Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ This I Promise You ❯ A Day of Surprises ( Chapter 24 )

This I Promise You

Prequel to: Because of You

Written by: Chocho

Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation

Story summary: Everybody assured him Rinjin Yasashii was just another obsessed fan with a crush and that there was nothing to worry about. Little did they know how wrong they all were.

Chapter summary: “So that means, no pocky, no cookies, candy, ice cream, chips and no caffeine. That means no tea, iced or hot, coffee or pop.” Shuichi groaned. The next six months were going to suck big time.

Warnings: M-preg, explicit sex, language

Key: [Blah] or Blah blah blah: flashback/dream

BLAH or Blah: stressed words

*: change in POV or time

 

***

 

Chapter 24: A Day of Surprises

 

 

Eiri was placing soba into a bowl when his husband finally decided to saunter into the kitchen the next morning.

 

“'Morning,” Shuichi yawned as he pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. He dropped his head onto his folded arms, yawning loudly.

 

“Morning,” Eiri returned. Doing a double take, he asked his husband, “You're not sick are you?” He set the prongs down on the counter and carried the two bowls to the table. He set one in front of his husband and the other in front of his seat.

 

Shuichi sat up and frowned. “I don't think so, but I am tired,” he explained. “Ita da ki masu,” he muttered over the meal. He picked up his chopsticks and stuffed some noodles into his mouth. “Hmmm.” He smacked his lips. “It's good, Eiri.” He set his chopsticks down and got up to pour himself some juice. “You know that feeling when your eyes feel like they're burning, but you're not tired?”

 

“Hmm. What about it?”

 

“Well, that's how I feel right now.” He sat back down and took a healthy gulp of his juice. “I don't even have the energy to pick up my chopsticks and eat.”

 

“You'd better eat,” Eiri snapped. “Just because you like to starve yourself doesn't mean you have to do the same thing to our child.”

 

“Aw, Eiri! I do not starve myself! And even if I did, I wouldn't do that to our kid.”

 

“Damn right you're not.”

 

They ate in silence for several minutes, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

 

Eiri was worried now more than ever about letting Shuichi do this performance now that they were positive Shuichi was pregnant. He was not sure if letting him prance around stage was a good idea.

 

Shuichi, on the other hand, was thinking about his stage show for “Spicy Marmalade”. He knew he wanted lasers, lights, fireworks or some sort of pyrotechnics. And dancing!

 

“I'm going to be hiring a nutritionist,” came Eiri's unexpected voice, breaking into Shuichi's thoughts.

 

His chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth; Shuichi looked at his husband dumbly. “A what?”

 

“A nutritionist. You may thrive of eating nothing but junk food, but I will not have my son ingesting that crap.”

 

Groaning, Shuichi slumped down and set his chopsticks down. A nutritionist? That sucked. Big time.

 

“So that means, no pocky-“

 

Shuichi gasped. That was just plain sacrilegious!

 

“-no cookies, candy, ice cream, chips and no caffeine. That means no tea, iced or hot, coffee or pop.”

 

Shuichi felt ill. “Eiriii,” he whined.

 

Eiri shook his head as he finished his noodles. “I mean it, Shu-chan.”

 

“Oh, man!” He slumped further in his seat, pouting.

 

“Eat, Shuichi,” Eiri commanded as he stood up and placed his bowl in the sink.

 

Shuichi fisted his hand against his cheek and frowned into the buckwheat noodles, his chopsticks poking at the slimy pasta. He suddenly had no appetite. “Ya know,” he said grumpily, “you're lucky you already gave up smoking.”

 

Eiri sat back down with a fresh cup of coffee and looked at his husband with a cocked eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, taking a sip.

 

“Yeah, because you'd have to give it up for the baby.”

 

“Hm. Good thing I quit years ago.” Because that would have just plain sucked not to be able to smoke, even if it was for the baby. He would have gone insane within the first day. Hell, within the first thirty seconds, he amended.

 

Shuichi huffed. “Yeah, too damn bad. It'd teach you right.”

 

Eiri snorted, shaking his head. “Oh! Speaking of which…”

 

“I know, I know.” He would have to somehow either break the news to the guys about the baby or somehow get Hiro to not smoke around him without telling him the real reason why. “I'll have a talk with Hiro.”

 

“Good. Now finish eating or you're going to be late.” He grabbed his cup and stood up. Walking around the table, he kissed the top of Shuichi's head and headed to his office.

 

Shuichi glared into the by now soggy bowl of noodles and growled. A nutritionist? Damn. Double damn.

 

*

 

“Remember I have to go to the doctor's later,” Shuichi reminded his husband as he slid into his sandals an hour later.

 

“Hn.” Eiri crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe.

 

“Well, I'm outta here,” Shuichi smiled, standing up. He kissed his husband thoroughly and dashed out of the apartment, eager to get to the studio.

 

“Hey,” Eiri called down the hallway. “Make sure you take it easy today, understand? I don't want you to do anything too strenuous!”

 

Shuichi tossed the writer a lopsided grin over his shoulder as he stepped into the elevator, Marcus taking up his position in the front, as if to say, “don't worry so much”.

 

For some reason, Eiri did not quite trust his husband.

 

*

 

The door to rehearsal studio 2 burst open and a smiling Shuichi jumped inside. “Good morning everyone!”

 

From his stool where he was tuning his guitar, Hiro glanced up at his best friends and smiled. “Hey, Shu.” He saw Shuichi's guard take up position outside the studio door.

 

“Morning, Itoko-kun,” Kai called as he stood up after plugging in his guitar.

 

Shuichi skipped happily into the sound booth and glanced around. He lifted his bag over his head and set it down against the wall out of the way. “Where're the others?”

 

“Fujisaki and Sakano are in a meeting with the conductor of that children's orchestra he managed to get for the performance,” Hiro explained. “And Kei and Michael went to get coffee.”

 

“So that means, no pocky, no cookies, candy, ice cream, chips and no caffeine. That means no tea, iced or hot, coffee or pop.”

 

Shuichi groaned. The next six months were going to suck big time.

 

“What's wrong, Shu?” Kai asked his cousin.

 

“Huh? Oh, uh…I have an announcement to make, but I'll wait until the others come back.”

 

Hiro and Kai threw a questioning glance at one another. “It doesn't have anything to do with the performance does it?” Kai asked his cousin.

 

“Sort of,” he admitted. Now that he knew for certain he was pregnant, he was going to have to take it easy from now on, which totally sucked because he wanted to go full out for this performance. He wanted to show those suited stiffs how wrong they had been to write off Shindou Shuichi and Bad Luck.

 

“We're still doing it right?”

 

Shuichi threw them a goofy smile. “Of course we are.” He caught the concern and worry on their faces. “Don't worry! It's good news!” He beamed them a bright smile, all but bursting with energy. Since he was not sure how long the others would be, he decided to kill some time. He hopped over to the piano and pulled out the piano bench. Sitting down he lifted the lid that covered the ivory keys. Lacing his fingers, he stretched his arms out in front of him, crackling his knuckles loudly. Wiggling his fingers, he ran them over the keys a few times and then started his warm up exercises with the scales.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Hiro clamp a cigarette in his mouth. His fingers paused their ministrations as he watched the guitarist pull out his lighter from his shirt pocket and flick it to life, engulfing the tip of his cigarette in fire. Remembering his husband's warning, Shuichi shot up from the piano and raced across the sound booth towards his best friends, snatching the cigarette out of his mouth.

 

“Hey,” Hiro cried out in surprise. “Shuichi! What the hell!”

 

Kai glanced up, curious.

 

Shuichi snapped the cigarette in half and tossed it onto the floor, crushing it with his foot. “Sorry, Hiro, but there's no smoking in here.”

 

“Not like it's the first time, Shu.”

 

“I know, but if Eiri finds out you've been smoking around me, he'll kill you.”

 

“Why would he kill me for smoking around you? He's never said anything before now. Besides, he used to smoke twice as much as I do.”

 

Shuichi nodded as he made his way back to the piano. “I know, but…things...have changed.” He blushed.

 

“Changed how?”

 

“Does this have something to do with what you were talking about before?” Kai wondered out loud, as he settled himself on his stool.

 

Shuichi only nodded as he sat back down at the piano. He stared at his laced fingers in his lap, his face growing warmer. Clearing his throat, he tinkled his fingers lightly over the keys, filling the stark silence with a beautifully intricate, but sweet melody. “C'mon. Let's practice. Who knows how long the others will take?”

 

*

 

As the last notes of “The Rage Beat” faded, they were rewarded with warm applause. Startled, Shuichi snapped open eyes he did not remember closing and blushed when he saw watching them through the window Sakano, Suguru, Kei, Michael and another man he did not recognize. He assumed he was the conductor Fujisaki and Sakano had that meeting with earlier.

 

“That was perfect, Shindou-san,” their young manager said as he and the others entered the sound booth. “I never realized that you were such a good piano player.”

 

“Hey, just because my music compositions are not the best in the world-“

 

“Nakano-san, Kai-kun, Shindou-san, let me introduce you to Yakamoto Eiji -san,” Suguru said, cutting off his singer mid-yell. “He's the conductor of the all children's orchestra here in Tokyo.”

 

Yakamoto Eiji was a middle aged man with salt and pepper hair, but good strong looks and stance. He bowed politely to the members of Bad Luck. “It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you. Thank you for even considering using the children. Most people would have chosen a professional orchestra of adults. Children are not really taken seriously.”

 

“Thank you, Yakamoto-san,” Shuichi bowed back, the argument completely forgotten. “I'd rather use children than adults anyway. They're just so cute! I love children.”

 

Hiro snorted. “That's because you are one.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Anyway,” Suguru said loudly turning towards an amused Yakamoto, “thank you once again, Yakamoto-san for agreeing to do this. I apologize that you have such a short amount of time to prepare.”

 

Yakamoto-san waved the younger man's concern aside. “Don't worry. We'll be ready in time. They're very hard and diligent workers.”

 

“Not to mention little geniuses,” Michael commented. “I went to one of their performances last year,” he explained when the others looked at him. “If I hadn't known better, I wouldn't have known they were kids.”

 

“Domo arigato,” Yakamoto-san bowed. “We won't let you down. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should be getting back. We have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time.”

 

“I'll escort you out,” Sakano told the older man.

 

“Thank you again, Yakamoto-san,” Suguru bowed. “We'll see you this weekend?”

 

“Of course. Until then.” Bowing once again, the conductor of the children's orchestra was lead out of the rehearsal studio by Bad Luck's producer.

 

Michael walked over to his guitar and lifted the strap over his head, tuning it.

 

“So, we gonna practice, or what?” Kei asked as he sat down behind his drum set, his drumsticks in his hands.

 

“Actually, Shuichi has something he needs to talk to us about first,” Hiro said.

 

“Huh? What's going on?” Suguru asked as he walked over to his keyboards. “Did something happen?”

 

Shuichi blushed. He stared at his hands as his fingers tickled the ivory, avoiding the curious stares of his friends. “Sorta.”

 

Suguru sighed heavily. “This isn't going to impede our performance, is it?”

 

“Maybe. Kinda. Sorta.” If Eiri had his way, they would not even be doing the performance at all. Either that or they would not be doing such an upbeat tune like “Spicy Marmalade”.

 

“Which is it?” Suguru demanded.

 

“Shu, why don't you just tell us what's going on,” Hiro suggested.

 

Still avoiding the gaze of the others, Shuichi continued to stare at his fingers as they brushed lightly over the white keys of the piano. “You know how I told you guys the other day that after this, I was taking a break from the band?”

 

“You mean, because you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Kai clarified.

 

Shuichi nodded. “Well, that was only part of the reason why.”

 

The others glanced at one another in confusion.

 

“Shu, what're you trying to say?” Hiro asked in concern.

 

“You're not sick are you?” Suguru asked.

 

Shuichi shook his head, blushing. “You know how long I and Eiri've been talking about having a family, right?”

 

“Do we,” Suguru snorted. Before Rinjin Yasashii, that was all Shuichi every talked about.

 

“Well, we're not talking about it anymore.”

 

Hiro exchanged a glance with the others. “I don't get it. You've given up or…”

 

Shuichi shook his head. “No. We haven't given up. We're actually, uh, gonna have a baby.” He blushed deeply.

 

“You mean, you're gonna adopt a kid?”

 

“No, Hiro,” Shuichi denied, shaking his head. “Not adopt. I mean we're going to have a baby. I'm going to have a baby.”

 

Silence met this stunning confession. The studio was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Then both Michael and Suguru burst into fits of laughter.

 

Kei and Kai exchanged knowing looks.

 

Shuichi lifted his head, stunned and hurt that the others once again did not believe him. “What? It's true! I am going to have a baby!”

 

Hiro sat on his stool, his face carefully schooled. He remembered back when he visited Shuichi in the hospital and that look of longing and loss he had seen on both Shuichi and Eiri's faces when they saw his son. Then there was all that blood he saw on Shuichi's pants five months ago. To this day, nobody had explained where all that blood had come from. After the doctor told them Shuichi's prognosis, he had forgotten all about it.

 

“Shu, tell me,” Hiro said to his friend over the laughter. “When you and Rinjin fell through the railing at his apartment…”

 

“Yeah, what about it?”

 

“I noticed your pants covered in blood.”

 

A sad expression crossed Shuichi's face as he remembered all the things he had lost that day. Most he had eventually recovered, but one thing he never would.

 

“What was that from?” Hiro asked as silence filtered through the studio.

 

Shuichi said nothing. Tears stun his eyes.

 

“The fall caused you to have a miscarriage, didn't it?”

 

“What?” Suguru exclaimed.

 

Michael laughed. “Yeah, right! A miscarriage!”

 

The young manager shook his head. “Hiro that's absolutely ridicul-”

 

“Yes,” Shuichi admitted softly, nodding, “it did.”

 

Michael's laughter choked to a halt.

 

“Now, Shindou-san-“

 

“I was two months pregnant when Yasashii kidnapped me,” Shuichi said sadly.

 

“That's what prompted you to quit the band,” Hiro assumed.

 

Shuichi nodded. “I was already thinking about it before I found out I was pregnant, but once I found out I was, I realized that I couldn't put it off any longer. I could work myself into an early grave and I wouldn't care, but I could no longer afford to be selfish, not even for the sake of the band.” He dropped his head and sighed, staring at his fingers as they laced and unlaced in his lap.

 

“That's also why you don't want me to smoke.”

 

Shuichi nodded.

 

Suguru still was not convinced. “This's a bunch of bullshit!” he exploded. “Shuichi is a guy! Guys do not have babies! They make babies!”

 

“Uh, well, that's not really true,” Kai spoke up weakly.

 

“Yeah,” Kei agreed, exchanging a glance with his brother.

 

All eyes fell to the Shiro twins.

 

“What're you talking about,” Suguru snapped. “Of course it's true!”

 

“They've been rumors floating around the family for years,” Kai said. “But nobody ever talk about it.”

 

Kei nodded. “Every time any of the children or younger members of the family enter the room, the adults clam up and say nothing more. When we try to get them to talk about what it was we heard, they'd get all defensive and tell us to mind our own business.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Suguru snapped.

 

Kei and Kai glanced at one another and then looked at their older cousin.

 

“There's some sort of genetic…mutation,” Shuichi offered, for lack of a better term, “that's been passed down in my family for as far back as anyone can remember.”

 

“Genetic mutation,” Michael repeated. He was not sure if he heard the guy right.

 

Shuichi nodded.

 

“What do you mean,” Hiro asked, just as confused.

 

“This…whatever you want to call it…skips a generation. Before me, my grandfather was cursed with it.”

 

“Okay, but what is this mutation? And what does it have to do with anything?”

 

Shuichi had never found it more difficult to continue with a conversation in his life. “We're born …different,” Shuichi explained with a wince. He did not like how that sounded, but how else could he explain how he, a guy, was born with the ability to have children? He was nothing more than a freakish mutation, even if it was one he would gladly accept. “We're…born with the ability to…get pregnant.” Shuichi dropped his eyes and blushed deeply.

 

Suguru crossed his arms over his chest. “I still think this is a bunch of bull.”

 

Shuichi glared angrily at the young synth player. “You can think whatever the hell you want, Fujisaki, but it doesn't change the fact that I am pregnant and I am going to have a baby!”

 

Hiro lifted his guitar strap over his head and set the instrument in its stand. “When did you find out you were pregnant?” he asked his friend.

 

Completely forgetting about Suguru and their argument, Shuichi smiled brightly at his best friend. “Last night,” he admitted. “Actually, we've been a little suspicious for awhile now, but it was official yesterday when the doctor called.” He bounced on the bench. “We have to go back later today for a follow up.”

 

“What!” Suguru cried. “You're leaving early?”

 

Shuichi turned and glared at the man. “Yes, I am.”

 

“How far along are you?” Kai asked.

 

“Almost three months,” Shuichi said proudly. Standing up, he held the button down shirt he had stolen from Eiri's side of the closet tightly against him. “Eiri said it might be twins, see? I've already gained like ten pounds. I can't even fit into my clothes anymore.”

 

“Twins, huh?” Hiro walked over to his friend and studied him. “Ya know it's true. You have gained some weight.” He smiled mischievously at the singer. “Think Yuki-san can handle three kids?”

 

“Huh? Three? What're-Hey!” Shuichi swatted Hiro. “Not funny.”

 

Hiro chuckled.

 

Michael, Kei and Kai walked over to their friend, all smiles and hugs, congratulating the singer.

 

Suguru watched the group from behind his keyboards, a deep frown on his face. He did not believe Shuichi as far as he could throw him, but it was obvious that the others did. What was worse, Shuichi believed it as well. “Fine,” he said grumpily. “Shuichi is going to have a baby. Can we get back to work please? We have a lot to do in a short amount of time.”

 

Shuichi threw his friend a beaming smile. “So, you believe me?”

 

“No,” Suguru said firmly.

 

Shuichi opened his mouth to say something, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He snapped his mouth shut and looked questioningly at his friend.

 

“Fujisaki is right. We should get to work. We have a lot to do.”

 

“Well, then! What're we waiting for?” Shuichi ran the back of his hand over the keys, grinning broadly.

 

***