Notes: I had forgotten that Natsuko's eyes were blue for some reason. My bad. I did recall the season 2 thing with grandpa being French, however after watching several hundred hours of Hello Counselor (a Korean show about families/people with misunderstandings) I was inspired by several people who were completely Korean in heritage (for like four generations) but had blue eyes. They were upset because everyone always assumed that they were somehow half-European, and medically it is possible (it's approximately 1:10,000 odds). Hiroaki's mother is French in this story because of my own experience in Japan two years ago when everyone assumed that I was Japanese or at least half Japanese (I'm actually mostly Welsh-Irish if you look at my pedigree).
This chapter ran a bit long, and it's definitely not finished. There will be more in a few days probably.
Your first day of college goes pretty much the way that your first day of any schooling goes: everyone takes one look at your eyes and assumes that you're a foreigner because it's practically unheard of to see a native Japanese person with blue eyes. It's something of a running joke in your family, because there's been four generations of blue-eyed Takaishi. It's why your father chose to go to school abroad, and despite encouraging you to do so, you insist on Tokyo University because you have a scholarship and it's just far enough away from home that maybe you can recreate yourself.
You hate all of your classes as soon as you sit down in them. Roll call is always the same: they call your name, take one look at your face and ask you which country you're from. They almost always assume England or America, even though you can barely speak two sentences in English. If your father had been sitting in your classes instead, he would've proclaimed France, but you've always been more like your mother, silently cursing the people who irritate you while smiling to their faces. By the time you get to your literature class, you're eager for a change, for a break in the ever-predictable pattern of questions…
He walks into the room a full five minutes before class is set to start, a guitar case slung over one shoulder. He's dressed like a country hick, but his face is handsome and he's very tall, something that you've always admired in a man. He sits beside you and barely even spares you a glance, instead placing his text books on the desk in front of him and then jotting something down on a notebook that might've been musical notes or random doodles, it's hard to tell.
When roll is finally called, you're certain that guitar-boy will stare at you when the teacher asks (for the fifth time that day) which country you're from. He doesn't even look up when you reassure everyone (again, for the fifth time) that your family is, in fact, all Japanese.
Days go by before guitar-boy, whose name is Ishida Hiroaki, asks you for help in the class. During one of your study sessions, you happen to see a picture of his parents tucked away in the corner of his day planner, and you comment on how adorable his mother looks. She's a tiny woman, and you ask what area of Japan she's from.
You're shocked when Ishida-kun tells you that his mother is actually French. He doesn't usually tell anyone, he says, because they always call him a liar afterwards. But you understand, so he trusts you.
It takes almost two weeks of tutoring - hours of explaining and trying to get Ishida-kun to see past the face-value of the text - before Ishida-kun understands what he needs to know about literature. When it's time to turn in the first major essay of the semester and Ishida-kun gets the highest score, you're pleased with yourself for having tutored him well.
Then you're angry with yourself because the girls in the class who'd barely even looked at Ishida-kun because of his countrified clothing are suddenly swarming him. They love that he's suddenly insightful, and when he practices his guitar in the quad, they sit and sigh and make dreamy faces at him. You can barely do more than say 'hi' to him without feeling embarrassed, and you can't help but feel jealous of the girls that are brave enough to do more than that.
There's a party for students majoring in journalism, and you go to it expecting to make a short appearance before excusing yourself to study. You don't expect to see Ishida-kun there, and as you watch the other girls in the department flirt with him, you're glad that someone brought beer. You drink it steadily until just blinking is enough to make your head spin. Ishida-kun notices and stops you before you can start drinking another beer, and he offers to walk you to your dorm room.
The walk is quiet, even though you're leaning heavily on Ishida-kun who, although drunk, is not quite as drunk as you. You think of all the things you want to tell him, of all the things you want to do with him, and you can't because you're afraid he'll turn you down. By the time you reach the dorm, you're so dejected that you've started crying, and Ishida-kun is staring at you as though he's not sure what to say.
And then he's kissing you, and it's everything that you thought it would be, sweet but firm and you can't help but pull him closer as you kiss him back. A few of the girls who had been flirting with Ishida-kun are giggling in the hall as they stagger by drunkenly, and it makes you possessive. You have to mark Ishida-kun as yours, to let everyone know that this man is taken.
You're desperate as you fumble with the door behind you, and relieved when it opens and the two of you spill gracelessly into the small room. Ishida-kun kicks the door shut and you lead him towards the bed even as your hands tug his shirt out of his pants. Once you're both on the bed, you fumble with Ishida-kun's belt buckle, and then his trousers, but then there's skin against your hand, hard and pulsing and the way Ishida-kun's breath catches in his throat is intoxicating. His hands slide up your thighs, under your skirt, and you wriggle your hips helpfully as he tugs the lacy fabric of your underwear down your legs. And then you're wrapping your legs around him, and there's pressure as he enters you, but it feels better than good, even if it doesn't last long.
Despite the alcohol, you your sleep is brief. You wake before Ishida-kun and watch him as he sleeps. His face is peaceful, like a child, and you wonder if his children would be free of your father's cursed blue eyes, or if perhaps his mother's French blood will somehow mark them in a different way. It's a silly thought to have, because you've only just met Ishida-kun, you've only just had sex for the first time. Marriage and children are years and years away, if they're even in the future at all. But you wax sentimental until Ishida-kun wakes up, and as you smile at him, you tell him to call you Natsuko. He tells you to call him Hiroaki, and you blush but you agree.
After that night, you continue to date Hiroaki. The two of you eat lunches together whenever you can, and every now and then you manage to sneak away from your studies to see a movie or eat a nice dinner at one of the more popular ramen bars. When your monthly cycle doesn't begin, you don't panic - after all, you're under a lot of stress with school, and it's always been a bit on the irregular side, anyway.
By the second month, though, when you start to feel a bit nauseated by the smell of your morning natto, you wonder if maybe you should be panicking. Is it possible to get pregnant the first time? The four home pregnancy test kits in the bathroom all seem to think so. You don't want to say anything to Hiroaki, though, because surely anything over-the-counter can be wrong. The only solution is to see a doctor.
You make the appointment during one of your free periods, and when Hiroaki asks if you want to go out for an early dinner, you tell him that you're meeting a friend that's in the city. He seems disappointed not to be invited along, but you can't tell him where you're really going, so you accept it as well as you can and go about the rest of your day.
When it's time to see the doctor, your heart is pounding in your chest. It's just a little blood test, but when the doctor returns with the results, you feel like fainting.
It's a fact: you're pregnant.
What are you supposed to do? You're only in your first semester of college, and no one else knows about it. No one else even suspects. You could have the child aborted without ever having told Hiroaki, but the doctor advises you at least tell the father first. Japan's birth rate is low, each life is so precious… you know these as facts, too, but it seems so much scarier when it affects you directly.
You walk back to the dorm in a daze, and you're surprised to see Hiroaki sleeping in the hall, his back against the wall by your door. As you approach him, he wakes up and smiles a sleepy smile at you, and you think to yourself that maybe you could have his child after all. But you wait until the next day, when the two of you are in the middle of lunch and you can't stomach the smell of it, to tell Hiroaki that you're carrying his child.
You try to be calm when you tell him, and you let him know that you're considering abortion so he won't feel like he's trapped. But instead of getting angry or storming away in frustration, Hiroaki drops to his knee and asks you to marry him like he's been planning to do it for weeks. You accept, and Hiroaki tells you that he's taking you to Shimane to meet his parents over the weekend.
Shimane is far from Tokyo, and the train ride is difficult with your rebelling stomach. Hiroaki's father meets you at the station, and he's taller in person than you'd imagined from the picture Hiroaki showed you. He's a nice enough man who insists on taking your luggage and loading it into the back of his van, but you can barely understand his thick dialect as he asks you questions. Hiroaki acts as a translator, telling you that the drive from the station to the house will be short, but his dad wants to know if you need anything from town first, which you don't.
The drive, however, is not as short as you're supposed to believe, or maybe it just feels longer because of your nausea. You're so relieved when the van comes to a stop that you're tempted to drop to the ground and kiss it, but Hiroaki's father is opening the door and helping you out of the van like a gentleman instead of the patriarchal hick you were afraid he'd be. Hiroaki's mother is standing on the nureen, barefoot, and Hiroaki is running to greet her with a giant smile. He hugs her tight enough that his mother's feet leave the wooden planks and she laughs like a small girl, and it brings tears to your eyes because your parents have never been that expressively happy to see you.
You're led inside the house, and you can see the small hints of Hiroaki's mother's French heritage: bundles of herbs hanging from string by the window in the kitchen and small frames of embroidered flowers sitting on shelves amid pictures of Hiroaki and other people that you haven't seen before. When you sit down beside her, Hiroaki's mother comments about your beautiful eyes, and how they remind her of her little sister in Brittany. She doesn't ask if you're a foreigner, to your relief, and she asks you about what hobbies you have, and how you came to be dating her son.
Eventually, Hiroaki tells them that they're engaged. His father is taken aback, and his mother seems surprised, but she pats your hand as though she understands. And then Hiroaki tells them that your'e pregnant.
His mother says something in French that you don't understand, but she's smiling and crying and Hiroaki's father is asking you what your parents think of the situation. You try to reassure him that your parents are aware, that they understand, and you're sure that they would if you'd told them, but you're also scared that they would tell you to quit college and come home. It's easier to lie, and Hiroaki doesn't correct you.
Returning to college is a blessing and a curse: you enjoy your classes until the morning sickness becomes too much to bear. Some days it's difficult to get beyond the bathroom, and you can't bring yourself to do more than drink water and eat the crackers that Hiroaki brings you. Your teachers have warned you that your grades are sliding dangerously fast, and you're in danger of losing your scholarship.
Hiroaki suggests taking a leave of absence for the next semester since the baby will be due, and you hate that you're seriously considering it. You wait two days before asking Hiroaki to file the marriage certificate. When you go to the school's administration building to update your marital status, you file for a leave of absence citing family matters for the reason.
When the semester is over, Hiroaki goes with you to Shimane. His parents have already prepared a room for you with a lovely new futon that you wish was an actual bed. You smile gratefully, though, as you're given the official tour and told to make yourself comfortable. When you and your new husband go to bed, he promises to get a good job after he graduates, and to some day buy a house closer to the city for you and your unborn child. It's meant to be reassuring, but the hormones make it sound condescending and the baby is wreaking havoc on your stomach like a resentful little demon. Your husband doesn't even realize that you're angry with him as he falls asleep, and you curse him silently in your head that he's able to sleep at all.
It becomes a habit, though you don't realize it until Hiroaki returns to Tokyo and you're left with his parents and the two news channels that are the only entertainment the TV provides in the living room. You find yourself alternating between cursing Hiroaki for getting you pregnant and cursing him for leaving you in the middle of nowhere. When he calls (a nightly event) you complain about the lack of noise and the distance you have to travel for a decent snack to satisfy the baby's odd cravings. You always end up crying before the call ends, and inevitably your new father-in-law drives into town to get whatever it is you want.
It's just the hormones, that's what your mother-in-law says when you're crying because you feel like a horrible daughter-in-law when your father-in-law brings back not only the matcha flavored ice-cream and dried squid you asked for, but also a few of the fashion magazines that you enjoy reading and a giant castella cake that you didn't even know you wanted, but suddenly sounds delicious. Your father-in-law laughs at you as you blubber like the baby you're carrying, and your mother-in-law is massaging your shoulders while father-in-law fetches a spoon for your ice-cream.
When it's almost two weeks before the day that the baby's supposed to arrive, your father-in-law comments that it looks like the baby's turned. You tell him that he has to be mistaken, because you're terrified that he's right and you're just not ready to go into labor while Hiroaki is still in Tokyo sitting his final exams for the semester. Later that night, you overhear father-in-law telling Hiroaki what he told you, and it's frustrating when you walk into the kitchen for a bowl of natto and there's suddenly water soaking your legs.
Your mother-in-law is calm as they load you into the van, and she sits beside you in the back, patting your hand and stroking your hair and telling you that everything is going to be fine. There's a pain growing in your back and lower hips that's reminiscent of your monthly cycle, only you realize that it's going to be so much worse.
The hospital staff admits you when you arrive, though they warn you and your in-laws that it could be hours before you start to go into real labor. Father-in-law disappears to look for coffee and some snacks while mother-in-law massages your feet and legs to help your circulation. It's barely been an hour, and you're already ready to tell the doctors to cut the baby out of you to keep from having to go through even more pain.
Hours go by, and the contractions have finally started. You're not allowed to eat or drink, but you're encouraged to try different positions to make yourself more comfortable. It's all you can do to not throw something at the nurse who tells you this, because you're thirsty and hungry and oh-so-far from comfortable but you let mother-in-law coax you onto your knees on the bed and let her rub between your shoulders as another contraction strikes.
And then Hiroaki is in the room, pale-faced and wild-eyed. You shout at him when you see him, though you're not quite sure what you say. All you know is that he's to blame for what you're going through, and other than the demon trying to claw its way out of you, he's really the last person that you want to see right now.
Father-in-law takes the hint, and takes Hiroaki out of the room before you can say anything else that you might regret later. A few hours later, it doesn't matter because you're fully dilated and the doctor is urging you to push. You do, but it hurts, it hurts so much that you're sobbing and your mother-in-law is wiping sweat from your face and murmuring soft noises that could be French or just soothing non-sense. The doctor tells you that you're doing well, that it's not much longer, just another push…
You growl low in your throat as you push the second time, and you swear that you can feel the bones of your hip separating as the baby starts to crown. It takes two more pushes that threaten to destroy your sanity before the baby is out and wailing loud enough that your eardrums just want to burst. You collapse back on the bed from exhaustion, promising yourself that you will never have a second child.
~ tbc...
