Gift Fic for sakurai_no_ocha [1/2]
To: sakurai_no_ocha
From: rikikomori
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: Jumping Bean
Pairing/Group: JUMP/YamaChii, appearances by Chinen Saya and Sexy Zone
Rating: M for Mpreg! (NC-17)
Warnings: unconventional mpreg (lol), fluff, magic, first person POV
Notes: Happy Holidays, sakurai_no_ocha! I really hope you enjoy this.
Summary: They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it'll come true. This year, Yamada gets more than he could have ever wished for.
The sun is barely breaking the horizon when Chinen grabs me, pulling us both to a stop.
"What?" I whine, forcing my eyes to stay open. "It's seven-thirty in the morning. I'm getting too old for this all-nighter shit."
"Shut up," Chinen says, but it's soft and quiet and out-of-character enough for me to look down at him. He looks thoughtful-very sleepy, but there's a hint of serenity in his eyes that someone who has been awake for over twenty-four hours wouldn't normally have. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
I shake myself out of my thoughts, following Chinen's line of sight to the first break of light over the mountains. My exhaustion wins over my annoyance and I slump against the railing of the bridge we're crossing, unaware of the words leaving my lips until I hear them spoken in my voice: "It is."
"They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it'll come true." Chinen's voice is as soothing as the scene before my eyes, an underlying depth that only comes out in the wee hours of the morning after working all night. "Make a wish, Yama-chan."
There's nothing particular that I want to wish for, aside from the health and happiness of my family and friends, maybe continued success for JUMP and the agency overall. Those seem to defeat the purpose of the superstition, though. Chinen's probably wishing for something frivolous like a week's vacation or going fishing with Ohno-senpai. Normally my selfish wish is to grow taller, but that's starting to seem like a lost cause as I get older.
I wish for Chinen to get what he wishes, I think, satisfied with my selflessness. I'll probably regret it later, when Ohno inevitably invites Chinen out and Chinen doesn't shut up about it for the rest of the year, but it'll be worth it when Chinen's elation infects the entire group. When Chinen is happy, everyone is happy.
"I'm starving," Chinen complains when we get to the train station, completely deserted due to the holiday. It's practically the only time we can commute without being mauled by fangirls.
I check my bag for snacks while rolling my eyes. Clearly the wishes aren't granted right away. "We have that bread Marius brought us from Germany," I mutter, pulling out the wrapped bag with a red bow.
"He's such a weird kid," Chinen comments as he pulls out his own bag, bow pink. Marius had presented us all with little squares of gingerbread earlier at Countdown, which he claimed he had made with his grandmother when he'd returned to Germany a few months ago. "What does this even say?"
I lean over to squint at the foreign writing on the tiny square, then shrug. "Hell if I know. He said mine say 'be happy' or something in German."
"Well, whatever." Chinen unwraps his gingerbread and shoves it into his mouth before he's even done saying 'itadakimasu'. I watch as his eyes grow wider than they should at seven-thirty in the morning. "This is really good!"
"Yeah?" I ask, looking at my own gift. I'm not that hungry, not to mention I'd made a New Year's resolution not to eat sweets anymore, but technically that doesn't start until I've been to sleep. Without further thought I take a bite, instantly pausing at how it explodes with cinnamon and spice. "Wow."
Chinen just nods, and together we sit in silence even after we're done chewing. The train should be coming soon, then it's just staying awake until we get to Chinen's place. Chinen doesn't know that I'm staying over yet, but considering the time nobody should mind. My oldest sister already practically lives there, anyway. One of the reasons I had wanted to cut my hair so short is because Chinen's mom kept calling me Chihiro-chan when she didn't have her glasses on.
Not that that stops Saya from giving me a strange look when she sees me in the hallway.
*
The new year brings much of the same, which isn't as boring as I make it sound. I love my job-always have. I love singing and dancing and acting. I love my groupmates, senpai, and kouhai. I don't love hosting Shounen Club very much, since just about every junior is taller than me and likes to point it out (and if they don't, my lovely co-host does), but it could be worse.
"Yama-chan looks bigger!" Yuuma teases during our interview. "Are you storing fat for the winter?"
We're recording, so I can't say what I'd really like to say, but my feelings probably come across on my face. "Too much chocolate, apparently."
Since Valentine's Day had just passed, my response has the added benefit of rubbing it in Yuuma's face that I got more chocolates than he did. To which Yuuma replies that he'd heard Sexy Zone's Nakajima Kento had given me homemade chocolates, because he throws everyone under the bus equally, and Kento comes running out in his red swoosh to defend himself.
Everyone forgets about the jab toward my weight except for me. Later that night I stand in front of my full-length mirror, turning profile and lifting my shirt to examine my abdomen. I had finally started toning these muscles, and now they were completely gone. Sucking in my air makes it look slimmer, but I don't feel any better.
"You are worse than a teenage girl," my oldest sister's voice sounds from the doorway, making me jump. "If you want to lose weight, don't eat so many sweets."
"Easy for you to say," I shoot back, calmly walking toward the door. "You don't have an ounce of fat on your body and you eat like a cow!"
"Blessed with good metabolism, what can I say?" Chihiro grins, and I take great joy is closing my door in her face.
I don't tell her that I've actually been sticking to my diet and haven't had a single sweet since Marius' authentic German gingerbread on New Year's morning.
*
You would think that most things could be overlooked in a group as large as mine, but I only make it until the cherry blossoms start to bloom before Chinen drags me into an empty practice room after an NYC meeting.
"This is how rumors get started, you know," I joke, because his face is serious and it scares me a little.
"Do you think I'm fucking blind?" Chinen asks quietly, though it's not really a question with how deadpan his voice is. "I spend basically all of my waking time with you, you know. You could at least pretend to eat something every now and then."
"That would be a waste of food," I mumble, looking down at my hands, which are shaking traitorously.
"I know you're not dumb enough to starve yourself," Chinen goes on, and now I really feel bad. "Explain."
It's like the floodgates have opened and everything comes pouring out, Yuuma's comment and the conversation with my sister and how a lot of my pants don't fit anymore because I've gained five kilograms since the beginning of the year. I'm not doing it to lose weight, I try to tell him; I just want to stop getting bigger.
"That's weird," Chinen assesses, looking oddly suspicious. "But it doesn't mean you can just stop eating. Why do I even have to tell you this?! Do you want to pass out in the middle of a show?"
"No, of course not." I take a deep breath and meet Chinen's eyes. He looks more upset than I've ever seen him before, like he wants to cry and punch me in the face at the same time. It's just as scary as his serious face, so I nod and insist, "I'll eat. I promise."
Chinen seems to accept that and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It's not like I was completely starving myself, but even I knew that the small amount of food I put away each day wasn't healthy. I couldn't help it, though-the number on the scale kept rising no matter what I did.
There's now a pudge when I sit in the bath, a little firm when I push on it. Maybe I have a tumor, I think, desperate for some excuse. Maybe my intestines have swollen from some disease. I would probably be in a least a little bit of pain if either of those were true, which I definitely don't want them to be. I'll take being fat over being sick anyday. I just don't understand why it suddenly had to happen at age twenty. It's like the powers that be are mocking me for wishing to grow taller by making me grow wider instead.
I didn't even wish that this year, I remember bitterly. If this is what I get for being selfless, I'll never make that sacrifice again.
*
Working out isn't exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday, but Takaki is here with me and I suppose it could be a lot worse. Takaki and I are a lot alike when it comes to our body structure, except that he's of course much taller. At any rate, I don't mind going to the gym with him, mostly because I can fool myself into thinking that the extra weight is toned muscle.
"You don't look too good," Takaki says from the next treadmill, jogging at half the speed that I am, and then everything goes black.
When I wake up, I'm at the hospital with a sugar water drip in my arm and a very angry Chinen glaring down at me. "I've been eating!" I exclaim, but my voice is a little slow to catch up.
"Sensei says you're malnutritioned," Chinen says, gripping onto the railing of my bed so tightly that his knuckles are turning white. "I swear to everything holy, Yamada, I will force-feed you myself if I have to."
"I really have…" I try again, but I get a sudden pang of dizziness and close my eyes to keep the world from spinning. "I'm sorry."
The last thing I feel before I pass out again is a small hand grabbing onto mine.
*
Not a week goes by before I'm back in the hospital again, this time from fatigue. I had gotten disoriented during dance practice and lost my balance, falling to the floor where I was suddenly so tired that I couldn't get back up. Now the entire group knows that there's something wrong, and naturally they're all in various stages of worry.
Yabu stays by my side the entire time, pushing my hair out of my face and smiling down at me with those bright eyes. I like Yabu's company much better than Chinen's, because Yabu doesn't yell at me and accuse me of having an eating disorder. I don't have an eating disorder. I am eating properly-three meals a day, four food groups, eight glasses of water, etc. etc. That brat must have told his sister about his concerns, because now my sister is on my case at home and takes it upon herself to fix my meals for me. I suppose that's nice of her, but it's not really necessary.
"You keep holding your stomach," Yabu comments, his voice soft, and I look down to see that he's right. "Does it hurt? Are you going to be sick?"
"No," I answer. "It just feels weird."
Yabu blinks. "Can I touch it?"
I nod and he replaces my hand with his own, palm down on my skin directly under the hospital gown, and I watch a frown spread on his face as he moves it around. "What is it? Do you feel something?"
"Yeah, but…" Yabu trails off, shaking his head slowly. "That's not possible."
"What's not possible?" I ask, filled with hope at finally having a reason for all of these sudden physical problems. "Just say it."
"This is how my sister's stomach felt when she was pregnant," Yabu blurts out, looking as confused at those words as I feel. "She was so excited she kept making us touch it even before she got big."
I pause to consider that, getting lightheaded all over again for reasons that have nothing to do with fatigue. "I don't understand."
"Hold on," Yabu says suddenly, disappearing from my sight. My skin is cold where his hand had been pressed to it, but what he puts on it next is even colder.
"What the-is that a stethoscope?" I ask, peering down. "I don't think you're supposed to use those on your own."
Yabu ignores me, the ear buds pushed into his ears as he moves the incredibly cold sensor all around my belly. It's possibly the weirdest thing I've ever experienced and I've been a Johnny for almost half of my life. Then Yabu pauses and I look up at his face to find the most amazed expression I've ever seen him make.
"What?" I demand, tugging at his arm so that he pays attention to me. "What do you hear?"
Slowly, Yabu pulls the stethoscope out of his ears and clears his throat. "Listen for yourself."
I take the device from him and put it into my own ears while Yabu continues to hold the sensor still on one particular spot. I hear my own heartbeat, in perfect time with what I feel it to be, but there's also something behind it, something faster. I look helplessly at Yabu, who shrugs, though his eyes can't hide the truth.
"How…" I start to say, and Yabu just shakes his head. "What do I do?"
"I don't know," he replies quietly, pulling away the stethoscope to place his hand on my belly again, rubbing small circles where it's the most swollen. It feels nice, enough to lull me back to sleep, oddly comforted by finally having a reason for all of this, even if it doesn't make any sense at all.
*
Chinen Saya eyeballs me for ten entire seconds before shoving me down into a chair and leaning over me. "What did you do?"
"What do you mean, what did I do?" I reply, a little frantic at being ambushed like this by my older sister's best friend. "I didn't do anything."
"You had to do something," Saya goes on, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Guys just don't get knocked up without some sort of provoking."
"In what world do you live where this is a normal occurrence?!" I demand, turning to glare at Chinen standing over to the side. "What the hell is going on? Why did you bring me here?"
"I knew something was different about you when I saw you on New Year's Day," Saya goes on, ignoring my outburst. "You had this weird glow surrounding you. I've never seen it before on a man."
I blink. "What are you?"
She smiles down at me, only taller because I'm sitting down. "Yuuri calls me a witch, but that's a little glamorous for what I do."
"Which is?!"
"I sense things." Saya kneels next to me and starts to reach for my belly, then pauses. "May I?"
I nod my permission, watching her as she gently presses her hands to every angle of my abdomen. It feels weird and nice at the same time, her touch like a soft massage where my muscles have been strained and apparently relocated around.
"Yeah, it's about twenty-two weeks," Saya says, smiling as she looks up at me. "That places conception at New Year's Day. Do you want to know the gender?"
"Huh?" My mind is spinning. "You can…sense all of this just by feeling my stomach?"
"She's never wrong," Chinen speaks up, watching this whole thing with an expressionless face. "We can't exactly take you to a real doctor, so she's the next best thing."
"I'm not letting her cut me open," I declare, my eyes widening as the reality of this situation weighs down on me.
"Relax, you're stressing out the baby," Saya says, and instantly I try to calm down. "I don't mind doing this for you guys at all. It's my niece, right?"
That has both Chinen and I gaping at her. "What?!" we exclaim in unison.
"You were together on New Year's Eve…" Saya trails off, looking from me to her brother and back again. "Weren't you?"
"Yes, but nothing happened!" Chinen answers before I can. "We're not even like that!"
Now Saya's frowning at both of us. "But it has our family genes all over it."
"What does?" I ask carefully, though I already know the answer.
"The fetus," Saya confirms my suspicions. "Your baby."
I bring my hands to my face and try to make sense of all of this. "Nothing happened on New Year's," I say into my wrists. "I haven't so much as kissed anyone in two years, and certainly not Chinen."
"Don't say that like it's the worst thing ever," Chinen says haughtily. "I'll have you know that I am an amazing kisser."
"Well, you can wait until she's born and do a paternity test," Saya tells us with a shrug, "but I'm always right about these things. When our mom was pregnant with Yuuri, I kept insisting that he was a boy when the doctors were sure that he was a girl, and I was only two years old."
"He looks like a girl," I point out.
"Says the one my mother keeps calling 'Chihiro'," Chinen shoots back without missing a beat.
Saya's smile gets bigger until I skeptically question it. She just shakes her head, giving my stomach one last pat before getting to her feet. "I'm sure you can Google proper pregnancy behavior. The good news is that you don't have that long to go, while the bad news is that the last three months are supposed to be the worst."
"Gee, thanks," I say sarcastically, then I remember something she'd said earlier. "Wait, did you say 'niece'?"
Her hand flies to her mouth. "Oops! I did. I hope you didn't want to be surprised."
"It's fine," I reply, staring down at midsection in awe. A girl. I'm going to have a daughter.
I stare for so long that I jump when a hand rests on my shoulder. "Do you believe her?"
"I think I would remember if we had sex," I say bluntly. "Especially if it resulted in me being the one like this."
"She's always right, though," Chinen goes on. "And given how unconventional this situation is in the first place, it's not completely impossible that it happened unconventionally as well."
"That shouldn't make as much sense as it does," I say with a sigh. "Okay, think back. What did we do on New Year's Eve? We worked all night, right?"
"Then we rode the train here and went to sleep," Chinen adds, kneeling down by my side much like his sister had just done. "You slept on a futon on my floor and I slept in my bed. Nothing was out of the ordinary when we woke up later."
"I went home and took a shower, then went back to work," I recall. "Nothing weird."
"We made those wishes on the first sunrise of the New Year, right?" Chinen offers. "Did you wish to have a family or something?"
"No," I answer, but my eyes widen at the memory of what I did wish for. "Chinen, do you want to have a family?"
"Of course, someday." Chinen folds his arms on my thigh and rests his chin on his hands, looking up at me. "That's not what I wished for that morning, though."
Neither one of us seems too keen to tell the other our real wishes, and I certainly wasn't going to be the one to ask. It feels ridiculous to talk about this like our wishes could really be the reason why I'm pregnant, though no more ridiculous than me being pregnant in the first place.
"Is it okay for me to be happy?" Chinen asks quietly, pulling me from my thoughts. "I mean, it's easier for me to accept this because I'm used to neechan’s predictions, so I actually believe that it's, you know, my kid in there. Despite everything, I'm just…really excited to be a father."
My nerves calm as I watch him look at my stomach with a strange fondness in his eyes. "You can touch it, if you want," is all I say.
He rushes to do it like all he'd been waiting for this whole time is my permission, and I can't help but smile as his face lights up at the contact. Chinen is happy-go-lucky as it is, but there's something different in his eyes this time, something I haven't seen before. It seems like I'm witnessing a lot of new reactions from him lately.
"Do you even feel anything?" I ask after a couple seconds.
Chinen laughs as he shakes his head. "Nope."
"Stupid," I say affectionately, and he shoves at my thigh. "Hey! Don't hit the mother of your child."
"You're not pregnant in your legs." He rolls his eyes as he looks up at me. "So does this mean you believe it?"
I take a deep breath before responding. "It's easier to just believe it, isn't it? Less stressful, and I shouldn't be stressing, right?"
"What are you gonna tell your parents?" Chinen asks, and my blood runs cold. "I mean, mine are used to weird shit happening because of neechan’s gift, but this might be a little far-fetched even for them."
"You're not helping me not stress out," I say pointedly. "Get up, I need to stand. My back hurts."
"Spoken by a true pregnant person," Chinen teases as he gets to his feet. I suppose I should be happy he didn't say 'woman'. "Come on, let's go to my room and I'll give you a massage."
"Really?" I turn to give him a weird look. "Why?"
"Because that's my role here," Chinen replies matter-of-factly. "Shut up and enjoy it."
For once, I follow his orders without complaint. I hadn't thought that such small hands could feel so nice, skillfully working out my knots without being too rough. It's so relaxing that I fall right to sleep, waking several hours later to a warm body next to mine and soft breaths on my arm.
My first instinct is to freak out, but given the events of the past twenty-four hours, this is the most normal I've felt.
*
Naturally, nobody believes us. Well, they believe that I'm pregnant after I pee on a stick and show them my newly acquired fat rolls, but not that Chinen and I hadn't done anything to cause it. It's the wrong time of the year for an immaculate conception, my father claims before telling me to get the fuck out of his house. I'm not supposed to lift anything, so I just walk out the door and hope Chinen doesn't mind sharing his shampoo. I can't fit into any of my clothes anyway.
My boss isn't much better, but at least I don't get fired. I squirm in an uncomfortable armchair with Chinen standing next to me while the old man plans the next six months of my life. He'll promote BEST for the rest of the year, shove Yuuto and Chinen into dramas, and talk up Keito's university load. Magazines can be photoshopped and I should have no problem being back in shape by Christmas. Enjoy your vacation, he tells me, and congratulations to the both of you.
"You know," Chinen says conversationally as we walk to the elevator. "Eventually, we should talk about this."
"What's there to talk about?" I reply, still a little testy from the meeting. I blame those stupid prenatal pills Chinen's mother makes me take. "We're having a baby. We already live together, I'm following all of Google-san's rules, and your psychic sister says that everything is fine."
"She's not psychic," Chinen grumbles, then sets his jaw as he continues ahead of me. "Never mind."
And I'm the one with the hormones here. I can't even look in a mirror anymore without bursting into tears at how fat I am. I'm almost as round as I am tall. Saya hadn't been kidding about the last three months being the hardest; even though I hadn't had any sickness or much pain other than minor back discomfort, my emotions were a wreck. Both of my sisters on their periods weren't as bad as me some days.
Yet Chinen puts up with it all. I have never seen him make so much effort as he does when he's calming me down. It's for our daughter, he tries to explain. The fatter the mommy, the healthier the baby. I can understand that well enough, but that doesn't make me hate my appearance any less. Just walking with all of this extra weight makes me feel so gross and unattractive. Having baby fat at twenty years old is nothing compared to this. The only good thing that will come out of this experience is my complete satisfaction with a less than perfect body after this is all over.
Well, that's not the only good thing. Chinen and I both stare at Saya's laptop as she runs this weird sensor over my stomach, a makeshift ultrasound performed by instruments she had obtained from who knows where. She can see the fetus just fine, she explains, but she wants to show it to us too. She thinks it will help me feel better about being a whale.
At seven months it should be pretty defined, but the picture is too grainy to see much more than an outline. I squint at the display as she points out the head and knees, and I frown at how it all just looks like a giant blob to me. But then Chinen makes a weird noise and I turn my head to see silent tears streaming down his face.
"Chinen?" I ask, reaching for his arm. My chubby fingers look even bigger next to his thin arms, but I try not to pay attention to that. "What is it? Are you okay?"
Then he smiles, completely offsetting the tears and confusing the hell out of me, especially when this warm feeling courses through me at the sight. Stupid hormones. For whatever reason they are moved by seeing Chinen like this. They think it's beautiful.
"It's our daughter," Chinen whispers, gently placing his hand on my giant belly. We both gasp as the blob on the screen jerks around at the same time I feel it, the kicks that keep Chinen glued to my stomach every minute he's home, even while we're sleeping.
Saya just grins at us, both Chinens filled with a happiness that I don't quite share. I'm excited to meet the baby, of course, but I can't really look forward to that with as awful as I feel about myself and my body. I don't know how women do it.
I also feel guilty that Chinen keeps doing everything for me. I'm so big that I can't even bathe properly, but he has no complaints about kneeling next to the bathtub and cleaning me like a child. He's going to be such a great father, I muse in an attempt to get over my embarrassment. Until this happened to us, I wouldn't have thought Chinen had the patience to care for a houseplant, but now that I've seen him in action, I understand that some things are just worth his making the effort. Right now, that thing is me, and I'm not sure how that makes me feel.
It would be one thing if we'd actually hooked up that night and were now reaping the consequences, but I've never so much as touched him. Sure, it's common for guys in our agency to mess around in shared hotel rooms every now and then, but not me and Chinen. We both value sleep more than sex, I guess. But somehow I feel like I missed out on something, like if I'm going to suffer like this I should have at least gotten laid out of it, even if I haven't thought of Chinen like that before.
He treats me well enough, I reason with myself one night when we're getting ready for bed. He has a few hours free in the morning and we're going to shop online for baby furniture. We had wanted to get our own place, but his parents were being great about the whole thing and it would be dumb of us to not stay here and let them help us, even if it means squishing a crib into Chinen's already-small bedroom.
I watch him as he curls up next to me, never once rolling out the futon since I moved in. He wants to be close to the baby, he tells me when I question him about it. I'm jealous at how fast he falls asleep, how he can stay asleep even when our daughter is kicking up a storm. She's the most active at night, but everyone says that's normal. It's not like I have anything to do during the day except waddle around and watch TV, but it's still exhausting to sleep in fifteen-minute increments.
It's only going to get worse after the baby is born, but I'd much rather deal with her outside of my body.
*
"So when are you two getting hitched?" Yuuto greets us at the beginning of month nine, and Chinen grabs my wrist before I can punch our unnaturally tall groupmate.
Let's be honest, it would have probably hurt me more than it hurt him, but it would have certainly made me feel better. "There will be no hitching," Chinen says calmly. "That's not even legal here."
"And we're not together like that," I add, shooting a glare up at Yuuto.
"Yeah, okay," Keito teases, but he's too far away for me to hit. "Where is this kid coming out again?"
Yuuto bursts out laughing and I'm seething, wonder why the hell we even invited them over when Chinen rubs slow circles on my back and instantly calms me down. "It'll be a cesarean," he tells them. "Scheduled for October first."
"What if she wants to come out before then?" Yuuto asks, now looking concerned. "How will she let Yama-chan know?"
I shrug. "Google-san only covers female pregnancies, so I guess we'll have to deal with that when it comes."
"What are you going to name her?" is the next question, spoken by Keito.
"We don't know yet," both Chinen and I answer in unison.
"You're so married," Yuuto comments, but it doesn't sound like he's making fun of us this time. "Baby Girl YamaChii will be so spoiled."
"And short," Keito points out. "Very, very short."
Thankfully they shut up after that and help Chinen put together the baby furniture we had ordered. I sit on the bed, supervising while scrolling through our baby registries online. I had told Chinen I would literally kill him if anyone threw me a baby shower, which probably only didn't happen because everyone we know is so busy, but we still received a lot of gifts from our colleagues. Keito's dad and the rest of the daisenpai pooled together to buy our crib, which is one of those adjustable ones that turns into a toddler bed, and all five members of SMAP personally delivered what looked like a year's supply of infant diapers while wearing nothing but adult ones. Between Inocchi and Kimutaku's hand-me-downs and the younger groups wanting to contribute, this kid already has more clothes and toys then she'll know what to do with.
"Yama-chan, we've been friends for a long time, right?" Yuuto tells me when Chinen and Keito go to the store for liquid motivation. "Half our lives, I'd say."
"Almost," I reply, hugging my fat belly as I try to stretch my legs on Chinen's-our-bed. It's the most exercise I can manage since I'm forbidden from going outside in case someone sees me like this. "Something wrong? I have nothing better to do than listen to you if you have a problem."
"It's not my problem," Yuuto says so pointedly that I look up at him, seeing concern all over his face. "It's Chinen's."
"Chinen?" I reply, my heartbeat quickening at the thought of Chinen being upset. Why hadn't he told me? More importantly, why hadn't I noticed? Was he mad at me? "What's wrong with him?"
"What's wrong with him is that he's in love with you," Yuuto blurts out, and everything seems to stop. "At first we thought he was just all starry-eyed over the baby, but then he started getting that way when he talked about you. It's so cute that it's disgusting."
I blink. "That doesn't mean he's in love with me. He's just really happy to be a father."
"Yama-chan, I've known him almost as long as I've known you," Yuuto says gently. "I've only seen him like this once, back when he was all fucked up over Umika-chan. Do you remember?"
"Vaguely," I answer honestly. "Didn't she turn him down?"
"Yes, but that was after he spent months pining over her. The way he acts toward you now reminds me of that. A lot."
"Yutti," I say slowly, not wanting to process this information at all. "I appreciate your intentions, but I think you're wrong. Chinen has always been open about his feelings, even back then. Everyone within a kilometer radius knew that he had it bad for her. If he really felt that way about me, he would have told you or Takaki or someone by now."
Yuuto frowns. "He's grown up a lot, you know. We all have. There isn't much to lose by admitting those things when we're younger, but there's a lot more at stake now that we're older."
"What are you talking about?" I ask, starting to get irritated. "Don't upset me, dammit. I don't want to know what it feels like to go into early labor."
"Forget it, then." Yuuto looks disappointed as he turns away, which just pisses me off even more. I didn't do anything to deserve disapproval from someone who's never even had a proper relationship. "Just remember that this isn't just about you."
His words haunt me for the days to come, which get more and more stressful as my due date gets closer. I pay more attention to Chinen when he takes care of me and all I notice is that he looks tired, brushing off my protests when I tell him to worry about himself instead. He's fine, he assures me, he doesn't mind. It's worth it to make me comfortable, happy, relaxed.
Me. Not the baby, me. "Chinen, do you have feelings for me?" I ask him point-blank when we're lying in bed. He's draped over my stomach, rising and falling with each of my breaths while our daughter kicks him everywhere she can reach. I have no idea how anyone can sleep like that.
My words catch him just before he drifts off, his eyelids lifting like they weigh a thousand pounds. "Yes," he answers, so casually that it doesn't register in my brain right away, but when it does, I know exactly how I got pregnant.
"Looks like both of our New Year's wishes came true," I say quietly, Chinen's soft breathing implying that he's already asleep.
PART TWO
From: rikikomori
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: Jumping Bean
Pairing/Group: JUMP/YamaChii, appearances by Chinen Saya and Sexy Zone
Rating: M for Mpreg! (NC-17)
Warnings: unconventional mpreg (lol), fluff, magic, first person POV
Notes: Happy Holidays, sakurai_no_ocha! I really hope you enjoy this.
Summary: They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it'll come true. This year, Yamada gets more than he could have ever wished for.
The sun is barely breaking the horizon when Chinen grabs me, pulling us both to a stop.
"What?" I whine, forcing my eyes to stay open. "It's seven-thirty in the morning. I'm getting too old for this all-nighter shit."
"Shut up," Chinen says, but it's soft and quiet and out-of-character enough for me to look down at him. He looks thoughtful-very sleepy, but there's a hint of serenity in his eyes that someone who has been awake for over twenty-four hours wouldn't normally have. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
I shake myself out of my thoughts, following Chinen's line of sight to the first break of light over the mountains. My exhaustion wins over my annoyance and I slump against the railing of the bridge we're crossing, unaware of the words leaving my lips until I hear them spoken in my voice: "It is."
"They say if you make a wish on the first sunrise of the New Year, it'll come true." Chinen's voice is as soothing as the scene before my eyes, an underlying depth that only comes out in the wee hours of the morning after working all night. "Make a wish, Yama-chan."
There's nothing particular that I want to wish for, aside from the health and happiness of my family and friends, maybe continued success for JUMP and the agency overall. Those seem to defeat the purpose of the superstition, though. Chinen's probably wishing for something frivolous like a week's vacation or going fishing with Ohno-senpai. Normally my selfish wish is to grow taller, but that's starting to seem like a lost cause as I get older.
I wish for Chinen to get what he wishes, I think, satisfied with my selflessness. I'll probably regret it later, when Ohno inevitably invites Chinen out and Chinen doesn't shut up about it for the rest of the year, but it'll be worth it when Chinen's elation infects the entire group. When Chinen is happy, everyone is happy.
"I'm starving," Chinen complains when we get to the train station, completely deserted due to the holiday. It's practically the only time we can commute without being mauled by fangirls.
I check my bag for snacks while rolling my eyes. Clearly the wishes aren't granted right away. "We have that bread Marius brought us from Germany," I mutter, pulling out the wrapped bag with a red bow.
"He's such a weird kid," Chinen comments as he pulls out his own bag, bow pink. Marius had presented us all with little squares of gingerbread earlier at Countdown, which he claimed he had made with his grandmother when he'd returned to Germany a few months ago. "What does this even say?"
I lean over to squint at the foreign writing on the tiny square, then shrug. "Hell if I know. He said mine say 'be happy' or something in German."
"Well, whatever." Chinen unwraps his gingerbread and shoves it into his mouth before he's even done saying 'itadakimasu'. I watch as his eyes grow wider than they should at seven-thirty in the morning. "This is really good!"
"Yeah?" I ask, looking at my own gift. I'm not that hungry, not to mention I'd made a New Year's resolution not to eat sweets anymore, but technically that doesn't start until I've been to sleep. Without further thought I take a bite, instantly pausing at how it explodes with cinnamon and spice. "Wow."
Chinen just nods, and together we sit in silence even after we're done chewing. The train should be coming soon, then it's just staying awake until we get to Chinen's place. Chinen doesn't know that I'm staying over yet, but considering the time nobody should mind. My oldest sister already practically lives there, anyway. One of the reasons I had wanted to cut my hair so short is because Chinen's mom kept calling me Chihiro-chan when she didn't have her glasses on.
Not that that stops Saya from giving me a strange look when she sees me in the hallway.
*
The new year brings much of the same, which isn't as boring as I make it sound. I love my job-always have. I love singing and dancing and acting. I love my groupmates, senpai, and kouhai. I don't love hosting Shounen Club very much, since just about every junior is taller than me and likes to point it out (and if they don't, my lovely co-host does), but it could be worse.
"Yama-chan looks bigger!" Yuuma teases during our interview. "Are you storing fat for the winter?"
We're recording, so I can't say what I'd really like to say, but my feelings probably come across on my face. "Too much chocolate, apparently."
Since Valentine's Day had just passed, my response has the added benefit of rubbing it in Yuuma's face that I got more chocolates than he did. To which Yuuma replies that he'd heard Sexy Zone's Nakajima Kento had given me homemade chocolates, because he throws everyone under the bus equally, and Kento comes running out in his red swoosh to defend himself.
Everyone forgets about the jab toward my weight except for me. Later that night I stand in front of my full-length mirror, turning profile and lifting my shirt to examine my abdomen. I had finally started toning these muscles, and now they were completely gone. Sucking in my air makes it look slimmer, but I don't feel any better.
"You are worse than a teenage girl," my oldest sister's voice sounds from the doorway, making me jump. "If you want to lose weight, don't eat so many sweets."
"Easy for you to say," I shoot back, calmly walking toward the door. "You don't have an ounce of fat on your body and you eat like a cow!"
"Blessed with good metabolism, what can I say?" Chihiro grins, and I take great joy is closing my door in her face.
I don't tell her that I've actually been sticking to my diet and haven't had a single sweet since Marius' authentic German gingerbread on New Year's morning.
*
You would think that most things could be overlooked in a group as large as mine, but I only make it until the cherry blossoms start to bloom before Chinen drags me into an empty practice room after an NYC meeting.
"This is how rumors get started, you know," I joke, because his face is serious and it scares me a little.
"Do you think I'm fucking blind?" Chinen asks quietly, though it's not really a question with how deadpan his voice is. "I spend basically all of my waking time with you, you know. You could at least pretend to eat something every now and then."
"That would be a waste of food," I mumble, looking down at my hands, which are shaking traitorously.
"I know you're not dumb enough to starve yourself," Chinen goes on, and now I really feel bad. "Explain."
It's like the floodgates have opened and everything comes pouring out, Yuuma's comment and the conversation with my sister and how a lot of my pants don't fit anymore because I've gained five kilograms since the beginning of the year. I'm not doing it to lose weight, I try to tell him; I just want to stop getting bigger.
"That's weird," Chinen assesses, looking oddly suspicious. "But it doesn't mean you can just stop eating. Why do I even have to tell you this?! Do you want to pass out in the middle of a show?"
"No, of course not." I take a deep breath and meet Chinen's eyes. He looks more upset than I've ever seen him before, like he wants to cry and punch me in the face at the same time. It's just as scary as his serious face, so I nod and insist, "I'll eat. I promise."
Chinen seems to accept that and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It's not like I was completely starving myself, but even I knew that the small amount of food I put away each day wasn't healthy. I couldn't help it, though-the number on the scale kept rising no matter what I did.
There's now a pudge when I sit in the bath, a little firm when I push on it. Maybe I have a tumor, I think, desperate for some excuse. Maybe my intestines have swollen from some disease. I would probably be in a least a little bit of pain if either of those were true, which I definitely don't want them to be. I'll take being fat over being sick anyday. I just don't understand why it suddenly had to happen at age twenty. It's like the powers that be are mocking me for wishing to grow taller by making me grow wider instead.
I didn't even wish that this year, I remember bitterly. If this is what I get for being selfless, I'll never make that sacrifice again.
*
Working out isn't exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday, but Takaki is here with me and I suppose it could be a lot worse. Takaki and I are a lot alike when it comes to our body structure, except that he's of course much taller. At any rate, I don't mind going to the gym with him, mostly because I can fool myself into thinking that the extra weight is toned muscle.
"You don't look too good," Takaki says from the next treadmill, jogging at half the speed that I am, and then everything goes black.
When I wake up, I'm at the hospital with a sugar water drip in my arm and a very angry Chinen glaring down at me. "I've been eating!" I exclaim, but my voice is a little slow to catch up.
"Sensei says you're malnutritioned," Chinen says, gripping onto the railing of my bed so tightly that his knuckles are turning white. "I swear to everything holy, Yamada, I will force-feed you myself if I have to."
"I really have…" I try again, but I get a sudden pang of dizziness and close my eyes to keep the world from spinning. "I'm sorry."
The last thing I feel before I pass out again is a small hand grabbing onto mine.
*
Not a week goes by before I'm back in the hospital again, this time from fatigue. I had gotten disoriented during dance practice and lost my balance, falling to the floor where I was suddenly so tired that I couldn't get back up. Now the entire group knows that there's something wrong, and naturally they're all in various stages of worry.
Yabu stays by my side the entire time, pushing my hair out of my face and smiling down at me with those bright eyes. I like Yabu's company much better than Chinen's, because Yabu doesn't yell at me and accuse me of having an eating disorder. I don't have an eating disorder. I am eating properly-three meals a day, four food groups, eight glasses of water, etc. etc. That brat must have told his sister about his concerns, because now my sister is on my case at home and takes it upon herself to fix my meals for me. I suppose that's nice of her, but it's not really necessary.
"You keep holding your stomach," Yabu comments, his voice soft, and I look down to see that he's right. "Does it hurt? Are you going to be sick?"
"No," I answer. "It just feels weird."
Yabu blinks. "Can I touch it?"
I nod and he replaces my hand with his own, palm down on my skin directly under the hospital gown, and I watch a frown spread on his face as he moves it around. "What is it? Do you feel something?"
"Yeah, but…" Yabu trails off, shaking his head slowly. "That's not possible."
"What's not possible?" I ask, filled with hope at finally having a reason for all of these sudden physical problems. "Just say it."
"This is how my sister's stomach felt when she was pregnant," Yabu blurts out, looking as confused at those words as I feel. "She was so excited she kept making us touch it even before she got big."
I pause to consider that, getting lightheaded all over again for reasons that have nothing to do with fatigue. "I don't understand."
"Hold on," Yabu says suddenly, disappearing from my sight. My skin is cold where his hand had been pressed to it, but what he puts on it next is even colder.
"What the-is that a stethoscope?" I ask, peering down. "I don't think you're supposed to use those on your own."
Yabu ignores me, the ear buds pushed into his ears as he moves the incredibly cold sensor all around my belly. It's possibly the weirdest thing I've ever experienced and I've been a Johnny for almost half of my life. Then Yabu pauses and I look up at his face to find the most amazed expression I've ever seen him make.
"What?" I demand, tugging at his arm so that he pays attention to me. "What do you hear?"
Slowly, Yabu pulls the stethoscope out of his ears and clears his throat. "Listen for yourself."
I take the device from him and put it into my own ears while Yabu continues to hold the sensor still on one particular spot. I hear my own heartbeat, in perfect time with what I feel it to be, but there's also something behind it, something faster. I look helplessly at Yabu, who shrugs, though his eyes can't hide the truth.
"How…" I start to say, and Yabu just shakes his head. "What do I do?"
"I don't know," he replies quietly, pulling away the stethoscope to place his hand on my belly again, rubbing small circles where it's the most swollen. It feels nice, enough to lull me back to sleep, oddly comforted by finally having a reason for all of this, even if it doesn't make any sense at all.
*
Chinen Saya eyeballs me for ten entire seconds before shoving me down into a chair and leaning over me. "What did you do?"
"What do you mean, what did I do?" I reply, a little frantic at being ambushed like this by my older sister's best friend. "I didn't do anything."
"You had to do something," Saya goes on, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Guys just don't get knocked up without some sort of provoking."
"In what world do you live where this is a normal occurrence?!" I demand, turning to glare at Chinen standing over to the side. "What the hell is going on? Why did you bring me here?"
"I knew something was different about you when I saw you on New Year's Day," Saya goes on, ignoring my outburst. "You had this weird glow surrounding you. I've never seen it before on a man."
I blink. "What are you?"
She smiles down at me, only taller because I'm sitting down. "Yuuri calls me a witch, but that's a little glamorous for what I do."
"Which is?!"
"I sense things." Saya kneels next to me and starts to reach for my belly, then pauses. "May I?"
I nod my permission, watching her as she gently presses her hands to every angle of my abdomen. It feels weird and nice at the same time, her touch like a soft massage where my muscles have been strained and apparently relocated around.
"Yeah, it's about twenty-two weeks," Saya says, smiling as she looks up at me. "That places conception at New Year's Day. Do you want to know the gender?"
"Huh?" My mind is spinning. "You can…sense all of this just by feeling my stomach?"
"She's never wrong," Chinen speaks up, watching this whole thing with an expressionless face. "We can't exactly take you to a real doctor, so she's the next best thing."
"I'm not letting her cut me open," I declare, my eyes widening as the reality of this situation weighs down on me.
"Relax, you're stressing out the baby," Saya says, and instantly I try to calm down. "I don't mind doing this for you guys at all. It's my niece, right?"
That has both Chinen and I gaping at her. "What?!" we exclaim in unison.
"You were together on New Year's Eve…" Saya trails off, looking from me to her brother and back again. "Weren't you?"
"Yes, but nothing happened!" Chinen answers before I can. "We're not even like that!"
Now Saya's frowning at both of us. "But it has our family genes all over it."
"What does?" I ask carefully, though I already know the answer.
"The fetus," Saya confirms my suspicions. "Your baby."
I bring my hands to my face and try to make sense of all of this. "Nothing happened on New Year's," I say into my wrists. "I haven't so much as kissed anyone in two years, and certainly not Chinen."
"Don't say that like it's the worst thing ever," Chinen says haughtily. "I'll have you know that I am an amazing kisser."
"Well, you can wait until she's born and do a paternity test," Saya tells us with a shrug, "but I'm always right about these things. When our mom was pregnant with Yuuri, I kept insisting that he was a boy when the doctors were sure that he was a girl, and I was only two years old."
"He looks like a girl," I point out.
"Says the one my mother keeps calling 'Chihiro'," Chinen shoots back without missing a beat.
Saya's smile gets bigger until I skeptically question it. She just shakes her head, giving my stomach one last pat before getting to her feet. "I'm sure you can Google proper pregnancy behavior. The good news is that you don't have that long to go, while the bad news is that the last three months are supposed to be the worst."
"Gee, thanks," I say sarcastically, then I remember something she'd said earlier. "Wait, did you say 'niece'?"
Her hand flies to her mouth. "Oops! I did. I hope you didn't want to be surprised."
"It's fine," I reply, staring down at midsection in awe. A girl. I'm going to have a daughter.
I stare for so long that I jump when a hand rests on my shoulder. "Do you believe her?"
"I think I would remember if we had sex," I say bluntly. "Especially if it resulted in me being the one like this."
"She's always right, though," Chinen goes on. "And given how unconventional this situation is in the first place, it's not completely impossible that it happened unconventionally as well."
"That shouldn't make as much sense as it does," I say with a sigh. "Okay, think back. What did we do on New Year's Eve? We worked all night, right?"
"Then we rode the train here and went to sleep," Chinen adds, kneeling down by my side much like his sister had just done. "You slept on a futon on my floor and I slept in my bed. Nothing was out of the ordinary when we woke up later."
"I went home and took a shower, then went back to work," I recall. "Nothing weird."
"We made those wishes on the first sunrise of the New Year, right?" Chinen offers. "Did you wish to have a family or something?"
"No," I answer, but my eyes widen at the memory of what I did wish for. "Chinen, do you want to have a family?"
"Of course, someday." Chinen folds his arms on my thigh and rests his chin on his hands, looking up at me. "That's not what I wished for that morning, though."
Neither one of us seems too keen to tell the other our real wishes, and I certainly wasn't going to be the one to ask. It feels ridiculous to talk about this like our wishes could really be the reason why I'm pregnant, though no more ridiculous than me being pregnant in the first place.
"Is it okay for me to be happy?" Chinen asks quietly, pulling me from my thoughts. "I mean, it's easier for me to accept this because I'm used to neechan’s predictions, so I actually believe that it's, you know, my kid in there. Despite everything, I'm just…really excited to be a father."
My nerves calm as I watch him look at my stomach with a strange fondness in his eyes. "You can touch it, if you want," is all I say.
He rushes to do it like all he'd been waiting for this whole time is my permission, and I can't help but smile as his face lights up at the contact. Chinen is happy-go-lucky as it is, but there's something different in his eyes this time, something I haven't seen before. It seems like I'm witnessing a lot of new reactions from him lately.
"Do you even feel anything?" I ask after a couple seconds.
Chinen laughs as he shakes his head. "Nope."
"Stupid," I say affectionately, and he shoves at my thigh. "Hey! Don't hit the mother of your child."
"You're not pregnant in your legs." He rolls his eyes as he looks up at me. "So does this mean you believe it?"
I take a deep breath before responding. "It's easier to just believe it, isn't it? Less stressful, and I shouldn't be stressing, right?"
"What are you gonna tell your parents?" Chinen asks, and my blood runs cold. "I mean, mine are used to weird shit happening because of neechan’s gift, but this might be a little far-fetched even for them."
"You're not helping me not stress out," I say pointedly. "Get up, I need to stand. My back hurts."
"Spoken by a true pregnant person," Chinen teases as he gets to his feet. I suppose I should be happy he didn't say 'woman'. "Come on, let's go to my room and I'll give you a massage."
"Really?" I turn to give him a weird look. "Why?"
"Because that's my role here," Chinen replies matter-of-factly. "Shut up and enjoy it."
For once, I follow his orders without complaint. I hadn't thought that such small hands could feel so nice, skillfully working out my knots without being too rough. It's so relaxing that I fall right to sleep, waking several hours later to a warm body next to mine and soft breaths on my arm.
My first instinct is to freak out, but given the events of the past twenty-four hours, this is the most normal I've felt.
*
Naturally, nobody believes us. Well, they believe that I'm pregnant after I pee on a stick and show them my newly acquired fat rolls, but not that Chinen and I hadn't done anything to cause it. It's the wrong time of the year for an immaculate conception, my father claims before telling me to get the fuck out of his house. I'm not supposed to lift anything, so I just walk out the door and hope Chinen doesn't mind sharing his shampoo. I can't fit into any of my clothes anyway.
My boss isn't much better, but at least I don't get fired. I squirm in an uncomfortable armchair with Chinen standing next to me while the old man plans the next six months of my life. He'll promote BEST for the rest of the year, shove Yuuto and Chinen into dramas, and talk up Keito's university load. Magazines can be photoshopped and I should have no problem being back in shape by Christmas. Enjoy your vacation, he tells me, and congratulations to the both of you.
"You know," Chinen says conversationally as we walk to the elevator. "Eventually, we should talk about this."
"What's there to talk about?" I reply, still a little testy from the meeting. I blame those stupid prenatal pills Chinen's mother makes me take. "We're having a baby. We already live together, I'm following all of Google-san's rules, and your psychic sister says that everything is fine."
"She's not psychic," Chinen grumbles, then sets his jaw as he continues ahead of me. "Never mind."
And I'm the one with the hormones here. I can't even look in a mirror anymore without bursting into tears at how fat I am. I'm almost as round as I am tall. Saya hadn't been kidding about the last three months being the hardest; even though I hadn't had any sickness or much pain other than minor back discomfort, my emotions were a wreck. Both of my sisters on their periods weren't as bad as me some days.
Yet Chinen puts up with it all. I have never seen him make so much effort as he does when he's calming me down. It's for our daughter, he tries to explain. The fatter the mommy, the healthier the baby. I can understand that well enough, but that doesn't make me hate my appearance any less. Just walking with all of this extra weight makes me feel so gross and unattractive. Having baby fat at twenty years old is nothing compared to this. The only good thing that will come out of this experience is my complete satisfaction with a less than perfect body after this is all over.
Well, that's not the only good thing. Chinen and I both stare at Saya's laptop as she runs this weird sensor over my stomach, a makeshift ultrasound performed by instruments she had obtained from who knows where. She can see the fetus just fine, she explains, but she wants to show it to us too. She thinks it will help me feel better about being a whale.
At seven months it should be pretty defined, but the picture is too grainy to see much more than an outline. I squint at the display as she points out the head and knees, and I frown at how it all just looks like a giant blob to me. But then Chinen makes a weird noise and I turn my head to see silent tears streaming down his face.
"Chinen?" I ask, reaching for his arm. My chubby fingers look even bigger next to his thin arms, but I try not to pay attention to that. "What is it? Are you okay?"
Then he smiles, completely offsetting the tears and confusing the hell out of me, especially when this warm feeling courses through me at the sight. Stupid hormones. For whatever reason they are moved by seeing Chinen like this. They think it's beautiful.
"It's our daughter," Chinen whispers, gently placing his hand on my giant belly. We both gasp as the blob on the screen jerks around at the same time I feel it, the kicks that keep Chinen glued to my stomach every minute he's home, even while we're sleeping.
Saya just grins at us, both Chinens filled with a happiness that I don't quite share. I'm excited to meet the baby, of course, but I can't really look forward to that with as awful as I feel about myself and my body. I don't know how women do it.
I also feel guilty that Chinen keeps doing everything for me. I'm so big that I can't even bathe properly, but he has no complaints about kneeling next to the bathtub and cleaning me like a child. He's going to be such a great father, I muse in an attempt to get over my embarrassment. Until this happened to us, I wouldn't have thought Chinen had the patience to care for a houseplant, but now that I've seen him in action, I understand that some things are just worth his making the effort. Right now, that thing is me, and I'm not sure how that makes me feel.
It would be one thing if we'd actually hooked up that night and were now reaping the consequences, but I've never so much as touched him. Sure, it's common for guys in our agency to mess around in shared hotel rooms every now and then, but not me and Chinen. We both value sleep more than sex, I guess. But somehow I feel like I missed out on something, like if I'm going to suffer like this I should have at least gotten laid out of it, even if I haven't thought of Chinen like that before.
He treats me well enough, I reason with myself one night when we're getting ready for bed. He has a few hours free in the morning and we're going to shop online for baby furniture. We had wanted to get our own place, but his parents were being great about the whole thing and it would be dumb of us to not stay here and let them help us, even if it means squishing a crib into Chinen's already-small bedroom.
I watch him as he curls up next to me, never once rolling out the futon since I moved in. He wants to be close to the baby, he tells me when I question him about it. I'm jealous at how fast he falls asleep, how he can stay asleep even when our daughter is kicking up a storm. She's the most active at night, but everyone says that's normal. It's not like I have anything to do during the day except waddle around and watch TV, but it's still exhausting to sleep in fifteen-minute increments.
It's only going to get worse after the baby is born, but I'd much rather deal with her outside of my body.
*
"So when are you two getting hitched?" Yuuto greets us at the beginning of month nine, and Chinen grabs my wrist before I can punch our unnaturally tall groupmate.
Let's be honest, it would have probably hurt me more than it hurt him, but it would have certainly made me feel better. "There will be no hitching," Chinen says calmly. "That's not even legal here."
"And we're not together like that," I add, shooting a glare up at Yuuto.
"Yeah, okay," Keito teases, but he's too far away for me to hit. "Where is this kid coming out again?"
Yuuto bursts out laughing and I'm seething, wonder why the hell we even invited them over when Chinen rubs slow circles on my back and instantly calms me down. "It'll be a cesarean," he tells them. "Scheduled for October first."
"What if she wants to come out before then?" Yuuto asks, now looking concerned. "How will she let Yama-chan know?"
I shrug. "Google-san only covers female pregnancies, so I guess we'll have to deal with that when it comes."
"What are you going to name her?" is the next question, spoken by Keito.
"We don't know yet," both Chinen and I answer in unison.
"You're so married," Yuuto comments, but it doesn't sound like he's making fun of us this time. "Baby Girl YamaChii will be so spoiled."
"And short," Keito points out. "Very, very short."
Thankfully they shut up after that and help Chinen put together the baby furniture we had ordered. I sit on the bed, supervising while scrolling through our baby registries online. I had told Chinen I would literally kill him if anyone threw me a baby shower, which probably only didn't happen because everyone we know is so busy, but we still received a lot of gifts from our colleagues. Keito's dad and the rest of the daisenpai pooled together to buy our crib, which is one of those adjustable ones that turns into a toddler bed, and all five members of SMAP personally delivered what looked like a year's supply of infant diapers while wearing nothing but adult ones. Between Inocchi and Kimutaku's hand-me-downs and the younger groups wanting to contribute, this kid already has more clothes and toys then she'll know what to do with.
"Yama-chan, we've been friends for a long time, right?" Yuuto tells me when Chinen and Keito go to the store for liquid motivation. "Half our lives, I'd say."
"Almost," I reply, hugging my fat belly as I try to stretch my legs on Chinen's-our-bed. It's the most exercise I can manage since I'm forbidden from going outside in case someone sees me like this. "Something wrong? I have nothing better to do than listen to you if you have a problem."
"It's not my problem," Yuuto says so pointedly that I look up at him, seeing concern all over his face. "It's Chinen's."
"Chinen?" I reply, my heartbeat quickening at the thought of Chinen being upset. Why hadn't he told me? More importantly, why hadn't I noticed? Was he mad at me? "What's wrong with him?"
"What's wrong with him is that he's in love with you," Yuuto blurts out, and everything seems to stop. "At first we thought he was just all starry-eyed over the baby, but then he started getting that way when he talked about you. It's so cute that it's disgusting."
I blink. "That doesn't mean he's in love with me. He's just really happy to be a father."
"Yama-chan, I've known him almost as long as I've known you," Yuuto says gently. "I've only seen him like this once, back when he was all fucked up over Umika-chan. Do you remember?"
"Vaguely," I answer honestly. "Didn't she turn him down?"
"Yes, but that was after he spent months pining over her. The way he acts toward you now reminds me of that. A lot."
"Yutti," I say slowly, not wanting to process this information at all. "I appreciate your intentions, but I think you're wrong. Chinen has always been open about his feelings, even back then. Everyone within a kilometer radius knew that he had it bad for her. If he really felt that way about me, he would have told you or Takaki or someone by now."
Yuuto frowns. "He's grown up a lot, you know. We all have. There isn't much to lose by admitting those things when we're younger, but there's a lot more at stake now that we're older."
"What are you talking about?" I ask, starting to get irritated. "Don't upset me, dammit. I don't want to know what it feels like to go into early labor."
"Forget it, then." Yuuto looks disappointed as he turns away, which just pisses me off even more. I didn't do anything to deserve disapproval from someone who's never even had a proper relationship. "Just remember that this isn't just about you."
His words haunt me for the days to come, which get more and more stressful as my due date gets closer. I pay more attention to Chinen when he takes care of me and all I notice is that he looks tired, brushing off my protests when I tell him to worry about himself instead. He's fine, he assures me, he doesn't mind. It's worth it to make me comfortable, happy, relaxed.
Me. Not the baby, me. "Chinen, do you have feelings for me?" I ask him point-blank when we're lying in bed. He's draped over my stomach, rising and falling with each of my breaths while our daughter kicks him everywhere she can reach. I have no idea how anyone can sleep like that.
My words catch him just before he drifts off, his eyelids lifting like they weigh a thousand pounds. "Yes," he answers, so casually that it doesn't register in my brain right away, but when it does, I know exactly how I got pregnant.
"Looks like both of our New Year's wishes came true," I say quietly, Chinen's soft breathing implying that he's already asleep.
PART TWO