Chapter 2: A Bitter Article
The kitchen smelled of old coffee and dry toast. A rectangle of morning sun cut across the checkered linoleum, warming the spot where Maki stood, one hand absently circling the curve of her belly. Her laptop was open on the counter, the screen glowing with a news article she’d stumbled upon while looking for a recipe she’d never make.
Modern Dating: A Playground of Low Stakes and Lowered Expectations, the headline blared. She scrolled, her crimson eyes narrowing to slits. It was full of quotes from men in their twenties, talking about “situationships” and “avoiding attachment” and maximizing “fun” with minimal “drama.” One guy, his face pixellated, said, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” and chuckled. Maki’s lip curled. She knew violence in its many forms, but this casual, entitled barrenness of spirit was a new kind of disgust.
A clatter from the stove made her glance over.
Shuichi was attempting breakfast. His posture was a diagram of apology—shoulders hunched, head bent low as if the frying pan might judge him. He held an egg in one trembling hand. The first crack against the bowl’s rim was too gentle; nothing happened. He winced. The second was a frantic tap that sent a web of fractures across the shell. He tried to pry it apart with his thumbs, and a shard of brown shell plopped into the yolk.
“You’re contaminating it, you incompetent,” Maki said, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the refrigerator.
He jolted, nearly dropping the whole mess. “Sorry! I’ll fish it out.”
“Just throw it away. That egg has seen too much trauma to be edible.” She turned back to her screen, but her attention was now split. The article’s words bled together, replaced by the live feed of her husband’s pitiful, earnest effort. Here was a man who bought wilting daisies with his allowance. Who promised to delete a public safety video because comments from strangers bothered her. Who was currently using a spoon to try and retrieve a piece of shell smaller than a fingernail, his tongue poking out in concentration.
The article talked about men who viewed emotional connection as a chore. Shuichi viewed making her a passable omelette as a sacred duty. The contrast was so stark it was almost funny.
A wave of something hot and fierce washed up from her core. It wasn’t just affection. It was a savage, possessive gratitude that he was like this. That he was hers. That in a universe full of those grinning, soulless men on her screen, she had somehow ended up with this specific, malfunctioning model.
“Give me that,” she muttered, pushing the laptop away as if it were contaminated. She walked over to him, her socked feet silent on the floor. He was still hunched over the bowl, the picture of defeat.
“Maki, I can—“
“You can’t. You’re hopeless.” She plucked the bowl from his hands, her fingers brushing his. He was always so warm. She dumped the egg into the sink, watching the yellow yolk swirl down the drain. “Sitting around reading about the pathetic mating habits of common losers. And watching you wage a war against poultry. What a waste of a morning.”
Shuichi just stood there, his empty hands hanging at his sides. “I just wanted to…”
“I know what you wanted.” She turned to face him, leaning back against the counter. The morning light caught the gentle swell of her stomach beneath the soft cotton of her blouse. He was looking at her face, then his eyes dipped, just for a second, to where her body had begun to change. A faint pink colored his cheeks.
Her gaze dropped back to the closed laptop. Those men. Those grinning, empty men with their clever phrases and their fear of cows. They would never understand this. They would break under the weight of her words, of her love, of the life growing inside her. They were champagne flutes. Shuichi was… well, he was a chipped mug. Durable. Familiar. Meant to be held.
“They’re all pathetic,” she said, her voice low, almost to herself. “Treating people like disposable utensils. Swiping left on actual human beings.” She looked up, pinning him with her sharp gaze. “At least my useless husband is too spineless to even think about cheating. Too scared of me. Too… pathetically devoted.”
He didn’t deny it. He just swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I wouldn’t. I mean, I’m not… it wouldn’t…”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she cut him off, as if stating a simple, dull fact. “You lack the backbone for betrayal. It’s one of your few tolerable qualities.”
She pushed off from the counter and closed the small distance between them. The kitchen was quiet, suspended in the golden light. She could see the fine details of his face—the faint, tired smudges under his eyes from a late case, the complete absence of stubble, the way his lips were slightly parted in nervous confusion. Her hand came up, not with a slap or a shove, but to fist in the front of his soft, faded t-shirt. She pulled.
He stumbled forward, off-balance, his hands flying out to brace himself on the counter on either side of her, caging her in. The warmth of him enveloped her. She could feel the solid plane of his chest, the frantic beat of his heart through the thin fabric. And pressed between them, the soft, undeniable curve of her stomach.
“You’re mine,” she whispered, the words not a question but a branding. Her free hand came to rest over his where it gripped the counter, her fingers lacing through his, squeezing hard enough to hurt. “You understand that, don’t you, Shuichi? You are tragically, permanently mine. Every incompetent, stammering, awkward inch of you.”
He was breathing shallowly, his eyes wide, searching her face. He nodded, a微小,急促的动作.
“Those men in the article,” she continued, her voice a razor wrapped in velvet. “They think they’re free. They think they’re winning. But they will die alone, in apartments that smell like takeout and regret. And you…” She leaned in, her nose almost brushing his. “You get to come home to me. You get to be the father of my child. You get to live your whole, pathetic life knowing exactly who you belong to.”
A strange sound escaped him—a hybrid of a gasp and a sigh. The fear in his eyes had melted, replaced by a clarity that looked almost like peace. “I know,” he breathed.
“So don’t ever forget,” she said, her final words a hot breath against his lips. “Don’t ever forget how cosmically, ridiculously lucky you are that I settled for you. Now kiss me, you useless detective. And try not to be terrible at it.”
He did. It was clumsy, sweet, earnest. Just like him. And as his arms finally came down from the counter to wrap gently around her, as she felt the proof of his devotion in the careful way he held her and the life they’d made, Maki Harukawa decided that chipped mugs were far superior to champagne flutes. They held the heat better. And they were much harder to break.
The omelette he finally produced was edible, if slightly rubbery, and she ate it in stern silence while he scurried around preparing for work. The tension from the morning had softened into their usual, prickly détente. He left with a mumbled goodbye, his hand briefly brushing her shoulder, and the house settled into its daytime quiet.
Maki cleaned the kitchen with a brutal efficiency that left the counters gleaming. She folded laundry, her movements precise even as she maneuvered around her shifting center of gravity. The silence was a companion. She’d never needed the chatter of others to feel complete; in fact, she actively despised it. Her phone, face-down on the coffee table, was a silent black rectangle.
At 12:07 PM, it buzzed. A single, short vibration against the wood.
She didn’t hurry. She finished folding one of his stupid, soft t-shirts into a perfect square. She placed it on his pile. Then she picked up the phone.
It was a photo. A blurry, poorly framed picture of his desk at the precinct. A half-eaten sandwich wrapped in wax paper was visible, along with the corner of a case file, the words redacted with thick black marker. The message beneath it read: They ordered from the new deli. I got the turkey. It’s… fine. The pickles are too sweet.
Maki stared at the image. The pathetic loneliness of it was so acute she could almost smell the stale station-house coffee. He was sitting there, in the middle of a building full of people, eating alone and telling her about pickles. Because he had no one else to tell. A slow, deep warmth unfolded within her chest, fierce and possessive.
You have the palate of a child. Obviously it’s inferior to what I make, she typed back, her thumbs punching the letters.
Three dots appeared immediately. I know. Yours is better.
Is that all you have to report, detective? The critical case of the subpar pickle?
It’s busy. Paperwork on the Genson thing. Kaito is talking loudly on the phone about his podcast to everyone. No one is listening.
She could picture it perfectly. The fluorescent lights, the clatter of keyboards, the detective named Kaito with his too-loud voice. And Shuichi, a quiet island in the noise, seeking refuge in a text conversation with her. Her. The thought was a dark, satisfying tonic. She didn’t reply, letting him marinate in the silence.
At 12:34 PM, her phone rang. His name flashed on the screen, his contact photo a picture she’d taken years ago where he looked bewildered by a puppy.
She answered on the fourth ring. “What.”
“Hi.” His voice was hushed, a private murmur meant only for her ear even amidst the background din of office life. She could hear the faint echo of a PA announcement, the distant trill of another phone. “I just… how are you feeling?”
“I feel like a whale that swallowed a basketball. How do you think I feel?” She was lying on the sofa, one hand resting on her belly. The baby was quiet.
“Okay. Sorry. Did you eat lunch?”
“I’m capable of feeding myself, Shuichi. Contrary to the evidence of this morning’s egg massacre.” She heard him take a slow breath, likely nodding on the other end of the line. “Are you hiding in a storage closet to make this call?”
A pause. A telltale shift in acoustics, the sound becoming slightly muffled, enclosed. “Stairwell.”
Of course. She closed her eyes. The image was unbearably clear: him perched on a concrete step, tie probably askew, eating his too-sweet pickle sandwich in solitude, choosing the echoey, empty stairwell over the crowded break room. Choosing her over anyone else. Every call, every pointless text about his lunch, was a brick in the wall she had built around him, a wall he maintained with diligent, pathetic joy.
“They’re all going to that izakaya after shift,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “Tanaka asked if I was coming.”
“And what did you say to poor, desperate Tanaka?”
“I said no. I have… things to do at home.”
“Things. How vague. How mysterious.” A smile touched her lips, unseen. “Tell him your wife is a deranged harpy who will melt down if you’re late. It’s closer to the truth.”
He made a soft, choked sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. They all know.” Another announcement buzzed in the background on his end. “Go finish your pathetic sandwich. And your paperwork. Your child is currently using my bladder as a trampoline, so I have things to attend to that are more pressing than your daily loneliness report.”
“Okay. I’ll… see you soon.”
“Obviously.”
She ended the call. The silence of the house felt different now, charged. She pictured the noisy izakaya he wouldn’t be going to. The clink of beer glasses, the booming laughter, the shop talk. He’d be horrible at it. He’d sit at the edge of the conversation, nursing one drink, smiling awkwardly, waiting for a polite moment to escape. The thought of him there, being pleasant and approachable for strangers, sent a sharp, unpleasant twinge through her. It was better this way. Safer.
At 3:17 PM, a text arrived. Paperwork done. Case meeting was dull. Kaito spilled coffee on his keyboard.
A tragedy for the ages. My day has been equally riveting. The dust bunnies under the bed have formed a small government.
I can vacuum when I get home.
You’ll do no such thing. You’ll agitate them and they’ll revolt. Stay in your lane, detective.
Okay.
At 5:01 PM, the phone buzzed once, a single pulse. Leaving now.
No invitation extended, no last-minute change of plans. No “the guys are pressuring me” or “just one drink.” Just Leaving now. A statement of fact. A declaration of trajectory. His path was a straight, unwavering line from the precinct to their front door, drawn by ten years of habit and the gravitational pull of her presence. She imagined him shrugging on his coat while the others made their plans, offering a weak wave, slipping out the side door into the fading light. He wouldn’t feel left out. He’d feel relieved.
Maki moved to the living room window, parting the blinds with two fingers. The street below was washed in the long, orange shadows of late afternoon. She waited. She didn’t pace. She simply stood, a sentinel at her post.
Seven minutes later, his sensible, unremarkable sedan turned onto their street. It pulled into the driveway with exacting care. The engine cut. The door opened and he emerged, looking exactly as he had that morning, just slightly more rumpled. He had his worn leather satchel in one hand. He didn’t look up at the bars they passed by on his drive home. He didn’t glance at the livelier streets he could have taken. He looked straight at the house. At her window.
He saw her silhouette there, behind the glass. He stopped, just for a second, on the front walk. Then he raised his hand, a small, hesitant gesture.
Maki let the blind fall closed. She didn’t wave back. She turned and walked toward the kitchen, her hand finding the small of her back where a new ache had settled in. She heard the key in the lock, the gentle sigh of the door opening and closing, the soft thud of his bag being set down, the rustle of his jacket on the hook.
His footsteps approached, familiar and quiet. She didn’t turn from the counter where she was now unnecessarily rearranging mugs.
“I’m home,” he said, his voice tentative in the quiet house.
“I have functioning eyes,” she replied, not turning around. “The world continues to spin. Now come here. This creature inside me is attempting a somersault and I require a stationary object to lean against before I tip over.”
His footsteps came closer. She felt him stop just behind her, his warmth a palpable presence. She let her weight settle back against him, her head tilting to rest just below his shoulder. His hands came up, slowly, to cradle the heavy curve of her stomach from behind.
She closed her eyes. The last of the day’s tension seeped from her muscles. The messages, the calls, the silent, consistent pull that brought him back through the door every single evening—it was the architecture of their life. It was the proof. His loneliness was hers to curate, his time hers to consume. And as his hands spread wide over the swell of their child, as he breathed a soft, tired sigh into her hair, Maki knew with absolute certainty that no izakaya gossip, no coworker’s backslap, no sweet pickle on a store-bought sandwich would ever compete with the quiet violence of coming home to her.
The weight of his hands on her was a grounding force, an anchor in the slow, deep ocean of her own body. She let him hold her like that for a long moment, the only sound their shared breathing and the distant hum of the refrigerator cycling on. Finally, she elbowed him gently in the ribs. “Enough. Your pathetic sentimentality is cloying. Start the rice.”
Dinner was a quiet, meticulous affair. She directed from the kitchen table, criticizing his knife skills and the volume of water he used with the bored acuity of a military strategist. He moved under her command, a familiar dance. Later, as they watched some forgettable television program, her feet found their way into his lap. He rubbed them without being asked, his thumbs working at the swollen arches with a tenderness that made her want to bite him.
“Your hands are cold and ineffective,” she muttered, eyes fixed on the screen. He just nodded, warming them between his own before pressing harder into a stubborn knot.
The night deepened. The digital clock on the cable box glowed 2:17 AM when the pressure became undeniable. It wasn’t a need; it was a physical ultimatum issued by the small, ruthless occupant of her body. A swift, urgent fist against her bladder. Maki surfaced from a vague dream of shifting shapes, her mind cobweb-heavy. The bedroom was pitch, a total blackness that felt solid. Shuichi was a warm line against her back, his arm a dead weight across her hip, his breathing a steady, shallow rhythm in her ear.
She tried to shift. The simple act of rolling onto her side was now a complex logistical operation requiring momentum and planning. His arm pinned her. The pressure increased, sharp and impatient.
Annoyance, hot and immediate, cut through the fog of sleep. She drove her elbow backward, not hard, but with firm intent into the softness of his abdomen.
He made a choked, guttural sound, a half-snort, and his breathing hitched. “Wh–?”
“Move. Your arm is a lead weight, you useless mattress.” Her voice was gravel, sleep-roughened and thick with irritation.
He jerked his arm away as if scalded, the sudden absence of his warmth leaving a chill. “S’wrong?” he slurred, voice fuzzy with sleep. “Baby?”
“The baby is currently using my internal organs as a hydrolic press. I need to get up. Now.” She began the arduous process of sitting up, the massive, ungainly shift of weight making her grunt. The dark room spun slightly.
“Okay, okay, I’m—” He was fumbling, sitting up beside her, the sheets rustling. His hand found her shoulder in the dark, a blindly offered steadiness she would never ask for but instinctively leaned into. “Just… wait.”
“I am not ‘waiting.’ This is time-sensitive, you idiot.” But she paused, hating the dizzy weakness of her body. He scrambled out of bed first, his silhouette a vague darker shape in the absolute black. She heard his bare feet pad across the carpet.
“Light?” he whispered, a considerate fool even now.
“No light. You’ll blind us both. Just… get over here.”
He was beside her again, his hands hovering uncertainly. She grabbed his forearm, her grip vise-tight. “Brace. Don’t you dare let go.”
Using his arm as a fixed rail, she hauled herself upright. Her abdominal muscles, stretched and useless, screamed a feeble protest. The world tilted. She swayed, and his other hand came to her back, steadying. For a moment they stood connected in the dark, her panting breaths the only sound. The pressure inside her intensified, a throbbing reminder.
“Forward march, detective. Don’t trail behind me like a lost ghost.”
They shuffled. It was a pathetic, clumsy procession. Her gait was a wide, waddling stumble, each step an act of will. He walked backward, facing her, both hands now gripping hers, guiding her through the familiar minefield of their bedroom. The faint, grey light from the window barely outlined the dresser, the armchair, the doorway. He navigated by memory, whispering, “Okay, two more steps, there’s the doorframe. Mind the threshold.”
His tenderness was somehow more irritating than his incompetence would have been. “I’m not an invalid, I’m pregnant. There’s a difference. A temporary, grotesque difference.”
“Right. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded intensely focused, as if escorting volatile evidence.
They reached the short hallway. The bathroom tile was icy under her feet. The nocturnal journey always felt absurd, humiliating. A former assassin, reduced to being led by the hand to piss in the middle of the night by the very man she’d once reduced to tears with a well-placed phrase. The irony was not lost on her, and it tasted bitter.
He positioned her in front of the toilet, his hands lingering. “Do you… need—”
“If you ask me if I need help sitting down, I will break your fingers. Get out.”
He retreated instantly, pulling the door nearly closed, leaving it open a symbolic inch. A gesture of privacy that was also one of vigilance. She heard him lean against the wall just outside, waiting. She lowered herself with a sigh that was pure exhaustion, the cool porcelain a relief. In the profound quiet, the mundane sound was strangely loud. Her eyes adjusted to the deeper dark of the windowless room. She could make out the shape of the sink, the shower curtain, the stupid motivational cat poster he’d put up as a joke that she’d never taken down.
Finished, she flushed. The sound was violently loud in the sleeping house. Leveraging herself back up was worse than getting down. She braced her hands on the sink, heaving, her reflection a pale, round-faced moon in the black mirror.
She didn’t call for him. She just stood there, catching her breath, glaring at her own shadowy form. After a count of five, the door eased open. He was there, a silent, waiting shape. Wordlessly, she reached for him. His hands found hers, cold from leaning against the wall.
The return trip was slower. The urgency was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that made her limbs feel like sandbags. She leaned into him more heavily, her head dropping against his chest. He smelled of sleep and clean cotton and him. He bore her weight without a sound, his steps infinitesimally small to match her shuffle.
“I hate this,” she whispered into his t-shirt, the admission dragged from her in a moment of weakened defiance.
“I know,” he murmured, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“It’s humiliating.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re just saying that. You have to.” They reached the bed. He guided her down to sit on the edge, then knelt without hesitation. He took her feet, one at a time, lifting them onto the mattress. The gesture was so subservient, so effortlessly devoted, it stole the rest of her words. He pulled the comforter over her legs, tucking it around her hips with a care she found insultingly gentle.
He slid in beside her, his body already radiating heat. She didn’t have to ask. He turned onto his side, his arm lifted. She rolled toward him, fitting herself back into the space she’d vacated, her back to his chest. His arm settled over her again, his hand spreading possessively over the curve of her stomach. His knees fitted behind hers. He was a parentheses around her and their child.
“You’re a pathetic nursemaid,” she mumbled, her eyes already closing.
“Yeah.”
“And your shoulders are too bony.”
“Sorry.”
“And you breathe too loudly in my ear.”
He adjusted his breathing, making it quieter, slower. She felt him press his lips to the knot of her spine, a kiss so soft it might have been an accident. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with cold. In the absolute dark, with his body a warm fortress around hers, the humiliation faded, burned away by a fiercer, more fundamental truth. This was hers. This service, this patience, this sleep-interrupted devotion. It was a submission she had engineered and now relied upon completely.
She was drifting off when his voice came, a sleep-thickened murmur against her skin. “Mine too.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She simply reached back, found his hand on her belly, and laced her fingers through his, squeezing once, hard. A confirmation. A concession. A promise. The last thing she felt before sleep took her again was the faint, fluttering kick beneath their joined palms, a tiny pulse between them in the dark.