Work Text:
It had all started on a long rainy day in the kingdom of Wuyong.
That day, the sky was low and gloomy and the young crown prince was bored to death.
Downpours that wouldn’t let up for days were something his kingdom wasn’t used to. Neither was he, and he didn’t care much for the water falling incessantly from the sky—he preferred training fields and hunting grounds to stifling palace halls and dusty libraries, after all.
Also, he liked the sun and the way it would lay kisses on his skin, turning it from creamy white to golden. His ministers found that rather unbefitting a crown prince, but their opinion mattered little to him—if anything, it made him all the more inclined to linger in sunlight whenever he could.
Besides, there was someone who liked him that way. He knew it for sure—for all the denials and evasions he’d hear when asking outright, the sheer amount of awe and adoration in the eyes that would only rest on him wasn’t something one could easily hide.
It just so happened that he was all but confined to the royal library with that same person on the day of never-ending rain.
“I can never understand how shixiong can be so diligent,” he drawled, shuffling closer to the youth who was copying an incredibly dull ancient text. “If I were you, I’d drop it after the second paragraph.”
“I would remind your highness that you stopped copying after the first,” the youth said in a flat voice, his brush gliding steadily across the paper, “and it’s actually your highness’ copy that I’m doing right now.”
“That’s exactly my point!” he said, shuffling even closer. The youth sighed but said nothing. “You’ve been writing for more than a shichen now, aren’t you bored of it already?”
“Of the two of us, I would say it’s your highness who is bored.”
“Shixiong sees right through me, ah. But that’s not what I asked, isn't it?”
“With your highness around, how can I ever be bored?” the youth grumbled and then bit his lip as if realizing his mistake.
Too late, he thought triumphantly, watching the pink blossom on the other’s fair cheeks. Way too late.
“So that’s what makes all this worthwhile for you? Me? How interesting.”
There were always many people around him seeking his attention. There were sons and nephews of his ministers who wanted to get close to him. There were daughters and nieces said ministers oh so obviously had plans for. There were common folk who eyed him like he was the sun of Wuyong sky.
But none of them looked at him like his shixiong did, and none of them was as pretty.
Not a single one.
“I would be forever grateful if your highness could please stop this teasing and let me finish my work,” the youth said in poorly feigned indignation, his traitorous blush spreading all the way down his cheeks and neck.
How far does it go, he wondered. And then the very next moment: ah, perhaps there’s only one way to find out.
“The work isn’t going anywhere,” he said, his voice soft and sweet, as he took the writing brush from his shixiong’s slightly trembling fingers. Having set the brush aside, he gestured towards the window veiled by rain and added, “And neither are we.”
“Your highness, please—”
The walls of the library and high shelves laden with scrolls and books would never know what that gentle, studious youth was going to plead for. They wouldn’t know because he, His Highness the Crown Prince, caught the rest of the sentence between his lips and let it settle under his tongue.
That was a good place for it.
There was no sun in the sky that day and many, many days after it, but maybe the true reason for that wasn’t the rain. Maybe it was because the sun was right there with him—on his lips, on his cheeks and eyelids, on his skin.
Warm. Gentle. His very own.
Many years later he claimed the heavenly throne and Jun Wu came into existence, and since that day the skies he reigned over were always clear. Be it spring or autumn, be it day or night, there was never a single cloud to see up above.
It never, ever rained in his Heavenly Capital.
“My love?”
There is no such thing as his Heavenly Capital, he reminds himself as he turns away from the curtain of rain he’s been staring into for who knows how long.
There is no such thing anymore, and he might actually be happier for that.
Instead of a palace there is now a home, instead of reign there is rest, and instead of a random someone all too willing to warm his bed there is the only one he’s ever truly wanted right by his side.
“It’s been a while, Qing’er,” he drawls, suddenly overcome with a feeling he deemed long since forgotten.
“Since what?” Mei Nianqing says, puzzled, as he joins him on the veranda. Clad in simple, homely robes, his sleeves tied up and his small hands covered in flour, he is endearing. And very, very pretty.
“This,” he says, making a gesture towards their tiny wet courtyard. Then, with a smirk, he adds, “Also, it’s been a while since you last kissed me.”
“Heavens above, it’s only been half a shichen!”
“Ah, half a shichen is a long, long time, Qing’er.”
To that, the man lets out a small huff and shows him his flour-powdered hands.
“I’m making dinner.”
“The dinner isn’t going anywhere,” he says, looping his arms around the other’s waist—a good place for them to be. “And neither are we.”
It takes no more than two heartbeats of time for Mei Nianqing to get his meaning. And start blushing in his unique, pretty pretty pretty way, of course.
“Aiya, it can’t be helped, it seems.”
The world around them is small and dim and wet, and he’s cold from staying too long in the open in his simple, homely robes, but none of this matters.
None of this matters because his sun is shining on him again.
Gentle. Warm. His one and only.