Mornings with Kurogane, Fai thinks, are like little snatches of perfection all bottled up and then poured into ten solid minutes of pure bliss.
They are waking up to sunlight and turning around to find rain or waking up to rain and turning around to find more clouds. (Because Kuro-chi is not sunshine. He could never be.) They are opening your eyes to find that you're squished underneath something inexplicably warm, and then rolling the other way and realising you're so very cold. They are discovering he's hogged the blankets and you don't care. They are intervals of love, but that word is never mentioned.
It often comes to be that Kuro-tan and Fai get to share a room, and recently there's only been one bed for the two to share. Sometimes it's not big enough. Sometimes, it's too big. (Fai hates those the most.) And sometimes it's just the right size.
But the bed doesn't matter. Only mornings do.
Nights are coming back to the room and falling, exhausted, into bed. Nights are sex and sweat and trying not to make too much noise because Kuro-pi, these walls are so thin! Nights are filled with whispers and moans and why don't you tell mes; nights are painful; lustful; almost unberable.
But mornings—oh mornings.
Kuro-run takes, on average (Fai has counted on his fingers, toes, and hairs to count the seconds) ten minutes to wake up from the time that Fai manages to pry his eyes open. Fai always wakes up before Kurogane. It is almost a rule. Fai is never too exhausted to sleep longer than Kuro, no matter how weary the day before was. It is always Fai-then-Kuro; always calm-before-storm.
When Fai wakes up, there is a moment lasting no more than thirty seconds where he stretches. He is long and thin, and ever careful when sharing a bed not to knock his limbs into the other person. (But he can't help it if it actually happens.) And then thirty seconds are over and Fai rolls, cat-like, onto his stomach. He inches closer. He holds his breath.
And that's all.
The thing about mornings for Fai is that, no matter how beautiful they be, he cannot bring himself to disturb the sleeping Kurogane. Any other time of the day, he certainly fufills his wish to harass the darling, but in those delicate ten minutes before the storm breaks through he simply can't bring himself to do anything but stare and snuggle and mouth incomprehensible, inaudible words into the crook of Kuro's arm, where no one except skin can hear the tangled mess of sound.
He would like to prop himself up on his elbow and lean himself down to Kurogane's ear and make those declarations real. Because everyone knows Kurogane can't take the words 'I love you' coming real and raw out of someone's mouth.
So it's 'I-love-you, I-love-you, I-love-you'; enough times said to fill the space of ten minutes until Kuro blinks himself awake.
On the first note of consciousness Fai rolls himself back to his original position, fixes his smile into place, and makes sure the forbidden words are completely shoved into the back of his mind. Kurogane wipes his eyes, and Fai starts to run on autopilot.
"Nghk," Kuro mumbles, and sits up slowly. "What time is it?"
"Good morning, Kuro-rin," Fai chirps, all dazzling smiles. "I hope you slept well!"
With that, one more morning is bottled up and saved, and every good morning that comes out of Fai's mouth is one more I wish I could tell you to hide away.