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Something Meaningless
by flipstahhz
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He is thankful that it's a weekday. He is even more grateful that he'll be finishing an hour early.
As the last customer dissipates from the restaurant, Daisuke snatches the empty pint and wipes down the table. He had already collected the ramen bowl earlier and washed it with the last portion of plates and cutlery. The pint - he can wash that tomorrow. He rotates the wooden 'open' sign to 'closed', and puts away the mop. Usually after the last order, his customers would stay back for drinks, but not tonight. Tonight is a rarity and Daisuke does not hesitate to clock off.
Instead of exiting out of the restaurant's front door, Daisuke hurries back past the tables, and deeper into the restaurant. He heads towards the hallway, passing the customer toilets and entering through a 'staff access only' door. Climbing up the creaky staircase, he ponders if this is the pathway in which his body is descending to. After each long day of work his bones feel like they're gradually deteriorating.
How he cannot wait to submerge himself into a tub of hot water. Forget dinner. He should skip it for a much needed soak. It is an option he quickly eliminates, knowing that Catherine will have his head if he goes to the bathroom first before eating.
At the top of the staircase, Daisuke punches the code in - allowing him to access the second level. He pulls the door open and takes off his shoes, replacing them with his worn out slippers (which he won't allow Catherine to throw out because his sister gifted it to him when he first moved out).
He is welcomed by the open space of the living room. A smile creeps onto his face when he sees his daughter sprawled on the leather couch.
By the time Daisuke usually gets home, his daughter is already nestled under three blankets (it has to be three) in a peaceful slumber. Not now though…for once, he has caught the little tyke awake.
Her body has sunken into the crevices of the couch, tummy downwards, feet dangling in the air, dressed in her favourite pink floral pajamas. Her focus is on, what looks like, a large picture book. She is too immersed to notice that he's there. She loves reading picture books, something he is sure that she has taken from her mother because there is no way in hell that it was inherited from him.
Before he can surprise her, Daisuke hears a slight cough.
The cough has emerged from the dining area.
He turns towards where the cough had emerged from, to find his wife sitting by the dining table. Her elbows are resting on the surface, hands perched up to prop her head from sagging down. She drowsily smiles at him, in which he returns a grin back.
"Say hello to dad, Eri-chan."
"Papa!"
His daughter immediately sits up. She lunges off the couch and puts his arms around his legs. Her long, light brown hair bounces from the movement, and her large eyes look up at him. "Okaeri."
Daisuke bends down to kiss her forehead. "Tadaima."
She tugs at his hand, pointing at the book that had captured her focus.
"You look different here! You don't look like papa in these photos…your hair is too long!"
He catches a snort from Catherine as he lowers his gaze, glimpsing at the book resting on the couch. What was assumed to be a picture book was, in fact, an old photo album. He recognises the tacky colours and the crumbled pages that's sourced from over half a decade ago - back when Catherine had time to relentlessly print out each and every one of their memories, before everything became stored virtually in social media.
"Why you sad in the photo, Papa?"
The page is resting on when he had joined the national soccer team. There's one photo with him and his old team. Another is of Taichi presenting him with the folded soccer uniform. Daisuke's cheeks feel warm when he looks at his old self, eyes scrunched up and tears visibly flowing down his face. He has a bad habit of crying whenever he is extremely happy - never when he is angry - but in this instance he had been overwhelmed with joy. The only recent equivalent he can think of was when Catherine had told him that she was pregnant - boy had he sobbed an ocean worth of tears.
"I was happy," Daisuke explains to her. "But it's nothing."
He feels awkward talking about it, even if it is to a five year old. It had been a while since he had thought of the moment of making the national team. It was only for a short period, but it did not feel real - and it was no longer relevant now. He's happy with how his life is as it is.
"It's something meaningless." Daisuke is confused by his own words. It's come out that way because he does not know what else to say - but this does not slip past his wife. Catherine is staring at him oddly from the corner of his eye.
Daisuke avoids her stare, lifting up their daughter in his arms. "I'm happy I have you. And now…don't you think it's time to go to bed? I can finally tuck you in this time."
"Yay!" Eri throws her arms around his neck and plants a wet kiss on his cheek.
Daisuke laughs. "Cat, have you brushed her teeth?"
His wife gives him two thumbs up, blowing a kiss at him. For once, she can get out of putting their kid to bed.
Daisuke carries his daughter to her bedroom. It doesn't take long for Eri to fall asleep. She's always been an easy kid like that. He had struck gold with her, unlike many of his friends who complained about settling their children. Catherine had done a good job at implementing their daughter's sleeping time, as Eri was mostly asleep by half past eight.
As Daisuke walks past the bathroom, he can hear Catherine prepping the bathtub for him. He wanders back to the kitchen and eats the meal that she's prepared for him. Grilled salmon, rice and miso soup. He's thankful for Catherine. His wife isn't the best chef, but she has improved a lot in cooking Japanese food over the years. She had sacrificed a lot to be with him, leaving France and her modelling career to be with a fool like him. To this day, Daisuke can't believe how he's scored such a wonderful woman.
He owes Takeru a lot for introducing him to his French cousin. It initially had been a joke. Daisuke hadn't expected anything to come from it - but here they were. Together, married and with a child.
Daisuke is still thinking about this when he steps into the bathtub. A sigh escapes him as he sinks into the steaming water. His muscles loosen up as he begins to perspire from the heat. Wash, rinse, repeat. He'll be up early again tomorrow to prepare the noodles, but it's the end of the day he looks forward to the most. Settling down in the tub and then crawling into bed next to his wife. It's the simple things.
After drying up and changing into his sleeping boxers, instead of seeing his wife lying in bed - she is sitting upright. Her bedside lamp is on, lighting the photo album that is resting on her lap. From the inquiring look on her face, Daisuke knows that he won't be permitted to sleep early.
"Why did you tell Eri that?"
"What?" Daisuke replies, taking a seat on his side of the bed.
"Being part of the National Team was not meaningless."
Her tone is a giveaway that she isn't going to let it go. Catherine is attacking him before he can dismiss her concerns, distract her, or kiss her quiet.
He tries to ease the conversation. "I'm just saying that I'm satisfied with what I have now with you. This is the choice I decided on and if I were to repeat it again, I'd stick by it."
"That's not what I'm referring to, Dai." Catherine sighs. "You shouldn't be brushing soccer aside like it was nothing to you. It was a big part of your life, of who you are - so you can't pretend to our daughter that soccer isn't a part of you."
"Is this what it is?" Daisuke chuckles. "Do you want me to tell Eri? I can tell her this weekend. Why are you so bothered by this, Cat? It's not a big deal. I'm fine with it."
Her lips twitch at him, eyebrow arched as she shuts the photo album closed. Daisuke deciphers that his wife clearly isn't fine with it from her mere actions. Her mannerisms always tended to give away her moods.
"Cat…"
She frowns at him. "I just feel like I held you back. You could have made it big, you could still be a star today…but early in your career you resigned because of me getting pregnant and- God, Dai. You worked so hard for it. I spectated you go through it all, and in a split second you made that decision to leave it all behind…"
"Like you didn't either." Daisuke reaches for her hand, letting his fingers slip through hers. "You left your modelling career too, remember? I remember that evening you told me that you were pregnant. From the look on your face, I was frightened like hell that you wanted a divorce or something. Instead, you delivered me the best news ever."
"I was scared you'd hate me. Your career had only launched and I had taken your dream away-"
"No." Daisuke squeezes her hand. "Dreams constantly shift and change. My life changed when I met you and when I married you. Soccer was no longer a dream…it was a job. One thing I've learnt from my parents is that we may work our ass off daily, but family comes first. A job is a job, but family is family. When I fell in love with you…you were my priority. Everything else became meaningless."
Catherine sniffs. "Don't be silly."
"Sure, we had a baby quicker than expected. We were careless…but me not being with you when the team would be juggling different cities, made it worse for me. I wanted to be with you during your pregnancy. I was worried that you were home on your own. And this was already a taste of being in the soccer team. What would I miss next? Eri walking? Eri saying my name for the first time? You dancing to Spice Girls in your sexy laced lingerie- ouch!"
She pinches his cheeks. "You could have kept being sweet, you know?"
"Aren't I always sweet?" Daisuke grins.
Catherine shakes her head but leans to kiss him straight on the lips. "I forget how sappy you can be, Mr Motomiya."
He scratches the back of his head and before he can say anything else, Catherine takes off her silky beige camisole. She's not in his favourite sexy laced lingerie, but it will do. His upper body covers hers as straddles her, planting kisses on her neck.
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Daisuke's the first to wake up. His daily alarm sounds to remind him that it's time to start opening the restaurant. Damn early morning ramen prep.
He turns, smiling when he sees his wife tangled in the sheets next to him. He repositions the sheets on her body, adjusting the pillow so that it is no longer lop-sided. Daisuke kisses her on the cheek and climbs out of bed to get ready.
After freshening up in the bathroom, he strides into the kitchen fully clothed in his uniform.
As he brews his coffee, he pauses by the stainless steel refrigerator.
A magnet is pinning a photo of him as a teenager, playing soccer. Knees smothered in mud, smile vicious, eyes wild, and hair tamed back with a tied towel. 'Your father used to be the number one soccer player in Japan,' is what is written on a pink post-it that is positioned next to the photo.
He laughs at Catherine's scribble. Somewhere between their love-making, she had snuck out of bed to put the photo on the fridge without him knowing.
Daisuke is amused all day. To the very last bowl of ramen he makes, he cannot wipe the smile off his face.
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(a/n) …Uh kinda going through (another) somewhat midlife crisis, but here is something that was 90% written on my desktop since April. I just really like the Daisuke x Catherine pairing xD
Thanks for reading :) I hope you guys are doing well. Sorry I haven't really been active. xox
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