Chapter 4:
The next morning, Hitsugaya was back to signing paperwork as if nothing had happened. Of course, he didn't think that anything had happened. As far as he knew, he slept all through the night. Uncomfortable, but asleep nonetheless. Well, that was only half true. He was asleep, but he wasn't in bed all night. But he didn't seem to remember that fact at all. In fact, he didn't remember anything at all! Why would he? He was asleep!
That night, Momo had the difficult task of carrying Hitsugaya all the way back to his room on the other side of the building. That way, he would wake up in his own bed and not suspect anything. And that's exactly what happened. When he woke up, he was in his own bed.
Rangiku poked her head into the room to watch her captain signing paperwork at his desk. She studied him carefully. She had never seen him act so strangely before last night.
Feeling her stare, he looked up. "What?"
She jumped. "What?!"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like I'm going to drop dead at any second."
She shifted her eyes away.
"What do you want?"
"Uh…" Should she tell him? How should she put it? "Uh, Captain? How are you feeling?"
Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow. That was a rather random question. "Fine, I guess. Why?"
"Just wondering." She slid into the room and over to his desk. She stood directly behind him and studied him closely.
Hitsugaya could feel her breath on his neck. He slammed the pen down. "What do you want?!"
She scrambled backwards. "Nothing!"
He shot her a look and returned to his work. But she was still standing there, watching him.
"So… How did you sleep last night?"
Hitsugaya answered without turning around. "Laboriously."
"Uh-huh. Have any… uh… Interesting dreams?"
He turned to face her. "What's this about?"
"What?"
"Asking me these things. What's going on?"
"I was just wondering, Captain! I'm not up to anything!"
He raised his brow.
"Really!" But this summed everything up for her. He didn't remember anything from last night. How strange. Did this mean that he wouldn't do it again?
~*~*~
Late that night, Rangiku awoke to a strange noise outside her door. She got out of her sweat-soaked bed and opened the door. She looked in front, to the side, up, down, and then to the other side. There, sitting on the floor, was Hitsugaya. He had a black marker in hand and seemed to be…
"Captain, what are you doing?!" she hissed.
"… Paperwork…" he mumbled. He moved his arm up and down, drawing on the white walls with the marker. Rangiku looked at the wall. None of it made any sense at all. A lot of it wasn't even words! Just a whole bunch of scribbles. She tried to pull the marker from his hand. "No..! Have to finish… Gotta get it done…"
"Captain, please snap out of it. That's not paper, it's a wall! Please give me the marker."
He ignored her and continued to write. She grabbed his hand and pried the marker from his weak grip. He whined and reached for it again. "No… Finish paperwork…"
"Captain, please..!"
Hitsugaya yawned and crawled between her legs and down the hall. For a sleepwalker, he was pretty fast. Rangiku hurried after him. He turned a corner. She followed him. Now he was up on his own two feet and running away from her. Running? Sleepwalkers could run?! What was he doing?
She chased after him. Apparently, he didn't want to be caught. He made a fast left and went down a few staircases. He ran down a few more hallways and down another flight of stairs. Rangiku struggled to keep up with him. He was fast! He made another sharp turn and disappeared around a corner. When she made the same turn, she realized something. To her horror, the corridor was empty. He had vanished.
"Hitsugaya!" she called in a loud whisper. "Please, come out! Where are you? Hitsugaya?!"
A door on her right swung open. "What's going on out here?"
Rangiku turned, surprised. There stood Momo, shielding herself from view with the door. Only her head and shoulder were visible. "Oh, Momo! I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour but I have a bit of a problem."
"Oh? Do you need help?"
"Well, now that you mention it…" Rangiku filled her in on what had happened so far. "… And now I have no idea where he is. He just disappeared! Have you heard him or seen him at all?"
"No. The door was shut."
"Oh, that's right."
"But, wait. Did you say that Little Shiro was sleepwalking again?"
"Ye- Wait. What do you mean again?"
"Well, I saw him last night."
"Oh."
"And I had a feeling he'd do it again like always."
"Always? You mean he's done this before?"
"Well, yeah. Whenever it's hot outside like it's been so far, he starts sleepwalking. I'm not sure why. It's a habit of his, I guess. But he used to do this all the time in the summer when we were kids."
"Really? But, why does he do it?"
Momo shrugged. "I'm not sure why. I think it's just a reaction to the heat or something like that. Usually when he sleepwalks, he goes off trying to find something to cool himself down. Once I found him sitting in a pond outside our house. He stayed there all night cooling off. He finally came back in at about sunrise."
"How do you snap him out of it?"
"You don't. He's just asleep and walking around. And you should never wake a sleepwalker."
"Then how do you get him to stop?"
Momo thought for a moment. "Well… Usually what I do is try to lure him back to his own bed. Basically, he'll go back to sleep if he's comfortable and calm."
"But he's already asleep. You know, 'sleep' walker?"
"I mean in a deeper more sound sleep, when he's not up and walking around."
"Oh. Well, why didn't you say so?" Rangiku looked back around the hall. "So can you help me out? I need to find him fast."
Momo stepped out into the hall wearing a short white nightdress. "Sure. We have to before he tries something dangerous."
Rangiku stopped her. "Dangerous? What do you mean?"
"Well, technically, sleepwalkers are still asleep which means that they still dream. That means that Little Shiro is still dreaming." Seeing the confused expression on Rangiku's face, she clarified. "It means that he'll act out his dreams while he's sleepwalking."
She blinked. "Is that bad?"
Momo nodded. "Yes, it could be. What if he has a dream where he thinks he can fly? He'll try jumping off a roof somewhere!"
She turned pale. "We need to find him now!"
They both tore down the hallway, searching for the lost sleepwalker.