After neatly packing away her workspace, she reached out and Clicked the switch on her small desk lamp, making her side of the room into the dim blue shadows of the morning.
She looked over at his chaotic desk one last time. 'Is he seriously sleeping like that all morning?' she thought, frowning.
'Good grief. Does he want his entire spine to sue him for damages tomorrow?' she scoffed softly.
'If he breaks his neck, what do I tell the kids? That their father died protecting a pile of papers?'
She turned away.
'Hmph. Idiot.'
But right as she turned to walk away, her eyes caught something sitting flat on his desk.
It was his black ceramic coffee mug. It sat completely untouched, the liquid inside dark, dead, and freezing cold.
A sharp wave of pure irritation immediately hit her chest.
Mrs. Kamitani threw her head back, looking straight up toward the ceiling as if complaining directly to God.
"Kami-sama, I passed the bar examination for this?" she whispered helplessly to the empty air, her shoulders slumping in absolute defeat.
SMACK!
Mrs. Kamitani slapped the flat of her palm right against her forehead, irritated at her own weakness. Her brain told her to go to sleep, but her heart was forcing her to help him anyway.
She stayed perfectly still like that for a few quiet seconds, keeping her hand clamped over her eyes. She thought that if she blocked out the sight of his crooked neck and messy desk, she could still stop herself from caring.
But it was no use. After years of marriage, taking care of this stubborn man had become her automatic second nature. Even though she wanted to act tough and grumpy, her wifely habits were simply impossible to fight off.
Only after a long while, she finally dragged her hand down and looked up.
Her brow was twitching with pure irritation as she glared at the sleeping attorney one last time.
"Hah..."
She let out a long, heavy sigh of deep surrender, shaking her head.
"Fine. I will only do this once."
With an angry, grumpy huff, she slammed her packed bag back down onto her table.
She stomped across the distance between their two desks, her bare feet making soft, hurried slaps against the polished wooden floor.
She reached her hand straight out, about to aggressively grab the cold cup and storm away, but right before her fingers could touch the ceramic handle, she suddenly stopped herself in her steps.
She bent down slightly, whispering fiercely to her own mind to justify her actions.
'I am only throwing out this cold coffee because leaving good beans to rot is a complete waste!' she argued with herself, her chin shaking with a sharp, stubborn nod.
She stared down at the freezing mug with a big, grumpy frown.
"Yes, exactly. I am just saving our household budget!" she whispered-yelled to the empty desk, her face turning pink.
"I am absolutely not doing this because I care about him. I am doing it because unlike a certain stubborn, brainless idiot, I actually know when a hot drink is ruined!"
_AFTER A WHILE_
The heavy bedroom door silently opened with a soft Click cutting the quiet voice in the bedroom.
Mrs. Kamitani stepped back into the dark room, carefully balancing a fresh, newly made mug of hot coffee in her hands, the rich aroma instantly cutting through the freezing air.
With slow, secret steps, she crept across the polished floorboards, trying her absolute best not to make a single sound as she arrived right beside Mr. Kamitani's workspace.
Only when she stood directly over the desk did she finally notice the actual, complete chaos of his workspace.
It was an absolute disaster area. Legal files were scattered everywhere without any order, papers were sliding off the edges, and one thick cardboard file folder was even ridiculously sitting right on top of his desk lamp, blocking out half the light.
Mrs. Kamitani deeply frowned at the sight, her corporate neatness completely screaming inside her head.
She carefully set the fresh, steaming mug down onto a clear spot on the wood, before reaching out and aggressively snatching the rogue file straight off the lamp, throwing it back down onto a random stack with a quiet rustle.
She stared at the messy mountains of paperwork and silently cursed Mr. Kamitani under her breath.
'Unbelievable...' she thought to herself, a wave of realization hitting her mind.
"For years, I kept wondering how on earth Kento managed to develop such terribly messy habits in his room. I kept scolding him for it."
She let out a sharp, quiet huff, crossing her arms tightly.
"Now I finally realize the truth. The poor boy inherited it directly from his own father's DNA! At least Shido is a thousand times better than both of them combined."
As her eyes drifted back down to her husband, she noticed the formal tie around his white shirt. Even while bent backward in total exhaustion, his dark tie was still pulled up incredibly tight against his throat.
A surge of grumpiness rushed into her chest, and she stared at the fabric with a narrow, angry stare.
"Honestly, looking at him like this... I feel like choking his neck with that stupid tie!" she complained fiercely to herself.
Despite her angry thoughts, Mrs. Kamitani reached her hands out anyway. Her fingers gently slid under his collar, carefully and softly loosening the tight knot, pulling the fabric down a few inches so he could finally breathe properly.
As her hands retreated, she noticed the wild, tangled mess his hair was in, the strands sticking out in every single direction.
She let out a long, heavy sigh, looking down at his exhausted features.
'Good grief...!' she murmured internally, a mix of pity and annoyance bubbling up. 'Did he even look in a mirror before sitting down?"
She stepped back slightly, adjusting her reading spectacles in the dim light while continuously grumbling in her mind about the absolute ridiculous nature of the stubborn attorney she had married.
She stepped back slightly, adjusting her reading spectacles in the dim light.
"Good grief..." her mind grumbled, looking toward the chair.
"A respected attorney. A father of two children. Years of education and professional training... only to end up sleeping in an office chair."
She cast one last annoyed glare at his messy desk.
"Amazing."
As she turned her chin to leave, her green eyes caught a few long, messy strands of his hair falling directly across his closed eyes.
Mrs. Kamitani let out another dramatic, silent sigh, rolling her eyes at the sight.
Since she was already standing right there beside his chair, she unconsciously reached her hand back out toward his forehead.
She used the tips of her fingers to gently push the loose, tangled strands aside, trying to clear his face so he could rest a bit more comfortably.
Hoping to bring some neat order to the chaos, she swiped her palm over the top of his head to smooth the rest of the wild mess flat.
But the moment her hand lifted, the stubborn hair immediately sprang straight back up into the exact same messy, wild positions as before.
Mrs. Kamitani's eyebrows twitched with an instant wave of irritation at her failed attempt.
'The heck—' she thought grumpily, pulling her hand away and dropping her arms to her sides. "Even his hair is as incredibly stubborn and uncooperative as his legal arguments."
Giving up completely on fixing his head, she took a tiny step backward.
The quiet sound of the air conditioner suddenly faded away as a sudden, painful memory rushed straight back into Mrs. Kamitani's mind.
The lighthearted energy of her quiet care vanished in an instant, replaced by the heavy, suffocating weight of the words they had exchanged during breakfast in the kitchen.
Mr. Kamitani's freezing, absolute whisper echoed clearly through her ears, cutting through her thoughts like a sharp piece of ice.
"You are daydreaming. I will not believe this... Now drop it."
And then, the absolute raw volume of his furious shout slammed into her chest all over again.
"YUNA!!!"
The memory of that terrifying moment made her chest tighten with a sudden, fresh wave of bitter betrayal.
A single, hot tear immediately welled up in the corner of her green eye, shining under the faint light of the computer screen.
But before that tear could even think of falling down her cheek, Mrs. Kamitani sharply lifted her fingers, aggressively rubbing her eyes to erase any trace of weakness.
"Hic... ugh—" she let out a tiny, muffled sniff, quickly clearing her throat as she swallowed down the lingering hurt.
She fixed her reading spectacles with a sharp snap of her finger, her defensive pride returning in full force as she stared down at her husband's frozen, stretched-out body.
She leaned down slightly, looking here and there across his messy wooden desk while beginning to whisper quietly to his unmoving form, badmouthing him right to his face.
"You should have absolutely never offended me like that, Counselor." Mrs. Kamitani murmured in a fierce, breathless whisper, a small, mischievous pout forming on her lips.
She crossed her arms tightly over her cotton pajamas, tilting her chin up with an immensely confident look.
"You completely forgot that your wife is not some ordinary, simple-minded opponent you can just dismiss in a brief. I am YUNA. And now, you are officially going to pay back every single bit of that attitude and be completely even with me."
Suddenly, her roaming green eyes caught sight of something bright sitting right near his keyboard, and a tiny, wicked smile instantly crawled onto her face.
She quickly glanced back up at Mr. Kamitani's face, inspecting his tightly covered eyes and his completely drained, silent posture.
In order to fully confirm that he was absolutely, completely asleep before launching her tiny attack, she leaned in even closer to his ear, dropping her voice to a barely audible, testing whisper.
"Ayato...?" she breathed out softly, waitingl to see if his instincts would switch on.
When his tall body didn't move a single fraction, she narrowed her green eyes playfully and decided to throw a funny, chaotic talk into his ear to trap him.
"I completely know you are wide awake right now, Counselor." she whispered in a sharp, teasing tone, watching his face with absolute intensity.
"The High Court doesn't train people to sleep this deeply. Get up."
She stood perfectly still, waiting for a few quiet seconds for any kind of sudden response, fully expecting him to stop pretending, open his dark eyes, or at least let out a guilty gasp.
She watched his hands over his face, completely focused on verifying whether he was secretly awake or truly dead to the world.
But after a few long, silent seconds, there was absolutely no response at all.
The room remained completely quiet, and the heavy, slow rise and fall of his chest proved that Mr. Kamitani was, for once, truly and genuinely fast asleep under the crushing weight of his heavy workload.
An immensely wicked, triumphant grin instantly spread all the way across Mrs. Kamitani's face.
She let out a tiny, secret giggle, completely rejoicing in her silent kitchen-revenge victory right there in the dark room.
"Hehe... finally caught completely off guard, 'The Shield of the Court...'" she whispered to herself in pure, dramatic triumph, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
She reached her hand out across the messy wooden table, quietly sliding a bright sticky note pad toward her fingers.
She grabbed a black ink pen, clicked it softly, and quickly began scribbling a formal document right onto the small piece of paper.
Using her sharpest, neatest corporate layout handwriting, she wrote out the text line by line:
* PROPERTY OF
* MRS. YUNA KAMITANI
* NAME: AYATO KAMITANI
* AGE: TOO OLD FOR THIS NONSENSE.
* CONDITION: SLEEP-DEPRIVED.
* MAINTENANCE REQUIRED:
° Coffee
° Sleep
° Hair repairment
° Wife supervision
* WARNING:
° Do not attempt to die.
° Replacement costs are unacceptable.
— Your Completely Unbothered Wife
----
Mrs. Kamitani grinned widely, admiring her absolute masterpiece of a corporate asset tag under the dim blue light of the computer screen.
"Hehehe..."
She carefully peeled the sticky note off the pad, holding it between her fingers like a supreme judge delivering a final verdict.
Stepping in close, she raised her hand and placed the sticky note directly onto his left cheek, letting out a sharp, tiny slap against his skin to make sure the adhesive stuck completely flat against his skin.
SMACK!
"Hmph!" Mrs. Kamitani let out a proud, stubborn scoff, pulling her hand back and crossing her arms tightly over her light blue-grey cotton pajamas as she rejoiced in her brilliant work.
She threw her head back slightly, praising her own legal genius while looking down on the sleeping High Court Attorney with an immensely dramatic, theatrical flair.
"A complete and utter victory for the Corporate Firm." she whispered to herself in a highly exaggerated, boastful murmur, completely proud of her petty revenge.
"The great 'Shield of the Court' has been officially marked and contained by his corporate wife! You are absolutely no match for me, Ayato."
Deep inside his heavy, exhausted mind, Mr. Kamitani was actually not fully asleep at all.
He had been floating in a shallow, half-awake state of deep exhaustion, but the very millisecond his wife's soft, familiar pajama footsteps had entered his workspace, his elite legal instincts had completely kicked in.
He had purposely remained frozen, pretending to be fast asleep with his large hands blocking his face, simply because he wanted to see what she would do.
The moment her gentle fingers had slid under his collar to carefully loosen his suffocating tie, a warm wave of absolute comfort had rushed through his chest.
'Marked and contained, huh?' Mr. Kamitani thought to himself, a soft, invisible smile tugging deep within his mind as the tiny sticky note was slapped flat onto his left cheek.
'My corporate wife seems to be in a very good, mischievous mood tonight.'
Without even opening his dark eyes for a single fraction of a second, he had noticed and felt every single little thing she did.
He had happily remained completely still, purposely letting her fuss over his messy desk and his wild hair because he absolutely loved it when she took care of him like that.
Right beside him, Mrs. Kamitani was still completely caught up in her own little world, happily humming a sweet line of her song while whispering more dramatic, playful insults right to his face.
"Completely contained..." she whispered with a highly satisfied, proud little smirk, completely oblivious to his inner thoughts. "Sleep well, my stubborn opponent."
Believing her secret midnight mission was a total, absolute success, she turned her chin around, her soft cotton pajamas rustling slightly as she prepared to slip away into the dim shadows of the bedroom.
But right as she took her very first step to leave, something suddenly caught her.
Before she could even move an inch, a large, warm hand suddenly reached through the darkness, his long fingers smoothly wrapping around her slender wrist with an incredibly firm, deliberate, and dizzying grip.
Mrs. Kamitani instantly halted in her tracks, her breath completely catching inside her throat.
"Wah—?!" she let out a sharp, startled gasp, her heart violently slamming against her ribs in total shock.
She quickly turned her head over her shoulder, her green eyes widening as she looked down at his desk.
Mr. Kamitani was still stretching his tall frame backward against the leather office chair, his long legs extending under the table.
However, his right hand was no longer covering his face—it was the very hand currently wrapped tightly around her warm wrist, his thumb gently pressing against her racing pulse.
His left hand remained lazily propped up on his forehead, pushing his tangled hair back as he looked straight up at her blushing face, a devastating, intensely handsome smirk pulling at his lips.
"A-Ayato...?" Mrs. Kamitani stuttered out in complete, wide-eyed horror, her legal composure instantly shattering into a million tiny pieces.
Mr. Kamitani's dark eyes gleamed with absolute amusement under the dim blue light of the screen, the ridiculous corporate sticky note still perfectly attached to his left cheek.
"By the way..." he spoke up, his deep voice filled with a thick wave of playful mischief.
"Your Bankai was rather impressive, Darling."
Hearing those specific words, Mrs. Kamitani's face instantly flushed a deep, burning crimson color that rushed all the way down to her neck.
"Y-You...!" she gasped out, her sentences completely messy, and broken as she tried to pull her wrist away, failing miserably against his strength. "You... you heard that?! Did you seriously hear that?!"
"Every single word." Mr. Kamitani smirked wider, his deep voice vibrating softly through the dead silence of the four o'clock hour.
"W-Were you awake this entire time?!" she demanded, her chest heaving as she glared down at him in pure, flustered embarrassment.
Mr. Kamitani slowly closed his eyes for a brief second, letting out a soft, exhausted sigh through his nose before opening them to look right back into her watery green eyes.
"Didn't you say it yourself just a moment ago?" he teased softly, his eyes locking onto her flustered face with immense fondness.
"High Court lawyers are trained not to sleep this deeply. I was simply following your legal logic."
"I-I never said anything like that!"
Mrs. Kamitani panted out, stuttering rapidly as she desperately tried to deny her secret whispers. "You are completely hallucinating from lack of sleep!"
Mr. Kamitani didn't argue with her frantic denial. Instead, his gaze turned incredibly intense and heavy with affection.
He slowly pulled his left hand down from his forehead, his long fingers reaching up to gently capture her free hand.
Without a single word, he pulled her hand closer to his face, lazily and softly resting his cheek right against her soft palm for a long, quiet second.
He closed his eyes, leaning his heavy head completely into her touch as though turning her hand into his personal pillow was the most natural, automatic thing in the entire world.
The rough, prickling feeling of his midnight stubble against her soft skin sent a violent jolt of electricity straight up Mrs. Kamitani's arm, making her entire body shiver.
"A-Ayato...?" she gasped out, her voice completely cracking in the quiet room.
Her face instantly turned a violent shade of crimson. All her proud, boastful confidence evaporated into thin air as she tried to pull back, her fingers trembling against his cheek.
"W-What are you... let go! What do you think you are doing?!"
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"Didn't you say during the evening that you weren't going to say a single word to me for the rest of the weekend?"
"You're talking as though one bad night erased every other day we've shared together... as though I need a reason to want to be close to my own wife."
----
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(*﹏*;)
— SakuraShinomiya