He held Xu Qichen’s fingers, warming up his cold fingertips.
Of course, he wanted to live with Xia Zhixu. But having been under Xia Zhixu’s bad influence, he could not help wanting to tease him.
“No.” Xu Qichen looked away with a straight face. “I’m used to living alone. It’s much too bothersome adapting to habits to live with someone.”
As he spoke in such a precise manner, Xia Zhixu’s expression of anticipation gradually dimmed.
Xu Qichen glanced at Xia Zhixu and felt a little happy about his success. He shook his hand and asked confrontationally, “What, are you upset?”
Xia Zhixu shook his head, “No, I was prepared.”
That was the truth. Xia Zhixu had the lowest expectations for everything that happened with Xu Qichen. Their being together was already a dream come true, so he was prepared for the worst.
He lowered his head and forced the corner of his mouth up, but the emotions in his eyes were complex. However, he still pinched Xu Qichen’s finger and said, “I was too rash.”
For some reason, Xia Zhixu was still very afraid. He often felt like he was being overly hasty, and one wrong move would scare Xu Qichen away.
Xu Qichen looked up and saw the subtle changes in his expression. His heart clenched, feeling a bit painful.
He swung himself up, putting a leg on each side of Xia Zhixu’s, with his arms wrapped around his neck. He began to panic and said, “I was just teasing you, I really want to live with you, really!” He tilted his head to look at Xia Zhixu’s expression and said, “Don’t be sad, I was just teasing you.”
Both of them fell silent for a while. Then Xia Zhixu raised his eyebrows with half a doubt, pressed his forehead against him, and rubbed his nose. “So you’re moving in?”
Xu Qichen nodded, “Yes.”
His hand gently rubbed the thin and soft skin on Xu Qichen’s hip bone, “When?”
“Today.” Xu Qichen smiled and kissed Xia Zhixu’s lips.
Xia Zhixu’s hands around his hips began to shake slightly, but Xu Qichen quickly noticed. He looked down and, to his surprise, Xia Zhixu began coughing again.
“What’s wrong?” Xu Qichen touched his face, “Are you sick? Your complexion…”
Xia Zhixu shook his head and hugged him wordlessly.
“Where do you feel unwell? Let’s go to the doctor.” Xu Qichen patted his back worriedly.
“I’m fine. Just the urge to smoke.” Xia Zhixu buried his head in Xu Qichen’s neck and kissed the skin there. “I just have to bear it.”
“When did you start to feel it?” Xu Qichen hugged him comfortingly. “Just?”
“For a while.”
For writing, Xu Qichen had looked up a multitude of relevant information and knew that smoking addiction can be large or small. When the urge strikes, chest tightness, palpitations, unstable emotions, and even more serious physiological reactions may occur.
He touched Xia Zhixu’s neck, supported his shoulder, and looked at his face.
“Zhixu, let’s quit?” Xu Qichen’s voice was very gentle, like the gentle breeze that couldn’t blow the curtains higher. “No more smoking.”
They were very close, Xia Zhixu looked at him with deep eyes. His long and dense eyelashes flickered twice, and he silently lowered his eyes, like a child who had done something wrong.
This kind of Xia Zhixu reminded Xu Qichen of him at the class reunion. His heart was tightly held by a pair of invisible hands, feeling very sad.
“Didn’t you say you smoked because your heart felt empty?” Xu Qichen touched his chest, his heart beating fast, like experiencing palpitations. “I’m going to move in now, you can’t smoke anymore, or I’ll have to breathe it in.”
Xia Zhixu was finally amused. Although he still lowered his head, his sharp teeth peeked out. “But the heart and lungs aren’t connected.”
“Don’t contradict me.”
He even learned how to be a scoundrel, what great progress! Xia Zhixu held his back and said, “Of course, little ancestor, whatever you say.”
“Anyway, don’t smoke anymore. Smoking is chronic suicide,” Xu Qichen said seriously. “You smoke because of me, so I will be responsible for helping you quit smoking.”
Xia Zhixu patted his forehead and said with a smile, “Do you think it’s that simple?”
Xu Qichen’s eyes tilted upwards like they did every time he was thinking hard. “I heard… when you’re trying to quit, you can do something else to distract yourself, such as watching movies or listening to music.”
Xia Zhixu shook his head. “I’ve tried that, doesn’t work.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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At the moment before the initiative was taken away, Xu Qichen let go of him, his lips red, and there was a slight gasp.
He once again reached out to stroke Xia Zhixu’s left chest and muttered thoughtfully, “Why does it seem like it’s beating faster…”
Obviously…
Xia Zhixu could not quite understand Xu Qichen’s thought process. The palpitations caused by the urge to smoke had decreased, but his heart was now beating faster due to other urgent desires.
He exerted force on his hand and forcefully pressed Xu Qichen onto the sofa. Xu Qichen’s body bounced slightly on the soft sofa, and his dark brown hair gently fluttered up before falling back to his forehead. He looked at Xia Zhixu with beautiful, translucent pupils.
“I think your method is quite effective, I feel much better now.”
First, he must reassure him.
“But I think the effect is not enough.”
Then, after gaining an inch, ask for a mile. This always had a greater success rate.
“What should we do?” Xu Qichen’s gaze was clear and clean, full of concern.
Got him.
“I think…” Xia Zhixu leaned into Xu Qichen’s ear and whispered, “Something more distracting should be done.”
The word ‘more’ was bitten heavily, making Xu Qichen inexplicably tempted.
The warm breath on his ear was ticklish His body trembled slightly, feeling like an ice cream under the sun, melting irreversibly in his arms.
Xia Zhixu gave Xu Qichen several light kisses, each time holding his lower lip. When he released it, he would slightly tug and then lower his head to kiss him, again and again, as if hooking Xu Qichen, making him instinctively hook his hand around the back of Xia Zhixu’s neck. His waist unconsciously lifted slightly, wanting to reach him.
Xu Qichen had learned to automatically lower his defenses, which gave Xia Zhixu a sense of happiness of being trusted and needed.
The sweetness of candy dissipated slowly, remaining between the lips and teeth, as if catalyzed by the heat released by the blending lips and tongue, becoming increasingly sticky and sticking to their hearts. Xu Qichen liked to be kissed by him, there was always a beautiful illusion of giving his breath to him.
After a long kiss, Xia Zhixu moved to his neck, which still had the deep red love marks left from last night.
He gently kissed the love mark. When his lips pressed against the thin skin, he could feel his pulse. The slight vibration made his lips tingle, and he sucked hard as if he wanted to suck the warm blood surging under the skin.
Xu Qichen was starting to lose control of his breathing. He reached down to grab Xia Zhixu’s hair. “Is this… your way of quitting smoking?”
“Only this can completely distract me,” Xia Zhixu lifted his head and curled his lips. “It was you who said you wanted to help me, so I’ll leave the matter of quitting smoking to you.”
What does that mean…
Just like this, Xu Qichen fell into his deceptive trap. Despite resisting it repeatedly, he still lost himself uncontrollably to desire.
Xia Zhixu was amazed because the drunk Xu Qichen and the sober Xu Qichen were completely different people and gave off completely different vibes.
One was naive and tempting, impossible to resist.
The other was restrained and stubborn, inciting his possessiveness.
The space on the sofa was a bit small, and Xia Zhixu tightly hugged Xu Qichen, the two of them intimately sticking together. Xu Qichen was exhausted and about to fall asleep when Xia Zhixu whispered in his ear, “Compared to nicotine, it’s harder to quit you. This way of quitting smoking is to fight poison with poison.”
Xu Qichen thought of Brokeback Mountain and weakly quoted the most classic dialogue in that book.
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
Xia Zhixu kissed his forehead and said, “No, I don’t want to quit you at all.”
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the two of them went out and drove back to Xu Qichen’s place, ready to pack up his luggage together.
Despite having had such intimate relations, Xia Zhixu still felt a bit nervous when taking the elevator upstairs, just like when he went to his house on the night of the Lunar New Year many years ago.
He suddenly remembered, “By the way, is your aunt still living in that apartment?”
“En.” Xu Qichen was wearing Xia Zhixu’s shirt. The sleeves were a little too long. He lowered his head and rolled up the cuffs.
Xia Zhixu grabbed his arm to help him roll it up. “So, your aunt and Teacher Zhang…”
“You still remember that?” Xu Qichen watched his focused expression. “They got together again in my graduating year. They took a break before that, afraid that it might bring up bad memories for me.”
With a ‘ding’, the elevator doors opened.
“Actually, I never really minded. By the way, Teacher Zhang was the most innocent person in that incident, but because of me, although they clearly liked each other very much, they broke it off for a long time.” Xu Qichen smiled and said, “Isn’t that silly?”
Xia Zhixu touched his neck and said, “You shouldn’t have been treated like that. You were also very innocent.”
Xu Qichen grabbed his hand, took two steps backwards, and smiled, saying, “I’m not innocent ah.”
Then he suddenly stopped his retreat, causing Xia Zhixu, due to inertia, to unexpectedly collide with him.
“I really liked a boy back then,” Xu Qichen kissed Xia Zhixu’s lips. “I was very guilty.”
The two of them quickly walked to the entrance of Xu Qichen’s apartment. Xu Qichen turned around and opened the door, “So, do you know now, why I couldn’t fight back, back then?”
With a click, the door opened. Xu Qichen stood in the doorway and glanced back at him.
“It’s all because of you.”
Xia Zhixu took Xu Qichen’s hand and said, “Yes, it’s all because of me.” He grabbed Xu Qichen’s shoulder and looked around at the house he was living alone in. “It feels quite similar to our house. Seems like I know your preferences very well.”
Xu Qichen patted the hand resting on his shoulder and said, “It’s ‘our house’ already?”
Xu Qichen’s home was not big, but it had a good layout and abundant sunshine. Compared to the bedroom, the study was actually the largest room, with two large cabinets filled with his books.
He was a strange person. Even though technology was so advanced, he still loved paper books very much. On good days, the sunlight shone through the large glass window on the floor, and he would spread out some of his favourite books in the sunlight. He would then sit beside them on the floor and pick one to read.
“Oh by the way, the empty room next to our bedroom is the one I’m planning to convert into your study,” Xia Zhixu said as he looked around the study.
“Then what about yours?”
“Next door,” Xia Zhi said with a smile, “It’s just across a wall. I’m planning to cut a hole in the middle and embed a glass so that we can see each other while working. Of course, if you don’t want to see me, you can close the curtain.”
Xu Qichen also smiled and said, “That won’t happen. We probably won’t need a curtain.”
“No ah,” Xia Zhixu twisted his cheek. “For the sake of my work efficiency, let’s occasionally close it.”
Watching him seriously discussing this, Xu Qichen couldn’t help but laugh and said, “We are here today, discussing the renovation of our new house with such enthusiasm. It’s like…”
He stopped himself and turned away.
Xia Zhixu naturally asked, “Like what?”
Like a pair of newlyweds.
Just the thought of that strange metaphor that had surfaced without his permission made him embarrassed, let alone saying it out loud.
He laughed and said, “Like two little fools.”
Some things had to be kept to himself.
It was starting to get late, so they discussed and decided to spend the night here and pack his things up. Then tomorrow morning, they will call the moving company to help move. Xia Zhixu helped Xu Qichen pack the books on the bookshelf. His arms were long enough and he had good arm strength, so he ended up doing nearly all the work.
Xu Qichen tidied up his desk, opened the drawer, and saw that Xia Zhixu had already emptied the entire bookshelf. Worried that he would be tired, he asked, “Do you need water?”
“Sure.” Xia Zhixu took down the last stack of books and placed them in the box, watching Xu Qichen walk out of the room.
Xia Zhixu stood there aimlessly. Looking around, he saw that the drawer on his desk had been opened, and as he was curious, he walked over.
When Xu Qichen walked in carrying two cups of water, he found Xia Zhixu standing in front of his desk with his back to him, seemingly looking at something.
What was on the desk?
He suddenly thought of something and quickly placed the water cup on the bookshelf, “Don’t look at my drawer!”
Xia Zhixu turned around, holding a gray headband in his hand, with a slightly puzzled expression on his face.
With a fierce single-mindedness, Xu Qichen stepped forward to snatch the headband from his hand. He stuttered, “Wh-why are you looking at my drawer casually?”
“I’m sorry, this drawer was just open like this. I just…” Xia Zhixu frowned in confusion, “Is that headband yours?”
“Y-yes.”
Xia Zhixu took a step forward and said, “But you don’t play basketball? Isn’t your body not suitable for intense sports? Why…”
Xu Qichen stuffed the headband into his coat and half turned around, wanting to change the subject. “Well, are you hungry? I just ordered pizza, it’ll be here in a little while…”
“It’s for me, right?” Xia Zhixu dragged one of his hands, his tone not very firm, half questioning and half probing.
Xu Qichen really wanted to say no and deny it, because he was too childish and ignorant back then. He vented his anger on him and even distanced himself from him for this hairband, although it was not his intention. Looking back now, that happened because he had already fallen in love with Xia Zhixu.
The gift that he had not been able to give to him should have become worthless.
But when he went back to the shop to return it, he couldn’t give it back.
It was the first time he had tried to give a gift to someone special.
For a reason he could not even give himself, he kept this headband for 10 years.
Placed in the drawer of the desk where he could see it every day. It was as if every time he closed his eyes, he could see the cheerful youth in a white shirt.
“Is it for me?”
Xia Zhixu’s voice became softer with even less certainty.
Whatever. There was no point hiding it anymore.
Xu Qichen took the headband out and gave it to Xia Zhixu, nodding. “En.”
Although it seemed a bit presumptuous when he asked, Xia Zhixu felt a sense of familiarity as soon as he saw it. This made him suddenly recall the headband that his brother left at home in his freshman year of high school. He only wore it a few times before abandoning it due to the bad luck on it.
“Is it really for me? Why…” He didn’t manage to finish the sentence, his mind too occupied with other thoughts.
Why didn’t he give it to him? Why did he hide it?
“At that time, when I saw you wearing your brother’s headband, I felt like I bought it for nothing, so I kept it.” Xu Qichen explained the situation truthfully, “Actually, it’s not a big deal. I should have told you in advance that I bought this, I…” Before he could finish speaking, Xu Qichen was tightly hugged by Xia Zhixu.
Xia Zhixu said nothing, and simply hugged him.
There were too many regrets between them, so much that they can no longer be simply described as coincidences, and so much that they always felt that the script arranged by God for them was that they would always pass by each other.
“Why did you want to give me a headband?”
Xu Qichen smiled with relief and said, “Why else? Because I liked you.”
“Then why did you ignore me?”
“I liked you, so I got upset.”
The many emotions that were unclear and confusing in the beginning, as well as the thoughts that he couldn’t even guess, were actually just the natural confusion of youth who were just beginning to feel love.
After pushing through the clouds and seeing past the mist, they realised that it was love at work.
“I’m really pitiful.” Xia Zhixu lowered his hand and supported Xu Qichen’s thigh, lifting him and bouncing him up like a koala. “I was so whipped even at that age. When you got angry, I didn’t even dare to ask why. I just tried my best to please you, and in the end, this was the cause, aiya.”
Xu Qichen tightly hugged his neck and said, “Are you afraid of me getting angry?”
“Of course.” Xia Zhixu placed him on the table and pressed his knees with both hands. “I was just short of putting you on an altar, offering you delicious food and drinks, and kowtowing to you every day with three sticks of incense three times a day. Little ancestor, as long as you are happy every day, my life will be complete.”
Xu Qichen felt the warmth as if he had fallen on a fluffy blanket that had been exposed to sunlight. He extended a hand and lightly touched Xia Zhixu’s face.
Only for him to suddenly laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” Xu Qichen asked.
Xia Zhixu shook his head. “I just think it’s a pity that none of the 12 zodiac animals is a cat,” he grabbed the hand that Xu Qichen had just used to touch him and pinched his finger. “You look so much like a kitten.”
When indifferent, he isolated himself from the world, and when coquettish, he was incredibly cute.
When it received a lot of tenderness and love, even the most solitary stray cat would become gentle and willing to follow you home. It would also gently extend its paws and touch you, opening its beautiful eyes as if saying to you, [Treat me better, and I’ll be good.]
Finally the headband!!! It was killing me ( ;w;)<3333 glad auntie got a happy ending tho, I really liked he character. Wonder what her and teacher Zhang’s reaction would be to MC and ML’s relationship/spontaneous marriage lol
Thank you for your hard work 💜