When I woke up, I was deeply confused by what I was seeing. Hanging above was Abby’s smiling face as she looked down. Usually, it was the opposite, something I was trying to comprehend as she began leaning in closer to my face until our lips met for a sweet kiss.

“Hi there,” she whispered in a singing voice as she straightened her back.

I blinked a few times and took stock of my situation now that I was fully awake by her gesture of love.

This night had been a bit of a nightmare. The fan I had in my bedroom to keep it barely liveable had stopped working around one in the morning and I had to boil in my sweat with no better alternative than going to sleep outside. I did do that once, when Abby and I had our first time together during summer break, and my back still ached whenever I remembered it. Alternatively, I could go to the living room and turn on the fan we had there, but I certainly couldn’t sleep with the way it rattled and buzzed.

Abby then came after I was done with showering and told me to come to her place as she helped drying my hair. The idea was for me to take a nap before we started doing the homework from yesterday, but now I was feeling very lazy, her lap was feeling divine under my head and the room was just at the right temperature.

Instead, I turned on my side, hugged one of her legs in the same manner she did with me and shut my eyes, Abby chuckling and running her fingers through my hair.

“Good thing that you’re acting like this,” she hummed. “I was going to ask you to stay like that for a bit longer. It’s not usual for me to be the provider.”

Usually being the receiver doesn’t sit well with me. Usually, my insides have to feel like white-hot jabs for me to act needy like this. Fortunately, it still wasn’t that time, so I could fully enjoy this peace. I was deeply in need of this.

“How long was I out?”

“About two hours.”

“Hmm… If I fall asleep again, wake me up when you start getting hungry.”

That way we could cook together. It’s been a while since we did that. Cooking alone now was incredibly boring.

“Kyah!” Sophie shrieked, making us jump.

Next thing we heard was the door to the bathroom slam shut, stomping down the hallway and the door to her bedroom being slammed shut too.

The two of us rushed to her door—me almost breaking my neck as I got up due to my hair being under my butt—and knocked, asking if everything is fine.

“There’s a huge cockroach in the bathroom!” she cried out once she opened the door. “It flew right into my face as soon as I entered!”

“…Tsk.”

The two sisters stared at me after I clicked my tongue. I asked Abby to lend me one of her slippers and took off to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

The “huge cockroach” Sophie talked about turned out to be merely average sized, at least in my experience. No matter the size though, it was now at my mercy. I couldn’t exactly give a talk to someone older than me—it was already bad enough that I had clicked my tongue. I could however project my rage over having my peace being so abruptly broken on the miserable creature that was skittering around the bathroom floor.

I took a step towards it and it attempted to do the same it did to Sophie, but that was a huge mistake. I sucked at sports, badminton and tennis included, but swatting a cockroach mid-flight? Hardly a challenge at all. I didn’t even flinch as it approached me.

It got tossed against the wall at Mach ten and dropped to the floor, stunned. Shortly thereafter, I brough the flipper down on it, the might of the blow echoing through the walls.

Is it dead?

There was a twitch still, and I still had some anger in me, so I gave it two more thunderously violent slaps.

“Haah, done.”

Not quite though. I had to give it a funeral and wash the sole of the slipper before returning it to Abby.

On the other side of the door, the two stared at me, both equal measures of awkward.

What? They didn’t talk the whole time?

It looked like it.

Sophie stammered a “thank you” as she walked by me, not daring to look me in the eye while Abby hugged my arm and pulled me down to kiss my cheek, putting her lips close to my ear so her sister wouldn’t hear what she had to say.

“When we start living alone, you’re in charge of killing bugs,” she told me.

“You don’t like bugs?” I asked, surprised by it.

You’d think someone who has camped before to at least be ok with them.

She, however, shook her head.

“Only butterflies, beetles and ladybugs,” were her exceptions. The first and the last, I could get them, but what about the middle one? Beetles are awesome, she proclaimed when I asked.

Yup, it was one of those things about her where I shouldn’t think too much. I’m pretty sure a lot of people could say the same about spiders, wasps or some other insect, but oh well. Abby will be Abby, so…

We sat down in the same arrangement than before, me making sure to toss my hair all to one side to avoid further accidents, and was finally able to let out the last remaining anger I had left as the firm softness of Abby’s thigh came in contact with my face. No wonder she liked to sleep like this so much.

“So, how much did you see?”

“Huh?”

“Of my sister,” she clarified. “How much did you see?”

I had to lift my head to look at her face completely frontally to make sure she was being serious and not pulling a prank on me.

“Wasn’t she wearing a white dress?” I asked, having racked my brain so much, it was starting to hurt.

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“Wow, you really mean it when you say you only have eyes for me, huh?” she said, smiling from ear to ear. “So, you’re telling me that you didn’t notice my sister’s barely covered naked body with a towel before properly wrapping it around her?”

“Erm… did that really happen?”

She started cackling and pushing my head back to her lap, swearing on her love for me that she was, in fact, being “dead serious”.

Haah, whatever…

Sophie was super good looking, but not my type at all. Too tall, curvaceous, old, and serious. In other words, she wasn’t Abby. Nobody else was. Plus, Abby was pretty and cute, while Sophie was… plain beautiful? Well, people in general might find Sophie more attractive out of the two, but I prefer cute.

“What?” Abby asked when I lifted my head again.

I sat on my knees and grabbed her clothes, pulling her towards me. She made the same question again, her curiosity deepening, along with a smile forming in her face. I simply told her to “come here”. All that thinking made me feel like kissing and squeezing Abby. Having her sit on my legs simply made it easier.

“Violet, we can’t,” she giggled as I kissed her neck. “My sister!”

“I won’t go beyond this.”

“Pfft, hehe! Now, where have I heard that before?”

“I mean it this time.”

“Right, right. Ditto. Ah! D-don’t nibble! Hehe!”

A small part of me getting into this mood was the idea of her asking me about what I had seen due to her inferiority complex towards her sister. At least, what I perceived being an inferiority complex. I don’t know, it always feels like she ends up comparing herself to Sophie when talking about her, very rarely in a positive light.

She cutely pleaded for me to stop, all the while holding me tightly. It was the same with when I tickle her. If I stop, she’ll look at me, silently asking why I stopped. When she means it, she taps me in the back and says something in line with “that’s enough”.

So, we kept at it until we heard the bathroom door opening. Just as well, because her sister came knocking on our door a few minutes later.

Abby and I had just pulled out our homework and were doing it sitting on the bed when that happened. She was a bit flustered, thinking she had interrupted us, but I explained we hadn’t even started yet, so she calmed down a bit.

“Erm, sorry for the way I acted,” she said, clutching her hands to her chest like she was praying for forgiveness. “I shouldn’t act that way with how old I am.”

“With how old…” How old does she think she is?

I couldn’t point out at what exact age one should be unfazed by a cockroach landing on their face, but twenty-one wasn’t it. Maybe she had overreacted, but I knew Abby well and was used to her being easily scared. I take it that Sophie wasn’t all that different in that regard.

“It’s fine. If I’m around, you can come call me to deal with any bugs. I don’t really get scared all that easily.”

“More like at all. You don’ have any reaction when we watch horror movies,” Abby chimed in, sounding a bit nervous. It was still a good effort in joining the conversation.

“Well, erm, I also can watch horror movies and even go through a haunted house without much of a reaction too. I just can’t stand bugs at all.”

Abby didn’t say a word verbally, her face did all the talking instead. Horror movies, I already knew the result. Haunted houses? I’d be dragging her corpse by the hand on the way out, that’d be my guess. Assuming she wouldn’t launch us through the roof and out of orbit straight to another planet when she got jump-scared.

Anyway, there was a conversation going, and even if I preferred to go back to being just me and my girlfriend, having her talk with her sister was an opportunity too good to go to waste.

“By the way, we saw that movie you recommended last year.”

Sophie looked at me, confused.

I could answer, but looked at Abby, giving her the cue to do the talking.

“The one with the guy in a cabin in the middle of the woods with his girlfriend and has to cut one of his hands and ends up replacing it with a chainsaw,” Abby clarified.

Sophie’s face opened up in amazement, taking a seat by my side so she could face her sister.

“You still remembered that!?”

“I mean… It was one of the last conversations we had before you left,” Abby answered with a sad tone as she looked down to her books.

“I… Yeah, I remember it…” Sophie commented thoughtfully, a sad smile forming in her lips.

“…How about we watch it today?” I suggested.

It’d be a good bonding moment for the two, and since Abby had already seen it, she shouldn’t get too scared… hopefully.

Sadly, it was going against my plans for the day. After last night diner and whole week in classes, all I had wanted for this weekend was for me and Abby to spend it together, alone, doing couple stuff. Sleep the day in, cuddling together, go on a date, hold hands, share meals, kiss… finally make some love.

Don’t be selfish! This is more important.

I knew that, but I still thanked that voice in my head for keeping me grounded.

I had just made out with my girlfriend, even fondled her a bit. That should be enough when there are these matters around. Were we in my place, sure, ok. Since that wasn’t the case, I should act accordingly.

What was that entailing in this scenario? We decided we’d order some pizza and watch the movie during lunch. Not at all what I had hoped to be my day, but maybe I could still hold hands with Abby.

“Ah! Sis, erm…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll order the biggest size they have,” Sophie said absent mindedly as she walked away, staring at menu in her smartphone.

Abby quietly smiled, happy to see how her sister still remembered her appetite. Then, she looked at me and got a very love-struck demeanour.

“You truly are something else,” she told me at the sound of the door closing, reaching in to caress one of my hands with a finger.

“It was nothing.”

“…”

She stopped her finger and took a good look at me. I tried to disguise it, but I should know better than that. She was already fully aware of how I was feeling.

Before, it had been me pulling her to sit on my lap. Now, it was her moving across the small gap between us to sit between my legs, putting her legs and arms around me before a kiss.

“What’s wrong babe?”

“…Nothing.”

She kept staring at me with her sweet eyes. Those eyes that I could never resist.

I got a bit emotional and ended up admitting everything to her, feeling like the worst person in the world. All the while, she kept staring at me, calmly hearing what I had to say.

When I got everything out, she kissed me again, letting her lips linger on mine.

“Violet, you know that I love you, right?”

“Y-yes…”

“Then, please, don’t get mad or sad when I tell you that you’re being silly right now, ok? I keep telling you, you put me in first place too much. Do you think I like that?”

“…No.”

She smiled and kissed me again.

“Violet, I know you better than anyone. I know you get emotionally exhausted from dealing with people all day and that you need your alone time with me in those circumstances. I also know you need to get more physical with me than the other way around. I’m well aware of how little time we’ve had all this past week and how that reflects the future. It pained me too. And while I’m happy that you’re putting this much effort in helping me mending things with my sister… if it’s at your own expense… then I have to refuse. We need to find a balance, don’t you think?”

I nodded, completely disarmed by her words and rational.

We’d have to work out a new plan. We thought we could go back to acting like we previously were, back when we were just starting to know each other. None of us had taken into account how much we had truly changed in the meantime.

I was relatively ok with spending the week like we just had, but there needed to be a day in the middle for me and Abby to do some couple bonding. It could just be us sharing the bed or the night, doing nothing and in complete silence. I just needed that to take out the pent-up stress of the previous days. That would be enough until the weekend came.

“Will that really be enough?” she asked as she combed my hair away from my face.

“I think so…” I sniffled. “We’d have to try.”

“Sure. As long as you’re honest about it.”

If I were to be honest, I’d have to tell Abby I had no idea how I managed to deal with everything before. In hindsight, I didn’t, hence why I was so gloomy all the time. Now that I knew happiness, it was hard to deal with loneliness and not being able to decompress at the end of the day.

“I-I will!” I stammered. “Erm, sorry for making a scene.”

She retracted her hand and gave me an impish smile.

“I told you already, I know you better than anyone. I know how honest you are when you’re tired. Pfft, hehe, you silly girl.”

She gave me a tight hug and a very long kiss before resting her chin on my shoulder, her breathing tikling my ear. She whispered what her plans for us were. Today, we’d stay home and watch that movie with her sister before going out alone on a long date. I’d also be staying over for the night and we’d spend the whole Sunday together in bed, lazing about to my heart’s content. If her sister went out leaving us a house for ourselves, then…

“I love you.”

“Hmm? What’s that?” she hummed.

“I love you,” I repeated.

“Hehe, sorry, can’t hear you? Ah! Hehe!”

I kept saying that I loved her while kissing Abby all over her neck. I’d have loved to keep doing it for longer, but she broke our hold apart, reminding me that we still had our homework to do before lunch.

I was ok with stopping for now. We’d have time to continue later that day.