A/n: Finally a whole chapter dedicated to ShoxKei, but it's unrequited...or is it?
DREAM OF FOREVER
soumanyon
Chapter 4
"Kei…Kei!" his voice pulled me away from gritty sand and salty ocean breezes but when I woke up, my face was still salty, from tears, I guess. I licked my dry lips, trying to find something to say, some excuse for having had such a reaction to that old nightmare again as I blinked the blinding spots from my imagined sunlight out of my eyes. But I couldn't bring myself to meet Sho's concerned gaze that burned into me.
Instead, I silently stood up and, when I felt that my legs had solidified enough to walk me to the bathroom, I went. I needed a shower to wash off the cold sweat that, in my twisted mind, reeked of sea salt.
Sho and I had a agreement that he wouldn't try to save me from my nightmares unless it was a really bad one and he'd seen enough during all his years with me to tell the bad ones from the really bad ones. God, I swear even Toshi would be able to tell with the years he'd lived across the alley from me.
Sho's reluctant acceptance of the agreement had arisen completely out of guilt that I'd somehow turned on him. Once, when he and I first started living together after Shinji and Toshi moved out, Sho woke me up from a particularly bad nightmare, and half-asleep, I attacked him. I guess in a half-awake state, old instincts come back and the caution that the streets forces on you is never completely abandoned.
I guess it was true for Sho, too, because he immediately saw my fist and reacted. My throat was bruised for weeks afterwards.
In the end, it didn't take much more than a few carefully timed cracks reminding him of my injury to get him to fold; how ironic it was for a vampire to be the one sporting an injured throat. I guess I should be guilty about magnifying his own guilt when it was really my fault in the beginning, but he accepted it without question and it was the only way to avoid any repeats in the future; something that wouldn't be fun for either of us.
I guess…I was a little embarrassed. I'd begun to feel at home in this environment, with Sho. It was a lot more peaceful sharing a small apartment on the outskirts of Mallepa than sleeping on the streets completely alone. The nightmares had faded and I'd let myself believe, at least on the surface, that they were fading for good.
But nightmares are like that, in that they never really leave you alone. I guess the voice at the factory reminded me of that. Ironically, it's almost funny that one bad decision would end up haunting me through all these years…
"Kei?" Sho knocked on the door to the bathroom, obviously deciding that I'd been too quiet for too long after the water shut off from my shower. I ignored him a little longer, turning back to what I should have been doing while daydreaming.
I finger-combed my hair into at least some kind of look. I succeeded in flattening it, but that was only because it was still wet from the shower. It never did obey me after I cut it.
"Kei?" Sho asked, impatient now, and I opened the door with still only a towel wrapped around my waist.
We were suddenly face to face without the door separating us…or rather, face to chest. I suppose the runt has grown a little; after my reminiscing, I still had the image of little Sho in my head. His hand was poised to knock at about the height of my forehead. Instead, he opened his fist and patted me on the head. Brat.
I glared at him disdainfully before shoving past him to my closet in search of clothes.
I was incredibly self-conscious, having just been seen in a vulnerable moment and having had my tattoo finally exposed to him only hours ago. Which reminded me…my tattoo…
I only had the towel wrapped around my waist, my upper body was naked which meant that my tattoo had been bared to Sho yet again. Sure enough, I felt the tingling in the back of my neck that tells you that someone's watching.
I checked and, of course, Sho was staring,
"What are you looking at?" I asked him, fully aware of how stupid that line sounded…after I'd said it.
Sho has always been an honest kid. He has a tendency to say whatever's on his mind and despite that being a value to many people, not so many people actually do it so it blindsides you when he does,
"Your ass." He said, no trace of mockery in his voice whatsoever.
I turned around fully, crossing my arms and arching an eyebrow at him skeptically. I had to fight with myself to keep my lips turned down in a scowl instead of curving up into a grin as his face steadily flushed. I guess I succeeded too well, because his face went from his normal tan to red to white in a matter of seconds.
"Hehe," he chuckled nervously, "you look like you're going to cut off my balls and feed them to rats."
The comparison from out of nowhere almost caught me past my defenses. He must have heard it from Toshi, only the pizza boy could've made up such a disgusting threat.
"Maybe I am." I said, just to string him along a little more, a sort of revenge from the tattoo incident, if you will.
But I should've known better, my attempts at revenge always backfire. Sho's demeanor suddenly changed and he didn't look so afraid anymore. Instead, his eyes blazed with some sort of nervous but determined fire. I had no idea Sho was such a good actor.
"Only if you're the rat." He said huskily in that deep voice of his. That comment can't be credited to Toshi, only Sho could think of something so random on the spot.
The comment was so ridiculous that it wasn't and managed to poke a stick at my already weak defenses. Hope is a bitter lover and it had poisoned me. It lied dormant until I weakened, just a little, until it could crash out of its cage and rampage. And I'd have to clean up its mess.
"Maybe I already was." The quiet reply was out in the open before I realized that it came from me and my mocking grin was seconds too late to disguise it without some suspicion. Of course, Sho latched on to that suspicion, determined, it seemed, to prolong my misery.
He leaned forward suddenly and I felt trapped. He seemed to be catching me more and more often in these compromised situations and it was annoying the hell out of me. I retreated a step, right into the coffee table, it would seem. It caught me in the back of my knee and my leg buckled before I could regain my balance but Sho had stretched out a hand to steady me and now that hand was firmly clasping my elbow.
He really looked like he would kiss me. I suppose, Sho was nothing if not determined but I'd determined that the little jest had gone on too far. If he wasn't careful, if I wasn't careful, I'd do something we'd both regret; something that'd poison his life forever.
I shoved him away roughly, muttering an excuse, something about needing a cigarette. And then, to back up my entirely truthful claim, I went to take that cigarette in the dark corner of the couch, flipping on the TV and tuning him out while, a loose bundle of nerves, I sat and stared unseeingly at some show.
God, Sho…I just saved you from the worst mistake of your life and you don't even know it.
tbc...
Hehe, I'm not good with complicated plots, but we'll see where this goes. I lied when I said this chapter was completely ShoxKei, it's not. There are plenty of juicy bits that you'll come remember later and go, "ah! that's what that was!" (or maybe not, who knows) But for now, I'll leave you wondering. ;)
Tixxana, Myca (Taylor Mercury), Yume no Kokoro, TehMeev, Yume2x1, Emiri-chan, Lady-Willowish, Essenity