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“San Lang, are we asexual?”
“Mh?” Hua Cheng looks up from the mess of papers he’s been filling out all afternoon. Boring taxes. The world has really changed for the worse if it means he has to do this mind-numbing task every year for the foreseeable future. “What brought this up?”
Xie Lian hasn’t diverted his attention from the red sweater he’s knitting. His tongue sticks out slightly in concentration. It’s a new hobby of his; he’s not any good at it yet, but Hua Cheng will wear just about anything he receives.
“I read about it on the internet earlier,” Xie Lian answers, “It had me wondering.”
“Is that what gege has been thinking about? I noticed you were quite distracted.” Hua Cheng sneers at the papers on the low table. Though, who wouldn’t be. Xie Lian finished his part already. He lives so minimally that he’s practically a tax-evader, and Hua Cheng is starting to think he might be onto something there. The cost of living luxuriously is finally taking its toll.
“Mh-mh. It’s very interesting!” Xie Lian replies. He sounds rather excited. As excited as he was when he first learned that, with the invention of rice cookers, he would never burn rice again. “We didn't have those words at the time.”
“What makes you think we might be asexual?” Hua Cheng inquires. Truthfully, he’s rather curious. He’s heard about it, of course; since the rise of the internet, he’s spent a lot of time broadening his horizons—pushing his knowledge to the limit. Being confident in his identity and never having felt the need to label himself, he only briefly skimmed over the subject.
“Well, we talked about it before, didn’t we? All those years ago?”
“I do recall we did,” Hua Cheng confirms as he writes down the last few numbers and signs the last page.
With that he finally, proudly puts the papers aside, his shoulders slumping with relief. Xie Lian gives him a thumbs up.
Xie Lian sets down his halfway done sweater on his lap, and taps his chin thoughtfully. “So. . . from what you told me back then, you'd be demisexual. . . and I'd be greysexual?”
“Demisexual sounds right,” Hua Cheng agrees. “Greysexual. . . That’s experiencing sexual attraction infrequently, right?”
Xie Lian gives a nod. “Yes, amongst other things. It depends from person to person, but that’s how it is for me. Before I met you, I only felt that way a couple times.”
Hua Cheng’s eyebrows rise archly. “You did? Gege never told me about this?”
“To be honest, I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I understood it better after we met. Don’t be jealous of the dead, alright?” As Hua Cheng crosses his heart and props his chin on his hand to listen, Xie Lian begins to explain, “The first was when I was at the Royal Holy Pavilion. An older disciple did something I found, you know—” He flushes, just a bit. “—hot. It wasn't the first time I'd seen something like it, but for some reason, that time I felt differently. I brushed it off as something else even though it made me feel so strange.
“The next time was during my second banishment. It was some stranger. But I hadn't eaten anything in a couple days, and the only food I'd finally found was a really weird mushroom—don't look at me like that—so when it happened, I thought I was delirious.”
Despite the stinging reminder of Xie Lian’s harshest years, Hua Cheng laughs. That Xie Lian would take one of his few instances of sexual attraction as being delirious certainly isn’t out of character.
Xie Lian smiles. “And then, of course, there was you.” He leans over the low table, and Hua Cheng eagerly meets him in a kiss. “You took me rather by surprise. I barely got the time to know you, and you were already making me feel all kinds of ways.”
Hua Cheng hums. “Oh? What ways?” he teases. “Pray tell your San Lang. I want to hear all about it.”
Xie Lian humorously shoves his shoulder, pushing him away before he can mischievously nibble at his lower lip.
Hua Cheng makes a moue. “So cruel.”
“No. I know what you want, but you were plenty spoiled last night already,” Xie Lian counters. Seeing that even his best pleading eye doesn’t work, Hua Cheng gives up his half-hearted antics. “So, what do you think?”
“I think it makes sense,” Hua Cheng answers as he stands up, stretching his legs only to flop on the couch dramatically. “But of course, gege would know better than me how he feels.”
Xie Lian is quick to follow him, abandoning his knitting project for now to sit next to him and lean against his side.
“It’s more frequent since I met you. But compared to others. . . to you—what, it’s true!—there’s definitely a difference. Even today, after all these years—that feeling still takes me by surprise at times.”
“Like in Pei Ming’s bad romance novels?”
Xie Lian groans. “Yes! Exactly. Even with everything we did together. . . that aspect of those novels never made much sense to me. You know, they aren’t as bad as you make them sound.”
Hua Cheng shrugs. “Just assumed Pei Ming’s tastes are trash, is all.”
“San Lang, you’re awful,” Xie Lian chides. “Have some respect.” He pats Ruoye’s head as it slips from under his sleeve, wanting to join in. “Alright, most of them were terrible. But not all of them!”
Hua Cheng chuckles. “If gege says so.”
“Anyway. . .” Xie Lian murmurs, welcoming Hua Cheng in his embrace with open arms when he snuggles as close to him as he can. Ruoye wraps loosely around his neck, rippling gently. “It’s a nice thing to know. We’re actually quite different from most people. And here I thought they were the ones who were weird.”
“Are you bothered by that?” Hua Cheng asks, but cannot help inwardly smile. He likes when Xie Lian talks like this; no filters, perhaps even a little mean. It’s greatly amusing and, well—he’s right.
Xie Lian shakes his head. “No. I never cared what people think, and I won’t start now.”
“Good. I love being weird with gege.”
He underlines his words by leaving a sloppy, inelegant kiss under Xie Lian’s ear.
“San Lang!” Laughing, Xie Lian puts his hand in Hua Cheng’s face and pushes him away.
“Only with gege,” Hua Cheng adds, going for his lips instead. This time, Xie Lian lets him, and kisses back sweetly.
“Maybe if you gave others a chance and got to know someone closely, they would make you feel this way,” he remarks.
Hua Cheng makes a face. Over the years, he’s let a couple people closer into his heart. Never as deep as Xie Lian, but. . . enough to care for them. To this day, Yin Yu and Black Water remain his dearest friends, even though it took a few centuries to even admit that’s what they were. He’s lucky to not have developed any attraction for them after that development. Hua Cheng attempts for a second to imagine what it’d feel like to—Fuck, no. No way.
“All the more reason not to,” he protests earnestly. “I don’t want to feel like this for anyone else.”
Crow’s feet form at the corner of Xie Lian’s eyes. “Okay. To tell you the truth. . .” He pauses, his cheeks taking a faint red shade. “I don’t really want you to, either.”
Hua Cheng perks up. “Oh? Is gege admitting to being greedy? Is he the one that’s jealous?”
When Xie Lian hides his face behind his hands, Hua Cheng grins. Some things never change; even after so many years have passed, it’s not so difficult to make him lose his bearings, much to Hua Cheng’s pleasure; he quite likes red on his husband.
“Do you really have to embarrass me?”
“Of course. How else can I reassure gege that I’m all his? Besides, I helped you with your taxes, so don’t I deserve some kind of recompense?”
Hua Cheng presses a chaste kiss to Xie Lian’s temple, delighting in the way Xie Lian melts against him. Hundreds of years have gone by, and yet—without fail, even the smallest things reawaken his resting heart. Hua Cheng wonders if there will ever be a time when it doesn’t stir in Xie Lian’s presence. He hopes not. He wants it to always be like this, for however many hundreds of years more.
“All mine, huh?” Xie Lian breathes. “I like that.”
“Wonderful. Just you and me.”
Xie Lian gazes up at him, his eyes forming a crescent shape, and grins. “Just you and me.”