you can fly even higher

sleeping plane (noya)

Nishinoya Yuu

You want to believe that you aren't falling asleep, but truth is that you aren't a good liar and your body is saying otherwise. Because anyone could see that you were falling asleep.

In your defense, you are seating on a plane after drinking your ass off at a wedding the day before, and after a terrible headache, you were now feeling drowsy. Not even the crying baby a few lines ahead of you was making you feel like you wanted to jump out of the plane, neither how uncomfortable your seat is. 

You conclude that the medicine you took for your headache was more than a simple pain killer and you were now, using your jacket as a blanket and fighting sleep, contrary to the passenger beside you, who is sleeping like nothing has happen.

Like, how the hell he can do that?

You move a little to see the man in question. His arms are cross over his chest, his head is resting almost on your seat while he snores like a truck and drools a little. Now that you think about it, he looked pretty tired before seating beside you and you aren't sure exactly when he fell asleep, but you think that it was almost immediately after the plane took off.

And the best part of all is that he is sleeping when the plane is a fucking mess of crying babies, people laughing hysterically because of the movies they are seeing, and people talking like they totally know the person who is beside them (you are 100% sure they don't).

You sigh sleepily, blinking heavily at the same time. You feel tired and you really want to sleep, but you don't trust plane rides that much to do so. At least not like the man beside you who almost appears used to this thing.

Leaning your head back on your seat, you move a little to get comfortable, but the only thing you get is a complaint from the passenger behind you and a movement of the other beside you.

A movement that made him end up with his head on your shoulder.

Saying that you freak out, is an understanding. He is a total stranger; he is sleeping, and you don't want to be rude or touch him in any way. So, you kind of panicked for a few seconds, and started thinking desperately of how you could move him without waking him up.

The thinking isn't successful, since you started to yawn soon later and then your eyes got heavier than before. A few minutes later, you gave up with the thinking thing and your eyes closed completely.

You fell asleep in the head of a total stranger on a plane ride back home.

Yuu opened his eyes when he felt his neck hurting. He is used to neck and back pains after a long flight. Hell, he is so used to traveling in this stage of his life that nothing is strange to him. He is moving to seat straight when he notices a weight on his right arm.

He stops massaging his neck and finds a head that belongs to the passenger beside him. They are snoring and way too sleep, so instead of moving them like a normal and gentle stranger will do, he simply smiles amused, because he is also used to this.

He has been traveling for a few years now, just returning home to see how things are going and to meet the person who he calls boss and that pays him for writing about his adventures. He has forgotten at this rate how many planes rides he has been on, how many different people he has met, and how many photos he has taken. He only knows that he has enjoy every single one of his little adventures and that he has learn a lot on the way.

Basically, a stranger sleeping on his shoulder is just one of the many things he knows can happen on a plane ride. He learn it a few years ago, when he was new to this traveling thing, exactly when he learned that he should sleep the entire plane ride if he wants to arrive in one piece to the hotel.

Sleeping in planes and ignoring all the noises on it, is basically his superpower as an adult, even though, he was already a specialist in sleeping everywhere, thanks to his days in training camps and too long volleyball games.

He leans back in his seat, careful to not move too much or disturb you. Luckily, you don't even notice and that is enough for Yuu, because a few seconds later, he is falling asleep again.

When you wake up a few hours later, you find that the man beside you is awake and acting normal on the fact that you slept in his shoulder all this time. You try to apologize, but he says that is okay.

He smiles gently at you and you even have a conversation with him. But then, when you leave the plane, you think that's the last time you'll see him because Japan has too many people and he told you that traveling was his thing. But then, life proves you wrong, when you're at work one day and someone says behind you:

"Is being a while, Sleeping Beauty", and that's when you understand that maybe getting drunk on that wedding, getting drowsy on that plane, and then fall asleep on his shoulder, was all meant to be.