I Never Even Knew Your Name

Bura-sama
Wednesday, June13, 2001
Wednesday, June13, 2001

Disclaimer: DBZ is copyrighted by BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA, TOEI ANIMATION, and is licensed by FUNimation. Dragon Ball Z and all logos, character names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of TOEI ANIMATION. I am making absolutely no money off of this story, and no infringement is intended.

I can't remember the last time I got a good night of restful sleep. I can't remember a time without these dreams. I hesitate to call them nightmares. If anything, they're romantic. And that is what terrifies me. I think I'm falling in love with him. I see him from the moment my eyes close and my head hits the pillow, and he is there until I wake up at night crying or screaming. I'll never forget the first time I saw him. He was stepping out of a hazy fog, his sharp features standing out as the fog somehow vanished. He was wearing the strangest outfit I had seen in such a long time. A black T-shirt stretched over a shirt with white sleeves. Loose jeans and a brown belt with a gold buckle. Lime green socks under blue and white sneakers. An orange bandana around his neck. I guess he got dressed in the dark, or something. He was still beautiful, though. Black hair that fell down to his shoulders, piercing ice blue eyes that I could drown in. I will never forget him as long as I live.

I first saw him on my sixteenth birthday. I had seen him stepping out of that fog, and he had just smiled at me. I knew it was all a dream, so I didn't say anything to anyone. I thought that maybe it was just too much cake or something like that. But he came back the next night, and the night after that. And he would just stand there and smile at me. And it was a devilishly wicked smile that made me want to just melt into a puddle on the floor. Five months after he first appeared, he actually spoke to me. It wasn't much, but his voice was so wonderful. I could listen to it forever and never grown tired of it. Sometimes he would touch me. Nothing too much, just a brush of our hands, the gentle tickle of his lips on my ear as he whispered to me. It set my body on fire.

Last night, he kissed me.

And he told me that he loves me.

It's been exactly four years since he first appeared, and I celebrated my twentieth birthday today. I still haven't said anything about these dreams. What would they do to me if I told them that I'm in love with some specter from my dreams? I knew. I'd be straight to some psychiatrist's couch, spilling my guts about how I've had such a traumatic childhood. Maybe I could blame my mother. That's what they do in the movies. Not that I get to watch movies or television anymore. I'm always thinking about him. It's gotten to the point where I'm having these dreams when I'm awake. One minute I'm talking to my mother, the next, he is brushing his lips across mine. I almost told my friends about these dreams today, at the party. I was talking to Marron and Pan, and said something that I shouldn't have. I can't remember what I said, but they had tried to pressure me into telling them his name. I couldn't have told them his name. I don't know his name. My brother had interrupted the scene, but I'm sure that they will talk to me again.

I close my eyes, and wonder what I'll be dreaming about tonight.

I told them. I told Pan and Marron everything. After my story, they had just looked at each other oddly, and made up some lame excuses to leave. I saw them talking to my mother and Juuhachigou later on in the day, and they was staring at me wide-eyed. It wasn't a big surprise when Mom came to me and tried to talk to me about seeing a psychiatrist. I was expecting it, and in a way, I was glad I had broken down to their questioning. Maybe it was all in my head. I talked to him about it, and he told me that it was very real. But if he is part of my mind, wouldn't he tell me that? Maybe this doctor can sort it all out, I sure hope so. I'm starting to get afraid of falling asleep. Afraid that he will do something to me.

It's no surprise that I'm here. Locked up in this padded room. A danger to myself and society, they had said. I know that my father wouldn't have stood for it, but he is no longer here. That was just one of the many things that had me in tears in the psychiatrist's office. It had taken all of thirty minutes for the doctor to say that I was mentally unstable. My mother wanted a second opinion, and it took the second doctor a full hour to reach the same conclusion. Now I'm in a mental hospital so that they can leach money off my mother while I'm being "treated". Sometimes they let me sit in a sunroom, with someone watching me at all times.

I've talked to him about it, but he doesn't say much. He tells me that I've got to shape up in front of the doctors so they will let me out. I've tried that, but I always end up talking to him about stuff anyway. I miss my old life so much. I miss Papa, and I wish that he was here to get me out of this place. But he's never coming back, and my family thinks they're helping me. I think I've come to terms with the fact that I'm never getting out of this place. But as long as I've got him, I'll be okay.

The street was destroyed. Large slabs of concrete had been upturned and scattered about the city. Buildings had collapsed, and windows had been shattered. Wrecked cars were abandoned, some crushed beyond repair. Corpses and partial bodies could be found throughout the city. In one shattered store stop, two figures sat on a table top.

"I wish you would stop playing with that thing," Juuhachigou held up an expensive dress to her shoulders and modeled how it would look in the reflection in the broken glass.

"Relax, Juuhachigou." Juunanagou pulled the small visor away from his eyes and set it on the table. "It's just virtual reality." He had a wistful smile on his face that soon turned mocking, "But it makes you wonder, though. Perhaps it is all real, and we are just toying with their sad, little, insignificant lives..."

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