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Moving in with the object of one’s unvoiced affections may have been a test of willpower for anyone else, but to Blade, it was just another Tuesday.
A month ago, when Blade mentioned that he was going to let the lease at his studio apartment come to an end because the management company was raising his rent to an exorbitant amount (an amount he could still afford, but did not want to pay), he did not expect his long-time crush, Dan Heng, to ask him to move in.
“Jing Yuan is moving out with Luocha,” Dan Heng had told him, right in the middle of the café they were meeting at to have their weekly hangouts.
Blade had tried and failed to tamp down the curl of satisfaction in his chest at the news that Dan Heng would no longer be sharing space with Jing Yuan. Even though Jing Yuan was a happily taken man, he also had had a crush on Dan Heng in high school, so Blade had never liked them living together, even if Jing Yuan had started dating Luocha before he ever moved in with Dan Heng. If Blade had still been a teenager with a bit of an anger management issue, he would have hunted Jing Yuan down for sport for even daring to cohabitate with Dan Heng, even though it had made sense for both of them since they worked at the same company.
Even now, as an adult, Blade had forced himself to be “chill,” per Silver Wolf, about the entire thing; Jing Yuan and Luocha had been in a long-distance relationship, after all, and though Blade did not think badly enough of Jing Yuan to think that he would cheat, Blade did know that even the most loving of relationships sometimes did not survive the distance and that the heart liked to grow fond with those it was around often.
But Blade hadn’t said any of that. Instead, he had leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand, and said, “Finally. I thought Luocha had been sent to prison, with how long it took for him to move back.”
“His PhD program took longer than expected, but he’s done now, so they’re getting an apartment together,” Dan Heng had explained, his hands tightening around his mug of tea. “So that means the other room in my apartment will be empty. Did you want to move in?”
And that was the reason why Blade was now moving in with the man who owned his heart ever since they had been rival 800-yard runners in their high school track and field team, but in a completely and utterly platonic way.
Some people might have called Blade’s lack of progress in getting Dan Heng to date him pathetic (cough, Silver Wolf). Others might have called Blade’s hesitance to make a move on Dan Heng sweet (Firefly, thank goodness for her optimism). And still others might have called Blade’s long-standing crush on Dan Heng an example of how you could never judge a book by its cover, because even the most stoic of people could be hopeless romantics (Kafka, who needed to stop psycho-analyzing Blade if she knew what was good for her).
But overall, the fact that he wasn’t dating Dan Heng didn’t really bother Blade. Mostly.
It was, perhaps, a depressing perspective, but Blade had grown up thinking he was destined to die alone after his parents passed away after being hit by a drunk driver and left him in the foster care system. The fact that he had friends who would notice if he stopped replying to their calls (because he hated texting) and would now have an apartment-mate who would definitely check on him if he didn’t leave his room for days on end was enough for Blade to feel pretty content with his lot in life.
The door to Dan Heng’s apartment swung open.
“Welcome ho— to your new home,” Dan Heng said, the corners of his lips turned up in a small smile. “Do you need any help carrying your things in?”
“Not really,” Blade replied, nodding toward the cart next to him. Blade didn’t own much, so the boxes holding his personal belongings were minimal, and the furniture he had been able to take with him was still in the trunk of his car.
“Thank you for moving in.” Dan Heng opened the door to the apartment wider, stepping slightly out of the way to make more room for Blade’s cart of things. “I wasn’t sure if you would like sharing space with someone else, after living in a studio for so long.”
Living with anyone else might prove to be a burden. But with you, I have always felt inexplicably at ease.
“Our lifestyles are compatible,” Blade said, stepping inside the apartment and keeping himself to the entranceway, as he did not plan to take off his shoes since he was going to go right down to the parking garage anyway.
Blade looked around the apartment with a fresh set of eyes. As Dan Heng and Jing Yuan had gotten the place together three years prior, Blade had spent plenty of time over at the apartment before; it was a clean, modern two-bedroom and two-bathroom unit, with wood laminate flooring, stainless steel appliances, and 9-foot ceilings that made the space feel huge. Although he was familiar enough with the place, Blade was now looking at it with the knowledge that this was now a home he shared together with Dan Heng, and it made the otherwise unremarkable space all the more endearing.
After a few moments, Dan Heng grabbed one of the boxes in the cart.
“I’ll help you unpack these, so you can grab your furniture,” Dan Heng said, emptying the cart. “I’ll leave the door unlocked, so you can get in easily.”
Blade agreed, and the two of them separated to expedite the process of moving in. Blade brought down the empty moving cart to the parking garage and loaded it up with the rest of his belongings: a simple queen-sized bedframe, a three-tiered work desk, and an ergonomic rolling chair that was worth every penny he spent on it. The tools Blade had brought to help him re-assemble his furniture were in the boxes Blade had already brought up, and the new mattress and pillows he ordered were supposed to arrive in a few hours, so Blade headed back up to the third floor of the complex.
Once back in Dan Heng’s apartment, the two of them worked together to set up Blade’s room. Their teamwork as they re-assembled Blade’s furniture was seamless, and Blade relished in just how easy it was to exist by Dan Heng’s side. The conversation between them was sparse, but it flowed easily, as they spoke about everything from guessing when Jing Yuan and Luocha would finally get married to debating whether Baiheng and Jingliu would be adopting their fifth cat within the year. Blade did most of the assembly work for his furniture, while Dan Heng handed him the appropriate parts and pieces that were needed every step of the way, often before Blade even asked him for them.
In no time, Blade’s room was exactly as he envisioned it to be: the desk was by the window, his clothes were neatly put inside the sliding door closet, the headboard of the bedframe was placed perfectly in the middle of the wall…
Blade looked down at his phone and frowned. “The delivery of my mattress is delayed. Tracking says it should arrive tomorrow,” he said, sighing and shaking his head. “I suppose I’ll need to sleep on the couch tonight, then.”
Dan Heng crossed his arms and looked outside Blade’s doorway toward the living room. “We no longer have a couch.”
Blinking, Blade walked out of his room where, sure enough, the spot where Blade could have sworn held a couch was now vacant.
“Jing Yuan bought the couch, so he took it with him in the move,” Dan Heng explained, coming up behind Blade to join him in staring at the rather empty living room. “I thought we could go shopping for a new one together, after you moved in.”
Blade’s heart warmed at the thought that Dan Heng had wanted to do something so incredibly domestic as shop for furniture together. And if they both bought the couch and planned to split the expense of it, did Dan Heng expect Blade to live in the apartment for a long time? Did Dan Heng want Blade to stay?
Reality soon hit Blade, though: without a mattress and without a couch, was he supposed to sleep on the floor tonight?
A cough from behind him shook Blade from his thoughts.
“We can share my bed for tonight,” Dan Heng said, the tips of his ears flushed pink as his eyes darted to the side.
Hm.
Blade was tired after a day of moving, but surely he wasn’t tired enough for auditory hallucinations.
Rather than reveal that he might have been suffering from a slight break in his mental state, though, Blade simply responded as if what Dan Heng was saying was perfectly normal and reasonable.
“I do not mind sleeping on the floor,” Blade said, because he was a considerate gentleman who did not want to give away his feelings for Dan Heng because of some ill-timed morning problems. And night problems. And any-time-of-the-day problems, actually, because Dan Heng was an attractive man and Blade, unfortunately, was not immune to his charms.
Dan Heng shook his head, still refusing to meet Blade’s eyes. “It’s fine. I have a queen-sized bed, too, so we’ll both fit comfortably.”
“I’ll be fine with my blankets,” Blade countered again, because he really could think of no sweeter torture than having Dan Heng sleep beside him in bed. “I’ve slept on worse than the floor before.”
“That has nothing to do with what I’m offering right now,” Dan Heng frowned and crossed his arms. “Just because you’ve slept in worse conditions doesn’t mean I want you to spend your first night in our home, sleeping on the floor. Is sharing a bed with me such a terrible thing to you?”
Our home.
Our home.
Dan Heng was referring to the apartment that he invited Blade into as their collective and joint home that they shared together.
Blade was in so much trouble. Why did he decide to move in with Dan Heng again? Who cared about sticking it to the man by refusing to pay increased rent prices? Especially when Blade wanted to stick things in a man—
“If you insist,” Blade replied finally, after he tamped down the mix of panic and excitement curling in his gut. “I won’t be responsible for the backlash if you suddenly change your mind in the middle of the night.”
“I won’t,” Dan Heng said, and that was the end of that.
Sleeping just inches away from the object of one’s unvoiced affections may have been a test of willpower for anyone else, but to Blade, it was just another Tuesday.
What most people didn’t know was that most days were a test of willpower for Blade, since the universe liked to play pranks on him and make him regret ever being born, so sharing the same bed as Dan Heng truly was an entire ordeal for him.
The moonlight streamed gently through the thin curtains on Dan Heng’s window, illuminating the semi-organized state of Dan Heng’s room: there were books piled high on his desk and clothes strewn across the back of his work chair, but otherwise, the room was tidy, lived in. Dan Heng’s living habits had come a long way, ever since Blade scolded him in college for subsisting off little more than canned green tea and protein bars.
Dan Heng’s bed itself, too, was decent; it was not as thick or supportive as Blade thought it should be (perhaps he could order a second mattress and secretly replace Dan Heng’s current one with an improved one) but it really was much, much better than sleeping on the ground would be.
Unfortunately for Blade, he could not allow himself to enjoy it and was holding himself as stiff as a board as far off to one side as he could.
“Are you that uncomfortable sharing a bed with me?”
Surprised, Blade looked over to Dan Heng, who was curled up on his side and facing away from Blade. Blade hadn’t seen Dan Heng talk, so it was technically possible that Blade had once again fallen victim to auditory hallucinations, but the way Dan Heng’s shoulders were pulled up to his ears indicated that Dan Heng had not fallen into a peaceful slumber.
After several beats of stunned silence, Blade replied, “I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“You’re not looking at me, so I fail to see how you would know whether I am fine or not.”
That was the absolute wrong thing to say. Blade forgot that Dan Heng, for all that he acted reserved and calm, was as stubborn as they came. Dan Heng’s pride had been exactly why they had stayed track and field rivals for so long, both of them swapping between first and second place every other meet, and it was one of the many reasons Blade found it impossible to let go of his feelings.
Dan Heng turned around to fully face Blade, forcing Blade to contend with just how adorable Dan Heng looked wrapped up in his blankets under the soft light of the moon. The soft curve of Dan Heng’s cheek, the petulant glint in his gray-green eyes, the slight furrow to his brows — every inch of Dan Heng’s face made Blade’s heart want to stop beating ten times over, then revive itself so it could keep Blade alive to look at Dan Heng for as long as he could.
“I’m simply unused to sleeping in unfamiliar situations.” Blade stared straight into Dan Heng’s eyes as he said it, because it was the truth. After his parents’ deaths and his subsequent time spent in foster care before being taken in by a kind elderly man by the name of Huaiyan, Blade had never felt quite safe enough to relax in places he was not used to.
The creases between Dan Heng’s eyebrows deepened. “What would make this easier for you?” Dan Heng asked, scooting closer and placing his hand on Blade’s shoulder.
Unbidden, Blade reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair away from Dan Heng’s face, his fingers tenderly caressing the rapidly warming skin of Dan Heng’s ear.
Dan Heng blinked at Blade, sleepy and slow, and his chapped but still perfectly pink lips parted. “Oh,” Dan Heng said, hardly louder than a breath.
Thirteen years. Thirteen years of unspoken yearning, undone in one night.
When Blade moved closer across the mattress to curl his fingers around the back of Dan Heng’s neck and pull him into a kiss, Dan Heng craned his neck upward and met him in the middle.
And if Blade deepened the kiss and Dan Heng opened his mouth to let out the most enticing little whine, and if they did not sleep much that night…
At least the mattress they shared was big enough to accommodate.
Your package is still on the way and we’re actively working to get you a new delivery date.
“Hope Bladie doesn’t mind sharing for a few more nights.” Silver Wolf leaned back in her chair, blowing her bubblegum as large as it would get before allowing it to pop. Trust the delivery services to do the hard work for her; she had only planned to delay the arrival of the mattress by a day, but it seemed that the universe had other plans.
Oh well. Blade had been pining over Dan Heng for thirteen years; surely, a few days of sharing a bed wouldn’t kill him.
Silver Wolf turned her attention back to her work. Debugging the code to ensure the game’s graphics didn’t freak out as soon as someone changed the accessories on their character wasn’t difficult, but it was tedious, so Silver Wolf quickly fell into a rhythm.
Ding!
Surprised, Silver Wolf pulled up the browser window where she was tracking the delivery of Blade’s mattress.
Cancelation request received. Delivery will no longer be attempted.
Silver Wolf huffed out a laugh and closed the window. I knew you had it in you, Bladie.