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katsuo & rea & myja - quiet me (tell me, why did i wake?)
Katsuo was the hardest to get to sleep, some nights. He would fight in the dark and scream blue murder. Sometimes he would wake up and rush through the ship looking for them, fearing this would be the time he would find them gone. Each time Myja would find him going through rooms, pulling cupboards apart in search of them. Each time she and Rea would pull him back to his room, to the bed. It was a nightly custom. They did not even bother to sleep, knowing he would wake them. So they were tired and Katsuo was afraid and angry.
Back in his room, they would lie down on the bed, one on either side of him, boxing him in. It was nearly claustrophobic; walls made of his closest friends. This way the world did not stretch out beyond: Rea’s long, thin arm thrown over him; Myja’s red hair, chemical smelling skin; Rea’s toes on his shins; Myja’s voice soothing and kind. When Rea takes his hand, his thumb covers half of her tiny palm. The world is smaller and warmer and softer and his breathing grows less erratic with their lungs guiding his.
When they look at his ruined, raw, throbbing mess of a face, they do not flinch.
Not anymore.
When Katsuo lies between them, something in him feels small and safe and calm, if only for a while. Sometimes he sleeps; sometimes Rea sleeps with her head on his shoulder; Myja does not sleep, keeping them safe with her watchful eyes. He’s only just begun to notice that Rea is a woman, with all that suggests; he’s always known that about Myja, despite her ears. It’s easiest to sleep in their arms. The problem when he sleeps alone is, his arms are empty and the lightness of his body when not weighed down by them leaves his mind floating alone through places he shouldn’t be.
Warm and calmed by them, peace overcomes him and he relaxes so fully he doesn’t know if he can move again. “Don’t leave me,” he says, he thinks he says, he hopes he hasn’t said out loud.
A hand touches his hair and moves through it, like winds through a barley field. When he breathes, he breathes even; he only sobs once and a woman’s voice tells him, “hush, hush, we’re here, don’t worry.”
“Trust us,” says another, a hand on his chest rubbing him gently, smoothing out the kinks in his body, the aches of his head. “Trust us. It's alright. Trust us. We're all safe.”
One day he will find nothing left of them. One day he will crouch in a small house he'd called home and hold Rea's hand as all the warmth leaves it in a room stinking of iron and blood.
But pressed between them, he can sleep safe. He doesn't have to worry.
So he doesn't.
He's safe.
Back in his room, they would lie down on the bed, one on either side of him, boxing him in. It was nearly claustrophobic; walls made of his closest friends. This way the world did not stretch out beyond: Rea’s long, thin arm thrown over him; Myja’s red hair, chemical smelling skin; Rea’s toes on his shins; Myja’s voice soothing and kind. When Rea takes his hand, his thumb covers half of her tiny palm. The world is smaller and warmer and softer and his breathing grows less erratic with their lungs guiding his.
When they look at his ruined, raw, throbbing mess of a face, they do not flinch.
Not anymore.
When Katsuo lies between them, something in him feels small and safe and calm, if only for a while. Sometimes he sleeps; sometimes Rea sleeps with her head on his shoulder; Myja does not sleep, keeping them safe with her watchful eyes. He’s only just begun to notice that Rea is a woman, with all that suggests; he’s always known that about Myja, despite her ears. It’s easiest to sleep in their arms. The problem when he sleeps alone is, his arms are empty and the lightness of his body when not weighed down by them leaves his mind floating alone through places he shouldn’t be.
Warm and calmed by them, peace overcomes him and he relaxes so fully he doesn’t know if he can move again. “Don’t leave me,” he says, he thinks he says, he hopes he hasn’t said out loud.
A hand touches his hair and moves through it, like winds through a barley field. When he breathes, he breathes even; he only sobs once and a woman’s voice tells him, “hush, hush, we’re here, don’t worry.”
“Trust us,” says another, a hand on his chest rubbing him gently, smoothing out the kinks in his body, the aches of his head. “Trust us. It's alright. Trust us. We're all safe.”
One day he will find nothing left of them. One day he will crouch in a small house he'd called home and hold Rea's hand as all the warmth leaves it in a room stinking of iron and blood.
But pressed between them, he can sleep safe. He doesn't have to worry.
So he doesn't.
He's safe.