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Raito says he cannot sleep at night, but Ryuuku could tell him otherwise. Raito sleeps long enough to dream; his fingers scrabble at the mattress and his eyeballs hiccup beneath their lids, and if Ryuuku could only sink into Raito's head at these times, he thinks he might see moving pictures like those on the box on the desk where the small, flat people struggle and fuck and flicker forever.

Ryuuku presses himself through skin and bone, but there is nothing for him beneath Raito's skull except grey pulp. The electric shock of thought and motion drive him out into the quiet of the bedroom. Raito shrugs off the bedding as easily as the intrusion; he does not like to be touched. Ryuuku watches the gooseflesh rise on pale arms, hears the faint whine of insects, and draws the sheets back over Raito's body. He thinks Raito would laugh to see it, this uneasy solicitousness. Ryuuku cannot care as a human does; caring comes upon him in increments of curiosity and diversion. If Raito sickens with sleeplessness and chills, his sufferings may prove interesting. Ryuuku knows this and covers him still. This is how the rise of affection inside him for Raito bares itself.

Ryuuku crawls the walls as he does every night, searching for cameras and bugs. He finds only the dusty surface of plaster, the creased spines of books and the whisper of cobwebs. They had the chance to watch - sixty four cameras tuned to Channel Raito - and gave it up. Ryuuku is pleased. More apples for him.

The stars outside tell him that Raito will not wake for some time. Ryuuku drifts through the door - he is unwilling to disturb Raito's complicated security system - and floats down the stairs to the kitchen. Sachiko has noticed her son's apparent hunger for apples and keeps the fruit bowl full. Ryuuku crunches into the biggest, juiciest apple in the bowl and finds a maggot wriggling in the core. He sucks it between jagged teeth and swallows it down; he has never sprouted an apple tree in his belly, but perhaps he might breed a squirmy, squabbling nest of grubs in his guts. That would be interesting.

The food in his belly weighs him down, and he picks his way gingerly about the house, /toc toc/, like a crane in a birdcage. He flicks through the television channels and prods at the bookshelves and pokes at the family photographs on the walls. There are stories wherever he looks, but it is the story he lives with that he enjoys best.

In the main bedroom, he finds Sachiko making slow, familiar love to her drowsy husband. Her thighs are splayed across his hips, holding them still as she rolls her own hips about to her liking. Yagami is lying back against the pillows and might be asleep but for the fingers cupping Sachiko's little pot belly beneath her rucked-up nightgown and the glistening thumbs working between her legs. Sachiko croons softly, "My husband, my dear one," while Yagami comes in silence, ever wary of waking his children. His heart stutters, and Ryuuku would see his death if he opened his eyes, but he is already slipping into sleep. Sachiko cleans them both with a damp towel, then pulls up Yagami's pyjama bottoms and cuddles into his side. Ryuuku has watched them many times and never tires of it, though they rouse no desire in him. Somehow Raito was born of this, and it amuses Ryuuku to imagine him as a maggot in his mother's belly.

Next he visits Sayu. She lies on her side - one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other cupped between her thighs - and snores little whiffle whuffles into her pillow. There is a strong scent like seaweed-flavoured potato chips in the room, but even as Ryuuku flares his nostrils, he catches the slow creep of rust; she has fallen asleep with a handful of slick, clear girl come and will wake tomorrow to blood brown. Yagami must have watched his daughter through sixty four cameras, watched her singing and scratching and giggling and farting. Now only Ryuuku sees her, as her legs bicycle in their sleep and a froth of saliva escapes her slack lips.

And then he feels the leash strain and he returns to Raito's room. Raito is caught in dream, with a growl on his face and a grimace in his throat, and the covers have been flung to the floor once more. Yipe, yipe, yipe, like a dog he cries, and one thin, pale calf buckles and cringes across the mattress. Ryuuku laughs to see this sleeping dance, and he takes the cramping limb between his great hands and grumbles, "Are you awake, little leg? Are you? Where is your owner?"

Raito wakes, all gleaming eyes and hissing tongue. "Don't touch me," he says through gnashing teeth and lips white with pain.

"Ah, ah. I will if I like," says Ryuuku. He soothes and pets the trembly tendons, because he knows how it feels when a body's snarling itself up for want of something. After a minute, the leg gives up its rebellion and lies calmly in Ryuuku's hands. He strokes the hollow behind Raito's knee with one careful, curious fingernail, /skritch skratch/. "Did you dream? Tell me."

"There's nothing to tell." It doesn't matter. Ryuuku likes secrets and surprises, and living with Raito makes Ryuuku's imagination flex harder than it ever has before. There is a moving picture inside his head right now: he is playing Mario Golf with Raito's stiff, severed leg and throwing up like Petey Piranha as he bogeys the ninth hole. It makes him laugh again, and Raito pulls his leg back with a scowl. Ryuuku draws the sheets over Raito and hovers above the bed like a grotesque canopy, wings unfurled. The moonlight catches the loveheart in his ear, and the twinkle reflects in Raito's watchful eyes.

All the gods Ryuuku knows are sleepless, and tired beyond the telling. Ryuuku wonders if this rotting world might end if he could fall into dream as Raito does so easily. Perhaps it might ripen.

Ryuuku stares into Raito's eyes and measures the days and nights.