Congrats

As Miyako was freaking out about her career, and Itsuki feared the worst for his anime, Chihiro also had a crisis to deal with. It was now mid-June, over a month since she began the search for Setsuna Ena, but she still hadn’t turned up anything, which meant she still couldn’t visit Itsuki’s apartment.

“You’ve been eating dinner here all the time lately,” her mother said at the table, looking concerned. “Is there something up between you and Itsuki?”

She couldn’t be blamed. Up to now, Chihiro ate at her brother’s place once every three days.

“N-no, everything’s fine. It’s nothing like that.”

“No?”

Chihiro’s smiling response seemed to make her mother even more anxious.

Mom’s name was Natsume Hashima, and back when she was eighteen, she had defied her parents to marry Dad—Chihiro’s actual father, that is. Sadly, said father died in an auto accident not long after the marriage. But Natsume never went back to her own family, not even when she gave birth to Chihiro a little while later; she ultimately raised her as a single mother. Five years ago, she married Itsuki’s father, Keisuke, after getting to know him at the store she worked at, and she was now a full-time homemaker.

Natsume had tried to be friendly with Itsuki, but given that he refused to interact with his family between their marriage and his leaving the house, there was naturally something of a gulf between them. As a stepmother, it saddened her. She hoped that Itsuki could make up with his biological father first, then start treating her as more of a mother figure. That would make them a complete family, more or less, and she knew Chihiro wanted only that.

She mulled over this as they ate dinner…

“…!” Then, suddenly, Natsume clutched her midsection and yelped a bit.

“Mom?!”

She smiled warmly at the concerned Chihiro. “I-I’m okay. Just a little stomachache,” she said as she took a few deep breaths, still looking pained. “I’ve felt a little fatigued lately, so I had a hunch about this, but the way this feels…”

“Mom?”

“…Chihiro, we need to go to the hospital.”

“The hospital?! Wh-where in the hospital?!”

Natsume smiled at the panicking Chihiro. “Maternity.”

Just as she suspected, Natsume Hashima was pregnant.

As soon as Chihiro called him, Keisuke went right over to the hospital. When he received the news, he looked completely befuddled for a moment—then, slowly, a soft smile came across his face.

“She is…?”

That was all he said. But it was still the first time Chihiro had ever seen her dour-faced stepfather look this affectionate over anything.

“Wow. Is that all you can say?”

The words were chiding, but Natsume’s expression was just as filled with happiness as Keisuke’s. They embraced each other, with Chihiro looking on a short distance away in the exam room.

…A new life between Mom and Dad.

…I’m going to have a little brother…or a little sister.

…And Itsuki’s going to have a real one of his own, too.

She should have been delighted about that, but the news clouded her heart. Aoba Kasamatsu and Nadeshiko Kiso had already done enough to make her foothold in his life unsteady, but this had the potential to send it all tumbling down for good. And losing that place made her anxious enough to want to cry.

What…should I do now?

Her unease was approaching the breaking point.