a place for love up among the stars

by signelchan

An astronaut's biggest dream is to go to space, and when Kaito ends up being part of a space mission, there's a lot that he chooses to let happen between finding out and when he'll take flight—not to mention all of the things that he doesn't choose to have happen to him and Maki both together and as separate people.

1. taking flight

tw: vomiting, female anatomy (non-sexual)

Whenever Kaito had something important and positive to say, he usually could make it a couple minutes before his news would fall out of his mouth, the excitement of keeping it secret too difficult for him to contain. He could begin to bait someone with a tease about having a secret and reveal the secret in the same breath, he was that horrible at keeping his mouth shut about details. This was just a quirk of his that everyone had grown used to in the many years since they'd first met him, and he tried his best to work on eliminating it but any and all attempts seemed to be fruitless.

That was why it came as a surprise to Maki when she came home from yet another day of working to preserve her assassin title, only for Kaito to be waiting by the door, the largest grin he could have on his face. "I wasn't expecting you to be here when I got back," she admitted, kicking her shoes off and feeling relieved when she could spread her toes on the floor. "Figured I'd have some time to myself before—"

"There's something big, huge, gigantic that I've got to tell you, that's why I'm here!" He was nearly yelling, his voice almost cracking with some of the higher pitches it hit. "I can't tell you right this second and it's killing me, but you haveta believe me when I say that I've got the best news I've ever had for ya!"

His exuberance was fairly standard whenever he had news to deliver, but as Maki waited with brows raised for him to once again fail to keep his secret and tell her prematurely, she found him staring at her with that grin, blinking blankly. "This is the part where you go ahead and tell me whatever this is."

"Huh? I can't do that this time, Maki Roll. Had to promise I wouldn't say a word about anything until you heard about it from someone else first." His grin faltered as she continued looking suspiciously at him, him raising a hand to scratch at the back of his head. "It's kind of a crazy situation but trust me when I say you'll know what I have for ya when you hear the first thing about it." He was trying to sound convincing, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it, not in her opinion.

Even still, she wasn't going to call him a liar to his face, not in plain terms. "I'll play along, sure. Just don't blame me when you end up telling me whatever you're trying to hide because you can't keep positive secrets worth a damn." His reaction to that was to laugh, pulling her into a one-armed hug that she tried to push herself out of but their size difference always made it more of a struggle than she was willing to commit to most days. He was a lot to handle at once, but at the end of the day he was still the love of her life, the reason she stuck with assassin work even though she could get out of the field at any time, because the pay was nice and helped support them both when he wasn't making anything substantial (which was all of the time, it seemed). Being an assassin was messy and far from glamorous, but she was paid so much better than he was at his ground-based astronaut job.

Kaito was making a lovely effort to keep his mouth shut on whatever his secret was, but she was already starting to think about the possibilities for what it could pertain to. He'd specifically mentioned how she had to hear it from someone else first, which made her think that one of their friends had made the wrong choice in trusting him with some big news, and if that were the case then she could narrow it down to just a handful of options. To test that theory, she brought up each of her options at random, seeing if she could get a reaction out of him that spilled the beans he was keeping to himself, but everything she said was met with that same blank stare she'd gotten before.

"You're really not going to let me find this one out early, huh?" she asked after she'd exhausted all of her possibilities and was beginning to consider trying a second round. "This isn't like you, Kaito, I'm impressed."

"I was sworn to secrecy until you hear it elsewhere first, that's all I can say." Stroking the hair on his chin, trying to make himself look wiser than he was, he was promptly met with an icy glare courtesy of Maki, who didn't believe that was all he could tell her. "I'd love for you to know now, I really would, but we have to wait. Not too much longer, though, unless the time got changed on me without me knowing…"

She could see his confidence in his own ability to keep his mouth shut waning, and as much as she'd like to break him of it completely and get the news for herself early, she was beginning to get bored with the topic. "If it's not anything to do with a world tour, some monster case being solved, or someone confiding in you, of all people, something exciting happening in their lives, you can count me disinterested," she said, throwing herself down into her usual spot on their ragged couch, him jumping on next to her and causing all the wood supports to creak. "I don't have the patience to play this game with you."

"That's funny, this is the first time you've ever had to play it," he reminded her, setting a hand on her thigh and giving it a tight squeeze, at which she grumbled and tried shoving a decorative pillow in his face to silence him. If anything, their relationship was aggressively playful, if sometimes more on the aggressive side than the playful one, and neither of them would change a thing about that.

They tussled on the couch for a few minutes, until the alarm on his phone began blaring in his pocket, which made him startle himself into a proper sitting position, rather than the half-laying one he'd found himself in, with her on top of him. As he turned the alarm off, he turned their tiny-screened TV on, the poor thing taking nearly a minute to begin working well enough for them to see what was playing. Neither of them were that interested in watching things, so buying an old piece of junk from a yard sale had been the most cost effective thing they could do, for moments like this where apparently they needed to be watching something.

The moment the news broadcast that they'd tuned into started mentioning big news for the space program, Maki felt herself sitting up a bit straighter, her spine tensing up at the topic of discussion the anchors were having between them. Next to her, Kaito seemed like he was focused on their every word, almost as if he was waiting for one of them to say something that he knew was coming—and it was then that she began connecting the dots as to what was going on. Specifics weren't coming to her mind, just the fact that the person she needed to hear the thing from first was one of the people on the screen, but with everything they added to the discussion about preparing a team for spaceflight and a departure date that was to be determined, as well as how invested Kaito was in hearing about it, she began to come to a shaky conclusion about what was going on.

When the broadcast went to a different topic, Kaito turned the TV off and looked at her, that grin from earlier back on his face. "So, uh, here's where I tell ya that I know when that flight's gonna be, and that I know that because I know a guy who's gonna be on it," he said, trying to moderate his volume a lot better than usual, but the way he was speaking loudly only made his words hit her harder when he followed with: "That guy, of course, is the one and only Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!"

"You're…actually going to space?" she managed to ask after a handful of seconds staring at him in a stunned silence, him clearly wanting her to have a reaction of any kind. "This isn't a joke, right? You're really going?"

"In just under a year, yeah. The roughly planned date is next November. Should be for about six weeks, then I'll be back down here with all you non-astronauts in time for Christmas." She choked out a half-laugh as he said the length of the trip, but before he could say anything else she had thrown herself forward and to her feet, her whole body visibly shaking for some reason. "Er, what's the matter, Maki Roll? Aren't ya happy? I'm finally getting to live my dream!"

"I'm beyond happy for you, don't get me wrong, it's just that…" Her thoughts were running wild with all the possibilities of how this could end in disaster, stripping her of the one and only person she could say that she loved. "Don't you think it's dangerous to actually do that, and then?"

He shrugged, joining her in standing so that he could wrap her tightly in a proper hug. "I mean, it's not the safest but it's not a death wish. I've been wanting to get to do this since I was a child, so this is pretty exciting stuff for me. I just want to know that you're excited about it too!"

As much as she would have loved to lie through her teeth and tell him that she was excited, something wasn't sitting right in Maki's mind about the news. "I'm sorry, Kaito, I just need a moment to really accept that you're going to space next year. Even if it's only for a few weeks, and even if I'm sure it's safer than what I do for a living." She could hear his breathing, hear the rhythmic thumping of his heart as she had her head pressed against his chest while they hugged, and yet she still couldn't bring herself to accept that this was actually going to happen to him. There had to be some element of a joke to it, this seemed too big for him to have been able to keep it to himself like he had.

And yet, it was completely serious and over the following days she was shown just how much he'd been telling the truth. The long delay before the launch and orbit was due to one of the astronauts who was expected to go needing a longer time to recover from some sort of surgery he'd had in recent weeks, and rather than replace him with someone inexperienced they just pushed the launch back. Kaito only told her those details because she'd thought she'd discovered a way to catch him in his lie, but his words weren't enough to convince her so he had to bring a patch from work to show that he was, in fact, speaking the truth. Seeing his name stitched into the fabric with several others, as well as the date of the launch, made it far too real to keep denying that it was true, and she spent the rest of that night angry at herself for failing to believe him from the start.

The next morning, when she woke up to the sound of her phone gently ringing, playing a tone that only went off when it was one of her bosses trying to get her to take on a job, she considered never answering the call and retiring from the assassin life. If Kaito was going to be going to space for real, that meant that he'd be getting paid better in the near future, and that meant that they'd be able to survive just off of his money rather than both of theirs. She wouldn't need to keep killing people in dark rooms once he started getting paid like the astronaut he actually was, and they'd be set for a while even without that second income that she provided to cover for when he wasn't making money.

"You're thinking about not answering it, huh?" he asked her with a tired voice, the sound of the ringtone waking him up next to her, his face down in the pillow and an arm draped over her, as if they'd been cuddling in their sleep. "I wouldn't do it if I were you, there's no need anymore now that I'm livin' the dream!"

The problem with choosing to quit by refusing to answer a call was that it was no secret on how to find her, and her bosses could easily send someone to come take care of her if they felt they'd been wronged. "No, I think I have to do this for now," she said, affirming her decision to reach for the phone out loud so they both knew her plan. "But someday soon, I know I'll be able to get off their payroll and be done with all this."

"That's the spirit, Maki Roll!" His cheer was followed almost immediately with the soft sounds of him falling back asleep, a perfect background noise for her to answer the call coming through. When he woke back up she was gone, her nightgown wadded into a ball on her side of the bed and a bag of her belongings missing from the corner of the room; this was completely typical behavior whenever she went out on a job, her disappearing into thin air with as much as she felt she needed. While it bothered him that she'd left without another word on the matter, he was so used to her slipping in and out of the house that he didn't think too much of it.

It only became bothersome when she didn't come back until late that night, her clothes looking almost perfectly pristine with the exception of her shoes, which were splashed with blood. "Had to wait until the sun was down, couldn't risk anyone seeing the kill," she told him completely nonchalant, as if it was normal for people to murder others for a living. "I had a chance to talk to some…people about the situation while I waited, the best they can do for me right now is cut back on calling me for jobs but I guess I don't have a solid 'reason' to stop working for them. As if the love of my life being a real astronaut isn't good enough."

"Something's better than nothing, isn't it? I've never liked you doing their dirty work for them, but if they're gonna ask you to do less that's what matters!" The smell of the blood on her shoes was starting to become noticeable, almost like she'd walked through a puddle of it after the kill, but he didn't want to dwell on that possibility. She was too careful to track bloodied footprints back to her location. "Now let's hope they start that right away, because we've got a lot of celebrating to do!"

Dropping her bag of weapons that she'd taken with her, Maki gave him a cold glare for a moment before she bent down to carefully get the stained shoes off her feet. "I'm sorry, but what kind of celebrating do you have in mind? A nice dinner? I can do that, if that's what you're talking about."

"Might be a bit of what I'm talking about, sure!" There was grin creeping its way onto Kaito's face, the appearance of it informing Maki that she shouldn't exactly take his words for what they were. "I want to celebrate this whole thing as much as I can, with as many people as I can, for as long as I can! It's not every day that dreams come true, y'know?"

If her shoes weren't so bloody and disgusting, she would have reached up with one in hand and smacked him with it for his explanation. It only made sense that Kaito would be so wrapped up in the excitement of what he was going to get to do that he was going to completely forget that almost everyone they knew had some form of a professional life to attend to, herself being one of the few exceptions. How he intended for their busy with work and family friends to drop everything to go out celebrating with him, she had no idea, but hearing him begin to ramble about the visions of grandeur running through his head she had half a mind to buy into his fantasies. He was so confident in what he was saying, in his plans to go try this fancy restaurant, or go to that limited time event, that she wanted to believe in what he was saying too.

That was the problem with being romantically intertwined with a dreamer like him, it became hard to remain rooted in reality forever—but Maki knew that the realities of all of his friends would drag him back down to the Earth he was currently living on.

---

For as certain as she'd been about others making it difficult for Kaito to get his wish of constant celebrating his impending visit to space, Maki was completely blown away by how willing everyone was to drop their lives on a dime to go out and spend time with him. Now, it wasn't as simple as him saying he wanted to do something and everyone making it happen, there did have to be some forewarning and planning done to get as many people as possible to each night's event, but it was still amazing how many attendees there were night after night. "I would've thought that by now they'd stop coming," she muttered to herself one night, over a week into the non-stop celebrating. "It doesn't make sense, showing up is only making him keep going."

"Okay, but some of us never have a reason to go out like this, and I think it's fun that he keeps asking us to come along!" Sitting next to Maki, and catching her by surprise because she hadn't expected to be heard, Kaede had a large, peaceful smile on her face as she leaned in closer to the woman she was speaking to. "He's been so understanding that some nights we'll have to come in late, and others we can come early but have to leave early too, it's honestly really cool that he's so understanding like that!"

"The two of you have been the only ones to come every night, so…yeah, it makes sense that he'll bend to what you need." Stealing a glance towards Kaito, as he was in the middle of an enthusiastic conversation with a couple restaurant workers as well as some of their other friends, Maki sighed as she looked back at Kaede, who looked like she was having the time of her life. "What's it like, going from performing in a fancy concert hall to shuffling into some dive bar like this?"

She shrugged, the expression on her face not changing even slightly as she contemplated her answer. "It's not as weird as you'd think, because duh I know I'm here for Kaito, not for myself. He's the one picking these weird late-night hangouts for us to come to, I'm not going to question it."

"Last time you came in wearing your concert dress, at least tonight you changed before people tried robbing you." Once again Maki looked over to where Kaito was being loud, excited, and dominating the conversation with everyone he was with, and she had to resist calling out to him to get him to act his age. "I wouldn't trust looking like I'm important in a place like this, especially not with a name as recognizable as yours."

"As if people who come here would know anything about classical music," Kaede pointed out, her smile finally fading as she accepted that Maki was going to remain pessimistic about things no matter what. "I'm just glad that I remembered to have a change of clothes for tonight, last time I didn't have one and that's why I came out wearing my performance gown. Of course, you know what I did forget tonight, don't you?"

Pressing her eyes closed for a moment, Maki reopened them as she replied, "You've only told me like eight times since we got here, yeah. I thought you said that Shuichi was going to handle it because you forgot to?"

"He is handling it, I just can't believe I forgot to let her know that when she got to the house earlier." Reaching to put an arm around Maki's shoulders, Kaede managed to get a couple fingers on her friend's arm before she was pushed away, the contact unwanted. "Between making sure I knew where you guys were going to be tonight, and making sure I got to my show on time, I guess I let it slip my mind to tell the babysitter we'd been needing her late again tonight."

"Seems like you need her to do that pretty often," Maki said after recalling several other instances of being told similar things. She brushed off a second attempt of Kaede trying to get her arm over her shoulders before asking, "Do the two of you even parent those kids, or is it always up to others?"

"H-hey, this has been a weird time for all of us, they've just been getting babysat a bit more than normal while we come out celebrating with you guys!" Laughing, Kaede gave up on trying to get to hug Maki and instead used her arm to prop her head up, her hand curled up under her chin. "They're young enough that this isn't going to be something they remember, anyway, so it's no big deal."

Not knowing the first thing about responding to that, Maki did nothing but sit there in silence, her mind trying to come up with something to say. There were no words that seemed appropriate for the moment, so she did as she did best and continued watching Kaito in the middle of his conversation, which resulted in her being waved over by him to get involved. "Can't tell him no, hold my seat for me." The short statement was all she could spit out as she was standing and briskly walking to where the group he was talking with had situated themselves, and if Kaede had responded she hadn't heard it.

"There's the woman behind me through all of this!" Kaito announced as she came up beside him, his exuberant behavior in stark contrast from her unamused straight-lipped expression and crossed arms. "What's the matter, Maki Roll, something bothering you? You just say the word and we can go, no worries!" Even though those were the words he put out into the open, she knew it was a cover to make people think he would take her opinion of the situation into account. The only person deciding when they left would be him, and that was the reality of it.

"Nothing's bothering me that you can take care of," she told him, her mind admittedly still focused on trying to come up with a late response to what Kaede had said. "So don't worry about it. Why'd you wave me over here?"

He froze for a second, before nodding at nothing in particular. "Right, I did have a reason for ya getting over here. I've got some people you need to meet, so that you've got names for faces and all that." Kaito proceeded to then introduce her to all of the men he'd been talking with, who she quickly found out were members of the same crew that would be going to space with him. How he'd managed to get them to come out, to a dive bar of all places, she wasn't quite sure, but he seemed beyond proud to be able to introduce her to them as his co-pilot in life, the woman he was committed to no matter what happened.

While the men were all beginning to talk to her about who they were and how much they enjoyed Kaito's young and interesting interpretation of life, the only thing Maki wished was that he'd drop the theatrics and simply call her what she was. The only reason they'd gotten married in the first place was in case he was ever sent to space and something went wrong, so that she would know immediately, but he was so insistent on never labeling her his wife (but instead labeling her other things) that it came off as him trying to forget they were married altogether. At least his current names for her put her on somewhat equal footing with him, unlike ones he'd used in the past, or ones he used for other friends of his.

She must have never stopped looking unamused with the meet-and-greet, because the conversation died off despite having been very intense before she'd joined it, and slowly the other astronauts were taking their leave, until they were all gone and Kaito was left looking down at her, his grin prominent on his face. "Aren't those guys just the greatest?" he asked her, looking for her to agree and not give any actual opinion of her own. All she managed to do was shrug, which he took in stride. "Yeah, pretty happy that I'll be spending six weeks up among the stars with them, couldn't ever ask for a better crew."

"That's lovely," she said, looking back to where she'd been sitting before to see that her seat had been taken not by who she'd expected, but by a different one of their friends who was now badgering Kaede about something. Dealing with that scene wasn't anything that sounded like a good use of her time, so she turned her attention to Kaito once more, her head tilted up so she could properly see his face. "So what's the plan now that all your space friends are gone? We get to go home, right?"

"Hell no, it's far too early for us to be quitting! We're here to party, we're going to party! It's just about the time I asked everyone to show up by, this place's got some great specials for late nights and I figured people'd appreciate not having to spend so much if they came out tonight!" Kaito was gesturing towards where Kaede was sitting, where there were supposed to have been seats saved for them but nothing seemed to have been done on that front. "We can't disappoint everyone who's got a big, important job in their busy life!"

"Right, because calling it a night early once in your life is going to be such a disappointment." Rolling her eyes, Maki wasn't exactly ready to jump right in to more social interaction out there with everyone, but at Kaito's insistence she decided that sticking around was what she'd have to do. By the time rounds of drinks and food had been ordered and everyone had managed to get a chair at one table, she was even closer to being done with actively participating than she had been before; by the time they were on the third or fourth round, she was just as eager to be there as everyone else was, and she hadn't even been ordering drinks for herself past the first time.

Somewhere in the middle of the glasses being passed around, she began to feel like she was losing any and all sense of where she was, and the last thing she could vividly remember was Kaito's grinning face, his cheeks lit up with the heat of the drinks he'd been sharing. He said something to her, but the words were lost on her ears among the other voices that were competing to be heard there in that moment.

Waking up in her own bed the next morning threw her for a loop, but her wake-up call was that soft ringtone alerting her to needing to take on another request at work. She couldn't recall how she'd gotten home, and was honestly surprised that she hadn't gotten taken back with someone more sober than she'd been, but to be there alone when Kaito should have been sleeping soundly next to her turned that surprise right into worry. There was no choice but to answer the call and find out where she was needed to go, who she needed to take out, and the moment she had her assignment she hung up, wanting to devote what little time she had before she'd need to leave to trying to find where he'd disappeared off to.

Between her having had a multitude of unpleasant experiences during assassin training (which did include having to drink straight poison to know the taste and symptoms of ingesting it), and him having gotten rather used to subpar food in preparation for the lack of proper cooking in space, they both had strong stomachs that would take a near miracle to destroy. That was why it came as a surprise to find him laying on the floor right outside of their bedroom, a trash can within reach that he had his fingers tightly wrapped around the edge of. She didn't need to look in it to see what it was there for, the revolting smell wafting up out of it indication enough, but she did need to make sure he wasn't dead there on the floor before she left.

"I'm fine, don't worry," he assured her, lifting his head after she'd called his name and trying his best to smile up at her to ease any fears she might have. "I might've overdone it last night just a little, but when everyone's buyin' you a drink because of how cheap they are, you don't just say no to that, now do ya?" At the end of his question he coughed, his smile turning to a grimace as he swallowed down whatever he'd choked up. "I'm pretty sure that most of those drinks used the worst liquor money can buy, I know I've had more than that and been completely okay."

"How about maybe next time you just don't drink yourself stupid?" she replied, ignoring the fact that she'd had enough with just splitting drinks to nearly black-out the whole experience. "I don't even know how we got home with both of us still alive. We're putting an end to these big celebrations, got it?" In return, she got another cough, which was followed once more with a forced swallow. "Kaito, you moron, if you're vomiting it's best if you just let it happen. I'm not cleaning up your mess if you make one."

He didn't say anything to that, and she went back into the bedroom, her head beginning to pound as her body realized how dehydrated she was from the night before. Making the mental note to hold him to her decision to end the celebrations, Maki changed out of her nightgown and into clothes more appropriate for doing her line of work. By the time she was finished he'd crawled into the room, having left his can behind, and was trying to get himself up onto their bed without standing up too fast. "You're gonna take care of me while I'm like this, yeah?" he asked her, almost as if he didn't notice how she'd dressed herself. "I could use only the best care right now."

"Can't, sorry. Work called."

"You're gonna pick murdering someone over taking care of me? That's a pretty bad choice to make, don't ya think?" He was halfway into the bed, his legs still off the edge but he was making progress in getting them up onto the top of the mattress. "C'mon Maki Roll, you know that you don't need that job anymore. Stay here and keep me company. There's even half the bed with your name on it."

As tempting as it was to change back out of her clothes and get in bed with him, there were agreements that had to be kept and her assignment for the day was one of them. "No, you're not an excuse I can use to get out of this," she said after giving his request far too much thought. "Besides, the last thing I need right now is to be stuck here listening to you puke all day. I'll be back later."

She left the bedroom listening to a list of his attempted retorts, only turning back to take him his trash can so there'd be a chance she'd have clean sheets to sleep on when she got home that night. Kaito was on her mind the whole day, the desire to check in on him strong within her heart but the ability completely out of her hands, and she wanted to get done with her job quickly to be able to see if he was okay. Sometimes, the person she was meant to kill just didn't end up dead, and when she spent until the mid-evening hours scouting out where they were rumored to be for nothing to happen, she chose to go home without wasting her night on something that wasn't meant to be.

The only thing that could have made her return home worse would've been if she were covered in blood, but it was already bad when she got to the door and could hear the distinct sound of a child crying on the other side. That was a sound that make her stomach turn, an anger bubbling from deep down within her, and she knew that if there was one child there, then there were bound to be more, depending on who all had gotten invited over. One of the things she remembered from the night before, shaming her friend for not spending a lot of time with her children, came back to rest in her mind, and she cursed at herself for inadvertently asking for this to happen.

As it turned out, even though he was in no shape to be doing anything except trying to get better, Kaito decided that there needed to be celebrating that night anyway, and invited anyone who was interested over to their modest home to make it happen. That meant children underfoot as all the adults mingled around, and none of this was anything Maki wanted or asked for in her evening. To say she was unamused would be putting things too lightly, but when she'd see how happy Kaito was to be surrounded by all these people that were still super excited for him to be going to space, she let it slide. There were worse things that he could've done, she could've walked into the house to find strippers or some other woman that he was seeing, so all things considered a last-minute house party was pretty low on the list of worries.

There was just one problem about everyone being there that kept gnawing at her mind, until she couldn't keep herself from asking about it anymore. "So, whose idea was it for everyone to show up over here tonight?" she whispered into his ear while he was sitting in a chair that had been drawn into their crowded main room, his once-again emptied trash can between his knees in case he needed it. "If you say it was yours, I'm going to strangle you."

"Don't worry, I actually only invited one person over to start," he replied with a laugh, sounding much livelier than he had that morning, the energy coming from everyone else enough to send his spirits skyward. He wasn't even answering her whole question, just the part that he felt like giving a response to, which irritated her more than words could express. "I just started thinking about how lonely it was here after you'd left, and about how gross I was feeling, and I figured, hey, why not ask someone who'd be willing to help me out to come over and do just that?" He waved a hand towards a wiry woman standing with her back towards them, who Maki recognized as being their somewhat-friend Kirumi without missing a beat. "She's a lifesaver, tell ya what."

"Kirumi being here doesn't explain everyone else, though." Pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to understand the way Kaito had gone from asking a maid to come take care of his hungover self to inviting every person they were on good terms with in for a house party, Maki saw Kirumi turn around at the sound of her name, giving a polite wave to her. "Great, now we're going to have to talk to her. Is she going to tell me why so many people are here?"

"I mean, she might have some idea but it was really all me who decided to do it." Kaito flashed his grin in Kirumi's direction, and she turned to go back to talking to whoever it was she was mid-conversation with, much to Maki's relief. "Look at that, she's not coming over here after all. Even though she's great to talk to, she's always good for ideas for what to do and how to handle things."

Deciding that she was just going to be blunt about things, Maki said, "Yeah, honestly, not interested in any of that right now. I want to know why people are here, at our house, when you were so close to dying this morning I thought you were a corpse on the floor."

"That'd be because Kirumi felt bad that she hadn't come out with all of us yet, and I told her to stick around tonight for a good time. Pretty good reason, right?" Now with the grin being shot in her direction, the only ammunition Maki had in her arsenal to fire back with was a glare that Kaito shrugged off without hesitation. "I know that I probably should've warned ya that you'd be coming home to all this, but it's not like things can get too wild around here. No one's ordered food, no one brought drinks, it's just a social hour."

"Do you forget that the only 'social hours' I like are the ones where I can hide behind everyone around me getting utterly wasted?" This was, without a doubt, one of those situations where Kaito had put minimal thought into his behavior before he went through with it, and as happy as he seemed to be about what he'd done she was not amused in the slightest. "I'm not going to let this go all night, not if people are just sitting around talking. They can go somewhere else to do that."

"I thought about planning this for somewhere else, but Kirumi thought it'd be best if I hung around here tonight, just in case I end up making myself sick again." Tapping the side of the can in between his legs, Kaito gave a single laugh before earnestly smiling at Maki, no longer giving her the grin that irritated her so much. "Please just roll with it for a little bit, I bet people will start heading home soon enough at this rate."

Her hand still hadn't left its place on the bridge of her nose, and to avoid looking at the smile that could melt her heart Maki had closed her eyes. "They better start leaving, I'm not afraid to call out bad parenting again if it happens under our roof."

"Whoa there, don't ya think you calling that out last night would have something to do with why those kids are here tonight?" As she didn't recall mentioning that she'd done that to Kaito, it came as a surprise that he could refer to it right then. "When I invited them, I got asked if it'd be fine if the kids came too, because it's an off night and getting a babysitter didn't feel right, and Kaede might've mentioned that you were giving her shit for relying on babysitters so much anyway."

"I'd much rather them keep shipping those kids off to some stranger than have them in my strictly no-child house," Maki replied without an ounce of care about how rude she sounded, the topic at hand being something that weighed on her heart. "The last thing I want, or need, is for you to start bonding with one of them, because then you'll get ideas and—"

"You're jumpin' to conclusions here, Maki Roll! Me spending a little bit of time with some young music genius children isn't going to do anything to influence our lives!" While she knew his words to be true, she didn't want to risk him lying through his teeth, so before he could say anything else she walked away from being at his side, hearing him call after her but not deciding to follow her wherever she went. Her destination was rather simple, all things considered, and it was one of the few places in the house that she figured she'd be able to get away from all other people and let the stresses of the day roll off her back.

The room should have been empty, it wasn't a guest bedroom and it wasn't used for storage, it was completely empty aside from the contents of the closet (which was larger than the one in their bedroom), yet when Maki opened the door she found the lights to be on and a couple of women sitting in the corner, one on top of the other. She stared at the scene for a moment before closing the door quietly, deciding that leaving them alone was the best way to handle what had happened and that she'd find somewhere else to go decompress, at the expense of not having any of her weapons to aim at blank walls.

She knew that things were completely out of Kaito's control when she opened the door to their bedroom and found people in their as well, but when the people in question were the closest friends they had it was a bit more forgivable than an escapade in an abandoned corner. That didn't mean she was fine with it, however, and she made that clear as she spat, "What are you all doing in here? Did the idiot tell you that our room make a good playroom for your brats or what?"

"Seeing as we're trying to get them to sleep so that we can go mingle with everyone before they leave, I would assume he didn't," Shuichi replied, motioning for Kaede to keep her mouth closed even though she looked ready to respond as well. "This was such a last-minute plan that being properly prepared for it wasn't possible, usually we tire them out more before we drag them somewhere."

"Asleep or awake, I still don't want them here." Maki's eyes could have been focused on either other adult in the room and she'd have felt like she were in a better mood, but she managed to let her gaze narrow in on the two children in a half-awake state in her bed, one with their dark-haired head resting on his mother's lap, and the other's light-haired head slightly raised off of the blankets, staring back at her. "And it doesn't look like they're doing much in the way of sleeping. Come on you two, I know I was talking bad about your parenting last night but I didn't need it to come back to bite me right away."

"I say this because I love you as a friend and as a person, but maybe it would be best if you opened up your heart to these two sometime," Kaede told her, her hand stroking the long hair of the child in her lap, him giving soft murmurs at the touch. "I know they're, like, a huge pain in your life and that you can't stand them, but they're really great to be with when you get the chance."

Maki could tell that this was still an attempt to get back at her for what she'd said before, and she wasn't going to back down from how she felt. "I bet your dear babysitter's reports made you start to think that. I don't think you've spent a full day with either of them in their lives, and that goes for both of you." Even though she wasn't talking to the kids, Maki still couldn't look away from them, from how they seemed to want to be as close to their often-absent parents as possible, from how they were so small and so unaware of anything in the world around them aside from what was fed to them by human contact. She could remember the time in their lives when these children didn't exist, and how things seemed to be happier then than they had ever been since, because the moment small lives got added into the mix the couple she was in the room with had changed, for better and for worse.

They spoke a bit longer about the children and how her accusations were far from the truth, even if it did seem like the kids were mostly raised by people that weren't family, yet when Maki walked out of the room because she wasn't going to get privacy in there, she didn't feel like anything notable had actually happened there. She still wasn't convinced that two incredibly busy and somewhat famous people having small children to their name was a good idea, to the point that the only idea worse than that would be if, for some reason, she and Kaito decided to follow in their footsteps. That idea was laughable, and the absurdity and humor in it was what carried her into the night, giving her the ability to push through the unexpected social situation until every last person was gone.

Just like clockwork, the next day they were right back to going out and having a good time wherever Kaito decided they should check out, much to her dismay and weariness. Her love of seeing him in a good mood was allowing him to make all sorts of reckless decisions on the matter, and as fearful as she was that he was going to get himself in a bad situation while partying so much she couldn't bring herself to actively try stopping him. The smile that he'd give her whenever he could tell she was about to kick up a fuss about his behavior was nearly irresistible, to the point that there were some nights that she couldn't even begin to fight the battle that asking him to stop would become. It got to the point that she told herself, over and over, that the first time they went out and no one else showed up, that'd be the last night of their celebrations.

The nightly revelry came to a temporary and premature end after a few weeks, by no one individual's choice but rather the fact that almost everyone who would've been interested in an invitation out was physically not going to be able to make it. When Maki had woken up that morning to find that Kaito had managed to make himself sick with a hangover, she'd thought it strange given their different trainings to be strong in that regard; it was therefore even stranger when she was the one who woke up feeling like there was something actively antagonizing her insides. Unlike when he'd gotten sick, she didn't choose to go find a trash can and drag it around with her, but rather she took her business into their bathroom, so that she could get it out of sight, out of mind faster.

Possibilities of what could have been making her stomach so upset flooded her mind, some of them innocent and some of them horrifying to even consider, but as bad as it was she was thankful that most of those options seemed to disappear when she was joined on the floor in there by her husband, him finding that he had the same problem as her. It was far from glamorous, both of them sitting there by the toilet, having to empty the meager contents of their stomachs if even so much as a single drop of saliva made its way down their throats, but having the other there for company in their weak moments was pleasant. Somewhere in the mess of it all (time didn't seem to be a constant while they were trapped there, any movement almost a summoning call for another round of throwing up), they were both informed that the people they'd dined with the night before were saddled with a similar fate, which brought the potential causes down to a single answer, and Maki was not going to let it go unsaid, even if speaking was a bad use of her limited energy at the moment.

"This is the last time you ever decide we're going out to a cheap dinner," she groaned, leaning her head against the wall behind her with her phone at her side, her arms wrapped around her body to try soothing it into behaving better. "Cheap drinks almost killed you last time, and now—"

"We've had cheaper dinners before, Maki Roll," he interjected, his voice shaky as he tried to sound assertive although he looked quite like death, with pale skin and sweat glistening all over his face. "I'm not saying it was the place itself, but I told ya when we were eating that something on my plate didn't taste right. Just wish I hadn't had all of you taste the fish to check, then maybe…" His voice trailed off as he began heaving, and she couldn't do anything but sit there helplessly and listen to him, the sound setting her own stomach off once more.

By far that was the most miserable day of their lives together to that point, and the one after it wasn't much better, but by the time it had been three days since their ill-fated dining experience they seemed to be mostly recovered from what had to be assumed was a food poisoning-type ordeal. In typical, boneheaded Kaito fashion, to celebrate their survival from that, he decided that going out and restarting the original celebration cycle was for the best, and just like when they'd been sick Maki felt helpless in trying to get him to stop. He had definitely bounced back from everything much easier than she had, as she still felt sluggish and like she shouldn't have done more than lay around and rest, but she was the one getting called for new assignments and he was the one who didn't have anything currently going on.

Within days it was like nothing had happened, more or less, and that was how she hoped it would stay until he got bored with this celebratory lifestyle. In those weeks following their near-death experience, the nights out felt more subdued, going to more familiar places with less people (but still too many to say that no one was interested any longer). Occasionally they'd head home early, but if that were the case it was for one of two reasons: one, there was something going on the next morning that required a sound mind and a rested body, or two, more commonly, the physical attraction between the two of them had reached a fever pitch and needed to be dealt with swiftly and privately.

Sleeping together was one of those things they'd been doing for as long as their relationship had been committed and serious, because the moment Maki had opened up her heart to him she knew that she was willing to give him so much more. He'd never made too much of a deal of the various scars that covered her body, all sustained from various work mishaps that she felt it impossible to properly explain, and she appreciated that about him. If he could stare at her as she lay naked in their bed, nary an inch of her usually-covered skin that wasn't marked in some way, and say nothing of the flaws except that they reminded him of stars in the night sky, he was certainly an overdramatic and highly romantic keeper.

Their carnal desires were pretty well-hidden from their friends, which was why any time they decided they needed to handle them excuses were made for why the night was being called early. Oftentimes the excuses were related to his work, because no one was going to question if he said he had some important meeting early in the morning, but sometimes they would say that they just weren't feeling the group thing that night and would get back to it the next day. That second one was the flimsiest excuse that Maki ever heard, and she knew that no one bought it at face value and knew why they were slipping back home, but she loved hearing the attempt at telling it with a straight face and flat voice that Kaito gave every time he used it. Of all the things he was, smooth was not typically one of them, and they were able to laugh about his bad lying skills all the way back to their house, after which their laughter turned into other exchanges meant for their ears only.

This was something that had been going on for literal years, and never once had the possibility that things would go wrong genuinely crossed Maki's mind. As part of her job, she'd been told that she needed to be as close to sterile as possible to keep herself in the proper mindset for working, and between several injuries she'd sustained to her abdomen during bad assassination attempts and the implant her employer paid for her to keep inside herself, she was almost positive that if the universe wanted to strike her down and saddle her with something she never wanted, it would be a miracle. She knew this, Kaito knew this, and while it was one thing they didn't see eye-to-eye on, the fact that she was nearly physically unable to have children was a bit of a blessing for them, especially when they'd get to sharing body heat after a few drinks together.

It was about a week after the food poisoning incident that Maki realized something wasn't right with her own body, something she'd experienced before and truly had zero desire to experience again. There was a distinct lack of pain, something that had been prominent the last time she'd managed to dislodge the implant keeping her from experiencing monthly cycles and allowing her to be a bit more free in sleeping with the man she loved, but she could tell whenever she moved that the little piece of metal wedged inside her wasn't right where it belonged. Telling Kaito that there was anything going on would undoubtedly put an end to his plans of celebrating his successes a lot sooner than he wanted, and even though that was what she wanted she wasn't going to do it because of her body's inability to keep a foreign object in place.

Handling that situation while maintaining the somewhat willing to be social exterior she'd been forced to keep up was harder than she would've thought, especially after being given the typical runaround from her work-assigned doctor in order to get the implant looked at and ultimately removed. How she'd managed for it to lodge itself inside a patch of scar tissue, both she and the doctor assigned to her case couldn't quite figure out, but she was given strict orders to limit her physical activity for a little while—and that included any kind of bedroom activities that she most definitely would want to be having—until the tissue was healed and she could have a replacement inserted.

Having to tell her bosses that she wasn't able to work for a bit was easy; telling Kaito that she couldn't go out partying or staying in and sleeping with him was harder, to the point that just imagining the heartbreak in his eyes made her try to come up with some way to dance around the subject. He wasn't stupid, he could tell that she wasn't completely fine when she came home from that appointment that afternoon, but when he asked her about it she stared at him for a few moments before leaving him without an answer. "C'mon Maki Roll, if something's going on, you've gotta tell me about it! Can't do anything if I'm left in the dark!"

"I don't know what to tell you, there's nothing going on," she lied, still not sure how she'd break it to him that she was going to be putting an end to his plans of grandeur simply because her beat-up body decided to do something weird. "We're going to go out to dinner like you planned, isn't that right?"

"Well, yeah, but if there was something else going on you wouldn't hide it from me, would you?" Now he was beginning to get concerned, evident by the tone his voice had taken on that sounded more worried than confident. "You've got me here to help you out through anything, and that's a promise!"

She winced at his insistence, the decision having just been made in her head that she was going to keep her personal problem to herself for the handful of weeks it would take to get it taken care of. He'd never have to know that she was missing part of her for that time, as long as she made sure to be smart about it. "You're being dumb like usual. If something was going on I'd have told you by now. It was a normal, boring trip to the doctor just to keep my bosses off my back, nothing big."

Deflating a bit at her nonchalant way of responding, Kaito took a moment to finally nod in acceptance of her words. "If that's all it was, there's no reason for me to not believe you, I guess. As long as you're not dying, or they don't think you might be dying, that's really what matters. I wouldn't wanna have to turn all this celebrating into something sad!"

"Don't worry, you won't have to change a thing." She meant that as much as she could, even though she knew what the doctor had told her about needing to avoid physical activity. For her to suddenly not want to act on any romantic desires with him would be too weird, but as long as they kept it calm and not too aggressive she supposed things would be fine. This was, of course, in addition to the other preventative methods she'd have to take on herself, because so much as mentioning them to him would clue him in to the fact that she was actually hiding the truth from him.

It was easy enough, faking feeling physically fine and keeping all of the control in her own hands, and never once did Kaito suspect that anything was radically different from normal. Not when she'd refuse to drink too much because alcohol would interfere with one of the medications she'd been given to help with healing, not when she'd disappear for a few extra minutes between the end of their escapades and when they'd curl up to sleep, him holding her tightly to his chest, and even not when she'd spend her days a bit groggy and pale after waking up. It seemed that he assumed these little changes were done as a sign of tiredness with their routine, because as he slowly wised up to the differences he began suggesting potential alternate ways to go about things.

"How about tonight, instead of coming back here when we're done, we find somewhere else to stay for the night?" he threw out as an idea they could pursue if she so chose, but the mere mention of sleeping somewhere else—of ultimately getting risqué wherever they ended up, in foreign sheets in a room where the walls could very well be watching them—set off red flags in Maki's head. She had to reject what he'd said, much to his surprise. "That's weird, I would've figured that you'd want a change of atmosphere."

"Honestly, right now? All I want is a night of peace and quiet, no going out, no doing anything except relaxing and sleeping." The only nights they'd had where they hadn't been busy were when they'd been kneeling at death's door, begging for mercy, and that had been a completely different kind of exhausting. Maki might have had the social energy to withstand a couple half-hearted conversations, but physically she felt like she'd been through the wringer in the past month of her life and she needed a break. Her lower abdomen was screaming at her, throbbing pain radiating across her back and right above her hips, and she was certain that even though Kaito wasn't bright enough to notice something was wrong with her, that would be the night where someone else did.

He took her rejection rather well, but there was one issue that he managed to kick up about it, that being that his attendance to the night's event was still required. "I guess you can stay home, Maki Roll, but I've gotta go out. If I skip checking out the little concert scene we saw those posters for, I'm never gonna get to live it down. You probably wouldn't like it much anyway, so maybe it's for the best if you don't go."

"Fine by me. Can't believe you're dragging a concert pianist to that kind of event, but I bet she'd still like it more than I would." The thought of impeccably-dressed Kaede being part of the crowd at some kind of mini electronic music festival was one that Maki somewhat wanted to see become reality, but she couldn't do it. It was Kaede in specific that she was wanting to avoid, because she knew that she'd take one look at her and start throwing out a million concerned questions about why she looked so unwell.

Having the chance to avoid being forced to talk about the tear her implant had caused, and subsequently the fact that she was experiencing her monthly cycle unexpectedly for the first time since she was a teenager, was something that Maki was going to take with open arms. She could tell that Kaito was a bit unsure of leaving her home by herself that night, and she could only assume that he was jumping to the conclusion that she was getting roped into some work thing that she didn't want to tell him about. To get that worry out of his mind, she made sure to show her phone, showing the lack of recent calls from her bosses, and he definitely perked up to know that she really did just need a night resting at home. He wasn't thrilled about it, but it did set him at ease to know that she wasn't spinning lies in his face.

She spent that evening laying on the floor, stretching and contorting her body in every way imaginable to try and relieve the pain that she was feeling, the medication she was still taking be damned. It was beyond miserable, to know that something she'd been forced to do (she was considered "too young" to have anything removed, but being a young, sexually active woman was seen as a liability in her line of work, so something had needed to be done) had ultimately put her in this position. Not just that, but the fact that there was nothing that seemed to want to stop the pain from getting worse and that there was no guarantee this wouldn't happen again in the future, and that it had ruined one of the many celebratory evenings, was bothering her. This was her time to be an ideal wife, lover, friend, whatever word she felt like using to talk about herself in relation to the man that she was so enamored with, and she was spending it helpless and in pain.

When he came home that night, Kaito was bursting with all sorts of energy and stories to tell about the night that Maki had missed, but the moment he saw her curled up next to their bed, tight into a ball, he forgot everything he'd wanted to share and devoted the rest of the time to checking on her, to making sure she was okay. She wouldn't ever admit how far from okay she was in that moment, but she did clue him in to the fact that her problem had something to do with the implant that, as far as he was aware, she still had. "Maybe if that's what's bothering ya, you should go get it looked at?" he suggested, after pulling her up to her feet and watching her hands immediately grasp around her hips. "I'd offer to do it for you, but that would, uh, lead to some other things."

Based on how his face seemed to be reddening as he spoke, Maki was pretty sure she knew what he was referring to, and a quick glance down past his belt gave her a slight confirmation, but she was in no mood for that behavior. "I'll get a professional to look at it, thanks," she replied snappishly. "You can calm yourself down and get over the fact that I'm not interested in having you down there right now."

"Heh, I get it, no worries. Wouldn't call me a professional about women's bodies by any means. Celestial bodies? Sure. But not—"

She cut him off with a simple, "Kaito, do us both a favor and shut up."

Yet at Kaito's insistence, Maki "attempted" to set up an appointment to get checked out the next day, but she knew that she'd been given a certain amount of time to wait before she could go in and get a new implant taken care of. Thankfully, she was aware of the runaround she was always given whenever setting up an appointment, and she knew that he was aware of it as well, so when she claimed to have called and gotten told it'd be a month before she could get into an office, he completely bought it without question

Now that he knew that she was suffering through some kind of medical problem, even if it wasn't quite what he thought it was, he was a lot more lenient on forcing her to go out with him to keep up with his newfound partying lifestyle. There were still many days a week where she went out, sipping on non-alcoholic drinks that she insisted were more in line with what he expected, while he was dazzling friends and strangers alike with his constant excitement for what was coming up in his life. Time was passing slowly for her, being unable to work too often without breaking the agreement she'd made at her last appointment, and she couldn't wait for that day where she'd go back in, have her life set back in order, and she could resume living the way she wanted. The days that passed felt like weeks in themselves, but it came to the week of the appointment, then the day before, and then finally the morning of the day she knew everything was going to go back to normal.

As she usually did, because of confidentiality things related to being an assassin by trade, she went to the doctor's office alone, riding in a company car driven by a bulky man that could've snapped her spine without breaking a sweat had she spoken out of turn. He didn't intimidate her, but she knew that anything she said in his presence could theoretically get back to the person signing her paychecks, and the last thing she needed after her past two-plus months of being a physical wreck was to have other assassins after her before she had the chance to get back into fighting shape. The limited activity agreement hadn't told her she couldn't work out, but when most of her workouts came in the form of carrying out kills it was safe to say that she hadn't done too much on that front.

The office she'd been sent to that day was the same one she always went to when it came to her reproductive health, one of the few providers willing to work with the group that employed her. There were a handful of people in the waiting room when she walked in, everyone's eyes on her as she headed up to the counter to check in, and the way that some of those women looked disgusted to see her made her wonder what was so offensive about her to earn a reaction. It didn't stop her from glaring back at any of them, though, as she found a seat to chill out in while she waited for her appointment time.

By the time she was called back, those other ladies were gone, some of them still in exam rooms and others having gotten what they needed and left. They were all definitely older than her, Maki noted, but they were embroiled in the assassin culture just as much as she was so she could only guess what they thought she was there for. A woman in her mid-twenties showing up to a seedy office in a car with tinted windows? It was a no-brainer what that assumption would've been, and she was glad that they were dead wrong about her if that was in fact what they had thought when they'd seen her.

She was visiting with the same doctor she'd seen when her implant had needed to come out, but before they could get to the reason she was there, some questions had to be asked. It was normal for Maki to answer those questions, and she was just as confident in answering them that day as she'd always been; even with that couple of days with spotty bleeding vivid in her mind, she couldn't say that she remembered with certainty when her last cycle really was, or if that was actually one to begin with. "Even if you could tell me one hundred percent, 'that's when it was', I'd have to do a check on you right now anyway," the doctor said with a smile, sliding on a pair of gloves after writing some notes on a heavily-filled document. "If you aren't healed we have to reschedule the implantation, but knowing if you're having menstrual cycles would allow me to know how your hormones have bounced back from the traumatic removal."

"Trust me, I get what you have to do. You have to know if I followed your directions and all that." Watching as the doctor began setting up the device that she'd need to do her exam, Maki felt a tinge of fear hit inside her chest, the possibility that she wasn't healed enough to go back to normal crossing her mind. She'd have her answer in a few minutes, she knew that, but if she was still showing signs of that tissue being torn she'd get asked a million questions about what she'd been doing to prevent it from healing, and she didn't know how well replying that she'd been having very frequent sex with her husband would go over, even if delivered in the flattest voice she could manage. "But if it's all good, which it should be, then how long do you think this is going to take? Twenty minutes? Thirty?"

"Somewhere in there, certainly. Now get ready, the faster you're in position, the faster we get done with the speculum, the faster we get this over with." By position, the doctor meant completely nude from the waist down, up on the table with her feet on the rests and her legs spread as far as she could get them, and she hated how being on her back like that made her think of spending that personal time with Kaito but she did it without being prompted. The doctor had been fiddling with her metal device the entire time, so when she looked up and over to Maki and saw her completely ready to go, she couldn't help but chuckle. "You're roarin' to get out of here with everything intact, good. Let's see if your body's going to cooperate with us today then, hm?"

For as friendly as the doctor was, she was not exactly the gentlest when it came to doing her exams, and in the second directly following that speculum being inserted into her body Maki closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain that she knew she was about to experience. No matter how many times she'd been through it, and no matter how many times she'd had other things inside her, there was nothing that could prepare her for the splitting, stretching pain of that little device's metal mouth opening to give the doctor a view of where the tearing had taken place. The pain was maintained for as long as the device was open, and usually that was for a minute or two at a time, but this time it stayed open for much longer.

"Let me guess, it's not fully healed?" she asked, trying not to let it be too obvious that she was in genuine pain. When she didn't get an immediate response, she cracked open her eyes to see the doctor's face still staring between her legs, a slight tilt to her head as she continued looking through her magnifying glasses. "You usually say something about how it all looks by now, so what gives?"

"Oh, it's plenty healed," the doctor replied, glancing up at Maki for a moment before continuing her examination. "I'm just making sure that everything else looks fine, since I'm already here."

"Do you think you could hurry it up, then? That stupid thing hurts to have in there." Of all the reactions she could have gotten, having what felt an awful lot like a gloved finger shoved up into the space the speculum had created was not what Maki expected, and she gave a genuine yelp in surprise. "What are you doing now?"

The doctor pulled her hand back and closed the device, removing it at once. "As I said, I was making sure everything else looked fine. Now, I normally don't dive into personal details and take my patient's words for what they are, but you haven't noticed anything weird going on down here lately, have you? Aside from that spotty bleeding you told me about, that is."

"Weird? I mean, there's been some things that've happened, but the weirdest was that bleeding and all the pain that came with it." Everything else that she'd gone through had a perfectly valid explanation that she knew of, the medication she'd been prescribed had came with a long list of side effects, and there were some pretty rough reactions to taking the emergency contraceptive that had been her friend over the past two months. "There's not an infection or something in there, right?"

"I can't say for certain. Sorry, but I'm going to have to run a couple tests to clear all that before we get back to considering putting another implant in there." Disposing her gloves after setting her device aside, the doctor got up from her chair and motioned for Maki to close her legs and put them down, but said nothing about getting re-dressed. What she thought was going to be a quick appointment had quickly turned into anything but, and she stayed there on that table, only her top half clothed while her bottom half froze, for quite some time as the doctor put in orders for the tests she thought were necessary. The blood draw was simple enough, once it was cleared to happen, and once it was finished the doctor wanted to get back in between Maki's legs to get some samples of different fluids just to make sure that there weren't any infections that might not have been in her blood. After that was finished, then she was allowed to put her skirt back on and leave, with a return date for three days later to talk about all results that would come up.

For three days, she had to explain to Kaito that she hadn't gotten a new implant because the doctor thought that she needed just a bit of time without one, even though that wasn't the reason at all. He wasn't aware he was being lied to and accepted it as the truth, and for the first time in a very long time when they ended up sleeping together he took responsibility for safe practices, because he didn't want to risk anything while she was vulnerable. For three days, she was under the impression that she was going to go back in, get a clean bill of health, and finally be allowed to return to the life she'd been living before the tear. For three days, she was convinced that she'd played all her cards right, even when the hand she'd been dealt hadn't been the best, and she was going to walk away a winner. For three days, she believed that there was not a single thing that could possibly still be wrong with her.

And yet, when she went back for her follow-up appointment, nothing was as she'd hoped and now it was her turn to head home with news that she knew would just fall out of her mouth the moment she was prompted to speak.

---

A/N: hi so this is a fic I started working on a couple weeks ago. I haven't written all of it, but I have a general idea of how the flow of posting the story will work which is why I'm sharing the first chapter already. it does end up being pretty damn heavy by the end so the rating will definitely be justified along the way, if you didn't already think it was.

I love this ship and I am so glad to be writing a long, chaptered piece about them!