Morning sickness.
It was one of the most grueling and terrifying symptoms, often striking hardest as pregnancy moved from the early stage into the middle months and leaving the mother in agony.
Even the sight or smell of food could trigger nausea, making it impossible to eat and pushing stress and exhaustion to their peak.
It varied wildly from one mother to another, with symptoms so different that it could never be standardized completely.
All Kaoru could do was pray that Ai would get through it safely.
But the day after her morning sickness began, Ai fortunately finished breakfast just as usual. She swallowed her folic acid and iron supplements, too, showing no sign that anything was wrong.
At lunch, she happily enjoyed a light beef sandwich and egg salad, then, sleepy after eating, even dozed off in Kaoru’s arms.
The moment she woke up, she muttered that maybe she was going to turn into a pig at this rate, and Kaoru could only snort at the image of Ai becoming a cute little piglet.
In any case, Kaoru let out a relieved sigh and felt reassured that Ai had fortunately been born with a constitution that wasn’t too badly affected by morning sickness.
However—
"Ugh!"
"!"
That evening, with different side dishes from the day before, Ai’s morning sickness started again. Worse than yesterday, in fact; she couldn’t even put down her chopsticks before rushing straight to the bathroom.
Kaoru had only just breathed a sigh of relief a few hours ago, and now his lips pressed tight as a deep sense of gratitude(?) welled up toward the troublesome twins who had just shattered that happy moment.
He stood in front of the closed bathroom door and listened closely to the sound of Ai retching.
Fortunately, he didn’t hear anything being thrown up. But for a while, shaky, ragged breathing and the sound of her spitting into the sink leaked through the crack under the door.
This was the first time she had rushed to the bathroom because of nausea from morning sickness, so even though she had prepared herself in advance, she still seemed flustered and shaken.
When the bathroom door opened and Ai came out with a sniffle, her face red, Kaoru checked her condition, pulled her into a tight hug, and helped her to the bed so she could calm down.
Holding Ai’s hand as she lay on the bed, stroking her face and carefully smoothing her hair, Kaoru deliberately kept his voice calm and swallowed down his worry so she wouldn’t become any more anxious.
"Those little troublemakers."
"Hehe—mm. Maybe the babies were hungry this morning and at lunch, so they wanted to eat a lot."
"I even prepared a lot of delicious food for Mom at dinner, and these little brats..."
"Eek—it tickles~!"
Those little troublemakers. Kaoru lightly rubbed Ai’s belly and, half joking and half sincere, complained about the twins so she could relax.
Maybe because of Kaoru, Ai’s heartbeat and breathing had settled down quite a bit. She lifted her starry eyes to look at her lover and whispered in a soft voice.
"I’m okay now. Don’t worry and finish eating, Kaoru. I’ll tell you if I get hungry later."
"...Yeah. Okay."
Kaoru gently kissed Ai’s lips, smiling as if to say not to worry, then carefully left the room.
He remembered the doctor’s words that because this was her first pregnancy and she was carrying twins, her morning sickness would likely be severe, and he let out a quiet sigh so she wouldn’t hear it from inside the room.
Still, just as Ai had said, if he could at least stand firm and stay by the side of the woman he loved—he had to keep eating and replenish his strength.
It was another lonely dinner, just like the day before, but with bright eyes, Kaoru switched on battle-meal mode with determined resolve.
After that day, Ai’s morning sickness continued almost every day.
Even when it seemed to be going down well, she would only manage a few bites before retching and going back to the room.
Kaoru had read posts saying that sometimes, even during morning sickness, a pregnant woman would suddenly be able to eat one particular food, so he changed the menu and put his whole heart into helping Ai eat without triggering her nausea as much as possible.
He cooked everything to minimize any smell, cut from the list any food that had made her sick even once, and kept making new dishes.
"Ugh!"
Strong-smelling seafood or beef seemed fine at first, only for her to get sick again soon after.
"Mmm~★ So good!"
Fortunately, when he seasoned scrambled eggs with salt and pepper and made buta no kakuni, braised pork belly in soy sauce, with some spicy peppers on the side, she was just barely able to get through it without nausea.
Tomatoes, despite being sour, made her sick, but umeboshi went down just fine.
Because her morning sickness changed so drastically depending on the food, Ai felt nothing but guilt toward Kaoru, who was sweating buckets even in the middle of winter while trying to cater to her tastes.
When the weekdays came, Kaoru returned from school and stayed by Ai’s side late into the night, taking care of her closely.
Because of the morning sickness, they changed her eating habits so she would keep taking small amounts of food regularly, and Kaoru cut back on his own sleep to stay beside her.
Ai looked at her lover’s face, shadowed heavily because he wasn’t even sleeping properly for her sake.
Kaoru smiled and told her not to worry and to use him as much as she wanted, but Ai only felt more sorry seeing him suffer because of her.
As she looked up information about morning sickness on her laptop, she saw posts about pregnant women who woke their sleeping husbands in the middle of the night to send them out to buy something they suddenly craved, and she sincerely prayed she would never do that.
Please. Please. Please!
Don’t make Kaoru, don’t make Dad, suffer...!
"...Ugh..."
But the twins in her belly seemed to be staging a ruckus, as if asking when else they would get to legally order their dad around.
1:00 a.m. Deep, dark, silent night.
Suddenly, Ai woke from sleep and stared at the ceiling with her wide, starlit eyes, murmuring, "...Pineapple..."
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
As if she had pineapple stuffed in her head, Ai suddenly wanted pineapple so badly. So badly!!! So badly!!!!!
Just imagining the juice flowing from the bright yellow, sweet-and-tart flesh made her salivary glands stir on their own and left her mouth dry again and again.
But it was 1:00 a.m.
1:00 a.m.
Ai rolled over onto her side, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried desperately to erase the thought.
Kaoru was sleeping beside her. How was he supposed to get pineapple at this hour?
She knew better than anyone how hard Kaoru worked, going to school and then coming straight home to take care of her.
Ai steadied her wavering heart and decided not to wake him.
"...Ugh..."
But.
But...!
She wanted it so badly.
It felt like she would die if she didn’t eat pineapple. She wanted pineapple so badly.
But she couldn’t wake Kaoru.
But—
But—
Ai squeezed her eyes shut, turned over, and shook Kaoru gently with a desperate little motion.
"K-Kaoru..."
At Ai’s voice calling his name while shaking him—
"!"
Kaoru opened his eyes in an instant, as if he had never been asleep at all, and sat up with bright blue eyes that were shining with no trace of drowsiness.
Startled by his reaction, Ai froze, her hand stopping midair as she stared at him.
"Are you hurt? Are you okay?"
The moment he woke up, he worried about her first, placing a hand on her forehead and checking her face. Ai’s nose tingled, overwhelmed by a rush of emotion.
Maybe that was why? Ai clung to him with a level of spoiled dependence she had never shown even as a child, burying herself in his arms and whispering in a voice so small it almost disappeared.
"...Sorry, Kaoru. I’m so, so sorry... I... actually... I-I really... wanted... pinea... pineapple..."
"Huh? Pineapple?"
Kaoru blinked, completely stunned by the unexpected request, and Ai only grew more embarrassed and tearful.
"You looked tired, so... I tried not to wake you and hold out as long as I could, but—hngh—this is my first time dealing with this, so I got really flustered..."
With Ai sniffling and mumbling in his arms, Kaoru could only let out a small laugh as he finally calmed the shock pounding in his chest.
"Ha... I thought you were hurt or something, and I was really startled. Pineapple? Sure. If you want it that badly, I’ll go get it."
"Eh? R-Really? But—pineapple at this hour...?"
"Don’t worry, Ai. I’ll be back soon. Go back to sleep."
"Mm... thank you. Kaoru. Be careful, okay?"
He had thought something terrible had happened when she woke him so suddenly, but if all she wanted was pineapple, he honestly felt like cheering.
Kaoru had also researched morning sickness and knew that while pregnant women were struggling and suffering from it, they sometimes developed an intense craving for a specific food.
Having quietly prepared for that possibility in advance, Kaoru laid Ai down gently and kissed her cheeks and lips before leaving to go get it.
Her skin, warmed by pregnancy and soft and springy like freshly steamed buns, was so warm and tender that he wanted to hold her forever.
Her scent, too, was so sweet and fragrant that honestly, he hated leaving her side.
But for the sake of the woman he loved, Kaoru put on his coat and stepped out of the house.
First, he went home to layer on warmer clothes, then rode his motorcycle and checked a series of 24-hour marts across Tokyo.
Since Ai had moved, Kaoru had memorized the locations of 24-hour hospital emergency rooms, pharmacies, and convenience stores from maps in case anything happened.
Braving the cold February night with snow beginning to fall, the young father set out on a quest to find pineapple, and fortunately, at the third 24-hour mart he visited in Shinjuku—
"Haah! Finally."
He found a cute pineapple displayed neatly on the shelf. Kaoru debated whether to buy two or three, then decided that if he was going to buy any at all, he might as well get three and immediately paid for the fruit.
"......"
"......"
The cashier cast him a puzzled look at the sight of a mysterious man wearing a helmet and paying for three pineapples in the dead of night.
Blocking the cold wind and, more importantly, hiding his face in case he was recognized, he kept the helmet face shield all the way down and wore thick black-rimmed glasses with no lenses and a mask underneath. After silently paying, he quickly left the mart and started the motorcycle.
Kaoru hurried home, where Ai was waiting, then took off his helmet, put on a thick beanie, wrapped the pineapples in a paper bag, tucked them into a small bag, slung it over his shoulder, and dashed through the back alleys.
In the dark night, the mysterious man in a beanie ran like a ninja. When he nearly ran into a drunk, he simply vaulted over a wall and cut across at speed.
"Huff! Huff!"
Even in the middle of winter, Kaoru was drenched in sweat when he pressed the intercom button at the apartment entrance and checked the surroundings before entering the unit where Ai lived.
When he checked his watch, it was exactly 2:00 a.m.
- Stella
Through the speaker came Ai’s voice, sleepy but bright with her usual excitement.
Kaoru quietly gave the password, passed through the front entrance as it opened, and took the stairs instead of the elevator, arriving at Ai’s apartment in an instant.
After unlocking the door and stepping inside—
"!"
"Kaoruuuuu—!"
The warmth of the house and Ai’s rich, lingering scent welcomed him home.
Ai had been waiting for her husband so desperately that every minute and second had felt like a hundred years, and she threw her arms around Kaoru’s cold body, still carrying the chill of the night air.
"Welcome home, Kaoru~ You worked so, so hard!"
"Y-You’ll catch a cold, Ai!"
Feeling her warmth, Kaoru startled and tried to pull her away by the shoulders.
Warmth was something that could be taken as well as given. Right now, his own clothes were practically ice, and for a pregnant woman whose immune strength was especially important, even catching a cold could be dangerous.
"So what? I hate you being cold more! Hurry up and come in!"
"Okay. Okay, I get it."
Kaoru hurriedly took off his shoes and went inside, then stripped off his outerwear at once and hugged Ai again with his sweat-soaked shirt still hot from the ride.
"You’re all damp—it’s all sweat, huh?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I ran all the way."
"......Thank you. I’m so happy I... feel like I might cry."
"Ai."
A blessed life, one where the person you love goes through all that trouble and brings you the fruit you’re craving in the middle of a freezing night.
Ai swallowed back her tears, overwhelmed by a happiness she could never have imagined in the past.
Someday, far in the future, when the twins were safely born and had grown to her age.
She wanted to brag to them about how their dad had once dashed out in the middle of the night without hesitation to buy the pineapple their mom wanted.
No matter what anyone said about it being cheesy, she wanted to boast about Kaoru’s love to the twins.
Feeling Kaoru’s warmth and the strong scent of sweat, Ai savored the fullness flooding through her.
After enjoying the pineapple he had cut up for her, Ai stroked her full belly and fell fast asleep.
But even for Kaoru, not every craving was easy to satisfy.
"...Ugh... you two really...!!!!"
Even a living angel who almost never got angry couldn’t suppress her frustration toward the twins in her belly.
That night, after returning from a checkup at a hospital in Chiba Prefecture, Ai suddenly woke up in the middle of the night because the donburi from the restaurant she and Kaoru had gone to while taking acting lessons at the Rararai Theater Troupe... had become
so
so!
so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
incredibly
desperately
craving-worthy that she shot awake from sleep.
Kaoru had only just fallen asleep and was breathing lightly and evenly.
So now they were really determined to make Dad suffer...!
But......
Donburi
Donburi...
Donburi.........
"Huaaang..."
Trapped in a frustrating situation where she could do nothing either way, Ai’s emotions, already more unstable than chaos because of her hormones, finally exploded...
"What’s wrong?"
"Kyaaaah?!"
Like someone who had been awake all along, Kaoru was suddenly sitting up beside her, and Ai screamed in shock at his ghostlike timing.
It was a strangely familiar pattern.
She screamed once, then stared blankly at Kaoru with tearful eyes, and finally threw herself into his arms and shouted, "I-I really wanted donburi, but Kaoru was sleeping, so I tried to hold out, but—because of me you can’t even sleep properly and I’m sorry—"
"Ai, calm down. Listen to me. Didn’t I tell you not to hold back if you want something and to tell me right away? You’re a mother carrying twins. You’re my wife! As your husband, it’s only natural that I want to do anything for you. Do you really think I’d feel better if you kept forcing yourself to be considerate of me? Don’t you dare feel sorry, Ai. You can order me around like a servant if you want. Okay?"
"...Kaoru..."
Still in his arms, Ai sniffled and rubbed her face hard against his chest.
His kindness—always putting her feelings and heart first and comforting her with warm words so she wouldn’t feel guilty or burdened—was such a huge source of strength.
But.
At that moment, Kaoru faced a new trial.
The thick, sweet scent of Ai’s hormones in full bloom and her body temperature, even higher after waking up.
The raw curves he could feel through the light top she had worn to sleep.
The loveliness of Ai rubbing her head against him like a puppy and clinging to him with all her might.
For Kaoru, who had not been able to share any other kind of affection with Ai for a while because he had been taking care of her through the misery of morning sickness—
his second self surged up with a huge, oppressive desire, enough to make a hellish demon descend and smash the earth.
'Hold it in. Hold it in. Hold it in. I have to hold it in. Hold it in, Kaoru. Hold it in. Hold it in. Hold it in. O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming—'
Grinding his teeth so hard they might shatter and singing the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," in his head, Kaoru restrained himself for the sake of the greater good(?).
Since he felt like he wouldn’t be able to hold back if he kept hugging Ai any longer, he immediately put on his coat, said he was going to go buy the donburi, and left the house.
Following his usual routine, he stopped by home to layer on more clothes, rode his motorcycle, and headed for the donburi shop near the theater for the first time in a while.
The roads were somewhat quiet in the late hours of a weekday.
The donburi shop stayed open until 1:00 a.m. even on weekdays, so there was still time, though it was tight.
But when he arrived after driving through the cold wind...
"!?"
The lights were off?
Wondering what was going on, he checked the time: 12:40. Kaoru, clearly not expecting this at all, looked inside the shop and around the area. He was debating whether he should take off his helmet and even call Toshiro, the president who knew the shop owner, in the middle of the night when—
A black sedan passing in front of the store stopped, rolled down its window, and someone in the driver’s seat shouted at Kaoru.
"...You’re Kaoru, right?!"
"!"
It was the donburi shop owner, who had somehow recognized Kaoru and stopped just as he was heading home. If he had been even one minute later, the fateful(?) meeting would have been impossible, and Kaoru’s face bloomed with a radiant smile as he dashed over with a beautiful grin he had never once shown the shop owner before and held out his hand.
"You’re my savior, boss!!"
"Huh?!"
After the owner hurried back into the shop and quickly made the donburi, he asked with an expression that was dying to know the reason. Kaoru paused for a moment, then said,
"...My cousin sister is pregnant, and she said she really wanted to eat it..."
The shop owner thought something was off, but Kaoru kept bowing and thanking him while pulling a 10,000-yen bill from his wallet, so he held back his curiosity.
Kaoru finally got the donburi packed, rushed home, left the motorcycle behind, put the donburi into his bag again, and headed for the two-room apartment.
"Kaoruuuuu—!!!!"
"Ghk!? A-Ai!?"
The moment the door opened, Ai threw herself into Kaoru’s arms and hugged him tightly.
Her eyes brimming with tears of emotion, she grabbed Kaoru’s face and kissed him over and over while shouting, "Ai is the most blessed mother in the world★!!"
"......"
Ai grabbed the packed donburi Kaoru was holding and hurried to the table—
"Waaah— it’s delicious— delicious— this is too good, it’s cheating~!"
The starlit eyes that held all the hope, happiness, and love in the world sparkled like a supernova.
Ai’s whole body bounced with electric delight. That longed-for taste! At last, when she tasted the donburi she had been yearning for, she covered her face with both hands in pure ecstasy, as if she had tasted heaven itself.
Looking at her as though she had everything in the world, Kaoru smiled faintly and watched his lover eat in silence.
Was it really that good?
Watching that tiny body carry twins while happily munching on a huge pork cutlet made her look like a hungry puppy finally getting its meal.
"Mm~ mmm~ So good★ Kaoru, hurry up and try it too!"
"Yeah..."
In Kaoru’s eyes alone, Ai’s tail and ears fluttered back and forth.
He nibbled at the small portion of donburi Ai had (semi-forcibly) shared with him as his own.
Just watching Ai eat donburi was enough to fill him up even if he didn’t eat a thing.
So Kaoru decided that instead of focusing on his own meal, he would watch Ai, who was too busy eating the donburi to notice anything else.
Leaning his arms on the table and resting his chin on his palm, Kaoru quietly watched Ai devour her food with a satisfied smile.
"......"
"Ehehe~♥ So good—"
Honey practically dripped from Kaoru’s blue eyes as he gazed at his lover. He didn’t look away for even a second, keeping his eyes on Ai as she stuffed the donburi into her mouth with chopsticks, her cheeks puffed up like a hamster’s.
He wanted to go get the film camera he had brought before, but even that felt too wasteful of time.
Only now did he understand why people on the internet had looked up information, then proudly boasted to one another about the experience of a husband bringing home the food a pregnant wife had been craving.
Just watching her eat was enough to make him full. The trip through that freezing night, riding his motorcycle all the way to the donburi shop, was more than worth it. In case it wasn’t enough, he quietly set the plate with the donburi Ai had left in front of her and said in a low voice to the girl who was crunching into the umeboshi he had set out as a side dish,
"You’re beautiful even when you eat."
Freeze—
The instant she heard that, Ai stopped dead, like a rabbit doll whose battery had been pulled out while she was in the middle of putting donburi into her mouth.
Her starlit eyes trembled with embarrassment, and her ears and face turned bright red in real time.
Kaoru’s cruel finishing move: still looking at her with eyes dripping honey, chin propped on his hand, and that faint smile never leaving his face!
At that vicious attack, her heart pounded so hard it felt like it might burst, and her appetite vanished completely—
Ai immediately set down the donburi bowl, squeezed her eyes shut, clenched both fists, and shouted like a rabbit chirping,
"Y-You’re... you’re pretty too!!!! The way you rest your chin on your hand is super sexy!!"
"Out of nowhere!?"
"Yeah!!!!"
At Ai’s bold answer and furious nod, Kaoru could only burst into hearty laughter.
The unforgettable late-night meal between the two of them deepened under the flowing moonlight.
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