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Slow mornings have always been Shouyou’s favorite.
It isn’t something many people know or think of when they see him; bright red curls and an even brighter personality. They tend to assume he’s a ball of sunshine with boundless energy – a kid that likes nothing more than to run and yell and laugh.
And he is, usually.
But sometimes, when the people are still drowsy and the birds have not yet sung, Shouyou finds comfort in the quiet. He finds warmth in watching the colors of the rising sun filter in through half-drawn blinds. He finds peace in listening to the earth waking up all around him.
When he was younger he stayed in bed just to be – be one with the slowly waking world; be calm and quiet; be himself in his purest form. It was almost as if he readied himself for battle, sort of like the calm before the storm.
It was then, in the minutes between night and day, that he could truly, unbidingly, breathe. It was there, under the soft, thick protection of his comforter, that he was actually, finally, free – free of rules; free of expectations; free of the persona he’d created for himself. It was where he could let the bright and bubbly kid go, if only for a minute.
See, slow mornings have always been Shouyou’s favorite.
Because they drag those precious moments of silence out for just a little longer. They grant him just that extra bit of serenity, that extra sprinkle of freedom.
Shouyou isn’t as young as he once was, though twenty-six is not old by a long shot. He doesn’t have to hide under his covers to find some silence now. He doesn’t just have the moments between dusk and dawn to ease his breathing – his crafted self cracked a long time ago. It folded under pressure from someone that perhaps knew him better than he did himself. A man that had pushed and pulled until finally Shouyou felt comfortable enough to be himself. Until he felt like he didn’t have to ready himself for battle.
Because he’d already won it.
It is now, in the days after vowing to spend his life with that same man, that Shouyou finds himself admiring the early morning light once more. It is here, in the comfort of a bed he shares with a person he trusts wholeheartedly, that his love only grows – grows in trueness. Grows in size. Grows in ferocity.
He sees it clearly now, when the sun slowly welcomes him to a new day. When its rays shine brightest as they catch on hard planes of muscles and soft curves of skin. When its warmth radiates off a body curled up right next to his like the man – boy, god – has absorbed all the heat it could give him in challenge. When said man opens his eyes to the offending brightness of day only to blink at his husband slowly, drowsily, so incredibly softly that Shouyou’s heart could burst.
He reaches out a hand instead. One that Tobio nuzzles into gladly.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Shouyou whispers.
His husband looks up at him with a fondness loud enough to kill the silence without saying anything at all. Shouyou’s face splits into a smile at the sight.
He kisses Tobio softly, on the crown of his head – once worn with such agonizing heaviness – then on the tip of his nose, the apple of his cheeks, before finally landing on rosy lips still lax from sleep.
Tobio lets him–makes soft grunts of grumpy affection when Shouyou’s hair tickles his skin–and Shouyou chuckles softly. He cannot believe his luck, cannot fathom the happiness coursing through his veins upon realizing that this is his life.
His husband, their life.
He hides his face in the crook of soft, uncovered neck he finds–nearly melts when a big, warm hand comes up to trace the lines of his back, all the way to the nape where tan skin meets fiery orange, and back down again in soothing strokes of slow tenderness– and decides that, yes.
Slow mornings have always been Shouyou’s favorite.
Because they give him plenty of time to do this; to explore all the little eccentricities that make up his husband, to discover him anew, to take the hurt he sees in every scar – both visible and not – and turn it into something to be coveted, to show him just how much he loves him – every part of him.
It is now, in the moments spent simply being, that Shouyou feels completely and utterly safe; invicible like Tobio said he would be all those years ago.
It is here, enveloped in the warmth of his slowly waking husband, that he knows he is undeniably, irrevocably loved; someone better that only Tobio could make him – the way he tells him he is every day without fail.
“Good morning, Shouyou,” Tobio whispers back.
He doesn’t have to look at him to feel the affection laced in the words, as if Tobio would never want to have a morning without him – like he treasures these moments the same way Shouyou does. Like they’re his favorite too.
Shouyou reaches out a hand, laces his fingers with his husband’s. He places a kiss against their knuckles just for good measure, and closes his eyes so he can redo it all when he wakes up again.
“We should sleep some more,” he whispers.
Tobio pulls him to his chest, their joined hands resting between them. He pecks Shouyou between his brows, on his nose, then against the spot on their knuckles his lips have just vacated.
“We should,” he echoes.
They don’t say any more, but they don’t have to – never have to, to understand. Won’t have to again, to get the chance to say it later. Because that’s just the thing, they have a later; they have forever.
When Shouyou inevitably falls back into soft slumber, led there by the music that plays with his husband’s every heartbeat, the thought doesn’t leave his mind. And why would it?
Slow mornings have always been Shouyou’s favorite, and they always will be.
Because for the rest of his life, he gets to spend them with Kageyama Tobio.