Reverie and Nightmares

15

Ryuga cleared his teacup, as it had been too bitter for even nostalgia to cover up for; he'd imagined it as the black tea that his grandmother would prepare for him hours before bedtime and how he'd secretly hated it, hoping that her feelings wouldn't be hurt by giving the bubbliest compliments. Still, Ali Shirogane, his grandmother, wasn't here to prepare him black tea anymore.

She'd been long gone to whatever comes after death, whether nothingness, reincarnation, or heaven or hell.

He'd overgrown his beard, but not to the point that he'd appear like a lumberjack; he'd have to be too uncaring for himself to reach that point, and he'd known that his girlfriend, Mikan wouldn't like sleeping with him late at night only to dig her fingers deep in beard hair. She favored caressing his chin and the back of his neck before falling into an eight-hour slumber, and she'd gotten to the point where she'd lost the bags beneath her eyes.

A few hours ago, he'd left class and spoken to the professor about the next final for Chemistry, as he'd been struggling to gain the concept but understood it enough to scrape by without much more than a few scratches to the head.

"Bitter. Bittersweet." He spoke.

Mikan walked into the room, her hand resting on the hallway wall of their new apartment. Time has passed, hell, you think. Three years after his grandmother's death, Mikan used her winning money from the games to cover up a fraction of the cost of Ryuga's financial needs for school, and he'd worked to keep a roof over their heads.

A ring, possibly a ring with a carrot of a diamond stuck closely in Ryuga's pocket, and he'd been waiting for the moment to whip it out when he thought it was the best moment they could share in one year; he wasn't about to push that shit off for another year, no. If he'd wanted to propose to Mikan once he won the games - if he had won the games - he would've used the spare winning funds and given her an authentic ring, a promise ring, or maybe something else. He was ready to push his ideals away and, as harsh as it sounds, was ready to push her ideals to the side if it meant they could live a happier life in the end.

Their relationship only grew and grew, and at this point, they'd been living together in a two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo, something that Mikan suggested once she'd started college. It's not as if things suddenly 'turned better' once they'd left things behind, but Mikan at least thought about it.

She'd left her mother behind, but her mother, she'd not left her. Her mother was the continuation of various headaches and memories. Although her sleeping only got better the farther she was from her, there were nights when she wouldn't get a wink of rest, and Ryuga knew that perfectly. The sex often pushed such ill memories away, but there were nights when even that wasn't enough. If there were something that was pushing Mikan slowly into madness, it would be her mother and that one Halloween years ago when she'd clear as day seen her.

The ghost, or the face of a shadow, smiling at her as if they'd known each other for years. And perhaps that was the truth, yet Ryuga wouldn't be able to know that. Even though they'd been together for three years, Mikan was still secretive about those things. It would never come out of her mouth.

She wore a pink robe, and her hair was wet and moppy. She set aside her butterfly headband on the table, her grin tired and anticipating something. Ryuga knew what it had been and took her to the bedroom and gave her kisses all around her cheek, and the night passed after an exhausting day of studying and intimate cuddling.

Ryuga walked to the restroom to clean his teeth the next morning, his eyes still filled with the crud on the edges that make you want to clean out as soon as you find them and remembered the mornings his younger brother, well, adoptive brother, would rush into the bathroom with him just so that they could brush together and maybe sing along to the cartoon he'd been watching. A part deep in the realms of Ryuga had missed those days, and if he could wake up and see his buck teeth again, he'd run to the moon. But after the death of Ali, she'd left behind a minor whom she adopted.