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My eyes opened at dawn to gaze across at the sleeping girl next to me. It’s been a while since I’ve slept alone, and a long while since I’ve been lonely. I watched your chest slowly rise and fall, creasing and un-creasing the folds of your shirt (that had once belonged to me). Often, in these morning hours when it seems the whole world was still asleep, I take this time to immerse myself in the view.
Freckles dotted your face like wildflowers in a meadow, and I’ve taken the time over and over again to count every single one. Ginger eyelashes were spread out onto your skin, curtaining your azure eyes.
The scene is so perfectly homemade that it seems if I even raise a finger, it will shatter before my eyes; so I never move. Instead, I watch the sun slowly embrace us every morning.
The world is so hopelessly complicated to me, but at dawn it is so simple. I only need to embrace you, and the rest of the world quiets down. The sheets are soft, the blanket secures us, and you glow beyond everything else, even the sun. You are the sun, rising above even your own expectations, before setting into darkness. I am the moon, reflecting your light and showing you the way when you have lost it in the night. Together, we are the universe.
I held my breath and reached out to run my fingers on the section of hair that laid across your shoulder. It fell across my hand like a bronze waterfall, eventually cascading down my wrist as I twisted my hand gently as not to wake you. Your sun-kissed face was framed by clementine curls, and even in bed you still kept your interface headset in. Will there ever be a time when you and I will be free of our past?
Maybe soon, in the future, when our memories are filled with each other instead of the world I destroyed. I still can’t believe you forgave me for that; even as I stood before you unfazed, with tears in your eyes you embraced every last part I never gave to you. When we were boundless, I remember seeing you (all of you) and falling even deeper than I ever thought possible. I never even would have believed I could feel if it weren’t for you. Before you, it wasn’t necessary to feel.
But let’s move past that, because we are in the now, I am with you, and you are reading this, hopefully smiling.
The room was so warm because of you, but it was not a problem for me. Your warmth melts me. The blanket was down at our feet, one of us had pushed it down to combat the heat. It must have been you, you are so warm it is enough for both of us.
It was then that I noticed the time; almost two hours had passed since I had woken up. Since then I had counted every freckle spread across your face and every eyelash you had. I don’t remember how many times I have done that. Countless, presumably. I reached my hand across to caress your face. Your skin is soft, cultivated by peach-scented lotions and face washes I can never remember to use even when you remind me. Running my hand across your face and eventually your hair, I looked at you and found you awake. I didn’t even register it, I just kept staring into you.
“What are you looking at?” you smiled and hid your face behind your arms. I moved it away and smiled back.
“You are so beautiful in the morning.”
Our hands slipped together, the crooks between our fingers fitting into place perfectly. For a while we stayed like that, just enjoying each other’s company. Then, we pulled each other closer as we kissed away the darkness of the night. The feeling of your hair in my hands as we merged still ghosts my fingertips. You pulled away, breathless and red, and I was reminded of how every second I am with you I am fully and unapologetically in love.
“So are you,” you replied.
“We are beautiful together, then.”
(We kept kissing for a while after that.)
When the sun rose higher in the sky and we broke apart, I knew the days would repeat, and I am okay with that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Asuka, because you are the sunrise. You have turned the night into day, and warmed my ice. You are the new day, and the sun I strive to stay in. I guess you could say I’m a morning person because of you. Everything you do is daylight, and I am standing beside you in the sun.
As we crawl into bed, every memory of you will repeat in my head as I dream. I am not sure if you are aware of how hopelessly admirable you are, though I tell you as much as possible, so I will tell you now.
Asuka, everything you do is beautiful. Even when you are so angry with the world, I want to kiss it away and hold you. I don’t blame you for your anger; your world was against you from the very beginning. I wish I could feel your anger, too. I wish I could crush the world again for hurting you, but fortunately you have calmed the storm I held in my heart.
You are the opposite of me, and yet you still hold so much love for me. It would surprise me if I hadn’t known it for so long.
Are you happy? I hope I’ve made you happy. After all, you have given me so much more joy.
Let us keep holding onto each other, for eternity. Thank you for being my sunrise.