Beyond Love

Sake-sweet

A/N: This chapter is about a hundred to two-hundred words shorter than usual but I tried my best!! :') This flu is really making it hard for me to think... eep. The picture above is the roll I was inspired by! Enjoy!

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"Xan..." I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and waking to the absence of the familiar warmth that I'd gotten used to over the months. Things sharing a bed does to you. "Where are you?"

I squinted, eyes unable to adjust to the light filtering through the doors to the balcony. They were open. Snailing over to the side of the bed, I noticed that someone had stolen my bedroom slippers. Indignant, I called him out.

"Xan, did you steal my slippers?"

The blob (tall blob) leaning against the railings of the balcony began to move. It popped its head into the room.

"Morning Angel. Breakfast is on the table."

I huffed. "You stole my slippers!"

The tall human blob laughed—albeit attractively and well, just generally the most un-blob-like laughter—crossing the room to close the distance and sit on the edge of the bed. From where I was, my husband's general image became slightly clearer.

"My bad. I'll give them back," he took them off and placed them at the foot of the bed. "Need a bathrobe too?"

From his tone of voice and the way he rested his hands on the knot over his waist, it should have been obvious that Xander was only trying to tease me like he always did, but for some reason, pebble me, half-asleep and dizzy, nodded in a daze. Of course, the tall human blob proceeded to undress.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Returning your bathrobe," was all he said with a smirk in his voice and thank goodness I wasn't wearing my glasses so, well, technically, I couldn't see a thing.

"Th-that's not what I—put it back on! I, um, I don't need it anymore, just," I managed to somehow hide my face in my hands and shoo my husband away at the same time, leaving him laughing at my helpless state. "Go away!"

"You sure about the bathrobe?" Xander prompted, sounding pretty suspicious. Yet, simply because I prioritized having him put his robes back on as soon as possible, I nodded at once. Xander was surprisingly obedient, slipping back into the robe and securing it with a knot.

I was about to officially get up—now wide-awake and all—when I noticed how cold it was without the covers. Then, I realized that I wasn't wearing any clothes.

"Uwawhatwhatwhat," I dived back under the covers, hearing the muffled laughter of my husband's coming from somewhere beyond the sheets. "Where did my clothes go?"

"You took them off after complaining that the air-conditioning wasn't working last night," said Xander, who sounded perfectly amused while I hopped around as a human sushi roll of blankets looking for my clothes.

"B-but it's working fine now!"

I found a shirt lying on the floor and picked it up before slipping it on in a blink.

"That's because it was working all along," he explained, handing me a pair of undies. "You were drunk. From those chocolates over there."

I looked to where Xander was pointing and sure enough, saw a box of fancy-looking chocolates on the bedside table. "Oh."