Mornings with Shu, as they are wont to be, are each an exercise in the art of being sneaky for Teuta.
This, mind you, given this man’s line of work, is a lot trickier than it has any right to be.
He’s never much of a hugger when he’s awake, though his arms come up to enfold her soon after she tucks her face against his chest. Even now, a couple of months after the surgery and his call with her parents - her heart still clenches, remembering the way the sunlight played across the soft smile on his face - Shu still takes each and every hug she gives him like an unexpected but welcome gift.
It took her a while to notice.
That momentary, barely a second’s pause before he curls an arm around her waist, his other hand cradling the back of her head. He has a way of making her feel so small in his arms, so secure, and she wonders if he feels the same with every occasion that she reaches for him.
Teuta gives him a lot of hugs. Maybe one day, that second’s pause would whittle down into nothing. They have plenty of time to find out.
This is for when Shu’s awake and alert.
When he’s asleep, really asleep, Shu’s limbs seem to have a mind of their own.
6:30 AM
Soft pop music fills the room, gradually growing louder; Teuta’s phone vibrates on top of the bedside. Her best friend’s dulcet tones greet her as she blinks blearily into awareness.
She reaches out to grab her phone and turn the alarm off.
Teuta is successful midway, fingers just barely grazing the edge of the table, before a problem presents itself in the form of a grey-haired hitman. It hits her then, that this isn’t her room. This isn’t the Monday morning of her once-single past.
Her sheets don’t have that faint whiff of detergent and men’s shower gel on them. Until recently.
They also don’t usually have a six-foot-one hitman dozed off under them, at least until a few months ago.
The back of her neck prickles as she finally registers the heavy arm, currently curled across her stomach. Fingers, rough with callouses, brush against the soft skin of her belly and send her heart thumping against her ribcage.
Her camisole has hiked up just enough in slumber for the man’s frankly large hand to slip under the fabric. The heat of his palm is like a furnace against her slightly lower body temperature, tempting her to settle back under the blanket with him and ignore the upcoming interview with that professor from New Sieg Academia-
Realization is like a shot of Harry & Keith’s strongest-grade black coffee, injected straight into her veins. Teuta would sit up if it weren’t for the man sprawled out behind her.
“Shu?”
There’s no response, not that she expected one. The deep and even breathing told her enough, and it’s not like this has never happened before.
With a sigh, she rests her palm flat on the mattress and heaves her body upwards. This tugs her almost out of the slumbering man’s arms, and she thinks she may make it, just enough to extricate herself from him.
Teuta runs through a mental checklist of her schedule for the day.
6:30 am. Wake up and shower, get dressed. 7 am. Breakfast with whoever is up and awake, usually Mozu and Crow, sometimes Helvetica. 8:30 am. Dr. Goswami of New Sieg Academia’s international studies department, interview on campus.
Shu tightens his grip on her, hand curving around her waist, and pulls her back with the effortless strength that she’s come to contend with on mornings like this. Her back bumps against his chest, forcing a soft oomph out of her as the hitman nuzzles into her shoulder.
His breath tickles the back of her ear, abruptly reminding her of a similar situation the night before.
… And now is not a particularly good time to think of last night. Maybe when she’s in less danger of running late for her own plans today. The way Shu is currently gripping her, there is a very real risk of this happening.
Adam’s Novalis continues blaring from her phone as Teuta broods over what to do next.
“Shu.”
“Mn.”
“I have an interview today.”
The man has the audacity to continue as he is. She feels his thumb rub against her side, slow and almost deliberate, and recites her schedule to herself. He couldn’t possibly stay asleep with Adam Krylov’s voice floating in their ears, the news anchor belting out the lyrics in a way that should be impossible to ignore.
Except this is Shu, and he has a way of stone-cold shutting out anything he doesn’t care to acknowledge.
Giving another attempt at subtlety, Teuta places her hand on where he’s holding her, intertwining her fingers with his. She pauses as she hears a low grumble against her neck, waiting until it passes and no disgruntled hitman is muttering at her. Slowly, surely, she pries off the arm resting on her.
Success.
This is truly one of her luckier mornings, she’s had to wrestle with a sleeping man’s embrace more than once. Sometimes, she comes out the loser. Shu’s lucky that it’s never on a day where she’s trying not to run late, or he’d be buying her tubs of ice cream. Tubs of her favorite brand and some enchiladas at Vale la Pena, because he’d cave to the look on her face anyway.
Teuta’s feet touch the bare floor as she finally silences her alarm.
All in all, that took her five minutes.
“Your friend’s music is not a good wake-up call.”
Peering at her with one eye open, Shu lounges on the bed. The sunlight filtering through the automatic curtains lands on fluffy grey hair, made even more disheveled from sleep, making it glow almost golden.
She purposely avoids looking any lower - don’t want to be late! - where the blanket has slid off. He doesn’t wear a shirt to sleep on most nights, she’s come to learn after they’ve started sleeping over in each other’s rooms.
“It’s not for you,” she snipes back, turning around and stretching her arms above her head.
“Like hell it isn’t, that wasn’t your alarm before.”
Teuta can feel his eyes on her as she shimmies out of her top, folding it to be left on the corner of the bed. If she were a more fiction type of writer, she’d call the heavy gaze provocative. Taunting her to come back to him. Paired with his current state of shirtlessness, it’s annoyingly effective.
Except Shu isn’t that kind of guy, and he just has that effect on her anyway without trying.
She mulls over this for a second, then makes her way towards his shower. Because of course, every bedroom in Scarecrow’s mansion has to have an ensuite bathroom.
This is her life now. Mornings spent wrangling her way out of a grown man’s arms as he holds on to her like a kid cuddling a particularly beloved teddy bear. Breakfasts with a group of men with dubious backgrounds remind her of the laughter she once shared with her parents and Zora over her mother’s burnt toast.
Showers that may make a mess of her schedule. But just a tiny bit. She makes an allowance anyway because the meeting is actually at 9.
There’s a grin on her face that she couldn’t fight off. She wouldn’t even if she could.
In the doorway, she looks over her shoulder and meets his eye. He gazes back at her steadily, as if he doesn’t know that she knows he was staring at her bare legs.
“Aren’t you coming, Shu?”
“Huh.” The hitman’s lips curve up in a lazy grin to mirror hers. “I’m not about to turn down more time with you if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mornings with Teuta, as Shu has come to learn, begin with the living embodiment of the sun in his arms.
… That’s what he would say, except her body runs a little cooler than his. Despite it, she insists on keeping the AC inside the room on, and he’s sometimes startled awake by a cold foot bumping into his under the blanket.
He’s always feared the coldness in people; his mother’s and Teuta’s, different as they are.
He doesn’t say this to her, as he could practically picture the look on her face, the furrow in her brow coupled with the glossy sheen in her eyes, and Shu is unprepared for what he’d do if he sees this yet again.
What measures he’d take just to kiss- no, wipe that look off from a face that should never wear it. A lingering kiss on the forehead for luck, a hug that gets tighter each night, and small hands that seem to console him more than he comforts her. If it ends up in them being a tangle of limbs in the mornings, then so what?
Besides, it thaws that ice in his chest, to be roused into the world of the living again by a squirming Teuta. It does interesting things to him. He sees that slender neck so close to his lips and wonders if he should one day sink his teeth into it - not too hard, just the way she likes it - and make her realize she’s not as sneaky as she imagines.
No matter how hard she pouts, it only urges him on. After all, how can this little sun afford to be stingy in shining its light on the lonesome moon?
This morning, he joins her for a shower that runs ten minutes longer than it should.
Shu’s poorly-veiled amusement cracks a little at the scowl his girlfriend throws over her shoulder at him, a stick of concealer in her hand.
“You,” she begins, and he feigns innocence that she doesn’t buy, not for a damn minute.
The hitman echoes after her, dully, though the look in his eye is anything but.
“Me.”
“You need to hold back a little on- on-”
Here, Teuta’s fierce pout fizzles out, twin spots of crimson blooming on her cheeks and reaching the tips of her ears. Shu stares at her and wonders if she’d truly be mad if he made her miss that interview. Surely Dr. Goswami’s thoughts about the multicultural influences on New Sieg cinema aren’t as important as she’s making them out to be.
Nah, he better not. As a supportive, caring boyfriend, Shu helps her. “On what?”
“You know what!”
“… ‘Fraid I don’t, actually. Words, Teuta, you’re a journalist.”
“H-how do I cover up everything?”
He cranes his neck, leaning back on the edge of the bed as she fusses in front of the vanity he never uses. Despite her fretting, Teuta manages to hide the evidence on her skin; her shoulders and neck clear as if he hadn’t just been making her gasp in the shower. Shu wishes the day is over because he misses them already.
“Hell if I know how you work your magic.”
Teuta manages to conceal everything despite Shu’s general uselessness and down her breakfast at a speed that garners disbelieving looks from the jerk. And she still has time to finish the coffee Mozu brewed especially for her.
“Something smells really nice,” Crow pipes up over bacon and eggs. He’s sniffing the air a bit too appreciatively as he sits beside Shu, making the hitman lean away with a longsuffering groan.
Helvetica flicks a look over his soy latte. She’s not sure if she likes it. “I see that Shu uses Clairol Strawberry Ginger now.”
She finishes gulping down her coffee and flashes him a sweet smile.
“I gotta go now.” A quick peck for Shu and the journalist is gone, though not without hearing Crow’s shrill yell as he realizes just who he’s been smelling so eagerly.
“S-s-strawberry scented Shu? What? Eh?”
“Shut up, Crow.”