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As long as he can remember, they’ve slept in the same bed.
Peko has simply always been there. She was his shadow when they were kids, and even now, he’s hardly ever seen without her.
He doesn’t remember the first time he met her – he was much too young for that. He does remember the day they both graduated from cribs to actual beds, and how he ran screaming into the nursery to tell Peko the news, because she’d been taking a short nap.
“Peko!” he screamed.”Peko-chan!”
She jolted up, her small braids disheveled and her large eyes confused. “Fuyu-chan?”
“Mommy says we can sleep in actual beds soon! Aren’t you excited?”
Her small face smiled brightly, her eyes crinkling up.
He hasn’t seen her smile like that for a while.
He stares at the ceiling. It’s nighttime on the island. It’s going to be incredibly hard for him to sleep without Peko beside him, for the first time in how many years? He doesn’t remember.
He closes his eyes and browses through his memories like books.
When they graduated from cribs to beds, the original plan had been to simply replace the two cribs with doubles. However, the second bed hadn’t ever come in so Peko and Kuzuryuu had to sleep together. He remembers how they had curled up, small child hands clasped together in between them. Their foreheads and knees were flush against each other, so when viewed from above they formed a vague heart shape.
His parents had figured there was no harm with Peko sleeping with him – after all, she was his bodyguard. It made sense for them to be as close as possible. So they had let it continue.
But when was the last time he and Peko had slept together?
Ah… it can’t have been more than a few days. Right?
It still felt wrong, though- to have someone you’ve been incredibly close with your entire life just gone. They both felt best together, he knows. Peko was made for him, and he her.
He recalls how intimate they became over the years. As children, they were constantly holding hands. As they grew up, the habit remained. He remembers how they rode the train – pressed as close to each other as possible, hands linked, knees pulled in. It was almost like they were trying to collapse into themselves and each other.
They had never been uncomfortable around each other – someone that one spent almost all their waking (and sleeping) hours with would hardly care if he walked around in his boxers, or she in a sports bra and her boy shorts.
He remembers it only starting to embarrass him once they hit high school. He would flush whenever Peko pulled off her shirt to change into her pajamas, or on the summer nights when they both slept in their underwear. His face would be red as her eyes when she pulled him to her in her sleep, and when she rested her chin on top of his head.
He had never been one to go for girls-or anyone, really-but Peko was special.
Kuzuryuu stumbles out of his bed and grabs his discarded daytime clothes, along with a blanket just because. He meanders out of his room, down the boardwalk and into Peko’s room. He knocks one, two, three times then lets himself in. Peko is sitting cross legged on her bed, staring into space. She tenses up when he opens the door, but smiles slowly once she realizes it’s him.
He realized it on the bus, when she slung her arm about his shoulders and pulled him in close. He realized it at school, when she would skip her classes to stay in his. He realized it on the rides home, when she fell asleep and ended up sprawled over his lap, her shoulder digging into his stomach and her chin pressing uncomfortably into his thigh. He realized it when she got into bed before him and swung the sheets over them both so that they billowed down on top of them, just like she did when they were kids.
“I love you,” he whispered into her collarbone.
She’s just wearing the same sports bra and ugly little boy shorts again.
“Do you
He holds the blanket about himself like a cape and moves towards the covers she’s pushed down in an effort to escape the heat.
love me
He crawls up next to her and presses close. She pulls him on top of her and lets him use her as a pillow, like they did when they were kids.
too?”
She swings the sheets up and over them, and he watches them billow down.
He falls asleep instantly for the first time in days.