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Kissing Yushi Huang has always felt a bit like sinking into water. Not the freezing kind, nor the kind that seems endless and overwhelming. Kissing Yushi Huang is comfortable and exciting. It’s like plunging into a heated pool, or relaxing in a floral-scented bath. When she’s kissing Yushi Huang, Jian Lan feels weightless and happy.
Most importantly, she feels safe. She hasn’t had the luxury of feeling that way with most of the other people whom she’s kissed. Feng Xin made her feel safe and happy once, too. Before she met Yushi Huang, Jian Lan thought that he would always be the only exception. Everyone else was a force she had to yield to, even if she did not wish to do so.
But even with Feng Xin, kissing was eventually just a gateway to something more. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that Jian Lan felt pressured to take that next step—Feng Xin was always respectful of her. But it seemed inevitable that a kiss would precede bare skin and more intimate touches. It wasn’t necessarily something that she wanted. Alas, it was something which she knew she would someday have to give.
Jian Lan loved Feng Xin. She knows she did. Those feelings have dissipated now, but her heart did beat for him once. That doesn’t mean that letting him enter her felt any more natural or desirable than it did with other people. In that respect, he was just like everyone else. Her feelings for him were purely romantic. His feelings for her were something more. Maybe it was her attempts to feel as if she wasn’t lacking something that made her so eager to let him make love to her over and over again. Maybe she thought that, eventually, her love for him would make it possible for her to enjoy it.
With Yushi Huang, Jian Lan knows that she doesn’t have to force herself to do anything. She knows that she isn’t lacking anything, too. A kiss is just a kiss. She doesn’t have to struggle or hold her breath. She can simply float and enjoy the warmth on her skin.
At first, she wondered why it was so easy. It made her a little nervous. Secretly, Jian Lan waited for the dam to break; for Yushi Huang to ease her towards that next step, and for the water to rise above her head once more. It never did. Instead, Yushi Huang took her hand one day and said:
“Everything that you give me is so much more than I could have ever wished for. Life with you is perfect as it is, and I will never ask you for more.”
“What if you change your mind?” Jian Lan asked then, nervously taking Yushi Huang’s hand to feel the reassuring weight of it against her own.
Yushi Huang smiled back at her and shook her head. “I won’t. I promise. When it comes to this matter, I understand you completely. I feel exactly the same way as you do.”
“But you still love me, right?” Jian Lan sucked in a shuddering breath. She turned Yushi Huang’s hand over and traced the lines of her palm with a single finger to distract herself from her own nerves. “I still love you, even though I don’t want to have sex with you. For you… Is it the same?”
“It is,” Yushi Huang said. She lifted Jian Lan’s hand to her lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles, then whispered against her skin: “I adore you, Lan-er.”
Jian Lan finally met her eyes again. In them, she found sincerity and trust. Understanding and acceptance. Respect and unconditional love.
Since then, kissing and holding and loving Yushi Huang has been so easy. Jian Lan has spent her entire existence wondering what perfection might be like. Now, she’s sure that she knows.
On calm waters, she drifts.