The time you told Hiromi that you were going to teach him "how to really live life," he gave that look. The look where his brows draw together, the same way he looks at a new case file for the first time. He didn't say no, though. Just blinked slowly and followed you out of the city, suitcase in hand. Took a train to somewhere away from the stress, the sleepless nights. The train doors closed and that was all.

The countryside was a world he didn't trust at first. Too open, in his opinion. Too green, to quiet. It unsettled him, the way wind and the sound of farm animals trotting replaced courtroom murmurs and the clattering chaos of Shibuya. But, you held his hand through it all, through every panicked step off the grid, through ever attempt he made at pretending he didn't miss his old life even a little.

You kissed the city from his skin once touch at a time. Replaced his guilt with fresh air and morning coffee and a garden in front of your little house. He swore up and down that the garden was your idea, but you both knew he liked picking vegetables and watering flowers with you a little too much for that to be true.

Marriage had come like everything else. With caution, then commitment. There was something ceremonial in the way he handed you a ring, not flashy, but firm. A promise sealed in the sunset while you were having dinner on your porch and he got down on one knee when he said he was going to get more wine for the both of you.

Now, time moves slower in the best way possible. Not the dreading, "I want it to be over with" kind of slow, but the kind of slow he's content with. Where the sun takes longer to rise so that means he can watch and hold you longer while the sun pours onto you through the open window. The kind of slow where he almost wants the day to never end, but he truly doesn't mind because th eknows the next will be spent with you.

This morning, he's curled behind you in bed again, the sun rising with the light curling around you both. He was barely up as you had begun to stir away yourself. His arms stay wrapped around you, hand on your stomach and the other under his head, all bare and bed-warm skin.

"Good morning." he murmurs against the nape of your neck, then a kiss to the same spot. "Did I ever thank you enough for taking me here?" He has. He exhales low and quiet, like he's not used to waking up without the weight of duty pressing on him the first thing in the morning right when he opens his eyes. Now he's here, with you, where the loudest thing is birds instead of people screaming.