Chihaya swiped forward, sweeping her card out of her opponents formation. Across from her, Kana-chan swiped at a bead of sweat rolling down her face.

The club captain took in a deep breath, inhaling the karuta club room like air. The heat of the room was stifling as always, the scent of sweat and hard work prominent. Chihaya could hear every intonation of Sumire-chan's reading like a backdrop of sound to the screensaver of cards in front of her. Next to her, Tsukuba was trying his hardest against his elder club mates, and she could feel a well of pride sitting deep in her chest at how hard not only the first years, but the second years, had worked to come this far.

A pulse thrummed through her, strange and making Chihaya feel off-kilter. The room was… almost wrong somehow, too empty yet too wide all at once. She glanced up, feeling Kana-chan disappear out of her focus as the room seemed to distort. Her heart slammed in her chest, a spike of fear pumping adrenaline into her body even more fiercely than the game she'd been so focused on.

Suddenly the heat in the room was over whelming, stifling and constricting as Chihaya struggled to breath. Her eyes were wide, eyebrows creased in concern as she whipped her head around the once familiar room. Yet, now everything was warped, the tatami mats were different, the table was crammed with items she didn't recognise, people she didn't know. On their faces were twisted smiles and shadowed eyes, menacing and shuffling closer, too close, why were they crowding around her, they were too close.

Chihaya gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. "Chihaya?"

She forced open her eyes, her gaze finding the ever so strange tatami mats she'd kneeled her body over to curl in on herself. That voice. It was… familiar? Yet… why was there something wrong with it? It was the most familiar thing in this backwards world, where everything felt off and scary. The way the speakers voice curled around the letters was achingly familiar and yet… there was something still wrong with it.

Chihaya raised her face from the floor hesitantly, a small kernel of hope igniting in search of the familiar. The sight of Taichi standing in front of her immediately banished her worries, her rustic eyes lighting up even as her ears told her not everything was as okay as the sight of him should have been.

"Taichi," her voice was filled with relief, "Thank god you're here!"

She reached a hand up confidently, not even considering the fact he wouldn't help her up. Maybe it was because of this that the darkening of the Taichi in front of her shocked her so much. The vibe of her once treasured room rolled in waves around the two, and Taichi's face seemed to harden even more.

There was something bitter about his expression, something so heartbreaking and resentful that Chihaya flinched back her hand before he even had the chance to slap it away. His lips were downturned stoically, his ever so soft hair curving against his forehead like a knife, for once out of his eyes. And, for once, the eye contact she held with this unflinching Taichi in front of her made her breath hitch warily.

Chihaya held eyes with him resolutely, even as her eyebrows pinched together in hurt confusion. His eyes, usually so warm and full of emotion, hence his bad habit of hiding behind his hair, were like steel, empty of anything but the look of one finding a bug on the bottom of their shoe. "T-taichi?" her voice warbled.

"Ayase-san," she flinched at his cold intonation, so different and disheartening from her usual Taichi, "Please don't be so familiar with me."

Her breath stopped, the darkness of the room cloying around the man in front of her like a thick honey poison. Don't… be so familiar? Chihaya's eyes welled with tears as she processed what he was saying. Taichi's first name had been upon her lips for as long as she could remember. It was a name, a word, a person, that she had held close and dear like her life depended on it. To not be familiar… was to not be herself? Didn't… he realise that?

"B-but Taichi," Chihaya attempted a watery smile, blinding hope forcing her forward even as her heart ached, "I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't have you with me."

He flickered a cold glance at her, expression indifferent to the tears starting to freelance down her face. "Then I guess you'll have to figure it out."

Chihaya opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out, and her strangled cry came out soundless as Taichi turned around. The waves of bad energy didn't leave with his figure as he kept walking forward, slowly getting further and further away, but rather, they clouded in around her and seemed to suffocate her kneeling form, the darkness cloying as she watched him retreat further and further away from her.

It was like her figure was locked into place on the floor, chains coming up to capture her and her mute voice crying out soundlessly after him as she tried to struggle toward him. The chains tightened, like a cold creeping into her body and freezing her into place. His retreating figure, despite being the cause of her cracking heart, was drenched in light now that it was far from her and this room. The light was walking away, leaving her bathed in darkness.

Chihaya's tears dripped down her face as she ripped her mouth open for a scream.

! #$

"Chihaya!"

The karuta player jerked upwards, the cold sting of tears wet on her face, her mouth open in a silent scream. Sittin next to her, a supportive hand cradling her back as the other one hovered unsurely in the air, was Taichi.

She stared right at him, her eyes wide and terrified. His, on the other hand, were warm, concerned. Familiar.

Chihaya felt her lips tremble as her eyes welled up again, her face morphing into a relieved, yet shaken, cry. Taichi's eyes went wide this time, his worry growing tenfold as he rubbed his hand up and down her back soothingly and reached his stalemated hand up to her face, pressing his palm against her skin in a caress, catching wayward tears with his calloused thumb.

"Hey, hey," his voice lowered in concern and placation, even as Chihaya brought both of her hands up to cry into. "What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

Chihaya nodded her head mutely, a scared spike flashing through her heart as she realised that was just a dream, despite how real it had felt. She felt Taichi's warm arms encircle her, her head resting comfortably against the broad expanse of his chest. She withdrew her hands from her face, instead encircling her arms tightly around his torso, as if trying to keep him as close as possible.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Taichi murmured, playing with her hair and occasionally scratching her scalp comfortingly.

Chihaya sucked a deep breath in, inhaling Taichi's man scent, before releasing it. She shifted her legs slightly, for the first time noticing the crisp white sheets of the school infirmary. "Why am I here?" she instead responded.

"You collapsed at karuta training." There was something so endearingly annoyed about Taichi's tone that made Chihaya smile against his chest softly, already knowing he wanted to scold her for overworking herself. "The others called me as soon as they got you here."

Chihaya stilled slightly. He'd… gone out of his way to see her at the school even though he would have already left? Even though… the karuta club was no longer his concern? She bit her lip, a flood of emotions filling her to the brim. "Sorry," she whispered, "You didn't have to trouble yourself by coming back."

The soft ministrations Taichi was administering to her head paused, before continuing resolutely. "Of course I'd come back. I can't just leave you alone here, can I?"

Chihaya pulled away from his chest, placing her palms on his pecs to calmly look into his eyes. They were warm, with a fond twinkle piercing through like the stars on an inky night. He broke it casually to turn away and mock sigh. "After all, I don't know what I would do without you."

Taichi turned his gaze back to her to smirk cheekily, but the tears brimming up in Chihaya's eyes made him pause in panic. Yet, her face was also brimming with a beaming smile. "I guess you would just have to figure it out, huh, Taichi?" she laughed merrily.

Taichi twitched in annoyance, reaching forward to put her in a headlock and mess with her hair. Chihaya laughed loudly, wiggling to escape. The healthy flush and the teasing gleam in Taichi's expression made her heart float in relief, the emotions and love rushing through her from him like a kinetic connection.

As they teased and played and messed around, the insecurities of her nightmare faded away, instead filling up with a combination of the familiar mixed with the scary new things she knew she would be traversing. And she knew Taichi would be by her side all the way, ready. Ready for a hug, an out of the way visit. Ready for play fights. Ready for nightmares and dreams come true all wrapped into one. He would be ready.

Chihaya grinned determinately, finally breaking free to take her turn to ruffle and mess with Taichi's hair. She would be ready too.