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“Sometimes, it feels like I don’t really have any options either.”
CHAIN-LINK EVENT
WARNING: this Event is part of an Event Chain! You've lost all control over your own actions and must now sit back while
someone else takes the wheel. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, and hope that you did things right before taking the plunge!
Karin and Imani sit alone at the party, and both of them start to feel the exhaustion of tonight's festivities. After a bit of conversation about Kirin's attitude, the recently uncomfortable modeling contest at the Beach Wars, and some quips about the stark differences between the Kanda sisters, Karin gives an update on her father's investigation into a possible connection between his old classmate and Ami's mother. Unfortunately, her update is mostly bad news, as her father was unable to locate any photographs nor hard evidence to connect the dots – However, he does remember her name, something he learned as she refused to ever use her family name.
Just as Karin's about to say it, though, Ami walks up to the two of them. She inserts herself into the conversation, leading the two to awkwardly dance around the actual topic of the conversation they were having. Ami continues to try and pry at it, though, leading to Imani asking her to drop it as it's private information. Ami apologizes for continuing to be suffocating, and the topic shifts onto schoolwork, something Ami's notoriously bad at which Imani quips is probably due to Sensei slacking on properly educating her. Hearing this, Ami accuses her of talking bad about Sensei, pressing the point more and more as Imani tries to back-pedal. Ami warns her not to talk behind people's backs, telling both Imani and Karin that they should "stop".
Meanwhile, Otoha and Kaori are on the lower floor of Kaori's workplace, while Niki watches from a nearby couch, having been made into an impromptu pillow for a sleeping Nao-chan. As the three banter amongst themselves, Kaori repeatedly warns Niki to lower her voice or she risks waking Nao up. After apologizing, Niki falls quiet, seemingly captivated by Nao's peaceful – Otoha quickly takes notice of this and asks if Niki's feeling an onset of "baby fever". She denies this, reminding Otoha of her recent mention of not wanting kids, while also adding that she'd probably suck at being a parent.
Upon questioning from Kaori, Niki explains that, on top of having very little time to spend on a child, she isn't sure she'd be able to love them – She only has a finite amount of love she can give, and with Sensei already occupying such an important place in her life, she struggles to see being able to adequately love any hypothetical children. This is on top of a bunch of smaller issues, like if the child ends up being annoyed, or hating her, or taking after Sensei and spending their days moping. The silver lining here is that he'll probably never want kids, being far too fragile.
Kaori and Otoha continue to game as Niki continues to stare at Nao, now content and somewhat pleasured to be her pillow.