After her visit to the clinic, Takaba heads home. And by home, she means the city of Yokohama. It is the easiest thing to board a train and come here, to her birthplace. Her parents are out of the country right now, but that didn't lessen her sudden desire to come back to her roots. She still has the keys to the house. Besides, her grandparents would be in Kamakura, tucked away in their quiet little temple. She could always make her way there, should she feel too alone in the house.
But she didn't go to her parent's place immediately. She spends hours wandering around the shops, down the roads and alleys she knew like the back of her hand. Now, here she is in Cosmo World, drifting among the cheery crowds, snapping pictures whenever something caught her fancy, as the huge Ferris wheel-clock loomed and spun above her. Darkness has not yet fallen, and the light was still good for outdoor shots.
After a while, she makes her way to Ōsanbashi Pier to catch the sunset and take a picture of it. She did have a soft spot for sunsets. She loved the rich hues of the sky, bright and wondrous, the warmth of the rays of the swollen sinking sun, like her mother's soothing touch. One of her earliest memory had been sitting in her mother's lap as the sun set behind them, her father taking a picture of them as they watched. That picture had been in her father's wallet for as long as she could remember.
She makes good time, and reached the pier just as the sun was just starting to dip into the sea. Few people were there, and she quickly found a prime spot, near a somewhat precarious edge where one wrong step could lead her taking tumble to the cold autumn sea and the hard-packed sand and rocks below. She prudently stayed as far as she could manage to keep herself from falling. After a few adjustments, she trained her camera to the slowly sinking sun. As she looked at the sky and sea through her viewfinder, breathing in the sweet-salty sea air, she felt her spirits lifting. Everything was all right in the world.
Then someone bumped into her. Hard.
She loses her balance and teeters, and then her stupid foot slips, and soon she is falling and shit fuck, no, baby, oh god no—
Strong hands out of nowhere grip her shoulders, steadying her, and then pulls her against a solid wall of a chest. She knows this touch, and that's enough to send her heart careening against her chest. "Thanks," she manages to say, not looking up, tamping down the urge to fight out of his grip and run.
As if sensing her thoughts, Asami's hold on her tightens, unwilling to let go. "Are you all right?" Asami murmurs. "You're trembling."
Takaba takes in a shaky breath that she lets out as a huff of annoyance. "I'm fine. Who the hell was that?" She looks around, simultaneously trying to spot the culprit (culprits, it turned out, a bunch of roughhousing kids) and distract herself from Asami's presence (as if that's possible, but she could try).
"You should have stayed farther away from the edge," Asami says, a hint of a rebuke in his voice.
"I did. I just didn't expect to be knocked over by some stupid idiot! It's not my fault!" He still has not let go of her. Takaba takes another deep breath to calm herself down, and finally, looks up to Asami. His face is as expressionless as ever, revealing nothing. It makes her nervous. It makes her want to punch him in the face. "What are you doing here?" she asks.
"Taking you home." Alarm bells ring in her head. Not that this is unusual behavior in itself. Asami has the habit of 'picking' her up when she was out and about. She didn't know if it was out of paranoia because of what happened in the past or if Asami just liked pissing her off.
"I can go home on my own." Not that she plans on going back to Shinjuku right now. But she didn't need to tell Asami that.
Asami just gives her his usual "If you don't come with me, I'll throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the car like a sack of potatoes" look. She throws him an exasperated look. "Fine, I'll come with you." The urge to flee is still strong, but she's always been good at ignoring them (and really, how far could she run from Asami at this point?), and everything seems normal so far (well, as normal as it comes with Asami) and she has yet to note any sort of truly alarming behavior from him.
"Just wait a moment," she adds. Before Asami could say anything, she turns back to the sunset, and takes a single shot of brilliant sky and the sinking sun, the world awash in beautiful hues of reds and oranges. Perfect. When she turns back to Asami, she gives him a cocky grin. "Now let's go."
They don't talk on the way back. Halfway to the car (it's the long sleek Mercedes, which Takaba is sure is all kinds of bulletproof), Asami lets go of her. She could still the heat of his gaze, though, making the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up. Kirishima opens the door for them, and, after a brief moment of hesitation, Takaba gets in, and Asami slides in after her, and gives her a curious look that she ignores.
She stuffs herself against the window, eyes trained outside. Her stomach seems like it has tightened itself into an intricate knot, but at least she does not feel nauseous, although she has an amusing image of barfing on Asami's pricey clothes and shoes. The look on Asami's face. She giggles quietly at the thought. "Something funny, Takaba?" She looks over her shoulder to Asami and shakes her head, smiling. "Just remembering something."
As the car starts to move, she leans back on the window and sighs, closing her eyes.
When Takaba opens her eyes again, she found herself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. She bolts up in shock, flinging back blankets and a pillow, and looked around wildly, pulse racing. Where the hell— Asami is nowhere to be found in the rather large room. She glances down and found that she was still wearing the clothes she had on earlier. She puts a hand in her stomach, suddenly feeling queasy. Calm down, she tells herself as she took a deep, calming breath, and then swung her legs down the bed.
The floor is lushly carpeted, and it tickles her bare feet. At least I didn't wake up naked like last time. She is about to stand up and head for the door when it swung open, revealing Asami, who looked liked he had showered and changed to more casual clothes. "You fell asleep in the car," he tells her.
"Oh." She must have been thoroughly exhausted from everything that happened today for her to drop off like that. "Thanks," she mutters. She tries not to think too hard of Asami carrying her (probably bridal style, or over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes as he had threatened) into the bed. She looks around again. Blinds are drawn on the room's windows, letting her see only enough to determine it is already evening.
"Where are we? Are we still in Japan? Or have you carried me off to some tropical island again?" She tries to keep her tone light, but inside, she is in near panic, her imagination going wild. God, she should have really known better than to get into Asami's car.
"We're still in Yokohama," Asami replies calmly, "in one of my houses." He then sits on the bed just a foot beside her, his eyes narrowing into golden slits as he regarded her. His fingers brushes back a stray lock of hair from her face. "You seem more skittish than usual, Takaba. Is something the matter?"
Fuck. Feeling trapped, Takaba stares back at Asami, mind going a hundred miles per hour to find a suitable excuse. "I'm just a little wary when waking up on unfamiliar beds in unfamiliar places. Bad past experience, I guess. Why are we here?" Because they could have just gone back to Shinjuku, to Asami's place. The drive wouldn't be that long.
"I have some business to attend to in the city. You, on the other hand," Asami raises one brow, "you don't have work today, and there is certainly nothing of interest happening in the city right now to warrant you coming here. So why are you here, Takaba?"
Oh, he knows, Takaba could tell by the way he is looking at her, with that smug, knowing gleam in his eyes. How he knows she could probably work out later with a clearer head, but not now. Oh, how she really wanted to punch him. Instead, she gives him a baleful look. Might as well get on with this. No sense beating around the bush.
"I'm here because I'm pregnant, I'm confused and scared, and I needed to be somewhere I felt safe to clear my mind." Her eyes narrows, and she straightened her back, her lips tightening into a grim line. "I'm sure you already know this, but I suppose I should say it to your face: I'm seven weeks pregnant, it's yours, and I'm planning to keep my child whether you like it or not."
A flicker of emotion flashes across Asami's face, too quick for her to identify. "And what makes you think I wouldn't like you keeping the child?"
"Because the last time we had any sort of talk about this, you weren't exactly supportive or accommodating to my wishes or the idea of children, so forgive me if I'm a little cautious about bringing this up with you, or being a little worried how you'd receive this news." It's been many months since that night after he rescued her for the first time from Fei Long, but the memory of their conversation, his threats, the fear of what he'd do, is still fresh on her mind.
She sighs, and ducks her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the tension there. She is going to have a spectacular headache after this, followed by an equally spectacular throwing up session in the bathroom. In her anxiety, the queasy feeling has morphed into very bad nausea. "Look, if you don't want to be a pa–"
"Takaba," Asami interrupts. He puts a hand on her shoulder, and tilts her chin up with the other. "You're very pale. Is something wrong?"
She blinks at the look of concern in Asami's face, and then glances away as the queasiness returned. "No. Yes. I'm just–" she sucks in a breath and makes a weak, dismissive flapping motion with one hand. "I just need to lie down. I'm a little nauseous and tired from today." She gives him a wan look, before trying to crawl back between the sheets. "I don't even know why I bothered trying to keep you from finding about this. Seems like a waste of energy now."
"Don't do it again, then." To her surprise, he helps her settle on the bed, easing her into the mound of soft pillows, even tucking her in under the warm sheets. "Have you eaten yet?"
"No." At the dark frown on Asami's face, she adds quickly, "Well, I had a few bites of crackers and some water. My stomach has been too uneasy the whole day for me to eat anything heavier."
"I see." He fixes her a stern look. "Stay in bed. Don't move." Before Takaba could sarcastically retort that she may have to leave the bed to throw up, Asami leaves the room.
Well this has taken a weird turn, Takaba thinks as she sank into the bed. The nausea has receded a bit, though she could still feel the tension in her body.
When Asami comes back a few minutes later, he has a plate of sliced apples (with the skin on, which was how she liked it) and a glass of milk with him. She eyes the milk suspiciously for a moment before taking it, figuring if Asami did really want to do something to her (like drug her), he could have done that earlier while she was asleep. "Er, thank you." She places the apples in front of, her over the pile of blankets, and takes a careful bite of one slice.
She eats the rest in comfortable silence, though she felt a little strange with Asami watching her as she munched on the apple slices. It is like that time in the island, after she'd begun to recover from her . . . near drowning, when he'd been particularly attentive to her (and she isn't just talking about the sex), ensuring she was all right. As she finishes off her glass of warm milk, Asami says, calmly, "The child is mine as well. I don't intend to let you raise it on your own, or to be excluded from its upbringing."
She swallows down the last of her milk, gripping the glass hard as she lowers it. This is one scenario she hadn't given enough thought — that Asami would want this. She licks her lips, and meets Asami's piercing gaze. "What if I don't want you to be part of our lives?"
"Would you abandon your own child, Takaba?" Asami's answering smile is far from pleasant, and the whisper of a threat in Asami's question makes the hair on the nape of her neck stand up.
"No, I wouldn't."
Asami takes the glass from her hands and puts it on the nightstand. Then he leans over her, trapping Takaba between his outstretched arms. The urge to bolt away and run hits Takaba hard, and it takes much of her will to keep herself from panicking. "I have no intention of raising our child without you. Do you think I would let you go so easily, Takaba?"
Takaba stares at him, suddenly feeling helpless. She should have never feared Asami turning her out for being pregnant, or forcing her to abort the child. Of course Asami would want something to bind her further to him, and what better way to accomplish that through a child — their unborn child? And now pull is stronger, the ties stronger and tighter.
She shakes her head. "This isn't the healthiest of relationships — if it could even be called a relationship. Not even the best environment to raise a kid." Any sane person would have run. How many times have Takaba told herself this in the past few months? For all his urbane and charismatic demeanor, Asami is not safe. He is a ruthless bastard, and unapologetic for it. It should not feel okay to be with him, to entrust him with her life, much less her child's. She and her child would be safer far from Asami, far from the darkness of his world.
And yet, Asami is also the man who had saved and protected her several times, even if by all accounts he could not have and just let her rot, the one who told her to leave him and go somewhere safe after he'd been shot trying to save her, the one who made her feel so damn alive, the only man who inspired such intense feelings in her. The man to whom, time and time again, she is drawn back to, captured by some irresistible force that kept her and her life bound in a tight orbit with his.
She looks straight into Asami's eyes. "I should run away from you as far as I could, cut myself from you and never look back. It would probably be the best decision in my life. In our lives."
Asami just smiles, almost gently, and it makes her knees weak, her heart beat faster even as her heart aches. God, the things this man does to me. Callused fingers touch her cheek, just as a protective hand covers her stomach. "But you're not running, Aki."
"No. I'm not." I'm in too deep, bound too tight, gods help me. She doesn't close her eyes when Asami's eyes smolder with possessive heat, bright with triumph at her words, nor does she turns away from them.
Her hand curls into a fist around Asami's shirt, and she tips her head back, looking up to him as she says fiercely, "So you better be worth this, asshole. Because I swear, if you fuck this up with us, I–" Asami kisses her then, hard and thorough, cutting her off her words, her air, and much of her rational, coherent thoughts, and soon she is dizzy and delirious, caught up in his arms, in the web this man has spun around her.
(She should be afraid, and she is. And yet at the same time she feels as she did as she watched the sunset at the pier, that everything was right in the world.)
I hope Asami's reaction to the pregnancy was OK. I didn't want it to be too…much. I figured he'd try to express it more with actions rather than with too many words. You'd probably see more of how Asami reacted to the pregnancy in the next chapters. Also, this isn't a resolution of Aki's anxiety over the pregnancy and the situation in general. It will come up in the future.
Yamane-sensei has mentioned that Aki's birthplace is in Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture. It's only a thirty minute or so train ride from Shinjuku, where Asami is based. Cosmo World is a theme park in Yokohama that has a Ferris wheel that doubles as a clock. My description of the pier, is, however, completely fake. You can't fall into the sea there so easily, because there are rail guards EVERYWHERE.
To those who asked about it: Yeah, the ultrasound conducted last chapter is a transvaginal ultrasound/endovaginal exam. Thank you nekochan for providing a quick explanation. Someone mentioned that this was the usual method of ultrasound exam in Japan, though my research on this is a bit nebulous. For most part, I chose this because the video I used as basis for the examination scene used this kind of exam, and the people I asked about said this was the exam performed on them on their first visit.