Side-By-Side Dreamers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Character Illustration

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Bonus Illustration

  About J-Novel Club

  Copyright

  1

  In a classroom warmed by the beautiful afternoon sun, the sound of a female teacher—one who was bordering on retirement age—droning on about modern literature dominated the room like some kind of incantation.

  It was after lunch, and the full-bellied high school girls were not getting sufficient blood flow to their brains. From the rear seat, it was impossible not to notice heads swaying with drowsiness.

  The sight alone was enough to make one sleepy, but Saya Hokage would not fall asleep.

  She sat at the very back of the classroom, and in a window seat at that. It was a position that, under normal circumstances, should have promised her a safe place to nap in class.

  However, that only worked for people who could sleep.

  Saya had her elbows on the desk and her cheeks resting on her palms as she stared blankly towards the blackboard. Though she wasn’t going as far as sleeping in class, her thoughts were extremely muddled. Her eyes were open, but her gaze was vacant, and the teacher’s voice only served as incidental background noise.

  “...Hokage. Hokage!”

  Saya blinked, finally realizing she was being called. It appeared, on closer inspection, that the teacher was glaring at her.

  “Are we awake now?”

  “...Wasn’t asleep,” Saya answered in a husky voice.

  “Then read the next passage, starting from the top.”

  It was all well and good to ask for the next passage, but Saya had no idea where they had read up to. After idly playing with the pages of her textbook a bit, Saya was forced to admit: “...I don’t know. Where’re we at?”

  The teacher let out an exasperated sigh. “No, nevermind.”

  Another student was chosen, and they began reading from the textbook.

  “‘It seems many people are unable to sleep at night unless they turn out the lights, but I find the darkness suffocating, and can never sleep’...”

  Saya hung her head, lowering her gaze to the top of her desk.

  Lately, this same sort of thing had happened a number of times. She still wasn’t used to humiliating herself in front of the entire room, and it irritated her that she was left behind as class moved on without her. Still, there was nothing that could be done about it.

  Saya Hokage couldn’t sleep.

  Night or day, at home or at school.

  No time, no place, no how.

  If that meant she wasn’t sleepy, not sleeping would be fine. If her head were clear, she could have put all the time that other people used for sleeping to good use. But in Saya’s case, she did feel sleepy, and there was no solution in sight.

  She was sleepy, but unable to sleep. It was the worst.

  She had tried everything she could think of: eating before sleep, taking a hot bath before sleep, stretching before sleep, working out until she was exhausted before sleep. She changed her futon. Changed her pillow. Changed where she slept. Tried changing the time, from morning, to noon, to night. She gave those hypnosis tracks people used for getting to sleep a shot. She went for counseling at a sleep clinic. She even tried sleeping meds.

  None of it had any effect.

  Despite her fervent wish to just fall asleep, to let go of consciousness for even a moment, Saya had been awake and in a daze for several days.

  Thanks to that, her grades plummeted, making her feel like a pariah both at school and at home. There was nothing she could do about the awful bags under her eyes, and the wrinkles on her brow frightened people when she looked at them. She was always cranky, and she couldn’t respond properly when people did try to talk to her, so her classmates now kept their distance. From their perspective, she must have looked like one of those stupid “yankee” delinquents.

  Eventually, the bell signaled the end of class. The teacher left, and the excited chatter of students filled the classroom.

  No one talked to Saya.

  Next was sixth period, mathematics, and when that was over she could go home, but...

  Is there any point in me being here?

  During first year, she hadn’t been bad at math, but in her current state, a logical train of thought was too difficult for her. The truth was, ever since she’d fallen into this current state of insomnia, math class had been reduced to a period where all she did was sit there, staring at mathematical equations that meant nothing to her. Although, you could say the same of her other classes, too.

  Pulling back her chair, Saya stood up. Nobody noticed as she stumbled out of the class, and no one would be bothered by her skipping the next class.

  Saya had been forced to realize early on that no one would take her trouble with sleeplessness all that seriously.

  The empty condolences of people who told her there was no need to rush things and it would get better with time were one thing, but she also got lectured about how she needed to live on a more regular schedule. However, Saya was now past the stage where she was angry at the lack of understanding from those around her.

  She wanted to sleep... That was all. Sleep.

  If sleep wasn’t possible, then to lie down, at least.

  Saya stumbled through the noisy recess-time hallway, her unsteady steps carrying her down the stairs.

  The first floor was dimly lit and there were few people around. When she opened the door to the health room and went in, the school doctor, who was sitting at her desk, looked up.

  “Hokage-san.”

  “Is it okay if I rest here?”

  “You can’t sleep again?”

  “Not a wink...”

  The school doctor stood up, gesturing Saya towards a bed with curtains around it.

  “Go ahead and use one of the beds. I hope that’ll help you feel at least a little better.”

  Saya mumbled a “thank you,” then sat down on one of the two beds. She removed her hallway slippers and slipped under the covers.

  “You’re welcome to come anytime, okay?” the school doctor said as she put out the fluorescent light next to the bed before returning to her seat.

  The school doctor was one of the precious few people in this school who showed a proper amount of concern for Saya’s insomnia. It was good to be told she could come anytime, but Saya held back and did her best not to become a regular. Besides, even if she came to the health room, she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in gently, feeling the warmth of the bed.

  Breathe in...

  Breathe out...

  Breathe in...

  Breathe out...

  ...

  She couldn’t sleep.

  She turned over. The ticking of the wall clock caught her attention. Tick, tick, tick, tick, she counted the ticks from the steady rhythm of the second hand.

  One, two, three, four...

  ...

  Five hundred sixty-five, five hundred sixty-six, five hundred sixty-seven...

  On the other side of the curtain, the school doctor stopped writing. The back of her chair creaked; it seemed as though she was stretching. She exhale
d a voiceless sigh.

  The castors of the chair moved, and the school doctor stood up.

  There was a clacking of heels that grew distant, the sound of the health room door sliding open, and then closing again. The footsteps departed down the hall.

  With no one left but herself, the room grew very quiet. And yet, Saya couldn’t sleep.

  She lay on her back, eyes closed. As she stared up at the ceiling in the dim light, it became harder and harder for her to endure this.

  This vague suffering... how long would it last? Was it going to be like this the rest of her life? When she spoke of her troubles with sleeping, there was one thing people occasionally said to mollify her: “No one ever died of an inability of sleep.”

  It made her mad every time she heard it, but Saya had at least looked into it herself; to see if it was true that no one had ever died from lack of sleep.

  The fact of the matter was, people had.

  She found there was a syndrome called Fatal Familial Insomnia, which caused total sleeplessness, leading to death after about two years. However, it was a pretty rare syndrome, and it was genetic, too. When she asked her parents about it, no one on either side of the family had ever suffered from such a disease.

  Conversely, she found a number of accounts of people who went years without sleep, but that information had come from dodgy aggregator websites, or translations of foreign news reports, so she had no idea how much it could be trusted.

  Meanwhile, there was also talk of sleep deprivation having been used as a form of torture in many countries. The method of sleep deprivation developed by Nazi Germany, a technique of 180-hour sleep deprivation which the CIA used to great effect in the Middle East, Chinese authorities interrupting the sleep of Uighur detainees every 25 minutes... The literature on these occurrences always noted that victims suffered from abnormalities in their mental and physical health.

  While feeling sympathetic to the victims, Saya couldn’t help but think that it was as though she was being tortured 24 hours a day.

  Will I go mad?

  Or, have I already...?

  The more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed that her life was controlled by something as minor as being unable to sleep. She simply couldn’t accept it.

  As the thought seethed away at the bottom of her hazy mind, there were footsteps again, approaching from the hallway.

  She thought the school doctor had returned, but the sound was different. These weren’t heels, but flat-bottomed hallway slippers. It wasn’t a teacher—it was a student like Saya.

  They approached with flat steps and opened the door to the health room without so much as a knock. They must have noticed the school doctor was away, as they stopped for a moment, but entered the room instead of turning back.

  “Fwahhhh,” came the relaxed yawn of a girl. “...Mmff. So sleepy.”

  No sooner had Saya realized the mumbling voice was coming closer than the curtain was suddenly drawn back.

  “Um,” Saya breathed. She ought to have been surprised, but she wasn’t in any state to give more than a vague response. When she had just barely managed to force herself to sit, the owner of that voice fell towards her.

  “...Uwah?”

  This person, who seemed almost airy in nature, was sleeping on top of the blanket. Her curly, light hair spilled out across the back of her blazer. She was smaller than Saya, and despite the fact that she was lying on top of both of Saya’s legs, she hardly felt the girl’s weight at all.

  “What’s with this girl?” Saya’s thoughts slipped out of her mouth. Being sleep-addled had made her careless, and whatever came to mind had a way of just leaking right out.

  “Um, hey,” Saya greeted cautiously.

  “Mmhm? Mmnmm.” Listlessly, the girl’s head moved, a profile of her face peeking out from under her hair. Her eyes were closed, and her lips appeared to smile.

  “Hey. You. What’s your deal?”

  When Saya addressed her in more forceful tone, the lips moved slightly.

  “...ight.”

  “Huh? What?”

  When she leaned in closer to pick up what the girl was saying, the mumbled voice crept into Saya’s ear.

  “Good night.”

  Her vision shook; it felt like a maelstrom formed inside her head.

  Out of nowhere, there was now a current in the pool of drowsiness that had gradually filled up inside of her skull, as if a dam had suddenly broken, or someone had pulled the plug on a bathtub.

  “Huh, huh, huh?”

  She had hardly any time to be confused. Her consciousness was cast into the muddy flow of drowsiness, and she was dragged down into that pitch-black maelstrom.

  “What’s going on? No, I’m scared—”

  Terror rose at the sudden sensation, but there was no way to resist it.

  In no time, her consciousness was subsumed by the darkness.

  Oh, this.

  She had forgotten it, but knew what this was.

  This sensation she hadn’t felt in too long...

  Sleep.

  While walking a road I hadn’t been down since leaving home, there were yellow colored pylons everywhere, getting in the way. When I got pissed at having nearly tripped so many times, I asked a person who was passing by what was up, and they clicked their tongue and glared at me.

  “There’s something wrong with you. You’re always saying stuff like that. That’s why you had to leave this town like you did. I don’t know what you’re thinking, coming back here.”

  They spoke a mile a minute as they chewed me out, then clicked their tongue in distaste again as they walked off.

  I felt intensely embarrassed, and started to cry.

  They were right. I really shouldn’t have come back.

  “You can’t help it,” my lover walking at my side said, stretching to wipe the tears from my face.

  “It’s because of the Suiju. Everyone’s graves are here.”

  When she told me that, I looked closer, and the pylons had everyone’s names written on them.

  “It’ll be here soon. Are you ready?”

  I knew how to slay Suiju, so I nodded. With a satisfied smile, my lover tried to kiss me, but behind her, I could see a creature with multiple legs growing out of the side of it approaching. It was a Suiju! I pointed at it, and opened my mouth to warn her.

  “Ah...!”

  Suddenly regaining consciousness, Saya opened her eyes. For a little while, she wasn’t sure what had happened. While staring up vacantly at the dimly lit ceiling of the health room, it gradually dawned on her.

  “I... slept?”

  She had been asleep. Dreaming, even.

  How many days had it been since that happened? The sleep she had given up on ever seeing again had come back to her once more.

  “I slept. I was able to sleep.”

  Looking beside her, there she was. Her lover. It wasn’t clear when, but at some point she had laid down next to Saya to sleep. Having confirmed her safety, Saya let out a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, good... She made it.”

  If she’d been attacked by the Suiju, she wouldn’t have gotten off lightly. Looking at her peaceful face as she snoozed, affection and relief welled up inside her.

  Saya leaned in, planting a gentle kiss on her lover’s parted lips. The soft sensation, and the sweet smell were intoxicating.

  Oh, right. This was how it felt.

  ...

  “...Huh?”

  This was how it felt?

  How what felt?

  Saya blinked, looking again at her lover, whom she had just kissed. She was a soft, nice-smelling girl with airy, curly hair.

  “...Huh?”

  Huhhhh?!

  Saya jumped up out of the bed.

  Wh-Who’s this?!

  My lover? Why? I was completely convinced of that in the dream, and it didn’t seem weird until just now, but now that I can think about it clearly, I have no clue who this girl is...

  While sh
e was still frozen with panic, her “lover” opened her eyes.

  “Ngh...”

  Listlessly rising from a face-down position, she turned her vacant gaze towards Saya. In the dimly lit room, there seemed to be a dull gleam in those eyes. It was like she was a beast in human form, and Saya started backing away across the bed without realizing it.

  Moving backwards, her hand grasped nothing but air and Saya fell out of the bed.

  “Wahh! Ow!”

  Her “lover” peered over the edge of the bed, looking down at Saya, who had hit her back and had the wind knocked out of her.

  “You okay?”

  Saya couldn’t respond. She just looked up at her, wide-eyed; the earlier feeling of satisfaction scared her. The thought that she had mistaken an utter stranger for her lover, of all things, was unbearably frightening.

  “Hey,” her “lover” started to say, but stopped short as she seemed to realize something. Lowering her face, she lifted up her right hand, touched her lips, tilted her head to the side—then looked at Saya again.

  “Just now, did you—”

  “S-Sorr—!” Saya shouted, cutting her off, before getting up in a hurry, her feet sliding on the floor.

  “Hey, wait!”

  Ignoring the calls to stop, she pulled aside the curtain and moved away from the bed. With labored steps, she crossed the room, quickly opening the door and heading out.

  It was already after school. Saya ran down a hallway just barely colored by the last light of the evening sun, snatched her shoes from her locker, then fled the school.

  2

  The inside of Saya’s head was a mess.

  Still not entirely sure what to think, she ran for most of what was usually a twenty-minute walk home. The moment she opened the door and stepped inside, she ran into Aya—her sister, three years her senior—as she was coming out of the living room.

  “Whoa.” Having apparently just gotten out of the bath, Aya, who had a towel wrapped around her head and an ice pop sticking out of her mouth, reacted to Saya’s momentum with shock. “Is something up...?”

  Saya, still out of breath, just shook her head.

  Looking dubiously at her little sister, Aya raised an eyebrow as she seemed to notice something.