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Shen Lanzhou is sixteen when he moves from Duanzhou to Qudu, just him and his old man. Lanzhou finds it hard to sleep with the din of the city. The constant hum and buzz is a departure from the small, sleepy town they arrived from.
After Hua Pingting and Jimu’s passing, Ji Gang put aside his own grief and made Lanzhou’s mental well-being his priority. He made sure Lanzhou knew he was wanted and loved, that he was blameless, that Ji Gang did not wish Lanzhou was dead in place of Jimu.
In his first week of school, Lanzhou meets Xiao Chiye in a stairwell that doesn’t see frequent use. Xiao Chiye is there to take a nap. Lanzhou is there because he is having a nervous breakdown.
Lanzhou had been working with a counselor twice a week back in Duanzhou who was helping him process the aftermath of his mother and brother’s deaths. It was clearly a work in progress, but Lanzhou hadn’t had a nervous breakdown in months. Later, his new counselor in Qudu would explain this breakdown was likely brought on by the stressors of being in a new environment.
Xiao Chiye sits up, looking at Lanzhou all concerned. “You okay?”
“I—.” Lanzhou isn’t so sure. He feels disoriented and a little nauseous. His heart is pounding distantly in his ears.
“Hey, sit down.” Xiao Chiye helps him sit. “I think you might be having a panic attack,” Xiao Chiye calmly informs him, and Lanzhou realizes, yes—yes he might be having one. “Breathe, remember to breathe,” he instructs, and it dimly registers in Lanzhou’s mind that Xiao Chiye seems to know what he is doing. “What do you need right now?”
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Lanzhou gasps out, trying to regain control over his breathing. He covers his mouth with a hand.
Xiao Chiye quickly reaches into his pocket and holds something up to Lanzhou’s face. “Here.”
Lanzhou grabs at the offered handkerchief and smothers it against his nose. He takes a deep, mindful breath and is hit with the smell of sun, grass, and citrus. He breathes again, and the scent brings clarity to his mind and calm to his nerves. He slowly finds his bearings, clutching onto the handkerchief like a lifeline.
“My neighbor gets panic attacks,” Xiao Chiye explains when Lanzhou feels more like himself again. “It seems to help him.”
◆◆◆
Lanzhou forgets he’s still holding Xiao Chiye’s handkerchief when he leaves for class. He makes sure to wash it, lays it flat to dry, and folds it neatly into a small square.
A day later, he finds Xiao Chiye in the same stairwell.
“Are you just always here?” Lanzhou asks, handing the handkerchief to Xiao Chiye.
“What about you?” Xiao Chiye takes his handkerchief back and pockets it away.
“I’m not skipping class,” Lanzhou says. “I’m on my way there now.”
“Uh huh, and you came by just to see me?” Something about the way Xiao Chiye says this touches a nerve in Lanzhou.
Lanzhou says nothing and leaves in a bad mood.
◆◆◆
Lanzhou eats alone during lunch. Some girls from class invite him to sit with them, but he doesn’t really know them and it feels weird to sit with a table of girls, so he politely declines.
He opens his lunchbox to see his favorite—pork, shrimp, and leek dumplings. He and Ji Gang had folded and frozen a batch of them over the weekend. Ji Gang must have gotten up early to boil these dumplings for Lanzhou. He feels happiness bubbling in his chest as he reaches for his chopsticks.
“Hey.”
Lanzhou turns and sees the tall boy from the stairwell dropping down in the chair next to him.
“...What?” Lanzhou asks, less than welcoming.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
Lanzhou learns that Xiao Chiye is a year above him, that he is thinking of purposely failing a class just to annoy his dad, that his older brother is marrying his highschool sweetheart in the spring and how happy Xiao Chiye really is for him.
After a whole lot of persistence on Xiao Chiye’s behalf, Lanzhou reluctantly reveals to Xiao Chiye two things about himself:
He likes dumplings. And cats.
Prying information out of Lanzhou becomes a game to Xiao Chiye, and he is good at it. Lanzhou starts to see him everywhere—in hallways outside of classes, at lunch, and in the courtyard after school. He slowly comes to realize how this attention makes him feel. He likes the way it makes him feel. Xiao Chiye looks at Lanzhou like he’s interesting. He listens to him like his weird thoughts aren’t so weird, and that even if they are, it doesn’t matter.
He likes the way Xiao Chiye makes him feel.
◆◆◆
He likes the way Xiao Chiye looks, too. Lanzhou has a harder time coming to terms with this.
He just has good genes. Lanzhou knows he is an idiot for trying to convince himself he believes this. Anyone would find him good-looking.
He knows he has never looked so closely at someone’s neat brows, strong eyes, and sharp jawline. He has never glanced at another boy and felt a desire as strong as this to trail his eyes down the lines of their arms, and chest, and stomach, and wonder what laid beyond that.
He might have liked a girl back in middle school. The girl was the jewel of their year. Every girl wanted to be her friend, and every boy had a crush on her. She had presented Lanzhou, and only Lanzhou, with homemade cookies on Valentine’s Day. His face had prickled with embarrassment when his friends told him he’d be crazy if he did not ask her out. He was too much of a coward to do anything about it, and he reasons this was because he liked her.
Lanzhou knows he is an idiot.
The only reason he’s thinking about the girl now is because Xiao Chiye asks him a question. They’re both eating out of a pint of cookies and cream ice cream. Lanzhou likes digging his spoon into the ice cream, looking for pockets of cookie chunks to mine.
The cookie is the best part, Lanzhou tells Xiao Chiye happily one afternoon.
He notices whenever they share ice cream now, Xiao Chiye likes to unearth the cookie parts and leave them for Lanzhou. He thinks Xiao Chiye is crazy for it but he’s not about to complain.
“You ever see someone and think you might like them?” Xiao Chiye asks thoughtfully, licking ice cream off his spoon. He leaves the last bite for Lanzhou.
Lanzhou looks down at his sneakers. His chest feels tight. He thinks Xiao Chiye is asking because there must be some girl he is interested in.
“Uh, I guess,” Lanzhou replies. He spoons the last of the melting ice cream into his mouth. His tongue is numb from the cold treat. “Why?”
Maybe Xiao Chiye is coming to him for advice, but Lanzhou doesn’t know if he can trust himself to have Xiao Chiye’s best interests at heart if Xiao Chiye is going to bring up some girl. But Xiao Chiye doesn’t. He doesn’t really say anything else about it, leaving Lanzhou to ponder why he even brought it up in the first place.
“You’ve got a little,” Xiao Chiye taps the bottom of his own lip.
“Huh?” Lanzhou blinks. He doesn’t get it.
“Here—.” Xiao Chiye reaches out to swipe away the cream at Lanzhou’s lower lip. His thumb hovers there for a beat and Lanzhou, without thinking, flicks his tongue out to catch the cream on Xiao Chiye’s thumb.
They both freeze. Lanzhou wonders if he looks as surprised as Xiao Chiye does. Then, Xiao Chiye is pulling back his hand like he’s been burned and Lanzhou turns away to hide the red of his face.
There was nothing weird about that! Nothing! Lanzhou wants to dig a hole and hide in it forever.
Xiao Chiye doesn’t comment on it, doesn’t bring it up, and starts chatting up about something else like nothing happened.
◆◆◆
Xiao Chiye’s parents are gone for the weekend and his brother is away at university, so naturally Xiao Chiye throws a party at his house. The people in attendance are mostly upperclassmen and Lanzhou doesn’t really know anyone.
Li Jianheng organizes a game of spin the bottle and aggressively recruits everyone for it.
Xiao Chiye snorts. “He just wants to kiss that Mu Ru girl.”
Unfortunately, Li Jianheng never gets to kiss Mu Ru.
The top of the bottle is pointing at Xiao Chiye. With his hand still frozen in midair from spinning the bottle, Lanzhou looks across the circle and his heart starts beating out of his chest.
Xiao Chiye’s face is unreadable when he meets Lanzhou’s eyes. Next to them, people are egging them on to kiss, but Lanzhou feels rooted to the spot, like he can’t move a muscle. He gets that tight, constricting feeling in his throat like something bad is about to happen, and it’s like Xiao Chiye can sense this because he’s suddenly looking away and saying, “Aren’t we a little old for this?”
He gets booed, and Lanzhou gets out of trouble.
Xiao Chiye checks on Lanzhou in the bathroom as he’s splashing cold water on his face. “You okay? It’s just a dumb game.”
No, Lanzhou wants to say. No, I’m not okay because I think I want to kiss you and that’s not normal. I’m not okay because I think about you in a way that’s not normal.
He doesn’t say any of this and insists he’s fine.
“Hold on to this. In case.” Xiao Chiye hands Lanzhou his handkerchief.
That night, Lanzhou sleeps over.
They’re both sprawled out in Xiao Chiye’s bed, which is bigger than Lanzhou’s bed at home. Xiao Chiye talks about a wolf tattoo he wants on his back someday. Lanzhou thinks it’s an awful idea and wonders if it’s irresponsible to let Xiao Chiye make his own mistakes on this one.
“What if you hate it one day?” Lanzhou asks.
“Nah,” Xiao Chiye dismisses the possibility. “I’ve been thinking about it for over a year now.”
That’s longer than Lanzhou has known him for so he doesn’t say anything else. Xiao Chiye is lying on his side, propped up on an elbow and considering him.
“What?” Lanzhou asks, feeling curious and restless under Xiao Chiye’s probe.
Xiao Chiye reaches out to pinch Lanzhou’s right earlobe between his fingers. “You should get it pierced,” he says, rubbing it slowly. “It’d look hot.”
“I…what?” Lanzhou reddens.
It makes Lanzhou burn that Xiao Chiye has opinions on what is hot. Did Xiao Chiye think Lanzhou was capable of being hot? Has he imagined him with an earring before?
“You’re just so…” Xiao Chiye begins to say. The hand rubbing at his ear moves to cup the side of his face. He runs a calloused thumb back and forth on Lanzhou’s cheek, and Lanzhou can’t help but think of the kiss he owes Xiao Chiye. A mortifying part of Lanzhou begins to react to a combination of this thought, and to Xiao Chiye’s touch and gaze on him. The stirring in his pants spooks him and suddenly he cannot have Xiao Chiye looking at him like this any longer.
“Is it—is it hot in here or is it just me?” Lanzhou says, a tad hysterical. He has apparently chosen his method of demise by saying the stupidest shit he can think of. He wants to expire on the spot.
“Sorry,” Xiao Chiye withdraws his hand. “Didn’t mean to make it weird,” he says.
I’m the one making it weird, Lanzhou thinks, as he tries to conceal the very inappropriate reaction in his pants. He wants to choke out these feelings and smother them because things would just be so much easier if he didn’t feel this hot flush and dull ache whenever he sees and thinks about Xiao Chiye.
◆◆◆
Ji Gang never thought he’d have to give Lanzhou the talk. He doesn’t even think of it until he finds a condom that falls out of Lanzhou’s bag. It had come from Lanzhou’s health classes during sex education, but Ji Gang was unaware and thought Lanzhou was starting to be sexually active.
He was a healthy, teenage boy, of course he’d take interest in those sorts of things, Ji Gang reasons. But he feels slightly choked up about it. He’s not ready for Lanzhou to grow up, for him to discover himself and go out into the big world, and Ji Gang doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready for it.
He sits Lanzhou down that night and awkwardly tells him that he can come to Ji Gang for anything. He means it.
“What if,” Lanzhou says anxiously, and he’s been thinking how to reveal this for a while now. “What if I don't like girls?”
It takes a moment for the meaning to sink in and Ji Gang doesn’t feel equipped for this conversation, hasn’t even considered the possibility.
“So what?” Ji Gang tells him. “Aren’t you still you?”
Lanzhou feels his eyes stinging with tears. He blinks them away.
What if I don’t want to be me?
When Ji Gang leaves and the door to his room shuts, Lanzhou crumples into bed and lets out the trembling breath he’s been holding onto. A dry sob inexplicably heaves Lanzhou’s chest.
◆◆◆
He asks to use Xiao Chiye’s computer one afternoon to look something up for schoolwork.
He notices, in the sea of tabs Xiao Chiye has left open, there is one that looks suspiciously like porn. Curiosity gets the better of him and he clicks into the tab despite knowing better.
It’s gay porn.
The video is paused on a still of two men, one with cock in his mouth. It’s obscene and it makes Lanzhou flush and swallow thickly. Of course Lanzhou has watched porn before, but he’s never known Xiao Chiye to do it. He might have guessed but it’s never been confirmed until now. And—Lanzhou can hardly believe it.
He likes guys? His heart skips a beat.
“Shit, sorry about that,” Xiao Chiye’s voice comes from behind him and Lanzhou nearly shoots ten feet in the air. It’s one of the rare instances Lanzhou has seen him so embarrassed.
“I shouldn’t have looked,” Lanzhou says quickly. He closes the tab and gets on with what he was there for, ears burning and stomach fluttering with what feels like hope.
It feels okay for Lanzhou to like guys, if Xiao Chiye does, too.
◆◆◆
It’s the anniversary of Hua Pingting and Jimu’s death.
Ji Gang asks Lanzhou if he wants to stay home. Lanzhou does. He is not okay today.
They burn incense and leave offerings next to the small portraits in their living room.
Ji Gang cooks lunch for the two of them and they bring it with them to a park because it’s good to get fresh air, says Ji Gang. Lanzhou doesn’t have much of an appetite but Ji Gang makes him eat a little. Lanzhou spends the rest of the afternoon laying in bed. He doesn’t feel well.
In the evening, Xiao Chiye is here on his bike, asking why Lanzhou wasn’t at school, and how he couldn’t find him during lunch.
Lanzhou is not okay today, and Xiao Chiye sees it.
Xiao Chiye lets his bike fall to the ground and pulls Lanzhou into a hug. He keeps him there, lets Lanzhou breathe in his scent mixed with sweat, lets him muffle his sounds in Xiao Chiye’s chest, and says nothing when the front of his shirt is soaked with tears and snot.
◆◆◆
It’s summer break and they have all the time in the world.
They race each other from one end of the pool to the other. Xiao Chiye has been swimming since the age of five, but Lanzhou does not know this. Xiao Chiye wins effortlessly, and Lanzhou demands a rematch.
“Wanna bet something on it?” Xiao Chiye asks, grinning and wiping water from his face.
“Like what?” Lanzhou asks.
“Whoever loses has to share a secret.”
Lanzhou readily agrees. He wasn’t that far behind Xiao Chiye—he thinks he can win.
They race again and Xiao Chiye is only too happy to obliterate him, giving Lanzhou no quarter.
They crawl out of the pool around noon and dry off in the summer heat.
“So what’s your secret?” Xiao Chiye asks. “And don’t say something dumb like ‘I don’t have secrets.’ Tell me something good.” Xiao Chiye fluffs his hair in a towel and Lanzhou watches water drip down Xiao Chiye’s back.
Xiao Chiye’s body has really transformed over the year. He was tall to begin with and he seems to get taller every day. His muscles are filling in, too. His tanned skin, his strong shoulders and toned stomach in the sun—Lanzhou thinks about the proximity he constantly has to…all of this. He thinks he’s staring more than he should but Xiao Chiye doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He wonders if Xiao Chiye would let Lanzhou touch him. If Xiao Chiye would want to touch him back in that way.
“Something good,” Lanzhou mutters. “What’s something good?”
He thinks of the secret he’s holding close to his chest and decides to part with half of it.
“I think,” Lanzhou says, averting his eyes. “I think I like boys.”
Xiao Chiye had unintentionally revealed that part of himself to Lanzhou, so Lanzhou feels a certain safety in confiding this to him. He doesn’t see Xiao Chiye glancing over with hot interest or the way Xiao Chiye quickly schools the fierceness in his face.
Lanzhou is changing, too, blooming into his own. He can sense a shift in the way people look at him. He feels the growing interest from classmates, from strangers in and outside of school who do a double take whenever they see him. He doesn’t quite understand just how pretty he is, though, and for all of his observations, he doesn’t realize Xiao Chiye watches him just as closely.
“That is something good,” Xiao Chiye says, and Lanzhou isn’t sure what Xiao Chiye means by it.
A moment of stillness stretches between them until Xiao Chiye breaks the silence to ask, “wanna sleep over?”
◆◆◆
They watch a movie in Xiao Chiye’s room. It’s kind of boring—or maybe Xiao Chiye is just far more interesting. Xiao Chiye is sitting so close that they’re touching. He can feel the heat of Xiao Chiye’s arm, flung over the back of the couch behind him. Lanzhou finds himself sneaking furtive glances at Xiao Chiye, who looks completely engrossed except for the large hand rubbing idle circles on his shoulder.
The credits roll and neither of them move to get up. Xiao Chiye’s hand is still on his shoulder. Lanzhou can sense Xiao Chiye is looking at him now. He stares straight ahead at the TV, numbly watching the text scroll by. Then, Xiao Chiye is tilting Lanzhou by the chin and Lanzhou is forced to meet Xiao Chiye’s eyes. Xiao Chiye is looking at him in a way Lanzhou is not used to—heavy and intense, like there’s something wild and unhinged roiling beneath the surface. When he thinks of turning away, Xiao Chiye leans down to kiss him. Lanzhou stiffens and Xiao Chiye promptly lets him go. He doesn’t push it.
Lanzhou gets up and says he has to use the bathroom. He doesn’t know why he froze up.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
In bed, they lay quietly, listening to the sounds of the night and each other’s soft breaths. Lanzhou wonders if Xiao Chiye is asleep yet, and imagines how he looks when he’s asleep, lit by silver moonlight. He thinks about shifting closer to Xiao Chiye under the pretense of getting comfortable, turning to Xiao Chiye and—and then what? Heat rises in his face and he rolls away with his back to Xiao Chiye.
“Lanzhou, you asleep?” Xiao Chiye asks upon hearing Lanzhou move around.
Lanzhou thinks about not responding, pretending not to hear him, but then he opens his mouth and says, “no.”
How can I sleep with you right next to me?! Lanzhou forgets completely he had put himself in this situation. Why did he agree to it anyway? Just what was he hoping for? He feels so stupid for it now, and—.
“Lanzhou,” Xiao Chiye is suddenly so close, closer than he’s ever been, nosing into the spot under his ear.
“A-ye?” Lanzhou asks, slight panic rising in his voice. Are you okay? He wants to ask, but that seems like a ridiculous thing to say right now. He feels a light touch at his hip and the rush of Xiao Chiye’s scent all around him. Xiao Chiye really smells so, so good.
“Have you ever felt this way?” Xiao Chiye’s voice is a soft rumble against his neck. His skin tingles as Xiao Chiye inhales against him.
Lanzhou shivers and can’t help but bare more of his neck for him. “Felt...felt what way?”
Xiao Chiye presses his hips forward and Lanzhou feels Xiao Chiye behind him in a very present way.
“Like this.”
Just imagining, imagining its shape against him, and knowing that Xiao Chiye was hard because of him—Lanzhou suddenly feels very timid.
“Y-yeah,” Lanzhou whispers back.
“Really?” Xiao Chiye doesn’t move, just breathes into Lanzhou, and Lanzhou thinks he can feel Xiao Chiye getting harder. “Do you ever feel this way when you think about me?”
“A-ye, thats—.” Lanzhou squirms a little which only makes Xiao Chiye tighten his hold on Lanzhou’s hip. He avoids answering the question. It’s too much. Too embarrassing.
But Xiao Chiye is not embarrassed.
“I do,” Xiao Chiye says when Lanzhou doesn’t respond, and Lanzhou feels embarrassed enough for the both of them. “I feel like this everytime I think of you.”
In lieu of words, Lanzhou reaches for Xiao Chiye’s hand, bringing it around to his own arousal. Xiao Chiye’s breath hitches, feeling evidence of Lanzhou’s desire. He skirts his fingers over the front of Lanzhou’s shorts, then turns Lanzhou around to face him.
“Can I kiss you?” Xiao Chiye asks. “It’s okay if you say no,” he adds.
But Lanzhou is more ready for him this time.
They kiss clumsily, trying to match each other’s rhythm and movements on nothing but instinct. Lanzhou hears and feels Xiao Chiye's breath deepening the longer they kiss. The way his own body moves—he doesn’t even need to think about it, it just does. His body seems to know the pleasure it’s chasing as he rocks into Xiao Chiye in all the ways that feel good. Xiao Chiye lets out a series of strained sounds and meets Lanzhou’s hips roughly. He’s got a hand at Lanzhou’s waist, anchoring him, preventing him from getting away.
“A-ye, I—I think I’m gonna—ah...”
“Yeah?” Xiao Chiye pants. “Tell me.”
“Gonna—ah...ahh...” Lanzhou moans into Xiao Chiye’s mouth as a hand squeezes the fat around his hips, shifts down to grab Lanzhou’s rear, and yanks Lanzhou harder against him.
They rut to completion, until they are shaking, wet and spent, with saliva on their lips and each other’s names on their tongues.
◆◆◆
Xiao Chiye is supposed to be studying, but he instead has Lanzhou straddled over him in a chair and he won’t let go. Lanzhou finds that Xiao Chiye really likes to touch, that if he’s near Lanzhou, he always has to have his hands on him in some way.
“You are,” Xiao Chiye tells him, “so pretty. So hot.” Lanzhou’s long hair spills over Xiao Chiye’s shoulder as he bends down to bump their noses together. Lanzhou is wearing a pair of shorts he knows to be too short on him and it has not passed Xiao Chiye’s notice. Xiao Chiye’s got his hands on the back of Lanzhou’s thighs. Slowly, he slides them higher and higher, until he’s dipping his fingers into the pant legs of his shorts. “Can I?” Xiao Chiye asks breathlessly.
“Mn,” Lanzhou says, shyly tucking a lock of hair behind an ear.
Xiao Chiye’s hands slip beneath Lanzhou’s boxers until he has Lanzhou’s bare ass cupped in his hands, “god you’re so—,” and he groans as he squeezes and says, “I’m obsessed.”
“Kiss me,” Lanzhou whispers, testing this power he has over Xiao Chiye, and Xiao Chiye does.
They make out with Xiao Chiye aggressively feeling him up until they are called down for dinner.
◆◆◆
There is no pretense of studying this time. Lanzhou is here specifically to be touched by Xiao Chiye. To feel good and make him feel good. He has his hair tied up in a high ponytail, his nape revealed in a way he knows Xiao Chiye can’t resist. Xiao Chiye had taken one dangerous look at him and pulled him onto his hard on, burying his nose into the soft slope between his neck and shoulder.
“A-ye,” he whines as Xiao Chiye grinds into him. It seems this is all they do these long summer days.
“Yeah, baobei?” He sounds out of breath. Lanzhou goes red at Xiao Chiye’s address. It’s the first time Xiao Chiye calls him this, and the way Xiao Chiye says it makes Lanzhou feel like his. Xiao Chiye pauses, like he’s assessing Lanzhou’s reaction to it.
“Don’t,” Lanzhou complains. “Don’t stop.”
Xiao Chiye hums in his ear. “Tell me what you want.”
Lanzhou wants more of this friction and less of the clothes between them. He wants to see Xiao Chiye naked like he does in his wet dreams, and a very clear image springs up in Lanzhou’s mind. He’s suddenly got his hands on the zipper of Xiao Chiye’s pants, pulling him out, and Xiao Chiye is big and so hard and already leaking. Xiao Chiye groans against Lanzhou’s neck as Lanzhou touches him.
“That porn video. The one I saw on your computer,” Lanzhou brings up.
“Uh huh,” Xiao Chiye remembers.
“I wanna do that to you,” Lanzhou confesses.
Xiao Chiye doesn’t respond and Lanzhou wonders if he’s crossed some line, because Xiao Chiye is looking at him like he’s said something unconscionable. Xiao Chiye slips a hand behind Lanzhou’s head and runs his fingers through Lanzhou’s ponytail.
“Show me,” Xiao Chiye finally says in a choked voice, guiding Lanzhou’s head down.
Xiao Chiye feels thick in his hands and thicker in his mouth. With great effort, Lanzhou takes Xiao Chiye in. His jaw feels stretched to its limit, his eyes are burning with tears from the strain of it, and yet he only has the head in.
“That’s it,” Xiao Chiye encourages, watching with rapt attention as Lanzhou struggles to get any further. “You’re doing so well.”
Lanzhou manages to inch down slightly on him, which earns him a satisfying sound from Xiao Chiye. He tastes the salt on him—doesn’t get to savor him for long because Xiao Chiye is already so sensitive and turned on, he comes almost immediately. The taste that follows is slightly bitter, but it’s Xiao Chiye and everything about Xiao Chiye is automatically hot. There’s so much of it, dribbling messily out of Lanzhou’s mouth, and Lanzhou likes it, he thinks.
“Fast,” Lanzhou comments, wiping the mixture of spit and cum from his lips. Xiao Chiye grips him by the wrist to stop him and tugs him up.
“That’s how good you make me feel,” Xiao Chiye says before devouring his wet mouth.
◆◆◆
Xiao Chiye’s lap makes a firm pillow. Lanzhou likes lying here, breathing in Xiao Chiye’s scent. Xiao Chiye is reading over some application forms for university and frankly, Lanzhou is unused to this level of neglect from Xiao Chiye these days.
“A-ye,” Lanzhou calls, poking his fingers beneath the hem of Xiao Chiye’s shirt, seeking the heat of his skin. Xiao Chiye spares him a glance from above.
“Why are your hands so cold even in the summer?” Xiao Chiye grumbles. He lets Lanzhou warm up his icy hands on his stomach and resumes looking at the paperwork in his hands.
Lanzhou slides his hands higher under Xiao Chiye’s shirt to steal more of his heat. He sneaks a peek at Xiao Chiye’s toned abdomen, observing its rise and fall with each breath.
He leans in for a subtle sniff, and the scent of Xiao Chiye is like an endorphin rush. He presses his lips to Xiao Chiye’s skin and gives a small lick. It doesn’t taste like anything—not like the salt and savor of Xiao Chiye’s cock. He finds himself wanting that heady flavor on his tongue.
Lanzhou hears a sound of resignation above him as Xiao Chiye sets his papers aside. He has Xiao Chiye’s full attention and hardening interest now.
“You keep picking up these new tricks, and I keep falling for them.”
“What tricks?” Lanzhou asks innocently, mouthing along Xiao Chiye’s clothed arousal. Xiao Chiye narrows his eyes at him.
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“Fuck my mouth?” Lanzhou suggests.
Xiao Chiye closes his eyes. Lanzhou feels that he is fully hard now. When Xiao Chiye opens his eyes, Lanzhou is watching him.
“Get up” Xiao Chiye demands. “The fuck did you learn to talk like that?” He nudges Lanzhou off his lap and gets to his feet, fumbling at the zipper of his pants. Lanzhou drops silently to the floor onto his knees with Xiao Chiye standing at attention, hot and heavy in front of his face. “If it’s what you want, I’ll have you choking on my cock.”
“A-ye...” Lanzhou pleads pathetically, a thrill coursing through his body.
“You asked for this.”
As promised, Xiao Chiye wrecks his mouth and has him swallow every last drop.
He holds and kisses a sobbing, hiccuping Lanzhou afterwards, wiping clean the mess of fluids on his face, and takes care of Lanzhou’s arousal, jerking him off in quick strokes. Lanzhou buries his face into Xiao Chiye’s shoulder and bites down to muffle his cry as he comes in Xiao Chiye’s hand.
◆◆◆
They’re at it again, this time in Lanzhou’s room—Lanzhou, who is actually making a concerted effort to make progress on his summer reading, lying on his belly with Xiao Chiye, who is doing his best to distract him, rutting into Lanzhou from behind.
“What if,” Lanzhou gives up, “What if you take off your shorts. And…and mine, too.”
Xiao Chiye’s movements behind him cease.
“Fuck,” Xiao Chiye curses. Xiao Chiye’s weight on top of him is suddenly gone and there is rustle of fabric that sounds like Xiao Chiye removing his pants. Then he’s jerking down the waistband of Lanzhou’s shorts so roughly, it makes Lanzhou gasp. “Fuck, Lanzhou, thats—.”
With cool air against his bare bottom, he feels Xiao Chiye’s hands at his waist and firm thumbs digging into his cheeks, prying them gently apart.
“What are you doing?” Lanzhou whips his head around, mortified.
“Just looking,” Xiao Chiye says, voice filled with breathless awe. “Is that okay?”
What could there possibly be to see?! Lanzhou thinks, but Xiao Chiye’s breaths are coming out ragged and he looks utterly entranced.
“I—.” Lanzhou makes an embarrassed noise of disbelief. “I guess.” Lanzhou turns back to his neglected book with his ears burning. He idly flips the page even though he’s read exactly none of the words on it. Xiao Chiye still hasn’t moved.
“You look so good like this,” Xiao Chiye says feverishly. “So good giving yourself up to me.”
He finally lets go of him and Lanzhou feels Xiao Chiye shifting to join his chest to Lanzhou’s back.
“Squeeze your thighs for me,” Xiao Chiye says, sending tingles down Lanzhou’s back as he noses firmly along Lanzhou’s nape and deeply inhales.
He tightens his thighs together for Xiao Chiye and he feels Xiao Chiye’s cock, hard and obtrusive, slotting between them. The sound of Xiao Chiye fucking into his thighs at a cruel, relentless pace is loud and obscene as he slaps down against him, over and over again, forcing Lanzhou to cry out wretchedly from the sheer vigor of it. If this is how Xiao Chiye fucks, Lanzhou thinks he’ll surely break if they ever get around to it.
With a low grunt, Xiao Chiye spills messily between Lanzhou’s soft thighs.
◆◆◆
Lanzhou thinks they’ve done this nearly every day now, and there is no end in sight.
Xiao Chiye looks down the curve of Lanzhou’s back. With a firm hand, he presses Lanzhou face down into the sheets, and Lanzhou eagerly yields to his strength. Lanzhou feels him brushing his long hair aside to mouth wetly along his nape, then along the bumps of his spine, notching his thumb in the spaces between each disc before his tongue follows.
Xiao Chiye makes his way down to his tailbone before pulling back, and Lanzhou arches his back for him, knowing how much Xiao Chiye enjoys this view of him. Xiao Chiye lets out that audible sigh he makes every time he spreads Lanzhou in worship, and rubs his thumb on him, honing in closer and closer to that spot each time he comes around to it, but never touching it.
Lanzhou is so sensitive there. He squirms his hips, seeking more of that pressure. He wants Xiao Chiye to just touch him there already, but so far Xiao Chiye hasn’t ever tried, and Lanzhou is starting to feel frustrated about it. It feels increasingly good. So good that Lanzhou arches sharply in a way that causes Xiao Chiye’s thumb to suddenly nudge right up against it, and—.
“Ah,” Lanzhou lets out a soft whimper and Xiao Chiye freezes.
“I didn’t mean to—.”
“Touch me,” Lanzhou says in a muffled voice, burying his hot face in the sheets. Lanzhou wants him to, and he knows that Xiao Chiye wants to. “Touch me there.”
“...Okay,” Lanzhou hears Xiao Chiye say, like he can’t believe he’s receiving Lanzhou’s blessing to do this. “Okay.”
Xiao Chiye’s resumes his rubbing with small circular movements and Lanzhou sucks in a breath, fisting his hands into the sheets. It is everything Lanzhou has wanted, god, why didn’t Xiao Chiye just do this to begin with?
Xiao Chiye presses his thumb firmly against the pucker but it doesn’t give. “Mn. Tight,” he observes. “You’re so tight. I wanna use my mouth. I wanna kiss you here.”
“Then do it,” Lanzhou gasps. “Just do it.” The things that Xiao Chiye says make him want to die sometimes. If Xiao Chiye busies his mouth, Lanzhou reasons his lifespan might be preserved.
Lanzhou feels Xiao Chiye’s hot breath on him just before the touch of his mouth, pecking him lightly. Then, he’s pressing another kiss, open-mouthed this time, giving it a soft, wet suck.
“Oh...oh,” Lanzhou can’t stop the breathy moans from forming.
Encouraged, Xiao Chiye licks him with broad strokes of his tongue. He wanders down the flat of his taint, the curve of his balls, then back to his pink, twitching hole. The tip of Xiao Chiye’s tongue, so pliant and wet, intimately presses into the tight ring of muscles and pleasure curls right into Lanzhou’s toes.
“A...A-ye!” Lanzhou gasps, as he feels Xiao Chiye’s tongue circling and dipping shallowly into him once again, and he sees white, shuddering and sobbing as he comes from just Xiao Chiye’s mouth on his hole, cock untouched.
◆◆◆
“Don’t put it in,” Lanzhou says, laying on his back. The heaviness of Xiao Chiye’s arousal is hot against his own. “It’s too big, it won’t fit.”
“I won’t,” Xiao Chiye promises, moving to glide his cock over Lanzhou’s hole. He watches, enthralled, as the bud tightens defensively as if to deny him entry. “I won’t,” he repeats with determination, like he needs to remind himself. Lanzhou knows that Xiao Chiye keeps his promises.
But Lanzhou is begging for it by the end, just as Xiao Chiye is about to come.
“A-ye, please,” Lanzhou practically mewls. His hole has been teased open by the tips of Xiao Chiye’s fingers. It’s wet and trembling from Xiao Chiye’s mouth and from Xiao Chiye grinding into it with the slick head of his cock.
“But you said it’s too—.”
“Just the tip then,” Lanzhou negotiates out of desperation. “I just—I just want you to come in me.” He wants it so bad it hurts.
Xiao Chiye needs not another word of persuasion. He lines himself up, stroking himself frantically to the sight of Lanzhou flushed and red on the bed, ass presented in divine offering.
“I’m going in,” Xiao Chiye chokes out, carefully watching Lanzhou’s face for any sign of distress as he pushes in. “I’m—.”
“Ah!” Lanzhou cries out, arching his head back as he feels the sudden stretch ripping into him. “I—I told you just the tip!”
“The tip’s not even in yet!”
“It’s too big,” Lanzhou dissolves into half sobs and half moans, jerking a blanket up to his face to muffle his cries. “I knew it wouldn’t fit, it’s too—.”
“Okay I’ll—.”
“No!” Lanzhou yelps as he feels Xiao Chiye starting to withdraw. Xiao Chiye gives him a bewildered look. “Come in me, just do it, I want it, I don’t care if it’s too big, I want it so bad, I—.”
“Fuck,” Xiao Chiye practically snarls, jerking himself off desperately. He presses Lanzhou open, keeping his word and going no further, and Lanzhou feels Xiao Chie’s cock twitching as Xiao Chiye starts to come. Lanzhou can’t help but raise his hips and arch his back in such a way his body begins to swallow the head of Xiao Chiye’s cock, and a low moan wretches from Xiao Chiye’s throat. Pain and pleasure swells through Lanzhou, as he begins to convulse on Xiao Chiye’s cock.
“I think I’m...I think I’m—.” Lanzhou babbles as the force of his orgasm hits him and Xiao Chiye strokes him roughly through it.
Xiao Chiye collapses onto Lanzhou, the pair of them sweaty, gasping and panting, utterly spent.
“A-ye,” Lanzhou mumbles moodily into Xiao Chiye’s shoulder. “It went in too much.”
“Lanzhou,” Xiao Chiye says tiredly into the sheets. “You’re greedier than you pretend to be.”
◆◆◆
A new school year starts, and the heat of their summer affair curbs just a fraction as the season begins to shift into autumn.
“This is mine,” Xiao Chiye says, holding Lanzhou in his lap, kissing the warm spot behind Lanzhou’s ear before catching Lanzhou’s earlobe in a light nip.
“And this,” he bites the nape of Lanzhou’s neck.
“This, too,” he says, capturing the firm cheeks of Lanzhou’s rear in a possessive hold.
“You are insatiable,” Lanzhou gripes, though he gives Xiao Chiye a soft look and lets Xiao Chiye fondle him however he pleases.
“What’s going to happen when you graduate?” Lanzhou asks, though the scenario isn’t for another year. Xiao Chiye would go off to university at that point, and Lanzhou would still have another year of highschool left.
“What do you mean?”
“You know.” Lanzhou pauses. “When you’re gone, am I still going to be yours?”
And Xiao Chiye looks surprised that Lanzhou has been thinking about this at all. Then his face darkens.
“Think I’ll just up and abandon you?”
Lanzhou laughs as Xiao Chiye forces him onto his back, pinning him down with his breath tickling his neck. “I haven’t even been inside you all the way in yet,” Xiao Chiye says slyly, with sudden heat and huskiness.
“Too big,” Lanzhou whispers, meeting Xiao Chiye with a kittenish look of his own, one that he knows makes Xiao Chiye crazy. “It won’t fit.” He knows exactly what Xiao Chiye likes to hear, too.
“You drive me insane,” Xiao Chiye tells him, melting from a look. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you,” he says in all seriousness.
“Then want me,” Lanzhou breathes, curling his legs around Xiao Chiye’s waist. “Want me more.”
I’m all yours.