No More Nightmares
(Return to Shin's PoV)
—
And then, after Akane's big reveal that completely shattered every single cell of Kurone during all these years, the place around us became a place separated from the rest of the world where only me and her existed.
Akane kept snuggling into my chest, and she kept mumbling my name occasionally, while gently squeezing me with her arms.
It was such a beautiful sensation, and I felt so loved in that moment. Everything seemed too good to be real for me.
Akane loved me so much, and... I knew that I was starting to feel the same way. My heart was officially healing since I had finally made my decision.
I wanted Akane with me, for now and for the rest of my days.
The fact that I had already met her explained the sense of familiarity I felt throughout our conversations. Akane knew exactly how to push all my buttons to heal me in such a short time because Ren knew everything about me and memorized it.
A true angel. That was the only description I could find to say who Akane was.
"Mmmh... hold me tighter, Shin... cuddle me, please..." Akane said, her nose gently rubbing against my chest, followed by a small 'barrage' of kisses.
"Oookay... guess you deserve to be spoiled for now," I said, before kissing her forehead. Then, my fingers gently pet her head while holding her tighter against me.
Her foot was gently grazing the lower part of my leg, a whisper of a touch that said everything.
"Oh... so goooooood~ mmh..." Akane whispered, snuggling more into my chest. "I love you soooo muuuuuch~."
Ah damn... those three damn words. They sent a shiver down my spine.
My heart was screaming to say "I love you too," but my soul knew that it wasn't the right time.
I wanted to say it properly during a special moment, which is why I decided to surprise her at the school festival.
It would've required some time, yes, but... I had decided that I wanted to be with her, and only her.
"Akane..." I whispered into her ear while brushing away some of her hair, leaning closer.
Her eyes snapped open, but gently, and then she reached up until our lips were only inches apart.
"What is it, Shin?" Akane asked, gently caressing my cheek, her voice as soft as silk. "I'm too tired for another round, and I want to enjoy my special and deserved cuddle moment." She said, clearly teasing me.
I giggled a little. "Well, the idea of another round is really tempting, but... I wanted to say... goodnight, and thank you for... all you've done for me. I mean it. Kurone is literally dead for me now. I can't think about anything else but you. I want you, and... I want a new start, with us." I said, my thumb gently rubbing her cheek.
Akane's breath hitched for a second, but then, her lips curved into a soft, beautiful smile.
"You're the worst person when it comes to timing, you know that?" She said in a soft voice. "But... me too. And we'll start by going to school together every single day." Akane added, before kissing me. "But now... the first thing I want to do is to sleep, here, in your arms. Don't you dare leave my side. Even if I'm gonna stop your blood circulation." She said after pulling away.
"Haha... fine. I'll be your body pillow tonight. I'm all yours, Ren. Just pay for my medical bills if you're gonna ruin my blood circulation." I said, teasing her.
"Good answer, Ishikawa, but I won't pay for your bills. That's your responsibility as my boyfriend. Love can be painful sometimes, even physically." She said, pinching my cheek.
She said "my boyfriend". That made me so happy.
"Boyfriend? Are we a couple now?" I asked, still teasing her.
"Well, we just had wild sex, we act like two stupid lovebirds, and we cook for each other. If we're not a couple, then... what's this?" She said. "We surely aren't friends."
"You're right, I guess. Then... Is it official? Just like this? Shouldn't this require... I don't know, like... a proper romantic moment under the moonlight where I ask you to officially start dating?" I asked, my thumb still rubbing her cheek, while my eyes were locked into her beautiful golden stars.
"Nah. This is much better. From now on, you're officially my boyfriend, and I'm your girlfriend. I won't accept any other answer other than 'Yes, my mistress', okay?" Akane replied, her hand gently intertwining with mine.
"Okay then. Yes, we'll be an official couple." I said, bringing her hand close to my mouth to kiss it.
"Good boy~" She said before leaning in to kiss me.
That was a kiss full of love, I could feel it.
I could feel it in the soft, slow pressure of her mouth, in the way her fingers lingered against my jaw.
I reached my arms around her naked back, gripping the smooth skin, pulling her down as close to my torso as physically possible, squeezing her against my frame as if I were structurally terrified that the morning sun would realize she was too good for this world and make her disappear.
After a few beautiful, suspended moments, she slowly pulled her face away, a warm, radiant smile gracing her features in the dark.
"Goodnight, my boyfriend ghost boy~," she whispered, her voice a soft, sleepy vibration against my lips.
She dropped her head back down onto the center of my chest, her dark hair splaying out across my skin, and threw her leg heavily over mine, anchoring herself to my side.
"Goodnight, my girlfriend death lady~," I replied softly, leaning down to press one final kiss into her hair.
Underneath the covers, I felt her slender fingers begin to move lightly, tracing faint, aimless paths over my bare chest.
That was a rhythmic, almost subconscious scratching, a tiny movement that grew slower and heavier as the seconds ticked away, yet she kept touching me—as if she were fundamentally terrified that the exact microsecond she stopped, I would simply evaporate into the shadows of the bedroom.
Then... the darkness came. And there wasn't a single nightmare. No phantoms of the school courtyard, no suffocating waves of apathy, and no monsters hiding in the corners of my mind.
In that moment, the dark didn't feel like an enemy.
—
When I opened my eyes again, the transformation was complete.
The thick, murky shadows of the pre-dawn hours had vanished entirely, and the bright morning light was filtering cleanly through the gaps in the window blinds, painting the entire bedroom in a warm, rich, almost golden hue.
That morning, the very first thing I perceived upon waking was her weight.
Akane was still right there, draped heavily and securely across my chest, her bare body perfectly aligned and stuck against mine under the duvet as if our frames had been specifically engineered from birth to fit together.
The physical reality of her warmth was the immediate, unyielding proof that the night before hadn't been a fever dream.
The second thing I perceived was the rhythm of her breathing.
It was slow and perfectly regular... deep and unburdened, different from the one where she had been forced to sit on the edge of the mattress to catch her breath after a terrifying nightmare.
That was the calm, steady breathing of a person who had finally, for the very first time, discovered an absolute, unyielding peace in the dark.
I lowered my gaze slightly, keeping my head perfectly still against the pillow.
Akane was fast asleep.
The thick, jagged jungle of her black hair was scattered wildly across my bare chest and over the white fabric of the pillow like spilled ink pooling over a blank sheet of paper.
Her lips were parted just a fraction of an inch, entirely relaxed, the defensive, sharp lines around her jaw completely smoothed away by the rest. And as I studied her face in the golden sunlight, my heart executed a sudden, heavy thud against my ribs.
There was a smile on her face.
It was a tiny, subtle, barely perceptible curve at the corners of her mouth, but it was filled with an incredible, serene tranquility.
In all the time I had known her—even during the quiet afternoons we spent as children when she masked herself as Ren—I had never once seen her smile while she was sleeping.
She had always looked like a soldier resting between battles, her jaw clenched, her shoulders tense even in her dreams.
But right now, looking at her in the morning glow, she seemed... weightless.
It was as if the immense, crushing burden she had been forced to carry on her shoulders for seven years—the abuse of her household, the hatred of her mother, and the toxic shadow of Kenji—had completely dissolved into the mattress during the night.
'She isn't having nightmares anymore,' I realized.
The thought settled deep into my chest, a profound, overwhelming wave of warm, bone-deep gratitude completely flooding my system.
The girl who had reached over a concrete ledge to pull me back from the void had finally found her own anchor in my arms.
In that moment, I completely refused to move because I didn't want to wake her. She was too beautiful.
If the clock didn't matter, I could have easily stayed in that exact position for hours, entirely paralyzed under her weight, happy to just watch her sleep, to feel the steady puff of her warm breath against my bare skin, and to count the rhythmic, synchronized beats of her heart as they made a perfect echo against my own ribs.
But then, as if her subconscious had somehow registered the absolute intensity of my fixed gaze, her dark eyelashes began to flutter against her cheeks.
She woke up slowly, entirely without the usual frantic urgency that defined her mornings.
Her heavy eyelids lifted just a fraction of an inch, revealing the brilliant, amber stars of her golden eyes.
They were still clouded, foggy with the residual heaviness of a deep sleep, looking up at me from below.
Then, Akane spoke.
"How long have you been staring at me sleeping, creepy boy?" she murmured, her voice sounding incredibly thick, low, and beautifully raspy from the rest.
"Not nearly enough," I answered immediately, my voice dropping into a soft whisper.
A slow, tired, but genuinely happy smile broke across her flushed face—that specific, unguarded look that completely melted every single shred of my remaining defenses.
"Pervert," she whispered back, though her grip on my side tightened.
"You're unbelievable," I chuckled softly, the vibration rumbling through my chest beneath her cheek. "You complain when I touch you in the evening, and you complain when I look at you in the morning. You're completely impossible to please, Takanashi."
"No," she countered, her voice dropping into a softer, more deliberate register. "I am actually incredibly pleased. But I can't exactly afford to let you win these interactions too often, Ishikawa. Otherwise, you'll become completely arrogant, and I'll lose my tactical advantage."
I let out a quiet, clear laugh, the sound filling the golden silence of the room.
Then, I reached around her waist, tightening my arms around her narrow frame to pull her even closer against my torso.
She didn't offer a single milligram of protest; instead, she let out a low, contented hum and snuggled even deeper into my side, burying her nose flat into the warm hollow of my neck to shield herself from the sun.
"What time is it?" she mumbled into my skin.
"I have absolutely no idea," I replied, looking toward the dark silhouette of the clock on the desk without care. "But it's definitely too early to exist in this world."
"Good," she decided, her breathing slowing back down. "Then we are staying exactly like this, for all day."
"Okay." I didn't protest. I didn't want to.
Then, the rich, comfortable silence returned to wrap around the bed; a silence entirely saturated with warmth, safety, and a deep, domestic familiarity.
Underneath the duvet, her fingers resumed their lazy, rhythmic movement against my chest, her nails lightly tracing small, slow circles over my skin in a continuous, silent re-verification.
"Shin," she whispered after a long, suspended minute.
"Yes?"
"Thank you." She said, her voice dropping to a soft whisper.
The unexpected words made me pause, my hand freezing in the middle of her dark hair. "For what exactly?"
Akane lowered her gaze, her face remaining buried against my neck, but I could clearly feel the sudden, hot rush of blood painting her cheeks a delicate shade of pink against my skin.
"For not being completely terrified of me," she murmured, her voice losing its playful edge, dropping into a small, raw, and vulnerable whisper. "After I laid out the full reality of my past last night... after I told you about the extreme lengths I went to just to be near you... You had every right to run, Shin. You could have easily thought I was too obsessive, too unstable, or too... weird to handle. Come on, I've literally been stalking you for all this time. Anyone would be terrified of a creepy girl like me. And—"
I didn't let her finish. I reached down with my right hand, my fingers gently but firmly cupping the line of her jaw, and forced her head up until she had absolutely no choice but to look directly into my eyes.
"Akane, listen to me, because I won't repeat myself again," I said, my voice solidifying into an unbreakable wall of absolute, fierce certainty. "I spent seven entire years of my youth desperately, pathetically chasing after a narcissistic girl who didn't even respect my existence enough to remember my favorite color. And you spent eight years standing silently in the cold shadows, altering your appearance and your voice, just hoping that one day I would finally turn around and look at you. If there is a single person in this room who qualifies as completely weird and broken... that person is me."
Akane stared at me for a wide, unblinking second, the gold of her eyes shimmering in the morning light. Then, she let out a low, tired, but immensely happy laugh that completely cleared the remaining clouds from her expression.
"Fool," she whispered, her thumb brushing against my chin.
"I know."
Then, she shifted her weight, pushing herself up just enough to close the short distance between our faces.
She pressed her lips against mine in a quick, feather-light, and incredibly sweet kiss—a simple touch of skin that carried the weight of an absolute absolution—before dropping her head heavily back onto the center of my chest, her body going entirely slack.
"Alright," she commanded, her voice returning to that low, raspy, authoritative purr I loved so much. "That is officially enough talking for the morning. I intend to sleep for a little while longer."
"Okay," I smiled, my fingers automatically resuming their slow, circular rhythm at the base of her skull.
"And don't you dare move a single muscle, or no sex today," Akane teased.
"I'm completely stationary, boss."
"And keep scratching my head exactly like that. I like it." She ordered.
"Whatever you command, My Mistress," I replied.
Underneath the heavy sheets, her long fingers slid down my stomach, found my hand, and wove her fingers tightly through mine, locking our palms together in a secure, unbroken grip.
And so, we stayed. We lay tangled together in the absolute quiet of the bedroom, entirely unbothered by the passage of time or the demands of the school gates.
We existed simply within the warm, golden light of the morning, anchored completely by the perfect, structural weight of each other's bodies.
For the very first time in our lives, we had finally dreamed of ourselves.
—
Author's note: Listen to this song after reading: Sayonara , composed by me, vocals made with Acestudio/Vocaloid because I coulnd't afford a japanese singer for now.
Hope you're enjoying the story!
This is the end for the first narrative arc :') Now we're gonna start with a new one: The School Festival.
This is where a new challenge for the newly formed couple arrives: What is gonna happen if Shin starts living again and lots of people gonna notice him? How is Akane going to react? What about Kurone?
PS. Gonna post a new novel called 'I thought I could be happy' while I work on the next narrative arc.
Thank you for reading until now.