Umi's in the middle of counting how many shades of shadows are on the ceiling when her phone starts ringing. Exhaling with quiet relief to have an excuse to cease doing something so unproductive, she sits up and reaches for the glowing screen on her nightstand. Umi answers without a glance at the number.
"Hello?" Umi asks, wide awake. It's around one in the morning and she'd woken up about half an hour ago with a tense feeling in her stomach, unable to fall back asleep due to a persisting anticipation. This seemed to be what she was waiting for.
However, Umi is met with silence. "Hello?" Umi repeats a little louder, leaning against the headboard of her bed as she aimlessly scrutinises the corners of her ceiling once again. When she still gets no response, Umi lets out a little sigh, both exasperated and concerned, as she murmurs softly into the phone,"You know I'm in the room right next to you, Rin."
Of course, Umi knows that the younger girl knows this. She also knows that this happens every few months or so, and that Rin knows that every time Umi mentions this occurrence, she only means to say "my door is always open". Still, Rin doesn't say anything on the phone, so Umi absentmindedly runs a hand through her slightly tangled hair, says,"I'm coming over", and then pushes her blankets aside. She sets her feet on the cold wooden floor of her room, ignoring how her toes twitch slightly, and confidently pads over to her door, gently opening it and walking out.
As quietly as possible, Umi takes careful steps across the hallway to not make the floor creak, stopping when she reaches the door to her left. With a few light knocks as more warning than a request for entrance, Umi pauses for a second, then proceeds to twist the doorknob. She opens the door without hesitation, slides in, and lets it slowly close behind her.
The room she stands in is still and quiet. It's cast in shadows, the corners of the room farthest from the little light next to the bed darker than the rest, and has a strangely warm feeling despite the books and cushions and other small things scattered lazily around the room in small piles. This time though, the warm feeling feels more nostalgic and sad, melancholic and lonely. A desk resides before a window covered by curtains, and next to it is a trembling bundle of blankets on the bed. Umi can just make out the orange hair atop it all.
"Rin." Umi takes a step closer, and the blankets still immediately. A small sniff escapes, but Rin doesn't move at all, only tightening her grip on her sheets. Her phone's screen is still glowing, clutched in one of her hands like a lifeline. Umi holds her own phone, still open as well, by her side.
"Rin," Umi whispers again softly, more soothingly. She slowly takes a few steps closer, until she's by the side of the bed and is in arm reach of the younger girl. She reaches a tentative hand out, but doesn't touch. Umi stays still and waits.
After a long, tense minute where the blankets and Rin start to slowly shake again, the fingers clutching an open screen beginning to tremble, Umi presses a button on her phone and ends the call. She places the phone soundlessly on Rin's desk, making a mental note to retrieve it in the morning, just before Rin dives into action.
After the simultaneous beeps that indicate the end of a call, Umi is being abruptly yanked towards the bed, a wild mass of blankets and orange hair and rapidly twitching hands clinging onto her shirt and her waist and any of her in reach. Rin's face is buried deep into her stomach, half under her shirt and breathing shaky hot exhales along her exposed skin, arms wrapped tightly around the older girl as the blankets tangle around them. Umi, faintly blushing and shivering slightly from the breath on her skin, merely leans over her, one knee on the bed with one hand looped around the duvet that is draped over Rin's back, her other hand gently running through soft, orange hair. Her phone is tossed aside on the bed, long forgotten. "Rin," she repeats again, with no meaning and no question. Just her name.
"I'm okay," comes a muffled reply from under her shirt, which Umi can feel vibrating on her stomach. Her answer is deterred through the fingers digging in deeper into Umi's lower back, as if scared that she'll lose her grip. "I'm okay."
"Okay," Umi agrees with a hum, no sign of doubt in her voice. She slowly lowers herself without detaching from Rin onto the bed, and the younger girl takes the chance to hastily reposition herself even closer, blankets shifting as she snuggles against Umi. Umi doesn't protest.
For a while they stay like that, Rin wrapped up in a mess of blankets and Umi's arms and the warm crook of her neck as her hideaway from the cruel world and the horrible nightmares and depressing mood swings that plagued her all at once, a screeching mass of terror that feasted on her growing doubts and broken thoughts. She listens to the steady, unchanging heartbeat that Umi brings, along with the tender humming that tunes out the chaos in her mind. She pays attention to the tireless hand that caresses her hair and detangles the tangles, and after a few minutes Rin realises she has to blink more to keep her eyes open.
Umi seems to come to the same conclusion when she notices that Rin's grip on her shirt has loosened a bit. Withdrawing her hand from the younger girl's hair, she sits still for a few seconds, as if waiting for something, an unspoken but needed cue, before she takes a deep breath, loops an arm under Rin's knees and another behind her back, and slowly stands.
Rin doesn't protest, only burrowing herself deeper into the older girl's arms as Umi makes her way across the room and out the open door. Ignoring how tired her arms suddenly feel and how exhausted she actually is, Umi carries Rin past her room towards the door on her right, stopping before it to gather her strength, refusing to ask Rin to open it for her. Instead, Umi uses the strength in one of her hands as her other swiftly reaches out to knock gently a few times, before twisting the doorknob and easing the door open with her shoulder.
Unlike Rin's room, this room is neater and more precise, with a welcoming feeling that comes with the warm glow from the little light next to the bed. On it is the gentle rise and fall that accompanies Nozomi's calm inhales and exhales.
But all Umi remembers is suddenly feeling an overwhelming tiredness and relief for her and Rin as she tries not to outright collapse into a heap besides Nozomi. That doesn't change the fact that the way Umi and Rin land is far from graceful.
Nozomi is jolted from her sleep by a dip in the left side of the bed, followed by a weight on her thighs and stomach, and when she opens her eyes she can only smile at the scene before her. "There's more room you know," she says drowsily with a lazy, easy smile as she watches with half open eyes. Umi only grunts in response from where her face is buried into the cover over Nozomi's stomach, too sleepy to become embarrassed. Rin opens her eyes to blink a few times at Nozomi, before closing them again and tugging herself as close to the oldest girl as possible. Instinctively, Nozomi wraps her arms around Rin, and then uses her foot to poke Umi's arm.
Umi, after a brief hesitation, shifts closer to the two as well, until Rin offhandedly thinks that she feels something warm and comforting draping itself behind her and all around her before finally falling asleep. Nozomi gives Umi a content smile that Umi is quick to return, before their arms touch over Rin's form, legs all tangled together under the blanket. Umi closes her eyes and Nozomi follows suit, after one last look at the two younger girls. Neither of them can't help but think that they wouldn't mind being woken up like this in the middle of the night every day at all.