A positive wasn't always a positive.

There, staring up at her, a whole row of positives. Five of them. Five plus signs. Five plus signs, one tube of blue water, and one test that just said pregnant. There was another one with just a picture of a baby but that one wasn't coming in clear so maybe…maybe she needed to take another one. Maybe she needed to go to the doctor and…and get to the bottom of this. There were so many reasons for a positive pregnancy test…reasons other than pregnancy…

Maybe she had cancer.

Tumors could secrete hormones and…and maybe it was a cyst or…or maybe there was just something wrong with her. Could weight affect test results? She stood in front of her bathroom mirror and pulled her dress tight around her stomach…she didn't have to pull very tightly. She had been getting bigger for a while now. Her stomach…her breasts….but she hadn't thought about it. She hadn't thought about….about what it could have meant. She hadn't thought about much….

Much else than Sho.

Sho…she was supposed to have been waiting here, for him. She…she had built a home here for her son. She had filled his room with clothes and toys…filled the kitchen with his favorite snacks…even set up an entire art corner for him. She…she was his mother. She was his mother and…and she should have….Masami let go of her dress. It was still tight. She was Sho's mother…and she was going to be this baby's mother, too. There was no choice. Even if she got creative, incredibly creative, with her math there was no way that any reputable doctor would even consider an abortion…and she didn't want to go to a disreputable one. She didn't even know how to get ahold of such a person. She could always claim economic hardship…nobody ever looked into your reasoning. The law said one thing and people did another…

But that didn't matter.

It had been longer than twenty one weeks and after that….after that he was out of luck. She didn't even know if she wanted…she had spent so much time in denial about this baby that now that she couldn't ignore this anymore, now that she had all of these positive pregnancy tests staring up at her, she just…she couldn't. She couldn't think. She had a child…she had two children…she had the one she'd given birth too. It had been a hard birth, too, a c-section. Touichirou had been no help. He'd fainted. He'd looked over the curtain and…well maybe it had been Fukuda who'd made him faint. He'd been there, too, once things had started to go wrong….he'd been a complete stranger to her then.

In a lot of ways he still was.

She didn't know, couldn't remember, his given name. She couldn't remember where he was from. She couldn't remember where he had gone to university. She couldn't remember, had never been told, his parents' names….or if they were even still alive. She didn't know his favorite color or food or show…he had mostly just been there for her. He had mostly just been there to make her feel better, to be a pick me up on her worst days, to be there when she needed someone to take her mind off of things for a little while. She wished that she had asked him…anything. That she could remember the things he had told her. That she could remember anything about him…

She didn't even know how old he was.

Was he even old enough….he looked like he was in his twenties but he said that he had been working for Touichirou since the beginning…when even was the beginning. She still had no idea what, exactly, Claw was. A cult? Some yakuza thing? Something else entirely? She didn't know…she had no idea. She had no idea what it was that Touichirou and Fukuda were involved in…and she had no idea how to even ask….

She could have asked.

There. Her phone was sitting there on top of the bathroom counter dangerously close to the old school pregnancy test. She could have picked it up and called Fukuda, emailed him, asked him…asked him when exactly he was planning on getting Sho to him. Asked him when he was planning on getting Sho to her…asked him if that was even an option. Touichirou spent more time out of the country than in it. He had only come back, for those few weeks out of the year when he was back, to spend time with her…if it could even have been called that. Touichirou was probably thousands of miles away with their son and…and Fukuda probably had no chance of bringing him back…

The thought brings Masami to her knees.

She had been waiting for so long for her son to come back, but now she knew there was no hope. Whenever Fukuda sent word, it had always been photographs of the children, little blurbs about their lives, and long paragraphs, waxing poetic about how much he missed her, period. Nothing of substance. None of his definitive plans to bring her son back... because there weren't any. Masami had known from the beginning that there would always have been a chance that she and Sho would not have been able to reunite. She had always known that what she was playing was a dangerous game. She had been hopeful...but now her hopes were dashed.

There was nothing that she could do.

She was well and truly alone. Her children were gone… she had no choice but to leave them. She gambled and she lost. And now she found herself here, in this apartment in a city that she had vowed to never come back to, working a job she hated, for money that went out the door as fast as she got it. To make matters worse, she had another mouth to feed on the way. She couldn't have this baby... but she had no choice. Not after it had been so long, not after she had been in denial for so long, not after she had ignored so many signs... she had been too busy thinking about what could have been instead of what was…and now what was….it was a great big mess.

She was going to have another baby.

Another period, baby. Another child. She'd gone through it once before, with her son, and this time wasn't any less terrifying. She hadn't known Touichirou back when she had gotten pregnant... and she didn't know Fukuda either. She barely knew the man, but now she was having his child... At least it took more than two weeks, this time... At least they'd had more than two weeks together... but that wasn't much better. She didn't know how she was going to raise this child. But she was going to raise it. Adoption...she knew what adoption was like. She knew what those group homes were like. Shigeko had come from one of those group homes.

They were not the places for children.

Masami knew that she had made some mistakes over the years, but she was never going to make that one. She was never going to send her child to the hell that Shigeko had come from. She was never going to be as cruel as Shigeko's birth parents had been to her. They'd had an esper child, they hadn't known what to do, so they had thrown her out like a pair of old shoes. This child…it would be an esper…it seemed to be dominant. Shigeko had come from normal people, two nobodies as Touichirou had put it, and she was a prodigy. Sho only had one esper parents and already…already he was starting to get his powers….

The last thing she wanted was for this child to suffer in an orphanage.

So she was going to keep it. She reached up for her phone…and only managed to knock the old school pregnancy test to the floor. If the water turns blue a baby for you, if pink you see then no baby for thee. If the test should fail then go and grab a normal one, preferably manufactured in this century. The box hadn't said what to do when you got water…piss water…piss and chemical water all over yourself. Screaming seemed like it would have been appropriate…or crying, that was an option too, or maybe just heading to a doctor and getting it all cleared up….

There was no clearing this up.

"I hate my life…" muttered Masami. She wasn't going to scream, she wasn't going to cry, and she wasn't going to call Fukuda either. She just got up off the ground, climbed into the tub, and started the water. She had never been in the habit of hosing down first. Dad had said it was a waste of time and Mom had been inclined to do what Dad said. It had always been best to do what Dad said…she wondered what Mom and Dad would have thought of her now. If they were even still living. They had both been heavy smokers….she hoped that they weren't still around.

The last thing she needed was an 'I told you so.'

I told you to get an abortion. I told you not to marry that Suzuki. I told you not to move out. I told you to stay in school. I told you to get a degree in something useful. I told you to figure out how you were going to support yourself. I told you not to move out. I told you not to sit so close to the TV. I told you to keep better track of your library books. I told you to go outside and make some friends. I told you to stop brining animals inside the house. I told you to be better. I told you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. I told you to stop moping around. I told you, I told you, I told you….

Masami had been told. She just hadn't felt like listening.

Now there was no one to listen to. Now it was just her, here, by herself with…with…she didn't even want to think about it. She did some mental math. There was no way that any doctor would agree to…any legitimate doctor. There were always….she didn't want to bleed out on a card table. She had heard stories growing up, stories her mother had sat her down and told her, stories about girls who made mistakes. Stories about girls who weren't careful. Stories about what would happen to Masami if she didn't take some basic precautions….ones that she had neglected to take time and time again. Sho and then…she didn't even know. She pressed a hand to her stomach.

She just didn't know.

There was no easy choice to make, here. She did yet another round of mental math….Touichirou had always been better at it. He loved math, or at least he had said so when they'd met. He would have been able to calculate down to the day. He had for Sho…not that it had been a difficult set of calculations to make. Valentine's Day…that had been it…and now Sho was here. There. He wasn't here….he would have loved…he had been asking for a little brother for years now…

And Shigeko had been asking for a little sister.

Twenty two weeks…that was the maximum…it had been more than twenty two weeks since she had last seen her children. Now she was…there was always the question of the…there was no question about it. She was…she needed to breathe. She needed…she didn't know what she needed. To think, maybe? To stop being so…so herself. To stop being so stupid. This was just how it had been all those years ago. She had been sitting in her bed, phone in hand, wondering about what to do…

This was a bathtub.

She needed to get to bed. She needed to…there was a knocking at her door. She needed to answer that. She needed to wait for them to go away. She needed…she covered her ears. She didn't know what she needed. She needed to go back in time and stop herself from…from being so careless with Fukuda. She hadn't been thinking about this and now….now here she was.

The knocking wasn't stopping.

"Go away….go away!" shouted Masami. She didn't want to deal with whoever that was. Maybe her neighbors had lost their cat again. Maybe it was kids selling candy. Maybe it was people coming to tell her about how she needed more religion in her life…she didn't have room for it. She didn't have room for anything or anyone else…she barely had enough space for herself…

Herself and Sho.

Sho was…she had no idea if Sho was coming back or not…coming to her or not. She had no idea…she had no idea if it was time to give up. She'd made a room for him and…and it hadn't been more than twenty two weeks…it had been much more than twenty two weeks….it had been long enough that Sho and Shigeko were on the other side of the world now, maybe, far away from her…long enough that she may never see her children again. Her son. Her firstborn….she pressed her hand to her stomach. She felt…she had just though she'd been getting fatter. She had just thought that she'd been bloated. She had just thought….

She hadn't been thinking. That had been her problem.

More knocking. She knew what she thought about that. She wanted…she wanted to kick that door down and tell whoever it was to go away and never come back. She was having a crisis. She didn't care if the world was ending out there, the world was ending in here for her. She could never go back…she had never planned on going back…but if Touichirou ever found her then she had no idea what she was going to do. Fukuda looked nothing like him and there was no chance that this baby was his…this baby wasn't going to come out a little redhead. This baby was going to, if it was lucky, have black hair…probably brown….Fukuda's had been brown…and he had said that it was curly too, when he let it grow out. She had no idea what to do with curly hair! She had no idea…she hardly ever did anything with her own hair these days…she had no idea what she was supposed to do now….

Maybe something about that constant knocking.

"Go away!" shouted Masami as she sat up. She climbed out of the bathtub and stomped her way through the apartment. Who the hell…who did they think they were?! Who did they think that they were coming to her apartment like this, unannounced, and bothering her! Who did…it could have been Fukuda. It could have been Fukuda with Sho and…and that wasn't good either. What would she tell Fukuda? That he had a child on the way? And what would she tell Sho? He was just a little boy…he was too young to know about these sorts of things. He was too young to know what happened when adults fell out of love…the things they did just to feel something other than the exhaustion and loneliness…she prayed that he never knew what it felt like….

She prayed for a lot of things.

Every step to her door was a prayer. A prayer for solace, for solitude, a prayer to wake up, to go back to sleep…each step was a prayer and none of them came true. At least not in the time it took to make it to the door. Or maybe she hadn't been praying right. She didn't know, she hadn't prayed since she had bene a child. Dad had been a Christian, mom a Buddhist, but none of it had rubbed off on her. No, she hadn't gotten any of that from her parents…and Sho…she wondered what Sho had gotten from her. She wondered what this baby had gotten…could have gotten…was going to get….could not get….if there even was….

She just didn't know what to do….

But at least she knew exactly who was on the other side of that door.

"Masaoka-san, you left so suddenly that-" Him again. Hirai…Eiji…again with him! What, didn't he have his own life? Why did he have to-to-to come into hers? What was his obsession with her? What did he…what? Was he…she didn't even…it didn't matter!

Nothing mattered.

"Go away." Said Masami. That was all she had the energy to say. The anger was gone now and in it's place was just….nothing. Empty space. She sighed…she didn't even have the energy to slam the door in his face...

She couldn't even do that right.

"Wow…you look like-I mean I should keep it to myself, I mean you said that you were sick so I shouldn't…soup. I brought you some soup." Said Hirari as he held out a closed container. She looked at it, at him, and then at it again. He kept on holding it out, she had no idea how long he was going to keep it up for…

He was so…

Cute. That was the word for him. Cute. Endearing. Kind. He was…he was the sort of man that, under other circumstances, she could have seen herself with. But these weren't other circumstances, these were the circumstances she was living under right now. The ones that she had made for herself…it wasn't fair. Nothing about her life was fair…nothing about any part of life had ever been fair for her…

And now here she was, pregnant with another man's child, while yet another man tried to make his way inside of her life…or just inside of her. That was the end goal, wasn't it? That was…it wasn't like he actually cared about her…and it wasn't like she cared about him. She hadn't cared about…she had cared about Fukuda. She was just trying to turn it into something awful and sordid…just like she was trying to turn this into something sordid…she was trying to ruin it….

She was trying to ruin it like she ruined everything in her life.

"It's chicken noodle. Made fresh every day…in a factory before it's canned and heated up again later." Said Hirai as he held out the soup. Masami reached out and took it. She had let him stand there long enough. Maybe the sooner she took it the sooner she'd be alone again….

If she even wanted to be alone.

"Thank you…" said Masami. Maybe now he would leave…maybe she wanted him to leave. Maybe she wanted to be alone and…and then what? Wait for tomorrow to happen? Wait for this to get worse? Wait until a solution fell out of the sky? There was no solution…not to this and not to anything. The solution to her problems wasn't going to be found falling from the sky or at the bottom of a Tupperware or…or even with….

A bad habit. One that she needed to break.

"But you really should be going. I don't want….I'm not up to receiving guests right now." Said Masami as she put her hand on the doorknob, intending to close it. He reached out and pressed his hand to the side of the door. It would have been romantic…if this had been a movie. Instead it just got her heart pounding in the bad way…the 'she lived alone' way….

"Wait…sorry, this looks bad-" said Hirai

"You think?" asked Masami

"I just…if I don't say this now then I'm never going to be able to say this. I don't know if you care or if you're looking for-" said Hirai

"I know what you're going to say and…and I'm not looking for anything right now, ok? Now is not a good time…it's never going to be a good time. Just…just leave, alright? I can't deal with this right now!" said Masami. She could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. She wiped them…and was handed a napkin.

"Never leave home without one." Said Hirai as he handed her a napkin that smelled like mothballs and chicken…not a good combination…but also a hell of a lot better than ketchup and eggs…coconut oil and vanilla….

"Stop it." Said Masami

"I'm not-" said Hirai

"I told you that I'm not looking for anything and-and you just…stop it! Alright? I just…I have a lot going on right now and the last thing that I need is another man in my life messing everything up! So go already!" said Masami. He looked completely crushed, his eyes…they clouded over…and a pained sound came from his throat. She didn't know what she wanted…to take him into her arms and apologize…to slam the door in his face….

She didn't slam it.

She did, however, shut it. She shut the door in his face and pressed her body against it…not that she thought that he was going to push it opened or anything. Not that he was going to….he wasn't going to do anything. She wasn't…she didn't know what to do. So she stood with her back to her door…and her hand on her stomach…her baby….

She stayed that way for the rest of the day.