A/N: Loosely based on a Tumblr prompt.

Honestly, I don't even know what I'm writing anymore. This was supposed to be a drabble, but somehow ended up over 2k words long. My writing might also be getting progressively worse, I'm not sure. I promise I have ideas for multi-chapter fics, but they keep getting pushed back for the sake of "making sure characterization and plot are well planned out." Guess you'll just have to deal with oneshots until I can get my head on straight (let's be real though, it'll never be straight).

Tags: Pre-Romantic Relationship Fluff


~~Casual Cuddling~~

Ritsu groaned as she felt the reverberations of her phone vibrate through her pillow. The girl had passed out again after talking to her best friend late at night.

Who the hell's calling me right now? Ritsu complained to herself as she lazily slid a hand under her pillow to retrieve the pestering device. Sliding the phone open, Ritsu squinted against the phone's light to check the caller ID.

[2:23am Incoming Call: Dangerous Queen]

Mio? What is she still doing up? The drummer thought to herself. Both of them still had school the next morning, and usually it was the bassist herself who berated Ritsu for staying up too late and sleeping in when they had to get to school. Squeezing her eyes shut from the pain of the artificial light, she pressed the answer button and pressed the phone to her ear.

The drummer grumbled something to acknowledge her presence on the line, but was barely able to formulate her syllables properly from the drowsiness.

"Ritsu, are you awake?" Even when half conscious, Ritsu could still hear the uneasiness of her voice.

Ritsu answered in a grumble that neither confirmed nor denied the question.

"Why," her sentence was cut off with a long yawn, "why are you calling me so late?"

"I-I just couldn't sleep. And I know you, you probably passed out again when you didn't reply to my text but… I don't know. I just needed someone to talk to."

Ritsu knew that Mio would occasionally have trouble sleeping, caused by either her social anxiety or her never-ceasing thoughts.

"What's up?" Ritsu forced herself to sit up so that she wouldn't fall asleep on her friend while she was talking. Mio began spilling out what was on her mind. She wasn't particularly anxious about anything, but she had be so worked up about needing to write new songs for the band and college entrance exams that her mind was on stuck on overdrive. Ritsu simply had an ear to lend and would soak in everything the bassist said, knowing that through the venting and ranting Mio would eventually run herself to exhaustion.

Except tonight, it seemed that Mio's thoughts were particularly rampant. Everything she said would segway to a new thread of thoughts and the girl would go on tangent after tangent. Ritsu knew that at this rate, neither of them would get any sleep. There had to be a way for Ritsu to get her childhood friend to calm down enough to get a little bit of rest. The drummer glanced at her bedside clock.

[3:04am]

Ritsu frowned. Mio had been talking on for over half an hour and it didn't sound like she was stopping any time soon. The drummer was actually surprised, it was rare for the bassist to be this talkative. But, she couldn't bring herself to ask the dark-haired girl to stop. Ritsu knew that even if she told Mio to sleep, odds were that Mio would just end up lying awake drowning herself in her own thoughts and at best getting restless sleep.

An idea popped into the brunette's head. She continued to acknowledge the girl on the other end of the phone line, but proceeded to sneak down to her front door and slip on some shoes. Mio's house was not far, probably a ten minute walk at best from her own house. Ritsu knew she would get there before Mio was able to tire herself out.

Mio couldn't figure out why her thoughts would not stop reeling tonight. Even after she realized Ritsu had fallen asleep during their text conversation, Mio couldn't get herself to fall asleep. She had given up trying to fall asleep and got up from her bed, maybe she could expel her thoughts if she tried to write lyrics for a new song. But even with all the thoughts rampaging in her head, she had trouble formulating the ideas into lyrics that flowed nicely. She began getting rather aggravated at herself for her inability to compose and control her own thoughts. Random ideas would fly in but would lose momentum and die out just as fast. The bassist couldn't keep her mind on any one particular thing, but she also couldn't get the stream of consciousness to stop

At that point, Mio decided to call her childhood friend. In hindsight, it probably would have been better for Mio to allow the drummer to sleep; but unless she vented out her thoughts to someone, she probably wouldn't be able to sleep at all tonight.

It was understandable that Ritsu did not put much input in the conversation, Mio was not expecting the drummer to do so. The girl answered the phone half asleep and Mio had initially called simply hoping that her rambling would eventually tire herself out. She knew that Ritsu understood that much when the drummer didn't flat out tell her to go to sleep and hang up. But it had been almost an hour and Mio's thoughts were still driving at full speed. She had no concept of how long she had actually had been talking until the girl on the other end of the phone line suddenly cut her off.

"Mio." Ritsu's voice was more firm than when she had originally picked up the phone, though a hint of drowsiness still shone through.

"Huh?" Mio glanced at her wall clock.

[3:17am]

"I'm so sorry. How long have I been talking? Crap, we still have school tomorrow, and we need to sleep. I've kept you up with my rambling, I'm sorry. I just thought that saying it to someone would help me-"

"Mio, stop. I know. But could you open the door?"

Mio halted immediately. Her thoughts blanked out for the first time that night. Open the door? Why would I open the door?

"Is this another prank? Cause if it is, I'm not falling for it. Scaring me is not going to help me fall asleep, you know that."

Mio heard a tired sigh come from the phone line.

"No, Mio. I'm outside, and it's kinda cold. Please open the door for me?"

"RITSU!" Mio couldn't scream, as her parents were asleep, but the same harshness still cut through even in her hushed tone. "What are you doing at my house?! It's the middle of the night!"

The bassist stood from her bed and carefully exited her room, not wanting to cause too much noise as she made her way down the stairs to the front door as Ritsu provided an explanation over the phone.

"You didn't seem like you were going to stop; and besides, I know even if I told you to stop and go to sleep, you probably wouldn't. So I came to make sure you went to sleep."

Mio opened the door and glared daggers at the drummer. Ritsu came simply in her pajamas and gave a wide grin to the bassist.

"Just get in here, idiot."

Mio moved out of the way to let Ritsu in, planting her fist into the drummer's skull as the latter passed through. The latter released a whimper of pain but proceeded to climb the staircase as she nursed her head wound. The two snuck back into Mio's room and shut the door behind them.

"Did you even think this through?" Mio scolded the drummer. "You didn't even bring anything with you! You know we have school tomorrow, and you don't have your uniform."

Ritsu yawned and waved it off. "It'll be fine. I'm pretty sure I left my other uniform here the last time I came over."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Cause it's in a pile over there in the corner where I always leave my stuff when I'm over."

Mio looked over her shoulder, and among all of the clutter in the bassist's room, there in the corner was Ritsu's extra uniform. It was still dirty and wrinkled from getting tossed there, but that was something they would have to figure out in the morning.

All Mio could do was roll her eyes and began to move toward her closet to grab the extra futon. Ritsu managed to stop her with a grab at the wrist.

"Oh no you don't. You're getting in that bed and going to sleep."

"But what about-"

"Mio we've shared a bed countless of times since we were kids. It's also past 3:30 in the morning and I just want to pass out at this point. Not to mention you need to sleep too and I'm going to make sure you do. Now get in that bed woman."

Mio could only grumble as a response to the drummer's demands but proceeded to heed them. The two made their way under the covers of Mio's bed. The two said their good nights and Ritsu quickly nodded off to sleep in her exhaustion. So much for making sure Mio went to sleep properly.

Mio was still slightly restless. Her thoughts were now dominated with worries of how they would deal with Ritsu's sudden idea to sleep over. How would she explain to her parents why Ritsu was here? What about Ritsu's uniform? Would they even wake up on time? It was already so late. Mio couldn't help but brace herself for the consequences of this whole ordeal.

Next to her, Ritsu laid sleeping soundly, as if she hadn't even gotten up and walked to Mio's house in the middle of the night. Her breathing was slow and shallow, but had put Mio into a calming spell. The raven-haired girl couldn't help but smile at Ritsu's antics. Though some of her ideas could be spontaneous, the drummer did show some concern for the bassist's health every so often. Hell, the girl walked down a couple blocks in the middle of the night dressed only in her pajamas just to make sure Mio went to sleep properly.

Mio found herself getting drowsy quite easily in the company of her childhood friend. Perhaps it was the comfortable warmth radiating from the body sleeping next her her. It wasn't quite winter yet, but the chill was starting to set in. Mio would never admit it to anyone else, but having Ritsu around gave her such comfort that even being in her presence would give Mio a sense of security. Ritsu was like an anchor that kept Mio rooted to reality, ensuring that she wouldn't fly away in her own thoughts.

Eventually, the drowsiness and exhaustion set in and soon enough Mio nodded off to sleep as well, sleeping soundly without her raging thoughts invading her dreams. She dreamt of the stars and floating in space, freely floating in the void. From her position, she had the freedom to explore the vast expanse of the universe if she so freely chose to do so. She dreamt of looking at Earth from above, how close yet so strikingly far away she was from it. She swam within the vacuum of space, but not toward the stars far beyond, but back toward the terrestrial planet. She felt herself falling into the gravity of Earth, though her descent was a gentle free-fall. As she fell, she could see another object falling, just several meters below her. Mio was unsure of what it was, but was compelled to reach out to it. It seemed to reach out to her as well and when the two found each other's embrace, Mio felt complete. She sought to savor the moment, the feeling of contentment. But a distant, constant beeping began to intrude her tranquility. Muffled beeps became louder, more aggressive, more intruding.

*Beep Beep Beep*

Mio awoke quite annoyed. She was rarely ever grumpy waking up, but today was an exception. Mio slammed the snooze button on her alarm clock without so much as opening an eye and turned over to her other side hoping to catch a few extra minutes of sleep. She already forgot what she had been dreaming of, but it seemed to be a good one, considering how reluctant she was with wanting to be pulled out of it. Instinctively, she reached out hoping to cuddle with a body pillow she kept on her bed and was quite surprised to find it much warmer this morning. Sighing contently, Mio snuggled in closer and let herself fall back asleep.

Ritsu laid undisturbed by both the alarm clock and the bassist cuddling into her. The two continued to sleep until mid-morning, when Ritsu finally woke up and realizing how intimate their sleeping arrangement had become and promptly freaking out, waking the bassist. They freaked out more when the two checked the clock to find that classes had already started two hours prior. It seemed that when Mio went to snooze her alarm clock, she actually turned the alarm off completely and both were too exhausted (and comfortable) to wake up on time.

With the frenzy of rushing to school, the awkwardness of their casual cuddling was quickly forgotten. Ritsu had don her wrinkly uniform but then realized she still needed her school bag. The two had to make an extra detour to the Tainaka household for Ritsu to change into a more presentable uniform and grab her school bag. Luckily her parents had already left for work and Satoshi was already in school.

The events of that morning was again brought up when Yui asked why the two were so late to school during club activities. At the thought of remembering, the drum and bass pair quickly donned embarrassed faces. Ritsu answered in their defense, saying that they had stayed up late talking and accidentally slept in. The details involving their cuddling each other was left unmentioned. Yui let it go as is, however Azusa held a confused look. Meanwhile, Mugi seemed to be in bliss for a reason none of the other girls could decipher.

On their walk home, both agreed to forget about the ideal and never bring it up again. But, despite their outward denial, such an intimate interaction could not be easily forgotten, and only served to open the door for a romance to blossom in the coming years.