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liillyliilly · 5 months ago

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An Insomniac's Guide to Dreams

konoha akinori x reader words; 4580 synopsis; Maybe he could be her guide to accomplishing her dreams. The kind of dreams where a person falls in love and then magically, as if almost impossibly, stays in love. Konoha could be that for her. She just needed him to give her that opportunity.

Konoha looked at the clock, another 2 am shift that had kicked him from this universe into an entirely different one. Nothing was normal after two in the morning.

Especially not that hooded figure.

Definitely not the hooded figure that was lurking straight to the medicine aisle.

Konoha had been working at the pharmacy as a part-time job, hoping that he could use his experience working at the pharmacy to level up and finally apply to a pharmaceutical company after he had graduated college. He was 20 years old, and his older coworker had shifted his graveyard shift onto Konoha at the last minute.

The grey hoodie floated around until they found what they were looking for. Konoha was trying not to spy on them, but it was all he could do during the lateness of the hour.

She pulled her hoodie down when she slammed a bottle of melatonin gummies near the cash register.

Konoha recognized her from somewhere, he thought.

He scanned the bottle, then remembered he had to ask some questions before selling a drug like this to people.

Yawning, Konoha began the miniature spiel, “You need an ID to buy melatonin, can I see a driver’s license or other valid form of identification.”

She rubbed her dark eye bags and gave him a bored look.

“I don’t have my ID on me.”

Konoha responded, “I can’t sell you the melatonin then.” He grabbed the bottle and shoved it under the top of the table and she hit her forehead against the counter, slapping her hand repeatedly on the counter to draw attention to herself.

“You’re like what, 18 years old? Look me in the eye and tell me that I don’t look 18 years old as well.” She put her chin on the table and gave a huge pout, looking up at Konoha. He felt his mouth go dry.

“I can’t sell you the drugs.” Konoha wishes he could’ve, just the way her eyes glimmered a little in the dull light of the pharmacy had his heart experiencing minor afflictions.

“Really, not even for me?” She stood up to her full height, and leaned over the counter, propped up with her hands on the counter.

How much could an acquaintance from high school grow up in two years? Konoha was now realizing the reality of puberty, and maybe the reality of seeing people for more than their high school self.

He laughed when he realized it was her, the same 1st year from Nekoma who had followed him around during his last summer training camp in the volleyball club. Konoha laughed a little more, slightly delirious from a combination of seeing an old friend and from having stayed up for longer than 24 hours at this point.

He bought the melatonin gummies for her with his own money. He closed the store early, and locked it up as she cradled the bottle in her arms.

“Why are you still awake, isn’t school still in session for you? It's Wednesday?” He remembered that she must be in her final year of high school. Konoha tried to remember how many more days until she was going to graduate, it couldn’t have been more than a month or so.

She shook the jar, before pressing a quick kiss to the lid. “Insomnia is a clinical issue that happens to occur in around 6% of the adult population, it’s an actual disorder Akinori.”

“I don’t doubt that, but you really shouldn’t be out and about at this time. All the creeps come out at night.” Konoha shudders, he had been exposed to too many issues and body parts late at night.

“I ran out of my sweet, sweet, medicine.” She shrugged, and her hoodie slid off her shoulder a little, exposing skin to the cold air. She could feel the goosebumps crawl over her, so she gently rubbed the junction of her neck to her collarbone trying to generate warmth.

He started to toy with his fingers, wringing them out, avoiding looking at her exposed shoulder. And also definitely trying to ignore the way he saw a lack of a bra strap on her shoulder.

Konoha wants to ask how she’s been the last few years. He wonders if that’s something he should even ask. How close were they really?

He asked where she needed to go, and she said she needed to take a train with a few transfers to get back home.

“I’ll take you home, I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to. ‘Master of None’.” He throws her old nickname out into the wind, and she cringes, shutting her eyes tightly.

“Please don’t ever call me that again. What a horrible stain on my reputation.” She rubs the top of her head in discomfort, remembering her younger years teenage follies.

Konoha chuckles into his turtleneck, letting his tan-blond hair cover his eyes as he shakes his head a little.

“I only got called that because none of those Nekoma players would never ever listen to me. It’s like I wasn’t even a manager.”

“But, oh my saints, did you love that nickname when you realized my teammates called me ‘Jack of All Trades’- you tried to climb me and begged me to listen to you explain how our nicknames meant we were meant for each other.”

She coughed a little, feeling blood coursing to her cheeks, she just cuddled her container of chewables tighter.

Konoha realized he may have teased her a little too much, so he softened the blow of his words.

“You were a cute kid. Very passionate. You could talk for hours on end if there was someone listening.”

There was something about calling her a kid, when in reality that had only been just over two years ago. Konoha knew something was shifting in his mind, something that made him realize that he had missed her.

Longing felt like a bitter pill to swallow. Initially being separated from someone who he’d grown close to was painful, and it matted on his conscience. Then as time went on, that irritation of being away from her faded. Her coming in and shopping where he worked had been a catalyst for a reaction where he grasped just how much he had yearned for her. How much he still felt for her.

“Well, you got stuck with me because you were the only one nice enough to let me talk for hours on end.” She pointed out.

He doesn’t quite remember it like that.

She was an overzealous 16 year old, but he hadn’t known that. He was a lax 18 year old. She was a manager for the volleyball team at Nekoma because her grandpa was friends with Coach Nekomata. Her debate season had ended, but volleyball was still barrelling along.

It was a sense of pride, or perhaps intrigue that drove her to put all her focus on understanding volleyball so she could be the best manager possible.

The first day of camp, she was running around greeting all the other managers, bowing and telling them that she was ready and willing to learn from them. He thought she behaved a little bit like a raging storm, nothing able to stop her in her tracks. She was a whirlwind of excitement, and he couldn’t help but want to know who she was exactly.

“Akaashi, you’re smart, who’s that?” Konoha bent forward to touch his toes, stretching before the first practice round against Nekoma.

Akaashi blinked slowly, trying to solve a puzzle in his mind, “Well, guessing by the way she’s wearing a very red jacket, and the way that Kenma keeps avoiding her while she trails him with a water bottle- I’d have to deduce that she’s Nekoma’s manager.”

Konoha lifted his head, pulling his arms from side to side to embrace the tug of muscles in his body.

“They didn’t have a manager at the last practice match we played with them a month ago.”

“I think she just joined. Kuroo was talking to Bokuto about her earlier. Apparently, she can talk for ages.” Akaashi laughed a little, going over to the rest of the Fukurodani team.

Konoha dropped his arms to the side of his body, and when she finally turned around- successful in getting Kenma to drink some water- they locked eyes. He waved politely, and she grinned with all her teeth, almost jumping up a little.

He thought she was definitely cute. A little ball of energy sure, but she radiated something beyond just excitement, she carried a sense of eternal optimism. And that was something Konoha would’ve killed to have as a high school student. It wasn’t that he had an extreme form of depression, or that his anxiety was serious enough to warrant a prescription. But he did experience the ruins of chemical imbalances more so than the next person.

She was inclined to watch Konoha, because he seemed naturally good at all the elements of volleyball. He could do everything at a level that was higher than most, from solid foundational receives to a slightly more technical serve.

To say she was infatuated would be an overstatement, because she really was just a girl with a huge crush on a boy.

Instead of sitting with her own team at the lunch break she had made her way to Konoha, asking if she could sit with him. He looked around, and saw that Komi was using his hands to make an insistent gesture of ‘no’ by slicing his hands back and forth in front of his face.

He had ignored Komi and patted the spot next to him on the concrete stairs into the gym.

Akaashi had been right, she could talk about anything and everything, her mouth moving faster than Konoha’s own brain. He only got to make small remarks when she took a bite of her lunch, chewing on the rice quickly but thoroughly so she could keep going on about a movie she had seen last week.

“What do you think?” She looked at him with expectant eyes.

Konoha swallowed his chicken, “Of Better Days?”

She nodded rapidly, Konoha’s head almost hurt a little at the motion.

“I haven’t seen it, I’m not a big fan of international films.” He shrugged, eating another piece of chicken from his plate, looking out to see groups of boys mingling.

Not once during his time with her at that camp did he wish he had spent it with anyone else. He was completely content just listening to her talk, with her occasional periods of interview-like questions for him to answer. A few times during the camp he would sit at one of the regular tables with an agglomeration of fellow players, and she wouldn’t go over to him.

When he looked around though, she was sitting alone in the same spot they had sat at during the first day. Using her water bottle to draw shapes on the grey pavement steps. He tried to wave her over, but she knew how other people looked at her. They would get this sheen in their eyes that told her that they did not want to listen to her, but that only made her talk more, trying to prove her worth.

Konoha had finished his food quickly, grabbing his own water bottle and sitting next to her.

“Let’s work together to make a drawing of Kuroo as a cat.”

The way her mood shifted, from feeling the sting of loneliness to the thrill of getting to spend time with the person she deemed as the best looking boy at the camp, was extremely beneficial for her happiness.

He didn’t mind filling the role of her friend during camp. He did feel a slight scorn for all the other boys and girls at the camp though. It was rude to be so blatant about their dislike and irritation at her.

On the second to last day, Konoha woke up in the middle of the night, needing to go get water from the vending machine in the gymnasium.

He scratched at his stomach while putting in his coins. Then he saw her, in a thin strapped black tank top and short shorts. She was playing with a hacky sack, kicking it with her knee then when it would land on her foot, she shot it up so she could alternate feet.

She was talking to herself as well. He listened to her chatter about music, about art, about that annoying thorn she’d found in her shoes that made her foot bleed a little. He could listen to her talk forever and never get bored.

Konoha put another few coins in the machine, getting a second can of orange flavored water. She was in the main area of the gym, but she had been facing away from the entrance to the gym, so when Konoha cleared his throat, she dropped the fabric bag full of rice on her head.

“You shouldn’t wear a tank top, it's dangerous.” Konoha handed her the drink when she bounded up to him.

She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side, “Why would it be dangerous?”

“Someone might think you’re trying to seduce me.” He joked, cracking open his can and taking a deep drink of the nectarine tinged fluid.

Her eyes went wide as she reached down to a bench where she had put her jacket, she slid her arms into the sleeves.

Konoha chewed the inside of his mouth a little. Maybe over the course of a week he’d gotten in over his own head, developing a slight attachment to her. He pushed the thought away, remembering that she looked slightly uncomfortable. He had created a mentality for himself, one where he was supposed to view her like a younger sister. Hell, he had a younger sister her same age.

His stomach twisted a little.

“Sorry. Sometimes my jokes don’t exactly land how I intend them to.” He brought the can up to his mouth again, needing something to lubricate his increasingly drying throat.

She zips her jacket all the way up, the collar comes up to her chin. “It’s alright.”

Konoha looks down to avoid eye contact, trying to find a way to diffuse the slight stagnation in the air, but his eyes only land on the plush of her bare thighs. He could feel his ears turning red when he saw how her shorts dug into her thighs a little, creating a divot, and then the rest of her thigh seemed even more thick.

“I heard that there’s supposed to be really bright stars tonight.” He offered, turning on his heels to exit the gym. She followed him closely.

When he stopped in the center of the field next to the gym, she rammed into his back, getting bounced backwards a little. He caught her by the arm, tugging her upright.

“Woah there, I don’t want you falling for me quite yet, I haven’t even shown you my best qualities.” He snorted slightly.

She buried her face in her jacket, he could see her furrowing her eyebrows in an abashed way. The butterflies in his stomach would not stop fluttering. The little sister comparison stopped right in that moment, as she gave him a shy downturned smile.

It couldn’t have been later than midnight at most, but the way that he kept dozing slightly and opening his mouth to fix the air pressure around his head let him know that he was staying up much longer than he should’ve.

But how could he not, when she was looking up at the sky with admiration.

He pointed to the stars that represented Orihime and Hikoboshi. Everyone knew the story of the two star crossed lovers, a princess and her cow-herder. They had been so in love that they failed to tend to their duties, so her father had separated the couple. They could only reunite every year on July 7th, when the magpies created a bridge for the couple over the milky way.

That night, that they sat together under the stars, had been July 7th.

“I can’t see them.” He could hear the way she was making a frowning face, upset at not being able to see what he could see.

“Here, let me help.” He scooted closer to her, the length of their sides against one another, as he lifted her hand and tried to point out the star Vega, for Orihime. When he was satisfied that she was pointing right at the star he checked in with her, “Do you see her?”

Her soft no comes from much too close to his face. In Konoha’s excitement, he had brought his head closer to hers, trying to replicate what she would be seeing as best as possible. They were almost cheek to cheek.

He pulled away slightly, just enough for some space to exist between them.

“I only see you.” She breathed out.

Konoha choked.

He immediately stood up.

“We have matches tomorrow, I have to get back to bed.”

She got up to her feet, nodding to Konoha’s words.

The last of camp, after all the games were played, and the barbeque devoured by rowdy teenagers.

She was helping to put away bags and other miscellaneous supplies into Nekoma’s bus. And Konoha was leaning against the bus that would take Fukurodani back to their school. Akaashi had shoved his duffel bag into the compartment under the bus and walked to Konoha.

“Kuroo told me that she’ll be their manager for the rest of the season, so she’ll be at Nationals, if Nekoma makes it.”

“Nekoma will make it.” Konoha stated it with finality. Akaashi could see how Konoha was staring at the way she was struggling to lift a heavier bag.

“You know you can go and help her right?” Akaashi inspected his fingernails, suppressing a grin.

Konoha reached into his backpack, ripping a piece of paper from his notebook and scrawling out his phone number. He passed his bag to Akaashi and tucked the slip of paper into his pocket.

She was trying to hoist the bag with her arms, leaning really far backwards. Konoha grabbed the handles of the bag from her and tossed the bag into the bus. She smiled and thanked him.

“Fukurodani’s bus leaves in another hour or so, when are you supposed to head out?” Konoha leant on his shoulder against Nekoma’s bus.

“In around thirty minutes.”

So he asked her what she was going to do over the next few days, and she talked.

She had gotten through around fifteen minutes of talking and was in her zone, completely engrossed in following the rabbit hole of her own mind. Konoha’s hand was sweaty, as he tried to think of just the right pocket in her black backpack to slip his number into.

Eventually, Coach Nekomata told the team to gather around and she bowed to Konoha, saying her goodbye to him.

He just grabbed her by the loop at the top of the bag, rushing to put the paper into the main section of the backpack. She tried to walk forward but was tugged into staying in place with Konoha’s grip.

“Uh, yes?”

“Get home safely.” Konoha beamed, “Alright?”

“Alrighty.” She tilted her head back and forth, twisting her shoulders in a content giddiness.

He moved his head up to the sky and tightened his face, “So cute.”

She wiggled a little, and he released her bag. She asked, “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Okie dokie.” She held onto the straps of her backpack, shifting it around to be comfortable on her back.

She walked over to her team, letting Coach Nekomata pat her head a little bit.

Konoha rubbed his face, climbing into his bus and slumping into his seat. Bokuto got into the seat in front of him, but turned around and put his chin on the top of the chair to face Konoha.

“What’s with the sour attitude, Mr. Jack of All Trades?” Bokuto made a face of intense focus, intent on Konoha’s potential answer.

Akaashi put a hand on Bokuto’s shoulder, giving the answer Konoha couldn’t articulate, “He’s fallen for Nekoma’s first year manager.”

Konoha stood up, not realizing he had put his seatbelt on, so he got rope burn around his neck as the seatbelt prevented him from actually going anywhere, “She’s a first year student!?”

Akaashi laughed, grabbing onto his stomach. Bokuto’s jaw dropped.

“You’ve been hanging around her all week and you neglected to ask what year she was in Konoha-san?” Akaashi wiped tears of humor from his eyes.

Konoha groaned, pulling his legs onto the seat as he hugged them.

Bokuto looked at Akaashi, “Well he’s positively forlorn. Did I use that word right?”

Akaashi nodded.

Konoha helped her get onto the train, making sure she didn’t trip from the platform to the main portion of the train. The train was mostly empty, with a few people standing or sitting a fair distance apart.

They sat side by side and she opened the container of her melatonin, lifting the lid to her nose so she could smell the berry flavored medicine.

Konoha folded his arms, bringing one leg to rest over the other.

“You know, I was surprised when, after the camp, you didn’t contact me at all.” Konoha felt a little strange, asking about something from what he deemed as a long time ago.

“How would I have contacted you? Believe me I did want to keep in touch, but we never exchanged numbers.” Just smelling the melatonin had her a little bit sleepier.

“I, uh, I put my number into your bag. When everyone was getting ready to leave, I put a piece of paper into your black bag.” Konoha rubbed his arm, getting ready to accept that maybe he had been the only one to have developed a crush that week.

“Oh, I didn’t bring a backpack to the camp. It must have been someone else’s that I was wearing.”

Konoha slumped into the seat further.

She had finally made the connections in her brain.

“You liked me!”

“It was kind of hard not to.”

“And here I was, living my entire high school life thinking that I had been head over heels for someone who had never liked me back.” She said simply.

“Had been? As in, no longer?”

She pursed her lips a little, tapping her chin.

“There’s something about the phrase ‘had been’. It carries a sense of loss, it carries with it a feeling of belonging. Like what had been was extremely personal.”

“You make no sense sometimes.” Konoha chuckles into his words.

“Maybe something better to say is, here I am. Living life wondering when we’d meet again.”

The train came to a halt, and he checked that this was the stop they would get off on. She tucked her bottle of drugs into her hoodie pocket. The street was entirely empty, and the street lights flickered a little from time to time.

“So, you want to go into pharmaceuticals?”

“Yeah, it’s a decently lucrative business, comfortable enough to live life with some extra money for this and that.”

They stood under the flickering street lamp, Konoha digging the toe of his foot into the concrete ground.

She felt a little bit like the world had frozen in time. Here he was, after two years, drawn to her yet again. She hummed for a moment. Then make a request for Konoha.

“Wait for me.”

Konoha lifted his head to make eye contact with her. Tilting his head a little, he made a look that could only be defined as inquisitive.

She really did love him. Call it instantaneous love, her crush that she had held onto for much longer than necessary, but she felt something for this sandy-haired drug dealer of hers. The way his light brown eyes almost seemed like a rushing sand dune in the right lack of light. Or the way that he had subconsciously reduced their distance from their walk, train ride, to now standing inches apart.

What kind of a person was he to show kindness to an annoying first year, taking her under his wing for an entire week. Solving emotional worries, relieving anxieties of where to sit or who to talk to, making her feel at home in a place that had decidedly rejected her before it even got to know her.

Maybe he could be her guide to accomplishing her dreams. The kind of dreams where a person falls in love and then magically, as if almost impossibly, stays in love. Konoha could be that for her. She just needed him to give her that opportunity.

“Wait for me, one more year, once I graduate. Let’s date.” She grabs his hand, and he lets her. She clears her throat a little, “Let’s give love a shot?”

“I think I’d like that a lot. It’s a deal.”

Dreams aren’t reality. Because sometimes reality is better than a dream.

She was chewing away at a piece of literature, trying to dissect Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams novel for her Sleep Science class. Becoming a Sleep Scientist wouldn’t do much for her own horrible sleep schedule if she wanted to make it through her Doctorate successfully. Despite Konoha telling her that sleeping was important for her well-being, she had the tendency to ignore what he said sometimes- it would only be one more all-nighter anyway.

He’s asleep in their bed, nuzzled into her pillow and not his own. He’s wearing one of her hoodies to bed, her favorite one from high school that had been two sizes too big.

The beige highlighter reminds her of Konoha, and she has to rip her eyes away from him to get back to her book.

Work at the pharmaceutical company had been long, especially with the rolling out of their new drug the past few weeks. Konoha was the head of the project and needed to be at work almost twice as much, even though he felt bad leaving her alone in their apartment for long intervals of time. He always brought home bagels and an apology disc, of a movie she had been wanting to watch, for her to add to her collection of physical copies of movie CDs.

Their shared shelving system was an agglomeration, her DVDs and books on one side of the shelf, and then his photos, astrology novels and miniature telescopes on the other side.

When she accidentally dropped the highlighter onto the floor, Konoha’s head shot up. It was a mess of dirty blond hair from sleeping.

“Aki, go back to sleep.” She coaxed.

“No, it’s cold when you’re not here.” He turned around and opened his arms to put emphasis on his point. “I’m basically a snowman right now.”

She closed her book, tucking the bookmark in. Slinking her way from the desk to the bed, only to slump into his arms and hug him tightly.

“Much better.” He slides over to his side so she can lay out on the bed more comfortably, and she brings her legs to lay on the bed. “I’m all warm now, thanks to you.”

Sometimes a dream is just a girl with the boy who made her feel seen.

Other times a dream is a boy who finally finds someone to let him feel a little more happy everyday.

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