12 Roses

2 | Dreams

You moved to the sound of a knock, stepping towards your front door as you put in your hearing aids and opened it to find a group of your classmates standing there, each wearing an uncomfortable expression. They were supposed to have been hanging out with Tsumiki.

"What's up?" you asked, your hands for some reason not moving to sign it, your mouth moving confidently.

"Y/N... we're so sorry... Tsumiki's in the hospital."

"What... Why?"

"She jumped off a bridge."

You slowly stepped away from the door. "A bridge...? Not the one that—"

"Yes, that one... I know you said that we shouldn't have, and that it was dangerous, but we didn't think—"

"Exactly," you snapped. "You didn't think. You just did, and this is where we are!"

"Y/N, we—"

"No, I don't— I can't have this conversation right now!"

"We're really sorry, we didn't—"

You yanked out your hearing aids and snapped, "PLEASE. GET. OUT!"

•••

You shot up in bed, your hand going to your face to find that tears had made rivers down your cheeks and dripped down your chin. You wiped them away with the back of your hand and slipped out of bed to wash your face in the washroom.

You touched everything your could, your hand against the wall, your bare feet against the hardwood floor, trying to make sure that the dream was over.

You wet your hands and washed your face, letting out a heavy, shaky sigh as your palms jabbed into your eyes, water dripping down your face and soaking your pyjamas.

When your hands finally left your face, you looked at yourself in the mirror, seeing the light pink remnants of tears at the corners of your eyes.

While clichés bored you, the dream had felt so real, even with the little details like the girls that were in your class that spoke to Tsumiki but not you. Even the house you were in was definitely yours, except the front door was actually the back door that led straight to the living space up above.

You glanced at the clock that hung in the hallway, realizing that its hands were disappointing close to six, when you had to wake up to open the shop.

A bridge, you kept repeating in your head as if that were the sound of a gong that had just been crashed near your ear, except you didn't actually know what a gong sounded like, you just knew that there often was an incessant ringing noise every time one sounded.

There weren't any bridges near the town, except for one that went over a gigantic hole in the middle of a field nearby, but if you jumped from that, the most you'd get is a bruise.

Normally you weren't kept in the dark about your dreams, but not knowing what bridge you were talking about in one occupied your mind. Even if it was just a dream, you were to make sure that Tsumiki would never go near it nonetheless.

As you flipped the open sign and put the stopper in the door to keep it from closing completely, you glanced at the clock once more.

It was taunting, that face, with the twelve numbers going all around it. It reminded you of how quickly time passed, whether you were procrastinating or realizing that eventually your times of joy must end, and yet its face never wavered. It was cruel.