Chapter 7: Awakening to a Weakling's Worship
The first thing she felt was warmth. Not the dull, even heat of the bedside lamp he always left on for her, but a specific, moving warmth tracing a path down the center of her chest. It took her sleep-thickened mind a moment to place it: lips. Shuichi’s lips. They were pressed against her sternum in a series of soft, closed-mouth kisses that felt less like a request and more like a pilgrimage.
She didn’t open her eyes. She let the sensation map her waking. His breath, slightly uneven, ghosted over her skin. He was propped on one elbow beside her, his other hand resting with infinite care on the slope of her hip. She could smell his sleep, the faint, clean scent of his skin and shampoo, mixed with the lavender from her own pillow. His kisses descended slowly, meticulously, as if he were documenting each inch of her.
He paused when he reached the prominent swell of her stomach. He didn’t kiss it. He turned his head and pressed his entire cheek to the taut curve, his nose nudging the underside of her breast. He held perfectly still for three heartbeats, four. She felt the flutter of movement inside—the baby, responding to the pressure or the warmth or the simple sound of his quiet voice when he finally spoke.
“Good morning, my beautiful assassin,” he whispered, the words muffled by her skin, vibrating through her.
A thrill, sharp and possessive, shot through her drowsiness. Her title. The one the world feared. In his mouth, in their sun-dappled bed, it was a pet name, a secret endearment that carried the weight of everything they were. She kept her eyes closed, her breathing even, playing possum.
His lips moved again, continuing their journey south. He kissed the stretched skin around her navel, then dipped his tongue into the shallow well of it, a slow, wet circle that made her abdomen clench. A low groan vibrated in her throat before she could stop it.
His head lifted slightly. “You’re awake.”
“You’re pathetic,” she muttered, her voice rough with sleep. She finally cracked her eyes open, looking down the length of her body at him. His hair was a magnificent disaster, sticking up in tufts, and his eyes were soft and dark with a focused hunger that still managed to look shy. “Waking me up with your slobbering. Do you have no self-control?”
“Not with you,” he said, utterly earnest. “Never with you.”
He lowered his head again. This time, his destination was clear. His hands, those large, detective’s hands that could be so clumsy with praise and so deft with evidence, slid down her thighs, urging them apart. She let them fall open, a silent, imperious command. He settled between them, his shoulders nudging her knees wider. The morning light through the blinds cut across his back in sharp stripes.
The first touch of his mouth on her was a jolt of pure, bright electricity. He wasn’t polished or sophisticated. He was eager, messy, devoted. His tongue lapped at her with a sort of frantic reverence, his nose pressing into her curls. He explored her like she was a crime scene he needed to understand completely, mapping every fold, every sensitive spot, with a concentration that was almost audible. One of his hands came up to grip her hip, anchoring her as she twitched, the other sliding beneath her to cup the swell of her ass, tilting her up to meet his mouth.
“Shuichi,” she gasped, the name torn from her. Her fingers fisted in his hair, not to guide, but to hold on as the sensation built, a coil tightening low in her belly. Her back arched off the mattress, a silent plea.
He moaned against her, the sound vibrating through her core, and doubled his efforts. His awkwardness fell away, replaced by a single-minded intensity to pull the pleasure from her. It was worship, plain and simple. The kind that left the worshiper on their knees, getting drunk on the altar. When her climax hit, it was swift and devastating, a silent, breathless eruption that seized her muscles and drew a choked cry from her throat. She rode it out, her heels digging into the mattress, her hand in his hair holding him right where she needed him until the last shiver subsided.
He gentled then, placing soft, lingering kisses on her inner thighs as she came down, her body melting into the sweat-damp sheets. He lifted his head, his chin glistening, his lips swollen and dark. He looked wrecked in the best way. He crawled up her body, his weight settling carefully beside her, and kissed her stomach again, nuzzling it.
“I love you,” he mumbled into her skin, the words slurred and thick with her taste.
She hooked a finger under his chin, forcing his face up. She didn’t say it back. She never did, not with words. Instead, she yanked him up and crushed his mouth to hers in a bruising, possessive kiss. She licked into his mouth, tasting the sharp, musky tang of herself on his lips and tongue, claiming the evidence of his devotion. He made a soft, surprised sound and kissed her back, clumsy and fervent, his hand coming up to cradle her jaw.
When she broke the kiss, they were both breathing hard. She shoved at his shoulder. “Now get breakfast, you useless detective. I’m starving. And you reek.”
A wobbly, dazed smile spread across his face. “Yes, ma’am.” He rolled out of bed, gloriously naked and unselfconscious, the morning light etching the lean lines of his body. He padded out of the bedroom, and she heard the faint click of the bathroom light, then the sound of the sink running. He was washing his face, brushing his teeth. Being considerate. The idiot.
She lay there, sprawled in the tangled sheets, one hand on her belly, feeling the after-echoes of pleasure and the busy rolls of the baby within. The sun was warmer now, a solid beam cutting across the floor. She could plot the entire day from this spot. Laundry. A walk, maybe, to the market for the ankimo she’d been craving. The careful sharpening of her kitchen knives, a meditation. Waiting for him to come home.
Shuichi returned, now wearing a pair of loose sweatpants low on his hips. He carried a tray. On it was a bowl of perfectly sliced fruit—pears, apples, persimmon—a small pot of yogurt, a glass of water, and two crackers arranged with almost comic precision. He set it on her lap with the gravity of a sommelier presenting a rare vintage.
“It’s not much,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “The groceries are tomorrow, and I didn’t want to mess up your system, so I just…”
“It’s adequate,” she interrupted, picking up a slice of pear. It was cool and sweet. She ate slowly, watching him dart around the room, gathering his detective’s uniform for the day. He moved with a new kind of quiet energy, a hum in his limbs. She knew that hum. It was the same one she felt. It was the aftermath of belonging to someone so completely it temporarily quieted the static in your brain.
“There’s a briefing at ten,” he said, struggling with his tie in the mirror. “The Kurosawa financial thing. It’s… complicated. Lots of paperwork.”
“Boring,” she stated, licking yogurt off her spoon. “You’ll solve it by lunch and spend the afternoon staring into space thinking about my ass.”
He flushed, his fingers fumbling the knot. “I—that’s not—I have follow-ups.”
“You will,” she said, with absolute certainty.
He finished dressing, a picture of rumpled professionalism. He came back to the bedside, leaned down, and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be home by six. Don’t… overdo it. With the walking.”
“Are you trying to give me orders?” she asked, her voice dangerously calm.
“No! Never. It’s just… a request. From a pathetic husband.” He offered a small, hopeful smile.
She flicked a piece of apple at his chest. It bounced off. “Go. You’re blocking my sun.”
He went. She heard the front door open and close, the definitive lock clicking into place. The apartment settled into its daytime silence, a silence she owned. She finished her breakfast, set the tray aside, and finally got out of bed. Her body felt loose, satisfied. In the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror—hair wild, lips still faintly pink from his, the formidable mound of her pregnancy front and center. She ran a hand over it.
“Just you and me today,” she murmured. Then, to the reflection, she smirked. “He’s so pathetic.”
But the smirk softened as she turned on the shower. The water heated up, steam fogging the glass. She remembered the feel of his cheek pressed against her stomach, the whisper. My beautiful assassin. He wasn’t afraid of what she was. He’d taken the most terrifying part of her and folded it into a love note. It was the greatest disarmament in history.
Later, dressed in soft, stretchy clothes, she stood at the living room window, a sharpened paring knife in her hand, idly testing the edge with her thumb. She watched the street below. Right on schedule, at 8:17, Shuichi emerged from their building’s entrance. He paused on the sidewalk, tilted his face up to the sun for a second, then turned and looked directly up at their window.
He couldn’t possibly see her; the angle and the reflection were wrong. But he looked anyway. He lifted a hand, a tiny, awkward wave aimed at the general shape of their apartment, before shoving it in his pocket, embarrassed, and hurrying down the street toward the station.
Maki’s thumb stilled on the knife blade. A feeling she would never, ever name blossomed behind her ribs, warm and terrifyingly vast. She watched his retreating back until he turned the corner and vanished.
“Hurry home, weakling,” she whispered to the empty street, her voice devoid of all its customary venom. It sounded almost like a prayer.
It sounded almost like a prayer. The day unspooled in the quiet, familiar patterns of sharpened steel and simmering broths, of folding tiny clothes and feeling the baby turn like a planet in its private orbit. When the lock in the front door finally clicked at 5:58, two minutes early, a slice of pure, uncomplicated satisfaction cut through her. Right on time.
He found her in the living room, curled in the corner of the sofa with her phone. He looked rumpled, a file folder tucked under his arm and a faint line of tension between his brows that vanished the moment his eyes found her. “I’m home,” he said, the words soft, a ritual.
“I have eyes,” she replied, not looking up from her screen. She heard the rustle as he dropped his bag, the shuffle as he toed off his shoes. His footsteps approached, and then the cushion dipped heavily beside her. He didn’t speak. He simply sat, his shoulder brushing hers, and let out a long, slow breath that seemed to deflate the entire workday from his lungs. She could smell the outside on him—faint city air, paper, the cheap coffee from the precinct. After a moment of simply existing in her periphery, his hand came up, his fingers gently tracing the line of her socked foot where it was tucked beneath her.
It was an invitation. A question. She unfurled herself with a put-upon sigh, shifting her weight. He understood immediately, opening his arms. She turned and settled into his lap, her back against his chest, her legs draped over the arm of the sofa. The folder he’d been holding tumbled to the floor, forgotten. His arms came around her, one hand splaying wide and warm over her belly, the other curling around her shoulder to hold her phone steady for her. He buried his face in the junction of her neck and shoulder, nuzzling past the curtain of her ponytail.
“Long day?” she asked, her tone implying she couldn’t care less.
“Mmn. Paperwork. You were right. Solved it by lunch.” His words were muffled against her skin. Then his lips began to move, planting soft, absent kisses along her shoulder. They were clumsy, off-target, sometimes landing more on the fabric of her shirt than her skin. His hands began to wander, too, in that uniquely Shuichi way—not groping, but exploring, re-memorizing. One moment his palm was rubbing slow circles over her stomach, the next his fingers were tracing the lines of her collarbone, then sliding down to cradle the weight of her breast through the soft cotton, his touch reverent and slightly unsure, as if he were still surprised he was allowed.
She let him, a low hum of contentment in her throat as she lifted her phone again. The blue light illuminated her face as she thumbed open the social media app, the endless scroll of curated lives. She dipped into a forum for expectant mothers, a place she lurked in solely to harvest recipes and judge life choices. The conversation was a familiar, weary drone. ‘He’s out with the guys from the office again, third time this week.’ ‘Mine promised to help assemble the crib but he’s in the garage “tinkering” with his friend for four hours.’ ‘Does yours actually listen when you talk, or just wait for his turn to speak about his day?’
A cold, sharp needle of something pricked behind her ribs. It wasn’t jealousy. It was a furious, derisive contempt. The thought of Shuichi, her Shuichi, choosing to be anywhere but here after work was so ludicrous it felt like a personal insult. The image of him laughing in some smoky bar, clapping a coworker on the back, wasting his attention and his time on anyone but her, sparked a hot, black fury in her gut. Her fingers tightened on the phone. He must have felt the tension seep into her muscles, because his wandering hands stilled, and he pressed a more deliberate kiss to her neck.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
“Nothing.” The word was sharp. She took a breath, forcing her grip to loosen. She kept scrolling, each complaint a tiny spark against dry tinder. ‘He says he needs “male bonding time.” As if we don’t need bonding time!’ A silent snarl curled in her mind. Male bonding. What a feeble concept. What a weak excuse from weak men for weak priorities. Her husband’s idea of bonding was tracing the stretch marks on her hips with a look of awe, or whispering his worst fears about fatherhood into her hair in the dark. His hands, now gently kneading the sore small of her back, were never busy with beers or tools. They were always, always busy with her.
She tilted her head back, resting it more fully against his shoulder, and felt him adjust his chin to accommodate her. He resumed his slow, meandering kisses, now along the line of her jaw. His left hand slipped under the hem of her shirt, his broad palm finding the bare skin of her belly, warm and slightly rough. He held her, and the baby, as if we were a single, precious entity he’d been tasked with safeguarding. The low-grade fury began to ebb, replaced by a smug, deep-seated certainty. These women with their complaining, they simply didn’t have what she had. They hadn’t chosen right. They hadn’t broken a man correctly and rebuilt him entirely for themselves.
Shuichi would no sooner go out for after-work drinks than he would voluntarily walk into traffic. He’d stammer an apology, his face flushing with genuine anxiety at the mere suggestion of plans that didn’t culminate in walking through their front door. His coworkers probably thought he was pitiful, or henpecked. Let them. He was hers, programmed to seek only her orbit. The moment the clock released him, his trajectory was a straight, unerring line back to this apartment, back to this sofa, back to the weight of her in his lap. His world had narrowed, willingly, joyfully, to the space contained within her reach.
She breathed in, exhaling the last of the corrosive thoughts. His scent, closer now, filled her lungs—detergent, his skin, a hint of the mint from the gum he chewed on the train home. His right hand drifted up from her shoulder to her hair, carefully working loose the elastic holding her ponytail. He did it slowly, gently, trying not to tug. When her hair cascaded down, he combed his fingers through it, his touch clumsy and tender. “Your hair is so soft,” he mumbled, as if it were a secret discovery.
“It’s just hair, you weirdo,” she said, but she tilted her head to give him better access. On her screen, another post loaded. ‘I just miss him, you know? Even when he’s here, he’s not really here.’
A wave of condescending pity washed over her. How tragic. How small. Her husband was so profoundly here it was almost suffocating. His entire being was focused on the sensory reality of her—the texture of her hair, the curve of her belly under his hand, the sound of her breathing. He wasn’t missing a thing. He was cataloguing it all, storing it away in that detective’s mind of his: the exact pressure she liked on her lower back, the way she sighed when he hit the right spot, the scent of her shampoo today versus yesterday. He was, in his awkward, pathetic, lovely way, giving her every single ounce of his attention. It was his default setting. It was his only setting.
The last flicker of unease guttered out. Her heart, which had been a clenched fist around those foreign, angry thoughts, relaxed into a steady, powerful beat. This was peace. This was victory. This was a man who had calibrated his entire existence to the frequency of her presence. She dropped her phone onto her chest, the screen darkening. She let her hand fall over his, the one splayed on her stomach, lacing their fingers together. She felt the baby give a strong, sudden kick directly into their joined palms.
He gasped, his breath warm against her ear. “Wow.”
“She’s agreeing with me,” Maki said, her voice low and smug.
“About what?”
“About everything.” She closed her eyes, surrendering fully to the sensation of being enveloped. His kisses had slowed to a lazy, warm punctuation against her temple. His hands were still, just holding. The evening light faded from orange to deep blue beyond the window. The only sounds were their breathing and the distant hum of the city, a world away. He was hers. Utterly, completely, and without the barest hint of desire to be anywhere else. The women on her phone could keep their lonely vigils and their pleading texts. She had everything she needed right here, in this warm, clumsy, perfect lap.