Chapter Text
In hindsight, Ai supposed, it was strange for the doorbell to ring then. They hadn't been expecting company, president Saitou had made sure to clear her schedule before the big night at the dome, and Ai was sure nobody in the house was expecting a delivery. But she had no reasons to be suspicious. After all, they had just moved, and they would have noticed if someone had found out their adress or her family name. It would have been unavoidable online, especially since Aqua and Ruby's own identity would probably be the talk of the internet.
Still, even though they expected no one, the doorbell still did ring.
"Could that be the president?" Ai wondered aloud, already going to answer the door. "Coming!"
The door opened, sunlight streaming into the foyer. She squinted, eyes trying to acclimate to the sudden brightness. Outside the door stood a hooded figure, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
"Congratulations on the dome concert."
That's weird, Ai thought, I don't know him, how did he recognize me? The forming bubble of thought snapped immediately, however, when a white-hot flash of pain lit up near her stomach. Something warm was starting to drip down her apron.
Oh, was the next thought, that's blood.
That's my blood.
"Does that hurt!?" The hooded man shouted. The tone was definitely different. Where before his voice was low and ominous, the facade was quickly dropped after the first sentence, as he now screamed the words with crazed zealotry.
"Ai!" that was a different voice. That sounded like Aqua's. It sounded panicked though. Why was he panicked?
"Does that hurt!?" The attacker, she supposed he was her attacker, asked again. "I was hurt worse! It was incredibly painful! You went and had kids even though you're an idol!"
By now Aqua had crouched down next to her on the floor. When had she fallen? That wouldn't do, she had guests. Slowly getting to her feat, clutching her abdomen, she looked at her attacker. Aqua was still panicking and screaming her name, and her attacker was still monologuing. Oh, he was angry with her. She should probably apologize for that.
"I've been irresponsible from the start." Speaking was harder than she expected. Ai guessed that was from the blood, or the knife wound, or something to do with either of those. "I'm not pure, and I'm dishonest and dirty. I don't have a good grasp on what it means to love someone. So instead, I told pretty little lies that would please everyone, always hoping that one day, those lies would become the truth."
The man with the knife was backing away now. The look on his face had changed, she noticed, from blind rage to shock and disbelief. Was that because of her? That was good, that meant he wouldn't stab Aqua too.
"In my own way, I thought I was expressing my love. I don't know if I was able to love you and the others, but I sang all those songs trying to love. Hoping that one day, they would be the truth." Now, even whispering was starting to get difficult. Aqua didn't seem to be standing next to her anymore, where had he gone?
It didn't matter, she supposed, she was still apologizing. "I still want to love you-"
"Liar!" By now, the hood had fallen off. Oh, Ai recognized him. Ah! Ryousuke, that was his name, she remembered now. He was still speaking, she should probably listen... "You just want me to let you go, ri-"
Ryousuke's tone had shifted again, quieter and confused now.
"Ryousuke-kun, right? You came to handshake events quite often. Or was I wrong? Sorry, I'm not that good with names. I still have that star sand you gave me as a present."
By now, Ryousuke-kun looked like he was having a crisis. Then something seemed to snap, and he ran screaming from the apartment.
Oh, Aqua was back. What was that red box he was holding? Had she made the box red? Ai would have to clean that up later, but that would have to wait.She had something to say first.
"Aqua, Ruby, I love you two. I'm so glad I gave. birth. to... you..."
Gorou Amemiya, now Aquamarine Hoshino, had never been so thankful for going to medical school. Even before the attacker (Ryoukun? Roukuke? It didn't matter.) had run out of the house, he had already excavated the first aid kit out from under the sink, where it was usually kept. While Ai had always insisted there was no need for a first aid kit, since their apartment was two blocks down from the hospital, he had successfully argued for its purchase. Speaking of the hospital, Ai would need to go there as soon as possible.
"Ruby!" he called, hoping she would hear him through all the commotion that was going on at the moment, "Call 119, tell them someone was stabbed here!"
While he didn't expect push back, he was already preparing a response for the inevitable question of "STABBED!?!?". But to his pleasant surprise, the only noise he heard from Ruby were the sounds of her on the phone a few seconds later. In the meantime, he needed to keep Ai alive.
First, stop the blood flow. Ai's blood was already pooling around them. Her eyes had closed, she probably was unconscious from the blood loss. He opened the first aid box with shaking hands. Right, it was now or never.
Now moving with confidence honed over years of practice, he expertly measured out the gauze, cut it to length, and put his cut off strip back in the first aid box temporarily. Grabbing the bottle of antiseptic alcohol and a small cotton pad, he started dabbing the wound down. Looking at the location of the stab wound, it would most likely be survivable, if just barely. A few millimetres in any direction and the knife would have probably hit a vital organ, most likely sealing Ai's fate.
Now that the wound was disinfected, he could get back to bandaging. Grabbing his cut gauze and a dressing, the largest he could find in the box, he pressed the dressing to the wound. The dressing immediately started colouring red, but that was fine for now. Quickly wrapping the bandages around his mother's middle, he pulled them as tight as his 4-year-old body could handle, hoping to stem the bleeding as much as possible.
Just as Aqua had finished bandaging Ai, his twin came rushing into the room. As het red eyes drank in the room Aqua could see them get wider with each passing moment. Stealing himself as much as he could, he asked: "How long until the medics get here?"
Ruby, though her voice was wavering, managed to choke out: "About half a minute".
She was off by three seconds.
Now, finally in the emergency room, Aqua's adrenaline had run it's course. The room itself provided some familiar comfort, from his previous life as a doctor. The calming white walls, the medical personnel frantically rushing patients back and forth and the ever present sense of panic of families. It felt strange to be in this situation, as opposed to being one the doctors, running back and forth between patients and their loved ones. Though, Aqua supposed, he was definitely handling it better than Ruby, her eyes and face wet and red from crying, her throat choking up whenever she tried to get words out, and the distraught look in her eyes. Ai would be fine, right? It wasn't a deep stab, and it missed vital organs, he was pretty sure of that. It had been a while since he last handled a non-childbirth patient, but organs and their placement was one of the things that were hammered into you in medical school. The attacker, whose name he still couldn't remember, must not have planned where to stab her, or if he had, been caught in the moment. That meant when he had killed Gorou Aqua the first time, he must have gotten lucky.
Which brought Aqua to the most pressing question: how had the stalker even known where they lived in the first place. And, now that he thought about it, how had he known that Ai was pregnant and that Gorou Aqua was her doctor. Those details were both religiously guarded. The only people who even knew about their relation to Ai were president Saitou and his wife, Ai herself, and their father. Not even her fellow members of B-Komachi were privy to that knowledge. If there was a leak, then he already had a list of suspects.
Ai was obviously out, since she wouldn't orchestrate her own attempted murder (he hoped it stayed at attempted for now). He and Ruby as well, for the same reasons.
The president would never leak anything that would put Strawberry Productions in danger, and leaking their address and the fact Ai was pregnant and gave birth would end her idol career for good.
As for his wife, she wasn't aware Ai was pregnant and was informed after their birth, so she couldn't have orchestrated his murder. Even if she was the leak here, it would still leave the mystery of how that stalker found him first.
Which meant there was only one suspect: his father. He was the one responsible, he was the one who got Gorou Aqua killed, he was the one respo-
Aquamarine Hoshino was suddenly snapped out of his musings when a nurse approached him and Ruby.
"Are you the ones who came in here with Ai Hoshino?"
Ruby was obviously in no mind to speak, too distraught to even choke out words. So, mentally steadying himself for the news and the inevitable questions, he answered: "Is she okay? She'll live, right? She's still alive, right?" Damn, that wasn't what was supposed to come out. It didn't seem to matter, as the friendly-looking nurse chuckled. "Yes, she'll be fine. The doctors have stabilized her. Unless something were to suddenly go wrong, it's almost guaranteed Mrs. Hoshino will pull through this."
"Miss Hoshino," he corrected on instinct (less people suspected their relation that way), "she isn't married."
"Of course, of course. Is there anyone that Miss Hoshino needs to call? We can't seem to find an emergency contact on file."
Giving the nurse president Saitou's number, he asked a small question: "Is there a room me and my sister could sit in privately? She hasn't stopped crying, and all these people around us are probably making it worse." He needed to make the most of that small kiddie charm while he still had it, otherwise it would just be a waste. It seemed to work though, as the nurse acquiesced and brought them to a small, unoccupied room. "I'll send in mister Saitou when he arrives, okay?" Then, without waiting for an answer, the nurse immediately turned around and left the room, leaving Aqua alone with his sister.
He turned to said sister and spoke: "Ruby, we need to have a serious talk."