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the light hues of a new sunrise paint the sky outside shidou’s window when his eyes blink open, darting around the room instinctively before coming to rest on the sleeping figure tucked under his arm. mikoto lays in a peaceful, still deep sleep, mouth open and slightly slack. shidou can’t suppress a rare soft grin, brushing the ever-unruly bangs out of his husband’s face and pressing a light kiss to his forehead, fleeting and gentle enough not to wake him up. mikoto stirs briefly, but instead of awakening he just flops over unceremoniously and wiggles into the pillow a little more. it’s... really cute.
shidou worms his way out from beneath the mountain of blankets that mikoto insists on sleeping underneath,(they aren’t stiflingly bad, but it’s still a little too toasty sometimes, especially in summer.) stretching and hauling himself over to his closet to look for a sweatshirt. he’ll get dressed for real later, but he’s damn hungry and when mikoto wakes up shidou knows he will be to.
it’s a little odd how easily they’d fallen into routines with each other even before they started officially dating. back in the prison, mikoto would come into shidou’s cell exactly thirty minutes before the doctor went to sleep and leave right when he woke up, and that was just how it was. they’d danced around their feelings this way, ignoring the longer-than-normal gazes and the brief touches where something deeper had lingered beneath cool skin, something that neither of them had been emotionally prepared to unpack given the circumstances.
but, here they were, free men, and shidou could cry just thinking about that realization, and shidou doesn’t cry easily.
eventually, shidou shuffles himself into the chilly kitchen, digging up the stuff he needs to make eggs. it’s mikoto’s favorite breakfast, the first thing he’d ever really learned about his husband. before he starts cooking, he leans his elbows on the counter, gazing out the apartment window and taking in the decent view. it’s nothing special, but he’s come to associate it with mikoto, which makes it the most valuable sight in the world.
shidou finds himself pondering everything and nothing at the same time, mind wandering from his time in MILGRAM to wanting to check in with some of his old friends, and, inevitably, back to mikoto.
mikoto, he thinks, is his sun, the light of his life. shidou is just a planet, who had once orbited him from a safe distance, afraid to get closer both for his own and mikoto’s safety. but the gravity of his sun had pulled him in, wrapping him in soft hands and captivating stories and all the things that came with being loved by someone just as beautiful as him. shidou remembers a time where he’d thought that he was undeserving of love, but the memory is fuzzy, now, as it should be.
he gets working on cooking the eggs, humming a soft tune that might be something he’s heard on the radio. he isn’t sure, since he isn’t really thinking about it. shidou gets so occupied with making the food and tapping his foot to whatever song he’s humming that he doesn’t hear mikoto’s sock feet sliding up behind him and his husband’s chin landing squarely on his shoulder. two thin but strong arms wrap around his waist at the same time and he lets out a laugh involuntarily. “good morning, love.”
mikoto angles his head to plant a quick kiss on shidou’s cheek, smiling against the flushed skin. “morning, shi.” the nickname has been a thing for years, but every time mikoto uses it shidou’s stomach flips and his heart pounds in his chest.
“awh, you made my favorite...” mikoto smiles, still clinging to his husband. “that’s so sweet...ugh. how did i end up with you ?” he laughs, dropping his head again to rest on shidou’s shoulder. “like. actually. you’re so cute, i don’t deserve it.”
the older man laughs quietly in response, nudging mikoto off him so he can plate the eggs. “i could say the same to you.” shidou responds once he turns around, seeing the other in his entirety for the first time that day. “is that my shirt?”
mikoto flushes, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “uhm. yes? i hope you don’t mind, i was kinda still tired so i just grabbed what i could-“
shidou stops his rambling with a peck on the lips and a held-up hand. “i couldn’t care any less. you look cute like this.”
“i am-i’m not cute.”
“yes, you are.”
mikoto knows better than to argue, instead choosing to sigh over dramatically and take a bite of his breakfast. “oh shit, that’s good. i mean. it always is, but y’know.”
the light streaming in from the nearby window hits mikoto’s face at the perfect angle, and seeing him illuminated like this makes shidou’s heart skip a beat or two. so many words rest on the tip of his tongue-some poetic and fancy, others ramble-y and a few that he definitely does not ever need to vocalize. pushing all those back down, shidou says the only words he needs to articulate everything he’s feeling, everything he’s been feeling for years.
“i love you.”