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Eri couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t that she wouldn’t sleep. It was that she couldn’t sleep.
Shouta knew to expect it. Sort of, anyways. He spent his time watching over Eri in the hospital on his phone, with tens of tabs of parenting articles open on his phone, trying to give himself a crash course on parenting a small child after the commission told, not asked, him that he’d be the one to take Eri. Shouta knew kids–but he knew teenagers, not six year-olds. This was sudden and though Shouta had already been planning on taking her in before being told to do so, he was completely unprepared.
Eri couldn’t sleep.
At first, it was alright. The hospital had her on sedatives to calm her down while she was admitted. But even that started to not work by the end of her stay. And when Shouta took her home, she couldn’t sleep at all.
But still, it was alright.
Then Shouta realized something.
This was not the same thing as his own sleeplessness. This was a six year-old girl who was too terrified to sleep.
It seemed obvious. To Shouta, though, that realization was everything. This wasn’t him staying awake for days on end because there was too much work and too much to do. This wasn’t his students staying awake studying or doing homework. This was a child who would sit in her bed wide-awake for hours, cowering in the corner, eyes wide open as she searched for something in the darkness that was coming to harm her. It was not alright. This wasn’t going to solve itself with time.
Shouta stayed up with her. He didn’t sleep, either. The bags beneath his eyes grew darker and heavier, but it was still nothing compared to Eri. She became more and more frustrated with herself as the nights went on, clearly realizing that she needed to sleep and that Shouta wanted her to, but still not being able to do it.
It was wearing on both of them, and Shouta really wasn’t sure what to do.
Three weeks after taking Eri in, Shouta was sitting in the teachers’ offices, fighting to keep himself from drifting off to sleep as he tried to cancel the rest of his patrols for the week–just as he’d been doing since taking Eri in. After collapsing on a shared patrol with Hizashi, Shouta had been all but banned from patrolling until he could get some decent sleep–by Hizashi, of course. It wasn’t like the commission cared if he was getting enough sleep or not.
Shouta had argued at first, of course, but even he could tell that he was in no shape to go out like this. He was nodding off at almost every chance he got.
Today, he’d laid under his desk right before homeroom, thinking he could just get a couple minutes of rest–and had then slept through the entire period. The worst part was that the students had just let him do it. He’d woken up to the end of period bell to find them all sitting in their desks, staring at them as if they could somehow wake him up with only their gaze.
He regretted not giving them all detention for not waking him up.
Now he was left staring at his computer screen, on the scheduling screen he’d found himself staring at so many times over the last couple weeks, his hand hovering over his mouse, ready to click the option that would cancel his patrols for the rest of the week.
He didn’t want to but… he really was in no shape to work like this. He could barely teach. If he could barely teach, then there was no way he’d be any use out on the field. He had to cancel.
Shouta let out a heavy breath and forced himself to do it, clicking to cancel his patrols, leaving his schedule open once more. Another week of sleepless nights was ahead of him.
He really did love that girl. It actually surprised him how much he loved Eri. In a short time, the girl had gone from a stranger to someone who meant everything to him. And she was a good kid. This wasn’t her fault; at no point did Shouta fault her for it. She was trying. But Shouta could still be frustrated at this situation without being frustrated at her.
If he could just get some sleep, maybe he could find a solution.
“Shouta.”
The voice came from beside him, startling Shouta out of his thoughts. He jumped, going stiff as he tore his eyes away from his computer screen–only to find Hizashi looking at him with an uncharacteristically serious expression. The two of them shared a desk, and it didn’t take a lot of looking for Hizashi to see what Shouta was doing.
“You’re the one who said that I can’t go out on patrols anymore,” Shouta muttered halfway under his breath as he dragged a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to see how bad he looked, with the deepset eye bags and his pale, sickly skin.
“Right. And you can’t until you get some sleep.” Hizashi told him simply with a nod, confirming the ‘rule’. In reality, there was no real way he could stop Shouta, but as much as he claimed he didn’t want to, Shouta tended to listen to him on things like this. It gave him an excuse– Sorry, my partner told me that I can’t work until I can rest.
“But,” Hizashi went on. “Why don’t you leave Eri-chan with me tonight?”
Shouta’s eyes grew wide and he stopped, going still and silent, his mind struggling to wrap itself around that.
It wasn’t like Shouta didn’t trust Hizashi. Shouta hadn’t left Eri with anyone and it wasn’t a matter of trust. At least, with Hizashi it wasn’t, given that Shouta didn’t think there was anyone else he trusted more. Eri had a dangerous quirk that she didn’t know how to control. In Shouta’s head, leaving her with someone else–someone he deeply cared about–when she was upset and frustrated and restless put them in danger. If he wasn’t there, there was no way to control her quirk.
“I don’t know…”
“It’s just for a bit, so you can sleep. You can stay in your room and I’ll take her out into the common area and watch her. You’ll be able to hear if anything goes wrong.”
Shouta went quiet again. He wanted to argue, something inside of him nagging at him and telling him it was unsafe, that he’d be putting Hizashi and others in danger if he agreed to this. But he was just… so tired. If he could just sleep and clear his head, he’d be able to think more about a solution to this.
What really did him in, though, was the smile Hizashi gave him, “I promise it’ll be okay, Shouta.”
So Shouta broke and nodded, and could only hope that it wouldn’t be a mistake.
‘Tonight’ turned out to mean ‘as soon as school lets out’. Hizashi was insistent about that. The two of them went back to the teachers’ dorms together and Shouta handed off a very exhausted Eri to Hizashi.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Hizashi assured him with that same smile that had broken Shouta’s resolve earlier. He took Eri into his arms with ease, letting the dead-tired girl lay on his shoulder as she looked at Shouta with her huge red eyes. “We’ll have lots of fun, right, Eri-chan? And Shouta will be right here in case we need him.”
At some point, Hizashi had stopped talking to Shouta and started talking directly to Eri, but Eri still stared at Shouta, looking as if she wasn’t entirely convinced.
“…Are you going to sleep?” Her voice was quiet, as if she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask.
Shouta nodded slowly, “Just for a little bit. If you want me, all you have to do is ask Hizashi.”
Eri paused, but soon returned Shouta’s nod, “Okay.”
With that, a weight lifted off of Shouta. If Eri was alright with it, then it would be okay. Her agreement put Shouta’s worries to rest and ultimately, let him finally rest. He let Hizashi take Eri and let the door to his room close, leaving him alone.
For the first time in three weeks, Shouta was able to lay down alone and without worrying about Eri sleeping, and he was asleep almost as soon as he managed to get under the blankets.
The light outside Shouta’s window had turned from the yellow of afternoon to the dim blue of night by the time he woke up. It felt like it’d been seconds, but a simple glance at the clock told him it’d been hours. Night had fallen outside and not a single noise nor problem had disturbed Shouta’s much needed sleep.
Waking up, Shouta felt more awake than he had in weeks. He hadn’t slept a full night, but just having a few hours of uninterrupted rest had already begun working wonders on him.
And if he slept this long, then surely it meant things had gone alright with Eri. Neither her nor Hizashi had woken him up. And… Shouta definitely would’ve heard any distress. Hopefully, at least. But he had to make sure, because having that closed door was stirring the anxiety deep within him again.
The lights from the common room nearly blinded Shouta when he pulled open the door, and when his eyes adjusted, he saw the same scene there was almost every other day. Teachers grading or talking quietly together. Hizashi was on the couch nearest Shouta’s room with a lapful of work.
And there was no Eri.
Shouta opened his mouth, his panic immediate and threatening to boil over, but Hizashi was quicker, having looked up at him as soon as Shouta opened the door and given him that same smile.
“She’s in her room,” Hizashi said, pointing at the ajar door next to Shouta’s. “Sleeping.”
“She’s–what?”
There was no way he’d heard Hizashi correctly. Eri couldn’t be sleeping. She’d slept an hour the previous night, which meant that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep again until she literally could not stay awake. That wouldn’t be at least for another day. It was impossible; she couldn’t be sleeping.
But when Shouta went to her room and pushed the door open, Hizashi close behind him, there she was. Fast asleep in her bed, hugging the cat stuffed animal Shouta had given her, not stirring at all at the creak of the door or the sound of Shouta standing in the doorway.
He’d never seen her sleep like this. The only way Shouta had ever been able to get her to sleep was if he was with her. She would only sleep laying on his chest and would immediately wake up if he moved. She’d never once slept in her own bed before. Not until now.
“How–?” Shouta’s whisper was barely audible. Despite how deeply Eri was sleeping, he was terrified that if he spoke too loudly, he’d wake her up and her newfound peace would be over with. She still didn’t move, not even stirring at Shouta’s voice.
“I sang to her,” Hizashi answered simply in an equally quiet voice. Shouta turned to look at him, finding that Hizashi’s grin had just grown. “I had a feeling it would work. Put her right to sleep.”
How had Shouta not thought of that? He’d tried everything–reading to her, rocking her, even playing music. Nothing had made a difference. Maybe that was why he hadn’t considered it–in Shouta’s mind, he didn’t really see how singing to her and playing music for her would be any different. Apparently, it made a world of difference, and the proof was right here.
“I just sat with her in here and sang for a little bit,” Hizashi went on, and Shouta couldn’t help but to feel like that grin was a proud grin. He couldn’t blame him–Hizashi had every right to be proud that he’d solved the problem. “She fell right asleep. I’ve been checking on her every few minutes and she hasn’t woken up.”
Shouta really couldn’t believe his eyes–or his ears. All this time, all he’d had to do was sing to her? Of all things, that was what had worked?
“So I just have to… sing to her?” Shouta couldn’t hide his shock from his voice.
“Well, I might have to give you some vocal lessons first,” Hizashi winked at him and Shouta frowned, narrowing his eyes. “But yeah. You know, the same thing works with you!”
“It does not!” Shouta’s voice was louder than he meant it to be.
“Wanna bet? Let’s go try! You should sleep more anyways!”
“I don’t need you to sing to me to go back to sleep!” Shouta hissed, though the sentiment was entirely half-hearted. The last thing he was going to admit was that it kind of actually sounded nice, and maybe that he could understand why Eri had fallen asleep to Hizashi’s singing voice.
“Come on, Shouta, let me sing to you!”
Shouta just groaned, but took the chance to step out of the doorway, closing Eri’s door behind him. He left it ajar, like it had been before, and he did the same to his own room. Hizashi, apparently dead-set on showing Shouta that the same technique would work on him, followed him.
And as Shouta soon found out, Hizashi was right.
It did work on him.