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ⁿᵒᵗ ᵇʸ

A/N: I had to take a few days to recover from a fall I'd taken while at work but I'm back now! Here's last Thursday's update! Enjoy 6k! Also, trigger warning for non-con during the first part of this chapter.

"Do you love me?" 

It's a simple question, one devoid of the usual cryptical, nonsensical drivel that Mitsuki is usually on about when she's drunk and yet somehow it easily pulls the rug from beneath Masaru's feet. 

In over three decades of marriage, romanticism has never made an appearance. They didn't do physical affirmations and affections. There was never any chance of giving Katsuki a home with two parents who love and care for each other so long as he and Mitsuki were married. He doesn't understand why she's asking him a question that she already knows the answer to. 

"I used to think that I did." He answers honestly, eyes flickering up at her to watch for her reaction before they travel back down to the book in his hand. 

"Mmm." She hums, gaze fixated on the painting of them that hung above the fireplace. She'd had it commissioned right after Katsuki was born. A picture of happiness. 

A falsified fairy tale. 

"What changed?"

This question is even more confusing than the first. Are these supposed to be interpreted as a set of trick questions? Is she testing him for some reason or another? He doesn't quite have the energy to deal with being smacked around today so he wants to tell her whatever it is that she wants to hear. The issue with that is that...well, he's not quite sure what she wants him to do. Lie to her? Tell her that he loves her more than anything the world could give him? Or does she want an honest truth? 

"...is that question rhetorical?" 

"No. I want to know the very moment that your mind changed about loving me. About the very moment that made you, for even a moment, believe that you did." There's no drunken slurring, words oddly articulate for someone who's been drinking whiskey for the latter part of the evening. Masaru doesn't quite trust it. 

He slowly closes the book to turn his attention to her. 

"I...I suppose the moment you rescued me from the shelters was the first time that I'd looked at you with stars in my eyes, you know? You were giving me a second chance when I never had a choice in what to do with the first one." He begins, careful in his tone as he watches her, tipping towards the edge of his seat with anxiety. She hums again and nods, letting him know that she was listening. 

"And I assume the first time I had hit you was when it all started to fade, hm?" 

"...Yes. But then I got pregnant with Katsuki and for that brief moment of time, things were perfect. You treated me with a tender sort of kindness. After Katsuki was born, however, you gradually reverted to the way that things were." 

After Katsuki went missing, she became unbearably worse. 

"Things between us happened so quickly. Of course I didn't know who I was actually getting married to but I don't regret that part. I don't know if I'd ever have gotten the chance to get the hell out of that place otherwise." 

"Probably not. You were soiled. No alpha worth their salt would have wanted to wed a whore and you wouldn't have gotten work elsewhere." She says rather casually. She finally tears her eyes away from the painting to rake them over Masaru's form. They're distant---faraway but yet so incredibly invasive even as he's sat on the opposite end of the room.