“Quit smiling at me, I can’t stop messing up my sentences when you look at me like that.” - Eisuke Ichinomiya [Request]
This isn’t exactly ‘romance,’ but I hope you like the direction this takes!
Stamp of approval of @akaiiro-yume
Well, of course I can. She’s on the other side of the very door I have my palm pressed against while I pause to catch my breath. With each exhale, I feel the anxiety gripping me slowly loosen its hold. But at the same time, with each of her wails, I feel it gear back up to clutch me tight yet another time.
“Heh, you actually ran all the way here, didn’t you?” pipes in a voice, and I don’t need to turn my head to see who it is. The teasing lilt to the familiar baritone could only belong to the one man I trust enough to handle my wife’s current situation in my absence. “Are you planning on going in?” he asks after allowing a quiet moment to sink in.
“Mmhm. How’s she doing, Soryu?”
“The doctor came by 15 minutes ago, said everything was as it should be. They’re planning to give her an epidural soon.” He crosses his arms over his chest as his eyes lightly scan the medical posters lining the walls.
“Got it,” I whisper and, for a split second, I don’t know what else to add. My eyes shut themselves, blocking out any light from my vision when I hear another cry rip through her throat. For some reason on which I can’t get a grip yet, I feel a certain heaviness settle into the pit of my stomach. And as much as I want to, I can’t control it.
“She’s a strong woman,” Soryu mutters and his hand gives my shoulder a firm squeeze, as if sensing my restlessness. “It’ll be fine, Eisuke.”
“Mmhm,” I hum again, letting the weight of his words calm me down. “You’re right.”
Once I’ve taken another deep breath to fully ground myself, I excuse myself from his company to go have a word with the doctor first. I walk back with her to the LDR my wife’s in, all the while asking her various questions about her situation to get a firm handle on what’s going on.
One of the nurses trusted with my wife’s care makes her way to us when she spots us a few feet away. “Doctor,” she addresses, “the epidural has been administered to Mrs. Ichinomiya. She’s still in minor pain, but the anesthesia has started taking its effect.”
The doctor - Ms. Chen - nods in response. Then, she turns to look at me with a kind smile.
“Would you like to accompany me inside?”
She doesn’t have to ask twice.
There she is, on the bed in a corner of one of the finest Labor, Delivery and Recovery rooms in the world. She’s the first thing I see the second I step foot into the room, her meek pants knocking on the shell of my ear, providing me with minor relief that she might not be in as much pain anymore. Her eyes are half-lid, drowsy with the after effects of exhaustion.
“Hi, baby,” I whisper, stepping closer to her and taking her hand in mine. I don’t want to disturb any rest she’s getting, she needs it. While Dr. Chen talks to another nurse in the room, she takes the opportunity to intertwine her fingers through mine after giving my hand a slight, but firm squeeze.
“Hi.” When she opens her eyes a little to look up at me, I notice how watery they are with the coalescence of tears, effects of the epidural and fatigue.
“I’m… fine…” Her words are drawn out, slurred. Her smile is almost as watery as her eyes, and in spite of all that she seems ready to face the next round of contractions without any qualms.
“Good. Good,” I mutter the last part mostly to myself as some form of reassurance while my eyes swim over the various health monitors right beside her. “And how’s she?”
My wife lets out the most breathlessly amazing laugh at the mention of our child. “Oh, her? She’s a mighty fine warrior, alright,” and the fond look in her eyes is a stark contrast to the coldness I felt crawling up my spine not even five minutes ago. “Giving her mommy a little bit of a tough time.”
I gently touch her swollen belly with my palm. An involuntary smile finds its way into my voice when I whisper, “Don’t worry. Daddy’s here to help mommy now.”
“Okay, Mrs. Ichinomiya. Are we ready to push?” Dr. Chen asks, nodding to the nurse she had been talking to earlier.
It’s with a nod of her own that the most important woman in my life grabs my hand a little tighter, ready for the next phase of her labour…
… and three hours later, the cry of the next most important female in my life reverberates through the walls of the room.
“You were amazing, baby,” I press a kiss to my wife’s forehead, not bothered one bit by the beads of sweat forming on her skin. “I love you.”
“I… I love you too…” she whispers back, her eyes fully closing as she succumbs to her exhaustion.
I’m sitting right by her side with a hand grasping hers, the other stroking back the hair sticking to her face as I wait for the nurse to clean up and examine the baby. It’s nearly impossible to keep myself from barging into the adjacent room and take a look at the treasure my wife gave me, but I keep reminding myself how important these initial check-ups are.
“Mr. Ichinomiya,” I hear a voice call out, and I turn in it’s direction. “Congratulations, the baby is as healthy as can be,” Dr. Chen smiles, walking into the room with a nurse carrying my child. “Would you like to hold her?”
“Of… Of course,” I stutter for probably the first time in my life when I see the purple blanket my baby’s wrapped up in and realise… she’s-she’s really here. My child, scratch that, my daughter was…was actually born. She’s really just a few feet away from me.
“Go, hold her,” the love of my life drowsily mutters when my feet don’t move, and that’s all the encouragement I need.
I take a step forward, then two. I walk up to the nurse and finally, finally, touch the bundle of joy wrapped up in the softest blanket made in the world. I press my fingers under her tiny arms and take her from the nurse. And then I lay her down onto my arm with her head in the crook of my elbow.
The second I do, it’s as if the world goes quiet. I don’t hear anyone, I don’t see anyone. My thumb traces the curve of her cheek and I take a moment to just… appreciate the blessing she is. The trance-like state I’ve gone into is broken when Dr. Chen asks, “Have you thought of a name for your daughter yet?”
“Eiri,” the word flows out of my lips as naturally as an exhale. The moment it does, I hear a light cry. It comes from Eiri’s mouth. Her tiny fists open up and reach out above her, grazing the line of my jaw. Her lips open again and curve up into the most magical of smiles as another sound comes from her throat.
But this time, it’s a joyous shriek. Met with the force of her true power, a burst of euphoria fills me at the sound and before I know it, I’m laughing along too.
“Y-You like that, don-don’t you?” I ask my child, lifting her a little and bopping her tiny nose with a finger. “You’re… You’re-” it takes me a second to get myself together, “You’re my Eiri, aren’t you?”
“Eisuke… Are you crying?” I hear my wife ask just as I feel something hot trail its way down my cheek.
“Not, absolutely not,” I retort, my eyes never leaving my child. I know it’s a lie, but right now I can’t really be bothered to focus on anything but the weight of life in my arms.
“You.. you do realise you’re not making any sense.” And I do. But right now, the smiling little goddess in my arms is making sure none of my senses work the way they’re supposed to.
“It’s her fault,” I finally reply to my wife before pressing a kiss to Eiri’s cheek. I turn to the infant, talking to her as if she was capable of understanding what I was going to say next. “Quit smiling at me, I can’t stop messing up my sentences when you look at me like that.”
I hear the mother of my child laugh when my daughter seems to only smile wider in response, refusing to take any responsibility for the damage she’s causing. It’s after a few more minutes of having her bundle up in my arms that I hand her over to her mother.
And it’s too hard to resist whispering, “Thank you for giving me everything I could have hoped for and more.”