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“She’s a real handful, you know.”
On the counter, Morgana breaks the comfortable silence that settled over them, watching as Ren cooks breakfast, or rather, watching as he tries to. The kitchen is foreign enough that he fumbles with the spatula and the frying pan, even when he’s grown used to cooking with only one hand available.
“Yeah?” He scoops a ladle of pancake batter and carefully spills it on the pan. “What did she do this time?”
“She started fussing at around three in the morning.” Morgana cranes his neck sideways to scratch behind his ear with a muted groan, tail flicking in pleasure. “She’s lucky she’s cute, or else I’d be real mad that she woke me up.”
“Of course she’s cute.” Ren replies as he arranges the frying pan over the cooktop. “She has my genes.”
“Uh, I think we’ve established that she looks more like Ann.” Morgana says, haughty, turning his black snout up in the air. “Seriously, Ren, she’s a carbon copy.”
He looks down at the mop of messy black hair attached to his daughter. “Uh-huh.”
“Anyway.” The cat stretches languidly on the counter with a yawn. “I’m gonna get some rest. I’ve been awake for far too long.”
Ren hums noncommittally, picking up the spatula and trying to wedge it between the pancake and the pan. “I’ll make you some food when you wake up.” Morgana replies with a you better and hops off the counter.
The first pancake Ren flips turns into a slight mangled mass and he sighs, adjusting his sleeping daughter in his arm. Marie, still dressed in her orange cat pajamas, mutters something unintelligible and stirs, but doesn’t awaken, and he’s not really surprised. By the looks of it, she kept Morgana quite busy this past night. It’s not even seven in the morning, and Ren is barely awake himself.
He gets some coffee brewing in the machine. Typically, he would prefer to do it himself, but in situations like this he has to make do. The machine hums quietly in the background as he plates the ugly pancake and gets another one cooking, then turns to set the table.
From the window, he catches a glimpse of the wide expanse of the backyard, inches of pure white snow covering decorative statues and benches placed inside the fenced area. While it snows in Tokyo, it snows never as much as here, but that is to be expected of a country so far up in the hemisphere.
In all the years they’ve been together, married or not, Ren has only come to Finland a handful of times and usually only when the weather is warmer. Ann’s parents visit them as often as they can in Japan, but this time they insisted on having them come to Finland instead. With their hectic schedules, coupled with Ann’s own busy lifestyle, the only available time for a visit happened to be when winter is at its peak.
Ren used to think he didn’t mind the cold much in Tokyo or in his hometown, but winters here are really something else.
Marie awakens when he’s got a decent sized stack of pancakes waiting in the oven to keep warm until Ann joins them downstairs. She may have most of her mother’s features when Ann was about the same age, but her hair and eye colors definitely were inherited from him. So were the volume and texture of her hair, a wild mass that is almost impossible to tame when the haircut is too short.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” He reaches up to wipe some drool from the corner of her mouth. Marie blinks at him sleepily as she rubs her eye. “Hungry?”
“Mhmm.” Marie sticks her thumb in her mouth, and Ren delicately pries it away.
“All right. Let’s get you some water first, yeah? Then we can go and wake mama up.” Marie points her hand at the pink sippy cup waiting on the dish rack over the sink and makes grabbing motions. “Do you want to have breakfast in bed with mama?”
“Mhmm!” She nods vigorously, bouncing as much as she can in his arm.
“Say it, sweetheart.” Ren corrects gently, jostling his daughter slightly as he tries to close the sippy cup without spilling the water.
“Yes,” Marie says, pausing for a beat as she watches him struggle. “I want to.”
He rewards her with a kiss to her brow and gives his daughter the cup. “Good girl.”
Ren looks around the kitchen trying to find a tray to carry the food upstairs. He may have set the table for nothing, but the idea of taking breakfast to his wife sounds too romantic to pass up. Too bad there are no flowers in the backyard to take to her.
In his quest to find the tray, Ren turns around and finds his wife wrapped up in a fluffy bathrobe as she leans on the doorway and watches them with a fond smile on her lips. Marie perks up at the same moment and reaches for her mother, nearly dropping the sippy cup had Ren not snatched it from her hand before her fingers uncurled from around the plastic handle.
Ann pushes away from the doorway to take Marie into her arms and return the hug given. She looks beautiful right now with mussed hair and face soft from sleep, a sight he’s seen many times before, but never gets tired of. Ren leans down to greet her with a sweet kiss, smiling when her fingers trace his jawline.
“How long have you been there?” Ren arches his eyebrows in wonder.
“A little while.” She smiles, adorably sleepy. “Did I hear something about breakfast in bed?”
“As a matter of fact, you did.” He tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear and kisses her cheek. “But seeing as you’re here now, I see no reason to go back upstairs.”
“Boooriiing,” Ann sing-songs with an overly dramatic roll of her eyes. Then she smiles and brushes back their daughter’s unruly black hair. “Anything I can help you with?”
To answer her, Ren pulls back a chair and motions towards it with a flourish. “Just make yourself comfortable.”
The pancakes are still warm and fluffy when he takes them out of the oven and sets the plate in the middle of the table along with the pot of coffee. He knows by heart the way Ann likes her coffee best, and he tries to recreate it with what her parents have at home. Or rather, what the governess bought and stored for their arrival.
For Marie, he thinks a hot chocolate will suffice. Their daughter is too energetic as is, and they’re always keeping their cups of coffee out of her reach.
Ann fishes her phone out of the pocket of her bathrobe to check on a new notification. “My parents should land around midday. They want to go to lunch on their favorite restaurant.”
“Sounds good to me.” Ren sits down across from her and places some pancakes on his plate as Ann cuts a pancake into smaller pieces for Marie. It’s been just the four of them since they arrived yesterday, as they were fortunate enough to book an early flight. Marie had been kind of fussy in the plane, and Ren isn’t looking forward to the flight back.
And yet, as he watches his daughter disregard her smaller cutleries to eat the pieces of pancakes soaked in maple syrup with her bare hands, getting the sticky goodness all over her cheeks whilst Ann tries to keep her face clean, Ren can’t bring himself to feel an ounce of exasperation.
Ren observes his wife and daughter, feels his heart ready to implode from the affection and love he feels for them. It’s crazy how far he’s come, from an ordinary life to Shujin to Phantom Thief to here, right now, leading a happy life married to his best friend, his life companion, with a child of their own and their close friends by their side.
Ann looks up as he is sipping his coffee, and he lets his eyes crease in a smile from over the rim of the mug, a gesture she promptly returns with the same amount of affection.
“Mama, can I play in the snow?” Marie turns to Ann with wide eyes, a trail of syrup down her chin.
Ann wipes it with her thumb. “Of course, sweetie.”
Once the dishes are done and the whole family is dressed in proper winter clothes, they indulge on their daughter’s request and take her out to the backyard to play. The sight isn’t foreign to Marie at all, but the amount of snow might be a surprise to her. She squeals as Ann sets her down on her feet and she sinks into the snow, high enough to reach her knees.
Ren embraces Ann from behind and rests his chin on top of her head. Her gloved hands rest over his own, finger tracing the ring underneath the thick, warm fabric.
“She’s going to wear herself out,” he points out, amused. Their daughter is doing her best to run around, but ends up falling more often than not.
“She can take a nap before we leave for the airport.” Ann pats his hand gently. “Dad loves when she’s energetic and asking for piggyback rides.”
Humming, Ren buries his nose in her hair to protect it from the cold. “Tired?” He asks when Ann stifles a yawn with her hand.
“Just jetlagged.” Ren releases her so she can turn around and hide her face in the crook of his neck. He wraps her in his arms again, closing his eyes to savor the moment and shared warmth. “The weather is perfect for sleeping all day.”
He cards his fingers through her hair with a chuckle and offers, “We can nap before we leave for the airport, too?”
“I like the sound of that.” Ann steps even closer, tightening the arms around his waist. “The couch in the living room is very comfortable.”
Before he can reply, a frustrated cry tears them apart with a start. It seems Marie has gotten tired from trying to run around and has given up, though she’s made quite a progress in crossing the yard. She flails around a bit as she tries to maneuver her way back to them, stumbling even as she tries to backtrack her steps.
Ren steps away from his wife to come to his daughter’s rescue, smothering a chuckle when she looks up at him with a tight pinch between her brows and a pout on her lips. Her eyes are filled with unshed tears, and she raises her little arms to be picked up with an annoyed little whine. Ren tries real hard not to laugh at how similar she is to her mother, both of them sporting the same expression when deeply frustrated.
“That’s enough snow adventures for now, I think.” Marie hides her face in his shoulder with a sniff and he pats her back comfortingly. “We’ll build a snowman with grandpa later, okay?”
Ann caresses their daughter’s hair then opens the back door so they can go inside. It’s barely nine in the morning and they have a lot of down time in their hands until her parents arrive, but with Marie now worked up, the best they can do is try to get her to nap.
Ren looks off in the direction of the living room, then meets his gaze with Ann’s. Getting cozy in the living room with hot chocolate sounds really appealing, right now.