✧ RIP ✧

“It’s a surprise, Kaz-chan!!” I’d sing out loud like a kid, not giving a single glance to all the people watching us waddle through the parking lot like the weirdos we were. They could piss off!! All I cared about was her smile. From day one to the end of days. My arms latch onto hers when she wraps around me, like we’re two parts of an interlocking ancient puzzle. Love. Pleasure springs up everywhere she touches, pure serotonin when her soft fingertips grace my shoulders, neck and hair. She was natural painkiller, my Kazashi, banished away the worst pain I’d ever been in. But the worry in her tone struck a chord in me then, got me instantaneously pulling her tighter to me. I lean in, brush my lips against her neck.

“There’s no trouble, baby.” I rub the top of her scalp, breathe into her. No trouble now, but for how long? Fate had blessed us with a long stretch of bliss. But we knew the fire in the rain, knew life went to life threatening on the drop of a dime. I squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I should have known better.” I pull her in for a tight hug, know I’m never ever going to let her go!! “I’ll not go leading you into the dark, ever.” She knew just about everything there was to know about me now. Knew what I had to do to pay my debt, knew what I still did. But neither of us could have know what lurked ahead. I wink at her, feel a happy shiver come on when she sweeps her hand over my heart and kisses me. Makes my whole world spin on its axis, her succulent lips to mine. When we part, I bring her hand up, kiss from wrist to center of her palm. “Yeah?! What’s your place like? You’re holding out on me!!” I was a hella hypocrite!!

Once she took her seat, I gently close her door then get over to my side, latching one hand on the wheel and one intertwined with her like my muscles were born to do that. Then we jet off, hella fast, the screech of tires the song of our joy. Asphalt rips away from us as we drive, get lost to the earth. “Kaz-chan… about those bunkers.” It’s just her and me, always how I like it. So close, damn near psychically aligned always. “I wanna get that for you… as a house.” Lifeless eyes shoot over to her auric own. It’s on.

✧ RIP ✧

Those sweet country-dipped words sink into the softest parts of me. It was all the more proof that she was the better half between us, healing in everything she was and did and said. The earth she stands upon is lighter, bends under her angelic grace. I smile when she intertwines our fingers, gently pulling her soft hand towards my face. My lips rub the base mound of her ulna, trace a feathery path up to her first knuckle before moving to slowly kiss each one. It was unshakeable love she made me feel, so resolute that nothing would stop me from being with her, protecting her. On God, on my life. Then I laugh, a warm rush against her thigh. Us as bad parents? “Hell nah,” I huff, “I ain’t care if it does! They’re getting spoiled rotten!!” It was hella impossible for “bad parent” and “Kazashi” to exist in the same sentence. Even if we ain’t even give those lil shits anything, they’d be showered in her adoration, her light her heart - and have their goblin ass dad giving them all the attention in the world, too. A shiver courses through my spine when she kisses my ring tattoo, lands low somewhere beyond my pelvis. “Hella jealous, baby. N’ I’ll have to beat back all the piss-■■■■ parents who are gonna eye you up!!” My wife’s my milf!!! I lean up to kiss her, claim her.

My head was heavy, drunk in her taste. “Yeah,” I whisper, feeling so stupid for saying it out loud but complete just the same because she was hearing it. Sanctuary on all earth, my heart and other half of soul. I grin up at her as she stretches those toned arms out, slip greedily into her hug. All four arms latch onto her, lifeless eyes not able to peel themselves off her. The tears in her eyes, every minute expression shift that the sun highlights on her skin… It drove me wild. Her. My obsession with her, wanting more of her and our kids was more than primal. “Until we get hella old,” I repeat with a dry, choke-sobbed chuckle, “n’ then I’ll find you in the next life n’ we do this shit all over again!! I love you!” I reach up to kiss her collarbone, slow, tender. It cures me everytime to hear her say it. Dazzles me the same, that she felt lucky to meet me when I’m the luckiest man alive for meeting her. Couldn’t put it into words, this feeling that I owed some God out there more than all the riches on earth. Then I’m grinnin’ again. “Chocolate, huh? You got it, baby!!” She nudges, I kiss her again! She ain’t getting away from the kiss barrage!!

Afterwards, I chuckle, pressing a nervous hand against the back of my neck. “Uhh, s-sorry hun! Want me to get one for you?!” I always had a lot more clarity after the fact, felt mad bad for doing what I did to her skin!! Even if there was a sacral part of me that wouldn’t do a damn thing differently. She was mine, everyone should know it. I’m grinnin’, as she says what she says, then turns one of her hands into a scarf and draws me in. Immediately I’m intoxicated all over again, awash with her scent and her soft skin so close to me. Getting drowned in voluminous auric eyes, her plump lips against mine. My brain short circuits when she says what she does. She seduces me, ruins me. “Yeah? Whaddya gonna do?” I’m breathless, lost with her thumb padding across my neck’s racing pulse. Then I drown in the next kiss, never wanna come up for air. I’m obsessed with her, so begrudgingly get out of bed with her it’s like we’re teens bidding the school day away.

It made me so damn happy to see her eat. I blink when she says what she does, smile and feel all lit up. “I can only find a way causeyou’resocute.” I still have a crush on my wife. Always will, get embarrassed admitting these things out loud to her. Then my expression darkens. A small plastic bag? A secret?! Was she going to be sick? I knew not to question her, so I bit back that feeling and nodded. “A small plastic bag!” I went back to grinning. “You’re gonna have to point out the chocolate store to me, baby. Or I’ll mark it if you wanna go back to bed on the ride.” I lean over to kiss her forehead. “There’s a material store I wanna swing by.” I have a burgeoning… curiosity. I’d look like I was lookin’ for blacksmithing supplies, but I wanna see house stuff. Lumber, concrete, tungsten, so on. The thought we’re thinkin’ together but ain’t know it, our family outgrowing the apartment, is running away from me before I can consciously realize what’s happening. I’m chasin’. Thinking, underground, of what to do next, what we need. She’s putting a helluva lotta herself into growing our children, feeding them with her body and soul. It’s on me.

After we’d stuff our faces full and washed up, I’d hold her hand super tight, one arm slung around her waist while another pressed the elevator buttons. I was thinkin’ wild thought. How would it be? Carting a double stroller in the elevator, kids’ bags, groceries, everything else? My life was flashing before my eyes, but a life I’d never lived before. I swallow, then lead us to our car. “We ready?” I ask, leaning up to kiss her again as I pat myself down with cold dead hands.

✧ RIP ✧

Greenery Day!!

Thank ■■■■ for a day off!! For this piss-ass emperor my brother Brie and I hated to bits! It almost seemed like a lifetime ago, us barreling through the sewers of the palace with a gargantuan bug buddy by our side. I wonder what my moongirl would think if she knew, wondered where my long lost friend was on his journey to finding Ouroboros.

But that was a question for another day. I bit back the fattest grin covering my girl’s eyes gently with my hands, two other hands planted at her hips as I led her across a path somewhere outside. The sunshine smiles upon us, a light breeze carrying the day’s promise. I’m chuckling like a fool the whole time. Like we ain’t on opposite sides of the law, just two kids in love, knowing nothing ‘bout kids of our own on the way or what violence may befall us for the wicked plunge we took into one another’s hearts. Everyday with her was precious. But there was an impossible urgency budding inside me these last few weeks, just knowing our lives would change forever in just some number of months. I’d do everything to cherish her, love her, care for her as she was now and always.

One hand slips away from her briefly to open up the car door. For her, roses on the seat with a giant picnic basket in the back row. I pull her in close, inhale her sweetness. “Thought we’d get away,” I whisper against her ear, “I heard ‘bout a place.”

✧ RIP ✧

Obsession. I ate up her giggle and grin, hanging on every word of her joke. Was reminded then that it was her or nothing, the only person in this universe I’d ever wanna be with. Even when our kids were here, I knew with irrefutable certainty that she’d always come first. “All for me?” My tone drops like my heart under my hips, pulsating low. “N’ what should I give to you?” My words are a hot rush against her skin, eyes finding her auric own with ravenous pleading. My lips trace a path from her tum to the angular edge of her pelvis then, hands gripping her hips tighter. I love her like this. I’d love her when she was wider, wore stretchmarks with pride, loved her in any way, shape, or form she took. I break the kisses to chuckle against her skin, adoring her laugh from this angle. “Damn… stole my girl, my rizz, gonna take my car too ain’t they?! lil stinkers better be cute…” A pang of anxiety hit me. What if they were born like mangled-up balls of scars, half-functioning organs and all? I press my face to her again, moan. “Here’s hoping to God, if there’s one!! That they get your beauty, baby!” I had to believe in something, eh? It was impossible for a guy like me to end up with a girl like her without someone up there lookin’ out for me!

Back up, my eyes were glued on her, an arm intertwining around her waist. A slight frown came over my face. It sucks, not feeling good, knowing there ain’t a thing I can do to intervene. My eyes peer down to her hand, soft perfection dancing across the padded, rough skin of my own. My hand moves to intertwine with her own, pad of my thumb rubbing circles between her index finger and palm. “I’m sorry, baby. Let’s see if the doc’s got something for the sickness.” I make a mental note to strategically offload her of responsibilities, wake up earlier to get her a solid breakfast and a load of laundry before she’d even make the cutest yawn with the sun!! Then I grin. No office in Tokyo because… “It’s a doc in my network.” All hella underground, but how long could we roll like that? Better tech, care, faster all around, but would she mind a drive through Shinogi-adjacent for our kids’ dental? My head was spinning with possibilities. “We could make a helluva trip of it!!!” I flip out my phone, begrudgingly, I ain’t like using it when she’s in my presence, just to show her where on the coordinates it was. All the chocolate bars and sights we could hit on the way there!!

Whenever she was done looking at the map, if she wanted to at all, I’d flip the phone behind us somewhere and crane in deeper to her kiss. All my arms pull her tight to me, world’s most precious treasure, a voracious hum of approval ripping from my throat when her legs seal my very doom. So soft, full, maddeningly strong. Two hands grip her curves, the other two racing from her horns to her backside to lift, grip, smack. She was mine. All mine. When she holds me tighter, my lips move from hers to her neck with the intent to leave a mark. “I love you,” I whisper back in a desperate, fast rush. Everything’s hot, an inferno of desire everywhere she touches with no way to put me out. Our dreams are one and the same, infinite togetherness and belonging to one another. She’s what I see when I wake, close my eyes, haunts my every sleep.

I’m grinnin’ hella big!! “O’ yeah, baby?! Good, cause I’m never lettin’ you go! No way in hell!” I lean her down as I’m holding her, just to kiss her deep again! Once we’re in the kitchen, I laugh at what she says, a loud ass barrel that shakes the kitchen cabinets. “You’re hella right ‘bout that baby, n’ all things!!” I throw some eggs onto the griddle, almost forget to crack ‘em!! Can you blame me? Hella distracted when my wife’s this soft, pretty, amazing, smart, strong. “I’ll pick up another fridge on my way home next time!” I look appreciatively as she grabs our glasses, melting inside as she kisses the strawberry and holds it up to me. Naturally my mouth comes over it and her fingers, sucks and swallows. Bright red under the blue, I was gonna say something about the kindest, most amazing compliment she said, but my soul left my body when she did what she did and left nothing but wanting in its wake.

When the food was all ready, I brought trays of it to the table, all four arms doing their duty!! One round, then two! “Time to eat!!” I sing, pressing the fattest kiss on her forehead when I bring the last bowl of food to the table. My heart warms. What would it be like with a full table?

✧ RIP ✧

No evil dads, hopeless futures. None of this or that ‘bout dozens of siblings who knew piss all ‘bout one another, born for blood. All that crazy shit Blaine did - it hella still happened, I’d hate him with every ounce of my soul for all my life here and hell to come - but I’d be damned if I ain’t do everything in my power to ease my moongirl’s pain of that in the present. I ain’t entirely naive; we both had irremovable scars, anchors on our soul. My whackass upbringing, my torture with the Covenini; my soulmate’s past in the orphanage, all those lost kids who bullied her to the devil in Blaine Kaneko. But we were an ocean of our own, infinite love in how we held each other. Our union. We drowned together, brought each other to our own shore. From nightmare, night terror to greatest wish come true in the blink of an eye, tugged her tighter to my chest. There was no place else I belonged more in all the world than by her side, holding her to me.

So imagine the goofiest smile spreading over my face when I come back in, noticing her inching closer to my side of the bed!! Speaking of places, I was lowkey hella glad she pulled away from Heroism. It was never my place to tell her what to do. Never would be, I was her #1 Fan in all her aspirations - but to have her home, safe, fueled a fire in my heart. I loved her impossibly more and more each day; and the pregnancy news sparked a whole new level of possessiveness in me when it came to my Kazashi. Was hella ashamed to say I checked my ring at least a hundred times a day to keep tabs on her. To know that she was cooking and crocheting at home, cozying the nest for us and our kids, ramped up such a primal level of desire in me it was obscene. Overflowed with each charm I found!! Each and every one was more proof she was the greatest woman in all the world, an infinite love I’d do anything for.

Lately, that meant working more. Oddly, we were hella richer than most couples. But most of that money, the millions upon millions of yen that came from assassinations or client weapons, was blood money. Years ago, Brie Brie setup offshore accounts for us to funnel all that cash to. Not to be touched on a daily, unless we wanted the government on our ass. Hella top secret ■■■■ that I ain’t dare jeopardize, especially when it came to Kazashi’s name in Herodom. So in the meantime I kept up with that and extra shifts at any part time gig I could get. Delivering furniture, working as a janitor, anything and everything!! “Clean” money, money I could be proud of. I’m my baby’s breadwinner, y’all!!

And it felt so good!! I snug her closer to me in the present, cracking the biggest grin when her arm turned into the softest jacket sleeves. “Morning beautiful,” I whispered into her skin, love alight in my heart all over again being so close, her kissing my forehead. It hurt sometimes. The fullness of her, being in love with a being who was so perfect there’d be nothing on earth or beyond without her. “Zāzā, did you get even softer?! You’re hella amazing, baby!” It was heaven everywhere she touched, dangerous sin and purity all at once. I lean further into her touch, two arms tightening around her while another pair popped out to glide firmly down her sternum and over her baby bump. Cupped, warm, soft, safe, mine. Imagining her swathing our kids as a baby blanket was enough to send me over the edge. Luckiest lil snots in all the world. “Slept hella good.” I grin. It was still hella hard to sleep sometimes but now it was because reality was greater than anything that could ever be dreamed up. I crane into her kiss, nuzzling her forehead after while my hands kept holding, exploring, her. “As you should, Zāzā!! Your body’s taking up hella energy doing… the thing!” I gulp. “You need all your sleep n’ I’ll tell this doc to piss off if you wanna go another day!!” It was that simple. What she wanted and needed, over and above anything else imaginable.

I peer up at her, lean in to kiss her deep. “How are you feeling? You hungry?” I’d cook, pick her up anything, anything at all!!

✧ RIP ✧

The sun pales in comparison to her.

Just does, the rising’s aureate and pink rays soft today like they’ve finally accepted their fate. To be task lighting for her, illumination over the most gorgeous angel in all of existence!! Not a day goes by where I don’t think about it, the minutes and seconds empty anyway if they’ve not having to do with her. I’d hella feel this way even if I ain’t in the profession I’m in - vaguely complicit in the fact that I may not come home, may not wake up at all one day - like I’d still think, with all the certainty of conceptual truth that Kazashi McCoy is the most beautiful girl to ever walk the earth. Brighter, prettier, better outside and in than anything imaginable.

Beautiful, I think, massive fingers spooling through her hair on the sheets, idly wrapping them around her cherry red horns and smiling to myself. Like a helluva creep, but you can’t help it when your wife is this pretty!! My other arm’s holding her, tight and close, to me. Until my phone starts buzzing and I’m outta bed, the most annoyed glower ugly over my already ugly face. What busted ■■■■ calls this damn early?!

I close the door behind me, fist balled up. “Speak.”

“Chuck! I’m your baby doctor, Chise!”

Oh.

The voice is oddly high, but I ain’t gonna worry ‘bout it too much. Those of us living on the fringes of society, Villains and Vigilantes, all got hella shit going on. A suspiciously high and squeaky voice? None of my damn business!! Second thing, we got good benefits, too! A homie of my homie who got us our apartment all those years ago suggested this cat: says he’s the best on this side of the world when it comes to prenatal care. The situation we’re in… me being me, the love of my life being an outstanding, upstanding Hero, it’s a helluva risk but one I’d take to get her the best care.

“Chise. Cool.”

The person on the other side of the line keeps speaking; I didn’t quite get it when he said he was a baby doctor… “I’m eager to meet you and Mrs. McCoy at 16:00. I’ve linked the coordinates to your phone. Don’t forget to scale the mountain when you reach the dueling peaks, not go through it. If you leave now you should make it right on time to your appointment. Call God if you get lost, cause no one else can hear you out there.” The line dies.

What?... I shrug, pocketing the thing before going back to our bedroom, wrapping my arms around the love of my life and pressing my face into her neck until she wakes up!!

✧ RIP ✧

A thousand lifetimes of love. It’s what I felt when she gave my forehead the fattest kiss, what I knew simply just being cuddled up next to her like this. It hurt to love somebody so much, whole chest aching whenever our jobs kept us apart, whenever I even let my damn pea-sized brain start thinking of what could happen. With Kazashi, from Day One I knew hope. Hope of getting outta my hella whack-ass circumstances, the mortifying places I’d put myself in as a result of my own bad decisions. It was the highest love, and the only way I could return even a small fraction of it was to protect her, love her, do everything in my power to make her happy, and soon enough to make our whole happy bunch all the safer, too.

I practically choked at the words she said next, the idea that they heard me. Staring up into her sunlit, gorgeous auric eyes, I tugged my arms all the tighter around her as she did for me, practically rocking us as we sat there after the kiss. “Hope they get your accent.” I was damn sniffling!! “Your heart, your badassery, your style, your unfailable ability to see the good in the world. And holy ■■■■, your height baby!! YOUR LOOKS!” What the hell could they get from me?! Regen, hopefully without the dying aspect of it!! I was hella gonna teach em how to shoot a gun but that ain’t exactly a genetic ability I could pass onto our spawn! I was blushing, hella deep, hiding my face into her soft skin when she said what she did. Seeing her blush made me fall in love with her all over again, thought I couldn’t get any deeper than this but I just kept falling more everyday for her. Every moment. This one hella ain’t the last. “I’m the pa,” I repeated, starstruck in her. I was hella into the daddy thing but now it was different!! Then I grinned. Taking my phone out for the selfie really helped me, helped for my hands to have something to do when my heart and head were hella short circuiting in love. “Hella selfies, baby!!” My face practically melted when she cupped my cheek, a hella big grin spilling out my dimples!! Then I took a thousand selfies of us, craned us into every angle, every possible position, just loved her so much it still felt unreal to see us in one frame together.

The one with her kissing my cheek? Hella saved to heart and would add one to my Civilian wallet, too. The blue guy? Luckiest man on earth. Side by side to the most amazing, most spellbinding soulmate beyond all imagination. “Hella sushi, baby.” I grinned big, holding her securely with one arm while the other reached to prep the food!! Practically blinking away tears, I was ecstatic to paint our nails too! “What color you want, hun? Want a frenchie, a box?” I was grinning!! I’d gotten hella good at doing nails, just for her!