ten reasons - Chapter 6: Chapter 6

sakusa was generally a pretty straightforward guy, to say the least. he knew what he wanted out of life, who he wanted in it, and had a pretty fixed mindset. nothing could really sway him one direction or the other, his view on life was purely cut and dry.
"i'm not a pessimist, i'm a realist," he'd say quite often to you, who had your head in the clouds all day, dreaming of different things you could never explain easily. your mind was completely subject to change, varying degrees of change, that is, and you loved to share your thoughts with sakusa. he said you had 'entertaining daydreams' after you'd babble on for a little bit about something that scratched the inner walls of your mind.
"you're not even making sense. you're just talking out of your ass," sakusa commented one time, and you frowned while rolling away from him on the bed with a whine. "fine. keep going." he said, turning to see your back, which still faced him.
"i have such pretty thoughts, and you don't care to entertain them," you grumbled, "you can at least admit you like listening to me."
"i do," he said simply, grasping your shoulder and rolling you back to face him. your brows were furrowed and he sighed, "keep talking." his dark eyes bore into yours, and even after all these years of being with him, you couldn't help but get shivers down your arms when he stared at you this way. sakusa reached out and placed his hand on your cheek, dragging his thumb under your eye.
you shyly smiled and started speaking again, this time about your desire to see fields and hills of brilliant flowers with waterfalls, to see willow trees in the midst, the smeared pink of clouds in the dusk sky, and maybe even far enough away from the city to see the hazy band of the galaxy in the night.
you loved nature and everything pretty, he noticed. as long as it looked nice and inviting to you, you didn't care what it was, you fell in love with it.
you fell in love with everything about the world.
sometimes you would describe nature and all the cute things that people would do, you'd tell him memories with the twins, your tomboy phase, your childhood. sakusa knew how you got that scar on your knee, how classical music made you feel as if you were in a movie, how embarrassed you were when your parents shoved pre-teen pictures of you in his face ("seriously, that was humiliating").
if you talked about something, he listened.
sakusa's view on life was fixed, yours was inquisitive.
he didn't live with his head in the sky, you did.
he got excited about handkerchiefs, you got excited about anything and everything on earth.
he was the ground your feet couldn't reach.
and if you dove far into your fantasies, or wanted to jump into the clouds, sakusa would go with you, of course. but he'd also be the one to pull you back on the ground to make you see and enjoy the life you have here, in the present, with him. but maybe you pulling him off the ground was a good thing, too. wether it in the past or present, you always changed his view on life.
such as close contact that he'd never even wanted before.
"i don't care about the germs and sickness anymore, i just want you." he said shortly one day, still unsure if this was truly what he wanted. sakusa stood across from you, who sat comfortably on his bed, grasping the sheets with soft hands.
your eyes widened, blinking a few times out of shock. "...is this because i said i wanted you to ruin me? because that was a joke...." you said cautiously, worried that sakusa was sick or something. it's your third year in university, and you and sakusa had been dating for a number of months now, but being acquainted for much longer. he was comfortable enough around you for most of it, but hearing this made you wonder how long he'd been craving you this way.
the most he'd ever given you was light touches, maybe on your cheek or arm, but he hadn't even kissed you yet. you couldn't be mad at him, though, you were willing to wait for him. however he was normally pretty vocal about stuff. if he wanted something he would outright say it, if he felt a certain way he would tell you most days. he wasn't hard to read if he was talking, and he always tried his best to communicate with you.
"no, it's not because of that," he said, "i've wanted it for a while." he seemed almost weirded out by himself, cringing at you as if he was being dared for money and couldn't quite handle the repercussions.
your mouth fell open as you tried coming up with something to say, but you were dumbfounded. you just wanted to know if he was serious.
"you don't have to ask, sakusa," you said, setting your arms behind you to rest on them, leaning back and smirking noticeably now. sakusa nodded hesitantly, and you quirked your brows in a daring manner. "i'm not gonna rush you." turning your head to the side, you have him a small smile, because you too were nervous for his foreign touches.
sakusa was a little awkward about it, of course he would be, but he eventually got used to the feeling of your skin against his. hell, he even realized how touched starved he was ("why the hell aren't you cuddling me right now?"). lucky for him, you wanted him just as much, if not more. over time he got comfortable enough to touch you as he pleased, you definitely weren't complaining, and sakusa would be a liar if he said he didn't love every moment of it.
sakusa wanted things he could never even fathom beforehand, all because of you. you changed the way he saw a lot of things about life, from both your own observations and your complete opposite personality. even now you baffled him, always bringing up things that only you and maybe hinata could think up out of the blue—you weren't an airhead, just curious.
sakusa was deep, murky water, and you were a ray of sunshine that shone all the way to the bottom.
"when i was younger," you said, "i was louder than i am now, so much so that nobody could take me seriously, not even kita-san." you chuckled and took a sip of water, and sakusa stared at you in wonder as you sat atop his lap on the sofa.
you and sakusa decided to stay in for the weekend, staying up deep into the night and into the small hours of the morning, talking and drinking and holding each other.
"miyas have said that before."
"yeah, they're always talkin' smack," you set the glass down and slouched against the back of the couch with a frown. "i was annoying, bottom line. i thought nobody could ever like the bold girls. they liked the girls who sat and looked pretty, the ones who were reserved. the ones that listened."
sakusa placed a hand on top of your thigh, lightly rubbing his thumb over the surface and concentrating on your face, which wore a light smile.
"i used to not believe in love, based on what i saw from other people, and how they treated me," you blinked slowly, smiling to yourself, "then i met you," you said softly, pretty eyes coming to stare at him again. sakusa swore that every time you stared at him like this, he lost the ability to breathe; no matter how many times he saw it, he was bound to fall again and again into the depths of his own love for you.
"you changed the way i view love, kiyo," you said, leaning down to lay your head in the crook of his neck. his strong arms embraced you, holding you firmly to him, because honestly, sakusa's heart might implode if you were any farther away from him. "you make me feel safe in my own skin." you mumbled.
it was then that sakusa realized that you too, had changed the way he perceived love. it wasn't just caring deeply anymore, it wasn't a default feeling you had, it wasn't supposed to hurt and get better over and over again like before.
it was sakusa wanting to give every piece of himself to you, it was the things they wrote about in songs, in poems, in epic tales of romance of people so perfect for each other...perhaps even handcrafted and picked to be together. it was sakusa feeling so safe in your arms that this was truly the only place he felt at home, it was him starting his daily routine only to feel excited about coming back home to you, and most of all it was you shaping him into a better version of himself, one that felt like he was flying, like he was worth loving.
"you changed everything for me." he said.
this, sakusa found, was the honest truth.
"i love you more than everything else in the world."
he knew what value these words held— warmth, promises, vulnerability. sakusa loved saying these words to you because of this. giving every vulnerable part of himself to you to hold with care, to accept him with open arms and heart...he wanted all of it.
sakusa wanted not only these soft, gentle parts of the relationship, he wanted the whole package. he wanted the petty arguments, only to come back and make it up to you later. he wanted to see you under the stars, running through flowery hills, get knocked over by tidal waves, the pink on your face from the cold, the gentle caress of warm spring air. he wanted to see your happiness every single day for as long as he could.
he wanted to be the characters in the epic novels, to feel what composers felt while writing the songs, but most of all he wanted to spend the rest of his life watching your happiness, basking in it for you both to see.
after all, his end goal was to make you happy, wasn't it?
that night—or morning—sakusa fell asleep with a new sense of security, one where nothing could possibly hurt him. there was no room for anything that could disgust him.
it felt good here.
as did every single moment with you, and when he woke up the next morning with you still knocked out on his chest, he ran his fingers through your hair, murmuring, "number five," you stirred slightly, and sakusa smiled, "you changed the way i view life and love."