“Huh…!”
What is this?
What on earth is happening?
My brain can’t keep up with reality. Calm down. Stay cool. Try to sort out the situation from the beginning. Where did this abnormal mess even start?
First, on my way home from my part-time job, I saw a shooting star. So far, so good. Then a utility pole started glowing and spewing smoke. Then it opened up, and a baby appeared from inside it.
That’s way too much.
Exactly how many wishes did someone make for things to turn out like this?
“Fweh, fweh…”
And worse, this baby is alive. She is not a doll or CGI. It’s breathing, staring straight at me with big, round eyes—like it’s trying to tell me something.
“…You opened it, right?”
I didn’t open anything. It just opened on its own.
“…But you touched it, right?”
So what? What does touching it have to do with anything?
“…You’re curious, aren’t you?”
Well… yeah, honestly, I am. But still—
“I’m sorry! But my hands are full, so please excuse me!”
With the feeling of my own hair being ripped out by the roots, I turned to leave—
—Whatever happens, happens! Hic.
—Crash!
—Awooo!
—Screeech!
Just as I tried to make my escape, the shouts of a drunk, the sound of shattering glass, a stray dog’s howl, and a car’s violent braking all came one after another.
Did this neighborhood suddenly get more dangerous? Was it always like this? Still, leaving a baby here is obviously risky. At the very least, I should take it to the police.
“How am I even supposed to hold this thing…?”
I carefully lifted the baby out from inside the utility pole.
It’s light.
Rather than feeling soft or warm, the first thing that shocked me was how light it was. It felt as if I was holding a loosely rolled towel—no resistance at all. Like if I put even a little force into it, it would collapse easily.
No. Instinctively, I knew. There was no way I could just leave something this fragile behind. Laws, ethics—before all that, as a basic rule shared by all humanity, this was absolutely not okay.
Unfortunately, the gaming utility pole seemed to operate on a completely different moral system. As if saying, “Well then, it’s all yours,” it shut its lights off. The handle and door vanished, and in the blink of an eye, it returned to being an ordinary, silent utility pole.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Hey—wait!
“Excuse me! You forgot something!”
I tried banging on the pole, but it was just hard and there was no response.
I’ve been had.
In the middle of the night, on the street, I stood frozen in front of the utility pole, holding a baby.
“Doesn’t this make it look like I kidnapped you…?”
The baby in my arms suddenly felt heavier. When I looked down, it lifted its squishy cheeks as much as it could and gave me an innocent smile.
“Taa~♡”
“No, no, no, no, no, no!”
Absolutely not. I can’t do this. There’s no way. Maybe I can leave it here for a bit—no, that’s impossible. Leaving a baby on the street is out of the question. On top of a vending machine? That’s dangerous too. What am I supposed to do with this kid?!
As if seeing right through my hesitation—
“FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!”
The baby unsheathed its ultimate weapon. A merciless cry echoed through the dead-of-night residential area.
“Oh, come on!”
Desperate to avoid being seen, I ran up my apartment stairs with the screaming baby still in my arms. Fortunately, I didn’t run into anyone and made it to my room, locking the door with a sigh of relief.
No—wait, no!
Why did I bring it home?! This officially completes the kidnapping, doesn’t it?! This is bad. I’m clearly too exhausted to think straight.
“FWEEEEEH!”
The tiny beast had no intention of staying quiet. It continued to voice its dissatisfaction in the only way it was capable of—
—Thump!
Which earned me a solid punch against the wall from the neighbor next door.
“W-wall slam…? That’s my first time ever getting one.”
I’m in shock.
Well… I guess it’s not surprising, considering the time.
“Fweeeeeh!”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay—see? Bleh-bleh-bleh~”
The perfect high school girl, Sakayori Iroha, had discovered yet another thing she was bad at—aside from muscle training.
Making a baby stop crying.
I tried desperately to soothe it, copying what I’d seen others do.
“Fweeeeeh!”
—thump, thump, thump!
Neither the crying nor the wall-slamming stopped. What do I do?! Desperately, I frantically swiped at my smartphone.
“How to stop a baby from crying”
Apparently, moms all over the world struggled with this too—the number of results was overwhelming.
“Okay, let’s see… ‘holding them’—already doing that. ‘Upright hold’—check. ‘Gentle rocking’—yep. ‘Walking while holding’—done too. So what’s left…?”
A classic lullaby, huh.
Alright—think back. The lullaby my mom used to sing to me when I cried. A lullaby is—
—Stop crying. Crying just means you’re taking the easy way out.
—If you’re really sad, don’t cry so carelessly—think about how to keep it from happening again.
…Nope. I’ve got nothing but lectures. Just as I was about to clutch my head—
“…Ah.”
What caught my eye was the acrylic stand of Yachiyo’s household shrine, sitting in front of my study desk. In that instant, the fog in my head seemed to clear up.
“...In our hearts we've all got a song—
It's a precious melody—”
“Remember.”
Before I even finished the first verse, the baby was already breathing softly in sleep.
“Yachiyo’s power is insane…”
Carefully—very carefully—I laid the baby down on the futon. I held my breath, inching my hands away millimeter by millimeter.
Okay. Hands clear.
I waited ten seconds.
No signs of waking.
“…Thank goodness.”
Success. My body went limp with relief. That should stop the wall slams too. One crisis averted.
But now what?
Police… probably.
For the first time in my life, I tapped 110 on my phone. As the call tone rang, I organized what I’d say in my head. I had to be extremely careful. One wrong word and I’d sound like a kidnapper.
“This is an incident”… no, bad.
“A child came out of a rainbow-colored utility pole”… absolutely not.
“A baby was crying, so I brought it home for now”… arrested on the spot.
I don’t even understand what happened myself—how am I supposed to explain it?
“Tachikawa Police. Is this an incident or an accident?”
“Ah—everything’s fine! It’s fine now! Sorry! Thank you!”
I somehow ended up making a mysterious phone call where I only told the police that everything was okay… and hung up.
…Sorry, officer. I’m done. I’m exhausted.
And today was supposed to be a rare day where I could get six whole hours of sleep.
・・・
From afar, I heard the cooing of a turtle dove. A newspaper delivery bike roared past, chasing the sound away. When I cracked the curtains open, the newborn morning sun streamed in energetically.
…I slept. Six hours.
At some point, I must’ve passed out. I wonder what actually happened yesterday?
“Hallucination…? No, right?”
After all, the baby born from a utility pole was sleeping soundly right beside me.
Apparently, there’d been no night crying. They weren’t kidding when they said a sleeping baby is an angel. After all the trouble yesterday, seeing its cheeks glistening in the morning light made me want to pat them.
Wait—was it always this big?
That’s weird. Yesterday, I could hold it easily with one arm. And the bracelet it’s wearing definitely wasn’t this big either.
“Ah! It’s wet! Seriously?!”
When I put my hand on the futon to check its size, an unpleasant sensation met my palm.
So it’s that huh.
Well… it’s a baby. Can’t be helped.
I don’t owe it anything, but at least I should change its diaper. And if I do that, I’ll need to change its clothes too. And something to wrap it in. And something to wipe it with. And milk. And a bottle. And… is it called a baby carrier? And then—
“…Isn’t that a lot?”
I started counting the things I needed on my fingers, but I ran out of fingers almost immediately.
The moment the store opened, I rushed into Nishitakeya, the baby-goods specialty shop famous for its slogan, “An ally to raising children.” When I looked it up online, it seems like this one store has all the baby supplies you need.
Of course—if you paid for it.
“No, no, no, no, no!”
I couldn’t help but scream in the aisle.
Diapers are expensive! And there are way too many kinds! If you’re told to choose between the cheap ones and the expensive ones… well, of course you want the higher-quality ones, right? Baby clothes aren’t cheap at all either, at least not to me. Apparently milk also comes in cheap and expensive varieties, and when I tried to buy a bottle, I discovered that disinfectant was a mandatory, completely unexpected add-on.
When I finally took everything to the register—
“Your total comes to 13,243 yen.”
How exactly are you my ally? Damn it… my hard-earned savings…!
“Why am I even doing this…?”
Clutching both the pile of baby supplies and the baby itself, I headed up the hill toward home.
“Uah!”
When the baby started fussing, I soothed it with a bleh-bleh-bleh~.
“Ueh!”
When it fussed again, I checked the time and gave it milk.
“Uuh!”
If it still complained, I sang it a lullaby.
“Fuhihihi.”
The baby cried a lot—but it laughed even more. Once you see a smile, you want to see the next one. I’d heard people say that once you have a child, your life starts revolving around them, and now I understand.
My entire three-day weekend passed just trying to make the baby smile.
Without studying for even a second.
“…Wait. What am I doing?”
Holding the baby in my room, a chill ran down my spine.
Hold on. Why am I completely absorbed in raising a baby? This isn’t right. This weekend was supposed to be all about studying.
“Ueh.”
“Milk, huh? Got it—please wait a moment.”
This is not the time to be understanding what it wants just from its whining.
No. I have to report this to the police. Even if they suspect me, I have to let this child go. Otherwise, time will keep melting away more easily than in any game.
“Uuh.”
“Are you full? Then let’s get you to sleep, young lady.”
Anyway, it's already late today. I’ll go to the police first thing tomorrow morning. That’ll be the end of this pretend childcare
Swearing that to myself, I sang Yachiyo’s song again as a lullaby.
Its sleeping face really did look like an angel.
That night, I had a dream.
I had become part of my apartment ceiling, looking down at my room. In the center of the four-and-a-half-tatami space sat my well-worn low table and my tablet. A faint glow from the screen dimly lit the pitch-black room.
“Kyah, kyah, kyah.”
With ticklish laughter, the tablet’s screen flipped rapidly—news about a massive meteor possibly approaching Earth, a life-or-death romance movie, a completely packed Yachiyo live concert, anime, sports broadcasts, and a silly video of me fooling around with my friends.
“Kyah, kyah, kyah.”
The one operating the tablet was the baby.
Its eyes, greedily devouring information, glowed eerily—despite not having any smart contacts installed.
Suddenly, moonlight streamed in through the window. Bathed in the light, the baby’s hair silently grew longer and longer. It looked like a plant spreading its leaves in search of more sunlight through photosynthesis.
And once again, I sank back into sleep…
・・・
“Hey—hey.”
I woke to the baby’s whining.
“I’m hungry.”
“…Understood.”
Yeah, I know. You’re hungry.
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I stood up. The room was still pitch dark.
“Milk.”
“Please wait just a moment.”
You want milk, right? I know, I know.
After three days, my perception had been trained to its absolute limit. Just hearing the baby’s whining was enough for me to understand its demands, as if they’d been clearly spoken—
…Huh?
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
I shouted and spun around—and the girl screamed too, jumping back.
Yes. A girl.
Standing there was a girl.
In the pitch-dark room, a girl who had appeared out of nowhere stared at me with wide, startled eyes.
“That scared me…”
No, I’m the one who’s scared.
She looked about ten years old. Her eyes—like two shooting stars crashing in—sparkled brilliantly with surprise. Her glossy hair fell all the way to her waist, her skin was pale enough to stand out even in the dark, and her lips were perfectly shaped. Judging by her features alone, she was a beautiful girl.
…Who are you?
No—don’t answer. I already know.
You’re… you, aren’t you?
I know because I’ve been with you constantly for the past three days. I know because we understood each other so well I could read your heart just from your whining.
I knew something was off. Being born from a utility pole. Growing bigger overnight at an alarming rate. Devouring information with shining eyes…
…Or was that last part just a dream?
Anyway, that’s enough. This settles it.
There’s no way this thing is human. And now that I know that—
“Please take your leave!”
I quickly packed up the Nishitakeya goods I’d just bought into a cardboard box and prepared to return them with the utmost respect—
“….”
The mysterious beautiful girl stared curiously at the Nishitakeya box, slowly looking it over—
“…What’s this even supposed to mean~~~?”
“No, I’m the one who wants to ask that. And seriously—why did you get so big so fast? That’s terrifying!”
“Well, you see~ these days, everything moves at lightning speed.”
What is that, an interview-style comment? More importantly—why can you even talk? You were a baby just moments ago! Yeah, no. This is impossible. I can’t deal with this anymore. I’m not waiting until tomorrow.
“I refuse to deal with anything I don’t understand!”
Grabbing the girl by the arm, I decided to escort her out by force.
“No waaaay!”
She wouldn’t budge. Despite her small body, the girl dug in her heels and resisted with everything she had.
“Hey—move.”
“Nope~ not happening~”
I can’t believe I’m being tested on my strength again so soon. But don’t underestimate me. A utility pole was one thing, but against a little girl like this, if I pull with all my strength like a tug-of-war—
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
“Ah—sorry!”
“AAAAAAAH!”
Ah—more sorry. The moment she said it hurt, I reflexively let go, and the recoil sent her rolling across the floor—
—Thunk!
She smacked her head against the aluminum window frame.
“Are you okay?!”
“My head hurts~~! My hand hurts too~~! Somebody help me~~!”
Help me.
Hearing those words, I froze for a moment, completely at a loss.
—You’re really saying “help me” so casually? I’m honestly shocked you’re my daughter. Didn’t I tell you the only person you can rely on in this world is yourself? You’ve forgotten already? If that’s the case—
—and then came the four-hour lecture…
No, no, now’s not the time to reminisce. I had to stop her from making a scene.
“Hey—stop it. Don’t yell so loud in the middle of the night. I’ll get wall-slammed again.”
But instead of a wall slam from the neighbor, what echoed through the room was—
Guuuu.
The sound came from the girl’s stomach.
Now that I think about it, I hadn’t given her milk tonight. And to be fair, I hadn’t eaten dinner either—
Guuuu.
As if answering the call, a second stomach growl rang out—this time from me.
A call-and-response stomach growl duet between two young maidens isn’t something you see every day. An awkward silence fell between us for a moment…
“Help me~~?”
The girl tilted her head slightly, eyes glistening as she looked up at me.
Wh-what an infuriatingly smug attitude. She really looked like she wasn’t thinking about anything at all. Standing in front of her made everything feel absurd. All the strength drained out of me, and I let out a sigh so huge it felt like it could blow the ocean away. Momentum carried me to my feet.
Ah… figures.
—The one who stands up does all the work. If you don’t want to do it, stay seated until the other person stands.
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