"I'm still not sure why I did it. Was it a whim? An urge, or primal lust? Was it because I felt pressured by my peers or was it by my own desires alone? Did someone talk me into it? Did someone unseen whisper in my ear? Either way it happened.

Caesar was having another one of her orgies and she said there was room for one more if I wanted to go. Orgies are not usually my thing, and Caeser being Caesar, made the orgies as they were about historically, that is about the food and drink. I however, hungered for something else, something that orgies were more famous for. I wanted to lose my virginity, like the ignorant fool I was.

Many call it the 'invincibility of youth, that is doing something risky without fear of consequence, without consideration for how it affects ourselves and others. That night, I did exactly that. I threw caution to the wind and my clothes soon followed.

We all wore masks so we didn't see each others faces, and by that point in the night most of us were drunk. Think about that for a moment: We are all young and healthy girls and boys, at a time in our lives where we are near our sexual peak when we have only the slimmest grasp of our carnal desires and we are all drunk. That is the pinnacle of the illusion that is called 'The invincibility of youth.' That night, the illusion broke for me along with my maidenhood.

I don't remember much of actually 'doing the deed.' I was so plastered that even the blurs were probably constructs of my own mind desperate to remember something. I remember the feelings though, the sensations and how wonderful they were. I remember screaming for more and I'm told I got it whenever I asked.

My first clear memory is the morning after. My head felt like it had traded places with a blacksmith's anvil during the night and had just reattached itself to my neck. My vision spun and my body was sore. I was in bed, naked and next to Caesar, who was also naked and still unconscious.

My first instinct was to recall the previous night's events, but my mind failed me and in the state it was in at the time I shouldn't have expected anything. The mind is a terrible thing to waste and considering how wasted I had been I should have learned the lesson then and there; perhaps then I'd have been better prepared.

Saemonza came into the room after hearing my moans and joked if Caeser and I were now an item. She then offered to bring me breakfast and I was only too happy to accept. Caesar woke up shortly after that and we both had our breakfast in bed naked together. We joked about that at the time and we still joke about it now. Despite our pounding headaches and soreness, we took comfort in the fact that by tomorrow all would be well again.

I think it was two months after that I started to notice something was wrong with me, but looking back I should have realized it sooner, the signs were there. Were they really so subtle neither I nor my closest and dearest friends didn't realize it? No, they realized sooner than I did that something was wrong, but it's human nature to ignore a problem and hope it goes away.

The first time I realized something was wrong, that I was suddenly made aware of just how strange I'd been behaving was one morning at breakfast. I was having my usual buttered toast, but then I asked Caesar to get me the ketchup from the fridge. I still remember the looks they had on their faces and these days I remember that fondly, but I wonder why I hadn't noticed their looks then.

I got the ketchup and started to squirt it out onto my toast before starting to eat it, with not a hint of disgust or disapproval. To me it tasted as good as always but after I'd finished I noticed the looks my friends were giving me. They were a mix of revulsion and concern.

I asked them why they were giving me such looks, and Saemonza, curt as ever, responded swiftly.

"You're eating your toast with ketchup!" she told me. She seemed both confounded and disgusted.

I remember the thoughts going through my head right then: 'Did I really just do that? Why did I suddenly want ketchup on my toast? I never have before..'

There seemed to be a silent message exchanged between my friends at that moment. I know now that they had spoken to each other about my odd behavior before, and now decided to confront me about it.

"You've been acting strange lately" Oryou told me. "This isn't the first time you've done this. Just last week we caught you dunking onigiri in melted chocolate before eating it."

Then Saemonza said: "Speaking of eating, you've been doing a lot of that lately too. You're constantly snacking. Every time we go to get some munchies from the cupboards we find them raided by your hand!"

"You're eating like a hungry war elephant!" Caesar yells at me. "Erwin, we think there's something wrong with you."

Even at that point it still had not occurred to me exactly what was happening to me. My first thought was: "Am I sick?" This only seemed to exasperate them. "Well I have been feeling queasy lately!"

Caeser moved closer to me and took my hand. She looked me right in the eyes and spoke to me very directly and concisely.

"Erwin, a couple of months ago when I invited you to that orgy, did you take the pill I gave you?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Of course I did. I'm sure of it." I was so confident that even right up till then, my ignorance, my stupidity, prevented me from seeing what was so plain, so obvious. A normal girl would have caught it much sooner than that and perhaps sooner than my friends would have, because a normal girl isn't obsessed about the distant past, but the here and now. Perhaps if I had been, just a little bit, I might have caught it so much sooner, but then again, it was me thinking about the here and now that caused me to get into this mess.

"The pills don't always work" Caesar told me slowly. "They're not guaranteed." I remember her taking a deep breath and feeling her grip on my hand getting tighter. "Erwin, we think you might be pregnant."

I remember just sitting there for a moment staring at her, my brain not registering her words for that time. I slowly turned my head and saw Oryou and Saemonza's worried looks and then I looked down at the table and started to tremble, tears flowing from my eyes before I started to all out cry. That short, concise statement hit me like an atom bomb and the full weight of what they'd been trying to say, what I'd done, and the sudden uncertainty of the future hit me all at once.

I don't know how long I cried, but it was for a while. I remember them coming up and hugging me, holding me close, trying to console me, telling me it was going to be alright, that they'd be there to help. I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends but then, all I could think about was how stupid I'd been, how stupid I was. My own inadequacies, the burden I was being and was going to be on those I cared about. I was only thinking about me, the only concern I had about that child inside me was whether or not I could actually be a mother.

Later, Caeser went to buy some pregnancy tests for me, but I knew it was pointless. Somehow, now that the notion had been laid out for me clearly, I knew I was pregnant and simply lay curled up on either Oryou's lap or Saemonza's at different points.

To humor my friends and the faint hope in the back of my mind that I was not pregnant, only sick, I took three tests and they all came back positive. I didn't know it at the time, but Caesar had taken two tests for herself. I guess after what happened to me she was worried.

Then came the time to confront the inevitable dilemma of 'what to do now?' Who do we call? Who do we tell? How do we deal with this? None of us were sure but we all agreed I should tell my parents.

I tell you now, telling my parents that I, their teen-aged daughter, was two months pregnant was the hardest, most uncomfortable thing I'd ever had to do. It took me hours to work up the courage just to approach the phone.

Eventually I did manage to call up my mother, but before I could even utter any words beyond 'hello' I broke down into tears. Somehow through my babbling my mother did get the message that I was quite pregnant and I kept telling her how sorry I was and that I was a failure of a daughter.

That whole time she said almost nothing, she just listened to me until I managed to get calmed down. She told me not to worry, that everything would be fine, that she didn't think of me as a failure, that she still loved me, she was just... disappointed. Somehow that hurt more than being called a failure, or a disgrace. The feeling of disappointing her, I don't think I'd ever hated myself more than that, before or since.

So she and I talked for a while. She told me things I should do, what I shouldn't do, what I should expect and the preparations I should make. Caesar was kind enough to write it all down, I probably would have gotten the paper wet.

That evening I remember going to my room and taking off my coat and cap. They were my trademark, my identifier, and yet at that moment I didn't feel comfortable wearing them anymore, because I wasn't that person anymore. I put them in my closet and didn't put them on again.

Soon after that we had to start taking care of business. The school had to be told of my circumstances, but were it not for the regulations I would have told the team before the school.

Thinking back on it, the way the principal reacted, he probably gets more girls coming in to tell him they're pregnant than we might think. He just said: "I see", and then told me what to do next and helped me fill out some paperwork. Most importantly he told me I'd have to quit the Tankery team and any other group that did strenuous physical activity.

That same day is when I handed in my resignation form. I remember the shocked looks I got from everyone. I wish I hadn't hung my head so low when I told them the truth as to why I was leaving so I could remember their expressions.

I was really surprised when Saori came up and hugged me, all bubbly and excited, congratulating me. I wasn't prepared for that reaction. The others seemed like they didn't know what to think except Sodoko. Her face was purple with barely contained fury and she looked ready to let me have it like the Normandy shore on D-Day. It never came though; I saw her take a deep breath and her colour start to return to normal. Maybe she thought I'd already been bombarded enough with lectures and moral rants. I had, but most of them had come from my own mouth.

Despite the better than expected reaction, though I suppose most of that was due to the sheer shock, I was still ashamed, so ashamed I could die. I felt like I'd let everyone down, like I'd failed them too, but nobody said anything of the sort. It was just me.

Saori stuck to me like glue after that. She was an absolute star, a godsend to me. She seemed to know all that was needed to know to help me along with my pregnancy and to help me prepare for taking care of a baby. I remember one of the first questions she asked me after she started helping me was whether I was putting it up for adoption.

You know the thought had never occurred to me to give the child, my child up. On paper it's the better solution; I would be free to continue my life without having to care for or look after another, but I refused the idea and said, no I almost yelled out that it was my baby and no one else's.

What was it that made me decide that so quickly and the way I did it? I think it was some form of pride or whatever the female equivalent of machismo is. I think part of it was the thought that if I did give it up I'd have only failed even harder. Regardless I felt the baby was mine and mine alone.

A lot of girls don't realize how much pregnancy changes you; both physically and mentally. Your hips grow wider, your breasts fill with milk and as the baby grows it presses against your bladder so you have to go to the bathroom more often. Being pregnant involves so much more than a big belly.

I was also very emotional. My mood swings could be just awful some days where I'd be happily cleaning the house or making dinner for my friends one minute and then be their malevolent dictator the next and then crying. It was all quite stressful sometimes.

Probably the most infamous change in the eyes of a lot of girls is the boost in appetite. A lot of people on tv and books say it's all in your head but that's complete garbage. You're making a new little body in your own body, that takes energy and matter and you need both for yourself to make it happen. Something doesn't come from nothing. Even God created us from dust.

Saori started coming over pretty much everyday after I resigned to cook for me. You have to watch what you eat when you're pregnant, but it's like avoiding cancer when it comes to deciding what is good to eat; it changes all the time. Saori knew better than I did though and I was thankful for it.

She cooked big meals for me right off the bat, told me I had to start packing on the pounds early because I was so young. It amazes me even now that no matter how much food was ever put in front of me, and I remember well how much I was doted on by everyone, I always had room for it. I never refused food, if anything I asked for more. Remember during the festival when Hana ate herself full to bursting just for the 'experience?' Well I was with her and had kept pace with her eating the whole time except I didn't stop until the food did.

Cravings is something you have to get used to and I didn't have the luxury of a loving husband to wake in the middle of the night to get me some outrageous food item or meal; I had to go get it or make it myself, not an easy thing when a huge belly tends to inspire laziness. Hunger eventually wins out though and you end up eating crazy things like: Watermelon slices mixed with paprika and bread crumbs; ice cream with hot dogs in it and I remember one monstrosity I made from whatever had been left in the fridge and pantries. I cleaned them out quite often, especially in my later months. It was probably a few thousand calories on its own and after I cooked it, it was a steaming mound of odd foods all mashed together. To anyone else it probably looked disgusting but to me it looked and tasted delicious and I ate it all.

That reminds me, nobody ever seems to talk about they joys of pregnancy when talking to teens about it. Yes, I know their job is to make us avoid it at all costs but I feel like someone needs to talk about how wonderful it can be. There are simple joys that help you get through the frustration and efforts in pregnancy, things that make you look forward to the day your baby is born.

I would sometimes sit or lie for hours doing nothing but rubbing my belly while staring at myself in the mirror and I wondered what my baby would look like. Would it have my hair? My eyes? Boy or girl? Thinking about it always made me giddy with excitement.

There's also the feeling of the baby moving. I remember the first time I felt it I freaked out a little, it was a kind of sensation I'd never felt before. Within less than a minute everyone within earshot was around me, clamoring to put their hand and ear against my belly to try and share in the joy of feeling a developing life move. Speaking of which, I suppose I have to talk about the belly now don't I? It's the thing everyone sees the most and it's the thing that helps let everyone know that you're pregnant.

I started showing around the three month mark. I was so small and thin, despite the combination of Saori's cooking and my new appetite, that it showed sooner than on most fully developed woman. I didn't wear maternity clothes yet but most could see the bulge through my uniform.

I'm still surprised how few jeers and insults were flung at me. A lot of girls actually admired me, saying I had a motherly glow and telling me how beautiful I looked. Despite all those nice words though, you still feel fat. It's inescapable when you've been nice and trim your whole life, so you feel it even though it's 'baby weight' and literally the bulge from your growing baby.

It's gradual but it doesn't take long to ad up the effects of a big gut. You start losing your ability to bend over properly, you can't see your feet, your wearing stretchy clothes, and you start to waddle when you walk. When you add all that up, look at your reflection and see how you can't fit into any of your regular clothes you can't help but feel fat.

It's not just your belly that grows either. Your hips grow wider and your rear gets bigger with it. Not just wider but fatter, especially if you factor in good home cooking with a healthy appetite.

My breasts started irritating me shortly after I realized I was pregnant. They slowly grew and they got pretty huge before they stopped. Well, a baby needs lots of milk after all but on top of carrying a baby belly around they didn't help my back at all. Saori and Oryou were kind enough to rub my back for me a lot. I suppose those two would know about back ache from lugging a lot of front weight, but until they get pregnant I know more about it than them.

Well, after nine months of mood-swings, hot flashes, cramps, back aches, pigging out and everything else the day finally came. My water broke in the morning while I was still in bed; everything was pretty much panic after that. A-Club showed up to give me a ride to the hospital and Sae threatened poor Nakajima with her wakizashi not to drive too fast.

Despite the panic there was really no rush. I laid in the hospital bed, now dressed in a hospital gown, for hours. I felt the contractions get stronger and closer together. Before my baby was even born I was exhausted, sweaty and petrified with fear. I didn't want to do it, I just wanted the baby to stay inside me so I wouldn't have to go through all this! I yelled, screamed and cussed for hours and cursed the son of a bitch that put this thing in me. I had no choice of course, the baby was coming whether I liked it or not.

My mother jumped through flaming hoops to be there. She managed to calm me down and told me to be brave, that it was all going to be alright. She held my hand as I screamed and gave birth to her grandchild after ten hours of work.

The screaming was more from effort than pain; they gave me something for that. It's a lot of work to squeeze a baby out of you, but when I finally heard those cries, it was like a sweet melody to my ears. I'd done it, I'd given birth. The worst was over.

I remember almost passing out and the doctors had to check me over to make sure my young body had weathered the storm. Right after that they though the sat me up and handed me a freshly cleaned, wriggling little bundle.

"It's a boy" they told me, and I wept for joy. I'd actually wanted a boy you know. A little trooper I could raise and nurture on my own. I didn't feel confident teaching a girl how to be a girl. It sounds like a silly thing to say but such thoughts are common for first time mothers I'm told.

I looked at my baby, the little tiny bundle in my arms and he opened his eyes for the first time and looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes.

"Hey there baby. I'm your mama." I cooed to him. I feel a bit embarrassed talking about it now but I was totally gaga for my own little baby. I'm not ashamed though, seeing; holding the little life you've carried for so long inside you and have slowly bonded with, you feel like you're in heaven. There's almost no one else there, it's just you, your baby and in my case, my own mother.

I filled out the birth certificate and officially christened my baby: Erwin Rommel Matsumoto. Mom just shook her head but I'd been planning on naming him that for months and I'd thought long and hard about. Honest.

Well right after that mom had to teach me how to breast feed. It's a bit embarrassing when there are people around but I've gotten used to it now. Its a wonderful feeling you know, breastfeeding your new baby. Not only are you feeding them but it's important bonding time with your child. You grow even closer and love each other even more. It's a wonderful, fulfilling feeling, and I'll be sad when it ends.

I know everyone had come to the hospital to see us but they shooed everyone out and only let my team stay. I figured that was for the best since it took ten hours for me just to get the kid out of me. Figured our house was better though since there was more room so Caesar called everyone to meet us there.

Both me and Erwin managed to get a nap in before everyone piled into the house and I came down with my new baby boy, everyone gasping, ooh-ing and ah-ing; and squealing over him. Everyone wanted to hold him but I really didn't want to let him out of my grip. It's instinct I guess and even now I still can't fully relax if someone else is holding him, even my own mother.

Saori and my team got first dibs of course but seeing the look on Sodoko's face when I told her it was her turn was worth the anxiety. You see it had occurred to me that whenever there was an altercation during my pregnancy, the Morals Committee was somehow always there to help me out. Even at that moment Sodoko, Gomoyo and Pazomi were doing crowd control to at least give poor Erwin the chance to breathe.

When Sodoko was given Erwin it was the kind of expression I'd never seen from her before. Turns out there was a warm heart under that cold exterior all along. I should have noticed it sooner, but then again it was the first time I'd seen her smile and I don't think I'd ever seen her eyes look that soft.

Well as Erwin was getting passed around Mom came to me and said I should get my own apartment. Babies were a lot to take care of and it would probably bother my friends a lot too. Not to mention that our place wasn't exactly baby proof. We all have blades and weapons of various kinds and I took her point.

With Anzu's help Mom found a good apartment for us and I am really grateful to the entire team for everything they've done, including helping me move here. It's still not paradise of course, raising a kid rarely is. I have a lot of sleepless nights and I'm often sore, and tired all day. Still somehow it all seems worth it.

So in the end, I did make a mistake and yes I shouldn't have done it, I should have known better, but do I regret it? No."

Miho sighed and her shoulders sagged. She looked over at the crib where Erwin lay asleep wrapped up in a camouflage blanket that Yukari had gifted the former Erwin and now Riko, during the baby shower Saori had organised while she'd still been pregnant.

"Did you ever, at any point think that your parents might abandon you? That they would disown you and turn their backs on you?"

Riko scratched her head. "Maybe a little right before I talked to them over the phone. In the end though, it was silly of me to worry. If your parents love you they won't abandon you, regardless of what you do."

"Hana's mother did."

"True, but she came back didn't she? And besides that, she never stopped loving her. Being a parent and mother myself now gives me some perspective."

Miho played with her fingers, contemplating everything Riko had told her up till now. "Are you angry at the father? Do you hate him for what happened?"

Riko crossed her arms and closed her eyes thoughtfully. "Well I sure as hell did when I was giving birth, but in the end it's no more his fault than mine. Truth is I don't know who the father is and even if I did I'm not sure I'd contact him. I've asked Mom about it but all she said was: 'It's your choice'."

"I see. I suppose that's only fair. How did you get through it all though? How did you know it was all going to turn out alright?"

Riko chuckled. "Weren't you listening? I had friends Miho. Friends, true friends are as good as family, if not better sometimes. I don't think anyone on the tankery team has to worry about that." She walked over and took both of Miho's hands, looking right into her eyes. "None of us are alone Miho, we're all very lucky to have such wonderful people around us and to not involve them in our struggles, to shut them out is a blight on that precious friendship. Let people in and they can help you, because they feel better about themselves by being able to do so."

She leaned in and gave Miho a kiss on the forehead. "Feel better?"

Miho's cheeks burned but she smiled. "Y-yes. I think I do feel better now. I-I'd better go then."

"Alright. I'm always here to talk if you need it. Come whenever you'd like."

Miho slipped her feet into her shoes and smiled. "I will thank you."

Miho walked out into the brisk winter air, a gentle snowfall blanketing the ship and town upon it in a thin white blanket that shone in the light of the full moon. She walked down the stairs to the sidewalk and took her phone out of her pocket, dialing a very familiar number. "Hello Kikuyo. Yes I'm fine, are you well? That's good. Listen I uh... I need to organise a family meeting. I have something important to tell everyone."

Cover image done by Madoker