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𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑻𝑳𝑬 𝑯𝑨𝑾𝑲𝑺
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It's been a whole month since you accepted the fact that you have a husband and children, that your memories of them were altered somehow for some reason you still couldn't remember. It's been a few days since you received the notes on motherhood from the twins' sitter, Ms. Rin, and you've been reading them every day.
You told her once that she should have it published, since the notes were written so well. You would be lying if you say they didn't help you with dealing with the twins. Reading her notes felt like talking to a friend who is giving advice on how to raise kids.
You were learning, and you were happy about it, as days passed you also got to learn things about the twins, how little those things were. It's been a whole week but that one peaceful afternoon was momentarily shattered when you received a call from work.
"Hello?"
"Oh my God Y/n!" the voice of your co-worker came from the other end of the line. "Where were you?! God it's been a month, did you just suddenly decide to use up all your leave and go on vacation for a whole month?"
"No," you said simply, looking down at your laptop. "I resigned."
"You what?!"
You didn't even know why she was acting so surprised when you two aren't even that close, or at least she thought you were, but you really don't.
"But why would you resign all of a sudden?"
"Some things happened," you said. "I also moved out of my old apartment." Although you didn't know why you bothered to tell her that, not that she needs to know. But maybe because she's the only one who actually bothered to give you a call after you didn't show up to work for a month and that she sounded worried, you thought she should at least know that you moved out.
"You moved out?"
"Look, I'm fine and all so you don't need to–" you were cut off when the door opened and Hawks poke his head in the ajar door.
"Dinner's ready," he said before quickly adding, "Oh, are you busy?"
You slightly put your phone down on your shoulder and shook your head. "Not really, I'll come down in a sec."
Hawks nodded and closed the door silently before you turned back and put your phone next to your ear.
"Y/n, did I just hear someone?" your former co-worker asked and you could almost hear her squinting suspiciously. "Were you talking to a guy?"
"Yes," you said, letting out a sigh.
"You resigned from work, moved out of your apartment and there was a guy talking to you earlier." You fought the urge to roll your eyes, knowing how she's putting those pieces together and arriving at a conclusion. "Don't tell me you got yourself a boyfriend?"
You had almost said no, because you got yourself a husband and two kids. But before you can say anything, you heard her speaking again.
"The guy who spoke," she said. "Is it just me or did he sound exactly like Haw–"
"I'm hanging up now, bye," you said, ending the call before you leaned back on your chair. "How did she even hear him?"
You closed your laptop and finally headed downstairs where you found Hawks trying to put the twins in their chairs for dinner.
"No! Mama is not here yet," Keishi said defiantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and his brother Keita did the same.
"Right, we're not eating without mama," Keita said, furrowing his eyebrows for emphasis.
"I'm here now," you said and the twins quickly looked at you before they ran towards you.
"Mama, let's have dinner!" Keishi said while Keita nodded his head.
"Dinner with mama!" Keita said this time.
While Hawks put Keishi to his chair, Keita outstretched his arms up and you picked him, putting him on his chair beside his brother's.
"Alright," Hawks started, taking everyone's attention. "Can anyone tell me what's on the menu for tonight's dinner?"
Keita raised his arm but when he saw Keishi was raising his arm as well, seemingly more eagerly, Keita slowly lowered his arm to give way for his brother.
"Shi-chan can answer it," Keita said.
"I know!" Keishi said. "Tonight's dinner is papa's specialty!"
You couldn't help but raise your eyebrow as Hawks leaned forward and take out the lid covering the plate full of–
"Fried chicken?" you asked. "That's your specialty?"
"We love fried chicken!" Keita said.
"Mama, try it! Papa's fried chicken is really good!" Keishi said before you looked at Hawks.
"It's not just your same old fried chicken," he said. "We have barbecue fried chicken, honey butter fried chicken, garlic parmesan fried chicken and sweet and spicy karaage."
"Yum!" the twins said at the same time.
You took your chopsticks and took the honey butter flavor one. "With these, you could open a fried chicken restaurant with you as a mascot."
Hawks suddenly laugh and you look at him, waiting for him to calm down before he talks. "You said the same thing before."
"I did?" you said, feeling the side of your lips turning up in a slight smile.
"And when you were pregnant, you always craved honey butter fried chicken."
"Really?" you looked down, seeing that it was the first among the four flavors of chicken you took.
Hawks turned to the twins, who started to take the sweet and spicy karaage. "Mama ate a lot of honey butter fried chicken when you two were in her belly."
"Honey butter is good, but sweet and spicy karaage is better!" Keishi said to which Keita agreed.
Surprisingly, you thought Keishi being the obviously more aggressive and energetic one of the two, would prefer the spicy karaage and Keita being the timid and cool-headed one would prefer the sweet karaage. But it was the other way around as Keita ate the spicy one without breaking much sweat and Keishi enjoyed the sweet one.
Dinner went well like always, and right after that, you and Hawks were lounging in the living room with each a mug of hot chocolate while the twins were busy playing with each other.
"Hey," you started, taking Hawks' attention as he looked at you while you were looking at the kids. "You showed me their pictures before, right?" you turned to look at Hawks who waited for you to continue. "Can you show me the ones when they were babies?"
Suddenly, as if realization struck him, Hawks remembered the photo album that has all the pictures of the twins from when they were born up to when they were one year old. And there were some of those pictures that had you in it.
Hawks quickly excused himself to get the album and while he was gone, Keita walked up to you, clutching his story book again.
"Mama," he said. "Can you read me a short story before bedtime?"
"But Haw–" you stopped, remembering the notes on motherhood that Ms. Rin sent you. It was stated there that when talking to your kids about their dad, it would be better not to call him by his name but by the way the kids address him, in which case it's papa.
"But papa will be showing me–" again, you remembered that when talking to your kids, talking in third person is sometimes more preferable, so you have to remind yourself not to refer to you as 'me' but as 'mama', which was still a new concept to you, but you'll get used to it, you remind yourself.
"Papa will be showing mama the photo album of when you and Keishi were babies. Mama will read you and your brother a bedtime story later."
Hawks came back a few moments later and Keishi joined you on the couch. While Keita was beside you, Keishi was beside Hawks. The twins are sitting in the middle of you and Hawks and when everyone got their comfortable spot, Hawks opened the album.
"Papa, it's Shi-chan!" Keishi said, pointing at himself.
"And it's Ta-chan!" Keita followed right after, recognizing his baby self as well.
As Hawks flipped each page, he told you the context of each photo. Until he got to the one with you on it, for the very first time.
"Mama!" the twins said in unison.
It was a photo of you in a hospital bed and in your arms were two newborn babies. Suddenly you felt your stomach twinge for not more than a second but your hand unconsciously went up to it.
"It was the day you gave birth to our twins," Hawks said, looking at you to see that you were still looking at the photo.
It felt odd, but not in a bad way. It just felt surreal, not remembering conceiving and carrying the twins, giving birth to them, yet as improbable as it is to you since your memories were altered, you no longer negate the fact that you are indeed their mother. So perhaps that helped alleviate the strange feeling you felt when Hawks first showed you pictures of them.
It took a while to look at the photos and before long the twins fell asleep on the couch. Hawks picked up Keishi while you picked up Keita, carrying them to their bedroom. It's also become a routine for you to kiss them goodnight before leaving their room.
You asked Hawks if you can take the photo album in your room before he left downstairs as you entered your room. Suddenly you felt the slight twinge down your stomach again and you walked up to the cheval mirror and lifted your shirt up a bit to look at your stomach.
There on your lower abdomen is a horizontal scar. You touched it lightly before the door opened and Hawks walked in with the photo album but stopped when he saw you.
The strange thing was, you didn't pull your shirt down in surprise, you didn't even feel surprised when he walked in, as if Hawks walking in while you had your shirt lifted up a bit showing your stomach was a normal thing to do.
"When I altered my memories," you started, noticing Hawks was still looking at you. "I remembered this as a scar from a certain operation I had years ago."
You looked up, staring at Hawks in the mirror. "Turns out, it was a scar from a c-section, wasn't it?"
You lowered your shirt and finally turned around to face Hawks who is now standing close to you. And then he nodded before you felt his hands on yours.
"Remember when Dr. Kusakabe said that you have asthma? You really wanted to have a natural delivery, but we were having twins and there were some complications so we decided to opt for a c-section."
You closed your eyes, letting what Hawks said sink in until you felt his hand cup your face and you opened your eyes to look at him. "You risked your life to deliver them into this world safely and that scar was proof of it."
But the memory you had of this scar was from an operation, not from giving birth. And it hurts knowing that you still couldn't remember. That no matter how much you tried to rack your brain to recollect just a small portion of it, hoping that everything Hawks told you and would tell you would make sense, you still couldn't remember a single thing.
"Please tell me why I have to alter my memories of you and forget my own children."
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