Work Text:
Babies Maybe
It was five in the morning when Umi got that fateful call.
Reaching for her phone on the nightstand with a tired groan, she picked up her vibrating phone and squinted against the screen that seemed to blind her with the brightness of the sun.
“Eli,” she muttered, frowning. She picked up the call.
“Umi!” Eli shouted in panic, her voice high and feverish. “The baby! The baby is coming!”
Umi was up in an instant, throwing her blanket off herself. “The baby?” she asked in shock.
“The baby!” Eli screamed back. “I'm – you – I – Umi!”
“I'm coming! Just hold on, I'm-” Umi jumped out of her bed and stubbed her toe against a chair leg. Cursing loudly and hopping on one leg, she fumbled in the dark for her clothes and was almost out of the door when she suddenly stood still and glanced at her phone again. “Wait a minute...that's not my child.” She pressed the phone against her ear. “Why did you call me? Did Nozomi's water break?”
Eli high-pitched voice squeaked back. “Yes! And I don't know what to do, I mean, I do know, I took all these pregnancy lessons -”
“Which you made me attend with you,” Umi grumpily added.
“- but I have no idea what to do now! Nozomi, she's, she's – hey, wait-”
Nozomi's voice came on. “Hi, Umi.” She sounded lightly strained, but calm. “I'm very sorry for troubling you. If I had known that Eli would be like this, I would have just gone to the hospital without waking her.”
There was a loud whine in the background. “Nozomi!”
Umi cleared her throat. “No, that's fine. I am awake now anyway, I'll be there in ten.”
“No, Umi, this is all so troublesome for you, I'm so sorry.”
“What are you saying?” Umi chuckled lowly. “I wouldn't be able to rest easy if I let Eli handle this. Besides, we are family, aren't we?”
Nozomi breathed out a laugh that quickly turned into a painful groan. “I'd love to be sentimental for a moment longer, but I'm afraid our baby has other thoughts.”
“Of course! I'm on my way.” Umi disconnected the call.
“Umi?” a sleepy voice muttered behind her.
Umi quickly marched back to her bed and gave the person lying in it a kiss on the forehead. “I'm sorry for waking you, Kotori. I'm heading to Eli's place now. Nozomi's water broke.”
Kotori sat up so fast that her head collided with Umi's, and both parted with a groan, rubbing their wounded spot.
“Sorry,” Kotori mumbled before her eyes widened in alarm. “The baby's coming?”
“Yes,” Umi confirmed with a nod, “perfectly on time.”
“I'm going with you,” Kotori decided, slipping out of her bed to dress herself.
Knowing that it was futile to argue against her wife, Umi just helpfully handed her her clothes.
“How is Nozomi doing?” Kotori asked after accepting her own shirt with a quiet thanks.
“Better than Eli,” Umi muttered. “All those pregnancy courses were for nothing. She's completely panicking. And now I feel bad for Nozomi for having to deal with two babies.”
“Oh, Umi, you can't say that, Eli is just,” Kotori paused when she saw Umi's look, “very excited.”
“For nine months now,” Umi said, heading to the door. “I'm certain Eli gave Nozomi far more stress than the baby did.”
Kotori followed her. “I think her dedication is admirable.”
“Dedication is a nice way of making her frantic obsession sound productive.”
“Umi. Give your friend some credit. She built a bed for their child on her own!”
“A bed that caved in when Maki leaned against it,” Umi replied drily.
“And she already painted the child's room!”
“With a paint that Nozomi is allergic to.”
Kotori frowned. “But not even Nozomi knew that she would be allergic to that specific brand of wall paint. You can't blame Eli for this.”
“I'm not blaming anyone,” Umi shrugged. “I merely believe that having a child takes more responsibility than just painting a room and building a bed.”
“Are you saying that Eli isn't emotionally ready for a child?”
Umi hesitated. “When she first told me that she and Nozomi were trying for one, I thought so, yes. But it's not because I think Eli will be a bad parent, I'm sure she will grow with the challenge.”
“But?” Kotori probed.
Umi sighed. “Nothing. I'm sorry to have doubted Eli, please don't mention that in front of her?”
Kotori nodded slowly despite not happy with the answer at all. But their friends were expecting a baby and this was supposed to be a happy and exciting occasion, so she didn't want to arrive late because of an argument.
Behind that door, they heard pained shouting. Mixed with loud cursing in a foreign language they didn't understand.
“So,” Nico looked around at the other waiting guests. “Instead of first calling a cab to bring Nozomi to the hospital, Eli called all of us here.”
“It feels like a reunion, doesn't it?” Hanayo said softly, raking her fingers through Rin's hair as the latter softly snored on her shoulder, not used to being up at this early hour.
“Hm, it's early in the morning, everyone's close to passing out, someone's screaming – yep, just like our reunions,” Maki concluded.
Umi raised an eyebrow. “Did we attend the same reunions?”
“Oh, yeah...I mixed that up with my surgical operations during a sixteen hour shift.”
“There are several things very wrong about that statement but it's still too early for me to care,” Umi said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I'm sorry, I haven't slept in two days,” Maki muttered, running a hand through her messy hair. “Just when I finally thought I could nap, you delivered these two screaming gays into my hospital.”
As if on cue, another shout rang out from inside the room. “Nozomi! Push! Push! Oh my god, push, Nozomi, push!”
“Eli, I love you, and I don't want you to take this wrong, but I need you to shut up or I'm going to push you off a cliff!”
Nico yawned. “And they say romance is dead.”
Then, after minutes of more shouting and cursing, mostly on Eli's side, finally - a high and shrill crying suddenly filled the room and it was not Eli.
After waiting for the nurses to clear out, the guests outside were allowed to see the newly parents. They entered the room to find a bundle in Nozomi's arms. And a blonde passed out besides her.
“Aw!”
Kotori, Hanayo, Rin and Honoka were the first ones to rush to the baby and gush over it. “It's so adorable!” “Can I hold it?” “It's a girl!” “What's her name?”
Tired but happy, Nozomi let her friends hold her newly born. “We haven't decided on a name yet.”
“What?” Maki and Umi exclaimed in surprise. That didn't seem like Eli or Nozomi. “You mean you don't have a list of cheesy names that could possibly ruin the kid's life?”
“It didn't seem important at the time. We wanted to have a name that would fit our child, but we don't know their personality until they're born.”
“No, you won't know their true personality until they're grown,” Maki said, rolling her eyes. “Right now, your baby acts like every baby does. It will cry a lot, sleep a lot and shit a lot. You can't name a child based on that. Well, you can, not that I'm here to judge you, but this will definitely ruin your kid's life.”
“Maki,” Nozomi sighed, the strain of giving birth evident in her voice. “You know this is not what I meant.”
Maki slowly nodded but whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Umi, “I really don't.”
“I just can't do this anymore. I've tried to do it for Nozomi's sake, but sometimes I just want to make up an excuse so I can leave and never come back. I'm such a horrible person.”
Umi wanted to say something empathic but lacked the energy to do so. “Eli, I have to stand up in three hours. I'd like to get my sleep in.”
“How can you be so heartless and cold about it? My relationship is at stake!”
“No, it's not, and it won't be just because you can't take watching soaps with Nozomi anymore,” Umi mumbled tiredly. She turned on her back. “Just talk to her about it.”
“No, she'll be hurt if she finds out that I couldn't decline her request because she was pregnant at the time. You know the rule of not denying pregnant ladies anything.”
“I didn't know that rule and I doubt that it exists,” Umi muttered on the verge of falling asleep.
“Oh, you'll know what I'm talking about once you and Kotori are going for it too.”
Suddenly, Umi wasn't feeling sleepy at anymore. “What?”
“Isn't that one of your future plans?”
“Since when?”
“Oh...I'm sorry, I got ahead of myself and projected my own ideas onto you.”
“No, it's fine.”
“So...you really don't plan to...?”
Umi wanted to hang up. “I don't know. And that's a talk I don't need to have with you.”
“Right, I'm sorry. I don't know why I assumed that you wanted to have children too.”
“Me neither. Anyway, I really need to go back to sleep. As for your problem, just talk it out with Nozomi, I'm sure she'll understand.”
“Okay. Night, Umi.”
“Night.”
But Umi couldn't go back to sleep. Restless, she stared at the ceiling above her.
Now that she thought about it, she had never talked about having children with Kotori. Sure, they often brought it up in the context of someone else having children, but they never had a discussion about their own future plans. Did Kotori want to have a child?
Did Umi herself want a child?
She honestly didn't know. Just watching Eli struggling with the responsibilities of being a new parent was enough for her not to want to steer into the same direction. She didn't envy the lives of her friends right now; raising a child was a full time job where one couldn't just take time off.
But there was also a rewarding side to it of course if the child was properly raised and educated.
Umi turned on her side and closed her eyes. That was a matter for another day. She was sure that Kotori wasn't focusing on child plans either or she would have dropped some hints by now.
--
“I've been dropping hints to her ever since Nozomi got pregnant,” Kotori sobbed into her wine glass. “I knew it. She doesn't love me.”
“Oh, honey,” Nico carefully took the glass out of Kotori's hands and put it on the table. “Don't say stuff you know is not true.”
“But,” Kotori paused when a hiccup shook her body, “she obviously doesn't want to take this step with me. We talk about children a lot ever since Eli and Nozomi had theirs, but never about our own plans.”
“It's Umi,” Nico sighed. “You know she hasn't changed much over all these years except for maybe getting less embarrassed. But if there's one thing still so typically her, then it's not saying what she really feels or thinks. Remember when she couldn't tell you not to leave Muse for your studies abroad because she didn't want to be selfish?”
Kotori sniffed. “I guess so.”
“No, it is so,” Nico said. “She needs a push. You can't just expect her to figure it out on her own, that might take years and besides, she needs everything spelled out to her.” Nico leaned forward. “So here's what you're going to do, you're going to clear up an evening where it's just you two and then talk about it.”
“What if she doesn't want to talk about it?” Kotori asked, looking worried.
Nico crossed her arms. “Don't give her a chance to dodge that topic. You will assert yourself for once. Don't you think you deserve a clear answer?”
Kotori gazed at her lap. She did want to know Umi's stance on having their own kids. Looking up again, she took a deep breath and smiled at Nico. “Thank you. I didn't know who else to go to.”
Nico gave her a small smile and winked. “We belong to the 'married to dense wives' club, so we need to stick together. Nozomi would have come too, but you know how it is over there right now. I heard Eli broke down crying last week when the baby puked all over her.”
Covering a gasp behind her hand, Kotori looked concerned for two seconds before an amused snort escaped her, and after seeing Nico's gleeful grin, she couldn't hold back anymore.
“That's awful!” she said, trying to sound serious but her voice slid up the tone scale.
“And that's not even the best part!” Nico eagerly added, her voice already beginning to shake with laughter. “Eli got peed on twice and now every time she's changing the diapers for the kid, she's wearing a rain coat.”
“No,” Kotori muffled her cry, unable to stop herself from laughing at their friend's expense.
“Yes!” Nico choked out, chest trembling as she tried to control herself long enough to finish telling her story. “But that was not all; Eli even wore swimming goggles to protect her eyes!”
“Stop,” Kotori wheezed, holding her stomach that was beginning to ache.
“And...nose...plugs,” Nico's raw voice managed to get out before she finally caved, doubling over with laughter. She almost fell off her couch but managed to catch herself. “Thank god Nozomi got a picture of that...I'm going to send it to you too. That's excellent blackmail material.”
Kotori wiped away tears of laughter. “Seems like a lot is happening over there.”
Nico's shoulders were still trembling with laughter. “You don't want to know.”
“No. No. No no no no-”
“Maki, please-”
“Hell no. You said beer and chill, but this doesn't look like beer and chill to me. In fact, this is like the complete opposite of it. So I'm gone.”
“No, wait,” Eli blocked the door, leaning against it with her back. “Please, I had no choice...Umi, say something.”
Arms crossed, Umi gave Eli a dark glare. “Remember how I used to put Honoka to sleep?”
Eli frowned. “With a hard chop against the back of her neck that would have killed anyone else?”
Umi nodded. “I'm thinking about using it on you.”
“Do it, Umi,” Maki said grimly. “She deserves it for lying to us. Do you know how hard it was to get a night off? I'm not wasting it with baby-sitting.”
“Please,” Eli begged, folding her hands together, “Nozomi hasn't had a girls' night in forever, so I said I'd watch the baby...but I can't do this alone.”
“Oh, you should have thought of that before,” Maki growled, trying to pull Eli away from the house door. “Eli, move!”
“Come on, guys, I never ask anything of you-”
“Yesterday you asked me to buy diapers on my way home from work when you ran out,” Umi cut in. “Last week, I let you take a nap on my office's couch when you should have been on a grocery run.”
“I let you stay in my hospital for free for heaven's sake,” Maki added darkly. “But baby-sitting goes too far. I'm out.”
“Okay, okay,” Eli defensively held up her hands. “So maybe I did ask for some favors-”
“Some?”
“A lot. I asked for a lot. I'm sorry. But look at it this way – I'll be in your debt. You can ask me to do anything in the future, no questions asked. How about that?” Eli looked at them with a hopeful smile.
Umi and Maki shared a look before turning to Eli with a suspicious gaze. “Anything?”
The moment they asked that in a strange tone, Eli knew she was going to regret it, but she was desperate. “Yes. Anything.”
Placated, Maki and Umi nodded, and they finally took off their coats and shoes. “So where's the baby?”
“It's in the-” A loud and shrill cry erupted from the living room, every scream higher and longer than the previous one. “Living room.”
Maki bent down and picked up a sixpack of beer from the floor that she had brought along for tonight.
“What are you doing?” Eli asked slowly.
“Oh, I don't know, I thought maybe the baby's thirsty,” Maki grumbled sarcastically. Trotting towards the living room, she said over her shoulder, “I'm not doing that shit sober.”
Eli turned to Umi with a pleading look, but the other woman shrugged and followed Maki. “I hope you have some wine too.”
“What?” Eli buried her fingers inside her hair. “You guys can't be serious.”
“You can bet your lying ass we are,” Maki called out from the living room, her voice almost drowned out by the baby's screaming.
“Don't curse in front of the baby!” Eli shouted back.
“I really don't give a -”
“Duck!” Umi exclaimed, but Maki reacted one second too slow and felt something small but hard crashing against her forehead.
“Son of a -”
“Switch,” Umi cut in, taking the beer from Maki's hands before she could let the sixpack drop.
Rubbing her forehead, Maki looked around in disbelief. “What was that? Really hurt like a mother-”
“Father...help me,” Eli prayed quietly, looking up at the ceiling.
“Since when are you religious?” Maki asked, picking up the thing that had flown against her forehead. A toy car.
“Maki,” Umi whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “she meant her father.”
“Oh,” Maki breathed. “She doesn't really talk about him often. How's her dad?”
“Dead.”
“Yeah, how's he like?”
“He's dead.”
“And her mom's mom, big thanks.”
When Umi shook her head with a dark look, Maki's eyes slowly widened. “Oh. Oh shit. Holy -”
“Nap, that's what I could need right now,” Eli sighed, rubbing her tired eyes. The baby still hadn't stopped screaming. “Let's get to work.”
“Work? You know you're not paying us,” Maki said, gesturing to the crying baby.
“I'll order pizza and buy more beer, happy?”
Maki crossed her arms. “Italian style?”
“Italian style,” Eli nodded.
“Mozzarella and tomatoes?”
“Sure.”
Maki rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. “Well, let's get to work then.”
–
“Nozomi, what's wrong?” Kotori had noticed her friend's lack of participation in their gossip round, only quietly sipping on her wine.
Lowering her wine glass, Nozomi paused before she answered. “It's nothing probably. I'm just worried about Eli because it's the first time she's alone with the baby.”
“Aren't Maki and Umi there too?” Nico asked, throwing a potato chip into her mouth. She suddenly coughed. “Oh god, I'm totally worried now too. Maki should not be allowed around kids.”
“No, they'll be fine,” Kotori said reassuringly. “They are three adults after all.”
Nozomi breathed out a sigh. “You're right. They are reasonable and reliable. The baby is in capable hands.”
–
“My hands!” Maki screamed, stretching her hands in front of her like they were burning. “It's all over my freaking hands! God I want to die!”
“I told you to wear the raincoat and gloves!” Eli pushed Maki towards the direction of the bathroom. “Go clean yourself up.”
“Well, excuse me for not wanting to look ridiculous!” Maki hissed over her shoulder, but still hurriedly stumbled into the bathroom to wash her hands.
“Is it safe now,” Umi whispered from behind the couch, cowering like soldier on a mission.
“Yes, you can come out now,” Eli muttered, wiping her baby's butt clean. It was giggling. “Now you can laugh after you peed on your auntie Maki, huh?”
“I heard that,” Maki's voice rang from the bathroom, “tell your kid that she can forget her birthday money now.”
“So she says, but you still have auntie Nico,” Eli mumbled, putting a new diaper on the baby.
Standing up from behind the couch, Umi carefully neared them. “Have you asked the doctors why your child only pees when the diapers come off?”
Eli shook her head. “No idea.”
“So...that's your solution then?” Umi gestured to Eli's outfit. Yellow raincoat, dust mask, swimming goggles and disposable gloves. “You look like you're handling radioactive substances.”
“Laugh at me all you want, take pictures if you want,” Eli mumbled, putting the used diaper into a trash bag. “But people have always mistaken pioneers as psychos.”
“Pioneer?” Maki came out of the bathroom, drying her hands on her jeans. “Pioneers are usually innovative. That's not innovative.” Pulling at Eli's raincoat, Maki continued, “That's a lot of things, but not innovative.”
“Shut up or I'm going to let her pee on you again.”
Maki took a step to the side, away from the couch where the baby's diaper was being changed. “Is it weird that I don't mind digging through a human's stomach but can't handle urine?”
“Probably not,” Umi muttered. “Shame and disgust is not innate, it's something we learn from the social conventions of our surroundings as we grow up. And since your father was a doctor too, you probably learned early on that blood is not disgusting at all while hygiene was more emphasized, resulting in a stronger sense of disgust regarding urine.”
“That's,” Maki scratched her head, “plausible. Good job, Professor Sonoda.”
“I'm not a Professor yet.”
“Whatever, you're going to be sooner or later.”
“Hey,” Eli grumbled, pulling off her gloves now that she was done with changing the diapers on her baby, “can the doctor and non-medical doctor assist me in throwing away the trash?”
“Urgh.” Maki picked up the trash bag with the tip of her fingers. “That's definitely not what I was trained for.”
–
“Come on, Nozomi, stay for one more glass.” Kotori put a hand on Nozomi's shoulder to stop her from standing up. “You are worrying too much.”
“Maybe,” Nozomi sighed. “But I also miss our child.”
“It's going to be fine,” Nico said, already red in the face from the alcohol, and her eyes glassy. “Let's open the Pinot Noir that was a present from my manager. She knows all about fine wines.”
“Yes, let's do that,” Kotori said cheerfully, “you deserve to relax tonight. And it's also a good chance to train Eli. I'm sure the baby's already sleeping by now and our wives are having a good time.”
–
“I'm so not having a good time,” Maki growled and chugged down the rest of her beer, before reaching for another can and opening it.
“Can you please not binge-drink while I'm trying to get the baby to sleep,” Eli shouted over the baby's screaming.
Umi stared down at the crying baby lying in the crib. “Eli, remember how I used to put Honoka to sleep?”
“No, Umi, no. Stop it. You're not going to kill my baby.”
“Just...one tiny chop...please,” Umi begged, stretching out a trembling hand, but Eli wrestled it away from the baby.
“Maybe a little bit of booze will make you sleepy,” Maki mumbled, lowering her beer into the crib.
“Maki!” Eli snatched the beer can before the baby's fingers could touch it. “What are you doing? You of all people should know what alcohol does to children!”
“That's not a child, that's a demon,” Maki muttered tiredly. “I can get morphine from my hospital.”
“What? No!” Eli pulled at her hair. “Can anyone give me a reasonable solution!”
“Have you tried singing before?” Umi asked.
“Singing?” Eli's expression lit up. “Nozomi sometimes hums a melody when she puts the baby to sleep.”
“Okay then, let's try it,” Umi said, straightening herself.
“Which song?”
Umi and Maki shared a look, before turning to Eli with a smirk.
“3, 2, 1, 0...”
–
“Oh my god, I'm going to pee myself,” Nico wheezed, having fallen off the couch after laughing too hard. “Your baby is so precious.”
“I don't know why she does that,” Nozomi pressed out between laughter, “but she only pees when Eli changes her diapers. I never had a problem with her.”
Kotori was covering her mouth and nose to stop herself from ungracefully snorting. “Poor Eli!”
After almost calming down again, Nico sat back on the couch but suddenly started snorting in laughter, which prompted the other two fall back into fits of laughter.
–
“I think...I think she's sleeping,” Eli whispered tiredly.
The three of them were exhausted after singing non-stop for half an hour because that was the only way the baby wouldn't cry, instead listening to them with a happy expression, kicking with its little feet to the rhythm.
“Let's get out of here,” Maki mumbled, and they sneaked out of the room, carefully closing the door behind us.
“Finally, peace and quiet,” Umi sighed, taking a deep breath. “The silence is music to my ears.”
And the baby started screaming again.
–
“So I told her, no, Eli, we don't need a tree house for our baby yet, that's just what you want! And she asked me how I knew and I told her that babies don't need a tree house with a TV and a mini fridge in it!”
Nico and Kotori had been giggling hysterically for the past twenty minutes and were beginning to feel lightheaded. The alcohol didn't make it better.
“And when we bought a baby seat for our car, Eli tried testing it by sitting in it herself but then she got stuck and couldn't get out for half an hour!”
“Stop,” Nico croaked, slapping against her thighs, “I need to...breathe...”
“It's never boring with her, isn't it,” Kotori managed to say without breaking into laughter again.
“No, not one second.” Nozomi smiled into her wine glass. “But that's why I married her.”
--
“I like big butts and I can not lie, you other brothers can't deny-”
“You can't sing that, Maki!”
“Fine, what else do you suggest?”
“Something more child appropriate?”
“Geez. That crosses out like ninety percent of the songs I know.”
“I think I've got something,” Umi spoke up. She cleared her throat. “This hit, that ice cold, Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold-”
–
“Stop,” Nico panted, “wait a minute.”
She sat up straight. “Kotori, you still haven't talked to Umi about kids?”
“Well, there was never a good time,” Kotori said. “We're both really busy.”
“You can't just avoid the talk. Right, Nozomi?”
“I'm afraid I haven't been in the same situation,” Nozomi shook her head. “It's been clear from the start that Eli and I liked children and would like to try for one of our own. I'm sorry, I don't know what to do.”
“Maybe I'll try it next time,” Kotori mumbled.
–
“Hit me baby one more time!”
–
“No, better yet, do it right away!” Nico said, pulling out her phone.
–
“So call me maybe-”
–
“Right now? Not over the phone, Nico. When she gets back, face to face.”
“Okay. But be sure to tell her what you think.”
–
“So tell me what you want, what you really really want-”
It was midnight when Nozomi returned to her home with Nico and Kotori in tow, who came along to fetch their wives. Entering a quiet living room with the TV still running, it took them a second to locate their lovers until they spotted them lying on the ground, passed out with empty beer cans next to their heads. And in the middle of the mess, the baby was sleeping on top of Eli, who was sandwiched between Umi and Maki.
Taking a picture of the scene, Nozomi quietly chuckled. “Seems like they had a fun night.”