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Xingqiu knows he can get carried away. Chongyun makes it a little too easy to tease, to lean in too close and whisper something meant to make his cheeks flush red, and Xingqiu—Xingqiu is tragically weak.
He’s working hard at the whole chivalry thing, at turning himself into someone worthy and honorable, but with Chongyun it feels—it feels secondary, somehow, less important than watching lights flicker in his eyes and squeezing his hand tightly when no one else is paying attention. Less important than taking advantage of his endlessly earnest nature, even if he knows very well that he should not.
And—
There is also the matter of Chongyun’s birthday approaching.
Xingqiu tried, he really did. But after his second attempt at making a cake burned to a crisp, he had to take certain drastic measures. Such as enlisting Xiangling to help.
After enough pointed remarks about how very sweet he’s being and one surprisingly painful cheek pinch, Xingqiu has a birthday cake for his best friend. The frosting is a soft blue, and the slime condensate he had heroically managed to convince Xiangling to keep out of the batter makes for pretty convincing ice. It could be a lot worse.
And then Chongyun walks in with cuts on his arms and blood dripping from his nose directly onto the polished wood floors.
Xingqiu imagines his father would faint at the sight.
“Chongyun,” he hisses.
Chongyun has the audacity to give him a smile, small and soft, kind even with the blood on him. Xingqiu hates it a little, the fact that it works. That he’s endeared, still.
“Hi,” Chongyun says.
Xingqiu’s heart does something that feels inexplicably like a somersault inside his chest. “Happy birthday,” he says. “Did you celebrate ahead by trying to make sure you won’t have a next one?”
The tips of Chongyun’s ears turn red. “I was trying to improve my technique.”
Xingqiu blinks. “Against a mitachurl?” he says. “Because otherwise I fail to see how you could have ended up in such a state.”
Chongyun rubs at the back of his neck. “Actually,” he says, “the traveler agreed to help me perfect my martial arts training, but I—,” His flush deepens. “I hit myself. With my own claymore.”
“You hit yourself with your own claymore,” Xingqiu echoes. He might need to go lie down. Just for a bit.
Chongyun nods sharply. “I was, uh, distracted.”
Xingqiu sighs. From prior experience, he knows it would be better not to ask what it was that Chongyun apparently found so distracting. “Come here,” he says. “I’ll heal your injuries for you.”
Instead of taking a seat on the same couch where he’s sat countless times, Chongyun lingers by the entrance, fidgets like he’s worried, which is absurd, and Xingqiu is about to voice that thought when—
“Maybe I should just stay here.”
“Chongyun, you know I value our friendship dearly, but even I cannot guarantee that you will escape father’s wrath if you get blood on his favorite rug.”
At this, Chongyun steps cautiously away from the rug.
Xingqiu wants to laugh. “Come,” he says. “I promise to tend to you most attentively.”
It’s not too bad, once he wipes most of the blood off. Mostly scrapes. A few bruises. One gash that takes a little bit more to heal.
Chongyun keeps fidgeting, though.
“Is something wrong?” Xingqiu asks. “Am I hurting you?”
No one has ever complained about his healing being uncomfortable before, but Chongyun looks like he might faint.
“No,” he says, “you’re not. You’re just—close.”
Oh, Xingqiu thinks bitterly. “Is that a bad thing?”
It’s a strange realization to come to, especially with a cake that says Happy Birthday Chongyun! waiting in the kitchen. The fact Chongyun maybe doesn’t want him close at all. That it is entirely possible Xingqiu has been forcing himself where he is not needed. Maybe he’s been spending too much time thinking about book characters and vague, shapeless things like chivalry all this time, and too little thinking about Chongyun, and whether he actually wants to be Xingqiu’s friend.
“It’s overwhelming,” Chongyun says.
“I’m sorry,” Xingqiu says. “I didn’t—I failed to realize that this was so unpleasant for you. In—in the future, I will attempt to make myself less—”
“No,” Chongyun interrupts. He coughs. “I meant—I just meant that I—I have things I want to say to you, and I told myself—I worked really hard, and I thought I could do it, I want to do it. It’s just, ah, difficult.”
Difficult. Of course it would be difficult. That’s just what Xingqiu’s been doing, isn’t it? Making things difficult for Chongyun. All because—all because he’s a coward.
“It’s okay,” Xingqiu says. “You can say it. I won’t be mad.”
“I was hoping you would be happy, actually.”
Chongyun’s hands are clenched on his lap. Even if Xingqiu realizes what’s about to happen, even if it hurts, even if it makes him feel worse than breaking the spine on one of his favorite books, he still—
He watches the way Chongyun’s fingers tremble, and can’t help but reach out.
“It’s okay,” he repeats, squeezing Chongyun’s hand.
Chongyun breathes in. Out. Xingqiu knows that if he counted the seconds between each breath they would be evenly spaced. “I like you,” he says, squeezing back too tightly. “A lot. Possibly too much for my own health.”
“Excuse me?”
“I like you,” Chongyun repeats.
Okay. Chongyun said that. Twice. Xingqiu isn’t dreaming. “Are you sure?”
“Xingqiu,” Chongyun says gravely, “I hit myself with my own weapon because I was too distracted thinking about how to do this.”
“Oh,” Xingqiu says. “Well, um, that’s—thank you.”
Chongyun blinks. “Thank you?”
“Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. I will—I made cake.”
“Okay,” Chongyun says dejectedly, before— “Wait. You made cake?”
“Xiangling made cake and I kept her from adding enough slime condensate to eradicate a small country,” Xingqiu amends.
Chongyun smiles. “That sounds plausible.”
“So,” Xingqiu says. “Cake?”
“Xingqiu,” Chongyun says, voice firm.
Xingqiu stills. Alas, it seems this is not something he can flee from. “I like you too,” he says. “I tried to make you cake. I almost burned down our kitchen. Of course I like you.”
“Do you?” Chongyun asks, an eyebrow arched.
Oh.
Oh no.
Years and years of merciless teasing, and Chongyun chooses this precise moment to return the favor.
“Yes,” Xingqiu says. “I already told you.”
“But you didn’t seem convinced when I said it.”
“Well, I was—I didn’t expect—I thought you were going to say that you hated me,” Xingqiu blurts. He shuts his eyes tightly. This is embarrassing.
And Chongyun—sweet, sweet Chongyun who is nicer than Xingqiu will ever be—doesn’t laugh. Instead, he says, “Why would I hate you?” like the thought could not be more foreign to him.
Xingqiu winces. “Because I’m—me?”
“I know,” Chongyun says. Callused hands cup Xingqiu’s cheeks. “I’ve liked you since I was thirteen. I used to think about holding your hand even before that and I would get warm and almost faint and I couldn’t understand why.”
“Well,” Xingqiu says, “I don’t know if that’s a suitable consolation prize, but you can hold my hand now. If—if you would like.”
Chongyun nods, leaning closer. “I would like that,” he says, “but I also want to kiss you.”
For a moment, Xingqiu feels like he can’t breathe. Maybe he deserves it, for all the times Chongyun ended up flushed and wheezing because Xingqiu made him chase after baseless rumors, but it feels so terribly unfair, still.
Xingqiu swallows. “You can,” he whispers.
And then—
They’re kissing, and it’s just—simple, suddenly. Just Chongyun and his hands on Xingqiu’s cheeks and his mouth moving with Xingqiu’s, a little clumsy but still so much better than Xingqiu ever dared to let himself hope for. So much more.
“This is a lot different than reading about it,” Xingqiu says, and, normally, shame would make his face burn, but Chongyun keeps looking at him, and all Xingqiu can think is how did I not notice earlier?
(The answer is obvious, of course.)
“So,” Chongyun says, “I believe I heard something about cake?”
Xingqiu laughs. “Yes,” he says, “there is cake.”
They eat the cake. Chongyun recounts the claymore incident in detail, and Xingqiu laughs and laughs and laughs until Chongyun leans over to kiss him again.
Later, Xiangling is going to complain about missing it (it being, in her words, the moment you two giant idiots finally realized what everyone else has known for years), and Xingqiu’s father is going to ask about the scorch marks in the kitchen, but, for now, Chongyun’s hands are wrapped around his waist, and that’s all that feels like it’s ever going to matter.
(That, and the way the flush spreads down Chongyun’s neck when Xingqiu suggests he could just kiss all of Chongyun’s injuries better next time.)