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Jingyi awakes to the grey, watery light before dawn. Beside him, Sizhui is sleeping peacefully. Careful not to disturb him, Jingyi sits up. The weak light through the window is enough for Jingyi to see the soft lines of his sleeping face. Several dark hairs have escaped the neat braid he wears to bed, and Jingyi has to resist the urge to reach out and smooth them away from his face. He doesn’t want to disturb Sizhui’s sleep.
Today is Sizhui’s birthday, and love of Sizhui is probably about the only thing that would get Jingyi willingly out of bed at four in the godforsaken morning. Still, that does not mean that Jingyi wants to get out of bed.
In near silence, Jingyi slips out of the bed and gets dressed. He puts his hair up into a ponytail and ties on his forehead ribbon but doesn’t bother with a hairpiece. With one last glance at the sleeping Sizhui, Jingyi grabs his winter cloak and slips out of their home.
The normal hush of the Cloud Recesses has deepened into near silence with only the sound of birds to break it, and even the bird song seems hushed by the thick layer of snow. The only servants who are awake are probably the ones in the kitchens, so Jingyi fetches water for the bathtub himself, making the trek through the snow to the well and back several times. By the last trip, he’s wondering if it wouldn’t be easier to carry the bathtub to the well, fill it up, and carry it back. It’d be heavy, sure, but he could certainly manage it.
Back inside their small home, Jingyi retrieves the small gifts he’d gotten Sizhui from their hiding place. Getting a gift for someone in Gusu Lan is never easy. The sect provides everything they need, and the rules around greed and extravagance make material gifts tricky to balance. Sizhui is even more difficult. Being effectively Hanguang-jun’s son means that anything he wants, let alone needs, is within his grasp, no matter how much it might cost. Plus, he fully believes in the minimalist principles of Gusu Lan rather than just adhering to them.
For every birthday and every holiday, Jingyi struggles to come up with something. It doesn’t help that when he asks Sizhui what he wants, he invariably answers with something like ‘just being with you is enough’. This year, Jingyi had managed to find a collection of sheet music imported from Nihon. He’s not sure that the music itself is exactly to Sizhui’s taste, but Sizhui will enjoy trying something completely new. There are a few other small things, like Sizhui’s favorite blend of tea and a new calligraphy brush (since he has been meaning to buy a new one for at least a month now).
Jingyi sets the gifts on their table along with a few that their friends had sent, then slips out of the house again, and starts to make his way to the central area of the Cloud Recesses and the kitchens. The downside of having their own living space now is that it is much less central than the disciple dorms. The privacy more than makes up for the distance, though.
Jingyi knows that some of the older Gusu Lan cultivators are awake, but he doesn’t see any of them as he makes his way through the Cloud Recesses. Probably, they are meditating or drinking tea or something else quiet and indoors.
In contrast to the stillness of the outside, the kitchen is a bustle with motion. Servants, the matron in charge of the kitchen, and a few miserable-looking junior disciples are starting on prepping food for the rest of the sect.
Technically, Jingyi knows how to cook; he took his turns in the kitchens with every other Gusu Lan junior disciple, but he is not particularly good at it. Instead of trying to cook Sizhui breakfast and risking ruining it, Jingyi had bribed one of the cooks into helping him. It hadn’t been hard once he explained that it was for Sizhui’s birthday. Even the rather stern Lan grandmother who oversees the kitchen turns a blind eye as Jingyi carries off a tray with more than enough breakfast for two people.
The sun is peeking over the horizon as Jingyi returns back to the small home he shares with Sizhui. He still has a short bit until Sizhui wakes at 5 am. He sets the tray down before looking around the room and trying to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything.
More or less confident that he hasn’t forgotten anything, Jingyi takes off his forehead ribbon and lets his hair down before taking off the outer, more formal, layers of robes. Then he takes a seat on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t want Sizhui to wake up alone, but he resists the urge to curl up in bed next to him. If he does that, he might not drag himself back out again.
Gently, Jingyi reaches out and brushes Sizhui’s bangs out of his face. He can’t help the soft smile on his face as he looks down at his sleeping husband. Sizhui always wakes up first, even if it's only by a minute or two, so this sleepy, peaceful Sizhui is a rare sight for Jingyi.
Jingyi doesn’t wake Sizhui up, he simply waits the last five or ten minutes until Sizhui begins to stir. Sizhui’s eyes open, and he looks up at Jingyi with so much warmth in his brown eyes, and smiles. Leaning down, Jingyi kisses him once, soft and short.
“Good morning,” he murmurs.
“You’re awake,” Sizhui says, slowly sitting up. “Today must be special.”
“Indeed,” Jingyi says. “Since it’s your birthday.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Sizhui asks.
“Mn,” Jingyi agrees. He reaches over and pulls the tray of breakfast closer to them.
“Breakfast in bed?” he asks.
Sizhui smiles brightly at him. “Did you make this? Is that why you are up early?”
“No,” Jingyi says lightly, “I did not, which means it's safe to eat and should actually taste nice.”
Sizhui chuckles.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he says.
“I wanted to,” Jingyi says, “because I love you.”
“Jingyi,” Sizhui says and leans forward over the tray to kiss Jingyi. “I love you too.”
“Enjoy your breakfast,” Jingyi says.
Sizhui shifts over across the bed and gestures for Jingyi to sit next to him, and Jingyi obediently scoots to sit next to him, draping an arm over his shoulders and kissing the top of his head.
“Happy Birthday A-Yuan.”