School nights are awful, and when it's paired with Toko staying up late- sometimes into early morning- writing off of an idea she had, it can get ugly fast. Her moms didn't care how late she stays up, the only condition being that she had to stay quiet. This wasn't a problem with her, and so she spent many a long night writing at her little desk by her lamp's light. It was both a blessing and a curse.

This night in particular, it was storming like all heck was breaking loose, every bit of thunder shaking her room. For the most part, she was able to ignore it, and kept writing. The only thing that disturbed her, barely a minute after the first streak of lightning, was her phone vibrating with an incoming call. She scooped it up quickly, not wanting to wake her moms and not bothering to check the caller ID. There was only one person who ever called her, anyway.

"It's-" she checked the time- "holy cow, it's one in the morning, Omaru, what do you need?" Silence. "Komaru, did you call me while sleeping again? I'm in the middle of writing-"

"I'm here." Komaru's voice sounded small, nothing like the loud and cheerful tone Toko was somehow used to. "If you're busy-"

Toko sighed, pushing away from her desk and moving to her bed, her loose hair splayed out under her as she laid down. "No, it's fine. What are you doing up?"

"Well-" Komaru stopped talking as soon as another flash of lightning illuminated Toko's room. Instead, she squeaked, and Toko could practically hear her quaking.

"Oh, right. I forgot that you're afraid of lightning." Well, at least it isn't an emergency, she thought to herself. "Quick question, why didn't you wake up your brother instead, since he's probably a room down from you and because of your-"

"Don't even start," Komaru warned, and despite herself Toko smirked a bit. She still hadn't stopped teasing Komaru about having a brother complex and wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. "I tried. He told me to go back to sleep, but I couldn't."

Toko stared up at her ceiling. "So you decided to call me. Even though I can't really do anything to help from my house." She was having a hard time comprehending the situation, to say the least. "How did you even wake up at one in the morning because of a bit of thunder?"

She could almost hear Komaru shrugging and rolling her eyes. "I don't know, I just did. And I figured that, being the good girlfriend you are, you could help me?" There was another squeak as a flash of lightning broke in quick succession to rumbling thunder. "Please, just- just talk to me for a while. I'll probably fall asleep if you can help, and then you can go back to writing."

Toko let out a long breath. "Fine. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to talk for a bit." They were both silent for a long, awkward moment. "What are we supposed to talk about?"

"I don't know! Maybe why you're up so late writing?" And once again, flawlessly, she turned the conversation onto Toko. Rats.

"I don't know, I just am," Toko replied, mocking Komaru's earlier tone, to which Komaru let out a huff. "Seriously, let's talk about anything but that. How is school going for you? You're in year eleven, that's bound to be exciting."

Komaru hummed in response. "I guess. You're in year twelve, though, that's got to be even more exciting."

Oh, yeah. In a mere few months, Toko would be able to get out of the place she loathed more than anywhere else. With that came university, if she felt like it, or a full-time writing career, or maybe moving abroad, or even staying local. "It feels almost the same, and is just as boring and annoying, if not more."

"Are you going to move? You'll be able to get an apartment away from your parents," Komaru pointed out, and Toko was surprised that she herself hadn't thought of that fact. But, being the attention-to-details person she was, she picked up on a slight melancholy tone in Komaru's voice.

"Maybe. I don't know yet." If she listened carefully, she could almost hear Komaru breath out a sigh of relief on the other end. Thus were the troubles of dating someone a year younger than you. "If I do, I'll most likely stay somewhere near here. This is where I get all of my inspiration, and writing in new places does nothing to help me." She didn't mention that Komaru was the source of a lot of that inspiration, but it almost went without saying.

There was silence on the other line again. Silence everywhere, actually; the rain and thunder had stopped. "Komaru? Are you still awake?" Nothing. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. L-love you."

X-X-X

"Toko? Are you feeling okay?"

Toko lifted her head off of her desk, glaring up at whoever dared talk to her. "What do you want, Makoto?"

Makoto reeled back a bit, his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "You just seemed really tired, so I wanted to check on you, that's all!" Naturally, their exchange caught the eye of almost everyone else in their class, because why wouldn't it?

"If you want to know why I'm so tired, ask your sister. She was up calling me at one in the morning! She's too hard to resist…" The last part was muttered, and luckily nobody but Makoto heard- wait, scratch that. It wasn't lucky that Makoto heard, because he just grinned at her. God, she wished someone would wipe that grin off of his face. Instead, she groaned and laid her head back on her desk. "Just let me sleep. I need to recharge before I have to have another long-winded conversation with her."

Thank you to Gamator for following, and everyone for reading! I had a lot of fun with these prompts this week, and I hope to have more content up relatively soon.