People don't understand.
They look at Hifumi - him, tall and strapping, a go-getter, almost in the single-digits and not even really in his thirties yet - and then they look at Hailey. For one thing, she's not Japanese, but she lives in Japan. It stands to reason that she should be the one assimilating into their culture: playing the demure wife, quiet and subdued, supporting from the sidelines. Instead, she posts about him on social media, unmediated by the guidelines that his agency's PR department lays down, lapsing into Korean and English on live broadcasts. She can be - and often is - combative and vicious. From their point of view, Hifumi is (not to put too fine a point on it) henpecked. He bends over backwards for his little wife, and although she's wealthier than him by several orders of magnitude, it doesn't quite explain everything.
He has meetings with other agencies, sometimes, meetings that proceed from the boardroom to the izakaya, and amidst the deafening din of the bar, between shots of sake, some of them, the braver ones, heroes whom Hifumi has recently surpassed or is in the process of surpassing, will broach the subject. But Hifumi never gives them a straight answer. He smiles, and shakes his head, and the level of sake in his shotglass stagnates.
Here's why:
It's nine at night. Hifumi reclines in his armchair in the bedroom that he shares with Hailey. They've settled down in one of her many Kyoto properties, a monstrous penthouse with almost a dozen rooms, and he taps away at his tablet, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose as he settles schedules and composes emails. His secretary is very able and very discreet. (And male, which has helped to calm his wife down.)
There's a sensation of pressure over his right shoulder; nothing more than the slightest hint of sensation, warm breath brushing over the skin. Hifumi is wearing a singlet, a belt, and a pair of trousers. He smiles, sets his tablet down, and relaxes into his armchair. Tips his head back, visualizes the tension draining out, out, out.
"Here, kitty, kitty... come and get your milk."
Hailey enters on her knees.
Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but she peers up now and then, always avoiding his gaze. A pair of cat ears, somewhat threadbare, bought almost a decade ago, protrude from her crown. Her hair is loose. She's not a large woman; her elbows are fully extended to prop her up, and her thighs are trembling with the effort as she trundles forward. There is a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, and also over her bare shoulders. (She's not wearing much.) Her belly droops heavily, almost touching the carpet, pressing into her thighs and reducing her progress to a slow crawl. She's enormous, and Hifumi was worried about making love to her this late in her pregnancy, but she said that he deserved a break, and that she'd take care of it. And, boy, had she.
"Alright there?" he tries.
Instead of responding, Hailey moans. It's pure fatigue, hot and panting, but she catches herself before her lungs empty and turns it into a weak caricature of a meow. She keeps trundling forward, ass now moving slightly from side to side, waddling on four legs. She's a trooper. Hifumi can feel himself straining against the fly of his trousers.
Beneath her barely-there stockings, her legs are pale, unblemished. Hifumi leans forward and runs his hand over her soft inner thigh, coaxing another, less synthetic mewl from her lips. The calluses on her soles have almost faded; her feet haven't touched the ground in weeks. She's too big to walk. Her ankles hurt too much. The doctor recommended bedrest, but Hailey gave him the finger and floated out with her nose in the air, belly leading the way. Hifumi apologized on her behalf and shut the door behind him with a click.
"Poor kitty," he croons, warm breath hot on her neck. He feels rather than sees Hailey shiver. "You've gotten all fat and lazy. You want a walk?" Her eyes fill with relief. Her knees are killing her. "Up, then."
Hailey stands, discomfort flashing across her face. She's wearing a babydoll, all lace and satin draping over the obscene curve of her heavy gut, done up in ribbons, little stylistic flourishes that Hifumi tears his eyes away from impatiently. They're distractions; he's missing the forest for the trees. Her flesh pimples with goosebumps as he places one large hand on her stomach. She's a furnace. He can barely see the telltale flash of her maternity panties as she palms her stomach with a wince, breasts visible in their balconette cups. Her feet stay planted firmly on the ground.
Hifumi waits as she adjusts herself discreetly, hiding a smile as her spine pops and her mouth sags open briefly with relief. Then: "Want some milk? You want that?"
What I really fucking want, he imagines, clear as day, is a nice, long full-body massage. But Hailey doesn't verbalize that. Instead, she dips her head, eyes large and liquid, and nods meekly.
Hifumi helps her into a kneeling position because he isn't a complete monster, but stops once she's settled, because to do more would be to puncture the fantasy. He leans back, then, reclining carelessly in his chair as she removes his belt, biting her lip in concentration until it's all done. (She can't use her quirk in the bedroom; that would go against the rules that they've laid down, and then Hifumi would have to punish her.) There are two small spots of red in her cheeks as she undoes his fly. He sees her tongue emerge, trembling, from her lips. Her upper body sags against his shins as she runs her small hands over him. He imagines her two weeks ago, presiding over the grand opening to yet another Astute store in Tokyo, smiling for the cameras, defiant and proud, resplendent in her designer maternity smock, and juxtaposes the mental image against this creature kneeling before him in supplication.
Hifumi tips his head back and sighs as his wife runs her tongue over his tip.
"Good kitty."
He's introducing his students to quirk factors when his phone buzzes.
@fides1104: im outside
Chris freezes up. He glances out the window, into the corridor, and sees his wife standing there. She mouths sensei and blows a kiss at him. It must show on his face, because whispers and giggles spread throughout the classroom. He clears his throat, adjusts his collar, raises his voice. "Everyone! Everyone. Please. Settle down."
Bravely, one of them pipes up. "Mirror-sensei, is that your wife?"
Chris decides to face the music. "Uh, yeah. That's her."
"Why is she wearing the Shiketsu cap?"
"That's not the Shiketsu cap," Chris says automatically, thinking on his feet. (That's definitely the Shiketsu cap. What is she playing at?) "Uh, it's a long story. She and Edith Lee are friends, and the whole ensemble, uh, it was a gift from her. As I understand it, Edith knows this designer, and it was a personal gift from - him? her? - inspired by the Shiketsu uniform. We were in the same class, actually." Great quirk, too. Fantastic.
(He has problem students, of course. How could he not? Every class has problem students. Right now, it's the gaggle of stuck-up girls clustered at the back, gossiping amongst themselves. At Edie's name, they straighten up and regard him with something that looks an awful lot like awe. Chris tries and fails not to feel smug.)
@LookingGlass: What are you doing here?
@fides1104: bored at home
Why did she have to visit him at Shiketsu? Chris doesn't know why, but her at Shiketsu, while he's teaching, versus her at his agency, while he's working... it's different. It's night and day, apples to oranges, poles apart. (And in that cap, too. She knows what she's doing.)
@fides1104: ive been bad sensei
Chris clenches his jaw and looks straight at his wife. Faith meets his gaze and winks. He can't teach under these conditions, so he dismisses the class, a full ten minutes early. As they celebrate quietly amongst themselves, Faith steps into the classroom, leaning against the wall, the exaggerated curve of her stomach plainly visible. His students glance between them as they file out, taking care to avoid her bump. As they leave, Faith removes an apple from her pocket and bites into it. She turns, looks him in the eye again. The juice runs down her chin.
The teacher's desk has been updated with a smorgasbord of buttons and levers. Chris fumbles with them now as Faith shuts the door, darkening the windows in anticipation of - what? He doesn't know, not exactly, but there's a sudden avalanche of want howling in the pit of his stomach, battering against his ribs, desperate for release. He turns to Faith, opening his mouth, and stops.
She's unwrapping herself like a Christmas present.
She was wearing a trench-coat when she came in, tightly done-up, and underneath that, what looked like a set of opaque tights. Underneath, she's poured herself into her old uniform: just the blouse and skirt, nothing more. She's only managed to button three of the buttons on her blouse, but they're hanging on for dear life, creamy, pale diamonds of skin plainly visible in the gaping gaps between. He can see her (white, lacy) bra; her blouse is so tight that it may as well be see-through. As for her skirt, it extends much further up her thigh than it used to; it may as well be painted on. She's so big that her bump is distorting the fabric of the waistband. As Chris runs his hand over his face, she leans forward and places the half-eaten apple on his desk, giving him a stellar view of her cleavage. Everything about this is filthy. He loves it.
"Faith-"
"You don't like it?" Her voice is very small.
"No, no, no." Chris finds it hard to express in words how much he likes it, but that's besides the point. "Faith, you're almost due. And-" He gestures at her ensemble. "What if people see?"
Faith grabs at her trench-coat by way of explanation. "They won't." Shrugging out of it, she pushes herself off the desk with an oof and does an experimental twirl. It's like looking at the sun. He resists the urge to avert his eyes. "How do I look?"
I want to take you on that desk right now. "Beautiful."
Faith groans, rolls her eyes, leans forward and takes another bite out of the apple. Wiping the juice away roughly, she looks him in the eye and places her hands on his thighs. She's breathless with exertion when she next speaks.
"I'm pregnant, sensei."
The honorific sears a path across his brain as it leaves her mouth.
"You," Chris growls, doing his level best to keep himself under control, "are a damned tease, you know that?"
Faith smirks. "It's yours." It sounds so good falling from her lips, low and throaty, bouncing off the stretched-taut skin of her stomach. "I've been so lonely at home. There's no one to keep me company. I had to come and see you." She grips the twin curtains of her blouse, parting them to expose more of her belly, and arches her back to make herself look even bigger. "Besides, you deserve to know what you did to me."
"Evil minx," Chris breathes. He reaches out, tugs her cap off. "Put on your trench. Let's take this home. Or the car. Hell, the bathroom would do if you're really that insatiable."
"All your fault," Faith whispers, bouncing a little, her mouth forming a little moue of discomfort at the slight recoil. "I used to be a cheerleader, remember? I was at the very top of the pyramid." (Chris remembers. He used to watch her perform. He was never much for sportsball, but Faith made up for it.) "Because I was the lightest." The light from the fluorescent lamps above catches her throat as she grinds her belly against him. Chris runs his hands down her thighs, once tight and ropey but now deliciously, deliriously succulent. His mouth fills with saliva. "Now I'm so- fat." Her breath hitches; she pouts. Chris laughs, kisses it off her face. He's almost definitely about to be fired from Shiketsu, but he frankly does not give a fuck anymore.
"You're not fat, you're just changing," he breathes, startling even himself with the words as they leap out into the space between them. They aren't coming from his brain, that's for sure, but from some other, secret place, entirely different. "Before, you were so- small." He places his hands on her shoulders, runs them down her still-slim arms. "Such a skinny little thing. Such a perfect fit." Faith reddens; he knows what she's thinking about. "Look at you now. You've blossomed. You're blossoming." He brings his hands to her rear, grins at how much he has to stretch now to grab at it, bending around her gut, grins as she yelps in pleasure, grins at how much more there is to grab. "I don't think I could lift you if I tried."
"Still want to take this back to the apartment?"
Instead of replying, Chris heaves her bodily onto the desk and kisses her hard on the mouth.
(Later, in the car, bobbing and weaving through traffic, leaving a chorus of honks in his wake, Faith's hand white-knuckled on his wrist, he'll regret his decision. "Inigo's never going to let this go," he'll say. "I'll have a word with Hoge," Faith will hiss. And then another contraction will hit.)
Minnie yelps as Bobby grabs for her waist. In the dim light of their bedroom, he stares as she scoots off the bed and rises to her feet, face burning. "What's wrong?"
Minnie looks down at her fists, knotted in her oversized T-shirt. Although... it's not that oversized, these days. She'd been bursting out of it when she was pregnant, of course, but it's not as loose as it used to be. Her voice comes out small. "Nothing. I'm going to go and check on him."
"You'll just wake him up."
"I-"
Bobby switches on the lamp on his bedside table, cutting her off. They've been dancing around this for almost two months, and they're both running on very little sleep indeed. The sooner they get this out of the way, the better. Let's lance this boil. "You don't go on top anymore," he continues, voice level. "You never go without a shirt unless you absolutely have to. You make me wait outside until you're done showering. You don't come in when I'm in the shower. What's going on?"
Minnie lowers her head, hides behind her hair. He watches her cycle between answers before settling on the one that he'd been expecting. "I haven't lost the weight yet."
She hasn't. Bobby isn't sure how often she's caught him staring at her spreading ass, her widened hips, her leaking tits, the soft, sinful bulges and folds of her post-pregnancy pudge. "So what?"
Minnie's mouth opens and closes. "I'm supposed to lose the weight and I haven't. What else is there?"
"You don't have to."
Minnie gapes at him. "I don't-"
"I meant it when I told Hifumi that I like you just the way you are," Bobby says. (This was at Inigo's and Noah's baby shower, just last week.) "I think it's cute."
"You're not serious."
"I am. Want me to show you how serious I am?"
Minnie rolls her eyes. Bobby grins. He has her. "Come on, then," he says, joining her by the side of the bed. "Shirt off, come on, there you go."
She squeals when he squeezes her love-handles and has to clap one hand over her mouth so she doesn't wake up their son. "Don't do that," she hisses.
"You'll get used to it," Bobby grins. Her upper arms jiggle slightly as he pulls her shirt off in its entirety. Her hair is matted, stuck to her forehead and temples from sweat. She has a double chin now, and her cheeks are rounder. He loves her anyway. "If we're going to have more kids, it helps if you're heavier. My mother said so."
"That doesn't make sense," Minnie sulks, but melts into his embrace anyway. "You're her only child."
"Mothers talk." Bobby pulls her on top of him, abs straining as he lifts himself up to nibble at her neck. The muscles in her jaw tense as she bites her lip to keep from making noise. "How long should we wait, huh? Or do you think we should just go at it and let the cards fall where they want?"
"It's let the chips fall where they may," Minnie corrects. Bobby stifles a grin at her expression: torn between embarrassment at her new size and pleasure that he still finds her sexy. She shifts against him, adjusts her thighs in that special way (Bobby groans), and begins to slip out of her shorts. Her thighs hove into view, thick and meaty; Bobby grabs one of them and squeezes blindly, laughs at the way his fingers sink into yielding flesh. With a snap of her fingers, his wife shorts out the lamp on his bedside. "I missed being on top," she breathes, confessional, fumbling for his sweatpants, and Bobby laughs again.
This, of course, is when their son wakes up. On his own.
When did Max stop waddling? Junichi wonders.
It's not easy to tell. She transitioned from walking to waddling some time around her fourth month, when they weren't talking, when he'd had to resort to watching her videos to get off. (Inigo had understood, and offered his couch. His wife had not, and offered only her disdain.) Now, just this side of overdue, she's passed that point and progressed into a secret, as-yet-unnamed third phase.
Junichi is naming it now. She doesn't waddle: she slithers. Like an overfed slug, gracelessly panting from room to room. Fat, sweaty, helpless, irritable. (Though that last one is more of a constant where the two of them are concerned.) He wants, idly, to be there from start to finish next time, laughing from the sidelines as all her clothes split at the seams, piling food onto her plate as she pleads unconvincingly for him to stop, goading her into attempting to run (or at least jog). There are so many humdrum daily tasks that she cannot perform independently now. It amuses him tremendously.
"What?"
Junichi blinks.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Max sneers at him. She'd never been trim, not before, but her waist has exploded outwards at the exact point to make it difficult for her to even venture around her apartment without bruising her belly on some hard surface. Junichi watches with detached curiosity as she squeezes her way toward him. He is reminded of a bowling ball rolling along a gutter, or toothpaste being squeezed from a tube. She's wearing a black turtleneck calculated to hide her size, but instead it just puts him in mind of a black hole.
Finally, she collapses into a nearby armchair, panting, and adjusts her turtleneck. It's ridden up, exposing a thick, pale sliver of her middle. Quite reasonably (in his opinion), Junichi asks: "Why are you adjusting it? You know it's going to ride back up anyway."
"S-shut up." Her chest wobbles. She sucks in a laboured breath, then expels it. She can't take full breaths these days.
"Your room is getting really cluttered. I could clear it out."
"Leave it. 'S for the baby."
"This apartment has seven rooms."
"Leave it."
Junichi raises his arms in mock-surrender. She's in a delicate state. They sit in silence as she catches her breath. Then: "What's for lunch?"
"Didn't you order?"
Max doesn't respond. He's not a smart man, so it takes him a while to realize that she's too proud to admit that she was expecting him to order. "Oh," he mutters. "Right. How do you feel about a quarter-pounder?"
Max flaps her hand tiredly. Junichi sends off the order and waits. He glances at Max, beached in her armchair, her pale, round face lit up by the light from her phone screen. Her mouth is half-open like it always is these days, warm and red, fogging every mirror she looks into. "Do you need lotion?"
Her eyes flick up, red-rimmed and suspicious. "Why?"
"You haven't applied it in a while." It's for her stretchmarks. Daily maintenance, to hear her friends speak of it, and yet, ever since he formally moved in, she seems to be applying it less and less as she grows lazier and lazier. She's growing too reliant on him. And yet Junichi can't bring himself to stop. Leaning forward in a flash, he pulls up the bottom flap of her turtleneck and grins at her wheezed insults. "See? You've got stretchmarks."
"How the fuck would I know? I can't even see that part." Or reach it. The silence stretches until she admits, grudgingly: "Fine. Help me to apply it."
"What's the magic word?"
Her glare could curdle milk. "Please."
Junichi squirts a dollop of the stuff onto his palm as she gathers up the rest of her turtleneck. It'd be a tent on Edie, the tallest girl in her weird little clique, but on her, right now, it's a tight fit. She's packed to capacity, near-spherical, her stomach swallowing up her lap, and he imagines the tip of her belly extending even past her knees, although it's nowhere near that point yet. The illusion persists nonetheless, mostly because she's so short.
She inhales harshly as he rubs it in. "Be gentle. I'm itchy."
Junichi grunts. He runs his hand from the very top of her gut to the bottom, cross-hatching it, left-right, up-down. She interrupts him from time to time to do it herself, but there's only so much she can reach. The lower third of her belly is his domain. Her breath catches from time to time. By the time she excuses herself to empty her bladder, they're done. Junichi answers the door and brings her lunch in.