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They lay with their backs turned against each other, Yiyong taking up almost all the bed space and the comforter with him, Guangyan shivering from the chilly air that entered through the barely opened window of his bedroom. Although he’d gone to Guangyan's in the hope he could sleep in peace keeping away the annoying obsessions that tried to look for his help yet again, his plan wasn't paying off. He lay awake incapable of falling asleep. He didn't know what was the reason for this, it was usually easy for him to sleep in one go all night, but Guangyan's presence was interrupting his routine. It didn't feel necessarily uncomfortable to sleep next to him, just… weird. Like he was suddenly nervous for no apparent reason. His approach to Guangyan had certainly changed in the past few weeks.
But…had it changed at all?
As opposed to what others might think, Pu Yiyong never hated Cao Guangyan. Truth is, he just found him annoying at best, a mutual annoyance that was even fun for him, having a bickering partner who he could pull pranks on was part of his daily routine at school.
Pu Yiyong would stop himself, though, when he started to think about how sometimes he'd caught Guangyan looking at him, a look of some kind of…awe in his face, or when he smiled softly at something Yiyong said and he’d turn to look at him with his most poignant, ‘I’m gonna kill you’ expression. Guangyan seems to know everything about Yiyong: what he likes and dislikes to eat, his favorite soda flavor (peach flavor), and his secret obsession with cats, which he found amusing saying he “didn’t look at all like the type of person who loved animals," whatever that meant.
But Yiyong had started to notice other things too, though, this time about himself. Such as the pang in his stomach when he and Guangyan were sitting pressed to one another because Chuying had joined at a too-small bench where they were sitting and their faces became too close for his own liking. He was able to see the barely visible freckles that adorned Guangyan's nose and the attractive way his mouth corners folded when he smiled.
Wait. Not attractive just..something. Yiyong doesn't even know but it's surely not that.
The discovery of Guangyan being his comic-only supporter all these years and his consequential cheering on his cartoonist dreams made him realize how caring of a person he actually was.
“Doing what you love is really cool, you know?" he said to him the afternoon they were both finally planning their careers. Yiyong had felt his cheeks grow hot and turned away with an annoyed sound.
When he woke up from the second coma, his mother told him that Guangyan had come almost every day to see how he was doing. Sometimes he read and reread the comics sitting on his shelves or talked to him about his stressful practices as a doctor apprentice at Taipei City Hospital. Others, Yiyong's mom had confessed, she’d catch him holding Yiyong's hand and looking at him in silence. He’d sleep at least one day a week next to his bed, all that he could manage with his messed up to-be doctor schedule. Bao Sheng advised him of the dangers of not living his life normally again but Guangyan was a hard nut to crack when he wanted. Yiyong had suspected Guangyan felt a sense of guilt somehow, the same thing with Chuying.
He had tried to look for advice one day when he was at the police station helping her figure out some case. Well, help was kind of a wrong word in this context as he was rather forced out of his house forcefully, even as he tried to hide from her under his bed.
“Chuying?" he had asked when they’d finished working, to no results of the case yet.
“Hmm?”
“Do you know why Guangyan has been acting weird with me recently?” He inquired nonchalantly.
“Weird? What do you mean weird?”
“You know. He keeps doing all these weird things. Staring at me, smiling, watching me with that weird annoying expression he has…Wait, do you think he’s making fun of me?”
Chuying thought about it with a thoughtful expression and a few seconds later a look of realization followed by one of slight amusement adorned her face, “Oh…”
“I also caught him trying to grab my hand when I was sleeping in his bed once-.”
“Wait, you two were what?”
“And there’s also the-”
Chuying appeared exasperated.
“Pu Yiyong!”
“What?!”
“Do you seriously don't get it?”
“Get what?”
“I'm sorry to break it to you but I think maybe Guangyan…likes you?”
“Likes me.”
“Yes.”
“As in…He doesn't hate me anymore?”
“Wait.”
“Whatever, I guess I’ve started to…value him more too," he said with a serious and thinking expression. He thought about his words then. “Not that I like him myself or anything," he muttered walking towards the door and leaving the police station.
Chuying was left to stand there alone completely puzzled and all she could manage to do was an eye roll Pu Yiyong-style that earned her her boss’ complaint.
As if his retaliation of thoughts were invoking him, Guangyan shifts in his sleep, turning his body so that they were face to face. Guangyan wasn’t sleeping as Yiyong had initially thought and his eyes are staring into Yiyong's.
“Yiyong? Can't sleep?” he whispers into the night.
Yiyong is taken aback by this. Guangyan's voice sounds… “Stop it Pu Yiyong”, he mentally reminds himself.
He nods and Guangyan nods back.
“Me too.”
Yiyong notices how he isn’t covered by the comforter and lifts it up to fix that by wrapping Guangyan up so that now they’re both cocooned in a bun of warmth looking at each other.
Guangyan looks at him with a soft smile, “Thanks.”
He looks impossibly cute like this. His hair is disheveled, strands of hair flying in all different directions, and one of his cheeks is squished against the pillow. Yiyong can’t help but feel like wanting to kiss him like this. He doesn't know where that thought comes from, and it makes him panic. Guangyan has bags under his eyes, and Yiyong feels guilty when he notices them, he knows Guangyan doesn’t sleep much and he’s adding more on top of that pile.
Yiyong notices he’s been looking at Guangyan in silence for quite a while when Guangyan asks:
“What are you thinking about?”
“Honestly…” He thinks about being blunt with him, if he’s gonna talk honestly about his feelings with anyone, Guangyan was the one. “… You.” Guangyan seems to flush at the answer. “Sorry, don't take that in a weird way.”
The boy seems to think for a moment, “What exactly about me?”
Yiyong being the straightforward person that he is, doesn’t think twice when he leans forward all the while thinking “fuck it,” so that his lips are just barely brushing Guangyan's in something you wouldn’t even consider a proper kiss. Instantly regretting having done it, he separates from him as quickly as possible to put a distance between them.
Yiyong considers turning to the opposite side of the bed and calling it a night, even running off to his room through the balcony, but he doesn’t have time to do any of that, only achieving to mutter a weak, “S- sorry..,” before Guangyan is leaning forward at the speed of light pressing his lips with Yiyong's eagerly.
It’s obvious he doesn’t have much experience in the kissing field, but neither has he. Hadn't had the time to fall in love with his unfortunate life.
This second kiss was desperate, full of want on Guangyan's part, which surprised Yiyong. Suddenly, his conversation with Chuying came into his mind, “He likes you.”
He opens his eyes slightly and watches a crimson red-faced Guangyan, his eyes tightly shut. Guangyan lips feel so soft against his own chapped and dried ones.
It is over as soon as it started and both of them separate just slightly to look at each other's eyes.
“Why- why would you do that all of a sudden,” Yiyong says.
“What?! I could ask you the same question! Guangyan half whispers-half shouts.
They look at each other with their mutual glaring face: heads tilted downwards and brows furrowed. Next, maintaining that same face, Yiyong leans forward to catch Guangyan's lip corner in a short kiss. Guangyan can’t help but lift his mouth into a smile.
He subsequently catches Yiyong's bottom lip between his own and with that they share one tender kiss that prolongs into two, three, and four more while shifting into a sitting position in the bed. Guangyan's hand is positioned on Yiyong's right cheek, gently caressing it, his skin smooth to the touch, Yiyong's own hand on top of it, not wanting to let go. Yiyong's head is a turbulent mess of thoughts. He's surprised at how much he's enjoying this, not only does he like it, he loves it. His dad used to tell him that in life you have to experience certain things to get to a conclusion and he’s sure this was one of them.
Pu Yiyong liked Cao Guangyan. He didn't know how he hadn't realized it sooner. “God, Chuying is sometimes right, I really am stupid at times,” he thought, pained to admit it.
Their warm breaths mingled together when they separated again.
“Guangyan?”
“Yes?”
“I like you.” Guangyan is grinning.
“I think that's pretty obvious by now.”
“Shut up.” Yiyong pushes him by the shoulder.
“Yiyong?”
“Hmm?” He answers with a grumpy expression.
“I like you too. I have liked you since high school, since the homeless people case where I realized you were more of a softy that I actually thought,” Guangyan looks scared, “I like your stupid beautiful freckles and your eyes so, so much and I can't hold it back anymore and-.”
“Guangyan."
Guangyan looks breathless and embarrassed.
“Thank you for being in my life.” It was a simple sentence, but none the truer. Whispered into a dark room on a starry night. Guangyan is, apart from Chuying and his mom, one of his only supporters in life. Since the second coma not once had he called him stupid or other of their many bickering nicknames. He believed in his comic artist career and was the biggest fan of his work, never once finding it stupid or childish like other people and constantly reminding him to release a new chapter sooner. Since the coma, Yiyong had also noticed how he’d become overprotective of him, making sure he was always okay. For instance, he had accompanied him to his work to "make sure he didn't fall off the motorcycle.” He’d even motivated him, or more rather imposed him, to apply for an illustrator job in a magazine he found.
Needless to say, the statement makes Guangyan's stomach flutter.
He smiles at Yiyong looking teary-eyed and tears his eyes away from him.
They go back to laying in bed. “We should sleep," Guangyan says.
“Hmm.” Yiyong awkwardly places his arms around Guangyan, not really knowing what he's doing but wanting to reach for his warmth. They stay like that for a few minutes, both tangled up in each other, feeling each other's breaths.
“By the way.” Yiyong breaks the silence. “I was wondering…am I a good kisser?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Fine, it may surprise you but… you're my first kiss.”
“Well,” Guangyan pointed out, “Technically if you don't count the time I tried to give you mouth-to-mouth CPR when you almost died, I guess it is.”
“You what?!” Yiyong half expects Guangyan to be laughing but his expression is a worried and earnest one.
Yiyong suddenly turns serious thinking about those memories too, the memories of the accident, of waking up and discovering he had lost God knows how many months of his life.
Again.
They stay like that for a while, both reflecting on everything. This time, Guangyan breaks the silence.
“So… does this mean we are…," Guangyan looks into his eyes with wonder, "you know."
“Uhh…” Yiyong's brain suddenly short-circuits and he turns around to back Guangyan and hides under the covers, embarrassed.
“Hey!”
Thinking it better, Yiyong turns around again with his usual grumpy expression, ‘resting angry bird face’ as Guangyan had said joking once, and surrounds Guangyan with his arms, resting them tightly on his waist and nuzzling his face into Guangyan's neck in a wave of affection towards the boy. Guangyan gladly accepts the endearment and does the same to him.
“I’m joking, we don’t have to rush things if you don’t want to.”
Yiyong nods in response, tickling Guangyan's jaw with his hair.
“You smell so good," Yiyong points out whispering and exhaling a breath.
Yiyong's contradicting behavior made Guangyan even fonder of him.
Guangyan eyelids were starting to drop more and more by the moment, and Yiyong's soon followed.
“Yiyong?”
The other boy doesn't respond, and Guangyan must think he already fell asleep because he says:
“Thank you for being in my life too.” That was all Yiyong heard before summing into the best sleep he had had in ages surrounded by warmth and Guangyan's smell: shampoo and something fresh.
The next morning they wake up with a gloom encompassing the room, a few small rays of morning sun shining through the blinds and their limbs tangled in each other.
They share butterfly kisses before parting ways at the door, both not having enough of each other yet at the same time being kind of embarrassed as this is the beginning of their relationship and neither of them knows exactly what to do. Guangyan's dad is always at the shop at this early hour so they didn't have to worry about him, not that they really cared about him discovering their relationship or anything.
What surprises them next is the front door suddenly opening and Yiyong's mom standing at the entrance with a surprised expression that immediately turns into a poker face.
“Guys! Do these things in private for God's sake!” She says with a roll of eyes that reminds Guangyan of someone.
“Why are you entering Guangyan's house without knocking first?!” Yiyong bickers in return.
“Oh come on! I was helping his dad with the shop. And how come you don't lock the door of your own house?!” She says, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s fair," Guangyan observes.
“Then, can you two move out of the way?”
Yiyong suddenly remembers that moment, well, not too long ago for him at least, where her mother misunderstood Guangyan confessing his love to his son.
“Wait… I think my mom might have thought all this time that we were dating.”
“What?!”
They both look at her as she searches one of the kitchen cabinets.
They glance at each other and shrug.
“Wanna meet after my shift for lunch?" Guangyan asks as they walk through the path leading outside his house. Yiyong thinks about it, he had to hand out a drawing in two hours and then he was free for the afternoon.
“Only if I choose what we eat.”
“Fine…deal,” Guangyan states, exasperated but looking at him with playful eyes.
“Bye then." Yiyong lifts one hand in farewell. Before Guangyan can turn around though, he interlocks one of his hands and squeezes it softly before letting it go again.
“...See you," Guangyan flushes and Yiyong feels satisfied with himself.
“A life like this," Yiyong thinks to himself, “is worth every obsession.”