Chapter 25: The "King" Sized Problem

I come home from school to find the front door wide open and a massive delivery truck in the driveway.

"Pivot! PIVOT!" Ayumi's voice screams from the stairwell.

I walk inside to see the most enormous mattress I have ever seen wedged completely tight in the curve of our stairs. It is stuck fast. Azuwa is underneath it, pushing up with her legs. Inoue is on top of it, pulling. Ayumi and Hina are trying to shove it from the sides.

"What," I ask calmly, "is this?"

"Oppa! You're home!" Inoue waves from atop the mattress mountain. "We bought you a present! It's a 'Super-Ultra-King-Emperor' sized bed!"

"Why?"

"Because your single bed is inefficient for group activities!" Azuwa grunts, straining against the weight.

"Movie nights! Board games! Sleepovers!" Ayumi lists, pushing uselessly. "We can all fit on this one! It's an investment in our collective happiness!"

"It takes up my entire room! I won't be able to open my closet!"

"Who needs clothes when you have COMFORT?" Inoue yells.

It takes three hours, a lot of swearing from Azuwa, and a crowbar to finally get the mattress into my room. It barely fits. It's like a gigantic white ocean that has swallowed my floor.

"It's magnificent," Hina says, wiping sweat from her forehead. "A perfect blank canvas for sleeping aesthetics."

"Test run!" Inoue yells, swan-diving onto the middle of it.

The others immediately follow. They all land on the bed, bouncing happily. They look at me expectantly.

"Well, Onii-chan? Come try it! There's so much room now!" Ayumi pats the tiny sliver of space they have left for me in the very center.

I sigh and gingerly climb onto the massive bed. It is luxuriously soft. I lie down in the middle.

Instantly, all five of them roll toward me. The bed is soft, which means my weight creates a depression in the center. Gravity does the rest. They all slide into me like marbles in a bowl.

"Oh wow, it's gravity!" Ayumi exclaims, clearly delighted by this physics phenomenon. "It wants us to be together!"

"This mattress lacks proper lumbar support if it sags this much," Azuwa complains, though she doesn't try very hard to roll away.

"It's like a cuddle puddle!" Inoue giggles.

We lie there for a moment, a tangled mess of limbs in the center of a ridiculously oversized bed. I'm exhausted from watching them move it. They are exhausted from moving it.

Despite the chaos, despite the lack of personal space, it is surprisingly... comfortable. Warm.

"Just for five minutes," I murmur, closing my eyes. "No fighting. Just sleep."

Miraculously, they listen. For the first time since they arrived, nobody argues. Nobody tries to sabotage anyone else. The sound of five different, soft breathing patterns fills the room.

I drift off to sleep, trapped in the center of the world's most chaotic, high-maintenance, and ridiculously affectionate gravity well. It isn't peaceful, exactly. But maybe, just maybe, it isn't so bad.