Because I can't think of any more content フロム・マイ・ライフ to put up on here, an addendum to the previous entry, with 250% more Nakaji and about 70% more fangirl pandering (once again, I blame *Rokujou, see the omake) than ever before! Enjoy~.

¤

The Ginga was an overnight express train, serving anyone who desired passage from the Kanto region to the Kansai area. It was a bit of an antique train - certainly a bit uglier than their daytime bullet-train counterparts, but it got the job done.
Standing in front of the train was a scrawny fellow, 5’7 in height, a blue scarf covering up his mouth - dusted lightly in stubble. A pair of thin rectangle glasses and a tuft of black hair were perched on top of his pointy nose; the rest of his hair was covered in a conductor’s hat. From the way one couldn’t see his face, one could assume him to be a shady character, but he - rather, Nakaji, for that was his name - hardly was a delinquent.
Facing Nakaji was a girl. She would be a normal girl dressed in burgundy - would be, but her features were blanked out, blurred as though she were a photo taken improperly. Some mixed red lip wavered in the girl’s censored figure, and a somewhat sweet, decidedly nasal voice emitted from it - “I wish you didn’t have to ---”
He woke up in a sweat. The girl’s words echoed in his mind, as he slowly came to consciousness. Where was he? - ah, right, he was in his apartment, dressed in a yukata, draped in a futon on the bumpy tatami floor. Turning his head a little more, he could barely make out the clock next to him - one-ten in the morning some humid summer Tuesday - the month and year were unimportant to his foggy mind.
As soon as he found out the where and when of his current existence, the words of the girl slipped past the cracks of his mind. This frustrated him to no end; he’d been having such dreams since a month ago. The same train, the same station, the same figure. The dream would end invariably whenever she would say something, and that fact - or a lack of, in this case - bit away at his sanity.
He tried to go back to sleep, but his mind, now active, now irked, wouldn’t let him. To combat this particular bout of insomnia, Nakaji decided that a bath - and a shave - would suffice.
He rose from the bed. Into the bathroom he went.

¤

Now stripped of his clothing and surrounded in water and steam, Nakaji once again pondered the dream. The small amount of concentration that it took for him to get a bath up and running had kicked the vision from his train of thought, and here he was, trying to grasp back at it like a falling man reaching for any sort of tether. He did not know why he did so, except that it felt important, and he did not know the particular reason for that feeling, either: the fact about the missing chain of dreams merely existed, with a basis unbeknownst to him.
After soaking in the water for some time, the dream finally started to repiece itself together, frozen in time - slowly: the worn-in train platform; the Ginga, with its doors open; the falling misty rain; the clouds, colored in assorted shades of gray, as though penciled in; his own body, draped in several layers of clothing; and then a figure in front of him. Blurred at first, the body came into focus: denim skirt, then a dark red top, sleeves striped with white. The head, topped with neatly parted black hair, did not have a face. The face was always missing - no matter how much he attempted to pull or at least reimagine the face from the depths of his (dream) memory, the face did not appear as a face. The least he got was nothing. The most he got was an animated blur.
As though some dream god had pressed a ‘ play’ button, the complete scene came to life, and the girl only muttered, “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
With those words, Nakaji suddenly woke up from his reverie, splattering a good amount of water around in the process. He muttered a curse, and lifted his body out of the bath. Taking a fresh towel in one hand, he slowly dried his skin, then twisted the towel over the tub before draping it over his lean shoulders.
He examined himself in the mirror; he was met with a blur. Wiping the fog from his glasses, he put them on and observed his body: pink skin adorned a pair of pink eyes – black pupils, with minute rivers of blood creeping out of the lens staining his normally blank sclera; his black hair, glistening wet from the bath he took moments prior, lay in a mess over his forehead; and just as his eyes darted toward the small hairs on his cleft, his glasses had completely fogged up again. He made no movement to combat this, as he took in several deep breaths of the mist around him.
The bathtub slowly drained itself. When it finished doing so, Nakaji decided that he’d leave the shave for another time, and put on his yukata. Opening the bathroom door gave way to cooler air; he enjoyed the subtlety of the breeze given by the fan he set to oscillate in a corner, right next to his television, which, although he didn’t have much of a use for it, guests always found it a welcome sight.
He walked over to the kitchen and, opening the refrigerator, served himself a chilled glass of milk. With a flourish of his kimono, he brought the glass up to his lips and gulped the whole thing down, bringing it upon his wooden table with a decisive thump, before licking the excess off of his lips. Placing it in the sink, he turned his attention back to the futon in the middle of his apartment and walked toward it, slipping back into his sheath. Before removing his glasses, he looked to the clock: two in the morning. His first session started at nine. He’d have enough rest, if those damned dreams would just stay away.
He removed his glasses, closed his eyes, and found himself at a train station. ◆

-=-

* omake: regarding nakaji in le bath *

** I type in "The dream would end invariably whenever she would say something, and that fact - or a lack of, in this case - bit away at his sanity." **

[23:39] crashmanzhotness: better make it juicy
[23:39] crashmanzhotness: I want a stripping Nakaji within the next few paragraphs
[23:39] SpiritsnareAlpha: done
[23:40] crashmanzhotness: forreal?
[23:40] crashmanzhotness: oh shiit
[23:40] crashmanzhotness: hawt

-=-

** I type in "To combat this particular bout of insomnia, Nakaji decided that a bath - and a shave - would suffice. / And so into the bathroom he went." **
[23:42] SpiritsnareAlpha: it works, no?
[23:55] crashmanzhotness: needs more description of his hot manly chest
[23:55] SpiritsnareAlpha: he's surrounded in water and steam
[23:55] SpiritsnareAlpha: think of it as a literary censor
[23:55] SpiritsnareAlpha:
[23:56] SpiritsnareAlpha: man I'm tempted to give him a fat hairy chest
[23:56] SpiritsnareAlpha: werewolf status
[23:56] SpiritsnareAlpha: wearing baggy clothes, no one would be able to tell the difference
[00:05] crashmanzhotness: hairy man chests are strictly for characters like Mutsuki
[00:05] crashmanzhotness: mmkay

snare