[02/02] Insomnia
Insomnia
Sho. Dreams. Precognition.
An Arashi Two-Shot
January 2012
Summary
What bothers Sakurai Sho most about his nights isn’t waking up naked or half-naked every time. That’s just television, and as always in the entertainment world, the most shocking discoveries take place off-cam.
< Insomnia Part 01
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He leaned over the dashboard and stared up at her apartment building. With the sunglasses gone, she could see very clearly the disbelief on his face, the unceasing prayer that this, too, was a dream. “No matter how you think about it, you live too close to my house. You didn’t choose this place on purpose, did you?”
She resisted the urge to smack him. “Would it even make a difference if I said no?”
For a heartbeat he considered her. “I’m sorry for being difficult about this - I’m being difficult about this, am I not?” He sighed exhaustedly, rubbed his eyes and admitted, “I know this is awkward for you, too. I’ve only been having these dreams for a year but you’ve been having them for a much longer time, right? It must be troublesome having nightmares all the time-”
“Nightmares,” she repeated in a hollow voice, positive he had was merely toying with his words to pacify her. “I’ve gotten used to nightmares. They pay the bills, you know? And frankly, I’ve had worse dreams than a random stranger taking me out to dinner.”
“Out of curiosity though,” Sakurai suddenly asked, eyebrows knitted, “in what other scenarios have we ever been in together? I mean - aside from those I’ve tried to recall for my dream chart-”
“Somehow, I’m not sure you’re better off knowing-”
“Aw, come on, I’m part of the drama here, too,” And here she thought she sensed genuine curiosity in the way he chose to ask. “I think I deserve to know what I’ve done in your head.”
“What you’ve done in my head, right? Well-” She sighed and thought back on which images were safe enough to reveal to him. “We’ve gone on random dates. Lots of them, apparently - because there’s this one dream where we spend the whole night in a convenience store, and another one where we collapse drunk in a karaoke bar… We walked in the park quite often, too, and always at night, eerily enough. I think I may have met your grandmother?”
She brought both hands to her face as she shut her eyes to force the images back into her vision. “We once bought a dog. Or a cat - I couldn’t really tell. Also, we’ve kissed,” she cursed her voice for faltering momentarily, “in this car. Which is awkward. But - really.” She lifted her face and chased the flashbacks away with a shake of her head. “There are a lot of things you’re definitely better off not knowing.”
“Oh,” was all Sakurai said. She didn’t have to be a psychic to sense the aura of tension that filled the space between the two of them. “I see.” He cleared his throat. “You have a pretty active imagination, don’t you?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No, no, no! I’m - I’m definitely taking this very seriously. Very seriously, seriously-”
A beat of silence. Suddenly, she felt one with her generation. It was that proverbial awkward moment when she didn’t know the right moment to get out of his car.
“Um.” She began by taking her seatbelt off. Maybe it was better to keep staring at the dashboard, if only to avoid meeting those eyes. “Thanks for the ride then. You didn’t have to-”
“It’s no big deal,” he replied nonchalantly, running his hands around the steering wheel. “I live around here anyway-”
“Oh yeah, you mentioned that earlier-”
“Yeah, I think I might have-” A pause. “I’m sure I have…”
She smiled at the unexpected showcase of awkwardness, the side of him she was sure he reserved for television, the naïve side she thought people didn’t get to witness in real life. Was he acting a role out for her, then? The character of a dorky, lovable bachelor caught in the oddest circumstance of his life?
Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.
“If I may say one more thing,” Arimi couldn’t help herself, “a lot of my dreams haven’t come true because of my intervention, Sakurai-san. Deaths have been avoided, disasters have been prevented, etc.” She glanced up for one moment and saw him listening. She quickly looked back at her hand, the most interesting thing in the world. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t want you to lose even more sleep because of these dreams. Try to think of them as just dreams, just fantasies that have no probability of coming true.”
For some reason, her throat had started hurting.
“These dreams, they might not even play out in reality for all we know,” she continued, eyes skittering as she did her best to verbalize what she told herself each night. “Just because we’re granted a vision of the future doesn’t mean our future - our separate futures - are set in stone. We might never meet again after this day. And. What I’m trying to say, really, is-”
Arimi held his stare. “I wish you wouldn’t worry.”
In the twenty plus years of her life so far, Taniyama Arimi believed there was no moment as surreal as the present one. Eyes never leaving her, gaze softer than she thought possible, Sakurai Sho watched her blush with amusement, clearly enjoying every moment she fidgeted before him.
“I don’t think I’ll be too worried from now on.” His voice sounded oddly close, as though he was whispering straight into her ear. Slowly resting his face against the steering wheel, arms raised absently around his face, he smiled. “You’re not such a bad person that I’d want nothing to do with you.” The smile widened, more for himself than for anyone else, but the fact made the movement no less charming. “I guess I’d always known that though, that there was a reason I was dreaming of you, and not of anyone else.”
Arimi couldn’t breathe. Raising a hand over her nose to hide her embarrassment, she made a quick bow and rushed away in a panic. Her heartbeat was racing, no, drumming - a strange battle hymn she was sure she had never once heard before. Up a flight of stairs, past the front door, down on her couch, and deep into her pillows. She concentrated on counting slowly - one to ten - concentrated on regaining her pace, her bearings. One alpaca jumped over the fence. Two alpaca jumped over the fence. The last few minutes had been a blur, a blur that would be etched in her mind for always. Three alpaca jumped over the fence. Four alpaca - dammit!
She could still see that smile.
__
He could hear somebody calling for him from far, far away.
When he opened his eyes, he found a bundle of pigtails and energy sitting right on top of his middle, naturally bouncing against his blanket as though waking him was something she did everyday. “Papa, papa,” the little girl said, the collar of her uniform flapping softly as she continue to bounce, “Papa, we ate omurice today, Papa. Isn’t that your favorite? Mama made it for you-”
A bunch of unintelligible words that sounded like gibberish even to his ears. Holding the girl securely, her tiny hands closing in on the arms that held her, he turned to the nightstand and squinted at the clock he knew would be there-
Six-fifteen in the morning. It was only freakin’ six-fifteen in the morning.
Too lost to argue with the girl who held his hand, he allowed himself to be guided out of his tousled, tangled sheets, never mind that he was wearing only boxers and a shirt. The house was pristine in that hour of the morning, the sunlight filtering through large windows, illuminating the white walls and the furniture he knew had been brought in by a professional. Who had chosen them again? He wondered as he walked groggily past a view of the garden, the small space unexpectedly green and full of life. From a distance he heard water gushing, and he felt the morning sharpen.
Past a maze of hallways lined with disarming photos - lined with paintings and faces of familiar people in unfamiliar lands. There was a beautiful piano alone in a large room, its cover raised, sheets set in front of it. Another hallway, a short flight of stairs. On days like this he realized just how overblown the design had been - maybe she had been right about it after all…
In the dining room cum kitchen a boy stood frowning before his book bag. One book in, two books out, an assortment of things on the table by the plates, an assortment of things he had learned to appreciate for quite a few years now. As he and his angel entered, the boy at the table looked up from his books, his face and his eyes as strikingly familiar as his sister’s. Frowning, immobile, he accused the girl, “You woke him up! Mama told you not to!”
But she merely released her hold of his hand and skipped to a corner, hair flying, shrieking.
Suddenly, a figure straightened up from behind the marble counter, her face troubled, eyes searching. He saw that her clothes were too neat for such an ungodly hour, that her face had been made up, meticulously painted so she seemed almost painfully beautiful.
For a moment she just stood there, with her deep, dark eyes.
“Sorry.” One word and the day was real, undeniable. She walked around the counter, still distractedly searching, as she vaguely made the offer, “Would you like some omurice then?”
The boy had finished his first task for the day. Looking up at his father with something akin to extreme pity, he raised both arms and rested his head on the man’s middle, before running after the sister who had raced out of the room with a bellow and a flurry of footsteps. Before he managed to digest the chaos, however, she miraculously swept out a plate on the table, a mug of steaming coffee beside it.
“Take things easy today, all right?” She grabbed a dark blue blazer from the back of a chair and planted a swift kiss on his cheek. “I’ve left some things for you to microwave, just call me if something goes wrong-”
“Don’t worry too much. You’re running late, aren’t you?” His was voice was odd in the morning, sounding hoarse and oddly disused. “I might have to go to a meeting later anyway-”
“But you just got back from Germany-”
“Well, you know.” He tried for a grin. “Hard being popular.”
His wife’s eyebrows narrowed, but to her credit, she tried to hide her displeasure. “You’re an idiot.” A swat on the arm and another swift kiss before she was out of the room like the children, her heels clicking almost irritably against the pale, tiled floor. Feeling more alone than ever, he sighed and settled on his seat at one end of the table, disgruntled and wretched as he watched the steam rise from his meal. From a distance, he heard the sound of the gate being opened, the car being slammed shut, the hum of the engine, and the unobtrusive departure of his family.
Awake but depressed, he took his mug in his hands, took a swig. The coffee had been done just the way he liked it: strong and simple and calming-
There had been nothing like this in Berlin.
He thought of his schedule for the day, pondered the unbelievably slim amount of free time he had, wondered if he would make it to his son’s first game for this season. In Berlin, he had eaten his breakfasts alone - one hotel, then another, the food good, but oddly stale. Tomorrow, he promised himself, taking another sip of his coffee, tomorrow he would wake up earlier to join them.
Sho sighed.
He had never thought it would cause so much trouble, a life where he learned how to sleep too well.
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She opened her eyes.
There was a sea of blankets and pillows around her, all brown and all unmistakably male. On his side of the bed, back turned, sat Sho, staring straight into his laptop, headphones on, laughing away at something only he, with his angle, could see. Blinking away sleep, Arimi just stared at him without calling, not saying a thing, until he sensed her eyes on his figure, and turned his face her way to check. She looked up at his untroubled expression, and somehow knew he couldn’t sleep. Yet again.
“Sorry,” he whispered, edging close. “Did I wake you?”
She shook her head ‘no’, murmured something to her pillow, and shared, “Dream. I may have developed a new ability. Something along the lines of telepathy and precognition. Or a combination? I’m not sure-”
“Wanna tell me?”
“Nah.” She turned to one side to better look at him, as he, for his part, bent deeper. “Not yet. Skill needs refinement. In any case, this is classified information. If I tell you, you’ll have to die.”
"It doesn’t go that way, dearest,” he corrected, laughing softly. Raising a finger to her hair, he eased the loose strands away from her face and, with a pleasant expression, thought aloud, “You know, I’ve always thought it fascinating how you can think instantly after waking up. I can never seem to do that. But you and Nino can - it’s unfair.”
“I suppose we all have to be good at something. What use would I be if I couldn’t dream when I had to?” She pulled at her sheets, and fluffed her pillow. “It’s as natural to me as falling asleep, which! I’m about to get back to now.”
He laughed softly one more time, reaching for her hand with his own. “Hey, don’t go back to sleep - keep me company. What on Earth are you doing?” A laugh. Tired and hoarse, but genuine - real.
She turned her back to him, and reached for his hand, wove his fingers with hers. She smiled into her pillow, felt him stretch beside her, felt him reach for her. “I’m researching.” She closed her eyes softly. “For future reference, I guess?”
She felt him close his eyes and smile.
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Insomnia End.
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A/N
Good God. That was long. I wanted to make it a One-Shot but LJ rejected it - too long - so... Thank you so much for making it to the end! Because, yes, that pathetic conversation is The End. I was aiming for a Banana Yoshimoto-esque ending. Haha.
On a side note, the Silver Wolf is Sakurai-san’s manager, or at least one of his managers? Taniyama Arimi is generally based on a character from Ghost Hunt, Taniyama Mai. Although, I think I may have failed, and mixed too much of my personality with hers.
Happy 30th, Sakurai Sho-san! [25 January 2012]