Chapter Text
Yaz was, for lack of better words, a morning person.
She was an athlete, even outside the usual training area. That meant routines were built-in and, even with a different environment, she still kept it up.
You’d see her stir at 4, make an attempt to wake up at 5, then finally get up at 6. She would sit up and rub at her eyes, first with her knuckles and then with her ring fingers to rub at the corners of her eyes as if massaging the puffiness away.
Back at the camp, in their makeshift tree-house, she would sit up on the bench and stretch, to reach the ceiling made with bamboo and rope. Then she’d bend and reach for her toes, her fingers had no trouble tapping them.
(You sing praise to her in your mind, marvel at how flexible she is, and the urge to tease her that all this stretching still hasn’t made her taller than you sits on your chest.)
That went on for the whole time you were on the island. Now, on the yacht, with the ceilings too high for even her, Yaz stretches for her toes twice as long and you think her legs are already long enough, her torso just needed catching up.
(You aren’t one to talk though, you think. She still has a long way to go for growing, and you who forgo stretching properly in favor of just cracking your back isn’t much to brag about.)
The next thing she would do was check over everyone. Just a fleeting look, to make sure no one ran off for another solo adventure. She would peek over shoulders, kick off blankets, and poke Kenji. His sleeping positions were always weird, you have no idea how anyone could sleep as comfy as him.
You notice she takes time with you, if your senses were correct. You keep your eyes closed when she nears, and you feel her thumb (or pinky?) push a loose strand behind your ear and it takes a lot not to giggle when she lingers over your ear. She already knew you were ticklish, no need to add your ear to the list she uses against you.
When you feel her move away, you always wonder how long that took. Even on the island, it felt like a short-lived moment. Briefly, you think that it also felt like you were the longest she checked out of all of you guys. As per routine, you shrug it off.
(Once, you tried timing it. The moment she was near you, you would count 1 Mississippi and 2 Mississippi and 3-)
(But then she’d stroke your cheek, and all hope was lost for even trying to keep time in the first place.)
So with that, Yaz would wander not too far off and stretch more. Using her full body this time, you anticipate the day she forgets to do so on a normal day. Now knowing it’s been 6 months, you muse that maybe she never will.
But now it’s your favorite part of her routine, and you crack your eyes open and quietly watch as she brushes her hair. She combs her nimble fingers through her hair with no hairbrush, which you note has gotten a bit longer. She has her hair-tie between her teeth, while she works through her thick locks.
(You think of the time back when her bangs were neatly tucked behind her hair. Maybe she likes it that way, both on her and you.)
Her hair is pretty. You understood this as a fact, secretly it was your favorite to just watch as she finally gets a slight control in her hair before she ties it up. She ties it up so gently in the morning, unlike the times she redoes it throughout the day. You think it’s because she’s still groggy but the way she does her hair in precision while maintaining a lazy position, eyes closed and everything, you doubt she’s not gentle when she wants to be.
(Not to say that you don’t like her when she’s not. You love that she’s confrontational, that she tries not to bottle up everything like you do. You mostly like it when she’s gentle to herself, seeing her do it with others and, god forbid, yourself was just plain odd.)
She’s done tying her hair. The routine deviates from here, today she doesn’t immediately take a shower. Today, she goes over to her makeshift bed on the floor, and fixes it, before she picks up her notebook and pen to do her favorite pastime.
You see her sit on the boat’s edge, but not dipping her feet in. Usually, you’re the one who does, and she draws beside you while you make sure not to splash on her pages. You observe how she makes space by scooting a bit away from it, and it warms your heart.
Following routine, she draws.
This is the part where you fall asleep again because, while it is fun to watch her in the morning, she always stays focused on her paper. She has her eyes glued on it, her arm moving fluidly and her wrists flicking so lightly.
(You recall the time when she asked you to draw, when you were insistent you were bad and just wanted to admire her doing it. She said that everyone was bad with no practice and called you a chicken, and it was there you proved her wrong.)
(Granted, you proved her wrong by calling you a chicken. But she was right about everyone being bad with no practice, she said when she saw what you drew and you couldn’t help but pinch her despite how happy her laugh made you.)
Surprisingly, your eyes are still open. The sun is starting to rise, and you realize it’s golden hour. You realize this not because you saw it yourself, but because Yaz is smiling up in the direction of the sun. You see the shadows fall behind her and her face is glowing with the warm rays of the early morning.
(She’s beautiful, you think fondly.)
Her eyes trail over to where you are, but she sees your eyes are already closed.
You smile, as you fall asleep. As per routine.
“Good mornin’, Yaz!”
“Good morning, you seem to be in an awfully good mood.”
“Yeah, well, I saw somethin’ real pretty before I fell asleep.”
“Seeing Kenji acrobat his way into sleeping is pretty to you?”
“Oh yeah, it was definitely an out-of-this-world beauty, that’s for sure.”