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"Fuck, ENA... naekkeo..."
The entity in question keeps shifting around, and Coral is an agonizingly light sleeper. She is also a hypocrite. Coral herself has moved the both of them around her futon three times over, the springs squealing each time.
It's not that she's angry with ENA. It's not like it's a choice the unconscious woman holding her is making. If anything, this is the best Coral remembers sleeping, maybe ever. Not even past partners had been this affectionate with her... or was it that she was too reserved? Too difficult to get close to?
ENA makes it seem quite the opposite.
The sound of air filtering through the fan should be soothing, but currently it's only making Coral descend further into her thought spiral of whether she's a horrible partner, whether she's always been.
She tries to settle back in, adjusting so she can rest her head against ENA's chest, hoping the sound of their cardiovascular processes will wash away her thoughts. Like the love there will drown her out.
Too stressed, too overwhelmed, not loving enough. Too distant to be near.
She feels so alone, miles away. She wraps her arms tighter around ENA's ribcage, throws a leg over hers.
Prays ENA feels it in the depths of REM, feels that she does care.
Her long leg feels heavy on ENA's. A lead weight.
She wishes her breathing would slow to ENA's pace. It seems like a more reasonable one, for laying in bed, with nothing scheduled for anytime soon.
Her eyelid feels like it's spring loaded, refusing to stay closed despite how heavy it is. The pit of guilt in her core deepens.
ENA twitches, makes an endearing little noise when she does.
The weight starts to morph into a stinging sensation. She bites down on her lip, hard.
The sheets are beginning to pile on, suffocating, like layers of sediment building on the ocean floor and smothering what was there before.
She needs to get out.
Holding her breath, she carefully pulls herself from ENA's arms. It feels like severing a limb, each rustle of the sheets the snap of tendons never to be reattached. All the warmth aside from the burn of her cheeks dissipates as she gets up, her bare body now receiving the brunt of the fan's power. It's a good fan.
She snatches her robe off the back of the door as she steps quietly away from her crime.
She panics momentarily, frozen in place, blanking on where she left her cigarettes. Had she run out and forget to replace them? She's well and truly screwed if that's the case.
She had told herself she was done smoking.
Her blazer. She never took them out when they'd arrived. She rummages through her pockets shamefully, as if she's pickpocketing someone else's clothing and not her own.
She yanks the doors open so hastily, it would seem there was no oxygenated air left inside the apartment.
Stepping out onto the microscopic patio is a shock to her senses, lukewarm concrete under her feet. Stagnant dry heat welcomes her, the night sky a king beckoning a disloyal subject up to the throne to repent--or more fittingly--to receive her death sentence.
She lights a cigarette, her hands shakier than usual. She fumbles with it for far too long. This dishing of punishment is not nearly as concise as a swift beheading. She finally brings the thing to her lips. Death is not so mercifully fast-acting in this format.
She leans over the railing and exhales, grimacing before at last relinquishing control and allowing herself to cry.
Through a bleary and unfocused eye, she gazes into the void below, silently asking it to absorb her ugly sobs, to evaporate the tears that drip from her face.
She thinks of home, but is that really where she wants to be? She shudders.
Doing work would distract her, make her time feel worth something, but the thought of that makes her want to retch. It also makes her sharply aware of her oncoming headache.
It feels like she's locked in a cycle, the same few options being her only choice within her disastrous life. The only things her psyche knows to return to. It's no solace. She wishes she had a happy place to go to.
She wants to lay back down. She wants to hold her partner, be held by her. Longs for how she felt against her skin. She regrets even getting up. How will she get back into ENA's embrace when they're as articulable as a rock when unconscious...?
Of course she'd been right where she wanted to be and then got up and ruined it. She couldn't have just powered through her feelings of inadequacy? Stayed and dealt with it? Does this not prove her incapability to be a better companion?
What is her problem?
With another small sob, she lets her face fall onto her arms crossed over the railing.
"Salutations," a husky, androgynous voice speaks from behind Coral.
Coral whips her head around, startled, and she nearly loses her cigarette into the darkness below.
ENA stands with only a sheet draped around her shoulders. Despite that being the extent of coverage on her body, ENA's lack of hat is somehow what makes her look the most naked.
The sleepy-looking entity's previously half lidded eyes and neutral expression becomes a frown when she notices the glistening streak down Coral's flushed cheek.
Coral watches the shorter creature approach, the sheet trailing behind her and making it appear like she's hovering rather than walking.
Once they're side by side, ENA puts her arms out. Not far, but enough for her question to be spoken eloquently through godly body language.
Coral sniffles, then wipes her nose on the back of her hand. It's snotty. Coral makes a face. ENA doesn't falter.
Coral hesitates a moment more, before collapsing into her embrace. She feels like she's being swallowed by the sheet now swaddled around the two of them. The spikes of ENA's messy hair tickle Coral's face as she rests her wet face against their head.
The squeezing constriction around her waist anchors her to the present moment, her lungs hardly able to fill with air. If the pressure snaps her spine, so be it.
Had Coral tried to explain herself, words would've eluded her. Printed or otherwise.
"It's okay," ENA says like she's coaxing a lost animal from its hiding spot. "It's okay."
At least her thoughts have corroded and rusted into dry gross feelings rather than soggy thinkable words by the time the pounding in her skull gets deafening.
Coral rests her chin on ENA's head, takes one last drag of her cigarette with one hand, the other smoothing ENA's hair. Nicotine doesn't taste nearly as comforting faced with the alternative.
"I stink."
"I don't mind."
ENA gives Coral a peck on the lips before they settle back into bed, warm skin on warm skin, Coral's head on ENA's chest. Where they should be.
ENA's fingers combing her tangled hair, the way she smells, the steady rhythm of their heartbeat--it's overwhelming. In a way that makes entertaining the thought of anything else unimaginable. Coral's mind sounds silent, still, for the first time since she woke up. Her eye drifts closed... only to be startled open by the sound of her own printer whirring.
She feels a wave of embarrassment, that she's so completely enamored and content that she'd start printing involuntarily right now... until she remembers that isn't a bad thing.
"...I love you. I'm uncertain it's a skill of mine. But I do."
The thumping in ENA's chest notably quickens.
It's not the last time that night that Coral wakes up. Every time she does, mutters something to ENA (even if she can't hear her), ensures she's still there. No matter what position they've ended up in, she is. Every time, Coral cuddles in closer to her, and promptly falls back into sleep.