Work Text:
There are nights Taki dreams of...
...somewhere.
A place where time is a brightly colored cord or a swiftly running stream, and he is caught in it's path. A feeling of purpose and chaos so tightly coiled with one another. Some nights he fights it, rails against the ending, until the sheer magnitude of time engulfs him in panic and he wakes gasping. Other nights, the dream draws him into the depths of all that could've been. Those are the most difficult to face.
For days, he is severed from the present. Entranced by the play of light through leaves, searching for patterns in the fall of rain against pavement, caught in the moments between day and night. Was existence just an unheard cry against the inevitable or a perpetual longing for what could never be?
He wonders if one night he won't dream. Not of the place where time reveals itself, not of hundreds of incidental notions. Would he wake a ghost of himself, floating through the day, unable to hold on to thought or memory. Or would a weight settle over him, so complete that nothing, not rage or sorrow, could break through.
Taki sits by the street, notebook half forgotten, pen tapping his thigh. The wind picks up the dusty leaves, tossing them aside. Their soft rattle, a protest and mourning.