I'm in CLAMP Hell

I only RP with Claud, step off nerds

[claudrps]

Suddenly Husbands

Leilani was going to be the death of him. That wasn’t exactly new to him, but Shi Shu had never thought that he would expire in this particular setting; with his husband straddling his lap, with his cock in his hands and his own cum staining his thighs.

His ears burned, eyes casting downwards with shame—not that doing that would do anything to save his dignity, since it only meant that now he had no other choice but watch his own hand stroking Leilani in languid motions—, and he nearly ducked his head to smother an embarrassed whimper on his chest. He couldn’t really scold him, though, could he? How hypocrite of him would that be, given how there was no way that Leilani missed the way that he twitched against his leg when he said that particular choice of words.

Ah, he was so weak, so damn weak for Leilani—always was, regardless of whether it was a pile of work growing suspiciously small despite Leilani’s slug-like speed, skinned loquats hand-fed to a spoiled but lovely mouth, or the hungry, desperate plea to take or be taken— and there was no shame in that, not when he had him on his lap, more disheveled and desperate than he’d ever seen him, and Shi Shu wanted to give him everything and more, so turned on and smitten with the rosy tint that darkened his cheeks, his desperate gasps, the feeling of his muscles drawing taunt with each roll of his hips…

Leilani could have asked to go for three rounds in a go, and Shi Shu would have found a way, magical or not, to get it up over and over again, just for him.

Muffling his rapid breaths in the crook of Leilani’s neck, Shi Shu muffled a whine when he felt the unmistakable feeling of his cheek brushing across his horn, rolling his hips so hard against him that his own erection stroked across Leilani’s. “Just…just give me a second to think. I need…I need to think.” Shi Shu whispered, mouthing the words against the slick and warm skin of his neck.

In his head, Shi Shu had always imagined himself on the receiving end. Maybe it was because he’d always be a meek and submissive little thing in bed, or more likely even, because the Elders had always reinforced that he had to take a more feminine role in their relationship—the pretty spouse that would play instruments for his husband, always pale and delicate, something meant to sit still and look pretty. And….well, Shi Shu certainly wouldn’t have minded being the one on the receiving end—especially if it implied Leilani towering above him like before, staring down at him like he wanted to eat him up—but on the other hand…

Shaking himself out of his thoughts for a moment, Shi Shu glanced down at the erection twitching in his grip. He looked pretty much on edge but, he did say that he would last, didn’t he? And not only would it be terribly unfair if they ended this without him reciprocating Leilani’s previous favors, but also, was it not selfish of him, to just leave Leilani hanging while he pondered on the pros and cons of all the options? So, smoothing his free hand across the arch of his husband’s back before settling it back on his hip, Shi Shu pressed another kiss to his shoulder, and allowed himself just a few moments to stew on his own embarrassment, before he finally leaned back, putting some distance between them again. “I’ll…I’ll keep you distracted while I think!” Shi Shu promised, face red as it could physically be, but eyes determined. 

He gave Leilani no time to wonder about which distraction he would provide him with; leaning forwards, Shi Shu placed a kiss on his other shoulder, and then lower, slowly planting shy, fluttery kisses all over his chest, sternum, over the dip of his abs, around his bellybutton, and finally, his navel, where his chin bumped lightly against Leilani’s erection, putting his trail of kisses to a halt.

….It was now or never! If Leilani could do it (and so enthusiastically too), then Shi Shu could provide him with such service as well!

Taking a long, deep breath, Shi Shu quickly went through all of his mental notes regarding this subject—plus some added tips from what he’d felt and saw earlier—, and after a moment of hesitation, stuck his tongue out and slowly swirled it around the tip, tracing the ridges, the thick vein of his underside, getting himself acquainted with this still-new and unfamiliar territory. … It didn’t taste very good, quite honestly, Shi Shu felt that most of the books he’d read had exaggerated quite greatly—he still mentally winced thinking about certain choice of words such as ‘love juice’ or ‘honey seed’—but it was tolerable enough, and this wasn’t about him now, was it? Heavens, Leilani had swallowed a mouthful of him; Shi Shu could handle a little taste of salty bitterness!

Gradually growing bolder, Shi Shu attempted to take Leilani into his mouth…and took no longer than 5 seconds to promptly choke on it.

“I’m fine I’m fine! I-I think I went a bit too fast…” Shi Shu mumbled sheepishly, embarrassment crawling up his face as he finished coughing, rubbing two fingers across his throat before dipping his head down one more time, taking him in more gradually this time.  It was an…..awkward descent; mostly because Leilani was far more ‘girthy’ than he was, forcing Shi Shu to be very careful as to not choke a second time. Determined to not disappoint, though, Shi Shu focused on things that he himself had found quite pleasurable back when it was his turn; he stroked the inches that he couldn’t take into his mouth with his fingers, swirled his tongue around the tip whenever he came up for air, dipping his tongue in the slit despite the saltiness, and when he went down, he tried to push himself a little further, taking him a little deeper, until his eyes teared up from the sheer pressure. 

 His hair, though, not for the first time, revealed itself to be quite more bothersome than it was truly worth it, constantly sliding off his shoulders, gluing itself to their sticky bodies and, on a few mortifying occasions, nearly getting in his mouth while he went down on Leilani. Frustrated over the constant interruptions, Shi Shu suddenly took one of Leilani’s hands and, quickly gathering most of his hair in a bundled mess, guided that hand to it, curling his fingers firmly around his strands and giving it a meaningful squeeze to keep him from revealing it.

With the hair issue taken care of, and Leilani’s successfully distracted, Shi Shu could finally give the main issue some thought; who would be on the receiving end?

Again, first instinctive answer was, himself. And Shi Shu might have stuck to that answer, if it wasn’t for a teeny tiny little detail…

A ‘teeny tiny detail’ that bumped against the back of his throat, making him grunt and squeeze his eyes shut around another batch of tears. Shi Shu had never done anything with his…backdoor, but as far as he was concerned, his mouth stretched open far more easily than that did, and yet, his jaw already felt sore, his mouth too full, and he was pretty sure that he would still feel the bulge of Leilani’s cock in his throat when he woke up tomorrow. Imagining that sort of pressure down there, did things to Shi Shu’s nerves, and this time not the good type of things.

…But on the other hand—he mentally whimpered, another wave of embarrassment washing over him—would…would he even know what to do, on the giving end?! Lelani seemed genuinely interested in either of the available options, and Shi Shu trusted his word but…oh gods, what if he messed up, what if he hurt Leilani, what if—

No more what ifs!—Scolded the frustrated and fed-up part of his brain that rapped it’s metaphorical fan across his head multiple times. He’d promised himself that he would do this again, that he wouldn’t hesitate over simple questions because of his imaginary ‘what ifs’. He had a cock nearly shoved down his throat, he could damn well ask his husband if he would be willing to take one up his bottom!

Pulling out with a strangled gasp, Shi Shu finally straightened his back, popping it back into place as he lifted his head to look up at Leilani. His face was blotched red, tears ran down his face from exertion, and he sounded as if he’d been holding his breath underwater all this time, but his gaze was bright and determined.  “Nuan nan, I….don’t think I’m quite ready to take your….your masculinity, it’s uh…a bit intimidating for a specific part of my body right now.” He admitted, sheepishness bleeding into his confidence in a matter of seconds, only to be promptly shoved back as another glimmer of determination flashed through his eyes.

“But! It’s okay! See, I read about this too; tomorrow, I can take a long, warm bath; I read that it makes the body loose and much more flexible! In fact, did you know that in some countries, couples have their first time in a bathtub, exactly to ease the intrusion? Oh we could try that too…it certainly would help with the clean up, wouldn’t it?” Shi Shu pointed out, split between being thoroughly embarrassed over the subject, while over-enthusiastic in the familiar way that he always was over anything that he read and that he wanted to try out.

[dainarps]

Of course Shi Shu needed to think about it. He was probably writing a list of pros and cons in his head right now, and Leilani laughed, just enjoying the moment. The thing was, as it usually was with Leilani, he was just happy to be here.

Apparently needing longer than a few seconds to think, Shi Shu shifted their positions and settled himself between his legs, creating quite a picture for Leilani. He looked quite hungrily, watching as Shi Shu went down on him. When he choked, he was torn between alarm and laughing. The whole thing was just painfully awkward and weird, but Leilani was still just happy, turned on, and living a life that he had thought wouldn’t happen for several years at least.

Shi Shu seemed to be okay, though, and he continued, pumping his shaft and pushing his mouth down on it. Leilani could hardly see him around his hair, but the sight was so dumbfounding that he needed to be guided to push the hair out of his face. He couldn’t even manage a thought like that — keep Shi Shu’s hair out of his face. How could he not even focus on such a thing.

He twirled his fingers around his hair, hoping that he wasn’t pulling too hard. Was this what Shi Shu had felt like? Like his chest was too tight and like he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t think. How in the hell was Shi Shu managing to think about how they were going to have sex?

The only thing Leilani could think about was how he was going to just...not cum right now. His hips twitched, his fingernails scraped against his scalp, his body felt tight and his thighs shook with the effort to restrain himself.

He tilted his head back and shut his eyes tight, biting down so hard on his bottom lip he was sure it would be bruised. This wasn’t good.

No, it was good, and that was the problem.

He had no idea if Shi Shu was actually good at this, or if he’d been any good at it, but it was far better than his own hand.

A sharp gasp fell from his lips as Shi Shu pulled away from his cock, leaving him exposed to the cold air. Shi Shu had apparently come to a decision, his face showing the stress of his efforts.

Somehow, even that was sexy.

He ran his fingers through his hair, slowly loosening up the grip he had on it. He would have to brush it for three hours to make up for the damage.

“The bath?”

Leilani ran his hands over Shi Shu’s chest and shoulders, thinking. He didn’t mind being on the bottom — but he was new to this, too.

Wait.

“You want to do this again tomorrow?” Leilani grinned, a laugh on his lips. “Geez! Who are you and what have you done with Shi Shu? What have you done with my husband that gets shy when I touch his hip? And now you’re saying you want to have sex...in the bath?”

He had always imagined Shi Shu to be a very traditional man, who would want very basic sex, one on top of the other in bed, but if Shi Shu wanted a warm bath to fuck in...

He rolled off the bed and scooped Shi Shu up in his arms, hands underneath his thighs.

He had no idea what it would feel like to be...penetrated, but if a bath would make it easier, if there was a way to simplify this, then he would do it.

He carried Shi Shu to the bathroom and sat him on the counter, pressing kisses to his collarbone and neck as he set him down.

“Let’s try it,” he said, turning the water on in the bath. He was desperately thankful for the time to calm himself down, anyway. It gave him a moment to breathe and recover and calm down his racing heart.

While the bath filled, Leilani made sure to fill Shi Shu’s attentions, teasing his horns with his fingertips, running his thumb over the top of his erection, doing whatever he could to fuel his arousal and keep him interested.

Truly, Leilani was filled with nerves. He had no idea what was going to come next, but he was equal parts terrified and excited.

With the bath filled, he took Shi Shu by the hand and stepped into the water. The bath was big enough for several people, with spots to sit around the edge — or, he thought with no lack of excitement, spots to kneel.

The flow had been shifted a bit, and now that they had gotten to this point — two naked, erect men, standing in a mostly full, steaming bath, Leilani finally felt the embarrassment creep in.

“Okay, shishu,” Leilani said, his tone still playful despite his anxiety. How could he not be anxious?!

“What do we do? I have, um...oils and, you know...that sort of thing.” He hadn’t done any sort of preparation for this, figuring it would come naturally. To some degree, he knew what to do. He knew that he would slick Shi Shu’s cock, and they would fit it inside of him, but the whole process seemed, well, daunting. Shi Shu was only a bit smaller than him — would it even fit?

“I just kind of want to...do it, but I have a feeling that if I suggest that for real, you’ll pull a fan out of somewhere and whack me in the head.”

[dainarps]

Shameless? Was Shi Shu really going to say that wanting to admire his body was shameless when they were doing, well, this? He didn’t know how far they would go — if they would go all the way — but, for someone who wouldn’t even look at his bare chest a month or so ago, this was far more shameless than anything else.

Shi Shu pulled his hands free of his sleeves, giving Leilani a perfect glimpse of his long arms, the elegant bend of his elbow and curve of his shoulder. Being in Pali Kai had been good for Shi Shu. He could see a bit of a tan line around his collarbone, and he’d gained weight back from his time imprisoned, finally looking less skeletal. Shi Shu always looked elegant and beautiful, though when he first arrived, Leilani had been filled with worry for his health. Now, though, there were no concerns at all. Shi Shu was probably healthier now than he’d ever been in Ban Zi Zhen.

He laid still, hands resting casually on Shi Shu’s hips as his hands wandered over his body, touching every inch of exposed skin that he could. He would lay here for as long as Shi Shu needed to explore, inhaling long and deep while his hands traced lower, his knee pushing against his groin.

And then it was over, Shi Shu sitting up and looking like he had just made a grand discovery — because he had. He, apparently, remembered how sex was supposed to work. He laughed, but the laugh quickly gave way to a breathy moan as Shi Shu rode on top of him, grinding their hips together in a way that was absolutely delightful and also painfully slow. He had been craving this for so long, and now Shi Shu was walking through it like he needed to be taught what to do with the thing dangling between his legs. “A-Shu,” Leilani said, barely managing to get his words out between the little gasps and giggles that threatened to jump out of his throat. He really didn’t want to laugh at Shi Shu’s attempt at sex coupled with a historical lesson on how most virgins apparently got off with their partners. It was incredible that they had even reached this point. Leilani loved that he got to be here, holding Shi Shu’s hips and leaning up into each slow grind against his lap. He was sure that, with enough time, he could have gotten off with just that alone.

His husband, the man he loved for so long, the man he’d been attracted to for so long, was finally responding in kind. He wanted to do this.

“You’re a very smart man, and I love you…very much,” Leilani said, teasing his fingers a bit lower, pushing them under the folds of the fabric still bunched around Shi Shu’s hips, barely clinging on without the sash to hold it. He could see the soft curve of his thighs, and beneath the fabric he knew there was pale skin, soft, and perfectly touchable. He wondered what his skin would look like beneath his hand, grabbed tight while he rocked into him, or sucked him off, or any number of any lewd things. “But…maybe we can save the sex education lecture…for afterwards?” Leilani asked, sliding one of his hands over Shi Shu’s thigh and just gently grazing his fingers over his crotch, where he could feel a small bulge forming, thanks to Shi Shu’s very important foreplay. Leilani was already very turned on, heart pounding and body aching for more, swelling underneath the light fabric of his skirt and undergarments. The friction of their clothes and Shi Shu’s hips would get him where he wanted, but there was so much more they could do — so much more that he’d imagined each time he dreamed, or when he snuck out of bed early in the morning to work through a few issues before Shi Shu noticed. Leilani had been very careful about revealing his arousal around Shi Shu, staying in bed longer, heading to the bathroom when he thought Shi Shu wasn’t looking. His main goal this whole time had been to not make Shi Shu feel uncomfortable.

“You said…you couldn’t really talk or…or listen when I was touching your horn,” Leilani said. “This is, mm…basically the same.” He, after some debate, pushed a bit on Shi Shu’s hips and flipped their positions, now straddling him on the bed and taking control of the scenario. He took a moment to breathe and steady himself, though he felt he could have cum just from the sight of Shi Shu laying beneath him. His hair was splayed around him with no rhyme or reason, laying like silk over their sheets. His face was flushed, his body just the slightest bit pink, and his lips swollen from kissing.

Sex looked good on him. “I want to do something,” Leilani said, briefly treating Shi Shu to what he had been giving to him. He rubbed their hips together, slow and firm — deliberate. “If you don’t like it, or if I’m bad at it, you can tell me to stop and I will.”

Though, he had a feeling that once he got started, Shi Shu wouldn’t want him to stop. Such was the nature of such things — once things were underway it was hard to stop them. He knew that from experience. But he had a feeling that Shi Shu might not. He’d been here for so long, but he never once saw him sneak away to the bathroom, or ask for a moment alone.

This was a lot of firsts for them both, and he hoped that they were good ones.

[claudrps]

Months ago, Shi Shu could have stated, and quite genuinely too, that he didn’t quite understand the appeal of sex. He could…maybe understand that the objective was quite tempting, but the process hadn’t sounded all too appealing to him. The idea of sweaty bodies moving together, smearing body fluids all over each other, hadn’t been exactly alluring to him.

That Shi Shu, though, was a fool. 

A poor, ignorant fool that had no idea that Leilani would look so delectable laying underneath him, waves and curls spread like a halo around his head, his smile pleased and eyes dark with lust as his strong, warm hands gripped his hips, fingers digging into his skin through the fabric…

O-Oh—Shi Shu’s heart stuttered in his chest, and the tiny little sounds that dragged out of Leilani’s wonderful mouth, with each motion of his hips, resonated deep in the pits of his stomach, making him feel warm and tingly in ways that he hadn’t felt….ever, actually. Now that he thought about it, Shi Shu couldn’t recall arousal ever feeling this strong; sharp and deep, like a knife made out of sheer pleasure digging straight into his guts. And it only got better when Leilani returned the favor, hips twitching upwards to meet his, and with each motion, Shi Shu’s breath caught in his throat, little gasps that threatened to become embarrassing and desperate whimpers as the pleasure poured into him, like an unending fountain of wonderful sensations.

And yet. It wasn’t enough, somehow.

It was like an itch, the type that constantly shifted around, never satisfied no matter what and it was, unfortunately, a sensation that Shi Shu was painfully familiar with. After all, Ban Zi Zhen prided itself on their pristine principles, with a possibly unhealthy obsession with the concept of ‘purity’…and what a better way to put those principles to use, than to apply them to their own princes and princesses, and make a shining bright example out of them?

As soon as he’d hit puberty, Shi Shu had earned the right to wear his hair up like an adult, his robes were replaced with bigger robed, with double the layers and with sleeves that dragged across the ground, and more importantly; he was made to sit down in front of an Elder, and spent a whole morning learning a lesson that would torture him for years to come. Giving himself pleasure was not only a sin, but also strictly forbidden—they’d told him, forcing him to write that down 100 times, until he could nearly visualize it in the back of his eyelids— he had to save himself for his future spouse after all, and to grant himself such relief before the time came, wouldn’t just be terribly selfish but also thoroughly disrespectful. Without even getting started on how it showed his lack of patience and self-control, which would have been highly frown upon.

But even Shi Shu, was only human. And his budding hormones hadn’t particularly cared about his self-imposed morals.  And yet still, every year, Shi Shu could have counted on one single hand, how many times he’d touched himself. Even that, though, was a long time ago. 

After all, war hardly provided the privacy and peace of mind necessary to accomplish the necessary…requirements to engage in such activities.

So, all things considered—Shi Shu reasoned, fighting back a whole-body shudder when Leilani’s hands found his bare legs, heart hammering away in his chest when they slid upwards, dangerously close to where his robes were bundled up around his hips, concealing the proof of how own perked up interest—it certainly made sense that he’d be extra responsive and, quite honestly, he felt that he deserved a pat in the back for handling this as well as he did! How many people out there could handle nearly three decades of celibacy?! Especially when his husband was—

Hard—the new train of thought slammed straight into the previous one, forcing it off it’s tracks as it completely consumed every space available of his entire brain, sparing nothing for the remains of his previous lingering thoughts. How had he missed it, heavens, he’d been so focused flipping through the mental pages of his mental encyclopedia that he’d failed to notice the obvious pressure jabbing at him.  But now that he did, Shi Shu couldn’t help but be hyperaware of it’s existence; every thrust and grind was now aimed with the single objective of testing the newly added element, his own arousal twitching underneath the bundled up layers hiding it with each tentative drag across it—

And then a gasp startled out of him, startling him out of his thoughts again, as a hand grazed his crotch but didn’t linger there, offering absolutely no relief. Shi Shu’s cheeks burned so hard that they nearly stung, but unfortunately, shame did nothing to tame the fire in the pits of his stomach; if anything, he felt himself get even harder, seeking that pressure again but to no vain.

“I-I..I’m…” He what?! Even Shi Shu didn’t know, his brain too muddled with arousal to form a string of coherent thought, his thighs twitching slightly when Leilani slipped his hand underneath the pile of robes to stroke skin that had never seen the daylight.

Thankfully, Leilani didn’t give him too much time to stress over what he wanted to say, because the very next moment, the world around him spun around and Shi Shu found himself laying back against the bed, legs still on each side of Leilani’s hips, hair and robes disheveled around him, while Leilani hovered above him— Shi Shu’s throat bobbed into a hard swallow before he could even help himself. This wasn’t fair, not the slightest bit; he’d thought that he liked having Leilani laying underneath him, but this was…well, it did things to Shi Shu. Things that made his concealed boner twitch and leak underneath his robes, his heartbeat strumming a frantic song across his veins as he stared up at Leilani through half-lidded eyes, watching his hair dangle in messy waves around him, taking in the smaller details like, the flushed bottom lip that he’d just sucked between his teeth moments before, the rare warm hue that colored his cheeks, the pure, raw hunger that dilated his eyes…

The pressure of their hips connecting once again was completely unnecessary; Shi Shu was pretty sure that he was already leaning towards the edge just from laying underneath his husband like this, and maybe he was too pent up already, but he couldn’t help the way his back arched away from the bed with a gasp, when Leilani bucks harder, much firmer than his own previous tentative little back-and-forth motions.

He wasn’t going to last—Shi Shu suddenly realized, with amounting mortification, anther sharp gasp pushing out of his lungs with the next thrust.

“Y-Yes,” Shi Shu breathed out, struggling for a moment to gather enough saliva and sense into his mouth before he could upgrade to longer sentences. “I…you can do as you wish, but uh, fair warning?” He mumbled, nervously shifting his gaze away. “I…hm…haven’t done…anything in a…more or less, lets say, in the last 5 or so years…?” Shi Shu confessed, sheepishly, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would somehow save him some dignity. “I-I honestly don’t know how uh…how much I’m going to last, nuan nan…”

[dainarps]

Leilani was given permission to do whatever he wanted, and that was almost scary. Shi Shu was like the entire ocean when Leilani was used to playing only in a puddle.

“That’s okay,” Leilani said, leaning down to press a kiss to Shi Shu’s cheek and then his lips. He didn’t care how long Shi Shu lasted, or if he didn’t even last a minute at all. The fact that he would be able to get him off was enough, and Leilani was reveling in that fact. He was being allowed to touch Shi Shu however he wanted.

To give Shi Shu that kind of untethered pleasure was, as far as he was concerned, the best belated birthday gift he could give him.

He slid backwards, positioning himself between Shi Shu’s legs and, cautiously, as if trying not to spook a baby deer in the woods, pushed the fabric of Shi Shu’s robes aside. As he’d suspected, Shi Shu was quite aroused, bulging against his underwear and even leaking through it. It was Leilani’s first time seeing such a thing. Sure, he had looked down at his own erection before, but this was someone else’s. How different could it be, though?

Somehow, even if it was exactly the same, it felt much more thrilling. This…was because of him. Shi Shu was hard because of him. He was turned on because of him.

He reached his hand out and rubbed his palm against the bulge, through the fabric, testing the waters. He avoided Shi Shu’s gaze at first — not sure if he could bring himself to look at someone while he was doing this. But then, he wanted to see how he looked. He wanted to see if he was reacting the right ways — if he was doing a good job.

So, with red cheeks, he chanced a glance up at Shi Shu.

He imagined they both looked about the same — breathless and twitching, faces red with lust and embarrassment. It was beautiful. Carefully, slowly, he slid his fingertips beneath the waist of Shi Shu’s underwear and began pulling it downward, careful not to drag it over his erection too hard. When his arousal sprung free, naked and dripping, Leilani felt butterflies tickling his stomach. They were really doing this. This was really happening.

He helped Shi Shu’s ankles out from the holes of his undergarments, then kissed his way back up his legs, hands running over the soft, pale skin. His fingers trembled just slightly with nerves as he approached the object of his intent. He had touched himself plenty of times, sure, but sucked himself off? Never. That was impossible. He had no idea if he would be good at it or if it even mattered. Anything would probably feel good as long as he didn’t bite Shi Shu’s dick off…

He knelt between Shi Shu, his own erection neglected and pressed firmly against his underwear, begging for attention. He was thankful for his skirt to hide it from Shi Shu’s eyes — for now, anyway.

He took a short breath and reached one of his hands out, wrapping it carefully around Shi Shu’s length, running his thumb over the sensitive tip and smearing precum downwards, over the shaft. The simple action had himself throbbing, turned on by such a lewd sight. Gods, how he had craved this. How many nights had he laid awake praying that one day Shi Shu would want to lay with him? How many nights had he snuck away to touch himself and pretend it was Shi Shu’s hand. How many dreams had he had that involved this exact scenario — him leaning down between Shi Shu’s legs and sliding his mouth over his erection, all while keeping his eyes locked onto his face. He wanted to see every emotion, every ounce of embarrassment, nerves and pleasure. He wanted to witness it all. Maybe that made him a pervert, or maybe that made him a man who was sexually starved. He didn’t care. Every little gesture Shi Shu made sent thrills through his body. Leilani balanced his weight on his knees and his forearm, which rested on Shi Shu’s upper thigh while he pushed his lips down over the shaft. He opened his mouth a little further and laid his tongue flat against the underside, taking in the taste of bitter and salt. His free hand, mean while, slipped between his own legs, applying consistent pressure to his erection, trying to sate it without pushing himself too far. His body begged for more and he refused to give it. Maybe he really was a pervert. Still, he leaned down and pushed further, having to shut his eyes as he swallowed Shi Shu’s length as far as he could, leaving just enough room at the base for his hand to steady his hips and his erection. He pulled back and pushed in again, teasing his tongue around the tip each time he did. He wanted to hear Shi Shu moan. He wanted to feel him finish. He wanted to know what his trembling hips would feel like, what he would taste like, if he could cum just from this. Five years without doing anything — surely he wouldn’t last long.

He picked up his ministrations, his mouth making lewd sounds against Shi Shu’s skin, his body pushing out little moans of its own as a new feeling or sight made him throb. He rubbed his other hand firmly between his legs, resisting the urge to buck against his palm and speed things up. Leilani would have his turn. He would have his moment. Shi Shu had spent the last three days without his husband. He’d feared he would never see him again.. He needed this. He deserved it. And Leilani would give it to him.

[claudrps]

To say Shi Shu was nervous would be an understatement; his nerves were so on edge that he feared that he might still be shaking for days after this. From a rational level, Shi Shu was well aware of the list of possibilities of what could possibly happen now, but it was one thing to know, and a whole different beast to experience it.

He could have listen out loud 69 different positions and their benefits according to the gender of the participants, but in terms of experience, he was still sitting on stage zero! And at this point, he knew damn well that he couldn’t fully trust his books to tell him the full truth; he’d read so many romances, read all sorts of lewd descriptions, but not a single one of of those stories could have possibly braced him for the sensation of another person’s breath and warmth in his mouth, the slippery feeling of a tongue that didn’t belong in his mouth, the way Leilani’s bottom lip always looked so flushed and swollen after he sucked on it and traced his tongue across it…

If a kiss had felt so different from what he’d imagined, then Shi Shu could only wait in a mix of excitement and barely concealed nervousness, as his husband began his descent.

Staring pointedly at the ceiling, Shi Shu took a long deep breath—which then practically stuttered out of his chest when Leilani pushed the rest of his robes aside, baring him completely except for his underwear….which was doing a terrible job at concealing anything at this point, Shi Shu could tell that much without having to even look down—he could feel the strain of his cock trying to stretch the fabric, specially now that the weight of his robes was gone, leaving him pointedly aware of the wetness that he could feel gathering inside his underwear and oh god, it was probably seeping through the fabric, and Leilani was staring and there was no way that there wasn’t a massive stain on the front and Leilani was—

“M-hm!” Shi Shu whimpered, startling at the sudden contact, instinctively looking down and…and heavens, that was a terrible decision, because Leilani was already looking up at him, watching him with an intensity that should be straight up illegal, and his cheeks were so red, redder than Shi Shu had ever seen, and under any other circumstances, he might have reached down to cup that warm cheek in his hand, maybe pull him up to watch it more closely…

But! Maybe not when he had his hand pressed right against his boner!

Fingers hooked around his underwear just as his head snapped back to stare intensely at the ceiling, and if Shi Shu had felt bared before, then he wasn’t even sure how to process his own nakedness the moment his underwear slipped down his legs, leaving every single inch of his skin naked and exposed to Leilani’s eager gaze. And right there, standing tall and proud, the darn traitor that throbbed eagerly for attention, so honest compared to it’s owner. It took several deep breaths, just to keep his heart from crawling out of his throat as he felt Leilani’s hands caressing his legs, his legs twitching occasionally, fighting back the urge to quickly clap them closed, specially when he felt Leilani coming closer, so close that he could feel the warmth of his body before he even touched him.

But when he did, it nearly sent Shi Shu flying through the freaking roof.

A warm hand, bigger and stronger than his own, cradled and engulfed his cock in a way that his own, much thinner hand could never achieve, and that alone was enough to make Shi Shu’s hips cant upwards, seeking more of that touch. “A-Ah—!” Shi Shu threw his head back, hips twitching minusculely when a calloused thumb pressed against the tip, something akin to a pained whine squeezing out of his throat when that same desperately needed pressure vanished, leaving him twitching with dissatisfaction. 

 Too riled up to care about embarrassment at this point, Shi Shu finally tilted his head down again to see what had made Leilani stop.

His bravery was rewarded with a sight that would haunt his dreams for months, if not years; Leilani braced on his legs, face flustered as he slowly leaned down to take his length into his mouth, full lips pressing like a kiss against the wet crown before spreading open wide, taking him inside, smearing a trail of precum across his tongue—

“L-Leilani! You—!” The alarm in his voice merged into a moan, and suddenly he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say. In fact, he was pretty sure that anything that resembled or was close to coherent thought had just poured out of his head through his ears; all that was left was Leilani, and the wet, warm and tight slide of his mouth as he swallowed him whole, just pure, raw pleasure dripping down every inch of his body like Shi Shu had never felt it before, making his toes curls against the mattress and his stomach flutter with each shaky breath that he took. Heavens, the most he’d ever known was the rare encounters with his own hand, and those had been painfully dry, rushed, and mingled heavily with a dosage of self-deprecating guilt. And now, he wasn’t sure if he would ever want the touch of his own hand again, though, after experiencing this. 

 This should just be their new nightly routine from now on, or even their morning routine, he certainly wasn’t picky—Shi Shu thought, somewhere in the scattered mess of his thoughts, too lost and drowning in the sea of sensations that was Leilani’s mouth to care about ‘shame’ or any of the other useless things that usually stood like a filter between his thoughts and his actions.

Shi Shu’s hands moved without even bothering to request any form of consent from his brain, shaky as they reached down to stroke Leilani’s cheek—breath hitching in his throat when he realized that he could literally feel himself through it—before sliding up to bury his fingers in his hair; not pulling, not tugging, just nervously kneading his curls like one might squeeze a stressball.

Shi Shu wasn’t a loud person. His voice was always kept at a nice, pleasant tone, his happiness was quiet and often expressed through the barrier of a decorative fan, and even when he was mad or frustrated, he would never raise his voice.

Therefor, knowing himself as well as he did, Shi Shu was genuinely shocked when a moan blurted out of his mouth just when Leilani teased the tip of his cock with his tongue, a sound that returned over and over again, more and more frequent with each repetition; deep breaths gradually becoming ragged, breathless gasps becoming proper whimpers when he increased his pace, his mouth, for once, refusing to be silenced.

“Nuan nan—nuan nan! I…I can’t—oh god!” Shi Shu whimpered, his grip on his hair tightening and his eyes squeezed shut—which, again, was even worst, because now he could hear every single little sound, every wet, slippery slide of Leilani’s mouth around him, the wet strokes of his tongue when he stopped at the top, his groans and frantic breaths as he….

And then, like an epiphany, it suddenly struck him; there was only one hand on him.   There was only one arm braced on his leg, only one hand wrapped around his length, but he couldn’t feel Leilani’s other hand anywhere else in his body.

Forcing his eyes open, Shi Shu hesitantly peered down at Leilani.

….He found his other arm.

Shi Shu had never seen another man pleasuring himself. Not even himself. All of his affairs with his hand had happened through the tissue that he would wrap around himself first, and it was either under the six layers of blankets in his bed, or in the bath, where his hand would be hidden away from view under a layer of bubbles, so that he could almost pretend that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, just innocently washing himself. Thoroughly.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away, though, from the hand moving stiffly between Leilani’s legs, like he was just barely holding himself back from rubbing himself raw, and although the skirts of Pali Kai had a lot of room, Shi Shu could see as clear as day, the bulge pressed against his own hand. His hand twitched where it gripped Leilani’s shoulder; he wanted to touch it. He wanted to know how it would feel, to weight it in his palm, feel it’s warmth, it’s girth, he wanted to see Leilani’s face twisted with pure pleasure as he wrapped his hand around him—would his hands even be big enough, oh god, what if he had to use two hands, and why was the thought so dangerously trilling—and then, maybe…maybe he’d be able to show him what he’d learned with him, and gods above, he wanted to, he wanted him so badly— 

 Shi Shu’s cock gave a happy little throb inside Leilani’s mouth, the pressure behind his balls suddenly drew taunt, and before Shi Shu could help it, his hips began to twitch, desperately chasing after the heat of his mouth even though he actually meant to do the opposite. “N-Nuan nan, stand back! I can’t—I’m so close, I’m so—!” Shi Shu whimpered, trying desperately to pull his head back, but his hands were too shaky, and he was so close, so close that he could almost taste it, the sensation almost edging towards the wrong side of too much by the time he tipped over the edge. A ragged moan poured out of his throat as if he was being gutted alive, his back arching off the bed as his whole body convulsed, as years of pent up energy and sexual-repression poured out of him. 

Shi Shu wasn’t even sure what he was saying; he was vaguely aware of hearing himself saying something making to ‘so good, so good to me’, a scrambled mess in Ban Zi Zhen’s dialect that could be summed up as just a continuous and desperate string of lewd pleas that he would never translate to Leilani, and repetitive warnings trying to tell Leilani to pull away.

He didn’t, though. 

 And maybe in a few minutes, he would be able to feel thoroughly mortified over the fact that he could literally feel himself pouring his cum inside Leilani’s mouth like a fountain, mostly because he could feel some leaking out of his mouth and running down the sides of his sated erection…but right now, Shi Shu didn’t have the strength to even think, much less gather enough to be anxious about anything. Finally coming down from it’s high, Shi Shu’s body dropped back against the bed, still shaking and twitching, skin flushed pink and chest heaving like he’d just ran for miles.

How was he meant to just…move on with his day after this? No wonder people always did this at night, he could hardly bear the thought of moving, much less walk.

“…Nuan nan.” Shi Shu rasped out, his throat dry and slightly sore, but his tone was dripping like hot melted chocolate, lazy and languid from the afterglow, looking like a pile of just content and thoroughly sated shaky limbs. It only lasted so long, though; the moment he managed to crack his eyes open again, Shi Shu’s gaze dropped back on Leilani, and the consequences hit him like a slap to the face. 

“Oh. O-Oh no! We…we need to get you a cup, water, a towel, oh gods, I just—! In your mouth, oh no I didn’t mean to—!” He spluttered, clumsy limbs, still buzzing and everything, already trying to sit up to grab all the necessary items.

[dainarps]

Leilani wouldn’t move away. A part of him told him that he should, and another part of him told him that he should experience as much as he could. He would have plenty of time to learn what was right and what was wrong and what things were good and bad. He would learn if he should truly pull away or if he could handle finishing Shi Shu off completely with only his mouth alone.

He thrilled off of this. Shi Shu pressed up into his mouth, thrusting as if this were truly as good as sex was supposed to be. He wanted more, and Leilani wanted to give it to him. He wanted Shi Shu to truly feel what being loved like this was like. So, when he felt his hips tremble and his erection throb in his mouth, Leilani pushed down further, taking him in as he came.

The taste was bitter and the texture strange, but it was worth it. Shi Shu wasn’t even speaking the same language anymore, his moaning absolutely filthy and sending a pleasurable chill down his spine, making him rub his hand harder between his own legs.

He could feel his cum spilling out the corner of his lips as he pulled away, never once taking his eyes off of Shi Shu as he swallowed and wiped his face on the edge of his skirt. Shi Shu’s chest rose and fell, his cheeks were red and his body like a languid pool. His first time in more than five years.

He wanted to touch him more and make up for lost time, but Shi Shu was already fretting, sputtering about getting a towel and getting out of bed. “Stop,” Leilani said, laughing and putting his hands on Shi Shu’s shoulders so he could push him back against the mattress. “Relax. I’m fine. You’re acting like you just stabbed me in the chest with a knife instead of letting me suck you off.” He knelt back between Shi Shu’s legs, watching his erection start to wilt, still slick with his own cum and saliva. He teased a finger up and down his sensitive length, then over the insides of his thighs — just experimenting. This whole thing was new to them both.

Leilani hadn’t finished, his own erection begging for attention underneath the folds of his skirt, but Leilani ignored it. He didn’t know if Shi Shu would want to keep going — and really, it was his fault for pushing him so far so fast. He wanted to see it, though, and he wanted to try doing what he did. He had no regrets, even if his cock throbbed each time he looked at Shi Shu laying naked on his bed, hair tangled and cheeks splotched with red.

He scooted up a little more, sitting himself on Shi Shu’s lap, straddling his hips. He could probably feel just how turned on he was. “I want to keep going,” Leilani said, running his fingertip over Shi Shu’s horns the way he’d been doing earlier. “Do you think you can?”

If he couldn’t, he wouldn’t have a problem with finishing himself off here. Already his hand was back between his legs, applying pressure where his body desperately craved it, his hips rolling over Shi Shu’s, trying to sate his arousal while he waited for an answer.

“I…want to go all the way,” Leilani said. And maybe that was silly — the two of them had never done anything like this before — but, they were married. He’d been wanting this for a long time.

“If I wait I think I’ll just end up undressing you in my head all afternoon until we get back here, and I really don’t think that’s very chiefly of me,” he said. “As my husband and advisor, I think you’ll agree.”

[claudrps]

He swallowed it.

Oh god he swallowed it, and while Shi Shu was pretty sure that there were no unhealthy consequences given how many times that action had been described in the 32 books that he’d been made to read—not to mention how, apparently, in some cultures, swallowing was a show of loyalty and faithfulness, and some even found spitting out straight-up offensive in some cases, as it was seen as a rejection of their lovers’ affections—it was still mortifying in a….weirdly thrilling way, one that made his legs feel weak enough for Leilani to lay him back onto the bed without the slightest struggle, redness seeping into the blue of his horns again when Leilani spoke and he caught a glimpse of white in his mouth.

….Heavens, he was corrupted. There was no way back from now on; he’d been converted into the dark side, and he couldn’t even find it in him to feel guilty about it.

Specially when Leilani proceeded to still torment his poor, limp and drained cock with the gentlest touches, making it twitch and weep a few last tears on his stomach as his touch trailed down to his thighs, while Shi Shu could do nothing but whimper weakly on the bed, twitching with each jab at his overstimulated nerves.

At last, satisfied once he had a thoroughly riled up husband twitching underneath him, Leilani took a seat on top of him, his weight a grounding pressure that Shi Shu’s still-buzzing body welcomed all too happily…

And then, he saw it. No longer obscured in Leilani’s own shadow, or hidden behind his hand, and as far as Shi Shu was concerned, far bigger-looking than it had felt back when he was sitting on it.

 With a dry and hard swallow, Shi Shu watched with avid attention as Leilani pressed his own hand down over his boner, his fingers digging into the mattress as he felt the first hints of arousal squeezing through the sweetness of his afterglow as his husband rolled his hips temptingly against him, heat re-gathering in his navel in a heartbeat, when Leilani voiced out loud a thought that Shi Shu hadn’t even realized that was slowly creeping into his head. 

 “I—ah!” Shi Shi’s response was interrupted by his own heated hiss, head tipping and pressing against Leilani’s touch, his eyes nearly rolling back into his head when the still-new sensation of tingles rushing down his spine merged with the other, warmer and deeper tingles going on between his legs, encouraging his limp cock to twitch and stir awake once again.  “I want to…I want to keep going.” Shi Shi finally managed to answer—something between a shaky whimper and a desperate rasp; hot and hungry, like he was the one who had yet to get off—, too drunk on the cocktail of his afterglow mixed in with his renewed arousal, hips already undulating underneath Leilani, seeking more friction.

And if Leilani had any doubts that he meant it, then Shi Shu was quick to show just how damn serious he was about it; emboldened by the heat coiled in his stomach and with his usual inhibitions pushed aside by raw desire, Shi Shu rested his hands on Leilani’s knees and slowly but firmly, slid them up his legs, fingers spread out as if trying to grab as much of him as possible, nails scratching so lightly across his skin as his hands slipped underneath Leilani’s skirt, squeezing and kneading his strong thighs just to feel them twitch under his hands.

Shi Shu wanted to sink his teeth on them. 

…..It truly was one way to tell just how gone out of his mind he was.

Gaze hazy and face flushed with want, Shi Shu pushed himself up, one hand holding onto Leilani to help hoist his post-orgasm-lazy body to sit up, only to accidentally end up groping Leilani’s ass while searching for something to grab onto. Embarrassment chalked up another attempt to latch its greedy claws on him, but just like hands trying to find purchase on an oily surface, it just slid off his shoulders with a single twitch of his renewed erection, especially as his attention latched onto Leilani’s skirt, his bulge so temptingly close that Shi Shu could almost swear that he could see the tiny twitches of a pained erection struggling against it’s restraints. 

Finally sliding his hands out from underneath Leilani’s skirt, Shi Shu began to shakily undo with sash—even he couldn’t tell whether he was just nervous or just straight up too eager—, carefully unwrapping the skirt from around his waist. Even with the underwear still on, Shi Shu could already tell that he was bigger than him. And somehow, instead of the expected embarrassment or jealously, all that Shi Shu felt was the honey-like drizzling sensation of keen want dripping all over him, mingling with some concerns regarding the notion of ‘going all the way’ being combined with that sort of package.

Licking his lips with anticipation, yet burning with a familiar trickle of nervousness, Shi Shu gently pressed the palm of his hand against the front of Shi Shu’s bulge, slowly stroking up at down. “Does it hurt?” He asked, nearly a whisper, eyes locked on the smear of precum staining the spot where his head must be. After a beat of hesitation, Shi Shu rubbed his thumb against it, not at all surprised when he found it still warm and slick, but definitely caught off guard when the bulge twitched in response. “Does that feel better?”He asked, almost absentmindedly, like he wasn’t expecting an actual answer.

And just like that, horniness surpassed his nerves with an enormous leap, as Shi Shu’s hands finally slipped under Leilani’s underwear, pulling it down as much as he could despite their current position making it impossible to remove them completely.

Leilani’s cock practically sprung out, throbbing and eager, and in a rather detached-out-of-shock manner, Shi Shu couldn’t help but think; given their current angle, and their height difference, had he been leaning down just a bit, he could have risked getting slapped across the face by it.

He was right. It was bigger.

It wasn’t straight up enormous, like some descriptions of his books, but….well, to Shi Shu, who had exactly zero experience in that department, and that had only ever seen two dicks in his whole life (his own, and this one), this was already looking quite overwhelming to him, especially when ‘going all the way’ just kept on ringing and singing hauntingly in the back of his brain.

But, not overwhelming enough to stop himself from sliding his hands up, and taking that girth between them. It was also thicker, Shi Shu realized, watching fascinated as his dainty little fingers failed to circle it completely, only managing it if he squeezed it—which, probably wasn’t advisable.

Keyed up with arousal and loosened up from his recent orgasm, Shi Shu tested the waters a little further; one hand stroking the whole length in slow, tentative motions, while the other focused mostly on exploring, tracing a thumb across the thicker vein on the underside of his cock, curiously stroking his stiff ballsack with the palm of his hand, and then coming back up to trace the ridges of the mushroom-shaped head, prodding the weeping slit with his thumb when more precum poured out to slick the motions of his hand.

Leaning closer, until they were practically pressed together, with Leilani’s erection smearing slick across his stomach, Shi Shu pressed long, heated kisses to his neck, teeth grazing his skin as he fought back the nearly animalistic urge to rut against him, his own erection making a valiant return, twitching against Leilani’s bare thigh.

“You took such good care of me…let me return the favor, nuan nan.” Shi Shu whispered in his ear, pressing tender kisses all across his jaw and earlobe, freeing one hand to grasp Leilani’s waist to keep him still as he increased his pace, each slide wet and loud every time his fist clapped against his ballsack, lewd sounds that had him split between being embarrassed or painfully turned on. 

 “I…will you last if I…if I, you know; do the thing that you did to me?” Shi Shu murmured, his shyness contrasting heavily with the eager motions of his hand on Leilani’s cock, his own hips twitching underneath him to rub himself against his thigh until it was warm and slick with cum. “What do you need me to do for you, nuan nan? Should I stop? Continue? Go faster, harder? Slower, gentler?” He asked, whispering each question against his jaw and punctuating each one of them with wet kisses and the occasional nibble on his neck, his horns pink and his eyes nearly glazed over with lust. “What do you want the most, A-Leilani?”

[dainarps]

Leilani had no idea what shifted inside Shi Shu, but something did and he seemed to be blossoming with a new level of confidence that Leilani hadn’t seen before.

He liked it.

He had spent the last month or so trying to get Shi Shu to build some respect in himself. The first day he had seen it was in their first political meeting. The next time had been when he built the irrigation system. Leilani had been so proud of him. Things like that were easy, though, and they didn’t involve too much emotion other than willpower. Doing this, taking the reins in bed, touching him, removing his skirt and touching him through his underwear. It was startling, absolutely, but not unpleasant. In fact, it was delightful. He had never been touched by anyone else before, and even through his underwear it was absolutely pleasant. Shi Shu asked a question and he could barely manage to hum an answer in response, simply because he was so overwhelmed. All his fantasies were finally coming true, and yet this was so much better than any of those. This was real. This was how Shi Shu wanted to act.

His eyes snapped open the moment he felt his underwear tugged down, and Shi Shu was already moving to touch it, unafraid, confident. Leilani could have watched that all day long.

Shi Shu’s confidence was, somehow, a far greater turn on than anything else. He could’ve worn that lingerie for him, he could’ve put on a show for him, done everything he asked, and yet it was his confidence, his desire to do exactly what he wanted, that made Leilani aroused. He couldn’t get enough of it.

His breaths were ragged as Shi Shu began stroking him, heating things up further by placing delicate kisses across his skin, pressing even closer. Somehow, Shi Shu was already hard again, and Leilani’s greedy hands wanted to slip between their bodies and touch him solely so he could see him whimper and melt. There would be time for that, though.

He tilted his head, rubbing his cheek lightly against Shi Shu’s horns while he whispered dirty things, lewd suggestions. His voice was somehow deeper, needy.

“I’ll last,” Leilani said, not because he was sure that he would, but because he refused to finish until they went all the way. 
“I want to fuck you, or be fucked by you, or anything — I don’t care,” he said, his hands firmly gripping Shi Shu’s bare hips, keeping him pressed close against him. “Whatever happens before that...doesn’t matter. I’ll like it. I like this,” he said, shifting his hips in an attempt to match Shi Shu’s rhythm, the stickiness between their legs somehow erotic. The air around them felt humid and thick, like before a thunderstorm, and Leilani wanted to feel that first crack of lightning.

“I like being with you,” he said. And maybe it was cheesy, but it was the truth. It didn’t matter what they did as long as they did it. They had finally managed to do something and get somewhere and anything else was a bonus in Leilani’s opinion.

“Which one of us should...you know? I don’t...I mean,” he stumbled over his words, partly because of the embarrassing subject and partly because Shi Shu was doing a very good job of, hm, distracting him. He could feel his teeth on his neck, his hand working hard on his erection, making him twitch and stealing his breath. It was a miracle he was even still able to speak. The love of his life was finally touching him — any thoughts past that were barely coherent.

[dainarps]

Shameless? Was Shi Shu really going to say that wanting to admire his body was shameless when they were doing, well, this? He didn’t know how far they would go — if they would go all the way — but, for someone who wouldn’t even look at his bare chest a month or so ago, this was far more shameless than anything else.

Shi Shu pulled his hands free of his sleeves, giving Leilani a perfect glimpse of his long arms, the elegant bend of his elbow and curve of his shoulder. Being in Pali Kai had been good for Shi Shu. He could see a bit of a tan line around his collarbone, and he’d gained weight back from his time imprisoned, finally looking less skeletal. Shi Shu always looked elegant and beautiful, though when he first arrived, Leilani had been filled with worry for his health. Now, though, there were no concerns at all. Shi Shu was probably healthier now than he’d ever been in Ban Zi Zhen.

He laid still, hands resting casually on Shi Shu’s hips as his hands wandered over his body, touching every inch of exposed skin that he could. He would lay here for as long as Shi Shu needed to explore, inhaling long and deep while his hands traced lower, his knee pushing against his groin.

And then it was over, Shi Shu sitting up and looking like he had just made a grand discovery — because he had. He, apparently, remembered how sex was supposed to work. He laughed, but the laugh quickly gave way to a breathy moan as Shi Shu rode on top of him, grinding their hips together in a way that was absolutely delightful and also painfully slow. He had been craving this for so long, and now Shi Shu was walking through it like he needed to be taught what to do with the thing dangling between his legs. “A-Shu,” Leilani said, barely managing to get his words out between the little gasps and giggles that threatened to jump out of his throat. He really didn’t want to laugh at Shi Shu’s attempt at sex coupled with a historical lesson on how most virgins apparently got off with their partners. It was incredible that they had even reached this point. Leilani loved that he got to be here, holding Shi Shu’s hips and leaning up into each slow grind against his lap. He was sure that, with enough time, he could have gotten off with just that alone.

His husband, the man he loved for so long, the man he’d been attracted to for so long, was finally responding in kind. He wanted to do this.

“You’re a very smart man, and I love you…very much,” Leilani said, teasing his fingers a bit lower, pushing them under the folds of the fabric still bunched around Shi Shu’s hips, barely clinging on without the sash to hold it. He could see the soft curve of his thighs, and beneath the fabric he knew there was pale skin, soft, and perfectly touchable. He wondered what his skin would look like beneath his hand, grabbed tight while he rocked into him, or sucked him off, or any number of any lewd things. “But…maybe we can save the sex education lecture…for afterwards?” Leilani asked, sliding one of his hands over Shi Shu’s thigh and just gently grazing his fingers over his crotch, where he could feel a small bulge forming, thanks to Shi Shu’s very important foreplay. Leilani was already very turned on, heart pounding and body aching for more, swelling underneath the light fabric of his skirt and undergarments. The friction of their clothes and Shi Shu’s hips would get him where he wanted, but there was so much more they could do — so much more that he’d imagined each time he dreamed, or when he snuck out of bed early in the morning to work through a few issues before Shi Shu noticed. Leilani had been very careful about revealing his arousal around Shi Shu, staying in bed longer, heading to the bathroom when he thought Shi Shu wasn’t looking. His main goal this whole time had been to not make Shi Shu feel uncomfortable.

“You said…you couldn’t really talk or…or listen when I was touching your horn,” Leilani said. “This is, mm…basically the same.” He, after some debate, pushed a bit on Shi Shu’s hips and flipped their positions, now straddling him on the bed and taking control of the scenario. He took a moment to breathe and steady himself, though he felt he could have cum just from the sight of Shi Shu laying beneath him. His hair was splayed around him with no rhyme or reason, laying like silk over their sheets. His face was flushed, his body just the slightest bit pink, and his lips swollen from kissing.

Sex looked good on him. “I want to do something,” Leilani said, briefly treating Shi Shu to what he had been giving to him. He rubbed their hips together, slow and firm — deliberate. “If you don’t like it, or if I’m bad at it, you can tell me to stop and I will.”

Though, he had a feeling that once he got started, Shi Shu wouldn’t want him to stop. Such was the nature of such things — once things were underway it was hard to stop them. He knew that from experience. But he had a feeling that Shi Shu might not. He’d been here for so long, but he never once saw him sneak away to the bathroom, or ask for a moment alone.

This was a lot of firsts for them both, and he hoped that they were good ones.

[claudrps]

Months ago, Shi Shu could have stated, and quite genuinely too, that he didn’t quite understand the appeal of sex. He could…maybe understand that the objective was quite tempting, but the process hadn’t sounded all too appealing to him. The idea of sweaty bodies moving together, smearing body fluids all over each other, hadn’t been exactly alluring to him.

That Shi Shu, though, was a fool. 

A poor, ignorant fool that had no idea that Leilani would look so delectable laying underneath him, waves and curls spread like a halo around his head, his smile pleased and eyes dark with lust as his strong, warm hands gripped his hips, fingers digging into his skin through the fabric…

O-Oh—Shi Shu’s heart stuttered in his chest, and the tiny little sounds that dragged out of Leilani’s wonderful mouth, with each motion of his hips, resonated deep in the pits of his stomach, making him feel warm and tingly in ways that he hadn’t felt….ever, actually. Now that he thought about it, Shi Shu couldn’t recall arousal ever feeling this strong; sharp and deep, like a knife made out of sheer pleasure digging straight into his guts. And it only got better when Leilani returned the favor, hips twitching upwards to meet his, and with each motion, Shi Shu’s breath caught in his throat, little gasps that threatened to become embarrassing and desperate whimpers as the pleasure poured into him, like an unending fountain of wonderful sensations.

And yet. It wasn’t enough, somehow.

It was like an itch, the type that constantly shifted around, never satisfied no matter what and it was, unfortunately, a sensation that Shi Shu was painfully familiar with. After all, Ban Zi Zhen prided itself on their pristine principles, with a possibly unhealthy obsession with the concept of ‘purity’…and what a better way to put those principles to use, than to apply them to their own princes and princesses, and make a shining bright example out of them?

As soon as he’d hit puberty, Shi Shu had earned the right to wear his hair up like an adult, his robes were replaced with bigger robed, with double the layers and with sleeves that dragged across the ground, and more importantly; he was made to sit down in front of an Elder, and spent a whole morning learning a lesson that would torture him for years to come. Giving himself pleasure was not only a sin, but also strictly forbidden—they’d told him, forcing him to write that down 100 times, until he could nearly visualize it in the back of his eyelids— he had to save himself for his future spouse after all, and to grant himself such relief before the time came, wouldn’t just be terribly selfish but also thoroughly disrespectful. Without even getting started on how it showed his lack of patience and self-control, which would have been highly frown upon.

But even Shi Shu, was only human. And his budding hormones hadn’t particularly cared about his self-imposed morals.  And yet still, every year, Shi Shu could have counted on one single hand, how many times he’d touched himself. Even that, though, was a long time ago. 

After all, war hardly provided the privacy and peace of mind necessary to accomplish the necessary…requirements to engage in such activities.

So, all things considered—Shi Shu reasoned, fighting back a whole-body shudder when Leilani’s hands found his bare legs, heart hammering away in his chest when they slid upwards, dangerously close to where his robes were bundled up around his hips, concealing the proof of how own perked up interest—it certainly made sense that he’d be extra responsive and, quite honestly, he felt that he deserved a pat in the back for handling this as well as he did! How many people out there could handle nearly three decades of celibacy?! Especially when his husband was—

Hard—the new train of thought slammed straight into the previous one, forcing it off it’s tracks as it completely consumed every space available of his entire brain, sparing nothing for the remains of his previous lingering thoughts. How had he missed it, heavens, he’d been so focused flipping through the mental pages of his mental encyclopedia that he’d failed to notice the obvious pressure jabbing at him.  But now that he did, Shi Shu couldn’t help but be hyperaware of it’s existence; every thrust and grind was now aimed with the single objective of testing the newly added element, his own arousal twitching underneath the bundled up layers hiding it with each tentative drag across it—

And then a gasp startled out of him, startling him out of his thoughts again, as a hand grazed his crotch but didn’t linger there, offering absolutely no relief. Shi Shu’s cheeks burned so hard that they nearly stung, but unfortunately, shame did nothing to tame the fire in the pits of his stomach; if anything, he felt himself get even harder, seeking that pressure again but to no vain.

“I-I..I’m…” He what?! Even Shi Shu didn’t know, his brain too muddled with arousal to form a string of coherent thought, his thighs twitching slightly when Leilani slipped his hand underneath the pile of robes to stroke skin that had never seen the daylight.

Thankfully, Leilani didn’t give him too much time to stress over what he wanted to say, because the very next moment, the world around him spun around and Shi Shu found himself laying back against the bed, legs still on each side of Leilani’s hips, hair and robes disheveled around him, while Leilani hovered above him— Shi Shu’s throat bobbed into a hard swallow before he could even help himself. This wasn’t fair, not the slightest bit; he’d thought that he liked having Leilani laying underneath him, but this was…well, it did things to Shi Shu. Things that made his concealed boner twitch and leak underneath his robes, his heartbeat strumming a frantic song across his veins as he stared up at Leilani through half-lidded eyes, watching his hair dangle in messy waves around him, taking in the smaller details like, the flushed bottom lip that he’d just sucked between his teeth moments before, the rare warm hue that colored his cheeks, the pure, raw hunger that dilated his eyes…

The pressure of their hips connecting once again was completely unnecessary; Shi Shu was pretty sure that he was already leaning towards the edge just from laying underneath his husband like this, and maybe he was too pent up already, but he couldn’t help the way his back arched away from the bed with a gasp, when Leilani bucks harder, much firmer than his own previous tentative little back-and-forth motions.

He wasn’t going to last—Shi Shu suddenly realized, with amounting mortification, anther sharp gasp pushing out of his lungs with the next thrust.

“Y-Yes,” Shi Shu breathed out, struggling for a moment to gather enough saliva and sense into his mouth before he could upgrade to longer sentences. “I…you can do as you wish, but uh, fair warning?” He mumbled, nervously shifting his gaze away. “I…hm…haven’t done…anything in a…more or less, lets say, in the last 5 or so years…?” Shi Shu confessed, sheepishly, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would somehow save him some dignity. “I-I honestly don’t know how uh…how much I’m going to last, nuan nan…”

[dainarps]

Leilani was given permission to do whatever he wanted, and that was almost scary. Shi Shu was like the entire ocean when Leilani was used to playing only in a puddle.

“That’s okay,” Leilani said, leaning down to press a kiss to Shi Shu’s cheek and then his lips. He didn’t care how long Shi Shu lasted, or if he didn’t even last a minute at all. The fact that he would be able to get him off was enough, and Leilani was reveling in that fact. He was being allowed to touch Shi Shu however he wanted.

To give Shi Shu that kind of untethered pleasure was, as far as he was concerned, the best belated birthday gift he could give him.

He slid backwards, positioning himself between Shi Shu’s legs and, cautiously, as if trying not to spook a baby deer in the woods, pushed the fabric of Shi Shu’s robes aside. As he’d suspected, Shi Shu was quite aroused, bulging against his underwear and even leaking through it. It was Leilani’s first time seeing such a thing. Sure, he had looked down at his own erection before, but this was someone else’s. How different could it be, though?

Somehow, even if it was exactly the same, it felt much more thrilling. This…was because of him. Shi Shu was hard because of him. He was turned on because of him.

He reached his hand out and rubbed his palm against the bulge, through the fabric, testing the waters. He avoided Shi Shu’s gaze at first — not sure if he could bring himself to look at someone while he was doing this. But then, he wanted to see how he looked. He wanted to see if he was reacting the right ways — if he was doing a good job.

So, with red cheeks, he chanced a glance up at Shi Shu.

He imagined they both looked about the same — breathless and twitching, faces red with lust and embarrassment. It was beautiful. Carefully, slowly, he slid his fingertips beneath the waist of Shi Shu’s underwear and began pulling it downward, careful not to drag it over his erection too hard. When his arousal sprung free, naked and dripping, Leilani felt butterflies tickling his stomach. They were really doing this. This was really happening.

He helped Shi Shu’s ankles out from the holes of his undergarments, then kissed his way back up his legs, hands running over the soft, pale skin. His fingers trembled just slightly with nerves as he approached the object of his intent. He had touched himself plenty of times, sure, but sucked himself off? Never. That was impossible. He had no idea if he would be good at it or if it even mattered. Anything would probably feel good as long as he didn’t bite Shi Shu’s dick off…

He knelt between Shi Shu, his own erection neglected and pressed firmly against his underwear, begging for attention. He was thankful for his skirt to hide it from Shi Shu’s eyes — for now, anyway.

He took a short breath and reached one of his hands out, wrapping it carefully around Shi Shu’s length, running his thumb over the sensitive tip and smearing precum downwards, over the shaft. The simple action had himself throbbing, turned on by such a lewd sight. Gods, how he had craved this. How many nights had he laid awake praying that one day Shi Shu would want to lay with him? How many nights had he snuck away to touch himself and pretend it was Shi Shu’s hand. How many dreams had he had that involved this exact scenario — him leaning down between Shi Shu’s legs and sliding his mouth over his erection, all while keeping his eyes locked onto his face. He wanted to see every emotion, every ounce of embarrassment, nerves and pleasure. He wanted to witness it all. Maybe that made him a pervert, or maybe that made him a man who was sexually starved. He didn’t care. Every little gesture Shi Shu made sent thrills through his body. Leilani balanced his weight on his knees and his forearm, which rested on Shi Shu’s upper thigh while he pushed his lips down over the shaft. He opened his mouth a little further and laid his tongue flat against the underside, taking in the taste of bitter and salt. His free hand, mean while, slipped between his own legs, applying consistent pressure to his erection, trying to sate it without pushing himself too far. His body begged for more and he refused to give it. Maybe he really was a pervert. Still, he leaned down and pushed further, having to shut his eyes as he swallowed Shi Shu’s length as far as he could, leaving just enough room at the base for his hand to steady his hips and his erection. He pulled back and pushed in again, teasing his tongue around the tip each time he did. He wanted to hear Shi Shu moan. He wanted to feel him finish. He wanted to know what his trembling hips would feel like, what he would taste like, if he could cum just from this. Five years without doing anything — surely he wouldn’t last long.

He picked up his ministrations, his mouth making lewd sounds against Shi Shu’s skin, his body pushing out little moans of its own as a new feeling or sight made him throb. He rubbed his other hand firmly between his legs, resisting the urge to buck against his palm and speed things up. Leilani would have his turn. He would have his moment. Shi Shu had spent the last three days without his husband. He’d feared he would never see him again.. He needed this. He deserved it. And Leilani would give it to him.

[claudrps]

To say Shi Shu was nervous would be an understatement; his nerves were so on edge that he feared that he might still be shaking for days after this. From a rational level, Shi Shu was well aware of the list of possibilities of what could possibly happen now, but it was one thing to know, and a whole different beast to experience it.

He could have listen out loud 69 different positions and their benefits according to the gender of the participants, but in terms of experience, he was still sitting on stage zero! And at this point, he knew damn well that he couldn’t fully trust his books to tell him the full truth; he’d read so many romances, read all sorts of lewd descriptions, but not a single one of of those stories could have possibly braced him for the sensation of another person’s breath and warmth in his mouth, the slippery feeling of a tongue that didn’t belong in his mouth, the way Leilani’s bottom lip always looked so flushed and swollen after he sucked on it and traced his tongue across it…

If a kiss had felt so different from what he’d imagined, then Shi Shu could only wait in a mix of excitement and barely concealed nervousness, as his husband began his descent.

Staring pointedly at the ceiling, Shi Shu took a long deep breath—which then practically stuttered out of his chest when Leilani pushed the rest of his robes aside, baring him completely except for his underwear….which was doing a terrible job at concealing anything at this point, Shi Shu could tell that much without having to even look down—he could feel the strain of his cock trying to stretch the fabric, specially now that the weight of his robes was gone, leaving him pointedly aware of the wetness that he could feel gathering inside his underwear and oh god, it was probably seeping through the fabric, and Leilani was staring and there was no way that there wasn’t a massive stain on the front and Leilani was—

“M-hm!” Shi Shu whimpered, startling at the sudden contact, instinctively looking down and…and heavens, that was a terrible decision, because Leilani was already looking up at him, watching him with an intensity that should be straight up illegal, and his cheeks were so red, redder than Shi Shu had ever seen, and under any other circumstances, he might have reached down to cup that warm cheek in his hand, maybe pull him up to watch it more closely…

But! Maybe not when he had his hand pressed right against his boner!

Fingers hooked around his underwear just as his head snapped back to stare intensely at the ceiling, and if Shi Shu had felt bared before, then he wasn’t even sure how to process his own nakedness the moment his underwear slipped down his legs, leaving every single inch of his skin naked and exposed to Leilani’s eager gaze. And right there, standing tall and proud, the darn traitor that throbbed eagerly for attention, so honest compared to it’s owner. It took several deep breaths, just to keep his heart from crawling out of his throat as he felt Leilani’s hands caressing his legs, his legs twitching occasionally, fighting back the urge to quickly clap them closed, specially when he felt Leilani coming closer, so close that he could feel the warmth of his body before he even touched him.

But when he did, it nearly sent Shi Shu flying through the freaking roof.

A warm hand, bigger and stronger than his own, cradled and engulfed his cock in a way that his own, much thinner hand could never achieve, and that alone was enough to make Shi Shu’s hips cant upwards, seeking more of that touch. “A-Ah—!” Shi Shu threw his head back, hips twitching minusculely when a calloused thumb pressed against the tip, something akin to a pained whine squeezing out of his throat when that same desperately needed pressure vanished, leaving him twitching with dissatisfaction. 

 Too riled up to care about embarrassment at this point, Shi Shu finally tilted his head down again to see what had made Leilani stop.

His bravery was rewarded with a sight that would haunt his dreams for months, if not years; Leilani braced on his legs, face flustered as he slowly leaned down to take his length into his mouth, full lips pressing like a kiss against the wet crown before spreading open wide, taking him inside, smearing a trail of precum across his tongue—

“L-Leilani! You—!” The alarm in his voice merged into a moan, and suddenly he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say. In fact, he was pretty sure that anything that resembled or was close to coherent thought had just poured out of his head through his ears; all that was left was Leilani, and the wet, warm and tight slide of his mouth as he swallowed him whole, just pure, raw pleasure dripping down every inch of his body like Shi Shu had never felt it before, making his toes curls against the mattress and his stomach flutter with each shaky breath that he took. Heavens, the most he’d ever known was the rare encounters with his own hand, and those had been painfully dry, rushed, and mingled heavily with a dosage of self-deprecating guilt. And now, he wasn’t sure if he would ever want the touch of his own hand again, though, after experiencing this. 

 This should just be their new nightly routine from now on, or even their morning routine, he certainly wasn’t picky—Shi Shu thought, somewhere in the scattered mess of his thoughts, too lost and drowning in the sea of sensations that was Leilani’s mouth to care about ‘shame’ or any of the other useless things that usually stood like a filter between his thoughts and his actions.

Shi Shu’s hands moved without even bothering to request any form of consent from his brain, shaky as they reached down to stroke Leilani’s cheek—breath hitching in his throat when he realized that he could literally feel himself through it—before sliding up to bury his fingers in his hair; not pulling, not tugging, just nervously kneading his curls like one might squeeze a stressball.

Shi Shu wasn’t a loud person. His voice was always kept at a nice, pleasant tone, his happiness was quiet and often expressed through the barrier of a decorative fan, and even when he was mad or frustrated, he would never raise his voice.

Therefor, knowing himself as well as he did, Shi Shu was genuinely shocked when a moan blurted out of his mouth just when Leilani teased the tip of his cock with his tongue, a sound that returned over and over again, more and more frequent with each repetition; deep breaths gradually becoming ragged, breathless gasps becoming proper whimpers when he increased his pace, his mouth, for once, refusing to be silenced.

“Nuan nan—nuan nan! I…I can’t—oh god!” Shi Shu whimpered, his grip on his hair tightening and his eyes squeezed shut—which, again, was even worst, because now he could hear every single little sound, every wet, slippery slide of Leilani’s mouth around him, the wet strokes of his tongue when he stopped at the top, his groans and frantic breaths as he….

And then, like an epiphany, it suddenly struck him; there was only one hand on him.   There was only one arm braced on his leg, only one hand wrapped around his length, but he couldn’t feel Leilani’s other hand anywhere else in his body.

Forcing his eyes open, Shi Shu hesitantly peered down at Leilani.

….He found his other arm.

Shi Shu had never seen another man pleasuring himself. Not even himself. All of his affairs with his hand had happened through the tissue that he would wrap around himself first, and it was either under the six layers of blankets in his bed, or in the bath, where his hand would be hidden away from view under a layer of bubbles, so that he could almost pretend that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, just innocently washing himself. Thoroughly.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away, though, from the hand moving stiffly between Leilani’s legs, like he was just barely holding himself back from rubbing himself raw, and although the skirts of Pali Kai had a lot of room, Shi Shu could see as clear as day, the bulge pressed against his own hand. His hand twitched where it gripped Leilani’s shoulder; he wanted to touch it. He wanted to know how it would feel, to weight it in his palm, feel it’s warmth, it’s girth, he wanted to see Leilani’s face twisted with pure pleasure as he wrapped his hand around him—would his hands even be big enough, oh god, what if he had to use two hands, and why was the thought so dangerously trilling—and then, maybe…maybe he’d be able to show him what he’d learned with him, and gods above, he wanted to, he wanted him so badly— 

 Shi Shu’s cock gave a happy little throb inside Leilani’s mouth, the pressure behind his balls suddenly drew taunt, and before Shi Shu could help it, his hips began to twitch, desperately chasing after the heat of his mouth even though he actually meant to do the opposite. “N-Nuan nan, stand back! I can’t—I’m so close, I’m so—!” Shi Shu whimpered, trying desperately to pull his head back, but his hands were too shaky, and he was so close, so close that he could almost taste it, the sensation almost edging towards the wrong side of too much by the time he tipped over the edge. A ragged moan poured out of his throat as if he was being gutted alive, his back arching off the bed as his whole body convulsed, as years of pent up energy and sexual-repression poured out of him. 

Shi Shu wasn’t even sure what he was saying; he was vaguely aware of hearing himself saying something making to ‘so good, so good to me’, a scrambled mess in Ban Zi Zhen’s dialect that could be summed up as just a continuous and desperate string of lewd pleas that he would never translate to Leilani, and repetitive warnings trying to tell Leilani to pull away.

He didn’t, though. 

 And maybe in a few minutes, he would be able to feel thoroughly mortified over the fact that he could literally feel himself pouring his cum inside Leilani’s mouth like a fountain, mostly because he could feel some leaking out of his mouth and running down the sides of his sated erection…but right now, Shi Shu didn’t have the strength to even think, much less gather enough to be anxious about anything. Finally coming down from it’s high, Shi Shu’s body dropped back against the bed, still shaking and twitching, skin flushed pink and chest heaving like he’d just ran for miles.

How was he meant to just…move on with his day after this? No wonder people always did this at night, he could hardly bear the thought of moving, much less walk.

“…Nuan nan.” Shi Shu rasped out, his throat dry and slightly sore, but his tone was dripping like hot melted chocolate, lazy and languid from the afterglow, looking like a pile of just content and thoroughly sated shaky limbs. It only lasted so long, though; the moment he managed to crack his eyes open again, Shi Shu’s gaze dropped back on Leilani, and the consequences hit him like a slap to the face. 

“Oh. O-Oh no! We…we need to get you a cup, water, a towel, oh gods, I just—! In your mouth, oh no I didn’t mean to—!” He spluttered, clumsy limbs, still buzzing and everything, already trying to sit up to grab all the necessary items.

[dainarps]

Leilani wouldn’t move away. A part of him told him that he should, and another part of him told him that he should experience as much as he could. He would have plenty of time to learn what was right and what was wrong and what things were good and bad. He would learn if he should truly pull away or if he could handle finishing Shi Shu off completely with only his mouth alone.

He thrilled off of this. Shi Shu pressed up into his mouth, thrusting as if this were truly as good as sex was supposed to be. He wanted more, and Leilani wanted to give it to him. He wanted Shi Shu to truly feel what being loved like this was like. So, when he felt his hips tremble and his erection throb in his mouth, Leilani pushed down further, taking him in as he came.

The taste was bitter and the texture strange, but it was worth it. Shi Shu wasn’t even speaking the same language anymore, his moaning absolutely filthy and sending a pleasurable chill down his spine, making him rub his hand harder between his own legs.

He could feel his cum spilling out the corner of his lips as he pulled away, never once taking his eyes off of Shi Shu as he swallowed and wiped his face on the edge of his skirt. Shi Shu’s chest rose and fell, his cheeks were red and his body like a languid pool. His first time in more than five years.

He wanted to touch him more and make up for lost time, but Shi Shu was already fretting, sputtering about getting a towel and getting out of bed. “Stop,” Leilani said, laughing and putting his hands on Shi Shu’s shoulders so he could push him back against the mattress. “Relax. I’m fine. You’re acting like you just stabbed me in the chest with a knife instead of letting me suck you off.” He knelt back between Shi Shu’s legs, watching his erection start to wilt, still slick with his own cum and saliva. He teased a finger up and down his sensitive length, then over the insides of his thighs — just experimenting. This whole thing was new to them both.

Leilani hadn’t finished, his own erection begging for attention underneath the folds of his skirt, but Leilani ignored it. He didn’t know if Shi Shu would want to keep going — and really, it was his fault for pushing him so far so fast. He wanted to see it, though, and he wanted to try doing what he did. He had no regrets, even if his cock throbbed each time he looked at Shi Shu laying naked on his bed, hair tangled and cheeks splotched with red.

He scooted up a little more, sitting himself on Shi Shu’s lap, straddling his hips. He could probably feel just how turned on he was. “I want to keep going,” Leilani said, running his fingertip over Shi Shu’s horns the way he’d been doing earlier. “Do you think you can?”

If he couldn’t, he wouldn’t have a problem with finishing himself off here. Already his hand was back between his legs, applying pressure where his body desperately craved it, his hips rolling over Shi Shu’s, trying to sate his arousal while he waited for an answer.

“I…want to go all the way,” Leilani said. And maybe that was silly — the two of them had never done anything like this before — but, they were married. He’d been wanting this for a long time.

“If I wait I think I’ll just end up undressing you in my head all afternoon until we get back here, and I really don’t think that’s very chiefly of me,” he said. “As my husband and advisor, I think you’ll agree.”

[dainarps]

Shameless? Was Shi Shu really going to say that wanting to admire his body was shameless when they were doing, well, this? He didn’t know how far they would go — if they would go all the way — but, for someone who wouldn’t even look at his bare chest a month or so ago, this was far more shameless than anything else.

Shi Shu pulled his hands free of his sleeves, giving Leilani a perfect glimpse of his long arms, the elegant bend of his elbow and curve of his shoulder. Being in Pali Kai had been good for Shi Shu. He could see a bit of a tan line around his collarbone, and he’d gained weight back from his time imprisoned, finally looking less skeletal. Shi Shu always looked elegant and beautiful, though when he first arrived, Leilani had been filled with worry for his health. Now, though, there were no concerns at all. Shi Shu was probably healthier now than he’d ever been in Ban Zi Zhen.

He laid still, hands resting casually on Shi Shu’s hips as his hands wandered over his body, touching every inch of exposed skin that he could. He would lay here for as long as Shi Shu needed to explore, inhaling long and deep while his hands traced lower, his knee pushing against his groin.

And then it was over, Shi Shu sitting up and looking like he had just made a grand discovery — because he had. He, apparently, remembered how sex was supposed to work. He laughed, but the laugh quickly gave way to a breathy moan as Shi Shu rode on top of him, grinding their hips together in a way that was absolutely delightful and also painfully slow. He had been craving this for so long, and now Shi Shu was walking through it like he needed to be taught what to do with the thing dangling between his legs. “A-Shu,” Leilani said, barely managing to get his words out between the little gasps and giggles that threatened to jump out of his throat. He really didn’t want to laugh at Shi Shu’s attempt at sex coupled with a historical lesson on how most virgins apparently got off with their partners. It was incredible that they had even reached this point. Leilani loved that he got to be here, holding Shi Shu’s hips and leaning up into each slow grind against his lap. He was sure that, with enough time, he could have gotten off with just that alone.

His husband, the man he loved for so long, the man he’d been attracted to for so long, was finally responding in kind. He wanted to do this.

“You’re a very smart man, and I love you…very much,” Leilani said, teasing his fingers a bit lower, pushing them under the folds of the fabric still bunched around Shi Shu’s hips, barely clinging on without the sash to hold it. He could see the soft curve of his thighs, and beneath the fabric he knew there was pale skin, soft, and perfectly touchable. He wondered what his skin would look like beneath his hand, grabbed tight while he rocked into him, or sucked him off, or any number of any lewd things. “But…maybe we can save the sex education lecture…for afterwards?” Leilani asked, sliding one of his hands over Shi Shu’s thigh and just gently grazing his fingers over his crotch, where he could feel a small bulge forming, thanks to Shi Shu’s very important foreplay. Leilani was already very turned on, heart pounding and body aching for more, swelling underneath the light fabric of his skirt and undergarments. The friction of their clothes and Shi Shu’s hips would get him where he wanted, but there was so much more they could do — so much more that he’d imagined each time he dreamed, or when he snuck out of bed early in the morning to work through a few issues before Shi Shu noticed. Leilani had been very careful about revealing his arousal around Shi Shu, staying in bed longer, heading to the bathroom when he thought Shi Shu wasn’t looking. His main goal this whole time had been to not make Shi Shu feel uncomfortable.

“You said…you couldn’t really talk or…or listen when I was touching your horn,” Leilani said. “This is, mm…basically the same.” He, after some debate, pushed a bit on Shi Shu’s hips and flipped their positions, now straddling him on the bed and taking control of the scenario. He took a moment to breathe and steady himself, though he felt he could have cum just from the sight of Shi Shu laying beneath him. His hair was splayed around him with no rhyme or reason, laying like silk over their sheets. His face was flushed, his body just the slightest bit pink, and his lips swollen from kissing.

Sex looked good on him. “I want to do something,” Leilani said, briefly treating Shi Shu to what he had been giving to him. He rubbed their hips together, slow and firm — deliberate. “If you don’t like it, or if I’m bad at it, you can tell me to stop and I will.”

Though, he had a feeling that once he got started, Shi Shu wouldn’t want him to stop. Such was the nature of such things — once things were underway it was hard to stop them. He knew that from experience. But he had a feeling that Shi Shu might not. He’d been here for so long, but he never once saw him sneak away to the bathroom, or ask for a moment alone.

This was a lot of firsts for them both, and he hoped that they were good ones.

[claudrps]

Months ago, Shi Shu could have stated, and quite genuinely too, that he didn’t quite understand the appeal of sex. He could…maybe understand that the objective was quite tempting, but the process hadn’t sounded all too appealing to him. The idea of sweaty bodies moving together, smearing body fluids all over each other, hadn’t been exactly alluring to him.

That Shi Shu, though, was a fool. 

A poor, ignorant fool that had no idea that Leilani would look so delectable laying underneath him, waves and curls spread like a halo around his head, his smile pleased and eyes dark with lust as his strong, warm hands gripped his hips, fingers digging into his skin through the fabric…

O-Oh—Shi Shu’s heart stuttered in his chest, and the tiny little sounds that dragged out of Leilani’s wonderful mouth, with each motion of his hips, resonated deep in the pits of his stomach, making him feel warm and tingly in ways that he hadn’t felt….ever, actually. Now that he thought about it, Shi Shu couldn’t recall arousal ever feeling this strong; sharp and deep, like a knife made out of sheer pleasure digging straight into his guts. And it only got better when Leilani returned the favor, hips twitching upwards to meet his, and with each motion, Shi Shu’s breath caught in his throat, little gasps that threatened to become embarrassing and desperate whimpers as the pleasure poured into him, like an unending fountain of wonderful sensations.

And yet. It wasn’t enough, somehow.

It was like an itch, the type that constantly shifted around, never satisfied no matter what and it was, unfortunately, a sensation that Shi Shu was painfully familiar with. After all, Ban Zi Zhen prided itself on their pristine principles, with a possibly unhealthy obsession with the concept of ‘purity’…and what a better way to put those principles to use, than to apply them to their own princes and princesses, and make a shining bright example out of them?

As soon as he’d hit puberty, Shi Shu had earned the right to wear his hair up like an adult, his robes were replaced with bigger robed, with double the layers and with sleeves that dragged across the ground, and more importantly; he was made to sit down in front of an Elder, and spent a whole morning learning a lesson that would torture him for years to come. Giving himself pleasure was not only a sin, but also strictly forbidden—they’d told him, forcing him to write that down 100 times, until he could nearly visualize it in the back of his eyelids— he had to save himself for his future spouse after all, and to grant himself such relief before the time came, wouldn’t just be terribly selfish but also thoroughly disrespectful. Without even getting started on how it showed his lack of patience and self-control, which would have been highly frown upon.

But even Shi Shu, was only human. And his budding hormones hadn’t particularly cared about his self-imposed morals.  And yet still, every year, Shi Shu could have counted on one single hand, how many times he’d touched himself. Even that, though, was a long time ago. 

After all, war hardly provided the privacy and peace of mind necessary to accomplish the necessary…requirements to engage in such activities.

So, all things considered—Shi Shu reasoned, fighting back a whole-body shudder when Leilani’s hands found his bare legs, heart hammering away in his chest when they slid upwards, dangerously close to where his robes were bundled up around his hips, concealing the proof of how own perked up interest—it certainly made sense that he’d be extra responsive and, quite honestly, he felt that he deserved a pat in the back for handling this as well as he did! How many people out there could handle nearly three decades of celibacy?! Especially when his husband was—

Hard—the new train of thought slammed straight into the previous one, forcing it off it’s tracks as it completely consumed every space available of his entire brain, sparing nothing for the remains of his previous lingering thoughts. How had he missed it, heavens, he’d been so focused flipping through the mental pages of his mental encyclopedia that he’d failed to notice the obvious pressure jabbing at him.  But now that he did, Shi Shu couldn’t help but be hyperaware of it’s existence; every thrust and grind was now aimed with the single objective of testing the newly added element, his own arousal twitching underneath the bundled up layers hiding it with each tentative drag across it—

And then a gasp startled out of him, startling him out of his thoughts again, as a hand grazed his crotch but didn’t linger there, offering absolutely no relief. Shi Shu’s cheeks burned so hard that they nearly stung, but unfortunately, shame did nothing to tame the fire in the pits of his stomach; if anything, he felt himself get even harder, seeking that pressure again but to no vain.

“I-I..I’m…” He what?! Even Shi Shu didn’t know, his brain too muddled with arousal to form a string of coherent thought, his thighs twitching slightly when Leilani slipped his hand underneath the pile of robes to stroke skin that had never seen the daylight.

Thankfully, Leilani didn’t give him too much time to stress over what he wanted to say, because the very next moment, the world around him spun around and Shi Shu found himself laying back against the bed, legs still on each side of Leilani’s hips, hair and robes disheveled around him, while Leilani hovered above him— Shi Shu’s throat bobbed into a hard swallow before he could even help himself. This wasn’t fair, not the slightest bit; he’d thought that he liked having Leilani laying underneath him, but this was…well, it did things to Shi Shu. Things that made his concealed boner twitch and leak underneath his robes, his heartbeat strumming a frantic song across his veins as he stared up at Leilani through half-lidded eyes, watching his hair dangle in messy waves around him, taking in the smaller details like, the flushed bottom lip that he’d just sucked between his teeth moments before, the rare warm hue that colored his cheeks, the pure, raw hunger that dilated his eyes…

The pressure of their hips connecting once again was completely unnecessary; Shi Shu was pretty sure that he was already leaning towards the edge just from laying underneath his husband like this, and maybe he was too pent up already, but he couldn’t help the way his back arched away from the bed with a gasp, when Leilani bucks harder, much firmer than his own previous tentative little back-and-forth motions.

He wasn’t going to last—Shi Shu suddenly realized, with amounting mortification, anther sharp gasp pushing out of his lungs with the next thrust.

“Y-Yes,” Shi Shu breathed out, struggling for a moment to gather enough saliva and sense into his mouth before he could upgrade to longer sentences. “I…you can do as you wish, but uh, fair warning?” He mumbled, nervously shifting his gaze away. “I…hm…haven’t done…anything in a…more or less, lets say, in the last 5 or so years…?” Shi Shu confessed, sheepishly, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would somehow save him some dignity. “I-I honestly don’t know how uh…how much I’m going to last, nuan nan…”

[dainarps]

Leilani was given permission to do whatever he wanted, and that was almost scary. Shi Shu was like the entire ocean when Leilani was used to playing only in a puddle.

“That’s okay,” Leilani said, leaning down to press a kiss to Shi Shu’s cheek and then his lips. He didn’t care how long Shi Shu lasted, or if he didn’t even last a minute at all. The fact that he would be able to get him off was enough, and Leilani was reveling in that fact. He was being allowed to touch Shi Shu however he wanted.

To give Shi Shu that kind of untethered pleasure was, as far as he was concerned, the best belated birthday gift he could give him.

He slid backwards, positioning himself between Shi Shu’s legs and, cautiously, as if trying not to spook a baby deer in the woods, pushed the fabric of Shi Shu’s robes aside. As he’d suspected, Shi Shu was quite aroused, bulging against his underwear and even leaking through it. It was Leilani’s first time seeing such a thing. Sure, he had looked down at his own erection before, but this was someone else’s. How different could it be, though?

Somehow, even if it was exactly the same, it felt much more thrilling. This…was because of him. Shi Shu was hard because of him. He was turned on because of him.

He reached his hand out and rubbed his palm against the bulge, through the fabric, testing the waters. He avoided Shi Shu’s gaze at first — not sure if he could bring himself to look at someone while he was doing this. But then, he wanted to see how he looked. He wanted to see if he was reacting the right ways — if he was doing a good job.

So, with red cheeks, he chanced a glance up at Shi Shu.

He imagined they both looked about the same — breathless and twitching, faces red with lust and embarrassment. It was beautiful. Carefully, slowly, he slid his fingertips beneath the waist of Shi Shu’s underwear and began pulling it downward, careful not to drag it over his erection too hard. When his arousal sprung free, naked and dripping, Leilani felt butterflies tickling his stomach. They were really doing this. This was really happening.

He helped Shi Shu’s ankles out from the holes of his undergarments, then kissed his way back up his legs, hands running over the soft, pale skin. His fingers trembled just slightly with nerves as he approached the object of his intent. He had touched himself plenty of times, sure, but sucked himself off? Never. That was impossible. He had no idea if he would be good at it or if it even mattered. Anything would probably feel good as long as he didn’t bite Shi Shu’s dick off…

He knelt between Shi Shu, his own erection neglected and pressed firmly against his underwear, begging for attention. He was thankful for his skirt to hide it from Shi Shu’s eyes — for now, anyway.

He took a short breath and reached one of his hands out, wrapping it carefully around Shi Shu’s length, running his thumb over the sensitive tip and smearing precum downwards, over the shaft. The simple action had himself throbbing, turned on by such a lewd sight. Gods, how he had craved this. How many nights had he laid awake praying that one day Shi Shu would want to lay with him? How many nights had he snuck away to touch himself and pretend it was Shi Shu’s hand. How many dreams had he had that involved this exact scenario — him leaning down between Shi Shu’s legs and sliding his mouth over his erection, all while keeping his eyes locked onto his face. He wanted to see every emotion, every ounce of embarrassment, nerves and pleasure. He wanted to witness it all. Maybe that made him a pervert, or maybe that made him a man who was sexually starved. He didn’t care. Every little gesture Shi Shu made sent thrills through his body. Leilani balanced his weight on his knees and his forearm, which rested on Shi Shu’s upper thigh while he pushed his lips down over the shaft. He opened his mouth a little further and laid his tongue flat against the underside, taking in the taste of bitter and salt. His free hand, mean while, slipped between his own legs, applying consistent pressure to his erection, trying to sate it without pushing himself too far. His body begged for more and he refused to give it. Maybe he really was a pervert. Still, he leaned down and pushed further, having to shut his eyes as he swallowed Shi Shu’s length as far as he could, leaving just enough room at the base for his hand to steady his hips and his erection. He pulled back and pushed in again, teasing his tongue around the tip each time he did. He wanted to hear Shi Shu moan. He wanted to feel him finish. He wanted to know what his trembling hips would feel like, what he would taste like, if he could cum just from this. Five years without doing anything — surely he wouldn’t last long.

He picked up his ministrations, his mouth making lewd sounds against Shi Shu’s skin, his body pushing out little moans of its own as a new feeling or sight made him throb. He rubbed his other hand firmly between his legs, resisting the urge to buck against his palm and speed things up. Leilani would have his turn. He would have his moment. Shi Shu had spent the last three days without his husband. He’d feared he would never see him again.. He needed this. He deserved it. And Leilani would give it to him.

[dainarps]

Shameless? Was Shi Shu really going to say that wanting to admire his body was shameless when they were doing, well, this? He didn’t know how far they would go — if they would go all the way — but, for someone who wouldn’t even look at his bare chest a month or so ago, this was far more shameless than anything else.

Shi Shu pulled his hands free of his sleeves, giving Leilani a perfect glimpse of his long arms, the elegant bend of his elbow and curve of his shoulder. Being in Pali Kai had been good for Shi Shu. He could see a bit of a tan line around his collarbone, and he’d gained weight back from his time imprisoned, finally looking less skeletal. Shi Shu always looked elegant and beautiful, though when he first arrived, Leilani had been filled with worry for his health. Now, though, there were no concerns at all. Shi Shu was probably healthier now than he’d ever been in Ban Zi Zhen.

He laid still, hands resting casually on Shi Shu’s hips as his hands wandered over his body, touching every inch of exposed skin that he could. He would lay here for as long as Shi Shu needed to explore, inhaling long and deep while his hands traced lower, his knee pushing against his groin.

And then it was over, Shi Shu sitting up and looking like he had just made a grand discovery — because he had. He, apparently, remembered how sex was supposed to work. He laughed, but the laugh quickly gave way to a breathy moan as Shi Shu rode on top of him, grinding their hips together in a way that was absolutely delightful and also painfully slow. He had been craving this for so long, and now Shi Shu was walking through it like he needed to be taught what to do with the thing dangling between his legs. “A-Shu,” Leilani said, barely managing to get his words out between the little gasps and giggles that threatened to jump out of his throat. He really didn’t want to laugh at Shi Shu’s attempt at sex coupled with a historical lesson on how most virgins apparently got off with their partners. It was incredible that they had even reached this point. Leilani loved that he got to be here, holding Shi Shu’s hips and leaning up into each slow grind against his lap. He was sure that, with enough time, he could have gotten off with just that alone.

His husband, the man he loved for so long, the man he’d been attracted to for so long, was finally responding in kind. He wanted to do this.

“You’re a very smart man, and I love you…very much,” Leilani said, teasing his fingers a bit lower, pushing them under the folds of the fabric still bunched around Shi Shu’s hips, barely clinging on without the sash to hold it. He could see the soft curve of his thighs, and beneath the fabric he knew there was pale skin, soft, and perfectly touchable. He wondered what his skin would look like beneath his hand, grabbed tight while he rocked into him, or sucked him off, or any number of any lewd things. “But…maybe we can save the sex education lecture…for afterwards?” Leilani asked, sliding one of his hands over Shi Shu’s thigh and just gently grazing his fingers over his crotch, where he could feel a small bulge forming, thanks to Shi Shu’s very important foreplay. Leilani was already very turned on, heart pounding and body aching for more, swelling underneath the light fabric of his skirt and undergarments. The friction of their clothes and Shi Shu’s hips would get him where he wanted, but there was so much more they could do — so much more that he’d imagined each time he dreamed, or when he snuck out of bed early in the morning to work through a few issues before Shi Shu noticed. Leilani had been very careful about revealing his arousal around Shi Shu, staying in bed longer, heading to the bathroom when he thought Shi Shu wasn’t looking. His main goal this whole time had been to not make Shi Shu feel uncomfortable.

“You said…you couldn’t really talk or…or listen when I was touching your horn,” Leilani said. “This is, mm…basically the same.” He, after some debate, pushed a bit on Shi Shu’s hips and flipped their positions, now straddling him on the bed and taking control of the scenario. He took a moment to breathe and steady himself, though he felt he could have cum just from the sight of Shi Shu laying beneath him. His hair was splayed around him with no rhyme or reason, laying like silk over their sheets. His face was flushed, his body just the slightest bit pink, and his lips swollen from kissing.

Sex looked good on him. “I want to do something,” Leilani said, briefly treating Shi Shu to what he had been giving to him. He rubbed their hips together, slow and firm — deliberate. “If you don’t like it, or if I’m bad at it, you can tell me to stop and I will.”

Though, he had a feeling that once he got started, Shi Shu wouldn’t want him to stop. Such was the nature of such things — once things were underway it was hard to stop them. He knew that from experience. But he had a feeling that Shi Shu might not. He’d been here for so long, but he never once saw him sneak away to the bathroom, or ask for a moment alone.

This was a lot of firsts for them both, and he hoped that they were good ones.

[claudrps]

If someone was a fool in their relationship, that fool was Shi Shu, not Leilani; in fact, Shi Shu could have provided a lengthy list of all the different occasions where he’d made a fool out of himself in front of his husband over the most ridiculous and unnecessary obstacles, ranging from getting a second wedding just to help himself process the new turn in their relationship, to needing to nearly lose his husband to realize that maybe it was about time to stop stalling and let things flow naturally.

He would have told him exactly that, if Leilani hadn’t shut him up before he could even begin. That was fine, though, Shi Shu personally found that kissing was far more pleasant and more productive than running his mouth endlessly over things that didn’t really matter in the end. They were both fools, in their own ridiculous ways—Shi Shu would just stick to that, and argue later about the details and percentages of their individual idiocy.

The shift in the mood laid somewhere between sudden and natural—not too out of nowhere that it left Shi Shu flabbergasted, but also not so expected that he could stop himself from blushing when he realized where this was going—, and Shi Shu was as terribly farsighted as ever, but even his blurred eyesight couldn’t make him blind to the hunger in Leilani’s eyes, to the sheer wanting that his hands spelled out with each stroke across his back, even if it was beyond him what he saw in him that made him worthy of that look.  

A week ago, this would probably be the point where Shi Shu would put an end to this; he would have smiled apologetically, blush, and then gently coax Leilani to go to sleep with him, like a wet cloth laid over a fire. 

 Today, though, Shi Shu leaned against his touch instead of pulling away, his face burning but there was no hint of unwillingness or hesitance on his body language. “Ah, my cruel neglectful husband, at last taking care of his husbandly duties.” Shi Shu teased, chuckling as he leaned in for another kiss, and another, and another, distractedly leaning more and more of his body weight against him, too busy getting reacquainted with Leilani’s mouth like they hadn’t kissed for a whole year, too distracted to notice that their bodies were leaning further back and at a rather precarious angle….

When gravity eventually gave in and did it’s job, Shi Shu’s startled squeak was effectively muffled in Leilani’s mouth, and it was only due to sheer pure luck that Shi Shu was, somehow, fast enough to pull his mouth away before their bodies collided back against the bed, narrowly avoiding knocking a few teeth out of each other’s mouth.

 Blinking down at the husband that he had currently trapped underneath him, Shi Shu suddenly ducked his head and muffled a snort on the crook of his neck, shoulders shaking with barely repressed laugher. “I don’t think we’re both going to make it out alive.” He mused breathlessly, eyes curved with mirth as he leaned down  to kiss him again, his hair falling like a curtain around them, blocking out the sunlight…

Sunlight. Oh god, they were so backwards! Most couples would have their first time preferably at night, under the romantic glow of the candlelights, maybe when they were still warm and languid from a bath…

And then, there was them; in the early afternoon, the sun shining brightly above them, like an accusing reminder that ‘this is literally the most unromantic hour of the day, why not reschedule it for later?!’, right after the emotional ‘return’ of his husband.

Honestly, the only way that they could have fucked up the order even further, was if they’d married, had sex, and only kissed for the first time during the afterglow. Shi Shu gave them both a mental pat in the back for at the least getting one thing right, for once.

“I should…I should have made you put on a shirt.” Shi Shu mumbled between kisses, barely pulling away to speak, a hand shyly tracing one of Leilani’s bare shoulders, like he wasn’t already faced with a shirtless Leilani on a daily basis already. Heavens, he slept on that chest! Every night! 

“It’s not fair, you’re already one step ahead….as usual.” He clarified, chuckling breathlessly as he dived into another kiss, trying to shift into a more comfortable position, but amidst his attempts to compensate their height difference by pulling himself up, Shi Shu’s knee accidentally slipped, landing his thigh right between Leilani’s legs, and right against his groin. 

Shi Shu’s head snapped up so abruptly that he nearly got whiplash from the sudden motion, eyes wide with shock and concern. “Oh God! S-Sorry, did I hurt you, nuan nan?!”

[dainarps]

Leilani laughed into the kiss, but the gesture shut up any potential rebuttals he might have had. From his perspective then, Shi Shu really has been neglected, but things were different with hindsight and clarity. There were so many things that they needed to change and so many things they still needed to work on, but they would learn and they would grow. They would have plenty of time to figure out how to best communicate with each other, how to enjoy each other and understand each other. He was sure that plenty of couples spent years learning. Hell, they were even learning right now.

Shi Shu was learning heavily against him and the only thing stopping Leilani from steadying them both from falling was knowing that there was a bed right behind them. So, he let them fall and he was glad he did. The squeak and laughter from his husband was well worth it, lighting a smile on his face that he didn’t think would ever dim.

Leilani knew he wouldn’t make it out of this alive. Already he felt as if his spirit was ascending to heaven, blessed by the open permission to touch and be touched. Shi Shu was more than eager for some reason, and Leilani would treasure each moment. Every new step satisfied him, no matter how small it was. If Shi Shu allowed him to kiss him on the cheek after a meeting it was considered a victory. This was like winning ten marathons in a row and not even being a little bit sore. This was its own kind of high, and he would never come down from it.

“Mm, I may be one step ahead but your robes are— oh!” Leilani’s retort was swallowed by a kiss and he happily indulged, reaching up and burrowing his hands into Shi Shu’s hair, tangling it around his fingers.

And then Shi Shu slipped, and his surprised reaction pulled laughter from his chest. The pressure in between his thighs wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, and to be honest, he felt like this position worked best for Shi Shu. It gave him more control, gave him the opportunity to lean back and take a breather. Leilani didn’t want him to feel like he was trapping him. If he was on top, he knew there would be no way he could hold back, given this new freedom he had.

“I’m fine, A-Shu,” Leilani assured him. “I don’t think you could hurt me, even by accident.”

He slid his hands down Shi Shu’s back to his waist, where a sash held his robes together. That was the thing about Shi Shu’s attire. Leilani may not have been wearing a shirt, but all it took to undo the intricate layers of Shi Shu’s robes was a quick tug on the bow at his back.

“The bed’s going to end up a mess of clothes because of all the layers you insist on wearing — hold on, I can’t even...there,” Leilani said, finally pulling the sash free and tossing it to the side. He wondered if this was what Ji Guang would have expected to hear from them each time he joked about them having sex. He probably expected moans and the aggressive creaking of a bed. Instead, he got laughter and confusion — which, really, summed up their entire relationship.

“It’ll be nicer when it’s summer and I can maybe convince you to wear just a skirt,” he said as he tugged Shi Shu back down to his lips. Shi Shu would never go around shirtless, though. Leilani was lucky that he even got to sometimes see his chest.

Speaking of...

Kissing, Leilani felt confident about. He knew what he liked, and he knew what made Shi Shu blush all the way to the tips of his horns. He felt like he knew when Shi Shu would want a deep kiss, with open mouths and tongues and warm, short breaths shared in the small space between their bodies, and when he would prefer chaste kisses splayed across his neck and his jaw.

Touching, however, was an entirely new arena. Each time he tried slipping his hand between the fabric of Shi Shu’s robes he never got very far. Today, though, he was met with no resistance — it sent a thrill down his spine, pooling low in his abdomen.

He pushed his hands under Shi Shu’s robes and over his shoulders, tracing every bit of skin and bone and muscle. The fabric moved with him, sliding down Shi Shu’s arms and pooling down by his wrists and his waist.

Leilani had never felt so tempted.

Shi Shu’s pale body lay atop him, exposed and just the slightest bit pink. He wanted to kiss him everywhere. He wanted to stop and take it all in. He didn’t even care that it was the middle of the damn day — that made everything better. He could see every goosebump on Shi Shu’s skin, every scar, every blush.

He could get lost in just looking at him.

“Take your hands out of your sleeves,” Leilani murmured as he kissed his way across Shi Shu’s jaw. “They’re in the way of me admiring you.”

[dainarps]

“Under the bed,” Leilani replied, not looking up at Shi Shu yet. His brows were furrowed and his eyes concentrated on the lingerie. He couldn’t put the pieces together. None of them made sense. It was like he was so close to the answer, and yet every time he reached for it there was a simple fact standing in his way. Shi Shu had a husband and it wasn’t him.

“What…are we?” Leilani asked, his fingers gripping the fabric tighter as he raised his gaze to look at Shi Shu. “I know the type of person I am, and the type of person my parents raised me to be. I…I’m not the sort of person who would do this, Shi Shu. I’m not someone who would cheat like that. No matter how much I loved someone, and I don’t know why, but I can feel in my heart that I love you so, so much,” Leilani said.

“But when I saw this, there were so many memories of us kissing and touching and — I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I do feel that way about you, and I love you, I really do, but it just doesn’t make any sense!” Leilani said. “I would never do that. I could never do that to someone who was married. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

He was a good person, he had morals, he would never cheat. He just couldn’t see it. But then there were so many memories of him and Shi Shu together, doing things that were meant specifically for couples. It wasn’t right. “You’re married, Shi Shu, and as much as I love you, I can’t go on with that behavior. I don’t know how I ended up doing all of that, but we can’t do that. We shouldn’t even be sharing a bed! It’s not right, and I’m sorry, but we can’t…be as we are. If we keep doing what we’re doing I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

Especially with all of these new memories to fuel his brain. He wanted more, he craved it, and he knew that Shi Shu was in an uncomfortable marriage. He wanted to steal him away. He wanted to take him as his own and love him the way he was meant to be loved, but he couldn’t. They had to stop. They had to go back to how their relationship was supposed to be — a chief and his advisor. That was all.

[claudrps]

It was like watching a carriage coming undone, and crashing straight into a wall, a«while Shu Shu could do nothing but stand there, wondering how that happened, while he held onto the wheel that he’d removed from the carriage with his own hands.

Sitting on his (their) bed, holding onto a piece of fabric that Shi Shu could hardly bear to look at, Leilani looked as if he’d taken an arrow to the gut, his expression confused and more pained than it should ever be. The only occasion where he’d ever looked at him like that, was when he finally found him again after 5 years apart, and even then, that pain had been laced with relief, with happiness…

There was no such thing in this Leilani’s face, though. There was only pain, confusion, and a sense of betrayal that his brain could neither process nor comprehend, and the sole culprit of that was Shi Shu alone. He could blame the spell, Leilani’s idiotic idea, but the truth was, in the end, it was Shi Shu and his smartass attitude that had decided that Leilani didn’t need to know, that maybe he shouldn’t know that they were married, and while he’d made that decision with the best of intentions…it had been just a wild guess, no research put into it, a spur of the moment decision that had brought so much pain to his own husband.

It wasn’t Leilani who kept them apart, it wasn’t the spell, it wasn’t the amnesia; it was Shi Shu, and now Leilani was the one paying the consequences. All because he didn’t think to stop to think and ask everybody else about their thoughts on the situation.

In the end, he’d been so concerned over the idea of Leilani being uncomfortable being stuck in a marriage with a man that he couldn’t even remember, that it didn’t even occur to him that this Leilani was also the same Leilani that had fallen for him on first sight.  And if a fourteen years old Leilan fell for him that easily….then how could his 20 years old husband not follow the same path?

Swallowing down the dry lump stuck in his throat, Shi Shu slowly folded his fan closed, placing it down on the desk. “…Ah, funny….to think I did all of this thinking that it would save you from unnecessary struggles….the irony is truly a cruel thing.” He muttered, chuckling humorlessly, shame keeping his gaze locked on his own feet. “…I need to show you something. Just, wait here, okay nuan nan?” Not waiting for his answer, Shi Shu rushed out of the room.

He returned moments later, carrying a bottle full of black sand in his hands, holding it like it was the most precious jewel in the entire continent. Walking over to the bed, Shi Shu took a seat across him and stared down at the bottle on his lap, tracing his thumbs across it’s surface—polished; he’d made sure to clean it every day.  “Do you remember what this is? I suppose you would, given how many memories you’ve obtained in our last session. You should be able to recognize this and know what it is.” Shi Shu mused, his lips twitching into a tiny fond smile. “It’s from my wedding. But you know? I never got to experience that special dream that the bottle is meant to provide to the couple the night before the wedding. I was so stressed and scared, I couldn’t bat an eye all night…so I never go to see my husband’s memories. I was heavily disappointed when I realized what I missed out…” Sighing, Shi Shu took a moment to ponder on his words and to watch the sand shift inside the bottle, and finally looked up to meet Leilani’s gaze, his smile soft and terribly fond. “I think my husband realized that too. That’s why he’s gone, you know? It’s not that he wanted to leave me alone on my own birthday, it’s just that…he picked a rather unconventional birthday gift, and things didn’t turn out well for him.” It was…an understatement, but then, who was he to even comment on Leilani’s mistakes considering the ongoing descent of his own idiotic weak-excuse-of-a-plan.

Wetting his lips, suddenly feeling his throat very dry again, Shi Shu cleared his throat and just….kept moving forward. His mistake, his responsibility. He owed Leilani this much. “Ah, I’ve never told you anything about my husband, did I?” He asked, and despite his strained tone, a smile still tilted his lips without him even meaning to, his eyes immediately softening. “…It’s unfair, you know? I’m nothing worthy of showing off, and yet he’s always so eager to point out that I’m his husband, waxing all sorts of poetry about me, like he’s the one blessed to have me as a spouse, instead of the other way around.” He mumbled, cheeks pinking already and gosh, Leilani wasn’t even ‘back’ yet and he was already making a mess out of him!

(He missed that. He missed the way he could make him blush over everything and anything. He missed his teasing grin, the way his voice deepened when he spoke after a specially passionate kiss, he just….missed him. A lot.)

Clearing his throat again, Shi Shu fiddled with the bottle again, careful to not let his hands get sweaty to the point of smudging the glass. “And yet, I haven’t told you anything about him yet, have I? Truly, I’m the most terrible and lousy spouse that anyone could ever have.” He chuckled, the nervousness so obvious that he nearly cringed at the sound.  “My husband…he’s the most wonderful man that I’ve ever met.” Shi Shu muttered, already terribly tempted to duck and bury his face on Leilani’s chest, embarrassment coloring his cheeks red. “His kindness knows no bounds, it’s almost ridiculous, I have to handle anything business-related because he’s just kind enough to let other people take advantage of him. He’s so sweet that my blood pressure has suffered quite drastically since I moved in with him, without even getting started on all the future heart issues that I’ll probably have from prolonged exposure to his pure, raw sweetness! And his patience, heavens know how patient he has been with me all this time…”

Shi Shu trailed off, swallowing hard when the lump in his throat suddenly became sharp and painful, like something pointy dragging up and down, threatening to pierce through his neck. “…I love him. I love him more than anything or anybody else in the world and….and how ridiculous is it that…that I’ve never even told him that before?” Shi Shu nearly croaked out, the tiniest of breathless laughs squeezing through his throat. “I think I…I took his love for granted, you know? His patience, his kindness, his everything, everything that he is and that makes him so wonderful, in my head I think I’ve always figured that we would have all the time in the world to do all those things that we haven’t done yet…I didn’t say ‘i love you’ because I thought, I’m not ready yet but, we have such a long life ahead of us, so why hurry? I pushed him away in bed every single time he touched me, constantly telling him and myself that I wasn’t ready yet and that we had all the time in the world anyway, so why rush?”

Too nervous, Too anxious. Too soon. It can happen later. No Need to hurry.

Shi Shu hadn’t even realized how much he’d relied on those excuses, just…straight up adding unnecessary obstacles in front of them for no other reason other than ‘we have time’.

Except, what if they didn’t?

Their lives were so long, Shi Shu had always been sure that they would have at the very least, 300 years of happy marriage ahead of them….that is, until Leilani woke up, and looked at him as if he was a stranger, and suddenly Shi Shu was abruptly faced with a terrifying realization; what if that time was cut short? What if Leilani lost his memories permanently? What if he had to win his heart over again, what if he had to wait years for Leilani to look at him the same way he used to? 

What if his Leilani was gone, permanently?

How many regrets would he have? All those kisses that he didn’t give him, all those nights where he’d stopped his hands from wandering underneath his clothes, all those words that he wished that he’d said…all the things that he didn’t do, and that he wouldn’t ever get the chance of doing if Leilani was gone.

Maybe this wasn’t karma, after all. Maybe it was just a wakeup call, the Universe’s way of telling him ‘you’re letting precious time slip through your fingers; make good use of it while you can’.

Gently, Shi Shu took Leilani’s hands between his, thumbs tracing over his knuckles. “…I miss him. A lot. I want him to come back already.” Shi Shu muttered, eyes prickling but he refused to break now out of all times; he had to finish what he’d started, or this would be just yet another regret to add to the list. “But…getting him back is quite troublesome because, well…my husband is an idiot.” Shi Shu chuckled, slowly intertwining their fingers together, a sight that was so familiar to him but that he would never tire of. “He was so sad that I didn’t get to experience his memories on the night before our wedding….that he decided that he was going to make me a new bottle.”

Smiling softly, Shi Shu untangled one of his hands free, and gently cupped Leilani’s cheek, thumb tracing his cheekbone lovingly. “But like I’ve mentioned; my husband is an idiot. The sweetest, kindest and most wonderful idiot that I’ve ever met. The type of wonderful idiot that accidentally erases his own memories while trying to store some of them in a new bottle…just to offer them to me as a birthday gift.” 

Giving him an exasperated smile, practically dripping with fondness, Shi Shu leaned closer, and pressed his lips softly against his cheek. “My husband is running late, though…I think it’s about time he comes back home.” He murmured against his cheek, squeezing their intertwined hands.

[dainarps]

Well, now he was really confused. Shi Shu was hiding something from him — something he’d done in an attempt to make his life easier, but damn, everything was confusing as hell now! And then, because Shi Shu apparently liked to add insult to injury, when he returned to the room it was to talk about his husband and his marriage and how much he apparently loved him.

Was he trying to hurt him? Was he trying to make things worse for him? It was…cruel. Everything he’d been led to believe and everything he thought he knew about Shi Shu’s husband was turned on its head. Leilani had opened his heart to Shi Shu, he had told him everything he felt, and Shi Shu let him. Then, on top of that, there were all these memories of them together. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have these memories if Shi Shu wasn’t with him? If Shi Shu’s husband was such a nice guy, then why did he betray him? Why did they both betray him?

Shi Shu even had the gall to be so kind to him right now, talking to him as if this wasn’t breaking his heart, holding his hands and sitting close to him. It didn’t make sense and if he was confused now then Shi Shu was clearly only making things worse.

His heart felt like it was shattering into a million little pieces, and he was falling, but not in the way he had when he first opened his eyes. He was falling into an abyss, spinning out of control, and he had no idea when it would stop. Not only was he being dumped — that was what it felt like — but he was also being compared to someone who sounded perfect for Shi Shu, someone he loved. On top of that, too, was the confusion. His body hurt, physically and emotionally, and he couldn’t take it.

Shi Shu pressed his hand to his cheek and instead of stinging it felt comfortable and he hated that. He hated it until he spoke.

If he had been falling, then now he had hit the ground — and he hit it hard.

Memories flooded back to him, a caravan filled with dancers and musicians, a formal wedding, Shi Shu kneeling beside him at the alter, a pathetic attempt at a dance, months of longing for a few weeks of visiting, years of waiting and fear, him falling into Shi Shu’s broken arms, the two of them marrying again, their first kisses, their shared words of admiration for each other.

Everything clicked into place, and the moment Shi Shu pulled away from his cheek Leilani turned and threw his arms around him, pinning them both down onto the bed and nearly sending the, thankfully corked, bottle of sand flying.

Shi Shu was his husband. They were married. They’d been married since he was a child. Of course. Of course. How could he have forgotten?! How had he could have forgotten everything?

Leilani didn’t know what to do. It felt almost as if he had been gone for the last few days and was truly seeing Shi Shu again for the first time. He ran his hands over his cheeks and into his hair and pressed kisses to his lips and his jaw, heart pounding in his chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I didn’t know. I thought I did it right. I just wanted to surprise you — I had no idea. Ku’uipo, I’m so sorry. You must’ve been so worried. It’s me. I’m here. I’m here,” Leilani said as he pulled away, though it could hardly be called that. He was still practically laying on top of him, scared to let him go — scared he might forget him again.

“Are you okay? I should move. I’m sorry,” Leilani said.

He finally moved off of him and knelt beside him on the bed, finding his hands with his own trembling fingers, holding them tight. The last few days were like a whirlwind and the last few moments had him spinning. He’d missed his birthday. His first birthday in Pali Kai. He’d made him so troubled and worried. Shi Shu didn’t deserve that. Shi Shu only deserved a lifetime of happiness, and that was what he’d been trying to give him. It was all he ever wanted to do. Instead, he nearly broke his heart.

Wait.

“Did…you just say you loved me?”

[claudrps]

Shi Shu watched as the pieces connected on Leilani’s head, waiting anxiously—praying that he was right, that he hadn’t just messed up things even further, if such was even possible!

Swallowing nervously, Shi Shu opened his mouth to give it another try, maybe he needed another hint, maybe he should be a little clearer—

But his concerns were squeezed out of his body along with a startled squeak, as Leilani pounced on him like an overeager puppy, and while the Shi Shu from a week ago might have felt a bit intimidated and maybe even a bit nervous over the idea of being squished underneath Leilani’s body, this current Shi Shu welcomed it with open arms. It was comforting, to feel his weight on him, a grounding pressure that reminded and confirmed to him that this was happening, this was real.

His husband was back.

Shi Shu couldn’t even help the giggles that blurted out of him as Leilani poured kisses all over him, his chest so full and warm that it nearly hurt from the sheer happiness and overwhelming relief that came pouring in, filling in the holes and patching up the wounds that Shi Shu had neglected.

“Shh it’s okay, nuan nuan, you’re back now. You’re back.“ He whispered once his lips were free, tilting his head to press his lips against the hand cupping his cheek.

How could he have ever thought of this as ‘embarrassing’ or ‘shameful’? There was nothing to be embarrassed about the way Leilani poured all his love into him like it was his life’s mission, there was nothing shameful about the way that Shi Shu wanted to wrap himself around him and hold him until every bone in his body hurt.

The only ‘shameful’ thing in this whole relationship, was how long it had taken him to realize that.

For once, in an ironic turn of events, this time it was Shi Shu who didn’t want Leilani to let go yet. He wanted to just stay there, laying down on their bed, holding onto him, feeling his every breath, every heartbeat, hands in his hair and his mouth on every inch of skin that he could reach, hungry in a way that he had never thought possible.

Unfortunately, Leilani was too well trained; once he hit the imaginary time up stipulated by Shi Shu’s nervous self, he pulled away, sitting back only to lock their hands together, looking so shaky and agitated that Shi Shu wanted to do nothing more than hold him close and kiss him until there wasn’t a single trace of anxiety on his face. 

That, though, would have to wait for it’s turn, because first, of course; Leilani had to make a flustered mess out of his husband within the first two minutes after he just got him back.

A new record!

Face reddening spectacularly, Shi Shu felt his fingers itch with the urge to reach over for his fan to hide his face….but he didn’t.

Enough of the fan, enough with the excuses, enough with the obsessive ‘what ifs’; he was so tired, so darn tired, so done with denying himself what he wanted—what they wanted.

“….No.” Shi Shu said, very firm despite the fact that he was sporting one of the most vicious shades of red that had ever decorated his face. Then, freeing his hands from Leilani’s grip, Shi Shu stomped down two decades of manners, etiquette and self-restraint, and stood up on the bed, only just so that he could move over and take a seat on Leilani’s lap instead, out of all places.

Like a lock snapping into place, Shi Shu crossed his ankles behind Leilani’s back and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him in so close, so close that not a string of hair would be able to squeeze between their bodies, as if it was his plan to actually merge them together until they became one single giant body mass.

“…You don’t get to leave me on my birthday and then pull away from me as well.” Shi Shu mumbled from where he had his face buried on Leilani’s neck, tightening his grip around him as he breathed in the scent that he now fully acknowledged as ‘home’, eyes still prickling despite the smile stretched across his face.

“One of my siblings describes their marriage as ‘house arrest except with cuddle benefits’. In that case, consider yourself under arrest, mister; your sentence is that you can’t leave this bed until my quota of kisses and cuddles has been fulfilled.” He declared, pressing a long string of butterfly kisses across Leilani’s neck and all the way up to his jaw, where the kisses began to linger a little longer, especially as he kissed his cheeks, forehead and, finally, his lips, where he pressed long, dragged out kisses, his fingertips retracing the paths that his lips had already drawn across his skin, before losing themselves in Leilani’s soft curls, like a famished man enjoying a meal for the first time in days.

Only then, when Shi Shu was satisfied and officially breathless, did he finally pull away—if it could even be called that; it was barely enough for them to catch their breath, their noses and forehead pressed together, lips close enough that they could graze each other with just the tiniest tilt of their heads.

“…I guess it takes one bout of amnesia and two kissless days to, as Ji Guang so kindly put it: ‘get that stick out of my ass’, huh?” Shi Shu mumbled, blurting out a tiny nervous giggle, quickly sobering up though, as he stared warmly into Leilani’s eyes, hands gently cupping his face again, sighing contently.

“I love you, A-Leilani.” Shi Shu whispered, practically nuzzling his face as he pulled him into another kiss, arms wrapping tightly around him again, his grip edging between desperate and possessive, like a dragon hoarding his precious treasure. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry… I shouldn't…shouldn’t have taken such a long time to say it! There’s so many things that I should have done and said earlier, and that is just one out of too many things that I want to tell you.”

He sighed against his lips, fingertips dragging across Leilani’s scalp with each motion of his fingers combing through his hair, like he just couldn’t stay still or stop touching him—as if he would vanish if he did. “Things will be better from now on. No more pushing away, no more stopping, no more excuses, I’m…”

Shi Shu trailed off, the reddish hue quickly returning to his face as he took one of Leilani’s hands and, taking advantage of this possibly-temporary bout of courage; shakily placed that hand on top of one of his horns, wrapping his fingers around it.

“…You have permission to t-touch them.” Shi Shu mumbled, so red that even his horns were starting to heat up as well. Then, because he owed him this much, he added; “I…w-want you to touch them.” He clarified, only not completely mortified to death because he actually meant it.

[dainarps]

No? Leilani scoffed, a smirk tilting his lips. Liar. He’d heard him say it! Did he miss him so badly that he managed to finally blurt that out? They really were going to have to have a talk about  just when Shi Shu felt comfortable talking to him. But maybe not now. Right now, Shi Shu seemed determined to make up for lost time — either that or surprise him completely.

He stood up on the bed, and if that wasn’t shocking enough, promptly plopped himself down on his lap.

Leilani had always been the one to make the first move. He had no problem laying his head in Shi Shu’s lap or curling up against him. He delighted in the moments where Shi Shu would hold his arm, and he expected to not get anything more. Shi Shu wanted to take his time, and that was fine. Leilani was just happy to have his feelings returned. Anything more was a bonus. He wrapped his arms around Shi Shu, resting his hands in the small of his back, keeping him close while he placed kisses along his skin. He wanted to make a joke about how this couldn’t possibly be his Shi Shu and how he had definitely gotten himself sick or feverish because there was no way Shi Shu would kiss him like this, but…he kept his mouth shut.

He wanted to enjoy this. He had been waiting so long for some kind of positive response from Shi Shu. He knew that Shi Shu liked him, but whenever things got too physical, he tended to shy away — despite obviously liking certain things. He liked being kissed, and he liked touching his hair. Somehow, Shi Shu still felt as if he needed to restrain himself.

Leilani returned every kiss to his lips and leaned into each touch, reveling in these delightful feelings. They were back. They were both here. “Mm, well…I didn’t really think you had a stick up your ass,” Leilani responded, smirking again. He just thought that Shi Shu was nervous or prudish, and that was okay. Leilani would wait forever for him to be ready.

And then, to blow all the kissing and sitting in his lap out of the water, Shi Shu confessed his love for him again. Leilani didn’t feel embarrassed, or shy after hearing that. He didn’t even truly need to hear it, though it was certainly nice. He knew that Shi Shu loved him. Shi Shu wouldn’t let him do half the things he did if he didn’t. Leilani didn’t need to hear Shi Shu saying it out loud, but the memory had cemented itself into his brain regardless. Shi Shu loved him — truly and honestly loved him, and Leilani would never let him forget it. He would do everything he could to make Shi Shu love him even more.

“Eh?” Leilani stared as his hand was brought up and placed atop Shi Shu’s horns. He looked between Shi Shu and his hand, a bit concerned. He knew that, for some reason, touching his horns was a very private thing. Shi Shu didn’t look exactly comfortable with it — likely because it was all very new to him — but, he insisted he wanted him to.

Leilani had trouble moving forward with Shi Shu because he wanted clear and obvious consent. Their past had been so complicated, and Shi Shu had been through so much and he’d been raised completely differently. Leilani didn’t want to overstep his bounds and do something that made him uncomfortable. Each time Shi Shu told him no more, Leilani listened. He would always respect whatever lines Shi Shu drew.

Now, though, he felt as if those lines had been erased, and new ones were popping up — the problem was that he didn’t know where the new ones were. How far could he go? And, on top of that, was Shi Shu really okay doing these things? “I don’t want you to feel pressured,” Leilani said, tracing a finger over the soft velvety horn. They had grown almost an inch since Shi Shu had moved here. “Just because I lost my memories of you…doesn’t mean we have to rush and do everything right now — right away.” Though, of course, he certainly wouldn’t mind that. Shi Shu had probably spent the last 72 hours doing a lot of thinking, and doing even more missing. Shi Shu had missed him deeply, and Leilani didn’t want him agreeing to all of this simply because he’d been scared he’d never see him again. “I…want you to want to be with me like that,” Leilani said, following a slight curve in the horn with his fingertip. “I don’t want us to be together…because you’re scared. I want us to be together because you want to be.”

They both deserved that. They deserved to be with each other naturally, in a way that made them both comfortable. Leilani would always provide that, no matter what. Their emotional needs would always come before their physical needs, he was sure. If Shi Shu wasn’t ready, he wouldn’t push him, simply because he was afraid of “what ifs.”

[claudrps]

This was a long, deep and very serious conversation that had been long overdue—one that they should have had before anything else, considering the difficult nature of their relationship, without even getting started on Shi Shu’s inability to voice his thoughts without nearly self-combuting—, but Shi Shu had just had more than enough time to think about his answers and the points that he had underlined for extra emphasis…

If only Leilani didn’t pick that precise moment to torment him.

Shi Shu tried to open his mouth to respond, only to quickly close it to avoid letting out the thoroughly embarrassing noise that tried to gather in the back of his throat when Leilani traced a finger across his horn, the motion slow and gentle, yet it felt nearly electrifying, like tiny, delightful zaps of electricity running down his spine, making his legs twitch slightly around Leilani.   He probably wasn’t even doing it on purpose, after all, Shi Shu had never truly clarified why he didn’t like having his horns touched, only awkwardly describing it as ‘intimate’ without further clarifications. Leilani probably had no idea that he was rendering him basically useless with each gentle touch, reducing Shi Shu to a pile of flustered warm and slightly turned on goo. 

And the worst part was; he was still going! Still talking, trying to have a truly important and serious conversation, while still stroking his horn, tracing his finger over the tip, unaware that Shi Shu was edging towards a desperate whimper and a few strokes away from either pinning him down to the bed, or flying out the window from sheer embarrassment.

Squeezing his eyes shut as he fought back against a full-body shiver, Shi Shu finally gave up and gave in, embarrassment winning as he quickly ducked his head to hide it in the crook of Leilani’s neck, his face burning like a furnace compared to Leilani’s own temperature.  “N-Nuan nan, I’ll happily answer to all of your questions, b-but—” Shi Shu took a deep breath, desperately gathering as much self-control as he could possibly manage. “P-Perhaps have some mercy on me and don’t do that, at the least not when you expect me to answer?” He nearly pleaded, his pointed ears still pink and laying flat against the side of his head as he coaxed himself into straightening up—no hiding, he promised that he wouldn’t hide anymore, goddammit—, his face red as he reached up to gently grasp Leilani’s wrist, not pulling it away from his horns, just holding it still.

“It’s….hard to concentrate. When you do that.” Shi Shu admitted in a tiny, meek little voice that sounded almost as if it had to be forcefully dragged out of the depths of his throat, still dodging eye contact as he spoke—he had to allow him that much! Heavens, he was sitting on his lap, letting him touch his horns; this was already one hell of a jump in their relationship, at the very least Leilani had to let him save some face!

Clearing his throat, Shi Shu dropped his attention down on Leilani’s necklaces instead, fiddling with the beads to keep himself distracted from the buzzing sensation still running through his body. “It’s not …it’s not about feeling pressured or obligated to move forward, I just…” He gesticulated wordlessly for a moment, growing more and more flustered with each failed attempt to convey his message. “You…I…uhm…well, you see, uh—OH! You know sword surfing? That thing that A-Guang does occasionally, where he flies on his sword like your people ‘fly’ on the waves?” Shi Shu asked, perking up slightly despite the…confusing and abrupt (to say the least) change of subject. “In Ban Zi Zhen, it’s a very common skill, a sport, but it’s still very scary to everyone at the beginning. Even if you spend years knowing that you’ll have to try it out, eventually, that doesn’t stop you from feeling nervous all the way until the day you’re placed on top of a sword, hovering several feet off the ground.”

Gently, Shi Shu took Leilani’s hands in his again, and laced their fingers together. “That’s…how I feel about most things, in our relationship. You can ask me ‘are you ready?’ as many times as you want, and the answer will probably be ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know’, because no matter how many times you visualize it in your head, nothing can really brace you for the fact that you’re about to step onto a flying sword, with a terrifyingly high chance of failing and falling repeatedly, making a fool of yourself over and over again before you can get it right.” Shi Shu mumbled, pinking again—maybe a sword wasn’t the best metaphor for these circumstances, but what else was he supposed to say or do?! Actually blurt out ‘I’m scared that I’ll be so bad at it that I’ll embarrass us both into going celibate for the rest of our lives!’

“That’s why….it’s not that I’m forcing myself to do anything, it’s just that…if I keep waiting for the day that I feel ‘ready’, I don’t know how many decades or even centuries we would have to wait.” Shi Shu explained, thumbs tracing over Leilani’s knuckles, following the up-and-down pattern at a heartbeat’s pace. “….After all, it’s because of the fear of falling that I never actually learned how to fly on a sword!” He added, giggling nervously under his breath.

[dainarps]

Leilani expected that touching Shi Shu’s horns would give him some kind of pleasurable feelings, but the extent to which Shi Shu seemed to feel these things was far greater than he thought. He even had to stop his hand to speak.

Leilani thought it would be similar to giving him a back rub or combing his hair. These were intimate, pleasurable things, but they typically didn’t render a man completely useless. The one thing he could think of that might bring that amount of...feeling to someone was a lot different from touching the top of someone’s head. There was no way that this could be equal to touching Shi Shu between the legs, right? Was it the case even for horns as big as Hua’s? What on earth happened when she accidentally brushed them against a low hanging tree branch?!

Typically he wore his emotions on his sleeve, and so he was grateful that Shi Shu had aggressively and abruptly changed subjects before he could let those thoughts sink in. He took his hands into his own, too, thank goodness, because otherwise he might just sit there staring, trying to make sense of what, exactly, he’d been given permission to do.

Surprisingly, Shi Shu’s analogy came back around and Leilani understood. He understood it completely. There was so much in the world that was scary and new and who knew what would happen with some of those things. Trying things that were out of the norm was absolutely terrifying — he was right there with Shi Shu. But, it seemed that Shi Shu was finally starting to understand part of it. It wasn’t really about being ready to do something — it was about wanting to do it anyway, even if he was scared.

“Well...you don’t have to be worried about falling if I’m here to catch you,” Leilani said, his smile warm. And he would always catch Shi Shu when he fell, because he knew that Shi Shu would catch him, too.

“And maybe we’ll trip, or fall, or make fools of ourselves, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s just the two of us. I’ve never once been afraid of looking like a fool in front of you — I look like a fool in front of you almost every day,” Leilani said, poking a little fun at himself. Everyone knew that Shi Shu was the brains behind their political relationship, and Leilani almost always deferred the more complicated questions to him, even if it made him look foolish or like he didn’t know how to manage his own kingdom. Even outside of politics, Leilani was willing to make a fool of himself to make Shi Shu happy or to make him look good.

“It’s okay to feel foolish and silly and everything else because neither of us know what’s going on. We’ll just...get there together,” Leilani said, leaning forward and pressing their lips together again.

Everything in his life was done for Shi Shu, and Shi Shu for him. They were just evening out the scales, agreeing to a little more, moving just a little further.

He parted their lips and pressed their foreheads together, wanting to stay as close as possible.

“Don’t tell me to stop unless you really mean it, then,” Leilani said. “I meant everything I said over the last few days — if this is what you want, I won’t make you wait.”

His eyes were hungry, his hands running a lazy path up and down Shi Shu’s spine. It was always hard to resist Shi Shu, but he did as he was told. He stopped when Shi Shu asked, withdrew when he seemed too nervous. He never wanted him to feel pressured and uncomfortable. But maybe this was like diving into cold water on a hot summer day — you just had to jump in before you changed your mind.

[dainarps]

“Under the bed,” Leilani replied, not looking up at Shi Shu yet. His brows were furrowed and his eyes concentrated on the lingerie. He couldn’t put the pieces together. None of them made sense. It was like he was so close to the answer, and yet every time he reached for it there was a simple fact standing in his way. Shi Shu had a husband and it wasn’t him.

“What…are we?” Leilani asked, his fingers gripping the fabric tighter as he raised his gaze to look at Shi Shu. “I know the type of person I am, and the type of person my parents raised me to be. I…I’m not the sort of person who would do this, Shi Shu. I’m not someone who would cheat like that. No matter how much I loved someone, and I don’t know why, but I can feel in my heart that I love you so, so much,” Leilani said.

“But when I saw this, there were so many memories of us kissing and touching and — I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I do feel that way about you, and I love you, I really do, but it just doesn’t make any sense!” Leilani said. “I would never do that. I could never do that to someone who was married. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

He was a good person, he had morals, he would never cheat. He just couldn’t see it. But then there were so many memories of him and Shi Shu together, doing things that were meant specifically for couples. It wasn’t right. “You’re married, Shi Shu, and as much as I love you, I can’t go on with that behavior. I don’t know how I ended up doing all of that, but we can’t do that. We shouldn’t even be sharing a bed! It’s not right, and I’m sorry, but we can’t…be as we are. If we keep doing what we’re doing I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

Especially with all of these new memories to fuel his brain. He wanted more, he craved it, and he knew that Shi Shu was in an uncomfortable marriage. He wanted to steal him away. He wanted to take him as his own and love him the way he was meant to be loved, but he couldn’t. They had to stop. They had to go back to how their relationship was supposed to be — a chief and his advisor. That was all.

[claudrps]

It was like watching a carriage coming undone, and crashing straight into a wall, a«while Shu Shu could do nothing but stand there, wondering how that happened, while he held onto the wheel that he’d removed from the carriage with his own hands.

Sitting on his (their) bed, holding onto a piece of fabric that Shi Shu could hardly bear to look at, Leilani looked as if he’d taken an arrow to the gut, his expression confused and more pained than it should ever be. The only occasion where he’d ever looked at him like that, was when he finally found him again after 5 years apart, and even then, that pain had been laced with relief, with happiness…

There was no such thing in this Leilani’s face, though. There was only pain, confusion, and a sense of betrayal that his brain could neither process nor comprehend, and the sole culprit of that was Shi Shu alone. He could blame the spell, Leilani’s idiotic idea, but the truth was, in the end, it was Shi Shu and his smartass attitude that had decided that Leilani didn’t need to know, that maybe he shouldn’t know that they were married, and while he’d made that decision with the best of intentions…it had been just a wild guess, no research put into it, a spur of the moment decision that had brought so much pain to his own husband.

It wasn’t Leilani who kept them apart, it wasn’t the spell, it wasn’t the amnesia; it was Shi Shu, and now Leilani was the one paying the consequences. All because he didn’t think to stop to think and ask everybody else about their thoughts on the situation.

In the end, he’d been so concerned over the idea of Leilani being uncomfortable being stuck in a marriage with a man that he couldn’t even remember, that it didn’t even occur to him that this Leilani was also the same Leilani that had fallen for him on first sight.  And if a fourteen years old Leilan fell for him that easily….then how could his 20 years old husband not follow the same path?

Swallowing down the dry lump stuck in his throat, Shi Shu slowly folded his fan closed, placing it down on the desk. “…Ah, funny….to think I did all of this thinking that it would save you from unnecessary struggles….the irony is truly a cruel thing.” He muttered, chuckling humorlessly, shame keeping his gaze locked on his own feet. “…I need to show you something. Just, wait here, okay nuan nan?” Not waiting for his answer, Shi Shu rushed out of the room.

He returned moments later, carrying a bottle full of black sand in his hands, holding it like it was the most precious jewel in the entire continent. Walking over to the bed, Shi Shu took a seat across him and stared down at the bottle on his lap, tracing his thumbs across it’s surface—polished; he’d made sure to clean it every day.  “Do you remember what this is? I suppose you would, given how many memories you’ve obtained in our last session. You should be able to recognize this and know what it is.” Shi Shu mused, his lips twitching into a tiny fond smile. “It’s from my wedding. But you know? I never got to experience that special dream that the bottle is meant to provide to the couple the night before the wedding. I was so stressed and scared, I couldn’t bat an eye all night…so I never go to see my husband’s memories. I was heavily disappointed when I realized what I missed out…” Sighing, Shi Shu took a moment to ponder on his words and to watch the sand shift inside the bottle, and finally looked up to meet Leilani’s gaze, his smile soft and terribly fond. “I think my husband realized that too. That’s why he’s gone, you know? It’s not that he wanted to leave me alone on my own birthday, it’s just that…he picked a rather unconventional birthday gift, and things didn’t turn out well for him.” It was…an understatement, but then, who was he to even comment on Leilani’s mistakes considering the ongoing descent of his own idiotic weak-excuse-of-a-plan.

Wetting his lips, suddenly feeling his throat very dry again, Shi Shu cleared his throat and just….kept moving forward. His mistake, his responsibility. He owed Leilani this much. “Ah, I’ve never told you anything about my husband, did I?” He asked, and despite his strained tone, a smile still tilted his lips without him even meaning to, his eyes immediately softening. “…It’s unfair, you know? I’m nothing worthy of showing off, and yet he’s always so eager to point out that I’m his husband, waxing all sorts of poetry about me, like he’s the one blessed to have me as a spouse, instead of the other way around.” He mumbled, cheeks pinking already and gosh, Leilani wasn’t even ‘back’ yet and he was already making a mess out of him!

(He missed that. He missed the way he could make him blush over everything and anything. He missed his teasing grin, the way his voice deepened when he spoke after a specially passionate kiss, he just….missed him. A lot.)

Clearing his throat again, Shi Shu fiddled with the bottle again, careful to not let his hands get sweaty to the point of smudging the glass. “And yet, I haven’t told you anything about him yet, have I? Truly, I’m the most terrible and lousy spouse that anyone could ever have.” He chuckled, the nervousness so obvious that he nearly cringed at the sound.  “My husband…he’s the most wonderful man that I’ve ever met.” Shi Shu muttered, already terribly tempted to duck and bury his face on Leilani’s chest, embarrassment coloring his cheeks red. “His kindness knows no bounds, it’s almost ridiculous, I have to handle anything business-related because he’s just kind enough to let other people take advantage of him. He’s so sweet that my blood pressure has suffered quite drastically since I moved in with him, without even getting started on all the future heart issues that I’ll probably have from prolonged exposure to his pure, raw sweetness! And his patience, heavens know how patient he has been with me all this time…”

Shi Shu trailed off, swallowing hard when the lump in his throat suddenly became sharp and painful, like something pointy dragging up and down, threatening to pierce through his neck. “…I love him. I love him more than anything or anybody else in the world and….and how ridiculous is it that…that I’ve never even told him that before?” Shi Shu nearly croaked out, the tiniest of breathless laughs squeezing through his throat. “I think I…I took his love for granted, you know? His patience, his kindness, his everything, everything that he is and that makes him so wonderful, in my head I think I’ve always figured that we would have all the time in the world to do all those things that we haven’t done yet…I didn’t say ‘i love you’ because I thought, I’m not ready yet but, we have such a long life ahead of us, so why hurry? I pushed him away in bed every single time he touched me, constantly telling him and myself that I wasn’t ready yet and that we had all the time in the world anyway, so why rush?”

Too nervous, Too anxious. Too soon. It can happen later. No Need to hurry.

Shi Shu hadn’t even realized how much he’d relied on those excuses, just…straight up adding unnecessary obstacles in front of them for no other reason other than ‘we have time’.

Except, what if they didn’t?

Their lives were so long, Shi Shu had always been sure that they would have at the very least, 300 years of happy marriage ahead of them….that is, until Leilani woke up, and looked at him as if he was a stranger, and suddenly Shi Shu was abruptly faced with a terrifying realization; what if that time was cut short? What if Leilani lost his memories permanently? What if he had to win his heart over again, what if he had to wait years for Leilani to look at him the same way he used to? 

What if his Leilani was gone, permanently?

How many regrets would he have? All those kisses that he didn’t give him, all those nights where he’d stopped his hands from wandering underneath his clothes, all those words that he wished that he’d said…all the things that he didn’t do, and that he wouldn’t ever get the chance of doing if Leilani was gone.

Maybe this wasn’t karma, after all. Maybe it was just a wakeup call, the Universe’s way of telling him ‘you’re letting precious time slip through your fingers; make good use of it while you can’.

Gently, Shi Shu took Leilani’s hands between his, thumbs tracing over his knuckles. “…I miss him. A lot. I want him to come back already.” Shi Shu muttered, eyes prickling but he refused to break now out of all times; he had to finish what he’d started, or this would be just yet another regret to add to the list. “But…getting him back is quite troublesome because, well…my husband is an idiot.” Shi Shu chuckled, slowly intertwining their fingers together, a sight that was so familiar to him but that he would never tire of. “He was so sad that I didn’t get to experience his memories on the night before our wedding….that he decided that he was going to make me a new bottle.”

Smiling softly, Shi Shu untangled one of his hands free, and gently cupped Leilani’s cheek, thumb tracing his cheekbone lovingly. “But like I’ve mentioned; my husband is an idiot. The sweetest, kindest and most wonderful idiot that I’ve ever met. The type of wonderful idiot that accidentally erases his own memories while trying to store some of them in a new bottle…just to offer them to me as a birthday gift.” 

Giving him an exasperated smile, practically dripping with fondness, Shi Shu leaned closer, and pressed his lips softly against his cheek. “My husband is running late, though…I think it’s about time he comes back home.” He murmured against his cheek, squeezing their intertwined hands.

[dainarps]

Well, now he was really confused. Shi Shu was hiding something from him — something he’d done in an attempt to make his life easier, but damn, everything was confusing as hell now! And then, because Shi Shu apparently liked to add insult to injury, when he returned to the room it was to talk about his husband and his marriage and how much he apparently loved him.

Was he trying to hurt him? Was he trying to make things worse for him? It was…cruel. Everything he’d been led to believe and everything he thought he knew about Shi Shu’s husband was turned on its head. Leilani had opened his heart to Shi Shu, he had told him everything he felt, and Shi Shu let him. Then, on top of that, there were all these memories of them together. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have these memories if Shi Shu wasn’t with him? If Shi Shu’s husband was such a nice guy, then why did he betray him? Why did they both betray him?

Shi Shu even had the gall to be so kind to him right now, talking to him as if this wasn’t breaking his heart, holding his hands and sitting close to him. It didn’t make sense and if he was confused now then Shi Shu was clearly only making things worse.

His heart felt like it was shattering into a million little pieces, and he was falling, but not in the way he had when he first opened his eyes. He was falling into an abyss, spinning out of control, and he had no idea when it would stop. Not only was he being dumped — that was what it felt like — but he was also being compared to someone who sounded perfect for Shi Shu, someone he loved. On top of that, too, was the confusion. His body hurt, physically and emotionally, and he couldn’t take it.

Shi Shu pressed his hand to his cheek and instead of stinging it felt comfortable and he hated that. He hated it until he spoke.

If he had been falling, then now he had hit the ground — and he hit it hard.

Memories flooded back to him, a caravan filled with dancers and musicians, a formal wedding, Shi Shu kneeling beside him at the alter, a pathetic attempt at a dance, months of longing for a few weeks of visiting, years of waiting and fear, him falling into Shi Shu’s broken arms, the two of them marrying again, their first kisses, their shared words of admiration for each other.

Everything clicked into place, and the moment Shi Shu pulled away from his cheek Leilani turned and threw his arms around him, pinning them both down onto the bed and nearly sending the, thankfully corked, bottle of sand flying.

Shi Shu was his husband. They were married. They’d been married since he was a child. Of course. Of course. How could he have forgotten?! How had he could have forgotten everything?

Leilani didn’t know what to do. It felt almost as if he had been gone for the last few days and was truly seeing Shi Shu again for the first time. He ran his hands over his cheeks and into his hair and pressed kisses to his lips and his jaw, heart pounding in his chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I didn’t know. I thought I did it right. I just wanted to surprise you — I had no idea. Ku’uipo, I’m so sorry. You must’ve been so worried. It’s me. I’m here. I’m here,” Leilani said as he pulled away, though it could hardly be called that. He was still practically laying on top of him, scared to let him go — scared he might forget him again.

“Are you okay? I should move. I’m sorry,” Leilani said.

He finally moved off of him and knelt beside him on the bed, finding his hands with his own trembling fingers, holding them tight. The last few days were like a whirlwind and the last few moments had him spinning. He’d missed his birthday. His first birthday in Pali Kai. He’d made him so troubled and worried. Shi Shu didn’t deserve that. Shi Shu only deserved a lifetime of happiness, and that was what he’d been trying to give him. It was all he ever wanted to do. Instead, he nearly broke his heart.

Wait.

“Did…you just say you loved me?”

[claudrps]

Shi Shu watched as the pieces connected on Leilani’s head, waiting anxiously—praying that he was right, that he hadn’t just messed up things even further, if such was even possible!

Swallowing nervously, Shi Shu opened his mouth to give it another try, maybe he needed another hint, maybe he should be a little clearer—

But his concerns were squeezed out of his body along with a startled squeak, as Leilani pounced on him like an overeager puppy, and while the Shi Shu from a week ago might have felt a bit intimidated and maybe even a bit nervous over the idea of being squished underneath Leilani’s body, this current Shi Shu welcomed it with open arms. It was comforting, to feel his weight on him, a grounding pressure that reminded and confirmed to him that this was happening, this was real.

His husband was back.

Shi Shu couldn’t even help the giggles that blurted out of him as Leilani poured kisses all over him, his chest so full and warm that it nearly hurt from the sheer happiness and overwhelming relief that came pouring in, filling in the holes and patching up the wounds that Shi Shu had neglected.

“Shh it’s okay, nuan nuan, you’re back now. You’re back.“ He whispered once his lips were free, tilting his head to press his lips against the hand cupping his cheek.

How could he have ever thought of this as ‘embarrassing’ or ‘shameful’? There was nothing to be embarrassed about the way Leilani poured all his love into him like it was his life’s mission, there was nothing shameful about the way that Shi Shu wanted to wrap himself around him and hold him until every bone in his body hurt.

The only ‘shameful’ thing in this whole relationship, was how long it had taken him to realize that.

For once, in an ironic turn of events, this time it was Shi Shu who didn’t want Leilani to let go yet. He wanted to just stay there, laying down on their bed, holding onto him, feeling his every breath, every heartbeat, hands in his hair and his mouth on every inch of skin that he could reach, hungry in a way that he had never thought possible.

Unfortunately, Leilani was too well trained; once he hit the imaginary time up stipulated by Shi Shu’s nervous self, he pulled away, sitting back only to lock their hands together, looking so shaky and agitated that Shi Shu wanted to do nothing more than hold him close and kiss him until there wasn’t a single trace of anxiety on his face. 

That, though, would have to wait for it’s turn, because first, of course; Leilani had to make a flustered mess out of his husband within the first two minutes after he just got him back.

A new record!

Face reddening spectacularly, Shi Shu felt his fingers itch with the urge to reach over for his fan to hide his face….but he didn’t.

Enough of the fan, enough with the excuses, enough with the obsessive ‘what ifs’; he was so tired, so darn tired, so done with denying himself what he wanted—what they wanted.

“….No.” Shi Shu said, very firm despite the fact that he was sporting one of the most vicious shades of red that had ever decorated his face. Then, freeing his hands from Leilani’s grip, Shi Shu stomped down two decades of manners, etiquette and self-restraint, and stood up on the bed, only just so that he could move over and take a seat on Leilani’s lap instead, out of all places.

Like a lock snapping into place, Shi Shu crossed his ankles behind Leilani’s back and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him in so close, so close that not a string of hair would be able to squeeze between their bodies, as if it was his plan to actually merge them together until they became one single giant body mass.

“…You don’t get to leave me on my birthday and then pull away from me as well.” Shi Shu mumbled from where he had his face buried on Leilani’s neck, tightening his grip around him as he breathed in the scent that he now fully acknowledged as ‘home’, eyes still prickling despite the smile stretched across his face.

“One of my siblings describes their marriage as ‘house arrest except with cuddle benefits’. In that case, consider yourself under arrest, mister; your sentence is that you can’t leave this bed until my quota of kisses and cuddles has been fulfilled.” He declared, pressing a long string of butterfly kisses across Leilani’s neck and all the way up to his jaw, where the kisses began to linger a little longer, especially as he kissed his cheeks, forehead and, finally, his lips, where he pressed long, dragged out kisses, his fingertips retracing the paths that his lips had already drawn across his skin, before losing themselves in Leilani’s soft curls, like a famished man enjoying a meal for the first time in days.

Only then, when Shi Shu was satisfied and officially breathless, did he finally pull away—if it could even be called that; it was barely enough for them to catch their breath, their noses and forehead pressed together, lips close enough that they could graze each other with just the tiniest tilt of their heads.

“…I guess it takes one bout of amnesia and two kissless days to, as Ji Guang so kindly put it: ‘get that stick out of my ass’, huh?” Shi Shu mumbled, blurting out a tiny nervous giggle, quickly sobering up though, as he stared warmly into Leilani’s eyes, hands gently cupping his face again, sighing contently.

“I love you, A-Leilani.” Shi Shu whispered, practically nuzzling his face as he pulled him into another kiss, arms wrapping tightly around him again, his grip edging between desperate and possessive, like a dragon hoarding his precious treasure. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry… I shouldn't…shouldn’t have taken such a long time to say it! There’s so many things that I should have done and said earlier, and that is just one out of too many things that I want to tell you.”

He sighed against his lips, fingertips dragging across Leilani’s scalp with each motion of his fingers combing through his hair, like he just couldn’t stay still or stop touching him—as if he would vanish if he did. “Things will be better from now on. No more pushing away, no more stopping, no more excuses, I’m…”

Shi Shu trailed off, the reddish hue quickly returning to his face as he took one of Leilani’s hands and, taking advantage of this possibly-temporary bout of courage; shakily placed that hand on top of one of his horns, wrapping his fingers around it.

“…You have permission to t-touch them.” Shi Shu mumbled, so red that even his horns were starting to heat up as well. Then, because he owed him this much, he added; “I…w-want you to touch them.” He clarified, only not completely mortified to death because he actually meant it.

[dainarps]

No? Leilani scoffed, a smirk tilting his lips. Liar. He’d heard him say it! Did he miss him so badly that he managed to finally blurt that out? They really were going to have to have a talk about  just when Shi Shu felt comfortable talking to him. But maybe not now. Right now, Shi Shu seemed determined to make up for lost time — either that or surprise him completely.

He stood up on the bed, and if that wasn’t shocking enough, promptly plopped himself down on his lap.

Leilani had always been the one to make the first move. He had no problem laying his head in Shi Shu’s lap or curling up against him. He delighted in the moments where Shi Shu would hold his arm, and he expected to not get anything more. Shi Shu wanted to take his time, and that was fine. Leilani was just happy to have his feelings returned. Anything more was a bonus. He wrapped his arms around Shi Shu, resting his hands in the small of his back, keeping him close while he placed kisses along his skin. He wanted to make a joke about how this couldn’t possibly be his Shi Shu and how he had definitely gotten himself sick or feverish because there was no way Shi Shu would kiss him like this, but…he kept his mouth shut.

He wanted to enjoy this. He had been waiting so long for some kind of positive response from Shi Shu. He knew that Shi Shu liked him, but whenever things got too physical, he tended to shy away — despite obviously liking certain things. He liked being kissed, and he liked touching his hair. Somehow, Shi Shu still felt as if he needed to restrain himself.

Leilani returned every kiss to his lips and leaned into each touch, reveling in these delightful feelings. They were back. They were both here. “Mm, well…I didn’t really think you had a stick up your ass,” Leilani responded, smirking again. He just thought that Shi Shu was nervous or prudish, and that was okay. Leilani would wait forever for him to be ready.

And then, to blow all the kissing and sitting in his lap out of the water, Shi Shu confessed his love for him again. Leilani didn’t feel embarrassed, or shy after hearing that. He didn’t even truly need to hear it, though it was certainly nice. He knew that Shi Shu loved him. Shi Shu wouldn’t let him do half the things he did if he didn’t. Leilani didn’t need to hear Shi Shu saying it out loud, but the memory had cemented itself into his brain regardless. Shi Shu loved him — truly and honestly loved him, and Leilani would never let him forget it. He would do everything he could to make Shi Shu love him even more.

“Eh?” Leilani stared as his hand was brought up and placed atop Shi Shu’s horns. He looked between Shi Shu and his hand, a bit concerned. He knew that, for some reason, touching his horns was a very private thing. Shi Shu didn’t look exactly comfortable with it — likely because it was all very new to him — but, he insisted he wanted him to.

Leilani had trouble moving forward with Shi Shu because he wanted clear and obvious consent. Their past had been so complicated, and Shi Shu had been through so much and he’d been raised completely differently. Leilani didn’t want to overstep his bounds and do something that made him uncomfortable. Each time Shi Shu told him no more, Leilani listened. He would always respect whatever lines Shi Shu drew.

Now, though, he felt as if those lines had been erased, and new ones were popping up — the problem was that he didn’t know where the new ones were. How far could he go? And, on top of that, was Shi Shu really okay doing these things? “I don’t want you to feel pressured,” Leilani said, tracing a finger over the soft velvety horn. They had grown almost an inch since Shi Shu had moved here. “Just because I lost my memories of you…doesn’t mean we have to rush and do everything right now — right away.” Though, of course, he certainly wouldn’t mind that. Shi Shu had probably spent the last 72 hours doing a lot of thinking, and doing even more missing. Shi Shu had missed him deeply, and Leilani didn’t want him agreeing to all of this simply because he’d been scared he’d never see him again. “I…want you to want to be with me like that,” Leilani said, following a slight curve in the horn with his fingertip. “I don’t want us to be together…because you’re scared. I want us to be together because you want to be.”

They both deserved that. They deserved to be with each other naturally, in a way that made them both comfortable. Leilani would always provide that, no matter what. Their emotional needs would always come before their physical needs, he was sure. If Shi Shu wasn’t ready, he wouldn’t push him, simply because he was afraid of “what ifs.”

[dainarps]

“Under the bed,” Leilani replied, not looking up at Shi Shu yet. His brows were furrowed and his eyes concentrated on the lingerie. He couldn’t put the pieces together. None of them made sense. It was like he was so close to the answer, and yet every time he reached for it there was a simple fact standing in his way. Shi Shu had a husband and it wasn’t him.

“What…are we?” Leilani asked, his fingers gripping the fabric tighter as he raised his gaze to look at Shi Shu. “I know the type of person I am, and the type of person my parents raised me to be. I…I’m not the sort of person who would do this, Shi Shu. I’m not someone who would cheat like that. No matter how much I loved someone, and I don’t know why, but I can feel in my heart that I love you so, so much,” Leilani said.

“But when I saw this, there were so many memories of us kissing and touching and — I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I do feel that way about you, and I love you, I really do, but it just doesn’t make any sense!” Leilani said. “I would never do that. I could never do that to someone who was married. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

He was a good person, he had morals, he would never cheat. He just couldn’t see it. But then there were so many memories of him and Shi Shu together, doing things that were meant specifically for couples. It wasn’t right. “You’re married, Shi Shu, and as much as I love you, I can’t go on with that behavior. I don’t know how I ended up doing all of that, but we can’t do that. We shouldn’t even be sharing a bed! It’s not right, and I’m sorry, but we can’t…be as we are. If we keep doing what we’re doing I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

Especially with all of these new memories to fuel his brain. He wanted more, he craved it, and he knew that Shi Shu was in an uncomfortable marriage. He wanted to steal him away. He wanted to take him as his own and love him the way he was meant to be loved, but he couldn’t. They had to stop. They had to go back to how their relationship was supposed to be — a chief and his advisor. That was all.

[claudrps]

It was like watching a carriage coming undone, and crashing straight into a wall, a«while Shu Shu could do nothing but stand there, wondering how that happened, while he held onto the wheel that he’d removed from the carriage with his own hands.

Sitting on his (their) bed, holding onto a piece of fabric that Shi Shu could hardly bear to look at, Leilani looked as if he’d taken an arrow to the gut, his expression confused and more pained than it should ever be. The only occasion where he’d ever looked at him like that, was when he finally found him again after 5 years apart, and even then, that pain had been laced with relief, with happiness…

There was no such thing in this Leilani’s face, though. There was only pain, confusion, and a sense of betrayal that his brain could neither process nor comprehend, and the sole culprit of that was Shi Shu alone. He could blame the spell, Leilani’s idiotic idea, but the truth was, in the end, it was Shi Shu and his smartass attitude that had decided that Leilani didn’t need to know, that maybe he shouldn’t know that they were married, and while he’d made that decision with the best of intentions…it had been just a wild guess, no research put into it, a spur of the moment decision that had brought so much pain to his own husband.

It wasn’t Leilani who kept them apart, it wasn’t the spell, it wasn’t the amnesia; it was Shi Shu, and now Leilani was the one paying the consequences. All because he didn’t think to stop to think and ask everybody else about their thoughts on the situation.

In the end, he’d been so concerned over the idea of Leilani being uncomfortable being stuck in a marriage with a man that he couldn’t even remember, that it didn’t even occur to him that this Leilani was also the same Leilani that had fallen for him on first sight.  And if a fourteen years old Leilan fell for him that easily….then how could his 20 years old husband not follow the same path?

Swallowing down the dry lump stuck in his throat, Shi Shu slowly folded his fan closed, placing it down on the desk. “…Ah, funny….to think I did all of this thinking that it would save you from unnecessary struggles….the irony is truly a cruel thing.” He muttered, chuckling humorlessly, shame keeping his gaze locked on his own feet. “…I need to show you something. Just, wait here, okay nuan nan?” Not waiting for his answer, Shi Shu rushed out of the room.

He returned moments later, carrying a bottle full of black sand in his hands, holding it like it was the most precious jewel in the entire continent. Walking over to the bed, Shi Shu took a seat across him and stared down at the bottle on his lap, tracing his thumbs across it’s surface—polished; he’d made sure to clean it every day.  “Do you remember what this is? I suppose you would, given how many memories you’ve obtained in our last session. You should be able to recognize this and know what it is.” Shi Shu mused, his lips twitching into a tiny fond smile. “It’s from my wedding. But you know? I never got to experience that special dream that the bottle is meant to provide to the couple the night before the wedding. I was so stressed and scared, I couldn’t bat an eye all night…so I never go to see my husband’s memories. I was heavily disappointed when I realized what I missed out…” Sighing, Shi Shu took a moment to ponder on his words and to watch the sand shift inside the bottle, and finally looked up to meet Leilani’s gaze, his smile soft and terribly fond. “I think my husband realized that too. That’s why he’s gone, you know? It’s not that he wanted to leave me alone on my own birthday, it’s just that…he picked a rather unconventional birthday gift, and things didn’t turn out well for him.” It was…an understatement, but then, who was he to even comment on Leilani’s mistakes considering the ongoing descent of his own idiotic weak-excuse-of-a-plan.

Wetting his lips, suddenly feeling his throat very dry again, Shi Shu cleared his throat and just….kept moving forward. His mistake, his responsibility. He owed Leilani this much. “Ah, I’ve never told you anything about my husband, did I?” He asked, and despite his strained tone, a smile still tilted his lips without him even meaning to, his eyes immediately softening. “…It’s unfair, you know? I’m nothing worthy of showing off, and yet he’s always so eager to point out that I’m his husband, waxing all sorts of poetry about me, like he’s the one blessed to have me as a spouse, instead of the other way around.” He mumbled, cheeks pinking already and gosh, Leilani wasn’t even ‘back’ yet and he was already making a mess out of him!

(He missed that. He missed the way he could make him blush over everything and anything. He missed his teasing grin, the way his voice deepened when he spoke after a specially passionate kiss, he just….missed him. A lot.)

Clearing his throat again, Shi Shu fiddled with the bottle again, careful to not let his hands get sweaty to the point of smudging the glass. “And yet, I haven’t told you anything about him yet, have I? Truly, I’m the most terrible and lousy spouse that anyone could ever have.” He chuckled, the nervousness so obvious that he nearly cringed at the sound.  “My husband…he’s the most wonderful man that I’ve ever met.” Shi Shu muttered, already terribly tempted to duck and bury his face on Leilani’s chest, embarrassment coloring his cheeks red. “His kindness knows no bounds, it’s almost ridiculous, I have to handle anything business-related because he’s just kind enough to let other people take advantage of him. He’s so sweet that my blood pressure has suffered quite drastically since I moved in with him, without even getting started on all the future heart issues that I’ll probably have from prolonged exposure to his pure, raw sweetness! And his patience, heavens know how patient he has been with me all this time…”

Shi Shu trailed off, swallowing hard when the lump in his throat suddenly became sharp and painful, like something pointy dragging up and down, threatening to pierce through his neck. “…I love him. I love him more than anything or anybody else in the world and….and how ridiculous is it that…that I’ve never even told him that before?” Shi Shu nearly croaked out, the tiniest of breathless laughs squeezing through his throat. “I think I…I took his love for granted, you know? His patience, his kindness, his everything, everything that he is and that makes him so wonderful, in my head I think I’ve always figured that we would have all the time in the world to do all those things that we haven’t done yet…I didn’t say ‘i love you’ because I thought, I’m not ready yet but, we have such a long life ahead of us, so why hurry? I pushed him away in bed every single time he touched me, constantly telling him and myself that I wasn’t ready yet and that we had all the time in the world anyway, so why rush?”

Too nervous, Too anxious. Too soon. It can happen later. No Need to hurry.

Shi Shu hadn’t even realized how much he’d relied on those excuses, just…straight up adding unnecessary obstacles in front of them for no other reason other than ‘we have time’.

Except, what if they didn’t?

Their lives were so long, Shi Shu had always been sure that they would have at the very least, 300 years of happy marriage ahead of them….that is, until Leilani woke up, and looked at him as if he was a stranger, and suddenly Shi Shu was abruptly faced with a terrifying realization; what if that time was cut short? What if Leilani lost his memories permanently? What if he had to win his heart over again, what if he had to wait years for Leilani to look at him the same way he used to? 

What if his Leilani was gone, permanently?

How many regrets would he have? All those kisses that he didn’t give him, all those nights where he’d stopped his hands from wandering underneath his clothes, all those words that he wished that he’d said…all the things that he didn’t do, and that he wouldn’t ever get the chance of doing if Leilani was gone.

Maybe this wasn’t karma, after all. Maybe it was just a wakeup call, the Universe’s way of telling him ‘you’re letting precious time slip through your fingers; make good use of it while you can’.

Gently, Shi Shu took Leilani’s hands between his, thumbs tracing over his knuckles. “…I miss him. A lot. I want him to come back already.” Shi Shu muttered, eyes prickling but he refused to break now out of all times; he had to finish what he’d started, or this would be just yet another regret to add to the list. “But…getting him back is quite troublesome because, well…my husband is an idiot.” Shi Shu chuckled, slowly intertwining their fingers together, a sight that was so familiar to him but that he would never tire of. “He was so sad that I didn’t get to experience his memories on the night before our wedding….that he decided that he was going to make me a new bottle.”

Smiling softly, Shi Shu untangled one of his hands free, and gently cupped Leilani’s cheek, thumb tracing his cheekbone lovingly. “But like I’ve mentioned; my husband is an idiot. The sweetest, kindest and most wonderful idiot that I’ve ever met. The type of wonderful idiot that accidentally erases his own memories while trying to store some of them in a new bottle…just to offer them to me as a birthday gift.” 

Giving him an exasperated smile, practically dripping with fondness, Shi Shu leaned closer, and pressed his lips softly against his cheek. “My husband is running late, though…I think it’s about time he comes back home.” He murmured against his cheek, squeezing their intertwined hands.

[dainarps]

Well, now he was really confused. Shi Shu was hiding something from him — something he’d done in an attempt to make his life easier, but damn, everything was confusing as hell now! And then, because Shi Shu apparently liked to add insult to injury, when he returned to the room it was to talk about his husband and his marriage and how much he apparently loved him.

Was he trying to hurt him? Was he trying to make things worse for him? It was...cruel. Everything he’d been led to believe and everything he thought he knew about Shi Shu’s husband was turned on its head. Leilani had opened his heart to Shi Shu, he had told him everything he felt, and Shi Shu let him. Then, on top of that, there were all these memories of them together. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have these memories if Shi Shu wasn’t with him? If Shi Shu’s husband was such a nice guy, then why did he betray him? Why did they both betray him?

Shi Shu even had the gall to be so kind to him right now, talking to him as if this wasn’t breaking his heart, holding his hands and sitting close to him. It didn’t make sense and if he was confused now then Shi Shu was clearly only making things worse.

His heart felt like it was shattering into a million little pieces, and he was falling, but not in the way he had when he first opened his eyes. He was falling into an abyss, spinning out of control, and he had no idea when it would stop. Not only was he being dumped — that was what it felt like — but he was also being compared to someone who sounded perfect for Shi Shu, someone he loved. On top of that, too, was the confusion. His body hurt, physically and emotionally, and he couldn’t take it.

Shi Shu pressed his hand to his cheek and instead of stinging it felt comfortable and he hated that. He hated it until he spoke.

If he had been falling, then now he had hit the ground — and he hit it hard.

Memories flooded back to him, a caravan filled with dancers and musicians, a formal wedding, Shi Shu kneeling beside him at the alter, a pathetic attempt at a dance, months of longing for a few weeks of visiting, years of waiting and fear, him falling into Shi Shu’s broken arms, the two of them marrying again, their first kisses, their shared words of admiration for each other.

Everything clicked into place, and the moment Shi Shu pulled away from his cheek Leilani turned and threw his arms around him, pinning them both down onto the bed and nearly sending the, thankfully corked, bottle of sand flying.

Shi Shu was his husband. They were married. They’d been married since he was a child. Of course. Of course. How could he have forgotten?! How had he could have forgotten everything?

Leilani didn’t know what to do. It felt almost as if he had been gone for the last few days and was truly seeing Shi Shu again for the first time. He ran his hands over his cheeks and into his hair and pressed kisses to his lips and his jaw, heart pounding in his chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I didn’t know. I thought I did it right. I just wanted to surprise you — I had no idea. Ku’uipo, I’m so sorry. You must’ve been so worried. It’s me. I’m here. I’m here,” Leilani said as he pulled away, though it could hardly be called that. He was still practically laying on top of him, scared to let him go — scared he might forget him again.

“Are you okay? I should move. I’m sorry,” Leilani said.

He finally moved off of him and knelt beside him on the bed, finding his hands with his own trembling fingers, holding them tight. The last few days were like a whirlwind and the last few moments had him spinning. He’d missed his birthday. His first birthday in Pali Kai. He’d made him so troubled and worried. Shi Shu didn’t deserve that. Shi Shu only deserved a lifetime of happiness, and that was what he’d been trying to give him. It was all he ever wanted to do. Instead, he nearly broke his heart.

Wait.

“Did...you just say you loved me?”

[dainarps]

“Under the bed,” Leilani replied, not looking up at Shi Shu yet. His brows were furrowed and his eyes concentrated on the lingerie. He couldn’t put the pieces together. None of them made sense. It was like he was so close to the answer, and yet every time he reached for it there was a simple fact standing in his way. Shi Shu had a husband and it wasn’t him.

“What…are we?” Leilani asked, his fingers gripping the fabric tighter as he raised his gaze to look at Shi Shu. “I know the type of person I am, and the type of person my parents raised me to be. I…I’m not the sort of person who would do this, Shi Shu. I’m not someone who would cheat like that. No matter how much I loved someone, and I don’t know why, but I can feel in my heart that I love you so, so much,” Leilani said.

“But when I saw this, there were so many memories of us kissing and touching and — I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I do feel that way about you, and I love you, I really do, but it just doesn’t make any sense!” Leilani said. “I would never do that. I could never do that to someone who was married. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

He was a good person, he had morals, he would never cheat. He just couldn’t see it. But then there were so many memories of him and Shi Shu together, doing things that were meant specifically for couples. It wasn’t right. “You’re married, Shi Shu, and as much as I love you, I can’t go on with that behavior. I don’t know how I ended up doing all of that, but we can’t do that. We shouldn’t even be sharing a bed! It’s not right, and I’m sorry, but we can’t…be as we are. If we keep doing what we’re doing I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

Especially with all of these new memories to fuel his brain. He wanted more, he craved it, and he knew that Shi Shu was in an uncomfortable marriage. He wanted to steal him away. He wanted to take him as his own and love him the way he was meant to be loved, but he couldn’t. They had to stop. They had to go back to how their relationship was supposed to be — a chief and his advisor. That was all.

[claudrps]

Hearing Nalu’s strained and scratchy voice was terrible, especially when Ji Guang was pointedly aware of what had caused it, but it was nothing compared to his words and the implication that tagged along with them.

Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. Or, at the least not as dumb as his mothers wanted to make him be; his social awkwardness and general struggles to fit in with the rest of society could easily be blamed on the fact that he’d jumped from unwanted orphan child to being an actual prince in the span of a single day, his inability to control anything fire-related could be justified by the fact that he had too much fire in him which made his energy unstable, and his obsession with anything ocean-related could simply be due to the fact that he’d spent his entire life without ever seeing anything other than mountains, lakes, and ponds.

What could not be justified or shrugged off, though—and oh, he’d tried; nearly every day he’d spent on Pali Kai had a whole hour dedicated to self-reflection, mostly related to the highly troubling thoughts that had been sneaking into his head more often than he would have liked—was the fact that being an orphan-turned-prince didn’t justify the fact that he’d spent ten whole minutes underwater without it ever hitting him that he should come up for air, or that all sea animals seemed to be viciously attached to him, without even getting started on the wonderful, thrilling sensation that always washed over him whenever he was underwater, something too akin to the feeling of returning home after decades apart. 

 So no; Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. He was, though, pretty good at acting like it, and apparently the universe shook it’s big stupid head at him, frowning disapprovingly before shoving this situation onto him, as if punishing him for ignoring all the ‘generous’ signs that it had been tossing at his head this whole time.

It had never crossed his head, though, that he might not be the only one silently catching those hints. Mostly because he would have never ever believed that anyone would bother to pay that much attention to him, to the point of figuring out the realization that Ji Guang had spent weeks avoiding.

Not for the first, and probably not for the last time either; Nalu was several steps ahead of him, smiling reassuringly while patiently waiting for him to catch up, without ever pointing out just how long he’d been standing there—and that was the most unnerving part; maybe he’d only figured out yesterday, or weeks ago, Ji Guang might never know. Just like he would never ever figure out when Nalu had stopped seeing him as the ‘spoiled angry prince’ that he’d met at the boat, and became instead ‘the angry but amusing lôlô that I want to kiss’.

His thoughts were thrown back to the past, to a cold orphanage where immature, childish yet still cruel little hands used to tug on his hair and try to poke at his eye, where smiling possible-parents flinched away from him, faces pale as they whispered among themselves, where the caretakers used to call him ‘little beast’ instead of the name that they had hastily scribbled down on his documents…  Swallowing hard, Ji Guang focused on the pattern of his soaked up skirt with vicious attention, using it as an excuse to avoid Nalu’s (too genuine, too kind) gaze, so drastically different from the way that literally every single person in his life had reacted when faced with his stupid eye.

Speaking of.

Long hair was already hard to deal with, but wet hair, stiff and crusty with salt and entangled after struggling in the water? It was not only the future doom of his comb, but also terribly uncooperative, like a thick, cold mass that had to be furiously manhandled just to find where his fringe started and where it ended. Giving up trying to smooth it out, Ji Guang resigned himself with the tangled mess that dangled awkwardly over the unwanted half of his face, like a seaweed curtain hanging from his head. Clearing his throat—hard to accomplish, given how the traitorous thing had wrapped itself into a knot that kinda hurt when he spoke, and that was somehow connected to the stinging in his eyes—, Ji Guang continued the arduous task of untangling his hair, using it mostly as an excuse to not have to look up at Nalu.  “…You’re a dumbass, I hope you know that.” Ji Guang grumbled, internally wincing at the obvious strain in his voice, barely an ounce of his usual grumpiness. “Who the fuck looks at a guy with a fucked up eye and the ability to breathe underwater and decides ‘oh yea, I want to know more about that guy’, I know your self-preservation skills are shit, but that’s stretching it!” He scoffed, but his cheeks had yet to stop burning, an unending furnace that started on his chest and spread out to the rest of his body. 

  (It didn’t feel like gratitude. Or relief. Or like something warm and fluttery caged between his ribs. It didn’t. Ji Guang knew from his own previous experience that if he repeated that enough times to himself, his brain would eventually just conform to that and accept it as a fact.)

Biting hard on his lip, Ji Guang shrugged stiffly, combing his fingers through his tangled fringe. “…I don’t know. The last thing I remember thinking about was how nice the water felt, and how pretty the moon looked, and then everything just got…muffled. I can’t remember much.” He grumbled, tucking his feet closer to his body when a gentle wave tried to lick his toes, his glare wary, as if the sea itself was an old friend that had just betrayed him.   “Deep inside, I was aware that something wasn’t right, but at the same time, something felt weirdly right like…like I should be doing that.” He added, gesticulating awkwardly as if it would somehow help him to convey it better. “It felt like when I swam for the first time. You said to use my arms and legs, but in my head I was like ‘nah that’s wrong, do it like this instead’ and it worked….it was the same feeling that had me try to breathe underwater, even though I had no reason to think that would work in the first place.” Ji Guang bit down on his cheek, watching distractedly as a little seastar clumsily crawled up his hand, climbing up his arm like it was it’s life mission.

There was something else, though…

All of those previous occasions had obvious triggers, but this? Ji Guang had swam with Nalu many times before, so why this sudden reaction now, out of all times?

The seastar made good progress on his arm while Ji Guang pondered on his own thoughts, happily resting on his shoulder by the time he finally continued. “I wanted to take you somewhere. I think.” He mumbled, fingers running through his wet hair again, tugging so hard on the knots that surely he’d be bald by the time they left that beach. “There was this…nagging feeling like…you know when it’s a specially nice day outside, and you just feel motivated to do things you don’t usually do? I looked at the moon, at the sea, and I felt like that; like it was the perfect time to do something. And that, for some goddamn reason, involved dragging you all the way down to the bottom of the sea, as far away from the shore as possible—”

Ji Guang stiffened, his jaw clicking shut as he froze in place, as if he’d been slapped. “…I was trying to get you away from the fucking shore! Fuck, heavens knows why because I sure as hell don’t, but that’s what it felt like; it’s a beautiful night, we need to get away from the shore while the moon is still nice and pretty. Maybe I was thinking of migrating for all I know! Maybe my goddamn brain just shrinks into the size of a sardine’s brain when I’m in the water, who knows!” Ji Guang groaned exasperatedly, tired and frustrated as he slammed yet into another wall, still failing to reach a conclusive answer.

Grumpy, tired, still dazed from the goddamn hellish drink and emotionally exhausted, Ji Guang dropped back against the rock, arms crossed over his chest, his single eye glaring viciously at the moon. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ji Guang pointed a rude and accusatory finger up at the globe. “Fuck you!” He shouted, as if his voice could possibly reach it — it certainly wasn’t going to stop him from trying. “One day, I’m gonna climb all the way up there, and kick the living hell out of you until you give me some goddamn answers!” He declared, pointing his finger up again, “Bitch!”

[dainarps]

Maybe he was a dumbass, but it certainly wasn’t because he liked a guy with one eye that was different from the other. It was probably more because that guy had damn near killed him. But, like he said, he didn’t think he had meant it.

Ji Guang in the water was like a toddler trying things out for the first time. You could tell him not to touch the fire because it was hot, but he wouldn’t learn until he shoved his hand in it. He was exploring this new part of himself, a whole new world around him, and Nalu wanted to help him get through it. He wanted to help him understand this weird part of himself.

He didn’t know why he wanted to bring him there, he just did. Nalu had a couple ideas — namely because he was a hopeless romantic. Ji Guang was the happiest he could be when he was in the water, so maybe…he wanted him to be with him in his happiest place.

But that was probably him being a hopeless romantic.

“Wait, are you trying to fight the moon right now?” Nalu asked, leaning over and looking down at Ji Guang.

“If anything, you should be thanking it. Without it, maybe I’d never have kissed you,” he said. He leaned down, pressed another quick peck to Ji Guang’s lips.

When he pulled away he jumped off the rock and dove into a passing wave, letting it carry him a ways as he swam.

“Hurry up, moron, or your hair’s gonna dry like that and everyone’s going to know you’re not nearly as suave as you think you are,” Nalu called. It was a long way back to shore, but he and Ji Guang had a long road ahead of them, too, and they had to start somewhere.

[claudrps]

Still glowering, Ji Guang prepared a response, but just like before, it was lost the moment he saw Nalu suddenly leaning down—and clearly, the moon really was fucking with his head because, the only thing that crossed his head that very moment was that Nalu’s jaw and neck looked weirdly biteable from that angle—, eyes wide and face ridiculously red when the weakest excuse of a kiss was planted on his mouth. 

  Two kisses. The fucking bastard actually dared to steal two kisses from him, like he had the darn right to claim them for himself when he damn well pleased!

“Y-You!” Ji Guang bristled, his ears burning as he jumped into the water, chasing him like a shark catching the scent of blood. “You little—! W-Who wants your darn kisses anyway, huh?! Fuck you, shitty kiss thief—that was weak as hell, by the fucking way!” He snapped on the top of his lungs, but despite ‘furiously chasing’ after him, Nalu still reached the shore without Ji Guang ever catching up with him, despite clearly being the fastest swimmer.

Distracted with his flustered anger, it didn’t even cross Ji Guang’s mind, for even a second, to be wary or concerned over the moon or the water.

_____________

Standing very tall and firm, with her horns nearly bumping into the strings of lanterns dangling above their heads, and her arms crossed over her chest, Shi Hua stared down at the pair currently dripping on the floor like a especially pathetic pair of sheepish cats that had been caught trying to sneak into the fishbowl, and her jaw slowly unhinged open, only to click back closed again, a complicated expression crossing her face as she squinted down at them.

In all of his life, Ji Guang had never seen his Shi mother go completely speechless.

He wasn’t sure if that was a feat that he should be proud of, or just straight up ashamed.

His Ji mother, though, had the exact opposite issue; she had too much to say, and only one mouth to blurt it all out. “Oh my heavens—what happened?! We looked for the two of you everywhere but the information that we got was highly perplexing and—A-Guang, people are saying that they saw you picking up young Nalu and carrying him over to the beach….but ah-ah maybe it was a trick of the lighting! Surely they mistook you for someone else! Surely you wouldn’t pick up this young man and march to the nearest beach to toss him at the ocean….right?”  Enya blurted out in nearly one breath, just a mess of nerves and fancy frills as she jumped back and forth between the two boys, one moment trying to fix Ji Guang’s hair, then checking Nalu’s forehead for a fever, occasionally attempting to (uselessly) pat their faces dry with a napkin, all while constantly taking their hands between their own, like they were two traumatized young men in dire need of comfort.

“…It was hot. I thought we could go for a swim.” Ji Guang grumbled under his breath, and no amount of messy hair could possibly disguise just how red he was, his single eye dodging eye contact at all cost. Silently, Shi Hua narrowed her eyes at him. He could feel her stare without even needing to look at her once.

 “….We may or not be…a little bit tipsy.” He added, as a lame last-second excuse to patch up their already suspicious absence and even more suspicious late-night dip in the ocean. 

Shi Hua squinted even further, but her lips twitched into the slightest of smirks. “You know, most teenagers would pick an empty closet or an abandoned house, but I suppose the times have changed, and young people must adjust to their current circumstances.” She mused, exchanging an amused look with her wife, wiggling her brows.

The blank, confused and innocent look that Ji Guang gave them was so pure that it could have competed with Shi Shu’s.

[dainarps]

Ji Guang never caught up with him, despite obviously being able to. Nalu hoped it wasn’t because he was afraid of what happened if they were both in the water together at the same time. Nalu preferred time think that he did it solely so he could shout at him the whole way there and then some.

In fact, he didn’t shut up his complaining until they reached the tops of the cliffs again. The party was winding down, his own parents likely already back home with the girls. Shi Hua and Enya, though, were still out and about, and there was no stopping any potential interaction the moment they set eyes on them. Nalu stiffened and immediately braced himself for a line of questioning. Where had they gone, why were they soaked, why was Ji Guang entirely red and Nalu looking like he was about to wet himself?

Instead, though, Shi Hua just stood there confused while Enya fretted over them both — him in particular! She seemed worried about a fever, or about his safety, after hearing correctly that Ji Guang had tossed him in the ocean with reckless abandon.

“Correction: Your son was drunk. I was a very responsible young man who dropped nearly his whole drink when he was swung over Ji Guang’s shoulder,” Nalu said. Rest in peace, poor alcohol. It hadn’t deserved such an end.

Shi Hua finally managed to find her voice, and when she spoke…Nalu wished she hadn’t. Was she really insinuating that he’d taken Ji Guang down to the ocean and…done stuff with him in the water?! Her own son?! Geez, it was like the two of them were looking to get Ji Guang laid!

It was Nalu’s turn to be red all the way to his ears, and when he looked over at Ji Guang he just seemed…confused. How did he not know what she meant?! One of them was absolutely an idiot and it was certainly not him!

“I-I can assure you that nothing of the sort happened!” Nalu said, waving his hands. “Ji Guang has developed, uh, a fondness for swimming! So, we went swimming! And nothing weird happened at all.”

He wondered what the queens would think if they knew what actually happened. The whole scenario was entirely unromantic, and yet…it had all turned out alright. Nalu didn’t regret a second.

He hoped Ji Guang didn’t, either.

“A-anyway! It’s about time I should be getting back home! It was wonderful to meet you both, and, I, uh…” Nalu realized then that he’d never really said goodbye to Ji Guang. It was usually one of them walking the other to or from the palace and Ji Guang would then shout at him to screw and Nalu would call it a night, smirking all the way home.

He couldn’t exactly call that a goodbye here. What did he do now, though?! He couldn’t give him a goodbye kiss! Not in front of his parents! Did he shake his hand or something?

“Goodnight!” Nalu finally settled on. He bowed quickly, his wet hair falling like a curtain around his red cheeks, and when he stood up it flipped back over — not nearly as impressive as when Ji Guang did anything with his hair.

With that, he turned on his heel and, doing his best not to look as if he was running away, began walking back toward the cliffs.

Tonight had given him a lot to think about, and he knew that his brain wasn’t going to let him rest very much. Still, once the nerves I’d speaking with the queens wore off, he found himself grinning ear to ear. He was smiling so much it hurt.

He kissed Ji Guang. Twice. And Ji Guang let him.

He prayed that there would be a third.

[claudrps]

The ceiling of Ji Guang’s bedroom didn’t have any answers to give him, but that didn’t stop him from glaring furiously at it as if attempting to coax something out of it. 

 Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly distracting enough to take his attention away from the voices from the room just beside his, his brow twitching whenever his Ji mother’s excited giggles filtered through the wall, followed by an occasional snicker and comment from his Shi mother.

The walk back to the palace would go down as one of his most embarrassing moments in history.

Ji Guang had been cooed at, teased, taunted, and he may or not have engaged into a small and short-lived sword battle with his Shi mother, until his body reminded him that he was still tipsy—even if it was, confusingly enough, getting rid of the alcohol much faster than he’d expected, given how much he’d had—, and then, much to his endless mortification, his wobbly and tipsy self had been picked up bridal style, and carried all the way up to his bedroom by a snickering Shi Hua, before being unceremoniously dropped in a bathtub.

(And the worst part was; some part of him had maybe-sort-of-kinda-actually missed this.)

Tucked in bed, pointedly aware of the fact that his mothers were talking about him and Nalu just behind the wall behind him, Ji Guang continued his ongoing staring contest with the ceiling, and obviously refrained from visiting dangerous territory when his brain was still so fragile and vulnerable—

(—Chapped and salty lips pressing against his, a hand on his neck, gently guiding him to the best angle, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air, unsure where to put it but terribly tempted to bury it among those wet curls—)

Rolling around so abruptly that he nearly fell off the bed, Ji Guang muffled a scream into his pillow, hiding his reddening face from the world. Didn’t matter! Soldiers did that all the time, they would kiss, fuck and whatever else during their breaks, and Ji Guang might have never actually seen it, but goddammit he had ears and they were still quite good at picking out gossip! What Nalu did….it was just from the heat of the moment, they had been both stressed out, he’d nearly died, neither of them had been thinking rationally and….and…

What about the second kiss, then?—questioned a tiny little voice in the back of his brain, which he quickly stomped down to the ground. Didn’t matter either! Nalu probably did that all the time! He was charming, handsome, girls and boys probably tossed themselves at him all the time, whenever Hi Guang wasn’t around to scare them away. 

  Maybe—coaxed the bitter, drunk side of his brain that wasn’t above taking advantage of his current state, crawling all over his weakened mind and slipping in through the gaps—maybe that was why he always hovered around him…Ji Guang was probably one of the few that didn’t fall for him immediately, he’d probably looked like a challenge, a guy hard to crack, like those puzzles that Shi Shu probably picked up just for the sake of showing off how smart he was for finishing it within 2 days.

It was one of the main points of conflict from some of Shi Shu’s books—the ones which he most definitely did not read!—, there was someone that slept around, just getting a taste here and there, before discarding their new conquests once they were bored of them. 

 Ji Guang’s muddled brain caught that concept by the roots, and sunk its hungry teeth on it.

Nalu was probably just the same—Ji Guang rationed, fingers nearly piercing through the pillow, his eyes glazed over as his brain ran wild, fueled by the alcohol and the stress from earlier—he had no intention of taking things further, that’s why he never showed anger or jealously towards his suitors, that’s why he seemed so uncomfortable and panicked whenever his mothers were around, probably scared shitless that they would rope him into a marriage with him. That’s why he kissed him before he even made the slightest attempt to propose to him; he just wanted a taste, and then he would toss him back at his suitors once he was done, except he was too nice, always too fucking nice, he would definitely smile at him so softly while he explained that he  never meant for this to get serious, and then the fucker would apologize for hurting his feelings and actually look heartbroken about it and then, he would definitely ask them to be friends and ask if he could come to his wedding with whatever suitor he ended up with and by the time of the wedding he would probably already have someone clinging to his arm and—

“A-Guang.” Said a voice right above him, startling him out of his endless stream of thoughts.

Nearly jumping out of his skin, Ji Guang sat up, staring wide-eyed at the figure towering above him. Shi Hua, already in her night robes, stared down at him with a slight furrow between her brows. Ji Guang hadn’t even heard her enter the room, nor noticed that the room beside his had gone completely silent.  A tiny jiggle captured his attention, bringing it down to his mother’s hand. In her grasp, wiggled his sword, ringing it’s bells frantically. 

 “Your sword flew into our room, looking agitated.” She said, calmly—too calmly, in that careful manner that indicated that she was still reading the room, trying to understand the situation before acting—, gently placing the sword on top of the bed. Ji Guang threw it a betrayed glare, and the sword quickly flew back to it’s sheath.

“Honey?” Enya called gently, actually walking into the room like a normal person instead of just, merging with the shadows or whatever that his Shi mother did that made her entrances so silent. “Is everything okay? You—” She paused, her sweet features souring into a concerned frown as she sat down on his bed, cradling his face between her hands. They were so warm, gentle…it filled his heart with nostalgia, with bittersweet memories of a child huddled between them, pretending to dislike the affection while actively burrowing himself deeper into their arms…

“Your eyes are red.” Shi Hua finished for her wife, and although her hand was so much bigger, stronger and calloused than his Ji mother’s, her touch was gentle when she brushed his freshly washed and combed hair away. The blue iris of his black eyes was almost purple, it’s own version of puffy red eyes. “Are you…crying?” “….’M not.” Ji Guang grumbled, avoiding their eyes with little to no success. His voice came out weird, though, and it took him a moment to realize that it was because his nose was stuffy, his throat strained and tight when he tried to complain even further, effectively shutting him up.

Shi Hua’s eyes softened, and she too took a seat on the bed, trapping their son between the two of them. This time, Ji Guang didn’t resist; maybe he was too drunk, or too emotionally drained, or just too…everything, because he found himself actually leaning closer to them, for once not dodging their affection, embracing it instead, craving it like a child that spent too long away from his mothers. “Do you want to talk about it, lil lotus blossom?” His Ji mother whispered, bringing his head closer so that he could rest against her chest, his head tucked underneath her chin. His eyes prickled, and he could feel his Shi mother’s fingers combing through his hair, leaning close enough that he could feel her presence against his back.  “The war is over, A-Guang.” Shi Hua whispered, tracing her thumb over his brow until the stiff line softened, before gently brushing it across the dark bags underneath his ‘bad’ eye. “Put the soldier to rest, okay? Right now, we’d like to talk to our son, if you don’t mind.”

As it turns out, that’s all he’d needed to hear.

The last string holding his self-control together snapped.

And Ji Guang talked.

He rambled, snarled, hissed and murmured all night away, a young adult huddled between his two mums like a child, and he told them everything, things that he wouldn’t even remember in the morning, that he would never ever say out loud, but that slipped now so easily out of his mouth, and gosh, it felt so good to finally let them out and be free. Neither of the women commented on his sniffles, Shi Hua silently wiped his face with her long sleeves whenever his cheeks got wet again, and Enya asked the right questions when they were needed.

When the sun peeked up in the distance, painting the sky pink, Ji Guang slept peacefully on his Ji mother’s lap, at last, too exhausted and drained to stay conscious any longer.

Silently, Shi Hua rose to her feet, a tall and menacing shadow compared to her previous softness towards her son.  “Talk with Shi Shu first.” Enya said, he voice barely a whisper, as she combed her fingers through Ji Guang’s hair. “And don’t be too harsh on the boy.” She made no attempts whatsoever to stop her or change her mind, though. Clicking her tongue, Shi Hua sighed but nodded, leaning down to peck Ji Guang’s forehead and her cheek before stepping out of the bedroom, carrying herself like a warrior going to war.

Good. 

She hoped that boy would think the same too.

_______________

“I’m going to have to leave for a bit.” Shi Shu warned, as he finished the last touches on Leilani’s hair, just finishing the last braids.   They were still in his bedroom, where they had naturally spent the night, since Leilani had reasoned that it made no sense for him to return to his bedroom after his massage if he was just going to return in a few hours, sleepless. Might as well save them the trouble of admiring later that neither of them could sleep alone tonight either.

He was right. Shi Shu slept like a baby, happily cuddling up to Leilani’s chest hardly three minutes after falling asleep beside him.

Unfortunately, the Leilani to whom he woke up to in the morning, was still not his husband, but instead a very affectionate but still polite and restrained Leilani, clearly still struggling with the whole ‘cheating’ part of their arrangement.

It was fine—Shi Shu told himself, not sounding too convinced or sure of his words even in his own head, as he combed through Leilani’s hair, once again fighting back against the urge to lean down and plant a gentle kiss on his forehead, sighing longingly at his husband as he sat there, so close yet so far away…

“My sister seemed troubled, and requested a private meeting with me. In the meantime, why don’t you explore a bit? Maybe exercising your brain will help you recover your memories faster.” He suggested, tying the sash around his head before giving him a light pat to signify that he was done.

[dainarps]

The next morning, while Shi Shu went to visit with his sister, Leilani began tearing apart his bedroom. Shi Shu’s birthday had been an absolute joy. They’d shared plenty of good food and drink, danced as if it was normal, and even spent a bit of time talking with Shi Shu’s family — Shi Hua seemed very interested in the state of his memory.

Leilani’s memory was confusing to him as well. The longer he was like this and the more memories he recovered, the more he realized something wasn’t right between he and Shi Shu. Last night, during the massage, he recovered so much — years spent with him pacing hallways, building pathways and gardens, writing letters, painting and crafting, all for Shi Shu. He taught himself to play his guqin, he read many books and collected many more, every time thinking how nice a gift it would be for Shi Shu when he finally arrived in Pali Kai, safe from war.

Leilani relived that pain and suffering, every inch of his body hurting as years of feelings and emotions washed over him. Shi Shu was there for him, though, and he held him through the night. It still didn’t change how strange everything felt now, though. In fact, it felt worse.

How could he not have a single birthday present for Shi Shu? There was absolutely nothing in his bedroom that looked like it was complete and ready to be gifted. He dug through his closets, peered in the back of his drawers and there was nothing. How could he have not gotten him something when his feelings grew stronger for him with each passing moment? It wasn’t even a matter of falling head over heels for him two nights ago. These feelings were old, and Leilani wanted answers.

He bent down and reached his hand under the bed, patting the floor in an attempt to find something that might resemble a box. Sure enough, there was something.

He pulled it out, sighing when he realized that this, too, was not a gift. It wasn’t wrapped and it didn’t look like it was from Pali Kai. Though, maybe he had special ordered something?

He opened the box and the moment his eyes landed on the fabric inside he was assaulted with memories so quickly that it felt like he was experiencing vertigo.

Shi Shu stood before him wearing these clothes — lingerie — in this room. He looked at him, cheeks burning, and Leilani approached, doing far more than was appropriate for people in their position. He could feel the burning desire in him as he ran his hands over Shi Shu’s body, and Shi Shu responded instantly kind. It brought forth so many other feelings and images, things that Leilani was sure he wasn’t supposed to see. Shi Shu’s face, close and pink, their lips connecting. He could feel his skin under his fingertips as they sat out on the deck of this room, sharing an intimate moment as the sun set and stopping only when Shi Shu shied away. That happened most times — if it wasn’t Ji Guang banging on their door, Shi Shu pulled back, and no wonder. He was a married man. But then why were their so many memories of this?

Shi Shu had said he’d only moved to Pali Kai recently, so...had they been doing this since he came here? Was that why he was so comfortable sleeping in bed with him? Had they been having a proper affair behind Shi Shu’s husband’s back for a long time?

Leilani recalled a burning desire for more, each time a vision passed in front of him, but he always pulled back, always maintained the level that Shi Shu was comfortable with. More than once he’d gone for a cold bath afterward, and return to bed with Shi Shu, who looked perfectly at home on his mattress.

He snapped out of his own head feeling both turned on and confused, which was not a good combination at any moment.

He and Shi Shu were more than what they were right now. Shi Shu was holding himself back for the sake of his memories, and maybe he was even starting to feel guilty over his husband.

It wasn’t right, though. No matter how strongly they felt for each other, this was so far beyond wrong. His parents probably felt so much shame.

Shi Shu’s husband had yet to appear in his memories, but he would at some point. And maybe he would even return here. Leilani couldn’t keep doing whatever this was. He had to give Shi Shu an ultimatum. They could either be together or he could stay with his husband, nothing in the middle. Leilani loved Shi Shu and was deeply attracted to him, but he couldn’t be part of this. He couldn’t pretend that this affair was acceptable.

He stood up and moved to sit atop his mattress, lingerie in hand, waiting for Shi Shu to return. They were going to have a talk, and Leilani didn’t know if either of them was going to like it.

[claudrps]

Hearing Nalu’s strained and scratchy voice was terrible, especially when Ji Guang was pointedly aware of what had caused it, but it was nothing compared to his words and the implication that tagged along with them.

Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. Or, at the least not as dumb as his mothers wanted to make him be; his social awkwardness and general struggles to fit in with the rest of society could easily be blamed on the fact that he’d jumped from unwanted orphan child to being an actual prince in the span of a single day, his inability to control anything fire-related could be justified by the fact that he had too much fire in him which made his energy unstable, and his obsession with anything ocean-related could simply be due to the fact that he’d spent his entire life without ever seeing anything other than mountains, lakes, and ponds.

What could not be justified or shrugged off, though—and oh, he’d tried; nearly every day he’d spent on Pali Kai had a whole hour dedicated to self-reflection, mostly related to the highly troubling thoughts that had been sneaking into his head more often than he would have liked—was the fact that being an orphan-turned-prince didn’t justify the fact that he’d spent ten whole minutes underwater without it ever hitting him that he should come up for air, or that all sea animals seemed to be viciously attached to him, without even getting started on the wonderful, thrilling sensation that always washed over him whenever he was underwater, something too akin to the feeling of returning home after decades apart. 

 So no; Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. He was, though, pretty good at acting like it, and apparently the universe shook it’s big stupid head at him, frowning disapprovingly before shoving this situation onto him, as if punishing him for ignoring all the ‘generous’ signs that it had been tossing at his head this whole time.

It had never crossed his head, though, that he might not be the only one silently catching those hints. Mostly because he would have never ever believed that anyone would bother to pay that much attention to him, to the point of figuring out the realization that Ji Guang had spent weeks avoiding.

Not for the first, and probably not for the last time either; Nalu was several steps ahead of him, smiling reassuringly while patiently waiting for him to catch up, without ever pointing out just how long he’d been standing there—and that was the most unnerving part; maybe he’d only figured out yesterday, or weeks ago, Ji Guang might never know. Just like he would never ever figure out when Nalu had stopped seeing him as the ‘spoiled angry prince’ that he’d met at the boat, and became instead ‘the angry but amusing lôlô that I want to kiss’.

His thoughts were thrown back to the past, to a cold orphanage where immature, childish yet still cruel little hands used to tug on his hair and try to poke at his eye, where smiling possible-parents flinched away from him, faces pale as they whispered among themselves, where the caretakers used to call him ‘little beast’ instead of the name that they had hastily scribbled down on his documents…  Swallowing hard, Ji Guang focused on the pattern of his soaked up skirt with vicious attention, using it as an excuse to avoid Nalu’s (too genuine, too kind) gaze, so drastically different from the way that literally every single person in his life had reacted when faced with his stupid eye.

Speaking of.

Long hair was already hard to deal with, but wet hair, stiff and crusty with salt and entangled after struggling in the water? It was not only the future doom of his comb, but also terribly uncooperative, like a thick, cold mass that had to be furiously manhandled just to find where his fringe started and where it ended. Giving up trying to smooth it out, Ji Guang resigned himself with the tangled mess that dangled awkwardly over the unwanted half of his face, like a seaweed curtain hanging from his head. Clearing his throat—hard to accomplish, given how the traitorous thing had wrapped itself into a knot that kinda hurt when he spoke, and that was somehow connected to the stinging in his eyes—, Ji Guang continued the arduous task of untangling his hair, using it mostly as an excuse to not have to look up at Nalu.  “…You’re a dumbass, I hope you know that.” Ji Guang grumbled, internally wincing at the obvious strain in his voice, barely an ounce of his usual grumpiness. “Who the fuck looks at a guy with a fucked up eye and the ability to breathe underwater and decides ‘oh yea, I want to know more about that guy’, I know your self-preservation skills are shit, but that’s stretching it!” He scoffed, but his cheeks had yet to stop burning, an unending furnace that started on his chest and spread out to the rest of his body. 

  (It didn’t feel like gratitude. Or relief. Or like something warm and fluttery caged between his ribs. It didn’t. Ji Guang knew from his own previous experience that if he repeated that enough times to himself, his brain would eventually just conform to that and accept it as a fact.)

Biting hard on his lip, Ji Guang shrugged stiffly, combing his fingers through his tangled fringe. “…I don’t know. The last thing I remember thinking about was how nice the water felt, and how pretty the moon looked, and then everything just got…muffled. I can’t remember much.” He grumbled, tucking his feet closer to his body when a gentle wave tried to lick his toes, his glare wary, as if the sea itself was an old friend that had just betrayed him.   “Deep inside, I was aware that something wasn’t right, but at the same time, something felt weirdly right like…like I should be doing that.” He added, gesticulating awkwardly as if it would somehow help him to convey it better. “It felt like when I swam for the first time. You said to use my arms and legs, but in my head I was like ‘nah that’s wrong, do it like this instead’ and it worked….it was the same feeling that had me try to breathe underwater, even though I had no reason to think that would work in the first place.” Ji Guang bit down on his cheek, watching distractedly as a little seastar clumsily crawled up his hand, climbing up his arm like it was it’s life mission.

There was something else, though…

All of those previous occasions had obvious triggers, but this? Ji Guang had swam with Nalu many times before, so why this sudden reaction now, out of all times?

The seastar made good progress on his arm while Ji Guang pondered on his own thoughts, happily resting on his shoulder by the time he finally continued. “I wanted to take you somewhere. I think.” He mumbled, fingers running through his wet hair again, tugging so hard on the knots that surely he’d be bald by the time they left that beach. “There was this…nagging feeling like…you know when it’s a specially nice day outside, and you just feel motivated to do things you don’t usually do? I looked at the moon, at the sea, and I felt like that; like it was the perfect time to do something. And that, for some goddamn reason, involved dragging you all the way down to the bottom of the sea, as far away from the shore as possible—”

Ji Guang stiffened, his jaw clicking shut as he froze in place, as if he’d been slapped. “…I was trying to get you away from the fucking shore! Fuck, heavens knows why because I sure as hell don’t, but that’s what it felt like; it’s a beautiful night, we need to get away from the shore while the moon is still nice and pretty. Maybe I was thinking of migrating for all I know! Maybe my goddamn brain just shrinks into the size of a sardine’s brain when I’m in the water, who knows!” Ji Guang groaned exasperatedly, tired and frustrated as he slammed yet into another wall, still failing to reach a conclusive answer.

Grumpy, tired, still dazed from the goddamn hellish drink and emotionally exhausted, Ji Guang dropped back against the rock, arms crossed over his chest, his single eye glaring viciously at the moon. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ji Guang pointed a rude and accusatory finger up at the globe. “Fuck you!” He shouted, as if his voice could possibly reach it — it certainly wasn’t going to stop him from trying. “One day, I’m gonna climb all the way up there, and kick the living hell out of you until you give me some goddamn answers!” He declared, pointing his finger up again, “Bitch!”

[dainarps]

Maybe he was a dumbass, but it certainly wasn’t because he liked a guy with one eye that was different from the other. It was probably more because that guy had damn near killed him. But, like he said, he didn’t think he had meant it.

Ji Guang in the water was like a toddler trying things out for the first time. You could tell him not to touch the fire because it was hot, but he wouldn’t learn until he shoved his hand in it. He was exploring this new part of himself, a whole new world around him, and Nalu wanted to help him get through it. He wanted to help him understand this weird part of himself.

He didn’t know why he wanted to bring him there, he just did. Nalu had a couple ideas — namely because he was a hopeless romantic. Ji Guang was the happiest he could be when he was in the water, so maybe…he wanted him to be with him in his happiest place.

But that was probably him being a hopeless romantic.

“Wait, are you trying to fight the moon right now?” Nalu asked, leaning over and looking down at Ji Guang.

“If anything, you should be thanking it. Without it, maybe I’d never have kissed you,” he said. He leaned down, pressed another quick peck to Ji Guang’s lips.

When he pulled away he jumped off the rock and dove into a passing wave, letting it carry him a ways as he swam.

“Hurry up, moron, or your hair’s gonna dry like that and everyone’s going to know you’re not nearly as suave as you think you are,” Nalu called. It was a long way back to shore, but he and Ji Guang had a long road ahead of them, too, and they had to start somewhere.

[claudrps]

Still glowering, Ji Guang prepared a response, but just like before, it was lost the moment he saw Nalu suddenly leaning down—and clearly, the moon really was fucking with his head because, the only thing that crossed his head that very moment was that Nalu’s jaw and neck looked weirdly biteable from that angle—, eyes wide and face ridiculously red when the weakest excuse of a kiss was planted on his mouth. 

  Two kisses. The fucking bastard actually dared to steal two kisses from him, like he had the darn right to claim them for himself when he damn well pleased!

“Y-You!” Ji Guang bristled, his ears burning as he jumped into the water, chasing him like a shark catching the scent of blood. “You little—! W-Who wants your darn kisses anyway, huh?! Fuck you, shitty kiss thief—that was weak as hell, by the fucking way!” He snapped on the top of his lungs, but despite ‘furiously chasing’ after him, Nalu still reached the shore without Ji Guang ever catching up with him, despite clearly being the fastest swimmer.

Distracted with his flustered anger, it didn’t even cross Ji Guang’s mind, for even a second, to be wary or concerned over the moon or the water.

_____________

Standing very tall and firm, with her horns nearly bumping into the strings of lanterns dangling above their heads, and her arms crossed over her chest, Shi Hua stared down at the pair currently dripping on the floor like a especially pathetic pair of sheepish cats that had been caught trying to sneak into the fishbowl, and her jaw slowly unhinged open, only to click back closed again, a complicated expression crossing her face as she squinted down at them.

In all of his life, Ji Guang had never seen his Shi mother go completely speechless.

He wasn’t sure if that was a feat that he should be proud of, or just straight up ashamed.

His Ji mother, though, had the exact opposite issue; she had too much to say, and only one mouth to blurt it all out. “Oh my heavens—what happened?! We looked for the two of you everywhere but the information that we got was highly perplexing and—A-Guang, people are saying that they saw you picking up young Nalu and carrying him over to the beach….but ah-ah maybe it was a trick of the lighting! Surely they mistook you for someone else! Surely you wouldn’t pick up this young man and march to the nearest beach to toss him at the ocean….right?”  Enya blurted out in nearly one breath, just a mess of nerves and fancy frills as she jumped back and forth between the two boys, one moment trying to fix Ji Guang’s hair, then checking Nalu’s forehead for a fever, occasionally attempting to (uselessly) pat their faces dry with a napkin, all while constantly taking their hands between their own, like they were two traumatized young men in dire need of comfort.

“…It was hot. I thought we could go for a swim.” Ji Guang grumbled under his breath, and no amount of messy hair could possibly disguise just how red he was, his single eye dodging eye contact at all cost. Silently, Shi Hua narrowed her eyes at him. He could feel her stare without even needing to look at her once.

 “….We may or not be…a little bit tipsy.” He added, as a lame last-second excuse to patch up their already suspicious absence and even more suspicious late-night dip in the ocean. 

Shi Hua squinted even further, but her lips twitched into the slightest of smirks. “You know, most teenagers would pick an empty closet or an abandoned house, but I suppose the times have changed, and young people must adjust to their current circumstances.” She mused, exchanging an amused look with her wife, wiggling her brows.

The blank, confused and innocent look that Ji Guang gave them was so pure that it could have competed with Shi Shu’s.

[dainarps]

Ji Guang never caught up with him, despite obviously being able to. Nalu hoped it wasn’t because he was afraid of what happened if they were both in the water together at the same time. Nalu preferred time think that he did it solely so he could shout at him the whole way there and then some.

In fact, he didn’t shut up his complaining until they reached the tops of the cliffs again. The party was winding down, his own parents likely already back home with the girls. Shi Hua and Enya, though, were still out and about, and there was no stopping any potential interaction the moment they set eyes on them. Nalu stiffened and immediately braced himself for a line of questioning. Where had they gone, why were they soaked, why was Ji Guang entirely red and Nalu looking like he was about to wet himself?

Instead, though, Shi Hua just stood there confused while Enya fretted over them both — him in particular! She seemed worried about a fever, or about his safety, after hearing correctly that Ji Guang had tossed him in the ocean with reckless abandon.

“Correction: Your son was drunk. I was a very responsible young man who dropped nearly his whole drink when he was swung over Ji Guang’s shoulder,” Nalu said. Rest in peace, poor alcohol. It hadn’t deserved such an end.

Shi Hua finally managed to find her voice, and when she spoke...Nalu wished she hadn’t. Was she really insinuating that he’d taken Ji Guang down to the ocean and...done stuff with him in the water?! Her own son?! Geez, it was like the two of them were looking to get Ji Guang laid!

It was Nalu’s turn to be red all the way to his ears, and when he looked over at Ji Guang he just seemed...confused. How did he not know what she meant?! One of them was absolutely an idiot and it was certainly not him!

“I-I can assure you that nothing of the sort happened!” Nalu said, waving his hands. “Ji Guang has developed, uh, a fondness for swimming! So, we went swimming! And nothing weird happened at all.”

He wondered what the queens would think if they knew what actually happened. The whole scenario was entirely unromantic, and yet...it had all turned out alright. Nalu didn’t regret a second.

He hoped Ji Guang didn’t, either.

“A-anyway! It’s about time I should be getting back home! It was wonderful to meet you both, and, I, uh...” Nalu realized then that he’d never really said goodbye to Ji Guang. It was usually one of them walking the other to or from the palace and Ji Guang would then shout at him to screw and Nalu would call it a night, smirking all the way home.

He couldn’t exactly call that a goodbye here. What did he do now, though?! He couldn’t give him a goodbye kiss! Not in front of his parents! Did he shake his hand or something?

“Goodnight!” Nalu finally settled on. He bowed quickly, his wet hair falling like a curtain around his red cheeks, and when he stood up it flipped back over — not nearly as impressive as when Ji Guang did anything with his hair.

With that, he turned on his heel and, doing his best not to look as if he was running away, began walking back toward the cliffs.

Tonight had given him a lot to think about, and he knew that his brain wasn’t going to let him rest very much. Still, once the nerves I’d speaking with the queens wore off, he found himself grinning ear to ear. He was smiling so much it hurt.

He kissed Ji Guang. Twice. And Ji Guang let him.

He prayed that there would be a third.

[claudrps]

Hearing Nalu’s strained and scratchy voice was terrible, especially when Ji Guang was pointedly aware of what had caused it, but it was nothing compared to his words and the implication that tagged along with them.

Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. Or, at the least not as dumb as his mothers wanted to make him be; his social awkwardness and general struggles to fit in with the rest of society could easily be blamed on the fact that he’d jumped from unwanted orphan child to being an actual prince in the span of a single day, his inability to control anything fire-related could be justified by the fact that he had too much fire in him which made his energy unstable, and his obsession with anything ocean-related could simply be due to the fact that he’d spent his entire life without ever seeing anything other than mountains, lakes, and ponds.

What could not be justified or shrugged off, though—and oh, he’d tried; nearly every day he’d spent on Pali Kai had a whole hour dedicated to self-reflection, mostly related to the highly troubling thoughts that had been sneaking into his head more often than he would have liked—was the fact that being an orphan-turned-prince didn’t justify the fact that he’d spent ten whole minutes underwater without it ever hitting him that he should come up for air, or that all sea animals seemed to be viciously attached to him, without even getting started on the wonderful, thrilling sensation that always washed over him whenever he was underwater, something too akin to the feeling of returning home after decades apart. 

 So no; Ji Guang wasn’t dumb. He was, though, pretty good at acting like it, and apparently the universe shook it’s big stupid head at him, frowning disapprovingly before shoving this situation onto him, as if punishing him for ignoring all the ‘generous’ signs that it had been tossing at his head this whole time.

It had never crossed his head, though, that he might not be the only one silently catching those hints. Mostly because he would have never ever believed that anyone would bother to pay that much attention to him, to the point of figuring out the realization that Ji Guang had spent weeks avoiding.

Not for the first, and probably not for the last time either; Nalu was several steps ahead of him, smiling reassuringly while patiently waiting for him to catch up, without ever pointing out just how long he’d been standing there—and that was the most unnerving part; maybe he’d only figured out yesterday, or weeks ago, Ji Guang might never know. Just like he would never ever figure out when Nalu had stopped seeing him as the ‘spoiled angry prince’ that he’d met at the boat, and became instead ‘the angry but amusing lôlô that I want to kiss’.

His thoughts were thrown back to the past, to a cold orphanage where immature, childish yet still cruel little hands used to tug on his hair and try to poke at his eye, where smiling possible-parents flinched away from him, faces pale as they whispered among themselves, where the caretakers used to call him ‘little beast’ instead of the name that they had hastily scribbled down on his documents…  Swallowing hard, Ji Guang focused on the pattern of his soaked up skirt with vicious attention, using it as an excuse to avoid Nalu’s (too genuine, too kind) gaze, so drastically different from the way that literally every single person in his life had reacted when faced with his stupid eye.

Speaking of.

Long hair was already hard to deal with, but wet hair, stiff and crusty with salt and entangled after struggling in the water? It was not only the future doom of his comb, but also terribly uncooperative, like a thick, cold mass that had to be furiously manhandled just to find where his fringe started and where it ended. Giving up trying to smooth it out, Ji Guang resigned himself with the tangled mess that dangled awkwardly over the unwanted half of his face, like a seaweed curtain hanging from his head. Clearing his throat—hard to accomplish, given how the traitorous thing had wrapped itself into a knot that kinda hurt when he spoke, and that was somehow connected to the stinging in his eyes—, Ji Guang continued the arduous task of untangling his hair, using it mostly as an excuse to not have to look up at Nalu.  “…You’re a dumbass, I hope you know that.” Ji Guang grumbled, internally wincing at the obvious strain in his voice, barely an ounce of his usual grumpiness. “Who the fuck looks at a guy with a fucked up eye and the ability to breathe underwater and decides ‘oh yea, I want to know more about that guy’, I know your self-preservation skills are shit, but that’s stretching it!” He scoffed, but his cheeks had yet to stop burning, an unending furnace that started on his chest and spread out to the rest of his body. 

  (It didn’t feel like gratitude. Or relief. Or like something warm and fluttery caged between his ribs. It didn’t. Ji Guang knew from his own previous experience that if he repeated that enough times to himself, his brain would eventually just conform to that and accept it as a fact.)

Biting hard on his lip, Ji Guang shrugged stiffly, combing his fingers through his tangled fringe. “…I don’t know. The last thing I remember thinking about was how nice the water felt, and how pretty the moon looked, and then everything just got…muffled. I can’t remember much.” He grumbled, tucking his feet closer to his body when a gentle wave tried to lick his toes, his glare wary, as if the sea itself was an old friend that had just betrayed him.   “Deep inside, I was aware that something wasn’t right, but at the same time, something felt weirdly right like…like I should be doing that.” He added, gesticulating awkwardly as if it would somehow help him to convey it better. “It felt like when I swam for the first time. You said to use my arms and legs, but in my head I was like ‘nah that’s wrong, do it like this instead’ and it worked….it was the same feeling that had me try to breathe underwater, even though I had no reason to think that would work in the first place.” Ji Guang bit down on his cheek, watching distractedly as a little seastar clumsily crawled up his hand, climbing up his arm like it was it’s life mission.

There was something else, though…

All of those previous occasions had obvious triggers, but this? Ji Guang had swam with Nalu many times before, so why this sudden reaction now, out of all times?

The seastar made good progress on his arm while Ji Guang pondered on his own thoughts, happily resting on his shoulder by the time he finally continued. “I wanted to take you somewhere. I think.” He mumbled, fingers running through his wet hair again, tugging so hard on the knots that surely he’d be bald by the time they left that beach. “There was this…nagging feeling like…you know when it’s a specially nice day outside, and you just feel motivated to do things you don’t usually do? I looked at the moon, at the sea, and I felt like that; like it was the perfect time to do something. And that, for some goddamn reason, involved dragging you all the way down to the bottom of the sea, as far away from the shore as possible—”

Ji Guang stiffened, his jaw clicking shut as he froze in place, as if he’d been slapped. “…I was trying to get you away from the fucking shore! Fuck, heavens knows why because I sure as hell don’t, but that’s what it felt like; it’s a beautiful night, we need to get away from the shore while the moon is still nice and pretty. Maybe I was thinking of migrating for all I know! Maybe my goddamn brain just shrinks into the size of a sardine’s brain when I’m in the water, who knows!” Ji Guang groaned exasperatedly, tired and frustrated as he slammed yet into another wall, still failing to reach a conclusive answer.

Grumpy, tired, still dazed from the goddamn hellish drink and emotionally exhausted, Ji Guang dropped back against the rock, arms crossed over his chest, his single eye glaring viciously at the moon. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ji Guang pointed a rude and accusatory finger up at the globe. “Fuck you!” He shouted, as if his voice could possibly reach it — it certainly wasn’t going to stop him from trying. “One day, I’m gonna climb all the way up there, and kick the living hell out of you until you give me some goddamn answers!” He declared, pointing his finger up again, “Bitch!”

[dainarps]

Maybe he was a dumbass, but it certainly wasn’t because he liked a guy with one eye that was different from the other. It was probably more because that guy had damn near killed him. But, like he said, he didn’t think he had meant it.

Ji Guang in the water was like a toddler trying things out for the first time. You could tell him not to touch the fire because it was hot, but he wouldn’t learn until he shoved his hand in it. He was exploring this new part of himself, a whole new world around him, and Nalu wanted to help him get through it. He wanted to help him understand this weird part of himself.

He didn’t know why he wanted to bring him there, he just did. Nalu had a couple ideas — namely because he was a hopeless romantic. Ji Guang was the happiest he could be when he was in the water, so maybe...he wanted him to be with him in his happiest place.

But that was probably him being a hopeless romantic.

“Wait, are you trying to fight the moon right now?” Nalu asked, leaning over and looking down at Ji Guang.

“If anything, you should be thanking it. Without it, maybe I’d never have kissed you,” he said. He leaned down, pressed another quick peck to Ji Guang’s lips.

When he pulled away he jumped off the rock and dove into a passing wave, letting it carry him a ways as he swam.

“Hurry up, moron, or your hair’s gonna dry like that and everyone’s going to know you’re not nearly as suave as you think you are,” Nalu called. It was a long way back to shore, but he and Ji Guang had a long road ahead of them, too, and they had to start somewhere.

[claudrps]

As it turned out, regret tasted strong, flavorful, earthy and like the pits of hell, with a layer of sweetness that almost felt like a comforting ‘there there that wasn’t so bad was it?’, except it fucking was!

Ji Guang wheezed as he stopped to breathe, coughing through the fire tunnel that had become his throat, still reeling from the taste but stubbornly keeping his mouth shut to avoid letting any miserable sounds slip out of his mouth. This was hell. Literally hell in a bottle, fuck, wasn’t shit in Pali Kai meant to be sweet and pleasant?! He should have fucking known that there was a catch; those bright smiles and cheerful behavior was all a cover-up for the fact that they were all secretly waiting for the right moment to murder them with this shit! 

For an actual moment, Ji Guang almost considered calling it quits and handing the bottle over to whoever he hated the most tonight—Shi Shu immediately came to mind, and honestly, if Leilani wasn’t already in such a state, he would have felt terribly tempted to pour it down his uncle’s throat, as revenge for his stupid comments and equally stupid smirks—but just when he was considering his options, Nalu opened his big fucking mouth. Again.

Vein twitching on his forehead and temper suddenly catching on fire—or maybe that was just the hellish drink—, Ji Guan threw him a vicious glare and brought the bottle up to his mouth again. “Fucking . Watch. Me.” He hissed through gritted teeth, sounding as if someone was forcefully yanking his teeth out and yet, still went for another swig, making sure to gulp down hard and loud, just to really rub it on Nalu’s face. His eyes watered, his chest burned and his stomach wasn’t the slightest bit happy with him, but it didn’t matter: Ji Guang gulped down the last of his bottle and slammed it down on the bench with a victorious smirk, the bottle completely empty. “Ah! Take that, asshole! And I’m not even tipsy!” Ji Guang gloated, his voice hoarse and slightly pained, but that didn’t stop him from proudly puffing his chest out. “Drunk, tsk, I don’t get drunk. That’s Shi Shu’s job, plus I had too much booze back during the war; alcohol helps with the nerves…” Slowly, Ji Guang’s tone mellowed, his words slowing down, but not because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Blinking hard, Ji Guang’s brows furrowed and pinched into a frown, his mouth opening and closing a few times but the train of thought was already lost, and no matter how many times he blinked, the colorful spots still refused to leave his vision. “Who…the fuck turned on all these lights? Fucking spots everywhere, what a shitty lighting choice…” He growled under his breath, before falling silent once again.

In fact, Ji Guang was silent for a long time: hands braced on his knees, eyes firmly locked on the spot between his feet, brows still pinched together, as if he was concentrating, the silence heavy compared to his previous one-man-band symphony of spluttering, snapping and shouting.

Then, at last, a change; slowly and gradually, Ji Guang’s face gained an obvious reddish glow to it, the color spreading up to his ears and down to his neck. When he finally raised his head to meet Nalu’s gaze, the movement wasn’t sluggish nor lazy like it was to be expected. In fact, he seemed still very much in control of his body, his movements fluid and graceful as ever: from a distance no one would ever be able to tell that he was even drunk in the first place.

That is, if they stayed at a distance.

Ji Guang stared at Nalu, eyes hard, fierce and determined, which on itself wouldn’t have been very different from the usual, except he was so pink, like a boiled shrimp, and the pupil of his only visible eye was fully dilated, and a quiet Ji Guang simply wasn’t A Thing, so clearly something wasn’t quite right. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Ji Guang’s hand darted out and caught a handful Nalu’s shawl, forcefully dragging him closer, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Again, from a distance, it could have been perceived as a romantic or even seductive gesture, just a pair of healthy young men about to get frisky. Except, Ji Guang’s eyes were narrowed into a glare, and his lips pressed in a firm stiff line, the redness of his face only making him look all the more furious..

“We” He hissed into the short gap of distance between their faces, in a tone that accepted no discordance nor complaints, his grip tightening on Nalu’s shawl. “Are going for a swim.” He declared, jumping up to his feet with an enviable grace that was thoroughly misleading because there was nothing even remotely close to sober in the crazed glint of his eye. His grip on Nalu’s clothes didn’t falter, in fact, he tugged hard on him, as if trying to pull him up. Apparently irritated that Nalu didn’t obey within the first 0.3 seconds, Ji Guang muffled an irritate growl in the back of his throat and, much to the utter disbelief and shock of the people watching, bluntly grabbed Nalu around the waist and pulled him up, hoisting him over his shoulder with only a slightly frustrated huff, like he wasn’t carrying a guy as tall and broad as him like he was a potato sack

“Lets go.” Ji Guang hissed, his steps strong and determined, still not the slightest bit wobbly, in fact; Ji Guang didn’t walk, he marched away from their confused and bewildered audience like he was a soldier on a mission, and Nalu was his precious cargo.

He grumbled incoherently under his breath throughout the entire trip, his grip firm and not budging, and when Nalu moved too much for his liking, he just landed a sharp slap on his lap, hissing a grumpy ‘shush!’ under his breath without ever slowing down.  And apparently, Ji Guang truly meant what he’d said, because soon enough, it became obvious where they were headed at, as the beach came into view; he said they were going swimming?

  Then they were going to swim alright!

The wobbling only began when his feet sunk too hard in the sand thanks to the added weight, but that still didn’t stop him from stomping his way all the way over to the pier, still refusing to let go of his hostage. Finally, Ji Guang stopped right at the edge to the pier, where he then suddenly and unceremoniously tossed Nalu into the water, clothes and everything, before jumping right after him as well.

 “Better.” Ji Guang decided, once he came up to the surface, his hair glued to his face like dark ink running down his face, ponytail already deflating. His face was still stuck on that weirdly determined and viciously focused look, but he seemed like he was slowly mellowing down, tension washing off his shoulders the longer he stayed in the water. “Too fucking hot. Water is better. ‘S nice.” He grumbled, almost sleepily.

[dainarps]

“Ah, don’t — it’s not really meant — oh, you’re doing it. Okay,” Nalu said, watching with both a mix of amusement and horror as Ji Guang downed the whole bottle of okolehao, as if it wasn’t a sipping drink meant to get you drunk quickly but over time. Ji Guang apparently just wanted to get fucked up, and he didn’t care how quickly it happened.

Nalu, meanwhile, sipped on his drink and watched as the alcohol entered Ji Guang’s system. It worked quickly, absorbed into his bloodstream and bringing a color to his face that Nalu almost couldn’t see. Ji Guang had stopped talking for quite a while, and Nalu expected him to puke the alcohol right out of his system, but he just sat there, slowly turning pink.

It was definitely something interesting to watch. Ji Guang has surely had the more refined wines of the upper class, but this moonshine could be made by anyone, and anyone did make it.

Slowly, Ji Guang moved so he was sitting up again, his face intense. If he wasn’t so red it might’ve been concerning. Nalu, however, thought it was cute. He wondered what he was thinking about and he wondered the words on his tongue, what he was trying to say.

Then, his brain short-circuited. Ji Guang grabbed his shawl and pulled him in close — so close that it was startling. Was Ji Guang finally going to make a move? Was he going to say something important? Was this an invitation for him to make a move? They were so close. He could just lean forward and kiss him. What would happen if he did that? Ji Guang did have his sword on him — he’d probably stab him. It’d be worth it though.

Ji Guang started to speak, Nalu waited for the words to finally come out of his mouth, and…they weren’t what he expected at all.

There was no big confession, no words of affection. They were just…going for a swim.

“What?”

Ji Guang had no patience for his confusion and scooped him up so suddenly that he dropped his okolehao on the ground. What in the world was happening right now?! How was he even holding him? Sure he was strong, but this was ridiculous.

Ji Guang marched him all the way away from the party, down to the docks, and instead of just putting him down, he threw him into the water.

Nalu’s shout was swallowed by the water, and when he resurfaced he saw Ji Guang resurface as well, talking about how everything was better now.

“How is this better?! You threw me into the water with my clothes on!” Nalu said, trying to sound mad but laughing regardless.

“Oi, don’t go falling asleep in the water. Wake your ass up,” he said, splashing Nalu in the face. What were his parents going to think when he returned to the castle soaking wet and drunk?

“If you fall asleep I’m not gonna save you from getting dragged out to sea.”

A lie. He’d absolutely save his sorry ass.

[claudrps]

“Fuck you.” Ji Guang said, not grumbled, calm and more nonchalant than he’d ever been, content to just turn belly up and float there, like an otter sunbathing. Except….with the full moon, shining brightly above them. Just bright enough to illuminate the moment when something slipped into Ji Guang’s features, like the shimmer of the scales of a fish that sneaked in and out of a fishnet before it could be caught. “I can’t fucking drown, you’re a liar.” He added, cracking his eye open to glaze lazily at him. His gaze looked strangely dazed and glazed over, like someone that was sleeping with his eyes open; unfocused, not all there.

Slowly, Ji Guang stood back up, and something about his movements felt strangely off—something patient and languid, something that felt nothing like Ji Guang. “I tried it the other day,” He said, slowly approaching Nalu, and if his pupils had been strangely wide before, then now there were eerily small. He had yet to blink once since he opened his eyes. “Just to see how long it would take. How long I could hold my breath. Didn’t work, though, see—”

And that was how Ji Guang ended up with his hands back on Nalu’s shoulders again, except instead of making him sit down, Ji Guang sunk his fingers hard into his shoulders and pulled him straight up underwater, barely giving him a moment to catch a mouthful of air before he dragged him into the dark waters.

If anyone happened to peek underwater that precise moment, they would have rapidly hurried away, flustered and embarrassed over what they had accidentally come across; Ji Guang’s limbs were entangled with Nalu’s, in a way that couldn’t be called anything other than intimate, ankles locked around his, arms wrapped around his shoulders, leaning down….anyone could have easily mistaken them for a frisky couple engaging into some risky late night activities while everyone was at the party.

That wasn’t the case, though.

The ocean was a terrifying thing at night; clear blue waters turned black like ink, and the moonlight that filtered through the surface only made it all the eerier, specially when the dim light reflected on the fishes’ eyes, just white dots flashing occasionally underwater.

There was a bigger one, though, flashing right in front of Nalu.

The water, with it’s special rules on how gravity worked in it’s reign, took away the weight from Ji Guang’s heavy hair, making it seem almost as weightless as a veil, just black tendrils swirling around their heads, almost merging in with the darkness surrounding them. As if brushed away by an invisible caress, Ji Guang’s fringe floated away from his face, baring the elusive right side of his face to Nalu. Black stared back at Nalu. Just pure black, where the eye’s white should have been, a deep darkness that was only interrupted by the sharp blue iris that stared down at him, the moonlight reflecting brightly on it, making it stand out in that dark environment.

Ji Guang, for the first time since they’d met, didn’t try to hurriedly cover his eye, nor tried to look away; he just stared down at Nalu, too still, too quiet, his whole body language completely wrong.

Wrong, like the strong hands that tried to push him deeper into the water.

Slowly, Ji Guang opened his mouth, letting go of all the air that he’d stored in his lungs, air bubbles dancing around their faces until the very last one left. And yet, when he opened his mouth again and curled his lips and tongue around a word, a sound clearly came out of his mouth:

“See?” Ji Guang asked, the sound strange, like a gurgle and something heard through a thick glass, but still clear enough to be understood. “I don’t need it.” His arms curled tighter around Nalu, like a snake trying to immobilize it’s prey, trying to drag him deeper, further into the sea…

Above their heads, high up in the sky, the moon’s glow dimmed as a school of clouds slowly inched closer, obscuring it from view. That grip on Nalu immediately stuttered, shaking slightly as if a chill had just run up Ji Guang’s spine. His fingers twitched where they dug into his shoulders, and finally, Ji Guang’s scarily empty expression twitched, almost looking conflicted, like someone trying to wake up from a stubborn nightmare.

[dainarps]

Nalu raised a brow. What, exactly, was Ji Guang doing? His voice was so serious — it wasn’t at all like how he imagined Ji Guang to be when he was drunk. He’d kind of been hoping for an emotional, overly chatty Ji Guang, and instead he got someone stoic and serious. He supposed it could be worse.

Ji Guang apparently thought so, too.

He stopped his lazy floating and came over to him, looking at him with something that could only be described as hunger. Before Nalu could react, he was grabbed and dragged underwater, unable to even grab a full breath of air before he was submerged. He struggled and kicked at Ji Guang, figuring he’d let him go, he’d pop up above the waves, and once he caught his breath he’d grab his ponytail and tell him off for being a prick.

None of that happened, though. Ji Guang dragged him deeper and deeper into the water and Nalu felt as if his lungs might explode. Finally, they stopped their descent and he looked up at Ji Guang, who was looking back at him. With both eyes.

Nalu had never seen Ji Guang’s right eye, and he supposed he kept it hidden for good reason. It was black, reflecting the light of the moon despite their depth. It was strange to see his whole face, but stranger still to know that he could talk beneath the water’s surface. Nalu could hear him, but it was like they were kids talking between walls.

Ji Guang wrapped himself tighter around him, his grip almost crushing. He knew that there was something odd about Ji Guang from the beginning — that he was somehow connected to the ocean — but he didn’t know what it was. He still didn’t know. He trusted him, and he knew he wouldn’t purposefully hurt him, but there was something about his look. There was something…off. This was a part of him that he was still learning. It was still untamed.

Nalu could see Ji Guang was still there, though. He could see him there, just as confused and unsure as he was. Neither of them knew who Ji Guang really was, but that didn’t matter. He was still Ji Guang.

Nalu reached his hand up and pressed his hand to Ji Guang’s cheek, his thumb under his right eye. It was about all he could do.

His body went into survival mode, his mouth opened and he gasped for air, bubbles leaving his mouth and water flowing into his lungs. He struggled and kicked and punched Ji Guang, trusting him fully but also fighting for his life at the same time. He couldn’t breathe, he was choking, and he felt like his chest was collapsing in on itself. Ji Guang had a vice grip on him, though, and wouldn’t let him out. The vision around the corners of his eyes was starting to blur, and he turned to look desperately at Ji Guang. Nalu had promised he wouldn’t let him drown, not when they were on the boat, not when he was learning to swim. He wouldn’t let him drown.

He prayed Ji Guang would do the same for him.

[claudrps]

Ji Guang was stuck in a nightmare.

It was a long, dragged out nightmare without a story, a villain, or anything at all to fill the empty void that surrounded him. Occasionally, he was vaguely aware of his surroundings but, his brain felt muffled, only catching glimpses and brief moments of clarity,  but his head felt sedated, slow to react and even slower to process the information.

All that he knew was that, he was doing something right.

Yes, it was the same sensation from before, back when he’d learned how to swim the right way, or, like when he realized that he didn’t have to count his time underwater, the air would just last forever as far as he was concerned. It was deep gut feeling that felt like a gentle hand guiding him through motions that he’d never done before, and yet, that he still managed to get right on his first try. Like breathing, screaming or giggling. Wrong—screamed a distant, muffled and drowned part of his head that refused to be silenced. That, unlike the coaxing tug on his guts and chest, felt like desperate punches in his chest, like frantic hands trying to shake him awake. Something was wrong; it felt so right, like he was meant to be doing whatever that he was doing, and yet at the same time, his whole body was trying to rebel against him in a desperate attempt to stop, limbs locking in place as a last resource.

Ironically enough, it was the gentlest of touches that ended up waking him up. Just a soft warm pressed right against his cheek, a touch that Ji Guang wanted to lean into even in this dazed, semi-conscious state that entrapped him.

It was immediately followed by frantic punches, pushes and kicks, and that promptly snapped the last thread that connected him to that strange empty void, his eyes snapping wide open, blinking repeatedly like he’d just snapped awake. 

And the first thing he saw, was a drowning Nalu staring at him pleadingly, desperately trying to struggle out of his vicious grip on him.

Ji Guang’s heart sunk like an anchor, arms latching around Nalu before his brain could even catch up, using all the strength that he could possibly gather to swim up, his leg aching but an easily ignorable pain compared to the desperate and panicked tightness that clutched his chest.  Unsurprisingly, it was much easier to make someone sink than dragging their combined weights upwards, but Ji Guang didn’t stop until they breached the surface, his hands practically shaking from the adrenaline as he swam towards the closest rock formation—fuck the shore; Ji Guang would have used a coral reef if that was the closest thing that he could get to solid land underneath their feet right now.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuck—!” Ji Guang hissed under his breath, almost hyperventilating by the time he managed to drag Nalu up, laying him on a somewhat horizontal-ish rock that was big enough for both of them. “What do I do what do I do—FUCK, what do I do?!” Ji Guang snapped, his eyes wild with panic as he practically cradled Nalu on his lap, supporting his head against his shoulder. 

 He’d never learned how to save someone; he knew how to patch up a wound, how to pop a bone back into place among other things but, nobody had ever taught him what to do when someone swallowed up a lot of water!

…..No, wait; Shi Shu did teach him! Not, well, not properly because it’s not like they had had anywhere to practice, but he’d given him a lecture on that shit that one time when he convinced him to let him take Leilani to the hotsprings. He remembered vaguely this illustration of someone pressing their mouth to the other person’s mouth and just, puffing air into their lungs…? 

Didn’t make much sense to him, but fuck it! He was out of options, and Nalu’s lungs were full of water and it was all his fault and if his heart rate got any more panicked it would just straight up burst out of his chest.

Acting quickly—like someone who knew what he was doing, and how darn misleading was that!—Ji Guang cupped Nalu’s jaw with his free hand, coaxing his mouth open so that he could unceremoniously commence a direct attack, no warning provided. Ducking his head, Ji Guang pressed their lips together so hard that he could feel the indents of Nalu’s teeth against his lips, his hand keeping a firm grip on his face so that his aim wouldn’t slip.  Phase one completely, JI Guang advanced to the nest and just, started breathing into Nalu’s mouth, unsure whether he was even doing this right or if it was even working in the first place, but he wasn’t going to stop until he got some damn fucking results, because like hell was he going to let this bastard die in his arms!

[dainarps]

Nalu had never really thought about death. He knew it existed and he knew he wasn’t immortal, but he stared death in the face every day. He laughed at it every time he went surfing, he grinned at it each time he took his boat out. He and death were like friends. He just didn’t think this was how death would come to him, trapped in the arms of the boy he had a crush on — a young man who didn’t know who he was, what he was, or why he was doing the things he was doing.

He could hardly make out Ji Guang’s face, but he tried desperately to hold on for his sake. Ji Guang was learning about himself and he was learning about his past. If he killed him…he’d never want to explore this side of himself again. He’d never want to know what the ocean held for him.

More than that, he knew Ji Guang would never forgive himself.

Ji Guang was a gentle spirit, one that had been forced to harden as life went on, but it didn’t negate his core. It didn’t change the fact that he neglected care so others could receive it, or that he spent his uncle’s birthday perched in a tree, watching over everyone. If he killed someone who had done nothing wrong — who didn’t deserve it — he knew that Ji Guang would never be the same.

All of a sudden, Nalu felt a rush of movement that made his head spin, and then…he was coughing and gasping and there was air. That was the first thing he recognized. Air in his lungs.

The second thing was that Ji Guang was cursing and dragging him up onto a rock. He could still hardly see him, his eyes bleary from being stung by salt for so long, and his throat was scratched from inhaling and subsequently coughing up seawater. He wanted to tell Ji Guang to calm down, to relax, that he was okay, but the words wouldn’t come out. All his body allowed him to do was breathe, leaving Ji Guang left to panic.

Before he could reach up and touch him, though, and tell him he was fine, Ji Guang moved, and all of a sudden their lips were together.

He was trying to resuscitate him. Nalu knew how to do this, in case one of his friends encountered a problem when surfing, or one of his sisters fell overboard.

Nalu did his best to avoid coughing directly into Ji Guang’s mouth and pushed him away, hand on his cheek, shoving him away just slightly.

“If you’re gonna do that…check if the corpse is still breathing first,” Nalu said, sounding somewhere between a man with a severe cold and a man who’d just run a marathon.

He stared up at Ji Guang, whose eyes were wide with panic and fear, and Nalu could only feel relief that the situation had turned out the way it had. He wondered if he was even still drunk after all that.

“Unless you were trying to do something else, but you were doing that wrong, too,” Nalu said.

Maybe it was the wrong time, and maybe he didn’t know anything about courting a prince, but he knew a few things. He knew he liked Ji Guang, and he knew that this wasn’t going to scare him away. He was grateful to be alive, sure, and terrified that Ji Guang could do something like that, but if he was being honest…anyone could have done that, and Ji Guang had been out of his own head when doing it. It made him curious. It made him want to know more. Every little thing he did made him want to know more.

He pushed the hand on Ji Guang’s cheek around to the back of his neck and pulled him down to meet his lips again, the kiss salty and sweet and soft compared to the hurried, open-mouthed, life-saving gesture Ji Guang had just done.

He wanted the kiss to be longer. He wanted to taste the salt water on Ji Guang’s tongue and tangle his fingers in his hair. He wanted to move his head up off his lap and finally sate this thing he’d been craving for so long, but his body was still recovering, and air was higher up on his brain’s list of priorities

“Do it like that next time,” he said as he pulled away, breathless. He dropped his head back down on Ji Guang’s lap and stared up at him, chest still heaving. Yeah. Maybe the lack of oxygen had done a number of things to his brain.

“Though, preferably with 100 percent less chance of drowning for me, if you don’t mind,” Nalu said, the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips.

[claudrps]

Ji Guang might not be an expert on this specific field, but he was pretty sure that this mouth-to-mouth thing wasn’t meant to be interrupted by the victim gently pushing his face away from his—cancelling his efforts to save him, the ingrate asshole!—to point out his obvious lack of skill. For starters, rude, second, wasn’t he meant to be laying down, kinda dying while Ji Guang did his best efforts to blow into his lungs like he was filling up a balloon?!

In fact, for someone that had been kind of dying and coughing out a lung just moments ago, Nalu looked rather calm, just laying on his lap with this strange, concentrated look on his face while his hand—cupping his cheek so gently that Ji Guang nearly missed it—crept upwards to wrap around his neck, pulling him down to—

….Oh—Ji Guang thought oh so eloquently, staring dumbly and wide-eyed at the face right in front of him, so close that he was going cross-eyed, too shocked to even think of pushing away when a pair of lips pressed against his and promptly ate up the complains straight out of his mouth.  He’d just had that mouth pressed against his, and yet, somehow this felt drastically different from his fumbled attempts to keep him alive—for starters, the lack of air being pushed into someone’s lungs, or the fact that this was far gentler and sweeter than his previous attempts, which had nearly printed a copy of Nalu’s teeth against his lips.

Ji Guang had never kissed anyone in his whole life.

Being a prince and only heir of a gigantic kingdom already put quite the pressure on his shoulder, with an added 5 years of war plus his own permanent state of emotional constipation…..it wasn’t the best nor the healthiest equation to find love or someone to exchange secret kisses in backrooms or closets or whenever people even made out.

….Fuck. He didn’t even know the places where people made out!

So, needless to say; he was a little lost and flabbergasted. In fact, Ji Guang figured he probably hadn’t contributed much given how he’d spent the entire procedure frozen in place, rudely refusing to close his eyes—was that rude? was it rude to kiss someone with their eyes open?—face painted red by the time that Nalu pulled away, smirking in a way that would have usually angered Ji Guang, but that now only made him flush even redder. The concept of ‘Nalu is handsome’ wasn’t anything new, it was an obvious and well-known fact. But, for some reason, as he stared down at him laying down on his lap, Ji Guang found himself suddenly hyperaware of the water drops sliding down his face and the speckles of salt that clung to his lashes, paying extra attention to the curve of his smile and how it made his eyes curve into soft and fond crescent moons, throat painfully dry as he noticed that his lips were flushed pink, probably from his first attempt to punch their mouth together.

Something in his chest lurched, painfully so, and although the danger was long gone, Ji Guang still found his blood pressure dangerously high, heat concentrating on his cheeks as he realized that he….he liked this; the warm, fondness on his eyes that shouldn’t ever be offered so openly to someone as harsh and thorny as him, the way Nalu’s ribs heaved against his firm grip on him, breathless but happy, that stupid smile that he’d convinced himself that he hated—

Ji Guang dealt with all of that the only way that he knew how to deal with anything that was kind and dear to him:

He bristled and snapped.

“W-What’s wrong with you?!” He snapped, but his face was too red, the pause to gather his insults too long and heavy as he re-taught his mouth to formulate coherent words again. “I just—I nearly killed you just now! Who the fuck does that to their almost-murderer?! You should be-! I don’t fucking know, screaming in fear or trying to get away from me! Anything that any reasonable person would do!” Ji Guang spluttered, dancing back and forth towards panic and confusion while toeing around the edge of the tall and dangerous cliff of guilt. 

His hands caught Nalu’s shawl again, trying to shake him around like he usually did, but it was too lighthearted, his hands uncharacteristically shaky, like he was genuinely afraid that even doing so would shatter Nalu to pieces. “I know you’re an idiot, but you’re not supposed to be suicidal as well! That’s too fucking much! You only get to pick one type of idiot!” He hissed through his teeth, hands shaky with anger, eyes burning with guilt, and cheeks red with shame and something that he was too stubborn to name.

[dainarps]

Oh, this was too good. Nalu had absolutely no regrets. Sure, he probably could’ve had better timing, and yeah, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to kiss someone right after they nearly killed him, but the look on Ji Guang’s face was well worth it. His eyes were practically bulging out of his skull and his cheeks were so red that he could even see them in the dark. He could probably even see it if his hair was covering his face like it usually was.

Ji Guang took far too long to come back into himself, snapping and shaking him and acting, well, reasonably for the scenario. He was all around…right. That probably shouldn’t have been his gut reaction, especially given how Ji Guang was now reacting. That whole thing had probably been mortifying for him — horrible and scary. He knew that that wasn’t who Ji Guang wanted himself to be, though.

“Don’t look at me like that, lôlô,” Nalu said.

He pushed Ji Guang’s hands off his chest and, slowly, sat himself up. He could still see the shoreline, but Ji Guang had really dragged them out far. It didn’t much matter, though, where they were right now. “I didn’t feel scared. I think…hm…it’s complicated.”

Nalu rested his hands in his lap and looked at Ji Guang, who was still obviously shaken. Nalu, too, was a little twitchy, his body still recovering from the experience and the stress of it all. “I think…you’re learning about yourself. A lot. I think that whatever that was — I don’t think you thought you were going to hurt me, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it, because you wouldn’t really hurt anyone. Unless that person deserved it,” Nalu said, smirking. His voice was still scratchy and strained. “I think Pali Kai — the ocean — it’s bringing up this part of you that you didn’t really know about before, and you’re learning about yourself. Each time you figure something new out…it’s exciting for you, and for me too, but I think there’s parts of you that maybe you don’t understand yet. Things that have to do with…whatever ocean spirit you’re made up of or whatever,” he said, gesturing vaguely at all of Ji Guang.

“Every time you do something — in or out of the water — I keep thinking that I want to know more.”

And maybe he was stupid for thinking that. Maybe he was stupid for still being attracted to someone when that person had nearly killed him but he knew Ji Guang. He knew there was more to him. He didn’t know what that was, but it felt…unavoidable. It felt like Ji Guang thought he was doing something right. He wanted to take him somewhere — Nalu was just incapable of following Ji Guang.

Maybe that was just the destiny of his relationship with Ji Guang — him chasing after someone that he knew he couldn’t ever catch up with.

“I don’t think you were trying to kill me,” Nalu said. “I think…you were lost in yourself. Which, honestly, for a guy as selfless as you, that’s probably a good thing.” He tilted his head and peered at Ji Guang, studying every crease on his fact, the red of his cheeks, the watery look to his eyes… “Did you know what you were doing?”

[claudrps]

As it turned out, regret tasted strong, flavorful, earthy and like the pits of hell, with a layer of sweetness that almost felt like a comforting ‘there there that wasn’t so bad was it?’, except it fucking was!

Ji Guang wheezed as he stopped to breathe, coughing through the fire tunnel that had become his throat, still reeling from the taste but stubbornly keeping his mouth shut to avoid letting any miserable sounds slip out of his mouth. This was hell. Literally hell in a bottle, fuck, wasn’t shit in Pali Kai meant to be sweet and pleasant?! He should have fucking known that there was a catch; those bright smiles and cheerful behavior was all a cover-up for the fact that they were all secretly waiting for the right moment to murder them with this shit! 

For an actual moment, Ji Guang almost considered calling it quits and handing the bottle over to whoever he hated the most tonight—Shi Shu immediately came to mind, and honestly, if Leilani wasn’t already in such a state, he would have felt terribly tempted to pour it down his uncle’s throat, as revenge for his stupid comments and equally stupid smirks—but just when he was considering his options, Nalu opened his big fucking mouth. Again.

Vein twitching on his forehead and temper suddenly catching on fire—or maybe that was just the hellish drink—, Ji Guan threw him a vicious glare and brought the bottle up to his mouth again. “Fucking . Watch. Me.” He hissed through gritted teeth, sounding as if someone was forcefully yanking his teeth out and yet, still went for another swig, making sure to gulp down hard and loud, just to really rub it on Nalu’s face. His eyes watered, his chest burned and his stomach wasn’t the slightest bit happy with him, but it didn’t matter: Ji Guang gulped down the last of his bottle and slammed it down on the bench with a victorious smirk, the bottle completely empty. “Ah! Take that, asshole! And I’m not even tipsy!” Ji Guang gloated, his voice hoarse and slightly pained, but that didn’t stop him from proudly puffing his chest out. “Drunk, tsk, I don’t get drunk. That’s Shi Shu’s job, plus I had too much booze back during the war; alcohol helps with the nerves…” Slowly, Ji Guang’s tone mellowed, his words slowing down, but not because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Blinking hard, Ji Guang’s brows furrowed and pinched into a frown, his mouth opening and closing a few times but the train of thought was already lost, and no matter how many times he blinked, the colorful spots still refused to leave his vision. “Who…the fuck turned on all these lights? Fucking spots everywhere, what a shitty lighting choice…” He growled under his breath, before falling silent once again.

In fact, Ji Guang was silent for a long time: hands braced on his knees, eyes firmly locked on the spot between his feet, brows still pinched together, as if he was concentrating, the silence heavy compared to his previous one-man-band symphony of spluttering, snapping and shouting.

Then, at last, a change; slowly and gradually, Ji Guang’s face gained an obvious reddish glow to it, the color spreading up to his ears and down to his neck. When he finally raised his head to meet Nalu’s gaze, the movement wasn’t sluggish nor lazy like it was to be expected. In fact, he seemed still very much in control of his body, his movements fluid and graceful as ever: from a distance no one would ever be able to tell that he was even drunk in the first place.

That is, if they stayed at a distance.

Ji Guang stared at Nalu, eyes hard, fierce and determined, which on itself wouldn’t have been very different from the usual, except he was so pink, like a boiled shrimp, and the pupil of his only visible eye was fully dilated, and a quiet Ji Guang simply wasn’t A Thing, so clearly something wasn’t quite right. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Ji Guang’s hand darted out and caught a handful Nalu’s shawl, forcefully dragging him closer, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Again, from a distance, it could have been perceived as a romantic or even seductive gesture, just a pair of healthy young men about to get frisky. Except, Ji Guang’s eyes were narrowed into a glare, and his lips pressed in a firm stiff line, the redness of his face only making him look all the more furious..

“We” He hissed into the short gap of distance between their faces, in a tone that accepted no discordance nor complaints, his grip tightening on Nalu’s shawl. “Are going for a swim.” He declared, jumping up to his feet with an enviable grace that was thoroughly misleading because there was nothing even remotely close to sober in the crazed glint of his eye. His grip on Nalu’s clothes didn’t falter, in fact, he tugged hard on him, as if trying to pull him up. Apparently irritated that Nalu didn’t obey within the first 0.3 seconds, Ji Guang muffled an irritate growl in the back of his throat and, much to the utter disbelief and shock of the people watching, bluntly grabbed Nalu around the waist and pulled him up, hoisting him over his shoulder with only a slightly frustrated huff, like he wasn’t carrying a guy as tall and broad as him like he was a potato sack

“Lets go.” Ji Guang hissed, his steps strong and determined, still not the slightest bit wobbly, in fact; Ji Guang didn’t walk, he marched away from their confused and bewildered audience like he was a soldier on a mission, and Nalu was his precious cargo.

He grumbled incoherently under his breath throughout the entire trip, his grip firm and not budging, and when Nalu moved too much for his liking, he just landed a sharp slap on his lap, hissing a grumpy ‘shush!’ under his breath without ever slowing down.  And apparently, Ji Guang truly meant what he’d said, because soon enough, it became obvious where they were headed at, as the beach came into view; he said they were going swimming?

  Then they were going to swim alright!

The wobbling only began when his feet sunk too hard in the sand thanks to the added weight, but that still didn’t stop him from stomping his way all the way over to the pier, still refusing to let go of his hostage. Finally, Ji Guang stopped right at the edge to the pier, where he then suddenly and unceremoniously tossed Nalu into the water, clothes and everything, before jumping right after him as well.

 “Better.” Ji Guang decided, once he came up to the surface, his hair glued to his face like dark ink running down his face, ponytail already deflating. His face was still stuck on that weirdly determined and viciously focused look, but he seemed like he was slowly mellowing down, tension washing off his shoulders the longer he stayed in the water. “Too fucking hot. Water is better. ‘S nice.” He grumbled, almost sleepily.

[dainarps]

“Ah, don’t — it’s not really meant — oh, you’re doing it. Okay,” Nalu said, watching with both a mix of amusement and horror as Ji Guang downed the whole bottle of okolehao, as if it wasn’t a sipping drink meant to get you drunk quickly but over time. Ji Guang apparently just wanted to get fucked up, and he didn’t care how quickly it happened.

Nalu, meanwhile, sipped on his drink and watched as the alcohol entered Ji Guang’s system. It worked quickly, absorbed into his bloodstream and bringing a color to his face that Nalu almost couldn’t see. Ji Guang had stopped talking for quite a while, and Nalu expected him to puke the alcohol right out of his system, but he just sat there, slowly turning pink.

It was definitely something interesting to watch. Ji Guang has surely had the more refined wines of the upper class, but this moonshine could be made by anyone, and anyone did make it.

Slowly, Ji Guang moved so he was sitting up again, his face intense. If he wasn’t so red it might’ve been concerning. Nalu, however, thought it was cute. He wondered what he was thinking about and he wondered the words on his tongue, what he was trying to say.

Then, his brain short-circuited. Ji Guang grabbed his shawl and pulled him in close — so close that it was startling. Was Ji Guang finally going to make a move? Was he going to say something important? Was this an invitation for him to make a move? They were so close. He could just lean forward and kiss him. What would happen if he did that? Ji Guang did have his sword on him — he’d probably stab him. It’d be worth it though.

Ji Guang started to speak, Nalu waited for the words to finally come out of his mouth, and…they weren’t what he expected at all.

There was no big confession, no words of affection. They were just…going for a swim.

“What?”

Ji Guang had no patience for his confusion and scooped him up so suddenly that he dropped his okolehao on the ground. What in the world was happening right now?! How was he even holding him? Sure he was strong, but this was ridiculous.

Ji Guang marched him all the way away from the party, down to the docks, and instead of just putting him down, he threw him into the water.

Nalu’s shout was swallowed by the water, and when he resurfaced he saw Ji Guang resurface as well, talking about how everything was better now.

“How is this better?! You threw me into the water with my clothes on!” Nalu said, trying to sound mad but laughing regardless.

“Oi, don’t go falling asleep in the water. Wake your ass up,” he said, splashing Nalu in the face. What were his parents going to think when he returned to the castle soaking wet and drunk?

“If you fall asleep I’m not gonna save you from getting dragged out to sea.”

A lie. He’d absolutely save his sorry ass.

[claudrps]

“Fuck you.” Ji Guang said, not grumbled, calm and more nonchalant than he’d ever been, content to just turn belly up and float there, like an otter sunbathing. Except….with the full moon, shining brightly above them. Just bright enough to illuminate the moment when something slipped into Ji Guang’s features, like the shimmer of the scales of a fish that sneaked in and out of a fishnet before it could be caught. “I can’t fucking drown, you’re a liar.” He added, cracking his eye open to glaze lazily at him. His gaze looked strangely dazed and glazed over, like someone that was sleeping with his eyes open; unfocused, not all there.

Slowly, Ji Guang stood back up, and something about his movements felt strangely off—something patient and languid, something that felt nothing like Ji Guang. “I tried it the other day,” He said, slowly approaching Nalu, and if his pupils had been strangely wide before, then now there were eerily small. He had yet to blink once since he opened his eyes. “Just to see how long it would take. How long I could hold my breath. Didn’t work, though, see—”

And that was how Ji Guang ended up with his hands back on Nalu’s shoulders again, except instead of making him sit down, Ji Guang sunk his fingers hard into his shoulders and pulled him straight up underwater, barely giving him a moment to catch a mouthful of air before he dragged him into the dark waters.

If anyone happened to peek underwater that precise moment, they would have rapidly hurried away, flustered and embarrassed over what they had accidentally come across; Ji Guang’s limbs were entangled with Nalu’s, in a way that couldn’t be called anything other than intimate, ankles locked around his, arms wrapped around his shoulders, leaning down….anyone could have easily mistaken them for a frisky couple engaging into some risky late night activities while everyone was at the party.

That wasn’t the case, though.

The ocean was a terrifying thing at night; clear blue waters turned black like ink, and the moonlight that filtered through the surface only made it all the eerier, specially when the dim light reflected on the fishes’ eyes, just white dots flashing occasionally underwater.

There was a bigger one, though, flashing right in front of Nalu.

The water, with it’s special rules on how gravity worked in it’s reign, took away the weight from Ji Guang’s heavy hair, making it seem almost as weightless as a veil, just black tendrils swirling around their heads, almost merging in with the darkness surrounding them. As if brushed away by an invisible caress, Ji Guang’s fringe floated away from his face, baring the elusive right side of his face to Nalu. Black stared back at Nalu. Just pure black, where the eye’s white should have been, a deep darkness that was only interrupted by the sharp blue iris that stared down at him, the moonlight reflecting brightly on it, making it stand out in that dark environment.

Ji Guang, for the first time since they’d met, didn’t try to hurriedly cover his eye, nor tried to look away; he just stared down at Nalu, too still, too quiet, his whole body language completely wrong.

Wrong, like the strong hands that tried to push him deeper into the water.

Slowly, Ji Guang opened his mouth, letting go of all the air that he’d stored in his lungs, air bubbles dancing around their faces until the very last one left. And yet, when he opened his mouth again and curled his lips and tongue around a word, a sound clearly came out of his mouth:

“See?” Ji Guang asked, the sound strange, like a gurgle and something heard through a thick glass, but still clear enough to be understood. “I don’t need it.” His arms curled tighter around Nalu, like a snake trying to immobilize it’s prey, trying to drag him deeper, further into the sea…

Above their heads, high up in the sky, the moon’s glow dimmed as a school of clouds slowly inched closer, obscuring it from view. That grip on Nalu immediately stuttered, shaking slightly as if a chill had just run up Ji Guang’s spine. His fingers twitched where they dug into his shoulders, and finally, Ji Guang’s scarily empty expression twitched, almost looking conflicted, like someone trying to wake up from a stubborn nightmare.

[dainarps]

Nalu raised a brow. What, exactly, was Ji Guang doing? His voice was so serious — it wasn’t at all like how he imagined Ji Guang to be when he was drunk. He’d kind of been hoping for an emotional, overly chatty Ji Guang, and instead he got someone stoic and serious. He supposed it could be worse.

Ji Guang apparently thought so, too.

He stopped his lazy floating and came over to him, looking at him with something that could only be described as hunger. Before Nalu could react, he was grabbed and dragged underwater, unable to even grab a full breath of air before he was submerged. He struggled and kicked at Ji Guang, figuring he’d let him go, he’d pop up above the waves, and once he caught his breath he’d grab his ponytail and tell him off for being a prick.

None of that happened, though. Ji Guang dragged him deeper and deeper into the water and Nalu felt as if his lungs might explode. Finally, they stopped their descent and he looked up at Ji Guang, who was looking back at him. With both eyes.

Nalu had never seen Ji Guang’s right eye, and he supposed he kept it hidden for good reason. It was black, reflecting the light of the moon despite their depth. It was strange to see his whole face, but stranger still to know that he could talk beneath the water’s surface. Nalu could hear him, but it was like they were kids talking between walls.

Ji Guang wrapped himself tighter around him, his grip almost crushing. He knew that there was something odd about Ji Guang from the beginning — that he was somehow connected to the ocean — but he didn’t know what it was. He still didn’t know. He trusted him, and he knew he wouldn’t purposefully hurt him, but there was something about his look. There was something…off. This was a part of him that he was still learning. It was still untamed.

Nalu could see Ji Guang was still there, though. He could see him there, just as confused and unsure as he was. Neither of them knew who Ji Guang really was, but that didn’t matter. He was still Ji Guang.

Nalu reached his hand up and pressed his hand to Ji Guang’s cheek, his thumb under his right eye. It was about all he could do.

His body went into survival mode, his mouth opened and he gasped for air, bubbles leaving his mouth and water flowing into his lungs. He struggled and kicked and punched Ji Guang, trusting him fully but also fighting for his life at the same time. He couldn’t breathe, he was choking, and he felt like his chest was collapsing in on itself. Ji Guang had a vice grip on him, though, and wouldn’t let him out. The vision around the corners of his eyes was starting to blur, and he turned to look desperately at Ji Guang. Nalu had promised he wouldn’t let him drown, not when they were on the boat, not when he was learning to swim. He wouldn’t let him drown.

He prayed Ji Guang would do the same for him.

[claudrps]

Ji Guang was stuck in a nightmare.

It was a long, dragged out nightmare without a story, a villain, or anything at all to fill the empty void that surrounded him. Occasionally, he was vaguely aware of his surroundings but, his brain felt muffled, only catching glimpses and brief moments of clarity,  but his head felt sedated, slow to react and even slower to process the information.

All that he knew was that, he was doing something right.

Yes, it was the same sensation from before, back when he’d learned how to swim the right way, or, like when he realized that he didn’t have to count his time underwater, the air would just last forever as far as he was concerned. It was deep gut feeling that felt like a gentle hand guiding him through motions that he’d never done before, and yet, that he still managed to get right on his first try. Like breathing, screaming or giggling. Wrong—screamed a distant, muffled and drowned part of his head that refused to be silenced. That, unlike the coaxing tug on his guts and chest, felt like desperate punches in his chest, like frantic hands trying to shake him awake. Something was wrong; it felt so right, like he was meant to be doing whatever that he was doing, and yet at the same time, his whole body was trying to rebel against him in a desperate attempt to stop, limbs locking in place as a last resource.

Ironically enough, it was the gentlest of touches that ended up waking him up. Just a soft warm pressed right against his cheek, a touch that Ji Guang wanted to lean into even in this dazed, semi-conscious state that entrapped him.

It was immediately followed by frantic punches, pushes and kicks, and that promptly snapped the last thread that connected him to that strange empty void, his eyes snapping wide open, blinking repeatedly like he’d just snapped awake. 

And the first thing he saw, was a drowning Nalu staring at him pleadingly, desperately trying to struggle out of his vicious grip on him.

Ji Guang’s heart sunk like an anchor, arms latching around Nalu before his brain could even catch up, using all the strength that he could possibly gather to swim up, his leg aching but an easily ignorable pain compared to the desperate and panicked tightness that clutched his chest.  Unsurprisingly, it was much easier to make someone sink than dragging their combined weights upwards, but Ji Guang didn’t stop until they breached the surface, his hands practically shaking from the adrenaline as he swam towards the closest rock formation—fuck the shore; Ji Guang would have used a coral reef if that was the closest thing that he could get to solid land underneath their feet right now.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuck—!” Ji Guang hissed under his breath, almost hyperventilating by the time he managed to drag Nalu up, laying him on a somewhat horizontal-ish rock that was big enough for both of them. “What do I do what do I do—FUCK, what do I do?!” Ji Guang snapped, his eyes wild with panic as he practically cradled Nalu on his lap, supporting his head against his shoulder. 

 He’d never learned how to save someone; he knew how to patch up a wound, how to pop a bone back into place among other things but, nobody had ever taught him what to do when someone swallowed up a lot of water!

…..No, wait; Shi Shu did teach him! Not, well, not properly because it’s not like they had had anywhere to practice, but he’d given him a lecture on that shit that one time when he convinced him to let him take Leilani to the hotsprings. He remembered vaguely this illustration of someone pressing their mouth to the other person’s mouth and just, puffing air into their lungs…? 

Didn’t make much sense to him, but fuck it! He was out of options, and Nalu’s lungs were full of water and it was all his fault and if his heart rate got any more panicked it would just straight up burst out of his chest.

Acting quickly—like someone who knew what he was doing, and how darn misleading was that!—Ji Guang cupped Nalu’s jaw with his free hand, coaxing his mouth open so that he could unceremoniously commence a direct attack, no warning provided. Ducking his head, Ji Guang pressed their lips together so hard that he could feel the indents of Nalu’s teeth against his lips, his hand keeping a firm grip on his face so that his aim wouldn’t slip.  Phase one completely, JI Guang advanced to the nest and just, started breathing into Nalu’s mouth, unsure whether he was even doing this right or if it was even working in the first place, but he wasn’t going to stop until he got some damn fucking results, because like hell was he going to let this bastard die in his arms!

[dainarps]

Nalu had never really thought about death. He knew it existed and he knew he wasn’t immortal, but he stared death in the face every day. He laughed at it every time he went surfing, he grinned at it each time he took his boat out. He and death were like friends. He just didn’t think this was how death would come to him, trapped in the arms of the boy he had a crush on — a young man who didn’t know who he was, what he was, or why he was doing the things he was doing.

He could hardly make out Ji Guang’s face, but he tried desperately to hold on for his sake. Ji Guang was learning about himself and he was learning about his past. If he killed him...he’d never want to explore this side of himself again. He’d never want to know what the ocean held for him.

More than that, he knew Ji Guang would never forgive himself.

Ji Guang was a gentle spirit, one that had been forced to harden as life went on, but it didn’t negate his core. It didn’t change the fact that he neglected care so others could receive it, or that he spent his uncle’s birthday perched in a tree, watching over everyone. If he killed someone who had done nothing wrong — who didn’t deserve it — he knew that Ji Guang would never be the same.

All of a sudden, Nalu felt a rush of movement that made his head spin, and then...he was coughing and gasping and there was air. That was the first thing he recognized. Air in his lungs.

The second thing was that Ji Guang was cursing and dragging him up onto a rock. He could still hardly see him, his eyes bleary from being stung by salt for so long, and his throat was scratched from inhaling and subsequently coughing up seawater. He wanted to tell Ji Guang to calm down, to relax, that he was okay, but the words wouldn’t come out. All his body allowed him to do was breathe, leaving Ji Guang left to panic.

Before he could reach up and touch him, though, and tell him he was fine, Ji Guang moved, and all of a sudden their lips were together.

He was trying to resuscitate him. Nalu knew how to do this, in case one of his friends encountered a problem when surfing, or one of his sisters fell overboard.

Nalu did his best to avoid coughing directly into Ji Guang’s mouth and pushed him away, hand on his cheek, shoving him away just slightly.

“If you’re gonna do that...check if the corpse is still breathing first,” Nalu said, sounding somewhere between a man with a severe cold and a man who’d just run a marathon.

He stared up at Ji Guang, whose eyes were wide with panic and fear, and Nalu could only feel relief that the situation had turned out the way it had. He wondered if he was even still drunk after all that.

“Unless you were trying to do something else, but you were doing that wrong, too,” Nalu said.

Maybe it was the wrong time, and maybe he didn’t know anything about courting a prince, but he knew a few things. He knew he liked Ji Guang, and he knew that this wasn’t going to scare him away. He was grateful to be alive, sure, and terrified that Ji Guang could do something like that, but if he was being honest...anyone could have done that, and Ji Guang had been out of his own head when doing it. It made him curious. It made him want to know more. Every little thing he did made him want to know more.

He pushed the hand on Ji Guang’s cheek around to the back of his neck and pulled him down to meet his lips again, the kiss salty and sweet and soft compared to the hurried, open-mouthed, life-saving gesture Ji Guang had just done.

He wanted the kiss to be longer. He wanted to taste the salt water on Ji Guang’s tongue and tangle his fingers in his hair. He wanted to move his head up off his lap and finally sate this thing he’d been craving for so long, but his body was still recovering, and air was higher up on his brain’s list of priorities

“Do it like that next time,” he said as he pulled away, breathless. He dropped his head back down on Ji Guang’s lap and stared up at him, chest still heaving. Yeah. Maybe the lack of oxygen had done a number of things to his brain.

“Though, preferably with 100 percent less chance of drowning for me, if you don’t mind,” Nalu said, the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips.

[claudrps]

As it turned out, regret tasted strong, flavorful, earthy and like the pits of hell, with a layer of sweetness that almost felt like a comforting ‘there there that wasn’t so bad was it?’, except it fucking was!

Ji Guang wheezed as he stopped to breathe, coughing through the fire tunnel that had become his throat, still reeling from the taste but stubbornly keeping his mouth shut to avoid letting any miserable sounds slip out of his mouth. This was hell. Literally hell in a bottle, fuck, wasn’t shit in Pali Kai meant to be sweet and pleasant?! He should have fucking known that there was a catch; those bright smiles and cheerful behavior was all a cover-up for the fact that they were all secretly waiting for the right moment to murder them with this shit! 

For an actual moment, Ji Guang almost considered calling it quits and handing the bottle over to whoever he hated the most tonight—Shi Shu immediately came to mind, and honestly, if Leilani wasn’t already in such a state, he would have felt terribly tempted to pour it down his uncle’s throat, as revenge for his stupid comments and equally stupid smirks—but just when he was considering his options, Nalu opened his big fucking mouth. Again.

Vein twitching on his forehead and temper suddenly catching on fire—or maybe that was just the hellish drink—, Ji Guan threw him a vicious glare and brought the bottle up to his mouth again. “Fucking . Watch. Me.” He hissed through gritted teeth, sounding as if someone was forcefully yanking his teeth out and yet, still went for another swig, making sure to gulp down hard and loud, just to really rub it on Nalu’s face. His eyes watered, his chest burned and his stomach wasn’t the slightest bit happy with him, but it didn’t matter: Ji Guang gulped down the last of his bottle and slammed it down on the bench with a victorious smirk, the bottle completely empty. “Ah! Take that, asshole! And I’m not even tipsy!” Ji Guang gloated, his voice hoarse and slightly pained, but that didn’t stop him from proudly puffing his chest out. “Drunk, tsk, I don’t get drunk. That’s Shi Shu’s job, plus I had too much booze back during the war; alcohol helps with the nerves…” Slowly, Ji Guang’s tone mellowed, his words slowing down, but not because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Blinking hard, Ji Guang’s brows furrowed and pinched into a frown, his mouth opening and closing a few times but the train of thought was already lost, and no matter how many times he blinked, the colorful spots still refused to leave his vision. “Who…the fuck turned on all these lights? Fucking spots everywhere, what a shitty lighting choice…” He growled under his breath, before falling silent once again.

In fact, Ji Guang was silent for a long time: hands braced on his knees, eyes firmly locked on the spot between his feet, brows still pinched together, as if he was concentrating, the silence heavy compared to his previous one-man-band symphony of spluttering, snapping and shouting.

Then, at last, a change; slowly and gradually, Ji Guang’s face gained an obvious reddish glow to it, the color spreading up to his ears and down to his neck. When he finally raised his head to meet Nalu’s gaze, the movement wasn’t sluggish nor lazy like it was to be expected. In fact, he seemed still very much in control of his body, his movements fluid and graceful as ever: from a distance no one would ever be able to tell that he was even drunk in the first place.

That is, if they stayed at a distance.

Ji Guang stared at Nalu, eyes hard, fierce and determined, which on itself wouldn’t have been very different from the usual, except he was so pink, like a boiled shrimp, and the pupil of his only visible eye was fully dilated, and a quiet Ji Guang simply wasn’t A Thing, so clearly something wasn’t quite right. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Ji Guang’s hand darted out and caught a handful Nalu’s shawl, forcefully dragging him closer, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Again, from a distance, it could have been perceived as a romantic or even seductive gesture, just a pair of healthy young men about to get frisky. Except, Ji Guang’s eyes were narrowed into a glare, and his lips pressed in a firm stiff line, the redness of his face only making him look all the more furious..

“We” He hissed into the short gap of distance between their faces, in a tone that accepted no discordance nor complaints, his grip tightening on Nalu’s shawl. “Are going for a swim.” He declared, jumping up to his feet with an enviable grace that was thoroughly misleading because there was nothing even remotely close to sober in the crazed glint of his eye. His grip on Nalu’s clothes didn’t falter, in fact, he tugged hard on him, as if trying to pull him up. Apparently irritated that Nalu didn’t obey within the first 0.3 seconds, Ji Guang muffled an irritate growl in the back of his throat and, much to the utter disbelief and shock of the people watching, bluntly grabbed Nalu around the waist and pulled him up, hoisting him over his shoulder with only a slightly frustrated huff, like he wasn’t carrying a guy as tall and broad as him like he was a potato sack

“Lets go.” Ji Guang hissed, his steps strong and determined, still not the slightest bit wobbly, in fact; Ji Guang didn’t walk, he marched away from their confused and bewildered audience like he was a soldier on a mission, and Nalu was his precious cargo.

He grumbled incoherently under his breath throughout the entire trip, his grip firm and not budging, and when Nalu moved too much for his liking, he just landed a sharp slap on his lap, hissing a grumpy ‘shush!’ under his breath without ever slowing down.  And apparently, Ji Guang truly meant what he’d said, because soon enough, it became obvious where they were headed at, as the beach came into view; he said they were going swimming?

  Then they were going to swim alright!

The wobbling only began when his feet sunk too hard in the sand thanks to the added weight, but that still didn’t stop him from stomping his way all the way over to the pier, still refusing to let go of his hostage. Finally, Ji Guang stopped right at the edge to the pier, where he then suddenly and unceremoniously tossed Nalu into the water, clothes and everything, before jumping right after him as well.

 “Better.” Ji Guang decided, once he came up to the surface, his hair glued to his face like dark ink running down his face, ponytail already deflating. His face was still stuck on that weirdly determined and viciously focused look, but he seemed like he was slowly mellowing down, tension washing off his shoulders the longer he stayed in the water. “Too fucking hot. Water is better. ‘S nice.” He grumbled, almost sleepily.

[dainarps]

“Ah, don’t — it’s not really meant — oh, you’re doing it. Okay,” Nalu said, watching with both a mix of amusement and horror as Ji Guang downed the whole bottle of okolehao, as if it wasn’t a sipping drink meant to get you drunk quickly but over time. Ji Guang apparently just wanted to get fucked up, and he didn’t care how quickly it happened.

Nalu, meanwhile, sipped on his drink and watched as the alcohol entered Ji Guang’s system. It worked quickly, absorbed into his bloodstream and bringing a color to his face that Nalu almost couldn’t see. Ji Guang had stopped talking for quite a while, and Nalu expected him to puke the alcohol right out of his system, but he just sat there, slowly turning pink.

It was definitely something interesting to watch. Ji Guang has surely had the more refined wines of the upper class, but this moonshine could be made by anyone, and anyone did make it.

Slowly, Ji Guang moved so he was sitting up again, his face intense. If he wasn’t so red it might’ve been concerning. Nalu, however, thought it was cute. He wondered what he was thinking about and he wondered the words on his tongue, what he was trying to say.

Then, his brain short-circuited. Ji Guang grabbed his shawl and pulled him in close — so close that it was startling. Was Ji Guang finally going to make a move? Was he going to say something important? Was this an invitation for him to make a move? They were so close. He could just lean forward and kiss him. What would happen if he did that? Ji Guang did have his sword on him — he’d probably stab him. It’d be worth it though.

Ji Guang started to speak, Nalu waited for the words to finally come out of his mouth, and…they weren’t what he expected at all.

There was no big confession, no words of affection. They were just…going for a swim.

“What?”

Ji Guang had no patience for his confusion and scooped him up so suddenly that he dropped his okolehao on the ground. What in the world was happening right now?! How was he even holding him? Sure he was strong, but this was ridiculous.

Ji Guang marched him all the way away from the party, down to the docks, and instead of just putting him down, he threw him into the water.

Nalu’s shout was swallowed by the water, and when he resurfaced he saw Ji Guang resurface as well, talking about how everything was better now.

“How is this better?! You threw me into the water with my clothes on!” Nalu said, trying to sound mad but laughing regardless.

“Oi, don’t go falling asleep in the water. Wake your ass up,” he said, splashing Nalu in the face. What were his parents going to think when he returned to the castle soaking wet and drunk?

“If you fall asleep I’m not gonna save you from getting dragged out to sea.”

A lie. He’d absolutely save his sorry ass.

[claudrps]

“Fuck you.” Ji Guang said, not grumbled, calm and more nonchalant than he’d ever been, content to just turn belly up and float there, like an otter sunbathing. Except….with the full moon, shining brightly above them. Just bright enough to illuminate the moment when something slipped into Ji Guang’s features, like the shimmer of the scales of a fish that sneaked in and out of a fishnet before it could be caught. “I can’t fucking drown, you’re a liar.” He added, cracking his eye open to glaze lazily at him. His gaze looked strangely dazed and glazed over, like someone that was sleeping with his eyes open; unfocused, not all there.

Slowly, Ji Guang stood back up, and something about his movements felt strangely off—something patient and languid, something that felt nothing like Ji Guang. “I tried it the other day,” He said, slowly approaching Nalu, and if his pupils had been strangely wide before, then now there were eerily small. He had yet to blink once since he opened his eyes. “Just to see how long it would take. How long I could hold my breath. Didn’t work, though, see—”

And that was how Ji Guang ended up with his hands back on Nalu’s shoulders again, except instead of making him sit down, Ji Guang sunk his fingers hard into his shoulders and pulled him straight up underwater, barely giving him a moment to catch a mouthful of air before he dragged him into the dark waters.

If anyone happened to peek underwater that precise moment, they would have rapidly hurried away, flustered and embarrassed over what they had accidentally come across; Ji Guang’s limbs were entangled with Nalu’s, in a way that couldn’t be called anything other than intimate, ankles locked around his, arms wrapped around his shoulders, leaning down….anyone could have easily mistaken them for a frisky couple engaging into some risky late night activities while everyone was at the party.

That wasn’t the case, though.

The ocean was a terrifying thing at night; clear blue waters turned black like ink, and the moonlight that filtered through the surface only made it all the eerier, specially when the dim light reflected on the fishes’ eyes, just white dots flashing occasionally underwater.

There was a bigger one, though, flashing right in front of Nalu.

The water, with it’s special rules on how gravity worked in it’s reign, took away the weight from Ji Guang’s heavy hair, making it seem almost as weightless as a veil, just black tendrils swirling around their heads, almost merging in with the darkness surrounding them. As if brushed away by an invisible caress, Ji Guang’s fringe floated away from his face, baring the elusive right side of his face to Nalu. Black stared back at Nalu. Just pure black, where the eye’s white should have been, a deep darkness that was only interrupted by the sharp blue iris that stared down at him, the moonlight reflecting brightly on it, making it stand out in that dark environment.

Ji Guang, for the first time since they’d met, didn’t try to hurriedly cover his eye, nor tried to look away; he just stared down at Nalu, too still, too quiet, his whole body language completely wrong.

Wrong, like the strong hands that tried to push him deeper into the water.

Slowly, Ji Guang opened his mouth, letting go of all the air that he’d stored in his lungs, air bubbles dancing around their faces until the very last one left. And yet, when he opened his mouth again and curled his lips and tongue around a word, a sound clearly came out of his mouth:

“See?” Ji Guang asked, the sound strange, like a gurgle and something heard through a thick glass, but still clear enough to be understood. “I don’t need it.” His arms curled tighter around Nalu, like a snake trying to immobilize it’s prey, trying to drag him deeper, further into the sea…

Above their heads, high up in the sky, the moon’s glow dimmed as a school of clouds slowly inched closer, obscuring it from view. That grip on Nalu immediately stuttered, shaking slightly as if a chill had just run up Ji Guang’s spine. His fingers twitched where they dug into his shoulders, and finally, Ji Guang’s scarily empty expression twitched, almost looking conflicted, like someone trying to wake up from a stubborn nightmare.

[dainarps]

Nalu raised a brow. What, exactly, was Ji Guang doing? His voice was so serious — it wasn’t at all like how he imagined Ji Guang to be when he was drunk. He’d kind of been hoping for an emotional, overly chatty Ji Guang, and instead he got someone stoic and serious. He supposed it could be worse.

Ji Guang apparently thought so, too.

He stopped his lazy floating and came over to him, looking at him with something that could only be described as hunger. Before Nalu could react, he was grabbed and dragged underwater, unable to even grab a full breath of air before he was submerged. He struggled and kicked at Ji Guang, figuring he’d let him go, he’d pop up above the waves, and once he caught his breath he’d grab his ponytail and tell him off for being a prick.

None of that happened, though. Ji Guang dragged him deeper and deeper into the water and Nalu felt as if his lungs might explode. Finally, they stopped their descent and he looked up at Ji Guang, who was looking back at him. With both eyes.

Nalu had never seen Ji Guang’s right eye, and he supposed he kept it hidden for good reason. It was black, reflecting the light of the moon despite their depth. It was strange to see his whole face, but stranger still to know that he could talk beneath the water’s surface. Nalu could hear him, but it was like they were kids talking between walls.

Ji Guang wrapped himself tighter around him, his grip almost crushing. He knew that there was something odd about Ji Guang from the beginning — that he was somehow connected to the ocean — but he didn’t know what it was. He still didn’t know. He trusted him, and he knew he wouldn’t purposefully hurt him, but there was something about his look. There was something...off. This was a part of him that he was still learning. It was still untamed.

Nalu could see Ji Guang was still there, though. He could see him there, just as confused and unsure as he was. Neither of them knew who Ji Guang really was, but that didn’t matter. He was still Ji Guang.

Nalu reached his hand up and pressed his hand to Ji Guang’s cheek, his thumb under his right eye. It was about all he could do.

His body went into survival mode, his mouth opened and he gasped for air, bubbles leaving his mouth and water flowing into his lungs. He struggled and kicked and punched Ji Guang, trusting him fully but also fighting for his life at the same time. He couldn’t breathe, he was choking, and he felt like his chest was collapsing in on itself. Ji Guang had a vice grip on him, though, and wouldn’t let him out. The vision around the corners of his eyes was starting to blur, and he turned to look desperately at Ji Guang. Nalu had promised he wouldn’t let him drown, not when they were on the boat, not when he was learning to swim. He wouldn’t let him drown.

He prayed Ji Guang would do the same for him.

[claudrps]

As it turned out, regret tasted strong, flavorful, earthy and like the pits of hell, with a layer of sweetness that almost felt like a comforting ‘there there that wasn’t so bad was it?’, except it fucking was!

Ji Guang wheezed as he stopped to breathe, coughing through the fire tunnel that had become his throat, still reeling from the taste but stubbornly keeping his mouth shut to avoid letting any miserable sounds slip out of his mouth. This was hell. Literally hell in a bottle, fuck, wasn’t shit in Pali Kai meant to be sweet and pleasant?! He should have fucking known that there was a catch; those bright smiles and cheerful behavior was all a cover-up for the fact that they were all secretly waiting for the right moment to murder them with this shit! 

For an actual moment, Ji Guang almost considered calling it quits and handing the bottle over to whoever he hated the most tonight—Shi Shu immediately came to mind, and honestly, if Leilani wasn’t already in such a state, he would have felt terribly tempted to pour it down his uncle’s throat, as revenge for his stupid comments and equally stupid smirks—but just when he was considering his options, Nalu opened his big fucking mouth. Again.

Vein twitching on his forehead and temper suddenly catching on fire—or maybe that was just the hellish drink—, Ji Guan threw him a vicious glare and brought the bottle up to his mouth again. “Fucking . Watch. Me.” He hissed through gritted teeth, sounding as if someone was forcefully yanking his teeth out and yet, still went for another swig, making sure to gulp down hard and loud, just to really rub it on Nalu’s face. His eyes watered, his chest burned and his stomach wasn’t the slightest bit happy with him, but it didn’t matter: Ji Guang gulped down the last of his bottle and slammed it down on the bench with a victorious smirk, the bottle completely empty. “Ah! Take that, asshole! And I’m not even tipsy!” Ji Guang gloated, his voice hoarse and slightly pained, but that didn’t stop him from proudly puffing his chest out. “Drunk, tsk, I don’t get drunk. That’s Shi Shu’s job, plus I had too much booze back during the war; alcohol helps with the nerves…” Slowly, Ji Guang’s tone mellowed, his words slowing down, but not because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Blinking hard, Ji Guang’s brows furrowed and pinched into a frown, his mouth opening and closing a few times but the train of thought was already lost, and no matter how many times he blinked, the colorful spots still refused to leave his vision. “Who…the fuck turned on all these lights? Fucking spots everywhere, what a shitty lighting choice…” He growled under his breath, before falling silent once again.

In fact, Ji Guang was silent for a long time: hands braced on his knees, eyes firmly locked on the spot between his feet, brows still pinched together, as if he was concentrating, the silence heavy compared to his previous one-man-band symphony of spluttering, snapping and shouting.

Then, at last, a change; slowly and gradually, Ji Guang’s face gained an obvious reddish glow to it, the color spreading up to his ears and down to his neck. When he finally raised his head to meet Nalu’s gaze, the movement wasn’t sluggish nor lazy like it was to be expected. In fact, he seemed still very much in control of his body, his movements fluid and graceful as ever: from a distance no one would ever be able to tell that he was even drunk in the first place.

That is, if they stayed at a distance.

Ji Guang stared at Nalu, eyes hard, fierce and determined, which on itself wouldn’t have been very different from the usual, except he was so pink, like a boiled shrimp, and the pupil of his only visible eye was fully dilated, and a quiet Ji Guang simply wasn’t A Thing, so clearly something wasn’t quite right. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Ji Guang’s hand darted out and caught a handful Nalu’s shawl, forcefully dragging him closer, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Again, from a distance, it could have been perceived as a romantic or even seductive gesture, just a pair of healthy young men about to get frisky. Except, Ji Guang’s eyes were narrowed into a glare, and his lips pressed in a firm stiff line, the redness of his face only making him look all the more furious..

“We” He hissed into the short gap of distance between their faces, in a tone that accepted no discordance nor complaints, his grip tightening on Nalu’s shawl. “Are going for a swim.” He declared, jumping up to his feet with an enviable grace that was thoroughly misleading because there was nothing even remotely close to sober in the crazed glint of his eye. His grip on Nalu’s clothes didn’t falter, in fact, he tugged hard on him, as if trying to pull him up. Apparently irritated that Nalu didn’t obey within the first 0.3 seconds, Ji Guang muffled an irritate growl in the back of his throat and, much to the utter disbelief and shock of the people watching, bluntly grabbed Nalu around the waist and pulled him up, hoisting him over his shoulder with only a slightly frustrated huff, like he wasn’t carrying a guy as tall and broad as him like he was a potato sack

“Lets go.” Ji Guang hissed, his steps strong and determined, still not the slightest bit wobbly, in fact; Ji Guang didn’t walk, he marched away from their confused and bewildered audience like he was a soldier on a mission, and Nalu was his precious cargo.

He grumbled incoherently under his breath throughout the entire trip, his grip firm and not budging, and when Nalu moved too much for his liking, he just landed a sharp slap on his lap, hissing a grumpy ‘shush!’ under his breath without ever slowing down.  And apparently, Ji Guang truly meant what he’d said, because soon enough, it became obvious where they were headed at, as the beach came into view; he said they were going swimming?

  Then they were going to swim alright!

The wobbling only began when his feet sunk too hard in the sand thanks to the added weight, but that still didn’t stop him from stomping his way all the way over to the pier, still refusing to let go of his hostage. Finally, Ji Guang stopped right at the edge to the pier, where he then suddenly and unceremoniously tossed Nalu into the water, clothes and everything, before jumping right after him as well.

 “Better.” Ji Guang decided, once he came up to the surface, his hair glued to his face like dark ink running down his face, ponytail already deflating. His face was still stuck on that weirdly determined and viciously focused look, but he seemed like he was slowly mellowing down, tension washing off his shoulders the longer he stayed in the water. “Too fucking hot. Water is better. ‘S nice.” He grumbled, almost sleepily.

[dainarps]

“Ah, don’t — it’s not really meant — oh, you’re doing it. Okay,” Nalu said, watching with both a mix of amusement and horror as Ji Guang downed the whole bottle of okolehao, as if it wasn’t a sipping drink meant to get you drunk quickly but over time. Ji Guang apparently just wanted to get fucked up, and he didn’t care how quickly it happened.

Nalu, meanwhile, sipped on his drink and watched as the alcohol entered Ji Guang’s system. It worked quickly, absorbed into his bloodstream and bringing a color to his face that Nalu almost couldn’t see. Ji Guang had stopped talking for quite a while, and Nalu expected him to puke the alcohol right out of his system, but he just sat there, slowly turning pink.

It was definitely something interesting to watch. Ji Guang has surely had the more refined wines of the upper class, but this moonshine could be made by anyone, and anyone did make it.

Slowly, Ji Guang moved so he was sitting up again, his face intense. If he wasn’t so red it might’ve been concerning. Nalu, however, thought it was cute. He wondered what he was thinking about and he wondered the words on his tongue, what he was trying to say.

Then, his brain short-circuited. Ji Guang grabbed his shawl and pulled him in close — so close that it was startling. Was Ji Guang finally going to make a move? Was he going to say something important? Was this an invitation for him to make a move? They were so close. He could just lean forward and kiss him. What would happen if he did that? Ji Guang did have his sword on him — he’d probably stab him. It’d be worth it though.

Ji Guang started to speak, Nalu waited for the words to finally come out of his mouth, and...they weren’t what he expected at all.

There was no big confession, no words of affection. They were just...going for a swim.

“What?”

Ji Guang had no patience for his confusion and scooped him up so suddenly that he dropped his okolehao on the ground. What in the world was happening right now?! How was he even holding him? Sure he was strong, but this was ridiculous.

Ji Guang marched him all the way away from the party, down to the docks, and instead of just putting him down, he threw him into the water.

Nalu’s shout was swallowed by the water, and when he resurfaced he saw Ji Guang resurface as well, talking about how everything was better now.

“How is this better?! You threw me into the water with my clothes on!” Nalu said, trying to sound mad but laughing regardless.

“Oi, don’t go falling asleep in the water. Wake your ass up,” he said, splashing Nalu in the face. What were his parents going to think when he returned to the castle soaking wet and drunk?

“If you fall asleep I’m not gonna save you from getting dragged out to sea.”

A lie. He’d absolutely save his sorry ass.