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…
What is she doing?
“…Emu, I can’t see—”
The pink-haired creature continues entangling her limbs between Nene’s, situating herself comfortably on her lap and resting her head in the crook of her neck, wrapping her arms around it loosely with her legs circling Nene’s waist.
Nene strains her neck in every possible direction, eyes darting around the screen anxiously as it begins to flash red, signalling her impending in-game death. Just as she’d expected, her computer sounds the dreadful noise that it makes whenever she loses, a bright red text of ‘WASTED’ displayed on the screen. Nene sighs, dropping her controller on her desk in concealed exasperation.
“Emu, you can’t just climb onto me when I’m in the middle of a game.”
“But you’ve been on it for so long…”
“It’s been less than an hour,” Nene replies, a slight hesitancy in her voice. She glances up nervously at the clock hanging above her—okay, maybe a little more than an hour. Like, close to three hours, actually. Oops.
She rubs at her eyes that are beginning to burn from the overexposure of her screen, an arm subconsciously finding its way around Emu’s neck. Emu hums pleasantly at this gesture, further nuzzling into Nene’s neck. Nene doesn’t complain.
“Sorry, I wasn’t keeping track of time. Just one more game, okay?”
“Mm…” Emu groans quietly, tightening her grip on Nene’s neck. “Fine. Just one more.”
Nene brings her other arm around Emu’s neck, grabbing for her controller and clicking on ‘RETRY’, shifting Emu a little so that she can play at maximum comfort. Despite the many disruptive noises coming from the game and the tiny curses that Nene produces under her breath, Emu finds herself dozing off peacefully under the lull of Nene’s touch, not wanting to let go. She’ll let Nene play as many games as she wants if it means she gets to stay in this position for a little while longer.
Of course, all good things come to an end. Nene’s about to set her controller down before she’s interrupted by what can basically be classified as a shrill scream of terror.
“Nene-chan wait, play another game!”
“…What? You were begging me to get off it just five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, but I’m tired…”
“…So?”
“So let me sleep here!” Her voice raises to its usual volume of approximately ten thousand decibels, practically threatening to tear Nene’s ear apart with the power in her amplification. Nene winces.
“But—”
“No ‘but’s.”
“We could just— we could just take a nap on the bed?” Nene suggests in a moment of impulse, only to be taken aback by said suggestion just a few seconds later. She’s not sure why she’d offered that, but it was too late to go back on her word now. She feels her ears start to burn up.
“Hwah!” Emu pulls back from her embrace, hands gripping Nene’s shoulders firmly. “Really?”
Nene would rather die than turn Emu down when she had that undying look of twinkling stars encapsulated in those pink eyes of hers, but she’d never admit that out loud, of course. She groans, turning her computer off.
“Let’s just go…”
Nene gets up from her seat, her body on fire from the torment of not standing up for three hours straight and her vision beginning to blur. She could really use a nap herself, too, it seems. She carries Emu along with her, giving her another lift before she makes her way to the bed placed dead centre of her room, setting Emu down gently and stretching out the tension in her back.
Emu rolls over to the right side, making space for Nene and outstretching her arms as an invite. Nene climbs in, cheeks dusted pink in noticeable embarrassment, circling her arms around Emu’s neck and resting her chin on her head. Emu hugs Nene’s waist tightly in return, that same hum of pleasure sounded once again. Nene allows herself to smile, relaxing into her embrace.
They sleep the rest of the afternoon away, with the sounds of the street and the chatter of people surrounding them and dissolving into the background.
If Emu mumbles a barely comprehensible whisper of ‘I love you’ under her breath, Nene pretends she doesn’t hear it.
I love you too, she doesn’t say out loud.