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Futaba seriously had no idea how this happened. For a minute Shizuki seemed completely normal…
And then her own husband started asking if she was seeing anyone, and if she wasn’t would she be interested in seeing a rakugo performance with him over the weekend? Or if a leisurely stroll along the riverbank was more to her taste, they could do that too. The cherry blossoms were particularly beautiful this time of year.
“Although you, Mistress Futaba, are the paragon of beauty all year round. The ephemeral loveliness of the spring flowers are of no compare to you,” Shizuki told her, placing a hand on hers. He stroked a thumb gently over the back of her hand.
Futaba tried hard to fight away the blush that threatened to take over her face.
What the heck? Shizuki, we’ve been married for a whole year!
But before Futaba could open her mouth to reply, Toichiro had already begun saying, “Well, dear Futaba here has been married for a year now, Shizuki.” A mischievous grin played at the kitsune’s lips.
Toichiro, don’t you dare make this worse! Futaba shot him a warning look.
Toichiro merely sipped his sake and smiled. He wanted to have a little bit of fun tonight.
“So Mistress Futaba is already wed…I see,” Shizuki remarked stiffly. He directed a blank gaze down at the cup he held—he had grabbed Koga’s sake-filled one by accident earlier.
Giving up on all pretense of having Toichiro fix what he started, Futaba turned a pleading look towards Koga and Kuya.
Kuya appeared disinterested in the proceedings and seemed like he was close to nodding off—wait, hold on. Futaba looked closer. Nope, Kuya was a lost cause with his shut eyes and steady breathing, already asleep.
Kuya never ceased to amaze Futaba with his ability to sleep virtually anywhere.
Meanwhile, Koga gave a boisterous laugh. “Indeed she is,” he replied to Shizuki. “Futaba here is quite taken with her husband, and he with her too,” he quipped, teasing.
Koga, not helping! At all! Futaba was going to give her friend her two cents when she felt a chill suddenly rise from next to her. She turned to check on Shizuki, concerned.
A literal dark cloud had taken residence over the snow spirit’s head. Snow and ice fell heavily onto where Shizuki sat, piles of snow gathering on his lap and seat. The restaurant windows were shut and yet for some strange reason a bitter wind began whirling around him.
Shizuki’s own expression matched the cloud too, gloomy with despair.
It’s a good thing Toichiro reserved a private dining room for the five of them this time around.
“It’s that foreigner who teaches at the university, isn’t it? I had an inkling. He seemed too familiar with you, calling you his doll,” the cloud above Shizuki’s head got darker, “and now I am too late,” Shizuki finished, morose.
Toichiro and Koga were doing their best to hold down their laughter at this point. Kuya was still fast asleep.
“Shizuki? Shizuki! Please,”—chill? No, no that’s the last thing Futaba wanted right now—“calm down!” Futaba pleaded. She held his hand in hers in a firm grip.
Shizuki paused for a moment. The blizzard above his head subsided as well.
“Run away with me, Mistress Futaba,” he told her firmly. He looked at her with a defiant glint in his glazed, slightly drunken eyes.
Futaba stared at Shizuki, brows furrowed in confusion. “Huh?”
“Let us escape to the countryside, away from the capital where we may raise fowl and grow and sell vegetables to sustain ourselves,” Shizuki elaborated. “I will do my utmost to support you and our children well.”
“Children!?” While they have spoken about children before they got married, aren’t things going a bit too quickly here, dear husband of hers?! Futaba’s face rivaled a furnace with its heat. She wanted to hide under the table. This was just too much!
“Yes, my love. We will live in a comfortable abode in the countryside, surrounded by our many children, hand-raised fowl, and vegetable garden. I cannot promise that you will want for nothing, but I will promise to do my best to do right by you,” Shizuki declared. “While I may have to leave your side for periods at a time to attend to Master Toichiro, I assure you that I will come home to you—and our numerous lovely children—at the end of the day without fail.” Shizuki’s expression was completely serious.
Many…children… Futaba would’ve loved to melt into the floor at that moment.
Toichiro and Koga couldn’t hold down their amusement anymore and burst into loud guffaws. They knew Shizuki was enamored with his darling wife, but to hear all this straight from the horse’s mouth was something else entirely.
Shizuki’s bravado wilted all of a sudden. “But to elope would mean sullying Mistress Futaba’s reputation. I would not want to smear the name of my love in this way,” he said, voice soft with sadness. “So perhaps it is impossible after all…”
Futaba thought her husband looked so much like a kicked puppy when he said that and she managed to shake off her earlier embarrassment. Futaba was about to end his misery and assure him of their marriage to each other when—
“Shizuki.” Oh, it seemed like Kuya woke up. Shizuki looked at him with a questioning expression.
Kuya rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes and grumbled, “You’ve been married to Futaba for a year, stupid. I don’t know why you kept going on and on about running away, but really.” He yawned. “I don’t think it counts as eloping if the woman in question is already married to you.”
Shizuki froze.
Futaba sighed fondly. “Thank you, Kuya,” she said. Futaba turned to Shizuki and held his face with both of her hands, looking up at him in adoration.
“Silly husband,” she said. “I would only ever marry you in this lifetime, and the next.” Futaba patted his cheek with one hand in reassurance.
Shizuki gave his wife a gentle smile in return and held her palm to his cool cheek. A light flush spread across his face. “So it seems. And for that I consider myself a very fortunate man,” he replied, then kissed her palm once.
“Have some water, Shizuki. Be careful and reach for your own cup next time, all right?” Futaba lightly scolded him. She handed him a glass of water—filled with only water, she made sure—which Shizuki sipped gratefully.
“It was remiss of me not to have checked twice, indeed, but thank you,” he conceded. Futaba smiled at that.
Of course when Futaba asked Shizuki the next day if he remembered anything he said the night before, her husband patently did not. She did have a fun time teasing him about his bold declarations of running away to the countryside though, to which Shizuki retaliated by having themselves get a head start on their many children as promised.