Chapter Text
It was happening again. There she was, holding a young woman in her arms, almost effortlessly, as she ran up the stairs from the herd of cats, but somehow, with every few flights of stairs, the girl grew heavier and heavier in her arms until it became unbearable, and not only that, but the stairs were disappearing as well. In that tower was guarded a cavern of gems. It was much like the dream she had had nearly a decade before, a forest of anxiety, only now, she knew the correct gem, it was just…getting up there with this girl in her arms! The girl got heavier and heavier until she was too heavy! The woman carrying her couldn’t hold her anymore, much less run up the stairs carrying her in her arms. A stair beneath her crumbled, and she fell, screaming!
///
Shizuku jolted awake, panting. She was having that dream again. It seemed like it was almost every night she dreamed it. Her limp arm flopped its way over her lower abdomen. She felt some pressure there. No. She was just trying to convince herself it was true. Or maybe she was trying to convince herself it WASN’T true. It was a scary time after losing Shiro, their first child. Could she really bear to have another one so quickly?
She turned her head to see him, Seiji Amasawa, shirtless and snoring lightly, beautiful as ever. He looked so beautiful it actually managed to make her cry. How did she ever get so lucky? There he was, her baby’s father, the baby that they had named after his grandfather.
///
“Mr. Nishi,” she had told him at the World Emporium that day, “Seiji and I lost the baby.”
She couldn’t quite remember what he had said after that, but he looked quite sorry.
“We were thinking,” she had said through her tears, “in a lot of cultures…people will name their baby…even if the baby was never born. Would it be okay if…if we named him…Shiro Amasawa?”
For the first time in her life, she saw the old man cry. A single tear made its way down his cheek.
“We don’t have to! I’m sure we could think of some other name for him…or her…we never knew if it was a girl or a boy!”
“No, I’m…” Mr. Nishi wiped his eyes. “...I’m actually incredibly touched that you would want to name the child after me.”
///
Shizuku sat up and hugged her knees. She began to weep quietly, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. Groggy and tired though he was, Seiji looked over at her. He turned around and started to rub her back. “Hey…” he whispered. “I know it’s still dark out, but if you wanna take a test right now…I’ll go with you.”
Shizuku sniffled as she looked down at him with tears in her eyes. He gave her a little sleepy smile that warmed her heart.
///
Seiji sat on the edge of the bathtub and ran his finger over Shizuku’s shaky hand as the wrapped pregnancy test vibrated in the other. “Seiji…I…I don’t know if I can do it!” Her voice shook.
“We can do this later if you want,” Seiji reminded her.
“No!” Shizuku’s hand left Seiji’s and turned into a fist as she grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve been too scared for too long. I have to do this.” Tears started streaming down her face again. She wiped them away, and slowly opened the pregnancy test. Seiji looked concerned as he held out his hand for her again. She opened the top of the test, and, squeezing Seiji’s hand and her eyes shut, she lined the paper up with herself. Her heart pounded in her ears as she worried she wouldn’t be able to pee. Seiji smiled tenderly at her as the sound of the urine stream permeated the uncomfortable silence between them. When she was sure she had emptied her bladder, she quickly put the top back on and turned the test facing down on the counter.
After steadying his own nerves, Seiji walked over to where they had left a timer from the kitchen and set it for three minutes. They were used to doing this after years and years of infertility; it seemed like half their marriage was wasted in the bathroom waiting for that timer to go off.
Seiji sat back down and held Shizuku’s hand as she slowly breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth and Seiji did the same. He was her rock, and nothing and no one could take that away from her. Shizuku was afraid of a negative, but she was perhaps more scared of a positive. In moments like this, she would often start to plan ahead for the future right then and there. It was late November, but they had most likely conceived in October, coincidentally on the anniversary of their engagement, that meant…(one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine)...July was when the baby would be due. She thought about what she would look like with a baby bump, what she would want the nursery to look like (they would probably have to find a new apartment with more space too); she even thought about how this experience would affect the novel she was writing, giving life to her characters as she gave life to a living, breathing…
The timer went off and scared her out of her train of thought. She could feel herself tearing up again. “You look first,” she told Seiji.
Seiji picked up the test and turned it around to face himself. He smiled and started to tear up as well.
Shizuku’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute…it’s not…Seiji?!”
Seiji showed Shizuku the test. The second pink line was very obvious. That’s what she got for waiting so long. “Oh Seiji!” she cried, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his pajama-bottom-clad legs, getting them wet as she shook and sobbed, still on the toilet with her own pink shorts around her ankles.
