Don't worry

Having your first child is always a challenge. But now imagine that you're young, just barely 25, you're living in a foreign country half a globe away from your family and both you and your fiancée are professional athletes. On top of that; you are unable to bear children yourself due medication you've had to take in the past and you are of the same sex as your partner. In order to have a child that resembles you both, your brother has acted as your donor, with your girlfriend being the one to carry the baby, while you can do... nothing but wait until you become a parent. Or aunt, if you were to look at the bloodline.

That's what Atsushi is dealing with now.

She loves her fiancée and she is forever grateful to her brother for giving them this huge possibility. She's also sure that she'll love and cherish her unborn child, a daughter, immensely. Yet there are these doubts that she can't seem to shake off. Whenever she looks at Shinoko, who's starting to show more and more, Atsushi can't help but feel jealousy.

She cursed herself for being so narrow minded in the past, putting her appearance over her future possibility of having biological children. Those few extra inches she would have gained if she hadn't taken those cursed hormone injections suddenly didn't matter anymore; she was already beyond tall anyway and people don't see the difference anymore, because once you reach over a certain height, you are just a giant no matter what the inches or centimeters say. She was jealous of Shinoko's ability to carry a child; something that she would never be able to experience.

Their initial plan had been to have Atsushi carry their first child, and a couple years later have Shinoko carry the second one, but this idea was crushed to bits when they ran tests and found out that Atsushi was unable to conceive. She had been crushed; she hadn't left their bed for three entire days, just crying to herself; not even bothering to show up to practice. Shinoko had been sad about it too, she always got sad when Atsushi felt bad and she had tried to comfort her girlfriend as well as she possibly could, despite her still awkward behavior. She hadn't really changed much, despite being an adult now, their house was still filler with those endless lucky items, everything was always spotlessly clean and Shinoko was still very strict and uptight when it came to showing emotion. But that didn't matter to Atsushi; after all she had fallen in love with her way back. She appreciated her fiancée's careful attempts to cheer her up, even if they didn't really seem to work at first.

After about half a month, Atsushi started to feel better again. The sadness was still present, but it wasn't playing the main role in her life anymore. And then one night on a date, Shinoko had proposed. Atsushi had been surprised beyond belief; who would have ever thought that Midorima Shinoko, one of the biggest tsunderes ever, would have the courage to propose to her girlfriend; in a public place no less. Hell, no one had even really believed that they would last, everyone just assumed they would break-up within months, they assumed Shinoko didn't really love Atsushi because she never showed any form of affection. They were wrong though. Shinoko did show affection when it was just the two of them, she did love her and so they lasted, despite all their quarrels and fights. They made it to the point where Shinoko, of whom everyone thought she didn't truly love Atsushi, proposed. She had said yes, of course.

She was finally genuinely happy again for the first time in months. Before making any arrangements for a wedding; they made arrangements to finally have the child they both wanted so dearly. Atsushi's youngest brother had offered to be their donor, that way their baby would resemble both of them, because his younger sister was like his carbon copy; in hair-color, height (although Atsushi was actually quite a bit taller), personality and basketball talent. They weren't twins, he was nearly 5 years older than she was, but they were something like intergalactic twins, Atsushi supposed. She felt blessed to have a brother like that, being the youngest of five and the only girl was a real challenge and it was nice to have at least one brother that was always on her side, no matter what.