It’s difficult to truly put into words what it means to be loved by Hitoshi Shinsou. Even as his partner, it’s something you often struggle to comprehend. He’s not the type to shower you with flowery declarations or dramatic confessions. Rarely does he dote, rarely does he put his devotion into neat, easy sentences. Instead, his love comes in subtler forms—quiet, unspoken, but impossible to miss once you learn the language of him.

You know he loves you in the way his fingers thread through your hair as though protecting your preciously pretty head, his gaze steady and unreadable to anyone but you. You know in the way he curls around you at night, holding you like you’re the only thing tethering him to rest. You know in every idle brush of his hand against yours, in how his arm always finds its way around your waist when you’re walking together, or how he presses the smallest, quietest kisses to your temple when he thinks you’re already asleep. His love doesn’t announce itself—it lingers, it seeps into every moment and bleeds into your skin until you can’t imagine a world where it isn’t there.

This afternoon, the two of you are tucked under the warm kotatsu in your dorm, books and notes sprawled between you. You scribble furiously in your notebook, then, in a sudden breath, abandon the silence and studying with a rambling tangent about some random topic that you just remembered to tell him. Your voice carries with laughter, hands gesturing with your pen, your mind painting whole conversations without ever giving him space to respond.

When you finally pause for breath, you find him watching you silently, but his expression is unusually loud. His chin rests in his palm, lips curved into a faint smirk, his violet eyes softened in a way that feels like he's melting—like you’ve undone him completely without even trying. By being completely, and unapologetically you.

Before you can ask what he’s looking at, his hand snakes forward, big and warm, fingers curling gently around your nape. He pulls you into him with a tenderness that steals your breath, kissing you softly that washed away the world around you both.

You pull away a little dazed, cheeks flushed hot, suddenly mortified at how carried away you must’ve gotten while talking. But he only chuckles low in his throat, thumb brushing through the hair, caressing the skin of your nape as his gaze lingers on you like you’re the only thing in the world.

“Keep going,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, voice laced with a smile meant only for you. His hand brushing forward to cup your jaw, coaxing you closer again. “What happened after that?”