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Yellowed bamboo leaves gently swayed in the winter winds, black tips cat ears twitching instinctively despite all windows and doors tightly closed. A yawn rang through the room as the figure on the bed stretched half heartedly. Shen Jiu lazily wipes the few stray tears from the yawn as he nuzzles himself deeper into the cacophony of pillows and blankets.
It wasn’t that hard to escape what any other non-braindead peak lord could see as a chaotic ‘meeting’. It was already hard enough to trust the Zui Xian peak lord to not consume all the alcohol. So why in heavenly principles would that spineless sect leader ever give the boar a chance to host?!
Shen Jiu outwardly groaned at the thought of his sect leader, submerging himself deeper into the blankets as if to hide away from the stress the golden retriever often gave him. Albeit admittedly, the stress that the latter gave him is far from the time when they were still disciples. Far from the time before they ‘make up’ as his shidi would call it.
Although Shen Jiu would attribute his current ‘relationship’ to the sect leader to his yuan-di, the latter is adamant that ‘his shixiongs were always made to get along’. Shen Jiu had wanted to lashed out then but seeing the clear look in his shidi’s eyes showing the belief the other had in the sentence stopped him.
Ever since then, Shen Yuan has very noticeably tried to meditate between the two. Always dragging one of his shixiong to the other for one reason or another and slowly it worked….. Yue qingyuan eventually stopped being an apologetic mess around the Qing Jing disciple and in turn Shen Jiu ‘tolerated’ the other (Shen Yuan firmly believes Shen Jiu is just too tsundere to actually admit he likes the sect leader).
In spite of all these progress, that dog of a sect leader never ceases to ignite a headache in the Siamese.
Another groan rang through the room followed by the sounds of shuffling fabrics as the black tip cat ears disappeared into the fabric. ‘I did not escape that meeting just to spend the day thinking about that golden mutt!’ Shen Jiu cursed in his head as he calmed himself down.
Meditating over the sound of birds chirping and soft rustling of leaves, green eyes start to slowly droop. The warm feeling in his chest starts to emerge alongside a sense of longing. ‘Ah… if only I snuck out that munchkin with me’ his mind couldn’t help but conjure the image of his small shidi stuck in a room filled with those beasts causing his forehead to crease at it.
‘But only one of us can escape’ his mind unhelpfully supplied as he shifts to a better position, a sigh leaving him at the sense of comfort. ‘Sorry, shidi’ a smug smile formed on his face.
*****BANGGGGGGGGGG******
‘Speak of the devil…’
-
Shen Yuan knew from the moment he arrived at the guest house on Shòu yù peak that his shixiong was lying to get out of the meeting. Thus, the moment the meeting was concluded, he immediately took off on his sword to Qing Jing. Despite his current annoyance toward the Qing Jing peak lord, he still took in consideration of the hierarchy and promptly stomped his way towards the bamboo house once he reached the peak.
HIs munchkin blood coupled with his shixiong insistent reminder to ‘never disgrace the peak lord title’ caused his arrival to be delayed by a whole 10 minutes. Nevertheless, his annoyance didn’t diminish, if anything with each step (read: stomp) he took, it only added more fuel to it.
Annoyances that were then channel -carefully because Shen Yuan wouldn’t dare to actually break his shixiong’s door unlike a certain tiger- into the bamboo door, opening it with a loud bang. No doubt alerting its owner but no sound of footsteps could be heard nor the sight of green robes could be seen.
Which only annoyed the Shòu yù peak lord even further as he marched towards the master bedroom. The route was familiar enough that he barely had to slow down, knowing exactly which door led to his shixiong. He slammed the sliding door to the side.
And he was met with the sight of a shixiongless bedroom. The sight kindled his cat instinct as green eyes slitted and he searched the room for any sign of the Qing Jing peak lord. If not for the intense scent of the other cat in the room and the mysteriously familiar blankets forming a lump on the bed, Shen Yuan would've left.
His ears perk up, the white floof causing his shadow to look bigger and his tail straighten when a slight shuffle could be heard from the lump on the bed. “Shixiong….?” Another shuffle could be heard. Before he could realize what he was doing, the Shòu yù peak lord had already plop himself onto the lump, eliciting a groan from the lump.
‘Well, too late for remorse now..’ he thought before he started unraveling the carefully made nest, evoking a hiss from the other as the warm trap inside escaped and the cold winds entered.
“You!- You’re ruining the nest!!” Shen Jiu yelled as his shidi tried to pried the last blanket covering him off. All he gets is an indignant ‘hmphh’ as the younger one pulls harder, stubbornly holding onto the bamboo patterented fabric.
“Maybe if shixiong had just made it bigger, I wouldn’t have-” a groan cut the white cat off as Shen Jiu had let go of the blanket in fear of it ripping inadvertently causing the former to fall.
…
The brief inaction from his shidi almost lights a rare sense of guilt in Shen Jiu. Almost. As once the shock faded from the former’s eyes, it was soon replaced with a sort of smugness that just aggravates some sort of feeling in the Qing Jing lord. A sort of feeling that had caused him to first be protective towards this particular shidi of his.
‘Ah…. what a troublesome shidi I have’ Shen Jiu couldn’t help but think as the white munchkin seemingly recovered from the fall and immediately decided to redo its previous action, plopping himself shamelessly directly besides his shixiong.
Shen Yuan then proceeded to shift around beside him before trying to fix the nest that he had practically clawed out, his fluffy tail occasionally swaying against Shen Jiu’s face. It took only 3 minutes of the munchkin’s ‘messing around’(Shen Jiu’s words not mine), for the older cat to grumpily take charge, letting out a low hiss as he grabbed the blanket from the other’s hand.
Shen Yuan in a rare show of disobedient -Shen Jiu adamantly refuse to believe in the notion that his kitten-shidi could ever be rebellious- snatches the blanket back and stubbornly go back to haphazardly placing blanket in a poor imitation of a nest.
The siamese cat was stunt at the action, freezing for a few seconds before his cat instinct starts blaring alarms in his head, once again appalled at the younger cat’s actions something that the latter seems prone to doing. In spite of the frequency of his cat instinct getting set off, the scholar still finds it difficult to control himself when it does happen.
Therefore, it really shouldn’t surprise his shidi anymore when the munchkin is inevitably scruff once more and unceremoniously drops into the deeper, untouched part of the nest. Both action was followed by a surprise yelp from his kitten shidi and promptly ignored as Shen Jiu refocused his attention on reconstructing the nest.
Unfortunately, this shidi of his seems to stubbornly try to ‘help’ which instantly sets off the siamese’s just soothed cat instinct. Both cats seem to have their own instinct that from the looks of it fully in control, the younger wanting to hurried the nest fixing in order to start the now expected bonding time and the older finding all action from the other as an attack to their competence.
Well the munchkin somewhat won this time as the siamese starts to groom the other in an attempt to quiet the white floof down. Shen Jiu stares down his shidi as the now familiar sound of purring starts reverberating from the latter, ‘there..’ his cat instinct sounded. ‘Everything is fine’ Shen Jiu felt the statement more clearly and the still strange but familiar feeling also started reverberating from him.
The room was silent except for the sounds of two cats purring and the occasional sounds of grooming.
-
Half an hour later, the nest is still unfinished but the ‘nuisance’ is now asleep and the older cat can finally fix the broken part without any disturbance. Although the now lack of purring did somewhat bother him but that was another problem.
Black tips cat ears animatedly move as the siamese methodically fix the nest according to the multiple scriptures his shizun had given him. It was only when he was done and tucking both of them in did the munchkin woke up.
“Mmhm… shixiong..?” Shen Yuan blurred out, sleepiness heavy in his voice. “Hmm..?” Shen Jiu hum in response, not stopping his movement.
Green eyes hazily look around the room. “Did you fix the nest…?”
“Who else?”
“......” the munchkin was expecting it but was still embarrassed at his own unhelpfulness as his memory started to resurface. “..this… shidi apologizes for his earlier behavior..” he sheepishly said, face tinted in red expecting his shixiong to be furious at his audacity.
Yet his shixiong only responded with a smug smirk, "Apology accepted.”. Shen Yuan mentally releases a breath of relief. “Call it even for this shixiong’s absence in the ‘very important’ meeting”, the Shòu yù peak lord subconsciously nodded before he realized what it meant.
A pout forms on the younger face as a complaint takes shape on the tip of his tongue. An image that the master of four arts wishes to capture but atlas technology has yet made it possible. Similarly the younger has yet grown enough to be able to outwit his shixiong to unleash whatever complaint was being formed as Shen Jiu uses the tried and true method of silencing the other.
A whine replaced whatever word Shen Yuan wanted to say as his cat ears were being unceremoniously licked. “It’s too late for this shixiong to go anyway” another lick assaulted his still oversensitive ears from their previous session, his eyes letting stray tears from the overstimulation.
“It would be better for shidi to just enjoy this time he has with his shixiong”
Another whine rang through the empty room, no doubt one of many as the Qing Jing peak lord slowly reached for the white fluffy tail.