Page 67 of Kotori

Kaito

The weakness is what I notice first.

A week of enforced rest has taught me things about myself I didn't want to learn. How my right arm hangs useless in its sling, fingers clumsy from nerve damage. How standing for more than ten minutes leaves me lightheaded. How buttoning a shirt becomes impossible without help.

I hate needing help.

But watching Paige move through our morning routine of checking my bandages with gentle efficiency, adjusting pillows without being asked, bringing tea at exactly the strength I prefer, I'm starting to understand the difference between needing someone and depending on them.

She does it all without hesitation. Without resentment. As if caring for me has become as natural as breathing.

It's been a week since I woke up to find her sleeping, her hand still holding mine like she was afraid I'd disappear if she let go.

A week of watching her manage the household, handle the girls' questions about my injuries, coordinate with Dr. Yamada about my recovery—all while never leaving my side for more than an hour.

She chose this. Chooses it every day.

"Your shoulder's healing well," she says, unwinding the bandages with practiced care. "Dr. Yamada says another week and you can start physical therapy."

I grunt noncommittally, watching her face in the bathroom mirror. She's focused, competent, her touch sure and gentle even when cleaning the wound makes me hiss through my teeth.

"Sorry," she murmurs automatically, though we both know she's being as careful as possible.

"Don't apologize for necessary pain."

She glances up at me in the mirror, her expression unreadable. "Is that what this is? Necessary?"

I meet her eyes in the reflection, studying the woman who's become essential to my breathing. "Yes," I say simply.

She nods and returns to her work, but I catch the small smile that tugs at her lips.

The silence stretches between us, comfortable in a way that should be impossible. Six months ago, I would have filled it with commands, demands, reminders of her place in my world. Now I just watch her work and try to ignore how right this feels.

"I need a bath," I announce when she finishes with the bandages. The words come out rougher than intended, carrying echoes of other mornings, other demands.

Her hands still on the medical supplies. For a moment, tension fills the space between us—memory of the first time I made that demand, the humiliation I inflicted, the way I used her body's responses against her.

"Alright," she says quietly. "Let me prepare everything."

She moves to the washing area first, setting out soap and a washcloth on the low wooden stool, then turns to fill the large soaking tub.

She adjusts the temperature with the same careful attention she brings to everything else, adding a few drops of hinoki oil to the water.

No hesitation, no resentment. Just acceptance of what needs to be done.

When she turns back to me, her expression is soft but unreadable. "Do you want help, or..."

"I can't manage the sling with one hand."

It's an admission that costs me. The great Matsumoto Kaito, who commands fear and respect across Japan, reduced to needing help removing his clothes. But she just nods and approaches with the same gentle confidence she'd shown with the bandages.

Her fingers work at the knots holding my arm immobilized, movements careful around the healing shoulder. When the sling falls away, I flex my fingers experimentally. Better than yesterday, but still weak. Still limited.

"The shirt?" she asks.

I nod, lifting my left arm while she eases the fabric over my head. Her touch is tender, reverent almost, nothing like the charged encounters of our early days. This is care born of love, not seduction. Devotion, not submission.

She guides me to the washing stool first. Carefully, she helps me sit, then wets my skin with warm water from the shower attachment. Steam rises around us, carrying the scent of hinoki wood and soap as she lathers the washcloth.

"Let me," she says, beginning to wash my back with gentle, thorough strokes.

I feel my chest tighten with unexpected emotion. The first time we did this, I made her kneel. Made her understand exactly how powerless she was, how completely I owned every inch of her.

Now she tends to me as an equal, caring for me because she chooses to, not because she has to.

After she's finished washing my body and rinsing away all the soap, she helps me into the hot water with steady hands, making sure I don't slip or jar the healing shoulder. The clean water embraces me, hot enough to make my muscles relax instantly.

"Better?" she asks, settling on the wooden stool beside the tub.

"Yes." I sink deeper into the bath, letting the heat work into my damaged shoulder.

"Paige."

Her hands pause on my back where she's been washing with gentle strokes. "Yes?"

"At Tanabata." The words feel strange in my mouth, confession layered with vulnerability I'm not sure how to handle. "What did you wish for?"

She's quiet for so long I think she won't answer. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, thoughtful.

"I wished to find where I belonged." Her hands resume their gentle washing. "I'd been drifting for so long, never really fitting anywhere. That night, with all those wishes hanging from the bamboo, I just wanted to find my place in the world."

The honesty in her voice makes my throat tight. "And did you? Find it?"

"Yes." No hesitation, no doubt. "Though not where I expected."

I lean back against the tub's edge, processing her words. She found her place. Here, with me, in this violent world that should have terrified her. She chose it. Chose me.

"What about you?" she asks quietly. "What did you wish for?"

The question hangs in the steamy air between us. I've never admitted it to anyone, never let myself think about it too directly. But sitting here, weak and dependent and cared for by this woman who sees exactly what I am and loves me anyway...

"I wished for you to choose me willingly. Not because you were trapped or scared or had no other options." The words feel like broken glass in my throat. "Because you wanted to. Because what we had was real, not just careful manipulation."

"Kaito," she breathes.

"I know what I did to you. How I broke you down, isolated you, made myself your only option for survival." I stare at my hands in the water, unable to meet her eyes. "I told myself it was necessary. That you'd understand eventually. That you'd thank me for showing you who you really were."

"You weren't entirely wrong about that," she says softly.

"Wasn't I?" I turn to look at her then, seeing my own uncertainty reflected in her face. "You became what I wanted you to become. But was any of it real? Is any of this real?"

She sets down the washcloth and moves closer, her hand finding my uninjured shoulder. "Look at me."

I do, seeing strength and certainty in her eyes that takes my breath away.

"You want to know what's real?" Her voice carries steel beneath the gentleness.

"I stayed. I chose you when I learned what you really were.

I fought for our family when you were too blind to see the truth about Daichi.

I sat by your bedside for a week not because I had to, but because the thought of being anywhere else was unbearable.

" Her thumb traces small circles on my shoulder, touch gentle but grounding.

"You think manipulation made me love you?

Then you have a poor understanding of how love actually works.

" A small smile tugs at her lips. "Love doesn't ask permission, Kaito.

It doesn't follow rules or logic or careful plans. It just is."

The certainty in her voice breaks something open in my chest. Months of wondering, of questioning whether what we built was real or just an elaborate prison of my own making, and she cuts through it all with simple truth.

"I love you," she continues. "Not the version of you that you think you created for me to love.

The real you. The man who kills to protect his children.

Who grieves for his wife but can't move past the guilt.

Who's afraid of being vulnerable that he'd rather be hated than risk being rejected.

" She pauses with a chuckle. "That man who takes his kids on picnics and hauls them up mountains to visit shrines.

The man who's raised three perfect girls like little princesses, even if he might have some outdated opinions. "

I can't breathe. Can't process how she sees so clearly into the parts of myself I've spent decades hiding.

"You didn't make me love you," she whispers, leaning closer. "You just gave me the chance to see who you really were beneath all that control and violence. And what I saw was worth choosing."

The last of my carefully constructed walls crumble in the face of her honesty. This woman—this fierce, impossible woman—knows exactly what I am and loves me anyway. Not because I forced her to, but because she decided I was worth it.

"Marry me."

The words escape before I can stop them, raw and graceless and completely unlike the careful proposal I should have planned. She blinks, startled, and I feel heat crawl up my neck.

"That came out wrong." I shift in the water, suddenly aware of how awkward this is, proposing while naked and half-disabled in a bathroom. "I mean…"

"Yes."

Now it's my turn to blink. "Yes?"

"Yes, I'll marry you." Her smile widens, becoming radiant. "Though your timing could use work."

Relief floods through me so powerful it's almost nauseating. "I don't have a ring. I should have planned this better."

"Kaito." She leans forward and kisses me, soft and sweet. When she pulls back, her eyes are bright and her face goes pink like she's about to cry. "I don't need a ring right now. I just need you to mean it."

"I mean it." The words come easier now, weighted with certainty.

"I want you as my wife. My partner. My equal.

" I pause, struggling with the next part.

"Not because you complete me or some romantic nonsense.

Because you challenge me. Because you make me better than I am alone.

Because watching you become who you are has been the greatest privilege of my life. "

The tears spill over then, tracking down her cheeks as she laughs. "God, you really don't know how to be romantic, do you?"

"No," I admit. "I don't know how to do any of this. How to love someone without trying to control them. How to be vulnerable without seeing it as weakness. How to build a partnership instead of just taking what I want."

"Lucky for you," she says, reaching for the soap again, "I'm a very good teacher."

I catch her wrist with my good hand, stopping her. "Teach me."

"What?"

"I love you." The words I've never said to her before come out rough, unpracticed.

"And I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved.

How to be the man you chose instead of the one who trapped you here.

" The admission costs me, but I force it out anyway.

"I don't want to just possess you anymore, Paige. I want to deserve you."

Her expression softens, and she leans forward to press her forehead against mine.

She doesn't say anything, doesn't need to.

The silence between us holds everything.

Acknowledgment, forgiveness, promise. We stay like that for a long moment, breathing the same air, sharing the same space, and I feel pieces of myself I didn't know were broken beginning to heal.

When she finally pulls back, there's mischief in her eyes. "I will. but first, let me finish washing your back. Your fiancé can't walk around with soap residue."

Fiancé. The word is so strange to me. "Bossy," I murmur, knowing anyone else who told me what to do would be a dead man.

"You love it."

I do. I love her strength, her defiance, the way she refuses to be diminished by my world. I love that she chose darkness willingly and found light in it anyway. I love that she saw through my careful control of the man underneath and decided he was worth saving.

As her hands resume their gentle washing, I close my eyes and let myself feel peace. Not the temporary satisfaction of victory or the fleeting pleasure of control, but the deep, lasting peace that comes from being known completely and loved anyway.

My Tanabata wish came true after all. She chose me willingly—not the mask I wore or the power I wielded, but the broken, violent, desperate man beneath it all.

My Kotori.