Work Text:
Beautiful Dreamer – A Changechildren side story (Prince of Tennis)
By Haruka (haruka@ymail.com)
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Kabaji was having trouble sleeping. He rolled onto one side, then the other, and finally lay flat on his back, but none of it helped. Something was 'off.'
A small sound caught his attention – it was coming from his roommate, Jiroh, in the other bed. THAT was the problem. Jiroh was usually a very deep sleeper, and even before he developed his Changechild power of Clairvoyant Dreaming, he could sleep anywhere, anytime.
Only now he wasn't sleeping. It sounded like he was … crying.
Kabaji got out of bed and went to stand over his teammate. The towering thirteen-year-old was a man of few words, and he didn't speak now. He simply leaned down and put his large hand on Jiroh's back. The older boy started, looking up with wet, red eyes. "Kabaji," he sniffled. "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
"No," he replied, and it was true, as he'd never gotten to sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"
Jiroh wiped his eyes and rolled onto his side. "I hate my power."
"Why?"
"What good is it, really?" Jiroh took a tissue from the nearby box and blew his nose. "I can't MAKE my dreams happen, and the ones that do happen … we can never tell if they're premonition dreams or ordinary ones, and then we have to figure out what a premonition dream might be telling us because of course, it can never be exact or anything!"
"Your dreams can be important," Kabaji told him. "We should pay attention to them."
"That's no good if I don't have one when I need to!" Jiroh despaired. "Atobe was kidnapped a SECOND time, and Yuushi with him, and all those other kids, and I was no help at all!"
"Neither was I," Kabaji stated. "Other powers were used. They came back safely."
"If mine had worked right, there wouldn't have been a kidnapping at all. We could have stopped it before it happened."
"Or Shishido-senpai could cast good Luck on everyone every day of our lives. Or Inui-san could have figured out that those men had a grudge against those kids before they took them."
Jiroh frowned. "Neither of those sound reasonable."
"Neither is expecting to predict every bad thing about to happen," Kabaji said firmly. "No one can do that."
"It would be good if I could at least predict bad stuff happening to my friends …."
"What if you could?" the larger boy asked. "So you know something bad will happen. What if it's something you can't stop, even if you know in advance?"
Jiroh frowned. "I guess … I guess it would be awful."
"We should use our powers to do what we can, when we can. That's all." Kabaji stood up and went back to his own bed. Jiroh settled back down thoughtfully. Now that it had been said outright, it made sense. Enough sense, at least, that he could finally stop berating himself and get some sleep.
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Theme: Dreams
Prompt: Any, any, "In dreams begin realities"
(2012)
Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi.
This fic is not to be re-posted.