Noll just sat and stared. He blinked a few times. But his eyes were still set on the same place on the wall in front of him.
Even the smell of a fresh cup of tea did not break him out of the funk he was stuck in.
What exactly had just happened?
He remembered the phrase 'it's something families do together' being a reason.
"You can take those off now, you know?" a soft voice said from somewhere to his left.
Numbly, he looked around to see his wife, still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing all day. Mai and their daughter, Himeko, had been wearing matching Minnie Mouse outfits, complete with ears and a bow.
Gentle hands prized something off of Noll's head. Mickey Mouse ears. What? When had that happened? Or more importantly, how had that happened?
They had forced him into it. His angelic daughter and the woman he thought he loved. Noll wasn't so sure any more. Mai usually saved him from these hardships. Traitor.
"That tea will get cold," Mai pointed out.
"I want to put Himeko up for adoption," Noll said quietly.
"What?" Mai looked around, frowning.
"I love her very much, but I cannot bring myself to repeat the travesty that was today. If that is what having children means, I will not do it."
Mai stared for a moment and then burst out laughing.
"Really? Was it so bad?" she asked, still smiling.
"Which bit about today wasn't bad?"
"The look on our daughter's face."
Noll opened his mouth to disagree, but he couldn't do it. So instead, he drunk some of the tea.
"There has to be a way of getting such a reaction without the hour long queues, overpriced food, a ridiculous amount of waving and having to sit on dull rides alone," he muttered finally.
"Naru, it's Disney Land, you sort of have to expect those things," Mai pointed out.
"Why?" he demanded.
"You just do," Mai said. "Himeko is asleep, by the way. She's knackered, poor kid."
"Good," Noll replied.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Mai broke it.
"I've been thinking about that…" she mumbled.
"About what?"
"The fact that you had to sit alone today."
"Well perhaps if you hadn't commandeered our daughter-" Noll began.
"She didn't want to sit next to you in case she got scared and you thought she was a wimp," Mai cut in sharply. Noll frowned at his wife.
"Really?"
"Yup," Mai said. "She wants to impress you so badly." She shook her head a little.
"Idiot," Noll muttered. "She doesn't need to do anything to impress me."
Mai sighed at her husband. On the one hand, she hated that he called their daughter an idiot but on the other, he was being sort of adorable.
"Anyway, so I was saying," Mai began again. "About you sitting alone. Well, what if you didn't have to sit alone?"
Noll refrained from sarcastically clapping.
"And what do you suggest?" he asked in a tired voice.
"Maybe, getting you someone to sit next to," Mai mumbled. Noll noticed she was twisting her hands together in her lap.
"Get to the point, Mai," he said in a hope to shorten her beating around the bush.
"Iwasthinkingmaybeweshouldhaveanotherbaby."
Fortunately, Noll knew his wife well enough to understand what she had said. He did not react for a moment.
"Your reasoning?"
"Well, it'd be great for Himeko to have a sibling to play with and to share stuff with. And to stop her being a brat, because most single children end up spoilt brats," Mai began.
"You were a single child," Noll pointed out.
"Yes, but my family had no money for me to be spoilt with," Mai retorted. "And well, I'm not going to be young forever and the risks of harm to the baby increase as a mother gets older and I kept seeing adorable little babies all over the park today and…" she trailed off, her cheeks reddening.
"So you want another child because you feel broody and you don't want Himeko to be a brat?" Noll surmised.
"Well you don't have to put it like that!" Mai huffed. She took Noll's empty tea cup and stormed to the kitchen. As she begun to wash the two cups up, she heard her husband join her. "I just wanted to discuss it, that's all. It doesn't matter."
Noll rolled his eyes.
"You're being overdramatic Mai," he said.
"And you're being a jerk."
"It is hard to take you seriously when you are wearing fake mouse ears," Noll commented as he picked up the clean mug and dried it with a tea towel.
Mai sighed, pulled off the ears and the bow from her head and let her shoulders sag.
"I'm going to bed, we have to be up early," she mumbled.
"Why?"
"To finish the weekend of torture of course," she said as she departed from the kitchen. "Disney Land today, Disney Sea tomorrow, remember?"
Noll put the mugs away and followed his wife to the bedroom. She was just taking off her dress and looking for her pyjamas. He grabbed her hand to prevent her picking the nightclothes up.
"Naru," Mai complained. "What are you doing?"
She stood there in her underwear and glared up at him.
"I apologise for being blunt. Your idea is not a bad one," he said.
"I'm still annoyed at you," Mai said with a pout.
"And tomorrow, I am sitting with Himeko."
"What? Why?"
"Well you won't be allowed on the rides," Noll said with an infuriating smirk.
"Why not? This better not be about my height! I am tall enough to go on everything Mr Freakishly Tall Person," Mai said as she folded her arms and stood to her full five foot two inches. Noll rolled his eyes.
"Mai, they don't allow pregnant women on the rides," he said.
Mai opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again as she realised what he said.
"I'm still annoyed at-"
But he silenced her with a kiss.
Author's note: Guess who went to Disney Land yesterday?! And Disney Sea today?! (Yes, I, a 21 year old went to both Disney Land and Disney Sea by myself in a country where I barely speak the language - it was fun! I actually managed to speak with a few Japanese people in Japanese and they understood yay!)
As I waited in one of the queues, the beginning of this fic came to mind and I just had to write it so...
Please review :)