Ephemeral♪

On the evening of what should have been his eighth wedding anniversary, there is a gentle knock on Sanemi Shinazugawa’s front door.

It’s late. The tiny digital timer on the over blinks 11:30, and the house is quiet. Dark. Nothing like it was at a quarter ‘til eight, when bath time had been in full swing and his youngest had gone tearing down the upstairs hallway, whooping and hollering, naked as the day he’d been born, while his older sister shrieked with laughter from the bathtub. Sanemi had run himself ragged charging his son down to make the boy dry off before he could try and take a flying leap into his father’s bed. Last time that happened, his son landed squarely in the middle of his father’s great king bed, leaving a nice, fat wet spot Sanemi hadn’t been able to avoid an hour later when he’d finally dragged himself to bed.

Tonight, however, his sheets are dry and his children are fast asleep, tucked away in their respective rooms, happy. Really, it’s all he can ask for.

But him? Well, he’s miserable.

A bottle of wine sits uncorked on the counter, waiting. Sure, he’s throwing a pity party for one, but Sanemi deserves to wallow a bit. He’s not sure which is more pathetic: this lonely observance of an anniversary that is no more, or the fact he immediately sets down the wine bottle in favor of answering the door for the one he should’ve been celebrating with, had he not let it all fall to pieces.

“I’m late, I know.” You greet him the second he opens the door. You twist your hands nervously together and hide them behind your back when you realize he’s watching. “I’m sorry, I got caught up at the firm again – I swear, Mr. Kibutsuji does it on purpose – oh, are they asleep already?”

“Yeah.” And Sanemi sounds sorry because he is. He takes no joy in the way your shoulders slump forward or how your head hangs with disappointment and guilt.

One week on, one week off. That was the informal arrangement the two of you agreed to a year earlier, raw and bruised and newly separated. Neither of you had the stomach to litigate custody in court, just as neither of you wanted to make your children pawns in the game neither of you really wanted to play. The divorce itself hurt enough; both of you silently agreed to keep the damage strictly to yourselves, for the sake of keeping your kids whole.

“Dammit.” You sag against his doorway in defeat. “I’m ruining your Friday night. I’m sorry. I can get them first thing in the morning. I’ll even keep them an extra day next weekend, and I’ll cover drop off, I swear –”

Sanemi holds his hand up, shaking his head. “Stop. We agreed. Teamwork no matter what. You’re not punishing yourself for bein’ a little late. Shit happens.” Lord, didn’t he know it. “And I ain’t gonna throw a fit over having extra time with them. I wasn’t doing anything tonight, anyway.”

Nothing save for toasting his first anniversary without you, like the pathetic asshole he is. But you don’t need to know that, just like he doesn’t need to remind you what tonight should have been.

The relief that floods your eyes – or maybe it’s gratitude – makes his chest tighten. Not with hatred or anger, but something far more sinister.

Longing. Love. Everything a divorced man shouldn’t feel toward his ex-wife, yet somehow all he knows how to feel. Then again, falling out of love isn’t always the catalyst for a divorce. Sanemi knows that. And it isn’t always because one person becomes unrecognizable to the other. You’re still plenty familiar to him.

Sometimes, divorce happens because what one person needs isn’t what the other knows how to give. Sometimes, a person just isn’t enough.

Like him.

It was quick; uncontested, at least on paper. Sanemi had fought it – hotly, passionately behind the walls of the bedroom at the house that was no more. He’d hurled a thousand alternatives your way: counseling, even moving to a new place and getting a fresh start. He’d offered them to you on his knees, but you wouldn’t hear any of them.

Sanemi, I’m drowning. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t breathe. Please.

That’s all it took to make him fold. You, crumpled on your bedroom floor, staring up at him with swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks, pain etched into every line on your face. Broken and exhausted and resigned. Your pain had always been his limit. Knowing he was the cause of it was all it took to make him crumble with you.

It seems nothing has changed all that much. His intolerance to your pain still has him in its grip the longer he looks at you, really looks at you, half-curled in on yourself on his front stoop.

It’s not that you look bad. Your clothes are fine; expensive, he can tell by the stitching on your blouse, and no doubt new. Your hair is tidy and your makeup, neat, like always. Your heels are appropriate for an office even if he thinks they’re inappropriate for your abilities, having spent years watching you teeter and stumble around on shorter heels far too many times before.

On the surface, you’ve fashioned yourself into the perfect picture of corporate propriety. Success.

Sanemi knows better.

You look exhausted.

Mommy’s been crying, your daughter had said at dinner earlier that evening, pushing her rice around with her spoon.

Sanemi had kept his face neutral and his tone light. Why’s she been crying, sweetheart?

She’d paused, frowning at her plate. I don’t think her boss is very nice.

No, Muzan Kibutsuji is a world class asshole and bully. The very antithesis of nice. While Sanemi might not have been able to stop your marriage from fracturing, it’d been Kibutsuji and that damn job of yours that cracked its foundation in the first place. It wore you down until there was nothing left but a fragile shell, one that shattered too often, and Sanemi hadn’t been able to build you back up.

Doesn’t look like things have changed all that much.

Mommy’ll be okay, he’d promised your daughter, so sweet, so concerned for others and so very like you. She’s tough.

Looking at you now, though, slumped against his doorway with circles bruised under your eyes, Sanemi isn’t so sure.

Against his better judgment, Sanemi stands aside, opening the door wider. “Come on. You look like you need a drink.” Or ten.

Only half a moment’s hesitation passes before you’re striding past him and into the house. You navigate the open concept floor with ease, heading right for the kitchen with the same confidence of someone who’s visited him a hundred times, despite the fact you’ve never set foot in this place.

Sighing, Sanemi shuts the door and follows behind the trail of your perfume – light, airy and sweet in a way that makes his stomach hurt. Indulging too many memories at once upsets his digestion, and your scent unlocks a plate’s worth of them. Ones of you leaning your head on his shoulder; of him burying his nose into the side of your neck, sweaty and panting and sated, the feel of your skin the only grounding thing in the world.

Your voice cuts through his reminiscence. “It looks great in here. Spacious.” You run your hand over the edge of the kitchen counter, taking in the smooth marble and neat, black fixtures. Everything in his kitchen is painted in hues of black and white: the refrigerator, the cabinets, even the lights switched off overhead. The only color in the room comes from the warm, orange stove light that bathes the darkened first floor in its watery glow, softening the hard edges of his house. Classy. Neat. Modern.

And bare. So very bare. You’d always been better at decorating; at making a house a home.

Sanemi waves off the compliment. “It does what it needs to do. The brats’ rooms are the most important.”

You lean against the counter and Sanemi almost suggests you kick your heels off. They’re far too high for your comfort, and he’d bet his bank account that your feet are screaming. But that sort of suggestion is too comfortable for an ex-husband to make, so he says nothing.

“I know. Shizu tells everyone who’ll listen that her daddy painted her room pink, all by himself.”

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t really fight her once she discovered there was such a thing as Princess Pink. I thought things were gonna come to blows when the renovator asked to hold onto the paint swatch.”

Your laugh is a soft, delicate thing, a quiet puff of air out your nose. Polite, but guarded. Sanemi watches as you eye the opened bottle of wine with mild interest. No doubt trying to figure out whether his earlier assurance that he had no Friday night plans was true, given the slight tilt of your brow as you note the single glass sitting out on the counter, empty and waiting.

You should try doing something for yourself tonight. Dr. Himejima had told him earlier in the day. The first milestones after a death are always the hardest – especially those you associate with the person lost.

She’s my ex-wife, not dead. He’d responded miserably, picking at a loose thread on the arm of his therapist’s pink, floral-patterned couch. An interesting choice, given how the rest of his office had been decorated in earth tones, save the handful of odd, cat-shaped tchotkes sporadically placed on shelves and atop the doctor’s large, oak desk. Then again, Himejima was blind, so Sanemi supposed interior decorating wasn’t really within his skill set.

A divorce is the death of a marriage, Sanemi. You grieve it the same way you’d grieve the death of a loved one.

There hadn’t been much he could say to counter that, and so, grumbling, Sanemi asked for suggestions. It wasn’t like there was a grave he could visit, no headstone reading Here Lies Sanemi Shinazugawa’s Marriage, that he could lay flowers before and commemorate the loss of the only thing that had ever given him meaning, apart from fatherhood.

The good ol’ doc’s suggestion, however, was far from ideal.

Sanemi liked Himejima just fine; respected him, even. But that amiability didn’t keep him from telling his therapist to fuck right off when he suggested Sanemi try going on a date.

He didn’t get it. Sanemi made a vow.

“It’s all I’ve got,” Sanemi offers by way of explanation, nodding at the bottle. “Not a big drinker these days.”

The wine had been his compromise to appease Himejima. But pitiful celebrations aside, Sanemi won’t let himself lean on any vices to avoid thinking about his fuck ups. His own old man had done that and look how the sorry bastard ended up: alone and miserable, nursing his cirrhosis until he croaked, not a single one of his children willing to stand by his casket and mourn him. The scars on Kyogo’s liver may have been deep, but not as deep as the ones the Shinazugawa kids had born. Sanemi won’t inflict the same damage upon his own children.

You know him too well to offer any platitudes. “Got an extra glass?”

 “Cabinet.”

“Up here?” You’re already reaching for the cabinet to the right of his refrigerator. Though your back is to him, Sanemi can hear your smile when you spy the row of wine glasses on the third shelf. “Color me surprised.”

Sanemi shrugs. “You know how it is. Math is blue, Thursdays and November are the same, and wine glasses go at the top.”

He watches with quiet amusement as you stretch as tall as you can, hand reaching, reaching for one of the pristine stemmed glasses arranged in a neat row at the top of the cabinet, but your fingers just barely graze the base of the nearest one.

A curse slips free before you mutter, “Only the height-blessed puts breakable things so damn high out of reach.”

Sanemi thinks to let you struggle for a moment longer, but then he sees you wobble – those damn heels of yours – and he opts to intervene sooner rather than later. He tells himself he’d prefer it if you didn’t break his glasses; if you didn’t wake the kids up. Repeats it over and over in his head until he almost believes it while he eases up behind you, letting his hand graze your lower back so you know he’s there.

“Here,” he pulls the glass easily from its spot, his fingers just grazing yours. Your spine tenses, and slowly, you turn against the counter to face him, careful not to let your body accidentally brush up against his.

A wise move on your part. It’s never taken much to get him going, and you know that. You’re at least trying to mind the boundaries he’s ignoring.

Smugness blooms in his chest at the sight of the flush creeping up your neck and settling in your cheeks as you lower yourself back to normal height. The shadowy ambience of the kitchen can’t hide the way that flush deepens the longer he holds your gaze, and Sanemi is all too aware he’s treading dangerous waters.

Maybe that’s why he can’t help wading into them a bit further. This line between you has stretched dangerously thin, and Sanemi has always been a bit reckless. And maybe, he just can’t resist wanting to make that heat spread, and that’s why he lingers, reaching to your left to grab the uncorked bottle of wine. His hand doesn’t brush by your waist, but it could, and that’s enough to make your fingers tighten almost imperceptibly over the counter’s edge.

Good thing he notices your bare left hand. Otherwise, he might have done something stupid, like smirk, or flirt. But the sight of your left ring finger bereft of the diamond he hadn’t been able to afford when he purchased it, or the delicate wedding band he had, chafes at him.

Even a year later, he’s still not used to it. This.

Sometimes, he wishes it’d gone down in a blaze of glory. One truly marvelous knock-out of a fight, with yelling and screaming and resentment. Words sent flying that couldn’t be taken back, no matter how many apologies were exchanged. If he’d just had a good reason, one moment upon which he could definitively hang the hat of his marriage, then maybe Sanemi wouldn’t feel so hollow a year later.

Instead, it started with distance. Not the kind that was immediately noticeable, at least, not at first. Shrugs of shoulders whenever he asked how your day was, bypassing details that mattered with the excuse of not wanting to rehash the stress. You were working later and later, too, coming home each night more exhausted than the last. He’d noticed and tried to talk to you about it, of course, but you brushed it off as the result of busy season. But then the busy season became a busy year, and the next one more so, and you’d only grown more brittle by the week.

And you were anxious. So anxious, so withdrawn, so jumpy, even with him. He’d never so much as raised his voice at you, yet every comment was taken as a criticism, every compliment, backhanded. You questioned his affections and shied away from his touch, curling in and in on yourself until there was nothing for him to reach.

Sanemi has long suspected Kibutsuji’s reputation as a ruthless, callous businessman had made him a cruel executive to his subordinates. He’d never been able to get you to share the things that had been said, the insults and degradation you’d endured for the sake of your family and the sizeable paycheck your humiliation apparently had been worth. Oh, he tried. Argued with you about the walls you’d thrown up, even threatened to march down to that shining, corporate hi-rise and confront Kibutsuji himself, demand to know why his wife returned home to him with hollowed cheeks and deadened eyes. Why she cried herself to sleep that never seemed last more than a couple of hours at a time, and picked herself apart over ever minor mistake.

Your begging and sobbing had been the only roadblock to his impulsivity, and he reneged. Only, he never figured out an alternative to getting you to open up and that only exacerbated your loneliness. He couldn’t be the partner you needed, and he didn’t know how.

Now, Sanemi regrets tempering his anger. And he hates Muzan Kibutsuji almost as much as he hates himself. But Kibutsuji hadn’t been married to you, so he forces himself to swallow those bygones, washing them down with discount pinot noir.

“Not bad,” you hum, swirling the burgundy wine he’d poured for you in your glass. You take a sip and then another, swallowing nearly half its contents in one go. “Good, actually.”

Sanemi snorts, taking a place beside you. He figures this is safe – you’re facing the counter while he leans back against it. “Wine usually is, when it’s not out of a box.”

“Hey!” You laugh and it’s a damn pretty sound. “My tastes have matured over the years. Somewhat.”

“Clearly.” Sanemi smirks over the rim of his own glass and takes a drink, studying you out the corner of his eye.

Your earlier flush still lingers, and you push your sleeves up before leaning into your arms atop the counter. Your smile comes easier now, loosened up by the wine staining your lips a pretty maroon.

He can’t remember the last time you smiled at him. Not one of those brittle, polite, fake it for the kids smiles, but a real one. Genuine.

“So, what have you been up to, lately?” You drum your fingers on his countertop. There’s a too-casual lilt in your tone that makes Sanemi perk up. “Are you…have you been seeing anyone?”

Talking to you has always been easy – after all, before he’d hotly confessed his feelings in the quiet corner of the library at the university you both attended, you’d been friends. Best friends, really. But this small talk feels unnatural. Wrong, the same way putting his right shoe on his left foot felt wrong. Backwards.

Superficial conversation isn’t you and it sure as shit isn’t him. So, Sanemi opts to tease you a little, because that feels familiar and he’s desperate for a bit of normalcy. “My therapist. Every other week, at nine.” At your wide eyes, he adds, “He’s a cool guy. But no. I’m not dating anyone.”

“Oh,” you reach for the wine bottle and avoid his knowing gaze by pretending to inspect the label. “Well, you keep busy, I know. You’ve never been good at doing nothing for too long.”

You set the bottle back down, letting it demarcate the invisible line between you.

Sanemi indulges himself with another drink, but he rolls his head toward you, his gaze seared into your profile, unapologetic thanks to the warm buzz of the wine in his veins.

Fuck, you’re beautiful.

Shyly, you glance his way, lashes fluttering under the intensity of his stare. Your eyes drop away from his in favor of dragging down the length of his body, pausing somewhere around his chest and lingering again when you get to his lower abdomen. You look away before you dare to venture any lower, and Sanemi shifts against the counter, folding his arms across the breadth of his chest.

And sure. Maybe he flexes his biceps a little. Maybe you notice, and maybe that’s why you take another hurried sip of your wine.

It’s no surprise you’ve asked him about his free time. Drop-offs are cordial but quick affairs. Usually, he’s so busy helping the kids get out of one car and into another that there isn’t a lot of time left for more than an exchange of pleasantries with you. Superficial and friendly, of course, but terse. Not a lot of opportunity to discuss how the two of you have coped with the other’s absence.

You’ve been dating, or so he’s heard. Nothing significant, though, and no one consistent either. It’s a recent thing, too, something that’s only come up whenever he’s gone out to dinner or for drinks with mutual friends in the last two months or so. While he doesn’t have the right to care, he still does, and the thought of you eating dinner, laughing with some faceless man sours his already bitter mood. Jealousy grumbles to life in his chest, a monster clawing at his sternum that Sanemi has to shut up with another gulp of wine.

And him? He hasn’t gone on a date since before the divorce. Hasn’t slept with anyone, either. The only thing that gets any action in this house is his fist, and that’s become more of a chore these last few months. Something to do because his body demands it, even if his mind – or heart – can’t really give a fuck one way or the other.

There’d be nothing wrong with it, he supposes – dating. You’re doing it, after all, so there’s no reason to abstain. Hell, he’d probably feel less lonely, less hollow if he did, even if only for a little while.

Except, Sanemi made a vow. Eight years ago, Sanemi promised to be yours for the rest of his life, to honor and cherish you above all others. Maybe he’d fucked up on the last part, but the first half of his oath still holds.

Sanemi Shinazugawa won’t break that promise.

“You look good,” you admit after a moment, setting your glass on the counter. “You always do.” Even in the muted kitchen light, he can see your cheeks flush as you hurry to explain. “I mean – you’ve always taken care of yourself, you know? It’s good for you, keeping up with the kids can be a real chore –”

Sanemi lets you babble your way out of embarrassment as his nearly non-existent ego raises its head, swelling just enough to give him a taste of hope, but it deflates too quickly for him to let it mean anything.

This is for the best, you’d repeated again and again the morning he moved out of your old home. The sky had been dark and gray when you’d arrived to help him load the last of his boxes into his car. The kids had been sleeping at your mom’s house, unaware of the final nail being hammered into the coffin. It’s for the best.

You’d looked to him, eyes red and puffy but cried dry, as though waiting for him to confirm it wasn’t all some colossal mistake. Had Sanemi held any resentment about it, he might have shot back that it was too late to correct course now; the papers were signed and the realty sign in the front yard had SOLD stamped across it in thick, red letters.

But he didn’t, so instead, he only forced his lips into a small, half-smile that made the muscles in his cheeks twitch. We’re still friends, y’know. Always will be, especially for them. It’s the only way this’ll work.

The sound of his trunk lid slamming shut muffled your choked sob. Friends. Of course. You returned his smile-grimace with a bland one of your own. It’s for the best.

Thinking back, Sanemi can’t quite figure out whether you’d said it to convince him or yourself. That confusion only deepens the dent in his brow now because you’re looking at him the way you used to – eyes shining, lashes fluttering. And though you keep the topic of conversation light, you’re leaning close to him. Very close. Either one of you could easily close the space between your bodies.

Hope is a dangerous fucking thing. Sanemi makes a mental note to talk to Himejima at his next session about ways to keep it from running wild. Because he knows, when you leave tonight, you’ll be taking that flutter of hope right out the door with you, and it’s going to hurt like a bitch.

For now, he drowns it with another swig of wine. First glass, empty. He reaches for the half-full bottle near your hand to refill his glass at the same time you do, and his fingers accidentally brush yours.

Both of you jolt.

“Sorry,” he flexes his other hand to ward off the electricity that zips up his arm and shocks his heart. “Want a refill?”

“Sure,” you push your glass toward him. As you wait, he spies your thumb rubbing over the knuckles of your index and middle fingers – the same ones he’d touched.

His own hand burns.

The two of you wade through different topics of conversation, part catch-up, part stalling. He tells you about the trip his coworkers are forcing him to go on at the end of the year while you detail the new hobby you’ve been eyeing. Some of the heat in his blood is replaced by a fondness at that, Sanemi recalling the crafts closet you used to keep, stuffed full of half-finished projects you kept swearing you’d return to, once work got a bit easier. It never did, and the closet was packed up a long time ago, but Sanemi managed to swipe an embroidery set you’d started before the moving boxes were sealed up. He’s got it in his dresser, two-and-a-half flowers messily stitched across white fabric. A pillowcase, he thinks you claimed once. He takes it out when he wants to smile.

A quick glance at the clock on his stove reveals it’s nearly midnight, but Sanemi is still wide awake. Apparently, you are too, even halfway through your second glass of wine. At least, you’re awake enough to finally chance bringing it up.

“I know what today is. Strange, isn’t it? How much things change?”

He swirls the liquid in his glass, but he does not take a drink. “Have they? I mean, here we are. Just like last year. And the years before that.” He meets your faint surprise with a small smirk. “Maybe things don’t change all that much.”

For a moment there is nothing but silence and Sanemi curses himself for putting stock into tonight’s turn of events. This is not the night to challenge you, to dig up old bones you’d begged him to bury. This friendship between you is tenuous at best, and here he is, crossing boundaries left and right because he can’t stop picking at the scab over your relationship.

“Huh. You’re right.” And you’re smiling at him. “I guess it’s more ironic, than anything. Kinda funny, isn’t it?”

Not the word he’d use, but Sanemi chuckles anyway. It is ironic, and if he doesn’t laugh about it now, he’ll only sulk about it later.

Besides, he’s getting his wish, right? He’s spending his anniversary with you, drinking wine and reminiscing. It’s better than nothing.

He lifts his glass to you. “To change, I guess. And to things staying the same. Sorta.”

“To irony.” You toast him back.

The two of you drink quickly from your glasses, each avoiding the other’s gaze. But the pull between you is too electric, too strong, and Sanemi only notices he’s edged closer to you along the counter when his elbow bumps against yours.

He needs to stop drinking the wine. Not that he’s drunk by any means; hell, he’s not even tipsy. Just…loose. The lid he keeps secured over his emotions is unscrewed, and he can’t quite bring himself to tighten it.

You fill the silence with chatter. Mostly about the kids: little league practices and teacher conferences. All things he already has on his calendar in color-coordinated print, yet all the things he lets you instruct him on anyway because fuck, he’s missed hearing you talk. Missed the normalcy of being two parents instead of one half of a broken whole.

And as you talk, Sanemi lets himself look.

Damn, if you aren’t still a sight for his sore eyes. Wrapped in a sleek, knee-length skirt that hugs the curves of your hips just right and a silk button-down that makes his hands twitch with the urge to reach out and feel it for himself. To see whether it’s as soft as what he used to know so well. What the broken pieces of his heart still yearn for.

You reach for your wine glass and a small gap opens in your blouse. There, right where the third button begins, Sanemi catches a glimpse of lace. Dark green, he thinks, though in the dimness of the kitchen, he can’t be sure.

You’d bought green lace lingerie for him, once. Wore it on his birthday, made him lay out on the bed while you climbed atop him and tied his wrists to the bed frame. The lace had scratched against the skin of his stomach and his groin as you’d slowly dragged down his body, grinding your hips over his aching cock only for you to twist out of the way each time he’d tried to buck his hips.

You’d kept the lingerie set on as you rode him through his first high of the night. Even after you’d released him from his binds, Sanemi hadn’t dared to rip the sinful lace from your body. Not when the panties included a hidden opening in the back, one that allowed him to part the emerald garment right around your perfect ass and take you from behind.

Sanemi has always been fairly certain that’d been the night your son was conceived, given his bouncing arrival the following September. He wonders if you remember it, too.

You straighten and the glimpse of your bra disappears under the fold of your blouse. Sanemi hides his warming cheeks by snatching up his wine glass and taking a deep drink, swallowing his earlier reservations. It’s wishful thinking and nothing more. He’s lonely and pathetically in love with you, and that’s making him see things – colors – he knows better than to hope are there. You’d probably thrown out most of your old wardrobe once you moved. New beginnings and all that. The things normal people do when they get divorced.

Sanemi rolls his shoulders and tries not to think of the chain hidden beneath the collar of his shirt.

“I applied to a different firm.” The confession slips out of you without preamble and stuns him stupid. “I accepted an interview at the end of the month. I don’t want to work for him anymore. I can’t. It’s destroying me.”

Destroyed a lot more than that, but Sanemi doesn’t voice it. There’s a shine in your eyes that looks a whole lot like regret, and he thinks you know it just as well as he does.

“I’m happy for you,” he says instead, because he is. Really. “You always deserved better than the shit he put you through.”

That’s what this whole last year has been about, right? You getting the better you deserved. A better job. A better home. A better man. He can’t fault you for that.

You drain the rest of your glass. A dent appears in your brow and you frown at the burgundy dregs left behind. “Thank you for not hating me.”

Sanemi’s own glass pauses before it can meet his lips, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

You shake your head, your faint chuckle as dry as the wine you share. “That’s horrible of me to say, isn’t it? So selfish. I’m the one who caused this –” you gesture limply between you. “Yet, I still couldn’t bear it if you did.”

If you’re waiting for him to assure you he doesn’t resent what’s happened to your marriage, then you’re left hanging. Sanemi is still stuck on the fact you think he could hate you.

Him, hate you?

It’s absurd. Ridiculous. Borderline offensive, yet Sanemi knows that’d been the expectation. He fell in love with you when he was twenty and dumb and didn’t have a fuck to spare toward his future. You’d given him a reason to start trying; to start living. As though that wasn’t enough, you’d given up your body to give him two of the most precious gifts a man could ever receive. Even if his purpose as a husband has ended, Sanemi is still a father because of you.

His feelings for you will never change.

“Never.” He clears his throat to hide the way his voice cracks. “Like I said, right? Shit happens.”

To his bewilderment, you’re shaking your head like he’s given the wrong answer. “You’re too good to me, and I don’t deserve a bit of it. I show up late on our ex-anniversary –” Sanemi winces. “And you’re still nice enough to invite me in and talk and I’m horrible. And late – how could I have been late?”

Sanemi straightens. His wine glass is pushed aside, every nerve in his body now on alert and attuned to you. Buzzing.

This is not good. You’re no longer looking at him, your eyes instead fixed on some point near the microwave, but there’s distance, too. Like you’re not really seeing the quiet gleam of his kitchen appliances, new and barely used. Wide eyed and slightly manic, Sanemi watches as you slip further away from him and into an anxiety he learned to dread a year ago. He opens his mouth to interject, to assure you again that life happens, and he isn’t mad, but a weak little sound stutters out of your chest.

Fuck.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” You start, wineglass rattling as you set it back on the counter. “I don’t know how I got to be so broken and pathetic. Who puts up with that shit for as long as I have? I’ve been a doormat. What sort of person does that make me? What sort of mother? What sort of wife?”

“Y/N –”

It’s too late; your eyes are already bright with tears, your breath shaky and uneven. “And I know, I know, Sanemi that you’ve blamed yourself for the last year, but it’s me. I’m the awful one. I crumbled and you were trying and I wasn’t, and I broke it.”

You wipe furiously at your eyes and Sanemi thinks a part of him might die.

“Don’t cry,” he croaks, reaching for you before he can think the better of it. It’s reflexive, just as much so as the way baby slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. But you’re broken and exhausted and it’s tearing him up inside. Maybe he couldn’t fix it before, but he’s desperate to try, now.

Sanemi has always hated his hands. They’re massive and ugly, his fingers thick with calluses and nicked with a thousand scars. But he hates them a little less right now because your face fits perfectly between them, like it always has.

His thumb wipes away the few tears that escape down your cheeks while he croons soft assurances and soothing whispers. Your fingers wrap around his wrists, anchoring his hold in place while your cheek presses lightly into his palm.

For a while, the two of you stand like that, close enough that your breaths mingle, warming the space between you. When the last tear is brushed aside, Sanemi pulls his hands away and you let him, but he hesitates, his hand lingering close – so damn close – to your face.

You linger too, and he supposes it would be easy to chalk your hesitance up to the effects of the wine. But Sanemi has seen you drink far more, and while there may be shadows under your eyes, you’re watching him steadily enough. You’re not swaying; you’re pressing closer, pushing against his body’s pull. Orbiting him, like he’s always orbited you.

There’s nothing pure about his motives. He’s not trying to help you wipe away tears that aren’t really his to worry about. When he reaches for you again, it’s pure indulgence; the desire to pretend, for just a moment, that he’s allowed to be this close.

Your eyes flutter at the gentle caress of his knuckle against your cheek, your eyelids lowering so that your gaze becomes something sultry, something needy. Wanting.

“Sanemi.”

How it happens, he’s not quite sure. One moment, he’s brushing his knuckle over your cheek and the next, the two of you are falling into each other, lips moving with uninterrupted fervor. Like nothing has changed; like you haven’t just spent the last year pretending to be strangers connected only by your shared children.

It doesn’t take long for the kiss to tread beyond the bounds of quiet need and into the more dangerous waters of desperation. Possession. It’s hot and heavy; greedy nips at each other’s lips, demanding the other open up, and as usual, Sanemi is the first one to crack. It never took much to wind him up, and his year of celibacy means that it takes even less, now. So, with a moan, he parts his lips and lets you in, lets you take whatever you want from him because god dammit, he loves you. Always has, always will, not matter how much it hurts you both.

It didn’t always hurt. Actually, it used to feel like this all the time – butterflies flitting in his stomach, heat licking up his veins as he got drunk on you and your love.

It used to feel like home.

Part of him thinks it still does, as he yanks you closer by your hips, hands dropping to cup your ass. You’ll always be home to him. You taste like it too, an intoxicating blend of rich, bodied pinot noir and a hint of the cinnamon gum you always chew flooding his tongue as he hungrily explores your mouth. It’s a taste he hopes will linger on his lips in the days to come, long after whatever this is between you has returned to its strange normal.

For now, Sanemi gets lost in you and you, in him.

Pawing at each other, though, only satisfies so much. A deeper need charges you, as electric as the hum in his veins as you tug the collar of his shirt, signaling you need more of what only he can give.

The two of you are a whirlwind tearing through his kitchen, the living room. You lose your heels somewhere between the coffee table and the adjacent half-wall that separates his bedroom from the rest of the main floor. The loss in height doesn’t interrupt the urgency of your kiss; it only makes you lean into him harder, your fingers tangled in his hair.

A minute and a desperate moan from you later and Sanemi has you bumping up against the doorway to his room, his hands running up and down the sensuous curves of your hips. You break the kiss long enough to whisper his name and the next thing he knows, he’s hauling you up and kicking the bedroom door shut behind him.

The dresser shudders when he hoists you atop it, a bottle of cologne rattling in the small tray where he keeps his keys and wallet. You tear away from him with a gasp, but don’t dare to push him away. The loss of your lips is temporary and Sanemi gets his fill of you elsewhere, his mouth hot against your neck, sucking and biting and breathing, breathing you in. Every part of him buzzes for you. His cock is already stretched painfully against the seat of his pants, desperate for the relief of your body. He needs to be closer and yet, he cannot rush this. Not when it’s been so long.

Not when you might leave him the moment it’s over.

Groaning, Sanemi’s hands push your skirt further up your thighs, fingers greedy as they map your skin. You pull and tug at his hair, haul him closer, closer than he’s been to you in a year. Your lips find his and you slip your tongue back into his mouth with a moan that makes his knees quake.

Make no mistake: he might have you on the dresser, but he’s putty in your expert hands. Malleable and yielding to your every touch, every squeeze. You work him with proficiency, the kind that only develops after years of centering your entire world around one person. It’s how you know that scraping your teeth along the spot below his ear makes him arch into you, throat bared so you can take more. How raking your nails over his pectorals and down his abdomen will make him snare his fingers in your hair and yank you back in for another bruising kiss.

“Sanemi,” you murmur, and he nearly whimpers. “Sanemi, please –”

He pulls back long enough to survey you perched on the dresser’s edge, skirt rucked up your hips, blouse gaping from opened buttons he can’t remember having undone. Your hair is a mess, and your lips are swollen from his kiss, but your eyes are bright; shining with the same desire that makes his cock throb behind his zipper.

Never have you looked more fucking beautiful.

His eyes fall to your heaving chest. Whatever control he tried to maintain over his breathing falters as he beholds lace.

Green lace.

The exact same shade of green as that birthday set you’d worn for him, once upon a time, now here, again, on his would-be anniversary.

Seeing it again nearly makes him fall to his knees.

Some universal force has thrown him a bone after spending the last year beating him to death with it. Call it alignment of the stars, planetary retrograde, divine intervention or whatever other cosmic event people blamed their blessings and curses on, Sanemi doesn’t care one way or the other. He’ll thank them all after this is over, prostrate himself again and again, once he’s done worshipping you.

You shift on the dresser, urging his attention. “Sanemi.”

Fuck it. No more thinking. Now’s not the fucking time.

His mouth is on yours with a gasp, tongue and teeth clashing together as each of you breathes the other in, desperate. The hand you use to clutch the collar of his shirt drops to palm the hardness straining against the crotch of his pants, and if Sanemi wasn’t so committed to being inside you as soon as fucking possible, he just might cream himself right there.

He’s pathetic, but he’s yours. For now.

Slow it down, some voice whispers in his head, but his body won’t listen. It’s too greedy to mold itself back to you. His hands are already fixed in the perfect position he needs to grasp your thighs, silky smooth and pliant, unrestrained by the rigid silhouette of the skirt he now has pushed up to your waist. There’s no slowing this down; all Sanemi can do is lay his foot on the gas pedal and crash right into you.

Still, he does have enough self-control to know you need to be properly prepared, regardless of how long or quick this takes. He’d told you, years ago, that he doesn’t even think about coming before you do. Usually, that meant pulling at least two or three orgasms out of you first, only giving into his own need once you’re thoroughly spent and halfway to tears.

It’s a rule he’d steadfastly adhered to well throughout the marriage, right up until the moment it ended. But the death of your union didn’t terminate his vows, and this one is no exception.

His mouth covers yours right as he hitches your leg over his hip, letting him swallow your gasp of surprise. He breaks away only to watch your face – how your eyebrows pinch together, and the sensual way you bite your lower lip – as Sanemi’s fingers tease across your inner thigh. The little jolt of your body when he brushes against the sensitive skin of the joint makes that possessive monster in his chest purr; the heat radiating from your center make it roar as you draw his hand in like a magnet.

“Jesus fuck,” he whispers, letting his forehead rest against yours while he catches his breath. “You’re this fuckin’ soaked already?”

Through the panties, he notes with a moan as his fingers slide over the fabric separating him from paradise. You probably don’t even need prep when you’re this wet, but while Sanemi is desperate, he is not careless. However this starts, it won’t be gentle. Maybe there’ll be time for that later, but it’s not now.

“Sanemi – fuck.” Your head drops back as he works expert circles right over your cloth-covered clit. The dampened material beneath his fingers is unexpected. It’s soft; cotton, maybe. Nothing like the dark green mesh-lace he knows matches your bra. The one with that glorious hidden seam.

This doesn’t disappoint him one bit. In fact, it only makes the hope burgeoning in his chest blossom. If you’d worn the full matching set, then that would’ve meant you’d planned this – getting fucked. Maybe by him, maybe by someone else. If it had been him, it would’ve only been by chance, because he’d been available when you’d been in need. Nothing more and nothing less.

But the underwear beneath his fingertips instead confirms that everything about this – the fact you’re spread out on his dresser, one hand buried in his hair while the other palms at your breast, a whine vibrating on your pretty lips – is organic. Desire, not just for desire’s sake, but for him.

He’ll take it. Even if it’s just for tonight, he’ll fucking take it.

With a growl, Sanemi yanks your panties to the side and plunges two fingers into your dripping heat, swearing at the way you clench around him. His thumb works your clit, swirling your stickiness as he pumps his fingers in, curls them forward, and pulls them back out, repeating the movements again and again.

The sounds of his hand squelching in and out of you are lewd; obscene. He smothers his groan by sliding his tongue into your mouth, rocking his body against the dresser and into you as he works you open.

It’s unreal, the feeling of your tight, wet heat pulsing and throbbing and clenching around him. He’ll be luck to last five minutes inside you. Just like you’ll be lucky if you last thirty seconds more under the relentless pump-push-pull of his hand. Already your legs are vibrating atop the wood, your moans melting into pitchy warbles of his name.

You’ve dated; it stands to reason you’ve slept with other people, too. It surprises him, how little this bothers him given the surge of jealousy he’d felt earlier. Maybe, he thinks before his brain smooths out beneath the expert flick of your tongue against his, it’s because he knows you stopped being his the day he signed those papers. He can’t be mad that you’d sought out company when you no longer had his. He’d forfeited his right to you in a few strokes of blue ink, signed, dated, and notarized.

His hand works between your thighs with ease, your breath growing less and less steady as you clench around him. Or maybe it’s because he knows it ultimately doesn’t matter. He won’t bother asking if any of the others you’ve dated in your year of singledom were able to make you feel the way he could.

None of them know you the way he does.

None of them could have made you cry out like he can, fingers pumping and scissoring inside you. That broken gasp of yours and the arch in your back only happens when someone presses right there, curls their fingers right against that rough patch of flesh in time with the press of his other hand to your lower stomach.

Besides, it’s his name you’re moaning between his fervid kisses. Sanemi knows from past experience that when you sleep around, your vocabulary tends to grow. You’ll force out a string of yeses and fucks and right there babys! to avoid risking a name that does not belong to the body you’re sharing.

You must have been holding his in for quite a while. That or, he thinks with a smirk, maybe you didn’t hold it back at all. Maybe you called your other dates by his name, too, and that’s why it feels so natural rolling off your tongue now.

Regardless, this won’t be the last time Sanemi hears his name tonight. He’s going to make you scream it.

“Sanemi –” the whine in your voice freezes his hand, his lips. “God – please, baby – please, I need you. Now.”

Who is he to deny his wife anything?

Slowly, he withdraws his hand from between your legs, fingers thoroughly coated with you. A spot of it smears on your hip as he hooks under the band of your underwear and tears it down your legs, quick and messy. He manages to get it off your left leg, but he’s too impatient to work it off your right, and he leaves it dangling around your ankle.

He’s too wound up to really give a fuck.

A pleading whimper falls from your lips, so heartbreakingly desperate that Sanemi feels his chest crack. “Sweetheart, please!”

Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Sweetheart. It clangs around his head in perfect beat with his heart as it pounds against his sternum.

There’s no room for hesitation; for thought. Sanemi simply unbuckles his belt and reaches into his pants to pull his cock free. Some part of him reels at how quick he is to comply, screaming at him to drag this out, make it last because his luck has never been particularly good at lasting and he won’t get this chance again.

You scoot a little closer to the dresser’s edge, widening your thighs and that defiant part of him falls silent. Desire and a base need to make you his guides his cock back to your dripping entrance, the heating radiating from your center forcing his eyes to roll back into his skull.

One, quick snap of his hips later, and Sanemi is home.

“Fuck!” He snarls, head dropping into the crook of your shoulder. Your body bows into his at his intrusion, lace-covered breasts pushing against his chest while your fingers seek purchase in his back.

It’s almost too much, having him buried to the hilt inside you like this, his too-full balls pressed flush to the underside of your ass. This reunion has knocked the wind right out of him, and he can’t remember how to breathe. How to think. How to do anything but move, fast and deep.

“Oh god, oh god --!” You gasp into his mouth, nails buried into the fleshy part of his shoulder. “Sanemi!”

The way you repeat his name like a prayer sends him into a frenzy. There’s nothing soft about this reunion. It’s delirium: one you both readily give into, hands tearing at each other’s hair, clothes, while your mouths meet in bumping clashes of lips and teeth. Sanemi isn’t fucking you with any sort of rhythm and you won’t let him; you only cry for more, more, more and he only knows how to oblige you.

The dresser creaks and knocks against the wall as Sanemi fucks you. It’s sloppy; rough. Deep, bruising thrusts that border on something frantic, and his mouth is no better. It can’t decide what it needs more – your lips or your neck. Your legs are vices around his hips, heels dug firmly into his ass to rock him harder into you, and Sanemi settles on the sensitive spot beneath your jaw, nipping and sucking until you yield to him.

The cologne bottle tips over, glass rattling against the wood, but Sanemi doesn’t stop. It could vibrate right off the dresser top and shatter on the damn floor, and it still wouldn’t be enough to pry him away from you.

He’s just a man fucking his wife. He doesn’t care about anything else beyond that.

And why should he, when you’re seconds from unraveling around him? He knows why your nails are clawing at his back like that, why you press closer and closer as your head falls back. He knows what that strangled gasp that can barely make it out of your throat, means.

“Do it,” he goads, teeth at the side of your neck. “Give it to me. Give me what’s mine.”

You do; with a shuddering cry, you do, and it’s the most beautiful fucking thing he’s ever seen. Lips parted and back arched, you come apart hard enough that your thighs vibrate against the dresser, Sanemi watching hungrily all the while.

“Fuck.” His exaltation slips out with a moan as he savors how your tight, wet heat seizes around him. The wave of sticky warmth gushing from between your thighs makes him go cross-eyed. “There you go, baby. That’s it. Come on down.”

Carefully, he slows his pace into a steady rock as he eases you through the last echoes of your high until you finally go slack in his arms. He gives one, final churn of his groin against your clit and stills, still embedded inside you and rock hard.

But Sanemi’s just getting started.

Screw screaming his name; he’s got a very good shot at making you squirt all over him before the night’s over, and fuck if that wouldn’t be the goddamn cherry on top of this sinful cake he isn’t supposed to be having. Even if he doesn’t, he knows he’s got the stamina to work you through at least two more orgasms, and he knows you well enough to bet you’ll be crying by the second.

Gasping, Sanemi presses his forehead to yours, a thin sheen of sweat coating his skin. “You want more?”

You’re trembling still, and Sanemi’s hands smooth over your legs, fingers tracing calming patterns into your slick skin. Finally, you catch your breath enough to peer up at him, your gaze heavy-lidded and hazy with pleasure, and nod.

Sanemi kisses the bridge of your nose. “Good.”

With his grip secured under your thighs, Sanemi hoists you up against him and walks you to his bed, cock still buried deep in your heat. You’re clinging to him like a lifeline, arms wrapped firmly around his neck, your face buried in his shoulder.

He pauses with you at the edge of his bed. Post-orgasm you is something he always savored, even if he knew he was about to fuck you to heaven and back. This one moment of quiet, when you’re needy and desperate and completely his, is something he’s more reluctant than ever to lose.

Because for the moment, he can just pretend.

The moment of respite ends, in no short part because of the way you shift in his arms, the friction stirred by your body being held flush to his becoming too electric to tolerate. He nuzzles once against the side of your head and then carefully sets you atop his neatly tucked sheets, wincing as he withdraws from the warmth of your body.

God, he’s coated with you. He can’t help but marvel at the way the coarse hairs stretching from his navel to his groin are matted down and sticky, and his cock bounces against his navel as he settles over you, smearing his pleasure into his skin.

More. He needs more.

There’s no slowness in how he strips you. No sexiness, either. Clothes are only a distraction, particularly when he’s already been inside you and is aching to get back to business. Now is not the time for a tease. Still, it doesn’t matter that he’s seen you nude a hundred times before. The sight of your body is as exhilarating as it is familiar.

Your blouse goes first. Then your skirt, and you fall back against the bed in nothing but that maddening green bra.

That’s his next target.

“It –” your breath hitches with a moan under the caress of Sanemi’s hot mouth at your neck, his weight sealing you to the mattress. “It unfastens –”

His fingers tease down your sternum and come to a rest over the front clasp of your bra. “I know.”

He flicks it open with ease. Silly woman. Like he’d forget. Just like he could never forget the sound you make when his hands cup your bare breasts; the little squeak that bubbles past your lips when his fingers brush over your pebbled nipple, again and again, as the lace bra is tossed haphazardly over his shoulder. It’s almost as good as the moan vibrating in your throat when he wraps his lips around your soft mound, suckling at you the way he knows makes your back arch as his hand works your other breast with equal diligence.

Only when both breasts are thoroughly covered in blotches of purple and maroon does Sanemi continue his descent of your body. He means to keep going until he reaches the heaven between your thighs, but small, silvery lines etched into the skin surrounding your navel draw his attention, just like they always have. About a dozen of them, only noticeable as the shadows dancing along your abdomen shift as you struggle to keep your breathing even.

Beautiful. Fucking beautiful.

Stretch marks. Earned from carrying the two halves of his world. Once, his worship of them bugged you, made you squirm and shift beneath him until he was forced to move on.

Now, you stroke your fingers through his hair, cradle his head against your stomach as he nuzzles your skin, his lips brushing over each one, lauding them with the attention he’s always known they deserved.

Eventually, he moves on, leaving you just long enough to kick his pants the rest of the way down his legs and letting them fall to the floor. You frown a little when he climbs back atop you still wearing his rumpled shirt, but you’re moaning before he can say anything as he knocks your legs apart with his knee.   

“You wanna give me a taste, baby? Show me what I’ve been missing out on?” His voice is coarser than gravel as he settles between your thighs, lips traipsing messily up your leg and toward your center. “Think I need the reminder?”

Sanemi scoffs, warm breath fanning over your heated flesh as you writhe. He knows what you want, of course. Those feeble little rolls of your hips that you try and hide don’t fool anyone, least of all him. But he’s enjoying this too much to give in just yet.

He hesitates long enough to let his eyes flutter shut, long lashes tickling the inside of your thighs while he breathes you in. Lets your scent cloud every thought, every bit of rationality he’s spent the last decade pretending to have when it comes to you, until it all floats away.

His eyes open and lock with yours. Whatever it is you see – hunger, darkness, possession – it makes you gulp.

“As if I’d forget.”

And Sanemi is on you like a man starved.

The first pass of his tongue over your pussy floods his mouth with a sweetness that nearly makes him come on the spot. The second has his fingers sinking into the meat of your thighs hard enough to leave marks as he jerks you forward, sealing his mouth to your center. Even his nose is covered with you, buried in the neat thatch of silken curls at the apex between your thighs.

Good. Sanemi doesn’t need to breathe. He just needs you.

His name is tossed out in a half-yelp, half-cry that you silence too late, hand clapping over your mouth.

Instinct tells him to let his eyes roll back so he can get lost in you, but Sanemi refrains. It takes every last bit of his restraint to do it, but he manages.

Because he wants – no, needs – to watch you watch him.

Everything about his movements is slow; deliberate. It’s about coaxing those moans out of you with his tongue and lips rather than diving right into your entrance and fucking you blind. A steady build rather than a catapult.

Your thighs quiver around his head when he begins softly grunting and moaning against your center, the sounds vibrating with the wet smacks his mouth makes as he feasts on you.  As breathy and high as your feeble pants and cries are, you refuse to drop his stare, and Sanemi takes it as a challenge – one he’s determined to win.

And he knows exactly how.

“Fuck,” he grunts against your sticky cunt, sweetly kissing your clit. His hand moves from its bruising hold on your hip to join his mouth, thick fingers spread into an upside-down v to help part you and make way for his tongue. “Sweetest fuckin’ pussy I’ve ever had.”

You jolt when he lightly smacks your clit and he sees it – the faint twitch in your eyes, nearly rolling up into your head out of sheer reflex.

He does it again and rocks his head, smearing you deeper into his jaw, his cheeks. “And so fuckin’ pretty.”

You whimper as Sanemi slows the pace of his tongue, hips lightly bucking against his mouth. He almost smirks. You just need one more little push.

Slowly, Sanemi lets you catch a peek of his tongue as it dips and swirls through you. He does it again when he works his way up to your clit, noting the way the hazy flush on your cheeks deepens.

A single, harsh stripe licked over your center followed by a plunge of his tongue into your entrance does the trick.

For the second time this evening, you come and you come hard. Sanemi catches only a glimpse of the whites of your eyes before you throw your head back into the mattress and arch up, fingers working desperately at your nipples while you chant his name.

Good; he’s won this round. He fucks you harder with his tongue in celebration. Massages the seam between his mouth and your thighs with his free hand too, for good measure.

That’s when you scream his name. A broken, stilted cry that vibrates in his ears, works its way down his spine and settles in his groin. Though he wouldn’t dream of quieting you no, Sanemi can’t help but send a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening that the white noise machines in his kids’ rooms were worth their exorbitant price tags.

Not that the two of you had practiced being quiet while sleep-training them. Even without the aid of over-priced machines, the odds of them sleeping through their parents’ antics are still good. He hopes.

A final lick, and Sanemi rips away from you, panting and drunk on your taste; your smell. He rests his cheek against your inner thigh while he catches his breath. And he studies you; traces his eyes over your sweaty features and commits them to memory.

The ache in his groin is too pronounced for him to ignore any longer. His cock is throbbing, twitching against the mattress, screaming for relief and Sanemi doesn’t have it in him to drag this out further.

He twists to plant a kiss inside your leg and then he’s standing, fingers skimming the hem of his shirt. He spies the quick flick of your tongue along your lower lip at the first glimpse of his abs and Sanemi’s mouth goes dry. He’s gotten you off twice; you’d have every right to call it quits and head back home. Though he knows better than to put any stock into the fact you’re still here, on his bed, legs open and ready for him to take you again, Sanemi can’t help but hope. Just a little.

You want him just as badly as he needs you. Not just sex; him.

The mattress dips beneath his knee as Sanemi settles back over you, his cock resting heavily against your hip. The romp on the dresser had been driven by desperation; hunger. Now, it’s time for the softer part. The reconciliation. It may not extend beyond the confines of his bed, but Sanemi will be okay with that. As long as he can show his contrition to you, now.

You moan into his mouth as he reclaims your lips, your taste flooding your mouth as his tongue sweeps in, tangling with yours. His shirt is gone and there is no barrier left between your bodies. There is only your skin, soft as silk pressed to his, hot and feverish; no space to be found. Sanemi doesn’t want to think about how or why your bodies may separate later; he wants to hold you until you melt into him and he, into you. Nothing, nothing at all, can come between you. He won’t let it.

Nothing, save the chain around his neck and the item it bears. It slides down his neck and bumps against your chin.

Your lips part with a quiet gasp and Sanemi goes rigidly still above you.

Fuck. He forgot to take it off.

Sanemi’s promise dangles between your bodies from a single, silver chain. One that usually sits comfortably below the collar of any shirt he wears, close to his heart but out of sight from all others, including you. The golden band glints dully in the lower light from the lamps dotted around the room, but it draws your attention like a magnet.

The silence that settles over the room smothers your short, choppy breaths and the pounding beat of his heart in his ears. He should explain; he knows he should by the way your eyes go wide, your pupils contracted to pinpoints as you pant.

Never one to be particularly adept with his words, Sanemi swallows hard. Slowly, he takes the ring between his thumb and forefinger and brings it to his lips, his eyes never straying from yours. It’s a silent confirmation as much as it is a challenge. A renewal of his vows that he dares you to object to, to cut this off, now that you know where he stands. Still, after all this time.

Your gaze shifts to his mouth and down to the necklace. He releases the ring, lets it swing on the chain dangling above you, back and forth, your eyes following it in perfect time.

Sanemi doesn’t dare breathe; not as you reach for his wedding ring and tug him by its chain back to your lips.

Acceptance, he thinks with a groan, has never tasted so fucking sweet.

There’s a renewed vigor to your kiss and the way your bodies twist and write together on his bed. Every second that passes makes Sanemi acutely aware of his need throbbing against your hip, and he can wait no longer.

He starts on top of you, your legs wrapped around his waist, his chest pressed to yours. Your knees draw up against his sides while his lips hover over yours as he resets the pace. It’s deep and sensual in every way what happened on the dresser, wasn’t. Every movement is calculated: the long, slow draw of his hips out until just the tip of him remains in you before he lets his full weight drive him forward, embedding himself back inside your heat. Each thrust back in is punctuated by a firm grind of his groin, pushing himself deeper, deeper, while the coarse trail of hair descending from your navel stimulates your clit.  

It's a reclaiming as much as it is a reunion. Every press of his fingers into your skin will leave marks for days to come, ones that will remind you that for a night, there were no walls. No failures, no divorce papers. You can’t escape his lips; if you throw your head back, he’s moving them to your throat. Your breasts. Re-familiarizing your skin with his mouth, letting his teeth nip and his tongue soothe. Marking you like you’ll still be his in the morning, just as he has always been yours and always will be.

He hopes; dammit, he knows better, but he hopes anyway.

But it’s still not enough.

The room grows thick with the scent of sex and it clouds over every regret Sanemi has ever had. The parameters of his bedroom grow fuzzy and fade from view until there is nothing but the sight of you, spread out beneath him, your hair spilled over his sheets and your breasts bouncing in time with each of his movements. Nothing but your flushed, sweat-dampened cheeks and your lips, parted around the syllables of his name as you moan it like a prayer.

When your hand falls away from his hair and drops back against the mattress, Sanemi takes it for himself, Tangles his fingers in yours and brings your arm over your head, squeezing your hand in perfect time with his thrusts.

Your left hand, he realizes. Without your wedding rings, sure, but he’s claimed it for himself nonetheless. He’ll hold onto it for as long as he can.

The third time you come for him is abrupt; there’s no build up, no warning. Only a weak cry of his name as your head thrashes against the messy sheets, your nails biting into the thick, ropey muscles of his shoulders while your thighs quiver around him.

And dammit, Sanemi makes it last. Draws it out, angles his hips so he can push right against that spot that makes you gush all over him, your mouth slack and a thin line of drool sneaking out the corner of your pretty mouth.

He holds you the way you like when you come: tight, no room for space between your bodies while his mouth moves hotly against your neck. “I got you, baby. I got you.” He pants into your throat, rolling his hips as the last wave of your orgasm shudders through you.

“So good,” you praise in his ear again and again, voice syrupy and warm as it drips over his skin. “So, so good, baby, so good –”

With you limp and feebly moaning the last of your approval, Sanemi can finally work toward his own release. He gives you one last, shallow thrust and pulls out, rolling you to your stomach while he grabs a stray pillow from near his headboard to shove under your hips. He’s back inside you before you can finish your mournful plea, your head thudding against your forearm as you rest it beneath your cheek.

Warmth spreads from the nape of his neck down his spine at the way your body takes him. Your soft whimpers are muffled against the sweat-dampened sheets, their rhythm interrupted periodically by a short little gasp. After a handful of orgasms, it’s no wonder you’re so sensitive. But you take him like it’s the first time all over again, the dip in your spine deepening to push your hips higher for his taking.

Sanemi holds his weight up on one arm, stretched taught beneath him as the other curls under your body, his hand resting heavily beneath your breast. It’s the only contact between your bodies he can allow now, save the sticky claps of his hips against your ass each time he pushes his way back into heaven.

The distance is necessary. Not only because he’s a slippery, sweating mess, but because the prickle at the bottom of his spine is too hot, the knot in his stomach, too tight, for him to pretend like he isn’t a handful of strokes away from blowing his load.

And, though he’s spent the last couple of hours pretending like nothing has changed, Sanemi cannot forget everything has. No matter how much he wishes otherwise, you are no longer his wife, and that means he doesn’t have any of the privileges that come with being a husband.

He’ll have to pull out.

A growl rumbles in this throat before he can stop it, but he smothers it against your shoulder, his teeth adding yet another mark to the tapestry of maroon he’s left on your skin.

You try and look behind your shoulder at him, but exhaustion drops it into the bed and your hips begin to falter beneath his. Sanemi takes his cue and maneuvers one leg over your outstretched one, stilling its feeble twitches with his shin pressed to your calf, his ankle hooked over yours.

“Shhh, just feel it.” He soothes when you try and whimper your protest. Thick fingers slide up your throat and Sanemi nudges your head back by your chin. “Look at me.”

Bleary, fucked-out eyes find his and Sanemi kisses you, hard and messy and deep. When he pulls away, you watch him with a moon-eyed adoration that flays him to the bone.

You looked at him like that eight years ago, too. First at the altar and again in a closet before the reception, when he’d gotten on his knees and flipped the delicate skirts of your wedding dress up, swearing he wasn’t waiting until the hotel before he began making good on his husbandly obligations.

Seeing that look again does him in. Sanemi can’t hold back anymore, and there’s no point in trying.

“Baby, I –” he groans, the vein in his neck popping as he hits it deep again, the coil in his stomach growing impossibly tight. “Fuck, I – I gotta pull out. Gotta pull out –”

It’s a strange feeling, pulling out of the woman who has birthed his two children. But it’s necessary; he didn’t bother asking you about condoms when this started, and god knows he doesn’t keep them in his house. He doesn’t need to complicate this mess further.

His arms lock and his body stiffens, and Sanemi readies to wrench away from you when you reach behind and snatch him by the back of his neck, yanking him down.

Possessive. Desperate. Demanding, in the way your nails dig into his nape, and Sanemi is a lost cause.

With a rumbling groan, Sanemi collapses atop you with his full weight, managing a few, last jerking rolls of his hips before he unravels.

“Fuck – oh fuck, baby –” Sanemi pants against the side of your head, moaning at the sting of your nails biting into his skin, grounding him against the way his climax knocks him right off his axis.

There’s nothing left in his orbit; no planets, no stars, no gravity. There is only white hot pleasure licking up the length of his spine, a flare that catches and zips through his veins until his entire body is set ablaze, cast into the fiery pits of the ecstasy that is you. There is only your body, soft and warm and so fucking tight around him; the scent of your hair, your skin.

There is only you and him. Sanemi, pressed deep, so fucking deep inside you while he rocks and cants his hips, his biceps bulging against your ribs as he cages you under him, desperate to hold onto your lifeline. And there’s you, twisting your head back to capture his lips again, swallowing the ragged moans that he couldn’t quiet if he wanted to. Another dizzying wave of pleasure spills hot into you, and suddenly Sanemi can’t remember if you begin where he’s supposed to end, or it it's the other way around.

Your teeth nip at his bottom lip and Sanemi supposes it doesn’t matter, anyway. Because there’s only you and him. Just you and him, as it always was. As he thought it always would be.

As it still is, here, in these last few, precious moments.

The sporadic jerk of his hips against your ass slows allowing him to settle his pace into a lazy pump. You break away from his lips with a gasp and collapse face-first into the bed, your ass feebly grinding back while you flutter and pulse around him, squeezing out every last drop of his cum for yourself.

You’ve always been greedy in bed.

At last, his hips give out, leaving Sanemi spent and breathless atop you. A bead of sweat steals down the back of his neck, stinging at the nail marks you’ve left behind but Sanemi can’t really be fucked to care. Your hand has moved on to his hair, your fingertips rubbing against his scalp while you mewl your approval into the sheets.

All too aware of the way you bear his weight, Sanemi pulls out of you. Gentle hands latch onto your hips and roll you over to your back before his exhaustion catches up to him, and Sanemi collapses next to you.

Panting, you run a hand through the tangled mess of your hair. “That was –”

“Yeah,” Sanemi agrees, staring dazedly up at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

Incredible. Hot. The best sex he’s had in a long fucking time, maybe ever.

You prop yourself up on an elbow, teeth worrying at your bottom lip. “You don’t think the kids heard, do you?”

Sanemi rolls his head toward you. “Nah. I bought ‘em their own white noise machines as soon as I got this place. A dump truck could speed through here and they wouldn’t hear it.”

You nod and settle back down into the blankets in an exhausted heap. The air is punctured only by the sounds of your mutual breathing, gradually evening out as you both come down from your highs.

A laugh works its way out of his chest, and you look to him in alarm. “Can’t imagine this is what my therapist meant when he said I should try doin’ something for myself tonight.”

A beat of silence, and then you snort. “Mine either.”

Sanemi’s gaze settles near the end of the bed. There, hanging from the bed post by a single strap is the green bra, a flag of surrender.

You follow his line of sight and a small, choking sound sputters out of you.

“It’s not what you think –” you prop your head on a fist, eyes suddenly wide and pleading. “It’s just…well, you see –”

Sanemi smirks. “Just a bra, right?”

“No. Yes, I –” you throw your hands over your heated face, exasperated. “Dr. Kanroji said I needed to work on my confidence. And, well….”

Sanemi nearly rolls his eyes. How the most beautiful, intelligent, caring woman he’s ever known could ever possess a shred of self-doubt was beyond him, yet that’d been a monster of yours he’d never been bale to fully fight. He almost tells you as much, but you roll on your side into his, your hand splayed lightly across his chest.

For a moment, Sanemi forgets how to breathe.

“I knew I was going to take the plunge and accept the interview today, and needed a little boost. And – oh, I don’t know.” You rest your chin on his ribs and lower your eyes. “It’s hard not to feel confident when you feel beautiful. And no one ever made me feel beautiful the way you did.”

It’s suddenly very hard for him to breathe; to swallow. To do anything but gape at you like a fish out of water, his tongue swollen stupid.

Say something, you fucking idiot, his brain hisses at him, and after a few, painful moments of nothing, Sanemi finally manages a croaky, “C’mere.”

He reaches for you, tugs you back up into him and you let him. You let him kiss you, too, or maybe you kiss him. Soft. Sweet. A thousand feelings passing through the gentle caress of your lips, none of which the two of you know how to name.

The kiss never steps beyond the bounds of chaste sweetness, and soon, your head is tucked into the crook of his shoulder, your hand sleepily exploring his chest while his fingers lope up and down your spine. Savoring. Feeling.

Anxiety forms a knot in his throat, but Sanemi forces himself to speak past it, for both of your sakes. “This doesn’t have to mean a thing.”

It does and you both know it, but he doesn’t want to risk scaring you off by insisting on slapping a label on you.

You nod, and Sanemi feels the blossom of hope he knows better than to feed begin to wither. “But…” you trail a finger across his chest and frown. “It could?”

No longer is the hope in his chest a mere blossom; it blooms into a lush garden, fills his lungs with oxygen he hadn’t realized he’d been starved for these last twelve months.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “It could.”

You finger the chain around his neck, ghosting over the ridges of his wedding band. “I still have mine, too. I keep them in a little jewelry bag under my pillow. Sometimes –” your voice catches and Sanemi spies the familiar glimmer of tears shining in your eyes. “Sometimes I hold them. When I can’t sleep, or when I really miss you – which, lately, has been all the time. Some mornings I wake up and I’m holding them.”

Sanemi’s hand slows its comforting stroke along your spine. “You miss me?”

“All the time.” And suddenly you’re looking at him again with the same, blazing earnestness that made him fall head over heels for you in the first place. “You weren’t just my husband, Sanemi. You were my best friend, too. And that’s really not fair of me.”

He doesn’t answer; you’ve stunned him silent for the third or fourth or whatever fucking number time tonight, and Sanemi’s having a hard time keeping up. He’s spent the last year trying to patch together the timeline of events leading to the breakdown of your marriage, just enough that he could make sense of it and accept that it was gone and over, because he’d ruined it the way he ruined most things. Yet, here you are, offering him the needle to restitch the shredded tapestry.

Hope really is a dangerous fucking thing. But it’s beautiful, too.

Cowed by his silence, you drop his gaze, cheeks heated with embarrassment. “I can leave,” you offer, though you make no effort to get up. Or I can sleep on the couch – I can be out before the kids wake up, or act like I’ve just come over –”

Sanemi’s arms tighten around you, keeping you firmly beside him where you belong. “Let’s try it.”

Gently, Sanemi helps turn you to your side, your back to his front, curving your body against his. He drapes his arm over your middle, and you pull his hand up to your chest, cradling it close.

He presses his lips to the dip of your shoulder. “I missed you too. Fuck, you don’t know how much.”

The curve of your lips against his knuckles is followed by the moisture of your tears. “Let’s try it.”

You’ve both got a lot of work to do, separately and apart, to make any thing between you work. Sanemi knows this.

But the foundation is there. The love. And, as he drifts to sleep with you in his arms, Sanemi thinks – hopes – this time, it’s enough.

Then, there’s Shinobu. I think the depth of Shinobu’s rage is communicated much earlier than Tanjiro’s observation at the Butterfly Mansion. During the Mount Natagumo arc, we see Shinobu offer the sister spider demon forgiveness — on the condition that she allow Shinobu to enact long, sustained acts of torture against her under the guise of “penance.” Shinobu almost relishes telling her every step she might take to make the spider demon atone for her sins, and the spider demon (correctly) susses out her true intentions.

Then, there’s the matter of her run-in with Tanjiro and Nezuko for the first time. Upon learning that Nezuko is Tanjiro’s sister, Shinobu very sweetly (but threateningly) proposes using a “gentle” poison to kill her. Meaning, Shinobu not only doesn’t use gentle poisons often, but she likely purposefully uses ones that will inflict the maximum amount of suffering and pain to her targets (and we see the sister spider demon die pretty horrifically under that very circumstance). That choice is deliberate and very much rooted in Shinobu’s deep rage and anger, even if her expression of it is more subtle.