Thoughtography | IwaOi |

Chapter 6: Stop

Oikawa POV

Book protagonists will always have a dream with some sort of message: some sort of guidance or lesson; a hint on what to do next. It's a good way for authors to drop clues for a plot twist, or to tell the protagonist something so they don't have to come up with a long explanation as to why a side character would know this.

If you can't already tell, I'm not exactly fit for the role of protagonist.

So you can imagine my surprise when I had one of these types of dreams and, no, before you jump to conclusions, I was not contacted by my deceased father, secretly the king of another dimension, who's been watching over me from the past life and has entered my dreams to tell me that I'm a wizard Harry.

No.

It began with me, sitting on an empty beach, the setting sun sending sparkles over the crashing waves. It burned so bright, brighter than usual. Or maybe it was just the contrast, considering the sky was completely dark, and so was the rest of the beach, as if the sun had refused to set on time. The ocean was silent, replaced with the kind of white noise you'd expect from a broken radio. If that wasn't already weird enough, I wasn't alone.

And no, this wasn't a lucid dream where I had control over the situation. It was as if I knew where I was and what I was doing there, like there was purpose to it. Like I was supposed to be there.

Iwa-chan cleared his throat but didn't say a word. We just sat side-by-side in silence, staring into the sun, feeling the sand beneath our skin, sinking deeper into the cold. Sinking. Sinking.

I was slipping through the sand as if it were water, thrashing, reaching towards the empty sky. Sand fell down my throat like I was a living hourglass, every second meaning more and more sand filling my lungs and restricting my breath.

I was fully submerged, darkness all around until . . .

It was as if I'd reached the centre of the earth, slipping from the sand and into a gravity free void. But then it changed, and suddenly I was in a classroom. Or more specifically, my classroom, sitting in my desk as the teacher wrote up on the board. Every desk around me was empty. Except for one.

Iwa-chan was beside me again, watching me with the quirk of a smile on his lips.

"Tooru," The teacher said, turning around, revealing my sisters face. "Stop talking during class."

I nodded and opened my book, which had Iwa-chan's name scrawled all over every line and every margin, some in print, some in cursive, some pressed hard into the paper with jagged lines. Iwa-chan leaned over my shoulder to look at it, but didn't say anything. He just laughed. An angelic, trickling sort of laugh that just made you want to join in. That made you warm from the inside out. It was so perfect and crisp that it was literally like music to my ears.

But it wasn't Iwa-chan's laugh.

I knew that straight away.

My ears started ringing. I told him to stop. I told him to shut up. Why wouldn't I when a complete stranger's voice was coming out of his mouth? He had to stop. But he kept going, most likely just to spite me. He kept laughing like harp strings strummed by delicate fingers. He kept laughing like I'd told the funniest joke on earth, even though I hadn't said a thing. He kept laughing like the angel he is.

But I didn't want to join in anymore.

I wanted him to stop.

I wanted him to stop laughing.

I wanted him to stop making my ears ring.

I wanted him to stop.

Stop.