Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
Atlanta, GA
United States of America
January 2018
“I still can’t believe you were able to get this trip without me noticing,” Aether admitted. Mathieu gave her a wink, adjusting the straps of his backpack before holding out his hand to her. “Seriously—how were you able to book this without me knowing? Did Jin-ho help you out?”
“Well to be honest, sweetheart, I’ve had this in mind for a few months now.” she took his hand and they started walking, “You brought it up during a recent party, and I might have ended up doing some searching here and there. And no, Jin-ho wasn’t involved,” he added. She blinked. “I told him about this, yeah, but I wanted to arrange everything on my own. Take it as one of your birthday gifts.” he winked.
“One of? Mathieu, you can’t possibly have more surprises—” Aether started, but he pressed a kiss to her forehead, rendering her quiet.
“If you think that this is all of it, sweetheart, then I’m afraid that you’re very much wrong. Now, come on. I think we should start eating before we fly.”
She still didn’t know how he had been able to pull it off.
He had been appearing in HQ for the past two weeks, talking to Tadashi and even Eri—the latter of which giving her coy smiles after the redhead would come and talk. When she’d ask him what he was doing there, Mathieu would simply reply that he was on business under Jin-ho’s orders. When she would ask Tadashi and Eri, the two would say that Kang Enterprises needed something.
Jin-ho slipped—when Aether asked if he knew what was going on, the Korean couldn’t help but give her a smile. “I promise that you’ll find out soon, Aether.” She tried to ask for more info, but he readily dodged the questions.
That was until a few days prior; it was Friday and they were lazily eating take-out while watching something on the television. Mathieu had shifted; she looked up at him with a curious look and saw that he was busy scrolling through an article on his laptop. “What’re you reading there?”
“Just a blog post.” A beat. “Aether?”
“Hmm?”
Mathieu barely hid a smile. “How do you feel about going to Tokyo for your birthday?”
After minutes of her freaking out and Mathieu soothing her, she had finally collected herself and asked for an explanation. The redhead could only grin; he had planned the trip for a while and had been going to HQ to check if Aether could take a week off. It had taken much convincing until he was given the go signal; they were set to arrive on the 21st and to get back to Atlanta on the 27th.
“You’re a really crafty guy, you know that?” Mathieu burst into laughter and squeezed her hand, making her grin as well. “Going to HQ and pretending you were going for business, my ass.”
“It helped that you were really busy during the past weeks.” Aether remembered that—the Squad had been assigned to something new and they had been closing up and filing reports during the time of Mathieu’s visits. “And that Tadashi was willing to cooperate. Well, and so was the Eri person he was with.”
“How did you even get them to agree?” They stopped at a nearby cafe; the two only had an hour until they’d be boarding. Mathieu opened the door for her and she walked in, him following after. “I never thought they’d let me take a week-long break, hell, even taking a sick day is a lot of trouble.”
“There was no bribery involved, if that’s what you’re wondering.” They sat down and Mathieu glanced at the coffee options before continuing, “I just had to explain my case, cite the instances wherein you overtimed and pushed through sickness. I had to keep going back to make sure that the examples I cited lined up with your record. And apparently, I was right.” he gave her a grin. Aether couldn’t help but smile back.
“That means I’ve got to work harder starting next week, then.”
“You always work hard, sweetheart. Latte?”
“Please.” Mathieu got up to order and she reclined back, shortly glancing at her phone and scrolling through the messages. Tadashi had wished her a good trip while Peters and Mack pestered her about getting the rest of them some gifts on the way back. Jin-ho had sent his regards as well, only wishing for the pair to have fun. She was replying to the Squad’s group chat when Mathieu came back, bearing warm coffees in his hands. “So how exactly is the trip to Tokyo going to be?”
“Plane-wise, we fly to JFK—in New York—before we head off to Narita. Narita’s in Japan,” he added upon seeing her confused look, “It’s the international airport just an hour or two away from where we’re staying.”
“So the total travel time is what, twelve hours?” Mathieu gave her a sheepish look.
“Sixteen, sweetheart. Sixteen.” Aether’s eyes widened and she groaned into her hands as Mathieu sat back beside her and pat her shoulder in comfort. “We can sleep on the flight, Aether. I promise.”
“I’ll be so grouchy when we land,” she mumbled. Mathieu laughed.
“I forgive you in advance.”
The hour passed quickly. Eventually they were in the plane, Aether sitting by the window and Mathieu smiling as she looked eagerly outside. “Has it been a while since you flew?”
“There was this case going to New York, but that was about it. That was before Mack was part of the team, and we ended up meeting the Peters family.” Aether thought for a moment, “Holy shit, the flight to Narita takes four more hours than the flight from Winchester to Atlanta.”
“We’ll be alright.” he squeezed her hand and she looked at him, “And we’ll have fun, sweetheart. Just gotta get past the flights, and we’ll be fine.”
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