Sorry for the slow updates.
I am working.
The child, as it turned out several weeks later- was considered to be both a blessing and a curse to Kurama. A blessing because it gave him the much needed reason to be nearer to Mei while satisfying his instincts and his deeply rooted need to take care of her.
In part to monitor her health and partially to get to know her better and vice versa.
It also gave him an excuse to get a spare key from her (yay progress! even if he did sort of brow beat her into it by playing the I-am-your-child's-father-what-about-my-rights card) so that he could visit her for an hour every other day and stop by to bring special home cooked foods over for her since he doubted that she ever ate more than breakfast every other day and lunch the rest of her days.
Which was bad because it meant that his mate was just a tiny bit underweight for someone her age. And that could come back to bite them later on if something went wrong with the pregnancy.
It also gave him several chances a week to walk her to and from work up until she had been fired. Then he had happily told her to leave her bosses office so that he and her former boss could speak privately.
He supposed that he should have gone a tad bit gentler on the man, but he had called his mate a whore to his face. So Kurama had put his letter opener through one of his hands and then stapled him to his desk after breaking his nose.
He'd then left the bleeding, and barely conscious human male in his office snorting about the stupidity of some people. He'd taken Mei out to a nice dinner afterwards in an effort to lighten her mood a bit since she had been understandably depressed about losing her job at the bar.
However he had managed to find her several other jobs, in much nicer places where he didn't have to worry about someone mugging her while drunk. The pay was much better too.
Sure they were desk jobs at some local businesses, but well...who cared?
As it turned out Mei did. Mei cared. Apparently, those jobs weren't what she wanted. Nor would she be able to stand them during her pregnancy.
Needless to say, Kurama had all but gaped at her like she were mad for several moments before sputtering a little bit and finally managing to ask her in a choked tone, "What would you like to do?"
Her reply had been somewhat surprising to him. But he had been interested nevertheless.
His little mate wanted to go into business for herself. She had decided when she was in middle school and had worked part time in a boutique in the nicer part of town that she wanted to someday put enough money away to open up her own boutique.
But not just any boutique, gods no- that would be boring to his mate. She wanted one filled with nothing but handmade goods. Soaps, lotions, and other cosmetics, jewelry, clothing...ect. Needless to say, he had been stunned by the idea. Not so much that she'd had it in the first place- he had always been impressed by Mei's mind and how it worked. No, he had been stunned by the level of detail that she had planned.
So after leaving her home that day, he had gone out and purchased a lot of stuff that could be used to make stuff for soaps, lotions, other cosmetics, beads, wire, crimps and clamps and clasps for beaded jewelry and sterling silver wire, chains, gemstone settings and some stones for her to start out with as well as yarn, and other stuff for knitting and had had everything dropped off at Mei's house and then going home and then collapsing onto his couch for a little bit.
Oh! His back hurt from carrying so much heavy stuff around.
His muscles ached, his back ached, he was pretty sure that the only thing that didn't ache was his hair. Though the ache seemed to be spreading a bit. So maybe soon his hair would start aching too.
He sure hoped that Mei appreciated all that he was trying to do for her.
Come to think of it, he also hoped that she wouldn't inhale any dangerous fumes or try to lift anything too heavy. But he was somewhat certain after hearing her speak of how some stuff was made and such, that she had at least a little bit more than an idea of what to do.
Tired from walking around all yesterday and this morning, Kurama sighed softly and mentally counted down the days to his mother's return from her honeymoon.
And though she called often to check on him, he was hoping that he and Mei would have made significate progress in their relationship before he told his mother anything about his relationship with Mei and their baby.
It had almost been a month in a half since his mating to Mei, and while they were steadily bonding and she was making special allowances for him to take care of her and get to know her a bit better and all, he was still having to toe the line a little bit to make sure that he didn't cross it and wind up overstepping and getting himself tossed out on his ass by Mei.
She made allowances concerning food, little things like eating, as well as the quantity of stuff that she ate.
Every day or so, she'd eat lunch with him while going out to run errands or simply sat at home and ate some of the wonderful foods that he cooked for her while they shared stories about their childhood and such.
She also let him know when she was going to the doctor. Especially when it had to do with the baby since he had already told her that he wished to be there.
He took half days off of work to be near her and make her feel special and loved. And she was trying in her own way too. He knew it and could see it as well as feel it in his very being. She did small things for him, like massaging his neck and shoulders if he was tense.
The night he had his altercation (if one could call it that) with her boss, he had been seething with rage, though he had tried desperately not to show it out of fear that she would reject him again.
He had gone out of his way that night to make her feel better and had even stayed the night with her again, though he'd slept on the couch after the two of them had gorged themselves on homemade brownies and a full gallon of ice cream and took turns ranting about what a terrible person her former boss was.
The mere thought of that night still made his lips quirk a little bit. Especially when he thought of the sweet kiss that he had received from Mei before she had retreated to her bed.
Stretching himself out on his back a little bit, he checked the time on his watch and knew that he had to be over at Mei's in a few more hours for their usual. He was thinking that today they could go grocery shopping together and pick out what he'd fix her for dinner since he sort of doubted that he'd be over for lunch given the fact that he closed his eyes and felt everything slowly begin to drift.