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The bathtub felt unusually cold.
The sides seemed to be far, too far to offer a shield.
Rei tried to touch them with his elbows and found that he was extremely uncomfortable.
A weird, unsettling feeling waved upon him.
It couldn't be.
His shelter felt exposed .
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
He couldn't sleep.
He definitely wasn't going to sleep.
As if his days didn't already feel hard enough with a full night of sleep behind them.
How much could a man survive with no sleep?
Not much, he guessed.
He had read some creepypasta about the Russian Sleep Experiment, and while he didn't fully believe everything , he was sure that the lack of sleep couldn't do him any good.
After all, there had to be a reason why every living being needed to periodically get some sleep.
He shifted, uncomfortable.
The surface he was lying on was hard, and while he knew that it was flat and smooth, it seemed to have grown bulges in weird places.
His tailbone felt uncomfortably pressed upwards, so he tried to shift on his side.
But no, this was even worse. His spine was bent awkwardly, now, and he didn't have a full sight of what was upon him unless he turned his head, which made his neck hurt.
He sat up and gripped the sides of the bathtub in his hands.
Even in the dim gloom of the night, he could see his knuckles white and contracted.
He wasn't going to get any sleep, and yet he definitely felt the need.
He was undoubtedly sleepy, only he couldn't sleep where he was.
His safe place, the only place he had ever felt safe, now seemed to be one of those torture instruments from the older times.
He remembered reading somewhere about this chair with iron bulges on it, used to convince vagabonds not to roam around the area; they were tied to it, forced to spend twenty four hours there, and it was built so that their own body weight would make them sink into it, causing them insufferable pain.
This was how his bathtub was feeling, right now.
He silently got out of it and sat on the edge.
Maybe it was just his tiredness, but his heart was beating fast and hard in his chest; it somehow felt like an important step forward, but he couldn't see why.
It's not like he was going to feel better somewhere else: if being surrounded by the bathtub walls didn't make him feel safe, there was no way he could be fine with just the couch back or - oh, the horror - nothing at all.
He was painfully awake and he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, so he stood up and silently slipped to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and he drank it slowly, then put it upside down in the sink.
He looked at the couch, thinking he might as well try to take a nap there, but it felt exposed. Inimical .
Silently, without even having a conscious thought about what he was doing, he walked up to Miri's bedroom door and he looked inside.
She was sleeping soundly, exhausted by the long day at the daycare.
All that running, and the exercises, and the emotions… it all must have taken a toll on her, but she was going to be just fine tomorrow.
Rei stepped in and sat on her bed, slowly, trying not to wake her up.
Her little body was spread on the mattress in a starfish shape, and she was lying on her belly.
Rei caressed a lock of hair away from her face, envying her ability to sleep like no one was going to attack, like her soft pink blanket was enough to keep monsters and killers at bay, and her ability to fully recover from a long day with just a night of sleep.
Oh, to be a child with a loving family.
Family .
Rei covered her shoulder with the blanket ( let's not leave a weak spot, in case the babau wants to risk it all and try to take her even from under the cover ) and thought about the moment when Miri had read the note telling her what she needed to find.
She had had no hesitation.
Rei could understand it, from a logical point of you: the rule is, you have to find what's written on the note.
Whether it's a cool cobble or a piece of cake or a blue bird, you have to find it, or else you won't be allowed to continue the race.
Easy as ABC.
But what puzzled Rei was her certainty, her straightforward decision that family meant Rei.
Rei and Kazuki, alright, but Kazuki was already by her side, where he had been from the start.
Rei had always been one step further from her, defending her from where he couldn't be seen, not close enough to really hold her hand.
And yet, Miri had decided that he was family, too, as much as Kazuki.
"Rei papa…" Miri muttered in her sleep, shifting slightly under the touch of his hand.
Rei saw her smiling. A faint, sleepy curving of her mouth, nothing more than a little spasm, but didn't that mean even more? Even in her sleep, Miri seemed to perceive his closeness, she seemed to recognise his touch, she seemed to make herself at home in his love.
Love .
Was this the thing everyone kept talking about?
Was love this burning desire to empty the universe from anyone who could hurt her?
Was love this yearning to be called family?
Was love this heavy thud in his chest whenever he heard her tingling voice calling him Rei papa?
Was love watching Kazuki make dinner for the three of them, and sitting together to eat, and arguing about the food he made, well knowing that the secret ingredient that made everything so precious and inimitable was just… love?
Rei didn't allow himself to dwell on doubts.
For once, he trusted his guts on something good, something that wasn't a threat.
He pushed back the fear that he would once again be rejected and called weak, and he uncovered Miri.
He took her, and Miri unconsciously slipped her arms around his neck. She was soft and chubby, a sane child, and she smelled warm and sweet.
Her forehead nuzzled in the crook of Rei's neck as he walked her out of her room.
His heart was beating so hard that he was incoherently afraid that he could wake her up with the sound of his blood running fast through his veins, but he somehow felt that he wouldn't have to make up an explanation. She would believe everything he would say, and that was one scary thought.
Scary, but bright somehow.
It felt like being handed the opportunity to become a better person, a way out of his cage that, as much as it felt safe, also felt lonely, and lately had become small, too small, more similar to a prison cell than to a shelter.
The door to Kazuki's bedroom was left ajar.
Rei shifted Miri's body on his right arm, feeling her soft and loose against his hold, and realising how much she trusted him almost made him crack.
Sure, he trusted Kazuki and Kazuki trusted him back, but that was a conscious elaboration. They knew each other's skill, and they rationally knew where and when to leave their fate in the other's hands.
But Miri .
Miri trusted him for no reason at all, except that he was Rei papa.
What was in a name? Oh, that dude Shakespeare was wrong, there's everything in a name.
He pushed the door with his free hand.
Kazuki's room was warm, not for the heating but for the simple fact that a human being was sleeping in there.
His distant, clean smell was clearly in the air, and it felt so strangely intimate that Rei hesitated for a split second.
He pushed back his doubts again, violently this time, so much that the first step made Miri moan a little bit, as if she was about to wake up.
Rei slowed down, and Miri relaxed again. Her fingers curled against Rei's neck, as if she wanted to get a better hold on him.
Little did she know, she already had the firmest of grips on his heart and soul.
Rei laid her down on Kazuki's queen size bed, and she curled up in a little ball.
Still asleep, Kazuki turned around and instinctively covered Miri with his blanket, pulling it from under her.
Rei felt left out.
What did they need him for, after all? For playing Mario Kart? For being an occasional nuisance? An extra child, and an oversized one, who needed to be taken care of?
They were fine by themselves.
Rei was one too much.
He turned on his heels, ready to go away, when Kazuki's voice gently melted into the warm air.
"You alright, Rei?"
His question danced in the air, like a puff of dust from an old piece of furniture, then it dissolved.
"No, I don't think so," Rei whispered, half hoping, half fearing that Kazuki had fallen asleep again.
The blankets murmured their sounds of surprise, as Kazuki stretched underneath them, and Rei heard a deep breath being taken.
Not an exasperated one, though; it was the sound of someone who's merely trying to oxygenate his brain to wake up just enough to see if he could help.
"Come here, don't just stand there like you're Slenderman," Kazuki said.
Before he could change his mind, Rei laid down on the free side of the bed.
Kazuki pulled the blankets over him, like he had done with Miri, then his hand rested gently upon Rei's upper arm.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Kazuki asked. His voice was slightly rough, still filled with sleep, deep and serious, almost like the soft rumble of a faraway thunder.
"I don't think so," Rei answered, hoping he could convey in these four words everything he never told Kazuki.
I'm scared.
I'm glad you rescued me.
I'm useless.
I'm alone in the dark.
No, not that one.
He was in the dark, but he was no longer alone.
He was with Kazuki, he could feel the comforting warmth of his body lying nearby, and most of all he could feel the heat of the bright light coming from Miri, all cocooned between them.
"Fine with me. You know where to find me, if you ever find some words that fit, right?" Kazuki said, and his thumb moved in a gentle caress on Rei's skin.
Time dilated, became meaningless. So did space.
Rei didn't know if he was already dreaming or if he was still awake, but he felt Kazuki hand barely gripping him when he whispered back: "Right."
He drifted away to a peaceful nest of sleep, and nothing mattered anymore.