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Motherhood is a story best told in a series of vignettes.
A million tiny moments—all separate and individual and alone—add up and up and up into a complete picture of childhood and motherhood in kind. History, personality, experience, age, a child is a whole person all on their own. And yet they are also a product of those tiny little moments, those changing environments, those thousands upon thousands of days gone by.
Those parents, theirs forever.
Maybe this is where Yoisaki Kanade messed up. She must’ve put too much work into wondering if they could, should, would have children, and thus didn’t spend enough time making herself into a good mother.
Or perhaps it was the choices she made after she gave birth, one of those solitary days during her daughter's fleeting yet endless childhood. She must’ve made the wrong decision, said the wrong thing, offhandedly did something that she just didn’t realize was going to worm its way into her child and stick there forever.
It’s possible she’s simply cursed. She tore her old family apart with her own two hands, and she’s fated to do it all over again. Her luck might be poisonous to anyone and everyone around her, slowly polluting the air they breathe until they have no choice but to run.
She sits on their couch—shared between just the three of them now—and stares blankly across the room.
Her daughter slams the door of her room shut for the ninth night in a row. Kanade’s keeping count, if only because she wants to know exactly how far she has fallen.
Yoisaki Mafuyu, haggard and exhausted with dark circles under her eyes, finds her silently. Then there she sits, quietly with her on their couch—just the two of them now.
Kanade sets her hand down on the cushion, palm up. Mafuyu laces their fingers together gingerly, carefully, and then begins to cry.
She’s silent as she does so. She has been since their daughter was born, too terrified of making her tears seem like a tactic she could use to manipulate her daughter in any way.
Kanade continues to look across the room, staring into the bubbling water of their aquarium. Empty again, now.
Motherhood is a story best told in a series of broken, splintered, altogether beautiful vignettes.
There are things that I want to tell you, now that I have the chance.
Raising you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but also the easiest decision I could ever make every single day. There’s not a moment I regret. Even when things seemed bad, scary, impossible, I never once thought I had made a mistake.
…Mafuyu thinks so too, you know?
Mafuyu is downright terrified of their daughter.
Yoisaki Yoshiko is only two months old.
“Mafuyu,” Kanade calls out quietly, padding up silently alongside him and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. The entire house is dark already, but Mafuyu has kept one teeny tiny light on in their daughter’s nursery. He's standing in the doorway, back against the wall, staring holes into Yoshiko’s crib.
“Mm?” Mafuyu grunts in response. Kanade sighs something heavy and smiles woefully to herself. Long gone are the days of staying up late into the wee hours making music. Now it’s just Mafuyu, silently keeping vigil over their two-month-old daughter.
“It’s about time we head to bed,” Kanade tries, speaking in soothing tones. Mafuyu’s muscles are tightened, his thoughts seeping out from the pores of his skin.
“You go on ahead.” Mafuyu turns his head only barely, angling his face toward Kanade but leaving his eyes trained on the darkened crib. It’s one of the ways he tries to tell his wives he’s present, even when he’s really not. “I’m just thinking.”
Kanade sighs. “I know, love. You’ve been standing here thinking for four hours now.”
Mafuyu blinks, eyes furrowing in confusion briefly before he finally turns fully to face Kanade. He peeks his head out the door, only to be greeted by the darkness and silence of a home gone to sleep. Somehow this doesn’t give him the full story, and he turns back to look at Kanade in surprise.
“Mizuki?” he asks, the question clear in his voice.
“She has work in the morning,” Kanade explains, “you know that.”
“And Ena?” he asks. Kanade just gives him a look. Not scathing, not annoyed, not unimpressed, just a look. Mafuyu makes a noncommittal noise, looking away and whispering, “I see.”
Kanade smiles. Her hand travels from Mafuyu’s bicep to his shoulder to his neck to his cheek. He lets her run her skin over his, tilting his head a little into her caress.
Their communication is silent. Kanade presses a tiny pressure into the nape of his neck. He resists. She tilts her head toward the hall. He gives.
Mafuyu’s hand finds Kanade’s in the darkness, their fingers interlocking. Gently, Kanade tugs him out of the nursery.
“She’ll be here when you wake up,” she murmurs. Mafuyu nods beside her. Kanade can’t see it, but she knows he does. “You can worry more then, if you’d like.”
Mafuyu does not respond.
Kanade sits him on the edge of one of their beds, this one unoccupied, then crawls under the covers first. Holding him in her arms tonight feels right—especially since it’s a position she hasn’t been able to comfortably settle into for many months on end. His body is rigid, and tense, but it’s nothing her meticulous fingers haven’t soothed before.
Kanade grunts, there on the edge of sleep. “We’d like it if you worried with us, though,” she whispers. Mafuyu scoots back into her hold. “Instead of against us.”
“We have a daughter,” Mafuyu whispers. There’s wonder and awe in his voice.
Kanade’s smile stretches from ear to ear, her nose nuzzling into Mafuyu's neck.
“We do.”
Raising you has always been such a joy. You were such a beacon of hope, such a bright light in our lives. It was always worth it, in a million different ways.
You have always been everything we ever dreamed of.
When she turns four years old, they bring Yoshiko to a baseball field.
It’s a nostalgic feeling, for Kanade, when she steps out onto the green. It’s not like the batting cages she used to go to in college, and it’s not like her rare outings to Spojoy Park in high school. It’s big, and empty, and, for the moment, it’s all theirs.
Ena is carrying the bag with all of the heavy stuff in it, and all of them know that because she won’t stop groaning about it. Mafuyu offered to take it ten minutes ago. Ena denied them. Then they offered again five minutes ago. Ena denied them again. Now—
“Let me take them, then,” Mafuyu grumbles. Ena makes a noise akin to a squawk, dancing away from Mafuyu’s half-hearted swipe. They frown at her.
“Absolutely not!” Ena cries, indignant. “This might be one of my last chances to actually do stuff on my own, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before you take that from me.”
“Your appointment isn’t for another three months,” Mafuyu deadpans. There’s a clear frown on their face, but Kanade can see the corners of their lips just barely quirking up.
Ena flounders for something to argue back with, but comes up empty a moment later. But as stubborn as she is, she ends up turning up her nose and scuttling away to attach herself to Mizuki’s side.
“Woah, hey!” Mizuki laughs. Her eyes sparkle as Ena grabs her arm, but she also sends a glance up to make sure that Yoshiko isn’t about to tumble off of her shoulders. “The Amia express is currently in service, you know!”
Ena pouts at her until Mizuki sighs and readjusts her grip on their daughter. She leaves one arm halfway down, just so Ena can cling to it and hide away from the big bad Mafuyu.
Yoshiko, young and happy and free, giggles along at her mothers’ antics the whole time. Kanade stands there on the green as her family catches up to her, her sundress flowing in the breeze, and wonders if this is what her mother felt too.
That day with the flowers, so long ago. Was her mother’s smile the same as the one she wears now? As much as she knows in her heart that she’ll never truly know the answer, Kanade also wants to hope and believe that maybe her and her mother could share in this emotion.
This must’ve been what her mother felt that day. This is what her father lost.
Kanade smiles a little wider, and vows to never let this moment go. Enjoy every second of it now, so that someday in the future she can look back and remember how it felt to wear this smile.
Remember every step Yoshiko takes as she runs and frolics in the grass, Mafuyu and Ena taking turns chasing her around. Remember the looks she shares with Mizuki as they take turns placing fresh strawberries in each other’s mouths. Remember the sun on her skin as she runs her fingers down the stems of the flowers growing across the unkempt field.
And when little Yoshiko steps up to the plate, four years old with a bat bigger than her body swaying in her arms, remember Mafuyu’s gentle smile as they steady her.
Kanade won’t lose this. She won’t ever let her family go.
Your mothers and I…we all loved each other so very much. We still do—you know that. But those first few weeks, it was just…
…
We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know how to make things better.
On the first night, Kanade spends her time sitting on the chair by the window and staring off into the distance.
It’s quiet without them.
By now, Mizuki would usually be perched up on the couch, fabric weaving between her nimble fingers. She’d be humming some sort of song to herself, just loud enough to be heard but just quiet enough not to bother. Sometimes their son would join her, enamored by the thread and needle stitching together something so beautiful out of nothing but blank scraps.
Reiji had been enamored with Mizuki since the moment he was born. His curiosity knew no bounds, but he loved pretty things and always stopped to see what his moms were working on. More often than not, he would decide that Mizuki’s work was prettiest, and so he would sit with her.
The two of them humming together—one inexperienced and off-key—was such beautiful music. Kanade could sit out here all night and not get a scrap of work done just because she was listening to them.
Now it’s quiet.
Ena isn’t in her studio now, isn’t banging around and shouting out child-friendly “curses” every time the stroke of her brush comes out a little too wide or a little too dark or a little too wobbly. Aino isn’t tucked under Mafuyu’s arm, curled up in the little nest they set up next to the bookshelves together. There are no more hushed whispers echoing off of the walls, no more muffled conversation bleeding from the next room over.
Just Kanade, sitting here with her head pressed against the glass.
Just Mafuyu, wrapping up their shift at work before trudging back through the dimming sunlight to a silent home.
Just Yoshiko, sitting on the floor of the living room with an increasingly familiar blank expression on her face.
Kanade rises from her place at the window, and then descends to the floor beside her daughter. Quietly, she wraps her up in a tight hug. Yoshiko falls into it, and then clings to her like a lifeline.
“They’re not gone,” Kanade whispers. Yoshiko rocks back and forth in her arms. “This is…this is just what needed to happen.”
Yoshiko nods into her shoulder. She’s never been the broody type, but her teenage years are slowly changing her. Kanade just wants her to never have to go through any more of the sort of pain that they went through as teens.
Fourteen is such a fragile age. So very, very fragile.
“I don’t know,” Yoshiko croaks, “if this was right.”
Kanade smiles sadly and nods her head. She isn’t sure either. None of them are.
But they have trust in their daughter. And they all believe that this will help, slowly but surely. This will make it bearable, this will finally let Yoshiko breathe. It was a decision they all made together.
“It’ll be okay,” Kanade promises, “even if it doesn't feel as right as we wish it did right now.”
You’ve always been such a curious little girl. So taken by all the little things around you.
I was, too. That’s why it broke my heart when all that joy and levity was ripped away from you. I couldn’t protect you from the same thing that plagued me at your age.
But I know now that that part of you never really leaves.
You just bury it until one day it sprouts into something new. Something so wondrously beautiful.
“Yoshiko, darling!” Ena calls after her oldest daughter. “Don’t go too far!”
“I won’t!” Yoshiko promises, waving to both of them as she runs down the hill.
Kanade watches her go, waving back even when she can’t see any more. It doesn’t really matter, though. Yoshiko knows.
“I don’t know how you keep up,” Ena grumbles, good-natured and teasing. Kanade beams back at her, a response hidden in her smile. “I swear she gets more and more energy every year.”
“Reiji and Aino aren’t any different,” Kanade responds. Ena scoffs, shrugging and looking away. “They’re all enjoying their childhoods while they can. We get to give them a gift we never had the luxury of having when we were young.”
Ena shoves her hands into her pockets, leaning back. Her jacket billows in the wind for a moment, her figure framed perfectly in the afternoon sunshine.
“Yeah,” she sighs. “It’s not like I’m complaining. I’ve never been happier, Kanade.”
“Me neither,” Kanade says, holding out her hand for Ena to take. Her wife doesn’t so much as think about hesitating. Their fingers fit so perfectly together.
The autumn breeze is starting to chill in the afternoon, the grass rippling beneath their feet. Kanade’s dress feels breezy, maybe a little cold.
She pulls Ena a little closer to her, looking to share in her warmth.
“Aww, are the lovebirds having fun?” comes the teasing lilt of Mizuki’s voice from behind them. Kanade turns to find one of her other wives strolling up to them with their son on her shoulders.
Mafuyu is further off in the background, slowly guiding Aino down the path towards a bench by the fountain. Kanade smiles, warmth bubbling up in her chest.
“Mizuki, you shush your mouth,” Ena snaps. She tugs Kanade into her, catching her with her other hand and cradling her in her arms. “Not even your antics can take this from me.”
“Aw, Enanan!” Mizuki laughs, not caring about Ena’s bristles in the slightest. “Does this mean I don’t get a kiss from my wife?”
Ena mumbles something to herself, too quiet for Reiji to hear. Which is good, because Kanade heard at least a few curses in there. None of them have quite figured out how to make her kick that habit of hers.
But it’s been eleven years since their first child was born, so Kanade isn’t holding out hope anymore. It’s fine, though, since Ena’s cute enough to make up for it.
Also she makes for a hell of a good mom.
“You can have one kiss,” Ena decides, pouting. She pulls away a little, leaning towards Mizuki. “But only because you look gorgeous in that dress.”
“Who said anything about you?” Mizuki scoffs, darting in to catch Kanade’s lips with her own. Kanade giggles into the kiss, helping Mizuki steady Reiji so she can dance a step away from Ena’s quickly encroaching wrath.
Reiji makes a gagging sound as he watches his mothers share a kiss. It’s a new thing of his, and he keeps doing it because it makes Mizuki laugh like a maniac every time he does. Kanade can’t find it in herself to care.
“You pink little trash bag!” Ena yelps, blinking out of her stupor and making a swipe at Mizuki. Mizuki laughs and dances away, swaying as she does.
“That’s a new one,” Kanade observes quietly. Ena can be creative when she tries to be.
“Reiji, we gotta run!” Mizuki exclaims. “The big, evil Enanan is coming to get us!”
Ena makes an affronted sound, lunging forward for the second time. Mizuki, honed from years and years of experience, avoids her easily. Reiji, giggling, points his mother onward.
“Go, Mama Amia!” he calls happily, holding on tight as Mizuki begins to scamper away.
Ena chases them for all of two steps before she gives up, stomping her foot angrily.
“This isn’t the last you’ve heard of me!” Ena yells after them, successfully playing the part of the villain Mizuki has assigned her. “I’ll be back when you least expect it!”
The quieting sounds of her wife and son laughing and playing makes Kanade fill with warmth. It feels like they have less and less days left to spend like this, so she’s cherishing them where she can.
Ena is right, Mizuki is gorgeous in that dress. But Kanade thinks she’s more beautiful when she’s showing off that bright smile and airy laugh of hers. Running off with her son in her arms, Mizuki is the picture of radiant beauty.
“I can’t believe her,” Ena grumbles quietly. Kanade steps back up beside her, lacing their fingers together again.
“You know she’s just riling you up,” Kanade laughs. Ena scoffs and shakes her head, completely unable to push her smile from her face.
“Well I’ll be paying her back tenfold soon enough.” Ena grins. “She knows what happens when she draws out ‘evil’ Ena.”
Well, the kids are out for the weekend. Yoshiko has been wanting to see her Auntie Yuuki more while she’s in town, and both Aino and Reiji are supposed to be staying with An and Kohane for a day or two. Something about "singing lessons," An claimed, but everyone knows she just has a tender spot for the twins.
Kanade wasn’t planning on using that time alone for anything specific, but…
“Mama K!” the voice of her eldest daughter interrupts. Kanade shakes herself from her fantasies to find Yoshiko skipping over to her with a bundle of flowers in her hand.
“Hi, sweetie,” Kanade greets with a grin. Yoshiko smiles back, a little shyly. “What did you find there?”
“I went to the flower fields,” Yoshiko explains, swaying on her feet and showing off her spoils. “There are so many colors down there! It’s super pretty.”
Ena leans down, tucking her hair behind one ear and leaning towards Yoshiko’s makeshift bouquet. Yoshiko lifts her arm a little, encouraging her mother to take a breath in and smell their sweet scent.
“They smell divine,” Ena admits happily. She gently feels the petals of one, humming in approval. “You picked some great ones out, darling.”
Yoshiko bobs her head. “That’s because I picked them for Mama K!”
Kanade blinks, taken aback. She hadn’t expected that.
“For me, sweetie?” she asks softly, reaching a tentative hand out to take one of the flowers. “They’re carnations…”
“Mhm!” Yoshiko beams. “When I saw them, I remembered you saying you liked them. I wasn’t sure what color, though, so I picked a few.”
Kanade doesn’t know what to say.
She lifts the carnation up to her nose. Ena was right. It smells divine.
They won’t last long, though. There’s not a lot of stem left to water, and they’ll begin to wilt in the time they’re out and about today.
“Have you ever pressed flowers before, Yoshiko?” Kanade asks. Her daughter shakes her head no. “Well if you’d like me to show you, we can make these last for years.”
“That sounds fun!” Yoshiko agrees easily, excited by the prospect.
“I have some leftover resin,” Ena adds. “We can preserve and display them, if you’d like.”
“Oh, that gives me a good idea.” Kanade glances over, finding Aino and Mafuyu still sitting together. “If you’d like, sweetie, we can go pick one for your sister and make it into a bookmark for her birthday.”
Yoshiko bounces back on her feet, nodding fervently. Ena mutters something to herself, something about what flowers she’s seen on the cover of the book Mafuyu’s been reading with Aino recently.
“Oh,” Kanade realizes, “Yoshiko?” Her daughter looks up, tilting her head in question. Kanade smiles, patting her hair down gently. “Thank you, sweetie. This was very thoughtful of you.”
Her daughter smiles gently, blushing a little. It’s the most beautiful thing Kanade has ever seen.
When things get to be too much, we can always go see them. All of your mothers will always accept you into your arms. There will always be a family waiting for you at home.
“Reiji, that better not be my paintbrush you’re chewing on!” Ena yells as she runs across the banister, chasing her son further into the house.
“Careful, you two!” Mizuki calls after them, panting and leaning on the railing of the top floor. She peers over the side and finds her daughter looking up from below. “Aino, did you find your book, darling?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Aino calls up. She holds it up like a trophy, or maybe a cool bug she found, showing it off to her mother. Mizuki smiles down at her.
“Good, that’s good,” Mizuki breathes. Then she turns again, peering into the depths of her home. “Enanan, they’ll be here any minute!”
“I’m aware!” Ena yells back, completely unseen. “Reiji, you get your little behind back here! You are so lucky I’m in a good mood tonight!”
Mafuyu, taking in the chaos of the household with a careful eye, clears their throat. Mizuki’s head snaps right to them, surprise written all over her face. Then, just a second later, she all but melts into her trademarked grin.
“Yuki, K!” she calls, waving. Kanade waves back at her with the hand not entwined with her wife’s. “You’re here early.”
“Yoshiko couldn’t wait,” Mafuyu says. The girl in question looks away, blushing. Mizuki smiles so wide it’s like the sun entered the room.
“Hi, Auntie Amia,” Yoshiko grumbles shyly, kicking her toe against the floor. Mizuki’s smile doesn’t drop for even a moment.
The “Auntie” development may still be fresh in everyone’s minds, but it’s not all bad. Mizuki, for one, has taken it in stride. It just seems to be one of those things that they’ll all be living with from now on.
“Hi, sweetheart!” Mizuki waves. She turns one last time to check on Ena, then swivels towards the stairs. “I’ll be right down!”
Mafuyu grunts an acknowledgement, already walking across the room. Aino looks up from the book she’s flipping through, and her eyes just seem to light up when she sees Mafuyu making their way over to her.
“Mama Yuki!” she cries excitedly. She tosses her book to the side and jumps right up into Mafuyu’s arms, forcing them to stumble back and steady their daughter in their grasp.
“Careful, Aino,” they chastise quietly, hugging her tighter and carrying her over to the couch.
Mizuki appears again, this time on the same floor as them. She makes a beeline straight for Mafuyu, reaching across the couch and pulling them in for a chaste kiss before she loses her chance. Aino rolls her eyes from below them, the beginning of her plot rant cut off suddenly.
Kanade looks back over and steps closer to Yoshiko. Her daughter looks up at her, a tiny little lost look in her eye. Kanade just smiles softly.
“Are you going to be okay, sweetie?” she asks quietly. Yoshiko swallows thickly, and then nods. She’s visibly holding back her tears. This is their family now. “I know it’s still new, but—”
“Oh, my poor baby,” Mizuki breathes, suddenly appearing beside the both of them like an apparition. She bends down to Yoshiko’s eye level (the difference gets shorter every day) and opens her arms wide. “Hug okay, honey?”
Yoshiko nods frantically. The next second her whole body is wrapped up in Mizuki’s comforting grasp. Kanade joins in for the added effect, petting Yoshiko’s hair and shushing her silent cries delicately.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Kanade promises. “You can cry. Today’s supposed to be happy. Let it all out.”
“I missed you,” Yoshiko warbles, burying her face is Mizuki’s shoulder. Mizuki giggles sweetly in response and then sways side to side with her.
“I know, honey,” she mumbles as she presses kisses into her daughter’s hair. “I missed you too—so, so, so much!” She takes a breath, and Kanade takes the chance to lean over and place a kiss right on her (estranged) wife’s cheek. Mizuki giggles, then continues, “But listen! Happy day today! I hear there’s something little Reiji has been building up the courage to tell us tonight!”
Yoshiko laughs. “When is he not?” she asks rhetorically, making both of her mothers laugh. Mizuki pulls away, holding Yoshiko by the shoulders and smiling.
Kanade shares a quick look with Mizuki, one that says, “you got this?" and responds, “I got this.” Kanade nods, patting Yoshiko’s head one more time and pressing a ghost of a kiss to Mizuki’s cheek before she turns and goes searching for Ena.
It’s not hard to find the woman—it never has been—just by way of how loud her voice is. She’s grumbling something or other to herself as she all but drags Reiji to the sink by the scruff of his neck. Reiji stumbles along, clearly used to this by now.
“I swear it’s like you don’t even use the paintbrush anymore,” Kanade hears Ena muttering as she approaches. “Too busy chewing on it, I’d wager.”
“I use my brush sometimes!” Reiji protests even as he lets Ena lead him along. “It’s just way easier to make little adjustments with my fingers, y’know?”
Ena rolls her eyes irately, smirking and looking away. Coincidentally, her gaze lines up perfectly with Kanade’s.
“K!” she gasps, eyes wide. Kanade raises her hand to wave, but is interrupted by Ena quite literally lunging for her.
Kanade’s other (also estranged) wife has always been passionate, but there are times when Ena seems to really lose control. This time, it’s in the form of a kiss. Maybe one a little too involved to be occurring right in front of their nine-year-old son, admittedly.
But Ena has always enjoyed the teasing with Mizuki, the banter with Mafuyu, and the simple purity of love with Kanade. So Kanade will let her indulge.
“Ena,” Kanade gasps when she’s finally given the chance. “Hello.”
Ena giggles. “Hello, Kanade. Let’s have dinner together, hm?”
Kanade nods. She never could've guessed that she'd be this overjoyed to be having a simple meal shared with her family.
They’re together again, even if only fleetingly.
We felt forced to make an impossible decision. We couldn’t make the wrong choice, and no matter what we thought up nothing seemed like the right one.
The first time we tried to talk about it, everything went wrong. Your moth—
…
I’m sorry. Mafuyu. Mafuyu mourns this moment the most, I think.
None of them know what to do.
They’re all gathered in the living room, the four of them going through various levels of grief at entirely different rates. Mizuki looks like she’s a step away from fainting. Ena’s trying to scheme herself through a million possible futures. Mafuyu is just…scarily blank.
Yoshiko broke down crying earlier. Wailing and cut down to her core, she had spilled her feelings over for them. It was, in Kanade's honest opinion, one of the hardest thing she's ever had to witness.
They always knew they’d have to face this day eventually. But they just never figured out how.
“What are we going to do?” Mizuki questions with a heavy sigh, her head falling into her hands. Ena tries to rub comforting circles into her back, but it’s obvious that her own stress is preventing her from helping much.
“I don’t know yet,” Ena hums. She glances over at Mafuyu, looking for something that she doesn’t find. “Maybe we can just talk to the school?”
“Months, Ena,” Mizuki responds. “She said it’s been months. How did we miss this?”
“We knew this was a possibility,” Kanade soothes. “It just means we need to think of other options. Online school isn’t a bad choice.”
Mizuki raises her head, tears in her eyes. “She has friends here.”
Ena scoffs. “Not anymore, clearly.”
It’s instantly clear to all of them how bad of a response that is. Mizuki starts sobbing. Loud.
“Shit, wait, Mizuki,” Ena backpedals instantly, “that’s not what I meant. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Kanade is quick to lunge over to the other couch, wrapping her Mizuki up in her arms and shushing her gently. Ena matches her, flinging her arms out and catching both of them in her embrace. It’s all too much and not enough and entirely imperfect all at once.
It’s not like Ena is wrong. None of them have any idea how many of Yoshiko’s friends have turned against her by now.
They all have their own experiences from years past to guess. Mizuki is only trying to stay helpful because she knows best exactly how awful it can get.
Maybe it’s unfair for Kanade’s first response to be pulling her daughter out completely, isolating her in a protective bubble where they can always be on her side. Mizuki lived through high school because of her friends. She survived university because of her partners.
Ena wasn’t terribly different. Kanade wasn’t either, though her burden was self-inflicted. The eyes never bothered her, no matter how insistent they seemed to get.
Mafuyu…
Kanade isn’t sure what Mafuyu thinks.
With one wife calming her with a hand soothing through her hair, and another running comforting circles up and down her thigh, Mizuki slowly dwindles down to sniffles and remnant tears. She glances up, first at Ena and then at Kanade, and her eyes shine with such loss that Kanade wishes she could bundle her beautiful wife up and put her in a soft, protected little cage for all eternity.
None of them know what to do.
“Maybe we should separate,” Mafuyu mumbles across the impossible distance between couches. Maybe it’s better that she seems so far away, because if Kanade was just a step closer she’s sure Mafuyu would hear her heart shatter into a million tiny pieces.
Mizuki blinks. Her tears shine down her cheeks, starlight glinting in the blackness of night. Her voice is so very broken. “What?’
Mafuyu hums for a moment, saying nothing. Then she looks up, a terrifying look in her eye. Kanade feels the shiver rip down her spine.
“To make it more normal for her,” Mafuyu explains. Her tone is flat and clinical, like she’s giving a diagnosis and not presenting the destruction of their family. “We could separate into two groups of two parents each. If nothing else, it would give her bullies less to point and laugh at.”
“That’s not really how bullies work—” Ena begins to explain, but Mafuyu just shakes her head and holds out a hand.
“Yoshiko needs trust and stability in her life now,” she says. “We can’t just sit back and love her through it, we need to think about what we can do right now to give her a better quality of life.”
“Yuki,” Mizuki cries, heartbroken. “You’re asking for a divorce?”
“No!” Mafuyu insists, eyes widening in complete shock. “No, never, never.” She seems almost unwell just at the thought of such a thing. “Only that we separate into two family units, to make us as normal as possible for her.”
The silence is deafening. There’s a slight ringing in Kanade’s ears, like she’s spent twenty hours working and only stopped because her vision started to blur. Mafuyu is just an arm’s reach away, but it’s like an entire ocean has appeared between them.
Ena catches Kanade’s eye. It’s not like Mafuyu doesn’t have a point, here. But it’s just…what would happen to them? Would it even help at all?
Yoshiko’s school life isn’t going to magically get better even if all four of them completely cut ties. It could take months or years for her life to stabilize again, even when it’s just them splitting into two households.
And that’s not even mentioning how hard the transition would be. Not being able to see her siblings all the time, growing up with just two of her mothers…
Mizuki takes a shaky breath. “No,” she says simply. Her voice is quivering, as if she’s on the edge of caving and agreeing to whatever they come up with. “We just…I’m not ready to lose this. Us.”
“If it could keep her safe,” Ena muses, slowly trailing off at the end. It’s not like they’d move far. They could see each other every day if they wanted to. And it’s not like they haven’t made long-distance work before. They certainly have.
“She’s being targeted because her family isn’t the same as everyone else around her,” Mafuyu explains. She’s scarily still as she works through her thought process. That’s never a good sign. “The average family unit is one man and one woman, plus their children. If we could just be that for her, become an average family, all the other kids would stop talking about it.”
Kanade physically feels her heart drop out of her chest.
What the hell is Mafuyu thinking?
Ena’s mouth falls open, shock and betrayal written all over her face. She stares at Mafuyu like she’s a complete stranger instead of one of the people she’s sworn her life to. Kanade isn’t sure what she’s supposed to think in the first place.
A man and a woman? Is that really what Mafuyu thinks?
“What the fuck,” Mizuki all but growls, uncharacteristic anger lacing her voice, “do you think you’re asking me to do, Mafuyu?”
Mafuyu blinks, her whole body suddenly coming alive as she recoils. Mizuki doesn’t get angry. Mizuki’s never, ever been angry. Kanade can see the confusion etching itself into Mafuyu, all the way up until the realization breaks.
“No,” she breathes, horrified. “Mizuki, no, no I would—I would never…I never meant—that’s not what I—”
Mafuyu gulps suddenly, her hand shooting to her mouth as she stands on shaky legs.
“I’m going to be sick,” she says, and then scrambles off down the hallway.
Kanade looks over at Ena frantically. Ena meets her gaze, equally terrified, and then gives her a little nod. Already, she's turning to Mizuki and working her through a deep breath in comforting murmurs.
Kanade springs into action, jogging into the darkness as she chases after her wife.
Her wife. Her Mafuyu. Her lifelong partner. Before they were four, they were two. And as much as Kanade loves, cherishes, relies on, worships her other wives, she will always chase after her Mafuyu.
“Mafuyu!” Kanade calls, panting and placing her head against the door. She tries the knob, only to find it locked. “Mafuyu, it’s okay! It’s okay. We know. She knows you didn’t mean that, I swear. I promise.”
She can hear Mafuyu dry heaving on the other side of that ocean between them. Kanade has never felt closer to breaking.
Her family is splintering right in front of her. Again. Again, again, again, no matter what she does no matter what she thinks no matter what she wants, again it’s all falling apart.
Kanade, gasping for breath as the world crumbles around her, slides down the door to her knees. Her hand stays on the knob, futilely wishing this stupid door could crumble down and give her another chance. She curses her uselessness.
She turns her head. Yoshiko is peeking out of her doorway, a heartbroken expression on her face. Reiji is cowering behind her, his tiny frame trembling in the shadow. Kanade can’t see Aino at all.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Kanade smiles. It’s never felt more fake on her face. “It’s going to be okay. Let your mamas handle this, okay? We’re always going to protect you, no matter what.”
‘Even if it kills us,’ Kanade doesn’t say. But she knows.
In the glint of Yoshiko’s eyes, she knows too.
There could never be any words to express how happy we were when we learned that, someday soon, we’d get to meet you.
It has been fourteen days since her appointment. Everyone is just about dying with either anxiety or excitement.
“Amia,” Mafuyu mumbles, “you’re vibrating.”
Mizuki looks up. She’s chewed through three of her nails already, and she’s working on the fourth. There is sweat actively running down her face.
“Ahaha!” she laughs, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. “Sorry, Yuki. Just excited, y’know?”
“Pft,” Ena sputters, piercing Mizuki with an unimpressed gaze. “Excited, huh? You look like they’re about to call you up on stage to perform one of your solos live again.”
Mizuki places both hands over her face. “Oh my god don’t remind me.”
Mafuyu hums a low note, her voice soothing. Wordlessly, she pads around to stand behind the couch, and places both hands on Mizuki’s shoulders to slowly massage them. It’s almost funny how quickly Mizuki melts into relaxation.
“Goodness, Yuki,” she mumbles. “You’re so good at that. Kanade’s gonna love you forever.”
Kanade smiles. Finding Mafuyu's eyes with hers, she says, “I already love her forever. That’s why we’re married.”
Mizuki groans, her whole body folding back as Mafuyu’s ministrations melt her into a little puddle of Mizuki goop. Holding a thumbs up in the air, she mumbles, “Fair point. Same.”
Ena chuckles. Her hand hides her mouth behind it, but her eyes are sparkling with the untold wonder of excitement. Levity, given form.
“C’mon, K,” she says, walking over to stand by her side. Positively beaming, she places something in Kanade’s hand. “It’s about time we found out whether or not we did something here.”
Yes, it’s about time. Soon enough, they’ll have a little one running around alongside them. She can’t wait.
Kanade smiles, curling her fingers gingerly around the pregnancy test.
“I love you,” she says. All three of her lifelong partners turn to meet her eyes. Mafuyu, even with the nervousness racking up and down her legs, smiles back with a beam that Kanade could’ve never before imagined on her.
“I love you too,” everyone choruses in unison. Mizuki sings it in harmony.
“Come back to us with good news,” Mafuyu hums.
“We’ll see you soon,” Ena promises.
“Try not to worry too much if I faint,” Mizuki says.
Kanade giggles. The four of them have always been a team. A unit. Now is no different.
“You better not,” Ena threatens quickly, her whole body swiveling to face Mizuki down. “You have no right to be fainting on us when it was your sem—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Mizuki cries. Her head falls back into her hands again, Mafuyu’s sweet massage be damned. “I still can’t believe I forgot we did that before my surgery.”
Mafuyu looks down at her. “To be fair,” she muses, “it wasn’t something any of us were terribly happy about while you were going through it. It makes sense you wouldn’t want to remember it.”
Mizuki shrugs. “I mean weeks off my meds wasn’t fun, but…”
Mizuki’s voice fades into the background as Kanade slowly slips away. It’s time for them to start a new chapter of their lives. It starts with the little device she cradles in one hand.
Of all the ways to move forward, her younger self would’ve never guessed that this would be the way. Her and four rings, tied together forever with invisible string. The world could never bring them down.
A few minutes later, she opens the door.
Deep breaths now. They all stare at her with such wonder—such awe—in their eyes. None of them dare to breathe.
“I’m pregnant,” Kanade says. Her voice is but a whisper in the frozen winter wind. Even still, it is heard.
Ena squeezes her in a hug so tight it hurts. Mizuki screams, dancing around the room with twirls and jumps.
And Mafuyu…
Mafuyu just stands there—her hands over her mouth—and begins to cry.
Sometimes it’s like I’m watching everyone else make these decisions around me, and I just have to stand there and hope that they’re right. Was that how you felt, the day we told you we were considering separation?
…
I couldn’t—I can’t go back, sweetie. I can’t change the decision we made together. Even if I was against it, I accepted it. Again and again, I accepted it.
But mistakes are inevitable. And sometimes we need to let those we love make them, so that we can be there later when they need us most.
On a Tuesday evening, six weeks before everything explodes for the second time, Mafuyu brings home a letter.
They’re exhausted again today, their expression blank all the way up until they see Kanade. Then they smile, lips upturned in a way that’s almost imperceptible.
Their smile has been smaller these days. Ever since half their family left. Ever since Yoshiko started avoiding them.
Kanade doesn’t know how to fix this. A good lot of help all that composition work was. A stupid song can’t save their family.
She should’ve known as much.
Mafuyu lets Kanade embrace them. A second into the hug, they move to embrace her too. Even after everything, even now, they still want to walk side by side into the future. A year of uncertainty can’t shake them.
“Rough shift?” Kanade asks, more to get Mafuyu talking than anything else. Every shift is a rough shift nowadays. But Mafuyu needs some way to decompress, and Kanade is willing dig through whatever is necessary to find that way.
Mafuyu shrugs in lieu of a better answer. Kanade smiles, understanding, and then raises up onto her tiptoes to peck at their lips.
Reiji used to audibly gag every time they did this, back when he was still with them. He sometimes still does, when they see him. Not as often, though, because time has eroded their relationships and replaced it with a terrifying sense of unfamiliarity.
“Mama K” turned into “Auntie K,” and now Kanade can’t even tell if any of them ever told the twins who their biological parents were. Maybe “Auntie K” is right for her. Maybe that’s just who she needs to be.
Mafuyu leads Kanade to the couch silently, softly placing her against the soft cushions she remembers. She didn’t even realize they were guiding her anywhere. She just moved on autopilot.
She’s been spacey recently. Forgetting things, wandering aimlessly, losing hours and hours of her days sitting in silence. It worries Mafuyu, but Kanade's doctor tells her it’s likely just the stress of her current home situation.
Then again, Kanade isn’t really sure how much she should trust her doctor’s advice anymore. She seemed simply too relieved when Kanade mentioned the split. She never did understand the word “polycule.”
“Kanade,” Mafuyu whispers. Kanade blinks back to the present, shaking her head to clear the drowsiness as her wife places an envelope in her hands.
“What’s this?” Kanade asks, fumbling with the edges. The envelope is open, most likely because it has Mafuyu’s full name and address printed on the front. Kanade recognizes some of the extra jargon as Mafuyu’s mailbox number at work.
“It’s a change,” Mafuyu says simply. They explain no further. It’s up to Kanade to peel the sheet of paper from its envelope, unfold it, and scan her eyes across the page.
Each word breaks her heart more and more and more. This is…this is what Mafuyu wants? This is their decision?
Yet another choice, this one taken not in desperation but consideration instead.
“You’re changing shifts?” Kanade asks. Her voice wobbles, threatening to betray her. Mafuyu sees right through her anyway, their eyes piercing through the blurriness of her tears.
“I think it would be best to give Yoshiko some space,” they explain. It breaks Kanade’s heart to hear that, not for the first or second time. “It’s already been approved. I’ll work the afternoon swing shift from now on, so that Yoshiko can come home and not live with that worry anymore.”
“This isn’t—Mafuyu.” Kanade can’t find her words. Mafuyu, understanding, just shrugs.
“It was my only idea.” They glance down, a single shred of shame and guilt poking through their exterior. “I don’t want her to have to live in fear.”
“She’s not afraid of you—”
Mafuyu shakes their head. “She is,” they interrupt. “If not of me, then of what I’ll say the next time I bring up her school life.”
Kanade chews on her lip. This is a mistake. This isn’t what Yoshiko needs, and it isn’t anything she asked for. But it’s been a year now, and nothing has changed.
“This isn’t going to fix anything,” Kanade mumbles. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel about the paper in her hands.
She’ll be going to bed alone now. Not even Mafuyu will be there to hold her and rock her gently to sleep.
Mafuyu shakes their head stiffly. “It doesn’t have to. I only want Yoshiko to grow up in a place where she doesn’t have to worry. This should help keep us from butting heads from now on.”
Kanade swallows down the bile climbing up her throat. This is a mistake. This is a mistake, mistake, mistake.
Yoshiko needs her mothers. She’ll be at school when Mafuyu leaves, and asleep by the time they get back. It’s going to make her feel even more isolated.
But maybe it’s necessary, too.
Yoshiko needs to be able to not worry. For just a little while at least, she needs to be able to live in the quiet. Just until she can finally tell them what’s been on her mind.
Kanade is waiting. And Mafuyu is waiting. And Ena and Mizuki are waiting. And they just want to know what their daughter is thinking.
Kanade never knew raising a teenager would be so hard. She hadn’t had the chance to go through a rebellious phase. She didn’t have the parents to rebel against, unless Mafuyu's mother counts.
Yoshiko isn’t like that. And while she certainly isn’t rebelling, she isn’t relying on them either.
It’s just—it’s going to take some time. That’s what Mafuyu is trying to give her. Time to think, time to breathe, time to wander that endless void and wonder what life is worth.
“I love you so much,” Mafuyu insists. “Even if I’m around less often to say it.”
Kanade doesn’t doubt them. But sometimes she does doubt their decisions.
For a short while, it seemed like things were working. It seemed to me like maybe we really had made the right choices.
I think you thought that too, didn’t you?
…
I don’t really know if you still think so, but I’m glad I got to see you spread your wings and fly when you had the chance.
There’s a polite knock on the door a little after six o’clock.
Kanade turns, eyes wide, over to Mafuyu. Her partner turns to meet her, his eyes twinkling with excitement. He shuts off the tap and grabs a towel to dry his hands.
“You got the rest?” he asks gently, pressing a kiss to Kanade’s cheek while he still can. Kanade just nods, trying her best to turn her attention away from the monumental development that is the person at the door. Instead, she focuses on cutting each slice of her radish evenly.
There’s a sudden scrambling noise from the top of the stairs. Mafuyu ghosts past, his touch lingering for only a moment before he’s passing under the archway into the next room.
“Yoshiko!” he calls. His voice is loud enough for the person at the door to hear, too. “Could you get the door, please?!”
More scrambling. “On it!” comes her response from the stairs. Kanade pauses, glancing over to see her daughter swing herself down the last stair with an almost wild smile on her face.
It’s beautiful. Her daughter is both radiant and free, in this moment.
Yoshiko flings the front door open, her excitement bounding off of every wall of the house. She’s just about jumping for joy as she pulls someone in for a hug.
“Kaori!” she exclaims happily. “It’s so good to see you!”
Kanade turns her attention back to finishing up dinner with a bright smile on her face. She perks one ear up to listen in on the conversation at the door, but she does need to make sure nothing scorches as she grates the final garnishes on top.
Kaori is saying something from outside, probably extricating herself from Yoshiko’s overeager grasp. Yoshiko says something back, just barely too quiet for Kanade to make out, then raises her voice.
“Mrs. Yamamura, Mr. Yamamura,” Yoshiko greets, the tiniest waver in her voice. So the parents did stop by after all. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Thank you for allowing Kaori over tonight.”
Mafuyu, picking up on the development, quickly joins his daughter’s side in greeting their guests. He’s always been good at that. Listening to the tone of Yoshiko’s voice and knowing when she’s asking for help without words.
“Welcome,” he says simply, his interruption smooth as he almost certainly places a steadying hand on Yoshiko’s back. “It’s wonderful to meet you all. I’m Yoisaki Mafuyu, one of Yoshiko’s parents.”
The group exchanges further pleasantries, all of them getting to know each other comfortably. Kanade slides the hot plate onto the center of the table, hurrying along to place everything where it needs to go. Satisfied, she quickens her pace out of the kitchen and toward her family’s side.
She grabs an extra apple slice on her way out, just to be cute.
“—been a while since we’ve hosted,” Mafuyu is saying when Kanade pads up alongside him. “So we’re very happy to be having your daughter join us tonight.”
“Mafuyu,” Kanade interrupts. “Ah.”
Her partner turns to her and opens his mouth without so much as a question in his eyes. Kanade gives him the apple slice, wiping her hands off on her apron as he chews.
His expression sparkles alive, nothing but love and joy in his gaze as he looks at her. Kanade giggles, patting his shoulder lovingly. For this moment, everything is right with the world.
“Yoisaki Kanade,” she says, introducing herself to the newcomers. Kaori is a wonderful young girl, and her parents seem equally kind. Her mother is tall and beautiful, and her father is a short and seemly man. For some reason, their eyes seem to light up as soon as Kanade turns to them. “Will you both be joining us for dinner?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Yamamura says, stuttering a little. “We couldn’t impose, Mrs. Yoisaki. We’re just dropping our little Kaori off.”
Kanade can see the teenager in question look up at her father with an almost affronted look. But she’ll understand, someday, that fourteen is still so very little to one’s parents.
“We made plenty,” Mafuyu insists. Kanade doesn’t miss how Mr. Yamamura pierces Mafuyu with a somewhat too-searching stare. It’s uncomfortable until she realizes that Mrs. Yamamura is doing the same thing. “It’s a simple hot pot, and I’m sure we made a little too much for just the four of us.”
Kanade looks at Kaori’s mother, and then at her father. Yoshiko didn’t mention anything, but it’s possible she wouldn’t have even known if there was something Kaori hadn’t told her. Mafuyu continues speaking as Kanade searches, immediately cluing in on her confusion and drawing attention away from her.
Then Mr. Yamamura shifts on one foot, and Kanade can just barely make out the telltale curve of tight cloth underneath his buttoned shirt. Her eyes widen, shooting up to look over the man in his entirety.
Kaori’s father is a trans man. She wouldn’t have ever guessed.
Kanade feels her smile soften into a beam. Mrs. Yamamura looks over to give her a knowing look.
“Well if you won’t stay for dinner,” Kanade butts in, “please at least leave your number with us. We’d love to get to know more friends in the neighborhood.”
Kaori relaxes almost imperceptibly, probably thankful for the out. Kanade hadn’t considered that she probably didn’t want her parents butting in on her time with her friend. Yoshiko smiles at her.
It’s one sort of euphoria to know that Yoshiko once again has a friend close enough to invite over. Kanade had cried tears of pure joy when Yoshiko had interrupted her and Mafuyu while they were busy in the music room just to shyly ask if she could have a friend over. No amount of work time lost mattered when she got to see her daughter with that nervously shy happiness streaking through her.
It’s another sort of euphoria entirely to know that there are others out there like them. Not just out there, no just in existence, but here, close and nearby. And it’s one thing to know, and another to see. They make it work. They can make it work.
This…this can work.
Yoshiko can be happy with them, if only they put in the work.
Mafuyu looks down at her, relief in his eyes, and presses a sweet kiss to her forehead.
It’s almost enough to fill the hole Mizuki and Ena left here within her.
It’s silly, in hindsight, how much we let things go on. We knew you were struggling—we talked about it every single night—but we could’ve never guessed the severity of just how bad it had gotten.
Maybe we were distracted, or maybe we didn’t want to believe that you were going through something as bad as what we went through as kids. I don’t have an answer, or an excuse. I’m just glad you ended up coming to us eventually, instead of trying to hide it all away.
But your siblings knew, and it’s hard to look back and see all those little things I missed. I should’ve been better.
…
No, sweetie. It’s okay. It doesn’t need to be anyone’s fault.
It’s the middle of winter.
The first snow of the season was only a week ago, somehow, but now that it’s coming down it’s coming down hard. It wasn’t enough to close the schools this morning, but by now Kanade’s a little concerned about Yoshiko’s trip home. She doesn’t want her little girl trudging through all this snow all alone, at least.
Kanade flicks the stove off, removing the pot she’s been boiling and carefully transferring its contents to the two bowls she set aside earlier.
She briefly wonders how Honami is doing, as she always does every time she cooks. She should really take some time to catch up with Ichika one of these days. It’s been too long.
The living room is quiet when she enters, two steaming bowls of soup cradled in her hands. It warms her fingers as she walks, the heaters of their house really only doing so much as far as keeping them comfortable through the winter. Still, Kanade doesn’t mind the chill. It reminds her of Mafuyu, for obvious reasons.
“Hey, sweetie,” Kanade whispers. Her youngest daughter still seems sleepy from the cold and the medication, but at least she seems comfortable bundled up in Mafuyu’s lap. Aino blinks up at her, reluctantly marking her place in her book as Mafuyu helps her sit up.
“Mama K,” she greets weakly, her voice still scratchy from her sickness. It’s nothing serious, thankfully, but her nose had run feverishly all day yesterday, so they’re keeping an eye on her today. Aino sniffles. “Soup.”
Kanade laughs gently. “Yes, sweetie,” she nods, “I brought you and Mama Yuki some soup.”
Mafuyu takes both bowls from her, careful not to spill a drop as they hover over Aino’s head. Kanade leans forward to steal a kiss, steadying her wife with a hand on her arm. Mafuyu might not be fully sick quite yet, but she’s getting there.
“I hope it’s yummy,” Kanade hums, swirling the spoon around in Aino’s bowl. “It might still be hot, so be careful, sweetie.”
Aino hums her response, too tired to really speak.
“Thank you, Kanade,” Mafuyu answers for her. “We always enjoy your cooking.”
Kanade smiles, her wife and younger daughter eagerly digging into the soup in front of her. Aino’s hands are trembling just the tiniest bit, still, but she seems so determined to enjoy her mother’s cooking that it doesn’t seem to matter.
Satisfied, Kanade steps back into the kitchen to find her phone and text Yoshiko. Ena said that she’d be able to pick up Reiji on her way home from the gallery, but Kanade’s still worried about her eldest. Mizuki won’t be home from work until later, so unless Yoshiko wants to stay after school until then, there isn’t any choice other than walking home through the snow.
It’s moments like these that Kanade regrets never looking into getting a second car for the family. Or maybe moving to a neighborhood with subway access.
Either one would solve the problem she has now. The very niche, happens less than once per year, problem she has now. It’s still a problem.
By the time Kanade finds herself back in the living room, Mafuyu has already finished eating and is helping Aino along with her bowl. She talks in hushed whispers, encouraging their daughter to eat as much as she can while it’s still hot. Aino seems to be enjoying the flavor, but it’s obvious that she’s struggling to swallow it all down.
“Just a little more, Aino,” Mafuyu promises quietly. Aino nods. “Once you’re done, we can go back to reading. You’re at the part where the princess is about to renounce her rightful position as heiress, right?”
Such big words for a seven-year-old girl. Aino understands every one.
Kanade’s phone pings right as she’s sitting down. She pauses halfway towards cuddling up with her wife and daughter.
Is Yoshiko on lunch break already? Kanade never remembers when it is, even now.
“Good job,” Mafuyu praises when Aino breathes out and gingerly slides her bowl onto the coffee table. “You did so good, I’m so proud of you.” Kanade can feel Aino’s smile from here, always so small but so bright. “You can go back to reading now, okay? Just let us know if you need anything at all.”
“Thank you, Mama Yuki,” Aino sings, a little more life flushing through her cheeks. “Mama K, the soup was very yummy.”
Kanade smiles, looking back up from her phone. “Thank you, sweetie,” she says. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”
Without another word, Aino cozies back up in her mother’s lap and cracks open her book again. They lose so much money buying new ones for her every week, but it’s never really a loss when it makes her so unbelievably happy.
Mafuyu, though, immediately clues in on Kanade’s admittedly consternated expression. She fluffs up Aino’s blanket, making sure she’s comfortable first, and then turns to face Kanade.
“Something wrong?” she asks quietly, her lips brushing up against Kanade’s neck. “You seem worried.”
Kanade hums, pressing her side against Mafuyu’s. “Yoshiko says that none of her classmates want to walk home with her,” Kanade explains. Mafuyu frowns, confused. “I’m worried about all the snow, and I didn’t want her to have to walk home in the cold all alone.”
“I see,” Mafuyu mumbles. “You could meet her there and walk home together?”
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass her.” Kanade shakes her head sadly. “She’s at that age now, you know? Junior high can be hard on a girl.”
Mafuyu shrugs. Kanade knows from experience that her wife felt mostly empty throughout all of junior high school. Still, Kanade understands the struggle a little.
Her phone pings again. Yoshiko says that she can ask some students from the other classes.
Mafuyu’s frown deepens. She glances up to check the time.
“I thought her lunch wasn’t for another half hour,” she muses. Kanade raises an eyebrow.
“Was it?” she asks. She isn’t sure. “I never get the time right, but now seems like around when I thought it was.”
Mafuyu isn’t convinced. But she lets it slide, shrugging again and placing her head on Kanade’s shoulder. Kanade types out a quick response to her daughter, hoping she’s not overstepping.
She doesn’t want to make her daughter do something awkward just for her peace of mind. Kanade simply wants to make sure she’s safe.
Kanade hears Aino shift in her seat. She glances down to find her other daughter peering up with an unreadable expression on her face. She’s staring right at Kanade’s texts.
“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Mafuyu soothes, pressing her thumb in on the palm of Kanade’s hand. It gets her to relax almost instantly. “We can talk to Yoshiko when she gets home, and hopefully the snow will let up a little. She’ll be okay.”
Kanade wants to believe her. She does believe her.
But she can’t shake that expression on Aino’s face. The moment has passed, and her daughter’s back to reading her book. But Kanade can swear there’s a tension in her shoulders.
Like maybe Aino knows more than they do.
Kanade lets it go. Yoshiko would tell them if something was wrong. Maybe all of her classmates were just busy today. They got unlucky.
Kanade’s sure that’s all it is.
I can’t ever be sure how much you remember from when you were little, but I’ll never forget your endless excitement. Always so in awe of the world around you, always exploring and adventuring and we just never could get you to sit still.
When the twins—your cousins, if you’d like to call them that—were born, your eyes just lit up like nothing else.
It just…we only ever wanted you to be happy.
The doctor tells them to go home and get some rest.
She probably wasn’t expecting all four of them to protest, each spouting a different excuse for why they should stay rooted right to their spots. Kanade almost feels bad for her, but actually she feels more bad for taking up so much space in the waiting room. They’re not exactly a small family.
Mafuyu pulls rank. Kanade is halfway to stopping him before she realizes that actually this might get them both what they want.
“I can take them to the break room on the third floor,” he offers, sliding his badge back into his back pocket. “It should be empty all night, as it usually is. And since Ena would be nearby, we wouldn’t have to make so much noise every time we went to see her.”
“She’s perfectly stable,” the doctor insists weakly, looking less and less stubborn by the second. “Really, wouldn’t it be better to get some good sleep at your homes, and then come see her in the morning?”
Mafuyu smiles that too-charming, disarming smile of his. “I’ve worked here as a nurse for over a decade, Dr. Oyama,” he explains. “I know where we keep the cots, if you’re that worried about it.”
Dr. Oyama sighs something heavy, completely giving in. She’s been dealing with them off and on for the better part of the day now, and her exhaustion shows. Kanade feels a little shame over it, but she’s more worried about making sure Ena is comfortable and cared for all throughout the night.
Childbirth is no joke. She would know, and she didn’t have to deal with two of them at the same time.
Yoshiko follows them closely as Mafuyu leads them down the twisting and turning hallways of the hospital. Mizuki makes sure to keep Yoshiko’s hand grasped tightly in her own—just in case, of course, but it doesn’t seem like Yoshiko is going to want to wander off anytime soon. The poor girl looks like Kanade after a particularly “productive” eighteen consecutive hours.
The third floor isn’t anything special on its own—Kanade continues to question why the maternity ward wouldn’t be on the ground floor—but it is where their beautiful and precious wife is. Mafuyu’s been worrying over her all day, and Kanade’s decently sure she saw Mizuki duck into the bathroom to purge her queasiness a few times earlier.
But their children are born, Ena is healthy, and everything seems to be going perfectly. Kanade’s still itching to be by her wife’s side again, but Ena asked for some space shortly after she came out of labor. She’s the real exhausted one out of them.
Still, Ena did also say she wanted to see Yoshiko before she fell asleep again. And since the girl in question probably isn’t going to make it past midnight here, now is as good a time as any.
Mafuyu’s holding the break room door open for them when Kanade turns to look back down the hallway. She pauses, halfway through the door, and finds Mizuki’s gaze.
“We should bring Yoshiko to see Ena,” she mutters, looking back and forth to try to get her bearings in this maze of white walls. “She’s going to fall asleep soon.”
Mizuki nods first, already hefting Yoshiko up into her arms to hand her off to Kanade. Mafuyu reaches over to squeeze her shoulder, his silent agreement speaking volumes. Yoshiko, tired from the excitement of the busiest day of her five year old life, tucks her head into Kanade’s neck and lets herself be carried.
“You go on ahead, lovely,” Mizuki whispers. She presses a kiss first to Kanade’s cheek and then to the corner of her mouth before patting Yoshiko on the head and ducking past. She leans up in her tiptoes to pull Mafuyu down to her, kissing him as well. “Tell me where the cots are. I’ll grab some for us while you get situated.”
Satisfied that her partners can take things from here, Kanade steps back out into the empty hallway and turns towards Ena’s room. Well, she thinks Ena’s room is in this direction. She’s actually not sure. Ena is on the third floor, right?
Yoshiko grumbles a sigh, her little hands clutching Kanade’s shirt as she fights to stay awake. The lingering excitement must be keeping her going at this point.
After all, she’s got two new siblings to be looking forward to. Kanade can’t imagine what her daughter must be feeling.
Well, just one of her daughters, now. Another one was born today.
With a little difficulty, Kanade finds the door currently labeled “Shinonome.” They couldn’t all be legally married, after all. But it’s never bothered Kanade that only Mafuyu took her name. The thought of that alone could bring her to tears.
Kanade knocks gently before she enters the room.
Ena looks up at her, her eyes igniting even though they have some prominent dark circles underneath. Her gaze flickers between Kanade and Yoshiko, a weak smile appearing on her face when she sees them together.
“K,” she greets simply. Her voice is breathless, and this time Kanade knows it’s not from adoration. Well, there’s probably a little adoration mixed in with all that fatigue. “And little Yoshiko, hi darling.”
Yoshiko perks up, turning her head and blinking her eyes open through the struggle of sleep trying to drag her down. Her smile lighting up as soon as she notices the two bundles cradled in her mother’s arms seems to make it worth it.
“Would you like to say hi, sweetie?” Kanade asks gently. Yoshiko nods so fiercely she almost falls right out of Kanade’s grasp. “Hah, careful Yoshiko. I’ll let you down right here and you can greet your new brother and sister, okay?”
Yoshiko lands on the edge of Ena’s hospital bed, already rising up on her knees and crawling over to her mother’s side. It’s as if the drowsiness has left her in an instant.
“Shh,” Ena shushes carefully, cradling two of her children close to her chest and trying to nudge the other one closer to her grasp. “They’re sleeping right now, but you can still meet your new siblings. Say hi.”
“Hi,” Yoshiko whispers, awe and wonder in her voice. She crawls up to peek into the blankets, eventually catching sight of the sleeping faces buried beneath. “Mama Enanan, I can’t tell which one’s the boy.”
Ena laughs quietly, a weak and wheezing sound that Kanade remembers so well from her own labor. Her wife’s body took a heavy burden today, yet still she’s sitting here and fighting on for every moment she gets to spend awake with her children.
“This one’s Reiji, darling,” Ena hums. Kanade sits beside her, cozying up to her wife as she holds out a hand to steady Yoshiko on the bed. Ena beams at her as best she can with her eyes half-closed.
“Your sister Aino is the other one,” Kanade continues, coaxing Ena back into the bed. She needs rest, desperately. “Reiji and Aino are a part of our family now.”
“Hi Aino,” Yoshiko giggles quietly. She’s conscious of the level of her voice, even though Kanade can tell she wants to yell and shout gleefully. “My name is Yoshiko, and I’m your big sister! When you get a little older, we can play lots.”
Kanade smiles. Ena smiles too, her eyes closing as she melts back into the sheets. Kanade helps her along, rubbing gentle circles into her side and pressing sweet kisses to her lips.
She takes her newborn son and daughter from Ena’s clutching grasp, extricating them with no resistance. Ena trusts her so much.
Kanade will pass them off to the nurse on duty in a while, where they’ll spend the night in the maternity ward under careful watch until the morning.
Until then, she’ll hold all three of her children in her arms, Yoshiko cooing and giggling all the while.
Kanade’s never before heard such a melodious sound.
There was a lot of worry, when you were younger, that you might not find the courage to talk to us. You were shy back then, always picking someone and hiding behind them whenever you met anyone else in our family.
But as soon as you’d met them properly, you’d be all giggles and smiles and pure joy. You’d light up like no one ever could.
You still do, when you get passionate about something. I’ve never mourned the child you used to be—you’re still right beside me, same as you always have been.
…
I think I wish you could’ve seen yourself.
Yoshiko loves meeting new people.
As soon as she’s introduced to a new classmate, she’s all over the place asking if they want to play or sing or talk. It’s not so different when Yoshiko meets adults, but there’s also a noticeable sense of fear she harbors underneath those introductions.
This seems to be increased tenfold when she’s meeting the friends and family members of her mothers.
Akiyama Yuuki hasn’t seen Yoshiko for a few years now. Not since Reiji and Aino were born, Kanade’s pretty sure.
So two years have passed.
Is that enough time for Yoshiko to forget her only blood-related aunt? Kanade doesn’t know, but she’s beginning to suspect that maybe it is. Yoshiko is quite literally trembling as she hangs onto her skirt like glue.
Kanade continues to pet through her daughter’s hair gently, shushing and assuring her in equal measure. This isn’t terribly out of character for her, but it is surprising. This happened with Akito two years ago, and Toya last year.
Maybe Yoshiko is so anxious about meeting her extended family because she wants to make a good impression. She’s always tried her best to be extra polite with every adult her parents know, so maybe Yuuki is no different in this regard.
Still, Kanade isn’t sure what kind of precedent this is setting for the future.
Mizuki flings the door open before Yuuki even has the chance to knock. Kanade groans and shakes her head, hearing Yuuki shriek as her sister quite literally lunges through the doorway to tackle her in a hug.
“Sis!” Mizuki cries, overjoyed. “You made it!
“Merde, Mizuki!” Yuuki cries back, horrified. “You scared me half to death!”
Mafuyu catches the door, holding it open and peering out at Mizuki dancing around with her older sister in her arms. Yuuki looks affronted for all of two seconds before she softens and returns Mizuki’s embrace.
“You’re going to kill her one of these days,” Ena grumbles, stepping out in just her socks and physically pulling Mizuki away. She clicks her tongue disapprovingly, Mizuki struggling against her unyielding grasp all the while.
Yuuki huffs out a disbelieving laugh, placing her hands on her hips. “You never change, do you,” she says to Mizuki. She receives a pout in response. Yuuki rolls her eyes and turns her attention to Ena. “Ena, dear, it’s wonderful to see you.”
Ena smiles, stepping up and kissing the air next to one of Yuuki’s cheeks, and then the other. Yuuki matches her, and then pulls her in for a sideways hug. Ena lets Mizuki go, grumbling a quiet, “behave,” under her breath.
Mizuki beams, altogether much too proud of herself.
“Well,” Mafuyu butts in, waving the three of them inside, “don’t keep the lady of the hour waiting now.”
“Yessir!” Mizuki calls, saluting seriously before ducking back inside and making a beeline for Kanade.
Yuuki and Mafuyu exchange pleasantries, Ena grabbing the luggage from outside as they do. Kanade, however, is more concerned with making sure Yoshiko is going to be okay.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mizuki hums, getting down on her knees to see Yoshiko at eye level. “This is your Auntie Yuuki, do you remember her? She’s my older sister.”
Yoshiko shrugs, but does seem reassured by Mizuki’s comforting whispers. Kanade helps her along, slowly untangling her from where she was clutching her leg.
“Hi Kanade,” Yuuki says gently, startling Kanade back to paying attention. Her sister-in-law has stopped a few steps away, immediately cluing in on Yoshiko’s hesitance.
“Yuuki, welcome,” she greets. “I hope your flight wasn’t too bad.”
Yuuki laughs, waving her off. “It’s never good,” she shrugs, “but I’m used to it.”
Mizuki stands back up and steps around, her hands firmly grounding Yoshiko’s shoulders. Kanade smiles, watching her daughter put on a brave face.
“Hi hon,” Yuuki waves, smiling gleefully at Yoshiko. Yoshiko waves back, unsure of herself. “Is it okay if I come over and say hi?”
Yoshiko nods. Yuuki, taking a page straight out of Mizuki’s book, kneels down and places her hands on her thighs. She’s perfectly eye level.
“I’m your Aunt Yuuki,” she explains, maintaining a respectful distance. “Do you remember me? I visited at Christmas when little Reiji and little Aino were born.”
“Oh,” Yoshiko says simply. She places a finger on her chin and looks up to think.
“I live in France,” Yuuki continues, “so we don’t see each other very often, do we. Do you know where France is, Yoshiko?”
Yoshiko nods. “Europe!”
Yuuki smiles and claps, cheering for her. Yoshiko giggles, looking pleased with herself.
“Say, Yoshiko…” Yuuki looks up at Kanade. Kanade doesn’t like the look in her eye. “Do you know how we greet people in France?”
Kanade pales. Is she going to make her do the cheek thing? It’s so embarrassing.
“No,” Yoshiko answers, shaking her head. Yuuki grins.
“Yuuki,” Kanade protests weakly, already letting herself be pulled down to her knees. “You know I always get it wrong.”
“You do not,” Yuuki assures, even though she’s laughing at Kanade at this very moment. “See, Yoshiko, when we greet friends and family we lean forward and—”
Yuuki makes the most exaggerated kissing sound Kanade has ever heard. Then she turns the other cheek and does it again. Kanade kisses the air lightly in response, barely making the tiniest sound.
Well, it’s worth it. Yoshiko is giggling up a storm already, clapping happily.
“See?” Yuuki says, wrapping Kanade up in a hug. “You did fine, hon.” Kanade hums questioningly. “Okay you turned the wrong cheek first but it’s fine, no one cares.”
Kanade groans, face burning. She knew she messed something up!
Yuuki lets her go, turning back to Yoshiko and gently coaxing her out of Mizuki’s grasp. Suddenly that little girl hiding behind Kanade’s skirt is all sunshine and rainbows, laughter and smiles.
“There we go,” Yuuki sings happily. “C’mere, hon, wanna try it?”
Yoshiko nods quickly and leans forward, eyes shut tight and lips puckered. She looks hilarious, but Kanade doesn’t say that. Her daughter’s antics are adorable, after all.
Yuuki guides her through the greeting, completely uncaring that Yoshiko doesn’t know you’re supposed to kiss the air and not the cheek. It’s not important. They’re family.
“Good job!” Yuuki praises, pulling Yoshiko’s arms up and giving her a little high five. Then Yoshiko all but falls into her arms, Yuuki instinctively holding her close.
Kanade smiles. “She’s asking to be carried,” she whispers into Yuuki’s ear. Yuuki lights up, nodding and lifting Yoshiko into her grasp.
“Upsy daisy!” she hums melodically, Yoshiko giggling all the while.
“A hug and a carry on the first day,” Mafuyu observes, helping Kanade up off the floor. “Yuuki, I’m impressed.”
“You should’ve seen how long it took Akito to get anywhere near that,” Mizuki adds. She pulls her sister in for one more side hug, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s cheek as she does so.
“Well Uncle Akito is stinky,” Yuuki grumbles. “Isn’t that right, Yoshiko?”
Yoshiko laughs and nods, probably barely caring about what Yuuki’s saying. She met a new person—a new family member—today.
To Yoshiko, that’s probably her greatest joy. Even if it took her a second to get there.
Kanade still isn’t really sure where the nervousness comes from, but it’s okay. Her daughter will always be surrounded by the love of her family, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
We’re only ever going to want you to be happy. It’s our job to respect and support your decisions, sweetie. If you need help, I’ll be there. I don’t care what for.
…
Don’t tell your Auntie Enanan this—she’ll back me up, but won’t ever look at me like I’m pure and innocent again—but if you called me in the dead of night and needed to hide a body, I’d be there in a heartbeat.
…
Don’t laugh! I’m serious! You know we’ll support you. Just like we support Reiji, and Aino, and each other.
We’re happier when we support each other.
They’re all sitting around Kanade and Mafuyu’s dinner table, winding down for the night, when Reiji says he’s been “building the courage” to tell them something.
Now this could go one of many ways.
It could be like the time two weeks ago, when he said he was “building courage” and then told them that he was trying out a new medium for a painting he was making for a classmate (it was gouache). Or it could be like last month, when he told only Ena he was “building up some courage” to tell them that his classmate had recommended him a manga series that he wanted one of them to buy for him. It could even be like that one time when he claimed he needed to “build up courage” first before he could tell them that he made a new friend at school: his now infamous classmate.
Now, Kanade thinks she’s got her son figured out by now. She’s almost certain she knows what’s actually going on here. But she can never be sure, and that’s why she immediately closes her laptop and gives him her full attention.
Apparently all three of her wives think the exact same thing, because Reiji blinks and recoils in his seat from the sheer power of their shared attention.
“Woah,” he says, holding out his hands placatingly. “Okay, that was quick. I didn’t think you’d all look at me that fast.”
Reiji chuckles awkwardly. Mafuyu takes an annoyingly loud sip of their tea.
“So,” they drawl, “your classmate.”
Reiji blushes harder than Kanade’s ever seen. Oh, she just knew this would happen.
“I-I’ve been thinking I should let you know,” her son stammers, keeping his gaze trained carefully on the center of the table. “Y’know, I have this classmate who—um—has just been really nice to me recently.”
Mizuki nods. Ena raises an eyebrow. Kanade smiles. Mafuyu leans forward, a little menacing.
“And, uh,” Reiji continues, looking anywhere but them, “I just kinda noticed recently, um—that is, this classmate—uh—”
Mizuki reaches over to ruffle his hair. “Take your time, honey,” she says. She always has this aura to her—it’s something truly beautiful—whenever any of them have moments like this. Reiji immediately slumps in his seat, his mother helping him through a deep breath.
“You don’t need to be so worried, Reiji,” Mafuyu hums. “It’s just us, and we don’t bite.” A pause. “Well we won’t bite you, anyway. We’ll see about this ‘classmate’ of yours.”
Kanade giggles, grabbing their hand and running her thumb over their skin in little circles. “I, for one, am deeply invested in the classmate lore.”
“Ditto,” Ena adds in, leaning back comfortably in her chair. Reiji looks back up at them, a tiny little smile on his face. “Y’know, Reiji, you still haven’t told us much about this classmate of yours. What’s she like, hm?”
Reiji freezes. He glances away, laughing awkwardly to fill the silence. Mizuki giggles at him, still encouraging him with little taps and pets.
“Well,” Reiji finally says, swallowing down his nerves. “I think he’s kinda cute.” Ena stares. “And also he’s a boy.”
Kanade is halfway towards cheering and clapping at his confession, but she immediately notices how Ena pales. Mizuki mostly ignores her, holding both of Reiji’s hands in her own as she whispers hushed congratulations to him, but she’s visibly keeping an eye on her stiff wife beside her.
Mafuyu takes another annoyingly loud sip of their tea, this one more pointed. They’re staring at Ena, daring her to challenge whatever it is she’s suddenly worked up over.
Kanade is mostly just confused. She’s not sure why they aren’t all jumping for joy by now.
Ena deflates in an earth-shattering sigh.
“I owe Akito ten thousand yen now,” she groans, her head in hands.
“No fucking way—sorry, Reiji,” Mizuki gasps. Reiji shrugs, used to the cursing by now. “Ena! You did not bet on whether or not our son was gay!”
Ena raises her head, her eyes peering out angrily. “It’s not like that! It wasn’t my fault!”
“There’s a story there,” Mafuyu observes. Ena fixes them with one hell of an evil eye.
“Yeah, asshole, there is!”
Kanade groans, letting her head fall to the dinner table. She can’t believe this is happening. A full month without seeing the other half of her family, and this is what things have come to. If this keeps up, there’s no way they’re all going to survive long enough to get Yoshiko’s feelings on this whole thing.
“Can we stop cursing in front of our ten-year-old son please?” she pleads. Mafuyu turns their attention to her, frowning and grabbing her hand under the table. It’s comforting.
“Sorry, K,” Ena mutters. At least one of her wives (relationship pending) has the sense to seem ashamed. “Reiji, you know better than to repeat what I say, right?”
Reiji looks up, smiles, and gives a little shrug. Kanade groans, burrowing her forehead into the table for comedic effect. It gets Reiji to giggle and laugh, which is exactly what she was going for.
“Okay, okay,” Mizuki hums, one hand rubbing circles into Ena’s thigh. “You have to explain this. How the heck did Akito—Akito, of all people!—goad you into putting money on this?”
Ena takes a deep breath. In through her nose, hold, out through her mouth. It’s a simple technique that she’s been using ever since her therapist told her it would help whenever she got really, really angry on the inside.
“When you were born,” Ena starts, looking directly at Reiji, “your Uncle Akito didn’t get to meet you for a few hours. He had a concert the same day that I went into labor, and that—”
“Language!” Mafuyu reminds.
“—not-so-nice man decided that his random back-alley show was more important than his sister literally giving birth to twins.” Kanade laughs, recalling how livid Ena was back then. “So he shows up halfway through the night, drenched in sweat, and keeps asking around for ‘the brown-haired girl who’s been screaming and hitting people all night.’ As if he didn’t know my name!”
“Oh my god I remember that,” Mizuki laughs. “They wouldn’t let him through until I coincidentally passed by and told them that he was your brother.”
Ena tsks, grumbling something under her breath that probably consisted of more than a few swear words. Kanade sighs, letting it slide. After all, Akito was definitely after a certain reaction that night.
“Anyway, he eventually finds his way to my hospital room,” Ena continues. She’s folding her arms over her chest, her foot tapping increasingly frenzied on the hardwood floor. “He takes one step inside—one step!—and then sniffs the air like a dog! I’m so confused, and admittedly a little disgusted, but then he steps forward, points right at you—” she points to Reiji “—and says, ‘That’s the gayest baby I’ve ever seen.’ Before he even says hi!”
Mizuki bursts out laughing, her voice echoing off the walls as she loses it. Kanade tries to keep it in for a moment, but then also laughs along. She knew that Akito pissed Ena off really bad that night, but she never actually knew why before now.
Even Mafuyu smiles and rolls their eyes, a single soft chuckle escaping their lips. It’s so warm now.
Her family is so warm.
Yoshiko comes up behind Reiji quietly, placing her hands on his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug as she laughs too. Aino, up until now distracted by her book, also looks up to join in on the fun.
“Uncle Aki had you clocked!” Yoshiko cries, messing up her brother’s (cousin’s) hair. Reiji cries out, indignant, but doesn’t even try to escape Yoshiko’s grasp. “Frame zero and everything!”
“Oh my god,” Mizuki wheezes. She’s clutching her stomach with one hand. “So you made a bet with him right there to try and get back at him? On whether your newborn son would turn out gay?!”
“I thought it’d work out, eventually,” Ena grumbles, rolling her eyes and looking away. Mizuki laughs harder.
Kanade places a hand over her mouth, straightening out as she tries to keep in her giggles. “Enanan, love,” she says gently. Ena turns to her with a woeful smile.
“I know, I know. Terrible idea. Backfired horribly.”
“‘Horribly’ is one way to put it,” Mafuyu hums. Ena reaches over to smack them in the shoulder.
“I didn’t know!” Ena cries. “And I had just given birth—twice!”
The conversation devolves, all of them laughing and talking and pointing at each other. Their smiles stick to their faces, shooting stars in the blackness of the night.
Reiji, thoroughly pacified by Ena’s story taking the attention off of him, beams happily. Mizuki reaches over once or twice, pulling him into a hug and praising him for telling them about how he’s feeling. Ena keeps looking at her son with nothing but pride in her eyes. Mafuyu, even as removed as they’ve felt for the last month, finds it in themself to pat him on the head as they pass to refill their tea from the stove.
Kanade had almost forgotten what this happiness felt like. It bubbles in her chest, rising up and up and falling from her lips in smiles and laughs and pure, unadulterated joy.
She looks over, and finds Yoshiko cozying up beside Aino to talk about whatever it is she’s reading. She looks over, and finds Mizuki curled up in Mafuyu’s side, the both of them leaning up against the kitchen counter as they speak in hushed whispers. She looks over, and finds Reiji flipping through one of his sketchbooks with Ena peering over his shoulder, her commentary varying between freely given praise and just the right amount of constructive criticism.
It’s here that Kanade realizes they can never truly be torn apart. No matter what happens, no matter how much time passes, they’re always going to love each other.
Maybe it’s about time she stopped moping about and started doing something about it.
Kanade gets up from the table—allowing Ena to steal a kiss first, of course—and walks off to find Yoshiko.
Your aunts and Mafuyu and I all went through a lot when we were just about your age. We didn’t meet until years later, when time had already eroded us down to shells of who we wanted to be.
But we helped each other through it, once we met, because we all shared the same feeling. That same…desire.
…
Yeah. We always sugar coated it when you were a kid, but…
Maybe we should’ve told you earlier than we did. Maybe it would’ve been easier to tell us, if you knew we went through the same things.
…
I dunno.
Mizuki slams through the door, the keys hanging halfway out of her purse protesting loudly as she flings it across the room.
“Is she here?” Mizuki asks frantically, looking around. Kanade peeks her head down the hallway.
“She’s in her room,” she says. Mizuki nods, the click clack of her heels on the hardwood floors firecrackers in the dead of night.
Kanade follows her, because of course she does.
Yoshiko is hurting. They all are, in various ways, but it hurts them more to see their daughter in pain.
There’s still time. They still have time.
Kanade doesn’t know what to do. How is she supposed to protect her daughter? How is she supposed to make this better?
How does she fix this?
Mafuyu and Ena are arguing quietly in the hallway as they pass. They’re not mad at each other, but at the circumstances they’re in. Mafuyu’s gripping Ena’s hand tightly, trying his best to calm her down.
“She jumped the fucking fence, Yuki,” Ena whispers. “With a freshly sprained arm! In what world is this okay?”
“I know,” Mafuyu nods, pulling Ena closer to him to let Mizuki pass. His eyes are dark, an inferno raging behind them. “But I'm not saying it's okay. Just that they didn’t hurt her intentionally, and the school is already—”
Kanade tunes out. She doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t want to know what the hell the school is going to do because they couldn’t protect her daughter in the first place. It won’t be enough.
Yoshiko is hurt.
“Yoshiko, darling,” Mizuki calls through the door, knocking twice. “Can I come in?”
Silence. A beat. Then—
“Yeah,” Yoshiko mumbles, barely above a whisper.
Mizuki flings this door open, too, suddenly halfway across the room in a single stride. Kanade follows closely behind her, shutting the door first so that her daughter doesn’t hear the conversation down the hall.
“Oh, my poor baby,” Mizuki breathes, dropping to the floor by Yoshiko’s desk. Her daughter is sitting in her chair, turned away to face her synthesizer. Kanade can’t make out the expression on her face.
“Hey, Mama Amia,” Yoshiko mumbles. Mizuki carefully pulls her in for a hug. “I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“It should’ve never had to, honey,” Mizuki cries, burying her eyes in her daughter’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“Mama, it’s okay.” Yoshiko doesn’t have any more tears to shed, Kanade can tell. “It was an accident.”
“Like hell it was,” Mizuki growls, voice low. Kanade places her hand on her wife’s back, trying to be comforting even as she shakes. “Listen, Yoshiko, you don’t ever have to give those bastards the time of day. I have half a mind to—”
“Mizuki,” Kanade interrupts. Her wife’s jaw clicks shut, her teeth grating against each other. “That’s not what she wants.”
Mizuki sighs heavily, cradling her daughter more securely.
“I know,” she mutters. “I didn’t want my parents to get involved, either, when I was going through it.”
Kanade hums, running soothing motions through Mizuki’s hair. Her wife melts into the touch, slowly relaxing and letting Yoshiko sit back up in her chair.
What’s happened terrifies them. Kanade can’t bear to look at the bruises starting to form all across her daughter’s arm. It’s a wonder the bone didn’t break.
Kanade doesn’t know what to do.
“But you did so good, honey,” Mizuki says quietly. She brushes a lock of Yoshiko’s hair behind her ear and beams that proud mother smile right at her. “You ran when you needed to, just like I taught you. Never be ashamed of picking your priorities, okay?”
Yoshiko nods silently, managing a tiny little smile in response. Kanade lets out a breath she didn’t really know she was holding.
All of them are terrified, Yoshiko included. This could’ve been much, much worse than it ended up being.
Kanade can’t bear the thought.
“I wanna tell you something, sweetie,” Mizuki says, finding her daughter’s hand and holding it close. “I wanna tell you that you’re never ever alone, no matter what happens. I went through this, too, when I was your age. They hurt me over and over, and convinced me that I was alone. But no matter how isolated I made myself, there were always people fighting to be right there with me.”
Kanade hums her agreement. She holds her wife close.
“You were bullied, Mama Amia?” Yoshiko asks quietly. Kanade turns, surprised that her daughter didn’t know that already. “But you’re so…happy, and wonderful.”
Mizuki laughs. “Oh, all the other students loved to pick on me back in junior high and high school. They made fun of me for not fitting in the same way they could. I stopped going to school most days, and spent more and more time online playing the persona of who I wanted to be. On the inside, back then, I was actually a really gloomy person.” Yoshiko’s eyebrows raise higher and higher as Mizuki explains. “But, you know, that’s how I eventually met your mothers. So maybe it wasn’t all bad.”
“It was pretty bad for you, love,” Kanade says. “You shared the same feelings as us for a reason. No one should ever need to go through that.”
Mizuki nods her agreement. Yoshiko seems somehow more confused.
“I thought you met through your music group,” she mumbles, tilting her head.
Well, at least her mind is off of the incident today. Kanade shares a look with her wife. Now’s as good a time as any to explain their origin story, right?
“We did,” Kanade says first, grabbing her daughter’s free hand in her own. “But back then, we made music that was significantly…what’s the word—”
“Bleaker,” Mizuki supplies. “We still make sad songs every so often, but back then we were drawn to each other by the sorrows we shared. Most of K’s songs still had those notes of hope, of promise, but a lot of them were born of whatever cold, dull emotions we were feeling.”
“So, like,” Yoshiko looks away, thinking for a moment, “despair? You wrote songs about despair?”
Kanade hums. “That’s one way to put it, yes.” She doesn’t know how to put this lightly. Is fourteen old enough to understand? “Mizuki was shunned by her peers, I had lost both of my parents, Ena was fighting against inhuman amounts of pressure for her father’s approval, and Mafuyu…”
Mizuki bows her head. Kanade doesn’t know how to say it. They never wanted to have to say it.
“I never knew if I would have to have this conversation with you, sweetie,” Mizuki says gently, “but Mafuyu’s feelings are what brought us together. And what he felt back then was an unending desire to disappear.”
Yoshiko clearly doesn’t know how to react to that. She’s as confused as she is concerned. And maybe she’s seeing all of her parents in a new light, at the moment.
“In many ways,” Kanade continues on, “we all wanted to disappear. You could say our feelings were brought to life, when we shared that desire. But it wasn’t the desire to stop living that pushed us forward, but rather it was the hope that we could help each other that saved us.”
There’s only so many words Kanade can use. She never wanted to die, but she longed to have never been born at all. Sometimes those feelings creep back up on her, hovering just outside of her consciousness. Ena feels it, Mizuki feels it, Mafuyu feels it, they all do.
Years and decades later, she still thinks about it.
She still cries over her mother. Sometimes she wakes up in a cold sweat thinking that Mizuki has left them again. She struggles to understand what Mafuyu is feeling sometimes. She still winces every time Ena talks about her father.
These are the wounds she lives with.
Yoshiko should’ve never had one of her own. But it’s too late, and now she does.
“So it’s okay to feel alone,” Mizuki says. “And it’s even okay to wonder what it would be like if you disappeared. But don’t dwell on it alone, sweetheart, because we’re always going to be here right beside you.”
“We’re always going to love you,” Kanade promises, “with everything we have.”
They’re all silent for a moment, just taking everything in with the comfort they have now. Yoshiko seems to be thinking it all through, really considering everything Kanade and Mizuki have told her.
It’s not perfect, but it’s their story. Kanade will only dwell on the hard parts for as long as she needs to.
“I don’t want to disappear,” Yoshiko says with a shake of her head. Kanade and Mizuki nod encouragingly at the same time. “I just…” It takes her a second to find her words. “I just wish they’d stop. I don’t understand why it had to be me.”
“Oh it didn’t, sweetie,” Mizuki assures, squeezing her daughter’s hand. “It really is just bad luck. You’ve never done anything wrong—never done anything to deserve something like this. They hurt you for no reason at all.”
Kanade leans down and wraps Mizuki in a hug. She can feel the tears start to fall again. But she’s so pretty, even as she cries.
“I’m okay, Mama Amia,” Yoshiko promises, not for the first time. “I don’t blame them. It wasn’t their fault I fell down the stairs. I just wish they hadn’t been so mean.”
Mizuki breaks out of Kanade’s grasp to wrap up her daughter in another bone-crushing hug. “Me too, sweetheart. Gosh, me too. You should’ve never had to run from them like that.”
Their problems are far from over, and today has only solidified Kanade’s belief in that. They aren’t going to let up just because Yoshiko got spooked and tripped down half a flight of stairs one time. They’re still going to other her, and label her, and talk behind her back.
There’s just about nothing any of them can do about it, either. They can talk to the school as many times as it takes. They could even pull her out of school completely, just to protect her.
But that’s not what Yoshiko wants. Yoshiko wants to be a normal girl with a normal life.
“Yoshiko,” Kanade says. “Your mothers and I have been talking a lot recently. I think…”
Kanade swallows down her nerves.
“We want to know what you think about us separating.”
You and Mafuyu used to be so close. Do you remember that? Sometimes we couldn’t get you two off of each other.
It’s a breezy spring day when Kanade comes home to a sight for sore eyes.
She gets the door open with only a minor struggle, her bags of groceries fighting her all the way. She does eventually succeed, though, and that means she gets to peek her head inside to find Mafuyu sleepily looking up from the couch.
“Mm, Kanade,” she calls, her eyes falling shut for a moment as her head lolls. “Welcome home.”
“Mama K?” Yoshiko follows, her sleepy little face popping up next to Mafuyu’s. Kanade smiles and shuts the door quietly behind her.
“I’m home, you two,” she calls back gently. “Don’t worry, you can go back to sleep. I won’t disturb you.”
Mafuyu and Yoshiko both shake their heads in perfect sync.
“Let me help with the groceries,” Mafuyu insists. She sounds too tired to do so much as get up off the couch.
“‘M not sleepy,” Yoshiko claims. She sounds halfway back to dreamland already. “Wanna stay up with Mama K and Mama Yuki.”
Kanade laughs softly under her breath. She sets all of her grocery bags down on the dining table before her arms completely give out on her, and then finds her way into the living room.
Mafuyu begins to lean up and untangle herself from the mess of blankets on the couch, but Kanade just shushes and coaxes her back down. There’s no need to rush. They can have a lazy day if they’d like one.
“I got it, love,” Kanade hums quietly. Mafuyu grumbles, but nods and tucks herself into Kanade’s side when she perches on the edge of the couch. “You two can go right back to sleep, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Nuh uh,” Yoshiko protests. She snuggles back into Mafuyu’s arms, her head disappearing under the big lump of blankets they’ve found for themselves. “‘M gonna stay awake a little longer.”
Kanade chuckles. “I’m sure you are, sweetie.”
Mafuyu was asleep when she left this morning, but Yoshiko wasn’t. Kanade remembers seeing her with Ena in her studio, marveling at all the ways her mother could make mundane paints come to life.
At some point, Yoshiko must’ve been passed off to Mafuyu. And clearly she had a case of the sleepies, which Yoshiko caught in the transition. Now both of them have been sentenced to an eternal comfort beneath the blankets they’ve dragged out to the couch.
Kanade wonders if they’re out here because they were waiting for her. No one else is home today, after all. Even Reiji and Aino are with Mizuki and An for the day.
“K,” Mafuyu suddenly interrupts, tilting up and looking at her like a little lost puppy. Kanade, startled from the interruption, would do anything at all for her wife in this moment.
Luckily, said wife doesn’t ask her to commit any crimes or do anything morally dubious. Instead, she stares and stares with the tiniest little frown until Kanade gets the hint.
“Oh,” she breathes, a gentle curve coming to her lips. “You want a kiss, love?”
Mafuyu nods, blinking blearily. Kanade laughs and tucks a strand of her long hair behind her ear, leaning down as she does so. Mafuyu cranes her neck up, just enough to reach but not enough to have to move and disturb Yoshiko.
Kanade cradles her wife’s face as she kisses her. Her body is reinvigorated as their lips move together, beauty and radiance shining up at her.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Kanade breathes against Mafuyu’s skin. She missed her today.
“Mm-mm,” Mafuyu disagrees quietly as she tucks into Kanade’s neck and breathes in her floral scent. “M’wasn’t lonely. Had Yoshiko with me.”
Kanade presses light kisses around the shell of Mafuyu’s ear. She feels warmth bubbling up in her, threatening to overflow and drown her heart in domestic bliss. Mafuyu cuddles a little closer, gently bringing their daughter with her.
Yoshiko, hearing her name, tries to lift her head again. It doesn’t work very well, given that she’s half-asleep again.
“Shh,” Kanade shushes gently, reaching down and running her fingers through Yoshiko’s hair. Lulled by the motion, she lets her head fall back into the blankets again.
It’s barely a minute before Kanade can hear the melodious sounds of her daughter’s light snoring again.
Mafuyu smiles a little against Kanade’s skin. Once a rarity for her, now simply uncommon.
“I’m going to put away the groceries,” Kanade says gently, peeling Mafuyu away from her. Her wife begins to protest, but won’t do anything that would so much as jostle the girl cradled securely in her arms. Kanade laughs again, placating her wife with a kiss. “I won’t be long. And Ena will be home soon, too.”
“Ena?” Mafuyu hums, eyes closed again. There’s so much love in her tired voice that Kanade wants to hop up and squeeze her to death. She refrains, Mafuyu continuing to mumble, “Miss her. She didn’t say goodbye this morning.”
Well, Kanade knows what bed Mafuyu will be sleeping in tonight. Not saying goodbye is a one-way ticket to Mafuyu’s infamous retribution cuddles, after all.
At least, it usually is. Yoshiko may have accidentally monopolized her mother for now. So maybe Mafuyu’s going to sleep with her tonight.
If either of them ever get up off the couch, that is.
For now, Kanade’s just going to slip away and let her family have their quiet time.
I’m on your side.
Even…
…
Goodness, Yoshiko, even when it hurts. Even when it kills me.
Yoshiko calls Mafuyu by his name for the first time ten-and-a-half months after the separation.
Kanade blinks. There’s no way she just heard that correctly. Did she…?
No…
“I’m sorry?” Kanade asks, unwilling to move an inch. Yoshiko clears her throat, looks away, scuffs the carpet with her foot, and then looks back.
“I—um—asked,” she says quietly, holding her hands behind her back, “what time Mafuyu was coming home?”
“Okay,” Kanade breathes slowly. “That’s what I thought you said.”
Yoshiko suddenly won’t meet her eyes. In fact, she won’t even look at her.
But she stands her ground, as anxious as she is. Maybe it’s not so much her trying to make a statement as it is just another thing that has to happen.
Kanade can’t blame her daughter. She’s trying her best.
“Are you mad at me?” Yoshiko asks. She keeps her eyes carefully trained on the floor.
“No, sweetie,” Kanade assures gently. There’s never been room in her heart for anger. “I could never be mad at you. I have never been mad at you, ever in my life. Do you want to talk about it?”
Yoshiko glances up at her, then looks back down. “Not really.”
“That’s okay, sweetie.” Kanade really wants to cry right now, but she isn’t going to. Her daughter is just trying her best to live her life. “You can call him ‘Mafuyu’ if it makes you feel better. Or more comfortable. That’s perfectly fine, you know he won’t mind.”
Yoshiko nods. “I know.”
Kanade relaxes in her chair, holding herself back from anxiously tugging at her hair. Her daughter doesn’t need to see her fall apart right now. She can play her part a little longer.
The clock in the living room stopped working last week. Kanade stopped keeping track of the hours.
She doesn’t know how much longer Mafuyu’s shift is.
“Uh, I think your mother is working late tonight,” Kanade offers. She manages a shaky smile, and hopes it looks better than it feels. “His coworker is still on vacation, I think. Maybe around eleven?”
“Oh, okay,” Yoshiko nods, finally looking up. She seems worried, a frown playing at her lips. “Um, Mama?”
Kanade tilts her head. “Yes, sweetie?”
“It’s ten already. Um, were we waiting for Mafuyu, or…?”
What?
No, that can’t be right. Kanade just looked up a little bit ago, and the sun was still out. It was barely into the afternoon, wasn’t it?
The only thing shining through the window is darkness. It really is that late already.
Huh…
…
…
Kanade jolts.
“Oh my god!” she cries. She turns to her daughter, panic flooding through her. “Yoshiko, have you eaten?!”
Her daughter startles. “I—no, I—” she stutters. “Just some snacks? I wasn’t sure if—”
“Shit,” Kanade swears. “Holy shit, sweetie, I didn’t feed you tonight?!”
Yoshiko looks like she’s on the verge of tears.
Calm down, Kanade. Calm down. Now. Calm down, you have to calm down. Stop scaring her.
Kanade hasn’t sworn in a long time. She’s never been the type to, especially not in front of any of her children. There’s no doubt that her swearing twice in quick succession probably just shook her daughter to her core.
“It’s okay, Mama K,” Yoshiko says quickly. “I didn’t mean—just—I would’ve asked earlier if I was hungry.”
Kanade feels like she’s been halfway ripped out of her body. Like nothing around her is quite real, like she’s in a dream and on the verge of waking up.
She stands.
“Come here, sweetie,” she says gently, walking to the kitchen. She already prepped dinner earlier in the day. So why didn’t she make it? “Let’s get you something to eat, okay?”
“Oh, uh, sure?” It sounds more like a question than a response, but at least she follows behind Kanade closely. “Are you okay, mom?”
Kanade digs through the fridge, pulling out everything she chopped, sliced, and prepared earlier. She's starting to notice a terrifying pattern in her recent behavior. She isn’t sure if she should lie about it.
“Do you want my honest answer, sweetie?” Kanade asks back. Yoshiko pauses, standing halfway under the archway and worrying her lip between her teeth.
Kanade puts every ounce of her being into making this dinner as fast as possible. She’s never just forgotten before.
But she has seen it happen before, because it’s exactly what happened to her dad shortly before he collapsed. She can’t leave her daughter behind. Not like that. She can’t.
“Yes,” Yoshiko decides. She sounds firm, almost protective.
She sounds like Mafuyu.
“I’m horrified,” Kanade replies truthfully. “I don’t know if I’m still just adjusting to all these changes, or if I have a serious condition that needs medical attention. I’m going to have a long talk with Mafuyu when he gets home, because he needs to know that I somehow forgot to feed our daughter dinner. I’ve been doing that most days for fifteen years, sweetie. You don’t just ‘forget’ to do something like that.”
Yoshiko nods along, following the thread. She’s a smart girl, and she’s not quite a child anymore. If she wants to know what any of her parents are thinking or feeling, she’s entitled to know.
Even if it sounds really, really bad on Kanade’s part.
Kanade keeps herself busy, willing her hands to stop shaking. She just needs to calm down. Her medical anxiety shouldn’t be this bad, anymore. She was supposed to get over it a long time ago.
She doesn’t have it in her to believe this was a fluke, but she can still convince herself that it will never happen again.
“Mama K,” Yoshiko calls gently, suddenly nearby. Kanade stops, turning to look at her daughter. Yoshiko smiles and steps right up next to her. “Let me help, okay?”
Kanade swallows down her tears. She lets out the terse breath she’s been holding. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like her heart is constricting in her throat anymore.
Yoshiko grabs the spoon out of Kanade’s limp grasp and gets to work. Kanade lets out a disbelieving huff.
She’s supposed to be the mother here, isn’t she?
“Thank you, sweetie,” Kanade hums. She flits over to her rack of seasonings, picking a few out and portioning them to throw into the pot. “I’m sorry if I scared you. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
“Mm-mm,” Yoshiko shakes her head. “I’m okay. Mafuyu and I are supposed to help you, you know. We’re…”
Yoshiko stops, her mouth straightening into a thin line. She smiles woefully and clears her throat.
“We’re supposed to be a family,” she says.
Kanade smiles gingerly.
As bad as things seem to get, they could always get worse. But Kanade tries not to dwell on that, because she still has her family here with her.
She can still see her wives and her children. She’s still with them, at least in the way that matters most.
Yoshiko turns her attention back to their dinner on the stove.
“You can call him Mafuyu,” Kanade says again, this time shoulder-to-shoulder with her daughter. “If it’s something you think will help, I’m always going to support it.”
Yoshiko nods. Kanade lowers the temperature on the burner while she waits for her daughter to collect her thoughts.
“I just need a little time,” she decides. Kanade nods in silent agreement. “I don’t know how to face him until I know what I want.”
“We know, sweetie.” Kanade is always going to wait. Forever, if she needs to. “It’s okay to run away when you need to. Just come back to us when you can, alright?”
Yoshiko looks up and smiles.
“Of course.”
…
…
…
The chains of the swing set are rusty.
Kanade can tell because they squeal every time she sways, and scream every time Yoshiko taps her feet together. The piercing sound doesn’t seem to bother either of them.
It’s starting to get late. The twilight is dimming into a quiet night.
“I guess now,” Kanade mumbles, gripping those rusty chains, “I’m just trying to figure out where to go from here.”
Yoshiko hums a quiet acknowledgement. Her fingers curl further into her skirt, the cloth bunching into her grasp.
She doesn’t say anything more.
“I need to apologize to you,” Kanade continues. She’s watching the final oranges in the sky begin to disappear behind the city skyline. “We put the weight of the world on your shoulders and then asked you what you wanted to do with it.”
Yoshiko hums again, looking down.
“You were barely fourteen years old, Yoshiko.” Kanade can’t figure it out. She can’t. “I don’t even remember what convinced me that was a good idea. It was the stupidest thing I ever did.”
Kanade laughs. It’s humorless, and silent.
“I wanted it too,” Yoshiko finally says, shaking her head softly. “I just—” her breath comes out shaky “—I just wanted everyone at school to stop laughing at me, stop shoving me around and calling me a freakchild because I was raised differently from them; because my family wasn’t ‘normal.’”
Kanade bows her head.
“But I just—!” Yoshiko throws her head back, grumbling something incomprehensible and stomping her foot. Kanade lets go of the chains, and folds her hands in her lap. “I don’t care about any of that, anymore! It wasn’t worth it!”
Kanade nods. It wasn’t, and they all know it. They’ve known it for so long.
But they keep playing pretend, because what even is their other option? Just ignore that there was ever an issue in the first place, and go back to how it was? Give up?
“I’m sorry,” Kanade says gently. She looks over at her daughter and reaches her hand out, palm up. Yoshiko meets her gaze, tears dripping down her cheeks, and then looks down to stare at her hand.
She takes it in her own, and grips tightly.
“It’s okay to cry,” Kanade whispers.
And Yoshiko cries.
“I wanna see my Mama Yuki!” she wails, one hand wiping futilely at her eyes while the other grips Kanade like she’s the only thing left in her world. “I want my Mama Amia back, and my Mama Enanan back! I don’t wanna do this anymore!”
“Oh, sweetie,” Kanade breathes. She sweeps herself up and bounds over to her daughter, wrapping her up in a hug so tight it might keep her own heart from breaking. “I’m so sorry.”
Yoshiko falls apart in her arms.
And that’s okay.
“I miss Aino and Reiji,” Yoshiko whimpers into Kanade’s shoulder. “I barely get to see them anymore.”
“I know, sweetie.” Kanade shuts her eyes tight and presses a hundred hushed kisses into her daughter’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”
Yoshiko shakes her head gingerly. “I’m sorry too.”
There’s no amount of apology that can change what’s already been done. Their lives changed the moment they made that decision together.
“It’s going to be okay,” Kanade promises. She wholeheartedly believes it. “We’ll bring our family back, okay?”
Yoshiko nods, sniffling.
“It won’t all be easy, but we can do it, sweetie.” Kanade swallows, wondering how the hell she’s going to explain this to Mafuyu. “Just let your Mama K handle it.”
Gosh, it won’t be easy.
But that’s never stopped Kanade before.
And someday in the future, maybe this will all seem like it was only ever just a bad dream.
One that—someday, I promise you this—we will have woken up from.
Mizuki is the one that opens the door.
“Hi, welcome in!” she sings happily, waving more guests inside. Kanade looks up just in time to see her wife open her eyes and take stock of who exactly is walking into their new home. Mizuki hums, a little disapprovingly, “Oh, honey, you can do better than that.”
Mr. Yamamura blinks, taken aback. “I’m sorry?” he says, more question than answer. Kanade laughs.
He’s in a rather simple looking outfit, just a loose button-up and some plain slacks. He looks about picture perfect for the most unassuming man Kanade’s ever seen, and she figures that’s probably what he’s going for. Mizuki, clearly, disapproves.
“You’re not even fitting into your shoulders in that shirt, hon,” Mizuki explains, shutting the door behind their final guests of the night and clicking her tongue. She turns to the stairs, peering up and shouting, “Ena, lovely, can you grab one of my business cards from our room?!” She looks at Mr. Yamamura again, nodding to herself. “And write Rui’s number on the back, would you?!”
“That guy creeps me out!” Ena calls back, her voice drifting down from upstairs. “I can’t believe I ever respected him for looking out for you!”
Mizuki laughs. “I know, lovely!”
Ena doesn’t respond, which means she’s bending over backward to complete Mizuki’s request. She always will, even if she has to groan, grumble, and complain the whole way through.
“Okay, so obviously I mostly work with women at my boutique,” Mizuki starts, splitting her attention between cajoling Mr. Yamamura and setting the dishes out on the table. “Rui’s learned a lot from me, though, ever since I worked for his troupe back in high school. So you’d be in great hands if you decide you want to do something about your style options.”
Kanade hears a collection of mutters from upstairs as Mizuki rants. From what she gathers, Ena found a card and then passed it off to Reiji on her way down the hallway. Reiji, distracted by his friends, handed it to Aino as she was stepping onto the landing. Aino found her way downstairs, and then quite literally flung it towards Mafuyu while she turned towards the living room. Mafuyu, busy bringing more ingredients to the kitchen, let Yoshiko take it from him.
Yoshiko hands her mother the card.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Mizuki says quickly without missing a single beat. She flicks the card between her fingers and presents it to the poor man on the other hand of her advertising. “Let him know Mizuki sent ya’, if you call. He’ll get you fitted with something striking for free, I promise you.”
Mr. Yamamura takes the business card from Mizuki, visibly at a loss for words. He’s clearly interested, maybe a little affronted, and probably not quite convinced. Kanade suddenly remembers the first time she met the man.
“Oh, you know his husband,” Kanade hums as she walks by. She smiles as his eyes light up, then turns her attention down. “Kaori, wonderful to see you again.”
“Ah, Mrs. Yoisaki,” Kaori greets, bowing quickly. Kanade laughs and pats her on the head, raising her up gently. “Thank you very much for having us.”
“Well you’ve met my Mama Amia now,” Yoshiko drawls, looking around. Kanade doesn’t miss the way Kaori clings to her daughter, equal parts ecstatic and overwhelmed. “You can come meet my Mama Enanan next, then.”
The two disappear into the home, the low roar of the household chatter swallowing their excited footsteps. Kanade smiles after them, wondering who else they’ll meet on their expedition through the party. They invited everyone they could, after all.
It’s not every day their family comes together again.
“Okay, love,” Kanade hums, tugging Mizuki down for a kiss. Her wife beams, taking her in her arms without a second thought. “Leave the poor man alone, now. We didn’t all come out of the womb as dazzling as you.”
“Well you sure did,” Mizuki laughs, nuzzling their noses together. Her lips taste like strawberries.
Kanade basks in the presence of her wife for a moment—she’s close and here and hers again—and then steps back to greet their guests. Both Mr. Yamamura and Mrs. Yamamura look shocked. Everyone always is with their family, though.
“This is my other wife, Shinonome Mizuki,” Kanade explains. Mrs. Yamamura gives her a look, wide-eyed. “We have a third wife, Shinonome Ena, but she’s probably too busy dealing with our daughters to greet you right now. You’ll see her around, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Yamamura sighs, rocking back on her feet.
“Well,” she huffs. “You sure do have a big family.”
Kanade laughs as loud as Mizuki does.
“We do,” Kanade agrees, nodding. “There are quite a few people here—family and friends both—so I’ll let you greet them yourselves if you bump into them.”
“Just try not to be too starstruck if you recognize anyone,” Mizuki winks. “That Rui guy’s last name is Tenma, after all.”
Mr. Yamamura chokes. Mizuki laughs harder.
“Oh, Yuuichi,” Mafuyu mumbles, appearing beside all of them like an apparition. He had taken a liking to Mr. Yamamura quickly after meeting him, and the two of them had become quick friends. “Welcome. Please be sure to enjoy yourself tonight, and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
Mafuyu, as perfect a host as ever, then immediately turns his attention to Mizuki. He opens his mouth to say something, but then his eyes sparkle and he gets lost in her beauty completely. Kanade is used to it by now—after all, she does the same thing sometimes.
It’s hard to focus when any of her wives are in the room, actually. Mizuki just has a certain special effect that seems to steal her breath completely.
Mafuyu shakes his head and steps forward to press a light kiss into Mizuki’s hair. Smiling gently, he asks, “Come help me with the flowers?”
“You don’t even have to ask, handsome,” Mizuki giggles. She extricates herself from Kanade and immediately latches onto Mafuyu’s arm. “Lead the way.”
The two of them disappear into their home, exchanging tiny little kisses as they do. They’re the perfect picture of simple domesticity, the exemplification of the ideal Kanade has been chasing all this time. She’s so, so happy that she gets to share in this feeling again.
“Oh my god,” Mr. Yamamura gasps. Kanade turns. “Is that Momoi Airi?”
Airi, hearing her name, perks up. She’s dressed down for the occasion, but her blouse is still Mizuki-brand. She’s not exactly unassuming in that outfit.
“In the flesh,” Airi hums, shoving her hands into her pockets and diverting course over to them. She shoots a smile Kanade’s way as she does, sharing a quick nod with her. “I don’t believe I’ve met you two before, have I? I know most of the extended family by now, but my God is it hard to keep track of all of us.”
Yeah, she can say that again. Barely a quarter of them could make it for the housewarming party tonight, and even still Kanade’s new home is just about packed.
It’s a good thing, to have so many people around to love and cherish.
“I—no—uh,” Mr. Yamamura stutters, still trying to shake his shock. If hearing the name ‘Tenma’ was one thing, seeing Momoi Airi must’ve struck straight to the bone. “Um, I think I pretty much grew up watching you, though.”
Kanade laughs.
“Sheesh, guy,” Airi grumbles, smiling and rolling her eyes. “You sure know how to make a girl feel old.”
“Ah, wait—no!” Mr. Yamamura stumbles, floundering. Airi laughs, lightly swatting his arm in a show of good faith.
“Relax, dude, I’m messing with you. It’s always great to meet a fan.” Airi’s fang pokes through her teeth, a trademarked disarming smile putting Mr. Yamamura and his wife at ease in an instant. “You’re basically family, anyway, if you’re here now. Nice to meet’cha.”
Whatever she might say next is lost to the void, as Shizuku appears from behind her and engulfs her in an instant.
“Airi-chan, you left me!” she cries, squeezing her tight.
“Ack, Shizuku!” Airi protests. She squirms in Shizuku’s arms, whatever protests she can muster falling on deaf ears.
“Oh my god, it’s Hinomori Shizuku,” Mrs. Yamamura breathes, starstruck. Technically her name is Momoi Shizuku—and has been for well over eighteen years—but somehow most people still don’t know that. It’s because it was never really publicized, even as hard as they all tried to push it.
Shizuku gasps, letting Airi go in an instant. “New family!” she exclaims, already dancing over to greet the newcomers. She pointedly raises her left hand in greeting, showing off her wedding ring. “It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Momoi Shizuku!”
Kanade smiles happily and leaves the newcomers to Airi and Shizuku. They’ll be in good hands, even if Shizuku can be a little excitable and Airi can be a little grumbly.
If anything, the Yamamura’s are about to experience the best possible treatment their family has to offer. And anyway, Kanade is needed elsewhere.
Well, probably not, actually.
She’s just sort of wandering, listening in on the conversations she hears as she passes. She had been talking to Ichika before she was distracted by the doorbell, but now she can see Ichika standing around talking with An. She seems excited, which means that she’s definitely talking about Miku.
An is humoring her, clearly no stranger to the ever-famous Hatsune Miku. Aino is sitting next to them, her book closed and her attention on Ichika. Kanade keeps walking.
Reiji and his friends are hanging around his Uncle Akito, obsessing over some of the old memorabilia he keeps on him. Traveling around the world as a famous street musician gave him some great stories to tell to the kids, after all. Reiji hangs onto every word, only taking his attention off of Akito to glance over at his infamous “classmate” every so often.
It feels like it’s been a long time coming, this levity. Their family has been through so much this past year, it’s almost too strange to be turning a new leaf.
They haven’t solved every problem yet. There’s still a lot of work to do, on themselves and on each other.
At the end of the day, they can’t change the world. But Kanade will be damned if she can’t try to make it a better place for her children to live in.
She takes all of one step into the kitchen before she’s assaulted.
“Nope, nuh uh,” Ena says disapprovingly, grabbing Kanade by the wrist without even taking her eyes off of the vegetables she’s dicing. “How’d you even get this far without anyone catching you, baby?”
Kanade blinks. Oh, right. She was banned from helping with dinner tonight.
“I’m not sure,” she admits. Her designated handler for the night hasn’t shown up in a while.
“Sis, you’re not doing your job!” Ena calls out through the house. There’s a crash somewhere a few rooms down or so. Kanade can guess what the ensuing scrambling sound is from.
Yuuki appears in the doorway a moment later, wide-eyed and panting. Kanade waves.
“Aw, crap,” Yuuki sighs, shaking her head sadly. “I swear you always seem to slip out when I least expect it, hon.”
Kanade shrugs. She hadn’t even realized she was anywhere near the kitchen. Or that she was walking that way. Also she forgot she wasn’t supposed to be helping tonight.
“Sorry,” she hums. Ena laughs and leaves her utensils where they are. Kanade finds herself being pulled into her wife’s side a moment later.
“It’s okay, love,” Ena assures gently. “Just let us do this for you at least once, alright?”
Kanade nods, leaning up on her tiptoes to press an apologetic kiss to Ena’s cheek. It seems to work wonders, if the alighting blush is anything to go off of.
Yoshiko leans over from where she’s standing at the stove. Kanade can’t help but admire her smile.
“We got this,” Yoshiko promises, “okay, Mama K? You taught me well enough to handle a little dinner.”
Kanade grins. She did.
“Okay, I gotta pass you over to Mafuyu,” Yuuki grumbles behind her. “I dunno how he does it, but he’s always the only one who can get you to sit still.”
That’s…probably true.
Well, that’s alright. Kanade wouldn’t mind spending a little time with Mafuyu.
For tonight, she can let herself forget about everything else. Because they’re together, and that’s all that matters.
It’s a nice day today.
Kanade can tell because her curtains had been flung open that morning by an overeager Mizuki, the morning sunlight waking Kanade in an instant. It took her a long time to get used to the uncomfortable feeling of sunlight after depriving herself of it for so long (for the second time in her life), but Mizuki’s been a saint at slowly bringing her back out into it.
Now it feels rather nice on her skin.
She used to keep her work station dark, so she could see the light of her computer screen better. She used to keep it dark because the sunlight wasn’t made for someone like her.
But it was. And Ena knows that for sure, because there’s a painting of Kanade basking in it hanging in their dining room.
Kanade isn’t sure she approves of seeing herself every time they sit down to eat, but she can’t deny that the piece itself is gorgeous. The white of her long hair seems to glow in the yellows and oranges of the sun shining down on her. It almost makes Kanade regret cutting it at the end of last year.
Mafuyu insists she looks nice with shorter hair. She chopped it all off because she stopped taking care of it (for the second time in her life), but she was neither happy nor sad to see it go. Mafuyu says it helps keep her neck cooler, so he doesn’t have to worry about her overheating as much.
Kanade’s hair isn’t quite short enough for anything like that, but Mafuyu likes to use it as an excuse anyway. They all know he really just wants to be able to kiss between her shoulder blades again.
All in all, life isn’t so bad.
Yoshiko’s going up a year again, this time with a friend she can trust. Kanade thinks they might be a little more than friends by now, but she has no room to judge. Her and Mafuyu slept in the same bed before they started dating, after all.
Aino’s started writing stories of her own, inspired by all the books she’s read. She won’t show any of it to them yet, but she insists that it’s just because she’s insecure about her skills. They all know what she’s really shy about is the fact that she’s writing fanfiction about that prince and princess from her favorite book series kissing each other.
Reiji’s been going through his own struggles as he grows closer to being a teenager. His sexuality was one thing, but now it seems like he doesn’t know how he wants to present himself. He’s been talking with his Uncle Akito and Uncle Toya a lot, which puts Kanade’s mind at ease. She doesn’t know the first thing about cool boy stuff.
So for now she’ll focus on this new piece of hers, unwritten but in progress. She’s been struggling with where she wants to take the harmony for an hour now.
There’s a light knock on her door. Kanade smiles.
“Come on in, sweetie!” she calls, swiveling in her chair. Slipping in from the hallway stands her daughter, one Yoisaki Yoshiko in the flesh. She seems a little nervous. Kanade just softens her eyes. “Need something from me?”
Yoshiko shrugs. “Well, I’ve been thinking,” she drawls, scuffing her foot against the carpet. “It’s been a while since I played anything, y’know? So I guess I was wondering…well…”
Kanade beams. She’s been waiting for this moment her whole life. Since the day she found out she was pregnant, she’s looked forward to these exact words.
Yoshiko takes a deep breath. “Could I write a song with you, mom?”
“Of course you can, sweetie.” Kanade pulls Yoshiko’s old synthesizer out from behind her own. It’s been left unused for over a year now, but she’s made sure to clean it regularly all this time. “How would you like to be a guest producer for Nightcord at 25:00’s newest single?”
Yoshiko smiles. “That sounds nice.”
Kanade scoots her bench over so the two of them can share it. Yoshiko sits next to her, too old to cuddle up but still young enough to brush shoulders. It’s just the two of them here—the sunlight beaming down around them.
Nightcord isn’t as prolific as they once were. They don’t release very much music nowadays, only dropping a single once or twice a year. But they still exist, and Kanade couldn’t be happier that her daughter will get to share in that joy, even just once.
Her first song release.
They title the piece “Child of Music.”
In the description, Kanade, Mafuyu, Ena, and Mizuki all write something.
We live lives of joy and sorrow,
Our feelings speak louder than our words,
Here we leave our creations of labor,
Crafted only with hands of love.
We dedicate to you now, our sweet child of music.
—
Written and composed with love by Yoisaki Yoshiko, our daughter.
The N25 family thanks you for listening.