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“What the hell is this eldritch monstrosity?” —Was what Zhou Mingrui wanted to ask. But he was a gentleman, whose parents raised him with good manners, so it died unsaid.
Grisha smiled at him from the other side of the table, looking at the sludge from the depths of hell with pride.
“It’s been a while since I last cooked but I don’t think it went too bad.”
I don’t think it went too well either… Mingrui felt his eyebrow twitch. He touched the dark sludge with his spoon, rotating it and watching as it clung to the tip and climbed(???) higher.
He left the spoon in the bowl.
All those mad scientists spending their whole lives trying to create life and Grisha somehow did it in under an hour. My boyfriend is a genius—no, he’s the true creator. The omnipotent and omniscient God with a capital G.
Zhou Mingrui internally lampooned, trying to delay the inevitable for as long as he could.
“So, what… is it?” Mingrui asked, with a smile that was more akin to a grimace.
“Chicken soup.” Grisha replied, as if that explained anything.
Mingrui looked down at the bowl of chicken soup.
It was not chicken soup.
“As I’ve already said, my cooking skills are a bit rusty. So, I decided to make something simple as a start,” Grisha added. And it finally hit Mingrui that—
“Rusty?” He’s cooked before? Zhou Mingrui tried to wrap his mind around it. Grisha, in a kitchen, with several bowls surrounding him, containing “food” that actively broke the fundamental laws of the universe by existing. Grisha, holding a pot with a substance that discovered a new state of matter. Grisha, somehow creating the first man-made black hole. Grisha—
“The soup is getting cold,” Grisha said with a gentle voice.
Zhou Mingrui blinked as the ridiculous scenarios in his mind met their abrupt end. He looked down at the soup again.
Then at Grisha’s expectant eyes.
The soup again.
Grisha’s eyes again.
Mingrui took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then a realization hit him heavier than a 16-ton truck. He was in love with Grisha; the type of love that he thought existed only in stories.
Oh… I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I want to make him smile and I want to make him laugh. I want to wake up next to him and kiss him good morning. I want to go home to him everyday and I want him to come home to me everyday. I want us to adopt pets; a cat, and a dog. I want us to get married. I want him; today, tomorrow, the next year, the next decade. I want him, with me. Always and forever.
Zhou Mingrui stared at Grisha as his soul soared from such a revelation. He was lightheaded, dizzy and put into a stupor as he distantly noticed Grisha’s eyebrows starting to furrow from his lack of response.
He held the spoon and scooped up the product of Grisha’s love, swallowing it in one gulp.
Zhou Mingrui smiled with an inner peace only comparable to a bodhisattva.
Then put both his hands over his mouth and ran for the sink.