What a Life This Is - A Collection of Short Stories

Welcome to Womanhood - Part 3

The next few days of Kadence's first period cycle are.. eventful, to put it lightly.
—————————————

Believe him, when Karou had told Kojiro that Kadence would be fine, he truly did think she would be fine.

Oh, how wrong he was.

It was Friday morning, the morning after Kadence's cramp incident. Not to toot his own horn, but Karou did pretty good in making sure that Kadence had everything she needed for home and school, and she was most likely even more prepared than necessary.

The one thing Karou didn't prepare for though, were the mood swings.

It all began that morning, the whole family was downstairs in the kitchen except for Kadence, and over breakfast, Karou was giving Reki and Miya a basic overview of what was going on with their sister.

It was going sub-par, at best.

"Soooo.. Kadence is bleeding out?" Miya asked, his eyes wide in fear, and Reki was just sitting there, a clump of eggs halfway to his mouth.

"Wha- No! No, your sister is not bleeding out, it's just something that happens every month that is completely normal, and completely safe, it only lasts a few days, a week at most," Karou explained once again, and that's when Kojiro chimed in with his own insight, "Look- believe me, I know it's confusing, but at least try to understand okay? Don't make her feel self-conscious about it."

"Your dad's right," Karou agreed, "She's still Kadence, nothing about her has changed."

That's when Kadence walked in, or- more like stomped in. The four males could hear the fifth member of their family coming down the stairs, footsteps heavy and menacing as she reached the bottom and simply stood there.

"..Uh- Good morning Kookie, how'd you sleep?" Kojiro asked, the slightest hit of nervousness in his voice, and honestly, Karou couldn't blame him. He felt a shiver go through him as Kadence's narrow red eyes, now more blood-red than ruby, whisked over all of them, burning holes into their skulls as she stalked to her seat at the counter.

"I'm hungry." Was all she said, staring Kojiro down, and the green-haired man gulped and quickly put some eggs and bacon on a plate, about to hand it over only to have it snatched out of his hand.

"Are you okay?" Reki asked from his seat beside Kadence, who glared at him.

"I'm fine." She growled, her eyes never leaving her brother's as she began shoveling eggs into her mouth, somehow managing to maintain eye contact the whole time as she cleaned her plate. Then, she got up, dropped her fork on the counter, stalked back up the stairs, and the last thing the group heard was her door slam, and then silence.

And then, panic hit like a ton of bricks.

"I thought you said she was gonna be fine!" Miya wailed, turning on Karou, the look of horror clear on his face.

"She wanted to stab me with that fork, I could tell." Reki said, putting his hands on either side of his face, and even Kojiro agreed, "Yeah babe, she did not seem 'fine,' to me."

"Uh- I- This is completely normal, I mean-" Karou stammered incoherently, because if he was totally honest, he really didn't expect this. He was aware that periods often came with moodiness, but he expected an attitude, maybe a little bit of sass, he didn't expect his daughter to non-verbally threat arson.

"You have no idea what to do, do you?" Kojiro said in disbelief, his eyes wide as he stared at Karou, and Karou simply shook his head.

"I guess we just.. try not to tick her off? Let it pass? Papa did say it should only last a few a days." Reki offered, the voice of reason in the chaos, and the rest of them agreed. From now, until hopefully a few days from now, they would just try their best to keep Kadence calm.

—————————————————————————

When Kojiro picked the kids up from school that day, it seemed to be the first strike in a series of many. Miya  and Reki got to the car first, and when Kojiro tried to greet them, the two just shook their heads and gestured behind them, where Kadence was walking towards the car with a sour look on her face.

"Hey, what happened to your shorts?" Kojiro asked, just then noticing the black sweatpants that Kadence was wearing, instead of the jeans shorts she on this morning.

"What're you a cop?" Kadence snapped, and Kojiro blinked in bewilderment as his daughter moved past him and got in the passenger seat. Kojiro looked back towards the school to see Kadence's teacher, Mrs. Minters, walking over to him.

"Uh, hey- what happened?" Kojiro asked Mrs. Minters in English, and the teacher sighed as she began to explain, "Well, as you can see we had to give her the backup pants, she got her period."

"Oh yeah, Karou and I already knew, it began yesterday but we thought she'd be okay," Kojiro rubbed the back of his neck, "It must've been a rough day."

"Yeah, she really zeroed in on all the teacher's weaknesses,' Mrs. Minters replied tiredly, then she smirked and said, "She told off Mr. Percy."

"You mean the homophobic, racist, and sexist science teacher?!" Kojiro exclaimed, partly in horror and partly in excitement, and Mrs. Minters nodded. Kojiro suppressed a laugh and excused himself, "I'll be sure to talk to her."

Once he got in the car, he turned to face Kadence with the most serious face he could mister, "You told off Mr. Percy?"

Kadence simply glared at him, and Kojiro just stared back.

"I'm so proud of you."