”Hi,” Sun Fang said, uncharacteristically shy. The phone was lying on the table in front of him, the TV’s audio muted. While he’d been texting with Mo Cheng for a while now, this was the first time they’d actually be talking to each other in months. Time had seemed to fly by recently, disappearing out of sight before he even had time to make himself comfortable.
Mo Cheng’s voice was slightly hesitant as he answered, ”Hello.”
Sun Fang fell down on the couch, his back hitting the pillows harshly. He grinned, ”Hello!”
Mo Cheng laughed, ”Cat got your tongue?” and Sun Fang pouted, despite the fact that Mo Cheng couldn’t see. Anyway, he was sure that he could convey his pouting with his voice alone, he was good like that. In fact, if he wanted to, he could make an explosive career as a voice actor, bringing glory where no other person has dared to tread!
”Ahem,” he cleared his throat, ”I was just overwhelmed by the joy of hearing your voice again.”
”Shameless,” Mo Cheng said in a grave voice, then cracked and snorted. Sun Fang huffed a laugh, too, but stayed on track.
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.
Sun Fang asked, ”How have you been? The café doing well? Family healthy? Employees happy? Daily life going good? And your hobbies, are they satisfactory?”
Was that too much all at once? It was too much all at once. He sighed, pressing his hand over his eyes and despairing at his horrible conversational skills. Or maybe it was his impatience that was to blame. Regardless, he mourned for himself.
Mo Cheng laughed again. ”I’m fine, the café’s fine, the employees are fine, the family’s fine, daily life is fine and the hobbies—”
”Are fine?” Sun Fang asked, his lips twitching.
”Horrible,” Mo Cheng retorted. He sighed harshly, ”The golf club I’m a member of is shutting down, and there are no other ones close by in mu price range. I really don’t want to do digital golfing, but it’s gonna be hard to find the time for those further away.”
”I could—” Sun Fang started, then snapped his mouth shut. No, he didn’t know if that was a good idea. They’d just started reconnecting a few weeks ago, only now actually talking with each other, and he didn’t know if that would scare Mo Cheng away. He never really got the sense that Mo Cheng recognized exactly how ridiculously wealthy Sun Fang was, or how it little it would do to him to share his wealth.
Mo Cheng dryly said, ”I appreciate it, but it’s not like this is an impossibility. It’s not like I can’t play golf anymore, like I can’t afford it at all; I just have more travel time.”
”Mhm,” Sun Fang nodded, and curled in on himself a little. He sighed quietly, his exhalation soft, as he listened to the silence on the other end. And the texting had been going so well, too, but suddenly actually talking to him got awkward and ungainly. Sun Fang didn’t like it.
”I know you mean well, and I’m not ruling out that I might take you up on it in the future, but for now, I want to try this first. I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was a chore,” Mo Cheng added, and Sun Fang understood. He understood that Mo Cheng had never complained about anything, whether in relation to him or not, to Sun Fang. He understood that that was a part of why he’d never felt connected to Mo Cheng when they were dating.
Shaking his head, he decided to cut this off now. ”You’re allowed to complain just for the sake of complaining, you know,” Sun Fang said, voice getting slightly louder as he realized what he was trying to say. ”Even if you don’t want anyone to do anything about it, you can just grumble about something because you’re annoyed. It doesn’t have to mean anything, or be a sign that you want someone to fix it.”
Mo Cheng was silent for a moment. Then he said, ”I don’t…”
”You never complained about anything,” Sun Fang said, recognizing that Mo Cheng probably wasn’t going to continue speaking. ”I don’t know your favorite food, or what annoyed you, or what music you hate. You said you liked things and I believe that, but you never said when you disliked something.”
The silence grew, then, finally, Mo Cheng breathed, ”Oh.” He cleared his throat while Sun Fang was trying to smother himself with his pillow, chanting stupid, stupid, stupid in his head because what if this was too much for Mo Cheng?
”That’s not, I mean, I didn’t realize I did that,” Mo Cheng said. ”Or maybe I did? But not to such an extent that it annoyed you?”
”It’s not annoyance, it just…” Sun Fang rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. ”It’s hard to get to know someone when you only know what they like, and not what they don’t. It’s like, how do you approach new things with them, if you know they won’t tell you if they dislike it? I think you had fun when we were together, you certainly looked like it, but it never felt you would really tell me if you didn’t.”
Mo Cheng sighed audibly, but he sounded confused when he said, ”That’s—I will try to complain more.”
Sun Fang laughed, ”Good, good. Complain all you like! I promise, if it makes you feel weird, I can complain too.”
”Good, because you never really complained either, you know,” Mo Cheng drawled, sounding somewhat surer of himself.
Sun Fang just said, ”Well, I didn’t have things to that I could complain about in a new relationship.”
”You know, I think you might be a bit of a hypocrite?” Mo Cheng said after a moment, but his voice was getting softer. There was a more amused quality to it now, something gentler in the edges. Sun Fang thought that maybe he hadn’t doomed this, after all.
Sun Fang shrugged. ”I never said I’m not.”
sweet
Thanks for the chapter~
oohhh reconnecting
Finally talking….
Finally talking with each other again~
Thank you for the chapter <3