Work Text:
Maki lifts a heavy bag onto her shoulder.
Once upon a time, it would have contained weapons. Years ago, leaving for work in the morning would have brought a thrill of terror unlike anything most of the Japanese population would ever feel in their lifetimes. Each morning she would dread what comes next. The murders. The blood and the scars on her back. Maki had been an assassin, once.
Now, she deals with a different sort of dread. The fond, affectionate grouchiness she feels around her students. In the past she'd been a killer. Now she's just... Maki. She can't erase her past. But she can grow from it.
With a cup of coffee in one hand, her phone in the other, Maki struggles to open the door. She's been trying to be quiet, so not to wake her wife. Kirumi hardly ever lets herself lie in. She tends to wake early, with the sunrise, but Maki is trying to break this habit of hers. She wants to teach Kirumi indulgence.
Kirumi Tojo, however, is a stubborn woman. She has to be, in a job like hers. Thankfully, it's one of her rare days off today. Maki hopes she will enjoy it.
"Damn it." Maki grumbles, almost spilling coffee all over her dark red blouse. She pouts, struggling to turn the handle of the door.
Then she smells the unmistakeable mint, floral scent of her wife. Kirumi leans over Maki and turns the handle for her, smiling.
"Good morning." Kirumi says. Her voice is husky with sleep and her green hair is messy, fluffed up at the edges. She looks so unlike her usual self, in the mornings. Maki has come to love these small moments of vulnerability. "You should've woken me."
"You were sleeping." Maki grumbles, pulling up the shoulder of her bag again. It's filled with children's textbooks, almost spilling over the seams of the bag. "Go back to bed."
"Have you got everything?" Kirumi smooths down the front of Maki's blouse, and tucks a stray strand of hair that has escaped from her ponytail behind Maki's ear with nimble, expert fingers. She's so practiced in everything she does, so refined. Maki likes to unravel her. Sometimes, rarely, miraculously, Kirumi's hands shake...
"I think so." Maki says. "Stop fussing, I'm fine."
"As you wish." Kirumi steps back, that same patient smile on her face. Maki's eyebrows are furrowed as she looks at her. "Now, there's no need to frown, Maki. Your smile is much prettier.
"Do you want to die?" Maki bites, and Kirumi laughs. Her laughter, too, low and pretty, is a rarity that Maki savours.
"Not today." Kirumi says, and Maki's cheeks are pink with the happiness and pleasure that she'd never admit she feels. "Have a good day, darling."
"Y-You too." Maki turns her eyes away, pinker still. "Love you."
Kirumi's smile brightens. She's almost never says it back - sometimes Maki wonders if the maid has ever said the words I love you to anyone at all, before Maki. She waits for it, patiently. One day- one day Kirumi will let herself say it.
"You know it is reciprocated." Kirumi says at last. "I will see you this evening. I'll have dinner ready."
"I told you I was making dinner tonight."
"But-"
"No buts." Maki gives her a glare, "I'm cooking tonight. Deal with it."
Kirumi laughs again. She's pretty, in the sunlight, with green hair falling over her face. In her silk pyjamas, with those soft eyes... Maki thinks she's heavenly.
"Well, see you later." Maki says, and turns to the door.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Kirumi asks. Her face is amused when Maki turns back to her.
"What?" Maki turns pink again with realisation and pouts. "W-Well, I suppose that I can, um-"
Maki steps forward and reaches up to press a quick, soft kiss to Kirumi's mouth. Kirumi is surprisingly flustered when Maki pulls away. She doesn't show emotions easily, but Maki has come to read the signs well by now - she spots the tinted red of Kirumi's ears.
Kirumi presses a key into Maki's hand.
"I meant this. You almost forgot your key." Kirumi says, "But thank you."
Maki splutters and turns away quickly, attempting (and failing, with both of her hands full) to slam the door behind her. What a terrible morning, she thinks, smiling as she sets off to work.
Kirumi is also smiling as she turns away from the door and walks to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I, she thinks stubbornly, as the kettle boils, will be making dinner tonight.