She is having his baby.
No.
She can't.
It was…those were…
...the times that they…were together…
No.
They didn't plan anything like this.
They didn't want it.
Hell, they are not even involved. Not like that. They aren't lovers. The thing between them…
It's…only slightly resemblant to love.
But it can't be defined as such. Therefore she can't do it. She can't birth a child of his. Babies are proof of their parents' love and devotion to each other. A seal of their desire to stay together. A product of their bond.
The two of them have none of those.
So she can't have this baby.
Yet she can't kill it.
It is what she has always wanted, to have a family of her own, to be a mother.
It is something she has always wondered and marveled. Although she has never thought about how exactly she was going to have that.
Gods can not bear the children of humans but they can impregnate both them and their own species. But despite that being no less than common knowledge, they both somehow managed to let it fly off their heads. So much time has passed since a god and goddess last brought a child god into existence after all. In fact the last one should be Kagutsuchi whose latest incarnation is already more than a thousand years old if she remembers correctly.
Suddenly, she doesn't know what to do.
She can't end a tiny life before it even has a chance to start. She knows that for sure. And even if she were to consider it, is there really a way for a goddess to abort? So that means that she is keeping the baby.
Everyone will eventually learn. And she is a traitor, one hated by Amaterasu and feared by Takamagahara. The other gods won't like the idea. The high queen herself won't treat this baby any kinder than she treats its mother. Will it even be officially acknowledged as a god?
What will her shinki and few friends think? How is she going to tell th-
How is she even going to tell Yato?
Should she tell him? Would he understand on his own? What would he say? Would he want to be a part of the baby's life? Would he help her raise it? Would he protect it if the heaven were to want it gone? Would she be able to do everything on her own if he didn't want it? How in hell did she accept being pregnant and with his baby at that that easily?
She shakes her head and takes deep breaths to banish all the questions and shuts her eyes as Kazuma blinks once, twice, then he orders Akiha to redo everything and lists some extra tests he wants to see because there should be some mistake, he keeps saying more to himself than Akiha.
There isn't, she knows.
How?
Intuition?
Mother's senses? Are those working already? How many weeks along is she? How much time does she have befor-
She is ripped out of the train of thoughts with a slight start when Akiha calls out to her to ask a few more questions under Kazuma's inspecting watch. She asks Akiha to leave her alone with her guide and not to talk about today to anyone please and eagerly, the man gets out of the room before the two left can even blink.
Kazuma immediately starts lecturing her about her health, how she should take better care of herself and she can't just tell the healer to leave because she is very obviously ill.
She takes a calming breath, readies herself and cuts his speech to tell him that she isn't ill, gods don't just catch something and that…there is a possibility that she is indeed pregnant.
Kazuma stops talking and locks his eyes with hers, looking for a sign of unseriousness. She sighs and tells him that she isn't joking then pulls him down to sit on the bed by his hand. He doesn't say anything for a long time. She feels everything he thinks and feels as she strokes his name with her thumb.
He is swimming in an ocean of emotions.
Drowning.
Shock.
Desperation.
Devastation.
Envy.
Fear.
Everything comes in waves so big and unexpected that she feels the familiar pricks on her nape and can't help the wince that escapes her lips. He comes back to himself at the sudden noise and in only a second, it all stops. The pain ends and she can breathe again. His aura is calm, serene and it betrays no real emotion as always.
He puts his other hand on her arm with an apologetic look in his eyes. Neither of them talks but she hears the question in his mind loudly and clearly.
Who?
And she tells him.
She says his name and tells him that they didn't plan this. It was never an established relationship between them. He is her closest friend and they comforted each other a few times. But that was only that. This wasn't supposed to happen.
He listens, not once interrupting or suggesting a word when she struggles to find one like he always does. When she finishes talking, he inhales slowly and strokes her hand once. Finally, he starts talking and it's that sweet and caring, almost fatherly tone that his voice has whenever he explains her something she can't understand.
"Veena, I don't think that he is only a close friend to you. When you trust someone with everything, even your own soul and body, that becomes a large stretch for any and all kinds of friends."
She furrows her brows and tries to tell him that he is getting the wrong idea.
"That's intimate." he tells her and says that she needs to solve it all out in her head because she has to talk to Yato too. He leaves her to herself after that and she watches his back as she falls back to rest on the plush pillows.
Kazuma is wrong.
She isn't in love with him.
Though he has a point, friends don't have children together. Even if they didn't knowingly conceive the child, friends don't do that either.
She closes her eyes and tries to picture his face in her head.
She remembers the first time she saw him. The time that she was saved by him the first. There was this eerie glow in those blue eyes then. He killed all the blighted shinki and disappeared just after the last screams died.
She believed that he was evil. For years, she cried and screamed and lamented her misfortune.
For centuries, she chased him all around the country, seeking blood and revenge. She fought with him all that time. She blamed him for everything and made sure to tell him so. He never denied anything.
Yet there remained this seedling of doubt crawling around her heart and eating at her when she was all alone with her memories and thoughts.
He was evil, a murderer, a magatsukami, the one who destroyed her family for the mere fun of it. But…
…why had he let Kazuma go?
She had understood the truth well before Kazuma's confession. But she wasn't able to voice it and confront Kazuma. Because that shy, sweet shinki who tirelessly worked to do everything that other shinki did before all on his own and who held her as she cried…couldn't be responsible of what happened. Besides taking her revenge was her only aim, it was what drove her, what made her get up and start to heal.
So she, much like a spoiled child, let herself forget it and kept putting all the blame on her scapegoat.
She gets up to go out to the balcony as she thinks about everything after her reconciliation with him. As she wraps a light robe around herself, she remembers the picnic under Suzuha's tree. She drank and drank that day. She started to cry and babble as always and he…did that…just to distract her from her sorrow even letting her punch and kick him afterwards.
She realizes that self sacrifice is something that comes naturally to him. But she also knows that it's from thinking lowly of himself and not understanding what he is worth. He is kind. Brave. Faithful. Devoted. Everyone calls him lazy, worthless, a fake god but he is one who takes the tiniest, most absurd wishes of humans seriously and answers them even if they are some cleaning or babysitting job that the other gods would laugh at. And he does them perfectly.
He is called a god who brings calamity over others. But he was the one who answered a shinki's most desperate wish without asking for anything in return. He was the one who played the villain just to sustain her need to place the blame on someone else so she could live with herself. He was the one who never slapped that fact on her face even when she continued to treat him badly after the Ha Clan's incident. He was the one who gave everyone new chances and forgave them. A shinki who stung him to the point of near death, a spiteful goddess who punished him for a crime he didn't commit,.. He was the one who fought off heaven just for her. He is the reason she survived so long. Nothing that he did to her was bad if not the exact opposite. He was never calamitous.
She doesn't know about others but he is a god of fortune. To her at least. There's no denying that.
And when she thinks about their whole history, she understands one thing fully. What she feels for him is certainly not love.
But it could turn into that if they gave it time and tried.
That one dangerous thought is going to remain only that though. She will give birth to her child and raise it. He will know that he is the father and can be a part of its life if he wants. But what's between them will not change. They will stay close friends. The child will be the only bond that they will have other than that. If he accepts it that is.
With that remains only the most important part, the issue of talking to him.
But how? When?
She takes a full breath of the autumn air and decides to give herself some more time to figure that one out. She should have a proper examination, learn the baby's age and make a list of the things that she will need.
The next day, around evening, Kazuma shows up with some of Ebisu's shinki who looked after him whenever he became ill because of the ayakashi, a step ahead as always. The two women take her into a hospital like room in the west wing that she has never seen or known about the existence of, surely Kazuma's doing again. Meanwhile Kazuma goes somewhere else with the four men in suits to research about the situation in case there are things that differ from normal human pregnancies.
"Six, almost seven weeks," tells Yumi, the younger of the two women after a shorter than expected session with her. The two shinki don't linger much afterwards and leave her to gather her thoughts with respectful bows and a date for her first check up. She returns to her room immediately after and lies awake on her bed with her hand on her abdomen, trying to feel the fragile life there. She dozes off a few hours later.
The first thing she becomes aware of is someone standing next to her bed in the middle of the night when she wakes up. She bolts upright the second she notices that the tall, broad figure of a middle aged man looming over her doesn't belong to any of her shinki.
The man smiles down at her and she notices that she isn't scared or panicked. It's as if she has known him for years, as if the man belongs there right next to her. He cups her cheek with his one hand and she can't tear her gaze from his eyes. The white light surrounding them grows brighter, making him glow. He looks enchanting like that, otherworldly even.
The light swallows them both and the world around them becomes pure white. She closes her eyes when they burn and ache.
In the morning, while she is rubbing her eyes trying to remember something about the dream she knows she had, Kazuma brings her breakfast personally and she invites him to eat with her. She must look troubled because he doesn't politely refuse as he normally does so they end up on her balcony with a cup of tea each and the tray of food placed on the coffee table between the chairs. She breathes in the clean morning air. Blue. Moonlight. The man. She can think about those later.
It's peacefully silent for over fifteen minutes before he finally asks her if she feels good today. She answers yes and he tells her that he finished his research about her condition.
There isn't much to know. Only that it can take more time for her to show and it may last three or four weeks shorter than a normal human pregnancy and that other gods will be able to feel it once the baby develops his or her own godly aura which will happen around twenty to twenty five weeks.
She thanks him and they, once again, fall silent. She tries to check what he is thinking and feeling. He is calm as usual. And he thinks…nothing. She can hear all of her other shinki loud and clear. Yet his voice is so quiet that it blends in with the others, becoming indistinguishable. They have spent centuries together and most of that time, he had a huge secret he kept from her. It is only logical for him to learn how to keep what's in his mind hidden yet why is he even this good at concealing his thoughts and feelings?
In the end, she asks him how he is doing and as usual, he replies that he is fine with the straight face he so loves making whenever she asks him something personal.
"You are disappointed."
She closes her eyes after a few seconds of silence and actually voices the thought knowing that this discussion won't go anywhere if neither of them acknowledges the elephant in the room.
Beside her, Kazuma slumps his shoulders and leans forward a little destroying that perfect, confident stature. She doesn't say anything else to him, letting him think her remark over and search for words, sentences for an answer. She won't let him get away without giving her one. He is her lead shinki, the one she trusts most among others and keeps closest. They are pretty new at this 'talking out their feelings and confiding into each other' concept but they need to do this. Because they both have no one else.
Is there anyone else who he can go to and tell about what he felt back when she first told him?
Is there anyone who can understand the pain so sharp that even feeling it second-handedly made her flinch?
Is there anyone else who would know what they have lived through together just to stay god and hafuri?
She dismisses the flash of bright blue in her mind with a deep breath as he straightens himself on the other chair, leaning against the backrest and loosening his tie a little with his fore and middle fingers.
"I was disappointed. For centuries, you always watched humans, lovers, families, children,.. You wanted to know love of every kind. I wanted to be the one to give you that."
He closes his eyes and completely removes the tie as she watches his hands and she can't help but to notice that he always does that. Despite putting on a tie to complete his uniform, he hates the thing or anything else that squeezes his neck for that matter, even scarves and turtlenecks. She wonders if it's something left from the way he died.
"Please don't! Leave him alone! He didn't-"
"Didn't! I believe what I see, woman! But don't worry it's your turn after this pathetic lover of yours!"
The man with the grey hair and mustache catches him by the neck and uses all his might to choke him as he claws at the large hand and moves his legs in a futile attempt to save himself.
"Please! It was I who forced him! Punish me, please!"
The young woman throws herself between them, trying to make the man loosen his grip with her small hands before she is flung back by a hit to her cheek.
His eyes widen as her sobs fill his ears and she locks her eyes with his. He reaches out one arm towards her, as if he would actually touch her one last time, wipe away the blood at the corner of her lips or brush the strands of long black hair away from her face before he holds her in his arms. It's nothing more than just that he wants at this moment, but they both know that it is impossible.
It is too much to ask for, especially for a couple of humans who have sinned.
But strangely, he isn't regretting and he can tell that she isn't too. They would do it again if they were to be born again. They would fall in love and sin again. He doesn't care what the gods will think of him when he finally crosses the border separating the realms of the living and the dead.
They have no right to be angry or disappointed.
They have done nothing for him. They have never heard his prayers, never helped him. So they have no right to look down on him or judge him.
His vision starts to darken, his chest hurts, his head spins and the pain is too much. It is too much to bear, he realizes once his heartbeats slow down and tears run down his cheeks.
She sobs and restarts begging for the man to stop as his outstretched arm falls limp.
The last thing he sees is her hauling herself up from the floor and running back towards him before he finally falls asleep.
The memories, his memories, flood in her mind suddenly and as she watches her shinki, she wonders just how much pain this one soul has lived through in both lives.
He was a servant at a lord's house. The man was old, older than fifty and his fiancé to be his third wife, barely sixteen. He had two daughters near that age. The young girl was the most beautiful of her village thus she was sold off, literally, to the old pervert in exchange of a ridiculously low price: more rice to her family for that winter, a few chicken, a cow and a horse. And Kazuma, Kyotsugu then, was the only one who understood her. He was gentle, peaceful, a kind spirit all over and he didn't have eyes for her beauty. He didn't watch her like a hungry animal as all the other men. He liked poetry, she liked flowers, he took care of the animals, she once made him steal a horse from the stables and take her to the meadows.
They fell for each other, slowly and sweetly. They both knew that it wouldn't end well. But they were too young, too desperate for love and they were too inexperienced. Their relationship was completely innocent, they barely held hands until the week before the wedding.
She cried and cried in his arms. She was afraid. She hated the man that she was to wed. She was a young girl, at the very spring of her life yet she felt like she was going to be buried in the next few days. So she asked him to be her first and he gave in after another hour full of her begging. The next summer, Tamane gave birth. The house was overjoyed. The man was giving out silver and gold coins to celebrate the birth of his first son. Then the baby opened his eyes, and it was too obvious. A pair of emeralds, they were the same as his father's.
After that, their relationship continued for a few months more. Only because there was no solid evidence. But the man knew, they knew that he knew so they decided to run away together with their son but they were caught when the man returned early from a trip he went. Kyotsugu died like that aged nineteen and the girl, Tamane, probably followed only a few minutes later along with her child.
Bishamon takes a deep breath to banish the thoughts then stands up to kneel before him and wraps her arms around his shoulders.
To say that Kazuma is surprised is an understatement.
He sits completely stiff for a few seconds as she buries her face in his neck and only after that does he let his arms loosely curl around her waist.
She wants to say something. But she isn't sure what would be appropriate for a situation this difficult. Thankfully, it doesn't take long for Kazuma to relax in her arms and he gives a smile to her when they seperate. So she returns it and takes his hand in hers to trace his name with her thumb.
"You are my blessing, my reason to have held on for so long, my guide who made me the woman I am today. Do you really believe that you didn't manage to give me happiness and love?"
She doesn't realize that she says it all out loud until she feels him shake and looks up to see him watching her with teary eyes. She panics for a moment and it must show because he chuckles and tells her that they are happy tears. Or maybe it's just that he knows her way too well to recognize all of her tells. She too laughs and they spend the next half hour, watching the children playing out at the garden as they drink another cup of the now cold tea each. It tastes better than everything she has eaten and drunk in the last few weeks.
The following days pass slowly.
Ebisu's shinki visit her three times to check how she is doing. Differing from before, Kazuma is present in the room on the first two times but Yumi doesn't let him inside on the third time because…well, he is more anxious than her about the baby, he keeps asking about every detail and distracts the women with his non stop pacing.
She only laughs at him. It is cute in a way, how he is trying to already prepare for the baby's arrival and make sure that everything is perfectly fine about them.
Meanwhile Amaterasu is quiet. She doesn't summon any of their group again and doesn't declare any orders about them. So she spends her days in her home with her shinki.
They gather at Kofuku's house a few more times. Yato is the one to open the door for her everytime. She goes with Kazuma, Ebisu brings Kunimi, Tenjin, Tsuyu and Mayu and to their surprise even Takemikazuchi and Kiun come. He tells them everything he knows about his father.
Three weeks after they had the garden party, when the season changes at the Near Shore and when the snow finally starts falling, she gets a text from him.
it's the anniversary of Yuki's meeting v me in 2 days we gonna celebrate like a bday.
think u can make it?
She looks at the screen of her phone for a full minute before typing back.
Of course. I would be glad to attend.
He answers immediately.
great! ? gonna organize a flash mob r meeting tomorrow 2 practice.
Flash mob?
lmao u 4 real? *sigh* It's where u sing & dance 4 smo u love as a group. gonna meet the park 2.
B there?
She blinks a few times at the text before she manages to read it.
Okay. I should be in sports attire, I assume?
yeah. bring the gang! ? ﾟﾎﾉ. gonna b the party of year.
She starts looking through her closet to find something suitable. She knows that she has sweatpants and light t-shirts somewhere. Kazuma comes and helps her halfway through.
In the end, he wears a pair of loose pants and a sports shirt himself and finds a purple track suit and an oversized black t-shirt for her. At ten weeks, she isn't showing yet but her form might be morphing, he says. It's hard to detect something like that when one is almost always around the object that is slowly changing.
They go to the meeting place taking the battle team with them and see that everyone is there. He greets them all and gives out their roles one by one. Meanwhile Iki Hiyori protests and keeps mumbling to herself. Then he shows them the figures and moves. Kofuku and Daikoku figure it out pretty quickly, Tenjin copies the footwork at the first try, flawless as ever, even Kazuma starts to sway and adjusts to the beat in a few minutes with a little of Yato's help.
She is the only one who can not grasp it. He explains her how she should move a little more gracefully, 'like a woman'. When she still can't get it right, he puts his hands on her waist and helps then they proceed to practice separately a few meters away from the others for half an hour as they rehearse their own parts and come up with unique moves. Tenjin gives them a weird look and Kofuku again has a smile full of mirth on her face but neither says anything so she looks away and pretends to not notice them.
Sometime around fifteen minutes into his 'tutoring' her, he puts a hand on her stomach and her heart leaps with sudden fear as if he could actually understand just by that one single gesture.
It's too early to be noticed by others, she knows. She still has time to talk to him before the baby's aura becomes noticeable or her baby bump grows. As expected, he doesn't react, so they continue. He finally has her swaying her hips correctly and clapping at the same time with everyone else and they start soon after, Ebisu plays his part with Kunimi's help and she agrees with the human, it looks fake. But then again, Kofuku's bad aura, Tenjin's girls' cheering for him, Takemikazuchi's flying around with Kiun and Kuraha's lion form isn't what one would call 'natural' either.
As they take a water break, she sits down on a wooden bench, again more tired than she would get normally. Kazuma dutifully brings her a light sandwich and pours homemade juice out of a thermos before she could even realize that she is indeed getting hungry.
They practice for two more hours then she goes to choose a gift for Yukine with Kazuma after sending the other shinki home. He buys a skateboard with 'snowball' written on it and she chooses a light yellow woolen sweater. Kazuma takes them to pay and she notices that larger sizes of the sweater in varying colors are available on the rack. After hesitating for a few seconds, she grabs one, baby blue with pom-poms hanging from the collar and goes after Kazuma.
The next day, they arrange Yukine's arrival using Kazuma's Coo-phone. They act as if they are casually hanging around at the park. Then they stand and join in one by one when Ebisu successfully does what he memorized the day before without even making a fuss when he hits the ground or crying. Yukine watches them with wide eyes and actually tears up when they hand him the presents and show him to a picnic table with the cake.
It was Kazuma's idea to bring portable and foldable tables with camping chairs there. After blowing the candles, the boy opens every present with Yato watching from the side with a soft smile adorning his features. He looks so different from his usual loud, energetic and cheery self like that. With his pale complexion, his cheeks, flushed from exertion, stand out and his eyes change to a color between aquamarine and turquoise under the evening glow. He looks like he is part of the scenery with the orange rays and trees behind, like a cropped piece of a photo on one of those old postcards. His fringe gets in his eyes with the gentle wind and he raises a hand to brush it aw-
She stops the train of thoughts forcibly and orders herself to direct all her attention to the birthday boy.
It shouldn't be this alike to love.
She shouldn't find herself staring. She shouldn't keep thinking of him. He is not her lover. He is the last person that she should fall for. She knows the reasons too well. She shouldn't-
Yukine reaches the last of his presents, hers and Kazuma's. So far he has a schoolbag with a few novels and a marker set from Tenjin's group, An mp4 player with headphones from Kofuku and Daikoku, a digital wristwatch of one of the newest models from Takemikazuchi and Kiun and matching gloves, a hat and a scarf from Ebisu and Kunimi.
When he sees the skateboard, his eyes light up and he thanks Kazuma with a wide smile on his face then he unfolds and raises the sweater that she chose to look at it. He thanks her and as he refolds the garment to put it back in the bag, he notices the baby blue sleeve of the other one visible so he pulls that out too. He is momentarily confused because it is literally the same thing with the yellow one, only blue and large, way too large for him. But then it clicks and the boy smiles again as Tenjin laughs behind his paper fan, Kofuku snickers deviously, Ebisu is strangely gleeful, Hiyori's face is blank and Yato looks at her with clear surprise written over his expression and she feels her face reddening with embarrassment. Only Takemikazuchi is confused even after Kiun explains whispering into his ear. Thankfully, Yukine puts the thing back down and ends the moment only a few seconds after.
So they head over to Kofuku's. Kuraha plays with the kids, Hiyori and Kazuma who is merely there to make sure they don't hurt themselves, out in the snow, only Ebisu remains with the adults, saying he is too tired after moving so much and demands that he sits with Yato and Bishamon on the kotatsu at the same time with an unusual tantrum when both stays silent so reluctantly, they sit side by side with Ebisu between them. An hour into the older gods' chatting with a cup of sake each, the boy finishes his glass of milk with honey and falls asleep instantly with his head on her lap and his feet over Yato's.
After five minutes or so, he slowly moves Ebisu's feet off himself, then finds a blanket lying around and picks the child up carefully after wrapping him to lay him down on the couch. She watches how he lightly smiles probably without noticing it himself, how he takes care to be extra quiet and slow to not wake Ebisu and how he gently cradles him in his arms. Before she can stop herself, she finds herself smiling as well though she makes sure to get rid of the expression as soon as he turns to walk back over to the kotatsu.
Another hour passes before Kunimi picks his god up and wishes them all a good night. Takemikazuchi follows with Kiun not long after and finally she too gathers her shinki. Before she can go down the few steps of stairs in front of the front door after them, Kofuku throws her arms around her in her usual cheerful manner. And before letting her go, she whispers in her ear sliding one hand down her abdomen.
"Congratulations."