The Dream Shifter

Chapter 15

'What's wrong with him? He looks so depressed, but why?' Worry was transmuted to frustration and Saki turned around to yell at his back. "What's wrong with you, Yuki?! Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this what you dreamed about?" The quiet back of Yuki was enough to make her leap forward to roughly take Yuki's wrist so that he was forced to stay. She was not going to let him go. "Answer me!"

His arm was shaking up through his shoulder and back for a reason that could not be clearly understood, even by Yuki. He angled his head over his shoulder in a quick snap narrowly looking at Saki. "What wrong with you, Saki? How can you accept this unquestioningly? You see one magic trick and suddenly you believe!"

Saki leaned back in surprise dropping her mouth open, but retained her tight grip on him. 'Yuki…this isn't like you…' She did not want to believe it, but she could not lie to her eyes. "How can you not?! That man tried to KILL YOU!"

"I won't! This has nothing to do with me. Leave me alone!"

"Yuki!"

"Shut up!" Yuki shouted loud enough to petrify the two girls. He ripped his hand free from Saki still iron locked hand and marched off leaving the two girls dazed for a moment. Yuki disappeared into the school with a solitude wind brushing by the two in silence.

"Oh that Yuki! I'm going to kill him for treating this like its nothing!" Saki tried to go after him, but found that Ayumi was holding her back.

Ayumi looked a little embarrassing and sweating at the thought. "I don't think killing him is going to make him listen to the danger he is in."

"Grrrr…I guess you're right." Saki sighed out loud and stopped pressing forward to lean against the school wall. She looked down at her feet hearing Yuki's words echo through her mind. 'What's going on? There is something else that is nagging at him. But what?' The ground did not offer any answers for her, but she was not ready to return to class yet with what she saw from Yuki.

"Hey, finally found you, Saki!" Hiroshi said running up accompanied by Yumi and their other friends. "You found Ayumi I see. What did you say to Yuki?" There was little transition for him with only the turning of his head into Ayumi's face with a frighteningly looking face. Ayumi was startled by Hiroshi falling backwards landing on her butt nearly looking like she was ready to cry as Hiroshi leaned. She pulled back drawing her arms in around her chest and face frightened by the silent interrogation from Hiroshi. "Well?"

"I-I…um…" The scary face was suddenly disfigured by a sneaker across Hiroshi's cheek sending him flying into the iron fence leaving lined bruises along his back. Hiroshi was left twitching and stuttering as their friends went to check on him. "Oh dear! I-Is he going to be alright?" Ayumi said with her hand up close to her mouth staring in surprise at Hiroshi.

Saki leaned down offering a hand up for the new girl. "Don't worry about him. He might not be a resilient as Yuki, but I've toughened him up." She flexed her free arm tightening her fist to illustrate her point.

"Toughened me up?! Is that what you call this a***e?!" Hiroshi charged Saki's position glaring into her face as they began to press foreheads together and growling at the other.

While they were fighting Yumi stepped forward fidgeting with her hands looking like she was trying to say something. Ayumi had nearly a mirrored stance though appearing to be worried about what was happening behind Yumi. Hiroshi and Saki continued to bark and yell pulling at the other with whatever happened to be close. The two shy girls remained unable to speak more than two letters for an entire minute.

Eventually, the lack of progress by Ayumi and Yumi to actually make a line of conversation had finally gotten through to Saki and Hiroshi that they broke their fighting to yell of the both of them. "If you got something to say speak up!" Yelling sadly did not improve their speech only making them clam up even tighter and cling on to other in panic.

"Hey, Hiroshi there's a crater back here!" one of their friends said looking around the school building and waving the others to look. Saki and Ayumi looked at the other with wide eyes and panic. Minutes of plans ran through their minds in the seconds that poured out as Hiroshi was being pulled away.

'I've got to think of something or they will have even more questions. Need a plan. Something else.' However, Saki heard Yumi suddenly scream with a flushed face and fall to the ground. She looked up to Ayumi getting a confirmation that this was a part of her plan. It made sense to her that it was going to have to be Ayumi that cleaned things up. "Hiroshi! Yumi fainted help me get her to the nurse's office."

"What?! Alright. What's wrong?"

Hiroshi rushed up to Saki with him pulling in their friends. Saki began to pull up Yumi with Hiroshi's aid. Ayumi disappeared on them in the confusion and Saki guided them away. She looked over her shoulder once seeing some light behind them knowing that Ayumi must be fixing things back up. 'I nearly forgot who she was. She changes so quickly from being serious and confident to being shy and weak. Amazing…'

Lunch was finally over and Yumi returned back to class later with the nurse unable to figure out a reason for her fainting other than stress. Yumi could not answer clearly what happened and when Saki inquired from Ayumi about what she did Ayumi was mysterious. Saki could only let it go at this point knowing that it managed to fix matters so complaining was not going to help. Throughout the rest of class Yuki had remained silent, but attentive to the teachers. Which was an odd occurrence for the number one daydreamer of class 3-A. Saki continued to watch him throughout the day trying to understand what was going on in his mind.

Class was over with the sounding bell and students were quickly pushing their way out of the class to their after school clubs or activities. Yuki was given special exception to the requirement of being a part of club due to his family situation. Saki had track today and was not going to be able to talk to Yuki any further. She walked over to his desk as he was putting his books away in his bag. Her head was hanging low on her with the ground in view rather than Yuki. "Umm…about-"

Yuki stood up abruptly from his desk with the noise being enough to interrupt Saki. He turned away from her and walked to the back door of the classroom leaving without a word. Saki had her hand out trying to grab him, but he was out of reach the entire time. She did not know what she was going to do with Yuki. This entire incident must have been weighing on him, this she knew, but she had not seen him act like this for nearly a year. 'It's almost like back then…I hope he's not regressing.'

"Hey Saki! Senpai is calling for us. Better hurry!" one of her track teammates said from the hall through the doorway.

It was barely enough to break her free from her thought. "Oh? I'm coming. Sorry!" She ran back for the rest of her things and ran out of the classroom with the fog in her head still hanging thickly around.

The walk back for Yuki was somewhat quiet as other students passed by him in his slow paced walk. Everyone seemed to be cheerful laughing at jokes, but it only made Yuki feel a heavier weight on his shoulders. He could not think about anything it felt like he was empty inside with nothing more than a shell of a body that moved. It had been like that through class. He knew that there were more than enough things for him to be thinking about, but none of it wished to be considered. Nothing made any sense to him and he needed to understand, but it was not allowing him the time. 'It's so quiet inside. It's driving me crazy that I can't think. Not even dream…' He roughed up his hair in frustration restraining him from screaming out loud and looking like an i***t.

He suddenly turned his head over his shoulder getting the strange sense that there was someone behind him. It was Ayumi to his pain rather than a stranger. He pulled himself around, reluctantly, to face her. "Following me home? Protecting me?" Yuki crossed his arms with his bag still in hand.

"Yes, I am protecting you. That's not all. I have-"

"Shut up! You're just a stalker. Go away."