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It's an utterly average apartment in one of the numerous apartment blocks that make up the bulk of the normal residential suburbs in B City, but it's the only one that is home to Tian Sen in the off season and that's why the apartment is utterly perfect to Wang Jiexi.
Wang Jiexi has his own apartment, located half way across the city. It's more expensive and objectively nicer than Tian Sen's apartment, with fancy new smart appliances and decent views of B City in all its endless sprawling glory. He'd picked it because it was close to Tiny Herb's headquarters and was set up to be easy to maintain - perfect for someone who would be spending most of their life elsewhere.
Wang Jiexi had brought Tian Sen back to his apartment before. But it was difficult to truly relax when they could still see the Tiny Herb logo from his apartment window, difficult to feel welcome in a place that was always meant for a temporary stay. Wang Jiexi had spent most of his life either at the Tiny Herb headquarters during the season, then with his parents or travelling during the off season. The apartment was something Wang Jiexi had bought to tick it off a life checklist and it showed. The more time he spends at Tian Sen's apartment, the colder and emptier his own apartment feels.
Wang Jiexi has always run cold, a little too crisp and a little too distant. He'd been a calm and mature child who had become a reliable and responsible captain at only eighteen, and who had only grown more unfailing steadfast over time. In Tiny Herb, those who had been his senior had viewed him with respect for his skills and abilities while the next generation viewed him with a love that borders more on reverence than understanding. Wang Jiexi was like a mountain summit, the distant aspiration of what could be if they kept climbing.
Tian Sen had always been warm and present, something which only seemed to grow stronger the longer Wang Jiexi spent with him. Tian Sen felt like the heat from a hearth, the ever-living fire that fed and nourished rather than burnt. It was the type of warmth that provided safety and security, a comfort that settled all the way into the bones and a steadiness like solid earth underneath your feet.
Tian Sen feels like a universal constant that Wang Jiexi can keep coming back to, again and again. Tian Sen's apartment feels like a haven, like the only place Wang Jiexi can let go of who he needs to be for his team and to not have to think about who he should or could be.
Over the off seasons, an afternoon every other week turns into overnight stays turns into weeks spent tucked away together in Tian Sen's apartment. There's early morning runs around the neighbourhood and the evenings spent cooking together with the soft hum of the tv in the background. There's the calls back home to family in front of one another without the fear of being overheard, even if they're not quite at the stage to introduce each other to their family quite yet.
Wang Jiexi often loses track of the hours spent sitting side by side on a couch which is so old that they sink into it more so than sit on it, or curled up together on a too small bed only made to fit a single person.
Tian Sen's apartment is where Wang Jiexi learns to define a life away from Glory. Relaxation is arms and legs tangled together despite the muggy and oppressive summer heat, catching up on the dramas recommended by Su Mucheng or Chu Yunxiu in the chat that they could never get around to during the season. Peace is sitting opposite each other a small dining table that was barely a meter wide so that their legs were pressed together underneath, each catching up on their own reading. Contentment is an unguarded smile and a soft kiss on his forehead as Tian Sen brings him a fresh cup of tea while he checks the latest Glory news and discussions.
It's much too easy to forget sometimes that this isn't his apartment, that this is only their life in the snatches of the off-season that they can spend together. But when Tian Sen holds him close and kisses him, Wang Jiexi finds it difficult to imagine any other sort of life.
Wang Jiexi doesn't regret taking up the captainship of Tiny Herb at eighteen. At this point, he can barely remember the type of life he lived before he had his duty and responsibility to his team. But he knows now the difference between the accomplishment and happiness, between camaraderie and companionship. There is nothing like the feeling of winning the Glory championship, but that doesn't mean that waking up on a quiet morning to Tian Sen's sleepy smile means any less to him.
The apartment is as small and cramped as most apartments in B City but Tian Sen has somehow managed to fit an entire life within it. It's neat but so very lived in, from the Royal Style mugs that pack the cupboards to the brim to the exercise bike that sometimes doubles as an extra dining chair when his teammates come over to visit. It's in the random Glory merchandise scattered around the shelves and the various trinkets Tian Sen has been gifted and can't bear to through away.
In the small bathroom, there's a place for his toothbrush and a soft green towel on the rack, an extra set of razors and his favourite brand of shampoo available in the shower. There's his preferred herbal tea mix stocked even though he knows Tian Sen prefers to drink green tea, and a mug which is his in all but name. With each visit, Wang Jiexi leaves more behind - a charger, a jacket, another piece of his heart.
Tian Sen's apartment is a reflection of himself, warm and welcoming, so it's no wonder that Wang Jiexi fell in love with it. Wang Jiexi can only hope that one day Tian Sen will ask him to stay so that he can call it his home as well.