Chapter Text
“I need a break.”
Kuroo continues to snore. You are unsurprised he doesn’t hear you. After all, he came home glassy eyed, smelling strongly of alcohol after yet another night of drinks with his boss before quickly falling asleep in bed. It’s what he does most weekday nights, leaving you alone at home to manage your two daughters and tuck them into bed.
“I’m tired, Tetsuro.”
You are too tired to even tell him how you feel. You have a career of your own, two daughters to raise, a never ending list of chores and errands that must be done. You are a mother, a wife, a career woman. You have so many roles to play yet there is no space for you .
You must do something, anything or risk your heart imploding in your very chest. You cannot survive that.
The next morning, you call your boss, ask for a day off. Then you pack your girls off to your mother’s place with two little suitcases with toys and clothes enough for a long weekend before you take the train to Hakone , check yourself into the ryokan with a view of Mt. Fuji that you spent your honeymoon at - except this time, you’re alone ( but then again, you’ve been lonely for so long, you hardly notice the difference anymore ).
You dip yourself into the hot waters of the onsens, watch bamboo sway in the breeze. It’s been at least a year since you’ve been even able to take a bath uninterrupted. There’s always something - Aiko needing help with her homework, Fumiko whining for another piece of mochi, your boss calling to chase for yet another report, so all you’ve ever had time for is a hurried shower before placating your daughters or seating yourself in front of your laptop to deal with your boss.
Finally, you’ve stolen a day to yourself, and it’s absolute bliss .
The water is kind to you. Its heat soothes your aching muscles, the rising steam steadies your breath. You walk out of the baths feeling refreshed, renewed, but when you enter your room you find Kuroo Tetsuro waiting for you.
“I’ve been calling your phone all afternoon”, he says, face pinched. “I was worried.”
“Were you?” you say before you can stop yourself. “Really?”
“Of course”, he says, uncrossing his legs to stand. “You’re my wife and the mother of my children, of course I care.”
Wife. Mother. Employee.
The roles that life has handed you haunts you again. There is no escape for you.
Your skin suddenly feels as if it’s stretched too tight over your frame. Your bones rattle, brittle. They threaten to break if you take another breath. Yet you laugh and laugh and laugh , the sound spilling from your lips filling the room, suffocating the pounding of your heartbeat in your ears.
“If you really cared, you would have noticed that your wife is broken”, you tell him between bouts of laughter. “I tried fixing myself with a break but you can’t even give me that.”
Kuroo stares at you, equal parts horrified and confused. He takes a hesitant step forward towards you before thinking the better of it, swerving over to the kettle instead, clutching it as if it holds the cure to your madness.
“Calm down”, he says, “take a seat”, and you do. He offers you a cup of tea. You accept it, even though you’re still shaking from the aftershock of your laughter. “Drink”, he says, and you bring the cup to your lips, though you wonder absently why you taste salt in the bitter tea.
“Tell me what’s wrong”, he begs. “Tell me what I can do to fix you.”
You want to tell him that you’re not strong enough to do what’s expected of you. You want to tell him that you’re drowning from the weight of being his wife, the mother of his kids, from being a working woman that he can be proud of. You want to tell him that you understand his career is important, but so is yours, and you can’t carry the weight of the world alone.
But that would take too many words, and you are far, far too tired for that.
So you say blankly - “I can’t do this anymore, Tetsuro.”
His face falls.
You should remember that Kuroo Tetsuro, first and foremost, is a child scarred by his parents’ divorce. You should remember that you made promises that you and he would never put your daughters through that . But you’ve floated beyond hysteria into a grey indifference, your mind too broken, too tired, too numb to consider him when you can barely even hold on to yourself.
You don’t even notice the hot tears soaking through your yukata . You are deaf to his pleas to give him another chance. There is nothing left in you to give because you’ve poured all you’ve had into him , into your family , into your job. You are so, so empty, and you just sit and sip your tea and wonder idly if the warmth from the liquid you’re ingesting will make you feel a little more alive, or if it’s possible to ease the dull ache in your heart.
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It is only when you wake up the next day and the sun is high in the sky that you register that he rolled out your futon for you, tucked you into bed, and kissed your forehead as a goodnight and goodbye . But all of this is washed away by the relief you feel when you read the note he’s left behind telling you that he’s returned to Tokyo, and to enjoy your break.
So you do.
You relish every bite of the meals you have at the ryokan . It’s nice not having to cook or scarf down your food at your office desk for once. You fill your time flitting between the onsens and curling up in your room with a book, taking frequent cat naps until tomorrow comes around again and it’s time to check out and head home.
There’s a brief moment of surprise when the reception informs you politely that your husband already paid your bill - but you suppose that’s just Tetsuro being efficient at racking up credit card points. The bullet train takes you back to Tokyo, and a couple stops on the subway takes you home.
“ Okaeri ”, you call softly out of habit, not expecting anyone to respond, but Kuroo responds with an even softer ‘ Tadaima ’, striding over to take your bags from you and usher you into the apartment. There are pink roses sitting in a vase, but you pay it no mind.
“The girls?” you ask, already headed in the direction of their room.
“I picked them up from your mom”, Kuroo responds. “Don’t wake them up, I just put them to bed”.
A peek into their room and it settles your mind to see that your girls are safe and sound asleep.
“Thanks,” you say, back in the kitchen, checking the fridge for what you can whip up for breakfast for you and the girls tomorrow. “By the way, I’ll pay you back for the hotel room from my own money, don’t worry.”
“It’s fine”, Kuroo answers, scratching his head. His hair seems a little more rumpled than usual. “I’ll cover it. I should’ve realised you needed a break.”
“You sure? You don’t have to pay for me, I’ve got money of my own.”
“No, let me pay for it, please. It’s the least I can do.”
You shrug. “Okay”, you say gracelessly. “Thank you.”
He continues to watch you over the kitchen counter as you lay out bread, eggs, ham, cheese. It’ll do for a quick breakfast for the girls tomorrow, never mind the guilt eating away at you that you really should do better than feeding them processed food all the time. You’re so preoccupied with planning the morning rush, the best way to clear the stack of reports that must have piled up on your desk at work by now that you miss Kuroo rounding the counter to stare down at you worriedly.
“You haven’t had dinner?”
“Oh no, I had a bento on the train on the way back.” It’s second nature to you to brush away anyone’s concern. “It’s for the girls’ breakfast.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take them to childcare before work tomorrow. Sleep in and take a break.”
“Really?” You stare back at him, confused. He doesn't even take charge of the girls in the mornings when you’re sick, your mother always has to fill in your place. He only ever turns up on the first day of school each year.
“Yes, of course. In fact, I’ve rearranged my work schedule so I can take them to school all of this week at least.”
“Oh”, you say, brows furrowed in confusion. “Okay, I guess. Wake me up if you need my help.”
“I won’t”, he replies, with a cocky smirk that seems almost false. “Goodnight, love.”
You don’t think of Kuroo’s strange behaviour overmuch, falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.
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Kuroo continues to act strangely all of next week.
As promised, he takes charge of getting the girls out of bed and ready for school. But you’re taken aback when he starts coming home for dinner, completely floored when he hands you a whole armful of bath salts and orders you to take a relaxing, hot bath while he wrangles both the girls and the washing machine into submission.
He even calls your mother to ask her to babysit on a Saturday evening so he can take you out for dinner at a fancy restaurant that serves foam instead of food. You manage to stumble through conversation with him - a commendable effort, since it’s been so long since you’ve even held a proper conversation with him besides snatches of discussion about the girls.
At least until he states during dessert - “we can make it work if you want to quit your job and stay home full time with the children.”
The mousse on your spoon melts by the time you put it down on your plate.
“Did the guys at work tell you it’s easier to have a housewife instead of a working wife? Are you saying this because you don’t think I’m a good enough mother to our girls? Is that what this is about?”
Kuroo shakes his head frantically, reaches across the table for your hand, but you yank it away with a glare. The extra rest you’ve gotten this week has injected a little more fight in you.
“I try my best to be a good wife and mother, but I’m sorry I can’t be perfect and be there for you and the girls 24/7.” You press down on the sliver of cake with a vengeance. Clink! goes the flat of your spoon against the porcelain plate. “I’m sorry for being selfish, but I don’t want to be reliant on you.”
You regret your harsh words when Kuroo slumps back into his chair, murmuring “I just wanted you to be happy. Forget I ever said that.”
He pays the bill and you walk home in silence. He bids you goodnight with a crumpled smile.
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It finally clicks when you are startled awake by Kuroo’s shout of alarm.
You roll over, grabbing his shoulder to shake him awake from the nightmare that has him in its grip. His eyes jolt open, and the sight of your face makes him sink back into the pillow with a sigh of relief.
“Thank the gods you haven’t left.”
“Why would I leave? This is my home, isn’t it?” You mumble, turning your back to him again.
You feel the bed shift as Kuroo sits up.
“No”, he rasps, voice rough with sleep. “I was afraid you left me ”.
Oh. So that’s what all of this is about.
You must stay quiet for far too long, because he gingerly crawls over to you.
“Dearest”, he says, your heart suddenly aching because you don’t remember the last time you heard him use that pet name with any amount of affection. “Darling”, he tries again, pawing at your back. You shut your eyes resolutely and refuse to turn to face him.
He doesn’t give up, even though the distance between you seems to yawn wide and wider with each passing second.
“Are you?” he asks, his words small, shrunken in the still, dark room. “Going to leave me, I mean.”
No , you’re about to say, the word balancing at the tip of your tongue but it feels wrong . Your break has given you the space to breathe, the time to think. It’s made you realise what you’ve said to him in the ryokan that night remains true.
This week has shown you that Kuroo can do better as a husband, as a father if he wants to. But he’s poisoned your marriage with neglect, forced you to dress up your sadness in silence, allowed your resentment to fester and simmer into frigid indifference. If you reassure him that you aren’t going to leave him, it’s only because you’re too tired to, not because you actually love him anymore.
“I don’t know, Tetsuro. Our daughters deserve to grow up with both their parents, but I’m not sure I want them to learn from my example that it’s okay to shoulder the weight of marriage, parenthood and a full time job all by themselves. Your dreams and career are important, I know, but I’m just so tired of being alone in this marriage when it was always supposed to be a partnership between me and you.”
You hear him choke back a sob. You should comfort him, but the exhaustion you feel at being honest with him, with yourself, weighs your bones down, forces you to sink further down into your mattress.
“I’m sorry”, he finally says.
“I’m tired, Tetsuro”, you whisper brokenly, clutching the blankets to your chin. “I think I deserve better.”
“I know. I’ll make it better, I promise.”
You want to ask him how , but your eyelids grow heavy, and you allow yourself to submerge into slumber.
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You’re not sure what to expect, but the ground beneath your feet shifts. Things start to change.
Kuroo continues to take your daughters to childcare in the morning on the way to work as he did last week. That very weekend, he straps Fumiko to his chest, takes Aiko by her hand, and within an hour at the department store aided by a flash of his credit card, he purchases a dishwasher and robot vacuum for the house. He loads the dishes without you asking, runs the robot vacuum remotely once a day. It buys you time to breathe, a little more time to sleep.
He doesn’t always make it home in time for dinner, but he tries his best to rush home so he can read the girls a bedtime story and tuck them into bed.
“Dada”, Fumiko lisps, chubby fists wound around Kuroo’s tie. ‘I wanna hear another princess story!”
“No Fumiko! Papa promised to tell us how he met mama!” Aiko prods Kuroo’s side with the wooden doll Yaku sent from Russia that you know he abhors. ‘Keep your promises, papa!”
“Alright, settle down you monsters. I’ll tell you two stories if you promise to go to sleep right after that.” The girls cheer. “Now. Let’s see. A long, long time ago, your papa met your mama when she decided to beat him up because she thought he was trying to steal her food.”
“You were trying to steal my food”, you interrupt, leaning against the doorway amused. “You didn’t stop til I stabbed you with my fork.”
He glances up, surprised when you sit beside him on the bed. Then he grins.
“You left it on the table, dearest. What was a guy supposed to think?”
“Mama, please let dada tell the story”, Aiko interjects with a huff.
“Hurry up, dada! I want the princess story next!” Fumiko pulls at her silly dada’s shirt, pouting.
You both laugh. There’s a soft smile playing on his lips when his eyes meet yours.
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Travelling all around Japan is still part of his job as a marketing director of the Japanese Volleyball Association. But now Kuroo pares it down to the bare minimum, makes sure he’s always back by the weekend at the very least to sweep the girls in his arms and shoo you off for a break of afternoon tea with your friends or shopping with your mom.
“Will you be ok when I’m gone?”
You hand him his suitcase, a flask of his favourite tea. “I’ve always managed fine. Nothing’s changed.”
He bends down to kiss Aiko on her forehead, pinch Fumiko’s cheek playfully.
“Yes. Well. I’ll come home soon”, he says, quietly. You startle slightly as he brushes his thumb over your wrist, lets it drift over your pulse point. “Please wait for me.”
You glance up at him from beneath your lashes. “I’ll see you soon then”, you reply. His smile widens, his eyes are hopeful, bright.
On the weekends, he stops flitting off for work functions and events. Instead, now he joins you for lunches at the kaiten zushi near your house, indulging the girls by ordering yet another plate of sushi just so Aiko has another chance to win a toy from the gachapon and Fumiko has another chance at feeling grown up when she lifts the plate from the conveyor belt. He stops ducking out from dinners at the grandparents’ place - both his and yours. Your mom stops giving him dirty looks when he actually turns up more than three times in a row with sake in hand.
Once every so often, he even throws little parties for your family of four, going so far as to buy a frilly pink apron that makes your daughters giggle when he whips it out for the first time. After a few mishaps (and a number of frantic calls to Fukunaga), he masters how to make takoyaki and okonomiyaki , and in the colder months, he makes steaming pots of nabe and shabu shabu .
“Itadakimasu” you murmur, and the girls follow suit. “It tastes good”, you say.
He ducks his head bashfully, pink dusting the column of his neck.
“Thank you”, he replies. “That means a lot, coming from you.”
You start to savour the bubbles of happiness in your chest when you see how your daughters’ eyes shine when they see their papa whip out the pink apron. You learn to laugh when you hear the pitter patter of little feet, their delighted squeals and shrieks when they tell you the latest exploits their silly papa is cooking up - sparklers under the stars one weekend, a nerf gun fight, the next.
The weight on your shoulders grows lighter and lighter until one day you hardly notice it at all.
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“What’s wrong?” you frown at the sight of your husband dashing out of your bedroom, hair a frazzled mess.
He whips around at the sound of your voice. “Oh. Oh .” He approaches you, slowly, carefully. “You’re still here.”
Your frown deepens. “My boss called and asked me to send out an urgent email. I was just about to go back to bed. Tetsuro, is everything alright?”
He nods. “It’s fine - I just... I just woke up and thought you were gone.”
You take a closer look. It’s dark, but the shadows of the night fail to hide the purple smudges beneath his eyes, the fine lines carved into his brow. His shoulders are bowed, his lips downturned and he looks broken, battered.
Your heart hurts for him.
“I’m here”, you say, beckoning him towards you. Physical affection has been scarce between you two for so, so long but he looks so distraught it’s only natural to pull him close, let him rest his head on your lap. “I’m here, Tetsuro. I’m not about to run off into the night – you know I don’t like the cold.”
He doesn’t laugh at your feeble joke. “Are you happier now? Are things better for you?”
“Yes”, you say firmly, combing your fingers through his hair, rubbing circles along his back. “Thank you, Tetsuro. I appreciate it. I really do.”
You can feel him sag in relief.
“You don’t have to work yourself to the bone for me. That’s – that’s never what I was asking for. If you’re tired, you need to take a break.”
He shakes his head stubbornly. “I’m fine. I can bear it as long as you don’t leave me.”
“Tetsuro –“
He sits up abruptly, takes your hands in his.
“Promise you won’t leave me”, he begs, head bowed. “I know I’ve been a shit husband to you for so long. It’s no excuse, but I thought - ” he swallows heavily, waits until his voice stops wavering. “I thought we were ok, ‘cos we didn’t fight, not like my parents did before – before my mother left.”
“I was too tired to fight with you”, you say simply.
He nods once, jerkily. “I know – I know that now. When you disappeared that day, I didn’t know what to do. I went to your mom’s place and she reamed me out, screamed at me in front of the neighbours. I took the kids back, and it made me realise how fucking hard it was for you to do it all alone.” He inhales, closing his eyes as if the memory aches. “I know it’s late but I’ve changed, I swear. The girls need you. I need you. I’ll do anything as long as you stay.”
His fingers are freezing, but you do not pull away. Not when the desperation reflected in his irises makes your heart lurch in pain.
“It was hard”, you confess, and he shudders, struck in the chest by your honesty. “It was so hard, Tetsuro. You hurt me so damn much that I think I became numb to the pain. I don’t think I was really functioning for a while. For a long while.”
“I’m sorry”, he whispers, and you nod shakily.
“I know”, you reply, reaching out a hand to cup his face, a bittersweet twist to your lips as he melts into your touch. “That’s a chapter of my life, of our marriage that can’t be re-written. We can’t rewind that. But the past few months have been so different. I – you’ve shown me you’ve changed. And I think –“
You fall silent.
He prompts you. “Dearest?”
You recall the glimmer of light in your daughters’ eyes every morning when he takes their hands to walks them to school. You hear the echoes of their laughter, the lilt in their sweet voices every night when they welcome him home. You think of the tea parties he throws, the blanket forts he builds, the frilly pink apron he wears without shame and the bedtime stories he weaves every night.
“I think”, you say, with a smile that reminds him of the rising sun. “I think we can make this work again.”
He stares at you until the weight of your words dawns upon him, and he surges forward to fold you into his arms.
“Thank you”, he whispers into the shell of your ear. “I won’t fuck this up again, I promise.”
“Don’t thank me, you silly man”, you nuzzle into his neck sleepily, draping your arms around his waist. “Thank yourself for making me believe in you.”
He laughs wetly, cradling you close as you fall asleep against his chest, soothed by his heartbeat and the tenderness in his gaze.
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Fumiko wakes you up unceremoniously before the sun even rises by climbing into your lap, and you open your eyes to Aiko pouting, hands on hips, demanding to know what’s for breakfast, and papa, papa, make a ham sandwich, pretty please with a cherry on the top.
“You guys are little monsters”, Kuroo teases with dancing eyes. “Can’t even give your papa a break to snuggle up to your mama.”
The girls shriek in dismay. “Don’t be mean”, you admonish him gently.
He mock sniffs. “I’m cranky in the mornings unless I get a morning kiss.”
Aiko and Fumiko crowd the sofa, clamouring to give their papa a kiss, but he stalls them with an imperious wave of his hand.
“This morning, only a kiss from your mama can chase my crankiness away”. His tone is teasing, but his shoulders remain tense.
“Nonsense. You make it sound as if kisses contain caffeine”, you scold, swatting his arm lightly as the girls giggle.
“Yours do!” he protests, and you roll your eyes as you press your lips to the corner of his lips, laughing when he puffs out his chest and declares his day can now start, that everything’ll be as right as rain.
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Some days are full of sunshine, others are full of rain. That’s life – but it’s bearable, enjoyable even, now that you and Kuroo face each day together, thanking the sun when it shines, and splashing through puddles on rainy days.
Things recalibrate.
The mornings are his domain now – he’s a master at concocting the most random breakfast items to satisfy your finnicky daughters. Aiko sniffs when she informs you that she’d prefer her papa to braid her hair, thank you very much, and when you shoot a look of death at Kuroo, he can’t even keep his face straight, his trademark hyena laugh erupting from his chest.
You cook dinner in the evenings, appreciating the times when he can join you at the table, not counting the nights he can’t against him because you know he’s trying his best. The girls clamour for his stories every night, laughing when he teasingly scolds them for yanking on his tie, demanding goodnight kisses from both him and you.
Now you force Kuroo to take some time to himself, shoo him off for lunches with Kenma, get-togethers with his Nekoma schoolmates. “I know you can manage it”, you tell him archly, “but you need breaks so you don’t burn out, or worse – you’ll lose your hair and we don’t want that ”. When he opens and closes his mouth without a smart retort, you smirk. You get your way.
Both of you organise parties and playdates, inviting your shared friends – Kenma, of course, is a frequent guest, Bokuto, who brings along Akaashi and his sweet tempered little son (who Aiko always manages to pick a quarrel with, much to Kuroo’s amusement). You host Kai, who always brings offerings of flowers from his garden, Yaku, when he’s in town with his daughter, son and alarmingly fat cat. The adults congregate in the kitchen with food and alcohol, cracking good natured jokes at Kuroo and his frilly pink apron, watching the children cause a ruckus in the living room.
But you cherish the quiet moments you share with Kuroo at night when the children are asleep in bed. The chats you have whilst soaking in a hot bath about your day at work, the snippets of stories he shares about his boss, his crazy colleagues, the warmth of his arm around you as you stay up to clear emails late into the night, the heated kisses he presses to the nape of your neck to distract you when he thinks you’re working too hard.
It’s a good life. You’re happy, and so is he.
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A year slips by.
The seasons come full circle. You return to the ryokan , finding peace in soaking yourself in steaming pools, watching the bamboo sway, the sun rise over Mt. Fuji. But this time, you’re not alone. You persuade Kuroo that he, too, needs a break - deserves one, truly. So you leave the girls with your mother and take the bullet train down to Hakone.
He shoots you a smirk as you both emerge from the private bath he’d insisted on booking. You swat at him, pulling your yukata higher up your neck, scowling as he winds an arm around your waist to press you into his side.
“You couldn’t wait til we got back to our room?” you hiss at him.
He chuckles lowly in response. “Didn’t hear you complaining”, he retorts.
“We were in an onsen , Tetsuro!”
“A private one”, he says with a waggle of his eyebrows, laughing aloud when you try and fail to slap your hand over his mouth. “What d’you think I was going to do with my lovely wife? I’m not a monk, sweetheart”
You try your best to shush him, but his cackling manages to capture the attention of everyone in the lift.
“What a happy couple”, an old lady remarks, within your earshot. “They must be newly married”
You think she must be a little senile. Or a little blind.
Neither of you are in your first flush of youth anymore - there are streaks of grey in Tetsuro’s mop of hair, extra weight in your hips and lines in your faces. No one could conceivably mistake you for a pair of newlyweds.
“Nah”, Kuroo drawls easily into your ear. “Just your regular old, married couple.”
You don’t speak until you’re safely in your room.
“A regular, old, happily married couple”, you say, as he hands you a cup of tea. “That obaa-san got that part right at least.”
Kuroo chokes on the lump of emotion in his throat as you serenely sip your tea.
The tea tastes bitter ( as it always does ), but the kisses that follow are so very, very sweet.