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“Mamoru! Mamoru!” Kensuke gently shook Mamoru awake.
Mamoru stirred and groggily opened his eyes. For some reason, his eyes stung a little and his cheeks felt wet. “Ken-kun…?” Mamoru responded, but his voice sounded choked.
The lights in the shared room were off, but Mamoru could barely make out Kensuke’s silhouette in the darkness. Kensuke was sitting upright on an air mattress set up on the floor right next to Mamoru, who was lying down on the couch with a warm blanket and pillow. Kensuke’s green eyes were staring at Mamoru filled with worry.
“Are you okay? Was it another bad dream?” Kensuke asked gently. It wasn’t the first time Kensuke had woken up next to Mamoru after hearing Mamoru crying in his sleep.
The vivid memories of the dream had already faded the moment Mamoru woke up, but the painful feelings ached and lingered subconsciously in Mamoru’s heart. Mamoru felt uneasy and shaken, but relief slowly washed away the uneasiness like gentle raindrops when Mamoru felt Kensuke’s hand over his.
“Mm, I’ve already forgotten about it, but it was probably a bad dream,” Mamoru whispered.
“Do you want me to get Kou or Ryo?” Kensuke asked in case, since the three of them have had their shared experiences with calming down Mamoru after a nightmare. Koki would prepare a warm drink for Mamoru and talk about some fun stories from his childhood. Ryota would share with Mamoru some of his favorite theater dramas or brush Mamoru’s hair.
Mamoru shook his head. “Mm-mm, the two of them got home late from work yesterday, so I wouldn’t want to wake them. Besides, you’re here with me, Ken-kun.”
Kensuke smiled as he slowly rubbed Mamoru’s back. Mamoru always loved Kensuke’s back rubs, especially after the two of them trained together during rehearsals.
After Mamoru’s breathing calmed down to its regular rhythm and his body no longer felt shaken from the remnants of the nightmare, Mamoru sat upright and scooted over a bit so that Kensuke could sit next to him. Mamoru leaned on Kensuke’s shoulder, their hands entwined together. Mamoru closed his eyes, but he was still awake.
“Do you think you can go back to sleep? Or would you want to stay up for a bit?” Kensuke asked without pressuring Mamoru.
“Hm, I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Mamoru answered. “But if you want to sleep, Ken-kun–”
“Nope, I’m staying awake with you if you are,” Kensuke answered immediately without a second thought.
“But you have to get up early tomorrow for work, right?” Mamoru checked. “I’d feel bad for you to lose sleep.” Mamoru pouted.
If it weren’t for the fact that Mamoru had a nightmare, Kensuke would’ve playfully teased Mamoru for being cute, but Kensuke said, “As long as you can feel better, I can sacrifice a few hours of sleep.”
“Ken-kun.” Mamoru looked at Kensuke with gratitude.
Kensuke smiled and gave Mamoru a little forehead kiss. “Hm, what should we do then? It’d be too noisy to watch a movie or show on TV, and Ryo will scold us if we snack in the middle of the night,” Kensuke said.
“Um, do you want to go out to the rooftop garden and stargaze?” Mamoru asked.
“Oh! Great idea, Mamoru!” Kensuke agreed. “Then let me prepare some stuff and we’ll head up there together.”
“Prepare?” Mamoru tilted his head to the side.
Kensuke grinned. “We can have an outdoor sleepover.”
Kensuke found some sleeping bags, an extra blanket that Koki wouldn’t mind if it got dirty, and also prepared some hot coffee in a thermos container with two travel cups. Kensuke asked Mamoru to also bring plush medium orange and purple Arainu-kuns.
“Ken-kun, you really prepared everything,” Mamoru whispered as they quietly climbed up the stairs to the rooftop garden.
Kensuke chuckled. “I’m used to packing for impromptu camping adventures whenever I explore outdoors,’ Kensuke whispered back. “When I was a kid, sometimes I would sneak out of the house with my little sister to camp outside in our yard.”
They came outside to the rooftop garden, feeling a bit of the night chill even during the Summer. Since it was the middle of the night, they had the whole rooftop to themselves. It was a clear night without a single cloud in the sky, so they didn’t have to worry about the weather.
“Wow, you can still see some stars even with all of Tokyo’s city lights on,” Mamoru noticed.
“Yeah, though it would be nice to go to the countryside some time away from the city so we can see the milky way,” Kensuke commented as he set up the sleeping bags right next to each other.
Kensuke poured themselves some coffee, blowing some of the steam off of Mamoru’s to cool it down before handing the cup over to Mamoru. They sat side by side together on top of the sleeping bags with the blanket wrapped around them as they gazed up at the stars while drinking the coffee. Neither of them said anything as they enjoyed the calm night, the late night city noises echoing around them in the background.
After they finished the coffee, Mamoru was about to say something, but suddenly all of the outdoor lights on the rooftop around them suddenly shut off.
“Wahh!” Mamoru raised his voice a little as he clung onto Kensuke. “What’s going on?”
Kensuke was surprised but he wasn’t spooked. “Ahh, looks like it’s a power outage,” Kensuke said calmly.
“O-Oh,” Mamoru calmed down, but his arms were still hugging Kensuke’s right arm.
Kensuke laughed and was about to pull out his phone to use as a flashlight, but then he noticed something different as he looked up at the night sky.
“Mamoru! Look up at the stars!” Kensuke encouraged Mamoru and pointed up at the night sky.
“Huh?” Mamoru looked up and his eyes opened wide.
Kensuke and Mamoru could see hundreds of stars that twinkled all around them that were no longer hidden.
“Whoaaa,” Kensuke and Mamoru said in unison with big smiles on their faces. They both laid down together on their sleeping bags with the blanket shared over their legs.
They both looked at each other and laughed together as they admired the stars. Kensuke pointed out different constellations that they could see, the two of them connecting the stars together with their index fingers until their hands bumped into each other.
Kensuke took a deep breath. “Stars without even a name flow away but meet again~ an unstoppable bond invites the two~,” Kensuke started to sing quietly next to Mamoru.
“To the single thread, they stretch out both of their hands~ the forgotten gloria is engraved here~,” Mamoru joined in singing their duet song.
The two of them happily sang together underneath the starry sky, the pain of the nightmare long forgotten and healed.
By the time they finished the duet, the rooftop lights turned on back to normal. The caffeine energy started to wear off as Mamoru’s eyelids felt heavy.
“Ken-kun, I think I’ll be able to have sweet dreams now,” Mamoru whispered to Kensuke.
“That’s great, Mamoru!” Kensuke was glad. “Shall we head back to our dorm then?”
Kensuke looked over at Mamoru and noticed that Mamoru fell asleep right away on top of the sleeping bag next to Kensuke, hugging the orange Arainu-kun in his arms with a peaceful smile on his face. Kensuke chuckled at Mamoru’s cute sleeping face, snapping a quick candid picture with his phone, before he gave Mamoru a goodnight forehead kiss. Kensuke snuggled up close to Mamoru with the blanket wrapped around them, hugging the purple Arainu-kun in one arm with his other arm wrapped around Mamoru.
When the morning sun started to rise over the horizon, Kensuke woke up at the sound of his phone ringing. He groggily squinted his eyes open to read the caller ID.
“Ryo?” Kensuke answered in a sleepy voice.
“Ken! Where in the world did you and Mamoru disappear to?” Ryota questioned in a stern voice. “Kou and I have been trying to call you guys!”
“Huh–oh no!” Kensuke immediately sat up wide awake, remembering he and Mamoru had fallen asleep on their sleeping bags at the rooftop garden. “Mamoru! Wake up! We gotta hurry back downstairs to our dorm!”
“Mmm, can I get an extra pancake?” Mamoru asked in his sleep.
“Mamoru!” Kensuke tried to wake up Mamoru.
“Huh, it’s morning?” Mamoru finally woke up as he slowly yawned and stretched. When Mamoru blinked his eyes awake and saw Kensuke staring at him while holding his phone on call with Ryota, Mamoru realized the same thing. “Oh no! We fell asleep on the rooftop!”
“....why are you guys at the rooftop garden?” Ryota questioned.
“Ah, yeah, it’s a long story,” Kensuke put it simply.
Ryota was silent before he said, “Nevermind, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“We didn’t do anything bad!” Kensuke and Mamoru tried to defend themselves in unison.
“You two have thirty seconds to get down here before I sacrifice your breakfast portions to Sora and Nozomu,” Ryota warned.
“Run! Let’s run Mamoru!” Kensuke said as they quickly packed up everything.
As they were running down the stairs, the two of them nearly collided into Eichi in the stairway.
“Whoa! You guys are up early! Wait, why are you coming downstairs from the rooftop?” Eichi questioned.
“Sorry! No time to explain! Our breakfast is in danger!” Kensuke said. “Hurry, Mamoru, we have fifteen seconds!”
“W-Wait, Ken-kun!” Mamoru followed Kensuke back to GROWTH’s dorm out of breath.
Ryota sighed as he listened to all their commotion on speaker since Kensuke didn’t bother to hang up the call.
Koki overheard all the noise from the kitchen and laughed. “It’s nice to hear those two are having an energetic morning,” Koki commented.
“Seriously, if only they used all their energy more productively like when we’re working,” Ryota said.
Ryota finally hung up the call right as Kensuke and Mamoru finally rushed back inside GROWTH’s dorm with two seconds to spare.
“W-We’re home!” Kensuke and Mamoru announced out of breath as they both collapsed on the floor.
“Welcome home, Ken, Mamoru,” Koki greeted.
“Next time leave us a note if you two plan on any late night dates,” Ryota said teasingly.
Mamoru and Kensuke looked at each other and smiled warmly. “We will!”
If one person has a bad dream, it’s comforting to know that they have three other people who can fill their heart with better dreams.