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“Aren’t we just the cutest couple ever?”
Tōji’s eyes move from the spread of food laid out across the patterned blanket beneath the two of you over to either side of him, where a few other couples and families have set up their picnic spots for the evening, then, to your phone. A glance at the screen displaying the timed photo you’d just spent the past five to ten minutes setting the scene for and perfecting brings a smirk to his face.
“Just the right amount of nauseating.”
“Like, to the point where people are a little envious, but they don’t think we’re being too over the top, right?”
“Right.”
You hum in understanding as you pop a piece of fruit into your mouth.
“But, I would say err on the side of caution and don’t post the super lovey-dovey ones. Actually, please don’t. That’s a request now.”
Your hand flies to your chest to match the look of feigned shock on your face at his words. He doesn’t miss how the diamond on your finger sparkles in the amber glow of the setting sun. The thought crosses his mind that he wants to buy you a bigger one when he has enough money to set aside—something that would shine just a bit brighter. Almost as brightly as that beautiful smile of yours he had the pleasure of seeing each day, if he was lucky.
“You mean… I can actually post a picture that I took with my notoriously elusive husband?”
With a nod, he shifts his gaze to the horizon—or whatever he can see of it peeking around the sides of each building—for a moment. “Just know it’ll probably end my job,” is his response given with a sigh, “Nobody’ll fear me after they see that I enjoy sunset picnics with my adorable wife, now, will they?”
“Or,” you offer with a grin, scooting closer to him so his arm can snake around your waist, “it could give you an advantage, people thinking you’re kinda sweet. Like, oh, he’s a cold-blooded killer who takes care of business, but he’s got a soft side, too. And then, bam! You swoop in and they’ll never even know what hit ‘em.” Sweeping a hand dramatically across the landscape in front of you, as if you want him to picture the scene in your head, you add, “Suddenly, you’re the talk of the town. Women want you. Men want to be you. Hell, they’d probably want you too.”
“And that’s the story of how I end up on the front covers of magazines, right?”
“Exactly. This is just the start of your success story, baby.” Tenderly, you place a hand on the side of his face to bring it closer to your lips. After pecking him on the cheek, you whisper, “Just try not to forget about me when you’re famous, okay?”
He turns to look directly at you, his eyebrow raised with incredulousness in an expression you’ve seen many times before. “You kidding me? I would never. Be famous, I mean.”
The teasing smack you land on his chest doesn’t deter him from leaning down towards you to press a kiss against your lips that you readily return in spite of your complaints at his devious comment. He relishes in the sweet taste lingering on his tongue when he pulls away, and the affection present in your half-lidded gaze brings a comforting warmth over him akin to the feeling of finally crawling into bed after a long day. In his moment of distraction, you’re able to sneak in another meeting of your lips before grabbing one of the snack boxes you’d meticulously crafted and dropping it into his lap.
“Since I’m nice, unlike you, I’ll still let you eat the food lovingly prepared by your loving wife.”
“C’mon, baby,” he murmurs, giving your thigh an appreciative squeeze, “You know I love you.”
“I mean, I hope you do. You did marry me, and stick with me all these years, after all, you weirdo.”
He chuckles and pats your leg before shifting his attention to the delicious food you’d put together for the two of you, and you settle down beside him after collecting your own. His free hand plants on the ground beside your opposite hip, closing the gap between you.
Each day that he gets to spend with you he’s thankful for. But there’s something different about those where the sight of the sun slowly descending toward the horizon is beautiful enough to draw both of you out of the house to sit and watch it. He can’t quite explain it, but everything about these days feels different. The harshness of the city seems to fade away for a bit. The air smells sweeter. His breaths come a bit more deeply. The absence of your body against his in some way is felt more intensely.
In between gazing ahead at the sunset—allowing his eyes to flicker to his meal, the kids zipping past every now and then on their bikes, or other passersby—he finds his attention being drawn back to you. Each feature of your face bathed in the golden light of the sun’s last rays brings an unexpected flutter to his heart. He’s never surprised by how gorgeous you are, but, still finds himself in awe of just how lucky he is each time he stops to take it all in.
Lucky that he gets to wake up next to you and see you in those quiet moments of the morning when your eyes are still struggling to focus and your cheek is stamped with each wrinkle of your pillowcase, but you look beautiful all the same. Lucky that the arms and legs he has draped around him until you both wake up sweaty in the middle of the night are yours. Lucky to be offered a refuge wherever you are. Lucky you’re one he promised to love for the rest of his life.
In the busyness of your days, sometimes things are assumed rather than said. He assumes the parting kiss he presses to your lips each time he leaves the house translates into a small, “I love you, I’ll be back soon.” Just like he assumes the way he pulls you onto his lap while you’re sitting together, watching a movie, sends a small message of, “I need you here, close to me.” Or the pause he takes to gaze into your eyes after your more passionate displays of affection means, “I love you more than I know how to say.”
He realizes, given the risky nature of his work, that thought alone isn’t enough, though. Maybe he’s too afraid of saying something that’ll curse you for his lips to form the words he’s thinking as often as they should, but if he was one to let his life be ruled by fear, he wouldn’t be sitting with you in the first place. He would’ve let his family wreak havoc on him for the entirety of his life, weighing it down with constant reminders of his failures. He would’ve let his fear of being vulnerable keep him from getting close enough to you to fall in love with you.
Yet, here he is, making relaxed conversation with you—his wife—as the two of you sit together beneath a sea of brilliant oranges, candied pinks, and the gentlest hues of lavender. With the way you use your steadily built and strongly maintained trust in him to speak so freely and be so vulnerable without fear of judgment, he feels it’s only fair that he shows his trust in you by doing the same. That he reminds you of his feelings rather than lets the implications behind his actions speak for him.
When he decides to mention it, most of the sky has lost its fire and quite a few of the other picknickers have packed up and returned home. But the two of you choose to remain out just a bit longer in the warmth of the summer night, bathed in the sound of cicadas chirping incessantly. “Hey babe?” he calls, giving your hand resting in his a gentle squeeze as his cheek drops to the blanket so he can look at you.
“Mm?” You shift onto your side and scoot closer to him, moving your interlaced hands to your chest, holding the back of his against your gently beating heart. On instinct, your other set of fingers find his face to brush a few strands of dark hair away from his eyes, and he presses feathery kisses to your palm.
Sighing against your skin, he asks, “Do I tell you I love you enough?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, you assure him, “I know you do.”
“Because I say it?”
You hum with uncertainty, fingers gliding from the scar at the side of his mouth down his neck, and to one of his broad shoulders. “More because I can see it in the way you look at me. But, then again, I also see you look at a really good meal the same way. Makes me kinda jealous sometimes,” is your answer given with a small, teasing smile, “Besides, I feel like I can safely assume that you’ve stayed with me all these years because you love me, right?”
“Of course,” he says, the strength in his voice contrasting the subtle, pained look behind his eyes, “But I don’t say it enough, do I?”
There’s a short pause before you murmur, “Not usually unless I say it first. But it tends to be more of a reflex for both of us, anyway. Like, ‘I’m heading out now, love you!’ or, ‘Goodnight, I love you,’ y’know?”
A gentle tug on your wrist pulls you towards him, until you’re propped up on both elbows, body leaning over his. Wrapping an arm around your waist brings your chests flush against one another and your faces mere centimeters apart. The way he’s regarding you as nothing else is as important as you are to him in this moment has you melting into the kiss he plants on your lips.
“You’re the love of my life.” Heat radiates from your chest all the way up to your face at his tenderly spoken words accompanied by his thumb skimming along your cheekbone. “And you deserve to hear me tell you how much I care about you more often because you’re the only person who’s made me feel deserving of love.”
The hand on your back slowly moves up and down, his fingers tracing along your spine. It was once deemed as a mindless behavior in your eyes, but after many years with him, you’ve come to learn that sometimes it’s a means of comforting himself or finding the courage to speak about something that’s been on his mind. To reassure him, you place a soft peck against the corner of his mouth and run your fingertips across his jaw.
He seems to find the strength he needs to speak the rest of his truth, since he continues, “I remember being terrified when I first realized how much I loved you. Because here I was, thinking I was only gonna marry someone as a way of erasing my connections to my family, and that falling in love would weaken me—make me easier to be manipulated—but you changed my mind. And I don’t think there’s a damn thing that could ever happen to make me wish I did things differently, even though we got married young, when we barely had enough money to our names to get ourselves through the week.”
A pang of somewhat bittersweet nostalgia ripples through you at the memories of sleeping on the floor, clinging to one another to keep warm during the cold, winter nights. Of how you’d both worked so tirelessly to make a living that sometimes all you’d do was cry into his shoulder when you got home. But soon, there was a couch. A bed. A table. A lamp that didn’t flicker. Then, a new place in a safer part of the city, filled with all the furniture and appliances you could need. Jobs that paid enough for the tears to subside.
The impulsiveness the two of you had displayed in your early twenties had gotten you into a lot of sometimes unbearable situations, but you wouldn’t have changed a thing had you somehow been granted the power to alter the past. While unpleasant, those events had helped the two of you get to where you are today, happier and more in love than ever.
“After all we’ve been through, and that you’ve stuck with me through, I at least owe it to you to remind you how much you mean to me instead of just assuming you know. Because you really do mean the world to me. So, this is me telling you that I love and appreciate you a lot more than I might feel capable of saying sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.”
With that same, bright smile of yours that he adores, you take your weight off your elbows to wrap your arms around him while he gives your body a tight squeeze in return. “I love you so much, Tōji,” you hum, heart swelling with joy.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
There’s a few moments of peaceful silence while the two of you remain wrapped up in a tight and much-needed embrace. Eventually, a deep exhale fans across your neck before he mentions, “That was pretty cheesy, huh?”
“Just a bit. But I promise not to tell anyone you’re secretly a bit of a sap, okay?” you comment, sending the two of you into a small fit of snickers. Your tone is more serious, however, when you mention, “It made me really happy to hear, though.”
“Good,” is his response as he moves his head so he can press his mouth to your temple. His next words are spoken quietly, as if just to himself, and nearly lost beneath the layers of environmental noise surrounding you, but you’re glad you hear them.
“That’s all that matters to me.”