Chapter Text
The voice drifted through the white walls like smoke.
"I'm afraid he could go any day now."
"How awful. Especially for someone so young."
The words landed somewhere far away, filtered through layers of cotton and fluorescent light. A young man stared at his reflection in the hospital room mirror — head wrapped in white bandages, eyes as dim and empty as a switched-off screen. He registered his own face the way you register a stranger's.
"(The worst luck.)"
"(Can't speak anymore. Can't sing anymore. Cerebral stroke...that's what the doctor said. This is fine. I have no friends. Mom and Dad kept fighting.Hopefully sis'll be taken to a better home. This is fine. Everything is fine.)"
He let his eyes fall shut.
Darkness. Then nothing.
Then,a light. Too much of it.
A baby's wail split the air, and he realized with distant, foggy horror that the sound was his.
"(Why is it so bright?)"
He squinted upward. A young woman leaned over him, her hair the deep blue-purple of a twilight sky, her eyes alight with something that looked like actual stars caught beneath the surface. She was crying. Smiling through it, but crying.
"(Who the heck is..wait, I recognize her. That's Ai Hoshino. The famous idol. Which means I—)"
He tried to reach out a hand to confirm the thought.
A tiny, pink, absolutely useless baby hand floated up in front of his face.
"(…Oh. I see.)"
Several months later.
The mirror in the nursery told a clearer story now.
Two baby boys stared back at him from the glass. The first had bright blonde hair and blue eyes, a six-pointed star marking his right iris like a brand. The second had his mother's indigo hair and her purple eyes-both irises carrying the same twin stars, like he'd inherited every beautiful thing she had.
That second one was him.
"(So to review: I reincarnated. I am now the infant son of a famous idol. And I have a twin brother.)"
"You're such good boys," Ai Hoshino cooed from above, reaching down with both hands. "Aquamarine. Lapis."
"(That's me,the older one. Hoshino Lapis. At least it's not as long a name as Aqua's, or—)"
His thoughts were cut off by a sharp cry from the other side of the room. Ai scooped him up, set him gently on the couch, and crossed to the crib — where a third baby was making her displeasure loudly known. Blonde hair. Red eyes. A six-pointed star in her left iris.
"Now what's the matter, Ruby?" Ai murmured, lifting her with practiced ease.
"(Our younger sister,)" Lapis noted to himself, watching. "(We're triplets. And of the three of us, I'm the one who looks most like Mom.)"
Ruby's crying faded to hiccups the moment Ai held her. Aqua, meanwhile, had fixed his expression into something deeply unimpressed.
“What's wrong, Aqua?”Ai asks.
"That's Ruby, you know," a male voice said flatly. "And you call yourself a mother?"
The door opened before Ai could answer. Two adults stepped in — a man in a sharp suit with short blonde hair and wire-framed glasses, and beside him, a woman with strawberry-blonde hair swept into soft bangs and eyes the color of dark red wine. She wore a red dress and carried herself with the particular elegance of someone who had once been paid attention to and found she liked it.
"I've always been bad with names and faces,I can't help it," Ai said, a note of lazy amusement in her voice. "Pretty gross, huh? Japanese men have these illusions about how mothers are supposed to be."
"Don't get all international on me," the man said. "You don't even have a passport."
"(Mama's manager, Ichigo Saitou,) Lapis confirmed internally, "(and his wife, Miyako..yay..)"
Ichigo produced a whiteboard from somewhere, set it against the wall, and slapped his palm against it with the energy of a man who had been rehearsing this moment.
"Anyway — as of today, Ai returns to being an idol. We're here to discuss your schedule going forward. First step of your comeback: a live music program tonight, broadcast as it happens. You're up for it,right?"
"Of course," Ai said.
"While you're at the studio, Miyako will look after the children."
"I see…" She looked down, just briefly — the smallest dimming behind her eyes.
"(Not exactly thrilled about that myself,)" Lapis thought, "(unless—)" His gaze drifted toward Miyako with calculating infant interest in her breast. "(Actually, she seems useful. The jury is still out.)"
"Your wife is quite young, isn't she?" Ai observed. "The other members have noticed. They're a little put off by how you favor younger women."
"That's news to me," Ichigo said, adjusting his glasses. He did not notice the look his wife was giving him. It was a precise and surgical look. "I'll be more mindful."
Ai tilted her head. "Is it a problem if I bring the kids to the studio sometimes?"
The color drained from Ichigo's face.
"Of course it's a problem!" He began to pace. "Of course it's a problem! Now listen here! If work gets out that an idol like you became a mother of three at 16, you can kiss your idol career goodbye. I'll come under Fire as the one responsible for supervising you, and my agency will be finished. The whole lot of us will be going straight to hell!"
He ended up on the floor somehow. Nobody commented on it.
“(I don't know about straight to hell but-)”
"And no bringing the kids shopping or to do paperwork at the gov office either! If you have a truly pressing emergency, you're to head out under the guise that you are watching our kids for us!"
Ai looked down at the baby on the couch, specifically at Aqua and gave him a commiserating smile.
"Aw, what a pain, huh, Lapis?"
"…That's Aqua," Ichigo said.
She laughed. Aqua looked at his brother. Lapis looked at the ceiling.
“(Word hopeless comes to mind right about now.)" he thought. "(Truly, completely, cosmically hopeless.But she's leagues above he last mom i had)"
"(…I wonder what happened, after I died. If there was a funeral. If anyone noticed I was—)"
He let the thought dissolve before it finished.
"(I don't care anymore.)"
That night...
The TV was already on when Lapis woke up. Aqua had crawled out of his crib and turned it on himself, sitting cross-legged in front of the glow. Lapis climbed out after him and settled beside his brother without a word.
"Is the show Mom's on starting already?" he asked.
"They're doing her interview segment right now," Aqua confirmed, tipping his bottle back.
On screen, Ai sat across from a host, laughing at something. Then:
"Oh, right! Speaking of food, the other day, my baby—"
Aqua spat out his milk. Milk went everywhere,while Lapis went very still.
“My baby?” the host asks.
"Er,I mean my baby kitten!I got a pet during my rest period you see!"
The host nodded slowly. "…Oh."
"Nice save," said Lapis, in a voice completely empty of warmth.
Then the performance started, and everything else went quiet.
It was — something. Even through a TV screen,Ai Hoshino on a stage was the kind of thing that made a person forget they were supposed to be thinking about other things. Lapis found himself leaning forward despite himself. So did Aqua.
"Wait!"
Both of them turned.
Ruby was standing in her crib, having apparently pulled herself upright through sheer outrage. "N Station already started?! Why didn't either of you wake me up?!"* She scrambled over the crib rail and crawled to them at speed.
"Oh my God," she breathed, eyes going wide at the screen. "Mama's just too cute. Every single viewer should be coughing up one million yen just to watch this! How can she be so expressive when hitting those turns? It's so otherworldly, it's almost alien! Like, damn! it's eerie, it's like looking at an Oni! I just got a diaper change, but I'm about to wet myself!"
"(Ah yes,)" Lapis thought. "(And this is how I discovered that my siblings were also reincarnated.)"
Flashback...
Lapis had been asleep. He was not asleep anymore, because someone was yelling.
He blinked open his eyes to find both cribs across from him empty. That was mildly alarming. He looked toward the doorway, where Aqua stood watching something in the hall.
"Hey," Aqua said, not looking at him. "Do you share the same fate as me?"
Lapis blinked"…Huh?"
"THAT BABY JUST TALKED!" Ruby shrieked from somewhere. "GROSS!"
"Right back at you," Aqua said flatly.
"Another baby talking like it's a completely normal thing to do," Lapis noted. "Wild."
Both of them looked at him.
Back at the present...
"(In a way,)" Lapis reflected, watching Ruby vibrate with adoration at the television, "(it's like that American cartoon I once caught a clip of. Three talking babies. Just missing the dog. However you choose to look at it — we are a genuinely bizarre set of triplets.)"
A week later...
The morning's standoff had developed organically and without warning.
Ai had already left for work — forehead kisses distributed with surprising sincerity, and now it was just the three of them on the couch, Miyako somewhere in the kitchen. Aqua and Ruby were locked in a stare that had the specific, pressurized quality of an argument that hadn't started yet. Lapis watched them with the energy of a man counting down.
"Hey," Aqua said. "Could you show a little restraint?"
"He has a point," Lapis added.
"Why should I?" Ruby said, entirely unbothered. "It's simply the law of nature for a daughter like me to suck her mother's breast. It's legit right that has been granted to me-"
"Let me ask you something," Aqua interrupted. "Were you a girl in your previous life too?"
"Yep."
"Could have told me," Lapis muttered.
"…Fair enough," Aqua decided. "I'll allow it."
"(That took about thirty seconds,)" Lapis thought.
The crisis arrived an hour later, which was honestly faster than expected.
Miyako had finished changing Ruby's diaper, set her down, and then stood in the middle of the nursery looking at nothing in particular. Then she started talking.
"I didn't get married to become a damn babysitter!"
Ruby narrowed her eyes. "Wha? Being able to serve mama should bring nothing but happiness, she's not right in the head, is she?"
"Oh, hi, Pot," Lapis said quietly. "Her name's Kettle. Have you met?"
"I can see the validity in what she's saying," Aqua said.
Miyako wasn't listening. She'd gone somewhere else in her head, pacing now, voice dropping into the low register of someone making a decision they've been considering for a while.
"Aah, you know, a scandal is being covered up here, isn't it?" It wasn't a question.
The three of them went very still.
"That's it. If I sold the story to a weekly magazine, I could be swimming in cash…" She pulled out her phone. "I don't give a crap what happens anymore- I'm gonna do it!"
Ruby turned to her brothers. "Not good. What's the call? Do we take her out?"
"With what, baby hands?" Lapis whispered.
"She also has the significant size advantage," Aqua said. Both siblings looked at him.
“ I was just kidding, but you are actually serious about it?”Ruby asks.
"Okay, just to be crystal clear,we're not killing her," Lapis said,flatly.
"There's no question she's a problem, but—"
"She's already got her phone out," Lapis said. "Think faster."
They watched her start taking photos of the room.
"I have an idea," Aqua said. He leaned toward them and whispered.
Thirty seconds later, three infants stood on the coffee table.
Miyako was typing something when she heard it.
"O piteous lass."
Miyako froze.
"Thy Hearts thirst cannot be quenched by champagne."
She looked up. Three babies looked back at her from the table. One of them, Aqua had folded his arms.
"Wh-Who's there?!"
"I," Aqua said, his voice dropping into something grave and deliberate, "I-I am a Divine messenger. Thy excesses… can no longer be overlooked"
"(Please let her buy this, please let her buy this, please let her buy this—)"
Miyako stared. Her phone lowered, very slowly. "A divine messenger? Wait a minute, that baby just talked..no. No, that can't be—"
"In all of your experience," Aqua pressed, "have mere infants been capable of speech? Believe in me."
"Well— when you put it that way— but the divine— I don't— wait!" Her eyes lit with the desperate brightness of someone who has found a rational exit. "I get it! This is a hidden camera thing! Like a prank show Ai-san is on! Those exist!" She looked frantically around the room for a lens.
"(We need more,)" Lapis thought, "(something more—)"
Miyako reached toward Ruby, already softening. "Ruby-chan, it's not safe to be up on the table, let me—"
Ruby's tiny hand snapped out and slapped hers away with precision.
"Behave thyself." Ruby lifted her chin. "I am an incarnation of Amaterasu. I am what ye would call a God."
Miyako backed up one step. Then another.
"Manipulated by the prospect of immediate profit," Ruby continued, her voice taking on the practiced cadence of someone who had, in a previous life, watched entirely too much period drama, "thou art on the verge of abandoning thy true destiny."
"My… destiny?"
"Hoshino Ai was chosen by the God of entertainment. The triplets she carries bear a monumental fate. It is my charge to guard over them. Thy deeds run contrary to divine will. Desist — or divine punishment shall be visited upon thee."
"Divine punishment?!" Miyako's voice cracked. "What do you mean?! In concrete terms!"
"Specifically?" Ruby glanced at her brothers.
"You'll die," Aqua said.
"Eternal damnation," Lapis supplied.
"Yes!" Ruby recovered smoothly. "Die! Suffering eternal damnation!"
Miyako's phone hit the floor. She was crying now, both hands pressed to her mouth. "No! That's super concrete! What... should I do?"
Ruby's expression softened — just barely. "It is simple, really. Guard the secret of their mother and of us. Dote on these children. Do as they ask of thee."
"(…Everything?)" Aqua and Lapis both thought, at exactly the same time.
"Furthermore," Ruby said, lifting a finger, "demonstrate sufficient devotion — and a second marriage to a handsome actor is not entirely out of the question."
Miyako's tears stopped. "…Seriously?"
"I make no promises. I am a God, not a dating service. But it is possible."
"I'll do it!" Miyako clasped her hands together, alight with fresh purpose. "I'll do everything! I'll even — I'll even lick their insoles if that's what—"
"Thou does not need to go that far," Ruby said firmly.
Lapis stared at the ceiling.
"(We actually got away with that.)"
That night...
Aqua and Ruby slept. The nursery was quiet except for the faint blue glow of a phone screen.
Lapis had crawled to the far end of the room, found the phone where it had been left charging, and navigated to YouTube with the methodical patience of someone who had done this before. He typed a name into the search bar:Eien no and scrolled.
There, near the bottom: a thumbnail of a young man with dark hair and amber eyes, holding a guitar. A sidewalk behind him. He looked like he hadn't slept in a few days, but his hands on the strings were steady.
"Strange," Lapis said quietly, to no one. "Seeing your old self."
"So that's who you were?"
He turned fast. Aqua sat a few feet behind him, watching the screen with his characteristic unreadable expression.
"Don't sneak up on me like that." Lapis turned back to the phone. "…Yes. That was me."
A beat passed.
"Music was always the thing I came back to. Not the only thing — I did martial arts for years, actually. But music was different. I saved up and bought myself a guitar. Taught myself. Played on sidewalks, under bridges, anywhere someone might stop and listen for a minute." He paused. "I'd just finished a demo when I collapsed at work. Hit to the head. I heard the doctors talking about it — what it was."
"Cerebral stroke," Aqua said quietly.
"Yeah."
Silence. Then: "I'm sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry for." Lapis clicked the screen off, and the glow disappeared. "Besides — I think I like this better."
He crawled back toward his crib without looking back.
Aqua sat alone in the dark for a moment, watching the blank phone screen.
Then he followed.