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He gets up in the morning with the birds chirping outside and the sunlight just starting to peek through the slit between the curtains. She makes a noise of protest, groping an arm out to reach for where he should still be in their bed. His heart twists, and he touches her cheek with his hand before leaning over for a kiss. They kiss sleepily, morning still stumbling to life in their bodies. She tastes sharp, like salt and cinnamon and coming home.
Ulrich loves her. He loves her, as he has since he first laid eyes on her across the gymnasium, sitting cross-legged in her workout sweats, absently picking a hangnail on her thumb while she and Jim wait for someone, anyone else to arrive to the first pencak silat class of the year.
Arrive Ulrich did, in bright orange gym shorts a size too small and a t-shirt a size too big, running into the gymnasium five minutes after the official start of class. He stumbled over his own feet on the way over – his shoelaces never liked to stay tied in those days – so the first time Yumi locked eyes with him was as he clamored back to his feet, his face red, his knee throbbing. She had enough awareness to hide her laugh behind her hand, and he forgot his embarrassment entirely as he realized her eyes lit up when she laughed. He'd trip over his feet a thousand times if it meant she would laugh – full-bodied, unrestrained – again.
How far they've come since then.
She looks at him now with half-open eyes. Her hair is caught in her earrings, her shirt is bunched up around her neck, hiding the tattoos flowing up and down her arms. A smile, hidden by the pillow, spreads slowly across her face.
“Don't go,” She murmurs, the space between dreaming and awake heavy in her tone.
A rush of fondness spreads in his chest. He fucking loves this woman.
“I've gotta,” He says, with a grimace.
She makes another noise of protest and opens her eyes fully, frowning.
“Says who?”
“Says the woman who ordered two longswords to be ready by the end of the month.” After a moment, he adds, “And my therapist, who thinks sticking to a routine would be good for me.”
She groans and buries her face, taking a deep breath of his scent clinging to the pillow. She reaches for him without looking, hand stretched across the space between them.
He fucking loves this woman.
Despite being fluent in two languages, she's never been good with words. They get caught in her throat, stick to the roof of her mouth, come out stilted or wrong. He remembers her confession – five years ago now, as they stood outside the Hermitage just hours after his graduation, the sun beating hot down on them. It was punctuated with frustrated Japanese and a long, long pause before she finally stammered through the sentence that changed both of their lives.
He had stared, disbelieving, until she'd looked down at her feet and whispered: I'm sorry it took me so long.
They didn't need words after that. He just looked at her, her arms folded across her chest, before stepping in and finally – finally – kissing her smiling, blushing mouth.
They don't need words now, as he takes her outstretched hand against his and curls his fingers in between hers. Squeezes. Holds for a long moment, before letting go. She makes a noise into the pillow and waves him off.
She falls back asleep as he stumbles through his morning routine, still new enough to him to be awkward: throw on pants and socks, microwave leftovers, make coffee. He makes two mugs and gently blows on one, the other he plinks a couple ice cubes into and leaves on the bedside table.
She sleeps wrapped around a pillow when she can't be wrapped around him, the crease between her eyebrows all but disappeared, her face the picture of relaxation. Small noises escape her as she tosses and turns, but he's grown used to them now, and they fade into the background as he goes about his morning. He remembers her face from that day five years ago – a little less angular, still clinging onto the vestiges of adolescence, the way she bit her lip before she spoke, her expression open, half-terrified, but full of so much love it makes his heart ache to think about, even now.
As he goes to leave, he glances back and watches her from across the room blink awake, eyes immediately searching for him, and breaking into a smile when she sees him looking. She's grown into herself in the last few years: she stands up taller, holds him tighter, laughs with him louder.
“Ulrich,” She murmurs, and he almost doesn't catch it for the way his heart – still, now, after a decade – pounds in his ears when he looks at her.
“Mm? Yes, Yumi?”
“Have a good day,” She says, and he knows she means I love you.
He smiles, splitting his face in two, says, “I will.” and means, I love you, too.
So, they don't need words, but they have them when it counts. And they have each other, day in, day out, and that's enough.
Always has been.