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IT IS AS if you massage the weight of the world from his shoulders.
Your approach had been as quiet as the exhaustion he hides in himself. Your hands were the first to touch him; fingers pressed into the wrinkles in his shirt, the warmth of his life glowing in your hands. A sigh had stretched his lungs. Too much of his breaths are wasted on work, on money. He's grateful to finally have something, someone he can breathe and live for.
A quiet question had met his ears. Tired?
And he thought he'd been hiding it well.
You already worry too much. About the kids, your little boy and girl. About the latest curse spotted in central Tokyo. About the clothes getting wet in the coming storm. The small giraffe socks of your little girl would be soaked. Your little boy's favorite My Little Pony shirt would be drenched by rainwater, and you would have to launder it again.
Nanami spares a glance at the tiny rain boots sitting by the front door. He remembers the first time he'd put them on your little girl. How he hadn't noticed you watching him until his girl had held her hands out and whined that you carry her. How your little girl had made a face of utter revulsion as he shared a kiss with you.
Your fingers knead the knotted muscles in his back. His shoulders. A soft groan escapes him and the exhaustion seeps from his body in waves. You seem to take all of it for him. And for that, he is grateful.
He indulges in your love. Moments alone with you are rare now; a little kiss in the kitchen while you made breakfast. A kiss to his cheek while he washed the dishes and you changed the diapers of your little babies. A longer kiss still riddled with longing before parting for work. A look shared over the table whenever your kids fought over who was supposed to fix the plates.
He can feel your smile from over his shoulder. He basks in your warmth and fixes his gaze on the golden band on his ring finger. He loves seeing the same ring on yours. When your hand moves to mend the ache you know pulses just below his neck, he turns his head and reaches for your hand. His mouth kisses your fingers. He presses another kiss to the ring on your finger. The small, diminutive band holds all the love he has ever shared with you.
Your hand opens and he rests his cheek there, feeling the warmth of your heart in your fingers. You smell of morning coffee and baby powder. Your other hand comes to him and he leans back with a tired sigh as you pull his head closer to your body. His head rests on your stomach, the place that bore your two children, the second loves of his life. Now his first, after four years of watching them grow tall enough to reach the doorknob and reach for a spare pen in one of his desk drawers.
It is not the first time he thinks he was designed for you. He has never been so in tune with someone else. To fetch medicines in the cabinet attached to your bathroom wall while you soothed your boy after scraping his knee yet again. To scold them while you made dinner and then after kissed the exhaustion from his eyes. To write down the date of some new mission on his calendar while he noted the test dates of your kids.
For the first time in his life, something as busy as this does not feel like work.
It feels like the life he was meant to live. And when he looks back at you to give you that small, reserved smile he spares for only your lovely eyes, he knows he could be anything but wrong.
