ai | s. manjiro & m. takashi

に

Everything was black. Except a crystal chandelier hoisted in the middle, twinkling and shining brightly. Under the chandelier was a wooden round table and two chairs. Ai walked closer to the table and took a seat. 'This is such a random dream' she thought to herself.

From the darkness, a figure emerged into the light. It was Mitsuya.

Ai felt slightly weirded out. Why would she dream of him? Dream of him smiling at her and taking the seat in front of her? Although, Ai did meet Mitsuya a couple of times, hung out with him even - because of Hakkai. She found him to be a sweet and caring person, always looking out for her when Hakkai is out doing errands.

Chuckling to herself, she found Mitsuya just staring at her before extending his hand out to poke her cheek repeatedly.

"Stop doing that" Ai found herself saying it in her dream, but Mitsuya wasn't stopping. He continued to poke her cheek in her dream.

Dream.

Dream?

Abruptly opening her eyes, Ai found herself staring at the ceiling of her dark room. Blinking her eyes twice, Mitsuya was actually poking her cheek in her dream. But why out of nowhere dream of him?

Poke poke

Turning her head to the side, Ai came face to face with a teary eyed Hakkai sitting down on her bedroom floor. Before he could even let out a loud wail, she immediately sat up and covered his mouth with her hand.

"If you cry out loud, Taiju will come in. You don't want that, right?" She asks in a whisper, a finger placed in front of her lips. Hakkai nodded his head and slowly Ai removed her hand from him.

"I had a bad dream" Hakkai starts to say

"What was your dream about?"

"I was being chased by a dog!"

Ai blinked twice. She didn't know if she would feel irritated or sorry for her second older brother. But the look on his face told her that she should feel sorry for him instead.

"The dog was vicious looking okay! I went to Yuzuha's room but she swatted me away...then I went here." He wearily explains.

Sighing to herself, Ai made space in her small bed and patted it. "You can sleep here if you want. Although I can't guarantee if the dog in your dream is waiting for you to return." She snickers to herself.

But for Hakkai, this is actually what he wanted. He wanted to be comforted by his little sister. Sure he is older than Ai by a year, but Ai acted more like a parental figure than Taiju. The lack of parental love he was looking for was provided by none other than Ai herself.

Quickly, he laid himself down onto the free space besides her, curling up to her side before passing himself out to sleep as soon as he got comfortable. Ai chuckled to herself before placing a protective arm around him, closing her eyes to get herself back to sleep.

However, she couldn't.

She tried to slightly toss and turn on each side but nothing was working out for her, tried to just close her eyes and let sleep dawn into her, but neither were working. Sighing inaudibly, she turned her head to her illuminating clock watch - the clock read 3:55 am.

As Hakkai lightly snored besides her, Ai turned to face her ceiling once again. What was she going to do for the rest of the three and a half in the dead hours of the night? If she opened the light to review for today's test, she'd not only wake Hakkai up, but Taiju as well. With nothing else left to do, she took her mp3 cd player, putting her headphones on her ears and listened to music.