"Hiro-san, I want to have a baby!"
It happens to be a relaxing Friday evening when he springs this on me. Of course, I have to use the word "relaxing" apprehensively. In our small apartment, any length of placid time is merely a ticking time bomb in disguise.
And then there's me, the gunpowder.
Light the fuse and I'll explode.
The water I'm drinking catches in my throat. "What?" I bark, hacking it out of my lungs. "Why?"
"Because," Nowaki exasperates, "babies are sweet, and I-"
"Absolutely not," I state firmly once my throat is clear. Nowaki gapes at me as I save the document I'm typing on my laptop and shut the device down. It's gonna have to wait till later.
"Why not?" he bleats.
"Babies are nothing but nuisances." I angrily shut the laptop, place it on the cushion next to me, and cross my arms. "They just cry and make messes and they never let anyone get any sleep."
"We could get a little girl," my lover insists. "Girls are the sweetest things!"
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. I can feel his determined gaze boring into me from the other end of the couch. God, he's like a puppy waiting for a treat.
"Where did all this come from?" I finally ask. I'm careful to keep my head bowed and my eyes closed to avoid falling under Nowaki's spell.
"This girl at the hospital named Yuki," he says excitedly. "I work with her at the hospital. She has leukemia, so she's there a lot, and she's only eight years old. Just yesterday she drew me a picture and it was so sweet…" He trails off but then picks right back up. "And it hit me- I want to have a family with you, Hiro-san."
I try vainly to repress the massive influx of blood to my cheeks. How can he say something like that so bluntly? "Raising a child is a huge responsibility," I remind him with forced calmness. "You can't just…start a family on a whim."
"Ah, yes, I know that," he continues, tripping over his own tongue. "I thought about that already. I can take time off work to raise her, and then we'll finally have more time to spend together, and-"
"Nowaki, listen," I interrupt. "We can't just drop everything to raise a kid we don't need. That requires so much commitment." I finally force myself to look into his pleading, stone-blue eyes.
"I know that, Hiro-san-"
"And why did you just decide this all on your own?" I realize. For the umpteenth time today, my blood starts boiling.
"I didn't," he insists, "that's why I'm-"
"So stop pushing this on me all at once! We're both extremely busy; there's no way we could do that!" I snap at him. My anger is surging at this point. I glare at Nowaki through narrowed eyes and I can feel the wrinkles in my brow forming.
"We could," Nowaki persists. His hands are clasped beneath his chin, and I'm sickened by the fact that he looks like a spoiled little brat at Christmastime. "We really could, if we just took a little risk-"
"I don't want to take a risk!" I yell. My fist slams down against the armrest of the couch as the harsh words fly out of my mouth. "We're fine the way we are!"
"Please, just think about it," he begs.
"Enough, Nowaki!" I explode, jumping to my feet. "We are not getting a kid!"
His eyebrows raise in shock. I can only meet his wounded gaze for a second before I spin on my heel and stalk out of the room.
"I'm going to bed," I mutter.
"Okay…goodnight," I hear him murmur loyally as I add to the distance between us.