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It’s not normal for North to wake up with a little weight on his ring finger. It’s not normal for him to wake up this early as well. The only reason for both abnormalities would be one person. His person. There’s no other way to wake North up other than removing his favourite—and only—source of warmth in the cool resort room of Chiang Mai.
Newly married North wakes up in a King-sized bed that seemed ridiculously large and spacious compared to last night. He presses the pad of this thumb over the cool metal of his heart-shaped locket, where his husband’s name carves into the pendant. At the same time, the new addition of accessories—his wedding ring—shines under the morning sunlight that leaks through the closed curtains. North’s eyes are only half open, still very much riddled with sleep.
There was no point in wallowing in bed if Li Ming is not by his side. North is most definitely disappointed that his lover—husband (North is still getting used to that)—isn’t here on their first morning as spouses. But he was most definitely not going to whine about that because his husband will never stop giving him shit for his clingy behaviour.
Instead, North resorts to doing what he does best.
He leaves their cozy bed—not bothering to fold the sheets up because his grandpa of a husband will come back and do it for them—and goes to open the curtains to let some morning light inside. He stretches a few times, washes his sleep-addled face, and readjusts his messy bed hair before getting right back into bed. North grabs his phone, ignoring the blush on his face as he stares a little too lovingly at his new wallpaper—it’s a photo of them failing miserably to shotgun smoke into each other’s lips because they couldn’t stop laughing. North changed it the second he received the photo—before angling the camera in a very inappropriate way.
Then, he stops.
His first photo to Li Ming as his husband should not be a dick pic. No way. North may be an asshole, and Li Ming may be a bigger one, but even so, a dick pic should never be his first photo to his husband. Sue him if he’s a sap. He’s new to this.. ‘love’ thing.
North ponders on a perfect pose for at least five minutes, readjusting himself on the bed to get a proper angle until he gives up in the middle and just snaps a selfie of his tired—but curious—face, leaning against the headboard. And without much thought, North sends the photo to his newly changed contact name; Li (hubby) Ming.
7.56 am
leaving your hubby so soon, honey?
Li Ming replies in less than three minutes. North eagerly opens the text that comes paired with a selfie from his husband. His stomach churns with things he would not admit as butterflies, cheeks flaring red at the sight of the handsome man. His silver earring shines under the morning light of Chiang Mai, paired with his unwashed, uncombed hair that lies flat against his forehead. Li Ming gives him an arrogant look, a hint of his usual smirk across his pink lips—oh, how North missed kissing those lips—and his long neck, littered with hickeys that he couldn’t be bothered to hide. He wears the same undershirt he had worn last night—the one on the floor after North threw it away in a haste to see him naked. North may or may not have giggled like a schoolgirl upon that photo.
7.58 am
not until i get that inheritance of yours, baby.
It pulls another surprised laugh out of North that morning. He couldn’t help but grab Li Ming’s pillow—still warm to the touch—and burrow his face into it, inhaling the faint smell of smoke, sandalwood, and Li Ming. The newly married man thinks about how far they’ve come, about how their relationship started from that mere inheritance of his.
He’d give Li Ming thousand the times of his inheritance if it meant waking up to mornings like this.
North grabs his phone and stifles a smile as he types out his reply;
8.00 am
oh, you’re gonna get a different type of inheritance, baby.
North doesn’t know how much time had passed as he lay in bed, hugging Li Ming’s pillow and gazing at the ring on his finger. He pulls it off and pushes it back in, feeling the carvings of Li Ming’s name, the date of their wedding, and the infinity symbol right beside it. North smothers a smile, wondering if every morning is going to feel this way. He might just get a heart (pun intended) attack.
He’s happy. That’s not normal. And there’s also one reason to this abnormality as well.
The door to their hotel room opens with a chime, and the very reason to his abnormalities walks inside, both hands straining from the bags of food he had bought for them. A cigarette hangs out of Li Ming’s lips as he raises an eyebrow at his husband from the door. Li Ming waves the bags of food to North; “Aren’t you going to help me?” his words come out muffled from the cigarette.
North hums, making himself comfortable on Li Ming’s side of the bed, stretching his arms high up before crossing them behind his head with a smirk; “I think you’ve got it,” he tells his husband.
He couldn’t help the way his heart skips a beat—even after all these years—at the sight of Li Ming’s broad back, the way the muscles flex, or the veins that protrude from him arms when he lifts those heavy bags onto the coffee table. North clears his throat, pushing those filthy thoughts to the back of his head as he swiftly changes the topic; “Are you even allowed to smoke in the resort?” he asks.
Li Ming shrugs, pulling out his cigarette after a few drags, holding the unfinished stalk between his fingers while he shuffles to the kitchen to grab bowls for them, “Your father paid ridiculous amounts of money to this place. They’d kiss the ground I walk on,” the man replies, which, true. His father did pay a huge sum of money for his only son’s wedding. North isn’t the one to complain. No wonder the service here is excellent.
The smell of cigarettes comforts North as he watches Li Ming from their bed, watches the way he scoops up porridge into their bowls with a permanent frown and a furrow between his eyebrows, and the light stubble that dusts his jaw that ticks with focus. He meticulously adds boiled eggs, crunchy crackers, and spring onions to North’s bowl, well aware that the man hated soggy crackers. He must’ve told them to pack the toppings separately. North’s heart swells even further. He—
“I know you’re probably so in love with me,” Li Ming snaps him out of his daze. “But you should probably stop smiling like that, it’s creeping me out,”
When North’s vision clears, he catches the teasing smirk on his husband’s lips, arms crossed over his chest and hips jutted out against the coffee table; “Never would I have expected the day Khun Nanthanon Rattanakosin begins to daydream about his super sexy husband,” he takes another drag of his cigarette to hide the way his cheeks burn, that cheating bastard.
North says nothing to deny. All he does is stretch over their bed once again, catching the way Li Ming’s eyes immediately go to the hem of his tank top that rides up his skin, exposing the soft hairs of his happy trail and the defined muscles of his pelvis. “Mm, you’re wrong,” North murmurs, perching his head on a propped-up hand. “It’s Khun Nanthanon Rattanakosin-Nueangna-uam,”
Li Ming’s teasing smirk softens up into something either of them had been too afraid to acknowledge back then. Now, however, North opens his arms for him, happily accepting the armful of Li Ming he receives instantly.
His husband burrows into his neck, arms going tight around him as he presses countless kisses over the bruised skin of North’s neck. Li Ming raises his head, two fingers curling under North’s chin to hold him in place as their lips lock in a warm kiss. He tastes the bitter smoke, the sweet lemon lozenges that Li Ming pops in whenever his throat dries up from the air conditioning—not the cigarettes, of course.
North loves the sound they make together, be it moans, whispered worships against skin, breathless laughs, or even the smacking of lips. He loved every sound that came out of Li Ming’s lips.
Their rings clash in a faint clang of metals, and he loved that sound too.
“Breakfast,” Li Ming murmurs despite not making any movements to leave their bed. “The food—” he whispered into North’s mouth even as his undershirt is discarded for the fifth time in the span of twelve hours. “It’s going to—mm—cold,” he warns North even as his swift hands push into the latter’s tank top, warm fingers brushing over his erect nipples just to swallow that shocked gasp.
North does nothing to acknowledge Li Ming’s words except reach up to latch his lips around Li Ming’s earlobe, suckling on the silver earring, relishing in the way Li Ming’s hips jut into his with a low groan. “North,” Li Ming calls him again. “Breakfast, you fucker,”
“Breakfast can wait,” North is quick to answer, his voice breathless from all the kissing they’re doing. His lips have gone numb and they haven’t even started.
North holds his husband by the nape, locking eyes with him as his tongue pokes out to lick a thin stripe up the curves of Li Ming’s swollen lips; “Didn’t I promise you another type of inheritance?”
Breakfast can wait.