While You Were Sleeping
Note: Won = Jin. I like Jin more than Won. I always think of Harry Potter with Won… but I'm sticking with it. I started, I'm ending. Ose = Owen and Tao =Toby. The title comes from a song by Elvis Perkins. I admit to this being a bit weird, but I just reread A Midsummer Night's Dream and it is awfully early (or maybe's it late…).
Because sometimes something happens that you can't explain.
I wrote that preface a while ago. My roommate and I are staying up late tonight (or is it late?) and I was inspired. Yeah college! Wooh!
It had been four hours since Ose and Tao had dragged her into the clinic and now she was lying, sleeping soundly in the bed where the doctor himself had lain hardly a day before. He straightened his glasses on the crook of his nose and sighed, shuffling his clipboard onto his desk. This had been the first time since the first month Akari had lived on the island that she had wound up as one of his patients, and back then she had been so new to the concept of farming that she didn't know when she was too tired to work. Back then she had been foolish and impulsive, and he had thought her better than to overwork herself so, but there she was his eyes told him, lying on the cot in his clinic.
The doctor fell heavily into his chair, tottering it beneath him like a log perched high upon some great cliff. He had had a very long, long day and now he was glad jut to be sitting down. He tucked his chin in and looked at Akari. She was a good girl, he thought, but it was so odd to see her not brimming with energy. Lying there across the room Won felt himself at peace. He let his head fall back and his eyes close. He really needed to sleep.
Moonshine slid playfully through the frost-tinted windowpanes and played mischief upon his tired mind. Goblins and faries ad pale as snowy skies were brought round the wobbling legs of his chair, enticing him to follow them up and around, praying him to dance at their sides. It was beautiful, he thought sleepily, watching the flittering shapes cast spells through the night. It was amazing what the winter nights could bring into the world.
Won rubbed his brow and slid his glasses off of his tired eyes, leaning further in his chair and watching blurry sprites dancing down from the windowsill. He wasn't entirely sure when it had gotten so dark, when the moon had sent the sun to bed, when all of the lights had gone off in the room. The later, he remembered vaguely, was the result of his Grandmother leaving for the night. He wasn't entirely sure that she had known he was still there. A puff of air leapt to join the shimmering moon-ball as Won closed his eyes. His eyes were sticky and stung a little bit, but he didn't mind too much. It was a perfectly healthy feeling. Ose sighed once more and pulled himself out of his chair, wobbling for a moment as the blood rushed back into his head and aching neck.
Mumbling something of medical importance Won set his hand back on his desk, fumbling for the clipboard he had left on the table before dozing off, but to his dismay he couldn't find it. He puffed and turned around, heading through the shadows and stopping before his only patient.
Never before had he seen Akari in the nighttime, never before had he seen her sleeping, but on that night there was something magical about her. Something that enticed him and drew him into her. Maybe it was only the playful winter sprites that brought on some sort of enchantment, but whatever it was, Won, the man who had always been so reserved and so withdrawn, found himself frozen to the spot. From across the room she had been pretty and angelic, and he had been alright with that, for he had always thought that Akari was a fetching creature, intelligent and sociable, with those bright eyes that laughed even when she frowned, but tonight, here in the sanctuary of his home she glimmered like a star, brighter than the sunshine reflecting upon water, more magnificent than the heavens.
'A-Akari?' trembled the young doctor's voice. She had turned in her bed, her stomach exposed to the night air and her pinpoint eyes flashing delicately against her wan skin. 'Are you… awake?'
Twitching a little bit in her bed he wasn't sure what exactly the answer was. Her nose scrunched up for a moment, giving her the look of an upset child, but soon her face was once more serene and womanly beauty replaced her childishness.
'I've never seen you like this,' Won laughed to himself and the phantoms that floated around him. In one step his knee was touch the bed frame. 'When did you decide to become beautiful?'
Akari's lips parted and her head rolled back, exposing a delicate neck, bleached white in the moonlight. Won chuckled and rounded the corner of her bed, hesitating a moment above her. Afraid to disturb her Won fell backwards onto the bed opposite her.
A long time ago there had been a woman who had come looking to sell some of her paintings. They had been quite good, Won recalled faintly, but no one had wanted to speak to the woman, for there was an air of mystery and mischief about her that was unfamiliar and made the townsfolk uneasy. Won had been afraid of her, but one day, when his grandmother had turned her back and let him run about for an hour or two, he snuck away from his games and looked around until he at last found her. It had been twilight in the forest, and in a clearing the woman sat, an easel and canvas exposing its white stomach to her as she ran brushes seductively across its vestal skin. Won had crept nearer and nearer the druid until at last he was certain that she knew he was there and paused to watch her conjure an enchantress from nothing and lay her before his eyes. It hardly took her an hour to draw the better part of the woman and when the painter had finished she set her masterpiece upon the ground and turned to the little interloper and raised her fingers to her crooked smile.
'I know you, boy,' she whispered, as though the trees themselves were listening. 'And you know her,' she laughed, one paint-flecked finger drawing across the woman's exposed stomach. 'Or you will.'
The artist had been a bewitching woman as far as women went. She was dirty and her hair was ratted and long and sleep was woven within the tangled locks, her clothes were torn and smattered with dirt and life, but her skin was liquid and her eyes rained in all the colours of the night, honest and pure. Looking at her Won had felt uncomfortable. Even now, so many years later he shivered at the thought of her. But he could remember everything about the woman and, even more than her, he could remember every detail of the painting. Even through years of study and dreams, years of forgetting and becoming as somber and serious as his grandmother he could remember every detail of the painting. The nomad had been right when she had told him that he would know the woman on the canvas, but he had never understood before, never seen it. Akari… she was the blood running through his fingers, the woman lying in the grass in that painting all those years ago.
The sprites jumped through the air, merrily making their heart's intent known.
Won leaned back his hand, trying to steady himself in the presence of radiance. Those little moon goblins, he thought with a disbelieving smile, they must have been playing some kind of trick on him.
'Not that I don't think you're beautiful,' Won spluttered, as though she were awake and listening. He blushed feeling that his outburst was ridiculous, but he could have sworn he saw Akari smiling. Won chuckled lightly to himself and pulled his legs up into the bed so that he could rest against the headrest.
'I can't believe it though,' he smiled, running a hand through his hair, 'I can'tsß believe that I never saw it before.'
Akari had been living so close to him for almost three years now. He had taken her out on a date once, but he hadn't really thought about it as a date until Anissa had pointed it out when they were drinking tea the next day. He had always thought of Akari as a pretty girl, but she was more of a friend than a lover.
'I'm sorry,' Won whispered, turning his head and staring admiringly at Akari. 'Now that I think about it… I think I've liked you for a while. '
Sometimes it took something supernatural to clarify the confusions of life.
Won rubbed something wet from his eye and fell back asleep.
The next morning Akari woke up confused and a little bit scared. She shot up in bed and looked around, frantic, before realizing where she was. She swore quietly to herself wondering just what the doctor would say to her. He was infamous for his reprimands. The last time she had passed out, almost three years back, and she could remember everything that he had said to her. It wasn't that he was angry, or even mad; it was that overwhelming disappointment in her, that motherly tutting that just made one feel indescribably guilty. She groaned and knocked her head against the wall.
That's when she saw the person in the bed next to her.
Akari was surprised that someone else was there, but she was also a little bit grateful. If someone else were ill then Won wouldn't give her half the reprimand that he would think she deserved. She didn't look over. She was still a little bit tired from all of the work she had done. Her arms and legs ached more than they usually did, and her legs were so stressed that she was certain that she would only feel comfortable if she were riding her horse.
'Dammit,' Akari laughed with humorous defeated. She wasn't in the mood for being scolded. Her eyes pried themselves open and she looked around thinking about escaping when she realized who it was that was lying in the bed next to her. Dozing soundlessly next to her, uncovered and probably freezing, was Won, the very man on her mind. She grimaced at first, thinking that he was going to spring some kind of surprise trap on her, but she soon realized that he was well off into his dreams. Akari stared blankly at him for a moment, unsure of just what to do. She pulled her legs around her, scrunching her nose with pain, then stood up and looked down at him.
Had he always been that attractive? Akari shook her head, trying to convince herself that he hadn't been, but some nagging creature habiting one of the holes in her head seemed to be saying otherwise. Since she was already standing she decided to sit down on the same bed as Won (that and her legs hurt so much under the weight of her body that it was almost too much to bear).
'Goddess, you had better not wake up, Won.'
The thought of him waking up to see her staring at him, sitting on his bed, her hand right next to his… she would never be able to talk to him again for her embarrassment. But it was worth it, said the irksome monster prowling behind her eyes, worth it to be so close to him, close enough to touch…
Maybe it was Witch, Akari thought to herself, pulling the wool over her eyes for her sick amusement. But this didn't really sound like something she would do. Playing matchmaker or whatever this was. Dropping love into her eyes and letting it run like tears over children's cheeks. Akari ran the back of her hand across her moist cheek and leaned in, hovering just above Won. No, this wasn't something that Witch would do. Maybe if she was more like Wakuani, but… but she wasn't… and he wasn't so…
Their hands were touching.
Akari couldn't even begin to think of a time that she had felt so irresistibly attracted to a man. It wasn't natural. That was why it had to be something else that was pushing her to act to rashly, pushing her hand on top of his, rolling his hand onto its back and lacing their fingers together. Drifting nebulously above his face she felt a bit like a cloud admiring the lakes beneath it. Clean and virginal, purely magnificent. Her head dipped a little bit lower and the hair she normally tucked behind her ear slipped kindly away to tickle the doctor's nose. He stirred only slightly under her breath, but it was enough to startle her. Akari drew her head away from him, her eyes blinking wide. She had been about to kiss him. She had, truly, honestly been about to do it. To lay her lips tenderly atop his. She cocked her head to the side with bewilderment, staring the thin pink line that opened ever so slightly as he slept. Akari closed her eyes and kissed him.
They woke up in their respective beds sometime later, both blushing wildly when they caught eyes, sitting up startled and turning away from one and other. They muttered this and that, Won his medical jibber jabber, Akari the things that bashful schoolgirls intuitively babble until their sensibility is regained. Finally they fell into complete silence, Won ruffling through his medical supplies and Akari twisting the bed sheets. Minutes passed but at long last Won broke the silence, keeping his face to the paperwork on his desk.
'Did you kiss me?'
Standing there across the room, one hand casually flipping through disheveled documents, his back turned to the girl lying in her bed, something almost serene seemed to paint them. They were a little picture nuzzled into the back of museum somewhere: just a doctor and his timid patient, love-struck in her bed. Something surreal but so terribly ordinary that there was no space for it anywhere except for the back room. Maybe even storage. It wasn't really anything remarkable, nothing that stopped with "oohs" and "ahs", just something ordinary, something one passed every day.
"D… I… did I… what?'
Keeping his eyes as tightly to his papers as he could he repeated his question, his tone flat with the faintest hint of a tremor running along its underbelly.
Akari snapped her head to her legs and wrung the sheets into small, taut flowers. Her face lit up the colour of a carnation and her voice slipped and fell down the back of throat, leaving it to writhe about in her stomach. Several minutes more passed before she could finally mutter a mortified, "Yes."
She almost added a "sir."
What she expected him to do was remain silent. Maybe he would pass from the room, leave her there to soak in her shame, maybe he would reprimand her for her actions and give her his little tut-tut. It was even possible that he would try to talk her down, sit down on the bed next to her, maybe put his hand on hers and say "It was sweet, but there's no way we could ever happen." Goddess, she hoped it wasn't the last one. She might as well kill herself if her did that. Hopefully he would just ask her to leave and avoid her awkwardly for the next few years until she left town or settled down with someone else and they could reflect upon the moment with some sense of the tragic comedy of it all.
Won made his way quickly across the room and soon he was sitting on the bed. She briefly mulled over the idea of killing herself, but, before she could even convince herself that she was just overreacting she was pressed against the backboard, Won's hand on top of hers, his eyes closed as he leaned over her, returning the kiss that she had lent him that very morning.