Work Text:
can pregnante wife fite bear if she off duty firefigher and big mad?? asking for resefrch popous
NOT letring her do it just curiouse
pls dont tell wife
That is the first thing you catch on your husband’s laptop while he stands outside the little rental cabin you’d been calling home, gossiping with three retired women in matching purple parkas.
Yuji had gone out to the store for firewood seven minutes ago. He came back with no firewood, one knitted pamphlet holder, and the attention of every grandmother within a five-cabin radius.
Through the window, you can see him in the driveway with his hands shoved into his coat pockets, nodding gravely while Mrs. Wilkins from cabin three points down the road with a mitten and tells him, from the look of it, the dirtiest local news available.
His laptop sits open on the kitchen island because Yuji lives as if every object in the house loves him back and would never fling itself off a counter to voluntarily jump to its death.
You had only meant to check the bakery address because he promised you cinnamon rolls after breakfast, and then he got intercepted by the purple-parka council before he could remember he had a wife inside—a pregnant hungry wife with firefighter shoulders and enough free time to learn his password through marital osmosis.
You scroll through his search history.
what sise thermos for emoshunal suport soup wife
safe alaska activitees pregnant wife strong personallity no hiking she will lie
how many stares is too many stares third trimster
does baby hear dad crying in showr asking for normal reason
how to delete crying in shower from wife serch histroy fast
can wif tell if husbend is scared thru forhead kitching
moose saftey preganant wife
can moose smell fear from software enginer
is it insulting to ask firefigher wife to let me carry groseries
ways to say please stop lifting furnicher without sounding like unsuportive little bitch
wife keeps saying she can axe kick me while pregnant should i be woried
prenatle message near girldwood acepts hushband shitting in corner quitly
heated loge fire pits pregnate wife alaska no slippery walk
why does wife look hotter pregnant sience
how to survive wife looking hotter pregnant sience help
You lower one hand to your stomach, unable to hide your laugh.
The baby shifts under your palm, a slow drag beneath your ribs from the laughter.
Outside, Yuji laughs with the grandmas and accepts a paper bag from one of them. Pink strands poke out from under his beanie, and his cheeks are red from the cold. He looks huge in that softened athlete way he insists is “developer body"—the man looks as if he could shoulder through a locked door.
One of the women pats his forearm. Yuji leans down to hear her better.
You scroll again.
best train ride alaska pregnate wife can nap and i can stare noraly
pregnnant firefig wife bored activitees safe but not babyish she will get mad
is it bad if wife misses emergencys while on leave
what to do when pregnant wife hears siren and gets sad but says she is fine liar
wife miscarrage before how to stop checking if shes breathing at night without waking her up
Your smile falls away.
The kitchen air feels heavy around you.
He had been doing that again last night. You felt him wake at 3:12 because you had already been awake, staring at the ceiling while one hand rested under your belly. The baby had taken a long gap between movements, maybe twenty minutes, maybe less, maybe your brain stretching each second until overthinking took over. Yuji had rolled toward you, breath held, palm hovering over your side until you caught his wrist and pressed it down.
“She’s fine,” you had whispered without looking at him.
“I know,” he whispered back, lying with the care of a man who would rather bite his own tongue than hand you his fear.
Then the baby kicked his palm, and he shook so silently you pretended he had cold hands and pulled him closer.
Now his search history sits in front of you, stupid and bruised like his heart.
how to stop checking if shes breathing at night
You wipe under your eye with the heel of your hand, annoyed with yourself before the tear gets anywhere.
You are a firefighter.
You have dragged men twice your size down stairwells, lifted a couch off a teenager’s ankle during a gas leak, and then yelled at his father for trying to light a cigarette outside. You once held a cupboard when it almost toppled over Yuji while he cleaned the floor.
You are also seven months pregnant and crying over “emoshunal suport soup wife.”
The front door opens and cold air rushes in.
Yuji comes in carrying no firewood and a plastic container of what looks like cookies.
“Baby, emergency development,” he says, kicking snow off his boots. “Janet from cabin five has been stealing Barbara’s birdseed, but Barbara has been putting cayenne in it, so now Janet’s dog has diarrhea, and nobody can prove intent. Also, Eileen gave us snickerdoodles because I said you liked cinnamon, and she said I have an honest forehead.”
You close the search history.
A little too late.
Yuji stops with one boot half off.
His eyes go from your face to the laptop, then back to your face with terrible speed. “You saw a bear fight.”
“I saw many things.”
He puts the cookies on the entry table cautiously and removes his gloves. “I can explain the bear one.”
“Yeah?”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I could take a black bear.’”
“I was emotional after the documentary.”
“You were eating shredded cheese straight from the bag and flexing at the television.”
“The bear had weak hips.”
Yuji’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again with husbandly grief. “This is why I had to be sure.”
You look at him standing there in his stupid socks, face red from cold, trying to decide whether to apologize for loving you in a browser window.
Your anger has nowhere to go, so it turns around and eats you instead. “You looked up the train.”
His expression changes—the funniness drains out slowly, leaving the softer part of him in full view. “Yeah.”
“Your grammar needs Jesus.”
“I was in hiding.”
You laugh, and it wobbles halfway.
Yuji crosses the room so fast that the floorboards complain. His hands come to your face first, warm from his gloves, thumbs under your eyes before the tears can collect.
“Hey, hey. Did I scare you?”
“Your laptop says you think I’m going to fistfight wildlife.”
“You would win against a medium coyote.”
“Yuji.”
“Sorry.”
You press your forehead into his chest, right under the zipper of his jacket. He smells like the peanut butter protein bar he ate over the sink this morning when he thought you were sleeping.
His arms wrap around you with care, but there is still that reflex in him, that full-body need to gather, cover, keep. He has to remind himself that you can breathe. You feel him do it. His hands spread across your back, then ease.
“I’m scared all the time,” he says into your hair.
You close your eyes.
That is the thing you both keep setting carefully on the table and then hiding under grocery lists, baby-name jokes, doctor appointments, and prenatal vitamins lined in a row by the sink.
“I know,” you whisper.
His chin presses to the top of your head. “I keep thinking if I plan hard enough, it should keep her safe.”
You grip the sides of his coat.
After the miscarriage, Yuji had learned terror. Learned the number for the clinic by heart. Learned which towels to use. Learned how long a person could sit on bathroom tile before their legs went numb. Learned how to keep his voice stable while calling the nurse line. Learned that a body could carry a person out of a burning building and still betray its owner in one moment of peace.
You learned the sound of him sobbing in the laundry room with the dryer running because he thought the machine would cover it.
Alaska had been your idea, mainly. A place with space where Yuji could work remote and you could stop waving at people from the station who looked at your belly before they looked at your face. Then it became a place where sirens came fewer and farther between, where you could hear your own kettle and your husband muttering at his code and feel the baby’s hiccups through your skin.
Yuji had agreed within one night, and by breakfast he had spreadsheets.
Now he kisses the top of your head with a care that makes your ribs hurt.
“I want tomorrow to be good,” he tells you. “I want you to have one whole day where I don’t act as if the universe is waiting for me to stop paying attention.”
“You Googled whether moose smell fear.”
“Because if they do, we have a problem.”
You laugh into his coat.
He loosens his grip enough to look down at you. His eyes are bright, and he is trying to make them behave.
“I know you can do things—you can carry me. You can carry strangers. Kick a door in.”
You rub a tear off your own cheek. “I hate being treated like I’m breakable.”
“I know.” Yuji takes your hand and presses it flat over his chest, right where his heart is going hard. “I’m trying to fuss in a way that feels like help instead of a cage.”
You look down because his face is too much right now.
The baby kicks under your sweater.
Yuji gasps, “Our daughter agrees.”
“Our daughter has been headbutting my bladder since five this morning.”
Yuji’s hands drop instantly to your belly. “Baby, your mother deserves bladder peace.”
The baby answers with a thump under his palm.
He goes silent. It is embarrassing how fast his eyes fill.
You hook a finger under his chin. “If you cry on my sweater, I’m telling the grandmas.”
“They already know I’m sensitive. Eileen said it was good for the baby.”
“Eileen has known you for nine minutes.”
“She said I have grandson energy.”
“You have golden retriever energy with student loans.”
“I paid those off.”
Yuji kisses you. He tastes faintly of coffee and cinnamon gum. His hands are careful at your waist. Yours are less careful because you are you, and your body misses hauling hoses, forcing doors, and doing anything that proves you still own it.
You grab the front of his coat and tug him down until he huffs against your mouth.
“Baby,” he says, muffled. “Your center of gravity.”
“My center of gravity wants another kiss.”
“It can have one while seated.”
“You’re a coward.”
“I’m her dad.”
Your hand stills.
He freezes the second he says it, as if the word landed between you on the floor and might crack.
Dad.
The first time, you had bought him a tiny orange onesie with a cartoon tiger on it. He held it with both hands and cried so hard he got hiccups. Weeks later, he folded it himself and put it in the bottom drawer because neither of you could stand seeing it, and neither of you could stand throwing it away.
Now the word lives again.
Yuji swallows.
You take his wrist and place his hand on your belly. “Say it again.”
His mouth trembles.
You wait.
“I’m your dad,” he says, smaller, to your stomach this time. “And I’m asking you to please stop making your mother crave canned peaches at midnight. She opens them with a knife because she says the can opener takes too long.”
You smack his shoulder.
He grins through wet lashes.
The day begins with him attempting to dress you as if you are an expedition leader and also a cherished egg.
He lays out thermal leggings, wool socks, boots, two sweaters, a coat, gloves, a hat, a scarf, a backup scarf, and a pair of traction cleats you stare at. “I am going sightseeing, Yuji. Not storming a glacier fort.”
“You said the sidewalk by the bakery was slick yesterday.”
“I also said I wanted to suplex the mayor in my dream, and you didn’t buy me a mayor.”
“I looked up local government contact hours.”
You turn slowly.
Yuji lifts both hands. “For civic awareness. In case you went Super Saiyan or something.”
You sigh and put on the cleats because you love him and because you did nearly slip outside the post office last week while carrying nothing heavier than a library card, which he mentioned once and then visibly swallowed every future mention because he enjoys living.
He kneels to fasten the strap around your boot.
You look down at his bent head, at the pink hair curling beneath his beanie, and at the breadth of him squeezed into your little mudroom. You hope your daughter gets his hair.
Unaware, Yuji tests the strap, then does the other boot, then taps each heel against the mat. “Walk test.”
“I have walked before.”
“Humor me.”
“You are lucky you’re pretty.”
Yuji beams up at you. “You think I’m pretty?”
“I married you for your emergency contact information.”
“And my ass.”
“You’re delaying the walk test.”
He stands and offers both hands with seriousness. You take them and stomp twice on the mat. The cleats bite into the rubber.
Yuji nods. “Excellent. Now if a moose challenges you, we retreat.”
“If a moose challenges me, I’m squaring up.”
“From inside the car.”
“From a safe conversational distance.”
“Through glass.”
You kiss his cheek before he can draft a moose treaty.
The first stop is the train because Yuji decided that your day should begin with heated seats, pastries, and enough window scenery to keep you from noticing he has checked your seatbelt three times.
The Alaska Railroad car is warm, making your cheeks sting after the cold. Yuji walks in carrying a tote bag that has gained weight since morning. He has packed ginger chews, crackers, water, tissues, hand sanitizer, a portable charger, an extra battery pack, a thermos of soup, a thermos of hot chocolate, bananas, prenatal vitamins, a paperback you said you might reread, and a tiny blood pressure cuff.
You find the cuff when he reaches for napkins. “Yuji.”
“It was on sale.”
“You used my discount code?”
“Our household discount code.”
“You bought medical equipment with the same code I use for mascara.”
The woman in the seat across the aisle laughs into her coffee.
Yuji looks delighted to have an audience. “She’s a firefighter.”
The woman perks up. “Really?”
You sit straighter despite the belly. “On leave.”
“She once carried me out of our apartment because I fell asleep on the floor,” Yuji says, proud as a parade.
“You were blocking the bookshelf.”
“She used the fireman’s carry, which was both romantic and humiliating.”
The woman’s husband leans over. “How much do you weigh?”
"112 kg, which is about two-forty-five," Yuji tells him smugly.
The husband turns to you with deep respect.
You spend the first twenty minutes of the train ride being asked about firefighting by two retirees from Oregon while Yuji supplies incorrect supporting commentary.
“She has an axe.”
“I have used many axes.”
“She could break our front door with one kick.”
“That was one time, and the jamb was weak.”
“She can smell electrical fires.”
“I smelled the toaster burning because you put a tortilla in it vertically.”
“It fit.”
“It caught fire.”
“It fit first.”
When the train moves past snow-covered trees and a strip of water dark under the ice, Yuji’s hand finds your knee. His thumb taps once, then twice. His eyes are on the window, but you can tell he is counting.
The baby has been still since you boarded.
You put your hand over his and press. “She was kicking during breakfast.”
“I know.”
“She probably fell asleep.”
“I know.”
His smile stays on his mouth and leaves the rest of his face.
You shift, take his hand, and move it under your coat, against the side of your stomach. The angle is awkward, your elbow pressed into the armrest, his shoulder hunched, but he stays there. The retirees lower their voices and pretend they do not see.
The baby gives one lazy roll.
Yuji lets out a breath so heavy it fogs the edge of the window.
“There,” you murmur.
He nods, his fingers spreading.
For a few minutes, the crackle in him settles. He stops performing fine for strangers, watches the snow, keeps his palm under your coat, and lets the train carry you.
At the dining car, he brings back cinnamon rolls the size of small helmets.
You stare at yours.
Yuji watches your face with hope so obvious it should have its own zip code.
“You remembered.”
“You threatened divorce in the bakery window yesterday.”
“I said I would reconsider certain legal benefits if cinnamon access became inconsistent.”
He hands you a fork, then immediately swaps it for a different fork from his napkin bundle.
“What was wrong with that one?”
“I didn’t like its energy.”
You snort, then take a bite. Butter, cinnamon, soft dough, sugar sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Yuji watches. “Good?”
You take another bite.
His shoulders drop.
Then you hold a forkful toward him.
He leans in and eats it.
At Portage, he drives the wildlife loop at a speed that makes pedestrians powerful.
You sit in the passenger seat with your boots planted wide, one hand under the belly, one hand in a paper bag of Pilot Bread crackers from the station.
A bison lifts its head near the fence.
Your car is moving at the speed of a careful shopping cart, but he brakes with both hands steady on the wheel and a face fit for landing aircraft.
“Yuji.”
“He looked at the car.”
“He’s eating hay.”
You take a cracker and eat it, then take another and hold it to his mouth.
He accepts without looking away from the bison.
Then chews slowly like he’s trying to assert his dominance over the bison.
You open the sealed packet of shelf-stable salmon jerky he bought after an old man at the station said locals ate it on road trips, and Yuji checked the label twice before paying.
Yuji sniffs the strip you hold up. “This smells like a dock got into college.”
“Open.”
He opens his mouth and eats.
The face he makes is immediate, painful, and silent because he is still trying to be brave for you.
You laugh so hard the baby jolts.
Yuji points at your belly with the half-chewed strip still in his mouth. “Is she laughing?”
“She recoiled.”
“She has your taste in comedy.”
“She has your taste in food—made me eat peanut butter with pickles yesterday.”
“That was her finest work.”
At the next pullout, you make him park because you need to stretch your legs and because he is starting to develop a posture.
The snow is packed down near the viewing area. Yuji gets out first, comes around, opens your door, and holds both hands out.
You stare at them.
He stares back.
“Move your hands, Itadori.”
His mouth twitches at the government-name treatment. He lowers his hands, then hovers so intensely he may as well be wearing a neon vest.
You step down without incident.
Yuji exhales.
You grab his coat and yank him down to kiss him right there beside the car, because his relief is stupid and sweet and maddening.
He makes a surprised sound against your mouth, hands going to your elbows before he moves them to your waist instead.
“You are extremely annoying,” you tell him.
“I’ve been told I’m charming.”
“By grandmothers who weaponize birdseed.”
“They understand me.”
You start walking the little cleared path. Yuji matches your pace with discipline.
Yuji slows when you slow. He stops when you stop. He even pretends to study animal signage while you catch your breath.
That is how he loves you best, you think. Loudly, until you need your own dignity. Then he gives you enough room to pretend.
A wolf moves beyond the fence, pale against the trees.
You both watch it until it disappears between the trunks.
“You know what I miss?” you ask.
Yuji’s hand tightens around yours. “The station?”
You nod.
He does not give you the speech people keep giving you. Leave is temporary. Rest is important. You’re doing enough. You know all that, and knowing it has not stopped you from checking the department group chat too often or going still when sirens pass the grocery store.
“I miss being useful without everyone looking nervous about it,” you say.
Yuji turns his head toward you.
You look down at your boots. “I miss picking up heavy things and having people move out of my way because they trusted me to know what I was doing.”
“They still trust you.”
“Now they trust me to sit down.”
His thumb moves over your glove.
“I hate that,” you admit. “I know why. I know everyone means well. I still hate it.”
Yuji is quiet for a moment.
Then he says, “You ran into buildings for years.”
You glance at him.
“You pulled people out when everyone else was told to stay back.” His voice stays careful. “You don’t have to earn rest like it’s overtime.”
You try to laugh, but your mouth gives you away.
“And she counts,” he says, looking down at your belly before you can argue. “Before you say she doesn’t, she counts.”
Your eyes sting.
“She’s a baby,” you whisper.
“Yeah,” Yuji says. “So she counts more because she is family and currently stealing your calcium.”
That gets a wet laugh out of you.
His smile comes small, then bends into something softer. ‘You sleep better here, you know.’
You rub your thumb over his knuckles.
‘Most nights,’ he says. ‘When the plow doesn’t wake you. When the baby isn’t practicing MMA on your organs.’”
You rub your thumb over his knuckles.
“You sing in the kitchen again,” he says. “You haven’t done that much since…”
The sentence ends there because he cannot say that date without changing the air.
You lean your shoulder against his arm.
He steps closer, lowering his voice. “You’re helping me too. I know that sounds selfish.”
“It does.”
He lowers his voice. “Every day I see you put your boots by the door, eat your weird peaches, complain about maternity jeans, and tell the baby her dad is corny, I get another day where this is real.”
You cup his cheek with a gloved hand. You look at his face, open and scared and earnest. Yuji has no talent for hiding love. It is one of the reasons you married him. It is also the reason he cannot get away with anything.
“I’m scared too,” you say.
His eyes close for half a second.
“But I want the day,” you continue. “I want the dumb train and the suspicious salmon jerky and the lodge you looked up. I want you hovering badly enough that I get to yell at you in public. I want all of it.”
Yuji leans his forehead against yours, his beanie bumping your hat. “Okay.”
“And I want cinnamon again.”
“We have one in the tote.”
“Of course we do.”
He kisses your forehead.
You hook your arm through his. “Any new gossip?”
His face lights back up because he is shameless. “Did I tell you what Barbara said about the guy who rents snowmobiles?”
The lodge in Girdwood looks exactly like the kind of place Yuji would choose after reading forty-seven reviews and ignoring the ones written by men named Brad.
There are fire pits outside, chairs with thick blankets over the backs, a restaurant with warm bread service, and a lobby big enough for Yuji to get emotional about exposed beams.
He parks close to the entrance and then ruins his own smooth exit by sprint-walking around the car, slipping once, recovering through pure core strength, and pretending the slip had been planned.
“I saw that,” you say.
“Saw what?”
“You almost became a cautionary tale.”
You let him open your door because you are tired and because his face when you accept help is worth the price of your pride.
“I was testing traction.”
“With your life?”
“With my husbandly instincts.”
You step down, and the cold bites your cheeks. Yuji blocks the wind with his body while you adjust your coat. It is such an earnest, physical thing, this man using his whole self as a wall, that you have to look away for a second.
Inside, the lodge smells like woodsmoke, coffee, wet wool, and expensive soup.
Yuji checks in at the host stand for the fire pit reservation he claims was “casual,” despite the fact that he printed the confirmation and highlighted the time. You stand beside him, hand on your belly, watching a little boy in snow pants try to lick a decorative icicle while his father negotiates with him.
Then Yuji goes still.
You follow his line of sight.
Near the wide windows, a man with dark hair sits beside a pregnant woman wrapped in a cream scarf. His posture says he has calculated every exit and would prefer all of them. One hand rests behind his—you assume—wife's chair. The other is holding a mug as she is talking with the waitress and smiling as if this whole place belongs to her by social right.
Yuji whispers, with deep workplace betrayal, “Fushiguro?”
The man looks up.
His face changes by maybe one millimeter, and somehow it communicates despair, accusation, and a resignation so old it may predate language.
Yuji lifts his hand.
Fushiguro’s wife notices, her smile widening.
“Oh,” you say. “He’s trying to escape.”
“That’s just his face,” Yuji says, already moving and taking you with him.
“Your coworker’s face is a hostage note.”
Yuji reaches their table with the confidence of a man who believes surprise social contact is a gift. “Fushiguro! What are you doing here?”
Megumi looks at him for half a second, then at the lodge around them. “Sitting.”
His wife laughs and taps his arm, murmuring something you can’t hear.
Yuji laughs too, delighted.
You arrive at your husband’s side and immediately feel Megumi’s panic redirect toward you because you are another person, another variable, another obstacle between him and whatever wife-only cave he had planned for the evening.
The woman beside him looks up at you warmly. “Hi. You must be Itadori’s wife.”
Yuji’s face softens. “You know me?”
“I know of you. Megumi mentioned a developer at work who once joined a budget meeting from a grocery store because his wife wanted peaches.”
You look at Yuji.
Yuji looks at Megumi.
Megumi takes a slow drink from his mug.
“You told people about the peaches?”
“I said the deployment timeline moved because you were in produce.”
“My wife needed peaches.”
Megumi’s wife brightens. “Was it canned peaches? I had that one for three weeks.”
You point at her with sudden relief. “Yes. Cold from the fridge, eaten standing up.”
“Fork or spoon?”
“Fork.”
She nods with the solemnity of a judge. “Texture control.”
“Exactly.”
Yuji watches this exchange with reverence. “Baby, you found your people.”
Megumi starts to stand. “We should let them get to their reserva—”
His wife touches his sleeve, and he sits back down.
You hide your smile in your scarf.
Yuji pulls out the empty chair like he has been invited by the universe itself. “We’re at the fire pit after this. You guys should come.”
Megumi’s face says his soul has begun hibernating.
His wife says, “That sounds nice.”
Megumi turns to her.
She turns to him with a sweet smile and one hand resting over her belly.
He folds immediately.
“Fine,” he says.
Yuji beams. “Great! Also, Fushiguro, while I have you, when you reviewed the vendor contract, did the indemnity clause seem weird to you? Because I was thinking about it in the train bathroom.”
Megumi closes his eyes.
You and Megumi’s wife look at each other.
A whole friendship forms in the space of that look.
“Yuji,” you say.
He turns. “Yeah?”
“You are at a mountain lodge with your pregnant wife, speaking to another man who clearly wanted to stare at his own pregnant wife in peace.”
Megumi’s wife laughs into her tea.
Megumi opens his eyes and looks at you with the first flicker of respect he has shown anyone except his wife.
Yuji processes the sentence. Then his face drops with real horror. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”
Megumi looks pained.
His wife pats his arm like he’s a lost bear she’s guiding home.
Yuji bows slightly, panicked and sincere. “I apologize.”
You put a hand over your stomach because laughing pulls at your side.
Megumi’s wife leans toward you. “How far along are you?”
“Seven months.”
“Same.”
Yuji points between the two of you. “Wait. Same? Same same?”
“Yuji,” Megumi says, voice flat.
“What? That’s cool. They’re belly mates.”
You stare at your husband.
Megumi’s wife presses her lips together, losing the fight.
Megumi looks toward the ceiling and takes a deep breath.
Outside, beyond the glass, the fire pits burn low and orange in the snow. The host comes to tell you your reservation is ready, and Yuji takes your tote, your gloves, and the cookie container Eileen gave him, then almost takes Megumi’s mug out of pure service instinct.
Megumi moves it away.
“Reflex,” Yuji chuckles, embarrassed.
At the fire pit, the four of you end up under two blankets because Yuji grabs the largest one and drapes it across both pregnant wives first, then realizes this has visually excluded the husbands from their own marriages.
His solution is to sit close enough to you that his thigh presses along yours while Megumi sits close enough to his wife that his shoulder becomes part of her chair.
The fire warms your boots. Snow crusts along the edge of the stone patio. Somewhere behind you, a family argues in whispers over marshmallows.
Yuji opens Eileen’s snickerdoodles and offers them around.
Megumi declines.
His wife takes one.
Megumi watches her eat half, then accepts the other half when she holds it to his mouth without looking.
You nudge Yuji.
He leans down instantly. “You okay?”
You hold up the last bite of your cookie.
His face softens.
He eats from your fingers, then kisses the cinnamon off your thumb, quick and warm so the others can’t see.
Across the fire, Megumi pretends he did not notice.
His wife absolutely notices.
You both smile into your respective cups.
Yuji settles back with his arm around you and his hand spread over the side of your belly. The baby kicks, firm and present.
He freezes.
You cover his hand.
“I felt her,” he whispers.
“I know.”
Megumi’s wife says, gently, “Mine does that when I sit near heat.”
Megumi’s hand drops to her stomach before he can think himself out of it.
“She likes the fire,” his wife says.
Megumi’s hand drops to her stomach before he can think himself out of it.
“She likes the fire,” his wife says.
Megumi looks down at his hand, then at her face. “I’d rather be home with you and her.”
His wife rests her head against his shoulder. “You would’ve missed the fire.”
He looks down at her.
The complaint leaves his face.
Yuji watches him, then looks at you with the exact same helplessness, open and warm and embarrassing enough to make your chest ache.
He bends and presses his mouth to your temple, staying there while the fire pops and the snow gathers along the patio stones.
You look at the man who searched bear fights with half the words spelled wrong, who packed soup for you, who had been waking in the dark to check your breathing and pretending he only needed water.
You squeeze his hand. “You got today right.”
Yuji exhales against your hair.
Across the fire, Megumi starts trying to convince his wife they should leave before Yuji remembers the vendor contract. Megumi’s wife asks you about the train cinnamon rolls. Yuji is already reaching for another cookie to feed you, and his hand shakes only a little this time.
You open your mouth.
He feeds you.
Then you take the other half and feed him back.
The fire keeps burning, the lodge windows glow behind you, and your husband’s search history sits back at the cabin waiting to incriminate him again.