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“The Soul” stretched out, as the other did the same. Work has been done… for at least that chapter. She did make a bet in getting her style into polar and noir, but these are so terms that sometimes just remember, or some concepts that's quite difficult to explain for her - having never lived those situations. But alas, for today, it was finished, and her teary eyes from the fatigue could finally be brushed off.
Cafe looked at the house’s clock. It was her wife’s turn to get the kids from school, and it was already 5:16 pm. Did she forget... Cafe clenched her fists. Sometimes, that woman could make Cafe so mad, Satan would seemed like a sad wet dog next to her.
And so, when she promptly decided to take up her phone and call that nefarious wife, she heard a knock - no, multiple little knocks - before the door finally opened, revelating in the hall way two read-headed Umas, one harboring a little tiara, the other a little necklace, as blue as the ear decoration of her mother.
“Moooom!!” “Mommy!”
They threw their shoes out next to the door and jumped over Cafe, embrassing her into a deep hug. She petted them, passing her hands into their ears to relax them.
“How was school?”
“It was…” Desire started before getting cut off by Scarlet,
“It was so cool! I had a 10/10 on physics today, thanks to Mom! And I looked up the report cards of my class : I'm the first of it!!” Daiwa Scarlet stand proudly, her hands fixated on her ankles, her smile attached into a little smirk, nearly like the one she does.
“I’m very proud of you, Scarlet.” Cafe bended over to put a little kiss on her forehead as a treat. “You’re always the best when you put your heart to. But little one, didn’t you forget something?”
“Huh? Ah! My tiara!! Oh, no, it's still on my head.”
“At least it’s not your brain you lost this time!” a smirky voice echoed from the hallway, deposing her coat and deposing her shoes before joining into the conversation.
“Tachyon…”
“Wh- what's that? Have I misheard? Did the epitome of my life, the sole love of my existence, the one that I could move mountains and run to the moon for (actually I should try that sometimes) — is just calling me… Tachyon?! Not Sweetie, not my beloved, not even… Tachy..?!”
“Urgh, enough with your theatrics, Tachyon. I was trying to speak to our daughters about their days, and Desi didn’t have the opportunity to say anything, because of” she pinches the cheek of Scarlet “my sweet baby and” she now pinches with her other hand the cheek of Tachyon, who frown from the action “my big, unhinged but lovable baby”.
After the two red-eyed girls went to pout — Tachyon in her lab in the garage and Scarlet following her — Desi started telling her day to her mother.
“I… I’ve made a friend today Mom!”
“Ooh, and tell me, what’s her name?
“It’s Vodka. She’s so nice… I was alone at school when Scarlet was in her supplementary classes, but Vodka invited me to play with the others and we play a lot!”
“I’m so happy for you my sweet girl.” As the same as Scarlet, she gently kisses her forehead. Now that she was thinking about it, Vodka was a weird name even for an Uma to wear, but she recall someone next to their generations of runners having a alcohol type name like that… Tequila Gimlet maybe? Maybe Tachyon would remember. “Today is Friday, so you can read, watch TV, play some games…”
“I wanna read some Mama’s writing!”
“One of my books? But you already have read them plenty of times, and Mom’s not finished with this one… which one so you want?”
“*The Shadow Behind The Wall* please.”
"You love that one a lot. Even your mother doesn’t read my books as much.”
“That's because this one is precious to me, hehe.” And as she told that, Cafe is sure to have seen from behind her child, the sight of a old friend, watching over her.
She then took the book and hopped on the stairs, climbing them and getting into her round with a nearly silent “clic”.
“So silent and polite…” Cafe muttered to herself while she pour some coffee. “What’s even from Tachyon in her, I wonder…”
“WELL! OF COURSE!”
“YES! OF COURSE!”
And then both in unison,
*MY’S/MAMA’S SMARTNESS AND WONDERFULNESS!!”
Cafe just sighed at them, not even trying to hide the big smile that formed on her face.
“Tachy, you want some tea? I pour you some. Here’s apple juice for you Scarlet.”
“Thank you Mom!”
“I’d like that very much my sweet Cafe.” She then inspected the tea, as if Cafe had poisoned with anything, which would be preposterous from Tachyon to even consider.
“How many sugars?”
Cafe looked away.
“Dear, look at me when we talk.”
She looked over, nose to nose and with her weird red lined-eyes that scares everyone that looks at her for too long. Not Manhattan Cafe tho. In fact, she loves staring at them.
“So?”
“I… 3.”
“?! We agreed last week that this week would be four!!! I want my four sugars in my tea Cafe, or I’ll die!! I’ll become a larva that the wind will swept away and you will never see me again and I would be ate by some bird that probably ate sugar before me.”
“3 is enough! The doctors said that you have too much sugar and that you need to lessen up your in-take. You're not a teenager anymore that can gobble vitamins and sugar and call it a day. And I hope that you don’t just don't that at work.”
“… only when I forgot my lunchbox.”
“At least you’re honest with it.”
“BUT PLEASE CAFE!! PLEASE! My brain cannot functions properly without the needed amount of sugar deliberately made up by myself!! I need 4 sugars in my tea and I need them right now!”
“Oh?” Cafe stared her down, with a light smug.
“And what will you do to achieve that?”
She took a kitchen knife, and hold it to her stomach. “Seppuku.”
Cafe sighed and grabs the knife from her, before getting a sugar from the counter, putting it into her mouth while Tachyon was still moping on the floor.
“Sweetie. Heads up.”
“Did my pleadings finally get thro- mphfjhhhfg!”
Cafe took her slowly in a passionate kiss, pushing with her tongue the block of sugar into Tachyon's ; and pushing against each other, their saliva melted the sugar to nothing more than a sweet liquid, that both were eager to consume, now nearly lay down on the floor, hands in each other hair, tails intertwined together, their breaths shaking into their mouth, none wanting to break from that sweet merging they share - their whole body, their tongue their eyes, all fixated on one thing : Agnes Tachyon. Manhattan Cafe. The only thing that counts.
“This, and the kids too…” Cafe muttered before being pulled into another kiss.
Speaking of the kids, with Mama's gone, Scarlet was free to play in the lab - well, not free, actually if she wasn’t accompanied by Tachyon she would punished and “ate by mystical beasts” and even if she didn’t believe her mom, she did say the truth quite often than not. But now that Mama was occupied with Mom, now was the time! She thought of bringing Desi with her, but she never wanted to leave her room except for dinner. Scarlet swear she sometimes heard her talking to someone else. Creepy…
Focus, Daiwa Scarlet, Focus! Never forget that your full name is Daiwa Agnes Manhattan Scarlet, and that you’re proud of it.
… What a mouthful to say tho. Well, she needs to focus on The Mission™️ - getting in the lab. She climbed down slowly the stairs, not seeing any of her mothers in the living room “they must have left for some quick groceries?” Scarlet thought, before finally opening the precious door of the lab, that Scarlet stole stealthily from her Mama's lab pocket. The lab was amazing, taking the garage and extending into the floor as well. It wasn’t the first time Scarlet was in this room, but being here all alone filled her with awe.
The light from the window picked to draw a line to a little detail of the decor, that seemed nothing of importance. Old sheets, probably to throwaway. She peaked under them, and it was a very dusty portrait of her Mama, running at her prime. She looked so happy when she was running… A little note was attached to it. It reads,
“Happy birthday dingus. Visit us Dantsu and I sometimes. We love to have you at dinner.*
Signed Jungle Pocket. Jungle Pocket… if she was correct, she was the Derby Winner of the year Mama couldn't finish the crown tour…
A door cracked behind her.
“Scarlet? What are you doing here? I’ve said you you plenty of times already to not go to the lab without me-”
“I’ll run for you Mama!!! I-I’ll be the best! The number one!! A-And everyone will say “This is Daiwa Scarlet, the daughter of the legend Agnes Tachyon." I’ll… I'll even run the crown tour and I’ll make you proud-”
“Scarlet.” Tachyon bends her closed to her daughter, embracing in her arms. “You don't need to make me proud. I’m already the proudest mother I could ever dreamed off. I have two wonderful kids, an incredible wife, and I can dedicate my whole life to what I love the most: my research and my family. Without them, there's no Agnes Tachyon nor Mama… So you're allowing me to wear those names, Scarlet. I love you.”
Scarlet teared up, stumbling upon her words, quite shocked by this sudden vulnerability from her mama.
“I loshe tou Mama…”
Tachyon took her into her arms easily.
“Let's get you to Mom, today yours favorite. Udon with fried carrots.”
“*sniff* yeeeeesh!”
“Desi? Are you ready for dinner? I’ve cooked some udon that you like.”
“Comiiiing Mom.”
Cafe smiled and took the stairs back down, while thinking to herself that Desire seemed to talk to herself before she arrives to her door… maybe she is still Her after all, huh…
“Got the little theft.” Tachyon announced, a heavily crying Scarlet with her head on a shoulder.
“Oh my Goddesses… what is she crying so much… did you drugged her…?”
“What? Don't fucking dare to say that I do anything to my children.”
“Mama.” Red Desire was now here too, with a box full of coins with it. “The naughty words box. You shouldn't say things like that to Mom.”
Tachyon wanted to get mad that Cafe thought that she could do something like that, but sighed and capitulated in putting that coin in the jar.
“Thank you Desi, you’re adorable.” She turned to Cafe, having posed Scarlet on a chair, Desi showing her a coloring that she have done in her room before coming down.
“So. Wanna know how little Scarlet cried, Sweetie?”
“Yes, and I do hope it’s nothing dire-”
Tachyon squeezed her into her arms, putting Cafe’s defense to zero in an instance, and kisses her cheeks as well. She then put her nose to hers, to take a good look at her eyes.
“Scarlet was crying because she was happy to have such wonderful mamas,” she closed up the sentenced with a long, deep kiss. “… like you.”
Cafe exploded, leaving very rare traces of blushes in her cheeks. She pulled Tachyon back, tightening her by her waist and one hand by her tail, before whispering into her ear “… you should try more of that commanding tone in bed. I really like it.”
Cafe kisses her wife’s cheek before getting to make dinner with Desi and Scarlet as little helpers!
Tachyon herself was trying her hardest to solve in seconds the lonely runner conjecture to not think about her brain exploding.
They looked at each other, and smiled. A very, precious smile that both of them had trouble to show to each other years ago.
And by the kisses of the Goddesses, every dream come true.