No one knew Associate Special Class investigator Urie Kuki was a married man.

Not his subordinates, his senior associates, and certainly not even his closest comrades.

It wasn’t that he was hiding it. Not exactly. There was no photograph of you tucked into the corner of his desk, no ring on his finger to draw suspicion, but it wasn’t secrecy out of shame. It was just that the thought of exposing something so personal—so completely his—to a world that demanded constant performance and control felt unbearable. He’d long learned that anything soft, anything precious, didn’t last long in the CCG.

And you were the softest part of him.

But really, he genuinely was not trying to hide it. Urie wasn’t the type to offer information freely to begin with. People assumed he was married to the job, and he let them. Let them believe that he went home to an empty apartment, lived off takeout and unfinished case files, and spent his nights alone poring over ghoul patterns and Quinx Squad restructuring plans.

And that’s about it.

“They tried to set me up with one of the Rank 2 investigators.” Your husband lets out a sound of disapproval as he shrugs his coat off, hanging it on the rack before stepping inside. It’s almost ridiculously silly — how his gaze went straight to look in your direction, not hiding the way his frown became etched across his lips. “I told them I was married to you. I didn’t know that people didn’t know.”