Chapter Text
"Attend the gala with me next weekend," you said, slipping into your husband’s private study with a quiet click of the door.
"I can’t. I’m not free," Hiromi replied, his eyes never leaving the sprawling stack of case files littering his mahogany desk.
You walked across the room, leaned your palms against the edge of his table, and looked down at him, your tone balancing somewhere between glacial and dangerously sweet.
"Yeah… About that…" You paused, tilting your head in a mockingly thoughtful gesture. "I don’t really care. Make time. I won’t be repeating myself."
Hiromi sighed, running a hand through his hair in quiet frustration. "I’m really busy, sweetheart."
You held his gaze, unblinking. "I have never begged you for your time when you’re too busy to be a husband for me. So when I say, make time, I mean it."
You were the nation’s sweetheart, an A-list celebrity whose face was plastered across billboards, magazine covers, and digital screens spanning every corner of the city. To say you owned this town was an understatement.
Five years ago, when the news broke that you were tying the knot, the entire country shook to its core. You had never once been linked to a dating scandal, maintaining a pristine, untouchable reputation, only to suddenly marry the best defense attorney in town, Higuruma Hiromi.
For five years, you had been married. But you were both lifetimes past the intoxicating rush of the honeymoon period. As of recent years, Hiromi lived at his firm. Every time you managed to return home early from a grueling shoot or press tour, he was the one working late into the night.
It actually hadn't always been like this.
In the first two years, you were practically inseparable, entirely consumed by one another. Somewhere along the way, between late-night briefs, endless courtroom battles, and the relentless demands of your respective spotlights, the distance grew. The life you had so carefully built together felt like it was slowly fracturing at the seams, leaving behind ghosts of who you used to be.
Hiromi looked up, meeting the unwavering fire in your eyes. He knew that look well. He knew that when you pushed past your usual patience, there was no arguing with you. He figured out quickly that his wife was not taking no for an answer tonight.
"Okay," Hiromi conceded, a defeated, quiet surrender slipping into his voice as he closed the heavy legal file in front of him. "I’ll make time."
You held your chin high with a sense of triumphant satisfaction, a faint, victorious look painted on your face as you looked down at him. "Don’t be late. I’ll have the stylist dress you."
Without waiting for a response, you turned and began to pace lazily around the perimeter of his cavernous study. Your fingers trailed lightly across the spines of leather-bound legal volumes, skimming the polished surface of his antique globe and brushing past a framed photograph from your wedding day—a moment frozen in time when you both looked at each other as if you were the only two people left alive.
Hiromi followed your movement with tired, complicated eyes, watching the way the soft lamplight caught the contour of your jaw and the sharp edge of your tailored dress. The silence between you stretched, heavy with unspoken resentments and the heavy architecture of a life built on public adoration and private loneliness, before he finally broke it.
"Where are our kids?"
You stopped dead in your tracks. You turned your head slowly, looking back at him with an expression of performative, mocking disbelief. "You’re actually curious?"
He narrowed his eyes, a flicker of defensive pride flaring beneath his exhaustion. "I’ve always been curious."
You let out a sharp, incredulous scoff, the sound echoing off the high ceiling of the study.
"Could’ve fooled me when you haven't been home before midnight all week." You crossed your arms over your chest, looking down at him with an icy glare that usually made opposing counsel sweat in court, though it carried a far heavier sting here. "They’re coming home soon from their piano lesson. Not that you'd know their schedule."
Hiromi straightened in his leather chair, opening his mouth defensively. "Don't say that—"
Just as he spoke, right on cue as if an invisible timer had finally run out, the crunch of tires on gravel echoed from the driveway outside. The deep, familiar purr of the family car signaled the return of the children.
You didn't give him the satisfaction of the last word. Dropping your arms, you offered him a parting look that was entirely devoid of warmth.
"I'll go get them," you said flatly, turning on your heel and leaving the study without looking back.
"Mommy!! We’re back!!" Kai, the older of the twin boys, yelled the moment the front door swung open.
You and Hiromi had four-year-old twin boys.
Blessed with your striking, A-list genetics, they were breathtakingly gorgeous children who inherited your sharp features, though the younger of the two, Sora possessed a gentle, observant sweetness entirely his own.
Because of Hiromi’s relentless schedule, the boys were fiercely attached to you. You dragged them everywhere—balancing high-profile red carpets with diaper bags, and bringing them along to magazine sets where they grew up playing under lighting rigs and makeup trailers.
"Where are my babies?" you called out, letting a genuine, radiant smile break through your cold exterior as you stepped into the foyer.
"Here! Here, Mommy!" Kai yelled, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he unzipped his tiny jacket.
"Don’t forget about me, Mommy," Sora whispered softly, trailing a few steps behind his hyperactive brother with his small piano books clutched tight against his chest.
You knelt, opening your arms wide to catch them both in a warm, tangled pile of hugs and giggles. "Look at my two favorite boys. How was piano practice? Did you play like little gentlemen for your teacher?"
"We did! And I hit every single note right, Mommy, I swear!" Kai beamed, his energetic voice filling the high-ceilinged hallway.
Mid-sentence, Kai’s boisterous volume abruptly died down. His eyes shifted past your shoulder, locking onto the doorway of the study behind you. Hiromi had stepped out into the hall, drawn by the sudden noise.
"Oh... hi, Daddy," Kai mumbled, his voice dropping to an unusually small, hesitant whisper as he instinctively stepped closer to your side.
Sora, always the more emotionally mature and perceptive of the two, slowly untangled himself from your embrace. With his gaze fixed respectfully down on the polished hardwood floor, he walked quietly over toward his father.
"Welcome back home, Daddy," Sora said quietly, offering a small, polite bow that felt far too formal for a four-year-old.
Hiromi froze, looking down at his youngest son. The sight of his children shrinking away or treating him like a polite stranger in his own home hit him harder than any courtroom defeat ever could. Yet he swallowed the bitter pill regardless.
"Hello, boys," Hiromi said, his voice dropping an octave as he offered a soft, guarded smile.
After returning the greeting, Sora immediately turned on his heel and scurried right back to your side, pressing his small shoulder against your leg as if seeking shelter. You looked up at your husband, your expression a cold reminder of the emotional wall he had spent years building between himself and his own family.
Without another word, you scooped both boys up, holding them close against you as you walked past him toward the kitchen.
"Mommy, Mommy. Why is Daddy here?" Kai whispered rather loudly, his innocent voice carrying easily across the quiet kitchen as he buried his face in your neck.
You paused, setting the twins down at the kitchen island before pulling out two small cartons of juice and setting them in front of your boys. You offered Kai a pointed, knowing look, though you kept your voice light for their sake.
"Daddy lives here, remember, baby?" you murmured, running a soft hand through his dark curls.
"Oh," Kai blinked, swinging his little legs back and forth against the stool. "I thought he lived at the big office place. He sleeps there a lot."
Sora didn't say anything, quietly peeling the straw wrapper off his juice box with downcast eyes, though the silent observation cut you deeper than Kai's accidental honesty ever could.
Footsteps echoed softly on the tile as Hiromi walked into the kitchen, stopping just at the entryway. He had heard every word. The sharp pain of alienation crossed his features, a stark realization of how much of his sons' childhood he had missed while buried under legal briefs and midnight depositions.
He looked at the two of them—so strikingly like you, possessing your fire and your sweetness—and realized just how fragile his hold on this family truly was.
"Do you want a snack, boys?" Hiromi asked, his voice hesitant, almost testing the waters in his own home.
Kai instinctively ducked his head closer to your shoulder, while Sora just stared quietly at his juice. You looked at your husband unamused, your expression entirely flat. You turned your gaze back down to the two pairs of wide, watchful eyes looking up at you.
"Well, boys?" you asked, letting the question hang in the quiet kitchen air. "Do you want to have a snack with Daddy?"
Kai hesitated, biting his lower lip as he glanced between your unyielding face and Hiromi's tired, hopeful expression. Sora, ever perceptive, finally spoke up, his small voice breaking the heavy silence.
"Only if you stay with us, Mommy," Sora whispered softly.
Kai frowned, his small brow furrowing as he reached a tiny hand out to tightly grip your fingers, anchoring himself to you.
Hiromi swallowed hard, the weight of his sons' hesitation pressing heavily against his chest. He cleared his throat to clear the sudden tightness, forcing a weak, ghost of a smile.
"I'll get the snacks," Hiromi said quietly, turning toward the pantry before you could say a word.
Seeing his father leave for a while, Kai perked up, leaning in close and tugging at your sleeve.
"I don’t like that Daddy’s here, Mommy," Kai whispered, his young voice laced with a raw, unfiltered honesty that broke your heart just a little. To him, Hiromi wasn't an awe-inspiring defense attorney or even a father. He was practically a stranger who occasionally slept in the guest room and disrupted the quiet rhythm you and the boys had carefully built together.
Sora didn't say anything, but he nodded in agreement, his small fingers still wrapped securely around your other hand.
You let out a soft, weary sigh, your anger at Hiromi momentarily softening into a deep, heavy exhaustion for your children. You knelt down so you were eye-level with both of them, offering a reassuring, gentle smile that you saved exclusively for them.
"Daddy is just working on being around more, okay?" you murmured, brushing a stray curl from Kai’s forehead. "He loves you very much, even if he’s been very silly and busy."
"Does he love us as much as you do?" Sora asked quietly, his big, beautiful eyes searching your face.
Before you could answer, the soft rustle of snack packaging and the clink of ceramic plates signaled Hiromi's return from the pantry. You stood back up, your expression instantly shifting back into its cool, guarded armor as your husband walked back into the kitchen, carefully balancing a plate of sliced fruit and crackers, trying desperately to bridge a chasm that years of neglect had carved out.
You walked up to your husband, your footsteps silent against the tile, and said softly, "I'll help you with this."
Even though you kept your voice low, the tense posture of his shoulders told you everything you needed to know. He had once again clearly heard every single word of what your son had said from the pantry. The brutal truth of Kai’s rejection hung thick in the air between you like a physical weight.
As much as you hated your husband—as deeply as you resented the empty bed, the endless nights alone, and the slow, agonizing erosion of what you used to be—he was still your husband. The man you had promised to stand by before the world swept you both away in its currents.
You gently took the plate of sliced fruit and crackers from his hands, brushing your fingers briefly against his, and placed them down neatly on the center of the kitchen island.
Turning back to the twins, who were watching the silent exchange with wide, perceptive eyes, you offered a reassuring smile and said, "We’ll wash up after this, okay, boys?"
The twins nodded in unison, their small legs swinging in quiet sync as they reached for the fruit slices. They ate in near-total silence, the usual bubbly chatter that filled your home after piano lessons replaced by a heavy, unnatural restraint. They were always so awkward and hesitant around their father, treating him less like a parent and more like an intimidating guest who had accidentally wandered into their space.
Hiromi stood on the opposite side of the island, a cup of untouched water in his hands. He watched them with a quiet, hollow ache in his chest, painfully aware that his four-year-old sons didn't know how to act in his presence. Every attempt he made to bridge the gap felt clumsy and forced, choked by years of missed bedtimes, skipped meals, and endless court cases.
You caught the way Hiromi’s jaw tightened, the silent defeat washing over the man who never lost an argument in a courtroom but was utterly helpless in his own kitchen. You didn't offer him pity—he had earned this distance, brick by brick—but the sheer melancholy of the scene grated against whatever affection you had left buried in your chest.
"Eat up, boys," you said softly, breaking the thick tension as you smoothed down Sora’s collar. "Then we’ll get your baths started."
Kai decided to completely ignore his father, pointedly turning his small shoulder away from Hiromi and paying his full attention to you instead.
"Mommy. I played piano just now," Kai beamed quietly, his voice lacking its usual boisterous volume as he tried to catch your eye.
"I played too," Sora echoed softly from beside his brother.
Both of them stayed unusually quiet and subdued, constantly minding their tone, their tiny voices muffled as if they were afraid a loud sound might summon a storm. The heavy intimidation of Hiromi's quiet presence hung over them like a shadow, forcing the twins to shrink into the safety of your immediate orbit.
You knelt beside their stools, melting just a fraction at their eager yet hesitant expressions.
"Did you? You two are becoming such little maestros," you murmured, offering them warm, encouraging smiles that chased the chill out of the kitchen. "I want you to play me a whole concert next time, deal?"
"Deal!" Kai whispered with a shy grin, finally taking a big bite of an apple slice.
Across the island, Hiromi stood completely frozen. He watched the easy, bright affection you effortlessly poured into the boys—an affection they accepted with wide-open arms, yet denied him entirely. The realization that his own children moderated their happiness and watched their volume out of fear of him felt like a physical blow.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, to praise them or ask a question about their lessons, but the words caught painfully in his throat. He swallowed hard, looking down at his hands, realizing just how much damage a closed courtroom door and a stack of files had cost him.
"Should we ask Daddy if he wants to watch too?" you said to your boys with a kind, encouraging smile.
Deep down, beneath the layers of exhaustion and resentment, you loved Hiromi. You really did. At one point in your life, when the blinding weight of your celebrity status isolated you from the rest of the world, he was all you had. You knew he was buried under work, and while you knew his endless absence didn't excuse the growing void in your marriage, he was still their father.
You remembered the early days—how he had gently taken over night shifts, caring for the twins relentlessly during your postpartum recovery all the way up until they turned a year old. You wanted them to know that care, to get used to their own father instead of treating him like an unfamiliar ghost.
Yet Kai only glanced at his little brother, Sora, his expression suddenly gloomy. He clearly didn’t want Hiromi anywhere near their little world, and much like Kai, Sora lowered his gaze, his silent hesitation speaking volumes.
They didn't want him there.
Hiromi noticed the heavy silence and the subtle, protective retreat of his sons. A quiet, heartbreaking resignation flickered across his tired eyes.
"It’s okay, honey," Hiromi said softly, his voice strained as he offered a small shake of his head.
The twins finished their remaining snacks in a hurried, almost mechanical fashion, eager to escape the heavy gravity of the kitchen.
"Go upstairs and get ready to shower, my loves. Mommy will be there in a second," you instructed gently, watching as they scrambled off their stools with quiet efficiency.
Their small footsteps pattered rapidly against the hardwood floors, fading down the hall and up the grand staircase until the hollow echo of their retreat finally died away. The moment they were completely out of earshot, the last ounce of your composure frayed, leaving a hollow exhaustion in its wake.
You let out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all the years you had spent carrying this family on your shoulders alone. You turned your head slowly, your gaze locking onto your husband where he still stood frozen by the island.
"Hiromi..." you muttered sadly, the sharp edge of your earlier fury completely dissolving into something far more fragile and devastating.
The name left your lips not as a weapon, but as a ghost of the intimacy you used to share—a reminder of the man who used to hold you until the sun came up, before the law firm and the endless public demands swallowed him whole.
Hiromi flinched visibly at the sound of his name stripped of its bite. He didn't look away, though the profound sorrow etched into the lines of his face made him look older than his years. The pristine, untouchable defense attorney, the man who commanded courtrooms and struck awe into everyone in the city, looked entirely dismantled by the quiet judgment of his own four-year-old sons and the heartbreaking gentleness in your voice.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, the words catching roughly in his throat as he took a slow, hesitant step toward you across the cold tile. It was a phrase he rarely uttered, and even rarer meant with such absolute, soul-crushing despair. "I didn't... I didn't realize how far away I'd let us drift until just now."
You bit your tongue, swallowing the bitter taste of a retort before it could slip past your lips. Of course he didn’t realise. He never cared enough to look.
The excuse felt stale, worn out from years of repetition. Yet, even as cold anger pricked at the back of your eyes, your heart shattered right down the middle for the man standing in front of you.
This was the same man who used to wait outside backstage doors for hours just to hand you a single, perfectly wrapped camellia after your shows. The man who memorized your shooting schedules when you were too exhausted to keep track, who brewed you chamomile tea at three in the morning when insomnia kept you awake, and who once gave you the entire world when you felt like the loneliest person on earth.
Now, he was just a shadow haunting the edges of your life, a stranger who lived down the hall and traded his family for billable hours.
You looked at the tired lines bracketing his mouth, the faint exhaustion clinging to his shoulders, and the raw, quiet devastation in his eyes. You hated him for letting it get to this point, for forcing you to raise your children alone while his side of the bed stayed perpetually cold. But more than anything, it broke you to realize that beneath all the resentment and the heavy walls you had both built to survive, you still loved him.
And that was the most painful part of all.
"I'm going to help Kai and Sora shower," you said softly, your voice devoid of any lingering heat as you turned away from him.
You walked past him without slowing down, your footsteps echoing lightly against the tile floor as you left the kitchen behind. The silence you left in your wake felt heavier than any argument, a stark reminder of the fragile, fractured space between what your family once was and what it had become.
Upstairs, the sound of water running in the bathroom signaled the boys waiting for you. You pushed open the door to find them sitting side-by-side on the edge of the tub, looking small and quiet. When they saw you, their faces lit up with that unreserved, unconditional adoration that only children could give.
As you knelt down to unbutton Kai's shirt, helping them scrub away the day's dust and guiding them through their bedtime routine, your mind drifted back downstairs. You knew the gala next weekend would be a glittering, suffocating affair—flashing camera bulbs, blinding lights, and a sea of people whispering about the nation's sweetheart and her elusive husband.
You had demanded he make time, backing him into a corner because you were tired of playing single mother to an empty house. But tonight, watching the quiet devastation in Hiromi’s eyes when his own sons shrank away from him, you realized that forcing him to show up for one night wouldn't fix the hollow foundation underneath your marriage.
The real question wasn't whether he would attend the gala. It was whether, beneath the wreckage of missed years and silent dinners, either of you still knew how to find your way back to each other.
"Mommy... does Daddy know us?" Kai whispered, his voice small and hesitant against the hum of the running bathwater.
You paused, your hands mid-movement as you reached for a fluffy towel. Confusion knitted your brows together.
"What do you mean, sweetheart?" you asked, gently tilting his chin up so you could look into his big, liquid eyes.
Sora, sitting quietly beside his brother with soapy bubbles resting lightly on his knees, offered a quiet, heartbreaking clarification. "He never calls us by our names."
Kai, feeling emboldened by his brother's words and the safety of your presence, let out a frustrated little huff, a rare flash of childish disdain crossing his features. "He never calls Kai, Kai. Or Sora, Sora. He just calls us... boys."
The words landed in the humid bathroom air like a physical blow, heavy and suffocating. You froze, the towel slipping slightly in your grip.
The boys.
It was a casual phrase, a shortcut used by a man whose mind was perpetually fractured by complex legal briefs, cross-examinations, and the endless ticking clock of billable hours. But to a four-year-old child—a little boy desperately craving the simple validation of hearing his own name spoken with warmth by his father—it felt like a title of alienation. To Hiromi, they had unconsciously become a collective category rather than two individual, vibrant little souls he actually knew.
Your heart ached, a sharp knot twisting painfully in your chest. You thought of all the times Hiromi had hurried through the hallway, patting a small head and offering a tired, generic—How are the boys doing?—without ever pausing long enough to look into their faces, notice a missing tooth, or hear the distinct melody of their individual laughs. He hadn't just missed their milestones.
He had missed them.
You pulled both of them into a tight, fierce embrace, pressing a warm kiss to the top of each of their dark, damp curls.
"He knows you, my loves," you murmured, your voice thick with an emotion you fought hard to keep steady. "Daddy is just... he's a very very busy person. But he loves you. I promise he does."
"Does he?" Kai asked skeptically, his tiny arms wrapping around your neck as he buried his face against your shoulder.
You didn't have an easy answer. Downstairs, sitting alone in the quiet shadows of the kitchen or staring at unread case files in his study, the man who had traded his family for his career was about to face the heaviest reckoning of his life. Because fixing a marriage was one thing—but winning back the hearts of two little boys who didn't even think their father knew their names was going to take a miracle.
"Mommy always says that Daddy loves us even if he doesn't," Sora said nonchalantly, his voice devoid of anger or tears, stating it like an objective, undeniable fact of the universe.
The blunt, casual resignation in his four-year-old voice hit you harder than any shout or tantrum ever could. It was worse than anger. It was the quiet acceptance of children who had already learned to temper their expectations and rationalize their father's absence. They didn't feel abandoned in a dramatic way—they simply accepted that "Daddy" was a distant figure who existed on the periphery of their lives, while you were the sun they orbited.
You closed your eyes tightly for a second, a sharp sting burning behind your eyelids as you pulled them both closer, burying your face in the crook of Kai's damp neck.
"He loves you," you whispered fiercely, your voice trembling slightly despite your best efforts to stay strong for them. "Mommy pinky promise you, he loves you. He just... he forgot how to show it for a little while."
"Well, he should remember," Kai mumbled stubbornly into your shoulder, crossing his little arms over his chest. "We're right here."
We're right here.
The words echoed in your mind as you finished drying them off, dressing them in their softest pajamas, and reading them their bedtime stories until their heavy eyelids finally fluttered closed. Once they were safely asleep, nestled side-by-side in their shared bed, you quietly pulled the bedroom door half-closed and walked back down the hallway.
The house was dead silent. As you reached the landing of the stairs, you looked down toward the dim light spilling out from under the door of Hiromi's study.
He was still down there. He hadn't rushed back to his files. He was sitting alone in that massive room, wrestling with the heavy, inescapable reality of what his life had become—and what his sons truly thought of him.
You descended the stairs slowly, your bare feet making no sound against the wood. You didn't push his study door open all the way, just enough to see him sitting at his desk, his head bowed, staring unseeingly at a family photograph from happier years.
"They don't think you know their names, Hiromi," you said quietly from the doorway, breaking the stillness of the night.
"Honestly... I don't think you do, either," you continued, the hard, quiet truth slipping effortlessly past your lips.
You let out a soft, shuddering sigh, the last remaining trace of anger evaporating into something hollow and achingly fragile. "I just want my husband back..."
Without waiting for him to process the blow, without giving him the chance to defend himself or offer another empty apology, you turned on your heel and walked away. The soft pad of your footsteps faded down the hallway, leaving the heavy, suffocating silence of the study to close in around him once more.
Hiromi sat frozen in the dim light, the door half-open to the dark corridor. He didn't chase after you. He couldn't.
Of course he knew his own children's names.
Little Kai and little Sora.
He had been the one to sit beside your hospital bed, exhausted and overwhelmed with a love so terrifyingly vast it nearly brought him to his knees, whispering those exact names into the quiet room. He had helped you choose them, piece by piece, dreaming of the futures they would build together.
He closed his eyes, the memory of those early days crashing over him like a tidal wave—the late-night feedings, the soft weight of sleeping infants resting against his chest, the way you used to smile at him like he hung the stars.
He hadn't forgotten a single second of it.
But somewhere along the way, between the relentless grind of the courtroom and the blinding ambition to secure a legacy for his family, he had traded the life he was actually supposed to be living for the illusion of providing for it.
He looked back down at the framed photograph on his desk, his vision blurring slightly at the edges. The man in the picture was smiling, hopelessly in love and entirely present. The man sitting in the chair now was a stranger in his own home.
The silence in the study was deafening, but for the first time in years, Hiromi didn't reach for a file. He just sat in the dark, finally letting the weight of everything he stood to lose crush him entirely.