Abby and Violet (Yuri Light Novel)

The early morning light sneaked through the curtains of our bedroom. The sun had only started peaking over the horizon, and I was expecting to see Violet still fast asleep. However, that’s not what I saw once I opened my eyes. Instead, she was on her back, looking contemplatively at her ring with an outstretched arm, the polished metal catching the light. Like me, she still couldn’t quite believe our current situation.

I lazily stretched my body, running a hand over my arm until I reached the hand she had in the air. Our rings made a quiet clink as our left hands interlocked fingers. I then pulled that hand over to drape me, Violet turning slightly to face me, while I moved a leg over her waist.

“We are going to be late if we stay like this,” I hummed as I rubbed my nose on hers.

“Is that a declaration of intent, or a warning?” she softly giggled.

“A bit of both, I suppose,” I moaned before checking the time and going back to looking straight into her eyes. “What do you wanna do for the next five minutes, wifey?”

She smiled at me and pressed her lips against my forehead, delivering an onslaught of soft smooches. “Pretend like it’s just us in the whole world,” she hummed, making me have a bit of a giggling fit.

Those five minutes felt more like five seconds before our alarms went off. After that, we got up, got dressed, and, like shadows, so we wouldn’t disturb sis and my Dad, went to the kitchen to fix a quick breakfast before we left to Mrs. Fletchers for our last shift.

Work went as usual, Violet and I working together serving tables. There was one time when I caught Violet staring longingly at a particular spot in the room. Looking back at it, I couldn’t help but also feel a sense of longing, even though it still felt like it had been yesterday that we got married.

It was a very simple ceremony—we had only to deliver the signed document with our names, our parents’ permissions, and at least two witnesses’ signatures, but we still did a wedding ceremony anyway. That hadn’t been planned out, only a celebration at Mrs Fletcher’s since she offered the space. A small gathering of our family, our friends, and, believe it or not, our own homeroom teacher, having been dragged by Mathilda with almost no explanation before Violet and I told her we had gotten married that day. The face she did, I’ll never forget.

As you can guess, Mathilda was one of our maids of honour, mine to be exact, Violet having picked up Jessy, whom we had also invited.

“Do you think it’d be a good idea, or…” Violet had trailed off when she mentioned inviting Jessy. Of course, I told her it’d be a wonderful idea and was proven right by Jessy having been one of the first people to arrive and cry the most, putting me to shame.

And the priest? That task “befell” Claire, the instigator of our unplanned ceremony. It was a simplified affair, thank goodness for that, or I’d have likely cried until turned into a raisin, and Violet would have died of embarrassment.

Stephen, Mathew, our Dads, my sister, they were all there, watching us.

That was two weeks ago, and, in that moment, we were working.

I gently leaned against her side and discreetly gave her butt a playful pinch, Violet letting out a muffled squeak.

“We are working right now, you know?” I whispered to her with a smile.

“I could tell you the same,” she mumbled as her face turned completely red.

I wanted to tease her more, but the occasion was hardly appropriate for that kind of flirting, so we got back to work.

The breakfast shift was done right on time. Violet started cleaning up on one end of the room, me on the other, making short work of it. We were having our second breakfast, just some mini-croissants with a bit of cheese and ham with Earl Grey tea to wash it down, that hadn’t been touched, when Margaret and Gustave walked in to have theirs.

“Good news, girls!” Margaret said as she sat with us at the kitchen table. “Gustave and I have already finished the rooms, so your work for today is done.”

“That was fast,” Violet commented as she sipped her tea.

“What can I say, Gustave might be old, but if you’re not looking, he can tidy up a room faster than you can blink.”

The old man quietly smiled proudly as he buttered his bread.

It was a bit of a pity that Violet and I weren’t going to do some housekeeping. It was our last day working, and I was hoping we’d be working on the same bedroom where Violet and I had our wedding night. Mrs Fletcher also offered that, you see. We had such a nice view of the garden…

“We’ll go talk with Mrs Fletcher once we are done eating, then,” Violet spoke, grabbing just one more mini-croissant.

“…Aren’t you eating more than usual today?” Margaret asked, her face turning wicked. “Don’t tell me, two weeks married and you’re already pregnant?”

“Don’t make me slap you on my last day of work,” Violet said, giving Margaret a look that was more tired than annoyed. It was all bark and no bite.

Once we were done eating, we went to Mrs Fletcher’s office, but who we found there were my sister and Papa Stan. Sis sat at the desk while he leaned over her, one hand on the desk, the other on her shoulder, and his face right beside her as they both looked at the screen.

“Dad? What are you doing here?” Violet asked, certainly a bit unsettled by their proximity.

“I was asked to help them with a software problem,” he told her, straightening up. “I just finished it, or at least I think I did.”

“Yeah, it looks like it is working now,” Sophie said, her head moving towards our direction before her eyes did. “Really, I can’t thank you enough, Stan.”

“Just paying back all the help you gave me before,” Papa Stan said with his unwittingly charming smile, causing Sophie’s eyes to flutter a bit as it struck a nerve, together with her awareness that Violet was watching.

These two really need to address it…

But being so similar in the most annoying parts, none of them would take the first step, my sister and wife.

“Mrs Fletcher?” I asked.

That provided the necessary reprieve to the weird mood in the office. Sophie immediately got back to her more professional demeanour, telling Violet and me that our boss had to go out. She did, however, have the envelopes with our pay to deliver to us.

“…Pfft, fufu!”

“What? What?” I asked.

Violet pointed at my feet. I was hopping in place as I collected my pay. This was the first time ever I had worked and, despite it having been only a month, I had enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed the feeling of being paid for my efforts. It made me wonder if that was part of the reason why Violet was so determined to find a job she’d like doing every day, or at least as a part-time job in the future.

“And here you go!” I hummed, having opened my envelope and counted some of the money that I was now handing to Violet. “Here’s my half for the rings!”

Violet took it without arguing, even though she well wanted to. Again.

That had been the sole reason why I worked for the past month. Initially, when Violet told me she wanted a part-time job to buy something that turned out to be the rings, because she wanted to have a sense of achievement and make it more special, I thought she was overthinking that, but now? Now I fully understand. Now that I had worked and paid my half of the price for the rings that symbolised our marital status, I couldn’t help but see them a bit differently. They did feel more special. More “earned” in a way, too.

“Will you be home to lunch?” we asked Papa Stan and sis. Both said they likely wouldn’t since they had so much work to do, so it’d just be Violet and me again. That was super nice, but also a bit sad. I’m not sure if it’s because we were married now, but I seem to notice more how everyone appears to always be working nowadays.

“Ah! Before I forget, two letters arrived for you,” Papa Stan said. “I didn’t really check it, but it can only be your new IDs.”

My eyes grew as large as my heart did.

Our IDs!? Our new IDs!?

Immediately, I grabbed Violet by the arm and spun us around. If they were indeed that, then I needed to go home pronto.

Arriving home, I practically tore my sneakers from my feet before Violet had even closed the door behind us. I picked up Oliver, who had come to greet us at the door, and rushed to the living room carrying him just so I wouldn’t risk tripping, or—God forbid, accidentally kicking or stepping on him. I found a small pile of letters on the coffee table that I immediately went through until I found the two letters addressed to us. They were indeed from the Civil Registry, so it was undeniable at this point. Violet sat by me, also in a bit of a hurry but unable to keep up with me. I handed her mine while I opened hers. I didn’t bother with the letter attached, only with the small plastic card.

“Violet Evergreen,” I read out loud. “Marital state: Married. Hehe! Now, read mine! Read mine!”

“Abigail Evergreen. Mari—”

“Hehe! ‘Abigail Evergreen’, it says! Hehe!”

She pulled my face into the crook of her neck to see if I calmed down with loving exasperation.

“Marital State: Married.”

She set the letters and cards aside to hug me and whisper that it was undeniably official now while I quietly sobbed in her arms.

A bit later, though, I noticed that she was opening the other letters.

“And those are?” I asked once I calmed down.

“Just bills,” she calmly told me. “Don’t worry about it.”

I thought for a moment before pushing myself away from her. I asked her right there and then for her to teach me about it.

“About… bills?”

“No, about ducks,” I chuckled. “Yes, Violet, about bills.”

She told me that I really didn’t have to since she could simply be the one taking care of that once we had our own bills to pay, but I was adamant to learn about them and how to pay them.

“Look, I get that you’re likely going to be the housewife of this relationship while I’m the main breadwinner, so you’ll likely want to spare me that worry, but still, shouldn’t I be able to see one and know if it’s too much or not, so we can both budget better and all that? Kinda like you and your Dad have always done?”

“Well… Yeah, I guess so,” she conceded. “Should I also teach you about loans and interest rates?”

I was quite surprised she also knew about that. She explained that a few years ago, a couple of the appliances seemed to have decided to either need replacing or fixing, so her dad had to get a loan to make money stretch. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the savings for it; it was because they wouldn’t have any savings left afterwards if something else needed money.

I opened up her legs as I teased her about being such a grown-up and sat between them, holding the letters she had opened and put aside. I was going to have her teach me all about it, and then, I’d also be taught about loans and interest rates. We were still a whole year away from being on our own as adults, but I’d do like Violet, and actually start preparing in advance for that instead of just living in the moment. We also couldn’t have our family think we grew slack about our future just because we were now married, could we?

“…I can’t believe we’ll be back to school tomorrow,” I hummed at the end of our private tutoring.

“…Yeah… not really looking forward to it, if I’m being honest.”

I understood her feeling. Vanessa was still in our class, killing all the possible goodwill to return to school. There was also the fact that my name was now different, so everyone would soon enough know that Violet and I were now married. Now that, that’s going to be quite the bomb drop.