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It was warm in spring in Great Liang, on days when the season tipped closer to summer, yet unwilling to leave behind traces of winter; the winds were soft, and it smelled sickly sugary, like flowers. But in the train compartment, there was only the scent of steaming noodle and Gu Yun’s awfully strong perfume – a pungent amalgam between broth and what was supposed to be ‘exotic tangerine’.
Bought for a cheap price from one of the kiosks in the station, although his expectations weren’t high, Gu Yun didn’t expect it to be this dizzying, and what had been his plan to smell nice and attract Chang Geng to stick with him the whole train journey, perished just like that the moment Chang Geng had a coughing fit at the sharp reek.
Abandoned to the kitchen to make noodles, then abandoned again from the mid-journey kisses Gu Yun had dreamed of. He sat by the window and Chang Geng by the door, across each other in opposite corners, so far away that the tip of their boots couldn’t even touch.
“Zi Xi...I’ll go ask the attendant for a warm towel to wipe your neck with,” Chang Geng sighed, concerned – maybe tormented for the same reason, maybe finally realizing that Gu Yun had been breathing as if he was being drowned. “Wait here.”
Gu Yun breathed out an overdue exhale, “It’s not proper for the Emperor. Let me.”
“No, people will stare again.”
“Who would dare to stare if it’s not because I’m too handsome?”
“Just stay, cough, it’s too repulsive,” Chang Geng opened the compartment door ajar, signalled for an attendant and made a quick request for a wet warm towel. For the person whose nose was much further from Gu Yun’s perfumed neck, he looked more pitiful.
“Unbearable,” Gu Yun laughed. “If it could repulse my little Chang Geng away from me, then it must be seriously unbearable.”
Chang Geng took the towel from the attendant, only answering after he handed it to Gu Yun, “You know I’ve been dying to kiss you, Zi Xi, I can’t hold back any longer.”
The seats in the compartment were narrow. It was already uncomfortable for two people to sit side by side and talk face to face, let alone kissing, devouring one another in hurried desperation – but the moment Chang Geng lunged at him, Gu Yun carelessly shoved the used towel into the empty bowl and caught him in his arms, and, ah, it hurt when their knees knocked, it hurt when Gu Yun’s chest clenched from joy.
Chang Geng’s hand reached to close the curtains of the window, and Gu Yun held him swiftly, just in time, guiding that hand to gently meet his hair, and Chang Geng understood at once.
“Don’t close the curtains, silly.”
There was no need to. There were only hills and cattles and mindless flowers swaying in meadows, all blurred into a smudged painting as the train moved. There was no one to witness them. Yet they still kissed to the tempo of the rushed sceneries, until it didn’t matter that Gu Yun could see the vague reflection of their entwined bodies traced against the fast-moving rows of green valleys.
“Chang Geng, you—why are you so rough today? Did you get possessed by a dog spirit, or what?”
“Yifu was so rushed and forgot to give me a good-morning kiss,” Chang Geng answered him. Gu Yun once again found himself falling for his pleading eyes, “Then you wore the horrendous perfume and I still couldn’t kiss you even right here. Zi Xi, it was so hard for me...”
“...”
It wasn’t as if Gu Yun had forgotten. Chang Geng had built them a seaside manor, a project that Gu Yun didn’t even hear of until this morning. When Chang Geng told him that he was taking Gu Yun there, they were still a few moments after waking up, still bathed in early grogginess and matinal sunshine. It gave Gu Yun quite a shock, which turned into excitement, which turned into preparing everything in a hurry.
“You moved really fast this morning that we had to wait a long time for the train to arrive.”
“So we passed time picking perfumes.”
“And yet you still ended up with the worst one.”
“Worth it. The bottle is the cutest.”
Chang Geng chuckled. Suddenly, Gu Yun thought the bottle was not worth it anymore. The perfume bottle was cute, but it costed money and its content was horrible – Chang Geng was cuter and his kisses were free.
After a lot of trials in finding a comfortable position while being as close as possible, in the end, Chang Geng sat on the floor, his head on Gu Yun’s lap, murmuring quiet ‘Zi Xi, Zi Xi’ as Gu Yun caressed his head. The panorama outside the window had shown hints of the coasts, and Gu Yun left it all behind to gaze at Chang Geng, spoiling him with his eyes just like what he requested.
“We are arriving soon,” Chang Geng took out a Western watch from Gu Yun’s pocket and said. “What do you want to do?”
“Eat seafood? Sleep? I don’t know, what’s there?”
Gu Yun had never really gone to the sea if it wasn’t for important matters or a battle. He’d heard of scrumptious coastal delicacies and how peaceful sleeps were breathing in the scent of the ocean, but each time he went, it was for both petty and urgent business alike, or war.
He’d long dreamed of a day like this. Chang Geng, himself, and the ocean.
“What’s there...ah, it doesn’t matter as long as we are.”
Together, and in love.
The manor was built a few steps away from the beach. Not too big, not too extravagant, decorated with ocean-esque ornaments like seashells and conches and imported taxidermies of fish the size of a leg. On the second floor there was a balcony with a seaside view, where one could see the beach lying athwart. Chang Geng said, “Tonight’s skies will be very clear. We can stargaze from here. If you like, before that, we can watch the sunset too.”
“Chang Geng, are we here to only watch nature? Is crab-hunting not on the list?”
They both laughed. Chang Geng next to him was beaming with the sunlight around him, the delicate spring zephyr gently sweeping his hair; no matter how beautiful the view in front of Gu Yun was, he still looked to the side, to where his heart belonged.
“Just kidding,” Gu Yun continued, “I’m here to watch your smile, darling. You look wonderful.”
“Pointless flattery in place of genuine romance is not good,” he grinned, bright and shy, a visible blush across his cheeks.
“When I flatter and jest until I embarrass you, you want me to stop, yet when I’m genuine, you think I’m flattering and jesting...”
That afternoon, they dined on plates of seafood. After lunch, they shopped for local souvenirs, hunted for crabs, played in the water and went on a trip on a fisherman’s boat, collected seaweed and when they returned to the manor nearing sunset, their faces were slightly tanned. Orange light probed through the billowed curtains of all windows in the manor. Clearly different from the sunsets Gu Yun had noticed and ignored when he was at sea to kill.
As planned, they sat on the ornate bench at the balcony to watch the sunset, yellow and red and tinged with a little violet, warm and somewhat breezy. Chang Geng draped a blanket over Gu Yun and cuddled closer.
At times like this, Gu Yun thought he had melted.
His fingers couldn’t bear to stay still. He touched hands with Chang Geng and held his hand for a while, then inspected each of his fingers, softly scratching the pads and stroking at his nails; and they didn’t talk much, only humming songs and chatting idly about every this and that, calm as they trailed circles on each other’s wrists.
“The stars are appearing soon.”
Gu Yun sighed, relieved, happy, “I’ll grab a handful just for you.”
“Just a handful? I want a basket of them. Take as much as you can and present them to me, so I can put them in your hair,” Chang Geng tilted his head to look at Gu Yun, leaning closer to press a warm kiss on his lips. “And between our hands. And between our lips.”
This little Chang Geng, he had truly learned how to talk so sweetly poetic. Gu Yun wanted to return, but when struck by Chang Geng’s romantic lines, his eloquent tongue curled into a knot, and he couldn’t tell him that there were stars in his eyes already, stars hanging by his lashes and stars on the twinkle of his smile that Gu Yun could only take with a kiss.
“I’ll give you a full carriage. We don’t want to run out.”
“I want the moon too.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll give you the sky, then.”
The night sky was gradually crowded with stars, glowing and glittering in white and silver – and maybe, Gu Yun thought, he would just give Chang Geng the entire universe.