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“You guys know I’m not always gonna be able to do this whole babysitter thing, right?” Natsuki asked skeptically, an eyebrow raised as she stared down at the stroller. “This won’t be… like… a regular thing?”
“No!” Sayori shook her head fervently. She pressed a hand to her forehead as an apologetic look spread across her face. “No, I promise, it’s just— it’s an emergency, I’m really sorry.”
Stepping closer, Natsuki peered down into the bundle of blankets. There might’ve been a kid in there if she squinted really hard. Jeez. Sayori had always had baby fever even as a teen, so it made sense that she and Monika would be the first of the group to become parents. But Natsuki? Nah. Her babies were upstairs safe and sound on a bookshelf, periodically dusted and rotated to avoid page warping.
With a final slew of frantic ‘sorry’ s, Sayori hurried off to her car, leaving Natsuki with the kid. She wasn’t entirely sure what the situation was, just that Sayori had to drop off the baby—Lilly, she had a name believe it or not—while she rushed off to pick Monika up from work. Something along those lines. There weren’t a whole lot of details to work off of, but this wasn’t a game of fucking Clue so she didn’t have a reason to play detective.
“Just you and me, huh?” Natsuki quipped hesitantly, pushing the stroller down the hall to her apartment. She wasn’t exactly equipped to handle a baby, but it wasn’t like the thing was going to be moving in. So in other words, the lack of baby-proofing and bubble wrap was probably fine.
Natsuki frowned. She was supposed to be a responsible adult, and she probably shouldn’t refer to a human being as an object.
“Uh…” She squatted down to what she assumed was ‘eye level’. “I’m Nat. We’ve met before.”
Holy crap, she didn’t know how to talk to this thing! Natsuki looked closer. As it turned out, the baby wasn’t even awake, so she’d essentially been talking to a rock.
“Aaand I’m already garbage at this.”
In response, Lilly wriggled around in her moon-patterned blankets and yawned widely. Unfortunately, the motion seemed to be a little bit much for her tiny body to handle and she woke herself up. Damn it— weren’t babies supposed to be hard to get back to sleep?
Natsuki scrambled to stand up. She was fully prepared to sprint to her room to avoid the piercing screams she’d heard horror stories about, but something in her heart told her that she, a whole grown-ass woman, probably shouldn’t abandon a five-month-old. This feeling was unfamiliar to her; it was in fact, common sense.
“You’re quiet, huh?” Natsuki moved closer to the lip of the stroller, taking tentative steps like the baby could at any time launch itself out and attack her. Think: Walking through tall grass in Pokémon.
Now that Lilly was awake and squirming heartily, Natsuki could get a good look at her. Instead of seeing a blob in a blanket, she saw an actual person. Well, what would eventually be a person. She had these giant green eyes exactly like Monika’s and round chubby cheeks, as well as the aura of spunk and enthusiasm that could only have been inherited from Sayori. She seemed intrigued by the room around her, eyes darting around curiously.
“You want to… uh, get a better look at my digs?” Natsuki asked awkwardly, still unclear on the ‘talking to baby’ protocol. Are you supposed to talk to them like they’re an adult? Lilly interrupted her train of thought and made a gurgling noise in response to her suggestion, so Natsuki decided that that meant ‘yes’. “You got it, kid.”
Alright, this was going to be harder than she had anticipated. Natsuki inspected the stroller, walking in circles around it as she debated how to approach taking Lilly out of it. To her, it looked like one of Yuri’s super complex poems that took a hundred years to decipher. There was no real answer!
She reached toward it, paused, then retracted her hand once more. Jesus, Sayori chose a crummy babysitter. And what happened when she picked her up? Support the butt, right? Something like that… Natsuki wished dearly that she listened closer to when Sayori and Monika had first explained how to hold these things.
“Fuck,” Natsuki muttered, almost instantly clapping a hand over her mouth as her eyes widened. “Don’t say that. Or… I mean, you can say it around me,” she said contemplatively, finally getting the nerve to just go for it and grab the baby. “Just don’t say it around your parents.”
Okay. Success, baby in hands. The eagle landed.
The moment Lilly settled in her arms, Natsuki practically teleported to the couch. Nope, she wasn’t about to risk an airborne child. Not when she’d be sentenced to a fate worse than death by her dearest friends in the world.
God, where was Yuri when she needed her? Natsuki rocked Lilly experimentally as she mentally willed Yuri to come home faster. She had a tough job at a lab somewhere in a neighboring city, which meant her commute was slightly longer than average. It also meant that Natsuki was on her own for the foreseeable future.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Natsuki exclaimed, spotting the remote control wedged in the couch cushions beside her. She flicked on the television, cautious not to jostle too much in the process. “We’re going to watch the movie adaptation of Parfait Girls. How does that sound? I know, it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard.”
“Gugh.”
“Gugh?” Natsuki echoed, squinting at Lilly. “So you’re a critic, huh squirt? I’ll change your mind. Give it a few episodes.”
For the first thirty minutes, all was well. The theme song alone helped Natsuki ease up slightly despite the stressful situation she’d been thrust into. Actually, as the movie progressed, she found herself falling into a comfortable rhythm of rocking Lilly back and forth, one hand supporting her head and the other keeping her securely in place. It was nice.
Then Lilly looked up at her with a sweet, adoring smile— it almost made Natsuki question her stance on kids. And then, she promptly puked on her shoulder.
“You little…” Natsuki grit her teeth, forcing herself to take a step back and not overreact.
She wanted to call her a ‘little motherfucker’, but she would rather not risk one of those unfortunate situations where a baby started cussing up a storm as its first words (as awesome as that would’ve been). Could you imagine that mini Sayori-and-Monika sitting up in her crib and spouting Natsuki’s colorful language? Sounded like a goddamn dream.
Grumbling, Natsuki deposited Lilly carefully back into the stroller and trudged to the sink. Actually no, scratch that, the whole shirt was going in the laundry, there was no amount of soapy water that could protect her hands from… the goop. Natsuki tugged her shirt off over her head and tossed it in the hamper on her way down the hall to scour for a new one.
Her cute shirts were out of the question. It seemed dumb to wear something she cared about considering the pipsqueak was a living geyser. Who knew when it would get fired up again? Those things were not predictable! At all! So of course, Natsuki settled on one of Yuri’s old t-shirts. Shh— don’t tell her.
“Alright, so I didn’t change your mind about the Girls,” Natsuki conceded once back in the living room. “How about I show you my room instead? It’s pretty coo-ool…”
“Buh-buh-buh.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
Natsuki picked up Lilly for the second time with slightly more confidence in her abilities and held her so that she was pressed up against her chest rather than cradled in her arms. Before she trekked back to her room though, she snatched a dish towel to put beneath Lilly’s mouth. She was not about to be puke-ified again.
Pushing the door open, Natsuki pretended that she was marketing her bedroom. Well, her and Yuri’s bedroom.
“Alright, so what we’ve got here is a lovely honeymoon suite, complete with a spiffy queen size bed—okay, it’s a full, but same dif—and a half-bath. Hundreds of thousands of square footage as you can see, and it can all be yours for the low, low price of eight hundred and thirty-six trillion yen. Additional fees may occur.” Natsuki gestured grandly to the bed, which was chock full of pillows and the occasional plushie.
It… was hitting Natsuki all of a sudden, that she was falling behind. While Monika and Sayori lived in a cozy house with a baby down the hall and stylish interior decorations, she still had plushies and anime figures lining her shelf. Yuri was honestly not much better with her small collection of video game statues and consoles, but it made her wonder; did Yuri wish she were more… adult? Someone who acted more her age?
“Uh, right— the tour!” Natsuki blinked, readjusting her grip on Lilly, who had been looking at her in confusion. If a baby could do that. “We have here my… figures… then over here, these are all my books.” She walked over to the shelf that was chock full of manga, half credited to Yuri for being such an avid enabler of her obsession. She pointed at a pink spine. “See, this is Parfait Girls, the movie we were watching when you friggin’ hurled on me.”
“Ghug,” Lilly bubbled, which Natsuki assumed to mean ‘I’m so deeply sorry, my favorite aunt in the whole wide world, to have so flagrantly disgraced you. I shall never vom on your excellent choice of clothing ever again. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’
But now that Natsuki saw how childish her contributions to the room looked, it was really bothering her. The worry had wriggled into her mind, firmly planted in a place where she could not remove it. It played like a loop over and over. Not good enough, not good enough. Yuri probably wanted someone mature. Maybe she was waiting for Natsuki to change the whole time they’d been together.
“You probably think I’m a pretty lame grown-up,” Natsuki sighed, sinking onto the full-size bed and shifting Lilly back into the crook of her elbow. Her tiny fists reached up in a stretch as she yawned again, though she didn’t seem to be falling asleep quite yet. Natsuki just shook her head and smiled bittersweetly. “You’re probably more mature than me. I can’t believe I didn’t see how… Ugh, god, I sound so dumb talking to you like you understand.”
Really, the only person Natsuki could’ve talked to properly about her concerns was Yuri. And of course, Yuri was somewhere off doing her adult things at a cool, fancy lab. Natsuki… was a manga artist with a handful of published works that hadn’t quite taken off as well as she would’ve liked. Even though Yuri had been nothing but supportive, she was beginning to wonder if she would ever be successful at all.
Glancing toward the bedside table closest to her, Natsuki found a scrap of doodles sitting beneath a coaster. It wasn’t her bedside table, but Yuri’s. Of course Yuri would keep something as dumb and insignificant as a scrapped character design sheet. It wasn’t even finalized.
“Yuri loves me too much,” Natsuki decided, a statement of fact, looking down at the baby. “She supports my stupid dreams, like they’ll ever go anywhere. You got a lotta people like that in your life, you know. Monika and Sayori— I mean, uh, your parents… jeez, that’s still weird to say… they both care about everything like their lives depend on it. I guess that makes me the odd one out.”
Lilly gurgled again, this time without the punctuation of blowing chunks. She wiggled a little, closer to Natsuki.
“Yeah, yeah, of course you inherited their whole ‘comforting’ thing. I… appreciate it.”
The fears about not being mature enough were slowly starting to subside the longer Natsuki focused more on Yuri rather than the fictional version of Yuri in her head. Real Yuri bought ten copies of the small manga that Natsuki had got properly published. Fictional Yuri started a dumpster fire with all of her doodles and plushies.
Focus on real Yuri, Natsuki repeated to herself. The woman who went from hating manga to buying ten at once simply because it was by her.
Honestly, even back in the days of the literature club, Natsuki had been worried about Yuri’s perception of her. Heh… figured that they’d end up together. And since then, or at least since they’d first started dating, Yuri had done everything to prove that she loved Natsuki regardless of her interests. Sure the ‘manga is literature’ debate had been sort of a rocky patch, but looking back it was just silly squabbling between two hopelessly head-over-heels schoolgirls.
“You’re gonna go far, kid,” Natsuki said. “There’s so much love and— and stuff in your life, or whatever. Nobody has ever been set up for success as much as you. If you’re half as smart as Monika, you might even be president someday. Can’t promise you’ll be good at giving public speeches though, so campaigning might be tough.”
She had no fucking clue how talking to a baby was helping her work through her buried anxieties, but hey, if it works. Jesus, all of the emotional stuff was making her tired though… and judging by the way Lilly’s eyelids were periodically bobbing up and down and her head lolled forward slightly, she was also getting tuckered out.
“Well, back to your royal chariot, pipsqueak.” Natsuki stood up with a grunt that reminded her so much of a middle-aged man that she physically cringed. She was in her late twenties, not her late seventies. Crap, this kid was aging her.
Once back in the living room, Natsuki found that she wasn’t quite ready to put Lilly back in the stroller. It wasn’t like she saw her every day after all, and something about the weight of her in her arms was steadying. It made Natsuki feel like she had a purpose. She was oddly protective over the same baby who destroyed a perfectly good t-shirt just an hour before.
Natsuki laid down on the couch with her head propped up against the arm, holding Lilly against her heartbeat. She’d just rest her eyes for a little while.
“Darling, I’m…” Yuri paused in the doorway, a hand still resting on the doorknob. “...home?”
She tilted her head slightly toward the empty stroller sitting in the middle of the floor, then her gaze drifted to the couch where Natsuki was sound asleep. And… wearing her shirt and a plaid dish rag…? Yuri decided to ignore it in favor of turning her attention to Lilly. She on the other hand was wide awake, giggling like crazy and playing with fistfuls of pink hair as happily as could be.
“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Yuri cooed, smiling softly. Carefully, she scooped Lilly up, bringing her back over to the stroller. She had a hunch that either Sayori or Monika would be arriving shortly to collect her…
With nothing to hold onto, Natsuki’s face scrunched up and she rolled onto her side so that she was pressed against the back of the couch. Her cheeks squished against the leather and the rag on her shoulder fell to the ground.
Yuri stepped away from the stroller and toward Natsuki, admiring her sleeping form. She’d always looked so beautiful while she slept. While she was still gorgeous while awake, it was nice to see her so calm and peaceful. Even if it was slightly unfortunate that it only occurred when she was unconscious. She quickly folded the dishtowel and placed it on the arm of the couch.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Yuri greeted, rubbing Natsuki’s shoulder to wake her up. Generally, it would’ve involved a lot of grumbling and huffing—or the occasional flurry of swearing—but this time there thankfully weren’t any theatrics.
Natsuki propped herself up on her elbows groggily, struggling to get her eyes to stay open. When she reached to secure her grip on the bundle of blankets on her chest, her fingertips found nothing but empty space. She blinked and sat bolt upright, a surge of panic shooting through her.
“Lilly is in her stroller,” Yuri reassured her, looking amused at Natsuki’s panic. Rude.
“Lilly is a gremlin,” Natsuki replied flatly, flopping back down into the pillows. “Hey, why are you home so early anyway? Not that I’m complaining.” As if she had something to prove, Natsuki puckered her lips up and grinned when Yuri granted her a lingering smooch.
Yuri gave Natsuki a puzzled expression as she made space to sit beside her on the couch. She pointed to the clock on the opposite wall— and holy fuck, Natsuki had been sleeping for so fucking long! “I’m not. In fact, I’m a bit late… When I called, you didn’t pick up, so I assumed that you were hard at work on another project of yours.” Yuri smiled teasingly, glancing momentarily to where Lilly was playing with her blankets. “Clearly I was mistaken.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“Natsuki?”
“Hm?” Natsuki turned toward Yuri, confused by the sudden tone shift. Something seemed to be bothering her all of a sudden.
Yuri’s eyebrows furrowed momentarily. “I… thought something might be on your mind. You seem fidgety, so I, ah… thought I’d ask before I let it slip my mind.”
Of course, the thing that was bothering Yuri was Natsuki. Typical. But it was true, Natsuki had been toying with the zipper on the flimsy throw pillow she was napping on moments ago. Ugh. Look, maybe the ‘immaturity thing’ was still a little bit bugging her, and maybe Yuri mentioning her ‘projects’ made her think about it again. Whatever!
“Um…” Natsuki trailed off. She usually took longer to get to the point, a true connoisseur of beating around the bush as it would be, but she was too exhausted from her babysitting gig to care enough to dawdle. Truly, Monika and Sayori must’ve been superheroes. “Do you think— Am I too childish?”
“No, of course not.” Yuri seemed appalled at the thought alone. She took Natsuki’s hand without even looking at it, focusing instead on staring intently at Natsuki with the passion and sincerity that she’d become very familiar with. “I know in the past we’ve had trivial arguments over things of the sort, but you should know that I’ve grown up since then. What’s got you thinking about this again after so long?”
Gnawing a chunk out of her bottom lip, Natsuki shrugged. It was the cop-outtiest cop-out to ever cop. Before she could even attempt to answer, Lilly began to fuss. Natsuki was extremely grateful that Yuri was the one to go get her.
“Shh, it’s alright…” Yuri rocked Lilly softly, supporting her in all the right places because she probably remembered all the right things to do. She was probably much better at all of that stuff than Natsuki would ever be. “When was she last fed?”
“Huh?”
Yuri gestured to the bag hanging off of the stroller’s handle, which Natsuki hadn’t even noticed until that exact moment. “Infants of this age need to be given a bottle around every three hours.” She stopped herself short as Natsuki’s face paled. “You… did feed her, correct?”
“I— uh…”
“Natsuki!”
After a short yet stern scolding, Yuri had successfully concocted whatever-the-heck magic potion that Lilly needed, and Natsuki had successfully discovered the urge to bash her head into the wall. So much for having common sense. It was nice while it lasted.
Yuri held Lilly protectively and returned to the couch, holding the bottle to her mouth with her free hand. “Alright. Now, where were we?”
“I dunno.” Natsuki puckered her lips and tried to avoid eye contact. She failed though, of course, and deflated with a sigh. “I guess… being around Monika and Sayori’s kid… made me realize how much I’m like, not a real adult. I mean I’m old as f— heck, but I still act like I did in high school. I feel like… I’ve… I’m not mature enough to be…” She didn’t want to say not mature enough to be with you, even if that’s how it felt. Something prevented her from finishing her sentence.
“That isn’t true.” Placing the bottle down and shifting Lilly to her shoulder, Yuri began to rub her back in slow circles. “The Natsuki that I met in high school would have iced me out the second I tried to ask what was wrong. She would have shouted at me to go away. Yet here you are—” Lilly burped. “Thank you, Lilly. Yet here you are now, opening up with sincerity about how you feel. You have matured, love. It’s alright to still have interests and hobbies as an adult, you know; even I indulge in video games and young adult fantasy novels. I suppose… if you are immature, then so am I. Quite frankly, I don’t mind it all that much as long as we’re doing it together.”
Face warm, Natsuki looked down at her lap. “Thanks. I… I love you a lot, you know? I just wanted to be good enough.”
“You are.” Yuri nodded. “You always have been. And I love you too, more than anything in the world.”
Before Natsuki could respond or dissolve into a humiliating puddle of tears, the door burst open and revealed a panting, sweaty Sayori behind it. Seemed like interrupting people was a family thing. And damn it, Yuri shouldn’t have given her a key to their apartment.
“I’m— huff— I’m so sorry!” Sayori apologized, just like she had earlier. “Holy moly, I sprinted here as fast as I could from the car, I just— jeez, I should’ve slowed down… I’m super, super sorry for just showing up and throwing this on you. And hi Yuri. Ehe…”
Natsuki arched a brow. She was expecting answers, and she was expecting them now. She watched as Sayori breathlessly took Lilly from Yuri; an action that was as seamless and natural as a fine-tuned mechanical part. It was like Sayori had been meant to be her mother.
“So Monika sorta broke her ankle,” Sayori said.
“What?” Yuri and Natsuki exclaimed at the same time, both fully and completely slack-jawed. Yuri shot Natsuki a frantic look that said ‘Did you know that??’ to which Natsuki replied with one that said ‘No, of-fucking-course not!’
Sayori placed Lilly in the stroller and slung the bag over her shoulder, finally having caught her breath. She turned to Natsuki. “I got a call from Monika that she needed to be brought to the hospital, so I told you the… uh, abridged version of the story. Only ‘cause I didn’t want you to worry. And, well turns out…” Sayori poked her index fingers together. “She thought she twisted her ankle, but nope! It was a break! She wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened, but I think she tripped over nothing again…”
Listening to Sayori ramble was really not making Natsuki feel much better, but at least she had the full picture. Even if it was a sucky picture. Jeez, Natsuki might’ve been a little more willing to ‘sit the baby’ if she’d known what was going on.
“Is she going to be alright?” Yuri asked before Sayori had the chance to rush out the door in a gush of apologies that weren’t really warranted. That was Sayori, though.
“Yeah, totally.” Sayori waved a hand. “She’ll be alright! It just took forever, then when I tried to call Nat and tell her that I’d be taking longer, she didn’t answer. So I rushed over here as fast as I could! Moni’s outside, she’s kinda got a boot on her foot.”
“She let that stop her from coming in?” Natsuki questioned skeptically.
“Nope, I forbid her,” Sayori chirped, evidently proud of herself. “I carried her to the car from the emergency room. She hates every second of it and I’m not budging. She’s gotta heal, dang it.”
Although Natsuki wanted desperately to hear more about Monika breaking her ankle on nothing and Sayori carrying Monika to the car, she could tell that Sayori was anxious to get back to her wife and go home. It was late enough and only getting later the longer they talked.
“Go get your woman, ‘Yori. You guys should get some sleep.” Natsuki held the door open so that Sayori could push the stroller through the entryway. “And please tell me about how you forbid Monika from doing stuff. I will literally pay you.”
“Goodbye, Sayori!” Yuri called, gently smacking Natsuki for her last comment. “Tell Monika we hope she recovers shortly!”
Once the door had shut and the pair were alone, both let out long, tired sighs. They were absolutely wiped out; for different reasons of course. Natsuki sank down onto the couch with a blank stare, certain that she had eyebags dark enough pass as smoky makeup. Yuri sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. The tension left her body ever so slowly, seeping out to make room for the warm, fluttery feeling that Yuri always caused in her stomach.
“It appears that you have had quite the day while I was gone,” Yuri said, beginning to massage Natsuki’s shoulders. It felt so good that she could’ve proposed on the spot. (Okay not actually, but soon enough. Shh.)
Natsuki yawned, covering her mouth with a hand, and interrupted the massage to lean over and kiss Yuri again. She let out a small squeak of surprise, but melted into it a moment later. It lasted longer than the one earlier, just enough to tide Natsuki over.
“Mmh. Yeah, long day.” Natsuki nodded. But just as she was finally relaxing, a thought occurred to her. “Yuri?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think Monika’s broken leg or whatever will mean we have to babysit more?”
Pausing to think for a moment, Yuri moved so that she was holding Natsuki once more. They fit together like puzzle pieces, in perfect sync. Like they had always been meant to. “I’m not sure, darling. If they do need assistance, I’m sure that I can find the time to—”
“No,” Natsuki shook her head, eyes closed. It was nice there, resting against her girlfriend's shoulder. She softened to Yuri’s touch. It wouldn’t be long until she drifted off again; it really had been a long day, despite the fact that she’d only been taking care of the baby for a handful of hours. “If they need help, I want it to be me.”
Natsuki felt Yuri nod against the top of her head, then registered the feeling of a blanket being moved to cover her body. Before Yuri responded, she kissed Natsuki’s forehead and tucked the blanket around her securely. For once though, she didn’t feel childish or immature. She just felt… cared for. It’s how she hoped she could make Lilly feel, or at least someday could make her feel.
“Alright, love. It’ll be you.”