a/n: wtf is this. i don't know. get it away from me. im sorry
The air is hot and dense when Saizo opens his eye, jerked awake by some bad dream that he forgets in a second, and he groans. It's bright, so stupidly bright, and he rolls away from the window and slips a hand across his face as he tries to wake up some more. Damn sun, damn heat, damn mornings, damn-
He freezes as the gentle breathing of someone tickles his nose, and stares at the woman sleeping soundly directly next to him. Kagero's sleek black hair spills across the futon, tangled around her wrists, and he brushes a long strand of it away from his face. He grumbles and reaches out, taking her sleeve that has slid down her shoulder, and puts it back in place. She doesn't move a single inch, and if it weren't for her breath on his face and the warmth radiating from her body, he might think her dead.
The fact that she can sleep for so long with the sun directly on her face confounds him, when even the slightest bit of sunlight on him will prevent him from any kind of sleep. Kagero has also been more flexible than him, more willing and able to adjust. Sleeping on the ground? No problem. Staying awake for three days? A cinch. Eating only a single meal of hard tack and stale water per day? Easy.
Saizo sighs and leans towards her, pressing his lips against her cheek as gently as he can, then at the corner of her mouth, and she finally twitches. She mumbles and shifts in the sheets, and it's quite a nice little sound she makes, cute and soft, and she sinks back into the cushions and pillows in a way that's entirely endearing to him.
He sighs and swings his legs over the bed, softly as to not wake her, and clenches and unclenches his hand, which has gone numb from being slept on uncomfortably. The feeling returns to it and he stands with every intention of getting dressed and taking on the day, and leaving Kagero to hers off.
A hand clamps around his wrist, warm and soft around all the callouses, and he looks down at Kagero while she rubs at her eyes. She still looks tired, bleary with sleep and over-exhaustion.
"Good morning," he says softly.
"Come back to bed," is her only response, and she says it in a lovely voice that sends a shudder down his spine.
He wants to get back into bed with her. To throw the covers over their heads and block out the sunlight, the singing birds outside, the sounds of other servants outside the doors prepping for the day. He wants to get back into bed with her and hold her hand, kiss her face, and sleep until noon, but he has work to do.
"I have to go, Kagero," he tells her.
She hums and closes her eyes, resting back on the mattress with his wrist still trapped under her fingers. "There are soldiers guarding our lord. They'll stay there until you come for them. You can stay a little longer."
"How much is a little longer?"
Again, she hums. "Another two hours? The whole day? Who knows, really."
She looks tempting, so, so tempting, with her silky hair wrapped around her and her perfect and soft lips pressed into as much of a pout as she can muster. And she smells tempting, too, like ginger and the clean sheets on their bed and cool ink, and he imagines how lovely it would be to dig his face into her neck and smell her for hours and hours and hours, doing nothing but playing with her hair and pressing lazy kisses on every part of her. She feels tempting when he sits down on the edge of the bed and presses the pads of his fingers on her shoulder. He traces the line of her sharp collarbone- she feels soft-skinned and warmed, and her lips are especially soft, too, as he devours them and indulges himself.
The minutes drag by where he sits there, holding her hand and pressing kisses against her lips, soft and chaste as she falls back into exhaustion and sinks her head against the pillows. He thinks she looks like an absolute goddess, like the most radiant and exquisite thing he's ever seen in his life, even if her hair is tangled and there are sheet lines imprinted on her cheek from sleeping on creases.
Saizo has no business being so soft and sentimental, he thinks, no business at all kissing such a beautiful girl, but he has no business doing a lot of things that he's done, so he keeps doing it. His hand traces up her abdomen, over her chest, ghosting over the hollow of her throat, and he finally releases her lips and smooths his fingers over their fullness, wiping away any trace of himself.
"Come back to bed," she says again.
When he decides that she's mostly asleep once more, he whispers, "I'll be home tonight," and leaves her.