I arrived in Kamakura in the evening, but the sun had already set. The station closest to Aki's house was only a ten minute walk, but I made it shorter with the excitement I felt to have arrived there. Aki was in the driveway saying his parting remarks to the movers as they packed their supplies onto the truck. There wasn't a lot of large furniture, but we had enough boxes packed between the two of us to fill the moving truck. When he took notice of me, he bowed quickly to the mover, and started to run toward me with his arms open.

I stopped and braced myself, worried about the cake I was still holding with both hands, but he slowed his pace as he approached me and carefully wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I pressed my forehead against his chest, trying to return his hug without the use of my arms. I held up the box when he released me. "Happy birthday!"

"Oh, I kind of forgot." Aki wasn't particular about his birthday. It was true what Kota had told me, that Aki didn't really like to talk about it. "Wow, I'm twenty-eight. I'm an old man."

He put an arm around my shoulder and lead us walking to the house. "I'll be twenty-one soon. Maybe I'm getting old too."

"You're not, but thank you for the sentiment." He opened the door for me and used the arm he had around my shoulders to gently push me ahead of him into the house. "It's a mess in here, but I think we were efficient. All the boxes are in the rooms they go in, so all that's left is unpacking."

"Isn't that the most difficult thing?"

Boxes lined the living room and spilled into the kitchen, but Aki had carved out a space around the couch and table. I thought back to when we moved into the apartment in Tokyo together, how it had seemed like there was so much to accomplish, and it was such an overwhelming task. In Aki's house, the same amount seemed so manageable, and I wondered if it was because the space was bigger, and it looked like less than when it was in a small apartment, or if it was because Aki's house was already a familiar place.

Aki took the box from me and put it in the fridge as he retrieved a large bag and held it up. "I got dinner, I'll just warm it up, it won't take long."

I finally realized I had been holding my shoulders up, feeling anxious about leaving Tokyo behind, and about what returning to Kamakura might mean. I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the rack next to the door, and took a deep breath. It felt like the first time I had taken a breath all day. I could smell Aki in the atmosphere of the house, and I so enjoyed it, but I wondered if it would change with the addition of me.

"Natsu, you look beautiful." I turned to see Aki leaning against the door frame of the kitchen, and wondered how long he had been observing me as I evaluated my stress. "I'm sorry it took me so long to notice."

I hadn't noticed what he looked like either. He was dressed in the same gray sweat pants he always wore around the house, and a sleeveless shirt that had a wide neckline, allowing the tattoos on his neck and chest to be seen. I noticed that he was more careful to conceal the majority of his tattoos in public, and I rarely acknowledged them when we were alone.

"Kota was here earlier helping." He continued, retrieving a box that was wrapped in decorative paper. He held it out to me. "This is for you, from him. He said it's a birthday present, but you need it right away."

I sat on the couch with the box, and opened it to discover a new laptop. It was something I hadn't thought about, but Kota was right, I needed it to continue my university program. I knew Aki had been involved in the gift more than he let on, letting Kota have the credit. "I'll call him to thank him. It's not too late now, is it?"

"Call him tomorrow, just get settled tonight. When do you need to start?"

"Classes start on Monday, but there are a few things I have to do before that to learn how to use it." I ran my hands over the top of the box. "I didn't think about needing these types of things. I was just thinking about moving."

I stole away to use the shower in the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom, and I couldn't help start emptying boxes of clothes and putting them away in the closet. I hooked a towel around my neck to soak up the excess water from my washed hair, put on a warm button up pajama set from my luggage, and started organizing socks and underwear on the bed.

"Hey, don't worry about that tonight." Aki had likely been wondering what was taking me so long in the shower and had come looking for me. "I have clean stuff in my backpack so we wouldn't have to do any work tonight."

He grabbed his backpack from the foot of the bed, hoisting it up and unzipping it. He pulled out the envelope containing the card I had slipped in before he had left in the morning, and held it up to me in question. He hadn't discovered it before I arrived after all.

"Birthday card." I said. "You were supposed to find it earlier."

"I didn't unpack, the movers got here really quickly." I was nervous for him to open the card in my presence, and I knew he could tell. He took it out of the envelope, but held it without opening it. "What's in here?"

It was a large card, and I had stuffed a few things inside of it. "Open it!"

He opened the card to reveal a gift card to a store in Shinjuku that I knew he liked, and I saw the brand logo on many of the tags in the shirts I would steal from him. Under the gift card, I had neatly folded a few papers, and he opened them with reservation. I couldn't figure out what he thought, or if he was influenced by my nervous energy.

"One is a recommendation letter from the program director we spoke to a the university." I said, deciding I couldn't hold in the news any longer. I didn't want to wait for him to read it. "The other one is a job offer from them."

"To teach there?"

I nodded. "To teach there, or anywhere else in their network." I said. "After I complete the program."

He shouted unexpectedly, and it startled me, but I started laughing as he quickly picked me up and spun around once. "Best birthday gift ever, to see the person I love achieve exactly what she wanted." He shook my shoulders lightly. "I thought there was something else in the card and I was scared."

"What did you think was in there?"

He kissed my forehead quickly, and let me go to continue fishing in his backpack for clean underwear. "Never mind." He said. He held up the gift card. "Thank you for this. And congratulations."

"I wasn't looking for an excuse to go back to Tokyo so soon. Do they have online ordering?"

He dug deeper into his backpack, pulling out an envelope of his own and handing it to me. "Kota gave you an early birthday gift, so I'm going to as well."

"This wasn't meant to start a gift giving war." I laughed, but I opened the envelope, producing two shinkansen tickets and a brochure for an onsen hotel. I closely read the destination on the tickets. "Nagoya!"

"I told you I would take you there. And my envelope wasn't nearly as scary as yours was."

"You didn't have to give this to me early." I put the tickets and brochure back into the envelope and hugged it to my chest. It had become a habit with Aki to visit as many onsen hotels as we could find that would allow him in with his tattoos.

"Well it would have sounded really random if I just said there's a store in Nagoya."

We sat together on the bed in silence for a while, idly folding clothes, and eventually just laying atop the blankets side by side. The night was winding on, the darkness outside the window was deepening, and as I lay against the pillows, I read every word and looked at every detail of the brochure Aki had tucked inside the envelope with the tickets. Even though it was something I expected from him, I was looking forward to the trip immediately. Aki always seemed to bring me to the most relaxing places that he could think of, and he thought of everything to make the trip as smooth and effortless as possible.

I had thought that when I arrived in Kamakura, it would feel different. It was still just Aki's house, the same bed that I loved sharing with him, and everything else that was familiar. I had expected it to feel like my real like being married to him would begin, but it was as seamless as if we were just staying at the house for a weekend vacation. Living with Aki was natural. He was just part of my landscape. It was always the two of us together. And then it came to me, just what he thought was inside the birthday card I gave him.

"Aki, I just now realized what you thought was in the card." I couldn't help but cover my mouth in surprise, to hide the shock that suddenly crossed my face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that. I was nervous to tell you about the job, but I shouldn't have acted so suspicious."

He started laughing. He laughed harder than I remembered having come from him in a long time. "It's okay, Natsu. It was my problem. It's not like you were trying to scare me."

"What if," I started, but I wasn't sure how to continue. I thought carefully, trying to form my own opinions at the same time that I asked for his. "What if it was that?"

"I was thinking about it, you know? Just now, while we were laying here." I instantly felt guilty for putting the thoughts in his head. "It would be my fault, if it happened, but I would want whatever we do about it to be your decision."

"I know we talked about it before and we had the same opinion, and left it at that. But do you ever think about it?" I wasn't sure why I was pressing the issue, because I was sure about my side of the decision we had made back then, but I was interested to know if as life went on, his opinion might have changed.

He shook his head though, with a solemn kind of smile. "I never do. It's just not something that makes sense for a person like me." He shifted to his side to face me. "But listen, if you ever wanted to, if you ever changed your mind, don't be afraid to talk to me about it. It's a really big decision, and I'm not saying I'd end up agreeing for sure, but if you wanted to, I'd put some serious thought into it."

"You said something similar before." I was amused, because it further proved that Aki was and always would be a man of his word. He never told me anything that he didn't truly believe for himself. "But I won't change my mind."

He took the envelope out of my hand and pointed to the date of the reservation on the receipt for the hotel. "Look at that." He said. "We're going to be in Nagoya for Christmas."

"What about Christmas here with Guardian? We can't break the tradition."

"Oh, they'll be here." He laughed. "So lock up your underwear. We'll join them again for New Year."