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With the care only a mother or a highly-trained assassin may possess, Rei gently slides Miri’s arms out from where they lie hooked around his waist. He tucks them into her side and lifts her head from his lap, scooching out from underneath her. Finally, he places the couch’s throw blanket over her sleeping form. She squirms a little at the loss of warmth, face pinching up, but quickly settles once she hugs a bundle of the blanket to her chest.
Such tender and kind actions are so unfamiliar to Rei, but with Miri, they have become so natural; it nearly frightens him. Yet he ignores this knacking feeling, pushing it far into the depths of his mind. His instinctual urges to care for her much too powerful to be consumed by anxieties, despite how little time he’s known her. At the end of the day, he’s only mortal; binding love by time is a fruitless endeavor, only serving to prevent the inevitable.
Absolute fulfillment makes its presence known within his chest, swirling in a once-unknown peacefulness that captures his soul in this little moment, and a sliver of a smile, one undeniably filled with endless warmth, curls his lips just slightly heavenwards. He allows himself to comb a hand through the hair that had fallen onto her face. He wouldn’t want it to tickle her nose and wake her up, afterall, he convinces himself, more out of habit than anything. Miri sinks deeper into the couch at that, and he can’t be held accountable for the way he gently caresses his thumb along the apple of her cheek when the affection welling up inside him threatens to burst.
His throat begins clogging with emotion, and he’s decided here he needs to draw the line. He rights his stance, releasing a sigh, and turns to make his way to the dining room table where Kazuki resides.
Miri insisted they just had to watch a movie after her bath, despite how evidently exhausted she was and Kazuki and Rei’s need to go over the intel for their next mission—even if she was unaware of the latter. Miri had cuddled up to Rei on the couch, much to Kazuki’s chagrin, so when her eyes began drooping, he quietly slipped from the room to get a head start on preparation. Rei expects to find him nose-deep in his laptop, but he instead finds Kazuki watching him with an annoyingly (attractive) soft look on his face. The realization that his reserved affection wasn’t so reserved afterall leaves the tips of his ears burning pink, but he steels his face and makes his way towards the table as if nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, playing oblivious doesn’t seem to be in the cards. He’s just unlocked his laptop when he hears: “So… Papa Rei, huh?”
He glares at that smug smile stretching Kazuki’s face in half. There’s a hint of affection to it, and maybe his glare, too, is soft around the edges, but it remains unspoken. “Shut up.” He returns his gaze to his laptop, opening his email.
Kazuki doesn’t. “It’s cute, isn’t it? Has a nice ring to it,” he teases. “Papa Rei~” he sing songs.
Rei’s eye twitches. “She calls you papa, too. Don’t make a thing out of it,” he brushes off.
“Oh, c’mon. You know you have a soft spot for her. Don’t even try to hide it.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” He keeps his eyes solely focused on his laptop.
And maybe that’s where he failed. “Oh, but you’re fooling no one,” Kazuki punctuates with a boop to his nose. How he managed to make his way to Rei’s side of the table without him hearing is beyond him, and maybe he’ll put more consideration into it later, but for now his traitorous mind instead expends his energy entirely on focusing on the point on which Kazuki touched him. He looks up,—and now Kazuki has sat himself on the table, just next to Rei’s laptop—meets Kazuki’s eyes, and averts his own in a split second. Because his body is against him, he feels his cheeks and ears heat up.
“There’s no one to fool if I’m right,” he half-heartedly grumbles.
Kazuki, as patient as he is, seems to throw the construct out the window at Rei’s aversion of eye contact when he grabs Rei’s face by the cheeks, squishing them in one hand. Rei finally meets his eyes, only for Kazuki to, a second later, make a show of examining his face, tilting his head every which way. “Aw,” he coos. “Are you blushing, Rei? Do I make your heart race?” He playfully flirts.
Rei slaps Kazuki’s hand away, glaring even as his blush deepens. “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your one night stands. Gives me the creeps,” he pouts. He turns back to his laptop, even if it is just to stare. It’s not like he’d be able to focus on work right now anyway.
“Right, right, of course,” Kazuki agrees, nodding in Rei’s peripheral. “You’re much more important. Because you’re my baby’s daddy.”
Rei’s stunned into choking on his own spit as he nearly snaps his neck with the speed at which he turns his head back to Kazuki, face slack and eyes blown wide. Kazuki laughs boisterously—but not so loud as to wake Miri—at his reaction, and Rei purses his lips into a frown. “That is not how that phrase is used,” he says, pointedly.
Kazuki quiets down, but a smile still remains placate on his face—much more genuine than the smug one he wore earlier. “But it’s accurate, no? In the literal sense?”
He’s at a loss for words. He slowly leans back in his chair, propping his elbow on his arm that now rests across his chest, and tucks his hand under his chin. “...I hate you,” he decides on.
“No, you don’t,” Kazuki easily denies. “You loooove me. And Miri. Our little family.”
And there’s the warm and fuzzy feeling again. He basks in it for a moment, pondering. “‘Family’?” He tilts his head to the side. “What, you gonna ask me to marry you now?”
Kazuki looks a little frazzled at the sudden jab, cards turning on Rei’s behalf, but takes it in stride. “No, but I might just take you out for dinner.” He winks obnoxiously, and it has absolutely no business making Rei’s stomach do flips.
Rei hums, as if he’s considering it, to drive Kazuki a little crazy—but only heaven knows he’d accept such an invitation in a heartbeat. A taste of his own medicine, and all that. “Well, your cooking’s shit; glad I won’t have to be subjected to that on our own first date.”
Kazuki makes an affronted noise at that, even as his shoulders subtly sink in relief. “Like you’re one to talk.”
“I’m kidding,” Rei says. “Mostly.”
“Shut up,” Kazuki pouts.
Another rare smile, which Rei is coming to find is becoming less and less rare the more time he spends around his new family, etches itself onto his lips, and all he can do is hide it behind the hand his chin rests on. Kazuki’s hands lay on the table behind him, bearing his weight, as he fondly watches Rei from above with a light in his eyes that would turn Rei to putty if he were a weaker man.
Together, the two of them settle in a comfortable silence, taking in the wide door of opportunities they’ve just seamlessly opened.
But the moment is just that: a moment, and all things come to an end. Kazuki speaks again, tone low, and almost to himself: “First date, huh…? Probably should’ve done that before we had a kid.”
“Maybe,” Rei replies. Maybe they would’ve eventually found their way without Miri. Or, maybe she was a catalyst for drawing out Rei’s caring nature he thought he’d repressed so long ago; she made him see the joy in desiring love. Love for another, and love in return. Maybe this was in due time. Either way, it’s senseless to ponder what-ifs when he’s in the here and now, and he’s sure Kazuki knows this, too. “We’ll figure it out,” is all he says.
Yet again a teasing smirk tugs at Kazuki’s lips, and Rei’s already rolling his eyes before he can open his mouth. “Oh? What is this?” he questions. “Rare optimism from The Stone-Cold Realist Rei Suwa?”
“You ruined it,” Rei deadpans.
“I didn’t ruin it. I’m treasuring it. I’ll remember this moment forever.” His tone is teasing, but they both know he means every word.
A stupid idea sparks in Rei’s mind. Perhaps he’s on a bit of a high from too much dopamine, but he’s sure it’s so stupid it might just work. In carefully measured words, he says, “I’ll give you something to remember.”
Kazuki watches with curious eyes as Rei rises from his seat to stand before him, nearly caging him in his spot. Slender hands find their place on Kazuki’s hips, and before he knows it, chapped lips are on his.
They melt together, and it's such an easy thing, in an innocent kiss that leaves them in the cognitive dissonance of never wishing to leave this tender, warm moment and impatiently anticipating what their shared future has in store for them. For now, they take what they’re presented with in tonight’s present with greedy fervor.
Kazuki’s arms find themselves wrapping around Rei’s neck, pulling him in impossibly closer. Each touch, each point of contact between them burns with a passion yet to be fully discovered or explored, but leaves them wanting more.
Time escapes them, too consumed in their own bubble they carve into the world. Even still, they find the self control in themselves to pull apart—though, not by much. Forehead to forehead, they share matching giddy grins as they quietly bask in the bliss that glows above their heads.
Rei slowly opens his eyes to find Kazuki already gazing at him—and he finds that maybe turning to putty isn’t so much of a far-fetched thought as he’d imagined. Strength is overrated anyways.
Softly, Kazuki breaks the silence: “I don’t know. I think you might need to do that again, so I can be sure I’ll remember.”
“Gladly.” He leans in again.