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“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY KID, JUNKO?” “WHAT AM I DOING? I SHOULD BE ASKING WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT’S NOT MY PROBLEM YO IS LACKING VITAMIN D, YOU’RE THE ONE SUPPOSED TO BE OVERSEEING HIS DIET, NOT ME!” “OH SHUT IT, IT WAS YOUR IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE!”
Hiori was transported back to that night. The night that he twisted his ankle. But unlike last time, he knew what was going on, he was just his current self in the same situation. Behind him was a long hallway stretching beyond what he could see. He considered running away, but that would just be a waste of time, the hallway may be never-ending. Currently, he is just watching his parents argue while he can’t do anything. It’s kind of hopeless now, he thinks, how he wanted to stop the arguing but knows that it would end up making everything worse.
The screaming kept continuing. Hiori just wanted everyone to shut up and disappear. Specifically, he wanted his parents to shut up and disappear. The yelling soon escalated to a point where he was pretty sure that it broke the sound barrier. He just wanted out, but the only problem was how? He looked back at the hallway and then heard another scream. “Screw it,” he thought and began to run. As Hiori ran down the seemingly endless hallway, a strange sensation washed over him, as if the walls were closing in. He looked around. The walls are actually closing in. He actually started sprinting, but the hallway kept stretching endlessly. Hiori noticed photographs that showed videos on the wall replaying memory after memory from his childhood. He wanted to vomit on the ground once he saw them. Disgusting. The yelling started escalating louder than ever. It was like crowding him and squishing him to the point that it felt like he would combust into a million pieces.
The hallway kept going further. It really felt like never-ending. How could he escape it? Is escaping really even possible? Nonetheless, he kept running even if his legs started giving out. He noticed there was an end to this hell and started sprinting. Soon enough, he approached the when he looked, he could only mummer a single word…
“What?”
As he slowly looked down, the only thing he could see was a large hole descending into nowhere. It was pointless, he either falls or gets consumed by the arguments of his parents and returned to the hellhole called his “home”. Instead, he did something unexpected.
He screamed.
“Hiori…Hiori…YO!”
Hiori immediately woke up, shaking. “Yo, are you ok? You were screaming bloody murder, I could hear it in my room!” “Rin, I’m fine, it was just a really, really bad dream.”
Since moving out of his parents' house and moving in with Rin, it felt like this huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His parents still haunted him every day, but it has been better, until today.
He looked at Rin’s face. It clearly showed concern and worry. “Rin, I promise I’m fine,” but his face still didn’t change. “I know Hiori. I’m just-” “Concerned?” “...Yea.” Hiori looked at Rin’s face. He could tell that Rin was still unsure that he was fine. “I was back in that hallway again,” Hiori said, his gaze drifting to the floor as if he could see the memory playing out in front of him. “You know, the one that feels like it stretches on forever? I was watching Mom and Dad fight, and it was like I was trapped in a loop. Their voices just kept getting louder.”
Hiori was sure that he had had this dream before, but when? All he could recognize was the sense of familiarity waking up next to Rin, saying it’s going to be alright.
God, he loves his boyfriend.
“If you want to stop, you can,” Rin interjected softly. “You don’t have to tell me if you genuinely don’t want to.”
“No, I want to Rin,” Hiori insisted. “I feel like it’s eating at me. I wanted to run, to escape, but no matter how fast I went, it just kept going. Then I reached this hole at the end… something about it just felt like it was all going to swallow me whole.”
Rin just kept nodding at what Hiori was saying. The only thing Hiori needed at most right now was someone to listen to. So Rin just kept quiet.
Hiori kept explaining. “Yeah, and then I just screamed. It felt like everything was closing in on me. I guess I just wanted to escape, like it was the only thing on my mind, but I couldn’t.”
Rin's expression softened, and then he placed a hand on the back of Hiori's neck. “You’ve come such a long way since moving out. You’re not there anymore, Yo. You’re here with me.”
“Rin…,” Hiori felt tears starting to form in his eyes, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sometimes I still feel like I’m still stuck in that house, you know? The arguments… the guilt of not being able to fix things.”
“I know," Rin replied gently. "But you’re not responsible for their happiness. And you’ve made the right choice for yourself. You deserve peace, Hiori.” Rin wrapped his arms around Hiori’s waist, holding him close and providing comfort to him.
He looked up at Rin, a sense of relief washing over him at their understanding. “Thanks for being here, Rin. I feel so useless right now.” Rin pecked his cheek, “You’re not useless, Yo. Anyone who had your parents deserves to feel powerless for a while.”
As they continued to sit beside each other, Hiori felt a bit more of the weight lifting. It wasn't completely lifted, but with Rin sitting beside him, it made him feel that the nightmare was behind him. It wasn’t gone completely, but he wasn’t thinking about it as much anymore. Slowly he drifted to sleep forgetting the nightmare entirely.