LOVE, LOVE UMBRELLA [TOKYO REVENGERS]

/ 02 /

/ Chapter Two /

 
 
"Oh, shit! Hakuhi, Mom's water broke!"

Hakuhi opened her eyes when she heard a high-pitched voice yelling. Before she could gather her wits, a door was slammed open and her brother, Toma, entered the room, looking haggard, his hair messier than usual, and... young.

"Hakuhi, hurry and get up! Mom's about to burst!"

Instead of hurrying to get up, Hakuhi merely stared at her brother who had gone missing, hiding at who knows where. Young. Her brother looks like a teenager, far from the one with a stubble and tired eyes.

Is she dreaming?

"What're you staring there for?!" Toma grabs her arm and pulled her off of her bed. She lets out a scream in surprise, slapping her brother in the face. "Ow! What was that for?!"

It hurts. Toma had grabbed her arm and squeezed a little too tight for her liking that it left a handprint around the arm that he grabbed. If she were to believe the thing about dreams and pinching one self, she should have woken up already. And instead, she's still here, standing infront of her brother.

"Hakuhi?" Toma looks at her with concern in his eyes.

His mother is crying and wailing downstairs, yelling for their father and Hakuhi and Asuka to hurry up and get in the car or else she's going to give birth to their baby brother on the living room. Their baby brother, Soma (Asuka had insisted that their baby brother be named as such), wasn't due for three weeks. Though Asuka had come a month early, three weeks should not be of great concern, but pregnancy is to be taken as a serious matter for the Uenoyama family. Their parents had prepared for the coming of Soma but it's a whole different story now that their baby brother is coming.

And now, Hakuhi, the source of their mother's strength through all of her pregnancy since Asuka, is spacing out. She's staring at him like she can't believe he's standing infront of her. It almost seemed like she was staring right through him.

"You okay? Is something wrong? Is it your time of the month again?"

Hakuhi badly wants to slap her brother's face again, not because of what he said but because she wants to make sure that he's real. Not just a dream, not just a fragment of her imagination she never knew she had. Instead, she shakes her head.

"Neechan, let's go! Leave that idiot brother alone!"

At that moment, Asuka, an elementary student instead of a college student, entered her room as well. Hakuhi tears up. She didn't think that she'd see Asuka as a little girl again. The Asuka in her memories was a grown woman, already drinking, working, and studying so hard for her dreams. The Asuka in front of her is a girl who's just probably enjoying her elementary days, is still  a member of the soccer team, and it won't be for a few months before she'll starting wanting to become a doctor.

"Of course I'm gonna stay here. What makes you think I'll be of any use in the hospital?" Toma huffs.

Their arguing was interrupted by the sound of their mother yelling for Hakuhi, followed by their father who yelled at them to hurry up if they plan to come. They were yelling so much that it's a surprise none of the neighbors still haven't complained on them. They probably had seen their mother waddling around the house, weeks away from giving birth so the yelling would be a sure sign that the lioness of the house is in labor so they decided to mind their business.

Toma opens Hakuhi's closet without a word and throws one jacket towards his sister. "Wear this. I'll stop by tomorrow and bring you two some fresh clothes."

"Let's go, neechan."

Asuka takes Hakuhi's hands before the older sister could even wear the jacket Toma gave her. As Asuka pulls her sister out of the room, Hakuhi catches a short glimpse of her room. It looks exactly like the room she used to have when they were still living in Shinjuku—from the color of her pencil holder, to the hyacinth flower inside a small vase which she remembered that someone gave to her, and the color of her curtain that her aunt gave to her on her birthday last year. Even that lion keychain she had in her bag.