notes:
yes hi hello i haven't forgotten about this collection either. this one is a headcanon of mine: karma is a fussy bedmate. he would probably feel uncomfortable sharing a bed with somebody for a long time even if it was with someone he trusts. you know, just for actually sleeping. we are most vulnerable asleep, after all.
At first, Karma didn't know what to make of the sight of her fast asleep.
Any other time, he wouldn't have given it much thought. In the trains, on bus rides, and lazy days spent on couches, one of them always seemed to fall asleep at some point. Karma was fond of dozing on her lap; though she always got pins and needles afterwards, she always offered. When it's her turn to lean on him, she always went for his left shoulder—Karma never asked, but he's always thought it's because his right side was where his dominant arm was.
All of it, safe places and safe choices. To him, beds were the penultimate sanctuary, and the only place where he felt the most secure. Safe. Like during moments of his childhood, where monsters were merely borne out of a wild imagination and he'd pretended that hiding beneath blankets warded them away. At 14 he'd faced monsters that would've terrified his younger self in a completely different way, none of them the imagined beastly whimsical creatures.
Home had felt more of a waiting shed than a place of warmth for as long as he could remember, but his bed was always where he could be as unguarded as he could.
Today, Manami lay on that bed on her stomach, out like a light on top of his bed covers, looking right at home and his guard is high up for some reason. Karma is more than familiar with the skin beneath her shirt and what her hair feels like through his fingers, but he's never slept with her. Just sleeping. Especially in his house. It's unfamiliar territory, and his skin prickles at the thought, ironically chaste as it was. No, he isn't thinking of how easily she could fall asleep in a man's house like this; she's small and well-mannered but she is—had been—a girl of 3-E and an assassin of her own right. To think of her defenseless would be insulting, and Karma is many things (genius, trickster, devil, half-assed chuunibyou) but he is not a beast with no self-control.
When she shifts, her skirt rumples too, and Karma politely averts his eyes even though he's already seen what's underneath that, too.
So he drapes a coverlet over her waist and thighs and turns his back to her, sinking to his carpeted floor and picking up a book to try and chase away his drowsiness and temptations. And it works somehow, and some minutes or an hour passed, maybe, when there's a small tug on his collar. Then her voice. "Karma-kun?"
Turning, he found her blinking blearily awake. The sleep lines on her cheek made him snort with barely disguised affection. "Sleep well, sleeping beauty?"
She waved him off, head dropping back to his pillows with unintelligible mumbles.
"Sorry?"
She pulled on his collar again, firmly. "Come up here and sleep," she repeats, and peers at him as best as she could without her glasses. He ignored his suddenly clamoring pulse. "I thought you'd follow me. Didn't you say you were sleepy?"
Of course he was sleepy, and his ass hurt for sitting on the floor too long. The thought of joining her crossed his mind a few times, but it didn't seem right.
And that's funny. He's all too eager to jump into bed with her when sex is involved, but alarm bells ring loud in his head at the thought of sharing a bed with his girlfriend for purely chaste intentions like sleeping and cuddling together.
"Is it okay?"
Manami squinted at him, unable to discern his expression, but she scoots, patting the space beside her with a confused smile. "This is your bed… why wouldn't it be?"
"I just thought you might want it all to yourself. You took up every inch of it, rolling around in your sleep."
Lies. She'd stayed on one side the whole time, arms and legs kept close to herself. The embarrassed pout she wore now, however, said that she believed him. Not that he was feeling composed himself as he struggled to drawl, "Oh, well. Fine. As my lady wishes."
Karma had barely settled when she shuffled closer, curving to his side, and heat suffused his cheeks before he could stop it. God. She was just cuddling (innocently!), why is he getting so flustered when he'd already known her so intimately? He didn't want to disturb her, but Karma couldn't calm his heart, or release his body's tension he was all too aware of. I can't relax. The more he wills it, the tenser he just got.
Sighing through his teeth, he turned uncertainly towards her direction, and Manami is still peering at him—sleepily, but consideringly. Then she opened her arms.
"Come here."
"Make me." He knows he's stalling, trying to downplay his restlessness, but he comes. Tentatively, Karma scooted closer and held his breath as she reached for his warmth, curling up around him, her arms looping around his neck and fingers gently running through his hair and he doesn't know how or what witchcraft she's doing but he's melting, turning pliant in her arms and sagging against her chest where he was nestled.
"Karma-kun worries too much," she says from somewhere above, fingers kneading out the tension at his nape. Karma doesn't bother fighting the delighted groan that surfaced from his throat, his heart slowing from contentment, pulling her closer around the waist. "No danger here."
You're the dangerous one, he wants to say. "Yeah," he mumbles instead, sleepy now. "Yeah, I guess."
He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but he opened them when she kissed his forehead, and he could do no more than gawk at her as she smiled down at him. At a loss for words, Karma grunted, stuffing his nose against her neck and winding her leg around his torso in a bid to get closer.
"Can I stay over?" He hears her ask. He can practically hear the smile on her as she tweaked his ear—which he was pretty sure gave his fluster away. He doesn't have her fooled, but that's okay. She's the only one allowed to see through him.
"Yes," Karma sighs contentedly, before he fell completely asleep. "Yes, please."
