Chapter 32
She had a plan. She always had a plan. Mari never settled into anything without a plan and a backup plan, and another safety net for that said backup plan. She had handled a lot of things alone: moving across oceans, three degrees, grieving the loss of mentor, a friend, a mother almost. Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe. She had been alone for so much of her life, never had a chance to panic when there were things to do.
She gathered herself up from the floor of the bathroom, the lifeless cold tile beneath her skin jolted her awake. The exhale echoed against the walls. She turned on the tap to wash her hands, scrubbing her manicured nails with extra care. The mirror reflected a woman who was petrified – this wasn't like her. This wasn't her. She wasn't the kind of woman that would be afraid of such a thing.
Her hands began trembling against her will, shivering as though she were cold under the scorching hot water. What was wrong with her?
It was a happy day. This was a happy event.
Mari was pulled aside nearly immediately when she exited out of the bathroom. The woman had hardly managed to get her balance back after standing up from the washroom floor and her sister had pulled her across the entire courtyard to a quiet corner. Yuki had been absolutely giddy the whole event in celebrating their nephew's middle school graduation. She perched her chin on top of the palm of her left hand, flashing an oval-cut large carat diamond ring adorned with a halo. It was very much on-brand for her sister.
"Congratulations," Mari raised an eyebrow. It seemed like the rest of the family had not noticed, too enamoured by cake and the news of Taika's Ouran acceptance. "When did this happen?"
"When I found out I was pregnant," Yuki beamed. She was a ball of absolute excitement – while Mari had been shaking out of fear, Yuki had been trembling out of absolute sheer joy. How could they be such polar opposites?
The older sister tried her best close her mouth quickly when it fell agape for a split second. "How far along are you?" Mari kept herself as compose as possible.
"Early, only 8 weeks," the younger woman waved off. "I know, I'm trying to keep it quiet but you're my sister and I love you and—"
"—I'm so happy for you," Mari pulled the woman into a quiet hug. She lingered for a little longer than she had expected for even herself, enough that Yuki who had always been happy for the physical affection found it a little strange.
"You alright, Mari?"
"Yes," the elder sister nodded, as reassuringly as she could. "Of course."
Yuki squinted at her sister who only flashed a smile. It was convincing enough for Yuki to return back to her enthused self, much to Mari's relief. She let the anxiety linger at the back of her mind while she pretended to pay attention to Yuki's rambling about the grand proposal that had been done for her. Like a fairy tale, she described. Her words eventually turned into a quiet murmur, then into a blur, an echo.
Mari couldn't quite pinpoint what state she was in – clinically speaking, she must have been in a state of shock. A bare shell of a human as she tried to keep her wits end for just a couple more hours. She was a logical person; she had always been. There was a practical way of handling this.
Practical, Mari remembered. Yes, practical. There was a practical way of handling this, she reminded herself. In the same way she picked herself up from the bathroom floor only an hour ago, Mari picked herself up from the seat and bid her polite farewell to her family.
Kyouya came home to a dark house in the middle of the week. It wasn't particularly late – hardly past 7 in the evening. A week away felt far too long. The house echoed with his footsteps and the luggage that he carried up the stairs. He had expected her to be reading something in the kitchen as she was often there to greet him. The usual routine that Kyouya had grown fond of was of her waiting for him, usually with tea in hand as her sharp eyes followed him across the room – a yearning for him that she would only tell him with her eyes and only rarely with her words.
But tonight, she was crouched in a fetal position on her side of their king-sized bed. She buried in the mound of their duvet that they often fought over sharing before holding onto each other as a compromise. His wife was fast asleep – how odd, he thought to himself. He planted a kiss to the crown of her head, wondering if she would stir. He let her rest. Perhaps she had an especially early start – there were those days where she would be in the lab by 7 AM for a series of long experiments. He looked at the last text she sent him, 8 hours ago before he boarded his flight.
Have a safe flight. Love you.
Nothing more after that. It was comforting, even though they were just words on a glass screen. He stared at their messages as he brushed his teeth, hoping to crawl into the comfort of the bed his muscles ached for and the woman he missed more than the mattress. He looked around – Mari's side had always been an array of messiness. Skincare bottles lined the edge of her counter. Lipsticks out of order, eyeshadow palettes stacked askew, brushes that were half-organized in their container or sprawled out. Mari had always been messy, caring less for order and only cleaning up only when it was far too much even for herself to endure.
He stopped chiding her for it years ago and began cleaning up. Kyouya was never really one to clean after anyone but even in their years as lab partners, he was the one cleaning and she was the one performing the actual experiment. He mindlessly began organizing the shades of her lipstick, separating the liquid and the creams. He took note of each of the dark hues, smirking at the fact that she had 3 of his favourite. He aimlessly gathered the brushes that she had been using and ran them under the sink with make-up cleanser, making sure to brush off the residual pigment like he would with a paintbrush. He left them out to dry, just as he watched her do once. He fumbled through the drawers to organize her palettes, coming across the top drawer where Mari had left the now-abandoned set of pills that she would take as part of her nightly routine.
The foiled packaging was small and it never went past Day 6 for quite some time. A part of him wondered if it was worth it to do the math, calculating backwards. The Ootori huffed and stopped trying. He was too tired for the mental math right now, not after a long flight. Kyouya put away the pigments and decided to call it a night wherein heading to bed seemed like a much better use of his time.
Mari stirred when he tugged part of the duvet cover from her, forcing the woman to let go and to hold onto him instead for warmth. She didn't even wake. He welcomed her touch, her fingers had sleepily grabbed onto his waist, her leg hooking over his hip as she ducked under his chin. This was how they had always fit – like two imperfect puzzle pieces that had somehow forced themselves to fit as they were. They molded themselves, bent and meandered around the curves of their bones, slowly evolving to become the perfect fit they had wanted to be for each other.
She was his home. And he was hers – forever and always.
She had been sleeping early from being exhausted after work and waking in the middle of the night. Tonight was no different as she clawed away from him, breathing heavily as her mind shook her awake from the nightmare she had. When did he even come home? She wondered how she did not feel him crawl into bed. She tossed and turned, trying to fall back asleep – for fuck's sake, she had to work in a few hours. Mari had never thanked Kyouya for sleeping like a log but tonight was one of them.
4:30 AM was when she gave up and clamoured out of bed with a gruff at the fact that her body forced her to do this. It was an hour and a half earlier than her usual alarm and by then she would probably be able at work – as if there was anything else better to do. She slid into their bathroom quietly, narrowing her eyes at how clean the counters were. Her lipsticks were organized in their tray, makeup brushes laid out perfectly by size and function. Her skincare bottles had shifted in order of use: toner, essence and serums, moisturizer, and sunscreen.
He really was a good husband when it counted, she thought quietly to herself. She really didn't deserve that bastard. He was so good at making her feel like she was the light of his life – the most important asset he could have ever attained in the quiet kisses he would greet her with at the crown of her head or temple, the way he smiled at her when she handed him his coffee, or the way he would look at her when she showed him her research with zero relevance to him being a CEO.
Mari quickly wiped away the tears that had welled up at her eyes. She stopped looking petrified yesterday, thankfully. The woman in the mirror had moved past that stage. The only thing that stopped her from being an emotional wreck was being in the lab – as it always had. It had always been a distraction. Mari pushed through a large set of data yesterday to make a solid breakthrough of a new direction of a new set of experiments. It was a good idea to start on them today, while the office was still quiet and people were not bustling about.
And so she did it again: the usual routine that she put together to put on a brave face. It had been over a week since she had picked herself up on that granite floor of the bathroom, the chill still sent shivers up her spine. By 6 AM she was in the office. By noon, she had missed two meetings from being caught up in the lab – an excuse she had already used once. Mari rescheduled and managed to catch up by reading the meeting minutes. She returned urgent emails before leaving the office. And by then, it had already been past 4. It had been 10 hours, gone by so quickly with barely a bite of her lunch.
Her husband would have woken up to an empty bed and come back to a lifeless home the night prior. A part of her felt guilty for leaving him in the way she did but knowing the Ootori – he probably did not suspect a thing. He was busy sleeping or worrying about his company to think too hard about anything out of the usual.
This was usual, right? Mari thought to herself. She was keeping up just fine. Now she just had to go home. Cook dinner like her usual routine. Ask her husband about his trip. Everything is normal. Mari's palm pushed open the door after their security system had beeped her through, the diamond ring catching the light just enough to sparkle as if taunting her that she had a husband. Reminding her that he should know.
She had always handled things alone. Mari just wanted more time. More time to process. More time to understand. More time to come to the right conclusion. She just wanted to have all the answers, not all the waves of emotion that kept overwhelming her like tsunami tides. She stopped to try to compose herself at the door. This was not the time to let the wave sink her, drown her, bury her into the same heap onto the granite tiles she kept finding herself in the memory of her mind.
It was her today, who came home to her husband who had been sitting at their island bar stool with two bags of takeout because they both knew he couldn't cook for shit. Mari blinked at the surprise and silently dropped her shoulders from relief. She had no idea what she was planning to cook tonight anyway.
The wife kissed her husband sweetly on the cheek, telling him she would be right back after changing out of her work clothes. Her tired voice was enough for him to nod, letting her go without needing to ask any more follow-up questions. He settled in the kitchen with his tablet after spreading their meal over the marble counter.
Kyouya had read through two articles on his tablet before he realized that Mari had been taking longer than usual. She was usually down midway through the first article, making some kind of snarky comment. He set his tablet down and climbed up their long sprawl of stairs.
"Mari?" he called for her. There was no answer from his wife.
The light to their bedroom was on. He peered his head into their bedroom first, with no sign of her except for the closet door being open. Naturally, Kyouya walked into their shared closet. Her clothes had been tossed into the laundry hamper. Logically, it made sense that she would left to the bathroom – perhaps taking off her makeup or letting her hair down after a long day. The door to their master bathroom was closed but not locked.
"Mari?" He opened the door.
She couldn't hear him. She didn't hear him the first time, either. Mari had been too busy trying to control herself from trembling over the sink, her fingers gripping the ledge until her knuckles were white. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably as she tried to blink them away, her breathing laboured as though she had run a marathon. Mari heard nothing, not even the sink turning off because Kyouya had done it for her.
He had never seen her this way. Kyouya had seen her cry a handful of times, angry most of the time. But never in a state of panic, never like she had lost it. It was like he didn't exist to her, like she had been completely stuck in her own state of mind.
"What's wrong? What happened? Mari, talk to me."
The ringing in her ears didn't let her hear anything beyond the high pitch and the way her heart beat so fast it felt like she could rip it out with her bare hands. Focus, she thought to herself. Breathe. Just breathe. Fuck, just breathe.
She was jerked away from the sink to face a familiar face.
"Mari," Kyouya shook her as if trying to knock some sense into her – to bring her back to normal. When she finally saw him for who he was: her husband, her best friend, her partner. Mascara had run down her cheeks. She sniffled and gasped for breath. Mari reached for her tear-stained cheeks, watching the ink-stains trickle across the skin of her fingers. At the very least, the life in her eyes came back and it flickered to anger. Not at him, he knew that much. His wife was angry with herself.
She gently pried his hands off of her and splashed her face with more cold water. It was going to take more than just an eye mask to get those swollen eyes back to normal, she thought to herself.
"Fuck," she murmured quietly to herself. What an awful mess she was. She just wanted more time. Was that too much to ask for? Time for her to put herself together so he wouldn't have to see her this way. Time for more things on her mind – ones that she didn't want to delve into.
"Mari," Kyouya's voice was small. He was concerned but had no words to say, nothing of comfort. This had never been his specialty and Mari was not here to fault him on that. Not even Mari had the ability to process her emotions properly. "Mari," he tried again. "Please." Please tell me what is wrong. He hoped she understood him without him speaking the entire sentence.
The waterworks began again at his plea. The way his voice broke at the sight of her in such a state only made her feel more guilty.
"I just wanted more time," she sobbed. "I…" Mari wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. Forget. Cry. Wonder why she felt the way that she did. She sunk down to the cold bathroom tiles, her back against the cabinets. She could feel it so vividly – the aching dull pain until it felt like daggers prying her organs out, the cries that she endured again.
He let her sob into his chest, his brain still unable to comprehend what made her so miserable. She cried until her body could hardly hold itself up.
"I wanted more time," Mari squeaked out when her body calmed. It must have felt like eons that they had spent on the floor. This wasn't how she wanted it to go. She had a plan. She was going to tell him over their kitchen counter, calmly with all of the facts in check. It was supposed to be as easy as writing a technical report, regurgitated to him coldly with rationale.
"For what?" he asked with the same quietness, holding his wife with a death grip – fearing that he would lose her again in the same emotional wreck of a state she just pulled back from.
"To tell you," she ground out. "To tell you that—" She couldn't bear to look at him. "I didn't know. I really, truly – I wasn't paying enough attention. I was… I was stupid and—" Mari couldn't bear to say it out loud.
"I'm stupid too," he mumbled dumbly, hoping she would smile at his poor attempt of a joke. He still didn't quite understand where she was going with it. The attempt was unsuccessful as she began blinking her tears away.
"I was pregnant," she blurted out. She retreated away from him, pushing his arms away with a forceful shove. Mari expected a wave of disappointment to flush over his face. She would have to watch the sadness that fell over his eyes, the way he would have to mourn the loss that she also had been mourning for the past 8 days.
"Was," he repeated slowly. He was a smart man. His eyes widened. "Did you go to the hospital?"
"I…" her voice was stuck in her throat. It was an option that she had considered but ultimately decided against. She shook her head instead and hugged her knees. "You would have gotten the notification."
"That was all the more reason to go," Kyouya urged, reaching for her across the bathroom tile.
"But you had to work," Mari pointed out. Not to mention, he was 7 hours away by flight. "And to take you away from th—"
"My wife had a medical emergency," he corrected. "Of course it would take me away from my work," he angrily responded. His tone didn't help his case and only made her retreat further away from him. "Mari, please. Just—" He tried pulling her back. She hugged her knees tighter and refused his plea to hold her again.
"No," she shook her head. "No, I can't. You… you must think I'm awful. It was my fault anyway, I—"
"It was nobody's fault," the husband consoled. Now she was just getting irrational – it truly wasn't like her. "It happens more common than—"
"I know the statistics," Mari coldly croaked with whatever voice she had left. The anger in her eyes did not dissipate. His wife refused to make eye contact with him and he knew that she was directing the anger at herself. "I'm not a statistic," the scientist spat. "You and I were never statistics – we were never the kind of people who would fall in the realm of mediocrity. We are the best at what we do." That was how she was raised. That was how he was raised. They aimed for perfection.
"Mari," Kyouya sighed. "We're human," he reminded.
"And humans make mistakes," Mari frowned to herself. She made the mistake. "I'm sorry," she apologized. There would never be enough to make up for the amount of guilt she felt. Between bouncing back from feeling angry and guilty – her mind could never decide. "I am so, so, so sorry," Mari apologized over and over again. She closed her eyes again, not bearing to look at the way he looked hurt. The hurt that she ultimately inflicted on him.
"I'm sorry," he reached out for her again. She eventually sat cross-legged across from him, no longer hugging herself for support. "Mari, it is me who is sorry – to let you endure that alone." He held onto her frigid cold hand.
"I wish we didn't have to endure any of it," she cried. "I didn't know. I have no excuse. I was suddenly bleeding and I… I knew something was wrong." There was so much blood. Nothing had to have been right at that point.
"Why didn't you go to the hospital?" A valid question.
She hesitated, mulling over the moment she decided against it. She remembered being unable to pick herself up the floor, using every once of her body to try to seem alive and normal. After getting home, she was in no state to travel and like many things she had endured: it would pass, she told herself. "I didn't want you to know. Or anyone else, for that matter."
He watched her with concern, fixated on the way she spoke with such softness. Her voice was usually sharper, almost offensive when speaking to him. But Kyouya was sitting there across from her unable to help. He knew Mari had always been fiercely independent and never needed him. The one time when she did, he was across the ocean without an absolute clue. His chest felt heavy despite not even sharing an ounce of the burden she tried to bear for the two of them.
"How far…" he tried to softly ask.
She sniffled. She did the math immediately when she realized what had happened. It hurt her more knowing that she should have known all along.
"3 and a half," she answered.
"Why didn't you call?" Another valid question.
"What was I supposed to say?" she countered. Where would she have begun? Kyouya, I'm having a miscarriage. I am in so much pain. I've been bleeding for days. I'm sorry. It was all my fault.
He paused. What was she supposed to say? What would it have taken for him to fly back? He thought. "I need you." That was all.
She let the words echo off their bathroom walls. Was that it? That was all it would have taken for her husband to come back? Three words.
"I need you," she softly told him. Was it too late? "I need you," Mari repeated, locking eyes with him. She pleaded with him, begged him, fearing that he would leave her after all this. After he had seen her in the state that she was in, after she had hurt him with the pain that she never had ever imagined to inflict on him.
"I need you."
She did not remember much of the night. Mari vaguely recalled him telling her to take a bite of the food he had ordered when he knew that she probably had no appetite for it over the past few days. He drew her a bath and gave her the space she wanted from him. He told her he loved her far too much to count on her hands, in his own way throughout the night. She heard murmurs of him apologizing to her by the time her head fell onto the silk pillow, his tight embrace around her that did not leave the night. Even as her alarm was blaring, it was him who reached over her body to turn it off.
"Stay home," he gruffly ordered, clearly not willing to get up at the brink of dawn.
"What am I going to do at home?" Mari weakly responded, staring up at the ceiling. She had not slept that well in days – no interruptions, no nightmares, no panic attack in the middle of the night. "Cry some more? Wallow?" Her tone was meant to be light, but the joke did not seem to sit well.
There was no answer. Only concerned silence. It was not a good joke, apparently.
"Work from home," the Ootori demanded.
"My experiment ran overnight. I need to—" she tried to explain before her husband growled and rubbed his eyes awake. It was not often that she saw him even open his eyes at this hour. He looked forlorn at her, as if it would tempt her to stay home instead. Most people would be afraid of that man's glare but to his wife, she paid it no concern. Kyouya knew her well enough that her mind was made up, just from the way she looked at him with the same stubbornness.
"I'll drive you." There was no room for argument in his tone. He lifted himself up and pulled off the covers before he changed his mind. His body shivered from the cold air – how did his wife do this every morning like it was nothing? She was disciplined far more than he was ever. Mari had the strength he could never muster up.
"What?" Mari got up alongside her husband, pulling his arm to stop him from leaving the bed entirely. She still looked tired, as she had looked for the past few days he had gotten home. "No, you sleep," she urged. "I can get to work. You just got back – you take time to rest."
"Only if you rest," the Ootori shot back, fully knowing that his wife was equally a workaholic. Perhaps it was time to begin re-evaluating their lifestyle. None of this was healthy for either of them. There was a discussion to be had about this.
Mari pursed her lips and huffed. "I'll take a half day," she compromised from her side of the bed.
"I'll pick you up by noon then," Kyouya decided.
"But you—"
"—I'll work from home for the rest of the day," he answered her question with a sharp tone. He was never a morning person, after all. Mari was not one to ever be afraid of the Ootori but she backed down anyway, following him into their shared bathroom.
She eyed him from the edge of her sink, the guilt clear in her face as she watched her husband scowl while brushing his teeth. The mirror did no favours to either of them, exhausted at the brink of dawn and barely alive. Her husband was probably still jet lagged and she still looked like an absolute mess of a person.
"Kyouya—" She reached over to gingerly pat his arm. Maybe it wasn't too late to ask him to just sleep in a little more.
"What?" he snapped, letting his fatigue get the better of him.
Mari retreated immediately. It was unlike her to do such a thing – not with him, not ever. She had never been afraid of him. Kyouya regretted his tone instantly, watching as she grew flustered and guilty for even speaking aloud to him. All he wanted to do was to pull her into his arms, apologizing in his own way.
"I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "I… just… I'm sorry, okay? You shouldn't have to do this. I can take care of myself." It was never like her to be afraid of him. To walk on eggshells. Mari had never been afraid to show her imperfections with him.
"I know you can," Kyouya assured. "But you shouldn't have to."
"You're tired," Mari murmured, reaching up towards his face. She cupped his cheek with those thin pianist fingers he had always admired. "You can go back to sleep, love."
"Love," he repeated, enveloping her hand with his. He flashed a small smile at her, not minding the title of endearment.
"I love you," Mari reminded, mirroring his smile. Her eyes shifted from guilt to gratitude, she beamed up at him like he was her sun.
"I love you," Kyouya insisted. "Let me take care of you. You need me. I need you," he reminded softly. He pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead.
"I'm sorry," she murmured into his chest, eventually agreeing with him. Mari breathed him in and held him close. He smelled like toothpaste. It was oddly comforting.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," he answered, letting his wife cling onto him. "Nothing at all."
"I really thought—" Mari sighed and looked up towards her husband. "I'm not used to failing," she admitted softly. "Not like this. Not ever, really."
"Mari," he soothed, his chest tightening at the look on her face. She looked so disheartened. "You are far from failure. You did not fail." He pushed the strands of her hair behind her ear tenderly.
"I wanted to give you the perfect family," she admitted. "You would come home and we would have dinner. We would take turns helping with homework and—"
"Why would they need help with homework?" Kyouya wondered. "They would be smart enough—"
"Shut up, Kyouya," she groaned. "Even my nephew needs help on his homework and he is very bright."
"That's impossible," he dismissed. "Our genes are impeccable," Kyouya declared, as he had done so a handful times before.
Mari frowned. "I could think of a few flaws coming from you," she muttered with an eye roll. Mari let the idea settle on her mind before she meekly asked, "You really think so? What if I can't—"
"Mari," Kyouya shook his head at his wife, already understanding her train of thought. "We don't have to think that far."
"I just want to—" She just wanted to be prepared. Maybe she really should have gone to the doctor – was it her? Her workaholic lifestyle that she never could break out of, or was it her body that she had no control over, her own genes that perhaps, played a part in it all. There had to be some kind of scientific explanation.
"I know," he sighed. "We said we would try. We didn't say we would have expectations."
"The expectation is—" It was horrendously obvious in what the expectation was, it nearly pained her to say it out loud.
"—Mari, stop it," he scolded. "It was not your fault."
"It feels like it," she confessed with tears began brimming the wells of her eyes. She wiped them away immediately, remembering that she had to be at work and bloodshot eyes was not a good look to be wearing. She thought to those depuffing eye masks she still had stowed away in her drawers. "I should have known at least. I should have paid more attention. I should ha—"
"Mari," he shook his head at his wife. "I don't know what else to tell you." He felt like a broken record.
"I know," she sniffled. "I know I'm being irrational. I know it's common. I know – I just… did not think it would be me having to listen to Yuki share news of her pregnancy with me while I just lost our child like it was a bitter twist of fate."
"You don't believe in fate," Kyouya reminded. "You're a woman of science."
"I am," she confirmed. "And yet, I have succumbed to the whimsical follies of—"
"Enough," the Ootori rolled his eyes. "Yuki is pregnant?" He changed the topic.
"Apparently so," the older sister sighed. "She isn't that much younger than me, is she? Should I have started earlier, am I old…?" Mari wondered.
"Mari," Kyouya realized that the attempt to change topic was futile. "You're spiralling." Leave it to his scientist wife to come up with hypotheses that could never truly be proven at this rate. "This is silly. This is not like you. How many times can I tell you that all I ever wanted was you?"
Her tired eyes blinked up at him. Her lips parted in awe. She stood frozen in a daze from the words of her husband. "You never told me that," her voice quiet, even with the echoing of the marbled walls.
"I'm certain that I have," the Ootori suddenly grew embarrassed when his wife softened her eyes at him, under the gaze of absolute astonishment that the man could utter words as sweet as that. "Mari, all I have ever wanted was you," he repeated with more confidence, owning his words so she could believe them just as well as he had. "And any extension of you would be lovely but, it was always you."
"Me?" she blinked. "You waited a decade for me and I can't even give you what—"
"I waited more than a decade for you," the Ootori corrected. "For you."
"I don't deserve you," she whispered. "I never felt like I could and especially—"
"Mari, you are more than what I could ever deserve in a wife, my best friend, my partner," he cut her off before she could babble on. "What can I do to prove that to you?"
Mari slowly slithered her way into his arms, letting him hold her together in ways she never thought she would need from another. She breathed him in and exhaled into his skin. It was 5 in the morning and her husband had woken up to experience hell to comfort her, to take care of her, to remind her of his unwavering love to her for over the past decade and counting. He made her feel secure in all of the imperfections she grew into and out of over the years of knowing him.
"I—"
"I know," he answered, keeping her close. She did not have to tell him what he already knew of her.
They stood in the middle of their bathroom like that, fused together in one cocoon. He refused to let go in fear of having her fall back into the pieces he had just helped in picking up. She held onto him, burying herself in his chest like a child refusing to acknowledge the reality around them.
"Coffee?" she murmured into his chest when she was ready to face that the day was anew. They had lives to return to, jobs to do. Time was not stopping for them.
"Please," he begged desperately. Kyouya planted a kiss at the crown of his wife's head, cradling her body delicately. Affection with her had always been easy but she had never been so grateful for his embrace.
Mari smiled up at her husband and sighed into his chest. Was it possible for someone to smell like home? She hugged him tighter. "Can we take a break? Just for the afternoon," her request came meekly, as though she were embarrassed to ask for his time that was most certainly spent working.
"I'll clear my schedule." It was a rare thing for the man to do and he did not hesitate to abide by his wife's wishes.
"We can come home and just watch movies on the couch?"
"Documentaries," the man negotiated.
"Fine," she compromised. "But don't be annoyed if I fall asleep on you."
The Ootori shrugged with his signature smirk. Sleep was exactly what both of them needed where an afternoon nap sounded more appealing than ever when waking at the brink of dawn.
"You always annoy me."
"Shut up," Mari snapped and pushed him away with a playful smile.
