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A shift in the springs of the mattress.
Her blankets being lifted, exposing her to the cool air.
An arm slinking around her midriff from behind.
Someone had come to rouse Yoyoko from the throes of hypnagogia.
Honestly, couldn't they have picked some better time to come bother her?
Having been so close to falling asleep, she was nowhere near lucid enough to recognize the usual signs indicating which of her partners had disturbed her slumber. She was prepared to just leave that particular mystery for the morning and drift back off to sleep—it certainly wasn't the first time something like this had happened—until a leg intertwined itself with her own and its owner let out a contented, husky hum.
Ryo...
Theirs was an... odd relationship, all things considered. A year or so ago, Ryo could barely seem to stand existing in the same space as Yoyoko, as though some fundamental aspect of her personhood was anathema to her. It took several months of living together and more than a few scuffles for Ryo to warm up to her, but now... here she was. Clinging to Yoyoko like a cat, with frustratingly cute noises to match. The nerve of this woman...
"Do you need something?" Yoyoko hoped her grumbling came across as annoyed, instead of just tired.
"I'm cold. You get really warm when you sleep. It's nice."
Yoyoko didn't need to look, she knew—she knew—that Ryo was making that same stupid smug face as always. On top of that, she had that irritating tone of voice that she only used whenever she was especially pleased with herself, and she had somehow managed to wrap her other arm around Yoyoko so she could properly snuggle with her... Yoyoko had half a mind to just roll back and shove Ryo off the bed for being such a nuisance!
Of course, getting herself to physically do anything would have been far more trouble than it was worth; she was on the verge of sleep, after all. Besides, she supposed she didn't exactly dislike the feeling of being held so tenderly, so maybe she could tolerate it for the time being.
Yoyoko yawned. She'd been so close to getting to sleep. If her inconsiderate leech of a girlfriend had come in just a minute later, maybe she could have managed, but now she had to start all over, and this time she had to deal with this bozo spooning her. Breathing down her neck, holding an arm tightly against her chest, shuffling every now and then and making her shirt hike up...
Ryo's warm, soft, peach-fuzz tummy pressed against her back...
Yoyoko's eyes shot open. Gods, Ryo was naked, wasn't she! She always slept like this, and it always aggravated Yoyoko to no end. Couldn't she have some decency?! Was she raised in a barn by farm animals?!? No wonder she was cold if she wasn't even wearing anything!
"You know," Yoyoko began, through gritted teeth, her words sharpened to an edge, "you could try actually putting some clothes on."
"Nah. This is better," Ryo shot back as she cuddled closer to Yoyoko, almost teasingly.
In an instant, Yoyoko blushed to the tips of her ears. Ryo's ability to so effortlessly say and do the most outrageous things never ceased to amaze her. If she weren't so sleepy, her head would almost certainly have been filled to the brim with less-than-pure thoughts; thankfully, though, Ryo had no way of knowing this— er, well... at least she couldn't see Yoyoko's face in the darkness. Small mercies.
"Why do I even put up with you..." Yoyoko would, obviously, never dare to admit defeat, especially not to Ryo Yamada of all people. If she sensed even the slightest hint of weakness, that would be the end for Yoyoko. Or, at least, for her ego.
"You know you like it," Ryo responded, her voice dripping with self-assured satisfaction.
As much as she wanted to retort with some witty remark so Ryo didn't get the last word in, Yoyoko just grumbled to herself indignantly. She ought to have known by this point that there was no winning when Ryo got like this. Especially since, although she hated to admit it...
...Ryo was right.
Yoyoko couldn't possibly ignore just how much she loved being held like this. Or how nice it felt to know that, after years of yearning for this kind of intimacy and watching from afar as others found their soulmates, she finally had someone to call her own. Well, four someones, but who's counting?
So, maybe Ryo could be annoyingly clingy, and she kept stupid bits going for way too long, and she always said "skill issue" when she beat Yoyoko at games. And sure, Nijika was a bit of a nag about tidiness at times, and Kita often had far too much energy for Yoyoko to keep up with, and Hitori had a tendency of turning into states of matter yet to be defined by science. They were all grade A wrecks, total pains in the butt that made her wonder how any of them had managed to get this far.
Even so... Yoyoko had never felt truly safe until getting to be with them. Besides, even she couldn't deny that she was probably just as much of a handful as her partners. Messes attract messes, she supposed.
Yoyoko fit in just the way she was, and she couldn't be happier for it.