The first thing Mirai noticed was that her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Not the test.
Not the faint, almost innocent pink line that had appeared where her future used to be.
Her fingers trembled so hard she almost dropped the small plastic stick into the sink. The fluorescent light in the bathroom hummed quietly above her, far too normal for a moment that felt like the world had split.
She stared.
One line. Then another.
Positive.
It didn't feel real at first. Just a word. Just a symbol. Something she had seen in health class slides and dramas, somewhere distant, belonging to other people, other lives.
Not hers.
Not Mirai, who always did her homework on time.
Not Mirai, who sat by the window in class and wrote neat notes for people who missed lectures.
Not Mirai, who had promised herself she would be careful.
Her throat tightened.
It's wrong. I must be reading it wrong.
She blinked once, twice. The lines didn't vanish. They stayed there, quiet and calm, as if they weren't holding an entire life inside them.
Her legs weakened, and she sat down on the cold toilet lid, the stick still in her hand. The bathroom felt smaller, the white tiles closing in on her. Someone's laughter drifted faintly from outside—a neighbor, maybe, or a child walking past in the street. The sound felt so far away it might as well have been from another world.
Her heart pounded against her ribs, too fast, too loud.
"...no," she whispered, but the word barely existed.
You're seventeen, she told herself. You have exams. You have clubs. You have a future.
The word echoed.
You had.
Her eyes burned, but tears didn't fall yet. Shock was colder than sadness. It wrapped around her like ice, numbing everything that used to make sense.
Her phone lay on the edge of the sink, its black screen reflecting a pale, unfamiliar version of her face. Hollow eyes. Lips pressed tight.
She stared at it for a long time.
There were adults she could call, maybe. A teacher. A nurse. Anyone. But every option came with pictures she wasn't ready to see—the stares, the questions, the disappointment that would cling to her name like a stain.
Her thumb moved before she had fully decided. Her fingers knew where to go even if her mind didn't.
Contacts.
His name.
Her chest squeezed.
She pressed call.
The dial tone rang once, twice, three times. Her pulse jumped with each one.
"Mm? Mirai?" His voice was familiar, lazy, exactly the same as yesterday and every day before that. It hurt how normal it sounded. As if nothing had changed.
Mirai swallowed. Her voice came out too small.
"Are you busy?" she managed.
"Just at home. Why? You sound weird."
Weird. She wished she could laugh at that.
Her fingers dug into her skirt, knuckles turning white.
"I… I need to tell you something."
Silence, then a slight shift in his breathing. "You're scaring me. What happened?"
The words were heavy. They crawled up her throat, sharp, cutting her on their way out.
"I… I took a test," she whispered. "It's… it's positive."
The quiet that followed wasn't like the gentle calm of an empty classroom. It was the kind that existed just before something broke.
He didn't say anything.
Mirai clutched the phone tighter. "I… I don't know what to do," she said. A tear finally slipped down her cheek. "What should we do?"
There it was—that word. We.
Shared mistake. Shared responsibility. Shared fear.
On the other end of the line, he exhaled sharply.
"...What do you mean we?"
The way he said it made her chest drop.
Mirai blinked. "I… what…?"
"This is your problem, isn't it?" he said. His voice changed—hard edges, irritation rising like a tide. "You should've been more careful."
Her heart stopped for a beat. The phone felt heavier, harder to hold.
"But… you were there too," she said, voice trembling. "We agreed—"
"I can't deal with this," he cut in. "I have exams, Mirai. I have my future to think about."
His future.
The words pressed into her like fingers closing around her throat.
"I'm scared," she whispered. "I don't… I don't know what to do. I thought you—"
"Handle it," he said flatly. "You figure it out. Don't drag me into this."
You.
Just her.
She stared at the bathroom floor, the white tiles blurring through her tears.
"Wait," she said, panic bubbling up. "Please, just… can we talk? Can we meet somewhere and—"
"I said don't call me about this again," he snapped. "Seriously, Mirai, don't ruin my life over your mistake."
Click.
The line went dead.
For a moment, she didn't move. The phone stayed pressed against her ear, even though all she could hear now was her own empty breathing.
Your mistake.
The words crawled under her skin, loud, ugly, alive.
Her fingers slipped, and the phone clattered onto the bathroom floor. The sound jolted her, and her body finally remembered how to move—just enough to fold in on itself.
She bent forward, elbows on her knees, hands covering her mouth as the first sob tore out of her.
It felt wrong to cry loudly in a small house like this. Someone might hear. Neighbors might notice. But the sound came anyway, raw and broken, squeezed from a heart that had been asked, in a single sentence, to carry the weight of two people's sin all alone.
Her shoulders shook.
Your mistake.
Your responsibility.
Your fault.
Her tears dripped onto the test still lying on the sink.
After a long time—she wasn't sure if it was minutes or an hour—she forced herself to stand. Her legs stung with pins and needles. She washed her face in cold water, scrubbing under her eyes until the redness dulled.
If she walked out like this, someone would notice. Her parents were home. The walls here were thin, and nothing stayed secret forever.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was too pale. Her eyes were swollen. She practiced a smile, just a small one, and the reflection tried to obey but failed halfway, trembling around the edges.
It would have to be enough.
She flushed the toilet. Turned on the tap. Put the test in a plastic bag and hid it deep inside her school bag, between textbooks and worksheets about things that no longer felt important.
Equations. Dates. Vocabulary words. Futures measured in exams, not in heartbeat counts.
When she slid open the bathroom door, the hallway felt too bright.
"Mirai?" Her mother's voice floated in from the living room. The TV murmured softly behind it. "You were in there a long time. Are you okay?"
Mirai swallowed the lump in her throat.
"I'm fine," she called back, forcing her voice into something normal. "Sorry. Just… washing my face."
Her mother hummed, satisfied. "Don't spend too long daydreaming, okay? Dinner will be ready soon."
Daydreaming.
Right.
Mirai managed a small "okay" and walked to her room.
Her phone lit up as she sank onto the bed. For a foolish, desperate second, she thought maybe he had texted back. Maybe he had calmed down. Maybe he would say he was sorry, that he was just scared, that they would figure this out together.
But the screen showed nothing from him.
Just a different notification.
Yuuto:
I'll be home a bit late. Don't wait up if you're tired.
Her chest tightened.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
She could tell him. She could send just three words and shatter whatever peace he still had left.
I need help.
Instead, she typed:
It's okay. Don't work too hard.
She stared at the message for a long moment before sending it.
Her phone buzzed almost immediately.
Yuuto:
You sound like Mom lol
I'll bring you something sweet if the shop's still open.
It was such a small thing. An ordinary, everyday promise. But it landed in her chest with the weight of something huge, because he meant it. He always meant it. When he said he'd bring her something, he did. When he said he would help her with math, he did. When he said he'd be there for her, he always had been.
And she was about to become the one thing that might break that.
Mirai pressed the phone to her chest. Her eyes stung again.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into the quiet room. "I'm so, so sorry."
She tried to sleep that night.
Every time she closed her eyes, numbers spun in her head. Weeks. Months. The memory of dates circled back in a cruel loop, drawing a timeline she didn't want to see.
How long ago. What day. Which weekend.
The future had always been something soft and far away—a vague picture of graduation, maybe university, a job, a small apartment with plants and sunlight. Nothing too special, nothing too big.
Now it felt like a tunnel closing in around her.
At some point, exhaustion pulled her under, but the sleep was shallow and full of flashes.
A hospital corridor.
Whispers behind hands.
Her parents' faces, blurred with disappointment and anger.
A baby's cry she couldn't locate.
When morning came, her alarm felt like a siren.
She turned it off with a shaking hand.
School.
She had to go. She couldn't not go. Questions would come. People would talk.
She put on her uniform like armor. Skirt, blouse, blazer. The fabric felt the same as yesterday, but she didn't fit inside it the same way anymore. The mirror showed an ordinary high school girl, hair tied up neatly, bag over her shoulder.
No one would see what she was carrying yet.
On the way to the front door, she nearly bumped into Yuuto. He was halfway through tying his tie, hair still slightly messy from sleep.
"Oh, morning," he said, blinking. "You look tired."
"I'm fine," she replied automatically.
He frowned. "Did you stay up late studying again?"
She started to say yes, then stopped. The lie thinned before it even left her mouth. Her lips parted, then closed again.
"I just… couldn't sleep," she said instead.
Yuuto watched her carefully. He always had that annoying big-brother ability—to see through the little things, the tiny cracks no one else noticed.
"You've been spacing out a lot lately," he said. "Something happen at school?"
She shook her head, eyes dropping to her hands. "No. Just… exams."
He snorted softly. "You worried about exams? Mirai, you're literally the last person who needs to be anxious about tests."
She tried to smile, and this time it almost reached her eyes. Almost.
"I guess," she whispered.
Yuuto slung his bag over his shoulder and reached out to gently flick her forehead with two fingers.
"Don't overthink things alone," he said. "If something's bothering you, just tell me, okay? I'll help."
Her heart twisted.
That was the worst part.
He meant it.
He would help. He would do anything. He was the one person she knew wouldn't say your mistake like poison. But telling him would drag him into the same storm she was drowning in.
For a second, she wanted to. The truth sat at the back of her throat, ready.
I… I'm pregnant.
It would be so easy to say. Three seconds. One breath.
Instead, she swallowed it back down. Cowardice tasted like metal.
"I will," she lied softly. "Thank you, Yuuto."
He smiled, satisfied, and opened the door.
"Let's go then. If you fall asleep in class because you stayed up worrying for no reason, I'm going to laugh at you."
She followed him out into the crisp morning air.
The world looked the same—neighbors sweeping in front of their houses, bicycles rattling down the street, birds chattering on electric wires. No one could see the test hidden in her bag, or the silent countdown that had started in her head.
At school, the hallways buzzed with normal noise. Friends greeted each other, someone complained about homework, someone else laughed too loudly at a joke. The ordinary chaos of teenagers who still believed the worst thing that could happen this week was a failed quiz.
Mirai walked through it like a ghost.
In class, she answered questions. She took notes. She nodded when the teacher explained formulas on the board. On the outside, nothing had changed.
Inside, every word slid off the surface of her thoughts like rain on glass.
At lunch, girls at the next table whispered about some celebrity scandal. One of them said, "I don't get it. How can anyone be that stupid? Just throwing their life away."
Mirai's fingers tightened around her chopsticks. The rice in her bento blurred.
Stupid.
Throwing life away.
She pushed the food around without tasting it.
Days blurred like that.
Call.
Rejection.
The visit she couldn't stop thinking about.
It took her three days to find the courage to ring his doorbell.
Not because she thought he would welcome her. That hope had already dissolved the moment he said "your mistake." But some part of her still believed adults might be different. That they would be angry, yes, disappointed, definitely—but that they would at least tell him what he did was wrong. That someone older would say you're responsible too.
Her hands were cold inside her sleeves as she stood in front of his family's house. It wasn't far from her own, but the walk there had felt like crossing into another life.
She rang the bell.
His mother opened the door.
She was polite, as she always was when Mirai had come by to study before. Her makeup was perfect, her hair tidy, her smile small and controlled.
"Ah, Mirai-chan," she said. "It's been a while. Are you here to see him?"
Mirai swallowed. The urge to run away rose and fell like a wave.
"Yes," she said. Her voice sounded wrong to her own ears. "I… need to talk to you. And him. It's… important."
Something flickered in the woman's eyes at the word important. She stepped aside slowly.
"Come in, then."
The living room smelled like coffee and laundry detergent. His father sat at the table, reading the newspaper. He glanced up, nodded in greeting, then noticed his wife's face and set the paper down.
"Mirai-chan has something to discuss," she said quietly.
Her boyfriend came down the stairs a moment later, phone in hand, annoyance already on his face like a shadow.
"I told you not to—"
"Sit," his father said. His tone was heavy. "Let her speak."
Mirai stood, hands clenched in front of her. Every eye in the room was on her. Her heart hammered so hard she could hear it in her ears.
"I…" Her voice cracked. She forced it steady. "I took a test a few days ago. It was positive."
His mother's smile vanished.
His father's jaw tightened.
Her boyfriend swore under his breath.
"And you're telling us this because…?" his father asked, though the answer was obvious.
Mirai lifted her head. It felt like it weighed more than her whole body.
"Because he's involved," she said. "Because we… we both—"
"Careful with your words, girl," his mother interrupted sharply. "Do you have any proof it's his?"
The question hit like a slap.
Mirai stared at her, shock draining the color from her face.
"I… I wouldn't lie about something like this," she whispered.
Her boyfriend looked away. Said nothing.
His father sighed, long and slow, as if someone had bothered him with a minor inconvenience.
"Regardless," he said, "even if it is, this is not something that should affect our son's future."
Mirai's throat closed.
"I'm scared," she said. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "I don't know what to do. I can't talk to my parents. I just… I thought… maybe…"
Maybe adults would be kind. Maybe they would help her think. Maybe someone would say "we'll figure this out together."
His mother folded her arms.
"What do you expect from us?" she asked. Her eyes were cold now, sharp. "Money? Marriage? Ruining his life because you were careless?"
The last word shook.
Careless.
Mirai's fingers dug crescents into her palms.
"We both decided—" she began, but his father cut in.
"This isn't the time for excuses," he said. "Listen carefully, Mirai-chan. Our son has worked hard for his grades. He has exams. He has a future. We will not let this… situation derail that."
She felt dizzy.
Situation.
Like it was a broken chair or a bad test score. Something you could just throw away and forget.
"I…" Her voice barely existed now. "What… what am I supposed to do?"
His mother's answer came without hesitation.
"Get rid of it."
The words fell between them like something heavy and rotten.
Mirai stared at her, breath caught halfway in her chest.
"I… I can't," she whispered. "I don't… I don't think I can do that."
His mother's lips thinned.
"Then that's your choice," she said. "But don't ever come here again expecting anything from him. Don't call him. Don't message him. Don't drag our family into your mistake."
Your mistake.
The room tilted for a second. Mirai's vision blurred at the edges.
She turned her head toward him—toward the boy who had once held her hand on the walk home, who had once promised he would always be on her side.
He wasn't looking at her.
He stared at the floor, fists clenched, not saying a word.
"Say something," she begged, the words escaping before she could stop them. "Please. Just… say something."
He swallowed, then muttered, so quietly she almost missed it:
"Just… do what my parents said. Don't make this more complicated."
Something inside her cracked.
It wasn't a dramatic shatter. Just a quiet, final sound, like a small branch breaking in the wind.
"I see," she said.
Her voice surprised her. It was thin but steady. Empty.
She bowed, because politeness was a habit that clung even to someone whose world had just been pushed off a cliff.
"I'm sorry for disturbing you."
No one stopped her as she walked to the door. No one called her name.
Outside, the air felt colder than it should have for that time of year. She stepped onto the street, numb, and realized belatedly that she didn't remember the walk there. Her feet had brought her without her thoughts.
She took one step. Then another.
The world went on as usual. A dog barked somewhere. A car drove past. Two students laughed, uniforms rustling as they ran.
Mirai wrapped her arms around herself.
If they wouldn't help her… if he wouldn't… if even adults told her to erase what had already begun to exist…
What was left?
Her mind spun through every possible path, each one ending in the same wall. Fear of her parents. Fear of school. Fear of being alone.
Fear of being the only one who would choose to protect a life no one wanted.
Days passed in fragments after that.
School. Homework. Forced smiles. Empty replies.
Her body knew how to move through the routines of being Mirai, the good student, even while her heart counted something else entirely—time. Weeks. The quiet, invisible growth inside her.
Yuuto noticed, of course.
He noticed how often she flinched at sudden sounds. How long she stared at nothing. How her smiles lagged, arriving at the wrong moments.
"Mirai," he said one evening, leaning against her doorframe as she sat at her desk, pretending to study. "You've been weird lately."
She forced a small laugh. "You always say that."
"This time I mean it more," he replied. "You're not eating much. You're tired. Did something happen?"
She stared at the textbook in front of her. The characters on the page blurred.
Say it.
Tell him.
Let him be angry. Let him scold her. Let him say she'd been foolish. Anything would be better than drowning alone.
Her hands trembled slightly on top of the desk.
"I… I'm just nervous about exams," she said.
The lie slid out like a reflex.
Yuuto frowned. "You've never been this nervous before."
"I'm getting older," she said weakly. "It's… normal."
He walked over and gently tapped the top of her head.
"Idiot. You're smart. You'll be fine," he said. "You don't need to carry everything by yourself all the time, you know?"
Her throat closed.
"I'll… remember that," she said softly.
He smiled at her, easy and warm.
"Good. I'm going to heat up dinner. Come out in a bit, okay?"
When he left, closing the door behind him, something in her finally settled.
There was no one left to go to first. No safe space to postpone the truth into.
Running in circles around her fear wouldn't change what was already inside her.
She stared at her reflection in the dark window—at the girl who had always done what was expected, who had always stayed quiet, who had always tried not to cause trouble.
She placed a hand lightly over her stomach.
Her heart pounded.
"I'm scared," she whispered into the empty room. "But… I can't pretend nothing's happening."
Her parents were strict. They cared about what neighbors said. They would be angry, maybe furious. They might say the same words she had already heard today.
Your mistake.
But they were still her parents.
And hiding this forever… wasn't possible.
Her legs felt heavy as she stood. Each step down the hallway echoed too loudly in her ears. The house was quieter at night, the TV turned low, the kitchen light casting a warm glow she suddenly felt unworthy to stand in.
Her mother was at the table, sorting through some papers. Her father watched the news, arms crossed.
Mirai stopped just before the threshold, fingers curling into the fabric of her skirt.
Her chest ached. Her mouth went dry. The air seemed thicker here.
"Mom… Dad…" she said.
Her voice sounded small, but it was enough to make both of them look up.
They saw just their daughter standing there in her uniform, hair still tied, eyes too wide.
"I… I need to tell you something," Mirai said.
And this time, there was no one else left to run to first.