SLEEP-SDA
CHELSEA WELSH
Summary: It Was Hard, Having A Three Year Old With Insomnia.What's Poor Shiori To Do?
He wasn't crying.
He never cried.
In fact...he rarely ever made a sound, aside from the slight noises of displeasure when dangerous shining objects were taken from him. Shiori often wondered how he got up on the counters in the first place.
And, as always, he was not crying. Simply staring. Brown into green, emerald into chocolate, the two stared at eachother. "Suichi, why can't you sleep, my son?" An exhausted Shiori looked at the baby boy in her arms, the bright blood hair and the pale skin that few in their family possessed. A small hand wrapped around her finger, never moving, never making a sound.
Her lips parted ever so slightly, voice betraying hidden exhaustion. She sang about the lost red dragonfly. Her voice sounded too loud in the silence of the room, the rocking chair having stopped creaking ten minutes ago.
Dragonfly; dragonfly.
Yuuyake koyakeno akatonbo Owarete mitano wa itsuno hi ka
Evening sky, evening sky.
Yamano hatake no kuwanomi o Kokago ni tsunda wa maboroshika
Fly so high, fly so high.
Jugo de neiya wa yomeni iki Osato no tayori mo taehateta
Say Goodbye, Say goodbye.
Yuyake koyake no akatonbo Tomatte iryo saonosaki.
Say goodbye, say goodbye.
Say goodbye, say goodbye.
Goodbye.
She sighed, not looking down, fearing to look into wide eyes, not at all tired. The grandfather clocked ticked away in the den, chiming twice as if mocking her that the hour was drawing later, neither had slept. She briefly thought about just leaving him in the bassinet, in this lonely nursery, to let him exhause himself. ...But her son was nothing if not stubborn, slightly mischevious. He could hurt himself. How would she forgive himself then?
She had tried feeding him.
She had tried singing to him, numerous times.
She had rocked numbly back and forth.
...He was smiling. Tiny hands played with her silver locket, attempting to open it, slightly tugging. "It's your father, Suichi-chan," she clicked it open, revealing black and white photos of a man he would never know.
"I met him so many years ago," she smoothed the fire hair back, a few stubborn curls refusing to lay, "Back when I was working in the hospital. He'd come in with his sister, very ill at the time. We thought she had pneumonia," the woman paused, "That's like a cold, you see. He had been so scared. He asked me to take good care of her. That he didn't know what he would do without her. I promised him."
"Sure enough, a few weeks later, she was off of bedrest. He'd never stopped visiting her. I would occasionally take him into the cafeteria for coffee," she paused once more, as if suddenly remembering who she was talking to, "That's what I drink in the morning. That stuff you are always trying to get into. After she was well enough to go back to work do you know what he did? He invited me to dinner..." Shiori lost herself in the memory, her foot pushing lightly against the ground to rock back and forth, "And from there on we just...connected."
She looked down in her arms, "Am I boring you to-" Her smile widened, the back of her finger stroking the baby's cheek. "I thought that one would get to you," she whispered, "Boring things always make babies sleep..." Placing a soft kiss on the perfect brows, she lay him in the bassinet, drawing a light blanket over the tiny miracle that was hers.
"I love you, musuko."
She turned out the lights. He was a special child.
But her perfect son, never the less.
END