The first thing Mirai felt when she woke up was the heaviness.
Not pain, exactly. Not even nausea. Just… weight. In her chest, behind her eyes, somewhere deep in her stomach where fear and something else coexisted in a fragile truce.
Her room was dim. The curtains were half drawn, letting in a soft gray morning light. For a moment, in that hazy space between sleep and awareness, she almost believed the last few days had been a bad dream.
Then she saw the empty pudding cups on her desk.
The crumpled tissues in the trash.
The slight stiffness in her throat from crying too hard.
Reality settled back over her.
She lay on her side for a while, watching dust float through the pale light. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that came after a storm—not peaceful, exactly, but tired.
Her fingers moved automatically, resting over her stomach.
The gesture startled her.
She pulled her hand back, then slowly returned it, more deliberate this time. There was nothing visible to feel yet. Just skin, soft and unchanged. If she hadn't seen the test, if she hadn't counted the weeks, she could have pretended her body was still just her own.
It didn't feel that way anymore.
"…good morning," she whispered, so softly that even she barely heard it.
The words sounded foolish in the air. But part of her needed to say them—to acknowledge that whatever was growing inside her had not asked to be here any more than she had asked for her life to be turned upside down.
Her eyes stung again, but no tears came. She had cried so much the night before that her body seemed to have reached its limit.
Yuuto's words echoed faintly in her mind.
I'm your big brother. I'm always here for you. No matter what.
The memory of his steady arms, his unshaken voice, his refusal to join the chorus of blame—something in her loosened just enough for her to breathe without it hurting quite as much.
She sat up slowly.
Her uniform hung on the back of her chair, neat and expectant, like it did every morning. As if school was still a simple place of tests and lectures and lunchtime chatter.
She stared at it.
"Can I really… just go back like nothing's different?" she murmured.
Her textbooks remained stacked on her desk. The planner she'd filled with dates and exam schedules lay open, this week still marked with highlighters and neat handwriting. Nothing in those squares made space for this.
Her stomach flipped—not from the pregnancy, but from the thought of walking into that building, carrying a secret that wouldn't stay secret forever.
A soft knock interrupted her spiral.
She tensed.
"Mirai?" came a voice. Not Yuuto's.
Her mother.
Mirai's hand flew to her face, wiping at any lingering moisture, even though there wasn't much left to remove. She straightened her shirt, as if that could hide what was wrong.
"Y-yes?" she answered, voice small.
"Can I… come in?" her mother asked.
The question itself was strange. Her mother usually just knocked and entered, more out of habit than formality. Asking permission now made Mirai's chest tighten.
"Okay," she said.
The door slid open.
Her mother stood there holding a tray with both hands—miso soup, rice, a small grilled fish, and a salad arranged in the careful way she reserved for days when someone was sick or there was an exam.
She looked… older somehow. Or maybe it was just the way the light caught the lines around her eyes, deepened by a night of crying and arguing.
For a second, neither of them said anything.
Then her mother stepped inside, placing the tray on the small table near the bed.
"I made breakfast," she said quietly. "You didn't eat much yesterday."
The simple statement wobbled in the air between them, trying to be normal and failing.
Mirai's fingers tightened on the blanket.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Her mother straightened, hands hovering awkwardly at her sides. She opened her mouth, closed it again, glanced at Mirai, looked away, then finally forced herself to meet her eyes.
"How… are you feeling?" she asked.
It was such an ordinary question. The kind she'd asked a hundred times when Mirai caught a cold.
Now it carried everything they didn't know how to say.
Mirai almost laughed, but the sound wouldn't come.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "Tired. Scared."
Her mother's hand twitched slightly, as if it wanted to reach for her but didn't know if it was allowed.
"We…" she began, then paused to steady her voice. "Your father and I… we said a lot of harsh things last night."
Mirai looked down.
"They weren't wrong," she murmured. "I did… this."
Her mother flinched.
"That doesn't mean we had the right to throw everything at you at once," she said. "We were… afraid. And angry. And we took all of that and placed it on you. As if you aren't already carrying enough."
Mirai blinked.
Her mother took a careful breath, as if each word had to be lifted and placed gently.
"When you stood there and told us…" she said, voice thin, "all I could think about was… neighbors, relatives, work, your future. I saw everything we'd planned for you… change. And I panicked. I forgot that the person in front of me was not… a problem, but my daughter."
The last word trembled.
Mirai's throat tightened.
"I'm not…" She swallowed. "I'm not asking you to pretend everything is fine."
Her mother smiled faintly, a sad, crooked thing.
"It's not fine," she said honestly. "I don't know when it will feel even close to okay. I'm still afraid. I'm still angry at that boy. At his parents. At myself. And yes, some part of me is still angry at you too. I'd be lying if I said otherwise."
Mirai looked down at her hands.
"Okay," she whispered. The word tasted like something sharp, but she accepted it.
"But," her mother continued, her voice firming slightly, "I am not… disappointed that you came to us."
Mirai's head jerked up.
Her mother's eyes were wet now.
"If you had kept silent," she said, "if you had gone through this alone, if something had happened to you because you didn't trust us enough to tell us… that would have been worse. Much worse."
A tear escaped and slid down her cheek.
"It took courage to stand there," she said. "Even if my first reaction… didn't deserve that courage."
Mirai stared, words lodged somewhere behind her ribs.
Her mother wiped her cheek quickly with the back of her hand, as if embarrassed by the tears.
"I'm not… ready to talk about everything yet," she admitted. "I need time to think. To adjust. To accept that this is not a problem that can be solved by shouting."
She let out a shaky breath.
"But I wanted to at least say this: you are still my daughter, Mirai. Whatever happens, whatever choices we have to make… that doesn't change."
The sentence shattered something inside Mirai that she hadn't realized was frozen.
Her eyes blurred.
"Mom…" she whispered.
"I can't promise I won't say stupid things again when I'm scared," her mother added sadly. "I probably will. But… I will try to remember your face when you told us. How terrified you looked. How much it must have cost you."
She stepped back slightly, giving Mirai space she hadn't given her the night before.
"Eat when you can," she said. "Even if it's just a little. You… need to take care of your body now. More than ever."
Her gaze flickered, briefly, to Mirai's stomach, then back up, as if acknowledging without fully naming what had changed.
"I'll… let you rest," she finished softly.
She turned to go, then paused at the door.
"And Mirai," she added, without looking back, "your brother… he was very angry last night."
Mirai's heart lurched.
"At us," her mother clarified.
Mirai's breath caught.
"He yelled," her mother said, a ghost of astonishment in her tone. "Not loudly. But… firmly. For you. It hurt to hear it. But it also… reminded me what kind of son we raised. One who doesn't forget his family when we start to."
This time, when she left, the door closed with a gentler click.
Mirai sat there, staring at the tray.
The smell of miso soup drifted up, warm and familiar. Her stomach clenched—not with nausea, but with something closer to hunger for the first time in days.
She picked up the bowl, fingers trembling slightly, and took a sip.
It tasted like home.
Still flawed. Still heavy with things unsaid. But home.
Her chest tightened, and one small tear slid quietly down her face, landing in the soup, disappearing without a trace.
Yuuto sat on the edge of his bed, tying his shoelaces slower than usual.
The morning light coming through his window felt almost insulting in its normalcy.
His phone lay beside him, screen dark. Every time he thought about checking it, his brain offered an image of his manager asking if he could cover extra shifts, of friends sending memes and trivial complaints.
For the first time in his life, all of that felt like noise from another planet.
He finished tying his shoes and picked up the phone anyway, staring at it for a second before unlocking it.
No new messages.
He opened a blank note instead.
"Things to figure out," he typed.
He watched the words sit there for a second, then began a list.
Clinic / hospital for checkup
How long she's been pregnant (exact weeks)
School — talking to counselor? principal?
Part-time shifts → more money?
What we can do now, not later
He stopped, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
He wasn't a parent. He wasn't a doctor. He wasn't some wise adult with endless money and answers. He was a twenty-year-old guy who still forgot to separate whites and colors in the laundry sometimes.
But he was her brother.
That had to count for something.
He deleted the word "we" from the last line and rewrote it.
What I can do now, not later
There. More honest.
There was a soft tap on his door.
"Come in," he called.
His father stepped in, dressed for work—but not fully. His tie was still loose, his shirt sleeves rolled up.
For a moment they just looked at each other, two men in the same house suddenly aware of the distance and resemblance between them.
"I'm heading to the office," his father said. "Just for a few hours. I need to… explain that there may be some family matters coming up. Without details."
Yuuto nodded.
"Okay," he said.
His father lingered, fingers gripping the doorframe.
"I…" he began, then stopped, searching for words that didn't come easily. "Your mother told you I… may have spoken too much about 'what people will say' last night."
Yuuto's expression was unreadable.
"She didn't have to," he said. "I was there."
A faint, humorless huff escaped his father.
"Right," he said. "You were."
He stepped inside a little further.
"When you spoke to us," he said slowly, "you were right. I don't like admitting it. I felt… exposed. Like someone had held up a mirror I didn't ask for."
His gaze dropped to Yuuto's notebook lying open on the desk, filled with messy scribbles about shifts and budgeting.
"I forgot," he continued, "that fear doesn't excuse cowardice."
The word hung in the air.
Yuuto thought of Mirai's boyfriend. His parents. The way they had washed their hands of everything with a single sentence.
"You're not them," he said. "You're here."
His father gave a small, tired smile.
"Not yet, at least," he said. "Last night, I was closer to them than I'd like to admit."
Yuuto didn't argue.
His father glanced toward Mirai's room across the hall.
"I don't know how to look at her and not see… all the things I wanted to protect her from," he said quietly. "But I'm going to try to see her first. Then the problem."
He let that sit there, like a promise that wasn't polished enough to be comforting, but real enough to matter.
"I have meetings," he added. "But I'll be back early. If you need to adjust your shifts… we'll talk. We'll figure it out. You don't have to carry everything yourself."
He gestured vaguely around the room.
"I can see you're already making plans," he said. "That's good. But don't forget you're still our son. Let us be parents, even if we're slow learners."
Yuuto looked at him, really looked, and for the first time since last night, he saw not just a father worried about reputation, but a man who was genuinely lost and trying, clumsily, to find his way back to the right path.
"I'll try," Yuuto said.
His father nodded.
"And Yuuto," he added, pausing at the door, "thank you. For… reminding us. Even if it hurt."
Yuuto shrugged, eyes sliding off to the side.
"Well," he said, half-awkward, "someone had to be the annoying responsible one."
His father let out a genuine, short laugh at that—the first real laugh since everything began.
"Yes," he said. "Seems that's you now."
When he left, closing the door behind him, the house felt a little less like a battlefield and a little more like someplace under reconstruction—broken, messy, but not abandoned.
Yuuto checked the time.
He had a shift in a few hours.
Before that, there was something else he needed to do.
He walked quietly down the hall and stood outside Mirai's room, listening.
No sound.
He knocked lightly.
"Mirai?" he called. "You awake?"
There was a small pause.
"…Yes," came her voice. Definitely groggy, but clearer than last night.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
"Okay," she replied.
He slid the door open and peeked in.
She was sitting up, hair a little messy, blanket pulled around her like a cocoon. The tray his mother had brought sat near her, half-empty. That sight alone eased something in his chest.
"You ate," he said.
She nodded, holding the bowl carefully between both hands.
"Mom… brought it," she said. "She… talked to me."
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"That was fast," he murmured. "What did she say?"
Mirai looked down at the bowl.
"Not everything," she replied. "But… enough."
He didn't push. If she wanted to share details, she would.
Instead, he walked over and sat on the floor like he had the night before, back to the wall.
"I'm thinking of taking you to a clinic soon," he said. "A proper one. To check how far along you are. If everything's okay. Stuff like that."
Her fingers tightened around the bowl.
"A clinic?" she repeated, fear flickering in her eyes.
He nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "Not alone. With me."
"What if they…" She swallowed. "What if they judge me? Like everyone else?"
He tilted his head.
"Then I'll judge them back," he said simply. "And we'll leave. And find someone else. We're not going there to be punished. We're going to get information. You deserve to know what's happening in your own body. That's all."
She stared at him, searching his face for any hesitation, any crack.
"You're really okay with this?" she asked softly. "With… going with me?"
He thought of the list on his phone. Of the extra shifts he'd probably take. Of the long, complicated conversations ahead. Of neighbors' looks. Of the boy who had run, and the line he refused to stand on.
"No," he said. "I'm not okay with the situation at all."
Her breath hitched, just a little.
"But," he added, eyes gentle, "I'm sure about you."
The sentence settled in the air like a soft, solid weight.
She blinked rapidly.
"Yuuto," she whispered. "You're going to get… dragged into this. People will talk about you too. They'll say things. They'll think things. It'll affect your work, your… life."
"I know," he said.
"And you're… still willing?" she asked.
He tilted his head, considering.
"Do you remember," he said, "when I was in middle school and I broke that neighbor's window with a baseball?"
She blinked at the non sequitur.
"Um… yes," she said slowly. "You panicked and came home crying."
He grimaced.
"Wow, thanks for the extra detail," he muttered. "But yeah. I came home and I told Dad I'd messed up. I was sure he was going to kill me."
"He was really angry," Mirai remembered.
"Yeah," Yuuto agreed. "He was. But he still went with me to apologize. He stood next to me, even though I was the one who threw the ball. He paid for the glass with me, not for me. He didn't say, 'this is your mess, clean it alone'."
He shrugged.
"I learned something that day," he said. "If you love someone, you stand next to them when they're wrong. It doesn't mean you pretend they're right. It means you don't leave them to face the consequences alone."
He looked at her, eyes steady.
"Now it's my turn," he said simply.
Her lips trembled.
"I don't deserve that," she murmured.
"Probably not," he said lightly. "But that's the thing about family. It's not a reward system."
She let out a small, shaky laugh that turned into something almost like a choke.
"You're annoying," she whispered.
"Good," he said. "That means I'm doing my job."
They sat there for a while in a gentle quiet.
Outside, somewhere in the neighborhood, a school bell rang faintly. Another normal day beginning for people whose biggest problem was a forgotten homework or a late alarm.
Mirai listened to the fading echo.
"I don't know what's going to happen," she said softly. "With school. With… everything. I'm still scared."
"So am I," Yuuto admitted. "But being scared together is better than being scared alone, right?"
She nodded, fingers loosening slightly around the bowl.
"Finish eating," he said. "Then rest a bit more. We'll figure out the clinic thing soon. One step at a time."
She fiddled with the edge of the tray.
"Yuuto?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you," she whispered. "For… staying. For not… throwing me away with the mistake."
His eyes softened.
"Mirai," he said, "you're not the mistake."
She looked at him, breath caught.
"You're the person who made one," he finished. "There's a difference. Don't let anyone—including yourself—forget that."
Her vision blurred again, but the tears this time felt different. Less like something breaking. More like something slowly, carefully beginning to thaw.
Outside, the world went on. Trains arrived and departed. Vendors opened shops. Students hurried to school.
Inside one small house, nothing was solved.
Shame and fear still sat in the corners of rooms. Words spoken in anger still hovered like ghosts. The future was no less uncertain than it had been the night before.
But threads that had been cut were being knotted together again, clumsily, with shaking hands.
A mother bringing breakfast to a daughter she had shouted at.
A father going to work with a heavy heart and a promise to try again.
A brother, young and untrained, stepping into a role that had no manual.
And a girl, seventeen and tired, holding a bowl of miso soup in one hand and her own fragile courage in the other, beginning—just barely—to believe that maybe, just maybe,
she wasn't completely alone in this upside-down future anymore.