Work Text:
1. Autumn
Their favorite season is autumn, though for entirely different reasons.
To Kotoko, it means her birthday is getting close, and so it is an excuse to try and coax Irie-kun into a romantic date with her.
To Naoki, momiji leaves are simply the exact same color of Kotoko’s hair.
2. Book
Books are the source of all knowledge. However, no book he’s ever read (and he has read quite a few) could even begin to explain the reason or depth of his feelings for that stupid, loud, clumsy and yet impossibly adorable little fool.
3. Coffee
Kotoko’s cooking is horrible and completely inedible, but her coffee is the best and he can’t get through the day with at least four or five cups.
4. Dark
Naoki can’t sleep well unless it’s pitch dark, but Kotoko’s night blindness means getting used to leaving the side lamp on if he doesn’t want his wife to trip and break her pretty little neck in the middle of the night.
Still, he supposes it isn’t that big of a sacrifice if it means having her feet warm his own every single night for the rest of his life.
5. Easter
He absolutely loathes Easter and egg-hunting, but the sight of Kotoko prancing about in bunny ears and a fluffy white tail is enough to get him out of his sour mood.
6. Gravity
Gravity, he knows, is a natural force of attraction between two bodies.
He never would have thought someone as stupid as her would become his entire world, and yet he is drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
7. Heaven
Naoki is an atheist.
He doesn’t believe in Heaven, but he figures that making love to Kotoko is probably as close as it gets.
8. Ice
Fire and ice. Oil and water. Naoki and Kotoko.
They’re completely opposite, the pair of them, but for some reason that no one understands, they fit.
9. Jealousy
He’s not jealous of Keita. Really.
But when he sees that fucking bastard with his paws all over his wife, he wants to rip his throat out with his bare hands.
10. Kiss
He will never ever admit to it, and he will never stop complaining about it, but he loves it when she kisses him on the nose for absolutely no reason at all.
11. Lilacs
Her hair smells like lilacs. He knows because he snooped around her toiletries once, but only because he hadn’t been able to place the smell at first, and it was driving him crazy not knowing what it was. You know, for science.
12. Milkshake
Over the years, Naoki has found that the quickest way to fall back into his wife’s good graces is to bribe her with a strawberry milkshake.
13. Neck
The dip between her neck and her shoulder is his absolute favorite place in the entire world.
14. Octopus
Kotoko is a human octopus. Of this, he is convinced.
Not only does she like to wrap all four limbs around him when she sleeps, she also managed to get a grip on his heart and she isn’t letting go any time soon.
Not that he wants her to.
15. Peanuts
Naoki is allergic to peanuts, but when she shows up at work and surprises him with peanut butter sandwiches for dinner he doesn’t have the heart to remind her.
He spends the night in his own E.R. with a crying Kotoko at one side and his very amused colleagues at the other.
16. Quilt
When Kotoko presents him with an uneven quilt for his birthday, bloody fingers covered in Hello Kitty band-aids, he tells her it is horrible but takes it anyway.
He doesn’t tell her it’s folded in a closet in his office, and that he likes to wrap himself with it when it’s chilly, even if it doesn’t really cover him, because it reminds him of her.
17. Ribbon
He doesn’t like when she uses ribbons on her hair. He would much rather she wear it down because he loves running his fingers through her silky, reddish locks.
And so he keeps stealing them and she keeps buying them, and now he has a growing collection of multi-colored ribbons hidden in a shoe box under their bed.
18. Sick
Naoki hates being sick.
However, having Kotoko dote on him with all her love and care fills him with pride, for all that she’s accomplished as a nurse.
Also, sponge baths.
19. Tears
There is nothing he hates more than seeing her cry—except, maybe, when he’s the cause of her tears. Which, let’s face it, is usually the case, thanks to his emotional constipation.
And every time he makes her cry, he feels like punching himself in the face.
20. Uno
Kotoko is the most kind-hearted human being he’s ever known. Except when they play Uno. When they do, during family game night once a month, she is infamously known for becoming extremely competitive and violent, and even Naoki is a little bit hesitant to cross her.
Only a little, though.
21. Valentine
To Naoki, Valentine’s Day is just another money-making scheme that gives girls (as well as some guys) an excuse to bother him even more than usual.
He hates it with a passion.
Which is why he doesn’t understand the strange flutter in his chest when she offers him a huge-ass chocolate heart with misspelled English words that is most likely poisonous.
22. Wine
Kotoko is such a lightweight—she can barely drink a full glass of wine before becoming completely inebriated and making a fool of herself.
Still.
Naoki won’t ever admit it, to her or to anyone, but he secretly enjoys it when this happens, because it gives him an excuse to give her a piggy-back ride back home.
23. Xoxo
Kotoko sucks at Scrabble, for obvious reasons. She’s also a cheater.
Naoki knows this, but when she triumphantly places XOXO on the board, squealing happily, he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it isn’t an actual word.
He also uses an X to put down “sexy” and score 42 points while he’s at it.
24. Yellow
Her favorite color is yellow, which Naoki thinks is fitting.
Kotoko is sunshine, sunflowers, and warm butter, and everything that’s happy and bright.
He tells her his favorite color is black when she asks, but for a while now, it’s actually been yellow, too.
25. Zodiac
When Kotoko comes home one day spouting nonsense about them doing an astrology chart read together because she’s worried that Libras and Scorpios are not compatible at all, he tells her to shut up and stop annoying him.
Astrology is bull.
He doesn’t need the zodiac to tell him that he and Kotoko are a perfect match. He already knows.