Broken
When I woke up this morning
Wipe the sleep from my eyes
I found a new day dawning
And suddenly I realized... you're gone
His hair was red.
Never seen such red hair in all my life. Actually it was a nice little orangish red, the color of lively flames. Yes, I suppose that's the best description for it. Fiery. It looked wonderful on him, that fiery red hair that matched those cool blue eyes and that rambunctious personality. It all fit together so perfectly, such a wonderful mask. Yes, it hid things so well. No one could ever have guessed that he had never got to experience that nice, sweet, innocent, little childhood that most are blessed with.
I envy him. I really do. I wish I could steal his mask away and use it for myself. He doesn't need it anymore. That's why I do.
I used to lead a very sheltered life. My closest brush with death was when my goldfish died, and that's not very close. I don't remember being all that sad, but a goldfish is rather different from what Takeru was.
That morning I had gotten the news. I still felt a bit numb. It's kinda hard to believe, you know. How could he be gone? A part of me was telling me to quit my crying because he wasn't dead. It's wasn't telling me that he still lived in my heart and soul, or anything like that. No, none of that cheesy crap that the movies love cram down it's viewers throats. Something more along the lines of, he was still alive and kicking, but I just couldn't seem to reach far enough out to touch him yet. Yet. Key word here. I couldn't explain why, partly because I didn't know myself, but somehow I did know that he was waiting for me in that
untouchable place.
It was nice to think that he was.
~*~*~
I eased the door shut behind me and slumped against it so deeply that I slid all the way down to the floor. Which was fine with me, I needed to curl up. Pull my legs against my chest, wrap my arms around myself and just bury my face in my knees. Ahh, the simple comforts.
'Get yourself together! Look at you! You're a mess!'
"I don't care!" I whispered to myself, hopefully shutting up that cold little voice. Yep there went my "strong side", it always yelled at me whenever I cried, or got overly sappy. And I normally listen, because crying isn't my thing, never really was, but this time I decided to ignore it. "I'm allowed to mope over
Takeru!" I growled at the cold voice. And I would have showed that dumb voice! I would have showed it how much of a mess I could be! Would have, if I had any tears left to cry for it, that is. I wanted to cry buckets for that cold, stupid, little voice that forbade me to mourn for my Takeru! In fact, my delightful "strong side" reminded me more of Kunio Hirosu than I cared to be reminded of. And as far as I was concerned, Hirosu could just take a stroll off the edge of a conveniently high cliff, and he could take my "strong side" with him. Me, bitter? Of course not.
Okay, so maybe just sitting there arguing with myself about crying wasn't the grandest thing I could have done, but I needed something. Something to make me feel better. Anything. Even if it was having a gripe session with the Hirosu version of myself.
"Food. Food always cures depression," I murmured as I slowly climbed to my feet. Let me be fat forever if it'll cure this awful hurt! I crossed the room and into the kitchen. Just then my stomach roared so viciously that a tiger would have run and hid. So maybe I was a bit on the hungry side, nothing a nice cheap hot
pocket couldn't cure. Boy, I lived off those things. I yanked the door opened and dug the cardboard box out from under the mound of empty frozen waffle boxes and old butter tubs filled with some of my room mate's uneatable concoctions. Hold it! It felt a bit light. I shook the box furiously, but all I heard was the
small clamor of crumbs.
"Ugh, Naoko!" She'd definitely be hearing from me! Eating the last hot pocket like that! May the wrath of my stomach be upon her!! I opened up the door again and flung the box back in then slammed the door. I knew she wasn't here, of course not. I'd just get her when she's sneaking back in. Ho boy, and would I ever get her.
Great, so now I had nothing to binge off of.
I hauled our trash can out from under the sink and over to the refrigerator/freezer, stifling the urge to give it a few swift kicks. Not only did I not get to settle my raging stomach, but I also turned out to be the unlucky soul to clean out the fridge. The second I yanked the freezer door open a whole mess of empty hot pocket and waffle boxes went tumbling out at my feet. We literally lived off of cheap freezer burnt hot pockets and waffles, and a rather large undignified heap of empty frozen cardboard boxes was all we had to show for it. We've tried cooking, it didn't work out all that well, the untouched butter tubs are proof of that. Ahh, the joys of being a poor college student. I get all misty eyed when I just think about.
So there I spent the next ten minutes of my life, digging out every single cardboard box that had somehow managed to nudge it's way into what ever room had been left amongst the other amazingly empty boxes. I followed that amazing task up with a well deserved crash landing straight onto my bed.
My hand hang over the side of my bed and I started to dig around in my book bag till my hand came across the rough surface of a book much smaller than my text books. I pulled it free from my bag and propped myself up on my elbows as I flipped open to the page I had marked, passing up the page my roommate had
marked for herself. We had been reading this book for a while, but for some reason neither of us can't quite remember where we got it. We don't know the name of it, the cover is tattered beyond recognition. The book itself is pretty good, but I think we have reached the end of the story.
I read aloud to no one.
"And so with the power of his god sealed away, Seiryuu seishi, Nakago, was defeated by Tamahome."
~*~*~
Slowly I walked down the hall leading to their dorm. Or more accurately, I barely dragged my feet along and somehow ended up in front of their door. It was cracked open and I could see four of them talking amongst themselves.
"What do you mean you've never heard Ashitare speak? He could talk. And the way you describe the whole thing is just strange, you made it sound like he was loyal to you. You know good an well that Nakago was his 'master'." That had to have been Shinji, sounded like him. But what in the world were they talking about? They had to have been talking about the characters in our book, but they made it sound like they had been there, in the story, which was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard of! They couldn't be. My imagination had to have been running wild again.
I clunked my knuckles fairly hard against the wood frame of their door a couple of times then waited. The door swung inward and Miaka welcomed me into the room with a warm smile. The last bit of their conversation died away as I slipped into their room. I was half tempted to make them explain exactly what they had been talking about to me and ease my ever irritating curiosity.
"Hey, Ryuen," I chirped when I saw that bundle of fur bounding towards me. I took him up in my arms andbegan to gently scratch behind his ear. "Hi, guys." They responded with a few "Hi's", "Hey's" and one wave from Taka, I guess it was kinda awkward. Shinji looked up at me, his unruly bangs hanging like a crude curtain in front of his eyes. He looked different somehow. Oh that's right, just like everybody else, he hadn't taken the care to dress exceptionally well like normal. Just simple jeans and a tank top, nothing special. Wait, what was that? On his shoulder, a symbol. No. No, a kanji. Suboshi. What in the world?!
"Hey, Kyoko, what's the matter?"
"Um, I've really got to go," I piped. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow!" I waved quickly and scrambled out into the hall, away from the strange looks they probably had painted across their faces. Man, now I felt stupid. I pressed my back against their closed door and nearly curled back up into a little ball again, but I stopped myself. Let's face it, the hall isn't exactly the grandest place to just ball up. I mentally slapped myself and started back towards my dorm that was just down the hall, I just had to pull myself back together! Never before have I acted so scatterbrained, I swear!
"Hey, Kyoko?" Huh? What now? I turned around and found the owner of the voice that had called me.
"Yui? Why'd you follow me out?" She smiled softly and turned her head to face her dorm.
"Everybody's worried about you. I mean, you acted a bit weird in there." Try more than a "bit" weird. Stupid me, first I was caught staring and acted extremely jumpy - or paranoid, which ever floats your boat - and now I had to explain it Yui. How do I get myself into things like this? I think I flushed all my "calm" down the toilet that morning. It'd sure come in handy right about now. "Are you sure you're alright? If it's about Takeru, you really shouldn't bottle it up, you know."
"I know. I'm alright, I think I'm still just a little shook up about things. That's all." She kept smiling and nodded while I prayed that she bought it. If you haven't noticed, I had wanted to get away from them for the time being. So, I left. I wish I hadn't, now. I wish I had nudged all that stuff about the book out of them. But of course, I spazed out at the first bit of weirdness that I could have just as well been imagining anyway, and took off. I didn't look back either, just trudged back to my dorm, dragging my fingertips along the wall as I walked.
~*~*~
"Hey Kyo-chan, where ya been?" I pulled myself out of my wonderful mental dilemma when I heard Naoko's voice from our room. I leaned towards the open door way to find her grinning at me like she normally did. I swear, the girl doesn't quit smiling for anything, she'll be buried with a grin on her face.
"I was out."
I heard a giggle from the other room, then a nice surprised, "Ooo!" Good grief. "Kyo-chan, come here!" I braced myself - with her it could be anything - and shuffled into our bed room. She sat Indian style in the middle of the floor with pictures scattered all around her, some in nice neat little stacks and some in messy piles. "What do you think about this picture?" I didn't brace myself well enough. It was of all of us laying out on the college steps. Miaka so attached to Taka he was turning blue from thee lack of air, Shinji and Yui holding each other all sweetly, and Takeru and I looking completely and totally insane.
"Where'd you find this?"
"It was in with the rest of my picture stash. Now come with me, you need your daily nourishment before digging into the rest of my stash." She hopped up and tugged me into the kitchen. I must find out how she managed to "hop" from Indian style to her feet in one swift move, because from previous personal experiences I've learned that it doesn't work very well for us normal people. "Ta-da!" She flung open both refrigerator and freezer doors and I think my jaw hit the tile floor. "Beautiful, isn't it?" We had just about every form of food under the sun, and I'm not talking about all the stale frozen junk. It was the good stuff!!
"When? How?! Who did you pickpocket?!"
"No one! Can you believe it?! Oh yeah, uh remember that picture I took of that one guy looking all dramatic and such?" I nodded, how could I forget? It was a breathtaking shot, one of her best pictures. "Yeah well, the art world finally recognized my talent and gave me all this money for that one picture." I think I could have hugged the life right out of her right then.
*And so, we ate ourselves into oblivion. We caught up on that important gossip, had a nice gripe session, talked about Takeru and then cried our little eyes out for him. I'm sure that part steamed my "strong side", especially after we both had thought I had already cried myself dry. Apparently both me's were proved
wrong.*
"How weird! He really had Suboshi's kanji?" Naoko looked ecstatic, like her wildest dream had come true. The idiot. The younger of the Bu twins had been one of her favorite characters. I personally lean more towards the monk, Chichiri, or as Naoko likes to call him, "The One Eyed Wonder". Mean, isn't she?
"Yeah, he even kinda looks like him. Or at least as much as I can tell from that little ink sketch. And if you think about it, he even acts a little like him." What was I doing?! This was dumb! There was no possible way they could have any part of that story! Right? "It's gotta be a coincidence, you know?"
"Yeah, I guess. But wouldn't it be awesome if it really was him?"
"But it's not, we've finished the book. He's dead. Remember?" That right there earned me the nastiest look that I think she could muster up. It wasn't too bad, she didn't have much practice in sour faces. That's what she got for being insanely upbeat all the time! So, ha!
"Think you'll be able to handle tomorrow?" Gee, thanks Naoko for bringing that up. I had been trying to forget about it. It certainly wasn't an event I had been looking forward to.
"Not really."
~*~*~
The dreams I had that night officially rank as the most terrifying and disturbing I've ever had. And if just one nightmare wasn't bad enough, nnooooo...I had a whole series of them, one right after another. Most started out with Takeru goofing around like normal, trying to get anyone and everyone to laugh. One minute I'd be teasing him and telling him if he made that face any longer it'd stick, then it'd come out of the clear blue. And after the first few runs of a few variations of this dream, I figured out his fate wasn't going to change and I'd try to scream out to him, but was always too late. He'd literally get ripped apart right in front of my eyes. Then I'd wake up and cry till there was no more to cry. I'd unwillingly fall back asleep and the horrible cycle would start all over again.
Not my greatest night's sleep.
That morning my roommate had to haul me out of my bed, which was a difficult task considering once I got wind of what she was going to do I latched onto the mattress with every bit of my failing morning strength. Stupid failing morning strength, if I had just been awake for just a few more minutes I'd have had
my full strength and I could definitely out-power her. But that did a lot of good for me, because I here I was in front of Tanaka-sensei's office with Naoko. I don't know why I wanted to stay in bed, after all, the dreams would come back, but I was so tired. Dang, stupid dreams was really throwing a royal wrench in
my system. It was amazing I was able to stand on my own.
"I'll be out here, okay? Now get in there!" Easy for her to say, she'd be outside the door, safe and sound from the insanity. Some support she was.
"Yeah right," I grumbled before slipping into the already crowed room. I shuffled over to the spot I had occupied the day before, dropped my backpack to the floor and sat down. Everyone was as they had been during our previous meeting, but this time there was hardly a person that was fully awake and functioning. Everyone, that is, with the exception of Hirosu who was glaring straight ahead, eyes narrowed and a look that could kill. My, he's such a happy camper in the morning...or at any other time of the day, for that matter. Taka didn't look too entirely thrilled either. Come to think of it, no one did.
"Why'd you bring your backpack?" I had left the zipper half-way zipped and Miaka was inspecting the innards with much curiosity. Curiosity killed the Miaka.
"Because I need to return a book to the library." It was partly true, I was going to stop by the library and see if it was their book. Like I said, we have no clue where we got it from.
"Hey! That looks like the book!" She lunged right across my lap and snatched the book out of my bag. By the time she was back in her own seat I was edging closer to the arm of the couch than I already was to put even the tiniest bit of distance between us. I glanced over at Taka, whose reaction was a lot like mine. He was superdeformed and wide eyed. "Hey it's different! What happened to us?!" Yui snapped her head around, just then getting into the swing of the conversation. I snatched the book away from Miaka and skimmed through the page she had been looking at.
Sure enough. It was different, alright.
I began to reread the first page, and found it pretty much the same, just a few word changes here and there. Amazingly, I diligently dodged a hand that shot out to take the book out of my hands just as I finished off the page. I glanced around at everyone, Tanaka-sensei was just coming over to join us, Taka was getting up from his seat with a nervous look on his face, Hirosu hadn't moved, Miaka was wide eyed and kept shifting her gaze from me to Yui who was frantic about getting the book away from me. Shinji had just come to realize what was going on and was just turning his head to look at us.
Cautiously I flipped the page. What in the world could be their problem?! Good grief, acting like the world as we know it was ending. Can we say "high strung"?
Then, out of the clear blue, as I felt the book being ripped out of my hands, a gigantic light hit me in full force.
It burned at my poor, unprepared eyes, and when I shut them to block it out, there was no blackness. Just the pink that was the back of my eyelids. I felt the pressure of bodies being squished against me for a split second, then it was gone. Everything my senses told me about my surroundings had vanished and I felt a cool rush of air, like I was falling. I pried my barely recovered eyes opened and watched the ground rush up to catch me. I felt my shoulder hit first and the rest of me skidded along for a good ways, then decided it'd be even better to let me tumble for another good long bit. I opened my mouth to scream and was rewarded nicely with a ever-so-tasty mouthful of dirt. It had to have been an incline that I had landed on, because there's no way on God's good earth that I could have gone this far on a flat surface. I thrashed as I tumbled, trying to find anyway to stop when...
BAM!
I'm in state of confusion
I hope things aren't what they seem
If this is really happening
Just let me go back to dream...you're home ~ Tell Me I Was Dreaming, Travis Tritt
When I woke up this morning
Wipe the sleep from my eyes
I found a new day dawning
And suddenly I realized... you're gone
His hair was red.
Never seen such red hair in all my life. Actually it was a nice little orangish red, the color of lively flames. Yes, I suppose that's the best description for it. Fiery. It looked wonderful on him, that fiery red hair that matched those cool blue eyes and that rambunctious personality. It all fit together so perfectly, such a wonderful mask. Yes, it hid things so well. No one could ever have guessed that he had never got to experience that nice, sweet, innocent, little childhood that most are blessed with.
I envy him. I really do. I wish I could steal his mask away and use it for myself. He doesn't need it anymore. That's why I do.
I used to lead a very sheltered life. My closest brush with death was when my goldfish died, and that's not very close. I don't remember being all that sad, but a goldfish is rather different from what Takeru was.
That morning I had gotten the news. I still felt a bit numb. It's kinda hard to believe, you know. How could he be gone? A part of me was telling me to quit my crying because he wasn't dead. It's wasn't telling me that he still lived in my heart and soul, or anything like that. No, none of that cheesy crap that the movies love cram down it's viewers throats. Something more along the lines of, he was still alive and kicking, but I just couldn't seem to reach far enough out to touch him yet. Yet. Key word here. I couldn't explain why, partly because I didn't know myself, but somehow I did know that he was waiting for me in that
untouchable place.
It was nice to think that he was.
~*~*~
I eased the door shut behind me and slumped against it so deeply that I slid all the way down to the floor. Which was fine with me, I needed to curl up. Pull my legs against my chest, wrap my arms around myself and just bury my face in my knees. Ahh, the simple comforts.
'Get yourself together! Look at you! You're a mess!'
"I don't care!" I whispered to myself, hopefully shutting up that cold little voice. Yep there went my "strong side", it always yelled at me whenever I cried, or got overly sappy. And I normally listen, because crying isn't my thing, never really was, but this time I decided to ignore it. "I'm allowed to mope over
Takeru!" I growled at the cold voice. And I would have showed that dumb voice! I would have showed it how much of a mess I could be! Would have, if I had any tears left to cry for it, that is. I wanted to cry buckets for that cold, stupid, little voice that forbade me to mourn for my Takeru! In fact, my delightful "strong side" reminded me more of Kunio Hirosu than I cared to be reminded of. And as far as I was concerned, Hirosu could just take a stroll off the edge of a conveniently high cliff, and he could take my "strong side" with him. Me, bitter? Of course not.
Okay, so maybe just sitting there arguing with myself about crying wasn't the grandest thing I could have done, but I needed something. Something to make me feel better. Anything. Even if it was having a gripe session with the Hirosu version of myself.
"Food. Food always cures depression," I murmured as I slowly climbed to my feet. Let me be fat forever if it'll cure this awful hurt! I crossed the room and into the kitchen. Just then my stomach roared so viciously that a tiger would have run and hid. So maybe I was a bit on the hungry side, nothing a nice cheap hot
pocket couldn't cure. Boy, I lived off those things. I yanked the door opened and dug the cardboard box out from under the mound of empty frozen waffle boxes and old butter tubs filled with some of my room mate's uneatable concoctions. Hold it! It felt a bit light. I shook the box furiously, but all I heard was the
small clamor of crumbs.
"Ugh, Naoko!" She'd definitely be hearing from me! Eating the last hot pocket like that! May the wrath of my stomach be upon her!! I opened up the door again and flung the box back in then slammed the door. I knew she wasn't here, of course not. I'd just get her when she's sneaking back in. Ho boy, and would I ever get her.
Great, so now I had nothing to binge off of.
I hauled our trash can out from under the sink and over to the refrigerator/freezer, stifling the urge to give it a few swift kicks. Not only did I not get to settle my raging stomach, but I also turned out to be the unlucky soul to clean out the fridge. The second I yanked the freezer door open a whole mess of empty hot pocket and waffle boxes went tumbling out at my feet. We literally lived off of cheap freezer burnt hot pockets and waffles, and a rather large undignified heap of empty frozen cardboard boxes was all we had to show for it. We've tried cooking, it didn't work out all that well, the untouched butter tubs are proof of that. Ahh, the joys of being a poor college student. I get all misty eyed when I just think about.
So there I spent the next ten minutes of my life, digging out every single cardboard box that had somehow managed to nudge it's way into what ever room had been left amongst the other amazingly empty boxes. I followed that amazing task up with a well deserved crash landing straight onto my bed.
My hand hang over the side of my bed and I started to dig around in my book bag till my hand came across the rough surface of a book much smaller than my text books. I pulled it free from my bag and propped myself up on my elbows as I flipped open to the page I had marked, passing up the page my roommate had
marked for herself. We had been reading this book for a while, but for some reason neither of us can't quite remember where we got it. We don't know the name of it, the cover is tattered beyond recognition. The book itself is pretty good, but I think we have reached the end of the story.
I read aloud to no one.
"And so with the power of his god sealed away, Seiryuu seishi, Nakago, was defeated by Tamahome."
~*~*~
Slowly I walked down the hall leading to their dorm. Or more accurately, I barely dragged my feet along and somehow ended up in front of their door. It was cracked open and I could see four of them talking amongst themselves.
"What do you mean you've never heard Ashitare speak? He could talk. And the way you describe the whole thing is just strange, you made it sound like he was loyal to you. You know good an well that Nakago was his 'master'." That had to have been Shinji, sounded like him. But what in the world were they talking about? They had to have been talking about the characters in our book, but they made it sound like they had been there, in the story, which was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard of! They couldn't be. My imagination had to have been running wild again.
I clunked my knuckles fairly hard against the wood frame of their door a couple of times then waited. The door swung inward and Miaka welcomed me into the room with a warm smile. The last bit of their conversation died away as I slipped into their room. I was half tempted to make them explain exactly what they had been talking about to me and ease my ever irritating curiosity.
"Hey, Ryuen," I chirped when I saw that bundle of fur bounding towards me. I took him up in my arms andbegan to gently scratch behind his ear. "Hi, guys." They responded with a few "Hi's", "Hey's" and one wave from Taka, I guess it was kinda awkward. Shinji looked up at me, his unruly bangs hanging like a crude curtain in front of his eyes. He looked different somehow. Oh that's right, just like everybody else, he hadn't taken the care to dress exceptionally well like normal. Just simple jeans and a tank top, nothing special. Wait, what was that? On his shoulder, a symbol. No. No, a kanji. Suboshi. What in the world?!
"Hey, Kyoko, what's the matter?"
"Um, I've really got to go," I piped. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow!" I waved quickly and scrambled out into the hall, away from the strange looks they probably had painted across their faces. Man, now I felt stupid. I pressed my back against their closed door and nearly curled back up into a little ball again, but I stopped myself. Let's face it, the hall isn't exactly the grandest place to just ball up. I mentally slapped myself and started back towards my dorm that was just down the hall, I just had to pull myself back together! Never before have I acted so scatterbrained, I swear!
"Hey, Kyoko?" Huh? What now? I turned around and found the owner of the voice that had called me.
"Yui? Why'd you follow me out?" She smiled softly and turned her head to face her dorm.
"Everybody's worried about you. I mean, you acted a bit weird in there." Try more than a "bit" weird. Stupid me, first I was caught staring and acted extremely jumpy - or paranoid, which ever floats your boat - and now I had to explain it Yui. How do I get myself into things like this? I think I flushed all my "calm" down the toilet that morning. It'd sure come in handy right about now. "Are you sure you're alright? If it's about Takeru, you really shouldn't bottle it up, you know."
"I know. I'm alright, I think I'm still just a little shook up about things. That's all." She kept smiling and nodded while I prayed that she bought it. If you haven't noticed, I had wanted to get away from them for the time being. So, I left. I wish I hadn't, now. I wish I had nudged all that stuff about the book out of them. But of course, I spazed out at the first bit of weirdness that I could have just as well been imagining anyway, and took off. I didn't look back either, just trudged back to my dorm, dragging my fingertips along the wall as I walked.
~*~*~
"Hey Kyo-chan, where ya been?" I pulled myself out of my wonderful mental dilemma when I heard Naoko's voice from our room. I leaned towards the open door way to find her grinning at me like she normally did. I swear, the girl doesn't quit smiling for anything, she'll be buried with a grin on her face.
"I was out."
I heard a giggle from the other room, then a nice surprised, "Ooo!" Good grief. "Kyo-chan, come here!" I braced myself - with her it could be anything - and shuffled into our bed room. She sat Indian style in the middle of the floor with pictures scattered all around her, some in nice neat little stacks and some in messy piles. "What do you think about this picture?" I didn't brace myself well enough. It was of all of us laying out on the college steps. Miaka so attached to Taka he was turning blue from thee lack of air, Shinji and Yui holding each other all sweetly, and Takeru and I looking completely and totally insane.
"Where'd you find this?"
"It was in with the rest of my picture stash. Now come with me, you need your daily nourishment before digging into the rest of my stash." She hopped up and tugged me into the kitchen. I must find out how she managed to "hop" from Indian style to her feet in one swift move, because from previous personal experiences I've learned that it doesn't work very well for us normal people. "Ta-da!" She flung open both refrigerator and freezer doors and I think my jaw hit the tile floor. "Beautiful, isn't it?" We had just about every form of food under the sun, and I'm not talking about all the stale frozen junk. It was the good stuff!!
"When? How?! Who did you pickpocket?!"
"No one! Can you believe it?! Oh yeah, uh remember that picture I took of that one guy looking all dramatic and such?" I nodded, how could I forget? It was a breathtaking shot, one of her best pictures. "Yeah well, the art world finally recognized my talent and gave me all this money for that one picture." I think I could have hugged the life right out of her right then.
*And so, we ate ourselves into oblivion. We caught up on that important gossip, had a nice gripe session, talked about Takeru and then cried our little eyes out for him. I'm sure that part steamed my "strong side", especially after we both had thought I had already cried myself dry. Apparently both me's were proved
wrong.*
"How weird! He really had Suboshi's kanji?" Naoko looked ecstatic, like her wildest dream had come true. The idiot. The younger of the Bu twins had been one of her favorite characters. I personally lean more towards the monk, Chichiri, or as Naoko likes to call him, "The One Eyed Wonder". Mean, isn't she?
"Yeah, he even kinda looks like him. Or at least as much as I can tell from that little ink sketch. And if you think about it, he even acts a little like him." What was I doing?! This was dumb! There was no possible way they could have any part of that story! Right? "It's gotta be a coincidence, you know?"
"Yeah, I guess. But wouldn't it be awesome if it really was him?"
"But it's not, we've finished the book. He's dead. Remember?" That right there earned me the nastiest look that I think she could muster up. It wasn't too bad, she didn't have much practice in sour faces. That's what she got for being insanely upbeat all the time! So, ha!
"Think you'll be able to handle tomorrow?" Gee, thanks Naoko for bringing that up. I had been trying to forget about it. It certainly wasn't an event I had been looking forward to.
"Not really."
~*~*~
The dreams I had that night officially rank as the most terrifying and disturbing I've ever had. And if just one nightmare wasn't bad enough, nnooooo...I had a whole series of them, one right after another. Most started out with Takeru goofing around like normal, trying to get anyone and everyone to laugh. One minute I'd be teasing him and telling him if he made that face any longer it'd stick, then it'd come out of the clear blue. And after the first few runs of a few variations of this dream, I figured out his fate wasn't going to change and I'd try to scream out to him, but was always too late. He'd literally get ripped apart right in front of my eyes. Then I'd wake up and cry till there was no more to cry. I'd unwillingly fall back asleep and the horrible cycle would start all over again.
Not my greatest night's sleep.
That morning my roommate had to haul me out of my bed, which was a difficult task considering once I got wind of what she was going to do I latched onto the mattress with every bit of my failing morning strength. Stupid failing morning strength, if I had just been awake for just a few more minutes I'd have had
my full strength and I could definitely out-power her. But that did a lot of good for me, because I here I was in front of Tanaka-sensei's office with Naoko. I don't know why I wanted to stay in bed, after all, the dreams would come back, but I was so tired. Dang, stupid dreams was really throwing a royal wrench in
my system. It was amazing I was able to stand on my own.
"I'll be out here, okay? Now get in there!" Easy for her to say, she'd be outside the door, safe and sound from the insanity. Some support she was.
"Yeah right," I grumbled before slipping into the already crowed room. I shuffled over to the spot I had occupied the day before, dropped my backpack to the floor and sat down. Everyone was as they had been during our previous meeting, but this time there was hardly a person that was fully awake and functioning. Everyone, that is, with the exception of Hirosu who was glaring straight ahead, eyes narrowed and a look that could kill. My, he's such a happy camper in the morning...or at any other time of the day, for that matter. Taka didn't look too entirely thrilled either. Come to think of it, no one did.
"Why'd you bring your backpack?" I had left the zipper half-way zipped and Miaka was inspecting the innards with much curiosity. Curiosity killed the Miaka.
"Because I need to return a book to the library." It was partly true, I was going to stop by the library and see if it was their book. Like I said, we have no clue where we got it from.
"Hey! That looks like the book!" She lunged right across my lap and snatched the book out of my bag. By the time she was back in her own seat I was edging closer to the arm of the couch than I already was to put even the tiniest bit of distance between us. I glanced over at Taka, whose reaction was a lot like mine. He was superdeformed and wide eyed. "Hey it's different! What happened to us?!" Yui snapped her head around, just then getting into the swing of the conversation. I snatched the book away from Miaka and skimmed through the page she had been looking at.
Sure enough. It was different, alright.
I began to reread the first page, and found it pretty much the same, just a few word changes here and there. Amazingly, I diligently dodged a hand that shot out to take the book out of my hands just as I finished off the page. I glanced around at everyone, Tanaka-sensei was just coming over to join us, Taka was getting up from his seat with a nervous look on his face, Hirosu hadn't moved, Miaka was wide eyed and kept shifting her gaze from me to Yui who was frantic about getting the book away from me. Shinji had just come to realize what was going on and was just turning his head to look at us.
Cautiously I flipped the page. What in the world could be their problem?! Good grief, acting like the world as we know it was ending. Can we say "high strung"?
Then, out of the clear blue, as I felt the book being ripped out of my hands, a gigantic light hit me in full force.
It burned at my poor, unprepared eyes, and when I shut them to block it out, there was no blackness. Just the pink that was the back of my eyelids. I felt the pressure of bodies being squished against me for a split second, then it was gone. Everything my senses told me about my surroundings had vanished and I felt a cool rush of air, like I was falling. I pried my barely recovered eyes opened and watched the ground rush up to catch me. I felt my shoulder hit first and the rest of me skidded along for a good ways, then decided it'd be even better to let me tumble for another good long bit. I opened my mouth to scream and was rewarded nicely with a ever-so-tasty mouthful of dirt. It had to have been an incline that I had landed on, because there's no way on God's good earth that I could have gone this far on a flat surface. I thrashed as I tumbled, trying to find anyway to stop when...
BAM!
I'm in state of confusion
I hope things aren't what they seem
If this is really happening
Just let me go back to dream...you're home ~ Tell Me I Was Dreaming, Travis Tritt