such pretty walls for a daughter who never got to see them.
tags: higuruma x reader, husband!higuruma, f!reader, established relationship, hurt/comfort, based on this ask
it's already been a month but your body still feels foreign after everything—empty, heavy. it just doesn't get any easier when you've spent the last couple before this excited and expecting.
you blink up the ceiling, the mattress pressed on your back doing nothing to comfort you. you've been awake for a few minutes now, startled by the lack of your husband's warmth beside you. he must have gone to his home office to tend to late-night emergencies from the firm.
slowly, you leave bed to get a cup of tea—anything to keep your mind off... everything. as you head to the kitchen, you catch the door to the nursery you two had prepared months prior slightly ajar.
neither of you went inside ever since you lost her. no one could stomach what was inside and what should've been waiting in it.
you walk towards the door to close it, eyes casting down to the floor just to avoid catching a glimpse of what's inside the room when you hear sniffling inside.
your head snaps up, startled. that's when you see hiromi, sitting on the floor of the nursery bathed in the dim moonlight. his head rests against the unfinished crib, his shoulders slouched, his hands around a tiny sock.
something sharp immediately pulses in your chest.
"hiromi," you hoarsely call out.
your husband flinches ever so slightly before he looks over his shoulder. when he glances back at you, you catch a glimpse of how bloodshot his eyes are.
"...sweetheart," he forces out after a moment, voice tight. "sorry. i just... found this sock in my office and thought i'd put it back where it belongs."
the lie is fragile. you both know he didn't come here just to return a sock. your eyes drift around the nursery despite yourself.
the rocking chair by the window.
the stack of parenting books on the dresser.
the unopened box of diapers and formulas one of your relatives had gifted.
the notebook where you and hiromi wrote possible names for your baby girl.
everything remains exactly where you left it a month ago, like time stopped inside this room while the rest of the world cruelly kept moving.
your gaze falls back to your husband. hiromi looks exhausted, like he's been holding his breath for weeks. and maybe he has been.
"you hate lying to me," you whisper.
hiromi lets out a shaky breath that almost sounds like a laugh.
his fingers tighten around the tiny sock.
"i just didn't want you to see me like this."
your eyes sting. "like what, hiromi?" you ask. "like this? she was yours, too—"
"she is mine," hiromi corrects, eyes sullen as he stares at the tiny pink fabric in his hand. "nothing changes that."
you pause, before you nod quietly. "she's ours," you murmur. "you're allowed to grieve."
you step into the nursery fully now. the room feels colder than the rest of the house, and it makes your throat tighten all the more.
he shakes his head weakly.
"i'm supposed to be helping you through this," he whispers. his voice begins to crack apart as he continues, "instead, i can barely walk past this room without feeling like i can't breath."
you kneel in front of him despite your trembling legs. his eyes widen immediately, his free hand shooting out to grab at your arm.
"don't kneel on the floor, your body—"
he falls silent, and that's when it happens. he slumps back on the floor, head against the crib again as he fails stop his tears this time.
"i already built half the crib," he forces out. "practiced putting the car seat on every day. i had a list of schools already."
your own tears start falling as you lean into him, burying your own face on his shoulder.
hiromi continues, "i kept wondering if she'd have your eyes. i heard her heartbeat and thought... thought she'd be safe and we'd wait just a little more to finally see her."
his shoulders shake as sobs rack his body.
"i already loved being her father."
your hand immediately grips at his shirt at that. you shift forward without thinking and wrap your arms around him.
and hiromi, who's always so controlled, completely collapses into you, face now buried on your stomach instead of the wood of the crib as he sobs.
"i'm sorry," he chokes out. "i can't fucking believe i protect people for a living but i couldn't even save neither of you."
you can't help but bristle at that. "stop it, hiromi," you murmur, arms tightening around him. "none of this was your fault. neither was it mine. stop... stop apologizing, please."
you both sit there, mourning in the nursery that should've held a baby. instead, it holds two grieving parents.
morning light begins spilling through the nursery windows. neither of you move when yellow painted the walls—a stark contrast to the blue you two undeniably felt.
his hand rests over yours. your head rests against his shoulder. after staring at the crib for a long while, hiromi quietly asks, "...do you want me to pack everything away?"
you look around the room at that. at the life you imagined. at the daughter you loved love. then you quietly whisper, "...not yet."
a/n: oh my goodness, i'm so sorry it took so long! i wrote this in between studying for exams so it's kinda rushed D: hopefully i still delivered what you expected even if it's just a little bit, op! aaaa haha i gyatta go back to studying now