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When Hikki was dreaming, she was beautiful, her hair was frozen in time, shorter and shiny as ever, trailing down her neck and stopping on her shoulders. She felt light as a feather when it fluttered about her form, bare feet sweeping over cotton-soft grass and sweeping through the breezy summer air. It wasn’t that dress, that was reserved for Mari, for the girl who wept and grieved and needed it to remember the stabbing pain in her heart when she found the spot where his blood met her knees. It made her like a dead bride, missing a veil and a love, lumbering around like a zombie in the real world and awakened in the dreams of the afterlife.
It was okay, though, Hikki smiled plenty here, snapped her fingers to change it until everything was picture perfect. Memories folding over themselves about Sunny’s desire to grow out his hair before it’d been chopped off by their irate mother, about Basil’s flower clip and wilted crowns he didn’t dare cherish. Aubrey herself had a lovely streak of pink in her two-toned hair, matching Hikki’s sweep of purple on her left side, and even Hero and Kel sported somewhat different styles, one more unkempt, and the other sporty as it was mismatched.
The weather was always fair, except when they wanted to play in the rain, the temperature was always perfect, except when they wanted to build snowmen, and they were always happy, except when they wanted not to be. Hikki didn’t fight the sadness, the rage, nor the manic energy that captivated her dreams, it slid off her like water soon enough, and let her express all the emotions she didn’t have energy for in the morning. Her friends cried and she cried, her friends argued and she argued, her friends laughed and she laughed; a constant ebb and flow.
The swing set was her best work, just tall enough so no one had to drag their feet, but not so much it cut into their backsides during long hours of sunset watching and conversations. It was a beautiful periwinkle and remained pristine and well-loved since its conception, no rust or wet seats of reality, no cramps in one’s fingers after so many hours of weightlessness; perfection.
When she’d first begun constructing Headspace, albeit on accident, there’d been a certain discourse to her creations, they were odd, mismatched, and always screaming out her thoughts. The cat that would only give nonsense answers, the beings that would stand behind her and lumber about without colour, even a few she’d rather not even remember for fear of their return. It was chaos, and, for a time, she’d basked in it, but it was always destined to evolve as she spent more and more hours sculpting it, growing it like a blooming bud. Nights once spent reveling in unseen feelings of the days were shifted, morphed, coloured in by memories like a child’s scribbles in a book. She wanted it to be loving, to be beautiful, and the first thing she’d put into that picture perfect world was her perfect, little Sunny.
He was almost frozen in time, though the recital clothes had long since been replaced by softer edges and too-big sweaters that just made him that much more endearing. He looked at her like she’d hung the stars, and, in a way, she had this time around. There was a reason for him to be so in awe of her, just like she’d given him a reason to still love her by forgetting that something. He was her favourite thing in the world, in both worlds, and something crushed her every time she woke up alone.
It took awhile for her to realise the real world had lost its luster, and that she had lost hers too.
Hikki shuffled in place a bit, picnic basket awkwardly shifting from arm to arm as the static crept in, her friends a bit ahead in pace before they noticed her stop short at the forest’s edge.
“Hikki?” Hero gently inquired, noticing the discomfort in her form as he trailed back.
“I think my- Ah, I just need a moment…” She tried, ignoring the lie she’d caught on the tip of her tongue, lowering her body onto a large, mossy rock which squeaked like a dog toy and sank as she sat.
“Oh, I know!” Kel eagerly chimed in, “Why don’t we just set up here?”
Aubrey practically beamed, “Yeah! We can go grab Basil and Sunny and-!”
Sunny stepped off the sandy base of the swing set, joining them on the picnic blanket and laying his head on Hikki’s lap, hand still intertwined with Basil’s. Hikki smiled warmly, running her hand through her length black hair for a few long moments, letting the moment settle over them. The soft sensation of the blanket on her legs, the tiny breaths she could hear around her, the birds cawing in the distance...and her brother, right here.
She made to lay down just then, to feel the glow of the moment that much more as she sat and watched the tranquil breaths of her friends-
Until her hand came away red.
“Hik-? Hikki…? Hikki…?!” There were tears dribbling down her cheeks. That wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen in Headspace. This was wrong, it was wrong-
Sunny’s face came into her vision, rosy cheeks flanked by soft bangs and a cute pair of braids likely done by his favourite blonde friend, who was sitting just beside him, holding his shoulder gently.
“Hikki,” he said with that tiny little hint of a smile, and she melted. The warmth in her heart seemed to burst from her chest like a solar flare, the energy sparking as the moment solidified itself like the flash of a camera.
She pulled him close, then Basil as an afterthought, and heard their heartbeats sounding, heard the steady rhythm of a pulse matching up with her own, and the little hum of a forgotten tune. It was Hero singing, still sitting in place by her side, but making no motion to break into their circle, careful and calm as he always was.
“Hikki, let’s go home, okay?” Basil asked slowly, careful in his wording as he helped her up with the others. Aubrey and Kel found their place back in the group, and Hero trailing behind, his eyes felt warm on her back, like a guard from all the dangers in the shadows. Before they knew it, Neighbor’s Bedroom was in sight, a soft garden of sleepy sighs and quilted covers that swallowed her whole as the night fell to an end.
The last thing she remembered was Sunny’s tired face as she watched him fall asleep, almost wishing his unease had brought him into her arms so she’d know he was there. She knew why he didn’t though, they all knew beneath the surface of the soft aura of the protected space, just like they all knew why the cat bed was empty.