Work Text:
It had been a week since their marriage. After Ayaka began living with her wife in the Kujou Estate, she had been learning something new about her each day. All this newfound knowledge would be kept close to her heart like well-kept secrets.
And a few of these secrets were ones that not even Sara herself was aware of.
Ayaka was the type who sometimes woke up in the middle of night, for no apparent reason. She used to find it rather inconvenient whenever she roused from sleep and found the room still shrouded in the night. However, this little quirk recently allowed her to discover a secret about her wife—the dashing, charming General of the Tenryou Commission:
Kujou Sara was always cute, but in her sleep, she was criminally adorable.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened when they laid their shared futons down and carried out their bedtime routines before retiring for the night.
After drying off her wings and preening her feathers (Ayaka had been learning more about wing maintenance to help her out), Sara would make a final inspection of her room to ensure it was tidy, then say her prayers before her personal shrine of the Raiden Shogun, where she had housed five Statues of Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho, God of Thunder. When she was done, she would then put out the illuminating lamps then make her way to the futons, where Ayaka had already been laying in wait, propped up on her elbows and admiring her lover's discipline and devotion.
"Goodnight, my love." Ayaka would raise her chin to receive a peck on the lips, as Sara lowered herself into the futon and made herself comfortable.
"Sleep well, Ayaka," Sara would respond. It may have seemed distant for the general not to give her lover a pet name, but they both knew how long it took for her to be comfortable just saying the three-syllable name. Sara apparently had never thought herself worthy of addressing her directly.
Ayaka could recall how flustered Sara became when she finally allowed herself to whisper her name—like a small prayer—and how much it made her heart pound to finally hear the name "Ayaka" from her lover's lips.
Now, Sara would say her name all the time, and Ayaka did not mind that at all. Not even if her poor heart could no longer stand all the excitement, figuratively.
Understandably, Sara was usually the first of the two to fall asleep. She led a much more strenuous life after all, and would require all the rest she could get. In fact, she was almost always knocked out the moment her head touched her pillow. The feat had always impressed Ayaka, who would usually take a few minutes longer.
(Then, as mentioned previously, wake up in the middle of the night later on.)
This was one of those nights, and Ayaka was delighted to have woken up to her hand being held.
Secret number one: Sara would occasionally reach over from her side of the futon and grab her hand in her sleep.
Ayaka looked over at her wife's face, and confirmed that she was, indeed, fast asleep.
She found it endearing how Sara always managed to locate her hand. It was a mystery, but somehow her arm knew that Ayaka was always to her right, with her hands resting atop her lower rib cage.
As though she was being responded to, Ayaka heard her wife exhale a precious little sigh before giving her hand another squeeze.
Secret number two: Sara always made the cutest little noises in her sleep.
Perhaps this was why Ayaka always woke up in the middle of the night—so that she could hear each and every one of her wife's nightly birdsongs.
Sara is just so cute. It was a blessing that they may become wife and wife.
There would have been no other way for Ayaka to take delight in this side of Sara—needy, expressive, and even drooling from her lips just slightly.
Secret number three: The handsome Kujou Sara drools in her sleep.
And that was perfectly alright.
(Ayaka reached over to wipe her wife's face clean with her thumb.)
After all, they are wife and wife, and Sara was still as much of a normal girl as she was a brilliant general.
Soon, Ayaka fell back asleep.
More often than not, Sara’s days began earlier than her wife’s. She would awaken before Ayaka, around an hour before sunrise. Sara would be required to get up in a few minutes but, for now, she may have Ayaka’s sleeping visage all to herself.
Some time during the night, Ayaka had laid claim to her hand apparently, which was now being held between them on the futon.
Sara sighed.
Her sweet, gentle wife has such a beautiful face. She would look at her all day if she could.
Although she had been careful not to put Ayaka on a pedestal—as per Ayaka’s request soon after they began dating—Sara could not help but want to fall to her knees for her, even though it would have been blasphemous to worship a mortal as though she were the Almighty Shogun herself. Ayaka herself would not have wanted that either.
Well, perhaps Sara could continue to admire her sleeping wife as much as she liked without worry, and hold her hand for as long as she liked without feeling shy. Four minutes of blasphemy was… Surely fine? Making it one minute less than five lessened her guilt just slightly.
This self-indulgence was one of Sara’s precious secrets.