Miharu can't say he's ever had a dream like this before. Well, maybe he has, but he thinks that he'd have to remember this person in question to dream about them and...he doesn't.
But the other boy looks familiar.
Miharu's ambivalent, because the tall, skinny boy sitting on the blanket with him, looking intent on devouring the contents of the entire picnic basket by himself looks so familiar, so right, that he can't figure out why he's blanking on the name.
Instead of worrying about it, Miharu takes the last sandwich from the boy's hands, and some melon while he's at it, and sets the paper plate (in keeping with the images of more Western picnics he's seen on TV) on his lap, intent on finding out who this person is.
They don't have to speak for awhile. There's a picnic, and the sun is shining down on the meadow they're in - far away from everything and everyone Miharu knows - and there's no rush. Neither of them are going anywhere.
"Shouldn't I know you?" he finally asks the boy, the shadow, silhouette in the long black coat even though it must be summer here. It's not baking, as per dream logic, but it just looks like it.
The boy looks at him (his eyes are very blue, like the sky above them right now), but says nothing. Wipes his mouth - there's rice stuck in the corner of his lips from where he was destroying the onigiri a minute ago - but just stares at him, as if he's surprised that Miharu even sees him.
It feels obvious - he's not speaking because he can't. Miharu iknows/i him; he knows that coat, that hat, that emaciated frame and that way of eating, but he doesn't iremember/i him fully - conversations they would have had, things that he said, so he has no words to put in this stranger's mouth.
He's the one doing all of this, so why doesn't it make any sense?
Miharu stands up, leaving the plate on the blanket, and extends a hand to the other. "Dance with me,"
The boy stares, and he can almost read a reaction there.
Miharu shrugs in response. "What else is there to do here?"
Nothing - because despite sensory impressions, instincts that he know must be true somewhere in reality, and as badly as he wants to, Miharu can't make himself remember this other boy.
So he wants to make a new memory.
The gloved hand in his still manages to be warm (he doesn't question them; they feel right, too), and it's a surprise that Miharu can lift him so easily - he's even lighter than he looks, then - but when he stands up and he's a full head taller than Miharu, he wonders how they're going to do this.
The grass will have to do for a promenade, and Miharu walks them out onto it with some semblance of authority, putting his partner's hands - one on his hip, the other holding his at shoulder level so they're both bent - in the right places, because it's clear the boy doesn't know what to do with himself, and that feels right, too. Miharu puts his right hand on the boys shoulder - it's a bit of a reach - and squeezes it gently, looking up into his face with something that could be a smile.
Somewhere in the distance, music has begun to play. It makes about as much sense as everything else here, so Miharu doesn't question it.
They dance.
Yeah, this is something that never happened in the real world - if this guy even existed. Miharu figures that out within a moment of beginning.
But he doesn't care, because somewhere inside of him - in a place that, though quickly fading in his memory, is real - are the feelings he still holds for this boy, dream or imagined or distant memory. They tell him that this is something they would have done if they could, if only there'd been...time? opportunity? some way to bridge the gap between them while keeping the world out?
He doesn't know. He doesn't care.
"I want you to be there when I wake up," he murmurs, so softly it could be carried away on the breeze without ever reaching the other boy.
But he heard him; he squeezes his hand, the only expression of emotion he'll allow himself, Miharu knows.
"I'm sorry,"
Miharu blinks; he has to check to see if he heard that right. The boy is looking at him with eyes that are less blue sky now and all apologies - but most importantly, eyes that see him, when Miharu knows that his counterpart couldn't - and it must have been him who spoke.
That makes sense, Miharu thinks. He just knows that that's something this boy would have said. A lot.
And he knows exactly what this boy's apologizing for, even if he doesn't want to admit it.
This is what I wanted, Miharu thinks. Maybe not the dance, but the moments, the closeness, the life together. To take this person's hands in real life and not just in my imagination.
Maybe it's all imagination, not memory. Maybe he's just a puppeteer here, making this memory-boy dance to the right strings, the strings connected to what Miharu just wants to see, and not to anything that could have even been possible in the real world.
Maybe it could have happened, given time they didn't have and a life that wasn't theirs. A second chance, or a third, fourth...
Miharu is happy to shut his eyes to reality for a moment.
A/n: Knee-jerk reaction fic to Chapter 50 from awhile ago. ...Can you tell I just wanted to write Yoiharu slowdancing, y/n?
(Disclaimer: I don't own Nabari no Ou.)