I got very inspired a few weeks ago by a short but very sweet Kaimaki comic piece on Tumblr by missariliciousart. I felt the burning need to make something cute for them because of it, loosely based on that piece.

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It was just another warm summer day at Maki and Kaito's shared apartment. The heat just wouldn't allow the former assassin to get any sleep so she'd been up for a while.

Since she couldn't sleep she just sat up in bed and thought about the last few years. It had been 2 years since they'd graduated Hope's peak academy. 3 years since her and kaito started dating. Currently 1 week since Kaito bought her new pajamas so she wouldn't need the itchy old worn out ones. Maki insisted that she could pick out her own damn sleep wear of course. Kaito being himself insisted that it was his job as both her hero and boyfriend to get her something comfy.

Maki looked at herself in the bathroom mirror with a frown set on her face at the cute black pajama top and matching short bottoms. Four little red stars lined the sleeves and thighs. It had little cherry red cotton accents on the outer lining that were soft and definitely cozy. She just couldn't help feel weird about it.

Despite how much she insisted there was only so many things in their lives that needed a star or space theme she didn't mind the pattern. It was through him sharing his love of space while daring to be the first few people in hope's peak to get her to open up that she even had the luxury of a carefree day.

A carefree day and with the exception of her occasionally stressful self defense trainer job, she had a stress free life now.

"I instantly thought of you and your favorite color scheme when I saw this. I just knew you'd love it babe!" Kaito said this after giving her the gift with his signature goofy grin. He was like an excited child sometimes over such little things like this. It was sweet of him though.

With that in mind her ruby red eyes traveled down her body in the mirror to only then realize what made things so uneasy. The sleep wear was perfectly fine, cute,and smooth to the touch, but the body wearing it was another story. One painful story after another lined the body with telltale marks of various types of blade cuts, barely missed bullet wounds, faded burns, and old dots from needle marks. Not all of them were entirely made by second party either. Despite leaving that life far behind her and knowing she wasn't that person anymore, all it took was looking in the mirror. This made her feel she might as well be wearing a clown outfit.

Wasn't there a saying about putting make-up on a pig not changing the fact that it was still a pig?

In her case maybe the one about dipping a gun in innocent pretty glitter would be more accurate but it felt like the same difference to Maki.

How did Kaito not want someone prettier and scar free to lavish these gifts on somedays?

"No, Kaito isn't shallow like that." The reasonable side of her knew this.

Kaito wasn't always open about his flaws but she knew he wasn't flawless by a long shot. Out of all his flaws he was thankfully not shallow about the looks of others or biased on their past. When word got out about their relationship, pretty much everyone from 4th period congratulated them. He probably didn't know she knew it but on more then a few occasions she spied girls trying to flirt him up and away from her. Some even knew her real talent. Much like herself when he first found out they too tried to warn him that a relationship like theirs might get him killed. In both scenarios he declined their advances and told them he didn't care about her real talent.

"We literally have wanted thugs, mercenaries, mafia members, and possibly rumored about serial killers attending this school legally. I hardly see anyone complaining about being in the same class with them much. It's not like she's some murderous fiend or something anyway. Unlike you I've spent time with Maki roll and I know she's a good person." "He would say.

You would think after all this time she'd be over all these little episodes of self hate and doubt. Maki knew every time he said he loved her he meant it. Every time they'd make passionate love with one another, no other girl was on his mind. Kaito was an idiot at times but a loyal, overly caring, handsome, and compassionate one who Maki still had no idea why he chose her. He looked at her with all these scars and with knowledge she likely left similar wounds on other people for a living once. Unlike her own theirs weren't visible and might never heal with time. Yet despite knowing all that about her, Kaito somehow loved her without biased on these facts.

Even on the days she could look at herself for the most part unfazed, she occasionally had nightmares on how she got them. Along with the heat outside that was another reason she was currently up. Kaito had long ago got up to make breakfast. With nothing else to do she just went back into bed to curl into a ball and rub her legs. She was doing her usually breathing exercises to remind herself she was okay and that her past was never coming back. She only got two full minutes into it before a pair of hands attempted to tickle her stomach. Out of surprise and pure reflective instinct she swung at her assaulter's face. Hard.

"OUCH! Maki roll it's just me!" Kaito exclaimed while rubbing his jaw.

"I think you loosened one of my wisdom tooth's with that one. I was just trying to tickle you so you knew breakfast was ready." He explained.

Maki gave him a mumbled sorry and back to curling up on the bed. This sent a red flag to her astronaut of a boyfriend that something was off. It was rare for her to act so jumpy around him. He decided to once more but more cautiously this time try to wrap his arms around her waist and then pull her into his lap. She didn't resist the contact this time and other then grumbling incoherently into her hair she didn't resist.

"Hey, is everything okay? You know you can tell me when stuffs bothering you right? I know I'm not always good at being honest when somethings bugging me but I've been trying harder over the years. Like right now I can honestly say it worries me when you don't want to talk about stuff that gives you nightmares. I know it's not easy stuff to talk about but it's good to get off your chest what scares you every now and then. Can you please tell me whats wrong?" Kaito asked this while giving her a comforting hug. Feeling the palms of his hands rubbing her arms let her relax a little. After a few minutes Maki calmed down enough to speak.

She told him about her nightmares of being a kid again. The flashbacks to her training sessions and near death escapes during missions. How she knew it was all in the past but the marks on her body still bothered her.

Kaito listened attentively with an occasional nod or sad smile to show he was listening. After a giving her a few seconds of silence he suddenly grabbed her foot and looked at it thoughtfully. Maki looked on in shock as well as slight rising anger at the idea he was about to try tickling her again after all she had just for him he only rubbed rather then tickled the appendage before sitting it down and speaking.

"Before you get mad and punch me again can you let me say something that I've often thought of when I think of your stories? It's nothing that bad and I think the story relates to yours in small ways." Kaito said

"And what story do you mean?" Maki asked.

"The one of medusa of course and, wait, wait, WAIT I can explain! I only said small ways Maki roll!" He raised his hands to protect the other side of his face as he saw the glare she gave him.

"In what way am I like her exactly? I partly remember the story of her being some pretty faced rude bitch who slept with some god and his wife turned her into a monster as punishment. They really had a messed up selection of kids books at that orphanage now that I think about it." Maki said.

"Well yeah that's one version of it but there's another more sympathetic version to it that's pretty famous." Kaito then repositioned himself so he was beside her as he spoke with his knees on the bed.

Maki didn't know where he planned to go with this but she knew he was trying to lead up to some positive point in his own Kaito way. Sighing to herself she told to him explain and choose his words carefully.

"Okay well in the famous version I know, Medusa was originally a really beautiful but humble young maiden. She and her holy sisters served worshiping the temple of Minerva or Athena depending the version. As a lot of people who know the more non watered down versions of the gods in mythology,lots of them were either assholes, molesters, or both. A dude like Poseidon was kind of both and despite having Athena herself as a wife he tried to sleep with Medusa because of how beautiful he though she was. When Medusa rejected his advances he raped her and her sisters shunned her for defiling the temple. All this despite her having no control over what happened. Not to long after this she tried to pray to her goddess for help and forgiveness. Athena herself appeared not to much later."

Kaito paused to see if she was listening. She seemed confused on how this was related to what they just talked about at all was giving him her full attention anyway. Taking the her silent head nod as a good enough sign he continued.

"Instead of feeling bad for the poor girl, she was jealous of her beauty and it gaining her husband's attention. Thus she turned her into a hideous monster that no man would want to be near but just to make sure she gained no sympathizers she gave her the madness. This along with turning any man to stone that looked at her. So on top of looking scary and having dangerous eye to stare at, she was dangerous to even attempt to be near since the madness made her see every person that came at her as an attacker. As all versions of her story end she was finally freed from her life of fear and rage when Perseus chopped off her head. He later used her powers for good when needing to slay Polydectes. Pretty fucked up isn't it?" Kaito asked as he finished.

Maki hadn't heard that version and although it was tragic sounding it didn't seem to connect to her in any way she could think of. Out of everything that had ever happened to her body she was thankful that rape wasn't one of them. She did have the occasional clients that would try and get a bit too handsy after paying her as an extra form of thanking her. The heel of her shoe to the throat would fixed that fairly quickly.

"Hmm, well yeah that is a pretty horrible ending for her but I don't see how that relates to me exactly." She gave him a questioning look to explain himself.

"Well think of it this way, you said at one point you wondered what you'd be like if you never became an assassin. To me you'd be like Medusa, a normal pretty girl who just wanted a normal a happy future. That normalness was taken from you by a greedy someone else and they made you into something you'd of never wanted to be otherwise.

Making you feel self hate, and fear of strangers or being to attached to them. Just like everyone else you deserved a happy childhood. They took it just cause they could and had no remorse for it in the slightest. Those guys are the monsters not you."

She smiled a little at his kind words but he could see there was still uncertainty in her eyes.

"Now unlike her your still plenty beautiful and have plenty humanness. I've heard of people who get sexual thrills from killing, feelings of pride, or addicted to the adrenaline rush from it. Even after claiming you started to feel numb, you felt remorse, regret, and self hate. You occasionally wake up with nightmares crying about it all. None of those things are what heartless or mindless monsters do. The fact that you feel shitty about it these many years later only emphasize that your still a human and one with a good heart."

Kaito got closer as he spoke and gently rolled his thumb against a scar on her wrist

"Unlike her you were able to keep your sanity and human emotions despite their brainwashing. I know I helped you in little ways with encouraging you to socialize and helping you take your mind off things as we star gazed."

He continued to trace his finger along marks from her right wrist to her shoulder as he spoke.

"Even still if I was the SHSL motivational speaker I know all my words would mean nothing if you didn't have a desire to change. People with no passion or desire for something better in life never want change so they never do. You pretended to be fine with it all but I could tell you wanted more. You wanted to be more then just constantly living in fear of what you'd be made to do next."

His hands tickled through the fabric on her back as he continued to trace and occasionally massage a few tense spots. Maki had also started tracing her marks on her left wrist along with him as he spoke.

"That's another good thing that separates you both. Through her helpless despair only death was able to free her. You struggled back and were able to get yourself out of things alive. At the end of the story as a testament to his slaying of Medusa, Perseus got a constellation in his honor. All constellations tell a story one way or another. In your case every one of these marks I see is a testament to how you overcame your old life and every struggle you survived. To me your a breathing constellation of Maki Harukawa's great story of overcoming the past and starting something new. Unlike the ones I can only see at night, or only certain times of year, I get to see that story every single day. I'll never get tired of seeing that."

At this point Kaito had run his hands along every mark as he spoke into Maki's ear and rocked her against his chest. He could see a few stray happy tears falling which he quickly kissed away. She was looking at least a bit happier now as she gave him a small smile but this time with a bit of teeth showing.

"Thank you Kaito."

He gave her a wide smile before suddenly standing up and almost tripping on his way to their the bedroom dresser. She could see from his reflection he was looking both happy and nervous about something. Maki heard him swear under his breath before heading out the bedroom. Kaito poked his head back in and raised a finger as if to say "1 second" before ducking back out. Maki heard more stumbling and Kaito screaming from tripping on something as he came back upstairs. Unlike before he had rushed on some black dress pants and matching top though he forgot to put the undershirt on.

At her raised eyebrow he started scratching the back of his head, he never did grow out of that nervous habit.

"Uh, I was really hoping to wait till dinner at some place nice tonight but all this talking about you and the future has me to eager now. We still haven't had breakfast but that can wait for a bit." As he said this he got on one knee at the foot of the bed and pulled out a box from his coat pocket.

Inside was a beautiful little diamond ring.

"Maki Harakawa, I know I can be a knucklehead at times and that your still getting used to all the changes in both our lives. Still I want to make you happy in every way possible like you make me. This has never been a one way deal, you help keep my stubborn head straight and I help you with your fears. It won't be yet but soon I really will gain my title as the luminary of the stars away from you in space. Before that I want to ask if you want the title of Maki Momota: my morning constellation for life! Will you marry me?"

The only tears anyone would see on Maki for a while would be at their wedding after she said yes to his proposal.

-END-

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Been meaning to finish this up for a hot minute a few months ago when I started it. Glad to be done and I hope it isn't to corny or OOC to anyone. Got other stuff to do and procrastinate on writing so I hope all my fellow kaimaki shippers enjoy this. Stay classy my friends.