Lullaby
"This is so much fun!"
Maybe it was because I hadn't seen a movie this enjoyable in ages, but I waved my hands in sheer excitement, and Maru waved right along with me, as if answering my delight.
"It really is fun, isn't it?"
Just what I'd expect from a movie I picked myself. I meant to put on the next one, but drowsiness was already creeping in. I had a body that started nodding off the moment the clock passed ten, and I'd held out until midnight—sleep was long overdue.
Eyes closed, I burrowed into Maru's arms. She didn't seem to mind at all. She hugged me tight, then rose from the chair.
"Hana, are you tired? Shall we go to bed?"
"Yeah!"
Moving was too much trouble, so I stayed perfectly still in her arms. Full autopilot. Maru carried me at a steady tread all the way to my room, and I lay down on the bed with a warm little glow of contentment. She sat beside me and stroked my hair.
"Sleep tight, Hana?"
I hated the thought of her leaving, so I caught her sleeve.
"Stay with me until I fall asleep, Maru!"
At the sight of me, Maru smiled and sat back down on the bed, smoothing my face as she answered.
"If Hana asks me to stay, then of course I'll stay."
And so she filled the time with all the fun from the day—the game of hide-and-seek, the massage, and everything else—and we talked without noticing how late it had grown. Somewhere in the middle of it I started to feel clear-headed. Only a little while ago, sleep had been crashing over me.
Maru had lain down beside me to keep talking. Not flat on her back—propped at an angle, one hand tucked behind her head, watching me as she spoke.
A good idea suddenly came to me. It was a little embarrassing at my age, but I wanted to ask for a lullaby. A good one, I felt sure, would put me right to sleep. So I asked Maru to sing me one. I was still only a third grader, after all. This much was fine!
"A lullaby? Hmm... all right!"
Maru rolled her eyes as if rummaging through her memory, and once she'd landed on a good one, she began to sing.
Expecting something sweet and honeyed to fill my ears, I drew the blanket up to my chin. I regretted the decision almost at once.
Maru was a catastrophic case of tone-deafness and no sense of rhythm whatsoever, singing in a voice that could not, under any definition, be called a lullaby. As if to prove that no one can be perfect, she was a serious disaster of a singer. Her speaking voice was perfectly nice, and yet... I snapped my eyes open.
"Maru, stop!"
"Hm? What's wrong, Hana?"
She didn't seem to realize she was hopeless at it. Bellowing at the top of her lungs like some barrel-bodied cartoon character mid-musical number, her singing left me no choice but to shake my head.
Set beside Haru or Bora, the difference was night and day. We were all people, and yet I never imagined singing could vary this much. If I'd known, I never would have asked her to sing.
Still, a person can be improved. I sat up and looked at Maru.
"Maru! I'll sing one!"
If I took the lead and showed her how a song was supposed to go, wouldn't she pick it up on her own? The idea struck me as nothing short of brilliant. Wearing a deep, smug little smirk on the inside, I gave her a personal demonstration.
"When Mother goes beneath the island's shade~"
I was singing with my eyes closed, pouring a tender ache into the lullaby from the bottom of my heart, when an enormous fact struck me. Anyone who listened deeply to my singing fell asleep.
I flung my eyes open and stopped. Too late. Maru had already stretched out on the bed and sunk into sleep.
"Aaah!"
I realized what a terrible mistake I'd made. I shook her, trying to wake her, but the fatigue must have piled up deeply of late—she didn't stir no matter how I shook her. So I gave up. Instead I stuck myself fast to her side and put her to use as a body pillow.
Maru's embrace was softer and warmer than anything else in the world. Something yielding and squishy pressed against my face, too. Sleep came rushing in so hard that my earlier wakefulness might as well have been a lie, and I fell asleep just like that.
May Maru have good dreams.
"Ha... hah!"
Maru opened her eyes. The sun was already rising outside. How long had she slept? If a new hire was caught sprawled asleep in a bed like this, the scolding would be beyond words. A chill crawled over her.
She looked around in a rush, but there was no sign of Hana. Pale, Maru scrambled upright on the bed and pulled out her phone. It was already eight. She had slept a deep, solid seven hours.
Her body felt wonderfully refreshed. She couldn't even remember the last time she had slept this soundly. At home, a night like this would have earned a light laugh and an easy start to getting ready for work. But this was the company.
Hana was gone. Flustered, Maru went out to look for her. She ran to the office, saw that people had already come in for the day, and clutched at her plummeting heart. Fortunately, Hana was inside.
Still in her dinosaur pajamas, she was being petted in Haru's arms. Since Maru herself hadn't been in the office, Haru would already know she had left her post. In the worst case, Haru had seen her face, fast asleep in Hana's bed.
Accepting that she'd been caught, Maru bowed her head low. It was the sort of thing that would already have a superior furious. The company had paid to hire her for overnight duty, and here she was demonstrating outright neglect of that duty...
She was curious, too, about why she had dropped off so suddenly. It hadn't been that kind of sleepy situation. And because she'd been told she had night duty, she had gone to bed extremely early the day before.
Excuses like that would never be accepted. Maru barely swallowed the urge to cry and begged Haru's forgiveness. For the moment, Haru was the only one in the office. The story would get around soon enough, of course.
"I'm sorry, Senior! I fell asleep before I even knew it..."
Bent nearly ninety degrees, Maru begged forgiveness. How panicked Haru must have been, finding the person who should have been in the office that morning nowhere in sight—and then, searching for that junior, discovering her lying asleep in Hana's room as if she had every right to be there.
Hana was grinning away without a clue, but Maru had truly committed a serious offense. Her senior, though, already wore the look of someone who had heard something from Hana.
"Are you truly reflecting on this, Maru?"
Haru's expression turned stern. If Haru herself said nothing, word wouldn't spread through the company. Hana was perfectly fine, and right now Haru was the only other person in the office.
"Yes! I won't let it happen again!"
Maru put every ounce of sincerity she had into it. She had no desire to become the new hire fired inside of a week. But seeing her like that, Haru smiled.
"This isn't your fault, Maru."
"Pardon?"
"Hana's singing has the ability to put anyone who hears it to sleep."
"Really...?"
The way her senior said it sounded like teasing, and Maru answered uneasily. Falling asleep from a song... Hana wasn't some singing monster from the neighborhood over. Dropping off from a voice alone was hard to believe.
But if Haru was willing to go that far, maybe it really was true.
Fortunately, Hana—still nestled in Haru's arms—said that it was, and the tension drained out of Maru all at once.
"Wasn't there a file compiling what Hana's abilities are?"
"Ah, that one's locked with a password..."
"So the confidentiality agreement still hasn't been approved by the higher-ups?"
"No. Just as you said, Senior, it doesn't seem to have gone through yet."
Haru caught the squirming Hana as she spoke.
"Well, since you're up, please take her. She's been thrashing around from boredom for a while now. And I don't think she's washed yet."
"I'll do just as you say, Senior!"
In a flurry, Maru took Hana from Haru, scooped her up, and carried her into the room. When she had first woken, her heart had lurched and her life had felt ruined, but judging by her senior's reaction just now, this was going to pass without trouble.
And since her falling asleep had been Hana's ability, it was hard to call it a fault. They hadn't taught her all of Hana's abilities, after all.
Thinking so, Maru led the fussing Hana off to the bathroom.