I think I’m starting to catch onto whatever you’re trying to do and all I can say is… don’t.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Yuuki Akiyama
Race: Human
Age: 37, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 790 words
 

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Today was turning into a staring contest. I wasn’t about to look away from the beast and it seemed to not be moving when I had my eyes on it. I really was just waiting on Niko to get back from visiting his parents. That thing about out of sight, out of mind? I’ve never believed that to be the case with situations like these.

I suppose I should start at the beginning, though the beginning is really only just an hour ago.

I was cleaning up the living room when out of nowhere a ginormous—to me, it is, I’m sure it’s possibly not that big to others—spider starts making its slow and unhurried way along the wall. I stared at it. I cursed under my breath, and I don’t know if it’s because it sensed this or something else altogether, but it stilled its motions when I spotted it.

Considering how dark it is to the forest-like tones of the living room, had I not seen it walking, I probably would have missed it. There is a sort of shimmer—a sheen, maybe?—to it, a metallic sort of blue. It would have been pretty if it had not been a spider. A ginormous spider, I think I’ve mentioned? Yeah.

Anyway.

I’m the type who usually doesn’t mind spiders if they’re minding their own business, that being if they’re outside. If there are small ones—the jumping ones I’ve noticed are sort of maybe cute—in the corners, I know that they’re chomping on bugs and unless they’re right in my face, I leave them be. There’s no point freaking out if there’s no interaction. I don’t like them, but I know that they’re useful so yeah. I’m not about to squish a spider just so squish a spider.

At this point, I feel as though if I look away, it’ll start moving again and I feel like I need to reiterate that the whole out of sight, out of mind does not apply to ginormous spiders in the house. Especially spiders that I might not manage to see on the walls unless I catch them at a certain angle because of their colour.

I see it shift one of its legs and I exhale sharply and, you know what, it resettles that leg. I’m in the process of telling myself that I’m on to whatever it is that monster is trying to do and that’s just not gonna happen. I’m not looking away.

It feels weird that, as scared as I am and unable to really move until Niko gets home, I’m curious about the whole thing. It sort of has the shape I think tarantulas have. At one point, a good few years ago, I had this strange fascination with spiders, and I did a bit of research through the archives. Maybe I was trying to overcome my fear of them. I know that with everything that happened out there, it’s highly possible that there are mixed breeds, that these spiders are an unknown or that they might not behave the way they used to.

Mostly because I faintly recall reading that tarantulas don’t like not being on the ground. They can climb walls due to the sticky web that they have on their feet or something similar to that, but they prefer being on the ground. So, I really just don’t know what this terrifying wall-hugger is—better a wall-hugger than a face-hugger, thanks—and I’m not moving from this spot until Niko gets back. He’d already been gone a while when I started my cleaning, and he should be back at any moment.

My eyes are dry, it feels like. I know I’ve blinked but that’s the extent of the looking away I’m willing to do because the moment I lose track of it, I’m going to panic, I’m going to run outside in nothing but the tunic on my back and my very comfortable underwear and I’m going to get eaten alive by bugs because wouldn’t you know it, bugs seem to love me for some reason. I remember being teased for having sweet blood or something, it always made me shake my head.

Again, it lifts one leg, as though testing the waters and I mutter a soft, “don’t you dare,” under my breath. It moves one step ahead because it does, indeed, dare, and I curse while moving so very slowly to make sure that I can stare it dead-on. I’m not looking away, you can’t make me. It’s going to be something to keep my eyes on it when Niko comes back but I’ll figure something out. Distract myself with these thoughts while still keeping my eyes on that beast.

I tell only the truth this time, but I can’t promise I will next time. You know me.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Yuuki Akiyama
Race: Human
Age: 36, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 720 words
 

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Dreams are weird. I don’t mean that thing about people’s hopes and dreams, I mean the thing where you’re sleeping and you live another life altogether that you tend to just forget about when you wake up. I know it’s the case for me. I remember my dreams for a few moments when I wake up but if I try to focus on them to remember them longer, they just fade faster.

Or they used to.

Over the last two or so weeks, I’ve had weird dreams, surrounded by people whose faces hold no meaning to me and whose words are even more meaningless. I know that, supposedly, dream people are made up of faces you’ve seen before but I think that my brain might take up the eyes of one person, the cheekbones of another, the nose of a third, and so on, to make the people in said dreams because I really have no idea who any of these people are.

Not helpful to the cause is that half of the people I’ve ‘met’ through my dreams are idiots and jerks and I now remember these dreams as though they were meaningful. They’re not meaningful. They don’t mean squat and I don’t need some stranger potentially made up of pieces from all the people in this town telling me that they’re only telling me the truth this time because they can’t promise they will next time.

Somehow, I’m supposed to know this person. This liar that has decided that I’m only worth telling the truth to once. I never get to hear what the truth is, either. That’s the frustrating part. The dreams that I do remember are always such short snippets that I feel like they could happen over the span of five to ten minutes at most. Setting up the scene, my getting to wherever this other person I’m supposed to know is, them telling me they’re telling me the truth but only this time and… well me waking up.

I’ve told Niko about it, he’s as baffled about it as I am. I mean, it’s not like there’s actually anything bad happening in the dreams, but it’s still slightly unsettling to be faced with this stranger claiming that I know him—or her—enough to know that telling the truth isn’t something they usually do. It’s just confusing. I’ve tried not to think about it too much but they’re all I recall of my nights anymore at this point so it’s become a bit of a frustration.

It doesn’t stay on my mind long, though. I can usually just tune it all out the moment I’m out of the door for my morning jog. Of course, it tends to all come back when I wake up the following morning because I’ve had yet another one of those pointless dreams but that’s about all that comes from that.

It’s just, it’s not like it’s keeping me from sleeping. It doesn’t leave me feeling tired in the mornings though I don’t always truly feel refreshed. There’s no danger to the dreams and no point. If I could at least get to the spoken truth, maybe I’d feel differently about it all but I never even get to that point, so just now, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it except let it go.

If it keeps up much longer, maybe I’ll just talk to a doc about it. There might be some sort of repressed memory—I’ve never been mistreated by my parents, there have been misunderstanding but nothing too terrible—but I doubt that this is the case. There’s no reason for my brain to have repressed anything at all. If nothing else, I’ll talk to my parents first, see if they can shed any light on the whole thing and if that doesn’t pan out, I’ll schedule an appointment with one of the docs.

I’m not all that stressed out about it but I am getting a little frustrated by the clearly repetitive nature of the dream. I don’t really remember hearing anyone talk about repeated dreams like these, not that I ever dug up much information on dreams since I never really remember mine beyond those first few minutes, so it’s something I might have to look up, in the end.

It looks like it’s going to rain tonight.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Yuuki Akiyama
Race: Human
Age: 33, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 585 words
 

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I love rain. I love being out in the rain and just enjoying it while it drenches me, washing away everything else for a little while. Just the same, I love being inside while it rains, listening to it as it pitter-patters against the windows and the roof. I love being settled in one of the window seats, either on my own or snuggled up to Niko, once more listening to it as it hits the window or even just watching it as it drenches the world as a whole. I like all sorts of rain; I even like storms with the rumbling of thunder and the flashes of lightning.

So I admit that I might often feel more than a little ready to point out that I believe it will rain in the upcoming little while or in a few hours. We have a small weather station in the back yard with the terminal sitting not far from the computer and I’ll give it a little look every morning. It’s interesting to see how weather forms and changes and everything.

For a little while, I ended up asking Niko if we could keep the yard in a summer-round setup because of my love for rain and we did, for five or six years. Summer year round and when the front of the yard and the rest of the little town was getting snow, we’d be getting rain and I’d fall asleep curled up next to him, lulled to the perfect sounds.

After a while, I started realizing that I actually missed the other seasons. Not that I wasn’t seeing them when we went outside but I missed seeing them from our back yard so we reverted back to the proper season setup and it has been glorious. The blossoming flowers, the birds coming and going—some that didn’t come our way anymore—the shifting of colours into glorious reds and yellows and then the snow. I hadn’t had a snowball fight in some years and I’d forgotten how fun it is.

On rare days, when I’m feeling moodier than others, I’ll sneak us off into the virtual reality room. I’ll just pick some place in the world that would feel cozy or nice to spend time in and we’ll go there. Of course, I’ll set the whole thing for a rainy day and it rarely fails to help me settle.

I don’t know why I have such an affinity with water. I honestly have a vague memory that I’m not even sure of its roots in which I’m drowning. Have I ever almost drowned? Has the water ever embraced me in a way that made me exhale a breath that could be my last but wasn’t? I’ve never been able to bring it up to my parents to ask. It feels like such a personal question. I could look into my medical file but at the same time, I’d be afraid to know.

I mean, asking your parents if you nearly drowned as a child sounds like an accusation to me and while I know that my childhood wasn’t the best—both by my fault and yet not—I also know that my parents did their very best and they loved me and still love me. I am their child and I adore them as much as they do me. So I’m not going to ask and I’m just going to keep on enjoying the rain as it falls and covers and envelopes.

We need to do this again.

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Yuuki Akiyama
Race: Human
Age: 33, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 555 words

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My favourite activity is the one where I can lounge back against him, nuzzling up to his throat and simply doing nothing. I indulge in this particular activity every single weekend and no one will make me budge from my spot at least for a couple of hours after which we do get up to deal with the rest of the day in a usually semi-similar and lazy fashion.

During the weekdays, that’s different. Not that it would need to be but it is because I’m a good boy and I like to at least keep a semblance of normalcy and not just be a lazy butt who refuses to get up and do anything in his life. One of the weekday’s activities that I did discover I liked was jogging.

It was an absolute accident. I’ve never been very fond of PE classes or gym or anything that required I do more than the basic necessity as far as exercise was concerned. I was a skinny enough lad that I didn’t feel like I needed to exercise.

When I was seventeen or so and we were supposed to meet up somewhere for a date that I was certain would turn wonderfully steamy, I took one look at the clock and realized I was going to be seriously late. I’d spent far too much time worrying about my clothes to keep track of time and being late was one of those things I couldn’t be. I hated being late and never did like those who were late to appointments. So I put on my shoes, put on my light coat and I let myself out, running to get to our meeting point.

I’d fast-walked before but running? Running was a little new since I’d often enough managed to talk my way out of anything to do with running in PE. It was exhilarating. Sure, my lungs burned when I made it to our meeting point with a minute or so to spare and my legs felt like jelly but at the same time I felt great and I’m sure I was grinning like a loon for most of the evening. At least until things did get steamy but that’s something else altogether.

So I told myself, hey, why not? Try this again in a proper environment, see how it feels.

It was a case of trial and error. I ran for a while, just hard and fast but that ended up being exhausting. I slowed to a jog, awkward at first since doing that jog-in-place thing was weird for me but I learned and I’ve been jogging every weekday morning since, when I can’t in the mornings, I do so in the afternoon but it doesn’t have the same sort of feeling that jogging in the morning does. I’ve toned up. For a little while, I was afraid I’d lose more weight than I should in the first place but I didn’t. I’d never had extra baby fat but I toned up, my legs are something and I’m sure nobody is complaining about how firm they are, especially not Niko. I just love how it feels when he runs his hands along my legs.

So really, I may be a lazy butt on the weekends but the weekdays? Another story altogether.