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It's just Hizashi and Nemuri in the teachers room. He's seated at his desk in his office chair while Nemuri's using the surface of Shouta's desk as her seat. It’s something they know their friend will gripe about once he sees her there.
They're gossiping about their students, and nothing they're saying is of any real importance. Hizashi makes a stupid joke and Nemuri cackles at it, and it's nice. It's mundane, but it's everything Hizashi is longing for.
It's just a dream. Hizashi is fully aware that it is. An afterimage of several, similar memories that are all in the past. Memories that he'll never make again with the person he'll never see again. Not in the waking world, at least.
Because Nemuri is dead.
It's a terrible, miserable truth that he has to face every day out in reality. It’s a truth that he can only escape in his dreams, where even something as unexciting as shooting the shit at work with Nemuri becomes a fantasy he never wants to wake up from.
He just wants to stay here with her, sharing tired smiles as they lament the busy schedules they wouldn't change a thing about. Reveling in juvenile jokes they should have outgrown years ago. Teasing Shouta or working together to coax him out of his sleeping bag to come have a drink with them for once. Working together on the occasional chance they cross paths on patrol.
He just wants to stay here and leave the world that no longer includes her behind.
"Hizashi."
All background noise fades out and the room loses detail, dissipating like mist. He looks up at Nemuri and her expression has changed. She's still smiling, but…
She looks sad.
"Hizashi."
She's holding onto his hands, but he can barely feel it, even as he grasps back tightly. It feels like she's fading away all over again. A sinking anxiety pools up from his stomach until it's clogging his throat and he feels like he's drowning.
"Nem-"
"You have to let me go."
The words repeat over and over in his dreamspace. Crushing, threatening. He frantically shakes his head.
"What're you talking about?" He wants to laugh it’s so ridiculous, so frightening. Let her go? How could he? For as long as he's known her, Nemuri had- no, has- been his rock, his confidant, his best friend. When they lost Oboro, when Shouta withdrew into the underground, when everyone else left him behind, Nemuri was still there. How can he now leave her behind? How can he let her go? Even if she's gone, can't he at least have this?
Can't he still have his dreams?
"You know this isn't good for you," she tells him, her lips pulling into a concerned frown. "You can't keep avoiding reality. All you do these days is sleep so you can come see me. But, Zashi-"
"Stop-"
"I'm gone," she says, and the truth hurts them both.
Nemuri closes her eyes, swallowing thickly. "I really wish I wasn't. You know there was so much more hell I wanted to raise," she laughs, but it's pained. When she looks at him again, her eyes are wet with tears, and he feels his own well up in return. "I wish I could have had more time with you, with everyone, but…" she shakes her head with disappointment and shrugs.
"It shouldn't have been you, Nem," Hizashi's lip wobbles, and he wants to scream and sob like a little kid. It's so unfair, why did she have to die? She didn't deserve it. "It should've- I should've-"
He doesn't even know what he's trying to say anymore. It shouldn't have been her. He should have been there for her. Hell, it should have been him-
"Shh, Zashi, sweetheart…"
He's fallen to his knees and she kneels with him, her arms wound around his shoulders as she tucks his face into the crook of her neck. He remembers all the times she held him like this, the times they grieved together, and now they grieve again. He clings on tight, and it feels like he's falling apart.
"It's so lonely without you," he tells her, "I miss you."
"I miss you, too."
Her figure is dissolving in his arms.
"I wanted to grow old together."
"I wanted that, too."
Her voice was so far away.
"Nemuri-"
"It's okay."
"Please don't-"
"It'll be okay, Hizashi."
"Please don't go!"
Hizashi opens his eyes with a gasp. For a few moments, he’s disoriented, and so he lays there, his chest expanding unnaturally as he takes large, rapid breaths.
It takes him a moment to realize that he’s awake.
He’s awake.
He's in bed in his apartment.
He's alone.
Nemuri's scent lingers beneath his nose.