Miyako Saitou is tired. So incredibly tired.
As the Co-President of Strawberry Productions with her husband, Ichigo Saitou, one would expect that she'd be under a lot of stress due to running a rising talent agency. However, while she does have a lot on her plate, she manages it pretty well. Whereas Ichigo handles the more "up-front" responsibilities of the agency such as managing the talents and making connections, she is in charge of the behind the scenes work at the agency with the finances and logistical tasks. While there's a lot to do, she doesn't really have to move around that much and she's skilled enough to handle it efficiently, giving her plenty of time to relax when she needs it.
Well, she HAD plenty of time to relax. It all started two months after when her lovely, but pain in the ass employee/surrogate daughter, Ai Hoshino, gave birth to triplets.
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"Ok, listen up people." Ichigo Saitou declares to his two, rather, five audience members.
The group is in the small living room of Ai Hoshino's apartment. Ichigo is standing in front of a whiteboard that has various bits of data in front of it, pointer stick in hand, in the center of the living room. On the couch is a cheery and completely oblivious Ai Hoshino, breastfeeding the adorable and excitable Ruby Hoshino--the sole girl of the triplets--while also doting on the similarly cute and pouting Aquamarine Hoshino, or the other way around, not like Ai's figured out which one is which yet. To Ai's left is Miyako Saitou, who having long mastered the art of multi-tasking, is simultaneously paying attention to scene before her while also cooing over the cute and stoic, Onyx Hoshino, the little outlier of the triplets.
"Today is Ai's return to the stage." Ichigo continues, smacking his pointer against the whiteboard. "We need to discuss the plan for how we're going to handle this predicament."
He's completely ignored by the still oblivious Ai Hoshino, who's completely enraptured by her kids, and is given a bemused look by Miyako, who is paying attention but is playing with Onyx as well. Ichigo's eye starts to develop a twitch, as he clenches his pointer stick.
"Ai!" He yells to get her attention. "Pay attention! This plan is important for our future!"
"But, Dad!" Ai says completely uncaring of the presentation, while also gently squishing Aqua and Ruby's cheeks against her face. "Look at how cute my kids are!"
Ichigo slightly relents with the use of "Dad," before sighing and almost instantly smacking his hand over his eyes.
"Yes, Ai. They're cute." Ichigo grumbles, before growing more frustrated. "But you still need to listen and you have to call me President while we're in public. And for God's sake, please pull your shirt up!"
Ai, while gushing over her kids, forgot that she was breastfeeding only a few seconds prior, leaving her shirt down and sizeable asset open to the world.
"Oops! Teehee~" Ai apologizes cutely, knocking her fist against her head and winking, a little sparkle appearing out of nowhere from her eye.
However, before she could fix it, the little hands of Aqua Hoshino grab her shirt and lift it up for her.
"Awww, cutie." Ai coos towards Aqua. "Protecting Mama already Ruby?"
"That's Aqua." Miyako and Ichigo say deadpan in unison, with even little Ruby having a deadpan look on her face. Onyx, as stoic as ever, just stares on and observes the situation.
"Whoops! Sorry Aqua." Ai apologizes again in the same cutesy anime manner and rubbing her cheek against him.
"Let's get back on track." Ichigo says trying to bring back the focus of the conversation. "Ai is scheduled back today at the studio to practice with the other B-Komachi members for a B-Komachi comeback appearance on TV in a couple months. B-Komachi didn't lose too much of its momentum fortunately with Ai's hiatus, but it is still noticeable. We'll need to make a comeback especially fierce if we want to recover the reputation we lost. Which means we have to deal with the three little elephants in the room. For all intents and purposes, the triplets will be under the Saitou name, which is partially why I had Miyako make less appearances at the company over time, to fully sell the image. In that regard, with Ai getting more busy, Miyako and I will need to pick up the slack in taking care of the children when she's not around. That means you Ai--"
He cuts himself off, completely unamused and dumbfounded, as Ai is still absolutely not paying attention and entirely focused on her kids; Ruby and Aqua both enjoying the attention and the Ichigo's plight. Ichigo's eye twitches furiously and he starts to get red in the face. A snort breaks the silence, and Ichigo's bloodshot gaze darts over to Miyako, who's trying to hold back laughter, with even the stoic Onyx cracking a smile and joyfully gurgling. Ichigo starts to fume and Miyako could almost swear that smoke is blasting out of his nostrils, but after a deep breath, Ichigo calms down and goes dead quiet. He then suddenly looks up, glaring and smirking evilly at Miyako. She gulps, hugging Onyx close to her as if to try and use the still gleeful child as protection against the man.
It doesn't work.
"This is getting nowhere, so we'll have to change things up a bit." He says, face still evil and scary. "Because no one seems to care for my plan, this is what we'll do. There's a lot of things that need to be handled at the company, but I'll take care of that since I'm the one who founded the agency and is the most familiar. That means you, Miyako, are relieved of your agency responsibilities and are now on permanent childcare duty. Ai, prepare the things Miyako needs while you're at the Studio."
"Hai..." Ai says haphazardly, but nonetheless sealing Miyako's fate.
Miyako, desperate, looks pleadingly at Ichigo to try and get him to change his mind. Ichigo just raises an eyebrow at her. When that doesn't work, she gives the most seductive look she could offer, but that only gets an evil laugh out of him. Ichigo walks over and takes Aqua and Ruby from Ai's arms, transferring the two over to Miyako's lap, which now contains all three triplets. Leaning over into her ear, he whispers, "Good luck."
Between Ruby and Aqua trying to desperately escape her grasp to return to their mother and Onyx finding some mysterious curiosity in her hair, leading him to yank it with surprising strength, Miyako knew that she was in trouble.
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Miyako's stupor is broken by the sound of the Television turning on and the root cause of her never-ending fatigue and eyebags. In the Hoshino Family living room, are the now six-month-old resident dynamic and troublemaking duo, Ruby and Aqua, trying and failing to get their much larger and non-compliant six-month-old brother, Onyx, onto the couch.
"C'mon Ony." Ruby says pouting, pushing her tiny hands into Onyx's back. "Mama's show is about to start!"
"Please, Onyx." Aqua says more maturely, but still also childishly pushing his hands into Onyx's back. "We want to support and cheer on Ai and we want you to watch with us."
"Nuh-uh!" Onyx says stubbornly, shaking his head no and arms crossed, while simultaneously not even breaking a sweat in resisting their efforts. "Ru and Aku are being weird again and Mama Miyako's going to be angry. I don't want Mama Miyako to be angry."
Hearing that brought a slight smile to her face but also made her want to rub her eyes in tiredness. She sighs and walks over to them.
"Ruby, Aqua, what did I say about going around without telling me and dragging your poor brother into your shenanigans?" She said scolding, face contorted into a glare at the two hellions, before smiling at and patting her sweet black-haired angel on the head. "Good job saying no, Ony."
Ruby and Aqua look down in shame, while Onyx absolutely beams and leans in to the head pats.
"Ass-kisser." Ruby grumbles under her breath.
"What was that Ruby?" Miyako says, her cold glare boring into a sweating and panicked Ruby. "Something you want to share with us?"
Ruby goes quiet as a mouse, with Aqua and Onyx smartly not saying anything. Miyako sighs again.
"Next time, you two." She says more placidly. "Just tell me you want to watch your Mom preform and we can all watch it together. I am responsible for you after all."
They nod their head rapidly, something Onyx looks at and cutely mimics too, making her smile. She picks up the children and sets them together on her lap, though their combined size almost can't fit anymore. She can't help but think about how quickly they're growing as Ai's radiant image and the rest of B-Komachi displays on screen starting the intro to Sign wa B. Ruby is immediately locked in as her excitable Ai-otaku self, as is the other Ai-otaku, Aqua, though a little more reserved, and lastly, Onyx, albeit stubbornly uninterested not just five minutes ago, is now cheering just as much as Ruby and is waving a little Ai flag. She shakes her head, resigned.
From the moment the triplets reached one month old, Miyako knew the children were different, although for much different reasons. Aqua and Ruby showed startling intelligence beyond their age and started reaching development stages such as crawling, months before they were supposed to. If that wasn't enough, when she vented her frustrations out loud about having to take care of the kids and cynically joked at quitting and throwing Ai under the bus, they started speaking too, acting like they were possessed by the Gods.
Now Miyako isn't a religious type or anything and when they spoke to her like that, it definitely branded the fear of the Gods in her, to the point where she occasionally prays once or twice, but she isn't stupid. If it weren't for the fact that she noticed the children were already unusual, she might've believed the story, but she already knew they were smart and gifted from the get go and they could've easily picked that up from some TV show or Youtube video. What hammered the point in for her, that Ruby and Aqua were not possessed by the Gods and are just weird prodigies, is their unique personalities, absolute fanatical and protective love of Ai, and their childness when it comes to certain things, despite their relative intelligence. Ruby is an excitable, mischievous, goofball and bundle of joy that can bring a smile to about any without even trying and Aqua is an observant and sensitive boy that displays wisdom beyond his age. They're just weird and smart children that love their mother, nothing more, nothing less. The definitive bow on top was their brother.
Onyx Hoshino is different from his two siblings and normal children in other ways. For one, Onyx also displays a relative high intelligence and fast developmental growth, though to a slower degree than his siblings and is much more a child in mentality, speaking his first word one month after Aqua and Ruby displayed their speech capabilities. On the other hand, he grows much faster than any normal child should. Ai was complaining about how sore she was because of how voracious an eater Onyx could be and Ichigo was in despair over the finance sheets at seeing how much Onyx ate when the children could start eating solid food. Onyx is twice the size of Aqua and Ruby, despite being the same age, and also displays absurd strength, to the point that Onyx could easily walk and run, when Ruby and Aqua could only crawl. But the biggest difference of course, is his appearance. All triplets display the otherworldly looks and the facial features of their mother, as well as sharing her beautiful eyes. Onyx especially so, with his eyes being a dazzling kaleidoscope, although according to Ai, he earned his namesake because she swore she could've seen a serene inky-black abyss when she saw his eyes for the first time, though his colorful eyes beg to differ. Other than that, Onyx has pitch-black hair and tan skin, his hair color sealing the name for him and looking the complete opposite of the fair-skinned and blond Ruby and Aqua. The doctors were also perplexed at seeing such a difference between Onyx and his siblings, but they said it wasn't unlikely for such features to occur if previous generations in Ai's family had it before. As she didn't know the father's genealogy or hers as an orphan, Ai just chalked it up to that and called it a day, loving her unique son just as much as she does her other children. Though worried about possible questions being brought up in the future and the underlying discrimination in Japanese society being directed towards little Onyx, Miyako and Ichigo also put that aside for the future and also care for the tyke. How could they not? Unlike his troublemaking and obsessive siblings and despite Onyx's normally stoic and shy personality, he is a super caring and sweet little boy, that always tries to shyly help around the Hoshino apartment any way he can and always makes sure to shyly say goodbye and hello to Ai, herself, or Ichigo as they come and go, even forcing himself to stay awake until Ai returns. Don't get her wrong, Aqua and Ruby are sweet kids as well, but they give her a headache with their antics. Onyx on the other hand is a sweet little angel that doesn't have a mean bone in his body, earning him "baby of the family" status despite being the oldest of the triplets. One time, Ai scratched her leg against a table and started bleeding, and immediately Onyx went into action and started fussing over her. Although it wasn't anything serious, it earned him a nickname from Ai, calling him her "Little Hero" to his dismay.
All in all the kids might be weird and unique, but it doesn't mean Miyako doesn't care for them any less. Just as Ai wormed her way into her heart as a surrogate daughter, the little trio forged a place in her heart as her surrogate children/grandchildren as well. When Onyx called her "Mama Miyako" for the first time, she nearly had a heart attack at how cute it was.
Looking at their bright and smiling faces as they watch their mother dance and sing, she can only think one thing. That despite the amount of gray hair she has gotten in taking care of them and how uncanny they can be sometimes...
'Yeah, I would do anything for these children.'
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AN: Well that's the end of the chapter! Hope you enjoyed it!
As you can see with this chapter and the last one, the focus of the chapter will be told from the perspective each time. I will likely follow this trend until the actual start of canon, because I feel like it gives more depth to relatively important characters that we don't get to see in the main series. As you also may have noticed, I have changed a few things with certain characters, such as deepening the bond between Ichigo and Ai, and to a certain respect Ai and Miyako as well because I feel like that even though Ai is broken as she is, the amount of time she spent with Ichigo and Miyako, a stronger relationship would be prevalent than what we see in canon. In that regard, Miyako also became a little less bitchy and gold-diggery than canon because she has stronger ties to the company and Ai.
This chapter also revealed the identity of the mysterious third child, Onyx Hoshino. At this point in the story, you can treat Onyx as an exceptional and genius child, and not a reincarnated figure. Although not so spoiler alert, Onyx is reincarnated just as Aqua and Ruby are, albeit a bit different which will explain why he is more mentally like a genius child right now as well as his physical difference. I will not say who he is a reincarnation of, but as a hint for eager readers, his exceptional growth and hunger as well as his physical features are the biggest giveaway of who he is/who he is related to and where he's from. If you can't figure it out, don't worry, you'll get the answer soon, in a chapter from Onyx's perspective a bit down the line. My current plan is a chapter from Aqua's perspective, then Ruby's, then a double perspective chapter from Ai's and Onyx's or one Ai and one Onyx.
But that's all from me this time. As always, let me know what y'all think and I'll see you in the next one!