Homecoming - Epilogue

One year later

Saeba Noemi quietly padded into the living room, rubbing her eyes. The sun was barely over the horizon, and it was Saturday, but her internal alarm clock was wired for school, and she never slept too late on weekends.

She turned toward the kitchen to get some milk to tide her over until breakfast but noticed her parent’s bedroom door was ajar.

She grinned. Door ajar meant she might as well get some morning cuddles while she could.

She peeked into the bedroom, her eyes suddenly filling with tears as she looked at the embracing couple. They always slept so close together, her mother always tightly wrapped in her father’s arms.

Especially now.

She looked to where Ryo’s big palm cupped Kaori’s protruding belly as if to protect the baby growing there.

As if sensing her standing on the threshold, his dark eyes opened, and he smiled in invitation.

She returned the smile and slowly, gingerly, so as not to wake her mother, climbed onto the bed, lying on her side so she and her father flanked Kaori, blanketing her from both sides.

She placed her own hand on her mother’s belly, feeling the fluttering of her unborn sibling, and leaned her head on Kaori’s shoulder.

She’d always loved morning cuddles with her mom. Now that she also had a father, the feeling was a hundred times better.

Noemi couldn’t wait to see how much it would improve with a little brother or a sister.

The End