Thank you for reading, everyone! Here's chapter 2 for you. You may have noticed I raised the amount of chapters from 4 to 5, the third chapter is growing so big I'll cut it into two, I think.

Also! Totally unrelated to AssClass, but I'm just so freaking excited right now! They're making a live adaptation of Sandman! I remember hearing something about the possibility long ago, but haven't really been following things. I came across this now accidentally googling stuff for this fic. They've already announced part of the cast for the first season, and it should air this year. (I wish they told us who's playing Death, though!) Gaiman said that because of the covid situation this project too has been delayed, but they've put that time into use and tried to get the scripts as close to perfect as they can, which sounds good. I'm also really happy Gaiman's directly involved with this. Please please please please don't mess this up now!

Okay. Well. On with the fic now.

chapter 2: dream time

Gakushuu hates to admit it, but he is lost. He is hopelessly, utterly lost. He has been chasing after his father… for how long? He doesn't even remember… all over Tokyo, and now he has ended up in a neighborhood he doesn't know, and he seems to be unable to get out of there. The streets just go on and on, nearly identical with each other. There isn't even a subway station or a bus stop anywhere.

He has seen his father a few times, but from so far away there's been no way to reach him. Once father looked at him, and despite the great distance Gakushuu could see the cold look in his eyes before he disappeared into a building. The door wasn't there anymore when Gakushuu reached it. Now, he is walking on quiet, hazy streets. It is possibly night, or at least he cannot see the sun and it's getting dark, but the streetlights aren't on. He is trying to find someone to ask the way, but there is no one on the streets and all the shops and restaurants are closed.

A duck quacks somewhere and Gakushuu blinks. He starts hastily following the sound. What good finding a duck would do for him he doesn't know, but that is the first sound of any living creature he has heard for a while.

Another duck joins the first one, and suddenly there's a chorus of them. Other birds start singing too, and Gakushuu steps from the gloomy street to a beautiful green park, into the middle of a warm summer day. There is a fountain with a mermaid in the middle of the park, and a red-clad woman is dancing by it, with all kinds of birds flying around her, chirping so the sound is nearly cacophonic.

Suddenly the woman notices Gakushuu and she stops. "No!" she exclaims. "No! Get out! You can't be here! Do you hear me!" She makes shooing gestures, and Gakushuu pauses, thinking he might accidentally have entered a private garden.

"Get out!" the woman goes on. "This is my dream! My! You're not supposed to be here! No one is supposed to be… here…" Her voice breaks and she starts crying. "No… one…"

"Umm," Gakushuu says, confused. "I… am sorry? I didn't mean to come here. Actually, I don't know where 'here' is, could you please…"

The woman is turning transparent. "No one, no one," she keeps on muttering as she disappears.

Gakushuu blinks.

"Quite rude," the mermaid says. "She did not object to me, did she? Am I no one?"

Gakushuu blinks again. He had thought it to be a statue, but there is actually a living mermaid sitting in the middle of the fountain. No, not a mermaid. A girl with flowing blue dress and blue hair, and…

One more blink. "Shiota?" Gakushuu says, uncertain.

"Yes?" Shiota Nagisa turns to look at him.

"…I thought you were a boy," is the first thing that comes out of Gakushuu's mouth.

"I am a boy," Shiota says, looking annoyed. He jumps down from the fountain and the dress billows around him.

"Then why… do you dress like that?"

A dark cloud creeps across the boy's expression. "Don't you know what they say? Always dress like you're going to see your worst enemy."

"Oh, right?" Gakushuu blinks. He's getting a feeling he does way too much of that. "I'm sorry, I just was… surprised, that's all."

"I understand," Shiota says, anger fading from his face. "And in truth, it is complicated. Ultimately, it is living that's the enemy of life."

"What?"

"Exactly."

"Okay…" Gakushuu takes a deep breath. This is getting weird. "Do you know where we are? I'm lost."

"I would say," Shiota says, turning to take a look around, "that we are in a really nice park."

"Yes," Gakushuu says, forcing himself calm, "but where is that park?"

"That's easy!" Shiota says. "Right here."

"You little…!" Gakushuu starts to exclaim. No. Another deep breath. Stay calm. "Have you seen my father?" he asks. "I'm trying to find him."

"The principal?" Shiota shakes his head. "No. But I know where he is."

"Where then?" Gakushuu asks impatiently when the boy doesn't continue.

"In the dreams, looking for you."

That… makes no sense. "No," Gakushuu says, annoyed. "You don't get it. I am the one looking for him. He's been running from me this whole time!" Shiota just looks at him smiling pleasantly, and Gakushuu groans. "Oh, you're useless! I was hoping I'd get at least a little piece of help from you, but no."

"A little peace," Shiota says, growing serious, "is a dangerous thing. A great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

Gakushuu has a feeling he should understand, but he doesn't. "A great deal of help is fatal…?"

"No. A great deal of peace…" Shiota starts saying, but then a distant look enters his eyes. "What's that," he says, listening. "Do you hear… I think… I think my mom is calling for me." He frowns and looks apologetically at Gakushuu as he begins to turn transparent. "I'm sorry, Asano-kun, I think I have to go. Just remember, when society sleeps, it dreams of family."

"What?" Gakushuu says. Shiota disappears. Gakushuu is left standing alone by the now dry fountain. The birds fly away, dark clouds drift across the sky. He thinks he sees his father walking through the park, and he hurries after the man.

"Nagisa? Nagisa! Are you sleeping? Are you finished with your homework?"

"Sorry mom," the boy yawns. "I don't know why I'm so tired…" He yawns again. "I had the weirdest dream. First I was sitting in the middle of a fountain, and there was this woman dancing, and then Asano-kun came there and she got really mad at him… and…" He pauses as he suddenly realizes what he was wearing. He grasps a pen, squeezes it so it's near breaking. Just, why? No wonder Asano was confused… "I can't remember more," he says aloud. "I think… he was looking for someone.

" His mother sighs. "Finish your homework, darling."

"Kyuko," Gakuhou says, staring at the girl in front of him. Brain, he thinks. Brain, please. Why.

He turns to leave, but the girl jumps to her feet and rushes to hug him from behind. "Don't go yet, big brother!" she says laughing. "I have missed you so much! Why don't you ever visit?"

Gakuhou closes his eyes, feeling suddenly immensely tired – which, some analytical part of his brain ponders, is rather peculiar, given that he is sleeping. He tries to concentrate on being alone, to gain control of this dream and get Kyuko out of it, but nothing happens. Slowly he turns to look at the girl who faces him, smiling.

"Is this where you teach?" she asks, "It's lovely! Do you have many students?"

Gakuhou says nothing. He has nothing to say.

"Oh, is this yours?" Kyuko bends down to pick something from the floor. A roll book.

Gakuhou frowns at it. He is pretty sure it wasn't there when he first looked into the room.

Kyuko opens it. "Oh, only three students!" she says. "Two boys, one girl. They're so lucky to have you just for themselves, aren't they?"

She shows the name list to Gakuhou, who freezes.

Asano Kyuko. Asano Gakushuu. Ikeda Rikuto.

Suddenly terrified, he starts backing out of the room. No. His son's name… does not belong together with those two.

Kyuko, still holding the book, smiles at him. "Big brother? What's wrong?" she asks. There is a puddle forming on the floor under her – she is completely wet, he suddenly realizes. Her hair is a mess, clinging to her face, her skin has a sickly tinge of green in it, and there are weeds stuck to her dress. "Big brother?"

Gakuhou turns on his heels and flees. He stumbles out of the mountain building and into his living room.

He turns slowly around, taking in every detail. Yes, this is home. He takes a deep breath, calming himself down.

It's good to be home. He walks to his favorite armchair and sits down. That was unpleasant. Maybe he should rest a moment before going on. Read a bit. The book he has been reading is on the table next to the chair, and he picks it up. Frowns.

The book is full of child's scribbles. How did this happen?

"Gakushuu!" he yells. A small strawberry blond head peeks at him from behind the couch. "Did you draw on my book?" he asks angrily.

The head is shaking.

"Then who did this?" Gakuhou snaps, showing his son a page that has a very rudimentary drawing of a boy standing on a bridge.

"Rikuto-niisan did," Gakushuu says and climbs over the couch's backrest to sit on it.

Gakuhou freezes. "Who told you about Ikeda?" he breathes.

Gakushuu says nothing. The boy just sits on the couch, watching him with serious eyes. So serious eyes. Gakuhou doesn't remember him being that serious when he was a toddler. He… wait.

Toddler? He shakes his head. Something is off here. He frowns, trying to remember.

He was… sitting on this very same chair, wasn't he? He remembers… the sound of a drum. Something… about dreamtime?

He stares at his son, about three years old, and suddenly everything clicks. This is a dream. He is looking for his son, or at least for information about how to help him.

Now he has found his son. But this child… is this really Gakushuu, or just something his brain conjured up?

Probably the latter, he realizes. The real Gakushuu cannot know about Ikeda.

He looks at the drawing again. It's moving. The boy is climbing on the bridge's railing.

Gakuhou slams the book shut. He leaves it on the armchair and heads upstairs. The toddler Gakushuu follows him. He ignores the boy.

He has to be careful. Apparently it is easy to forget what he is doing, that all this is just a dream.

"What does 'just a dream' mean?" Gakushuu asks him as he enters the boy's room.

"That none of this is real," he says shooting a look across the room.

"What does real mean?"

Gakuhou ignores the question and pauses to ponder on what he just said. If none of this is real, what is the point of being here?

The world was created in dreamtime, he suddenly remembers the girl saying. Well, that is clearly just a superstition.

"What does 'just a superstition' mean?" Gakushuu peeps up. He still doesn't reply.

A dream isn't real, he thinks as he starts going through his son's drawers. But at the same time, all that happens in a dream has its roots in reality. And sometimes, what happens in a dream might have great importance. Dreams should not be simply ignored.

"Then why do you ignore me, papa?" Gakushuu asks, voice quivering.

"You are just a figment of my imagination. Not that Gakushuu I'm looking for," he says and opens the next drawer. They're all filled with schoolbooks.

"What about me, then? Why are you running from me?" another voice asks.

Without turning to look he knows that Gakushuu is gone and Kyuko is standing there in his place.

"The same reason," he says, not pausing to look behind. "You are not… the reason I'm here. You have no connection to Gakushuu."

"And that's why I don't matter?" She sounds genuinely sad.

Gakuhou sighs. "No. You obviously do matter, or you wouldn't be here. But… it's twenty years too late to help you. My son needs my help now."

He turns to look back. There is no one there.

...

Gakushuu sits in a swing in a playground he knows to be close to his home. Now, it is in the middle of a desert. He isn't sure how he came there and he doesn't know where to go. He can't see anything in any direction, just unending dunes of sand. There is no one else in the park. The wind makes the empty swing next to him sway a little.

He is tired. He feels like he has been trying to chase after his father half his lifetime or longer, and it's making him exhausted.

He's thirsty, too. His mouth feels so dry. Maybe it's all the sand around him. Why isn't there a vending machine in this place?

A hand is offering him a strawberry milk. Gakushuu blinks at it. Then he looks up and sees a ten-year-old Karma swinging in the next swing. The boy is pushing the drink carton to him.

"Well? You want it or not?"

Gakushuu takes the drink. He's not overly fond of it – it's too sweet to his taste – but he's thirsty enough to drink anything.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome, sensei," Karma says and starts swinging faster.

Sensei. Yes, he had forgotten. He is now the teacher of the E class.

"Yeah," Karma says, swooshing by him. "And you know what? You suck."

"Hey!" Gakushuu shoots an angry glare at him.

"You ran away in the middle of the day!" Karma goes on. "Just like that! What kind of a teacher does that?"

"Well…" Gakushuu looks down. He hates to admit it, but the brat is right. He takes a sip of the drink and almost spats it out, startled. It's not strawberry milk, it's red wine.

"Why do you know what red wine states like?" Karma asks, swinging faster and faster. "You're fifteen!"

"Why do you have red wine, you're ten," Gakushuu retorts angrily, but doesn't look at the boy. Instead he's staring at the wine he spat out. The stains on the ground look like blood.

He places the carton down. He's not that thirsty.

The kid just laughs, swinging even faster. "Umm, Karma?" Gakushuu says. Technically he is the boy's teacher, right? So he should look after him. "Slow down. That's dangerous."

"Chicken!" the boy shouts, swinging higher and higher. "I bet you don't dare to do this!"

And he jumps off.

Gakushuu gapes after the boy who flies across the sky, disappearing into the horizon.

Wow. He didn't know that's possible. Perhaps he should try it too? It might be a way to get out of this desert.

He starts swinging faster, and when he assumes he has enough speed, he lets go.

The world flashes in his eyes. He is going so fast! At least Mach 20, he thinks to himself and laughs. There is such freedom in flying. Why didn't he do this before? Now he can do anything. Go anywhere. He can surely even catch up with his father.

And with Karma.

He sees the redhead flying in front of him, and yes! He is gaining on him. Karma looks like he is trying to go faster, he even grows older as if that would somehow help him, but it's useless. Soon Gakushuu is flying side by side with him.

He grins at the redhead. "Did you imagine mere three points would keep you ahead of me forever?" he asks.

Karma grimaces. "You still haven't passed me, Second Place," he says.

They fly on side by side, each unable to leave the other behind. There is a city under them. Tokyo, Gakushuu knows, though for some reason Tokyo Tower looks exactly like the Eiffel Tower. They swirl around it. Karma laughs.

"Oh, Paris! So romantic!"

"We're not in Paris," Gakushuu tries to tell him, but the redhead doesn't listen.

"Hey, Second Place!" he calls. "Do you know what Freud says it means to dream of flying?"

Gakushuu freezes. He stops moving and comes crashing down.

"I had the strangest dream," Karma says, opening his eyes. He had been napping in the library where they were studying. "I was flying over Paris, and then suddenly Asano was there flying with me."

Nakamura chortles. "Flying… in Paris… with Asano-kun?"

Karma bangs his head against the desk. "Why the hell did I say that aloud?" he mutters to himself.

Gakuhou steps out of his son's room, feeling disappointed. Nothing.

Then again, why did he think he would find some clues there? It might be Gakushuu's room, but this is still his dream. So it makes sense he finds there only those things he assumes his son has there.

…which apparently is an astounding number of textbooks of all kinds, and nothing else.

He… isn't completely certain how he feels about this revelation.

In any case, he decides to give the rest of the house a general sweep. Maybe he'll get some ideas what to do next.

There is nothing in his study or his bedroom. Nothing in the guestrooms. Nothing in the living room – the book lies still on his armchair, but he doesn't touch it.

In the kitchen, Kyuko and toddler Gakushuu are drinking tea. Kyuko is talking about the evolution of unicorns, and Gakushuu listens, wide-eyed. She always was interested in biology, wasn't she? While he was focused on math, on cold numbers and exact sciences, living creatures were what attracted Kyuko the most.

Living creatures.

Gakuhou sighs and walks out of the house.

The sky is blazing red, that's the first thing he notices. Is it just an unusually brilliant sunset? No, the same red is spread across the entire sky. Is the world on fire? But there is no smoke anywhere.

On the other hand, this is a dream. There can be fire without smoke. Or a red sky without any sensible reason.

He keeps on thinking about fire as he walks across the yard. What would it be like, to burn in a dream? (Or to drown, he briefly thinks and quickly banishes the thought.) Can you feel pain in a dream? Dreams are not a field he has ever cared much about, but he has some vague memories about reading an article once which stated that it is possible, if rare.

Ultimately that is unimportant. Even if there can be pain in a dream, it's impossible to get any real injuries. If the world did burn and he wouldn't be able to control it, the worst that would happen is that he'd wake up.

The moment he thinks about waking up the world gets a little out of focus. All the colors get a little dimmer and he smells… fire? No, incense.

Damn! Gakuhou stops. Don't wake up. No. Not yet. He concentrates, and gradually the world gets its colors back.

He isn't in his yard anymore, though. He is somewhere in the city, though he doesn't know where. Is this even Tokyo? He isn't sure. The sky is still on fire, and there is no one else out, except…

…three people walk on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. A girl in light green summer dress, a little child with strawberry blond hair, and a boy who keeps on playing with a basketball.

Gakuhou stares at them.

No. Ignore them. They don't matter.

Just find Gakushuu.

"Papa!" a child's voice shouts, and he sees the boy waving at him from the other side of the street. "Hey Papa!"

"Hi big brother!" Kyuko shouts.

Gakuhou starts walking away to the opposite direction.

"Hey, sensei!" he hears Ikeda's voice, and somehow it twists his heart worse than the others. That is Ikeda's voice. He still remembers it.

He feels another wrench in his heart when he realizes he doesn't anymore remember what Kyuko's voice really sounded like.

"Sensei! Come with us!" Ikeda calls, but he keeps on walking away. "We're going to swim!"

Gakuhou stops on his tracks.

No.

He spins around, heart pounding, but the three have already went their way. He sees them in the distance, two small figures and one even smaller between them.

Ignore it.

Just ignore it.

It's just a dream. They're just a dream. They're not real.

"Papa!" he hears Gakushuu's voice echoing in his ears. Why does it sound like a cry of help?

Swim.

No.

Gakuhou starts running after the three of them.

A/N: Just like Dream asks in Sandman, I just wonder, if dreaming of flying means you're dreaming of having sex, what does it mean if you dream you're having sex…?

Nagisa's deep aphorisms, 'ultimately, living is the enemy of life', 'a little peace is a dangerous thing, a great deal of it is absolutely fatal' and 'when society sleeps, it dreams of family' I got from Joe Halliwell's aphorism generator.