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inui seishu slumbers deeply.
he succumbs to sleep within seconds, no matter when, no matter where; the fluffy futon in the room he shared with akane during his childhood, the dilapidated sofa of shinichiro's abandoned bike shop, on a bench in a secluded park.
he dreams, but he never remembers them when he wakes up.
sometimes he sees koko staring at him, face unreadable, as he rouses himself awake for another day with the black dragons. "what, something on my face?" he asks defensively, albeit still groggy. koko pursed his lips. "nah."
he sleeps like the dead, izana told him before. "sometimes i wonder if you're actually a corpse." a callous remark after he's been awakened rudely with a kick, sending him flying across the room. inupi raggedly gasped for air. "well, at least i can see you're breathing now."
there was that one time he fell asleep at chifuyu's house; he drank a little too much as hakkai pushed can after can his way. takemitchy was warbling some sappy love song, with chifuyu and mitsuya whooping, cheering him on. it was warm, fun; he didn't realize his vision going dark.
but when he woke up hours later, he was on chifuyu's bed, feeling somewhat suffocated. confused, inupi raised his head to look around, only to see himself bundled up in blankets, with the rest of the gang crowded around him, all asleep. his face feels rather crusty too.
the first to wake up was mitsuya, who had been sleeping curled up by inupi's head. as soon as he saw inupi's also awake, mitsuya creased his eyebrows and gently carded his fingers through inupi's blonde hair. unconsciously, inupi leaned into the touch.
"you're alright now, inupi. you have us, okay? you have takemitchy, you have chifuyu, me, hakkai. okay?" inupi widened his eyes. "why so sudden?" he's grateful, but it doesn't explain the situation. just then takemitchy decided to wake up and interrupt by bursting into tears. "inupi-kun!!! we're here for you!!!" "huh??"
awakened by takemitchy's loud sobbing, chifuyu and hakkai came to consciousness too. outside, the birds began to sing.
inupi's still not quite sure why he's all bundled up, and why they were all looking at him so... softly, but okay.
it was waka-kun who finally told him the truth.
"... you cry in your sleep, seishu. in the past, even now."
he was at the dojo after closing the bike shop, a bit lonely without draken around anymore.
inupi had told the two living legends about the drunk sleep party incident; "waka, benkei, i wonder what happened."
"back then when you were small, every time you fell asleep watching shin-chan tinkering with the bikes, you'd cry. benkei, remember shin-chan panicking trying to wake him up?" benkei chuckled heartily. "chibi-inu was immune to any efforts of waking him up, how can i forget?"
inupi was shocked, to say the least. "crying? what a kid." to think it still happens to this day...
waka-kun smiled, a bit sadly. "not just crying, seishu. you'd call out for your sister. sometimes you'd repeatedly apologize. 'i'm sorry, shouldn't be me', you'd whimper."
inupi inhaled sharply. all those times he woke up to koko looking at him tearfully, izana shaking him back to the real world roughly; they've all witnessed him in his sleep.
"i... i don't remember anything."
waka and benkei exhanged looks.
"that's fine, seishu."
"you don't need to remember anything. just know that you have more friends you can rely on now." waka pushed still-warm yakitori into his hands.
"and tears aren't weaknesses. hell, look at hanagaki, shin-chan. crybabies!" inupi weakly laughed.
in the back of his mind, he sees a blazing fire.
ah, that's it. he's been dreaming of 'that', day in and day out. the smouldering block of wood that had burned his face, koko's shock as he turned around only to see it was seishu he saved, not akane. the beeping of hospital monitors. now that he thinks of it, it was the only place he couldn't sleep well in.
he's never really let go, has he? for all he said to koko before.
but looking at waka and benkei's worried faces, inupi nods minutely.
he makes up his mind. it's ripe time to start a journey to heal himself.
first, well, he needs a long, long chat with akane. next? he'll figure it along the way.