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...Someone asks him a question and he has to focus on the voices around him. He answers something, not even sure what, gets a weird look from the MC, and withdraws back inside his head. He probably comes across either too rude or too superficial again, but he can’t find it in himself to care.
Two massive Chanel rings are slightly cool under his fingers, when he fidgets with them, turning them, taking them off and on again, putting them on different fingers, almost dropping the smaller one at some point. He probably makes a funny face when he catches it. Fans will definitely blow it out of proportion later.
He knows he is distracted, lost in his thoughts, missing what others talk about, what he is being asked. He knows the fans will pick up his nervous fidgeting with the rings, will analyze his face from all the angles, will make assumptions and conclusions, perhaps even correct ones, will swarm Weibo with the blurry close-ups of his hands, but as he never cared before, he doesn’t really care now.
He is all giddy with excitement bordering on morbid, more happy than he has ever been before all that.
Before he first saw Xiao Zhan on the set of CQL and thought to himself, Handsome. Before that moment somewhere in the middle of the first month of the filming when they became friends, before that day near the end of the third month, when he realised he was in love.
Before that time a few months ago when he looked at the calendar, and thought that it had been a whole year and he was still feeling it and this meant it was real.
Before he accepted that it would never be reciprocated but he was all too happy to just carry this feeling inside of his chest, in his eyes and smiles, because it was already too good to simply have it.
Before the day when his feelings were suddenly returned.
Before they first kissed.
Before the first time he said I love you and heard it been said to him.
Before the first time they spent a night together.
These past few months have been filling him with so much joy, and love, and energy that is threatening to spill over the edge. He is so full of this wonderful feeling and it is getting harder and harder to keep a straight face during shows, photoshoots and interviews, because he just wants to smile every second of a day. Just smile and think of how good it feels, being loved by someone he is in love with.
He knows he should probably feel at least partially sad, he knows that’s what people would have expected, if they knew, if they could know. People love drama, don’t they. And there are legitimate reasons for the two of them not to be too excited over this.
But they are, because, fuck reasons. Eating himself up over having to see each other only once in a couple of months ― in the best case scenario ― or vibrating with joy anticipating their next meeting and feeling happy meanwhile from hearing each other’s voices on the phone, or reading silly mushy messages in the chat? Seems like an obvious choice to make.
And then that ridiculous idea comes to his mind just a few days ago, and he barely spends a minute thinking it over, when he makes a decision and it feels like the best decision he has made in his entire life. He should question his sanity, really, for thinking this way, but he enjoys being stupid over it way too much.
Because it really is stupid and a bit risky but hardly more risky than their stolen kisses behind the stages or all the evidence of their relationship they have in their chat and in the photo albums ― if one of them loses their phone or it gets hacked somehow, it is all over for them. Besides, he is pretty sure Yu Bin knows and Han-ge at least suspects something, but they haven’t said anything yet, so he figures, it’s fine.
But this idea of his is stupid in another sense completely. More close to how blurry his thoughts get when he watches Xiao Zhan’s smile, how fuzzy his head is when they kiss after long month-two-several of not seeing each other aside from on the screens of their phones. Stupid, like how completely empty his mind gets on even more rare occasions when they have time and place and privacy to engage in something more than just kisses, and he lies there after, breathing heavily, pressing himself to Xiao Zhan, hot damp skin to hot damp skin, and there is not a single thought on his mind except for I love you, I love you, I love you. Brain-dead and brain-fucked, but stupidly, ridiculously, all consumingly happy.
The show finally ends and he rushes behind the stage to the dressing room. Xiao Zhan leaves right after the event again , so he needs to catch him before that, and Yibo is a little bit mad and a tiny bit disappointed, but he knows they will see each other again in less than a month for another show.
The dressing room is swarming with people. It is even more chaotic and noisy now than before the show ― there was at least a schedule then, people knew what they were supposed to do, make-ups had to me made, clothes changed. Right now it is a mess of staff members frantically collecting their belongings in order to be the hell away from here as soon as possible ― it has been a long day after all ― and celebrities, some of who are engaging in random chats with one another, and some, like Xiao Zhan, hurriedly changing from the design clothes to their regular ones to rush on the planes that will bring them to their next projects.
Xiao Zhan notices him and smiles, but he is instantly distracted by his manager telling him something, and he nods, listening, and throwing occasional glances at Yibo.
Yibo is patiently waiting at the side, or it is how he probably looks like to others, standing still against the wall and watching Xiao Zhan with barely even blinking ― something that everyone pretty much have gotten used to already.
Inside however his patience is slowly running thin, and he takes off the whitegold ring from his finger and turns and tilts it nervously between his fingers. Claiming that he lost the gold one would be more believable, as it is too big for any of his fingers, but he will think of something. Not that it really matters. He will pay for the “missing” ring if it gets to that.
Xiao Zhan finishes his conversation with his manager and the two of them head to the door. Xiao Zhan throws a questioning look at Yibo when he passes him, and Yibo unglues himself from his spot and falls into step with him on the way to the back exit of the venue.
They walk after Xiao Zhan’s manager, too close to be able to talk freely, so Yibo just turns to look at Xiao Zhan occasionally glancing before him to make sure he won’t crash into anything. Xiao Zhan smiles, that special smile of his with the eyes half squinted in delight and thin little wrinkles in the corners of them, that almost scream ― happy!
Yibo can’t tear his eyes off him and just wishes they had a little more privacy today, just perhaps a couple of minutes. It would not be enough, all the minutes of the world would not be enough, but Yibo’s skin all aches in the urge to touch, and kiss, and press closer.
Xiao Zhan brushes Yibo’s hand with his knuckles briefly, as if on accident, and Yibo all melts, smiling widely.
They reach the exit, the manager opens the door, but stops, turns to them, looks at the one, then the other, then sighs, shows Xiao Zhan two fingers ― two minutes ― and walks out of the building.
Yibo only glances back at the corridor they came from to make sure they are alone and then there are hands on his hips, and he is being pressed to the wall, and Xiao Zhan kisses him, and it is unfair, because that’s what Yibo wants, but Xiao Zhan will just pull up the mask when he leaves, but Yibo will have to stand here alone for long minutes, waiting until his lips are less red and swollen from kisses.
“Yibo,” a whisper in his ear and lips touch softly the skin behind it. “You were so beautiful today.”
“I miss you so much, Zhan-ge,” Yibo whispers in Xiao Zhan’s hair.
Xiao Zhan lifts his head and kisses him again, softly, and then pulls back and kisses his jaw, his nose and under one of his eyes, and Yibo is just smiling, madly, can’t help it, and then he remembers what he wanted to do and he suddenly thinks that perhaps, just maybe he should be scared. Not of the rejection, not really, but Xiao Zhan taking it wrong, not understanding what Yibo wants to say.
It is not just something he wants to share with Xiao Zhan, it is not really a promise either, not the kind such rings usually represent. Not in their case at least. He dares to think though, that it is more than that, not the promise for some point in the future, but the here and now. With no one to see and witness but only them, and this is what actually matters, doesn’t it?
So like with everything that even slightly threatens to shake his confidence in himself, he just dives right in, finds Xiao Zhan’s hand, and pushes the ring in it.
Xiao Zhan lifts his head, pulling back slightly, raises his hand and looks at the ring.
“Yibo?” he says-asks quietly, his eyes watching Yibo’s face carefully.
“You can say you liked mine and decided to buy one,” Yibo says, and his voice is calm, but his heart is verging on exploding any second, hammering wildly in his chest.
Xiao Zhan takes his right hand, looks at the gold ring on one of the fingers and raises a brow.
“What will you say?”
Yibo shrugs and smirks. “Lost it.”
Xiao Zhan chuckles softly, smiling at him. “No one will believe. You saw the detective work those girls are doing on Weibo.”
“So what? They can think what they want.”
“You are crazy, Bo-di,” Xiao Zhan laughs breathlessly.
“Crazy about you, gege,” Yibo says, wiggling his brows and winking, probably unsuccessfully. Xiao Zhan laughs fully now, and Yibo smiles, happy and satisfied. There is a knock on the door, and Yibo adds hurriedly. “You don’t have to take it. Or wear it.”
Xiao Zhan searches his face for something, then takes the ring, and after trying several fingers, puts it on the middle one on his right hand.
“A bit too big, but should be fine,” he says.
“Yeah, no idea what they were thinking, I almost lost the gold one several times,” Yibo answers almost automatically, eyes glued to the whitegold ring on Xiao Zhan’s finger. Yibo’s little inner hellion that refuses to either die or grow up is exploding with delight and screaming excited gibberish in his mind, preventing him from forming any coherent thought.
There are hands on his face and he looks up. Xiao Zhan presses their foreheads together, noses touching.
“Bo-di, you know what,” he whispers with a smile.
“Love you,” Yibo says for the both of them.
Xiao Zhan laughs silently against his lips and rubs their noses together.
“Love you more.”
“Love you longer,” Yibo smirks.
Xiao Zhan bites his nose playfully and pulls back.
“Brat.”
“Old man.”
They hit and shove each other for a few moments until there is another knock on the door, that this time sounds more impatient. Xiao Zhan ruffles Yibo’s hair, Yibo bares his teeth and hisses, Xiao Zhan smiles, opens the door and then he is gone.
Yibo is left standing in the empty corridor, catching his breath and his thoughts. But the time he is back to the dressing room, he is all collected as usual. No one pays him much mind, only his manager sending him suspicious glances and he waits for the moment when she notices that one of his rings is gone.
He is on the back seat of the car taking to the hotel, when his phone vibrates with several messages.
“So I was thinking who is the wife now.”
“But then I realised, of course it’s you!”
“Because, you know... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”
Yibo takes off his ring from the index finger, puts it on the middle one, taking a selfie that is eighty percent the finger and twenty ― his blurry unimpressed face on the background, and sends it to Xiao Zhan.
He gets a string of laughing emojis and then a twenty-minute lecture from his manager who has spotted the missing ring. His phone keeps vibrating with more messages that he can’t wait to read once he gets to his hotel room and he is stupidly, unbelievably happy.