It’s an irritating experience, having to watch you succeed at something he assumed you’d fail at.

Naoya watches from the side of his eye as you play with the drooling toddler. His drooling toddler, and yours, he supposes, but the boy hasn’t truly earned the title of being his son yet. Though he won’t say that to you. You’re usually as passive and docile as a porcelain doll, even when Naoya’s cruelty turns towards you, but whenever he makes the slightest criticism about the baby, you find the audacity to raise your voice at him and say…unbecoming things that make him feel a certain way.

Unrelated, but Naoya has learned to keep his tongue to himself on certain topics.

Occasionally, the bright eyes of his first son trail over to him before snapping back to whatever toy you have in your hands. Naoya scowls and goes back to—whatever he was doing. You’ve distracted him again.

After weeks of ignoring your cries about how he doesn’t spend any time with you and his pudgy offspring, he begrudgingly allowed you to spend your boring afternoons sitting with him in his office. It had been easy to ignore the two of you at first.

Unsurprisingly, the boy isn’t a crier. Naoya doesn’t really remember how old his son is now, but he’s sure babies his size were still in the annoying whiny phase. That just meant the boy would take after him instead of you when the time comes. Naoya had frequent nightmares about the boy growing up soft and weak like you.

His attention snaps back to you as you loudly exclaim in awe. The infant stands there balancing himself shakily in the middle of the room, face balled up in confusion before his weight causes him to stumble back onto the ground. Even with his failure you scoop him up and exclaim about how “proud you are” of him. Naoya immediately rolls his eyes.

“Why do you coddle him so much?” Naoya chides, chin resting on his palm and elbow on the desk. “No wonder he’s progressing slow. You’re holding him back, though there’s no surprise there….”