Title: Morning Light
Pairing: None (unless you count Nino x his neechan loljk)
Notes: Since I love my ojii-san who doesn't look a day older than seventeen, my little way of saying thanks for being an inspiration to a lot of people. Picture prompts of Ninomiya for 30 days until his 30th birthday! This fic inspired from
this picture.
Summary: The darkness before the dawn that reflects only on those open eyes.
The morning was crisp and clear, and although he was up all night gaming he feels strangely refreshed. He placed his controller down on the pillow on his lap, the screen gleaming in the dark room slowly getting brightened by dawn.
Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he pulled his hoodie and the comforter wrapped around him closer to his body, chilly from lack of sleep and the winter air. He saved his game three times (you can never be too sure of these things) then moved slowly to stand up. When he finally does, he goes to the window and nudges the curtains open, looking out to the neighborhood he had grown up in, the place he can truly call home. He fingered the faded yellow paper star taped next to his window absentmindedly, then stretched out his arms
Smiling to himself, he went out of his room and tiptoed past the doors of what used to be his sister's room, putting on the hood of his jacket as he quietly crept out of his room to the quiet street of his still-asleep neighborhood. Shuffling quietly in his short pants and sandaled feet, he tucked his hands in the pockets of his jacket and went on without a particular destination in mind.
Maybe because of habit or memory, he found himself going to the nearby park. Since the kids are all still dreaming about some adventure or saving the galaxy with their Kamen Rider action figures tucked into their little fists, he didn't have to jostle for his turn for the slide or the swings with children that barely came up to his waist. Climbing up the ladder of the slide, he squatted down on the top and let his legs lie flat on the slide, looking up at the moon at the distance and how the colors of the sky changed slowly from inky midnight blue to a subtle mix of violet, orange and pale yellow. He held up his left hand, making to grab the moon in his palm and closing his fist over it in the distance, chuckling to himself at how childish he can be when he was alone. He also remembered how scared he was when the moon wasn't round in the sky. He thought the dragon from his favorite game was eating it slowly, bit by bit, until there wasn't anything left. He never told anyone about it (because his sister would laugh at him and his parents would either just tell him to stop worrying or take his games away), but he closed his curtains every night. Scared that maybe the day will come that he can't see the moon anymore, and somehow it would be his fault because he never told anyone about the dragon.
Then one night he had woken up crying about dragons eating the moon and saying the word "sorry" over and over again.
Before he went to sleep the next day, his sister entered his room. Silently, he watched her tape a yellow paper star on the wall near his window. Silently, she sat down next to him.
"As long as you have this star, the dragon won't eat the moon," she had said. Then she poked his forehead and they ended up in a tickling war, waking up their parents next door. Before his sister left she poked her head back through the doorway and grinned at him.
"Sleep well kiddo."
"I will!"
"Don't wet yourself crying for me okay."
"I DON'T WET MY BED MOU."
"Hai hai~"
"...Neechan...?"
"Hm?"
"...Arigatou."
She just smiled, then told him to go to bed.
The moon-eating dragon never came back except in his game. Soon he finished that game and forgot about it, but never forgot about the star that his sister gave him.
Until now.
Now he chuckled to himself, thinking how he really was still a child.
"In a maze of the dreams that scared me when I was a kid... What I found when I kept searching was a guiding star..." he silently muses. How apt.
Pulling his knees to his chest, he hugs his knees and rests his chin on them, watching as the sky slowly changes color.
Watching as the night turns to day.
Watching as the dark turns to light.