“When my grandmother—the previous owner of this store—passed on, I was forced to take over the business in a hurry,” Midori finished for her. “Ran-chan had inherited knowledge about Sleepwalkers, so we started working together. That’s why it was just me and Ran in the beginning.”
“What about Konparu-san and Tokishima-san?”
“They rescued me and Hitsuji when we were about to get taken out by Suiju. That’s why our situation’s just like yours, Sayacchi.”
“So that’s how it was...”
With that discussion dying off, silence descended for a short while. When she opened her mouth to speak again, Saya’s voice sounded a little drowsy.
“Why is it just girls, though? I was wondering that, at first.”
“...Right.” There was a slight pause before Ran responded.
“Considering we all sleep side-by-side like this, I can see why it’s this way, of course, now.”
“Yeah...”
“So, I was thinking. We’re all girls here, but if there are other Sleepwalkers, and they’re in the same sort of group, do you think there’s a group of boys somewhere sleeping side-by-side like this?”
“Yeah, that! That’s the stuff.” Kaede said, raising her voice. Her speech was maybe a little slurred, though. “I want to see that so bad. An all-male group of Sleepwalkers. Hey, I could even draw them myself. As a doujinshi.”
“I’d like to read it.” The drowsy voice belonged to Midori.
“Ehh, I dunno.”
“Then why did you say you’d do it...?”
“I mean, that was just, you know...”
With a little help from the idle banter, Saya’s mind was starting to feel more and more drowsy and indistinct. It was as if her consciousness was sinking into the center of her head, creating a sort of dizzying sensation.
Seeming to pick up on that, Hitsuji whispered, “Good night.”
And with those two words serving as the trigger, a moment later, Saya’s consciousness was pulled down into sleep.
In between the mountains, there lived a dragon. And yet, for the longest time, the villagers had remained unaware of that fact.
One evening, a pharmacist was trying to take a shortcut home through the dry gulch. That was the first time anyone noticed the great flying lizard laying there. The pharmacist was scared stiff, but the dragon merely looked on, uninterested, its eyes only half open.
The pharmacist—relieved to find she had not been burned to cinders by the creature’s fiery breath and that it didn’t seem like it was about to reach out with its neck and devour her whole—hesitantly approached the dragon. She was interested as to why the dragon did not move. When she asked what it was doing here, the dragon replied.
“It has been a long time since flowers bloomed in this valley. As I am sure you know, we dragons eat flowers. I have lived for thousands of years feeding on lilies, but if the flowers will not bloom, then there is nothing I can do. Nothing but rot away in this fruitless valley.”
The dragon telling this sad story had scales that were a beautiful white, and its long tail and wingtips were a pale yellow. Its deep yellow eyes sparkled. When she looked upon it, the pharmacist said, “You should take a look at yourself. In devouring all the flowers of the valley, you have become the flowers yourself,” the pharmacist said when she looked upon the body of the dragon.
Peering into the hand mirror proffered by the pharmacist, the dragon said, “I see, so that’s it. It’s no wonder there are no flowers left to eat. I already am the lilies. However, I wonder... What am I to do now? I have lived many long years as a lily-eating dragon, so I know no other way of life. Human, if you know, could you tell me?”
By the time those words had finished being spoken, the dragon was no more, and what had been the dry gulch was now a field full of flowers.
“This is a lily flower from that valley,” I told Hitsuji as I handed her a single lily. Hitsuji accepted the lily, closing her eyes and bringing it close to her face.
“What a lovely scent. It’s so thick it’s making me dizzy.”
“Are you all right, my beloved, my shining wool that swaddles me?” Saya asked. “It’s all right if you want to lie down. The grassy mattress will embrace us gently, I am sure. There is no bed in the world better than the one on which the flower-eating dragon once rested.”
“My precious Saya, you are truly wonderful. But let us save that for another time.”
“Whatever makes you say that? We are all alone in this valley of lilies. What is there to be embarrassed about?” Saya asked.
“Ohh, Saya, my darling, take note of the mirror you carry.”
When she said that to me, I peered into the mirror. Nothing was reflected on its silver surface; I tilted my head to the side inquisitively.
“What does this mean, my beloved?”
“Give me your hand, Saya.”
Doing as I was told, I offered my hand to Hitsuji, who then pulled my finger, causing it to stretch with no resistance. Ten centimeters, then twenty centimeters, it stretched without any pain or anything seeming odd about it. Suddenly, I had an epiphany and shouted out loud.
“Ah?! This is a dream!”
“Ah!” Saya awoke with a start.
In a dark warehouse, illuminated by a lamp on the nearby coffee table, there were four bodies lying on a bed. Saya’s panting intermingled with their quartet of soft breaths.
Hesitantly, she looked down to Hitsuji, who was next to her. Hitsuji furrowed her brow in her sleep, before she reached out to place her hand lightly on Saya’s chest.
“Not yet... Don’t run away...”
Saya’s whole world tilted, and she was dragged back down into slumber.
I had fallen, my cheek pressed to the sandy ground of the Colosseum. The weighted net meant for fighting wrapped around me more and more as I struggled with it. When the gladiator—my opponent—raised a three-pronged spear, the crowd went wild.
Finish her! the crowd roared. When the emperor, who was sitting up in a reserved seat, raised a hand, a hush fell over the crowd as their shouting receded like the tide. Then, as thousands looked on breathlessly, the emperor gave the thumbs down, and the crowd let out another great cheer.
The gladiator saluted the emperor, then walked over to my immobile self and thrusted the three-pronged spear into my back.
There was no pain— it was just hard to breathe. I was ready to cry from the sense of powerless and shock that I was going to die like this, and then the gladiator spoke.
“Uh, hey Sayacchi. You all right there?”
“...Huh?”
Looking up, there was Kaede in the form of a gladiator, crouching and looking down at me. The spear that I was sure she’d stabbed into my back was nowhere to be seen.
“Tokishima... san.”
“That’s me, Sayacchi. I finally caught you. This is a dream— do you understand?”
“I get it, but it’s hard to breathe,” I said through labored breaths.
“She says she’s having trouble breathing. Midoriiii.”
No sooner did I think I'd heard the sound of a siren than an ambulance drove out onto the sandy floor of the arena. Stepping out of the driver’s seat in a paramedic’s uniform was Midori. She knelt on the ground and began speaking to me.
“It’s okay—this happens all the time. If there’s a hand resting on your belly in Dayland, the slight discomfort is amplified in your sleep, and it can give you awful nightmares. Just calm down and breathe easy.”
Breathe in... Breathe out...
Breathe in... Breathe out...
“That’s the way. When you have trouble breathing, just remain calm, and focus.”
“O-Okay.”
“You’ll never suffocate in your dreams. The worst that can happen is you wake up. It looks like you should be fine now.”
When she told me that, I noticed that, at some point, I had stood up on the sand. There was no one in the audience now— only the emperor, up in a reserved seat.<
br />
The emperor, who was actually Hitsuji wearing laurels and a toga, jumped nimbly down onto the sand. Striding over, she looked up at me.
“I told you it was a dream. It wasn’t nice of you to run away like that.”
“Sorry. It surprised me.”
Thinking her pouting face was cute, I planted a kiss on Hitsuji’s forehead.
“Oh, my.” Kaede’s eyes bulged out, and she let out a cry of surprise.
“Huh? Huh? Were you two always that close?” Midori asked, surprised. Hitsuji and I looked to one another with a laugh.
“Yeah,” Hitsuji told her. “I wonder why.”
“I know, right?” I agreed. “I wonder, too.”
“Oho, I seeeeee...” Kaede brought a hand up to her mouth. She seemed to be having fun.
“Saya, I’ll teach you a simple technique to find out if you’re in a dream. Let’s call this lesson one.”
“Sure. What is it, Hitsuji-sensei?”
“This is a famous method for having lucid dreams. Look at your own hands.”
“My hands?” I did as she said, opening both my hands and looking down at them.
“There aren’t many things you’re more likely to look at on a day-to-day basis than your hands, right? But their shape is super complicated. When you look at your hands, I think it probably puts just the right amount of strain on the brain. If you pull on a finger, it will change shape easily, so you can find out if you’re dreaming right away.”
“It’s true!” I cried out despite myself as my index finger stretched to double its normal length. When I let go of the hand I’d stretched out, my finger snapped back to normal, like the power cord on a vacuum cleaner reeling itself in.
“Looking in a mirror like you did the first time works, too. In most cases, mirrors in dreams don’t work. No clue why, though.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“I think messing around with your hands is good practice for learning how to transform in dreams, too. Once you get used to it, you can even do stuff like this!” Kaede said, spreading her arms wide. They sprouted feathers in an instant, turning into the wings of a bird of prey with a wingspan of about three meters. Now there was a beautiful monster with the face of a woman and the body of a bird standing on the sandy floor of the arena. Kaede beat her wings, creating a sandstorm as her body floated into the air. When she set down on the roof of the ambulance, her scaly talons easily opened holes in the body of the vehicle. Her monstrous weight blew out all four tires, and the vehicle sank.
“Heheh, how’s that?” Kaede asked smugly.
“Wow... You’re so pretty,” I murmured.
“I know, right?” Kaede puffed up her avian chest with pride.
“Please, don’t be such a show-off, Kaede-san,” Midori said, exasperated.
“I’m not!”
“Setting that aside... Where’s our leader?” Hitsuji looked about busily.
“I’m here.”
The response came from surprisingly close by. Turning around with a start, there was Ran, crouching down on the sand. She wore a hooded cape, with a large bow and a quiver of arrows slung over her back.
“Take a look at this.” Looking at the spot she pointed to when she had spoken, there were several small tracks in the sand. It looked like the trail of a many-legged creature, much like a centipede, having crawled by.
“What’re those?” I asked.
“The footsteps of the Suiju that infected you, Hokage-san,” Ran said, standing up. “I had wanted to finish it here, but it may have noticed that something was going on, because it ran away.”
“If it ran away, then have I been set free from the Suiju?”
“That would be nice, but if we leave it be, it will come back,” Ran was quick to say, snuffing out my happiness.
“If it noticed us, could that be because I left the dream?”
“I think that’s part of it, but don’t worry. Suiju are cautious of Sleepwalkers to begin with. No matter what the reason is, if we chase it down, that will solve the problem.”
Kaede beat her wings impatiently. “Yeah, that’s right! So let’s hurry!”
“Right. Hokage-san, this arena is a scene created in your head. This is a good opportunity for a lesson, so let’s try erasing that wall.”
“Huh? You mean me?” I asked in confusion. There was a wall, or a giant building rather, that wrapped around the area. The seats for the audience, which were arranged in a mortar-shape, seemed to be made of solid stone, and I couldn’t see myself being able to erase them on demand.
“This is lesson two. Things may look sturdy, but everything in Nightland was made with the power of imagination. If you want to destroy something, you can break anything. You could wipe it out with an eraser, blast it with a bomb, melt it with a beam. Use whatever’s easiest for you to imagine.”
Something easy to imagine... I walked to the edge of the arena and touched the wall, feeling the rough texture of stone on my palm. It should have been warmed by the sun, but there was no warmth at all.
Using my finger, I traced a square on the surface of the wall, which was sheer, with nothing for my hands to hold onto. That carved a thin line into the stone, so I thrust my nails into it and pulled. A block of stone about the size of a brick popped out and fell to the sand.
The moment it did, the rest of the walls around us began to collapse as if they had lost all structural support. The destruction continued unabated, increasing in intensity as it spread like a domino effect. In all of ten seconds, the seats of the audience and the reserved seats fell apart and scattered across the sand.
Before I could cover my face against the onrushing cloud of dust, a powerful wind blew from behind me. When I looked back, Kaede was flapping her big wings, creating a wind to keep the sand and dust away.
The falling blocks of stone were sucked into the sand, and in no time, there was nothing but desert as far as the eye could see.
“What do you think?” I asked, feeling satisfied. Hitsuji cocked her head to the side.
“It was kind of plain,” she replied.
“Whaa?”
“I think you could have done something way showier.”
“It’s not all about making it showy, you know. For her first attempt, I think she did quite well.” Midori tried to reassure me, but I was so shocked I missed my chance to thank her.
“It doesn’t need to be flashy at all, but if you make a conscious attempt to broaden the range of your imagination, it will give you greater freedom in your sleep. When your dreams are poor, that’s a warning sign, so keep that in the back of your mind.”
I nodded, despite not really getting it yet.
“Anyway, we’ve got a better view now. We can chase the Suiju.”
When I looked in the direction Ran pointed, the footprints extended beyond the place where the Colosseum stood, continuing far into the distance over the sand.
“Well, shall we be off, then? Let’s try calling out vehicles this time. Hokage-san, please give it a try.”
“Call one out...? What do I do now?”
“This is lesson three. In dreams, you can make anything. Weapons, tools, vehicles... Anything within the realm of your imagination. It’s the same technique as before.”
“It’s hard to make complicated stuff, but if you don’t focus on the details, you’d be surprised what you can pull off,” Kaede added.
“What do you mean?”
“Hmm, so... Let’s say you wanted to pull out a gun, okay? But the way guns work is actually pretty complicated, isn’t it? Can you picture it in your head?”
“No way.”
“Didn’t think so. If you get caught up on that, you’re stuck. But if you just have this fuzzy image that bullets come out of a gun when you pull the trigger, making one’s a cinch.”
“I see...?”
I thought for a little bit, trying to come up with a means of transportation. Cars... Planes... Sleds... Grasping at just one of the many vague images that
passed through my head before fading away, I tried to fill in more of the details.
When I heard heavy stamping on the sand, I looked up. There were five horses standing there.
“...They came,” I said, relieved.
“We’re in a desert, and you didn’t go with camels?” Kaede said, sounding amused.
“Oh! Yeah... That didn’t occur to me. Should I do it over?”
“No, this is good. They’re lovely.” It seemed I had managed to satisfy Hitsuji this time.
“But won’t it be hard to run on sand with their hooves?”
“You can just change the ground.”
Having said that, Hitsuji took off the laurels she was wearing on her head and threw them. Grass grew out of the sand where they landed. In no time, the carpet of green spread out, covering the sand. The Suiju’s footsteps were replaced by flowers of myriad colors.
“There, we’re good. Let’s go!”
We straddled our horses; Kaede undid her transformation, coming down from on top of the ambulance in human form. I had no riding experience, and these were horses without saddles or stirrups, but this was a dream, so I was able to ride without issue. But there was just one problem...
“Hold on? Whaa? Isn’t there something wrong here?”
“Heehee! This is so weird.”
Everyone started laughing. When we rode on the horses I made, for some reason everyone ended up facing backwards. In other words, we were facing the opposite of the direction we were going, and towards the horse’s tail.
“Saya, you’ve got one twisted sense of humor!” Hitsuji said happily, slapping her horse on the butt. The horse ran even faster, and everyone started cheering. The excitement got me smiling, too.
The clear skies had at some point changed to the deeper blues of night. The area around us was still bright, though, and we had no trouble seeing.
A big moon rose over the horizon. It was so big and beautiful, the kind of moon it was only possible to see in a dream. Beneath the moon it felt like we could reach out and touch, we rode our horses backwards, laughing boisterously as we raced onward.
Minutes, or days, or months went by, and then finally we saw something moving ahead of us. That thing, which looked like it was made with driftwood bound together by metal wire, moved its many legs with irregular motions, trying to flee from us. Its every step produced a bud, which swelled and blossomed into a flower.
Side-By-Side Dreamers Page 5