The concept of yearning was one that Maki found herself intimately familiar with, whether she liked to admit to it or not. She'd always yearned for a better life as a child, knowing that growing up in an orphanage where she was expected to kill to let everyone else survive was not the standard way of living. As she'd gotten older and phased out of the orphanage's grasp, she yearned to find somewhere that she belonged, a place that she'd never quite found before and was looking for day in and day out. And then, once she found the place she'd so desperately wanted, she thought her days of yearning for things just outside her grasp were past her and she grew complacent in her new life.
Although, it wasn't hard to blame her for letting her guard down the moment she'd been introduced to Kaito's grandparents as a former orphan with no family of her own, and the older couple told their grandson in plain terms that no matter what happened between the two of them, she was their granddaughter forever. That was a sense of belonging, a warm meal, and a pair of comforting presences, all things that she'd never had before, and it would have been foolish of anyone in her position to not accept that unconditional love and care with open arms. Kaito had laughed and assured them that she'd stay in their lives for the rest of his, and that felt solid enough that she refused to believe there was any alternative.
But there was an alternative, and it came while she was sitting on their living room floor, the smell of fabrics and cloths and old cigars strong in the air around her, her eyes glued to the television screen they had up on their wall. They'd been amazing about letting their grandson and his friend-turned-girlfriend stay with them as often as they'd wanted, and when the title that Maki wore went from girlfriend to wife she had expected that offer to be rescinded; instead they'd said that they were welcome to stay as long as they liked, or if the situation required, as long as they needed. The home her and Kaito had made for themselves wasn't too far down the road, so even on family nights where they came over and dined and spent quality time together the offer usually went unused, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been home at that point. She was intimately familiar with the scents of the older couple's home, used to their daily habits and the way they walked in and out of the rooms whenever they came up with some other chore to do, and she spent her time there watching that television screen for any signs of spacecraft.
The stream had been set up months before, Kaito making sure that it was set to the right channel and that it wasn't going to encounter any sort of interference with its signal. "If it goes down, you've just gotta wait for it to come back on," he'd told Maki after the screen had lit up for the first time with the view of the sky. "They'll bring it back, there's no reason for them not to."
"And what if they don't?" she asked, not wanting to be a problem but knowing that she'd kick herself if she didn't have all the answers she was looking for. "What if something big happened and they don't bring it back? What if I—"
"Calm down, Maki Roll. They'll always bring it back. You'll get to see it around the world, day and night, and every time something comes across the sky you've just gotta think of me, okay?" He grinned, and the happiness radiating off of him made her pout feel like it had so much more power behind it. How dare he be so happy when she was feeling like she was about to break? "Promise me you'll do it, I won't leave until you've promised."
"So if I don't promise you won't leave, is that what you're saying?" Her way of interpreting what he had said resulted in a moment of sputters before he told her he'd have to leave anyway, and she reluctantly gave him the promise he'd been looking for. She knew that he meant well by setting up the stream for her, and that he wasn't intending on hurting her by leaving like he was, but there was so much to the situation that Kaito couldn't understand that was going to eat her alive.
She sat there on the floor as long as she could most days, moving around on occasion and taking her meals with the grandparents at their table, and she'd always make sure that she'd turned it off for the night after some sort of satellite-esque object crossed through the frame. Being an astronaut's wife was hard work, but she knew she wasn't the only one in that position, seeing as the others up on the space station had to have families back on Earth that cared about them. Maki was sure that the yearning she felt every time she thought the spacecraft was in view was a normal feeling that everyone in her shoes was feeling, but at the same time she couldn't be fully convinced that she wasn't yearning for Kaito more than anyone else was yearning for their loved one.
Her heart ached whenever she didn't have a clue where he was, and whenever she knew for just a moment that he was still up in space, still safely floating around in a metal contraption built by man that could fail at any moment, her heart panged for his safe return. She'd never really known how much she loved and adored that man until he'd left her like he had, and now without any real way of communicating with him she was left watching the stream, waiting for the call that he was going to be coming back down to the ground to be with her once again. His grandparents would talk to her, ask her if she was okay or if she wanted company, but she didn't know any way to tell them what her feelings were without seeming selfish or rude towards everyone else in the same situation, who might not have had even half as much as she did at the time. They'd occasionally sit with her and watch, telling stories about how ambitious Kaito had been in his youth and how he'd always dreamed about orbiting the planet and exploring the universe, and with every tale she heard Maki found herself yearning more and more for his return.
His desire to explore the universe was fine, it was perfectly acceptable, but if he was going to do it then it needed to be with her at his side, or with her dead in the ground so that she didn't feel so lost without him there beside her. It was beyond strange feeling so strongly about him that those were the only two options she'd accept, but Maki had spent so much of her life looking for the relationship she had with him that she wasn't going to let a second of it go to waste. (Of course, she was realistic and knew that she'd have to settle for watching him from the ground while he was galivanting around the universe, but she liked to think he'd see things from her perspective sometime.)
When the day of his return came, she could barely keep herself together until he was squarely in her sights, not some foreign image of a space station but the man she'd loved and chosen to marry, his hair resuming its daily fight against the gravity he'd been without. The way he waved at her to let her know he saw her made her melt inside, and she had to resist charging through taped-off areas to get back to being with him. All of the yearning she'd felt while he was in space didn't compare even slightly to the yearning she felt in that moment, knowing he was so close but not close enough to touch.
Their first embrace when they were able to do so was violent, her nearly tackling him down with how much energy and affection she had to show him. "Glad to see ya missed me, Maki Roll," he told her, the sound of his voice much like music to her ears. "It's been a while, and it's good to be back with ya."
"Next time you leave me, you better have a damn good reason for it," she jokingly replied, losing her battle with her emotions and bursting into tears as she buried herself in his chest, feeling his heart beating underneath her forehead. "I'm not doing this again, Kaito, I love you too much to let you go like that!"
He laughed, knowing that she couldn't actually be serious about not wanting to do it again, because of all the work and effort he'd put in to become an astronaut actually able to go up into space. "I'll see what I can do to help get you through another few months of me being on the space station. Kinda figured bein' with my grandparents would've been enough."
Taking a deep breath so that she could deliver her thoughts on the statement without sounding like she was in the middle of crying, Maki said, "Nothing could ever be enough to replace you." And when she said that, she knew without a doubt that she meant it, that no matter what she had with her she wouldn't stop yearning for him when he was gone, and she figured that he'd find it impossible to go through on his word.
Yet…several years later when he was sent on another space flight, she got to spend the time watching the space station stream on her own television, sitting in her own living room, with his grandparents stopping by to check on things every so often. Her whole body still yearned for Kaito while he was gone, certainly, but having his grandparents there to make sure her and their two children were okay did help matters, not to mention having those two Kaito-like faces staring at her every day, reminding her of their love and that he was going to make it back home to them.
A/N: this prompt is "yearning", and it was a lot of fun to get to revisit the concept of Kaito being in space without there being any drama c: