Insomnia
By: Dagas Isa
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Liar Game. That is the property of Shinobu Kaitani,who is obviously more intelligent that I, a mere fanfic author, could hope to be.
Summary: The stress of the Liar Game is leaving Akiyama and Nao with some nightmares, and a late-night phone call effects them both.
Author's Notes: One shot? Probably. Though I can't say I'm 100% satisfied with the ending. Please read and review.
Akiyama is back at the old airport, the same old Contraband Game. It's his turn to smuggle, and yet, trapped in the investigation room, he can't remember how much is in his brief case. 1 million? 10 million? 100 million? Nao's teddy bear? He tries to calm down and think, but with the mice crawling all over him, that's not exactly easy.
Stress. He can't let his stress show through. Yokoya acts as the inspector. He'll know something up, and if he finds out they'll lose. All of them.
"Why are you here?" Yokoya asks. A mouse runs around each of Yokoya's knuckles.
Mice run across Akiyama's shoulders, claws just barely digging into the skin between shirt-collar and neck. He wants to scream. No. He has to remain cool, unreadable. "I'm fighting."
"Funny that you should be fighting." Yokoya says. An oily grin spreads across his face. "When you should have been protecting her."
A chorus of Yokoya's soldiers fills the inspection room.
"You've betrayed us."
"You've betrayed her."
Akiyama lashes out. "What did you do to her?"
Yokoya leans back and begins to laugh. Is it just Akiyama's imagination, or are the mice laughing as well? "Stupid Akiyama. We didn't do anything to her. You did. You should go save her. If it's not too late already."
He tries to move, but his body can't lift itself from the chair. Legions of mice hold him down. The windows in the inspection room suddenly go clear, and Akiyama can see outside. But it's not the waiting areas that he sees in the distance, but the hospital. A woman stands on the edge of the roof. Her toes curl over her edge. Her arms spread wide, and she tilts forward.
He screams--
"Nao!"
Akiyama wakes up, his heart pounding in his ears. The inspection room, the hospital, it all fades away. The bare walls of his room surround him, and the full moon casts a light onto the wall. The rustling of the shadow of branches is preferable to his dreams. He rolls over on the dingy futon he uses as a bed and checks the time. Three in the morning. Could be worse.
It's impossible to fight such a long battle without any mental effects. Akiyama knows this well from his education and from previous battles fought. During the day, he can swallow his conscience and walk the path he can't avoid. He can lie and trick with the best of them. He is the best of them, but that gives him no pride, and no comfort. At night though, when his mind becomes unguarded, the debris of worry and tragedy that he pushes down floats to the surface of his dreams.
He debates whether he can try to sleep until dawn at least. Today is Sunday, so no work to consider, and no battles either. He lies back again, using his hands as a pillow. He watches the shadow-shapes play across the ceiling. Normal eeriness, comforting, reminiscent of nightmares that normal people have.
No, sleep isn't going to come tonight. His glance falls on the cell-phone next to his alarm clock, but just as quickly he turns away.
Coffee. Akiyama wakes up and turns on the light. The shadow-shapes that play on the wall fade back into hiding. Caffeine will chase away the sleep and thus the nightmares will go too, for now. He feels a slight loss, in the lack of sleep--he's never been one to sleep well--but his psychological well-being is more important.
He measures out the water and the instant coffee. He should call Nao, make sure she's all right. No. She's probably at home, sleeping innocently. That comforts him strangely, in ways that he refuses to make conscious, as he pours the water into the two-cup coffee maker, and sets the instant coffee in the filter. He won't wake her.
Pi-ru-ru-ru-ru. Pi-ru-ru-ru-ru.
His cell-phone rings. At four in the morning. He knows the one person who would call him at such an hour, and why.
So, her too?
It feels like being torn apart, in a painless way. She wants to save them all, all the people that tear and claw at her. Soon enough though, there will be nothing left for her.
Scream, Nao. She tries to tell herself. If she can only scream, he'll come. He'll come to save her.
But hands cross her mouth. She can't breathe, can't say a single word. Can't shout his name. She recognizes a few of the faces leering over her, Fujisawa-sensei, her opponents in Round 2, her teammates in Round 3. She's saved them all, why are they here then? Why do they ask her for more?
"Kanzaki..."
"Nao-chan!"
She breaks through and runs across the city, opponents and teammates all chasing her.
If she makes her way home, that would be good. The door is there, she can reach it. She's home. She's safe.
"Hello~ Nao-chan!" The fake lawyer sits at her table, slurping tea as though nothing is going on. "See what happens when you try to save everyone? You get annihilated. Give it up already."
"No."
But she's running again, out the door, past the crowds of people who ask everything of her. She runs to the end of the street and further, as far as her legs will carry her. Yet, they follow. She finds a building. Escape! Refuge! She opens the door and runs in, pausing for a breath. They're pushing at the door.
There's only one way to go--up the flight of stairs. She breaks into a sprint. Nao has the head start, but still the other players gain on her. The top of the stairway approaches, and she pushes the door open. She's outside now, on the roof. She's running out of places to flee.
She's desperate.
Standing at the edge of the building, she finally sees his face. He's...devastated, bound silently and helpless as she looks at him. Nao wishes she can run to him and comfort him, but the wind catches on her dress.
And she's falling.
The voice she tried to find comes back to her--
"Akiyama-san!"
She wakes up sweating and trembling. Only a dream, she tells herself, patting her body and reassuring herself that everything is in one piece. She turns on the lamp by her bed and checks the alarm clock: three in the morning. That's too early to call Akiyama-san.
Nao switches the light off again, and curls up. Sleep should come soon. Really, it should. She'll be fine. The nightmares only come occasionally, when she's stressed out from school or when her father takes a turn for the worse. It's Sunday. Nao can relax and deal with her fears on her own.
She shouldn't bother Akiyama-san. She shouldn't depend on him so much. The voice of self loathing keeps going through her head. Nao has to be strong enough and handle this on her own, like she should have done in the first place. She can't think of the debt she carries or else it will topple down on her.
The shaking still hasn't calmed down. It is impossible to fall asleep, and foolish to even try. Nao turns the light back on, and grabs her literature textbook. If she can't sleep then maybe she could at least get some studying done. She tries to read and make sense of concepts that are easy enough by day but that elude her at three-thirty in the morning. Still, she presses on.
Tea. Tea sounds good right about now. Nao fills up the kettle and puts it on the heat. She measures the green tea--the kind she's always had since childhood--and keeps everything prepared on the counter. Somehow, its familiarity gives her strength.
But the cell-phone still tempts her. She grabs it, and sends a call to Akiyama-san. He'd likely just sleep through it, and if she wakes him up, then she'll make him dinner one night to apologize.
His familiar voice answers her from the other end of the line. "Hello?"
"Ah... Akiyama-san!" She chokes out the words, "I'm sorry-- did I wake you?" She curls up on the bed, with her cup of tea and her cell-phone. His mere presence gives her comfort.
Silence on the other end of the phone. "No."
Now why would Akiyama-san be awake at four in the morning? "What are you doing up?" she asks.
"You called me. I should be asking the same thing." She tries to read his voice through the phone. Certainly, Akiyama doesn't sound like he's been woken up, and perhaps it's only the hope inside her that doesn't hear too much irritation towards her.
"I've been having nightmares." Nao admits. "About the game." She takes a sip of her tea and lets the warm liquid run down her throat. "I'm not sure what to do. I usually don't have nightmares so often, but ever since I've started the game--I've been having them all the time."
"Stop crying." He instructs her, always speaking as if doing that is as easy as he says it is. "They're only dreams. They aren't the future."
He sounds so strongly sure of himself that Nao believes him on instinct.
"Dreams are just the reflection of our fears and desires. Have you ever had a dream where you show up in class on the day of the final exam, and realized that you've never attended a single lecture?"
"Yeah." She's had several of them, actually, all around the start of a new school year.
"I guarantee you, every college student has that dream at one time or another."
"Even you?" She doesn't know why, but the thought of Akiyama-san having those dreams makes her feel less alone, a little stronger.
"Yeah." He continues. "What's happening now is a similar situation, only because the Liar Game is much more stressful then going to school, the feelings are naturally going to be more intense. Your dreams are reflecting the fear and anxiety you hold about the game."
"I see."
"You're under a great deal of psychological stress right now, and while I can't promise an end to the nightmares just yet, I can say this: We will end the game, and we'll get out alive. Just believe in that."
Nao sets her tea cup on the night stand, and lays down. "Yeah." She says slowly. "I believe in Akiyama-san." She's getting sleepy now, but she doesn't want to hang up just yet... she wants the call to continue just for a little while longer...
"Nao?"
Her end of the line goes silent, and Akiyama wonders for a second if anything has happened to her. Then he hears the faint sound of breath over the other end. She's fallen asleep. Figures. Akiyama lays back on the futon. The smell of coffee permeates the air, but he figures he'll fix up a cup of it later.
Akiyama should end the call now, before Nao wakes up and becomes embarrassed. No. She'll realize that she left the cell-phone on. He should end the call before he falls asleep. But her small sounds on the other end reassure him, oddly enough. As long as Nao is okay, then the relentless pressure that he bears eases, just a little bit. He relaxes....
It's the intrusive chirp of a low-battery signal that wakes him up. The moon has long set, and the sky outside Akiyama's window is a bright blue. Nao has already disconnected from the line.
So, him too?
He knows what happened, and a thousand possible explanations swirl in his mind, though only one wordless, nameless one makes any sort of sense. Akiyama has known that Nao relies on him almost completely, but he also relies on her, perhaps not as entirely, but too much for his own comfort.
She chases away his nightmares.
And he has no clue what to think of that.