Night Terrors (the perfect lullaby remix)
Title: Night Terrors (the perfect lullaby remix)
Rating: G
Pairing: Koyama/Shige friendship
Words: 1,595
Summary: "It’s embarrassing to be nineteen and still need his mother’s hand on his back to keep the bogeyman at bay."
Notes: A remix of carmine_pink's Dark Dreams for jentfic_remix Cycle 6. Thank you to my beta, as always. :D
---
She wakes up to a now-familiar thrashing, low, desperate moans making their way insistently through thin walls to rouse her from her sleep. She’s always been a heavy sleeper, she thinks, as she sluggishly pulls herself out of bed and pads down the hall to open the door of her son’s bedroom. But she’s always woken up at times like these, when either of her children had bad dreams or was sick or experiencing anything seriously distressing. Mother’s intuition, she knows.
“Keiichiro,” she says quietly, sinking down next to him on his futon and holding him carefully by the shoulders. “Wake up, baby. It’s okay.”
Koyama comes awake with a shudder, eyelids fluttering and a choked sob coming from his throat. “Mom?” he asks, confused but grateful.
She pushes his bangs off his sweaty forehead, smoothes her fingers across his brow and down to touch his cheek. She can still feel him shaking and she pets his hair while he cries. She hates this, feeling so helpless. She remembers the way she felt when she got the phone call from the hospital telling her that her son had been in an accident, that a drunk driver had rear-ended him and rolled his car - desperation, desperation, and gut-wrenching terror. She hadn’t waited for them to finish, out the door with her apron still on and her cook hollering after her. He’d been all right. Minor injuries, nothing too bad. He wouldn’t even have to stay away from work very long. But long after his scrapes and bruises and sprains have healed, the mental injuries remain.
“It’s all right, Keiichiro. Mama’s here,” she says and lies down next to him and cradles him in her arms. She knows he’d die if any of his friends found out that she sometimes stays with him through the night, when his worries evoke the nightmares, but she knows he’s glad, too, knows that in a few moments he’ll relax against her side and let himself fall asleep. It’s such a small thing and she hates that she can’t really protect him from the bad things in life. But she can protect him in this way, and she will - as long as he needs her to.
___
One year after the accident and Koyama is back to driving. He loves it. Loves the way it feels to take off and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. It’s relaxing to him, and, even if he doesn’t understand how it can both be the source of great pleasure and of nighttime anguish, he’s glad for it, because things are getting tense and he needs to be able to unwind. The therapist his mother took him to said that Koyama likes the control involved. That it might be because of the accident that Koyama prefers to drive himself. Koyama doesn’t really care what the reason is. All he knows is that with all the drama surrounding the formation of NewS - the members who won’t talk to each other, the nervousness of their upcoming tour overwhelming him - the nightmares have become so consistent that he’s taken to sleeping on his stomach, mouth half-smothered by his pillow to try and keep from waking his mother nearly every night.
He doesn’t know what to do, so he drives. Long trips out to the ocean, short trips to see his grandparents, pointless trips where he goes out and drives for an hour just to come back home and get back to life. He knows it bothers his mother, but he is grateful that she doesn’t try to stop him.
Beyond the stress involved in being part of a newly debuted band with a lot riding on its shoulders, whose intergroup relations are about as stable as those between North and South Korea, what really makes Koyama nervous is the overnight stays on the upcoming tour. He knows he is going to be stressed out during the tour. More than even now, when it’s all unknown - how they’ll be together, how the fans will react, whether or not there will be too many mistakes… People say that the unknown is the scariest thing. He disagrees; the scariest thing is knowing what’s going to happen and not having any choice in the matter anyway. And that means there will be nightmares and crying in the night and he doesn’t know what to do about the roommate situation. It’s embarrassing to be nineteen and still need his mother’s hand on his back to keep the bogeyman at bay.
He doesn’t know what to do.
He rooms with Shige because they’re best friends and because Shige is a heavy sleeper. Everyone assumes it’s the former and that’s part of it, but Koyama would have roomed with Ryo if the man was guaranteed to sleep through the night without waking.
“Here,” Koyama says, holding out a pair of earplugs to Shige.
Shige looks at them and then up at Koyama, brow furrowed. “Why?”
Koyama shakes them at him. “I snore. Loudly. I’m trying to be considerate.”
Shige grinned at him and took them. “I don’t think your snores will wake me up, but thanks,” he says and Koyama can feel a bit of the tension drain out of him.
He takes his time getting ready for bed, Shige grumping at him to hurry up and turn out the light because he’s tired. Koyama turns out the light hesitantly and slides into his bed, between cold sheets, and turns onto his side and waits. Only when Shige’s breathing has evened out does Koyama allow his eyes to slip closed.
Maybe it had started out nice, Koyama doesn’t remember later, but it doesn’t stay that way. A beautiful day just beginning to end, sun gone but still sending out pink and orange fingers of light but Koyama’s focusing carefully on the road, checking his mirrors and being careful, just like his mother always tells him. Then he sees a car in his rearview, swerving a bit and gaining on him. He doesn’t panic, just switches lanes carefully, expecting the man to go past him. Instead there’s a sudden crash and his head whips forward, his foot instinctively slamming on the breaks and there’s the loud, ear-piercing screeching of tires on asphalt, the feel of steering wheel turning beneath tightened fingers, entirely on its own, Koyama losing his struggle against it and he goes off the side of the road and he feels gravity give way for just a second as the car hits a patch of loose gravel and flips. He’s being shaken harshly as the car rolls and he can’t understand what’s wrong.
He comes awake with a start, sitting up so hard and fast that he knocks his forehead on something.
“Ouch!” Shige yells, and Koyama realizes that he’d headbutted Shige.
One of Shige’s hands is still tightly gripping Koyama’s shoulder and Koyama trembles, still caught up in the dream. “Sorry,” Koyama mumbles, still disoriented.
“Koyama, are you okay?” Shige asks hoarsely, his eyes wide in the dim light from the opened bathroom door. “You were shouting.”
“I’m sorry,” Koyama says again, voice shaky, and Shige leaves him for a moment to bring back water. Koyama drinks it slowly, trying to get a hold of himself.
Shige is sitting beside him, knees against his chest and hands clasped around them. “Bad dream?”
Koyama nods and turns sheepish eyes to his friend. “I’m sorry.”
Shige is silent a moment. “Is that why you wanted me to wear the ear plugs?”
Koyama is ashamed. He looks away.
“What is it about?”
“The car accident,” he replies shortly but Shige nods.
“From last year?”
Koyama wants to be angry because the words alone imply something so old that it should be forgotten, but Shige’s tone is soft and understanding and Koyama just nods.
“Do you have them every night?” Shige asks curiously.
“No, just when I’m stressed.”
Shige laughs quietly. “And I’d say this group provides plenty of that.”
Koyama forces a low chuckle. “I’m sorry, Shige. I really am. But I thought that of anyone in the group, I’d rather only Shige accidentally find out.”
“It’s okay, Koyama,” Shige says, releasing his legs and putting an arm around Koyama’s shoulders. “I’m weak all the time. You can be weak sometimes too.”
Koyama chokes on the emotion that rises to his throat. “Shige…”
Shige just smiles back at him and stands up, pulling back the covers on the other side of Koyama’s bed and crawling in to lie next to him. Koyama blinks at him, but Shige tugs on Koyama’s sleeve until he is lying down and then turns onto his side, away from Koyama.
Koyama feels warmth and affection spread across his whole body and he smiles, turning over so that they are back-to-back.
“It’ll be our secret,” Shige says, voice muffled.
“Thank you.”
They lie in comfortable silence and just as Koyama feels himself drifting off, he hears Shige say sleepily, “Sweet dreams.”
In the morning he wakes up slowly, ten minutes before the alarm is set to go off, and turns over to smile at Shige’s back. “Thank you,” he whispers and thinks that maybe the rest of the tour will be even better than he’d hoped.
Rating: G
Pairing: Koyama/Shige friendship
Words: 1,595
Summary: "It’s embarrassing to be nineteen and still need his mother’s hand on his back to keep the bogeyman at bay."
Notes: A remix of carmine_pink's Dark Dreams for jentfic_remix Cycle 6. Thank you to my beta, as always. :D
---
She wakes up to a now-familiar thrashing, low, desperate moans making their way insistently through thin walls to rouse her from her sleep. She’s always been a heavy sleeper, she thinks, as she sluggishly pulls herself out of bed and pads down the hall to open the door of her son’s bedroom. But she’s always woken up at times like these, when either of her children had bad dreams or was sick or experiencing anything seriously distressing. Mother’s intuition, she knows.
“Keiichiro,” she says quietly, sinking down next to him on his futon and holding him carefully by the shoulders. “Wake up, baby. It’s okay.”
Koyama comes awake with a shudder, eyelids fluttering and a choked sob coming from his throat. “Mom?” he asks, confused but grateful.
She pushes his bangs off his sweaty forehead, smoothes her fingers across his brow and down to touch his cheek. She can still feel him shaking and she pets his hair while he cries. She hates this, feeling so helpless. She remembers the way she felt when she got the phone call from the hospital telling her that her son had been in an accident, that a drunk driver had rear-ended him and rolled his car - desperation, desperation, and gut-wrenching terror. She hadn’t waited for them to finish, out the door with her apron still on and her cook hollering after her. He’d been all right. Minor injuries, nothing too bad. He wouldn’t even have to stay away from work very long. But long after his scrapes and bruises and sprains have healed, the mental injuries remain.
“It’s all right, Keiichiro. Mama’s here,” she says and lies down next to him and cradles him in her arms. She knows he’d die if any of his friends found out that she sometimes stays with him through the night, when his worries evoke the nightmares, but she knows he’s glad, too, knows that in a few moments he’ll relax against her side and let himself fall asleep. It’s such a small thing and she hates that she can’t really protect him from the bad things in life. But she can protect him in this way, and she will - as long as he needs her to.
___
One year after the accident and Koyama is back to driving. He loves it. Loves the way it feels to take off and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. It’s relaxing to him, and, even if he doesn’t understand how it can both be the source of great pleasure and of nighttime anguish, he’s glad for it, because things are getting tense and he needs to be able to unwind. The therapist his mother took him to said that Koyama likes the control involved. That it might be because of the accident that Koyama prefers to drive himself. Koyama doesn’t really care what the reason is. All he knows is that with all the drama surrounding the formation of NewS - the members who won’t talk to each other, the nervousness of their upcoming tour overwhelming him - the nightmares have become so consistent that he’s taken to sleeping on his stomach, mouth half-smothered by his pillow to try and keep from waking his mother nearly every night.
He doesn’t know what to do, so he drives. Long trips out to the ocean, short trips to see his grandparents, pointless trips where he goes out and drives for an hour just to come back home and get back to life. He knows it bothers his mother, but he is grateful that she doesn’t try to stop him.
Beyond the stress involved in being part of a newly debuted band with a lot riding on its shoulders, whose intergroup relations are about as stable as those between North and South Korea, what really makes Koyama nervous is the overnight stays on the upcoming tour. He knows he is going to be stressed out during the tour. More than even now, when it’s all unknown - how they’ll be together, how the fans will react, whether or not there will be too many mistakes… People say that the unknown is the scariest thing. He disagrees; the scariest thing is knowing what’s going to happen and not having any choice in the matter anyway. And that means there will be nightmares and crying in the night and he doesn’t know what to do about the roommate situation. It’s embarrassing to be nineteen and still need his mother’s hand on his back to keep the bogeyman at bay.
He doesn’t know what to do.
He rooms with Shige because they’re best friends and because Shige is a heavy sleeper. Everyone assumes it’s the former and that’s part of it, but Koyama would have roomed with Ryo if the man was guaranteed to sleep through the night without waking.
“Here,” Koyama says, holding out a pair of earplugs to Shige.
Shige looks at them and then up at Koyama, brow furrowed. “Why?”
Koyama shakes them at him. “I snore. Loudly. I’m trying to be considerate.”
Shige grinned at him and took them. “I don’t think your snores will wake me up, but thanks,” he says and Koyama can feel a bit of the tension drain out of him.
He takes his time getting ready for bed, Shige grumping at him to hurry up and turn out the light because he’s tired. Koyama turns out the light hesitantly and slides into his bed, between cold sheets, and turns onto his side and waits. Only when Shige’s breathing has evened out does Koyama allow his eyes to slip closed.
Maybe it had started out nice, Koyama doesn’t remember later, but it doesn’t stay that way. A beautiful day just beginning to end, sun gone but still sending out pink and orange fingers of light but Koyama’s focusing carefully on the road, checking his mirrors and being careful, just like his mother always tells him. Then he sees a car in his rearview, swerving a bit and gaining on him. He doesn’t panic, just switches lanes carefully, expecting the man to go past him. Instead there’s a sudden crash and his head whips forward, his foot instinctively slamming on the breaks and there’s the loud, ear-piercing screeching of tires on asphalt, the feel of steering wheel turning beneath tightened fingers, entirely on its own, Koyama losing his struggle against it and he goes off the side of the road and he feels gravity give way for just a second as the car hits a patch of loose gravel and flips. He’s being shaken harshly as the car rolls and he can’t understand what’s wrong.
He comes awake with a start, sitting up so hard and fast that he knocks his forehead on something.
“Ouch!” Shige yells, and Koyama realizes that he’d headbutted Shige.
One of Shige’s hands is still tightly gripping Koyama’s shoulder and Koyama trembles, still caught up in the dream. “Sorry,” Koyama mumbles, still disoriented.
“Koyama, are you okay?” Shige asks hoarsely, his eyes wide in the dim light from the opened bathroom door. “You were shouting.”
“I’m sorry,” Koyama says again, voice shaky, and Shige leaves him for a moment to bring back water. Koyama drinks it slowly, trying to get a hold of himself.
Shige is sitting beside him, knees against his chest and hands clasped around them. “Bad dream?”
Koyama nods and turns sheepish eyes to his friend. “I’m sorry.”
Shige is silent a moment. “Is that why you wanted me to wear the ear plugs?”
Koyama is ashamed. He looks away.
“What is it about?”
“The car accident,” he replies shortly but Shige nods.
“From last year?”
Koyama wants to be angry because the words alone imply something so old that it should be forgotten, but Shige’s tone is soft and understanding and Koyama just nods.
“Do you have them every night?” Shige asks curiously.
“No, just when I’m stressed.”
Shige laughs quietly. “And I’d say this group provides plenty of that.”
Koyama forces a low chuckle. “I’m sorry, Shige. I really am. But I thought that of anyone in the group, I’d rather only Shige accidentally find out.”
“It’s okay, Koyama,” Shige says, releasing his legs and putting an arm around Koyama’s shoulders. “I’m weak all the time. You can be weak sometimes too.”
Koyama chokes on the emotion that rises to his throat. “Shige…”
Shige just smiles back at him and stands up, pulling back the covers on the other side of Koyama’s bed and crawling in to lie next to him. Koyama blinks at him, but Shige tugs on Koyama’s sleeve until he is lying down and then turns onto his side, away from Koyama.
Koyama feels warmth and affection spread across his whole body and he smiles, turning over so that they are back-to-back.
“It’ll be our secret,” Shige says, voice muffled.
“Thank you.”
They lie in comfortable silence and just as Koyama feels himself drifting off, he hears Shige say sleepily, “Sweet dreams.”
In the morning he wakes up slowly, ten minutes before the alarm is set to go off, and turns over to smile at Shige’s back. “Thank you,” he whispers and thinks that maybe the rest of the tour will be even better than he’d hoped.