Author's Note: My first Noein Fanfiction.. Yay. This is also my first 'birthing' scene? Anyway, I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks now, I was just unsure about how to do it, and.. Well, it wrote itself in a manner of speaking.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. All rights to Noein are copyrighted to Kazuki Akane, Kenji Yasuda and Satelight Inc.
Almost there.. Almost.. Yuu thought to himself as he nearly tripped over the hard concrete steps that ascended toward his destination, rushed and panting for breath, his tanned skin shimmering with a sheen of sweat under the quickly fading sun, the large, yellow orb, beating down her last rays of light as she sunk below the horizon line.
He had just came back from his trip to Tokyo only to enter his home, and find the telephone ringing off it's hook, he had resisted the urge to simply let it ring, a wise decision as the other recipient on the line was none other than Isami, is best friend since they were teenagers, along with Ai and Miho,. however, unlike the usual, mundane yet entertaining conversations they usually had, his words were a devastating blow of information. His fiance, Haruka, was in the hospital, about to give birth to his child.
"Yuu? Yuu, are you there? C'mon man, hello?" Yuu had scarcely heard Isami's voice resounding in his ear as he tried for several moments, in vain, to process what Isami had told him seconds ago. He had the fleeting thought that his may be how the term, 'struck by lightning' had originated. As soon as the words had properly found their way into his brain, he had promptly dropped the phone with a thud directly onto the floor, and leaped out of the front door, running as fast as his legs would harry him toward the hospital, and the laboring Haruka.
"Yuu!"
"Hey, Yuu!"
"There you are, man!"
After irritatingly passing through both the guard, and the metal detectors at the entrance of the hospital, he was making his way toward the lobby desk hastily as the shouts greeted him. Yuu turned, narrowly in time, or he would lost his balance as a small, blurred, and fiery red shape launched himself at him.
"We knew you'd make it!" The muffled voice of one Miho sounded against his chest.
"We tried reaching you on your cell, but we wouldn't get through.." Isami stated.
"Hello?! Forgetting something?" A sharp voice cried, before both Yuu and Isami yelped, knuckles cracking them both upside the head.
"Hi, Ai." Yuu murmured meekly, rubbing his head as Isami echoed his action with a verbal, 'Ow'.
"Don't 'Hi, Ai,'' me! Haruka's going to give birth! And you two are just standing around here gawking and yapping!" Ai snarled hotly. Miho detached herself from Yuu and turned toward the nurse currently sitting behind the lobby's desk, she was small in form, with long black hair and green eyes, she was tapping a pencil against a clipboard clasped in her left hand.
"Haruka Kaminogi, please." Miho stated.
The nurse inclined her head slightly, reaching behind her and pulling out a small red badge with the words 'Visitor' stamped onto the front.
Miho handed it to Yuu.
"Here." She stated, "You can't go walking around without one of those on."
Yuu nodded and took the badge, pinning it to his shirt as he noticed that Isami, Ai, and Miho herself, both sported the same red rectangle with 'Visitor' stamped on it, on the front of their shirts.
"Move it!" Shouted Ai, herding the trio down a clean and well lit hallway, ushering the two into a doorway on the left hand side, Yuu barely noticed the numbers on the plaque placed in the middle of the door. Room 187.
"Yuu!" His head jerked up as his name rang off the walls of the small room, three voices having uttered it as one.
Yuu, however, barely noticed the slight nod both Asuka Kaminogi, Haruka's mother, and Takuya Mayuzumi, Haruka's farther bade him as he immediately set his attention on the bed ridden individual in question, her arm outstretched and finger tips spread beseechingly as Yuu automatically raised his hand and twined his fingers within hers, slipping up beside her bed. Miho, Ai, and Isami stepped into the room and took up chairs besides Asuka and Takuya.
"The doctor should be here any mi--" Isami's statement was cut off as an elderly man dressed a white coat entered the roof, clipboard in hand as he smiled at it's occupants, before turning his attention to Yuu.
"So you must be Yuu? The father? A pleasure to meet you, I'm Doctor Mesado Nyezenagi." Yuu shook the proffered hand.
Dr, Nyezenagi was perhaps in his late forties, but had a strong build with light black hair, peppered with a faint outline of gray, his mouth, seemingly always upturned with a smile.
Haruka's gasping cry brought his attentions back to her.
"Well," Dr Nyezenagi stated. "It looks like it's time, don't you think?"
Yuu squeezed Haruka's hand gently, as she turned to him with a smile all of her own.
"Shouldn't I be doing that to you?" She asked, hers eyes glittered with humour.
"I wouldn't blame you if you did break my fingers," Yuu replied, smiling back slightly.
A sheet was draped over Haruka, snuggled underneath her chin and set lengthwise down her body and along her legs, spread and held up with small stirrups.
"Haruka, just try and breath for now? All right?" Dr. Nyezenagi stated gently, rolling a small seated chair as he sat down.
Haruka nodded, and arched slightly off the bed with a cry as her fingers clenched Yuu's.
"Now, I want you to push." Nyezenagi voiced, leaning down between Haruka's legs.
A faint sliver of sweat already beaded Haruka's brow as she cried out again, her body tensing slightly underneath the sheet.
"You're doing great.." The Doctor implored.
Yuu squirmed slightly where he stood, rubbing his thumb over Haruka's white knuckles.
Haruka's cried gradually increased in pitch as Yuu chewed gently on is bottom lip, her body nearly writhing against the small hospital bed as her body tensed and jerked involuntarily.
"Haruka? Are you o--" Yuu's question was cut off however, as Haruka gave a final cry and lay back against the bed panting, the sound of her breathing drowned out by the shrill wailing of the newborn babe, rested in Doctor Nyezenagi arms.
"Would you look at that? You've got yourselves a healthy little boy!" Nyezenagi stated, gently passing the blanket swathed baby into Haruka's awaiting arms, several pearled tears coursing unchecked down her face.
Ai, Miho, and Isami, along with both of Haruka's parents leaned beside Yuu to get a look at the child as it squirmed in Haruka's arms before settling, his cries now silent as the faint peaks of his brown eyes slowly closed in sleep.
"Aww...!" Miho gushed.
"How cute!" Ai voiced, Isami nodding beside her before thumping Yuu across the back.
"Good work, man, knew you had it in you." Isami grinned.
Yuu ignored him as his sole attention centered on his sleeping son in Haruka's arms, slowly he reached out and gently ran his finger tips across the small tuft of hair on the baby's head.
"What are you going to name him?" Dr. Nyezenagi asked.
Haruka lifted her head, her eyes seeking, and meeting Yuu's, deep pools, full of love and understanding. Her voice trembled slightly as she whispered her next words so lowly that Yuu had lean down beside her to make them out.
"How about.. Karasu?"