All that waiting for
Steam rising in the air, feet gently padding the toweled ground, she draped her robe around herself and proceeded to dry her hair whilst making her way to the master bedroom. Outside the night was alive with the usual traffic hum and the streaks of yellow that headlights made on the gray hard granite ground. Inside, 14 floors above the busy sidewalks and streets, the room was a contrasting calm, with only the strains of Miss Ella and Mr Louie contributing to a lovely melodic background.
She sank into the sheets on the bed, a contented sigh escaping from her lips. Most women would have been upset at the prospect of a lonely Valentine's evening, even more so devastated if they had a lover who was absent from the evening for the sole reason that their work could not, would not free them for even one very special night.
But.
She was not most women. She loved her solitude and more importantly she was secure in the fact that somewhere out there, her man was thinking of her even if he wasn't physically present. Besides, she rather that it was his passion that kept him away and not another femme fatale.
It also helped that they had been through this a couple of times. They had wrestled with the issue of their opposing and drastically different career choices. He, a high school basketball coach, her, a rising junior executive in the fastest growing banking institution. She used to gripe over the fact that he absolutely abhorred her mandatory cocktail parties and they literally brawled over his thoughtless comment that 'all people who attended cocktail parties were pretentious phonies' as that careless remark naturally included her as 'one of those people'. At the same time, she had to learn to understand that his kids, his players were important to him. Though she was foremost in his life, his passion sometimes meant late night phone calls from high school punks that would cause him to scramble out of their apartment in the wee hours of the morning to counsel some kid… …leaving her of course with a cold empty bed.
Obviously, it wasn't easy.
But she loved him. And though he didn't say it very often, in fact, would probably choke on his words if he attempted to articulate it, she got the sense that he felt the same way too.
So she would wait and read, and content herself with the quiet solitary hours, knowing somewhere on this Valentine's Day evening, her lover was out there, living out his passion. She would wait, with the full knowledge that they had come far enough to allow the other to live without impinging on each other's dreams, and yet still have learnt the art of mutual submission.
She smiled and laid her head down on her pillow just as the door clicked open.
He tried to open the door quietly. It had been a long day for Mitsui Hisashi and all he had craved and waited for the entire day was his lover's presence. He stared at the figure draped in white on the bed, the sheets outlining her every curve. Slowly, he made his way to the bed, and crawled under the sheets where she lay. Sliding his hand under her waist, he pulled her to him.
"Hi," she said lazily as her eyes met his.
There was no celebration, no roses, no chocolates or wine in their Valentine's Day. But as they lay in bed together, passing the night in its stillness, Mitsui felt that they were, in a funny strange way, celebrating their own special relationship.
"Hey Ayako," he replied hoarsely as he claimed her mouth.
And all that waiting for finally paid off.
Disclaimer: I do not any of the characters whatsoever, but I would still love a review!