After Leaving the Bridge

Parents

None of them thought they'd actually get away with keeping Yuya's nightmares a secret from their parents. The two rooms split between the quadruplets were just down the hall from their parent's master bedroom. The space was both too big, yet too small for such a secret to exist. Keeping the ever growing frequency of the nightmares a secret from their parents was a fight they knew they were going to lose.

That didn't mean they didn't try.

They made it for about 6 months.

While most of Yuya's dreams woke him into a coherent enough state from him to seek out his brothers, some would trap him inside. His usual quiet wimpers would soon turn to pained cries in the night that summoned his brothers to his aid.

Until one night, he just wouldn't wake up.

Yugo rose from his bed, half asleep like usual, but made his way over to his baby brother. Yuya's bed was a tangled mess of sheets, with his red and green hair more wild than it's ever been. Yuya's crimson eyes were closed, but a steady stream of tears ran down his face.

Yugo reached over and laid his six and a half year old hand on his brother's shoulder, shaking him gently.

"Wake up, 'uya. It's just a dream."

Yuya slept on.

Yugo shook a little harder. "Common Yuya. Wake up."

Yuya's eyes remained closed. His whimpers grew worse. He sounded like he was in pain.

Yugo was getting worried now. "Yuya? Yuya! What's wrong, lil bro? Common, Yuya, you gotta wake up."

Yuya was thrashing around in his bed, now. His breaths were coming fast and clipped. He was hyperventilating.

"Yu-Yuya," Yugo cried, his own breathing picking up to match his brother's, "W-Wake up, Yuya."

Yugo felt the switch in his mind quiver.

Have you ever wondered what it was like, being reborn over and over, having to live life as a child despite having lived to the age of eighty just one life prior?

It freaking sucks, that's what. So fate gave Yugo and his brothers a way to cope.

They are reborn already bearing the memories of their past lives, but that process doesn't take away the fact that they now inhabit the bodies of children. And with those bodies come all the emotions and instincts of a growing child. If they so choose, Yugo and his brothers can give themselves over to those instincts, and live life with the thoughts and emotions that match their new looks.

In essence, when the memories of their past lives aren't needed, they sit in the back of their minds, and Yugo and his brothers are nothing more than regular six and a half year old boys. When they need to think like the adults they really are, they can do so with ease, like flipping a switch.

But this can backfire.

What would happen if the mind of the child over takes the mind of the adult? If the child is the one that flips the switch?

Yuto and Yuri find the result when they barge into their sibling's room moments later.

There, they find Yuya, thrashing about in his bed, his silent screams now given voice, with the volume steadily rising.

There, they find Yugo, staring at his brother, his breath short and fast, tears streaming down his face. The look of a blind man without his cane plastered on Yugo's face.

"Yugo," Yuri asked, confused as to why his younger brother was frozen, "Yugo, what's going on?"

Yugo's head slowly turned to look at his elder brothers, his breaths coming in short bursts. His eyes were glassy and unseeing. Yuya shifted and Yugo's attention returned to the fitful form on the bed. His hands shook as he grasped Yuya once more, his movements no longer that of the man, but of the frientened child.

"Yuya... wake up. Please..."

The youngest's eyes remained shut.

....

"Wahhhhhh!!!!"

Yugo collapsed onto the ground, the complicated thoughts of an adult being washed away by the terror of a little boy who didn't know how to fix his baby brother.

Yuri and Yuto jump to action, with Yuto quickly approaching Yuya's bed to try and wake the other and Yuri running over to the crying Yugo, his confusion at the situation taking a backseat to the worry for his obviously distressed brother.

"What's going on in here?"

Two heads turned to the still opened doorway and the figure of their mother, Sakaki Yoko, her hair undone and her night robe hastily thrown on.

Yuto, keeping a level head despite the thrashing form of Yuya cradled in his arms, replied, "Yuya won't wake up! And Yugo just started crying!"

And Yoko, their wonderful mother, got right to work.

She rushed over to the confused Yuto and the thrashing Yuya, having come to the conclusion that fixing this problem would solve all the rest. She sat herself on the bed and gently separated Yuya from his brother, bringing the younger into her lap despite his flailing arms that left bruises on her body. She wrapped her arms around him, and rocked, back and forth, a steady rhythm to her every action. She rocked, and swayed, and carded her hand through his sweat soaked hair, whispering softly into his unhearing ear.

Yuto watched in awe as his mother's gentle rhythm broke through the fog of Yuya's nightmare. Minutes must have passed, but it seemed to take only a moment before Yuya's movements calmed. His arms no longer swung to hit an unseen enemy and his eyes no longer shed tears of fear and anguish. Yuya's crimson eyes never opened, but they could tell, the "nightmare" had been chased away, if only for a night.

"Mama?"

Yugo, with help from a worried Yuri, had arisen from his spot on the ground and looked at their mother, a vulnerability his brothers had never seen in him before shining alongside the tears in his eyes.

"Will Yuya be okay?" His voice warbled as he asked.

Their mother's eyes softened and she held out an arm to beacon Yugo closer. "Come here, sweety. Yuya just had a bad dream, is all. He'll be just fine."

Yugo quickly climbed onto the bed, and practically threw himself at their mother, her arm wrapping him in a safe and warm embrace.

Yoko's eyes traveled to the two eldest, and she adjusted her spot on the bed. "Get on up here, boys," she said with a tired smile, "we're sharing Yuya's bed tonight."

Yuto and Yuri glanced at each other, before joining their mother on the nearly cramped bed.

"This isn't his first nightmare, is it?" Yoko asked, knowing that, while the younger two were quickly drifting, her elder sons would take a bit longer to tire.

Yuri moved himself closer to their mother's warmth, mumbling, "we didn't want to worry you."

Yuto nodded, "And you would have told dad, and then dad would have come home from his tour early. We didn't want to bother him, either."

Their mother sighed. "Sometimes, you boys act so mature, I don't know what to do with you," her lips turned up into a small smile, "You let me worry about your father, okay? I'll handle all the grown up stuff. You two just keep taking care of your brothers."

She let out an almost exaggerated yawn.

"We'll head to the doctor's tomorrow," she mumbled, feeling the call of the soft mattress pull her closer to sleep alongside her children, "hopefully, they can help my poor baby get some sleep."

As their mother combed her fingers through their multicolored hair, the small family drifted into the most peaceful sleep they'll have in a while.