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The first time it happens, Rena is watching Kaede sleep. It’s a little creepy, she thinks, but she has nothing better to do with herself. She can’t help it—a sleeping Kaede is so much more interesting than the ceiling or whatever she can find on internet forums on her phone. Plus, they just took care of a rumor today, so she can stop browsing the internet for one night. Even better, her girlfriend looks so soft when she’s asleep, her body curling slightly as if to protect herself. Since Rena is so tired of squinting at her phone and searching for obscure rumors, she’s already decided that she can indulge in staring at her girlfriend for a few hours instead.
So she notices right away when Kaede starts twitching.
It starts subtle and quiet, at first. Kaede whispers a tiny, broken off plea of “help”, before shaking slightly. Then, Rena thinks that she spies a few tears leaking out of Kaede’s eyes. She reaches out and gently brushes them away, taking care not to disturb Kaede. If she can avoid waking Kaede, that’s for the best.
For one thing, Kaede will be distressed to hear that she woke Rena up, and for another, Rena doesn’t want to have to admit that she was already awake and watching Kaede anyways, so it doesn’t matter if Kaede was crying in her sleep.
It’s horribly embarrassing, Rena thinks, to admit to just how much she likes Kaede.
“Please,” Kaede begs, and the blood freezes in Rena’s veins. “Please…help.”
Kaede is having a nightmare, Rena reminds herself. It’s not real.
Her girlfriend is safe. The monsters are only in Kaede’s head.
“I’m here,” Rena whispers, unsure if Kaede can even hear her. Beside her, Kaede shakes violently.
“Please,” Kaede cries, and Rena listens to her pitiful sniffles, unsure of what to do or how to help. She can’t believe Kaede is crying in her sleep.
Normally, if they were awake, Rena would call her pathetic. Stupid crybaby Kaede, she would say, before shoving a tissue at her.
But.
How many nights had Rena woken up with tear-stained cheeks before it got to the point where she no longer wanted to sleep?
Rena might not be a good girlfriend, but she’s not heartless. She can at least offer some comfort to Kaede. Even if she doesn’t quite know how.
“Kaede,” she says softly, turning her girlfriend’s still-shaking body towards her. “I’m here.” She places her hands on Kaede’s cheeks and wipes the tears away. “I’m here,” she repeats, and presses a kiss to Kaede’s forehead.
“P-please,” Kaede cries again, and Rena wraps her arms around the still-crying Kaede, and waits for Kaede to wake up. She holds tightly as Kaede shakes a leaf in her arms, and whispers “Kaede, I’m here” until the whimpers stop. She wonders when Kaede will wake up.
She wonders how she’s going to explain this.
As it turns out, Kaede doesn’t wake up until the next morning. Rena doesn’t offer an explanation for how they ended up tangled against each other. Of course, Kaede assumes that she tackled Rena in her sleep. The very idea is ridiculous, considering that Kaede normally never clings to Rena in her sleep. But Rena just waves off the apology, unwilling to explain the events of last night.
“Did you dream of anything?” She asks instead, curious to see if Kaede remembers her dream.
Kaede looks at her mug of tea thoughtfully. “No,” she says, and Rena can’t tell if she’s lying or not.
Oh well. Rena understands not wanting to talk about it. For now, Rena will simply have to keep an eye and an ear out at night, to make sure that Kaede is okay. As long as Kaede doesn’t yell, it probably won’t be so bad.
The second time it happens, Rena is engrossed in a cake tutorial. She’s okay at cooking, but baking is another thing entirely. Even so, Kaede likes sweet things, so Rena figures that maybe she could find a simple recipe and bake her girlfriend a cake. That’s what couples did for each other, right? And it’s not fair to make Kaede the one who does all the cute emotional stuff. After all, Rena is perfectly capable of being nice…at least that’s what she tells herself.
Sometimes, though, she thinks that she’ll never be as nice as Kaede, or as good as Kaede, or even good enough for Kaede. Kaede is cute, she’s sweet, and she could do so much better than sullen, angry, can’t-admit-her-feelings Rena.
Seriously, how does Kaede even put up with her?
So, the point is, Rena is watching the lady on screen pour batter into a pan and thinking that she could, possibly, try and replicate it to give to Kaede, when a shrill scream sounds next to her. Her phone slips out of her hands and lands on her face, but Rena pushes it aside and turns to Kaede.
How had she possibly missed the fact that Kaede was crying? She shouldn’t have been paying so much attention to the cake lady. After all, Kaede had had a nightmare just last week. Rena should have known, she should have been paying attention. Nightmares weren’t just a one time thing.
Not for magical girls, anyways. She suffers from her own fair share, and she knows Momoko has suffered through enough on her own.
Next to her, Kaede won’t stop whimpering and shaking. “No…no,” she pleads, red hair damp with sweat, and Rena is struck by how fragile her girlfriend looks. Kaede always looks like she’s made of glass, but here, she looks like she could shatter into a billion pieces at the slightest touch. “Please…”
Rena reaches out and smoothes some of Kaede’s hair away from her face. “I’m right here,” she says softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Make it stop…” Kaede begs, her face scrunched as if she’s in horrible plain. “Someone…”
“Kaede,” Rena says. She tries to tug her girlfriend closer, but Kaede’s body seizes up violently before she thrashes so hard that Rena takes a foot to the face.
“Damnit Kaede!” Rena catches one of Kaede’s hands and squeezes it, rubbing circles on it with her thumb. “It’s just in your head!”
“AHHHHHH!” Kaede screams as if she’s been hit by something, and all the hairs on Rena’s arm stand on end. “Ahhhh…ahhhh…” She shoots up, looking around wildly, and Rena almost cries with relief. “The witch…we have to…to…Rena?”
“Kaede,” she says. “Are. Are you okay?”
Kaede’s shoulders shake as she struggles to catch her breath. Rena watches the way she gulps in air, as if she never thought she’d be able to breathe again.
“Rena,” Kaede says again. “Did…did I wake you?”
Rena blinks. Of course Kaede would be worried about her. The simple thing to do would be to tell her not to worry, that she was awake anyways.
Rena has never been good, or honest.
“Yes,” she lies. “You screamed.” She decides to leave out the kick; Kaede definitely doesn’t need that on her conscious. But acting as if she wasn’t already awake? Honestly. She’s a horrible person. Kaede really should just dump her.
“Oh,” says Kaede, taking deeper, more stable breaths now. “I’m sorry. It was just a nightmare.”
Rena bites back a snarky retort and simply hums a little at that. Nightmares.
She knows how it feels. After all, she can’t sleep because of those. They’ve plagued her for as long as she can remember.
Sleeping isn’t something that Rena does often.
“Let’s go back to sleep, okay, Rena?” Kaede asks, pulling Rena out of her thoughts, and she wraps her arms around Rena. “It’s okay. I promise it won’t happen again.”
You don’t need to promise that, Rena thinks, a tiny bubble of irritation rising in her. She forces herself to tamp it down, however, and instead thinks of something comforting to say.
It’s just…no one ever comforted her when she would wake up, kicking and screaming like her life depended on it.
“It’s…okay to be scared,” Rena mumbles, settling on the words that she had to whisper to herself in the dark of night, before the insomnia set in and she was unable to sleep. Kaede doesn’t respond, instead tugging her down and pressing her face into her neck. Rena lets her, not bothering to say anything else, and if Kaede cries softly before she eventually falls asleep, well, that’s no one’s business but Rena’s. For once, she doesn’t say anything, just lets Kaede cry as she strokes Kaede’s hair in response.
What a mess.
She should probably figure out how to make that cake. With a sigh, Rena reaches out, and begins to search for her dropped phone so she can finish watching the tutorial.
It’s about a week and a half before the next one occurs. Rena’s browsing on the Internet forums, looking for more obscure rumors, when Kaede’s body violently shakes and she ends up kicking Rena.
“Ow,” Rena hisses, setting her phone down and turning to Kaede. Next to her, Kaede stills, but there’s a definite furrow in between her brows, and Rena smoothes Kaede’s hair down.
Kaede is both quiet and still for a few minutes, and Rena is just about to go back to the Internet when Kaede jerks once more, this time with a squeak of “no!”
“Kaede?” She asks, but she knows that Kaede can’t hear her.
“Don’t,” Kaede begs, and Rena sighs. She’d hoped that the nightmares were over, or that maybe they were a rare thing, but no such luck.
Not after…everything.
“D-don’t,” Kaede repeats, and when Rena looks at her, there’s a few tears creeping their way down Kaede’s face. Rena brushes them away. That much, at least, she can do for Kaede.
“Please,” Kaede chokes out, a broken plea to no one. Rena wonders what she’s dreaming of.
She wonders if it has anything to do with the Chain Witch. Every time Kaede has a nightmare, part of Rena will always wonder if it’s her fault; if she’s the one who causes Kaede to cry at night.
“Please!” Kaede wails, and Rena flinches. Not the screaming. That’s the worst part: hearing Kaede scream and knowing that she cannot save Kaede.
It’s a sound that haunts her own dreams.
Kaede’s crying again, so Rena brushes off more of Kaede’s tears and carefully strokes her hair. One thing that Rena has discovered is that it’s easy to be gentle with Kaede like this. In the darkness, no one can see them, not even Kaede. And Kaede looks so fragile, and so distraught, that it’s easier than Rena expected to slip her hands into Kaede’s hair and presses kisses onto Kaede’s face. Normally, she feels embarrassed doing such things, but under the cover of the night…such actions are easier than she thought.
Kaede thrashes once more, before letting out an ungodly, wordless screech. Rena winces as Kaede’s foot smashes into her shin, but after that yell, Kaede’s eyes open.
Rena gives her a few seconds to catch her breath and re-orient herself with the world of the awake. Then, slowly, Rena sits up.
“What happened?” She asks.
“Ahhh…” Kaede sounds guilty. “Did I wake Rena?”
“You kicked me,” Rena replies, in lieu of an actual answer.
“Sorry,” Kaede says. “It was just a nightmare.”
“You screamed, too,” Rena informs her, and Kaede ducks her head.
“…sorry, Rena,” Kaede whispers.
“It’s fine,” Rena grumbles. She still doesn’t have the heart to admit that she wasn’t sleeping anyways. That’s her, evasive Rena who can’t even admit that she wasn’t sleeping.
Kaede asks, “Does it hurt?” Her voice is so soft, so fragile. Rena kind of wants to smack her. How many times does she have to tell Kaede that it’s fine? How many times, until Kaede can accept that Rena doesn’t mind?
“Not really,” she reassures her. “I’ve had worse.” She stops. That sounded weird. “I mean…your kicks aren’t that strong.” Okay, now she’s just insulting Kaede. She claps one hand over her mouth and hopes that Kaede understood her general meaning anyways.
“Oh.” Kaede’s voice is quiet. Rena sighs.
“Come on, Kaede,” she grumbles. “Let’s go back to sleep.” She holds her arms out to Kaede, who wastes no time crawling into her embrace.
“I’m sorry, Rena,” she repeats.
“Why?” Rena asks. Then, an idea occurs to her. “Wait. Did something happen in your nightmare?”
Kaede is silent, for once.
“Kaede?” She prods.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kaede whispers. “It was just a nightmare.”
If Kaede clings onto Rena a little tighter than normal, well, Rena isn’t going to say anything. Instead, she just strokes Kaede’s hair in return, and waits for Kaede to fall back asleep. Once Kaede’s breathing is slow and even, she presses a gentle kiss to Kaede’s forehead.
“I wasn’t sleeping anyways,” she confesses, but there’s no response from Kaede. Of course not.
Rena wonders if she’s relieved or not by the lack of a response.
The fourth time, Rena is practically expecting it. She tossed her phone aside about an hour ago, and had been staring at the glow in the dark stars she and Kaede had put up on the ceiling in a flight of fancy. Kaede had claimed that if she kept on waking up in the middle of the night, it would be nice to see something, and so they had bought glow in the dark stars. They’re childish, Rena thinks, but she can’t deny that staring at the stars is more entertaining than staring at darkness.
It starts with a whimper, and Rena sits up to look at Kaede. At this point, she has a better idea of what to do whenever one of Kaede’s nightmares starts. So Rena reaches out and tugs Kaede’s head into her lap and starts running her fingers through her hair. Below her, Kaede starts crying and whispering things, like “no” and “please” and “stop”.
“It’s okay, Kaede,” Rena murmurs. “I’m right here.”
“Help,” Kaede whimpers. “M…Momoko.”
Oh, that’s new. Rena doesn’t think Kaede’s ever called out for one of them before.
She wonders if that means that Kaede’s nightmares are getting worse.
“Please,” Kaede says again.
“I’m right here,” Rena says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Kaede thrashes a few times, still whimpering, tears leaking out of her eyes. It’s easy enough, now, for Rena to wipe her thumbs under Kaede’s eyes. She doesn’t say anything, just keeps stroking Kaede’s face and hair.
There’s no screaming this time, but Kaede won’t stop crying and whimpering. “Momoko,” she calls out again. “Please.”
Rena frowns. She’s a little bitter that Kaede hasn’t called out her name. What kind of girlfriend is she, that Kaede doesn’t even dream about her?
Then again, Rena thinks, does she want to be in one of Kaede’s nightmares?
Is this even something worth getting bitter over? Yet another reason that Rena is a horrible girlfriend.
Kaede thrashes a few times, throwing weak punches. It’s easy enough for Rena to capture Kaede’s fists in her own, and Rena wraps her hands around Kaede’s, taking care to interlace their fingers together.
“I’m right here,” she says. “I’m right here.”
Kaede whimpers again, and Rena marvels over how small she looks. Kaede might be a magical girl, but here, she’s so weak.
Rena squeezes Kaede’s hands, and Kaede squeezes back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rena tells her. In the daylight, she knows that she would never have the courage to that out loud. It would be horribly embarrassing, to admit that Kaede means that much to her. Kaede, who is weak and a crybaby and usually ends up as a hindrance more than a help, would probably cry if Rena actually said that to her.
Again: horribly embarrassing. But it’s easier to be soft in the dark, with no one but the glow-in-the-dark stars as her witness.
As she holds Kaede’s hands, she wonders why Kaede has, over and over again, chosen to stay with her, no matter how many times Rena has pushed her away.
“S-stop,” Kaede whimpers, but her tremors stop and she slowly stills in Rena’s lap. Rena doesn’t unlock their fingers.
It’s foolish, but she doesn’t want to let go.
After Kaede’s calmed down, Rena wraps Kaede into her arms once more, tucking Kaede’s face into her neck and pressing her lips to Kaede’s hairline.
“It’s okay, Kaede,” she whispers, the glow-in-the-dark stars still her only witness. Rena hopes that it will stay that way. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
She rubs soothing circles on Kaede’s back, and the tension slowly bleeds out of Kaede’s back. Rena wonders if she’s grateful that Kaede never screamed tonight; wonders if she’s glad that Kaede never woke up from her nightmare.
After all, a small part of her wants to Kaede to know that she’ll be there to comfort her after these nightmares.
But the larger part of her, the ugly, selfish, can’t admit to her feelings bit, desperately wants Kaede to sleep through her nightmares and Rena’s comfort, so that Rena never has to admit that she’d do anything for Kaede.
Rena’s more than used to Kaede’s nightmares at this point. She thinks that it’s a little sad, that she isn’t able to sleep because of her own nightmares, and as such has ended up figuring out how to comfort her sleeping girlfriend whenever Kaede suffers from nightmares.
But tonight’s a bad one. Rena winces as Kaede’s foot crashes into her back and sends her tumbling to the floor. It had started out with a few small whimpers, and Rena had just been reaching over to put her phone down when Kaede just…lashed out like that.
Honestly. Kaede is stronger than she looks. For a girl who looks like she might fall over if the slightest breeze pushed her, she sure can kick. If only she would use that strength when they’re fighting. Rena sighs from her spot on the floor, before standing up and climbing back into bed.
“Kaede,” she whispers. “I’m right here.”
Kaede yelps, a shrill noise that makes Rena’s heart jump.
“We’re not getting attacked; it’s all in Kaede’s head,” Rena reminds herself, reaching out to grasp one of Kaede’s hands. “It’s okay.” She tangles their fingers together and starts rubbing small circles with her thumb onto Kaede’s skin. “I’m right here,” she adds.
Kaede mumbles something unintelligible in response. Rena can’t help the weak laugh that escapes her.
“I’m here, Kaede,” she repeats, still rubbing circles onto Kaede’s hand. “I’m right here.”
It seems to be working, as Kaede’s body stops twitching and the whimpers slow down. With her free hand, Rena brushes Kaede’s cheeks, feeling the slight damp from Kaede’s tears.
“It’s—”
“RENA!” Kaede shrieks suddenly, and Rena flinches from the sound. “RENA!” She rips her hand out from Rena’s and thrashes a few times. Her fist catches Rena in the jaw and Rena winces.
“Kaede, you have so much strength,” she hisses, picking up the blanket and preparing to tackle Kaede with it. “Why can’t you just—”
“RENA!” Kaede screams again, and this time, she wakes herself up from the force of her scream. Rena freezes, her arms in the air, holding the blanket up so she could properly wrap Kaede up. Kaede looks around, breathing rapidly.
“Rena?” Kaede asks.
“You had a nightmare,” Rena tells her, dropping the blanket.
“Did I wake you?” Kaede asks, her voice small.
Rena blinks. Did she…did she seriously just ask that?
“Did you wake me?” She repeats, incredulous. “Did you wake me?” She stares at Kaede. “You—you kicked me out of the freaking bed!”
“Oh,” Kaede says softly, looking down at her hands. “Oh.”
“You punched me in the jaw!” Rena exclaims. “You yelled out my name like three times! Of course you woke me, you idiot!”
“O-oh,” Kaede whispers, and there’s a moment of silence before a shaky sob escapes from her. “I-I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Rena scowls. Contrary to what most people think of her, she isn’t heartless. She takes a deep breath, then one more, then a third for good measure, just as Momoko had taught her to whenever she was about to lose her patience and do something horribly stupid.
Then she takes a fourth and a fifth, casting her gaze to the ceiling and the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted there. It’s not Kaede’s fault, she reminds herself. Rena knows how bad nightmares can be.
After all, why else is she always awake for Kaede’s?
She takes a sixth breath, just in case. Then she holds out her hand.
“Come on, Kaede,” she grumbles. “There’s still some cake in the fridge. Let’s have a snack.”
“B-but it’s late, and I woke you up,” Kaede says softly, her voice wobbly. “Wouldn’t it be better to sleep?”
Rena scoffs. “What did you dream about?” She demands.
“It was just a nightmare,” Kaede replies, still sounding like she’s on the verge of tears. “It doesn’t matter. I d-don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re so stupid,” Rena tells her. “There’s no way you’re going back to sleep after whatever that was.” She hops out of the bed. “You coming?”
“Okay,” Kaede says, and she follows Rena into the kitchen, where Rena turns on one light and busies herself pulling out the cake she’d made earlier today.
It hadn’t been for anything special, just a simple white cake decorated with strawberries and cream, but Kaede had cried when Rena had given it to her. Then she cried when they ate it, claiming that it was one of the best things she’d ever eaten.
Rena wouldn’t go that far, but seeing the smile on Kaede’s face when she gave it to her had made the struggle of making it all worth it.
She slices two pieces, plates them, then grabs two forks and brings the cake to the table.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she mutters, sliding a piece to Kaede. “But look. I’m alive, I’m right here, and we’re about to eat cake. So. Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”
Kaede looks at the cake, then at Rena. Rena squirms under her gaze.
“Hey, Rena,” Kaede starts. “I must wake you up a lot, huh?”
“What?” Rena demands.
Kaede looks down at her cake and smiles. “Rena always is awake when I have a bad dream,” she says. “And sometimes, when I wake up in the next morning, and I remember that I had a bad dream, Rena’s always wrapped around me.”
“…you’re clingy,” Rena lies. It’s not true. Kaede, ironically, is not very clingy in her sleep. She might draw close to Rena, but normally, it’s Rena who has to pull Kaede into her arms and Rena who wraps Kaede in her embrace.
And on the rare moments that Rena does sleep, she usually finds herself clinging to Kaede when she wakes up.
“Rena,” Kaede says. “Thank you.”
Rena feels her cheeks heat up. “I-it’s not a big deal,” she mutters, stabbing her cake with her fork. “Everyone gets nightmares.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream,” Kaede replies.
Rena shoves cake into her mouth to avoid answering. There’s no way she’s going to tell Kaede that she usually only sleeps in short bursts, to avoid having nightmares of her own.
“W-well, maybe I’m just a lighter sleeper than you,” is what she finally tells Kaede, and they leave it at that.
They don’t go back to bed either, choosing instead to curl up on the couch and hold each other. Kaede never says what happened in her dream, and Rena decides not to ask.
For now, they’ll just remember that they’re alive.
Contrary to what Rena might think, Kaede isn’t stupid. Or oblivious, or naive, or however else Rena wants to describe Kaede.
Okay. She might be a bit naive.
Even so, she knows that Rena takes longer to fall asleep than she does, and she also knows that every time she has a nightmare, Rena is there for her when she wakes up from it. Kaede suspects that Rena wakes up and comforts her through nightmares that Kaede is unable to wake from, although she has no proof and Rena just waves her concerns off.
She knows Rena sleeps—everyone has to, at some point—but if she has to guess, Rena probably sleeps more fitfully than she’s willing to let on. Rena might even be a little bit of an insomniac, although she would never admit to that.
Rena can be amazingly stubborn sometimes. Kaede doesn’t mind, though: Rena also happens to be one of the easiest people to read. Now, if only she would let Kaede help her on occasion…
When Rena crashes onto their bed one night and falls asleep almost immediately, before Kaede even has the chance to get in, Kaede knows that this could be her chance.
Of what, she’s not exactly sure, but she knows that Rena’s been run ragged from this past week. Kaede takes her time preparing for bed. She feels a little bad, but she wants to show Rena that she can take care of her too.
It feels like Rena’s always taking care of her, after all. Kaede thinks about the time they ate cake after her nightmare that one time, when she’d apparently kicked Rena out of the bed. Rena had acted like it was nothing, but Kaede still feels bad.
Rena cares about her, after all. And Kaede knows that she’s so weak, so she’s always relying on Rena to take care of her. But she can take care of Rena too!
At least, she’s pretty sure she can.
Still, as she lies in bed, she feels sleep creeping over her, and it isn’t long until Kaede is claimed by sleep.
A scream pierces through her sleep, pulling back layers of black and slowly bringing Kaede back into the world of the awake. What was going on? She lies there, trying to figure out what’s happening, when something catches her in the ribs.
Pain shoots up her side from a stray fist, and Kaede’s eyes fly open from the impact.
“Rena?” She whispers, and beside her, Rena is thrashing. Violently. Her pillow is on the floor, and the blankets are tangled around their bodies. The bed shakes, and Kaede is no longer sleepy, but instead wide awake.
She didn’t know it was this bad. Is this what Rena sees every night? Does Kaede look like this?
“Rena,” Kaede whispers again, reaching out tentatively. Rena’s entire body convulses as she screams.
“I’m right—” Kaede tries, as Rena thrashes once more, before sitting straight up. She looks around wildly, clutching the blanket in her fists and breathing heavily.
“Rena?” Kaede asks for a third time, and Rena turns to her.
“Ah, K-Kaede,” Rena stammers out. “Did I…wake you?” She sounds hesitant, worried.
“Yeah,” Kaede answers truthfully. “But I think I wake you up more often, so it’s okay.”
“Hah.” Rena is quiet after that. Kaede frowns. What should she do?
What would Rena do?
“Was it a nightmare?” Kaede asks.
Rena makes a small noise. That’s a yes, Kaede thinks.
“It’s okay,” Kaede reassures her, reaching out to grasp Rena’s hand in her own. “It was just a dream.”
Rena looks up at their ceiling, taking in the faint glow from their glow-in-the-dark stars. She’s still quiet, and Kaede wonders what she should say.
“I don’t usually sleep for very long,” Rena mumbles. “I have really bad nightmares.”
Oh.
“I really don’t mind it if you cry in your sleep,” Rena continues, still fixated on the ceiling. “I was probably awake anyways.”
“Rena—” Kaede starts, but Rena chooses then to tug Kaede into her arms and force them both to lie down again. Kaede wraps her arms around Rena, and smiles when Rena’s arms tighten around her in response.
“I…I don’t mind holding you, either,” Rena confesses, the words falling clumsily around them. “If you’re having a nightmare, well.” There’s a small pause, and Kaede waits for Rena to gather her thoughts and finish her sentence. “I. I know how bad they can be.”
“What do you dream of, Rena?” Kaede asks.
Silence settles over them. Kaede looks up at the plastic stars on their ceiling, glowing faintly. She wonders how many times Rena’s traced over those same stars with her eyes, waiting for Kaede to start yelling and thrashing.
Getting those stars was a good idea after all.
“…I dream that I’m not fast enough,” Rena finally admits, her voice smaller than Kaede’s used to hearing. “I dream…that I lose you.”
“Me too,” Kaede confesses. She feels Rena press her face into her neck, and Kaede smiles to herself. “I can’t do anything to prevent it from happening.”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Rena asks, and she huffs a bitter laugh. “Having to see all that?”
“That’s why it’s a nightmare, Rena,” Kaede replies. “But it’s not so bad. I know that Rena will always be there for me.”
“…it’s what a girlfriend should do,” Rena mumbles.
“But Rena,” Kaede protests. “I know you coax me through the ones that don’t wake me up.”
“It’s not a big deal!” Rena scoffs. “Stop acting like it is!”
Kaede can’t help the giggle that escapes her. This started as Kaede wanting to comfort Rena, but somehow, it’s ended with her thanking Rena for helping her.
“It is,” she says, running her fingers through Rena’s hair. “It means that Rena cares about me.”
“Shut up,” Rena mumbles. “Of course I care about you. You—” Her voice catches. “You mean a lot to me.”
If the lights were on, Kaede would be able to see the redness that’s inevitably crept all over Rena’s face, probably her ears, maybe even down her neck, too. Maybe this is why Rena prefers the dark. No one can see her blush.
“I love you,” Kaede tells her, feeling Rena stiffen in her arms. “You don’t have to say it back, okay? Let’s just try and sleep, okay Rena?”
Rena sighs. “Kaede…”
“Sleep? We can talk about it in the morning.”
“…you’re too good, Kaede,” Rena whispers.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kaede promises her, and sleep slowly starts claiming her. Just as she’s about to fall asleep, she feels the softest brush of lips against her hairline, and a gentle whisper of, “I love you, too. Dream of something nice, for once.”
She smiles, then presses closer into Rena’s arms.
She dreams of a blue sky and white cake with strawberries, and when she wakes up, Rena is still tangled around her, sound asleep.
Kaede smiles. Rena’s definitely clingier than her. She rakes her fingers through Rena’s hair and takes a few moments to admire how peaceful her girlfriend looks like this. It’s a rare sight.
Rena might not be perfect, but she’s trying, and for that…Kaede could never hate her.