Martini Kisses (epistolary) ✔️

special chapter #2

Day One of Forever

part one

1. his alarm

Getting married was a part of his long term plans. Like everything else in his life, Kai had a game plan for everything he does. What to do, how to do it, when to do it. Marriage, included. He just didn't think he'd have it sooner, and like this.

Marriage, as it turns out, is a mixture of warm lazy nights and soft piano mornings.

The sound drifts to the bedroom, the first thing he notices when he stirs awake. Milly's not on her side of the bed, but he doesn't have to look for her to know where she is. The music gives her away.

It's been like this since they've officially lived together. The piano would always be the first thing to greet him before he can even completely wake himself up.

Getting off the bed, he has half the mind to wash his face before he meanders his way to the music room, where the resonant notes grow louder, filling the air. Widmung, as always, is playing under her fingertips.

Once, he asked her why she loved playing it everyday.

"Because it reminds me of you, baby," she only said, and it soon became a routine for Kai to wait for it every morning.

Milly's in a bright yellow dress today, the waves of her dark hair braided and swept right over her shoulder as her arms dance over the keys in a languid rhythm.

Kai doesn't interrupt her. He never does. Quietly, he sits beside her and presses a kiss to the exposed skin on the curve of her neck.

Milly holds her breath and then smiles sweetly at him. "Hi..."

The corners of his lips tug up, like an automatic response. "Good morning."

"You want to eat na?"

Kai closes his eyes, pressing his nose to the side of her head, breathing her in. "Continue playing."

She does, and they spend the whole morning like that, like they'd always done.

This is his life everyday, and Kai doesn't think he can still remember a single morning where the piano isn't there. It's quite an expensive thing to be his alarm. After all, people would pay thousands just to hear her live.

2. her seductor

Their place in the Metro welcomed a brand new her—a brand new them. They easily fall back to their old rhythm just as they easily fell to each other's habits, only that something has changed. A shift in the air that seems to mark the leap in their relationship.

Kai's more... affectionate with her, if that's even possible.

And he's... more rabid.

Not that she's complaining.

While she's...

She's gotten odd. She can't explain it herself.

"Baby, I'm getting into the shower," she remembers casually saying, towel draped around her arm, when she notices it the first time.

Kai lifts his gaze from the TV and his eyes follow her around. "Sabay mo 'ko."

That makes her pause, and a tickle curls around the pit of her stomach. Why he's more active now is beyond her, but she can't say she doesn't like it, if the flutter she feels in her chest is anything to go by.

"Shower lang?" she meant to ask that as a joke.

Kai looks amused. "Shower lang."

Okay. She can do 'shower lang.' She gives her assent, and Kai follows her to the shower room.