Insomnia

Chapter 1: Caffeine Addiction

Ayumu didn't act like himself any more.  He tried to keep you in a dream constantly.  He made you sleep right through alarms and eventually get fired from your job.  You tried to find another job, and you were desperate to keep it when you succeeded in getting it, so you started to drink caffeine.

Unhealthy amounts of caffeine.  You sat in the library, twitching occasionally.  You read Alice in Wonderland, somewhat relating to the bizarre situation.  You took another long sip of your coffee. It was only 11:00am and you had gotten through 3 cups since you arrived at work. 

Your job wasn't hard, and it didn't require much interaction, so you spent most of your time filling your mind with fiction off the shelves.  The library you worked at for the past three months wasn't big, but it was large enough that one of the aspects of your job was directing people to which section was which.

Other jobs mostly included scanning books out for people and issuing library cards, and sorting books on the shelves.  It was a pretty decent job, and the pay was good considering you didn't do much and you could read to your hearts content.

Whenever you felt your eyes droop, you took another sip of coffee, but it was almost as though you could hear Ayumu calling for you in the world of dreams. Tomorrow was your day off.  You would sleep all day to make up for the past few nights. 

A common strategy to avoid being trapped in your subconsciousness was to be almost falling asleep, then chug a large, high caffeine energy drink or iced coffee. Then, when you fell asleep, not even Ayumu could keep you from waking up an hour or so later.

You spent most time indulging yourself in the world of fiction, to pass the time and to keep your mind off of your dream world.  You had tried to go to the doctor for sleeping medication, hoping there would be something to help the dreams go away, but nothing ever worked.

The more you resisted sleep, the more Ayumu grew angry, and the worse the dream would be. You finally got the opportunity to leave and go home after a few hours of reading.  You stretched and yawned as you closed the door to your apartment.  It wasn't anything to brag about, but you preferred it small, with minimal decoration and saturated colours, which should make it harder to fall asleep, though you didn't know how true that was.

You had few friends, but someone who wouldn't leave you be was your coworker.  He probably had a thing for you, but you were too tired all the time to care or notice much, you would even forget his name half of the time, if not for the name tag he wore.

You didn't keep a lot of contact with your parents, you were never that close to them in your younger years, having preferred to spend time with Ayumu rather than them.  Sometimes you wondered how things would have ended up if you didn't choose Ayumu over them.

There wasn't much point in dwelling on the subject, what's done is done, and it was in the past now.  You changed into comfier clothes, most likely to wear to sleep in around half an hour later, and took out some paperwork on a new shipment of books. 

There was a book festival coming up, and a famous author would be coming next week to sign books.  You wanted to finish her newest book before she came for the signing, since you were a big fan.  It wouldn't be hard to start a conversation, since you were the one organising the event. 

You yawned again, and picked up the book, which you had just started a few minutes prior to finishing your shift.   Taking the bookmark out, your eyes tiredly skimmed the lines, the caffeine was wearing off.  Sunday being your only free day, you didn't want to spend all of it sleeping, so you allowed the world of sleep, Ayumu included, to take over your consciousness for the time being.

"Y/n, I missed you,"  was the first thing that was said.  You waved sluggishly, despite never being tired in the dream world.  Ayumu ignored your lack of enthusiasm.  He has most likely picked up the fact that over the years you simply wished that he would let you live your life.  He handed you a snack, and struck up a conversation about your day, which was left open for interpretation, since there wasn't much to say.

Changing the subject, "who's the author at the book signing next week again?"

"Sora Chiyoye," you didn't give much detail about her.  She was highly spiritual and did things such as palm reading in her spare time, and typically wrote dark novels, featuring many tragic endings, and for once it felt nice knowing that happily ever after was not to be expected, even in a fake reality.  Not that he didn't know already.

A while was spent with Ayumu, reciting the events of the past few days in which you had not spoken to him.  "I do wish you'd visit me more often, y/n, it's so lonely in here," he pressed on insistently. 

"I have my own life, we've discussed this," you were impatient when it came to this subject, as you had repeatedly told him why you needed a balance between sleeping and reality.  He gave you a solemn look, before plunging you into darkness.

You woke up, 3PM, Sunday afternoon.  This was an unexpected turn of events.  You got dressed, then headed out of your room to get something to eat.  It was a short corridor, but it was taking a while to walk through it, in fact, you didn't seem to be moving at all.  You thought the rising temperature was due to your growing panic, but upon further contemplation, the air seemed to be heavy with heat too. 

And gradually, you couldn't breathe, it was the smothering, suffocating fight to obtain oxygen, but the air seemed to be dense and unpleasant.  Nevertheless, you tried to inhale, the pain of absence of air in your lungs greater than the fear of the steam taking its place.  Your lungs burned, the hot air making you breathe out rapidly, until you were on the floor, breathing in and out uncontrollably as your body tried to expel the toxic air and replenish your cells with fresh oxygen. 

Until the last of the poison left your lips, then you went limp, lying on the floor in your fluffy pyjamas, never having gotten to live properly due to Ayumu's impulsive actions which kept you trapped in a prison of sleep.