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Zhou Zishu must have been pretty high on anesthesia already. He was playing with Wen Kexing's fingers, seemingly lost in thought.
"How much?" He asked, in response to Kexing's earlier declaration of 'I love you'. Yep, he was definitely high.
Smiling indulgently, Wen Kexing answered "to the end of space"
Zishu froze, before the corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards. "There's no end to space, silly. Space is ever expanding, remember?"
Zishu dropped Kexing's hand in favor of spreading his arms out widely to his side to emphasize his point.
Kexing felt his heart pick up pace, he felt as if he were about to combust from the overwhelming affection and love for this very high man currently spewing space facts.
His ah xu was adorable like this.
Smiling gently, Kexing kissed Zishu's forehead and whispered softly "I know ah xu, that's why I said that."
A small loopy smile formed on Zishu's lips and he clutched again at Kexing's hand before fully succumbing to the anesthesia induced coma.
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Wen Kexing was getting anxious. After the nurse had wheeled his ah xu into the operating room, she had ushered him into the corridor. He'd been waiting there ever since, despite the repeated reminders that it wasn't an easy surgery and hence would take many hours.
But it was past the estimated time already- had been for hours, and Kexing was starting to feel the urge to cry or scream. Maybe both.
Both he and Zishu knew that the chances of survival for this procedure were not high. 30%, that was what most of the doctors said. Hell, basically every single doctor who were experienced- claimed to be, anyway, had turned them down.
But when Ye Baiyi from Changming hospital had offered to be the surgeon, revealing to them that he had known Zishu's father, Qin Huaizhang, Zishu had grabbed for the chance like a lifeline.
In a way, it was a lifeline for Zishu, and Kexing both. Foul personality or not, Ye Baiyi was their saving grace. Not that Wen Kexing would ever admit that, of course. At first, Wen Kexing had not wanted to risk it. But his ah xu was adamant.
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"What, you don't want me to live anymore? Is that it?"
"No! I-"
"Then what? Because now I finally have a chance and you want to throw it away?"
"30% Ah xu! That's not even half a chance of survival!"
"But it's more than enough! Isn't it? Unless you want to watch me wither and die off!"
Ah xu had stormed off that evening, only returning until late into the night, silently slipping into the covers and spooning Kexing.
Wen Kexing hadn't been asleep, of course. He was too buried in his thoughts to actually fall asleep.
That, and the fact that he always seemed to wake up gasping and sobbing when he dreamed of his ah xu leaving him for Naihe bridge in the middle of the night. That was why he had started sleeping facing Zhou Zishu, he wanted to see his face when he woke up from his nightmares.
Rolling to face Zishu instead, he snuggled into his chest, tall lanky frame bending enough so that he could press his forehead to ah xu's chest, just over his heart.
"I didn't know what it had meant to want to live before" Zishu had whispered tenderly. "But now I've met you, and even though I'm dying..." Kexing pushed his face even deeper into Zishu's chest.
"I've really never felt so alive before and- and now that I've gotten a glimpse of what living could be like with you- I don't think I'm willing to let that go..."
His voice had tapered off towards the end and despite everything, Kexing knew how hard it was for Zishu to open himself up like that. In the end, it was this conversation that had convinced Kexing to agree to the procedure. Wen Kexing could never really deny his ah xu of anything, after all.
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Wen Kexing had met Zhou Zishu when he walked into Kexing's bakery one night. Kexing was already closing for the night and even though he was naturally a people pleaser, he usually turned down the people who wandered to his small bakery's doors past closing time.
But something about Zhou Zishu had looked so tired- empty, almost. Something about that disheveled looking man had struck a cord deep in his chest which had strangely made him want to gather the man into his arms, give him a doughnut (that was what made him feel better, anyway) and tell him everything was going to be okay. Which was weird, because up until that point, Wen Kexing had never really liked physical contact.
He never did give him that hug that day. But he did give him a doughnut- one that was warm and freshly baked that happened to be packed into a bag for Kexing to enjoy for supper later, but Zishu didn't have to know that.
He had been euphoric when the sad beautiful man (that was what he had referred to Zishu as for the first three months of knowing each other. And when he had gotten said man's number without knowing his name- he still thought that was strange, it had inevitably become his contact name) had given a small smile after biting into the doughnut, his cheeks turning the slightest bit pink.
Zhou Zishu ended up going into his bakery everyday from then on, making it a habit to come in at exactly closing time.
Wen Kexing couldn't even find it in himself to be angry. He found himself looking forward to Zishu's company everyday instead, constantly giving him different baked treats everyday to make that ethereal man smile.
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A year later after making Zhou Zishu his boyfriend and moving in with him, Wen Kexing got to find out that Zishu used to work for a space company; Window Of Heaven.
But Zishu had gotten terminally ill and only had three years left to live and had thus left the company.
"It was basically hell there, anyway. I might as well have been dead when working there" Zishu had said dismissively- as if him not having a job at a stupid space company would have been what Kexing was crying about.
Wen Kexing remembered getting drunk that day, cursing fate. Fate was so cruel, he had just found his soulmate; his zhiji, how could they take ah xu away from him so fast? They hadn't even gotten married yet! But marriage was the least of his worries at that time. If he wanted a husband to marry, that husband would have to be alive first.
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He didn't know how long he had been thinking for- burying himself into his memories, but it must have been pretty long because just as he was about to lose his mind, the doctor walked out of the operating room.
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"-xu? can you...-r...e?"
Was he underwater? He sure as hell felt as if he were. But he could feel the soft sheets of a bed underneath him and he could smell that sharp antiseptic smell and that gloomy feeling of death clouding overhead and everywhere- filling his senses in a way that was unique to the hospital.
Ah. He wasn't underwater then.
Then why was everything so murky? His vision was blurry, he was seeing double. Fuck, why were the lights dancing around in his vision like that?
Out of the corner of his eye, a blur of red- swirling with the chaos that was the hospital ceiling and lights, came into view. Then a calloused palm settled on his cheek- one that he knew all too well.
"ah xu?"
"L-Lao-wen?"
Soft fingers stroked his cheeks and Zishu had half the mind to nuzzle into it- but that would require excessive movement of his already dizzy head so he chose to just lean into it.
The fuzzy face above him eventually came into focus. Kexing looked... tired- that was an understatement. There were dark circles underneath his eyes and his usual neat half- up hairstyle had been let down to hang messily down his shoulders- half of it spilling down to his chest, tickling Zishu's neck due to it length.
And to Zishu's horror, Kexing's shiny, shiny eyes were wet with tears, flooding down his cheeks.
"Oh thank god- I thought- I thought you weren't going t' wake up..."
Zishu didn't have a response.
Kexing's eyes were vulnerable, full of open emotion in that ocean of tears that Zishu didn't know what to do with himself.
Maybe he was underwater after all.
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Apparently, Zishu had been sleeping for a month. It wasn't much of a surprise- to him, anyway.
When Kexing had told him this piece of information though, he understood why he had looked so distraught. The doctors had estimated the waking time to be between a day and a week.
But he was alive, and that was all that mattered. For now, he had a overgrown, sad clingy puppy to take care of.
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"How are you feeling? Do you want water?"
Kexing mumbled, voice muffled with the way he was nuzzling into Zishu's thighs.
"No Lao wen, i'm fine. If I needed something i'll tell you."
Annoyance, amusement and fondness laced his tone all at once, Kexing had been fussing over him since he awoke and Zishu was starting to feel suffocated with the intensity of which he was being smothered with worries and Kexing being a mother hen.
"You better." Kexing grumbled.
Zishu ran his hands through Kexing's long hair and marveled at how soft and silky it was. It was at the perfect length for Kexing to tie different hairstyles into it, and Zishu was obsessed with it.
He loved to run his hands through it, watch the way it shone when the light hit it at certain angles, pull on it when Kexing was being particularly bratty in bed.
Kexing was dozing on his lap, falling asleep. Zishu didn't bother waking him up. Kexing had been up till the late hours of the night making sure Zishu was fed, comfortable and just taking care of him, in general. Zishu wanted to let him rest.
His Lao wen looked vulnerable and open when he was sleeping, mouth slightly open in a soft pout. Breaths that left his lips softly turned into purrs as Zishu scratched gently at his scalp with his fingers. Kexing liked it when his hair was being played with and Zishu loved to indulge him.
It had been about two weeks since Zishu had woken up and it was only now that he allowed himself to fully accept the feeling of anticipating what the future could hold.
He didn't know what would come in the future, but he knew that as long as Kexing was with him, everything would be okay.
-fin-