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A year is nearly enough time learn to put on a brave face.
It’s not easy, exactly – it’ll probably never be easy – but Yuuta has practice at it now. He knows when to force himself to smile, when congratulations are in order, and when to bite the inside of his cheek so he won’t look sad when he should be thrilled. He’s memorized the lines. It’s important work, pretending to be okay. More important because Yuuta knows that with a single sunny smile, he can take the prying eyes of the ever-present crowd off of the person who can’t manage to fake one.
He owes her at least that much.
So he says the things anyone who didn’t know better would expect. He’s always “just tired” nowadays, always “busy.” He makes careful work of avoiding anybody who might know to ask a deeper question. Maybe he wouldn’t if not for Maki – maybe he would mention it in passing, just briefly enough to make it sound like nothing, but often enough to cue in an attentive listener to the things he can’t say. But she’s so private, so reluctant to open up, that it would feel like a betrayal. She hadn’t told him not to tell anyone, but he knows it comes as a relief to her that their struggle stays secret. And if he can’t play the part he should, he’ll play the one he can.
“You look kinda down,” an older sorcerer he barely knows comments after a brief meeting to finalize their reports on an out-of-town mission they’ve just wrapped up. “Doing okay?”
Hirano isn’t really a friend, but he’s kind, the wholeheartedly decent type that Yuuta doesn’t meet much of. He remembers, vaguely, that he has a daughter in college. He wonders if he could say something because of that and shuts down the thought as quickly as it comes.
“Tired,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “Just want to get home.”
“I get that.” Hirano gives him a knowing smile. “Missing the missus?”
Yuuta’s supposed to laugh at that – he knows he is. It feels more like choking. “Definitely.”
“Me, too.”
Yuuta wishes it was that simple, that easy to solve, but as far as Hirano knows, it is. He’s just been away from Maki too long. (And he has, but really, less because of any blazing passion and more because he hates leaving her alone with her thoughts.) So he laughs like he can afford to be carefree. “I hate going out of town,” he says – “don’t you?”
Easy, snappy, thoughtless – even at his best, Yuuta is never those things. But the further he is from the truth, he figures, the easier it’ll be to hide. Not even those who know him well think twice about it.
Well, not usually.
You’ve been kinda off lately.
Yuuta nearly drops his phone at that notification – a message from Inumaki, a week since they’ve seen each other and enough days removed from the Hirano incident to be plausibly coincidental. It’s one thing to be asked a question like that when he looks exhausted. It’s another entirely to get one out of the blue, and from somebody who isn’t going off of any recent interaction he can remember. Worse that it’s someone he knows so well, and someone who knows Maki, too.
He feels cornered, caught, but texting is easier – no one can hear his voice strain to get out a generically reassuring response this way.
What makes you say that? He replies. I’m doing okay!
Inumaki doesn’t take more than fifteen seconds to start typing again. Idk, you just seem like something is bothering you, he replies.
I do? Huh, that’s weird, Yuuta writes back. I’m fine, but it was nice of you to check :)
And that’ll do. It might not be enough to put someone so close off his scent for long, but Inumaki of all people would know that Yuuta’s not an energetic person on the best of days. If he’s a little quiet, he’ll probably just figure that he’s recharging his batteries. Maki does it, too, withdrawing and dropping the act sometimes to store up more energy to do it again; they fit well together that way. Since they’re not the most sociable couple to start with, he figures Inumaki should be placated for now.
(Funny, how he never thought about things like that until he’d had to start analyzing how believable his lies were in context of the truth.)
But it never ends – placating one person never stops anybody else. Megumi is probably the least likely person in the world to offer emotional support, but he rather sternly informs Yuuta to stay out of a mission he offers to accompany him on because ‘you’re out of it.’ Nobara, on her third round of office-duty maternity leave, gives him funny looks when he passes her cubicle. He smiles, nods, and turns them all down. It’s how these things work. Miwa is sent on one of his missions as backup and notes that he seems down; he assures her that the bags under his eyes are entirely natural. It’s all the same.
He’s used to it, or at least he should be.
But still, somehow it feels like a tipping point when Yuuji offers “karaoke therapy,” his panacea for all emotional ills, after work – “just in case you need to talk.” It’s a very Yuuji offer, and a kind one, but really, Yuuta can’t think of anything less appealing than having to shout over pounding music to tell a father of two (soon to be three) entirely accidental children that he can’t even give Maki one of her own on purpose. He passes. It stings, being offered help. He’s not a prideful man, but he is a protective one, and if that offer means he’s not putting up a good enough front for the two of them, he can’t help but feel that he’s failed.
This all feels like it’s his fault. The least he can do is spare Maki the pain of having to talk about it.
But the one lesson he hasn’t learned: if someone cares enough, it doesn’t take long for the friendly offers to turn into orders he can’t refuse.
Yuuta raises his eyebrows when he turns over his vibrating phone to see Gojo’s caller ID at the top of his screen. He’s not usually the phone-call type – Yuuta and his classmates used to joke that they’d figured out he had a thing for Utahime when they’d realized she was the only person he’d willingly call – and he’s half-expecting an emergency when he sees him calling, so he answers.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, forgoing a greeting entirely.
“With me or with you?” Gojo asks, not missing a beat. “Because one of those things-“
“I figured this was an emergency call.” Now Yuuta’s cheeks are flushed with embarrassment – Gojo has never stopped feeling like his teacher, someone he has to step carefully around. He hates it when he feels like he’s slipping in front of him. “Is it not?”
“Is it really that weird to you that I might make a personal call? Geez.” He sounds lighthearted, but then, Gojo is a thousand times better at feigning carelessness than Yuuta could ever be – that doesn’t mean much. “Speaking of which, I cleared your schedule tomorrow.”
Yuuta balks. “You can do that?”
“I’m Gojo Satoru, kid. I can do whatever I want.”
Definitely not true, given the frequency with which his wife and daughters boss him around, but Yuuta doesn’t want to bring that up. “Why?”
“Because you’re a wreck. Obviously.”
“I’m not-“
“Yuuta, you’re not fooling anyone.” He sighs. “Megumi told me something was up with you.”
“He…did?”
“Marumaru Cake,” Gojo tells him. “Tomorrow at two. Be there.”
That really is a very Gojo thing to do, ordering him to meet for dessert on pain of – well, if not death, being dragged out the door and interrogated. And for all that Yuuta’s never been able to stop seeing Gojo as his teacher, Gojo has never seen Yuuta as anything but a student. He doesn’t have the faintest inkling of the idea that he can’t give a grown man marching orders out of thin air and expect them to be followed.
“Okay,” Yuuta sighs.
**
“Can we talk?”
Maki doesn’t flinch at the sound like she sometimes does when Yuuta suddenly speaks, but she looks a little startled. “What?”
“Sorry, that was a bad start.” He shifts, which is a little difficult with Maki’s feet in his lap. “Can I, uh, I…”
“Yuuta,” she says, gently exasperated. “Get to the point.”
“A lot of people have been asking if something’s wrong with me lately.”
“Well, yeah,” she replies, brushing the fringe of his hair out of his eyes. “It’s kinda obvious.”
“I was trying not to be obvious.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s…hard to talk about.”
“I know that, Yuuta.” Maki sighs, but she isn’t asking for consolation – she’s never been the type. Her sadness builds ever-so-slowly, invisible to the naked eye until it explodes; it’s nothing like Yuuta’s steady melancholy. Comfort is more likely to make her snap than it is to soothe her. “But you don’t have to go out of your way to act like you’re okay.”
“I don’t want you to-“
“You don’t,” she says, a little firmer, “need to protect me.”
“I know.” He dips his head, probably to avoid looking at her. “I know, Maki, I just…wish I could.”
She swings her legs to the floor and ducks under his arm to get up, crossing the room to stand at the window. He doesn’t know why – the shutters are closed against the heat – but if he had to guess, he’d wager that she probably just doesn’t want to be close enough to him to let him feel her tense up at his next words. And she doesn’t have to be, but he’s hated it lately when she feels far from him.
“Gojo called me earlier,” he starts up again, standing beside her at the window.
“About what?”
“Same thing. Said everyone was saying something was wrong and he wanted to check on me.” He looks at her even though he knows she won’t look at him. “He’s making me meet him tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
Maki’s answer betrays nothing, so he tries another angle. “Can I tell him, Maki?”
“Could you have told someone else before it got this out of hand?”
“I’m…I’m sorry.” That stings more than he wants her to know it does. Maybe she doesn’t think she needs it, but he’s been trying to keep her from having to tell the world what she’s going through – it’d be nice, at least, if she’d acknowledge that. “I…I didn’t want us to have to tell everyone.”
“It doesn’t help,” she tells him, a little defensive. “You acting like this is all your fault.”
“Maki…”
“You were there, Yuuta. You know what the doctors said.” She’s not sad, really – being sad would seem pointless to her at a time like this. The facts are the facts. “I’m the one who can’t do it.”
“But-“
“Yuuta, this isn’t on you.” She swallows hard. “Okay?”
“It’s not just that, Maki.” He lays his hand on her shoulder, relieved when she doesn’t flinch away. “It’s…you hate talking about hard stuff.”
“Do I, or do you?”
He stills. For once in his life, he has no easy counter for that.
“Remember how I kinda disappeared after our last appointment?”
“Yeah.” More vividly than he wants to admit. He’d been worried sick. “Why?”
“I was with Nobara that whole afternoon.”
“Really?”
“I needed to talk to someone.” She shrugs. “Not like I want it to be common knowledge, but I needed somebody to know.”
“I didn’t realize.”
Maki looks over at him briefly, then back at the closed blinds. It doesn’t even seem to occur to her that it’s odd to be staring blankly at a window she can’t see out of. “It’s kinda frustrating when you act like you’re doing this for my sake when I’ve never tried to keep it in like that.”
“I just thought-“
“Is this actually about me, Yuuta?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you trying to hide it so I won’t have to tell people or are you trying to hide it because you think it’s your fault?”
He doesn’t answer. Maki doesn’t ever make an accusation lightly, and if that’s what she thinks is really behind his forced silence, she’s probably close to the truth.
“Would I rather not drag Gojo into this? Obviously.” She doesn’t need to elaborate on that: it’s a personal matter, far too much so to share with their high school teacher. “But I’m not just gonna say ‘no, you can’t.’”
“Oh. I…I see.”
“You’re upset, Yuuta. You’re allowed to be upset.”
“But-“
“Do you really think I feel any better because you’re acting like everything is fine when I know you cry in the shower?”
He does. He hadn’t realized she knew about that. “I just didn’t want to make you feel worse,” he mumbles.
She wants to tell him that she doesn’t work that way. Sugarcoating doesn’t make her feel any better and bluntness doesn’t make her feel any worse – it’s really his delicate tiptoeing around the most pressing matter in their lives that makes her more upset than anything. She feels like glass, and she needs now more than ever to feel resilient. She’s not like Yuuta, who hurts more when he thinks about things. She would rather look it in the eye – “I can’t get pregnant,” no further comment – and leave it at that. But Yuuta…
He has always had too soft a heart for the things he does, and every time he sits beside her to wait for the results of a test that comes back negative, she can see his shoulders slumping a little more. Their doctor had said it was her body that couldn’t take a baby, but he still can’t look at a single line on a pregnancy test and think to do anything except blame himself. And he doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to look when he walks past a couple pushing a stroller – doesn’t want to think about how badly he wants something he can’t have. But he can’t say it. He’s been hiding behind so-called consideration, and Maki, who wishes every bit as badly as he does that things were different, is tired of it.
“Yuuta,” she sighs. “Just be sad.”
“I don’t-“
“And talk to someone.”
“Even if it’s Gojo?”
“I guess.”
**
“We want a baby.”
Yuuta barely gives Gojo time to ask an opening question before he blurts out the answer, staring intently down at the slice of cake Gojo had insisted he order. It doesn’t look remotely appetizing, but it makes a better focal point than the person he’s talking to.
“Oh,” Gojo says, a little surprised. “And that’s why-“
“We can’t.”
He nods in understanding. “Have one?”
“We’ve…we’ve been trying for a year.” Yuuta still won’t (maybe can’t) look up. “And…and nothing.”
“A year.” Gojo lets out a low whistle. “That’s a long time to never mention it.”
No one has ever accused Gojo of having decent bedside manner, so Yuuta doesn’t bristle. “I guess.”
“So that’s why.”
“I didn’t wanna say anything,” he says dully. “Maki’s kinda private.”
“Mmhm.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” Gojo replies.
“She is,” he says, defensive. “She doesn’t like people knowing stuff like this.”
“Sure, but you seem really hell-bent on convincing me of that.”
Yuuta finally looks up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I don’t think that’s the whole story.”
He stirs the ice at the bottom of his tea with the straw, but it doesn’t really do much to distract him. “That’s what Maki said.”
“Yeah, figures.”
“She thinks I just don’t like talking about it.”
“Which you obviously don’t,” Gojo replies, not unkindly.
“Of course I don’t.”
“Why?”
Yuuta glances up at him. “This whole ‘let’s talk about our feelings’ thing doesn’t really seem like you.”
“I’ve got kids.” He smiles apologetically, like he hadn’t really wanted to bring that up. “You get used to pryin’ stuff out of them.”
“Literally or metaphorically?”
That gets a chuckle out of Gojo. “Both.”
They fall silent. Yuuta has a feeling that anything Gojo could say in response to that would seem like salt in the wound of his own lack of children.
“My son, especially,” he says after a moment. “Doesn’t really know how to express stuff. Hadta learn how to get him to talk.”
It’s really not flattering, being compared to a seven-year-old. “Hm.”
“But…back to you and Maki.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Is she okay?”
Yuuta shrugs. “Better than me, at least.”
“Figures. She’s not the type to dwell on things.”
That makes Yuuta feel defensive all over again. He wishes he could say why. “It’s not like she’s not having a rough time.”
“That’s not what I meant, kid.”
“Why do you still call me kid?”
“Dunno, fits ya.” He pauses. “Anyway. Wasn’t saying that. I just meant she doesn’t…I don’t know, get sad like you.”
“Well, no, but-“
“This mopey kinda thing that sticks around for weeks – that’s not Maki.”
“Oh.” He can’t disagree with that. “Yeah. I get that.”
“She’s tough, Yuuta. You having feelings isn’t gonna kill her.”
“I don’t wanna remind her, though.”
“Remind her?”
“That I can’t give her a baby.”
“Hm?”
“I keep failing.” He stubs his toe against the immaculately-buffed marble tiles beneath the table. “I can’t stop failing.”
Gojo doesn’t say anything. Yuuta was hoping he would, but without the buffer of someone else’s words, he’s forced to keep talking – maybe that was what Gojo had meant to do.
“And I feel like I had to talk her into having kids in the first place,” he admits. “So I get her all hopped-up on this idea of having a family and…and now I can’t do it and she never would’ve had to go through this if not for me.”
“Well,” Gojo replies, “I can tell you one thing.”
“What?”
“You didn’t talk her into it, kid.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that.”
“You kidding? Anyone who knows Maki would know that. She’d never have gotten within ten feet of a man if she didn’t want to.” He shakes his head. “Let alone spent a year trying to have a kid with him.”
And he knows that, deep down. But some awful tugging at his heart makes Yuuta feel as if he’d been the one to lure her down this path with promises he couldn’t keep. Maybe it’s the lingering thought that she’s far too good for him, the fear that he’ll let her down the way every other man in her life has – maybe it’s just his want and shame and sadness, burrowing down in his chest so deeply that he can’t see it for what it is anymore. Sometimes he thinks that if he were a better man, he would’ve smiled and told her it was all right, let go of the idea of a baby of his own – or he wouldn’t even have asked her in the first place. He feels so selfish, holding on like he is.
But he’s never really given himself the space to consider that he’s hurting himself this way far more than he ever hurt Maki.
“Maybe I should just let go,” he sighs, defeated.
“Does it feel like that?”
“Like I should?”
“Like it’s time to move on.” Gojo slices off a neat, efficient bite of strawberry shortcake and pops it in his mouth. “Do you feel like there’s no chance?”
“No,” he admits readily. “Never.”
Hope, really, has been the only thing keeping him afloat lately. No matter what the doctor says, no matter how many times they fail, he’s never felt like they had no shot.
“Then I doubt she does, either.”
“That’s your advice, then?” Yuuta asks. “Just…keep trying?”
“I mean, if you think you should, but mostly I just think you should stop trying to make it someone’s fault.” Gojo takes a sip of something Yuuta would bet solid money is hot chocolate. “You always do that.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I do?”
“You gotta be the least self-aware person I’ve ever met.” Gojo pats his shoulder. “You always end up blaming yourself. And it doesn’t help anyone.”
Yuuta glances sideways out the window. “You’re kinda blunt sometimes.”
“Oh, really. Says person who married the bluntest woman alive.”
He shrugs. He can’t argue with that. “Your point?”
“Quit beating yourself up, kid. Honestly? The only thing you’re doing to hurt her is being all down on yourself.”
“But what if-“
“Honestly, I probably shouldn’t say this,” Gojo cuts in. “But I honestly think it’ll work out.”
Gojo isn’t the type to hand out easy platitudes. That gives Yuuta pause. “You actually think so?”
“I mean…most parents suck,” he sighs. “So the idea of someone like you not being able to have a kid…dunno, it just doesn’t sit right.”
“So you think it’ll work?”
“I don’t have much of a basis for that, so…might regret saying this later.” Gojo looks a little bit sad. “Maybe I’m just being sentimental, but…I’d be surprised if you couldn’t.” He makes sure Yuuta is looking at him before he goes on. “Just because you’d be good at it.”
Yuuta’s cheeks flush. It’s been a while since anyone but Maki provoked that reaction, but it feels like higher praise than it’s meant as coming from someone who doesn’t praise easily. He desperately wants to believe he’d be a good father, give his children what he and especially Maki never had – but it feels okay to do that now, more so than it had. After all, Gojo would know. His children love him, even the ones who pretend not to. And, well…
He feels seen, he supposes. Like somebody knows why he’s so cut-up, why he wants so desperately to have a baby. And it’s been a long time since he felt that way.
“Thanks,” he says, barely able to get out a single word.
**
Two Years Later
“Anything you wanna do today?”
Yuuta cracks an eye open to look at Maki, facing him from the other side of the pillows. “Tired,” he whines.
“Wow. I’m shocked.”
“Think I just wanna sleep,” he laughs, reaching across the bed to poke the tip of her nose. “That okay?”
“I’m kinda surprised,” Maki replies, smiling when he does. “Thought you’d have all kinds of plans.”
“Plans that compete with sleep.” He slings an arm across her waist, deliciously soft in places it wasn’t before, and glances over her shoulder to the crib beside their bed. “Don’t need ‘em.”
“Color me shocked.” Maki squeezes his cheek. “Okkotsu Yuuta finally gets to celebrate Father’s Day and he doesn’t even want to?”
“I do wanna celebrate,” he protests. “Just…in bed.”
“Oh?” Maki’s eyes sparkle with amusement. “In bed, you say?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Sleeping.”
“When did you get boring?”
He smiles lazily as if he thinks this is probably a compliment but can’t be bothered to decide whether it really is. “When I got babies.”
“Well,” she says teasingly, “I guess I have to defer to the person whose holiday it is.”
“What, did you have plans?”
“Mm…not really.”
“Liar,” he teases, inching closer to brush his nose against hers. “What were you gonna do?”
“Mm, you know. Get you breakfast.” They both know she’d burn it if she tried to make it herself. “Let you eat in my bed.”
Maki takes a hard line against eating in bed. She says it’s because she refuses to sleep on dirty sheets, but really, he suspects it’s just a pet peeve. “Oh, wow. I’m honored.”
“And I got you something,” she tells him.
“That was unnecessary,” he replies, thumb tracing the arc of her cheekbone. “You already gave me the best something.”
She rolls her eyes fondly. “They don’t count, Yuuta.”
“They do too count.”
“And you’re hopelessly corny, you know that?”
“What, do you think I don’t know that?”
“I mean, you never know.” She laughs, flopping onto her back and pulling Yuuta down with her to rest against her chest. “Self-awareness isn’t really your thing.”
“Nope,” he agrees.
“Anyway. I was going to let you sleep,” she goes on. “But only because I need you rested.”
He opens his eyes again, amused. Maki is rarely so playful. “What for?”
She dips her head so her lips almost brush his ear. “My second present.”
“Ngh, two’s too many.” He pokes her arm. “Why’d ya do that?”
“Well, I obviously have to thank my husband for making me eligible for another two days off.” She shrugs and he forces himself not to look a gift horse in the mouth by pointing out that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are both on Sunday anyway. “Don’t I?”
“Mm…no.”
“Excuse me?”
“I get to thank you,” he says propping himself up on his elbows so he can look down at her, “for making me a dad. Not the other way around.”
**
“Yuuta?”
“Hm?”
“Can I ask something kinda weird?”
Maki looks a little sheepish. It’s not an expression he’s used to seeing on her, self-assured as she usually is, and somehow the implication of that brings a hot flush to his cheeks. “Um,” he stammers, “sure?”
“I…uh.”
“Yes?”
“Can I take your picture?”
Yuuta’s eyes widen. “That’s what you wanted to ask?”
“That’s…weird, isn’t it.”
“Not at all!” he tries to reassure her, even though perhaps his dedicated half-hour of skin-to-skin with the twins explains why she’d been so reluctant to ask. He catches Maki ogling him often enough to know she does, but she’s far from the type to admit it. But he likes the thought of it, her liking him this way – shirtless, holding her babies against his chest. It’s a good way to be remembered. “Do, uh…do you want me to pose?”
“No, just…I don’t know. Candid, I guess.” Maki flaps a hand in his general direction. “That okay?”
“Maki, are you embarrassed?”
“Of course I’m not!”
“Maki-chan.”
“I feel kinda weird,” she admits.
“It’s fine, Maki.” He shifts Tsugumi to rest more securely against his shoulder, adjusts his grip on Shinsuke, and looks back up at her. “Seriously. It’s no problem.”
“Still,” she says peevishly.
“Still what?”
She smiles, even though she seems like she’s trying not to. “You’re not supposed to know I think you’re hot with babies. ‘s embarrassing.”
If that was supposed to keep Yuuta grinning from ear to ear through a dozen and a half pictures, it works.
**
“Maki-chan?”
“Mm?”
He slots in next to her on the sofa, slipping an arm around her shoulders. His free hand pets Shinsuke’s hair, then Tsugumi’s, but they’re both too distracted with feeding to react to his touch. He doesn’t mind.
“I’m really lucky,” he murmurs, laying his head on Maki’s shoulder.
“Are you?”
“For a while, I didn’t think I’d get to have these guys.”
“I know.” Maki doesn’t mind the reminder – all’s well that ends well – but she’s surprised he’s bringing it up now. “Why do you mention it?”
“Dunno. Guess I just wanted to say thanks.”
Maki shakes her head. “You do realize that Mother’s Day was over a month ago, right?”
“Mmhm.”
“Then why do you keep thanking me?”
“Because?” he’s mystified by her failure to grasp what couldn’t be more obvious to him. “You made them for me?”
“Well, you put ‘em there-“
“That’s not the same.”
“It isn’t, but aren’t I supposed to be the one thanking you?”
“Nah, you don’t need to.” He presses a lazy kiss to her shoulder, exposed where she’d pulled down her top to nurse the twins.
“Because?”
“I said so.”
“And when have I ever taken that as a good reason to do anything?”
Yuuta smiles, nudging his lips against her shoulder again. “I can think of a couple of times.”
“Those don’t count,” she says coolly.
“Oh, really?”
“Nope.”
“Hm. Beg to differ.”
“You just need to let me finish feeding these two,” she tells him, “and I’ll show you why you’re wrong.”
“Oh, will you?”
“I’m good at that, aren’t I?”
“Proving me wrong? Very.” He wraps his arms loosely around her waist, tucking his face into the crook of her neck. “I love you, ya know that?”
“I think I had a pretty good idea.”
“And” – he strokes each baby’s hair – “I love them.”
She smiles fondly. It’s a newer look on her, but one he dearly loves. “That, I definitely knew.”
“I love being their dad,” he goes on. “I love that they’re yours and I’m their dad.”
“Well, yes, that was kind of the point.”
“We have a family, Maki.”
“Trust me,” she says. “I know.”
“I got so lucky.”
“I doubt I’d call any of what we did ‘luck,’” Maki replies, “but…if you wanna see it that way, I guess.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“Work,” she says flatly.
“Work?”
He probably isn’t going to take that well; she corrects herself. “The good kind.”
“The best kind.” He gives her hip a squeeze, relishing the way it gives beneath his fingers like it never used to. She’s softer now, in so many ways, and he loves them all.
“The kind you want to pick back up after these guys go to sleep?”
“Mm, ‘m not sure about that.” Yuuta smiles, because he knows he’s going to end up saying yes anyways. “I’m pretty tired.”
“Yuuta-kun,” Maki says sweetly. “That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“Not fair,” he huffs. “You know I love it when you boss me around.”
“I do know that, yes.”
“That what you mean by thanking me?”
“Kinda.”
“Explain, then.”
“It’s not so complicated,” she tells him, taking his free hand and laying it against Shinsuke’s back. He’s done nursing, milk-drunk and sleepy against his mother’s shoulder. “I’m just glad we did this.”
“Me, too,” Yuuta tells her, and they might just be the truest words he’s ever said.