Battles and Wars
Disclaimer: Nana and all characters are written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa, serialized in Cookie and published by Shuiesha. I also had no beta.
When Nana finally goes into actual labor, she does not have the time to contact anyone along the way.
She has had a few false labor pains and a few angry blow ups from her husband over the stress she put him through, so there were no calls until they were sure. This time, she tried to meekly accept the horrible spasms until she was clutching herself every two or three minutes, and by the time she was really, really sure, Takumi already had her under the care of a team of professionals.
Takumi is concerned about his wife, but can distract his self knowing that he gets to be the one doling out phone calls. Takumi is in his element when he is making persuasions and leading discussions. He is finally back to going a round two with Nobu.
It's true that Nana has done fairly well at avoiding her past flame during the pregnancy, but Takumi has had nine months to know that this baby could come out with blond hair and he would still be this baby's father.
He has thought about how Nana has slowly inserted her newly gained knowledge about his business, the time where she angered him by attending Reira's party, how she finally arrived back home when he was mourning Ren's death and offered to stay with him, not Nana Osaki, and he feels that she has been a good wife.
He also reflects back on the way she adjusts her face or casually laughs about his numerous affairs, on how Nana looked as she hugged Reira's slowly bulging body next to her own far advanced bump. Takumi looked from one mother of his child to the other and slowly realized that while he would have two children, he was only going to have one wife, by law and in his heart; Reira was never meant to posses that part of him.
Something about Takumi has been fucked up since he was young, and as much as he'd ever loved Reira it was never enough for Takumi to stop digging them both in deeper. He's relieved that from the beginning when he chose to act soft for a while to gain Nana that there was something in her that comforted the fight in his own life, which gave his inner demons a rest, a piece that sometimes dragged him from the office back into the home that held the scent of her warm meals and embrace.
And when Nobu finally makes it through the door looking frantically defeated, Takumi's glad he was in charge of calling, of winning the battle
Until
Her heavy soled boots echoed through the hospital hallway and that scratchy voice was drowning out every effort Yasu and Shin gave to calm her down. He had not made a phone call to Nana Osaki but that was to be expected in their ongoing war.
I usually have lots of story ideas and little ability to squeeze them out into written word. Thank goodness for the drabble. In future manga chapters things might change where some things-Reira's pregnancy or Nana O. being around for the birth might change, but I needed those ideas to stress a point in the relationships.