"You’re the doctor in charge of [Ai Hoshino]?"
"...Who are you?"
Goro hurried after the mysterious man who had turned and run the moment he saw him.
He chased him deep into the woods, but before long, he lost sight of where he had gone.
It was so dark he could barely see, and just as he was about to keep going by the light of his phone—
"!?"
Goro’s vision went black the instant the mysterious man lunged at him.
Only the ringing of his pager, growing farther and farther away, seemed to escort his consciousness out of his body.
-
It was a Wednesday night in mid-September.
Kaoru had just finished a call with Ai and was about to go to sleep when his phone rang, and the hair on his body stood on end.
- "It’s labor! Kaoru!"
Ichigo’s urgent call.
Less than an hour and a half after hanging up with Ai, Kaoru received the frantic news and immediately got into the car Miyako had rushed over to pick him up in.
Time was running out, so Miyako and Kaoru decided to head to the airport. The fastest flight from Tokyo Haneda Airport to Miyazaki Airport wouldn’t leave for another hour.
It was far too late to leave the airport and rent a car, so Miyako decided to first find a late-night taxi near Miyazaki Airport and figure out transportation from there.
By some miracle, they managed to get one of the last remaining tickets and finish the passport procedures, then entered that agonizing wait for the plane.
Kaoru, unlike usual, couldn’t sit still. He paced back and forth with a deeply anxious, restless look on his face.
Seeing Kaoru sweating coldly, Miyako told him that if her husband couldn’t calm down here, Ai would only get more anxious, and urged him to sit down.
But the moment he sat, he was back on his feet again, letting out one long sigh after another. Watching him, Miyako finally burst out laughing with an expression that said she couldn’t help it.
An hour later.
Kaoru’s phone rang again while he was moving to board the plane.
It was Ichigo.
- "The doctor in charge of Ai is gone! Where the hell did that bastard go?!"
"What?! What do you mean, gone?"
Kaoru’s mind went blank at the absurd, out-of-nowhere report. He brushed back his bangs and asked again, and Ichigo, already furious, shouted back.
- "I’m saying that doctor, Goro or whatever his name is, is missing! He won’t answer his phone! The nurses say they don’t know where he went, and he won’t respond to the pager either! Damn it! The backup doctor assigned for emergencies is off duty today, so it’ll take forever for him to get here!"
"......"
A chilling grinding sound came from deep in Kaoru’s mouth.
There was even a trace of something eerie in those blue eyes, where crimson starlight burned like a supernova.
For a moment, Kaoru was so shocked it felt like he’d been struck on the back of the head.
If there was no doctor, then the only medical staff he could rely on was the midwife. Could a midwife really handle medication or emergency treatment with the same skill as a doctor if something happened?
With superhuman restraint, Kaoru forced himself to calm down and told Ichigo to call the midwife, keep watch over the situation, and that he was about to board the plane so he would have to turn his phone off.
And then—
"Please tell Ai I love her. Tell her I’m coming soon. I’ll be at Miyazaki Airport in an hour and forty minutes. Tell her to hang in there because I’m coming right away! Got it?!"
After passing along the message for Ai, Kaoru shut off his phone and boarded the plane, silently screaming inside.
'Damn it!'
He had to turn his phone off now that he was on the plane, but he couldn’t stop worrying about Ai having to hold on without a doctor until then.
'What on earth happened to Goro?'
Goro had clearly answered his request with firm determination when Kaoru had asked him to take good care of Ai. Kaoru had trusted the young doctor’s devotion and sincerity, and because of that, he’d been able to live in Tokyo with at least a little less worry.
So why wasn’t Goro there today, the very day labor had started?!
"Kaoru. Drink some water."
"Thank you."
Kaoru took the water Miyako offered him with trembling hands and gulped it down.
The more he thought about the incomprehensible situation, the more unbearable his questions and anger became.
Had something happened? Had he been in an accident? This wasn’t the time to tip off the press, and it wasn’t even something he wanted to do, so why?
Praying desperately that Ai would be safe, Kaoru forced his shaking breath under control and boarded the plane.
And after that precious stretch of time, Kaoru and Miyako arrived at the hospital in less than three hours after departing Tokyo!
It was the middle of the night, so there were almost no cars on the road, and they had paid the taxi driver five times the fare to get there as fast as possible.
At Miyako’s urging to go on ahead, Kaoru got out of the taxi and ran toward the hospital with all his strength.
He found Ichigo pacing in front of the delivery room and shouted while gasping for breath.
"Ichigo!"
"Kaoru! Where’s Miyako?!"
"I came up first to settle the taxi fare! D-did she just go in?!"
"She went in thirty minutes ago! The cervix had opened up! Luckily, the doctor who was off duty got here and went straight into the delivery room!"
"Haa! Haa! Haa! Haa! Haa! Hoo... haa!"
Only after hearing Ichigo’s words did Kaoru finally let out a breath of relief, and his legs gave out beneath him as he slumped to the floor.
The three hours of maddening fear and anxiety felt like a dream. Kaoru couldn’t even properly remember how he’d made it here in the first place.
Sweat dripped down his deathly pale face and fell to the floor. Kaoru covered his face with both hands and, struggling to settle the emotional aftershock, prayed that Ai would make it through the delivery safely.
"How is Ai?!"
Miyako, who had come up behind them, was startled to see Kaoru sitting on the floor and asked in alarm. Ichigo gestured for her to calm down and said in a steady voice, "She’s in! The cervix opened. Labor usually takes ten or more hours, but Ai’s moving really fast. As long as the babies come out safely, that’s what matters now."
"Haa! Thank you. Thank you."
Miyako clasped her hands together and prayed through tears, instinctively calling on God.
Kaoru drew a shaky breath and got to his feet. His legs were trembling from tension and worry, but unlike before, he had finally managed to collect himself.
"Goro still hasn’t arrived, right?"
"Yeah! Even the doctor was shocked and kept asking the nurses why the pager wasn’t being answered, whether something had happened, and so on. We’re the ones whose blood is being drained here, so why are they the ones getting surprised?"
Watching Ichigo still fuming, Kaoru bit down hard on his lip.
Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong.
From Ichigo’s account, Goro’s sudden disappearance was clearly an unforeseen incident that even his fellow staff members hadn’t been able to predict.
What could possibly happen in a place like this countryside hospital that would make Goro stop answering his phone?
There had been no sign of a traffic accident on the way over in the taxi.
The police weren’t anywhere to be seen.
Kaoru took out his phone and called Goro’s number, but—
- The phone is turned off...
"..."
Goro still wasn’t answering. Kaoru put his phone away. For now, the most urgent thing was Ai’s delivery. Kaoru decided to think about it later if the birth ended safely without incident, and stood with Ichigo in front of the delivery room, waiting for news of Ai.
How long had they waited? The delivery room door finally opened, and a middle-aged nurse in sterile surgical scrubs said urgently, "Is there a guardian for Ms. Morikawa Nana here?!"
"!"
The moment Kaoru heard the alias Goro had used when handling Ai’s admission, he forgot even to answer and rushed over with his hand raised.
The nurse quickly motioned for Kaoru to come into the delivery room and handed him a disposable surgical cap, gloves, apron, mask, and shoe covers as she said, "You’ve just had a healthy baby boy. In twin births, it’s extremely rare for both babies to come out one after the other like this. Even though this is the mother’s first birth, she delivered naturally without issue."
"I-is she in danger?"
"No. You don’t need to worry. The mother cried a lot and kept asking for her husband. She said to make sure we told him as soon as he arrived."
Hearing that, Kaoru quickly put on everything, even the mask, and entered the delivery room.
The moment he stepped inside, the metallic smell of blood seeped through the mask and reached his nose.
"Uuugh!! Nghhh—!"
The first thing Kaoru saw in the delivery room was Ai’s face twisted in pain, tears streaming down it.
Ai’s pained groans reached Kaoru’s ears.
"Waaah! Waaah!"
On the other side of the room, the baby, their son, was crying out in a loud voice that filled the entire delivery room.
Kaoru moved toward Ai as if possessed, grabbed her hand tightly, and whispered softly, "Ai."
"Hhh... ngh... ngh... haa... haa... haa... y-you’re... here? Kaoru?"
"Ai. I’m sorry. I’m so late. I’m sorry."
Even in pain, she gave him a faint smile of relief the instant she saw him.
Kaoru answered that smile with one of his own, and the moment he took her sweat-soaked hand, tears burst from him and he clenched his teeth.
With tears in her eyes, Ai looked at Kaoru through the literal tearing pain and forced out her voice with all the strength she had left.
"It’s a b-boy! The first one’s a boy!"
"Yeah, I heard. He’s healthy! You did great, Ai. Just a little more. Okay? Just a little more—"
"Nghhh! Uuugh—!!!"
Was it because Kaoru was beside her?
She gathered the last of her strength again and strained, her face turning bright red. Tears flooded down her cheeks from the pain. Kaoru could do nothing but grip her hand tightly.
"Just a little more! Just a little more! I can see the head!"
"Uuugh!!"
Kaoru could feel the force in Ai’s hand as she crushed his own.
A mother’s desperate strength to bring life into the world!
At that moment, if he could have shared even a little of Ai’s pain—just a little—he would have wanted for nothing else.
It was heartbreaking and agonizing that she had to bear all of this pain alone, but Kaoru silently held her hand, helped regulate her breathing, and kept telling her to hang in there, doing everything he could to help his wife.
"Hhhhhh!"
Because her husband was there. Because Kaoru, the one she loved, was there. Ai felt the stubborn courage to endure that terrifying, painful moment.
With her last bit of strength, she clutched her husband’s hand and pushed—
It felt as if a giant egg had slipped out from outside her body.
"Waaah!"
"It’s a healthy baby girl! Congratulations!"
The loud cry came again.
Ai, who had poured out all her strength, heard the cries the moment she was utterly exhausted, and then—
"Ahh..."
She let out a small gasp as an indescribable miracle washed over her like a wave: ecstatic joy, overwhelming emotion, and maternal love all mixed together.
At last.
She had become a mother.
Feeling Kaoru’s hand gently stroke her face and tell her she had worked hard, Ai gathered her exhausted mind and looked at the twins being placed in her arms.
She lifted her trembling arms and held the wrinkled twins close to her chest, then, through tears, greeted the most precious, lovable babies in the world.
"Haa... haa... hello...?"
"Waaah! Waaah!" "Heeeh..."
Wrinkled. Red. So tiny. But so beautiful. So precious it didn’t hurt to look at them.
Their faces were still hard to make out, but there was already a glimmer of golden hair and features that seemed to be a fifty-fifty mix of Ai and Kaoru.
Ai’s tear-bright starry eyes looked down at the twins wriggling weakly in her arms.
Little by little, bright happiness settled into those eyes, and she whispered in a quiet voice to Kaoru, who stood beside her, crying as he looked at the twins.
"I’ve... decided on their names!"
"Their names? Ah, right. We had decided on names for the babies. If it was a boy—"
"No. I want to give them names that suit the babies perfectly..."
Even after becoming the mother of two children, her habit of doing whatever she pleased hadn’t gone anywhere. Ai smiled brightly and looked back at the babies.
"Hello? Your names are... the boy is [Aquamarine], and the girl is... [Ruby]. Pretty, right? I just thought of them, but these are your... names. Thank you for coming to me. Aqua, Ruby!"
"......"
Kaoru’s tears vanished at the absurd naming sense, and in the end, he couldn’t say a word when he saw Ai smiling softly at him.
Just the fact that she had safely and healthily given birth to the two children...
Was enough to make Kaoru grateful to Ai for the rest of his life.
The baby names he had painstakingly narrowed down over many sleepless nights... were rejected before they could even be spoken aloud.
-
"Haa... so cute."
"Mmm, mmm, ahh—this feels weird~!"
Ai was breastfeeding behind the curtain of the hospital bed, with Miyako watching from beside her.
Looking at the wriggling babies with their flushed little faces, the words "so cute" came out naturally.
How could such tiny babies come out of a belly? Miyako had never given birth herself, but she thought Ai, who had delivered twins naturally, was truly amazing.
"Is it that good? Hmm?"
Ai smiled contentedly as she awkwardly adjusted her posture and held Ruby while watching her nurse eagerly.
Aqua had already eaten his fill and was sleeping soundly on the sheet.
Like a boy, he’d eaten more than Ruby and let out a satisfyingly loud burp.
When Ai saw him burp cutely in Miyako’s arms, she couldn’t hold back her cuteness any longer and even burst out laughing.
Ichigo, who had glanced at the sleeping Aqua, let out a quiet sigh and turned his gaze to the view outside the window.
"Where did Kaoru go?"
【Computer Security Office】
In the quiet hallway, Kaoru, wearing a cap, entered the computer security office.
As he had observed over the past few days, he was taking advantage of the staff member’s lunch break to track down Goro’s whereabouts.
Security at this rural general hospital was so lax it might as well have been traded for candy, and Kaoru skillfully operated the computer, which wasn’t even password-protected.
With the staff member due back soon, time was tight. His first priority was to figure out Goro’s movements on that day.
Using the mouse and keyboard, he rewound and checked the CCTV footage installed inside and outside the hospital.
"...Haa!"
Because the computer was so old, even rewinding it a little caused it to lag, so he spent more time waiting than actually checking the footage.
Kaoru kept checking his wristwatch, counting the seconds, and finally managed to reach the time period of the night Ai gave birth, when Goro was presumed to have disappeared.
The outdoor CCTV was such an old model that at night the image was blurry and dark, making it hard to see anything clearly.
Still, based on Goro’s movements captured on the hospital’s internal CCTV, Kaoru adjusted the time on the outside footage to match.
"What is that?!"
A man in a white coat, presumably Goro, stopped as if he had seen something behind the building.
Then he suddenly ran urgently toward the back of the building.
Kaoru used the keyboard to enlarge the image as much as possible, but the quality was too poor to make out details.
What on earth had he seen that made him run like that?
This was the last image of Goro.
Even now, Goro had not returned to the hospital, nor had he answered his phone.
He had vanished so completely that no one could tell whether he had sunk into the ground or shot up into the sky.
According to the nurses, they had filed a missing-person report with the police, and the investigation had only just begun. Kaoru had reviewed the CCTV several times and questioned the hospital staff from that time, but there were no witnesses and no particular signs of anything suspicious.
Kaoru narrowed his eyes sharply, and at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, he immediately shut off the screen and quietly opened the door to look outside.
"!"
Staff members returning from lunch were beginning to fill the hallway with noise.
Having gained nothing, Kaoru quickly slipped out into the corridor and headed outside the hospital.
There were cameras installed, but the image quality was poor and maintenance had clearly been neglected; the CCTV behind the hospital didn’t even have power at the moment.
So there was no way to identify who Goro had seen.
Behind the hospital was the forest. If Goro had run into the woods while chasing someone and met with misfortune, then finding him would be nearly impossible unless they searched every mountain in the area.
If a body started decomposing in the middle of a hot summer and wild animals tore it apart...
"......"
Stepping into the woods, Kaoru carefully scanned the dirt path for traces that might remain. It hadn’t rained for days, so footprints shouldn’t have been erased.
But finding Goro’s trail in this vast forest was extremely difficult. Kaoru let out a sigh, put a hand on his hip, and looked around—
"Ah!"
About fifteen meters ahead, he spotted a small broken branch at about waist height and hurried over.
He immediately turned his phone light up as bright as possible to inspect the dirt, and found footprints that matched the size of the shoes he had noted while observing Goro’s build earlier.
Silently cheering to himself, Kaoru wiped away the sweat running down his face and followed the tracks until...
"...A cliff."
Kaoru stopped at the edge of the cliff and looked around. It looked to be about six to eight meters high. It was hard to see because of the thick grass and trees, but if this was the place—
"!"
Tock, tock—
Along with the noisy cicadas, raindrops began to fall.
Of all times, now...! Frowning, Kaoru memorized the terrain and landmarks around him, fixing the location in his mind.
The traces would all disappear, but if he remembered the location, there was still a chance.
Once Ai finished her postpartum checkup and was discharged in a few days, there would be no reason to come here anymore.
With a heavy sigh, Kaoru couldn’t help thinking of Goro again.
The face of the young doctor who had devoted himself wholeheartedly to Ai kept surfacing in his mind.
It was all but certain that he had been caught up in some kind of accident, but from the perspective of the rural police in charge of this area, Kaoru had no confidence they would continue investigating a disappearance with no witnesses and no obvious signs of foul play.
For now... he decided that later, if he could make the time, he would at least confirm whether Goro was alive.
Kaoru returned to the hospital, avoiding the strengthening rain.
-
After a long and arduous journey, Ai and Kaoru finally returned to Tokyo! More than two months had passed, and they were back in their Tokyo home! Once inside, Ai raised both arms and cheered, feeling much lighter after giving birth to the twins.
Since Kaoru had even missed school classes to go down there, he diligently attended school and caught up on what he had missed.
Ai spent her days at home caring for the twin siblings, so her days were packed from morning to night.
But fortunately—or maybe surprisingly—
these young twins hardly cried at all. They only cried enough for Ai to notice when they needed a diaper change, and they almost never woke up crying at night. They showed some rather unusual behavior.
And above all—despite being newborns, whenever they heard their mother’s voice, they screamed and simply would not calm down.
"Kyaaah~"
"Beeee~"
"Do you like Mama that much~? Hmm~?"
"Peeeh—"
"......"
Kaoru couldn’t help being flustered by the twins’ bizarre attachment to their mother.
First, if their father, Kaoru, held Ruby—
"Waaahhhhh!!"
"O-okay, okay! Let’s go to Mom! Let’s go to Mom~!"
She would cry so loudly it felt like the house was coming down.
She wouldn’t even take the bottle Kaoru offered her.
And if she saw Ai and Kaoru together, she would burst into tears or refuse to leave Ai’s arms at all.
As for Aqua...
"......"
"......"
Something about him. Somewhere. Felt awkward.
Even when given a bottle, he would politely turn his head away and not drink.
And if Kaoru tried to change his diaper, he would give him a half-lidded look as if something about it displeased him...
He showed behavior that was hard to imagine from a newborn.
And Kaoru...
"Do babies normally hate their father?"
was very hurt.
This was the moment he had waited and hoped for across both his past life and this one! And yet, now that he had finally become a father, the twins didn’t seem to like him much. Ai walked over to the sulking Kaoru and comforted him with a kiss on the cheek.
"No way~ It’s just that they spend more time with me while you’re at school! Of course they’d like me, their mom, more!"
"...I guess so."
"Yep. So don’t be too heartbroken~ Baka-Oru~"
Held in Kaoru’s arms, she rubbed her face against him as much as she pleased.
Once September passed and October arrived, Kaoru’s height had already shot past 170 cm and reached 174 cm. His build grew more and more solid, enough that Ai, at 151 cm, could fit neatly in his arms.
Ai was very pleased with her husband’s sturdier frame, burying her face in his firm upper body and inhaling his scent deep into her lungs.
"Mmm... so warm."
"......"
"Hey, Kaoru."
"Hm?"
"...Thank you. For everything. For always protecting our family."
"If you’re thankful,"
Kaoru pulled Ai close and, so she wouldn’t be hurt, carefully sat her straight down on his lap.
Because Ai was smaller than Kaoru, sitting on his lap made her fit perfectly inside his arms.
Ai’s expression turned sly at her husband’s handsome face and the low, wolf-like voice that contrasted with it, and she listened closely to what he said next.
"If I’m thankful?"
"...You know what I want."
"Ehehe...★ Baka-Oru!"
"Are the babies asleep?"
"Yeah. I fed them and put them down earlier."
Kaoru and Ai whispered into each other’s ears so as not to wake the twins.
As their voices settled against each other’s ears, a ticklish, electric sensation rushed through them and made their hearts pound.
As the atmosphere grew increasingly suggestive, Kaoru kissed Ai’s lips and then pulled away to tease her.
Ai, refusing to lose, stuck out her tongue playfully and licked his lips before laughing.
"Ehehe—★"
"You’re teasing me like that?"
"You started it first, Kaoru."
"No, I didn’t."
"Hngh— haa— chuurp—"
For a little while, Kaoru and Ai shared the affection they hadn’t been able to give each other in so long, in a peaceful moment all their own.
The kiss that began with tender pecks gradually deepened and roughened as time passed, and just as the two of them, carried away by the mood, began reaching for each other’s skin—
Bzzzz—
"!?"
The phone in Kaoru’s pocket vibrated. Of all times, right when things were about to get good—
Kaoru frowned, then whispered to Ai, who was also slightly frowning.
"Sorry."
"..."
Ai puffed out her cheeks like a hamster, clearly displeased, and glared at Kaoru.
Kaoru hugged her to soothe her and looked at the phone number on the screen.
Hikaru’s number.
Maybe because it was his twin brother calling at this hour, Kaoru sensed something was wrong.
Kaoru’s gaze turned cold in an instant.
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