Chapter Text
Haruhi gasped as she took in the colorful world that she’d “awoken” in. Her parents had always read her stories that took place in the dream space, where you got to meet your soulmate while you slept soundly in your own bed. Even if you hadn’t yet met them while awake. Haruhi loved the idea of it, but no matter how many times she listened to the stories, she’d never met her own soulmate before.
Her mother had laughed when Haruhi pouted about it to her. She’d pointed out that Haruhi was only four, and she had plenty of time to meet her soulmate in their shared dream space as well as in the waking world.
When Haruhi finally drifted off to sleep one night and found herself in another world, she knew that she was finally experiencing what the stories talked about. This wasn’t a world she’d created entirely herself. Trees were scattered across the landscape, but many of them weren’t trees she had seen before. These were the trees from someone else’s reality.
She noticed the boy a few moments later. His blond hair shone in the bright sun. He noticed Haruhi a mere second after she noticed him. His eyes widened for a second before he broke out into a huge grin. He jogged across the distance between them.
When he spoke, it was in some language that Haruhi didn’t recognize except for what she thought sounded like a Japanese name.
“Um, sorry?” she said.
He gasped, and for a second, Haruhi didn’t know what to do. But then he spoke again in Japanese.
“I’m Tamaki,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Haruhi,” she said hesitantly. She looked at his blond hair and blue eyes. “What were you speaking before?”
“French,” he said. “I live in France.”
“Oh.” Haruhi contemplated that fact for a second. “Then how are you talking to me now?”
Tamaki’s face twisted like she’d brought up something painful. “My dad’s Japanese,” he said. “I live with my mom in France, but she made me learn Japanese. I’m bad at it though. I only use it with my tutor.”
Haruhi was quick to shake her head. “No, you’re not bad.”
He wasn’t. Haruhi was impressed. Her mom had tried teaching her a few words in other languages, but she couldn’t have said much in them like Tamaki was doing with her now.
She stared in wonder at this boy who had shown up in her dreams. He was on the other side of the world from her in reality. He must have been thinking similar things as her.
“Is that why we’ve never met here before?” he asked. “Because you’re in Japan? Mom says it’s daytime there when it’s nighttime here.”
Haruhi shrugged. They were getting dangerously close to the topic that she liked to sleep in order to avoid.
“My mom’s sick,” she said, looking down at the grass. A brilliantly colored butterfly landed on a yellow flower at her feet. “I couldn’t sleep last night, but my parents let me stay home from kindergarten today to rest.”
Worry shone in Tamaki’s eyes, but she was thankful when he didn’t press for more details. She didn’t want to explain why she’d been awake all night.
Tamaki looked around and caught sight of two birds perched high in a tree. Just like the trees themselves, Haruhi had never seen birds like those before.
“Robins!” Tamaki said. He took Haruhi’s hand, and it felt strangely solid despite being in a dream. Once they were closer, Haruhi spotted the edges of a nest perched in the crook of a branch.
Thoughts of her mother’s illness faded as Tamaki excitedly babbled about the birds that would often appear outside his house. One by one, they appeared alongside the robins.
Tamaki woke up the next morning with a steady supply of energy. A strip of sun shone across his bed where the curtains hadn’t quite been tugged all the way closed. Tamaki threw off his blankets and crawled over to open them, taking in the early morning scene outside.
Used to the routine, his body had woken him up right on time, but unlike usual, he was already sitting up when his mom came inside. She raised an eyebrow in curiosity but smiled at the sight of him.
“Did you have a good night?” she asked.
“Yes!” Tamaki replied eagerly. He crawled to the side of the bed and grasped at his mother’s shirt eagerly as he recounted it for her. “I met a girl in my dreams!”
His mother gasped, looking shocked for a split second before her expression morphed into one of joy. “That’s wonderful, Tamaki. What was her name?”
“Haruhi,” he said. The name was even nicer to say in his real body. He wanted to say it again. “Her name is Haruhi, and she lives in Japan like my father.”
His mother’s smile slipped before she quickly plastered it back onto her face.
“How wonderful,” she said. “I told you it was important to pay attention during your Japanese lessons.”
Tamaki sighed, but for the first time ever, he knew she was right.
“It was a lot funner to speak Japanese with Haruhi,” he admitted.
His mother’s answering smile was brighter than the morning sun coming through the window. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “I’m sure the bond the two of you share will only grow stronger as you get to know each other. Be sure to nourish it.”
Tamaki’s face screwed up in confusion. “What does ‘nourish’ mean?”
His mother laughed and pulled him into his side. “It means feeding it and helping it grow.”
“I have to feed Haruhi?”
His mind was already racing through his favorite snacks to share with her when his mother answered. “Not Haruhi, your relationship. It feeds on time spent together. Each time you see her, it will get a little stronger.”
Tamaki considered what his mom was saying. It didn’t completely make sense to him, but despite that, he liked the way the words sounded. Perhaps that was because of the gentle smile on his mother’s face as she spoke of it more than anything else.
Either way, he could think of little else but Haruhi as his mother helped him get ready for the day.
Haruhi woke up from her nap happier than she’d been in what felt like forever.
She’d grown used to nightmares, particularly ones where her mother disappeared without a trace. The dream space that she’d shared with Tamaki had been a far cry from that. If her dreams became like that every night, then she wouldn’t be so scared of falling asleep.
Her neck was stiff from the way her head had been lolling to the side while she was sleeping on the couch. The TV was still on in front of her, playing some program that she’d already seen a million times. Inside, she felt mushy in a way she’d never experienced before. Her whole body vibrated with excitement as she pushed herself off the couch.
The smell of coffee greeted her when she entered the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She wasn’t the only one who’d had trouble sleeping during the night. Her mother was holding the mug of coffee in her hands, her eyes half shut as she struggled to stay awake.
Haruhi paused. She’d been buzzing with the chance of telling her mom about the boy in her dreams, but suddenly, she wasn’t sure how to do that, not when she looked so sad.
It didn’t take long for her mom to sense her presence. Her eyes fluttered open, and she managed a weak smile when she saw Haruhi looking at her.
“I saw you were taking a nap,” she said, patting the chair beside her as an invitation for Haruhi to join. “Did you sleep well?”
Haruhi clambered into the chair, taking a deep breath of the coffee and wishing her parents would allow her to have some for herself. “Yes,” she said, no longer eager to retell her dream as her mom’s eyes fluttered closed again.
Sometimes, just being in the dream space wasn’t enough for Haruhi to forget about the real world. Her mother kept getting sicker. Her parents tried to act like it wasn’t happening, like Haruhi was too young to see the gradual—and sometimes not so gradual—changes that came each day. But she saw them.
Her mother was thinner. She was slower when she moved. She even smiled less, something that Haruhi had never thought was possible before.
Even in the dream space, her mind would drift back to how her mother had been that day. It was especially hard to focus on anything else after Haruhi witnessed the particularly bad days. It was a cruel joke that those were the ones she wanted to forget the most.
One night it also happened to be night in their dream space. Haruhi looked up at the sky. She’d never memorized all the stars, but she swore that this sky was practically the one she saw at home.
The lack of light didn’t make it any harder to see around them, unlike in the real nighttime. Haruhi looked around, finding herself entirely unfrightened. They were in control here. There were no monsters or wild animals that could harm them.
She wanted to enjoy the night, but instead, all she could see was the weak smile her mother had given her before being whisked off to yet another doctor’s appointment.
Tamaki knocked their shoulders together, pulling Haruhi’s attention back to the dream space.
“Let’s play a game,” Tamaki said with a smile. “My teacher taught it to me.”
“What kind of game?” Haruhi asked.
“We have to give hints about something we see and the other will guess what it is,” Tamaki explained.
Haruhi’s brow furrowed as she struggled to picture what Tamaki is describing.
“I’ll show you,” Tamaki said. He looked around the dream space for a moment before saying, “I spy something green.”
When Haruhi didn’t immediately answer, he motioned for her to speak.
“Now you guess what I’m looking at,” he said.
“But there are a lot of green things,” Haruhi pointed out, looking around the meadow.
The colors were muted because of the darkness, but she knew that the trees and grass and many of the plants around them would all be a vibrant green once the sun was shining on them.
“That’s what makes it fun!” Tamaki said. “You have to guess and see if you got it right or not.”
Haruhi thought long and hard about all the different green things she could see, trying to decide which one Tamaki might have been looking at. Thoughts of her mother were finally pushed to the back of her mind.
“Is it a tree?” she asked.
Tamaki smiled. “Which tree?” he asked.
Haruhi gasped. “You can’t make me choose just one tree!” she said, gesturing wildly. “There are so many of them!”
“Just guess!” Tamaki urged, motioning for her to continue.
Feeling hopeless, Haruhi pointed at the nearest tree. “That one.”
“Why would I pick the easiest one?”
“Tamaki!”
“Tamaki,” Haruhi asked, drawing the boy’s attention to her. “Why is it that you’re always here when I dream now?”
It was a question that had been bothering her the past few nights.
The first time they’d met had been when Haruhi had accidentally fallen asleep during the day, but more recently, Tamaki had appeared while she was sleeping during the night. At first, she’d been too happy to think much of it, but then she’d asked her parents questions about the time all over the world. It was a topic that still confused her, but she was pretty sure that it was daytime in France.
“Oh,” Tamaki said, his cheeks turning pink. “I’ve been sleeping during class.”
Haruhi gasped. She couldn’t imagine doing such a thing, even when she was completely and utterly exhausted.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he complained before she could scold him. “It’s not a big deal. My tutor will just go back over it with me later.”
Haruhi bit her lip but didn’t say anything. Maybe that was one aspect of having a tutor that she just didn’t understand.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Tamaki continued, breaking into Haruhi’s thoughts, “because I’ll keep coming anyway.”
Haruhi looked at him. He was staring back, a determined glint in his eyes. Haruhi shrugged. He was right. It wasn’t like she could stop him. He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back.
Tamaki appeared while Haruhi was sitting under the shade of their favorite tree.
“Haruhi!” he exclaimed, running up to her with his arms in the air. Instead of sitting down beside her, he paced frantically back and forth as he spoke. “You weren’t here yesterday. I was worried. I tried to go back to sleep later, but I’d slept too much, and my brain wouldn’t be quiet.”
“I couldn’t sleep yesterday,” Haruhi admitted quietly.
Something in her tone was enough to calm Tamaki down. He sat beside her, shuffling close.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
It was the same question that many people asked Haruhi when she was awake too, but here in their dream world, it felt very different. She didn’t recoil like she had from her teacher, who had asked the question just a few days ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to say no either.
“Yes,” she said, pulling out a blade of grass and running it between her fingers. “My mom had to go to the hospital though. A neighbor babysat me.”
Tamaki nodded like Haruhi’s explanation made perfect sense to him. “Is she back home?” he asked.
Haruhi hesitated before she said, “No.”
Tamaki didn’t press the issue further.
“Do you want to play the game?” he asked instead.
Haruhi considered it, but the thought of picking out things and guessing didn’t sound any fun. Besides, they’d both guessed just about everything in their little dream world by now.
“Maybe later,” she said.
Tamaki hesitated before nodding. He settled beside Haruhi. For once, he didn’t say anything else, content to stay at her side even in the silence. Haruhi leaned over until her arm pressed against Tamaki’s and it was his weight keeping her upright. A while later, her head fell to his shoulder.
Sleep didn’t seem possible in their dream world like this, but in that moment, she felt so relaxed that she would have expected sleep to come.
The trees in their forest would often change along with the seasons, but not always. Haruhi could never be sure what she’d arrive to. After talks with Tamaki, she learned that the leaves didn’t change color at the same time in France and Japan, and it seemed like whoever got their first had influence on how they looked.
Haruhi liked it. They may have only been in their dreamworld, but in many ways, she felt like she was getting a glimpse of a faraway land whenever Tamaki influenced their little forest.
As time went on, Haruhi’s mom became sicker, and she looked forward to their time in the dreamworld more and more. Tamaki was there through it all, listening when Haruhi needed to be listened to and sitting quietly when she needed silence. During that time, he didn’t share his own struggles with her, sensing that she needed it more than he did.
Though Haruhi never said it out loud, she was pretty sure that Tamaki realized that her mom was dying, something which Haruhi herself had only recently begun to realize.
She became so used to their routine of Tamaki worrying about her that she was surprised when Tamaki had an announcement of his own to share.
He’d already arrived later than usual, looking more tired than she’d ever seen him. For once, she wouldn’t have scolded him for taking a nap during the day.
“What is it?” she asked as he took a seat beside her under their favorite tree.
“My father is coming to visit us in France,” he said, his eyes on the grass beneath them.
“Oh.” Haruhi looked at Tamaki. She’d never seen him so down before, but shouldn’t his father coming to visit be a happy thing?
Tamaki never spoke about his father. He’d talk about his mom here or there, and he even spoke of his tutor with fondness. But Haruhi had heard little about his father other than that he lived in Japan like she did.
“When?” she asked, eager to hear exciting details about Tamaki’s life that could distract her from her own.
“Next week,” Tamaki said, but he still wasn’t smiling.
Haruhi hesitated before asking, “Is it bad that he’s coming?”
Tamaki shrugged. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been here for a long time. I don’t remember him much.”
Haruhi tried to imagine not knowing her parents. It was impossible. They were there every day. Even when her mom was incredibly ill, she was there. Haruhi vaguely knew that that wasn’t true of every family, but it was still strange to come face-to-face with that for the first time.
“Is he nice?”
Tamaki’s frown deepened. “I don’t know,” he said again. “I guess so.”
Haruhi sensed that Tamaki didn’t like their topic of conversation, so she took the hard step of bringing up her own day.
“My mom went to the hospital again.”
While he didn’t smile, Tamaki’s whole demeanor changed as he focused on Haruhi’s pain instead of his own.
“I wish you lived in Japan,” Haruhi admitted one night. Her cheeks burned as Tamaki turned to her with wide eyes.
It had come out without her meaning too, and she rushed to add her justification. “Then we could meet every night without you missing school.”
Tamaki laughed. “I wish you lived in France, but not because of school. It’s so we could meet in person.”
Haruhi’s eyes widened. She had never considered that possibility. Tamaki had become a crucial part of her dream world, but it was hard to imagine him existing in the “real” one. No matter how important he was to her, her parents had never met him, nor had any of her friends at school. To them, Tamaki might as well have been a figment of her imagination.
But Tamaki was far from an imaginary friend. Even when Hauhi had been adamant that Miho-chan was real to her parents, she’d known on some level that the child-sized tiger was in her head. Despite only appearing in her dreams, Tamaki was more than that.
Miho-chan had done whatever Haruhi wanted her to do. Tamaki was constantly surprising her.
“One day you’ll come to France,” Tamaki said, sounding absolutely certain. “Or I’ll come to Japan.” He frowned. “But not to see my dad. Just to see you.”
Dazed, Haruhi nodded. “Okay,” she said, though the idea of it still sounded impossible. “I’d like to see France.”
Tamaki’s smile grew impossibly big. “I have so much to show you!” he exclaimed before promptly launching into an enthusiastic description of his favorite places.
Haruhi reached out and kicked Tamaki’s foot lightly with her own. She was no longer worried that she’d go right through him whenever they touched. As much as their dream world was separate from the real world, it was entirely real in all the ways that mattered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Tamaki had been acting strangely all night. It was even worse than the time his father had come for a visit and he hadn’t shown up in their dream world for several days as he was forced to spend time with the man he barely knew.
“I think my mom is sick,” Tamaki said, his voice nearly blending in with the light breeze that was continually flowing around the space.
“Sick?” Haruhi questioned, her stomach dropping. Images of hospitals and doctors filled her mind, but instead of her own mom, she imagined Tamaki’s mom in the same place. Though Haruhi had never seen her, she found it easy to imagine what she looked like, with the same blond hair and blue eyes as Tamaki.
Tamaki nodded. “I don’t think it’s like your mom,” he said. “She told me not to worry, and she hasn’t gone to the hospital.”
Haruhi didn’t tell him that her mom hadn’t gone to the hospital at first either. It had taken months of doctor’s appointments before she’d first seen her mom lying in a hospital bed.
“Is it like the flu?” Haruhi asked, trying to be hopeful. One of her friends at school had gotten the flu once. She’d disappeared for a few days, but once she’d come back, she’d been perfectly fine.
“No,” Tamaki said, shaking his head. “This is different. She’s mostly the same, but she takes a lot of naps.”
Haruhi didn’t know what else to say, and that seemed to be fine with Tamaki. They fell into silence together watching the birds fly above them until somehow they’d scooted so close together that Tamaki was sagging against Haruhi’s side.
She didn’t dare move until he woke up and disappeared from the spot beside her.