Hug (Mio x Ritsu)

original here

“Hey,” Ritsu spoke up. She shifted from her position on the bed, legs dangling over the edge, back flat against her covers, eyes staring at the blank ceiling. “Mio?”

“Yes, Ritsu?” Mio inquired. She was leaned against the bed on the floor and looked up from the homework in her lap. Curious, she waited.

“Do you ever think about the future?” the drummer asked.

“Quite often,” Mio responded. “After all, once we graduate, we’ll have a lot more worries than we do now and our lives will only get busier.”

“No, I mean, beyond all that unimportant stuff,” Ritsu sighed. “You know, like... ‘Will I be happy?’ and things like that.”

“So nothing to do with getting a job, paying the bills, and living on your own?” Mio teased. Ritsu didn’t take the bait. Mio was slightly afraid that she had offended the girl before Ritsu slid down from her bed and landed next to her.

“Well, sure, I mean. Yeah, you can think about those things, but do you ever wonder if there’s more than that?” Ritsu insisted. “It seems really boring if that’s all there is waiting for us.”

Mio’s dark eyebrows scrunched together in concern. “Of course there’s more than that,” she told her. “You’ll still have your drumming, your friends and tea and cake. None of that will change if you don't want it to. You might even have a husband and a few kids–”

“But that’s not what I want!” Ritsu growled, suddenly snapping her neck to gaze fiercely at the bassist. Mio flinched at the sudden motion. “That’s not what I want,” she continued, voice dropping to a soft pitch. Her amber eyes burned. “Is that what you want?”

“I-I guess,” Mio stuttered. She was confused and slightly scared at Ritsu’s behavior. What was wrong with her?

“I see.” Ritsu said this in a neutral tone and turned away. “Hey.”

“Yes, Ritsu?” Mio responded. She watched as Ritsu held her arms out and hung them there, waiting. "Ritsu?"
She leaned forward and wrapped her lanky arms tight around Mio's torso, squeezed her so hard that the bassist forgot to breathe.

"Mio." The hot breath tickled her ear. A whisper.

"Yes?" Another. Her shoulders were starting to hirt from the cut-off circulation. "Ritsu?" A more painful plead.

They sat there, tense, unmoving. Mio wondered what was going through her head. Five years ago she would have instantly known Ritsu's train of thought. Now she could only blindly guess, after the change her friend had gone through in the past few years, her ever-present silliness giving way to a more contemplative demeanor in what she thought was maturity. Now she thought it was something else entirely. Something deeper and more emotional. Troubled.

Ritsu seemed to realize what she was doing and stiffened before her arms slipped down and slid to a stop around Mio's waist, embrace turned gentle and loose. "Can we... Stay like this for a while?" she asked. And Mio heard the child she had grown up with and fought with and smiled and laughed with and cried with in that single request, and she knew that she could not deny her even if she wanted to.

"Yes," she sighed. Her gaze stared blankly at the bed. "Yes."

She sensed, rather than saw, Ritsu's eyes droop into a close, and when even breathing bathed her neck in nervous goosebumps, only then did she acknowledge the worry gnawing in her throat.