CHAPTER ONE: DREAM WEAVER
Natsume woke up sweating at four in the morning, three hours earlier than his usual wake up time. He had that dream again, the same dream he had two nights ago and a week then. He detested that dream, it didn't do him justice and it just wasn't right. He walked towards the bathroom. His legs felt weak, like it always did every time that dream came to him. He threw a handful of water to his sweating face, hoping it would calm him down. He saw his reflection in the mirror. He looked distraught, tired and out of proportion. He never noticed how tired his dream made him, if only he could stop himself. He went back to his four-poster bed and to his luck, fell asleep immediately.
He never told anybody about his dream. Nobody would even see it coming. But every night that dream would come, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, sweating like hell with his heart racing. He felt that it was completely inappropriate. But then again, he didn't think the school shrink could help him. The dream would always come back. He didn't know what to do to escape from something that wasn't even that true.
"You okay?" asked Ruka as he and Natsume walked together towards class.
"I'm fine," Natsume answered blankly.
"You look really tired." Natsume's best friend always worried about him like Natsume was some dying animal that he needed to take care of.
"I said I'm fine," he argued quite irritably.
Ruka shrugged then tightened his midnight blue scarf to keep him warm through the winter. Natsume didn't need a scarf, just one sweater was enough. He had been warm enough to deal with cold weather.
Ruka and Natsume reached the school building. There were so many papers stuck onto the wall, mainly to catch their attention. Ruka took one and read it out loud as the two boys walked inside:
"The Halloween Dance," he read.
"During Christmas? That's just stupid," Natsume commented.
"I know, wasn't that supposed to be two months ago?"
There was a loud eerie sound of a mic being switched on through the speaker.
"I know what you're all thinking," said a high-pitched optimistic voice. "Why Halloween in winter? Well, I think it's a wicked idea to celebrate occassions off their season, just to add that little oomph! for our school and not our usual mundane dances! So get all your costumes and dates to work because this is going to be one heck of a trick or treat!" She laughed at the end before turning the speaker off.
Natsume rolled his eyes in the stupidity of the idea.
"That's new," said Ruka.
"And stupid," Natsume added as they entered their classroom and the noise that was in it.
Natsume could see the girls excitedly planning what to wear or who to take. The whole idea of a dance seemed so cliché and feminist. It had female written all over it. But everybody thought it was a great idea.
"Mikan, that was a cool idea! Why didn't you tell us beforehand?" Natsume heard Anna excitedly tell Mikan.
"It would kill the whole surprise," she told Anna.
"When you're going to break it to the whole school at one point, there's really no surprise there," Natsume interrupted.
Mikan flashed a happy smile and ignored his comment. She was the event planner for three consecutive years now, and in his opinion, every event she made had FEMALE or GIRLY written all over it. She sat down in front of me as the class started.
Mikan had her hair down with a black ribbon tied around her head as a headband. She had a different smile, a smile Natsume had not seen yet. She ran happily, like she was meant to be chased. So he chased, beads of sweat forming as he ran. Her auburn hair danced like a blanket through the wind.
"Stop running!" he shouted. But she did not stop running. She avoided trees, except that one branch caught her black ribbon. Natsume stopped and took the ribbon, twirled it around his hands. She had stopped running. Oddly, the ribbon was still on her head. Natsume, surprised, looked at his hand and found the black ribbon still tied around his palm.
"Kiss me, Natsume," Mikan whispered. And though it was a whisper, it was extremely audible.
Natsume's heart skipped a beat in shock and surprise. He stood frozen on the grass as Mikan walked towards him. Suddenly, the background distorted into some toy store, but Mikan did not stop walking, although Natsume had been frozen in his stance, Mikan never reached him. It was like waiting for the world to end, it would never come.
Natsume woke up, still sweating from the same dream that had been haunting him for some time now. This time, he decided to see the school shrink.
"Hello, Natsume," Dr. Sayuki greeted when the boy entered her office early Saturday morning.
"I need to figure out why my senseless dream keeps on haunting me," said Natsume monotonously.
"Take a seat." The doctor gestured towards the empty couch in the middle of her office.
Dr. Saiyuki knew Natsume well enough to see him every other month, as a result of teenage delinquency. But never did he come by his own will, except today, which seemed odd to her but in any case, she welcomed the boy to her office.
Natsume sat down and waited for Dr. Saiyuki to sit on an empty chair next to the couch. He had spent a good fifteen minutes re-telling his recurring nightmares to the psychologist in pure detail. He really wanted to be helped so the dreams would finally stop haunting him.
"Dreams are the result of our subconscious thoughts. Those thoughts are the ones you either, kept it back there to forget or ignore, or ones you don't even know exist," the doctor deduced after a moment of silence.
Natsume narrowed his dark eyes. "What are you trying to say?"
Dr. Saiyuki sighed. "How do you feel about the girl in your dream?"
That was one thing he kept to himself. Natsume thought for a moment.
"I don't feel anything for her," he answered.
"Do you have any theories on why she keeps on, I quote, haunting you?"
"I thought you'd answer that."
There had been a brief moment of silence until the shrink spoke.
"You could try and face her," she said.
"For what?"
"It's either there is something in her that keeps haunting you or you feel something. One way to find out why she keeps haunting you is to face her, and the dreams might just stop," she replied patiently.
Natsume considered the option as he walked away from the 45-minute long session from Dr. Sayuki. As he walked, he thought of Mikan. She had him like no one else did. He knew well enough how he felt towards her, he just did not want to admit it to anyone. It's not because he wasn't ready, he just didn't want to.
It was a slow walk towards his refuge, the forest. Even if he liked Mikan, the dreams were still what he called nightmare. Everytime he woke up, he felt tired and found it hard to sleep again. But if it was any consolation, Mikan looked her best in his dreams. He sat down on the snow-covered grass in silence. He knew how he felt but he knew it would not stop the dreams from coming.
He conjured a small flame from his palm to take his mind off of things, and just played with it. For someone with an alice like he does, playing with fire was never an issue.
Behind the complete silence that he took, a soft voice could be heard.
"He loves me, he loves me not," she whispered so soft it was barely audible in the silence. "He loves me, he loves me not." A short pause. "He loves me."
Natsume put out his fire. He knew that voice but did not bother to do anything about it. She was not bothering him anyway. A soft shuffle of snow to cloth and Mikan showed up from behind a fully grown cherry blossom tree.
"Oh, you're here," she said, walking towards him. Natsume still sat and didn't say anything. What was there to say anyway? Except that a figment of his recurring dreams flashed in his mind. The black ribbon, she was wearing it.
"You're wearing a black ribbon," he said in a sort of a whisper, that made it seem he was talking to himself.
Mikan, as if she could see it, looked up and smiled. "Yeah, I thought it was a new thing I'd try. How does it look?"
It was so peculiar, for Natsume at least. He had never really seen her wear the black ribbon except in his dreams. It seemed impossible to happen but it did. He suddenly thought of the Kiss-Me part and his heart jumped. He could not exactly tell what he felt, he just knew he did not want that to happen.
"Natsume?" Mikan called out.
He looked up and saw Mikan still standing in front of him, a checkered black and white coat wrapped around her.
"You should--wear something else, that looks hideous," he said. He could not think of anything else to say just to make it seem like he was himself.
She pouted (and Natsume just wanted to tell her to stop). "That's not a very nice thing to say."
"Then wear something else so I can tolerate taking a look at you."
Mikan gaped. "You look worse than I do, you don't even wear a sweater in this weather!"
"What difference does that make?"
"Stripes are out of season."
Natsume chuckled and brushed a hand through his disheveled midnight hair. "You're wearing a striped shirt, idiot."
Mikan looked down, surprised that she found herself wearing stripes. She fell silent for a moment.
"Well, at--at least mine looks better," she told him.
This was starting to run him out. He stood up and decided to just leave Mikan to herself. Shrink advice, done.
Mikan was crying softly, sitting next to Natsume. Her tears ran down her apple cheeks continuously. She was more beautiful when she cried, Natsume thought.
"I just--I just wish--wish I could," she sniffed as she looked at him. Her tiny face grew nearer in Natsume's view. Nearer, and nearer. This time, the kiss happened. It felt wet but tasted of strawberry chapstick.
Natsume woke up, again, sweating all over his body. He looked at the off white ceiling he had. He didn't want to visit the shrink again, he thought it becoming too personal even though he had only seen her once. He's not going back. He just decided to take a good cold bath to take away the dreams and the sweat.
The bath just took away the sweat, the dream was still stuck in his mind. Almost every detail was still there, even the feel of the kiss.
