Chapter 8: Bad Dream, Night Talk
"You got what you wanted…now let me go. Please."
"Not yet, sweetie…I got what I wanted, true, but my best buds haven't."
"No…please. No."
"Clench your teeth and get over it, sweetie. It won't be that bad."
"No!" Michiru sat up in her bed with thin rivers of sweat running down her pale face, her eyes wide and scared. Her heart hammered in her chest while her eyes shot through the bedroom, looking for men who weren't there. "No…" she repeated, still caught in her nightmare. "Don't do this to me, please…" Finally, she realized that she had been dreaming, that she wasn't lying on her ex-boyfriends bed anymore, and that his friends weren't just entering the room to "have a little fun", how they had called it. She let the breath she had been holding out in form of a long, desperate sounding wheeze, while for one second a thought flashed up in her mind. Drink. She immediately pushed the crazy idea away, like she always did, when a strange sound reached her ears and then her brain. It took her a few seconds to realize that it was the ringing of her phone. Frowning, the aqua haired woman checked the alarm clock that stood next to her bed – it showed that it was almost 3 AM – before she rolled over and picked the receiver up. "Hello?" "Did I wake you up?" At first, Michiru had no clue who was on the other end of the line – the low, husky voice seemed somehow familiar to her, but she couldn't put it in it's proper place. Then, it hit her. "Haruka? Is this you?" "Yes." The blonde softly replied before repeating what she had asked before. "Did I wake you up?" "No, don't worry." Michiru answered, glad that she didn't need to lie to the racer. "I just woke up one minute before the phone rang." What Haruka said next slightly surprised her, and she had to bite her lower lip to keep herself from screaming out "How do you know?!" "You had a nightmare, right?" the blonde softly asked, and her voice showed that she wouldn't believe Michiru if she said No now. And so, the aqua haired woman was honest. "Yes, I had a nightmare…how come you know?" Haruka let out a small chuckle. "I know what a person sounds like after she or he woke up from a nightmare, that's all." "I see." Michiru replied, although she didn't really know if Haruka was telling the truth – or if she was hiding something. "Well…what's the reason for your call, Haruka?" the aqua haired woman then asked, slightly wondering why Haruka would call her at such a time. "I had one too." Haruka replied, causing Michiru to frown – until she realized what the blonde meant: she had had a nightmare herself. "And…to keep myself from drinking…I decided to call you. Which probably wasn't such a good idea, now that I think about it…" "No, it's okay." The social worker quickly replied, running one hand through her long hair while she laid down again, looking up at the ceiling. "Like I told you, I was awake anyway…and even if not, you can call me anytime, like I promised." Haruka let out a small sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose while she squeezed her eyes shut. "You should think about that once more before you promise it to me." She then spoke, the fingers of her free hand playing with a pack of matches that laid on the living room desk. "You see…I don't want to annoy you." "You're not annoying me, don't worry. So…what was your nightmare about?" Michiru tried to change the topic, hoping that Haruka would open up enough to her to tell her what she had been dreaming about. "About…something that happened when I was younger." The blonde replied, an answer that didn't really satisfy Michiru. "Haruka…" she softly spoke, praying that she wouldn't chase the racer away with what she would say next, "I hate to push you like that, but you need to tell me more than that if you really want me to help you." She waited for an answer, but all she heard was Harukas breathing. Then, after a few minutes of silence, the blonde spoke up again, her voice soft and defeated. "I can't. I'm sorry." Michiru just opened her mouth to reply something when a loud click came through the line, followed by the beeping that signalled that the call was over. Letting out a sigh, the aqua haired woman hung up herself, knowing that she couldn't do much more for Haruka now. Anyone else probably would have tried to call the blonde back, but Michiru knew that Haruka either wouldn't answer the phone at all, or just answer it to hang up again only seconds later. Sighing once more, the aqua haired woman decided that she would deal with the blonde tomorrow; now all she wanted was a good share of sleep. No sooner thought that done, the social worker put the phone back in it's proper place and pulled the covers over herself. Only moments later, she was fast asleep, the only sound in the room being her slow, regular breathing.
While Michiru drifted off into dreamland, Haruka put the hand phone aside and looked down at the pack of matches she had been playing with during the phone talk with her social worker. Slowly, the blonde pushed the pack open and took one of the matches out. She placed it on the table carefully before opening the pack of cigarettes she had bought earlier that day – with the slight hope that smoking would distract her from the thoughts about alcohol – and took one of them out too, placing it firmly between her lips. Taking the match again, the blonde lit it and held it up to the cigarettes tip, taking a deep drag to light it. The smoke drifted down her windpipe and entered her lungs, causing her to cough heavily. She shook the match until the flame died out, then threw it into the glass ashtray she had bought along with the cigarettes. Leaning back in her couch, Haruka took another drag from the cigarette, closing her eyes and thinking about her nightmare. Come up here, Ruka. I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you while you are very close to me. "Never again." Haruka whispered to herself, coughing before taking another drag of her cancer stick. "Never again, you bastard." Quickly finishing her cigarette, the blonde rose from the couch and made her way over into the bedroom, hoping that she would find some more hours of sleep without being tormented by her dreams again.