Seiji went back to his room.
He heard a faint sound from Yumi's room, across the hall from his. Not the baby. A choked-back sob.
Again?
Seiji knocked softly.
"Yumi? You okay?"
"Seiji?" Her voice was strained. "C-can you come in? For a second?"
He pushed the door open. The lamp was on, casting a soft glow. Yumi was sitting on the edge of her bed, her back to him. On the nightstand lay the breast pump, its tubes tangled like dead snakes. Yumi was clutching her breast, her face a mix of pain and humiliation.
"It just won't work," she whispered, not turning around. "It just… hurts, and I'm so… full."
She finally looked at Seiji, her eyes teary. "Could you… can you help me hold it in place? I can't… I just can't get it to work tonight."
She wants me to… what? Touch her?
Seiji's mind went blank. His body, however, knew what to do. The amulet pulsed against his chest with purpose.
She's in pain. I need to help her... She needs me. And I'm going to do this.
He walked to the bed, all of a sudden certain.
"Okay," he said. "Show me."
Yumi flinched at his agreement. With trembling hands, she guided him. His fingers brushed against her skin.
It was warm. Pleasantly warm.
"Like this," she breathed.
He placed his other hand on the side of her breast to steady it, just as she had instructed. His didn't mean for it to happen, but the moment he touched her breast, the amulet flared.
A jolt, not of electricity, but of something carnal, shot through him. He could feel her. All of her. Not just her soft skin, but everything inside her. The pain. The desperation. The desire.
Yumi gasped, her eyes shooting toward him. "Oh, god…"
The line between "helping" and "intimacy" wasn't just crossed.
It was obliterated.
The device was working again, and Yumi's mouth was half open from the sensation of his touch.
The amulet must've shown him how to touch her just right. Seiji's hand pressed her breast gently but controllingly.
"Oh, god…", Yumi repeated. "Yes… right there…"
The tension in her body was melting away under his hands. She was no longer crying. She was panting, soft, breathy sounds that couldn't have anything to do with pain.
Seiji looked down at his hands on her body. He looked at Yumi's face, flushed with gratitude and pleasure.
And he felt his power surge.
This—this between them—was no longer about helping. This was about the two of them. This was about ownership. Seiji was once again doing what her husband couldn't. He was doing something no one else could.
He was becoming essential.
From now on, he was Yumi's only anchor point.