[Pinbang] Anything so bright pt. 2
Jin tells the school he has caught the flu and takes a week off. He spends most of his days lounging on the couch with tea and chips, mourning in front of the TV and trying to think about what to do next - his mind always comes up blank, refusing to accept the fact that he can be pregnant, because he’s a man and men don’t get pregnant. He tries to avoid Yamapi as much as possible, and the visitor doesn’t make any attempt to talk to him either, instead giving him time and room to think alone.
When he goes back to the hospital, however, Yamapi insists on going with him and Jin is too afraid of going alone to refuse his lover’s company. He doesn’t say it aloud, still feeling hurt and betrayed, but he doesn’t push his hand away either when Yamapi firmly grabs it as they cross the glass sliding doors. The nurse takes them to a room with other four people and tells them to wait for the doctor.
Jin fidgets nervously as he studies the other patients in the room. Most of them have wary expressions that speak of too little sleep and too many worries. They stand with their arms crossed over their chests or their hands tucked in their pockets, shoulders hunched forward in an angry way, expressions hostile and shocked and confused at all the same time. There’s only one visitor, standing close to a man who has his back turned to him, coldness evident in the tense line of his shoulders. Yamapi's gaze crosses with the other visitor in a way that Jin can’t read, both their eyes looking as dead to him as always, but he immediately feels terrible about his behavior towards his lover during the week and shuffles a little closer to him, squeezing his hand back.
They are there for hours after the doctor comes in. He explains what they know of how male pregnancy works so far, consequences and risks, he talks about what to do next and Jin starts when he hears him mention abortion. The doctor talks lightly about it, about how it’s the safest option for them, about physical risks and about how what they’re carrying will never be fully human, about legal problems in the future and society and ethics and morals and a lot of things that make something light up inside in with rage when he feels Yamapi flinch by his side.
Jin’s head is pounding when the meeting is finally over. The two men who were alone don’t even take a moment to consider their decision and follow a nurse out of the room to start with the procedure. Jin sees the other visitor whisper something to the third man and hears the pregnant one snap; it almost hurts him to see the visitor flinch away. The man asks for some time to think, but Jin thinks his decision is already clear in the hard steel of his eyes. Jin looks at where his fingers lace with Yamapi’s over his knee, and asks for another week.
Jin goes back to work the next day. The classes are just like always, busy and loud and the kids misbehave just as much as usual and shout and run up to him when he steps through the door, excitedly grabbing his hands and letting him know how glad they are that he’s healthy again. Jin sings with them; cheerful children songs and claps his hands and tries to behave as usual, but he can’t take his mind off the baby growing inside him. The fact that he can abort it - that he can kill it - makes it feel so much more real and alive than before, and he can almost feel how it grows and moves and develops and lives inside him.
Jin looks at the students and imagines the baby inside him to be a boy, loud and rowdy and laughing as he plays soccer and runs after the ball, wiping his tears away with a proud pout after a scratched knee, asleep with his little arms around Jin’s neck as he carries him to bed after a long day. Jin imagines it to be a girl with rosy cheeks and long hair and frilly clothes, cute but strong and stubborn, his little warrior princess to spoil, and he can almost see her big dark eyes staring up at him in wonder as he reads her a story and her shrilling laugh as he swirls her in the air. Then Jin imagines the baby never being, never growing, never having the chance to live and laugh and cry and love just because he decided so. Jin imagines killing them, his boy and his girl, and the thought makes him want to throw up again.
The next time Jin goes to the hospital he does so without telling Yamapi, and the grin on the doctor’s face when he notices the visitor’s absence makes it clear what he thinks. He doesn’t even wait for Jin to talk, pushing a stack of papers over his desk as soon as Jin sits down on one of the chairs.
“I’m glad you’ve already reached a decision, Akanishi-san. The procedures for abortion are safer in the first stages of pregnancy, and the earlier we start the less room for complications we’ll leave, so if you can sign here…”
“I’m keeping the baby.” Jin’s voice is steady, not even a trace of anger in it at the doctor’s reaction, because his opinion doesn’t matter right now. Yamapi matters. The baby matters. That’s all. Jin pushes the papers back at him.
The doctor looks like he can’t quite believe what he heard. He looks down at the papers and then back at Jin, a confused frown forming on his brow as he tries to process his patient’s words. “But Akanishi-san, sir…”
“You’ve already said everything you could to try to convince me to abort, and it hasn’t worked. I’ve thought about it and I’m not going to change my mind. You can tell me what to do now or I can look for another hospital that will take my case, but I’m going to keep this baby.”
The doctor gapes at him once, twice, thrice, and then he recovers and frowns. Jin sits in his office for hours, and leaves with a stack of papers the size of a book. He doesn’t quite feel like going back home, so he takes a walk and ends up renting a karaoke room just to be alone and in peace; singing always helps him to relax. By the time he makes it home it’s well past midnight and Yamapi is asleep on the couch, sitting up; Jin had asked him to go back to sleep on the bed with him at the start of the week, and it’s obvious he fell asleep waiting for Jin. He covers the visitor with a blanket softly, but instead of going to bed Jin goes out to the balcony.
There’s a packet of cigarettes on the plastic table that has been there for a few weeks. Jin picks one out and twists it between his fingers as he leans on his elbows over the rail. He has always wanted a family and children, to be a father - he never imagined it to be this way, but he had pictured his future like that a thousand times. Jin had always thought that he’d find it hard to quit the things he likes - clubbing, drinking, smoking. But somehow knowing it can damage the baby growing in him, his child, makes any desire to light the cigarette disappear. Jin snaps it in two and picks out bits of tobacco distractedly, staring absently at Tokyo’s night sky. He can’t see the stars.
Jin doesn’t know for how long he stays out on the balcony, but he doesn’t realize how cold he is until a blanket is wrapped around his shoulders. Jin doesn’t even start and just leans against Yamapi’s strong chest as short fingers slip under his clothes and stretch warm and gentle over his cold tummy. Jin imagines it will start bulging soon and vaguely worries about his clothes.
“I was worried about you.”
Yamapi’s voice is a whisper in Jin’s ear and the visitor’s breath tickles him just enough to make Jin squirm in his arms, smiling lightly. He turns around to face his lover with one hand holding Yamapi’s one on his stomach and the other on the visitor’s cheek; Jin kisses Tomohisa, and nothing else needs to be said.
The nausea starts to fade as winter gets closer and the pregnancy moves on, only to be replaced with backache, tiredness and urges for strange food combinations. As his tummy starts to grow Jin hides it under looser clothes, but more often than not he surprises himself slipping a hand under them to stroke the stretching skin, during class or on the streets, and he suddenly finds himself feeling much more protective and mushy with the kids; he doesn’t understand why, but he supposes his hormones are acting up. The kids just think he’s getting fat and sappy because he’s growing old.
Jin has appointments at the hospital every two weeks and he hates them. He hates the doctor and the nurses and their despising looks, their cold treatment and how painfully impersonal it makes everything; Jin wants warm smiling doctors that get involved like the ones on any American TV series. Yamapi sometimes goes with him, but Jin doesn’t like to ask him because he can see how the almost constant despite affects him. The only thing that helps him go through the check ups are the 3D scanners that show his baby developing, growing, moving, breathing, living inside him. The doctor tells him it’s a girl around the 17th week of his pregnancy, by the end of February, and Jin knows in that very moment that she already has him wrapped around her little finger, and he will never be able to let her go.
By February Jin’s pregnancy gets too obvious to keep hiding it. His stomach starts to bulge, skin stretching and tense and smooth over the rounding tummy, and much to Jin’s mortification and Yamapi’s amusement his bellybutton pops out too. Even wearing looser clothes doesn’t work anymore, and the mothers notice his pregnancy when they pick their kids up at school. Jin can see their stares, their horrified looks, the way they try to shield their kids and herd them away from him, he can hear the scandalized whispers in which they talk to each other without taking their eyes away from him, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise when the headmaster takes him apart from the other teachers on the last day of the school year.
It’s the first time Jin has explained his condition to anyone - he hasn’t even told his parents yet, because even if he knows they won’t hate him for being gay or loving a visitor he doesn’t feel ready to tell them their son is pregnant either - and he’s nervous. He tries to stick to the basics, but even then he can see the headmaster’s face growing increasingly paler and horrified; his eyes keep moving back and forth between Jin’s anxious face and the hand he keeps protectively wrapped around his tummy. The man doesn’t say a word about the baby and just asks Jin to leave after he’s done explaining, informing him in a small, thin voice that he is not to return to the school during the break and that he will receive news soon.
Jin is not suffering from morning sickness anymore, but his stomach feels queasy when he returns home, and maybe his face reflects it because Yamapi is quick to sit him on the couch and put a warm cup of tea between his hands; Jin doesn’t know if it’s the drink or the worry and the guilt on Yamapi’s face after he tells him what’s going on or how the pregnancy is making his hormones crazy, but as Yamapi wraps an arm around his shoulders he starts crying, and he can’t bring himself to stop for hours.
The letter arrives in the middle of the break, and Jin stares at it for a long time before his brain registers the black, bold words printed over white paper. The text is long and formal and talks about worried parents, about morals and unacceptable behavior, about the values they want to transmit to the kids, and Jin feels a bit like he suddenly became a yakuza member. The letter informs him that he’s fired like it wasn’t already obvious, and asks him to pick his things up before the new school year starts. Jin’s heart clenches at the thought that he won’t get to see the children again.
The day the school year starts again, Jin can’t bring himself to get out of bed. He pretends to be still asleep when Yamapi gets up to go to work, and then he spends most of his day dozing off and drowning in self pity, except for short trips to the kitchen to search for food. He has fallen asleep again by the time Yamapi returns, and he only wakes up when he feels a gentle hand brushing his hair back. Jin sighs softly, contentedly, and opens his eyes to find the visitor’s lifeless ones looking at him with what Jin thinks is tenderness - he has gotten a bit better at reading his lover’s seemingly inexpressive eyes. What is clear on Yamapi’s face is the guilt that is eating him inside. He kisses Jin’s lips softly and his thumb brushes under Jin’s eye, swollen and red after too many tears.
“I’m sorry.” Jin wants to interrupt him and tells him it doesn’t matter, but Yamapi shakes his head before he can and presses his fingers against Jin’s lips. His other hand slips under Jin’s t-shirt and strokes the warm skin of his belly. “I’m sorry about everything. If I had known this would happen…” Yamapi’s voice catches in his throat and he can’t continue; he closes his eyes and swallows and rests his forehead against Jin’s. “I love you.”
Jin feels as if his heart swells and does a small funny flip at the raw sincerity in Yamapi’s words; there’s a lump in his own throat and he can’t even reply. Suddenly the baby moves inside him and kicks where Yamapi’s hand is splayed against his stomach. Jin yelps and Yamapi yelps and the baby kicks again, like she’s laughing at them both.
“Did you feel that?”
Yamapi nods, eyes just as shocked and round as Jin’s, and then they smile and laugh and kiss, and Jin thinks losing his job is not that important anymore if he gets to feel this.
After he loses his job, Jin’s case somehow becomes public knowledge. The parents’ complaints get to the local press and Jin finds his phone constantly buzzing with calls from journalists that ask for interviews and pictures. Jin turns it off and stuffs it under the cushions of his sofa, but then comes the mail and the paparazzi at his door. Jin sees them when he goes to the hospital, hand securely clasped in Yamapi’s, and the anxiety must show on his face because the doctor asks him what’s wrong. When Jin explains he is assigned to a psychologist, because stress is not good for the baby, and advised not to go out of the house unless he needs to.
Jin doesn’t know how, but the news stops before it can get to bigger newspapers. He doesn’t really care. He spends his days oversleeping and wasting time in front of the computer, worrying and thinking until he feels like he’s going crazy. Yamapi has to go to work every day and the black armband tells him apart easily, and even after the number of paparazzi decreases they still go after him. It stresses Yamapi and it is obvious, but he tries to stay strong for Jin, and the man doesn’t miss the visitor’s efforts. The psychologist tells him to be positive and think about the work everyone is putting into helping him, but it’s Yamapi who becomes his rock during the storm, and as the visitor holds him when they lie in bed at night and feel their baby move, Jin can only fall deeper and deeper in love with him.
It happens three weeks before Jin is expected to deliver, a sunny afternoon when they’re leaving the hospital after a check-up. Yamapi usually doesn’t come with him, but lately Jin has been feeling anxious - not only about the paparazzi and the press, but the proximity of the delivery scares him too. The doctor has explained that they are going to perform a C-section with general anesthesia, just in case there are any risks, and that Jin is going to be checked into the hospital three days before the surgery is scheduled, just as a precaution. Jin doesn’t like how all these precautions sound necessary.
The two men come out of nowhere, too fast for him to react. The shouts come first, insults and hurtful words that Jin doesn’t even register, too confused to react at the sudden assault. He can’t even cover himself with his arms before the first attacker hits him, and he stumbles back with a gasp at the force of the impact. He doesn’t know what happens next, but suddenly there are shouts and yells, someone calling him a monster, an abomination, and Yamapi is in front of him but he doesn’t fight back, he just tries to protect Jin from the attack by taking the blows himself.
As the situation sinks into Jin’s mind he starts to panic. He shouts at the people around them to help, but the black armband is obvious against the white sleeve of Yamapi’s shirt, and no one dares to stand up for him. Yamapi is trying to protect him with his own body and no matter how much Jin shouts and claws at his arms he won’t budge, he won’t move but he doesn’t fight back even when his lip is broken and his forehead bleeding, and Jin can’t think because he’s panicking and his stomach suddenly hurts with a stabbing pain that has him clutching at it and gasping for air.
It feels like forever before the hospital’s security finally arrives. The attackers run away as soon as the two guards get close, promptly followed by a couple of nurses with a wheelchair in which Jin is forced to sit despite his complaints that they should take care of Yamapi first. The visitor stands shakily, supporting himself on Jin’s shoulders as the man wheezes his complaints. He follows the nurses as they rush Jin back inside, where the doctor is already waiting. In a moment Jin finds himself hooked up to a machine that displays his crazy pulse and his wheezing clogs up an oxygen mask placed over his mouth.
The breathing aid helps Jin to relax, though the machine by his side is still beeping loudly and too fast. He searches for Yamapi’s hands and pulls him to stand where Jin can see him. He tries to touch the wound on the visitor’s lips with his fingers, but he doesn’t quite reach. Yamapi catches his hand and squeezes it carefully.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine… But you… Those wounds…”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No. They have to treat you, they have to…”
The machine starts beeping loudly again as Jin pulls at Yamapi’s hand, and the doctor motions something to a nurse who quickly leaves the room. “Akanishi-san, your pulse is too high, you need to calm down or it’ll endanger the baby. We’re going to sedate you now…”
“No! No, you have to heal him first, you have to help him, you…”
“I promise you we’ll help your friend in a moment, Akanishi-san, but we have to sedate you first, the stress is bad for the baby.”
“No, no, you can’t…”
“Jin.” Yamapi’s voice is calm and reassuring like nothing out of the usual has happened. He strokes Jin’s hair and cheek and ignores the disgusted look the doctor gives them. “I’m fine. This is just a scratch, okay? The priority right now is your safety and the baby’s, so please let them sedate you. Just for a few hours, until you calm down, and then we can go back home and I'll let you take care of me, yes?”
Jin wants to complain and resist, but then the nurse is back with a syringe and Jin feels the prick on his arm before he can say anything. He groans in protest and Yamapi smiles and holds his hand as he falls asleep and finally calms down.
Jin is not sure how many hours have passed. He feels dizzy and confused and a bit like his head is full of cotton. His limbs feel heavy and sluggish as he stirs and opening his eyes is such an effort that Jin wants to give up and maybe sleep for a few hours more. He forgets about sleep, though, as he hears two familiar voices.
“I will need to start preparing Akanishi-san’s therapy for after the surgery. What is he going to be told?” Jin recognizes his psychologist’s deep voice.
“That the baby has been stillborn. He will not be allowed to see the body in case there’s any risk of it carrying infections.” The doctor explains as calmly as if he was talking about a regular blood test. Jin’s heart is suddenly beating in his throat.
“Where will the baby be taken?”
“Special facilities have been prepared for this matter. It’s important to ensure we keep the baby after the surgery, because the Government won’t be able to legally take her away from him after that.”
“Why does the Government have so much interest in keeping the baby?”
“It’s an unique opportunity! This is not a simple baby or a simple half… This baby won’t be simply human. Like when Neanderthals started to mix with modern men, she’s the start of a new race, a new race that could be better than us, could pose a threat to humans, and we need to explore to which point this can be so. Akanishi-san must be about to wake up, let’s not talk about this here.”
As the steps and the voices grow fainter and disappear the information starts to sink into Jin’s mind, and he feels his stomach dropping with a cold feeling. There’s a lump in his throat and he can’t think, he can’t breathe, he can’t open his eyes, he can’t do anything but panic and the machine he’s been hooked up to starts to beep loudly again. Jin barely manages to calm down enough to make something up when the nurses rush in; he explain he was confused after waking up in an unfamiliar room, smiles softly and asks if he can go back home already.
Yamapi wants to drive Jin straight home, but Jin doesn’t want to return to the apartment just yet and maybe he’s not concealing his panic as well as he thought he was, because Yamapi doesn’t even argue with him. When Jin checks the rear-view mirror, he looks pale and shaken and his eyes are wide. Yamapi pulls over to the side near a park and kills the engine.
“Tell me what’s wrong?”
Jin starts crying before he can help himself. Words rush one after another as he stumbles over them, trying to explain everything at once while he feels the panic taking a hold of his body again. He’s gasping for air when he finishes, hysterical. Yamapi looks shaken too, but Yamapi is always calmer; his eyes are however as inexpressive as ever and it only makes Jin feel sicker, because he’s not able to tell what’s going through his lover’s mind. Yamapi’s hands are warm when they close around Jin’s wrists to pull softly.
“Okay. Listen to me. Try to calm down, breathe deeply. We can’t afford to go back to that hospital right now; you need to calm down for the baby. We’re going to go back home and you’re going to pack some of your clothes and whatever we have bought for the baby while I make some calls. I’m not sure about this plan yet and I can’t tell you more, but I promise you it’ll be alright. I won’t let them take her away. I won’t let them hurt you, Jin.”
When Yamapi leans in to kiss him, Jin can’t help but trust him blindly.
They leave the house again late that night. Jin’s backpack is small and contains only the essentials, a couple of loose t-shirts and sweatpants for him, the few clothes they have bought for their girl, his ID and some money. Being the beginning of June the nights are warm and humid, but Jin hides his pregnancy under a jacket three sizes too big for him.
There’s a man waiting with a car outside the apartment building, and even though the darkness hides his eyes, Jin can make out the outline of a red star on the armband over his coat. He talks with Yamapi in an unknown language, rushing words and in whispers before he turns around to take Jin’s backpack and stuff it in the trunk. Jin turns to look at Yamapi, confused.
“This is Yamashita Tarou, Jin. He came in the same spaceship as me. There’s a village where visitors and humans have been living together down south, and he’s going to take you there. You’re going to go by secondary roads so it might take a few days… I don’t know how long. He’ll take care of you, don’t worry. You can trust him.”
“Wait, aren’t you coming too?”
“I can’t, right now. It’ll be too suspicious if we both disappear at the same time. I’ll finish this week at my job and then quit and meet up with you as soon as possible… Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. They’ll take care of you, and you can trust them. When the baby comes they’ll know what to do. You’ll be safe. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep in touch with you, maybe it’d be safer if I didn’t, but remember I love you. I love you, Jin.”
Jin’s breath catches in his throat as they hug, and he clings to Yamapi’s t-shirt and doesn’t want to let go, but the visitor’s own hands push him away. They share one last kiss, slow and passionate and filled with all the words they don’t have time to say. Yamapi stands by the side of the road as Jin gets in the car, and waves his goodbye until the car disappears in the distance.
They drive for days. Jin is not sure how many actually pass because he spends most of the time sleeping, since the visitor refuses to let him drive They talk too, sometimes, but not much because Jin is not really in the mood, and Tarou is not really talkative either. It’s not easy to find light topics to chat about in their situation. They stop for food and during the nights to rest, always in small villages by the road.
They arrive at their destination in the middle of the night. It’s far from any other one, obviously built just for the small community of humans and visitors that live together there. Even though it’s late a small group is there to receive them. They’re quickly ushered inside a house where a middle aged woman explains Jin will stay for as long as he needs, but Jin is too tired to pay attention to her words when he can’t even care to see if she’s a human or a visitor. He refuses the food she offers and asks to be left alone in his bedroom. He’s asleep the moment he lies down on the futon, with Yamapi in his thoughts.
The small community warms up to Jin immediately. Upon learning about his condition visitors are quick to offer themselves for anything he needs, and even humans try to disguise their shock. Jin makes an effort to smile, but being surrounded by so many visitors only reminds him of the one he wants to see the most, the one who’s not by his side for the first time in over a year. Jin misses Yamapi, and it drives him crazy not to have any news from his lover, any signal about when he’s coming, or if he’s safe.
Jin doesn’t want to have the baby without Yamapi by his side, but there’s not much he can do about it when just a few days after arriving at the village a sharp pain takes his breath away in the middle of the night. He curls over himself on the futon, clutching at his tummy and fighting to breathe as the pain threatens to cut him in half. It takes him a couple of excruciating minutes before he’s finally able to let out a cry, pitiful and choked but loud enough to wake up his host, who immediately informs everyone else.
The pain blurs everything as the world moves around Jin. He is not sure how but the community seems ready to react, as if they had already prepared for the situation. They rush Jin to a big tent right outside the village where the doctor is already waiting, and lie him down on a stretcher; the tent is full of people, most of them visitors that rush around him, talking to the doctor and to each other and to him in their own language and Japanese and Jin just wishes the world would stop, because he’s in pain and he can’t breathe and all the movement is making him feel dizzy and sick.
“Akanishi-san.” Jin looks up and blinks at a middle aged man with unreadable eyes that leans over him, smiling reassuringly. An oxygen mask is placed over his mouth and Jin tries to find who did it with his unfocused sight, but there’re too many people around him. “We only have local anesthesia here, so we’re going to anesthetize your stomach and the area around it, and we’re going to set a curtain over your chest so you don’t have to see anything. Is that alright with you?”
Jin nods even though he doesn’t fully understand the words, because the pain is excruciating and he just wants it to be gone already. He barely feels the prick of the syringe, but the relief comes after a few moments and Jin sighs contentedly and relaxes back into the stretcher. It’s only when he calms down enough that he realizes that without the pain he is able to focus, and if he’s able to focus he can see the instruments being passed around, the scalpel and the bloodied gauzes. Jin closes his eyes, suddenly feeling queasy.
Jin doesn’t know for how long they’re in the tent; it could be a couple of hours or less than one. There are hands holding his the whole time, firm and reassuring as they return his nervous squeezes. There are soft caresses to his cheeks and his hair, and soothing voices telling him to relax and breathe deeply. There’s the middle aged visitor man who talked to him before and Jin wonders if he has had children before, back in his planet, if they survived and came to Earth or if they died back there at their home, Jin wonders if the man is happy to see another man giving birth here on his new planet. There’re visitor women and Jin wonders what they think, if they envy him, there’re humans and he wonders if what they’re seeing disgusts them, if they think it’s as crazy as he thought nine months ago. Jin tries to focus on his thoughts and the hands and the fingers, on the soothing voices and the deep breathing and not on the strong smell of blood as it fills his nostrils.
A loud cry snaps him out of his thoughts, and it takes Jin a second to realize it’s the baby. A woman lifts her and places her on a table, quickly checking on her. Jin follows their every movement, eyes trained on the tiny being, so red and bloodied and Jin had always thought newborns were ugly, but right now he can’t think of anything as beautiful as his baby. She’s still crying when the woman brings her over to where he’s lying, already bundled up in a bunch of old looking blankets, and Jin thinks her loud wails are the most beautiful sound in the world.
He doesn’t realize his own tears are running free down his cheeks until someone dries them, and the hands holding his own squeeze harder. Jin lifts one hand slowly, weakly, and brushes his fingers over the newborn’s tiny ones, so impossibly small that Jin fears the simple touch will break them. It calms her down instead, and with a last sniffle and a yawn she stops crying and falls asleep. Jin smiles what he feels must be the dumbest smile on Earth, but he doesn’t even care. He abandons himself to the happiness filling every crevice of his mind, and when the tension finally edges away he lets himself fall asleep.
They don’t find out until later, but as the first human male ever to be pregnant gives birth to his daughter, Japan gives in to foreign governments pressures and rescinds the law that forces visitors to wear an armband in public places, and puts their rights on a level with humans’. The community celebrates the announcement by turning all their armbands into a blanket and a tiny hat for the newborn baby.
Yamapi arrives at the village three days after the baby is born. The sun is just setting when he rushes into Jin’s bedroom, and Jin can’t care less about the surgery’s wound and resting and not moving, because he practically jumps from the bed into his lover’s arms. Yamapi’s lips are soft and sweet and impatient, and Jin grabs fistfuls of his shirt and doesn’t let go until the baby cries from her cradle. Yamapi’s eyes widen as if he has just suddenly realized Jin’s tummy has gone missing, the baby’s wailing grows louder and they both laugh without being really sure about why exactly they are laughing.
Later, when Jin has fed her and she has calmed down, they both sit in the house’s back garden, under the stars. She’s asleep in Yamapi’s arms and the visitor can't take his eyes off her, as mesmerized by her small hands and nose and fingers as Jin himself. She hasn’t opened her eyes yet, but Jin has been told it is normal with visitor babies. He wonders if that means her eyes will be like Yamapi’s.
“I haven’t named her yet.”
“Are you thinking about any names in particular, then?”
“I thought that we could maybe name her after your sister… If that’s alright with you.”
Yamapi laughs loudly, honestly amused, and Jin frowns, mildly offended. “That’s a nice gesture from you, Jin, but then you wouldn’t be able to even pronounce your daughter’s name. My sister never had a Japanese name.”
Jin blushes as he realizes his mistake, and he’s glad for the darkness that hides the redness on his cheeks. He traces the red star on the baby’s tiny hat and she stirs. They both watch in amazement as she finally opens her eyes. They’re dark and bottomless, much like Yamapi’s, but with a special shine to them, more alive somehow. She squirms in Yamapi’s hold and looks at the sky before blinking with a pout. When Jin follows her sight a million stars are shining down on them, and Jin wonders how their light must seem to her as she sees it for first time, tries to imagine anything so bright.
“Hoshi.”
Yamapi blinks at him, confused. “What?”
“Her name. Star. Hoshi-chan. That will be her name, because that’s where her Daddy came from.”
When Yamapi smiles his smile is brighter than the stars above them. He lifts Hoshi-chan a bit and coos at her. She pouts and whines and threatens to cry, but she calms down again as soon as the visitor rocks her softly, and he chuckles at her yawn. Jin watches as he laughs and she sleeps, and he suddenly doesn’t care about whatever will come their way, as long as he can have his family - and how wonderful that word sounds - with him.
When he goes back to the hospital, however, Yamapi insists on going with him and Jin is too afraid of going alone to refuse his lover’s company. He doesn’t say it aloud, still feeling hurt and betrayed, but he doesn’t push his hand away either when Yamapi firmly grabs it as they cross the glass sliding doors. The nurse takes them to a room with other four people and tells them to wait for the doctor.
Jin fidgets nervously as he studies the other patients in the room. Most of them have wary expressions that speak of too little sleep and too many worries. They stand with their arms crossed over their chests or their hands tucked in their pockets, shoulders hunched forward in an angry way, expressions hostile and shocked and confused at all the same time. There’s only one visitor, standing close to a man who has his back turned to him, coldness evident in the tense line of his shoulders. Yamapi's gaze crosses with the other visitor in a way that Jin can’t read, both their eyes looking as dead to him as always, but he immediately feels terrible about his behavior towards his lover during the week and shuffles a little closer to him, squeezing his hand back.
They are there for hours after the doctor comes in. He explains what they know of how male pregnancy works so far, consequences and risks, he talks about what to do next and Jin starts when he hears him mention abortion. The doctor talks lightly about it, about how it’s the safest option for them, about physical risks and about how what they’re carrying will never be fully human, about legal problems in the future and society and ethics and morals and a lot of things that make something light up inside in with rage when he feels Yamapi flinch by his side.
Jin’s head is pounding when the meeting is finally over. The two men who were alone don’t even take a moment to consider their decision and follow a nurse out of the room to start with the procedure. Jin sees the other visitor whisper something to the third man and hears the pregnant one snap; it almost hurts him to see the visitor flinch away. The man asks for some time to think, but Jin thinks his decision is already clear in the hard steel of his eyes. Jin looks at where his fingers lace with Yamapi’s over his knee, and asks for another week.
Jin goes back to work the next day. The classes are just like always, busy and loud and the kids misbehave just as much as usual and shout and run up to him when he steps through the door, excitedly grabbing his hands and letting him know how glad they are that he’s healthy again. Jin sings with them; cheerful children songs and claps his hands and tries to behave as usual, but he can’t take his mind off the baby growing inside him. The fact that he can abort it - that he can kill it - makes it feel so much more real and alive than before, and he can almost feel how it grows and moves and develops and lives inside him.
Jin looks at the students and imagines the baby inside him to be a boy, loud and rowdy and laughing as he plays soccer and runs after the ball, wiping his tears away with a proud pout after a scratched knee, asleep with his little arms around Jin’s neck as he carries him to bed after a long day. Jin imagines it to be a girl with rosy cheeks and long hair and frilly clothes, cute but strong and stubborn, his little warrior princess to spoil, and he can almost see her big dark eyes staring up at him in wonder as he reads her a story and her shrilling laugh as he swirls her in the air. Then Jin imagines the baby never being, never growing, never having the chance to live and laugh and cry and love just because he decided so. Jin imagines killing them, his boy and his girl, and the thought makes him want to throw up again.
The next time Jin goes to the hospital he does so without telling Yamapi, and the grin on the doctor’s face when he notices the visitor’s absence makes it clear what he thinks. He doesn’t even wait for Jin to talk, pushing a stack of papers over his desk as soon as Jin sits down on one of the chairs.
“I’m glad you’ve already reached a decision, Akanishi-san. The procedures for abortion are safer in the first stages of pregnancy, and the earlier we start the less room for complications we’ll leave, so if you can sign here…”
“I’m keeping the baby.” Jin’s voice is steady, not even a trace of anger in it at the doctor’s reaction, because his opinion doesn’t matter right now. Yamapi matters. The baby matters. That’s all. Jin pushes the papers back at him.
The doctor looks like he can’t quite believe what he heard. He looks down at the papers and then back at Jin, a confused frown forming on his brow as he tries to process his patient’s words. “But Akanishi-san, sir…”
“You’ve already said everything you could to try to convince me to abort, and it hasn’t worked. I’ve thought about it and I’m not going to change my mind. You can tell me what to do now or I can look for another hospital that will take my case, but I’m going to keep this baby.”
The doctor gapes at him once, twice, thrice, and then he recovers and frowns. Jin sits in his office for hours, and leaves with a stack of papers the size of a book. He doesn’t quite feel like going back home, so he takes a walk and ends up renting a karaoke room just to be alone and in peace; singing always helps him to relax. By the time he makes it home it’s well past midnight and Yamapi is asleep on the couch, sitting up; Jin had asked him to go back to sleep on the bed with him at the start of the week, and it’s obvious he fell asleep waiting for Jin. He covers the visitor with a blanket softly, but instead of going to bed Jin goes out to the balcony.
There’s a packet of cigarettes on the plastic table that has been there for a few weeks. Jin picks one out and twists it between his fingers as he leans on his elbows over the rail. He has always wanted a family and children, to be a father - he never imagined it to be this way, but he had pictured his future like that a thousand times. Jin had always thought that he’d find it hard to quit the things he likes - clubbing, drinking, smoking. But somehow knowing it can damage the baby growing in him, his child, makes any desire to light the cigarette disappear. Jin snaps it in two and picks out bits of tobacco distractedly, staring absently at Tokyo’s night sky. He can’t see the stars.
Jin doesn’t know for how long he stays out on the balcony, but he doesn’t realize how cold he is until a blanket is wrapped around his shoulders. Jin doesn’t even start and just leans against Yamapi’s strong chest as short fingers slip under his clothes and stretch warm and gentle over his cold tummy. Jin imagines it will start bulging soon and vaguely worries about his clothes.
“I was worried about you.”
Yamapi’s voice is a whisper in Jin’s ear and the visitor’s breath tickles him just enough to make Jin squirm in his arms, smiling lightly. He turns around to face his lover with one hand holding Yamapi’s one on his stomach and the other on the visitor’s cheek; Jin kisses Tomohisa, and nothing else needs to be said.
The nausea starts to fade as winter gets closer and the pregnancy moves on, only to be replaced with backache, tiredness and urges for strange food combinations. As his tummy starts to grow Jin hides it under looser clothes, but more often than not he surprises himself slipping a hand under them to stroke the stretching skin, during class or on the streets, and he suddenly finds himself feeling much more protective and mushy with the kids; he doesn’t understand why, but he supposes his hormones are acting up. The kids just think he’s getting fat and sappy because he’s growing old.
Jin has appointments at the hospital every two weeks and he hates them. He hates the doctor and the nurses and their despising looks, their cold treatment and how painfully impersonal it makes everything; Jin wants warm smiling doctors that get involved like the ones on any American TV series. Yamapi sometimes goes with him, but Jin doesn’t like to ask him because he can see how the almost constant despite affects him. The only thing that helps him go through the check ups are the 3D scanners that show his baby developing, growing, moving, breathing, living inside him. The doctor tells him it’s a girl around the 17th week of his pregnancy, by the end of February, and Jin knows in that very moment that she already has him wrapped around her little finger, and he will never be able to let her go.
By February Jin’s pregnancy gets too obvious to keep hiding it. His stomach starts to bulge, skin stretching and tense and smooth over the rounding tummy, and much to Jin’s mortification and Yamapi’s amusement his bellybutton pops out too. Even wearing looser clothes doesn’t work anymore, and the mothers notice his pregnancy when they pick their kids up at school. Jin can see their stares, their horrified looks, the way they try to shield their kids and herd them away from him, he can hear the scandalized whispers in which they talk to each other without taking their eyes away from him, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise when the headmaster takes him apart from the other teachers on the last day of the school year.
It’s the first time Jin has explained his condition to anyone - he hasn’t even told his parents yet, because even if he knows they won’t hate him for being gay or loving a visitor he doesn’t feel ready to tell them their son is pregnant either - and he’s nervous. He tries to stick to the basics, but even then he can see the headmaster’s face growing increasingly paler and horrified; his eyes keep moving back and forth between Jin’s anxious face and the hand he keeps protectively wrapped around his tummy. The man doesn’t say a word about the baby and just asks Jin to leave after he’s done explaining, informing him in a small, thin voice that he is not to return to the school during the break and that he will receive news soon.
Jin is not suffering from morning sickness anymore, but his stomach feels queasy when he returns home, and maybe his face reflects it because Yamapi is quick to sit him on the couch and put a warm cup of tea between his hands; Jin doesn’t know if it’s the drink or the worry and the guilt on Yamapi’s face after he tells him what’s going on or how the pregnancy is making his hormones crazy, but as Yamapi wraps an arm around his shoulders he starts crying, and he can’t bring himself to stop for hours.
The letter arrives in the middle of the break, and Jin stares at it for a long time before his brain registers the black, bold words printed over white paper. The text is long and formal and talks about worried parents, about morals and unacceptable behavior, about the values they want to transmit to the kids, and Jin feels a bit like he suddenly became a yakuza member. The letter informs him that he’s fired like it wasn’t already obvious, and asks him to pick his things up before the new school year starts. Jin’s heart clenches at the thought that he won’t get to see the children again.
The day the school year starts again, Jin can’t bring himself to get out of bed. He pretends to be still asleep when Yamapi gets up to go to work, and then he spends most of his day dozing off and drowning in self pity, except for short trips to the kitchen to search for food. He has fallen asleep again by the time Yamapi returns, and he only wakes up when he feels a gentle hand brushing his hair back. Jin sighs softly, contentedly, and opens his eyes to find the visitor’s lifeless ones looking at him with what Jin thinks is tenderness - he has gotten a bit better at reading his lover’s seemingly inexpressive eyes. What is clear on Yamapi’s face is the guilt that is eating him inside. He kisses Jin’s lips softly and his thumb brushes under Jin’s eye, swollen and red after too many tears.
“I’m sorry.” Jin wants to interrupt him and tells him it doesn’t matter, but Yamapi shakes his head before he can and presses his fingers against Jin’s lips. His other hand slips under Jin’s t-shirt and strokes the warm skin of his belly. “I’m sorry about everything. If I had known this would happen…” Yamapi’s voice catches in his throat and he can’t continue; he closes his eyes and swallows and rests his forehead against Jin’s. “I love you.”
Jin feels as if his heart swells and does a small funny flip at the raw sincerity in Yamapi’s words; there’s a lump in his own throat and he can’t even reply. Suddenly the baby moves inside him and kicks where Yamapi’s hand is splayed against his stomach. Jin yelps and Yamapi yelps and the baby kicks again, like she’s laughing at them both.
“Did you feel that?”
Yamapi nods, eyes just as shocked and round as Jin’s, and then they smile and laugh and kiss, and Jin thinks losing his job is not that important anymore if he gets to feel this.
After he loses his job, Jin’s case somehow becomes public knowledge. The parents’ complaints get to the local press and Jin finds his phone constantly buzzing with calls from journalists that ask for interviews and pictures. Jin turns it off and stuffs it under the cushions of his sofa, but then comes the mail and the paparazzi at his door. Jin sees them when he goes to the hospital, hand securely clasped in Yamapi’s, and the anxiety must show on his face because the doctor asks him what’s wrong. When Jin explains he is assigned to a psychologist, because stress is not good for the baby, and advised not to go out of the house unless he needs to.
Jin doesn’t know how, but the news stops before it can get to bigger newspapers. He doesn’t really care. He spends his days oversleeping and wasting time in front of the computer, worrying and thinking until he feels like he’s going crazy. Yamapi has to go to work every day and the black armband tells him apart easily, and even after the number of paparazzi decreases they still go after him. It stresses Yamapi and it is obvious, but he tries to stay strong for Jin, and the man doesn’t miss the visitor’s efforts. The psychologist tells him to be positive and think about the work everyone is putting into helping him, but it’s Yamapi who becomes his rock during the storm, and as the visitor holds him when they lie in bed at night and feel their baby move, Jin can only fall deeper and deeper in love with him.
It happens three weeks before Jin is expected to deliver, a sunny afternoon when they’re leaving the hospital after a check-up. Yamapi usually doesn’t come with him, but lately Jin has been feeling anxious - not only about the paparazzi and the press, but the proximity of the delivery scares him too. The doctor has explained that they are going to perform a C-section with general anesthesia, just in case there are any risks, and that Jin is going to be checked into the hospital three days before the surgery is scheduled, just as a precaution. Jin doesn’t like how all these precautions sound necessary.
The two men come out of nowhere, too fast for him to react. The shouts come first, insults and hurtful words that Jin doesn’t even register, too confused to react at the sudden assault. He can’t even cover himself with his arms before the first attacker hits him, and he stumbles back with a gasp at the force of the impact. He doesn’t know what happens next, but suddenly there are shouts and yells, someone calling him a monster, an abomination, and Yamapi is in front of him but he doesn’t fight back, he just tries to protect Jin from the attack by taking the blows himself.
As the situation sinks into Jin’s mind he starts to panic. He shouts at the people around them to help, but the black armband is obvious against the white sleeve of Yamapi’s shirt, and no one dares to stand up for him. Yamapi is trying to protect him with his own body and no matter how much Jin shouts and claws at his arms he won’t budge, he won’t move but he doesn’t fight back even when his lip is broken and his forehead bleeding, and Jin can’t think because he’s panicking and his stomach suddenly hurts with a stabbing pain that has him clutching at it and gasping for air.
It feels like forever before the hospital’s security finally arrives. The attackers run away as soon as the two guards get close, promptly followed by a couple of nurses with a wheelchair in which Jin is forced to sit despite his complaints that they should take care of Yamapi first. The visitor stands shakily, supporting himself on Jin’s shoulders as the man wheezes his complaints. He follows the nurses as they rush Jin back inside, where the doctor is already waiting. In a moment Jin finds himself hooked up to a machine that displays his crazy pulse and his wheezing clogs up an oxygen mask placed over his mouth.
The breathing aid helps Jin to relax, though the machine by his side is still beeping loudly and too fast. He searches for Yamapi’s hands and pulls him to stand where Jin can see him. He tries to touch the wound on the visitor’s lips with his fingers, but he doesn’t quite reach. Yamapi catches his hand and squeezes it carefully.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine… But you… Those wounds…”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No. They have to treat you, they have to…”
The machine starts beeping loudly again as Jin pulls at Yamapi’s hand, and the doctor motions something to a nurse who quickly leaves the room. “Akanishi-san, your pulse is too high, you need to calm down or it’ll endanger the baby. We’re going to sedate you now…”
“No! No, you have to heal him first, you have to help him, you…”
“I promise you we’ll help your friend in a moment, Akanishi-san, but we have to sedate you first, the stress is bad for the baby.”
“No, no, you can’t…”
“Jin.” Yamapi’s voice is calm and reassuring like nothing out of the usual has happened. He strokes Jin’s hair and cheek and ignores the disgusted look the doctor gives them. “I’m fine. This is just a scratch, okay? The priority right now is your safety and the baby’s, so please let them sedate you. Just for a few hours, until you calm down, and then we can go back home and I'll let you take care of me, yes?”
Jin wants to complain and resist, but then the nurse is back with a syringe and Jin feels the prick on his arm before he can say anything. He groans in protest and Yamapi smiles and holds his hand as he falls asleep and finally calms down.
Jin is not sure how many hours have passed. He feels dizzy and confused and a bit like his head is full of cotton. His limbs feel heavy and sluggish as he stirs and opening his eyes is such an effort that Jin wants to give up and maybe sleep for a few hours more. He forgets about sleep, though, as he hears two familiar voices.
“I will need to start preparing Akanishi-san’s therapy for after the surgery. What is he going to be told?” Jin recognizes his psychologist’s deep voice.
“That the baby has been stillborn. He will not be allowed to see the body in case there’s any risk of it carrying infections.” The doctor explains as calmly as if he was talking about a regular blood test. Jin’s heart is suddenly beating in his throat.
“Where will the baby be taken?”
“Special facilities have been prepared for this matter. It’s important to ensure we keep the baby after the surgery, because the Government won’t be able to legally take her away from him after that.”
“Why does the Government have so much interest in keeping the baby?”
“It’s an unique opportunity! This is not a simple baby or a simple half… This baby won’t be simply human. Like when Neanderthals started to mix with modern men, she’s the start of a new race, a new race that could be better than us, could pose a threat to humans, and we need to explore to which point this can be so. Akanishi-san must be about to wake up, let’s not talk about this here.”
As the steps and the voices grow fainter and disappear the information starts to sink into Jin’s mind, and he feels his stomach dropping with a cold feeling. There’s a lump in his throat and he can’t think, he can’t breathe, he can’t open his eyes, he can’t do anything but panic and the machine he’s been hooked up to starts to beep loudly again. Jin barely manages to calm down enough to make something up when the nurses rush in; he explain he was confused after waking up in an unfamiliar room, smiles softly and asks if he can go back home already.
Yamapi wants to drive Jin straight home, but Jin doesn’t want to return to the apartment just yet and maybe he’s not concealing his panic as well as he thought he was, because Yamapi doesn’t even argue with him. When Jin checks the rear-view mirror, he looks pale and shaken and his eyes are wide. Yamapi pulls over to the side near a park and kills the engine.
“Tell me what’s wrong?”
Jin starts crying before he can help himself. Words rush one after another as he stumbles over them, trying to explain everything at once while he feels the panic taking a hold of his body again. He’s gasping for air when he finishes, hysterical. Yamapi looks shaken too, but Yamapi is always calmer; his eyes are however as inexpressive as ever and it only makes Jin feel sicker, because he’s not able to tell what’s going through his lover’s mind. Yamapi’s hands are warm when they close around Jin’s wrists to pull softly.
“Okay. Listen to me. Try to calm down, breathe deeply. We can’t afford to go back to that hospital right now; you need to calm down for the baby. We’re going to go back home and you’re going to pack some of your clothes and whatever we have bought for the baby while I make some calls. I’m not sure about this plan yet and I can’t tell you more, but I promise you it’ll be alright. I won’t let them take her away. I won’t let them hurt you, Jin.”
When Yamapi leans in to kiss him, Jin can’t help but trust him blindly.
They leave the house again late that night. Jin’s backpack is small and contains only the essentials, a couple of loose t-shirts and sweatpants for him, the few clothes they have bought for their girl, his ID and some money. Being the beginning of June the nights are warm and humid, but Jin hides his pregnancy under a jacket three sizes too big for him.
There’s a man waiting with a car outside the apartment building, and even though the darkness hides his eyes, Jin can make out the outline of a red star on the armband over his coat. He talks with Yamapi in an unknown language, rushing words and in whispers before he turns around to take Jin’s backpack and stuff it in the trunk. Jin turns to look at Yamapi, confused.
“This is Yamashita Tarou, Jin. He came in the same spaceship as me. There’s a village where visitors and humans have been living together down south, and he’s going to take you there. You’re going to go by secondary roads so it might take a few days… I don’t know how long. He’ll take care of you, don’t worry. You can trust him.”
“Wait, aren’t you coming too?”
“I can’t, right now. It’ll be too suspicious if we both disappear at the same time. I’ll finish this week at my job and then quit and meet up with you as soon as possible… Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. They’ll take care of you, and you can trust them. When the baby comes they’ll know what to do. You’ll be safe. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep in touch with you, maybe it’d be safer if I didn’t, but remember I love you. I love you, Jin.”
Jin’s breath catches in his throat as they hug, and he clings to Yamapi’s t-shirt and doesn’t want to let go, but the visitor’s own hands push him away. They share one last kiss, slow and passionate and filled with all the words they don’t have time to say. Yamapi stands by the side of the road as Jin gets in the car, and waves his goodbye until the car disappears in the distance.
They drive for days. Jin is not sure how many actually pass because he spends most of the time sleeping, since the visitor refuses to let him drive They talk too, sometimes, but not much because Jin is not really in the mood, and Tarou is not really talkative either. It’s not easy to find light topics to chat about in their situation. They stop for food and during the nights to rest, always in small villages by the road.
They arrive at their destination in the middle of the night. It’s far from any other one, obviously built just for the small community of humans and visitors that live together there. Even though it’s late a small group is there to receive them. They’re quickly ushered inside a house where a middle aged woman explains Jin will stay for as long as he needs, but Jin is too tired to pay attention to her words when he can’t even care to see if she’s a human or a visitor. He refuses the food she offers and asks to be left alone in his bedroom. He’s asleep the moment he lies down on the futon, with Yamapi in his thoughts.
The small community warms up to Jin immediately. Upon learning about his condition visitors are quick to offer themselves for anything he needs, and even humans try to disguise their shock. Jin makes an effort to smile, but being surrounded by so many visitors only reminds him of the one he wants to see the most, the one who’s not by his side for the first time in over a year. Jin misses Yamapi, and it drives him crazy not to have any news from his lover, any signal about when he’s coming, or if he’s safe.
Jin doesn’t want to have the baby without Yamapi by his side, but there’s not much he can do about it when just a few days after arriving at the village a sharp pain takes his breath away in the middle of the night. He curls over himself on the futon, clutching at his tummy and fighting to breathe as the pain threatens to cut him in half. It takes him a couple of excruciating minutes before he’s finally able to let out a cry, pitiful and choked but loud enough to wake up his host, who immediately informs everyone else.
The pain blurs everything as the world moves around Jin. He is not sure how but the community seems ready to react, as if they had already prepared for the situation. They rush Jin to a big tent right outside the village where the doctor is already waiting, and lie him down on a stretcher; the tent is full of people, most of them visitors that rush around him, talking to the doctor and to each other and to him in their own language and Japanese and Jin just wishes the world would stop, because he’s in pain and he can’t breathe and all the movement is making him feel dizzy and sick.
“Akanishi-san.” Jin looks up and blinks at a middle aged man with unreadable eyes that leans over him, smiling reassuringly. An oxygen mask is placed over his mouth and Jin tries to find who did it with his unfocused sight, but there’re too many people around him. “We only have local anesthesia here, so we’re going to anesthetize your stomach and the area around it, and we’re going to set a curtain over your chest so you don’t have to see anything. Is that alright with you?”
Jin nods even though he doesn’t fully understand the words, because the pain is excruciating and he just wants it to be gone already. He barely feels the prick of the syringe, but the relief comes after a few moments and Jin sighs contentedly and relaxes back into the stretcher. It’s only when he calms down enough that he realizes that without the pain he is able to focus, and if he’s able to focus he can see the instruments being passed around, the scalpel and the bloodied gauzes. Jin closes his eyes, suddenly feeling queasy.
Jin doesn’t know for how long they’re in the tent; it could be a couple of hours or less than one. There are hands holding his the whole time, firm and reassuring as they return his nervous squeezes. There are soft caresses to his cheeks and his hair, and soothing voices telling him to relax and breathe deeply. There’s the middle aged visitor man who talked to him before and Jin wonders if he has had children before, back in his planet, if they survived and came to Earth or if they died back there at their home, Jin wonders if the man is happy to see another man giving birth here on his new planet. There’re visitor women and Jin wonders what they think, if they envy him, there’re humans and he wonders if what they’re seeing disgusts them, if they think it’s as crazy as he thought nine months ago. Jin tries to focus on his thoughts and the hands and the fingers, on the soothing voices and the deep breathing and not on the strong smell of blood as it fills his nostrils.
A loud cry snaps him out of his thoughts, and it takes Jin a second to realize it’s the baby. A woman lifts her and places her on a table, quickly checking on her. Jin follows their every movement, eyes trained on the tiny being, so red and bloodied and Jin had always thought newborns were ugly, but right now he can’t think of anything as beautiful as his baby. She’s still crying when the woman brings her over to where he’s lying, already bundled up in a bunch of old looking blankets, and Jin thinks her loud wails are the most beautiful sound in the world.
He doesn’t realize his own tears are running free down his cheeks until someone dries them, and the hands holding his own squeeze harder. Jin lifts one hand slowly, weakly, and brushes his fingers over the newborn’s tiny ones, so impossibly small that Jin fears the simple touch will break them. It calms her down instead, and with a last sniffle and a yawn she stops crying and falls asleep. Jin smiles what he feels must be the dumbest smile on Earth, but he doesn’t even care. He abandons himself to the happiness filling every crevice of his mind, and when the tension finally edges away he lets himself fall asleep.
They don’t find out until later, but as the first human male ever to be pregnant gives birth to his daughter, Japan gives in to foreign governments pressures and rescinds the law that forces visitors to wear an armband in public places, and puts their rights on a level with humans’. The community celebrates the announcement by turning all their armbands into a blanket and a tiny hat for the newborn baby.
Yamapi arrives at the village three days after the baby is born. The sun is just setting when he rushes into Jin’s bedroom, and Jin can’t care less about the surgery’s wound and resting and not moving, because he practically jumps from the bed into his lover’s arms. Yamapi’s lips are soft and sweet and impatient, and Jin grabs fistfuls of his shirt and doesn’t let go until the baby cries from her cradle. Yamapi’s eyes widen as if he has just suddenly realized Jin’s tummy has gone missing, the baby’s wailing grows louder and they both laugh without being really sure about why exactly they are laughing.
Later, when Jin has fed her and she has calmed down, they both sit in the house’s back garden, under the stars. She’s asleep in Yamapi’s arms and the visitor can't take his eyes off her, as mesmerized by her small hands and nose and fingers as Jin himself. She hasn’t opened her eyes yet, but Jin has been told it is normal with visitor babies. He wonders if that means her eyes will be like Yamapi’s.
“I haven’t named her yet.”
“Are you thinking about any names in particular, then?”
“I thought that we could maybe name her after your sister… If that’s alright with you.”
Yamapi laughs loudly, honestly amused, and Jin frowns, mildly offended. “That’s a nice gesture from you, Jin, but then you wouldn’t be able to even pronounce your daughter’s name. My sister never had a Japanese name.”
Jin blushes as he realizes his mistake, and he’s glad for the darkness that hides the redness on his cheeks. He traces the red star on the baby’s tiny hat and she stirs. They both watch in amazement as she finally opens her eyes. They’re dark and bottomless, much like Yamapi’s, but with a special shine to them, more alive somehow. She squirms in Yamapi’s hold and looks at the sky before blinking with a pout. When Jin follows her sight a million stars are shining down on them, and Jin wonders how their light must seem to her as she sees it for first time, tries to imagine anything so bright.
“Hoshi.”
Yamapi blinks at him, confused. “What?”
“Her name. Star. Hoshi-chan. That will be her name, because that’s where her Daddy came from.”
When Yamapi smiles his smile is brighter than the stars above them. He lifts Hoshi-chan a bit and coos at her. She pouts and whines and threatens to cry, but she calms down again as soon as the visitor rocks her softly, and he chuckles at her yawn. Jin watches as he laughs and she sleeps, and he suddenly doesn’t care about whatever will come their way, as long as he can have his family - and how wonderful that word sounds - with him.