Some time around two weeks before their sixth anniversary Kotoko starts needling him into going on a date. (Thankfully no real needles are involved. She's gotten much better but the memories of being her patient are still seared into the forefront of his brain.) Something simple she promises, he won't even need to take the entire day off from the hospital, just leave a little early.
He can tell he agrees more easily than she expects, cutting her off somewhere around number five on her thoroughly thought-out list of reasons he should take time off to be with her for at least part of the day. He could tell her that he'd requested the entire day off weeks in advance, but, in typical Naoki fashion, decides against it. If he tells her too often how much power she holds over him, how easily she can get him to agree to pretty much anything with a mere suggestion, she would undoubtedly use her powers for evil. Or at least to distract him more often than he'd like.
So, instead he simply grimaces at the shriek of delight she lets out and turns his attention back to the documents he'd been going over before she'd come into the living room with a determined set to her slender shoulders and a no nonsense look in her eye. He waits until she's distracted, rambling excitedly about all the possibilities for their date, to allow a small smile to reach his lips.
Just then, the slightly metallic sounds of the shuffling and cooing of an infant waking from a nap being filtered over a baby monitor fill the room. Naoki sighs and rises to his feet, placing his papers neatly back into their folder and setting them down on the coffee table as his wife turns to head up the stairs.
"I got it," he says, stepping around her at the base of the stairs, letting his hand brush across her lower back as he passes.
"You were working." Kotoko cocks her head in question like a puppy. It's one of the hundred things he finds endearing about her that he rarely voices.
"Someone already distracted me," he reminds her, turning back in her direction with an eyebrow slightly raised and a teasing lilt to his voice.
"Sorry, Irie-kun." She lowers her head, embarrassed that she'd bothered him with something that could have waited but not enough that she's truly regretful.
Instead of answering he puts an affectionate hand on top of her head and slides it down over her cheek, running his thumb over her cheekbone and down to the bottom lip she has pouted out. This time he doesn't bother hiding his smirk of satisfaction at the way her breathing shallows and her pupils dilate. He's a prideful man and the fact that simple gestures such as this still make his wife's cheeks turn pink, even after several years of marriage, is something that never fails to boost his already healthy ego. As he lets his hand drop a very similar shriek to the one Kotoko had let out moments before sounds over the baby monitor. However, it's definitely not one of delight.
"She got that lack of patience from you," Kotoko snips after him as he bounds up the stairs two at a time.
"Maybe," he concedes, realizing he can't exactly argue against that. "But the volume level is all you."
Kotoko opens her mouth, ready to be offended before realizing she can't really argue against that either. She frowns and nods in agreement before heading up the stairs behind her husband.