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A soft sigh escaped Shang Qinghua’s lips while his eyes followed a small snowflake trailing down from the sky.
It had been snowing for days already – which was no surprise, considering he was currently located in the Northern Kingdom in order to help out Mobei-Jun negotiate with a merchant demon. It was apparently too loud and annoying to be handled by the king himself – or so Shang Qinghua interpreted Mobei-Jun’s “deal with it” upon his arrival.
Thus, Shang Qinghua desperately sought out fresh air after hours of working out a satisfying contract and suffering through the demon’s too long, too boring life story that had been harder to endure than a rage-filled comment from his dearest cucumber bro at 3 a.m.
Therefore, Shang Qinghua had quickly left the throne room and then found himself on a balcony somewhere high up in this ridiculously big castle, leaning his upper body on a snow-covered railing. The sight evoked a longing inside of him. It was that time of the year again.
“Something wrong?”
“Ah, my king!” Shang Qinghua squeaked and, while turning around, slipped on a piece of air.
However, instead of landing on the hard ground in front of him, Shang Qinghua felt big, yet cold hands embracing his shoulders and preventing him from accidentally rearranging his face on the floor.
“M-my apologies.” Shang Qinghua mumbled demurely. With eyes fixed on the floor and cheeks flushed with embarrassing heat, he reluctantly withdrew from the other’s arms. Mobei-Jun was surely annoyed with his stupid servant.
“Mmh. Is Qinghua not feeling well?”
Surprised by the question Shang Qinghua looked up and saw Mobei-Jun’s eyebrows sinking lower the longer he took to reply. “A-ah ... uhm, w-well...”
Shang Qinghua nervously scratched the back of head before facing the vast, frozen lands outside from the balcony once more.
“My king, do you know Christmas?”
Shang Qinghua felt the presence of Mobei-Jun coming closer and was not surprised to see the other leaning in on the railing as well, while keeping his eyes on him.
“Who is Christmas? Do you need me to kill him?”
“What? No!” Shang Qinghua could not help but laugh softly at that ridiculous answer and startled as a long, slender thumb carefully wiped away a single tear that was about to slide down his cheeks from laughing. Mobei-Jun was still staring at him.
“C-Christmas is a festivity that is usually celebrated by many people once a year.”
Memories brought a soft yet bitter smile to his lips as he recalled past Christmas parties from his old life. They became worse as he grew older as his parents started to no longer really care enough about anything to celebrate.
“...There are lots of flickering lights, snow, colourful decorations, cookies and pine trees...”
“Pine trees?” Mobei-Jun deadpanned and thankfully drew Shang Qinghua back into his new life.
“A-ah, yes! They were also covered in decorations and lights! It is a beautiful day you spend with your loved ones, my king.”
“Mmh.”
“But ... sadly it is not celebrated among the peaks.” Shang Qinghua faced the view in front of him and whispered quietly. “I really miss feeling the Christmas spirit.”
Narrowed eyes framed by a beautiful long face suddenly appeared right before him and a quick inhale caused Shang Qinghua to choke on his own spit.
What the hell?
Was his king trying to kill him??
“Tell this king how to make you feel Christmas.”
Shang Qinghua, still busy trying to recover from nearly dying by his own stupidity yet again, could only blink dumbly. “U-uhm.”
“How.”
“W-well, uh, I loved to ice-skate? And s-since it only ever was possible during the winter, I sort of connect it with Christmas ... my king.”
“Mmh.”
With that Mobei-Jun set off from the balcony, leaving a speechless Shang Qinghua behind.
The following days, Shang Qinghua was not able to find Mobei-Jun anywhere. Even the castle was emptier than ever.
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“Come.”
“Huh?”
“Qinghua, come with me.”
With a quick swipe of his hand, Shang Qinghua tried to hide the dried trickle of drool on his chin and lifted his gaze to stare at Mobei-Jun, who was standing inside the doorframe of Qinghua’s little room.
Shang Qinghua had been quite busy the last few days, scrambling together every last piece of information about the latest trade offers, in order to gather potential blackmail material to lower the prices or to simply give Mobei-Jun an opportunity to quench his bloodlust. However, with the decrease in servants around the castle that so happened to occur lately, Shang Qinghua was left alone to do the dirty work.
Thus, it was no wonder that he ended up face-planting on his small wooden desk in between mountains of papers that stuck to his cheeks, only to be found by the king himself late in the evening.
Too impatient to wait for Shang Qinghua to fully awake, Mobei-Jun carefully picked the other up by embracing Shang Qinghua’s upper body before literally pushing him through a glowing portal that was slowly shrinking back into nothingness.
“My k-king!” Shang Qinghua yelled loudly, stumbling through heaps of snow before a hand on the back of his collar was dragging and positioning him back up to stand on his own two feet.
Mobei-Jun kept silent and only stared ahead, nudging his chin forward. Feeling a little unsettled by the other’s strange behaviour – well, stranger than usual anyway, Shang Qinghua shifted his eyes away from his king to look at the area in front of him.
The sight however, caused his heart-beat to stop for a brief second.
It was not so much that the area as such was breathtaking – a vast yet empty field covered in snow and pine trees left and right, with no people or creatures in sight – it was no different to the Northern areas Shang Qinghua had to travel on a regular basis.
However, the decorations were new.
Every tree was covered with numerous crystal-globes and in every such globe a small crackling fire-orb was encased. They were lightening up the whole area, twinkling in the darkness and emitting comfortable warmth that beckoned to be revelled in. Yet, upon a closer look, Shang Qinghua was stunned to see something else other than just pure snow.
Ice.
There was an area a little further away, covered in a thick sheen of ice – apparently a small pond during warmer temperatures and currently perfect for ... ice-skating.
“W-what...”
Enamoured with the sight, Shang Qinghua took a step closer to a tree only to discover that strange ornaments were hanging side by side with the crystal-globes. He poked at one such ornament in fascination. They appeared to be self-made out of wood or hay and resembled demonic creatures or people from the castle. Shang Qinghua even believed that one figure seemed similar in appearance to Sha Hualing.
“Do you feel Christmas, Qinghua?”
Shang Qinghua slowly turned back around to confront his king, who was following behind. His eyes were embarrassingly filling with tears and he probably made quite the ugly crying face.
But once more, his breath was stolen by the sight of Mobei-Jun holding a small bag.
“What i-is that, my king?” He sniffled.
“Cookies.”
Feeling like an error announcement was blinking rapidly inside his brain, Shang Qinghua could only blink at the other in silence.
“D-did you make them?”
A brief nod. “Mmh.”
A sudden burst of happiness slowly spread around Shang Qinghua’s heart, warming and shielding him from the freezing cold. He was unable to hide the soft smile directed at Mobei-Jun but he did not want to, anyway. He even felt brave enough to take a small step closer toward the other to stare into Mobei-Jun’s eyes.
“Thank you, my king. I feel very honoured to have received such a thoughtful and wonderful gift from you. It truly feels like Christmas now.”
Shang Qinghua did not get a verbal reply in return and yet he could not feel happier upon watching the other’s eyes grow softer around the edges and a subtle sigh escape from Mobei-Jun’s lips as though in relief.
“I ...would like to ice-skate with you.”
“Oh, I would love to skate with you too, my king.” Shang Qinghua giggled quietly and waited patiently while Mobei-Jun sorted through another bag he secretly had taken with him through the portal back then. Upon a closer look Shang Qinghua noticed that it was apparently not only filled with skating equipment but also more clothes for ...him?
What.
In case he would feel too cold at some point and needed more to wear?
In case he would slip on the ice and drenched his own clothes?
Who taught his king to be so mindful??
However, an angry growl suddenly disturbed the quiet peace before Mobei-Jun clenched the fabric tightly between his fingers.
“Everything a-alright?”
“The equipment is ... not here. I will need to leave to get it ... and probably kill someone.”
Startled, Shang Qinghua took hold of Mobei-Jun’s sleeve, unconsciously tugging on it.
“Wait! No! It is no problem, my king! W-we ... we can just ... walk around and appreciate everything you have done for me here! It is so beautiful and no one needs to be killed!” He begged and flailed his left arm in the air, not wanting to be left alone but also not wanting to leave together and risk not being able to come back again.
It was quite the show to watch Mobei-Jun’s eyebrows twitch between annoyance and agreement. His stare at the floor was so potent he could have frozen the ground all over again if he had wanted to.
“If Qinghua wants to.” Mobei-Jun huffed and crossed his arms. Shang Qinghua would have said his king was almost pouting and the need to tease him was slowly prickling inside his fingertips but he also knew that he would probably lose a hand if he ever tried to do that. Thus, he simply nodded enthusiastically.
He also tried to take a step toward the beautiful beaming trees again, after noticing his hand still pinched his king’s arm sleeve between his fingers and he wanted to withdraw before Mobei-Jun might get annoyed by it. However, with a quick twirl of his hand, said man engulfed Shang Qinghua’s hand with his own bigger one without even so much as uttering a single word.
Before Shang Qinghua could form another thought filled with confusion and doubts or fight back down the heat in his cheeks, he was pulled more toward the glowing greenery.
It was a silent stroll through the woods with their hands intertwined.
Stars were twinkling up high in the night sky, the fire-orbs glowed brightly, lightening up their path and causing the few snowflakes falling down to glisten brilliantly through the dark.
Shang Qinghua was overwhelmed, simply and truly overwhelmed from all those wonderful feelings currently residing within him and warming him up from the inside.
It was beautiful.
He took the chance to watch Mobei-Jun out from the corner of his eye to once more tell the other man how much that night and all that work meant to him, which in turn, however, caused him to overlook the small obstacle right in front of him.
“My king, u-uhm I wanted to th-hmmpf!”
Landing face first in the snow, Shang Qinghua groaned loudly, feeling the wet cold creeping into his bones immediately. But upon getting up slowly from the ground, he could see that apparently, he had taken Mobei-Jun down as well.
The other was not fairing much better with his face covered in snow and wet hair strands sticking to his skin. Even though Shang Qinghua should probably fear for his life, considering Mobei-Jun’s irked expression, it only stoked his never-ending happiness, causing a resounding laugh to bubble up and escape his lips without any control or remorse. He also could not stop. Shang Qinghua doubled over while clutching his stomach, nearly pushing his face once more into the snow.
“I-I, hahaha, I’m so sorry my king. Really.”
“Mmh.” Mobei-Jun replied softly and Shang Qinghua graced him with another blinding smile, radiating pure bliss. It was a comfortable silence in which they simply stared at each other, both sitting in heaps of snow and wet to their cores.
“Oh!” Shang Qinghua yelped as he felt something hard nudge his upper left thigh. Heat was about to rush to his head before he remembered that Mobei-Jun was sitting more to his right, so he looked at the ground next to him.
There, hidden underneath a blanket of white cold, was a small ... ball? Did a ball cause him to slip?
No.
It was an egg!
Too curious to resist, Shang Qinghua carefully poked at the grey, outer shell. It was no bigger than his hand and yet wiggling around quite enthusiastically.
He was about to question his king whether he knew what creature could be residing in there (why was there no cucumber bro when you needed him), but a quiet cracking sound was drawing his attention back to the small thing.
Not wanting the small ... something ... to freeze to death, Shang Qinghua warily picked up the egg and tried to warm it inside his hands.
Mobei-Jun was watching silently, leaning a little closer.
“Is it hatching?”
“What!” Oh god yes, of course. Shang Qinghua was so stupid. The small thing wanted to hatch. That cracking sound was literally an alarm for them to leave or become parents as a consequence.
They had not left.
Oh god.
Mobei-Jun crawled still a little closer and wrapped his slightly colder hands around Shang Qinghua’s around the egg. His lips came a little too close for comfort or, well, too close for Shang Qinghua’s weak self-control not to kiss his king, anyway.
“M-my king?” All of a sudden Shang Qinghua was feeling sweaty all over despite the wetness having reached his inner layers of clothing.
“Qinghua. May I?”
A jerky nod was all Shang Qinghua’s suddenly dysfunctional brain could muster up in that moment.
Almost as though in slow motion, Mobei-Jun bend down further and softly placed his lips on Shang Qinghua’s. They felt warmer and softer than Qinghua had thought the few times he forgot to be paranoid about someone maybe possibly being able to read his mind and tell his king. The intimate touch made his heart flutter uncontrollably and even Mobei-Jun let a soft sigh escape his mouth after pulling away slowly, cheeks tinged a little bluer than usual.
“Now we can celebrate Christmas as a family, hm?” Came the deep rumble from his king.
Oh god.
Covered in snow, illuminated by glowing Christmas trees and engulfed within Mobei-Jun’s warmth (and love?!) to await a small creature hatching, Shang Qinghua could not be any happier.
The cracking was becoming louder before a loud noise announced that that something was finally finished with hatching from inside the egg and began poking its head out.
Sniffling around, searching for scents in the air, it almost looked like a small dragon-snake.
A little blue, a whole lot of slimy and really...
“Cute!”
“Ugly.”