Dear readers,
If you have read the summary and giggled slightly, then you should GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER. These kids are like, 7, you sickos!
Signed, your friendly neighborhood Otaku
May shivered a little as she hid underneath the cover of her blanket. Barley had gone to visit another town to observe methods of caring for livestock, leaving her with a trustworthy old woman called Ellen. Luckily, May had no problem with this, seeing as to how Ellen was the grandmother of her best friend Stu. Being one of the only three children in town, she found it rather boring around. The adults were always busy and didn't want to play.
Well, there was Karen, but all she ever wanted to do was wrestle and she always let May win, which got boring fast.
One of the three children was only around a year old. Her name was Reina. She was the daughter of Claire, the local farmer, and Cliff, the guy who would forever be known to May as 'the shy guy'. Personally, she didn't see how they had gotten together; Claire was so out-going, energetic, and extroverted, and Cliff was... well, not.
"May?" Stu asked, rolling over to get a look at the girl on the other bed. Stu's room wasn't very impressive; he shared it with his big sister Elli, and she often ended up sleeping on the couch because of her job. On a shelf positioned between the beds and just a few inches higher than Stu, there were two dolls; a stuffed Cinderella doll that belonged to Elli, passed down from her mother and knitted by her grand-mother, and a toy-soldier that belonged to Stu, standing tall and proud by itself, leader of an army that had long disappeared into the gray fuzziness of the past. "Are you okay?"
"Yes I am," May replied weakly. Stu was one of the many people who didn't know May's secret; she was deathly afraid of the dark. Most children were because they didn't know what was lurking behind the shadows, and that was the case with May; her fear had just been amplified by events during her early childhood. Before her mother had gone away, she and Barley would often go overseas to study animals, much like he was doing now, and leave May in the custody of an old-woman called Kate. Kate had put on a mask whenever May's mother and Barley were around and made as if she was the nicest person in the world, however that attitude changed when the two stepped out the door and she was sure that it was firmly shut behind them. Whenever Kate felt that May had to be punished for something, she would put her in the closet and not let her out until she was certain that May had learned her lesson. May would often be in tears when five minutes had passed. Bonsai trees would look like hands coming out of the floor, and the handle of a vacuum cleaner would look like a man holding a sack, waiting to take her away. Needless to say, May was afraid of what Kate would do to her if she told anyone, and what with May's mother's tendency to trust anyone, she was left this way. Eventually, dear Mother did find out, and Kate was no longer allowed to babysit. Luckily for May, neither Ellen or Elli were anything like her.
"Really? Then why are you hiding under your blanket?" Stu pressed on, chocolate brown eyes searching for a response; a shiver if she was cold, maybe?
"N-No reason..." May shifted so that just her eyes were visible over the hem of the blanket. "I-I'm just cold..."
"You are?" Stu moved and got out of his bed, tiptoeing across the room and opening the closet slowly as to not wake his grandmother. He rummaged around it for a while, caramel gold eyes watching him intently, until finally he found what he was looking for. Swiftly, he walked across to the bed May was sitting in and put the blanket he was holding over the other one. "Is that better?"
"I guess..." May turned around so that her back was facing Stu. She shut her eyes and tried to go to sleep, but to no avail. She still didn't know what would be looming over her as she slept, and she whimpered and huddled into a small ball. Stu had made his way back to his bed, but sat up and looked directly at May.
"May. There's something wrong, isn't there?" he interrogated. May whispered no, which just made him more worried. He jumped out of the bed and walked over to May, poking her back. "Then why are you all huddled up like that? Come on, May, you can tell me."
"F-Fine..." May finally turned over and looked Stu directly in the eyes. "I-I'm scared..." she whispered, shutting her eyes. A small tear dribbled down her cheek, and Stu wiped it away.
"Of what? The dark?" A small nod. Stu furrowed his eyebrows and put on his thinking face. "Hm... think, think..." he mumbled, pressing a finger to his forehead. Suddenly, he had an idea. "I know! May, come sleep in my bed with me!"
"What?" May asked quietly, peering at Stu over her blankets.
"Yeah! I used to be afraid of the dark and when I told Elli about it, she let me sleep in the bed with her and told me she would protect me from monsters and then I wasn't scared anymore!" Stu rattled off in one sentence. "So it will be the same with you! You'll sleep in my bed, and I'll protect you from monsters, along with Corporal Mustache!" he continued, reaching up and taking the toy soldier off the shelf. He bent his finger so that it looked like the corporal was doing a salute.
May giggled at the name that Stu had come up with on the spot – Stu hadn't played with the soldier in so long that he had forgotten the name he had given it. "Alright," May agreed, climbing out of the bed and going to Stu's bed. Stu climbed in next to her.
"Hehe, this is sort of like we're husband and wife!" Stu observed.
"I know!" May giggled, covering her mouth.
"Haha, goodnight, honey!" Stu said teasingly, bringing May closer to him and placing a small kiss on her forehead.
"Goodnight!"
Lazy ending is lazy. Anywho, I'm sorry for how much fluff is in this. Constructive criticism is appreciated and flames will be used to roast marshmallows with, thus adding more fluff to the story. Yum.