I got this idea while praying. Two-shot.
Update: Minor changes are made in this chapter, just like in the next. I was reading over it and had the time to correct it. Uhm, I was reading it to pass the time while waiting for a download to finish. :D
YOU'RE MY LULLABY
1: The Weary Child
A twelve year old Hinamori Amu ruffled her pink hair and groaned; her golden eyes clouded with weariness. She idly stared at her alarm clock as it beeped twelve midnight. She groaned once more and thrashed her legs, covered by her hot pink pajamas, causing her soft pink comforters to slide off her bed. She stood up abruptly but not to pick up her fallen comforters but to pace around her room and look for something to do while she's having her little "insomnia".
She saw her pile of homework and sighed as she sat at her seat and faced her desk. She got one of her books and got a pen to start doing homework, which is due this Monday—which happened to be a weekend away. She read the instructions and thought positively to herself.
"You can do this, Amu. This homework is easy and by the time you finish this, you're going to be sleepy and you can finally get your much needed sleep: happily ever after," she said in an attempt to cheer herself up although she found the statement quite sarcastic.
After 30 minutes, she's done with that piece of homework and she grabbed a random book since she didn't found her sleep after the first one. She dejectedly stared at the book she picked, Math. She hated Math with a passion because she didn't get what her life had to do with numbers and all that crap—in her perspective. She groaned as she opened it to the page of her homework. Her tired golden eyes brightened up as she realized that the homework the teacher gave is a piece of cake. She gladly finished it with a slight hum.
"Twelve forty-five and I'm still not sleepy," she grumbled grimly to herself.
She took another book which happened to be her History one and nearly slammed her head on the desk at how difficult she finds History to be but decided against it. Since she didn't want to have a concussion to make her fall asleep or else she might never wake up again, she flipped it to the page of her assignment and sighed as she stared at the difficulty of the questions although there were only 10 questions to answer, she still found it tough to crack.
Once she finished History, she checked the time and praised herself for only spending 30 minutes on it. She grinned triumphantly to herself because she found all the answers on the back page of the book, where all the details on important events were located, because usually it would take her an hour but it seemed like luck's on her side this time. She then grabbed her last homework, which happened to be about writing an essay.
Her eyes widened at the length of the essay that is required: at least 500 words. She couldn't even think of an essay for a 100-word essay and this required her to think up of some random thing and write about it!
"Great, five times the harder, five times the longer, do they really plan on mentally killing us?" she exclaimed to no one in particular.
After an hour, she finally slammed her head on the desk. She cried out in frustration, wanting to pull her hair out too.
"First, I can't sleep. Now, I can't even think of anything to write for my homework!" she nearly screamed but remembering that her family is still sleeping in their house, decided to just whisper it to herself.
"I'm really getting moody, am I going to have my time of the month tomorrow?" she asked herself after a moments silence.
She lifted her head up and bonked herself on the head. She rubbed the spot she hit and cleared her throat. She stared at the pages before her, perfectly white with black lines here and there, and snapped at the pages.
"You! It's your entire fault for being empty. Can't you even fill yourself with words?" she said then stared at her pen, "And you! Why don't you start writing, huh?"
She sighed and said, "Great, now I'm going bonkers, just great."
She slapped her rosy cheeks in an attempt to wake up her "creativity"—as she would like to call it. An idea then popped in her head making her turn to her sleeping charas. She grinned but realized they had a rough day today because of Kiseki's orders; she frowned and pouted her pink lips. She turned to her desk, now with a miserable look on her tired features. She shrugged and wrote about being a guardian.
It turned out to be a paragraph and after that, she couldn't write no more. She almost cried and finally snapped. She stood up, her shoulder length pink tresses swaying with her movements, and opened her balcony doors slowly as not to wake her charas up. She grabbed her English book and threw it, making a "thump" sound after landing. At the same time she heard the thump, she also heard someone exclaim "hey" in her direction and her eyes widened as she quickly closed the doors and got in, giggling to herself as she realized she might have disturbed someone.
She turned to her alarm clock which clearly read 1:15 in the early morning. She just shrugged and plopped on her bed, picking up her comforters. She played with the thick blankets to amuse her bored self. She placed it around herself and pretended to be "Superman". She stood up on her bed, ruffling her pink blouse and pajamas while doing so, and nearly screamed, "Superman". She jumped off her bed and ran around the room in a silly attempt to fly, laughing the whole way.
"It's amazing how Ran, Miki, Suu and Dia can sleep through my antics," she pondered out loud, tapping her finger on her chin.
She shrugged then smiled, continuing her fake flying. When she got tired, she sat on a light blue beanbag—in honor of Miki—removed the comforter from her arms and tossed them on the bed, where they truly belong. She snickered to herself as a mischievous thought came to her head: call Rima.
She grabbed her phone from their usual spot on her wooden bedside table and searched for Rima's number. When she finally saw her best friend's number, she pressed the call button on her phone and waited. After a few minutes of hearing the beeping sound, the midget finally answered.
"Amu, you do know that it's currently one-twenty-two, right?" Rima asked with a dangerous tone lingering in the back of her voice but Amu is too preoccupied—bored, rather—to notice it.
"Yup!" Amu answered rather cheerfully.
"Then why did you call me!" Rima screamed in a rough tone—still sleepy.
"Nothing, bye!" Amu replied then hung up.
She clicked her phone shut and snickered to herself.
"It sure is fun to annoy Rima~" she sang in a sing-song voice.
She then frowned at how long it's taking her to fall asleep. She paced around her room and decided to watch the sky…from her rooftop.
She opened the balcony doors and placed her chair near the ledge of their roof. She stood on top of the chair and reached for the ledge. When her hands finally got a good grip, she hoisted herself up and sat on the ledge—ruffling her soft pink blouse and pajamas in the process. She can see the stars and the lights from the street lights in this spot. She smiled sadly at how quiet it is. She, too, wanted to sleep like Rima does but she couldn't so she just annoyed Rima for the heck of it.
She looked up at the skies and saw the brightest star. Once she did, she immediately whispered a small wish.
"Please, brightest star I've seen tonight, make me fall asleep or let sleep find me," she wished through a gush of wind.
She used her hands to stop her hair from swaying wildly but another's beat her to it. She instantly looked for the source of sudden help and saw midnight blue eyes staring right back at her.
"I-Ikuto?" she asked, taken aback by his oh-so-sudden appearance.
He smirked at her stuttering and sat down beside her, staring straight ahead with his messy midnight blue hair glinting in the moonlight. He turned to her, his eyes dancing with amusement.
"So, why can't you fall asleep?" he asked with a teasing tone.
She frowned at this and replied, "I just couldn't."
He raised an eyebrow at her, confusion clearly evident in his face and attention-grabbing cobalt eyes. Amu shivered in the chilliness of the wind. He removed his black blazer—he's still in his uniform—and placed it around her shoulders. She blushed at his gesture and tried to give it back to him but the concern in his eyes made her freeze and she "humph"-ed, wrapping it around her shoulders once more. He smiled and looked straight ahead again.
"Hey, Ikuto, can't you fall asleep too?" she asked out of curiosity.
He shook his head, chuckling a little, and turned to her—looking mischievous again—while saying, "Certainly not because here I was, taking a walk then suddenly there is this certain someone who threw a book and it landed on my head."
Amu's eyes widened and she blushed out of embarrassment. He chuckled and showed her the English book she threw earlier. Ikuto tossed it to her and ruffled her hair.
"Nice paragraph, kid," he said and made her blush a beet red.
"Ikuto!" she scolded, while grabbing the book and hugging it tight to her chest.
He chuckled and then, with envy in his voice, said, "Aw~ I wish I were that book of yours because even if you threw it away, you still love it so much that you hug it close to your chest."
Amu blinked in confusion and, upon realization, widened her eyes and nearly woke up the whole neighborhood with her scream of, "Pervert!"
Ikuto cut her off with his right hand covering her mouth. He chuckled and threw his head back, staring at the sky. Amu's muffled rampages did go unnoticed by Ikuto as he stared at the sky with a solemn expression. Amu stopped when she saw his solemn look and calmed down almost instantly. He turned to her and smiled at her for the second time.
"Do you want to fall asleep, Amu?" he asked with concern clearly evident in his voice.
Since Ikuto removed his hand, Amu can now reply with a, "Yeah, why?"
Ikuto didn't reply but instead stood up with ease as he bent down and picked Amu up. As he carried her bridal style, he jumped down the roof with his usual cat ears and tail—Yoru must be near him to be able to do that. Amu complained but Ikuto muffled her once more with his hand. Ikuto took the chair she placed below the ledge and placed it inside so that he can close the balcony doors. He then placed Amu carefully on her bed and crawled in beside her. He fixed the comforter so that it could cover the both of them.
Amu just laid there, perplexed at Ikuto's reaction since she thought he would have told her to try knocking her head against the wall in an attempt to fall asleep. When Ikuto wrapped an arm around Amu and brought her near him, she came back to reality.
"Ikuto, what are you doing?" she scolded him, a little quieter now because her family might hear her.
"Helping you fall asleep, now don't cause such a ruckus or I'll just slam your head against the wall and get this over with," Ikuto threatened with a sly grin.
Amu gulped, realizing she was right that Ikuto might do just that, and complied. She tried to calm her beating heart but nothing she did calmed it down.
Ikuto noticed this and his midnight blue eyes became soft and had that concerned look again. He used his hand to caress her pink locks. Amu looked up at him, her honey eyes confused at his actions. He smiled at her for the third time now and gave her a reassuring squeeze in the shoulder, momentarily stopping his hand from caressing her pink mane.
Amu smiled back and said, "Thank you, Ikuto."
Ikuto only nodded, already noticing the blush adorning Amu's cheeks, and replied, "Your welcome, Amu. Now, let's get you to sleep."
Amu hugged Ikuto like a teddy bear and tried evening her breath out, her heart already calming down and her body already getting used to his warmth. She smiled in his chest and breathed in the sweet scent of chocolates he had, not to mention the aura of serenity deep within him. Ikuto hummed a soft lullaby to make her fall asleep.
"Why don't you sing it, Ikuto?" Amu asked after hearing his lullaby.
Ikuto grinned and started to sing slowly the lullaby his mother used to sing for him whenever he couldn't fall asleep.
Deep within a forest, lies a weary child
The child couldn't sleep, not in the wild
Amu instantly thought of herself upon hearing those words as her eyelids begin to droop and go heavy.
Lullabies were heard, from the fairies of the wild
Falling asleep in the woods, where is the child?
Amu yawned and closed her tired eyes, falling asleep, while Ikuto smiled gently at the "weary child" and continued to sing the little lullaby of the "fairy". He couldn't help but answer the question of the lullaby.
"She's here immersed in a deep sleep, next to the 'fairy of the wild'."