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Silence. Dim light filtering through the windows.
That’s all that filled their home today. Emu stood with her back against the wall in the bathroom, her heart pounding. Subconsciously, she waited to hear footsteps or a knock on the door, even though she knew she’d hear nothing.
Rui, Tsukasa, and Nene had already left to practice early in the morning. The only reason she was here at home was because she’d been sick.
Or, “sick”.
Really, it wasn’t so bad. Slight nausea could be nothing, perhaps she’d overworked herself. However, she had this deeper sense that it wasn’t so simple. She couldn’t tell whether her stomach was turning because of this, or because of the anticipation.
Her eyes, in that dim dawn sunlight, focused on the test on the bathroom counter.
She had a feeling. This slight, nagging feeling she couldn’t shake. It tugged on her heart at all times, begging for her attention. She tried ignoring it, but it only tugged harder until she had to pay attention. It was possible. There could be…
She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, and her entire body felt like it was vibrating. She was so… Excited. And terrified. And worried, and every other emotion possible. Hopeful, even, though she wasn’t sure for what. The silence seemed deafening, the anticipation clawing at her body and squeezing her like vines. She didn’t even know what she was hoping for.
The horrid, thick silence was cut short as the alarm on her phone rang out. She lunged forward, clumsily fumbling her phone in her hands until she got a steady enough grip to turn the alarm off.
She knew the answer. She knew what it’d probably say. She couldn’t believe it, but somehow she knew it was reality.
Emu’s fingers gently slipped against the outer walls of the test, flipping it over gently and with no pressure on it as if it was about to shatter with any slight force.
Two lines.
Clear as day. Not even faint. Nothing even possibly to debate about.
A baby.
Emu squealed, overwhelmed by the storm of emotions overtaking her body. She was so excited, it felt like the world all made sense. Like everything she had ever done was leading up to this perfect moment.
And it also felt so terrifying. Not that she didn’t want it, but because she knew it wasn’t just her in this relationship. Nene, Rui, and Tsukasa would be home at the end of the day, and she’d have to tell them, and what if they didn’t see it the same way she did?
What if they… didn’t like it?
Emu’s heart seemed to jump into the clouds and fall and sink through the ground over and over and over again. She felt like her dreams just came true, she felt like this might ruin everything, she felt… everything all at once, everything possible.
She had no idea how long she’d been doubting the result over and over. She looked into the trash bin and saw three more tests. She’d taken four? She could’ve sworn it was only her second. It felt a bit like time had distorted as she waited for those results in that dimly lit bathroom so early in the morning. She wasn’t sure whether she was denying the results because they seemed so unbelievable, or because she didn’t want to believe them.
Well, it certainly seemed true to her now. She couldn’t wait, and yet she wanted to wait forever. She wanted to scream out to the world, but she also wanted to hide for as long as she could, delay everything until one of the others mentioned something about future plans for a family and confirmed they’d actually be okay with it. She wanted to wait until one of her partners brought up the idea on their own, and announce it later like it hadn’t been a thing before then. She wanted to text everyone she knew that very moment to squeal and ramble on about how much she wanted this, before they even had the suspicion.
She felt excited.
She felt kind of guilty for being excited.
Emu put the test in her pocket and walked to the kitchen, still shaking.
She couldn’t get her hopes up. What if her partners didn’t like the news? What if it… was bad news?
She loved them. She loved them more than anything. She was their partner, she needed to make them smile. That’s what a partner does.
She took a towel from a drawer in the kitchen and started wiping off the counters, trying to get her mind off things. But the silence and the repetitive motion of wiping circles around the kitchen countertops just made her mind wander more.
She was supposed to make them smile. That was the whole point. What kind of partner was she if she wasn’t making them happy?
The thoughts gripped her tightly, squeezing the air from her lungs.
Who would love someone who didn’t make them happy? She recalled every single time she’d made a mistake and her partners had helped clean up the resulting messes. Did she bring more disruption and bad news than anything good?
She didn’t even notice when she’d stopped moving around the kitchen and kept swiping her towel over the same section of counter over and over.
Emu, meaning smile. Her job, bring smiles to people’s faces by performing. She wasn’t even doing that, having stayed home sick.
They’d be home that night. And, like it or not, she’d have to confess.
She felt guilty for being so excited, when maybe she didn’t know any better and it could be bad news after all.
Emu found herself rustling through Nene’s collection of magazines. She’d collected quite a few on parenthood and babies.
It was almost reassuring that Nene seemed interested in that kind of stuff. Almost.
Maybe she’d be happy to have a use for all these baby magazines. Not like this was important information until now.
She flipped through one. The page that caught her eye - mostly because of how colorful it was - was a big, winding diagram full of pictures of fruit. She was intrigued, maybe because of how fruit seemingly had nothing to do with parenthood. But as she traced her finger down the path of colorful images and imaginative descriptions, her mind went wild with calculations.
Around six weeks, for sure. The baby was the size of a pea. And according to the next page, which Emu gladly read through like it was the most important thing in the world, they had a heartbeat.
She put her fingers together, imagining how tiny a pea was. And she couldn’t help but squeal, carefully sliding the magazine back into Nene’s collection and then jumping around like an overly excited kid.
She stopped and took a deep breath.
She couldn’t get her hopes up too high. Just in case.
She walked back out of the room, though the excitement wouldn’t leave her body. It fluttered like she was filled with a million fireflies, all spreading light throughout her body.
She’d prepared dinner, cleaned everything that could possibly be cleaned, and mentally prepared herself.
Finally, as the stars began appearing in the sky and the sunset dimmed the day’s sunlight away into a cool, orange glow, the door opened.
“Emu, we’re back! You made us dinner? You know, you didn’t have to. You need to rest if you’re sick…”
Emu couldn’t bear to turn around and face them just yet, but she recognized Rui’s voice.
“You’re not gonna get any better if you overwork yourself, you know. You’ll get sicker. You have to think this through every once in a while.”
The second voice sounded frustrated, but Emu could always pick out that slight hint of love. That was Nene. Even if she didn’t say it much, she knew she cared.
“Part of being a star means taking care of my beloveds! I, Tsukasa Tenma-”
Okay, it was pretty easy to tell who that voice belonged to. Emu wished she had that kind of confidence right now. Especially right now. Like, she didn’t know how much she needed it until this very moment.
Nene headed to the bathroom, while Rui stood close, probably checking to make sure at least one bowl had all the vegetables picked out. Tsukasa wandered off to change first, muttering about some inconspicuous rip in his sleeve that honestly Emu didn’t even notice.
These were the loves of her life.
She had to tell them. And somehow stay their beloved girlfriend. And be a good girlfriend who made her partners smile.
She turned and smiled, the one thing she could count on in these times. She could smile, maybe that’d lessen the blow. Maybe, at least, she could smile to keep them from knowing for just a few moments longer.
She passed their bowls across the counter, smiling the whole time. Nene picked hers up and nodded, smiling in approval. Tsukasa took his as well, with no resistance. Rui seemed to almost take his, but put his hands on the sides of it and stopped, leaning over the counter toward Emu. Tsukasa and Nene were already sitting on the couch behind him, already occupied by whatever television show caught their eye first.
But Rui? He looked… concerned?
“Emu, is something wrong?”
She had to stop herself from accidentally dropping the smile. How did he know. How… how could he know? She was smiling, just the same as she always did.
“Y-Yes- well, no-....”
Rui tilted his head, obviously not taking that for an answer.
Well, it was now or never.
“...Rui, I-I have an announcement to make to the whole troupe.”
Rui’s expression softened and he stepped back, nodding. He turned to the other two.
“Emu has an announcement. Turn that off for a moment.” She could hear him mutter to the two of them on the couch. Emu walked around the counter, leaving her own bowl behind and standing in front of the troupe like she was about to give a presentation. Nene laying back and waiting, Tsukasa leaning forward in his seat, and Rui standing behind the couch and leaning over the other two.
This was it. The moment that could change everything. Well, she was standing here now, with everyone looking right at her. Nothing else she could do.
“Tsukasa, Nene… R-Rui…” She tried to keep the smile on her face, but was failing pretty miserably. The corners of her lips quivered and wobbled.
She almost felt like she couldn’t get the next words out of her mouth. Emu Otori, the lifelong performer, co-owner of Phoenix Wonderland, had stage fright.
Well, it seemed like telling a carefully planned story to an audience of strangers was very different to telling a very unplanned surprise to the three people you love most.
She wanted to run at that moment. But she knew that’d make it worse. She took a deep breath, knowing if she didn’t say it now, she’d hesitate too long and end up not saying a word at all.
The words started spilling out of her mouth.
“I’vebeensosickthesepastfewdaysandItookapregnancytestinthebathroomwhenyouweregoneanditwasPOSITIVE!!!”
The smile was now very much gone from her face. She looked like a deer in headlights. Suddenly, she empathized with Nene’s initial fear of getting on stage, especially if it felt like this.
Even more suddenly, her eyes locked onto Rui’s face. His lips quivered and wobbled like hers, but it looked like - no, it certainly was - that Rui was trying not to break out into a wide grin. He would smile ear to ear for a few milliseconds, then immediately try to hold his lips straight again. He was failing miserably.
“This is… this is true, Emu?”
Emu nodded, visibly relaxing just a little. She pulled the test from her pocket, seemingly sending the room into another wave of shock.
Tsukasa leaned so far forward he almost fell out of his seat - the only reason he actually didn’t was that Rui grabbed the back of his collar at the last moment.
He quickly sat up a bit more, letting Rui let go of him.
“I get to be a dad? Haha! This is a whole new story for us! I’ll take care of you, little… little star!”
“Little star?” Emu giggled. Suddenly, the air felt a lot less thick, and her lungs a lot less squeezed with fear.
Rui chuckled, finally just letting himself smile. It was probably one of the happiest smiles she’d seen out of him.
“Ah, I’m sure this, ahem, little star is going to be a mini Tsukasa within the first five minutes. Not that I’d mind another Tsukasa around…” Rui pulled his fingers through Tsukasa’s hair, then down the side of his face.
Tsukasa turned bright red, turning around to Rui in record time. “H-Hey! No fair…”
Emu finally focused her gaze on Nene. Realizing she’d spaced out a little, Nene giggled a bit politely. The joy was evident on her face, even when she tried to hide it.
“Emu… You’ve got the craziest plans sometimes. Or, I guess lack of plans.” She was still trying to sound all tough and frustrated, but… she was failing to not sound overjoyed just as much as Rui was.
Emu finally smiled, a real genuine smile now.
“Rui, we need to prepare! We need a crib for our little star.”
“Of course.”
“And little blankets! I’ll sew little stars on them so they’ll always know what a star they are.”
“Oh, Tsukasa-kun…”
“Toys! Clothes! Personally, I think we should build them their own mini stage!”
Nene chuckled at the two guys and their crazy plans.
“Those idiots.” she muttered, with all the love and adoration in the world sewn into her voice. Nene stood up and put her hands on Emu’s shoulders. Her expression fully softened, she probably realized the tough girl persona wasn’t going to hold up no matter how hard she tried.
“I was wondering if something was up. I didn’t want to pry.”
Tsukasa turned around. “Nene, you knew?”
“Nah, I mean not for sure.” Nene shrugged. “But when I went to the bathroom after coming home, I noticed all the tests in the trash can. Could’ve been mine, but I swore I’d only taken two last night.”
Then Emu remembered.
Emu could’ve sworn she only took two tests that morning.
The revelation seemed to hit the whole room at once.
All eyes were on Nene now. She giggled, the grin on her face turning mischievous.
“I mean, I planned to tell you guys over dinner, but I think someone else beat me to it. I hope nobody would mind a second little one running around-”
The whole room erupted. Emu froze there for a few moments, processing. Then, in that moment, she realized she was stupid for worrying so much. Here she was, on the other side of it. And she was THRILLED!!
Emu ran forward and tackle-hugged Nene, who just barely steadied herself by putting her hand out in back of herself and propping herself up against the wall.
“Emu-”
“THISISSOEXCITING!!”
“E-Emu…”
“IHAVENOIDEAWHYIWASSOWORRIEDBECAUSETHISISAGREATSURPRISE!!!”
“E-Emu, careful. You’re crushing me…”
Emu backed up, giggling sheepishly. “Eheh, sorry!!”
Rui and Tsukasa approached behind them.
“Ah, so nothing to worry about now, right Emu?” Rui leaned over to look Emu in the eyes. She just giggled, smiling like it was the first time in years.
“Hehe, this is so amazing!! We’re gonna be GREAT PARENTS!!” Emu started bouncing up and down, giggling uncontrollably now. Rui picked her up off the ground and held her to his chest, his head over her shoulder.
Behind them, Tsukasa bent down in front of Nene, inspecting her like she was the most important thing in the world.
“I-I get to meet another little star?” He gently placed a hand on her stomach.
Nene rolled her eyes, but didn’t even attempt the whole sarcastic thing this time. “You’re not gonna feel them for a little while. By my calculations, they’re only about six weeks old. They’re the size of-”
“A pea?” Emu interrupted. They made eye contact, realized, and started laughing.
Emu woke up early the next morning, finding herself not in her bed but on the couch. She grinned, taking in the sight. She didn’t dare move, she didn’t want to when all her troupemates were right here and just so perfectly adorable. Even if she did, she didn’t want to disturb them.
Tsukasa’s arm was draped over her and his head rested on her stomach like a pillow. Nene was half laying on her legs, and Rui had his head on her stomach with one arm around her head, his fingers tangled into her hair.
Everything was so perfect. More perfect than she could’ve ever imagined in a million years.
It was a soft, peaceful, perfect morning. With nothing but her troupemates, silence, and the dim light filtering through the windows.