Hades

Chapter Sixteen - The Confrontation

Part Two – Summer

Chapter Sixteen: The Confrontation

The next day was warm and sunny, and a lovely morning breeze with the smell of summer wafted through Harusame’s window. Hades opened his eyes, blinded by the harshly bright sunlight and awoken by the usual off-key singing, this time to The Monkees, and realised he’d been unconscious again. The top of his head seemed to split open and he grabbed hold of it, groaning with pain.

‘Hey!’ he said, ‘can you turn that down?’

‘Oh what can it mean, to a – what?’

‘I said,’ he snapped blearily, raising his voice, ‘can you turn it down?’

‘Ah, I’m sorry!’ said Harusame, reaching for the volume dial. She rose from her dressing table, giving her hair one final pat, and sat down on the bed next to him. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up.’

‘I wasn’t asleep.’

‘Right.’ She looked at the red veins in his eyes. ‘Are you okay? I didn’t hear you come back last night.’

‘Nn.’ With a dawning sense of alarm he found that his head was on her pillow. ‘Why am I in your bed?’

‘You don’t know? When I woke up you were next to me.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t care if you want to play shogi until all hours of the morning, but it’s probably not too good for your health. You look awful.’

‘I wasn’t. And thanks for that.’

He tried to gather his thoughts but his mind felt as though it were stuffed with cotton wool. He was fairly sure he’d been back in the balmy evening meadow watching that beautiful woman whose face he could not see, the warmth of his big brother’s hand squeezing his. With an effort he asked; ‘Hey; what is a dream anyway?’

‘Eh?’

‘You know, humans are always talking about what dreams they had, and what they mean.’ He looked at her, and then looked away again awkwardly. ‘So, what does it mean if you dream?’

‘I suppose…everybody dreams. To some people it’s no big deal, just your brain sorting out random information you pick up during the day. Some people also say it’s your subconscious telling you things you normally wouldn’t think about.’

‘And what do you say?’

Harusame smiled. ‘I say dreams might be all your hopes, fears and wishes rolled into one, or they might even be vision of the future or a memory from the past. But then, dreams are different for everyone.’

‘Oh.’

She hesitated. ‘What do you dream about?’

‘I told you before, I don’t sleep. If I don’t sleep I can’t dream; it’s logically impossible.’

‘Right. Then why did you ask what dreams meant?’

‘Just curious. What do you dream about?’

Harusame returned to her dresser and began to apply nail polish. ‘I used to dream about my dad. He gave me so much, and I never knew him. Then when Mum died, I dreamed about her at first too. I dreamed of all of us in a big house, spending the holidays together. Of course,’ she said quietly, ‘for the last ten years or so I’ve also dreamed of you. They’re always happy dreams.’

Harusame looked up and smiled, her eyes dazzling in the sunlight, and Hades ran his finger though his hair nervously. A liquid flow of energy, warmer and sweeter than any coffee, spread through his whole body.