Insomnia

Chapter 2: Downward Spiral

You clutched your head and groaned. Another punishment from Ayumu. He always had a new way to make you suffer, didn't he?  Though the suffocating warmth had left you, a cold feeling now wrapped around your body, which had been sweating while you were asleep.

You silently cursed Ayumu, and groggily changed out of your clothes, since they were drenched. Looking at the clock on the wall in your room, which was in front of your bed so that you could see exactly how long you had slept as soon as you woke up, and it was just past 10:00 am.

You had a whole day to enjoy without being in constant danger of falling asleep. Just in case, and because you knew from experience, you still boiled water for a cup of coffee. You relaxed in your living room, taking your time with your coffee and your head buzzing with the pleasant feeling of sleeping for too long.

You considered setting an alarm for tomorrow and getting some extra rest for tomorrows event, but after wavering with your thumb above the set alarm button, you decided it was too risky.  You felt like Ayumu was mocking you, but you ignored it and opened your fridge, scanning the contents. 

You sighed, you had wanted a laid-back day where you could finish your book, but it would seem that you would need to go grocery shopping.  No matter, there was always tonight.  After all, the average person uses up around five hundred calories when reading for six hours straight, you'd need the refreshments.

You dressed warmly, wary of the cold weather outside as late January transitioned to early February. At least the winter months were coming to an end, it was easy to oversleep when it was darker outside. Thankfully, there weren't so many people in the shop this early, so you took your time browsing the isles searching for your favourite energy drinks, debating between the different flavours.

"Hey, y/n! What are the odds of seeing you here, eh? I thought you'd still be hibernating!" Your ears perked up at the familiar voice and your face contorted into a scowl. You quickly dropped the expression when he came closer.

"Hi... uh..." you looked, by habit, down to his shirt where his name tag usually was, but duh, who wears a name tag to the store? "Hey Tom, yeah what a coincidence." Tom raised an eyebrow, and broke out into a smile.

"It's Toshiaki, Tom's the American one who was travelling and worked with us for a few weeks," he corrected. Oh well, god loves a trier. You nodded, deciding to just get three drinks of each flavour and make a run for it with your heart attack inducing groceries and avoid Tom, or Tomn't.

"Well, it was nice to see you, but I need to get going now." And you didn't wait for a response or reaction to your lie before turning on your heel and heading for the snacks isle. Sadly for you, you're y/n, so it doesn't go this smoothly.

Tom, or Tomn't, grabs your wrist.  As you are about to scream and demand a restraining order, he asks: "are you sure you're okay?   At work you're drinking caffeine like it's water, and your basket is just different types of coffee and monsters.  I mean, your eyelids are basically purple."

Well, you couldn't argue with that, so you add another lie to the pile, "yeah I'm good," you dragged out the word so that it sounded more like guuuuuuuuuuud. As you stretched out the vowel, you also wriggled your wrist, trying to slip from Tomn't's iron grip. He opened his mouth to say something else, but with a bit of sweat you managed to squirm yourself away and shout bye as you speed-walked to the snack section.

You grabbed whatever sweet and savoury treats you were in the mood for, then went to pay for them.  You preferred to scan them out yourself, but sometimes you had to use the till, particularly when the shop wasn't busy, and predictably, the young girl (likely a part-timer) with the shop uniform looked you up and down, and with an uncertain expression began scanning your various sources of caffeine.

You didn't stop anywhere else; if you ran out of things to eat you could drop by after work. You sighed in relief as you shut your door, taking a moment to appreciate the silence and warmth of your apartment.  Though the new year had passed, it was still cold, and you brushed crumbs of snow off your gloves.

You settled down on a beanbag with what was only your second cup of coffee of the day and your book, which you aimed to finish before Monday's shift started.  When the sun started to sink, you had only snapped out of the trance that the book had over you to turn on the lights in the room.  You felt slightly drowsy, and so eyed your cup of coffee: half empty.  You tentatively took a sip before pulling a face, it had gone cold.  

You sighed, and went to dump the contents of the cup into the sink.  You put more water on to boil, and decided that you may as well finish another page of the book while you waited.  At this point, you were quite the reader, so you had easily trekked through two thirds of the book now, you would easily finish it by tomorrow.  You reluctantly tore your eyes from the words on the paper to mix instant coffee with the now boiled water.

Your eyelids were drooping, so you figured you'd take a sip right away, but you burnt your tongue.  Yelping, you steadied your hand so that you wouldn't spill the beverage on the floor.  You cursed quietly and placed it on the table, picking up your book and making the wise decision of letting the coffee cool slightly before you drank it, however hopefully not to the extent it had earlier.

The sun had fully set, and you focused your attention on your book intently.  Final chapter, it wouldn't take long now.  You quickly flipped to the back page, taking great care not to read anything that could spoil the ending, and checked the number.  Doing some quick math, there were only around twenty pages left.  You did a quiet cheer and proceeded with chapter 30, who knows how the author made the book interesting this far in, you'd have typically predicted what would happen by now, but the book just made you keep guessing.  

Sadly for you, this aspect of the story made you once again neglect your coffee, at least you hadn't wasted milk with it too.  It must've been around 3AM when you fell asleep, still holding onto your book.  Later, you had a moment where you jolted awake, certain that you hadn't even properly been asleep, only to focus on the fact that the room was brighter than it seemed to be two seconds ago.  It took you a minute to figure out that it was daytime, and you didn't know if you should be panicking about the electricity bill or the possibility that you would be late for work, therefore late for meeting the author.  

In horror, you flipped to where your hand acted as a bookmark, you hadn't even finished the book yet, there were five pages to go.  You finally reacted, and shot up to dress.  You kept looking at the clock, estimating how long it would take you to do what.  You counted how long you brushed your teeth and made sure to not waste a single second doing nothing, you could still make it if you hurried and kept your focus on the task at hand. 

What helped was the fact that you had slept so well, there was a surprising lack of Ayumu in your dream, or, well, just your sleep.  Was he angry at you?  No, he would've kept you asleep and made you late.  Did he feel bad about what he had done last time?  Unlikely, it wasn't the first time he'd done something like that.  Could it be that he had given up?  Impossible, surely, but there was no other explanation, and since you didn't want to waste any more time, you settled for it as you bolted out of your apartment.