The door opened and Saki stood leaning against the door frame. Her uniform looked worse than usual, but at least her hair was brushed now. A blue toothbrush hung out of her mouth.

"Is that my toothbrush?"

She removed it and shrugged. "Probably. It was the only one in here."

"That's disgusting," I said flatly.

She laughed. "You've had your tongue in my mouth, you know?"

I sighed. "Thanks for reminding me, but this is totally different."

"How so?" she asked.

"It just is," I said. "Tongues are nice. Teeth are not."

She grinned. "If that's your opinion, I don't think you've been doing it right."

I chuckled. "Not exactly what I meant." I leaned closer. "But, if you're offering to demonstrate, I'm game."

She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something and shut it again.

"Oh?" I leaned back and folded my arms. "Not so quick in the morning, huh?"

"Shut up, idiot." She punched me in the shoulder and shut the door in my face.

"Butter or jam?" I hollered.

"Is it strawberry jam?" she asked through the door.

"No. I wouldn't have bothered to ask if it was."

"Butter then," she said.

"Hurry up," I called as I headed down the stairs.

After a few minutes she joined me in the kitchen.

"Eat." I placed the toast in her hand.

As soon as she shoved the last bit of it in her mouth, I grabbed her hand. "Come on. We're going to be late."

We both put our shoes on in a hurry and dashed out the door. I locked it and turned around to see two girls wearing our school uniform staring in our direction from across the street while they walked.

"What's up?" Saki asked, following my gaze and turning towards them.

They quickly looked away and hastened their pace.

"Nothing." I shook my head. "Let's go."

Saki and I quickly made our way to school. I overcompensated for the time we'd lost and ended up getting to school a little bit earlier than I usually did. Hiromasa was still by the shoe lockers when we got there.

He cocked his head to the side when we approached him. "Did you two come together?"

"Yeah," I said. "She slept over at my place."

His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to say something.

I put my hand up before he could speak. "Not what you're thinking."

He let out a sigh of relief and turned to Saki. "You can come stay at my house too, you know?"

"You don't think your parents would take issue with that?" I asked.

He folded his arms and looked away from us, grumbling to himself. I caught sight of the two girls from earlier, who were now standing in the corner of the room amidst a few more of their classmates, glancing in our direction.

"Hey." I nudged Saki with my elbow and nodded towards the group of girls. "Sorry I didn't think of this earlier, but people might get the wrong idea about us."

Saki laughed. "Guess I shouldn't do this then." She grabbed my shoulder and stood on her tip toes to put her mouth close to my ear, then started to talk in an over exaggerated moaning voice. "Oh, Kaito. You were so good last night. I can hardly wait to get home."

I grimaced and leaned my head away. Karma gods suck.

She ignored Hiromasa waving his hands wildly as a sign to be quiet and pulled away from me, glaring at the group of girls as she did. They exchanged worried looks and scurried away.

I let out a deep breath. "So, I'm going to take that as an 'I don't care'."

"I've got news for you," she said. "That rumor has been going around since the first few weeks of school."

"Really?" I folded my arms. "You don't really strike me as the gossiping type."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not, but I still have to share a locker room and bathroom with those idiots. Hell, there is even a story going around about you and Hiromasa."

I bust out laughing.

"What?" Hiromasa whined. "Is this why I don't have a girlfriend?"

Saki shrugged.

Hiromasa groaned and let himself fall against the lockers. "I'll be single forever."

I kept right on laughing until the bell rang.

"Hm. I guess we were late after all," Saki said, glancing up at the noise.

"That was the first bell," I said.

"There's a first bell?" Saki asked.

I sighed and hung my head. "You're hopeless."

The rest of the day went by fairly normally. We had our usual study session after school. After Hiromasa and Saki left, I dropped by the store to grab a few groceries and two new toothbrushes.

I didn't want to struggle every morning, so I had come up with a new plan involving food bribery. I wasn't sure when she was going to show up again, so I had to permanently set my alarm for a little earlier in the morning, not that it mattered to me.

Sure enough, at the end of the week she snuck through the window again. I didn't say anything when I awoke to her getting in the bed, just flipped over and shut my eyes until I finally fell asleep.

In the morning I got ready and went downstairs to literally cook up my plan. When I returned to the room, she was still covered in blankets, but quickly poked her head out and sniffed the air. Who doesn't love the smell of eggs and bacon?

I knelt next to the bed with the plate. She flipped over and stared at it.

"Did you make breakfast?" she asked.

"Mhm." I nodded.

She made a snatch for it, but I pulled it away from her grasp. "Nope. After you get ready, it'll be waiting for you downstairs."

She glared at me for a minute, before throwing the covers off and racing to the bathroom. At least she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt instead of her school uniform, which I found scrunched up on the floor. I shook my head, gathered it up, and walked to the bathroom.

I knocked on the door. "I'm leaving what is either your uniform or a pile of rags in front of this door. I can't really tell which."

"I suppose you're going to tell me to hang it up next time," she said from the other side of the door.

"That would be a start," I said. "Have you ever ironed this thing?"

"Do I look like someone who would own an iron?" she asked.

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess that was a dumb question. I'll do it for you sometime."

"Wow. You cook and iron? You're going to make a great housewife someday." She laughed.

"Keep it up and I'll eat your breakfast." I started down the stairs. "Your toothbrush is the green one, by the way."

When I got downstairs, I set her plate down on the table and took a seat to wait. She made it downstairs pretty fast.

"You waited for me?" she asked, sitting down across from me.

"Obviously." I picked up my fork and knife. "You made good time. I don't even think it's gotten cold yet."

"Couldn't keep my wife waiting." She winked at me and cut into her bacon and egg.

I glared at her in response.

She laughed and gathered up some food on her fork before sticking it in her mouth. Her eyes went wide.

"Wow," she said, pulling the fork away. "You really can cook."

I laughed. "I hardly think this counts, but thanks."

"Why green?" she asked, cutting up more of her breakfast.

"The toothbrush?" I cut into my egg. "Because it's your favorite color, of course."

"You remembered that?"

I nodded. "I told you I would."

She smiled. "Yeah, I guess you did."

"You know, it's not really so bad down here." I looked around the plain white room. "It usually feels really weird, but today it's a lot better."

"Probably the food." Saki scraped the remainder of her breakfast onto her fork.

I stared at the woman sitting across from me. The beams of early morning light bounced off her skin and hair giving it a subtle shine. It wasn't the food.

It didn't take me long to realize that aside from breakfast, I could make bento lunches as well. I kept it pretty basic, but I still had a smile on my face every time I went into that kitchen to make her something. Since she was the brutally honest type, she didn't hesitate to tell me when something was a little off, but that just made me try harder. She didn't have many complaints, and I don't think it was just my imagination that she ate a lot of it slower than I had seen her eat other food, a quality she usually reserved only for strawberries.

Our sleeping arrangements stayed the same as they had that first night. Sometimes she would show up as much as a few times a week, and sometimes not at all. I didn't know when she was going to spend the night until I awoke to her crawling into the bed next to me. I never brought up the futon again. I was afraid it would discourage her from coming and I would lose all the progress I'd made. Instead, I remained quiet and still until sleep claimed me. It was like my own private hell I had decided to put myself in.

The only thing worse than having her there was not having her there at all. On the nights she didn't show, I woke up feeling more lonely than I'd ever felt before. I loved how well I slept knowing she was there. I hated how long it took for me to calm my mind enough to sleep. I loved waking up and seeing her next to me. I hated the reach over her to turn off the alarm. I loved having her close enough that I could pull her close and hold her. I hated not being able to. I loved that occasionally in her sleep she would touch me with her feet or graze my skin with her fingertips. I hated having to move away from these touches. I lived in a constant state of self-inflicted ambivalence, and I loved and hated every minute of it.