Itazura Na Kiss: Love in Tokyo 3 - Hello, Baby!

10| chapter 10

KOTOKO'S POV

The entire walk home from the train station, Irie-kun was silent. Exciting thoughts filled my head, desperate to be heard. But every time I looked up at him and smiled, he just kept staring straight ahead without a single reaction. His weird silence discouraged me. I was used to Irie-kun being so quiet when he was thinking about something, but not for this long. Was he not happy about the baby? No... that couldn't be it, he had been so excited earlier. He even told me that he loved me.

I smiled at the memory in pure bliss, but then suddenly realized how tired I was. My feet were so sore. He must have been tired too... that's probably why he was so quiet. Too tired to talk. Yes... that must have been it.

Eventually as we kept walking I gave up on trying to grab his attention and instead decided to pull each of my new pairs of socks out of the cute little bag in my hand, squealing internally at how adorable they all were. I couldn't wait to get home and try them all on!

'I'll put on a sock fashion show for Okaa-san. Eeee~! I can't wait!'

(...)

Finally, we stepped through the gate to our driveway. The sight of home had never been so beautiful... I felt like I was going to topple over.

Right as we had made our way to the front steps, I was slammed to a stop by Irie-kun's hand.

"Heh?" I breathed as all of the air in my lungs was nearly pushed out of me. Why were we stopping? I turned to ask him, but before I could say anything he grabbed my hand tightly in his warm grasp. My heart skipped a beat. He looked down at my hand in his, then flicked his gaze upwards to meet mine.

"Stairs." He said simply. Without another word, he stepped up to the front door, and I had no choice but to be pulled along. Hadn't the midwife only meant to be careful when going... down the stairs? Irie-kun didn't normally look out for me like this. I felt a girly happiness as my heart fluttered, but I was worried that he was overthinking it and stressing himself out. We were only going up a couple of steps!

As Irie-kun reached out with his other hand to open the door, I was sure I was going to explode with relief.

'Finally...'

"We're home..." Irie-kun started, his voice trailing off as he pulled the door open. My eyes widened at the group of familiar, smiling faces that greeted us.

Okaa-san... Yuuki... Dad, and Otou-san?!

"OMEDETOU!" Everyone yelled in unison. Suddenly, I flinched at the sound of four deafening pops, and Irie-kun and I were covered in a colorful eruption of confetti and streamers. I stood there in shock, and a piece of confetti fell into my mouth with my jaw unhinged. Irie-kun sighed and started to pull the pieces off of himself.

"Kotoko-chan! Is it true?!" Okaa-san squealed in excitement as she rushed to me. She grabbed me firmly on the sides of both of my arms and stared at me with her eyes wider than I'd ever seen before. I felt kind of scared. "Are we finally getting our grandchild?!" She shook me a little bit. Her excitement finally got through to me, and I pulled myself out of the surprised corner of my mind. I sighed happily and smiled at her, then I looked past her and caught a glimpse of everyone else for the first time, now that the confetti had cleared. Otou-san's mouth was wide open with his hands pulled up to his face in anticipation. Dad's eyes were as huge as tennis balls, and I noticed that it looked like he was tearing up. Yuuki's mouth was pressed into a tight line. I met Okaa-san's wide gaze again and let my head hang to the side. I didn't want to tell her that she was grabbing me too tightly, so I pulled her hands away from my arms and held them with both of my own instead. I smiled again, and took a deep breath.