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Baobao’s Baba
Baobao whines over their baby monitor, and Shangqi automatically gets up.
Katy’s arms struggle to untangle themselves from where she’s bundled herself deep into the warmth of their quilt. He smooths a hand over her head, leans down to press his lips against the center of her forehead. “Ssh, I got this. Go back to sleep.”
She must be exhausted; she doesn’t so much as make a noise, but her face relaxes.
He turns down the baby monitor and moves to Baobao’s room.
Their baby holds his small feet in his equally small hands, kicking strongly. When he sees his Baba, he lets out a toothless smile that makes Shangqi melt.
“Baobao-ah,” he coos, reaching into the crib to pick up their five-month-old baby, “didn’t we have a deal? No making noise when Mama’s sleeping.”
Baobao cuffs, his button nose scrunching, beady little eyes crinkling when he laughs at Shangqi as if he’d just been told the best joke. He puts his hands under Baobao’s armpits, raises him high up in the air, and the baby laughs even louder.
He should probably be soothing Baobao back to sleep. The baby development books he’d been reading says that it’s healthy to introduce sleeping cycles, to encourage them even, but he thinks he can be let off the hook just this once.
He brings the baby back down and cradles him to his chest, walks towards their kitchen where he heats up a bottle of milk after checking his diaper.
Baobao gives him a judging look when he pats his dry diaper contentedly, as if to say, really?
Shangqi blows a raspberry against his round belly, and he’s instantly forgiven.
He tests the milk against the underside of his wrist, ensures its not too hot and not too cold; perfectly warm. Satisfied, he turns off the stove, and with one hand, pours the hot water out of the pot he’d been using to heat up the milk bottle Katy’s pre-made.
He hefts Baobao up further into his chest and leans against their kitchen countertop, gently tipping the nipple of the bottle into his tiny mouth.
Their baby gums at it first, as he always does. Shangqi notices that Baobao’s got his incredulity applied to everything he sees and touches, but it’s Katy’s curiosity that he’s inherited that ultimately wins.
Baobao happily chugs down the milk.
He stares at this tiny little thing that barely fits into the crook of his arm.
He’s so small.
So lovely.
So cherished.
He stares at Baobao and can’t imagine just how much more love he can fit in this heart of his, both for Katy and their child, this little precious treasure they share between themselves.
Baobao’s got Katy’s soft eyes. He has Shangqi’s frown, when he wants something that’s bad for him, such as chicken nuggets when he doesn’t even have teeth to gnaw on it. He has Katy’s boisterous laugh, so loud and cheerful and enough to make anyone’s day. Where he has Shangqi’s patience, his calm, he also inhibits his Mama’s propensity for exuberance in moments that take both his parents by surprise.
It’s a powerful thing, to have your entire world represented in such a small body.
Baobao’s bundled in a baby dragon onesie Xialing’s gotten for him as a joke. It’s got buttons at his belly to make it easier for them to pull it apart when he needs a changing – Meimei’s always been practical. The onesie had come with a removable tail, nowhere to be seen now, and Shangqi thinks Katy must’ve taken it out so Baobao can sleep comfortably.
He brings Baobao to the living room and sits cross-legged on their sofa.
The nightlights are pops of soft, warm light against the backdrop of quiet midnight. They wrap around Shangqi and his son, showering them in the prospect of a calm moment together.
They sit in the living room that’s littered in photographs that they’ve hung up. They’re special moments they’ve chosen to share in the intimacy of their room, a clear indication that their house is very much a home, that the people living in it endeavor to spend every waking day celebrating their family.
He hears a shuffling of feet, and then Katy comes into the living room, rubbing at her eyes. She wears his sleeveless training shirt and his sweatpants; she has to roll the waistline several times in order to get it to hang on – but barely – to her hips.
Her hair’s in a mess from where it sticks out of her bun, and she slouches in exhaustion. It’s dark but he knows there are circles under her eyes from the nights she’s spent alone with Baobao while he’d been away on a mission.
But Katy’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
She still takes his breath away.
She looks up and gives him a tired smile, and he finds that he has to let her know, “I love you.”
Katy squints at him in suspicion. “Did you use up all our camera film again?”
“I really can’t be blamed, Laopo,” he complains, turning his nose up at her. She laughs at his antics, going to sit with him and Baobao, curling her legs up under her.
“Yes, you can. What the hell are we going to do with twenty-seven photo-albums? Baobao’s only five-months-old.”
He keeps one arm under Baobao and wraps the other one around his wife. He steals a kiss from her, feels her breath against his cheeks. “I will not apologize for being a stage dad.”
Katy pulls away, laughing, voice low and raspy from just having woken up. “Oh my god, you’re so stupid. Baobao can’t even walk yet – god help us all when he does.”
He pulls Katy tighter to him. “Gotta lock in that Amazon order for at least fifteen more albums. Get the one with the dinosaurs on them this time, we need variety.”
“Stop,” she pushes at his chest, body trembling from how hard she’s laughing.
Their sweet baby reacts to his Mama’s joy by reaching out to her, laughing with her, and Shangqi shoots Katy a smug look when she all but melts at their baby’s reaction. Baobao grabs onto Katy’s hand, and makes a valiant effort to sit up, but he looks more like a chubby, wiggling worm.
Shangqi lays a hand on his back, tries to help his kid out.
“Come on, Baobao,” he encourages the little trooper, and the baby’s drooling now all over his onesie. Katy keeps her hand hovering over his little body, lets Baobao squirm his heart out as he tries to get closer. “You can do this!”
Baobao stops squirming.
His face scrunches up.
“Ah, shit,” Katy curses, just as his bottom lip pulls out into a pout and he begins to cry. “Come here ya little rascal.”
Shangqi keeps his arms around his family. Presses a kiss to Katy’s head as she cradles Baobao to her chest; he stops crying, having gotten what he’s wanted.
He puts his hand on Baobao’s round little belly, watching him snuffle against his Mama’s collar, and leans back, feeling content.
~~~~~~~~~~
Katy’s Box
Katy doesn’t mean to keep much of anything.
She’d grabbed one of the spare produce boxes her dad kept in the back storeroom, deciding really quickly when her collection grows too much to stuff into her drawer. The box just happened to be there, and she hadn’t thought about its relevancy.
She doesn’t really think much about it at first; she just needed something to keep her things.
She likes to think that she’s usually not someone who’s overly sentimental. Yet, somehow, as she and Shangqi grow closer, trying to navigate high school and all the drama that comes with it, she finds herself storing things she otherwise would’ve thrown away.
The items in the box grows into a collection of treasures.
It starts with a bowling alley ticket.
Then it becomes a receipt of a karaoke session booking.
It sprinkles into other things, like the first time Shangqi’s bought boba tea, and the resulting photo that she’d printed out as a commemoration to his dumbfounded expression.
It then peppers into larger trinkets, like the time when Shangqi’d gotten a high mark on their English test. She’d been working with him through it, knowing that it couldn’t have been easy for him, who’d been mostly reliant on Chinese, and only learned English as his second language.
Grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary – she remembers just how much he’d struggled, the long hours when she’d sit with him, trying her best with her mediocre Chinese to help him understand certain phrases, or why things that he could write in Chinese wouldn’t make much sense in English.
So, when he’d come out for lunch, holding his test high, so exhilarated and pleased with himself, Katy threw her arms around him, and they jumped up and down.
When Soo comes to sit with them and sees Shangqi’s marks, she pulls out her phone and calls their favorite karaoke place to reserve a room.
His face, and how exuberant he’d been, had been the first moment Katy had looked at Shangqi and felt her heart clench, thinking, I need to be really careful.
When they graduated, Katy’s trinkets became mostly photos.
She’s got her favorite one, the one where he’s seated across from her in a diner, looking annoyed but resignedly amused. She kept it tuck away in her box, in a corner pressed to the side, so it doesn’t get crumpled.
And then she has selfies she’s printed out, stuff she took of him and her, and others, him of her, at different places.
There’s one where she’s nearly died of hyperventilation hiking a steep trail. That’d been taken by Shangqi, who she remembers had doubled over in laughter at her misery. The motherfucker was fit; he didn’t even sweat, not that much, and Katy would’ve smacked him upside the head if she hadn’t been too busy trying to catch her breath.
There’s another one where he’s holding up a bottle of Hennessy. He’d just turned twenty-one, and since Katy hadn’t reached the milestone – she would in a few months – he’d decided to stay in at his apartment with her instead of heading out to a bar with his university friends.
And one more, of the two of them, where he’s got his arms around her and she’s got her arms around him, and Katy’s just graduated from Berkeley. He’s wearing her graduation hat, and it’s too small to fit him, so it’s just placed awkwardly on top of his head.
Soo was the one who’d taken the photo, laughing at the two of them.
Katy’s box isn’t much of anything.
Over the years, it becomes ratty, and nearly tears apart with its age.
But she still keeps it.
Where it fades, she places new pieces of spare cardboard she can find.
Where it tatters, she patches it with tape and some glue.
Where it flops, she uses old ice cream sticks and bands them together, so they form a proper structure.
It’s old, tired, and has seen better days, but to Katy, it’s a work of art.
~~~~~~~~~~
Shangqi and Didi
He waits until Ruihua’s reached the street corner, then, he puts an arm out and pulls at the boy.
He’s every bit of Katy’s Didi, so he opens his mouth widely and lets out shriek that’s high-pitched enough to scare the pigeons on the sidewalk. It’s only for a split second before Shangqi clamps his hand over his mouth and drags him bodily in front of him.
“Chill out!” He tells him, frantic. “It’s just me!”
Didi’s eyes – and god, he looks so much like Katy like this when she’s giving him judgmental looks – squint at him. His arms flop to his sides, and Shangqi has to examine later how scrawny and wiry the boy is. He doesn’t remember Didi looking like this before.
When Ruihua finally calms down, Shangqi releases his hand over his mouth.
But Didi’s a little shit.
He opens his mouth to scream again.
Shangqi quickly covers his mouth once more.
“Dude, what the fuck,” he hisses at the boy.
Ruihua, for all that he’s a lanky kid who’s almost the same height as Shangqi now, looks very much like a wet kitten, disgruntled and incredibly annoyed at the world in general.
Shangqi sighs. “If I let you go and buy you the Switch you’ve always wanted, will you please shut up and let me speak to you for at least an hour?”
Didi shakes his head.
He has to grit his teeth.
“How about a Switch, a new gaming console, and half an hour?”
The boy’s about to reach eighteen, and for all that he’s meant to grow into his own man, he’s still very much a kid. Didi looks tempted, and Shangqi finally thinks he’s getting to him a little.
He nods, finally, and Shangqi warily takes away his hand from his mouth and wraps an arm around his neck. When Didi doesn’t make any noise, he hauls ass to his apartment twenty minutes away from the Chen household.
He closes the door behind him with one hand and gently nudges Ruihua in. They stand, in the middle of Shangqi’s absurdly small garage apartment, staring at each other
Didi looks put out.
Shangqi crosses his arms over his chest, puffing it out a little so that the boy knows he’s serious. And disappointed. But mostly to assert his annoyance at him.
“Listen here, you little shit–”
“Twenty-five minutes.” Ruihua interrupts, unapologetically.
Shangqi finds himself praying to every living deity he knows for patience.
“What’s this I hear about you ignoring your sister?”
Didi’s weak spot has always been Katy.
He knows, because it’s the same for him too.
Ruihua looks at him, unsure, and it’s like a million and one things passes through his mind that he doesn’t actually tell Shangqi. He’s got the same press to his lips as Katy when she’s thinking hard about something, and he’s got the exact same crease between his brows. Where Katy’s soft, Ruihua’s face has hardened, just barely touching the beginning of what would soon be his journey into adulthood.
Looking at Didi like this, Shangqi remembers the boy who’d trailed after his sister all the time.
When Katy had been in high school, Ruihua had barely hit eight years old.
The age difference between the two siblings had been wide enough that the burden of caring for the little kid fell on Katy.
Katy, who’d been old enough to know how to make the baby’s bottle, how to hold his hand when he crosses the street, how to reheat the food on the stove because their family – at the time – couldn’t afford a microwave.
He can’t look at Didi and not see the small boy, lost, as he tries to understand why his parents doesn’t, or can’t seem to, love him the way Katy does unconditionally, wholeheartedly.
It’s a little-known fact that Katy’s Ma and Ba hadn’t anticipated Ruihua at all. He’d been an accident baby, and even if the Chens did their best, they couldn’t exactly shower love on the small boy, not when they had larger concerns such as keeping their family afloat now that they’ve gotten another mouth to feed.
When Shangqi looks at Ruihua and Katy, he thinks about the wealth his father has, thinks about the life they had on the compound. How there’d been food on the table. How they had a proper bed. How his father, bloodthirsty and vengeful, hadn’t had them worry over things like expensive clothes or school textbooks or tuition fees.
He doesn’t think about the gruesome exchange he’s had for a life like that.
He doesn’t because he thinks it invalidates what he’s seeing when he looks at Didi.
The boy finally breaks his silence. “I can’t look at her, Gege.”
It’s the first time Ruihua’s called him that to his face since they lost Katy.
Shangqi’s lack of response encourages Didi to keep going. The boy shakes his head, looks down, places his hands deep into his pockets. His voice is small when he says, “I can’t look at Jiejie when she’s not really my Jiejie. I know it sounds childish, and selfish, but I can’t look at her and not feel like she forgot me, too.”
His heart aches for him.
Somehow, listening to Ruihua’s confession, Shangqi’s reminded of his own Meimei. He remembers the decision he took to leave their family home, mind already made up to never come back, and how his lack of thought had affected his little sister, forcing her to grow up in ways he never wanted her to pursue.
Guilt is a friend of his, and today, with Ruihua mirroring, echoing, Xialing’s misery, he’s reminded of how much he’s fucked up throughout his entire life.
If Shangqi can’t really fix the broken relationship he has with Meimei, no matter how much they try, he thinks he can at least help the Chen siblings avoid a similar path of destruction.
He moves towards the boy, puts a hand on his shoulder.
Ruihua doesn’t look at him.
But Shangqi goes on to say, “You lost your Jiejie, Ruihua. It’s not selfish for you to feel the way you do. What happened to Katy affects you, too, and your whole family.”
“Yeah, but,” he shrugs, “I’m just . . . here. None of this shit that happened to her, happened to me. I don’t have any right to feel as bad as I do. I shouldn’t look at Jiejie and feel sorry for myself, not when she’s been through so much worse.”
“You can’t push away this, whatever this is. If you do, it’s disrespectful to the effort your sister’s putting to get herself back on track. This is something you go through with her, together. Because she’s with you, in every step of the way, just as you are with her.”
Ruihua sniffles.
The way he rubs the back of his hand against his nose is a replica of Katy’s mannerism whenever she tries hard to cry but is minutes away from failing.
“You’re past the thirty minutes, by the way.”
Little shit.
Shangqi sighs, relieved that Ruihua’s at least finding a little humor in their exchange.
“Does it matter?”
The boy shakes his head.
He removes his hand from his shoulder, watches as Ruihua continues to try and gather his thoughts. It’s a practice, waiting for the boy to feel comfortable enough, but eventually, Didi mumbles, “Did it hurt you this much, when she forgot you, too?”
Shangqi’s breath gets stolen from him.
He has to unclench his fists as his mind races to the last time he saw her in the hospital, and even before then, back in DC. He clenches his teeth, closes his eyes, tries to picture a different setting, a different instance, a different Katy, than the reality that stares at him cruelly.
He shudders. Breathes deeply.
“It’s the worst,” he tells Ruihua, who snaps his head up to look at him, eyes wide at the resentment heard clearly in the timbre of his voice.
“You could get out of here, you know.” The boy states, and it’s nothing personal. “You’ve got the money. You’ve got the connections. You don’t ever have to come back here and see her again, and it won’t matter because she doesn’t need you here, not now, and maybe not ever.”
Ruihua’s more perceptive than he’d given him credit for.
Shangqi has to remind himself to keep his breath steady, even as he plummets down an abyss that he needs to crawl out of much later, when he’s alone with his own thoughts, when he’s facing the ghost of his past mistakes.
“But you won’t do it.” Ruihua continues, looking at him carefully. He has pity in his eyes. “Because you don’t go where she can’t.”
“Since when did you get so smart, huh?” He tries, makes a desperate effort to divert the topic from him.
Didi shrugs again. “I learned it from Jiejie. I always follow her lead.”
He has to laugh because it’s just so them. It’s Katy in her brother, and it’s Ruihua who motivates Katy. It’s a cycle that the two of them get in, a well-balanced one. It’s a foundation that even he, as much as he cares for Katy, as much as he loves her, could never break.
“You’re gonna be okay, Didi,” and this time, he puts an arm around the boy’s shoulder, pulls him to him and hugs him close. “Talk to Katy. She’ll understand you, as she always does. If you don’t want to do it for you, do it for her.”
Ruihua pulls away from him. Eyes him speculatively. Then, he nods once to himself. “You’re pretty cool, Gege. Not so much for kidnapping me–”
And, oh, good, the boy must be feeling better since he’s resorted back to annoying Shangqi again.
“–but you’re still pretty cool. Rings excluded.” Didi nods again. Then, much more critically, he tells him, “You’re still not good enough for Jiejie.”
Little shit.
~~~~~~~~~~
Katy and Meimei
Katy enjoys spending time with Xialing.
She’s honored that Meimei treats her with so much sweetness, and gentleness, that she finds herself wanting to bundle the younger woman up and lay her at rest. Sometimes, when they’re drunk enough, she pats Meimei’s head and tells her how much she cares for her, because Meimei is just as precious to her as Didi is.
When this happens, Meimei always looks like she wants to cry, which makes Katy feel like she’s done something wrong.
But Xialing’s always quick to remind her that she’s fine. That she’s also working through her own problems, and that having Katy with her, as Jiejie, helps her more than any amount of therapy that money can buy.
The ring on Katy’s finger glistens against the pub lights. There’s a band playing the greatest rock hits of the eighties, and Katy’s got on a pair of high-waisted jeans she’s borrowed from Soo. They’re meant to be in eighties-inspired garb, and Katy thinks she actually enjoys wearing bell bottoms and skin-fitting, colorful ditzy polos.
Soo, who’d met Xialing and instantly bonded over their mutual distaste for men in general, leans on Katy who’s still looking at her ring in shock.
“Yeah, yeah,” she teases Katy, and Meimei laughs with her, “keep looking at that ring. You’ll get sick of it by next month.”
She sticks her tongue out at them. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss out on telling you two to fuck off?”
They shriek when she picks up a leftover piece of lettuce from Soo’s salad and throws it at them. Soo giggles, crashing into Meimei as they both duck to avoid getting pelted.
Katy loves hearing them laugh like this.
She leans back on her chair, looks at her ring again, and tells them, “You know, I was this close to proposing to him instead.”
Meimei’s face contorts, and she lets out a guffaw. Soo’s breathless with laughter, and the way she looks at Katy is so fond. She tells Katy, “I knew it! I fucking called it! He was taking way too goddamn long!”
Xialing nods, agreeing enthusiastically. “My brother’s a fucking idiot.”
“Amen,” Soo raises her martini in cheers, and Katy and Meimei raises their respective cocktails too.
“Men,” Xialing scoffs, throwing her head back to gulp her drink down. Katy follows suit, and Soo sips daintily because Soo’s lovely like that.
She grins to herself. “Any luck on the dating front, Meimei?”
“Ooh,” Soo leans in, eyes brightening, “gossip. Sweet.”
Xialing laughs, pushing Soo away, and Katy’s so happy to see her two favorite girls like this. “I’m not even going near there with a ten-foot pole.”
“No, but,” and Katy reaches over, then she has to scramble to grab onto the pitcher of margarita she almost knocks over. They spend a few minutes giggling at Katy’s drunken clumsiness, then, she soldiers on. “If you meet anyone, you need to tell Jiejie, okay? I will interrogate him.”
Meimei smiles at her in indulgence. “I love you, Jiejie, but you’re literally the least terrifying person I know.”
“Yeah, dude,” Soo looks at her, giving her a strange look. “You got the terror level the size of a peanut.”
“Hey!” And they laugh at her. “I can be scary! I’m legit terrifying! I’ll prove it to you!”
She takes her phone out, dials Shangqi, and it’s not even two rings later that he answers. She hears a loud crash from the other line, and belatedly, she realizes he’s staying in with John in their new place, playing Halo.
Meimei and Soo shrieks with laughter as she demands from him, “Shangqi! I can be scary, right?”
“ . . . what?”
She refuses to be humiliated. So, she presses on, “I’m scary, aren’t I?”
Soo’s now holding on to Xialing as the two of them struggle to stay upright their stools, laughing too hard that tears actually stream down their face.
“Baby,” and the background noise of Shangqi and John’s game pauses. “I love you, but that’s not it.”
“Oi!”
Soo grabs her phone from her and quickly says, “That’s it for tonight! Bye!” then passes Katy back her phone.
She takes it, pouting at her two friends, but really, Katy’s just doing it for show.
She enjoys making her friends laugh like this; they laugh with her, and they’re having a good time. It’s these moments that Katy keeps to herself, that she reminds herself of when she needs to be alone, that she’s got more than just Shangqi with her, always.
Meimei senses Katy’s reticence. She takes a deep breath, nudging Soo, who immediately looks back at Katy and reaches out to hold her hand. Katy grips onto it, grateful, because she doesn’t know what she’d do if she’d spent her life without knowing her best friend.
Meimei’s smile is so gentle. “Congrats, Jie. You deserve it. After all this time, and everything else you two have been through.”
“I’m so happy for you, K,” and Soo looks so proud of her that Katy thinks she might cry.
“Although, and this I really need to let you know,” Meimei leans in conspiratorially. “Are you really sure about this? Jon Jon’s still single, just in case you’re getting cold feet. He may not be as . . . aesthetically pleasing,” at this, she makes a face that suggests she thinks her own brother is fairly lacking, too, “but he is far more reliable than my idiot of a–”
Katy laughs, interrupting her, taken aback by Xialing’s admission.
She feels warm and a little lightheaded.
The alcohol must be getting to her.
She holds Meimei’s hand. Winks at her jokingly. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Midnight at a Street
He’s holding onto her hand, letting her pull him towards the street she knows better than he does.
It’s past two in the morning, and the street is wet, glistening in the aftermath of the light sheen of rain they’ve gotten earlier in the day. He’s careful to hold her, because Katy’s skidding along the sidewalk, scuffing the soles of her shoes carelessly.
She’s happy like this, chattering away, talking about how the light shines on the pavement, how the streetlamps look like stars in the dark of the night. How cold it is, how grateful she is for his jacket which he makes her wear.
She’s talkative as they make their way down the street to his new apartment.
It’s large enough for him to live more comfortably, but small enough that it’s cozy.
He doesn’t need such luxuries, though.
He’s got his home right here, with him, who continues to talk about everything and anything that she sees in her path, sharing her opinions, letting him in on the what’s-she-thinking-now that she knows he always muses over.
It’s a chilly night, and his coat’s on Katy’s shoulders, protecting her from any frosty breeze.
Even dark as it is, the lights by the street illuminates Katy in a lovely glow. They press against her face, lighting the pink of her cheeks from the cold, and the beanie she’s knitted for him is placed precariously on her head, where he’s had to roll the ends, so it’ll fit her.
She’s stunning like this, laughing throatily, voice low but ever so calming for him.
He’s about to lean in to drop a kiss on her pink nose when she pulls him to a stop.
“Oh wow,” she says, pointing at a streetlamp that’s frosted over a little. “There’s ice!”
And the way she says it makes Shangqi feel like he’s won a million dollars.
He laughs gently, pulling her to his chest. “Climate change’s a bitch, huh?”
“Don’t ruin this for me,” she warns.
“It’s San Fran, we don’t get snow.”
“You’re so annoying.” She huffs, but her eyes are half-crescents, smiling so brightly that he feels his heart clench. He gives her the kiss he’s wanted from her and feels the cold of her nose against his lips.
“Let’s get you inside, baby.”
“No, wait,” and she pulls away from him, hands gripping onto his bicep. He raises his brows at her in surprise, confused, but always with her regardless. She smiles at him, and asks, “Dance with me first?”
He has to bark out an incredulous laugh. “There’s literally no music.”
“So?” She scoffs. “We’ll make our own.”
He puts his forehead to hers, arms enveloping her waist, drawing her in so close to him.
And it doesn’t matter, then, that he’s got nosy neighbors who probably stick their heads out the window just to see him and her dance like fools on an empty street. It doesn’t matter that he’s freezing, because he’s only got on a dress shirt, and the warmth from the liquor that they’d drank at Soo and John’s dinner party have long since faded.
It didn’t matter that he’s got a mission due tomorrow, that he’ll be gone for a week, and will need radio silence before he can even hear her voice again.
It didn’t matter that his feet hurt, and his body ache, because the training he’d been going through was rigorous.
All that mattered was the way Katy presses her face to his chest, ear over his heart.
All that mattered was the way Katy hums her favorite song, always out-of-tune but still trying her best anyway only because she loves it, loves him, so much.
All that mattered was the way she fit into him, and he into her, as they swayed together to music that belongs only to the two of them.