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“Tetsu.”
Tetsurou groans, pulling his pillow tightly around his head to tune out the voice that wanted to wake up him.
“Tetsu, wake up,” Kei repeats. Then his hands are on Tetsurou’s, and they’re pushing the pillow away. With Tetsurou’s face completely exposed, Kei starts pressing a few kisses to his skin, murmuring one last, “C’mon, Tetsu, wake up.”
Tetsurou finally opens his eyes, and it’s hard to be mad at how tired he is when he’s waking up to such a beautiful face.
“Good morning,” he says, his lips curving up into a smile as he says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Good morning,” Kei says back, and he leans into Tetsurou’s touch as he pulls Kei into his arms.
“No, wait, how do you say it?” Tetsurou asks, leaning his forehead against Kei’s. “In Danish, I mean.”
“God morgen.”
Tetsurou just stares at him a moment, because no language has ever sounded more beautiful as it does when it’s coming from Kei’s lips. “God morgen,” he repeats.
And Kei laughs because it’s awful, sounding so foreign in Tetsurou’s mouth where it sounded so natural in Kei’s. “No, god morgen.”
“God morgen.”
Kei laughs at him again.
“It sounds the same!” Tetsurou insists, even when he knows it doesn’t.
“It’s close enough,” Kei says, giving Tetsurou a kiss. “C’mon, let’s go, I don’t want to waste all day lying in bed.”
Tetsurou watches as Kei gets out of bed, the morning sun making Kei’s pale skin glow. He’s all light and shadow as he walks across the room, digging through his suitcase for a shirt and some pants that aren’t pajamas, and Tetsurou thinks to himself that spending all day with Kei, even if they were just lying in bed, could never be a waste of time.
~
If bits and pieces of phrases were enough to make Tetsurou pause, it was nothing compared to listening to Kei have conversations in Danish.
“What are you staring at?” Kei asks, switching back to Japanese as their waiter walks away, scribbling down the last few details of their breakfast order.
“You’re incredible,” Tetsurou says breathlessly.
Kei takes a sip from his glass of water to hide the fact that he’s blushing. “I’m not ‘incredible,’ I’m multilingual.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Tetsurou says with a chuckle. “You’re incredible.”
“I just ordered breakfast,” Kei sighs, but his lips quirk into a smile for a fraction of a second and gives away that he’s pleased. “Are you going to be like this all day?”
“It’s our first vacation together,” Tetsurou says, leaning his head against his hand and staring dreamily at Kei. “What did you expect?”
“It’ll be our last, too, if you’re going to be so embarrassing,” Kei deadpans.
Tetsurou just grins, taking one of Kei’s hands and bringing it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. “I’m not embarrassing, I’m just hopelessly in love.”
Kei rolls his eyes. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
~
They had decided to take it easy today, as they both felt weighed down with jet lag, and their agenda was mostly just walking through the city. Even so, by the time noon rolls around, they’re both completely exhausted.
“Why don’t we head back to the hotel and take a nap?” Tetsurou suggests, tightening his grip around Kei’s hand as Kei yawns for the thousandth time in the last hour.
“Nej.”
“You are so stubborn,” Tetsurou says as he smiles and shakes his head. “Let’s at least get some lunch and rest for a bit.”
Kei is about to protest, but his complaints are lost to another yawn.
“C’mon, nap or lunch. Venligst?” Tetsurou asks. “Was that right? ‘Please’?”
“Close enough,” Kei sighs, squeezing Tetsurou’s hand back and holding back a smile as he agrees. “Fine. Lunch.”
“How do you say ‘lunch’?”
“Frokost.”
“Frokost,” Tetsurou repeats.
“That one wasn’t so bad actually.”
Tetsurou kisses Kei’s cheek. “Because I have such a good teacher.”
Kei snorts. “If you can only say one word right, then I’m an awful teacher.”
“I’m not that bad at Danish, am I?”
Kei stops and pulls Tetsurou into a kiss, cupping his face in his hands with a featherlight touch.
“Yeah, you kind of are,” he murmurs after pulling away.
“Rude.”
“You’re better at English than I am. We’ll call it even.”
“I will not be satisfied until I can whisper sweet nothings to you in every language that you can speak,” Tetsurou insists.
Kei just laughs at his ridiculousness and goes in for another kiss. Tetsurou barely has a chance to kiss him back before Kei interrupts the kiss with a yawn.
“Oh, my God, you just yawned in my face!” Tetsurou laughed. “Tsukki, you need sleep-”
“I’m fine!” Kei insisted, covering his mouth as he yawned yet again. “Let’s go get lunch.”
“Frokost.”
“Godt gået,” Kei tells him, giving him one last kiss before taking his hand and continuing their walk.
~
Lunch was enough to perk Tetsurou back up, but as they leave the restaurant, Kei looks as exhausted as ever.
“Kei, seriously,” Tetsurou says, taking Kei’s hand and tugging him in the direction of their hotel. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Kei opens his mouth to protest before stumbling a little over his own feet.
Tetsurou laughs and kisses Kei’s fingers where they’re intertwined with his. Kei leans against him heavily as they walk, and Tetsurou presses a kiss to the side of his face.
“Jet lag hits you hard, huh?” Tetsurou asks with a grin.
“I didn’t want to have to waste this trip sleeping,” Kei grumbles.
Tetsurou kisses him again. “It’s not a waste of time. If you get some rest, you’ll be able to enjoy the trip more.”
Kei doesn’t say anything back and goes back to pouting. Tetsurou’s too busy watching him and runs his shoulder into someone as they walk.
“Undskyld mig,” he says quickly. Excuse me.
It’s enough to at least get a fraction of a smile from Kei.
~
Tetsurou wakes up from his nap before Kei. Thinking back to every time they’d ever shared a bed, Tetsurou thinks about how rarely this happens, him being awake while Kei’s still asleep. He wishes he could see Kei’s face, as he always looks so beautiful in the peace of sleep, but his face is currently nestled too closely against the crook of Tetsurou’s neck for him to see. His soft breaths leave a warm spot against Tetsurou’s skin, and the steady rhythm of it is relaxing enough that Tetsurou thinks he might fall back asleep until Kei suddenly mumbles something.
“Tsukki?”
After a pause long enough to make it clear that he wasn’t responding to Tetsurou, he mumbles something else equally incoherent. He starts to have a quiet conversation with himself in his sleep, and it quickly becomes clear that his babbling is actually him softly speaking Danish.
Tetsurou smiles to himself a little. It’s not the first time he’s heard Kei talking in his sleep, as it’s woken him up a few times before in the past. It was a little startling the first time it happened, but now he just relaxes and listens to Kei’s dreams that he can’t understand. He swears he can hear Kei say “Tetsu” a few times in there, but he writes it off as wishful thinking, some word that just sounds similar.
“Jeg elsker dig,” Kei murmurs. It’s about the clearest thing he’s said, and Tetsurou tries to repeat it over and over in his head so he can ask Kei what it means later, but the words are lost as Tetsurou falls back asleep.
~
By the time they’re both awake again, it’s long past dinner time.
“We should probably just order room service,” Tetsurou says with a yawn as he climbs out of bed to find wherever a menu was tucked away.
“I’m sorry for sleeping so long,” Kei says quietly as he sits up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” Tetsurou insists as he hands over the menu for Kei to translate. “It’s just jet lag. We’ll do better tomorrow.”
“We only have a week here,” Kei mutters as he starts flipping through the menu. “And who knows when I’ll get the chance to come back?”
“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
“Just once, when I was like, eleven,” Kei says with a shrug. “It’s been a long time. And even then, there were so many things we didn’t see because my grandparents were still around and we spent so much of our time with them.”
“Tsukki, it’s okay,” Tetsurou assures him. “It’s only our first day. Listen, we’ll get some room service, we can go for a walk and see the city at night, I’ll buy you dessert wherever’s still open, then we’ll come back here and relax. That’s not a complete waste, is it?”
“Can ‘relaxing’ include a bath?” Kei mumbles.
Tetsurou grins. “Absolutely,” he says, leaning in and kissing Kei. The room service menu is tossed aside as Kei wraps his arms around Tetsurou’s neck and kissing takes priority over dinner.
~
The walk around the city never happens, the two of them going back to kissing as soon as they finally got around to ordering and finishing their meal. They only part long enough for Kei to go start running a bath, and Tetsurou takes a moment to flop back on their bed and stare up at the ceiling, smiling and thinking about how much this feels like a honeymoon, about how much he wishes this was a honeymoon.
“Tetsu?” Kei calls, peaking out of the bathroom. “Are you coming?”
Tetsurou can’t join him fast enough.
~
The bathtub is small, and definitely not designed for two people, but Tetsurou couldn’t in his wildest dreams begin to complain, holding Kei close and pressing kisses to the soft skin of his shoulders. They’re both flushed from the heat, and with the light smell of lavender coming from the perfumed bathwater, Tetsurou thinks (and hopes) that from now on, the scent of lavender will always remind him of this moment.
“You’re so beautiful,” Tetsurou says softly. Kei takes a deep breath and relaxes even more, leaning heavily against Tetsurou. “How do you say ‘beautiful’?”
“Smuk.”
“Smuk,” Tetsurou repeats back to him, pressing more kisses to Kei’s skin. “Smuk... smuk...”
“Jeg elsker dig,” Kei says softly. “Jeg elsker dig så meget.”
Tetsurou sits up a little, the familiar phrase suddenly reminding him of Kei talking in his sleep. “What does that mean?”
Kei twists himself around to face Tetsurou, nearly sending water sloshing over the side of the tub as he hides his face against Tetsurou’s neck. “I love you,” he practically whispers, like it’s a secret that only Tetsurou can hear, and Tetsurou feels like he’s drowning with how much he loves Kei back.
“How do you say ‘I love you too’?” Tetsurou asks.
Kei sits up, leaning his forehead against Tetsurou and looking him in the eye. “Just say it in Japanese,” he murmurs.
“I love you,” Tetsurou assures him. “I love you so much, Kei. I’m so happy to be here with you...” Tetsurou tilts his head up to kiss Kei. “I am so, so in love with you...”
“Thank you for coming here with me,” Kei says, brushing drops of water from Tetsurou’s cheek.
“If it would make you happy, I’d take you anywhere,” Tetsurou tells him. He covers Kei’s hand with his own and turns his head to kiss Kei’s palm.
“I could be happy anywhere as long as you’re there,” Kei says softly.
Tetsurou doesn’t understand how it’s possible to love one person so much.
~
After napping so much during the day, it takes ages for Tetsurou to feel tired enough to sleep, but even then, Kei is still wide awake.
“I’m going to be jet lagged this whole trip, aren’t I?” Kei sighs as he sits down at the edge of the bed.
“It’ll be fine,” Tetsurou mumbles sleepily, rubbing his face against his pillow. “We’re going to see Kronborg Castle tomorrow, right? And we’ll be tired as hell, but it’ll be worth it.”
“It’s at times like these I wish I liked coffee.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll drink enough coffee for the both of us,” Tetsurou says with a yawn.
“Get some sleep,” Kei tells him, moving closer to kiss his forehead. “At least one of us should be moderately rested tomorrow.”
“God nat,” Tetsurou says, getting one last good look at Kei for the night.
Kei smiles. “Not bad. Goodnight.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Tetsurou finally closes his eyes.
Kei had told him the whole story on the way over of his parents meeting in Copenhagen. Tetsurou thinks now that it’s no wonder they fell in love here. It’s only the first day of their trip and Tetsurou has fallen in love with Kei a thousand times today.
He can’t wait for tomorrow so he can fall in love a thousand times again.