Yeah, I had never felt so glad and fulfilled before.

I guess the reason was obvious. That girl was my girlfriend now… but not much had actually changed. For example, she still hadn’t showed me her left eye. Did I have to ask her, or would she do it on her own at some point? Or maybe she didn’t want to ever show it to me?

Even though she was my girlfriend, there still were numerous mysteries around her. Needless to say, I was curious about it. I didn’t want to pry too much, though.

Talking to her casually became quite easy for me now, but there still were topics that were difficult to pick up. I guess it wasn’t that surprising. Even normal couples were too embarrassed to talk about certain things. Kissing, for example.

Now, get that thought out of my mind.

•

I had no idea how shallow my sleep had to be so that a small notification sound was enough to wake me up, but I found myself lying on the bed, my eyes fixed on the bright screen of my phone which dazzled me, all at 3 am.

“Human.”

But why was she texting me at 3 am in the first place?? Well, it was Saturday, so we didn’t have to wake up early the following day… but still, I wasn’t the type of person to stay up late. When I accidentally woke up in the middle of the night, I just tried to fall back asleep quickly.

With half-closed eyes, I saw that it wasn’t just a bug in the app, but she had really just sent me a message. What was she thinking? She should know that I wouldn’t respond her until morning. Usually, at least.

“What?”

I was slightly annoyed, but there was nothing I could do. She wasn’t actually expecting me to respond, so she had to be quite surprised.

“There is a message I have for you.”

“Do you know what time it is…?”

“You go to sleep early? I apologize, I am not familiar with your sleeping habits.”

“No, it’s 3 am! Don’t expect me to be staying up so late…!”

Response from her wasn’t coming. I almost thought she just went back to sleep and ignored me… but she wasn’t that ignorant of a person.

“Sorry. I didn’t realize that it was that late.”

How was that possible? Didn’t she literally have a clock displayed on her phone right now? It was impossible not to notice it when she messaged me.

“Okay… What were you doing that late?”

“It’s… confidential.”

I was pretty sure that she was either playing games or watching anime. After all, what else she could be doing in the middle of the night.

“So, what did you want from me?”

“That I have to tell you something.”

“Yes, I know. What is that something?”

A noticeable pause, again.

“Human…”

“Yes, human here”, it took her a strangely long time only to write one word. Was she hesitating?

I didn’t get any response for a while. It seemed that she was embarrassed about something.

“Are you free tomorrow?”

Yeah, I was right. I could see why she would hesitate writing this. Nevertheless, I always had free time, and not much had changed recently. But… it was a very weird thing to say at 3 am. 

“Yeah. Do you want to meet or something?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I don’t mind. Do you already have an idea where?”

“It’s about…”

It seemed that she sent me an unfinished message. Confused, I waited for continuation.

“…I want to try something out.”

“Okay. You can tell me.”

She kept hesitating, so I tried to encourage her. To be honest, I was quite curious about it as well.

“This thing normal humans do”

Well… it was a vague answer. Did she have an idea how many of those things there were?

“When they become close to each other”

Uh… what was she trying to say? That’s right, we had definitely become closer to each other lately, but that was all. We hadn’t done anything special because of that… maybe she wanted to change that?

“They meet”

We were going to meet. I knew that already.

“And go around stores. Eat in a restaurant. Watch a movie”

Oh, so that’s what she wanted to do? Totally understandable. In fact, we had done that already, to a certain extent. It was called just hanging out, but this time, it was going to be…

“For an entire day”

A date?

“I guess it was too sudden. Sorry, human.”

It was surprising (considering it was 3 am), but I didn’t mind. I had plenty of free time, so why wouldn’t I spend it with her and have fun? After all, I did like her.

“No, no. I don’t mind. It’s okay.”

My parents still believed that I had friends (although they hadn’t ever seen them), so I didn’t have to worry about raising suspicions over being out for the entire day.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m free tomorrow.”

Actually, it should have been my responsibility to ask her out. Well, I was going to do that soon, but she just happened to be first… I couldn’t do anything about it. I mean, the result was the same. I could be happy that she decided to take all the embarrassment on her.

“But” she interjected.

“?”

“I don’t have the entire day planned. So be prepared.”

“Okay, I’ll think of something.”

So, the difference, besides the most obvious one that we were a couple now, was that we were going to be hanging out for the entire day and trying various things out for the first time or not.

As such, it was certain that we were going to meet in the morning.

“Is 10 am before the station alright with you?” she suggested before I asked her.

“Fine for me.”

“Good.”

“Is that all?”

“Affirmative.”

She went back to peculiar speech? I already forgot that it was 3 am. If we were going to meet early, I had to go back to sleep as soon as possible.

“Don’t be nervous. It’s my first time too”, I tried to reassure her, since I feared that she might be stressed out.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, human?”

I thought about responding to her question literally, “my girlfriend”. But no. It was too embarrassing.

“Alright. I’m going back to sleep now. And don’t stay up late like that ever again, it’s unhealthy.”

“Night is when all those filthy humans are inactive. It’s time for me to enjoy.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You don’t believe me? I’m serious.”

 “I know that you like rain and darkness, but it’s not good for you. If you keep walking in the rain without an umbrella, you’ll catch a cold at some point.”

“It doesn’t apply to me, human.”

“I know. It applies to me, though. So, if you message me in the middle of the night next time, don’t expect a response until morning. I just happened to be awake”, I said, but the truth was that the phone woke me up. Still, it normally shouldn’t.

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay, I’m not mad at you”, actually, I feared that I might have saddened her. Unfortunately, there was no telling through the phone… in the end, I preferred talking to her face to face, even if it often was embarrassing. “I’m going to sleep now for sure. Do you want to say something?”

“No. I wish that no sleep demons invade you”, was it a sign of her being mad?

“They won’t. After all, I have a protection from you.”

“See you.”

She ended the conversation quite abruptly. I hoped that it wouldn’t impact our… date tomorrow.

Either way, it was time for me to go back to sleep. Finally! Or so I thought, because soon I found that falling asleep wasn’t that easy. Maybe it was because I had been awake for some time now, or perhaps I was just too hyped up for tomorrow?

Lying on the bed, I stared at the ceiling of the dark room.

By the way, it was Christmas soon.