triumph
yaku morisuke x f!reader
morisuke decides that standard boyfriend behavior is for cowards and launches a full-scale tactical assault of affection for your birthday. wc: 1.7k, happy birthday @sh0dor1 i love u sm !!
the digital numbers on the clock are ticking closer to midnight, and yaku is currently experiencing a level of stress usually reserved for bomb disposal units or people trying to untangle cheap headphones. he is staring at a batch of strawberry cupcakes with the kind of intense, unblinking focus that could probably melt steel beams. if he blinks, he loses. if he loses, your birthday is ruined, and if your birthday is ruined, he will simply walk into the nearest ocean and let the tides take him.
he is, to put it plainly, completely and utterly in love with you. you’ve dismantled his entire psychological infrastructure. he used to be a guy who worried about reception angles and keeping lev from breaking the gym ceiling; now his brain is just an endless loop of does ‘she need snacks? is she cold? i should buy her that tiny cat keychain i saw three weeks ago or i’ll perish.’
the clock hits 12:00.
yaku immediately grabs his phone with the speed of a striking cobra and fires off a text message so fast his thumbs nearly snap.
mori: happy birthday to the absolute light of my entire life. you’re the sun. you’re the air i breathe. i’m outside.
you read the text, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, and squint through your bedroom window. sure enough, there’s a small, aggressively determined figure standing beneath the streetlamp, wearing a jacket that makes him look slightly like a neon marshmallow, holding a box of baked goods like it contains the holy grail.
when you open the front door, he greets you and looks at you like you’re the first drop of water in a three-year desert drought.
“you’re awake,” he breathes out, his face flushing a violent pink that matches the frosting on the cupcakes. “good. excellent. happy birthday. i made these. if they taste like drywall, tell me immediately and i will execute the baker—which is me, but the principle stands.”
you take a bite of one right there on the porch, the sugar hitting your system. it’s perfect. it’s so good you actually make a small, pathetic whimpering noise. yaku’s chest puffs out so far he looks like a pigeon trying to intimidate a rival bird. the sheer triumph in his eyes is loud enough to wake the neighbors. he looks ready to fight a god in a parking lot just because you liked the frosting.
“get some sleep,” he orders softly, his voice dropping into that specific, gentle cadence that makes your stomach do a backflip into a swimming pool of jelly. he reaches up, his thumb catching a stray bit of icing near your lip with the precision of a man who tracks volleyballs for a living. “tomorrow’s a military operation. be ready by ten.”
at exactly 9:58 am, yaku is vibrating on your porch. when you open the door, he takes one look at you in your birthday outfit and his brain completely short-circuits. the windows startup sound plays in his head. he has to physically grip the porch railing to stabilize himself because your existence is currently hitting him like a physical blow to the solar plexus.
“you look…” he starts, his voice cracking slightly like a middle schooler going through puberty. he clears his throat, his ears turning the color of a fire engine. “yeah. okay. the universe really spent extra time on you, huh? ridiculous. let’s go before i start crying in public.”
the itinerary he has constructed is not a normal date plan. it’s a leather-bound binder with laminated tabs. yaku has calculated the exact trajectory of your happiness for the next twelve hours down to the millimeter.
first stop is a cat cafe, because he knows you lose your mind over anything small, fluffy, and angry—which is ironic, considering who you’re dating. the second you walk in, a massive, grumpy calico waddles over and plops itself directly onto your lap.
yaku stares at the cat. the cat stares back with absolute malice.
for a hot second, you’re convinced yaku is about to engage in a psychological warfare battle with a feline for your attention. he looks genuinely offended that another living creature had the audacity to make you smile before he did. but then you scratch the cat behind its ears, laughing that specific, crinkly-nosed laugh that makes yaku’s soul detach from his body, and he just collapses onto the table, hiding his face in his arms.
“mori? you okay?” you ask, poking his shoulder.
“no,” comes his muffled voice from the wood. “you’re too loud. your face is too loud. why are you doing this to me on your own birthday? i’m supposed to be the one giving you heart palpitations.”
“are you jealous of a cat named barnaby?”
“barnaby needs to know his place,” yaku mutters, though he reaches across the table to capture your free hand, his fingers intertwining with yours so tightly you can feel his pulse. his palm is warm, a little calloused from the court, and he starts tracing tiny, nonsensical circles on the back of your hand with his thumb. it’s a quiet habit of his, an unspoken reassurance that he’s entirely anchored to you.
lunch is a chaotic masterpiece. he takes you to a restaurant that serves those ridiculous, over-the-top milkshakes piled high with slices of cake, sparklers, and enough cotton candy to insulate a small house.
when a random guy named berto brings it out, singing a horribly off-key version of happy birthday with an ‘y/nxyaku’ headband, yaku looks like he wants to dissolve into a puddle of shame, but he’s clapping the loudest. he’s leaning forward, his eyes bright and completely fixed on you, ignoring the sparkler sparks flying dangerously close to his hair.
“blow it out, blow it out!” he urges, pulling out his phone to take approximately four hundred photos from every conceivable angle. “make a wish. if it’s about money, i’ll get a ton of jobs. if it’s about a giant robot, i’ll build it. just tell me.”
“i wished for you to stop being so dramatic,” you tease, pulling a strawberry off the shake and popping it into your mouth.
yaku stops, his phone hovering in mid-air. his expression softens into something so heavy, so incredibly tender, that the playful atmosphere around the table just evaporates. he leans his chin on his hand, looking up at you through his eyelashes.
“granted,” he murmurs, his voice low and entirely devoid of his usual defensive bark. “but you’re stuck with the dramatic version anyway. i don’t know how to love you quietly. it’s not physically possible.”
you almost chew on your strawberry. your face burns. you’re fully aware that you’re close to squealing like a victorian child seeing a train for the first time, but you can’t stop it. yaku feels the heat spread across your cheeks with a smug, deeply satisfied smirk, entirely proud of his ability to reduce you to a stuttering mess.
the final phase of the operation takes place at a park overlooking the city just as the sun starts to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in bruises of purple and gold. it’s chilly, the evening breeze biting at your bare arms.
before you can even think about shivering, yaku has stripped off his jacket with the speed of an olympic athlete and draped it over your shoulders. it smells like him—laundry detergent, faint traces of gym salonpas, and that distinct, comforting warmth that belongs entirely to him. it swallows you whole, the sleeves hanging way past your fingers.
yaku looks at you, enveloped in his clothes, and a strange, strangled noise escapes his throat.
“what?” you ask, pulling the collar up to your nose.
“nothing,” he says, but his hands are shaking slightly as he reaches out to cup your face. his palms are big enough to frame your cheeks perfectly, his thumbs smoothing over your cheekbones. “just… you look like that. in my stuff. it’s unfair. i feel like my chest is going to crack open.”
he leans down, pressing his forehead against yours. you can feel the heat radiating off him, see the tiny gold flecks in his brown eyes. he’s breathing softly, his gaze dropping to your lips and staying there like a man stranded at sea looking at a lighthouse.
“i spent the whole day trying to make this perfect,” he whispers, his breath warm against your skin. “because you deserve a version of the world that doesn’t have any flaws in it. i know i’m loud, and i’m short-tempered, and kuroo says i have the emotional range of a pipe wrench, but… i love you so much it makes me feel crazy. happy birthday, y/n.”
when he kisses you, it’s not a polite, gentle peck. it’s a deep, desperate, all-consuming thing that tells you exactly how much he’s been holding back all day. his hands slide from your face down to your waist, pulling you flush against him until there’s no space left between you. he kisses you like he’s trying to memorize the texture of your lips, like he’s trying to pour every single ounce of his devotion directly into your heart.
your fingers tangle in the short hairs at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, and yaku lets out a low, shaky groan into the kiss, his grip tightening around your waist until you’re practically lifted off your feet.
when he finally pulls back, just an inch, his lips are swollen and his eyes are dark, completely focused on you as if the rest of the city below had just ceased to exist.
“well,” he breathes, his forehead resting against yours again, a breathless, goofy gring breaking through his flushed face. “i think i nailed the birthday gift part. now let’s go home before i buy you a star or something stupid.”
n: i wish you the happiest birthday, sho :3 i’m so glad to have befriended you. i can’t express how grateful i am to have someone like you. you’ve helped me through a lot of times whenever i panicked about something minor, calming me down and making me think logically, or just letting me talk my heart out until i finally get tired. you’ll always have a special place in my heart for me to cherish, and in my mind for me to remember. happy birthday, sho !! i love u sm <3
© showhay — don’t copy, repost, or translate without my permission. do not use/feed my works to AI.
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