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If he were asked, he’d say that Toshinori said it first. His partner would laugh and try to correct him gently, fondly, but he’s quite sure of when he first felt it.
The times he’s taken the pen from his hand when he slumps forwards, breathing in the gentle rhythm of sleep over his work - how he takes his hair gently, gathering it back in thin fingers and drawing it out of his face and mouth with a hair tie. Letting his fingers trace the pulse of Shouta’s throat in that old and ingrained habit of a hero who’s learned to ground himself in what he can feel along with what he sees. Kisses his forehead, and leaves him to sleep for the average forty minutes his body will allow.
That first morning when he’d made a traditional breakfast for him, piled high - rice with glistening orange roe, grilled fish, a prettily arranged salad, miso with soft cubes of tofu and chopped onion, a slightly misshapen but fresh and plump tamagoyaki. Coffee, even though it’s probably been years since he’d taken a sip himself, steam curling up from the earthenware cup handed to him so carefully. Admittedly, they’d had to scramble to make it to the first class, wolfing down that thoughtful breakfast in minutes and racing through Toshinori’s rooms to pull back on the scattered components of his uniform - but he wouldn’t change the memory, if only for the way Toshinori laughed breathlessly as they jogged together to the main building, promising to judge the timing for romance better next time.
When he’d finally grown confident enough to call him by his first name. Holding it on his tongue like wafer-thin chocolate, every part of him showing his pleasure at being permitted to use it. A little wonder in it, every single time.
It took a short time to realise how much he really feels for him. A casual afternoon, a Saturday date in a cosy nook of a cafe with soft chairs and a quiet, informal staff of twenty-somethings, if he remembers correctly. He didn’t jump when Yagi’s long fingers landed on his own where they rested on the table, squeezing them gently and affectionately - and he had to sit, breathe in the recognition of that for a minute. There's something terrifying in the idea of his vigilance dropping away in Toshinori’s presence, even in a public and unsecured location. Something uncharted - and wonderful.
So, yes. Toshinori’s been saying it for months, in those quiet and gentle actions. The best way he knows how, that intrinsic part of his personality satisfied by giving, and giving; himself and his time, his care.
He deserves it returned. A thousand times over.
*
He likes waking up with him. Not just because he can drop into a deeper sleep with the heat of another person at his side, the reassuring weight of an arm thrown over his shoulder, a leg over his thigh. But because Toshinori’s the one person he likes seeing in the morning, in his space.
He blinks, watching him lazily. Rubbing his feet over each other slowly, enjoying the perfect morning warmth of the sheets, the rhythm of Toshinori’s chest rising lopsidedly under the thin cotton of a worn t-shirt. The heat of the sun leaking through the window they never drew the shade down on last night; bright on Toshinori’s back, and his face, where it shines over his companion’s shoulder.
“Morning.” Toshinori’s voice is rough, and he swallows, wets his mouth with his eyes drifting back closed. There’s a tiny hole in the loose neckline of his top, right on the line of stitching, and Shouta watches his throat bob just above it.
“Sleep well?” he asks quietly.
“Mm. Not that bad.”
That would mean he’s spent a little over half of the night woken by a radiating ache from his side, burning pain in his hands, or a mixture of the two. He’ll take it. Three hours isn’t bad, as far as either of them go.
“Thank you.” He means it. It takes - effort, for Toshinori to look at him like that, knowing that he knows. That he understands - has been allowed to understand the constant tiredness nestled behind his gentle wording. He groans, bringing up his knees and pushing at Toshinori’s torso playfully, shoving him to the edge of the mattress. “Why are you so warm? It’s like a furnace in the bed with me.”
Toshinori laughs as he catches his leg, folds his knee back down with careful hands, stroking over the dark hair and edge of bone at his shin.
“You don’t want your kiss, then?” Teasing, light, leaning in to him with his kind eyes crinkled at the corners.
He reaches up to wipe the sleep out of the corners of his eyes, free hand drifting to pull the sheets up over Shouta’s exposed shoulder, bared by his own squirming under the duvet, dragging it down around his legs. He drifts in the heat radiating from Toshinori’s body, the clean smell that’s still distinctly his behind pine soap.
Mornings, moments like this - they mean everything.
He can’t claim to have always known him, in some romantic, mystical way. There’s too much of Toshinori that’s bundled up into a haze of hurt and strain and constant motion, a swathe of his life that he intends to keep in the dedicated iron-clad box at the back of his mind, for him to ever feel that he’s ‘always known him’. But he’s found another way to explain the sensation in his chest when he watches blonde eyelashes flutter down over dark circles, the painfully careful way he traces the curve of the scar under his eye.
He feels like he’s wanted to meet this man his whole life. To love him deliberately, and soak in that warmth. Let it sink so deep into him, he can say; “I’ve always loved you”, because stepping on the path to it is in itself the first declaration, isn’t it?
His smile is so beautiful. Not ‘changed, a pale version, charming in the shadow of what it was’, and attractive for it. Just - beautiful.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
It takes a strange, unfamiliar effort to look up at his partner, to see how his words will be received in the stretching moment of silence after his words. There’s a Toshinori-shaped hole in his mind-to-mouth filter, he’s found, but he doesn’t care to dam it up. Toshinori should know how he feels about him, deserves to have that solid ground of honesty under tired feet.
Toshinori’s breath catches - oh, shit, his lung - and then he laughs. Hushed, achingly incredulous and beautiful.
He takes a minute before he joins him. A fuller, but higher sound than Toshinori’s, layering alongside it in a sleep-rough pitch, all yes, we get to have this, and this is the truth. And Shouta leans in to him, touches his forehead against his to feel the warmth of his face and the awkward and wholly perfect way they fit together. Watches the hesitant questions, the soft doubt in his eyes flicker through and pass on quietly under the steady weight of his gaze, a culmination of their shared learning of each other. Just joy left, pure and sweet in a man who’s known too little of both.
“Say it again? Please?” Toshinori whispers, and he sounds like he could cry if he doesn’t keep smiling, running his thumb over the morning flush on Shouta’s cheek with his palm cupping the roughness of his jaw.
He’s asking - finally, asking - for what he wants, and Shouta doesn’t bother quelling the smile breaking across his face, under the orange-red warmth of the sun behind closed eyelids, Toshinori’s fingers moving his bangs back from his face.
“I’m in love with you.”
His lips brush light and chapped over his forehead. “Again?”
“I love you, so much.”