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There was a silence that filled the air, only being broken up by the sound of cats yowling in the distance and other assorted animal sounds. The Sakura household, home to Futaba and Sojiro, was silent as it was going through its nighttime routine. Sojiro had fallen asleep in his chair and Futaba was currently deep asleep in her bed, dreaming that she was playing games in her room. It seemed like a routine and boring dream, but something changed in her dream.
There was an urge for her to head to Leblanc Café, and unfortunately for her an old issue was going to rear its ugly head again. She was a sleep-walker. It was something that hadn’t occurred much during her hikkomori days due to her having her room locked most of the time and too much anxiety to leave the house; but since her change of heart and re-acclimation to society, it was coming back into prominence once more.
As she headed to Leblanc in her sleep, she got out of bed, the sheets falling off her, as she slipped into her UFO slippers and headed towards the door, arms straight out in front of her. She reached for the door and after a good amount of fiddling and hitting the door a few times, she managed to swing her door open, hitting the wall with a bit of force. Being a heavy sleeper, the noise didn’t stir her from her state at all.
It did however wake Sojiro from his sleep, as he thought at first someone had broken into the house. His heart was racing a bit as he made his way from his room into the hallway, holding the tv remote he had in hand to use as a weapon. However, what he observed just turned his slight fear into a groan. He observed Futaba walking down the stairs in her Pajamas, heading towards the front door. “The sleepwalking is back, huh?”
He remembered that Wakaba had told him about this and also had to deal with it a few times when he first took her in, before she became too afraid to leave her room. There was only one thing for him to do, and it was to walk up to her and poke her shoulder. “Futaba, go back to your room. Your room needs you more than wherever you’re heading to.”
Futaba stopped in her tracks and mumbled out the words “Okay Sojiro” though it was slurred and hard to understand, before proceeding to head back up the stairs and was heading back to her room. To ensure that she did what he told her to, he followed suite, watching her head into her room, not bothering to close the door in the process, before seemingly getting out of her sleepwalking state just long enough to fall back asleep in bed.
That just caused him to let off a long sigh. “What am I going to do with you, Futaba?” He wasn’t really sure what he could do to prevent this from getting worse. After all, she could head all the way to the station in this state, though that would be as far as she could get since the trains stopped service well before now. Only other thing he could do was to inform Ren about this situation tomorrow…
[The next day…]
“I wonder what Sojiro wants me about?” Ren was heading back home from school and got a rare call from him, saying that there was a matter that needed to be discussed and that it was urgent that he got back to the Café as soon as possible. There was some discussion between him and Morgana. Was this related to some issue with Futaba? She was still relatively fresh off her change of heart after all. But she was getting better, so what could be the issue?
There was only so much time to discuss it, as the train stopped at Yongen and soon enough they were in the Café, Sojiro waiting diligently for him. He appeared to have a serious expression on that face of his, so whatever this was, it was important. “Hey boss, what do you have to talk to me about?”
“It’s about Futaba.” As simple and direct as one could be with this. “She’s starting to do something again that hasn’t been an issue for a long time. Sit, I have to explain this to you.” Ren sat down in a chair at the counter, and he began to speak once again. “To simply put it, Futaba sleepwalks. And is starting to do so again.”
“Sleepwalking? Huh…” Ren had to admit, as he scratched the back of his head, that this wasn’t the thing that he was expecting really. At least this confirmed that this was something to do with her though. “How long has she been sleepwalking?”
“According to her mother, she used to do it fairly frequently when she was younger, but when I took her in, it stopped after a bit. Probably due to well…you know, her situation and all that. Her mother said it wasn’t ever a huge issue though she got outside a few times and had to be brought back into her room.”
Interesting, and kind of concerning. He didn’t really understand the whole sleepwalking thing and how it worked, but it was something that needed to be addressed so he completely understood why Sojiro brought this up. With that said though, what could he do about this? “Do you want me to talk to Takemi about this or…?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be talking about it soon with her. With that said, I want you to keep an eye out in case she gets to the café. I caught her heading out last night, but I won’t be able to do that every night. I only was able to because she opened the door to her room loudly.”
Ah. Well, that was going to present a bit of an issue. If she got to the café then it’d be locked and all that. And Morgana well, he made him sleep at a decent time. “Do you want me to let her in if she gets there?” It was either that or getting her to go back to her room, which might take some finagling for sure.
“I’ll leave that up to you what you want to. Ultimately, I just want to make sure she doesn’t put herself in danger; so having her in the café will ensure that she’s safe. I do want her to get back in her room though.” It was just like him to mostly be concerned about her well-being and wanting nothing more than her to be safe. So, Ren nodded at that, understanding completely.
“If she’s able to open doors and such, who knows what else she could do.” Morgana spoke up through the bag and Ren nodded at that as well. “Though I don’t understand, shouldn’t it be impossible to walk in your sleep? I thought your body couldn’t move much whilst you were asleep.” That was the not a cat cat’s understanding anyways.
Ren didn’t really have a good answer for that. After all, that was how it was supposed to be but he supposed it was possible for one to have control of their body in their sleep. He could look it up though since he had his smart phone with internet access and all that. But it wasn’t all that important. The more important thing was keeping Futaba safe if she sleepwalked to the café.
They were calling it operation sleepwalker. Not a clever name but then again, that didn’t matter. Nothing was going to change in terms of their routine, but they were going to keep an eye out…or rather an ear out in case there was a rattling at the café entrance. And weren’t going to totally assume some burglar was trying to break in. Now it was time to wait until the night…
[Later that night…]
Another night came and was in the midst of going through its cycle when Futaba started to sleepwalk once again. Instead of going to the café immediately though, she went to her computer and apparently was messing with some things before realizing that she had to head out, leaving her computer on as she headed out of her room, not waking up Sojiro this time as she opened the door to her room.
Meanwhile, in the café, Ren was softly asleep, with Morgana laying on him like he always did. He had fallen asleep thinking about how he was going to react to possibly seeing Futaba sleepwalking. Couldn’t he just wake her up? Or was she such a heavy sleeper that it wouldn’t do anything? It was something to consider for sure.
Though, the time would come soon as he would get awakened from the sleep by the sound of the café door attempting to be opened. He shot up and so would Morgana. Oh boy, so she was really sleepwalking huh? “Move Morgana.” Getting out of bed, he headed downstairs and towards the door, unlocking the door for her. He got a mumbling of why the door was so hard to open from her as she walked through.
What happened next was something that he wasn’t expecting. He heard her mumbling, saying something along the lines of being hungry and needing curry before she suffered from starvation damage. And that once she got her food that she was going to head back home to complete something she was doing online. That being buying a thing she really wanted.
Food huh? Well, everything was put up and all, and he couldn’t exactly make her curry easily. This was going to create quite a conundrum, as she sat in a booth and was waiting for her curry patiently. “So, what are we going to do about sleeping beauty here?” Morgana inquired, hoping that Ren had a good idea for this.
Admittedly he was still waking up and was having difficulty thinking properly…but then an idea hit him. He could just pretend to give her food. If she was thinking that she was eating in her dream then that would be good enough, right? “Coming right up, taba. Give me just a minute.” Morgana was confused about this, but he was assured that he knew what he was doing.
He grabbed a plate and a fork and went over, placing them on the table in front of her, making sure that she was aware that they were there. “There you go taba. Eat up.” And just like what he was expecting to happen, she started to “eat” the food, mostly being silent as she did so. Phew, that worked. And hopefully she would be able to just get back to her room without much issue.
“Have to admit, I wouldn’t have thought about that Ren.” Morgana admitted, watching as she continued to quote on quote eat, still wondering how she had such control like this despite being asleep with her eyes closed. Maybe she just knew the layout of the area that well or something.
Once she was finished eating, or supposedly eating anyways, that’s when she got up and started to head towards the door. But a sudden loud yowling from a cat that was getting into a fight with another cat got her out of her sleepwalking state. At least enough that she looked around a bit, seemingly confused about what was going on.
Before Ren could tell her exactly what was going on, she fell back asleep, and he was forced to grab her before she bashed her head against the door and then the ground. He was in an awkward situation where he was holding her up as her limp body was in his arms. So there seemed to be only one thing that he could do.
And that was to lift her up and take her home himself. Thankfully, she was skinny enough and short enough that he was able to pick her up bridal style without much issue and started to head to her house. How long was this going to be an issue? Hopefully not too long as Takemi could help deal with this issue, so she wasn’t going to put herself in danger.
It was weird to be up this late, seeing no one around and only hearing the distant rumbling of cars going down the busier roads. Morgana followed right behind, yelling at the cats that were in a fight and telling them to stop. Which they wouldn’t but then again why listen to reason when there was territory to fight for, among other things.
Soon they would make it to the house and get her back in bed, pulling the covers over her so she could rest comfortably. But out of curiosity, they saw that her computer was on and on a shopping website. It appeared that she was about to buy herself a new mouse for whatever reason. Well, he closed the browser and managed to put the computer back into sleep mode before heading back out.
What they didn’t realize at the time was that things were going to get worse from here, and it was going to be a reoccurring issue with her sleepwalking. For the moment though, they were just hoping that Takemi could help with the issue, and this would be a blip, something that would be laughed about in the future. But it was going to become known as the inciting issue that resulted in Futaba being called the Sleepwalker extraordinaire….