The ride back home from the coast was shorter than the ride there, as if time had decided to hurry them along back to their life they were building together.
Mostly, Catherine slept during this trip with her head pillowed on Luffy's lap as he combed his fingers through her hair as he looked out at the passing scenery in reverse. Occasionally, he'd lean over and kiss her on the temple and whisper things too low for anyone else to hear. "You snore like a kitten," "I'm already thinking of our next escape," "I love you," over and over again.
When they stepped off the platform back into their home city, the air was thick with the smells of exhaust and coffee from street vendors, but it smelled like home now. Their home.
They didn't talk much as they walked back to their place. They didn't have to. Their hands remained linked as they walked, thumbs touching in that absent-minded, loving way they'd already fallen into. Mochi and Matcha greeted them at the door with dramatic yowls and weaved around their legs in figure-eights as if three days had been an eternity.
Luffy immediately dropped to his knees and gathered the two kittens into his arms. "Did you miss your terrible parents?" he asked the kittens seriously. "We got you seashells. They're not food. Don't try."
Catherine laughed and kicked off her shoes, going into the kitchen to put the kettle on. The apartment felt... smaller, in the best way, more filled with the two of them. The fairy lights they'd hung on their paper ring ceremony still hung in lazy loops on the living room wall. A new photo, of the two of them laughing in the waves, her arms wrapped around his neck, his around her waist, the sun turning their skin to gold, had been put on the bookshelf.
She ran her hand over the top of the frame, smiling to herself.
Luffy came up behind her, his chin on her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her middle.
"Missed this view too," he said.
"The view of the photo, or the view of you making tea?"
"Both. Mostly you."
She turned in his arms, rose on her toes, and kissed him slow, lingering, tasting like train-station coffee and the salt that still clung faintly to their skin.
"Welcome home, Hubby."
"Welcome home, Wifey."
They spent the evening unpacking slowly, turning the chore into something intimate. Luffy hung their new seashell wind chimes by the balcony door; Catherine folded his salt-stiff clothes and tucked them into her drawer beside hers. They showered together again, less playful this time, more reverent, then ordered takeout because neither wanted to leave the apartment bubble they'd created.
They ate cross-legged on the living-room floor, passing containers of spicy noodles and mango sticky rice back and forth, feeding each other bites between kisses. The kittens attempted to steal noodles; Luffy pretended to scold them while sneaking them pieces of noodle.
When the food was gone and the containers stacked, Luffy pulled her into his lap.
"Dance with me?" he asked, even though there was no music.
Catherine wrapped her arms around his neck. "Always."
They danced in the center of the room, on the rug, barefoot, with fairy lights sparkling on their skin like glittering dust. No music, just the quiet rhythm of their breathing and the faint hum of the city outside the windows.
Eventually, Luffy said against her hair.
"Dangerous," she teased, because he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
"Thinking," he said, moving back just enough to look at her. "About the future. Our future."
"Hmmm?" She raised an eyebrow, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Making the café more us," he said, his eyes shining with excitement. "Maybe even making a little space for your drawings, turning it into a place where people can sit and draw their coffee away. You could work there instead of home. And... and maybe moving in together, really moving in, not just toothbrushes and hoodies and stuff. All the way."
Catherine's heart tripped over its own rhythm.
"Meaning, giving up the studio?"
"Meaning make this our place. Or find something bigger if we want. Somewhere with a yard for the cats. A bigger kitchen so I can burn breakfast for you every Sunday. A spare room for when we start filling it with tiny versions of us."
She looked at him, searching his face for signs of hesitation. But there were none. Only that same sure, warm look she had fallen in love with from the beginning.
"I want that," she whispered. "I want mornings where I wake up to you burning toast. I want evenings where we close up the café together and walk home holding hands. I want our life to smell like coffee and cat fur and us."
Luffy's smile was blinding.
"Then let's do it," he said. "Let's make plans. Real ones."
They spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch, making lists on the back of an old receipt. Ideas for bigger apartments, cat-proof furniture, and just how many more cats they could realistically have before the neighbors complained.They laughed over the silly names Mochi 2.0, Latte, Cinnamon, and had bigger dreams: the opening of a second café, perhaps one day, a small bookstore would be included, and weekends spent at the coast, each season.
Eventually, they fell asleep, talking in their sleep, their legs entwined under the covers.
Luffy fell asleep first, his face buried in her neck, one hand covering her heart.
Catherine stayed awake for a little longer, listening to Luffy's even breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against hers.
She followed the white string bracelet on his wrist, the one she had made from the balcony cat's paw stripe.
"Don't worry, I'll keep you safe," she said, her voice barely audible, into the darkness. "I'll love you so hard, nothing bad will ever happen to us."
She leaned over and kissed Luffy's forehead.
"Forever starts every morning now."
The lights outside the window flickered like stars in the night sky.
The lights inside their bedroom pulsated with the rhythm of two hearts beating in perfect, silent sync.
The next morning, Luffy woke up before dawn, as he always had, but instead of sneaking out of the café alone as he had every day for years, he kissed Catherine awake with gentle brushes of his lips across her eyelids, cheeks, and nose.
"Morning, wifey," he whispered.
She smiled sleepily and stretched, just as one of the café's cats might.
"Morning, hubby. Coffee?"
"Already brewing. But first…" He went into the kitchen and came back with a tray bearing two mugs of lavender latte, a plate of cinnamon rolls he'd made before he went to bed and finished while she slept, and a seashell placed as if it were a flower in the center.
Catherine sat up, looking lovely and rumpled.
"You made those at like five a.m.?"
"Four forty-seven," Luffy corrected proudly. "Wanted to start our official 'we're doing this forever' era right." She pulled him down beside her and kissed him until they're both breathless and laughing.
They ate in bed, with crumbs scattered all over the place, and fed each other bits of sticky pastry and licked icing off fingers without embarrassment.
And when the rolls were gone and the lattes were empty, Luffy pulled her close.
"Today we tell the cats we're officially a family."
Catherine looked at him and laughed. "They know it already. They've marked us both."
"Then today we tell the world. Or at least the barista group chat."
She buried her face in his neck and inhaled his scent: coffee and cinnamon and home.
"I love you," she said, and it was simple and honest and true.
"I love you more," Luffy replied.
And in the soft gray light of early morning, with two little cats at their feet and cinnamon sugar on their lips, forever was no longer something promised but something actual and present.