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School events aren’t always Xiao’s thing.
He doesn’t think they ever will be.
Not that he hates them. Of course not. But he prefers the quietness. He prefers being away from it, all those things that could potentially give him a splitting headache while in the middle of it. He doesn’t want to trouble any passerby students when he stupidly happens to pass out because of something so ridiculous.
But there was something different today.
It was so different that he just has to go. Because he swore to himself, he can’t miss it, or he might never have the chance to see it again.
As he looks around the open area of the school, he spots several of his classmates. Ganyu, Keqing, along with Ningguang and Beidou were together. Zhongli and Childe were taking part in a stall game (Xiao has to wonder if that ginger psycho’s wallet is okay right now). Hu Tao was there, hanging out with Xingqiu and the others, like the inseparable group that they are. There were lots of students at the festival, Xiao almost feels like going home with how overwhelming the atmosphere is.
A tap on his shoulder.
If it were anyone, Xiao would’ve knocked them down before they could even lay their hands on him. However, Xiao makes an exception–one single exception, for someone who doesn’t look like they will ever have a sense of personal space. Xiao thinks it’s okay that way.
“I thought you were already preparing.” Xiao says to start the conversation. The words come easily out of his tongue, like he’s been a confident talker all his life. He honestly thinks he should be.
“I only just arrived and you’re already shooing me away?” he doesn’t even have to turn around to see the pouty expression plastered on the other’s face. But Xiao still sees it anyway when he walks right in front of him, and gods, that may have been a mistake on both their parts, because if it weren’t for Xiao’s massive self-control, he would’ve already embarrassed himself by now doing something that he shouldn’t. “That’s so cold, Xiao.”
“You’re dramatic, Venti.” was Xiao’s flat response. He subtly breathes in, taking in his best friend’s appearance. He feels like he wasn’t allowed to touch him at all, otherwise his appearance might get ruined like this with his hand. Xiao doesn’t trust his own hands with him. It trembles.
Xiao swears, to Rex Lapis himself, to Celestia even, that Venti might just be the most breathtakingly beautiful angel in this whole festival. Yeah, he could swear on that. He’d never take it back. It’s his truth.
“My performance starts in two hours so I still have a lot of time left to enjoy the festival.” Venti leads them to a food stall.
After ordering something, they wait for a bit before sitting at a nearby table after getting their orders. Venti takes a bite of his fries before saying, “I didn’t know you were coming today. You said you were busy?”
Yes.
He was.
And Xiao can’t just tell him right to his face that yes, he’s so extra weak in the part where he has other matters to attend to nor did he want to go to the festival, but the moment he heard that Venti’s there, and he’s performing–gods, Xiao was weak. To his knees. His common sense. Everywhere. Any part of him is oh so weak when it comes to Venti.
He’ll never admit that. Ever.
Unless he wants a thousand of people clapping for him, praising him for being the most absolute fool Teyvat has ever had the pleasure of having. Lovely. Xiao would rather swallow down Xiangling’s burning pot of pyro slime with no water involved. He can live with that.
There are so many options to say to him in this regard.
“I came just for you.”
“I couldn’t miss your performance for the universe.”
“I want to spend time with you.”
“I’ll go anywhere with you there.”
Those were death sentences for sure.
So he settles with, “I can’t let you get in trouble.”
For some reason, he thinks that’s even worse than those death sentence options.
“Seriously?” Venti asks in disbelief. Seriously.
“...the performance.” Xiao admits a little bit, careful not to spill too much because he’ll die if he does. “I want to see it. That’s all.”
“The performance? Mine? My performance? Your beloved best friend’s performance? Really?” Venti starts asking with that stupid grin of his, just to make sure, because of course he does. It’s Venti. He’ll tease Xiao to death the moment he gets the chance. And Xiao, every single time, gives that opening to him.
But Xiao still has to save whatever remaining dignity he has left, so he quickly counters it, “Mainly because I heard they’re selling the limited time special almond tofu at this time. I couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“Ah, I see. Your first love.” Venti puffs his cheeks in such a cute manner that Xiao almost reaches out to pinch them. He does not. Heavens above know he wouldn’t dare.
Xiao opts to silently eating his food that Venti surprisingly paid for. He feels almost guilty about it. Maybe he should let Venti pay more often (knowing that he would definitely not in the end).
“By the way, Xiao, what college are you planning to get into?”
It’s a simple question… or was it?
Yet Xiao feels a bit heavy about answering it.
It doesn’t matter as long as you’re there, Xiao wants to answer.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he lied. It’s pathetic, he knows, but he’s a coward.
“Really? But our graduation’s in two months,” Venti blinks in surprise. He knows that too. In fact, he’s highly aware. “Have you asked Zhongli?”
I don’t need to, was Xiao’s answer inside his head, I want to go with you.
“He said I have to decide that on my own.” he didn’t completely lie this time. If Xiao were to ask him for real, Zhongli would’ve said the same thing, wouldn’t he? “Where are you planning to go?”
“I’m pursuing music so it has to be a music university, but,” Venti rests his cheek on the palm of his hand, pondering. “To be honest, I’m not sure either.”
Well… now that’s something.
They really are best friends, aren’t they?
Venti starts to laugh, and then as if he shares the same mind as Xiao, he says, “We really are best friends, aren’t we, Xiao?”
“...we really are.”
Gods, he was utterly extra pathetic tonight.
“Oh, we should explore the festival a bit before my performance! Come on!” Venti stands up from his seat, and before Xiao could even do anything, Venti was already grabbing his wrist and dragging him along.
They did a lot that night.
The festival was lively, Xiao has to admit that the council had done a great job at preparing it, and some sponsors who agreed to fund their event, to which the whole school was grateful for.
Xiao was even more grateful, because he gets to spend extra time with Venti like this. They walk around like fools, laughing and talking about the most random things, Venti dragging him to every game stall they could possibly spot–and Xiao agreeing to do all of them, because of course he does, he’s whipped like that.
By the end of it all, he practically won Venti all the prizes in every stall.
And now he looks so cute carrying all his prizes.
“We really should hold bigger events like this often.” Venti hums as he walks beside Xiao, carrying all the stuff Xiao won for him.
“We just got lucky because of the sponsors.” Xiao shrugs.
“Oh, definitely.” Venti snorts, “And our school just so happens to catch their eye for some reason.”
“Maybe you caught their attention.”
It took exactly five seconds for Xiao to register what in Rex Lapis’ name he just said, and when he did, Venti was practically breaking into a sort of hysterical laughter.
“Wow, Xiao! I didn’t know you were capable of flirting like that!” Venti chokes out in between giggles and oh, god, Xiao really wants to let the wind blow him away right now.
“Don’t let it get through your inflated ego.” Xiao grumbles. He was so embarrassed he can’t even look at any part of Venti at the moment, and that somehow makes the other laugh even louder.
Great. Alright. Can he disappear now? He’d love that. Please. Make his death quick and painless as much as possible.
“Heh, I don’t think I would be able not to. A compliment from the mighty Xiao? Oh Archons, if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought that I was dead and got into another universe.” Venti muses when his laughter died down, although there were still a few giggles that escaped that pretty mouth of his.
Xiao really wants to shut him up with his own lips.
You will not.
Xiao almost clenches his fist. Almost.
Instead, he brings his hand up to slightly smack Venti on the head, to which the other whined.
“Stop being mean!”
“Stop saying weird things.”
“Well, you love it when I’m weir–”
“Venti!” a familiar voice chimed in just from the distance. When they both turned to the sound, Xiao sees a white haired girl who has her long hair up in a ponytail. Xiao recalls her as one of Venti’s bandmates.
“Ayaka!” Venti waves at her happily. Ah, right. That was her name. Xiao needs to stop forgetting.
“Our performance starts in ten minutes! We have to go now!” Ayaka announces.
“Archons, I almost forgot.” Venti chuckles before turning to his beloved best friend. “Xiao!”
“What?
Venti smiles widely at him, and Xiao stills when Venti holds his hand for a moment. “You’ll keep your eyes on me, won’t you?”
Ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
As if Xiao had ever looked at anyone besides Venti. As if he would take his eyes off Venti. As if he wouldn’t let himself be pulled in by him every time like he was under a hypnosis.
As if.
“Then you better not disappoint me.” Xiao tells him. Softly. But it was so soft that Venti didn’t even hear it. The older only giggled and waved at him before going with his bandmate to prepare.
And Xiao watches him, silently. Because never in his life had he held Venti back. Ever.
With nothing better to do, Xiao settles himself with a seat where he can see them.
The concert started ten minutes after, and Xiao had luckily gotten himself in the front row–and definitely not out of pity did the people decided to let him through the huge crowd because he was so short he probably wouldn’t be able to reach a sink. Celestia, how many fans do Venti’s band have again?
Xiao almost tried to block off everything when he heard Venti’s voice.
He looked up, and there he was, up on the stage with his beloved band, holding that electric guitar of his with stickers all over it and a micro mic. He was grinning at the crowd while said crowd hyped even more upon hearing him, or just seeing all of them in general. But it didn’t really matter to Xiao. Not when he heard that voice that’s never failed to blank out his mind, never failed to make him ache for it, crave for it, even beg for the owner of the voice to never stop singing to him.
And the crowd was going wild, but Xiao was blocking all of them out because he can’t comprehend anything.
Not when his eyes were locked with bright aqua green ones. Not when that gaze was burning through the very depths of his soul, his mind… Xiao had to physically gulp. It was burning. His skin. And it wasn’t even hot, in fact, it was the coldest month of the year. And Xiao was burning, flaming, red, hot.
He really needed to know what the hell was in the food that he ordered earlier, he honestly needed to make sure it’s not poisoned or have something in it that’s making him hallucinate Venti smiling and looking at him right now at this moment as if he’s also the only thing he sees in the crowd of many people. Because that thought is the peak of Xiao’s delusions. It was funny, because he imagines it every time–daydreams it every single chance he gets. If there’s a degree for people who’re actually deranged for the person they like the most, Xiao thinks he’d–no, fuck that, actually, he knows he’d pass the degree with flying pride colors and on the top of his class.
Gods, Xiao loves drowning himself in his stupid delusions. Let him live because he’s absolutely losing it right now.
But that doesn’t really matter, does it?
None of it does because he absolutely cannot focus on anything but the senior that was right above him, on the stage, glowing. Radiant, bright, sunshine of the campus, who is Venti. His best friend who Xiao has given up all kinds of brain cells for. If he’s even lucky, there might be one brain cell enough for the both of them but that’s physically impossible now with how far gone he is.
Xiao wonders if he’s far gone enough to reach the heavens. And said heavens, who is Venti himself, is grinning at him. Xiao knows he’s quite literally grinning at no one, he’s probably grinning at everyone but Xiao’s afraid that he’s actually promoted to being the ruler of delusiondom.
Hah. He’s even getting so much of his humor from Venti now.
But Xiao could only watch the singer helplessly.
Beautiful, beautiful. Xiao almost wants to cry out–hell, he might actually rip his heart out right now and throw it to Venti upstage in hopes the other would finally come into realization of Xiao’s hopeless stupidly ridiculous absurd pining for him for the last several painful years they’ve been together.
Xiao forces his feelings down and watches his best friend instead.
That’s right.
Venti is his best friend.
The best friend in the whole wide world.
He doesn’t even care what Venti refers to him as at this point, as long as he gets to see those aqua eyes every day. Gaze at those soft kissy lips while it’s moving and sometimes, curl into a small smirk (Xiao was absolutely weak to the very inch of his core when Venti smirks and he’s afraid that there’s no cure for that symptom, unfortunately).
A small smile painted Xiao’s lips. Something that would probably make someone like Ganyu faint just from seeing it once. Whether from astonishment or shock, Xiao finds himself wondering why sometimes. But Venti likes it, so he tries hard to do it often and finds that he really can’t.
It’s fine, he thinks. Venti said he likes his stoic face too, anyway.
And Xiao really needs to stop looking like he might just faint from silently fanboying over his definitely-not-so-love-of-his-life of a best friend.
Yeah. He’ll stop doing that.
______________________
“Ah, the fireworks display is almost starting!” Venti suddenly remembers as the two walked through the festival after Venti’s performance–he had immediately found himself being swum with fans all over after getting off-stage, to which Xiao ended up saving him from, as always–then he turns to Xiao. “Come with me!”
Before Xiao could get a word out, Venti was already dragging him (again, and Xiao lets him because he’s a loser for him. Quite literally. And he’s the top of his class, mind you). But Xiao notices that Venti was taking him further away from the crowd until he can no longer see the people.
“Venti, where are we–”
“Don’t worry, I’m not kidnapping you or anything!”
And he wasn’t even thinking of that in the first place, but maybe getting kidnapped by his own best friend wasn’t such a bad idea.
Watch your thoughts, what the fuck?
Well, whatever. It’s Venti.
Xiao rolls his eyes.
“Please make sure we don’t end up dead by the end of this.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Xiao almost laughs. Almost.
The next thing he knew, however, was that Venti had opened the door to their school rooftop. Xiao wasn’t exactly sure how that happened. Students weren’t allowed inside the buildings during events aside from staff. So how…
As if reading him like an open book, Venti grins and showed him a key. Master’s key.
“Venti–”
“Relax, I didn’t steal them!” Venti interrupts him with a light laugh, to which Xiao’s relieved for but that was not what he was going to ask. “I asked Albedo to help me out with this. He’s part of the student council, so!”
“...and what exactly are we doing here?” Xiao asks, a little too carefully for his own good. It’s not that he trusts Venti, he does, a lot. But sometimes, this mischievous nature of him is going to be the early death of Xiao one day, actually.
Still, he shouldn’t worry too much.
Because it’s Venti.
“Hah, I take you to the best viewing spot in the whole school and you ask me what we’re doing here? Xiao, you don’t know how greatly you hurt me!” Venti gasps dramatically, feigning tears. It takes all of Xiao’s will to stop those dramatic antics of him with a kiss–stupid. Stupid heart. Stupid him. Stupid everything.
“Venti, hurry up. We only have five minutes until the fireworks display.” Xiao deadpans instead. He can do this. He survived so many days like this with Venti, he can't can right now.
The night sky looms over them, dazzling. Xiao swears to the archons above that it wasn’t supposed to be this romantic. And it doesn’t do this. He’ll get through this night, just like how he did every other painful night after having to separate from Venti’s side when classes end.
Venti grins at him and grabs his wrist, leading him to the middle of rooftop, where the stars up in the help that Venti doesn’t like go of his wrist either, because for some reason, he decides to maybe want to kill Xiao by sliding his fingers with Xiao’s own, intertwining them together.
Xiao nearly malfunctions.
It’s fine, right? It’s fine. It’s more than fine, actually. They’ve done this, a million times more. Why is he losing right now then?!
Venti clings onto him every time he gets. When Venti’s overwhelmed, his first instinct is to press himself against Xiao, slide his arm and wrap it around Xiao’s own. When Venti’s offering him comfort secretly under pressure, he intertwines his hands with Xiao too. Venti refuses to let go of his hands when he’s pleading with Xiao with those puppy eyes of him that for some reason always seem to work.
Xiao thinks he’s actually, on the verge of insanity and that is the hallucination his mind is playing on him right now as a last stage before his death. Truly. It couldn’t have been a better end.
“Do you still remember that thing I told you back when you were a freshman?” Venti suddenly asks, and Xiao’s not exactly sure what he’s referring to. There are far too many things Venti had said to him, and while Xiao can remember all of them, he still needs to know what it is. Because all of Venti’s words affect him, from head to toe.
“No,” Xiao blurts out even though he was still wracking his memory for what it could’ve been.
Venti’s laugh is melodious.
It was contagious.
It sounded lovely.
“It’s when I told you that I have a huuuuge crush on Zhongli. Remember?” Venti snickers, as if that was the most obvious thing that Xiao had to guess. Venti had him guess a lot of things! How should he know? But speaking of which–
“You told me you were only befriending me for the sake of getting close to him.” Xiao murmurs, as a matter-of-factly. It was a bit bitter back then. Xiao had sulked for weeks–hell, months to count. But Venti had practically showered him with so, so much affection and attention that he just flat out forgot what it is that he’s mad about. Well, now he remembers anyway.
Venti huffs out a laugh, “Guess what?”
“You took my wallet.
“Well–wait, what? No, I didn’t!” Venti gasps, looking offended. “How dare you?”
“I need to double check.”
“Xiao!” Venti whines, “You better listen to me before the countdown starts!”
“I’ve been listening to you since the start of the festival.”
“Don’t be a brat!”
“Who’s the brat here?”
“Oh, you are so cheeky, did you know that?” Venti pinches Xiao’s cheek before the latter could flinch away from his touch. Except, Xiao wasn’t going to pull away anyway.
“I learned from the best.” Xiao manages to tease him this time.
“The nerve.” the twin-braided boy pouted as he starts to pinch both of Xiao’s cheek now. “Be respectful to your elders!”
“You’re the only senior I don’t respect.”
“Wha–?!”
Xiao can hear people’s voices from the ground levels, although faint. They seem to be counting down.
“Huh,” Venti muses. Xiao hopes his palm isn’t too hot against Venti’s right now. “Should we count down as well?”
“I,” Xiao’s throat was suddenly oh, so dry. Curse Venti for this. And like an automated robot, Xiao replies, “Yes.”
“Okay, then!” Venti beams. “Be sure you’re facing me while we’re counting down, yeah?”
“Why?”
“Surprise!”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“I might actually consider writing worst junior of the year on your yearbook photos.”
“I’ll get to yours first.”
“You’re so annoying tonight!”
“You’re rubbing off on me.”
“Well, that’s good.” Venti rolls his eyes, then turn to look at Xiao again. “Ready?”
“Are you about to reveal that you’ve been taking anti-allergy pills so you can see my cat?”
“What? No! I don’t even think allergens will be able to help me anymore!”
“Then–”
“Xiao.”
“Venti.”
Xiao visibly gulps. He was so nervous for no reason, save for the part that Venti’s back to intertwining their fingers again, but that’s that.
“Let’s count together, okay?” Venti asks, softly this time.
Xiao’s already on the verge of self-destructing, so why not let his last moments be in bliss being hopelessly in love with this idiotic best friend of his anyway?
“Okay,” Xiao answers quietly.
And so they listen to the countdown, and soon they join when it was about to end.
Twenty seconds.
Venti’s aqua eyes were staring into him, and Xiao’s golden eyes were staring back at him.
Thirteen seconds.
Venti seemed nervous now, as if he’s about to reveal the biggest revelation of his life ever, and Xiao finds himself getting ten times even more nervous than him.
Eight seconds.
“Xiao,” Venti’s voice almost trembles. It catches Xiao so off-guard that he didn’t even notice Venti’s free hand coming up to his left shoulder.
“Venti,” Xiao could only say in response, because what else is there to say?
Five.
Venti looks at him directly, and that look in his eyes screams: if I don’t tell you this right now, I think I’ll die and jump off to another planet the very next day so keep quiet!
And Xiao does.
And as the countdown ends, Venti pulls him close, not even giving Xiao time to react before he whispers, “I lied. It’s you that I’ve liked from the start.”
Suddenly, nothing mattered anymore.
Nothing mattered anymore at that moment, because everything was disappearing.
He can’t care about anything else.
Not when Venti’s lips were warm against his. Not when Xiao was desperately clinging onto him and gods, he was never this clingy with Venti before–but who the fuck cares, he might do more than just that in the future anyway–not when Venti was just as desperate as him for this, holding onto him like Xiao might just pop and vanish if he were to let go. And honestly, Xiao was afraid of that too.
So he clings even more.
If somehow, he wakes up and finds it all to be a dream… he thinks he’ll never be able to recover.
But thank god it’s not, because Venti was making noises–archons, sweet noises–against his mouth, and Xiao’s immediate response was to request permission on his lips so that his tongue could enter. The fireworks were so loud, and yet so quiet at the same time, it was maddening.
Venti really could be the cause of his early death.
Xiao wouldn’t mind that at all.
When the kiss breaks (to Xiao’s utter dismay, but he can’t do shit about it because he doesn’t want both of them to die out of suffocation from making out and never get to do it again… unless there’s a private spot for them in Celestia, right?), the two just stared at each other, panting, trying to catch their breaths that had been taken by each other.
“I didn’t know you were a good kisser,” Venti breathes out. Xiao would quite literally retort if not for the fact that Venti’s hand was running its fingers through the hair in the back of his head, soothing him, making him unable to process anything at all.
And because he can’t comprehend anything–he didn’t even want to, Xiao leans in to catch those red colored lips of the other, causing a moan to be let out. Whether it was Xiao’s or Venti’s own, the world may never know.
“I don’t like you,” Xiao whispers against Venti’s lips when he gains at least the ability to perform coherent words, “I’m stupidly… hopelessly, obsessed and in love with you, so bad.”
He didn’t really know if that was even the right thing to say, but Venti’s lovely gasp was so worth it, Xiao can’t help but take him in again.
“I guess you’re even more insufferable than I am, huh?” Venti manages to tease him through kisses.
“I guess I beat my own mentor.” Xiao murmurs against his lips, their eyes never leaving each other.
“I’m such a bad influence.”
“You are.”
After a few more (desirable hungry moments of) kisses, the two sat together, just watching the fireworks display above them, their intertwined hands on Xiao’s lap.
A comfortable silence loomed over them before Venti breaks it again.
“We won’t be able to see each other that much after I graduate.”
“Who says?”
“I’m moving away.”
Xiao doesn’t hesitate replying, “I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you anywhere. I’ll be right there.”
“What? You don’t have to force yourself–”
“I’ve always been unsure of what I’m going to do with myself every day back then.” Xiao cuts in, gazing down. “I always ask myself what I’m doing everything for–is it to make Zhongli proud? That’s what I settled with because I’m not sure. I always thought I was certain with that answer. But then… you suddenly came into the picture, and everything came crashing down, and my life went swirling like a whirlwind.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Venti groans.
“It is.”
“How could you?
“It’s so bad, you have no idea,” Xiao says, leaning in until their foreheads were touching and their gaze didn’t have anything to gaze at except each other’s. “You have no idea what you did to me, Venti, or what you keep doing to me up until now. It’s like I’ve been cursed, but I crave it so much that if I were to be saved from it, it’ll make me so miserable and angry.”
That’s not even the end of it, but that’s a story for another time of how Venti drives Xiao crazy to pieces every single day.
“That’s such a weird metaphor to use, I sound like a bad guy! And the doom of you!” Venti whines.
“I could guess that you are.”
“Xiao!” Venti pouts, covering Xiao’s mouth. “That’s it. No kisses anymore!”
And that doesn’t stop Xiao, because he licks Venti’s palm, making the other shriek.
“Gah!” Venti immediately pulls away, but Xiao pulls him back in.
“I loved you yesterday.” Xiao kisses Venti’s cheek, “I love you today.” and then the corner of his lips, “I’ll love you tomorrow.”
Xiao’s barely aware of what he’s doing right now, because gods, he would’ve never imagined actually doing it for real despite having so many daydreams and night dreams about. He would’ve never. But he is. He’s doing it right now, and Celestia has to help him, because he can’t stop.
“I’ll love you in so many lifetimes.”
But it’s okay, because Venti’s squirming at his sappy words and he loves it.
“Archons, Xiao, you are going to be the death of me.” Venti says breathily, “If you keep doing this, I don’t think I will ever be able to separate myself from you.”
“Good to know.”
“For Barbatos’ sake, actually shut up for once right now.”
“I don’t know how to.”
Venti kisses him, “helping” him successfully.
They ended up returning to Xiao’s dormitory after that night.
______________________
“I’m telling you, I fell first.” Venti argues.
“There’s a difference between feeling interested upon seeing someone and actually falling,” Xiao remarks.
“That’s the same thing–and I still fell first, by the way!” Venti retorts, crossing his arms.
“Okay, then you did, but I’m not as oblivious as you.” Xiao places down his cup on their night stand of their apartment that they’ve been living in for the past few months. Xiao feels as if it was just still yesterday that they moved together. It feels like a dream, and he thank the gods above every day that it isn’t.
“Uh-huh? I dropped every possible hints, Mr. Not-So-Oblivious.” Venti stuck his tongue out.
“I’m so sorry for not noticing your hints that you’ve been doing to everyone else as well.” Xiao rolls his eyes. “You can’t call me oblivious when you didn’t notice my feelings.”
“You didn’t show me any signs!”
“Our friend group called us idiots.”
“Don’t say that, it’ll break my pride.” Venti groans in Xiao’s chest.
“Mmh.” Xiao brushes Venti’s bangs out of his forehead, “I love you.”
“Earlier, you were just arguing with me, and now you’re being sappy. Pick a mood, Xiao.”
“I need a kiss.”
“No way.”
Xiao lifts his lover’s chin up, and despite Venti’s initial protests, the two found themselves lost in each other’s arms (and lips).
“You’re too addicting, it’s getting dangerous.” Venti murmurs breathily.
“That’s not good. I shouldn’t fluster you so often then,” Xiao kisses Venti’s neck, making the other squirm again–gods, Xiao craves it when he’s squirming. He might just–
“If you’re going to wear me out again, you’re better off helping me with my research paper.”
“Venti, you’re in college. I’m only in my third year.”
“And I’m your boyfriend.”
“So?”
“So!”
Venti pouts. Xiao chuckles.
“Fine then.” his hand runs up Venti’s back, slowly. Venti visibly shivers. “Payment first before work.”
They definitely hope they’ll get to work on Venti’s research that night before deadline.
But it’s fine, Xiao will finish it alone for his boyfriend if he has to.