Chapter 14: The Children
"John, let me do it," Masako repeats for the umpteenth time since they arrive the hotel.
"But I know I can do it!" Little John says. He's trying to put the key on the hole to unlock the room, or at least he was trying to reach it.
"If you let me do that, then… I can (maybe) let you sleep with me on the bed?" Masako asks, unsure if it was the right decision. John quickly hands the key over to Masako. She gladly unlocks the room and enters with the little Australian.
"John," Masako says, her irritation slightly heard from her tone. This time, John was trying to unbutton his shirt to change into his new clothes, "Relax, you don't have to hurry."
"But it's stuck!" John complains and, as if to prove a point, he tries pulling the button. "See?"
"You can't seriously tell me you don't know how to unbutton your shirt, can you?" Masako looks at him with an are-you-serious face.
"I can't, because then maybe I won't be crying in frustration!" John whines. Masako sighs, Little John was completely opposite of what he is now, he's patient as an adult, and now as a child, he was completely impatient.
"Let me," Masako moves to help him.
"No! I'm a big boy, stand back! (You're not my mom.)" John says, causing Masako to laugh. She pulls out her phone, "John, look here."
John looks at her with big eyes and a red face, his lips in a full pout. Exactly Masako's definition of an angel, she giggles and saves it, thinking of setting it as her wallpaper. After his short impromptu photo shoot, she helps unbutton his shirt, much to his protests, and helps him change into a bigger one.
She lets him keep his small transfigured shorts on.
"This is too big!"
"Well I wouldn't want a naked man with me when I wake up," Masako frowns.
"Aww!" John whines, but falls asleep a moment later.
Masako goes to the bathroom to prepare for bed and when she returns, she saw little John sleeping on the right side of the bed. She places two pillows on the center to act as barricade, but John wakes up in the process, his face showing disappointment.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing?" Masako asks, unsure of what to say again.
When she thought John had let the topic slide, she was proven wrong when the little boy crosses over the make shift barricades and to her side of the bed. He cuddles up to her and starts drifting back to sleep.
Masako only hopes that John would not be back to normal when she wakes up tomorrow. She had to put up with the cramped left side of the bed when the space behind John was big and empty.
She sighs before falling into the hand of Hypnos.
"I'm a rock star!" Monk shouts again, and Ayako can't take it anymore. She covers her ears with the pillow.
"Please shut your mouth!"
"I'm a rock star! A really, really cool rock star!" Monk says again, playing his imaginary electric guitar and making his own guitar sounds.
"If you don't shut up I'm turning you to a rock star, literally!" Ayako snaps. "And then throw you in the ocean together with the other starfishes and they'll stick up to you wondering why a rock, shaped as a star, was with them!"
Monk laughs, "Don't be mad Granny, I was just joking!"
"Who are you calling a Granny?!" Ayako screeches, stopping herself from pulled her hair in frustration.
"I'm sorry! Is it wicked witch of the west? You screech like a witch!" Monk covers his own ears, causing Ayako to screech something else that no one would ever understand.
"I am not a granny and I am most certainly not a witch!" Ayako says when she finally calms down, she sits on her bed to face the standing little Takigawa in front of her.
"Aw, but I like witches!" Monk whines, earning a little blush from her, much to her surprise.
"If I say I'm a witch, will you shut up and sleep?" Ayako asks, Monk places a hand over his chin as if to think about it,
"No, you have to carry me and put me to sleep."
"No thanks, now if you don't shut up, I'm throwing you out the window," Ayako says, laying down on her side and covering herself with the duvet.
Monk forced a cry; he knew that always worked with adults. He wails loud enough to wake the person next room; he was proven right when someone knocks to the room.
Ayako grumbles and opens the door, "Will you tell your son to shut up!"
"He's not my son!" Ayako glares at the old woman and the old woman returns the glare.
"Right, just shut him up will you? I'm going to complain to the manager if you continue that noise!"
Ayako slams the door and turned to little monk who was grinning victoriously with both his hands in the air, she sighs, "Why?! Why must I take Takigawa? I'd gladly take Lin, or even Naru or Yasuhara!"
She carries him and awkwardly pats him while humming the boy to sleep. After a minute or so, the little punk was sleeping soundlessly. She places him on the sofa and smiles proudly, then went back to her own bed.
She had a beauty sleep to catch up with.
Mai goes straight to her room, the two boys following behind her, holding a shirt and their own toothbrush which they got from their own separate room after they refused to sleep alone.
"Alright," Mai shuts the door. "Go straight to the bathroom and brush your teeth."
She flops down on her bed as the two kids race to the bathroom after Yasuhara shouted 'first one to finish gets to sleep with big sister!'
Slowly drifting to sleep, Mai was brought back to her senses when she heard yelling from the bathroom. She ran and saw both Yasuhara and Naru with toothpaste all over them; some on their hair, on their faces, body and on their clothes.
Both of them as wet as the other. They look at her with their eyes wide and innocent.
"He started it!" they yell at the same time.
"No you did! You said big sister wouldn't sleep with me!" Yasuhara accuses.
"I was stating the truth!" Naru pouts, glaring at the other cutely.
"No! Because big sister isn't yours!"
"She is! I gave her a ring!"
"I can give her a ring too you know!"
"Well it's not the same! I was first!"
"Who says first is always the best?"
"Well its true isn't it?"
All the while they were fighting; Mai had managed to fill the bath tub and fill it with bubbles. She turns to the fighting kids, "Alright, break it up, take off your clothes and get in the bath."
She turns around and waited for them to get in the bath, and turns around again when they were fully concealed under the thick bubbles. Mai starts with their hair, she uses her shampoo on them.
"Eeew, I smell like a girl!" Yasuhara complains, Mai gives him a pointed look.
"What's with you and girls?"
"You won't understand!" Naru says, "You're a girl!"
Mai looks at the in disbelief, "Oh, so now you're a team?"
She then soaps both of their upper bodies and their faces. She gives them time to play with the soap to clean what she can't. When she successfully bathed them, Mai leaves the bathroom to let them change. When they were done, Mai pushes them outside.
She brushes her own teeth and take a shower, changing into her pajama right after.
"No fair! I want to watch the animal channel!" Yasuhara shouts.
"No! You're a kid, watch a cartoon!" Naru held the remote further, not taking his eyes of the television.
Who would've thought, Mai laughs.
She claps her hands twice to get their attention, "Alright, enough of that. Turn that off, I'm going to sleep."
She leans down the single sofa and covers herself with the warm duvet. Mai had let them take her bed, so she had to sleep on the chair. Mai closes her eyes until she sees the shadows of two little figures crept at both sides of her, poking her cheeks again and again.
"Are you sleeping?"
"Well my eyes are closed aren't they?" Mai mutters, brushing his hands away gently.
"Just because your eyes are closed, doesn't mean you're sleeping," Naru states.
She opens her eyes and finds them sitting on the arm rests beside her.
"Right, what do you need?" She asks them.
"Sleep with us," Yasuhara says.
"The bed is too big for two kids, and you don't look comfortable at all."
"You'll wake up with a bad neck."
Mai had no energy to refuse, as long as she can say she got their consent to sleep on the bed with them. She moves towards the bed, two kids following her, and she lays down, humming in approval.
The two kids lay down at her side, Yasuhara hugging her waist and Naru calling names at the black haired kid while intertwining his fingers on hers.
Mai opens her mouth to complain when she heard soft snoring from Yasuhara. He's fallen asleep. She takes off his glasses and place them beside his pillow. Mai glance at Naru who was also already sleeping. She pulls the duvet over them and drifts off to sleep herself.
Madoka shut the laptop Lin was so intently focused on. Lin glares at her and she glares back, "Sleep."
"I don't want to." Lin says, since Lin was older than the rest of the boys, the Lin in front of Madoka was 9 years old, barely a kid really. The rest was 4 or 5 years younger than him, even though he was supposed to be ten years older that Oliver.
Madoka is secretly glad she has the eldest, but was annoyed too because it was one of the phase when they usually start their 'I'm not a child anymore'.
"What does it take for you to sleep?" Madoka asks him, the child ponders for a bit.
"The best you can do is hand me some sleeping pills, usually works. Warm milk does help too."
Madoka quickly gets up and leaves the room to go to Mai's. The young Japanese did have everything tea-related. It was around midnight so she really wasn't expecting Mai to be awake. She opens the door with the spare key she has and looks around the dark room for the wares, what she sees surprises her.
Yasuhara Osamu and Oliver Davis were back in their own twenty year old bodies.
Naru was sleeping on his back, his head tilted to the right and his cheeks resting atop Mai's head. His fingers around Mai's hand. Yasuhara was sleeping on his side, arms clinging around Mai's waist and his body on an awkward position to unconsciously prevent himself from falling.
Mai slept on her back too, she was in between the two men. Her body completely straight but not at all stiff, like she hasn't moved from the time she slept until now, and unaware of the two grown guys beside her.
If Madoka was younger, she would have felt her face burning from the scene in front of her, but she was past that age. She brings out her phone, taking a picture from several angles and she remembers to make sure to send them to Luella when she has the time.
She immediately leaves the room, forgetting about the the reason she came into the young girl's hotel room in the first place.
Then she creeps to Masako's room and et voila, just as she had expected.
Masako had moved around during her sleep so both of them were laying side by side on their back. The tip of their heads touching, and it made them look like a couple who were both innocent and were testing out the waters.
She takes a picture and again leaves.
She went to the last room, Ayako's and Takigawa's room. When Madoka entered, she had to stop herself from laughing out loud.
This was the wildest, least romantic she's seen for the night. Monk's head was on the foot of the bed and he was hugging one of Ayako's legs, snoring. Ayako, on the other hand, was just laying down and taking half of the duvet, the other half was down the bed and her legs was taking up most of the space in the bed.
Madoka tries her best to stop from shaking as she takes the picture, then stealthily leaves the room. She was about to enter her own room when she remembers the forgotten milk for Lin. She enters her room, half expecting a normal sized Lin, but was surprised when Lin is still his child self, playing the computer.
"Lin, come here."
Little Lin turned around to face Madoka, they stare at each other and Lin moves towards her. Madoka grinned, "If you go to bed, I'll give you interesting things in your phone."
He looks up at her curiously, "What things?"
"You'll see tomorrow, it's a promise." Madoka extends her hand in a pinky swear pose. Lin glance at it hesitantly, but follows after.
"I better see it tomorrow then, and if you don't mind, I prefer it in the laptop."
Little Lin lay down in bed and Madoka got to work, sending the pictures to the laptop via bluetooth. When she finishes, she sighs and rests her head on her hands. She's sure Lin is going to revert back so she had to sleep anywhere but the bed.
Edited 5/9/16.