Work Text:
His hand moved slowly towards the chess board. The holographic chess piece tapped on the surface of the intersecting lines, the relaxed smile never left Jing Yuan's face. Even, when he watched your expression turned, from a slight irritation, to a shock of surprise.
"General," he said.
The moment his chess piece landed inside the "citadel", you could only look up at him, still shocked, and said, "... You lied..."
You were right, he lied.
Jing Yuan, took a sip from his tea and chuckled.
"You said you will go easy on me." you spoke angrily.
"Perhaps, I did get carried away..." Jing Yuan simply replied. His gentle smile did not waver.
The general's carefree and nonchalant attitude triggered your initial gut feeling once more. You knew he was up to no good when he invited you for a game of Weiqi.
"You planned this all along," you accused," you said, you would go easy on me just to have me agree."
A chuckled left Jing Yuan's lips, "How else would you agree to come here?"
You scoffed at his words. Feeling a little embarrassed how well the General fooled you.
You had been avoiding his invites for a while now. Whenever you receive a message from him, it would usually end up in an utter embarrassment in a match of chess. And, whenever Jing Yuan wins, the general would leverage his victory in order to coax you for a 'favour'.
However, you convinced yourself that this time around it would be different. You had hope the General would actually let you easy on the game, as he promised.
"Needless to say, I won. Once, again," Jing Yuan smile. He lifted his hand and pointed his finger at his ear. Signaling you what he really wanted to ask you for.
You sighed. You knew where this was going.
Prompted, you reached for your bag to grab a rectangular box. Opening it, you took out a blunt tool. The Cloud Knife shone with the light, reflecting its long history within the Xianzhou's local culture; in terms of ear cleaning.
"Yanqing told me you developed new techniques of the Cloud Knife," Jing Yuan said, "I didn't know you are working on a new repertoire." he jokingly teased.
You could only rolled your eyes, internally, at Jing Yuan's teasing.
"I hope this won't take too much of my time, I still have work to do," You said.
"Of course," Jing Yuan replied. He smile never left, and it felt brighter when he looked at you.
Moving closer, Jing Yuan slowly laid down. Gently placing his head on your lap, his hair spread over your thighs, and it tickled your skin. Very gently, your fingers brush his locks away revealing his ear.
Taking the blunt knife, in a delicately gentle fashion, you ran the blunt edge of the blade from the corner of Jing Yuan's forehead down to his mandible. His façade expression slipped at the sensation, although it was only for a split second.
Next, you used the blunt tip of the knife to lightly pressed against the acupuncture points along the shell of his ear. Repeating the technique a few more times before switching up your stance, and you began to run the tip along the nooks and crannies of his ear.
Jing Yuan took a deep breath. You felt his body began to relax. It never occurred to you how tense Jing Yuan was.
'There must be a lot on his mind,' you thought to yourself.
Running the blade through the channels of his ears, you brought the blade over to the outer shell. Gently running circles before pausing at the top. Your other hand gently held under it as you began scraping the shell.
Jung Yuan laid still with his eye closed. Enjoying the sensation of the cool piece of metal running along his ear. He paid attention to each of your movements, noticing how fluid you were wielding the knife. He knew you got better with the techniques because Yanqing would not stop talking about it.
You began to twirl the knife, rotating the blade as you ran it all over the surface. In that instance, Jing Yuan lifted his brows. With his eyes still closed, he let out a questioning hum, “this is new…” he commented with a smile.
The technique gave a new feeling to sensation, sending waves of pleasure and relaxation. The nerves and acupuncture points were lighting up like fireworks.
“Just experimenting…” you whispered back. After a few more runs with the Cloud Knife. Your hand pulled away gently placing the knife back into the box.
Using your thumb and index finger, your began to massage the side of Jing Yuan’s head. Occasional messaging the ear, leading them to flush more in colour. (As Bailu suggested, simulated blood rushes to the ear helps with hearing. Maybe the General needed it, after all doesn't he seem to listens to you very well.)
As your hand press and kneaded, you soon realised how fully relaxed Jing Yuan was. Laying limp on your lap, you watched as he had dozed off into a pleasant dream.
A chuckled left your lips. Indeed, the Jing Yuan lives up to his title, the Dozing General. The routine was over. Fingers brushing through Jing Yuan's fluffy locks, you fixed his hair before tapping on his shoulder, “We’re done, General.”
You expected him to open this eyes and get off. However, Jing Yuan did not budge. Instead, he remain asleep. You thought he was just teasing you and went to tap his shoulder again. This time a little harder.
“General,” you spoke in a calm manner, “It’s time to get up.”
“Hmmm,” Jing Yuan hummed, “Not bad…I can see why Yanqing likes to stop by your office.”
“It’s not good for your ears if you do this too often,” You lectured, “Now get up, I have to get back to work.”
“Do you really want to?” Jing Yuan questioned you with an innocent look. However, you couldn’t help but to feel he saw through you somehow.
“Of course, I still have a lot of work to do. If I haven’t come here to play chess with you, I would have been able to finish work a long time ago.” You said.
“And yet, you still accepted to come over,” Jing Yuan chuckled when he saw you let out a surprised expression. For a moment, your face flushed in colour while trying to think of an excuse, “I only agreed to come here because I thought I can win against you for once. It’s as simple as that, General.”
Jing Yuan let out a laugh at how flustered you become. It was certainly not easy to coax you to join him for a game. Even if the game last only for a minute or two, he enjoy having your company nevertheless.
“Shall we continue?” He pointed to his other ear, "Or do you want that to be determined by another game?"
Swallowing your embarrassment, you nodded taking the Cloud Knife once more