If you haven't read my previous fic, all the context you need is that Makoto and Kyoko are married (duh) and that in this universe, Shoichi Saihara from DRV3 is Kyoko's apprentice - but even that is more of a reference than a major plot point.

If you have read 'Hoping', this takes place during the few months the pair have given up trying for a baby - hey, maybe this is even how miracle babe came to be, who knows.

~ Enjoy!

"I can't believe he sent a limo," Makoto mumbled, climbing across the leather seats grumpily. "I mean, for real, who does that? This guy is more pretentious than Byakuya."

"Not possible," his wife snorted, slipping into the space beside him as the chauffeur shut the door behind her. Kyoko wasted no time turning to the bucket of ice on the sideboard, admiring the bottle of something Makoto was pretty sure he could neither pronounce or afford. "Do you want a glass of champagne?"

"Who sends a limousine and champagne to pick up a work acquaintance for a seventeen-year old's birthday party?" Makoto frowned. "Seventeen isn't even a milestone!"

"I told you, it doesn't really matter that it's Shuichi's birthday," Kyoko said, crossing her legs and smoothing out the fabric of her dress. "It's Sora's party, really. He's getting impatient that Shuichi has yet to choose a specialty. I gather the aim of tonight is to have more experienced detectives pitch their various specialties in the hopes of goading a decision out of him."

"Oh." Well, that was depressing. Shuichi Saihara, his wife's apprentice, was a pretty timid kid most of the time and seemed keen to please the adults around him - particularly his uncle and Kyoko. Makoto felt bad that he was forced to spend his birthday not only torn between the two of them and their conflicting specialites (Sora was a business crime detective, Kyoko's thing was murder) but a whole bunch of other intimidating and quick-witted detectives all hoping to steamroll over him. "Poor Shuichi. Are his parents in town at least?"

Kyoko shook her head. Even despite her own upbringing - or perhaps, because of it - she had expressed disdain at Shuichi's parents for leaving him to go work abroad. There was a hint of judgement in her tone when she said, "No, not to my knowledge."

Makoto winced, feeling a stronger pang of sympathy, this time mixed with guilt. "So it would be really shitty of me to suggest we give it a miss too?"

"It was equally shitty the first three times you suggested it," Kyoko answered flatly. Still, she turned to him with an empathetic sigh. "While I would also very much like to skip the entire evening, I can't. I'm investigating one of Sora's guests. I can't rely on Shuichi to observe her for me - he'll be too flustered, from all the attention. I have to do it myself."

Makoto pulled a face. "Yeah, okay, but why do I have to go?"

Kyoko took a moment to deliberate this, tapping her finger against her chin. Then, she admitted, "There are a few reasons."

"Care to share?" Makoto pressed. "We have a forty-minute drive. Come on, enlighten me."

He eyed her carefully, quickly forgetting to look suspicious in favour of awe at how damn beautiful she looked. Her hair was braided and pinned up, haloed around her head, save for a few loose strands of lavender that framed her face; her neck, collarbone and shoulders (some of his favourite places to kiss) were exposed by the low v-neck plum material of the her dress. She looked so elegant, so effortless, like she went to rich guy's parties all the time, like she belonged there. Kyoko had the ability to fit in anywhere, which she insisted came from being having to be conspicuous as a detective, but Makoto always assumed was just a cool person thing.

"If I need to sneak away, you can distract them for me," Kyoko explained, matter-of-factly. "Besides, you make a very competent assistant. You're apt socially, people relax in your presence, which makes them more likely to slip up. Your knack for picking up on contradictions is arguably better than mine." She paused then, tilting her head to look at him, looking at her. Her face didn't betray a single emotion. "And you look incredibly cute in a tuxedo."

Makoto couldn't help but blush. "I don't."

"You like going out together usually," Kyoko pointed out, reaching out to adjust his bow tie. She was wearing lace gloves, the intricate black detail hiding her scars. Makoto wondered if it embarrassed her to wear to gloves to an occasion like this - in almost every scenario that wasn't examining a corpse, the gloves only drew more attention to her hands. Makoto had thought in the beginning that if she just took them off and admitted, 'hey, a case went bad one time, whatcha gonna do,' people would stare a lot less, but he'd come to surmise over the years that Kyoko didn't care about avoiding stares as much as she did hiding the burns from herself.

"Of course I do," Makoto agreed, "but watching Sora Saihara flirt with you right in front of me the entire night is not my idea of a good time."

A shadow of a smirk crossed Kyoko's face. "Makoto, he's not that obvious." She dropped her hands to her lap and straightened her shoulders, a little smug. She was enjoying this, Makoto realised.

"He totally is!" He protested, huffing a little.

In truth, she was right - Sora wasn't that obvious. He wasn't some creep who leered at Kyoko like she was a piece of meat - sure, he was friendly to her, but he only ever spoke to her with the utmost respect, referring to her by her surname despite having known her since childhood. He'd never actually come on to Kyoko (that Makoto was aware of, anyway) and seemed to genuinely value her help with his nephew's training. He was even nice to Makoto and invited them both to every extravagant party he threw.

But Sora also smiled a little too long at Kyoko's quips. He had a very precise memory when it came to casually referencing her investigative breakthroughs. When he congratulated them on the academy, their marriage, buying a house, he always sounded a little like he was commiserating himself. On at least three occasions that Makoto had been privy to, Sora had visibly struggled to keep his gaze from lingering on Kyoko's lips, or had to pull away from the conversation to keep from getting lost in her eyes.

The worst part was, Makoto couldn't even really blame the guy - Kyoko was, by all accounts, a knockout. She was smart, successful, beautiful. She was independent and witty and if Sora thought he had it bad now, Makoto sure hoped he never got to hear her laugh because he knew first hand that was no coming back from that.

Makoto knew that if the roles were reversed, and Sora had been the one she chose to settle down with, he'd still be pining too. But yet, he couldn't shake off the worry that Sora was playing the long game, waiting supportively in the wings for the day Makoto managed to mess this thing up so he could swoop in and enchant Kyoko with detective babble.

(He'd voiced this to her once. She had sighed a pained sigh and told him he'd have to go full on despair on her to make Sora's decade long preoccupation with coin sound appealing.)

"Are you jealous?" Kyoko asked, raising an eyebrow.

"N-no." Makoto looked out the window, but she kept staring. Why did he even bother to lie?"I just...I think it's kinda rude is all."

"Makoto."

He knew that tone. It was an instruction. With a frown, he turned his head back to her, only for her to close the space between them in an instant. Her lips pressed to his, warm and and soft and tasting like vanilla. He was thinking that she usually didn't like to kiss him when she was wearing lipstick when her hands came up to cup his face, pulling him deeper into it. When her tongue began to tease at his pursed lips, parting them like a spell, he was very surprised but also a little turned on.

If she hadn't broke apart for breath, Makoto might have forgotten to breathe. As she sat back to look at him, he fidgeted in his seat, his face burning.

"You can't just kiss me like that right before we're about to go out in public," Makoto scolded, fiddling with his collar.

Kyoko blinked at him, all mock-innocence he would have once been fooled by - before he knew how mischievous Kyoko Kirigiri really was, that she got a kick out of taking advantage of his naivety. "Oh? Why is that?"

"You know why."

"Hm." She seemed to consider this. "Are you still jealous?"

"I told you, I'm not jeal-"

"- you look jealous," she interrupted, knowingly. She kicked her heels off and before Makoto could even take in what was happening, she put her hand on his shoulder and swung herself into his lap.

"Kyoko!" He hissed, as she adjusted her weight on top of him, her legs braced at either side. His hands moved instinctively to her waist to balance her. "What are you doing?"

She gave a small shrug. "Making you feel better."

Okay, so that was cute. And hot. Makoto swallowed. "We're not alone in this car, you know."

There was, at least, a blacked out window between them and the chauffeur - and, Makoto reasoned, they did have quite a drive left, plus traffic...but still. What if the driver heard them?

"Then keep your voice down." Kyoko reached down, between them, to the raised fabric tented at his crotch. Before he could protest again, she leaned forward and captured his lips in another dizzying kiss, her gloved palm pressing against the bulge.

When she reached for his zipper, he moaned lowly, but didn't resist. She eased back a little, tugging at his trousers as he eased his hips off the seat as best he could without risking her balance. His lips and tongue followed her greedily. He didn't want to stop kissing her, not for one second, not for anything. The slight curve of her lips as they moved against his told him she knew this and it amused her.

She wasn't quite able to pull his trousers to his knees, but at some point, she decided it was good enough. Her gloved fingers stroked him sweetly through his underwear while he moved his feverish kisses to her neck, his hold on her waist pulling her closer to him. He wanted to feel her through their layers.

She had other ideas, layers be damned, slipping a hand under the waistband of his boxers - he let out a startled squeak, and then her other hand was tugging them off entirely. "Kyoko!" he managed sharply, "We can't."

Kyoko frowned, only glancing up once before continuing to strip him. "I disagree."

"W-we're in a moving car."

"Excellent observation. Gloves on or off?"

"Off." Always, always off. "Kyoko-"

She tugged her gloves off with her teeth and Makoto groaned, thinking, not for the first time even this week, that this woman was going to be the death of him.

"Shh." Kyoko smirked triumphantly at the sight of his dick, already half-hard just from making out and haphazard over the clothes touching. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

This was not an adventure - this had bad idea written all over it. Surely it was illegal?

"What if we crash and like, die because we're not wearing seatbelts?" Even as he said this, he was reaching under her dress with the hand that wasn't holding her steady, two fingers finding damp black lace, pressing slow circles into her, knowing she enjoyed the friction more than skin-to-skin contact.

"Mm," she murmured, her hand clasping around his penis. At the sensation of the callous bump of her scars brushing against his foreskin Makoto put his head back in surrender. Oh well, he thought half-heartedly, I tried. "I can think of much worse ways to go," Kyoko reasoned, rocking into his touch.

Well, he couldn't argue with that.

When the car halted in break, Kyoko's upper body jolted forward, her nails digging into sensitive skin in a way that elicited a moan from his lips and felt anything but coincidental. With her closer now, he peppered her neck with kisses and the smallest nips, careful not to leave a mark - but God, did he want to, and not only as a fuck you to Sora Saihara - pausing when he worked his way down to her chest. She wasn't wearing a bra, it wasn't that kind of dress, and Makoto realised he owed a lot to such dresses, because here he was with easy access and the loveliest view of her perfect breasts.

He was rolling his tongue over her nipple, having nudged layers of tulle out of the way with his nose to do so, when she started to speed up. The heat in his lap began to burn, the pressure building as she jerked him quicker and quicker. His hand was under her, since she'd shifted, and while the angle was making his wrist hurt, it was also better suited to pleasing her if the way her spare hand gripped his hair was any indication.

She yanked his head off her chest to get his attention. "Fuck me," she commanded, darkly.

Makoto pressed his face back against her skin to breathe her in. "You're beautiful."

"That's the third time you've told me that today. Do you know how many times you've fucked me today? None. There's a discrepancy, Makoto. Fix it."

He chuckled until her grip on his dick tightened. He stopped touching her and instead helped her out of her underwear, smiling when this involved her clambering over his shoulder a little and him having to slip it over her very nice butt.

"Why haven't we done this before?" It was worrying really, how speedily he could be entirely convinced by pretty mauve eyes and an authoritative tone.

"Because it's painful," Kyoko growled, easing back on top of him, rubbing her knees with a wince and struggling to straighten her back because of the low roof.

"Do you want to stop?" Makoto offered, frowning. "Or change positions?"

"No." She looked about ready to strangle him, which wasn't really his thing but he was pretty sure would get him off anyway because Kyoko made everything sexy. "I want you to fuck me."

"You mentioned that already," he teased. By now, his mouth was dry, but his dick was not. He tried to steal another kiss as he rubbed her hip bones to ease the pain, but she was having none of it. She took hold of his erection and with her other hand firmly planted on the edge of the seat beside them to hoist herself up, she eased it into her quickly, her eyes drifting shut and her back arching as she did so.

She was visibly forcing back a moan when Makoto began to rock into her. He didn't think she registered the first kiss he pressed to her lips, or the second, but by the third she was biting his lip instead of her own. He picked up the pace, loving the feel of her withering to his rhythm.

"I love you," he panted, the tingling and tightness in his penis starting to wear down his own resolve. Kyoko didn't return the sentiment or open her eyes to look at him, but she did put her free hand in the centre of his chest, landing over his heart like even without looking, she knew where to find it.

"Harder."

Makoto could do that - how long for, he wasn't quite sure. Still, he thrusted into her, bucking his hips. She moaned aloud, her back arching beautifully again, so he repeated the action. This time, her thighs quivered against him and she cried out his name - loudly.

"Kyoko!" Panicked, he put a hand over her mouth. She giggled into his palm, and it struck him that Kyoko was more than capable of holding back during sex and the fact she had chosen not to was deliberate. Even mid-orgasm she found the brain power to mess with him.

"Oh my God," he hissed, before breaking into a moan himself as she clenched her muscles around him. "I-I hate you so much."

"No you don't." How did she manage to sound so smug even when she was breathless? "You love me."

"I d-do," he said, thrusting into her again and feeling himself stuttering to the edge. "Oh, God, Kyoko, I do. I do. I really, fucking, fuck, what was I saying?"

Her hands were in his hair again and she was kissing him like her life depended on it. He thrust once more before having to rip himself away from her kiss to throw his head back and struggle against the groan tearing up his throat as he came.

When he looked back up, panting, she was smiling.

"You good?"

"I'm," he swallowed, wondering how his throat could hurt so much from the sheer effort of being silent, "great. You?"

"Same." She eased out of him with caution, instructing him to pass her the pack of tissues she had in her bag one at a time. She cleaned them both up as best she could and then pressed one final kiss to his cheek before crawling back to her original spot beside him, rubbing her lower back.

"For the record, I might get jealous again later," Makoto said, as he watched her put her shoes back on. "Between the main course and dessert. I might get so jealous I have to leave the table and you have no choice but to come comfort me in the men's room."

"If you disrupt my investigation tonight, so help me Naegi, I will run off with Sora Saihara just to spite you."

Makoto could not help but pout. "Don't joke about that. It's too soon. I'm sensitive."

"You're an idiot is what you are." Kyoko narrowed her eyes on him. "You can't seriously see him as a threat?"

"It's not that I'm actually worried anything will happen. I trust you, obviously. It's just…" Makoto scratched the back of his head and looked away. "I dunno. He's a detective. You like detectives."

"Correction: I like being a detective," Kyoko pointed out. "In my experience, other detectives tend to get in my way."

"Your grandfather likes him better than me."

That one bugged Makoto more than he cared to admit even to himself - and he was an honest guy by nature. It wasn't that he craved Fuhito's approval...except it was exactly that, and Fuhito had not given Makoto as much as an inch toward gaining it. In hindsight, Makoto was really glad he'd asked Kyoko to marry him without consulting Fuhito for his blessing first or they would have had to just date for the rest of their lives.

While the closest Makoto had gotten to a compliment from Fuhito was a stiff 'well, Jin certainly would have liked you' - which Kyoko later told him had not been a compliment at all, but in fact, quite the opposite - he had heard Sora Saihara praised endlessly for his wisdom in passing Shuichi along to Kyoko (and that was the exact wording Fuhito used, as if Shuichi had been re-gifted) as well as the 'intriguing' developments in a number of high-profile currency cases of which he was the lead detective.

He had to work very hard for his position, Fuhito had told Makoto once, with absolutely no shame regarding what he said next: it was not as if he just woke up one day and decided he wanted to, say, run a school with no applicable life or work experience. Fuhito didn't add, 'and only managed it because of my granddaughter' but Makoto knew it was implied.

"My grandfather thinks Sora is a sell-out, sorry excuse for a detective, more concerned with making money than discovering the truth," Kyoko said, her voice dry enough that Makoto could almost hear Fuhito saying the words. Still, she softened when she explained, "he just talks him up around you because he knows it psychs you out."

"Okay, but Sora is rich. And handsome. And tall." So unfairly tall, Makoto thought with an internal sigh. "And charismatic. And he's actually a nice guy too, whatever Fuhito says. He made a six figure donation to the school council's charity fundraiser for a homeless shelter and practically begged us to keep his name out of the press because he didn't want his publicity to distract from the cause."

Kyoko rolled her eyes. "Do I need to be worried about you running away with him?"

"I just mean - he's got a lot going for him, you know?"

Kyoko nodded. "I do know. But...I also know he's not you."

Makoto snorted and turned back to the window, sullen. "I dunno. I feel like if you gave him a chance he'd be willing to be whoever you want him to be."

His wife sighed and took her compact mirror out of her bag, assessing the damage to her make up from their tryst. "He couldn't be my best friend. That's only ever been you."

Kyoko wasn't like him - she didn't usually say things to sound sweet, or for the sole purpose of making him smile. She wasn't romantic for the sake of it, which meant when she said things like that, things that made his chest tighten, he knew she meant them wholeheartedly.

He reached his hand across the space between them to set it on top of hers. She hadn't yet put her gloves back on, so he was free to stroke scarred skin. "You're my best friend too, you know," he said, a little bashful. It had been a long time since the initial killing game when he'd first fallen for her, but sometimes, Makoto still felt like an awkward teenager in the presence of a mysterious girl who, even then, had been able to run rings around him.

"I know." She squeezed his hand and then dug around in her bag for her lipstick. She reapplied it, pulling back from the mirror to examine herself. "How do I look?"

"You look amazing." It wasn't even an exaggeration - aside from being flushed, Kyoko regained her composure and grace impressively. Makoto frowned and rubbed at his cheek, catching sight in the mirror of the lipstick stains there. "It's annoying actually - because while you look as amazing as you did when we left the house, I look like I just had sex in the back of a moving car."

"Embrace it," she suggested, adjusting a hairclip. "Let Sora be jealous tonight, not you."

"Thanks for the pep talk." He was half-joking, but later that evening, in the same limousine on the way home, Makoto's thoughts drifted again to Sora Saihara and his crush and this time, he just smiled.

Kyoko was curled beside him, her back leaning against his side and her legs tucked beneath her. As soon as they'd gotten into the car, she let her hair down and undid half the braid so she could run thick strands over her fingers in thought. She yawned into his arm, the one she'd pulled across her like a seatbelt when they'd gotten in, and lazily rubbed her cheek against the material of his jacket.

He knew she was thinking about her case, mulling over the new information on her suspect, a lot of which he'd managed to gather, just as she predicted. She hadn't been put out by his help, like years ago she would have been, and instead had smiled proudly and patted his head before linking his arm and whispering, "This is why I married you. You're brilliant, Makoto Naegi."

(He also knew that if he asked, she'd explain specifics to him, break down how it was all connected. It was something she resented doing with anyone else but seemed to have decided a long time ago, for reasons Makoto didn't think he would ever understand, that he was different; that he was worth the time and the energy and the endless interruptions to ask questions.)

Makoto let his head rest against hers, knowing she had been right when she told him he was being an idiot. What did he have to be jealous of?

After all, he was the lucky one.

Just to add - I have another chapter of 'Hoping' in the works, so bear with me for that! Thanks for reading guys.