Parenthood is as hard as she expected and yet somehow different. It's sweet and delightful, while at times being stressful and challenging. Their daughter has Obi's energy, but Shirayuki's love for people all at once. Risa's always happy to be on her feet, and her parents' relatively normal life here in the mountains has kept her naïve and innocent.
It's a sweet combination that is altogether exhausting, as Shirayuki watches over or as Risa asks her dad a question. She's always full of all the little excitement a three year old naturally contains, all of that wonder in the world, that makes adults pause and wish that they still looked at the world that way. She teaches Shirayuki and probably Obi too, so much about the world.
"Daddy, can you teach me to climb a tree like you can today?" Risa's bouncing on her toes in the little kitchen, that had four chairs, because they were easier to order in sets. And sometimes people in town winked at them and teased that a second child may happen sooner than they think.
"Sure." Obi's grinning. He tries to take the odd day off, as if working is much harder to be motivated to do, since they had their little girl. And sometimes Shirayuki almost swears that Obi's wrapped around their little girl's finger, but Shirayuki knows that she's probably just as bad.
"Yay!" Risa's bouncing, half-shuffling into her jacket for the day, that she knows Shirayuki will insist on. Autumn's starting to feel decidingly chilly, though most of the leaves haven't turned different colors yet.
"She might be a bit young yet." Shirayuki reminds her husband, but she can't contain the almost childlike glee that Risa seemed to share with her. She silently vowed a long time ago to let them spend as much time together as possible, because sometimes Obi feels like fog to her, and she doesn't want him to be left out of any part of their daughter's life.
"You're never too young to climb a tree." Obi teases her once they find a good one and winks at her. Shirayuki just laughs, relaxed, aware that her husband wouldn't let Risa get hurt and also equally sure that his reflexes are quick enough to catch her if something does happen.
"I'm a big kid, Mommy." Risa informs her mother, proudly, wearing a grin wider than the sun.
"You are." Shirayuki agrees readily, and though she knows that her daughter's quite young, the fact that she did fairly recently get potty trained, makes her seem more like a big kid to her mother, though nowhere close to being an adult yet.
Shirayuki hopes that Risa always keeps that spark with her that she seems to carry everywhere.
Obi's hands are gentle on Risa's back as he lifts her up slightly, encouraging her quietly and helping her know where to place her feet and her hands. Shirayuki's just grateful that Obi picked a tree with branches low enough that Risa didn't have to climb too much before sitting down on a branch.
"Mommy, Daddy, I did it!" Risa cheers after she slowly threw her feet onto her first branch. She's sitting down, though she doesn't look scared as she paused from climbing, just accomplished.
"You did great!" Shirayuki encourages, doesn't say that technically her dad helped her get up that high. She's proud of their little girl regardless. Risa has the worry free life that Shirayuki often finds herself longing for.
"You did it!" Obi encourages Risa, even as he opens up his arms, an open invitation to a quicker way out of the tree. She jumps, but doesn't even fall an inch as Obi catches her and holds her steadily in his arms.
Shirayuki couldn't stop her affectionate smile, even if she wanted to, as she looks over at the two most important people in her life.
Risa loves to explore, to uncover mysteries, and perhaps they should have expected that she'd get into her dad's old stuff one day, but they hadn't thought that there was anything that they should worry about her stumbling upon, since Obi had quickly hid his old weapons and often carried them on him, just in case. Knives and three year olds or three years old and poison certainly didn't go together.
Yet, it wasn't either of those things that she ran up to her parents with. She'd found her dad's old hat, tan material gripped tightly in her hands as she looked up at them. Wide amber eyes filled to the brim with excitement.
"Mommy, Daddy, look what I found!" She held it proudly up in the air, and Shirayuki felt Obi shift uncomfortably, rather than seen it.
"That's your dad's." Shirayuki informs her, hoping maybe to diffuse the situation and give Obi a chance to feel less like his past is closing in around them.
"Oh." Risa smiles as she looks at it, and of course, decides to put it on. She fumbles with the hat ever so slightly before pulling it down on her head. Most of her black hair now hidden, except for the hair that's long enough to slip away from the hat. "Do I look like Daddy?"
Risa's all wide smiles and excitement, and right now, her dad's her favorite person in the world, even cooler to her than any of her friends that live in town, cooler to her than her own mom is.
"You look beautiful." Shirayuki tells her, curling her fingers into Obi's, trying to reassure him, without lessening her daughter's excitement. She's much too young to find out that her father was an assassin for most of his life or that he made enough enemies that life isn't as safe as it first appears.
Obi swallows, whatever seemingly lodged itself in his throat, "You do look like me." He tries, with a smile, no matter how difficult it seemed for him to smile, "You look cute."
Shirayuki squeezes his hand tighter; she wishes that she could soothe the ache within him, but she knows that to Obi, it feels as if his old way of life is tightening it's grip on their daughter, as if she might get mixed up in all of this too.
Risa beams, all bright three year old excitement, "Thank you!" She's so happy to look like her dad, so happy to be his daughter. It's such a sweet thing, such a beautiful thing, that Shirayuki never wants that happiness, that joy, to be dulled.
"She can't do what I did." Obi tells Shirayuki quietly that night, after they'd tucked Risa into bed, "It's a lifelong problem, and I don't want her living with that."
"I don't either." Shirayuki rolls over to get a better look at her husband, hating the way his amber eyes have dulled, how they've gone sad.
"I wish she wanted to be like you." Obi tells her, but their daughter is as interested in what her mother does as she's interested in boys, and she's three, so it isn't all that much. She doesn't find anything interesting in plants, except she's excited to climb trees.
Shirayuki's half surprised that Risa hasn't asked to go farm with her dad one day. Their little girl would rather climb trees than anything else.
"That would be easier." In some ways, Shirayuki's particularly grateful that their daughter looks up to Obi so much. She feels that maybe that lets Obi know that he is admirable in many ways, and wonderful in many additional ways. People don't want to be like terrible people or dull ones after all. They only want to be like people that inspire them.
In other ways, it sort of makes Shirayuki worry too. Risa won't decide to pick up the odd job working for people that may want someone to "take" out a person, will she?
"Keep her safe." That sounds a lot like goodbye, so Shirayuki wraps him up in her arms, tightly holding him close.
"You'll be able to keep her safe too." She whispers in his ear and feels Obi relax into her arms. Life sometimes feels like a dream that could be taken away at any moment.
Shirayuki feels sick, but in a familiar way. It's as if she took a time machine all the way back about four years ago now. She feels a little reminder to the townspeople's teasing, the sly little winks, and she marvels for a second.
It both feels like ages since she'd felt this way and as if it were just yesterday. Risa's still a bouncing, bubbly three year old, and Shirayuki marvels that Risa won't likely be the only little kid to brighten up their house. At least they won't need a new chair, she speculates.
A family of four might just be where their life is leading, a small baby to hold carefully in their hands, to feel a little hummingbird like heartbeat when they hold the baby close. It's a surreal kind of joy, and Shirayuki wonders briefly if the little baby will be another little girl with the energy and joy of Risa or if it will be a handsome baby boy, one that grows as tall as his father.
She pauses. Shirayuki hadn't been feeling this way for more than a week. What if she's wrong, and there isn't another little baby growing within her? The thought chases any and all of her daydreams away and leaves an alienating loneliness within her.
"Obi?" She calls, stepping out of the bathroom in search of her husband, who is watching their daughter draw a picture, with all the right encouragement.
"Good job, that looks just like Mommy!" Obi's wide grin is as affectionate as possible, and Risa's practically bouncing in her chair with excitement.
"You really think so, Daddy?" She peers up at him past all of her black hair and Obi's answering smile is answer enough.
Obi pauses as if he's just caught on to his wife's voice, "What's the matter, Shirayuki?" He gets up from his seat next to Risa, much to their three year old's pouting look.
"Can I talk with you for a bit?" Shirayuki feels nervous, half-fidgety, and she definitely needs someone to talk to.
"Me too?" Risa asks, looking as lost and curious as a three year old can manage to be.
"Not right now, honey." Shirayuki squeezes out, the words feel as tart as a lemon. It is so hard to leave her daughter out, but Shirayuki knows that that's the right thing to do.
"Okay. I'll draw Daddy too!" Risa cheers, offering up a drawing that vaguely resembled a person, and Shirayuki wonders how this evening's drawing is going before she finally turns away and walks back to her and Obi's bedroom.
"So, what's the matter?" Obi fidgets, as if he's mirroring her, moving his weight from foot to foot, as if he's just too antsy to stay still.
"You know how I've felt sick lately?" Shirayuki offered in the form of a question.
"Yeah?" Obi looks concerned, scanning her for any noticeably awful symptoms.
"It reminds me of when I was pregnant with Risa, back in the beginning?" Shirayuki adds, feeling nervous as she finally admits this.
"You think you're pregnant again." Obi answers, without even asking a hint of a question, looking calculating as if he's trying to trace the conception date back.
"Possibly?" Shirayuki offers, "But it's only been about a week of me feeling this way? So, I figured it was too soon to get excited, but I'd thought I'd tell you just in case."
"Risa would be over the moon, if you are." Obi's grin is half-teasing and half-pulling up at the end. It's an interesting thought.
Risa hadn't been asking for any younger siblings, hadn't made any verbal sign of wanting any. But sometimes they could see her looking over at her friends' families a little curiously. Some had older siblings, others younger, and some a healthy mix. Risa as an only child looked at least a little curious at the thought. Just asking for a baby brother or sister hadn't occurred to her yet, like that's a dream her parents couldn't hand deliver her.
"She would be." Shirayuki agrees and leans into Obi's side, filing away this feeling and thought for further study later.