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It was lying. It had to be. But it couldn’t be. Not after three tries. Who ever heard of three false positives in a row?
Kyoko stared at the two little lines that meant she had life growing inside of her, which was ironic since she suddenly felt devoid of any life at all. She probably should have been crying, but she felt empty, like there were no tears to cry in the first place. The last time she had felt like this was when her own mother had denied her existence, and now, Kyoko felt like she would have to do the same thing. How could this have happened? She had been so careful… It didn’t matter. She would just have to get rid of it. She would have to. She couldn’t put a child through having her as a mother. She had no other choice.
In the distance, somewhere in the back of her brain, she heard the front door open. “Kyoko, I’m home!” She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. “Kyoko?” She had to throw the test away. Ren shouldn’t know. He couldn’t know. He wouldn’t-
“Kyoko?” Ren’s huge form filled the doorway. “Hey, what are you doing sitting in the dark? Are you ok?” And it was the concern in his words, the worry in his eyes as he looked at her that finally broke the dam. She let out a single sob, then another and another until she was nearly curled in on herself. “Kyoko, what-” and he saw it, the tiny strip in her hand, and he knew what it must mean. And he knew exactly why Kyoko was now shaking on their bed, arms wrapped around herself.
Through the sounds of her sobs, Ren began to pick out words. “Ren, I can’t.” She took a big, shaky breath before relapsing into more tears. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do this.” Without bothering to turn on the light, Ren crossed the room to sit next to the woman he loved so much. He took her in his arms and tucked her head under his chin and held her there, just like he had done the last time she had been like this, back before she ever would have let him comfort her just as Ren. She tried to squeeze out more words between the sobs: “I can’t- be- a mom. Can’t. Not enough- love. Ren- I’m scared.”
“Shhh,” Ren rubbed her back and kissed the top of her auburn head, doing his best to relax her. “We can talk after you’ve calmed down a bit. For now, just let it out. I’m here for you.” And that’s what she did.
It was a while before Kyoko managed to calm her sobs into shaky breaths and hiccups. Ren gently pulled away enough to look at her. He carefully wiped the tears from her cheeks and kissed her on the forehead. “Better now?” She nodded. “Ok.” They both sighed, chests rising and falling in unison. She may be calm, but they still had to talk about this. “Kyoko?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to keep it?” In his arms, Ren could feel her begin to tremble again, and she returned to being curled up into his chest.
“I can’t.”
“Shhh.” He rubbed her back until her sobs subsided again. “That’s not what I asked, Kyoko. I asked if you wanted to keep it.” He looked down at her again, and he could see it in her eyes. A war going on, her absolute terror battling with… something else.
“You know I can’t be a mom, Ren. You know that.”
“Why?”
The question caught Kyoko off guard. She pulled away a bit. Why? “You know why. You know better than anyone.”
Ren pulled her closer again, setting the small frame in his lap and burying his face in her soft hair. His long fingers played with her petite ones, his thumb rubbing comforting circles on the back of her hand. “Tell me.”
Kyoko didn’t know what he was getting at, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead, she allowed herself to relax back into Ren’s chest, closing her eyes and taking deep, calming breaths. They both stayed there for a minute or two, doing nothing but breathing together, Ren continuing to rub her hand. The little light from the sunset that had been coming through the window had disappeared and the room was black but for the orange streetlights way down on the ground outside.
“I don’t know how to love, Ren.” Her words were barely above a whisper, her voice slightly hoarse from crying. “Especially a child. I just don’t know how. I don’t think I’m capable anymore. I just,” she sighed, leaning further into Ren, “I can’t.”
Ren thought that over for a bit. Of course he knew that she believed this. She was Love Me Member #1, after all. Even after she had graduated, there were parts of herself that she couldn’t believe in. It crushed Ren to see her like this, especially when he knew how capable she really was.
“Kyoko?” Ren turned his fiance to look at him. Their faces were barely visible in the city’s glow, but they could see into each other’s eyes and that’s all that mattered in that moment. “Kyoko, how do you feel about Maria?”
There was a sniff. “What?”
“Maria. How do you feel about her?”
“What does that have to do with-”
“Kyoko,” In the dark, Ren squeezed her hand. “Do you trust me?” There was a pause, then Ren felt Kyoko sit back down and nod against his chest. “Ok, then tell me, how do you feel about Maria?”
There was more silence. Kyoko didn’t know how to respond or what on Earth had brought up Maria. She thought back to the day before when she had had lunch with the young girl. She was eleven now, almost twelve. She would be starting middle school in the spring. She had matured so much from when Kyoko had first met her, and it made her heart warm with pride and… something else. “I’m proud of her,” Kyoko said into the dark. “And I’m happy when I get to spend time with her and see her grow up.”
Ren held Kyoko just a bit tighter to his chest. “Do you care about her?”
Kyoko looked up at him. “What is this about? Are you jealous or something?”
Ren let out a warm, hearty laugh and Kyoko relished the feeling of it against his chest. “Maybe sometimes, but that’s not what this is about. You care about her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I care about her very much.”
“And you enjoy spending time with her? And you’re happy when she’s happy?”
“Yes…” Kyoko still had no idea what Ren was on about, but she had agreed to trust him, so she didn’t question him again. At least, not yet.
“What about Moko-san?”
“Moko-san? I thought we were talking about Maria.”
Ren brought his hand up to her hair and started playing with the ends where it started to curl just a little bit. “And now we’re talking about Moko-san. Do you feel the same way about her? That you care about her and are happy when she’s happy? Is she the same way?”
Kyoko shook her head a bit in an attempt to clear it. “I… I suppose so, yes. I feel all those things for Moko-san too.”
“What about President? Or Okami-san and Boss? What about Mom and Dad?”
Kyoko crawled out of Ren’s lap to turn on the bedside lamp. The soft yellow light made the room glow and Ren’s eyes shine. “Ren, what are you talking about?”
There was a small smile on his lips, and it seemed to make his eyes shine a bit brighter. “What about me, Kyoko? Do you feel that way about me too?”
“What? Of course I do, Ren. You already know that. I love you.” Ren’s smile grew as he slowly nodded. Kyoko looked at him for a minute, puzzled. Then it clicked, and her eyes widened. “Wait, you mean I…”
“Come here.” She crawled back across the bed to kneel in front of the huge man that she, admittedly, did love quite a bit. “It’s ok, they all know that you love them already. They don’t need you to say it. And they all love you too. But Kyoko, you have so much more love in you than you think you do. You just didn’t know what to call it.” His smile was sympathetic as he softly rubbed her still pink cheek. “And love is all you really need to be a mom. Now, I don’t want you to do something that you really don’t want to do, but I also don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity because you don’t think you’re capable of it.” He wiped a fresh tear from her cheek as she leaned her face into his large hand. “And if it’s all the same, I’ve always thought you would be a fantastic mom.”
“But,” she let out a long sniff, “but what if I mess up? What if I ruin this kid’s life?”
Ren opened his arms and Kyoko, recognizing the invitation, jumped on Ren in a bear hug, both giggling like kids and flopping back on the enormous bed. “Well, a couple of things,” he said, ruffling her hair. “I can promise that you will mess up, because everyone messes up, but I also promise that you will not ruin anyone’s life by being in it. It’s just not possible.” Kyoko looked up at him with doubt in her eyes. “It’s not. I speak from personal experience. And even when you do mess up, you won’t be alone. I don’t know if you know this, but I will also have some responsibility in the raising of the kid. Unless there’s something you wanna tell me.” This prompted a swat in the arm. “That’s what I thought. And you have everyone else we just talked about. Do you really think that this kid won’t be smothered in love by everyone who loves us too?” Ren pulled Kyoko close and punctuated each of his next words with a kiss. “This,” head, “kid,” forehead, “will,” cheek, “be,” nose, “so,” cheek, “lucky.” And he kissed her on the lips, softly and lovingly, hoping that this way, he could convince her that it really would all be ok. He felt a tear on his cheek and pulled away to see that Kyoko was crying again, but she was smiling.
“Promise?”
He kissed her again, a little harder this time. And into the inch of air between them, he whispered, “Cross my heart.”
And they stayed there, foreheads together and noses just touching, breathing slowly and enjoying the feeling of being together in that moment, of being mutually content.
Kyoko broke the silence. “We should tell Yashiro-san.”
“We can tell him in the morning. For now, I just want to be here with you and enjoy being happy.” And he squeezed her tight to his chest, arms wrapped around her waist. She looked up to see that, for the first time that night, it was Ren who had a tear in his eye, not her. While she was so terrified of being a parent, of bringing a kid into this crazy world, she hadn’t stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, this was exactly what Ren had been hoping for. She smiled and kissed the underside of his jaw, making him kiss her back, his breath tickling her ear, and her breath his.
“You’re gonna be a great Dad,” she whispered.