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Shen Yuan is up late reading the new Proud Immortal Demon Way chapter. It hasn’t come out yet Shen Yuan gets to read it early though. Perks of being the author’s beta / patron / roommate. It’s been about a year since he forcibly moved Xiang Fei into his apartment and the quality of Proud Immortal Demon Way has greatly increased. Shen Yuan managed to convince Xiang Fei to start over anew keeping everything from before the immortal alliance conference and rewriting the rest to be more in line with the original outline.
It now has Shen Qingqiu and the other villains as complex well fleshed out characters and isn’t filled to the brim with awful papapa, instead building up the romance between Luo Binghe and Ning Yingying after Luo Binghe returns from the abyss. Although it’s still filled with a great deal of angst Luo Binghe is ending up much happier and more fulfilled than his predecessor which Shen Yuan hopes reflects Xiang Fei’s own less bleak outlook on life.
As he fixes another typo he suddenly hears a loud bang coming from Xiang Fei’s room. He ignores it, used to Xiang Fei’s tendency to drop just about anything he gets his hands on. But then he hears another so he goes to check on his roommate. Standing outside the door he hears a great deal of rustling. He knocks gently and all the noise stops immediately. After a moment the door slowly creaks open, he really needs to grease the hinges on it, and Xiang Fei appears. He noticeably doesn’t open the door very far and is blocking Shen Yuan’s view into the room. Suspicious. “What’s with all the noise?”
Xiang Fei chuckles awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck, looking to the side. “Sorry bro, I’m just uh, rearranging the furniture a bit.”
Shen Yuan raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “That’s bullshit. You hate when stuff changes place. What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything. I can’t want a little change?” Xiang Fei blurts out, sounding defensive.
Shen Yuan ignores the stupid question and tries to look around Xiang Fei. Xiang Fei moves with him, blocking Shen Yuan’s view continuously. Shen Yuan reaches out to hold him still and soon they’re tussling. Xiang Fei tries to close the door on him but Shen Yuan’s faster, pushing to keep the door open. Xiang Fei moves to the side to push his full body into the door but in doing so unblocks Shen Yuan’s view. In the room he sees a backpack stuffed full and a half packed suitcase. Xiang Fei realizes his mistake and moves to block Shen Yuan’s view again but it’s too late. “You’re running away.” Shen Yuan breathes out in disbelief.
“Look, I need to stop depending on you so much. I need to get myself back to being independent.” Xiang Fei defends.
“You weren’t even gonna say goodbye.” Shen Yuan says softly, unsure why that’s what came to mind first and why the thought makes his chest ache.
Xiang Fei looks to the side again. “I was gonna leave a note.”
Shen Yuan huffs before realizing, “You don’t need to leave to work on independence. You can take the first steps just fine from here. There’s something else going on.”
Xiang Fei crosses his arms still not looking at Shen Yuan. “It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, never. Look,” Xiang Fei pauses taking a deep steadying breath. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you and I can’t keep pretending I’m not.”
“Then don’t. We can figure something out. Look, I don’t know how I feel about you.” And it’s true. Faced with the brunt of Xiang Fei’s feelings he finds that he has no clue what his own feelings are. It’s not something he should be confused about, he’d always been a steadfast straight man, but, the more he tries to piece together what he feels the more confused he becomes. He’s always assumed his feelings for Xiang Fei were platonic but they’re certainly more than he’s ever felt for a friend before. They’re different from what he’s always described as a crush. Perhaps what he felt for those girls wasn’t really a crush? Or maybe what he feels for Xiang Fei isn’t platonic or romantic? “That said, I know you’re more important to me than anyone else ever has been. I know I want you to stay in my life, in my home. Whatever I have to do to make that happen I’m more than willing to do.”
“But you don’t want it like I do.” Xiang Fei sounds so defeated as he says it.
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what you want. And I don’t know if I’ll like everything you want. But I do know that I wanna try. Before you run off, before you decide I’m not good enough, can’t give you everything you want, I wanna try. So please, just stay.” Shen Yuan pleads desperately, unendingly upset by the idea of losing his favorite person.
“You really wanna try?” Xiang Fei asks, sounding like he can’t possibly believe him.
“Yes. Whatever you want we’ll try it. I promise.”
Xiang Fei’s face pinches in irritation. “Then kiss me. Right now. You won’t.”
He did promise. And frankly, now that he’s thinking about it, kissing Xiang Fei doesn’t sound so bad. Certainly not bad enough to lose him over. “Don’t tell me what I will or won’t do for you.” With that Shen Yuan reaches out, dragging Xiang Fei in by his old worn tee shirt. He has the enthusiasm right but he fucks up the execution a bit, smacking their lips together hard enough to hurt. He pulls back for a second before trying again, making sure to go slower this time. He doesn’t have much experience okay!?
This time there’s no sting of pain just slightly chapped lips moving against his own. It’s different from the couple times he’d kissed girls in the past. Better. Much better. Before Shen Yuan can really think about what that may mean Xiang Fei is pulling back. Their lips separate but they don’t go far. Shen Yuan can feel warm breath fan across his face when Xiang Fei whispers. “Alright. I’ll stay.”