``I should have brought an umbrella.´´
He could feel the smell of pretrichor in the air, the telltale sign of rain's coming.
He'll get one on his way to campus. Hayate really hated having to wake up early.
Waking up so early didn't let him eat breakfast, after last night's late-night gaming session, did he screw up his sleep schedule- yes, but the grind was worth it, he finally got his rank up and season rewards. Thankfully, there is a cafe on the way to campus, and a coffee is all he needed just to keep himself awake for a few hours before lunch.
``It's getting cloudy...I should hurry up.´´
Hayate spoke to himself while running with his bag at his side. The cafe was just shy of the next street.
The sky was getting darker, and it was starting to drizzle.
It's starting to rain... If it rains faster, I'm going to get drenched. Thought Hayate, that was a problem for Future Hayate to handle; for now, he only had to worry about what kind of coffee he wanted to drink.
You never really think much of the time, unless you're 5 minutes away from being late and you already got warned not to be late again. After arriving on campus, it was a sprint to the classroom. As always, he just needed to disassociate and write down whatever the guy on his right wrote.
``That was easy... why do people say university is hard? It's just show up and do essays every once in a while and a presentation.´´
As he spoke, Hayate opened his recently bought umbrella. The sound of rain hitting the pavement outside is a bit muffled by the walls.
``Only you could say that, Takeda-san, in a classroom where everyone looks like their souls have been sucked out of them, you're the only one that seems to be happy to be here.´´
Said a voice behind him, one Hayate recognized well, his childhood friend and biggest headache, Shoji Saito. A 5'5 "blonde guy, he was the typical nerd with glasses and handsome features; that guy was God's favorite.
``I can't really let one thing ruin my day, do I? And well, not everyone can be like you, Shoji-sann, you're always top of the class with Hideki-san.´´
Shoji Saito, his friend through all the highs and lows of life, and the biggest headache he has. Always top of the class and the most reckless prankster, Hayate knows. Is the joke weird and creepy? It's probably Saito's doing.
Looking down, Hayate noticed his friend didn't have an umbrella. He looked outside, where the rain was still pouring down.
``Shoji-san, do you have an umbrella? If you don't, then we can share mine. The rain doesn't seem to be going to stop anytime soon.´´ Hayate had morals he was going to help his friend, even if it was going to be more of a headache.
``Ohh~ so thoughtfull takeda-san~.´´
Said Shoji Saito while grabbing Takeda's arm with a smug smile.
``Hey, stop it, cut it out-STOP. Dude, you're weird, stop it.´´
Hayatee spoke while trying to shake off Saito's hold on his arm, hoping no one saw them like that, but much to his chagrin, he saw a girl hiding in one of the university hallways. Great, his reputation was about to take a hit later.
Out in the streets as they walked, Saito started rambling about his favourite show's new season.
``and now they're going to build up a rocket and go to the old abandoned space stations, it's nice to see how thorough the worldbuilding is, not many shows do that.´´
``Yeahh, some shows just use plot convenience to explain something, and it's worse when they butcher a character's personality just to introduce another non-important one.´´
``I hate when that happens, like, why do they do that? The story was fine before they did that.´´
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After dropping his friend off at his house, Hayate went to his kendo class, a sport that he picked up because he was bored and because his grandfather had taught him the basics when he was a child. Kendo class is fun by Hayate's standards, just hitting another person with a stick, a bamboo stick with leather. It was easy, just hit your opponent fast and hard before they can hit you. Just like games, Hayate was already getting bored after kendo practice.
It was late, and the rain had stopped hours ago. Picking up his things and pushing the door open, and walking down the street.
Opening the house to his house he took off his shoes and left his bag at the entrance.
``I'm home.´´
No response, Hayate looked at the clock on the wall, marking 7:56 PM. His mother was already gone to her job at the hospital; she wouldn't be back until early morning.
``I'm alone. That means I get to wash the dishes.´´
Once again alone, something Hayate has become familiar with. After eating whatever his mom left him to eat, washing the dishes, and taking a shower, it was time to play games and screw up his sleeping schedule more. After all, those problems will be tomorrow Hayate's problems.
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Standing up from his gaming rig, Hayate looked at the window. The sun was already down. He looked at his phone, the screen lit up, shining softly, and the clock marked 12:36. It was already past midnight.
``It's so late, I should get some sleep.´´
Hayate slowly walked to his bed before just collapsing on it. It didn't take much before darkness took him. Dreams are always weird. Sometimes his dreams land him in a forest, other times they land him in a stormy valley, or just flying through the sky unfettered like a bird. Today's dream was weird; it was all black, and he felt weightless. Was he floating? Falling? He was doing something, but lucid dreams are incredible for a reason, because they're only limited by the dreamer's imagination.
Weird dreams or lucid dreams were the norm for Hayate since he could remember; sometimes the dreams might go dark or wrong in some way, but they either ended in him waking up or just the dream changing abruptly.
Today's dream wasn't different from normal, just another weird lucid dream, but slowly a nagging feeling took root in Hayate's mind, like his subconscious mind was trying to tell him something. And well he was in a dream, so why not ask his subconscious what it's trying to tell him? He just needs to be subtle about it, or the dream will become a nightmare.
``You know that feeling when you feel something is wrong, but you can't exactly say what's wrong?.´´
Hayate said while talking to the Dream version of his friend he had summoned into his dream earlier.
``That's because you're dead, you died hours ago, Takeda-san.´´
Hayate's heart rate sped up, or whatever his dream self had in place of a heart; his eyes widened slightly, did his subconscious mind recreate fully his friend prankster personality and twist it into something a bit darker? He hesitated for a moment before speaking.
``uhhh... please tell me it's a joke, my friend, please don't scare me that badly, Shoji-san.´´
``You need to wake up, Hayato Takeda.´´
``You need to wake up.´´
As the dream version of Shoji Saito kept repeating that it started walking towards Hayate. Hayate felt like his feet were bolted down to the floor and struggled to try and move while Shoji Saito, who slowly approached, finally reached him. The hand of his friend was the last thing Hayate saw before everything went black once again, only this time his body had weight. WEIGHT?. This means the dream got deeper. While it was good as he was going to get a good night's sleep, it also meant that he was going to experience a more dissociative dream.
As everything finally registered on his mind, he opened his eyes. he had woken up in a white room, taking in his surroundings. Hayate finally saw it, a tall guy with silver hair wearing a Blue Shihakushō, and he was talking to a truck. What strange dream had his mind created now?.
``Hello? Who are you?´´
Hayato decided that the best course of action was to ask the strange man about what was happening. He knew it was a dream, so everything weird could happen. Maybe this scenario was just from a movie he saw a few years ago, or from a game or a show, he was fine, it was a dream. He just needed to remember it was a dream and everything would be okay.
``HUH? A newbie?´´
The man looked at Hayate for a moment before returning to talk with the truck.
``Come on, my friend, if you give me a good curse this time, I promise not to break the world this time.´´
Hayato thought the man was crazy until the truck answered back.