Intermission: Love Takes Time

Intermission: Love Takes Time

Intermission:

Love Takes Time

T WO GIRLS WALKED BY A CLUSTER OF APPAREL stores in Kalmia, a local mall by the station. One, a certain Nukumizu Kaju, kept stopping to gaze at the outfits on display.

The other brought her hand down on her head. At least one or two below her own. “You gonna keep staring, or we wanna go inside?”

“I’m not looking for me. Do I look like I could fit into kids’ clothes? I’m not that small.”

“Kids’ clothes?” Gon-chan, known to most as Gondou Asami, traced Kaju’s eyes toward a set of clothing very much too small for either of them. “Oh, those are cute. What’re you looking for then?”

Kaju walked up to a nearby rack where they hung and felt them. “Ideas for once they start walking.”

Gon-chan tried and failed to parse that sentence. Then something hit her. And her face blanched. “Nuku-chan, what did you and your brother do?!”

“What did we do? What do you mean? Nothing we haven’t always done. You know us. Glued at the hip.”

Gon-chan let out a relieved sigh. Business as usual. “What’s this about then?”

“Well, you see, it seems my dearest Oniisama has finally set his heart on someone.”

“Oh. Huh. Uh, good for him?”

Kaju’s idol and the target of her most ardent affection had found himself a sweetheart? Gon-chan studied her friend’s expression closely.

She put a hand to her chest and shut her eyes. “I intend to respect his decision. And now that he’s found his girl…”

“Now what?”

Kaju’s eyes shot open, brimming with conviction. “Now it’s time for me to learn how to be an aunt.”

“Is it?”

She nodded. “The thing is, they’re only high school students, so it falls on me to be the mother their child needs.”

“Does it? Does it really?”

“It really does.” Kaju removed a tiny dress from the rack and held it against her chest. “I think this is how you’re supposed to hold babies. Right? But after twelve months, it gets a little trickier.”

Gon-chan chose her next words very carefully. For the benefit of her passionate partner. “All that’s still a ways off, no? Is it really that urgent?”

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve cultivated myself to be the perfect wife. Isn’t the next logical step being the perfect mother?”

“I…guess. Maybe it is.”

“It really is.”

Gon-chan knew how to pick her battles, and this was not a challenge worth pursuing. She’d have bet money that Kaju’s brother even having a girlfriend was probably some convoluted misunderstanding. But even that was only a symptom of whatever was wrong with this girl.

For a split second, she really did imagine Kaju holding a baby in her arms. But she threw that image away real fast.