Carnivore

i) Probitatis

She hoped it would work out, and that even if she had to drop a few days a week at the hospital, she could get a paying job to help pay her own school fees. If she couldn't, then at the very least, the fees were on par with her middle-school ones, so it wasn't much more of a burden.

But it was all going to take time, and the longer it took, the more anxious she felt.

'...Can't sleep, Zim?' Mumbled a sleepy Kirishima, causing the girl to flinch.

Her attempt at quietly rolling over onto her side had somehow alerted her friend to her predicament, and she found herself wondering just how long he had been awake. She could have sworn she heard him snoring just a handful of minutes ago.

'...Not really.' Zinnia eventually answered, much to her displeasure. 'What gave me away?'

The faint sounds of ruffling bedding echoed for a moment, though Zinnia refused to look around.

'You usually wind up hugging your pillow to death right after you fall asleep, actually.' Kirishima remarked with a faint, albeit rather sluggish chuckle. 'That, and you sleep-game.'

'Sleep-game?' Zinnia questioned, rather appalled as she finally turned her head to look back at her friend, who seemed to be sitting on the edge of his bed rubbing a hand through his atrocious bed-hair. 'What on earth do you mean by that?'

'It's like you're sleep-talking, but its almost always about a game of some kind.' Kirishima explained as he turned his head back towards her 'Last time you stayed over, you were complaining all the time I was awake about delivering pizza to some kind of enemy in a canyon.'

Zinnia stared blankly at Kirishima for a small moment, before her expression contorted to a more perturbed look.

'And ... it was to do with tunnel rats?' She couldn't help but ask.

'Yeah, it was something like rats, I think.' He agreed thoughtfully. 'You sounded more annoyed than anything else when you were talking about them.'

'Oh no... I remember a stupid dream like that...'

'And it was about a game you play, right?' Kirishima questioned, casting her a grin she couldn't miss even without her glasses on.

'No it wasn't.' She denied.

'Can you say that to me with a straight face, though?'

'...'

Zinnia refused to comment.

And just as she expected, she heard Kirishima chuckle slightly as he seemed to lift himself to his feet.

'Come on, I think I know what will fix your sleep problem.' Kirishima stated as he easily stepped around Zinnia's bed and wandered out of the room altogether.

Perplexed, but otherwise curious, Zinnia quickly scooped up her glasses and cell phone from beside her pillow and followed along after Kirishima, wincing momentarily as she stubbed her toes against the feet of his gym equipment on the way through. She glanced left and right down the hallway that the boy's joined onto, with her brow furrowing as she found no sign of Kirishima anywhere.

A faint incandescent glow was filtering from the stairs, prompting her to wander along

Needless to say, Zinnia was more surprised than before to see the kindly boy quickly foraging through the refrigerator in the kitchen, even moreso as he began to deposit various items onto the counter without much concern.

'What exactly are you doing?' Zinnia couldn't help but ask as she tugged the sleeves of her orange flannel pyjamas a bit further down her arms.

'Grabbing some midnight snacks.' He responded with a grin.