Sing me to sleep
Sing me to sleep
I don't want to wake up
On my own anymore...
Oh, Hello. Have you ever heard a song that breaks your heart? I have. My song is called "Asleep" I'm... not sure who it's by. The heartbreak is a necessary pain. It helps me remember, and without it, I'm not alive. Or at least, I can't be sure. Actually, I think not feeling anything hurts more than actual pain does.
I'm having a dream.
A single luminescent feather falls quietly in the darkness. As it lands, ripples in the glowing water emanate out. And I see his smiling face haunting me.
Sempai.
The girl with the short, amaranthine hair half-opened her eyes. The sunlight broke through openings in the curtains, bestowing upon the brown hair of the older girl smiling, on top of the waking girl, an eerie halo-esque glow.
"Good morning, love." The older said.
"N-Narusegawa-san?" The sleepy younger girl said. Naru sat up, straddling the still waking girl.
She looked down at her, smirking.
"You said 'Sempai', in your sleep."
"H-huh?"
The hazel haired girl leaned back down. The hot breath and the warmth of the older girl's body on hers made the younger feel sick in the loveliest of ways.
"I wanna make you forget."
If the azure eyes were windows to the very soul, they were now open wide enough for Naru to see straight into the inside. The older girl moved down the younger girl's body.
"Narusegawa-San..."
She kissed the fussing blue haired girl on the forehead.
"Just pretend you're asleep."
All I could think about was that song. And Sempai humming it when I fell asleep. And how those study sessions with him alone I've lost and wasted. And how he used to do this for me too.
***
The Hinata House was empty. A mausoleum haunted by the happy, silent echoes of the eccentric residents that lived here, and the memories that now remain.
Is this it? Are those times when we were all together going to be the only happy part of my life?
Shinobu folded the white cotton blanket she had washed. The one she had been using that morning. She couldn't help but feel it was still tainted.
Sempai. Life without you is so boring...
Shinobu dropped the sheets on the floor. She felt a heavy emptiness within her, as if a star had died; a paroxysm of hopelessness, exploding outwards, then collapsing under it's own sickening weight, leaving nothing but an entity of sadness that threatened to consume her from the inside.
Quietly the delphinium-haired girl dropped to her knees and sat on the floor beside her crumpled white-cotton sheet. She lifted the hem of her white silk blouse slowly, revealing along the porcelain skin of her delicate thigh a series of self inflicted scars. To anyone else these scars would ruin the otherwise flawless skin, but to the girl who made them, the faded, hazel lines were beautiful. She looked down on them fondly, almost proudly, as mothers did with beautiful, sleeping children.
Dont feel bad for me
I want you to know
Deep in the cell of my heart
I really want to go
***
Naru pulled up the soft white blouse which was clinging delicately to the delphinium's tender, quivering form, and her eyes, sweet and fiery, softened at the sight of the scars. She gingerly traced her fingers along the cuts as the younger girl shook like milk in the older woman's hands.
"I don't want to forget him." Shinobu said, her voice breaking softly.
Naru looked up at the girl.
"If we don't, we'll never wake up."
***
Naru walked into the laundry room, smiling. She was holding a glass of water, which she spilled a few drops of upon entering.
"What were you going to do with the scissors?" Naru asked, indicating towards the scissors gripped in the younger girl's hand. Blushing, Shinobu hid the scissors behind her. No answer was needed. Naru could still see clearly into those azure windows.
The windows that could never hide anything. Shinobu's eyes shot down at the wooden floor.
"What are you drinking, Narusegawa-San?"
"This is water, with ashes in it."
"Ashes?"
"It's burnt paper. I don't have his ashes. So this will have to do." Shinobu gave Naru a chastising look. An adorable gesture to the older girl, who exploded with pleasure on the inside.
"There was this Queen. She supposedly drank the ashes of her husband. Don't you think that kind of devotion is romantic?"
"It's unhealthy..."
"So is cutting yourself..."
"Ah..." Shinobu became quiet. Naru, ever smiling, sat next to her, offering the glass to the smaller girl.
"Drink some, you might feel better."
The azure-eyed girl took a sip, and choked.
***
Winter at night time. Snow falls, deafening all sound in the already stoic mountain countryside. The sky is so pure of ambient light that the radiant moon itself lends a glow to the night sky that becomes decadent dark purple, when not hidden behind patches of dark foreboding clouds.
Shinobu hurried up the steps of Hinata House. Without the welcoming sounds of life within the house, the eerie, creepy facade of the dorm tucked away in desolation in the mountains prevailed. The steps were never ending, the darkness ever enveloping. She ran faster.
I feel like I'm going to disappear.
Shinobu pushed open the doors of the dark and lonely Hinata House. The doors creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness and the silhouette of the girl in the moonlight. No tackle hugs from Su. No Motoko to pull her off. No Kitsune to laugh with a drink in her hands. No Mutsumi to trip over herself. No Sarah to laugh. No Kanako to roll her eyes.
And no Sempai.
Shinobu climbed up the steps to Naru's room, who was sleeping, slumped over her kotatsu and stack of ungraded test papers. Shinobu got on her knees beside her, and quietly removed the thick, black framed glasses that hung askew on Naru's sleeping face, and placed them on the desk.
She leaned and whispered into the ear of the dreaming girl, cutting the silence with a voice like a sweet song:
"I love you."
Shinobu wrapped her long delicate arms around the sleeping older girl. The two embodied the image of two flowers, wilting, embracing each other as they died. The sunflower and the wallflower.
Tonight when I sleep, I'll dream of you again, Sempai.