Work Text:
You can also check out this work on my Tumblr!
Looking at her reflection, she sighed again, for what was perhaps the three hundredth time. With each minute passing by, she was growing more and more uncertain, feeling her frustration simmer beneath her flesh. And the more she was looking at the contours of her body, with its unappealing dips and hideous curves, the more she despaired.
Nothing was concealing her forms, and nothing was embellishing what she found not good enough to show. Not that she wanted to show anything, though. Something between a sigh and a grunt tumbled down from her mouth, along the sloping of her shoulders.
She was not asking for the moon, was she ? Simply for something among the too many clothes in her wardrobe to make her pretty. Well, she was that pretty anyway, so was perhaps asking for too much.
Anyhow, she had been standing in front of her own reflection for an hour, swapping between skirts she had bought thinking she would wear some day and dresses that were prettier in her mind than around her body. She wanted to do nothing more than throw everything to the floor and crawl under her blanket to cry over the hourglass silhouette she would never get.
But the swirl of desperation and frustration, without forgetting the bitter tears on the rim of her lashes, that she was getting sucked into was soon disrupted by the sound of the door behind her. Without thinking, she hugged the dress she was holding to her body, concealing her belly. She was glad she was wearing one of the skirts she was trying on.
Stepping into the bedroom, Makoto’s brows creased in confusion when he glanced at her, not dressed yet after spending an around passing around and searching for something to put on. Which she had not found, if he was to judge by how desperate she was looking, and by the piling mounds of clothes on the bed.
“Is everything good with you, sweetheart ?” he asked, walking to where she was standing, her hands clutching her dress against her chest.
She nodded, “Yep. Everything’s good,” she said, although the tears were welling back, “I’ll just dress and I’ll be down in ten. You can wait in the living room.”
But, of course, Makoto knew her too well and could tell when something was wrong. So, rather than heed her suggestion, he stepped around her and went to skim the back of his knuckles along the swell of her cheekbone.
He was always so gentle and tender, and his tone was always as loving as it was now, “What is going on, darling ?” he wondered, curiosity mingling with concern into his traits.
“Nothing’s wrong, don’t worry,” she answered, despite the wobbling in her throat. After a second, a look from him, she murmured, almost too low for him to hear, “I just don’t know what to wear.”
Makoto’s fingers brushed away the hair that was falling on her forehead, “You can wear whatever you want, sweetheart. I told you, we’re just going out for dinner, it’s nothing too fancy.”
Nodding again, she looked to the floor, trying to convince her mind that it was, as he said, nothing too fancy, and that she therefore had nothing to worry about. It would be them two, and no one else. He and her and dinner, and nothing too fancy, yes. Simple as that.
“What is going on ?” He then asked. “Something’s wrong, I can tell. I also can see your brain fuming from your ears.”
She could not but chuckle a bit at that, earning him a small quirk of her mouth. How could she tell him she was feeling hideous ? That she could bear to look at her reflection and that she found her body the most unpleasant thing she had ever laid eyes on ? But she always told him everything. She never hid anything from him either.
So, gathering her courage and trying to smother down the shame that flooded her, she said, “I’m not feeling pretty.”
A second went by. But, when she thought Makoto had perhaps not heard her, his hands cupped her face and tipped her head back. Her cheeks felt hot under the look of adoration he showered her in.
“You know you are the most gorgeous girl in the whole world, don’t you ?” he asked, more like he was reminding her of something she had forgotten than asking a true question. Like it was not even a question.
Well, Makoto always spoke with devotion and love to her, with words of affirmation, each day telling her of how pretty and ravishing she was. But most days, she had trouble believing it. Not his words, because he was not lying. No, she had the most trouble believing she was pretty. Or gorgeous, or ravishing. How could she, when she saw nothing but ungracious curves when she glimpsed at her reflection ?
Looking away from him, she grumbled, “I’m not. I can’t even find anything that fits me.”
“What are you saying, my darling ? Why would you think this ?” Makoto’s brows crinkled in incomprehension, like the notion of her not being pretty was silly. Ridiculous, even. Rubbing his fingertips in slow strokes in her skin, he said, “You’re so gorgeous. Do you think I would lie to you when I say this ?”
“No,” she mouthed, shaking her head along with him, as though he was confirming her answer. “No, I know you’re not lying. You never do, even when you could.”
Makoto skimmed his nose against hers, murmuring, “I would never. But I know there are things you don’t like about your body, I’m not blind.” The warmth of his breath tickled her flushed cheeks. “So, what I’d like to do is for you to tell me what you find displeasing with your body, and I’ll prove to you that you’re wrong.”
She hesitated, her mouth quivering with trembling emotion. Heart beating with both timidity and uncertainty, she said, “I don’t like the way my legs look. They’re fat and I’ve got these scars from middle school.”
And before she could say anything else, Makoto fell to his knees in front of her. “You— W-What are you doing ? What are you doing, d-don’t—”
Smiling, he looked at her with such adoration that a wave of hot air washed over her, “I’m doing what I said I would. You say you don’t like your legs, but I think they’re alluring,” he said, his chin resting amongst the cotton pleats of her skirt. “When you walk in front of me, when you’re getting out of the shower, when you wrap them around me. I always find them so fascinating to look at.”
“You’re just saying that,” she mumbled, pouting down at him.
Makoto shook his head, hands slipping from her waist to her own knees, rough fingers clutching around her. She flinched, the feeling of his fingertips skimming the furrows cellulite had burrowed in her flesh making her want to get away from his touch. “I’m not, sweetheart. I swear.”
She would have looked away, but his face was painted with so many colours of affection and love that she could not tear her eyes off of him.
“What else, darling ?”
“My belly.”
Without a second of hesitation, and with the same veneration, Makoto’s hands crawled from the hollow of her knees to the melting plush of her waist. His mouth drew a tender wake of kisses to her belly, hidden by the dress she was still clutching against her. Quietly asking her, she shudderingly nodded, and his fingers wrapped into the cotton of the dress, before tugging it down.
The contours of her body, with its ungracious swells and hideous curves, unveiled themselves to him in a flutter of cotton. Makoto had carved a million swaths of love along her belly, even from her shins to her nose, but she never liked how the marks stretching into her skin looked under the bow of his mouth.
Like now. He laid tiny pecks around her belly button, adoring every marks and every hair, swirling in soft wavelets of curls in a flow of velvet.
“I know you think your stretch marks aren’t pretty, but I think they very much are. I love them because they’re you,” Makoto murmured, mouth against her, “And your belly always looks so charming, whenever you’re wearing a thigh dress or when you’re laying under me.”
She nipped at her bottom lip, allowing his confession to sink into her, before saying, “Why do you like those so much ? They’re not even that pretty.”
“I told you, my darling. Because they’re you. I’m in love with the whole of you,” he said, rising from the floor. He took her cheeks in his hands, “Your humour, your shyness sometimes, and your boldness some other times, the way you chuckle when I tell you a joke.”
Her mouth quaked in a tiny, tremulous smile.
“The way you cry, the way you look when you're falling asleep against me. Everything, Your mind, your soul, your heart, and your body. I love everything about you, my sweet, sweetheart.”
Without feeling them, the tears rolled down her blushing face. Makoto’s thumb wiped them away, “I wasn’t trying to make you cry. But you’re looking gorgeous anyway, as I said,” he murmured, a chuckle rolling from his tongue.
She chuckled, before whispering, “I love you.”
Makoto brought his forehead to lay against hers, nose brushing her own and breath fanning on her cheeks. “I love you too, darling. My darling, my girl. The most gorgeous girl in the whole world.”
Craning her neck, she kissed him, her heart beating with something softer and warmer, frustration and desperation having melted away from her chest.
“I think that dress would be fantastic on you, by the way.”