Chapter 14

You're supposed to wake up

When he was a kid, Takao had often dreamed of how his life would turn out in the end. He fantasized about how happy he would be, and how every day would feel like a blessing. Yet none of those fantasies seemed even close to the absolute bliss he felt now.

"I'm home!" he chanted merrily after a long, yet extremely satisfying day of work, school and mini basketball. He received no response, so he assumed Shin-chan would still be at the hospital. Hopefully he'd come back soon, Takao didn't remember seeing him since yesterday morning.

He waltzed into the living room and turned on the TV. They would air a special report on the upcoming mini basketball tournament, in which the kids he was coaching would participate. His attention was driven away from the television when he heard a displeased grunt that sounded like a complaint. He turned around and found Midorima lying on the sofa, twisting in his sleep in hopes of protecting his face from the light.

Takao smiled. Shin-chan hadn't even taken off his glasses before collapsing on the couch, a sign of how exhausted he was. He turned off the TV and looked at the sleeping man lovingly. He gently pushed his green bangs away from his face so he could appreciate how beautiful he looked, eyes closed, long eyelashes, and serene expression on his face. Midorima sighed and leaned into the touch and Takao couldn't hold back so he leaned in to kiss him on the mouth. Shintarou seemed to stir for a moment, but then continued sleeping as if nothing had happened.

"Oi, Shin-chan, you're supposed to wake up when you get a True Love's Kiss." Takao pouted childishly.

"Sleeping Beauty didn't do 32 hours of Emergency Room, though." Midorima grumbled, still 70 percent asleep.

Takao kneeled by the couch and rained butterfly kisses over Midorima's cheeks and down to his chin. "C'mon, Shin-chan. I passed by the grocery store and bought stuff to make nabe, you need to get enough nutrients with that awful schedule of yours. You can go back to sleep after you've had dinner. You can't sleep on the clothes you've been wearing for two days, can you?"

Instead of responding to Takao's reasons, they seemed to have lulled Midorima back into sleep. Kazunari frowned. "Perhaps this Sleeping Beauty needs double power of True Love to wake up. Should I kiss you again, just to make sure?" he whispered softly, his lips ghosting over the shell of Midorima's ear.

"Perhaps you should." Shin-chan grumbled, and Takao caught a slight smirk on his lips.

"Heeeh." He grinned mischievously. "Shin-chan's turned into quite a smartass." He mused before leaning in to kiss Shin-chan's lips once again. When he was about to pull away, Midorima held him by the back of the head and pulled him in as he started to kiss back. When they broke the kiss, and Takao was sure that Midorima was mostly awake now, he grabbed his wrist and yanked him up so they were both standing now.

"You're such a bad boy, Shin-chan, taking advantage of my good disposition to get your wicked way with me." He teased, poking him on the nose with one finger. "Come on, the bath's ready, you can go while I make dinner; it'll help you relax. Just don't fall asleep in the tub."

Midorima grunted something that may or may not have been a "sure", and before leaving, he circled Takao's waist with one arm and leaned forward to steal one more kiss. "You know what they say: third time's the charm." He said matter-of-factly and left for the bathroom.

Certainly, 'rosy-colored ultimate bliss' had nothing on how perfect Takao's life was right now.

"Hey, Shin-chan, have you considered going back to Oha-Asa?"

Midorima looked at him and raised an eyebrow quizzically. The implicit question 'where did that even come from?' was pretty obvious in his confused expression.

"Well, you know, it's your character trait, being a horoscope freak, I mean. It's just weird being around you and not seeing you with a giant bear wood carving or something."

The horoscope freak in question frowned unamused. He hadn't told Takao the reason he'd stopped listening to the horoscopes, and he didn't really want to discuss it. Oha-Asa had predicted good luck for Cancer the day Takao broke up with him. "You will face a difficult decision, but you will come out with the best solution in the end." She'd said. That had not been the case. If Oha-Asa had made a mistake concerning the most important thing in Midorima's life, he saw no reason to keep trusting her.

"I grew up." He said finally, hoping to put an end to the conversation.

"Oh." Takao mumbled and smiled nervously. "I just… I listened to the horoscope by chance. Oha-Asa said it would be a bad luck day for Cancer so I… I brought you your lucky item. You know, you used to make me hunt for your lucky items before, so I guess the habit just stuck with me." He handed him an orange frog toy. "It's not Kerosuke but I guess it should do, haha."

Takao hadn't told Midorima that he'd picked up the habit of listening to Oha-Asa ever since Toujiro started hitting him. It had worked for Shin-chan all those years ago, maybe it would work for him, he'd told himself. And sometimes it did; when Oha-Asa said Scorpio had the best luck, Toujiro would leave on a business trip. The day his path had crossed with Shin-chan again, Oha-Asa had said "You will find something that you lost and it will make you very happy." Although he hadn't been happy that day -re-encountering a soon to be married Shin-chan- he couldn't say he wasn't happy right now, so Oha-Asa had been right then too.

Midorima grabbed the orange frog and looked at it for a moment, then sighed and put it in his pocket. Maybe if it was Takao bringing Oha-Asa back into his life, it meant it was for the best.

"I guess it would do no harm to carry it around. I have an important surgery today." He said as if it was of little importance, but the truth was that he was awfully nervous and it gave him a sort of confidence to have his lucky item at hand, especially because it came from Takao.

"The words you're looking for are 'thank you'. Seriously Shin-chan, I can't believe you're still such a tsundere." Takao teased. He stood on his tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. "Good luck today."

Midorima nodded. "I'm off then." He said as he closed the door behind him.

"I'm home." Midorima called, as was their routine now.

"Welcome home, Shin-chan!" Takao came to greet him cheerfully. "You're early today, I didn't expect to see you until tomorrow."

"The surgery took a lot longer than expected, and the chief resident said I could take some rest now. Besides, it's not like I have 30-hour shifts every day. It is against the law, you know?"

Takao grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "That's a very good law then." It was just then that he noticed the white plastic bag Midorima was holding. "What's that? Did you bring me a present?" he asked jokingly.

To his surprise, Midorima blushed and looked away. "It's not a present for you specifically. I just thought that… well, your mini basket tournament is starting in a few days, right? And you have work and school… You shouldn't exhaust yourself cooking every day, and I can't really cook, so I bought something on my way here" he pushed his glasses up his nose and handed the bag to Takao, still trying to pass it off as something insignificant and failing miserably at it.

Takao took the plastic bag and peeked inside. His hawk eyes lit up with delight. "Shin-chan, I love you!" he squealed, throwing his arms around his neck and crashing their lips together in a clumsy kiss. Seriously, he just couldn't deal with Shin-chan's tsundere cuteness. As if he could just believe that Shin-chan would bring kimchi –Takao's favorite food- for dinner just by chance. "I'm going to heat this up, you sit down and wait for it." He chirped, pushing a still awfully embarrassed Midorima towards the dining room.

Once they were seated and eating, there wasn't much conversation going, mostly because Takao was too busy moaning in joy with every bite. "This is awesome, Shin-chan. It's like, the best I've ever had. Where's it from?" he asked in a rare moment in which he didn't have anything in his mouth.

"A colleague recommended it." Midorima replied simply, a blush spreading over his cheeks anew.

Kazunari smiled, finding the vision much too endearing. He wanted to pounce Shin-chan, and ravish him, and show him what his adorableness did to him, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he remembered he still couldn't do it. He'd been trying so hard to get rid of the nightmares, and horrible terrors that being touched would trigger on him, but it had all been useless so far. Shin-chan had already told him to stop trying to force the process, but it just made him anxious. He had no doubts that Shin-chan wanted more intimacy than just hugs and kisses, and he wanted it too. It didn't make sense to him. When they were younger, they had made love many times. Shin-chan's touch (or at least what he remembered it felt like) was nothing like the one in his nightmares, so why was his body still rejecting it?

Every day he would look at himself in the mirror to see how the scars were slowly fading away, and that would give him a moment of solace. But then he'd look at the words on his back, and those didn't seem to be disappearing at all. What if they never did? What if he was never cured? What if he was never able to get intimate with Shin-chan because of those nightmares? Would Shin-chan grow tired, run out of patience and leave him?

He shook his head, trying to push those thoughts to the back of his mind. He should be happy with what he had now. Shin-chan would wait for him, he knew. There was no rush.

"Is something wrong?"

Midorima's voice brought him back to reality and he realized he had been spacing out, staring at his kimchi as if he were trying to discern the truths of the universe somewhere in its spicy sauce. He looked up to meet Shin-chan's concerned emerald eyes and he smiled, hoping to ease his worries away.

"It's nothing, don't worry Shin-chan. I was just thinking… well, you know, the mini basket thing is on Sunday and the kids have trained a lot. D'you think you could get some time off to see the game? We could go have dinner afterwards." Kind of like a date, he wanted to say, but for some reason the words didn't leave his mouth. "Some of the kids are your fans y'know, your Generation of Miracles and the Vorpal Swords have become a sort of legend now. They'd be delighted if you came."

Shin-chan was clearly not expecting that question, but he surprisingly didn't take long to reply. "Sure. If you want me to go."

Ah. For someone who used to be so dense, Shin-chan seemed to be getting good at seeing right through him recently. It was kind of scary, to be honest. It was usually him trying to translate what Shin-chan actually wanted from the tsundere way in which he said it; now that it was the other way around, the feeling was a little strange.

"Geez, Shin-chan, when did you ever get good at reading people?" he chuckled, feeling a little embarrassed that his true intention had been discovered.

Midorima didn't respond, but instead he shot him a curious gaze and quirked his eyebrow as if trying to say "You're such an idiot", and Takao had to laugh.

The doorbell rang and Takao went to get it. He opened the door without even checking who it was, even if experience should've taught him how dangerous that could be, and almost got pushed down to the ground by something that looked and felt a lot like a typhoon. A flurry of red and designer clothes, the clacking of high heels, the scent of expensive perfume and a high-pitched voice.

"Oh my, Kazu-chan! Shin-chan never told me you were here! How are you doing? I heard what happened with Tou-chan, I still can't believe it! "

Kanako kept blabbering stuff, but Takao's brain had tuned out by that point. Why was she here? Didn't Shin-chan call off the engagement? They hadn't explicitly talked about it, but Takao had thought it had been somewhat implicit given how they'd been living like lovey-dovey newlyweds for two weeks now. This had to be a misunderstanding, right? Shin-chan wouldn't kiss him and tell him how precious he was if he were still engaged.

"W-what are you doing here?" Takao heard Midorima's voice, but he was still frozen solid on his spot and he felt he wasn't even part of this world anymore.

"So mean, Shin-chan. I know you told me not to contact you in a while, but the wedding is in one month and you're not picking up the phone! We have a rehearsal scheduled for Sunday!"

Takao waited to hear Shin-chan say something like "But I already told you the wedding is off." His heartbeats were so loud he could hear them thumping in his ears. Each second that ticked off felt like an eternity.

Shin-chan didn't say anything and Takao's bubble of bliss came crashing down on him so hard he could barely keep himself standing. Midorima hadn't called off the marriage. He'd never intended to.

To be continued.

What, did you really think I was done being unnecessarily cruel to my precious baby Kazu? Joke's on you, my friends, I'm a terrible human being and I have a pathological need to make my darling boys cry. I wanted to give them a little more lovey-dovey domestic bliss before everything went down the drain again, just to remind you how beautiful they are together.

This chapter's title is of course related to Shin-chan receiving true love's kiss, but also to how Takao is forced to wake up from his illusions by the harsh reality of the situation.

I must confess these handful of chapters were also part of an experiment. Much like Takao got so caught up with everything that happened –the trauma first, the healing process, and their happy lovey dovey life later- that he pretty much forgot about the wedding, I was wondering if you guys would've forgotten too, but you didn't lol. Pretty much everyone asked me if I was gonna leave the wedding as a plothole lol, did you really think I would pass up the opportunity to make things more painful? I'm a terrible person.

Thanks a lot for all the comments, I was very happy with everyone's positive reactions to the kiss scene. I hope you continue to enjoy (and suffer) with this, please let me know your opinions!