[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Pillow Fort

Genre: Slice of Life

Length: 2792 words

B/D: Made this as a quick birthday present for Coffgirl.

She’s sitting alone outside the cafe, watching the clouds roll in – slate-grey, like corrugated iron in the sky. A thunderstorm in the making. Around her, people are already scattering for shelter, perhaps a little too pre-emptively.

Nath has never been a fan of inclement weather. As somebody who has obvious problems with using an umbrella, she feels she has a right to be annoyed when it rains. Hoods and hats are just as bad, in her opinion. They always get blown off or need adjusting. Rain is a problem for which she has no solution, save for patience, and she might well need that patience later.

But she’s been in enough thunderstorms to guess that this one won’t hit for a few hours, and so she sits quietly, watching a cube of sugar dissolve in her coffee. She didn’t think they still made sugar cubes, if she was honest. There was something very old fashioned about them, and they seemed to have gotten rarer and rarer as time went on until they disappeared. Thinking about it distracts her, for a time, but there’s only so long that a sharp and agile mind like hers can mull over the mysteries of sugar cubes before exhausting them.

It’s one of those days. The days where she doesn’t want to get out of bed. The days that become weeks, and the weeks that become months. That kind of day. She woke up with that kind of feeling, that apathy, that sensation of colourlessness. In a past life, it would have chased her back to the bottle. She’s better than that now. At least, she hopes she is.

Beyond that, she feels… well, lonely. There’s no logic to it. She has a cat, and friends that she sees often. But the heart doesn’t always operate on the basis of reason, and although she knows that there will be every opportunity to relax with friends in the future, there is an aching need to see them now. Of course, there are some people she wants to see more than others, and one person in particular springs to mind.

Sitting only a few inches from her cup of coffee, her phone is open on Sora’s contact number.

The Nath of a year ago, she thinks, doesn’t know how good she had it. She’d seen Sora every day, or as close as made no difference – and there had been no conspicuous, Sora-shaped hole in her life on the days she wasn’t there. There had been no complications. No pressure. No competition for affe – attention. It seemed almost like a golden age, in retrospect.

She takes a sip of coffee. It doesn’t make her feel any better.

She doesn’t know why, exactly, she’s hesitating. She has a problem, and the solution is at her fingertips. It’s not like she’d be doing anything wrong. Maybe it’s a sense of fair play – a desire, however odd, to make sure that Sham has a fair shot. That she’s not monopolising the most important person in her world.

But it’s this, or the bottle. She knows which one she’d rather pick.

“Hello.” Sora answers on the second ring, although she doesn’t seem at all surprised. “This is Sora. You’re Nath.”

“Guilty as charged,” she replies. She was wondering when Sora would figure out the vagaries of caller ID. Her life has entered a new and wonderful epoch.

“Don’t feel guilty. Somebody has to be Nath.”

She finds herself smiling. The conversation seems to have come off the rails already. “I wonder about that.”

“It’s true. Otherwise, we’d have a Nath deficiency. It’s very serious business.”

“I see. I’ll take your word for it. How’s the idol training going?”

“We’re not practising today.”

“Is that alright? I thought the show was at the end of the week.”

“Sham needed to scout out a venue. Also, something more important came up.”

Nath’s eyebrows furrow. Sora is… well, a very serious kind of girl. She can’t imagine what would be more important in Sora’s world than practising for the show that Sham was so excited for, and on which Hime had pinned her romantic hopes upon. “Please, tell me about it.”

“We found Suguri’s pillow stash.”

Somehow, Sora always seems to find the exact combination of words that Nath is not prepared to hear. “…Pillow stash?”

“She buys in bulk.”

Suguri’s bulk buying habit is, she knows, perfectly harmless. Practical, even. But it’s also faintly weird and otherworldly, as are many things about Suguri. “Like… ahem. Like her underwear?”

“She’s not allowed to bulk buy underwear anymore. Hime laid down The Law.”

Of course, The Law deserved its capital letters when Sora said it. Despite being generally quite a chaotic person who wandered aimlessly through life – and having eschewed a lifetime of military discipline and hierarchy in order to save the world – there is still a very special place in her heart for rules and order. Mostly, she likes to be the one applying them, with appropriate amounts of enthusiasm.

“She said that, instead of wearing ninety pairs of identical boxer shorts for three months in a row, it would be better if Suguri didn’t wear underwear at all,” Sora recounts sagely. It might be a joke, Nath realises, but there’s simply no way to tell. Sora tells all her joke as if they were facts established in the very genealogy of the world, and she can’t say it doesn’t fit with Hime’s personality. “I got to keep some of the boxer shorts. They’re comfy and easy to wear, but they don’t come with matching bras, so it’s troublesome.”

Nobody can accuse Nath of having an overactive imagination, but there’s definitely a spike in activity as she tries to piece ‘Sora’, ‘boxer shorts’ and ‘no bra’ into a cohesive mental image. This thankfully distracts her from the many unkind things that could be said about Suguri’s need for a bra or lack thereof, none of which Nath would actually say, but some of which might have occurred to her.

“But anyway, we found the pillow stash. So we’re making a fort,” Sora finishes, as though it were the most simple and natural thing in the world. “Are you okay? You don’t usually call unless there’s something wrong, and you sound sad.”

She feels a little jolt of surprise in her chest. She’s been trying to keep her voice steady, level. Even warm. She’s sure she hasn’t let anything slip yet. “O-oh? How so?”

“…mm. Don’t know. It just feels that way.” There is a pause as Sora puts her thoughts in order, inasmuch as they have order to begin with. “You should come over and help us with the fort.”

She laughs breathlessly. She forgets, sometimes, that while Sora thinks very differently, she’s far sharper than she appears. “I’m not great at construction, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine. You can be management. Hime’s managing right now, but she’s middle management. You’re taller, so you can be top level management.”

This, Nath decides, is as close to understanding corporate structure as Sora should ever be allowed to come. She has seen humans attempt to resurrect megacorps in her day – because some calamities are too huge to only discover once – and has poor memories of them.

“…Got it. I’ll be over in a bit. By the way, it looks like there’s a storm coming. Will you be okay?”

“Of course. Why do you think we’re making a fort?”

“Because you’ve been given access to too many pillows.”

“It’s not too many pillows. It’s the correct amount.”

“I’m sure. Well, I’ll see you soon… Thanks, Sora.”

She hangs up and tests her coffee with an artificial fingertip. As predicted, it’s stone cold. She knocks it back in two large gulps, grimaces, and stands up. She doesn’t look at the sky as she starts to get moving.

She has places to go, and people to see.

When she lands, she finds Suguri’s front door slightly ajar.

It is, of course, a very robust front door, too sturdy and well-built to swing in the wind. The lock is of ancient design; she can’t foresee anybody having the knowledge to pick it, in this day and age and there no obvious signs of damage, so it’s unlikely to have been forced. She knocks politely, and the hollow sound of her prosthetic knuckles boom through the house with no response.

After waiting a few seconds, she gives the door a gentle push – and steps immediately to the side, dodging the pillow that comes soaring towards where her head would have been. She has enough time to catch Hime crouched in the hallway, ducking for more ammunition, before Sora fires her own pillow directly into the back of her adopted sister’s head.

“Excuse me, Sora! What part of ‘ambushing Nath’ did you not understand? Is this insubordination?” Hime asks, with the ominous cheer that she’s become known for.

“My weapon misfired,” Sora replies innocently.

“How, exactly, does one misfire a pillow?”

“They’ve been down in the basement for a long time. Any weapon can misfire if it’s not properly maintained,” Sora explains. “Hello, Nath. What do you think of our fort?”

She casts her eyes around the hallway. The walls are festooned with pillows. There are waist-high pillow fortifications every few feet, interlocking in zig-zag formation. There are even pillows on the ceiling, suspended by what looks like sticky tape.

“I thought,”she says, choosing her words carefully, “that you were making a pillow fort.”

“Oh, but we are. Is this not a pillow fort? Are you unfamiliar with the term?” Hime’s voice is playful, but her face says she half-expects the answer to be ‘yes’.

“You haven’t made a pillow fort. You’ve made your house into a fort, using pillows.”

“That’s what I said, though,” Sora replies. “Come on. I want to show you the strategy room.”

She grabs Nath’s hand, and gives it a little squeeze; she’s reminded, briefly but enjoyably, of the last time they went to the gym together, and allows herself to be lead into what used to to be the living room. It is now home to what looks like a fully functioning pillow bunker, with a roof, walls, and a crawlspace for access.

“How did you manage this?” she asks, because she’s interacted with both pillows and the laws of physics, and knows that they do not behave in quite the way she is witnessing.

“Ohohoho. I used to run a spaceship, you know,” Hime replies loftily. “Structural integrity is my middle name.”

“I see,” Nath deadpans. “So what’s your last name?”

“Whatever Suguri’s last name is,” comes the immediate, and very enthusiastic, answer.

“She hasn’t told you?”

“I’m sure she’ll get around to it.” Hime’s voice is breezy and unconcerned; obviously, she doesn’t really care what the second name is, only the source. “A woman has to have some secrets, after all. It’s part of her mysterious allure.”

“I don’t think all women need secrets. I don’t,” Sora chimes in, her mouth set in a serious little frown.

“Yes, well. As life forms go, you’re quite mysterious enough. Here, why don’t you show Nath the inside of the command room, and I’ll pass some tea through in a little bit.”

Sora, apparently as placid as she is mysterious, nods. “Please guard the door as well, and greet Suguri properly when she gets back.”

“I’ll be sure to greet her with love.”

Nath had been hitherto unaware that pillows were a valid delivery method for love, but every day spent with Sora and her family was an education, and she has grown used to their constant questioning of accepted wisdom in the pursuit of zany schemes. Still, she raises an eyebrow, because it feels as though somebody should, and tries to work out how to enter a pillow igloo without destroying it. Her shoulders are a little wider than Sora or Hime’s, and she struggles to fit through the opening without disturbing anything.

Inside the pillow bunker, there are… well, pillows, unsurprisingly – two in particular have been set out as seats, and Sora quickly arranges herself on one of them before patting the other.

“This is the strategy room. It’s not very strategic, but it’s very cosy,” Sora informs her as she takes her seat. “Unf.”

‘Unf’ is the sound of Sora immediately leaning to rest her head on Nath’s shoulder, with perhaps a bit too much velocity. Nath’s prosthetics are many things, but ‘soft’ is not particularly high on the list.

“If you’re tired, there are plenty of pillows. In fact, I’m the only thing in here that’s not a pillow,” she says dryly.

Sora makes a sound that is equal parts grumpy and unintelligible, before adjusting her position until she’s comfortable. When she’s found the correct spot, she sighs softly – hauu – and closes her eyes.

It suddenly occurs to Nath how warm it is in a room made entirely of pillows. Particularly around the cheeks and ears.

“I was worried,” Sora says dreamily, after half a minute has ticked by.

Nath blinks slowly. Swallows. “About what?”

“I thought for a bit about how you sounded on the phone this morning. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what.”

She frowns. The way Sora is talking makes her feel… itchy, almost. Uncomfortable, as though her defences are being peeled back. She’s not used to it.

“I figured it out when I saw you at the door. Your voice was like it was when we first met.” Sora pauses, and her brow furrows. “Not in the war, but when we first met again after that.”

“I understand.” Nath smiles wanly. She does understand the feeling – all too well. It feels like an entirely different world. An entirely different first meeting. “But did I really sound that different back then?”

“Mm. It’s hard to say how. But definitely different.”

Sora falls conspicuously silent again. It’s a trick, Nath realises, that she’s beginning to excel at. As a peaceful girl with a quiet voice, she’s learning to make the quiet work for her – to give people space and time to reflect on what she’s saying. Is it something she picked up from Suguri, or was it just something she had to learn to deal with Hime and Sham? Maybe, she thinks ruefully, it’s just something she does with me.

She was lonely before she reunited with Sora. Deeply. It’s not the kind of thing that goes away just like that; it is not a pain but an ache, and sometimes it will return of its own accord. Her voice probably sounded lonely when they met, and it almost certainly sounded lonely on the phone today.

That much is obvious. What surprises her is how easily Sora picked up on it – how she knew so quickly that something was wrong, and worked out for herself what it was. That she thought about it, even with a pillow fort to construct and her concert with Sham looming.

Maybe she doesn’t need to compete for Sora’s attention. It feels like she has plenty of it already.

“You smiled all of a sudden. What were you thinking about?” Sora asks.

“Hm… Why don’t you guess?” Nath teases. Knowing you, you’d probably get it right.

Sora’s face falls, and her eyes narrow suspiciously. “If you say it like that, then it’s probably something scandalous.”

“Hey… Don’t lump me in with Hime.” A gentle joke, a gentle rebuff. Such a comforting, familiar rhythm. “It might have been something a little embarrassing, though.”

“That makes me even more curious.”

“...mm. I was thinking,” she says cautiously, “that it would be nice if I could rub my cheek against yours. Just a little bit.”

It’s not entirely a lie, although it is a little embarrassing. She can almost see the cogs turning in Sora’s head as she weighs the proposition; somewhere in her head, she is adding ‘cheek rubbing’ to the great big list of Nath’s tastes.

“Okay. I’m not using my cheeks for anything right now anyway,” she says finally, and turns her face to the side.

Nath closes her eyes. She can hear – just – the sound of rain pattering on the windows, even through the protective wall of pillows; no doubt Suguri will be hurrying home from whatever errand she’s on, to be greeted by Hime’s innovative interior decoration. Once the thunder starts, there’s no way they’ll let her fly home. She is trapped, quite agreeably, in in a soft and comfortable place of Sora’s making.

Sora’s cheek is also surprisingly soft and comforting.

She relaxes, and lets her mind switch off as best she can. But it keeps returning the the ‘scandalous’ thing she was really thinking.

Sora, I think I’m in love with you.

A/N: I'm really busy lately, and it feels like I haven't had a chance to practice 3rd person present tense properly in a while. As a result, this is kinda rusty. But oh well! Nath keeps asking me if she can rub her cheek against mine whenever I play as her in OJ, so I figured I'd slip that in somewhere.