Translated from a piece of writing in Chinese: https://meteorheart1220.pixnet.net/blog/post/349803199-%e3%80%90%e9%96%83%e9%9b%bb%e5%8d%81%e4%b8%80%e4%ba%ba%e3%80%9152%e8%b5%ab%e8%8c%b2%28%e5%a3%ab%e9%83%8e%e7%af%87%29
“tsuya… Atsuya…” Fubuki Shirou unconsciously flailed his hands in the air as if he was trying to grab something. He woke up from the nightmare breathing heavily. Eyes looking around blankly, it took him a while to realize that he was in his own room.
Despite being wide awake, he still lay on his bed for a few minutes before sitting up.
The alarm clock showed that it was 4:05 midnight - five hours from when he fell asleep, but he felt as if he had lived another life.
The dreams were getting more real.
The nightmare in which he lost his family, and lived on his last legs, all alone.
It was about half a month ago when Shirou started having nightmares.
At first, he forgot about the details when he woke up, only remembering that it was a nightmare that he would never want to remember again.
Starting from approximately the third time, the scenes from the dreams started randomly appearing in his mind. They were not consistent, simply piecemeal scenes.
The most frequent one was looking at the faraway northern mountains from different angles.
At roughly the sixth time, he had managed to guess that the point of view in his dream was him, or should we say, another “Fubuki Shirou”.
Unlike him, “Fubuki Shirou” preferred to be on his own, but he would sometimes talk to himself, as if he was talking to someone.
At the eight time, the dream proved a guess that he had thought of but purposely ignored - the “Fubuki Shirou” in the dream, lost his family.
Even Atsuya, who he thought would never leave him, lost his life in the avalanche.
At first, although he was frightened, he could convince himself that it was just a dream. As scary as the nightmare is, he will wake up from it.
But from three days before, he found that he started to feel empathetic for his dream self. The negative emotions were like freezing seawater, flowing through his limbs and veins, dragging him into the dark abyss. It got harder for him to escape the dream.
The growing feeling of suffocation seized his heart, and refused to let go.
Now, as soon as Atsuya leaves his line of sight, he would feel as if he was suffocating without reason.
Even though he tried his best to cover it up, Atsuya would more or less had noticed it.
This was probably the cause of the younger brother repeatedly asking him if he was okay this morning.
But he just couldn't get the words out of his mouth. He didn't want to bother his brother with this dream of his.
“…Hm.” Lightly rolling of his bed, he hesitated for a second, before deciding to go to his brother's room to check on him.
This was his third consecutive night of sneaking into his brother's room.
Although he knows this is stupid, he had to do this to soothe the overwhelming fear, and the pain that felt like being torn apart.
Until now, Shirou thought that Atsuya was the reliant one.
Until, in his dreams, he woke up under the bright white lights on a hospital bed, all alone.
