That evening, like most evenings when they didn't have to work, they took the dog for a walk. Their West Tokyo neighbourhood was close to Inokashira Park, which afforded a lovely view of cherry blossom trees that always made Kyoko feel strangely nostalgic, and plenty of space for the dog andMakoto to burn off some energy.
This time, however, her husband seemed content to let Nori amuse herself. Makoto kept his hand in hers, a faint smile on his lips that she didn't think had dissipated for even a moment since she'd handed him the positive test.
"Who do you want to tell first?" he asked, swinging their hands. "We have to tell Hina together. Maybe over lunch? She's gonna be so excited. Komaru will huff if anyone else knows before her, though. What about your grandfather? Should we call him tonight or would he be offended we didn't tell him in person? I'd invite him over for dinner but you know he never comes." Makoto stopped in his tracks, halting her too. He was biting his bottom lip in thought. "Hey, do you think this will make him like me more or less?"
"Makoto." She had hoped his contagious optimism would drown out her own sense of reason at least until morning, but this latest round of excited questioning had abruptly snapped her out of it. "We can't tell anyone yet."
Makoto frowned, his eyes drifting to her stomach and then back up to her face, his forehead creasing in concern. "You think something is going to go wrong?"
She gave his hand a squeeze. "I hope not," she said, quietly. As cynical as she wanted to be - to prepare not only Makoto, but herself, for the worst - she couldn't keep herself from hoping entirely. Kyoko began to walk again, tugging him along with her. "But do you remember what the specialist said? That it wasn't just ovulation that was affected, it was the egg quality."
"Yeah, but we got pregnant," Makoto insisted, confused. "Naturally. Without drugs or procedures or whatever. That's gottabe a good sign."
She nodded. "Sure. But...it's really early days. The odds are still against us."
At this, Makoto let out a small whine of frustration. "You're just being...you though, right?" he asked, with much less tact than was typical of him. "I mean, no one at the clinic specifically said - "
" - because I suspect the clinic didn't think we would get this far on our own," Kyoko admitted. She had gotten the impression even at the time that the prescription for six months of fertility drugs was more of a formality in preparation for more invasive treatment than it was a likely solution. She untangled her hand from Makoto's and stopped walking to lean against the fence by the park's pond so she could look at him. "Listen, I'm not saying you - we - can't be happy. I just don't think we should get ahead of ourselves - there are still risks. And until we're out of the woods, this stays between us."
Makoto visibly tensed. His frown deepened and his eyes got a little wider. "What kind of risks?"
Sometimes, Kyoko really hated that she was the more pragmatic one of the two. It didn't happen often - while she loved Makoto's optimism on Makoto, it would not be useful in her line of work, it was distracting and besides, it came with a vulnerability to pain and disappointment that scared of her, and she'd never been one to scare easy. There were times like this though, when she had to be the one with the burden of bad news, the one who shattered through his admirable optimism with harsh truth and cold facts, that she wished it was not always her who had to break his heart.
Although she wanted more than anything to lie to him, to let him brush her off as being her usual, skeptical self, to allow him longer to revel in this moment than that small window she'd allotted herself, she was already kicking herself for getting caught up in the moment enough to ignore her own reservations. She should have caution-taped the very announcement; she should have known better.
"From what I gather, embryos formed from low quality eggs have a higher likelihood of having chromosomal abnormalities." It was easy to be matter-of-fact about it in front of Makoto, because that was the person he expected her to be. She spoke with such detachment that he could not have known that just a few hours ago, she'd broken down in an airport bathroom stall, her chest aching with how much she wanted this to work out. "And there's a greater risk of miscarriage."
Makoto came to stand beside her, leaning his elbows on the fence to look out over the pond. She watched him, carefully, waiting for the inevitable spiel about hope and luck and how they really just had to think positively and the universe would pick up the slack.
It didn't come.
"Makoto," she said, resting her hand on his arm and turning toward him. She brought her other hand up to his back and smoothed circles there, the way he did when she was obsessing about a case. She didn't know what else to do - it was, after all, only from him that she had learned things like comfort in the first place.
It seemed to work. He leaned into her, but didn't lift his gaze from the water. "It's not fair," he said, thickly.
The last time she'd heard Makoto sound so defeated had been back at the Future Foundation when she'd been his boss and his friend but not his wife; when she'd been the one who had to deliver the news that his parents bodies had been found in Towa City. It had only been then, as the most resilient man she'd ever met crumpled in front of her like a piece of paper, that she really understood the strange space inside herself she'd had for as long as she could remember but had never been able to fill: orphan grief.
"I know," she said now, because what else was there to say? It wasn't fair. She rested her head against his. "I'm sorry."
It was an all-inclusive apology, not just a show of empathy. It was a condolence for the all the dreams she'd just shaken him out of; it was regret that this situation was one he could have avoided had he married anyone else.
"It's not your fault," Makoto said with conviction, turning to look at her finally. "I'm being dumb. I'm sorry. I'm just scared. I'm happy - like so happy, Kyoko - but...that's why I'm so scared too, you know?"
"I do." She understood a little too well, unfortunately. "I'll call my doctor tomorrow and make an appointment. We'll take it from there."
He perked up a little when the dog ran up to them, yapping impatiently for attention, but still, on the walk home Makoto was quieter than usual. In bed that night, he pressed impossibly close to her back and laid his hand like a starfish on her bare stomach, protective.
Her first doctor's appointment four days later was uneventful. A blood test confirmed she was pregnant and that her body was doing a promising job at making the right levels of whatever hormone was necessary to keep it that way. They were asked some questions about their family history which neither of them were particularly capable of answering. The doctor seemed satisfied anyway and sent them off with recommendations for prenatal vitamins and an appointment for a scan in another six weeks.
"Six weeks is so faraway," Makoto complained, when they left the medical centre. "I thought we'd get to see the baby today."
"It isn't big enough to see properly yet," Kyoko explained. She placed a haste kiss to her husband's cheek before they parted to their separate cars so they could return to their respective workplaces. "Be patient."
It wasn't until that night, when Kyoko rolled over to see him lying awake, staring widely at the ceiling as if it were not 3:04, that it occurred to her that what she'd mistaken for his childish eagerness was actually worry.
"I'm just too excited to sleep," Makoto told her, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.
This went on for days. Even when he did sleep, it was fitful and in short bursts. It wasn't surprising: he was worried, stressed, concerned and that was how Makoto's subconscious manifested those emotions. What was a surprise was that he seemed so set on lying about it.
He insisted he was only up before her every morning so he could make her breakfast in bed. When she'd crack her eyes open in the middle of the night to find him wide awake, he'd rub his face and pretend he'd just woken up too.
"Talk to me," Kyoko said, when she eventually grew tired of letting him think she believed him. "You'll feel better if you just talk about it."
It seemed an obvious solution, even to her, for whom such a solution had not that long ago been a foreign concept. She didn't understand why Makoto, who was so open and emotionally transparent by nature, was suddenly determined to resist so much.
"I'm fine, Kyoko." She had been about ready to list all the ways he wasn't fine - in addition to sleep, he was also eating considerably less and watching her every move with obvious paranoia - but then he met her eyes across the dinner table and she could read the pleading there: please, just drop it. "Everything's good. Don't worry about me."
Kyoko wasn't very good at dropping things or not worrying about him, but she also knew how annoying it was to be badgered to open up when you just wanted to handle something alone - and because she wasn't exactly keen to pursue conversations about all the potential negative outcomes, she let it go.
Still, she forced sleeping pills upon him. He put up a fight, usually only turning to them if she was out of town and he was desperate ("they make my head feel fuzzy" "oh? more so than sleep deprivation?") but when Kyoko spontaneously stopped by the academy one afternoon and found him asleep at his desk, he had no choice but to concede.
After that, things improved. Although he still begged her daily to be careful at work, the return of regular sleep seemed to ease his anxiety, which in turn got him off her back at home.
That was, until the occasional bouts of momentary nausea she'd been experiencing stopped being occasional, momentary and limited to nausea.
She knew Makoto was only trying to help when he pressed cold cloths to her forehead or smoothed back her hair when she was throwing up, but ever since she was a child, Kyoko had hated people crowding her when she was sick. She spent most of the day feeling terrible - because, despite being called 'morning sickness' it most definitely did not end at noon - so when she got home at night and Makoto would follow her from room to room asking how she was, if she needed anything, if she'd eaten much that day, it was quite the challenge to keep her cool.
On the day she had to leave a crime scene to throw up, she came home and the smell of whatever Makoto was cooking turned her stomach a second time. Dutifully, he joined her in the bathroom, his hands on her shoulders, her back, her ponytail as she brought up the small lunch she'd managed. Finally, she snapped.
"Stop petting me," she half-growled, wiping her mouth on her arm and flinching out of his touch. "Leave me alone."
"Kyoko." He crouched beside her with a gentle expression. "I want to help."
"You can help by leaving me alone."
With a sigh, he did as he was told. The look he gave her before closing the bathroom door was much like that which the dog gave her when she put it out of the kitchen to prepare food. Puppy dog eyes.
Kyoko stayed on the bathroom floor for most of the night. Standing only added the component of feeling dizzy, which aggravated the nausea. At one point, just moving too quickly for a sip of tap water made her face flush and bile rise in her throat, so she resigned herself to slumping miserably in the corner of the room for as long as it took to pass.
When Makoto came back from walking Nori, he joined her again, despite being snapped at. He sat down against the bathtub and placed a packet of plain crackers on the floor between them in a wordless offer of peace.
Kyoko had been sick two more times since she'd seen him last, so she didn't have the energy to kick him out a second time. Besides, she'd begun to feel a little bad for chasing him. Makoto was just trying to be supportive - it was hardly his fault that in moments like this, his attentiveness felt to her like an intrusion.
"Kyoko?" he said, posing her name tentatively as he tugged on the fold of his sweater sleeve. "What do you think happens when you die?"
She pounded her head into her arm, where it rested against the toilet bowl. "Give me another day of this and I'll be able to tell you."
Yes, she was being dramatic, but Kyoko Kirigiri did not take kindly to being unwell. She had a fairly impressive threshold for pain, she could work around a headache easily, she'd never missed a day of school or work because of periods - but dizziness, vomiting, the lethargy that accompanied days of the two was seriously beginning to wipe her out.
When a cracker hit her shoulder before falling into her lap, she looked up to Makoto, who had thrown it at her. He looked stern. "As someone who has literally died on me in the past, you don't get to make those kinds of jokes." As an afterthought, he added, "You should eat that, by the way. It'll help settle your stomach."
She wanted to throw it back at him. She had a better aim and much less goodwill than he did - she would make sure she hit his head.
But still, her stomach groaned in hunger. With great dejection, Kyoko picked up the stupid cracker and took a bite, giving Makoto a miserable look. "What do you think happens when you die?"
"I always liked the idea of reincarnation," he admitted, before frowning, "but then Komaru started seeing ghosts and I figured that probably wasn't how it worked."
"Your sister has a very vivid imagination," Kyoko warned, wearily, "I wouldn't take it to heart."
"I guess, but I dunno, I think I believe her. It always freaked me out though." Makoto pulled a face. "I mean, the idea of people who died still hanging around, just...watching you all the time - I thought it was creepy."
"I agree." Against her better judgement, Kyoko reached for another cracker. "What would you want to come back as, if you could reincarnate?"
"I don't know anymore. I like being me." Makoto shrugged. "Plus, now I think it's sorta...nice to believe there's an afterlife. It would mean that everyone we've lost is watching over us." He smiled. "Don't you think that's cool?"
"Hm." Kyoko tilted her head. "Cool, maybe, but where's the evidence?"
Makoto rolled his eyes. "You're such a detective. The whole point of faith is you don't have any evidence. You don't need any, either. You just believe."
"Sounds like a pretty biased investigation to me."
Makoto hesitated, scratching his chin. "You know, I've been thinking. If people die and become angels who like, look out for people on earth or whatever, then our kid should be okay."
Kyoko raised an eyebrow. "Because of our excess of dead relatives?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, there's both your parents, Koichi Kizakura, my mom and dad, Sayaka, all our friends from Hope's Peak…" Makoto trailed off, a little wistfully, like he had not just listed off the depressing multitude of carnage they had accumulated between them. "I wish I could see them all. I wish I could talk to them again, you know? I wanna tell my parents I'm doing okay, that I've got a job I love and that me and Komaru don't fight anymore – I know they always worried about that. And I could tell your mom and dad that I'll always do my best to do right by you. I could thank Kizakura for saving your life."
Makoto could be dangerously sweet sometimes. If she wasn't so weak, she'd crawl across the floor and kiss him. She was tempted to anyway, before she remembered she would have to brush her teeth first and that involved staggering to her feet and by then the whole thing would be considerably less romantic.
"I know I'm not supposed to be thinking about names yet," Makoto said, eyeing her carefully, "but I like the name Koichi if it's a boy. I can't buy Kizakura many drinks as a thank you, but I think maybe he'd like this more." Of course he would, Kyoko thought, he was always arrogant. Makoto smiled then, not just at her, but at her, with fondness and something like wonder in his eyes. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have either of you."
Makoto, who had heard about Kizakura's heroism only after the fact, did not understand how true that was. Not only had Kizakura broken his NG code to save her life, his determination to honour her father even at a cost to himself had only solidified Kyoko's decision to sacrifice herself for Makoto. In the end, Kizakura had given her more than a lifeline- he had left her with the knowledge her father had loved her. Jin's desire to protect her even in death was something she could finally admire him for.
You'd do better to stop thinking so logically and express your feelings more, Kizakura had told her and although she'd brushed off his advice as useless when he was alive, those were the words she woke up with after Mikan resuscitated her, before she set off in search of Makoto.
"Well, the same is true of both your parents," Kyoko pointed out. Once, she'd found the prospect of meeting Makoto's parents daunting: What if they didn't like her? What if they thought she was too cold, too harsh for their soft-hearted son? What if they secretly wished Maizono was still alive, and that he'd brought her home instead? But then they'd died before she and Makoto had even started dating, and she'd felt more than a little bad for wanting so badly to avoid them. "I wish I could have met them," she said now, honestly. When Makoto looked up at her, she managed a small smile. "I have a lot to thank them for, too."
It wasn't simply sentiment - Kyoko was genuinely grateful to the Naegis. Even if she thought Komaru was childish for her age and Makoto got on her last nerve when he fretted over her, there was no question that they had both been raised to be loving, brave and loyal. To have raised a man as truly good as her husband, they had obviously done a lot of things right. She hoped she and Makoto could do half the job they had.
"Your mother's name was Chiyo, wasn't it?"
Makoto nodded. "Mom always said I shouldn't listen to people who say I'm too nice like it's a bad thing. She taught us the best quality you can have is kindness, no matter what." Even as his eyes filled with tears, he chuckled. "She wanted me to marry someone tougher than me, though. I think she thought I needed protected. She would have loved you."
Kyoko still wasn't sure that was true, but it didn't really matter. She nudged Makoto's leg with her foot to get his attention, and then she held out a cracker to him. "So, Koichi for a boy, Chiyo for a girl?"
Makoto didn't take the cracker. Instead, he pressed his palms to his eyes and threw his head back. "We're jinxing it," he murmured, quietly.
"Makoto, stop. That's not how it works."
"It is," he groaned. "You know what my luck is like."
"It's not about tempting fate." Luck had nothing to do with why Kyoko insisted they keep the pregnancy a secret or why sometimes, she winced internally when Makoto placed a goodnight kiss to her stomach before going to sleep. "It's about trying not to get our hopes up."
"Too late," Makoto admitted dully, before throwing his hands up in defeat. "I can't help it."
"I know." And didn't she love him for that? Kyoko sighed and forced herself up from the floor, steadying her balance against the sink before holding her hand out to him. "Come and lay down with me."
The weeks until the first ultrasound seemed to drag. Kyoko kept busy with work and eventually, the sickness eased enough that the sight of blood didn't drive her out of a room and she could immerse herself fully in investigations again.
As much as she rejected Makoto's apparent belief she was made of glass, and as much as she was determined not to allow her personal life interfere with her work, finally being pregnant after wanting to be for so long had her treating jobs with more caution than she ever had before.
When a man who had beaten all three of his previous female victims to death escaped from police custody mid-arrest, Saihara took off after him on foot, only stopping when Kyoko called to him. "It's not our problem if the police can't keep a hold of a suspect," she said, when once, she would have thought nothing of putting herself in a showdown between a violent offender. It would have given her a self-righteous buzz to catch him a second time, to see the look on the officers faces. "We solved the case, let them handle the rest."
Saihara didn't argue. Kyoko knew he had worked out she was pregnant after only a few weeks but was kindly pretending he hadn't. She appreciated this, because the other detective in her life was not so gracious.
"You're pregnant," her grandfather stated abruptly, when they met for lunch to confer on a case. "If you're curious, it's the sickly pallor and blemishes on your face that give it away."
"Thanks for that," she said dryly, but in truth, her grandfather's honesty was a little refreshing in contrast with Makoto's endless insistences she was 'glowing.'
Fuhito was not put off by her tone. He gave a shrug and returned to the files in front of him, flipping the pages quickly and with purpose. "Well, you've always had impeccable skin - you get that from our side of the family, of course."
"Of course." Lest he credit anyone else for anything. "I'm still going to need you to act surprised when we tell you properly in a month or two."
"Why on earth would I be surprised?" Fuhito frowned. "It has taken an age."
That shouldn't have stung, but it did. She looked away, mad at him, but more mad at herself for being sensitive to the jab. Kyoko still hadn't forgiven her body for failing her, for making her feel more and more powerless every month when her period came, for making her ready herself every time she pulled down her underwear now that she finally was pregnant, for fear of seeing blood.
"Don't sulk," her grandfather chided tautly. "It's not like I'm blaming the boy. If I were as cruel as you think me to be, I would have encouraged you to leave him for someone who could give you an heir. If you remember, I advocated for your marriage, not against it."
Kyoko looked up, confused. "Makoto told you it was his fault we couldn't have a baby?"
"He didn't need to." Fuhito waved his hand, brushing off the tedious distinction between what was said and what he perceived. "It was apparent he blamed himself, what with all the...crying and so on."
She knew Makoto had felt bad for being so vocal about wanting a child because he thought it pushed her away from him when they weren't successful, but she didn't know he'd allowed Fuhito to think it was a problem with him that caused their infertility. Knowing how proud she was, her husband had chosen to be compliant in letting her grandfather's disappointment and pity be directed at him.
Kyoko made a mental note to thank him, but then she came home to him stressing about the upcoming school inspections and it slipped her mind. When he woke her up that night mumbling and whining in his sleep, she assumed the nightmares were a result of the same work pressures. She shook him awake, his head thrashing around on the pillow, and he came to with wide eyes, gasping and trembling a little under her touch.
"It's alright," she said, soothing her fingers through his hair as he sat up in bed, blinking at her as if she were a ghost. "It was just a dream. You're safe, Makoto."
"I'm s-sorry," he said, his voice hitching with leftover fear. "I woke you. I'm sorry."
"It's fine." Kyoko leaned against him. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. You go back to sleep." Makoto pulled away from her to stand up. "I'm gonna go have some tea."
"I'll come with you."
"Don't." He eased his hand out of hers. "Honest. I feel bad enough that you're up."
She smiled a little. "You realise we'll have to adjust to not sleeping through the night?"
"Which is why one of us should make the most of it while we can." He kissed her forehead. "Go back to sleep," Makoto said, this time more forcefully. "I'm fine."
The next night, it happened again. And again. And again. In total, it went on for eight consecutive nights, long after the academy had sailed through the inspection, until the day of the scan.
In the waiting room, his hands were shaking. She took one of them in hers, hoping to reassure him, but it only made him twitch more.
"Ms. Kirigiri?"
After a brief discussion with the doctor, she hopped up on a table and lay down, undoing the bottom four buttons of her shirt to expose her stomach. Makoto sat in the chair beside her, one hand on her wrist, another at his mouth, where he was rapping his thumbnail against his teeth anxiously.
The gel was cold and the transducer was firm as it pressed into her. The sonographer admired the screen with an expression even Kyoko could not read for what must have been the longest moment of their lives before turning the monitor for them to see.
Despite all the annoying grey flickering, the outline was unmistakable - the curve of the head, the tiny hands, the legs tucked in. Before the sonographer could capture the image, the legs straightened and the head went back. Kyoko felt a breath catch in her throat. She hadn't expected to actually see it moving.
"Someone's active," the sonographer said, with a fond smile.
Kyoko turned to her husband, who was blinking back tears as he leaned closer. She brushed her gloved fingers to his cheek and followed his gaze, to the clearer profile of the head, the more clearly defined nose and chin.
"Let's take a listen to the heartbeat," the sonographer said, breaking their shared silence. She flicked a switch and pressed the transducer harder against Kyoko's stomach. The quick, consistent pounding that ensued had her letting out sigh of relief she didn't even know she'd been holding.
"Is that alright?" Makoto asked nervously. "It sounds really fast."
"It's perfect, don't worry." With a few clicks of the machine, the sonographer dragged a line across the screen to measure the length. "Measuring just on the small side for twelve weeks. Everything looks good though, so it's probably just a mistake in your dates." The sonographer gave Kyoko a wink, "or maybe baby just takes after daddy."
Kyoko met the joke with an amused smile, but Makoto didn't. "Are you sure everything's okay?" he pressed.
They were reassured once again and sent on their way with the pictures. Makoto held the strip of images all the way home while she drove, sneaking a glance at her husband every so often to see him studying each frame carefully, touching his finger to his favourites reverently.
Even as she climbed into bed beside him that night, he was fawning over them. "I think it's going to look like you," he declared, pointing aimlessly to one of the scans where they could make out the facial features, "that looks like your nose."
"It's looks like a nose," she corrected, resting her chin on his shoulder to admire the pictures too. "You should pick your least favourite. Hina will probably want one." Kyoko pressed a kiss to her husband's cheek. "If I get the locked room case wrapped up by noon, I can come by tomorrow for lunch. We can tell her then if you'd like."
"No," Makoto said, quietly, folding the images away and putting them on the dresser by his side of the bed.
"No?" Kyoko echoed. "You already told her?" It wouldn't be surprisingly really - Makoto was terrible with secrets and even if Hina had not known him such a long time, he'd been acting so weird lately he was bound to have given the game away. Kyoko couldn't be that mad - Saihara and Fuhito knew too, after all, even if she hadn't explicitly told them.
"No, she doesn't know." Makoto settled under the covers, too still. "I just think maybe we should hold off for a few more weeks. Or, I dunno, until we can't hide it anymore."
"Um?" Kyoko sat up in bed to stare down at him. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"
"I just - it's still early," Makoto said, avoiding her eye as he ran his fingers hand along her arm. "And anyway, I like it being just our secret, don't you?"
Of course she did - she did not want his sister and their friends fussing over her and dragging her shopping with them. In an ideal world, Kyoko would avoid them all until the baby was born and they could bother it instead of her. But Makoto hated lying - she'd assumed that was part of what had been stressing him out so much - and he loved a celebration. This hesitation wasn't like him at all.
She wanted to wait longer before telling people, had only suggested it now because she thought it was what was best for Makoto - both to snap him out of his worry and to give him the support system she suspected he would need if something beyond this point did go wrong. So why was he so against it?
"You still think you can jinx this?" she asked, blankly.
Makoto's silence was telling. She sighed and rolled her eyes but let him change the subject when he spoke again - something about wanting to build a crib himself rather than buy it. She told herself when he was ready, he would come to her, and that getting mad at him for shutting her out wasn't the way to go about it.
The nightmares didn't come that night, at least.
"Did you know the piano is actually a member of the percussion family?" Saihara asked her, a textbook balanced on his knees in the passenger seat of her car as they staked out the offices of their suspect. "Most people think it's a string instrument, but its strings are struck instead of plucked, so that disqualifies it."
"I thought you were studying for your chemistry final."
"I am. I just, um, got distracted." The teenager sank lower in his seat. "Don't tell my uncle, but I'm failing chemistry."
"I can't imagine why." She didn't bother to hide the sarcasm in her voice. If Saihara spent as much time balancing equations as he did learning to read sheet music to impress his girlfriend, his grades would be just fine.
"You know what a hydrolysis reaction is, right?"
"I'm not helping you."
"It's when a molecule reacts with water and its forced to break into two components. Sometimes it reaches equilibrium, but sometimes it doesn't, and then all the atom bonds are broken and there's no coming back from it." Shuichi sighed a little, his fingers tapping idly against his thigh. "Being a detective and being in high school is kinda like that."
(Being a detective and being a wife was like that, too, but Kyoko didn't say that out loud.)
"It's a good thing you're almost done with school, then," she said, evenly. In an unspoken exchange for ignoring her pregnancy, Kyoko was pretending she didn't know Saihara spent his time between cases researching liberal arts colleges.
Naturally, she thought it was ridiculous. Not only was it a waste of his potential as a detective, it was impulsive and foolishly rooted in chasing his high school love. But she also knew that Shuichi's self-esteem would probably benefit from some time to figure out what he wanted and who he was and that wasn't going to happen in the constant shadow of her and his uncle.
The vibrations of her phone broke the silence they lapsed into. She frowned at the area code of the number - the internal extension for Jabberwock Island - and ordered her apprentice to keep watch while she took the call.
"M-Mrs. Naegi?"
Mikan Tsumiki. "I told you last time we spoke, it's Kirigiri. I didn't change my name."
"I'm s-sorry!" the nurse squeaked, and Kyoko was already regretting taking the call. "Forgive me!"
"It's fine." Through gritted teeth, Kyoko tried to sound neutral when she asked, "Is something wrong?"
"N-no! I couldn't get a hold of Mister Naegi is all." There was a pause, and then something resembling a wail. "It's my fault - "
Conversations with Mikan tended to go in circles. Kyoko stifled a sigh. "What do you want with Makoto?"
Whatever was going down on that damn island, like hell was Kyoko about to let them drag her husband into it. He'd just started sleeping through the night again. Now was not the time.
"He n-needed me!" she insisted. "That's why I called. He asked me to do some r-research for him. Please don't blame me!"
"I see." Kyoko had a hunch where this was going, but she figured she'd get more out of Mikan if she just let her loose. "And what did your findings return?"
"There's no r-reason the antagonist drug you took would directly affect fetal development or increase the risk to your life during pregnancy, aside from the f-fertility problems we discussed before." There were voices in the background and then another squeak, high-pitched enough that Kyoko pulled the phone back from her ear, just in time for Nagito Komaeda's eerie purr to fill the speaker.
"Congratulations Kirigiri. There's much hope to be had in the promise of a new life- "
Saihara, over-hearing this, gave a small smirk, presumably out of pride that his suspicions were indeed correct.
Well, Kyoko thought, this was officially the worst kept secret ever.
She hung up on Komaeda's weird rasping and frowned. She didn't know why Makoto - who had been so adamant they didn't know Seiko's cure was the reason for their struggle getting pregnant and had scoffed at the credibility of Tsumiki's opinion - was suddenly calling the nurse up, behind her back no less, to discuss possible side-effects going forward.
That night, he was kissing her neck, trying to lure her away from her laptop to the bedroom, when she decided she'd had enough of waiting for him to volunteer the information and demanded to know why he called Mikan.
He stilled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"That's really creative." She closed the laptop. "If you're going to lie to me, at least make an effort."
Surrendering, Makoto sat down beside her at the kitchen table. "I just had some questions for her."
"Why didn't you just ask me?" Kyoko said. "She didn't know anything that we didn't already."
"Yeah?" Makoto seemed unsure. He wanted more details before he could accept the reassurance, specifics about what Mikan said, but before she'd give him that, Kyoko wanted something from him.
"Makoto," she said, trying her best to sound approachable despite her frustration, "what's all of this about?"
He looked away from her guiltily, scratching the back of his head. "I'm fine. Actually, I'm kinda tired." He took her hand and tugged it. "Let's have an early night. Come to bed."
"No." Kyoko dropped her hand. "We're not doing this anymore."
Makoto's smile was weak. "What, sleeping?"
"This." She gestured to him. "Whatever this is. Bottling things up, sneaking around trying to figure stuff out without telling me, refusing to let me help you when I know you need it."
"Yeah," Makoto deadpanned, the edge to his voice implying he was only half-joking, "can't imagine how much that must suck."
Petty as his retort was, it gave her pause. She had learned a lot of things from Makoto about feelings and family and what it was to actually love someone more than yourself. Had she ever stopped to think about the lessons she'd been teaching him?
"I'm different," she admitted. "I was raised like that. It's how I deal with things. It works for me. But you're not wired the same way, Makoto. That's why I'm worried."
"I'm not trying to worry you." His eyes softened in apology. "I'm just...being strong."
"You are strong." She wanted to blame Byakuya, who was forever telling Makoto to 'man up' and not let his emotions get the better of him, or her grandfather, who used his softness as an excuse to patronise him, but deep down, Kyoko knew the opinion he really cared about was hers. If this was all to give the illusion of being tough, it was because he thought that was what she wanted. "But...this isn't what your strength looks like."
Makoto didn't answer that, he just let his gaze drift to the floor. With a sigh, she reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "You used to tell me everything. I couldn't get you to shut up about how you felt." When he looked up, with weary eyes, she forced a smile. "I miss that."
And just like that, Makoto's eyes filled with tears. "It's all my fault."
"Well, it's on me too." She brought her hand to his jaw, to tilt his head toward her. "I don't tell you enough how much I admire that you wear your heart on your sleeve. It was one of the first things that interested me about you."
"Not that." Makoto shook his head and sat back in his chair, his shoulders slumped. "All of this…the problems we had getting pregnant, the risk to the baby. It's on me."
Was this seriously about his luck again?
She knew it wasn't indicative of a supportive spouse to be irritated, but they'd already beat the topic to death before and after getting pregnant. She was getting pretty fed up of having to repeatedly acknowledge that the only thing cursed about all this was her body.
"Makoto, we established this. It was the cure."
"Right," Makoto said, surprising her as he met her eyes. "The cure you only had to take because you were going to be poisoned for me."
It clicked then - the reason Makoto had called Mikan, but also the explanation for why he'd been acting so out of character, so defeated; the basis for why he'd allowed her grandfather to think it was his fault they couldn't get pregnant and his reluctance to believe the cure had been to blame in the first place.
It wasn't worry that was giving him nightmares – or, at least, it wasn't all worry. It was guilt, too.
He felt responsible.
It was a stretch, but it was one that was just like a sleep-deprived, self-critical Makoto to make. She should have predicted this.
"If it wasn't for me," Makoto said, grimly, "you'd probably have a bunch of healthy kids by now with somebody else."
"I wouldn't want that with somebody else," she corrected, frowning. "And our baby is healthy."
Makoto bounced his knee. Had he always done that when nervous, Kyoko wondered, or was that tic born from all the trauma he'd faced? She wished, not for the first time, that she could remember the year they spent together at Hope's Peak before everything, for reference.
"The ultrasound tech said it's too small. That could mean it's not growing the way it should be, or that it has some defect that doesn't show up on a scan or –"
" – or that you're 5"3 and it has half your DNA, or that the pregnancy was just dated wrong because my periods have been all over the place for over half a year." She shook her head. "Makoto, you have no evidence anything is wrong."
"You were really sick," Makoto added, his voice quick with panic.
"Which is like the most common symptom of pregnancy."
"I know, but – "
"How long have you been feeling like this?" Kyoko cut in, narrowing her eyes. "Be honest. I'll know if you lie."
Makoto squirmed a little under her stare. "I dunno. I guess since the first appointment at the clinic. Are you saying you don't blame me? Even a little?"
"Of course not. Makoto, not once." It was the truth - in her desperation to justify her misfortune, she'd blamed Seiko for whatever was in the stupid cure; she blamed Kazuo Tengan for the needlessly cruel NG code that left her with no choice but to be so reckless; she blamed herself, for thinking she was smart enough to cheat death over and over again without consequences.
"It's bad enough what happened to you – every time I dream about it, I wake up feeling like I killed you," Makoto flinched even now, "but then to see you go through everything you had to to get pregnant and then when we did, thinking that something could go wrong…Kyoko, if anything happened to you or the baby because of what you had to do for me, I'd never forgive myself."
"You died for me," Kyoko reminded him. "Fifth Trial. Junko's game. It should have been me, you could have sold me out, but you didn't. You didn't even love me then and you were willing to die for me."
"Well, I think I loved you a little bit," he admitted, blush in his cheeks returning colour to his face.
"Why is it that you could do it for me – in a scenario where I even had the power to prevent it – and it's just a given, but when I sacrificed for you - having actively hidden it from you - you blame yourself?"
"Because it was my choice."
"And the second time, it was mine." Kyoko shook her head. "You didn't kill me, Makoto. I had time to think about it – more time than you did when the situation was reversed. I knew the world would be a better place with you in it. I knew the world needed you."
"Exactly. It was my ideals that forced you into that situation. If it wasn't for all the hope stuff, you wouldn't have felt that way."
"No. I would have done it because I loved you." She tilted her head to fix him with a sceptical look. "Are you going to blame yourself for me falling for you as well?"
"If not falling for me would have meant that wouldn't have happened to you, then yeah."
"You're looking at this wrong." Kyoko sat back and folded her arms. "My 'death' brought us together, didn't it?" Predictability, Makoto smiled a little at the memory she prompted. "I won't argue that last year was difficult, but we got through it and our marriage is stronger for it. And you can't tell me wanting this baby for so long isn't going to make us better parents."
"You know," Makoto said, sniffing, "losing you definitely made me more grateful for every day we get together now. That's the only good part about the nightmares. That when I wake up, I get to look over to you and you're there and it's…" his eyes filled with fresh tears, "it's like I can pretend none of it ever happened."
"There you go." She leaned forward to wipe his cheeks until they dry. He smiled into her touch. "What?"
"You're pretty good at the positivity thing these days." With a mischievous tone, he added, "Must be motherhood making you soft."
She glared. "You don't want to irk someone with the pregnancy hormones and extensive knowledge of murder that I do."
It made him chuckle at least. "I'm kidding. You've always been able to put me back together."
"It's my job." Kyoko shrugged. "And yours is to get on my nerves with how much you want to talk about our feelings all the time."
"Deal," Makoto said, visibly happier.
Kyoko stood and walked toward the fridge, where they had magneted the roll of scan pictures. "Get your coat. We're going to Hina's."
Makoto glanced at his watch. "Now? It's a school night."
"Tough. The whole of Jabberwock Island know we're having a baby. Hina has been a good friend to us for a long time, she's not going to find out from any of them."
"Can we go to Hiro's after? And then Byakuya's?" Makoto bounced back from his dismay quickly. He scrambled for his coat and then held hers out for her to put her arms into. "And we're gonna have to stop by Komaru's and tell her and Toko. Actually, maybe we should go there first, in case Emi's still up - "
Kyoko let him gush on and on about who to tell in what order and how, her only stock in the entire topic being the eager way he held himself and they knocked on each door, the way he drummed his hand against the steering wheel as he drove, the childish pride in his laugh each time they were congratulated.
They bought a home doppler so on nights when worry crept in, it could be eased almost immediately. Kyoko suspected at least half of the time, Makoto was only feigning concern to get her to lie down so he could press the probe to her stomach and hear the heartbeat, but she didn't challenge him on it. It wasn't a sound she tired of hearing, either.
When she started showing, Makoto began talking to the baby. He ignored her each time she pointed out, a little amused, that the baby couldn't make out sounds yet, much less comprehend the anecdotes from their time spent 'saving the world from despair' (minus all the death) that he had turned into a bedtime story.
She wouldn't admit it, but her favourite part of the whole thing - besides Makoto's sweetness, of course - was feeling the baby move. There first few weeks of irregular flutters that only she could feel brought with them a proper connection to the living thing inside her, a surge of awareness that besides her grandfather, it was the only biological piece of her puzzle. The flutters turned to kicks and hiccups and soon Makoto could feel them too, which was arguably better.
Keeping up with work wasn't difficult for her - although she fielded many a misogynistic comment from male suspects - but she knew Makoto worried she was overdoing it.
Once, she came in from a case just as he was pouring his morning tea. "You told me you wouldn't stay out all night," he said, frowning. He reached for another cup and poured one for her, too, while she shrugged carefully out of her coat.
When he handed her the tea, she took it with her right hand, overestimating the weight it could bear. She winced, which caught his attention immediately. He took the cup from her and rolled up her sleeve to reveal swollen skin that was already beginning to bruise.
"Kyoko."
"Don't fuss." With some effort, she batted him off. "The perpetrator fared much worse than I did. It's just a sprain." Later, Makoto would see the string of bruises on her back from where she'd been slammed into the wall and the surface scrapes on her knees from crawling for the gun before the killer could reach it.
"It's not just you anymore," Makoto said, glaring. "You're nearly seven months pregnant."
"Relax." She took his hand and brought it to the bottom curve of her stomach, where an elbow or knee was shifting against the skin. "It hasn't stopped since. Evidently, your child enjoys the adrenaline. Who would have thought it?"
He didn't smile. "This isn't funny. You could have been seriously hurt. Where was Shuichi?"
Shuichi had been unconscious at the time, but Kyoko knew that would only inspire another lecture from Makoto about endangering the teenager, so she simply said, "He was otherwise occupied. You realise women run marathons while much more pregnant than I am?"
"You can't seriously compare tackling a murderer on a whim with running a marathon after months of training!"
"I can because I'm trained to do this. Makoto, I was learning self defence from eight years old." Before his death, her maternal grandfather had been an expert in most forms of fighting, and insisted she learn from him how to protect herself before Fuhito took her abroad on detective work. Over the years, she'd had a lot of practice implementing his teachings. "Pregnant or not, Makoto, I can handle myself."
Even as pain seared down her spine, she'd been able to hook her leg behind the man's knees and send him crashing to the ground. When he tried to yank her down with him, she struck the side of his head with her fist and twisted out of his grasp, laying her arms out to catch herself as she fell and then moving quickly retrieving the weapon. She backed out of the room with the barrel trained on him, stepping on his hand with her heel for good measure.
In the car home, she'd recounted the events to Shuichi as he nursed his head wound. He told her she was crazy and then, after a long moment, said he wanted her to teach him everything she knew.
Makoto was not so impressed. "Is your pride really that important to you? Just because you know you can doesn't mean you should." He wasn't worried anymore, Kyoko realised. He was mad. "What were you thinking?"
Truthfully, she couldn't answer that. They were only supposed to be rifling through the basement for the murder weapon when they found another two victims refrigerated. What they couldn't have known was that their suspect had some kind of electronic chip amongst the ice that sent an alert to his phone when the temperature changed. When they heard him on the stairs, they had to think quickly.
There was a way out. Shuichi had told her to follow him, that they had all the evidence they needed, but Kyoko had seen the police files dating back six years. He would be gone by the time the authorities got there, onto another town and more victims. Besides, she still hadn't figured out why, and that was usually the best part.
Her body moved of its own accord deeper into the basement, too quick for Shiuchi to stop her. Afterwards, she herself had been shaken up at the realisation that however much she wanted this baby, however much she already loved it, all it took for her to forget its existence even as it stirred within her was her insatiable greed for answers. She was wired to be a detective, not a mother - when it had come down to it, her instincts were not to protect, but to solve.
The priorities of her subconscious unsettled her and raised more questions about her suitability as a parent than Makoto's scolding ever could. She cut him off mid-sentence to declare she was going to bed. He turned away, huffing, and left for work without saying goodbye.
That night, he brought home the ice cream she'd been craving and flowers.
"I'm still mad at you," he said, bringing her a spoon from the kitchen, "but I shouldn't have yelled." To Makoto, anything that involved a raised voice was a reason to be sorry. He leaned down to where she lay on the couch to nuzzle her belly. "I'm sorry, baby. Daddy never shouts usually. Mommy's the mean one." She swatted his head and he grinned. "Just kidding. Mommy's the one who's going to teach you how to be the best detective ever."
That only really made her feel guiltier.
It wasn't like Kyoko to question herself, but there was an awful lot about parenthood she didn't know how to do. She'd never even held a baby before, didn't realise there were such strong opinions about formula versus breast milk until Makoto brought it up and was thoroughly confused by the contradicting advice about where and when and how a baby should be put to sleep.
Still, Kyoko knew she was both capable and a quick learner, so she had no doubt she would pick up on the practical side of things. It was...everything else that was going to be the challenge.
There were moments when Makoto made her laugh and she couldn't help but wonder if she was really capable of loving anything as much as she loved him, if there was enough capacity for emotion inside of her for both of them. There were times she smoothed her hand over stretched skin in the shower and didn't feel a rush of excitement or affection, but instead, dread. There were days, between her husband's fussing and her baby's kicks, that Kyoko wasn't entirely sure she could trust herself to be needed by something without growing to resent it.
In the back of her mind, the place she worked hard not to visit, there were recurring questions. Had her father once had the same reservations she did? Had he too laid awake at night and questioned if people like them were really meant to be parents?
Was walking out on your child, eventually, as much a part of the Kirigiri legacy as being a detective?
The baby was due on the first day of the new school term.
"I can get Byakuya to cover for me," Makoto insisted, but Kyoko pointed out that if he left Togami with too much power, there might not be any students left by the time he returned. She promised to call if she needed him, but he sent her a text every hour on the hour to check in anyway.
As the week came to a close uneventfully, Makoto cited luck that the baby was waiting for him but Kyoko, feeling impossibly swollen and frustrated with the constant aching in her back, did not feel quite so fortunate. It wasn't until late Friday night that she felt a tightening across her abdomen.
She spent the rest of the night at home, pacing to speed things along and trying to ease the pain in a warm bath. Much to Makoto's distress, she put off going to the hospital until mid-morning, when her contractions were minutes apart and her water had long broken.
The delivery suite looked nothing like the burn unit where Kyoko had spent six weeks when she was thirteen - which had been most of the reason for her apprehension - but it had the same vivid antiseptic smell. The memory made her fingers curl and her palms itch in phantom sting.
They made her take off her gloves so they could hook her up to monitors and drips. Makoto, knowing this bothered her, kept his hands on top of hers like a shield until she told him it was fine.
She denied the offers of pain relief, knowing having any drug in her system would prolong the hospital stay (and, having now gained a healthy suspicion of surrendering her trust to foreign vials in moments of vulnerability.) When the nurses marvelled at her composure, her quietness, Makoto looked weary. "Even if you're not yelling about it, I can still tell you're hurting," he said.
After much pleading, she allowed him to sit behind her on the bed and rub her back. Even if it didn't ease the pain, it was a nice distraction and she knew it made him feel helpful. Between contractions, they shared ice chips and critiqued the investigative methods of the fictional detective on the room's television.
When it came time to push, he tied her hair up for her and stood by the side of the bed. With strangers examining her and pain tearing through her body, his close proximity was not a nuisance as much as it was a welcome comfort. She didn't know if that was because the last time she'd been in a hospital in pain she'd been small and alone and so she appreciated him more, or because her subconscious had finally surrendered, knowing that from this point on, teamwork wasn't optional.
After hours of only wincing and grunting, she screamed, finally, into Makoto's shoulder as the baby crowned. He ducked down to press his head against hers. "You're my hero, you know," he said, only loud enough for her to hear and sounding so in love with her that for a splinter of a second, she forgot they weren't alone.
Minutes later, a shrill, escalating shriek filled the room, both the most grating and the most breath-taking sound Kyoko had ever heard. The doctor laid the crying baby on her chest as they rubbed at it with a towel.
"Hey, buddy," Makoto cooed, tears immediately steaming a path down his cheeks as he cupped his shaking hand to the baby's head. "Hey, Koichi."
She must have missed them saying it was a boy. Had they even said if it was alright? It felt like the world was spinning. Without even realising, her arm had came up to support the baby - but Kyoko didn't know what she was supposed to do next and suddenly, she was very aware there were other people in the room with them and she felt incredibly exposed and everything still hurt, so she pressed her face into Makoto again.
He took her hand in his gently, and with it, brushed the baby's cheek, along the slope of his face, down the curve of his ears. When she forced herself to look, she wanted to recoil her hand away - her touch was rough and ugly against the baby's softness, but Makoto held onto her with such tenderness she couldn't pull away.
Slowly, the baby's crying faded out into a low whine. He turned toward her finger on his cheek, his lips pursed.
"Hi," she breathed, and the baby went quiet, tiny fists stopping their frantic clamouring and relaxing, a nose nuzzling against her skin.
"Look what we made," Makoto whispered into her hair, awe in his voice, as if maybe he felt the same thing that she did click into place in exactly the same moment.
By the time the doctor was done with her and the nurses came to clean the baby up, Kyoko did not want to let him go.
Koichi had been wiped down, fed and dressed in a pale grey sleepsuit. Following a YouTube tutorial faithfully, Makoto swaddled him in the hospital blanket and then surrendered him to Kyoko to be rocked to sleep. They laid him down in the glass cot and after a few moments of Makoto stroking her hair, she let her own eyes drift shut.
When she woke, she felt disorientated for a long moment, the strange combination of no longer feeling her child inside her and the smell of the hospital room eliciting panic until Makoto's soft voice became clearer.
"...and if you're not really into sports that's cool, cause I'm not either. And ignore your great-grandpa, you don't have to be a detective when you grow up – it won't make me and Mommy love you any less." He was standing by the window with his back to her, their son bundled in his arms. The baby made a tiny noise and Makoto began swaying slowly to soothe him. "Hey, be patient with me, okay? I don't know how to do this dad thing," he admitted quietly, "but I promise I'm gonna do my best."
Tears pricked in Kyoko's eyes. When Makoto turned, only now noticing she was awake, she quickly blinked them away and shifted to sit up in the bed.
"H-hey, take it easy," Makoto warned, moving toward her. There was a faint blush on his cheeks now he knew she'd been listening. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine." Every muscle in her lower body was screaming and she could feel herself bleeding, but Kyoko did not want to spend the night in hospital. She wanted to go home to her own bed, her own shower. She wanted to give her son a proper bath in the sink and be able to figure him out on her own, without nurses hovering with advice and judgement. "How is he?"
"He's good." Makoto perched on the edge of the bed to show her the baby. His eyes were shut still, but he already looked less red, less new. "He missed you."
She shifted in the twin bed to make more space, before patting the space beside her. Makoto eased himself into it and sat back, the baby anchored to his chest.
Kyoko yawned and laid her head beside Koichi, above Makoto's heart. "How long was I asleep?"
"Less than an hour." His hand came up to stroke the hair at the back of her neck. "You must be exhausted."
"I can sleep at home."
Makoto sighed. "The doctor is coming round in a bit to talk about discharging you - I think your threat about reporting him for drinking on the job swung it - but...you did just gave birth. Don't you want to rest?"
"I can rest at home," she pointed out.
"If he's as stubborn as you are," Makoto said, looking down to where the baby was squirming, "I'm screwed."
Kyoko smirked and held a finger out for their son to latch a tiny fist around. "I apologise in advance."
"Hm." Makoto glanced at the clock on the wall. "Visiting hours are soon," he said, obviously trying to sound casual.
Kyoko lifted her head to glare. "Who did you call?"
"No-one!" Makoto gave a sheepish smile. "I did text a picture of Koichi to everyone in my contacts though."
She groaned. "Just your sister and Hina. I don't have the energy for anyone else right now."
"Your grandfather said he was coming," Makoto admitted, wincing a little. "Don't look at me like that - have you ever tried to tell him no? It's not like he asked. He told me he'd be here."
"You know," Kyoko said, "sleeping seems more appealing now."
"Ah, but then you'll miss all the praise for how beautiful he is," Makoto reasoned. He stroked soft fuzz of their sleeping son's hair, waspy lavender strands still sticky from birth. "Oh, while you were asleep, the nurse asked what we were putting on the birth certificate. I said Naegi-Kirigiri."
Kyoko yawned again. "I don't mind if you want your surname last." It, like first names and whether the baby was a boy or a girl, wasn't something they had spent much time discussing. The unspoken hope from the beginning had been a healthy baby they could take home - in light of how long they'd spent thinking they might never have that, the specifics hadn't much mattered.
"Nah, it sounds better that way." Makoto placed a kiss to the baby's head and smiled. "Besides," he said happily, "he's all you."
The nurses had said the same, but Kyoko wasn't convinced. He just looked like a baby to her (albeit a very cute one, although she accepted this observation was biased), no more like her than Makoto.
What he had most definitely inherited from his father was the peace he instilled in her, the way the chaos of her mind quieted just by breathing him in, the clarity his fierce hold on her hand brought to all the things she did not have answers for - as if for a moment, everything at last made sense and there was nothing left to solve.
"My turn," she commanded, sitting up to ease the baby out of his hold. Makoto moved his hand to her waist and tugged her close, his head leaning against her shoulder while she adjusted the warm weight in her arms.
"All the hoping paid off, huh?" Makoto said, softly, leaning into her.
The baby yawned awake, little wrinkles on his face forming as he did so and she wondered how she had ever thought there was a chance she wouldn't instantly love him.
"It did," she agreed, only able to tear her eyes way from her son for long enough to meet the tired, but oh-so-happy eyes of her husband. "It did."
I hope you guys enjoyed this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Thanks for the love and stay tuned for a time skip in my next work!
