From sleeping in way past schedule to fighting off sleep for the whole day, everybody plays second fiddle to their body's circadian rhythm. Nobody can truly control when they fall asleep and when they wake up; it all happens naturally, and the only way to fix it is by setting alarms, taking medication, or being so deprived of sleep that it somehow skews your schedule into place.

Dreams are yet another thing that nobody can control. They're invented from the subconscious—a person's innermost thoughts and feelings, their memories, and their fantasies. Everybody sleeps, and everybody dreams. Sometimes, the meaning of a dream may not even be apparent to the dreamer. Other times, the dreamer may not even know they had a dream that night. Like elements created by scientists, dreams may last for only a second before disappearing. They may never reappear, yet that brief existence for not even a tenth of a second is enough to give plenty of food for thought.

Yet sometimes, sleeping can be difficult. The slightest instability—delayed sleep phase syndrome, insomnia, or countless other problems—can throw the whole system off. Sometimes, it's just plain old bad habit that can mess up someone's sleeping schedule: sleeping late and therefore waking up later, or sleeping too early and staying up all night. A pebble in the water makes a ripple effect, and a ripple grows into a wave, which is the wake-up call that says, "You have a problem."

Nap

Whatever had happened last night, I could barely remember it. I had been dreaming about something, and it had been nice and pleasant. Already, the memory was growing blurrier.

I rolled over in bed and ran a hand through my hair. I could still recall the voices I had heard, but they were impossibly faint, and I could no longer identify who was talking. Some of the words had already faded, leaving me on my own to figure out what was happening in each scene. In my mind's eye, I could see people's faces against all sorts of backdrops, but their expressions became less animated with every passing second. My recollection of everything was already fuzzy.

I didn't remember exactly where I had started and where I had ended. For a while, I had been at my martial arts dojo—a place I hadn't seen in several years, now. There had been a few other people there, but only one of them really stood out: one of the black belts, a boy around my age, whom I had always seen as a little difficult to approach. He never combed his hair and seemed to be constantly pushing it out of his eyes, which were stolid and always guarded. Despite his judgmental appearance, he was pretty normal and relatable, and at times he was actually quite prone to making mistakes.

Even after a few years, I had never really reached out to him. I had known him ever since he joined my class, but there had always been a little bit of distance between us. Although we weren't close friends, we weren't exactly unfriendly either.

I had never seen him wearing anything besides a martial arts uniform. Even in my head, he had worn the same thing. Maybe that was why the setting of my dream had been in a place I'd nearly forgotten.

Something was keeping me from going back to sleep. My room was dark and still very cool. I turned over to face the wall, hunching my shoulders and curling my toes. The blanket muffled the complaintive moan that I let slip out of pure desultory laziness. Right now, the last thing I wanted to do was get up. There was no class today, thus there was no need to worry about anything beyond the realm of my bed.

Almost unwillingly, I turned my head and opened my eyes ever so slowly. It took a while to adjust; even the light coming from across the room was too bright to look at. Tomone must be awake, which would also explain why I had woken up in the first place. Nothing interesting was happening, so I turned my head and tried to go back to sleep.

Footsteps and a hushed voice pulled me from the sleepy stupor I was trying to enjoy.

"Kona... Konata. You awake?"

As much as I tried to ignore the whispering, I was awake once I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I wanted to go back to sleep again, but the door to dreamland had closed as soon as I heard my room mate's voice. My eyes were shut and I was still set on sleeping, but for some reason she kept shaking me.

"Konata, you should get up," she said persistently. "You need to eat."

A disinterested grunt was all I could offer her. The shaking stopped, but I could tell she was still standing right next to me. Reluctantly, I sat up and pried my eyes open.

Tomone was a silhouette standing over me, looking down with disapproval.

"I left some dinner for you," she told me in an almost stern voice. "Try to eat, or you'll be hungry again. It's already past dinnertime, okay?"

She sounded worried. I assured her that I would be fine and that I would eat in a bit, and she seemed to be satisfied with that. Her eyes continued to stray over to me every now and then, even as she settled on her bed with phone in hand.

I sat on the edge of my bed and found my slippers. I still didn't feel ready to stand up, but I had to at least show her I was putting in the effort, or else she would notice and chide me again.

The only other thing I could think about while I waited for the sleepiness to pass was the dream I'd had. People dream about their desires, or so I had heard before. Whatever fantasy they wished for, no matter how unlikely, was fair game. Even if they didn't know it themselves, there was always something a person wanted, and it would reveal itself in their dreams.

In my dream, the boy had been in a relationship—with one of my closest friends, even: Miyuki Takara of class 3-B. At the time, it had seemed like the most logical thing. Even now that I was awake, I didn't find the idea all too strange.

Everyone had accepted it, including myself, so that was that. Nothing was strange for two people to be in a relationship. That was the power of dreams: to trick, to inveigle, and to make real of things that were just fantasies. Even I had joked and smiled the way I usually do when I talk to people.

I wasn't sure what to take from the experience. Whatever had happened to influence my dreams in such a way, or whether there was some meaning in it about those two in particular or about something entirely different... I couldn't be sure about anything. The boy didn't have very much in common with Miyuki, and I hadn't even seen Miyuki for a while—let alone the other boy. It could have been for any other reason.

Outside the window, I noticed absently, it was unusually dark. There was the bluish black of night time, like ink from an inkwell flooding a canvas, and barely any light shone through the window.

Clearly it wasn't morning. I had mistaken the time. When I slept, it had still been Saturday, so today must have been Sunday. Since it was dark outside, that meant I had slept for almost twenty-four hours. The numbers didn't add up, though; when people slept for a full day, didn't they wake up feeling totally refreshed and ready to change the world? I didn't even feel like I could take on a jigsaw puzzle, let alone the world.

On my bedside stand, my phone vibrated and the screen lit up. I glossed over the new notification—it was just an update to a forum, and I couldn't be bothered to read every post—and flicked down the menu to check the time and date. It took me a moment to process that it was still Saturday, and it was eight at night.

Setting my phone down clumsily, I got up and walked to the table in the middle of the room between the beds and the door. Awaiting me was a small brown takeout box and a set of wooden chopsticks.

Now I knew why Tomone had been so insistent: I hadn't eaten anything since lunch. I had gone to sleep at such an unusual time, I slept right through dinner. She sounded so worried...

The box was still warm, so I went ahead and ate. The stir-fried noodles, vegetables, and meat—I think it was beef—were oily but thankfully still warm. Thankfully, there were some napkins closeby.

Tomone must have been watching. Shortly after I started to dig in, she cleared her throat and said, "I hope you like Chinese. I sort of just felt like having some today."

I was perfectly fine with her tastes, so I nodded and thanked her, and she responded with a content "Mm."

Usually, I didn't go for Chinese food, but it reminded me of the guilty pleasures of my high school life. It brought back fond memories of the holidays—countless evenings spent staying up late playing video games with my dad until one of our stomachs growled. Then, he would lean over and grab his phone, auto-dial a number, and ask me what I wanted while waiting for the other side to pick up. At first, I hadn't known how to respond, but eventually I learned the menu from hearing him order aloud: one noodle, one beef, one pork...

I finished my noodles and the last pieces of meat before closing the empty box. I recited the usual post-meal phrase, knowing that my room mate was listening somewhere behind me.

Feeling like there was something else to be said, I looked over my shoulder at my room mate. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed and reading something on her phone, but almost as soon as I laid eyes on her, she looked up and matched my gaze. Even in the uneven lighting, I could still make out her dual-colored eye with its brown and silvery blue.

"Um, hey. Tomone," I said for the sake of breaking the silence. Now that I had her attention, I had no idea what to say next. I shifted and rested an elbow on the back of my chair, trying to think of a casual way to phrase things.

A few awkward seconds went by, then she smiled a little. She put her phone down and turned around to face me, as if to say "You have my undivided attention."

Some words floated into my head, and I grabbed at them. "I just wanted to thank you," I said to her, putting my hands in my lap. "I've been so tired lately that I didn't even notice I was skipping meals."

"It's fine," she responded automatically, but then stopped like she was reevaluating her answer.

My room mate diverted her gaze and looked at a spot on the floor.

"Konata, I was a little worried about you," she murmured. "I mean, I knew you hadn't eaten yet, but you've been sleeping less that I didn't want to wake you; but you ended up missing dinner yesterday too, so I couldn't let you sleep through it again. I really didn't know what to do."

Her words triggered a memory in my mind, and I thought back to something she had said earlier when my head was still foggy.

"Yesterday?" I repeated. "What about the day before that?"

For just how many days had I slept through dinner: two, three, four, an entire week? To think that all this was going on, and somehow I hadn't realized until now—

"No," Tomone shook her head quickly, "just yesterday."

"Oh. Well..." My voice trailed away as I wiped my mouth with the napkin to give myself some time to think. Two days in a row was better than what I had imagined, but it was still a little shocking.

I left the box on the counter and stood up. Impulse carried me over to Tomone's bed, and before I could lose the nerve to act, I hugged her. Actions speak louder than words, but in truth they could easily speak too loud and imply the wrong things. I was afraid that she would be surprised or shocked or put off, so I made sure to talk first.

"Thanks, Tomone. I'm sorry I worried you, but I'm glad you care so much."

But, she wasn't surprised. She might have been, but I couldn't sense it in her body language. The time we had known each other wasn't very long, and I hadn't given her the impression that I was clingy or needy, but she didn't seem like she minded all too much.

"You're welcome, Konata," she said and put her arms around me. "You can count on me to feed you when you forget!"

She squeezed me for a few seconds then let go, and I saw her smile and her eyes and maybe even the thoughts behind them.

"I'm your room mate, Konata. I'll always be here for you."