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A bolt of lightning lit up Reko’s room, exposing for a flash of a moment the imaginary ghosts hiding in every corner of her room, and for the umpteenth time that night, she hid under the covers, making sure no part of her head or arms were exposed to the outside world.
She cursed the moment she thought watching a horror movie with her bandmates was a good idea, and the current weather wasn’t exactly helping. She knew she had a tough girl reputation to keep, but in retrospect, she could have just said she already had plans that night…
After what felt like an eternity, Reko gathered the courage to peek out of her cotton refuge to look at the neon red display on her bedside table. It was past 3 AM. With trembling hands, she reached for the light switch and sat up on the bed. The room around her was just as she had left it before turning off the lights and going to bed. There was no trace of the ghosts she had been so convinced were haunting her room a second ago.
She took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to concentrate on the rhythmic patter of the rain against her window to steady her racing heartbeat. She ran a hand through her hair and got up from the bed. After roaming her apartment for a while, tiptoeing to avoid making any noise, she stopped in front of her girlfriend’s room. Nao was lying in her bed, sound asleep. Covered almost entirely by her bedspread, Reko could only see Nao’s closed eyes and some hair strands peeking from under the covers. She chuckled at the cute sight — with Nao’s colorful hair and the cocoon she had gotten herself into, she looked like a bright pink butterfly ready to emerge after its metamorphosis.
“Reko…?” she mumbled, slowly opening her eyes.
“Oh, shit, did I wake you up?” Reko whispered. She looked back and forth at the light coming out of her room and at Nao — in hindsight, turning on the lights hadn’t been the best idea if she didn’t want to wake her girlfriend up. “Sorry, Nao, go back to sleep, I shouldn’t be walking around the house this la—”
“You can’t sleep…?”
“Huh?”
Nao rubbed her eyes as she yawned. “I asked if you couldn’t sleep.”
“Not really, no,” Reko sighed. “I was walkin’ around a bit to see if that helped, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
There was also the insignificant matter of the potential ghosts lurking in her room, but she decided to keep that to herself.
To Reko’s surprise, Nao pulled the covers off her, moved to a corner of the bed, and patted the empty space beside her.
“Sleep with me. Maybe you just need some company to sleep better.”
Reko shook her head. “Nao, your bed is too small for two people. We’re gonna be crammed in there.”
“I don’t mind,” she replied with a warm smile. “Really.” She patted the bed again.
The idea was tempting, Reko had to admit. She had never actually shared a bed with Nao, but from the times they had sat down together on the couch while watching TV, she knew Nao’s cuddles were the best remedy to get Reko to relax and lift her spirits. Then again, the limited space on the bed could make sleeping together difficult, and the last thing she wanted was to bother her girlfriend when she was trying to get some sleep.
Before she could decide, however, a thunder shook the whole room. Nao jumped on her bed, pulling up the covers again to shield herself.
“Okay, okay, I’ll join ya,” Reko said, trying to suppress a grin. Apparently, she wasn’t the only scaredy cat in their apartment…
Reko got into the bed with her, trying to convince herself she was doing it exclusively for Nao’s sake. She was only doing it because her girlfriend was afraid of thunderstorms and she needed to be there for her, really. No other reason.
(She just hoped Nao wouldn’t ask her to get up from the bed to turn off the light coming from her room — she wasn’t sure if she would be able to outrun the ghosts trying to chase her after she turned it off.)
As if she could read her mind, Nao said, “We should keep the light on. That way, you won’t have to worry about ghosts.”
“Wait, you knew?!”
“Reko, you were shaking when you got home tonight.” A concerned frown made its way to Nao’s face. “I texted Ursheen to see what had happened and she said you went to see a horror movie. I had no idea someone like you could be scared of ghosts!”
Great, so now both her girlfriend and her bandmates were aware she was scared of ghosts. Stronghold wasn’t going to let her have a day of peace without teasing her.
Shaking the thought out of her mind — after all, worrying about that would do nothing to help her feel better — she turned around, only to find that Nao was staring at her with a pensive look on her face.
“What’s wrong? You wanna go back to our previous sleeping arrangement?” Reko joked.
Instead of answering, Nao leant over her girlfriend and carefully extended her hair over Reko’s chest, as if she was trying to cover her with a blanket of her own hair.
“Nao… what are you doing?”
“My mom has always said that my hair is very tickly, so if I do this…” Once she was finished covering Reko, she nodded in satisfaction and put her head on Reko’s shoulder. “There. That way, if the ghosts try to approach you, they’ll get tickled and back off. We’re both safe now, right?”
Reko let out a quiet chuckle. Even if Nao was still half-asleep after being awakened at 3 AM, she always managed to put a smile on her face with her lovably weird ideas.
“You know,” Nao said, changing the topic with a hint of a chuckle in her voice. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping like this every night,” she added, caressing the side of her girlfriend’s waist. “You’re comfier than I expected.”
Reko laughed. “Out of all the compliments I’ve ever gotten, ‘comfy’ is definitely the weirdest one.”
Nao propped herself up from the bed to look at Reko’s face. “Um— I’m sorry—! I didn’t mean to—!”
“Sssh, don’t worry.” Reko hushed her with a finger to her lips, pulling her closer again. “I said ‘weird’, but I never said it was the bad kind of weird, right?”
“Oh…” She nuzzled against Reko’s neck, clearly too embarrassed to make eye contact with her. “I guess you’re right.”
“I think I like it.” After a short pause, she clarified, “The idea of bein’ comfy, I mean. Most people find me intimidating.”
In the short time they had been dating, Reko had found out that there was something contagious about Nao’s softness. Akin to the flutter of a butterfly’s wings causing a tropical storm — or perhaps a thunderstorm — on the other side of the planet, the smallest gestures and comments from Nao evoked the feeling of a thousand butterflies in her stomach, something she could have never imagined happening to herself. Sure, she had heard plenty of songs with such ideas, but Reko was not exactly the most romantic person out there; at least, until Nao shook her life by appearing like a bolt out of the blue.
(Had it not been 3 AM, the songwriter in her would have probably been able to come up with some cheesy parallel or metaphor to include that in a new song somehow.)
“Let’s try to get some sleep now, okay?” Reko said, covering her mouth as she yawned. “I’m exhausted.”
“Alright. Good night, Reko.” Nao angled Reko’s head so she could kiss her on the lips before nuzzling against her girlfriend’s collarbone again.
Another bolt of lightning lit up the room, closely followed by the crack of thunder. Reko pulled Nao closer to her, gently running her hand through her hair.
As she closed her eyes, listening to the rain against the window, she remembered Nao’s words, and the idea of ghosts being tickled by her girlfriend’s hair brought a smile to her face, despite her fears. With Nao and her unexpected ideas by her side, ghosts didn’t feel like such scary creatures anymore.