I'm back for a bit with some drabbles and one-shots fitting the About-universe, thanks to Taiora week 2023. Here's the first one of three, happening after the last chapter of 'About all the times he/she kissed me', featuring child Yua and pregnant Sora.

The Autumn child - Aki • ko

Summary: Taichi, Sora and Yua have a walk through colorful Autumn. While Sora enjoys Autumn, she muses about the wonder growing inside of her.

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It was a nice day for a walk with the trees all painted red and orange, sometimes yellow with hints of brown or brown with hints of yellow and some hidden green between it all. The sky seemed sunny yet the temperature was more chilly, the air brisk and wind sharp. Sounds of fallen leaves cracking underneath their feet were like a voice telling them to be kind and careful to the earth while move, play and dance in this serene nature.

To most, Autumn was an enigma. It had some sort of ambiguity. Colorful, fresh and light yet gloomy and unpredictable.

To Sora, the sensations of Autumn had something soothing, the season calming her nerves. She saw it like an end announcing an approaching beginning.

At that thought she smiled softly, her hand gently placed on top of the bump that looked like it was glued to her stomach.

"Mommy, what takes you so looooong?" Sora heard her daughter ask impatiently.

Yua had been way ahead of her, the sheer excitement of a simple walk outside making her run rather than walk, unable to contain those young body's energetic impulses. Luckily for Sora, she could count on a husband that matched their daughter's energy quite well.

"Your mother is pregnant, Yua. That's what makes her slower than usual," Taichi explained.

Sora watched Yua nod, then run off again for Taichi to run after. It wasn't a punishment to be slower than usual, the sight of her little family a sight she could watch forever. And how lucky she felt to soon welcome another little person in their home.

She rubbed her by now fully grown belly, curious to the contents of it.

Would it be a boy or another girl?

What color would their eyes be? And their hair? Would their personality be more warm like the sun or brisk and sharp like the wind?

Maybe kind and careful. Maybe bustling and full of physical energy.

Excited by her own mind wandering all the possibilities, Sora rubbed a little bit harder, trying to provoke some movement from inside her belly. But there wasn't a sign of life. Instead her bump became hard, like she had swallowed a football, accompanied by an unexpected and sharp pain.

A long exhale followed, as if she was trying to blow up a very big balloon.

"Sora, are you okay over there?" Taichi asked, the tone of his voice sounding concerned. Sora could barely look up from her apparently bent over position, still trying to breathe through the aching coming in small but intense waves.

Autumn was an end announcing the approach of a new beginning. And this was exactly that.