You Can't Love A Dead Person

Oikawa's POV

"Iwa-Chan?" I whisper, softly tapping his shoulder. I know it is late, but I could use some comforting cuddles right about now. Some nights I am fine, but recently, I've been having nightmares at three or four in the morning, and I can't fall asleep after them.

"Why the fuck are you awake? It's like 4," Iwa complains. I glance over at the alarm clock beside our bed, and sure enough, it is 4:08 a.m.

"I'm having nightmares," I explain. I know it's silly that I get all worried about such small things as bad dreams, but I can never shake what happens, then end up staying up the whole night assuring myself it was just a bad dream, and I'm over reacting.

"I don't care. Go to sleep, Dumbass," Iwa says, pulling a pillow over his head. He clearly has no intention of listening to me at this hour.

"Iwa-Chan, will you stay up and talk to me for a little bit? Please," I say, pulling the pillow off of him "I just need to be with you right now," I plead. Iwa must have already fallen asleep, because he doesn't respond. Either that or he is just ignoring me. I sigh and tumble out of bed.

Carefully, as to not run into anything in the dark, I make my way to the kitchen in our apartment. I reach over granite island turn on a small LED light that I installed for nights like this. Now that the kitchen is illuminated, I can find something to do until morning.

It's 4:12 now, so there isn't any point in trying to go back to sleep. I have my first class at 7:30, so I have to be up by 6:00. It would take me at least an hour to fall back asleep, and by then, I would only get like 45 minutes of sleep. There's hardly any point in that.

"Guess I'll go on a run," I say to myself. I place a coffee filter in our coffee machine and set it to make 2 cups. I quietly sneak back into Iwa and my bedroom to grab a pair of running shorts and one of his t-shirts. I walk into our bathroom to change out og my PJs, and frown when I see myself in the mirror. I've had body issues for a while, but they have gotten worse since I've started college. I stand in the full length mirror, picking out my imperfections.

I have broad shoulders, but my arm and back muscles aren't very prominent, and I'm so skinny. "I need to work out more," I tell myself. "That's the only way I can gain muscle weight." My hair is a mess, but I don't bother to comb through it, it will look bad either way. Despite spending a good amount of time in the sun, my skin is incredibly pale. I stare at myself in the mirror until the coffee machine starts beeping, indicating that it's done brewing. I toss Iwa's shirt over my skinny frame, and pull on the running shorts I grabbed earlier.

As I walk into the kitchen, I eye a blueberry muffin on the counter, but decide not to eat it. "You haven't even worked out yet. No eating until you finnish your run." I pour myself a cup of coffee, and drink it, leaving the other cup for when I get back.

I grab my phone off the charging station in the living room, and put my tennis shoes on. I scribble a note down explaining that I couldn't sleep and I'm going on a run on a receipt from last week and leave it on the kitchen table for when Iwa wakes up.

With that, I jog down the stairs of our apartment building and down the street. Iwa and I live on campus, so whenever I go on morning runs, I usually just jog around downtown for an hour or so.

"Damn it!" I say to myself. I must have forgotten my earbuds at home. I'm already about a mile away, so I decided that I'll just run without music. I hate running without music because it gives me nothing to distract myself with. I am just alone with my thoughts.

My mind goes back to the nightmare I had a few hours ago. I was with Iwa in the volleyball gym back at Aoba Johsai. We were playing against Nekoma, and it was match point. It was Nekoma's serve, and Kuroo was up. He served it over, and Watari passed it to me, but when I went to set it, my hands didn't move. I don't know, but I couldn't set it. The ball dropped and my whole team looked at me, disappointed.

Iwa was furious, he scolded me for letting the set drop, and yelled that the team would better off without me. He explained that the only reason he was dating me was because it made me perform better in games, but since I did so bad, he thought it wasn't even worth it. Iwa had broken up with me, and no one on the team would talk to me. I was alone.

Around mile 2, I start to feel out of breath and have a headache. I'm tempted to slow down, but I have to maintain an 8 minute mile pace for volleyball anyway, so I need to keep going. The sun still hasn't risen, but the moon is setting, so I imagine it will be light out within an hour or so.

My lungs start to burn and I feel dizzy. "Just a quick break, then I'll keep running." I tell myself. I stop by a lamp post to stretch and catch my breath, but stumble as I jog up to it. I panic as my vision blurs. I can't see it happening, but I feel myself falling.