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“Diana, she’s going to be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“For the millionth time, yes.”
“…But what if she isn’t?”
Akko groaned. This back-and-forth had been going on for a while. “You’re worrying too much.”
“Of course I am,” Diana sent her a sharp glare. “How else am I supposed to act after sending our four year old daughter out all on her own?”
Akko rolled her eyes. She thought she had done a good job at explaining how this whole thing worked. “You’re supposed to trust that she’s capable enough to complete a simple task.”
“Of course I think she’s capable.” Diana’s brow knitted together and the concern on her face deepened. “It’s just… she’s so little.”
“That’s the point! Teaching little kids about independence and responsibility is important. That’s why the first errand is a time-honored Japanese tradition!”
A hint of exasperation slipped into her voice, but it couldn’t be helped. It was only her third or fourth time repeating those exact words. For all the times she got told she should be more like Diana in school, she suddenly wanted to march back to Luna Nova and rub it into all her old professors' faces that even their star student refused to listen sometimes.
Diana frowned. “I understand that, and I respect the traditions of your culture, but you can’t tell me you aren’t the least bit worried.”
A short sigh escaped Akko’s lips, but she fixed a calm smile on her face and gave Diana her honest answer. “Well, yeah. But part of this exercise is having faith that Yumi knows what to do if there’s an emergency, and having faith in the people of this town to help her if they see something wrong. Yumi’s smart, so I believe in her. I’ve known the people in this town since I was born, so I also believe in them.”
“You and your believing heart,” Diana grumbled.
“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” Akko teased.
Diana cracked a brief smile that was gone as quickly as it came. She was silent for a moment before asking once again, “And you’re positive she’ll be fine? She won’t get lost?”
The apprehension was still present on her face, but Akko noted it was less severe than before. She considered that much a victory.
“No doubt. The middle school is just down the road and around a couple corners. I made sure she remembered the way.”
It was at the middle school that the objective of Yumi’s errand lied. The three of them were visiting Akko’s parents for the summer, but they had arrived early and there were still a few more days before school went on break. Her mother, a teacher who was often as impatient as her daughter, left the house that morning in a hurry, without stopping to remember her lunch.
Akko had just planned to go deliver it herself, but then Yumi asked if she could tag along. That was when it hit her that this was something her daughter could definitely do on her own.
It was too exciting of an opportunity to pass up. Her little girl was finally big enough to go on her first errand and what better place to do it than in Akko’s hometown? Sure, she had to do a lot of convincing in order to get Diana to go along with it, and even then, she was still being the biggest worrywart on the planet. But she knew Yumi could do this!
“Come on,” she put a hand on Diana’s shoulder. “Let’s go sit down. You look like a sad dog the way you’re staring out the window, waiting for her to come back.”
Diana reluctantly let herself be led away and once they were both seated on the couch, Akko issued a few last words of comfort.
“Just relax. Nothing’s gonna go wrong.”
“Akko, this is all wrong.”
“Just… just stay calm, okay, I’m sure everything’s fine.” But Akko’s words were barely convincing because even she was getting antsy now.
Yumi had been gone for too long. It didn’t make sense for her to be gone so long. With the short distance between their house and the middle school, it should have only taken about twenty minutes for Yumi to get there and back. But they were closing in on almost forty-five minutes, and their daughter still hadn’t returned.
“If everything were fine, surely Yumi would be back by now,” Diana argued, pacing back and forth through the living room. Akko followed suit.
“I mean—okay, I’m not gonna say she’s lost, but if she’s anything like me, maybe she just got a little… sidetracked?”
“Getting sidetracked just leads to getting lost! What are we going to do? What if she’s all alone?”
“Don’t panic. There’s a park near the middle school, maybe she just stopped to play. Yeah, that sounds like something she’d do.”
“But we told her to go straight to the school and come straight back home.”
“Diana, you know as well as I do that when the Kagari genes take over, rules become mere suggestions.”
“Please spare me your jokes Akko, we need to find our daughter.”
“Okay. Okay, uh… oh! I’ll call my mom! She can tell us if she’s seen Yumi!”
Akko fished her cellphone out of her pocket and hastily unlocked it to pull up her contacts list. She found her mother’s name and hit call. She and Diana waited with baited breath as the phone began to dial—
Only for the familiar, muffled tune of her mother’s ringtone to fill the air. Their heads snapped in the direction the music was coming from and Akko shot forward in disbelief to pull her mother’s phone from where it was lodged between the very couch cushions they had just been sitting on.
“She forgot her lunch and her phone?” Sometimes Akko’s parents were a little too similar to her for her liking. She turned back to Diana who looked like she wanted to faint.
“What do we do now? We don’t know where Yumi is, we can’t call your mother. We—we have to go search for her!”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Akko swallowed. There was no use trying to argue when it seemed they had no other options.
Together they rushed for the genkan to grab their shoes and quickly pull them on. It was Diana who finished just a split second before Akko, in which she grabbed the handle to the front door and swung it open…
Only to be met with two individuals on the other side. The first was Mrs. Kagari, who startled backwards upon seeing them appear so suddenly. The second, who had one hand clasped in her grandmother’s while the other held a lollipop inside her mouth, was none other than—
“Yumi!”
Akko and Diana came pouring out of the front door to descend upon their daughter as if it had been a lifetime since they last saw her. She peered up at them, entirely unphased, as if recognizing the utter turmoil her mothers had been through came second to enjoying a piece of candy.
“There you are,” Akko let out a heavy sigh of relief while Diana placed her hands on Yumi’s shoulders and surveyed every inch of her to make sure she was alright.
Yumi pulled the lollipop from her mouth and her face broke into a giant, carefree smile. “Hi Mummy. Hi Kaa-chan.”
“Yes, hi, my love,” Diana said weakly, then as calmly as she could, demanded, “Where have you been?”
“I gave Baba her bento!” Yumi chirped.
“Well… yeah,” Akko mumbled. “But you were gone for so long.” She looked to her mother for answers.
Mrs. Kagari gave them a sheepish smile. “Ah, yes. Well, she did come to the school to deliver my bento, but got a little lost it seems. Some students found her wandering around and helped her find me. But by then, it was already lunch time and I figured she must be hungry, so I didn’t want to send her off without eating. Then after we finished, I still had some time before lunch was over, so I thought I’d walk her home to make sure she didn’t get lost again. Although, she did ask to stop by the konbini and after her hard work, I thought she deserved a little treat,” she beamed, peering down at Yumi with the purest form of heart eyes Akko had ever seen.
She raised an eyebrow. She certainly never got spoiled like that as a kid.
“Right,” Akko said dryly. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Sorry, I would have called, but it seems I—”
“Forgot your phone? Yeah, we noticed. It’s on the couch,” Akko gestured her head inside.
“Oh, good! I thought I lost it.” Mrs. Kagari let go of Yumi’s hand and walked past them into the house to retrieve her phone.
Now alone with their daughter, Diana and Akko exchanged a glance and simultaneously, their bodies relaxed.
“Well,” Akko’s lips tugged into a smile, “I guess I was right when I said everything was fine. And that you could trust people to help Yumi if they saw anything wrong.”
“Hmph.” Diana straightened up. “And I was right to worry at least a little.”
“Yeah, a little,” Akko snorted. She turned back to Yumi. “Anyway! Did you enjoy your first errand, sweetie?”
“Yeah!” Yumi bounced on the balls of her feet. “I did it all by myself ‘cause I’m big and ‘responserble’ now!”
Diana chuckled and reached down to smooth her hair. “I suppose you are.”
“Oh?” Akko tilted her head. “So I guess you won’t mind her doing more little errands on her own then?”
Diana met her gaze with a strained expression. “I...suppose I will try to worry less if she does.” She paused and then added, “But maybe we can hold off a little before sending her on her next one.”
Akko figured that was a compromise she was willing to make. After all, she didn’t want Yumi to get too big and responsible just yet. “Deal.”