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“How you feelin baby?” You just hummed affirmatively at the voice that pulled you closer to reality, eyes still closed and not moving from your position draped over your boyfriends lap. The low flashing lights from the TV making small starbursts scatter across your eyelids. You were feeling so good right now.
The warm and homey scent of the vanilla and lavender candle was releasing the tension in your body. A warm belly full of katsudon and wine. The warm firm body of your boyfriend wrapped around you as one hand rested on your thigh while the fingers on his other hand massaged your scalp. You fleetingly thought about your first conversation about him touching your hair. He was so sweet, actually bringing it up himself how, while he didn’t know all that much about the black experience, he saw how much black people didn’t like their hair being touched and expressed he’d never do it if you weren’t comfortable with it.
You just laughed and told him it was ok, because he was your love and you secretly always wanted to get head scritches from a partner…as long as his hands were clean.
He just chuckled at that and promised he’d always make sure they were.
You could feel him press his lips to your forehead and smile.
“The headache going away too?” That simple sentence jump started the anxiety start in your stomach. It was small, no bigger than a pea, but it was there. The opportunity to start the conversation finally presented itself as the ache that had been nothing but background noise, suddenly made its way to the front of your head at breakneck speed.
“It was starting to, but it seems to be making it’s way back.” You said quietly, pressing closer to Ryo making him reflexively squeeze you closer to him.
“I’m sorry baby… is it because I started talking? I’m trying to keep my voice low… Should we go to bed?” the pea sized lump of anxiety in your stomach suddenly grew to the size of a golf ball with no warning. You wanted to wring your hands together but instead placed a hand on Ryo’s chest, grasping his shirt and finally opened your eyes, but didn’t look at him.
“It’s not because of your talking. I…I just remembered I have something I think we should talk about…” The air around Ryou seemed stunned and as he sat up a little straighter you felt the golf ball start to roll around in your stomach. He gently wrapped his hand around the one on his chest.
“Okay… what did you have to say?”
“I… um…Ryo, it’s…” You struggled to say what you needed to. The golf ball seemed to be getting bigger and bigger and it was stealing the air from your lungs and the sense from you mind.
How do you say this? You knew what you needed to talk about but like…how do you actually say the words?
Ryo, waited patiently, gently massaging the back of your hand and soothed his other hand over your back.
“Baby what is it? You know you can tell me anything…what’s wrong?”
The golf ball seemed to have transformed into something very flexible and malleable, because it felt like nervousness had filled up every cavity in your chest and was crawling up your throat, ready to choke you.
Why is this so hard? Why couldn’t you do this?
You lamented as you opened and closed your mouth a few times. Maybe you needed space.
You pushed yourself away from Ryo, who let you go easily, but still kept a placating hand on your back. Waiting patiently for you to tell him what was wrong.
“Ryo… the thing is…I mean…” You weren’t making any sense. You took a deep breath and steeled yourself.
“Ryo… are you being honest about your job?” The hand on your back stilled and the air suddenly felt colder.
“What are you talking about y/n?” he asked, face not betraying his emotions.
“I…it’s just… I know you told me about your job before but… somethings don’t add up so… I wondered…if there’s anything you didn’t tell me?”
He was quiet for a moment, then speaking slowly and softy said. “I told you everything you need to know about my job y/n. What are you talking about?”
You felt a new feeling enter the wibbly wobbly golf ball that was taking over your body.
Anger.
“Ryo… that’s not true and you know it. This job is not some simple desk job where occasionally you go to a nightclub and bounce a few drunks and druggies… I’m not blind…”
You hear Ryoichi let out a big breath of air as he gently removed you from his lap and placed you beside him. You finally gave into the urge to wring your hands as you looked down, shoulders up near your ears.
“y/n…I don’t know why you’re bringing this up all of a sudden. My job is exactly as I describe it. I work in an office most days, I go on business trips with Wanibuchi to other offices, and I occasionally go to job sites to help with security. That’s all there is to my job…What’s that sound for?” He asked, ending his short speech on a derisive note as you scoffed at him, still not looking at him directly, but at least staring at his chest.
“It’s the sound I make when I’m being lied to!” You said, annoyed, hands shaking as you finally made eye contact, but immediately looking at a point just left of him as you saw the look in his eyes. Irritation and exasperation at the conversation already. You wanted to just say forget it and go back to cuddling. Pretend like nothing was wrong and end the argument before it could get any worse. But this was important, and you’d let this situation go on long enough. It was time to stand up and get the truth.
“Ryoichi, I may not be a super genius, but I’m far from stupid as well! Going out at night and coming back with weird cuts and bruises all over your body in a way that doesn’t make sense. Smelling of gun powder after supposedly just getting off of work? At the office? Don’t make a fool of me!” You were so irritated now that you overcame your anxiety of looking your boyfriend in the eye and were also letting annoyance saturate your tone.
Ryoichi sighed and his brows pinched together are he looked at you as if you were kicking up a fuss about nothing.
“Y/n. scuffles happen at nightclubs. People that drink and do drugs act erratically so, thinking logically, of course sometimes the bruises and scrapes are in weird places. And did you forget I am a gun instructor? Sometimes a part of my desk duty is teaching the employees how to properly use guns.”
You just scrunched up your face.
“Ok so maybe sometimes the club patrons can get pretty rough, but you aren’t working alone! There are other bodyguards there, how are you getting THAT roughed up by club patrons when there’s a bunch of you beefy guys standing around and working together. It’s like you got mobbed! And if a night club was that dangerous surely there would have been a new article about it. This isn’t the US, the news would definitely have seen this as a big deal!”
Ryoichi’s leg started shaking and you saw a tick in his jaw.
“The altercations don’t last all that long. That’s one reason why the news doesn’t catch on. Also Wanibuchi doesn’t want stuff like that getting out so he works with them to keep it out of the papers”
You just looked at him as if he called you the queen of mayonnaise and cotton candy. Eyebrows drawn and your lip twitched up on one side into a strong scowl.
“Are you serious Ryo? That doesn’t even make sense! The president of mid-sized security company is that powerful? But he also doesn’t get up to shady business and drag down his employees? I don’t believe it can be both. It can’t be both, so you’re lying to me!” you stressed, as you noticed Ryo’s lips purse the longer you spoke.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’d be logical to end this conversation now.” He said, quietly.
“No! because something isn’t right and you won’t tell me and it’s driving me crazy!” you stressed again, watching as Ryo turned off the T.V. stood up and walked away.
Not this time. You stood right up and followed him into the kitchen as he tidied up the counters and hung up the dish rags.
“And I can’t say for sure about the gun powder. But what about the graze wou-“
“enough y/n. this conversation is done.” He stated calmly, walking away again, this time going straight to the bedroom, still ignoring your presence following him.
“No! it’s not done just because you say it is! You always do this-“
“Y/n-“
“don’t ‘Y/n’ me! I have been trying to have this conversation with you for weeks and you never let me finish! You never listen-“
“Because there is nothing to listen to! You’re just speculating and driving yourself crazy over nothi-“
“It’s not nothing! Why won’t you take this seriously? Why won’t you take me seriously? Do I matter so little?”
“hey. Enough-“
“No! not enough! Let me finish!”
“There’s nothing to finish because there’s nothing going on! Stop being stubborn”
“You stop being stubborn! Just answer me!”
“There’s nothing to ANSWER!” his broad shoulders rose up to touch his ears, arms shaking and back heaving as he raised his voice for the first time in the argument. You were a bit shocked and in the pit of your stomach you felt a void open, slowly draining all the feelings from the wibbly wobbly golf ball. If Ryo had of been looking at you he would have seen how you immediately went still, hands fisting by your sides and your locked knees to keep them from shaking.
“B-but there is! What are you hiding? Why won’t you tell me? Do you not trust me? Do you not lov-“
Ryo turned on you fast but not coming close to you, eyes blazing but not seeing what was in front of him.
“Don’t you DARE! DON’T EVER DARE SAY I DON’T LOVE! after all that i’ve BEEN THROUGH trying to INTEGRATE and ACCOMMODATE YOU into our HOUSE? ENOUGH! IF YOU’RE JUST GOING TO SPOUT BULLSHIT, THEN ENOUGH!! THE CONVERSATION IS OVER!” With that Ryo just turned on his heel and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Sometime during his speech, the hole in your stomach became a massive gaping maw, sucking up not only all of the emotions that where held in the golf ball, but all the emotions you had.
‘he yelled at me…he yelled at me…I just wanted to know… is that so bad?’ your inner monologue kept repeating those lines over and over as your body finally kicked into autopilot and led you over to the dresser drawer to pick out a fresh new night gown for sleeping. You put the night gown on the bed and just stared at it unseeingly.
‘Was I bad? I didn’t meant to be bad. Why am I so bad? Can’t I do anything right?’
Your mind just kept spiraling until you heard the bathroom door open, and you hurried to pick up the night gown and turn away from the door. As you heard him come into the room you felt the steam from the bathroom float across your skin but somehow it still felt cold.
You quickly went into the bathroom as quietly as you could. From there you took off your clothes and showered as quickly as you could.
‘Why am I so bad? Why can’t I do anything right? What am I so bad? Why can’t I do anything right? What am I so bad? Why can’t I do anything right?’
Again and again it repeated until you dried yourself off and realized you had forgotten to grab underwear.
‘stupid stupid stupid! I can’t even remember something so simple. Why can’t I do anything right…’
You just lotioned your body and did your skin care as quickly as possible while the monologue of self hate continued in the background then threw on the night gown and existed the bathroom, turning off the light, bathing the room in darkness (except for the LED light attached to the headboard), and the fan before walking around Ryou’s already occupied side of the bed to slip into your side, hit the switch on the light and laid with your back to him, and curled up a little.
‘stupid…Worthless... ’
You heard an annoyed sigh and heard, rather than felt, Ryoichi get up from the memory foam bed and the bathroom fan came back on with a click.
You curled up even more, feeling tears sting at the back of your eyes.
The bed shifted again and it was quiet long enough for you to think that Ryoichi had fallen asleep.
Until.
“Y/n…” his quiet voice made your heart beat double time.
“ ’ea?” you tried to get out, your voice breaking on the first sound.
“I’m…sorry I yelled… It was uncalled for.”
You felt a laugh bubbling up from your stomach.
“ t’so kay” you said back, voice barely audible.
“Y/n it was not ok…it wasn’t ok in any way and I should have apologized sooner.”
You were shaking and felt an unwanted smile come to your face as the laugh bubble floated into your chest.
“no no!” why’d you sound so chipper all of a sudden?
“I was pushing too much. Being a real bitch honestly haha. It’s okay. That was all my fault”
The silence was deafening for a moment until you heard the sheets rustle and the light from the headboard click on.
“Y/n… why did you call yourself that? Don’t say that about yourself…”
“…okay…Sorry.”
You heard another sigh and a gentle hand landed on your shoulder, making you realize you were shaking like crazy.
“Baby are you ok?” you heard the concern in his voice and it made the smile on your cheeks grow even wider. A tear leaked out of the eye closest to the bed and immediately soaked into the pillow below.
“mhm!”
“Baby… can you look at me?”
‘nonononononononononononono-‘
You turned over to look at him, a closed mouth smile plastered on your face.
“yea? What’s up babe?”
You saw his shoulders drop in despair as he let out a huge sigh, looking at you with some kind of expression you couldn’t see due to the mist in your eyes.
He didn’t say anything, just leaned down and wrapped his arms around you.
“I’m sorry baby. I’m really really sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I had no business yelling at you.”
An involuntary giggle bubbled its way up to the surface
“It’s ok babe! I’m fine don’t worry. I was being bad.”
He just squeezed you a little tighter.
“Baby you don’t have to be fine! I was in the wrong, not you, do you hear me? It wasn’t you! It was me…”
You felt the edges of your smile break as your vision became even blurrier.
“No but…i-it had to-to be my fau-ult. Because you yelled at me! You- you’ve never d-d-one that! So I was b-bad! I’m sorry I was bad! I di-dn’t mea-an to b-be.” You said, tears streaming down your face, voice cracking and shaking so bad you almost wondered if you were faking it as it felt like the shaking you saw in those really badly acted movies.
“No baby no! please no… please don’t believe that…you’re not bad! your wonderful. An angel in my life. I’m sorry I yelled, I’m sorry I made you feel like you’re bad. I just couldn’t answer your questions so I lashed out. Baby. I’m wrong…
Look at me ok?
Please look at me.”
You stopped wiping your eyes long enough to look at him.
“It was me baby. I. am in the wrong. I lashed out. Please you don’t have to forgive me, but just don’t blame yourself ok? Can you do that” you just laid there for a while, shaking and looking at Ryoi’s chin as you couldn’t bare to keep looking into his eyes. You wanted to reassure Ryoichi, but you also really didn’t want to lie. So you settled on an answer you thought you could get away with.
“I’ll..i’ll try…”
Ryoichi just sighed and just pulled you up and into his arms.
“Please try baby. You don’t deserve to feel this way because I was being an idiot. I should have just answered you. I need to, but…please just give me a little more time. Ok? ”
Where you felt yourself beginning to float up and feel better, everything suddenly stopped and felt cold.
He still wasn’t going to tell you anything…
“ok… I’m ok now. Le-“
“you’re not ok.” He said, non-confrontationally.
“…I’m not ok. But I will be. Let’s sleep”
He just nodded his understanding into your shoulder and laid you back down before turning the lights out.
You didn’t feel good, but you didn’t feel as chaotic and hurt as before. The voices calling you by all sorts of names were gone.
Just before Ryoichi settled down, he hesitated and then leaned down to give your forehead a kiss that you leaned into.
You felt the remaining tension in Ryoichi’s body leech out causing you to finally sink more deeply into the mattress, a thin sheet of exhaustion finally settling over you.
“I love you baby.”
“I love you too Ryo..”