12

By the time she returned home, it was 9:00pm; even with the Napping Club as an excuse, this was clearly too late. She entered the house and shut the door behind her, prepared to get yelled at.

“I’m home...”

There was no response. The lights in the entrance hall were off, and the light from the living room was spilling out through the half-open door.

She started to take off her shoes, then stopped despite herself.

The dream she’d had before flashed back into her mind. The dark hall, the light from the living room. Where Midori had been her little sister, and though she’d been distracted by the illogical events that could only have happened in a dream, that scene had taken place in her own familiar home, too.

She proceeded down the hall with quiet steps and peeked into the living room. Only the TV was on, a muted news program displayed on screen.

No one was inside the room. Normally, at this time of day, her parents and elder sister should have been around, yet today there was no sign of anyone in the living room or the kitchen.

Going over next to the window, she pulled back the curtains. Unlike in her dream, there wasn’t a wide yard out there, just a wall made of concrete blocks a stone’s throw away, with the parking lot beyond it.

This should be obvious, but there was no bear.

Checking the locks on the windows, she closed the curtain once more. The moment she turned around, she saw someone standing in the room, and she screamed despite herself.

“Wahhh?!”

“Woah, what?! You startled me.”

“O-Onee-chan?”

The one who had reached out towards the wall and flicked the lights on was Aya. The way her sister looked under the fluorescent lights was so normal, it was... disappointing.

“What were you doing in the dark there? And hold on, you’ve been home?”

“I just got back... Where are Mom and Dad?”

“Didn’t you see they sent a message saying a person at work died and they’d be going to the wake?”

“Uh... sorry, no. I didn’t notice.”

“Saya, you haven’t eaten, right? Should I make something?”

“Nah... Don’t bother. I’ll grab something later. Thanks.”

About to head to her own room, the lights went out. With no time to be surprised, someone leaned over her from behind.

“Why did you leave me behind, Saya?” someone whispered in her ear in the pitch dark room.

Saya awoke in her bed.

It was her own room. Still dark. Looking at the clock, it was four in the morning.

“...Was it a dream?”

She noticed one of her hands was feeling around above the sheets as if searching for someone. Feeling awkward, she pulled it back in. Combined with the shock of the nightmare, a bed with no one in it beside her felt awfully wide and lonely.

Starting to feel uncertain, she meshed her fingers and pulled on them. They resisted, like they were supposed to. This was definitely Dayland.

While she was looking up at the ceiling and trying to calm herself, something cut across her vision.

It walked through the air with faint glow, like a constellation that had started moving around on its own feet. It passed over Saya and slipped out the window to the veranda, then vanished out of sight.

A Suiju.

Jumping up, she raced to the window, then went out onto the veranda.

The Suiju was nowhere to be seen, but there was no doubting it now. The Suiju were active in Dayland.

Once she noticed it, there was no turning back. Saya encountered twelve Suiju that day. They jumped into her vision one after another, almost as if she had just gained a special ability that let her see fairies.

In the house. On the way to school. Around the school. These aberrant beings that seemed neither living nor artificial moved around under the light of day with no one noticing.

The Suiju appeared to be wandering aimlessly, but she had no way to discern what their motives might be. Even if she did know, Saya couldn’t do a thing about them when she wasn’t Sleepwalking, and the Suiju showed no apparent interest in Saya.

During class, she spotted a Suiju that looked like a mashup between a seahorse and a set of bagpipes floating through the gap between desks. How did this happen all of a sudden? Saya worriedly thought to herself,

The Suiju were supposed to only exist in Nightland. That was what she’d heard from Ran and the others, and Saya hadn’t experienced anything that would have suggested otherwise. If they were coming out into Dayland, the entire premise behind the Sleepwalkers would collapse. It would be impossible to make the distinction between what was in sleep, and what was outside of it.

No... Now that she thought of it, there had been just one exception.

Just before she encountered Hitsuji for the second time, when Saya was wandering around the school searching for her, in her hazy state of consciousness, she had spotted a Suiju heading towards the roof.

That time, Saya’s insomnia had gone beyond her limits, and it wouldn’t have been odd for her to be hallucinating. However, Saya was no longer tormented by a sleep disorder.

She had already messaged her companions. It turned out that it really was just Saya who could see the Suiju, but the urgency of the situation seemed to get across.

Saya: We’re going to gather at the warehouse after school, but can we do an emergency Sleepwalk for now? I want to know what’s going on.

Ran: Agreed.

Hitsuji: When and where?

Saya: Lunchtime, the health room.

Ran: Got it.

Hitsuji: Kay. I’ll go ahead and secure the bed.

The bell signaling the end of 4th Period rang. Leaving the rising noise of the classroom behind, Saya hurried to the health room.

When she knocked and opened the door, she saw the school doctor passed out at her desk, sleeping. Tip-toeing past her to the beds, Saya pulled back the curtain to find Hitsuji lying there.

“Sorry for the wait,” she said, but Hitsuji’s eyes stayed shut and she didn’t move. “Oh... She’s already asleep.”

Even when Saya sat down on the bed, Hitsuji didn’t wake up. While looking down at Hitsuji, her light hair spread out over the sheets as she breathed softly, Saya thought to herself.

It was kind of a fresh experience, staring at Hitsuji’s sleeping face like this. It might even have been the first time. When they went Sleepwalking, she was dragged down into sleep quickly, and the first time they encountered one another it had happened in no time at all.

The only reason she was able to stay awake now was that she had been getting proper sleep. Even with that, her eyelids were gradually drooping. Hitsuji’s Blanket ability was really something.

Fwahhh, she let out a yawn. Just as she was thinking it was about time that she lie down herself, she heard the door opening. Peeking out from behind the curtain, it was Ran coming in, as she had expected. Shutting the door behind her, Ran came over quickly.

“I’m late. Let’s hurry and—” Ran started to say, but then had to cover her mouth to stifle a big yawn. “Whew... Sorry. Let’s hurry and get this finished. We can’t have this place to ourselves forever, after all.”

“I’d feel bad stealing the school doctor’s lunch break from her.”

Following Saya’s lead, Ran took off her shoes and got up on the bed, too. Obviously, one of the health room’s single size beds was going to be a tight fit for the three of them.

“Aizome-senpai, will you be all right with the way you move around in your sleep? You won’t fall out?”

“Oh, shush. I’m sensitive about that, you know...”

“I was saying it out of concern, but...”

Before they could finish talking, the pure drowsiness unleashed by Hitsuji mercilessly engulfed the two who were laying next to her.

Looking down from a high-rise building, there were fires rising up here and there around the city. The sound of sporadic gunfire echoed off the walls of the building.

There was the roar of a combat helicopter flying overhead. Armored cars and soldiers raced around the office district, and tank fire reduced one building to rubble after the next.

I looked down at the scene below me in terror. War had broken out at last. What was going to happen now? Would I survive? Would my family and school be okay...?

Right... speaking of the school, was Hitsuji okay? That girl was a bit out of it, so I worried. I had to hurry up and go get her, but where was I supposed to go?

At that point, a phone left out on the roof began to ring. It was an old, red phone. The kind you might see in a museum or something.

When I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear, Hitsuji’s voice was on the other line. “Saya, this is a dream.”

“Of course. I know that, Hitsuji.”

“Do you really?”

“Talking to you cleared my mind.”

On the other side of the phone, I felt like I could see Hitsuji frowning with doubt.

With a swish of her coat, Ran set down on the roof.

“Senpai.”

“Hokage-san, are you lucid?”

“I’m lucid, lucid, lucid.”

“Are you sure? Well, okay. Look at that.”

When I looked in the direction she pointed, beyond the city, there was a massive, walking Suiju that rose much higher than any building. Following the cylindrical legs upwards with my eyes, I spotted the form of something like bridge girders up in the clouds.

“It’s big.”

“Yes. And it’s not alone.”

I flew up into the sky with Ran. The city and surrounding wasteland were swarming with long-bodied Suiju. They looked like bridges across a great river that had come to life and started walking around.

“...The Suiju are growing in number, aren’t they?”

“It clearly looks like it.”

While Ran and I were talking, Hitsuji joined into the conversation, still on the other side of the receiver.

“I can’t see it all that well, but what do you think they’re doing?”

Squinting, I saw that the top of the massive, bridge-shaped Suiju was packed tight with smaller Suiju.

Both ends of the bridge were hazy, wrapped in the clouds. On one end, more and more Suiju slowly appeared, and they were heading towards the opposite end.

Trying to watch where the uneven and awkward procession was heading, Ran and I approached the walking bridge. When the clouds cleared, we could see the bridge was over the sea. The legs of the bridge stepped over the smoothly rising curvature of an island, proceeding even further forward.

“I’m starting to smell a sea breeze,” Hitsuji said from the other end of the phone.

“Well, we are out to sea. Where are you watching from, Hitsuji?”

“I don’t really know. Where is this, I wonder...”

Suddenly, Ran gulped. “No way. You’re kidding me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I may have figured it out. Where they’re going.”

“Where would that be?”

“Hokage-san, that island: look at it closely. Do you see anything?”

I focused on the island the bridge’s legs were stepping over. It was an odd one. No trees growing out of it, and no rough rocks, either. The outline of the island was bewitching. If you were to compare to something, it was almost like a human body.

My jaw dropped.

“...Hitsuji?”

“Whaaaat? What about me?” The receiver dropped from my hands, fallng to the sea far below.

It wasn’t an island. It was Hitsuji. Hitsuji Konparu. My precious lover. Crossing Hitsuji’s body as she lay down to sleep, the Suiju marched forward. The sea around her was no longer water, but white sheets.

Ran and I were on either side of Hitsuji, too. Lying atop those sheets. It was like I was tied down, my body felt so heavy. When I moved my eyes, at some point a bridge had risen over me, too, and its weight was making me sink into the sheets. Mustering my willpower, my body finally budged, and with all my strength, I sat up. The bridge walking on my body tilted, flipped over, and fell with the many Suiju that had been on top of it.

I screamed.

“Hitsuji! Wake up! They’re getting into Dayland—”

Saya awoke as if peeling herself away from sleep.

She meant to scream, but only managed a whimper. She felt the hazy thoughts indicative of having forced herself awake, and the sensation of something clinging to her entire body. Trying to clear her head, Saya sat up in bed.

“Konparu-san, wake up,” she said in a hoarse voice, shaking the sleeping Hitsuji’s shoulder. Hitsuji’s eyes stayed closed as she grimaced and groaned.

“Nngh...”

There was something like smoke rising from Hitsuji’s body as she awakened. As Saya looked up, she saw a translucent construct over the bed. Like an insect hatching from a cocoon, the Suiju that appeared from Hitsuji’s body melted into the light of the world of day. She had already lost sight of it, but it wasn’t gone; Saya could still feel its dense presence.

On the other side of Hitsuji, who was rubbing her eyes, Ran sat up, too.

“Hokage-san... What just happened?”

“It was a Suiju. One came out again.”

Saya’s words made Hitsuji cock her head to the side. “I didn’t see it. Where did it crawl out of?”

“...Out of Konparu-san’s body.”

“My body?”

Saya nodded. “The Suiju, they’re crossing into Dayland... through our sleep!”